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Post by felixg91 on Dec 10, 2013 21:53:15 GMT -5
I purchased the MvM bundle and am highly pleased, these rules do and can do everything I wanted from the other Starship combat rules I own. Especially open genre and multiple crossover ability which I highly sought and I am looking forward to more genre/fleetbooks. like all rules I began to adapt them to our campaign. I have used for the campaign in the past, Francis Greenaway's FCS, SFB conversion for BSG, and an abortive attempt with full thrust. I think these rules are better than all of em. Just wish these would have been available when we started all this 5 years ago. I guess where I started to want to go off the rails is on the fighters. Even the MvM fighters are not lethal enough for our ongoing long running campaign, so I changed a few things regarding fighters, instead of 6 individual fighters I wanted a stand of fighters to represent a larger number ( say about 40 planes) so fighters are in flights not individual planes. And I increased the damage done per flight and added all the types of fighters and smallcraft we have had in our campaign. I figured about 8 flights per stand. We have to play-test this over the coming weekend and see how well it works. I didnt want to buy even more fighters and fewer pieces is always easier to keep track of and quicker to play on a board. The second thing I did was look at the SSD's as included in MvM while not bad and seemingly well balanced, they really dont seem too close to the "inspirational" material. So I made stats for all 59 Human and 49 Cyborg ship models ( plus the 14 Human and 12 Cyborg smallcraft) that I have, and I completely threw out the shipbuilding system ( my players wont care about points anyway) maximum ship size of 5 was a casualty as well....I just couldnt see a Worldstar or Titan-A or an Executor class SSD as size 5 and the limitation of only 6 hardpoints was too low this allowed using D8, D12, D20 dice for the system rather than just D6 and D10, it is a sign of how well written and adaptable this game system is that I think it will work, again we will play test this weekend it will require some ironing out and I added a few weapons to the rules as well, surprisngly few as they were quite complete. Generally some creep in Hull points appeared especially in larger ships and Pdef and Flak are just gonna have to be evaluated when we play, a mechanic for barrage fire for larger rail guns firing in suppression mode may be used as well, we liked that defense grid idea in FCS. It is after all a fighter heavy universe. wondered what other people thought about fighters and ship sizes, I know this is the right rule-set I just need to tweak it for our campaign. thanks for making the rules
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Post by toaster on Dec 15, 2013 4:22:29 GMT -5
Hi and welcome to the forum. As you may have noticed this place has been a bit quiet of late. Most people seem to use the Starship Combat News forum for anything that isn't CBF specific. You certainly seem to be jumping into the deep end with making the system your own, good for you that's something Harry is quite keen on (quite surprised he hasn't commented yet). They only thing I'd warn you about is with D20 attack dice you will shift the shoot/manoeuvre balance further to the shoot end and possibly loose a bit of the fun involved in the move phase. I realise your ignoring the points/mass limits but if your players want to get into build there own you will need them. I've developed a weapon build formula that will give you a start for costing your own weapons here www.steeldreadnought.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cbhr&action=display&thread=264 And I do recommend introducing your players to build their own it adds a whole new level to the game. Robert
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Post by TheDreadnought on Dec 16, 2013 11:04:25 GMT -5
Hi! Welcome to the forum.
I am always a big supporter of people making the system their own. Actually some of what you're suggesting has appeared in various incarnations of the game.
For a time I was using more than just the d6/d10 system. . . but later cut it down to just the two dice to reduce the burden on the player. Sometimes when designing a game you have to make decisions for the mass market, instead of what you might personally do.
I do agree that d20 is probably a little much. You might want to consider limiting the dice to d12s at most.
Your fighter changes sound interesting. . . but yes. . . they will be EXTREMELY lethal. . . but maybe thats what you guys are looking for. I'm more of a capital ship guy myself.
Anyway, glad to hear you're enjoying the game. The next fleet book will have spinal mount weapons and should be out soon.
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 16, 2013 20:38:56 GMT -5
THanks good to be here, nice crowd and a great game, I love it, cant wait for the next genre book! Spinal weapons...Yes! I will be buying that as soon as it is released. actually when fiddling with it I came to the same conclusion I dont want D20, D12 seems upper limit of where we are gonna play at this point, more manageable and manuver should not be marginalized too much. Sadly the holidays ruined my chance to game last weekend ( shopping and house guests), I worked on the fleet list and TOE/OOB. The players in our group are not into anything enough to design their own ships...they are very used to WW2 games and modern Naval where every platform was already a set of stats, and I go off the model I have of it but I needed somewhere to start so the 2 battlecarriers and cyborg carriers that are universally present began as my common denominators. Yeah the fighters....it may not work, in theory it should but I gotta try it, we have been using large numbers per stand, so that the number of stands necessary is small, on an "Acropolis Refit" we are using 2 stands of "Mk-III Leopards" ( 40 planes per stand ), 2 stands of "Tigers" ( 4 planes per stand EW/Bombers) and I have some unusual other things that form parts of the Battlecarriers Airgroup, ASP-Recon fighters 1 stand ( 8 planes), a CAG fighter ( 1 stand 1 plane) and a Stealth fighter ( 1 stand 1 plane) I also have other types of planes, Cyborg Recon Drones, Assault shuttles ( both sides) dedicated EW/SWACS type planes and I am sure I am forgetting a couple of types of bombers and strike planes and Pseudo-fighter style Gunships. Our campaign isnt canon in anyway, the human homeworlds were never destroyed and the war has been going on a long time, we also have other factions...which is why I like the adaptability and openness of the rules...Pirates, other alien races, monsters, seperatists and the occasional "guest star". THanks Gentleman I will be a frequent visitor, happy holidays and good hunting!
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 18, 2013 21:45:03 GMT -5
Well Some progress is better than some lost ground...I suppose.
I got to play my first engagement late last night. Solo, no fighters and using very small ships that were pretty close to vanilla. I used for miniatures ( both Ravenstar an old Firestar and an old Max) both of which I rate as size 1 ships. I have to say it left me wanting to play more, and bigger ships and larger battles and try out some fighters. I especially like the way armor and Penetration work and the critical system does cause some nice carnage and can incrementally weaken a ship quickly on various systems which FCS couldnt do. The hit system which inherently limits range is also a strong point. Probably good that I played a solo first to see how things flow and work, but all went pretty well. The Cyborg got some pretty good damage in early at long range using missiles, but was ultimately vanquished by the human vessel running and gunning into close range, which I expected. When we actually clear hot on this for a session the Cyborgs will ALWAYS outnumber the humans by a good margin.
Next I will try some fighters, bombers, and Gunship/Pseudo-Fighter types maybe only those and no capital ships. I mentioned I have a lot of types of embarkable smallcraft, some which I am still fiddling with, some adapt to the system with little or no problem, some are harder to justify, adapt or stat out....I may just drop one or two types from each sides OOB, but I guess I love it in WW2 when there are so many types of aircraft on every side ( Wildcats, Hellcats, Corsairs, Devastators, Dauntlesses, Helldivers, Avengers and thats just for starters) Losing a few from each side would not hurt really, no one ever uses the ground based PDF fighters ( these are cheap economy fighters used by the Planetary defence forces and Militia's) for example and maybe the cyborgs could do without their dedicated EW/SWACS plane, and assault shuttle which boarding pods work better, or that could be another plane that can do the cyber attack and have EW function, or maybe I will just keep em all for a rainy day surprise. I added the micro-jump function and also nuke capability to some of the other craft reflecting the ordinance and jump capability seen on some other platforms ( one of the non-canon aspects of our campaign is most human fighters ( the non PDF ones) can jump and nukes are deployable by most fighters ( if the scenario allows for them).
I do think to balance out each stand being a larger number of planes (organized in flights and that will make each stand more lethal and tougher) that we will try out some of the capital ship weapons being able to attack the fighters at longer ranges. Especially beam weapons, and autocannons. Laser's have not replaced projetile weapons but they are used as well in smaller numbers, prototype shields exist - but are not really used widely, but may be one day, some of the other races that have made "Guest Star" appearances for crossovers and one off games have used them. Cyborgs are pioneering torpedo weapons as well.
Yeah cannot wait for time to play and to try out all the other things in the rules ( boarding and fighters OOH-RAAAH) really looking forward to the new genre/fleet book. THanks everyone have a great holiday season.
Whadda ya hear?
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Post by warchariot on Dec 20, 2013 23:31:02 GMT -5
Good to hear you are giving it a go. I think you'll see it is a fun game that moves along. We play with 100+ fighter stands with 6-8 large ships and can finish in an afternoon.
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Post by billclo on Dec 23, 2013 6:54:39 GMT -5
Not having the game yet, how easy would it be to replicate fighters from say Star Fleet Battles? They can be quite nasty...
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 23, 2013 20:59:57 GMT -5
SFB fighters, especially the Fed F-14 Tomcat are very powerful, making fighters like that would require being able to launch Cluster missiles and ASGM's from the fighters, those would just be house rules....or could be addressed in one of the supplements/genre/fleet books. As for the heavier weapons on SFB fighters ( like Phots on A-20, Hellbore on Hydran, DIsr on Kzin and Kling) well the Fighter Fusion Torpedo could easily approach that with the way it functions, but again those would currently be house rules. Gatling Phasers and other gun type weapons would just do points of damage....yeah sure I think it could be done...it would require some stat and house rules work and documentation to keep it consistent and honest, as for balance....that is not my strong suite....what I mean is I dont use a point system at all. I am still fiddling with the rules to adapt them to our campaign and hope for some actual non-solo games after the holidays. I would love to be able to use SFB ships, I just dont have many models of them...I have a few kitbashed Gorn, a couple of Fed's and Klings and not much else but we have had genre crossover in the past so it will happen again, fer sure. My players loved running into Klingon and Imperial "Guest Stars" in one off scenario's, we did that with the FCS system and it worked, it will work much better ( I think ) in this system.
Pseudo-Fighters I have they are just really small ships in any case, I havent used them yet but I think they should work.
Holy cow 100 fighter stands? I want far less than that in play. Of course I have far more types of fighters and small craft. Wish the Holidays would hurry up and get over with.
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Post by warchariot on Dec 24, 2013 10:02:29 GMT -5
Harry has talked about a SFB type sup at some point, but let him get the other ones out first before we nuke him about this one! This pictures, while not the best, shows 60+ stands on the board.
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Post by billclo on Dec 24, 2013 11:30:47 GMT -5
I'm actually in the process of abandoning my previous game system ( A Call to Arms Star Fleet), and trying out some sort of Star Fleet Universe conversion using Warlord's version of Full Thrust. But Colonial Battlefleet also looked intriguing, and so I may try it out as well.
I expect to have to houserule a few things, even with Full Thrust, to better reflect the SFU, but so far it doesn't seem to be too bad.
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 24, 2013 16:32:27 GMT -5
Well the SFU genre book would be nice, I would like that and definately buy that, until then I can fudge my Klingons, Gorn, Orions, Feds and others. Need some Romulans ( actually I need a bunch more SFU figures of all kinds) But the nice thing about CFB is that fudging is easy.
I think from long experience that SFB is the best portrayal and system for the SFU (but not for other genre's or genre crossover's), especially if you get all the cinematic SSD's from Smileylich.com....and his house rules which allowed the ships from all the movies and all the shows to be played, it also introduced different tech levels...cause next gen is NOT like classic or movie era trek all that much. But I am looking at just converting over a couple of SFU fighters and ships ( a D-7 is always my baseline ship). SFB is not perfect, its complicated, requires lots of record keeping, and was always missing the best ships showed in the films and shows. Fighters in that universe are kind of an afterthought yeah they are there but compared to the capital ships they really are attrition units dont seem too canon and really with the firecontrol adv beam weapons and shields they usually end up as victims, same with PF's. They might balance out better in CFB.
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Post by warchariot on Dec 24, 2013 18:50:58 GMT -5
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 24, 2013 22:29:43 GMT -5
Yeah thanks Warchariot! I have read it, some thoughts I have regarding ST, Klingon BC's are not really BC's they are actually smaller and lighter than a Fed CA, have lighter armament and shields and less engine power....Fed BC's are not canon, with the only reference I remember to that being in the ST-III movie when a Klingon refers to the NCC-1701 refit as a "Federation Battlecruiser" ( so maybe the Klingons consider it a BC even though the feds do not) so the writers ( as writers will do) put something in because it sounds good not because it makes sense a clear case of dramatic license and either ignoring or not doing the research. Now I would rate the also pretty much non-canon Klingon D-10 as a BC, it is bigger, and more heavily armed than the D-7, making it about equal to a Federation "Battle-Cruiser". Battlecruiser ( as you are aware I am sure) is a ship that can outrun anything it cant outfight and outfight anything it cant outrun...I am pretty sure Jackie Fisher defined it that way and I dont like thinking of them as on par with a Battleship, when those two types meet the Battlecruisers usually suffer. Still Battlecruiser as a type name is kinda sexy so it aint going anywhere I am sure. I can sure make the case that any of the X-ships ( advanced technology cruisers like NCC-1701 Refit etc that were in SFB) would be considered BC's.
I really hate the SW ship classification system because it makes even less sense, according to the "Ultimate guide to Warfare" Cruisers are smaller than Destroyers, and even the authors of that stumble on explaining that, giving a caveat and some him-hawing excuses as to why that is and how not all classification systems in use in their galaxy adhere to the same yardsticks.
and back on topic ( sorry) I actually am thinking fighters may not be underpowered, they just need to be able to stack....or as some have proposed attack ships from 2 hexes away allowing more to attack at once. I am still set on using @40 planes per (fighters only- not bomber or Gunship or PF's) counter for organizational as well as playability reasons. I will do some math and comparisons and post what I think and find out in the next couple of days. But a 6 fighter counter at full strength assuming all its attacks penetrate does 12 points of damage, 6 fighter counters simultaneously can do 72 points...thats not terrible vs no shields. see where I am going with this...I will elaborate next post allow me to do a little testing and figuring. Happy Holidays all!
Whadda ya hear?
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Post by warchariot on Dec 25, 2013 0:15:45 GMT -5
Glad to hear you are ready to test all of this out. The 40 fighters per group make sense if you up the ship classes/mass to beyond 100 mass, but I wonder if you are just making everything larger and would have the same, or almost same, result with the system as is. It would be interesting to find out. Good luck, can't wait to hear how it goes.
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 26, 2013 19:07:19 GMT -5
Thanks, Okay I was able to load your pic finally ( My work computer blocks photobucket)Oh we probably easily have a total from both sides as 60+ fighter stands ( with most being cyborg usually) but actually I was picturing 100 per side which is just massive ( my misinterpretation)! Nice Pic though, I see plenty of IWM product out there and your ships look well painted, I dont recognize the star-map ( I use a Monday Knight Productions 6ft x 4Ft map with 1 and 1/2 inch hexes), I assume that is a small portion of your available ship types.
Mass isnt really all that important, size is. I don't really see the need for mass at all (currently) As for Vanilla being the same arbiter and it possibly generating the same results, it probably will not, also I didnt increase sizes universally ( making everything bigger as you say) I just added larger classes up to size class 12, but an Acropolis, Parthenon etc stayed the same sizes they always were ( hull values really only increased markedly for ships over size class 5 because they were larger and should have higher values anyway and in some cases the hull values went down) but saying that a Worldstar is size class 5 and that a Prometheus is also size class 5 just doesnt equate...my players would cry foul.
Another thing sorta different is that my smaller ships are really in the position of being able to do more damage ( all our ships carry more weapons anyway, this is why I really like the armor rules, non penetrating hits cause damage but it may only be a scratch) rather more than a vanilla MVM DD size ship( most ships in the game seem underarmed and/or mis-armed)...in short they can dish it out better but still cant take as much damage as they can cause, sorta like real DD's ( sure a destroyer squadron can kill a Battleship but how many of the squadron are gonna survive the encounter?)...when they gang up on a larger vessel they can usually overwhelm it at a heavy cost to themselves as long as the Battleship has at least some luck and doesnt make horrible tactical errors.
fighters....well one stand of our fighters would be equivalent to say 7 (numerically speaking) stands of Vanilla fighters...so the number of actual stands will be much fewer but the numbers of fighters wouldnt be any different. the damage they can cause and take would be very similar just more concentrated and easier to play. I gotta figure out how I am gonna run defense-grid flak using larger weapons....our group is a big fan of the barrage fire rules in FCS and certainly the inspiration material shows that in use. It might be as simple as halving the damage and applying it to the fighter-stand and voila that is the number of fighters killed from the gaggle of 40, I just havent had all the time in the world lately to simulate and assess this (yet). WHat I am certain of is, that in this fighter heavy universe they should be fearsome, but I think the humans with their normally heavier armor and tougher hull's and better defensive weapons on their capital ships will be stronger against fighters than the cyborg ships will be, this is the way the campaign has always been played, when we used SFB/BSG and FCS as rules...I just think these rules are better ( god I had to really fudge FCS as it was too simple and SFB/BSG conversion took as long as normal SFB does to play and lacked the flavor plus you needed SSD's for every ship and they are graphical type) more adaptable, play quicker and can be universally used for crossovers and a ship can be added to the OOB by just looking at the model and comparing it to types of ship already established in the game...is it bigger than an Acropolis or 3 blade?, is it a carrier? is it a customs enforcement cutter? is it well armed and armored? whats it's function? Where does it fit in the TOE/OOB, what is it's imperative? Is it primitive or state of the art or even pushing the envelope with new tech?
Whadda Ya Hear?
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Post by warchariot on Dec 26, 2013 22:42:31 GMT -5
You didn't miss understand, we do play with 200+ fighters total from time to time. Yes, the machines normally out number the humans by a large margin, but we still play really big with the humans. The picture was from a game where we had two battlestars for the humans and 6 carriers for the machines-two being the 1000 mass/point ships. The game was designed so the humans can fight two or three to one and still win. The game pictured was a huge human victory with them crushing both 1000 mass ships and also taking out three of the four base stars without lossing any ships. The other humans are the large denfender class ships, the best non-fighter ships in the game IMO, they are hard to take out with the 10 armor and the rail guns. Have fun
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 27, 2013 18:14:08 GMT -5
that looked like a good battle! and sounds like it was. Actually the pic is pretty good, nothing wrong with it since I can make out every ship in the scenario. I own only a few IWM, B3 and Fox figs but I have nearly all the Ravenstar, Armoury, Bergstrom, Rattlehead, mini-model madness figures and more than a few kitbashes, and I am planning on buying a few Hangar18 before he closes, thats sad to see.
I concur with your assessment about ships Warchariot, the human ships as given stats based on our campaign are usually 2 to 3 times "better" than an equivalent Cyborg vessel, throw weight ( gunpower) is always much higher ( Cyborgs just dont use a lot of railguns they are missile and fighter freaks and I stuck with that premise, they do use some on their escort and cruiser types for defensive purposes but never as many as the meatbags do, nor are they as heavy in caliber) Cyborg ships have thinner armor and lower hull point values, flak and point defense are much less capable (if any) and they dont tend to be any faster either so except as missile platforms and fighter/bomber carriers they are actually pretty 2nd rate. But they got numbers, and quantity is it's own form of quality of course. I do think for the bio-cyborg ships I am going to allow them to regenerate a small number of hull boxes per turn until destroyed, also they are wicked at boarding combat, most of their vessels are missile farms and when they carry fighters and bombers they carry more than a human ship does, but their smallcraft tend to be not as good as human equivalents, again this falls back on having more rather than better.
I actually also like the idea of fighters, bombers and PF/gunships being able to launch mini-nukes and cluster missiles as well, certainly the inspirational material shows almost all the different fighter types can use one or both types of missiles and bombs, anybody tried using fighters as missile launch platforms? yet?
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Post by warchariot on Dec 29, 2013 13:16:19 GMT -5
During the development of MvM, Harry insisted, and rightfully so, that we could only allow ships/fighters to do what than been seen doing in shows. This limited what fighters could do to, well being fighters and not a lto more. The gunships, of course, do have a nuke strike ability, but no missles other than the nukes.
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Post by felixg91 on Dec 30, 2013 16:20:30 GMT -5
Watch the following episodes again because we do in fact see use of conventional and nuclear weapons from fighters on both sides.
Pilot/mini-series, Cyborg fighters use both conventional missiles ( against human fighters) and nuke's against a capital ship.
season 1 "Hand of God", Human fighters use conventional missiles in a ground strike role, and when they are jammed by Cyborg ECM they drop them like dumb bombs destroying the fuel storage tanks.
Season 4 "The Hub", Human fighters carry nukes to attack and destroy the target ship/station.
"Razor" shows scads of nukes being used to destroy the ships and the shipyard. SOme of those huge explosions are probably bombs since we see waves of fighters passing over the docks and blasts beneath them but we see no missiles being launched.
One of the episodes shows Cyborg ground troops salvaging missiles from a downed Cyborg gunship and building a jury-rigged SAM launcher out of it so the weapons appear to be fairly adaptable, and this also shows that Cyborg heavy fighters can carry missiles. We also see Cyborg missiles used on human fighters in one episode.
The humans mention that the "Gunships" act as inner screen missile ships to catch leakers that get through the fighter screen ( cant remember what episode that is in though). But we also see missile armed "Gunships" several times, but I cant remember them ever firing anything but nukes but clearly the missile pods are a different type of conventional weapon.
I think the humans would probably use them more but for a couple of factors, Cyborg ECM is pretty good and munitions are probably in short supply since the factories and arms depot's are gone. But they can and do use them.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 5, 2014 11:37:44 GMT -5
You're right that there are several shows with missiles and nukes being used from fighters. The BSG Wiki, something I used a lot during the process, also says that Raiders-except TOS and Vipers, both Mk II and Mk VII, have hard points for bombs and missiles. The heavy Raider carries two “ship to ship” missiles as a standard weapon along with its guns. I pointed these out during development, but it was decided not to include them as separate weapons systems as most shows had fighters using bombs/missiles in the ground attack role (Hand of God, Pilot, Razor etc.). So the missiles were incorporated into the dogfight with the regular weapons. Also, remember that this is one supplement of many. Harry wanted to save other ideas for other fighter based shows-think B5 and SW. Your ideas about including lots of fighters was also kicked around, we had figured that the six fighter stand was a compromise so the game could be played out in an evening. So yes, as you watch the show hundreds of Raiders pour from the baseships, but how to represent this and still give the humans a chance? The machines have unlimited numbers of fighters, where the humans have very few left, so we abstracted the numbers to make it playable. The six fighter stand and single gunships give you some staying power, yet allowed for groups to be killed off and not take over the game. The machines can still overwhelm the human fighter groups with numbers, which is what we felt was important to represent. The gunships also have an expanded role with boarding, fire control and electronic/nukes. This was added in as a tip of the hat to the other systems and provided a reason for having gunships. We also thought that players would become bored if fighters were the beat-all system as the game is trying to represent the under strength humans fighting off the machines. It would have been bad form to have the machines fighter numbers something the humans couldn’t overcome. Thanks for your ideas and I would still like to hear how the large fighter formations work out for you.
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