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	Archive through June 27, 2005	25		06/27 02:07pm
	Archive through June 30, 2005	25		06/30 03:59am

Are you guys shifting this towards an Anti-Ship Missile round for the ADD? If you are SVC had requested a proposal from me about three years ago and it went through a bit of discussion. There were two or three iterations of the concept as well.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Loren: details.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 04:45 pm: Edit

Even without details, the idea of a Anti-Ship Missle round for the ADD is an intriguing concept.

If the earlier suggestion that kinetic Energy rounds are ineffective against normal ships sheilds (ie sheilds that have not been battle damaged) holds (and unless Loren or SVC report differently) then the idea of serious Mizia abilities for the ASM (Anti-Ship Missle) capacity on ADD racks (or the G rack?!?) would make late turn combat ability of those ships so equipped (I mean that have ADD launchers, E rack or G rack... or anything that could hold the ASM/ADD rounds) very effective.

Not sure I like the concept.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Mizia is not likely to happen with a slow launch rate.

By Seth Iniguez (Sutehk) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 05:58 pm: Edit

I could see adding damage against PFs, but not other ships. It is just too much of an upgrade for what is supposed to be a defensive system.

I would also claim that ADD rounds have improved at about the same rate as drone speeds. Case in point: Wow, our nice new ADD rounds are still 66% effective against incoming drones, even though the drones are coming in so much faster these days!

By benjamin sun (Ben2207) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 06:49 pm: Edit

Seth makes a good point. There's a big difference between speed 20 and 32, even bigger from slow to fast

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 09:49 pm: Edit

Conversely there's a big difference between 12 ADD spaces and 6. If you follow the progression of ADDs; E-racks => ADD-6 => ADD-12 => ADD-12 firing on WBP fighters => GX-racks, it's fairly easy to see that ADDs get a pretty good progression that keeps up with the speed 8=>12=>20=>32=>typeVII&VIII progression of drones.

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 01:12 am: Edit

Seth, no the original point is that against a speed 32 drone you have 62.5% less opportunities to fire (and score a kill) than with a speed 20 drone. This presumes identical movement by both target and targeting objects. So, in a sense, the ADD has *not* improved but gotten worse at killing drones given the lower shot opportunities. There are however, increases in targeting systems (i.e. aegis & x-tech) that offset this and give a net increase in shot opportunities.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 03:26 am: Edit

Also note that as the faster drones cost more BPV the ADD-ship becomes bigger ( if staying at equal BPV ) and thus has more BTTY and raw power with which to tractor the drone, and once tractored is where the ADD-12 really gets ahead over the ADD-6.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 12:17 am: Edit

Well, disregarding MJC's comments as not relevant to the discussion, I think it may be appropriate to restate the proposal, with respect to the various suggestions received.

Short version:

Improved ADD rounds.

YIS 140 ADD (this is the original) Auto kill drones with successful hit. inflicts 1 to 6 points of damage to fighters and shuttles, ineffective vs ship sized targets.

YIS 184 ADD+ Auto kill dronse with successful hit, 1d6+1 damage vs shuttles and fighters, 1 damage point vs PF's and ships IF sheilds down.

discussion:

Several people suggested the damage be increased to 1d6+2 or even 1d6+3. Such an adjustment is possible, but I would want to see play test data before making a final decision on it.

the technobauble explaination is that the round (the ADD+ version) is enhanced in some manner to be more effective in inflicting damage than the original ADD round was.

Speculation has entertained use of new materials in the warhead being more dense than that used in the orignal ADD, or possibly an explosive componet of a matter/anti matter. a significant factor in such a suggestion is that the energy cost of holding the tiny matter/antimatter round is so minute that it not worth tracking the 0.00001 energy point cost for each round on a ships Energy Allocation form.

The estimated BPV cost of the improved ADD+ round is 0.1 BPV per round loaded in the ships ADD launcher or other type drone racks (such as G or E).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 06:27 am: Edit

1) I don't think it's a good idea to tie, miniscule arming costs and damage to ships.

2) I don't think a YIS by itself is enough of a drawback. It'ld be better to up the damage against a shuttle to 1D6+2 (or even 1D3 x 1D3) and then have a BPV price tag (say 0.25 BPV each) as well than have the confusion of just having a YIS drawback.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 10:24 am: Edit

How odd, 1D3 x 1D3 averages out merely at 4, which isn't a huge shift from 3.5, unlike as I'ld assumed.

1	2	3
2	4	6
3	6	9

36/9 = 4

By Greg Ernest (Grege) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 07:47 pm: Edit

MJC: don't you just mean 2d3?

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 08:33 pm: Edit

d3 TIMES d3, not d3 PLUS d3.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 09:17 pm: Edit

How funny, they both have the same average.

1	2	3
2	4	6
3	6	9

36/9

And

2	3	4
3	4	5
4	5	6

36/9

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 09:28 pm: Edit

MJC:

1. What are you basing that opinion on?!? is it an encyclopedic knowledge of SFB rules? (past experience in reading your posts would seem to disqualify you in those terms.) is it untold numbers of hours in face to face game play in tournaments or in a gaming group? (some might conclude that to be unlikely.)

If that statement is just an "off the cuff comment" then I hope you would understand when it is dismissed as such.

2. The BPV adjustment has not yet been determined. One suggestion has been 0.10 BPV per round, We'll assume that you are suggesting 0.25 PBV per round is more accurate. (but still begging the question as to how you arrived at such a factor?!?)

Trying to decifer the meaning to what you intended to say in your post, it would appear that you seem to endorse increasing the damage factor to 1d6+2 rather than the suggested 1d6+1. If true, then the 0.25 BPV adjustment is more reasonable...and I suppose that if the damage were increased to 1d6+3 then a BPV adjustment of 0.3 might be also in order?!?

that part would bear more consideration, I'd assumed that the 1d6+3 was too great an improvement... but there might be people willing to endorse it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 11:34 pm: Edit

1A) Quit the attitude.
1B) Arming of Photons, Antimatter Bombs and Suicide Shuttles all arm at a rate of 0.5 points of warp power yeilds 1 point of damage.
Also note that Antimatter bombs are SC7 items as are ADDs so to say there is something uniquely special about the super-ADD that lets it arm "antimatter pellets" for no holding or arming cost would be outside the bounds of beleivability ( IMHO ).
Therefore if you allow a sup'ed up ADD to inflict 1 point of damage to ships, you can't also say that the antimatter armed super-ADD has a holding/arming cost of nothing. Even an arming cost of 0.25 points of warp would be a stretch.


2) HMmmm, just noticed your proposed 0.1 BPV cost.
BTW, E-racks can't launch ADD rounds.
A 0.1 Price tag and 1D6+1 damage is good, but you also need to consider the fact that ADDs and G-racks can now not only hurt ships but Mizia them, so perhaps 0.25 BPV per round would be a better value for the 1D6+1 damage.
Also note that a Type VI drone ( being speed 12 ) costs 0.25 points of BPV more than an ADD round and part of that price is the ability to harm ships ( counterbalanced by the ability of the ship to shoot it down but that is itself counterbalanced by the "to hit" die roll of the ADD).

It'ld probably be best from all the above to set the BPV of the round at 0.25 and then toggle the damage to shuttle to suit playtesting.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 12:12 am: Edit

If you want a technobablle try this.

The original ADD round dired a burst of Tungsten spherical pellets, however the advanced ADD round first a burst of "magno-dynamically" shaped depleted uranium sabots.

The increased dencity of each slug was counter balanced by the dynamic form holding less volume than the spheres but witht he shards held in position by light weight plastic clamps causing the entire warhead section to be the same size and weight as the original.
However when the depleted uranium projectiles pass into a volume containing oxygen (the inside of shuttles and ships); soft flakes of uranium that have been heated due to friction passing through the skin of the object, fill the volume and rapidly burn, yeilding the increased damage to shuttles and the ability to actually damage ships.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 12:38 am: Edit

Jeff: You really seem to have a problem with that whole "acting like an adult" thing.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 10:10 pm: Edit

Moving ahead...

The Improved ADD munition, simply put, is that after the General War (year 184) ADD using races can choose to purchase ADD+ rounds (using CO points?!?) that have the following abilities:

1. same characteristics as 'normal' ADD's to kill drones(except type H, treat type H drones as fighter or shuttle).
2. inflict greater damage to fighters, shuttles and type H drones at the rate of 1d6+(1,2 or 3), and
3. if fired at a ship sized target (such as a PF or ship) inflict 1 point of damage per ADD+ if target has no functioning shields. If sheilds are up and functioning, no damage inflicted.

The cost of the improved ADD+ munition, has been discussed for levels of .1 BPV per upgraded ADD for those that do 1d6+1 damage to shuttles, fighters and type H drones, .25 BPV for those that do 1d6+2, or 0.3 BPV for the one that does 1d6+3 damage.

Note the BPV factors are not consistant or linear. IMO the progression should be either 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 or (as a second option) 0.1, 0.25 or 0.4 to reflect the increase in damage potential of the ADD+.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 03:28 pm: Edit

This is another topic under consideration for Extreme missions.