Federation Commander

[junior]

[defurusu]

Thanks for the numbers, Paul - but I'm not sure how much mileage there is in this kind of comparison.

Don't forget Disruptors and to a lesser extent Hellbores (not to mention Photons) tend to feature in large numbers, being also seen on small ships, where PPDs seem very much equivalent to S-torps in their absence from the smaller ships.

The smallest ship with a PPD is the CS (2), if I recall correctly, the others being CA (1), CC (2), DN (4), DNT (2), BB (lots?), and CF (1?).

Some form of restriction - be it explicit or implicit - seems not only desirable but likely. What is the Echelon, after all, if not both this and flavour?

Without any limits on their deployment, you may be right in arguing for some form of 'tuning' to reduce the terrifying effectiveness of the PPD. I like your proposal to simply reduce the damage they do (I still think treating the pulses as individual volleys is appropriate).

I do think that the PPD should retain some superiority in energy-efficiency at range over other heavy weapons because of the myopic zone - or, put another way, if you want to make it only as good as a Disruptor / Hellbore / whatever then it should be allowed to fire at range 0-3 just like they are. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't standard load Photons and/or Disruptors have a myopic zone in SFB which was abandoned in FC?

I'm repeating myself, I think, but I really like your idea about allowing the target to shift some of the damage around to simulate taking different pulses on different "main" shields, though I'm not sure how best to implement it.

Perhaps the best solution is to abandon the Wave-lock and just force a PPD to roll for each pulse?

[Bolo_MK_XL]

In SFB, Photon cannot fire at range 0 or 1, Overloads can be fired at 0/1 but firing ship takes feedback to the facing shield ---
Disrupters only have the restriction at range 0, along with feedback --
Players new to SFU (that have only played FC, might not know this)

With these changes, I don't see any reason to change the PPD as given in Booster 0, except to allow reinforcement against each pulse ---

One thing not brought up, in SFB, if you thought all pulses wouldn't get a chance to fire (close inside minimum range), the ability to half OL was available (giving 5 pulses instead of 6)

[Kang]

For what it's worth, I have a vested interest in keeping the PPD rules as four/six separate pulses.

This is because I'm working on the scenario 'Space Hockey', where you blast a 'puck' around the board with weapons fire. What was a scenario involving 32 firing opportunities has had to be adapted to one with only 8.

If all the PPD damage is applied in one go, then my playtesting has shown that it will severely restrict the counter-firing opportunities of the rest of the ships in the game. Basically the puck will move most of the way across the map. If the fire is performed in separate pulses, I have written a special rule where the puck will pause between pulses to allow other ships to take a shot. Otherwise the puck will move from outside weapons range, past a ship, and out of weapons range behind the ship, in a single fire phase.

Plus there's the unique situation where subsequent pulses after the first will be firing at a different range so they will need to re-roll anyway as theyre in a different range bracket.

Not that this in itself is a reason why you should not change the rule; after all it's only one scenario, but I thought I'd better mention it.
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[mjwest]

[Kang]

[texastwister]

I'm wondering when an official decision on this will come down? It seems non-controversial and has been posted for discussion for nearly two months with most people in favor of it.

Looking at the stats, the difference in damage seems inconsequential while the simplification of game-play is substantial. And it introduces no differences in strategy.

Seems strange that nothing has been done on this when a much more controversial rule-change can be made with a much shorter period for discussion.

[mjwest]

The difference is the deadlines associated with each.

The "major" change was desired to be done quickly, with a final decision being needed very soon because of product deadlines.

The PPD issue doesn't need to be finalized until 2009 sometime. There is plenty of time for a decision with it. Also, the PPD suggestion has opened up a broader discussion of how the PPD operates and what should (and can) be done with it.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Magnum357]

MJWest, I did not look at this thread until recently, and I was very suprised that you came up with a proposal to change the PPD. From what I have read of your discussion on this, are you trying to say that the PPD is TOO powerful in Fed Commander? I thought that was part of the reason why the ISC are such a fearsome race? I thought fighting ISC Capitol ships were suppose to be tough?

If I understand your proposal about using only one Die Roll to resolve the 4 to 6 Pulses of PPD fire, I think this might be a bad idea. Ya, it simplifies the process, but at ranges greater then 10, this seems too increase the odds of ALL the pulses missing if you roll a hi 2-Die Roll. at least with normal PPD Die Roll Rules, you got a somewhat decent chance to get a couple pulses to hit. Not saying your proposal is bad, it just seems like such a radical change.

I really don't mind rolling for each pulse because there usually is not a lot of PPD's in most senarios anyways, unless your fighting a DN or BB. But even then I play with Fleet Scale so the "High amount of die rolls for PPD's" is really not an issue for my games.

Now if the PPD is TOO powerful in Fed Commander, I read that someone suggested just allowing the Defender to Reinforce his Sheild "per pulse" instead of "Per sheild". I think I like that idea better then radically changing the dyanamics of how a PPD works.

[Davec_24]

For what it's worth, I would tend to agree with Magnum. Having to roll several sets of dice isn't an issue in the sense that there probably won't be many PPDs in play at any one time, and in any ase I don't think rolling for each pulse would take a whole lot longer than doing the basic maths required to work out how many pulses hit using the "single roll" system.

Certainly in terms of complexity in game, I'm not sure as the PPD really needs changing from how it was done originally. In terms of game balance, the PPD is meant to be an uber weapon and so having a good chance to hit doesn't necessarily make it too good to use.

Allowing players to reinforce against PPDs per PPD pulse rather than per shield might work - this can be justified in that damage from each pulse would arrive at a separate time and so in a way constitutes a separate volley to the other pulses. The problem with this idea is that you would basically have to say that all the pulses are treated as separate volleys, and so if the ISC hit you with phasers at the same time, you could reinforce against these and then against each individual PPD pulse as well. OK, this will soon make you run out of power but if you have enough power for it then it may be notable.

[mjwest]

Well, I posit that the PPD already has been significantly changed from the SFB version. The point of the single to-hit roll is simply to complete the change. As stated in the initial post, yes, the odds are ever so slightly worse with the single to-hit roll, but not appreciably. (You can still realistically miss with everything with multiple rolls.)

Again, the point of the single to-hit roll is to make the existing FC rule fit into FC more cleanly. Now, if the whole FC rule needs to be tossed and completely redone, so be it. But if the rule stays predominately the same, then I think the single to-hit roll is completely justified.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Magnum357]

After some time thinking about your Proposal MJWest, you might have something here. Not sure really, but you might. At first, I thought this was sort of rediculas, but after realizing that the Federation Commander system does not have a lot of Weapons modifiers and Sheild Reinforcement rules that SFB has, the PPD might need some tweaking.

The PPD is probaby one of the best (if not best) Long range Direct Fire weapons in the game, it can really tear up sheilds and a ships hull if all the pulses hit and most races can do little about it. If I'm not mistaken, in SFB this is a hard weapon to defend against and with very few ECM or Weapons modifier bonus's in FC, I think it could be even harder to defend against. After thinking about MJWest's idea, this would make the PPD a deadly weapon inside ranges 4 through 10. Outside that range, the PPD would have some trouble as it opens up the possibility of all pulses missing a bit more I think. This might be a good idea as most other Direct Fire weapons either have very low damage output at ranges greater then 8 through 12 or have a heck of a hard time hitting outside of those ranges.

I still like the idea of Sheild reinforcement "per pulse" instead of "per sheild", but after careful thought, MJWest's proposal should be tested aswell. I don't think the high amount of Die rolls is the problem here, I'm more concerned if the PPD is TOO powerful in FC, if there is a problem at all with the weapon system.

[mjwest]

On the Legacy BBS, I got the impression that the concensus idea was to:
1) Use the single to-hit roll.
2) Eliminate overloads.

The single to-hit roll is mentioned above. The elimination of overloads was because they are comparatively easy to do in FC, and virtually impossible to do in SFB. Therefore, instead of trying to come up with tricky rules that make overloads less effective, the simple solution is to just get rid of them.

After that, the discussion returned to figuring out whether to split up the pulses into individual volleys, or make much more extensive changes to the weapon's operation.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Magnum357]

I don't play SFB anymore (prefer Fed Commander) and like the simplicity of play. I've read earlier mentions in this thread that talk about adding all kinds of stuff from SFB (like multi impulse damage) and I don't like it. The PPD really needs to stay simple or what is the point of adding it to the game?

I agree about those two suggestions if the PPD needs balancing...

1) Use the single to-hit roll.
2) Eliminate overloads.

I'm still undecided on number 1, but it looks promising after I thought about it a little. I don't know about number 2, but if Plasma can't envelope, perhaps no overloads for PPD's might be needed aswell. It is as easy as Overloading a Photon and Feds are pretty deadly with Overloaded Photons.

I like the idea of Sheild reinforcement "per pulse" instead of "per volly" but after thinking about it some, that might make things confusing. It messes with the Volley rules already setup for Fed Commander and I'm not sure how reinforcement would be applied to not only each pulse, but also multiple sheilds. I think suggestions #1 and #2 are simple and should be considered for testing.

[junior]