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Post by felixg91 on Jan 6, 2014 22:48:06 GMT -5
Oh good for a second there I thought you guys hadnt seen, what I know I saw, happens when drinking. LOL. The numerical issue presented by the source material doesnt apply to our situation, yes the humans are outnumbered but their homeworlds and fleet were never euthanized by CNP and a huge successful surprise attack that destroyed an unprepared sabotaged fleet. (Not much of a battle there huh? and a pretty lousy and limited campaign setting, but a good story for a TV show though). Huge numbers of Cyborg fighters ( a given to begin with, since more- not better planes is the machines Raison de'etre anyway and) is the main reason I am attempting it in the first place, if a Human Medium Battlecarrier (according to the source material) usually carries @80 fighters and some 8(?) EW/bombers and a Heavy Battlecarrier carries twice that or more, ( and by extrapolation a light Battlecarrier has half the airwing a Medium Battlecarrier does) for us to use more than one Battlecarrier and a support battlegroup escorting each Battlecarrier, a large number of fighters per stand was practical, we did it in FCS and it worked, (it was in other area's FCS had its biggest problems). Capital ships with their armor, flak, and if screened by fighters and a proper escort should be very tough for fighters to kill. In the campaign we have had up to now, all the players actually prefer to play Capital ships, the fighters and the Battlecarriers are there but usually as part of the background but Battleships and Battlecruisers have been the preferred platforms, much to my surprise but they all are SFB and Harpoon players ( and WW2 in any shape or form) to begin with. Gunship rules are fine I think ( actually very good) but I would consider them more bombers than gunships, and call them as such in light of the Pseudo-Fighter type Gunboats ( lifted from SFB PF's) which fight in flotilla's and can only be carried by the largest of carriers and are totally non-canon that we have had since the begining, now those do go in groups of 6. I am still after 40 fighter stands, 8-12 bomber stands and 6 Patrolboat stands. Unfortunately we havent really played yet the holidays really frakk things up, but thats okay in other ways I just ordered some new ships, I had to go to the storage space and pull out the bulk of my miniatures, the map, paints, brushes, glue and Dice...I had no dice except for one ancient 20 sider and some 6 siders so I ordered 25 sets of each type of polyhedron. Gotta admit a fighter complement of over 400 on a Cyborg carrier AND over 200 missile tubes...what did they need the CNP for? Some things in the source material are just plain nonsensical so some of the more impractical crap got modified for playability ( like the arguement that states there are no escort ships only carriers LOL), the way Cyborg fighters are hangared is pretty ridiculous as well, rearming refueling and repairing them in those "nest's" looks highly impractical if not impossible and landing backwards? ? Hand-wavium at work there, I suppose. I have no doubt that 40 plane stands will be ferocious, the smaller the target ship the more so, but long range flak fire on fighters as they close will ( I estimate) whittle them down and make them more manageable, Working out ordinance rules for them shouldnt be too hard but I have quite a bit of stuff on my plate, adding new ships ( building and painting the figures, and assigning stats to them) playing out a few dogfights fighters against fighters and then a few fighters vs various sizes and classes of ships and then a fully fledged engagement with fighters and capital ships on both sides. I think all non-torpedo type weapons will be usable vs fighters doing half damage, to 1/2 ranges and treating each stand as one target. Proximity-fuzed shells, beam weapons and advanced fire-control making that all feasible. Heck I may not even use missiles, nukes and bombs after all, since a 40 plane stand will have plenty of throw-weight. I like SW and ST but never could get into Babblin on 5, but their ships are kinda cool. Happy New Year. Whadda Ya Hear?
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Post by warchariot on Jan 8, 2014 0:01:59 GMT -5
I might also mention that we cut back the range on flak and PD to stay in line with the main rules and because of the six fighter stands. We did try a hex or two more, but the fighters don't make it in, but with your 40 fighter stands you might move the range of those systems out also.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 8, 2014 18:34:39 GMT -5
Hmmm Good to know, actually I dont think Flak and PD are insufficient at all ( but do need adjustment to handle larger numbers of fighters per stand- obviously for us), I do want heavier weapons to be able to target fighters at longer ranges, but maybe I should consider extending the range of flak and PD to say 3 hexes, but if I did would you think that extending Fighters weapons range to 3 as well? ( but keeping dogfight range as adjacent only, I really like the way dogfighting works, and our group is gonna like that as well-they are dice rolling pigs), if I dont extend fighter weapons range, that would make capital ships and their escorts have a distinct advantage that will offset the large swarms of fighters especially in the case of the humans since they have much more and better gun-power than the Cyborg ships, which except for the ( purely non canon)Cyborg battleline and escort types, mostly have no guns at all, which makes little sense ( to me anyway) we know Cyborgs use guns ( on the Colony and the ground base for instance and of course on fighters).
My only point of contention about flak and PD is they ( to me ) are one in the same type of weapon system
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Post by warchariot on Jan 8, 2014 21:14:11 GMT -5
You might make fighter ranges two hexes while PD and flak shoot out to three, that would give them a reason to close on ships ans possible reduce the targets they could shoot at. Fighter movement would allow them to close to any range, so the three hex range wouldn't come into play much.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 16, 2014 20:28:43 GMT -5
Finally a bit more progress...
I think I will leave fighters weapon ranges alone, but FLak and PD I will extend to 3 and implement weapons grids as in FCS.
I got all my ships, the Map, and enough dice to game with, and the new ships will be here anyday, I anticipate playing our first real game in about a month but that leaves me time to test out a few things, put stats on the new ships and paint them, and we cant meet until then anyway. We put the campaign on Hiatus and I am wondering if we should begin with a new campaign or continue the one we already had, both have merit, since the players worked their way up from frigates( escortstars smallest ships size 1) to Destroyers (Patrolstars size class 2-3) through Cruisers (Cruisestars class 3-4 ships usually) to true capital ships (size 4+ Gunstars and Battlecarriers of any size class between 4 and 8) they will probably want to keep their last command having worked up to it, while starting fresh means re-writing history with new ships and better rules, the non-canon setting wont change much I dont think.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 19, 2014 10:12:02 GMT -5
I would leave the ships they have worked up and maybe start the war a new. Maybe a truce or some kind of pullback took place. They could then send out a few small ships to see where the other side went too-AKA practice with the new rules without risk to their main ships. Have fun, can't wait to hear how it goes.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 21, 2014 21:53:38 GMT -5
I think new rules, new campaign, same setting, so I dont have to completely re-invent all the wheels. Besides If I make em Junior officers on small vessels then they have something to earn, namely better commands.
I tried out a little fighter on fighter, wow I love the dicing for dogfight resolution, in my first try on this the Meat Bags completely wiped out the clankers for few losses....that is gonna work great, next I need to try ship vs fighters, 40 planes takes more rolling and a bit longer but works just fine at least fighter on fighter. I am gonna hold of on CLuster missiles and Nukes being usuable by (nearly) every form of embarkable warplane...for now, I want to see how well it goes with better flak Point defense and barrage fire if those really knock fighters down a couple of notches I will re-evaluate and maybe Cluster missiles, bombs and Nukes will become usuable by the small-craft.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 22, 2014 23:19:19 GMT -5
Glad it worked out, the higher PD and Flak may be too much, but they only knock down a few planes. i always wanted to extend the range some to see what would happen.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 23, 2014 17:03:16 GMT -5
Hey instead of using a proximity mode for large weapons in flak mode what about using grapshot with a range limitation instead to simulate the function of defence grids?
Defence grids in FCS hit every hex in an arc 3 hexes out but I have been wrestling on if and how I would use this, clearly we see that being done in the source material, and the players loved the way that worked.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 23, 2014 17:57:49 GMT -5
I believe Harry talked about how Falk was just that, grape with limited range. It should work and give a bit more punch to the Flak. You could always scale back if it did too much damage. So would you make it mult-shot? I would think you would, but does this add a magazine for this, or work as an unlimited weapon? You might also make this a combo weapon and not use PD, but then missiles and fighters would both be shot at by Flak. I guess you could have PD just for missiles and Flak just for fighters.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 23, 2014 18:31:06 GMT -5
PD for missiles and Flak for fighters and grapeshot replacing defence grid arc fire for fighters actually sounds very tempting, maybe limit the range of Grapeshot to 1/2 the firing weapons maximum range and keep the FLak to max range of 3 and the PD to adjacent only, this would make a very layered defense and even if PD was not restricted to Missiles only I like the "right tool" for the job capability that seems to set up. Experiment coming!
If Harry originally conceived Grapshot in that manner then I am in full agreement with it being used and interpreted it that way, it would mean no grapeshot launchers, just an alternate firing mode for the Rail guns, Mag cannons, and auto cannons, Gatling autocannons wouldnt be able to use that firing mode, the way I see it.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 23, 2014 23:08:08 GMT -5
I like the layered feel of this also.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jan 28, 2014 14:53:42 GMT -5
Actually I was going to have an alternate fire mode for rail guns. It was a rule that worked out quite well in an earlier prototype of the rules. So creating something like that for CBF:MvM would be totally in line with original design intent. It just didn't get included when we did MvM. Dropped off a checklist somewhere and forgotten about.
So by all means, see what you can come up with.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 29, 2014 16:35:19 GMT -5
Well that does dovetail nicely.
I am going with each stand of fighters being 5 flights of 8 fighters per stand (total hit points being 40, 1 for each plane), but each FLIGHT would be attacked when FLak, PD, grapeshot or barrage fire mode from projo weapons which can use that fire mode are employed for that purpose.
Strike fighters, Bombers, PF's, will be 8 planes per stand with either 1, 2 or 4 hps per plane/PF. I always liked PF's (PT'boats/MTB's or S-boats of space! wheee!)
I think Barrage fire mode will attack the whole target hex (see above) but only out to 1/2 max weapon range, then roll vs fighters defense# and always use D10, could potentially kill every fighter in a stand but statistically some are gonna make it nobody ever rolls perfectly.
Flak will have a range of 3 and will attack each flight of planes on a stand, the Flak# of times and can also attack that# of different hexes.
PD will have a range of 1 and will be able to attack each flight the PD# of times so potentially lethal to close range attackers in all six sorrounding hexes.
Grapeshot ( May I comment here how much I like Grapshot as a concept weapon) I think I will allow Railguns, Mag-cannons and auto-cannons to fire grapeshot but I am going to give it a maximum range I think 6 (or maybe 8) which will be the long range fighter killer, divide # of weapons in mount by 2 and thats the # of grapeshot that can be fired ( not finalized and may change).
I am going to also allow beam weapons to target fighters also to half ranges, D10 per mount but each weapon unless a gatling Laser or Phaser will only attack 1 plane ( this may need to be modified since it makes Projo weapons much better vs fighters than beam weapons and I think the opposite may be true).
Whadda ya hear?
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Post by warchariot on Jan 29, 2014 22:53:15 GMT -5
Sounds like a plan. Let us know how this works out when you try it out.
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Post by felixg91 on Jan 30, 2014 19:07:28 GMT -5
I will report after I test drive it. Who knows maybe this may end up being used for larger numbers of fighters simplyfying and removing map clutter, honestly fewer pieces is always nicer and I cant get any more of the style of fighter counters I have I dont believe (Ravenstars mostly) which I prefer since they were pretty easy to paint required no assembly and are very durable. Probably tomorrow night or over the weekend do a trial run or 3. I may need some more dice, or always just go flight by flight. The Cyborgs are gonna need a little lovin as well since they ( mostly ) dont use flak and Grapeshot ( some of the ships hypothetical and TOS or Non-canon being the exception) and I Have to see if the missiles ( which they all carry an abundance of) and the fighters make acceptable defense vs incoming human fighters, bombers, and missiles. DO you think cluster missiles could/should function as Grapeshot as an alternate "flak mode" ? Maybe just for the Cyborgs? Mostly, so far, been working on the human fleets, and I did get stats assigned to every ship including the new ones I just got from Hangar 18....well I wanted variety LOL I guess I got that in spades. Whadda ya hear?
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Post by warchariot on Jan 30, 2014 19:50:35 GMT -5
DO you think cluster missiles could/should function as Grapeshot as an alternate "flak mode" ? Maybe just for the Cyborgs? You could use them as such, just rename them and limit the range. If you e-mail Ravenstar he still sells everything he makes, or did 6 months ago.
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Post by felixg91 on Feb 5, 2014 23:41:22 GMT -5
I actually have a sort of curiosity question when it comes to the Cyborg ships as designed in the MvM.
Why do they carry Fusion Torpedoes? is there a precedent for this armament fit in the source material? is it the equivalent of a direct fire missile instead of using a counter? Cause I really am thinking of modifying the weapon fits I have assigned to do away with some of the missiles and replace them with Fusion Torps....just curious, I like the Torpedoes so its not even a veiled criticism.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Feb 7, 2014 16:39:59 GMT -5
I think they were intended to fill the role of the Cyborg nukes we saw in the show.
Its been a long time since we did ship design work on CBF.
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Post by felixg91 on Feb 7, 2014 21:01:08 GMT -5
as far as fighters the only thing I have done is recently change the number of TIgers or heavy Reapers I was originally going with 8 planes per counter but running a couple of tests, I am reducing those to 4 planes per counter.
So Fighters ( "Leopards" and "Reapers" etc etc) 40 planes per stand ( large squadrons due to high attrition) Strike ( "Cobra's" and "Strike Reaper's" etc etc) 8 planes per stand ( smaller squadrons because they are larger planes and crews) Bombers ( "Tiger's" and "Heavy Reaper's" etc, etc) 4 planes per stand ( also smaller squadrons due to larger planes and crews) Pseudo-Fighters ( no canon equivalent really ) 3 boats per stand ( Flotilla's are 6 ships so 2 stands per FLotilla, space PT boats)
I also am thinking I might just change the Cyborg's weapons in a very radical way...in light of what you said about the Fusion Torps standing in for Nukes...instead of having dedicated Cluster missile launchers, Bombardment missile Launchers, ASGM launchers, grapeshot launchers, and Fusion Torpedo Launchers just having a universal launcher that can fire any one of those rounds but only one type of round, per turn, per launcher.
I am also giving the nu-generation Bio-Cyborg ships regeneration as a trait, they still have damage control ( inferior compared to human capabilities in this ability) but they would also get back 5% of their total hull value per turn,( last generation Cyborg ships would not regenerate as they are not Biological in nature but both kinds are in the Cyborg war-fleets). With the provision that systems dont repair until the whole hull value is repaired, except for those Dam-Con fixes. THis will give the Cyborgs a different feel and playability compared to the humans who have better armor, higher hull values, better damage control ratings and more firepower, vs the Cyborgs who have a numerical advantage in everything, are better at boarding, regeneration on certain platforms and their very largest ships are larger than the very largest Colonial vessels.
I have been working on the Cyborgs this last week ( can ya tell?). I like the universal launcher it would go a long way towards justifying no guns, flak and Pdef on a lot of the newer Cyborg ships ( non canon ones anyway).
Whadda ya hear?
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