ship info disclosure?

[Lokai]

must have glossed over something because i don't recall reading anything that specified your opponent knows EXACTLY what variant of a ship your fielding.....is it full disclosure or do they only know what ship class it is which may allow for some nasty surprises?

went to reread through my book and alas page 5 has started coming out grrrrrr and they just got rid of the book guarantee post.....

 

[Taran]

I don't recall anything about letting your opponents know what you're fielding at all. I would guess it all depends on what House Rules you're playing under.

 

[Chernobyl]

There's no reason NOT to tell your oponnent what variants you're fielding. Scanners can tell the difference between different weapons, additional hangar fits, etc.
Plus, if you don't tell him its an assault hyperion, rather than say, a Command Hyperion, you're being a jerk. And I wouldn't play a second game with you.

Chern

 

[Digger]

I concur with Chern! - Get it all out at the beginning exactly what you are playing.

Avoids screams of 'cheat' later and a punch up the bracket! :x

If anyone started pulling that trick in our group, they wouldn't get many, if any, games after the first!

 

[Triggy]

On a slightly less confrontational note - assuming people wouldn't cheat then you could play this way as there's nothing stopping it as a house rule but normally the game is set up so that each player knows the full extent of the enemy fleet before the game.

 

[locarno24]

Hmm....that might make for quite an interesting scenario; a region of extreme sensor interference (tm) that seem to litter most sci-fi universes...

People deploy their fleet as a series of 'faint sensor contacts' - not until they're identified can you see which ship corresponds to which sensor blip, reminiscent of beating stealth....

Obviously if you pick up an energy spike and it fires on you, it'll be pretty damn obvious what it is. Not that it matters at this point. 8)

 

[Locutus9956]

Playing with 'unidentified' fleets in my experience tends to cause more problems than it is worth it (on a free movement game anyway, it can work quite well in a hex system though where you can do things like write down positions and movements until a ship is detected (but even then its STILL much more complicated).

Again not sound like a stuck record but the only game I've played which has GOOD 'unidentified contact' rules in a space miniatures game is, surprise surprise, full thrust (which used a system of contact counters that werent revealed as actual ships other than very general classes (cruiser, frigate etc) until scanned actively or they got close. Of course there were rules for things like sensor decoys or signature amplifiers that could make a frigate look like a battleship and so on. I'll admit to having never actually USED those particular rules as it obviously slows the game down somewhat (at least at first) and only really comes into its own in a campaign where you dont know the size of any of your opponents fleets until you engage them (it CAN be fun in single scenarios but its harder to bluff your opponent when you are playing with x amount of points and your opponent knows this )

 

[Greg Smith]

went to reread through my book and alas page 5 has started coming out grrrrrr and they just got rid of the book guarantee post.....

It is still on the news page: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/news/news_item.php?pkid_news=177&PHPSESSID=c089ffdbf6ffe15e88300eae27caa326

 

[Ripple]

Most games should actually have a rule to cover 'disclosure', I was surprised to hear this game didn't have one.

That said, I've played a number of games that had hidden information (including a double blind game of battletech that was quite fun). Invariably, unless your using a judge, folks will begin to assume cheating is happening and friendships will be lost. Sad but true.

I always hated the concept of 'well the rules allow it but I just wouldn't play with them' approach. We try to have open policies in our local games store, not closed 'clubs', and more than one group has been killed by one cheater/jerk joining the group and folks losing their patience one after another. The system would work fine if everyone had the same point of no return for playing with someone, but usually what happens is individuals decided to stop playing with the person one after another and just leave the group to avoid the drama of a confrontation.

Ripple

 

[Greg Smith]

ACTA is a full disclosure game.

 

[Burger]

Page 100:

Throughout the fleet lists you will come across many variants of standard ship designs. For example, the Earth Alliance Omega destroyer also has command destroyer and pulse destroyer variants. It is perfectly permissible to use the standard Omega counter or miniature for these variants so long as your opponent knows exactly which ship you are deploying.

(Emphasis mine)

 

[H]

ACTA is a full disclosure game.

I concur fully on ships, however I see no reason why an enemy would know on which ship my admiral was stationed, you may as well stick a big target marker over that ship

 

[Locutus9956]

Actually Id disagree there, one would assume the ship in overall command would be the one with the most comms traffic coming from it, sure you can encode things and scramble them so the enemy doesnt know what your saying but I'd have thought most spacefarig races would be able to detect the AMOUNT of comms traffic even if they cant actually intercept it?

 

[Burger]

Actually Id disagree there, one would assume the ship in overall command would be the one with the most comms traffic coming from it, sure you can encode things and scramble them so the enemy doesnt know what your saying but I'd have thought most spacefarig races would be able to detect the AMOUNT of comms traffic even if they cant actually intercept it?

"Red 3, set your comms to generate lots of static. That'll confuse them!"

 

[Digger]

Whichever is the biggest ship - That's the one the Admiral is normally on! :twisted:

 

[MustEatBrains]

ACTA is a full disclosure game.

I concur fully on ships, however I see no reason why an enemy would know on which ship my admiral was stationed, you may as well stick a big target marker over that ship

At least there are hints - the ship using all those fancy little special rules just might have the admiral onboard, and doesn´t it have to be a ship of the highest PL within the fleet?

 

[H]

nope, you can even stick him on a twofer I believe.
I usually stick my on the T'Loth, as it's a lower priority target than my G'Vrahn

 

[Burger]

Yes it does have to be the highest PL ship in your fleet. You can't put him on a T'Loth if you also have a G'Vrahn.

If your fleet consists entirely of twofers then yes you can put him on one...

 

[Taran]

And here I was about to put mine on a Chronos...

But you Could work it for a non-disclosure game.
Just write the names of the ships on little scraps of paper (mark the Bow)and place the paper on the table where the ship would be and then move the paper the way the ship would move.
That prevents all the worries about cheating and such.
Then you can work in additional rules about how to tell what ship it is.

It would take a dedicated player to do it, but it is possible. Sensors can tell where it is, but not neccessarily any more than that.

Unless you get a judge and do a true DB game...

 

[High Sierra]

just be economical with the truth like me.

If someone points at my Xill and says 'whats that' I reply thusly:

Its a Vree ship. Any other questions?

they give up asking after a while and go refer to the book.