Will P&P address PL?
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l33tpenguin
Mongoose
I never liked drakhs huge hangers, when I first saw that I thought to myself just how much of a pain in the rear balancing would be with them.
I personally think that ships should have been made balanced with empty hangers (to include both huge and regular). This would have completely avoided any balance issue that comes into play with either the rules, the carrier ship or the ships carried are changed.
Also, I still support redundancy as a way of making bigger ships more survivable (as they should be). Its simply a matter of balancing the mechanic. The version I'm currently working on in a set of 'alternate rules by l33tpenguin' uses a system that decreases with each successfully crit. For ships with a score under 4, for the most part that is going to mean 1 crits max gets prevented. Not exactly game breaking. For big heavy ships (like the KBT) you will see a difference, though. As it should be!
I personally think that ships should have been made balanced with empty hangers (to include both huge and regular). This would have completely avoided any balance issue that comes into play with either the rules, the carrier ship or the ships carried are changed.
Also, I still support redundancy as a way of making bigger ships more survivable (as they should be). Its simply a matter of balancing the mechanic. The version I'm currently working on in a set of 'alternate rules by l33tpenguin' uses a system that decreases with each successfully crit. For ships with a score under 4, for the most part that is going to mean 1 crits max gets prevented. Not exactly game breaking. For big heavy ships (like the KBT) you will see a difference, though. As it should be!
I think that the big ships are just too powerful to buy for only 3 FAPs. The ships are all in line with each other and it's only a small tweak needed to bring the PLs back into line (at the moment one PL is worth roughly 1.9 ships of the level below). If we get the ratio back to 2.0:1 then every ship at every PL becomes a good choice (and issues such as still getting ten Skirmish ships in a 5 FAP Raid game disappear).
2 battle ships are generally more than a warship, it definately isnt 1.9 of the one below for certain races. and thats on damage/firepower comparison. add in the fact the 2 battle ships provide an init sink and are less vunerable to crits due to being 2 ships and you will find a warship is maybe on a 1.5 of the ones below, maybe worse.
Foxmeister
Mongoose
katadder said:
I concur - the biggest problem with the larger ships is that they are just as vulnerable to crits and crit effects as the smaller ships. Whilst a Ka'Bin'Tak may be able to take a 6-6 crit on the chin better than say a Liati, it's fubar'd by a -4 speed which the Liati can easily soak up, yet both are equally as likely outcomes from a single crit from any source.
I still firmly believe that the ability to crit a target should be harder for smaller ships attacking capital ships - I've no problem with an Adira knocking out the engines of a Ka'Bin'Tak with a single hit, but surely I find it hard to believe that a Starfury could potentially do the same from a single hit.
Regards,
Dave
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
Foxmeister said:
Especially considering the number of attack dice that a full armageddon point worth of star furies is equal to
It really is a retarded amount!Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Scipio said:
Isn't there something in VaS that stops light cruisers and destroyers getting criticals hits on battleships? Some characteristic of the weak trait, I seem to recall?
Why can't anyone writing ACtA see that the things they did for VaS (AD,DD and the above anti-crit trait) make sense for ACtA and follow the on-screen evidence more closely?
I think you may be mistaking my saying 1.9. This means that two ships of the PL below are worth 2.0 and the single ship of the PL above is worth 1.9. The very fact that using the current breakdowns, even in fleets taking large ships that there is almost balance over the PLs means that the 1.9 ratio must be pretty close. If you make a "direct" firepower/damage comparison (adding them up) then of course the ships of the PL below will come out higher as a ship with double the damage and double the firepower of the ship below is a lot better than two ships of the PL below.katadder said:
I'm starting to come round to the idea of Redundancy, at least to trial it anyway at smaller numbers.Foxmeister said:
Another idea springs to mind - maybe ships of a PL above the ship inflicting the critical getting a "save" against the effects of the critical (but still suffering the Damage/Crew loss). You could make this a set number or even scale it, e.g. you need 7+ to "save" the critical effect and get +1 per PL the target ship is above the firing ship.
Foxmeister
Mongoose
Triggy said:
An idea I posted here a while ago (and can't find now) was to add an additional roll if a a firing ship was more than 1 PL below the target ship (i.e. Skirmish to Battle)
For example, if a Ka'Toc (Skirmish) fires on a Primus (Battle) and scored a "crit" (i.e. a 6 on the damage roll), they would need to roll a 4+ to actually convert that into a crit. A Patrol PL vessel against the same target would need a 5+, and a fighter would need a 6+. Precise weapons would get +1 to the roll, so effectively firing one level above their weight (and still getting the potential crit on a 5 or 6).
Of course, this would mean that a fighter without a precise weapon couldn't score a crit on a War or Armageddon level ship, but this feels right to me.
Regards,
Dave
Foxmeister
Mongoose
wpngjstr said:
I believe you have the wrong franchise!
Seriously though, I think you actually make my point for me - a normal pilot couldn't have made the shot even with computer assistance (extreme luck aside) and it took someone with an exceptional talent with the Force to do so (or perhaps the aforementioned extreme luck!)In ACTA terms, a fighter with me in it could 6/6 crit the biggest baddest thing out there, and I couldn't hit a barn door with a tractor!
Regards,
Dave
nekomata fuyu
Mongoose
My thoughts on redundancy depend on which version we're talking about. If it's the version that involves completely blocking the first X crits, then yes, I think it's a terrible idea. If it's the version that gives tougher ships a save against crits, I think it's great.
As for the idea that a weapon should have different effects depending on which hull it's mounted on, I think that idea's terrible and always will.
As for the idea that a weapon should have different effects depending on which hull it's mounted on, I think that idea's terrible and always will.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
neko said:
A redundancy trait would essencially have this effect, as a skirmish ship with a 4 AD against a War level ship with a crit save will be less effective than a same 4 AD weapon on a war level ship firing on a skirmish ship without a crit save.
I, personally, prefer a ship trait base crit save over a PL based one. It provides more flexability.
Maybe more flexibility but if they were to not line up with the PLs then the ships would need rebalancing wherever there were deviations.l33tpenguin said:
Any comment on my idea that's similar to Foxmeister's but still allows for fighter-mega hits (unlikely) and has a small effect on ships only 1 PL below too?
Foxmeister - any reason for not having the rule apply to a lesser degree to ships only 1 PL below? Surely if the issue exists at all then it applies to a 1 PL gap just not as much as a 2 PL gap or greater!
Triggy said:
except they obviously are not close. 2 ships of a PL below beat the one ship 99% of the time unless you're talking g'quans versus g'vrahn. this is why everybody buys more as they know 2 is better than 1.
a war ship is definately no where near the region of ability of 2 battle ships.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
Triggy said:
Understandably. It would also work as a balancing tool. For the most part, I think, ships of the same PL would have the same score. But, like interseptors or stealth, it could be used as a defensive trait for, say, the narn, with narn ships having higher redundancy scores to reflect their more armored nature, as just giving them more damage boxes to fill up doesn't do much.
CZuschlag
Mongoose
Perhaps there is a difference of 1.9 vs 2.0 for the ships --- but what is the extra move sink worth? In my experience, an extra movement is worth about 1/2 - 3/4 of a Patrol point, given that there are several Skirmish ships on the table.
That means that I would say that a ship that gives zero VP for a kill with a full line of
MV:1 Hull:4 Damage:1 Crew:1
Is worth 1/2 a Patrol point at absolute minimum. This reflects the intrinsic value of the initiative sink.
This is also my justification for the wish of the wholesale banning of all 2-for-1 ships. We even had to introduce an "donkey"-backwards fix of having them be worth a full Patrol point on a kill each to even come close to fixing it. There has to be a better way.
That means that I would say that a ship that gives zero VP for a kill with a full line of
MV:1 Hull:4 Damage:1 Crew:1
Is worth 1/2 a Patrol point at absolute minimum. This reflects the intrinsic value of the initiative sink.
This is also my justification for the wish of the wholesale banning of all 2-for-1 ships. We even had to introduce an "donkey"-backwards fix of having them be worth a full Patrol point on a kill each to even come close to fixing it. There has to be a better way.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
CZuschlag said:
Again, why I think all ships should be balanced with empty hangers and anything you want to put in those hangers just costs additional points. It is fair and win win (as far as far and play balanced is concerned). And just because races like the drakh will be paying more to fill their hangers, this is balanced by the ships that carry them being either stronger (to account for their PL) or being lowered in PL (to account for the loss of craft)
nekomata fuyu
Mongoose
Not really. The exact same 4AD weapon in your example would be more powerful when fired from a War level ship than when fired from a Skirmish level ship. With the redundancy save it doesn't matter what the weapon is bolted onto - it's the ship being hit that determines how effective the weapon is.l33tpenguin said:
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
neko said:
Its circular logic. Giving bigger ships a save verse giving smaller ships a penalty. It’s the difference of giving all War level ship 50% chance to ignore a crit compared to making a smaller ship 50% less likely to score a crit on a War ship.
The only reason I prefer a redundancy score to an to something associated with PL is that giving each ship a score gives greater finesse to ship design. 'Redundancy' scores can be used just like Stealth or interceptors are
