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	Archive through October 21, 2009	25		10/22 10:43am
	Archive through August 26, 2014	25		08/27 08:40pm

Overcrippling happens almost every combat round in almost every game to some extent or another.

That does not mean that it is a bad thing.

What I'm saying is that you can cripple your BC to have -7 for the next round, but then your opponent leaves and you fail your pursuit roll leaving you to eat those -7 points at a cost of 2 EPs.

Before the 2010 rules, pursuit battles, at least as far the alliance was concerned with in the early war, was a bad proposition. At best you could get about 60 compot to fight a crippled fleet that had 70+ with -7 on both sides. The thing was with a mauler, the coalition could still, on average, kill something. The alliance would be lucky to kill one cruiser or 2 frigates, and there is no guarantee that they could have.

With the limit at -3 it is much more possible to kill a CA and FF even at average rolls. Yes, a mauler will still kill something, or sometimes more than 1 something.

edit:

While limiting voluntary minus points in all rounds of combat will probably ensure that bases and PDUs die quicker, It will have the effect of making fleets last longer over a given hardpoint.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - 05:59 am: Edit

Jason: It happens when advantageous and otherwise not. It's not something you should always do.

I do use it frequently, as both the Coalition *and* as the alliance.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - 01:07 pm: Edit

>>Keep in mind that playing with minus points can hurt you as you take them. It could mean crippling a ship you meant to save for the pursuit battle, or having crippled a ship that you didn't need to, for which you must now pay to repair.>>

Sure. Which is why you only do this when it will benefit you. You don't accidentally over cripple things. No one is ever going to over cripple a Lyran BC to force -9 points on their opponent, and then say "Oh no! I forgot I needed that for pursuit!" (I mean, yeah, ok, that *might*, but it is really unlikely. And that is just bad play and not a problem with rules).

Excessive over crippling of ships is a valuable tool that can be used reliably by the Coalition to an incredible effect (and less so the Alliance). For example, due to the lack of Alliance maulers, if you over cripple a CA/CC on round N, on round N+1, the Alliance is shooting through -8 or so points, meaning that the mauler or BT or DN you are now putting on the line is incredibly difficult to kill anywhere but over a homeworld. Or the BATS that the Alliance have already been mangled trying to get to through an approach battle and they need to kill is incredibly difficult to kill. Simply because of a random point of damage on the previous round crippling a BC, leaving -9 points on the table. Conversely, this is *much* less of an issue for the Coalition, where the existence of maulers means that the threshold of damage you need to breach to kill whatever your target is is *vastly* lower. Making maulers much more powerful in effect, and making the Alliance suffer *even more* for not having maulers than likely intended.

>>Voluntary minus points are exactly that, voluntary. You can take more now in hopes of using them later. If you don't use them then you lost them and must pay for them in EPs or XPs as you repair that "last" overcrippled unit.>>

Yes. This is true. It is a cost you pay for an effect that is vastly more beneficial than it is hinder some. You are the Coalition. The Alliance are coming to kill an important BATS (perhaps it is being upgraded to a SB). The round before they make it to the BATS, you over cripple a DN to hang -11 points around their neck. The Alliance then has a choice:

A) Go and try and kill the BATS anyway, which will be very difficult, and may result in a long chain of "Oops. Just missed 'cause of the minus points. I over cripple a BC and leave you at -9 again for next round. Good luck with that."

B) Realize that it might be completely fruitless to try and kill the BATS, and just give up and leave. Yeah, the Coalition over crippled a DN (or whatever) which they now have to pay to fix when they wouldn't have if they didn't over cripple. But the BATS lived, which was your main goal anyway.

>>The change in the limit for pursuit battles was needed to make pursuit battles both more deadly, and more often risked to kill more units.>>

Why was this needed? 'Cause abuse of the excessive over crippling rule unbalanced the game. Excessive over crippling does the same thing in non pursuit battles. Why are pursuit battles different enough to justify (a totally reasonable) arbitrary limit on voluntary minus points, but non pursuit battles are not?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - 06:40 pm: Edit

"Why was this needed? 'Cause abuse of the excessive over crippling rule unbalanced the game. Excessive over crippling does the same thing in non pursuit battles. Why are pursuit battles different enough to justify (a totally reasonable) arbitrary limit on voluntary minus points, but non pursuit battles are not?"

Its a good question. Why is the pursuit (where one side is fleeing) more important than the battle over the actual hex?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Well then, just what limit should be suggested then??

Pursuit = 3, normal = ??

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - 09:34 pm: Edit

As noted above, -3 (voluntary points) is as good an arbitrary limit as any. What you get by over crippling an FF. Involuntary points (from killing PDUs or carriers where fighters die that you can't land anywhere) should not be so limited. But for voluntary points, -3 seems like a reasonable number for pursuit, so why not regular combat?