Some small sugestions for initiative + boresight options....

[akenatum]

Kind of a wall of text please don't let that distract you.



Okay so i do have a couple of suggestions for the initiative/boresight problem...

One of these solutions can lead to problems in and of itself but they can lead to a bit more flexibility...


Okay first one is simple, have a maximum number of squadrons per game, have ships of count as a squadron therefore, iof your playing say a 5 point, game you can have a max of lets say 6 squadrons... random number chossen the numbers to line up these things should be organised and worked on, but this would force hordes of smaller ships to be joined together to drop out thier initiative sink gain, while still allowing a player to use a fleet of smaller ships in a gam instead of just haveing a ship restriction.... Make it set for the gamer not just for start of fleet construction so that people, donm't break squadrons into hordes of single ships after wards, (gaim dynamic squadrons come to mind)....


Second solution.... As of now when uyou win initiative you chose your opponet to move a ship of his choice first unless for some reasson you want to move first (don't know why anyone would) The solution is instead of choosing for them to go first and they chose which ship, you chosse which of thier ships moves, then they chose which of yours then you choose which of thier ship moves, till one of you runs out of ships, and then the player with ships left chosses which of thier ships can moive where....

Then in the shooting phase it's your choice as normal... The advantage here is you can choose the ships you want to activate first, thus being able to keep it in the boresight of one of your ships so to speak if you win initiative...

The downside her though which i can see people arguing is that, they can chose your big boresight ship first not letting it get a boresight off if they win initiative...

Now I know some people wouild see this as a problem but think about it for a moment when you lose initiative, or you play against a sink horde fleet the chances of you getting your boresight off is rather reduced... The advantage this one brings to the table is that you can at least line up the ships you need for those boresights when you win, and if you have multiple boresights, if they lock one out at least you have the chance to force some of the others into a locking situation....

Anyway love to hear some counter arguments and ideas to this and also thank you for rading my big wall of text with it's spelling mistakes and lack of punctuation.


the other thing too is that either both of these solutions can be implemented together or separetly...

 

[Burger]

These ideas have all been suggested in other threads already, and have all been taken apart. They suck. Sorry!

 

[noobdelux]

atleast he`trying

 

[Ripple]

It is a good effort, but they have indeed been taken apart before...

Total activation limits - hurts bore sight dependent fleets more than it helps, especially the drazi who are with one exception completely bore sight dependent. Should they lose initiative they lose and even greater portion of their firepower than now. Given the realative initiatives in the game, this happens a lot.

Pick the enemy ship to move - your own counter point is a big issue here, he counters my own big guns, where as previously I had a chance of no shot, now, no matter what he takes, I will lose my best ship... against many races most of the time. Previously I would lose it only against certain builds and tactics... and could at least some of the time just shoot smaller ships instead of not firing at all.

The issue is that bore sight doesn't work well in an activation based system, and as long as bore sight represents primary (or only!) firepower of a fleet, you will have issues.

To fix that issue you absolutely need an answer that chance the mechanic of bore sight. If the new mechanic does not also detract from the ships using it in some way, you throw off balance.

The other affects of sinking can actually be dealt with fairly straight forwardly by simply reducing the payoff of buying down. The only real issue there is that you have to adjust the Drahk huge hanger numbers to prevent them from over swarming everyone, as others ability to swarm is reduced.

Ripple

 

[akenatum]

I spose the drahk on ship/squadron capping would be sneaky and tend to them getting rather boosted game wise that way and people already having problems with them...

In regards to seeing these before, haven't had much of a chance to get on the internet of late (don't have it at home right now) and didn't have the time to track it all down this was just some things i was thinking of and thought to post them...

Regarding the choose your opponents ships instead of letting them choose, it still does help to benefit boresight, in terms of at least being able to choose and lock onto something when you have multiple boresights, or if you win initiative, but it does propose more problems for single boresight when you lose... I still think gameplay wise it would work out as a net increase to boresight though.... Has anyone playtested this at all?

 

[ShopKeepJon]

OK, here's an amusing idea...

Special Action:
Boresight Firing Gambit (BFG)
Command Check: 8
After moving a ship with a boresight weapon, attempt the command check. If successful, fire all boresight weapons on that ship immediately (before continuing with the movement phase).

No, seriously, think about it...

ShopKeepJon

 

[Tzarevitch]

OK, here's an amusing idea...

Special Action:
Boresight Firing Gambit (BFG)
Command Check: 8
After moving a ship with a boresight weapon, attempt the command check. If successful, fire all boresight weapons on that ship immediately (before continuing with the movement phase).

No, seriously, think about it...

ShopKeepJon

Actually I like that idea. But how about changing the special action so that allows your to fire your boresights at one one target in your forward arc? That way you have less bookkeeping trying to remember which one fired out of normal phase.

Tzarevitch

 

[Locutus9956]

These ideas have all been suggested in other threads already, and have all been taken apart. They suck. Sorry!

A bit harsh there but Im afraid have to agree, all the ideas mentioned there have been suggested previously and they do indeed have major flaws largely in that they hamstring boresight reliant fleets completely.

More than anything else any fix to the intitive model needs to make it easier to use boresights but I cant see any of the above ideas doing anything but hurting them (especially the second one, you could force him to move one ship thats your target if you win the initiative roll but he can then force you to move your big ship first with its best guns and take it out of the game. I also dont like the fact that this would make who wins the initiative roll each turn REALLY dominate the game and frankly ACTA has more than enough ways to win outright on a couple of lucky rolls already without adding more!)

 

[Silvereye]

Actually I like that idea. But how about changing the special action so that allows your to fire your boresights at one one target in your forward arc? That way you have less bookkeeping trying to remember which one fired out of normal phase.

Wow, the propsect of the boresight (aft) trickshot - "If I can just ricochet it off this planet....". Or cartwheeling ships.

ShopKeeperJon's idea is pretty simple. It's just another special action to remember.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Actually I like that idea. But how about changing the special action so that allows your to fire your boresights at one one target in your forward arc? That way you have less bookkeeping trying to remember which one fired out of normal phase.

Wow, the propsect of the boresight (aft) trickshot - "If I can just ricochet it off this planet....". Or cartwheeling ships.

ShopKeeperJon's idea is pretty simple. It's just another special action to remember.

Actually it isn't that simple.

First: It's not really a trickshot. Boresight is not really a straight ahead fire. Boresight represents a restricted firing arc (i.e. one less than 90 degrees). The special action just means you were able to turn to hit something at the edge of your restricted firing arc. I simply altered the suggested action to represented it by allowing a FA shot rather than firing out of turn for reasons listed below.

Second: I have an aversion to out-of-phase turning or firing. It produces a rule exception that has to be remembered and in my experience those tend not to be remembered.

Third: The suggested special action makes boresight a spectacular advantage because if you succeed you get to shoot before any other non-boresight can shoot and before some can even move, regardless of initiative. This includes fighters. People will scream if the Ka'Bin'Tak gets to unload on you before you can even more. That doesn't make sense for a weapon type that is supposed to be more restrictive than normal. The special action should only counter the weakness, not turn it into an overwhelming advantage.

As I said I love the concept, i.e. a special action to let boresight weapons loose their restriction. That particular execution however has unintended consequences however.

Tzarevitch

 

[stringvest]

How about a special action "Area Control Fire", where a weapon is nominated to over-watch a part of space, and fire at anything that moves across it's arc with half AD, representing a predicted snapshot.

 

[H]

because as per the above comment, a ship is firing out of turn. your Boresight beam suddenly whaps off a shot out of sequence and could conceivably kill a ship before movement is even finished. Even at half AD, the vagries of the beam roll mean your 6 dice beam suddenly fires with 3 dice ganining 15 hits and poof, one dead raid ship, or with the right crits battle, or war!

 

[skavendan]

I don't like the concept.

It's either one side moves then the other as in BFG ( Battle Fleet Gothic) or turn by turn ship movement.

You could say you MUST group ship's so that point sink is only off by 1. But I don't like squadrons either so bah.

 

[stringvest]

Sure, but it would have to be a special action, it would have to be nominated early on in the movement phase, and leaves the opponent the option to move into arc or avoid the shot.

You could also expand the rule to say the weapon must fire at the first target that crosses it's path, so it gives the opponent another choice in sacrificing damage to allow another to pass.

Out of phase fire is pretty common in other wargames, I don't see why it's such a problem to remember in this one. Stick a cocktail stick down in the direction of fire, if it helps.

 

[H]

it's not difficult to remember, it's just a way of denying space. or a way to abuse it.
ooh look his warlock is on overwatch, that will really hurt something, hang on, he has to fire at the first ship right, send in that dodgy git of a whitestar!

and it is unbalanced. Why can say a ommand omega do it with it's powerful, but limited beam, but a Sharlin with a more powerful and open beam can't?

 

[stringvest]

Firstly, you have to nominate one weapon.

Secondly, it can be any weapon.

You would still have to pass a Crew Quality check too.

 

[H]

I misunderstood then, I thought the thread was looknig at Boresights, I didn't realize we had moved into the realm of adding just new special actions.
that'll teach me to skim over a subject.

ok, Sharlin can do it, as soon as a ship moves in it's arc, territorial denial in a 90 degree arc for a good distance

Command omega can do it for a 1MM wide strip of space although also for a decent distance.

again it's a further benefit to forward arc fleets. heck, I'd sit at the back of the table with the longest range ships i could and just do this action turn upon turn.. (or at least try to)

 

[stringvest]

But at half AD, that's the payoff.

 

[H]

but half AD for a forward arc and half AD for a boresight, STILL give a huge advantage to the forward arc ship. The thread was a way to imprve boresight and initiative, this action in no way whatsoever makes boresight a more viable choice

 

[stringvest]

I think you're wrong. It gives the same advantage to what you have currently, ie forward arc is better than boresight. It just allows boresight the chance to shoot at "predicted" targets.

The arcs are different, sure, but it's a matter of lining up to where you think your opponent will move the ship you want to hit, which would be pretty much just infront of his ship.