Archive through June 17, 2010
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(D) Combat Rules:
Limit on superstack fire:
Archive through June 17, 2010
I seems obvious that you would not count bases in any superstack rule.
SVC: That was part of the idea. Warp and scanners effects cause the problem and thus the rule for EW penalties. It's supposed to be irritating to deal with so player just avoid encountering the rule by not superstacking at all. Technobabble and problem handled. The last thing I want, as a player, is to have to deal with MORE EW. 
But I've passed on the idea. I know it isn't liked (just saying that that was part of the point... don't like the rule? Then avoid it by not superstacking.)
But I guess it's a tricky thing to do and a cold 3 ship limit acomplishes the same thing.
Speaking of bases - losing the superstack might make things 'interesting' for the defenders, too.
If a base starts with ships docked to it, they would have to leave the base's hex in order to fight in numbers... and not all go into the same hex in order to keep doing so.
The defender of a base would have to deal with the tactical implications of losing the superstack, as would the the attacker.
Gary Carney and Loren Knight:
Gary,
I don't have a problem with your technobabble explanation in your 12:34 pm post. But it doesn't have the force of a rule. If this change is going to be made (and it looks like it will be), then I think the rule needs to explicitly spell out how it applies to bases, especially planetary bases.
Loren,
Similar comment. The problem with saying it "seems obvious" is that it doesn't have the force of a rule and might not seem obvious to someone else. If you want a current example, look at the ongoing discussion in the Rules Questions, about whether a carrier can lend ECCM to its fighter squadron if the the carrier itself doesn't have lock on to the fighters' target.
Alan:
The technobabble was meant to be a possible would-be in-universe explanation for what rule may come - not to stand in place of one.
Like with Andro displacement devices. In-unvierse, the two-DisDev limit is because a third ship turning on its device in range would destroy all three ships. But there's still a formal rule preventing you from tempting fate...
Well, being a comment thread I can only make comments on the proposed rule. No one has posted a finished rule, not even SVC, so I'm only commenting that that should be part of the proposed rule, which to me, seemed obvious.
But then bases don't really seem to count as individual units and might be counted as occupying the space in the hex above their planetary hex side. That is, bases would occupy one ship equivenant in the hex above them. If it is a matter of interfering sensor/scanner targeting systems then a planets bases are separated into six hexes.
Every ground base power grid counts as one ship equivelant in the hex above the plantary hex side it occupies.
If it's three units in a hex rather than three ships, this has potential implications for fighters and shuttles, even ECM widgets.
We kind of have 4 grades of space bourne units to deal with
Ships
PFs
Shuttles and fighters.
Seeking weapons
Seeking weapons aren't a big deal as seeking weapons with DF ability are rare.
This rule has potential implications for attrition units, which I understand are more common in SFB than FC. But then this conflict might actually be desired.
Editorial:
I have no problem importing "what works" from FC and making SFB simpler and more accessable. The game's complexity is one of its stumbling blocks. As long as we don't look at importing from FedCom as THE way to fix SFB, I think SFB will be fine.
Quote:I was under the impression that the Hydrans were one of the Alpha empires who were best able at playing the faux-Echelon trick, since by the time the Concordium shows up the Kingdom has plenty of ships armed with... a certain long-ranged weapon of their own. One which, unlike the PPD, can be mounted on SC4 units.
I won't bore you to hell about it, though.
The hellbore doesn't change the fact that the Hydran relies on fighters and gatlings, which have very short range that will be substantially affected by forcing the Hydran to break up the superstack.
I don't want to lose the forest for the trees, though.
My point is that disallowing or modifying a tactic that is well known, decades old, and which has problems and counter-tactics may have unpredictable consequences for various technology combinations, and thus may have disproprotionate affects on different empires. I'm concerned that a substantial rule change like this might have an unpredictable and undesirable effect on game play, and I perceive that as not being good for the game - regardless how we feel about superstacks on the abstract level.
In other words, what is really being fixed here? IMHO the game ain't broke in this regard, so no fix is needed, and the fix might have undesirable effects on game play for certain technology combinations (particularly seeking weapon empires and empires that heavily rely on short range weapons). My two cents.
Guys, it's just a discussion for now, the earliest that something could be done is CL#42. I'd like to chat at Origins with a group of experienced players on this some evening.
I thought about this while getting lunch.
I'm not sure Stacks are the issue.
What is the issue is chicken-•••• DF superstacks that refuse to close because they have enough long range power that they don't need to close to win. the super-stack part of the equation is just the fall guy for this issue.
Jeremy's played a short ton of fleet battles but under size-limiting conditions for exactly this reason.
I think a better solution is to encourage the attacker to close. To do that, we would want to make the long range-game less attractive as a strategy. I think hindering the attacker, as SVC's solution does, won't accomplish what really needs to be done.
I see plasma's problems vs Late-General War DF, issues with the superstack and the general problem SFB has with upgunning a ship (RE Combat-Optimized Dreadnoughts" topic) or fleet past some threshold as aspects of a common core issue.
Some of this is just the way SFB is and it's baked too deep in the design to remove without destroying what makes SFB "SFB".
Some of it is amenable to a rules change.
One possible solution is to give all SC4 ships small target modifiers at extreme ranges. Say +2 at range 20+. It doesn't break the long-range game utterly (we don't want that), but if a DF fleet wants to pick on the little stuff being flown by the enemy, it will make the fleet tend to want to close to 19 or less in order to avoid firing against the shift. Or they have to pick on a larger target at longer range.
Hey, here's a super stack solution. Just make mines more available and let everyone buy NSMs (1 or 2 and ROms get one free on Gen1 ships).
You'd have to be nuts to superstack in that environment!
Should a limit be imposed and should that limit go on to be based off of Units rather than Ships, there is an issue that it effectively limits the capability to use ECM drones.
Each ECM drone added would reduce the stack size allowed by one.
I've always heard that ECM drones exist to balance things out historically and god knows the 'Zin could use the help till the faster drones get there, but this would negate this advantage.
Superstacks happen because it's an advantage in the game to do so with no corresponding disadvantage (current explosion strengths just aren't scary enough).
Yes, I do cede that you can get 3 R4 shots with 3 ships in each hex as well as 9 ships and a single R4 shot.
What you don't get is:
* Ease of maneuver, ease of EA - with large ship counts and drones, the accounting can get tedious. Superstacks make it easier in a lot of ways, so they get used.
* Move math. It's substantially harder to get 3 R4 shots on the same impulse against the same target than it is to get 1 R4 shot, as should be.
* Shield karma. With 3 R4 shots, I likely (not guarnteed) to be strewn over 2 if not 3 shields. The ships last longer, the games go longer. Good and bad.
So, between a combination of ease of play and statistical advantages, you'll have people ride the stack limit (whatever it is) as hard as possible.
It would be my preference to apply a downside to the practice and make it a tradeoff rather than ban it arbitrarily.
ALSO -- From the school of unintended consequences, just about every rule in SFB has some techno-babble reason why it's the way it is. I don't know what the techno-babble would be for this one, but I'm not seeing any reason that I can come up with why you couldn't superstack that would not also, in the process, prohibit the R0 shot from enemy fire. I'm also all in favor of getting rid of the R0 game, but that's cause I play the Kzinti and Tholians mostly and I'd be happy with sniping and anchoring at R1, while it would make the Hydrans and others very put out.
If a long-range direct-fire game is such a problem, there might be another way to make it less so - take the double-cost for moving in reverse over, too.
There aren't a lot of fleets out there which can maintain a heavy DF fusillade when running away from their opponent - so it would have to either turn around and move towards the enemy, or try to keep backing up and be obliged to deal with the consequences.
That said, I don't particularly care for the superstack at any range...
Anything that pass the K.I.S.S. test...
One thing, I don't think the rule should affect R0 fire as its about fire leaving the hex, not the number of units IN a hex...
Quote:Guys, it's just a discussion for now, the earliest that something could be done is CL#42. I'd like to chat at Origins with a group of experienced players on this some evening.
I'd love to be at Origins this year to talk about this, play, and to hang out with all you guys. Sadly, with a new baby at home, it just AIN'T goint to happen. 
Though I am happy to have her. 
SVC, for what it's worth, I've pretty much said my piece. In case you found it helpful to the overall discussion, I've re-printed the essence of it below just for your reference.
Quote:My point is that disallowing or modifying a tactic that is well known, decades old, and which has problems and counter-tactics may have unpredictable consequences for various technology combinations, and thus may have disproprotionate affects on different empires. I'm concerned that a substantial rule change like this might have an unpredictable and undesirable effect on game play, and I perceive that as not being good for the game - regardless how we feel about superstacks on the abstract level.
In other words, what is really being fixed here? IMHO the game ain't broke in this regard, so no fix is needed, and the fix might have undesirable effects on game play for certain technology combinations (particularly seeking weapon empires and empires that heavily rely on short range weapons). My two cents.
Quote:Well I put the blame on the old Commander to Captain Edition change to ship explosions. I've always thought most ships explosion rating was about 33% too low. If the rating were a bit higher, that would help discourage superstacking. As it is, I find that even if my opponate 'splodes my largest ship, most of my fleet will survive and with proper preparation, still in fighting shape
This is what I always wondered about.
Why were the old explosion strengths ever cut down? They used to be BRUTAL - including factoring in things like arming state of weapons (a Romulan dreadnought with a ton of t-bombs, an NSM, and held plasma torpedoes created something of a small sun when it went up!)
I seem to recall vaguely some discussion of the explosion strength of ships being cut down due to players using a charge-in-and-suicide strategy to make the ships something like pseudo-suicide- freighters? Maybe a valid concern, but SURELY there must be some leeway between "using a frigate charge to wipe out an enemy fleet with self-destructs" and "What was that flicker? Did somebody flip a nightlight on and off real quick? Oh, you mean that was the dreadnought we were docking with? Huh - bummer..."
Perhaps part of the problem was that, in the older SFB editions (IIRC), there were no limits to the number of t-bombs you could buy, which meant people could buy really tiny frigates with a RIDICULOUS explosive force. But we have a cap on t-bombs (or even other exploding things), now, so...???
Quote:Double explosions: Not a bad idea, and it's not from FC, which has no explosions.
I don't think doubling is enough. If the plan is to make the 'superstack' a really bad idea - something we specifically want to DISCOURAGE AT ALMOST ALL COST - only happening when specific and critically relevant tactical considerations DEMAND it...
...well, it needs to have more kick.
The pre-Commander's Edition explosion rules might be an option.
Increasing the explosion strength massively (at least triple...but perhaps with some sharper fall-off than something like mines, which are DESIGNED to damage ships at a distance) would be the EASIEST way, of course.
All you have to do is note it in some Captain's Log (take existing explosion strength, triple it for same-hex ships, double it for adjacent-hex ships), and print the new values in the next Module G update (?G4?).
FWIW, I rather like the 'falloff with range' idea, as it makes it clear that ship explosions are a different effect than mines, which are DESIGNED to damage something at range. A ship explosion isn't, the damage is just a factor of the massive amounts of matter and antimatter reacting in close proximity. The resulting factors, when printed in the next 'G' annexes would be something like - for example, the currently '18 point' Fed CA - "54/36", reflecting the 0-hex damage and 1-hex damage.
Upside of just increasing explosion strength:
- It's assumed for fans of Franchise Trek coming into SFB that a ship blowing up is a Really Big Deal. The Enterprise-D's nearly undamaged saucer was seriously damaged (and ultimately destroyed) by the explosion of the rear hull. (Now, not saying we need rules to allow for everything that happens in combat in Franchise Trek. I'm perfectly happy repeating over and over "No, you CANNOT ram another ship, I don't CARE what Picard did in 'Nemesis', it doesn't work that way.")
- It breaks up the super-stack, of course
- It forces interesting tactical choices when a ship is damaged. Of course it is desired to save ships, but now attempting to tow damaged ships brings real risk unless you do it with range-3 tractors.
- It's simple. No updated rulebook needed because there are no new rules (not really, anyway). Annex changes are the simplest to do when discussing something system-wide.
We are NOT going to increase explosion strength. STOP going in that direction.
The super stack seemed to arrive about the same time that the old explosion rules disappeared. I am not sure I really see the big deal about the stack. It can make for a very strong defensive formation against seeking weapons, but a good seeking weapons player will force the stack apart by his selection of targets. At long range what is the deal, you spread 10 ships in 3 adjacent hexes an the are all still on the same shield, same result. I can understand Jeremys concern many of them are mine also, but at the same time some change as long as it does not change the flavor of the game. I dont play FC, bought the first part, but did not buy any firther, but I do like some of the rules in it, paying for decelaration is one
If I have Romulans, Lyrans and Klingons each with 3 cruisers in the same hex, do I have 9 ships that can all fire at once? Or do I have to split their fire over three impulses?
If I have three PFs fly into the hex of an enemy DN, have we just made it impossible for that enemy DN to fire?
Sorry steve, I was writing as you posted, I am also not asking, just noting.
Ken:
As a point of comparison, the FC rule (4A3) explicitly refers to allies as coming under the friendly definition. So, you could pick 3 from any of the 9 ships to fire, but the other 6 will have to wait.
EDIT: The limit is 3 ships per facing or 3 per target, whichever comes first. If all 3 ships shooting out of the same hex target the same ship, that's it for both the target and facing for that impulse. If you have a target you can hit from two adjacent facings, you could, for example, fire from two ships via facing A and one from facing B, but then you'd only be able to fire from one more ship out of A and two from B, with none of those left-over shots eligible for use against the original target.
(Also, FC puts fighters under the same restrictions as ships - so two Stingers and one ship count the same as three ships. Not sure how the attrition unit thing might be best handled in a port over, though.)
EDIT 2: Oh, and the rule only covers allied units, not blocking enemy ones.
Here is one reason I think the "anti-superstack rule" is bad. It will yet again provide a schism for the community, as some players insist on playing "The old way" and some players insist "The new rules must be in play". Hence people argue how to play rather than play; the groups fracture, and again damage the community. It is altering the way the game has been played for 30+ years.
And yet, how many has our failure to fix this mess already driven away? The number is not zero.
Break it down:
WHY is the stack a problem? Under what conditions? It can't just be when I add that 4th ship to the same hex.
What advantages does the superstack give?
Which advantages are being abused?
What races are more capable of abusing a superstack?
I think you'll find the superstack becomes abusive in DF fleets approaching S8 limits, especially those good at playing keep-away (late-GW ships for speed, klinks for maneuverability) or hit especially hard (Feds). Nobody's scared of a Gorn superstack. Nobody's scared of a superstack of sublight ships.
The long-range game breaks down unser these same circumstances.
Pushing individual ship offensive power makes it easier to cross the threshold of abusiveness.
Faster, more evasive ships play merry hell with plasma.
All these problems are related.