Stealth rolls

[Locutus9956]

Stealth is NOT overpowered, whether a few specific Minbari ships ARE is open to debate but the stealth rule itself is not actually unfair. It IS however unFUN. Like many things in ACTA it is too reliant on a lucky roll or two.

I personally am still hugely in favour of some kind of stealth mechanic that DOESNT involve a dice roll. But I dont think its too GOOD, just too random currently

 

[Hash]

It does have one quality I actually like. It's a deterrant. When not ALL of your ships have stealth then the opponent (well at least me) is more likely to go for the non-stealth ship that has a definite chance of being able to roll attack dice.

Of course if you're fighting boneheads that really isn't the issue (unless it's a choice between shooting at a Leshath 20" away or a Tinashi within 8" say )

In general though I agree with Locutus, Stealth is balanced, it's just not very much fun to put all of your hope on the roll of a single die.

Burger - if you want to field a 5 Sharlin variant fleet we can do a demo vs. 20 scouts?

 

[Burger]

Burger - if you want to field a 5 Sharlin variant fleet we can do a demo vs. 20 scouts?

Do they have to be variants? I'd quite like to keep the 20 Nials

 

[Rawwar]

If you try it do us a battle report guys as it could be interesting.

:wink:

 

[Burger]

We won't be doing a battle: too boring game. I concede.

 

[Ripple]

Stealth can be both unFUN and unFAIR.

Burger drops out his example of shadows loaded down with combat capable, fast moving, sm maneuver scouts, almost literally a tailor made fleet for dealing with stealth. Throw the abbai out there and see if it works the same. Let's see, not getting in 8 easily above skirmish, scout that is patrol level and has neither weapons nor stealth, weak slow fighters... where exactly are the Abbai getting through the 5+... scouting for a turn or two, but not much beyond that.

This has been the major issue with stealth. It's not that their aren't answers, it's that the answers are not distributed evenly, some races virtually ignore stealth... others cannot deal with it at all.

the unfun has always been covered well... handful of die rolls determining a game.

Ripple

 

[skavendan]

Well my first battle against the minbari was weird I rolled aprox 17 Dice and didn't get 1 5+

When I did however I rolled that many beam hit's I totally crippled the ship and then the second ship destroyed it. 2 Shadow hunters taking out a sharlin

 

[Locutus9956]

I still disagree that its unfair. The point is even WITHOUT the reductions stealth isnt actually unbalanced in my oppinion it just makes everything too dice dependant (and is very very frustrating at times).

And its not just for the opponent either. When I play my Minbari I find myself relying less on actual strategy and tactics and too much on everything hoping that my opponents will be unluck and fail their stealth rolls.

 

[Burger]

And its not just for the opponent either. When I play my Minbari I find myself relying less on actual strategy and tactics and too much on everything hoping that my opponents will be unluck and fail their stealth rolls.

Yeah - if they fail them all, they have an unfun time. If they pass them all, you have an unfun time.

 

[skavendan]

while still being the same for the first ship regarding the roll needed this helps later things which kind of needs to be don anyway, stealth is just a little too powerfull espically when you all stop and nuke stuff till they come close.

Stealth seems too powerful, when you're new to the game. As you get experienced, it becomes much less of a problem.

Usually when I fight Hash, my Sharlin starts at 5+, goes down to 4+ because he is Shadows, down to 3+ because he can easily get within 8", down to 2+ because he has lots of scouts, and down to "automatic pass" once one of his scouts has hit me. Tell me that is too powerful? What can I do to prevent him doing that?

Sorry to annoy you burger but do you mean by your break down that you can "stact Scouting skills Vs a stealth ship" or that you hit meaning "fired at and successfully hit the target."

-1 for being a shadow, -1 for being in 8" -1 for scouting and then a sucessful hit against the target?

 

[Burger]

Both. -1 for being shadow, -1 for within 8", -1 for scouting, -1 for having already hit. So stealth goes from 5+ to 1+, which is an automatic pass.

 

[Ripple]

For stealth to be completely fair it would need to account for fleets that cannot lower it's score by being both appropriately smaller and weaker in firepower. The sharlin is neither, for example. At 5+ stealth, it should be half the size of other war ships, and perhaps that much lower in firepower, given 2/3 of the ships that fire on it would miss.

Given there are ways to lower stealth, but they are not open to all, any individual game cannot be balanced. Either you are too powerful, because stealth is assumed to be lowered (but is not in this case), or you are too weak because it is assumed to not be lowered, but is. Similar to the discussion that are taking place on dodge dependent races vs the recent profusion of e-mines.

The rock paper scissors effect is a bad mechanic unless you can always bring the full set to the table. But individual races are often based entirely on one set of the three, meaning individual games are unbalanced, sometimes disasterously so.

Ripple

 

[armbarred]

But Ripple, the 1st ship firing has a 2/3 chance. The 2nd ship firing it looking at 1/2, etc. And this is if you stay at range, with no Scouts or fighters to make it lower anyway.

Stealth is as good a mechanic as we can get, because one you get through it the ship will just go.

 

[Marco Raimeous]

But Ripple, the 1st ship firing has a 2/3 chance. The 2nd ship firing it looking at 1/2, etc. And this is if you stay at range, with no Scouts or fighters to make it lower anyway.

Stealth is as good a mechanic as we can get, because one you get through it the ship will just go.

I think you mean a 1/3 chance to hit a 5+ stealth, and the second (assuming you beat the odds and hit the 1/3) you now have a 50/50 chance of getting through stealth on that same ship.

I think apart from Shadows who have the perfect counter to Minbari stealth, all other races have serious issues with Minbari stealth, which compounds with the use of dust clouds as terrain. I personally believe that most fleets do not have a chance against Minbari simply because the combination of there heavy AD/ longer ranges and stealth makes it so that if you ever want to get within that 8" +1 umbella, you have to go through a lot of fire to get there.

I do agree that stealth as it sits now is just fine, but the stealth Minbari have is just over the top and too difficult to counter