Vorlon: Thanks, will look into your suggestions.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Saturday, April 13, 2002 - 01:05 pm: Edit

It may take a bit of tweaking to get the results back in line with ship BPVs.

You may also want to look over some of the persentile formulae you give and see if the rules would look clearer if shown as tables.

Also a summary page without the rules explanations

"List of things that add to base hull cost"

"List of things that take a percentage of base hull cost"

Your rules list the cost of items, but if you adopt the escalating cost idea, you might do a table which shows how costs escalate for each numeric value used in your system chart.

As with Food, presentation counts as much as the content.

"List of final touches that take a percentage of the entire ship's cost"

By David A Slatter (Davidas) on Saturday, April 13, 2002 - 01:37 pm: Edit

Vorlon

My design system caters for some of your concerns, - i'll try and factor the rest in when I fonally get the word file out (sorting out shuttle and fighter designs now). In particular, I hadn't sorted out the warp distribution system properly yet - was either forcing a random roll or default L/R. I'm working on the C.Hull problem - havn't yet got a good solution, but do have some ideas.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Saturday, April 13, 2002 - 03:43 pm: Edit

John/Dave I added a few of the changes you suggested to my shipcon. I posted the changes.

http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/sdoty/

John:
I added the APR rule to Disr and Hellb weapons as it ended up balancing power curves automatically (at least to an extent) and paralleled published units. I could just reduce the BPV of all DISR by 1 and Hellb by three, but it seems to lose some "weapon flavor" for lack of a better reason.

I am not convinced all C warp is all that wonderful. I used to use a race that I made with all c-warp, weapons flew off of those units! (but I could almost always escape due to low engine dmg.)

I will work on the "appearance" of the shipcon, but that may take a while.

I like to use %of X whenever possible as to X number of boxes as it is more flexible. I suppose I could develop a table for some of those sections if it would be easier to read.

I added a phaser shock rule to the shock section that limits phasers (to an extent) on units, or they lose max heavy weapon arrays or they suffer shock. The numbers used are kind of arbitrary, but they might work. Any thoughts?

I also added a crew unit/boarding party table, barrack cost, scaled transporter costs (to mitigate t-beast units) and put in some surcharges for c-warp and c-hull.

What do you guys think?

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Sunday, April 14, 2002 - 12:48 pm: Edit

David,

Could you repost a link to your rules?

Scott,

Repy pending. Don't have the time to sit down and workik with it.

By David A Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 05:51 am: Edit

Vorlon

The updating and conversion of my rules to a word file is not finished yet (they were pencil scribbles and about 10 years old). If Scott is amenable and acknowledges I did the writing, I'd like him to put them on his website, so the two systems are side by side. (I'm not a web page person - yet).
I have working solutions to the centre warp and centre hull problems. Took me about 3-4 hours to get them ironed out and written down.

Scott?

NB Scott. In a campaign, being able to run away is essential. Once a shield has been breached, a ship is normally in trouble, as a down shield and 20 incoming will put all but the largest ships below fleet speed and/or force them to separate from the fleet to protect their down shield - this usually renders the ship pretty ineffective as its fire is difficult to co-ordinate with the fleet.
I'd quite like that C warp thankyou, even if it might only be OK in a straight duel to the death.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 09:52 am: Edit

David: C-warp might be an advantage in a campaign and that should be taken into account. In duels, maybe, maybe not, but I added a surcharge for it as other people seem to think so.

No problem about adding your rules to my site. When you get them done (I assume in word) then just e-mail an attachment to me and I will post them. If you can send then in PDF format, so much the better. I am interested in looking your rules over.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 02:19 pm: Edit

Scott,

Why do security stations reduce the cost of ship?

Security stations can be used to finance other hull improvements, such as better turn mode or HET breakdown.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 02:42 pm: Edit

John: Having security stations means a ship can mutiny, which is not a problem for other units and is a detriment. The stations also take up some space that could be used for other items. This works out well for making Klingon units as it brings the BPV into line for them (ends up being much closer). In other words some point value needed to be taken into account for having the security stations which are overall detrimental to the unit.
I considered adding a line that stated no unit with security stations can have flage bridge, but what do you think?

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Make sure that this is clear.

The rules need to spell out that the ship is taking on the risk of mutiny.

Heck, I might rewrite the rule as "risk of mutiny" and that it allows the player the ability to buy security stations, giving X (based on size class) for free up-front.

By mike mendick (Mikey2) on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 01:53 pm: Edit

the center warp(or lack thereof) can be a very big thing in a duel. Look at the 7 row on the dac(why all battleships need center warp).

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 01:55 pm: Edit

John: Sounds good I will add the "risk of mutiny" clause to the rule.

Do you think eliminating the ability to have Flag Bridge is a good idea for ships with security stations, or is it irrelevant?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 06:04 pm: Edit

Scott: Security stations already take the place of Flag bridge. So if you have more Flag spaces they should be bumped up in price BPV wise. Because the additional Flag spaces would be protecting the security. Thus greatly reducing the chance of mutiny. Thus defeating the purpose of having security at all. Any way IIRC no Klingon has Flag instead of Security. (Other than the D7N maybe.) So why would any other race get more Flag. If they add Flag boxes then they really need to pay a substantial premium for them. Maybe Security could be added to a Penal ship along with Flag. But i dont think this would really work.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 08:17 pm: Edit

Ken: I was thinking the same thing. I will add a clause to the security box rule that the unit cannot have Flag bridge. I feel that this will keep the possibility of mutiny more "real" and existing units with security do not have flag anyway (The D7N can not mutiny, I do not think it even has security, but I could be wrong.)

Mike: The consensus has been that center warp (or at least a lot of it) is a good thing and should cost some BPV. I think there are a few Battleships without C-Warp, such as the Gorn and Romulan units, I do not think that they must have c-warp, but it probably does help a little.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 12:51 pm: Edit

Scott,

I agree with the consensus of the group.

I cannot think of a SFB unit that has a Flag Bridge-hit box that also has Flag Bridge.

That means Klingons with the possibility of Mutiny can't pad their Security with Flag.

Andros shoudn't have Flag if they have Dis-Dev also.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 01:47 pm: Edit

John: Maybe a blanket rule that flag cannot be added to a unit that has an item (dis dev., security, etc.) that is destroyed on flag hits to avoid the "padding" issue.

A similiar issue has popped up when thinking about heavy weapon layouts. Players could purchase items like fusion beams just to pad their plasma R or some such weapon. Phasers have a priority hit rule, maybe something similiar is needed for heavies if people take more than one type which are both destroyed on the same hit. I propose the following:

Heavy weapons are destroyed on the hit that they are normally assigned, such as hellbores on drone, but if two (or more) types of heavy weapons are installed on the same unit that all have the same hit, then every third destroyed system on that hit will be the higher BPV system. For example a Histriz CA armed with 2 hellb, 2 drones and a ppd takes three drone hits, the first two can be drone, hellb. or any combination, the last one must be the PPD. Note: Plasma torps, implosion torps etc. have different sizes, but are all the same weapon and thus the above rule does not apply, as it would also not apply to different range dirs. or different sized rail guns.

What do you think?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Scott: I dont mean to sound rude. But is'nt all that alredy covered under the rules. ex: Orion option mounts. The best drone has to hit the best drone weapon. Every 3 Drone hits. Under D4.323 the drone situation is already covered. Similarly the other weapon hits are covered. What you might want to consider is the possibility of doing something similar for nonweapon hits.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 04:52 pm: Edit

Ken:
Thanks. I know about D4.323, but it seems to be a LOT easier just to make the "best" weapon the one that costs the most BPV, it avoids the long list, and some things on that list make little to no sense (i.e. some items that cost more and/or are far more effective are behind (worse than) other weapons such as fusion beams being "better" than F torps. Also I feel that the original intention of that rule may not apply to some shipcon created units which may have combos that official SFB has never had or may never have.
But this adds more rules to an already rules loaded game and may be more trouble than it is worth.
I will think about the non-weapon hits.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 06:00 pm: Edit

Web is hit on Flag. The Tholian CC has both. So does the starbase, though as that has funny DAC rules, it doesn't apply.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 06:31 pm: Edit

I do not know if it is important enough to add a rule to avoid padding web casters, but they could simply be hit on torpedo if the unit also had flag, not perfect, but if abuse is a worry it would eliminate it.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 01:45 am: Edit

I thought web-casters were hit on "drone" currently?
Web GENERATORS are hit on flag.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 11:49 am: Edit

I can confirm the Web Caster/drone-hit part of the equation.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 01:40 pm: Edit

The Web Caster Flag hit is an old Tournament rule. No longer in play.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 01:53 pm: Edit

O.K. The web caster drone hit mitigates the above. Thanks everyone.

By David A Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, April 22, 2002 - 05:34 am: Edit

Ok

I now have just about all the system on file. The only elements missing are refits, varients, and racial traits, for which I have prototype rules, but still havn't put them on file.

I'm working on some examples. The system is complex enough that I suspect people will *need* them to see how the whole thing works. Things have worked very well for Klingon D6 and F5 designs, once I tweaked/introduced some rules for booms, F-racks, and Phaser arcs. I'm currently trying to modify things such that there are reasonable reasons why the Klingons did exactly what they did.
Currently, it looks as if the Klingons should have put another phaser or two on at the expense of the odd trac/tran/lab. It's proving very difficult to stop myself simply minimising these marginal systems in my designs. Of course, if exploration was an issue, these systems become very much more important, so maybe I should not be trying. (any decent exploration/exploitation rules , prototypes of which I have written down, will make these systems vital). I can deal with the lab moderately easily (generates economy, helps sensor/scanner/damcon)- however making people want more than 2 trac, or something other than 2 (minimal) or oodles (for boarding) of tran is difficult.

Thoughts? Why does the D6 have 5 tran and 3 Trac?

Answers on a postcard please.