Re: [GZG] Re: Full Thrust Playtest? (Simon White)

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When playtesting the phrase "I am an avid XXX player" usually destroys
any objectivity that person has about game balance.

The ability of SV ships to fire all their firepower in any arc is
extremely powerful, especially if you allow for a rolling board rather
than artificially restricting the battle to a static table size. Being
able to control the range of the engagement and fire backward out to 48"
is something no other ship can do.

In our group we restricted stinger nodes to 8 power each. We also
allowed SV ships to have Grazer nodes and heavy beam nodes costing more
mass and requiring more power per beam dice generated.

But the general consensus in our group is that the SV ships are boring
to design and play with you trend towards a design of ship which is a
generalised cruiser  drone womb, pod launcher some stinger nodes and
about a 2-2-1 division of the rest of the mass between hull generators
and armour. This is a reflection that the SV seem to have ships that are
generalists rather than the big variations you get in human tech ships.

For larger ships the other option is to make a carrier with 3 drone
wombs, that is about all the effective options.

It's not worth the dead weight to try and put screen nodes in under the
current format.

Grazers are a spectacular weapon under the official rules. The take up
so much mass you get so few dice but occasionally you will get 6 on 6
and do 5 or 6 d6 damage to an enemy ship utterly crippling the vessel. I
think this sticks in the minds of players and assumes a disproportionate
impact in their minds. 

Our group are all scarred from massed capitol missiles used by one
player a couple of years ago, that fleet is still talked about rather
like the mythical bogeyman.

With all the full thrust gaming groups taking their rules off in
different directions and the game essentially being open source for so
long is there really any point in publishing new rules mechanisms?
Different gaming groups have taken their version of the game and run
with it so it's not really one game any more but thousands of different
versions.

John
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: VinsFullThrust@aol.com 
  To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu 
  Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 11:44 AM
  Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Full Thrust Playtest? (Simon White)

  In a message dated 10/26/2006 6:33:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
laserlight@verizon.net writes:
    > The thing we found [too] powerful [about the Sa'Vasku]
    > is the ability of organic ships to fire all their power out of one
stinger 
    > node in any arc.

    My impression is that stingers will be revised so that doesn't
happen. One 
    suggestion is that if you put more than N power points through a
stinger, 
    you have to roll before firing to see if you burn out the node--the
more 
    power you push through, the higher your chance of blowing out the
node. 
    However, I'm not much into the Sa'Vasku so I don't recall the other 
    suggestions. 

  I am avid SaVasku player, I feel giving their sge in spave and a
ancient being, they would have developed the ability to over come
"burnout" After all, they are not using breakers made in the 1920s to
operate a nuclear power reactor.. Makes them a powerful foe. If you are
going to hinder SaVasku, might as well hinder the Phalons as well, while
at it, Everyone I know say the UNSC Grasers are FAR to powerful for a
human weapon. Thank god we can always ignore updates. I plan on
continueing the SaVasku as they are now. A dmonite force that humans
will be forced to team up on. 

  Be sides,  sure, SaVasku can dump all their power in weapons amd fire
out of a single node. Big deal.. That just means they are crippled with
no defences and poor manuevering. Sitting duck especially if you out
manuever them or out gun them. 

  Having run game, at conventions, including ECC GZG, SaVasku have never
been as powerful as you talk about them. I personally see no need to
hinder them.

  Vince

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