Federation Commander

Bill Stec wrote:

Dal Downing wrote:Ok we have a lot of areas to look at but lets take a step back for a second and look at Hull Damage numbers. Is there a problem with them? What is it? How do we make it better?

Currently Hull Damage in ACTASF is (Hull * 2). For the most part I think that works fine where are the problems? We already diisccussed why the Police Cutter is of. Is there a nother ship that needs looking at and why?

I know some poelpe have put foreward the ideal of total box count divided by n. Well that has the problem of ignoring the Padding factor of Hull Damage so its not perfect but is it better?

I for one, would like to see the Klingon special front shield rule go away. No justification for it, IMHO. This would leave the Klingons with more or less comparable shields to everyone else, but they are still weak on hull damage points.

If we just remove the special Klingon front shield rule, the ship becomes less durable; there should be near-parity with the Fed ships. Hull just represents padding/waste space/luxury crew quarters, and non-essential stuff (at least in a tactical battle sense). Just because a D7 has fewer "free hits" on it than a Fed CA does not mean it can't take about as much of a pounding as a Fed CA overall. It just loses power and weapons faster than the Fed.

So perhaps we should not fixate on "hull" hits per se, but be more concerned about how many total hits the ship can take before being destroyed.

I would rather see hull damage points be some number like total hits the ship can take, divided by some convenient number. Because as we all should know, in SFB the D7 can take nearly as many hits as a Fed CA once you score all the non-hull hits. So something like total hits to destroy / 3 would get us in the ballpark. Fine-tuning would probably be needed for consistency of course.

Now this will cause issues with freighters + cargo, and bases, so we need a way to value Cargo that won't make said units really hard to kill.

I have not played FedCom, nor SFB in ages. I do not recall generally speaking how many cargo boxes a freighter or base tended to have when it was destroyed, but I seem to dimly recall that frequently they were not all destroyed prior to the unit being blown up.

I think (someone please correct me if I mis-remember) that currently freighters/bases use hull +1/2 cargo total boxes?

Bill,

I agree, but statistically, weapon damage has to be on the same scale as the ships damage score. In my statistical model, ship damage/2=Damage/3=Crippled.

A Fed CA ends up being 51/17. Which seems like a lot unitl you understand that a phaser or disruptor is capable of 3 dam instead of 2 dam. That is 6 points from a two phaser bank. Granted you have to get in close to do that. Photon still do 4. Plasma increased significantly. But since defensive fire is always at optimal range, and if IDF is made easier to pass, this shouldn't be a concern. I have two versions of each ship Sield averaged, and shields x1.5. I think with increased weapons and hull damage your going to need statisticall better shields.

Also agiler went out the window the turn radii of the Klingons was just rediculious.

Bob

Lee,
As you missed it on the mongoose boards, here is my response to what you posted there.

Storeylf,
That is a very reasonable point. I think you are right about the fact that the ship approaching is more abstracted out in this game.

I agree that it should be looked at as a whole, and where I was missing the approach factor, may I offer another parameter surrounding the drone/disruptor combo. Normally during the approach, say in a Fed vs, Klingon game, the nature of Drones allows the feds to fire their better phaser 1's back at the Klingons, in ACTASF Federation weapons are tied up by drones. The way I see it Disruptors are tied at the hip to Drones and as such they should really be viewed together (yes the feds have them, but not nearly to the extent of the K empires).

I think removing the long range bonus damage to the disruptor would actually help to simulate a MORE SFU like approach.

I do not think this is an attempt to use the FC weapons chart to bludgeon ACTASF, but a balance issue.

storeylf wrote:

ACTA:SF is a playable game, but where I put SFB in the category of hard core tactics, and FedCom in the category of moderately hard core tactics to facilitate fleet actions, ACTA:SF only gets to rank as a beer and pretzels game that failed to reflect its heritage very well. A little more work could have kept ACTA:SF far closer to its heritage, and made it a better game.

Mongoose made far different choices than ADB made in creating FedCom to simplfy SFB, and I believe the game suffers for it.

I'm quite happy for those that enjoy ACTA:SF, but I will never be numbered amongst them. ACTA:SF brings interest to the SFU, which is a good thing. I simply believe they could have done a much better job of it.

It's little different than Flames of War. It increased interest in historical gaming, which I consider a good thing, but it is a failure as an accurate portrayal of WW2 combat. Fun and playable for those that like it, but not for someone who prefers better simulations of the core concepts.

I happen to think that is good. You have a hard core game, a more modest but still fairly hard core game, and a much simpler game all based on the same back ground. I personally think it is a much better position than having 2 moderately complex games and a hard core game. Why limit your appeal to a more restricted hard core simulation market which you already have covered, when you can go for a wider market, doubly so given it more mini based as well.

Beer and pretzels, maybe, but at any rate a far simpler and easier game to get into than either FC or SFB. But weapon stats and klingon shields or agilty are not really what push it down there though. Beer and pretzels is not defined by whether ship stats or weapon stats were converted slavishly from SFB. If you had the same stats as SFB it could still be a beer and pretzel game as it relied on a few 50/50 special actions (making it far to random for anything of a higher rating).

At the moment the one thing IMO that pushes it down the beer and pretzels copmparison is that need for 8+ on 'basic' special actions. If they made them a 6+ I think the game would be a lot more tactical and less random (and hence less beer and pretzel).

I would love to see a simple fleet action game for the SFU. I have no problems with the concept of ACTA:SF. I have problems with the execution of ACTA:SF.

Creating a simple game that better reflected the heritage of SFB & FedCom would not have been incredibly difficult using the core mechanics of ACTA.
Ships could have far simpler turning radius variability. 270 degrees in 12" versus 48" is rather extreme based on the core material.
Shields could have far better reflected the other games.
Weapons could better reflect their heritage. ACTA:SF had a mechanic where proximity photons would be easy to work with, phasers could be closer to the rest of the SFU phasers,etc.
There is no reason for many of the special actions to be restricted to a 50/50 chance to succeed or fry yourself.
Fleet interlocking support did not need to be restricted to special actions, or at least not restricted to a very few ships being able to support another ship. The SFU allows a fleet to support itself, rather like a fleet fighting sensibly.
etc, etc, etc...

Beer and pretzels I could live with and be happy, but it should be beer and pretzels baked and brewed in the SFU.

I do really like the models, and look forward to seeing more of them. I wish they'd worked a little harder on clearing up the resin issues to keep the cost down, as I've seen resin work for other ship games, but at least the sculpts look good. Beyond that, ACTA:SF leaves me cold.

ACTASF needs to be better (fewer mistakes, closer to SFU) not more complicated. We brought it (and Starmada, which does the same thing) into the universe just to get to the beer and pretzels market. I just wish it had not been so rushed. Another two or three months of development and it would have had 99% fewer mistakes and 300% more sales/players.

Steve Cole wrote:ACTASF needs to be better (fewer mistakes, closer to SFU) not more complicated. We brought it (and Starmada, which does the same thing) into the universe just to get to the beer and pretzels market. I just wish it had not been so rushed. Another two or three months of development and it would have had 99% fewer mistakes and 300% more sales/players.

Yah, that whole rush for Christmas release has been the doom of many a game/video game/movie.

I think the game system has more potential if we can get the issues ironed out and release a version 2. I've had some luck stirring up interest, but I think something a little closer to the SFU would probably help draw in more SFU purists.

I think the 3 levels of SFU games can co-exist. SFB for the hardcore simulation people, FedCom for someone wanting medium complexity and mid-sized games, ACTA:SF for the player who want something easier/faster or wants to do much larger battles that are not easy to do with the other 2 systems. Each has it's place in the overall scheme of things.

Glad to see all this thoughtful discussion/debate here.

I really can't get into all 5-6 pages right now, but I'd just put in my two cents:

1) The biggest thing that bothered me about damage in ACTA is that ships easily went from full combat effectiveness to being able to fire almost no weapons. This is mostly because there are only two ways to lose weapons - first through one of the critical hit tracks and second to "crippled" status. This is not at all like SFB - where ships tend to lose weapons (especially phasers) fairly readily. Both versions of starmada do this quite well, but ACTA does not.

2) I really actually quite liked the way ACTA does armour. It makes the ship feel different - kind of old school goodness to them. It was disappointing that the Fed OCL didn't use armour.

-Tim

Steve Cole wrote:ACTASF needs to be better (fewer mistakes, closer to SFU) not more complicated. We brought it (and Starmada, which does the same thing) into the universe just to get to the beer and pretzels market. I just wish it had not been so rushed. Another two or three months of development and it would have had 99% fewer mistakes and 300% more sales/players.

I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with this. In particular, the missed deadlines really, really put me off initially.

I had preordered fleet boxes for every empire when they were announced, but wound up canceling all those orders due to massive delays, and was glad to have done so when the fist reports of terrible miniatures quality started showing up. I did still grab the rulebook, and was also disappointed at what seemed to be a very rushed project.

I mainly wanted the newer miniatures in the first place, for play in SFB (and maybe to finally get around to trying FedCom), as I had just gotten a few friends hooked on good ol' SFB, and thought I'd be able to get more hooked via ACTASF as a "gateway drug." Unfortunately, the difficulty in getting things as basic as stat cards (still not available except via PDF download!) for even basic play has made most people I try to intro it to very uninterested.

Sorry to meander a bit off-topic there...

I do hope that something can be reached so that a revised edition or whatever can be put out that will "fix" the immediate issues. Hopefully, it won't take too long, but I think that it's apparent that it needs to take as long as it takes to "make it right." Only fixing half the things, and pushing forward will not be helpful to the game health, so as much as I'd like models for the rest of the empires, I understand how important it is to fix the current, underlying issues.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that there should be no changes.

I've already said SAs I think should be changed (or rather the target number on a few of them).

I'm not somehow wedded to klingon front shields (but would like to see something like them on the older ships for the original SFB weak rear end feel, even though it is supposed to be upgraded ships we are playing with). However the affect of them is overstated IMO.

I'm not hugely in favor of klingon super agility. I wouldn't be upset to see it go, I just think it is not as bad as it seems, even though I was once there when I first played ACTA at a demo game and thought how the hell do Feds beat that (I was a Fed player).

I do really like the models, and look forward to seeing more of them. I wish they'd worked a little harder on clearing up the resin issues to keep the cost down, as I've seen resin work for other ship games, but at least the sculpts look good.

Ditto, I haven't bought any models since they went metal, and got rid of the few I had. I had plans to build up a mini fleet despite not being a mini player. But I just won't do metal, hate working with it. I'll happily play with counters or other people minis.

Well ive lost my players, Ive stopped buying, and am considering selling the 200+ ships ive purchased. If a change to rules and better product can be instituted around the first of the year I'll stick around and maybe get some of my sons college friends into it. If not you'll probably see a Blue Light special on EBAY.

We stopped playing around 9 months ago. Our FLGS stocks quite a few of the Miniature though so recently a few new people were showing interest, which in turn re-sparked a slight resurgence. That's why I am lobbying for the rules changes surrounding plasma and Disruptors now. I am also hoping to see some changes sooner rather than later. This game has a lot of potential.

archon96 wrote:Well ive lost my players, Ive stopped buying, and am considering selling the 200+ ships ive purchased. If a change to rules and better product can be instituted around the first of the year I'll stick around and maybe get some of my sons college friends into it. If not you'll probably see a Blue Light special on EBAY.

I hope you'll reconsider getting out of the game. I think if we can get the rules cleared up and some changes made, it'll be much better.

Maybe stick your minis in the closet, and check back to see if the game is better come next spring?

If you do decide to liquidate, please do let me know what you have. I'm still buying minis, and depending on what you have, might be up for a few.


If you don't mind my asking, what were the biggest things your players didn't like?

And since you always ignore what I like about the game, you seem to think all I want to do is tear it down. What I want to do is improve them.

I'm not ignoring what you like about the game. It's just that we are not discussing what you like about the game, but what you don't like about the game and your suggestions for changing those aspects.

If you want to create a post about what we like I'll happily jump in a agree with what ever I agree with, or say which bits I like.

I have also stated multiple times that the precise would remain, and that leaks and the critical system is the true genious of the game. ...What I want to do is improve them. Range already has to be measured before firing, so adding a third range bracket adds no complication.

Adding an extra range category I'd say is adding more complication than you get rid of by removing devastating.

By complication I mean that as you add more range brackets you add more involved decision making and tactical decsions to ponder over. Slow complex games are not just about the rules complexity. The more brackets you have then the more you increase the interactions and differences between what or what is not the better move. Even more so when the bracket lengths are such a small amount compared to how far you move in a turn and you have a choice of all brackets in one turn, and need to consider all the range brackets the enemy has. There is nothing much to consider about devastating. If it has it it has it, if it doesn't it doesn't, it is unaffected by range.

In FC/SFB you move through the brackets one by one as a consequence of the move mechanics, you don't decide that you want to be at range 5 and simply move to that range without the other guy being able to avoid it. More gradiated range brackets make sense.

Storelyf that was a typo on my post and I have edited in a new post. Embarassed 64% should round up mto 66% with 3+ at short range, 5+ at long range.

I can see what you are doing, and as a starting point it is probably as good as any other starting point. But just because hit probability is 64% across the whole range measured in FC does not mean it should be in a different game. There is a whole different set of interactions in ACTA relating to ship damage and disabling.

In FC you pile in, fire photons and phasers and if you achieve what you set out then you inflict a lot more damage than a similar disrupter volley. But FC is as much a game as thresholds as ACTA is. If my photons and phasers hit for 50 odd damage that is far far more potent than the 30 or so that the disrupter ship might do. Not just by the obvious fact you did 66% more damage. In FC it is quite likely that the Fed cruiser will barely be scratched, maybe not even losing a shield. The Disrupter ship on the hand may have taken 20 internals, that is not just 20 damage more towards killing the ship, it is also 20 points of damage that may mean that the disrupter ship is immediately down a few power and a few weapons unlike the Fed ship. The photon strike is far more devastating than simply saying it did 66% more damage.

In FC photons are the one shot can win it or lose it weapon. Again in ACTA the combination of hit rate, leaks and devastating give it precisely that feel.

At any rate, here are some stats if you are interested for current ACTA and your propsals, over 5 turns, shooting on 1, 3 and 5..

3 Photon cruisers firing just their photons (4 each) at a D7.
ACTA Photons vs ACTA D7
(long range)
1:- 17.9 damage, 7.8 to shield, 10.0 to hull, 2.9 Crit levels taken, 9.8% kill chance
3:- 35.5 damage, 12.8 to shield, 22.7 to hull, 6.1 Crit levels taken, 46.9% kill chance
5:- 45.7 damage, 15.0 to shield, 30.7 to hull, 8.2 Crit levels taken, 78.5% kill chance
(short range)
1:- 21.2 damage, 10.8 to shield, 10.4 to hull, 3.0 Crit levels taken, 10.6% kill chance
3:- 44.1 damage, 16.3 to shield, 27.9 to hull, 7.4 Crit levels taken, 56.3% kill chance
5:- 58.3 damage, 17.2 to shield, 41.2 to hull, 10.7 Crit levels taken, 94.9% kill chance

Lincoln photons vs a Lincoln D7
(long range)
1:- 16.2 damage, 9.1 to shield, 7.0 to hull, 1.1 Crit levels taken, 0.1% kill chance
3:- 32.2 damage, 16.3 to shield, 15.9 to hull, 2.4 Crit levels taken, 5.9% kill chance
5:- 47.5 damage, 20.0 to shield, 27.5 to hull, 4.2 Crit levels taken, 37.5% kill chance
(short range)
1:- 31.0 damage, 20.3 to shield, 10.7 to hull, 1.8 Crit levels taken, 0.4% kill chance
3:- 65.0 damage, 22.0 to shield, 43.0 to hull, 7.5 Crit levels taken, 82.5% kill chance
5:- 71.1 damage, 22.0 to shield, 49.1 to hull, 8.5 Crit levels taken, 100.0% kill chance

Lincoln photons = hit 3+ at short range and 5+ at long range. No devastating.
Lincoln D7 = 31 hull, 22 shields but no klingon shield rule. (not sure what shields you were proposing so went with what other ships seem to use).

I haven't flooded the post with other stats, most of which are nothing interesting, but the other major one is that because your photons are much more like disrupters (more relaint on taking out all the shields first) they get honked by shield boosting, where as standard photons don't.

That's the raw stats.

Personally I think the ACTA ones better reflect FC, semi decent chance of a knock out first shot, and plenty of crit affects and equally always having that 'crap I missed again' factor. Yours do look more like disrupter stats with no feeling of lucky strikes, and having to take the entire ships shielding out but they do kill better if you can keep firing over several turns. That's the bit that stats like this can't answer, the affect of reload in game play.

Lee, it seems apparent that SVC has said the results have to stay consistent with SFB/FC for license issues. This means Disruptors can not do the same damage at 2 inches that they will do at 24 inches this will somehow need to be modified the question is how to do it with as little disruption as possible.

Sorry Dal, I don't know what SVC has actually said, I know Msprange has said that ACTA must produce the same overall result of a battle, even if the way it is achieved doesn't happen exactly the same, and given the move and SA system that pretty much has to be a given as it totally alters the way things happen. It is however false to say same result means disrupters cannot do the same damage at short and max range (though they don't anyway due to hit rate so I'm not quite sure what you are getting at).

Input -> process -> result.

Just because the input looks different does not mean you don't get the same result if it goes through a different process, process here being game mechanics. But what are you (or rather SVC) meaning by 'result'?

Are you meaning the result of 1 shot by 1 weapon should produce the same result? how are you measuring that given the different damage systems. Raw weapon damage/hit rating is a very poor comparison in ACTA.

Are you meaning the result of 1 volley by 1 ship should produce the same result? ditto with above for what is your measure.

Are you meaning the result of some tactic within the overall battle should produce the same result (e.g. using range and agility to avoid enemy fire as much as possible?) how are you measuring that when some tactics are not possible, or have to be implemented very different, and where ACTA has tactics that have no direct correlation due to game mechanics.

Are you meaning the result of the fleets at the end of the battle? and even there how are you measuring that - F&E probably has the most data for what happens at large battle level and it doesn't use any weapon stats or ship SSDs at all, how many people play enough SFB/FC with a dozen or more ships a game to have the experience of how such battles end.

Okay, I have to say I'm not 100% sure the devastting trait should go either. But, theoretically/statistically you will still score the exact same number of crits without devastating as you did with. You just won't get the 2 level jump when a crit occurs.

I would rather knock down shields than watch my photons do nothing at all. The only way I could possibly see fixing photons is (Accurate +1, Inaccurate -1 at over half range) to me that is too complicated. 3 range brackets still seem easier.

I do think Kill Zone 12 or 15 would work for Disruptors though.