Proposition: Fighters are too overpowered. Combating them is both hard and frustrating.

Concept: Big ships should be able to destroy members of a fighter swarm easily. However, fighters used carefully should still be able to provide scout and combat abilities to players who prefer them.

Ideas:
1) Attack drones move 3 rather than 2. I hate this.

2) Tractor beams on ships. Basically the chance to draw a ship closer depends on the mass differntial, and not much else. Tractors would be a new ship unit.
This is probably a good idea. Swarms could still pummel big ships though, so maybe it is not the answer?

3) Friction fields. An area effect drone which deploys out to radius 1 hex at a time, but then stays there unless destroyed. It reduces max movement speed of ships within the region to 3 hexes (or something like that). Spindizzies uneffected. This would be a stealthy drone to fire (does not reveal the firer), but the drones themselves would be visible.

I think this is probably the best yet.

4) High speed is visible. A ship that move more than 6 hexes in a turn is visible.

Probably too nasty. OTOH, it fits right in with the current rule set, it allows fighters to move slowly in, then zip away and continue to run. Big ships simple keep them running. i.e. It is in the spirit of the game, and is simple. It is also explainable. It also allows fighter swarms to still function, in almost the same way.

Hmmm.

5) Attack drones of power <3 ie 1 or 2 move at 3 hexes per turn.

Don't like it, but should probably mention it.

So, Mr Mapmaker, what thinks you?



Any other thoughts?

I think I prefer, high speed is visible, or Friction Fields.

It means good play of fighters is still a winner. But large ships can prepare the ground, and chase off fighters still.

Maybe we need both.

Jonathan

GameAdmin wrote:

4) High speed is visible. A ship that move more than 6 hexes in a turn is visible. Probably too nasty. OTOH, it fits right in with the current rule set, it allows fighters to move slowly in, then zip away and continue to run. Big ships simple keep them running. i.e. It is in the spirit of the game, and is simple. It is also explainable. It also allows fighter swarms to still function, in almost the same way. Hmmm.

As it stands now, the couple of times I have used fighters, I move slowly through the Dark anyway. A mine hit on a fighter is usually fatal. I only go more than a few hexes a turn in lit areas, or in areas I already know are free of mines.

How about working the passive footprint of the ship is proportional to the speed?

with its effect kicking in at speed 6 or higher

i played abit on exel and came up with a rough idea

current footprint= passive footprint + ((10-Passive Footprint)*(speed/10)^2)

does give a nice curve for all ships

The undead one has a point. Perhaps the biggest advantage that small ships have is the first strike one, and a lot of that derives from their passive scan and low detection threshold. That said, this wouldn't of helped Veldez at all in our last engagement. But it would of helped against my 'englobements' of a number of other ships.

As for 4, I'd considered a similar idea. To give a point of reference my current 'cruising' speed of my gnats is 12 when firing which I almost always use in any clear area of space. If high movement in the dark made me globally visible I'd not use it.

Another thing to consider is how EMP works. It only kills drones that 'end' their turn within its field. Passing through it doesn't seem to trigger it. (A low level emp field by a large ship could stop/reduce most of my fire to nothing if it worked as one would expect it to).

I like Nosferatu's idea.

I get the passive footprint thing (although I haven't excelled it).

My thought on the high move was more about leaving the first strike in place - it seems fair. But once you start to run away from retaliation you stay visible and thus targetable.

My big ships all suffered the first strike, but then only got 1 turn to fire off a salvo as you ran like mad away from me. If the act of running meant I could fire at you again, and then again I think I would more certainly kill you - or at least drive away some of them as your ships would run for longer.

Also the sticky fields would mean that I could set up parts of a system to entagle you. But they may be too nasty.

The footprint rules would slow the battle down - ie you creep up, but then you would do your first strike and still run like mad.

I think I'm waffling now.

Any other thoughts?


The problem with fighters at the moment, is the counter is mines. But for mines to work we can't use beholders. So the passive scan of fighters and frigates is a huge advantage. ie the only defence of the big ships opens it up to the very kind of attack it wants to avoid,

Which brings me back to move visibility and sticky fields. Thinking about that, I think I will retract move visibility and just suggest sticky fields.

So a big ship sits within overlapping sticking fields, seeded with mines, surrounded by beholders. If it can. Should sticky fields reduce attack drone speeds to 3 as well - but if so then the drones burn would not decrease?

I'm still waffling. Enough! Good night,

Mapmaker wrote:

Another thing to consider is how EMP works. It only kills drones that 'end' their turn within its field. Passing through it doesn't seem to trigger it. (A low level emp field by a large ship could stop/reduce most of my fire to nothing if it worked as one would expect it to).

Yeah, I think it was the second salvo you fired I tried the EMP defense. Unfortunately all of your attack drones simply passed through the EMP field with no effect. Tricky trying to figure out exactly where to drop an EMP to detonate, and it doesn't help at all the turn the drones impact anyway, lol.

so EMP does destroy drones that land on it... would've been nice to know

anyway, have you tried gravwells to slow down enemy fire/fighters? as for killing them, there greatest strength is supposed to be speed, hit and run tactics. but if they can't punch through tough armor it's kinda pointless... just how much dmg would a single warhead do anyway? I was just thinking it would be interesting seeing what would happen if SS took out 1 point of dmg -before- taking dmg, and then having the rest of it hit. in large numbers of drone power, the effect should be the same... it takes 2 drone power to destroy an SS, but if the drone power is 1 the effect will be no dmg at all. (this and I think SS gets destroyed by just 1 drone power anyway as it is now. no 'half dmg' mark)

also, have you tried using a larger area effect EMP? it's not gonna be much power to stop fighters, and that will give you 1-2 turns to pummel them.

I'm not certain, but it may be that emp works as we'd expect it to except on a turn in which the attack drone hits a ship. Haven't tested it much but its a possibility.

Okay Dragonia, how much dmg could a single warhead do? Well, I'll tell ya. The answer is plenty. My fighters (with darklight) can do 6 damage (optimum). Remember, 10 active systems or less on these ships. Now consider, I've got 5 of them ships for each one of your cruisers (which has 40 active). Then give me first strike advantage. (my frigates are even better).

If you want to shift the balance from fighters to capital ships then increase capital ships survivability. The mechanics already there.

Try this:

1) Attack nano on a system with at least 1 'swarm' applied will not explode.
2) If swarm > attack nano on a cell then that cell is not destroyed by the nano.

Mapmaker wrote:

Okay Dragonia, how much dmg could a single warhead do? Well, I'll tell ya. The answer is plenty. My fighters (with darklight) can do 6 damage (optimum). Remember, 10 active systems or less on these ships. Now consider, I've got 5 of them ships for each one of your cruisers (which has 40 active). Then give me first strike advantage. (my frigates are even better).

Yeah, the 4-5 fighters I have fielded can easily produce a power 6 drone with enough speed and burn to hit most cruiser+ ships, assuming I have Darklight. Without Darklight fighters are much less powerful.

Granted. Thats why I prefer frigates over fighters. Better overall speed and firepower all around. I may as well give ya the design for them as its a pretty easy one to deduce.

Frigate Class:
1 habitat
11 engines
1 scoop
1 hold
6 drone racks

From this its pretty clear where my preferences lie.

The really obvious thing to do is increase their pts cost.

i.e. thats the real reason they are overpowered.

Either just increase the class cost, or add a modifier for number of racks.

How about changing how ships operate slightly?

as in 1 habitat can only support so many modules, not including superstructure?

A point increase would only affect me indirectly in that it would allow my opponent to bring more ships into the system. I wouldn't notice it otherwise.

Support, well I'd notice it but likely design around it. I'd probably drop whatever number of drone racks was required to keep the same speed and lose a little bit of offense.