You very rarely if ever see anyone take plus points to the next round under the rules. That is because voluntary minus points are much better.

This rule limits the amount of overcrippling based on your fleet composition. If your crazy enough to have 11 or even 12 B-10s in a single line then you deserve to have to kill one because you built your line improperly and mismanaged the damage you have to take.

Losing a B-10 is on average a loss of 29.2 EPs excluding fighters. that is 9-5pt frigates plus 2.25 or so EPs for salvage of those same 9 frigates.
Those same 29EPs are 58 PFs. that's 9+ flotillas of PFs. While you don't get salvage for those PFs the ability to sacrafice one or two to save a cruiser or dreadnaught more than makes up for their loss.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Kosta: I used to like the propopsal (zero minus point carry-over) for its perception of simplicity but I have reversed my thoughts about it. Essentially it does nothing or potentially even worsens the proposed problem of 'too many ships' as you protect ships that could have been destroyed by crippling another ship, and all it gets you is more record keeping during the Econ phase and a continued desire to build more units.

It is my opinion that even less people would enjoy crippling a ship to protect another while not getting ANY credit what-so-ever for the damage. They can still get a few minus points in this proposal and the trade off is they may have to occasionally kill ONE crippled ship they hadn't planned to kill.

Its not that complex really.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Truthfully, if people had to play with no (voluntary) +/- carryover I think people would get used to it pretty quickly and it wouldn't damage the game (not a suggestion... just an observation :-)

Less book-keeping... but maybe also less fun?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 11:14 pm: Edit

Lar, my amendment would encourage killing ships, which is somehting SVC desires. Without this addition, your rule inhibits killing ships somewhat.


Garth L. Getgen

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 10:43 am: Edit

Sorry Garth, it actually falls on the side of killing more ships as Peter pointed out just not as bad as he made it out to be.

I preserved the players choices which is what the players would want. SVC is a river to his people. I have yet to hear from Chuck on this on its way up to SVC.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 02:01 pm: Edit

Lawrence Bergen:
Sorry Garth, it actually falls on the side of killing more ships as Peter pointed out just not as bad as he made it out to be.

Except that (as I mentioned above) adding even a single carrier guarantees that you won't be forced to kill a unit due to rounding.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Yep, ...and per my tactical discussion not much different than in the current rules set. Players retain choices everyone benefits from improved game.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - 05:22 pm: Edit

I like this rule - once I got my head around it!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, August 25, 2014 - 08:05 pm: Edit

Fully realizing that this thread is, like, 5 years old, I'd like to resurrect the discussion of fixing minus points.

I think at this point in the evolution of the game, minus point "abuse" (I mean, like, as it is legal, it makes perfect sense to do this. But it probably shouldn't be legal.) is one of the main things that needs fixing. The ability to score a single point of damage on a big ship to generate a significant pile of negative points to shoot through on the next round is a very problematic issue. Certainly for the Alliance, due to their lack of maulers.

I think maulers are fine in general, but when a significant pile of negative points are involved, their power is exacerbated and the Alliance's total lack of them becomes a huge problem. With -8 or -9 points hanging over the head of the Alliance, their lack of maulers means that direct killing an important target (such as a BATS that they have already killed themselves to get to or, well, a mauler) is incredibly difficult. Conversely, the Coalition can be saddled with -8 or -9 points, and they can still direct anything important that they want to direct, due to, well maulers.

Pursuit fights have an arbitrary limit of 3 (voluntary) negative points (doubled in multi system capital battles), and that was determined to be a reasonable limit simply for balance purposes. I'd propose that the arbitrary limit of 3 (voluntary) negative points is applied to *all* battles. You could still overcripple bigger ships if needed, but anything over -3 would be ignored. Invlountary negative points (like from dead fighters on carriers or PDUs that get killed and have no where to land) could be an additional minus as usual.

There are plenty of of convoluted ways to limit negative point abuse (such as the "you can't have more negative points than the smallest thing you crippled" or whatever rule, which I think was Lawrence's original suggestion in this thread), but I think just an blanket, arbitrary limit of -3 is simple and effective.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, August 25, 2014 - 08:16 pm: Edit

I have been using this ability against Mr. Bakija extensively in my game with him and I do agree that there should probably be some limit.

I suggest that voluntary minus points in a battle round be limited to the maximum of three points or whatever minus points are generated by crippling the smallest ship in a battle force (ie a lone CA crippled by 4 points of damage gives 4 minus points).

I don't think involuntary minus points should be limited in this way.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 09:09 am: Edit

Richard's plan is also a good one that is pretty simple as well (I like solutions that are simple and effective enough as opposed to more complicated and a little better :-)

I'll also point out that along with the mauler issue, overcrippling is something that the Coalition have a much easier time doing in general, due to more money and more big ships (and I can't imagine that this is an intentional advantage for them)--overcrippling a Lyran BC to make the Alliance shoot through -9 points on the next round in a fight that the Alliance are going to be retreating from anyway is something the Lyrans can do on a regular basis with almost no ill effect. Conversely, if, say, the Hydrans are pushed off map, them overcrippling even a CW for -6 points is likely preventing them from building a ship on the next turn.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 09:37 am: Edit

---

Quote:

I suggest that voluntary minus points in a battle round be limited to the maximum of three points or whatever minus points are generated by crippling the smallest ship in a battle force...

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By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 10:27 am: Edit

No, I said it wrong. The maximum voluntary minus points should be 3, unless there is no way to avoid crippling or destroying a unit (while resolving all of the damage) that would end up with more than 3 voluntary minus points.

For example, a single DNL taking 6 damage would be 5 minus points because you have no other way of taking the damage.

But if you had DN 9CW 6IFF and took 6 damage, you could not kill 5 fighters and cripple a CW and get more than three minus points, as you could instead cripple a CW for one minus point or kill 6 fighter factors. You could take 2 fighter factors and cripple a CW for -3.

Note that you can still cripple or destroy anything you want as long as you have a damage point left, it's just that the voluntary minus points you get may be limited to three.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 10:58 am: Edit

I second this proposal.

Note that the Alliance can use this tactic to devastating effect, as well, in capital assaults. Even with maulers, it may be difficult to destroy more PDUs or a crippled SB, for example, extending the pain of the battle.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 02:52 pm: Edit

Unless determined otherwise from ADB, FEDS does no agree that there is a problem with the current system and does not support making any changes to the current rule.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 03:10 pm: Edit

Can FEDS articulate why it is *not* a problem?

The game designers saw that negative points were certainly a problem in pursuit battles (which, really, they weren't any more of a problem there than in regular fights), and provided a completely reasonable arbitrary limit to negative points for pursuit battles. Which made pursuit battles a lot more reasonable.

Currently, it is highly problematic for, well, anyone who is attacking a specific target (PDUs, BATS, supply TG, a specific ship) to have their opponent score a single point of damage on a big ship and make them burn through -9 points, or whatever, to try and get their target. And due to the Alliance not having maulers, it tends to be a lot worse for them to deal with.

Excessive negative points are (likely an unintentional) significant advantage for the Coalition a great deal of the time. And just seems all around silly to be able to score, like, 2 points of damage on 1 fighter (of which there are plenty to hit) and then a Lyran BC, just to create 9 minus points for the next round.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 03:25 pm: Edit

<HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT><P>And just seems all around silly to be able to score, like, 2 points of damage on 1 fighter (of which there are plenty to hit) and then a Lyran BC, just to create 9 minus points for the next round.<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0>

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 03:54 pm: Edit

I use this rule frequently, and it used against me frequently, by multiple different opponents. While I personally would rather see it changed in a manner similar to what Peter has suggested, it is unjust to accuse players like us as being either cheaters or cheesers. This is the rule, and it used accordingly. Using a rule as-written is, by definition, not cheating - and it is not cheesy either.

Please refrain from unjust accusations.

I also won't have a big problem if this proposal (like most others) is rejected. That just means the game is operating as intended, which is fine.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Completely agree with Ted in all particulars.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Gentlemen, I was going to post something, but Ted has already provided the explanation.

Please be mindful of what you write and what you say about other people.

Jean
WebMom

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 05:05 pm: Edit

Ted wrote:
>>I use this rule frequently, and it used against me frequently, by multiple different opponents. While I personally would rather see it changed in a manner similar to what Peter has suggested, it is unjust to accuse players like us as being either cheaters or cheesers. This is the rule, and it used accordingly. Using a rule as-written is, by definition, not cheating - and it is not cheesy either.>>

Yeah, please, I'm 100% not interested in this discussion becoming something other than an analysis of the particulars of this rule. Overcrippling is currently a rule. Using it is a good idea in a very large number of circumstances. So people use it. And rightly so. But I think clearly, the rule is a bad one, and could use an adjustment.

I think that excessive over crippling is one of the biggest (if not *the* biggest) rules problems left in the game that is, generally speaking, very well tuned. It causes significant balance issues (for my money), and is likely an unintentional advantage for whoever is using it (usually the Coalition, who certainly in the base game, don't need *more* advantages; the Alliance can certainly take advantage of it, but in far fewer situations). And the game designers have already ceded that in some instances (see: pursuit battles), an arbitrary limit on minus points is a reasonable solution to a balance problem. And they also removed the ability to overcripple a whole CV group (which used to be a legal maneuver--cripple a Kzinti CV group with 1 point of damage to make the Coalition shoot through -23 points…), as it was determined that *that* was a problematic aspect to overcrippling as well.

Like, to be clear, if this isn't something that is fixed, we'll all live and continue playing. But I suspect that it is something that a large portion of the player base would like to see fixed.

I'm interested in anyone explaining how excessive overcrippling (i.e. hitting a CC or BC with 1 point of damage to make your opponent shoot through -9 points or something on the next turn, specifically to prevent them from directing an important ship or base, because they are the Alliance and don't have maulers) seems like a totally reasonable outcome of the current rules.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 06:47 pm: Edit

I agree that it is a big issue which should be looked at.

Whether it is the biggest, Im not so sure.

But things I take issue with seem to be generally accepted by the bulk of the players so are not worth raising.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 07:25 pm: Edit

I am in favor of Peter's proposal, because it eliminates a very cheesy (entirely legal, and very logical to do so long as it remains legal, but still cheesy) way to game the order of damage resolution. As things currently stand, fighters can be turned into free (economically) minus points at will. I would argue that a player should face at least some cost for the benefits provided by generating voluntary minus points.

Example: 7 damage to be taken - first, destroy 6 fighters - next, cripple a CW - result 6 minus points, i.e. the six fighters which were destroyed.

An alternative way to get rid of this problem, if folks are adamantly opposed to an absolute limit on minus points, would be to place a limit of 1 voluntary minus point for any round in which a player voluntarily destroys any attrition units. The 1 point allows for blowing up a PF to satisfy 1 damage.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 10:44 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.

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.

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.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 10:47 pm: Edit

Thomas, if it was a risky proposition it wouldnt happen often.

I'd hazard a guess and say that it happens whenever possible.