Speed 0 ships, modest suggestion

[Alexb83]

Okay, this has come up in a few games - and I generally consider it unsporting, but it is allowed under the current rules:

You lose initiative (or indeed, you win it, but then...) you use a ship reduced to 0 damage to 'move' - acting as an initiative sink.

Can we please have the rules adjusted such that ships which are incapable of moving (i.e. by having been reduced to 0 speed, or being incapable of moving without breaching movement rules - such as landing on another ship whichever way it goes, whilst being unable to allstop), cannot be used in this fashion?

 

[Burger]

Why shouldn't you be able to do this, whats the difference in doing that and declaring that a ship does an All Stop?

 

[tneva82]

Why shouldn't you be able to do this, whats the difference in doing that and declaring that a ship does an All Stop?

You can't, for example, CAP while all stop? And you aren't losing anything with immobile ship since that's all it could do anyway...That's bit too cheap as you aren't losing anything while gaining easy choise of initiave sink.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well you are still losing the ability to actually MOVE said ship. If you rule that you cant do this then frankly thats just silly, some races (most notably Narn, Drazi and EA) are very reliant on boresighting, if you make it such that any imobilizing crit not only stops said ship from moving (and indeed using its own boresights!) but also lose an initiative sink as well thats just too much.

I fail to see how this is in any way 'unsporting' and frankly I think that term (along with the terms 'broken' 'cheesy' 'unbalanced' etc) get flung around far too readily whenever someone has something used against them that they dont like or that proves to actually be effective. I'm not saying that there arent things in ACTA that are acually a bit unbalanced or that could do with a tweak here or there but there are really very few things in the game I would go so far as to call broken and I very strongly disagree with the idea that using imobile ships as initiative sinks is one of them. Its still a ship you could have used as initive sink otherwise, why should you lose that just because it cant move?!?!

I wont go into other issues like this here as I dont want to completely derail this thread but suffice to say, I see nothing wrong with this the way it is currently (being able to dodge while immobile WAS stupid but that was fixed in Armageddon )

 

[Burger]

All the speed 0 crits also say "no special actions", so you can't CAF when immobilized either (unless you're an explorer with a -4 speed crit...)

You are losing out due to the fact that your ship can't move. The enemy can easily get to their optimal range, move out of the immobilized ship's main arcs, boresighters can CAF on it, etc. Normally these advantages greatly outweigh the fact that he has an initiative sink.

 

[Alexb83]

My point is this: if you /want/ to stop, you can all stop - however if you are unable to move (because your engines are dead!) you should not be able to move that ship for the purposes of initiative - the ship is unable to move, by definition! As such it should be removed from the initiative sequence until such time as it is able to move.

It's along the lines of: XO: 'Sir, our last hit disabled that whitestar's engines, she's dead in space!' Captain: 'Hmm, well, we'd best keep wait to see what it does, whilst the other four manouver around behind us!'

Again, if a ship can't move, it should not be able to be 'moved'.

 

[Reaverman]

My point is this: if you /want/ to stop, you can all stop - however if you are unable to move (because your engines are dead!) you should not be able to move that ship for the purposes of initiative - the ship is unable to move, by definition! As such it should be removed from the initiative sequence until such time as it is able to move.

It's along the lines of: XO: 'Sir, our last hit disabled that whitestar's engines, she's dead in space!' Captain: 'Hmm, well, we'd best keep wait to see what it does, whilst the other four manouver around behind us!'

Again, if a ship can't move, it should not be able to be 'moved'.

But the ship is still a combatant, and it has crew and functional weapons so it can still participate in the battle.

 

[Alexb83]

Sure, but it can't participate in the movement sequence.

 

[Reaverman]

Sure, but it can't participate in the movement sequence.

You start adding loads of caveats to the rules, you are going to be mired in sub rules, and its going to slow gameplay.

 

[H]

At the end of the day it is an active ship, if it can't move it can't move, but you can't just ignore it, it's been penalised enough by being stuck where it is, if the enemy hasn't been able to finish it off, it's just hard cheese. Lets face it it's merely a game mechanic, everything should rerally all be moving and firing at exactly the same time. A ship can't act when it is dead, you don't like the rule, kill the ship!

 

[Alexb83]

I don't see how - we've already got 'if you're at speed 0, you can't dodge or make any turns' how is it any more of a stretch to say 'any ships able to move are moved in initiative order'?

 

[H]

Because you are doubly penalising the fleet that has taken the damage. I have to admit, i have never known anyone see this as an issue before, and am having trouble seeing why you see it as one?

 

[Hash]

Personally I don't have a problem with using ships like that at all - after all if the ships is still there it is still giving commands etc - perhaps you want to do a All Hands to Deck SA to repair that annoying Speed 0 crit?

In general I don't like adding exceptions and conditional statements on existing simple rules as much as possible - why complicate things?

On a slight aside - I do have some sympathy for the whole, you move one ship, I move one ship concept - it leads to silly things like high priority but fast ships being outmaneovered by lumbering bricks in space because a few patrol ships in the distance perform an AllStop SA or so. I would prefer a similar system to battletech where each player moves a relative proportion of their fleet so things like initiative sinks are no longer as relevant to the game.

 

[Alexb83]

See Hash's statement - it's bad enough that we have a system where one side can outmanouver the other based on initiative (in Full Thrust for instance, everything is moved simulateneously and you have to rely on predicting enemies' moves based on their previous speed/heading and your knowledge of their thrust).
It's made worse when you've gone to the effort of blasting an enemy ship, and it forces you to move out of sequence by sitting there and doing nothing.

It goes completely against common sense to think that a ship which cannot actually move in any way, can move for the purpose of initiative sinking. A ship with 1 damage but 0 crew remaining can't do it (it simply drifts and awaits for its VP to be claimed), so why can a ship which is just drifting but still manned?

Think of it practically: you see a ship wallowing in front of you. Your sensors tell you that its engines have exploded. It isn't going anywhere... so rather than waiting to see what the squadron of battleships behind it is doing, you choose to base your decision to manouver solely on it sitting there?

 

[Reaverman]

Alex,

the door swings both ways. Stop getting your panties in a bind!

 

[Alexb83]

How does it swing both ways? I wouldn't expect to be able to move a ship nowhere to the advantage of the rest of my fleet, without sacfricing something to do it (that's what all stop is for)...

It's a very cheap tactic that really disadvantages high-PL heavy races against low-PL heavy races, even moreso than the PL points breakdown system already does.

 

[Reaverman]

Because you CAN DO IT AS WELL. You seem to be the only person with the problem, the rest of us just get on with it.

I played Hash's Drazi over the weekend, and whilst most of the ships I struck went bang. The odd one, got a 0 move hit and survived. The same happened to Burgers VCD, and he played it first on movement as well.

 

[Burger]

I am getting the feeling that Alex played a game over the weekend, had a speed 0 ship used as an initiative sink, and feels that this cost him the game?

 

[Burger]

The same happened to Burgers VCD, and he played it first on movement as well.

Ha, only because I chose to move first even though I won initiative... just to say I'd done it once

 

[Reaverman]

The same happened to Burgers VCD, and he played it first on movement as well.

Ha, only because I chose to move first even though I won initiative... just to say I'd done it once

I get not Boresighting, was a deliberate tactic too