Return of EP - Opinions?

[hdrider67]

I am one of the folks who complained about the complexity and drawbacks of the energy point system. After I modeled some combat I realized its complete removal means every turret can have a triple particle Accelerator.

So I needed to bring some sanity to the total loss of EP. My first try was to take the performance of the plant and allow 1D6 of damage from each point of performance. It worked at the low end by allowing one beam or two pulse to be powered by the plane but a 2000 ton ship was hammered by having only 5D6 of total allowed damage.

Therefore I decided to go with Drive performance * Hard points = excess EP.

A performance 5 2000 ton ship will be handed a reasonable 100EP for allocation among energy weapon systems. It can be outfitted with 10 turrets with PAs, 25 Beam tubes, 2 50dT bays with Particle beams (6D ea), and the remaining 8EP can be tasked to the pulse cannon. 11 remaining tubes can be used for missiles and sand.


My goal was to give a reasonable energy limit without hobbling ships using the beams. My first attempt was a real hobbler but I think my second is pretty close. You won't put a PA or beam in every turret slot but you'll have enough ability, relative to your ship type.

I thought I'd run this by y'all for a good rules smack-down.


Thanks in advance.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I haven't had a chance to work through anything on my own, but I agree that something like an EP system might not be such a bad idea. Right now, as the rules stand, it seems that its possible to heavily arm ships without too much impact on the on the vessel. Although I haven't looked into it in detail, your approach doesn't sound too bad, and I'll be interested in seeing what others think.

Regards

PF

 

[SableWyvern]

As a design-level (as opposed to in-play) power management system, that looks elegant and balanced.

Personally, my preference is for an in-play system, where power is allocated from round to round, simply because it helps keep everyone involved.

 

[Golan2072]

My rule-of-a-thumb for CT-LBB2 was that the regular PP requirement (i.e. same letter as M and J drives) was enough for lasers. House-ruled (for CT, that is) turreted high-energy weapons needed one PP letter higher than that; house-ruled bay weapons needed two PP letters higher than this.

 

[AKAramis]

As a design-level (as opposed to in-play) power management system, that looks elegant and balanced.

Personally, my preference is for an in-play system, where power is allocated from round to round, simply because it helps keep everyone involved.

As is mine, for the same reasons.

It works great in the Battlestations Board Game, and it worked great in the Playtest Rules (even though my group used mayday movement rules and counters).

 

[hdrider67]

Thanks for the opinions.

I know I'll probably need to do some tweeking for play in battle but I wanted to be able to put up a reasonable max limit for the number of installed laser mounts installed, especially as no limit at all means the PA mounts would be limited only by funds.

I may go to a generator / capacitor system where the number of actual shots per round are limited to what the plant can provide (above normal operation) plus a capacitor stored value.

If one of you has this worked out, I sure wouldn't mind hearing how it works. I'd hate to reinvent the wheel, as it were.

 

[SableWyvern]

If one of you has this worked out, I sure wouldn't mind hearing how it works. I'd hate to reinvent the wheel, as it were.

I'm in the process of re-jigging the entire space combat system, taking the MGT system as a solid framework, adding some TNE influences, and working very hard to make sure there is interesting stuff to do for everyone in a 6-9 player group.

My power system is pretty much done, barring the possibility of minor adjustments, or falling apart completely in the face of actual play. However, I'm using multiples of 12 for basic power generation (so, as a starting pointing, Plant A generates 12 Power, Plant B generates 24 etc...). I've done this because 12 is easily divided by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, making it very easy to integrate costs for thrust and jump at at all levels except Jump and Manouevre 5. The down side is that that numbers get big, going into four digits once you calculate capacitors on the biggest plants. Which, based on your initial post, seems like something you aren't going to like.

I'll probably end up posting the full modified combat system after it's done, but I can pass on just the power management system atm if you're really interested.

At a guess, I'd say AKAramis' system sticks closer to the original playtest document, with it's much lower numbers (since his posts tended to indicate to ironed creases out, rather than making wholesale changes).

Back to the system presented in the OP, it looks pretty good to me if you don't want to worry about power genertion mid-battle.

 

[M. Lydius Of Phoga]

Wasn't there a correllation or proportion used in high guard between energy points and Power plant tonnage? Or power plant fuel tonnage and EP? I seem to remember that the result of one of the calculations for EP always was coming out equal to another aspect of a given ship.

There must certainly limits to avoid the tripple particle turret phenomenon.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

HDRIDER67, have you backchecked your system against the Patrol Cruiser (Gazelle) in the Core Book? Since it only had double laser turrets, I figured that was a power limitation thing and I was wondering if your system gave similar limitations?

Although personally, once I ran out of EP, I would just load up with missiles, keeping everything in Triple Turrets.

 

[hdrider67]

If one of you has this worked out, I sure wouldn't mind hearing how it works. I'd hate to reinvent the wheel, as it were.

I'm in the process of re-jigging the entire space combat system, taking the MGT system as a solid framework, adding some TNE influences, and working very hard to make sure there is interesting stuff to do for everyone in a 6-9 player group.

<Snip>
Which, based on your initial post, seems like something you aren't going to like.

I'll probably end up posting the full modified combat system after it's done, but I can pass on just the power management system atm if you're really interested.

I am interested.

I've been trying to work out a system based on power to weight that leaves the lower end ships lacking in excess EP. It'd be great to break it into a formula but every attempt I've made breaks down after I hit a few hundred tons. I end up with either a ridiculously high excess EP (using compounding formula) or I run out of EP quickly if I simply add the same values over and over but the power required ratio remains constant to ship mass.

 

[SableWyvern]

I'll whip something up and send you a PM -- if not tonight, hopefully by tomorrow.

 

[Matrix Cypher]

I kinda like the power points that were in the play test doc. Maybe those will be part of the High Guard that will be coming out?

 

[SSWarlock]

And I'm kicking myself for not staying on top of Mongoose's development enough to have joined in on the playtest. Now I'm going to have to wait for at least 2 months before I can see the details of the EP system.

Arrgh!