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Posted by: crucis
« on: March 23, 2013, 01:31:23 PM »

Actually, I don't think starfire missiles have a problem with exhaust, as they are all launched by electromagnetical catapults. So they may be stacked in the GB tubes like the Metalstorm bullets.

Speaking off.. where is my close range fR launcher which copies metalstorm capacites? :) I mean...  wall of rockets?

LOL!  Close range?  More like knife-fighting range! 

And a launcher for fighter grade munitions is quite unlikely, not that I thought that you were actually serious.  ;)
Posted by: Starslayer_D
« on: March 23, 2013, 01:07:59 PM »

Actually, I don't think starfire missiles have a problem with exhaust, as they are all launched by electromagnetical catapults. So they may be stacked in the GB tubes like the Metalstorm bullets.

Speaking off.. where is my close range fR laucher wich copies metalstorm capacites? :) I mean...  wall of rockets?
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 23, 2013, 01:06:19 PM »

LOL, this reminds me of something I read somewhere:
Apparently, survivors of the Bismark stated, that they didn't hit the attacking Swordfish Torpedo planes, because they were too slow and their AA-guns always lead the planes by way too much :)

Well, I suppose that that might be a decent parallel, though of course, PD fire in this case would be more automated.


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I have a bigger problem with the fact, that I can put 4 fighter missiles in a single gunboat rack and fire one after the other. As I said, I can picture putting the four missiles side by side and launching ´em all together - not easily, but I could convince myself it would be possible to do :). But launching one of them after the other?
Ouch, that will be a tough one on the engineering side, I´d guess.

Well, you can only ripple-fire only 3 items of ordnance from an inline rack, not all 4.  Still. it's really not much different from Box Launchers from ISW4 being able to fire their entire load all at once.



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Hm, if a missile launcher is indeed "just" a mass driver, then this would absolutely make sense.

That's all they've ever been to me, mass-driver catapults.  The huge point is that missile drives are just another form of starship inertialess drives.  When you engage the drive, you don't carry over any inertial that may exist prior to turning on the drive.  So it wouldn't matter if one launcher catapulted its missile with greater speed than another.  Both missiles would lose all of the inertia the instant they engaged their drives to speed off towards their targets.

So to me, the launcher doesn't care whether the "missile" is a long range guided missile or a shorter ranged torpedo.  It's just a cylindrical mass that the launcher has to load into its launch tube and then eject from the ship.



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SMs would be similar to WW2 torpedoes, which could be set to either high speed and short range or slow speed and long range.

In a way, yes, though don't assume that SM's will remain as is.  I might go with only single mode ordnance.  In this instance, SM = Standard Missile, and ST = Standard Torpedo.  After all, TL2 does seem a bit early to be giving such a nice little toy as a dual mode missile.


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Ah, so it´s more like:
GM are your torpedoes and SM are your missiles, requiring you to divide your magazin space between the two, if you want to have the option to fire both types?
This actually makes even more sense. Doubling the range (GM to SM) should be a factor of the missile, not the launcher at the ranges we are looking at.

Yep, GM's would be torpedoes and SM are long range missiles (well, "long" range when they first appear).   And at TL5, when the Rc shows up, there'll likely be a CM and a CT (Capital Torpedo) for the Rc to use.  And as you correctly point out, you'd have to decide how to divide up your magazines and how many torpedoes and how many missiles to carry.  I think that it'd probably be unwise to not have at least some torpedoes, just in case.  But that'd be a decision players would have to make.

Posted by: Hawkeye
« on: March 23, 2013, 12:35:00 PM »

My assumption would be that standard point defense is designed to deal with things that are moving at upwards of 60-80% of light-speed and may find dealing with much slower targets difficult for their programming to handle.  Also, I think that there's an underlying assumption that fighters are going to be bobbing and weaving far more than missiles as they enter PD engagement range, and that this makes them difficult targets.  Of course, that may be a flawed assumption (not that I made the assumption, but that a fighter bobbing and weaving would really matter to PD).

LOL, this remindes me of something I read somewhere:
Apparently, survivors of the Bismark stated, that they didn´t hit the attacking Swordfish Torpedoplanes, because they were too slow and their AA-guns allways lead the planes by way too much :)

The point about firing smaller missiles from larger launchers comes down to the fact that some people look at it sort of like how Hawkeye described firing a smaller torpedo from a larger torpedo tube, and think that it just can't be done.  I'm not saying that that's my view, just pointing out that others have that view.  Personally, this isn't a big issue for me.

I have a bigger problem with the fact, that I can put 4 fighter missiles in a single gunboat rack and fire one after the other. As I said, I can picture putting the four missiles side by side and launching ´em all together - not easily, but I could convince myself it would be possible to do :). But launching one of them after the other?
Ouch, that will be a tough one on the engineering side, I´d guess.


The more important concern for me is that I simply don't buy the rationale that one needs a special launcher to fire sprint-style missiles.  Launchers are just catapults, mass drivers that eject their missiles into space at which point the missiles' drives engage and send the missiles on their way.  There should be no difference in the type of launcher required for a sprint style missile vs a long range missile.  Which is why I think that the idea of the "gun-missile launcher" is wrong.  I'm of the opinion that the Rc should be able to fire sprint-style missiles, and that a standard size R (though probably not an IND-2 version) should be able to fire SM's in sprint mode.

Hm, if a missile launcher is indeed "just" a massdriver, then this would absolutely make sense.
SMs would be similar to WW2 torpedoes, which could be set to either high speed and short range or slow speed and long range.

At the same time, I intend to shift away from calling "sprint" style missiles "sprint missiles" and "CAMs". And switch over to calling them "torpedoes".  That is, "missiles" would be long ranged interceptable weapons, "torpedoes" would be short ranged non-interceptable weapons.

Ah, so it´s more like:
GM are your torpedoes and SM are your missiles, requiring you to divide your magazin space between the two, if you want to have the option to fire both types?
This actually makes even more sense. Doubling the range (GM to SM) should be a factor of the missile, not the launcher at the ranges we are looking at.

Posted by: crucis
« on: March 23, 2013, 04:01:15 AM »

My memory of the Di is wrong.  I'm not sure from where or why it is in my head as being that way, but it most certainly is.  On the other hand if it is software update why does it cost 10 MCr more per unit?  Why does it degrade the anti-missile performance?  You are talking about a system capable of engaging supersonic sea skimming missiles being tasked with hitting an armed cesna aircraft...why do you need to do anything?  Fighters to a missile point defence are large, slow, easy to kill targets.

My assumption would be that standard point defense is designed to deal with things that are moving at upwards of 60-80% of light-speed and may find dealing with much slower targets difficult for their programming to handle.  Also, I think that there's an underlying assumption that fighters are going to be bobbing and weaving far more than missiles as they enter PD engagement range, and that this makes them difficult targets.  Of course, that may be a flawed assumption (not that I made the assumption, but that a fighter bobbing and weaving would really matter to PD).



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The Dx in 3rdR is +16% over the 2xDi and removes the not insignificant chance you will get two kills at range 0 and 1 (where the fighters are going to be while doing fR strikes).  It occurs where and why you said.  But there is no justification for doing it in the first place.  There is no justification for making it "smooth."  It is just another one of the many changes put in that have long term effects.  

Oh, come on.  Of course, there's justification for making it smooth.  I'd do it in a heart beat rather than have the to-hit # drop precipitously from range 3 to 4, if I could smooth out the degradation of the to-hit #'s.  After all, it's no less arbitrary than the original to-hit line.  Besides, I hardly think that the tweak of a single range's to-hit # matters all that much, compared to the question of having merged 2 shots into 1.


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On dice numbers:  a bug SD group requires 30 dice to fire its missiles.  If its Dx is used in anti-fighter mode you require 15 with 3rdR and 30 with 3E.  But so what?  You roll 30 dice each and every time it fires its main weapons.

I'm the wrong guy to rant at.  I don't disagree with you on this.  There's already a lot of die rolling, so it didn't seem to me that merging Dx's 2 shots into 1 really mattered much at all when you're talking about the kind of #'s of die rolls inherent in a a datagroup of 3 SD's.  :)



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I have no idea why they fire twice, but why change the rule?  Is it bad they fire twice?  

Why change the rule?  Because I think that Dx would be better as a straight up system upgrade of D, without the presence of a "Di" system, where the system's anti-missile capabilities improve and the anti-fighter capabilities improve, but not too much.  I think that an increase from 1 shot to 2 shots (or 2 shots merged into 1) is too great an improvement over Di.  That's why I'd change it.

Also note that if the Di system was removed, the entire issue discussed at the top of this post becomes moot, or seems to be.






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F&Missiles always work together (does not matter who fires first), E&Missiles work well if the E can fire after the missiles, but if the target has been hit by E's and then must be re-engaged solely by missiles the armour belt has to be chewed through.  L&Missiles (outside of the LTx) is the worst case as the missiles don't contribute until they remove the very thing the laser is skipping.  That just about all weapons work with E's if the E's are in range is true...well except for the E&L which some of my partners have on their ships...*sighs*  That is one combination I've yet to find a way to make work.

One note, which isn't true for WP battles, is that when I'm thinking of these synergies, I tend to think of missiles getting used for a number of turns by themselves until the ships enter beam range.  So which weapon fires first or not is less of a concern in that instance.  I'm thinking that at least some ships will have had some or all of their shields knocked down as the forces close.  And even in this instance, F's and E's work better with missiles.   In the L/M combo, the closing ships are battering down shields that their lasers aren't even going to bother with, whereas in the F/M and E/M combos, any shields knocked down by missiles as the ships close the range will be that much less work for F's and E's once they enter beam range.


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Overload dampeners are not much of an issue since carrying sufficient numbers of them to stop even a long range E strike is extremely mass expensive for the defender.  They are only something that has practical value to asteroid forts, very large bases and space stations.  A ship just can't carry enough of them to make a significant difference in combat...the only thing they stop is long range E-sniping from small ship datagroups (single E per ship).  There are always special circumstances but generally the O is not worth bothering with unless the ship in question has lots of space available so that you can mount 30 O or something like that and completely block even a point blank attack.  And even 30 O faced with a SD datagroup mounting Ec would not make that much impact at close range.  12+ Ec just does a lot of damage...you would be better off burning them out and getting a single turn of no damage.

Yes, I agree that OD's are of somewhat questionable value, give that E-beams often aren't all that common.  One might say the same thing about Anti-Laser armor, except that laser weapons are more common than E-beams, given that lasers also occur in laser buoys, laser torps, and are the primary fighter beam weapon.  On the whole, OD's are probably a system best used on starships only when you're faced by a race you know to be heavily using E-beams.



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The comment about the legal issues is not about what happened (as Marvin was neither trying to do anything illegal nor was Webber a jackass about the situation), but what could happen to you.  So long as Webber or anyone else holds the copywrite on the material, without written permission using that material opens you up to legal action where you can be stiffed with the legal fees of the court proceeding.  The goal of going to court isn't always about making money...it is as often about costing the other person money and seeing whose pockets are deeper.

Ah, OK.  Point taken.  But I suppose that it's all moot since it's my intention to create a new history.


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As for firing smaller missiles from Rc why not?  BAM-R is one possibility.  SM with HARM warheads is another.  AFM is the most common one though.  There may be some other things you would do depending on the missile space requirements:  SM with LT2 may be as good as anything else for killing GBs and you can carry more of them in your magazines.  A Wc should be able to fire a SM in sprint mode but according to the rules not...they also don't list the BAM-R for the Rc or Wc but I assume that is more an oversight then anything else.  But most of this is game balance not technology based.

You make a good point about using SM/LT2's to kill GB's.  If you're trying to shoot at something where one hit kills the target, if a smaller, cheaper missile gets the job done as well as a larger, more costly missile, there's plenty of reason to want to use the smaller, cheaper missile.

The point about firing smaller missiles from larger launchers comes down to the fact that some people look at it sort of like how Hawkeye described firing a smaller torpedo from a larger torpedo tube, and think that it just can't be done.  I'm not saying that that's my view, just pointing out that others have that view.  Personally, this isn't a big issue for me.




The more important concern for me is that I simply don't buy the rationale that one needs a special launcher to fire sprint-style missiles.  Launchers are just catapults, mass drivers that eject their missiles into space at which point the missiles' drives engage and send the missiles on their way.  There should be no difference in the type of launcher required for a sprint style missile vs a long range missile.  Which is why I think that the idea of the "gun-missile launcher" is wrong.  I'm of the opinion that the Rc should be able to fire sprint-style missiles, and that a standard size R (though probably not an IND-2 version) should be able to fire SM's in sprint mode.

Is this a significant paradigm shift from how 3E presents it?  Yes.  But unless I have some overwhelming reason why I shouldn't do it, it's a paradigm shift I intend to make.  

At the same time, I intend to shift away from calling "sprint" style missiles "sprint missiles" and "CAMs". And switch over to calling them "torpedoes".  That is, "missiles" would be long ranged interceptable weapons, "torpedoes" would be short ranged non-interceptable weapons.


I should make it clear that I'm not going to just cut and paste the 3E tech tables verbatim.  I intend to make some tweaks along the way to tell a different story with different assumptions, while at the same time keeping a 3E feel, if not the exact copy of the 3E tech tables.  This isn't to say that most of the stuff won't exist.  It will.  But some stuff will be tweaked and massaged and so forth.  To me, in a way, the tech table is part of the "color palette" used to tell the story.  And I want to tell my own story, not Dave Weber's story.  And that means making some tweaks.

Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 23, 2013, 02:24:55 AM »

My memory of the Di is wrong.  I'm not sure from where or why it is in my head as being that way, but it most certainly is.  On the other hand if it is software update why does it cost 10 MCr more per unit?  Why does it degrade the anti-missile performance?  You are talking about a system capable of engaging supersonic sea skimming missiles being tasked with hitting an armed cesna aircraft...why do you need to do anything?  Fighters to a missile point defence are large, slow, easy to kill targets.

The Dx in 3rdR is +16% over the 2xDi and removes the not insignificant chance you will get two kills at range 0 and 1 (where the fighters are going to be while doing fR strikes).  It occurs where and why you said.  But there is no justification for doing it in the first place.  There is no justification for making it "smooth."  It is just another one of the many changes put in that have long term effects.  On dice numbers:  a bug SD group requires 30 dice to fire its missiles.  If its Dx is used in anti-fighter mode you require 15 with 3rdR and 30 with 3E.  But so what?  You roll 30 dice each and every time it fires its main weapons.  I have no idea why they fire twice, but why change the rule?  Is it bad they fire twice?  Dice rolling is part of what makes board games fun.  It only becomes un-fun when you get to the situation of 4thE where most activities end up being: "roll many dice and accomplish nothing."

F&Missiles always work together (does not matter who fires first), E&Missiles work well if the E can fire after the missiles, but if the target has been hit by E's and then must be re-engaged solely by missiles the armour belt has to be chewed through.  L&Missiles (outside of the LTx) is the worst case as the missiles don't contribute until they remove the very thing the laser is skipping.  That just about all weapons work with E's if the E's are in range is true...well except for the E&L which some of my partners have on their ships...*sighs*  That is one combination I've yet to find a way to make work.

Overload dampners are not much of an issue since carrying sufficient numbers of them to stop even a long range E strike is extremely mass expensive for the defender.  They are only something that has practical value to asteroid forts, very large bases and space stations.  A ship just can't carry enough of them to make a siginificant difference in combat...the only thing they stop is long range E-sniping from small ship datagroups (single E per ship).  There are always special circumstances but generally the O is not worth bothering with unless the ship in question has lots of space available so that you can mount 30 O or something like that and completely block even a point blank attack.  And even 30 O faced with a SD datagroup mounting Ec would not make that much impact at close range.  12+ Ec just does a lot of damage...you would be better off buring them out and getting a single turn of no damage.

Back to anti-matter missiles destroying ships.  I just removed what I wrote because at the end of the day what I said all along is "it is not required to happen but it is a game and you can write the rule as you want."  And that hasn't changed.  Starfire isn't reality. 

The comment about the legal issues is not about what happened (as Marvin was neither trying to do anything illegal nor was Webber a jackass about the situation), but what could happen to you.  So long as Webber or anyone else holds the copywrite on the material, without written permission using that material opens you up to legal action where you can be stiffed with the legal fees of the court proceeding.  The goal of going to court isn't always about making money...it is as often about costing the other person money and seeing whose pockets are deeper.

As for firing smaller missiles from Rc why not?  BAM-R is one possibility.  SM with HARM warheads is another.  AFM is the most common one though.  There may be some other things you would do depending on the missile space requirements:  SM with LT2 may be as good as anything else for killing GBs and you can carry more of them in your magazines.  A Wc should be able to fire a SM in sprint mode but acording to the rules not...they also don't list the BAM-R for the Rc or Wc but I assume that is more an oversight then anything else.  But most of this is game balance not technology based.
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 22, 2013, 11:33:51 AM »

Yeah I thought about some kind of sabot (is this the correct english term?) too.
Where it gets realy wired is, when we start trying to shoot severly smaller ordnance out of a single tube at different times.
I could see putting 4 sidewinders into a sabot and into a single tube and launching them all together, but firing one after the other? I´d realy like to see that    -   from a save distance   ;)


Ok, now back to Starfire :)

Actually, this is relevant to Starfire.  In 3E, one is allowed to fire 1 csp ammo out of cap missile launchers (Rc) which are meant to fire capital missiles (2 csp) and SBM's (3 csp).  Some people oppose this, others don't.  I'm undecided.  The only 1 csp munition that Rc's would want to fire would be AFM's.  Whether they should be allowed to do so is a different question.



Off Starfire, the idea of shotgunning multiple smaller missiles out of a large missile tube all at once is used in the more recent Honor Harringgton novels where Manty capital missile launchers have the ability to fire "rounds" that consist of multiple counter-missiles that they fire to thicken their defensive fire.  I can tell you that this will not be in Cosmic.
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 22, 2013, 11:25:48 AM »

Uhm no statistically the hit rolls are anything but accurate.  If you look on SFA you will notice an option to reduce PD effectiveness by -1, that came from me pointing out the average of 90,70,50,30 is 60. 

I was talking about the statistical accuracy of combining the 2 fighter-kill shots into a single shot, not Dx's anti-missile performance.  I 100% agree that 4 on 7 for "D" is too high.  It also doesn't really leave a lot of room for upgrades when the TL3 version starts out so capable.  I've already intended on having TL3 "D" start with a 4 on 6 performance.  Heck, if anything, one could argue that a 60% performance is a little high, given that the unrevised 3E's version of "D" had a performance of only 50%, when it used all 5 of its shots.



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The Dx anit-fighter chart over-estimates the kill chance but denys the defender the 25% chance of killing 2 fighters.  Arguments about reducing the die rolls I find amusing given the number of dice we used to accumulate to do major battles.

Paul, Have you done a statistical check on the probabilities of taking 2 shots using the old Di Fighter Kill line against a single target to produce the likelihood that the fighter will be killed?  I have, and I can tell you that the Dx to-hit line in 3rdR DOES accurately represent those probabilities.  The only range where there's a slight error is at range 4, where the to-hit on 3rdR's version of Dx is "3", when technically it should be "2".  However, it's clear to me that given that the to-hit at range 3 was 4 and the to-hit at range 5 was 2, that Marvin wanted to smooth the to-hit curve with a '3' at range 4, which I think is not unreasonable.

As for denying players the chance for shots at 2 different targets, I agree, it is a loss.  I understand why marvin did it, but i hate how it produced a single to-hit line that was so ridiculously over-powered.  Of course, I don't think that Dx (or Dcx) should have ever gotten 2 fighter-kill shots to begin with.  ;)



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You have the F which works well with missiles and skips nothing.  You have the E to skip armour and the L to skip shields, neither of which work well with missiles (excepting the L and LTx).  At some point a penetrating weapon is just more valuable.  I swiss cheesed the assaulting Rigillian escorts with the Pc's from the bases when playing "Wall of Fire, Wall of Steel."  As passive amounts increase the value of that goes through the roof.  These were not "precison hits" any more than the carrier killer bases or ships would be.  The Auger bug design is a perfectly sensible late game assault ship...its Pc's will destroy anything near the warp point regardless of the level of passives.  But I see no reason to have 3 flavours of the same weapon...since a penetrating laser, energy beam and force beam are identical in effect unless you do the 4thE sillyness which makes the Lp the icing on the "lasers are better if only slightly" cake.

I wouldn't say that E-beams don't work well with missiles.  if missiles can strip the shields of a target as an E-beam ship is closing to beam range, it will save said E-beam ship from having to knock down those shields before it gets a chance to start skipping Armor.  But you're 100% correct about Lasers not having any synergy with missiles, except perhaps laser torps.

As for penetrating weapons, yes, as the density of passives increases, so too does the value of penetrating weapons.  (BTW, at least ion 3E, it's worth noting that N-beams cannot penetrate shields.)    I think that this is a reason why in 4E, penetrating weapons don't automatically just outright ignore all passives, or E-beams ignoring armor, ot lasers ignoring shields.  They can ignore some passives before the density of those shields forces them to do some damage to passives.  Honestly, I'm not sure if this is or is not a good idea for Cosmic.

Of course, with lasers, you have anti-laser armor, which doesn't exist in 4E, and Ebeams may have to contend with overload dampeners (if mounted), which also don't exist in 4E.  But nothing stops primaries as we well know.  So, yes, as passives get more dense, the value of ignoring those dense passives becomes greater.  Hence the value of fighter primaries (whether you like them or not).  fP are a deadly upgrade to fighter fire power, and perhaps an unbalancing one.

As for not seeing any reason for different flavors of penetrating weapons, well, I do.  Flavor.  4E assumes that weapons development will occur in some very distinct tech trees, which is a logical historical concept (though it can complicate things).  But 3E never used that concept.  Within the paradigm of tech trees, it makes all the sense in the world to me to have a flavor of penetrating weapon for each of the basic beam weapons trees (L, E, and F).  it also allows someone who is roleplaying their race and has focused on, say, particle beam technology (of which E-beams are a part) to develop a penetrating beam based on that technology, rather than have to give up role-playing and meta-game his empire into developing a weapon outside of said empire's greatly preferred area of beam weapon technology.  That is why I support having multiple penetrating beam weapons.  And it's a reason that I find to be highly logical.





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I can understand back before the advanced passives were in play that the point of the rule was to limit the use of anti-matter on XO racks or fighters to prevent an alpha strike wipe out effect but that is no longer the case as anti-matter has been toned down in damage and better point defences and passives have made even XO launches less dangerous.  It is a game rule that was put in place to prevent a problem that no longer exists due to other changes so far as I can see.

No, this is absolutely 100% not true, Paul. 

The reason that anti-matter on XO racks explodes and destroys the ship is because I told Dave that that's exactly what would happen!!!  He already had included rules for AM magazine explosions taking out the ship, but he'd overlooked the fact that the same thing would happen when AM-tipped missiles were destroyed in XO racks.  There was never a word of discussion about the impact of the rule regarding fighter strikes, etc.  It was entirely 100% about realism (at least within the pseudo reality of 3E as Dave Weber and, to a lesser extent, I perceived it).

I know, I was there.  I discussed it with Dave over the phone and he was aghast that he'd overlooked the danger of XO mounted AM missiles, which he corrected quickly.








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Di is according to the description a point defence where the anti-missile missiles have been removed to add in more laser systems.  I'm not a big fan of the system as I see no reason why regular point defence systems would find fighters anything but big, slow, easy to kill targets but whatever.  It is clearly not a software update.  I just find the name a bit ironic..."improved point defence" ...yeah sure.


What description are you reading for Di?  Here's the description right out of unrevised 3E.

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IMPROVED POINT DEFENSE (Di)

The strikefighter threat created dreadful problems for fleet defense officers, and one response was the creation of "Di" by modifying the sensors and software of a standard "D" to provide enhanced anti-fighter performance.

There's nothing in there about removing the counter-missiles.  Nothing at all.

As for the "Di" name, well, you can't really blame that on Dave Weber, since it was created in 1st edition's STARFIRE II: STRIKEFIGHTER, before DW arrived on the Starfire scene. 



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As for canonical...I assume you have Webber's permission to use his universe?  If you don't have it (in writing) from him, it is likely a good thing you have stopped considering using the official history in cosmic.  I'm not a lawyer but I would be very very very surprised if you could use even the timeline in ISF without permission and not face eventual consiquences.  Marvin got really lucky when he released ISW4 that Webber chose not to go after him legaly (you could say he got lucky that Webber is a reasonable guy...nice guy...whatever).  At least my assumption is that it was Marvin as I can't see who else it could have been at that point...but if not him than someone else got really lucky. 

Actually, SDS doesn't need Dave Weber's permission to use the game history.  Only the characters are his.  The history belongs to Starfire.  This has been discussed before.

As for ISW4, it was actually written by Dave Weber.  The problem was very much an honest one, not any attempt by Marvin to hose Dave.  TFG had passed along the manuscript to Marvin when he's bought the rights to Starfire, and I think that Marvin had wrongly assumed that DW had been paid for the work, or whatever.  Could DW have sued?  Probably, but the legal costs would have almost certainly outweighed any potential return that could have gained.  This was actually all explained in a post by DW in some newsgroup posting over 10 years ago...  DW never blamed Marvin for the oversight from what I understand.

Furthermore, even when I'd intended on working within the Canonical history, I wasn't going to do anything with the Terrans, Orions, Gorm, etc.  My focus would have been on the Star Union (my creation) and its various conflicts with totally new races, both in the past and moving forward.  (Well, except for the First Crucian-Arachnid War, which of course would have included the Bugs...)

But still, I won't say that you're entirely wrong insofar as using a new history would make moot even the slightest potential for legal issues.  That's not my reason for doing it, but I won't deny that it's a convenient secondary effect. 








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Also the aftermaths of those battles...after I started playing starfire regularily the first thing that became apparent is that the aftermath of the scenario is written utterly without any relationship to the battle outcome probable based on the game rules.  We played a number of stars at war scenarios...I don't recall a single one where the battle outcome was similar to what was written.  One of the most absurd involved slow, laser armed cruisers fighting faster force beam armed ships.  We only tried to play one ISW4 battle so I can't say for those...they are too big to actually fight out.  The one we tried was the first real battle of ISW4 (the one where the TFN task force first encounters the bug plasma guns) so it is a small one and it was just too much.  Stars at War is an entertaining mini-novel...and the stories in it are interesting in themselves (such as the one about the TFN task force investigating the missing ships at the start of ISW3) that lead to interesting scenarios but the outcomes bear no relasionship to the game mechanics.  But this is pretty much largely true of Crusade and the two ISW4 books...they are set in the starfire universe but they aren't starfire the game.

I appreciate the feedback on these things Paul.  I think that the problem you point out is due to a lack of proper playtesting.

I can tell you this... the battle between the Bugs, Alliance SF19, and the Star Union at the very start of The Shiva Option should play out very much like described in the book, and I'll tell you exactly why.   I created a scenario for that battle, then played it out, and wrote up what happened and passed it along to Dave Weber, who accurately portrayed the battle's results as I described them to him... including how the opening volleys from the Crucian SDF's destroyed 3 out of the 4 Bug command datalink ships.  I randomly chose which BC's were targeted and as luck would have it, 3 of the command ships get targeted.  No favorites were played by me when I played out the scenario.


Regardless, the best way to make sure that scenarios turn out the way you script them is to play them out to verify that things work as you want them to.  And then make whatever adjustments are necessary.

Posted by: Hawkeye
« on: March 22, 2013, 09:42:34 AM »

Well, I see no reason why one couldn't create an adapter that would let you put that 53 cm torp in the 61 cm tube.  Of course, I don't know that engineering that goes into torps and their tubes, but I'd assume that those who do are smart to figure something out.

Yeah I thought about some kind of sabot (is this the correct english term?) too.
Where it gets realy wired is, when we start trying to shoot severly smaller ordnance out of a single tube at different times.
I could see putting 4 sidewinders into a sabot and into a single tube and launching them all together, but firing one after the other? I´d realy like to see that    -   from a save distance   ;)


Ok, now back to Starfire :)
Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 22, 2013, 07:25:19 AM »

Uhm no statistically the hit rolls are anything but accurate.  If you look on SFA you will notice an option to reduce PD effectiveness by -1, that came from me pointing out the average of 90,70,50,30 is 60.  The Dx anit-fighter chart over-estimates the kill chance but denys the defender the 25% chance of killing 2 fighters.  Arguments about reducing the die rolls I find amusing given the number of dice we used to accumulate to do major battles.

You have the F which works well with missiles and skips nothing.  You have the E to skip armour and the L to skip shields, neither of which work well with missiles (excepting the L and LTx).  At some point a penetrating weapon is just more valuable.  I swiss cheesed the assaulting Rigillian escorts with the Pc's from the bases when playing "Wall of Fire, Wall of Steel."  As passive amounts increase the value of that goes through the roof.  These were not "precison hits" any more than the carrier killer bases or ships would be.  The Auger bug design is a perfectly sensible late game assault ship...its Pc's will destroy anything near the warp point regardless of the level of passives.  But I see no reason to have 3 flavours of the same weapon...since a penetrating laser, energy beam and force beam are identical in effect unless you do the 4thE sillyness which makes the Lp the icing on the "lasers are better if only slightly" cake.


I can understand back before the advanced passives were in play that the point of the rule was to limit the use of anti-matter on XO racks or fighters to prevent an alpha strike wipe out effect but that is no longer the case as anti-matter has been toned down in damage and better point defences and passives have made even XO launches less dangerous.  It is a game rule that was put in place to prevent a problem that no longer exists due to other changes so far as I can see.

Di is according to the description a point defence where the anti-missile missiles have been removed to add in more laser systems.  I'm not a big fan of the system as I see no reason why regular point defence systems would find fighters anything but big, slow, easy to kill targets but whatever.  It is clearly not a software update.  I just find the name a bit ironic..."improved point defence" ...yeah sure.

As for canonical...I assume you have Webber's permission to use his universe?  If you don't have it (in writing) from him, it is likely a good thing you have stopped considering using the official history in cosmic.  I'm not a lawyer but I would be very very very surprised if you could use even the timeline in ISF without permission and not face eventual consiquences.  Marvin got really lucky when he released ISW4 that Webber chose not to go after him legaly (you could say he got lucky that Webber is a reasonable guy...nice guy...whatever).  At least my assumption is that it was Marvin as I can't see who else it could have been at that point...but if not him than someone else got really lucky. 

Also the aftermaths of those battles...after I started playing starfire regularily the first thing that became apparent is that the aftermath of the scenario is written utterly without any relationship to the battle outcome probable based on the game rules.  We played a number of stars at war scenarios...I don't recall a single one where the battle outcome was similar to what was written.  One of the most absurd involved slow, laser armed cruisers fighting faster force beam armed ships.  We only tried to play one ISW4 battle so I can't say for those...they are too big to actually fight out.  The one we tried was the first real battle of ISW4 (the one where the TFN task force first encounters the bug plasma guns) so it is a small one and it was just too much.  Stars at War is an entertaining mini-novel...and the stories in it are interesting in themselves (such as the one about the TFN task force investigating the missing ships at the start of ISW3) that lead to interesting scenarios but the outcomes bear no relasionship to the game mechanics.  But this is pretty much largely true of Crusade and the two ISW4 books...they are set in the starfire universe but they aren't starfire the game.

As I said more power to you on your use of your own history.  I don't know if it is still available but C.J. Cherryh had on her website a very good essay on technological development that I would highly recomemend for bedtime reading.
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 22, 2013, 05:19:05 AM »

The game does not require that a ship be destroyed by an anti-matter explosion.  It is especially odd that it happens because a drive field down missile strike is easily survivable.  Nothing in the rules say the missiles on the racks are destroyed, they are just rendered in-operable...or the rack is rendered inoperable.  The questions are: is if the rule is good for the game, is the rule compatible with the other rule (rule changes), and is the rule still necessary? Leaving aside the rather funny AMBAM situation..."Yes cpt starcrusher, we here in R&D have determined that mine sweeping is a dangerous thing for you to be doing so we have come up with a system that makes it suicidal and you have been chosen to field test our latest version of the 'advanced minesweeper blowing up from Anti-matter misuse' missile system...we call it AMBAM for short."  "Yes indeed cpt starcrusher the missile will destroy you and your crew if the enemy possesses the most basic type of warp point defences any race we have encountered has or if they hit you with sufficient fire to take down your shields."  "Yes we think we are brilliant too." 

I guess that I have to disagree.  I don't think that a DF down hit by a nuke or AM warhead is particularly survivable at all.  DF's force nuke and AM warheads to detonate around 1 km from the hull of a ship.  If DF's are down, missiles will detonate much closer to the ship and cause vastly more damage.  Having a nuke or a an AM warhead explode on the surface of a ship or in a magazine should be utterly catastrophic.

Now, I probably won't make normal missile strikes against DF down targets be 100% catastrophic, and will probably stick with some nasty multiple of damage.  But I see explosions on the surface of the ship or in a magazine as definitely being catastrophic.

But that's just my view.  ;)




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The only precision weapon the game should have is the P.  In 4thE terms the Ep and Lp should not exist, the advantage of the F-chain is the P.  The other weapons introduce, in the same way as the N, contradictory nonsensical rules, and of course the E and Ep suffer the most while the Lp becomes the wonder weapon.  If you want to differentiate the weapon chains you can't balance them into gruel in this way.


I don't believe in precision weapons.  Not in the least.  I don't believe that you can target a specific system or type of system at the ranges in question, possibly against moving targets.

What I do believe in are penetrating weapons ... weapons that can easily slice, blast, or whatever thru normal passive defenses, i.e. ignoring them, but without any ability to target anything other than the ship in general, same as any other beam weapon.

As for P vs N vs Lp, I disagree completely.  I'm not defending the details of 4E's penetrating weapons, only the variety they help create.



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I have no idea why the original Dx gets 2 shots, probably because the amount of fighters you are facing is going up and up.  I have no objections to it having two shots and I don't see why it is something that needed folding into a single roll anyway.  It isn't like you don't roll lots of dice when playing starfire anyway. 

I think that Marvin merged it into a single die roll for just that reason, to reduce rolls.  However, in doing so, statistically the to-hits are accurate, but it makes Dx look like a wonder weapon against fighters.


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Dcx has the problem that it gets a 1 range increase over Dc and Di and that is not justifiable.  It probably should get its own chart but not a range boost that makes it better than AFM for crying out loud.  The Dx is a development of the Di, without the Di you don't get the Dx.   The bugs in ISW4 should have started with the Dz system, which would have saved a lot of stupid rules that are there about their anti-fighter effectiveness.  That also fits more with the fiction that Webber wrote.


Actually, I'd have said that the Bugs should have probably started with only plain old "D".  It would have explained their general anti-missile and anti-fighter weaknesses in a very simple, straightforward way.

As for "Di", I see it more as a software upgrade than an actual system, as the problem is more one of needing to provide better fire control targeting of targets different from missiles.  But that's just me.



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If you want to keep to the original time line I don't see why you could not.  The main value for that is that it allows you to write interesting scenarios.  But if you feel constrained then more power to you for doing your own thing.

Paul, the problem for me is that a number of the things I'd like to do, such as a major overhaul of AW's, some significant tweaks to missiles (dumping most strap-ons, replacing the SBM with a much simpler 2nd gen CM, etc.), and other things, would run seriously counter to how the tech table looks in the novels.  For example, 4E style buoys do not have the same ability to bottle up an attacker on the WP that 3E mines do.   And the 4E equivalent to missile pods don't have the ability to fire as a single massed volley.  I'm not arguing whether it's a good thing or not.  Only that reducing their effectiveness is seriously counter-canonical.  Also, replacing the SBM with a 2nd gen CM is counter canon as well.  As would be making the T/ST planet ratio 50/50 (to use a simple sysgen example).   As might also be the case with some idea that I've been brainstorming regarding fighters, in line with our discussions on how they've been so weakened.

And honestly, I do like the canon history, and don't really want to mess with it.  I could, if I chose to do so, but then there'd be a gulf of difference between what the scenarios might look like if I were to rewrite those scenario products and what's in the novels.   I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable doing it, but I suppose that some veteran players might not mind that.  Another problem I can foresee is that after any changes are made, how would they change the outcomes of scenarios? or would scenarios have to be manhandled into producing the intended outcomes?  And lastly, I wouldn't know if there'd be any legal issues if the scenarios were significantly changed to reflect the new state of the rules and technologies.  Obviously, starting with a new history makes this last concern moot.

But also starting with a new history has the value of it being my own work, my own creation, rather than me messing around with someone else's.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 22, 2013, 04:29:17 AM »

The game does not require that a ship be destroyed by an anti-matter explosion.  It is especially odd that it happens because a drive field down missile strike is easily survivable.  Nothing in the rules say the missiles on the racks are destroyed, they are just rendered in-operable...or the rack is rendered inoperable.  The questions are: is if the rule is good for the game, is the rule compatable with the other rule (rule changes), and is the rule still necessary? Leaving aside the rather funny AMBAM situation..."Yes cpt starcrusher, we here in R&D have determined that mine sweeping is a dangerous thing for you to be doing so we have come up with a system that makes it suicidal and you have been chosen to field test our latest version of the 'advanced minsweeper blowing up from Anti-matter missuse' missile system...we call it AMBAM for short."  "Yes indeed cpt starcrusher the missile will destroy you and your crew if the enemy posseses the most basic type of warp point defences any race we have encountered has or if they hit you with sufficient fire to take down your shields."  "Yes we think we are brillent too." 

The only precision weapon the game should have is the P.  In 4thE terms the Ep and Lp should not exist, the advantage of the F-chain is the P.  The other weapons introduce, in the same way as the N, contradictory nonsensical rules, and of course the E and Ep suffer the most while the Lp becomes the wonder weapon.  If you want to differentiate the weapon chains you can't balance them into gruel in this way.

I have no idea why the original Dx gets 2 shots, probably because the amount of fighters you are facing is going up and up.  I have no objections to it having two shots and I don't see why it is something that needed folding into a single roll anyway.  It isn't like you don't roll lots of dice when playing starfire anyway.  Dcx has the problem that it gets a 1 range increase over Dc and Di and that is not justifiable.  It probably should get its own chart but not a range boost that makes it better than AFM for crying out loud.  The Dx is a development of the Di, without the Di you don't get the Dx.   The bugs in ISW4 should have started with the Dz system, which would have saved a lot of stupid rules that are there about their anti-fighter effectiveness.  That also fits more with the fiction that Webber wrote.

If you want to keep to the original time line I don't see why you could not.  The main value for that is that it allows you to write interesting scenarios.  But if you feel constrained then more power to you for doing your own thing.
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 21, 2013, 11:55:29 AM »

While you can say a ship blows up from a hit on an AM armed missile in an XO rack, there is no reason it has to be the case.  The amount of anti-matter in a missile is small.

I agree that "there is no reason it has to be the case".  However, if the amount of AM is enough to cause double or triple the damage of an equivalently sized nuke, then that should be enough to take out the ship. 

Also note that i've never supported the change to the rules where when a ship's DF was down, that a single nuke could destroy the ship entirely.  So if a single nuke could destroy an ship not protected by a DF, how much more dead would that ship be from an AM explosion ON THE HULL?


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As for P and N the following systems should not be affected by them:  H, Q and Mg. 

Ok, makes sense.


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The N is too similar to the P to make it worth bothering about I would just have a P and nothing else that does that job...and no fP and no IDEW-P. 

It doesn't matter that N is similar to P.  N is a particle beam weapon and P is a force beam-derived weapon.  I want to support this sort of differentiation.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that laser-based weaponry should also have this sort of weapon.  To me, it's about flavor.  You don't like how 4E made weapons bland.  But I can think of nothing blander than merging all penetrating weapons into a single code and losing all flavor and differentiation between them.

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The Dx and Dcx should fire twice as Di or Dc (respectively) and nothing more.  Firing twice is enough.  The later generations of Dcz don't gain a range increase, as that gets absurd.  You probably have to give the Dcz a smoother to-kill chance though.

While it's "possible", I don't see why Dx and Dcx should get 2 Di or Dc shots.  For D to the Dx upgrade, I think that merging D and Di with a single shot, plus some slight anti-missile improvement is more than sufficient for for an upgrade.  Dc to Dcx is a bit trickier since there is no "Di" equivalent to Dc.  Then again, I'm not entirely fond of "Di" anyways.  I could easily see going from D to Dx without the intermediate Di step.



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As far a missile intercepts go Dz and Dx when installed on the target ship function as per the existing rules, datagroup members loose two shots for Dz and 1 shot for Dx due to the limitations of a non-command datalink data transfer with no doubling or tripping possible (or something that makes it more difficult to double or triple up so that the Dxz is an actual improvement).  When protecting a ship from fire from its blind spot they loose the shots, they can't double up/triple up plus the base intercept number drops by 2 for Dz and 1 for Dx.  That doesn't take a bloody page and preserves the value of command data link.  The Zi system should take either 2 HS or 3 HS given a Z2 is 2 HS and is functionally identical to a Zi plus is higher tech level. Or is Z2 3 HS?  whatever Zi should be +1 HS over Z2.

In the UTM, "Zi" is 1 hs, and in ISF, Z2 is 3 hs.  Just checked both.  :)

As far as the rest, it's too complex for my taste.  For starters, I think that all PD regardless of generation should be able to triple up because PD at 4 on 6 with tripling reasonably closely mirrors the unrevised 3E "D" intercept performance, IIRC.  Also, I'm not entirely sure of the value of being able to protect another ship's BS in your DG.  Oh, I'm not doubting that being able to do so has value.  It's just as we discussed earlier, people probably tend to maneuver their DG's as a single unit in a single hex, which means that protecting each other's blind spots is a moot point for those people.  OTOH, I suppose if you're fighting a running missile duel, you could arrange for each of the 3 ships in a DG to end the movement phase on different headings to protect each other.







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As far as Ai, S0, Dz and Zi being logical developments.  The Ai and S0 are logical technological improvements, but if you put them in the game you damned well look at what they do.  In this case you re-visit fighter missiles and remove the BS craptastic to hit table they have (since pods have no negative modifiers to the missile chance to hit).  Dz and Zi are neither logical technological improvements nor must they be done without putting in some limitations (see above for a suggestion as to how they could have been done better) they exist because someone thought they were neat ideas without looking at the game balance as a whole.  If you put them in then you need to allow fighters to carry more missiles, have better missiles, and have better to-hit on those missiles.  The fM gains the most from AM technology after all as the warhead size drops.

Oh, I don't know that Zi isn't logical.  Trying to protect an important, but vulnerable is hardly illogical.  That said, it is a development with considerable repercussions.  Still, I'm not sure that people should expect datalink to remain such a vulnerable system, when it's so obvious that decreasing that vulnerability should be a priority for any navy.


But I agree about the effect on fighters and their missiles.  They need help.  Improved to-hit #'s for fM's would be a start, but I tend to think that the effect would be marginal, given that you're already going to be limited in the volley size often against targets protected by Dxz/Dcz with Z2.  More missiles helps, but one would almost have to make the fighters larger to justify it, i'm thinking.  Changing AM so that fM1's can use AM would be a help so that what few hits they do get do more damage.


But another thing that could help fighters (and gunboats) would be a CAM-like weapon (i.e. a "torpedo") that couldn't be intercepted and had a range of say around 5-8 hexes.  Even if it was twice the size of an fM with a base 1 dp warhead, it'd probably still be worth carrying if it had good to-hit #'s and the ability to use AM and AAM warheads.  (FYI, I think of the fR as more like the bomb dropped by a WW2 dive bomber than a "torpedo".)  Fighters need a weapon that doesn't require them to make suicide runs to point blank range.




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I could live with HAWK as currently written if it came with some bonus, better chance to hit at long range or something.  But the point for me is I've fought battles where I had it and frankly never used it.  Either that is due to play style or it is just something that only shows up once in a blue moon.  It is just that the way the rules are written you would think the system is a lot better than it is in reality yet so far as I can see there was no change to it for 3rdR so it is as it always was this way.

The idea of enhanced long-range to hits is interesting, though it might be better if it was embedded into the to-hit #'s of next gen missiles that come after a certain point on the tech table, rather than as a strap-on.  I'm not particularly fond of all the missile strap-ons.  They just seem to complicate matters, IMHO.


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However since we are supposed to be talking about pods...  They are the best defence of a gunboat attack known...and once they get CAMs they pretty much render close combat attacks but gunboats suicidal.  The only weapon system the pods don't seem to be (as yet) able to render null and void is the fighter.   Although theoretically the CAM armed ones (SBMHAWK4&5) should be capable of engaing fighters at close range with sprint missile fire (not sure if they can infact target fighters).  Basically 1 pod per GB armed with LT1 or LT2 warheads and that is the end of the stand off GB attack.  Once you get the ability to fire CM it is even better since you need but a single hit to take out the GB and with a pen-aid, CM, and LT2 you do 1 pt of damage with a -5 to the intercept chance.

Against fighters pods work defensively by blasting their carriers out of existance when the carrier comes back to recover the fighters in the middle of a fight...or else when it pokes its head through the WP if the pod rollers activate in the first turn.  Actually I'm not even sure that the deployment ship has to activate (this I need to check) because if it doesn't have to be active to issue orders to the pods then kiss the carriers good bye round one.  It would even be worth sending pods through the warp point to engage the carriers on the other side since you know how many there were and where they are (running one assumes from the warp point).

Yes, true, if a defender can get a bunch of pods thru the WP to attack the attackers massing near the WP, it could be devastating, particularly on carriers.  And CAM pods would probably best, since one would assume that the ships ARE massing close to the WP.  Yes, a truly nasty tactic.  Of course, if an attacker saw a bunch of pods close his entry WP, he might be tempted to shift his fire to them, or if he has fighters in-system, he may task them to taking out as many pods as possible.  Lots of options on both sides.


====


Paul, at this point, I want to mention to you that over on the SDS board, I've made an announcement that I'm shifting the direction of Cosmic and have dropped my adherence to the Canon History.  I'm doing this because it was becoming increasingly difficult to do what I want to do with Cosmic and yet stay true to Dave Weber's history.  So, Cosmic will move forward with its own story to tell, its own history.

So in doing this, I am freeing myself of many of the limitations caused by historical adherence, such as automated weapons being as they are in 3E or various other things.  This will allow me to fix a number of things that need fixing or tweak things I think need tweaking.  For example, I can make some changes to fighters to make them more potent and not so nerfed by the defensive tech of the time.  I can do things with automated weapons to make them less uber-deadly and somewhat more logical.  And there are many other things as well, that I won't go into at this time.

Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 21, 2013, 10:54:44 AM »

While you can say a ship blows up from a hit on an AM armed missile in an XO rack, there is no reason it has to be the case.  The amount of anti-matter in a missile is small.

As for P and N the following systems should not be affected by them:  H, Q and Mg.  Mg if you want to complicate things could have:  a percentage of the missiles rendered inoperable, a chance the Mg doesn't work anymore (feed system is destroyed) or a very small chance you cause a warhead to detonate.  Or any combination of course.  But all three of those systems are largely empty space.  The magazine has missiles in it but most of the missile won't explode if hit so you would need a lot of luck to get that happening.  The N is too similiar to the P to make it worth bothering about I would just have a P and nothing else that does that job...and no fP and no IDEW-P. 

The Dx and Dcx should fire twice as Di or Dc (respectively) and nothing more.  Firing twice is enough.  The later generations of Dcz don't gain a range increase, as that gets absurd.  You probably have to give the Dcz a smoother to-kill chance though.

As far a missile intercepts go Dz and Dx when installed on the target ship function as per the existing rules, datagroup members loose two shots for Dz and 1 shot for Dx due to the limitations of a non-command datalink data transfer with no doubling or trippling possible (or something that makes it more difficult to double or tripple up so that the Dxz is an actualy improvement).  When protecting a ship from fire from its blind spot they loose the shots, they can't double up/tripple up plus the base interecpt number drops by 2 for Dz and 1 for Dx.  That doesn't take a bloody page and preserves the value of command data link.  The Zi system should take either 2 HS or 3 HS given a Z2 is 2 HS and is functionally identical to a Zi plus is higher tech level. Or is Z2 3 HS?  whatever Zi should be +1 HS over Z2

As far as Ai, S0, Dz and Zi being logical developments.  The Ai and S0 are logcial technologicial improvements, but if you put them in the game you damned well look at what they do.  In this case you re-visit fighter missiles and remove the BS craptastic to hit table they have (since pods have no negative modifiers to the missile chance to hit).  Dz and Zi are neither logical technological improvements nor must they be done without putting in some limitations (see above for a suggestion as to how they could have been done better) they exist because someone thought they were neat ideas without looking at the game balance as a whole.  If you put them in then you need to allow fighters to carry more missiles, have better missiles, and have better to-hit on those missiles.  The fM gains the most from AM technology after all as the warhead size drops.

I could live with HAWK as currently written if it came with some bonus, better chance to hit at long range or something.  But the point for me is I've fought battles where I had it and frankly never used it.  Either that is due to play style or it is just something that only shows up once in a blue moon.  It is just that the way the rules are written you would think the system is a lot better than it is in reality yet so far as I can see there was no change to it for 3rdR so it is as it always was this way.

However since we are supposed to be talking about pods...  They are the best defence of a gunboat attack known...and once they get CAMs they pretty much render close combat attacks but gunboats suicidal.  The only weapon system the pods don't seem to be (as yet) able to render null and void is the fighter.   Although theoretically the CAM armed ones (SBMHAWK4&5) should be capable of engaing fighters at close range with sprint missile fire (not sure if they can infact target fighters).  Basically 1 pod per GB armed with LT1 or LT2 warheads and that is the end of the stand off GB attack.  Once you get the ability to fire CM it is even better since you need but a single hit to take out the GB and with a pen-aid, CM, and LT2 you do 1 pt of damage with a -5 to the intercept chance.

Against fighters pods work defensively by blasting their carriers out of existance when the carrier comes back to recover the fighters in the middle of a fight...or else when it pokes its head through the WP if the pod rollers activate in the first turn.  Actually I'm not even sure that the deployment ship has to activate (this I need to check) because if it doesn't have to be active to issue orders to the pods then kiss the carriers good bye round one.  It would even be worth sending pods through the warp point to engage the carriers on the other side since you know how many there were and where they are (running one assumes from the warp point).
Posted by: crucis
« on: March 20, 2013, 01:55:48 PM »

Well one problem with the "generator is in the weapon HS" is that it begs the question why is a BB hull more expensive than a CT hull?  Carrier hull or freighter hull cost difference seem to be based on some sort of systems being available.  But it is hard to understand why a BB hull cost is different than a bases and different than a CTs if everything is included in the system.

Not so worry about BB hulls costing more than CT hulls.  It's long been my intention to make warship hull types have the same per-HS hull cost regardless of size.


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As for anti-matter destroying the ship...*sighs* that is like fusion plants blowing up.  The amount of anti-matter you are talking about undergoing a fizzle would release its energy slowly and not cause the ship to explode.  Fundamentally I was thinking about this...there exists a whole crap load of stupid rules about P and N dealing with why ships can't be destroyed during WP transits with AM weapons.  The simplest solution is to not allow either system to destroy a Mg.  Fundamentally punching a small hole (which is what both systems do) will not 99% of the time do anything (any more than punching a hole in a hold does so).  It is certainly a lot simpler, not to mention "logically sensable" then all the backflips and cludges that are done to stop something happening by employing handwavium arguments most of which seem to fail the giggle test.

I'm certainly up for adjusting P and N damage.  I guess the question though is what systems would you think that penetrating weapons like P or N (or a laser-based equivalent) wouldn't destroy, but only cause a mildly inconvenient hole to appear.


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But carrying AM in XO racks may have been something you want to avoid in starfire 2nd edition...by 3rdR I don't see why there needs to be a big deal about it.  It might even make AMBAM worthwhile if that was removed. 

Honestly, this isn't a change that I'd make.  I've always liked that putting missiles with AM warheads in XO racks represented a near suicidal risk.  As for making AMBAMs worthwhile, my answer is what it's always been.  The overly large AMBAM was a stupid weapon from the very beginning.  If I were the head of TFN weapons bureau, I'd want to know what idiot thought it was a good idea to design an anti-matter tipped missile that could only be mounted in XO racks.




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The game changes utterly once you include Ai, S0, Dz and Zi into the mix.  The changes to Dx and the inclusion of Dz make command datalink a not so exciting system.  That battle in Justin between the TFN BC battlegroups and a datagroup of SDs would never have gone the way it is written.  The SDs had 5 Dx on each SD...that is 15 Dx or 75 shots with the ability to triple up.  At long range the BCs could fire no more than 29 CMs or SBMs.  The datagroup of SDs could eventually return fire with 30 CMs (if not more) against I believe 18 Dxz on the BC BGs.  Dx used to be limited compared to Dxz but the reality is not with the 3rdR point defence rules.  If they were mounting Zi then those SDs probably would have hammered the BCs into the ground.  The Dz and Dx reduce substantially the advantage of the Command Datagroup.  It is further reduced by its over all huge size and the fact that the command ship sticks out like a sore thumb and why it would not be instantly targeted is beyond me.

The biggest difference those 4 systems make is in fighter or gunboat combat.  The fM basically gets the nerf bat big time.   Comparatively the TFN from the Stars at War is a TL4 race in modern Starfire, in so far as fighter combat is concerned. 

Not to be critical, but you've said this before, and I've largely agreed with you on this before.  Dz simply does not belong at TL7 and should never have been added.  S0 and Ai at least make some sense if one thinks that you shouldn't have to wait until TL9-10 to see some improvements in shields and armor, though I don't dismiss those changes' impact on fighter performance.  And of course, Zi makes all datagroups far more resistant to damage, though it too is a logical system.

The unfortunate problem here is that the confluence of these system adds up to really hurting fighter performance, as you accurately point out.  Removing Dz would probably be the more effective change, though removing Zi would help fighters in a role that works for them, i.e. slicing and dicing with fighter lasers until they take out the target's datalink (TL3 version) and then moving on to another target.  In this role, fighters are sort of hamstringing their targets, rather than trying to destroy them.


The one caveat that I'd have is that I don't like the original version of Dx because i think that it was too complex.  An upgraded version of point defense shouldn't require a full page to cover its rules, which was just about the case with the original version of Dx because simulating partially datalinked PD isn't simple.  I think that Dx would be a better system is it was just an upgraded version of "D" without any datalink or partial datalink capability, plus Di's level of anti-fighter performance (and only 1 shot, not 2 or 2 shots merged into one gawd-awful powerful shot as in the 3rdR version).



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I think that the ground attack value of both pinnaces and assault shuttles should rise with each tech level, and I really don't understand why it would be that useful for missile intercepts.  I guess to protect assault shuttles from AFM launched by PDCs.  Though I doubt most players bother with planetary assaults so I can't see that it matters.  I would rather just give them the equivalent of a fG (turret mounted) for dog fighting and leave it at that.

Honestly, I don't want to give pinnaces and assault shuttles even the slightest space based combat capability whatsoever.  I don't want to see ast's being used as a cheap defense against fighters and gunboats.  In my view, any combat capability they have should be purely for supporting planetary invasions.


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The -HAWK does allow you to hand off...at a -1 to hit but requires you be maneuvering your ships independently (which may occur) but in general I would say most people use one counter to represent all ships in a datagroup.  From time to time the ability to use targeting data to fire hands off mode may be useful but it is hardly enough to get excited about.  Even a -1 to hit on AFM leaves you with lots of fire and little accomplished...though Kurt always reports what seem to me to be astounding rates of kills with both AFM as well as with AFMc.  But I don't know how many launchers he is firing exactly.

Well, the thing with AFM's and AFMc's is that they don't have a particularly high to-hit to begin with, so a -1 is a pretty serious penalty.  Then again, I suppose that you are firing into your blindspot and perhaps should feel a little luck that you have a shot at all.  Still, I suppose that one could simplify the HAWK tech in a couple of different ways.  One could remove the -1 hand-off penalty, though this would only be good for people who maneuver their datagroups' ships separately rather than as a group.  And/or one could remove the ability to fire blind into the blindspot entirely, or on the flipside, I suppose that one could reduce the blind fire penalty to something like -3 or -2.  But to some degree that would seem to reduce the game value of blind spots and maneuvering, if one could fire blindly into one's blindspot without much a penalty.


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As far as fighters go the fM was a good weapon until the 4 systems above came along.  Now so long as any ship in the data group can see you the Dz covers each other.  Zi makes it so that you can't even knock a ship out of the defence and S0 and Ai push the number of hits you need up significantly.  It was in the past possible to just do enough damage to knock ships out of link then come back and finish the job with launches in the blindspot...now you have to kill that ship that attack run.  This makes fRAM attacks nearly a requirement which means that you continuously attrit your fighter force.  Overall the effectiveness of fighters takes a nose dive.  fL is a lone light in the darkness but it vanishes once Al shows up.  Basically you have to use your fighters solely as battleline support units rather than as a solo strike (excepting when you significantly outnumber the enemy force).  Factor in cost and they are not so much of a revolution.  GBs are even worse off since they don't have the special to hit chart that gimps fire against fighters.  They attrit even harder and it is nearly impossible to have a mobile force with enough of them to matter (you have to be using them from ground bases). 

Lots of good points, Paul.  And yet, S0 and Ai aren't illogical systems.  The problem seems to be that the fighter AS IS seems to be too weak unless starship technology is intentionally prevented from advancing in some logical areas, like Shields and Armor, etc.  So it seems that one is left with two general options.  Either prevent starship technology from improving in the areas you point out, or increase the ability of fighters to cause damage, mostly in the area of ordnance, since fighter beams already seem more than powerful enough.  The only other option is to increase the use of a weapon like the fighter primary, which I know you seriously dislike, but does provide a way for fighters to cause significant damage without being hindered by increasingly strong shields, armor, and point defenses.


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I'm fairly sure no one really wanted to butcher the command datalink or fighters but unintended or not they wielded the nerf bat but good for both those systems.

Well, in command datalink's defense, it was a Dave Weber system and it does fit into the mix of systems as he intended.  So if Z2 does really hurt fighters, for better or worse, it did so with his knowledge and intent.



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As far as the F2, F3, E2 and E3 go they are 4 HS systems I am just updating them with damage/range.  It is just a pain to figure out what the drop off should look like but what I proposed to Starslayer was:
TL11:
F2 (4HS/50 MCr) 6-5-4-4-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 (Rmax = 18)
E2 (4HS/65 MCr) 6-5-4-4-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-2-1-1 (Rmax = 13)
TL14:
F3 (4HS/60 MCr) 8-7-6-6-5-5-4-4-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1 (Rmax = 20)
E3 (4HS/95 MCr) 8-7-6-5-5-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-2-1 (Rmax = 16)

It might be better to do F3 7-7-6-6-5...or 7-6-6-6-5... due to concerns over out performing the Fc3 at point blank range but I'm not sure 1 pt more matters given the 10 hexes further range it allows.  It looks more or less ok so far as I can see. The E series is 6 hexes shorter ranged, while the F series is 7 or 10 hexes shorter ranged then the comparable capital weapon.  Over most of the range band (except at very short range where the damage is comparable) the 2xFcx or 2xEcx outperformes significantly the 3xFx or 3xEx...so I feel I am not going overboard.  This allows in our game DD, CL and CA to remain competitive as they can't mount capital weapons.

I honestly don't like capital beam weapons the way they're done in the game.  I don't like that you can get more damage from an equal # of HS of regular beams over cap beams.  I think that true capital beam weapons should outperform regular beams in every way.  Of course, I also tend to think that true capital beam weapons should be rather larger than 6 HS.  To me, comparing a 4 HS beam to a 6 HS beam is not unlike comparing a 5" gun to a 8" gun on WW2 naval ships.  I tend to think that true cap beams should be equivalent something like a 12-16" naval gun compared to the 5, 6, or 8" guns carried by destroyers and cruisers.  Of course, in Starfire terms, such weapons would end up being quite large, perhaps 12 HS or more, which would put a serious crimp on the size of ships that could mount them.  But any ship that could comfortably mount multiple beams of this size would probably be an honest-to-goodness Capital Ship!

As to your house rule beams above, I'd have to input them into my spreadsheet to have a good sense of their power.  But at a glance they seem VERY powerful.  But still, in a campaign where you are by house rule preventing non-capital ships from mounting "capital" weapons, it's probably not a big deal.


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I would be happy if EX were limited to being J'Rill specific attack ships but EX with Pg are popular and they infest most exploration forces in games.  I hate the EX with a passion and I have exactly 4 of them...couriers but I am the exception in this from what I can tell.

I hate the EX with a passion as well, but I intend on outright removing them from the game.  But if there's a perceived need for small "courier boats", I could see coming up with a largish smallcraft that has a lot of endurance, very little cargo/passenger capacity, WP transit capability, and a good strategic speed, which could fill this role.