TJHairball
Mongoose
Over in my neck of the woods, we've noticed some issues with the pointing of ships, in particular in the Federation and Romulan fleets (as opposed to Klingons - I, as our resident Klingon player have seen reasons to take all ten of the ships in the fleet).
I, at this point, have been fiddling about with a spreadsheet full of formulae and looking at how one might systematically point ships in a way that works. I have a formula that looks reasonable to me, and amazingly - surprisingly, in fact, given that I came up with it before applying it to the Klingon ships - looked a lot like existing point values for the Klingon fleet and agrees with many of our intuitions (provided I haven't made data entry errors somewhere - I caught a few tonight), although gord314 may have some misgivings about the dreadnought values. Here are the modified point values I've proposed to my gaming buddies:
(Key: Name, New proposed value, old official value - copy and paste into a spreadsheet to recover formatting, it should work - it's tab-separated in the edit window, at least.)
Romulan:
KF5R 105 105
Battle Hawk 100 120
Snipe 90 120
Skyhawk 135 130
War Eagle 100* 140
KR 150 165
Sparrowhawk 160 170
King Eagle 170 175
Firehawk 200 225
KRC 230 230
Fasthawk 240 235
Novahawk 240 240
Royalhawk 240 240
Condor 285 305
KC9R 330 335
*Pointed on the basis that the "limited" R is half value, which is also about the same as putting the phasers at half value.
Klingon:
E4 80 75
F5 95 100
D6 150 150
D5 165 165
D7 160 170
D5W 185 185
D7C 205 200
FD7 190 195
C7 260 240
C8 295 345
As a Klingon player, I find these totally reasonable values... there are no ships in the Klingon list I'm not willing to take at these values, and I still don't feel like stacking multiples of any of the command ships given these point values.
Federation:
Callahan 85 85
Burke 95 95
Ramius 115 105
Ortega 120 120
DWD 130 110
Texas 135 130
Kearsage 150 160
Constitution 170 180
CC 200 205
Wolverine 200 180
Prometheus 175 185
Chicago 180 190
NCC 215 220
Manta 210 205
Kirov 265 240
BCJ 250* 215
BCF 255 240
Federation 290 315
DNF 280 310
*Pointed on the assumption that the two extra photon torpedoes are half value as a "limited" weapon. The BCH and BCF values are actually a bit lower than we had decided to put the Kirovs at as a house rule already (we'd been working with 270/245/265).
Although we haven't played much with the Gorn, Kzin, Orion, and civilian ships, I went ahead and plugged them in, and got some interesting-looking numbers. You might comment on these:
Gorn:
Carnosaurus 95 115
Ceratosaurus 120 120
Stegosaurus 135 145
Megalosaurus 135 175
Allosaurus 155 200
Allosaurus-Rex 180 225
Velociraptor 190 210
Epanterias-M 170 210
Epanterias-K 180 195
Albertosaurus 190 240
Tyrannosaurus-Rex 260 325
Doing these calculations has instilled in me a desire to never play the Gorn in any competitive match pointed with the official values, ever.
Kzin:
Frigate 100 120
Light Cruiser 135 150
War Destroyer 140 150
Medium Cruiser 155 160
New Heavy Cruiser 175 170
New Heavy Cruiser (Command) 210 195
Fast Cruiser 225 195
Battlecruiser 190 200
Battlecruiser (Command Variant) 215 225
Heavy Battlecruiser 240 245
Dreadnought 260 305
Orion:
Light Raider 115 95
Raider 125 125
Salvage Cruiser 170 150
Pointed using drones as the "variable" mounts.
Civilian:
Small Freighter 10 10
Large Freighter 15 20
Free Trader 30 25
APT 10 10
Armed Cutter 45 30
Heavy Freighter 35 30
Prime Trader 45 40
These were also pointed using drones for "variable" mounts where such existed. We had already identified the armed cutter as having a fairly silly point value.
Here's the basic idea. We take two components, a measure of offensive capability and a measure of defensive capability. We take the geometric mean of these two factors, or multiply them together and then take a square root; then we multiply by factors related to movement, and adjust for the presence of command.
The idea is simple - something with twice the firepower and half the durability is about as useful. Something with twice the firepower alone isn't actually quite half as useful. And two forces with similar total firepower and total durability are about even, give or take initiative sinking (advantaging small ships) and premature explosion (advantaging larger ships).
Here are the base values I used for "defensive" equipment:
Now, modify for movement and cloaking:
Thoughts?
EDIT: Somehow had the NCC's official point value off by five points. Fixed. Also, data entry errors on the Texas and Kzinti CL, both now calculate at 135 points; C8, data entry error, now calculates at 295 points. Battle Hawk, data entry error, 100 points. KR cruiser, data entry error, now calculates at 150 points. BCF, misread what the plasma torpedoes replaced, 255 points.
I, at this point, have been fiddling about with a spreadsheet full of formulae and looking at how one might systematically point ships in a way that works. I have a formula that looks reasonable to me, and amazingly - surprisingly, in fact, given that I came up with it before applying it to the Klingon ships - looked a lot like existing point values for the Klingon fleet and agrees with many of our intuitions (provided I haven't made data entry errors somewhere - I caught a few tonight), although gord314 may have some misgivings about the dreadnought values. Here are the modified point values I've proposed to my gaming buddies:
(Key: Name, New proposed value, old official value - copy and paste into a spreadsheet to recover formatting, it should work - it's tab-separated in the edit window, at least.)
Romulan:
KF5R 105 105
Battle Hawk 100 120
Snipe 90 120
Skyhawk 135 130
War Eagle 100* 140
KR 150 165
Sparrowhawk 160 170
King Eagle 170 175
Firehawk 200 225
KRC 230 230
Fasthawk 240 235
Novahawk 240 240
Royalhawk 240 240
Condor 285 305
KC9R 330 335
*Pointed on the basis that the "limited" R is half value, which is also about the same as putting the phasers at half value.
Klingon:
E4 80 75
F5 95 100
D6 150 150
D5 165 165
D7 160 170
D5W 185 185
D7C 205 200
FD7 190 195
C7 260 240
C8 295 345
As a Klingon player, I find these totally reasonable values... there are no ships in the Klingon list I'm not willing to take at these values, and I still don't feel like stacking multiples of any of the command ships given these point values.
Federation:
Callahan 85 85
Burke 95 95
Ramius 115 105
Ortega 120 120
DWD 130 110
Texas 135 130
Kearsage 150 160
Constitution 170 180
CC 200 205
Wolverine 200 180
Prometheus 175 185
Chicago 180 190
NCC 215 220
Manta 210 205
Kirov 265 240
BCJ 250* 215
BCF 255 240
Federation 290 315
DNF 280 310
*Pointed on the assumption that the two extra photon torpedoes are half value as a "limited" weapon. The BCH and BCF values are actually a bit lower than we had decided to put the Kirovs at as a house rule already (we'd been working with 270/245/265).
Although we haven't played much with the Gorn, Kzin, Orion, and civilian ships, I went ahead and plugged them in, and got some interesting-looking numbers. You might comment on these:
Gorn:
Carnosaurus 95 115
Ceratosaurus 120 120
Stegosaurus 135 145
Megalosaurus 135 175
Allosaurus 155 200
Allosaurus-Rex 180 225
Velociraptor 190 210
Epanterias-M 170 210
Epanterias-K 180 195
Albertosaurus 190 240
Tyrannosaurus-Rex 260 325
Doing these calculations has instilled in me a desire to never play the Gorn in any competitive match pointed with the official values, ever.
Kzin:
Frigate 100 120
Light Cruiser 135 150
War Destroyer 140 150
Medium Cruiser 155 160
New Heavy Cruiser 175 170
New Heavy Cruiser (Command) 210 195
Fast Cruiser 225 195
Battlecruiser 190 200
Battlecruiser (Command Variant) 215 225
Heavy Battlecruiser 240 245
Dreadnought 260 305
Orion:
Light Raider 115 95
Raider 125 125
Salvage Cruiser 170 150
Pointed using drones as the "variable" mounts.
Civilian:
Small Freighter 10 10
Large Freighter 15 20
Free Trader 30 25
APT 10 10
Armed Cutter 45 30
Heavy Freighter 35 30
Prime Trader 45 40
These were also pointed using drones for "variable" mounts where such existed. We had already identified the armed cutter as having a fairly silly point value.
Here's the basic idea. We take two components, a measure of offensive capability and a measure of defensive capability. We take the geometric mean of these two factors, or multiply them together and then take a square root; then we multiply by factors related to movement, and adjust for the presence of command.
The idea is simple - something with twice the firepower and half the durability is about as useful. Something with twice the firepower alone isn't actually quite half as useful. And two forces with similar total firepower and total durability are about even, give or take initiative sinking (advantaging small ships) and premature explosion (advantaging larger ships).
Here are the base values I used for "defensive" equipment:
- Add 1 point per hull point.
- Subtract 0.5 points per crippled value (higher crippled values are worse, since it means you're crippled earlier).
- Add 1.333 points per shield (shields prevent crits, so usually a point of shield is better than a point of hull)
- Add 4.667 points per 10 whole shields (assuming shields are on average regenerated once per match)
- Add 0.444 per point and 1.556 per ten whole points if the shields are Klingon double-front shields.
- Add 2 points per tractor beam.
- Add 5 points per point of anti-drone, and per drone for Federation ships.
- Add 1 point for everything else (each point of Marines, Transporters, Shuttles, random special traits aside from Orion stealth, Labs score, everything potentially useful in some scenarios but generally not effective as conventional weapons - it's a bit of a grab bag technique, granted, but seems appropriate).
- For Orions, multiply this total defensive rating by 1.2 for their stealth.
- Disruptors: 6.25 points per AD for 90 degree 15" disruptor. 10/15 points for 90/180 degree disruptors.
- Drones: 15 points per drone.
- Phaser-1s: 10/15/20/25 points for each AD of 90/180/270/360 degree phaser-1s.
- Phaser-2s: 4/6/8/10 points for each AD of 90/180/270/360 degree phaser-2s.
- Phaser-3s: 2/3/4/5 points for each AD of 90/180/270/360 degree phaser-3s.
- Photon torpedoes: 15 points per photon torpedo.
- Plasma-D: 8/12 points for 90/180 degree plasma-Ds.
- Plasma-F: 10/15 points for 90/180 degree plasma-Fs.
- Plasma-G: 16/24 points for 90/180 degree plasma-Gs.
- Plasma-S: 20/30 points for 90/180 degree plasma-Ss.
- Plasma-R: 60/90 points for 90/180 degree plasma-Rs. (This makes sense given the RoyalHawk/NovaHawk trade, even if it's steep.)
Now, modify for movement and cloaking:
- Add 10% of base value if the ship cloaks.
- Add 13.33% of base value if the ship is Agile Turn 3.
- Add 10% of base value if the ship is Agile Turn 4.
- Add 5% of base value if the ship is Turn 4 [not agile].
- Subtract 10% of base value if the ship is Lumbering (which covers everything worse than Turn 6).
- Add 20% of base value if the ship is Fast.
- Subtract 20% of base value if the ship is Slow.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Somehow had the NCC's official point value off by five points. Fixed. Also, data entry errors on the Texas and Kzinti CL, both now calculate at 135 points; C8, data entry error, now calculates at 295 points. Battle Hawk, data entry error, 100 points. KR cruiser, data entry error, now calculates at 150 points. BCF, misread what the plasma torpedoes replaced, 255 points.