unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 8, 2010 15:09:50 GMT -5
Thats 9 Hull damage +1 crit POSSIBLE. Armor could still stop that (20-30% chance) and again, only one minor crit max. On a small ship, even that crit (if inflicted) likely amounts to a 50/50 or taking out a single weapon or else doing a single point of damage. WIth the smaller ship still having about 25 hull points, getting even 9 score on it isnt really that impressive. Adding multiple squadrons doesnt make that go much faster either since they all have to eat through shields. Experience has shown for us that it takes 3-4 squadrons of the 3-damage Strikes to reliably take out a DD in single turn. That amounts to 64 tons and a CV-role (which does 'cost' tonnage'). 3 Mags and a Turbo Laser take 67 tons and can just as easily shatter a DD-class vessel. And they are a much bigger threat to even the largest of ships unlike the Fighters. With Fighters at 2, the damage output is pretty laughable per tonnage. Even 6 full Squadrons of strikes would struggle to kill a DD in a single round...and after said DD has fired in the original rules. That's just not going to come even close to what you could do with DF weapons or missile (or god forbid, SD Torps ). So honestly even at 3, they arent as powerful as equal tonnage of even CA-sized weaponry. They are more versatile in some ways, but far less threatening overall. As support for your own fleets, they can be extremely valuable at 3. On their own, they are still limited to killing small fry. I would encourage you to try it with the 3 damage AND firing first. Between the two they turn them into a good dedicated support option but they haven't proven to be as singularly devastating as a similarly sized ship armed with DF or missile weapons.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 8, 2010 15:12:03 GMT -5
Agreed, because honestly what isnt highly effective against DDs? Also, if you're Fighters are scrubbing DDs and not contributing to the main battle, your own line will be having trouble of it's own I would wager.
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Post by warchariot on Jul 8, 2010 15:21:58 GMT -5
Yep, you're right, it won't break the game.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 8, 2010 15:37:56 GMT -5
I would wager in a campaign setting where tech is tight, 5 will prove to be too high. I think with both changes, Fighters feel about 'right' (effective support, but not overly lethal). With 2 damage, they really arent worth their weight. So if tech is harder comeby, needing to get to level 5 to realize payoff is probably not going to look terribly attractive.
I'd see how it feels with 3 damage and first fire as a standard for a while first. If you decide you do want to split it out, I'd suggest:
Fighter Technology Level 0: Nothing Level 1: Marines (B3), Interceptors Level 2: Strike Fighters Level 3: Heavy Fighter Weapons Level 4 Nuclear Payload Level 5 Recon, Precision Fighter Weapons (allows Ints to target missiles as per your rules posted in another thread) This allows a nice smooth progression and still splits things out nicely for people to choose tech levels that fit their setting, but it keeps the Fighters a bit more balanced against other techs (which would be more important in a campaign setting).
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Post by warchariot on Jul 8, 2010 19:01:20 GMT -5
I see leaving 3 damage at Tech 5 because of the nuke option at 4, this is where strike fighters in the basic rules will become more than just worth it. Dread has said that fighter heavy universes will get an up-grade to fighters and bring in different types. After all, if the basic rules have everything, what will he sell?
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Post by lordhawkins on Jul 9, 2010 7:14:36 GMT -5
When I was playtesting with Dreadnought, I never built a "standard" fleet. I always went to the extreme to find out what could brake the game if too much is taken. Do I think 6-10 strike fighters with these upgrades will break the game?...no. Do I think 20+ would?...yes. Same with Heavy Rail guns...I think 5 are just fine, 20 are not. The difference? You can't take 20 rail guns in a standard fleet...you can take 20+ fighters. So that's where I'm coming from.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 9, 2010 8:17:11 GMT -5
Out of curiousity, why can't you take 20 Rail Guns? You can fit ~10 on a 750ish BB with room to spare. There isnt a rule against bringing capital ships, unlike escorts so you can have a few of them. You can certainly bring massed amounts of ballistics in a standard game.
Why do you think more Fighters breaks the game? More can't stack up against ships, particularly a few larger ships (that they already struggle to hurt). On the other hand, more Rail Guns (or insert DF weapon here) can all fire, gang up, and remove targets.
Also, there are MYRIAD counters to Fighters, many of which can wipe them away in droves. You can easily protect yourself vs them with a little bit of effort. On the other hand, there is NOTHING you can do that will save you from large ballistics (or worse, SD torps).
Fighters have a hard time killing large targets (especially firing first after shields regen). Ballistics dont have that problem. They can kill a cripple ANY target with ease.
Also, to use Fighters to any effect, you have spend a 'role' as well. That means one less Battleine or Flag or Defender or something else more useful. The CV role is simply 'overhead'.
With the old Fighters, there is no way they are worth their tonnage and role (let alone tech, if playing with limited levels to distribute). There was nothing that they could do that couldnt be done better by equal tonnage/roles of other ships.
With the new Fighters, they can support your battleline and they move to pre-empt small fry or ward them off.
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Post by warchariot on Jul 9, 2010 12:55:57 GMT -5
Do I think 20+ would?...yes. (edit) So that's where I'm coming from. I don't see it. We have played with 40+ fighters on a side, all with some strike ability (Torps, nukes, ect.). The ships they attack have flak, P def and their own fighters. One trick we've learn is to attack strike fighters so they can't attack ships that turn. On Satuarday, we'll play an unbalanced game with many more fighters on one side, but I still don't see how this will break the game. i know one game doesn't make a playtest and I'm not one to run data on a game, I do enough of that at work, because after all it's a game and anything can happen.
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Post by lordhawkins on Jul 9, 2010 15:10:25 GMT -5
If I may make on observation, you both seem to be loading up ships with lots of stuff to kill fighters (Flak & PD) and then saying fighters need a boost because of it. Flak and PD is expensive defense on the bigger ships and if you pay for anti fighter stuff...you should be able to ward off fighters. There's a Defense vs. Offense trade-off there.
What about against ships that DON'T invest all that tonnage on fighter defense? How good are fighters then?
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 9, 2010 15:23:21 GMT -5
Nope, in all of my playtests, not a SINGLE opposing ship has had Flak, higher than 2-3 PD (and the 3 only on BCs/BBs), Cluster Missiles, or Grape.
That's what first twigged us to the fact that the original fighters were so weak. We had none of those things and fighters were very very ineffective. Sure, they hurt a few ships here and there, but they didnt come close to inflicting their weight in damage. Not even remotely.
Our 2nd and 3rd games with the same standard rules followed the same way...no dedicated defenses and still the Fighters were ineffectual for cost.
Once we changed the fire order and played with the 3-damage Strikes, we finally saw them start to be worthwhile in support of a fleet. They still can't win on their own (no should they be able to IMO), but they finally pulled their own weight.
The reason I keep mentioning the Flak, Grape, Cluster, Ints etc is because they DO exist. So if at any time a player feels that Fighters are starting to hurt, he has PLENTY of options to put the hurt on them. And Cluster and Grape are also solid enough weapons in their own right that they wouldnt be 'wasted' even if no Fighters are opposing them.
I would again urge you to try the updated Fighters out and see. The timing change prolly makes a lot of difference in their role. Also remember the 'Rapid Fire' addition for Gatling ACs which make them fairly effective AA weapons now too.
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Post by warchariot on Jul 9, 2010 18:05:02 GMT -5
If I may make on observation, you both seem to be loading up ships with lots of stuff to kill fighters (Flak & PD) and then saying fighters need a boost because of it. Flak and PD is expensive defense on the bigger ships and if you pay for anti fighter stuff...you should be able to ward off fighters. There's a Defense vs. Offense trade-off there. What about against ships that DON'T invest all that tonnage on fighter defense? How good are fighters then? We have been playing with higher than 3 damage for fighters, and yes, we use the fighter defenses. My only real worry is when fighters use stand off weapons like the fusion torps. This is when fighters could be deadly to big ships. Also the Tech 5 for 3 damage will help because of the trade off somewhere else in tech and the fact you'll most likely take the carrier role so you can operate at distances and get the fighters off your ships. This of course means less battleline and everything else.
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kashre
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by kashre on Jul 9, 2010 19:27:12 GMT -5
My last game was 14 strike fighters on one side, and no flack and limited (2 per ship) PD on the other side... she had 2 ships with 6 gat lasers each, and 3 int squadrons, which is fairly unsided. The fighters certainly helped... they did just enough shield damage to her BBF to allow me to kill it with massed DF fire from my real ships... and they did a good job of grinding up the DDs and CLs on the board (but note, they did not actually kill any... just knocked out some hardpoints). I feel like they were certainly useful, especially in the fact that I was able to project the firepower of my carrier over a distance, since I was trying to escape that carrier through a warp point and couldnt maneuver it. In fact, they were pivitol, since I only blew up the BBF by 1 point, and if I had done 6 less with the fighter squadron I would have just missed killing it, ate 4 SDTs the next turn and that would have lost the game for me since I got my carrier out with only 13 hull. So for my money, fighters are good enough that they can play a critical role in a battle, but not so good that they can dominate a game by any stretch of the imagination. *maybe*, in some kind of circumstance a fleet with 5 carriers vs a fleet with zero anti-fighter defense will go badly for the non-fighter side... but if I know my opponent has fighter tech and I don't bring any of the tools that can be used to defend against fighters... that's my fault.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 12, 2010 16:01:08 GMT -5
kashre, was that report you listed using 3 damage or 2?
I ask because I've now played a few more battles using the 'shoot first', but 2 damage Strikes (ie, TL3 Fighters) and they are still fairly weak for their cost.
For all intents and purpose all they do is a job that a few Lasers can do vs a larger ships. Vs small ships, they CAN be effective, but the cost outlay to do that damage is really high. You'd likely be better off investing in equal tonnage of almost any other weaponry (missiles or DF).
And again, that doesnt even account for the fact that there are a boatload of 'counters' out there to Fighters which we haven't been using much of. But in order for people to bother with the counters, they have to perceive the Fighters as a threat before they'll spend the tonnage. And so far, the only times people have respected the threat at all was when we were doing the first fire and 3 damage.
For anyone who has not tried this, I'd urge you to give it a go and see what you think. As it currently looks, Fighters look to be 'go the whole hog or not at all' because the intermediate capabilities are not robust enough to be worth the expense.
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kashre
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by kashre on Jul 12, 2010 19:45:24 GMT -5
We are using fire-first and 3 damage. My faction has Fighters 4, but really I don't think there should be a TL limit on 3 damage strike fighters. I think from my experiences I would only consider damage 2 strike fighters to be useful against very low or non-shielded targets, so maybe Laser 1, max. Otherwise, you might as well take turbo lasers.
With damage 3 I feel they're pretty competitive with lighter anti-shield weapons.
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Post by warchariot on Jul 12, 2010 19:58:35 GMT -5
Last game, Cylons had 19 strike fighters, it didn't break the game.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 12, 2010 20:14:23 GMT -5
warchariot - damage 2 or damage 3?
I understand the desire to be cautious about FIghters (I *hate* them in many games), but they have to be useful and a threat to make sure people have varied designs and ideas.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jul 12, 2010 20:53:50 GMT -5
Problem is. . . damage 3 strikes will annihilate unshielded ships. Fine if you're playing in a shields allowed setting. . . but if your opponent doesn't have significant shields or none at all, damage 3 strikes are a super-weapon. Hence the reason I set it as at Level 5 fighter tech. If you guys want to house rule it based on the way you play. . . that's what house rules are for. But if somebody wanted to play a no-shields style game, damage 3 strikes breaks it. Unclejoe - Having seen some of your ship designs I don't think it's safe to say you aren't taking much in the way of anti-fighter stuff. You guys are stuffing your ships to the gills with gatling lasers, which is an AF tech if ever there was one. Toning those down a bit in the AA role was one reason I wanted to move the fighter strikes to before ship shooting.
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 13, 2010 8:48:54 GMT -5
I just pile them on since they are small and dont take FC. They'd be there even if they didnt work vs Fighters for the extra shield-stripping potential for little added cost (ie, I cant add more 'real' weapons anyways). I would assume that many people's designs would sport the same with their residual space? And they arent the AE weapons that Grape and Cluster are they can't pre-empt like Flak or prevent the attack like Ints. So there are plenty of 'escalated' weapons that could be chosen if someone is concerned about Fighters. In any case, those weapons are not present in response to Fighters by any means. But, yes, vs unshielded ships, 3 damage Fighters could be a deathknell which I why I posted the 'alternate' Fighter tech above. It keeps the TL investment the same, but still allows for the 3 damage Strikes to be broken out from the 2 damage for people to play with if they are modeling a specific fiction (where Fighters are weaker or if they dont have shield, where Fighters are powerful). Fighter Technology Level 0: Nothing Level 1: Marines (B3), Interceptors Level 2: Strike Fighters Level 3: Heavy Fighter Weapons Level 4 Nuclear Payload Level 5 Recon, Precision Fighter Weapons (allows Ints to target missiles as per your rules posted in another thread) What is comes down to is that no other tech line requires you to have all 5 levels in order to have an effective weapon in the Core rules. The Fighter tree does if the 3 damage is that high. For pick and play mode with limited tech, it's a heavy heavy investment to bring the Fighters For a future campaign mode, I can't imagine wanting to start climbing that tree knowing that I have to get to level 5 to realize pay off AND that anyone with lower tech in other fields can so easily negate my investment with AA weapons. Final point, yes, it could be House Ruled, but then again, so could it be for people playing without shields. To me, that is more of a stretch and more scope for House Rules.
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jul 13, 2010 9:56:20 GMT -5
Regardless of whether you "intend" them to be used against fighters, a BC with 12 gatling lasers is a potent anti-fighter platform. So you've got some good AA defense in your fleets, just not the dedicated AA-only defense.
Ship design aside, the question here is game balance and that is the overriding concern. The game is not intended to be unbreakable "with the right house rules" The game is intended to be unbreakable no matter which way you choose to play.
However, if players want to house rule something in that can break the game under certain circumstances - especially if those circumstances don't crop up in their circles - that's no problem at all. I always encourage people to customize the game to their liking. But I'm not going to put something that can break the game into the RAW.
Since damage 3 strikes are so lethal to ships with low shielding levels, they need to be priced appropriately so that people up against damage 3 strikes are almost guaranteed to have good shields as well. In addition, they can't be so far down the list that other less-likely-to-break-the-game techs are blocked off if somebody limits the tech levels to exclude the use of damage 3 strikes.
Level Fighter TL5 is the appropriate place for damage 3 strikes from a game balance and flexibility perspective. At the lower TL's (and thus lower shield levels) the 2 damage strikes are a better option than they appear when being evaluated against fully-shielded (TL5) ships. However, if you want to take your TL3 (damage 2) strike fighters up against somebody's TL5 shields, you should expect to see significantly impaired effectiveness.
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Post by warchariot on Jul 13, 2010 11:27:52 GMT -5
Level Fighter TL5 is the appropriate place for damage 3 strikes from a game balance and flexibility perspective. At the lower TL's (and thus lower shield levels) the 2 damage strikes are a better option than they appear when being evaluated against fully-shielded (TL5) ships. However, if you want to take your TL3 (damage 2) strike fighters up against somebody's TL5 shields, you should expect to see significantly impaired effectiveness. I agree with this completely. The idea of higher tech levels is to defeat what the other player/nation can bring to the table. This is shown again and again during real war stituations. After all, the crossbow was so powerful it was deemed to end all war. So having a TL5 for strike 3 seems to be a logical development for fighters in an effort to defeat bigger and better shields. Why would a nation put capital, time, and resorces into fighters if they worked just fine as is? The 19 strike fighters the Cylons had were not level 3, but they did swam low AV non-shielded ships, who took damage, a lot of damage, but it didn't swing the game. In fact, they lost a close one. I went back and added up the damage as if it was 3 points, and it would have destoryed one ship a turn sooner and damage another past the 50% mark. This may have given the Cylons the win.
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