As you can see from the above, this is a playtest module and there are matters that need resolution. I am grateful to everyone for helping us track down these matters.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Friday, February 24, 2012 - 04:30 pm: Edit

With all the Nicozians being off thier rockers, are they able to avoid the friend fire rules?

For instance, a Nicozian CA (Explosion 17) only has 20 more internals until it dies, it is surrounded by fighters. Can the Nicozian player destroy that CA to injure the fighters?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 24, 2012 - 04:46 pm: Edit

Alex Lyons:

I am going to say generally no based on the concept that the off their rockers Nicozians might not necessarily deactivate the weapon lockouts that prevent accidentally firing on a friendly ship or insanity might not extend to firing on friendly ships. Further, there is a guestion of whether or not a Nicozian crazy enough to kill a fellow Nicozian is sane enough to come up with that plan.

However, obviously special scenario rules can be used to create all sorts of circumstances that do not generally apply. For example, Klingon ships firing on muntinied Klingon ships (there is such a scenario).

But I would want to be very careful about opening doors to just allow someone to violate the friendly fire rules, and for the nonce the lack of any specific exception allowing the Nicozians to do so, the Friendly Fire rules remain in force and apply.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 08:56 pm: Edit

(D95.15) DAMAGE: Collapsium armor is destroyed by
“excess damage” hits on the DAC. In order to destroy a Nicozian ship, all Collapsium armor boxes must be marked destroyed and one additional point of “excess damage” must then be scored.

Does this mean that when fired upon through shield 4, when an Ex Dam is hit, I must take one from the RH Collapsium Armor, or could i take it from the FH due to its larger size?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 11:41 am: Edit

Alex Lyons:

The rule states that ". . . all collapsium armor boxes must be marked destroyed and one additional point of "excess damage" must then be scored." You can score it on either bank. Otherwise you can get into a situation where all of the FH armor bank is destroyed and the RH armor bank is intact and you have to score an excess damage point as a result of a point of damage through the forward shield arc the ship would blow up if it could not be scored on the RH armor bank. The rule requires all collapsium armor to be destroyed before the ship will be destroyed, not "all collapsium armor in one armor bank" (which would create another conflict in that if all of the RH armor had been destroyed and you scored an excess damage hit on the FH armor . . .).

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 12:51 pm: Edit

Last time I had played the Nicozian a member of my play group insisted you have to hit the facing collapsium armor and i just now got around to checking it, thank you SPP.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Alex Lyons:

He is probably remembering and applying the Andromedan Power Absorber Panel damage rule. It is not the rule for Nicozian Collapsium Armor which is simply hit on excess damage with no facing requirement. As the rule says all collapsium armor boxes must be destroyed before the ship can be destroyed and provides no other data, then any excess damage hit can be applied to any collapsium armor box.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Let me add: This is a playtest module, and playtesting might determine that some change is needed to the Collapsium Armor, or that it works fine as intended.

Forcing the Nicozian player to take excess damage hits on the facing armor bank and having his ship explode when he takes one more excess damage hit than he has armor in that bank might be done IF playtesting said it was needed.

For now, the rule says all collapsium armor must be destroyed in order to destroy a Nicozian ship, and that means that any given excess damage result can be scored on any given collapsium armor box whether that excess damage result came in from the front half of the ship or the rear half of the ship.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Playtest Report

NICOZIAN: 3xCA
Each has
4 skip-20 drones [Explosive 8] + reloads
4 skip-40 drones [Explosive 8] + reloads
3 skip-20 drones [Explosive 4, Armor 4] + reloads
3 skip-40 drones [Explosive 4, Armor 4] + reloads
4 skip-20 drones [Anti-Shield 16] + reloads
4 skip-40 drones [Anti-Shield 16] + reloads
4 skip-20 drones [Anti-Shield 8, Armor 4] + reloads
4 skip-40 drones [Anti-Shield 8, Armor 4] + reloads
1 skip-20 drones [EMP] + reloads
1 skip-40 drones [EMP] + reloads
2 Warp Field Distortion Mines & Dummies

TOTAL: 600 BPV

FEDERATION: 3xCAR+, CCR, GSC+ (with a LegEng).
Total: 599.5 (with drones)

Premise:
A backward Federation BATS detected an total MC3 incursion on their long-range
sensor sweep. They sent the force at hand to deal with what they thought was
a raiding fleet that had gotten behind lines.

Rules:
Floating map in empty space.
Federation had 20% CO above BPV.
Played with full D17 rules. It was designed as a first-engagement scenario
coterminus with the Gorn first engagement.
Both sides played "blind" of the other's empire as neither had the other in their
databases.
Created lab info charts for opposing ships labbing Nicozian weapons, drones and ships.
None of the Fed players were aware of the release of the Nicozian playtest module.

Turn 0: The Nicozians maintained an EW advantage with the small target modifier
till they got to R45 and dropped use of their sensors, letting the Fed see them.
All my channels hot, Federation's were cold.

Turn 1: Both fleets plotted 17 (no skip). The Nicozian's ran with cold channels and
hot augers, the federation scout cranked 12 ECCM and ran with two hot channels. The
Nicozian got to roughly range 38 and sniped with 12 subspace augers at a 2 shift,
doing 6 points of damage on the CCR that hit reinforcement. Turned out (very slowly)
to maintain range. Final range 33.

Turn 2: Federation fleet plotted 19, Nicozian plotted 17. Nothing but info gathering
until impulse 25, when the Nicozian launch 12 missiles, 6 skip-20, 6 skip-40;
evenly split between shield absorber and armored shield absorber drones. Split between
the closest two ships (a CAR+ and the CCR). The CCR dropped it's #1 (out of arc) and
laid a T-bomb, which the Nicozians evaded easily. Ended at range 13 (closest to closest),
with the 6 skip-20 missiles 2 ahead of the ships and the 6 skip-40 missiles 6 ahead of
the ships.

Turn 3: Federation plotted 20 from the main fleet and 17 from the Scout. The Nicozians
ran with hot channels and cooled their weapons, the Fed had 4 hot channels, two lending.
Nicozians plotted 16 with a change to skip-movement in impulse 7. On impulses 1 through 3,
the Scout attempted to break lockon the drones and got 2 out of the 6 attempts. After the
last attempt, I launched my 3 EMP skip-40 drones at the two lead ships and the their scout.
On impulses 4 through 8, the Federation first try to ADD the missiles down and failing that
turned and fleed, they expended much of their phaser power to take the 4 remaining missiles
down (2 at damage 5, 2 at damage 9). I launched a new wave of 9 skip-40 missiles to lead
me in as my skip-change picked up and I started approaching at skip-32. Several dropped
and transported t-bombs came out eliminating both the EMP wave and then the wave of 9. Not
having seen the Nicozian rules, they'd picked up the meter of the skip-movement and by well-
timed, deliberate movements the Federation removed the gaps where the missiles could have
avoided it.

At this point, I was closing at R6 behind them as we approached the end of our time-window.
I took the R6 shot with all augers on the scout on impulse 26 at R6. It was lending with two
channels, had broken lock-ons with two others and had used battery to increase it's ECCM to
counter the ECM on the missiles. I used by battery to up my ECCM in hopes that it would beat
anything that the Scout might put up and gave it a shot. I took down the 24 point #4 shield
and then did 21 internals, tripled up to 63. Almost all of the padding was used, but only lost
a photon and a single sensor channel and little appreciable power damage. The shock factor at
the tripled damage was significantly worse then the bite.

On impulse 28, turned out to cool and get drones back. The plan was to have them follow to
attempt to get them with warp field distortion mines as they wouldn't have expected the extended
range. They followed. On that impulse, the entire Fed fleet phasered my closest CA - removing
most of the padding, 3 warp, 2 pulse phasers, 1 missile rack and one auger. The collapsium armor
was a large shock, but mostly just shock.

On impulse 29, the CCR tractored that CA, changing it to a psuedo-speed of 8. The Nicozians struck
back with all of their pulse phasers; the closer/damaged CA as P3s, the further CAs as P2s. The
damage took down the facing shield of the CCR and did 8 internals. The farthest ship also dropped
a warp field distortian mine, hoping to turn out and drag the Feds through it.

On impulse 30, the other two CAs skipped out to R6 again. On impulse 32, the damaged Nicozian CA
skipped, and then moved, putting it at R4 to the other ship's R6.

At that point, we had to call it.

Rules Questions:
1. In 3.32, the Nic CA was tractored with a Psuedo-speed of 8 by a ship with a Psuedo-speed of 10.
The skip movement breaks the tractor and by movement rules, he would move first. Therefore, he
breaks the tractor and then moves. Does the CCR that was tractoring him that impulse immediately
jump to 20 and reposition itself in the move order? Does it move then or as it was to have defered
movement to 4.1, move then.

General Thoughts & Impressions Of Game:

* The Nicozians have a lot of gimmicks with a high shock factor, but once you had the rules
down, most weren't that bad.

* There was some concern over the tripled damage from augers at first blush. Comparison of
equal numbers of several other multi-turn weapons showed it wasn't that bad, but we did agree
that it was worth more battles to test. Some alternatives were suggested including slightly
increased damage with a x2 multiplier for shieldless opponents.

* The movement leads to some interesting interactions that make somethings easier and others
more difficult. Overall, it was reasonably balanced.

* The CA as a ship was judged to have marginal seeking weapons defense, but otherwise good to
superior weapons. With 17 non-warp power, it's possible to skip-32, pay housekeeping, fire
all augers and still have a point of power left over. Maybe that's intentional, but it leads
to few hard decisions at EA time. It was noted that the CL is effectively the same ship with
more power questions, so maybe that was the intent of the more expensive BCH-level model.

* One suggestion made was to apply a movement cost to minor skip-movement cost above standard
movement to introduce more power dilemas. It was pointed out that while this might work at
the CA level, the smaller hulls were suffer disproportionately and are already power hungry.

wrap-talk:

* The WFD mines didn't come into play, but we talked through them. There was the general
feeling that they'd be good as a motion deterant, and good as drone defense. As a plasma
defense, they'd be a moderate deterant at best unless you could have the armed mine activate
at least 3 behind you with the plasma torpedo splined the entire time (to prevent it from
having movement options). Otherwise, it's a wash as the mine will speed you to it and then
hinder you in escaping for largely the same cost in impulses.

* One of the Fed players is typically a Jindo player. There was a general concern at the
disparity weapon systems between the two races. Given the difference in the number of weapons,
the failure to be able to use the weapons they do have defensively and (assumed, but not clearly
stated in the rules one way or another) succeptibility of Jindo armor plates to Nicozian augers,
it was perceived that had we been playing with Jindo ships, they would not have stood a fair
chance BPV to BPV.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 05:40 pm: Edit

Mike Kenyon,

As i understand it all tractor actions happen after movement, therefore the CA would wait until movement is over before going speed 20.

Power Curve:
You arent counting the sensor plays that they can do which make them stronger/weaker at the same time.

Missile Load Outs:
You can only have a 50% restricted load out, Skip-Speed 40 is restricted, you had 16 of your 32 drones as Skip-Speed 40.
You also had 12 Skip-Speed 20 restricted warheads. (Explosive, Armored, and EMP are all restricted) For a total of 28 restricted avaliability drones (77.7%)

Missile Launch:
Also you had not stated directally as to the positioning of the two federation ships, keep in mind Nicozian missiles *do* have firing arcs LS/RS

Warp Field Distortion Mine:
My group has used it several times to the effect of "If you know how to use it, theres no reason to buy T-Bombs" which is quite accurate.

Jindarians:
Yes the rock ships have a disadvantage when it comes down to the Augers, however they are generally bigger and better armed than a Nicozian.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Mike Kenyon:

Reminds me of the first time I ran afoul of a Flivver ship. I had no idea what it was or what it could do, so while I tried (and failed miserably) to destroy it, I also tried to gather as much information as I could because "The Empire Must Be Warned." I hope your Federation opponents had a good time dealing with the "unknown" (something that makes the game more real to me when it happens, which is rarely).

Your question on when the tractor link is officially considered broken is a good one, and I will need to think on it a bit, but I lean towards "both ships move at their existing pseudo speeds for that movement impulse."

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 06:27 pm: Edit

Alex,

Not following on the CA/tractor bit. The issue is this. The Nic rules have the Nic teleporting at the start of there move on their "initiative" if you will. At that point, they've transported out of tractor and the link is broken.

Now, you can say that the tractor is still going till the drop tractor step OR that the break happens RIGHT THEN and therefore the tractoring parties speed changes RIGHT THEN. It's not clear from any rules I can find.

This doesn't happen with say, Andro as displacement happens out of the movement step.

Power Curve: All the Nic's have 2 channels, CA to the other Nic ships have comparably more power and therefore fewer debates. The CL has decisions to be made with almost exactly the same things to spend power on.

Missile Load Out ... GOOD point. My bad.

Launch ... Which affected things somewhat, but not a lot. At the ranges in question for the first launches, it was easy to sluice to get things in arc and I often had them centerline (at say 20).

Jindo ... his problem comes when you' get through the 5 box shields and they start cranking out 80 points of damage through the rock armor from an Auger. If you don't give the the Auger extra damage, they're never getting through the massive amounts of rock armor. If you do, he felt that they'd cut through them like butter.

By Dennis Chinnock (Theron) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 06:35 pm: Edit

As one of the fed players against Mike and the one flying the GSC+, I can state I actually had a lot of fun. Though full D17 rules did sort of bog down our playtime, it did keep the suspense up a lot. We were labbing and trying find everything we could about this beligerent species.

And as the Jindarian player mentioned, I have to beg to differ on the whole better armed. I'm trying to remember but I think the Nicozian CA has 4 phasers, 4 subspace augers, 4 drone launchers and two special sensors? vs. the Jindarian CA which has 4 phasers and 3 WRGs. I will say it does have a whole lot more padding though. The real question in that sort of matchup is: Does the rock armor count as shields to the augers and therefore not x3 damage or as internals and therefore x3 damage against it?

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Nicozian CA has 4 Forward phasers and 4 Aft phasers. The armor banks are treated as armor for all intensive purposes (Thinks like Drex implosive rounds are fun)

By Dennis Chinnock (Theron) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 08:17 pm: Edit

I'm the newbie player in our group, still asking all sorts of questions about how things work. Though hopefully I'm not making the same mistakes every time and why I just bought the master rulebooks so maybe I can look stuff up better while we play. I know only a little how the various races fly and I'm the Jindarian player mostly because we're doing a campaign and those are who I chose cause they sounded neat. So bearing that in mind, the Nicozian's feel to me very much like a we can do what you can do but better sort of race.

I don't have the playtest module myself so I don't know their background but the seem awfully heavy armed for just coming out onto the galactic stage. Not sure if they could observe the general war and tweak systems based on that like I've heard is the theory behind the ISC ships or what. The only other race I'd heard of that had backstory about just getting out to explore were the Peladine and they apparently had nothing much in the way of weapons to the point of being completely overun in a week by a mainstream empire.

The Jindarian comparison is hugely unbalanced at 8 phasers and 8 heavy weapons to 4 phasers and 3 heavy weapons. Now I know the Jindarian's aren't a main race or picked often so, looking at the comprable Federation shiop the CAR+ we flew in the playtest, that's a bit better with 10 phasers (2 of which are phaser 3's) and 5 heavy weapons. Or the Klingon D7 with refits: 9 phasers and 6 heavy weapons. Like I said, just seems a bit excessive especially adding in the special sensors on every ship.

As for the rock armor question, I did get back to my rulebook and it would seem to be answered in D25.1: "Armor on Jindarian asteroid ships operates as shields for purposes of blocking damage to the interior of the ship (D3.21). This means that the ship will not sustain any internal damage (D4.13) from direct-fire or seeking weapons until all armor boxes in a given “shield arc” have been destroyed." So I think that covers that, and hopefully its okay to have posted most of the rule like that.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 09:57 pm: Edit

I think that, under the rules as currently written, the subspace auger would do triple damage to Jindarian ships once the shield is penetrated. (E109.335) makes that clear. I think the main point of (D25.1) is that Jindarian armour has a "direction", unlike armour on most ships which will stop damage from any direction.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - 10:48 pm: Edit

Dennis Chinnock,

Its great to ask questions, thats the easiest way to learn, a majority of the players here are more than willing to answer you and give you good advice.

Thier background is they live on Neutron Stars, they have hive mind, and when disconnected from the group they go insane and can no longer communicate effectively. (Doesnt really help much.)

About the Jindarian comparison, the nicozians have 8 phasers 4 heavy weapons 4 missile racks. The sensor channels are both a blessing and a curse, use them properly and your untouchable, however blinding them is a VERY big risk since pretty much any time you fire you will blind them.

Rock armor, D25.1 states 'for purposes of blocking damage to the interior of the ship' which would make it still treated as armor for weapons that care (Energy howitzers, Hyper Cannons, Hellbores) they only block damage as a shield would.

The only armor in the game that is treated as shields (that i know of) is the Juggernaut's armor. Also, Terry's post was correct however the rule hes looking for is

(E109.334) Subspace augers fired through a down shield at an armored target are treated as though firing at an unshielded target, i.e., ignore the armor for purposes of determining the damage points to be scored, but any damage is first scored against the armor under (D4.12).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 05, 2012 - 11:50 am: Edit

Mike Kenyon:

I have thought on the issue of when the tractor break takes effect overnight. Either side can have the tractor link when the movement is called for, or either can move first in the order of precedence (depending on who has the higher speed). I think the only way to go on this (for the sake of simplicity if nothing else) is that for purposes of movement both (or all in the case of one ship with multiple tractor links to different other ships) complete their movement on that impulse based on their pseudo speeds at the start of the impulse.

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Thursday, April 05, 2012 - 01:14 pm: Edit

For completeness' sake, should the errata read that the tractor breaks in step 6A3 then? Treat it like damage during movement?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 05, 2012 - 01:39 pm: Edit

(C91.413) (New Rule/Clarification): While skip-warp movement will break a tractor link, units will move at their pseudo speeds during the Voluntary Movement Stage (6A2) in which the skip-warp movement is to take place. The tractor link is not considered to be broken until just prior to the Damage During Movement Stage (6A3) of that impulse.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 12:48 pm: Edit

Sorry I've been out of the loop (on vacation and away from computer). Glad to see the clarification on how the tractor drops. It's almost a guarantee if someone actually attempts to tractor them (it's good to slow them down for a couple impulses, often that's long enough).

Steve,

It was a lot of fun. As it was double-blind, I was trying to figure out their choices as well. It's significantly easier when you know they're playing galactics. The first lab run of 34 labs by 4 ships pretty much gave it away...

Dennis,

They hae almost identical weaponry percentages to a Kzinti, MINUS THE SENSORS. The Kzinti has 4 P1 and 8 P3 on a BC. Their phasers can either be a P2 or 2xP3. That's a slight disadvantage.

The augers are nasty if something has already gotten the shield down, but not bad at all until that point. My feel says that the overall curve is similar to mid-range disruptors on the first pass, photons on the second on a shield.

The drones are an interesting issue. The movement system gives you a lot more of opportunities to make them miss at close range. They suck up a lot more fire for sure, leading people to find other ways to get rid of them. The shield stripping effects don't seem that bad until the ship behind them pulls out the augers.

I'd agree that they're more heavily armed then the Jindo, but I'd put forward that most races have more weapons then the Jindo. The Kzinti cruiser has 20 weapon spaces on it, the Fed has I think 14. The Jindo is well under-weaponed, but the weapons it has are exceptional ones.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Federation CAR+a:

4xPhoton.
8xPhaser-1.
2xPhaser-3.
1xDrone-G.
Total = 15 weapons.
16 weapons if the probe launcher is counted.
20 weapons if the shuttles are counted along with the probe launcher.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 03:54 pm: Edit

They are better then the Kzintis because of their (perhaps too) copious supply of missiles.

They can play the long range missile bombardment while protected by collpasium armor and small target modifier, or close in and gut you with semi-gatlings and subspace augers.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 04:16 pm: Edit

Same counting logic (with probe and shuttles included), 23 for the Zin BC, 19 for the Lyran CA, a refitted D7 would have 19, 21 for the Gorn BC, a Hydran Ranger would have 25.

The Jindo get close with all of the Prospecting Shuttles, but this raises the question of equity of weaponry. Clearly the probe isn't as good of a weapons as a P1 or a Disruptor, nor a Prospecting Shuttle as a Stinger-2.

There's a case for them being comparatively undergunned. I would say the Jindo has to use all of their weapons to even that battlefield.

I would, however, point out that the Jindo are probably in the worst position to defend against Nic drones as the WRGs don't work in defensive mode and they are under-phasered compared with most others.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 04:21 pm: Edit

I would suspect that using drones in the counter-drone role against the Nicozians is probably the best bet. It is too easy (it seems to me) for a Nicozian ship to arrange for a stack of drones to move to Range 1, then "skip-warp" over the stack, forcing the drones to lose another hex of range by doing high energy turns to take up pursuit. Diluting the drones to not be in stacks means the individual warheads are less effective against the collapsium armor.

On the other hand, a type-I drone will pretty much destroy any skip-warp missile, and those have pretty restrictive movement options making it pretty easy to arrange for the skip warp missile to "skip-warp" into the drone's hex, or for the drone to enter the skip-warp missile's hex after it has executed its skip-warp movement.

The drone defense can of course be backed up by the usual means, i.e., T-bombs laid out of non-facing shields, weapons fire, special sensors (if you have any on your side), tractor beams, or a wild weasel (or a wild SWACS or Scout PF if those options are available).

Skip-warp missiles may have range and warhead options, but about the only defensive options not available against them are, as noted in the rules, Anti-drones (make sure you have type-VI drones in your anti-drone racks) and warp-augmented railguns in defensive mode.

The inability of the Jindarians to employ defensive mode makes them much more vulnerable to Nicozian missiles than virtually any other empire given the relatively small number of phasers available to their asteroid ships. The dreadnought does not have any more phaser-1s than a Federation CA and no phaser-3s, so the Jindarians would be far more reliant on a cloud of shuttles for missile defense while swapping salvoes of WRGs for Augers.