Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through March 11, 2009	25		03/11 09:51am
	Archive through March 12, 2009	25		03/13 12:55pm
	Archive through March 15, 2009	25		03/16 11:23am
	Archive through March 20, 2009	25		03/21 10:01pm

"Reply - Your saying because I may or may not have wanted historic entry dates on variants (I honestly can't remember) amoung the many many people who inputted thoughts about F&E 2K, basically means your ideas are worth more, as your saying now (again I can't remember), you though it was a bad idea? "

Again, in English?

And the CLE and the entry dates happened in AO, not 2K. But regardless, I was against the changes, becaue I didn't think it mattered enough to change. But the AWC whined and whined and whined, and it turned out that the change hurt them more than what not having the CWS for the Lyrans. And even then, I STILL didn't want to do the change. BUT, after all the whining and crying the AWC did over the CWS, SVC was not going to undo his decision. SO, as a balance, the scout pods were introduce (which I supported) so the Alliance wouldn't get crippled in the EW arena.


"which when it was 'signed off' surely was agreed to be balanced across the whole product"

That doesn't mean it was balanced.


"So if you feel so strongly now that FO is unbalanced - why didn't you raise it back in 2004? Hopefully you will agree it's a fair question. "

I wasn't on the forum then, having had been banned for a time. I was gone for most of 3 years. Did you not remember this?

Had I been around, you can be damend well sure that I'd have said something. I'd also have been against the Lyrans and Gorns getting as many carrier options as they got.


"are not all proposed rule changes 'Game Enhancements'?"

Only if they are good ones.


I've done tons for the Alliance, both in public and behind the scenes; I'mj not going to listen to someone who is partisan all day every day telling me that I'm partisan

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 07:20 am: Edit

Well, I was only going off the front of the FO rule book which lists the Design and Development Staff and it states you was a member of 2004 Project Staff. It would appear you were more involved then you remember?

Unless thats a different Joe Stevenson?

(And yes, I do remember your 'gap' years)

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 12:08 pm: Edit

I have no idea why my name is on the 2004 staff, because I wasn't around.

I didn't see CVDs, CVPs and all those other carriers until I bought the products.

Perhaps SVC was being generous. Or maybe some ideas I'd thrown out there earlier were considered or influenced the work, and SVC wanted to make sure I got credit for it.

But I know for certain I wasn't around when it mattered, because I know for •••••• sure that I would have done everything I could to see the Roms would have gotten a CVD.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 12:56 pm: Edit

Fair enough! (As there was a limited number of names of the list, I assumed you were heavily involved - I apololgise for this incorrect assumption)

So what did you think of the delay to Gorn cheap repair ships then?

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Joe, what would the Rom CVD look like, I mean wouldn't it basically be the SUB without the torps?

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:21 pm: Edit

"So what did you think of the delay to Gorn cheap repair ships then? "

I don't know. I'll have to think about it.

To be honest, I don't really like doing either thing. I'm pretty much against taking things away from each empire (I didn't like the Kzinti losing the CVE in BGs, and IMO, they are owed something in compensation, since the CVE was put in to balance other things in AO). So even if I concluded that it was a fair trade (not saying that I have, I haven't done an analysis yet), but generally, I don't like deletions.

I'd rather add things to both sides.


Stewart,

The Viperhawk is the Rom CVD. I believe it was in CL 36.
Thanks to Mike Curtis and SPP for coming up with the layout.
My wife Suzanne came up with the name

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:24 pm: Edit

One of the problems is that there really isn't a good model for a native Romulan CVD: there are already two 24+ fighter cruiser hulls (SUB and FAB), but both retain the full compliment of heavy torpedoes. There is a SIT entry for a KRU CVD (Rom equivalent of a D6U), listed for a future product, and I think that is probably the best choice for a Rom CVD.

Cheers,
Jason

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Oops... Forgot about the Viperhawk. DOH!

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:38 pm: Edit

Don't feel bad about it Jason, so did I...

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:06 pm: Edit

As a dim recollection:

New ships in FO were mostly limited to those in J2. Since neither the Gorns nor Romulans had been given a true CVD by the SFB designers, it was probably left as a "plasma idiosyncracy" rather than force SFB to absorb a Romulan carrier without heavy weapons.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:16 pm: Edit

The Gorns got a CVP

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:31 pm: Edit

Yes, J2 gave the Gorns a CVP, which translated into FO. And J2 gave the Gorns a "CVD" with a move of 5 and two standard squadrons. (Hmm, nobody seems to want another of those. Especially not the Romulans who already are threatened by the speed-5 topic.)

Sorry, Joe. Somewhere around the time that FO was published, there were comments in CL about pure SFB players not liking the ships that F&E was introducing into the system. As I recall, it was felt that a Romulan CVD would not go over well, when there was a perfectly good SUB to work with. So, it was left to a more vocal proponent of the concept to get it introduced.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 09:45 am: Edit

Jeff,

Thanks for the background.

The problem of course is that the SFB players have completely different considerations; they don't have the sqn limit, do they?

By Oliver Dewey Upshaw III (Oliverupshaw) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 09:35 pm: Edit

SFB players do have the 3 sqn limit on attrition units that is in F&E.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:54 pm: Edit

The SFB limit is different, though, as it counts squadron organizations, not fighter factors.
In F&E, a SKB (4) and a SPB (8) total 12 fighter factors, allowing another 6 factors or an oversized squadron to be added.
In SFB, the SKB has 1 squadron and the SPB has 2 squadrons, completely filling the allowed 3 squadrons.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 12:07 am: Edit

"In SFB, the SKB has 1 squadron and the SPB has 2 squadrons, completely filling the allowed 3 squadrons."

I've sometimes thought that the Romulans should have that as standard. 4 factor squadrons. It would seriously change the dynamics, though, making the Romulans into a far lesser carrier race and due to their geographical isolation, it would mean the end of them for sure.

But still, it's be cool to have more significant differences between the way the empires operate.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 02:01 pm: Edit

Thats a good idea...for Early Beginnings...a logistical limit to fighter squadron size.

Hey Tim...

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 08:25 am: Edit

On balance.

You know, I really could not care two hoots about balance. Delete a ship or five from OOBs - whatever. I am more concerned that a major game mechanic (pursuit) is almost entirely nerfed by a mauler tactic.

And the original product (F&E2000) was balanced WITHOUT this mauler tactic, because at that point, virtually no-one knew of the tactic - saving maulers for this requires discipline.

So, I would contend that the evolution of this tactic has actually unbalanced things, and that the tactic needs to be partially nerfed in order to rectify things.

I mean - when the Steve's wrote the mauler rule, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would not have thought that maulers would end up being most effective when being pursued. If anything, they would probably have imagined maulers being excellet in the pursuers forces, partly due to the tremendous tractor beam threat.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 09:48 am: Edit

After rereading the entire thread I think we all have forgotten that just about every pursuit battle will have minus points on both sides.

Certainly 7 minus points is going to change the amount of damage taken by both sides and will change what you can cripple or kill.

If I know I'm going to retreat I will certainly take great pains to have 7 minus points. I would also give serious consideration to having 7 minus points if I'm retreating behind a crippled base so as to give the base the possibility of surviving another round just to annoy my opponent.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 10:05 am: Edit

I gotta agree with everything that David Slatter said.

To hoot with balance, it's the flavor of the game mechanics that needs fixing. Rebalance it later, after the use of the mauler makes sense.

By John de Michele (Johnad) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 12:15 pm: Edit

Do we really need to kick this dead horse?

John.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Didn't we have an entire discussion on ways to kick a dead horse?

By John de Michele (Johnad) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 01:09 pm: Edit

I thought those rules were already in playtest .

John.

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 11:06 pm: Edit

I'm not for or against this proposal but think this is a good topic for players to understand the complexity the game designer has in balancing things out to how things should work.

Notes to add for people reading this proposal within current 2010 rules:
308.413: to get the mauler effect you must select 3 BIR and have at least a 4 BIR.

AO 528.35: if there is an uncrippled penal ship one must be included in the pursued force. This probably limits pursuit to C8-D6M-D6J plus 8-10 cripples given that there could be an ADML and MMG.

308.45: Formation limitation: Maulers only get half their factor against such ships. 19 points to kill a cruiser(5+7*2)

My take on Shock: happens after shooting anyways. maybe pursued ship has to roll for shock before DirDam?


FEGs have an effect, but you already formed them right?

Crippled maulers are prime targets for drone raids. You only need to do 2 points. The defense to this is put 2 ships in each hex around your protected targets and react out 1 ship to pin the Drone Ships.

Given a mauler or a penal ship in an opposing fleet I tend to advocate pursuing with a carrier force which means keeping a CV and UH group handy. Yes go ahead and direct on my AH.

If playing with a Gorn DNT or player with X-Ships or conjectural/captured maulers I like saving them for pursuing Coalition units.