So you hate the crit chart?? how much do you hate this!!

[Lord David the Denied]

basing off the OPs idea you could just have a standard crit table with mods depending on the target as its more likely to lose all weapons etc if small but not if large:
Patrol ship: +2 to result on crit chart
Skirmish: +1 to result on crit chart
Raid: Standard roll
Battle: -1 to result on crit chart to min of 1
War: -2 to result to min of 1
Armageddon: -3 to result to min of 1

this would mean big ships which have more systems are likely to get more -1 ADs etc as they wont lose all weapons in one hit but it has nothing to do with the size of the attacker, just how well the ship soaks damage.

Again, PL is a meta-game mechanic and doesn't actually reflect size and potential to absorb damage as such. The redundancy idea put forward, statted and balanced to each ship individually, is much better.

There is no quick fix for this issue. People need to stop looking for one and accept that a third edition is needed to solve these problems.

 

[Triggy]

Agreed in principle David - whatever is eventually done needs to be done both on principle and balance.

The big point here is that P&P won't be starting the game from scratch. However, the other point is that it probably won't be addressing the crit table/swarms at all...

 

[Foxmeister]

There is no quick fix for this issue. People need to stop looking for one and accept that a third edition is needed to solve these problems.

No we don't - we can sit here and discuss potential quick fixes all we like since that is our perogative. TTT is a "quick fix", to overcome instrinsic issues between initiative and boresight, and I expect the final form of it to do a job of papering over the cracks that really needs a new version to fix properly.

Will any such fix to criticals etc be included in P&P? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't make the discussion any less worthwhile since useful house rules may well come out it.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

The big point here is that P&P won't be starting the game from scratch. However, the other point is that it probably won't be addressing the crit table/swarms at all...

I don't think that anyone has suggested that this issue is linked to P&P.

The description of this forum is:

Swap tactics and discuss new rules for the Babylon 5 space combat game.

This thread is merely the discussion of a new rule - just one that has no chance of ever becoming more than a house rule.

However, on the subject of P&P, personally I'm doubting the relevance of P&P now since it won't be out this year. I'd rather see the effort redirected to a proper 3rd Edition sometime towards the middle of next year.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Triggy]

If P&P won't be out until (likely early) next year, then a 3rd edition, even if started now still wouldn't be out until early 2010 at the earliest. I for one am happy that the rules and stats are merely being tweaked to improve the current system and that will last for at least a year in that form. A 3rd edition will (hopefully) come at some point in the future and I think most players know what the big issues are but anyway, the game would be thought out from the ground up.

I know this is a forum for discussion, I was simply pointing out to those who weren't aware, P&P will not be addressing the crit chart or doing anything radical to deal with initiative sinks (aside from TTT). In fact, the more discussion that happens, the better the game will become in the long term. I have many ideas for a 3rd edition and may well even start a thread in the near future to outline these grand designs.

 

[Rynar]

At our local gaming club we are trying out the following crit system, wich gives a kind of redundancy to bigger ships as they have better armour then litlle ones;

a crit is now a possible crit wich has to be confirmed (so nothing changes about needing a 6 and Preciese weapons get a +1 bonus on this roll )

then you need to confim your crit;

patrol > its a crit (need a 1+ to confim the critm so its automatic)
Skirmish > need a 2+ to confim the crit
Raid > need a 3+ to confirm the crit
Battle > need a 4+ to confirm the crit
War > need a 5+ to confirm the crit
Armageddon > need a 6+ to confirm the crit

Now there are some weapons who are built for the kill and will pry open the hull to expose the vunrable interior, so gets you faster a critical system to dammage

AP > +1 to crit table
SAP > +2 to crit table
Mini Beam > +1 to crit table
Bea+ > +2 to crit table

Also when a possible crit fails to inflict a crit it still causes double dammage to represent the exterior dammage to the ships hull
(So yes a quad dammage weapon wich doesnt crit still causes 8 dammage and 8 crez, so its still punishingm yust not crippeling on bigger ships)

ex. vs a battle lvl
EA standaart missile. (SAP, Priecise, 30")
5 of 6 to crit and a +2 to confirm (insteat of a´+4)

Centauri Ion cannon. (DD, Twin-linked)
6 to crit and +4 to confirm, but causes qaud dammage zith a possible crit :wink:

What do you think :?: 8)

[/b]

 

[H]

in principle it makes sense even though it's a wad of variables that need to be handled, but then that means a Narn T'Loth is as suceptible to a crit as a Leshath, which seems wrong as the leshath is a delicate minbari ship using steaklth to hide behind, whilst the t'loth is a brick in space that can take as much damage as some war ships. so how about an alternative based upon starting damage score, but then thats even more to keep track of!!

 

[Alexb83]

this comes up about once a fortnight.
an ion cannon on a patrol ship should be able to disable a vorlon heavy cruiser as much as an ion cannon on a war ship. the reason it finds it harder is because it has less AD.
if you were to do a crit table balanced on PL then every weapon mounted on every level of ship would have to have the same stats no matter wether war or patrol as you are then representing heavier firepower by your crit mods instead of number of AD as it is currently.

Should it? How do you disable a ship that doesn't have any conventional systems? (aside from using a Telepath on a Shadow ship)?

Personally I think that the First Ones should have a separate criticals table - applying sections like 'magazine explosion' and 'coolant leak' or 'bridge hit' to ships with none of the above, doesn't make no sense.

 

[H]

just because a shadow ship doesn't have a bridge as you know it, it will have a section performing the same duties, also known as a huma cpu in this instance, it is all subjective

 

[Burger]

Yeah the effects are an abstraction. the name of the crit is just fluff.

 

[Dave G]

This suggestion doesn't change how critical are inflicted, but how they are repaired/cured.

1) Make it possible to repair crits at the end of the turn they are inflicted.
This has the added benefit of removing the need to remember which ones were inflicted when.

2) Change the number of bridges/control rooms on ships as follows:
Patrol & Skirmish: 1
Raid & Battle: 2
War & Armageddon: 3
The critical hit which destroys the bridge would knock one of these out, control transferring to a secondary/tertiary post if one exists.
Also reduce Fleet carrier, command, and admiral bonuses.

3) Change the number of damage control parties on ships as follows:
Patrol: 0
Skirmish & Raid: 1
Battle & War: 2
Armageddon: 3
This is the number of critical hit repair attempts that can be made at the end of the turn. (Note that a Patrol level ship would need to use a SA in order to attempt any repairs).
The critical hit which removes damage control would destroy one of these parties instead.

4) Change the "ALL HANDS ON DECK!" SA to add one extra damage party, and keep the bonus to repair attempts as is.

I believe these changes should go a long way to curing the current problem with critical hits.
They still happen, but are easier to repair for larger ships.

 

[Alexb83]

Yeah the effects are an abstraction. the name of the crit is just fluff.

It's more than that, though - in the previous system, the crits simply had no effect. The argument being that there were simply no systems to critically hit.
You can't knock a ships engines out if it has no engines to knock out in the first place.

All of a sudden this logic seems to have been turned on its head. Which really goes against what was argued at the time as making the system more representative of the show.

I point a similar argument towards having 'crew quality' on a ship with no crew.

 

[H]

the old system was flawed, a ship MUST have a propulsion system otherwise how woudl it accelerate to move? this for crit purposes is named an engine, in fact you see some kind of exhaust ports on a Vorlon ship. and the crew quality of a shadow ship represents it's experiance and on a vorlon ship, they DO have crew, whether the ship actually needs the crew is a different matter, but it is only ACTA that seems to assume Vorlon ships are crewless afaik

 

[Foxmeister]

I point a similar argument towards having 'crew quality' on a ship with no crew.

It's just part of the abstraction - yes, they could have written some verbiage to tighten this up for "crewless" ships, but it would have served no game purpose.

Regards,

Dave

 

[H]

in fact, but NOT having a specific for vorlons and shadows they become partially immune to a 5 critical. some redundancy in a ship lol

 

[Alexb83]

the old system was flawed, a ship MUST have a propulsion system otherwise how woudl it accelerate to move? this for crit purposes is named an engine, in fact you see some kind of exhaust ports on a Vorlon ship. and the crew quality of a shadow ship represents it's experiance and on a vorlon ship, they DO have crew, whether the ship actually needs the crew is a different matter, but it is only ACTA that seems to assume Vorlon ships are crewless afaik

Following this reasoning, why are Vorlons and Shadows not allowed to 'close all blast doors'? Surely if they have some 'organic analog' for a weapons magazine which can be disabled, they must have some equivalent to blast doors which should allow them to resist damage?

The argument with crew quality is pretty straight forward: Would it really take a linked in shadow-CPU or a telepathically controlling vorlon pilot any effort for them to tell their ship to do what the heck they wanted it to do? Vree get some crazy bonus for Telepathic, but why not Vorlons?

Forget bonuses, IMO the limited(!!) special actions for the ancients should be automatic when desired.

 

[H]

I don't know, it all being completely made up I am non the wiser, they are merely game mechanics, as far as I am concerned, if it doesn't specifically say "the vorlon fart propulsion system fails to expel" on a crit description, I can live with it just having "the dawg gone engines broke"

there is also no rule that says G'Quans always blow up if shot by a molecular slicer beam, go figure!!

 

[Burger]

there is also no rule that says G'Quans always blow up if shot by a molecular slicer beam, go figure!!

They usually do, though.....