Do yall only talk about figurines, or is it just me; just wondering. I guess
you leave the gameplay to some other website or something, but I'll ask what
are probably old questions; couldn't find any helpful FT FAQs.....
Why are the Kra'Vak so damned powerful? We played a little Two on One fight
with the USes using 1200 points apiece and the THEMs using 2000; we got our
BUTTS kicked! Do they have ANY weakness???? Speaking of which, how does Pulse
Torpedoes affect Kra'Vak armour in terms of damage sustained?
Also was wondering when an attacked ship should roll threshold checks;
immediately when crossed (ie: attacker is rolling five dice, first dice causes
defender to cross threshold, attacker continue to rolls AFTER defender checks
thresholds) or after the attack is done. Can make a big difference, especially
when dealing with shielded ships....
Jon, I have a thought for you. It always seems like whenever humans encounter
aliens, they're always bigger, stronger, and more deadlier than us. How
about....
..... "Captain, picking up alien vessel. It is firing."
"Brace for impact!" ::plink! plink!::
"Damage, O'Brien?" "Sir, we have sustained no damage. As best as I can tell,
their munitions just shattered off our hull." "Reason?" "Sir, best I can tell,
the projectiles were nothing more than small,
snowball-like shots."
"Very well, open fire.":::alien ship vaporizes::: "What happened?" "Sensors
indicate the alien vessel was made of frozen water; they didn't have a chance,
sir."
Anyway, you get the picture....
> The fundamental problem with the KV was that they were originally
> ii) DELETE the anti-ship capability from the KV scatterguns, and use
I have discovered a glaringly obvious weakness in the KV ships, but not sure
if my theory would work. Except for the scatterguns, the KV have no PDS or
ADS. So my thinking is you send in your escorts and a few fighters, make them
waste their scatterguns on those ships, then send out your main attack wave of
fighters to kill them. Sounds a bit wasteful on the escort ships, but it just
might work.
> Jason Stephensen wrote:
Actually, I do have a few points to make about figs. I find them a tad
expensive to buy and paint, etc. to go out and buy a whole fleet to use in FT
and DSII. Aside from using chits, I have thought of another solution; Ya know,
Axis & Allies and Fortress America pieces could work REALLY well.
several types of tanks, lots of infantry, other 'funny bits of plastic'
ships.....
One of the thoughts I have had is obtaining either a second hand A&A at a flea
market or buying extra pieces from Milton Bradley and whip out the old Dremel
and do some hack and slashing with the pieces you get. I can envision an
awesome set of captial ships using the A&A aircraft carriers as the main hull,
and patch and glue bits of battleship, submarine, bomber, whatever, to make up
the interesting parts. I think even taking the fighter piece and doing some
creative sanding and facing it backwards could make a reasonable destroyer.
Another thought I had (and this one is looney) was to make a "Kitchen Fleet."
After Dark's Flying Toasters gave me the inspiration. The FTs would be your
carriers, with various pieces of toast being the fighters (dark, light, toast
with jam, toast with peanut butter, etc.). For the rest of the ships, I
imagine the escort ships would be cans of food (in reference to "Tin
Cans"),
the cruisers would be different types of Can Openers (of course), a
Battlecruiser would be a blender, a Battleship would be a Cuisenart,
Dreadnoughts and SuperDreadnoughts would be frying pans; big, massive, and if
one hits you, you KNOW IT!
ANyone else have some good suggestions for low cost fig replacements. Of
course Jon won't; he WANTS us to buy figs!!!;)
> > i) allow the pulse torps to ignore the armour, as the advantage
The way we've been playing it is the armour subtracts one point for every
armour level, with the minimum damage being 1. e.g: attacking a Cap ship
with level 2 armour would mean that a pulse torp. would do 1-4 points of
damage with a 50% chance of only doing 1 point.
> Pointswise, I could see this as "the valiant few vs. the screaming
Don't hastily count out the "screaming hordes" theory. One "messing around
battle" I've had, I wanted to see what 2000 point fleet of destroyers would do
against a 2000 point of a normal fleet (Light Carrier, Dreadnought,
etc.);
my friend killed five of my destroyers (out of 21) and I wiped him off the
table. Needless to say, he was not happy at my choice of ships. (Kept claiming
it wasn't legal because FT campaign rules limit escorts to 50% of the total
number of ships. I contend that if my fleet was THAT effective, then most
likely the governments would most likely have a LOT of small ships with a few
big guns, but I digress)
I wonder what my horde of destroyers would do against the KV? Maybe there's a
lesson to be learned.....
> On Sat, 28 Jun 1997, Peggy & Jeff Shoffner wrote:
> Jon, I have a thought for you. It always seems like whenever humans
This was the beginning of the plot in a Star Trek the original series
episode. NCC-1701 was atacked by a ship[s] that was armed with regular
old lasers. Pretty passe by the time the Federation was duking it out with
Phasers and Photon torps. Well, Kirk and co were bracing for damage and
problems and sudderly realied that the hostile vessel could barely scratch the
shields. So they pulled it in with a tractor beam and proceded to chat with
the hostiles...
> Do yall only talk about figurines, or is it just me; just wondering. I
> guess you leave the gameplay to some other website or something, but
People will tend to chat about what they find most interetsing in a mail
group. people like to chat about minnies, they will. If you want advice I'm
sure there are enough people out there to answer questions about gameplay.
> Why are the Kra'Vak so damned powerful? We played a little Two on One
In our gaming group we adjust the heck out of the Kra'Vak, and we find them
much better to play against. We changed the scatterpacks to take away their
effectiveness against both fighters and ships. Six of them do serious damage
to capital ships for way too little cost.
> Also was wondering when an attacked ship should roll threshold checks;
> causes defender to cross threshold, attacker continue to rolls AFTER
We've always done it after all the fire done. So the screens aren't taken out
with the first volley, making the following shots easier.
> Jon, I have a thought for you. It always seems like whenever humans
That's just silly. Of course all aliens are in some way superior.... Anyway
according to more thrust the Kra'vak aren't greatly more advanced then we
are....and every battle with unchanged rules is always close
bewtween even human and Kra'vak fleets. ;-)
Just another point on the superior alien point. In Kryomek humans found
numerous aliens, even sentients that were not as advanced as they were. They
just killed them. It wasn't until the Kryomek turned up that they found a
challenge.
> Jon, I have a thought for you. It always seems like whenever humans
There was an episode of ST:TNG were there is an enemy that is threatening the
Enterprise. Picard asks Worf for a tactical evaluation and Worf says something
like "They pose no threat to us." Not nearly as interesting of a episode for
simulating in a space combat game. It's like playing the humans in Flying
Buffalo's Bezerker. Its just not that fun.
+++++++++++++++
+------------+ +----------------+
> Do yall only talk about figurines, or is it just me; just wondering. I
> guess you leave the gameplay to some other website or something, but
When you've been on the list for a while, I thionk you'll find that threads
develop about almost anything even vaguely relevant! There IS plenty of chat
about rules and rule mods, but just right now there is a lot of talk about
minis of various sorts.
> Why are the Kra'Vak so damned powerful? We played a little Two on One
The fundamental problem with the KV was that they were originally devised
as a really nasty butt-kicking alien menace for scenario-driven games
where the humans were really up against the wall; our mistake was in giving
them points values at all! We're taking steps in the next edition to deal with
this while still making the KV fun to play (and play against). Some small
suggestions in the meantime are: i) allow the pulse torps to ignore the
armour, as the advantage against beams is really enough for the KV;
ii) DELETE the anti-ship capability from the KV scatterguns, and use
them simply as an antifighter weapon (which is what they were designed for).
> Also was wondering when an attacked ship should roll threshold checks;
> causes defender to cross threshold, attacker continue to rolls AFTER
For simplicity of play, we usually leave all checks till the end of the firing
phase (this is the "official" way), but this is (like everything!) up to the
preference of your playing group.
> Jon, I have a thought for you. It always seems like whenever humans
Amusing as a storyline, but not a great deal of fun as a game! Weaker
aliens could have their place, but probably only in scenario-driven
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> i) allow the pulse torps to ignore the armour, as the advantage
So, the vanilla ruling would that armor does help against PTs. Exactly how?
Subtract from the damage roll?
> Amusing as a storyline, but not a great deal of fun as a game!
But the other way around it is?
This leads me to the general subject of "arms race" in game design. We all
know it's there, some publishers have honed it to nigh perfection but very few
avoid it completely (apart from those that never manage to publish
supplements).
Think about it. Have you *ever* seen a supplement that had a
race/ship/equipment clearly and intentionally inferior to the ones
previously published *and* meant to be used with those (e.g. Car Wars
Chassis&Crossbow doesn't count -- it's not intended to mix with the
"modern" tech)? The wave gun in MT doesn't count either -- it's a less
powerful version of the Nova gun, not an inferior copy since it also
costs/masses less etc. If KV had been in FT and humans in MT, that would
count.
Publishers obviously publish things they think will sell, so are we as the
gamers really to blame? Are we really subconsciously looking for a bigger gun
when we shop for supplements?
> what about a weak alien force being "picked on" by a nasty human
Pointswise, I could see this as "the valiant few vs. the screaming hordes" or
"the oppressed masses vs. the evil overlords" (take your pick) type of battle.
Assuming the points are balanced. If not, just blot out the race names, and
it's the situation we currently have with KV.
OR.... warrior aliens, whose aim in life is to die gloriously in battle and
lacking better opponents, fling themselves at humans using intentionally
inferior technology. Though that would be better as a RPG scenario...
Just thought I'd mention Silent Death's Operation Drydock. Silent Death has a
point system and so, in theory, all the ships are balanced for their point
cost, so this doesn't exactly meet the criteria of new and weaker in all
respects. Operation Drydock was a book of refits of existing designs; use your
existing minis with new designs of the underlying ship. Most were alternative,
a few were great improvements, and some were a step backward. For example, the
alternative to the poorly designed Pharsii II was the hideously designed
Pharsii I. The alternative to the zippy little Pit Viper was the Pit Viper T,
a trainer stripped of most of its weapons and all of its armour...
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Tom McCarthy wrote:
> Just thought I'd mention Silent Death's Operation Drydock. Silent
HAH!
SD's point system is a prime example of bad balance, IMO. Apart from their
rather strange view of how much a weapon is worth (why take anything else
than Ion Rams and 4-6 Pulse Lasers?), it is also quite impossible to get
anywhere close to the official designs in cost (the average rebate for
official designs as compared to roughly equivalent home-built ones is
about 20% of the build points. Only two or three ships are completely
impossible to design yourself, though (Nighthawk, Tealhawk, Crescent...
probably one or two others).
Jon, whatever you do with the FT points system, make sure your own designs (at
least the new ones) are legal under it...
Having said that, ICE are reasonably good at avoiding an arms race in Silent
Death (so far, at least). While there are lots of new weapons in
the modules I've seen (5 so far), they're not extrememly powerful - just
a bit different; or if they are powerful, they are very large and expensive.
Usually enough so that it is easier to stick to the old Ion Ram:&
Later,
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Tom McCarthy wrote:
> alternative, a few were great improvements, and some were a step
> hideously designed Pharsii I.
Close enough, but would you have bought the book if they were all such
inferior designs? E.g. "Silent Death: The Home Guard - Even with crappy
obsolete equipment and next to no training, they still fig...die valiantly!
Full stats inside."
> The alternative to the zippy little Pit Viper
Did it retain the torp or the pulse laser? Just curious.
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> > The alternative to the zippy little Pit Viper
Pit Vipers don't normally carry torps; but in SD:TNG - oops, should be
TNM - they have a triple pulse laser. The Trainer has a single one
instead.
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> Close enough, but would you have bought the book if they were all such
> inferior designs? E.g. "Silent Death: The Home Guard - Even with
As long as the points cost reflects the poor designs, I don't mind...
> Jason Stephensen wrote:
> expensive to buy and paint, etc. to go out and buy a whole fleet to use
Ya
> know, Axis & Allies and Fortress America pieces could work REALLY well.
> several types of tanks, lots of infantry, other 'funny bits of plastic'
> ships.....
[snip]
> ANyone else have some good suggestions for low cost fig replacements.
Of
> course Jon won't; he WANTS us to buy figs!!! ;)
Sure we do - we've got to eat :)
BUT we're also quite happy for people to play FT with anything they want
-
in fact there are plenty of suggestions in the rules for making scratchbuilt
ships.
Have a look in a craft shop for all sorts of cheap glass/plastic beads
and
> The fundamental problem with the KV was that they were originally
The scattergun was always meant to be the KV replacement for PDAF/ADAF -
their power is offset by their one-shot nature. They only become
seriously
unbalanced when people start using them as an anti-ship weapon, which is
why we suggested restricting them in this.
> Eric Fialkowski wrote:
Well...In the startrek universe, Paramount desides what happens. And startrek
is their pride and joy. Every new race the feds run into, HAVE to be more
advanced than they are...(apparantly it has never occured to them to make the
new races equal to the feds, but different in some
way..)
My freind and I have been calling this: "The Superrace Syndrome" It goes like
this: First their weapons can always go through the feds shields, without
affecting them. Second, the fed weapons can do no damage to their ships. And
third, the feds come up with a "quicky" 5 minute solution to solve the problem
(which stoppes the new race from
conqureing the universe -- against all logic!)
I found battlestar galactica very good...both sides were very well matched.
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Pit Vipers don't normally carry torps; but in SD:TNG - oops, should be
> TNM - they have a triple pulse laser. The Trainer has a single one
Indeed, I thought so, but then I thought "How can you remove part of a single
pulse?" and concluded, erroneously, that it must have had a single Mk10 torp
or something.
With triple pulse it might be somewhat useful, though...
> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> As long as the points cost reflects the poor designs, I don't mind...
IMHO, that's the point. If the point values are good, it just means a change
in tactics, and therefore the designs aren't truly inferior, as
the *game* comparisons must always be point-for-point, not
pound-for-pound (unless you use mass as a point system as some games do
:-)
I use "inferior" here to mean "not worth the cost". Even the best ship in the
universe can be an inferior design if it's hideously overpriced.
Thus clarified, would anyone *buy* a product filled with knowingly inferior
designs, just for the flavor or maybe for the challange of it?
E.g. "I know the Xyzzys suck, but their ships look cool. They die with
panache! I like losing with style ('cause I can't win anyway)." or "I'll
play the Xyzzys so you might have a chance to win. I won't take a point
handicap so this would look more equal than it really is."
Maybe some would, but I don't think the market's too wide...
Thus as a designer you're faced with the hard task of inventing something new
and different but equal, or simply raising the stakes and erring on the side
of making newer stuff superior.
> M. K. At 12:11 04/07/97 +0300, you wrote:
> This leads me to the general subject of "arms race" in game design.
> publish supplements).
Ah, but its not the KV that are so powerful its the low cost in points! I luv
them but always have them played with massive 'disadvantages' ie. a
1/3 the points of human ships (They might be better at war but their
economy is poor and they can't build as many ships, or any other plausable
reason)
The SV are different, not better, not worse but probably longer lasting and
this is to Jons credit, (until points are out!!) As gamers we will always try
to play with the best; the only way to overcome the arms race is senarios with
vp's (any player will always lose with x fleet but only a good
one can achieve the vp's to make that loss a win!) Any player/publisher
will tell you writing rules is easier than clever balanced senarios!!
I await the the tecnically different (possibly slighty weaker) robotic race
that has a np order card (ie a die rolled program!) Any chance Jon?
Jon(t.c.)
> Publishers obviously publish things they think will sell, so are we as
Sprayforming Developments Ltd. [production tools]
made in
[prototype times]
'The future is now'
> On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Sprayform wrote:
> Ah, but its not the KV that are so powerful its the low cost in
...which is exactly my point. "Powerful" == "Worth more than the cost",
"inferior" == "worth less than the cost". I don't care how powerful
something is in a man-for-man, ship-for-ship or pound-for-pound
comparison. It's point-for-point that counts. Your Death Star isn't
"poweful", gameswise, even if it can destroy a solar system if it costs so
much I can field two solar systems against it.
> The SV are different, not better, not worse but probably longer
As they don't have a points value, any comparison is pretty moot (unless
it aims at determining a point value), IMHO.
> As gamers we will always try to play with the best;
Do we really? Anyone else? Opinions?
Is GW really right assuming everyone deep down just wants a bigger gun?
Given a choice of playing either of two technically equally powerful groups,
one a vanilla rifle platoon and one a power armor squad decked
out with the latest neato gadgets and ultra-cool widgets, led by the
hot-off-the-press MegaCharacter Of The Month, which would you play?
Personally, I'd take the rifle platoon most of the time.
Interesting to note that almost every force you can purchase from GW is, by
their own definition, elite. Like INWO, you choose between elements that have
special abilities, and usually don't have the option of fighting with vanilla
troops and isolating tactics and strategy as the elements to rule the day.
Troop selection is too often a very important element of the game,
not merely an interesting stage-setter. Compare this to Full Thrust,
where everyone (NAC vs. ESU vs. FSE vs....) seems to be on exactly even
footing so far. Very balanced, less factionalized. Most of us have tried
almost every system Jon's published, I'd bet. Most of us can't afford to try
everything GW puts out, I'd bet.
Obligatory FT/DS/SG bit: Anyone ever ordered SF infantry from Pendraken
?
Any estimates of the scale?
> At 08:48 08/07/97 +0300,M K wrote:
> Ah, but its not the KV that are so powerful its the low cost in
> so much I can field two solar systems against it.
True, but its also 'availability' that count's. I _don't_ allow
crossover tec's (K V dont get beams and hu'mans dont get armour or railguns,
its more fun! so you end up playing the best of what you can get)
> The SV are different, not better, not worse but probably longer
Untrue!! Name another ship that on one turn is stopping dead in your rear arc
with shields 3 up then the following turn is blasting you with the equivalent
of 21 A bats!! or try running a human ship that you have to roll each turn to
find which systems will work!
> As gamers we will always try to play with the best;
No, I think non-GW cultists search for difference in balance hence the
sucess of FT
> Given a choice of playing either of two technically equally powerful
Me to on 1-principle
2-I already have the reasonably priced figs
3-Better game play (you suffer ups and downs during the game
rather than OH S**T thats my super hero leader dead, ie 70% of
of
my points!!!
Jon (t.c.)
Sprayforming Developments Ltd. [production tools]
made in
[prototype times]
'The future is now'
> On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Sprayform wrote:
> True, but its also 'availability' that count's. I _don't_ allow
I don't quite get your point here. There isn't really a
rock-paper-scissors
aspect to it -- everything the KVs have is better than the human
equivalent, and the few stuff hoomies get and they dont't, they don't need.
On a more general level, if it can be demonstrated that X is better than
anything else of equivalent cost, than X is "superior".
> Untrue!! Name another ship that on one turn is stopping dead in your
Again, you baffle me. What does this have to do with power? The Sa'Vasku
are indeed "interesting" and "flexible" (ship-per-ship), but "powerful"?
More powerful than what? A human ship of equal points? But SV don't have point
values. A human ship of equal mass? But mass isn't points (quite).
Let me offer an analogy: Assume there is no point system. Now, compare a
vanilla battleship and a vanilla heavy cruiser. The BB is more "powerful",
better or equal in every department. Gee, what a useful insight!
What use is this knowledge? Almost none, unless it's used to devise a points
systes (or some other method of approximating fleet strengths but adamantly
refused to be called a points system).
If you don't do that, you either:
- Re-evaluate for each matchup, previous comparisons and experiences
are worthless in analysing the current situation
- Base further evaluations on the results of earlier ones, which IS
a points system even if you refuse to call it one
> On Sat, 5 Jul 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:
Of
> >course Jon won't; he WANTS us to buy figs!!! ;)
plain
> shields, stick them back-to-back and put a couple of plastic 25mm
One member of our games group has put together some scratchbuilt ships
using discarded household items -- currently, he plays FT with the
"SS Mennen" and the "SS Revlon," and he's working on the "SS Avon".
He once mentioned that he & his 10-year-old son were cleaning up in
their garage, and as they were about to take the trash out to their trashcan,
his son asked (with a perfectly innocent look on his face), "don't you want to
go through it and make sure there isn't something in the trash you want to
keep?"
In a message dated 97-07-10 11:24:28 EDT, you write:
<< He once mentioned that he & his 10-year-old son were cleaning up in
their garage, and as they were about to take the trash out to their trashcan,
his son asked (with a perfectly innocent look on his face), "don't you want to
go through it and make sure there isn't something in the trash you want to
keep?" >>
Just like my wife now knows to check for "good junk" before discarding
anything!