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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lFollow up
questions for Indy:
If you want some testing, should it include:
Fighter Morale
Any form of Fighter Endurance (and if so, what variety/rules?)
To Mr.Lerchey:
I can see a flavour point for what you argue to or for Indy's view.
I'm quite happy with 'PDS made better with a better FC' or 'a shorter and
longer range PDS system' (much like you have B1, B2, and B3 batteries). Either
seem to have a reasonable sensibility about tthem.
However, notice that no other system in the game is improved by another system
in the way PDS was improved by ADFC nor in the way the Lerchey variant would
work. We don't have batteries and then improve them with better FC. If it
would make sense for PDS, wouldn't it make sense for any of the weaponry? We
just generally don't price FC (at least range from FC) as a
separate item - it is rolled into a weapon mount. So I can see Indy's
approach being coherent with that standard.
It also eliminates a variability of valuation and that seems like a big
advantage.
ADS as a long range PDS - pay X PV, get X dice of PDSness.
ADS as a range extender on PDS - pay X PV, magnify the effect of every
PDS on the ship (which could be any number from 1 to very many more than
one).
One of those schemes scales in a predicatable fashion. ADS as PDS range
extender has a value that would vary with PDS count - on ships with few
PDS, it would be worth way less than on ships with many. For reference
material
see "Fighters, value changes with ratio of fighters to enemy fighters +
PDS".
So, I think Indy's approach is better. Flavour wise, both systems work. PV
wise, I think the longer ranged PDS option is more evenly applicable.
T.
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Tue, May 4,
> 2010 at 11:08 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> Follow up questions for Indy:
Fighter Morale is optional. If one tests with it, please outline which flavor
of the morale used.
Fighter Endurance is also optional. We have not been using it, as we found it
adds voluminous layers of bookkeeping as you have more and more fighter
squadrons on the board. Also, when we have used it, we have found that either
fighters accomplish their mission with CEF to spare or die.
Thanks! Mk
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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThat sounds
like good news.
________________________________
From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Wed, May 5, 2010 7:29:56 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] a peek from FT3 on fighters/ordnance (was: Re:
> On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 11:08 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
Follow up questions for Indy:
> If you want some testing, should it include:
Fighter Morale is optional. If one tests with it, please outline which flavor
of the morale used.
Fighter Endurance is also optional. We have not been using it, as we found it
adds voluminous layers of bookkeeping as you have more and more fighter
squadrons on the board. Also, when we have used it, we have found that either
fighters accomplish their mission with CEF to spare or die.
Thanks! Mk
Tom,
That's a viewpoint that has never been presented to me before, and now having
heard it, I'm going to happily abandon my former request to have the advanced
fire con option. You are correct, it would be a "too unique and why doesn't it
available in other places" kind of option.:)
Along those lines, I would then want to advocate a minor change to the
proposed PDS/ADS convention. I know that the difference only effects
range, but still think that it's worth considering. Leave them all as
PDS, but assign numbers. So you have PDS-1 with a 6mu range, PDS-2
with a 12mu range, and if you are so inclined, PDS-n with 6nmu range.
Quick thought about CIDS and cost issues for very small/very large
ships. On larger ships I think that the increased mass can be PSB'd away as
having to simply cover more area because the hull is huge. If
it seems to be too cheap/small on very small ships, give it a minimum
mass and cost that is prohibitive for whatever class is "too small" to have
CIDS, beit it FF, DD or whatever.
Thanks for the insight Tom!
J
> On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 11:08 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
I rather like the idea of PDS-n rating. Rather than a new nomenclature
you simply pay greater cost/mass and have a PDS-3 over the PDS-1
Chip
----
"The reason the mainstream is considered a stream is because it's so
shallow" --George Carlin
> On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 10:56 AM, John Lerchey <lerchey@gmail.com> wrote:
 If
> it seems to be too cheap/small on very small ships, give it a minimum
> From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
I've actually been finding myself calling it a "lightning shield", because it
reminds me greatly of a system by that name from the old Master of Orion
games, and conceptually it also makes more sense to me in that kind of a vein.
i.e. a violent, active shield that would destroy some significant fraction of
the small objects that went through it but had no effect on energy weapons,
and due to its nature it can't be used to help other ships.
Two extra questions. One, what about heavy fighters? The way I'm looking at
this, I think that main weapons should be unaffected against them, PDS are
reduced to one fewer small target die against them but the
to-hit number is unchanged, while lightning shields are reduced by -1
against them. The other is, what about plasma bolts? Does the defense change
against those at all? Lightning shields, I'm thinking it should
be roll the to-hit and each shield reduces the plasma by one class, and
after that it's up to your PDS/scatterguns.
[quoted original message omitted]
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lIndy:
CIWS is doing the real point defense. Why not call it PDS?
The PDS you've got now is area defense.
How about:
PDS - close in defense when attacked (true 'point' defense)
ADS - ranged defense of an area, attacked or not
I also agree that an ADS-1 .... ADS-n would be interesting and could be
costable. This would let you simulate more genres. Some anime I've seen had
anti-fighter weapons that had fairly long range. And once you have 'set
effect dice' and 'range bands', you can cost/mass them somewhat on a
beam-ish model (or so it would seem).
Re: Waves or Sectors
Suspect Zoe's Sectors might be workable, but would have to test and seems like
they add an admin step to fights (dividing squadrons into sectors).
Waves... first some types of attack, not others. If I'm making close-up
strafing runs of the hull (B5, SW), that fits. If I'm firing standoff from
5000 km, all my fighters could fire at the same time. And waves introduce
another arbitrary administrative division point.
Not saying these could not work, just pointing out the characterization they
require.
T.
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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHi Eric,
Sorry, you asked some questions/clarifications a couple days ago and
I've been swamped on this end with Life and Work and Everything.
On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 2:01 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> Two extra questions. One, what about heavy fighters? The way I'm
The
> other is, what about plasma bolts? Does the defense change against
Question the first: PDS, ADS and main ship weapons fire their usual # of
Small Target dice at heavy fighters, but *only* hit/kill on a '6', not a
'5
or 6'. CIDS are reduced by 1 level when firing at heavy fighters, with a
minimum level of '1' (thus, CIDS-3 is effectively a CIDS-2 against heavy
fighters, but CIDS-1 remains CIDS-1).
Question the second: PDS, ADS, main ship weapons, if they hit a plasma bolt,
the hit reduces the strength of the bolt by one level. CIDS (lightning
shields, or whatever one wants to call it), being an extremely
short-ranged
system designed to take on small targets purposefully attacking a specific
ship, are unable to affect plasma bolts.
Hope that's clearer. :-) I'm making notes in my FT3 page to make some
stuff clearer (after one has read something over and over and over and 'knows'
how the rule is supposed to work, certain details tend to get dropped in the
cracks, so the questions are all good:)).
Mk
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, May 7,
> 2010 at 3:24 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> No problems, stuff comes up, I understand.
CIDS effectively fires last against inbound small targets.
Plasma bolts should be 6-only to hit as well. Plasma's a pretty
expensive
> system to pile up on - at 5 mass per level, and you only get _one_
(e.g. in
> my old games, we saw 5000 NPV fleets evolve towards carrying about 150
You tend to play larger games than most groups I am familiar with, but imo
that's okay. You help with seeing the breaking points on that extreme end.
:-)
The counter-balance to the plasma bolt concern is that it is a renewable
resource, whereas missiles, and to a large extent fighters, are not. So you
are paying for the ability (or privilege) of being able to fire multiple
times w/out worries about running out of ammo.
I'm suspicious that heavy fighters are going to get really, really popular
> in this system. You're effectively going to need to go with other
These suspicions are things we want to see if they come to pass. Things will
change whenever some aspect of the rules change. That's a given. But is it a
desired or unforeseen result?
Note: as I mentioned earlier, we have not point-balanced things. But
that's a whole different kettle of fish. I want to get a feel from the masses
how the mechanic seems to feel, work, etc.
:-)
Mk
> From: Indy
wrote:
> Okay... I have another question which could be pretty important. In
> CIDS effectively fires last against inbound small targets.
Hmm. So PDS fires first, and CIDS only takes out up to half the survivors? I
think that's going to come out to a situation where a capital ship doesn't
break even by taking a CIDS of any size over the equivalent mass of PDS until
they're swarmed by the equivalent of three or four fleet carriers' entire
fighter loads (or one basestar's). So is the point of this basically to be
swarm insurance and nothing else?
> Plasma bolts should be 6-only to hit as well. Plasma's a pretty
> You tend to play larger games than most groups I am familiar with, but
> The counter-balance to the plasma bolt concern is that it is a
Eh. Not sold. By my math you can max out at _maybe_ 100 dice of plasma
in a 5000 NPV fight, as opposed to up to 480 fighters (in 80 groups). That 150
PDS I described earlier would be pretty much invulnerable to the plasma but
would get shredded by the fighters. That's not even considering that with a
level 2 screen you can take down the damage of plasma by over half as it is.
I'm not sold that it needed this bad of a change at all. I don't necessarily
mind the small target dice in there, but I'm thinking that we should either
make it take multiple (four? six?) hits or just send plasma back to the "one
die for PDS, 6 or nothing" rule.
Another question on top of this... that twice-moving-half-distance rule
for ordnance is not on the same turn? As in, it moves half the turn it's
launched, the other half the turn after? That's terrible. It's already almost
completely impossible to hit advanced drive ships at anything from thrust 4
upwards, now we're going to give them a turn of warning at longer distances?
If anything, I think it should be moving
twice for half distance in the _same_ turn just to make it harder for
Kra'Vak to completely laugh off missiles.
> I'm suspicious that heavy fighters are going to get really, really
> These suspicions are things we want to see if they come to pass. Things
I don't know that I'd call it terribly "desired", even for me as a guy
who _likes_ fighters. You can throw 480 fighters for 5000 NPV if
they're standards; you can throw 396 heavies. The gap created by heavy
fighters was already a little dangerous -- I was making scatterguns
_better_ against them in my campaign because soapies could half
trivially make it much more expensive to defend against them by simply
stocking up with heavy fighters. Now we're giving PDS a similar gap? I don't
think that's such a hot idea.
E