Suggestion for boresight/inisink problem solution

[Lord David the Denied]

Init sinking won't go away until the you-go-I-go turn sequence does. It really is that simple. If you want one you have to accept the other.

Of course, you can aggressively destroy the little bleeders. Most init sinking is done with low level ships that are poorly defended, so employ your fighters to hunt them down, use your own init sinks as hunter-killers, or just use the boresight beams you can't get onto something better...

 

[Ripple]

Which means enemy capitol ships are immune to primary fire because there is a haven or three sitting in a corner behind an asteroid field. Sure in three or four turns I can get over into the field to kill them, if they haven't planned for that and have a All Power escape route to drag it out a few more turns.

So there we are, five to seven turns into a twelve turn game, and my stormfalcon can finally engage your primus, which as has been wiggling in front of it all this time. Assuming my stormy is still there of course, and not scattered debris. Having to chase down small ships in bad locations allows my enemy to get behind me, where even after I kill his sinks, it will take me a couple of turns to come around to fight him. So I have three effective turns to try to kill his capital ships due to his hiding in a corner with a stack of two for one patrol hulls, in a game that is usually decided by turn five at the latest.

Weee-haaaa.

Changing the whole system isn't necessary to fix the bore sighted issue, just add something to the bore sighted ship that lets it fire. Follow that target sa does that, without adding anything unpaid for to the fleet, or prodding the sacred cows of ACtA.

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

It's just a band-aid fix for a meta-gaming exploit. That's not a solution, that's a sop to the people complaining.

I despise the entire idea of boresights anyway; the only on-screen evidence for it I recall is ignored (White Stars always dead ahead) and the on-screen evidence for it being invalid (Omegas and G'Quans firing off centre) is ignored. Scrap the whole concept and re-stat the fleets. Call it 3rd edition and sell a load more books.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

It does seem though that where possible, the Omega and G'Quan try to fire along their boresight. This would suggest to me that firing off of the boresight significantly weakens the beam strength. This would be equivilent to the idea of ships being allowed to fire boresight weapons at half AD as fore weapons. Improved focusing lenses would then be an upgrade that doesn't let the ship do anything new, just better.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

They can clearly only fire one beam or the other at a target not in a very tight arc dead ahead. Of course, that can't be achieved without re-writing the firing arcs we have, unless you let those ships fire at targets in the front arc with half AD. Which is then unfair to everyone else who can't do that...

See why I hate boresights?

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Or you could let all boresighted weapons fire at half AD in the fore arc, rather than insisting that it only be applied to the Omega and G'Quan. That way you don't need to worry about being unfair to all the other boresight ships out there.

Boresights easily have potential if people were to stop being so narrowminded about them.

 

[Star-Lynx]

Funny enough I argee with The lord here.

the other day I was watching no surrender, no retreat on my new tv (just for the great battle scene) and noticed that the whitestars were firing their neutron cannons boresight into the Omegas, while thinking back to scenes of the Omegas and G'Quans (blessed vessels of the great Regime) firing not at Boresights angles.

but I learned to deal with this and carry the game on regardless, Earth and Narn have ships that don't have boresight weapons which I would move first, its just the Drazi I feel sorry for.

 

[Grimbart_Kriegsaxt]

I have to agree with Lord David
Boresight within a system of you go/ i go is not very fair or to say it different.. will always have the problem of ini sinks.
At least i see no way around that. Except to hinder moving patrol/skirmish/raid lvl ships to move outside a squadron.. but that is not doable.

 

[akenatum]

Keep a ship in hyperspace and jump point bomb the living crap out of those havens hidding in a corner, or clean them up in the next turn after your jump point is done.


the problem with giving boresight weapons fore arc for half the ad just makes them more powerfull than normal for arc weapons. why can't our fore arc weapons get a bonus damage dice to fire in "boresight" then will just be the counter argument.


I still say the easiest way to deal with boresight is to give you a small angle toi fire on like a 5 (maybe 10 but that's pushing it) deggre one so if a ship strays into it then that ship is a vallid target, this shouldn't unduely over power boresight while still keeping them at minimised effectiveness.

And it wouldn't be hard to get a protractor and line a tape mesure up along the anges to see if something is in the arc for you to fire at.

 

[Sulfurdown]

Why do people insist that 50% off bore would be such a bonus & Fwd arc would then be at a disadvantage? From all I've reviewed 50%-bore tend to be well under same priority Fwd weapons. It ends up being under on the edges, over in the middle and therefore roughly average over the spectrum. edit, especially if it's framed in a telegraphing Raking set up requiring a boresight prior to the target moving and not just a 'willy-nilly' fwd firing.

 

[Ripple]

To those folks saying that initiative sinking will always be a problem for bore sighted ships, how do raking fire or the sa 'follow that target' not deal with it?

Both solutions basically allow a bore sighted ship to select a target during movement that it would logically have a chance to hit (ship in front of it that stays there), without changing anything about the alternating activations or sinking.

For those who favor raking fire, you have to look at the whole ship in question, four die beam for a skirmish ship with a 12 die twl system is kinda tough given its maneuver. (actually having looked at the darkner, maybe not, what's with the huge guns on these centauri)

Okay, stats aside, we've been told at some length that a number of ships got upgunned in the last edition due to the limitation of bore sight. We can go through the fleets and look at all the stats and re-test under raking, but there doesn't seem to be much support for that from the play test group.

You could be right, but it may just be sacred cow land. At least the 'follow that target' answer got some support from Triggy, which I took as at least a sliver in the door if we stayed on message. The SA fixes all the same issues that raking does, really requires no more book keeping (still have to mark who is targeting who) and doesn't lend itself to the easy counter argument that 'my primus wants more dice on bore too!'. Don't fight history if you don't have to...

There doesn't seem to be any real argument against the SA, so why pick a fight when you can pick a marketing campaign. Just need to get enough folks to buy in...

Ripple

 

[Burger]

It's just a band-aid fix for a meta-gaming exploit.

But who'd notice just one more

Count me in for "follow that target"!! It's not as powerful as raking fire, since it still has the limitation that B weapons must declare their target during movement - unlike F arc, who can choose their targets on the fly, depending on who is still alive, uncrippled, etc. The opponent can tell how much fire each ship is going to be taking, and take action accordingly (ie. fire that ship first before it blows!). So FTT retains more of the flavour of boresight, oh and can't split fire either...

 

[daishi]

I was also vote for the SA Follow that target
I like raking fire in idea cause it represents the flavour of the show but I think the SA FTT would be easier & a bit more limiting

 

[akenatum]

I suppose the follow that target special action is alright the raking fire thing to me just seems wrong... granted i was reading it at the wrong hours of the day though.

 

[GhostRecon]

Count me in for "follow that target"!! It's not as powerful as raking fire, since it still has the limitation that B weapons must declare their target during movement - unlike F arc, who can choose their targets on the fly, depending on who is still alive, uncrippled, etc. The opponent can tell how much fire each ship is going to be taking, and take action accordingly (ie. fire that ship first before it blows!). So FTT retains more of the flavour of boresight, oh and can't split fire either...

You have to boresight the target before you can use raking fire. Where is it said in the proposal for raking fire that you get a magic "forward" arc?

Again: For Raking Fire to work, the target has to be boresighted and declared so...

 

[Burger]

Ah, thats where the discussion had gone. Having read your summary on page 9, it seems OK. Only problem I can see is that you declare it when the enemy moves their ship, this is a bit contrary to the gereral ACTA turn sequence in which special actions are declared when you move your ship. So, maybe make it a standard special action. Then if the target stays in boresight, you still only get half your ADs... thats the risk you take.

 

[katadder]

raking fire sounds ok cos you dont move the ship and it effectively gives the same as FTT as in 45 degrees either way on arc as raking fire you do have to choose your target 1st.
with FTT do you only get it if you havent turned? otherwise it can effectively give your ship 2 turns that it wouldnt otherwise have had (especially lumbering omegas).

 

[Burger]

with FTT do you only get it if you havent turned? otherwise it can effectively give your ship 2 turns that it wouldnt otherwise have had (especially lumbering omegas).

Oh yeah, it is "save a turn for later", not "get an extra turn"!

 

[katadder]

cool, well thats ok then, hadnt read through all 11 pages so didnt know for sure

 

[Burger]

Yeah its got a bit long and messy as you can see from my misconception of raking fire

How about these proposals:

New special action: "Follow That Target!"
If you have an unused turn remaining at the end of your ship's movement, and obey all turning rules (eg. must move 2" between turns) then you may declare a target ship. At the end of the movement phase you must use your last turn to boresight that target. If the target has moved too far then you must turn as far as you can towards it, even though the boresight may not be lined up.

New special action: "Raking fire!"
If your movement ends up boresighting an enemy ship, you may declare Raking Fire. This means that, as long as the enemy ship ends its movement in your Front arc, you may still fire all Boresight weapons with half AD. Note you can only use half AD, even if the target remains in your Boresight.

Either would work, IMO. But then, I don't really have any problems with my Drazi just like they are