Tournament pack rules updates

[Soulmage]

Just got through reading the rules updates in the tournament pack. Interesting. . . .

Here are a few thoughts I have. . .

Flank speed: Tournament pack version provides less of a benefit than my version (1" vs. 2") but also has no restriction on turning. Power-wise I think its probably a wash. . . but I think I prefer my version since it makes using flank speed a much more tactical decision.

We also felt that you shouldn't be able to flank if you had engine criticals or were crippled. Doesn't appear to have that restriction in the tournament pack version.

Attacking:Implemented DM's house rule (which I also stole) about +1 to hit within 10" and secondaries not taking the -1 for fast moving targets. I like this and think it made sense. I gave the 10" +1 benefit only to secondaries, but this way does make it simpler. Good change here.

Torpedo Belts:Addressed the issue of torpedo belts not working from forward or aft. Not a huge concern for me, but O.K.. The roll a die for each hit and apply torpedo belt effects on a 4+ seems a little cumbersome to me though. I think I will adopt the forward and aft rule. . . but just stick with my -1 to torp DD rule instead.

WeakNow allow weak weapons to critical more lightly armored ships. Again though, seems like the rule is a little harder to keep track of. I am all about simplicity whenever it improves ease of gameplay w/o sacrificing fun.

We've playtested my house rule on this pretty extensively at this point and it seems to be working very well. I think we will stick with mine. My house rule does require a slight change to the way damage is calaculated, but it works very well.

Torp ReloadsSure. I guess this prevents circling destroyers from infinite torp damage. Never have found it to be much of a problem. . . especially with my modification to Flank Speed. But O.K. I am all for closing rules loopholes that allow exploitation.

Observation AircraftExcellent. Observation aircraft on the table were a big pain to take care of. My own rules proposed an "off board" system as well and I think this is definitely the way to go. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I'll be interested in seeing what they came up with. Maybe they will just use my rules.

SmokeNot sure I understand this rule. How can smoke apply range penalties when it blocks line of sight? You can either shoot, or not. I must be missing something here.

Night FightingSeems a little on the complicated side to me. I do like the star shell rule. Radar I'm not sure what to make of it. Do only ships that have in service dates of 1943 or later get the advantage. . . or does every ship with radar get the advantage so long as the game date is 1943 or later (they were upgraded with the new radar systems.) Overall I think I will adopt the starshell rules. . . maybe the spotlights. . . but stick with my base rules for night fighting to eliminate spotting rolls and such. Well. . . maybe. . . have to give this some more thought.

 

[Sturmgrenadier]

Not having a copy of the rules in front of me, does radar allow you to shoot through Smoke?

Obs Aircraft no longer on the table?
Damn, and I just bought some Walrus's too...

 

[MongooseMatt]

WeakNow allow weak weapons to critical more lightly armored ships. Again though, seems like the rule is a little harder to keep track of. I am all about simplicity whenever it improves ease of gameplay w/o sacrificing fun.

Well, none of this has gone into OoB yet, so feel free to discuss. The above rule in particular I fought with the playtesters over, primarily because it breaks the simplicity.

So, opinions?

 

[Soulmage]

Here's the approach I took. Its a unified approach to damage that doesn't require any special critical rules for weak weapons. After I lay out the rules, I will explain the why's.

Resolving Damage
To resolve damage, compare each damage dice roll (with modifiers) against the armor value of the target.

If the modified roll is LESS THAN the armor value of the target no damage is inflicted.

If the modified roll is EQUAL TO the armor value of the target 1 point of damage is inflicted.

If the modified roll is GREATER THAN the armor value of the target, 1 point of damage is inflicted and the target also receives a critical hit on a second roll of 5+.

A natural roll of 6 always causes at least 1 point of damage (but not necessarily an auto crit chance as under the current rules). A natural roll of 1 is a dud shell that causes no damage.

This approach has several advantages over the RAW or the proposal outlined in the tournament pack:

Advantage 1 - Simplicity.
Using these damage rules means no special critical rules are required for Weak weapons. The Weak special rule simply says "This weapon takes -1 to all DD rolls." Simple, easy, effective.

The result is that Weak weapons must roll fairly high to score a critical against lightly armored targets, and cannot score a critical against heavily armored targets at all:

Armor________Weak Weapon DD Roll to Possibly Crit
__2+__________________4+
__3+__________________5+
__4+__________________6+
__5+______________Cannot cause crits
__6+______________Cannot cause crits

Advantage 2 - Scaling
Under the current rules, every weapon has exactly a 16 2/3% chance of causing a critical on any given DD roll. . . . regardless of the size of shell or the armor value of the target.

Adopting this approach means creates a dynamic critical environment where the relationship between the size of the shell and the target's armor value interact to determine the likelyhood of a possible critical hit. AND YET. . . the system is still very simple and easy to work with on the fly. Like normal, you just figure out what roll you need to cause damage, and everything over that is a possible crit.

Advantage 3 - Balance
Our playtesting has shown that by increasing the critical confirmation roll to 5+, the number of ACTUAL critical hits scored under this system is neither excessive, nor deficient. Even though there are more chances to cause critical hits. . . fewer of them get confirmed. . . but people do have fun rolling those confirmation rolls.

Advantage 4 - Flavor
This mechanic creates a flavorful feel in terms of hits that "penetrate" the target's armor, vs. those that cause only superficial damage.

 

[Soulmage]

I thought I'd break my detailed comments up into several posts for ease of reference. . .

Flank Speed
In our opinion, the various special actions should always involve a tactical decision as to which would provide the most value for any given turn. There ought to be several choices competing for the captain's selection. Making those tough calls is part of what makes the game fun.

Unfortunately, even with the proposed modifications to Flank Speed, it is still almost always the best choice for the Captain to make. Possibly even moreso because there are now no drawbacks associated with it and it most cases it will grant the defender a significant defensive bonus. This really marginalizes the other special actions.

That is why we proposed that the flank speed rule read:

Flank Speed!
The ship gains +2 to its maximum speed for the phase but it may not make any turns. You cannot use Flank Speed if you have any current engine criticals or if your ship is crippled.

Again, this approach has a few advantages to it:

Advantage 1 - Fun
This rule increases the fun of the game by increasing the tactical decision making required by the captain/admiral. The speed, and more importantly the defensive bonus provided by the action is certainly very valuable. However, it comes at the expense of flexibility in manuvering. That is a difficult call that will have to be weighed each time it is used. Making those calls is part of the enjoyability of any game system.

Advantage 2 - Increases engine critical value
If your dice are anything like ours, it seems we score engine criticals MOST of the time. With the rules as written (or proposed) this results in some inward groans frequently since engine criticals seem much less severe than others - and so very common.

Taking away a ships ability to flank speed definitely makes those criticals more valuable and rewards the shooter with more of a feeling of accomplishment.

Advantage 3 - It feels right
It seemed wrong to us that a ship that has suffered severe engine damage should still be able to manage a significant burst of speed. Restricting this special action when the ship has engine damage or is crippled "feels right."

Additional Note: I've seen a lot of discussion on these forums about the current Flank Speed rule and how unrealistic it is that these ships could miraculously add 50% to their movement.

If you make Flank Speed +2 inches, I don't think an additional 6 - 10 knots is TOTALLY outside the realm of possibility for short distances and periods of time. In fact, I was just reading some information on Jutland the other day, and it seems that during the Run to the North if I recall correctly, several Germand Battleships were significantly exceeding their official top speeds in pursuit of the Brittish.

. . . and ultimately its a game with the intended purpose of having fun. +50% speed is a little "out there" but +2 inches. . . not so much.

 

[Soulmage]

As a corollary to Flank Speed, another special action is worthy of discussion.

Evasive Action
Just as Flank Speed increases your movement. . . zig-zagging and dodging all over the place should reduce it. Therefore, we suggested the following wording for Evasive Action:

Evasive Action!
The ship takes a –1 penalty to its maximum speed (to a minimum of 1). All successful to-hit rolls against your ship must be re-rolled and you must re-roll all successful hits against enemy ships. You may not launch torpedoes in a turn where you have taken Evasive Action.

You cannot take Evasive Action if your rudder is damaged.


This slightly differs from the version in my house rules document. I have modified it after seeing the proposed rules.

This special action provides a significant defensive benefit that should come with accompanying costs. The loss of speed makes sense from a logical perspective. . . and I love the idea of not being able to launch torpedoes while you are zig-zagging port and starboard.

I had originally thought about eliminating the bit about your own hits requiring re-rolls. . . but gave some thought to what that would mean. Basically all your battleships would hang out in the rear of you battleline and take evasive action every turn. . making them nigh on unkillable. So I think the to-hit penalty needs to stay in addition to the speed reduction.

The rudder damage issue adds a little more severity to the vital systems crit, as well as making sense from a logical perspective.

Edit: Edited Evasive action to only a -1 speed penalty based on feedback in this thread.

 

[Soulmage]

Critical Damage Tables
Our group has made a few tweaks here that have had a salutory effect on gameplay. Just a couple I'd like to draw to your attention are:

Weapons 6 - Magazine Explosion
Currently, this critical means that the ship cannot fire any weapons for 1d3 turns.

There are a couple problems with this:

Problem 1 - If a major ship is unable to fire for 1d3 turns, that can result in a decisive impact on the outcome of the battle. Really. . . it can be huge. For that reason, we recommend moving this result to Vital Systems 4 - Fire Control. Makes logical sense and keeps this result in the "really nasty" category.

Problem 2 - As written, this critical doesn't reflect the fact that magazine explosions historically did HUGE damage to the ship on which they happened, and were the cause of many sinkings/explosions. For that reason, we recommend that Magazine Explosion be changed to the following:

Magazine Explosion
+2d6 Damage
+1d6 Crew
A random turret is destroyed, or the ship looses 1/2 its Secondary attack dice if it has no turrets. 1d6 fires start.

Thus, this critical result destroys the associated weapons systems - as it would in real life - and does significant damage to the rest of the ship - possibly sinking it in extreme cases.

A second critical result worthy of discussion is -

Vital Systems 2 - Rudder
Currently, this critical cannot reproduce some historical results since it is always exactly the same. We suggest changing it to the following:

Rudder
Roll a second die:
1-2 Ship may only turn left
3-4 Ship may only turn right
5-6 Ship may not turn.

Finally, there is the issue of crew loss. We have not found this EVER to be a concern. . . even when using a house rule that 1 damage point = 1 crew lost.

After some time, we decided to drop the tracking of crew altogether. Fires instead have the potential of doing further damage to the ship.

This requires a few minor changes to the critical table which I outline in my house rules file. The core change to fires is simply this:

Fires
Use the following rules for handling fires during the damage control phase.

Roll a command check for EACH fire. On a 7+ the fire is extinguished. On a natural roll of 1, re-roll the die. The fire causes a critical hit on a 5+.


This approach ensures that fires remain a threat to the ship. . . and can actually cause subsequent damage such as magazines cooking off several turns after the initial damage if damage control is not effective at containing the fire. Nice and flavorful.

Additionally. . . since the critical confirmation roll is a 5+ this is consistent with the critical confirmation roll for weapons and is easy for people to remember.

 

[Soulmage]

O.K. I promise to shut up after this one.

Night Fighting & Bad Weather

The major issues confronting these two rules are that

1 - They have somewhat complicated spotting rules and create more bookkeeping.

2 - Just applying a negative modifier to To-Hit rolls reduces the fun of the game by dragging things out and reducing the effectiveness of everybody's ships.

Still, we want these to have an important effect on the game. Therefore, we have been trying the following:

Bad Weather
Bad weather has the effect of reducing visibility and effective range for ships in the storm/fog. When the bad weather rule is in play, at the start of each Initiative Phase roll 2d6 + 10. That is the maximum distance in inches in which ships are able to see one another.

Ships beyond that distance are considered to be out of line of sight and may only be targeted by ships equipped with radar that choose to fire blind. (see the rules for Radar below.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

The random visibility range roll at the start of each turn is simple, yet it has a profound impact on the game and can add a layer of unpredictability. Those German ships might come sailing out of a fogbank one turn to blast the English fleet, only to dissapear into the gloom on the following turn. Very flavorful IMO. (We will get to the radar issue below.)


Night Battles
During night battles, visibility is automatically reduced to 10”. Ships beyond that range are normally out of line of sight and are unable to be targeted.

Any ship that fires weapons other than torpedoes receives a visibility counter. That ship may be targeted normally by other ships until the end of the turn.

- Insert star shell rules

Note that in cases where there is both bad weather AND night rules in effect, the bad weather rule may still prevent a ship firing its weapons from being spotted.

Ships equipped with radar may try to hit ships hidden by the night by firing blind. (See the rules for Radar) below.
------------------------------------------------------------

This rule simplifies the whole who can see what issue. A lot fewer rolls are required and it avoids the fun-killing associated with penalties to hit.

I liked the proposed star-shell rules. Those could easily be worked into this approach.

I am not sure that separate rules for spotlights are required. Here is why:

1. We are granting visibility out to 10". Therefore we can perhaps assume that ships are using spotlights on nearby enemy ships when it makes sense to do so.

2. Any ships that actually shoot (taking advantage of that 10" visibility) gain a visibility counter until the end of the turn (that makes them visble to all ships). Therefore we can assume that between spotlights and gunfire, ships are making themselves visible as well.

We don't necessarily need additional rules to say exactly when ships are using spotlights or not. The normal night visibility rules address it.

On a related note. . . . a new Radar rule is helpful in interacting with this new approaches:

Radar
Ships equipped with radar may “fire blind” in bad weather or nighttime situations where they cannot see the target. In this case, ignore all the normal attack dice to-hit modifiers and instead apply a -3 modifier to the ships to-hit rolls. Damage dice are resolve normally.

Firing blind can also be used to shoot through smoke but taking the "Firing Blind" penalty.

German ships are still considered to have radar only in their forward arc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This makes radar a very valuable thing to have in adverse weather or lighting conditions.

If there is a desire to make radar valuable under ordinary circumstances as well. . . there is a rule for "splash markers" in my house rules that deals with multiple ships firing at the same target and hampering each other's shooting as a result of confusing shell splashes. (Ships with radar are immune to this effect.) But. . . I didn't know how much interest there would be in that rule outside our gaming group.

*whew* that was a lot of typing! I promised to shut up. . . and now I will!

 

[E Nicely]

All of those rules changes work well in play soulmage. If you want any kind of realism you need to add on to the rules. VaS games played with them don't take any longer than they did before. I was kind of surprised about you torp reloads comment. Most ships that carried torpedoes had no reloads and the ships that did had a very small number of them. Do you think they should have an unlimited supply?

 

[Scuzzlebutt142]

Quite like the look of the rules changes so far, though I can't comment on the Night fight, as we haven't tried them out yet. Haven't tried any of your house rules yet mage, but we've only had about 4 games.

Biggest two problems we've had in the game have been Torpedo Belts, and hitting destroyers.

For Torp Belts, best summed up in a game where the Sharnhost took 19 Torpedo attack dice from the British, which of those, 16 hit. I think in the end, from all those torpedoes, she took 4 pts of damage. Like the changes they've implemented here though, stops torp belts Making ships immune to torpedoes.

In our games, I don't think we've sunk a destroyer of any kind yet. The general approach we've used is that you flank up, making you need a 7 on a d6 to hit them, let rip with your torps, and run. What we were going to do is remove the -1 for going over 7, as this means you can actually hit them, though I quite liked someones rule that 8" guns and below and secondaries don't get the -1 modifier for shooting at fast targets. Not sure if the rules changes will help, with the rule affecting that only applying to secondaries.

 

[hegemon]

The only rule you made that i have a definate problem with is no turning while using flank speed, especially if you want it realistic.

a ship turns because the rudder is turned and causes a deflection in the water, going faster would just mean the turn angle is greater so maybe instead of no turns ships can only turn at the end of there move, or lose a turning point to a minimum of 1.

 

[Shadow4ce]

I was kind of surprised about you torp reloads comment. Most ships that carried torpedoes had no reloads and the ships that did had a very small number of them. Do you think they should have an unlimited supply?

I think what he meant in his comments on Torps was that only folks who exploit this and have opponents who don't care if they get torped every other turn need worry about this. (Soulmage, correct me if I'm wrong).

In the groups I've played with only new players allow a torp carrying ship to close within Torp range, and after one barrage of torps they tend to lay every gun they have on the offensive little minx to blow her out of the water! Most ships that carry torpedoes don't last more than 2-3 rounds once they get within torpedo range of the big boys, which also means they are usually now in secondary weapon range of said Battleship. There is something quite euphoric about rolling 36 damage dice from the Yamato on a Fletcher who is about 1 turn away from being in range to launch torpedoes. :lol:

Now, for your rules Soulmage...

• I absolutely love the rules for damage. Well thought out and logical. Was it you or David Manley who originally came up with these?
• Flank Speed, I like the Engine hits causing you to lose this, but feel the tourney +1 might be good enough enough over the +2. I definitely think a -2 to turn is overkill. 10 extra knots might cost a ship 1 turning point, but not 2 in my experience. (While I was not on WWII era ships, I have been on several modern ones, and they are more maneauverable than one would think. Pushing more water over the rudder actually helps it turn, but it also adds stress to the rudder, so I agree with a -1 with the engineering folks screaming bloody murder if you crank it hard to port while pushing the engines (knowing they're the ones who'll have to dive overboard and fix it later). I'll have to play it both ways and see how it feels. Either way is far superior to the 11 inch Fletcher Class attack runs, hehe.
• Evasive Action I'd say a -1 to speed would suffice. Ships are tough to slow down when they get going, even in erratic maneauvering. :wink: Love the rudder damage killing it.
• Critical Damage Tables
  • Weapons 6 - Mag Explosion: Love the damage change as it really did tend to tear ships up irl, but you lost me on the move it to Vital Systems 4 - Fire Control part. If you move it here, what happens to Fire Control crit, and what do you use in it's place if one rolls a 6 on Weapons?
  • Rudder is classic. Love it. Bismark anyone?
  • Fires. I still like the crew rules, but I do think fires should cause damage as well. I think it should cause a point of damage for every 2 fires and a chance of a crit 5+ crit for every fire, or a 4+ for every 3 fires if you play the 4+ crit rule.
• Night Fighting & Bad Weather. I need to try both yours and the new almost-official ones from the tourney packet to see which I like better. Both involve more record-keeping which is starting to bog down a game which it's best quality is pace of play and ease of understanding.

Matt, as for the rest of the rules per the Tourney packet:

• Moving - Been using this rule from the beginning. Thought that was how it was written in my rulebook, lol.
• Flank Speed - I vote for a combination of the Tourney rules and Soulmages
• Attacking - Perfect. Love it!
• Torpedo Belts - While it adds an extra die roll, this doesn't really slow the game and is much more realistic. Keep it this way. Although I do like DM's extra crit chance for all torp hits and the damage potential to the rudder and props if hitting the stern.
• Weak - While this is better than current RaW, I like DM's (or Soulmage's, not sure who came up with it first) just incorporate 6" and larger Weak's into the revised damage and crit chance. On secondary's, I'd go with DM's rules which are exactly what you have here, and I do like limiting it to only 1 extra point of damage or crew lost on crits for the smaller weaks.
• Torp attacks, tubes, & reloads - Love the evasive makes it too hard to fire rule. Not too many sailors could actuate the firing mechanism which for most ships was on the weapon tube itself, not in some protected room down below, and still keep from being thrown overboard during erratic maneauvering. I'll not even talk about aiming the device under these conditions, especially if the seas were rough as well.
  As far as the reloads and treat tubes as turrets go... These are perfect as well! Keep them.
• Observation Aircraft - There is a special place in hades for you for teasing us with Aircraft rules and not giving us more to go on! But as far as Observers go, yeah, they had to go away as written! Well done. Any chance we'll get a heads up on the rest of the aircraft rules between now and when the OoB comes out?
• Smoke - Like Soulmage, I too am at a complete loss as to what this means. Explain please.
• Night Fighting - Ugh! Massive amounts of new stuff to track. I like the idea of Starbursts, but the record keeping is gonna drive the wife and kids batty, to say nothing of the new players at demos. Perhaps Soulmage's adjustments here would add enough flavor and realism, yet keep the record keeping to sanity levels?

Things left out which need addressing:

• LOS - A big part of escorting convoys was putting oneself in harm's way. Escort ships should be able to take one for the carrier or the transport full of troops if a sub gets a shot off, or should be able to block the shot if it gets between the sub and the target. I like DM's LOS rules.
• 8" and smaller guns should be able to ignore the Fast Moving Target issues, as they were designed to attack them (some were even designed as dual-purpose weapons to attack aircraft as well. If it can track a plane moving in the hundreds of knots, then a 35 knot destroyer should be a piece of cake. Again, Mr. Manley has rules which allow 8" and smaller guns to ignore this penalty. Speaking of dual-purpose guns and aircraft rules... Teasing < Fun.
• Magazine Explosion Crit - see above as it should definitely destroy said turret.
• Fires - These definitely need to be threatening to more than just the men on board. To paraphrase a Sean Connery line in - The Hunt For Red October - "Many things on ships do not react well to fires!"

My 2 cents.

 

[Shadow4ce]

though I quite liked someones rule that 8" guns and below and secondaries don't get the -1 modifier for shooting at fast targets.

The only rule you made that i have a definate problem with is no turning while using flank speed, especially if you want it realistic.

a ship turns because the rudder is turned and causes a deflection in the water, going faster would just mean the turn angle is greater so maybe instead of no turns ships can only turn at the end of there move, or lose a turning point to a minimum of 1.

LOL, excellent Ninja Posts! Teach me to write a book. You guys beat me to it re: these parts!

 

[Soulmage]

Biggest two problems we've had in the game have been Torpedo Belts, and hitting destroyers.

Torpedo Belts

I like some of the proposed rules for torpedo belts, but think the extra die roll is unnecessary. To clarify on my comment earlier, I would suggest re-writing the torpedo belt rule to the following.

Torpedo Belt
Torpedoes striking this ship from the side suffer a -1 penalty to their damage dice rolls. Torpedoes striking the ship from the bow or stern are unaffected.


This makes torpedo belts useful. . . but not the virtual immunity they are now.


Hitting Destroyers

With some of the other modifications I've proposed, there will be fewer modifiers pushing destroyers into the "un-hittable" catagory. However, some means for hitting targets with a 7+ target score should still exist. We've been using the following approach for a while now and it has worked out well.

Rolling to Hit
When the target score of the ship you are shooting at is a 7+ or higher, use the following means to determine hits.

Reroll any dice that come up 6's on the first roll. On the re-roll consult the following:

Re-roll_____Result
__4_________7
__5_________8
__6_________9

This makes it possible to hit those high target number ships. . . but leaves it as an unlikely occurence.

 

[Soulmage]

Now, for your rules Soulmage...

• I absolutely love the rules for damage. Well thought out and logical. Was it you or David Manley who originally came up with these?

• 
  
  DM deserves the credit for the initial concept. I just refined it a little and saw the possible solution for the weak weapons issue.
  
  

  [*]Flank Speed, I like the Engine hits causing you to lose this, but feel the tourney +1 might be good enough enough over the +2. I definitely think a -2 to turn is overkill. 10 extra knots might cost a ship 1 turning point, but not 2 in my experience. (While I was not on WWII era ships, I have been on several modern ones, and they are more maneauverable than one would think. Pushing more water over the rudder actually helps it turn, but it also adds stress to the rudder, so I agree with a -1 with the engineering folks screaming bloody murder if you crank it hard to port while pushing the engines (knowing they're the ones who'll have to dive overboard and fix it later). I'll have to play it both ways and see how it feels. Either way is far superior to the 11 inch Fletcher Class attack runs, hehe.

  
  A -1 to the ship's turning score for that turn is a good idea that would work well. So the revised revised Flank Speed would be:
  
  Flank Speed!
  The ship gains +2 to its maximum speed for the phase but it suffers a -1 to its turning score. You cannot use Flank Speed if you have any current engine criticals or if your ship is crippled.
  
  
  I don't think a minimum of 1 is necessary. Ships that have only a 1 turn score will just not be able to turn while flanking.
  
  
  

  [*]Evasive Action I'd say a -1 to speed would suffice. Ships are tough to slow down when they get going, even in erratic maneauvering. :wink: Love the rudder damage killing it.

  
  Yeah, a -1 would probably be fine.
  
  

  [*]Critical Damage Tables

  • Weapons 6 - Mag Explosion: Love the damage change as it really did tend to tear ships up irl, but you lost me on the move it to Vital Systems 4 - Fire Control part. If you move it here, what happens to Fire Control crit, and what do you use in it's place if one rolls a 6 on Weapons?

  • 
    
    The Weapons 6 - Magazine Explosion critical becomes:
    
    Magazine Explosion
    +2d6 Damage
    +1d6 Crew
    A random turret is destroyed, or the ship looses 1/2 its Secondary attack dice if it has no turrets. 1d6 fires start.
    
    The Vital Systems 4 - Fire Control critical becomes:
    
    Fire Control
    The ship may not fire for 1d3 turns.
    
    The current wording of the fire control crit is dropped.
    
    

    [*]Rudder is classic. Love it. Bismark anyone?

    
    Yeah, that was my main inspiration.
    
    

    [*]Observation Aircraft - There is a special place in hades for you for teasing us with Aircraft rules and not giving us more to go on! But as far as Observers go, yeah, they had to go away as written! Well done. Any chance we'll get a heads up on the rest of the aircraft rules between now and when the OoB comes out?

    
    Here's what I came up with to keep observation aircraft off the table:
    
    Spotter Aircraft
    Ignore the rules in the book for spotter aircraft.
    
    Ships may not fire at targets at extreme range unless the ship is equipped with at least 1 spotter aircraft.
    
    Ships with more than 1 spotter aircraft may "loan" them to ships that do not have any spotter aircraft. Reduce the number of spotter aircraft on the donor ship by 1, and note the increase under the special qualities section of the receiving ship.
    
    Ships that are within 6" of a flight of allied fighter aircraft (CAP) may not be targeted using spotter aircraft.
    
    Critical hits against the “Aircraft” trait of a ship are assumed to have destroyed the communications gear that allows the ship to communicate with its spotters – making the spotter planes useless. Planes cannot be reassigned from one ship to another during mid-battle.

 

[Leadman]

Soulmage,

Let me start off by saying that I am one of the OOB play testers. I logged more than 500 hours of play testing the OOB rules before they were submitted to Mongoose. IMHO, not all of the rules were play tested adequately before OOB was submitted, so I have continued to test for another 200+ hours. I play tested with my local gaming group which has 6 hard core VAS players (we play every Saturday for 6-8 hrs and often on Wednesdays and Sundays) and a couple of more casual VAS players (who only play on Saturdays). We have tested the OOB rules in 1-on-1 2 pt Skirmish games up to 4-on-4 mega battles played on a 6’ by 12’ table where every player commanded a 6 pt War fleet. To test one version of the air rules, we had 22 carriers plus supporting escorts (over 100 ships) on an 8’ by 12’ table. I can assure everyone that most of the OOB new rules and changes have been thoroughly tested and tested again. OOB is a significant improvement over VAS. Had I not been asked to become a play tester, I would have quit playing VAS. While playability was great (simple mechanics, short learning curve, low cost to get started), the fleet lists were sadly lacking and the implementation of certain capabilities (such as flank speed) did not reflect the historical reality. OOB, while not perfect has done a lot to correct these issues. As a result, I am solid fan of the game and now own more than 500 1/2400 scale ships. I hope that people will give OOB a good work before they start saying “I looked at it but like my house rules better and here’s why …” And what follows is explanation that is not backed by any facts or historical data.

There are a couple of lessons that I learned from this play testing experience. First, debate is great for sparking creativity and causing one to look at an issue from a different perspective, but the proof is in the testing. Only testing will tell you if the rule or mechanism is working as intended. Once the rule is working as expected, it is necessary to test again to insure that something else didn’t get broken in the process.

Second, it is very difficult to walk the line among realism, playability, and balance. If you don’t get it right, the long term viability of the rule system is questionable. When there is a conflict, it is important for testers to understand which of the three traits takes priority and to what extent. For example, in VAS and OOB, secondary armament does not have firing arcs or different ranges for those ships that have more than one type of secondary gun. This has been done for playability’s sake at the expense of realism, and works great within the frame work of the rules. On the other hand, Flank Speed in VAS allows some ships to travel at 60 knots, and all ships to move faster than they actually could. It is difficult to call a game historically based when realism has been so badly ignored. In OOB, Flank Speed has been fixed. Not only is it more realistic, it is simpler thereby improving playability.

Here are my thoughts on the issues that have been raised:

Flank Speed: IMHO, this issue has been fixed correctly in OOB. Flank Speed represents the crew’s ability to coax a few more knots of speed out of their engines. In effect, they are “red lining” their engines. Italian builders were famous for doing this during trials because they got a bonus for more speed. There is no data to support the “suggestion” that ships couldn’t turn while moving at flank speed. I don’t think that historical capability should be thrown out the window and replaced with a rule that “makes using flank speed a much more tactical decision”. This is just plain old BS.

FYI, in the play testing we conducted, no special actions were allowed once a ship became crippled or went to skeleton crew.

Attacking: (I think he meant firing changes) I agree that the OOB rules are good. They also correct the “indestructible destroyer” problem that existed in VAS.

Torpedo Belts: This rule was changed shortly before OOB was submitted. It does work, but I agree that it is slightly cumbersome. The rule that we tested that I prefer was that one die is rolled for each spread of torpedoes fired at the beam of a ship with a torpedo belt. On a 4+ the entire spread hit the torpedo belt and its hits needed to be re-rolled. This was simple and easy to implement. Would it be possible to see the data on which the decision to reduce the DD by one was made? This seems to make torpedo belts much better than they were.

Weak: My reply to your concerns and how you have resolved them is going to be a very lengthy post. I will reply separately. I will state that there was a definite need and historical precedent for rules to be added that allowed 5” and 6” guns to do extra damage to lightly armored ships. This change needed to be made for most of us in my local group to keep playing VAS. The OOB rule IMO is simpler and easier to use than what you have come up with, but more in another post.

Torpedo reloads: The numbers set in OOB are historically accurate. Enough said.

Observation Aircraft: Historically, they did almost nothing. Their removal from the game is a great step forward.

Smoke: You’re right. You missed the boat. The range penalties are for ships with radar firing through smoke at targets they have detected. In other words, using radar to fire at detected targets through smoke is treated the same as ships using radar to fire at night. The smoke rules in VAS are subject to much abuse. OOB has helped reduce the abuse, but much more needs to be done. Unfortunately, the rules I have developed to fix the problem were done too late to make the submission and I would like to give them another hundred hours of play test before commenting further.

Night Fighting: I agree with you on a couple of points. Yes, without the right playing aids, night fighting can get complicated especially large fleet actions. I agree that you should spend a little more time thinking about whether or not to use the OOB rules. In fact, you might actually try a couple of games with the rules before you decide to scrap them.

Finally, I don’t agree with everything that was done in OOB. I don’t think any of the play testers do. But when the entire work is examined, there is no doubt that many problems were corrected, the game more accurately reflects actual performance, and new content is added, all while maintaining very good playability. This is a solid base from which to build should Mongoose choose to do so. Eric should be commended for getting several strong willed and opinionated volunteers to work together and directing the effort that produced OOB in a very short time.

Dannie

 

[SM]

As a fellow playtester I can fully agree with all of Leadman's points. Pre OOB, ,my view of VaS was a fun pick up game but poor on "reality" (and I have a pretty good idea of the reality of naval combat!). Now it is far closer to reality whilst keeping the advantage VaS always has (and should never lose) of playability. Discussions got quite frank at times but what we have meets the goals of "can you pick up the game and quickly play it" and "does it do a reasonable job of representing reality".

Stuart

 

[Ben2]

Flank Speed: I would stick with 1". This is for reasons of realism. 1" in Vicotry at Sea movement is 4 knots of speed. If you go flat out you might add a couple of knots of speed to the ships rated speed for a little while, but it isn't something you can keep up. The 50% was ludicrous, and meant a Gangut class (speed 5" in VAS, 23 knots historically) could go 7.5" (30 knots) with the flank speed Special Action. This just wouldn't physically be possible, even if you took the turrets off the hull (bear in mind some warships conducted their speed trials without their main gun turrets on the hull).
2" represents an 8 knot gain in speed. Again this just physically isn't possible. In ActA where ships move at the speed required by the plot and are powered by quantum bullshiton technology, you can do whatever you like, and believe me, there was an awful lot of hand waving technobabble toss thrown around in the development of B5wars due to conflicting info from the series and people with an enormous hard on for the traveller tech guides. We managed because it was science fiction. Some of this carried over into ActA, but thats another story.
However VaS is based in real life, and one of the big complaints levied at it was that elements weren't particularly realistic, and flank speed was one of them. By reducing the bonus given by the special action to a more realistic one, it solved one problem.
The other problem with a 2" bonus is a balance and gameplay one. I am primarily a player (nota bene, don't go hatin' on me cos I'm a playa) and there are a lot of ships that are speed 6", which is all War level ships, almost all cruisers and all battlecruisers.
If they can get a special order and gain 2" of speed then the are moving greater than 7" and all enemy fire against them is at a -1 penalty. Given this is now for no penalty when they return fire all ships with a speed of 6" will flank speed because of the free benefit they receive for doing so. This is unbalancing as well as being completely historically inaccurate.

The amendment you suggest to damage has a couple of problems (one being DM has AFAIK completely agreed with the OOB amendments and you are borrowing his original suggestion for amendment).
If you look at it superficially the only difference is that weak weapons can score criticals against battleruiser level armour (4+) as oppose to standard cruiser level armour (3+). However if you look at the other end of the spectrum at guns without an armour modifier (being neither weak nor AP) such as the 8" guns on many cruiser, the 11" guns on the German pocket battleships and the 12.6" guns on the older Italian battleships, they are unable to score criticals on armour 6+ ships unless they gain the benefit of plunging fire.
Critical hits represent more than just straight penetration. The engine criticals can represent rudder and turbine damage as well as engine room penetration, some of the weapon damage represents damage to AA and secondary weapons (which would be either mounted in barbettes or virtually unarmoured deck installations in the case of AAA guns), the bridge related criticals all relate to damage to the superstructure of the ship. It is only the 5 and 6 results on each table that you can take as specifically related to penetration of the deck or belt. Bear in mind some historical catastrophic explosions were caused by someone leaving the door open and fire spreading from the deck.
Because weak weapons represent a range from 3.7" DP guns to the 6" guns of light cruisers, and these historically did absolutely sweet FA against bigger ships, but destroyer and cruiser duels would often see criticals scored by such low calibre weapons, they rules were amended to facilitate engagements at this level. The Battle of the River Plate was a battle between three British cruisers (two light cruisers with 6" guns and a York Class) and the Panzerschiff Graf Spee (a cruiser with battlecruiser style main armament). It is not unrealistic for 6" guns to score criticals on the Graf Spee, but it is for them to score criticals on a ship like Repulse or Kongo.

If we adopted the amendment to damage ie if beating the armour score by more than one on a 5+ it scores a critical then it would lead to a statistical increase in criticals.

Example 1. Super AP va 6+ armour.

6 hits, distributed 1,2,3,4,5,6. Armour is reduced to 4+.
3 points of damage, two 33% chances of criticals

Normal system

6 hits, distributed 1,2,3,4,5,6. Armour is reduced to 4+.
3 points of damage, 1 50% chance of critical.

Example 2. No modifier vs 3+ armour

6 hits, distributed 1,2,3,4,5,6. Armour is 3+.
4 points of damage, 3 33% chances of criticals.

6 hits, distributed 1,2,3,4,5,6. Armour is 3+.
4 points of damage, 1 50% chance of critical.

The problem with the amendment you suggested is a large increase in criticals for all ships with armour lower than 5+ against all non weak weapons, all ships with armour lower than 3+ against all weapons, all ships with armour of 6+ against AP or super AP weapons.

In short criticals would happen far more frequently and shots against destroyers and cruisers would have a critical chance of 33% 50% of the time, instead of a critical chance of 50% 16.67% of the time.

At the moment criticals are quite rare, and statistically evenly spread regardless of ship type. The change suggested would increase the frequency of criticals for ships of battlecruiser size and smaller for virtually all weapons.

Regarding magazine explosion, the current damage chart relects a minor magasine explosion ie secondary armament or AAA ammunition. The main magazine explosion is the catastrophic explosion on the vital systems chart.

If we change the critical table at this point it does create a few problems. Namely at the moment it works fine.
At the moment the magazine explosion seems to represent a contained explosion (possibly dealt with by emergency flooding of a magazine, which explains the no fire for 1d3 turns). Losing a turret may be unrealistic, as if the main armament magazine went up then they were generally hoping there would be survivors rather than just losing a turret. Also 2d6 damage means it will on average cripple a cruiser, and I'm not sure losing a secondary magazine should do that.

The spotter aircraft rules have been basically dropped because they were unrealistic. While occasionally spotter aircraft were used for fire direction (the Second Battle of Narvik being a well known occasion, when a catapult launched Swordfish from HMS Warspite corrected fire onto the German destroyers, resulting in the loss of the Erich Koellner and two other destroyers, with a further 5 being lost to a combination of British destroyers, Warspite and scuttling to prevent capture) they were more frequently used to locate enemy groups that were not detectable by radar at that point, and to hunt submarines. A number of measures were used by various nations to correct main gun fire, including the rather interesting Japanese method of adding dye to the shells, and main guns on different ships having different colours, which meant American sailors would see giant plumes of coloured water erupting around them.
From a gameplay point of view the loss of spotter aircraft does pretty much nothing, as either both sides deployed them (cancelling each other out) or the side with air superiority deployed them and their opponent got screwed over.
Spotter aircraft were not realistic in the VaS rulebook, and added little to gameplay. Patrol aircraft have been introduced in OOB which can be used to represent catapult seaplanes, and their role is the far more hisorically frequent offensive role.

That should be a couple of points answered.

 

[Court Jester]

This all sounds interesting.

I am enjoying this thread (seriously it had been a great read so far).

 

[Ben2]

Basically changes have been thought about a lot. I'm happy to go into great detail about them if people want to hear it, and debate whether they are justified or not.

And Court Jester, have you thought about doing a thread on the aircraft you did for your VaS fleet, as aircraft will get a lot more popular when OOB comes out.