Strange Damage Control

[Scipio]

Isn't it strange that patrol level ships seems to have the same resources to repair system failures due to critical hits as a war or armageddon ship for example?

One would think that a Warlock for example should have more and better educated repair teams and engineers and a lot more spare parts availible than for example a Hermes transport?

However as it is now a Hermes is just as capable of repairing system failures just as much and as quickly as a Warlock for example.


Why not add one die for each PL up of the ship? A battle level ship would have 4 dice for example.
Perhaps the difficulty should be increased to success on 10+ instead of 9+

Beside the fluff reasons also what I'm looking for is yet another way to somewhat mitigate the effect of swarm-fleets being much more resilient to crit-effects than bigger ships.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

A Hermes also has a lot less to repair - smaller engines, less weapons, etc. The real problem is that the larger ship takes criticals just as easily as a Hermes in the first place.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Aye, the fundimental problem here is that an Armageddon level ship like the Ka'Bin'Tak is JUST as likely to lose all its weapons or its engines or whatever as a Tethys, a ship that is worth a tiny fraction of its value. 1 AD is just as likely to completely cripple either ship. A Tethys more than likely can FIT inside an engine of a Ka'Bin'Tak

This does not make sense.

 

[Foxmeister]

Aye, the fundimental problem here is that an Armageddon level ship like the Ka'Bin'Tak is JUST as likely to lose all its weapons or its engines or whatever as a Tethys, a ship that is worth a tiny fraction of its value.

The KBT is actually *more* likely to lose it's engines than a Tethys because a -4 speed crit will knock out the engines on a Ka'Bin'Tak, whereas it wouldn't even drop a Tethys to less than half speed.

Regards,

Dave

 

[snubby]

"Aye, the fundimental problem here is that an Armageddon level ship like the Ka'Bin'Tak is JUST as likely to lose all its weapons or its engines or whatever as a Tethys, a ship that is worth a tiny fraction of its value. 1 AD is just as likely to completely cripple either ship. A Tethys more than likely can FIT inside an engine of a Ka'Bin'Tak

This does not make sense."

One forgets that the weapons in this universe are nasty things, and ya one might receave a critical hit that might take out all the weapon systems of one facing but it probably will not destroy the ship. One forgets that most things that hit these smaller ships that crit will destroy them.

The comment about better trained crews is not allways going to be true, one may have the more gifted people in the larger ship but then there are also more "flunkies" in the ship also, and larger ship also means takes longer to get to that issue to be repaired.

 

[David Anla Shok']

Another thought, a larger ship should have more redundancy. The "6", unfixable crits should, perhaps, be repairable.

 

[l33tpenguin]

One forgets that the weapons in this universe are nasty things, and ya one might receave a critical hit that might take out all the weapon systems of one facing but it probably will not destroy the ship. One forgets that most things that hit these smaller ships that crit will destroy them.

The comment about better trained crews is not allways going to be true, one may have the more gifted people in the larger ship but then there are also more "flunkies" in the ship also, and larger ship also means takes longer to get to that issue to be repaired.

nah, I'm fully aware of how deadly weapons in the game are. But the fact that a single 1AD weapon will be just as likely to cause the same catastrophic effect on one ship as it does on a ship several (hundred?) thousand times it's size is just folly.

now, I like the idea of crits and all. I just don't like how big ships get critted out of the game. More often than not, the hulls with a large amount of damage points end up floating wrecks before they are 1/2-2/3s of the way through their damage table. What good is that ship to you anymore? And I'm not talking crazy awesome chain crits. I'm talking average run of the mill number of crits.

The whole issue ALSO makes swarms that much better. If swarms weren't a problem enough as they are. When a war level ship sucks on a crit, it's impact is 8 times what the impact is on a swarm Skirmish swarm fleet of the same value.

 

[katadder]

most the crits are not too bad. I think move crits should be a percentage though rather than a set number as a -4 crit isnt going to effect a bluestar as much as a KBT.
the problem with percentages is people dont like to do maths but s simple 25%, 50%, 75% adrift system would probably work.

 

[Foxmeister]

most the crits are not too bad. I think move crits should be a percentage though rather than a set number as a -4 crit isnt going to effect a bluestar as much as a KBT.
the problem with percentages is people dont like to do maths but s simple 25%, 50%, 75% adrift system would probably work.

I definitely agree that move crits should be percentage based - the fastest moving ships are barely affected at all by a -4 speed crit and can largely shrug off all move crits apart from adrift - not so the slower ships.

I would also drop "No Damage Control" entirely, and amend "No Special Actions" to disallow all special actions except for "All Hands on Deck".

Regards,

Dave

 

[Target]

Have everything repairable.
Our version of All hands to deck still needs a CQ test but can repair crits the turn they have happened. Works well for us.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Here is a possible fix!

Ship specific crit charts!

 

[locarno24]

It certainly gives you the potential to solve the balance issues - albeit by introducing a whole new set of balancing acts to get right - but it doesn't half result in flicking back and forth in the rules a lot....

 

[David Anla Shok']

Here is a possible fix!

Ship specific crit charts!

Oh, goodie. Dozens of charts to pick apart. My joy is boundless ;>

 

[Court Jester]

Or how about a seperate crit chrt for each PL. And also simlify the crit chart to be a single d6 roll.

 

[Da Boss]

I thought about that but the ships can be soooo different even within a PL

ie Explorer - White Star - T'Loth - Leshath...............

I suppose you could list types of ship but again it could be annoying having to find the correct chart and oh dear used the wrong one etc...........

It would be an intersting exercise but not sure it would help......

 

[Burger]

When I play, it is usually the player who inflicts the crit that reads out the extra damage/crew and critical effect, while the other player marks it off on his sheet. It just speeds things up (assuming you trust your opponent to read it out correctly and vice versa). So making the crit dependent on the target (even if the ship or PL-specific crit table were printed on the ship sheets), it would slow the game down for me.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Here is a possible fix!

Ship specific crit charts!

Oh, goodie. Dozens of charts to pick apart. My joy is boundless ;>

See, thats where you can make it easy. Just add the ships crit chart to the ship stats. Once burger, et al. adjust their ship viewers with new crit charts right on the ship cards then there is NO extra flipping. The crit chart would be right there for you.

Actually, as I just made a crit chart for an Omega, REALLY the only thing, or at least the BIGGEST thing, that would be needed would be a chart for the speed crits. For the most part the others aren't as affected.

This makes it even easier to fix. Just list the speed trait with crits.

Omega
Speed: 7/6/5/3

White Star
Speed: 15/13/10/6

Ka'Bin'Tak
Speed: 4/3/2/1

 

[David Anla Shok']

Here is a possible fix!

Ship specific crit charts!

Oh, goodie. Dozens of charts to pick apart. My joy is boundless ;>

See, thats where you can make it easy. Just add the ships crit chart to the ship stats. Once burger, et al. adjust their ship viewers with new crit charts right on the ship cards then there is NO extra flipping. The crit chart would be right there for you.

Actually, as I just made a crit chart for an Omega, REALLY the only thing, or at least the BIGGEST thing, that would be needed would be a chart for the speed crits. For the most part the others aren't as affected.

This makes it even easier to fix. Just list the speed trait with crits.

Omega
Speed: 7/6/5/3

White Star
Speed: 15/13/10/6

Ka'Bin'Tak
Speed: 4/3/2/1

This all violates the K.I.S.S. rule......

 

[Foxmeister]

Actually, as I just made a crit chart for an Omega, REALLY the only thing, or at least the BIGGEST thing, that would be needed would be a chart for the speed crits. For the most part the others aren't as affected.

So why not a simple percentage (25%, 50%, 75% etc) rounding down, but to a minimum of 1?

Regards,

Dave

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I'd prefer a percentage based system. If you stick to multiples of 25% to keep things simple, I doubt you'd even need to worry about rounding - I think most people can cope with the idea of moving 1/2 an inch.
Combine proportional damage effects like the above with a system to cuts down on the number of crit effects that larger ships take, and I really do think that we'll be most of the way to fixing the swarm problem even without making a pigs ear of FAP.