Official Proposal: Minus Points using Minimum Defense Factor.

It has been a point of discussion that the manner in which voluntary damage resolution resulting in minus points has been twisted into an abusive 'over-crippling' strategy. Even after a limit on what carries into the pursuit round was passed the discussion continues.

The rules already present a precedent (in plus point rules) that could resolve the issue.
Let me explain...The rule on PLUS points is that you must resolve damage if it is 50% or more of your smallest defense factor. Let's then turn this concept (Minimum Defense Factor) around and apply it to MINUS points. the idea is that the ship that has the weakest defense factor is in fact the most vulnerable.

Proposed rule:
A player must NOT voluntarily resolve their last remaining damage points if doing so generates minus points more than 50% of their smallest ship's (not ship equivalent) defense factor. Any ship crippled by the enemy's directed damage in the same round may be excused from this requirement at the owners option. Free scouts and ships outside the battle force (but contributing) are exempted.

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Example#1: Say you have 1 point left to resolve. Your remaining fleet in your battleline is:
uncrippled FV (DF=5)
with 3 fighters (DF=3...1 each)
uncrippled E4A, (DF=4)
uncrippled F5 (DF=5)
uncrippled D5 (DF=7)
uncrippled D7C. (DF=9)

By using the rule of "Minimum Defense Factor" your smallest ships defense factor is the E4A (2) under this new rule you could:
- resolve the damage as either a fighter (1 is 100% of 1)

You cannot resolve on anything else.

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Example#2: Say your opponent direct cripples the E4A in the group and have 1 point left to resolve. Your remaining fleet in your battleline is:

uncrippled FV (DF=5)
with 3 fighters (DF=3...1 each)
crippled E4A, (DF=2)
uncrippled F5 (DF=5)
uncrippled D5 (DF=7)
uncrippled D7C. (DF=9)

By using the rule of "Minimum Defense Factor" your smallest ships defense factor is the E4A (2) under this new rule you could:
- resolve the damage as either a fighter (1 is 100% of 1) OR
- resolve the damage at the owners option on the E4A (1 is 50% of 2) which qualifies as an allowable minus point.

You cannot resolve on anything else.

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Example#3: Say your line is much bigger (DN, BCH, 3CC, 5 CA) and your opponent direct cripples the BCH in the group and have 3 points left to resolve. Your remaining fleet in your battleline is:

uncrippled DN (DF=12)
uncrippled CC. (DF=9)
uncrippled CA (DF=8)
crippled (directed on this round) BCH, (crippled DF=5)

By using the rule of "Minimum Defense Factor" your smallest ships defense factor is the CA (8) under this new rule you could:
- push the damage to next round by excusing the BCH (using the above rule) and using the PLUS POINT rules which say that there is not enough damage (50% of the smallest factor) to be resolved OR
- resolve the damage at the owners option on the BCH (2.5 is 50% of 5).

You cannot resolve on anything else.

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Notes:
Players can resolve damage in any order as normal. This rule only applies when the player is resolving and comes out to minus points. The order a player resolves has always been their own choice. This adds a restriction to resolving that final handful of damage. It does not eliminate minus points. They can still be generated. It limits them using a logical approach already placed in the game by ADB.

I found that if I did not exempt ships that had already been directed upon that would become the strategy.

Questions:
How do we prevent abuse of having opponent direct cripple a ship making it the smallest DF? Exempted.
Would this include G-ships directed upon? Yes. Exempted under direct damage exemption.
What about penal ships? Exempted under direct damage exemption.
What about free scouts? Exempted.
What about contributing third tier ships? Exempted.
Any ship forced from the battle line? Exempted.
What if my FCR (2 [6]-4) unit is in the middle of my carrier group on the line, if it is the smallest DF ship, do I have to take damage on it? A. If the remaining damage was 1 point, No. If it were 2 points remaining, you might have to yes, but in that case you may have fighters remaining to take the damage upon. Remember that before over-crippling became the norm you would have had to take the damage on it under the plus point rule.
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Comments? Requests for revisions, clarifications?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 08:19 pm: Edit

Another couple of Q&A that got missed:
What about Form Box? Not exempt. The Formation Bonus Box is a ship of the line but in the protected formation. If it happens to be your lowest DF when you get to the last few damage points to resolve then it would be included.

What about FEG's? Not exempt. If they are on the line they would be subject to the rule.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Looks interesting. Two questions:

1. Would a player be allowed to overcripple a larger than otherwise allowed unit but carry only the maximum allowed number of minus points. i.e. in your example #1, could I choose to cripple the E4A, getting 2 minus points? (instead of the 3 minus points that would be generated under current rules)

EDIT - 2nd question withdrawn, after I realized that it was non-sensical.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 11:21 pm: Edit

Actually I noticed that I had failed to properly edit that 1st example after I altered it a bit. It should say this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Example#1: Say you have 1 point left to resolve. Your remaining fleet in your battleline is:
uncrippled FV (DF=5)
with 3 fighters (DF=3...1 each)
uncrippled E4A, (DF=4)
uncrippled F5 (DF=5)
uncrippled D5 (DF=7)
uncrippled D7C. (DF=9)

By using the rule of "Minimum Defense Factor" your smallest ships defense factor is the E4A (4) under this new rule you would:
- ignore the single point of remaining damage as it is not enough to cripple any of your ships (it a plus point...see those rules).
- Under the rules for plus points you would have to resolve the damage on a fighter (1 is 100% of 1) as it is the only thing left that qualifies.

You cannot resolve on anything else.
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Jason: The answer to your question is no you cannot.

In thinking about the non-directed damage given to you to spend on your ships they should, every point of it, be considered as 'plus points'. That is exactly what they are until they are all spent. If you cannot spend them all then under the plus point rule they get transferred to the next round. These are subject to the minimum defense factor limit within their own rules. I just flipped the minus point concept to match this. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

By Dale Lloyd Fields (Dylkha) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 03:00 am: Edit

I do not accept the premise that overcrippling is a problem because I do not accept the premise that there are too many ships in the game (which I think the late war takes care of and works as a game dynamic). As a player I like my ships and I think that if someone was trying to punish my play style (lots of ships) in favor of their own style (few ships) it would be imposition*.

That said, if there must be a revision to the issue of minus points, then this one is the only one I think that leads to the least munchkinizing. From a physics and mathematics perspective, I like the symmetry in this proposal better than others. Especially since the issue of leaving damage order in the hands of the resolver avoids being forced (for many situations) into a bad place. It could also eliminate the existing arbitrary (but dialed to a reasonable effect) number of minus points taken into pursuit.

*Postscript: I happen to know Lar from Origins and thus I can be confident he doesn't do this consciously or unconsciously. That I don't know other people does not make it true of them. But I am worried about attempts to modify the system to suit someone's ideals that are not shown to be an issue with mathematics or the community at large. I'm only including the first statement because it needs to be said, and I'm already writing in support of this proposal. In this case I think Lar has made an interesting solution. Mind you, I don't think there is necessarily a problem, but the neatness of this proposal makes me wonder if it might be favorable anyway! (Minimizing N_arbitrary is always good towards increasing elegance as long as it doesn't wreck the system) I don't have much time these next couple of weeks, but I'll personally try and break it and munchkinize it as best I can and see if there are any interaction issues.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 08:41 am: Edit

Dale, I'm in agreement with you on the mathematics of Lar's proposal. I spent a day and a half trying to find ways in which it could be abused. And it is possible, but they would be very contrived circumstances in the first place, i.e., a fleet of B10's without fighters.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Proposed amendment: No restrictions on how many "minus points" may be generated done so by destroying a ship, even one that was already crippled.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 06:02 pm: Edit

Lar:

Thanks for the explanation. Looking at it from the perspective of plus points makes things a lot clearer.

Another question: Is the "smallest defense factor" for the purposes of the limit on number of minus points determined at the start of voluntary damage allocation, or at the instant prior to application of the last damage points? For example:

Scoring (all voluntary) 9 points on the following force:

D5 (D5S) [D5V,AD5,E4A],F5L

Is it legal to resolve this as:
4 (cripple E4A), 2 (kill E4A), 6 (cripple F5L) for 3 minus points, since 3 is 1/2 of the lowest defense factor at the moment of allocation?

Or, assuming I still resolve the first 6 points to kill the E4A, would I need to take the last 3 on fighters, since 3 minus points is more than 1/2 of the defense factor of the E4A?

I suspect the former to be the intent, but best to check.

Thanks,
Jason

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 06:48 pm: Edit

Dale: Thanks.

Jason: At the instant prior to application of the last damage point(s) is my intent here.
The order in which damage is resolved has always been available to the players. It keeps the resolution of damage in the players hands until the last bit of damage is applied and is 'self limiting' in regards to the minus point application (should there be any).

Garth: The rule itself is the limiting factor. You can indeed generate minus points for either crippling or destroying a ship. You just need at least 50% of the damage necessary to do it.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another example:
This is the one where players will feel a bit backed into a corner:

Say you have the following cripples in a pursuit battle:
1xD5S (1-4)
3xF5L (3-3)
1xE4A (1-2)

Your opponent directs and kills something else (an uncrippled ship in your line) and leaves you with 2 points left to resolve.

Under the new rule you MUST to resolve the '2' damage on the crippled E4A (1-2) because it is the 'Minimum Defense Factor' ship in the line. (Unless you have attrition units available that are smaller or that ship was exempted for some reason).


As a comparision: If he were to have left you with '3' points of damage you could choose either the F5L or the E4A. The F5L satisfies the resolving of damage as close to zero as possible (you still had choices). You could choose the E4A using up 2 of the 3 points. With the last point of damage remaining the MDF rule would kick in and you would discover that you cannot spend the last point (it is not 50% of any of your remaining ships Defense Factors, see the plus point rule). It would thus become a single plus point for the next round, but I said that this was pursuit so you can walk away laughing about your opponents lost damage opportunity.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 07:40 pm: Edit

Lar:

Confused on the last example: The smallest defense factor ship is the crippled E4A (2), so the player is allowed a maximum of 1 minus point after damage resolution. Why can't the 2 points be resolved by killing the crippled F5L, leaving the one allowed minus point?

Thanks,
Jason

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 10:03 pm: Edit

Ok...sorry yeah...you are correct. (I am studying for a midterm at the same time for my Dynamic mapping and visualization class...must have switched gears to quickly).

Say you have the following cripples in a pursuit battle:
1xD7C (5)
1xD5S (1-4)
3xF5L (3-3)
1xE4A (1-2)

Your opponent directs and kills something else (an uncrippled ship in your line) and leaves you with 2 points left to resolve.

Under the new rule to resolve the '2' damage you have the following options:
- You could resolve on the E4A (0-2) because 2 is 100% of its defense factor of 2 leaving zero plus or minus points (comes out even).
- You could resolve on the F5L (3) because 2 is 50% (or more) of its defense factor of 3 (meaning the ship qualifies) and thus it could be destroyed instead of the E4A leaving 1 minus point.
- You could resolve on the D5S (1-4) because 2 is 50% (or more) of its defense factor of 4 (meaning the ship qualifies) and thus you could destroy it instead of the E4A or F5L leaving 2 minus points.

No other ships qualify.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 12:05 am: Edit

Lawrence Bergen:
Comments? Requests for revisions, clarifications?

It will result in more ship kills (which is not such a bad thing) since you can no longer always cripple a big ship to protect a little ship from destruction.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 01:18 am: Edit

Specifically, if damage was applied randomly (to uncrippled ships) this would require a ship kill about 1 in every 2 combat rounds.

The problem is that damage is not applied randomly. The corollary to this is that forced ship kills will be reduced by increasing the micro-management of damage allocation. I don't think that is a good thing :-(

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 07:18 am: Edit

Peter the only round in which a player may be forced to kill an additional unit is in the pursuit round, or possibly any round in which a crippled unit in a battle force was not crippled in that round.

Voluntary Minus Points still exist making it possible, but highly unlikely that you would carry forward a large number of volunary minus points into the round. You wouldn't cripple your only BT or DN in the hex to resolve 6 points of damage when you have a 7 pt warcruiser to take it on.

Just as the Plus Points rule "forces" you to cripple a ship to get as close to zero as possible. This rule does the same thing with voluntary minus points.

No player ever carries more than 1 or 2 plus points forward, doing so usually helps your opponent. Even then you will cripple something to give you voluntary minus points. Carrying 3 (Play Test Rule) or even 7 (Current Rule) voluntary minus points forward is contrived (both rules) and under the current rule abused to the point of absurdity. Meaning you deliberately overcripple to try and protect things.

Yes, in the pursuit round it might force you to kill another crippled frigate or crippled war cruiser, depending on the amount of damage. This is not bad. This is good, especially in terms of economics. A crippled FF costs 1 EP (2 EP for Field Repairs) to repair, paid on the next econ phase that the FF is at a repair facility. If the Frigate is killed because of Lar's proposed rule, you lose the salvage value of the FF, anywhere from .625EP to .9EP. You still save .1 to .375 EP because you are not repairing that FF and did not receive salvage for it. Under the 2010 rules only, you saved the full 1 EP that you might need to build that shiny new B10 you want.

This rule might even encourage a couple of frigates to die in rounds before pursuit where they would save the repair cost and generate salvage.

volunatary is my emphasis on the nature of minus points under discussion. Involuntary minus points are unaffected as they can be generated by the direct result of an action or actions by your opponent.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 09:51 am: Edit

Thomas Mathews:
Peter the only round in which a player may be forced to kill an additional unit is in the pursuit round, or possibly any round in which a crippled unit in a battle force was not crippled in that round.

???

Am I missing something here?

Lawrence Bergen (Proposed rule):
A player must NOT voluntarily resolve their last remaining damage points if doing so generates minus points more than 50% of their smallest ship's (not ship equivalent) defense factor. Any ship crippled by the enemy's directed damage in the same round may be excused from this requirement at the owners option. Free scouts and ships outside the battle force (but contributing) are exempted.

As I read the above, if I had the (rather contrived for simplicity) battle force of 2CA and took 10 damage then I would be forced to kill one of the CA's.Ie:

• CA8 + CA8 (10 damage to resolve)

• /CA4 + CA8 (2 damage to resolve)

• CA8 (-2 damage)

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 10:22 am: Edit

Yes. By crippling the CA you exlude it from the rule. Thus giving you 2 plus points also allowed by the rules. As the 2 points left over are exactly 50 percent, you can go either way.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 10:42 am: Edit

Uh, doesn't the exemption only apply if the crippling was by directed damage? If it's done voluntarily, then yes, the CA would die for 10 points, instead of having the option to cripple both.

Lar, can you rule on this?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Yes, the exemption for applying the MDF rule for the last points of damage is on ships that were direct crippled during that round by your opponent.

Yes, the CA would die in this contrived case.

Remember this rule only applies, like the plus point rule, when you have run the damage points yet to resolve down to that last one or handful. Essentially when you are down to the last ship you are resolving upon. It may indeed be one you have voluntarily crippled. As my example to Jason last night (the 2nd 'correct' one) reminded there can be several choices left for you at this point. You may or my not have to make a tough choice. Not much different than you do now. It falls right in line with the desire for more ship kills.

Peter Hill's example is very much contrived, but not impossible. His statement about 1 kill in every 2 rounds is possible but highly improbable...nobody I know leaves 2 CA's out to dry like that...I know Pete, 'it was just an example'. I appreciate the challenge to the rule but IMHO the point further validates how this rule works for the good of the game.

Notes: As with many new rules there is a learning curve involved that will let the players dwell on such things and create strategy and even tactics around such a rule.

One such strategy/tactic would be to save some fighters during your voluntary resolution until the end as they cleanly resolve (protecting the crippled fleet dying like attrition units should).

On the flip side a tactic/strategy would be yet another reason to direct upon a players fighters leaving them to resolve the remainder in hopes of pushing a crippled unit over the edge.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 02:28 am: Edit

Lawrence Bergen:
Peter Hill's example is very much contrived, but not impossible.

I agree in a sense. I specifically chose the smallest possible case to demonstrate clearly to Thomas that his claim that "the only round in which a player may be forced to kill an additional unit is in the pursuit round, or possibly any round in which a crippled unit in a battle force was not crippled in that round" was not correct.

While this case was contrived to demonstrate a point, I believe it is indicative of an overall problem with the current form of the rule.

Let's look at some more general homogenous cases to get a feel for what is going on.

• A homogenous fleet of even defence factor ships (eg 9CA) [rare in practice, but not contrived] -> 50% chance that you MUST kill a ship.
  
  
• A homogenous fleet of odd defence factor ships (eg 8CW) -> 100%x(DF/2 round down)/DF chance that you MUST kill a ship [so 43% of a MUST kill for CW's].

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 03:26 am: Edit

Another example... Battle force: CC+9CA

IF you aren't prepared to cripple your CC to save a CA then there is the usual 50% chance of a forced kill:
o 1/2 - CA's crippled only.
o 1/2 - CA's crippled + 1CA killed.

IF you are prepared to cripple the CC then the odds become:
o 4/8 - CA's crippled only.
o 1/8 - CA's + 1CC crippled.
o 3/8 - CA's crippled + 1CA killed.

This fleet is still not diverse enough to avoid a forced kill.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 07:47 am: Edit

Lar's point about saving attrition units, until the end, is very valid. It is also correct. Attrition units are meant to die. After Fighters and PFs, both attrition units, then smaller ships, usually frigates, will tend to be the sacrificial lamb. Why? They are cheaper to replace, your build schedule has several per turn. A frigate or replacement PFs can be built at a local starbase. Fighters are replaced for free. Meaning they are closer to the front and ready to die sooner.

PFs cost money, you probably won't deliberately kill PFs. PFs don't generate salvage. Here's a good place in the late war to save a PF or 2. Really great for that casual PF flotilla you have running around.

You don't even have to kill the whole flotilla, usually you don't need to kill more than one or two. 2 PFs cost 1 EP to replace while a single 4pt frigate costs 2.5 EP to replace. 4 fighter factors cost nothing to replace.

This rule shows the value and one of the proper uses of attrtition units.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 08:34 am: Edit

"Which brings me to my original claim:...forced ship kills will be reduced by increasing the micro-management of damage allocation. I don't think that is a good thing"

Management of how you take your damage is as important as how you spend your EPs. It has always been that way. They are both ultimately an economic decision which is really what this game is about. There is no increase in it only a learning curve on how to manage it post rule change. It starts with having the knowledge about how the rules interact with each other and how you originally build your line. It is really not that much of a stretch for you to say if you build a line of all cruisers you may lose a cruiser. We all know this to be true. In point of fact if you put in an all cruiser line you might even get one directed out from under you. If you are Hydran its all but a guarantee.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 10:43 am: Edit

This rule will increase the time it takes to play out a battleround, due to the micro-management of damage application.

And that's a GOOD thing.

I'm bloody tired of taking hours on end to do economics, tug allocations, planning, movements, reactions... only to finally get to the actual combat in what is generally considered a *combat* game, and then have it over with in a few short minutes.

If there is going to be any increase to the time usage of this game, let it be in the part where we're actually fighting and killing things.

With that consideration in mind, I support this rule even more! (Though I must state that I would be just as happy with removing minus points and letting people overcrippling all they want. They want to save a CA by overcrippling a DN to resolve only 2 pts of damage, no minus points, I say let 'em!)

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 12:44 pm: Edit

Yeah, I'm finding this rule too complex for my taste. Removing the carry-over of voluntary minus points seems the simplest way to go.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 01:04 pm: Edit

Kevin Howard:
This rule will increase the time it takes to play out a battleround, due to the micro-management of damage application.

And that's a GOOD thing.

=:-O

Well, I guess that's possible too!

It does have one interesting effect. Adding a single carrier (even for generally non-carrier using races) to a fleet is invaluable since it guarantees that you won't be forced to kill a unit due to rounding (as you can always over-cripple a ship by under-killing fighters)!