Well, addressing some of the easy ones...
> Second, how do the beam dice work in GT? Is it...
I use c). For example, when rolling against an Imperial Cruiser's flank
(5+
armour), 5's do 1 damage and 6's do 2 damage. Further, the 6's allow a reroll
where 4's and 5's do 1 damage and 6's do 2 damage plus a further reroll.
Quite frankly, I'm less enamoured of rerolls lately (that and SML attack
envelopes). I'm considering playing without rerolls and with 4" SML envelopes
in vector and cinematic.
> While I'm certainly biased towards the Eldar, downgrading their
While the Eldar are more fragile and a bit less powerful, initial play shows
that the modified turn sequence favours them so greatly as to offset these
disadvantages.
> Why are all the Eldar Pulser mounts marked with a "2"? If they're
I believe the "2" is the range, which I believe is 2 range bands.
> Is the "Reflex Field" symbol only a marker for "Capital Ships", or
If I recall correctly, that's the teleporter.
I haven't had a lot of time to look at Tom McCarthy's and Jon Davis's Gothic
Thrust rules (called GT below), but there are some things I wonder about:
First, the "beam analysis" Excel sheet included in the download.zip file.
All it tells me is that if you divide a number by 3, you get 1/3 of
that number - the "BFG hits" columns simply show the values from the
corresponding "FT hits" columns divided by 3, but it doesn't say anything
about how closely the GT weapons simulate the real BFG damage profiles
:-(
Second, how do the beam dice work in GT? Is it...
a) Standard FB dice with re-rolls?
b) FT2 dice (ie, *without* re-rolls)?
c) FT2 dice, but having to equal or beat the target's armour rating
(same effect on FT dice as screens, with 5+ armour corresponding
to level-1 screens and 6+ to level-2)?
The rules say "Standard FB dice". The analysis uses "FT2 dice having to equal
or beat the target's armour rating". Which one should it be?
Third, GT Eldar:
In BFG, the Eldar holofields inflict one right-shift on the Gunnery
Table on incoming salvoes. This increases the amount of firepower
necessary to kill the ship by on average 36-39% if the ship is closing
or moving away, or an impressive 68% if it is abeam. These averages include
the risk for critical hits, and assume that each attack inflicts only 1 damage
point (which maximizes the risk to lose the holofield early), but do not
include the possibility of repairing the holofield. Assuming that the
holofield does not go down at all (or is
repaired immediately), the averages are 40-43% and 75%, respectively.
Full Thrust screens increase the number of beam dice required for a
kill by on average 20% for level-1 and 53% for level-2 assuming no
repairs, or by on average 26% for level-1 and 71% for level-2 if the
screens never go down.
GT Eldar holofields count as level-1 FT screens, ie they are only about
half as effective their BFG counterparts.
BFG Eldar guns count all targets as "closing". Assuming that all target
aspects are equally common, this means that the Eldar firepower is
effectively... Target aspect: Target: Closing Moving away Abeam Capitals 0%
40% 100%
Escorts 0% 43% 150%
...higher than the raw firepower value would suggest. Assuming that all target
aspects are equally common, the average firepower boost is about 47% vs
capitals and 64% vs escorts.
The lighter GT Eldar batteries are about this much more powerful than
their Human equivalents, but the Shadow class is a bit short-changed
:-(
While I'm certainly biased towards the Eldar, downgrading their principal
defences as well as their heaviest guns by about 20% each seem a bit... let's
call it "biased in the opposite direction" <g>
Why are all the Eldar Pulser mounts marked with a "2"? If they're supposed to
work just like they do in BFG, shouldn't this be a "3"?
Ordnance and turrets: The GT turret rule makes bombers much more effective
against battleships (than they are in BFG), more effective against cruisers
but considerably less effective against escorts. Not sure if this is to be
considered a "bug" or a "design feature" <g>
GT turrets are also *much* more effective against (human) torpedoes
than BFG turrets; OTOH the average number of (human) bomber/assault
boat kills per turret is identical. The GT turrets will probably let some
attack craft through more often than the BFG ones do, but OTOH they'll shoot
down some but not all craft in a squadron more often than not.
Not sure how to simulate the Eldar bomber's survivability - "heavy"
status makes them too fragile - but making them shoot as "Ace"
squadrons gives at least undamaged squadrons about the same damage ratio to
human GT bombers as their BFG counterparts have.
GT Assault Squadrons look weak compared to BFG ones, particularly against big
targets. A BFG Assault sqdn will knock out *all* system in the target area
rather than one system per fighter; a GT Assault sqdn can only knock out at
most 3 systems (and usually not in the same area)
- and most capitals have more than 3 systems in their broadsides.
Is the "Reflex Field" symbol only a marker for "Capital Ships", or does it
represent an actual system? If so, which?
I'll be abroad the next two weeks and won't have any time to look closer at
GT, but it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts about the above points
(particularly the beam analysis).
Best wishes,
> Tom McCarthy wrote:
> Well, addressing some of the easy ones...
That's not c). That's d): *FB* dice, but having to equal or beat the
target's armour rating :-/ And it makes beam_analysis.xls completely
out of date :-(
> Quite frankly, I'm less enamoured of rerolls lately (that and SML
You may need to increase the size of the pulse torp back to 5 if you do
this, though. Dropping the re-rolls for beam dice makes it a good deal
even against unscreened targets otherwise.
> >While I'm certainly biased towards the Eldar, downgrading their
> While the Eldar are more fragile and a bit less powerful, initial
The modified turn sequence make them *less* powerful than they are in
BFG, since their would-be targets have a decent chance of firing before
the Eldar get to move away... Whether or not they are balanced in BFG is
another question, of course <g>
> > Why are all the Eldar Pulser mounts marked with a "2"? If they're
OK. Then it needs to inflict 1D6 damage per hit rather than the 1 it would
using the straight BFG mechanics, no?
> >Is the "Reflex Field" symbol only a marker for "Capital Ships", or
OK. A list of the various GT system symbols on the GT page would be nice <g>)
Best wishes,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
The beam analysis sheet was some measure of analysis for mapping the BFG
battery values to the FT mechanics. It still is not accurate to the BFG
firepower since the firepower of a set of Class 2 batteries drops 50% at the
15 cm range band. BFG is a little more forgiving for that range boundary.
Unfortunately, the FT mechanic heavily penalizes the Imperial ships with their
30 cm weapon battery ranges. Chaos are less affected since much of their
weaponry has 45 cm ranges. Chaos is at a clear advantage
in the 15-45 cm bands.
> > > Why are all the Eldar Pulser mounts marked with a "2"? If they're
Correct. The Eldar lance has a range of 2 range bands and still has the
special ability of inflicting up to three lance hits on the target. Each hit
will generate 1D6 GT hits to the shields and the hull of the target.
> OK. A list of the various GT system symbols on the GT page would be
Noted.
I also need to put up the SSDs for the various plaenetary defenses and other
installations.