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Post by toaster on Nov 9, 2010 16:05:56 GMT -5
Hi all. I've been working on this for a while but the discussion over on the B5 designs thread inspired me to get it finished and posted. It's a formula for calculating the mass of weapons so that we can design our own to suit the background, I'm not promising perfect accuracy and the further you move away from the cannon designs the more playtesting will be needed. Cost1 =SDmg + HDmg + 1.5x Pen bonus + Att Bonus - 0.5x Ammo weight. Add 2 if Att is D10 Subtract 1 if att is D6 Add 1 if Pen is D10 Subtract 1 if Pen is D6 Add 1 each for Autonomous, anti-fighter and High Intensity Add shield damage for rapid fire Add 7 if it can attack all fighters in a squadron (ie. cluster missiles) Cost 2 = 5-(cost1/5) Tonnage = Cost1 - Cost2 For magazine fed weapons tonnage = launcher + 1 round of ammo (yes I realize this makes a loop so you will just have to choose an ammo tonnage based on the examples in the book) This should also allow experiments with things like anti shield weapons that have no hull damage and vice versa but for game balance I would recommend not dropping shield damage just because your using a background without shields, yes you can make a smaller rail gun that way but you lose the ability to do cross over games and you get to much advantage over designs that allow for them. And heres a picture of how the existing weapons work out, the calculated mass is a little up and down from the official mass but the trend lines are a near perfect match so this formula should give a fairly good starting point. If you try designing a super weapon that goes to far off the chart I make no promises that it will stay balanced, also with only one or two cannon weapons with each special ability I am not sure how well there costed. Robert Attachments:
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Post by warchariot on Nov 9, 2010 23:13:13 GMT -5
Interesting. Dread did you put this much work into weapons?
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Post by toaster on Nov 10, 2010 2:42:02 GMT -5
I imagine Dread based his values on playtesting, this sort of analysis can only be done after a balanced set of weapons exist.
Notable is the plus for D10 and minus for D6 att and pen, I suspect this means that D8 weapons would be the neutral point. So all those who have been asking for them can now give it a go.
Robert
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Post by TheDreadnought on Nov 10, 2010 9:42:33 GMT -5
Yes, I actually did a lot of analysis on weapons. Initially I started with a formula driven approach, but found that I could not create one that was satisfactory. So everything was ground out at the game table for balance perspective. The fact that Robert could then take that and reverse engineer a formula to it is awesome.
Whenever I write a new game. . . I always start with the math. "Notes" on a new game take the form of huge spreadsheets, with cryptic references on them. LOL!
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Post by robertthedamned on Nov 10, 2010 9:59:49 GMT -5
Nice work Robert, must have taken a while. I can see a lot of people finding this very useful.
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Post by admiralgrafspee on Nov 10, 2010 12:50:59 GMT -5
Yes, this is super sweet. I'm out of town right now, but when I get back expect me to churn out some weapons... First for Battlefleet Gothic (our group has been working on converted stats) and then just some fun custom stuff for my own fleet.
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Post by toaster on Nov 11, 2010 3:34:05 GMT -5
@ grafspee, make sure you post the stats when your done, I've a pile of BFG ships myself.
Robert
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Post by admiralgrafspee on Nov 12, 2010 3:05:37 GMT -5
Sure thing Robert. We actually are going to test them out tomorrow in a 4500 pt team game. We won't be using any custom weapons tomorrow but I'd like to add them in for the next iteration. I am mostly interested in something for th nova cannon, pulsar, and bombardment cannon.
-Tim
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Post by TheDreadnought on Nov 12, 2010 9:30:12 GMT -5
Love to see a battle report!
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Post by valthonis on Nov 12, 2010 14:05:32 GMT -5
What do you mean by "Add shield damage for rapid fire"
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Post by admiralgrafspee on Nov 12, 2010 14:34:54 GMT -5
Say if you are recreating that Heavy Autocannon, you would add another 3 pts to cost1 for its rapid fire, as it does 3 shield damage.
Here's a d8 based weapon along with various sizes:
Proton Cannon (a combination of anti-neutron tech combined with conventional weapons) Attack: d8 Penetrate: d8 Shield damage: 6 Hull damage: 8 Additional Properties: None Restrictions: CA+ Tonnage: 12 Tech: AMM-2 & CW-3
Proton Autocannon Attack: d6 Penetrate: d8 Shield damage: 3 Hull damage: 4 Additional Properties: Rapid Fire Restrictions: None Tonnage: 6 Tech: AMM-2 & CW-2
Neutron Cannon Attack: d8 Penetrate: d10 Shield damage: 7 Hull damage: 10 Additional Properties: None Restrictions: BC+ Tonnage: 18 Tech: AMM-3 & CW-3
Plasma Cannon Attack: d10 Penetrate: d10+1 Shield damage: 8 Hull damage: 12 Additional Properties: None Restrictions: BB+ Tonnage: 24 Tech: AMM-4 & CW-4
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Post by valthonis on Nov 12, 2010 14:58:46 GMT -5
Doh! I some how completely missed the "Rapid Fire" trait even though I starred at "High Intensity Beam" and "Strategic Bombardment" both before and after it.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Nov 13, 2010 11:09:15 GMT -5
Here's a design tip. Generally speaking you want weapons to do different amounts of shield and hull damage to make sure each weapon is slightly better at one role than the other. Helps preserve interesting choices in the ship design phase.
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Post by admiralgrafspee on Nov 13, 2010 16:41:04 GMT -5
Good point Harry. Modified! I also used consistent terminology with what you have in the game already.
The idea is that these are weapons are ballistic in nature (like an autocannon or mag cannon) but instead of using high explosives they use antimatter charges. I decided to lower their shield damage as most of your kinetic type weapons are like that.
I plan on using them for a custom fleet that will be using lots of turbo lasers shield stripping and I wanted something a bit different (but not totally short range) for their hull penetrating weapon than the conventional weapons line.
To add to that, here's an offensive small laser:
Laser bigger than a gatling but smaller than a heavy laser Attack: d10 Penetrate: d6 Shield Damage: 3 Hull Damage: 2 Additional Properties: Autonomous Restrictions: None Tonnage: 3
I'm just curious as to what people think about the tonnages? Do they seem appropriate?
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Post by robertthedamned on Nov 14, 2010 11:19:47 GMT -5
They seem pretty accurate to me. I've been messing around doing an excel calculator for custom weapons, I can post it up if people are interested?
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Post by warchariot on Nov 14, 2010 11:55:12 GMT -5
Always like to see what people are up too!
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rogue
Lieutenant JG
Posts: 11
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Post by rogue on Jan 6, 2012 0:19:08 GMT -5
Been doing some analysis on toaster's formula while working on new weapons designs. I have come to the following conclusion:
I understand the formula is a reverse engineering but shouldn't penatration cost be higher than Attack (to hit) cost??
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Post by toaster on Jan 6, 2012 15:08:04 GMT -5
@ Rogue, I made my formula by producing a table containing all the relevant stats and special abilities and then added a formula at the end and played with it till the graphs lined up. I make no claims that it is the only way to achieve the results and it's probably not even the best. Feel free to post any modifications you have made. I said all along that my formula was basically a start point for playtesting just to be on the safe side.
Robert
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rogue
Lieutenant JG
Posts: 11
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Post by rogue on Jan 10, 2012 17:18:02 GMT -5
Well being an engineer.....and gamimg with similar people. I've had to be very carefully when I let the min/maxers out of their lil rooms. My self included.
I'm planing an 8+ person campaign based around the CB System. I'm currently playtesting beta rules and weapon systems trying to create a generic weapons building system and expanded rules to cover most of the faction abilities.
So I'm developing a spreadsheet that uses your calculations as the mean (middle). So an example would be 12 Damage cost 12 mass with a D8 attack (0 baseline) and D6 PEN (0 baseline). 24 Damage would cost 28 mass and 4 damage would cost 2. Sliding scale. Only drawback....you must use spreadsheet or the math will burry you.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 10, 2012 20:36:11 GMT -5
Well being an engineer.....and gamimg with similar people. I've had to be very carefully when I let the min/maxers out of their lil rooms. My self included. I'm planing an 8+ person campaign based around the CB System. I'm currently playtesting beta rules and weapon systems trying to create a generic weapons building system and expanded rules to cover most of the faction abilities. So I'm developing a spreadsheet that uses your calculations as the mean (middle). So an example would be 12 Damage cost 12 mass with a D8 attack (0 baseline) and D6 PEN (0 baseline). 24 Damage would cost 28 mass and 4 damage would cost 2. Sliding scale. Only drawback....you must use spreadsheet or the math will burry you. It already did... ;D
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