So, yes you can look at the rules, where are the playtest reports? The shortage of power and the fact that ACCM can be countered for less cost (albeit one point) are factors.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 03:58 pm: Edit

SPP, a big problem that I see with the Worlds of Union is the torpedo doesnt work when you consider the energy and time cost.

You are putting in 10 points of power over the course of 4 turns to gain a 15 point plasma.

A Plasma-R costs 9 points of power over the course of 3 turns to gain a 50 point warhead.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 04:01 pm: Edit

About the ACCM ruling in regards to the Imperium

DN101.441 Effect of ACCM states that you need +2 ACCM over your opponents ECM (Making it harder to get that shift)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 05:37 pm: Edit

Alex Lyons:

The ACCM thing is not a "ruling" it is a note that ACCM does not automatically mean the Imperium ship can use ACCM to improve his chance of a hit, that ECM counters ACCM, and is cheaper than ACCM. Six points of power in ACCM will allow you to fire evenly at a ship with five points of power in ECM, the upshot being that you still only have a 50% chance of a hit with an HAC. If you go to seven points of power in ACCM versus five points of ECM, the upshot is that you have spent two more points of power for no benefit and the opposing ship (if of a similar size class) likely has more power than you do and thus is more agile. Matters a lot more for smaller ships, of course.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 05:47 pm: Edit

I understand that and i had the same exact discussion with him.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 08:03 pm: Edit

The HAC being able to fire every turn for half the power cost of a photon for equal damage doesn't strike you as a problem in and of itself?

The inreased rate of fire and possibilty of a shift in your favor tends, to me, to rather discount the lower hit chance.

If your firing twice as often as a photon for half the power then you only need to be able to hit half as often and you have twice as many tries.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - 02:03 am: Edit

There are other mitigating factors to consider.

For one thing, a player armed with photons or disruptors (or, in a Triangulum context, the likes of Helgardian particle shotguns or Mallaran plasmatrons) can usually fire all of the facing mounts on a ship at once, arming and power levels permitting; HACs, in contrast, have a built-in delay between shots.

On an Imperium ship, the Hypermass Autocannon is integrated into the dorsal turret; the "HAC" boxes on the SSD represent separate firing chambers. Regardless of the amount of chambers on a given HAC, only one can be fired in a single impulse; a ship has to wait a minimum of four impulses to fire a second. (Thus an Imperium CA, with four HAC chambers, has to wait a minimum of sixteen consecutive impulses to land hits from all of them in the one turn.)

By the time the Imperium vessel may get around to those subsequent shots, a hard-hitting alpha strike from an opposing ship could potentially make it unable to get those shots off at all.

(I suspect this was the reason HACs were given the same "disruptive" interaction with PA Panels as disruptors; to help make the smaller volleys an Imperium ship can land in any one impulse count against a would-be Andromedan foe.)


Plus, Imperium ships have other issues to consider; for example, their phaser-equivalents (linear accelerators) cost 50% as much as their "standard" phaser counterparts, and cannot be down-fired. And the bulk of a given Imperium unit's LA array is tied into the HAC turret; which is fine if the target is within the turret's current arc, but not so much if it isn't.

(This may not be so much of an issue in duels, but it can be a factor in squadron actions; even taking the Imperium Fleet's generous turn modes into account. And it would especially be a factor when dealing with enemies equipped with displacement devices...)


It's not there at present, but I recall from some of the playtest discussions in this thread from several years back that the Imperium was not considered to be quite so competitive, though I apologise if I have mis-remembered things on that score. (And I'm not sure if this was in duels, and/or in squadron actions.)

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 12:10 am: Edit

Gary:

I do understand that and it is a factor to consider. However;

Range 8 it does 12 damage and has a base 1-3 to hit.
It fires every turn.
That is twice the damage of a overloaded disruptor for either 1 less hit chance or equal hit chances to said disruptor. I am not including UIM since that can be a rather risky system.
That is a dead equal hit chance to a photon or 1 better if ACCM applies.

Which means you end up with a single turn weapon that in most respects can dish out more damage than either the photon or disruptor can possibly hope to match.

The firing delay does, indeed, tend to spread that out across more than one shield. However, when the system can fire every turn for the level of damage it can produce that
is much less of a mitigating factor because you effectively able to do roughly 150%-200% the damage of a photon over two turns for half the power cost.

Plus the turret means it is able to ignore a number of counter tactics because it’s heavy weapons have an enormous firing arc.

It is not that difficult to stay within 8 hexes for 16 impulses. Particularly if you don't have to actually face the target. Now; it's quite unlikely to stay on the same shield for that entire time (but not impossible).

The Burst mode isn’t without it’s oddities either. It’s accuracy at 5-40 beats out both the Hellbore and PPD. If ACCM is applied it beats them by 2 points.
4-8 [9]: 81.81% hit, 90.9% with ACCM
9-16 [8]: 72.72% hit, 81.81% with ACCM
17-24 [7]: 63.63% hit, 72.72% with ACCM
25-32[6]: 54.54% hit, 63.63% with ACCM
33-40 [5]: 45.45% hit, 54.54% with ACCM

Comparing that to a disruptor, which burst mode looks like it is supposed to act like:

Range 3-15: 66.66% hit chance
Range 16-30: 50% hit chance
Range 31-40: 33.33% hit chance.

And the amounts of damage inflicted are generally equal or better.

So you end up with a weapon that can decide to be either a disruptor that pretty much completely outclasses the actual disruptor or it can be a photon which again, it pretty much out classes due to the doubled firing rate.

In short, the weapon seems like it’s to good a deal with to few drawbacks.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 12:16 am: Edit

Without Playtest reports there is no way SPP can decide what needs to be done, If he does end up getting several reports saying that it is broken then it will be fixed.

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 03:18 am: Edit

6x D7 should do roughly 12 hits at 24 damage each time they fire in the 16-30 range brakets.

6x CA should manage about 4 hits of 6 shots per firing of the HAC in the 17-24 range braket for 8ish damage per volloy. It changed slightly with distance but doesn't really drop much below 3 of 6 hits.

Most likely at least the first 2 shots from the HAC will hit the same shield or the same adjacent shield if the target turns once.

So the Klingons will damage a single shield once. That is true. The Imperiaum will damage probably 2 shields for probably 16 damage each depending on situation.

Even without the shots being on the same shield that is a net win for the Imperium since with the turret system they can fight out of any shield while most disruptor ships are limited to the FA.

Strip away the 6, 1 and 2 shield and the disruptor unit cannot effectively fight without taking damage.

As I mentioned, the turret on the imperium ship allows them to fight out of all 6 shields with minimal effort.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 09:49 am: Edit

If a turret is facing out one of the back arcs of a SC3 or larger unit, all you have to do is sideslip to the other side and they have to spin the turret all the way around to reach you again.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 11:18 pm: Edit

Question about the Mallaran Blur Pod. (JN100.0)

JN100.12 states that you can activate/deactivate the pod once per turn on any impulse of the turn.

Can it only be activated once before needed to land on the mother ship, or can it activate several times without ever landing?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 11:41 am: Edit

Alex Lyons:

Sorry. I saw the question, but got distracted by other things (I guess) and forgot about it.

I have read the rule several times, and it seems pretty clear the author intended for the device to operate as many times as the player wanted, so long as it was not activated or deactivated more than once in any given turn, and did not remain active for more than eight impulses, and was not reactivated any earlier than eight impulses.

Yes, it is a very effective system for a minimal cost (one might say ridiculously minimal). But as noted it is a different technology and has a lot of limits on it. While half the fighters might have two of them (and more than half if some carry none). So it serves to get them into attack position perhaps once, or to run away perhaps once.

By Alex Lyons (Afwholf) on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Thank you very much SPP, My group had origionally thought it was one and done but reading through it i wasnt convinced.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 05:26 pm: Edit

I will add that if Mallarn Heavy Fighters and bombers show up, the Blur Device pods will probably not be any more widespread (a bomber squadron would still only have six with a maximum of three additional purchased as Commander's options, assuming Mallaran squadrons follow Alpha-Octant organizations an not Omega-Octant organizations).

Further, I can see rules restricting the use of such pods to the original fighters or bombers stationed on the carrier unit might be added if playtesting proves them too powerful, say on a Viper-2 with four of them (two on pod rails and two on its ram rails) so that it can get close to use its plasmatron. Specifically the fighters of Mallaran ship A cannot land on Mallaran ship B and have the blur devices that were supposed to be used by the fighters of Mallaran ship B loaded on their pod rails or Ram missile rails and have them be operational.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, June 09, 2012 - 10:03 pm: Edit

For anyone interested in the Triangulum setting who diesn't have it already, the e23 upload for Captain's Log #23 includes the four current playtest SSDs for the Imperium, along with the rules needed to fly them against the three empires seen over in Module E2.

(The E2 errata linked to at the top of this page will cover this material, too.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 11:52 am: Edit

One thing that cropped up over in the August 2012 module discussion is the issue of campaign compatibility.

As Nick Samaras pointed out, many of the Omega Octant empires are still missiing the kind of support units they need to be properly campaign compatible; a side-effect of how thinly spread the first eleven empires were at the time, perhaps.

In contrast, the three Magellanic Powers in Module C5 are very well fleshed out for campaign purposes; while the Uthiki and Jumokians have less variety, but probably wouldn't need much to get up to speed themselves.


For Triangulum, I was thinking about the way in which the various empires may be distributed, if the time ever comes for them to be up for formal publication.

Going by past reports, the "version 2" document currently on file has eight empires listed; the four seen in playtest form already, plus four more from other parts of M33. While, in principle, all eight could be offered all at once, it might be a lot to try and process in the one go; plus, giving each empire 8-10 slots for ship SSDs might make adding in the bases and support units needed for campaign play something of a problem.

So, perhaps it might be an idea to keep some or all of the "new four" (should I not be mistaken about their presence in that file) in reserve; and include only four-to-six powers in the first wave?

That could leave more room for each selected power to get some bases and trasnports added in, as well as the basic variants needed to support campaign use.

Then, should there be enough room for a second book later on, the other two-to-four empires could be published there; along with more units to help flesh out the first-wave fleets.


Although, the question might be a case of which empire/s to leave to one side.

If I recall correctly, the four "new" powers are the Humans, Frigians, Atreans and Valoreans.

Of those, the Frigians are notable for being one of the three most powerful elder powers; who have a bad history with the Imperium, given that each was on the opposite side of the civil war that rent the Old Empire asunder. So, getting them in as a foil to the Imperium could be an option.

The Humans, meanwhile, technically already have a unit in playtest form, if you consider the rules covering Powered Battle Armour; going with them could provide a "home away from home", albeit one showing what can happen when a human-derived technology tree branches off that much earlier in the timeline compared to, say, the FRA. (That said, they could just as easily headline wave 2 as take part in wave 1; depending on how much space would be needed to flesh out the first wave of fleets.)

The Atreans and Valoreans seem to be mutually antagonistic, according to the preview timeline; so leaving them to a second wave might be an idea.


In short, is it better to go more in-depth with only a handful of starter empires; to go more thinly and preview a lot of different technologies and tactics at once; or to try and offer some sort of middle ground instead?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 01:26 pm: Edit

From what I gather, the computer company in Dallas who had worked on recovering SPP's hard drive had sent a list of files they were able to retrieve.

Is the "version 2" Triangulum file which François Angers had sent in a few years back among those files, or has it been lost?

Or will that only be known once the hard drive returns from Dallas to be checked at ADB's office?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, July 14, 2013 - 04:32 pm: Edit

I have a question about the FPN100 Hellfire Torpedo errata. Italics used to show my potential confusion as to intent.

(FPN100.0) There have not been many reports on this weapon as of yet, but the ones that have arrived tend to indicate that the designer massively overdid the flexibility of it. In an effort to maintain the “rate of launch” and “flexible speed” features, cut the warhead yields under all conditions to 25% of the final result, rounding any fractions to the next whole number. Thus where a torpedo under the current rules has a final strength of 45, reduce this to 12. Note, while the warhead output is cut, the amount of energy required for a warhead of 45 that is reduced to 12 by this line item is unchanged.

(FPN100.2121) While not specifically stated in the rules, any fractions of damage are lost, e.g., if the result (as provided in the example) does not result in a full point of damage, any fractional points remaining are lost. In short, as given in the example, 4.5 x 5 is 22, not 22.5 damage points.

As I read this, On the second turn of arming I have armed the weapon with Turn 1, 2.5 points of energy, and Turn 2, 2 points of energy I would have 4.5, I would multiply this by 5 getting 22.5 and I would drop the .5. Now I would multiply 22 by .25 getting 5.5 and would then round this up to 6.

Is this correct?

Followup question; If this is correct would any fraction in the 25% reduction be rounded up? I believe that it would be.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - 01:15 pm: Edit

A. David Merritt:

You are correct in both cases.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - 02:45 pm: Edit

SPP:
Thank you.
Now to club my group into submission for some playtesting, he says hopefully.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Wednesday, August 07, 2013 - 08:12 pm: Edit

How much area does the map on page 54 cover? Is it 3 sectors like Omega?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, August 07, 2013 - 08:50 pm: Edit

For what it's worth, I recall François mentioning in this thread that the map was due to be re-worked.

If I remember correctly, his original map (as seen in E2) did not take into account how large, or rather how small, the real Triangulum Galaxy is relative to the SFU portrayal of the Milky Way.

(M33 is approximately 50,000 light years, or 15,330 parsecs, in diameter - which would make the visible portion of that galaxy approximately 31 hexes across.)

Reportedly, the "version 2" file which François had prepared for future consideration might include a revised map, which would reflect the "true" size of M33 as a setting in the SFU. However, whether that file has survived the computer crash, or if François still has his own copy that he could send in should it be needed, has not been made clear at this point.


Actually, if such a revised map exists, I'd wonder if it echoes any of the features seen in the SFU Milky Way or LMC maps, or if any discrete features from the real Triangulum Galaxy are included.

Would it have storm and radiation zones surrounding its galactic core? Are there any Void- or Wasteland-like regions between its spiral arms? Does it have a "fringe" region beyond its main area, akin to the equivalent zone surrounding the LMC? And are the likes of M33 X-7 shown on that map?

And if not, should they be incorporated into a "final" map at some future point?

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Thursday, August 08, 2013 - 09:11 pm: Edit

(RN101.6) Module E2 Worlds of Unions SC - The note for SPP/LPP #5 should be #3. There is no SPP #5. - Ken Kazinski, 8 August 2013.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Thursday, August 08, 2013 - 11:19 pm: Edit

(RN101.7) Module E2 Worlds of Unions CL - The RH Neutronium armor is listed as FH. - Ken Kazinski, 8 August 2013.