Steve is back in town so its ship designing time and lots of FT combat for
nearly two weeks. While designing new ships, and seeing the advantanges in
combat of warships only having 3 hull rows, it seems to
me that the cost 3-row designs is too cheap at 3 per hull box. It's
literally a "no-brainer" to make all new designs with 3 hull rows, and
mathematician Steve immediately went to 3-row hulls on his ships. You
would think that a 50% increase in hull price would have some effect, but it
isn't actually 50%, more like 33% if you take the cost of the
initial hull cost into the equation (4-row: 1+2=3, 3-row: 1+3=4).
I think the price of 3-row hulls should increase to 4 per box. This
may give ship designers some pause in the choice of the number of hull rows.
But, I think people will still go with the 3 hull rows.
Or is this new-fangled combat cost rating system I hear rumors about
going to take this into account?
Glen
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> Steve is back in town so its ship designing time and lots of FT combat
This time I hope that you have tracked (or will do so, if you haven't played
the games yet) all dierolls etc. so you're certain that it isn't just Steve's
luck with the dice acting up again?
(No, I'm not being sarcastic. I just know far too well what effect a few
extreme dierolls during the first playtest can have on the impression the
players get from new rules, and from what you've posted about yourself and
Steve you both seem to get more than your fair share of extreme dierolls.)
> It's literally a "no-brainer" to make all new designs with 3 hull rows,
As you'll see below, it isn't quite as straight-forward as that...
whereas
your suggestion to increase the cost of 3-row hulls to 4 pts/box would
make
it a no-brainer to stay as far away from the 3-row hulls as possible :-(
> and mathematician Steve immediately went to 3-row hulls on his ships.
You
> would think that a 50% increase in hull price would have some effect,
It is neither 50% nor 33% more expensive; you've forgotten to take the cost of
the hull boxes' proportion of the ship's FTL and sublight engines into
account. In the *Fleet Book* design system, which is what you're using
above (since you use a flat 1 pt/Mass cost for the "basic hull
structure"),
the 3-row hull is only some 20-25% more expensive per hull box than the
4-row hull is depending on what engines the ship has.
> I think the price of 3-row hulls should increase to 4 per box.
[...]
> Or is this new-fangled combat cost rating system I hear rumors about
The combat cost rating system you're currently using already does take it into
account (and if Steve had done his maths all the way through he
would've realized that; the calculations are quite straight-forward).
FWIW
the "new-fangled" points system (ie. the CPV system) complicates the
issue a bit; I'll discuss that at the end of this post, but until I say
otherwise I'll be talking about the *Fleet Book* (NPV) design system that
you're currently using:
For an average thrust-4 FTL-capable human ship, each hull box @ 1 Mass
requires its own "basic hull structure" (the "+1 pt" you included
above),
PLUS 1/7 Mass of FTL drive (which costs 2/7 pts for itself and an extra
1/7
pts for *its* basic hull structure), PLUS 2/7 Mass of sub-light drive
(which costs 4/7 pts for itself and an extra 2/7 pts for *its* basic
hull structure). The "hidden extra cost" of each hull box on this ship is
therefore 1+2/7+1/7+4/7+2/7 pts, which rounds to 2.3 pts. IOW, for
thrust-4
FTL-capable human ships the last paranthesis of the above quote
should've
read: "(4-row: 2.3+2 = 4.3, 3-row: 2.3+3 = 5.3)".
For ships with other engine combinations these value will be different, but
the overall cost ratios between the hull types remain pretty similar as long
as you compare ships with the same engine combinations. Ie. the below
argument holds just as well for them as it does for the thrust-4 ships,
so
I'll use the numbers for thrust-4 FTL-capable ships below.
For a ship with this above engine combination, a hull with 4 boxes in 4
rows - ie., 1 box in each row - have a total cost of 4*4.3 = 17.2 pts.
*3*
boxes in a *3*-row hull - again 1 box in each row - have a total cost of
3*5.3 = 15.9 pts on this ship.
If you make the 3-row hull cost 4 pts per box instead, each 3-row hull
box
would have a total cost of 2.3+4 = 6.3 pts; so the 3-box, 3-row hull
would cost 3*6.3 = 18.9 pts.
This is *more* than the total cost of the *4*-box, 4-row hull, so what
you're actually saying with this proposal is that you believe that the 4th box
in its 4th row is worth *less than zero points*. In other words, you're saying
that a ship with 4 rows would become *more powerful* if you replaced its 4th
hull row with the same Mass of empty cargo holds without changing anything
else on the ship.
Note that I'm not saying "more cost-effective" or "more powerful for its
points value" or anything like that, but a straight "more powerful" -
which means some combination of "more firepower", "better at applying the
firepower carried" and "harder to destroy". Since replacing the 4th hull
row with empty cargo holds changes neither the ship's firepower nor its
manoeuvrability (ie. ability to apply its firepower), the only thing "more
powerful" could mean in this case is "harder to destroy".
In my experience ships with 3 rows of X hull boxes (for a total hull integrity
of 3*X) are *not* harder to destroy than ships with 4 rows of X hull boxes
(for a total hull integrity of 4*X) but otherwise identical
equipment. Quite the contrary, in fact; in my experience 3*X-hulled
ships
are almost invariably *easier* to destroy than 4*X-hulled ones simply
because it takes X fewer damage points to destroy them.
Of course 4*X-box, 4-row ships aren't very *much* more powerful than
3*X-box, 3-row ships with the same weapons etc.; by the time they've
taken 3*X pts of damage they have usually lost most of their weapons etc. so
their remaining combat power is very low.. but the 4*X-hulled ships are
nevertheless more powerful, because the 3*X-hulled ships would be
*destroyed* - ie., have *zero* combat power left - after taking 3*X pts
of
damage. In the NPV system adding a 4th hull row to a 3-row ship (with
thrust-4 and FTL, that is), ie. increasing its number of hull boxes by
33%,
effectively costs
[total cost for 4 boxes in 4 rows] - [total cost for 3 boxes in 3 rows]
=
17.2-15.9 = 1.3 pts
per new 4th-row hull box. This isn't very much, which seems appropriate
considering how bad a shape the ship will be in by the time the presence of
the 4th row becomes important; but it is more than zero.
***
Now, all of the above was about the *Fleet Book* (NPV) ship design system,
with its flat 1 pt/Mass cost for the basic hull structure. In the *CPV*
system the cost for the basic hull structure depends both on how large the
ship is and exactly what it is equipped with, so adding extra hull boxes to
form a 4th hull row on a ship which previously only had 3 hull rows will
increase the cost for the basic hull structure for each Mass of the ship
because its TMF increases.
The result is that if you use the CPV systems 3-row hulls are more
effective on large capitals than they are on cruisers or escorts do, and
5-row hulls are more effective on small ships (provided that they have
at least 5 hull boxes, that is) than on large ones; and similarly ships with
high thrust ratings tend to gain more from using 3-row hulls than ships
with low thrust ratings (and low-thrust ships gain more from using 5-row
hulls, etc.).
This *could* turn out to be a balance problem. *So far* I haven't found it to
actually be one; IME those ships which are large enough to benefit
overly much from using 3-row hulls instead of 4-row ones are also so
large that the CPV system starts making them prohibitively expensive anyway,
and for smaller ships (which tend to have higher thrust ratings than the
larger
ones) the effect that small ships gain relatively less from 3-row hulls
tends to balance out against the effect that high-thrust ships gain
relatively more from them. Testing continues however, and I'd be grateful
for any detailed battle reports pitting 3- and 4-row ships with various
thrust ratings against one another.
Kind regards,
> What Oerjan wrote:
-------------------------------------
For a ship with this above engine combination, a hull with 4 boxes in 4
rows - ie., 1 box in each row - have a total cost of 4*4.3 = 17.2 pts.
*3*
boxes in a *3*-row hull - again 1 box in each row - have a total cost
of 3*5.3 = 15.9 pts on this ship.
If you make the 3-row hull cost 4 pts per box instead, each 3-row hull
box
would have a total cost of 2.3+4 = 6.3 pts; so the 3-box, 3-row hull
would cost 3*6.3 = 18.9 pts.
This is *more* than the total cost of the *4*-box, 4-row hull, so what
you're actually saying with this proposal is that you believe that the 4th box
in its 4th row is worth *less than zero points*. In other words, you're saying
that a ship with 4 rows would become *more powerful* if you replaced its 4th
hull row with the same Mass of empty cargo holds without changing anything
else on the ship.
-------------------------------------------------
---
My comment:
This sounds like the speech by the engineer that designs the new rifle for the
infantry man. My response is like the soldier in the field saying a whole
bunch of things, and I'll print the nice ones.:)
....
Excuse the pun, but we're not playing in a vacuum here. We're not playing
with 3 or 4 hull ships, we're playing with 30-60 hull ships.
....
---
He wrote some more:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Note that I'm not saying "more cost-effective" or "more powerful for
its
points value" or anything like that, but a straight "more powerful" -
which means some combination of "more firepower", "better at applying the
firepower carried" and "harder to destroy". Since replacing the 4th hull row
with empty cargo holds changes neither the ship's firepower nor its
manoeuvrability (ie. ability to apply its firepower), the only thing "more
powerful" could mean in this case is "harder to destroy".
In my experience ships with 3 rows of X hull boxes (for a total hull integrity
of 3*X) are *not* harder to destroy than ships with 4 rows of X hull boxes
(for a total hull integrity of 4*X) but otherwise identical
equipment. Quite the contrary, in fact; in my experience 3*X-hulled
ships
are almost invariably *easier* to destroy than 4*X-hulled ones simply
because it takes X fewer damage points to destroy them.
----------------------------------------------------
---
Some more grumblings from me:
How can you say this? The 3-row hull ship will have the same number
of hull boxes as the 4-row hull ship, they'll just be in a more
optimum configuration for taking less threshold checks. It will cost more, but
the end result is a vastly superior design over the 4-row hull ship
for its cost. This is why I think the current cost increase for 3 rows is not
enough.
I'm going to give two examples. Why these two? I'm going to use them in
another message so they'll do for this as well. Steve's ship
is near what he had, I didn't get the exact numbers; he had 2xclass-1
grazers, also (*grumble*), so I have the hull or weapons allotment wrong. But
these are correct designs and will work for this discussion.
BB Steve
mass: 154, cost: (4-row) 683, (3-row) 737
hull: 54, armor: 6, FTL, MD 2 (advanced) Superior sensor, 4 FC, 1 ADFC
14 6-arc pulsers
BB Isucc
mass 144, cost: (4-row) 591, (3-row) 634
hull: 43, armor 8, FTL, MD 4 (advanced) Superior sensor, 4 FC, 8 scatterguns
2 class-6 rail guns, 4 class-1 rail guns
Ship Steve's cost increase for 3-rows is 7.9%. Ship Isucc's (can you
tell who won the battle between them?) cost increasse is 7.3%.
Ship Steve's 1st-row hull increase went from 14 to 18, this is a
28.6% increase in critical damage prevention. Ship Isucc's 1st-row
hull increase went from 11 to 15, this is a 36.4% increase in critical damage
prevention.
So, if we increase the 3-row hull cost from 3 to 4, Steve's cost
increase is 15.8%, while Isucc's cost increase is 14.6%; both are still below
the increase in damage prevention.
And that 4th row means little as a ship that is damaged that badly is,
effectively, mission killed.
So, Oerjan, tell me some more numbers.:)
Glen
> Oerjan wrote:
Glen wrote
> Some more grumblings from me:
Glen, Oerjan was not comparing ships with the same total number of hull boxes
while you are in those statements.
What Oerjan was saying is that a ship with 3 rows of X boxes (if X=10 30 hull
total) should cost less than a ship with 4 rows of X boxes (40 hull in this
example)
All other factors being the same, I think you will a agree that a ship with
25% less hull should have a lower point value. The problem is if you bump up
the cost per hull for a 3 row hull to 4, you now make ships with 25% less hull
cost much more than an identical ship with 4 rows.
Here is an example:
BB Testbed Mass 132
Hull 40 (30%) - 4 Rows
NPV 452 Thrust 4 FTL 3 PDS 3 Fire Controls
Level-1 Screens
2 Class 1 Beam Batteries 3 Class 2 Beam Batteries (3 arcs) 4 Class 3 Beam
Batteries (3 arcs) 2 Pulse Torpedoes (1 arc)
If we take that same ship and replace 10 mass of Hull with 10 mass of cargo
and change the ship to a 3 row hull, the NPV goes up to 462 with a cost of 3,
and up to 392 when the cost is 4 points per hull.
So reguardless of points would you take the 40 hull 4-row ship or the 30
hull 3 row ship? Yup, the 4-row ship will survive longer so it is the
better ship. Now if you look at points and it actually costs less than the
30 hull 3-row version....OK something is off on the point calculation,
and
making a 3-row hull more expensive won't fix that.
> Excuse the pun, but we're not playing in a vacuum here. We're not
But it's easier to see the costs with 1-box-per-row, and you just
multiply after that.
> Some more grumblings from me:
That's not what OO said. He was saying that a 4-row x 5-box (total 20)
is
not easier to destroy than a 3-row x 5-box (total 15). What you have in
mind is that a 15/4 ship is easier than a 15/3. Both of you are right.
However, if you increase the cost of 3-row the way you want, you will
find
that a 20/4-box ship is cheaper than a 15/3 ship, which implies that the
fourth row is a liability. Granted, the fourth row isn't worth *much*, but it
isn't negative.
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> This sounds like the speech by the engineer that designs the new rifle
No, it sounds like a maths teacher trying to explain the concept of algebra
to a mathematically challenged student - and I'm afraid that your reply
matches that student's answers rather closely too.
> Excuse the pun, but we're not playing in a vacuum here. We're not
Which only makes the argument more solid, because the rounding errors grow
smaller as the number of hull boxes increases.
You see, nearly all of those 30-60 hull boxes are grouped either into
vertical columns of 3 boxes (if it is a 3-row hull), or vertical columns
of
4 boxes (on a 4-row hull) - there might be a single column with fewer
boxes on each ship, but on larger ships only a small fraction of the ship's
hull boxes are in that last smaller column (if it even exists). For *each* of
these vertical columns, your suggestion makes each individual vertical
column of 3 hull boxes on a 3-row ship cost more than the corresponding
column of 4 hull boxes on a 4-row ship.
> In my experience ships with 3 rows of X hull boxes (for a total hull
No, it will not. As Dean already explained, if each HULL ROW on both ships has
the same number of boxes then the ship with 4 hull rows will by
definition have *more* hull boxes than the ship with 3 hull rows -
one-third more, to be exact.
> I'm going to give two examples. Why these two? I'm going to use them
Should be "mass: 154, cost: (4-row) 684, (3-row) 738"
> hull: 54, armor: 6, FTL, MD 2 (advanced)
In its 3-row configuration, this ship has 18 hull boxes per hull row and
costs 738 (not 737) pts. Your proposed hull costs will increase its points
value to 792 pts.
However, there is another way to build a ship with exactly these weapons,
sensors and thrust ratings which *also* gives you 18 hull boxes per row:
BB Smart Steve
mass: 178, cost: (4-row) 758
hull: 72, armor: 6, FTL, MD 2 (advanced) Superior sensor, 4 FC, 1 ADFC
14 6-arc pulsers
Let's compare the hull configurations and costs for these two ships:
Ship: BB Steve (3-row) BB Smart Steve (4-row)
Row 1 18 boxes 18 boxes Row 2 18 boxes 18 boxes Row 3 18 boxes 18 boxes Row 4
DESTROYED 18 boxes
Cost (current) 738 758 Cost (Glen) 792 758
These two ships have THE SAME hull configuration for the first three
rows -
ie., 18 hull boxes in each of hull rows 1, 2 and 3 - but whereas BB
Steve is destroyed after losing its third hull row (ie. 54 dmg), BB Smart
Steve still has one hull row of 18 boxes left after losing the first three
rows (once again 54 dmg).
With the current costs, Steve can choose whether or not he wants to pay an
extra 20 pts to add one more row of 18 boxes to his ship. They won't help very
much since they're in the 4th row, but what do you expect for a mere 20 pts?
With your proposed cost for 3-row hulls, Steve gets to choose between
paying 792 pts to get a ship with 3 rows of 18 boxes each (54 boxes in all),
or paying 758 pts to get a ship with *FOUR* rows of 18 boxes each (72 in all).
After all your descriptions of him, I can't think of anything that
could compel him to take the more expensive 3-row ship when he could
SAVE
792 - 758 = 34 pts and get an BETTER hull configuration (*without*
skimping on weapons, sensors and thrust ratings). Can you?
> BB Isucc
Same thing here. Instead of building a 3-row ship with 15+14+14 = 43
hull
boxes for 634 pts, you could build a TMF 164, 4-row ship with
15+14+14+14 =
57 hull boxes and the above weapons, sensors and engines for 655 pts. Let's
call this modified ship "BB Smart Isucc".
Now, with your proposed hull costs the 3-row version of BB Isucc would
cost *677* pts. Let's do the same comparison between the two Isuccs:
Ship: BB Isucc (3-row) BB Smart Isucc (4-row)
Row 1 15 boxes 15 boxes Row 2 14 boxes 14 boxes Row 3 14 boxes 14 boxes Row 4
DESTROYED 14 boxes
Cost (current) 634 655 Cost (Glen) 677 655
With the current costs, you get the choice of adding 14 extra hull boxes in a
4th row for 21 pts. Note that this isn't as good a deal as Steve got (18 extra
hull boxes for 20 pts) since your ship has a higher thrust rating
than Steve's (which means that your engines increase faster in size and cost
than his does), but even so 1.5 pts per extra hull box isn't very much.
With your proposed cost for 3-row hulls you can either get 43 hull boxes
in 3 rows for 677 pts, or you could SAVE 22 pts by ADDING a 4th row of 14
boxes (and still get those 43 boxes in the first 3 rows you wanted to pay 677
pts for). Which of these two ships would you choose? It certainly looks
like a no-brainer to me - I'd go for the cheaper ship with the better
hull integrity every time.
> Ship Steve's cost increase for 3-rows is 7.9%. Ship Isucc's (can you
> 1st-row hull increase went from 14 to 18, this is a 28.6% increase in
Which would be relevant if the value of the increase in "critical damage
prevention" were linear with the damage prevention itself. Unfortunately
for your argument it isn't, and since it isn't your "critical damage
prevention" measure isn't very meaningful either.
The relevant measure here is "how much damage does it take before an average
weapon *becomes* unable to fire due to threshold damage (either to itself or
to every FCS aboard the ship)?". For some reason I have long
since forgotten I tend to refer to this value as the ship's "TAWA" - I
*think* it stands for something like "Total Average Weapon Availability",
but I'm not sure :-/ The combat power of the ship is proportional to
among several other things the square root of the ship's TAWA.
(The TAWA is calculated like this:
(# armour + # hull boxes in the 1st row)*(screen factor for undamaged
screens)+
(# hull boxes in the 2nd row)*(screen factor for the 1st threshold
check)*(Probability that the weapon survived the 1st threshold
check)*(Probability that AT LEAST ONE FCS remains undamaged after the 1st
threshold check)+(# hull boxes in the 3rd row)*(screen factor for the
2nd threshold checks)*(Probability that the weapon survived the 1st AND 2nd
threshold check)*(Probability that AT LEAST ONE FCS remains undamaged after
the 1st AND 2nd threshold checks)+...etc. for hull rows 4, 5 and 6 if
present.
Note that this is something quite different from "how much damage is needed
before a weapon runs *any risk at all* of becoming unable to fire due to
threshold damage?", which is what your "critical damage prevention"
measures - after all most weapons survive the first threshold check!
Also note that I haven't weighed in the effects of DCP rolls in the TAWA
calculation - when you do include them it tends to reduce the difference
between 4-and 3-row row ships slightly because the 3-row ships generally
lose more DCPs before they start losing systems.)
So, let's take a look at the TAWAs of your two example designs, and at the
TAWA and combat power increases when you change from 4 to 3 hull rows:
Ship 3-row TAWA 4-row TAWA TAWA incr.: Value
incr.: BB Steve 48.60 41.23 17.9% 8.6% BB Isucc 42.13 36.05 16.9% 8.1%
IOW, by going from a 4-row hull to a 3-row hull BB Steve increases 7.9%
in cost in order to gain an 8.6% increase in combat power, while BB Isucc pay
a 7.3% cost increse to gain an 8.1% increase in combat power.
Granted, the points increases don't match the combat power increases
*exactly* - but it is close enough that even normal swings in dice luck
(as
opposed to your and Steve's respective dice luck :-/) will drown the
differences out completely. (And when you take the DCP rolls into
account -
which as I noted above helps the 4-row ships slightly more than it helps
the 3-row ones - the combat power increases drop a little whereas the
cost increases remain the same, thus improving the match further still.)
> So, if we increase the 3-row hull cost from 3 to 4, Steve's cost
But as you can see above, it is way ABOVE the increase in *combat power*
caused by this increased damage prevention - which makes avoiding the
3-row
hulls like the plague a no-brainer...
> So, Oerjan, tell me some more numbers. :)
Done.
***
From Glen's other post, the battle report:
> But you want to know the real kicker? My 2x class-6 rail guns, with
> check (it would be close to a
A difference in mass of 10, but if your ship had 4 rows and his 3 the
difference in *points* cost was 147 pts - ie., his ship was almost 25%
more expensive, and thus should be nearly 25% more powerful, than yours. If
you
too had a 3-row hull the points difference was "only" 104 pts, ie. 16%
more expensive than yours.
Either way that's a pretty big difference in combat power... even before
factoring in your respective lucky/unlucky die rolls and your (Glen's)
splitting your fire between two separate targets.
Regards,
First, someone replied with "Superior sensors?". This is an option in More
Thrust for a sensor system that we use. A ship without any special sensor
system has Basic sensors, then you can buy either
Enhanced Sensors (1d6) or Superior Sensors (1d6+2). Enhanced
Sensors are almost not worth bothering with. The rule is somewhat crude, but
it works well and simple enough; except that Basic Sensors do practically
nothing. We've tried more elaborate sensor rules but they slowed the game
down.
Second, we always play with cinematic movement. I cannot get
the others to try vector (where my restrictive-arc weaponry would
shine over Steve's nearly-all-around-arc weaponry, except he still
rolls much better than I:().
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> >How can you say this? The 3-row hull ship will have the same
Hmm, trying to weed out the point I want to argue but instead I'll
summarize. Essentially, others have said that a ship with 4x 18-hull
boxes per row is better than a 3x 18-hull boxes per row. Well,
duh. That's not what I'm getting at. You're really comparing two different
ships, that just happen to have the same weapons and drives platform.
What Steve has done is take his ships that had 4 rows of hull boxes and
converts them to the exact same design with only 3 rows of hull boxes so that
the 4th row's hull boxes are now spread among among rows 1, 2, and 3, thus
improving upon the ship's capability to withstand the critical threshold check
damage. They did not become easier to kill, in fact, much harder.
All my new designs, at whatever size and load out, will now have 3 rows of
hull boxes instead of 4. If I want more hull boxes, supposedly in that 4th row
that you seem so fond of, I'll put them in the first 3 rows instead. Those
ships will not die any sooner than in a 4 row configuration; they have the
same amount of hull.
We are not removing hull by reducing the rows from 4 to 3; we're moving the
hull that would be in the 4th row to rows 1, 2, and 3.
And for the cost increase of +1 per hull box for any particular
design to go from 4 rows to 3 rows is way too cheap for what you get. That's
the point I'm trying to make. I want it to be more expensive for a ship to
have 3 hull rows vs 4 hull rows. Enough to give a designer pause. The current
cost increase does not, at least for two of us here.
I've tried the cheap ship approach, especially after Steve has
converted his previously beam-equipped ship to the more
expensive "alien" techs. I built human-tech ships, only put
a Superior Sensor on one ship of the fleet (it takes up 2 spaces and costs 30,
so it's a large chunk of change), stayed with normal instead of advanced
drives; and all for nought. That slight increase of more tonnage for my fleets
vs. a more expensive per given tonnage enemy fleet still does not compare well
enough. In other words, with the current Full Thrust costs, quantity is not
the way to go (strikeboats may be an exception, but I wouldn't want to make an
entire fleet of strikeboats and they are not the flavor of the game). Pulse
Torpedoes are still my favored weapon, at least they're still one of the
"cheap" weapons.
> >BB Steve
So where am I a point off? mass 154: 154
54 hull (4-row): 108
FTL (15 mass): 30 MD 2 (advanced, 15 mass): 45 6 armor: 12 Superior sensor
(2): 30 4 FC: 16 1 ADFC: 8
14 pulser batterys, 6-arc: 280
total: 683
Ah, I bet you rounded the MD 2 cost; it masses 15.4 so you probably multipled
the cost before dropping the fraction. That's not how it's done as I read it.
> In its 3-row configuration, this ship has 18 hull boxes per hull row
They are NOT the same ship. Instead of adding the 18 hull to a 4th row, add 6
hull to each of the first 3 rows. It will have the same survivability, and
less chance of thresholds.
> Cost (current) 738 758
> These two ships have THE SAME hull configuration for the first three
It costs a lot more than 20: 154 mass, 3 row hull: 683 (54 hull) 178 mass, 4
row hull: 758 (72 hull) 178 mass, 3 row hull: 830 (72 hull)
That's a cost increase of 75 for the same firepower.
That extra 18 hull split among the 3 rows is 6 per row; it requires at least
two more average weapons hits to get a threshold check (based on beam and
pulse torpedo damage).
Maybe the cost increase of 2 per hull box for 3 rows is too much?
> From play results, I doubt it.
Glen
> > >How can you say this? The 3-row hull ship will have the same
What we are trying to say is that you can't just look at the increase in
cost going from a 4-row hull to a 3-row hull on the same ship by itself.
You have to compare other situations to balance the costs or someone else will
find the hole.
Lets start with a few points we can agree on:
1) BB Steve3 (3 rows, 18/18/18) is more powerful than BB Steve4 (4 rows,
14/14/13/13)
2) BB SmartSteve (4 rows 18/18/18/18) is more powerful than BB Steve3 (3
rows, 18/18/18)
3) BB SmartSteve (4 rows 18/18/18/18) is more powerful than BB Steve4 (4
rows, 14/14/13/13)
Based on those points, relative power of ships SHOULD go in the following
order, lowest to highest:
BB Steve4 (4 rows, 14/14/13/13)
BB Steve4 (3 rows, 18/18/18)
BB SmartSteve (4 rows 18/18/18/18)
Any questions?
Now lets add the points in, current 3 rows at 3 points listed first then
Glen's proposal of 4 points per hull
683 683 BB Steve4 (4 rows, 14/14/13/13)
737 792 BB Steve3 (3 rows, 18/18/18)
758 758 BB SmartSteve (4 rows 18/18/18/18)
As you can see, current costs have the ships in the same order and the Steve3
is closer to Smartsteve than it is to Steve4. By increasing the cost of a 3
row hull to 4 per box, Steve3 now has a higher point total than SmartSteve.
If you agree to points #1-#3 above, than SmartSteve should cost more
than Steve3 and that is the point we are trying to get across. Yes there
should be an increase in cost for going from 4 rows to 3 rows, but that
increase should not make the 3 row ship more expensive than a 4 row ship with
the extra hull the 3 row ship doesn't have.
> All my new designs, at whatever size and load out, will now have
But with your proposal, you can make a 4 row ship with more hull and thus is
more survivable but it will cost less.
> We are not removing hull by reducing the rows from 4 to 3;
BUT, if you agree that Steve4 and SmartSteve are pointed correctly, then
Steve3 has to cost less than SmartSteve.
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> Hmm, trying to weed out the point I want to argue but instead I'll
No, *I* am comparing *three* ships. *You* are the one comparing only two
different ships that just happen to have the same weapons and engine
ratings: one with 54 hull boxes in a 4-row configuration (14/14/13/13),
and
another one with 54 hull boxes in a 3-row (3x18) configuration.
The problem with comparing only two ships is that while it is easy to see
which one should cost *more* (the 3x18 ship is more powerful so should cost
more points than the 14/14/13/13 one, and indeed it *does* cost more
points), limiting yourself to only two samples makes it is very difficult to
determine *how much* more it should cost.
That's why I'm comparing *three* different ships, all with the same weapons
and engine ratings: the two 54-hull ones you're looking at (14/14/13/13
and
3x18), and one with 72 hull boxes in a 4-row configuration (4x18).
This 4x18 ship is designed using the standard 2 pts/box cost for 4-row
hulls, so you already know how much it costs. Now, as you agreed above the
4x18 ship is clearly *even more* powerful than the 3x18 ship (you even found
it so obvious that you said "well, duh" about it); being more powerful, the
4x18 ship should also cost more points than the 3x18 ship.
Since you already know how much the 4x18 ship costs, and you know that the
3x18 ship should cost less than this, the 4x18 ship provides an upper limit
for how much the 3x18 ship can cost.
The problem with your suggested hull costs is that they make the 3x18 ship
cost MORE than the 4x18 one - ie. MORE than this known upper cost limit.
> What Steve has done is take his ships that had 4 rows of hull
How can they be "the exact same design" if the hull configuration is
different?
Steve's 3-row ships are NEW designs. While they're *similar* to his old
4-row designs, they are NOT "the exact same".
> so that the 4th row's hull boxes are now
They don't necessarily become harder to *kill* (the amount of damage needed to
*destroy* them doesn't change); but they certainly become harder to
*cripple* than 4-row ships *with the same number of boxes*. That's the
entire purpose of the 3-row hulls, after all. They also become more
expensive.
The point I'm trying to make is that you can get the same longer,
harder-to-cripple hull rows as the 3-row ships have by keeping the 4-row
configuration but add more hull boxes to it (eg., instead of going from
14/14/13/13 to 18/18/18 you go from 14/14/13/13 to 18/18/18/18) - and
with
your suggested costs, it will be CHEAPER to reinforce the 4-row hull
with
all those extra hull boxes than it is to change to a 3-row hull without
adding any extra hull boxes. With the reinforced 4-row hull you can get
the same increase in survivability from the first three rows as you'd get by
changing from a 4-row to a 3-row hull, and you ALSO get a little extra
survivability from the 4th row - and all of this costs you LESS than
what
changing to a 3-row hull without adding extra hull boxes would do.
> All my new designs, at whatever size and load out, will now have 3 rows
As long as we're not fighting equal-points battles, sure. With no points
limit, you can add as many 3-row hull boxes as you like.
However, if we *are* fighting equal-points battles with your proposed
hull
costs, then your 3-row ships will be so expensive that my 4-row ships
will have the same number of hull boxes *in their first three rows* (plus an
extra 33% of this amount in the 4th row) as your 3-row ships have *in
all*.
My ships will be just as hard to cripple as yours are (since their first
three hull rows are the same lengths as on your ships), and they'll be even
harder to actually *kill* (since they have that extra hull row your ships
lack). What's more, I'll even have points left over to buy extra ships for.
> We are not removing hull by reducing the rows from 4 to 3; we're moving
> the hull that would be in the 4th row to rows 1, 2, and 3. And for the
> rows to 3 rows is way too cheap for what you get.
If the cost increase of +1 per hull box for the 3-row hull is "way too
cheap", then it is *also* way too cheap to add more hull boxes to a
4-row
hull - because it only costs marginally more to reinforce the 4-row hull
than it is to change to a 3-row hull *now*, and with your suggested hull
costs it will be *cheaper* to reinforce the 4-row hull.
> That's the point I'm trying to make. I want it to be more expensive
Then you haven't played around enough with designing 4-row ships - or at
least you haven't looked closely enough at the 4-row ships you have
designed.
> I've tried the [...]; and all for nought.
Sorry for asking this, but could one of the reasons for your repeated defeats
be that Steve is a more skilled *tactician* than you are (in addition to
having better luck with his dice than you do)?
> >>BB Steve
DOH! Yes, for the FB design system you're entirely correct. I'm confusing
playtest rules with in-force ones again :-(
> >In its 3-row configuration, this ship has 18 hull boxes per hull row
Of course they aren't - just like the 3-row and 4-row versions of the
54-box design are "NOT the same ship". All three of them are *different*
from one another.
Thing is, until the 3x18 and 4x18 ships have taken 54 pts of damage they
behave *exactly the same* on the table. They've got the same armaments, the
same manoeuvrability, and they take thresholds after exactly the same amounts
of damage as each other. The difference between them only becomes appearent
after 54 pts of damage, when the 3x18 ship dies and the 4x18 one doesn't
(unless it suffers a Power Core detonation).
Far above you've already agreed that the 4x18 ship is MORE POWERFUL than
the 3x18 ship. With your suggested point costs, the 4x18 ship becomes CHEAPER
than the 3x18 ship, in spite of being more powerful.
> >Cost (current) 738 758
No, it is the 154 mass, *4*-row (14/14/13/13) ship which costs 683 pts.
The
*3*-row (3x18) one we're looking at in the above comparison costs 737
pts with the current hull costs, and 791 pts with yours. (I made the same
rounding error for both of these, so thought it cost 738/792 pts in my
previous post.)
> 178 mass, 4 row hull: 758 (72 hull)
And 758 - 737 = 21. OK, 1 pt more than the 20 I had claimed; sorry about
that... but I think that you'll find it difficult to justify calling 21 pts
"a lot more" than 20 pts :-/
> That's a cost increase of 75 for the same firepower.
Only if you believe that 75 = 21.
To reiterate:
At the moment, Steve's choice is between the 154-mass, 3-row ship with
3x18
hull boxes at 737 pts and the 178-mass, 4-row ship with 4x18 hull boxes
at 758 pts. The 4x18 ship is slightly more powerful than the 3x18 one (due to
having that extra hull row), but costs 21 pts more. Steve has to weigh the
higher cost against the higher power, making it a tradeoff.
With your suggested points costs, Steve gets to choose between the
154-mass, 3-row ship with 3x18 pts at 791 pts and the 178-mass, 4-row
ship with 4x18 hull boxes at 758 pts. The 4x18 ship is still slightly more
powerful than the 3x18 one thanks to its extra hull row - but now it
costs 33 pts *LESS* than its alternative. There's no tradeoff; one ship offers
more power for fewer points than the other. Which do you think Steve would
choose now? Where's the tradeoff?
> That extra 18 hull split among the 3 rows is 6 per row;
Sure; but splitting them among only 3 rows won't save Steve any points -
on the contrary, he'll have to pay through the nose for them. The reason for
adding them as a *fourth* row is that with your suggested hull costs this will
REDUCE the cost of the ship from 791 pts (for the 3x18) to 758 pts (for the
4x18).
> Maybe the cost increase of 2 per hull box for 3 rows is too much?
Yes, it is too much. At +2 pts per box for 3-row hulls, it is cheaper to
simply reinforce the normal 4-row hulls to give the same lengths for the
first 3 rows.
Regards,
On the effectiveness of 3-row UN style hulls, I have to
strongly disagree with Glen for ships up to light cruiser size. I fought a
series of solo test battles with UN light designs against similar NAC and
found that the 3 row hull was no advantage at all. A weak regular hull with an
equivalent 'row' of armour, or a screen for a heavy destroyer, has better
resistance at about the same point cost. Or the regular hull ship with average
design will be bigger with more weaponry which cancels out the extra couple of
hull boxes. (Alien weaponry might be different.)
On battleship and larger designs, I disagree with Glen but with less
confidence than above. I've been slowly putting together a set of Babylon 5
Shadow designs scaled down to
GZG-verse size. Initially they had regular hulls but when
the UN beta rules came out I switched to 3-row hulls. It
makes them initially harder to threshhold, but boy! are those hulls expensive.
At equal mass, a 3-row hull ship is superior as would be
expected from the extra points. If you just go to equal points and don't
increase the masses of the regulars, the
3-rowers should win, (eg 5 x 600pt 3-row dreadnaughts vs
6 x 500pt 4-row dreadnaughts) but this is no different
from the standard FT scaling problem of 1 x 500 pt being superior to 2 x 250.
If you have equal points and numbers, it's even.
My two cents (Aus) worth.
cheers,
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> On the effectiveness of 3-row UN style hulls, I have to strongly
> test battles with UN light designs against similar NAC and found that
As long as the enemy only uses beams and similar weapons (Grasers, Pulsars,
Stingers...), yes.
OTOH the weak/armoured hulls you describe are quite vulnerable to the
larger K-gun types, and there are several weapon types which ignore
screens
entirely; the only weapons able to ignore the 3-row hulls are those
which inflict system damage rather than hull damage (ie., EMPs and Needles).
Regards,