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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 27, 2010 12:47:39 GMT -5
Got a couple questions from the other thread I'm curious about people's reactions to:
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I tried to match the defenses to the offensive systems in designing the tech levels figuring that evolution of one, would drive evolution of the other.
Still. . . I REALLY like the idea of armor as an orbital construction tech. It makes sense, and does increase the value of that tech. I'm going to have to take a close look at that the problem is a major change like that could cause a big problem throughout the rest of the book. Take a lot of analysis to spot all the changes. Dammit. . . where were you when I was designing the game? ---------------------------------------------------------------
What do you guys think of this. I had considered it but dropped it to maintain the weapon-defense relationship. Now I am reconsidering. Thoughts?
What other impacts would this have?
----------------------------------------------------------------- Quote: Perhaps allow any Critical roll of 'doubles' to remove a point of armor from the target? For example a role of 1,1 or 2,2 would remove an armor. This would allow you to use heavy weapons to hopefully weaken a high-armor target and bring it down to the level where some of the d6 pen weapons seem attractive. As it stands now, I can't imagine wanting to use many of those weapons when the better d10 pen weapons arent much more expensive and in some cases also come with a much better attack die.
Despite the conversation above above the relative value ot low-tech to high-tech weapons, part of me does like this idea, although it move towards a less realistic treatment of armor. I'll think about it. --------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you guys think about this?
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 13:58:38 GMT -5
Obviously you have my vote for these. I'll probably give them a whirl in our next game to see what the effect would be.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 27, 2010 14:05:15 GMT -5
I'm not sure the lowering of armor through criticals or other means is going to help people buy D6 penetration weapons, it will just make D10 weapons more effective against all targets, particularly those with a +1, 2 or 3 to penetration. If you go with this it should be a special rule for some weapons like the auto cannons. The problem weapons seem to be the auto cannons. The lasers have high hit ability and/or special rules that helps them. They are also good against shields. The gatling auto fires without a FC, but the heavy doesn't have any help being a D6 to hit and to penetrate. Perhaps the answer lays in the to-hit dice size . Maybe it should be raised to hit at D10 or at least be given a + to hit for its D6. Or maybe it doesn't need a fire control.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 14:16:37 GMT -5
That is certainly true and it was the AC that first twigged us to thinking that armor can be too effective. But even for d10 weapons, if the armor is 8 or 9, the odds are pretty slim of doing much. And even with this change, it's only a 10% chance of armor reduction (well, less I guess if you count a 0,0 as not mattering about armor anymore ). It just struck as very odd that ships that are close to being destroyed in Hull Points still have all the same protection as when it was pristine...there was no degradation of the armor or hull integrity...simply Live or Dead (minus crits, which Battleline ships seem to fix right quick ). I think it would add an element to fleet design and to maneuvering to have some big weapons wreck a ship's armor a tad and then allow smaller (even plain d10 weapons) to be able to be effective. You couldnt COUNT on it all of the time, but it would be an interesting interaction IMO.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 27, 2010 14:28:16 GMT -5
What if we gave autocannons a special rule:
Rapid Fire These weapons fire a staggering number of rounds in a very short period of time. When shooting at any target, they may re-roll any dice that indicate a miss. You must accept the result of the second roll. In addition, weapons with the rapid fire property may engage fighters.
This gives heavy autocannons a nice dual-role as anti-fighter & anti-ship weapons as well as the nifty re-rolls for all autocannons.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 27, 2010 14:41:42 GMT -5
Hmmm. . . thinking about splitting out the Autonomous ability and the ability to engage fighters. Makes it more clear which weapons can shoot at fighters and allows for easier combinations.
So you'd have the Fighter Killer property (F) which specifies the weapon can engage fighters according to the normal rules.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 15:02:46 GMT -5
Interesting, but I still don't think I'd spring for them very often. My sense of it is that there are plenty of cheap ways to scrub fighters. And the only other use of autocannon that I can see is to hose down light armor ships which dont tend to be high on survivability anyways. I understand your rationale for not having smaller ships be harder to hit (and it makes sense), but it also removes a reason to want to have a less devastating, but more accurate weapon available. I can use the same weapon to wreck the small fry as I use on the larger ships...it's just even MORE devastating to the poor buggers. In wet-navy systems, the huge guns on the BBs and whatnot are not exceptionally accurage vs small and fast targets and hence you need those 'scrubber' batteries or escorts to keep them away. In CB, that dynamic doesn't really exist (and the small ships arent really as much of a threat anyways). So the need/desire for the ACs is quite low. Also, on another note, with only a d6, even allowing a reroll doesnt really make it much better than a d10 of a laser. To make ACs useful, they would need some sort of situational pen IMO, either through having armor degrade (as above) or maybe +1 Pen vs adjacent targets or (as I said in the other thread), grant them +1 at Tech 4 or 5 or something. Just my continued thoughts
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kashre
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by kashre on Jun 27, 2010 15:16:14 GMT -5
Well... I like the idea as armor as orbital tech.
As it is, if you make a race without high conventional then your armor is going to suck. I can see how the defensive systems are designed to line up with the offensive systems you can use, but Id think that most races would design their defenses against what their opponents are using for weapons, not design to defend against themselves.
I don't actually have much of a problem with Heavy autocannons the way they are. I have always assumed they were weapons customized to be used on small ships against other small ships. Even at conventional 5 size class 2 ships have a max of 4 armor. That said, I don't think the proposed rapid fire rules would break anything, and it does add flavor.
I don't like the idea of having armor degrade much myself... off all the systems on the ship armor is the least likely to be degrading as damage mounts... it's just a plate with a little hole in it from the high pen weapons, and the odds of hitting the exact same little hole are pretty slim. On the other hand, accelerating damage is already modeled nicely by the extra hull hits you take when you roll a previously hit system on a crit or you roll an empty hardpoint on a crit.
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Post by Jester on Jun 27, 2010 16:26:36 GMT -5
I not ready to comment on the doubles = 1 AV reduction or the AC changes, but I LOVE the armor is tied to Orb. Construction tech. As was posted above (and as I actually did in a recent list build), its easy to skimp on that tech (almost a no brainer when compared to others). Has my vote.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 18:11:21 GMT -5
Ok, a bit more thinking on armor. I think the thing that makes it so incredibly powerful is that it's cost increases linearly, but its effectiveness increases at a MUCH higher rate (depending on opposing weaponry, but still almost always higher). For example, consider in the Cruiser-size realm. When opposed by weapons with d6 pen (lasers and ACs mostly) AV 4: provides 'x' protection from damage and criticals. AV 5: DOUBLES the protection AV 6: makes your ship functionally IMMUNE to crits AND guarantees half damge from any of those weapons. Versus d10 pen weapon, the results are not as dramatic, but still you get much more bang for the buck with the higher armor. Moving on to capital ships, the exact same mechanic plays out vs d10 (and to a lesser extent d10+) pen weapons. AV 8: provides 'x' protection AV 9: DOUBLES the protection provided AV 10: Again, you are functionally IMMUNE vs d10 pen weapons So as you can see, the payoff ramps up EXTREMELY quickly for armor. Given that the weapon systems are static (and thus there is no possibility for someone to bring a customized armor-defeating weapon to the table), it's easy to calculate the increased protection from the armor and see how it because a no-brainer to max the armor on every design. Smaller ships get less payoff, but the cost is lower as well, again leaving the decision at no-brainer IMO. I'm sure it's far too late to go back and adjust to cost of armor even if such a measure were desirable. Given that, I think the addition of a rule to allow armor to degrade would be the next best thing (as per above). It also gives some more scope for expanding the weapon capabilities. For example, you could classify weapons as: Inflicts Low Structural Damage: Crits cannot cause AV loss Normal weapons: Inflict a -1 AV whenever 'doubles' are rolled on a crit. High Structural Damage: Inflicts -1 AV whenever an odd number is rolled on a crit. This would even allow the inclusion of weapons who's chief function could be to degrade AV...ie, one that is short ranged and inaccurate (d6 attack), but has high pen (d10+3), inflicts low base damage (SD:3, HD:4), but has a High Structural Damage component. Give it a launcher and an ammo requirement and add some sci-fi fluff for a weapon that disrupts the integrity of the armor and you're good to go! In any case, I think armor degradation possibility opens the field up to more weapon choices when designing fleets since there is always the possibility that lower pen weapons could be useful in the later stages of a battle.
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kashre
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by kashre on Jun 27, 2010 19:20:32 GMT -5
Well... I don't think its actually that accurate to say that cruisers are the realm of d6 pen weapons.
Light cruisers can mount ASGMs, anti-proton torps, disruptors, and fusion torp all of which are d10 or better pen weapons, and it gives them options in every weapon tech that has high-pen weapons.
Heavy cruisers can mount those, and mag cannons, anti-neutron *and* plasma torps, and hvy disruptors. And plasma torps and mag cannons are mean.
I admit that heavy ACs seem a little underpowered, but I don't think Dreadnought needs to completely revamp the whole armor system just because one weapon is out of balance. Maybe just give Hvy ACs a penetration bonus? If you change it to a d6+1 you will always be able to get crits on anything CA sized or less with a good roll, or d6+2 and you will always be able to crit anything up to mass 548.
Although I still think it's a great idea to move armor tech to orbital.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 19:39:07 GMT -5
It's not just CAs vs d6 weapons though. That's just one of the 'break points'.
Any which way you slice it, it's just hard to justify NOT spending the bargain amount of tonnage to max out your armor for your design. Even CAs vs d10 weapons, each point gives you fantastic return on your investment in terms of defense.
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theoz
Lieutenant
Armored and Ready!
Posts: 54
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Post by theoz on Jun 27, 2010 20:33:58 GMT -5
I like the idea of tying max armor to Orbital Construction.
I don't like having a mechanism to reduce ships AV: that's one more thing to have to track and remember, and what would it do to ships that need repair in a campaign game?
I think the value of the Heavy Autocannon will be shown in campaign games that start everyone off at low TLs and players build their way up. At some point in such a game the Hvy Auto will be a nice weapon to have. I suspect that many of us are designing ships either at DEFAULT level, or at Custom TLS with lot of points. Imagine a campaign where the max number of TLs is only 10, with a single tech at 3 and only two at 2.
I'm trying to say that Idon't think the Hvy Autocannon is a real problem in the game, and at most it deserves a +1 on its PEN die
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 27, 2010 21:03:41 GMT -5
FWIW, all of my stuff is being designed at TL15 (ie, 15 points spent) so it's not 'high tech'.
But as I said, the Heavy AC is not the problem, it is merely a symptom of the problem which is that armor is too cost effective at the higher end because the increase in benefit vs ALL weapons (not just Heavy ACs) is far greater than the increase in cost.
Does the game work as is? Yes, of course it does. But I dont think it's as dynamic as it could be if armor weren't quite so dominant.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 27, 2010 21:39:52 GMT -5
FWIW, all of my stuff is being designed at TL15 (ie, 15 points spent) so it's not 'high tech'. But as I said, the Heavy AC is not the problem, it is merely a symptom of the problem which is that armor is too cost effective at the higher end because the increase in benefit vs ALL weapons (not just Heavy ACs) is far greater than the increase in cost. Does the game work as is? Yes, of course it does. But I don't think it's as dynamic as it could be if armor weren't quite so dominant. I could go with an ever increasing cost for each additional point of armor, much like the FCs do. This would help off-set the armor and make hard choices vs weapons. Also I'm for capping armor at 9 instead of 10, giving a chance to penetrate with non-plus penetration weapons.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 27, 2010 21:43:02 GMT -5
What if we gave autocannons a special rule: Rapid Fire These weapons fire a staggering number of rounds in a very short period of time. When shooting at any target, they may re-roll any dice that indicate a miss. You must accept the result of the second roll. In addition, weapons with the rapid fire property may engage fighters. This gives heavy autocannons a nice dual-role as anti-fighter & anti-ship weapons as well as the nifty re-rolls for all autocannons. I also like the idea of Rapid fire and the autonomous ability the ability to engage fighters. I don't want fighters to be batted form space with great ease, but this would give these weapons the dual role.
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Post by warchariot on Jun 27, 2010 21:47:18 GMT -5
Okay, last one for the night. What if there was a critical for armor. It could be in with Shields that after Shields are hit, the second hit would remove a point of armor, after that, then go back to the hull hits.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 27, 2010 23:18:58 GMT -5
I dunno guys. Been thinking about it. If you create an armor stripping weapon, you open the door to ship designs that are intended to do nothing but strip armor points off the BBs so they can be shredded by lighter ships.
I intended armor to be the king of defense, and I think it serves that role as intended.
The high armor values and the d6 break point were actually intended to make the capital ships much harder for the non-capitals to crack. You make it so anything can effectively damage anything and all of a sudden, those capital ships look a lot less attractive.
I WANT people to be designing 9 and 10 AV ships with rail guns and heavy rail guns intended to crack open their opponent's equivalents. Having high AV capital ships manhandle anything other than another capital ship is one piece of what forces people into diverse fleet designs and parallels the real world wet navy evolutiuon.
In the real world you NEVER wanted to engage a battlecruiser with a heavy cruiser. . . unless you had no other choice and a valiant stand was called for. Hell Troubridge didn't want to engage one battlecruiser with four armored cruisers. Capital ships should definitely be an "oh shit" weapon.
I do like the idea of beefing up the autocannons with a rapid fire ability to make them just a touch cooler. But really. . . they are supposed to be a low tech weapon - not too much beyond our reach today. . . and are not supposed to be a weapon of choice for any advanced race.
In the campaign system I'm looking at having everyone start with one tech at 2, and one tech at 0 and the other four techs at level 1. In that system you'll definitely see autocannons as a primo-weapon used during the early game only to get phased out by the higher tech stuff in the later game.
In other starship games you always find one or two weapons that are much cheaper relative to effectiveness than the others, and those weapons always dominate. We've defeated that in CB by using the tech levels to restrict access to the cooler weapons.
Some guys were playing with randomly rolled d6 tech levels. But if you want to use an allocation system, I'd suggest creating a rule that no tech could be more than 1 or 2 levels higher than any other tech. That way, with 15 tech points, you couldn't just dump them into 3 TL5 techs - and would better approximate actual technological development.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jun 27, 2010 23:33:22 GMT -5
I could go with an ever increasing cost for each additional point of armor, much like the FCs do. This would help off-set the armor and make hard choices vs weapons. Also I'm for capping armor at 9 instead of 10, giving a chance to penetrate with non-plus penetration weapons. Again we come back to the issue of making capital ships worth it. They're pretty much not worth it in almost any other game system and we spent a lot of time figuring out how to make Colonial Battlefleet different in that regard. Originally, armor was capped at 9. But we discovered that the very top echelon ships chewed up so much mass in drive and armor weight that it was never worth it to build them - so we granted them the ability to take the super-heavy armor. Suddenly, building a battleship whose drive system alone massed as much as a large heavy cruiser was actually an idea worth considering. Also, armor expense per unit originally scaled much more dramatically. The problem with that approach is you wound up with big battleships that had less free tonnage available for weapons than identically equipped battlecruisers - and even less once the BBs bought up to their maximum armor limit (although in that case they did get the extra defense, but the loss in weapons tonnage wasn't worth it.) If you want to have battleships in the 800+T range be worth building, you have to make armor cheap and you have to make sure that a ship like that is only threatened seriously by a similar ship on the other side. So yes, armor is always your friend, and the ships that skimp on armor will pay for it in the end. (Sound familiar to anyone?) That said, I have occasionally designed ships with a point or two less than their maximum armor rating if they weren't expected to be in the front lines. For instance, missile boats I tend to load up on deep magazines and point defense, but I'll drop a point or two of armor in the name of increasing their throw-weight - because they should be well back from the fight anyway, with a lot of other targets, and hopefully a cruiser screen between them and the enemy.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jun 28, 2010 7:14:31 GMT -5
Obviously this is a high-level design decision and if that is the intent, that is the intent and that is fine. But consider the following:
In the real world, small ships could carry a devastating weapon that was a tremendous danger to large ships: Torpedoes. This was enough of a threat to inspire an entire class of escorts designed to kill torpedo boats (and to encourage even the largest combatants to spend considerable mass and trouble on weapons capable of engaging those smaller ships). The Japanese followed that to it's logical conclusion with the Long Lance and that gave everything BELOW BC level a capability to seriously threaten anything on the seas.
In CB, that dynamic doesnt really exist. Sure, small fry can carry a torp or so, but they aren't the deadly threat of real world torpedoes. On top of that, even the largest of weapons dont have any problems engaging and vaporizing smaller combatants. This means that for all intents and purposes, large ships can ignore the smaller ones. There is not really any need to 'escort' the big ship against small ones (missiles are a different story, but that can be handled in other ways).
So the role of smaller craft is greatly diminished in a setting where they pose no threat to larger ships. This brings the game to more of the 'Age of Sail' paradigm where anything less than a SOL doesnt really have as much of a place in a straight up battle.
Dont get me wrong, small craft arent 'useless' by any means. They can fulfill any number of roles. But the above dynamics not only make the cap ships king, but pretty much dont allow for much in the way of threat either.
And again, looking at it in total, even allowing 'doubles' to strip an armor doesnt suddenly topple the cap ship off the top of the chain. You STILL have to have weapons capable of scoring those crits to even begin the process. So that still means large weapons of your own. It just means that as the battles wear on, different weapon systems might have an opportunity to become more useful to main battle.
Looking at your design intents, yeah, I probably would not want to see an inclusion of an 'armor-stripping' weapon. But the 'doubles' rule would be more of a gradual degradation between combatants with large weapons.
In any case, I still believe that switching Armor to the Orbital Manufacturing Tech level is the way to go. I've created a modified version of the 1.1 Shipyard sheet to accomodate this and it makes initial tech decisions MUCH harder (for TL15 or so anyways...at higher tech it probably wouldnt be much of an issue).
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