Some of the new ships/fleets

[Rorschach]

The beam mechanic is one for me where I roll lights out or better luck next game. They are to all or nothing for my taste.

I just think of it as a miss or a hit. When presented with a high X-factor, plan accordingly. If you don't like the odds, play fleets that don't rely on beams.

 

[Ripple]

The issue with that Rorschach is that you have to also find other folks who don't play fleets with a high x-factor.

On the Gaim debate... for those of you who were not here, this has become the same debate we heard with the old minbari under sfos. If you take the right kind of fleet and know what your doing you can beat them. But a generalist fleet in the hands of an otherwise good player... nope, just pack up and go home. Katadder himself makes the case that they are broken, by saying they are rock paper scissors with two of the five major races, and that Triggy's otherwise viable tourney fleet, in the hands of a very good player, didn't really have a chance.

What's their real weakness? You can crit them out. Everyone can suffer that.

Ripple

 

[Triggy]

The issue with that Rorschach is that you have to also find other folks who don't play fleets with a high x-factor.

On the Gaim debate... for those of you who were not here, this has become the same debate we heard with the old minbari under sfos. If you take the right kind of fleet and know what your doing you can beat them. But a generalist fleet in the hands of an otherwise good player... nope, just pack up and go home. Katadder himself makes the case that they are broken, by saying they are rock paper scissors with two of the five major races, and that Triggy's otherwise viable tourney fleet, in the hands of a very good player, didn't really have a chance.

What's their real weakness? You can crit them out. Everyone can suffer that.

Ripple

Thanks for the complement

You're right that the same arguments were used for the SFoS Minbari...

I think sentiment shows that the Gaim need a ground-up review. Even if only a few ships are changed rather than the entire fleet, some extensive playtesting in combination with looking at their performance in campaigns, tournaments and friendly games.

 

[Da Boss]

On a positive note if the Gaim are the best Mercenary fleet - and they have at worst a 50 / 50 chance that they should be getting a new ship design which could form the centrepiece of any changes..................

it will be intersting to see what happens with them in the course of the Great War............

 

[armbarred]

I've got a question for everyone.

When you play, do you use stellar debris? If so, how much and what kind? What scenarios do you play most often? Are you aware of who you will be playing and the scenario before the you pick your fleets? Are you "blind pulling" opponents and tables?

I'm one of the players that thinks the Gaim need more than a few tweaks to make them a fun fleet to face on a regular basis. I think the Demos is way over powered, but I think the Liati is underpowered in my experience. I can go on and on...

But I've also noticed that we all come on here and complain about certain ships, but it seems to me that if used with the scenarios and debris that any fleet built for the purpose of a fun game or campaign will have a better than average chance of loosing to any other. (I am intentionally not discussing tournaments because that's a whole different style of game)

As an MI see all kinds of comparisons and complaints from my play group and a whole different set here and yet a different set when I do demos. Sorry got rambly.

The original questions still stand, they're up there somewhere...

Also, who thinks it would be a good idea if we could get a sticky from one of the awesome mods that was for nothing but scenarios? W ecould limit posting in it to just the scenario package and then do a seperate post should questions arise...

 

[Da Boss]

We usually play with terrain beacuse its much more interesting and we feel it makes a betetr game - as maneuvre becomes more important.

Liati - what don't you like? it is like a giant Centauri White Star but with fighter derfences and more guns including a turret. It is vulnerable (esp to the Gaim/ emines in general) but I have always found it most useful!

Demos needs a little toning down.

re fleet choice - varies - often we know the opponents race but not always................

 

[katadder]

Unbelievable. I just don't understand how anyone can think that the Gaim are balanced. It isn't just a rock-paper-scissors issue with them Katadder. So the e-mines cant crit, BFD. Their fighters sure can. Please explain to me how you are going to shoot all of them down. We still have not received an answer to how many suicide fighters can attack a ship on a given turn. When they ram, the are precise too! You aren't going to get a shot at dogfighting against them, as my e-mines will kill your fighter before they can engage. The only fleet I have seen that might have a chance is the Drakh, and I am still not convinced on that.


Dave

of course you can dogfight them - you launch at the end of a turn now so do it justbefore they arrive.
an avenger for example can put out 6 starfuries with scramble scramble, which have dogfight +3 each bcos of the avenger against +1 crewed missiles.

drakh fleet is best off shooting the pods, as you have range 10 secondaries you get at least one round of fire to knock the breaching pods out the sky.

 

[armbarred]

I just haven't seen it hang with other Battle levels well enough for my taste. On paper I think it is truly amazing and scares my White Stars into hiding in my case, but I'm going off of the times I've seen it played.

Demos needs to either get 8 more damage and crew and become Raid, or get stripped of a lot of firepower.

As far as opponents go you sound like our group. For the most part we know who will be at the house when we play, but not what fleet they bring. We've only got 3 players who only have a single fleet each, the rest of us have several and it all depends on what mood we are in as to what is fielded.

I'm a big fan of planets not placed in the center of the table, moons and asteroid fields are all great. I really think that it is probably one of the things we enjoy about the campaign so much. The attacker usually gets to decide whether they are staging the fight near the asset or away, and then the defender usually generates some random debris of some sort. I think the table is the biggest balancing factor of the entire game system.

 

[Davesaint]

Unbelievable. I just don't understand how anyone can think that the Gaim are balanced. It isn't just a rock-paper-scissors issue with them Katadder. So the e-mines cant crit, BFD. Their fighters sure can. Please explain to me how you are going to shoot all of them down. We still have not received an answer to how many suicide fighters can attack a ship on a given turn. When they ram, the are precise too! You aren't going to get a shot at dogfighting against them, as my e-mines will kill your fighter before they can engage. The only fleet I have seen that might have a chance is the Drakh, and I am still not convinced on that.


Dave

of course you can dogfight them - you launch at the end of a turn now so do it justbefore they arrive.
an avenger for example can put out 6 starfuries with scramble scramble, which have dogfight +3 each bcos of the avenger against +1 crewed missiles.

drakh fleet is best off shooting the pods, as you have range 10 secondaries you get at least one round of fire to knock the breaching pods out the sky.

That assumes you win initiative, which is not guaranteed and that you aren't being intercepted by regular fighters which are normally +1 dogfighters, but are +2 if you have a fleet carrier of your own. Also, I can move my crewed missle away from your fighters if I win initiative and then shoot you with my mines. delays the death one turn, but that will work.


Dave

 

[katadder]

still limited ammo though on the crewed missiles. its like saying a saggi can only fire a total of 12 missiles in a game.
over a 10 turn game if untouched that saggi can fire using just one broadside 30 missiles if using all stop and all stop and pivot increase that to 40. and as you get 2 per gaim assault carrier thats 60 (80 if as above) missiles to his 24.
yes they can be intercepted, but crewed missiles can die to normal weapons, AF grid or enemy fighters, the saggis missiles cant. also the missiles dont have travel time like the fighters.
yes the gaim carrier has another 6AD of e-mines, but really 6AD every turn from a raid ship isnt a huge deal, especially when they cannot crit.

 

[Triggy]

That assumes you win initiative, which is not guaranteed and that you aren't being intercepted by regular fighters which are normally +1 dogfighters, but are +2 if you have a fleet carrier of your own. Also, I can move my crewed missle away from your fighters if I win initiative and then shoot you with my mines. delays the death one turn, but that will work.


Dave

Exactly. The fighter tactics an EA fleet (or similar, e.g. Dilgar) fleet should use is: start with none on the table and launch one fighter per turn, starting from the turn when some enemy fighters turn into Klikkitaks or Breaching Pods get close and are in range. This reduces the number that can get into contact with a small base (which your entire fleet should use vs. Gaim fleets) to two at most. Sure your fighters will die but they will stall the enemy by about four turns, in addition to the two-three turns it takes to get into range.

Sorry katadder but your suggested tactics will always fail to any reasonable Gaim commander in exactly the way Davesaint suggests.

 

[Davesaint]

That is what scares me, is that once someone gets really good running the Gaim, they will no longer be beatable in a tournament enviornment. I don't know why people don't think that 40 to 60 AD of e-mines can't kill something boggles my mind.


Dave

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Why do the Gaim even have e-mines?

 

[Target]

Not that actually know why but i'd say it had something to do with them having the undectable nukes & they beat the narn when they attacked them.

 

[EDFDarkAngel1]

Because nukes aren't a weapon in ACTA.

Dark Angel

 

[Target]

I wish the fighters were little more balanced. I think the Starfury/Sentri is about right. Don't think there is any overpowered fighters out there. The Gaim are allright apart the fact the have turreted e-mines. I've never liked the fact that e-mines demolish fighters, wished they had come up some other type of standard weapon for the Gaim.
The Drazi Star Snake should be better. I'd even give them at least 2AD normal maybe even 3AD normal. A race like Drazi you basically fly big fighters cause thats what they like to fight in probably should have better fighters. The Sky Serpent is about right.
The Shadow fighter, Kotha ,Star Snake ,Delta V need major upgrade.
Ones like the Gorith should be faster. But then i think all fighters need a boost of speed. The Game doesn't play anything like show when it comes to fighters but i know they are hard to get right & we all want different things from our fighters.

 

[emperorpenguin]

Perhaps if you explained reasons rather than making sweeping statements?

I've re-written this a couple of times, as my anger has slowly subsided, but I'll just ask if there is any reason why you had to make it personal.

This thread was opened as a little place to have another rant, people when they are frustrated like to do that, so anyone reading or posting on here should know what to expect. Am I not now entitled to an opinion? If people such as yourself don't like it, then don't read it, and if it represents such a problem then ask me via a PM to edit the post. I'll gladly do so.

there's nothing personal at all, you just made a broad and unsupported statement (which is also contrary to the views of most ACTA gamers (ie the Centauri got worse, except you used hyperbole: "they got shafted")

I asked you to elaborate instead of using the same kind of language that you'd see on Warseer with hundreds of people complaing about their army.
Just saying be more constructive and less sensationalist....

 

[H]

Why do the Gaim even have e-mines?

depending on what and where you read, they were attacked by Narn as one of theior earliest interstellar contacts, so it can be argued that they just took the narn weapon and while they couldn't quite replicate it's power, they were able to make a smaller version.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Pretty shaky ground for the superior e-mines they have, I think. They'd be much better with mid-range pulse batteries as their back-up weapons and the crewed missiles as the main striking arm of the fleet. This would be different enough to most races that they'd be something new but it'd also avoid the anti-ISA rock, paper, scissors problem.

 

[Da Boss]

at that tourney yes, because people didnt know how to there really. and i dont think that you had played enough with them to realise how it works either. plus it was the fleet you have i dont think would have beaten them. at the time I dont think i could have beaten them either, but I have had chance to think about it. the minbari/ISA still cant but then thats the whole rock/paper/scissors of ACTA anyway.
.

If, as you say, several entire fleets can not beat them - isn't that then obviously broken?

Do you think a fleet needs to be tailored to beat them - or can any standard tourament fleet have a chance?

For my standard tournament fleet I am happy to take against any other fleet - Liati, Balvarian, 2 Demos, Maxiums, Corvan- can that beat the Gaim? Given that the Gaim player starts at the opposite table edge, and emines my ships from turn one. I think I might have a chance if there is terrain to safe guard my approach but if its an open table - nope?

what do you think? All power to engines splits my fleet and the lead ships get emined to hell and back before running straight into a swarm of fighters and pods? CBDoors means I am too slow to survive the emines wihtout loosing ships - any ideas? (be handy for the weekend )