[GZG] Full Thrust Playtest?

["john tailby" <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oerjan Ariander" <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxxx>
> The original intent was that a Heavy Missile burns 1 CEF in each primary 
> move phase, regardless of whether or not it actually moved that turn. I've 
> played it both ways though - the "space mine" capability is quite 
> interesting, though in my experience the main effect of it is that the 
> enemy uses otherwise unengaged anti-ship weapons to destroy the loitering 
> missiles before they get close enough to attack anything.
We play it that missiles burn up CEF each primary movement phase. We tried 
the "can loiter option" but 60 missiles per side made for a messy game.

> > Fighters escorting other fighters must start within 3mu but must remain in 
> > base to base contact??? How does that work?
>
> The non-condensed version of this rule reads:
>
> "A fighter group within 3 mu of a friendly fighter group may declare
> that they are escorting that fighter group. Both groups must then move
> into base-to-base contact during the primary move, and must remain in
> base-to-base contact throughout the turn. "
>
> which is a bit clearer.

This makes much more sense.


> > Salvo missiles, plasma bolts and AMTs automatically gain a -3 DRM.
> > So essentially you can't shoot these weapons with beam weapons at all.
>
> Not true, because the target's DRMs do not affect rerolls (analogous with 
> the reroll-screen interaction; screens are effectively a kind of target's 
> DRM). A Beam Die will hit a Plasma Bolt on an initial die roll of 6 (which 
> scores zero damage but allows a reroll) followed by a reroll of 4+.
>
> Good catch BTW; the interaction between rerolls and DRMs isn't mentioned 
> in LL's condensed version of these rules.

Again makes much more sense now. We went the otherway and clarified things 
so that all DRM apply to rerolls as well. There were cases when sometimes it 
did and sometimes it didn't and we went one way for consistency.
> > AMTs must declare an attack against all ships within 3 mu.
> > How does this work? The missile can't physically move into contact with 
> > all ships within 3mu.
>
> NO missile, fighter group, plasma bolt or whatever moves during the attack 
> declaration or attack resolution phases. They are all left right where 
> they ended their primary move, launch or secondary move (whichever came 
> last), just like in the Fleet Book 2 rules.

I know the missile does not move in the attack declaration phase. But the 
missile has to attack the nearest ship within range. So that should be the 
ship it attacks.
> > Kra'Vak scatterguns and Sa'Vasku interceptor pods
> > may not use ADFC guidance.
> > Currently they don't need to because they have ADFC built in.
> > Are you proposing to remove this capability from these systems?
>
> Yes. If you want to fire scatterguns or interceptor pods in support of 
> some other ship, or at some un-engaged target, you have to use FCSs to 
> control the fire. (You can do the same with PDSs too, of course.)

So use of a FCS now gives you ADFC capability cool You now don't need the 
piece of specialist gear.
> > Scattergun       6mu      1d3                    1
> > When did you change this weapon from 1D6 to 1D3 and no ADFC. This nerfs KV 
> > anti ordinance.
>
> No, it brings the scatterguns' capabilities into line with their cost 
> against all types of small targets, instead of making them slightly 
> overpowered against missiles and massively overpowered against fighters :-

> Against *fighters*, scatterguns with ADFC capability are really worth 
> somewhere around 12 pts apiece - but since that cost would make KV and 
> similar scattergun-users utterly unable to defend themselves against 
> *missiles*, the FB scatterguns were instead priced according to their 
> anti-missile capabilities. Unfortunately I failed to factor in the value 
> of their ADFC capability during the FB2 playtesting, so that capability 
> was effectively free of charge in FB2... Bringing the scatterguns down to 
> 1D3 hits and removing their inherent ADFC capability brings their 
> anti-fighter capabilities down into line with their cost, ie. 5 pts 
> apiece.
>
> Against *missiles*, the scatterguns usually waste much of their firepower 
> anyway. You don't need 1D6 hits to kill a Heavy Missile (even 1D3 is 
> overkill); and against an SM salvo a single scattergun is too 
> unpredictable so most players I've listened to prefer to use 2 
> scatterguns... with the result that the salvo will be stopped four times 
> out of five, but on average half the scatterguns' hits are wasted... with 
> the result that cutting them back from 1D6 hits to 1D3 hits has a 
> surprisingly small impact on their anti-missile capabilities.
>
> Against *plasma bolts*, finally, the scattergun goes from 1 beam die 
> without rerolls to 1D3-1 which is a 50% *increase* in firepower :-/
>
> > You do not list stinger nodes as anti ship able to attack ordinance is 
> > this deliberate or did it get left out in error?
>
> It is deliberate. The core point of the UFR is to allow ships to use most 
> of the points and Mass they've invested in weapons for anti-fighter 
> defence (though not all of that Mass will be equally good at the job). On 
> SV ships most of the "weapon Mass" consists of power generators... so if a 
> SV ship wants to use most of its "weapon Mass" to shoot at fighters, all 
> it has to do is route the power through its spicules or pod launchers.

I don't understand this, this reads a bit like alien tech discrimination. 
Why should SV tech be disadvantaged compared to human tech or have you 
changed spicules and pod launchers so that they can make multiple shots 
dependent on how much power is allocated to them?
Spicules cost the SV ship twice as much mass to fire as the human ship one 
for the spicule and one for the generator. So they can't use most of their 
weapon mass to shoot at incomming ordinance because they only get one shot 
per spicule.

> > These fighter rules heavily favour one shot fighters like torpedo bombers. 
> > They can only make one attack run and so can burn 3 CEF to be unhittable 
> > then attack survive and fly back to rearm for another go.
>
> It hasn't quite turned out that way in the playtests to date - partly 
> because torpedo fighters are so much more expensive than other fighter 
> types, but also because 1 CEF spent on a clever secondary move can often 
> give your fighters better protection than 3 CEF spent on unthinking 
> evasive manoeuvres.

Agreed but fighters launched from more than 36 Mu infront of the enemy fleet 
are likely to spend one turn in fron of the enmy fleet before they can move 
behind them to get out of the fleets arc of fire.

Nothing like massed topedo bombers to ruin a capital ships day.
> > Having used a similar version of these rules it doesn't make a significant 
> > difference if the fleet uses its anti ship weapons to try and stop a 
> > missile wave. You might force the missile barges to get a bit closer to 
> > say 48" before they fire but you won't have enough firecontrols to target 
> > the missiles even if they don't bother to defend.
> > With each missile burning endurance to dodge incomming fire, the book 
> > keeping becomes much harder as you have to track different endurance 
> > states for each missile rather than just being able to calcualte the 
> > endurance for each wave.
>
> In my experience to date, whether or not it makes a difference depends 
> rather heavily on the target fleet's velocity. If the missiles can reach 
> their targets in the same turn they were launched, then you're quite 
> correct that there won't be enough FCSs. 'Course, if the enemy can launch 
> Heavy Missiles from 48mu away and have them reach you in a single turn, 
> you could always try closing at a slower rate (not necessarily *flying* 
> slower, mind you, but approaching on an oblique course rather than 
> head-on); whether this is a viable option depends a fair bit on the size 
> of your gaming table.

Even if the missiles are launched from long range, they will spend a turn at 
more than 24mu away before being able to close in and make their attack 
runs. Only big ships have class 3 or above beams and only then in small 
numbers so you might kill one missile per capital ship then they burn to 
attack. If the missile fleet also has secondary beam armament and closes 
with their missile wave then you fire at the launcher ships or the missiles. 
could be the ideal time for the submunition armed destroyers and frigates to 
make their move.
> Also, if I understood your variant correctly you gave the Heavy Missiles a 
> flat -*2* DRM against anti-ship fire? That would reduce the usefulness of 
> long-ranged beam fire against an incoming missile swarm quite a lot... 
> under the UFR heavy missiles usually can't afford any DRM at all until the 
> turn they actually attack, and even then they can usually only manage a -1 
> DRM.

Yes but we also reduced the maximum range of all direct ship fire to 48 mu 
so that people can't just start lobbing missiles at 54 mu range. As a group 
we generally prefer "fighter" type gunships rather than ww2 or modern naval 
ships. Assault missiles are quite popular because if one gets through you 
notice it.

> > Our version of how we play was inspired by these rules but we dropped the 
> > mechanism of endurance burn because it was too complicated.
>
> The endurance burn is certainly the most complex part of the UFR. For us 
> it hasn't been big problem with fighters (at least not when using fighter 
> SSDs like LL described), but it can be a chore when you have lots of Heavy 
> Missiles on the table. Our fighter group models all have IDs; not all of 
> our missile markers do :-/
We all have numbered fighter squadrons either with SSDs or towing round a 
pair of dice to indicate status. We have had fighter fleets with 20+ 
squadrons per side which is manageable. The same ships as missile fleets are 
100+ missiles per side and its accountants in space. 


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