S&P 47 battle report... no redundancy!

[animus]

Having just read the battle report in the new S&P I was a little disappointed that the idea of "redundancy" or "bulk" as I prefer to call it, has been left out, meaning that unless the crit tables are seriously different, there's still little incentive to take big ships over many little ones.

I was really hoping Mongoose would incorporate this simple elegant mechanic to some degree to encourage the use of bigger ships. Of course I haven't seen 2e yet, but it's looking like the same problem will be in 2e.

Nuts....

 

[LaranosTZ]

Actually, a lot of that issue has been resolved by the 'All hands on deck' rule now being automatic, no crew quality check, so it allows you to repair any number of criticals, still on a 4+ per, and you can still fire one weapon.

From what I hear, anyway.

 

[katadder]

and theres no no weapons crit or 0 spd no SA crit. worst you can get is lose an arc, or adrift.

 

[H]

and theres no no weapons crit or 0 spd no SA crit. worst you can get is lose an arc, or adrift.

bah, a kabintak is effectively at speed zero with a -4 speed crit.... ask mine, it sat ther for 4 turns with two sharlins blasting it!!

 

[katadder]

but he could still close blast doors whilst sitting there

 

[H]

but he could still close blast doors whilst sitting there

yeah, but I wanted to fire e-mines AND mag guns....just cos my mag gun failed to beat stelth all 4 turns :-(. . .

 

[Da Boss]

Stealth - gotta love it- oh wait no!!!! : :lol:

 

[MongooseMatt]

bah, a kabintak is effectively at speed zero with a -4 speed crit.... ask mine, it sat ther for 4 turns with two sharlins blasting it!!

That would be a built in weakness

 

[H]

bah, a kabintak is effectively at speed zero with a -4 speed crit.... ask mine, it sat ther for 4 turns with two sharlins blasting it!!

That would be a built in weakness

silly narn engineers, they should have been prepared for this, and made is speed 5!

 

[Da Boss]

bah, a kabintak is effectively at speed zero with a -4 speed crit.... ask mine, it sat ther for 4 turns with two sharlins blasting it!!

That would be a built in weakness

Shouldn't that be a genetic weakness - I suppose its not really thre Narns fault - born on the wrong planet and all that

 

[animus]

The new rules of repair and minor tweak to the tables don't fix the problem that was at issue.

Big ships, like space stations, shouldn't be nurfed in a volley. Even if I'm guaranteed to repair every turn like the ancients, my ship is still shut down and probably damaged to the brink of annihilation. The "bulk/redundancy" rule would have kept them around a turn or two. The battle report in S&P shows the G'Quan popping like a zit by turn 3. Not right.

The problem might not have been wholly ignored by 2e, but is sure as doesn't look fixed.

I want to use big ships, but they're still look to be a fool's choice.

 

[Burger]

I want to use big ships, but they're still look to be a fool's choice.

The solution: run tournaments at 1 Armageddon point

 

[Greg Smith]

The "bulk/redundancy" rule would have kept them around a turn or two. The battle report in S&P shows the G'Quan popping like a zit by turn 3. Not right.

It was a double damage catastrophic explosion with a high damage result. That is going to destroy a lot of ships. Surely redundancy helps when you knock out the thrusters, not when the ship suffers a catastrophic explosion?

 

[animus]

It was a double damage catastrophic explosion with a high damage result. That is going to destroy a lot of ships. Surely redundancy helps when you knock out the thrusters, not when the ship suffers a catastrophic explosion?

Perfectly fine result (as any result would be) - after redundancy had been overcome.

Just give the big ships some benefit for being big so there's a reason to take them. In a game built around initiative sinks, fewer ships is a detriment. The survivability of bigger ships needs to balance this.

 

[Triggy]

It was a double damage catastrophic explosion with a high damage result. That is going to destroy a lot of ships. Surely redundancy helps when you knock out the thrusters, not when the ship suffers a catastrophic explosion?

Perfectly fine result (as any result would be) - after redundancy had been overcome.

Just give the big ships some benefit for being big so there's a reason to take them. In a game built around initiative sinks, fewer ships is a detriment. The survivability of bigger ships needs to balance this.

Animus, in all of my test games it hasn't been a problem. I rarely had a big ship massively hampered by crits, at least not until it was severely damaged too. Large ships really do survive much better than 1st ed. and Bulk, although discussed, just wasn't needed.

All this is not mentioning how many Battle and War PL choices have gotten better as well to make them genuine choices anyway.

 

[MustEatBrains]

I guess that´s one of those cases where it´s hard to say something definite without having the rules in hand, and having had about a month of testgames. But I think I´ll go ahead and trust triggy on this (after all, that way I always have someone to blame if it doesn´t work out after all)

 

[Greg Smith]

I understand there was an idea on the forums for bigger ships to have some resistance to critical effects because they would have more redundant systems. I had no idea the intent was to make them immune to big honking explosions.

Now in the new rules critical effects are less severe and more easily repaired but ships are in no way immune to the damage critical hits cause.

 

[animus]

Okay Triggy, I'll back off and wait for the actual rules and changes. I hope you're right - I really saw a reason NOT to take big ships in 1e; if things are better now... okay, I'll see what's what.

 

[katadder]

It was a double damage catastrophic explosion with a high damage result. That is going to destroy a lot of ships. Surely redundancy helps when you knock out the thrusters, not when the ship suffers a catastrophic explosion?

Perfectly fine result (as any result would be) - after redundancy had been overcome.

Just give the big ships some benefit for being big so there's a reason to take them. In a game built around initiative sinks, fewer ships is a detriment. The survivability of bigger ships needs to balance this.

Animus, in all of my test games it hasn't been a problem. I rarely had a big ship massively hampered by crits, at least not until it was severely damaged too. Large ships really do survive much better than 1st ed. and Bulk, although discussed, just wasn't needed.

All this is not mentioning how many Battle and War PL choices have gotten better as well to make them genuine choices anyway.

I have had big ships hampered just as much, but then I always seem to get a vital systems crit happen to my front arc weapons

no the ships are not any more survivable than 1e, but the crits cannot take every single weapon off you with one crit. and you can automatically use the all hands to deck SA to repair crits.

 

[sidewinder]

Yeah, even if there was redundancy, I dont think you could use it to keep your reactor from exploding.