I had better order me a rulebook. Raids hell no. Let me get back to you on the rest.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Well, I personally feel after AO - the add on rules add less and less (and the old Carrier War and Special Operations (Part 1 & Part 2), where more balanced than the replacements Fighter Operations and Combined Operations.

Problem is 2010 is written after FO and CO and the ideal rule pack for me would be

F&E2K, CW, Special OpO (I & II) and AO

For those in the Peanut Gallery - what positive rules got added with F&E2010, FO, PO and SO (Strategic Ops)?

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 02:20 pm: Edit

I got the rulebook. I don't have a copy of the damage table. I'm guessing it increases damage by 2.5% roughly half the time, leaving it unchanged the other half? If so, I'm all for it. I also see they made pursuit a little better, which is good. I see a couple of rules I could live without -- offensive cloaking (the one where you roll and 2-5 is good, 11-12 is bad. Other cloaking rules are fine.) If you want to see some of my more radical ideas, check out the Bloodstorm scenario proposal, but I'm not pushing it.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 02:28 pm: Edit

I saw one thing in the intro that I wasn't sure what it meant:

• A rule was added to increase the number of ships destroyed
by clever players who tried to avoid destroying ships.

Sounds like a great idea but what is the rule?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 03:03 pm: Edit

William

Advance table starts at 10% and for each increase in dice roll and BIR adds 2.5%.

So a 2 at BIR 2 is 17.5% and a roll of 4 at BIR 4 is 27.5%

One slight exception - due to the 10% to 50% range, BIR 10 and a roll of 5 is 45% and a roll of 6 is 50% .

'Clever' Rule addition is probably the Auto Kill rule.

302.617 - Required Kill Rule
If Compot is 100 or higher, total net BIR 5, net or final dice roll of 6 requires your opponent to self kill a ship if you don't direct.

So - by not directing, you do more damage as the self kill is at normal damage resolution.

So if I did 36 damage - I could direct kill a DN on the line for 36 damage, or you could self kill a CA (the weakest ship in your line) for say 12 and take 24 damage.

Generally - more weaker ships die AND more ships get crippled.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 03:07 pm: Edit

On the game.

I can't find the Excel Spreadsheets showing the Coalition Ep's, Command Points, Mothball (probably all gone though) and B10's (I think I built 1, but might have started a 2nd???).

One old machine I can check...

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 03:14 pm: Edit

The 2.5% table works like this.

First set X to the sum of both players BIR.

Then add or subtract any variable due to BIR.
Then add or subtract EW penalties or other effects.

Then add the player's die roll, each player calculates their damage separately.

If x is less than zero, set it to zero.

If x is less than 15, then the damage% is x times 2.5% plus 10%, if x is equal to or greater than 15, then the damage % is 50%.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 07:53 am: Edit

For any lurkers, the situation in the game is this:

Most of Hydran space is Coalition held, and all three of their non-Home SB are gone. But they do hold their home systems and two planets.

Kzinti have an offmap shipyard and a weak pulse.

Feds own about half their initial space by area. They have lost the 3rd, 4th, and 7th fleet SB, plus one SB near their Capital. The capital itself is fully recovered, and at turn start they control all four of their original major planets (ignoring Orion), but only 3 of 13 minors, with several of the rest changing hands frequently.

Gorns are in the best shape of all the Alliance, having lost about half of their original BATS but no SB, and with 3 provinces lost and one planet devastated as of the start of the turn.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 12:22 pm: Edit

Fighter Operations has been updated to the 2010 Standard.

Paul, to convert the mediocre Klingon carrier groups to decent groups with the AD5 and F5E vs 2xE4A you have to spend 10 EPs per group to do that, assuming you build new escorts for them rather than converting your existing D5s and F5s. Keep in mind that if you do you are trading battlegroup ships, good ones at that, for escorts.

Directing on F5 not in a carrier group costs 16 while directing on a single E4A in a 3 ship carrier group costs 14 and new F5E would be 18.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 02:40 pm: Edit

Thomas

A valid point for the existing Carriers...

...but new carriers built (D6V namely), you don't need to build escorts, so saving 2 Ep's (assuming you build the E4's and ad hoc two ships until you build an AD5 and F5E..... and as you would have built the D5 and F5, that's 2 Ep's spent.

For the existing 7 or so D6V/CVT groups, yes, you need to spend 10 Eps per group, but it makes them very useable.

...and one option no doubt will be that with the removal of CEDS - you cripple the E4A's on a regular basis and depot repair them.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 03:15 pm: Edit

If you skip escorts, the ad-hoc of your choice can attacked directly. It is 22 for a D5 regardless of it is an ad-hoc or not.

Also very few people build D6Vs to begin with. Then there are 4 turns until the D5V is available, and 6 turns until the D7V is available.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 03:21 pm: Edit

I am fine with building (some) D6Vs in early turns. With eventual AD5 F5E escorts they make 21 point groups, as good as war cruisers, so why not?

I find no problems in subbing enough AD5s and F5Es to escort all my line carriers as the Klingons. I still end up with plenty of D5s and F5Ls for battle groups if I want them. Prior to SY170, I tend to use Klingon carriers to send fighters forward, or to mitigate damage at the (numerous) battles over minor planets and BATs. I like D6Vs over FVs for the better survivability and the higher command rating. A D6V makes for a good flagship against minor targets where one decides to provide compot by using small ships in quantity.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 04:30 pm: Edit

Paul would probably do it by attrition -- just replace the E4A's when I kill them, or when he self-kills them in a close, large battle. Both of which happen.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 04:50 pm: Edit

William, I would replace the E4As with better escorts as they are killed for the D6V groups. Doubly so when I'm upgrading them to D6Us.

As to new D6Vs, I might build 2 or 3 max just to use up expiring free fighter factors.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, February 17, 2019 - 06:51 pm: Edit

I replace them with better escorts and just use the E4As to protect carriers sending fighters forward or as garrison units.

By jim howard (Noseybonk) on Monday, February 18, 2019 - 08:14 am: Edit

I build more FV groups until the better carriers are available so that when you get them (d5v initially) you have lots of spare fighters to keep them in the line longer and small f5 escorts once the e4a's are burned through. e4's are precious you need them to garrison not turn them into crap escort hulls.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - 07:10 am: Edit

Paul, where are we at on this? I'm game for resuming, or for starting a new one.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - 10:13 am: Edit

I usually build a few extra D6V early in the game. They're useful early war as Richard indicated, and later on they convert to the very useful D6U mid war.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, February 21, 2019 - 06:04 pm: Edit

Hi William

Meant to check an old machine which is in my office to see if it had the old files on it...and work imploded on me.

Will try and check tomorrow (although have already lost 1/3rd of the day as I will need to pick my son up from a school concert!

Getting a Cello on a bus is a tad difficult

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, February 22, 2019 - 04:51 am: Edit

I emailed you the spreadsheet. I'll send it again.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, February 22, 2019 - 07:28 am: Edit

I just resent the spreadsheet, gamebox, and game files. I found op 3, too. I have emails showing we did some more op moves after that. But if we are going to resume, I think I'd rather redo op moves from the beginning.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, February 22, 2019 - 01:10 pm: Edit

Hi William - which e-mail address did you send it to?

If you send it to PHoward UK at aoldotcom (no spaces, @ and .), that's the best one

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, February 22, 2019 - 07:47 pm: Edit

Yes, that one.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 23, 2019 - 05:41 am: Edit

Nothing has arrived (and I checked my Spam box).

Do you want to try Paul at Box-Financial-Planningdotcodotuk (my work account)?

Cheers

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 23, 2019 - 11:39 am: Edit

Thanks William

Map and Spreadsheet safely arrived.

A quick looks partially confirms what I said - Kzinti and Federation are under a lot of pressure - as are the Romulans - but other than the Old Colonies being Cut off, the Hydrans are doing pretty well and the Gorn are doing very well.

I have no idea what plan of attack both sides were trying to do - and perhaps I am going marginaly better than what I remember - although ship quality between Gorns and Romualans isn't good for the Romulans.

So don't mind.

It would be nice to continue - but the massive dice imbalance perhaps would make me very grumpy, very quickly if my poor luck (and your good luck) continued?