New (er) Record Sheet - version 0.50

[JediBear]

Ummm...I don't get it, you put the designs you have in production on the table, then fill in the empty spaces on the ends with shit you don't have a lot of.  HOw hard is that, exactly?

You might be surprised. I have never ordered production for my faction, and have little idea what all we have, much less what's common vs. rare. I spent most of the weekend figuring out the sheet, hammering it into allowing me to have two separate equipment tables (one for Rasalhague-style 12-fighter Squadrons and the other for Ghost Bear style 10-fighter Stars,) compressing three Random Assignment Tables into two (for fighters,) expanding two Random Assignment Tables to three (for Dropships,) and accounting for something like seven years of historical drift, much of which I have little knowledge of. It was exhausting, felt highly unfruitful, and I'm technically not done yet.

I haven't yet figured out how to account for the fact that most of my fighter bays will be going away due to the restrictions on the Dropship tables, or that I'm no longer allowed to have "free" (that is, not transported by dropships) fighter units. And once I get all THAT sorted out, I still have to figure out the rest of my orders.

And the sheet's due today. And beyond all this, I have a kinda-sorta life that I'm pretty sure takes less time than the Real Lives of many here.

Also, it's editable between turns.  Those tables don't 'lock' forever.

Hallelujah and Amen. But if the restrictions on them remain in place, my Navy's not going to look anything like its old self until the rules change.

I don't understand the problem here. 

I'm going to guess that's because your faction is tiny and simple.

[Dave Baughman]

On the topic of nerfs:

Faction that got nerfed the worst was the TH. Lost FP on almost every naval formation.

[Daemonknight]

I am just so sad about that, you know? Thats horrible...just horrible...

[GraeGor]

As someone who has no experience with any previous sheets, I can say that I wouldve had problems initially with them as well

Im gradually getting things figured out...usually with A LOT of help from other people.

Would I have done things differently, probably, most definitely, but then Ive always done that regardless of the game (anyone interested in copies of my D&D, Marvel, Gamma World, or RIFTS character sheets...lol)


I do like that if I want to micromanage, it will allow me..once I get the basics mastered I will (probably much to the frustration of the GMs...hehehe), though again, that's my nature when I actually keep records/track of shit.

[Holt]

Doubt anyone got nerfed since we were able to make attending jumpships to make up the FP, just individual units got lower FP, i.e those super foxes. Instead of being 26FP they are now like 15FP with an 11FP jumpship group.

The main reason i am not a fan of this system is that I spent a whole lot of RP gaining designs from others and now some of those disigns will sit idle since they didnt make it into the 12 per class. This also leads to me not wanting to purchase anymore designs from anyone, i would have to kick out another design and if it changes the FP per squadron, i would have to redo my entire naval arm; something i would not want to do, ever again.

I cant even begin to think how i would pick 12 mechs per class, since it would greatly impact a MM game.

[Pink_Knight]

Its not 12 per weight class, its 12 per weight class per tech level. IS factions have tech levels A-F(no E), and Clans have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd line units, so that you can have more than just 12 chasis. Thats the way that Dave did flashpoint, and i've seen it in one of the CBt rulebooks.

[Holt]

Its not. Its 12 per weight class, so 36 fighters total.

[Pink_Knight]

Im sorry, I meant for Mechs.

[Dave Baughman]

Its not. Its 12 per weight class, so 36 fighters total.

JediBear came up with a good mod for the sheet which once I get a chance to review and double-check I'll probably be adding to the "official" sheet in a future version that adds an "alternate" track of fighter RATs and squadron columns to the sheet. This is something that, going forward, will allow people more customization though I by no means plan to make it mandatory.

[Holt]

More work? I hate you.

Its not. Its 12 per weight class, so 36 fighters total.

JediBear came up with a good mod for the sheet which once I get a chance to review and double-check I'll probably be adding to the "official" sheet in a future version that adds an "alternate" track of fighter RATs and squadron columns to the sheet. This is something that, going forward, will allow people more customization though I by no means plan to make it mandatory.

[Jeyar]

You do realize that if you don't have a problem, then you probably have no basis to even start to comprehend anyone that has multiple ones? They DO have a tendancy of adding together, and not being linearily seperate. I've spent over 40 hours trying to get answers, work out what forces I have that would be SOMEWHAT sensible and DEVINE the answers to the questions I have that cannot for somewhat be anwered directly. Not work on my ORDERS, just to fill out this sheet. Hmmm... actually I'm going to be over 50. YEAH!

-------
On the topic of nerfs:

Faction that got nerfed the worst was the TH. Lost FP on almost every naval formation.
-------

Yeah - and I'd love to have your designs anyway as BV/BV2 is so far out of whack for actually playing the game. There was a REASON I only built one design aerospace fighter out of all the ones I was allowed by the GMs, and that one was only good for a slice of the methods one uses aerospce fighters.

[Jeyar]

Actually - maybe I should explain. I'm now so mad at this sheet and surrounding situation, my heart races, I somewhat shake when I allow myself to think about the thing. Since Dave can't answer questions, he takes what - 3 emails to answer one question, and nothing on this sheet that wasn't in the supposed tutorial - that every post I see of his makes me enraged. My saying I hate the sheet is a way of venting so I don't do something rash - not because I really care what it's impact is.

[Cannonshop]

Meh...don't need more than one per weight class, with variants, really-just have to have a 'tactical recipe' and adequately work out your supporting arms.  


Seriously.  One per weight class is all you really need to be effective.

It doesn't even have to be Omni.

Light lances made up of, say, Jenner variants.  (Light 'mechs should be recon or harasser, not heavy combatants-trying to be heavy combatants is why the Davion front is littered with dead, broken Panthers.)

Medium Lance? Hey, the Starslayer's a good trooper 'mech and it's tough as hell, or a GRF-*N series.

Heavies?  Pick your tactical preference, there's probably a heavy that fits your bill, even if you're stuck with L1 tech.

I could outfit an effective army with as few as three designs, or as many as thirty six, I'd find it HARDER to be effective with thirty-six.  A good average is four.  Four per weight class and you've covered all the roles (if you choose carefully) that you'll ever need a 'mech to fill well.


For example (using only L1, 3025 General table!)

Lights:
Valkyrie
Jenner
Locust
Wasp(or Stinger)

Mediums:
Griffin
Wolverine
Shadowhawk
Pheonixhawk

Heavies:
Archer
Warhammer
Marauder
Orion

Assaults:
Atlas
Awesome
Victor
Battlemaster

For a "L2" army swap out one or two designs in each weight class for their L2 variants, or for designs like the ST-1C Starslayer.

These are what you might call the "Core" units-stuff that shows up on a RAT between 5 and 9 on a 2d6 table, you put something rare or exotic out in the end-spaces (2-4, 10-12)  and use that as your variable range...

...and there you are.  

More designs aren't necessarily better, unless you can actually improve your performance using them.  F'rinstance, trading out the Wasp or Scorp for a Wolfhound is a net improvement in performance in your light lances, trading out the Wolverine or Phoenixhawk for starslayers is a net improvement in performance.  If you've got C3 in a lot of places, trading the Battlemaster for the Tai-Sho might be an option, similarly if you're building to C3 net use, trading one of the lights for a Bishamon.

That's ground combat.  Aero's even simpler, you can actually BE effective with only three weights!

Light fighters:

Centurion or Sabre.  If you simpres a lot you might like the Seydlitz for its huge frakkin' gun with no gas.



Medium Fighters:

F-90, Shilone, or Corsair

Heavies:

SL-15R (SLayer) or...well, you don't need more than Slayers, really.  I guess Stukas...

Again, all off the general table, all would be appropriate as "Core" units (points 4-9 on 2D6 table) and most work well even against CLAN fighters if you're careful and know what you're doing.

Put the exotic, rare designs on either end of each weight class, with your 'core' units providing an actual Tactical mix-that is, a mix designed to your tactics.  (of course, if your tactics are "Use better tech" you're kind of screwed...)

Deployment Tactics and choosing the right ride:

You don't need to have as few transports as possible for your FP value.  Seriously, you don't...

Jumpships for Fighters:

Quetzcoatl: carries 12 fighters, cheap as hell to operate, drawbacks are it's only good for naval engagements and Simpres, but you don't have to allocate droppers for it.

Dropships:
Vengeance: Expensive, carries a lot of fighters-this is one of those "boost the FP of a Fox" designs. Advantages: you can concentrate a lot of figters in the same hex at the same time, with very few transport jumpers.  Disadvantage: you're forced to always be concentrated in one hex.  There are times when you really need "Zone Coverage" and the ability to carry out small-force actions without stripping cover from the rest of your fleet/holdings.

Titan: Terrans and Clans mostly, a nice ride, very middle-weight in terms of what it hauls, but you're paying for it.

Leopard CV: This is my favourite carrier.  I can get a lot of zone coverage with it.  Downside is, you need to either have a lot of them (and jumpships to carry them) or you need to group jumpships in 'units' when you're facing or going after stakkodoom opposition.

Notably, per the Canon, the Leopard CV is about the most common carrier-type dropship in existence.

(I'm keeping this rant non-faction-specific...mostly, anyway.)

Carriers and Assault droppers that have a fighter complement belong on your "Patrol Dropship" table, not your "Transport" or "Assault" table (well, units like the Union-X or A-3 Overlord are crossovers...)  That's fitting assignment to role.  (though I've got regular vanilla Overlords in my Assault and Patrol tables-they work across all three ranges, and they're relatively cheap compared to purpose-built assault ships...this doesn't show up in your FP values.)

Assault droppers are another kettle entirely.  there's really no "General" table for Assault ships.  (Avengers maybe work...)

Assault ships mainly exist to pump up the FP of a flotilla in Simpres, or to be massive-punch units in Mega aero for antishipping work-right alongside heavy fighters.  They don't dance, they pound.  Pick accordingly.

Jumpships (NOT Warships!!)

The most common jumpers-and they're the most common regardless of Clan, Inner Sphere, Periphery, or private contractor, are the Invader (3 collars) and the Merchant (2 Collars).  These two are followed by the Star Lord and Tramp classes, with the rarest sitting on the ends of a theoretical table (Monolith and Scout, 9 collars to the Monolith, 1 collar to the scout).

Of course, there are a few designs that are even RARER, but they're also so restricted in use tht they really don't contribute much (Explorer, which carries four smallcraft, I use these as courier and special forces boats-four smallcraft are a good choice for deploying small units of commando-style operators or flying "liason" missions where a big guard of troops is a liability. if you have BB tech, they make good relay-stations for long range missions. If you were fortunate enough to be able to operate your HPG's yourself, they're decent Interdiction breakers...)

Fitting to role is important, though.  you can load up some absolutely grotesque FP values on a Monolith, some less-grotesque values on a Star Lord, there's an LF-battery version of the Tramp that is quite nice for supporting your LF equipped warships, but most of your trash hauling is going to likely be done on the Invader or Merchant.  Having lots of these is good-provided you also put Leopard CV's at the 6,7,8 points in your Patrol Dropship column of the RAT.  If your strategic mix is slanted toward set-piece battle, go with big jumpers hauling big droppers, if it's slanted toward asymmetrical actions (lots of recon raids, commerce raiding and the like) you go with a larger number of smaller ships-that you can afford to lose if you bump smack into the middle of a stakkodoom fleet.

[Cannonshop]

Actually - maybe I should explain. I'm now so mad at this sheet and surrounding situation, my heart races, I somewhat shake when I allow myself to think about the thing. Since Dave can't answer questions, he takes what - 3 emails to answer one question, and nothing on this sheet that wasn't in the supposed tutorial - that every post I see of his makes me enraged. My saying I hate the sheet is a way of venting so I don't do something rash - not because I really care what it's impact is.

Jeyar, I'm almost spreadsheet-illiterate, maybe I can help because mine worked, and yours clearly isn't working.

[Dave Baughman]

Actually - maybe I should explain. I'm now so mad at this sheet and surrounding situation, my heart races, I somewhat shake when I allow myself to think about the thing. Since Dave can't answer questions, he takes what - 3 emails to answer one question, and nothing on this sheet that wasn't in the supposed tutorial - that every post I see of his makes me enraged. My saying I hate the sheet is a way of venting so I don't do something rash - not because I really care what it's impact is.

Jeyar, I'm sorry the change in the sheet format is causing you so much frustration. I also will be the first to acknowledge that last month I was not as accessible as I should have been. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which being that I was on vacation, and that even had I not been I can only sink so many hours a day into running the FGC campaign before I start to burn out. I feel also obliged to point out that I brought my PC with me to my cottage in maine and spent approximately 4-6 hours a day doing FGC and Flashpoint paperwork during the nicest, most beautiful week of my vacation. During this timeframe I was also, among other things, doing complete top-to-bottom sheet conversions of four major factions, supervised a major in-game plot event, divided up the assets of the Lyran Commonwealth into five new factions, wrote a new orders sheet from scratch and spent hours and hours and hours perfecting its formulas and doing non-game-related tech support research to assist the community in getting it to run on third-party spreadsheet applications, did a "crash" revision of the Flashpoint equipment table system to work in the FGC rules framework, data entered every single warship in MegaMek into the sheet to save the community the trouble of having to look up their ships and manually enter them (which is what they have to do in Flashpoint), added the ability to use armed small craft for the sole purpose of including TiG-15 support in the rules, and continued to do behind-the scenes work laying the groundwork for major fixes and revisions in the intelligence, R&D, custom designs, comm tech, and ground forces rules. In between all those other activites, I got behind on correspondence occasionally. You're not the only one who didn't get prompt answers from me on some issues - you need only look to DXM's frustration with a similar situation.

I fully accept responsibility for not promptly answering many of the messages that were sent to me, and for not always being very accessible over the last month, and I apologize. I hope though that the information in this post helps people put things in perspective a bit.

If you have questions that you need answered (and this is for everyone in the community, not just Jeyar) and you do not get the answer you need on the first try, please bear the following in mind:

1) I only read the orders mailboxes when orders are due, and because frankly I am kind of absent minded I don't always check my personal email account. The best way to reach me is by PMs on this board.
2) If I do not respond, or if I give you a partial answer, or if I say I will follow up and you don't hear from me by the end of the week -- send another message. I get 60-120 PMs a week easily, just counting the ones that need responses... the dozens of IC roleplaying and trade PMs that I am copied on are all on top of that, and frankly stuff gets forgotten about or just gets lost. Keep following up until you get an answer - I don't block anyone, and I will eventually get back to you even if it takes a few days and requires some prodding.
3) Always include LittleH13 on any PMs sent to me about GM stuff. He can often give you an answer even if I forget/am not around/am at work/etc.
4) Be as explicit as possible in your questions and if I miss a nuance or a case-specific point follow up with me. Sometimes - especially if I am writing from the kiosk in my office cafeteria where I am generally trying to answer 6 or more PMs in a 15-minute timeframe, I may overlook a question or not catch onto a deeper point that requires reading between the lines.
5) Understand that in past administrations, inter-GM communication was not the greatest. Please don't assume that just because another GM told you something that they also told me, or that they told me all of the details.
6) If all else fails, post your questions in the rules discussion board, the OOC board, or here.

You do realize that if you don't have a problem, then you probably have no basis to even start to comprehend anyone that has multiple ones? They DO have a tendancy of adding together, and not being linearily seperate. I've spent over 40 hours trying to get answers, work out what forces I have that would be SOMEWHAT sensible and DEVINE the answers to the questions I have that cannot for somewhat be anwered directly. Not work on my ORDERS, just to fill out this sheet. Hmmm... actually I'm going to be over 50. YEAH!

-------
On the topic of nerfs:

Faction that got nerfed the worst was the TH. Lost FP on almost every naval formation.
-------

Yeah - and I'd love to have your designs anyway as BV/BV2 is so far out of whack for actually playing the game. There was a REASON I only built one design aerospace fighter out of all the ones I was allowed by the GMs, and that one was only good for a slice of the methods one uses aerospce fighters.

I'm sorry you don't like the Battle Value system, but its what we use in FGC and its what we have always used, even back in the old flotilla system. That isn't going to change anytime soon. I also appreciate the attractiveness of single-fighter construction; not only does it let you escew your weaknesses in favor of your strongest designs, but it breaks the hell out of the squadron system and greatly enhances the power of single-fighter units by piling all of their bays together. This is no doubt why the SLDF of the 2700s extensively used single-design units.

To be blunt, however, this isn't FGC: 2750. Single-unit designs don't really fit with the feel of the 31st Century BattleTech universe, and more importantly in AeroTech they cause the rules to function in a way that is not reflected in the balancing methods and that gives an unfair advantage to the side with properly chosen single-unit formations. I am well aware of this because I exploited it too when I was head of FRR and RD, as did many others. Just because many players exploited a weakness in the rules, however, does not mean it is something we should continue to propogate in our campaign.

A while back you asked about the logic flow that lead to the new sheets? It all started because we had two interlocking problems:

1) The game was running on BV 1.0, which did not have official scores for many units.
2) Some factions were full of bloated, over-optimized naval units that were grandfathered in from the flotilla system while others had (substantially weaker) navies that were built under the more conservative post-turn-20 rules; that dychotomy was disrupting the game. The infamous 26 FP Foxes were the poster-children of this, but so were things like 10 FP Lolas or 5 FP Vincents (and a certain 35 FP Carrack  ). This was to some extent exacerbated by the way BV 1.0 factored in many combat-irrelevant pieces of WarShip equipment and gave certain units strangely high (or low) FPs. See also: Agamemnon vs. Luxor.

Rather than just impose my own solution by fiat, I opened a poll two months ago to give players a chance to decide how they wanted Aerospace to be handled in the game. They voted for BV 2.0 with equipment tables. I then ran a runoff poll, to ensure that this is what people really wanted, and again they voted for equipment tables.

So... blame me if you want, in retrospect there were certain things I definitely could have done better after all, but please don't portray this as the Evil GMs^TM just rolling around trying to screw the little guy. You may remember that not long ago a lot of players were saying the only way to fix FGC was to pull the plug and start fresh with a total reboot. I could go into great detail about why people felt that way, but I think we all have heard that story plenty of times already. By the end of our time on CBT.com, I too was getting pretty frustrated with the state of affairs. Despite that, however, I believe that FGC 3062 has plenty more life in it, and I believe the key to enjoying that is to fix what is wrong with the game system.

Fixing that is going to be messy at times. This is not going to be the last change that involves some front-loading of annoying work to reduce the frustration in the long run. I know not everyone agrees with me on every policy I implement (see: a certain Snow Raven's signature line  ), but I would hope that you would at least have enough faith in me to accept that I am overhauling the rules with the intention of improving the long-term gaming experience and most importantly moving the emphasis away from rules lawyering, OOC bullying, and constant "analog" paperwork and towards a tighter, more streamlined, more versatile, and critically more automated game system that allows people to concentrate on combat and roleplaying, the bread and butter of this universe.




Whew, I guess that was actually kind of a vent session of my own. I apologize if I seemed a little heated, but to be totally honest I have been a teensy bit frustrated today. Let me say to all of you though (and I mean all of you, who have chosen to stick with this game through the good times and the rough spots): Thank you for your patience, your great roleplaying, and your faith in Josh and I.