Shadows, Vorlons and Ducks

[LaranosTZ]

I think we could playtest this, but here's my suggestions for balancing the ancients, without creating new priority levels, or things of that nature.

Shadows:

Include all fighters with their ships, but only allow launch through the fighter bomb launch tube.

Now, in the series we see shadow ships routinely evade the weapons from other races. In most cases a shadow ship has to be 'suprised' or frozen by a telepath to take a direct hit. I think this is reflected in their SM trait, but a universal dodge of 5+ could also reflect this agility as well as increase their general survivability. (Not that I think they really need more of that.)

Shadow Cruisers = Remove the turreted nature of their main beam weapons, reduce their AD to 4, but give them the accurate trait. (This means on average a shadow cruiser will hit any ship 7 times, but it provides the potential of ripping the largest ship apart with a good roll.)

Shadow Hunters = Again, remove 2ad and make them accurate, so the hunter averages 4 hits against any class of ship. With the above dodge suggestion, it should increase survivability.

Shadow Scouts = Despite others' comments, I really don't see too much wrong with the shadow scouts. With a 5+ dodge I think their survivability would go way up, and just that they are able to use the scout ability makes them very useful ships.

Shadow Fighters = Well, all fighters are gimped, why should shadows be any different?

Vorlons:

Overall I don't really think Vorlons need much tuning. I think the difficulties people are having are more of a tactical issue then an issue with the fleet's power balance. I have seen a vorlon fleet used to great effectiveness on many occasions against every other type of fleet. However, I do think a few things have been overlooked.

Special Rules: Vorlons should be allowed to use All Stop and Pivot , and Move to Shield Them (living ships should be able to realize the necessity of self-sacrifice).

Heavy Cruiser: Reduce main weapon to 3AD and Accurate, reduce the secondary weapon to 5ad. (This means an average of 7hits with the primary weapon against any ship, 4 hits against a hull six with the secondary gun for a total of 29 damage. This configuration also provides more critical potential.)

Light Cruiser = Main gun to 3 AD and Accurate

Destroyer = Self Repair back to 1d6 (average 3 damage repaired per turn instead of 2, helping their survivability to get into range.)

Transport = As Destroyer, put the self repari function back up to 1d6, right now the ship is a skirmish with the equivilant damage of a 20 damage point ship, with their adaptive armor.

 

[oreso]

some good suggestions.

You think the main weapons are powerful enough? Ideally, id like to be able to eat a G'Quan a turn on average, as this matches the show.

What scenes are you thinking of with the dodge? I considered this myself but couldnt justify it.

 

[lastbesthope]

We don't really see Shadows dodge hits, we just see them not be where the weapons are firing, which is reflected in their stealth I think.

LBH

 

[Chernobyl]

Accurate is a truly frightening trait. each AD hits the first time without rolling. after that, each AD is basically a beam that always hits on a 3+

A 4AD accurate weapon?
most common # of hits? 9 or 10, at 9.1 % each.
middle 50% is from 9 to 14 hits.
You are more likely to get 12 hits (7.95%) than 7 hits (7.32%)
its a very flat curve. even as high as 22 hits you have better than 1% chance.

2AD accurate?
most common # of hits? 3 and 4 at 14.81%
middle 50% is from about 4-8 hits
better than 1% chance to get 14 hits.

Chernobyl

 

[LaranosTZ]

I'm sorry Oreso, but there has to be some consessions between play balance and destructive power. Sure, it'd be nice for a shadow ship to eat a g'quan a turn, since that would match the show, but it also would be a very unbalanced ship, since the G'Quan is one of the toughest battle level ships out there, (the only ones with more damage/crew are the brakiri battle class ships I think). If a shadow vessel could drop one of those in one turn it would make mince meat out of any lesser ship. That would certainly look cool, but would not play well.

Let's look at Chern's numbers

A 4 ad accurate weapon (the shadow main ship) would average between 30-36 damage with a potential for 66 damage in a single barrage. Heck, at this point you're causing so much destructive potential that you might as well remove the precise trait, since if you factor in criticals including precise then you -could- blow a g'quan in a single shot. So let me modify my suggestion slightly, on any of the molecular slicers it should either lose 1 AD, gain accurate and lose precise, or lose 2ad and gain accurate and -not- lose precise. If you play test it either way I think you'd see a better balance between destructive potential and game balance.

I think a similar argument can be made for the vorlon's lightning cannons, but only the lightning cannons, though their secondary weapons have the same special attributes (beam, precise, super ap and either double or triple damage) it makes a little more sense that those weapons would be just a touch less effective. The lightning cannon is supposed to be their big ol' 'nothing can stop this' gun, while I think their secondary weapon was really just tossed in to give them something else. Since we're trying to balance canon with play balance, we do make some concessions.

 

[lastbesthope]

Accurate is a truly frightening trait. each AD hits the first time without rolling. after that, each AD is basically a beam that always hits on a 3+

Yes that is quite scary.

A 4AD accurate weapon?
most common # of hits? 9 or 10, at 9.1 % each.
middle 50% is from 9 to 14 hits.
You are more likely to get 12 hits (7.95%) than 7 hits (7.32%)
its a very flat curve. even as high as 22 hits you have better than 1% chance.

2AD accurate?
most common # of hits? 3 and 4 at 14.81%
middle 50% is from about 4-8 hits
better than 1% chance to get 14 hits.

Chernobyl

I think you have made a couple of mistakes here, for one, you meanty to say BEam weapon, as otherwise there is no way you can score more hits than you have AD, but that's a little mistake :lol:

The big one is about the likelihood of hits, the way the dice rolls work, I think it is impossiblke to be more likely to score more hits than less with the same number of dice.

For 1 AD Beam Accurate likelihood of the number of hits is:

1 = 1.0
2 = 2/3
3 = 2/3 * 2/3 = 4/9
4 = 2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 8/27 etc.

I'd need to think about combining these probs for multiple dice, but I think you just need to multiply them together, so for 2 AD Beam Accurate the likelihood of 3 hits on one die and 2 on the other would be 4/9 * 2/3 = 8/27 (Coincedentally the same as 4 hits from one die, but that is because of the 1 free hit from each dice.

Actually that makes the probability of n hits from x AD of Beam Accurate (Where n is greater than x) equal to

(2/3) raised to the (n-x) power

But there's no way 12 hits is more likely than 7 dude, no way I can see anyhow.

LBH

 

[Chernobyl]

You're right, I should have said "Accurate" "Beams".

Well, with a 4AD weapon, the first 4 hit automatically. so how likely are you to get only 3 successes vs. only 8 successes?

remember, with accurate, you're always more likely to succeed on the next die than fail.

Chern

 

[lastbesthope]

You're right, I should have said "Accurate" "Beams".

Well, with a 4AD weapon, the first 4 hit automatically. so how likely are you to get only 3 successes vs. only 8 successes?

remember, with accurate, you're always more likely to succeed on the next die than fail.

Chern

You will always get a minimum number of successes as you have AD, as the first his is a cert, and you are more likely to succeed than fail on each individual roll, but in a series of rolls, you get less and less chance of continually succeeding, as you multiply the probability by 2/3 for each roll as I illustrated above.

I got your e-mail, your problem is where you are combining the probabilities I think.

I'll reply in a bit.

LBH

 

[Chernobyl]

For 1 AD Beam Accurate likelihood of the number of hits is:

1 = 1.0
2 = 2/3
3 = 2/3 * 2/3 = 4/9
4 = 2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 8/27 etc.

correct, if you're looking for at least this number of hits.
my sequence looked for exactly "x" number of hits

at least 1 = 6/6 (first hit automatic) so your odds of at least 1 hit is 100%
exactly 1 = 6/6 x 2/6 (odds of missing on second hit) so your odds of exactly 1 hit is only 33.33......% sounds weird, but its true.

at least 2 hits = 6/6 x 4/6 = 66.66....%
exactly 2 hits = 6/6 x 4/6 x 2/6 (miss on 3rd hit) so the odds of exactly 2 hits is 2/9, or 22.22....% etc.....

Chern

 

[Gambit]

I have to add just for Howarth and Gungnir.....This is NASTYYYYYYY poll.

nasty
nasty
nasty

 

[lastbesthope]

correct, if you're looking for at least this number of hits.
my sequence looked for exactly "x" number of hits

Chern

You're right, as we discussed off board, this is exactly where our misunderstanding came from.

Good luck with that spreadsheet Chern

LBH

 

[Howarth]

I have to add just for Howarth and Gungnir.....This is NASTYYYYYYY poll.

nasty
nasty
nasty

Yeah lets see how NASTY we can make them
See how many beams you can take you Nasty, Nastyy Shadows

Huh Huh Nasty Vorlons