STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2008-02-01 07:00pm

Wait, what?

Why the hell does D negate incoming damage and provide hit points?

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2008-02-01 07:04pm

It negates incoming damage or provides hit points. The option is there for both. For example, if you're fighting an enemy that shoots 10 per turn, your 20 points of D will negate 5 of those. Of the remaining five, you can choose to take that damage, or you can burn off 5 points of D to negate that damage. That means for next turn, you only have 5 points of D left, but undamaged ships.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2008-02-01 11:04pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Wait, what? Why the hell does D negate incoming damage and provide hit points?

Because a point spent on D gives you both HP and negation.. but does NOT give you weapons/general whatever, like a normal point does. It works out that way. Like how a point of O counts as both WEAPON and 'penetration'.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2008-02-01 11:41pm

I'm not sure I'm understanding the proposed change to D. You guys want it to have reduced effectiveness where multiple enemy fleets are present? Shouldn't "D" be a global stat that can only handle so much incoming fire, no matter the source?

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2008-02-02 12:04am

Darkevilme wrote:regarding posting: I think i'm waiting for nephtys who's waiting on crossroads.

Waiting on me? Did I skip a post from neph? Last I remmebered your ships formed along with mine into a single battle group and then you transmited your single to Neph.

EDIT:" read Nephs post, It throws me because she responds, but I don't think she actually referanced anything I did or my ships involvment as of yet.. Guess I was looking for that.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-02-02 12:54am

Tanasinn wrote:I'm not sure I'm understanding the proposed change to D. You guys want it to have reduced effectiveness where multiple enemy fleets are present? Shouldn't "D" be a global stat that can only handle so much incoming fire, no matter the source?

I would think so. I figured our O/D dynamic was pretty good before. The 'provides a hitpoint' thing really only comes into play when you're willing to burn off some of your D for temporary hits. It's really a bad deal--but it makes it so a ship with 5+10D doesn't fold like a house of cards the instant something penetrates the shields. It was a minor concession to stop +O being overpowering, because otherwise you just fire all your +O through shields to kill the annoying +D ships. Not really super-fair. You can still snipe the D'ers, but having them provide some HP's makes them more durable than before. It also allows ships that are meant to be defenders to take more damage.

A 10+10D ship could take damage until it's 1+10D of HP's left, and then lost the 10D and then just blow up on the next point of damage. Otherwise, it makes them very, very easy to plink apart. Not a great situation.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2008-02-02 01:05am

Yo not sure if this is the right thread to post in, but I haven't been paying attention for two months and it looks like it's started. I still want in but don't have a lot of time. Whoever pmed me about posting, I'll post in the next few days. I'll check out the wiki, but I'm a lazy shit too and if someone wants to pm me to help me up to speed, thanks.

P.S. If I'm holding any serious shit up let me know and if possible bypass me; I can't make promises as to post dates and I sure as hell don't want to hold a person up for a week or two weeks. I can probably devote a quarter of a day a week to this, and if that isn't enough then bypass me or consider me dead, whatever is uh usual. It looks like I need at least 3 hours of work just to fix my OOB.

Academia Nut · Post by **Academia Nut** » 2008-02-02 02:42am

I think the major problem was that someone redefined how D and O worked just before we started to include that C3 crap that makes D way over powered because no one was going to take the buttload of C3 necessary to overwhelm the heavy D forces like me and consequences. The overall jamming effect should be minimal, like I suggested, if you have any ship with C3 that exceeds the highest ranking D ship, you should be able to overcome the jamming effects without argument, and if you want to get a count of hulls when the enemy has overwhelming jamming on you, you should be able to do it by closing to combat ranges, the only problem being getting that information out again after you have it.

And Dark Hellion... ugh... I apologize, I got busy the past couple of days and haven't really been paying attention. The gist of my response to your initial response wasn't going to change, I was however planning on changing it from a ship coming out to meet you to just a general transmission because it would take days to reach your position with a ship. Thus no one to bring you in, plus I wasn't exactly intending to bring your ship aboard yet. It's late where I am right now, so I'll sort through your post in the morning.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2008-02-02 07:04am

Well at any rate, i'll post my response to Thirdfain sunday even if Nephtys and crossroads do not wish to act immediately. I was just trying to keep the timelines mostly, somewhat, in a synchronized position by giving ample chance for posting.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2008-02-03 12:50am

No prob nut. I didn't date it in order to make it anachronistic. It can happen later next week game time if you need it too. I just assumed the Dragon came out to meet me at high speed, and then led me to a boarder station. I made up a suitable boarder station name (bastardized names FTW) and made your ship captain act rather austere and non-committal, as he clearly wouldn't be doing negotiations. Hope I didn't overstep.

If you haven't guessed yet, Viest is pretty crazy... think Zaraki Kenpachi crossed with the Joker.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-02-03 05:12pm

I wanted to toss in a clarification.

+D can't be popped, burned, expended, whatever term you wish to use, to swap out for +O damage. But it can be for normal damage, so long as another ship isn't attacking it with enough +O to kill it on the same turn.

Ideally, what you should be doing when taking heavy fire mixed with +O, is burning off a few +D instead of normal hitpoints before your ship is reduced to just a few points of life. While it's very tempting to keep your sheilds at maximum until you die, burning a few off while keeping your 'basic' hitpoints intact makes you more durable against +O weapons fire. Because +O is specifically antiship fire and hits your hitpoints specifically and directly, normal hitpoints are a lot more useful than +D when facing an opponent with some antiship munitions.

What this does is encourage people to think tactically about their +D pool for a number of reasons. You shouldn't let normal fire wither your ships down to a single hitpoint and +10D. Against +O fire you may have no choice... but you could concievably say "Okay, this ship is going to die anyway--it's overcharging it's shields and blocking fire for the transport full of orphans and puppies" and have it lose all 1+10D worth of hitpoints in a single turn, essentially soaking about 55 points of the enemy's fleet worth of damage in a heroic last-ditch effort. You'd want to do this before the enemy decided to plink it with a smidge of +O though.

Anyway, that's what I mean. It's up to people to decide their own favored strategies with it, but the setup also helps mitigate one of the most extreme examples, of someone turning a half or quarter of their fleet into +D and attempting to be the Juggernaut. As it stands, it's still a viable technique, but assuming you have a few antiship weapons, it's not an unstoppable one. And that's just good gameplay.

For a another clarification of the 'can soak, but not before +O' stuff I said before, here's how I generally assume damage it figured in:

1) Remove Ships destroyed by +O
2) Remove incoming damage equal to your +D modifier
3) Apply whatever modifiers the players think are fair
4) Remove Ships destroyed by normal attack
5) Post your counterattack

I also think, generally, we reference what happened last turn, and not 'earlier' this turn, right? Turns are essentially happening at the same time, and it's on the beginning of the next turn AFTER this that we deal with the effects of what just happened. This allows for a bit of barter-time between players, and lets them figure out how to spin the battle posts, instead of making it a race to post first and get the jump on the enemy, or so on.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2008-02-03 06:36pm

consequences: are you keeping your fleet together while chasing mine? If so, then this turn my ships can break engagement and repair.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2008-02-04 08:49am

Hawkwings wrote:consequences: are you keeping your fleet together while chasing mine? If so, then this turn my ships can break engagement and repair.

I kind of have an issue with ships of equal size successfully running away without resorting to ftl, especally when suffering from significant battle damage. For one thing, it makes the three turn run up to ftl basically superfluous, and interdictor interference even more so.

Not that it matters for this fight, because we're actually turning to engage the overly O stuffed bastards on our rear. You're completely in the clear. A detailed damage report would be good, both because I would like to know if I killed anything, and it becomes critically important if Covenant's O swarm starts taking potshots at your fleet.

We do need a general guideline as to how long field repairs take. Instant seems way too powerful(to the guy who didn't take it), but we don't want to stretch it out to the point it becomes completely irrelevant, so I'll suggest three hours an an initial idea, or one hour per 100 points invested in improved logistics as another though, or six hours minus each nundred after the first as another idea, or something along those lines of quantification if not those exact numbers. Also, I personally(again as the guy who didn't take it)think that a given amount of damage should only be field-repairable once without going to another strategic turn.

For example if your fleet has a 50 point battleship reduced to 5 by damage, and it gets away, it can then emergency repair 58%, or 26.1 points of damage, bringing it up to 31.1. Without a limitation on the emergency repair, it could pop back in for one round, and if it takes no further damage, withdraw again, repairing 58% of the remaining 18.9 damage, leaving it sitting at 42 or therabouts. If this kind of thing is possible, there'd be no reason why they couldn't fully repair at the beginning of each strategic turn from shipboard resources.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-02-04 04:22pm

I'm not sure how one can really 'run away' in space, unless you're hiding behind the planet. And since you don't seem to have any +R or whatever, I don't really see how you can justify 'running away' from Consequences, if he chooses to keep pursuit. And even if not, it's not like were doing a Star Trek game here. "Range" really doesn't mean anything. If you can RP it as a daring escape behind a moon, then alright, I suppose Consequences might choose to play along. But you can't just unilaterally declare that you have magically escaped combat--as far as I know, people don't move at terribly relativistic velocities, which means most weapon ranges will be way, way longer than someone can expect to run.

I didn't think we had in-combat repairs of just about any sort... I figured it happened outside of combat situations in a timeframe measured in days rather than hours. I mean, I've got some potent Logistics too, so I suppose I'd be just as well off as Hawkings when it comes to it, but the idea that you can automatically and freely repair ships inbetween combats seems extreme. Afterall, that makes retreat (or a moment of quiet) nearly the same as several new ships.

It also discourages people from actually just 'losing' vessels. Losing a vessel shouldn't be discouraged. If people can repair insanely fast (a matter of hours) then there won't be any sorts of drydocks, and they'll gain a huge monetary advantage by never needing to pay for the replacement vessels, just upkeep.

And damaged ships, which could either be scrapped entirely or repaired over time while still paying upkeep, would become an undue hinderance for everyone else. I would greatly benefit from logistics-wanking, but I think it's a bad idea. Allowing a Faction to repair, say, an amount of hitpoints PER DAY equal to their Logistics Score seems fair--but you'd need to be at a repair dock to do it and spend at least one day out of action.

That seems fair. But someone shouldn't be able to hide for an hour, bring their ship back to full power, and jump back in. That's just crazy-talk. Such a person would flee a combat with a bunch of 1 or 2 or 3 hitpoints left per vessel, lick their wounds for a few turns, then come back as if they had a brand new fleet. That's no good, and definately way too much bang for your buck.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2008-02-05 03:16am

By the way, I'm a little confused: What exactly is the force balance right now in Makay? How many ships did Crossroads send? And how many are the locals?

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-02-05 03:43am

Hawkings, I sent you a mail. I'm paused right now waiting for you... but if you're just going to idle while your system gets attacked, then I'm going to just have to pull my forces out and let you go back to dancing with the Fifth Fleet. I was hoping we'd all end up badly mangled, but at least have gotten some good punches in, but I'm not going to do all your punching for you. ;D

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2008-02-05 03:56am

I have only three ships, One 35pt Tradeship and two 15pt "Support" Destroyers. There is also a 16pt and a 10pt BusterMachine, both slightly stealthed behind the mian tradeship, details on on can be found in OOB.

Im not sure how many forces Darkevil has

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2008-02-05 04:11am

I've updated my OoB a bit more. Have fun reading some musing about various Imperial architectural styles. I am almost done with the V1. I'll get a bold by my name eventually.

And nut, if you want to send me a PM or something, feel free. You really have first dibs on making the first move in the negotiations. And I am in no hurry to rush it along.

Thirdfain, I'll probably try to write up a history on the failure of Syndicalism in the Molochi territory. Mostly though, you can see the primary answer in the culture section of my OoB, as well as the exceedingly strong Imperial Presence from being within a day or so of Terra and the Imperial center. No hard feelings but Moloch has been under Imperial rule for so many thousands of years the idea of a radical change like syndicalism would scare the shit outta what is a status quo populace.

If anyone else wants to work out more backstory politics please PM me, or just post something in either this thread or the background thread. Thanks.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2008-02-05 04:35am

On scene at the dastardly standoff are two squadrons of Makay cruisers. Each squadron is ten ships, each ship is ten points, that's two hundred points of ships currently formed up on the flanks of crossroads tradebarge.

I've also got the experimental raider squadron(6 ships, combat worthy weight around 48 points) heavily stealthed behind the tradebarge and trailing it at a distance.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-02-05 05:00am

Oh, and one more thing--combat turns... are we doing simultaneous turns? That's the way the rules make the most sense, since we look at what someone did LAST turn, rather than what they're doing to you their current turn. I just wanted to ask... because probably for the first time, that's about to come up. If people are actually on the same 'turn' but taking damage and losing ships just because someone posted first, that'd be no good!

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2008-02-05 08:23am

Covenant wrote:Oh, and one more thing--combat turns... are we doing simultaneous turns? That's the way the rules make the most sense, since we look at what someone did LAST turn, rather than what they're doing to you their current turn. I just wanted to ask... because probably for the first time, that's about to come up. If people are actually on the same 'turn' but taking damage and losing ships just because someone posted first, that'd be no good!

I was running on the assumption of simultaneous turns.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2008-02-05 09:44am

Turns are simultaenous. It's the fairest method. Otherwise, you end up with one side gaining an advantage.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2008-02-05 05:46pm

My OoB has all relevant point information within it. I will be posting some more fluff tonight, and maybe a few random Main Thread posts.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2008-02-05 06:42pm

Sorry for the short post and for not being around, I'm not going be able to spend as much time on this as I'd like.

turns have to be simultaneous

going to rework Logistics rules and Retreat rules as well. This is why we have playtesting.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2008-02-06 08:39am

Okay, we need a clarification of the timeline here. The minute Covenant's forces moved into effective range, or the second they started firing if they demonstrated an effective range in excess of what I expected, I would have shifted to engage him, as I'd previously stated my fleet was prepared to do. Turns are an hour of constant engagement unless a change has been made, so while there could be some percentage loss due to initial volleys hitting Hawkwings, there should by no means be a free turn of me taking it up the butt with no response(by the rules this should only happen if you get snuck up on in stealth, blithely sail into a stealthed ambush, or get interdicted out of ftl, or otherwise have a compelling fluff reason to sit and take it for an entire hour).

As such, the full strength volley that hit me should have been countered by nothing less than a 50-75% strength volley on my part, with the rest representing effort needed to reorient, shift power dedicated to engines for the pursuit, and volleys wasted on a cowardly retreating unworthy foe.