Archive through April 01, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
FOLDER: ways to kill more carriers:
Carrier discrepancies with SFB:
Archive through April 01, 2005
Pinning has very little to do with actually forcing someone to stop and fight as it does with posing a threat to supply and communications. It's not so much that that D5V that's managed to get its escorts cooked off can force 2 CMs to stop and fight it, it's that the threat posed by the D5V and its fighter group to those nummy supply freighters that will be chugging along behind those CMs is the critical factor. While those CMs could choose to ignore the D5V, it'd mean that they'd be running out of consumables very very quickly as the D5V did a Scharnhorst imitation. So they stop and have to run the D5V off or destroy it.
John
The freighters arn't there all the time. The CMs can go for a while without supply, as reflected by the current rules. In any case, the threat you say is already in F&E. If one of those CMs charges though because the D5V's fighter's can't pin, it has still moved behind enemy lines, and F&E quite clearly gives conseqeunces if the CM has gone out of supply in the process.
Dslatter, now you are using strategic reasons for your tactics type proposal. You cannot conveniently give strategic reasons to prove your tactics proposal bud.
It is true that there are F&E consequences for being out of supply, those are built into the game already.
Various people are giving you tactical reasons as to why this proposal shouldn't see the light of day.
David, no ship can go for a while without supply; if they're out of supply, they're out of supply, the only exception being a raider, and it can do what it does presumably because time and effort has been expended to cram just enough consumables aboard to allow it to zip out and zip back after having fought one battle.
The frieghters don't have to be there all the time, they merely only have to be threatened in order for any sane captain to take steps to protect his line of communication. The threat alone is sufficient. I think you're reading too much into the tactical SFB aspects and not giving the strategic enough thought.
"Dslatter, now you are using strategic reasons for your tactics type proposal. You cannot conveniently give strategic reasons to prove your tactics proposal."
"I think you're reading too much into the tactical SFB aspects and not giving the strategic enough thought."
I'm sorry, I'm not taking sides, but I just loved the irony of those two statements one after another in the last two posts. David, apparently you aren't considering the strategic enough because you are focusing too much on the strategic, and you can't prove the tactical because you're reading too much into the tactical. 
Seriously, David, I think you have good ideas, but unworkable. It's just too much effort. Concentrate on reducing fleet sizes, and the oddball pinning and carrier operation issues will tend to resolve themselves.
The CV not getting full pinning if it doesn't have its escorts has merit, but I'm not sure if I'd want to have to calculate which ship has escorts and which doesn't. I want to just count ships and count fighters/PF's and be done with it.
Look for the easy way to do it. (Oddly enough, I did the exact opposite in my game, and suffered for a year before coming to my senses...)
Strategy and tactics are inevitably woven into each other: they feed off each other. If you take the strategic decision to build a mauler, you can take the tactical decision to ram it up a base. If you have a tactical situation such as a lack of scouts, you can make a strategic decision to bring in more from a different front.
Kevin's argument that the fighter's compot is under-represented in a carrier group on the basis that the carrier would actually be hanging back (and thus shooting less) is by far the best argument I have seen for making fighters have equivalent strength in independent operations - indeed, the only one that has any merit based on any kind of common situation. It has problems when you consider carriers with low compot and a lot of fighters, as following the argument would suggest that those carriers would be overall better, but I will willingly concede that making special rules in those cases would be a little silly.
The pinning thing is a little different - I still think there are good arguments for some kind of penalty. Once you look into things, there is frankly no reason at all to convert to an E4A. In combat, the F5 as an ad-hoc has exactly the same compot and protects the carrier better because it has more defence. Furthermore, it costs less than an E4A and grants more salvage when destroyed. Outside combat, when feeding fighters in, using a vanilla E4 as an Ad-hoc works just as well as an E4A.
The ONLY reason for having an E4A is if you want to protect a more valuable inner escort, something an ad-hoc can't do. Given that the Klingons don't have a better escort than the E4A at the beginning of the war and certainly won't build E4As once F5Es and AD5s come out, that reason is null.
OK, let's change the proposal to something that bites a little more - next post.
Second suggestion
Ad-hoc escorts do not contribute to the defence of the carrier group and, at the option of the enemy, can be either included or excluded for the purposes of targeting the group by directed damage. This is still the case when targeting carriers that have fed forward fighters into the battleforce.
EG The enemy has the following options when targeting a [D5V-F5E-F5] group by Dirdam
Cripple F5 for 10
Cripple F5E for 11
Kill F5 for 16
Kill F5E for 17
Cripple D5V-F5E for 24
Cripple D5V-F5E-F5 for 34
Kill D5V-F5E for 38
Kill D5V-F5E-F5 for 54
If an FV-E4 group feeds forward fighters, the FV can be killed alone for 24 (i.e. the E4 Ad-hoc or indeed any Ad-hoc is pointless unless the FV is later put into a battleforce).
NB
Ad-hocs would still be used as they allow a ship to be put into an otherwise empty command slot.
That would give a raison d'etre for the E4A. I'm not sure where I can go with the pinning idea unless one has a blanket rule that fighters don't pin. The really cheesy one is that fighters on unescorted Aux carriers pin just as well as those on an escorted regular carrier. The fundamental problem with fiddling here is that any rule which differentiates between which fighters and pin and which ones can't is going to add complexity and conditions.
I do note that one of the great chores of pin counting is counting up the fighters - it can take as long as counting the ships. It would be nice to give base fighters an ability to block supply, but generally relegate fighters to being unable to pin at all.
An interesting side-effect of disallowing fighters from pinning is that you could potentially raise the cost of FCR fighters to 2. Previously, the main disadvantage of FCRs was that their fighters did not pin, which woudl arguably justify the cost of 1 per fighter. However, FCRs are still (IMHO) too good. Remove the pin thing, and an FCR is a simple trade off where PRO and CON are about equal:-
PRO - cheap conversion, more fighters on a small hull, can be used as an escort.
CON - can't use directly, can only refill carriers.
Dslatter wrote:
Quote:The ONLY reason for having an E4A is if you want to protect a more valuable inner escort, something an ad-hoc can't do.
Actually, by the RAW it can, unless there's something buried in the errata that I've missed. I do like your idea that ad hocs only fill the otherwise empty command slot(s). I wonder, however, if it might not be better to force the ad hoc(s) to be crippled before damage goes on to the group, thereby bringing ad hoc escorts closer to ground ship escorts, and us one step closer to the Unified Consort/Escort Rule that I've seen rumours about.
Dave
I stand corrected.
An Ad hoc escort can protect an inner escort.
An Ad hoc escort can't be protected by an outer escort.
An outer escort does not get a DD bonus from an inner ad-hoc escort.
So we have even less reason for building an E4A, indeed, I am absoultely at loss now for why the Klingons would ever want them. The kzinti EFF is "better", simply because teh default ad-hoc Zin ship is an FF, which has even worse compot than an EFF : the DD and CL are both heavy escorts.
So, your entire reason for this proposal is because you are sore that the Klingons dont build their crappy escorts and instead use a more economical but less effecient Ad-Hoc for the first few turns of the game?
Dave Butler has a good point about the "Unified Consort/Escort Rule". If we could consolidate all the rules into one unified set of rules, the system would be simpler to teach and use.
Though I keep hearing the "One rule to bring them all and in the darkness bind them" mantra over and over in my head...
If we choose to go the other direction, with different rules for each, then I have imput for your ad-hoc ideas:
Yep, I've tried that too. Is there any idea I haven't tried in the last 18 years? Sometimes I change the rules in mid-game three or four dozen times, and that's only counting the major changes.
What I did was not have the ad-hoc assigned before the battle, but instead I allowed the ad-hoc to be added to replace combat losses. For example, a D5V(D5E,F5E) loses the F5E in combat, so the Klinks replace the F5E with an F5 ad-hoc. Firepower goes down a couple of points, and the D5E is now exposed, but the carrier group keeps it's cohesiveness.**
I kept bouncing back and forth on the idea of allowing the D5V(D5E) to be directed up to kill, while ignoring the ad-hoc F5. It seems reasonable, but it left me wondering why the Klingons (or anyone) would ever risk it.
I ultimately chose a different system, but I keep mulling the re-introduction of ad-hoc escorts back into my system, and the rules I use will probably mirror your proposal very closely, if not exactly.
The biggest warning is that if you make the undermanned carrier group (supplimented by an ad-hoc or two) too easy to kill in combat, then nobody will ever use the rule. Unless that's exactly what you want, in which case - go for it!
**Edit: Some explanation is in order for what I referred to as "carrier group cohesiveness". I allow for the CV to be directed upon at 3:1 odds, with bonuses applied for the escorts. A D5V(D5E,F5E) group would give a +3 bonus (two for the large escort, one for the small), which is added to the 7/4 D5V hull and then tripled. Thus is would take (7+4+3)x3 = 42 points of damage to kill a D5V.
If you lost both escorts, but assigned ad-hoc escorts to cover for them, the ad-hoc escorts don't give the escort bonus to the D5V, but it does allow the D5V to get the 3:1 formation bonus, a.k.a - the carrier group "keeps it's cohesiveness". It would take (7+4)x3 = 33 points to kill. The ad-hoc escorts, of course, would be nothing more than standard line ships, but at half firepower to keep the D5V protected.
I don't know if that ruleset works, but it's what I was working on.
***Further Edit: And by next week at this time, I may have an entirely different theory on how everything should work!
No
That's one reason. It simply highlights the problem. The Kzinti EFF is in almost the same boat. And there is still the general discrepancy in that frequent Ad-hoccing or simply not escorting carriers is at odds with SFB.
I might hasten to mention that stopping fighters from pinning at all would hurt the alliance quite a bit.
Kevin
You got the point. The undermanned carrier group gets much easier to kill in combat - i.e. Ad-hoccing is nearly always a poor situation rather than sometimes the best solution.
While this is not a "kill the carrier easily" rule, it at least makes the carriers work for their priviledges a little more.
Actually, the Klingons have probably the worst escorts of all the races. They use AD5's which are okay, nothing exceptional. But their light escorts are the F5E and the E4A, neither of which jumps out at you and says "Weeeee, look at me". While the Klinks are stuck using their AD5 and F5E combo (the best that they get for I'm not sure how long) which is a compot of only 10-12. Now the AD5 and E4A is just pathetic at 8-11. Why spend that extra 1EP to convert an E4 to an E4A when if you adhoc the E4 it has the same compot (but loses the escort bonus of +1 for directed damage).
Now if you want a rule's alteration or proposal that some of us might agree with make the proposal along a slightly different line. Myself I cannot agree to a rule that makes carriers as easy to kill like the latest proposal above, they are too much of a races EP expenditures to just throw away.
I find that the only escorts that are not escorted are escort carriers. And even they eventually get an escort sometimes.
See, I hate it when a rule gets pushed through that tries to force me to play this game the way someone else plays it, or tries to say "THis is the only way you should be allowed to play".
While I do appreciate that people like to change things for the good, I think that there has been too much done too fast the last few months. We really need to get a few full games done with all these new rules we have worked hard to create for everyone over the last few months/years.
Chris,
"So, your entire reason for this proposal is because you are sore that the Klingons dont build their crappy escorts and instead use a more economical but less effecient Ad-Hoc for the first few turns of the game?"
Chris, that comment is beneath you. David's reason for his proposal is create more logical results from the gameplay, based on his opinion of what logically should be occuring. He is not, nor I, nor anyone I've seen here yet, "sore" about anyone's choice of play.
Of course, you can disagree with what the "logical" results should be. Maybe SVC will one day come out and clarify that the Klingons used ad-hoc escorts for the first few years of the war, almost exclusively - thus proving that the rules already create the logical results.
Furthermore, we have to keep in mind that there are two distinct styles of play at work here.
One group looks at a set of rules, tries to find the winning strategy based on those rules, and plays the game. If ad-hoc escorts work better than regular escorts, by all means - use ad-hoc escorts!
The other group looks to create a perfect system, even at the expense of their own winning strategy. If I use ad-hoc escorts and find them to be better than regular escorts, then clearly the rules are not complete, and I better redesign them. After all, regular escorts should be better than ad-hoc escorts!
Neither type of player is more correct than the other, but clearly they are playing for different reasons. It helps to understand the other type of player, when it comes to rule proposals and to playing the game.
Oh, and Chris, I consider you one of the best players of F&E on these boards, possibly the one I'd most want to play a game with. But I've never asked to game with you - because I know you'd utterly reach out and rip my head off when, after the 10th time in 4 turns, I say "wouldn't it work better if we changed the rule to read...".
Sometimes it's best to stay with one's own type of players, so that you know you both have the same motivations for playing.
They didn't use ad hoc escorts. Nobody did very much at any time period. I'm not sure it's a problem worth solving (or that there aren't ten larger ones to solve first).
Ah, and there's the perfect example of the benefit of better understanding the other player...
See, I hate it when a rule gets pushed through that tries to force me to play this game the way someone else plays it, or tries to say "THis is the only way you should be allowed to play".
To that I utterly agree! Now I better understand your objection to many of the rule proposals we've had of late. I also agree that we've had too many rule changes tossed in to quickly. (I personally think we overdid it from about Advanced Operations onward, especially the NCA variants being tossed in without much playtest).
So I guess I'm saying I respect your objections to the rules being proposed, mine or otherwise.
I should explain my reasoning for posting ideas and discussing other's ideas.
One, I use these boards to exchange ideas. I want fleet sizes to be half that of what you want, and I want to borrow the ingenious ideas from the others there who are like minded. I don't want to force you to use the rule, I just want to discuss it and then apply it to my own game.
In a few cases, I'll argue that one idea or another is best for the whole of F&E, at other times I'll stay neutral and just listen or add imput.
And two, I am assuming that any idea we discuss here will take years, if not *decades* to see official print, having been tested, redesigned, retested, thrown out, raised from the dead, and dressed entirely in plaid. And even then, it will put into "F&E supplement #17", which you can always choose not to use. Heck, I never used much from Marine Assault, so why should I insist you use my proposals?
So in conclusion, I better understand your objections now that you stated that, and I respect them. I don't intend to force you to play in any particular way, and I don't expect that I could if I wanted to.
One intersting thing about this discussion: Have any of you actually flown an E4A in a fleet battle? I have. It was some of the most fun I have ever had in a fleet battle. I was so small without any offensive weapons that the other side just ignored me. I waded through a squadron of Stinger 2's that were hell bent for our C8 and decimated them with my Aegis four ADD's at range three over 4-6 impulses. It is a great escort for defending a ship from fighters or drones. It can move at a very good speed since it only has P-3's and housekeeping to pay for.
Just another viewpoint on the lowley E4A.
Mike: I've often thought that SFB would have been improved by allowing players to use escorts independently of carriers. Lyrans and Seltorians, for example, wouldn't have been forced to go against their racial descriptions and use cookie-cutter carriers just to "balance" the races.
Mike - I agree. The E4A is an excellent ship in the right environment. I have seen one actually empty all its ADDs fighting a combined Zin/Fed carrier force. It really does excel when facing fighters and drones, and in such circumstances is probably worth 4 or 5 F&E compot, possibly even more (in the mentioned battle, the E4A was as least as effective as a F5L).
Mike Curtis. As a Hydran player, I just have to shake my head. Any Aegis Escort is my first target for that very reason.
"Can-O-Worms" 
Are some escorts too expensive? Are some escorts too cheap? Maybe the older, smaller, and commonly considered to be crappier escorts should have a conversion cost of .5 and some of the big CA based escorts should have a conversion cost of 2. If an E4A cost 3 EP instead of 3.5 EP to build would it compare better to an F5 used as an ad hoc? Would a Kzinti BCE be considered too expensive at 10 EP?
Now, a conversation/proposal along those lines I think might benefit the game. There are some escorts that are just not worth the EP expenditure (EFF, E4A, AH to name a couple) so maybe if those were at .5 while some of the better escorts like the heavy cruiser escorts at 2EP while the heavy frigate/cruiser escorts were at 1EP.
Jimi - "Actually, the Klingons have probably the worst escorts of all the races. They use AD5's which are okay, nothing exceptional. But their light escorts are the F5E and the E4A, neither of which jumps out at you and says "Weeeee, look at me".
Let's rule out the Gorns, Lyrans, and Romulans, as they have the best escorts in the game. When you compare the Klingon escorts with the other 3 races, their escorts are on par with and even better than some of them.
Here is a ranking of light escorts strictly on compot
1) H-DWE
2) F-DE/DWA, Z-DWE, K-FWE
3) F-FFE, Z-FKE, K-F5E
4) H-AH
5) Z-EFF, K-E4A
Heavy Escorts (excluding CA and NCA based)
1) H-NEC
2) H-DE
3) Z-MEC, K-AD5
4) F-NAC
5) F-NEC
6) F-ECL, Z-CLE
I'm not seeing where the "worst escorts of all the races" comes in. If any thing, I would have to give that distinction to the Kzinti overall. Now, the advantage that tips it in the favor of the Klingons is the strength of the Kzinti carriers. There's nothing like the site of 15 Kzinti [CV+MEC+FKE/EFF] coming at you to make your day.