Seems a bit complicated (I had to read it twice before understanding it). Also why not 2d6 instead of 1d10, that would keep it more in line with the rest of the game and give you a bell curve on damage.

I may try a few battles using both combat systems just to see what kind of results I get and how long it takes each way. IF I do that I will post the results.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 11:38 am: Edit

There is an argument for 2D6. If you want to go that way, reduce all the damage results by 1*. (i.e. a 2* result becomes 1, a 3 result becomes 1*).
The system already does have a sort of bell curve in it. i.e. a result of 2 is effectively 30-140 SFB damage depending on whether you roll your 1 or 10 on d10. As damage goes up, the relative spread remains similar - a result of 10 is 120-220 SFB damage. Putting a bell curve on that limits the varaibility somewhat.

Warning- there will need to be some tweaking of damage results.

Second warning - Use high BIR with caution! Damage can get to astonomical levels.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 05:22 pm: Edit

the current F&E combat system has a problem in that it puts all the control of which ships get damaged in the hands of the player who owns the ships (the one DD attack is the exception, at a significaqnt cost)

with this approach the attacker is in complete control over which ships get damaged, with only a minor modification being allowed for the one formation bonus ships.

This is a very significant shift in power and while I believe that a shift is nessasary I think this goes too far (by quite a bit)

the fact that the player can choose to split his fire AFTER seeing the damage that is done makes this even more the case. damage to ships is extremely deterministic to the significant detriment of the ships owner.

what happens when you have higher compots then the chart lists?

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 05:38 pm: Edit

David

That's a slight misundestanding (or I didn't make myself clear)

You get, say, a "13" result. You can split this into two "6" results. You then choose to shoot at 2 ships, each with a base attack of 6+D10.

This rule was put in basically to manage extreme damage and allow players to attack more than 1 unit (which is what would happen if a big fleet got to SFB range 8 from another big fleet).

On your "control to the attacker" point

The other option is to allow every other roll to be resolved on a ship chosen by the defender, or maybe just the first roll. This of course will mean that low combat results will be bounced by the defender on big ship, while high results will overkill frigates or fighters (when I put the fighter rules in). Either tactic seems questionable considering the vast majority of the fleet taking damage will be at a similar range from the enemy. This is also the kind of thing happening in F&E currently - Battletugs are overcrippled to get 11 plus points (horrendously unrealistic - how can taking extra damage mean less later in different battleround?), Frigates get crippled in actions where they simply would never be crippled - only untouched or destroyed.

You could allow the "formation bonus" to be split across more than one ship, but that really will complicate things. Alternatively, you could allow "-1" counters to be put on ship(s) at battle force formation according to how many EW points your fleet has. Again, that has complexity problems, even if it is elegant.

But really, every SFB game I have played involving fleets sees me targeting the biggest enemy unit I can kill/cripple, and there is pretty much nothing the enemy can do about it short of splitting his fleet into different range brackets, whereupon I hit the forward bunch and run away laughing behind a wall of drones (or plasma or fighters in a pinch). Bases skew that a little, but the concept is still there.

I'm working on the higher compots. You'll get a better chart soon. I'm also sorting out low compot problems, PFs, and fighters

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 05:40 pm: Edit

This way lies madness. If Omega F&E ever happens, it won't be a separate game with totally different rules.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 05:46 pm: Edit

Steve. These arn't totally different rules IMHO. They would mesh very well with current rules. Most of the same concepts are there - BIR, VBIR, crippling, formation bonus, EW, etc. It's probably not that much more different than your original combat system was from the current one. But then, you get the vote, as it were. Matter dropped.
F&E Omega will of course be extremely similar. But it needn't be the same surely?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 06:08 pm: Edit

the differences between F&E Alpha and F&E Omega should be the SIT, counters, map, and political rules

anything else that needs to be changed to make Omega 'work' is probably something that really applies to Alpha as well and should be considered for a general rule change.

I haven't followed Omega, but apparently there are some of the alpha race ships interacting with Omega ships so they really should be able to face each other

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 11:07 pm: Edit

Well, that looks like the end of that.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 05:49 am: Edit

It will be, unless the unlikely scenario happens where SVC thinks that a fix is needed and also that the current system can't be fixed. And I'm only saying that because hehas suggested a 1:1 dirdam rule to try and "fix" the Dirdam "problem" (if indeed there is a problem).
My own impression is that there is no good fix using the current system to some of the following notions.

1) Frigates get crippled at high BIR in fleet battles. It doesn't happen that way in SFB, and it's difficult to imagine any scenario where that would happen, even in a campaign context. While an F&E battleround is a non-defined entity in terms of SFB in many people's opinion, there should be some possible SFB scenario or combination of SFB scenarios that result in the crippled frigates we see in F&E. I simply cannot think of one, particulary if we have high BIR, which presumably must involve some close approaches to generate the damage you may get to kill a cruiser by dirdam.

2) Only one ship gets destroyed (by Dirdam). In the rare cases where more than one ship in a fleet is destroyed, the extra ships lost are always the most expendable. There is no reason to think that the fleet taking the losses would have that level of control over the battle.

3) Unless a player uses Dirdam, his damage effectively by default will land on fighters if the enemy has them. In the context of SFB campaign scenario, players will be well aware that fighter replacements are effectively free. Thus, they would not fire at fighters unless they absolutly had to (i.e. enemy fighters at point blank or soon to be at point blank). While fighters can close to point blank on a base (assuming they deal with the abstracted mines), they cannot do this in open space without packs. In any case, it would be very odd SFB result where one side lost 36 fighters and took no other damage except perhaps a crippled frigate.

4) In SFB directing damage on an enemy ship is not be that difficult (i.e. you don't lose 50%). The 1:1 dirdam suggestion may be trying to recognise this. It's not as if terrian is generally a problem. The only type of space combat system where the Dirdam solution we currently have (indeed the whole combat system) works is if ships move much slower relative to their weapon ranges than they do in SFB, have much heavier (5 times?) shielding, and cannot escape as easily. Then, to kill or cripple any ship would take a number of rounds of pounding away, even at medium to short ranges (but fighters die easily). As soon as one ship is targeted, it would start to move away, and thus further fire on it would be less efficient. This kind of concept is seen in battletech, where (barring extreme luck) a medium or larger Mech generally takes at least 2-3 turns to bring down even under immense firepower, and after losing some of armour, it can retire behind its buddies.
But SFB sees ships destroyed in a instant. One single enemy fleet alpha strike and your cruiser is gone a second later. That's what will have been happening when the enemy is "dirdamming" you.

5) Other wierd effects also occur in F&E. Suppose I did 42 and you did 24. We both have 18 fighter factors. You kill a cruiser, I kill a cruiser. The remainder of my damage (probably) falls on those fighters. My extra damage has effectively done me no good at all unless you had a bigger ship for me to dirdam. Just try to imagine any way this could happen tactically. Your entire fleet (you needed every bit of it) has approached to medium or closer range to kill my cruiser. My entire fleet is presumably firing back. What on earth stops me from killing a frigate as well as your cruiser, especially given that my fighters can keep your fighters away? Why could I not have kept my cruisers a little back, giving you no cruiser to shoot at, but still generating enough to kill your cruiser? Why could I not have fired at a longer range, killed your cruiser, and turned off? The result is just impossible.

These kind of problems (and they are just the problems relating any space - not just SFB - tactical combat to F&E combat results) irk me considerably. I *want* see them fixed. And others are there - minus/plus point tactics, CEDS, maulers, which we have talked about over and over. You can't address them all by doing something small. So I tried something larger (which may not have worked anyway, but I had to try).

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 10:22 am: Edit

Why should an entire rules set be changed because you *want* to see them changed? Maybe adapting your tactics is a better method then having to rewrite the ENTIRE game is a better one?

Just a thought mate.

P.S. I apologize for the tone of the above sentence, but I get a little frustrated with all the attempted changes to the game when they are possibly not in the games best interest.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 10:24 am: Edit

Actually, I suggested the 1:1 dirdam because I was curious to see what would happen, not because I thought there was a problem or because I thought that would fix it.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 12:46 pm: Edit

Steve

Thanks for your opinion. (really). It makes it clearer where your stance is. I am sorry that I was under the impression that you thought something might need fixing.

Jimi

It's yours and SVC's opinion (and probably most others) that this is not in the game's best interest. If I wasn't trying to make the game better, why would I bother at all? Now it's dropped, but the possible problems above remain. Whether anyone else sees them as problems is another matter entirely. As I said, the matter is dropped in terms of my combat system. The last post was mainly to explain why I tried.

And I repeat, this is not rewriting the entire game. Why would changing the combat change the whole game? It will surely have balance and playtest issues (not a problem for Omega), but 90%+ of the rules existant in the game could stay verbatim the same if a new combat rule was written properly. The remaining would simply be replaced by it (e.g. obviously the dirdam and maulers rules would be replaced in a new combat system).
If the whole game was changed, you can again be sure that I would not bother with this. I am not out to rewite a great game. You will notice that many changes I (and others) have suggested are tweaks on the combat system in some way (autokill discussions, this, etc). I have not even begun to suggest other changes, because the game does not really need them anywhere else (IMHO). The *only* problem I have with this game is combat resolution, and indirectly ship numbers.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 02:00 pm: Edit

Jimi, please explain the tactics to adopt in F&E to match SFB results or the tactics to adopt in SFB to match F&E results.

yes there are differences due to scale and due to the fact that many SFB games are death matches (although I will note that I have played campaign games where I as the admiral have given a fleet commander instructions that his entire force was expendable if he took his opponent down with him), however it's cuurently not possible to explain many/most of the combat results from system to system. David S's post above is a good example of the problem.

while there are definantly people who believe that the game does not need any changes (in this are or in any others) there are also those of us who see this complete disconnect as a problem that should be addressed

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 02:07 pm: Edit

David, why do I have to explain tactics to make the two games 100% alike? If you check previous posts that I have given you will see that I believe the two, though coming from the same background, should stay seperate in some ways. You cannot make a tactical game end with the same results of a strategic game, nor vice-versa because they are different. SFB (tactical) has a no consequence aspect of it while F&E (strategic) is completely filled with consequences.

You cannot make an apple become an orange (or as someone else said you cannot make a tangerine become an orange). They are similar, have the same 'historical' background and need to pull from the same field of data, but unless SFB is created to where its every pickmeup battle has consequences that affect next weeks battle (or you make F&E to where its week to week gaming experiences have no consequences between them) you cannot make the two results the exact same. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, F&E is becoming too tactical in it's feel. We are getting so specific with ship types that the game is becoming slightly unwieldy (how many F&E players out there use every single rule - new and old and understand their every usage?) I know I do not yet understand every rule, nor its specifics in how it interacts with all other rules yet, and I conjecture that few other players can say that they do.

As a further note David, you say above that in your SFB campaign games that you have given the commander the ability to self kill his entire fleet to do the same to the enemy... can you not do that in F&E? If you allready have that ability to do so in F&E why does the F&E game need to be altered for the rest of us (forcing us to play the same as you?)

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 02:11 pm: Edit

>>> 1. Get a big blank hex map.
>>> 2. Mark it off into six-hex provinces.
>>> 3. Pick several "capitals" at random places.
>>> 4. Give each player a capital, a set of existing F&E counters, and a build schedule.
>>> 5. Explore, conquer, raise money, buy more ships, repeat.

I've tried this before with the regular F&E map and counters and ran into a problem. A multiplayer game doesn't seem to work well unless you are playing with two teams. When you play with lots of players, the amount of board change that happens between an individual players turns is large enough that a player can be easily crippled.

Is some sort of semi-simultanious movement system possible? Maybe each player sequentially either move a stack or place a reserve marker on a stack. The stacks with reserve markers all move after all other stacks.

Any suggestions from anyone else?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 02:42 pm: Edit

JohnK, written to move 20-30 ships at a time on each side upto their movement allowance.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Ok,

So is anyone actually gonna discuss how to repesent the Omega octet and how best to campaign there?

Any word on an Omega Cyberboard we can play with (if it's OK with SVC)? Any suggestions for suitable OOBs for, say, Y186 (let's pick the start of the Andro war as a good point, as hopefully by the time an Omega module gets worked on we will have an Andro force already out and usable as a reference in comparison to the Omega races at the time, plus we get to add the Souldra incursions too!) as well as how many Omega races to include - initially - as player races as opposed to neutrals?

As regards playtesting, there's no harm in subbing Alpha counters as substitutes (once we actually estanlish counter values for a few Omega races' ships!)

Maybe we could do the races one by one, or two or three at a time, so perhaps we could start with the Souldra and the Loriyill, as two Omega races who had such an impact on each other and the octet at large during the Andromedan invasion... and maybe the FRA, as it would seve as a handy way of using those Fed counters!

Gary

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 03:46 pm: Edit

I would love to make up the Omega Map, but real life concerens right now are preventing me from doing anything that would take that amount of time.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 04:02 pm: Edit

It would be easier to create a scenario of either the 1st Great War or the 2nd Great War.

There are defined sides (All around the Maerons, 1st, or warm-blooded verses alien biology pretty much, 2nd). 1st war has less races involved (big plus), 2nd war has almost all races involved (chaos for counters).

It should have two clearly defined teams and goals. Throwing the Andros into the mix is asking for trouble, as there is considerable history to work with already, besides the time where there's everyone then the Souldro and Andro's invading all over.

Get the basic's down first, then add Andros+Souldra later.

FYI, the Andro's really invade the Omega about the same time as the Alpha quadrant, so ~Y186+ along with the Souldra invading, (no proof in coordination), thus the Omegans are hit doubly by two invaders out of nowhere that smacks them all around.

Personally, I would pick either war, set it up for F+E, then we determine which additional shiptypes are needed for development in F+E (ie a CW, DW, etc). But I have no idea of SVC's/Agent1's plans of letting F+E drive Omega SFB.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 07:29 pm: Edit

David, get about 60 ships together in SFB, then using those same ships play about 300 battles. See how the results are, come back and let us know.

By Mark Ermenc (Mermenc) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 07:42 pm: Edit

I'd suggest running with what's there, first. If a race has no DW hulls, it gets no DWs. The less hull types races have, the easier it will be for players to get a handle on it. If there are less hulls, individual ships will be more interesting, and defences more powerful.

In playtest, you'll find out if the game is playable, and what needs to be added.

Just because it's in alpha quadrant F&E doesn't mean it has to be in omega. I for one would love to play a game that was different because it didn't have (insert fleet role here) or even an equivalent. It wouldn't even need to have things Alpha didn't have to make it interesting. Just trying to make do without the (whatever) would be an interesting challenge with interesting consequences.

That fill-in-the-blank could be anything ... War hulls, CR10 ships, carrier escorts, tug pods, maulers, good scouts, FCRs, anything.

If Omega ends up being Alpha with pink and teal counters, I for one won't be very interested. I for one want to see something different.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, November 02, 2004 - 10:36 pm: Edit

Mark, I agree, Omega ships are DIFFERENT the Alpha ships, and not just their tactical weapons.

draft up the SIT that the omega ships would have and let's see how things work

as for the other discussion, I should not have continued as long as I did, it's clear that the particular people involed in this discussion will never be convinced of the others side so let's not tie up this topic for it (F&E discussions or proposal topics for rules to change things are fair game)

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 - 04:29 am: Edit

Chris

Such comments are plainly unhelpful. it's like asking someone to play F&E 20 times. And I really suggest you look over in the SFB campaigns thread. My comments were a general opinion from at least 10-20 battles posted.

By Lucio Abbate (Blobbo) on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 - 07:11 am: Edit

David S.,
I like your proposed combat system.
Could it be considered for publishing under stellar shadow?
This system would offer a quite different approach to the game.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 - 08:33 am: Edit

It needs more work. I have already spotted several flaws. I'll move updates of it over to steallar shadows.