I had this typed into General Discuss but thought last minute it might be better suited for here...

Question: Has anyone found the Penal Ship mission to sac has lost its uniqueness do to the limit on minus points?

I had thought at the time the limit shouldn't have been put on the minus points but rather the ability to over-cripple. If overcrippling was not available there would be only one place minus point would be a problem, fixed defenses. And at fixed defenses I am fine with the minus points because attacking planetary defenses and bases should be difficult and costly.

I guess this is not as much about the penal mission as it is the minus point issue...
Although the penal mission with the limit is virtually the same as (if possibly slightly better) than any other race crippling a CA with the last point of damage before they leave the hex. If the Klingons do it there is no benefit at all. IMHO, eliminate the over crips and the penal ship is again unique in what it is supposed to be. Leaving the minus point limit is okay because if you can't intentionally over-crip the limit is in place for the defensive hard points.

So if this is done you can no longer intentionally over-cripple ships but there would still be a minus point limit on the dead fighters that stack up in the capital.

I am done rambling anyone care to comment?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 05:11 pm: Edit

if you can't overcripple then you are

1. forced to give your opponent plus points that they can use to direct on you in a future round

and/or

2. cripple a small unit that will then get killed when you would rather cripple a larger unit that will then survive

I'm not saying that we nessasarily NEED these things to continue, but pointing out the legit reasons for overcrippling

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 05:24 pm: Edit

"1. forced to give your opponent plus points that they can use to direct on you in a future round"

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

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 07:13 pm: Edit

Chuck, you would seem to be in error, or I have the wrong SoP.

4D: Adjustement for plus/minus points.

5A: Attacker may select one Defender unit for Directed Damageand resolve this.


That would seem to imply that plus or minus points are are added or subtracted from damage before directed damage is applied.

Or are you suggesting something different?

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 07:20 pm: Edit

CFant, check the AO SoP. Chuck is right.

5-4E: Adjust damage result for minus points only (308.3).

5-5B: Phasing Player may select one Non-Pasing Player unit for Direct Damage and...

5-5C: Non-Pasing Player may select one Phasing Player unit for Direct Damage and...

5-5D: Adjust damage result for plus points (308.2)

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 08:49 pm: Edit

Hmm, I', using an old SoP it would seem.

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 11:29 pm: Edit

Not to mention that the 'limit' for minus points is for the pursuit battle, not when continuing (even if backing off for another approach battle)...

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 12:20 am: Edit

There are no legit reasons to over cripple. IMHO the damage needs to come out as close to zero as possible. It is not that hard to do. Its an abuse especially if a force has fighters available (either side).

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 08:23 am: Edit

I agree with Lar. Players should not be able to stack huge negatives if there are smaller units that could easily absorb the damage.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 08:56 am: Edit

Before I really know the rules well, I always assumed that you had to take exact damage if at all possible, and that any excess damage you took over what you needed to was simply wasted.
One still needs a rule for plus points - at what point you *have* to cripple something, but I've always thought any generation of minus points should be disallowed. In that context, I would suggest that any Dirdam on PDUs that results in forcing the defender to have minus points should be illegal.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 09:56 am: Edit

I agree with you on that last point (dirdam on PDU's needs to knock out the fighters - thus making it 16 points per PDU, 11 with a mauler).

As for minus points, I suggest that it be allowed, but the SOP be changed so that minus points are applied *after* dirdam is resolved. The minus points would then still carryover (as would any plus points), but it would not affect what could be directed upon.

I use that, and the players then try to apply damage as close as possible, even staying in the plus point catagory, as minus points are now just crippling yourself earlier than needed.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 10:06 am: Edit

Easy solution to prevent minus points from attacking ground bases. The fighters from a ground base don't go away until the end of a player turn. After all, all you need for arming drone fighters is a big flat field and the Kzint Weight Lifting Team. Fusion & Plasma armed fighters could still work as long as theres at lease one base left to do the arming.

If you want a limit to it, say that a defending player can have up to 12 homeless fighters at a planet after combat starts as long as there is at least one PDU (with fighters). At the end of all combat for that phase, all homeless fighters are destroyed. Fighters able to transfer must do so.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 04:05 pm: Edit

That change DGK would be way too much of a plus to the COaltion when assaulting Capitals.

Part of the penalty for swatting 4xPDUs with a mauler is that you have to fight through all those dead fighters first.

By John Smedley (Ukar) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 04:27 pm: Edit

Kevin,

I like your minus point suggestion. If we remove the (cheasy) benifit of overcrippling, we do not need a rule preventing it. Minus points can stay as they are, players will just avoid taking them when possible.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 04:39 pm: Edit

I can see a problem with this however. Say you have to take the damage as close to even as possible so as to prevent minus points,

Situation.

BIG line. L-DN+Adm,L-DN,3xBC,CC,STT,(3xCW+3xDW)

You take exactly 30 damamge.
Ways to take exactly 30 damage with no minus points:

1.cripple 3xBC/STT(not my first choice)
2.cripple 3xCW and CC (maybe)
3.cripple DN and 3xDW (eh......not likely)
4.cripple 2xCW,DW,BC/STT

I am sure there are others. The point is, I want to take my damage on 3xDW(18) and 2xCW(14) total 32, for 2 minus points.

A player should not be forced to cripple key units when they have other fodder units, just becuase the points don't match up.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 08:49 pm: Edit

A player should not be forced to cripple key units when they have other fodder units, just because the points don't match up.

Why not? Those key units are in battle fighting a war with real-make believe phasers and heavy weapons as well. Sometimes you will have to cripple such units. Sometimes you will have to kill other units. If the rule was made people would alter their damage allocation to comply.

In the example above if the BG was 3CW+3DW and the rule was to get to zero the player would probably have to do it this way to prevent key units from being hurt: Crip 2DW (12), Crip 2CW (14), & kill crippled CW (4) = 30.

The points generated in a capital hex being the possible exception although I have seen different strategies & proposals to dealing with the minus points generated by dead fighters.

- Killing less PDU's would generate less minus points. 3 or even 2 per round instead of 4 (note: not changing the limits here).
- Ruling that any fighters left MUST go to available fighter bays in the Multi-Sys hex (or they are lost).
- (From above) Considering the fighters as part of the PDUs and having to direct on them along with the PDU itself (it could work although I feel there are tactical holes in this approach) thus killing less PDUs at a time.
- Fudging it and saying the fighters died and the points of damage were absorbed with no effect by space, the planet, etc (they are lost). I don't much care for this one...

There would be no worries about when in the SOP the plus & minus points are resolved if they didnt exist.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 10:44 pm: Edit

having a player loose minus points from overcrippling is an interesting idea.

I don't like the idea of being forced to come out as close to zero as you can, overcrippling with the only benifit being that you avoid crippling something else is costly, but possibly worth it.

however minus points caused by fighters being homeless due to their carrier/base being directed on are a different story.

here it is the attacker that has the control and the defender should not be penalized at all, if anything it should cost the attacker becouse to direct they probably have to fly through the fighters to get a good shot at their base.

how about this:
when a fighter carrying unit is killed any fighters that are unable to transfer to another carrier in the hex at the end of the damage phase are converted to plus points on the side that killed this unit.

that would be a reason to not want to cause lots of homeless fighters as a cheap way to kill them (the current situation)

this rule by itself may not be enough to be able to eliminate minus points due to homeless fighters (at a capitol, eliminating those minus points will eliminate ~1/3 to 1/2 of the rounds needed to kill the PDU's) so it may make sense to combine this with a rule that says that homeless fighters from PDU's are not killed by the PDU being destroyed, they stay around operating out of ad-hoc fields but will be lost at the end of the turn (no repair facilities available)

combining these two owuld punish an attacker that flew in and killed 4xPDU with 30 points of damage and a mauler, which would be a much more realistic situation then the current one (and the attacker can avoid this punishment by only killing what he has the damage to kill)

plus points need to be accumulated, otherwise a squadron of small ships would have no chance of damaging a big ship.
think 4xFF vs 1 DN, the 4xFF will be unlikly to generate the 8 points needed to cripple the DN in one round, but would definantly do it over a couple rounds, or for another example 4xCA or even 3xDN vs a B-10 (on round 1 the B-10 looses it's fighters to get the damage below the threshold of 10 and damages one ship, after that the attackers can't generate the 10 damage to cripple the B-10 and will all die if they stick around)

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 10:59 pm: Edit

Allow accumulation of minus points only if no units except fighters and PFs are damaged by any means except directed damage. Otherwise all minus points are forfeit.

Plus points work as they do currently.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 12:40 am: Edit

I still say let the minus points carry over, *but* it applies after directed damage.

Using Chris Fant's example:

BIG line. L-DN+Adm,L-DN,3xBC,CC,STT,(3xCW+3xDW)

Taking 30 damage, he chooses 3 DW and 2 CW, for 2 minus points.

Next round, there are 2 minus points, and the enemy (me) scores 28 exactly, for 26 points total. I'm really tired of that dang STT, and so I direct on it (I scored 28 damage!), and so the minus 2 damage carries on to the next round.

Next round, Chris reforms the line with replacments, takes another 30 (still minus 2 points), and I let the 28 fall.

Chris takes 3 DW for 18, 1 CC for 9, one left. Chris overcripples a DN for 1 point, so as to have 11 minus points in the pursuit. Bad idea.

I pursue, scoring 19 in pursuit, either killing the DN in formation for 18, or a CC and CW for 18, or 3 DW for 18. The remaining damage (1) is then absorbed by the minus 11, and Chris took 10 more damage than necessary (and lost a DN!).

Pursuits get more expensive, which is good, IMO.

Players will not overcripple for cheesy reasons, but can still overcripple for tactical reasons, like the one in CFant's original example, so to take the damage on small ships.

Thoughts?

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 12:49 am: Edit

PDUs REALLY should not be touched with this system.

The current rule of how fighters and PFs transfer is a very good one, and makes for really tough capitals.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 12:55 am: Edit

Kevin, if minus points aren't applied until after directed damage then the coalition can come into a capitol and kill 4 PDU's every round and after 5 rounds all 20 are killed, they have ~100 minus points and retreat wiping out the minus points and return next round without having to face the PDU's

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 12:55 am: Edit

See, I think that Lar's idea is very sound.

We are not talking about directing on PDUs.

We are talking about taking damage like this:

I have 3xCV+MEC+FKE, 2xBC on the line. DN+Adm in formation, and a scout in the box.

Lets say I have a few choice cripples that I want to escape with, this is my last round in the hex.

I take 19 damage.

So, I take 18 on fighters, then cripple and MEC for -6.

What we would like to see is something more like this.

I take 12 fighters, and cripple the MEC for even.

Or, I take 18 fighters and leave a +1 for the pursuit round. Since this does not violate the half damage remaining rule, it would work fine.

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

On further reflection, I have an objection to my own previous post. I think this is a case of my own rules working well with my whole ruleset I use, but not if only one of my rules is added to the standard F&E rules.

If overcrippling is not allowed (or if minus points are not applied until after directed damage), then high compot pursuit forces can take down crippled CVA's. I don't know the effect on standard F&E - it could be bad. What do you guys think?

Also, on a similar note (and I should have clarified in the above post), the fighters on planetary defenses should have to be taken down with the defenses. I think I earlier posted that I require the (in the same dirdam attack) the fighters to be destroyed with each PDU - so it takes 16 points to kill a PDU, 11 with a mauler. That resolves the "capital planets would fall to cheaply without the minus points rule" issue.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 01:06 am: Edit

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???!!!

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

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 01:07 am: Edit

Chris, David,

Yes, PDU's need their minus points. I forgot that in the original post, but I had already posted on it earlier. Either the fighters of PDU's need their minus points, or the fighters have to die with the PDU's (taking damage as they go).

The minus points modifications (either Lar's or mine) is primarily for ship to ship battles. Capital defenses need their own rules.

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.