Federation Commander

Analysing statistics is all well and good, but what statistics are you analysing and are they relevant.

When the damage for heavy weapons was produced, basically damage was halved.

I can't decide what you mean by that. If you mean literally that the photon in FC does 8 and in ACTA it does 4 I can only shrug my shoulders. It is a different game system with different mechanics and number scales.

If you look at it in the context of the game in question it isn't particularly halved. In FedCom a cruiser takes about 120 ish damage to kill through the front shield. More if you allow it to keep manouvering to bring new shields, reinforce etc. In ACTA a cruisers takes about 50-60 if you hit in one go whilst not boosted, more if boosted, and more if you allow it to repair shields between turns etc. The damage of a photon is 8 in FedCom, or about 6-7% of what it takes to kill a cruiser in one turn. In ACTA the raw damage of a photon is 4, or about 7% of what it takes to kill a cruiser in 1 go.

In terms of raw damage delivred per hit the photon and disrupter are pretty much bang on what they are in FedCom from that statistic. Maybe you are looking at another statistic, which may be valid.


But why are we bothered? Why the fixation on raw weapon damage numbers and hit rates. Neither of these are important in determining whether a game is balanced. What determines a games balance is the overall effect given the mechanics, or in this case how you take out ships, which is what we are normally trying to do.

In FedCom the only way to kill a ship is apply raw weapon damage. If a weapon says it does 8 damage then the ship takes 8 damage. There is no way of gaining extra beyond what the weapon chart said (ignoring Andro PA panels), and the possible loss of damage from directed skips is a players tactical choice. To take out that cruiser with 95 internals and 30 shields I have to simply keep hitting it until I have reached 120 points of raw damage input. If I fire overloaded photons at it I know that nothing less than 8 full overloads will do the job, because 7 * 16 is only 112.

In ACTA that is not the case. The fact that a photon does 4 and a disrupter does 2 but with a higher hit chance and fire rate is not the end of the story. Unlike FedCom those shields are very leaky, they seem far more like the trek you see on the screen where shields are holding at 30% but half of deck 3 and engineering have been lost etc. In ACTA the damage you inflict is only partly determined by the weapon line itself, you often gain extra damage due to the crit system, and you often inflict penalties due to the crit system.

A cruiser with with 28 shields and 28 hull may well not need 56 damage to kill it. Sure disrupters inflict twice the damage as photons, but so what? the raw damage output of the weapon does not tell me how me fast, or what chance I have to take out ships, and that is the key statistic.

Lets ignore the Fed vs klingon comparison for the moment and assume both have met the pernicous Kzinti. The Feline CA with 24 shield and 24 hull faces us with our 4 photons or 4 disrupters at our respective long ranges. The Feline is sedated and won't shoot back or do anything at all, and we can't be bothered using anything other than our photons or disrupters because that is what we are discussing.

The following takes accounts of most key critical chart aspects but there are few aspects I ignored for now (which would slightly favor the photon beyond what is shown). The numbers are based on a 100000 sample run so will have some degree of variation, but very minor.

Fed:

1 - 7.57 damage, 3.04 to hull, 0.51% kill chance
3 - 15.70 damage, 6.86 to hull, 4.46% kill chance
5 - 24.34 damage, 11.74 to hull, 13.85% kill chance
7 - 33.58 damage, 17.80 to hull, 27.74% kill chance
9 - 43.51 damage, 25.25 to hull, 42.61% kill chance
11 - 54.39 damage, 34.22 to hull, 57.31% kill chance
13 - 66.11 damage, 44.55 to hull, 70.09% kill chance

Klingon (assumed they fired on round 1 as well, but just showing every 2nd round):
2 - 7.97 damage, 2.26 to hull, 0.00% kill chance
4 - 15.88 damage, 4.65 to hull, 0.20% kill chance
6 - 23.91 damage, 7.39 to hull, 1.49% kill chance
8 - 32.11 damage, 11.36 to hull, 5.27% kill chance
10 - 40.86 damage, 17.86 to hull, 18.77% kill chance
12- 50.97 damage, 27.20 to hull, 50.97% kill chance
14 - 63.09 damage, 39.13 to hull, 82.31% kill chance

So against the Ship that is not defending, repairing or doing anything we see some interesting points. The disrupter and photon are doing about the same damage overall and they both go over the 50% kill rate on round '6' (12 for the disrupter). The photon is seeing its signature lucky strike aspect in those earlier chances of kills after just a couple of volleys whereas the disrupter has no great chance of a lucky early kill, but the disrupter shows it is consistent and when it finally wears the enemy down your kill chance shoots up, whereas the photon with its 'wonder weapon' streakyness is suffering from the bad rolls giving it lower kill rates at that point.


What about them both at short range:

Fed:
1) - 9.98 damage, 3.06 to hull, 0.53% kill chance
3) - 20.28 damage, 7.09 to hull, 5.02% kill chance
5) - 31.12 damage, 13.00 to hull, 16.15% kill chance
7) - 43.51 damage, 22.13 to hull, 34.96% kill chance
9) - 58.00 damage, 35.03 to hull, 59.09% kill chance

Klingon:
2) - 10.50 damage, 2.26 to hull, 0.00% kill chance
4) - 20.98 damage, 4.70 to hull, 0.26% kill chance
6) - 31.45 damage, 9.21 to hull, 1.94% kill chance
8 ) - 42.57 damage, 18.73 to hull, 20.34% kill chance
10) - 56.16 damage, 32.16 to hull, 74.61% kill chance

Same again, the very little difference in total damage, and again the photon shows its high variation with a chance to kill earlier, but equally a higher chance to not kill later. In other words pretty much as the source games.


But what happens if the Kzinti is madly shield boosting everyturn (these based on long range).

Fed:
Round 7 - 25.66 damage, 16.04 to hull, 24.73% kill chance
Round 13 - 50.14 damage, 34.96 to hull, 64.97% kill chance

Klingon:
Round 8 - 13.72 damage, 9.97 to hull, 4.07% kill chance
Round 14 - 27.73 damage, 20.34 to hull, 27.28% kill chance

The Fed is hardly affected in terms of kill rate, he was never relying on taking out the shield, but on the leaks and crits. The klingon however is badly affected, his kill rate drops from 82% to 27%, the bulk of his damage is shields and it is getting repaired rapidly. Whilst he still inflicted the same raw damage the all important ability to actually kill something is quite different. This in many ways is also like FedCom - a photon volley blows through one shield and deals damage whereas the sandpaper tactics of the disrupter ship allows the enemy to reinforce a higher percentage away, rotate and keep fresher shields bearing.

As an Anecdote, I was playing Gorn last night vs Klingon in FedCom. My HDD took the brunt of the klingon fire, but at the point the klingons surrendered it was still alive having taken 90+ shield damage (after whatever it had reinforced, maybe another 12 or so) which isn't bad for a ship that only has about 70 internals. Had it been facing Feds that wouldn't have happened barring really bad rolling by them - 2 cruisers with 8 photons would have likely blown through and mission killed it in one fell swoop.

Okay everyone lets hold up here and take a deep breath. We are losing sight of the Forest because of the trees.

Everyone take off the Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander Rules Blinders. Does A Call to Arms Star Fleet work? Yes. Is there a few areas that could use some tweaking? Yes.

Lets look at the Rules Set and try not to toss the whole thing out. If you are looking for a dead on 1 for 1 comparison don't play ACTASF. The intent of ACTASF was to provide a SFU feel to the A Call to Arms rules, not to reinvent ACTASF as Federation Commander. Also remember if your playing with less than 6 ships on a side you are literally only playing half the game. ACTASF is a Fleet Rule Set not a Tactical or Squadron simulator. It only shines when there are many ships on the board and many of those are exploding rapidly. It is designed to play quickly and to be cinematic, not a gritty realistic approach to how to use experience and knowledge to wring every ounce of performance possible out of every playing piece.

Another thing to bare in mind is that Damage tracking is done completely different from SFB or FedCom. By removing the Federation Commander Rules binders from our eyes and taking a unbiased look at damage resolution it is apparent right away that ACTASF has greatly streamlines this process.

In SFB/FC rule sets damage is eventually spread over not only the Hull but also every Ships System, Power Systems and Weapon Systems box on the vessel. In ACTASF damage is tracked by 4 different mechinism. Ship System Damage is tracked by the Ship Traits. Power System Damage is tracked best by the Critical Hits Table. Weapons Damage is tracked on the Weapon Charts of the Ship Cards. And lastly pure toughness or ship endurance is tracked by hull damage. Most of these are not represented on the Ship Cards by little check off boxes. The only thing the hostile weapon hits actually destroys is Hull Point. One of the perks of this system is you usually have all your weapons available to fire at once or none of them available.

lincolnlog wrote:We had been discussing alternate shielding in a thread over on the Mongoose board, and it drifted to conversion factors overall. Now, let me say I'm not complaining the game is playable and fun as is, but the damages seem backwards in many cases, when a Federation POL has 2 more damage points than a FFG.

Bob, lets take a look at why the Police Cutter is out of line before we set about starting a second round of Hull Values Errata again. As you guess the base system is pretty much Hull X2 but the Police Cutter only has 5 Hull Boxes. Why is the Cutter out of line and where did those other 4 points come from? Cargo Boxes. For 90% or more of the ships in ACTASF HullX2 is the quick and ideal way to work out damage values of ships. However in the first draft Cargo was treated as Hull this made the Police Cutter tougher than a Frigate it also majorly screwed with the Damage thresholds on Bases. This is why the Battlestation and Mobile Base need a tweaking early on. It is also why the 3 Orion Ships available are way too powerful. Has anyone use those yet? Mongoose is playtesting the Orion Fleet. Lets see what they decide to do about vessel with Cargo before we Torpedo the whole system over one ship. If you absolutely can not abide the offending Police Cutter why don't we look at ideals to fix Cargo. The one way I see to do that is to create a new Ship Trait called Cargo. If we did that and reran the numbers for the Federation Police Cutter what we get would look something like.

Callahan - Class Police Cutter - 85 Pnts.
Turn: 3 Shields: 12
Damage: 10/4 Marines: 2
Craft: 2 Shuttles Traits: Agile, Tractor Beam 1, Transporter 2, Labs 2, Cargo 2

Is that more in line with what you would expect? Want to playtest that ship and see how it fights?

lincolnlog wrote:OCL Can absorb as much as 87 Damage (this ship got majorly honked in conversion)

And everyone agrees with you but the Texas' Armour is a SVC Level problem to solve so we need to wait on that one.

lincolnlog wrote:I added the OCL's armor in because theoretically it would get shot away before all the frame would be shot away. And the ship didn't receive the armor trait.

But that is not the way Armour works in ACTASF. If you really want to try to playtest fixing that one simply add the Armour trait to the existing OCL ships and see how it fares. Don't forget that this will also affect the way the Federation Escort Cruiser plays as well.

lincolnlog wrote:Okay, first of all there are two factors between Photons and Disruptors. Yes Photons lose accuracy sooner, but Disruptors loose damage. In keeping the game simple this was forgotten. There was no way to factor the penalty that the disruptor receives to get those long legs. Also, when you consider that on average at over 7.5" only 2 in 6 photon will hit, but at 7.5" 4 in 6 disruptors will hit with no requirement to reload, and 3 in 6 at over 12" with no need to reload. The statistics show that there is no way to score similar damage with photons. Also, considering that you also do not have the option to grit your teeth and bear in for optimal shots at point blank range, I have to say I believe the weapons to unbalanced in the rules.

Once again your losing sight of context. Do Phaser auto hit at range 8 in ACTASF? There is nothing severely wrong with the Photon it works very much like the way a Photon works in Fed Com. And yes there is equal opportunity to grit your teeth and bear it in ACTASF. The I go you go principle does not change that. Just like there is a chance he will move that D7 first and allow you to park less than six inches off of his Aft Firing Arc. Do you lose the chance to make that 1 in 6 chance to hit at ranges greater than 15? Yes. Should you be sniping with a Photon Torpedo at those ranges in the first place? Also do you lose a slightly better to hit chance when you are sitting inside of his Explosion radius? Yes but should you really be that close in an enviroment where he is likely to take you with him when he explodes?

The Disruptor on the Other hand is over powered and is really where the problem lies. To have a SFU feel the Disruptor does need to lose damage potential at range. A better way to model this might have been to make them look like this.

Disruptor (24 or 15) Accurate +1, Kill Zone 12

Marauder wrote:1) Turn modes-Tim

Sorry once again these are really not a problem. I assume you look at something like carrying them over the turn break? That is almost a guaranteed non starter with Mongoose. They do not like anything that you have to remember over a turn break and for the most part it works. Did we have a fight over waddling Gorns? Yes but, any disadvantage in the turn mode system now is equally spread across all Empires. There is one place though that this probably should be looked at. Agile Klingon Cruiser.

A simple fix to this in addition to the Disruptor changes above is to remove Agile from all Klingon Cruisers bigger than a F5 Hull. Just strike it off of the D5, D5W, D6 and D7 all together. With a Turn score of 4 do they really need more maneuverability?

This is get longer than I intended and I think I will stop there. People mull over the above ideal come up with a counter ideal or 2 or even play test them out a little bit. Later we can get in to Klingon Shields, Plasma Defensive Fire Tweaking and how can we improve on Special Actions.

Everyone take off the Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander Rules Blinders. Does A Call to Arms Star Fleet work? Yes. Is there a few areas that could use some tweaking? Yes.

Lets look at the Rules Set and try not to toss the whole thing out. If you are looking for a dead on 1 for 1 comparison don't play ACTASF. The intent of ACTASF was to provide a SFU feel to the A Call to Arms rules, not to reinvent ACTASF as Federation Commander. Also remember if your playing with less than 6 ships on a side you are literally only playing half the game. ACTASF is a Fleet Rule Set not a Tactical or Squadron simulator. It only shines when there are many ships on the board and many of those are exploding rapidly. It is designed to play quickly and to be cinematic, not a gritty realistic approach to how to use experience and knowledge to wring every ounce of performance possible out of every playing piece.

I agree.

You can try and explain why ACTA should be different, or you can try and explain why the maths being used to say ACTA is broken is wrong, or wrongly appplied.

I agree with most of what you say after that as well.
but..

The Disruptor on the Other hand is over powered and is really where the problem lies. To have a SFU feel the Disruptor does need to lose damage potential at range. A better way to model this might have been to make them look like this.
Disruptor (24 or 15) Accurate +1, Kill Zone 12

I strongly disagree with that. The disrupter is not overpowered. It very much reflects the way FedCom plays.

Up to range 15 the photon and disrupter are pretty much even in ACTA, each has strengths and weaknesses, but there is little overall difference. So when you say lose potential at range I assume you mean beyond range 15. This is where I think you need to get away from pure maths/stats somewhat and look at how FedCom plays.

In FedCom both weapons have the same max range, but the photon is bad beyond range 8 and terrible beyond range 12. How often does the photon get fired beyond range 12? and when it does how often does it have a huge effect on the game. It does happen that it gets fired, in a very limited number of scenarios the very long range photon shot is something you do, but you are not usually going to win by sitting at range 25 firing photons every other turn, especially against disrupters. It's not just that the photon is a bad weapon at that range, it is because it only fires every other turn and it is just sooo much better as you get closer. There is a massive opportunity cost to using a photon at that range both in time, power to rearm and damage dealt. As you head in and get closer to 12 the less reason you have to fire the photon as at that point you are not only still firing at the same odds, but you are now that much closer to someone who can whack on you whilst you try and rearm and you are so much closer to getting to range where you can hurt someone badly.

In all the games I've played, either online, tourney, campaign or whatever, I'd say that probably 99% of all photon shooting has been range 12 or less and probably 90% range 8 or less.

Disrupters on the other hand are a totally different beast, they are one of the the premier long range weapons of the game. They do more damage at max range than anything other than a PPD (ignoring base only Ph4s here), and even in that case there are often 4 Disrupters per PPD so the disrupter comes out ahead. Firing from beyond range 15 in FedCom is no where near as uncommon as it is with photons, they don't have the issue of every other turn firing; so you can fire at max range whilst heading in closer next turn. They are geared to the sandpaper tactics so wearing someone down from a range beyond where there opponent can effectively reply is perfectly acceptable for a turn or 2.

In a disrupter vs photon fight it is nearly always the case that the disrupter ship is trying to stay beyond range 8 intially and fight from range 13-15 (or greater), whilst the photon ship is trying to get to 8. Clearly ranges in ACTA and and FedCom don't match up, range 12 in ACTA is not range 12 in FedCom, but you can take a look at things relatively and see that it is very rare for the photon to actually be trying to match the range of the disrupter, and that the extra range the disrupter gets to fight with is in practise allowing it to deal out noticeble damage. If I fight with 5 klingons cruisers taking a very long range pot shot then a range 15 shot I can expect to do 60 damage with disrupters alone long before the photons will even try to shoot. That is not insignificant.

In ACTA the disrupter has an extra 9", but given the movement system that only allows the disrupter to maybe get 1 turn of shooting from beyond the range of the photon, and even that is by no need means guaranteed given ships can move 12-16". If it gets more than 1 turn beyond photon range then the photon player has probably screwed up (or is trying something different).

In the larger picture that extra range, and damage they get to do, just reflects the fact that in FedCom the disrupter ship will nearly always get a fairly decent volley or 2 in before the photon ships fire. If you reduced the disrupters long range damage you would be totally losing the SFU feel of what the disrupter allows you to do in practical terms.

As side note, using the stats you propose with killzone 12 but no multi hit 2 then disrupter would be seriously weaker than the photon from 12-15". 3" is a relatively small window in ACTA, but if people are up in arms that weapons don't reflect the minutae of FedCom/SFB then I expect they'd be apocalyptic at that - photon at max range vastly out damaging the disrupter!

I suspect the reason why people keep thinking the disrupter is so potent is because it is on Klingons and Kzinti. Whilst I do not necessarily agree klingons are super uber lean mean killing machines, they are very beginner friendly and easy to play especailly in smaller demo style games. Kzinti are drone heavy, and drones are pretty potent in ACTA (more due to SA mechanics).

There is a correlation with disrupters and 2 empires who people complain about (being good), but correlation is all it is.

Regarding the Klingons shields.

I have to say I like that rule, with caveats.

It takes me back to when I played SFB and klingons had glass thin back shields and empires had very distinct characteristics. OK, as lincoln said you could reflect that with a weak rear shield rule. Equally, in a way that is what has been done for ships like the D7 and D6, where the rear shield is only 18 for example. The effect is the same, it has a better front shield than most others and weaker rear shields.

Now the caveat is that I like the rule when it is on those ships that used to be like that. The D7, D6, F5 etc. As the SFU evolved all the ships became rather cookie cutter, and the later klingon ships never had those differences like the early SFB klingon ships had. Whilst the D7 etc also got upgraded so they didn't really have those funny shields, I do like the reflection in ACTA of that bit of history.

What I'd prefer to see is the Klingon front shield rule made a trait that is only applied to the original klingon ship line up - E4, F5, D6, D7. It would even more clearly differentiate between old and new klingon ships, whilst leaving the klingon ships that never had such a massive difference between front and back without that rule.

Some more stats. This is looking at a a D5W and Fed NCA firing at each other at range 15ish (as a dumb target, not shooting each other at the same time). I've added in the phasers as well to get a fuller picture of how the direct damage of each ship compares. I've ignored drones and assume for the 6 turns I'm looking at they are negated by each others ph3s/ADD or whatever.

Clearly this isn't a real scenario, no manourvering etc, and it assumes the Fed reloads without issue, but it starts to show how the weapons compare against klingon shields.

I've given the klingon the benefit of agility, and assumed he gets his 6 Ph1s down the forward line, but that the NCA doesn't, so he has 6 of his 8 Ph1s.

The main part of the crit system I'm not simulating yet is the repairs system, that would probably hurt the Fed a little, as he relies more on crits, though the Klink will seldom keep up with the crits its takes, whereas the Fed may well keep up with the crits he takes, which may benefit the Fed in other ways that are not really represented in this type of sim. The other bit that I'm missing at the moment is the crew -1 to checks, which probably benefits the photons as it may save some of those +1 crits on a CQC.

Damage at end of each of first 6 turns.
D5W vs NCA (4 Disr, 6 Ph1 long range)
8.27 damage, 2.16 to hull, 0.56Crit levels taken, 0.00% kill chance
16.38 damage, 4.45 to hull, 1.16Crit levels taken, 0.05% kill chance
24.63 damage, 7.07 to hull, 1.86Crit levels taken, 0.49% kill chance
33.41 damage, 11.55 to hull, 3.08Crit levels taken, 2.98% kill chance
43.56 damage, 19.95 to hull, 5.29Crit levels taken, 16.76% kill chance
56.02 damage, 32.06 to hull, 8.36Crit levels taken, 55.83% kill chance

NCA vs D5W (4 Phot, 6 Ph1 long range)
9.75 damage, 4.24 to hull, 1.42Crit levels taken, 1.17% kill chance
14.04 damage, 6.04 to hull, 2.03Crit levels taken, 3.84% kill chance
24.68 damage, 12.53 to hull, 4.00Crit levels taken, 15.74% kill chance
30.28 damage, 16.08 to hull, 5.08Crit levels taken, 23.61% kill chance
43.24 damage, 26.08 to hull, 7.84Crit levels taken, 41.54% kill chance
50.81 damage, 32.32 to hull, 9.64Crit levels taken, 50.92% kill chance

NB - the Fed shooting is Photons on turn 1, 3 and 5. The other 3 turns are phasers only.

Again pretty similar, the Fed still sees his decent chance of early kills, especially from turn 3. But once the Fed loses his shield around turn 5 or 6 he is in trouble. The klingon front shield rule doesn't actually make a huge difference. The photons that strike the shield are halved from 4 to 2, but only half the photons hit the shield so the Fed isn't losing that much damage, and the damage he is losing is shield damage which he was never that bothered about. The phasers are in banks of 2, so if he hits the shields with both he loses 1 damage, if he hits with 1 he loses no damage. The klingon only gets hit by 2 phasers per bank on his shield 25% of the time, so again he doesn't halve as much damage as may be expected.

Another reason that the Fed damage may look high is that 1/3 of photon crits against a pristine ship dock 10 shields from the starting shield score, which in turn can cause the current shield score to drop.



Again for interest what happens when both sides start shield boosting. In this case the Fed will boost on turn 1, 3 and 5 but not on the other turns when he is reloading, the klink boosts each turn. Power drains from reloads/boost are assumed to be the 6" move given I'm not dealing with manouvering for this purpose.

Damge at end of each of first 6 turns
D5W vs NCA (4 Disr, 6 Ph1 long range) with boost when not reloading
3.49 damage, 2.16 to hull, 0.56Crit levels taken, 0.00% kill chance
11.91 damage, 4.44 to hull, 1.16Crit levels taken, 0.04% kill chance
13.88 damage, 6.90 to hull, 1.81Crit levels taken, 0.31% kill chance
22.65 damage, 9.82 to hull, 2.58Crit levels taken, 2.12% kill chance
25.15 damage, 12.85 to hull, 3.42Crit levels taken, 5.14% kill chance
34.81 damage, 17.31 to hull, 4.61Crit levels taken, 13.23% kill chance


NCA vs D5W (4 Phot, 6 Ph1 long range) with boost
6.73 damage, 4.16 to hull, 1.40Crit levels taken, 0.90% kill chance
9.16 damage, 5.71 to hull, 1.94Crit levels taken, 2.75% kill chance
16.98 damage, 11.05 to hull, 3.62Crit levels taken, 12.05% kill chance
20.40 damage, 13.51 to hull, 4.44Crit levels taken, 19.52% kill chance
29.23 damage, 20.09 to hull, 6.42Crit levels taken, 36.54% kill chance
33.52 damage, 23.49 to hull, 7.56Crit levels taken, 45.36% kill chance

That utterly neutered the klingon. Even though the Fed can only boost half the time that was more than enough to cause the klingons chance of killing him to plummet. The Fed on the other hand only sees a slight dip in his kill chances, he really doesn't care about the shields, even when they are boosted and reinforced klingon ones. We can see that by the end of turn 6 both have done the same overall damage, but it is where it fell that is the key part - klingons shoot shields whilst Feds shoot hull.

Dal, does it work is not the only thing.

It has to match the results of SFB and FC. The game cannot be reprinted, expanded, or released as a PDF until that is fixed.

storeylf wrote:Regarding the Klingons shields.

I have to say I like that rule, with caveats.

It takes me back to when I played SFB and klingons had glass thin back shields and empires had very distinct characteristics. OK, as lincoln said you could reflect that with a weak rear shield rule. Equally, in a way that is what has been done for ships like the D7 and D6, where the rear shield is only 18 for example. The effect is the same, it has a better front shield than most others and weaker rear shields.

Now the caveat is that I like the rule when it is on those ships that used to be like that. The D7, D6, F5 etc. As the SFU evolved all the ships became rather cookie cutter, and the later klingon ships never had those differences like the early SFB klingon ships had. Whilst the D7 etc also got upgraded so they didn't really have those funny shields, I do like the reflection in ACTA of that bit of history.

What I'd prefer to see is the Klingon front shield rule made a trait that is only applied to the original klingon ship line up - E4, F5, D6, D7. It would even more clearly differentiate between old and new klingon ships, whilst leaving the klingon ships that never had such a massive difference between front and back without that rule.

Just to remind people about shields from SFB; the Klingon D6 & D7 never had an advantage in their shielding.

Looking at my SSD from the original SSD book printings, the D7 had 30 points of forward shields, 22 points to each forward side, 15 points to each rear side, and 13 points to the rear.

The Federation CA had 30 points forward, 24 each forward side, and 20 all the way around the rear.

The Klingon shield refit brought the rear three shields up to 22 points each.

So, that gives the Federation a significant shield advantage before the refit, and still an equality or advantage on all three forward shields after the refit. The Klingon D6 & D7 after the refit had two more points of total shielding than the Federation CA.

Wrapping the shields in shorter form, the Klingon F5 had 21 forward, 16 forward sides, & 9 around the rear. The Klingon E4 had 21 forward, 12 forward sides, 7 rear sides, and 5 rear shields.

The Federation Frigate had 18 facing each direction. The Klingon ships had a three point advantage to the front, and suffered a significant drop to the rest of their shields in comparison. The shield refit helped, but never allowed either Klingon ship to match the Federation Frigate's shields. The Federation Frigate held a 28 total shield point advantage over the Klingon F5 before the shield refit, and retained a seven point advantage after the refit. That advantage increased to 44 and 27 respectively when compared to the Klingon E4.

The Klingons, and everyone else, had an advantage over early Kzinti shielding, but even that was redressed as the empires improved for the General War.

Where, then, does the legend of Klingon shield strength compared to the Federation, or the Gorns, come from?

As far as comparing damage values, the hard case of simply playing with damage numbers is only part of the issue. The Klingons can rearm and perform special actions, while Federation rearming requires the use of their special action for every other turn.

Add to that Klingon maneuverability with the shorter turn radius and agility, and the issue is compounded. A Klingon D7 can make up to three 90 degree turns over three sides of a 4" square with a 16" perimeter during movement without risking a HET. The Federation CA can make two 45 degree turns along an octagon with a perimeter of 48" and perform no other special actions when it is reloading. Klingons are only slightly more maneuverable in SFB, but the current rules have a Klingon D7 able to circle back to their starting point barely needing to start their second turn, while the Federation CA requires four turns to barely make it back at the end of that fourth turn.

For SFB players, the photon was an excellent long range sniping weapon because of proximity fusing, for a 50% chance to hit with reduced damage to very long range. The Klingons were given DERFACS to give them an equivalent chance to hit at range, but retaining disruptor damage reduction. Read about the Kaufman Retrograde maneuver if you want to understand the Federation photon's long range threat. Where did the massively improved maximum effective range for disruptors come from?

When comparing damage values, the ranges required for those damage values also has to be taken into account. The Klingon disruptors are firing with a 50% chance to hit from 12 to 24" range, and a 67% chance to hit within 12". The Federation photons are firing with a 33% chance to hit beyond 7.5" range, and only have a 50% chance to hit within 7.5". It's nice to say, 'At 15", the odds are thus & such, and at 7.5", the odds shift to thus & such,' but that does not take into account the additional 9" of range for the Klingon long range value, nor the additional 6.5" of range for Klingon short range firing.

The Klingon disruptors have 60% more total range, and 87% more short range than Federation photons, and they add their +1 accuracy bonus on top of that. Where did Klingon improved accuracy for their heavy weapons come from?

ACTA:SF may well play as a reasonable, balanced game, but it does not reflect the games it is supposed to be drawn from.

Imagine how easy it would have been to add a Proximity Fuse speacial order to allow long range photon or disruptor fire for reduced damage. That would have been simple, and reflected an important piece of SFB tradition.

Exactly, when you use an inconsistent stating model, it is hard to add other tech.

ACTA-SF is supposed to be simple. By dividing the weapons into 3 range brackets (except drones), you give each weapon it's sweet spot, give stats for every weapon upfront (even for the empires that have not been published yet). You can toss out several weapons traits, no need for kill zone, no need for devastating, no need for Accurate. I'm actually not sure Devastating needs to go, only playtesting will say for sure. But it seems to me Devastating was an attempt to take weapons with low hit probailities to balance with others in the game. If there are hits there will be critical hits. If there are no hits, there will not be critical hits. You need the seeking, reload, multi-hit traits.

Plasma needs strengthening. I would like to see SA changes, as a matter of fact the ability to perform more than one, but having to take 2 power drain penalties for 2 power drain SA's. Starship crews are large and should be able to multi-task.

Ship damage needs to fit the damage output of the weapons. And shield application needs to be consistent. The klingons don't need a special shield rule if you provide them the correctly strengthened shields to start with.

It's statting that is faulty. There needs to be a uniform consistent formula for statting. Is the game playable as is, sure if you never want Lyrans, Hydrans, or Wyn. All with dynamic weapons and systems that now need to fit into an inconsistent model.

But, here is key element that I know you'll rake me over the coals for and won't read. The base mechanics of the game are fine. And it's obvious that's not what was done. I have to say I have played and enjoyed this game just the way it is with no house rules (other than home stated ships) and enjoyed immensly. But, all that time, thee group has asked why some things were done the way they were.

Right now a Klingon D7/D6 can make 3 x 90' turns at standard speed. An E4/F5 can make 4 (360'). I'm not picking on the Klingons here that is simply too agile. A 45' turn every 3" still allows 180' in a standard move, 45' every 4" still allows 135' every standard turn. Why is the Agile trait neccessary. The Feds will still only be turn 90' every standard turn.

Also, why wasn't a turn allowed in reverse moves?

Gimp, well stated. My argument exactly only verbalized much better.

People say well devastaing means you will score more critical hits, and that simply is not so until the shield is gone, then I agree with that statement. I would rather score single criticals while the shield it up. In order for that to occur, you have to hit first.

Gimp, in my model the Disruptor is reduced to one damage after 15" with a lower hit probability.

Gimp wrote: Just to remind people about shields from SFB; the Klingon D6 & D7 never had an advantage in their shielding.

Looking at my SSD from the original SSD book printings, the D7 had 30 points of forward shields, 22 points to each forward side, 15 points to each rear side, and 13 points to the rear.

..
Where, then, does the legend of Klingon shield strength compared to the Federation, or the Gorns, come from?

I never said they had an advantage in shielding, nor even an advantage in front shielding. I remember that they didn't. However, as I noted they did have a noticebly glass thin rear.

The existing rule may give them stronger fronts, but it also effectively gives the ships like the D6 and 7 the weaker rear shields as well.

The rule as is works for me for those older ships, klingons did emphasis fighting to the front, and they did have much larger front shields (than their own rear shields).

Whilst some refer to them as double strength shields, they are not actually double strength. Halving by weapon system, rounding in the attackers favor and shield crit loss not being halved means they usually absorb quite a bit less than twice their value against direct fire. If it absorbs half again it may be doing quite well.

Add in the way shield boost works and the difference between klingon shields and others shields become even more blurred on those older ships, except for being weaker outside the front.

As far as comparing damage values, the hard case of simply playing with damage numbers is only part of the issue. The Klingons can rearm and perform special actions, while Federation rearming requires the use of their special action for every other turn.

Certainly. But rearming was always painful for the Feds, and I've played in games in FedCom where the feds do not rearm, or certainly not everything, there are times when the cost of loading up something you can't use this turn is too much and you have to do other things. Getting rid of the reload would mean that Feds always have photons ready every other turn which would feel odd. I'm always a bit borderline on the need for the reload action in ACTA, but it is not just for photons, so I'm on the fence there.

Add to that Klingon maneuverability with the shorter turn radius and agility, and the issue is compounded. A Klingon D7 can make up to three 90 degree turns over three sides of a 4" square with a 16" perimeter during movement without risking a HET. The Federation CA can make two 45 degree turns along an octagon with a perimeter of 48" and perform no other special actions when it is reloading. Klingons are only slightly more maneuverable in SFB, but the current rules have a Klingon D7 able to circle back to their starting point barely needing to start their second turn, while the Federation CA requires four turns to barely make it back at the end of that fourth turn.

When I started playing ACTA I was a bit gobsmacked by the klingon agility. But whilst I can't remember SFB, in FedCom the klingons are a lot more manouverable than the Feds - manouverability here translating into faster turning (not on the ACTA scale though) and also crucially movement initiative which tended to make chasing a klingon more difficult as he not only had a shorter turning arc but you usually ended up starting your turn a move later than him. It also meant he was more likely to be the one lining up centerlines or avoiding them.

BY the time you are playing fleet games the klingon agility never really seemed that great an issue, but it allowed them some of the more subtle benefits that they had in FedCom.

For SFB players, the photon was an excellent long range sniping weapon because of proximity fusing, for a 50% chance to hit with reduced damage to very long range. The Klingons were given DERFACS to give them an equivalent chance to hit at range, but retaining disruptor damage reduction. Read about the Kaufman Retrograde maneuver if you want to understand the Federation photon's long range threat. Where did the massively improved maximum effective range for disruptors come from?

Just part of why I don't always undertstand this argument about all the SFU has to be consistent, it already fails that test. There are no proximity in FedCom and the Retrograde is a non issue due to the double cost of moving backwards. For FedCom players the Photon is at best a weakish mid range weapon, whilst the disrupter is amongst the best mid-long range weapons.

When comparing damage values, the ranges required for those damage values also has to be taken into account.

Equally the movement system of ACTA has to be taken into account. Saying a disrupter has 87% more short range may sound like a large number, it isn't. 4.5" in a game where ships move 12" as standard between firing chances. This isn't SFB where you can have multiple firing chances before anyone even moves, and a move is 1 hex at a time.

Where did Klingon improved accuracy for their heavy weapons come from?

Well that I assume is them being generally seen as the more accurate of the basic heavy weapons, certainly in the mid ranges. At leats in FedCom anyway, again I'm not sure about SFB.

ACTA:SF may well play as a reasonable, balanced game, but it does not reflect the games it is supposed to be drawn from.

At least in terms of what you have discussed I'd have to disagree. I think the elements noted above are all reasonably translated into ACTA. As Dal said earlier though, it is not SFB/FedCom, you shouldn't expect to be seeing some perfect port that happens to play faster.

Imagine how easy it would have been to add a Proximity Fuse speacial order to allow long range photon or disruptor fire for reduced damage. That would have been simple, and reflected an important piece of SFB tradition.

SFB tradition maybe, FedCom hardly. If FedCom got rid prox to simplify the game then I can't see why ACTA which is even simpler would add it back in.

As someone noted in an early post. There is another SFU game that deals with individual ships, in which you have maybe a dozen ships in a battle at once, but in order to keep it simple the ships have been reduced to CA = 8, CW = 7 and a simple look up to see how much combat factor you remove. You don't get Proximity or Free HETs in that.

There are things I don't think ACTA does particularly well as an SFU translation. But it isn't anything noted here.

Dal,

The Police Cutter definitely looks better without the cargo. And I did notice that the cargo was the cause. I thought they fixed that issue when they changed freighters. But, if the Orions have the same issue I guess not.

The only argument I have for you post, is once again as you add tech and races, consistency means additions are are already simplified. I know there was problems with Lyran playtesting. If a consistemnt model is used conversion is simplified.

I'm also not talking about throwing out the entire book. The general mechanics work and are fine. Criticals work great, damage chart works, most SA's work mechanically just too difficult to perform.

Weapon stating has to be in line with the ship damage scores. If a uniform method is used, then adding weapons and empires will be easy. If not you'll be creating special rules to handle everything, and then a easy game becomes a hard game.

My proposal for the agile was get rid of agile. Frigates/Destroyers will still turn 180' per turn with their 3 turn scale, and the Klingon cruiser agreed will be more than agile with their 4 turn.

Bob

Not trying to add words to anyone's mouth, simply pointing out simple facts. The Klingons do not have a shield advantage in other SFU games, and are maneuverable enough any weakening of rear shields is far less of an issue.

I don't play FedCom, but arming in SFB is an important consideration. You may not arm all of your photon torpedoes at once, but you are foolish not to arm any. That same holds true for the Klingons, though they have the advantage of being able to choose turn by turn whether to arm or not. Photons counter this advantage by being able to be armed and held for far less energy.

When considering mobility in SFB, both ships at maximum speed can turn a hexagon with a circumference of 36 spaces. At mid-range speed of 15, the Klingon D7 can do that in 18 spaces, while the Federation CA needs 24. At speed 12, which is a reasonable combat speed, both can accomplish the circuit in 18 spaces. FedCom gave a maximum difference of 24 versus 30 spaces for a circuit with the same 18 versus 24 at mid-range speeds.

For ACTA:SF, the difference is 16" for the D7 compared to 48" for the Fed CA. That's a huge shift from 18 to 24. With the limited turns allowed in ACTA:SF, that's four turns compared to less than two, while both can accomplish it in two turns for SFB or FedCom.

As for weapon accuracy and arming, FedCom did not worry about proximity fusing, but did carry the rules for DERFACS & UIM over for the disruptor. That was one of my disappointments in FedCom that kept my interest down for the game, especially as the UIM's increased accuracy came with a risk that does not appear in FedCom. In exchange, they improved the Federation CA's rear shielding, amongst other things I no longer remember. They made the decision to increase simplicity, so it is understandable even if I disagree with it. The photon being a weak mid-range weapon is rather questionable, as it is still doing eight points of damage where the disruptor has dropped to three. I'd be happy to see a proximity option for FedCom, though it would be more complicated. Oddly, adding proximity fusing to ACTA:SF would actually be far easier, as it already relies on its special order mechanic where proximity fusing would not add the complexity it would add to FedCom.

Movement does need to be taken into account when considering weapon options, and that is where a 4.5" difference in short ranges becomes very significant. Ships can move 12" between firings, but the Klingons are far more capable of maneuvering to take advantage of that 4.5" due to their turn mode and agility. They can also boost speed to gain more advantage from their shorter turn radius, while all the Federation can do is move slightly further along the circumference of their turning octagon while giving up the ability to rearm their weapons.

Federation and Empire simplifies ships to core values, but I see no problem with that, as years of playing SFB has shown that any ship within a class, if played well, can defeat any opposing ship of the same class. All weapons are subsumed into a small range of numbers that actually does give a reasonable representation of their capabilities.

ACTA:SF simplifies, but changes the core ships far more than FedCom or F&E ever did.

Gimp wrote:As for weapon accuracy and arming, FedCom did not worry about proximity fusing, but did carry the rules for DERFACS & UIM over for the disruptor. That was one of my disappointments in FedCom that kept my interest down for the game, especially as the UIM's increased accuracy came with a risk that does not appear in FedCom. In exchange, they improved the Federation CA's rear shielding, amongst other things I no longer remember. They made the decision to increase simplicity, so it is understandable even if I disagree with it. The photon being a weak mid-range weapon is rather questionable, as it is still doing eight points of damage where the disruptor has dropped to three. I'd be happy to see a proximity option for FedCom, though it would be more complicated.

NONE OF THIS IS TRUE!

Again, just to be clear, none of this is true in the least.

Disruptors in Federation Commander do not get DERFACS or UIM. UIM is unequivocally not included in Federation Commander in any way. DERFACS is not used because it is completely incompatible with disruptors in Federation Commander. (It is flat out not needed.)

Federation rear shields are unchanged from those in SFB. All Federation ships have shield strengths exactly as they appear in SFB. (Actually, maybe one ship had its rear #4 shield changed by a box to match its #3 and #5 shields. But that would be a counter-example, anyway, as it was reduced, not increased.)

Please do not comment on stuff you have no way to check or make sure is correct. Spouting things that are so obviously wrong casts anything else you say on the subject in a bad light, as you make yourself into an inconsistent (and therefore irrelevant) source of "information".

Gimp wrote:As for weapon accuracy and arming, FedCom did not worry about proximity fusing, but did carry the rules for DERFACS & UIM over for the disruptor. That was one of my disappointments in FedCom that kept my interest down for the game, especially as the UIM's increased accuracy came with a risk that does not appear in FedCom. In exchange, they improved the Federation CA's rear shielding, amongst other things I no longer remember.

The adjustments to the disruptor's firing table are mainly at one end of the chart or another. A disruptor in FC can fire at range 0, and has a blanket 1-3 to hit from ranges 16-25. Plus, there is no formal "UIM" option which would allow hits from ranges 16-22 to go up to 1-4 to hit.

(It seems that the shift from 16-22 to 16-25 is more to try and avoid having a separate 22-25 range bracket for this weapon in FC, rather than being part of some master plan to make disruptor empires that much more effective at maximum weapon range in this game system.)

There are things which photons have in FC that they don't have in SFB, such as the ability to fire at range one or zero, and the lack of any risk of feedback damage.

Plus, the Main Era Fed CA has the same 24-box rear shield as the refitted CS in the 2011 revision of the SFB Basic Set, while the Middle Years CA in Briefing #2 has the same 20-box shield as the unrefitted CA in SFB.

There are a few other options that are lost in translation, such as the ability to fire between the nacelles down the aft hex row, but the Klingon arcs in FC are somehat trimmed compared to their counterparts in SFB also.


EDIT: Beaten to it by Mike West, I see.

If it helps, many of the (Main Era) FC Ship Cards have low-toner editions available for free over in the FC Commander's Circle, where other play aids and reference materials can be found.

Plus, the e23 edition of the FC Reference Rulebook isn't very expensive and provides a fairly comprehensive look at what kind of rules are required to fly the currently-published Alpha Octant empires in this game system. It's a highly recommended file, if you wanted to catch up with the current state of the core FC ruleset.