Re: [GZG] [FT] Graser-1s again

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hugh Fisher wrote:

>>The compound advantage effect also works *against* the G1, [...]
>>
>>However, if you are consistently able to close the range before the
>>enemy's long-ranged weapons have built up any significant advantage
>>then you will find the shorter-ranged weapons correspondingly more
>>powerful since they have little or no catching-up to do.
>
>Which I believe is what graser armed escorts and lighter
>cruisers can consistently do. It's my experience that
>most opponents can't cripple the graser ships before they
>get within range.

Fair enough. My experience is quite different (even when we've used 
"Canberra-style" restricted, fixed tables), but like I said in the previous 
post I'm stumped as to *why* it is so different :-(

>Other escorts or light cruisers carry beam-1s or beam-2s, and 6 MU is not
>enough to work with.

In my experience this narrow margin *is* enough to work with - not "enough" 
in the sense "guarantees that the shorter-ranged weapon will always be 
defeated", but sufficient to make up for the shorter-ranged weapons' higher 
firepower once they gets into range and allow both sides a roughly even 
chance to win given equal player skill (or if the players *don't* have the 
same skill level, allowing a player roughly the same chance to win 
regardless of whether he plays the long- or the short-ranged side of the 
battle).

>The chance of thresholding or destroying just with beams
>or P-torps is too low to build up a significant compound
>advantage of your own before they get in range.

That depends a lot on what you're shooting at. If the enemy is an armoured 
cruiser it'll take a while to wear it down; if OTOH it is an unarmoured 
destroyer (eg. the UNSC ones) it doesn't take many beam dice to threshold it.

>>Some FT gaming groups, eg. the Canberra group, appear to be better
>>at closing the range quickly than others are - even other groups
>>which play with the same or very similar table sizes and initial
>>velocities. Exactly how you do this I don't know, which is why I
>>keep asking you guys for detailed AARs :-/
>
>Yeah, I'm sorry, but it was a public participation game and I
>didn't want to give potential new players the impression that
>they had to write down everything that happened. Pity I don't
>have a video camera.

No worries. The AAR comment wasn't intended as a critizism (though with 
hindsight I realize it looks like one) - even without a full report you've 
already provided more details than most people who report imbalances do! It 
was merely a reflection of my own frustration over repeated failures to 
replicate the "Canberra-style" on-table results :-/

>>Increasing the G1's Mass (or cost) without changing its damage
>>mechanics is essentially the same as saying that you *must* score
>>mega-hits to have a chance to win the battle. [...]
>
>No I am not saying that. My impression from the earlier
>responses was that the graser-1 mass and points cost had
>been calculated solely on average damage, and therefore
>it was under-priced because the potential for megahits
>had not been taken into account.

You don't *intend* to say that, but it is the outcome of the change you 
propose. If you apply an extra cost to a weapon (ie., above the cost 
warranted by its range-weighted average damage) to compensate for the fact 
that it *can* score mega-hits, the other side of the coin is that if it 
*doesn't* score any mega-hits during the battle it will be outgunned by its 
own points cost of more consistently-performing weapons (which only pay for 
their range-weighted average damage values). OK, it can still win if the 
ship it is mounted on decisively outmanoeuvres the enemy, but that's true 
for all weapons.

>I still think 1 more mass point is needed. If you compare
>a G1 to a P-torp on *average* damage, yes it's less, but
>not on *maximum* damage.

If you compare a G1 to a P-torp on *maximum* damage, you're comparing 
infinity to a finite number. Increasing the mass of the G1 by a single mass 
point, or even doubling it, won't change that comparison noticably - you'll 
still get battle-winning mega-hits every now and then, and if you've weaken 
the *non*-mega-hits which on average provide two-thirds or more of the 
damage the weapon inflicts during a battle the occasional mega-hits will 
stand out even more than they do now.

If the problem is the players' perception of the mega-hits, then the best 
solution is to remove the potential for mega-hits - which in the Graser 
case means removing the to-hit die rerolls (and adjust their points cost 
accordingly). This limits the maximum possible damage inflicted by a single 
Graser die to 12 (which is of course still quite a lot - but the 
probability that a single Graser die will score 12 pts is *less* than the 
probability that two (rerolling) standard beam dice combined will score 12 
*or more* points!). At the same time removing the rerolls doesn't change 
the *low* end (0-8 pts or so) of the Graser's damage profile noticably, so 
it is still distinctly different from the standard beam batteries.

>To repeat a comment I made last
>year, anyone with NAC Vandenburg/T heavy cruisers would
>sell his or her soul to get double hits on 6 and a reroll.

In most gaming groups I've listened in on Vandenburg/T captains would find 
wider fire arcs for his/her P-torps rather more useful than an occasional 
P-torp reroll, since those wider fire arcs greatly increase the ship's 
chances to get in more than one attack :-/ (Cf. my shooting stats post - 
Vandenburg/Ts were quite prominent among those P-torp-1 armed ships that 
died during/after their first P-torp attack run because they couldn't turn 
away quickly enough to avoid a close-range brawl.)

>And there's still the reality that human beings are very
>bad at statistics and perceive extreme events as being
>more likely to occur than they really are.

Indeed - which is precisely why I believe that removing the Graser to-hit 
rerolls is a more effective way to solve your problem with it than 
increasing the G1's Mass would be.

>Hey, ECC organisers: could you find someone willing to
>play their standard human fleet but re-equipped all with
>the same mass of grasers for your big battle? Maybe not
>a full AAR, but get their impression as to whether the
>extra cost was worth it or not.)

Weren't there battles like that at the ECC 2004 or 2005? Not that it 
matters, of course - more playtests are always useful! :-)

If possible it would be more useful to run the test battle twice, though - 
once with the normal armament, and once re-armed (and with a somewhat 
smaller fleet, or facing a somewhat bigger enemy fleet, to account for the 
increased cost of the Grasers compared to "normal" human weapons).

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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