Two newbie questions/clarifications

[Stealth7]

Greetings all...
Just some basic help/clarification needed.

1) Base 'to-hit' roll is 4+, and Phaser -1 is Accurate +2, which means it hits on a 2+ ?

2) Is the example provided for the Escalation table correct? For instance, when it says an Impulse Critical value of 1 adds +1 extra damage, my table, Crit value of 1 shows 0 extra damage dice. Similar for a Crit value of 2, it says add +3 extra damage. (?)

3) Lastly, I have seen a bit rolling around about Plasma being too weak, but it does appear that if a Phaser hits on 2+, then each hits negates 1 AD of plasma, most plasma is indeed useless. Am I missing anything here?

-Stealth7

 

[Greg Smith]

1. Yes, except at long range.

2. Yes. The example doesn't match the table. There is an errata.

3. If 3 or 4 plasma ships fire one ship, the target will run out of phasers pretty quick. Also It won't get to fire its phasers back.

 

[Stealth7]

Appreciated! New question. Ship 1 fires plasma at range, say 6. A phaser 3 is accurate +1 out to 4. Does the defending ship fire when the plasma is fired (range 6) or when its about to strike, basically range <4 ?

I'm for #1.

Ranges used as examples only as I don't have a book handy.

 

[storeylf]

The ship that the plasma ship shoots at fires at point blank range, as he is assumed to keep his phasers until optimal range. Ship on IDF shoot at the range they are to the ship they are defending.

PS plasma is actually very potent. Remember it is a fleet game, and whilst 1 ship can struggle to get many hits against 1 other ship, a plasma fleet has a staggering amount of crunch firepower. i dislike the 'feel' of plasma, but don't argue that it is somehow weak in terms of balance.

 

[Stealth7]

So, that being true, a ship with just a pair of defense Ph-3's has in 1/3 chance of taking down a Plasma F ? And, as these are war generation ships, nearly everyone has Ph-3s to spare.

 

[archon96]

This is my tactic as a gorn player. I watch which ships make their IDF roll they become priority 1. Unlike some people who will fire on a ship that hasn't fired yet I will stack up 2 - 3 ships on the one that rolled IDF. Burn out its defensive fire and then by ship 3 it gets a full load of plasma hitting it. Depending on the ship type and your multi hit rolls this ship usually disappears. Then on the next turn reload taking phasers only as your ship runs away.

 

[bcantwell]

A single F is not a threat - true. But which ship carries a single F. We played our first couple of games on Saturday. In the second my Gorn were able to use a moon's gravity well to overcome the abyssmal maneuverability of the Gorn DN and line up a Klingon C8 with the DN and an HDD at under 8". Even the C8's considerable phaser suite was still not sufficient to stop an R, 3 S, and 3 F torps. The C8 was gutted.

I'm sure I'll have a hard time replicating that feat as we get more adept at using the various options like IDF or high speed escape, but it was a glorious fusilade (from the Gorn point of view)

 

[storeylf]

So, that being true, a ship with just a pair of defense Ph-3's has in 1/3 chance of taking down a Plasma F ? And, as these are war generation ships, nearly everyone has Ph-3s to spare.

That's true (well actually 4/9 chance) . But 2 Gorn cruiser piling on an enemy cruiser will fire 24AD of plasma, and face losing about ~5 AD from that cruisers phasers (may be a bit more or less depending on ship, arc etc). That leaves 19AD of damage, or about 60+ damage. That's a dead cruiser.

It takes a lot of IDF or other actions to survive a plasma alpha. If they go for crew check actions then half will hopfully fail (for standard crews), so you can possibly pick on ships that nullify those actions. Some ships on IDF - hit them and they get no help from those that failed. Some ships on evade, hit those that are not etc.

Compare that to other heavy weapons, 2 cruisers photons will average 16 damage, or 32 if they manage to overload (bear in mind though the Gorn required no specific action to deliver their full firepower). Their leaks can hurt, but who needs leaks when you kill ships anyway.

Photons might get lucky and do more than that, but plasma has the benefit of doing massive damage fairly reliably - no 50/50 hit chances and roll lots of dice.

 

[Cpt. Justus Bela]

Greetings,

i have also one question...

1. A Attack-Dice rolling a natural (or also modified ?) 6 will ignore shields and go strait to the hull. So my question, will i lose one shield-point + rolling 1D6 on the Damage Table or just rolling 1D6 on the Damage Table


thx for your help

 

[scoutdad]

you just roll on the attack table.
If the hit bypasses the shields, then it bypasses the shields - no shield damage is scored.

 

[Lincolnlog]

you just roll on the attack table.
If the hit bypasses the shields, then it bypasses the shields - no shield damage is scored.

With the exception of seeking weapons which must take the shields down before bypassing and doing damage on the attack table.

 

[scoutdad]

Well... a seeking weapon doesn't roll an Attack Die to hit - so the 6 bypassing shields is a moot point.
:wink:

 

[Myrm]

....except at long enough range, then they roll...assuming the question poser has the errata and update

 

[Sneaky Scot]

Couple of questions related to criticals:

(1) I couldn't really follow the example of critical damage in the rule book. The implication seems to be that you take damage equal to the critical number, then extra damage as dictated in the appropriate row. So, if I am correct (and there's no guarantee that I am), if a ship takes a Dilithium critical then in addition to the point of damage it takes from a normal hit, it also takes one damage because that's the critical score, then an additional 0 damage because the row says so. If the dilithium critical score advances to 2, then the ship takes a point of damage for the normal hit, 2 points of damage for the critical score of 2, and one extra damage for the extra damage row. Is that correct?
(2) When conducting damage control, effects are repaired but not hull damage. So if I take a crew critical score of 1 which features a result of "-1 marine" would I get that marine back on a successful damage control roll? I suspect you shouldn't as the poor chaps have been fragged. However, if I take a Shield critical score of 1, I lose 5 shields. If I repair the shield critical, do I get 5 shields back? If I've lost all the shields through normal combat and the take the critical, do I suddenly have a shield score of 5 if I manage to repair the critical?

 

[Iain McGhee]

1) The example's wrong, maybe from an earlier version of the rules. When you take a critical, just go by the table effects i.e. you take the point of damage as with a normal hit, increase the critical score of that system by 1 and apply any effects listed on the table for that entry. You only take additional damage as noted on the extra damage line, the critical score isn't added to it.

2) Nope, no zombie marines in this game Shield points lost need to be regained with the Boost Shields special action. Lost points also affect the maximum shield value. From the FAQ:
"If I get a –5 Shields result from a critical hit, do I deduct that from my current or starting (maximum) Shields?
From your starting Shields score – if this reduces the starting score below your current score (and you haven’t boosted your shields this turn), then reduce your current Shields to the new maximum."

 

[billclo]

#2, think of it this way. Say you have 30 shields. You take a shield critical hit that costs you 5 shields. The shield generators that power the first 5 boxes to the left on your ship record sheet go down. So you shield boxes 30 to to 26 go down. If your shield strength was higher than 25 it now drops to 25, and 25 is your new maximum even if you repaired the shields via the Boost Shields order. If the Shield Boost Special Action gives you more than 25 boxes total, you get them for the turn as usual and then your shields drop to 25.

I group my shield boxes on the Ship Record form for this very purpose. Lose 5 shields due to a critical hit, draw a vertical line between the first and second group of 5 boxes on the left. The vertical line now defines your new maximum, and you mark off the group of 5 on the left.

If you repair the critical hit and gain the 5 shields back, you regain the generator slots, but they aren't powered as it were, so mark them off as destroyed until you use Shield Boost to re-power them. Remove the vertical line, or move it to the left if you have more than one group of 5 shield boxes lost.