All the talk of changing how Carriers work in F&E got me thinking about Maulers. To better reflect how Maulers work in SFB, I propose the following changes:

1) Maulers continue to work per the current rules for COMPOT and Consort requirements
2) Maulers planning to use their special ability must be announced after BIR is revealed, but BEFORE the roll for VBIR and the damage roll.
3) The opposing player can indicate that they will attempt to stop the Mauler(s), thus preallocating their DD attack against the Mauler(s). Multiple Maulers can be targetted with one DD attack.
4) Damage is rolled normally.
5) When resolving Damage, a Mauler can only use its special ability if the opposing player has not preallocated their DD attack against it, OR if they have preallocated their DD attack, but did not produce enough damage to at least cripple the Mauler.
6) Any Mauler that survives step 5 uncrippled and uses its Mauler ability, must roll for Shock as normal.

This would better model the fact that the defenders normally know that the enemy fleet contains a Mauler, can identify it with a Scout, and then proceed to target it. However, this usually result in the Mauler distracting the ships from other targets.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 03:07 am: Edit

I think the general idea of this is that if the opponent directs on the mauler, then it can't use its ability. Maulers are way overpowered. Not as much as carriers, but they are definitely too good. Therefore I support this aspect of the idea.

What I can't agree with is forcing the owner of the mauler to announce beforehand whether he is planning to use it or not, then forcing the opponent to announce whether they are using dirdam to prevent this. My problem with this is that it adds yet two more steps to a combat procedure that already has too many steps in it.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 04:09 am: Edit

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What I can't agree with is forcing the owner of the mauler to announce beforehand whether he is planning to use it or not, then forcing the opponent to announce whether they are using dirdam to prevent this.

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By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 09:45 am: Edit

William wrote:
>>I think the general idea of this is that if the opponent directs on the mauler, then it can't use its ability. Maulers are way overpowered. Not as much as carriers, but they are definitely too good. Therefore I support this aspect of the idea.>>

Much like carriers, it is true that, certainly compared to SFB, maulers are wildly overpowered (in SFB, really, what can a D6M do that a Fed NCL can't, in terms of shooting stuff?). But also much like carriers, they are part of the balance of the game. If you change Maulers, you have to change something else to give the Coalition back what it looses.

-Peter

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 11:53 am: Edit

Well it is standard practice to push a mauler forward. Perhaps if maulers are over-powered, you could require the player using the mauler to take one (of equal or higher MC, two if lower eg a D6M tractors an F5 and a D5) of his ships out of the offensive potential calculation (as that ship(s) puts all her power to reinfrcement and movement and thus doesn't arm weapons).
This requirment would then not be applied to attacks on stationary targets (bases).

I'm not saying this ought be done but reaching into standard SFB mauler tactics might be a guide as to how to make maulers more like what they are under SFB.

And you'ld probably have to counterbalance by increasing the number of maulers the coalition has which makes for more counters and not much else.
Is realism really so important???

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:06 pm: Edit

MJC wrote:
>>I'm not saying this ought be done but reaching into standard SFB mauler tactics might be a guide as to how to make maulers more like what they are under SFB.>>

You don't *need* to make Maulers more like they are in SFB. If Maulers are too powerful, in the sense that they give the Coalition too much of an advantage, which throws the game out of whack (which may or may not be the case, btu I'm inclined to lean towards not), then yeah, Maulers need to be scaled back.

But currently, the game is pretty balanced. And the way Maulers currently work is part of that. Change the Maulers, you have to change something else to balance it out. And I don't think it is worth it.

-Peter

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:14 pm: Edit

The only way to change maulers is to eliminate the out-of-phase carrier retrogrades.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 01:09 pm: Edit

Is it that time of year again? CEDS and maulers, here we go again!

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 01:29 pm: Edit

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Well it is standard practice to push a mauler forward. Perhaps if maulers are over-powered, you could require the player using the mauler to take one (of equal or higher MC, two if lower eg a D6M tractors an F5 and a D5) of his ships out of the offensive potential calculation (as that ship(s) puts all her power to reinfrcement and movement and thus doesn't arm weapons).

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By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Peter wrote:

If you change Maulers, you have to change something else to give the Coalition back what it looses.

********

perfect! Nerf both maulers and carriers.

By Philippe le bas (Phil) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 03:09 pm: Edit

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Is it that time of year again? CEDS and maulers, here we go again!

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By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 04:51 pm: Edit

William wrote:
>>perfect! Nerf both maulers and carriers.>>

To what end?

I suspect that killing CV groups is probably more damaging to the Alliance than killing Maulers is to the Coalition, so it is hardly going to be an even trade. But even then, what does this accomplish? Why is it necessary to do this?

The game is currently, pretty much balanced. The Coalition still has a slight advantage over the Alliance (in the basic game), but it isn't game breaking by any stretch of the imagination. And it has taken 14 years of playtesting (from '86 till 2K) to get to this point. And the balance *includes* the way CVs work and the way Maulers work. What is gained by changing major game functions at this point? If you change carrier groups, the Alliance take a *significant* hit in terms of game balance. And downgrading Maulers is in no way going to make up for this (unless the tweak to CVs is very minion, in which case, why bother?) As the evolution of the game from '86 till 2K was pretty much a never ending quest to make the game balanced (by making the Alliance position more tennable), and killing carriers will just push the Alliance back down again, how is this a good idea?

-Peter

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 05:56 pm: Edit

I for one would regard the mauler change as more significant than the carrier one.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 06:21 pm: Edit

What are we going to call this new game?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 06:22 pm: Edit

Empire and Federation?

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 06:26 pm: Edit

The Empires Strike Back?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 06:29 pm: Edit

Steve wrote:
>>I for one would regard the mauler change as more significant than the carrier one.>>

I wasn't refering to the loss of out of turn retrograde--William has been suggesting all sorts of very drastic ways to make carriers much easier to kill.

-Peter

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Yeah, well, all the Coalition players would like to see the Alliance CVs "nerfed". Or at least the ones that don't want fair fights.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 11:30 pm: Edit

Great, are we back to the good old days of "Pro-alliance proposals" vs "Pro-coalition proposals"? You know, Michael Lui, some of us want to reduce the effectiveness of carriers just to have a different experience with F&E. I weakened the carrier for my game, and I love playing the Kzinties. Don't throw around claims of 'coalition players would like this', or 'at least the ones that don't want fair fights'. We got rid of that sentiment here a couple years back, we don't need it returning.

Edit: After reviewing what I just wrote, I am questioning the wisdom of posting in anger. I thusly apologize for any offense you may take, I meant no major disrespect. Yet, here I am hitting the Post button...

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Friday, September 08, 2006 - 07:28 am: Edit

Sorry, knee-jerk reaction. The Coalition does get good CVs later on, but anything that hurts the early CVs hurts the Alliance more than the Coalition. Maybe if there was a delayed start time on making CVs easier to kill, like after the first 10 Turns or so...

What did you do to the CVs in your game?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, September 08, 2006 - 05:37 pm: Edit

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...some of us want to reduce the effectiveness of carriers just to have a different experience with F&E.

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