Faster method of damage allocation
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(D) Combat Rules:
Faster method of damage allocation
I'm sure this has been proposed before, but I'm a new player and don't know where else to look for it but here. If anyone can point me to the previous discussion, I would appreciate it.
As a beginner, I find it much faster to change the order in which I process the die rolls for the DAC. I would like an expert opinion as to whether this practice could have any impact on the game, or if it is an acceptable alternative method.
Basically, I split the damage allocation procedure into two steps: 1. Die-rolling; 2. DAC lookups.
For my use, I have added some damage boxes of the left side of the DAC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RsduC-cfb2P8sbijggVUvEG_wTp7JJ7a/view?usp=sharing
Suppose I have an incoming volley with 23 points of internal damage. First, I roll the dice 23 times and record each result in the boxes to the left of the number I rolled. (My DAC is laminated and I use dry-erase markers.)
Then, after having rolled all of the dice, I proceed down the rows of the DAC, processing each row once (and only once). This saves me (as a beginner) a lot of time because I don't have to look back and forth between the DAC and my SSD and the rules and Annex #7E as many times.
Suppose the total number of times I rolled "2" was 3 times. In processing the first row, I see 3 boxes are checked. I allocate the 3 points just as if I had rolled the 3 "2"s consecutively. Then I proceed to the next row of the table and process all of the "3" rolls. And so on.
So, instead of processing the die rolls in the order in which they occurred, I am processing all of the "2"s, then all of the "3s", etc. Otherwise, I am using the DAC exactly as stated in the rules, to the best of my ability.
To those more experienced with the game and/or knowledgeable about design decisions: Are there any edge cases due to the design of the DAC where processing the die rolls out of order could have a significant effect?
And to players in general: Is this method actually faster, or should I just practice more and get faster at doing it the right way? Would you object to your opponent using this method?
I should clarify: I haven't actually played a game with this method yet!
I don't think that will help in a game with two or more players.
The player doing the damage rolls the dice and consults the DAC, calls out the system, and makes a tic mark to record how much damage has been resolved. The other player checks the SSD. If the system is gone, or the hit is once per volley, then mark the DAC. The player who's ship has taken damage marks the SSD.
The time consuming part is checking the SSD to find and mark the system in question, and stuff like questions about which phasers bear and tracking is this the third phaser hit and needs to be a "good" phaser.
60 internals into a cruiser is still time consuming, but the bulk of the time goes to stuff that your system doesn't help with, and you're adding the time to write down all those numbers.
Playing solo I'd be tempted by your system.
Ah, interesting. The way my friend and I have played so far, the person doing the damage just announces how many points of damage in the volley, and the player receiving the damage then allocates the points. Your way does sound potentially faster than that. (If the rulebook has suggestions for division of labor, I haven't seen them.)
To be clear: My proposed method doesn't involve writing down any numbers, only checking boxes... and then counting the boxes checked for each row in the table.
One of your time consuming parts, "checking the SSD to find and mark the system in question", I believe would be sped up with my system, but with the other examples you gave (relating to phasers), it wouldn't help at all.
Thanks for the reply!
Yeah, I don't think the rulebook suggests splitting the labor, it takes at most about half of your first 30+ point volley to realize that having one person do everything is horribly inefficient.
The DAC system is designed to build drama. (Will he get my last tractor or not?)
If you want a faster system just tell the other player "73 points" and let him score them anywhere he wants. Takes 20% of the time.
Fair enough. 
I suppose I am willing to trade off *some* of the drama in exchange for increased efficiency, while still retaining the essence and tactical implications of the system.
If a player got to choose where the damage occurred on his ship, then that really would be tactically different (and inferior) to the official rules.
My proposal still retains the randomness of the DAC procedure, and doesn't alter the probability of any outcome significantly -- that I'm aware of. That's what I was hoping to get further insight about. Is it really equivalent, in damage allocation effect, to the official system?
I think I will try both this system and Douglas Lampert's system in my next game to see which we prefer.
Thanks for your comments, and of course thanks for creating (and endlessly expanding) a great game system. I hope you and your staff enjoy improved health and it gives you even greater zeal and energy for all of your undertakings.
Note that if you score "all the twos" first, then "all the threes..." you will get different results. Because some boxes can be hit only once on the DAC and then you get to the next column over.
Just saying that your method doesn't produce identical results.
Perhaps one could borrow the streamlined DAC from the Federation Commander ruleset?
Seen a lot of DAC alternatives over the years. My buddy back in the day wrote programs on his Atari to simulate the process. You can download Red Alert, a card system of DA on warehouse 23. And I've tried half a dozen others. Not one of them beats they process as it is. The damage dealer rolls and reads while the damage taker counts and marks.
I have seen lots of people roll a fistfull of dice, two red, two green, two purple, and so forth.
The trick is that some really clever players know which ones to pick up first to manipulate the DAC, so for total randomness you need to have a written list and always do them in the same order.
Mike Grafton: Thanks, you are right, it doesn't produce exactly the same results. To contrive an example:
Suppose your ship only has one phaser remaining. You take 2 points of internal damage and roll a "10" followed by a "4".
Scored according to the rules, the "10" would take out the phaser. The "4" would be allocated to a transporter, since the phasers are already gone.
However, in my system, the "4" would be scored before the "10". The "4" would take out the phaser, and the "10" would be allocated to a tractor beam.
So you can get different random results. But does it change the game tactically?
I don't think so -- I think it's just a somewhat faster way to get essentially equivalent (not identical) results.
I roll pairs of Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, and Gorn dice, and always read them in R-section order
One could also adopt the box-of-death that BattleTech players use: a Plano or similar craft container, large enough so that you can put two dice in each compartment and they have room to bounce around when you shake the whole thing. Label the compartments as #1, #2, etc in series. Then you can just shake the whole thing and read them off in order. BattleTech, like SFB, resolves hit locations via 2d6 and the order in which hits are resolved is very important - and there are weapons that can generate 20 different hit locations in a single shot.
ETA: Also, Jonathan, knowing what is hit on what via Annex #7E is something that comes with experience - and honestly mostly only matters for more unusual systems. The average warship everything is labelled what it is on the DAC - most heavy weapons are hit on "torpedo" with drones and similar secondary systems (like ESGs) being hit on "drone".
Steve Cole: Interesting. I assume they made their own coloring of the DAC, with each row being a solid color corresponding to a die color. In that case, I could definitely see how the order in which the dice are picked up could be manipulated by a savvy player.
That would be a weakness of that system. (It could be mitigated, of course, e.g. by not allowing the player to look at the dice when selecting the next one to score.)
But the larger problem, in my view, is that it changes the probability profile for the system. If you had one die for each table row, that entails that each row on the DAC is equally likely to receive damage, which is not the case. (When rolling two six-sided dice, rolling a "2" is only one sixth as likely as rolling a "7".)
There's also the problem of scaling -- you aren't always going to be allocating 72 points of damage (12 dice worth); I'd be interested to know how that problem was addressed.
Alex Chobot: That giant box of dice is a good idea.
Jonathan, what Steve is describing is rolling something like five pairs of dice at once, but reading each pair one at a time, eg having a pair of blue, pair of yellow, pair of orange, pair of red, and pair of green - so one act of rolling dice produces five results. They are still read and scored one at a time - so if the first pair read is a 9, you use that row on the DAC. To avoid picking the order for maximum effect, you could use the convention of always reading in ROY G. BIV order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue.
So if you had a volley of say 24 internals, you would roll the set of ten total dice four times, applying each damage point as read, followed by a final roll of four pairs (leaving out the blue pair). That kind of batch rolling can also make it easier to track how much of a volley has been resolved, as you are keeping track of the number of batch rolls instead of counting one by one.
As for an illustration of *why* the order can matter, consider a situation where your ship has one phaser left bearing on mine, and has one tractor left which is holding a drone that would impact you next impulse if it were released. I score two points of internal damage and the results are a 10 and a 4 in that order: the 10 destroys that last bearing phaser, meaning the 4 has no phaser to be scored on and is resolved against the next column, a transporter - leaving the tractor intact. However if the order is reversed, the 4 destroys the bearing phaser and the 10c with no phaser to be scored on, destroys the remaining tractor, releasing the drone to impact and score its damage (12 or 24 depending on size generally).
Okay, so when you are deciding whether to fire, you already know that *IF* you score exactly two points of damage and *IF* the die rolls are "10" and "4" then there is a 100% probability of the tractor beam being destroyed instead of 50%. Armed with that knowledge, you might change your decision about whether to fire.
You have convinced me that it can have an effect on the game tactically, even if it's small. (Maybe there are other cases where the effect is larger.)
I just chose a clean and simple illustrative example to show that the order damage is rolled and resolved in does matter - and 24 damage through a down shield (a type-IV drone released from that destroyed tractor) can be the difference between a game in the balance and a concession
Of course, if you have drone incoming and no phasers left, you really might need that tractor beam. So roll bravely.
I used to use a Plano box and read left to right, top to bottom. It was big enough to roll around 20 internals at once. Then I got bored and wrote an app instead. Now I just bring my tablet to the game and we have DACs stored and ready to roll for every ship in the scenario.
Alex Chobot: Indeed. I think you made the point very well.
Ginger McMurray: I understand the temptation to automate things after doing them a million times. But I think a big part of the appeal of games like SFB is that there are no computers involved; or, more precisely: YOU are the computer. (Naturally, different people will find different aspects of the game appealing. And maybe the tedium will start to change my mind after I've played the game more.)
Besides, in a few years after SHTF, you're not going to have that fancy tablet and its apps, and having thrown away all of your dice, then where will you be? :D
Throw away dice??? Blasphemy!