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House rule - Allocation of damage

 
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madpax
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 31 May 2009
Posts: 49
Location: France

PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:36 am    Post subject: House rule - Allocation of damage Reply with quote

First of all, if this topic should be located elsewhere (or nowhere), please pardon me. I don't mean to offense.
As I said in another topic, I prefer a more random way to distribute damage than the current DAC. And I remember using with a deck of cards when I played with SFB.
So I wonder if something similar couldn't be done again for FC.
I used the current DAC as a base to determine the ratio of damage for each system (removing alternate damage as this will be treated differently), and tried to include the directed targeting.
I could listy all the cards I found, but I wondered something:
Is it really important to distinguish different warp engines (center, left or right), or Hulls?
Does someone use a different way to distribute damages?

Marc
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MajerBlundor
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 123

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Madpax!

FC "suffers" from a number of drag-inducing SFB artifacts that have no bearing on FC gameplay. So we've created a number of house rules to eliminate the artifacts thus making play faster and more enjoyable. This includes the DAC so we too built a house rule version.

Here's how I built our house DAC which combines the FC intro game's "target player picks all hit locations" with a traditional DAC approach...

1. Counted boxes on a number of ship classes across races categorized by type (weapon, power, system, structure).

2. I then calculated the percentage of each ship's boxes occupied by a given type. For example, on average 45% of a ships boxes are power boxes with a range of 38% to 52% for the ships in our "sample".

3. I then created a 6 row x 10 column DAC matrix with the 6 rows being a d6 roll and the 10 columns being damage locations (weapon, power, system, structure.) These boxes on the matrix are allocated based on step 2 above (eg 45% are power boxes). So far, similar to official DAC but only one row per die result instead of two and the boxes are "generic".

4. The matrix boxes are arranged so that rolls of 1 and 2 have more system hits, 3 and 4 more power hits, while 5 and 6 have more weapon hits (allows for targeted fire).

So, when you take damage you roll a d6 for every 10 damage points just like the official system. But since the proportion of damage locations on the matrix match the ship card proportions as closely as possible and are "generic" you get fewer skips.

For example, if you roll a power hit the owning player picks the specific power box. If you roll a weapon hit the owner picks the weapon. etc.

A few boxes have an asterisk which allows the attacking player to pick the specific box. For example, a weapon box with an asterisk means the shooter gets to pick which weapon gets destroyed.

A couple of other mods:

- Skipped hits automatically become structure hits (frame, hull, cargo). So, if you suffer a Weapon hit but have no weapons it becomes a Structure hit.

- A single damage point destroys four cargo boxes (our group thought it was weird that freighters could be as durable as warships, especially since cargo space presumably represent mostly empty space to carry, well, cargo!)
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wedge_hammersteel
Commander


Joined: 27 Sep 2008
Posts: 578
Location: Lafayette, LA

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 2:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Is it really important to distinguish different warp engines (center, left or right), or Hulls? "

I always wondered that too. Perhaps mjwest will clue us in on that.

It may be a way to have quicker frame or structure hits. Our group also plays that if on the DAC you dont have the indicated system, primary then alternate, then you have a frame hit.

Some ships dont have center warp or hull so we allow any warp.
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mjwest
Commodore


Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 4069
Location: Dallas, Texas

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know that it is really important to distinguish between different warp or hull boxes. However, it is intended. This causes ships with different ratios of forward to rear hull to take damage differently. It also means that ships with one, two, or three warp engines take damage differently, too. It is a way to add subtle differentiation between the various ships.

For the warp engine hits, if that engine box doesn't exist, it is a skip (or you take the alternative hit). So, if you get a "Center Warp" hit, and you only have Left and Right Warp engines, it is a skip and you move on. Or, if you only have a center engine, and you get a "Right Warp" hit, then it is a skip and you move on.

Hull is different. Since there is no "Center Hull" hit, a hit on "Forward Hull" or "Rear Hull" may be taken on center hull. The normal way to do it is make sure you always take the hits on forward or rear hull first, then take hits on center hull, but you don't have to do it that way. (It does maximize your hull hits, though.)

Again, in both cases, the intent is that it lets differently arranged ships take the damage differently.

Finally, a commonly mentioned house rule is to effective treat "Frame Damage" as an unwritten second alterntive hit on every damage box. That is a reasonable house rule in my book (though it is a house rule, not a real rule), it will make ships go "BOOM" a lot faster.
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Nerroth
Fleet Captain


Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 1744
Location: Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Making a difference between various warp engines will be notable for a couple of potential faction additions.

For empires like the Paravians and Probr, losing one or both 'wing' engines produces a drop in the ship's turn mode, which can't be restored until the appropriate engine/s are at least partly repaired.
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markgeorgetwo
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 372
Location: london england

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:39 pm    Post subject: post subject Reply with quote

In my current game like the one before we found the DAC can slow the game down. so the umpire asks us to be fair and mark damage in boxes has he dices the location warp ETC,ETC.
I suppose this is also very similar to how the fast play start is in the start of the main rules
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Mike
Fleet Captain


Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We developed two alternate ways to do damage in our group.

1. Simplified DAC

Start with the normal DA set of charts. Change every individual type of power hit (Left Warp, Right Warp, Impulse, Battery, Reactor, Center Warp) to simply PWR.

NOTE: If you'll notice in the standard DAC, that makes Table #1, Sequence 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9 simply PWR (there is no alternate). This occurs elsewhere in the tables, too.

Change every individual type of hull hit to HULL.

Change every individual type of system hit (Lab, Shuttle, etc.) to SYS.

Change every individual type of control hit (Bridge, Aux Con, etc.) to CTRL.

Leave all weapons exactly as they are in the normal DAC.

NOTE: These changes make allocating damage go a lot faster, but they do tend to lose the detailed flavor that Mike West spoke of in his post. This method of simplifying damage is probably the least invasive of any I have seen, but does offer a good bit of increased speed to damage allocation. Players can still have skips or treat skips as Frame just like the rules say.

2. Alpha-Strike DAC

Allocating lots of damage is one of the things that slows down Federation Commander the most. This is an alternate way of doing damage allocation for lots of damage.

In this system, the various boxes on the ship card diagram are categorized. These categories are the same as the official DAC, meaning that they go by the colors of the boxes on the ship card diagram. They are: Hull, Control (bridge, flag, emer, aux con), Power (warp, reactor, battery), Systems (lab, shuttle, transporter, tractor, probe), and Weapons (phaser, torpedo, drone).

When massive amounts of damage are taken, instead of rolling the 1d6 several times to select the damage tables, use the Alpha Strike system to determine how many hits should be allocated for each of the major categories.

Any time a hit is taken on Hull, any hull box can be marked. The same is true for Power hits...any power box can be marked (including batteries).

System hits are marked in this order: lab, lab, shuttle, transporter, tractor, repeat the sequence. After the second time through the sequence, the probe takes a hit. Players could agree to allow the player taking the damage to mark whatever systems they want.

Weapon hits are marked in this order: phaser, phaser, phaser, torpedo, drone, repeat the sequence. Or, players can agree to let the player taking the damage to mark whatever weapons they want.

Whenever all boxes of a category are damaged, but more are called for, the next point is scored as one frame damage. The remainder of the hits go to the next category (to the right). A player can elect to not accept damage to the last remaining box of a category, but must take one frame damage. If there are any remaining damage points for that category, one more frame damage should be taken and the rest transferred to the next category to the right.

Directed targeting still works with this system. Two other charts were developed for these percentages. With directed targeting, if all the boxes in a category are damaged, any extra damage points for that category cause one frame damage. The rest of the damage points for that category are skipped and not recorded. They are essentially lost.

NOTE: The "Alpha Strike" system is based solely on average percentages of statistical randomness in the actual Damage Allocation tables. The element of luck and lucky hits has been removed. This might be a small price to pay in order to resolve large amounts of damage quickly. If the number of damage points to be resolved are low, the normal procedure of rolling for one or two damage tables should be used. This preserves the element of luck and randomness. Once huge numbers of hits are scored, however, one wonders how much luck really matters if a ship is going to be severely damaged anyway. This system makes that process quick and easy.

Since we have begun using this system, our group has been able to play games faster and keep players more interested. Instead of rolling a die for every 10 hits and going across the damage table, we are able to take care of lots of hits in just a few seconds.
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