Hi everyone, I'm posting this as a preview of one of my major projects and to get feedback about possibly broken aspects/rules loopholes. Please note that this is a transcription of written notes, so its presentation will be more linear and better broken up by topic in the final version.
Task Forces
To facilitate the new movement rules and to provide a wider range of available collars (i.e. to bridge the gap between the Monolith and the Potemkin) non-warship JumpShips can be bought in groups of 1-4. This means that the following combinations should be readily available to most factions:
1 Collar -- 1 Scout
2 Collars -- 1 Merchant
3 Collars -- 1 Invader
4 Collars -- 2 Merchants
6 Collars -- 1 Star Lord
8 Collars -- 4 Merchants
9 Collars -- 1 Monolith
12 Collars -- 2 Star Lords
18 Collars -- 3 Star Lords
24 Collars -- 4 Star Lords
27 Collars -- 3 Monoliths
36 Collars -- 4 Monoliths
Coincidentally, this means that the group with the largest number of collars (the "4 monolith" task force) can carry the same number of dropships as a normally-distributed 2d6 table. DropShip tables will have their numerical distribution updated to cover the normal 2d6 bell curve.
With the increased importance of jumpships, factions will need to account for what jumpship designs they actually produce just like they already do for their WarShips. Initial research suggests that the "original 5" (scout, merchant, invader, star lord, monolith) are reasonably well distributed, but we will have to add some non-canon production sites for some of the smaller factions to ensure they have at least some access to production.
Task Forces behave just like normal warships, except that if they fail a survival roll they are not totally destroyed; instead, their size is reduced by one. So, if a group of 4 invaders fails a survival roll, it turns into a group of 3 invaders. Only units that it could not carry (i.e. excess dropships, etc) are 'orphaned.' Of course, if they are moving troops or cargo, that payload might become stranded if the new, smaller group lacks the lift to transport them.
Transporting units
Two new statistics are introduced with these rules: lift and lift cost. Lift is the ability of a space vehicle to move ground units; this is handled somewhat abstractly to avoid having issues where a huge transport group is needed to move a very small unit that happens to include some exotic vehicle type.
Lift is equal to: (number of light vehicle cubicles * 0.80) + (number of 'Mech cubicles * 1.25)†) + (number of all other ground unit cubicles)‡.
† only for Clan technology units; this reflects the Clan tactical doctrine of using Heavy 'mechs as the core battle unit rather than Medium 'mechs as the I.S. does.
‡ for infantry and other 'blob' units, a "ground unit" is defined as one platoon of conventional infantry, one point/squad of battle armor, or one point of protomechs.
If a naval line-item has sufficient lift, it can be used to move ground units along its flight plan for the turn. A naval unit can carry more than one ground unit (if it has sufficient lift) but a ground unit cannot be carried by more than one naval unit. However, see 'splitting ground units' below.
Lift Cost reflects both the raw lift needed to move a ground units as well as factoring in a penalty (or bonus) reflecting the amount of off-camera resources needed for transporting ammunition, spare parts, non-combat personnel, support vehicles, etc.
A ground unit's lift cost equals the total of:
For each light unit: 0.75
For each medium unit: 1.00
For each heavy unit: 1.25
For each assault unit: 1.50
Units that do not have weight classes (infantry, etc) are considered medium.
6-8 restrictions for DT table
To ensure proper balance of the lift capacity of small task forces, there are restrictions on what designs can appear on the Transport Ships table's 6-8 band. The exact math will probably change as dropship tables migrate back to a "natural" 36-outcome setup, but on the current 30-outcome table, the rule would be that the total lift of the first four allocated dropships (i.e. 7, 8, and 2x 6) cannot exceed 125. This ensures that overstrength or unusually heavy regiments will need a minimum of 5 dropships to transport. Clusters will be a little better off, but should still generally need a bare minimum of 3-4 dropships to transport.
Players will also want to ensure that their 7 row (the 1st dropship allocated) has enough lift to carry one bottom-level unit (to facilitate raiding). The 7 row will probably be restricted on its maximum lift as well, to discourage "Scout+Colossus" type shenanigans.
Splitting Ground Units and Maximum Ground Unit Size
Each ground line-item will be capped at 12 companies (IS) or 12 binaries (Clan). Future "unit improvement" game mechanics may further define these limits. A 'normal' regiment is 9 companies and a 'normal' cluster is 7-8 binaries (really, 5 trinaries). The purpose of this restriction is to ensure proper quality level accounting and to prevent rules exploits such as the TH's old brigade-level ground unit line-items.
The same size restriction applies to static aerospace and dropship fleets. This means that many of the "aeroswarm of doom" formations will need to be broken up into more reasonably sized formations.
For the purposes of splitting a unit between multiple transports or for raiding (or any other purpose - for example garrisoning multiple locations), a regiment or cluster-level unit can be broken into multiple line items. Units can be broken or combined freely as long as they are A) in the same location and B) have the same quality and loyalty level. Future rules will address combining dissimilar units.
Reduction of Lift due to damage
As the status of individual dropships (and warship critical hits) are not tracked at the record sheet level, it is neccessary to abstractly track the impact of battle damage on both Lift and Lift Cost.
Lift Cost is reduced in proportion to the percentage of damage suffered by a unit. If a regiment has a lift cost of 108 and suffers 50% damage, its lift cost is reduced to 59.
Lift is reduced based on the relationship between damage and FP lift proportion. FPLP is equal to the unit's Warship/Dropship/Jumpship FP divided by its total unit FP. For example, if a Monolith and 9 DT is worth 2.25, but fighters bring its FP up to 5 FP, its FPLP is 0.45.
FPLP times the damage percentage equals the percentage of lift lost. So, if the Monolith described above took 50% damage, it would lose 22.5% of its lift.
Movement Order redesign
The introduction of real transport units means that the risk/reward calculations involved with moving through foreign territory need to be re-examined. Some or all of the restrictions on hostile territory movement, in particular the restriction on invasions, may be removed. Further analysis is required before a final rule is made.
This rules refresh will probably also significantly change the way LFB works, allowing for the "double jump" ability to have a meaningful game benefit.
Intrinsic Lift
All jump-capable ships receive three points of bonus lift to facilitate carrying marines (though it can be used for any purpose, such as offsetting weight class lift cost modifiers for Union-based raiders carrying heavy 'mechs). Related to this, ship's militia will be revised and expanded to provide a more appropriate defensive FP level for resisting boarding actions based on the size of the ship.
I will put my notes on cargo carriers in a reply to this post later once I have transcribed them.
QuoteLift Cost reflects both the raw lift needed to move a ground units as well as factoring in a penalty (or bonus) reflecting the amount of off-camera resources needed for transporting ammunition, spare parts, non-combat personnel, support vehicles, etc.
A ground unit's lift cost equals the total of:
For each light unit: 0.75
For each medium unit: 1.00
For each heavy unit: 1.25
For each assault unit: 1.50
Units that do not have weight classes (infantry, etc) are considered medium.
Per the FP values shown here (http://intelser.org/forums/index.php?topic=2643.0) (see reply #11) you're assigning "Medium" weight capacity to units that (when they HAVE an FP value) run about a quarter of a FP. Recalling that Infantry has, unless it's Marines or Battlesuits, a FP value of zero, maybe that assignment's...um...wrong? Particularly as the only dedicated infantry carriers in the game all run on the extreme light-end of dropships (the Fury being the prime 'common' example).
I'm not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that you think that infantry should require less lift than other unit types or are you saying you are concerned that people will try to bust the system by milking infantry transports for relatively low-FP lift generation?
I should clarify, also, lift cost is totally unrelated to FP. By default, one point of lift (i.e. one ground forces cube of any type) will pick up one ground unit (one point of lift cost). The altered lift costs by weight class exist solely as a disincentive against people building "all assault" or otherwise unrealistically heavy units. Since infantry only comes in one "weight class" by and large, there's no reason to price it differently, since 1:1 lift cost:lift ratio is "working as intended"
Quote from: Dave Baughman on September 03, 2011, 06:58:55 PM
I'm not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that you think that infantry should require less lift than other unit types or are you saying you are concerned that people will try to bust the system by milking infantry transports for relatively low-FP lift generation?
a little of column "A" and a little of column "B". We've got FP values for infantry, and the dedicated transports in canon are some of the smallest dropships in tonnage, so lowering the lift value makes sense- a
Fury isn't going to carry a
Lance of light 'mechs, much less mediums. My other point, was that the dedicated transports FOR infantry are some of the lightest dropship units in the game- the aforementioned Fury being a battalion transport and one of the smallest vessels anyone could build in the canon (one of the few that are outweighed by a
Leopard, which is one of the lightest 'mech transports extant)
So, my argument REALLY is that Infantry should be weighted as "Light" units for transport, as opposed to heavy. (for the sake of this discussion, we'll use the only inf. that actually counts in this game-BA. 'light' infantry has no FP value and doesn't factor into most MM games.)
Also: don't think revamping "Ship's Militia'' is a good idea. If someone doesn't want to spend the effort and time to install marines, well....that's their problem. Rules this detailed don't need to be angled to reward people for short-sightedness, or you end up dictating exact tactics, which really removes the need for players to make any decisions at all.
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 07:33:26 PM
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Exactly how many times in the last twenty turns, has anyone gotten a chance to test that? Was there even ONE incidence of a boarding check in the entire Vorzel battle?
Coventry?
Sudeten II?
We're already talking about dictating what jumpships a faction can have, with the structure of the random tables, those'll already be deciding what size forces you can deploy, and in what strength, at what distance. with a limit of 3 on your 'Intrinsic lift' marine capacity, you're also deciding how many marines a player can have per ship-which translates out to not needing ANY marines on your "proportional" Leviathan, since it's going to have more ship's militia than any attacker can reasonably apply Marines to board (aside from another Leviathan II)
So for the sake of providing "Immunity" you're pretty much getting it-you never have to worry that someone is going to rook your super-dreadnought.
The "intrinsic Lift" maybe needs to be proportional, and if you want a boarding-repulsion beyond 1 FP regular or green, you pay for it-that leaves the decisions to the players. as someone who spent a LOT on Marine forces (along with spending a lot on units that're losing their particular abilities with the MP revamp), well, you might consider my objections somewhat selfish-I'm getting shafted out of the RP that's been spent on both, plus lookng at having the production I paid for turned into 'repair stations' and at limits on non-warship jumpship designs beyond the limits I imposed on myself.
so I might be a little cranky at seeing yet another big advantage going to the Terran Hegemony or Dominion at the expense of everyone else.
CS, why are you assuming that ship's militia is going to be structured in a way that gives any ship "immunity?" Why do you feel the TH and Dominion are receiving an unfair advantage (indeed, I would have thought you would have picked up from the research thread that both of those factions are getting screwed just a teensy bit by these rules - especially the TH)? Why do you believe you are going to be, quote, shafted out of anything you have spent money on? Why do you believe that hex improvements you bought as one type are going to be automatically converted into another?
I'm confused, because I am not seeing where you are drawing your conclusions from.
Quote from: Cannonshop on September 03, 2011, 07:51:12 PM
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 07:33:26 PM
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Exactly how many times in the last twenty turns, has anyone gotten a chance to test that? Was there even ONE incidence of a boarding check in the entire Vorzel battle?
Coventry?
Sudeten II?
We're already talking about dictating what jumpships a faction can have, with the structure of the random tables, those'll already be deciding what size forces you can deploy, and in what strength, at what distance. with a limit of 3 on your 'Intrinsic lift' marine capacity, you're also deciding how many marines a player can have per ship-which translates out to not needing ANY marines on your "proportional" Leviathan, since it's going to have more ship's militia than any attacker can reasonably apply Marines to board (aside from another Leviathan II)
So for the sake of providing "Immunity" you're pretty much getting it-you never have to worry that someone is going to rook your super-dreadnought.
The "intrinsic Lift" maybe needs to be proportional, and if you want a boarding-repulsion beyond 1 FP regular or green, you pay for it-that leaves the decisions to the players. as someone who spent a LOT on Marine forces (along with spending a lot on units that're losing their particular abilities with the MP revamp), well, you might consider my objections somewhat selfish-I'm getting shafted out of the RP that's been spent on both, plus lookng at having the production I paid for turned into 'repair stations' and at limits on non-warship jumpship designs beyond the limits I imposed on myself.
so I might be a little cranky at seeing yet another big advantage going to the Terran Hegemony or Dominion at the expense of everyone else.
Quote from: Dave Baughman on September 03, 2011, 07:56:55 PM
CS, why are you assuming that ship's militia is going to be structured in a way that gives any ship "immunity?" Why do you feel the TH and Dominion are receiving an unfair advantage? Why do you believe you are going to be, quote, shafted out of anything you have spent money on? Why do you believe that hex improvements you bought as one type are going to be automatically converted into another?
I'm confused, because I am not seeing where you are drawing your conclusions from.
Quote from: Cannonshop on September 03, 2011, 07:51:12 PM
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 07:33:26 PM
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Exactly how many times in the last twenty turns, has anyone gotten a chance to test that? Was there even ONE incidence of a boarding check in the entire Vorzel battle?
Coventry?
Sudeten II?
We're already talking about dictating what jumpships a faction can have, with the structure of the random tables, those'll already be deciding what size forces you can deploy, and in what strength, at what distance. with a limit of 3 on your 'Intrinsic lift' marine capacity, you're also deciding how many marines a player can have per ship-which translates out to not needing ANY marines on your "proportional" Leviathan, since it's going to have more ship's militia than any attacker can reasonably apply Marines to board (aside from another Leviathan II)
So for the sake of providing "Immunity" you're pretty much getting it-you never have to worry that someone is going to rook your super-dreadnought.
The "intrinsic Lift" maybe needs to be proportional, and if you want a boarding-repulsion beyond 1 FP regular or green, you pay for it-that leaves the decisions to the players. as someone who spent a LOT on Marine forces (along with spending a lot on units that're losing their particular abilities with the MP revamp), well, you might consider my objections somewhat selfish-I'm getting shafted out of the RP that's been spent on both, plus lookng at having the production I paid for turned into 'repair stations' and at limits on non-warship jumpship designs beyond the limits I imposed on myself.
so I might be a little cranky at seeing yet another big advantage going to the Terran Hegemony or Dominion at the expense of everyone else.
Star Lord: FWL and DC, production in the FWL is 2 per year (JS&DS)
Monolith: Fedsuns Exclusive for the IS.
Leviathan/Lev II: Snow Raven, Ghost Bears, and Terran exclusive. the Terran part is game-canon, otherwise it's CSR and CGB only.
What's a "proportional" miliz complement for a Leviathan II? it's over two million tonnes of ship, with a passel of dropcollars, lots of guns...assuming a base of a 1FP for your smaller corvettes? Most conventional JS don't have the crew to spend on security teams-if you go with canon crew requirements, they don't have any, if you go proportionally, it means either a fapping huge complement on the Lev, or no complement on anything under 100k tonnes.
Since you're looking for canon sources, the next step is to limit/eliminate access to jumpship designs-which isn't so hard on the big five or the Clans, but it's a sledgehammer on anyone smaller or newer.
You've seen my naval tab. It's one of the longer ones in the game, in spite of having a relatively small navy. I'll lose most of my lift capacity when these rules go on-line, whoosh-gone. The distribution of 6, 7,8 on the table, and what you need for collar space, and what FP values MEAN, means I'm losing most of my ability to move-I don't have a lot of abstract 'groups' to suddenly churn into transportation for ground units, I didn't buy a shit-ton of independent wings that can be converted to make up the loss.
NOw, you're limiting the 'free' lift to 3 points...which means I'm losing a fair chunk of my existing Marine capacity, because I really do NOT have the budget to shit out the necessary number of jumpships to take them in. I'm already losing the resources spent on my small collection of "Mobile" units since they'll, in turn, lose the traits that made them worth spending 6x FP value to build.
I don't expect I'll be getting that cost back-because everyone ELSE who built them would reasonably expect to get THEIR investment back as well, and that turns into real money pretty quickly.
The factions that aren't going to feel much pain from this, are the ones that were so big that they could pretty much toss RP's down the shitter and not worry about it. That's three factions: FWL, TH, and Dominion. (okay, four-the Lyran/Falcon thingy won't take much of a hit either.)
Factions that already HAD transport problems are going to get bit harder, and the ones that don't have the bottomless treasury of a megafaction are going to get positively NAILED by this.
I
ran the numbers on what it would take to 'real transport' out a 5 FP unit- in terms of how many droppers per company/binary, and the cost of those dropships, and the number of collars needed. 5 points is about the smallest I've got, so it wasn't difficult, but the difference in collars needed between 5 FP of 'mechs, and 5 FP of mixed forces, was pretty significant. on a typical distribution off the tables as they're structured, I can't get the right types of dropships to move any force that isn't primarily battlemechs on a transport smaller than a Star Lord.
Much less the more common Invader and Merchant classes (the two most common jumpships in canon.)
Quote from: Cannonshop on September 03, 2011, 07:51:12 PM
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 07:33:26 PM
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Exactly how many times in the last twenty turns, has anyone gotten a chance to test that? Was there even ONE incidence of a boarding check in the entire Vorzel battle?
Coventry?
Sudeten II?
We're already talking about dictating what jumpships a faction can have, with the structure of the random tables, those'll already be deciding what size forces you can deploy, and in what strength, at what distance. with a limit of 3 on your 'Intrinsic lift' marine capacity, you're also deciding how many marines a player can have per ship-which translates out to not needing ANY marines on your "proportional" Leviathan, since it's going to have more ship's militia than any attacker can reasonably apply Marines to board (aside from another Leviathan II)
So for the sake of providing "Immunity" you're pretty much getting it-you never have to worry that someone is going to rook your super-dreadnought.
The "intrinsic Lift" maybe needs to be proportional, and if you want a boarding-repulsion beyond 1 FP regular or green, you pay for it-that leaves the decisions to the players. as someone who spent a LOT on Marine forces (along with spending a lot on units that're losing their particular abilities with the MP revamp), well, you might consider my objections somewhat selfish-I'm getting shafted out of the RP that's been spent on both, plus lookng at having the production I paid for turned into 'repair stations' and at limits on non-warship jumpship designs beyond the limits I imposed on myself.
so I might be a little cranky at seeing yet another big advantage going to the Terran Hegemony or Dominion at the expense of everyone else.
Well in SimRes the last time someone got a chance was this turn. In the trial between the Vipers and Shark's at New Hope Station
Quote from: chaosxtreme on September 03, 2011, 08:28:10 PM
Quote from: Cannonshop on September 03, 2011, 07:51:12 PM
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 07:33:26 PM
What're you talking about Cannon? He's saying that 1 FP of armsmen for every ship in the game needs to be reworked. A Fox is much easier to board and take over, than a Levi II, but if there are no on-board Marines, they're equally likely to be taken over. This makes no sense.
Instead, a ship's armsmen(it's internal anti-boarding crewmen) will be relative to the size of the vessel in question- as it should be.
Exactly how many times in the last twenty turns, has anyone gotten a chance to test that? Was there even ONE incidence of a boarding check in the entire Vorzel battle?
Coventry?
Sudeten II?
We're already talking about dictating what jumpships a faction can have, with the structure of the random tables, those'll already be deciding what size forces you can deploy, and in what strength, at what distance. with a limit of 3 on your 'Intrinsic lift' marine capacity, you're also deciding how many marines a player can have per ship-which translates out to not needing ANY marines on your "proportional" Leviathan, since it's going to have more ship's militia than any attacker can reasonably apply Marines to board (aside from another Leviathan II)
So for the sake of providing "Immunity" you're pretty much getting it-you never have to worry that someone is going to rook your super-dreadnought.
The "intrinsic Lift" maybe needs to be proportional, and if you want a boarding-repulsion beyond 1 FP regular or green, you pay for it-that leaves the decisions to the players. as someone who spent a LOT on Marine forces (along with spending a lot on units that're losing their particular abilities with the MP revamp), well, you might consider my objections somewhat selfish-I'm getting shafted out of the RP that's been spent on both, plus lookng at having the production I paid for turned into 'repair stations' and at limits on non-warship jumpship designs beyond the limits I imposed on myself.
so I might be a little cranky at seeing yet another big advantage going to the Terran Hegemony or Dominion at the expense of everyone else.
Well in SimRes the last time someone got a chance was this turn. In the trial between the Vipers and Shark's at New Hope Station
That's because you can't invade a station with anything BUT Marines...
Acctually no Canon. That was because in the trial. Holt rolled the "board largest vessel or do somethingelse equally awesome" crit.
Or we could calculate out what the FP of the canon marine complement is.
I mean I know I have beaten this dead horse before but every warship lists its marine compliment.
Which has tonnage and bv assigned to it as part of ship creation.
Why not just use those numbers and translate them into game mechanics.
*Disclaimer*
This does clearly benefit the Free Worlds as all our canon LFB ships have battlearmor marine's and plenty of them*.
It always bothered me people stacking essentially entire marine division and army groups on warship's that then didn't have to account for them but I have always gone "whatev's" and moved on.
Quote from: chaosxtreme on September 03, 2011, 08:38:22 PM
Acctually no Canon. That was because in the trial. Holt rolled the "board largest vessel or do somethingelse equally awesome" crit.
The split I'm trying (and failing) to illustrate properly, is the split between intentional and random here.
Random: Roll a 1/36 chance crit, followed by another 1/36 chance outcome.
Intentional: in MegaAero, sidle up with smallcraft, and execute a boarding action
deliberately as part of an overall strategy.
Quote from: chaosxtreme on September 03, 2011, 08:42:56 PM
Or we could calculate out what the FP of the canon marine complement is.
I mean I know I have beaten this dead horse before but every warship lists its marine compliment.
Which has tonnage and bv assigned to it as part of ship creation.
Why not just use those numbers and translate them into game mechanics.
*Disclaimer*
This does clearly benefit the Free Worlds as all our canon LFB ships have battlearmor marine's and plenty of them*.
It always bothered me people stacking essentially entire marine division and army groups on warship's that then didn't have to account for them but I have always gone "whatev's" and moved on.
WAAAITAMINUTE HERE... you can do that? without PAYING FOR IT??
No you pay for their construction.
It's just in fleet action's you don't know how many there are until you actually board a ship.
No one has to disclose that their 1FP vincent has 40FP of Marine's huddled onto it somehow.
This is not a new thing.
Quote from: chaosxtreme on September 03, 2011, 08:48:29 PM
No you pay for their construction.
It's just in fleet action's you don't know how many there are until you actually board a ship.
No one has to disclose that their 1FP vincent has 40FP of Marine's huddled onto it somehow.
This is not a new thing.
whew. I'm glad I wasn't paying for something I didn't need to.
Honestly Cannon, I have a slight issue with the constant "zomg you guys are screwing over the little guy, and only powering up the big factions". First off, thats total bullshit. The rules are designed without a thought for individual factions.
Secondly, if the UIW is at a slight disadvantage because of a rules change, and this disadvantage stems from its small size, thats your problem. YOU chose to play a micro-faction, knowing full well that your size was always going to be a factor. You built your military in such a way as to optimize it for the current rules. Well obviously when the rules change, your optimization backfires. And I don't really feel sorry for you.
Every faction in the game is affected in the exact same way by these changes. If the size of your faction hamstrings you, thats your problem- you WANTED to be a tiny state with no resources. Thats what you've always wanted. So complaining that its happening, doesn't make much sense.
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 10:14:26 PM
Honestly Cannon, I have a slight issue with the constant "zomg you guys are screwing over the little guy, and only powering up the big factions". First off, thats total bullshit. The rules are designed without a thought for individual factions.
Secondly, if the UIW is at a slight disadvantage because of a rules change, and this disadvantage stems from its small size, thats your problem. YOU chose to play a micro-faction, knowing full well that your size was always going to be a factor. You built your military in such a way as to optimize it for the current rules. Well obviously when the rules change, your optimization backfires. And I don't really feel sorry for you.
Every faction in the game is affected in the exact same way by these changes. If the size of your faction hamstrings you, thats your problem- you WANTED to be a tiny state with no resources. Thats what you've always wanted. So complaining that its happening, doesn't make much sense.
It MIGHT be argued, that you're pushing to optimize the rules to favour YOUR faction build. I won't argue that, I won't make that claim, but I find that being accused of that by you does tend to lower the inhibition against doing so.
the question was asked, I'm raising what I feel to be reasonable concerns.
Well, saying that, and then being like "well I'm not saying it", is a cop out. You said it, just admit it.
And since I'm not the one designing the rules, your notion is laughable at best. Dave is doing these rules drafts. And what, exactly, is my faction build, according to you? Because thus far, everything you say is about how the big factions are these massive entities that can just absorb all these rules changes without ill effect, but yet they somehow just decimate your entire faction.
I don't see it.
I'm waiting to see reasonable concerns raised. What I see, is you trashing the rules as attempts at re-writing the rules to favor only the big states. If your faction is so small that it can't function with the same rules as everyone else, thats a flaw in your faction, not the rules.
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 10:19:25 PM
Well, saying that, and then being like "well I'm not saying it", is a cop out. You said it, just admit it.
And since I'm not the one designing the rules, your notion is laughable at best. Dave is doing these rules drafts. And what, exactly, is my faction build, according to you? Because thus far, everything you say is about how the big factions are these massive entities that can just absorb all these rules changes without ill effect, but yet they somehow just decimate your entire faction.
I don't see it.
Dave is asking for comments-as in to have problems found before, not after, the rules hit final. In rules development, this is the point where people are supposed to find the breaks that toss the balance off. it's NOT where people are supposed to rave about how they LUV the new system, only to have the faults turn up in actual play two turns down the road.
I'm bringing up issues I not only expect to experience myself, but issues I rather expect OTHER people to suddenly discover they have-after keeping quiet during the comments period out of some fear that they'll upset either the developer, or the GM.
Instead of tossing around accusations and character slurs, maybe you should try to do something constructive-like testing the claims of the doubter yourself, on a faction that isn't a composite Clan/Great House with the second biggest income in the game-see if it works on a small scale, then check against your results on the big scale, see if I'm right, or where I'm wrong.
Instead of getting all defensive and emotional.
How about reading the rules in full, and testing them out, instead of attacking them on the premise of "this means my faction is totally screwed, and I wont get any of the money i spent back" without actually ASKING US FIRST.
Instead of getting all confrontational and emotional about it
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 10:55:54 PM
How about reading the rules in full, and testing them out, instead of attacking them on the premise of "this means my faction is totally screwed, and I wont get any of the money i spent back" without actually ASKING US FIRST.
Instead of getting all confrontational and emotional about it
Quote from: Daemonknight on September 03, 2011, 10:14:26 PM
Honestly Cannon, I have a slight issue with the constant "zomg you guys are screwing over the little guy, and only powering up the big factions". First off, thats total bullshit. The rules are designed without a thought for individual factions.
Secondly, if the UIW is at a slight disadvantage because of a rules change, and this disadvantage stems from its small size, thats your problem. YOU chose to play a micro-faction, knowing full well that your size was always going to be a factor. You built your military in such a way as to optimize it for the current rules. Well obviously when the rules change, your optimization backfires. And I don't really feel sorry for you.
Every faction in the game is affected in the exact same way by these changes. If the size of your faction hamstrings you, thats your problem- you WANTED to be a tiny state with no resources. Thats what you've always wanted. So complaining that its happening, doesn't make much sense.
Note the bolded text.
If I WERE "Optimizing" under the current rules regime, there wouldn't be ANY discussion about what I might or might not be losing-I'd have done what everyone else is doing, and poured the build budgets from the 20 year jump straight into transported aero in parking orbits, those stations on the map? yeah, they wouldn't BE THERE, there'd be no Mobile ground, because that's a sub-optimal choice under the current rules scheme, and the ground units? would be parked, and I wouldn't have pursued a war at all with the Spirit Cats, because that is ALSO a sub-optimal choice.
oh, and ALL my naval buys would've been transported Aero, so no naval buys that weren't. I'd also not have bothered with so many shipyards, nor with the recharge stations.
because ALL of those decisions were sub-optimal decisions. I'd have dumped all the funds from upgrading member worlds into control worlds into more factories, etc.
My faction would've been a very optimized lump that requires a major house or major Clan to take down. I didn't do that, so knock off with the claims of min/maxing, powergaming, gaming the system, or being a munchkin. I know how to be a munchkin, I don't do it.
Now, second...
I ran the numbers. I actually did the math. I looked at what has how many slots, and how many collars it takes to move it. I looked at FP cost for Jumpships, I looked at the current budget multipliers, and I put that together with the numbers squeezed out of the example sheet Dave B. posted for the economics/territory tab update.
I didn't do this in a
vacuum, Daemonknight. I did what you're supposed to do when presented with rules for comment-I tested them. I then provided my commentary on how they'll work vs. how I expect they were INTENDED to work.
You don't like my analysis, you can always run the same test and see if your outcome reads out differently.
THIS is pre-alpha-release material. I expect there'll be at minimum a beta level examination long before the final hits 'street date' to knock the kinks and bugs out.
I guess I need to clarify something before we go any further. I thought I had posted this earlier, but maybe I am misremembering or maybe its just buried in an obscure thread somewhere.
1) Regardless of the final form of the rules, no one is going to get left in the cold in terms of prior construction. When the switch to real transport goes into effect, everyone will get transport units based on the contents of the cyclical movement pool. The details of this trade-in will be calibrated to ensure you don't take a financial loss based on buying-in-good-faith under the old rules. This means that if you have mobile units, you will get 10x as much towards your 'transport budget' as if you had bought those units as transported (give or take minor adjustments for cost calibration). If anything, you and others with similar builds will make a profit on your transported units.
2) Ship's militia will never be enough to repel a serious marine assault. The numbers in my head are: JumpShip (of any size) - 0.25 FP, Small Warship (Corvette, Destroyer) - 0.50, Medium Warship (Cruisers & Battlecruisers) - 0.75, Heavy Warship (Battleship, Super-Battleship) - 1.00. People who want 350981570813750813750831703150758710837105FP of marines on their Lev II better put some DTs on it, as it will need Lift to haul them.
3) The critical event tables are on the list for revision. Simple resolution boarding actions right now are way to rare (both versus canon and versus 'fun') and that is probably a result of less than optimal statistical design in the original printing of the rules. In the future, I expect to see boarding opportunities be more prevalent (though in SR they will still require a critical event, for game balance and megamek-encouragement purposes).
4) Independant Wings cannot be converted into jumpship groups. I'm not sure where you heard this, because I'm preeeeetty sure its not in my draft. The only influence they will have on jumpship group formation will be in the initial trade-in of movement points where of course they will only be worth 1/10 of their FP.
5) Intrinsic lift. Part of the purpose of IL is to 'evict' large groups of marines that are 'living' on small ships. the 40 FP of marines on the Vincent in the example Chaos posted is a great example of this. I'm OK with marines living on warships and jumpships, but 40 FP is a bit extreme (but then again, that's why he's chaosXTREME I guess lol). However, IL should not prevent those marines from zooming around in space, since all those marine FP are mobile FP and will be contributing their full FP to the MP trade-in pool (maybe even more if they are LFB mobile), so I doubt your Marines will be 'stranded' in the final equation.
6) Force Composition. I know this is in the draft, but let me reiterate: lift is lift is lift. You do not have mech lift/vehicle lift/infantry lift/whatever... you just have lift. A unit with 125 lift can haul around a 'mech regiment, a vehicle regiment, an infantry regiment, or even a regiment of ground-based aerospace fighters.
7) Reducing jumpship access. You are correct that unresearched tech (i.e. jumpship designs) are going to be tightened up on. Guess which faction, as best as I can tell, only produces one jumpship design in the IS (and a design with only one collar at that)? TH. Guess who would be right there with them if it wasn't for the Ravens' homeworlds production? Clan Ghost Bear. Having laid that explicitly on the table, let me point out that I did say earlier that the periphery factions would be given non-canon production sites as a game balance measure. Yes, UIW, TC, etc will probably not receive non-canon Monolith or Star Lord yards, but they seem to have been getting along just fine so far without 24/36 collar mobile units so something tells me they will survive (and there's always the option of buying from your neighbors). I actually considered taking a hard line and giving the small factions no non-canon JumpShip production after the MP trade-in, but right now I don't believe the benefits of that outweigh the disruptive effect it would have in terms of giving economic power to the big factions.
I actually kind of wanted to give the smaller factions access to some of the obsolete jumpships like the Leviathan class, but unfortunately no canon stats exist and I'm not inclined to write fanon status only to see them later obsoleted.
I hope that addresses some of your questions and concerns. If you run into more issues with the rules, please keep posting them, however:
In the future, if you have incomplete information and are concerned something might be broken, instead of assuming the worst case scenario and then attacking the rule in vague terms and/or questioning the integrity of the staff, please first ask for clarification and let us fill in the holes. I don't deliberately write broken rules, and a lot of the above text is spent explaining assumptions you made (no cashout/starting transport force, speciated lift, etc) as opposed to talking about the actual rule.
I want these rules to be good, and I would rather keep you guys in the loop about what's coming. CS you rightly pointed out that "YAY I LUVZ IT" posts aren't helpful, but like I said - please fact-check before you tear into the rules and/or the writers. I'd rather spend twenty minutes showing you a detailed example of how a rule works or bugfixing a problem you find right away as opposed to getting in a debate about perceived problems that aren't even in the rule and were never intended to be in it in the first place.
Also, I'm locking this thread until midnight. This is not to punish anyone, but clearly we need to take a little bit a breather. Please do not move this argument to the OOC thread, just let it lie for a bit and take some deep, meditative breaths before we continue.
OK, thread is unlocked.
I'll be posting cargo rules and a lot of associated rules changes dealing with salvage, raids, and other fun stuff tomorrow. Feedback is not only welcome but encouraged, but please remember to make sure you ask about anything that is unclear before jumping to any conclusions. That will let us be more productive in ironing out the kinks from the rule.
megamek dropships added to list.
Question, i have a number of independent wings in my order sheet basically because having to keep track of over 100 jumpships as single items; these units are mobile. Now you mentioned independent wings will only get you a 1/10th of their FP in the initial trade in. My question is, should i go into my sheet and add single lines for every independent wing formation? Granted by the looks of it i will have to do it anyways.
Quote from: Holt on September 04, 2011, 04:54:41 PM
Question, i have a number of independent wings in my order sheet basically because having to keep track of over 100 jumpships as single items; these units are mobile. Now you mentioned independent wings will only get you a 1/10th of their FP in the initial trade in. My question is, should i go into my sheet and add single lines for every independent wing formation? Granted by the looks of it i will have to do it anyways.
Independant wings were not supposed to be allowed to be mobile, but due to me not writing the rules explicitly enough they were technically legal. So, when I referred to them getting 10%, that was predicated on my assumption that they were transported. Your trade-in allowance will be based on your cyclical pool, so those units will not be penalized; however you may need to rejigger those units somewhat to follow the new task force rules (I'm sure a 4x Star Lord formation or something like that could still carry a lot of fighters).
I already started and a jumpship star would be 3x monolith, comitatus and odyssey, thing is that each of these 'clusters' is over 80FP and that is the only way to get to fit in the 5 point system. Well i could have done it with smaller jumpships, but someone had to remove heavy carriers from the prime spot....