It will allow CVAs to be driven off the line faster, that's for sure.

By Greg Ernest (Grege) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 02:02 pm: Edit

Scott: You can still do the whole group at one shot. The example you gave (CVS,DE,FE) would be (8+(6+1)+(5+1))*2 = 42 points.

Unless I'm missing something.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 02:27 pm: Edit

There is no escort bonus if you direct the whole group at once. So that would be 36 to cripple, not 42.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 02:28 pm: Edit

From what I understood, you could still direct the whole group in one shot for 2-1 as normal. So it would take (8+6+5=19)x2=38 to cripple a whole CVS group in one shot.

-Peter

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 03:27 pm: Edit

Sounds right. I added the escort bonus to the CV, duh

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 04:00 pm: Edit

I screwed up, sorry, missed the part about targetting a CV group whole.

It'll still increase CA/FF kills like I stated though.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 04:45 pm: Edit

It increases FF kills, which I like.

It increases CA kills, which I dislike.

Nope, it won't work. We're better with what we have.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 04:47 pm: Edit

Well although this new rule WILL kill escorts and standard ships faster it will further skew the game flavor. The game is already a tad out of sorts with the rampant numbers of carriers/specialty ships built to the point that the "Workhorse" CA classes are merely a footnote. The flavor of the game needs to find a way to return toward the backbone of the fleets 'the standard CA class'.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 04:51 pm: Edit

How are Penal ships affected under this system?
How are Commando ships affected under this system?
How are Stasis ships affected under this system?

DIBS on the tacnote to use my first 1:1 attack to wipe out all my opponents fighters. Particularly those nasty Hydrans.

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 11:05 pm: Edit

heh..
That was my first thought as well.
each squadron should be treated as a single ship to prevent that abuse.
HOWEVER, oversized squadrons can be targeted as such.

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 11:08 pm: Edit

Penal and Stasis ships can already be targeted at 1-1, so no modification is necessary. this should be concidered extra 1-1's.
Commando ships should allow an extra 2-1 DD per commmando ship as they do now.

By Russell J. Manning (Rjmanning) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 11:19 pm: Edit

I'm also not sure I like formation box only being a one up. DN's will go down for 36 damage as a fisrt DD. 36 is easy to do on a large combat.

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 - 11:40 pm: Edit

This will have a huge negative effect on the Gorns, Lyrans and Hydrans as their higher compot ships will evaporate much quicker.
Also the Lyrans and Gorns have small build schedules and their Navies will simply evaporate.
Realistically, you can see 2 dead ships per turn, there is no reason not to take the 1-1 every round and 2-1 for a key unit is the norm.
The Lyrans build 12 ships a turn (and the Gorns 11), if they fight 7 rounds of combat a trun theri fleet will shrink until they have nothing, and as the aliance that would be a tempting tactic as that means less klingons will be free to strike at the Feds.

By Peter A. Kellerhall (Pak) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 01:00 am: Edit

Just game the new system -- offer stuffed CV-group-only lines or a crap line of CWs/FFs in the first round. In later rounds you can place a line of DNs out and no one is going to direct at 3-1, 4-1, 5-1 or more. Build HDW-C (CR10) ships just to die in first round as the required CR10 flagship you must put on the line to spare your real DNs.

...time to crank-up the cheese factory...

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 01:02 am: Edit

I actually liked the proposal that let people fry two escorts from a carrier group with their dirdam attack, if they score enough damage. This makes the multiship carrier groups more reasonable but is not insanely good dirdam. It would also keep the fleet sizes a little smaller (though still probably too big).

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:59 am: Edit

I kind of like this one.

1. It will make the FEG rule actually something to use rather than pathetic.
2. It will increase ship kills.
3. It will drive the CVs off the line quicker.
4. Once the CVs are driven off the line, you will only have your normal ships and independant squadrons to take damage on.

I think that I would want to make the fighters something to have to be included in the DD before their CV is crippled/destroyed.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 08:55 am: Edit

There should be no DD of fighters allowed in that case. Since you'll be able to drive the CV off the line faster anyway, most people would opt to kill the fighters too if they had damage left over, since no one really wants to feed fighters forward from an unescorted CV.

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 11:37 am: Edit

Keep a minimum of 3:1 vs the formation ship, otherwise flagships are dead, especially Coalition ones in a capital assault. 2:1 is still hideous, even with the lack of maulers vs. mobile targets.

At first glance, the Alliance is toast from this, but it would need to be playtested.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 02:09 pm: Edit

SVC: Your idea has potential. Your original idea (of 1:1 then 2:1 then 3:1, etc) does remove the limit of rule (302.51) in order to do damage this way.

Would you also consider the alternative method of just eliminating the 'once per combat round' limit of rule (302.51) on direct damage attacks?

If you just change (302.51) to let the players direct at 2:1 to their hearts content, then we can evalutate the effect to see if the first shot really needs to be 1:1, then 2:1 and on and on. As you said in your original proposal I doubt many players would go far beyond 2-3 attacks if they used it at all. All other rules (form bonus box, scout bunus box, maulers, etc.) can remain intact.

I would think that this would suffice to lower ship counts and still sustain a relative balance in the way the game is played.

Letting the damage fall will still be a decent option as it will still do more damage (1:1 but your opponents choice).
The abuse of taking out all fighters at 1:1 using the above proposed will be avoided.
Plus you gain the benefits of reducing carriers down in their logical order by still going through the escorts (still using the escort bonus) AND reducing pin counts.

This will not screw either side as both can do it from the beginning to the end of the war. It will merely be a slight strategy change for both sides.
It will still give players almost all of their current options with only a slightly higher (but even) risk factor for their existing ships. Furthermore, it will give players additional damage options as they may be able to divide their damage better amongst the normal and specialty ships.
The smaller hulls will get turned out more commonly by both sides "to feed the machine" which ends up being more true to life anyway.

Maybe someone can try it out on the small scale? Whip up some Y169 battlelines and try it. Then we can take it to the scenario trials.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Maybe you can add a rule regarding all combat hexes that says any ship involved in a battle hex (prior to retreat) is targetable.

Battle Force Units:
1:1 if the damage falls (defender choice)
2:1 if directed damage (attacker choice)
3:1 if directed damage protected by formation/scout
3:1 if directed damage against support echelon ships/units (e. Drone ships)

Non-Battle Force Units:
No damage applied by defender if not in BF.
4:1 if directed damage (This highger damage requirement level would allow for destruction of crippled key units outside the combat force at the extreme sacrifice of 4 times the damage.)
Maulers add no effect to this kind of targeting.
Bases (and units that are treated as bases) cannot be targeted in this manner.

By Dale Lloyd Fields (Dylkha) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:07 pm: Edit

Lawrence:

FCR = 24 damage to kill.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Oh, if it was not clear in my 2:09 PM post above I meant that you could be able to use the 1st attack on the lowest escort then the next attack on the second escort, and so on...

By Scott Burleson (Burl) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Another way to look at the multiple attacks would be to instead of increasing the odds per each successive ship (like 1:1 for first attack, 2:1 for second, 3:1, etc.), have the number of attack points used change at break points. For instance, 10 of your damage points can be used in a 1-1 directed attack, the next 20 damage points can be used in a 2-1 directed attack, etc. Ships that currently have greater protection (free scouts, formation) or worse protection (penal, stasis) simply are used independently of this system. Maulers make their attack independent of this system but other points needed for the target could be used from this system if the target is not one of the special ships mentioned above. Carriers can be used in this system with normal modifiers, as well as "non-free" scouts.

Using this rule in this manner makes small ships blow up faster than big ships and won't completely deprive the Gorns, Hydrans, and Lyrans of their navies.

Here are some examples:

For instance, if a Hydran line consists of 2xRN and other stuff, you may:

cripple the RN for 8
destroy the RN for 14 (10 at 1-1, 2 at 2-1)
cripple both RNs for 22 (10 at 1-1, 6 at 2-1)
destroy 1, cripple 1 for 30 (10 at 1-1, 10 at 2-1)
destroy both RNs for 42 (10 at 1-1, 10 at 2-1, 4 at 3-1)

For a Kzinti CV+MEC+EFF
cripple EFF for 6 (2xEsc + 4@1)
destroy EFF for 8 (2xEsc + 6@1)
destroy EFF, cripple MEC for 18 (2xEsc + 10@1 + 3@2)
destroy EFF, MEC for 26 (2xEsc + 10@1 + 7@2)
destroy EFF, MEC, cripple CV for 53 (2xEsc + 10@1 + 10@2 + 7@3)

With a mauler - which probably should be the first attack and thus could only attack the EFF, this becomes:
kEFF, cMEC: 15 (2xEsc + 6@1 (maul) + 7@1)
kEFF, kMEC: 20 (2xEsc + 6@1 (maul) + 10@1 + 1@2)
kEFF, kMEC, cCV: 41 (2xEsc + 6@1 (maul) + 10@1 + 10@2 + 1@3)

For Klingon D7, D5S (on battle line), 3D5, F5L, 2F5
cD7: 8
kD7: 14
k2F5: 22
kF5L, 2F5: 45
kD7, kF5: 30
kD7, kD5: 39
kD5S: 14 (should be 10@1, 2@2, instead of 1xSc 10@1, 1@2 I think)
kD5S, kD5: 39 (10@1, 10@2, 3@3)
kD5: 12
kF5L: 9

For 100 points you might do in a battle at Kzintai:
kill D7, D5S, 2xF5 (probably not as good as spreading it but for 42 you can kill D7 and D5S and spread 58 which might be worth it).

By Scott Burleson (Burl) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:17 pm: Edit

Actually, I like Lawrence's idea better, but I did waste about 30 minutes at work coming up with all that so I might as well post it ;)

Under Lawrence's idea, though, capital assaults become particularly brutal. A Kzinti player could blow up 1xD6M, 1xD6D, 1xD7 for 78 points at his capital.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:57 pm: Edit

Lawrence: I totally disagree that unlimited 2:1 dirdams would have any significant effect on ship counts. It just would not happen often enough to matter. So, no way is that a valid alternative, and I'm not even interested in testing it. Indeed, I have no choice but to regard your counter-proposal as a method to neuter the rule.

Robert: I could see doing something about fighters, maybe limiting the 1:1 attack to six factors, and the 2:1 attack to 12 and the 3:1 attack to 18.

Sean: I can see the merit of keeping the formation ship at a minimum of 3;1.

Scott: Way way way too complicated. Let's just say no.