Did my drones get nerfed again? Maybe... Maybe not...

[pickledteak]

I actually like the new drone rules, even if they seem like they are a bit more powerful. The one thing I'm not sure about, depending on if I read it correctly, is the number of flights you have.

The way I read it is that if your Kzinti BC has for drone racks, that means you have 4 drone flights. After you've launched them thats it, no reloads. Is that correct?

[terryoc]

Yep, just four flights. No reloads.

[madpax]

And each drone flight has in fact 4 'real' drones.
It means that now, drones can be fired at a much greater rate of fire (a cruiser can shoot 12 drones per turn, anti-drone fire will usually be rare (at least, according to my games) and sometimes, you just don't have time to shoot at them, but when impacting, you can expect only one drone out of 4 that will penetrate a cruiser shield.
BTW, I wonder why phasers have a range-based ROF. I can understand why they are very powerful at short range (a bit too much, sometimes), but it makes it a much better weapon against drone than phaser 3, especially at short range.

Marc

[pickledteak]

I see, I can live with that. I might end up ruling that during campaign play, drone flights are reloaded between battles just so I don't have to deal with the fiddly bits of reloading.

A phaser 1 at long range shooting at a drone flight needs to roll a 6 to make a hit, which I don't think is that good. At medium range the two ROF dice do help, but they still suffer a -1 to hit.

I think a phaser 3 being able to shoot out to 6 hexes with no penalty against fighters and drones, is that makes it work out ok.
So at close range, the ph 1 will be about three times as good as a ph3 while still suffering a -1 (gross 0) at short range.

I'll look forward to see how Gatlings are handled in future products.

[mj12games]

BTW, I wonder why phasers have a range-based ROF. I can understand why they are very powerful at short range (a bit too much, sometimes), but it makes it a much better weapon against drone than phaser 3, especially at short range.

This is true, in that at the best possible scenario (range of 1 hex), the Phaser-1s will cause more than double the hits on an incoming drone flight.

Phaser-1 expected hits: 3 dice x 50% accuracy = 1.5
Phaser-3 expected hits: 1 die x 67% accuracy = 0.67

However, you will rarely get the chance to attack a drone at this range. More often, you'll be attacking at something like 6 hexes, where the difference is much less:

Phaser-1 expected hits: 2 dice x 33% accuracy = 0.67
Phaser-3 expected hits: 1 die x 50% accuracy = 0.50

The Phaser-1 is still more effective, but not by much -- whereas the Phaser-3 will be all but useless against enemy ships.

You're almost always better off using Phaser-1s against ships and saving your Phaser-3s for drone defense, even though the Phaser-1s might be "better" against drones.

[vejlin]

I'd say it depends on the situation.

The scenario where shooting at drones is the most attractive is when they're in close range and about to hit you through a facet where your shields are down and the enemy is at long range with strong shields.

Under these (extreme) conditions a phaser-1 shooting at drones will be preventing an average 0.75 damage from being caused to your ship. If fired at a ship at long range with strength 3 shields you could alternatively be causing an average of 0.17 damage to the enemy ship.

Granted that example is extreme. If your shields are still in ok shape (strength 2 or 3) and are shooting at medium range you will only be preventing an average of 0.17-0.22 damage from drones. Which looks a lot less attractive, but if the enemy ships are at long range it's a matter of choosing between causing and preventing damage of roughly the same magnitude.

I would however agree that as a rule of thumb you won't go wrong by generally prioritizing shooting at enemy ships instead of drones with your phaser-1s, since only in rather extreme examples is it significantly more attractive to be firing at drones.