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Shuttles in ACTA:SF
- Thread starter Iron Domokun
- Start date
GalagaGalaxian
Mongoose
Makes sense, if I remember correctly, battles in the SFU are fought at low "tactical" warp speeds (Warp 1-4 or so, in the old Warp Factor measurement). Shuttles have really crappy warp engines.
Sad to see they've only got 1 damage point, makes them quite killable compared to 2. Then again, any shuttle someone wants dead is dead no matter what I guess.
Sad to see they've only got 1 damage point, makes them quite killable compared to 2. Then again, any shuttle someone wants dead is dead no matter what I guess.
Totenkopf said:scoutdad said:As currently stated out, shuttles have no weapons, no shielding, 1 damage point, max speed 4, and are classed as super-manuverable.
so shuttles are slower than any and all capital ships?
Not if you slow your ship down to Speed 4. :roll:
Totenkopf - Yes in the SFU Administration Shuttles Max out at only 1/4 the speed of true warships. Seeing how ships move at 12" I can see Shuttles moving at a speed of 3", seems they got a slight speed increase.
Also while we are on speeds, Fighters have a Max speed of only half of a Warship. Later in the war fighter got outfitted with Warp Booster Packs or Dash Packs. The packs made fighters move at about 3/4s the speed of warships, but it is at a cost. Dash Packs make a fighter a lot more vulnerable to damage so they tend to blow up a lot faster.
Also while we are on speeds, Fighters have a Max speed of only half of a Warship. Later in the war fighter got outfitted with Warp Booster Packs or Dash Packs. The packs made fighters move at about 3/4s the speed of warships, but it is at a cost. Dash Packs make a fighter a lot more vulnerable to damage so they tend to blow up a lot faster.
Personally I hope fighters don't mess up the game for at least a decade real time.
They were one of the reasons I stopped playing SFB and anything with fighters including WW2 historical games. I have a lot of fun with SHIP battles. The introduction of fighters eliminates warships as a viable option and replaces them with large carriers and escorts designed to try and stop clouds of zoom zooms that effectively out gun everything but other clouds of zoom zooms.
The game shifts so it is no longer be about ship to ship combat. And if they try to force ships to remain viable they have to add multiple layers of contrived options to fake it which leads to escalating run away rule complexity.
Nope, fighters are neato on the TV or movie screen, but they are a death blow to a game of ship to ship combat.
No fighters = cool games experience of majestic warships slugging it out.
Add fighters = boring accounting game as........
Player 1: My 53 fighter strike wing attacks your squadron concentrating on the Dreadnought from max drone range, they each launch X drones. That is a total of "insert obscenely high number here".
Player 2: Evasive for the Dreadnought, its escort try to screen. Oh darn, there are 10 drones for every weapon on my squadron. There it goes, the Dreadnought took 24 hits more than it had damage boxes.
Player 1: Hmmmmm.... want to play carrier vs carrier?
Player 2: nah, lets try the most recent collectable card game.
Player 1: cool... :wink:
They were one of the reasons I stopped playing SFB and anything with fighters including WW2 historical games. I have a lot of fun with SHIP battles. The introduction of fighters eliminates warships as a viable option and replaces them with large carriers and escorts designed to try and stop clouds of zoom zooms that effectively out gun everything but other clouds of zoom zooms.
The game shifts so it is no longer be about ship to ship combat. And if they try to force ships to remain viable they have to add multiple layers of contrived options to fake it which leads to escalating run away rule complexity.
Nope, fighters are neato on the TV or movie screen, but they are a death blow to a game of ship to ship combat.
No fighters = cool games experience of majestic warships slugging it out.
Add fighters = boring accounting game as........
Player 1: My 53 fighter strike wing attacks your squadron concentrating on the Dreadnought from max drone range, they each launch X drones. That is a total of "insert obscenely high number here".
Player 2: Evasive for the Dreadnought, its escort try to screen. Oh darn, there are 10 drones for every weapon on my squadron. There it goes, the Dreadnought took 24 hits more than it had damage boxes.
Player 1: Hmmmmm.... want to play carrier vs carrier?
Player 2: nah, lets try the most recent collectable card game.
Player 1: cool... :wink:
And that Spencer is the rub isn't it. Your convinced that adding carrier groups to the game would bog it down and make it unplayable. Someone else looking at the game without attrition units and declare it hopelessly boring and wonder why you didn't just flip a coin and go back to playing some card game. Both are valid opinions and by the same token neither should be cited as a reason why the other should not be made as a player option.
Different people different strokes and something about the beat of a drum or something.
I have no fast track to planning releases but Spence I personally feel you maybe luck and get a year or two with out the zoom zooms but I doubt you will get more than 5. When they finally show up there isnothing stooping you from saying to your opponent, look I have a Fed Heavy Carrier group and you have a C8 Space Control group lets just leave them in the box and say they cancel each other out.
Different people different strokes and something about the beat of a drum or something.
I have no fast track to planning releases but Spence I personally feel you maybe luck and get a year or two with out the zoom zooms but I doubt you will get more than 5. When they finally show up there isnothing stooping you from saying to your opponent, look I have a Fed Heavy Carrier group and you have a C8 Space Control group lets just leave them in the box and say they cancel each other out.
GalagaGalaxian
Mongoose
Or you could just ask the other guy to play without fighters or a heavy emphasis on fighters cause you don't find them fun! :wink:
One thing that seems to get overlooked a lot is that even in SFB, carriers only show up relatively late in the Alpha Octant timeline; the first emerging in the Y160s, during the transitional era between the end of the Four Powers War and the outbreak of the General War. If you play a game set in Alpha anytime between the onset of tactical warp right through to the tail end of the "TV era" in Y159, you don't have to worry about any carriers at all. (Even during the 4PW, the first non-Hydran attack shuttles that show up are assigned to bases; as seen in the F&E scenario covering this conflict.) Or, if you like the Tholians and Seltorians, you can go back to their Revolt-era battles royal in the M81 Galaxy (which were far larger, and bloodier, than any fought between the two species in the Milky Way) and have no fighters or gunboats; and no seeking weapons either (not even suicide shuttles).
The General War has taken up so much headline space that it can drown out a lot of other avenues of exploration in the SFU; which is unfortunate, but hard to argue against given the sheer number of toys which show up in this conflict. But even during this "Main Era" of the setting, there are only so many carriers historically in service in any given time; not every battle fought in this conflict has to assume the presence of attrition units.
Actually, one thing to note for FC is that even if a published Borders of Madness release does happen, the attrition units included would still only be compatible for use in the Main Era; you could choose to play in the Middle Years or M81 Galaxy and not have to worry about any fighters (save for less-than-stellar Hydran Stinger-1s) and carriers being an option. If ACtA:SF ever decides to look into alternate settings or eras somewhere down the line, one advantage of that concept could be to make sure that there would still be at least some places in which the starship, not the attrition unit, remains king.
The General War has taken up so much headline space that it can drown out a lot of other avenues of exploration in the SFU; which is unfortunate, but hard to argue against given the sheer number of toys which show up in this conflict. But even during this "Main Era" of the setting, there are only so many carriers historically in service in any given time; not every battle fought in this conflict has to assume the presence of attrition units.
Actually, one thing to note for FC is that even if a published Borders of Madness release does happen, the attrition units included would still only be compatible for use in the Main Era; you could choose to play in the Middle Years or M81 Galaxy and not have to worry about any fighters (save for less-than-stellar Hydran Stinger-1s) and carriers being an option. If ACtA:SF ever decides to look into alternate settings or eras somewhere down the line, one advantage of that concept could be to make sure that there would still be at least some places in which the starship, not the attrition unit, remains king.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
With carriers they can be overwelming if you cannot prepare for them or are trapped by fleet selection rules into picking stuff that cannot stand against them.
If one side has a bunch of Plasma chuckers and the other side turns up by suprise with a Kzinti fleet carrier and some drone throwers then the plasma side are going to get annoyed.
Kzinit player puts out his 24 odd fighters and then throws 40 drones from fleet and fighters at one plasma ship which goes boom. Plasma guys blow up some fighters, repeat for a few turns and the plasma guy gets fed up.
Carriers and fighters are going to be expensive to use, fighters, advanced fighters and heavy fighters are going to cost a lot of points but from the drone side they are lethal. The plasma ones are less so since they need to close to get those Plasma F hits but if they do :shock:
Playing campaigns or other games where you can meet fighters or drone users with non fighter fleets, bring in an escort. Ignore the escorts must be glued to carriers rules and add a DD or CL escort to the fleet, either the fighter fleet focuses on killing the escort or the escort goes full speed ahead and flanks the fighters then goes to work.
A couple of ADDs or a few plasma D racks will trim a fighter swam fairly fast if they get too close.
The cost and use of fighters should balance, if you know you are going to be facing fighters plan ahead. Tuck in something small, fast and good at fighter hunting. As usual when half the map is throwing out small, fast weapons in waves the plasma guys have problems but that is why they invented the plasma D rapid fire rack.
SFB (SFU) reflects real naval conditions. The mighty warships rulled the waves till the first aircraft came along, modern carriers and strike craft with ship killing weapons made the battleships obsolete but fighters only rule for a while.
Klingons, Hydrans kill them in droves with phaser Gs and ADDs, Kszinti use your own fighters or drone them at long range. Feds have plenty of ADD types and escorts with phaser Gs. Plasma side use plasma D rack armed escorts, Roms send a few ships under cloak to visit the carrier and say hello the plasma way :twisted:
Of course by the time fighters are becoming less effective you then get interceptors and Psuedos which are as fast as ships, carry ship type weapons, swat fighters and gang up on ships to really annoy them. Nothing funnier for the plasma side than a high speed flanking run to come up behind someone elses expensive DN/battleship/CVA and dump 12 plasma Fs on it from close range :twisted:
If one side has a bunch of Plasma chuckers and the other side turns up by suprise with a Kzinti fleet carrier and some drone throwers then the plasma side are going to get annoyed.
Kzinit player puts out his 24 odd fighters and then throws 40 drones from fleet and fighters at one plasma ship which goes boom. Plasma guys blow up some fighters, repeat for a few turns and the plasma guy gets fed up.
Carriers and fighters are going to be expensive to use, fighters, advanced fighters and heavy fighters are going to cost a lot of points but from the drone side they are lethal. The plasma ones are less so since they need to close to get those Plasma F hits but if they do :shock:
Playing campaigns or other games where you can meet fighters or drone users with non fighter fleets, bring in an escort. Ignore the escorts must be glued to carriers rules and add a DD or CL escort to the fleet, either the fighter fleet focuses on killing the escort or the escort goes full speed ahead and flanks the fighters then goes to work.
A couple of ADDs or a few plasma D racks will trim a fighter swam fairly fast if they get too close.
The cost and use of fighters should balance, if you know you are going to be facing fighters plan ahead. Tuck in something small, fast and good at fighter hunting. As usual when half the map is throwing out small, fast weapons in waves the plasma guys have problems but that is why they invented the plasma D rapid fire rack.
SFB (SFU) reflects real naval conditions. The mighty warships rulled the waves till the first aircraft came along, modern carriers and strike craft with ship killing weapons made the battleships obsolete but fighters only rule for a while.
Klingons, Hydrans kill them in droves with phaser Gs and ADDs, Kszinti use your own fighters or drone them at long range. Feds have plenty of ADD types and escorts with phaser Gs. Plasma side use plasma D rack armed escorts, Roms send a few ships under cloak to visit the carrier and say hello the plasma way :twisted:
Of course by the time fighters are becoming less effective you then get interceptors and Psuedos which are as fast as ships, carry ship type weapons, swat fighters and gang up on ships to really annoy them. Nothing funnier for the plasma side than a high speed flanking run to come up behind someone elses expensive DN/battleship/CVA and dump 12 plasma Fs on it from close range :twisted:
Its worth remembering that ACTA and SFB/FC work very differently and what is a problem in one system (SFB/FC) may not be in ACTA. Fighters worked very well in ACTA: B5 and I think in ACTA NA - with only a few exceptiopns - Gaim swarms - more from a "two many counters" in their later incarnations.
Shuttles were changed to be unarmed meet the requirements of the "style" of the SFU rather than any balance issues.
I must admit on first reading I though Suicide shuttles were exactly that rather than remote piloted.........
I think it would be quite handy to have some ISDs (In Service dates, from and to dates) for the ships so that people can try to play these historical matchups with more ease. I used to think the B5 ones were a waste of time but they can make campaigns, torunametns and one off game smost interesting in terms of fleet selection - as long as everyone gets a good selection to choose from....
Shuttles were changed to be unarmed meet the requirements of the "style" of the SFU rather than any balance issues.
I must admit on first reading I though Suicide shuttles were exactly that rather than remote piloted.........
Nerroth said:If ACtA:SF ever decides to look into alternate settings or eras somewhere down the line, one advantage of that concept could be to make sure that there would still be at least some places in which the starship, not the attrition unit, remains king.
I think it would be quite handy to have some ISDs (In Service dates, from and to dates) for the ships so that people can try to play these historical matchups with more ease. I used to think the B5 ones were a waste of time but they can make campaigns, torunametns and one off game smost interesting in terms of fleet selection - as long as everyone gets a good selection to choose from....
Iron Domokun
Mongoose
Shuttles were changed to be unarmed meet the requirements of the "style" of the SFU rather than any balance issues.
I understand that in early playtests of ACTA:SF, players had ships flying around with flocks of shuttles to intercept incoming seekers. I'm glad that the armed shuttle rule got dumped, because if that was the best strategy and players were more or less forced to do it, I'd be so turned off that I would not play.
I must admit on first reading I though Suicide shuttles were exactly that rather than remote piloted.........
The piloted ones are called Stingers. :roll:
I think it would be quite handy to have some ISDs (In Service dates, from and to dates) for the ships
SFB defines Year In Service (YIS) dates, that is the year the ships entered general production. You can have one or two "prototypes" one year earlier than that. No hard-and-fast out of service dates are defined, so you can't really say, "No ships of this type were in service after this date". With thousands of ships (no kidding, 3000+!) it's too hard to define that stuff for every ship, and even the common ship types had very complex "class histories". If you want YIS data then the Master Ship Chart in SFB Module G3 gives it.
andypalmer
Mongoose
I for one will be working on Fighter rules as soon as I get my rulebook. I'm thinking along the lines of 1 stand = 3 fighters for my houserule attempt.
I'm a Hydran player, so the sooner workable fighter rules are in place, the sooner my Methane Boyz can show up :-D
I'm a Hydran player, so the sooner workable fighter rules are in place, the sooner my Methane Boyz can show up :-D
Greg Smith
Mongoose
B5 ACTA uses 1 flight = 6. Except for superheavy where 1=1.
Asguard101
Mongoose
I'm would like the Lyran and hydran to be the first Xpak, but I think the first will be more ships from the first races released. I'm hoping they follow FC's vision and keep fighters restricted to Hydrans and least for a while.
Iron Domokun
Mongoose
Hydrans, as a species, do everything in threes and for the most part their fighter groups are evenly divisible by three. I'd go with one stand = three fighters, myself, since it makes the math easy.
This also fits neatly with the fighter doctrines of other empires, who use a one squadron equals twelve fighters idea. A dreadnought-hull carrier (CVA) with two squadrons would have 24 fighters, or eight stands, and you'd only see that many in BIG battles. More commonly you'd probably have a cruiser-hull carrier (CV) as your command ship, taking the place of the (non-carrier) dreadnought, and carrying 12 fighters (four stands).
This also fits neatly with the fighter doctrines of other empires, who use a one squadron equals twelve fighters idea. A dreadnought-hull carrier (CVA) with two squadrons would have 24 fighters, or eight stands, and you'd only see that many in BIG battles. More commonly you'd probably have a cruiser-hull carrier (CV) as your command ship, taking the place of the (non-carrier) dreadnought, and carrying 12 fighters (four stands).
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Since the releases are following the FC stuff and FC isn't adding fighters (as far as I know) outside of the methane suckers or the Borders of Madness varient stuff this means ACTA SF fighters will be an ACTAs only of home ruled thing.
Not sure if Mongoose is allowed to add beyond the FC stuff or do we need to wait 5+ years for carriers/fighters/escorts/PFs etc.
PS 3 fighters per stand makes sense and allows room for some nive sized fighters with detail :lol:
Not sure if Mongoose is allowed to add beyond the FC stuff or do we need to wait 5+ years for carriers/fighters/escorts/PFs etc.
PS 3 fighters per stand makes sense and allows room for some nive sized fighters with detail :lol:
According to other discussions on this forum - there is nothing to stop you doing a quick fighter supplement for people to mess about with - although you likely forgoe your chances of it ever becoming official if that is a concern. Sounds like you have the knowledge to convert - its really not very hard........balancing harder but not impossible
At the very least you could if you wanted put your fighter house rules up for people to have a look at and comment on, be interested to see.
Many of the B5 fighters were slower than ships - espeially the real speed merchants like Vorchans, White Stars and Blue Stars. None were as bad as the shuttles I must admit! One cool element was the dogfighting but I don't know if thats a SFU thing.........
At the very least you could if you wanted put your fighter house rules up for people to have a look at and comment on, be interested to see.
Many of the B5 fighters were slower than ships - espeially the real speed merchants like Vorchans, White Stars and Blue Stars. None were as bad as the shuttles I must admit! One cool element was the dogfighting but I don't know if thats a SFU thing.........
SFB has dogfighting rules for fighters close up - and for me they used the same concepts that ACtA B5 did, just doing it in more detail, much more detail.
As people have said ACtA is much more fighter friendly in game play than SFB where to be honest it was the time it took with all those damn units on the table and moving 24 odd counters each impulse. ACtA has single movements per turn and a separate fighter move phase which is side by side not wing by wing and so plays a LOT faster.
The last game of ACtA I ran had at one stage 22 wings of fighters (assume 3 fighters per wing in SF and take the same number of manoeuvre units) now that would equate to nearly 3 complete DN sized CVA types on table at once. Typically took 2 minutes to do everything including thinking time for movement. Packs of dogfighting fighter resolve in one paired dice roll, all declaring at once by the nature of the rules and again fighters fire in a separate phase so speeding things up.
Its MUCH more user friendly in ACtA and if people don't like fighters, its easy enough to not play with them. ACtA that can be hard with many many ships having just a wing or two but for novice games, I always leave fighters out of ACtA and there is no fleet that has so far been a problem by choosing smaller ships or cherry picking or in one case selecting ships that had equal number of ships with one wing and declaring the fighters had done a sweep earlier and mutually annihilated each other so get on with the cruiser on cruiser action please.
Always feel its better to have the rules there and ignore an option, than to leave it out and have someone feel left out.
As people have said ACtA is much more fighter friendly in game play than SFB where to be honest it was the time it took with all those damn units on the table and moving 24 odd counters each impulse. ACtA has single movements per turn and a separate fighter move phase which is side by side not wing by wing and so plays a LOT faster.
The last game of ACtA I ran had at one stage 22 wings of fighters (assume 3 fighters per wing in SF and take the same number of manoeuvre units) now that would equate to nearly 3 complete DN sized CVA types on table at once. Typically took 2 minutes to do everything including thinking time for movement. Packs of dogfighting fighter resolve in one paired dice roll, all declaring at once by the nature of the rules and again fighters fire in a separate phase so speeding things up.
Its MUCH more user friendly in ACtA and if people don't like fighters, its easy enough to not play with them. ACtA that can be hard with many many ships having just a wing or two but for novice games, I always leave fighters out of ACtA and there is no fleet that has so far been a problem by choosing smaller ships or cherry picking or in one case selecting ships that had equal number of ships with one wing and declaring the fighters had done a sweep earlier and mutually annihilated each other so get on with the cruiser on cruiser action please.
Always feel its better to have the rules there and ignore an option, than to leave it out and have someone feel left out.
In FC, there is no direct equivalent of Year in Service dates, but there are distinct settings. If you play in the Main Era, you can have access to all of the ships (and inferred refits) from one end to another; with only one year-specific option (the ability to upgrade to faster drones after 2580) in Alpha Octant play. However, if you play in the Middle Years, you use the (unrefitted) Ship Cards listed as being available in that era; while there is no "internal" separating of in-service availability within the "TV era", you can't use Main Era ships unless, for some reason, they are also included on the Middle Years master ship chart.
Of course, that doesn't stop players from mixing and matching Middle Years and Main Era ships in their own games of FC; but it is recommended that each era of Ship Card be kept to their appropriate setting.
Of course, that doesn't stop players from mixing and matching Middle Years and Main Era ships in their own games of FC; but it is recommended that each era of Ship Card be kept to their appropriate setting.
Some of the Romulan ships have Different sized groups based on the generation of the ship. Warhawks have 5 fighters, Skyhawk-B's have 8, Sparrowhawk-B's have 16 as just a few examples. That might make things a little more difficult. I will probably talk it over with andypalmer when he starts working on his interim fighter rules.
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