Ship Suggestions/Changes - Centauri

[Lord David the Denied]

Maybe so, but you're not scoring VPs for that or winning campaigns - you still need real guns to kill that de-clawed target.

 

[Burger]

But if the enemy is de-clawed you can kill him at your leisure.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Not if you don't have enough turns. Ever tried destroying an Omega or Explorer with single-damage weapons? Even DD guns don't cut it without the big criticals.

That's the problem, not the balance of the Demos or any other precise-armed ship. It's the critical table and damage figures that need to change.

 

[skavendan]

The crits are at the root of what many gamers don't like.

One of the best games I had was Narn VS EA Early years both lame on the tech side no precise weapons it actually took till turn 6 before a ship was destroyed. I think if we had used other ships that has there precise triats the game would have been far less fun.

 

[silashand]

That's the problem, not the balance of the Demos or any other precise-armed ship. It's the critical table and damage figures that need to change.

I have to confess, the extreme nature of the crit table as well as the totally random results are the one thing I'm not too fond of in ACtA. I think critical results are good and representative, but I wonder sometimes if as they are implemented now they aren't too variable. I know any system that relies on dice will be random, but the critical hit tables increase that by an order of magnitude I think, and many times not in a good way. JMO though...

Perhaps a way to mitigate it and make it more representative would be to link crits to the arc from which the ship was hit, i.e. I have never understood why a ship on the port side could disable weapons in the starboard arc. I know space is in 3-D, but then ships in ACtA don't have top and bottom fire arcs so in that context using it as justification is inappropriate. Linking the crits to where the ship got hit from would do two things: limit the nastiness somewhat as well as be able to keep the larger number of overall possible results, but have fewer results in each specific arc. It would also IMO be slightly more realistic. Think, if a ship has its most powerful weapons in the forward arc, while it might be slightly easier to damage them, it also would put the attacker at more risk if the enemy shoots first. Risk vs reward so to speak. Again, JMO though...

Cheers, Gary

 

[skavendan]

I have to agree with gary a more realistic Crit table is probably the way to go making you more likely to damage any aft weapons or the engines if your behind them.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The ciritcal table is only half the issue. The fact that ships have, in some cases, hundreds of damage points means you can't kill them without critical hits. That is the bigger problem. A critical hit should be nasty and worrisome. It just shouldn't be essential to knock your enemy down.

 

[l33tpenguin]

The most damage (that I can find) is the K'B'T, coming in at 180, with the exception of the Ancients. I personally think it should take a fleet of lesser ships to take an Arm. level ship down. These are the big guns, the heaviest possible thing you can field.

To have a dozen raid or skirmish ships remove it from the fight in one round because of crits, not actual damage, well that is really crappy, even if the K'B'T manages to knock out a half dozen others ships before this.

 

[Ripple]

I tend to agree... I hate the extent of the extra damage that crits cause. It means you can never count on a ship being there from one turn to the next, no matter how small the threat it faces.

As to the Demos not being a ship killer... knock out the interceptors, remove AA, remove dodge, remove geg... set adrift allowing boarding... remove arc, weapon or AD... all of these can kill in and of themselves... never mind the vital chart... permanently remove SAs, Damage Control... stack up 3 to 14 or so extra damage... all good.

Vorchan main weapon does on average to hull 6 eight damage and crew. Demos main weapon does 3 damage and crew plus a crit (average about 2 and 2 more btw). So your looking at your 'ship killer' putting out about 3 damage/crew more over two turns vs ships above your own level with the mains. If that is the big difference, the extra crit chance may make a much bigger difference.

Ripple

 

[Foxmeister]

The most damage (that I can find) is the K'B'T, coming in at 180, with the exception of the Ancients.

I would argue that by the time you take traits into account, the Victory comes in at an effective 210. True, it could lose the adaptive armour trait, but given how many traits the Victory has it's pretty unlikely it's going to lose it early on (though possible).

Regards,

Dave

 

[l33tpenguin]

The most damage (that I can find) is the K'B'T, coming in at 180, with the exception of the Ancients.

I would argue that by the time you take traits into account, the Victory comes in at an effective 210. True, it could lose the adaptive armour trait, but given how many traits the Victory has it's pretty unlikely it's going to lose it early on (though possible).

Regards,

Dave

I wasn't factoring in AA or self repair... that could make shadow vessels have infinite damage

 

[Triggy]

I really don't understand folks thoughts on the Demos/Vorchan debate. It seems to me the main weapons are almost equal. (I give the edge to the Demos due to precise, damage over two turns is almost the same but you get an extra crit effect out of the demos.)

So your saying the 2AD a turn is equal to an interceptor system. I can't understand that... interceptors are too important against secondary fire, and 2AD barely add one hit a turn even given the traits.

Add in the effect of CBD leverage and target choices with the extra range, and the Demos is much better. You have to lose more than 2 AD to get parity for these ships.

Ripple

Combine this with the Demos going around on CBD when the torpedoes are reloading, and I agree completely hence wanting 6 or 7 AD on the Ion Cannon here.

If it is marginally worse than the Vorchan on average then fair enough as the Vorchan is already great and is the non-variant ship. So long as the Demos is as good or better in a number of situations (25-50% of games) then I'm happy.

 

[Da Boss]

On reflection if the Demos can no longer CBD whilst reloading prob stick at 8AD if it can 7 or even 6 is justified I suppose............

 

[silashand]

As others have said, simply change CBD to a reduction in firepower across the board rather than firing only one weapon. It would IMO be more appropriate, not to mention fix the Demos issue (and any other similar situation) quite handily.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Target]

Reduce our range of battle lasers on most of our ships & give us more ion torps, or just give some of the bigger ships some torps like the Octurion.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Centauri don't have ion torpedoes. They have ballistic torpedoes. I agree, though. Bin the never-seen lasers and go to torps and plasma accelerators for the capital ships. Backed up with ranks of ion cannons, obviously...