Which ships don't you use, and why?

[tneva82]

The general point made about damage is why we don't favor dreadnaughts either, they look chunky but they go down almost as fast a smaller ships as they have no extra ability to withstand criticals, or the extra damage that racks up from them.

Well crits aren't neccessarily that big of a deal. Let's say you have suffered 5 crits. By that time you have taken 25 point of damage. Say 2 locations take 2 hits and 1 takes 1. That's better than average rolling btw. You have worst case then generally -1AD, one weapon down and speed 8. Nasty but I don't think dreadnought can be called as useless lump of metal...

Most of cruiser class ships are meanwhile seriously doo-doo(crippled or blown apart) so dreads do take damage bit better(I would say more than a bit).

My problem with dreads isn't damage soaking. That they do quite nicely. Problem is more of a) less ships b) your OFFENSIVE firepower isn't quite as good. Soaking damage nice, tossing it up against enemy better. Especially when you cost almost double the enemy points.

If dreds had 40+ shields for that 4d6 shield roll then it would be tad better. Or simply point reduction.

(now albeit I didn't factor in devastating which is more common in SF than in NA where crits have been in our games, barring extremely lucky streaks, just minor annoyances)

 

[Rerednaw]

Uh I got 3 devastating dilithium crits last game. Plenty of damage left, just had the warp core go boom. :mrgreen:

 

[tneva82]

Uh I got 3 devastating dilithium crits last game. Plenty of damage left, just had the warp core go boom. :mrgreen:

Well. I told ya barring serious luck

Albeit I admit greater abundance of devastating might change things. At NA those are generally available as dreadnought sized weapon. That or bomber but bombers plain old SUCK. Top of my head I'm struggling to think up of a destroyer or frigate sized ship with devastating weapon. Except the one new ship on the fleets supplement.

But then those devastating weapons are either on crappy platforms(bombers), easy to destroy platforms(the new ship) or in a dreadnought scaled ship with whopping 1AD(albeit with nice multihit 3d6. But getting that one hit is bloody hard! IMO Mongoose screwed up there. Way too hit or miss with either zero damage or hideously good damage. Variance increases drastically on hideously expensive ship with very short range and poor firing arc. It's either going to cause insane damage(better hope you are targeting cruiser sized or better or you are overkilling) or whiff completely. I would prefer 3d6AD with no multihit. In long run equal damage but it's less of a all or nothing thing)..

 

[storeylf]

Well crits aren't neccessarily that big of a deal. Let's say you have suffered 5 crits. By that time you have taken 25 point of damage. Say 2 locations take 2 hits and 1 takes 1. That's better than average rolling btw.

Thats below average in a lot of games.

Phasers are precise and average 2 levels of crit per 6 hull damage.
Photons/drones/plasma are devastating, they average 2 levels of crit per 5 hull damage.
Only disrupters average 1 per 5.
(NB the above is before the extra damage from the crits themselves).

By 25 damage (from weapons) Feds, Gorns and Roms will have averaged 10 crit levels on you. The crits in turn will have put another 5+ damage out, a couple of crit types put extra crit levels on to other crit types which adds furter damage, and you probably have an escalating one. If any have hit the +D6 level then you are going down fast.

The smaller ships (destroyers, light cruisers) etc don't really worry much about crits - they are dead anyway by the time they get to that sort of level of crits. Cruisers are about right, it may be crits or hull damage that is killing them off. Dreadnaughts start off OK but rapidly lose large chunks of damage to crits, 'oh a crit and thats another +X damage'.

As pointed out above, points play into it, a dreadnaught costs a chunk of points but 2 cruisers feels better in terms of flexibility, firepower and survivability. DNs are just not as robust as they look on paper.

 

[McKinstry]

DN's usually don't draw much initial fire as most opponents concentrate on easier kills to try and rack up an initiative sink advantage and that usually makes the DN a fairly safe repository for your Command +1. It is only after you end up having the last two or three ships to move that you can really start abusing a DN from their 6.

 

[Da Boss]

Just had a game where ships started out with damage and crits - the C8 Dreadnought proved to be a superior choice as it was able to repair its crits and then pound on its already damaged opponents.

 

[SteeleViper]

My Prime Directive D20 Modern group, that is using ACTASF for the ship combat, will be utilizing the YIS [Year In Service] for each ship in the game. That way as time progresses though the years, fleets cannot help but be comprised of “lesser efficient” ships…that’s all they have in that sector.

Also, maybe there should be a limit on the number or a ratio on the number of how many of any one class of ship that is allowed in a fleet? I know this is a miniatures game, but would you “realistically” ever see a fleet comprised of 7 Federation War Destroyers and a Police Cutter?

So add to the stat block:
YIS: abc
Limit: x

JUST putting out some ideas is all.

 

[Totenkopf]

My Prime Directive D20 Modern group, that is using ACTASF for the ship combat, will be utilizing the YIS [Year In Service] for each ship in the game. That way as time progresses though the years, fleets cannot help but be comprised of “lesser efficient” ships…that’s all they have in that sector.

Also, maybe there should be a limit on the number or a ratio on the number of how many of any one class of ship that is allowed in a fleet? I know this is a miniatures game, but would you “realistically” ever see a fleet comprised of 7 Federation War Destroyers and a Police Cutter?

So add to the stat block:
YIS: abc
Limit: x

JUST putting out some ideas is all.

But why would Mongoose put out a universal limit like what you propose?

 

[Da Boss]

Matt has said he does not want to put any limits in - even for Unique ships but he has been known to change his mind

It looks to me that a YIS pdf will need to be a fan made thing for people to use themselves - no bad thning and I am sure it can be done well by someone with lots of SFU knowledge and just updated when new ships come out?

 

[McKinstry]

Matt has said he does not want to put any limits in - even for Unique ships but he has been known to change his mind

It looks to me that a YIS pdf will need to be a fan made thing for people to use themselves - no bad thning and I am sure it can be done well by someone with lots of SFU knowledge and just updated when new ships come out?

I have zero SFU/FC experience or references but I would love a year in service chart. As with Flames of War, I'm looking for admittedly arbitrary groupings such as pre-war, early, mid and late war, as a guideline for ship selection in order to use all the ships in an environment where they are relevant.

 

[billclo]

Also, maybe there should be a limit on the number or a ratio on the number of how many of any one class of ship that is allowed in a fleet? I know this is a miniatures game, but would you “realistically” ever see a fleet comprised of 7 Federation War Destroyers and a Police Cutter?

So add to the stat block:
YIS: abc
Limit: x

JUST putting out some ideas is all.

Brief foray into Federation and Empire... each ship has a command rating, and can command as many ships as it's rating allows (plus itself). As such, a Fed DW for example, can only command 5 other ships. So a battle line with 7 DW and a Police ship would not be legal. Whereas a NCL can command 6, a NCA can command 8 as can a CA. A CC commands 9, and a BCH/DN commands 10.

So a player campaign if they wanted to incorporate command limits in their game they could, and with minimal difficulty. Just get the F&E Ship tables and use their command rating to allow X+1 ships on the line at one time. There would be an exception if you wanted to include "BattleGroups", which allow 6 smaller ships (3CW/CL/DD/FF and 3 DD/FF) to take 5 command slots instead of 6.

This is why you would in F&E include some larger ships to allow for a higher command rating and larger battle line.

I would not say that said rule should be standard in ACTA:SF as the players seem mainly interested in tournament style X number of point fleets. But it remains an optional alternative for those who wanted to play a more "true the SFU background" type of game.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Rough timeline.

Fed
Pre/early war
CA 165, CC 165, OCL 168, FF 160, DN 172
NCL 170,

Mid war
NCA 175, , DW 176
FFB 175, BCG 177, BCF 178

Late war/Andro
BCJ 186

Klingon
Pre/early war
C8 167, F5 165, E4 165, D7 165
D6 165, D5 168

Mid war
C7 177, D5W 175

Romulan
Pre/early war
WE 162, KE 169, BH 162, SN 162
K4R 168, K5R 160, KR 160, K7R 167
KRC 165, K9R 172, SKA 168
SPA 168, FH 171

Mid war
CON 176, RH 175, NV 174


Gorn
Pre/early war
Dn 171, HDD 170

Mid war
BC 175, CC 175, CM 173, CL 175,
BDD 175, DD 175

Late war/Andro
BCH 180

Please note many of the ships listed for the above fleets are the later units as depicted in the game, for example the Gorn CL and BC were available much earlier but had no plasma F launchers. Once the war got going the Gorn upgraded the weapons on all the pre war ships to the standard shown in the game, they didn't defend Gorn space with just DNs at the start of the war :lol:

Most of the other races upgraded ships to be ready for the start of the war on the Klingon/Kzinti/Federation side. The Romulan’s attack started the fighting on the Plasma side in 173 and the Gorn joined in the fighting 174 then realised they needed more weapons and quickly added additional Phasers and plasmas on everything for 175.

This is a problem with separating the ships in the ACTA-SF book as they have the weapons and refits of mid war ships.

 

[tneva82]

Also, maybe there should be a limit on the number or a ratio on the number of how many of any one class of ship that is allowed in a fleet? I know this is a miniatures game, but would you “realistically” ever see a fleet comprised of 7 Federation War Destroyers and a Police Cutter?

Uhhuh. No 0-X limitations tyvm. a) they are incredibly outfashioned b) they need to become VERY complex scaling up to different point sizes or they are broken from the get-go.

Just get the point values as good as they can be and problem is mostly solved. At least you won't be fully shooting yourself to foot with more fluffy lists.

 

[OgreMkV]

Just as a point of discussion; I'm starting a campaign game.

The premise is that during the general war, every race (or at least those chosen by the players) were worried about defeat and, quite independently, came up with a solution. Send a large colony expedition as far away as possible (say the LMC). Unfortunately, all the races aimed for the same point... hilarity ensues.

Anyway, the fleet rule I will have is that the players may not purchase any ship with 'new' or 'war' as those were all busy fighting. Also, all the ships will begin with green crews (academy grads... or close to it). There's also a 1 CA/CC rule. For these purposes, 1 D6/D7 for the klingons.

I think this will make things more interesting... i.e. not always fighting with the best ship out of the fleet and tend to make the battles easier for new player (of which we will all be).

Once their new colony is established, then they may begin construction of large and advanced class ships.

 

[McKinstry]

Thanks Captain. That does help with scenario making.

Any idea where the Hairballs (Kzinti) fit in?

 

[scoutdad]

There's really no need to recreatethe YIS chart.

ADB sells a product (Module G3 - Master ship chart) that has YIS for every unit in the game in it.
Or, if you don't mind downloading and printing... the Federation and Empire MSITs (Master Ship Information Tables) can be downloaded from the ADB website.
The MSITs have YIS, CR, build cost, conversion cost, etc. for every unit in F&E.
Of course build cost and conversion cost are F&E specific, but the conversion info itself (what improved units can this baseline unit be converted into) would be great to have if you're planning a campaign.

 

[Finlos]

Those tables would also be handy for the ambitious soul who wants to fight out the General War under the ACTA ruleset. Once the Lyrans are released we can play until Alliance turn three until the Hydrans are released (it might take us that long anyways...). Fighters might be an issue but under the current rules the Kzinti are hardly disadvantaged without their carrier groups.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Same as before these are the dates of the improved versions as used in the war, earlier versions with generally less weapons are available for most of them but these are the versions from ACTA.

KZINTI
Pre/early
DN 167, BC 165, CL 166, CM 170
FF 166, BCF 165

Mid
NCA 175, DW 174

Late
BCH 180

THOLIAN
Pre/early
PC 98, DD 115, CA 160

ORION
Pre/early
LR 169, CR 169, SAL 69

As Scoutdad says you can download the charts from ADB, there are several (its SFB/FC there are hundreds of charts :lol: ). Most of them are useful to SFB/FC players, very few are useful to ACTA-SF players. The year in service dates are ok as a guide but do not reflect the actual ships in service.

For example my Gorn BC.

CA 121 (remove SH/PH Phaser 3 and SH/PH plasma Fs, reduce the Plasma S to G) cost 150
CA+ 170 (upgrade the Plasma Gs to Plasma Ss) cost 180 (rounded down)
BC 175 As per the rules. (adds Phaser 3s and plasma Fs to the CA+) cost 200

Just about all the ships in SFB are like this, the end ships are the result of upgrades and improvements so the Year in service is not, strictly speaking, a good guide to when the ships can be used from.

Still as a general thing most of the fleets can be split into the three periods for themed games or campaigns.
For that I would suggest the Gorn would then be

GORN
Pre/early war
Dn 171, HDD 170, BC 175, CC 175
CL 175, DD 175

Mid war
CM 173, BDD 175

Late war/Andro
BCH 180

 

[McKinstry]

I appreciate those listings. Using pre or early war as a basis seems like a good way to get ships on the table that might otherwise languish.

 

[Da Boss]

Indeed most useful posting people - thanks