Re: UNSC beta and FB3

Jared Hilal wrote:

 >*** Disclaimer ***
 >All critiques meant to be constructive and friendly, nothing intended
 >to be personal or negative.

And my comments are intended in the same fashion.

 >Hull rows:
 >Could be potentially very powerful.  Reduced number of threshold
checks
 >will significantly increase weapon availability and major reduction in
 >core systems failure if core systems option used.

Yes. That's why 3-row hulls cost more than 4-row hulls.

 > Instead of an increase in the value of each hull box, perhaps a 
mutiplier to
 >the value of the whole ship.

This was tried, but it was discarded since it turned out to work no
better 
than changing the value of each hull box. (It moved the main problem
area 
from the screen/hull interaction to the armour/hull interaction, but
didn't 
reduce either the magnitude or the frequency of the problems - quite the

contrary, particularly for Phalon-style multi-layer armour.)

 >Superships might take advantage of 5 or 6 row hulls to reduce costs
 >(when you have 200-300 hull, the extra row isn't that big a handicap).

Changing a 200-box hull from 4 to 5 rows is roughly equivalent to
removing 
around 25-30 of its hull boxes; I leave it to you to decide how
significant 
that handicap is :-/ If anything the 5-row hull is very slightly
overpriced 
compared to the 3-, 4- and 6-row ones. (Not enough to show up in the 
playtests to date since we've mostly tested the variable-hull concept on

ships in the Fleet Book size range, but when you get up to 200-300 hull 
boxes per ship it could potentially start to become significant. Of
course, 
it wouldn't be the only balance problem with very large ships :-/ )

 >Anti-Matter Missiles:
 >Two points.
 >1)  Instead of a new missile system with questionable PSB, we would
 >rather see an expansion of salvo missile systems into a comprehensive
 >family

The AMT isn't exactly "a new missile system". It is a cross between two 
missile systems that were around before FB1 introduced the Salvo
Missiles :-/

That said, I too would've preferred the AMT to be an SM variant 
(specifically the Nova Salvo Missile that was thoroughly hashed out on
this 
list a year or two ago, see 
<http://nift.firedrake.org/weapons/WDA-Missiles.htm#NovaSM>);
but Jon wants to get the EFSB "energy mine" damage mechanic into FT and
I 
haven't been able to talk him out of it :-/

(BTW Dean, it is "banzai jammers", not "bonsai jammers". You very rarely

have to jam miniature trees, after all ;-) )

 >lFor example: SMLs are rated with 2 numbers.	The first represents the
 >number of tubes and the second represents the size of the missiles
 >launched in terms of warhead strength, e.g. FB1 SML = SML:6/1 = 6
 >missiles w/ 1-die warhead. Extant designs are unchanged, but player
can
 >choose 6/1, 4/2, 3/3, or 2/5 for the current designs (same MASS).

Again this run into the problem with munchkins figuring out the optimal 
launcher configuration very quickly - very similar to the flexible
carrier 
design systems discussed in the other ongoing thread.

In this particular case, assuming that your sample new launcher designs
use 
D4s, D3s and D2s respectively to determine the number of missiles on 
target, all the new ones are significantly better than the standard 6/1
SML 
against lightly defended targets (inflicting on average between 30% and 
110% more damage per salvo depending on the exact type used), and only
fall 
down to the standard SML's level or less when the target has enough PDS 
available that the missiles aren't much of a threat anyway (4+ PDSs per 
incoming salvo
for the 4/2 and 3/3 variants, 3+ PDSs per salvo for the 2/5 one). With 
other  lock-on mechanics than a single die per salvo you get different 
results, of course.

 >2)  Strong and universal response of "not another *!@#$%^ placed
marker
 >missile".  We all feel that the placed-marker missile and the "roll a
 >die to determine number of successful lock-on" are the two worst game
 >mechanics in FT.  Would like to see a change to either a single turn
 >MT-style ordnance

The MT-style ordnance *is* a placed-marker missile, albeit with more 
restricted placement options than the Fleet Book salvo missiles and
plasma 
bolts...

 >or direct fire mechanic.

Cf. Dean's comment about systems which force ships to manoeuvre instead
of 
just line up and shoot at one another.

 >Also would like to see to-hit rolls for each missile (like 2+ at 1
MU).

IOW you want to roll 6 dice per salvo to determine the lock-on, instead
of 
a single die?

 >Grasers:
 >Several points; 1), 2) and 4) reflect our interest in the "generic"
 >nature of FT.
 >1)  If FB3 needs a "long range beam", how about a set of MASS/cost
 >figures for 6- and 18 MU range bands for regular beam batteries
instead
 >of "grasers"?

Could be done for Class-3 beams and larger, but if you want to do it for

Class-1s and -2s you need to deal in fractional Mass values - something 
we'd very much prefer to avoid.

(The fractional *point* values for 5-row hulls discussed above are bad 
enough, and the only reason they made it into beta at all was that the 
players would ask about them anyway when 4-row hulls are 2pts/box and
6-row 
hulls are 1 pt/box.)

 >2)  If FB3 needs a "heavy beam" or a "high damage beam", we would
 >rather see something with the to-hit/damage mechanic of the EFSB beam
 >in a single-component system.

The original intent with the graser was in fact to copy the EFSB heavy
beam 
straight away, but it proved impractical for three reasons:

1) Many players dislike the EFSB heavy beam mechanic because it hits 
automatically at close range - unlike all other weapons in FT (and
EFSB), 
the heavy beam has literally *no* chance of missing at range 6mu or less

since you can't roll less than "1" on a D6. Extending the range bands to
12 
or 18 mu is unlikely to make the weapon any more acceptable to these
players.

2) Another common player complaint about new weapon types is "Yet
*another* 
screen-skipping weapon? How boring...". The EFSB heavy beam mechanic as
it 
is currently written is ignores "screens" (ie. EFSB "interceptors"), and
it 
is difficult to add screen which aren't completely negligible yet which 
don't cripple the weapon completely against level-1 screens.

3) The EFSB heavy beam mechanic has a very heavy punch at close range,
but 
it weakens very rapidly as the range increases. Since Full Thrust
already 
has quite a few weapons with high punch at point-blank range but short 
effective range (B1, B2, Pulser-C, P-torp), adding yet another such
system 
isn't very high on the priority list. Of course the G1 is yet another
such
weapon, but it isn't the main reason for introducing the graser family
:-/

The larger grasers OTOH are the exact opposite to the EFSB beam - they
can 
inflict serious damage at *long* range, but it doesn't gain very much
power 
types when the range falls.

 >3)  If we are commited to the "Graser" concept, we always saw the
 >standard battery rerolls as internal secondaries rather than
additional
 >hits. We would recomend that "additional hits" be fully affected by
 >screens, and additional damage by allowing a penetrating reroll on a
 >*damage roll* of a "6".

This introduces new game mechanics instead of just recycling old ones, 
makes the weapon even more wildly unpredictable than it already is (a 
feature several players have already complained/warned about), and also 
changes the screen balance - the current graser mechanic dove-tails into

the existing beam-screen balance. I'm not entirely convinced that any of

these drawbacks would be a reasonable price to pay for improving one 
possible PSB interpretation of what the game mechanic represents, much
less 
all three of them :-/

 >4)  If we are commited to the "Graser" concept, how about a more
 >generic name that reflects its relation to the beam/pulsar/stinger
 >family.

You mean like "Pulse Torpedo", "Plasma Bolt", "Salvo Missile", 
"Sub-Munition Pack", "Kinetic Gun" etc.? "Graser" is no more setting 
specific than any of these; Weber - author of the Honor Harrington
series - 
nicked it from today's industrial terminology. IMO it is also no more
PSB 
specific than some of these types, particularly the "Salvo Missile" and 
"Sub-Munition Pack"... and of course the first thing that happens when
FT 
is adapted to a specific background is that the names of the weapons
change :-/

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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