Archive through October 02, 2020
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
Variable number of Directs:
Archive through October 02, 2020
Perhaps one way to reduce the effect of fighters taking up the bulk of the damage dealt, would allowing more than one Directing of Damage at higher BIR levels achieve a similar result?
Example
BIR 0 - No Directing Allowed - Just too far apart
BIR 1 to BIR 6 - 1 Directing Allowed
BIR 7 to 9 - 2 Directing's Allowed - which are all simultaneous*
BIR 10 - 3 Directing's Allowed - as above*
By requiring BIR 7 or higher, it means there is only a 1/6 chance of the weaker side potentially suffering 2 ships killed (as the Combat roll needs to be sufficient to get the required damage) - which is partially offset by the loss of directing at BIR 0.
Maulers can only target 1 ship (or group) as per the current rules (outside of pursuit).
If both sides are aggressive - more ships may die.
I.e..I do 30 damage - currently I kill the FF and you take 16 on fighters..... with 2 permitted directings I can kill 2 FF's and you self kill only 2 fighters.
Trying to work out whether the Alliance would lose more hulls than they kill - bases will help and so it might be close enough to be workable.
(We have previously discussed a general increase in ships kills on both sides and that wasn't wanted, as the Coalition could just run the Allliance out of ship - I have 100, you have 50 - we each kill 50 etc)...
* - This avoids killing an outer escort and then crippling the group (with the intention of killing it in pursuit).
i.e. CV+MEC+EFF - Coalition does 40 damage and has a mauler - EFF dies for 14 damage and CV+MEC gets maul crippled for 24.
The crippled CV and MEC would then die for only 9 damage in pursuit (with a Mauler).
Slightly easier to kill it that way then crippling the Group (which could still be done) and killing in pursuit.
Paul wrote:
>>Trying to work out whether the Alliance would lose more hulls than they kill - bases will help and so it might be close enough to be workable. >>
I suspect that, once again, maulers will result in this being warped in the beneficial direction for the Coalition.
Yes, the Alliance are often over bases and fixed defenses, but a lot of the time (early on), the Coalition are still going to have just as big of a compot (if not outgun the Alliance) over their fixed defenses. As such, the huge benefit of the mauler in this instance is going to be huge.
For example, with a mauler, killing 2 ZIN FFs is going to cost, what, 6+12=18. The Coalition will be blowing up 2xFFs all the time anywhere other than over a Homeworld. Conversely, trying to blow up 2xF5s costs 32 damage, which doesn't happen that often, relatively speaking.
I agree - Maulers make it an issue.
But getting 24 damage for the Alliance might be possible - and they equally might be able to kill 2 x E4 or FF's.
So Maulers increase the chance of killing 2 hulls, but you may still lose 2 hull (plus risk Shocking if not self crippled).
Sure, but if this were the case, the Klingons would have incentive to build F5s (instead of E4s), and the extra .5 EP per hull to prevent losing 2 ships per round would be totally worth the cost.
The Kzinti (and Hydrans) have a limited ability to make forces where the only thing you can shoot is a 5 point FF. The Klingons (and Lyrans, who'd prioritize DW production over FFs) do not.
Well, the Klingons normally build all the F5's and the E4's that they can, so it's probably unlikely the Klingons would never use a E4 (or a Lyran FF), but I do accept sometimes the best the Alliance might be able to do is kill 1 F5 and cripple a F5 say (instead of a F5 and Coalition kill fighters).
Equally, they might kill a D5 say instead - but I accept the point, you are killing 2 enemy hulls for the loss of 1 of your own hulls, if your able to use larger hulls only.
(Which as a side note, it does happen currently where 1 side puts up all big ships (CA+ say) and the other side has smaller ships - one side loses a smaller ship and the other side gets a ship crippled) - bad dice could see one side lose 2 larger ships versus 2 smaller ships).
STAFF INPUT WANTED
This might (or might not) be something worth considering. I need the staff to add their own evaluations.
I'd say a carrier group can only be directed on once by this method (other directed attacks would have to be on other targets).
Making carrier groups easier to destroy is a non starter for me.
SVC - Thanks
Richard - Hence why I felt being simultaneous would help - no killing 2 escorts on the same group (or killing the outer and then crippling the group).
I think it's easier to say you cannot use both attacks on the same ship/group.
Paul wrote:
>>Well, the Klingons normally build all the F5's and the E4's that they can, so it's probably unlikely the Klingons would never use a E4 (or a Lyran FF),>>
As the Klingons, I regularly down subbed E4s for F5s, and generally only ever built F5s for specialty hulls (F5E, whatever); If I was just making a line of "Carriers where the only thing to shoot is an ad-hoc E4", there'd be E4s on the line. E4s never saw the light of day in actual battle other than that, generally speaking (they'd get killed en masse as "here are 4 ships, you can kill the E4"; they'd get killed as ad-hoc outer escorts when that was the only thing to kill). If never putting an E4 on the line meant I'd generally only lose 1 ship instead of 2, I'd never downsub for E4s, and never put them on the line, and suck up the cost to maximize F5s, and use them as ad-hoc outer escorts. As the difference between losing 1 ship and 2 ships in a single round of combat is huge and way worse that just always having F5s on the line.
The Hydrans don't have 5 point FFs (they have a limited number of too expensive, not particularly good, FFLs, and heck, the CR isn't even that much harder to kill due to the rando 2 point crippled side); The Kzinti have a very limited number of 5 point FFs early in the game (assuming advanced rules), and are generally forced to have numerous 4 point FFs on the line for a great deal of the game. So with a mauler, the Coalition could reliably kill 2x Hydran or Kzinti FFs a round for 18 damage (or 24 if they don't have a mauler to use, which is a very common amount of damage); the Alliance would need 32 points of damage to kill 2xF5s on the line in return. Which is a much less common damage threshold.
The Lyrans could generally only ever have DD/DW on the line if they are so inclined, in a situation where putting 4 point FFs on the line meant losing 2 per round.
Mauling combined with the random size of common Alliance FFs makes this rule clearly one that would benefit the Coalition.
I mean, you could totally just say "you can't kill 2 ships if you use a mauler" arbitrarily. But then *still* the preponderance of 4 point Hydran and Kzinti FFs compared to the Coalition's preponderance of 5+ point hulls to use *still* tilts in in the direction of the Coalition.
Peter
Shoot me - all good points.
Rule could include 'direct twice or use a mauler' fairly easily, to help reduce the 24 damage (or less) kills 2 ships v you probably need 28+ to kill 2 ships.
Depending on the rule mix - E4's and Lyran FF's are often used in my battles, but I would agree the Coalition tactic would alter to only use F5/DD's (where they can - there will always be an oopps, I sent the 6 F5's to the other battle..... and you use what you have) and so it reduces the chance 2 ships can be directed on.
The flip side also is the Gorns and Federation (if Maulers can't help) would require 32 to kill 2 5 point ships - and every other empire has 4 pt ships which might be on the line.
(Ignoring Police Ships etc).
So yes, not allowing Maulers would help balance some aspects of the rule.
Please keep it coming!
>>Depending on the rule mix - E4's and Lyran FF's are often used in my battles, but I would agree the Coalition tactic would alter to only use F5/DD's (where they can - there will always be an oopps, I sent the 6 F5's to the other battle..... and you use what you have) and so it reduces the chance 2 ships can be directed on.>>
Sure--mine too, but again, the E4s and LYR FFs generally see play for the Coalition as ad-hoc outer escorts 'cause then when you lose one, you are losing the cheapest ship possible; E4s/FFs will occasionally see main line combat is smaller/weirder fights, but again, generally 'cause I tend to heavily leverage the "build E4s instead of F5s, as it saves a marginal amount of money, and most of the time E4s see combat, it is 'cause one of them is going to explode, and it might as well be an E4 instead of an F5".
If there was a concrete, solid advantage to only ever having F5s on the line (or DDs or DWs) which was "if you have E4/FFs on the line, 2 of them will regularly die; if the smallest thing you have on the line is an F5/DD/DW, then the likelihood is that only 1 will die", the Coalition would instead heavily leverage F5/DD/DWs. I mean, I know I certainly would.
And then in the end, that the Hydrans and Kzinti are basically arbitrarily hamstrung with 4 point FFs ('cause they got 1/3 move, tiny FFs in SFB a decade before F+E ever got printed, compared to the F5/Fed FF/Gorn DD/etc.) makes this problematic for them, relatively speaking.
I mean, yeah, the Feds and the Gorn have reliable and regular 5 point "FFs" (as do the Romulans), so in the long run, maybe it evens out. But the first 6 turns of the game where the Kzinti and Hydrans are being savaged already will just likely devolve into even a worse situation for them.
This has potential!
The breakpoints (between 0-3 DDs) needs to be looked at, the 7 BIR starting double DDs (as the 'normal' BIR is 5) is a 17% change almost every combat round (more for the ISC if in echelon as they are +1 BIR).
Keeping a mauler down to one ship is good, though at BIR 9 or 10, I'd allow a second assist (mauler + X-ship or 2 X-ships!)... Hnmmm, would this apply to fighting retreats or should the DD number drop by one? [Nasty way is a variable BIR roll with the result being the number of DDs added/subtracted!]
This will make capital assaults much more interesting!
I think the problem is that the game needs something like 3 Coalition ships to die for every 2 Alliance ships that die in order to maintain/promote game balance, and eventually tilt things in the "right" direction, leading to the "historical" result of the General War. But how do we get there? I think we generally agree that more ships dying would be a good thing, but the ratio of deaths cannot be 1:1 between the two sides, as the Coalition will certainly win with that level of attrition. Can we jig things so that the results are asymmetrical? For example, if you are defending in your home territory, you get some kind of bonus?
Paul, why do you think this would be a good idea given your constant harping on poor die rolls in key battles?
I see this as leading to unbalancing the game in a way that the alliance will never be able to recover from.
This is an extremely one sided proposal. Until the Alliance gains X-Ships, they can only direct on a target at 2x or 3x the defense value of the specified target, regardless of the number of attacks allowed. Most games average 15 - 20 turns before the Alliance achieves ship equivalent parity. Then another 7 to 10 regain the majority of their lost territory and keep it in their possession instead of seeing it change hands each player turn.
Unless the alliance is killing specialty ships they are most likely letting the damage fall. Generating 28 points to kill a mauler, while it occurs more often than not, is not always the best way to spend the damage. Spending 60 out of 100+ to kill a D7V group when they are attacking a capital is ok, but not always worth the effort either to kill 3 ships in one shot, and I generate enough damage to kill a D7V group it doesn't make it any better or any worse with the above proposed idea because I would be losing more damage points to actual directed damage attack, rather than letting my opponent take the damage on his ships.
I might also have the directed damage attack against G-Ships if they are used in an assault on a planet or base. Again this is a 2 to 1 proposition and more damage would be lost.
Peter - The Romulan do also have the SN and probably don't have the hulls to ensure it's never on the line, but yes, tactics might change.
Stewart - As Peter said, Maulers do alter the effect - even at just BIR 9 or 10, that effect might be too great.
It could also break the Hydrans - I put up a Cruiser heavy line - and you do 40 damage at BIR 9 - so that's 2 dead RN's...
Make it like the Auto Kill rule - you get one rule or the other - not both.
Kosta - Hopefully the Alliance early on would kill more extra hulls than they lose - certainly over the Homeworld and SB's - when the Coalition can't afford to always direct if it want to achieve a successful mission.
If I get chance, I might try and so some analysis - if I do 100 damage, would the attacker self cripple the bulk of the line or prefer to have 2 or 3 ships directed?
example
DN(F), D6M, 3 x 6 IFF, 2 x BC, Battle Group [3 x CW, 3 x DWS], D6SS(S), 3 x D6D (Drone) = 100/EW10 - 1 CP used
(Assumes full EW and Battle Groups)
Do I cripple everything but the D6S and D6D's plus kill the Fighters or prefer to have the D6M and a DWS direct killed so I have 52 damage to take still?
Does the rule achieve anything - yes I think.
(There will be a threshold were 'let fall' will kill more ships).
Thomas - Because my poor dice luck might change (and not everyone rolls so badly) 
But your right, the issue is could it kill too many Alliance hulls and not enough Coalition.
As per my reply to Kosta - early on, 'hopefully' the Alliance would use the rule more often.
The question (which the analysis and also further comments will help on) is will the Coalition offensive 'not be slowed down enough' if the Alliance directs more (when it can) or will the Coalition always be able to get a mission win AND kill afew extra hulls.
i.e. the end result is the Alliance can't afford to 'waste' more damage by directing (over and above killing key hulls such as maulers) and the Coalition can.
The one area I felt the Alliance would be 'up in', would be pinning battles - I send a DN, 3 poor Carrier Groups, Scout and 20 Frigates to pin your 20 quality Hydran Ships on the SB - and currently both sides trade a Frigate and the Coalition rereats. With a poor line, the Coalition wouldn't get enough to kill 2 Hydran ships but the Hydrans should get enough.
Wont happen very often (due to needing either the Coalition picking a higher BIR or VBIR to go up 2) - so not a huge 'risk', but occasionally will occur.
But your right - any small or modest early game dynamic change could have big effects later on.
Is a final BIR level of 7 too low for example?
If it was set at 8 - both sides would need to be pick at least a 2 (but to counter, might not occur enough to make it 500 words of rules which hardly ever occurs).
Honest answer is I don't know, so more please
Paul, I don't see the Alliance using this that often. Sure Penal ships can be killed at a 1 to 1 ratio and they should be killed any time one appears in the battle force. That is the exception to the normal directed damage rules. However, killing the Penal ship does not count as your directed damage attack, so with your directed damage attack the Alliance can kill 2 ships, 3 if a G-Ship is on the line against a base or planet with PDUs and/or a PRD. So 3 is possible this way.
Over the Hydran capital it might be possible to bag a total of 5 in one shot. Example: The Hydrans roll average and do 25% on a 400 pt line for 100 points. 12 to kill to D6J, 60 to kill a D7V+AD5+F5E, and another 24 to kill the D6G. That's the 96 points to kill 5 ships. However, I can kill the D6J for 12, and let you drop the remaining 88 points on your fleet. Well obviously any fighters you have in the battle force will die. (We will call it 12 for this example). That's 24, leaving 76 points to be resolved on the remaining ships. Either you kill a battle group which is 6 ships, or you cripple the majority of ships in your battle force. Regardless, it works out to be about the same for the Hydrans. Even then the Hydrans might get lucky and your mauler shocks after you didn't cripple it.
>>Peter - The Romulan do also have the SN and probably don't have the hulls to ensure it's never on the line, but yes, tactics might change. >>
Yeah, again, like, you could easily save 4 point hulls (as the Coalition) for auto sacrifice duties (i.e. small groups of FFs contesting provinces where no actual combat will ever occur; a large group of Alliance will fall on them, they will all react together, and a single tiny ship will be sacrificed) or obvious small fights where no one will ever have the opportunity to direct 2 ships anyway (mobs attacking poorly defended BATS, small pin fights, whatever).
The Hydrans and the Kzinti could never arrange such a situation (other than, like, the Hydrans having a full CA line over the Capital or whatever). And this is just 'cause of randomosity (Hydrans and Kzinti have scads of 4 point FFs, 'cause that was established when this game was invented 35 years ago), not design (of this particular rule idea). Which makes this problematic.
>>Paul, I don't see the Alliance using this that often.>>
One of the flaws with this idea is that they would *have*to use it that often, and yet would likely be disadvantaged in doing so (due to maulers and a preponderance of 4 point FFs).
If the Coalition is killing 2 Alliance ships per round, every round of combat, and the Alliance is only killing one, the already significant ship disparity goes insane. So if the Coalition spends every round of combat killing a couple escort FFs to avoid hitting fighters, and the Alliance isn't returning the favor (either 'cause they can't due to damage and targets available, or 'cause they don't want to even try), the game situation will rapidly become completely untenable.
Like, yes, in the example of "The Coalition fighting over the Hydran capital", using this rule is probably not a good idea. But as the vast majority of fights in the game are not "The Coalition fighting over the Hydran capital", that is kind a corner case situation to view this rules idea through.
Peter
Hence the BIR requirement of 7+.
If both sides pick 4 or less in total - max number of directs remain at 1 (or 0 at BIR 0).
If both sides pick 3 say - VBIR still has to go up for it to activate - and if one side picks 1 and the other 4, VBIR has to go up 2 for it to apply.
So I wasn't envisaging a significant increase in the number of directing's - as I bet the average BIR resolution is at 5 (followed by BIR 6, where one side picked 2 over a 1* and then BIR 2, where both picked 1)?
This is from my experience with William and Ted (and the earlier UK games) - one side will normally pick 4, the other 1 - often the player will throw a curve ball and will pick 2 or 3, but both picking 4 is pretty rate.
I would hazard a guess final BIR in order of how often they occur is : -
5(36%), 6(18%), 2(14%), 4(8%), 3(7%), 7(6%) 8(5%) 0(3%), 9 (2%) and 10 (1%)
If 7 became more 'relevant', it would be used more and might sit between 2 and 4 in %'s - but that still means only 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 rounds would see it occur.
Might still be too much though - so BIR 8 might be a better starting point for it?
(I like the idea though that there is a 1/6 chance of going from a 5 to a 7 - so, it can always happy with a 4 v 1 being picked).
* Where slightly more damage was wanted to be done - as they think an extra 2.5% damage will allow them to kill the preferred target.
In actuality, both sides in a battle rarely pick a BIR less than 4, as whatever side has the advantage in battle tends to go high on BIR. This would probably be more pronounced if it also meant a chance to destroy a second ship.
This rule can definitely cause more loss of hulls for the alliance in early turns, a time when this is especially painful for them.
If you're worried about the Alliance blowing up early, there's a rule modification that might fix that:
If more than one DD attack is made by a side in a turn, then there must be enough damage done to resolve all involuntary minus points from those attacks.
If you really want to strengthen the alliance, then add: For this purpose, destruction of multiple PDU in a single attack counts as multiple DD attacks in a turn.
I'm not worried about the Alliance blowing up early because of a change like this. The rule would probably change the balance somewhat, but it won't throw it way out of whack. There are a zillion different ways to compensate.
>>I'm not worried about the Alliance blowing up early because of a change like this>>
Conversely, I'm specifically worried about the Alliance blowing up early because of a change like this.
The Coalition is already more likely to be directing Alliance hulls (see: killing an FF is better than crippling an interior escort and killing fighters most of the time). The Coalition already has an advantage in killing Alliance hulls due to maulers. If the Coalition reliably had the ability to kill 2 Alliance hulls at a time in a situation where they were already killing one Alliance hull anyway they would likely do so with extreme intensity. Which will lead to the Alliance getting super mangled early on, when they are already prone to being super mangled. Which would probably throw balance significantly out of whack.
Now that Paul has pointed out the BIR thresholds, which, to be honest, I had not paid that close attention to (I was more concerned with the basic idea than the specifics presented), it does seem like this wouldn't actually come up al that often--I suspect that in the grand scheme, BIR is 5 before VBIR likely the vast majority of the time (one side is advantaged and picks 4, the other side is disadvantaged and picks 1). Yes, this is not always true; sometimes both sides pick high, sometimes both sides pick low, sure. Sometimes someone guesses poorly, whatever. But I'd suspect that in general, BIR starts at 5 before VBIR likely over half the time.
At which point, with the rule as presented, it is a lot of complication for something that won't come up that much.
After the last time I wrote a new rule and the staff added stuff to make it happen so rarely that the test was wasted space, I don't see any need for a complicated rule designed to come up only rarely.