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	Archive through June 18, 2003	25		06/18 10:41am

We seem to be trading posts faster than I can reply...

How is it that if you direct on fighters, they are at 2:1 but if direct on a PDU, you get them at 1:1???!!!

Because.

Does it really need to be more difficult than that?

Rule: When you dirdam a group of PDU's, each PDU takes 10 points of damage to kill (5 with a mauler), but the fighters on the PDU are killed with it (at 1:1). Thus a fully loaded PDU takes 16 damage to kill (11 with a mauler).

The only question I see is does PF's/F-111's work the same way. Late war assaults might become more expensive - though I'd hazard a guess they will be anyway, so no real difference there.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 01:17 am: Edit

If you have to kill the fighters with the PDU, then each one should cost 12+10 for 22, or 12 with a mauler.

Way too expensive that way. Capital defenses would become way too difficult. Not that I'm saying it can't be done that way, but it would majorly change the nature of the assault.

Using my idea, PDU's would probably be taken down 2 per battle round, instead of 4 on one battle round, burn minus points on the next round. Net result is nearly the same either way.

Minus points might still occur from spare damage being used to overcripple, which would then be handled by either my idea or Lawrence's

I think perhaps that the PDU thing should be taken to it's own proposal forum, but it's instrumental in resolving the minus point rule, so it needed to be discussed here.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 01:52 am: Edit

No, PDUs and ships are two different things and need not be related at all to the minus point discussion.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 04:20 am: Edit

I agree

You get minus points only from unhomed fighters, and only if the enemy DD'd (or used marines/SAFs on PDUs/bases). That covers PDUs and abuse against carriers.

Otherwise, you simply lose excess damage, but can have plus points as per normal rules.

I think that's an excellent solution.

If we were to rewrite the rules entirely, we could perhaps get a more elegant fix including the PDUs from among the suggestions here. There may be balance implications.

By John Smedley (Ukar) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 10:41 am: Edit

I prefer Kevin's solution:
Allow minus points, but apply them after directed damage (at the same time plus points are applied).

Overcrippling for sound tactical reasons (like Chris pointed out) should not be penalized. All we need to do is limit overcrippling with the intention of protecting key units in the next round (only penal ships should be able to do this part). Kevin's idea does that.

As far as persuit becoming nastier if overcrippling is fixed - good! At best, the present system is far too random, since being able to protect critical units requires that the enemy does not do exact damage (if round 1 they cripple a unit by DirDam using exact points, they can kill it in persuit. If they do one extra point, suddenly the opponent overcripples and is safe to run away - that is silly.)

I agree that PDUs might use a different system. I think that the system Kevin proposed is a good one: A PDU's fighters must be taken as casualties before a second PDU can be targeted. Chris critisied this idea as being too cheap, but I think that it is actually a bit worse for the attacker than the present system. As Kevin noted, 2 pdus will be killed per round, rater than 4 every other round. This means that the defender gets to use 2 extra PDUs every other round (a bit more compot), and capital raids cannot strip 4 pdus and flee (at best they'll get 3).

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 09:10 pm: Edit

By the way, my "objections to my own idea" apply to Lawrence's idea as well. If minus points are not allowed, then crippled CVA's, or other choice targets, might start dying in pursuit battles. What I don't know, is if that's a bad thing, or a good thing.

According to SVC's desire to possibly institute an auto-kill rule I think it would be a good thing. Ships would die...even if only a few more at a time. I think the elimination of the overcripple itself would be in balance. The Coalition is usually the one pursued and with a penal ship they can escape with the sacrifice of the penal (well the Klingons can anyways). The Alliance players I have gone up against seem to retreat behind a base/planet most of the time.

No ship or group should be indestructable in open space.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, July 01, 2003 - 08:42 pm: Edit

Okay after going through the topic here restating my proposal is simple:

I propose this rule:
Any minus points generated outside a capital hex are lost. Plus points still can be generated and must be resolved on the following round as normal.

- This rule keeps the capitals tough.
- It puts players in a position to use their most efficient damage absorbing ships to resolve the points.
- It restores the penal ships as valuable units that work how they are supposed to work in the sacrifice role.
- It will create more kills eliminating ships which has been discussed as being a problem. (Although I am unsure of this in the late war.)
- It resolves the abuse of spending few points to try and protect a praticular ship or group of ships in pursuit. (This is what the Klingon Penals are for, if everyone can do it why should the penals have this mission listed as a special capability with penalties?)

By Joe Stevenson (Ikvsabre) on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 08:39 am: Edit

"Plus points are used AFTER DirDam step (ie they cannot be used for DirDam); see SoP. "

D a m n. I wish I had still been around when this was happening.

I think this chance was a mistake. To me, if you don't resolve all of your damage, then you SHOULD be at greater risk for DirDam. It is a good incentive to make people avoid cheesy games where they end up with plus points all the time.... whick by this SoP can be put off until the following turn, allowing someone to effectively resolve extra fighters and the like.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 09:54 am: Edit

Not sure if I agree. But I should admit that I think minus points should also be used after dirdam - to prevent cheesy tactics of overcrippling to avoid next rounds dirdam attack. I guess that means we agree in different ways?

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 10:36 am: Edit

Joe, huh, what change? That is how it works in the rules for DD in F&E2K (308.22). That is what the same rule states in the '93 version of the rules as well. This is nothing new (i.e. it was not changed when the advanced ops SOP was put together), plus points never counted until after DD, and minus points were always applied before DD. The SOP just verifies the rule as it worked in 2K and '93 rules.