OK, cool.

What about this:

We let the Andro's go with the PA Panel's absorbing damage, and getting turned "off", but each battle round continues with the same fleet (no additions or removal) thus changing each "Battle Hex" from a series of battles, to one titanic long lasting battle.

Let the GP forces keep their original CR, just no replacements can be added between "rounds" as it is still the same battle in SFB.

The Andros do the same, in they can't replace Sat-Ships, just "regenerate" PA panels between rounds.

The battle could go on like this until:
1) One side retreats
2) Andro's cut it off, and want to continue (it is assumed they pull back far enough, and attack again in a few days) Thus letting both sides replenish anything (fighters, PFs, ships) in the battle line

Thus you could have 2 Dominators show up, with 13PA panels each lets say, as start pounding the crap out of a location, because the PA panels will absorb a lot of the "Oh just take 40 damage", and give them more endurace. Whereas the GP player takes it on his ships, and he cannot replace the 3CW+3DWs that got crippled in the battlegroup, they now have to fight crippled in round 2.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Scott,

I was thinking of something similar, but it kinda scares me. It changes a major game dynamic and I don't really know what the impact of that would be...

Take for example:
GP: CA, SC, 2x3CV, 6xCW, 12xDW (generic race)
vs
Andro: DOM, INT, 2xCOQ, sat ships

The GP would form up (most likely)
CA, SC, 3CV, BG[3xCW, 3xDW]
The Andro has every reason to stick around and cause those ships to fight on. The GP however may want to cycle through some of the BG ships to kill more sat ships. However, if the 3xDW get crippled the first round, they certainly don't want to leave them out there. Can only those 3xDW retreat? Can they be removed from the line at least?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 01:45 pm: Edit

the difference between the latest PA panel proposal and the damage absorbion is that with damage absorbion the damage just vanishes and is never seen again, with the PA panel proposal the damage can accumulate, forcing even a Dom off the line for at least one round (as the PA panels fill up it becomes easier to direct on it)

for those who jsut started reading it here is a new version of the PA panel proposal

1. PA panels absorb damage up to the rating of the ship (either at 1:1 if voluntary or 2:1 if DD).
2. between combat rounds each ship clears 1/3 (rounded down) of it's origional PA panel rating, restoring capacity.
3. if a ship is not in combat for one round it can completely clear it's panels.
4. A mothership can transfer damage from it's panels to the panels of sat-ships it carries.
5. ships have a PA panel rating on both the uncrippled and crippled side, but the rating on the crippled side only counts if the ship starts the combat round crippled.

I do like the idea of making the F&E PA-panel rating match the number of PA panels on the front of a ship, but I'm not sure that will make sense for all the ships. can someone who has access to the SSD's post a list of how many panels each class of ship has?

we probably need some rule for the maulers letting them turn used PA panel capacity into increased mauler damage

by letting ships not in combat completely clear their panels it means we only need to track the state of the ships actually in combat continuously.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 01:49 pm: Edit

changing things so that the galactics aren't allowed to change their fleet between rounds would be a huge advantage for the andros.

from the number of andro ships I've seen so far the andros frequently operate with few backups, being able to force a glactic force of 100 ships at a BATS to loose 13 of them or retreat when faced with a pair of Doms just doesn't sound right.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Base Hulls, Front PAs:

Dominator: 13
Intruder: 8
Conquistador: 6
Python/Mamba: 6
Cobra: 4
Viper: 4

L-EM: 12
M-EM: 8
S-EM: 6

MWPs: 2

Re: Maulers+PA panels
A mauler could just add it's 'PA Panel' rating, to its COMPOT, thus increasing a Terminator, from a 5 (PA4)/3 ship, to a 9 COMPOT mauler. Still liable to shock on a 5/6.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 01:55 pm: Edit

COQ: 2xTRH, 2xDisDev, 1xHangar, 8xPh-2, 28 power, 6xBattery, 6xforward PA, 4xrear PA
EXP: 4xTRH, 2xDisDev, 0xHangar, 8xPh-2, 32 power, 6xBattery, 6xforward PA, 4xrear PA
MIS: 0xTRH, 2xDisDev, 3xHangar, 8xPh-2, 28 power, 6xBattery, 6xforward PA, 4xrear PA, 2xSensors
RAV: 1xTRH, 2xDisDev, 1xHangar, 8xPh-2, 28 power, 6xBattery, 6xforward PA, 4xrear PA, 2xTRL

INT: 3xTRH, 2xDisDev, 3xHangar, 8xPh-2, 40 power, 8xBattery, 8xforward PA, 6xrear PA
IMP: 5xTRH, 2xDisDev, 1xHangar, 8xPh-2, 44 power, 8xBattery, 8xforward PA, 6xrear PA
INF: 0xTRH, 2xDisDev, 6xHangar, 8xPh-2, 40 power, 8xBattery, 8xforward PA, 6xrear PA, 2xSensors
INS: 1xTRH, 2xDisDev, 3xHangar, 8xPh-2, 40 power, 8xBattery, 8xforward PA, 6xrear PA, 4xTRL

DOM: 4xTRH, 4xDisDev, 6xHangar, 16xPh-2, 61 power, 12xBattery, 13xforward PA, 8xrear PA
DMX: 8xTRH, 4xDisDev, 3xHangar, 16xPh-2, 74 power, 12xBattery, 13xforward PA, 8xrear PA
DMN: 0xTRH, 4xDisDev, 9xHangar, 16xPh-2, 61 power, 12xBattery, 13xforward PA, 8xrear PA, 4xSensors

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 02:06 pm: Edit

1 F&E dice roll represents a single engagement, not a single round. After a fight (die roll) all PA panels will be emptied instantly on an F&E scale.

It takes what? like 4 or 5 SFB turns to competely empty your panels?

This is irelevent on an F&E scale isn't it?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 02:14 pm: Edit

Ed, I think the intention of the "PA Ability" is to give the Andro's something like SIDS on each mothership (to put it loosely) and the Andro 'fragility' once the PAs are breached.

Somehow to show that their motherships are not as effective over time as SFB shows (PA degradation).

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 02:18 pm: Edit

Just started reading here...

DLang said, "changing things so that the galactics aren't allowed to change their fleet between rounds would be a huge advantage for the andros."

Maybe this has been brought up before but, how about allowing the Andros to direct against anything in the reserve area at a 3:1?
(Similar to targeting a drone ship or carrier supporting with its fighters.)

With regards to PA panels why dont you increase the Andro defense factor by 25-40% (SVC pick the number) and call that PA panels allow for absorption of more damage. No need to really be able to dump damage since this isnt SFB.

The maulers could be able to take on 33-50% (again SVC you pick) of there defense factor and add it to their 'maul power' suffering an increase on the shock die roll for doing so.

Seems simple enough without getting into mucky rules that slow the game down. Sorry if these things have been suggested as I have not scanned back through the 400+ posts.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Edward,
It only takes 1 impulse in theory for a Andro to empty it's panels (assuming the proper circumstances). 9 impulses (IIRC) is enough to get them fully back into fighting shape.

DOM with 130 pts in front panels, 0 in rear, empty batteries, 1 M-EM in hangar (not unusual setup IMHO).

Impulse n: drop front PA panels (since they're full anyway, you can even be facing the enemy). Damage is absorbed by M-EM (80) and batteries (50) leaving the rear panels empty and 10 points of batteries empty (2 batteries).
Impulse n+1: beam the M-EM out into space where it begins emptying it's energy into the vacuum.
Impulse n+8: After 8 impulse delay, DOM can turn PAs back on.

End result, DOM with full PA protection on all sides, 50 points of power to play with, and a little room left in batteries.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 02:38 pm: Edit

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Quote:

DavidL,
from the number of andro ships I've seen so far the andros frequently operate with few backups, being able to force a glactic force of 100 ships at a BATS to loose 13 of them or retreat when faced with a pair of Doms just doesn't sound right.

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By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 05:01 pm: Edit

the fact that andros can empty their panels so quickly is why I had origionally proposed that the PA panel damage be cleared completely between rounds (and was refering to it as damage absorbion)

unfortunantly this still leaves us with the qproblem of how do you drive the best motherships off the line and force others to expose themselves to fire.

if the PA panels can be cleared instantly then the andro player would build dominators for combat and then missionaries to carry sat-ships to back them up and build few if any intruders. the missionaries never see combat so their lower firepower is never a limitation.

if there is a way to drive the best andro ships off the line then you need the backup ships to be more capable (or quite a few more of the best ships) thereby encouraging the backups to be more combat capible rather then just glorified FCRs

Lawrence, the problem with just making the D-compot larger is that the andro will still be forced to allocate damage on his ships, and no matter how high the d-compot he will have to cripple and kill sat-ships for relativly small amounts of damage. with a PA panel rating the andro force will just shrug off damage until it gets above a certin point or unless the galactics direct on something.

while you can say that in SFB you always direct on an andro or you don't shoot at it, I will point out that the same thing goes for galactic ships, you seldom spread your fire and always try to kill the cripples quickly (remember that the FF faded from the fleets when it achieved the status of 'the largest thing I can blow up in one impulse'). In F&E the defender gets much more flexibility in how his fleet takes damage. in SFB terms think of fleets spread out like they needed to be with the pre-doomsday explosions (which is when F&E was designed). you can control which ships of yours take damage by adjusting your formation, you put ships you want him to not shoot at behind ships that you are more wiling to loose, and since your opponent's fleet is also spread out their firepower is diluted somewhat and it's not a single-impulse kill on much of anything. if you think of that style of combat as opposed to the tournament closed-map, fight-to-the-death approach that is more common nowdays then the andros become much more reasonable as well, my adjusting their formation they can draw fire from your fleet to the targets of their choice, then back those ships off to let them clear their panels.

back to my main point (and also answering Scott's issue about being out-attitioned)

if you don't have PA panels and set the compot to be

Dom 24/12
cobra 6/3

the andro max force (2xdom) would be 120 compot
the force scott lists above would be ~100 compot

assume 32.5% damage each round (about average for BIR 5)

round 1 the andros do 39 the galactics do 33
the galactics cripple the BG and replace it or kill 3xNCL and cripple 1, the andros either cripple 6 cobras or kill 3 and cripple 1

this is about a 1:1 exchange of sat-ships for DW/CW class ships

both sides could continue to do this until one side ran out, as noted the galactics have much deeper reserves then the andros, even with 6 missionaries as backups. and this is without considering the fighters that get replaced for free. even if you increased the D-compot by 50% the andros will run out much sooner, and this is with 3 missionaries per dominator (a ratio I think it historicly wrong)

now if you make the andro compots be

Dom 24-11(13)/12-6(7)
Cobra 6-3(4)/3-2(2)

then in each round the andro could absorb and clear 2x(13/3)=8 from the dom +12x(4/3)=12 from the cobras or 20 points of damage
or with just 1 missionary in reserve to exchange sat-ships with they could fill the panels of 6 of the cobras each round for 6x4 + 6x1 =30 points.

so if the galctics don't direct on anything a force of 2xDom, 1xMis would take no damage and eventually wear the galactics down. since the galacits won't cooperate with this they will direct on the first round to kill a sat-ship for 18, letting the other 12 damage be absorbed and cleared, after they do this even once the andros no longer have the ability to clear all their panels each round, they will have to choose between letting the damage accumulate (making for easier DD targets) or pulling more off the line (lowering their compot and giving them fewer PA panels to work with to absorb that rounds damage)

in any case this lets this force be much more of a threat to the glactics and the andros definantly have the advantage (with the galactics dirceting they are loosing ships at a 3:1 ratio, but are at least doing some damage)

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 07:27 pm: Edit

A couple comments from SFB on Andros.

1) Panels do NOT get rid of all their damage. Remember that at least 25% of the damage is degradation which is much harder to remove. While this doesn't matter much to the satships, it does become an issue for motherships (espcially the larger ones like DOMs).

Thus even in a long range sniping battle, if the Galactics have a signficantly superior fleet they will eventually force even a DOM to either retire or be destroyed. Say the galactics can do ~100 damage a pass (and the Andro brilliantly manages to only show the forward panels). On the second pass, the DOM now only has 105 capacity in its panels. On the thrid pass, it is down to 80, but has probably reduced the Galactics by 20 points so it can (just) do a third pass. Now it has 60 points of capacity, but the Galactics are probably only down to 70 damage. They only score minor internal damage (10 points) this pass, but the DOM only has 42 points of space left (and is probably facing 60 damage on the next pass). Over 4 passes, the DOM probably mission killed 4 or 5 ships in exchange for being forced to disengage. Obviously an actual battle will be more complex, but this should illustrate the issue.

Note that degradation is cleared at about the same rate that shields are repaired. It can take a DOM 50+ SFB turns to get rid of its degradation (although a DOM was probably forced to disengage well before it received that much degradation).

2) PA panels are not perfect (especially against disruptors), they leak. Thus in addition to the degradation, Andros will slowly take internal damage. While this is hull at first, it does make them more fragile when finally penetrated. Obviously this only applies in long-range drawn out battles (and primarily against the mid sized motherships).

3) In any sort of sniping game, the Andros are particuarly sensitive to mistakes and bad luck. All it takes is one salvo of hot photon dice and even a DOM is hurting (30 x 8 = 240 damage!). Or one failed self displacement that lets the galactics get all the rest of their phasers in arc or lets part of the drone wave impact. Note that since Galactic races are expecting ship losses, they are less affected (in that they're not riding the edge of not getting ahniliated). In my example above, if the galactics had done 20% more damage any round (other than the first)--not unreasonable SFB damage variance--the DOM would have been in significant trouble.

This may already be characterized by the variable nature of BIR roll and damage rolls. Does this makes the "average" examples are misleading? What happens if the Galactics roll a 6 one round?
Are the Galactics really waiting for that one round where they score an extra 20% of damage and CAN direct on the DOM?

4) In addition, Andros can (and argueably) will be run out of expendables (EM, T-bombs etc) and probably before the galactics run out of drones and the like (by this time, drone racks have double reloads, plus carriers and PFT have very signficant stockpiles).

I'm not sure how to reflect the above in F&E (except for the luck), but IMHO, even PA points should not fully regenerate between every set of combat rounds (I can see full regeneration if the Andro sits out a round--and it does make things simpler).

I'm still not sure that satships should be given any PA panels. The regeneration of sat ships PA panels rarely comes into play in fleet battles (they go very fast from pristine to mission killed when facing any serious fleet). Without the battles, there would be a maximum of 3 units (2 motherships and 1 base) that would need to carry damage from round to round. Instead, I'd suggest boosting the PA capacity of motherships a bit to compensate, especially the smaller motherships (maybe give all the mother ships 4 extra panels).

This will allow sat ships to remain "fighter factors" if desired.

EM should be a one use item. Or perhaps give them a roll, say not lost on a 5-6 (+1 to the roll if less than half full?). If they survive, they're automatically cleared between rounds.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 07:43 pm: Edit

David K, you make the statement that sat-ships go from pristine to kead very quickly. two questions.

1. does this include the large sat-ships?

2. couldn't you say the same thing about galactic ships of the same size?

I agree that it doesn't match SFB perfectly to give the sat-ships PA panels like I ahve proposed, but neither does the fact that a hydran fleet can fight a major engagement without loosing anything but fighters, or any of a dozen other senerios where the defender gets to allocate the damage. remember that these sat-ships are available in 3 sizes, FF, CL/DD, CA not counting the PF ones

if PA panels on sat-ships was the only thing keeping them from being just factors I would agree to ditch them in a second. unfortunantly I think the other capabilities of the sat-ships and the questions of availablity will end up requiring counters for sat-ships.

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Degragation is a tactical concern, not strategic. There could be several days, even weeks between combat rounds, plenty of time to repiar degragation the same way that the GP ships can repair shields and minor internal damge, redeploy fighter squadrons and reload drones. All these factors even out in the end and are efectively ignored.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 08:44 pm: Edit

These answers are based on my personal tactical experiences (and tactical studies) and may be different for other players. I should note that I haven't had that many SFB games with Andros, especially recently.

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Quote:

1. does this include the large sat-ships?

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Quote:

2. couldn't you say the same thing about galactic ships of the same size?

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