Rules check on Klingon shields

[andywatkins1963]

Guys,

I asked this a while ago and if I remember got one answer from a chap gave the following proposal, but it was far from the definitive answer. Can I ask for confirmation as to whether the following is correct....

Fed dreadnought with 3 phaser weapons and 2 photon torpedo weapons that can bear on the front of a klingon cruiser. By weapons I mean they have a different line on the ship record card.

Hits on the klingon front shield are halved and rounded up.

The question is how much do you group together before halving and rounding up.

I believe the suggestion was determine ALL phaser hits then half and round up. Seperately determine ALL photon hits halve and round up.

I guess because of the multihit attribute the photons don't matter as they will always come up with a whole number when halved. The phasers may be an odd number so it matters whether you halve and round up each line of phasers, or merge all phaser fire halve and round up could make a difference.

Thanks for opinions

Andy

 

[hermitbob]

Each Weapon System(Line Entry) is rolled as an attack, so:
Ph-1: FH rolls, scores hits and damage, then PH, then SH, then T, then Phot to maximize crit damage.

 

[Da Boss]

I would do it weapon by weapon as not only do you have a chance of knocking shields down but also pentrating the shields on a 6. You could probably group all same weapons together but you do need to know if it was the Photon or the Phaser tha slipped through the gap in the shields as getting a single AD of a overloaded Photon throuhg a shield is a big deal whilst a single phaser AD less so

 

[Totenkopf]

Guys, I'll put in my two cents: 1. This system is meant to be simple, and this discussion essentially revolves around creating additional complexity in the system for no other reason than to reduce the effectiveness of the Klingon's Boosted Forward Shields; 2. If anyone tried to pull this rules lawyering nonsense I'd pick up my models and leave, and so would most if not all Klingon players.

 

[Sgt_G]

I do beleive Matthew once posted saying that one can select the order of firing weapons in hopes of maximizing the impact. That sounds to me like he's saying that you can fire phasers, do damage and maybe criticals, then fire photons on top of the results of the phaser hits. Ergo, if the phasers caused shields to drop, sad to be on the receiving end of folur photons that all go internal if they hit at all.

Now, does that mean you group all the phasers into one roll, or do you roll each line-item of phasers separately?

I'm assuming that all AD of a line-item have to be rolled together.

 

[scoutdad]

This very situation came up in outr group Saturday night.
Our Federaiton player rolled 6 white dice (phasers) and 4 red dice (photons)
The total hits from the phasers were cut in half, then the total hits from the photons were cut in half.
Any sixes bypassed the shields and were resolved phasers first, then photons.

Quick, simple, and painless... except for the D7, that is.

 

[Sgt_G]

As I understand it, the Fed player could have said the photons hit first, but would have to state that BEFORE rolling the dice.

 

[andywatkins1963]

Guys, I'll put in my two cents: 1. This system is meant to be simple, and this discussion essentially revolves around creating additional complexity in the system for no other reason than to reduce the effectiveness of the Klingon's Boosted Forward Shields; 2. If anyone tried to pull this rules lawyering nonsense I'd pick up my models and leave, and so would most if not all Klingon players.

Totenkopf, I am not trying a rules mongering idea, i'm the klingon player, i just don't understand how it is supposed to work, and the rules are not explicit.

If the system is supposed to be simple, what is the answer? I am getting different answers, which is correct?

Andy

 

[Totenkopf]

Guys, I'll put in my two cents: 1. This system is meant to be simple, and this discussion essentially revolves around creating additional complexity in the system for no other reason than to reduce the effectiveness of the Klingon's Boosted Forward Shields; 2. If anyone tried to pull this rules lawyering nonsense I'd pick up my models and leave, and so would most if not all Klingon players.

Totenkopf, I am not trying a rules mongering idea, i'm the klingon player, i just don't understand how it is supposed to work, and the rules are not explicit.

If the system is supposed to be simple, what is the answer? I am getting different answers, which is correct?

Andy

Sorry Andy, I should have directed my comment; either way I would go with what scoutdad says - 1. Because it is the simplest way of resolving this, 2. Because he's probably one of the most experienced players on these boards who usually gives pretty clear answers.

 

[andywatkins1963]

Excellent

Which is how we were going to play it. Would be a good one to put in an FAQ though...

Thanks a lot everyone

 

[Da Boss]

Guys, I'll put in my two cents: 1. This system is meant to be simple, and this discussion essentially revolves around creating additional complexity in the system for no other reason than to reduce the effectiveness of the Klingon's Boosted Forward Shields; 2. If anyone tried to pull this rules lawyering nonsense I'd pick up my models and leave, and so would most if not all Klingon players.

ACTA has always had the ability to tactically choosing the order in which your weapons fire - whether that be to deplete interceptors (B5), burn out shields (NA) or knock down shields (SF) for the heavy wepaons to inflict the pain.

Each Weapon System (Line) should ideally be resolved independantly so as to see if the results change things - whether that be vai criticals or crippling a ship.

You can certainly for speed just use different coloured dice but you do miss out on some of the nauances of the game IMO.

 

[Totenkopf]

Sorry guys, let me clarify my initial response. I admit I mostly glanced through this thread, and the impression I got was that some people wanted to suggest that you halve the hits from each weapon system (so Phaser 1 in FH arc has 3ad, all three hit half that, then Phaser 1 in SH arc has 2 ad, half that = 3 (two from the 3 hits from the FH arc, and one from the SH arc)) as opposed to all the attacks from one activation during the attack phase lumped together. I have no problem with someone wanting to decide what sequence their weapons fire in/hit/impact, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood what was said/asked.

 

[Ferret96]

Sorry guys, let me clarify my initial response. I admit I mostly glanced through this thread, and the impression I got was that some people wanted to suggest that you halve the hits from each weapon system (so Phaser 1 in FH arc has 3ad, all three hit half that, then Phaser 1 in SH arc has 2 ad, half that = 3 (two from the 3 hits from the FH arc, and one from the SH arc)) as opposed to all the attacks from one activation during the attack phase lumped together. I have no problem with someone wanting to decide what sequence their weapons fire in/hit/impact, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood what was said/asked.

I haven't spoke in this thread yet, but according to Da Boss ideally you would resolve each line independently, which is supposed to be in the spirit of choosing which weapon lines attack 1st, 2nd, 3rd for best effect.

In my last game we just grouped different colored dice together as well, and it does have a decent impact on Klingons because of the rounding. The more times you have to round up, the more damage is done so I understand the concern to make sure the Klingon shields are working as intended. By rounding up after each line, the real numbers for damage reduction would probably come closer to 40% or so (didn't actually do the math )





Unless I've misunderstood.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I keep seeing this reference to separating weapons by line on the ship stats. Could someone please point out where this comes from.

I keep hearing (mostly from Msprange :lol: ) that this is a simple game and us players are making it more complex.

This seems a prime example.

As I see it you fire phasers first or photons first or drones first but you do all of those on the same target as a batch. You don't roll for the F/P P1 then the F/S p1 then the two FH P1s then the 360 P1.

You allocate fire against that target and roll the lot, if that is 5 P1s and 3 Photons then roll them and say which is going first. If you are firing 3 P1s at one ship and 2 P1s at another roll the three together and then the other two on the next ship together.

The only time you would separate phasers would be if you had P1s in kill zone for example and P2s not. All of the same weapon type share exactly the same characteristics so do them together, just pick which is fired in what order to suit your preferred tactics.

This isn't rule lawyering, for people that think it is I am very happy for you are you clearly game with very nice people. Taking down the shield with phasers then slamming the photons into the unprotected hull is tactics.

Also why halve all the dice rolls, is it not simpler to double the Klink shield, if the shield survives halve it at the end, if it doesn't survive then you are doing straight damage to the hull. :wink:

 

[Ferret96]

I agree that we are probably micro-examining this one paragraph... But we are gamers, we're at work, and we're bored

The rules don't say to take 50% off, they say to half it rounded up, which isn't the same thing. Halving the damage and then rounding up will be something like 40% damage reduction.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Personally, if I were doing it, I'd roll it all at once and then round it. Rolling and rounding each weapon system may be legal, but surely it would slow things down... OK maybe I lose several damage points this way, but if I wanted a deeply serious, slow game I'd play chess or something.

 

[andywatkins1963]

Oh dear you are all confusing me

 

[Captain Jonah]

I agree that we are probably micro-examining this one paragraph... But we are gamers, we're at work, and we're bored

Yep :lol:

Over a thoursand users, 200 or so off this week at a seminar and my volume of, erm, unusual IT problems has gone down by 50%. :roll:

Oh dear you are all confusing me

Welcome firend to the world of ACTA-SFB. A place where SFB players go to sow confusion and chaos on themselves and everyone around them. Its all Mspranges fault really. He is hiding the other 290 pages of rules and making it far too simple :wink: :lol:

Anyway if you are rolling sets of dice to deliberately take advantage of rounding up (three damage at a time say) that is munchin gaming. Just do whatever is easiest and quickest and fairest.

 

[JRhoades]

Our group just halves it and lets the Klingon track fractions

IN a related point: Is it only the Forward 90 degrees? Having played FEDCOM and SFB, I assumed it was FH. But the rules clearly say "Fore" NOT FH...

 

[scoutdad]

Yes. Forward 90-degree arc only.