OK. I'll start this off by saying that I am an F&E novice. I've played around with the game a bit, have read the rules, watched it played, and occasionally read the F&E part of this board.

One thing that is oft mentioned is the high counter count - something F&E veterans feel is fine but which less experienced/eager players cringe at.

One thing that I see, through my minimal playing/reading is that you have a hex with 200+ ships and two S8.0 fleets go at each other.

What would be the ramifications if, say at least 1/3 of the smaller fleet had to be in battle. This would be done by breaking down into multiple "simultaneous" S8.0 fleet battles. The remaining 2/3 would then reinforce the respective battlelines.

This would definately reduce the ship counts more rapidly -AND/OR- would result in battles occuring in many more hexes.

I'd imagine the retreat/pursuit rules would have to have some modification.

What would this do to overall balance?

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 07:37 pm: Edit

Andy,

The biggest danger is that the Coalition outnumbers the Alliance for some time.... splittign up the forces would put a big strain on the Alliance. A lot of playtesting would need to be done to ensure that it wouldn't overwhelm the Kzinti and Hydrans.

Joe

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 08:06 pm: Edit

Andy,

I suggested something very much like this not too long ago. I, too, used the smaller fleet as the basis to see how many battle-lines you'd have to field. (See the old Proposals topic: http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/37/4013.html?1051863749 and scroll down to my message posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 at 11:22PM.)

I got the same type of response ... the idea would crush the Alliance, especially the Kzinti during the early part of the war. I'm not sure that I agree. Without such a rule, those ships would be held in reserve ... yet the Coalotion has a greater depth in their reserves, so the numbers should wear down the Alliance either way.

Then again, I have no one to play against, so I can't easily test these ideas, either. {shrug}


Garth L. Getgen

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Oh - I agree that playtesting would be needed but:

1. It doesn't make sense, given the size of an F&E hex, that only one battleline meets.

2. It would reduce counter count and would likely change strategies of ship construction and repair.

3. I think it would make for a more enjoyable game, if balanced. Turns would take longer, but you would actually be encouraged to spread out more, making maneuver more of a factor.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Andy, it would result in more damage (especially to the smaller fleet) but how does it reduce teh counter count? also how would it force you to spread your fleets out more on the F&E map?

the problem in the early game is that the alliance are mostly fighting over their own fixed defenses. thus their firepower is argumented by bases and planatary defenses. if they had to fight multiple battles some of these would be away from these defenses and therefor they would not be able to do as much damage to the coalition. even in open space there is a problem becouse the smaller fleet has a much smaller number of specialty and command ships. it's very common for the kzinti to be fighting over fixed defenses and have 1 DN in the hex. the coalition can't kill the DN becouse it's in the formation bonus slot and would take 36 points to cripple (and then 18 to kill for a total of 54, 49 IIRC with a mauler) this much damage would cripple 6-7 cruisers, or come close to killing a SB. so the coalition dishes out 30 or so damage per round and the kzinti take it on fighters and small ship which then retreat and are repaired. if the coalition had to fight multiple battles they would be at a disadvantage in most of them as the coalition would have DN's and scouts in all of them and the kzinti wouldn't so the kzinti would take quite a bit more damage compared to what the coalition would.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 09:59 pm: Edit

David. It reduces the counter count because more ships per turn would be involved in combat and because, since a large battle fleet is spread among multiple "battle areas," more small ships end up being in the battle lines each turn.

I do agree that some balance issues might need to be addressed.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 10:08 pm: Edit

andy so you are saying that more ships would be killed? currently far more ships are crippled then are killed, I'm missing why this would change

I also suggest you read some of the other times when proposals have been made to increase the number of kills.

there is a small group who are violently opposed to ANY proposal that would require more kills, and there are a large number of us who are very concerned about the auto-kill proposals becouse if both sides loose similar numbers of ships the effect is FAR greater on the smaller fleet (tke it to extremes, if one side has 50 ships and the other 300 is it fair for both sides to loose 40?)

early in the war the coalition has close to twice the number of ships as the kzinti (since fighters count as ship equivalents for pinning the coalition is only able to move 30 or so ships after pinning everything the kzinti own) and so any proposal that costs each side the same number of ships can quickly run the kzinti out of ships completely

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 08:44 am: Edit

David. Even if it just results in 50% more cripples, that would reduce the number of new hulls produced.

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 10:06 pm: Edit

Which still hurts the side with the fewer ships.

I think the Coalition could quite easily walk over the Alliance fleets if they could force multiple simultaneous battles away from fixed defenses.

For example, the Alliance has 50 ships guarding a SB. Currently, the ships are protected by the SB, allowing the Alliance to control his ship cripple/loss rate. This usually means the Alliance looses fighters/SIDS steps and a few cripples before retreating. Forcing the Alliance to make multiple battlelines, forces them to cripple more ships faster, allowing the Coalition to take LESS damage OVERALL, and the Alliance to take MORE damage overall.

This would influence the early game, which GREATLY influences if the game ever gets to the middle, let alone anywhere near the end.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 12:54 pm: Edit

I not have been able to come up with an idea that does not dramatically effect the game, if it kills both sides more or less equally then it is far too damaging to the alliance. If it kills coalition ships exclusively then I can't see the coalition wining this game.

I am starting to think the game as it currently stands should generally be an alliance victory (albeit with perfect play on both sides).

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 02:57 pm: Edit

The biggest problem is that due to the smaller volume of ships, it causes the Alliance battlelines to become dilute.... this has a serious impact on the Alliance staying power.

Joe

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 05:12 pm: Edit

Edward, did you look at the massive overkill proposal I made? it will kill ships on both sides, but under different conditions, not an even trade

By Richard Abbott (Catwhoorg) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 04:08 am: Edit

The alernate way of increasing damage - that of altering the damage chart is a dead horse.

But I did play a little with a ramped up damage chart - but realised that the fixed defences of a capital just got totally out of order - just about every line in a capital planet assault died.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 04:16 am: Edit

WEll, the first two or three lines that go up over a well defended capital to get vaporized, just ask the Hydrans.

By Jonathan Perry (Jonathan_Perry) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Isn't a high counter count simply a function of ships being produced faster than they are destroyed?

If so, there are two factors

1) Rate at which ships are destroyed
2) Rate at which ships are produced

I've seen lots of people discuss the first, and ways to change it. What about the second?

I don't have any ideas, mind you. I'm not an idea guy.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 02:38 pm: Edit

Lets just allow everyone to make 2 DD attacks instead of 1, let the first one be 1:1 and the second 2:1. The coalition mauler can be used to make the second attack at 1:1.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 03:16 pm: Edit

Edward, that will result in 1 dead ship per battle round (1 DD attack at 1:1), possibly a 2nd with a mauler

this will allow the coalition to kill kzinti ships faster then they can be built while the kzinti will not be able to come close to doing the same with the coalition

you may as well say you want to make the starting fleets smaller so you are going to remove 100 ships from each races starting OOB. if you try to do that you will find that you can't becouse you will run out of ships to remove before hitting your cap.

anything that gets done needs to be proportional to each side.

if you want to reduce the OOB you do it by cutting them by a % not by removing X ships

if you want to cause more kills you need to do it as a function of the damage currently done, not as 'x ships per round' (and even this can be a problem, but the increased losses the alliance will take in open space may be countered by the increased losses the coalition would take over fixed defenses)

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 07:06 am: Edit

"2) Rate at which ships are produced

I've seen lots of people discuss the first, and ways to change it. What about the second? "


I did, but the idea was shot down. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I was told that there would be less fun to the game if you could build less ships. I'm not sure why buildnig less is less fun that destroying more.

Joe

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 09:07 am: Edit

Jonathan

If you want to look at reduction of ship production, I have done exactly that on the F&E lite thread.

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 05:39 pm: Edit

How about an optional advanced rule to go in EcoWar like excess maintenance(Note to SVC, this sounds like a taboo subject, sorry if it is)- i'm sure someone's already thought of it. Ships above these amounts(maybe based on the values of OOB) cost extra to maintain. But then this gets complicated because you have to count ships.

Being the accountant that I am, I'd use the indirect methos, cause its simpler and already has a game mechanic (I'm sure no one's thought of this), so why not use your salvage for your turn as basis for what you should have to pay. In other words, you would have a minimum salvage amount. If you didn't meet this minimum, you'd owe the difference between your actual salvage and your minimum (ie, like a credit card payment). I'd make the frequency of this payment every year or every other year.

A balance to excess maintenance would be you could mothball ships, but pay triple activation cost if not mothballed for 3 turns.

But then, my personal preference in F&E is to be able to buy more things so I can blow up more things.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, August 10, 2003 - 10:41 pm: Edit

Chris, the problem with maintinance is that you have to count every ship on the map to calculate it and that is not acceptable.

now a version with computer support could implement such rules.

as for your salvage suggestion, this meanst that the coalition can cost the hydrans money by ignoring them and retreating when they try to attack (unless they have ships in place to cut them off from supply and cost them their salvage)

somehow this doesn't seem reasonable.

not loosing ships doesn't mean you are not being agressive

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 05:15 pm: Edit

David, in my suggestion, you make a good point regarding salvage. I do want to avoid counting every ship/unit more than once.

How about basing it on a percentage of:
([value of starting ships total salvage]
+[ship production salvage]
-[cumulative salvage received since start of scenario]
-/+[set value])

[set value]=based on scenario, but generally calculated by subtracting both Pre-War Construction(salvage) and increases in production (up to NCAs or PF Deployment, depending on the scenario).

Great, I'd love to be ignored if I was the Hydrans. They haven't reached their full production capacity.

With this method, you are only counting ships(salvage)once not every turn.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:42 am: Edit

Joe S,

I agree with you. Something that slows production rates since F&E sees far fewer ships destroyed than the Steves originally thought. I don't know how you would balance it, but I'd love to cut produciton in about half. The problem, I'll bet, is balancing EPs to production rate.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 02:47 pm: Edit

As it stands it seems people sometimes have to make difficult choices (or at least choices that they would rather not have to make). Choices between conversions they want to do, repairs that might or might not be put off for a turn and building out the full build schedule. I think the problem is the "sometimes", too often a player is able to make these choices too easily. If there were more damage (not necessarily ship kills) in the game then the choices would (I hope) be more difficult.

To solve the "ship count" problem and at the same time hurt the game by reducing options is a bad thing. Frankly it’s my feeling that you just need a little more damage in the game, with regard to the “ship count” problem. We just have too many EP's. Taking most of the free fighters out of the game may be enough, and that is one of the suggestions that has been talked about.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 07:06 am: Edit

I don't believe tbat it has been conclusively established that there IS a "ship count" problem.

Joe

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 02:10 pm: Edit

There is no ship count problem.

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 09:51 pm: Edit

Guess what vassal can count SEs, AF, DF, FF and keep inventories with sorts. If vassal is used maintenance would be a snap.