Shadows, Vorlons and Ducks

[Chernobyl]

I'd just like to say I would not find a game fun at all where a shadow had a realistic chance of taking out a G'Quan sized vessel in one turn. While I agree that shadows aren't as scary as the show in a game they ought to be fun as well. watching a ship like a G'Quan pop in one turn is not fun.

Chern

 

[Dywnarc]

I agree. As far as shadow vessels tearing through Narn ships in single shots.. I kind of just figured in my head it was a first and surprise encounter and the narn were just not at all prepared for that kind of attack.

I am not so sure the shadow are out of balance. In the series the shadows kicked ass by jumping out of hyperspace and ambusing lesser race fleets before they new what was going on.

It seamed that once the races got organized and met the shawdows with significant force, the shadows could be beaten.

I have not seen the shadow played in a campaign, so I am not sure on this, but it seams to me they have the ablity to keep there self repairing ships alive long enough to jump into hyperspace and get away...

I think Vorlons are more the problem then shadows, but I have not played vs the ancients enough to be sure.

I do not think we should jump up and react yet regarding the ancients for the following reasons

1) The general concenus is the ancients are not strong enough, but right now we have a post runnign on how the Minbari are too powerfull... It will be hard to get a lock on balance if Moogoose starts changeing fleets and rules wholesale, I think more playing is still in order before we jump on this.

2) Perhaps the real problem goes back to the power of the Minbari, The way they dansce arround and blow oppents up with ease helps to make the elder races weak in comparison.

I really want to play the shadows a bit now, I for one am not confinced they are that bad... seas to me that once you start firing on a shadow vessel, you got to keep on it or it repairs itself, plus with no critcal hits they are operating at max efffiency at all times.

 

[Howarth]

watching a ship like a G'Quan pop in one turn is not fun.

That all depends if you're Centari or not

In which case 'That is most amusing'

Quack

 

[Chernobyl]

Well, I played a 6 point battle level engagement against the shadows - 3 battlecrabs with fighters (so actually more than 6 points for the shadows) and it came out almost dead even, it was a narrow victory for the EA, so I really think the big guys are proably good as is. I think the problems come at low PLs where the main problem I see with the shadows is that they have a very small selection of ships to use. no variety.
Perhaps we cold come up with variant hunters and variant scouts to broaden the base so to speak like a raid level hunter and a skirmish level scout.

so a raid-level hunter - might have a weaker, turreted, longer range gun, say 1/3 less DP, same speed and hull. no fighter carrying capability.

a skirmish level scout - thats not actually a scout. so lose the scout ability. like an escort kind of vessel. give it a minibeam version of the scout gun, same arc/range, a bit faster, same DP, down to a hull 4 and 1 weaker stealth.

maybe its the lack of options the shadows are missing.

 

[LaranosTZ]

I think one thing that could really help balance the shadows is to really make use of the carrier capacity. Give them all the fighters they need to fill up their launch bays, but -only- allow them to launch them via fighter bomb. Since you cannot fire your main weapon the round you launch the fighter bomb, it seems like it could be a very reasonable compromise.

 

[Gungnir]

It's not just a balance issue. It just doesn't feel right to me that a younger races warship is the equivalent to a first one warship.

Just my 2p worth

 

[Howarth]

My 2p's worth its a very big Universe out there lets have something that is truely scary.

I know if I had millions of years to develop ships and weapons they would certainly be more than a match for these younger upstart races.

Nasty big beams, Inpenetrable hulls etc.

Look if I dont get some scary ships I am going to unlease the Ducks of Doom onto this forum and then ye will know fear.

Quake in your boots for the Ducks are poised and ready to launch there assault

Quack

 

[Lagavulin]

There seem to be two distinct schools of thought on this topic. Some folks want balanced first ones, others (myself included) want nasty, unbalanced, "realistic" shadows and vorlons. As far as I can see the desgners have managed to achieve neither. In an atempt to ensure balance they seem to have toned them down too far.

My own group don't use either of them as a main race but do want to be able to use them in occassional games. Currently we intend to house rule them up to a respectably scary level of power as at the moment they do not feel like the monster engines of destruction portrayed in the series. The game should reflect the series and frankly the current first ones are only a pale imitiation of what we see on screen.

 

[Gungnir]

I want them balanced and scary

I want to play a fleet of younger races ships against just a few ancient ships.

I want to think that I have a fair chance of winning, but that I'm gonna lose a lot of ships in doing so.

Am I just strange ? Maybe being around Howarth too much is starting to effect me :lol:

Maybe it's the pixies or even worse the squirrels or the ducks, I think I'd better shut up now :?

 

[Howarth]

Gungnir

I want, I want, I want you sound like a five year old.

Now grow up and get UT2003 installed

Lets take one of Gungnirs good ideas, sorry lets take Gungnirs only good idea, sorry lets take Gungnirs only idea :twisted: and make the Vorlons and Shadows balanced by making them cost 2 or 3 war points for the big nasty buggers

Then unleash the Ducks of War and cry Quack for the fallen

BIG RED POPPY honor the fallen (serious) 11 am 11/11/2005

Quack

 

[IG-666]

Well last night i got the chance to play test the vorlon fleet verses a shadow fleet, oh and i think there was a third side of drazi didn't really notice them.

My view on the vorlon fleet. Ok slowish and tough, sort of, a 90 degree turn is nice on the smaller ships but the cruisers get stuck to easly. Now the important bit the damage, the shadows and vorlons meet said hello then delivered terrible damage to each other with single vollys.

The fleets aren't as bad as a lot of people make out apart from one thing and this is a very big thing. D6 per damage why? this alone ment that when anything hit it would do massive amounts of damage even with adaptive armour. The shadow scouts and hunters tended to go down with one to two hits, the vorlon ships took a little longer but once fighters got involved it was a forgone conclusion.

I wholely belive the first one fleets would be up to par if you just knocked down the hull and removed the daft d6 thing, from memory i saw a drazi heavy fighter do over 20 damage with relative ease.

 

[Matt]

yeah i want them mean and balnaced but the way the PL system works i dont see that happning anytime soon

i at least think it shud work like 1 armagedon point=2 war point =4 battel points= 8 skrimish points = 16 raid points =32 patrol points

what can i say i think the big shadow ahips shud mace 4 omegas

Who are you? I'm a player of one of the best games ever
What do you want? I want a Vorlon and Shadow fleet that scare the crap out of people not reduce them to giggles and pity

Were are you going ?

Ho do you serve and ho do you trust ?

Look if I dont get some scary ships I am going to unlease the Ducks of Doom onto this forum and then ye will know fear.

noo keep the ducks away keep em away plz

 

[Howarth]

If one more person votes for sweet and cute like little puppies then Im going tell LBH that you think Claudia is not very nice and Babylon5 doesnt exist

Oh and I will release the Ducks of Doom

Quack

 

[IG-666]

I was thinking along the lines of trying out the following, drop the damage scores and remove the d6 thing. As follows.

vorlon heavy cruiser damage 50 self repair 5.
vorlon light cruiser damage 35 self repair 3.
vorlon destroyer damage 25 self repair 2.
vorlon transport damage 16 self repair 2.

shadow cruiser damage 60 self repair 2d6.
shadow hunter damage 42 self repair 1d6.
shadow scout damage 30 self repair 1d6.

If this sounds good to any one give a go, tell us how it goes and if any of you who know me wanna try this out then i'm open for a game or two.

 

[oreso]

I was thinking along the lines of trying out the following, drop the damage scores and remove the d6 thing. As follows.

vorlon heavy cruiser damage 50 self repair 5.
vorlon light cruiser damage 35 self repair 3.
vorlon destroyer damage 25 self repair 2.
vorlon transport damage 16 self repair 2.

shadow cruiser damage 60 self repair 2d6.
shadow hunter damage 42 self repair 1d6.
shadow scout damage 30 self repair 1d6.

If this sounds good to any one give a go, tell us how it goes and if any of you who know me wanna try this out then i'm open for a game or two.

To transform Ancient damage to normal damage, simply divide the stat by around 3.5. Its not exact because the odds for criticals and bulkhead hits arent taken into account, but it suffices.

Anyway, i agree with the sentiment. (see "Vorlons and Shadows really that advanced?").

 

[lastbesthope]

It's not just a balance issue. It just doesn't feel right to me that a younger races warship is the equivalent to a first one warship.

Just my 2p worth

There are other aspects of the ship stats that do not match the show, for game balance reasons. E.G. the WS does not have the atmospheric trait for Planetary assualts, even though we see it do just that in the show.

If the only fleets that could go toe to toe with the Shadows and Vorlons were each other, the game would not be as much fun.

LBH

 

[oreso]

All shadow craft should be atmospheric as well.

In any case, we can still match the show and make it balanced, quite simply because we saw balanced fights in the show. Even with ancients having better strategic advantages (hyperspace mastery being the most influential) the alliance was only losing 3 to 1. Remove those extra-game advantages and a 2 to 1 advantage seems reasonable... and boom, we have the difference between a typical younger race cruiser (battle) and an ancient cruiser (war).

 

[lastbesthope]

Yeah, the key to balance against the First Ones is to give the younger races more FA points.

LBH

 

[oreso]

Eh? I think the FA points and PLs are perfect as they are (the PKs should be armageddon, but nothing else). Assuming that telepaths are available (which i do), 1 Shadow Ship = 2 Omegas/G'Quans/etc seems to match the show.

Its just this isnt translated into on table capability very well. Like:

Slicer beam should kill a G'Quan in one shot, two shots maximum.
5 Slicer beam shots should destroy a Narn listening post utterly.
3 G'Quans worth of battle lasers should cripple/kill a Shadow Ship in one combined shot.
Shadow Ship should be able to outrun a White Star.
Ancient ships should never miss.
"Pinning" critical hit effect.
etc.

(I'm gonna write an ancient manifesto summarising all this, cos its covering the same ground over.)

 

[Chernobyl]

Also consider the ships - 3:1?
how many sunhawks were lost? how many ships of lower priority less than war does that make?
The shadow fleet was primarily shadows ships, with a sprinkling of scouts thrown in. probably the only war-class vessels the army of light had were the minbari sharlins. everythng else was lower priority. if they came out only 3:1 with those kind of odds they did very well indeed!

Chern