why have the Kizinti been neutered?

[Steelwhip]

Ive been playing SFB for close to 25 years. in that time I have mostly stuck with the kizinti. played other races at times sure but I have always come back to the kizinit as my pet race. when I heard that Mongoose was releasing SFU ACTA i was overjoyed. Victory at Sea was always one of my favorite naval game systems and combining that with one of my othert beloved game systems in a reasonabley playable format was just perfect for me

I waited paitently for the Kizninti fleet box to be released and managed to pick it up recently.

i have been quite disheartened to see how poorly the Kizinits have been adapted to SFU. I do apalogise if this argument has been brought up before but im trying to figure out in my mind why certan changes have been made.

I really had to scratch my head when I heard the change of 3 drone armed ships attacking a single target per turn. I can think of no reason in the world why this was put into place other than balance for the SFU system. ok..I can under stand that to a degree. the rules are not in place to reflect the whole aresanal of counter drone systems that SFB had. (fighters, PFs, G racks, ECM, wild weasels, and up until recently phaser Gs-I could go on but you get the idea) I do find it quite difficult to do any damage with drones due to this rule but I somewhat understand it

and why are the AD dice for drone on the kizinti so low?
I can understand the conversion from SFB to SFU on a 1 weapon per basis. and im cool with that. most kizinit ships have 4 drone racks and thus should equate to 4AD however after Y175 the fleet went a total upgrading of shifting all A racks(standards drone racks) on kizinti ships to at least 2 C racks (the double fire drone racks) and the rest B racks(increased ammo capactiy-which as far as I can tell has no real reflection in SFU). after the conversion kizinit ships could put 6 drones in the sky each turn as compared to the 4 before the refit. shouldnt the kizinits therefore have 6AD dice for thier drones?

I took a look at all the other ships of other races and all of them have all of thier refits added into the ships in SFU

the feds have their +, and R refits
the klingons have their B and K refits
the romulans have their + and B refits.
hell even the gorn got their +, F and D refits added in

but the kizinits didnt get thier drone rack refits

if its all because some hand waving-"drones are to powerful in this system so thats why we have neutered them" then fine. id like to know that. cause as it stands right now kizinits do not have their full abilities with thier signature weapon. right now they are nothing but fuzzy klingons and if I wanted to use disruptors as my main weapon i would have played kilnks

hell I would even be happy if we could upgrade Kizniti ships for the Y175 upgrade for an increased point cost

 

[Rambler]

I do not have a lot of time right now but will try to give you a longer answer later tonight, but the short answer is because when SVC wrote Federation Commander he deliberately dropped Special Drones and Drone Racks from the game for simplicity and speed of play. Hence in ACTASF there are only two types of Drone Racks Type A and Fed Type G Racks.

The Three Ship Firing Limit is a kludge toward Drone Control Channels and to stop people from fielding a 12 Frigate Fleet which would eat 2 Cruisers a turn from outside of Disruptor Range. Don't forget Drone Ships actually allow 4 Ships to target a single ship.

 

[scoutdad]

@Steelwhip: To expand on Dals comments a little...
ACTASF is based on Federation Commander (which, while based on Star Fleet Battles is still not SFB!), not Star Fleet Battles.

Fed Comm is a streamlined starship game set in the SFU. In order to streanline it and keep it simple, many of the "wonky" rules and detail requiring fiddley-bits were left out. These included proximity photons, DERFACS, special drones, wild weasels, etc.

When ACTASF was developed, it too left out these things, hence the standard 1AD for 1 drone rack set-up of the ships. While you may feel that the Kzinti were nerfed, they are still a force to reckon with... and also remember one other thing:
This is only the first release of ACTASF. There is 30+ years of game developement to import into ACTASF. And it can't all be done at once. Who knows what the future holds in store...

 

[billclo]

Steelwhip,

If I may suggest, try a game or two with Kzinti vs Feds or Klingons. First game with no 3-ship limit on attacks, and remove the roll for a hit over 18" rule. Then switch sides and play the non-Kzinti player and be on the receiving end.

Then you may have some enlightenment as to why there was such a hue and cry about the first version of the drone rules.

I think the over 18" rule does a decent job of replicating the low hit rate of drones fired from long range (3-5% in my experience with many SFB squadron or fleet battles over the years).

Sometimes the 3-ship limit can be a bit annoying, in that you just dumped 12 drones on that D5 with no hits, but remember that it either gave you a decent chance of running out his ADDs or soaked up a LOT of phaser fire, fire that wasn't hitting one of your ships.

I've only limited experience with running Kzinti ships, but I am okay with the changes for now. I do see your point about the Kzinti not getting their proper Y175 refit though.

 

[Nerroth]

The other Alpha Octant empires in Federation Commander (and in A Call to Arms: Star Fleet) mostly lack the Y175 (and later) refits, too. While the plasma empires do get their swivel mounts, they don't get things like shotguns, envelopers, or pseudo-torps. Disruptor users don't get UIM or DERFACS. Photon torpedoes don't get proximity warheads. Of weapons in FC but not yet in ACtA:SF, fusion beams don't get suicide overloads, ESGs are radically re-worked (and become a one-off effect, rather than placing a lingering physical sphere of force on the board), PPDs lose their overload function (and get their four firing pulses compressed into a single impulse), and the Andromedans... well, talking about how differently FC treats them compared to SFB could take a while.

The Kzintis are by no means the only empire to see their set of tools streamlined in the newer games (which would also include the licenced SFU adaptations to the Admiralty and Nova Editions of Starmada); but even if you factor in the rules changes that have taken place in ACtA:SF after the ship stats were ported in from the FC Ship Cards, the main issue for the Hegemony at this point seems to be more about people waiting for the miniatures to filter out into wider distribution.

Even if it turns out that, with the current crop of rules (both published and playtest), things are still not quite at their best, the rules for the game are not set in stone. There is still plenty of time for more playtesting to help show any potential flaws in the system, and for more attempts to try and square these circles.

Which is more than I can say for Star Fleet Battles itself, I might add. Unlike ACtA:SF, Starmada, and FC, SFB has long since reached a point where the game mechanics and weapon/system rules (in the Alpha Octant, at least) have too much momentum (or, perhaps, inertia) to allow for any potential changes to get a fair airing.

(For example, FC has a rule where non-Andromedan ships have to pay double the Energy Points to go in reverse. This makes running away from your opponent in reverse less of a good idea. However, even if it were considered by a certain portion of the SFB fanbase to be worth at least considering, the resistance from those who are opposed to any sort of "reverse-engineering" from FC to SFB is such that the idea is essentially a non-starter.)

While I don't want to get too far into the topic of whether or not leaving SFB's core mechanics in the freezer is a good idea or not, I would like to think that we've got some way to go yet before any similar logjam becomes a real issue for this game system.

 

[astronomypete]

Don't forget Drone Ships actually allow 4 Ships to target a single ship.

Have I missed a rule?

 

[Steelwhip]

ok..now see...those answers I can understand and respect.

and if i remember correctly there was a pretty big shit storm when Fed Com came out with the simpler drone rules as well.

however I dont recall seeing anywhere in the rules or errata that state that 4 drone ships are allowed to target a single ship. just the errata that says its limited to 3 so if you could tell me where that is it would be a huge help

and honestly i dont buy the nod twords drone control channles-kizinit ships could control a number of drones equil to double thier sensor rating-which for most ships is 6. so 12 drones they could control at a time..and with the Y175 refits they could put 12 drones in the sky in 2 turns and be perfectly fine. course 1 wild weasel and all those drones were usless.....

it kinda happened all the time in SFB. hell you think 12 frigates were bad try facing off aginst PFs for the cost of your 12 frigates you could get 24 PFs...each with the capability to put much much much more drones in the sky...one of the reasons all the other races came up with such a staggering ammount of anti drone equipment. The Lyrans were perfect built to cut swaths through those drone waves. but as has been stated this isnt SFB...and there is more to come...and hoenstly if I could see the '4 ships targeting' that will do alot to calm my nerviousness about running the Kizintis again.

i can live with those reasonings and will step off my soap box for now

thanks for the quick and concise answers!!

 

[Nerroth]

Don't forget Drone Ships actually allow 4 Ships to target a single ship.

Have I missed a rule?

The playtest scout rules in A Call to Arms Journal #1 (and Captain's Log #45) allow a drone-armed scout to add itself as a fourth ship, in terms of firing drones at a given target.

 

[astronomypete]

astronomypete wrote:
Quote:
Don't forget Drone Ships actually allow 4 Ships to target a single ship.


Have I missed a rule?


The playtest scout rules in A Call to Arms Journal #1 (and Captain's Log #45) allow a drone-armed scout to add itself as a fourth ship, in terms of firing drones at a given target.

So thats a yes then. Thanks.

 

[billclo]

And some of the drone armed scouts carry 6 drones. :shock: So that's potentially up to 12 drones from 3 ships then using a drone armed scout that uses a Scout action to make itself the 4th ship... then you have 18 drones on target. Ugh. Hope you have some neighbors on IDF or a handy escort ship to help stop all those. :shock:

If you would look at this discussion http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=55039 we were discussing how escorts cannot effectively use the ability to position themselves between an attacker firing seeking weapons at a target that the escort is defending and get full use of their weapons. The rules say that only weapons bearing on the ship being defended may fire. I had been trying to get a ruling allowing the weapons facing the attacker to be used to shoot down the seeking weapons, the rationale being that they are travelling past the escort before hitting the target.

If you consider that seeking weapons effectively go poof and enter hyperspace upon launch, and poof exit hyperspace right next to their target, effectively allowing only facing weapons on the escort ship to engage them then you see that drones have an easier time hitting an escorted target than would be the case in SFB.

 

[Nerroth]

If you consider that seeking weapons effectively go poof and enter hyperspace upon launch, and poof exit hyperspace right next to their target, effectively allowing only facing weapons on the escort ship to engage them then you see that drones have an easier time hitting an escorted target than would be the case in SFB.

In a sense, drones have become akin to LMC Mass Drivers in terms of application; they only "appear" on the board when they are in their terminal approach to the target, and only then allow the defending ship (or a supporting ally) to try and shoot them down.

Which, ironically enough, means that trying to work out how to handle MDs over in the Magellanic Cloud thread hasn't been too much of a hassle so far...

 

[scoutdad]

We could always raise a hew and cry for the Kzinti DND variant to be added.
A Kzinti DN with 18 AD of drones... :shock:

I do not think I'd want to face a fleet with one of those in it.

 

[Skullduggery]

Too bad the 6 drone armed scout is Klingon and not Kzinti.

 

[Rambler]

Too bad the 6 drone armed scout is Klingon and not Kzinti.

Thats actually not to bad of a problem. The Kzinti have a Scout Drone Frigate, a New Drone Cruiser and a Drone Cruiser. All we have to do is ask Mathew and SVC and I am sure they can fine someway to get the stats for one of the in a Newsletter or posted on one of the Forum sometime.

 

[Zarathustra Suicune]

To the original poster, have you seen the adverts by the RSPCA? Get your cats neutered!

 

[Ben2]

Optional drone rules are coming, but Kzinti as they stand are very very good. When they start getting SDCs or ships with 5 or 6 drones then they'll be hideous.

Bear in mind a six ship Kzinti fleet can drop 12 drones on two targets each turn at the moment. Your enemy will be giving up offensive firepower buying escorts or special orders by going Intensify Defensive Firepower and you'll still be getting drones through. A good trick is to target the ships on IDF, forcing your opponent to either cede the initiative on special orders and all go IDF or take a beating.

Once you add in scouts and drone ships it'll be single ships taking 16-20 drones.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Cough BBs cough. 20 Drones, you wish it was that few.

 

[Myrm]

...and we still havent mentioned the disruptor load and phasers on board those Kzinti in the mix yet

 

[McKinstry]

Kzinti with scouts can be just nasty, even with the escorts added. Kill the escorts first and then roll up the others creating a very favorable initiative advantage.

 

[Stu--]

If you consider that people have been throwing around this idea of 3-5% drone hit ratio then the current game isn't a long way off. And the point about reducing enemy firepower with drones was also significant - from memory of FC/SFB that's what they did.. they didn't really hit.

And it's already been stated there's no clever anti-drone kit in the game (and nobody wants wild weasels do we..) so its probably as close to being OK as it can be just simplified right down.

Personally, I've played with my Kzinti a few times and we managed to get a good number of drone hits - they are the only current race with more firepower than the Klinks at over 15"