I've been kind of tinkering around with some of the concepts in Hugh's Cross
Dimensions rules set. Some of them I like (swing role fighters), some of them
I'm not so sure of (I'm probably going to wind up calling the scatterguns in
this book "scatterbeams" to separate them from the Kra'Vak version), but I've
got one question.
How effective are the Advanced Screens in this rules set, in people's
experience? For extra cost I could see packing them (maybe x5 instead
of x4, or even x6)... but at 7.5% mass per level _and_ x4 cost, they
seem a little steep. I suppose that being able to shrug off K-guns and
pulse torpedoes (along with the occasional missile) is a pretty valuable
thing, but I don't even like regular screens a lot of the time because of how
much of a bite they take out of your firepower, so advanced ones seem really
expensive to me in that regard just take a point or two out
of a missile or a K-gun's damage.
On the flip side, throwing a level 2 advanced screen plus a couple or
three layers of armor so that it takes a class 5 or 6 K-gun hit before a
K'V shot even damages the hull on a normal hit seems pretty wicked. I
suppose their sheer potential for flat out ruining K-guns is pretty
evil.
E/Stilt Man
> On the flip side, throwing a level 2 advanced screen plus a couple or
This sums up the problem of any generic rules set... some
groups/settings will have certain styles that use weapons in a way not
in keeping with the balancing done for the costs.
As is always the case... if you don't like something change it - but
point costing on potential is always going to look odd if you start adding
additional constraints.
Metaphor time, imagine Cross Dimensions as paper-rock-scissors... but in
your setting, you don't allow paper - suddenly the balance is all gone.
For my big campaign I re-wrote all the weapons systems out in one place
(still up on my website if you want to compare) - took a long time, but
I tweaked the costs of certain things here and there.
Simon
> How effective are the Advanced Screens in this rules set, in
I see no problem with declaring that advanced screens don't exist in the
GZGverse. I put them into FT:CD because I wanted to make a variant good for
mixing genres, and for example in Blake's Seven and Star Trek (looks over
shoulder for copyright lawyers) "screens" also work on torpedo like weapons.
My belief is that advanced systems should be more than just a linear increase
in cost, otherwise you end up with "tech levels" and every fleet just using
the best stuff.
> On the flip side, throwing a level 2 advanced screen plus a couple
I'd suggest that if you do decide to allow advanced screens in GZG, add the
advanced screen level to the double damage die. So against a level 2 advanced
screen K1 and K2 never double, but still inflict some damage; and the big K6
is still a nasty hit but only doubles on 1,2, or 3 instead of 1 to 5.
Then again, two levels of advanced screen plus a couple of layers of armour is
going to be 20% or more of your total mass in itself. Someone that dedicated
to defence maybe deserves to be largely
immune :-)
cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI didn't read
different engineering expertise or emphasis on technological development in
the different fleets. Their designs sound more like doctrinal approaches or
political constraints than technological differences. Â The ESU ships are
optimised for long range cruising, so they only do beam armament. Â
The NAC look like their ships are designed by a socio-political
procurement process where you purchase a component from a company in every
electorate so the politicians all vote for the procurement. Â I'd also expect
that different nations would be trying to steal other nations technology if
they can't buy it to keep pace. Â The Phalons and Kravak evolved differently
but would have had different
nations/ clan groupings that competed and so would have fought each
other. They don't necessarily have to tools to deal with the technologies of
other races. Who builds a device onto their ships that protects against a
hypothetical weapon not deployed y any nation you know of?
> Yeah, it means that K-1s and K-2s would be completely harmless and
My issue here is K-1s and K-2s becoming *completely* harmless.
Using my suggestion of reducing the double die for K-guns, a
superdreadnought with level-2 advanced screens can fight off
10 Kra'Vak frigates or destroyers without any trouble. Against 20 you'll win
but take some damage, 30 or more it starts to be
dangerous. This is roughly similar to a standard screen-2 SDN
against beam armed escorts.
If advanced screens reduce K-gun damage level, then the ship
with level-2 advanced is invulnerable and can't be hurt no
matter how many Kra'Vak escorts there are. I think this is a bad idea for game
balance.
But hey, this is all theoretical. Please try out your ideas and report back
how it goes.
> The only other question I have is, should advanced screens be
I think it is easier to have just one screen mechanism for beams. Plus IMHO
there's been a steady "arms race" in FT
with missiles, K-guns, and grasers all dealing out more
maximum damage than beams, and I'd prefer not to see the regular beam made
less effective by any new system. (This is
also why I changed beams to be armour-piercing in FT:CD.)
cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
> Eric Foley wrote:
OK, I'm convinced now that your way is better. K-guns against
advanced screens subtract the screen level from the K grade before inflicting
damage and rolling for double.
I would add a special rule: if the grade drops below 1, ie K-1
against any advanced screen or K-2 against level-2, it still
inflicts one point of damage if they roll a natural 6 to hit.
cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
<de-lurk>
My 2 cents: First, there are some things that I think you have overlooked and
second
my suggestions based on tinkering with a wet-navy all-gun battleship
inspired background.
First, K-guns, as well as all other screen-skipping systems, are
balanced vs. beam batteries on the assumption that screens don't affect them.
If you introduce a new defensive system, whether it's some type of screen,
shield, or integral armor (let's call it Kinetic Defense or
KD), then you have to re-balance all the former screen-skippers by one
or more of the following:
1) reduce points/MASS cost (only effective if you balance games by PV,
not scenario set-up)
2) increase range bands 3) increase hit accuracy
Secondly, how does this new defense system affect other kinetic systems
such as MKP and scatterguns, and also other screen-skippers whose PSB
makes them screen-skippers because they are large mass objects rather
than particles or wavicles, such as human scatterpacks (mini-missiles),
salvo missiles, and p-torps.
Next, it seems to me reading this discussion that there is some confusion
about exactly what effect this Kinetic Defense is supposed to
have against K-Guns. There are two main effects, but the details are
not agreed upon:
1) reduces chance of doubling damage 2) reduces damage done
For reducing the chance of doubling damage, the fine detail is whether
you subtract the KD level from the *target number* or from the K-Gun
*class* before figuring the target number. This difference affects the
largest K-Guns.
For example: a class 6 KG hits a target with KD level 2. If the KD is
subtracted from the target number, then the hit is doubled on a 5-2=3 or
less (50%), but if the KD is subtracted from the weapon class then the
hit is doubled on a 6-2=4 or less (66%).
This also means that there is now an incentive to use even bigger K-guns
to get maximum chance of doubling against heavily defended opponents.
For reducing the damage done, the fine detail is whether you subtract the KD
level from the KG class before figuring damage or from the total damage
inflicted. For example a class 4 KG hits a target with KD level 2. If you
subtract
from the weapon class, then the hit is 4-2=2 or (4-2)x2=4 points, but if
you subtract from the total damage done, then the hit is 4-2=2 or
(4x2)-2=6 points.
In addition you are assuming that KD level will top out at level 2.
FT2/MT had screens going up to level 3, and the reason this was dropped
for FB1 is spurious at best. Using both screen level 3 and allowing Kinetic
Defense level 3 allows more variety in your games. It also means that the
chance to double damage against KD3 does not max out
until you reach Class 8 k-guns (8-3=5). And incidentally that KD level
3 is immune to class 3 K-guns.
Instead of using kinetic-defeating screens for my big-gun setting, I
used Integral Armor based on the original KV from MT. This is analogous
to belt armor on battleships. Ablative armor/carapace/shells from
FB1/FB2 is analogous to double- and triple-hulls, wet and dry
anti-torpedo spaces and the American All-Or-Nothing armoring scheme.
Integral Armor is also useful for settings without screens or shields such as
Babylon 5 and BSG.
As far as small K-guns being ineffective against heavily armored ships,
I don't mind that at all. Historically, a lot of battleships were
immune to the fire of 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-inch guns (and in some cases
even 8-inchers).
If you want to go further, a little tinkering with firecons and beam batteries
allows both Deflector Screens and Kinetic defenses to expand to a six level
spectrum (from 0 to 5).
J
[quoted original message omitted]
One thing that could be added in as a mechanic to help balance out Advanced
Screens is some kind of Damage Threshold to it.
If an advanced shield takes/absorbs enough damage in a turn then the
shield
might overload, malfunction, and/or just shut down. This can make
advanced shields susciptible towards massed fire of even smaller weapons in a
attempt to being down the shields with mass fire.
A mechanic already exists - the threshhold check.
The only consideration is on a damage per turn (at the end of every turn the
damage absorbed is removed), or on damage per battle (Basically turning the
advanced shields into another set of hull/armour boxes effectively).
In either format, you could have multiple levels of threshold checks so if
enough fire is poured onto the target ship there would be a greater chance
(multiple threshhold checks) of bringing the shields down).
One option is if the shields absorb the energy and it has to go somewhere
(powering the ship maybe?) if the generators fail spectacularily it could take
out the ship.
> --- On Wed, 5/20/09, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
<snip>
> The advanced screens aren't just
I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I'll try again.
I am NOT talking about the cost of the screen. I am talking about the
relative value of K-guns (and P-torps, etc.) vs. basic beam batteries.
The FB stats (range, damage, MASS, and PV/MASS) for K-guns, P-Torps,
etc. are balanced vs basic beam batteries on the assumption that there
is no defense against the screen-skippers other than hull and/or
ablative armor.
If you add a new defensive system that reduces the effectiveness of screen
skippers, then they are no longer balanced. In other words 20
MASS of k-guns at 80PV (or 20 MASS of PTLs at 60PV) are less effective
than 20 MASS of Beam Batteries at 60PV.
> Cross Dimensions defines the advanced screen effect as its
If the reduction is per HIT, then that implies after doubling, not before,
which means that a doubled K1 will still do 1 damage to defense 1, and a
doubled k2 will do 2 damage a defense 2.
> Against most everything else, there's not much need for further
Again, this changes the relative effectiveness of these weapons compared to
Beam Batteries. It makes a given mass of Beam Batteries MORE effective than
the SAME mass of PTs, SM's, MKPs, etc..
> Subtract from the target number, and the initial damage
No it isn't the same thing. There is a big difference between (K-D)x2
and Kx2)-D where K is weapon class and D is defense level. Plug in some
numbers and see for yourself.
> I'm not privy to what the decision making process was, but
I wasn't privy to the process as it happened, but after the fact I asked on
this list and was told that screen 3 reduced the effectiveness of
beam dice too much (1-5= no dam, 6=1 pt+re-roll). However, some of the
new beta-test rules have floated adding modifiers to beam dice, called
DRM (Die Roll Modifier). DRM-1 has the same effect as screen 2, DRM-2
has the same effect as screen 3, and DRM-3 is even more effective (1-6
no dam, re-roll on 6). If DRM-2 is acceptable, then it follows that
screen 3 should also be acceptable, though it might need to be more
expensive than 15% TMF and 3 PV/MASS
> I like the armor system in the fleet books much
I said it was "based on", not exactly the same. The concept is that of
belt armor, the game mechanics are 5% TMF per level (min 4 MASS/level)
and 5 pts/MASS. it was drawn from, but not exactly the same in effect
as, the beta FB KV.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Station/3565/kravak/kv-fb-design.html
And its use requires modifying cost, range, and/or damage potential of
all the screen-skippers that it effects. If you want the full effects,
I can post them.
> >As far as small K-guns being ineffective against
But you do cause 4 points of damage to the target, whether it has shells,
carapace, ablative armor, or not. The only question is where
that damage is absorbed. However, a K-2 does NO damage against KD2 (no
chance to double and 2-2=0 dam/hit)
> On the other hand, you're probably investing
Historically, a lot of big-gun battleships did have armor (belt,
citadel, turrets, armored decks, and barbettes) which accounted for 40% of
their total mass, exclusive of the steel use for unarmored structure.
> I've been experimenting myself in my test games with ships
It GZG-universe scale that ain't that big. Historically capital ships
have been 30-50 times the mass of contemporary destroyers of the same
nation. FB scale places destroyers as 25-35 TMF. Call it average 30
TMF. that means that the largest capital ships should be 900-1500 TMF
going by the historic ratio. By real-world comparison, the American
space shuttle is about TMF 1.5, most modern strategic bombers are TMF
2-3, modern Spruance, Kid, and Arliegh Burke Class DD/DDGs are TMF
80-90, the first all big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought was about TMF
220 in 1905, the last class of BBs built by the US in WW2 were around
TMF 650, WW2 fleet carriers were TMF 200-300, and modern US CVNs are
almost TMF 1000. Modern ULCCs are TMF 3000-5500.
J
> Nitpicky thing: I was figuring that the screen would only reduce
Did some number crunching on the two proposals.
First, here's the average damage per die and relative effectiveness
of torpedoes/missiles against advanced screens:
None Adv1 Adv2 3.50 2.50 1.50 100% 71% 43%
So while advanced screens are expensive, they really do have quite an effect
on the damage you take, more than the effect of normal screens against beams.
Here's the average damage for K-guns vs advanced screens using my
proposal of subtracting screen level from K-gun grade. Ignore the
K1 and K2 for the moment since they're tricky.
Grade Standard Adv1 Adv2 K 1 1.17 0.00 00% 0.00 00% K 2 2.67 1.17 44% 0.00 00%
K 3 4.50 2.67 59% 1.17 26% K 4 6.67 4.50 68% 2.67 40% K 5 9.17 6.67 73% 4.50
49% K 6 11.00 9.17 83% 6.67 61%
The average effectiveness is 54% and 29% respectively, but these
are slanted by K1/K2 doing zero. Advanced screens are more effective
against K3 and K4, less so against K5 and K6.
Using your proposal of deducting screen level from the initial grade and
chance of doubling, but not the extra double damage if the roll succeeds:
Grade Standard Adv1 Adv2 K 1 1.17 0.00 00% 0.00 00% K 2 2.67 1.33 50% 0.00 00%
K 3 4.50 3.00 67% 1.50 33% K 4 6.67 5.00 75% 3.33 50% K 5 9.17 7.33 80% 5.50
60% K 6 11.00 10.00 91% 8.00 73%
Average 60% and 36%, again slanted by the special case of K1 and K2. Against
the big K guns, this isn't achieving much.
(It is of course possible that I screwed up the math somewhere.)
I prefer my proposal because 1. it's simpler 2. it's more effective against
the bigger K guns and 3. it's simpler. (I really, really like keeping things
simple.)
> >I would add a special rule: if the grade drops below 1, ie K-1
Well, I'm not too concerned about it being strange. I dislike the idea of
ships becoming totally invulnerable to a ship to ship weapon, and FT does have
a general rule that a natural 6 always does some damage, even if you're a
useless torpedo fighter in a dogfight. All I want to do is make the escort vs
advanced screen combat almost impossible instead of utterly hopeless. And here
I think it's even more important to keep things simple, there's no point in
investing complexity on what is very much an edge case.
> Here's my counter-idea: if the grade drops below 1, the K-gun rolls
But I'll run the numbers on this as well, and may change my mind again. Thanks
for going into such detail.
cheers,
> J L Hilal wrote:
My understanding is that P-torps are slightly under-valued by the
existing rules. I'll leave a full analysis to Oerjan, but being able to do
occasional big hits at long range makes them more
effective than the equal mass/cost beam-3.
Missiles may also be undervalued: my experience is that NAC and ESU players
like to field the few missile armed ships in those fleets rather more often
than the background suggests.
K-guns are IMNSHO severely under-valued: not only massive hits
at long range, but punching through armour as well.
> Again, this changes the relative effectiveness of these weapons
Good. IMNSHO, beams represent the primary armament of scifi ships:
anything that on film/TV leaves a glowing beam of light across
the screen ought to be a beam. I'd like to see more beams, not
more torpedoes/grasers/AMTs/K-guns/missiles.
[ munch stuff about your new armour scheme because that deserves
a separate answer]
> It GZG-universe scale that ain't that big. Historically capital
You are assuming that FT mass = tonnes/volume. There's a bit about
non-linear scaling in Cross Dimensions, but here's more:
Large ships in FT are more effective than the equivalent mass of
smaller ships - that's why we now have CPV calculations. Doubling
the mass is more than double the combat power, more like three times or more.
Using your warship examples, a Dreadnought BB would be about mass 100 in FT
terms, while an Iowa would be maybe 200. The Iowa will be much more than twice
as good. And you'll need more than seven FT mass 30 DDs to take on the mass
200 Iowa.
cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
> One thing that could be added in as a mechanic to help balance out
I think the existing FT mechanisms already represent this. For example, a
typical Star Trek combat scene runs something like "Shields at 60%"
Zap-zap-zap
"Shields are down!" BLAM! "Red shirt casualties on deck 40!" "Scotty, we need
those shields!" "Shields back up!
Zap-zap-zap
All this takes place in about a minute.
Now one FT turn is five to ten minutes long, so is made up of several such
scenes. On average, the shields are up for some of that time, down for others.
In FT, the more beams you can shoot at the target ship in that turn, the more
damage you'll
do - just as if the shields were being overloaded more often.
> A mechanic already exists - the threshhold check.
Yes, and it works well. Hit a ship sufficiently hard and you are more likely
to reach a threshold point which might bring the shields down ("It's no good
cap'n, I canna do it!") for the rest of the turn or longer. It does look a bit
wierd when say a battleship blasts all but one of the boxes in a row off and
has no effect and then a destroyer does the 1 more point that forces a
threshold; but this can be explained away by saying that the fire from the two
ships really overlaps, it only looks this way because of the turn mechanism.
> The only consideration is on a damage per turn (at the end of every
Damage per battle is how Alderson fields in Mote in Gods Eye and the force
wall in Blake's Seven work. They're better represented in FT by armour rather
than either standard or advanced screens. (In the particular case of advanced
screens, "advanced" armour isn't necessary because armour already works on
missiles, etc.)
> In either format, you could have multiple levels of threshold checks
For the reasons given above, I think the existing threshold check mechanism
already represents this well enough. It's not perfect, but having "critical
hit" possibilities on every shot is slower and frequently either too deadly or
too ineffective.
> One option is if the shields absorb the energy and it has to go
Yeah, FT doesn't handle this case.
cheers,
On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 5:32 AM, Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> The only consideration is on a damage per turn (at the end of every
Not entirely true in the case of Langston Fields (Alderson drive, Langston
fields). Depending on whether or not you are talking about
pre-Motie fields or the post-Motie expanding fields, there are
different nuances.
Standard Langston fields can dissipate energy, although unless you essentially
break contact, you won't be able to dissipate it quickly.
They were also susceptible to "burn-through" which could damage a ship
in specific places where a nuclear warhead temporarily punched through the
field. That's slowly regenerating armor with a chance of a 'critical' which
could force a threshold check which could only damage a single system (start
rolling, end when either one system is damaged or when all systems survive).
In relation to the weapons used, the hulls are fairly weak and once the shield
goes completely, the ship goes too.
Expanding Langston fields dissipate energy much more quickly and are not
susceptible to burn through (function of the superconducting hull layers which
were introduced at the same time). On the other hand, when the field was
overloaded, the energy storage banks would explode, utterly destroying the
ship. That's one long row of regenerating armor boxes, with only a single box
of 'hull'. And a very different game than standard Full Thrust.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHugh said:
In FT, the more beams you can shoot at the target ship in that turn, the more
damage you'll
do - just as if the shields were being overloaded more often.
Tomb: There is nothing special about shooting extra beams at a ship on one
turn versus any other turn. There is absolutely no overloading effect. If I
hit you with 10 B1 strikes over 10 turns, it will do as much damage (assuming
identical dice) as 10 B1 strikes delivered in one turn. That does not at all
conjure an overloading impression to me.
Modelling the Star Trek 'leaky shields' is tricky due to the way FT does
thresholds and so forth. In ST, shield hits usually cause internal damage and
knock systems offline (including transporters, which are by Federation Design
Guides only ever installed with a single large fuse which is not rated for any
surge capacity whatsoever).
Similarly, in Stargate terms, Shields seem to take a pounding and stop
*everything* until they get fairly week, then damage seems to seep through.
Weak shields seem to lead to some shots getting through and then when shields
are gone, ships take brutal damage very fast. This is also challenging to
simulate with FT rules.
T.
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[quoted original message omitted]