Tactical options

[McKinstry]

We've noticed that either way against large drone or plasma concentrations, game tactic choices tend to get very restricted within 18" with IDF by far in the majority followed by Boost Shields and the odd APE or Evasive.

Personally I see little value in Boost Shield over IDF as an active defensive measure. The average ship can essentially nullify two AD (big ones 3, small 1) whereas on IDF, most can take out twice that number (at least) hitting the fleet. I only use Boost to restore shields on a ship not expecting a heavy beating or that has plenty of others on IDF around them within range when they are a prime target.

Has this been others experience?

 

[archon96]

Ive also noticed the advantage to idf, i still think plasma tend to die a bit too easy compared to FC. I was convinced that boost was the way to go against drone chuckers and plasma users but i am now convinced that IDF wins the day.

 

[storeylf]

As I've pointed out before IDF gets better as fleet size increases and boost shields gets worse, as far as seeker defense goes, that's just obvious.

Plasma interaction is more complicated than just how 'easy' it is to shoot down, I personally think that plasma tends towards the over powered end of the scale, but that there are wider issues with the way it works as I noted elsewhere. The possible changes I was musing over there would make IDF less obvisusly useful, and better allow for more use of other actions when facing mass plasma (but not affecting drones).

Drones are not as bad as plasma for the IDF need if you are playing 'historical' matchups, as drone defenses tend to be decent in those cases, and the 3 ship limit restricts the amount of drones that can hit any given target. I do, however, think that drones should run out like ADD, but be reloadable. That would see drones reduce in power as the the game goes on until they spend an action reloading them.

 

[billclo]

however, think that drones should run out like ADD, but be reloadable. That would see drones reduce in power as the the game goes on until they spend an action reloading them.

That's a brilliant idea. Have the firing ship roll one die for each drone fired, regardless of whether or not it locks/hits a target. Any roll of a "1" reduces drone ammunition by 1, just like it works with the Fed Combined Drone Rack. If you want to reload to original capacity, you have to use a "Reload Drones" special action (which has no real penalty power-drain wise other than to use up your special action for that turn).

 

[Ben2]

The thing is that you'll have to reload some racks after turn 1 if your unlucky. If you're going to do that you may as well individually track ammo.

 

[storeylf]

The thing is that you'll have to reload some racks after turn 1 if your unlucky. If you're going to do that you may as well individually track ammo.

You will have to track drones like you track ADD/Fed racks already.

If I'm a klingon with 1 AD drone then I might run out after turn 1, but I won't 'have' to reload, would it be worth it?

If I'm Kzinti with 4AD I might drop to 3 AD after turn 1, I could reload to get back to 4AD, but I could equally just accept I'm at 3AD for now. I might then drop to 2AD, but again I could carry on or I could reload back to 4AD.

The point being that the drone heavy empires are now presented with a bit more of an interesting dilemma, do they fire now and risk having less drones next turn?

I can't launch drones ad-infinitunm to reduce the enemy ship from ADD2 to zero, and keep tying up his phasers at full strength and forcing the enemy into IDF, I now have to consider that by the time I run out the ADDs I will also be lower on drones, and might have 3 ships with 3AD instead of 4AD. I can't just keep tying up phasers continuously with full drones volleys whilst killing him with disrupters/phasers. My drone weight will diminish and at some point I need to spend an action reloading, which may not be the best choice in the middle of a battle. The enemy will get breaks from having to defend against them so heavily.

In the SFU ships simply don't get to constantly lob out drones, the enemy ships only has to defend against them for so long before the drone ship is hitting issues reloading or just plain running out.

If you wanted to make the game closer to FC you would not use a reload action (but that seems more conceptually correct) you would make it a damage control action, every point rolled above 8 reload 1 AD. As in FC you are then left deciding whether to repair critical systems, or reload drones.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I don't know, interesting idea but I'd think that could weaken Fed ships badly against some empires since they'll possibly lose Drone/ADD capability firing in either mode and Kzinti could be gimped pretty badly if you were unlucky with your dice rolls.

I think they work fine as they are, but I'd consider Ben2's post and track ammo instead if you want to limit drone fire rather than using the ADD method, perhaps going with 4 shots and no reloading since standard FC racks have 4 (in comparison ADD racks have 8, which can quite possibly be emptied in 1-2 turns if being bombarded by several ships just like in ACTA).

 

[McKinstry]

If you wanted to make the game closer to FC .....

I don't really want it closer to FC or SFB but rather just ACTA with an SFU veneer. FC is still too complex for big battles.

That said, record keeping (or adding an SA/chit) is sometimes the simpler alternative to adding a complex or convoluted rule or process.

I would rather get clarity on the existing ADD rule, whatever that turns out to be, have the Kzinti released and see a ton of games played with that most drone heavy of fleets and see where we are two to three months after the Kzinti show up in a bunch or games and tournaments.

 

[Da Boss]

A much more simple change if such as things is desired would be just to use the old slow-loading weapons trait - so they only fire every other turn but don't require a SA to reload. No ammo tracking etc just half the shots fired.......

I am not sure either way - seems a shame to me however that the SFU seemed to go drone crazy so half the Empires have loads of Missiile ships rather than concetrating on their own weapons systems and keeping them more individual.... but thats an outsiders view I guess.

 

[storeylf]

More than half the empires don't use drones at all, and unless you introduce fighters only the kzinti really go missile crazy.

Though that was my first thought when I first played SFB decades ago - where the heck have these drones come from on Fed/Klingon ships.

Barring fighters, Drones are no ones primary weapon system in the SFU, so tone them down and the game will become more like what you are saying. Even Kzinti have drones as seconadry systems, the numbers makes them different to klingons, but they still pack disrupters and phasers as their main weapons.

 

[Da Boss]

Thing is the new Klingon Scout is a big drone user - 6 tubes on it and there seems to eb other ships in the pipeline

 

[Captain Jonah]

It is doable to build Drone heavy fleets for all the Drone using races. The Klingons and Fed will be getting Drone Cruisers and the Kzinti get some Drone Bombardment ships with even more than the usual 4 Drones.

Current three ship limits plus one scout means you are looking at 16-20+ Drones against a single target in a turn.

Shield boost is a waste of an SA. If you can do all power and get that chance to out run a drone or have lots of friends go IDF. Of course all that happens is that if you don't make the IDF and the cruiser next to you does it dies instead of you.

All the fun of Drone users :roll:

Anyway as we stand so far the Kzinti, Klingons, Feds and soon to arrive Orions use Drones, lots and lots of Drones if they want to.

The Romulans and Gorn don’t nor do the Tholians but they are hardly a main race at present. Some time away the Hydrans and Lyrans will arrive who also don’t use Drones.

Did Matt say something about lots of Orion ships soon?

That would put us in the situation where there would be six fleets available of which only two do not use Drones.

We will have to see what the end result if of the scout rules reviews. If scouts can trim back Drones a lot we get to live. If scouts are nerfed because the Drone races complain too much then the Drone heavy fleets built around Drone 4 or 6 ships will be back.

Its pure numbers. IDF on your fleet to try and stop the fact that half the enemy fleet is hitting one of your ships with 16+ Drones each turn, APE to escape and another ship becomes the target for all the follow up salvos (remember you declare SAs when you move so if you are suddenly hard to hit this will happen before firing).

 

[storeylf]

What players can do by 'abusing' the selection of ships and what empires in the SFU are supposed to be,and the fleets they would actualy field, are seperate problems. Unless you include fighters/carriers only the kzinti were really major drone users and even they use them as a secondary system in straight up fights. The feds and klingons had drones as mainly minor nuisance weapons. Drone cruisers are supposed to be rare ships in the SFU, but that doesn't stop players taking lots of them, you can't blame the SFU for that though, that is down to rules on fleet selection or players just min/maxing.

Empires not using drones:
Gorn
roms
ISC
Lyran
LDR
Hydran
Vudar.
Tholian

That is just the main SFU region (I'm not into all the other quadrant stuff).

As noted before, Shield boost is a waste of time, once a certain battle size is reached. In very small battles Shield boost is better than IDF hands down. Shield boost is a constant factor defense, I get the same extra defense vs drones whether it a 1 ship battle or a 20 ship battle. Obvioulsy therefore it becomes increasingly useless as the battle gets larger, even more so than that factor alone indicates, as there is an increasing chance that someone will roll really low and therefore have diddly squat extra defense.

The defense provided by IDF on the hand increases proportionally with battle size, at 20 ships you will have 10 times more ships on it than with 2 ships on average. Though in practise you have to account for how many of those ships will be targets and not actually provide any defense to others, though that can be controlled to some extent by the player himself via ship positioning and ranges.

Clearly there are complicating factors, shield size affects shield boost, number of phasers per ship affects IDF as does phaser arcs etc.

 

[archon96]

I didnt think you could reload ADD or drone tubes that go to 0.

 

[storeylf]

I didnt think you could reload ADD or drone tubes that go to 0.

You can't, that was just something I was pondering over (having drones run out and allow reloading them).

 

[Da Boss]

I thought you could if it was a Plasma D?

 

[storeylf]

I thought you could if it was a Plasma D?

Plasma D being neither drones nor ADD, which is what I was responding to, though yes you can use Pl-D as an ADD and then reload, but that is more a function of it being a plasma with the reload ability.

 

[Da Boss]

Doesn't Plasma D work like ADD but cna be reloaded.

Like I said would not the slow-loading trait make drones more managable?