Ship Customisation - a bit like Admirals...

[Hash]

Ok so was reading another thread on the Grey Council Sharlin and there was a point raised about making it "better" at the same Priority Level but awarding more Victory Points if it was destroyed/crippled etc.

It seemed a bit complicated to me but it sparked off an idea...what if you *could* customise ANY ship in the game to make up your special "one-off" ship?

We can already customise fleets using Admirals (they pick 3 special abilities and raise the PL of a ship by 1).

What is you could customise ships using a similar method? Pick from a list of special upgrades to design your very own upgraded variant for use in games. You could even use the existing upgrade and refit tables. For example, say I wanted to create the Grey Council Sharlin using this method...

Step 1: I'd take the bog standard Sharlin (stats from Burger's shipviewer for reference):
http://www.ibisfightclub.co.uk/2e/VwShip.asp?ShipID=188

Step 2: And from that add say 3 choices from the refits table on P57 of the refit table for Minbari (from the 2e Fleet Book):

I choose (to reflect the Grey Council Sharlin)

a) No. 3: Powerful Sensor Arrays (Sensor can "blind" ships - No SA for enemy vessels within 10"
b) No. 9: Hardened Structure (Damage threshold down by 2)
c) No. 12: Silent Runner (+1 to Stealth, -2 to Speed)

Of course the Sharlin is at War so this "upgrade" would be paid for somehow, most easily by upping the PL of the Ship (so it would be an Armageddon version!)

Of course that's just an example but it's a relatively simple way of reflecting unique ships within B5, letting people be creative without having to argue the case for a new variant etc.

Obviously all open to debate (i.e. how many refits vs. cost etc) but what do you guys think?

 

[chainmailler]

I think that making the sharlin have 6+ stealth would make some people un-happy

 

[Ripple]

Neutral on the idea as I haven't looked through the upgrades enough.

My main issue is the game has certain break points due to the single die six. Get past a certain point and the games feels like it's all dice. Could these upgrades do that too easily. We found the interceptor on the old whitestar (dodge 3+ one) took it from problematic to just plain silly. Layered defenses are like that, similarly stealth past a certain point as noted above.

Ripple

 

[Taran]

Problem is that the priority level system (as has been said before) does not lend itself to the customization of ships.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I'm puzzled as to how the extra VP would be classed as complicated. For all the complaints about the Gaim for example, I've not seen one person complaining that "it's too complicated that you get extra VP for killing the queens!".

If you didn't want the customisations to be serious enough to boost the ship to a different priority level, another option is to have a list of benefits and drawbacks, and say that for each benefit you give the ship, you must take a drawback. You could even go a step further and say that certain benefits are worth 2 standard benefits, or the same for drawbacks.

Your main problem after that though is that the worth of any given customisation will vary wildly depending on which ship it's being applied to. It's a system that gamers will break.

 

[skavendan]

Ship customisation for races that have limited ships is fine by me however races like narn and leauge am completely against it they get good choices.

 

[locarno24]

Why not just let people pick one or more normal refits as 'Admiral' options?

 

[Locutus9956]

I think that making the sharlin have 6+ stealth would make some people un-happy

Yes the stealth 6 sharlin at Armageddon level would be soooo much more unfair than say, the Neroon with stealth 5 at Armageddon level and about twice the hull and firepower and every trait under the sun..... :roll:

Seriously though I was actually thinking more that noone would WANT to take said sharlin as its clearly nastier than a war point but not worth an armageddon point imo

 

[Na-Po]

We do something approaching,
we don't make ships PL go higher instead we just say
that you're given X rolls on the refit table so each player can decide which ship(s) is a "veteran".

Last time we did it I played an early years fleet against vree.
We went in 5 raid points allowing 2 rolls.
he used a battle ship which had +10%damage and -1speed and an increased AD on one raid ship.
I had an extra interceptor on my command hyperion and my hyperion missile got a speed boost.

it's small enough a change not to make them one pl higher and it was nice to have a little diversity.
In the same kind of ideas you can roll for a CQ pool and affect them.
the two combined give a taste of old warriors going back to the battlefield without making major changes.

 

[Burger]

This idea is very similar to the "Scavenged ship" from TGT's Dilgar Era Raiders list. As an ex-EVE player, I like it a lot

 

[Tolwyn]

Problem is that the priority level system (as has been said before) does not lend itself to the customization of ships.

I fully agree. I would appreciate customizing for ships, but this does not wortk in a Prioritylevel based system.

 

[Funbeast]

Burger said:

[/quote]This idea is very similar to the "Scavenged ship" from TGT's Dilgar Era Raiders list. As an ex-EVE player, I like it a lot[/quote]

I was also thinking that you could use a standard table such as the Scavenged ships in TGT's Raiders list.
But instead of up grading the ships PL have it cost a Patrol point to add on a certain number of upgrades (2 or 3) the same as upping a Crusde EA ships furies to Firebolts for example.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well for one off games I actually don't see it as a problem at all anyway as long as you offer the same refits to both sides I actually dont see the need to boost anythings PL or victory points etc, neither side needs to pay for it since your giving the same boost to both sides.

Now I know someone is going to say (or at least think...) that this might give more of a boost to sides that field one bigger ship and refit it than those that take lots of smaller ships and boost them (as things like increases to thresholds, damage, firepower etc tend to be more noticable on ships with more to start off with and they also are harder to kill and thus remove said advantages from the game). BUT. I am of the general opinion (as I'm fairly sure most people are) that swarm fleets tend to have a signifigant advantage in ACTA to start with, so if this redresses the balance a little then so much the better.

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Thats a good point, to make bigger ships better vs swarms make them better. You could to adress the swarm balnce award a number of refits in accordance with the number of ships. For example if you take 2 in a 5pt raid game they could get lets say 5 refits. Whereas if you take 20 ships you dont get any.

 

[Hash]

Well for one off games I actually don't see it as a problem at all anyway as long as you offer the same refits to both sides I actually dont see the need to boost anythings PL or victory points etc, neither side needs to pay for it since your giving the same boost to both sides.

Hey, I like *that* idea a lot, excellent way of balancing things without messing with the PL system.

 

[Da Boss]

This idea is very similar to the "Scavenged ship" from TGT's Dilgar Era Raiders list. As an ex-EVE player, I like it a lot

It's actually Triggys idea which I then used with permission and gave to TGT :wink:

its def an interesting idea - as someone who is always playing with ships stats be nice to have a frame work to work within.

As long as it does not go down the battletech route of a Mech with justl Gauss rifles. Triggys idea is very clever in that you are actually limited to one choice (can't repeat) and so its I think harder to make uber ships.

 

[Burger]

If you didn't see Triggy/DB/TGT's (whoevers idea it was its a good one) raiders list then here is the brief vesion. The actual "scavenged ship" is a very basic and underpowered ship for Raid level. But with it, you get 3 upgrades, for example reinforced hull (+1 hull), manouvering thrusters (5+ dodge), 1AD DD beam added. Or, you could choose a missile rack, interceptors, and added damage/crew. So instead of starting with a Raid ship and trying to figure out how much it costs to upgrade, you're starting with a sub-Raid ship and bringing it up to Raid level.

 

[Da Boss]

thats about it - nicely summerised - although IIRC its Skirmish

 

[Triggy]

This idea is very similar to the "Scavenged ship" from TGT's Dilgar Era Raiders list. As an ex-EVE player, I like it a lot

It's actually Triggys idea which I then used with permission and gave to TGT :wink:

its def an interesting idea - as someone who is always playing with ships stats be nice to have a frame work to work within.

As long as it does not go down the battletech route of a Mech with justl Gauss rifles. Triggys idea is very clever in that you are actually limited to one choice (can't repeat) and so its I think harder to make uber ships.

Thanks for the credit - very kind of you to mention it again

For the Raiders it makes perfect sense as they have more scavenged ships than anyone else but some other races could take advantage of the rule as well. A couple of examples I could think of are Brakiri and Vree (being traders) and the EA with their desire to tinker with everything and everything under the sun.

It's a curious thing, Minbari cities stand unchanged for centuries, yet I go away for two weeks and you redecorate!

 

[Ripple]

The issue with the same refits to both sides is that all refits are not equal value with the ships they are put on.

Example is the first interceptor on a ship that already has dodge say is huge, as layered defenses works out to very small numbers of AD making it.

Adding a 1 AD laser to another ship would in no way balance against that, assuming your opponent was using interceptable weapons.

Ripple