Tankdriver
Banded Mongoose
I like the Battletech initiative option. That was how I was initially going to play before sticking to the rules to prepare for all those tournaments I never seem to be able to make.
Swarms
- Thread starter Locutus9956
- Start date
CZuschlag
Mongoose
I have no major objections, either; this suggestions maintains the balanced firepower curve. Because it would be crew-dependent, it does not adversely overvalue ships with self-repair, as self-repair never replaces crew. You could even introduce an interesting racial balance feature for races such as the Narn (in future editions --- no way it could be balanced in time for 2e) that they onlyhave them take effect at 1/4 of original crew (this would make the T'Loth a beast; indefinite crit resistance!).
The only ships it would hurt would be the few Dilgar Mass Drivers who won't see slow/parked targets as soon as they used to. Like those things ever got to fire anyways; not a big deal. Give me two extra Torpedoes or Bolters or 2-4 dice of even Energy Pulsar and you'll more than rebalance for the Mass Drivers (as is). Scatter pulsar would even be good!
The ships this would help disproportionately are those that the special actions were unusually brutal to; those dependent on boresights. I'm thinking Drazi, Narn, and a lot of 3rd Age EA. I'm not sure this is a big deal, except on the Ka'Tan and Ka'Tocs. Maybe the new Firehawk/Fireraptor (that thing is NASTY!) too. Otherwise, it's not enough for me to care.
Operative 6678's amendment to Phoenix's suggestion get a lot of my support, at least, for the present rules/1e.
The only ships it would hurt would be the few Dilgar Mass Drivers who won't see slow/parked targets as soon as they used to. Like those things ever got to fire anyways; not a big deal. Give me two extra Torpedoes or Bolters or 2-4 dice of even Energy Pulsar and you'll more than rebalance for the Mass Drivers (as is). Scatter pulsar would even be good!
The ships this would help disproportionately are those that the special actions were unusually brutal to; those dependent on boresights. I'm thinking Drazi, Narn, and a lot of 3rd Age EA. I'm not sure this is a big deal, except on the Ka'Tan and Ka'Tocs. Maybe the new Firehawk/Fireraptor (that thing is NASTY!) too. Otherwise, it's not enough for me to care.
Operative 6678's amendment to Phoenix's suggestion get a lot of my support, at least, for the present rules/1e.
It would just need a new threshold added eg Vorchan 15/10/5
to 15 hits. Starts taking crits when reduced to this score & crippled on 5 (should be 3 but thats a whole other topic thats been thrashed to death) Vorchans :evil: .
The score could be different depending on the ship. Maybe T'Loths would have a far higher score than average & so on.
to 15 hits. Starts taking crits when reduced to this score & crippled on 5 (should be 3 but thats a whole other topic thats been thrashed to death) Vorchans :evil: .
The score could be different depending on the ship. Maybe T'Loths would have a far higher score than average & so on.
Huh? Well the 2e crit table I am looking at might well be a fairly old one, but overall it is quite a lot worse than the 1e one...Triggy said:
Engines: pretty much the same
Reactor: 1, 2, 3, 4 worse, 6 different (better or worse depends on the ship)
Weapons: yes 5 and 6 are not so bad unless you happen to be Drazi, Vree, ISA, Vorlon, Shadow......
Crew: 3, 4, 5, 6 are all worse
Vitals: 5 and 6 are worse
The easier repair rolls are a good thing for big ships, though.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
The main difference is that there is no one crit that will take out all of your weapons, which semed to be the one that deterred may people from taking a big ship in a game.
That's a fairly distressing list Burger.
So we're still seeing the lose one arc at least, not sure what the other 'worse' ones could be.
I don't know...still seems the game is likely to be an overblown exercise in crit fishing. I've been in to many games where a lucky crit or two decided the whole thing, whether through loss of movement (critical for the bore folks) loss of guns or just plain freakish amounts of damage (looking at you here multiplier weapons). At this point I'm getting to the point I'd like to see the 6-6 you just die crit back as at least everyone then had a crit that just killed available...no single damage weapons getting a 6-6 and the opponent shrugging.
Sigh...I was hoping too...teach me to be stupid...
Ripple
So we're still seeing the lose one arc at least, not sure what the other 'worse' ones could be.
I don't know...still seems the game is likely to be an overblown exercise in crit fishing. I've been in to many games where a lucky crit or two decided the whole thing, whether through loss of movement (critical for the bore folks) loss of guns or just plain freakish amounts of damage (looking at you here multiplier weapons). At this point I'm getting to the point I'd like to see the 6-6 you just die crit back as at least everyone then had a crit that just killed available...no single damage weapons getting a 6-6 and the opponent shrugging.
Sigh...I was hoping too...teach me to be stupid...
Ripple
CZuschlag
Mongoose
Burger's almost spot on here; in my experience, the Precise of the beams makes up for the fact that you eat a disproportionate amount of crits due to the lower hull values that the GEG is supposed to compensate for (but against crits, it doesn't).
The Light Raider is the only exception, as it is primarily only good for crit-fishing. However, if all beams get upgraded to the same "AP"ness, this enhances the LR's formerly weak, flimsy beam, thereby partially (or completely .... I don't know) rebalancing it.
What it is harmful for is that --- folks keep forgetting about Drakh! -- we're primarily a 1-arc race, too. Raiders are the core of the Drakh concept; even at War level, the point isn't the War ship, it's the Raiders carried; skill kinda out of luck with the new chart.
The Light Raider is the only exception, as it is primarily only good for crit-fishing. However, if all beams get upgraded to the same "AP"ness, this enhances the LR's formerly weak, flimsy beam, thereby partially (or completely .... I don't know) rebalancing it.
What it is harmful for is that --- folks keep forgetting about Drakh! -- we're primarily a 1-arc race, too. Raiders are the core of the Drakh concept; even at War level, the point isn't the War ship, it's the Raiders carried; skill kinda out of luck with the new chart.
Using the rule that you don't take crits till half damage will add another factor to the game, in that you will have to target a ship specifically to drag it down to the half damage before firing the ships with precise weapons.
The alternate where the special effects don't occur but the damage and crew does happen would keep the crit fishers happy as they will rapidly bring ships down to the point where crit special effects happen.
This is supposed to be a simple rule that is easy to implement to counter the massive effect that criticals have on large ships, I think it does it fairly neatly across the board. Fleets that are supposed to have tougher ships normally have more damage (narn) so will still have that benefit, precise weapons are slightly less effective but if you use the second alternative they are still fairly devastating. Especailly if the high damage criticals are present on the second edition tables, making it quite feasible to cripple a ship with a lucky shot, it just turns out to be easier to totally knacker a ship once it has taken a beating rather than being pristine.
The alternate where the special effects don't occur but the damage and crew does happen would keep the crit fishers happy as they will rapidly bring ships down to the point where crit special effects happen.
This is supposed to be a simple rule that is easy to implement to counter the massive effect that criticals have on large ships, I think it does it fairly neatly across the board. Fleets that are supposed to have tougher ships normally have more damage (narn) so will still have that benefit, precise weapons are slightly less effective but if you use the second alternative they are still fairly devastating. Especailly if the high damage criticals are present on the second edition tables, making it quite feasible to cripple a ship with a lucky shot, it just turns out to be easier to totally knacker a ship once it has taken a beating rather than being pristine.
If you make a straight half hits points thing it counts against a lot of hull 6 ships eg Nova vs Chronos or T'loth would become an absolute beast.
You either need a seperate stat eg redundancy or have a consequence of ignoring the crit like more dam or something. Maybe either take the crit or take d6 dam multiplied by if it's a DD, TD or QD.
The way we have house ruled the way we do crits is the consequence is you become skeleton crewed real fast. Thats a real bitch espicially when you are in Octurion or something. NO SA & only 1 wpn firing. Time to run for the edge & hope no one takes out your engines.
You either need a seperate stat eg redundancy or have a consequence of ignoring the crit like more dam or something. Maybe either take the crit or take d6 dam multiplied by if it's a DD, TD or QD.
The way we have house ruled the way we do crits is the consequence is you become skeleton crewed real fast. Thats a real bitch espicially when you are in Octurion or something. NO SA & only 1 wpn firing. Time to run for the edge & hope no one takes out your engines.
yeah but your house rule you use your redundancy on SAs too which is crazy as why would you lose crew pulling off an SA?
and i would prefer to take crits than use you way of stopping them. most peoples complaints is some of the big crits completely stop a ship firing so want redundancy, your way Target makes them even more fragile and ends the game even quicker.
and i would prefer to take crits than use you way of stopping them. most peoples complaints is some of the big crits completely stop a ship firing so want redundancy, your way Target makes them even more fragile and ends the game even quicker.
The rule I have made is intended to protect ships with large amount of damage from random criticals at the very begining of a game. The main problem I have seen is that a good game can be wrecked by a lucky shot on a capital ship at teh begining of the game.
Lucky shots should be part of the game, but it heavily rewards fleets that have lots of ships over fleets that have chosen a couple of big ships to the extent of making the game unbalance and as a result people become reluctant to take the big iconic ships purely because a single shot can take them out of the game.
I've played games against capital ships and seen them out of the game on the first turn after taking a scrtach from a fast escort ship that took out all of fire control, it's then just a very expense scenery item. Yes it's nice to have it happen once in a while but it occurs far to often.
By ignoring the special effects of criticals before you get to half damage it allows the ships to be used as they would be, i.e. flying in ignoring the little ships and targetting the other capital ships. Currently the last thing you would do with a capital ship is ignore the escort ships as they have a better chance of crippling you due to the number of shots they can fire not the damage they do.
Lucky shots should be part of the game, but it heavily rewards fleets that have lots of ships over fleets that have chosen a couple of big ships to the extent of making the game unbalance and as a result people become reluctant to take the big iconic ships purely because a single shot can take them out of the game.
I've played games against capital ships and seen them out of the game on the first turn after taking a scrtach from a fast escort ship that took out all of fire control, it's then just a very expense scenery item. Yes it's nice to have it happen once in a while but it occurs far to often.
By ignoring the special effects of criticals before you get to half damage it allows the ships to be used as they would be, i.e. flying in ignoring the little ships and targetting the other capital ships. Currently the last thing you would do with a capital ship is ignore the escort ships as they have a better chance of crippling you due to the number of shots they can fire not the damage they do.
If you can repair all crits that helps a lot. The No Damage control crit is pretty silly as well. We also modified to make the all hands to deck SA fix crits done that turn as well. If you know you are going to be trouble sometimes it pays to take All Hands to deck instead of damage save.
The trouble with going half the damage score is a T'Rann or similar ship becomes nearly impossible to beat at Patrol lvl.
There definately needs to be a consequence to avoiding a crit. Maybe a good way is to have a redundancy score based on hits. 1 redundancy for every 20 hits. That would give the T'Rann/ T'Loth 3 & Primus only 2.
The trouble with going half the damage score is a T'Rann or similar ship becomes nearly impossible to beat at Patrol lvl.
There definately needs to be a consequence to avoiding a crit. Maybe a good way is to have a redundancy score based on hits. 1 redundancy for every 20 hits. That would give the T'Rann/ T'Loth 3 & Primus only 2.
Locutus9956
Mongoose
Its not that I have a problem with swarm fleets its that as it stands theyre a no brainer over big dreadnoughts and that makes the game a bit dull. The one should be equally as valid as the other. As I said originally though it was just an idea to play about with 
Personally I think the redundancy idea is a great one that should have been in from the start but Im not holding my breath...
Personally I think the redundancy idea is a great one that should have been in from the start but Im not holding my breath...
Redundancy seems fine...but the idea of there being 'consequences' for avoiding a crit makes me wonder if you would actually be avoiding anything.
Lots of little ships just throw way more dice than the big ships. This leads to not only the crits being more concentrated on the big ship, but there are just more of them total. So if you take a -1 ad (which Matt said is cumulative at one point...so you can easily run out of heavy weapons), a -4 speed, no SA say...your pretty degraded, and have no way of improving your chance to repair or repair multiple crits. Or say lose one arc...front...and the no damage control hit.
The best thing about redundancy was it stopped the combos cold until your redundancy ran out. Phoenix's idea about no crits til half dead does the same thing...slightly different mechanic. both handle the lucky crazy effect better than monkeying with the table. You want those crazy effects late in a game because it keeps both players in it til the end...even if you getting torn up you can get lucky. you don't want them early in the game where it can basically kill the game dead before you even get into it.
Not slammin' targets ideas....just know they have enough house rules not sure the game is really comparable.
Ripple
Lots of little ships just throw way more dice than the big ships. This leads to not only the crits being more concentrated on the big ship, but there are just more of them total. So if you take a -1 ad (which Matt said is cumulative at one point...so you can easily run out of heavy weapons), a -4 speed, no SA say...your pretty degraded, and have no way of improving your chance to repair or repair multiple crits. Or say lose one arc...front...and the no damage control hit.
The best thing about redundancy was it stopped the combos cold until your redundancy ran out. Phoenix's idea about no crits til half dead does the same thing...slightly different mechanic. both handle the lucky crazy effect better than monkeying with the table. You want those crazy effects late in a game because it keeps both players in it til the end...even if you getting torn up you can get lucky. you don't want them early in the game where it can basically kill the game dead before you even get into it.
Not slammin' targets ideas....just know they have enough house rules not sure the game is really comparable.
Ripple
CZuschlag
Mongoose
The consequences of avoiding a crit is one way to make this make sense -- you'd like crit rolls to still mean something. That's part of why Phoenix's idea makes sense; it does mean something, all you're doing is postponing the critical.
Makes for some interesting decisions on special actions, as well. When do you give up your special action for a turn to try to clear up pending crits with an All Hands on Deck? Maybe All Power to Engines to disengage for short periods of time to clear crits before they start to really hurt?
Fighters also then get an additional threshold role --- find the ships with the crits near the threshold and make those crits real. A mission fighters would be good at!
It also allows you to make some of the nastier special effects a reality, because (some of the time) they can be managed before they really hurt. An example might be Can't Turn Right or Can't Turn Left criticals (I'm still surprised the 1-6, 2-6 Engine criticals aren't like that).
Makes for some interesting decisions on special actions, as well. When do you give up your special action for a turn to try to clear up pending crits with an All Hands on Deck? Maybe All Power to Engines to disengage for short periods of time to clear crits before they start to really hurt?
Fighters also then get an additional threshold role --- find the ships with the crits near the threshold and make those crits real. A mission fighters would be good at!
It also allows you to make some of the nastier special effects a reality, because (some of the time) they can be managed before they really hurt. An example might be Can't Turn Right or Can't Turn Left criticals (I'm still surprised the 1-6, 2-6 Engine criticals aren't like that).
