Stealth - A New Approach

[Commador Q]

Well they were involved along side the Warrior caste ones during the E-M war. And is there any point having a warship which isn't a full warship.

As I said the White Star had Stealth (well a Jammer anyway) in B5wars. I suspect a major reason that it never will have in ACTA is that it already has dodge, adaptive armour, etc and giving it any more would just have made it impossible to kill...

Nick

The minbari had been using Sharlins for centuries by the time of the E-M war, they could very easily have had some ships that used to belong to the military cast but were given to the worker cast when a better newer warship was built. those second hand ships might not have had the newest stealth systems, or even if they did, may not be representative of the sort of ships the worker cast was allowd to build for themselves or the religious cast.

or alternatively perhaps the military cast just had records of every military grade jammer, and so when building the WhiteStars it was decided that getting permission to use military garde jammers wasn't nesesary given the other capabailities and intended mission of the designe. (similar to the they were only built to fight the shadows idea)

 

[Ripple]

While your bending over that far would you grab me a sandwitch...its right there by you left heel....=p

Come on folks...I know this is all fictional fluff but lets not make up too much history we have nothing to support.

Ripple

 

[Ripple]

Thanks for summing up that list Target. Hard to keep track on longer threads.

Ripple

 

[Target]

Can't say i've seen a thread that stayed on topic ever. Guess thats life on a forum.

 

[Alexb83]

So far the ideas we have come up with are.
Failed stealth roll = 1-4 for bulkhead hits 5-6 normal
Failed stealth roll = Only hit on 6's and weapons lose all traits except beam
Failed stealth roll = +2 Hull to stealthed ship, 6's still hit
Failed Stealth roll = A Stealth save is rolled ( similar to dodge)
Once a Stealth roll is made that ship can keep on targeting that ship and only that ship. A new SA " Bust that lock" for stealth ship to break the lock, maybe an opposed roll.
Spray and pray half AD and lose traits on weapons presume this is on failed stealth roll.
Sorry if i missed any or got them wrong.

The spray and pray idea - it wasn't in the case of a failed stealth roll. It was a proposed special action that would allow you to forego a stealth roll entirely, and shoot 1/2 AD in a chosen arc on a reasonable CQ check (so that it's difficult enough to use that it doesn't get abused) - perhaps 9 minimum. Halving the AD and losing all the special traits for weapons reduces the damage potential, but it gives you an alternative to 'all' or 'nothing' in that you could actually get 'something'.

 

[Black Omega]

I have a couple of aerial combat wargames and i had a look over the rules last night to see how they handle radar lock-ons etc. as that is quite analogous to the stealth situation in ACTA. Based on what i found ehre is my latest suggestion:-

This may be even more hit or miss than the present rules but might work all the same.



After all movement has been completed and before firing starts there is a "minbari detection phase." The minbari opponent rolls a single stealth check against each minbari ship on the table, applying the usual modifiers if he is at closer range, using scouts, scanners to full etc etc. If the roll is successful then the minbari ship has been "detected" (can use a counter to signify this) and may be fired upon by ALL ships in this turn. If the roll is unsuccessful then the opponents radar systems have failed to get a solid enough return from the minbari ship and it is classified as "undetected." If the opponent has any ships within 4" of an undetected minbari ship then he may do a "visual scan" of that ship and reroll the stealth check dice to get another attempt to detect.
A minbari ship which is "undetected" may be attacked blindly by any opposing ship not taking a special action this turn and all such attacks hit on a 6 only regardless of weapon modifiers.
At the end of the game turn there is an additional "break lock-on" phase when the minbari player can attempt to make his ships undetected once more. In this phase the minbari player rolls a stealth check for each of his ships, applying modifiers for close ranged enemy etc etc. Each ship which passes its stealth check immediately becomes "undetected" and in the next game turn the opponent will have to roll for that ship again to detect it in the "minbari detection phase." Any ships which fail their stealth check remain painted for the following turn and their "detected" status is carried over so it is not necessary to roll for these ships in the minbari detection phase in the following turn.


I might try to playtest this idea in the coming weeks to see how it works. It seems to me it would not unduly slow down or overcomplicate the game as all that is needed is an additional counter for each minbari ship to denote if it is detected and a couplf of extra dice rolls at the beginning and end of the turn, offset by the fact that you are not rolling for stealth during the actual combat phase for each attacking ship.

 

[katadder]

and watch the minbari crumple at the 1st sign of scouts and fighter: there we go my scout and fighter try to detect your sharlin within 8", so thats 2s, cool rolled it, now everyone gets to kill you dead easy being as you are a hull 5 ship with low dam/crew.
sorry but wouldnt work.

 

[Alexb83]

Yeah - nastily imbalanced. The idea of 'all or nothing' fits because you may get a momentary lock on the ship, fire off, then next turn it's relocated, or the stealth field has adapted, and your sensors just... slid off.

I maintain that the only way to give an alternative to 'all or nothing' within the ACTA game system is to do it through a special action which requires a CQ check. This means it's not automatic (so it wont make stealth completely redundant). It also means that it wont happen with much regularity (a 9+ CQ check only happens 1/3 of the time for most ships). Shooting blindly at a stealthy ship should be an act of some desparation - making it a special action limits the other actions the ship can take (i.e. launching/recovering fighters, running away through jump points and so on) so there is a downside to attempting it.
Limiting the number and type of dice you can throw out makes it much less potentially nasty, but still potentially worthwhile.

Basically you have a choice - attempt to fire weapons normally, and risk getting nothing, or attempt to fire weapons non-normally and potentially get a few shots off. Exactly how you'd set the CQ check I don't know. A 9 is too high (you may as well take a 5+ check against stealth). A 7 is a bit too low, IMO (you succeed more than half the time).

 

[Burger]

a special action which requires a CQ check. This means it's not automatic (so it wont make stealth completely redundant). It also means that it wont happen with much regularity (a 9+ CQ check only happens 1/3 of the time for most ships).

So, we're back to all or nothing... well actually, half or nothing!

 

[Alexb83]

Well, all or nothing, or half or nothing... but if you made it a guaranteed action, you could be really hamstringing the Minbari.

The only real benefit of the SA I can see is out at extreme ranges (20 inches +). Since when you get closer it becomes easier to hit stealthy ships anyway. Also, against lower stealth (4+ and 3+) ships, you may as well try and shoot normally.

I just wonder at how easy to make it... a 7+ CQ check would mean you could get half dice on a nominal roll of 4+ (or for certain fleets, 3+ - which is fair enough). That would make it effective vs. 5+ stealth ships, and so worthwhile.

The way I see it, it adds another weapon to your arsenal. You choose between getting all your dice 1/3 or 1/6 of the time at your long range, or half of your dice half of the time. I consider that a fair trade.

 

[katadder]

theres already an SA that helps bring stealth 5 ships down to 4, you need scouts for it. then with fighters you can bring it down further with another SA to 3s. then get within 8", prob use another SA, APTE and you need 2s to see it

 

[Alexb83]

Yes, but this is two SAs, halving the number of times it's effective. It also requires you to spend FAPs on fighters and on scouts. We're talking about giving options to those with none of the above, and I'm trying to think of ways to balance it such that it's worthwhile to do it, but not /too/ worthwhile.

 

[captainsmirk]

The minbari had been using Sharlins for centuries by the time of the E-M war, they could very easily have had some ships that used to belong to the military cast but were given to the worker cast when a better newer warship was built. those second hand ships might not have had the newest stealth systems, or even if they did, may not be representative of the sort of ships the worker cast was allowd to build for themselves or the religious cast.

I think we are confusing the way the Warrior caste works to much with how a human military works. The warrior caste has no control over what the Worker caste builds. The worker caste has control over what the warrior caste gets...

Theres no corporate interaction like in human miltary contracts. If the worker caste refuse to work the warriors get nothing, so its in their interest to keep the workers happy (not the Relgious caste of course...).

Anyway what about after the Vorlons have gone, they can obviously build more White Stars (see new Gunship, Carrier, etc) so why not fit them now with no one to control them. Considering how much of everything in the game derives from B5wars initially, I still go with the making them too powerful in game argument...

Nick

 

[Target]

If it was up to me i wouldn't have range modifers on stealth, if range doesn't effect weapons ability to why would effect stealth.
I'd also probably give all Mimbari ships 5+ stealth but that would mean redesigning all their ships but that wouldn't such a bad thing. Give a patrol lvl ship eg Torotha drop the Tinashi down to skirmish just so they have skirmish ship, around in the last shadow war and it's the smallest model.
I'd would prefer either the bulkhead or stealth save to SA as thats what they are trying to represent by the failed stealth roll and wouldn't let them do crits either.

Always thought stealth was bad word to describe it anyway. The way i understand/ think it works is that that they put out so much electronic noise that it disrupt the enemies sensor's but deafening them. The EA knew we the mimbari were around but just couldn't get a proper weapons lock. They were able to detect mimbari emissions just not pinpoint them.

 

[Burger]

I'd also probably give all Mimbari ships 5+ stealth

What about Minbari ships?

 

[Target]

I'd also probably give all Mimbari ships 5+ stealth

What about Minbari ships?

I don't know why i do that, i do it all the the time. Minbari can have 5+ stealth as well.

Another thing i think should happen is all races should have scout ships and a carrier or two even the ancients just have races like EA specialising in carriers.

 

[captainsmirk]

Always thought stealth was bad word to describe it anyway. The way i understand/ think it works is that that they put out so much electronic noise that it disrupt the enemies sensor's but deafening them. The EA knew we the mimbari were around but just couldn't get a proper weapons lock. They were able to detect mimbari emissions just not pinpoint them.

Which is why the B5wars Jammer always sounded better...

Nick

 

[Commador Q]

I think we are confusing the way the Warrior caste works to much with how a human military works. The warrior caste has no control over what the Worker caste builds. The worker caste has control over what the warrior caste gets...

Theres no corporate interaction like in human miltary contracts. If the worker caste refuse to work the warriors get nothing, so its in their interest to keep the workers happy (not the Relgious caste of course...).
Nick

but it is also in the best interests of the worker cast to keep the military cast happy (for obvious reasons), so they may have volintary protocolls regarding the construction of military grade hardware.

anyhway back on topic:
i say the best way to make stealth less of an all or nothing is to make ignoring stealth much more difficult but the protection granted by stealth less effective as well.
that's the idea behind my stealth save idea.


personally i don't like the bulkhead hit idea because it completely eliminates criticles against a stealthed ship. i like the posability of a lucky shot, doing signifigant damage to a stealthed ship.

as for the special action idea, the spray and pary is ok, but i'm not sure if it's a perfect fix. (though i think something like this should also affect dodge roles). this is probably the easiest idea to implement.

as for the idea that all weapons need 6s to hit and loose all tarits except beam, i don't like it because i think there should be some level of difference between geing hit by a lucky shot from a powerfull weapon and a lucy shot from a weak one.

 

[Target]

Also thinking about the Run Silent SA.
Maybe Ship can't fire, Stealth and Interceptors don't work. If you want to target them it's an opposed roll. Fail and can fire at them. Scouts can give you +1 to the roll , Fighters APTS can give you +1 just like stealth.
Further than 10" away gives the silent ship +1 to it's roll. Even to take it a step further a friendly scout can mask the ship or itself CQ 9 test to give another +1.
People might use this as the old SA is crap.

 

[Target]

Maybe ships should have a penalty to speed as well, just had visions of a squadron of Vorchans running silent up a flank of fleet.