I always thought it was weird that the phaser-3, a 'defense' phaser, mounted on a shuttle, could damage starships.

So try this out in your next battle....

Phaser-3's only do full damage to SC6/7 targets (ie, shuttles/drones/plasma). Against SC5 (PF's/INT) they do half damage, and vs SC2-4 targets they do only 1/4 damage.

Against SC1 targets (starbases...) they do no damage at all.

This would apply to gatling phasers as well.

Thoughts?

Yes, yes, I can hear the Hydrans and Orions screaming, due to a great distubance in The Force.....

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 02:08 am: Edit

So much for the Kzinti hack n' slash.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 08:30 am: Edit

Logical idea in terms of physics.
Awful idea in terms of game effect.

Now, how are you going to redo each SSD and BPV to account for this balance change?

By Jim Plummer (Bigjimp) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 08:55 am: Edit

I can here the Orion celebration form here: No more forrest of p-3's in that convoy. w00t!

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 12:28 pm: Edit

Yup, the one weapon that if you change pretty much brings the whole system down.

There might be less of an effect if it was limited to shuttle phasers but then the Hydrans and Feds really get screwed. I think you'd have to change their Gats to firing two Ph-2’s or something.

Of course, that is when you get you toboggan and go for a ride down that slippery slop.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 07:00 pm: Edit

'Now, how are you going to redo each SSD and BPV to account for this balance change?'

I'm not.....this 'rules change' is on the level of the Positron Flywheel, etc.

IE, something to use just to try something different.

Loren brings up a nice variant.....assume that only shuttle/fighter phaser-3/G's use this rule.

Brings more emphasis on ships as opposed to attrition units, altho they can still mess up drones/plasma...

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 07:12 pm: Edit

So then fighters will only be able to carry type VI drones, type K plasmas, and mini-photons as well?

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 07:46 pm: Edit

If you want to try that. I think nerfing the p-3 is enough, personally.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 07:53 pm: Edit

The gatling is the major weapon of Hydran Stingers. If you're going to nerf it you should do the same to the other races' fighter carried major weapons as well.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 08:45 pm: Edit

Mike Strain. This proposal makes the Positron Flywheel look like adding Warp-Targeted Lasers to Rom 1st Gen ships. It would make 2/3 of the current game unplayable.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 11:35 pm: Edit

I think some kind of phaser-S (Shuttle mounted phaser) should have been developed (rather than the half-power/down-fired Ph-3 shot) but unfortunately the game is too heavily dependant on the balance developed with what already exists.

It would make the Ph-G less of a game breaker and shuttles have this weird 1 point destroys the bay and the shuttle for free if it's in the bay and a massive six points destroys the shuttle in space, rule; hanging around, which could also be compressed if a Ph-S did exist making shuttles more correct for their size.

But the game is too dependant on the Ph-3/type-I-drone interaction to make official changes now.
Hydran fighters would need some kind of boost because they would be an ineffectual offensive weapon (perhaps speeds reflecting modern jet fighters against ships...E.g. a speed of 200 hexes per turn would allow the Hydrans to be effective with 5 damage points to destroy and a Ph-GS with a high end damage of 8 points instead of 16, would regain the offensive potential needed).

Perhaps a lot of playtesting will nut out whether or not a special "phaser mounted on shuttles" damage rule or even Phaser-S could be provided as an optional rule.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 12:02 am: Edit

Honestly, I've never had a problem with ph-3 as is on any unit. Any shuttle that can get close enough for a shot on a ship deserves its one punch.
No offense to anyone intended, but this proposal is simply silly, and as pointed out, has no real chance of success.
And as one person pointed out, which I fully agree:
Physics wise, perfect sense.
Game wise, game breaker.

That's my 2 cents, and I don't expect change back.

By Herb Diehr (Direwolf) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 03:20 am: Edit

Glenn is absolutely correct. Too much to change.

What you're doing is very similar to point defense in OGRE or AA in many games; single-use weapons not capaple of fire at the majority of targets in the game, but very useful for what they do.

With this goal in mind, try adding the point defense instead of converting Ph-iii's.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 03:44 am: Edit

Why?

This whole idea is to see how the game changes if you use these obviously optional house rules.
I think I made it very clear this was not an 'official proposal', that would be ridiculous.

Obviously, fighters (and Hydrans) are grossly affected, unless you decide to use the Loren Variation and limit it to shuttles/fighters.

The idea is to actually PLAY a few games using this and see how it changes tactics.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 08:39 am: Edit

Mike. Yes, the game will change; it will break. This grossly affects/breaks (off the top of my head):
- shuttles
- freighters
- Hydrans
- Kzintis
- planetary defense
..and negatively impacts everyone else in the galaxy except for the Andros (who aren't really part of our galaxy anyway).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 11:16 pm: Edit

Andy:

You're not reading this quite right. Freighters won't change, only the shuttles launched by frieghters for defense will change...and then only in attacks against ships, they'll still help a ship deal with a type IVF drones quite will when used as an escort.

It's a little like my Phaser-Q which was developed for X2. You'll notice (if you poke around Vorlonagent's site) that the Hydran fighters do not get a Ph-Q, they stay with the Ph-G...why because in my mind the shuttle just can't russle up the kind of power to run a phaser-Q (especial since the Ph-Q buys Ph-6 shots for the full price not half price like the Ph-G does). It also has the follow on effect that Hydran fighters arn't death-on-a-stick for X2 ships at close range...only point blank range.

So too with this idea, actual ship mounted Ph-3s will stay as Ph-3 shots. Actual downfired Ph-3 shots from Ph-1s & Ph-2s will be actual Ph-3 shots, but shuttle mounted phasers will have the reduced effect (possibly limited to shuttles and not fighters as well).

The biggest effects will be seen in the shuttle as escort mothod of starcastling and then only in the threat to enemy warships...not drones or SS.

Perhaps ships should be able to down fire their Phasers for 0.25 points of power and squeeze out a Ph-S shot to stop people thinking the Ph-S is replacing all ship mounted Ph-3s, which it simply isn't.

By jack huskey (Plasmax) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 11:35 pm: Edit

I say this as I am on my way to the agonizer booth...

This may be a proposal for "Admiral's Edition" of SFB. It will be almost 20 years since Captain's Ed came out. 4 years of workups should be plenty of time to adjust to some FAR OUT new concepts like Shuttle Phasers, Operational Level Movement, Strategic endurance, Cost of Operations... Admiral's Edition could be a real pandora's box of ideas for the game and I say let's crack that puppy wide open and see what comes out.

Wow, that booth looks scary from here.

Jack

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 12:12 am: Edit

Jack... heh, maybe that's what we should have called the Master Rule Book; Admiral's Edition. It's got a nice ring to it.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 12:58 am: Edit

No, no, no. It's going to be the Commodores Edition first. That way they still have another book they can update into.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 10:53 am: Edit

On this proposal...

I follow the discussion threads on a lot of space combat games.

The growing trend in Full Thrust and Starmada is that allowing dedicated anti-fighter weapons/anti-ship weapons was a big mistake, because it resulted in severe RPS on a fleet level.

The fighter fleet couldn't touch the fleet with the escorts, which would wade through the fighters and mow down the carriers.

The pure direct fire fleet would obliterate the "all point defense" fleet from range.

The fighter/carrier fleet would swarm the pure direct fire fleet.

Which resulted in "games" where you could look at the (supposedly balanced) SSDs and tell who'd win before putting ships on the map.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 11:48 am: Edit

If we were starting on a new game, we might try this, but you cannot change SFB like this (not without doing major things over again, like all the BPVs and all the tactics, and doing something major about convoys).

As a "try it and see what happens" house rule, you could also try soaking the counters in lighter fluid and see what happens when you apply a match to them. We KNOW what would happen (in both cases) without having to try it.

Case Closed.