Archive through March 15, 2011
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(G) New Systems:
Ablative Armor:
Archive through March 15, 2011
Ablative Armor, proposed by Jeff Wile, USS Minnesota.
see link describing real world example: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-ablative-armor.htm
Offered as a "Mad Scientists" item in a future Stellar Shadows/captains Log issue.
Ablative Armor is a type of hull coating for an alienrace (undesignated,as of yet) that mimics the effects of shields with three significant differences:
1. requires no power to maintain the protection,
2. it can not be repaired during a scenario, and
3. does not protect the ship in the same ways as normal shields. a partial list of such things include: radiation, heat zones, nebula effects etc.
While the above disadvantages are significant and may well doom the proposal for game related concerns, there are several possible advantages that might make such a system interesting to play. These include:
1. requires no power initially to protect the ship.
2. as the "Ablative Armor" is boiled off by weapons fire, the residual boiled off material envelopes the ship and creates a cloud of dense "Natural ECM" (strength determined by the number of ablative armor boxes destroyed).
| #AAB destroyed | Natural ECM created |
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | +1 |
| 2 | +2 |
| 4 | +3 |
| 8 | +4 |
| 16 | +5 |
| 32 | +6 |
| 64 | +7 |
| 128 | +8 |
| 256 | +9 |
| 512 | +10 |
Where AAB is "Ablative Armor Boxes".
There are some obvious limitations, the natural ECM benefit is limited to that hex that the ship was damaged in, if the ship moves out of that hex all natural ECM benefits are immediately lost. (Note, no other ship moving into that hex would ever gain benefit of AAB having been burned off in that hex).
A second limitation is the natural disspation of the cloud, at a rate of -1 natural ECM benefit every quarter turn(8 impuses).
Some rules should be established:
1. Normal shields and Ablative Armor are mutually exclusive. the effect of raising normal shields burns off the ablative armor immediately, an no benefit for the natural cloud of natural ECM is realized as the ablative material is contained by the ships shields.
2. a ship can not "shoot itself" to gain the benefit of the boiled off ablative material. the effect can only be achieved by weapons fire from outside the hull of the ship by atleast 500 meters.
3. A friendly ship, can not target another friendly ship with the idea of creating an ECM shield.
Comments to follow.
Comment:
Inspired by a couple of things, the cloud of natural ECM was originally suggested by squid who eject a cloudof ink when attacked, that obscures the immediate area that the animal (invertebrate) is in, a type of natural defense.
the idea of replacing normal shields with a system of ablative armor boxes that require no power to maintain was intended as a simplication to the energy allocation of a ship.
Ships equipped with ablative armor boxes would still have 6 shield facing sides, and each "Ablative Armor shield facing side" would have a number of Ablative Armor Boxes of equal size to what a ship with normal shields would have.
It might seem easy for a fleet or squadron of ships to seize such a ship with boarding tactics, that is a different question and would have to be addressed separately. my first impulse is to suggest that the ships with ablative armor do not, also, have transporter technology. they do have inordinately high numbers of boarding parties, perhaps double or triple what a similarly sized ship that did have shields would have.
thoughts, ideas, suggestions?
Would it allow for non-shield defensive systems (like PA panels, ceramic-composite/electrostatic/neutronium armour) to be taken?
Maybe it could protect against one particular type of terrain; perhaps it may have been developed by an empire indigenous to a region of space where normal shields are less than optimal as it stands.
(That could mean the resultant ship might have a split BPV to cover operations in open space, as the Ryn and Qixa do.)
I don't see why the ship would not fly out of the cloud of ablative armour particles almost immediately, losing the ECM benefit. They are moving at warp speed, after all. The system as proposed would seem to reward moving at relatively low speeds, since Mizia attacks would be kind of nerfed, and as soon as you leave the cloud, you lose the ECM bonus...
Maybe model real-world "reactive armour". As your phaser hits the armour, a jet of plasma gas (or whatever) erupts from the armour, absorbing and diffusing the energy. Use some mechanic similar to the Magellanic VRF perhaps.
Might be interesting to adapt the Juggernaut "electrostatic armour" in some way. You'd need to weaken it I think, but if you wanted an alternative to shields it's a place to start...
Gary,
Call it a Game rule requirement, the point was to prevent just exactly the kind of trade offs you are proposing. ONE type of armor, not a combination of regualr armor, and Qixa technology.
Terry, its a blatant "Fudge" to physics to allow what I hope might be a fun system to play in Star Fleet Battles.
If you want to talk physics, then explain how in your 21st century world, we can be assuming that starships, warp drive and phasers all exist.
What ever the material this Ablative Armor is made out of, it must react to Tachyon particals as well as most of the weapons in Star Fleet Battles move at faster than the speed of light.
In this case the "cloud" is expanding at something faster than the speed of light, and infact must also be expanding faster than the current warp speed of the ship with Ablative Armor that was hit.
If you want to creat an reactive armor, then fine, start a topic and carry on.
This one is for Ablative Armor, as that is what I thought of first.
I wish I had considered REactive Armor, but you might be on to a winning approach. Good Luck!
Id rather have the space squid who ejects a cloud of radioactive waste material to hide in that sounds fun for a monster
Even better!
Start a new topic for the "Space Squid"! You might even get that one published Reid!
Maybe one could influence the other?
As in, have the squid monster be the first alien life form a particular empire encounters, and say it inspired them to create a similar system for their own ships.
Or go one further; have the empire capture the squids, and use the armour on metal hulls they would attach to the creatures. (The Yrol Septs in the LMC do something like that, but have no units in print yet...)
The Alunda plasma cloud generator might be a good basis of comparison for the squid's "ink".
I actually have an idea for a race of cuttlefish with sorta-squid-shaped ships. I was going to give them space ink until I read the Alunda and decided it would be too close.
So, I'm looking at the armor and I've got a couple of questions for you:
1) Have you considered the transporter question? Every race that doesn't have shields has to deal with how they're stopping the transporter attack.
2) Have you considered the laydown of that armor? Would there be 1, 2 or 6 shields (or just to be wacky, how about 3 on the firing arcs rather than the shield arcs? Would the size of the shielding be comprable with Alpha shielding (ala the RYN) or more extensive as it's not repairable (ala the Jindo).
3) The rate of decline may not be steep enough. If you assume similar levels to an Alpha race, a heavily "shielded" CA hull which gets pounded gets a 2-shift for the 24 impulses and a 1 shift for 24 impulses.
4) Not so much questions as tactical observations, it seems to me that this layout is going to drive three distinct facets into their opponents operations.
First, Mizia is considerably harder on these guys after the initial burst. That's going to push opponents to hit hard and drive the power down.
Second, depending on how many armor banks they have I could see a valid tactic for the long-distance plink monkeys being to trickle off the armor slowly hitting every 9 impulses. Not bad, but leads to very long games.
Third, I would expect it to also suffer a shift for that same period of time as this effect is near-identical to the Vudar defensive system, it's natural ECM after all, you don't have control over it. This means that either you're constantly running ECCM to defend yourself against your own armor or the best defense against these guys is to hit them first and they'll suffer mightily at the hands of the disruptor-armed.
Gary,
Sounds interesting. perhaps you and Reid could put your heads together to creat a new monster for us to play with and shoot up?
Troy, welcome to the discussion. maybe if we work together we can solve the difficulties.
Mike,
Good questions, lets try to respond to a few and see if we can work out the issues:
1) Have you considered the transporter question? Every race that doesn't have shields has to deal with how they're stopping the transporter attack.
Response: yes, posted above. my first thought was to have large numbers of boarding parties to make capturingthe vessel impractible until significant damage had been recieved.
2) Have you considered the laydown of that armor? Would there be 1, 2 or 6 shields (or just to be wacky, how about 3 on the firing arcs rather than the shield arcs? Would the size of the shielding be comprable with Alpha shielding (ala the RYN) or more extensive as it's not repairable (ala the Jindo).
Response: 6 separate shield facings to correspond to the same style as existing shields. As indicated above, the total Ablative Armor Boxes (AAB) would be similar in numbers to published ships of the same sizes shields.
3) The rate of decline may not be steep enough. If you assume similar levels to an Alpha race, a heavily "shielded" CA hull which gets pounded gets a 2-shift for the 24 impulses and a 1 shift for 24 impulses.
Response: Im willing to entertain changes, I started with a 1/4 turn duration and progressive decline in the value of the "cloud" effect of the natural ECM... but we could make it longer if that is needed for game balance purposes.
4) Not so much questions as tactical observations, it seems to me that this layout is going to drive three distinct facets into their opponents operations.
Response: Yeah, I think you are correct, but the three facets are:
First, Mizia is considerably harder on these guys after the initial burst. That's going to push opponents to hit hard and drive the power down.
Response: I suspect that the Mizia effect will be murder on ships protected by AAB. but unshielded ships, and ships that have no way to repair their shields would be similarly affected.
Second, depending on how many armor banks they have I could see a valid tactic for the long-distance plink monkeys being to trickle off the armor slowly hitting every 9 impulses. Not bad, but leads to very long games.
Response: Possibly. If I were playing these AAB equipped ships, I would have to charge in for an overrun attack, deliver the alpha strike (of what ever weapons these ships have) and use the ECM cloud to evade in a different direction. Might not be as effective as one might wish for, but still makes subsequent mizia attacks les effective.
Third, I would expect it to also suffer a shift for that same period of time as this effect is near-identical to the Vudar defensive system, it's natural ECM after all, you don't have control over it. This means that either you're constantly running ECCM to defend yourself against your own armor or the best defense against these guys is to hit them first and they'll suffer mightily at the hands of the disruptor-armed.
Response:Depends on what weapons these suckers are armed with. lets assume (for the moment) that they have some sort of seeking weapon (like plasma torpedos or drones) that have their own ECM/ECCM factors. Unless we consider a tennacle attack that does damage in some new or innovative way... there are other means than just phasers to inflict damage.
Jeff,
The more I hear, the more it does sound like an Alunda thing to me. Maybe they employ it as "barding" on some of their ships?
If you're going to go the "lots of BP" route, which I agree is a totally valid approach, you need to be conservative in the number of transporters/shuttles or it becomes a large attack factor as well as a defensive necessity.
With non-repairable shields of similar size to Alpha shielding, you're going to be technically slightly undershielding the ship. All of the "armored" ships that I can think of have either heavier armor (Jindo) or some way to repair it intra-scenario (RYN).
My concern is this: As an opponent, I dive in and attack the AAB-defended ship. I either don't get through or get through with a moderate amount of damage. Against every other ship that I can think of, the next impulse I'm prime to start applying Mizia damage. Here, the harder I knocked down my opponent's shield, the more difficult it is get that follow up shot (and the less likely he can hit me). Now, that may be the intended affect and always glad for things that fly differently and you have to fly differently against, but it is a fallout that needs to be considered.
Now, where I'd normally save a couple phasers for the cleanup on a (near-) Alpha, you have to use them because they're not nearly as affective on the follow-through. I allocate three points of ECM and I've got a 3 SHIFT after you knock down my shield. That's not bad. It at least gives me time to get away and lick my wounds. You'd get a lot of drive to go deep in the DAC and clean out the power before trying to wipe the weapons clean.
Mike,
The problem is the same with any new technology that gets added to the game. if it is new and effective, the next question is "can my CA from X race have it too?!?"
I intentionally proposed it as mutually exclusive to standard shields (and since it is an exterior hull thing, that means even the Adnromedans can't use it since it occupies the same locations that the power panels are mounted on.)
on the boarding party question, yeah. probably no more than 1 or 2 shuttles and transporters per ship(assuming these things even have transporters?!?). we don't want this to be simply an invertebrate kind of Gorn thing.
As I see it, there should be no limit to repairs between scenarios... just that it cant be repaired during a scenario. these might be tough little ships but they are brittle and will break if you hit them hard enough! 
Now, the next paragraph is where I think we lose people. the only way these critters keep the natural ECM cloud thing, is if they stay in the same hex where they got hit... almost impossible unless they were only doing TAC or speed Zero or tractored or some such thing.
the real tangible benefit for these ships are that the can't be effectively mizia'd (is that even a word?!?)
As I see it, the only real options are to be moving significantly faster than the squids, or be moving significantly slower so that he must move out of the hex where he was hit to allow you a second shot without the cloud ECM effect interfering.
Sharks with big bite/attacks will be less effecive than many smaller pirana l;ike attacks each taking a single nibble out here and there.
A single squid will (as it stands now) be toast against a SCS or a CVA or a PFT+PF flotilla.
It will, however, be a tougher challenge verses a single cruiser. (Unless that cruisers captain is very very good!)
Jeff,
I'm good with them being repairable between scenarios, just pointing out that most non-shield equiped ships (as well as shield equiped ships) have a way to replace their defense during a scenario, usually at great cost. PA panels can be rocked, composite armor can be rebuilt using heavy weapons, etc. The only non-shield defense that's not replenishable mid-combat that I can think of is Jindo armor which is in thicker swatches than what a shield would provide. I don't have a problem with it, but I'm never one to blow power on replenishing a shield unless I've got a terrain problem.
I'm good with the idea of a ship with a glass jaw, just wanted to establish that that was the design goal.
It was unclear to me from first reading (and in rereading I can't see where it's stated) that the ECM cloud stayed behind if you moved. That does make it considerably better to Mizia ... It also makes it nearly useless as a defense. I may be misunderstanding, but if I'm reading you correctly, if I'm in a squid and you down my 30 point front shield, I get +5 points of ECM in the hex I'm currently at. Assuming any speed greater than 16, an approach vector and you at a range >1, then I'm getting this benefit for no more than one impulse no matter what I do. It's a little better for you if I'm firing through the rear shield. They would be a little harder to chase than an Alpha ship, however, if you keep the Oblique Attack, that benefit is almost totally lost.
Other Possible issues:
Against Big Plasma: I'm either carrying a lot of WW (which could become a BP problem) and using WW as a primary defense is problematic or I'm planning on going fast enough to evade some plasma in which case I've got large problems with using the "EM shield" for more than an impulse. If it's good for an impulse, it's almost meaningless.
Knife-fights: Even at medium to slow knife-fighting, you're going to get out the cloud LONG before it goes away on any reasonable run. About the only way to continue to get benefit from the burst would be to HET when you got hit. Maybe they could be jackrabbits like the Qixa and the cruiser could be the Fufu.
Complexity: You'd need to have ECM+X counters (there were some in some module ... A+ maybe) to represent the clouds of declining ECM that be left behind in space have rules for firing through multiple ECM pockets with varying levels of sensory suckitude.
Mike,
not sure how one would go about replenishing Ablative Armor during a scenario. I would envision a work crew in space suits applying the material as a Damage Control action... possibly with a corresponding cost in some manner (though what that cost would be, I havent thought about). I just dont see repairing AAB as reducing the squids total repair capacity (meaning a trade off between weapons vs non weapons vs energy producing vs other kinds of SSD boxes.
Mike, the portion about the cloud staying behind was in this paragraph:
"There are some obvious limitations, the natural ECM benefit is limited to that hex that the ship was damaged in, if the ship moves out of that hex all natural ECM benefits are immediately lost. (Note, no other ship moving into that hex would ever gain benefit of AAB having been burned off in that hex)."
As I looked at it, leaving behind "clouds" of natural ECM was creating a temporary terrain feature that I though might be bad for the game... but now that I think about it, the same could be said of t-Bombs, NSMs, web etc. yu might be on to something... have to think about it some more such "clouds of natural, but temporary ECM" might make for some interesting tactical implications in SFBs.
That also might mean that any ship "shooting through" such ECM clouds would need to count the ECM effects... hum. HAve to think about that. Squadron and fleet battles with squids would be short, as the battle field would get so "dirty" with ECM clouds that both sides would be fighting for clean hexes to be able to shoot the enemy, but dodging back in to the clouds to avoid taking damage.
About the Big Plasma issues... somebody earlier suggested making the AAB more effective verses some weapons and less effective verses other types... so lets say plasma torpedos must do 2 points of damage for every AAB destroyed, but phasers do 1:1 damage and lets say some weapons are fiendishly effective (say Hydran Hellbore or Fusion Beams) have an 1:2 trade off for damage points of weapons fire verses AAB?
Beginning to get complicated, and thats even before taking into account your suggestion to use ECM+X counters.
My preference is to keep it simple.
I actually like the idea of a temporary natural ECM counter that decays over time. It affects anyone trying to shoot through it, just like an asteroid hex, but stronger.
Have to playtest it to get the decay right, though.
Troy,
We have to balance game balance vs simplicity.
I originally proposed a progressive 1/4 turn delay for such "Natural ECM clouds"... but now I wonder if I screwed it up.
We want simple and having multiple hexes where every cloud has different ECM values isnt it.
It would be nice if we could just have the numbers "dialed in" before letting anyone playtest it.
What would you say, if, instead of separate values for each cloud we were to just say each cloud has a single value of natural ECM?
Such cloud hexes could "stack" the benefits, but we just drop the complexity of keeping paper records of every cloud that is generated in a scenario.
My opinion is "Simple is Better than overly complicated".
Jeff think about maybe certain weapons cause the cloud at different degrees
Like plasme burns off alot of the debris so the effect is as if half the armor was destroyed or other such effects
maybe an esg which doesnt harm any of the debris makes a double amout debris cloud
Just musing
Jeff, I wasn't advocating for a repair feature during the combat, just pointing out that typically if you don't have one you have "thicker" shields to start with as compensation.
Ummm ... if you want the simple solution, PCGs are EXACTLY this effect, but not based off of a hit. They are also, in my opinion, a pain to deploy from a board perspective, but that's because they require a lot of counters. This is fewer counters by far, but FAR more annoying counters.
Example ... Squid-ship, Speed 11
Imp 1.1 - Hit for 8, drop a +4 counter in hex A
Imp 1.3 - Moves to hex C
Imp 1.4 - Hit for 6, drop a +3 counter in hex B
Imp 1.5 - Hit for 14, drop a +4 counter on top of the +3 counter in hex B
Imp 1.6 - Move to hex C
Imp 1.7 - Hit for 2, doing internals, drops a +2 token in hex C
Imp 1.9 - Moves to hex D, changes facing, counter in hex A shifts to a +3
Imp 1.11 - Hit for 8, drop a +4 token in hex D. Imp 1.12 - Hit for 6, drop a +3 counter in hex D, first counter in Hex B becomes a +2.
Imp 1.13 - Hit for 4, drop a +2 token in hex D (now +9 there), second counter in B becomes a +3
...
I'm going to say that it'll drive those that dislike drones to the point of insanity and us drone-inclined folks will laugh and flip some more. You'll get a lot of alpha strikes from people who just don't want to watch the accounting go crazy.
Reid,
Keep thinking! Not sure how the steves will react but an alien race that have ships that "shed" Natural ECM Clouds will certainly be different than most of the other races in the game (except for those Omega crazies!)
honestly, if we just ignored the loss of Natural ECM over time (assume that such clouds do dissapate, just takes longer than any scenario) and that any weapons fire ito the cloud causes an expanded reaction of the boiled off Ablative materia (call it a catalytic reactions...) just increases the ECM factor by the amount of damage points inflicted (using the chart in the original post that started the topic) you have ever increasing natural ECM terrain features that would make the game far more challenging.
Have to think about that some more.
Mike, you raise some very good points, but let me throw one back at ya!
What about a star base or BTS or Base station coated withthis stuff?
Its not moving, an any weapons fire into the base is only going to make subsequent hits harder and harder to inflict!
Heck, depending on how an attacker goes about his attack plan, he could find him self shooting into +3, +4 or +5 column and die roll shifts and still not do more than super ficial damage to the base.
Zounds, the squids bases could actually become virtually invulnerable to damage as they receive damage!
Shoot, take a normal star base with 6 extra cargo boxes of ablative armor docked, one to each module... 300 points of damage to kill the cargo AAB pods (lets assume a single alpha strike) means that the "Natural ECM Cloud" generated by the destruction of the AAB yeilds a +9 natural ECM.
It gets worse if you assume 6 separate attacks on each AAB facing... at 16 points of damage into each AAB facing, you get a natural ECM yeild of +5... and 6 such attacks that "stack" gives you a combined total of +30 ECM!
the only realistic tactic is to close to point blank range suffering any and all defense fire from the squids to commit all ships attacking fire in one single impulse.
Even that might not be enough...
Jeff,
The Alunda are a race in the game that sheds Natural ECM clouds.
To starbases, it's a big problem if they're set to orbit. If they're not, it's 480 shield boxes.
I would suggest for balance sake that all shield boxes destroyed in a hex total to determine the bonus and you "lose" a certain number of boxes per impulse This system would be similar to a rapidly diminishing 1-hex web.
umm Jeff I wouldnt do the fire into the cloud increasing the ecm, all someone needs do is hide behind it and fire their short range weapons into it for cheap cost ecm
Reid,
were talking about a number of different ideas and concepts here... only one being the "shoot the cloud and increase the ECM" thing.
One of the others, is "shoot the ship/base and it only generates an ECM+# cloud" thing.
I guess its time to restate the proposal, if we can agree as to which parts of what has been posted are worth keeping...
Mike, yeah, I know the diminishing strength of the ECM is better in the long run (and is possibly more realistic to boot)... but that gets into having to "track" how many AAB's are destroyed in each hex, then subtract 1 ECM point per x impulses (I originally suggested 1/4 turn or 8 impuses, you're suggesting -1 per impulse).
Guess the only way to resolve that is establish some factors and playtest it.
One problem I see with both of our respective approaches is a need to recalculate the Electronic Warfare factors multiple times in a game turn (4 times in the method I proposed, 32 times your way)... neither of which is "simple".
Forgive me, I was captured by the idea of having "clouds" of natural ECM being strewn along the battle field as the ships fight it out creating an new and unexpected type of temporary terrain.
Not sure its playable, but it is different and if it makes the game more enjoyable, wouldnt it be worth while?
I'm with you that it's worth testing.
1/impulse isn't that bad to track. Similar to plasma, if you know the initial value and an impulse you can do the math at time of fire.