Archive through June 30, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(D) Weapons:
Improved ADD munitions. (Rule 5.4x):
Archive through June 30, 2005
Jeff: Y184 is still within the time-frame that Modern Era warships are, theoretically, balanced for. We "know" that the ADD wasn't improved during that period. You would do better to propose this as an X2 thing. Given that, proposing an "improved E-rack" is workable.
Also, given the way the ADD technology is described, I'm pretty sure that a faster-firing E-rack is more likely than an ADD round that can damage ships. Remember that a drone is supposed to be a nuclear warhead, and even that only does a few points of damage to a ship (when you're talking about Type-VI drones, which are the same size as ADD rounds.)
In fact, what might work best would be to suggest a "defensive drone rack" that can fire both ADD or Type-VI, and switch between the two as needed. It cannot fire both Type-VI and ADD on the same impulse. It can fire a Type-VI on the impulse after firing an ADD, and of course it can fire an ADD every impulse. However, if it fires a Type-VI, there is a four-impulse delay before it can fire another Type-VI or launch an ADD round.
This is different from a G-rack, or an ADD rack firing Type-VI, because if those two drone racks fire a Type-VI they can't fire ADD for the rest of the turn. This "defensive rack" can fire Type-VI for the whole game turn, and also fire ADD.
The YIS would have to be around Y184, when fighter use is peaking, to make it worth the expense of a refit.
4.5 is a 29% improvement. 7 is a 100% improvement with a greater standard deviation. In general I oppose increases to standard deviation. I don’t, but would sooner support 1d6+3.5 than 2d6.
As I understand it, the reason ADDs are ineffective vs PFs is that PFs have shield. What would be interesting is having an ADD do 1 damage per hit against any unshielded unit.
Tos: Thank you, I was having trouble following your reasoning...until you explained it. 
I was focusing on the increase in damage capacity of newer fighter types, rather than the damage abilty of the ADD's...
for example a Fed F8 fighter has 8 damage points...and the F-18 has 10....so the improved damage capacity would be a net change of 2 ...or 25% of the F-8's value of 8. the percentage improvement of adopting the F-18 would also be a 25% increase... so your suggestion would "fit in" with that change...
the part that gets a "little wonky" (please pardon the technical term 
) is when you compare 2 space fighters, or 2, 3 or 4 space shuttles. a ADD round that does 1d6 worth of damage wont (by itself) make significant impact on a F-111 with 18 damage points or a HTS with 12 damage points.
I could see changing the proposal that allows the improved ADD to inflict 1 point of damage thru a downed shield...but is ineffective verses regular shields, General or specific shield reinforcement.
A 100% improvement of the ADD ability to damage fighters or shuttles would (I think) equate to 2 original ADD's. (and could justify a BPV of double the cost of a ADD round... but making it a +1 increased effectiveness to the round is more problematical.
I guess it cant be proved short of play testing... but as several people have commented, this is not a Uber weapon proposal.
Quote:At a guess(since I am not an engineer) such a change would require a new hyper speed propellant for the missile that replicated the performance of the original type ADD round, but only used a fraction of the original volume of the improved ADD round, and the internal payload volume thus freed up for use, devoted to more "Cluster Kinetic Pellets". (Also presumes that the original performance could be attained WITH the addition of more pellets with a higher density available thru the use of new materials)
The trouble with that kind of trade off, is:-
"Wow with smaller pellets ( same weight ) and new fuel I can build a weapon that fits into the ADD critical dimensions but can travel further ( and or Faster ) and inflict the same damage...now I have an R4 ADD, HO, Ho, ho."
Quote:the proposal of d26 would yeild an average of 7 points of damage, your suggestion of changing it to 1d6+1 would make the average damage worth 4.5 points.
1) It's an incrimental change and incrimental changes are more believible.
2) 1D6+1 can't accidently kill a GAS in a single hit and can't accidently kill an MRS in a single hit and can't accidently kill Stinger-II in a single hit. Which means it isn't a weapon that totally changes the dynamic of the game, suddenly!
Quote:requiring twice as many ADD rounds to inflict a kill actually lessens the effectiveness of the weapon since even ADD launchers have limits in number of rounds that could be launched during the course of a turn as well as limits to how many such rounds can be present on any given launcher (dependant on type, such a type G drone Rack or ADD-6, ADD-12 or ADD-30).
Ummm, no. At least, that's not at all what I meant. Doubling up on ammunition in no way shows that ADD's are inneffective. It just means that carrying more lets you shoot down more drones, gives you greater range and in general improves your defenses accordingly. The idea that doubling your capacity somehow decreases your weapon efficiency doesn't seem to make much sense; it's like saying A racks are better than B racks, because B-racks have more spaces and more reloads and have to fire twice as many drones as the A rack did. That's not true, and it isn't true that doubling up on ADD's points to them being innefficient. It just means you get more to play with.
MJC please read the proposal again.
It does not (REPEAT NOT) (emphasis, not yelling) change the range that the improved ADD has, it uses the same charts as the original ADD.
I think you owe an apology for intentionally mistating the idea.
Mike Raper, I was addressing a different aspect... I accept that ADD's work, and still work in year 184... the idea I attempted to communicate was that in year 168 a successfull hit by an ADD (assuming it does max damage of 6 out of 6 points possible) on a Fed F-8 fighter (with , IIRC, 8 damage points. would be crippled since more than 2/3'rds of its max damage has been inflicted.
Compare to the same situation after (oh say) year 184, where the same ADD round, also doing Max damage against a Federation F-111 (with 18 hits) will not be crippled.
The idea was that in the later years, ADD's have to hit 2 times, for max damage to acheive the same kind of results that they would have been able to get in year 168.
the actual performance of the ADD hasnt changed, I agree with you... but the size of the targets changed... and to get the same level of performance (ie crippling the targeted fighter) requires 2 success full hits by ADD's and both ADD's must do maximum damage to get the same cripple status (with the give need to roll the damage, not a garranteed result, by any means!
the result is that to get similar performance results in the later years, you need not only more ADD shots, but those "shots" have to be effective.
This is, (IMO) why Tos' suggestion of giving it a +1 modifier instead of a 2nd die roll is actually more effective... in increases the average damage that a ADD can do and minimazes (to some extent) the variation of the die roll.
Jeff: Uh, yeah, emphasis whatever. You're yelling.
mjc was pointing out that if you're going to technobabble a justification for a GW-era improvement with no drawback, then you can hardly expect people to not extend that same reasoning to some other improvement.
This is the same thing that you kept doing in the various "phaser-2 fighter" topics.
Oh, and "it costs more BPV" is not a drawback, otherwise nobody would buy X-ships.
As for "relative ADD performance", you have the same issue with any weapon shooting at fighters. Are you going to suggest an "improved dogfight drone" with a 12-point warhead? After all, a single dogfight drone won't cripple an F-111.
PS don't forget that virtually all of the fighters you'll face in Y184 will have booster packs, meaning that the ADD does d6 times two damage.
Making a ADD 2XD6 would make the type VI drone practically obsolete wouldn't it? If a Type VI drone (which has a limited ROF versus a ADD btw) hits the fighter it does 8 points of damage. The ADD round doing 2D6 damage would average 7 points, BUT has a much higher ROF and chances to hit.
Further, when comparing F-8 to F-111, you do realize you're comparing a single space fighter with a 2-space fighter with much higher BPV and armament? What business does a F-8 have getting to ADD range on a ship anyway?
ben, I suspect that Tos was addressing that issue with the suggestion that the improved ADD round only does 1d6+1 worth of damage instead of 2d6 worth.
J.W.:
I think you should re read my post ( perhaps as a reflection on the post it was quoting ).
I'm saying that the "technological development" as proposed ( better fuel and smaller but just as effective projectiles ) would very quickly yeild a longer range ADD even if that was not the intention of the original developer.
M.P.: Glad someone spotted it right.
Quote:Oh, and "it costs more BPV" is not a drawback, otherwise nobody would buy X-ships.
I'm not so sure.
I we play in Y185 and you can choose any Fed ship and have 165 BPV to spend on it, it would you really buy a Fed FFX simply because it's an X ship ( you can't buy the DDX at 170 BPV ) so I think you would buy a GW ship even though it's not as a "effiecent" as an X ship.
Simply put the IVF drone is better than the IVM drone, being able to travel a total of 96 hexes instead of 60 and traveling at a speed of 32 instead of 20 yet has no drawback with respect to the IVM drone...therefore it costs more BPV and has a higher YIS could be considered; the drawback. Or have I got some wierd understanding of the concept of a drawback!?!
Quote:PS don't forget that virtually all of the fighters you'll face in Y184 will have booster packs, meaning that the ADD does d6 times two damage.
That's the spectrum then:-
E-racks launching Type VI were replaced by
ADD-6 which are replaced by
ADD-12 which then find themeselves firing on fighter with warp booster packs.
It sems to me the ADD developes at the same pace as just about every other weapon.
Again, I must ask:
What is wrong w/ T-IV holding 5 ADDs or Disruptors at twenty paces... er... hexes?
There are ways to kill these pests that do fine & dandy. For that matter, cripple it and then make a kill with the ADD rack on your way past it. At least the ADD gunner will have something to brag about when he gets back to starbase.
Humor alert!
OH, YOU MEAN JEFF IS THE ADD GUNNER IN HIS GAMING GROUPS' RPG! Ok, I get it now.
Jeff, Please feel free to develop the AFD (anti-Fighter device). That is just not what the ADD was meant to do. It does a fair job on light shuttles or ones that are damaged; saying you want one to take out an F-111 or a bomber is a wee bit far for something like the add though.
You might think about a 1 space round that fires out of a G-rack. It would have to avoid the uber-add problem, but might work.
Interesting idea. I think that 2d6 may be too much, although perhaps not in comparison to megafighters. On the other hand, +1 almost doesn't seem worth it. I think the way to keep it balanced is to make it a specialty item that one would only take if expecting to be facing fighters.
As far as the BPV goes, I think that it needs to be around +0.25 BPV each or it is almost a "no brainer" decision to take at least some of them once they're available (and even at +0.25, I'd have a hard time justifying not putting one or two in each rack). The higher BPV cost does point towards a bigger improvement.
I believe that a type-IV holding 5 ADD rounds needs to engage 5 targets, it cannot fire all of them at a single shuttle.
Well you could have a more random damage system.
What about roll a Dice and the result on the table below shows the damage generated.
| Roll | Effect |
| 1 | 1D6 Damage:- The extra pellets just went throught he same old holes or missed copletely |
| 2-3 | 1D6+1:- A Few extra hits were scored. |
| 4-5 | 1D6+2:- Extra pellets hit. |
| 6 | 2D6:- Colossal damage as the shuttle was struck just about everywhere. |
The Net result would be (counting D6 as 3.5) an average increase of damage of 1.583' points of extra damage.
MJC:
I think you have misunderstood most of this discussion.
David Kass:
I appreciate your point, particulary that the +1 may not be worth the bother.
With the base suggestion that TOS made, the damage could be 1 die 6 + X. the 'X' variable could be adjusted to the exact amount needed to reach the appropriate level of damage that does not unbalance the game (as most of MJC's ideas would.)
For example, if Tos felt that 2d6 was too much of a variation in the range of damage possible, (see his post earlier in the thread) one option would be to make the damage possible a 1d6+(3.5). the resulting average damage would be '7' with a range of possible results between 4.5 to 9.5 (which after rounding up to the next whole number, would be the range 5 to 10).
the maximum damage possible would be 2 points less than the original suggestion of 2d6... but the variable damage remains the same.
the improved ADD would have its increased leathality verses fighters and shuttles, and the ability to kill drones remains the same as the original ADD had.
the net difference, the improved ADD round would be able to kill smaller (and mostly older) fighters with a single shot, and contribute proportionately more damage to the later larger designs (such as the 2, 3, and 4 space fighters and shuttles (and though we hadnt discussed it previously, bombers).
IMO the ability to inflict 1 point of damage verses ships and pf's (wheither it is sheild damage, or damage only on unshielded hulls) is so minor that it also does not constitute an Uber Weapon.
>IMO the ability to inflict 1 point of damage
>verses ships and pf's ... is so minor that it
> also does not constitute an Uber Weapon.
Oh hello mister D5F, how are you and your four ADD-12 doing today? What's that, you're changing your name to "Mister Mizia"? Well, I guess that's only appropriate for a ship that can do four points of damage an impulse for twelve consecutive impulses. (And this requires no power beyond AFC.)
mjc also made a good point about the damage potential of ADD versus shuttles. Looking at "how much damage it does" isn't necessarily the best way to do it. If a single ADD round can kill a shuttle, you're effectively increasing the number of direct-fire weapons that can shoot at enemy ships, which is a significant benefit to races that use ADD.
And the oft-repeated refrain: "What do the Plasma Races get to balance this improved ADD?" (And you could ask the same question about the Hydrans.)
Michael Powers, There is a small thing that you seem to have over looked:
The recommendation to make ships with functioning shields immune to the 1 damage point per improved ADD... that means that only ships with out shields (not very many) and ships that have lost their shields (as in battle or have received other type of damage to shields).
If you are so worried about plasma races and Hydrans, then make a suggestion.
Jeff, I agree that the trick is to find the right damage increase to make it work. I'm currently leaning towards +2 or maybe +3 being good places to start. I believe that with the current rules, +3.5 is identical to +3 (since it would be rounded down).
The one thing that I do like the 2d6 having over say D6+4 (or d6+3) is that the larger range of damage doesn't make it as much of a guaranteed weapon (ie I cannot guarantee a Stinger kill with 2 hits).
Tos, note that 2d6 has a lower variance than 1d6 (which is uniform, while the 2d6 roll has a triangular probability distribution, peaking at 7 damage).
Shuttles themselves improve in Y180 (see (R1.F17) through (R1.F21) in J2), so an improvement in ADD would seem reasonable in Y184.
1 point of damage even against shielded targets doesn't worry me, even with the D5F (which does abuse this ability). Note that the D5F still needs to hit with its ADD shots (thus requiring staying at range 2 or 3 to get even 50% of the damage you listed). It is also a specialized ship and bringing one just for this ability doesn't seem to be worth it. Especially if one has to pay an extra 12 BPV for the ability (I'm using my suggestion of +0.25 BPV per round). A skilled opponent would recognize the thread and handle it appropriately.
>The recommendation to make ships with
>functioning shields immune to the 1 damage point
>per improved ADD... that means that only ships
>without shields...and ships that have lost their
>shields.
You say this as though it is common for battles to go by without ships getting shields knocked down.
>If you are so worried about plasma races and
>Hydrans, then make a suggestion.
This ain't my proposal.
Dkass: Yes, I assume that a skilled opponent would recognize threats, but what actual measures is that opponent going to take beyond what he does already? "Don't turn a down shield towards your opponent!" You don't say? "Don't stay at the effective ADD range!" Cool, so should I move closer, to where all the rest of his weapons get stronger? Or should I move away and let him chase me (and keep me in the range of his ADD.) And did I just get tractored? D'oh! Looks like I'm not moving anywhere.
>[The D5F] is also a specialized ship and
>bringing one just for this ability doesn't seem
>to be worth it.
The possibility of doing 48 points of damage in one turn without using any power (and doing it via a direct-fire weapon that is immune to EW) is a pretty darn special ability. (And don't forget that the regular D5 has two ADD racks.)
On the other hand, making the improved ADD round more expensive means that every Klingon ship costs more. Do I have the option of just taking regular ADD rounds and buying something else with those points? Can I buy half "regular" and half "super", and switch between the two types? (And see my earlier comment about how "it costs more BPV" isn't necessarily a balancing factor.)
Michael, based on my play experience, getting the ship into position to use such an ability (sitting facing a down shield at range 2 or 3 for 12 impulses) is quite difficult.
48 points of damage is a scare tactic (Even in the optimum situation, the average would be 32). Anyone that has more than 12 points scored that way is/has played poorly and deserves the damage (in particular, one should be forcing the ship to use its ADD to fire at drones/fighters/shuttles).
Sure it can fire 48 ADD in one turn. But then it will take it 3 turns to reload. Each rack averages at best 2 points of damage/turn. This is no better than if it fired off a type-VI drone each turn. And dogfight drones will allow it to fire for much longer...
It was clear, at least to me, that taking the rounds was optional. And yes, the best load is probably mostly regular rounds plus a few of these.
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Jeff-
The more I read your posts in this and many other discussions the more I notice that people just don't notice "a small thing that you seem to have over looked:"
Is it really that a small thing is overlooked? Lets take some constructive recommendations (since all I seem to do in this ADD topic is say ‘what about the T-IV & Disr’) and see if we can't synthesize a few things into a new unit. Cool, we just discovered the universal galactic principal of Jeff (AND Steve) don't always get the proposal right on the first shot.
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I see some great development in the concepts presented here. I think JMC has a terrific point about random damage (Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 03:31)
I have to agree with Powers that the damage v. ship or PF is a horrific uber-weapon. concept that will put this on a 'autokill' faster than you can say 'but!'. If you want kinetic v. ships find a Jindo and use their rail gun.
Going all the way back to the initial post I made. I think that it would be best to handle it as a system upgrade. Say that targeting improved and thus the scatter on a given round was tightened. This would be like putting choke on a shotgun and having a pro shoot instead of a novice. The novice will miss 40% of the clays and a additional 20 % will not be destroyed despite a hit. Give a pro a choke and they will hit the same 60% but man will you know when they make that hit.
Adjustment factor??? Leaning toward d6+2 or d6+3. 2D6…no way, not unless it is a 1 in 12 chance.
Let me throw a reworking of the question from another perspective.
If a Fed CARa+ enounters a D7K at R3, what are the chances the D7K has its shield put down?
And how many impulses (on average) will the D7K keep her downed shield facing the CARa+ and it's G-rack???
Quite simply there's a lot of hits against unshielded vessels going on in the game.
Now as to choke ( or Fluting).
A choke oriented ADD would be less likely to hit the target but would inflict more damage on those times when it hits.
Perhaps 2 natural ECM and let the dame be 1D6+1.
You might even want different "choke rating" ADDs and thus have 4 natural ECM for 1D6+2 and 6 Natural ECM for 1D6+3.
Look at the mizia possibilities against freighters and bases. Scary, no.
MJC: May I point your attention to (E5.15) which renders changing the EW picture irrelevant?
Yeah I meant to say being influenced like EM influences ADD fire with values that are the equivlent to those values of EECM but since EM doesn't generate Pseudo ECM the I guess I was wrong.
Make it a die roll modifier of:-
+1 for D6+2
+2 for 2D6
And leave it at that. I think players will avoid purchasing fluted ADDs like the plague with thos numbers but I;m sure anti-fighter vessel on the Klingon-Hydran Front would move to using them.