OOC Thread

[Marlin]

If you find the time to meet my schedule, Cannon, we can practice MA. But for a fight involving 30 Fighters I dont have the nerve. And it seems I cannot even get more than one in 'merica at my time. And we have.. problems. So, show up on Skype again and lets try a match.

[Dave Baughman]

In Megamek, armor is under BV'd. So if the Dragoons took off even 1/2 of it's armor, I'd doubt if it lost more then 10% of it's BV.

I agree, if the Goons make movement errors their ability to hurt the Thera in game mechanically tracked ways decreases considerably.

Granted the fighters would win init, but still, managing the movement is still a tricky thing and they would most likely be facing fire before they were in range, and then 3 arcs when they were in range. No matter how much you try to focus on one arc in Naval, Like vehicles, you hit a lot of locations you don't want to speading your damage.

We can also I think safely assume a falloff of 10% per turn due to attrition

Aff, but that 10% is cumulative. You have to conside the loss of firepower over 5 turns if that is our model.

With the average of 124 as you stated, - 12 for turn 1 is 112, - 12 for turn 2 is 100, -12 on turn 3 is 88, -12 on turn 4, is 76, by the time turn 5 comes, you've already lost 40% of your firepower and have done an average of 500 Damage.

Yes, that's the same figure I listed in my post  

Now, assuming the long range stuff didn't whittle them down a little, mass critical combat losses haven't started to occur, the ship doesn't manage to give them fresh armor, ignore the dozen AMS that are shooting down missles, and they miraculously group all their fire into one section, yeah, they could do some internal damage.

A similar statement could be made about all the things that could happen to enhance the fighters' chances, but honestly I think either approach is a little misleading. For example, the loose calculations listed in my post don't factor in the high likelyhood of a powerful unit like the Goons having the AB unit improvement and bringing a load of anti-ship missiles or even rocket launcher spam to the fight. Likewise, it doesn't touch on ERLL/LPL spam closing damage nor on the impact of direct blows and 'perfect shot' criticals.

The biggest asset to this scenario is to say that they are auto-hitting, which for the numbers I'd grant because I mean come on, when you throw a ball at a wall, you hit with the ball, you throw 20 paper clips at a wall, you hit with 20 paperclips All missles should hit. But lets avoid physics, I like catgirls, especially Chloe King I miss The Gates, but at least she's got a new show

Oh, and most importantly, the "Max Damage" Number scenario you gave doesn't involve the Heat Factor...

224 Heat Sinks vs 294 Heat for just the first squadron, and Megamek won't let you fire weapons that you don't have the Heat Sinks for because of the new rules. If they've fixed that errata, then it would be a PSR (not a big deal for legendary warriors), but you'ld still have overheat penalties.

If they haven't fixed this shortcoming I will be... disappointed. But that's a MegaMek bug, not a rules shortcoming.

Anywho, I make my point, the only way to show it first hand is as marlin says, to play a game I'm still waiting for my match avainst Jedibear for the "Debacle at Galedon" I insist that even a sick Conqueror crew backed up by the Sovetskii Soyuz shouldn't have lost to the Texas / Cameron combo.

Thank you for reigniting my passion for talking naval stuff  

My pleasure  

I guess though the important thing to reiterate is that as much as I think you are greatly selling short the Goons with your opinion that "they are all doomed," there are some key points:

• In simple res, of which the accuracy or lack thereof we were initially discussing when we got onto this, the Goons were definitely not on equal footing with the FWL's elite Thera, much less with "the Thera and her escorts"
• The Goons would have needed to roll very well relative to the FWL to even win the battle, and would have needed a series of rolls with a probability of about 1/200,000 of occuring to actually sink the Thera
• Having said that, the Goons' FP assessment is not wildly out of line - a trinary of legendary heavy omnifighters is dangerous, and I think we can both agree would probably make short work of most smaller WarShips. The Thera, as you noted, has the advantage of very high armor and is effectively a battleship in defense terms. Most WarShips that would be the target of an ASF strike would not have that kind of protection.

For scrubs, I'd agree. Good test format, but for what Dave wants, you have to have someone playing the Dragoons, that is good because of the precision manuevering the fighters will have to do not to overextend themselves and stay in the same arc. It's totally possible, but hella hard. Doesn't matter about the Thera. Just make sure to tell them, shoot the Anti-Air stuff before capital, and they can spam all day long.

Hold on there for a sec  . This isn't "what Dave wants," I was just running with the example you brought up. As I mentioned above, I don't think this is a particularly good example because both of the units involved as extreme examples and even though I think the FP assignments to both are reasonable its not reflective of what the vast majority of fighter vs. warship scenarios in the FlashPoint system would be.

[Fatebringer]

By what "Dave want", I mean what your scenario would require. Presicion movement. Take that same formation, give it to a nub, then watch them spread out their fighter groups and attack from different angles... Those Dragoons would move from 10% to 30% combat losses per turn

A similar statement could be made about all the things that could happen to enhance the fighters' chances, but honestly I think either approach is a little misleading. For example, the loose calculations listed in my post don't factor in the high likelyhood of a powerful unit like the Goons having the AB unit improvement and bringing a load of anti-ship missiles or even rocket launcher spam to the fight. Likewise, it doesn't touch on ERLL/LPL spam closing damage nor on the impact of direct blows and 'perfect shot' criticals.

Granted, but give the Thera it's CA, and what do you have? 10 fighters that will go hunting out of the gate and either delay or increase the combat losses of the Dragoons. Granted those IS FP's sucked compared to the Clanners, but still, extra is extra.

One of my points was that, 40% losses to the Dragoons, vs Moderate Armor Damage to the Thera, even if the Dragoon plan worked to the tee. But I do conceed, one pass on a Lola, ... bye-bye lola dear. The Thera doesn't just have the armor, it has the Anti-Fighter abilities. It's designed to be a carrier and hold off enemy fighters, while it's fighters do their job. The fact that the rules would exclude the Thera's fighters is unusual for a carrier design. Most other ships aren't built that way, I'd give them odds against an Aegis, once they're in min rage of those big guns, the Aegis is hosed if it doesn't have friends.

In straight up FP rolls, the Dragoons have much better odds to sink the Thera, but in the game, what happened was, they engaged the group, the FWL engaged with a fighter group, round 2, the slightly wounded Dragoons went up against the Thera with 7% ASF support, the dragoons took 90% losses , and were forced to withdrawl. then was engaged by a different fighter group and when they finally broke off from that, were at 15% strength and headed to atmo to support their ground troops which were being OB'd.

[Daemonknight]

the Thera didn't have it's fighters because Chaos forgot to issue the correct orders to the ASF wing, if I'm remembering that fight correctly. But I always wondered why it was a % of the ENEMY force, and not % of the total unit.

[chaosxtreme]

Well, that sounds like a test for MegaAero, no?

(not for me, though, as I suck at that,)

Get one player who's good to referee, and two who suck to actually play it out.  The reason is 'Soldier Proof testing'-we don't have sufficient GOOD MM/MA players to stage a test with great players on both sides, but we've got lots of people who stink at it...(like me, and by your own admission, you...) this gives a good baseline of comparison based on "Lowest Common Denominator of Play".

Of course, the true obstacle, is that nasty little 'lack of interest' thing.  People will go on pages upon pages of debate on an academic level, but when it comes to testing theories on a practical level, most folks are un-interested.

(that, and the only 'practice' I get with MA rules, is on the ground map, because the damn Bot only wants to handle surface units, everything else magically hovers in one spot...)

Pulls out his snazzy black and white striped shirt. I can watch a MM game and answer questions on IM even if it is during work. As long as the game is scheduled beforehand it can be anytime day or night and I can answer everyones MA questions.

[chaosxtreme]

the Thera didn't have it's fighters because Chaos forgot to issue the correct orders to the ASF wing, if I'm remembering that fight correctly. But I always wondered why it was a % of the ENEMY force, and not % of the total unit.

#1) Used the Thera because losing whole Wings of Fighters is killing a top level unit. The Legendary Dragoons had the ability to take out my top Level Aerospace Wings which is auto -1 Public support and could have gotten real expensive in Public support missions and counteracted the narrative I was running inchar about a charismatic dictatorial career politician with delusions of Divine Right reuniting the FWL or burning it down whichever.

#2) I did the cost benefit analysis and decided losing the Santorini for a single turn while I spent everything I had on repairing it was acceptable as it was not going to die (and I had hope's of MA the game in other words killing that Trinary of Fighters in exactly the method Fate had described. Also no one was fighting me with anything warship wise and the Santorini's main job had been show up to a planet each turn and force a surrender by dint of "OH SHIT IT's an Elite Thera SON that boy Hunter don't be playing! "


#3) Once I had the Legendary Fighters to the point where they could not wipe out any of my fighter groups I was hoping to use them as a pinata for the various regular FWL wings one after another but they fled to the planet to get orbital bombarded with the rest of the Goons. Plus I thought it was a good narrative to have the legends smacked down in a workman like fashion by a series of fighter wings which broke off just as the Goon's were about to put them into a killing position with their sheer individual skill.

Never did get around to writing a bit about how those regular pilots felt about making the Goons run under the guns of the orbital bombardment rather then face them in the skies. K cera cera

[Iron Mongoose]

Star Adders "Proxy" request:

As is becoming evidant, the two Adder players have neither the time, nore to be perficly honest the inclination, to go through the large number of combat threads involving us for resolutions.  We there fore request the help of any intrested parties to help us in this matter by rolling out nessissary combats and caluclating damage and resolutions.

In the intrest of speed, some assumptions about Adder actions can be made:

Any Adder force reduced to 2/3rds of its opponents strength (after damage to both sides is calculated; that is to say the strength at the start of the next round) will accept any Hegira offered by its opponent.  Any Adder force reduced to 1/3rd strength or less will actively request Hegira.  Of course, no Adder force will retreat, and will fight on if Hegira is not offered.

Any Adder force that has any amount of advantage over its opponent in strength will offer Hegira to its opponent.  Hegira will also be offered in the case of any ties.  In any such cases, Hegira offered by opponents will not be accepted.

In any case where Adder strength is more than 67% of its opponents, resolution will be refered to Adder players to determine the responce based on IC factors (the unit, the opponent, the world).

If no players are willing and able to do this, we will do our best to get around to it, but be cautioned that our best may not prove very good.  If a few days pass and there is no responce, Demonknight may resolve these himself, if he has the time and energy.

As for Bloodname trials, we have determined the essance of our responce.  Don't worry, as we'll be refusing many of the trials, for any number of reasons (lack of bloodnamed warriors in some cases, other reasons in other cases) but we will also be accepting some.  We just need to determine what blood names are likely to be present, based on unit histories any and RP that may have been done pre-jump, and what sort of bids are appropreate for each (a notable N'Buta liniage might be defended by the whole cluster present, while a dishonored Burrock liniage might see just the warrior in qustion, unaugmented, in a trial we'd be more than happy to lose, as two examples). 

Of course, Grae is senior, so he may if he wishes void some or all of this, at his discression.

[chaosxtreme]

Im always up for a fight who's game?

[Daemonknight]

In the case of the bloodname trials, let's just say the Falcons will bid at max a star for a 'dead clan' bloodname, except Steiner(we will accept anything upto Cluster size). Non exclusive, high prestige; exclusive low prestige would be a star to trinary. Exclusive high prestige(like the afore mentioned N       buta) would be trinary and up( sub in IS units for th Lyran issued trials).

The Lyrans especially would peruse the Steiner line as vigorously as possible. Aside from that and any high prestige lines, we won't make an issue of denied trials, and grant safcon to all Adders forces leaving systems we won.

[Iron Mongoose]

Cannon, I know you're only starting now, so I don't know how far you'll get, but I'm off to bed now, so I'll just say Thanks in advance, even if you don't get more than the two I've seen done.   

[Cannonshop]

Okay, I did about a page's worth.  The rest are either already resolved, or need actual force-breakdowns for the two sides.  Not a lot of surprises over-all, although the Adders did have a very good showing at Greenlaw (good being relative, for the numbers to work out, they had to have killed some of their own guys who were encircled and captured.  2*65%=130%, subtract 20% from damage leaves 110%, which just covers the damage to the Lyran forces PLUS the 10% the Lyrans encircled.  Messy...

Anyway, it's up to you guys to go through and mark the 'completed' on the subject headers, count up the win/loss ratio, and all that good citizen stuff.

[Fatebringer]

they had to have killed some of their own guys who were encircled and captured

How does this happen? That FP doesn't go to the enemy's battle line, it goes to the isorla pool.

[Fatebringer]

I agree to this. RP should come first in trials, but as we've seen over and over, some people have been doing trials, "By the rules" and the rules called trials invasions, and as long as you followed the invasion rules, the GM's didn't care that what was going on was unclanlike. There were no rules set up for Clanners to do "Call Down" bids and those people that opted to reinforce their trials from huge call down pools abused the system because all it proved was that if you send enough soldiers at something, eventually you will win.

I was helping put up the calculations for the adder threads, but then had to stop as we have our first example of horribly dezgra bidding followed my more call down bids <<Shakes head>> I resolved anything I could that didn't involve adding forces that weren't bid in the trial.

http://intelser.org/forums/index.php?topic=2807.0

In the other trials were people did "Call Down" Bids, they declared an FP amount of a larger force. Lets say, they declared they had a 13.75 FP cluster. Then bid 3 of that cluster.

Please people, DON'T declare trials unless you have honor.

[chaosxtreme]

Technically its only honorable to call down your last bid.


Calling down multiple times is Dezgra but they are Lyran units and probably don't know any better I must admit I haven't read the thread.

[Fatebringer]

Technically its only honorable to call down your last bid.

Allowed, not honorable, and there were no previous declared bids.

At least in the previous "call down" example an initial force was declared before bidding down. Then as per the rules on invasions, they were not breaking the rules of the game by doing multiple call downs because they had declared a larger invasion.