Loren: Some might have playtested something similar to the ASM. During the Commander's to Captain's changeover, a direct-fire weapon that could be mounted on a drone rack or drone rail was a very common proposal. I saw 6. ADB probably received a score. If a weapon similar to the ASM proved very powerful, one could reliably forecast the ASM to be very powerful.

Playtesting may more closely evaluate all the aspects of the ASM. However, I expect most of the results of better tactics generated to be benefitting the ASM. My playtests involve suboptimal ASM tactics against an opponent that both knew that ASM was going to be used and the tactics planned for the ASM permitting the best counters I could figure out. Even giving the ASM significant penalities such as these, the ASM was an overpowering weapon. (Not that I expect any major breakthrough in counter-fighter tactics, since any tactics effective against ASM fighters would also be very effective against other DF fighters.)

My major concern for the ASM is not its raw power; the rules could still be scaled back to an appropiate level. The problem is more what happened with the ship modification rules prior to the Tactical Intelligence rules, should a player guess wrong as to how a ship was modified, that mistake tended to be fatal. If a player tries ASM defense tactics against seeking weapon carrying fighters, that mistake could prove fatal. The obverse case seems equally likely.

The ASM turns seeking fighters into the best DF fighters. (Not just the ASM itself but also the better hidden and heavy weapon carrying EWFs.) The ASM gives seeking fighters a "Surprise You Lose" effect. In short, a bad idea as presently implemented.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 04:48 am: Edit

Interesting point, Richard. Perhaps we need to add a level of TacIntel that could detect a fighter's payload. Maybe using labs or probes?? Of course, anytime I see fighters pressing for close range against me, I always assume it's bad news. If they haven't launced drones before range 8, I'm going to have to ASSUME they're going for the ASM strike. I don't really see how holding drone launch until range 5 helps them, as that's the range at which they become vulnerable.

You guys DID see the new rule where the accuracy chart was inverted, right? Now at range 5 it hits on 1-2. And it IS affected by EW.

So now you have the option of waiting until range 5 before opening fire. At this range, 12 ASMs fired should yield about 4 hits, average 28 damage. This assumes no EW shift. While this is enough to kick in a cruiser shield, it is hardly crippling. If you can shift the fire by 1, then cut the damage in half.

Yes, fighters can pull stupid EW tricks, but so can starships. Those 10 ECM fighters are under EM, so they have 2 ECCM at most. Run with 3 ECM powered (or better yet, ECM drones or ECP) and 3 ECCM. When the entire undamaged squadron hits range 5 they will either fire through a 1-shift for about 14 pts or press on for a closer range shot. If they drop EM to get an unshifted shot, then you can use batteries either to force a 1-shift (if using ECP/ECM drones) or to raise 3 more ECCM (if no outside help available) to fire unshifted at the entire squadron. It should only take about 2-3 phaser-1s to cripple/kill each fighter. We'll hold back phaser-3s and ADDs to kill the short stack of drones they did launch. Even a small squadron of ships should be able to muster enough firepower to plaster a squadron of fighters at that range. Of course, this assumes you HAVE a small fleet/squadron. If you're a single cruiser operating against an unsupported fighter group, then you should play the long-range game instead.

This also assumes that you have done NOTHING at all to disrupt the incoming fighters before range 5. Once again, I refer you to our old friends: standard drone launches, scatter-packs, friendly fighters, d-racks, shotgunned plasma torpedos, standard F-torps, standard/OL disruptors, starfish, swordfish, MW drones, and t-bombs. Surely, one of those can give you some options to break up an inbound fighter strike.

We'll table the issue of how the fighters can even reach ships operating at battle speeds in the post-Y175 enviroment. I haven't seen J2 yet, but from what I've heard, mega-fighters are supposed to be able to do the trick. But then, mega-fighters are also supposed to be VERY expensive.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 10:09 am: Edit

The point, Andy, is that someone who has made repeated factual errors about current rules doesn't have much business declaring that he's so smart he can tell what will and won't work without even testing it, especially when his response to any proposed counter-tactics is "I don't want to play the game that way."

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 11:06 am: Edit

Andy: I'm pretty confident that I've made fewer rules errors in the last four years than you have made in this topic in the last 14 days. I also note that you don't seem to understand the term "paradigm" as it refers to your refusal to consider any tactics you are not already using.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 11:08 am: Edit

MJC: Your question didn't need an answer. We don't have to have a 20th century analogue of everything, or anything, in SFB. Some weapons (the Russiah Kh series, the Spiral ATGM, the LOSAT) have some similarities but none are "the model" for ASM.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 11:14 am: Edit

Andy Palmer:

Your paradigm by your own words in this topic has atrophied into a set standard that you are unable, or unwilling, to adapt to changing conditions.

You said: August 17, 2002 - 08:58 pm "You also seem to be enamored of large drone wave. Sorry, but IME, large drone waves are just not that effective. There are so many low-effort ways to counter them, most people I know do not even use them anymore - they use smaller, targeted drone waves to help set up a better direct-fire solution (force a slip so that fire hits a different shield, etc.) and use them in the knife fight. With the ASM, we will cease to see anything BUT these carried on drone fighters."

This was in essence intellectual laziness on your part in that you moved my responses about drone waves to break up fighter strikes into being about ships. No experienced player uses a large drone wave against an opposing ship unless they are certain it will lead to the target's destruction (either by the drone waves' own weight or by setting the target up to be destroyed by other means, perhaps after being crippled by the drone strike). There are, of course, many factors that you were simply glossing over in launching a wave at a target ship, such as is the target able to weasel and be protected by other ships long enough to get back up to speed? Is the target a Federation ship and is there a Federation carrier around with a Space Warning and Control Shuttle or two? An enemy ship that is moving slowly and otherwise unable to weasel (perhaps because you have counted all of its shuttles already launched) or be protected by other ships might succumb to a drone wave if one can be generated. Etc. It is, again, NOT THE POINT I WAS MAKING. My point was the use of a drone wave to break up a fighter strike, and large drone waves can (as I pointed out in several messages, many of which you responded to by citing that you would use the very tactics such a drone wave is intended to elicit) break up a fighter strike. They do it in several ways. Force the enemy fighters to turn away. Force them to launch counter drones (preventing them from launching drones, or ASMs in this instance, at my ships until after a turn break, one such blocked for each defensive drone launched by the fighter strike). Force them to drop chaff (blinding them effectively for eight impulses). Force them to drop out of erratic maneuvers to use their phasers to destroy the drones (making them better targets for direct-fire weapons). Outright destruction is not necessary for success (crippling damage will do for those that do not drop chaff, turn away, or blind their weapons by firing them at the drones), but can be nice. All of which I have pointed out to you in other messages in this topic, and all of which you are choosing to essentially ignore because they are outside your tactical paradigm which you are unable to adjust to a changing circumstance.

You are in essence Douhet proclaiming "The bomber will always get through" and a medieval nobleman proclaiming that the Crossbow must be banned because it allows a commoner to kill one of noble birth by virtue of its ability to penetrate a Knight's armor.

Your rebuttals and explanations of why the ASM is a bad idea have been rife with factual errors that tend to indicate that you have little, if any, experience with playing drone-armed fighters under the existing rules for drone-armed fighters. I cite, if you want specifics, your example of the firepower of the F-14D when armed with ASMs which was so totally out of whack, you simply said in essence that we should move on to another example with no valid explanation of why you posted such a bogus example other than your objections being visceral and not intellectual, i.e., "without real thought."

Your exact words were: August 17, 2002 - 05:37 pm "Yes, you are correct, the F-14D situation is not a valid one. That was just my frustration at leading to me creating situations without real thought."

That someone could so totally blow the drone launching rate for a fighter in a simple example tends to indicate that they are not aware of the drone launching limits on fighters in their normal gaming. That you posted such a thing calls everything you have to say into question. You proclaim your prowess,

You said: August 24, 2002 - 08:02 am: Edit Why spend a few hours playing something you know is broken when you could instead be spending that time playing a fun, balanced fight?

But you posted that F-14D fiasco which, combined with the above statement, has gone a long way to ruin your creditability.

For what it is worth, I myself expressed concern with mounting ASMs on ships (and am still very concerned about it essentially because I imagined the tactics that were later described by others, i.e., a Kzinti overrun behind a wall of drones to launch ASMs into the target).

My exact words were: August 16, 2002 - 06:14 pm: "I am, myself, not currently enamored of allowing these things to be mounted on ships. The Kzinti BC overrunning my D7 with a flight of standard drones leading that I will have to swat, and then a salvo of four of these things when he hits range five is enough to make me shudder."

But there is a major difference in that I was willing to see how the playtesting came out (I have enough intellectual honesty to admit that I might be wrong when the situation is actually played out). You are so convinced of your intellectual prowess that you have simply proclaimed that anything you have mentally determined to be is therefore factually so and thus a waste of time to playtest. This was despite the fact that I gave you a previous example of Tony Medici, who was the Andromedan of Andromedans at the time, proclaiming that the Andromedan tournament ship would never win the Captain's Tournament under the new Andromedan rules in 1990. He was wrong. Maybe you are too, but you have blinded yourself by your belief in your own brilliance. And limited yourself to examples wherein your dire predictions are borne out without any effort to envision larger concerns. A classic being your "campaign situation" in which you are defeated in a battle by an opponent who brought a carrier. You never responded to the simple point that if you lost where he had a carrier and you did not, then you won where you had a carrier and he did not since they cannot be everywhere. And if you both had carriers the situation would be tense with both sides launching strikes and trying to block the other's strike.

You have in fact consistently chosen to ignore that both sides might have fighters and can try to use them to counter the other side because you want ASMs to not be allowed at all. You will not even entertain that larger picture.

This comes up again when you note:

August 25, 2002 - 07:49 pm: Edit: SPP. Pal, LM, 3xRN, 3xHR, 3xLN, 1 NSC. Was the Hydran Kingdom EVER able to field a single fleet of this size in a single battle?...

There is no rule anywhere in the game that says a player cannot go up against an opponent with such a fleet. Are you demanding that we, in essence, tell all players that they are not allowed to use such a fleet? What about the players who set up a campaign where the Hydrans have a common border with the ISC? SFB has a "historical background" that we try to adhere to in creating "historical" scenarios. But if a player wants to play (SG2.0) with a full fleet (assuming both sides pay their BPVs) there is no rule saying he cannot bring such a Hydran force to the table. And there is not going to be a rule saying such a thing.

In essence, your goal here seems to be to keep the game locked into your own tactical paradigm, forcing everyone to play to your standard and allow no variation.

I am, in essence, extremely disappointed in you, not that it matters.

By Paul Rae (Soapyfrog) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:00 pm: Edit

I'm a big fan of loading extra DF firepower onto fighters, so I like this idea. It makes non-fed non-hydran fighters suitably scary at close range, and should provide some extra beef to Romulan fighters.

Presumably the Feds would eschew ASMs in most sitation because of their "low-attrition" doctrine which largely relegates fighters to long range drone platforms, but should they need it, ASM armed fighters would provide a terrific punch.

Megafighters + ASMs sounds like a particularly lethal combination.

By Ryan Peck (Trex) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:14 pm: Edit

SPP,

Please send me or post a copy of all ASM rules that need playtesting. I will be more then happy to give these a shake. I am very willing to accept the fact I may be wrong. I agree only playtesting will tell.

Battleforce Baltimore meets tomorrow night.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:22 pm: Edit

Ryan Peck:

There is no formal draft rules set here at ADB. Just about all of what I have discussed has grown from the original premis that ASMs would be functionally ADDs, and hence their use on fighters would have been dictated by the RALADs rules. This is in part no longer the case, e.g., a fighter can launch two RALADs in a single turn, but not on a single impulse, but cannot launch more than one ASM in a turn.

What there is in terms of a playtest outline is in this topic. See posting by Robert Cole on August 24, 2002 - 01:11 pm.

By Dwight Lillibridge (Nostromo) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:28 pm: Edit

aching to get that copy of J2 to gander at some fighter power with more bite as well as the other goodies.

my personal take on ASM tactics is to get in to range and begin a staggered firing sequence dictated by current conditions, going for MIZA effects. in effect to me this gives pretty good benefits but should note on the way in have a couple of seeking drones for "escourt". when close to the target to bleed off phaser fire and give some survival ability for the optimum effect of ASM's. at around rng 9 for ph-1 the escourt is necessary to get to the 1-4 chance shot with ASM's and if done well you could deceive the enemy with the drone launch as expended ordnance, if set with atg then your free to fire the ASM and proper speed select with drones to have that escourt and a broke up formation to give a spread so t-bomb don't ruin the fun.

and hope your opponent don't see something this obvious and careless coming in. this does ask for casualty's if figured out.

just a take on it, tried it once, worked as the opponent fired up the drones figuring the bite was there, and it wasn't.

By Ryan Peck (Trex) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:31 pm: Edit

"What there is in terms of a playtest outline is in this topic. See posting by Robert Cole on August 24, 2002 - 01:11 pm."

Excellent, I will playtest the rules post herein.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:36 pm: Edit

Scott Tenhoff, I would like to add, gave the most intellectually honest set up to look at these weapons with is August 16, 2002 - 06:20 pm message. He set up a simple carrier duel involving a Fed NVL and a Klingon D5V (with escorts). The only things he did not know at the time were the year in service date for ASMs (later determined to be Y175, and partially invalidating his set up by changing the year from Y173) and the BPV of the ASM (which changed his original set up from a, after a few corrections for some minor errors, a four point Klingon edge as opposed to his seven point Klingon edge . . . largely irrelevant given the force totals were about 430 BPV) which I think pushes the Federation NVL group to a larger BPV (I think 12 to 20 points or thereabouts) over the D5V group.

It should be noted that even without ASMs the two forces would be in for a tense fight. The Klingons have an edge in overall ship weapons (more phasers and four disruptors), but many are the weaker phaser-2s (only four phaser-1s in the Klingon force since there were no "K" refits specified), and the Feds have six phaser-Gs (devastating up close), and 11 phaser-1s. Plus the Feds ran one more type-G drone rack than the Klingons and the F-18 is grossly superior to the Klingon Z-V. The depth of the Federation drone reserves for the battle is also considerable.

On an open map, the Klingons would (it would seem to me) avoid launching their fighters (they cannot afford to be tied to the low (12) of the Z-Vs, and try to keep the range from ever getting close.

The Feds have a firepower advantage, up close, and their fighters are superior, but clearly cannot force an engagement in open space on favorable terms.

On a closed map . . . well, the Klingons had best pray as the Feds will drive them into a corner where their close range firepower will decide the issue fairly quickly.

And the above is without ASMs.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:38 pm: Edit

<vacuous drivel deleted>

Mr Palmer, you are no longer needed in this topic.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 12:42 pm: Edit

Two notes: BPV is the great balancer. If a weapon is particularly dangerous it is usualy accompanied with a higher BPV. The ASM will not break the game if the BPV value is right.

Second: The great thing about SFB rules is that you don't have to use the ones you don't like. I really don't care for the complication of the full EW rules. Sure I know them because some player like them and I also need to understand them to talk intelligently about the game. However, my group doesn't use them. We use our own set of less complicated rules. The point I make is you can make the game be what you want. So no matter the outcome, I'm not stressing over breaking the game. Don't like ASMs? Don't use them. The only place where you could be forced to use them would be in tourniment play and that discussion is far off, I'm sure.

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 02:42 pm: Edit

It should be noted that there are disadvantages to using ASM's as opposed to normal drones or plasma. A drone or plasma doesn't only damage the enemy, it has the effect of channeling his movement, weapons usage, and tactics.
While devastating, a big drone strike may be more useful for forcing enemy shipos to weasel, or to dedicate their weapons to counter drone fire. The ASM lacks that ability, and so for races able to set up large drone waves, it might be not the best choice.
OTH, races such as the Tholians, who do not have a heavy seeking ability, might find the ASM a powerful weapon, especially against ships in web.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 02:52 pm: Edit

That raises a question Charles,

Here's the situation.
Web 0505-0510
A Klingon enters 0507 from direction E (gets trapped)
Tholians Fighters are on the other side, 0707 fire at the trapped Klingon ship.

Will the ASM effect ships stuck in Web?

Can Tholian ASM's shoot through Webs themselves? Like the same situation, but the ship in 0406, and Tholian fighters in 0606.

By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Well... to make matters worse for the Tholians - ASMs are mounted on drone/plasma rails, something Tholians don't have.

Theoretically the rule could allow ASMs to be mounted on POD rails, but then you'd have to worry about Hydrans carrying these in conjunction with P-Gs and Fusions.

Not a thing I'd like to see...

42

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, August 26, 2002 - 03:10 pm: Edit

SVC was explicit: No mounting on Pod rails. Tholians and Hydrans will not get ASMs.

So the question is can the Klingon fire ASMs out of web. (I would venture to say no. I can't remember if ADDs can. If they can then I guess the ASM can, but it shouldn't so as not to be TOO powerful against the Tholians.)

The second question is "Will the Hydrans need a little something to make up for the extra weapon the rest of the Alpha sector gets?" I think that one is still up in the air. Play testing will tell. An ASM armed fleet against the Hydrans should be one of the early tests.

Wish my play group was still in order.