At last years Cancon I ran a Full Thrust: Babylon 5 scenario on one day which
proved quite popular. This year I ran it again over two days, ending up with
four full scale three way battles and some shorter and smaller two way
skirmishes.
A number of ships carried grasers, especially graser-1s, as per the
beta rules for UNSC ships. In a repeat of last years results, every so often
such ships would vaporise undamaged and considerably larger opponents in a
single volley.
A couple of weeks ago John Atkinson was writing about how in modern navies
ship killers like torpedoes and SSMs have made big surface
ships other than carriers obsolete. The graser-1 as currently
specified is likely to do the same thing to Full Thrust.
I realise my argument is weakened by not having proper After Action Reports to
present here. These were public participation games, so I couldn't take the
time to write down every single roll and outcome.
First, the fleet compositions. Exact details are at
<http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/B5>
Earth Force: 2 battleship/carriers, 2 escort cruisers. (Omega, Nova,
2 x Hyperion) NPV = 1295, CPV = 1277 These are standard human tech designs,
fighters and beams for weaponry, average hulls and engines, no screens and
light armour.
Shadows: 4 destroyers, 2 heavy cruisers. (Thorns, Avalanches) NPV = 1192, CPV
= 1072
These have UN hulls, 2 graser-1s on the destroyers, 2 graser-2s on
the cruisers. Only 1 graser-1 per ship can fire all round, the others
are fore arc only.
Alliance: 4 heavy cruisers (White Stars) NPV = 1300, CPV = 1256
These are fast heavy cruisers with 4 fore arc graser-1s each.
The other force in the game was a Narn battleship, but only one of the games
had the fourth player and he had to leave early anyway, so had no effect.
In the four full scale battles, the Earth Force fleet got thumped every time,
and there were four memorable events:
* A Shadow destroyer fired a single opening graser-1 shot at an
escort cruiser and vaporised it. * Twice, a heavy cruiser vaporised an enemy
heavy cruiser with the opening volley. * And a White Star heavy cruiser
vaporised a battleship with the opening volley.
All these were achieved against undamaged opponents at 12-18 MU range.
No other weapon in Full Thrust can generate such destructive outcomes with
such frequency, and this unbalances the game too strongly in
favour of the graser-1s.
The destroyer vaporised the cruiser with rolls of 6,6,4 and 18 points of
damage. That's average damage from a 1 in 72 chance, a bit over 1%. Such a
shot will destroy every escort or light cruiser in Fleet Book 1, and force
double or triple threshold checks on the heavier cruisers. (How many of your
custom escort or cruiser designs have a level 2 screen?)
Odds of 1/72 don't sound too bad at first, but there are a LOT of
shots fired in a Full Thrust battle. A fast destroyer can comfortably
fit a pair of 3 arc graser-1s. Six such ships on your side, and your
chances of scoring such a megahit sooner or later are very good indeed.
The cruiser fired four graser-1s at the battleship, with three 6s.
The re-rolls all hit and one was another 6. I calculate the chance
of scoring those 10 hits as 1 in 324. The damage was 42 points, a bit above
average but not hugely so.
OK, 1 in 324, or 0.3%, odds of a cruiser vaporising a battleship with a
megahit is unlikely. But the point is that in a game (or real life) "unlikely"
is very different from "never happens."
Under the older rules, a cruiser allocating the same mass would have
two pulse torps or beam 3s, or four beam-2s. Allocating points
instead, ignoring mass increases elsewhere in the ship and rounding
fractions off, gives three pulse torps or three beam-3s or five
beam-2s. It would be impossible for the pulse torpedo armed cruiser
to destroy a battleship or force more than one threshold check with the same
die rolls, and the beam cruiser with similar good rolls might get a double
threshold check. In theory the beam cruiser could destroy the battleship, but
the odds against it are so astronomical that it would be more likely for the
roof to collapse and crush both players.
I'm sure someone at this point is asking "what about salvo missiles?" Yes, a
heavy cruiser with the same mass or points spent on SMRs could destroy a
battleship in one volley. Missiles, though, have two important differences.
First is obvious, a missile salvo can only be fired once while a graser can be
used for the entire game. Second is that missiles can be dodged by the target
ship, countering good die rolls with skill. Even though a slow ship may have
little or no actual chance of
dodging, the player can console him/herself with the thought "if I'd
moved thataway instead, I'd have survived."
In battles with beams and torpedoes, a burst of lucky rolls will certainly
give one player an advantage, such as a battleship being double thresholded by
a cruiser. This is a setback though, and still has to be exploited properly.
The other player knows this, and that they can still continue to fight or even
turn the tables. Salvo missiles give one player a few chances to gain a
decisive advantage, but the other player knows that if they are skilful and
avoid the missiles, the advantage then swings their way.
It's possible for a battle to be decided by nothing but luck, or for a cruiser
to vaporise a battleship. But this happens sufficiently rarely for players to
accept that the planets were in alignment, the deities were in agreement, and
the battleship captain had kicked a black cat through a mirror.
Graser-1s are too destructive, too often, for the losing players to
just accept it. A vaporised battleship is a disaster, not a setback. You can't
dodge, or do anything to reduce the risk except never come within range. If
the player with grasers rolls well, you're toast. If they roll badly, they're
no worse off than you are. It's not perceived as even.
And yes I know that the megahits really don't occur that often. But it is
human nature to remember bad luck and exaggerate it's frequency, and to pay
more attention to spectacular but low probability happenings. It's also human
nature to really dislike taking risks we have no apparent control over. People
worry more about plane crashes than car crashes, despite all the statistics
showing otherwise. I believe graser-1s are already a little too
cost-effective, and they're going to be perceived as even more
powerful than they really are.
So what should be done? I can think of three possible solutions.
First is to accept that Full Thrust now has tech levels, with the Xeno War as
dividing line. Expecting Fleet Book 1 ships to fight against their graser
armed descendants is no more reasonable than fighting a 1939 carrier group
against the 1945 version.
Second, and my preferred solution, is to increase the base mass of
the graser-1 to 3 or 4, and each extra arc should cost 1 mass. This
weapon is closer to a pulse torpedo in destructive power than a
beam-2, and small enough for mass to be the limiting factor on number
carried rather than points.
Third, grasers are better than beams on good rolls, but no worse on bad rolls.
Introduce a critical failure: on a natural 1, the graser burns out and can't
be repaired within the game.
If none of these are acceptable then somebody had better find another, because
from informal conversations at Cancon there is a fourth solution already being
used: don't play Full Thrust against anyone with grasers.
cheers,
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHi Hugh,
Sorry, but I don't see the problem with grasers. Only last weekend I utilised
a 10,000pt force armed with pulse torps and grasers, and the most damage I
ever got was 28 dp's from an initial roll of 2 pulse torp and 4
graser dice (lucky, yes, but not excessive). Frankly I find K-guns to be
a
lot worse to face than grasers, at close ranges a k-5 will inflict a lot
more damage a lot more reliably than 3 class 1 grasers, at least in my
experience as a graser player going up against a k gun armed opponant. Still
and all, at the end of the day it's all subjective, based on our own
observations, but if Oerjan and others say the math works out I'll go with
them.
Cheers,
Matt Tope.
> On 31/01/06, Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> > And yes I know that the megahits really don't occur that
Which is why we remember the UN capital ship which won initiative with an ORC
in F arc at range 3 mu. Fired 4 grasers...no damage.
Yeah, it sucks to be the one in front of a set of grasers when they're having
a good day. But that's the same reaction people had to SMR, and to Kra'Vak
when they first came out. We might want to add a line or two of text to the
weapon description that lets people know that *on average*, grasers are about
as effective as the same points of
beams--and sometimes you have good rolls and sometimes you
don't.
Now, mind you... this is said without having playtested grasers so much
myself.
However, the general pattern in Full Thrust as a whole tends to be that no
matter how powerful a given weapon is, it's rarely good enough that it won't
be even better on a larger ship that doesn't take thresholds nearly as often
as smaller ships carrying similar armaments. Also, it would appear that
grasers have their effectiveness cut roughly in half if you bring a level 2
screen. If grasers got too gross for people (and plasma bolts are already
pretty annoying and worth bringing screens for) then you'd just see a lot more
level 2 screens around, to say nothing of the grasers being deployed in more
numerous and possibly even heavier mounts.
Out of curiosity, what is the verdict on the different sizes of graser
mounts? I would find myself thinking that graser-2s and 3s wouldn't be
worth it at such a steep mass increase when a graser-1 would work fine
at a lot of engagement ranges. Does anyone really think 24 mass for a
graser-3
is worth it?
E
[quoted original message omitted]
In our group we changed grazers to be D3 per hit instead of the D6 and halved
the mass in compensation.
This seems to work fine and produces a slightly more predicable result sets.
Typically in each battle a fleet of ships with grazers will get one set of
rolls that = a dead enemy ship.
We found the original D6 damage per hit to be a bit over powered for our
groups tastes.
The thing we are having concerns over at the moment is SV weapons. Each
stinger node can have an unlimited amount of power diverted to it. We are
using homebrew designs so its quite possible to have a battleship with 40
power output 4 dice to 48 inches and 40 dice up close.
What are other peoples experience is fighting with and against SV ships?
John
[quoted original message omitted]
> Yeah, it sucks to be the one in front of a set of grasers
I'm willing to believe that graser-1s are balanced in
terms of average damage, but they are undervalued on their potential for above
average damage.
A Full Thrust battle isn't a series of independent statistical events. If one
side inflicts above average damage in a turn, the other sides may have
thresholds or destroyed ships which reduce their average damage from then on,
which makes it harder for them to catch back up. Less formally, once you start
winning, it gets easier to stay in front.
It's the compound advantage effect, and like compound interest it builds up
faster as the gap between the two sides increases. Using my cruiser vs
battleship example, you can hope to repair systems that fail a threshold
check, but there's nothing you can do if the ship has been vaporised.
A lucky graser shot is more likely to give you such a potentially winning
advantage than a lucky beam or torpedo shot. It's not an absolute guarantee
that you'll win, and not guaranteed to happen in every game, but it's a real
benefit that I don't believe the current mass requirement allows for.
cheers,
This reminds me a bit of the Heavy Beam Weapon troubles in EFSB. A lucky roll
was incredibly devastating, and just because a battle played out as balanced
in 10 playtests, nothing stopped one reasonably lucky roll from ruining the
game when you played it at the convention. The
cascading hull failure rule was a compounding/related issue.
In general, I'd move to see grasers and salvo missiles both do lower, more
predictable damage. The suggestion to halve the MASS of a graser is a decent
one. So is the idea of doubling the number of dice, but rolling D3 for each
hit (or D6 for each pair of hits, but that skews the average damage).
Actually, halving the MASS of launchers, magazines, and racks for salvo
missiles and reducing the damage per missile might be good. But I don't think
it fits at all with what Jon last mentioned he was thinking of for salvo
missiles in FT3.
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> A Full Thrust battle isn't a series of independent
This was described mathematically by F.W. Lanchester in 1916, and is the
basis for all accurate points systems. It doesn't just apply within a single
game turn, BTW: if one side inflicts damage in an earlier game turn while the
other side does not, the side which inflicted damage earlier also starts
building up a compound advantage. In most cases it is the side with
the longer-ranged weapons which does this.
The compound advantage effect also works *against* the G1, since its short
range often allows enemies with longer-ranged weapons to start building
their own compound advantage before the G1 can return fire - and when
this happens, the G1 needs a lucky hit just to catch up. FWIW this is why
weapons grow bigger faster than their range increases, ie. to compensate
for the compound advantage they can gain by being able to open fire
earlier. To continue your "fast G1-armed DD" example, six fast DDs with
a
pair of 3-arc G1s each are very dangerous if they can get close enough
to fire... but against most opponents I would expect one or two of them to be
crippled by long-range fire before they ever get into G1 range and
another couple or so knocked out after getting into G1 range but before they
can
fire their own weapons.
However, if you are consistently able to close the range before the enemy's
long-ranged weapons have built up any significant advantage then you
will
find the shorter-ranged weapons correspondingly more powerful since they
have little or no catching-up to do. Some FT gaming groups, eg. the
Canberra group, appear to be better at closing the range quickly than
others are - even other groups which play with the same or very similar
table sizes and initial velocities. Exactly how you do this I don't know,
which is why I keep asking you guys for detailed AARs :-/
Anyway:
If you find the Graser too unpredictable, remove its rerolls and reduce its
points cost to 3xMass to compensate; this curbs the most extreme results
but doesn't change the lower end of the performance range much. OK, one of
your White Star cruisers could still vapourize an enemy battleship with a
single salvo if it rolled 4 "6"s followed by 8 "5"s or "6"s, but without
the rerolls that's a ~1/8,000,000 chance or less rather than ~1:100.
Increasing the G1's Mass (or cost) without changing its damage mechanics is
essentially the same as saying that you *must* score mega-hits to have a
chance to win the battle. Yes, the G1's average destructive potential is
similar to that of a P-torp as long as the target is unscreened and the
G1
is in range to fire - but the P-torp has a longer maximum range, better
hit probability at range 12 and less, and ignores any screens the target might
have (which gives it a better hit probability than the G1 at range 12-18
as well if the target is screened). Similarly G1s that miss are no worse off
than B2s that miss - but at most ranges the G1s miss far more often than
the same points value of B2s do simply because the G1s fire fewer to-hit
dice.
John Tailby's variant, reducing the damage to 1D3 per hit and halving the
weapon Mass, reduces the unpredictability a bit but *increases* the average
damage per weapon Mass by 14%.
Later,
> On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Oerjan Ariander wrote:
<snip>
> Some FT gaming groups, eg. the
<snip>
They use that ruler with the 10 thingies per foot.:)
--Greg
> Oerjan wrote:
> The compound advantage effect also works *against* the G1, since its
Which I believe is what graser armed escorts and lighter cruisers can
consistently do. It's my experience that most opponents can't cripple the
graser ships before they get within range. Other escorts or light cruisers
carry
beam-1s or beam-2s, and 6 MU is not enough to work with.
Those light ships with a beam-3 or P-torp generally can't
afford the mass for more than one firing arc, so dodging around trying to hold
the range open is counterproductive because you can't shoot while doing so.
The chance of thresholding or destroying just with beams
or P-torps is too low to build up a significant compound
advantage of your own before they get in range. Not impossible, just very
difficult IMHO.
This may be exaggerated by the size of the battles being fought in my
examples. Perhaps at 10,000 pts a side it evens out, but small battles are
more common around here.
> Some FT gaming groups, eg. the Canberra group, appear to be better
Yeah, I'm sorry, but it was a public participation game and I didn't want to
give potential new players the impression that they had to write down
everything that happened. Pity I don't have a video camera.
> Increasing the G1's Mass (or cost) without changing its damage
No I am not saying that. My impression from the earlier
responses was that the graser-1 mass and points cost had
been calculated solely on average damage, and therefore
it was under-priced because the potential for megahits
had not been taken into account.
OK, now we appear to be disagreeing about what the extra
cost of a graser-1 should be to reflect the increased
probability of destroying the enemy. Maybe I am over reacting a little to
extreme events, but I've seen these events in all six of the battles involving
grasers. (Four this year, two similar ones last year.)
I still think 1 more mass point is needed. If you compare
a G1 to a P-torp on *average* damage, yes it's less, but
not on *maximum* damage. To repeat a comment I made last
year, anyone with NAC Vandenburg/T heavy cruisers would
sell his or her soul to get double hits on 6 and a reroll.
And there's still the reality that human beings are very bad at statistics and
perceive extreme events as being more likely to occur than they really are.
The airline industry can quote safety statistics until they're blue in the
face, but it doesn't work. G1s might have to be increased by another mass 1 up
to 4, just to satisfy the people who are unhappy about being beaten solely by
die rolls.
cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
> John Tailby wrote:
Doesn't work if you're (standard) ESU or NSL light ships against UNSC.
Or if your ships are guarding a space station, asteroid mining installation,
or navigation warp buoy.
Or if your ships are escorting slower merchants.
Or if your lights are supposed to be watching the flanks and rear of a
battleship squadron heading towards the enemy.
... and so on.
Presumably the playtest group and/or keepers of the AARs
can produce some stats about what percentage of turns in FT battles are spent
at various range bands?
cheers,
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> I don't agree with your point about short range ships being able to
> have some players that like to do this) you get a very "fighter pilot"
> style game. That works until someone designs their escorts with 4 beam
The
> shorter ranges ship then has to rush at the enemy ship that than turns
> away and then keeps shooting over their shoulder for a number of
> again turn in to close the range to the edge of the envelope.
It doesn't work *indefinitely*, but at least against the standard UNSC
destroyers you don't need very long before you start thresholding them. Volgas
are better at this sort of tactic than Warsaws or Waldburgs though,
thanks to their all-arc batteries.
> Or if your ships are guarding a space station, asteroid
If you are defending a fixed or slow-moving target, you need to go out
and meet the enemy before he gets to close to whatever you are protecting. As
Luftwaffe, RAF, USAAF, RN and many others learned this the hard way during
WW2, escorts that stick too close to their charges usually fail - and
this is just as true in FT as it was historically.
> Presumably the playtest group and/or keepers of the AARs
I can produce stats about what percentage of various weapon types' shots
were fired at enemy ships in what 12-mu range band during the recorded
Cinematic playtest battles, and also what percentage of the turns during
which ships were within range of the longest-ranged weapon on the table
that the respective weapon types actually did fire (the "Shots/turn"
column) - though note that weapons that had been destroyed were no
longer counted, which means that if a weapon usually is destroyed after
firing a single shot its "Shots/turn" rating will get quite inflated.
Weapon: Range band: Shots/turn:
0-12 12-24 24-36
B3-3 37% 37% 25% 0.69
B2-6 37% 63% - 0.60
B2-3 39% 61% - 0.46
B1-6* 88% - - 0.32
P-torp-3** 66% 21% 13% 0.58
P-torp-1*** 31% 46% 23% 0.48
G2-1** - 25% 75% 0.51
G1-6** 61% 39% - 0.42
G1-3** 53% 47% - 0.34
G1-1** 42% 58% - 0.18
Pulser-L-6* 23% 47% 30% 0.92
Pulser-L-3* 25% 38% 32% 0.58
Pulser-L-1* 17% 40% 37% 0.41
Pulser-M-6* 21% 75% - 0.60
Pulser-M-3* 34% 62% - 0.45
Pulser-M-1* 20% 80% - 0.15
Pulser-C-6* 78% - - 0.31
Pulser-C-3* 82% - - 0.21
Pulser-C-1* 83% - - 0.06
K1-6* 26% 54% 18% 0.77
K2+-1**** 31% 45% 23% 0.45
* These weapons are PD-capable. PD shots are counted in the "shots/turn"
column, but NOT in the "0-12" column (which is why these weapons don't
add
up to 100% anti-ship shots).
** These weapons were only used in a small number of playtest battles, so
their stats are far more uncertain than for the other weapon types.
*** This "Shots/turn" value is inflated by an unfortunate tendency of
NAC
warships to be destroyed after firing a single P-torp shot (thus earning
them single-battle "Shots/turn" ratings of 0.75 or more). In the few
battles where NAC P-torp-armed ships survived long enough to fire more
than
one shot each, they usually only scored around 0.33 shots/turn.
**** This "Shots/turn" value is *not* inflated by early destruction of
the weapons involved; and the results from individual battles are much more
consistent than for the single-arc P-torps - but the *averaged* results
for
the P-torps and the larger K-guns are remarkably similar, aren't they...
*****************************************************
What these stats show is that in the (few) recorded playtest battles featuring
them, even those G1s that survived long enough to fire at all
fired considerably fewer shots per turn than B2 or Pulser-M batteries
with
the same number of fire arcs - and they also fired a much higher
percentage
of their shots at range 0-12 rather than at range 12-24. (What the stats
*don't* show are the number of G1s that were destroyed by longer-ranged
before they got to fire even a single shot.)
It would be very interesting to see corresponding stats from your
battles -
I suspect that you'd get quite a lot more close-range shots even from
the
B2s and longer-ranged weapons.
Regards,
> Weapon: Range band: Shots/turn:
Perhaps I'm misreading these statistics (or simply oversimplifying), but don't
they suggest that the Kra'vak advanced drives aren't really doing that much in
terms of keeping the guns on target? Perhaps due to inexperience or player
error, but the advanced drives just don't seem to be radically improving how
well the targets are 'trapped' in the F arc.
Yes and no. Without knowing the exact details of the game I can hypothesize
three reasons why it appears that the Kra'vak Advanced drives don't appear to
produce much advantage:
1) High closing speeds - if the two sides are approaching each other at
20+ MU closing speed, then you are getting one, maybe two shots before
the fleets pass each other, turning ability plays little role in helping get
additional shots in.
2) Fleet disposition - if the Kra'vak are caught between two wings of a
fleet about 16 MU apart, then their advantage in turning is reduced, as they
bring their guns to bear on one side, the other wing gets off easily.
3) Players who are experienced in countering Kra'Vak advantages - If the
opposing players understand the tactics and formations required to
nullify the maneuver advantage of Kra'Vak, such as head-on attacks
instead of turning battles, high-speed passes, or spacing your fleet out
with the heavier ships on the outside to make the Kra'Vak player commit his
ships to one facing or another, while remaining within range of all your own
weapons.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> Yes and no. Without knowing the exact details of the game
Four. Could be KV tactics as well, if they're doing something like "one firing
pass, then break away and set up the next shot."
> Tom McCarthy wrote:
> > Weapon: Range band: Shots/turn:
Did you read the notes "***" and "****"? If not, here they are again:
"*** This "Shots/turn" value is inflated by an unfortunate tendency of
NAC
warships to be destroyed after firing a single P-torp shot (thus earning
them single-battle "Shots/turn" ratings of 0.75 or more). In the few
battles where NAC P-torp-armed ships survived long enough to fire more
than
one shot each, they usually only scored around 0.33 shots/turn.
**** This "Shots/turn" value is *not* inflated by early destruction of
the weapons involved; and the results from individual battles are much more
consistent than for the single-arc P-torps - but the *averaged* results
for
the P-torps and the larger K-guns are remarkably similar, aren't
they..."
IOW, yes, you are oversimplifying quite massively :-/
To elaborate, the P-torp-1 "Shots/turn" for the individual battles come
in two very distinct groups:
* either the PT-1 ships survived their first attack run and spent most
of the remaining battle trying to line up for a second shot, in which case
they got a "Shots/turn" value of 0.33 or less, OR
* the PT-1 ships were *destroyed* during their first attack run, usually
because they couldn't break away quickly enough and therefore ended up at
point-blank range of the enemy. In these cases the PT-1s' "Shots/turn"
value was inflated to 0.75 or more, because destroyed weapons were not counted
when determining how many weapons were out of range or arc in a given turn.
Together, these two groups average out to a combined "Shots/turn" value
of
0.48 - but no single battle features a PT-1 "Shots/turn" value even
close to 0.48.
For the single-arc K-guns OTOH the individual "Shots/turn" battles fall
between 0.4 and 0.5 in nearly all of their battles (including a number of
KV-vs-KV inter-clan fights), making an overall average of 0.45; and
since the Advanced Drive allowed the KV to break away before getting too close
to
the enemy the K-guns generally survived to make multiple attack runs per
battle.
IOW, Advanced Drives don't make you any more likely to line up the *first*
attack run of the battle than Standard drives do (as long as you're
prepared to meet the enemy head-on, anyway) - but they make you much
more likely to *survive* the first attack run (because they allow you to line
that first attack run up in some *other* way than a head-on charge), and
they also make it very much easier to line up a *second* attack if you survive
long enough to attempt one.
(If the stats had measured how many turns the different weapons survived,
these differences would've become quite visible - but we didn't measure
this, because such a measurement would've been heavily bias against those
weapons that are proportionally more common on small ships than on larger ones
(particularly the "human" B1s and B2s in battles using FB1 designs).)
Regards,
Can someone remind me where to find the beta UN/graser rules, please?
They don't seem to be on the GZG store site's Downloads page...
> Brian Burger wrote:
http://www.star-ranger.com/UNSCpreview.htm
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> The compound advantage effect also works *against* the G1, [...]
Fair enough. My experience is quite different (even when we've used
"Canberra-style" restricted, fixed tables), but like I said in the
previous
post I'm stumped as to *why* it is so different :-(
> Other escorts or light cruisers carry beam-1s or beam-2s, and 6 MU is
In my experience this narrow margin *is* enough to work with - not
"enough"
in the sense "guarantees that the shorter-ranged weapon will always be
defeated", but sufficient to make up for the shorter-ranged weapons'
higher firepower once they gets into range and allow both sides a roughly even
chance to win given equal player skill (or if the players *don't* have the
same skill level, allowing a player roughly the same chance to win
regardless of whether he plays the long- or the short-ranged side of the
battle).
> The chance of thresholding or destroying just with beams
That depends a lot on what you're shooting at. If the enemy is an armoured
cruiser it'll take a while to wear it down; if OTOH it is an unarmoured
destroyer (eg. the UNSC ones) it doesn't take many beam dice to threshold it.
> Some FT gaming groups, eg. the Canberra group, appear to be better
No worries. The AAR comment wasn't intended as a critizism (though with
hindsight I realize it looks like one) - even without a full report
you've already provided more details than most people who report imbalances
do! It was merely a reflection of my own frustration over repeated failures to
replicate the "Canberra-style" on-table results :-/
> Increasing the G1's Mass (or cost) without changing its damage
You don't *intend* to say that, but it is the outcome of the change you
propose. If you apply an extra cost to a weapon (ie., above the cost
warranted by its range-weighted average damage) to compensate for the
fact
that it *can* score mega-hits, the other side of the coin is that if it
*doesn't* score any mega-hits during the battle it will be outgunned by
its
own points cost of more consistently-performing weapons (which only pay
for
their range-weighted average damage values). OK, it can still win if the
ship it is mounted on decisively outmanoeuvres the enemy, but that's true for
all weapons.
> I still think 1 more mass point is needed. If you compare
If you compare a G1 to a P-torp on *maximum* damage, you're comparing
infinity to a finite number. Increasing the mass of the G1 by a single mass
point, or even doubling it, won't change that comparison noticably -
you'll
still get battle-winning mega-hits every now and then, and if you've
weaken
the *non*-mega-hits which on average provide two-thirds or more of the
damage the weapon inflicts during a battle the occasional mega-hits will
stand out even more than they do now.
If the problem is the players' perception of the mega-hits, then the
best
solution is to remove the potential for mega-hits - which in the Graser
case means removing the to-hit die rerolls (and adjust their points cost
accordingly). This limits the maximum possible damage inflicted by a single
Graser die to 12 (which is of course still quite a lot - but the
probability that a single Graser die will score 12 pts is *less* than the
probability that two (rerolling) standard beam dice combined will score 12 *or
more* points!). At the same time removing the rerolls doesn't change
the *low* end (0-8 pts or so) of the Graser's damage profile noticably,
so it is still distinctly different from the standard beam batteries.
> To repeat a comment I made last
In most gaming groups I've listened in on Vandenburg/T captains would
find
wider fire arcs for his/her P-torps rather more useful than an
occasional
P-torp reroll, since those wider fire arcs greatly increase the ship's
chances to get in more than one attack :-/ (Cf. my shooting stats post -
Vandenburg/Ts were quite prominent among those P-torp-1 armed ships that
died during/after their first P-torp attack run because they couldn't
turn
away quickly enough to avoid a close-range brawl.)
> And there's still the reality that human beings are very
Indeed - which is precisely why I believe that removing the Graser
to-hit
rerolls is a more effective way to solve your problem with it than increasing
the G1's Mass would be.
> Hey, ECC organisers: could you find someone willing to
Weren't there battles like that at the ECC 2004 or 2005? Not that it
matters, of course - more playtests are always useful! :-)
If possible it would be more useful to run the test battle twice, though
-
once with the normal armament, and once re-armed (and with a somewhat
smaller fleet, or facing a somewhat bigger enemy fleet, to account for the
increased cost of the Grasers compared to "normal" human weapons).
Later,
> Weren't there battles like that at the ECC 2004 or 2005?
Noam ran "Interrupted Negotiations", which had UN, NI, and IF squadrons facing
three KV squadrons. I dont recall any spectacular graser hits, but I was the
NI and wasn't involved in much shooting.
[quoted original message omitted]
> Oerjan wrote:
> >>Increasing the G1's Mass (or cost) without changing its damage
Ah, now we're getting to the central point.
> >
Yes, you're right, that is the outcome.
But, my phrasing is slightly different. I would say that
graser-1s *will* score mega-hits in every battle, so it is
reasonable to factor that into the cost. If the graser-1s
don't score any mega-hits, then the player is rolling below
average.
[ munch a bit ]
> If you compare a G1 to a P-torp on *maximum* damage, you're
Any standard beam has a potential maximum damage of infinity,
but the probability that a standard beam will get a mega-hit
is so low that nobody can realistically count on it happening.
I believe that with the graser-1, the probability of scoring
a mega-hit is sufficiently increased - an order of magnitude
more likely for an 18 pointer - that a player *can* expect to
score at least one in every battle, just by having a dozen
or more graser-1s to roll for.
I can't think of any formula to predict how much extra a
graser-1 should cost because of this, but I'd be satisfied
with the base cost going from 2 to 3, or the arc costs
being increased to 2-arc mass 3, 3-arc mass 4, 6-arc mass 5.
Looking through the UNSC beta roster,
* The Hunter frigate has a pair of 2-arc instead of 3-arc,
or just one graser-1.
* The Lawkeeper cutter drops the beam-1
* The Lake III drops the beam-2
* The Luna, Sea, and Gaia drops a pair of beam-1s
To me that doesn't seem excessive.
I do seem to be in the minority on this, so promise to shut up on this issue
from now on. Thanks everyone and Oerjan in particular for taking the time to
respond.
cheers,
Hugh said:
> But, my phrasing is slightly different. I would say that
This turns out not to be the case. I've had about ten playtest battles using
the UN, and there have only been a couple in which the UN has done spectacular
damage. And I seem to recall one of those was 23 points of damage against a 6
hull frigate. Granted, if you take a lot of G1's, you'll have a better chance
of a super hit, but you might have been better off to take B2's.
I think perhaps part of it depends on what you prefer. I like weapons which
usually don't do significant damage but
sometimes do a 1-hit kill--that fits my image of naval
combat better than slowly scraping away hull. YMMV.
If you do want to tone them down, I'd suggest using the "no rerolls" rather
than the "d3" option. There are plenty of weapons which don't get rerolls (sub
packs, PTorps, etc), adding one more won't hurt.
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> I can't think of any formula to predict how much extra a
Hugh, I'm not objecting to the mass increase solution because I find it
*excessive*; instead I'm objecting because I strongly suspect that it will be
*insufficient*. I'll try another tack this time; then I too will shut
up. Here goes:
According to your original description, the problem you have with the G1 is
that you and your opponents dislike the high likelyhood that a G1-armed
fleet will score mega-hits (ie., single Graser to-hit dice that spawn
numerous damage D6s due to the to-hit rerolls) and wipe out key enemy
units early in the battle.
The average number of Graser mega-hits scored during a battle is
directly proportional to the number of Graser dice rolled during a game: the
fewer Graser dice rolled during the battle, the smaller the probability that
one
or more of them will score a mega-hit. (Which is most likely why I
haven't
found G1 mega-hits to be any problem - in the games I've played the G1s
simply didn't get to fire enough dice to score many mega-hits. In your
games OTOH they get to fire far more dice, and as a consequence you also
get far more mega-hits than I do.)
The number of Graser dice rolled during a battle is in turn strongly related
to the number and types of Grasers mounted on the ships involved in
the battle - due to the compound-effects etc. it isn't necessarily a
perfectly linear relationship between number of Graser dice and number of
Grasers, but the more Grasers are present in the battle the more Graser dice
will be rolled during the game.
In other words, it is possible to reduce the number of G1 mega-hits by
reducing the number of G1s in the battle. Now let's look at the above changes
to the UNSC ships, and count exactly *how much* the number of G1s in a UNSC
squadron is reduced by the G1 Mass increase:
...one G1 less per Hunter-class frigate (assuming that they remove a G1
rather than reduce the fire arcs).
That's all. If your UNSC squadron doesn't include any Hunters, it will have
*exactly the same* number of G1s with *exactly the same* fire arcs after
the change as it had prior to it. (It'll have slightly fewer standard beam
batteries, but they don't contribute any of the G1 mega-hits.)
If the number of G1s in the fleet only changes very little or even doesn't
change at all, how much do you think the number of G1 mega-hits scored
will decrease in your future battles: much, little, or not at all? Will this
decrease be sufficient to make the UNSC acceptable to you and your opponents?
I believe that the answer to these two questions will turn out to be "little"
and "no, not sufficient" respectively, which is why I suggested
removing the to-hit rerolls instead. Don't take my word for it though -
play some battles (at least 3-4, to make sure you don't get hit by a
single statistical outlier) with the above modified UNSC ships and see what
happens. If it doesn't work out OK, you have the "no reroll" variant to fall
back on.
There. Now I'll shut up too :-/
Later,