Nick Samaras:

I am not sure how much two extra spaces over a type-B drone rack counts as "too copious."

A D7D has four type-B drone racks with double reloads, giving 72 spaces of drones, plus another 20 if it took an MRS shuttle for a total of 92 spaces without buying any other extras with Commander's Options.

A Nicozian CA or CL has 64 spaces (32 in four eight-space missile racks and one set of reloads). That is actually not more than four spaces more than a typical Kzinti ship in Y175 (even a Frigate will have a total of 60 spaces, 20 in the racks and two reloads). Further, the drone chuckers (be they Fed, Klingon, Kzinti, Orion with drone options, Lyran Carrier Group, WYN, or LDR Carrier Group, or Seltorian Carrier Group) all have the option of scatter-packs to get drones on the map faster than the Nicozians can launch missiles. And unless they pretty much plan to use the missiles for drone defense most of their missile warheads are of no value against enemy drones.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 05:35 pm: Edit

Nick:

Assuming comprable sized fleets, it's difficult to mass a launch. The lack of shuttles and therefore SP mean that everything is coming from the racks.

By toggling speeds you can get drones out in 4 different speeds (10, skip 20, 20 and skip 40). While 20 and skip 20 get you to the same place in the same time as a dead heat run, it's most definately not the same thing.

Therefore, to get a "massed launch", you need to launch the first wave either at skip-20 or 20 and follow it up with a set at skip-40 (in limited supply) timed to reach the target (about) the same time that the first wave does. This is somewhat complicated by the odd timing of the skip movement and if you're using real 20s, you're cutting into that same limited collection of fast drones.

You could do the same trick with 10s and 20s, but by 171 when they show, most ships can keep fast enough to evade the 10s and while the skip-20s are better, they are worse then real 20s.

Not saying it's undoable, it's just not nearly as easy as it is for a Kzinti pull off.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 06:32 pm: Edit

SPP,

It is more than just the numbers.

Nicozian missiles are much more difficult to destroy then standard drones. A single phaser-1 is no guarantee of a kill, and it is all or nothing to destroy them. You noted the problems with ADDs. The Nicozian CA has 32 of these suckers before he reloads.

The D7D can take heavy drones, requiring a similar effor to kill. He can launch 12 of them before reloading.

Kzinti is similar.

32 vs 12. This is what I mean by too copious.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Note the above is just my concern; playtesting will have to determine what works and what doesn't.

SPP, any chance of getting the Nicozian CA on SFBOL?

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 07:01 pm: Edit

Nick,

Keep in mind only 16 of those can be speed 20/skip-40. and if you have 16 of the faster missiles, then the other 16 are limited to speed 10/skip-20 Anti-Shield Warheads which are easily enough countered by forcing them on your opposite side, dropping a shield and slipping into them.

They also have single reloads compared to Alpha's double reloads, Scatter packs are not something to just ignore out of the blue, plus, once someone knows what they are up against the missiles are quite easy to dispose of.

My group has used them 3 games, the only problem with them was the suprise factor, and thats likely to throw off anyone no matter what the system.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 07:28 pm: Edit

I do agree with Alex. One barrage of the things got a fleet of Feds to run for a turn, but only because they needed to figure out how to kill them. Once they did that, they weren't a huge factor thereafter.

They were VERY effective in guiding enemy movement, they were not particularly effective in causing damage ... thus, a lot like normal drones.

I hadn't come to the conlusion Alex had, but since half the loadout has to be a slow, shield damage-only loadout, just drop the shield and let them hit. At best, skip-20 for a seeking weapon that cannot HET is a very predictable course of travel (10 guaranteed moves forward, regardless of your position & 10 straights or turns to try to keep you in arc; all with 3-4 impulses between each set of moves to dodge into positions that make them overshoot you). You can have lots of fun making it do all sorts of things for you.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 07:38 pm: Edit

The biggest threat with dropping shields is if you do it on the facing side, that opens your shield for the Augers, and thats not good

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 08:48 pm: Edit

Alex have you tried them in just duels? I have not tried them in a fleet setting. I have found that in duels the ability to launch 8 waves of missiles before reloading quite handy.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 09:02 pm: Edit

My group has only played them in 3 man free for all and 4 man free for all 750 point fleets.

Before too long they will be used in a 5 man free for all, but that will take alittle bit.

Just gotta wait till someone feels like doing it again.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 09:37 pm: Edit

I play with Alex. We tend to have 4-5 players with 750 BPV each, in 4-5 turns. Very quick, very bloody.

On the night they were introduced we only had three players, two of which were non allied Nicozians (Alex and Dan(Dan posts here occasionally and some of you may know him as a Tholian guy). I had LDR MPV with 6 ZYCs, MPA, and 2 MPs with various extras. I had not read the Nicozian rules, we use D17, and EW. This was a month or two a go so forgive me for not remembering specifics. Alex had picked a bit of everything on his Missile selection too see what they would do, Dan took as many fast ones as he could, but other wise took combat Missiles. Both had four ships, but I do not remember which other than all cruisers.

Alex went for me, and after Alex had me bogged down figuring out the missiles, Dan went for Alex. I used the drones on my ZYs to counter most of his missiles, he had some that were slug drone equivalents and the drone were not enough to kill them, then the t-bomb was not enough, and he had enough that he ate up a lot ESGs and ph-Gs before I realized they could not actually hurt me. The Skip-20 missiles were easily intercepted by speed-32 drones, the Skip-40 were trickier, but not impossible. While I was playing with the Slug Missiles, Dan and Alex tried to kill each other, I think Alex came out ahead in that exchange, by the time I turned around and came back to play it was late enough that we called it a night. It was a second game and therefore somewhat shorter.

The missiles pretty much work like Federation drones, if you are not careful they can lose you the game, rarely will they win it for you.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 09:53 pm: Edit

Yeah, the slug missile was awesome, I had 1 CA, 3 CL. Dan had 3 CA with Engineers on each. So far, the only confusion with the Nicozians were the shock factor of the damage automatically vanishing.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 12:16 am: Edit

Most of the problems I've noticed are related to their background information and not so much the game mechanics.

The game mechanics, if you simply don't read the background information, work pretty well.

It's somewhat diffcult to get down shields since your main weapon to create them is not actually the missiles even though, looking at it, that is the intention.

The rules look to be setup with the assumption that the missiles will drop the shield and augers will do the damage.

The reality is the missiles get shot down or simply miss their target multiple times by jumping over the target and having to take a long trip around and the augers are left to drop the shield.

Which usually leaves the Nico ship(s) at a considerable disadvantage.

This is not the same mechanic as the Kzinti since the Nico missiles do not normally do damage. This means that, where a Kzinti could get luck couple drones to hit the target and count it as a nice bonus but still have a decent (if reduced chance) to win, the Nico *requires* the missiles to hit the target to have a decent chance to win otherwise it will be very outgunned by a equal point unit.

And remember; you aren't comparing the Nico CA to a Fed CA.

The Nico costs 181 points just for the ship and missiles.

That means that the compareable units will be ships like the Fed CB, BC and Klingon D7W and C7.

All of which will most likely crush the Nico CA.

If that needs to be fixed or not, I'm uncertain of.

The basic problem is they are, at first, a weak disruptor ship with two turn disruptors, no overloads and pretty aweful phasers.

The split phasers plus them being all phaser-2s, I understand from a balance perspective. ie; the augers do so much damage that something else has to give.

In practice however, they don't tend to have the firepower of a compareable ship unless the shield is down.
But to get that shield down they have to have sufficent firepower to be a threat.

Currently they do not in my view. Most other CAs can bring more than 4 phasers to bear on a target at a time.

They don't usually become terribly dangerous till a shield is dropped.

That tends to make a slightly frustrating dynamic since, as I mentioned, the missiles don't quite seem to be doing the intended job.

It may be different in a duel situation however where defenses are not layered to the same degree.

Also, the warp mines so far have been far more useful than the missiles. On a gut level that feels like a wrong dynamic.

Now; that said, it is my understanding that these are not acutally the combat ships but are more of a uniquely Nico ship class that is a hybrid survey unit and combat ship.

So a lot of the issues I've noticed, or all I know, could all already be resolved on the actual combat ships.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 12:58 am: Edit

Here is the question I pose.
Look at the list below then look at your experiance with the ships (or guess if you haven't played them). Then tell us if you think the Nico CA honestly has much of a chance against them and how.

Drone Speeds included.
Compareable units:

Nico CA: 181
Fed CB: 170
Fed NCC: 178
Fed BCF: 188
Fed DDX: 170
Klingon D7W: 167
Klingon D5X; 193
Gorn BCH: 192
Gorn CCH: 172
Hydran DG+, 3 Stinger2: 178
ISC CA: 185
Jindarian HCS: 180
Kzinti CCH: 167
Lyran BC(Refitted): 189
Romulan FH-K: 179

Almos every one of those ships can bring more than 4 phasers to bear on the target.

I'm uncertain what to do with the issue of the Nico's being very undergunned prior to a shield being dropped.

Because they become quite overgunned after a shield is dropped.

Any ideas?

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 01:09 am: Edit

The Nicozian CA with full missiles is actually 184 (not much of a difference but still something to consider in planning)

The main point I see is the speed of the drones, the method in which they move, the sensor channels that are always active, and the Grav Mines all of which make the Nicozians that much better.

Not many ships are willing to saber dance a unit that can go to 12 ECM just because they feel like it.

The missiles can be countered yes, but thats why you launch them in a trickle type method, if they can shoot them down, oh well, but they wont be able to out manuver them as easily.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Well, I though the decision to give them phaser-2 over phaser-1 was to weaken their mid range damage ability while benefitting from their small target modifier and ability to ignore small volleys thanks to the collapsium armor. Like Alex says, they can also play the ECM game until they decide to fire, as well.

They are not undergunned at close range thanks to their half-gattlings followed by augers. You need to use that EW ability and time your skip jumps to close the range while following in your missiles.

In duel situations I have found the enemy is using up most of his firepower to kill the tough missiles helping me get to that close range. And this can be done several times thanks to the 8-space racks (although it is harder with slower missiles).

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Daniel,

I have only played them in fleet engagements so far, but I do not believe that it's an issue. Here's why.

In a fleet engagement, the augers do just fine. When massing firepower enough to get through a shield with the augers the fact that you get triple damage from every point that gets through is sufficient to fairly well compensate. The only solid volley I got on a Fed had me get a GSC up the #4 with 12 of them from R8. I managed to get I think 21 in, which was laughed at by the player (Dennis) until I said, "Okay, now triple that..." Then there was not a lot of laughing. The ship was still mostly functional, but it did what I felt was reasonably comprable damage to 12 Overloaded DISR at R8.

In a duel scenario, that tactic doesn't work. You've got two options. The first is to do a long-term snipe game, which on a floating map is an option.

Another option (and a better one IMHO) on a fixed map would be to use the channels to close to R2 with a solid shift (and using missiles to suck fire) and then let loose in consecutive impulses with the 8P3 and the augers, turn out and hit him with the other 8 as a parting shot. The "Hydran Option" presents an alternate way to make user of their wide array of resources to the best of advantage. Being able to generate a 12 points of ECM and 6 OEW gives you a fair chance to get close enough to pull it off.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 06:19 pm: Edit

I generally disagree with Alex the vast majority of the time. Not sure that matters but doesn't hurt to put that disclaimer out.

Price: thank you I'm not sure what I added to miss those 3 points. Actually makes it's case worse though.

It doesn't negate what I'm describing. Outside of point-blank range the Nico requires the missiles to hit the target.

Also, 12 ECM is deceptive. It has 12 ECM till it fires. And considering the very low damage output of the ship, the target can usually afford to wait till it does fire to respond.
Plus, 12 ECM leaves the Nico's already low damage output vulnerable to the ECM of the target. It's not terribly diffcult for a equal BPV unit to have a ECM drone/plasma. It runs 4 ECCM (or 6) and it can counter or negate the EW of the Nico unit.

Remember you only have 33 power. 12 EW leaves you moving effectively speed 22 (skip 11).

Note that the 12 ECM and 6 OEW leaves the Nico CA moving speed 5/10. It won't be closing on anything at that speed.

In both cases, as I mentioned, you would be vulnerable to the target's ECM.

In terms of sniping, lets examine it;

For this I'm using the Fed BCF since it's the closest Fed ship in price at 188 vs the Nico's 184.

I'm using the averages for the most part and off centerline.

Nico:
8 damage from the augers every other turn and 3-4 damage from the phaser-2s at range 15 is not sufficent to be a threat.

So roughly 11-12 damage then 3-4 then 11-12 and so on. At that rate it will take 3 turns to drop a single shield facing.

And the damage does not markedly improve till range 3.

At range 15 for the Fed BCF your looking at 8 from prox torps every other turn, 8-10 damage from phaser-1s plus whatever the plasma-F's do. I'm discouting the drones and defense phasers since those will pretty easily kill the Nico's missiles. Offside phaser-1s will work or that to if needed.

So range 15 damage for the Fed is very simular. Lucky hits for the Fed however are a lot more dangerous.

Unlike the Nico, the Fed's damage output sky rockets as the range closes. Unfortunately the range breaks are different for the Nico's compared to pretty much every other race.

The Nico's damage improves at range 3. Everyone else improves at range 4. Even if the Nico is running high ECM, the opponet can afford to take the range 4 shot since they have a very good chance of doing signifigant damage to the Nico for little to no response.

The Nico at range 4 your looking at 20ish average damage from the forward weapons.

Compared to the Fed BCF, which is the closest Fed ship in price, your looking at 3 photon hits (48 damage) 6-8 phaser-1s (32-40) plus whatever the plasma-F's have produced.

In both cases ECM will of course reduce damage. But the Fed ship is doing so much more damage at range 4 that even a 25% reduction in damage (not a unreasonable expectation with a shift or two) will still almost wreck the Nico's offesive ability since on a 40-50 internal volley (not unrealistic) your likely to get several phaser hits, a torp and a drone.

So a range 4 exchange of fire the Nico CA will do around 20 damage while the Fed BCF will do 48-80. Plus whatever the plasma and drones do. If you assume the plasma is bolted then thats another 7 damage. You can safely assume the drones are used on the Nico's missiles.

In a even BPV fight the Nico appears to lose if the missiles do not hit the target.

The more I look at this, the less they really seem to be viable in a duel situation.

They can work in a fleet setup as we've all seen, but again, you have to mass salvo the weapons at a single target to knock down a shield.

Lets look at a fleet exchage:

4x Nico CA (736 BPV)

vs.

Fed BCF, 3x NCA, 1x FFG (733 BPV)

First of all just look at the fleet setup.

Nico have 16 Augers and 16 Phaser-P in the forward arc.

Feds have 18 Photons, 2 Plasma-F, 26 Phaser-1 (9 more on offside).

In a sniping situation the Nico's *should* have enough to drop a shield if there is no ECM against them. They can *probably* wreck the FFG at range 15 or mildly annoy one of the larger ships. Looking at roughly 32 from the augers and 16 from the Phaser-Ps.

The return fire however from the Fed fleet would look something like this:

9*4 Prox Torps (36), Phaser-1s (26). So average-ish of roughly 62. That is likely to be enough to wipe out a decent chunck of one of the Nico cruisers firepower.

If the fleets instead wait to range 8:
SSA: 64
Phaser-P: 16
Muchbetter damage and probably enough to wreck one of the larger ships or destroy the FFG.

Unfortunately the return fire from the Feds is not likely to be survivable.

Photons: 9*16 = 144
Phaser-1: 65

That is sufficent to wreck two of the Nico ships.

Range 4 simply gets worse.

Hopefully this helps to show what I'm talking about when I say the Nico's rules are relying to much on the missiles hitting the target and the ships themselves do not have much recourse if the missiles do not it.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 06:55 pm: Edit

Dan,

In response to range 8, dont forget,the Nicozians could wreck the BCF easily, it has 36 shields, SSAs hit first, thats 28 internals, trippled to 84 +16 from the phasers. 100 internals. and if the nicozians do it right, they can have full EW through the entire combat phase so either the BCF cant hit worth crap or the nico crushes it before it fires. Its not that bad.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 07:59 pm: Edit

Daniel,

The Fed will be using up his phasers to kill the missiles. One phaser-1 has only a 33% to kill an unarmored missile at range-1. If the Nicozian follows 6 of them in, the Fed will see a large chunk of his phasers tied up. ADDs are useless. Maneuver the missiles so that they jump from range-2 to range-0 will force the Fed to use 2 points of power to tractor a missile at range 2 (and he has only two tractors). If the Fed weasels for some reason the Nicozian just goes for the overrun.

If the Fed kills all the missiles the Nicozian can evade and try again. He can fire 8 missiles per rack until he has to reload.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 05:19 am: Edit

Alex: your answer doesn't track with the averages. Range 8 does a average of 32 SSA damage in the fleet I outlined. That isn't really enough to crack the BCF on it's own.
And as soon as they fire they lose most of their EW. Plus going all ECM simply makes it easy for the Fed to get a 2 shift.

If your refering to a duel then your simply wrong since the Nico can't put out nearly the amount of damage your suggesting.

Nick:
The Fed can simply fire his own drones at the missiles. It's not going to eat up nearly as many phasers as you seem to think.

Both: Basiclly if the missles do not hit the target the Nico is at a usually devestating disadvantage.

And that is the problem I'm trying to describe.

The Nico's as written are more dependant than anyone else I can think of on their missiles.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 10:58 am: Edit

The Fed will run out and have to reload before the Nicozian does. The Nicozian can also use one scout channel to break the lock-ons of the Fed drones and still use the other channel for offensive EW.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Dan,

If my answer doesnt track with the averages at range 8 with the SSA's thats your fault, you said it does 64, so thats how much i based it off of.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Sunday, April 15, 2012 - 04:15 am: Edit

Nick: True to a point. But we can do counters back and forth.

Still doesn't address the Nico being seriously undergunned if the missiles don't hit the target. The Kzinti are the closest example I can think of but even they have a better shot of doing damage since they don't have 2 turn weapons.

Basiclly the Nico's seem to be much to dependant on the missiles. A more even mix between the ship and the missiles would probably be better.

Alex: No reason to get hostile like that.

If you go back and read what I said you'll see that I said in a range 8 exchange the Nico's could pick a ship to wreck.

The issue is they lose 2 ships in the exchange using the averages.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, April 16, 2012 - 12:11 pm: Edit

Question:

How do you "maneuver" the missiles so that they make a Range 2 to Range Zero jump?

The missiles, once launched, have to move like other seeking weapons. That means they move by the shortest distance in terms of number of hexes (yes, it is possible to cover a realtively wide front to a point, but eventually they all have to come together at the point of impact).

It means they move after the target.

The target can count the number of hexes between it and the missiles, and figure out when a sideslip or two by the target will result in the missiles doing a Range 3 to Range 1 jump.

The controller has to move the missiles towards the target every time they are called on to move in such a way as to reduce the range if possible, or maintain the range if reducing the range is not possible.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Monday, April 16, 2012 - 12:48 pm: Edit

SPP,

Tertiary to the conversation, but I want to confirm that I've got this correct. Given the odd movement requirements of Skip movement it's possible to actually have the range INCREASE for a Skip missile as it must move straight the first move and cannot HET. This would require timing it to be off the #2 or #6 of the missile as it was scheduled to move.

Then the next move it would be required to move behind you (straight off your #3/#5 and turn to be off the ship's #4) and on it's next move would have to move straight (and away) from you.

As it' takes it 3 moves to loop around, you're likely some distance away before it can close back around.