STGOD rules discussion

[Rogue 9]

It has been observed in the past that old school STGODs (I don't know about SDNWorld or how it works) need a leavening of new players to function properly (i.e. not end up in strategic deadlock), so I've decided to try my hand at starting an STGOD on a gaming forum I frequent.

If people want to join, the more the merrier, but the primary reason I'm making this thread is to ask about rules development, since I've never much been up on that end of the game in the ones I've played in. We're looking at adapting the rules from STGOD2k8 since they're convenient, but the prospective players have raised a few questions.

First, the usefulness of Active Defenses (D) as a stat. Looking back, I note that almost everyone had some ships with at least some amount of D in STGOD2k8, but we never saw any large fleet actions in that game to my memory, so I'm not sure how it would turn out in play. Since you only subtract 25% of your D value from incoming damage (for instance, one of my battle fleets in 2k8 had 70D total across all ships, and so would ignore 17.5 incoming damage each turn), it seems you'd almost certainly be better off with more basic ship points in almost all situations (in the case of one of my fleets, an extra 70 hit points and 14 offensive power fleetwide), though whoever wrote the Wiki entry seemed to think otherwise, stating that it is a superior defensive option. Am I (and the other players) missing something? (I apparently thought it was good three years ago, but I don't remember enough about it to remember why.)

Second, Improved Offensives (O) seems to be inconsistent about whether it does 10% or 20% of its value in targetable damage, though the 2k8 rules thread says 10%. Pursuant to this, again, the question is raised: Is this worth it and if so how, especially considering you have to have net higher C3I (which is reducible by D, should your opponent take it) to use O at all?

I haven't played in STGODs of any sort for a couple of years, so I'm not up on any rule advancements since 2009 or so. Right now they want me to moderate this shindig since it was my idea and I'm the only one (so far) who's actually played, so any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[Simon_Jester]

Active defenses sound great if you can contrive to outnumber the enemy, such that you're ignoring a large fraction of their total damage-dealing potential.

Not sure they're all that helpful otherwise.

[Rogue 9]

Okay, given that it's not mathematically worth taking in the least (this may change if whoever crunched these numbers comes along and explains his reasoning), what would be reasonable adjustments to make? After all, one need not simply reuse the same rules if they can be improved.

I'm turning over the idea in my head of having O count its total points value towards fleet throw weight as though they were basic points (though not with hit points accompanying, obviously), with a certain percent of that targetable if you have +5 net C3 (so you're not simply cutting your damage output by 50% and losing defense on top of it for an iffy benefit totally dependent on the relationship between two other stats), but I'm not sure if that would simply be too large of an advantage - I suppose it would depend on what percentage was targetable, since at the end of the day you're still losing durability on your ships for taking it. As for D, I'm thinking of simply upping the percentage of damage it ignores, say to 50%. I don't think having damage ignored = D is desirable, since in the case of one of the old Nashtari main battle fleets, that would put me at ignoring 70 points of offense each and every combat turn, a situation that would be extremely difficult to deal with via O (by taking out the heavy escort cruisers that are the source of most of the defense) since D also counts against enemy C3, and my ships also had ridiculous C3 suites, but this whole thing is simply a matter of calibrating the numbers.

As an example, under the old rules if a pair of Nashtari Guardian class light cruisers (10+5O+5C3) were to engage, oh, a Chamaran Conquest class fast cruiser (27+3H), they'd easily have enough of a sensor advantage to use their O... and would do a whopping 1 damage to it between them in addition to their combined normal throw weight of 4 (20% of their fleet weight), for a total of 5. They would take 5.2 in the return volley, and the single opponent would eventually kill both of them despite the fact that the two together are worth considerably more points (40 to 30). Under my proposal above, they'd do a total of 6 damage, with some percentage of it (perhaps still 10%) targetable, but given one target that's irrelevant; they'd still be able to kill their target - but would take heavy damage and probably be destroyed in return, the price paid for overgunning a light hull and sending it at a conventionally armed and armored target. (This isn't an unforeseen consequence; I operated Guardians with a pair of Polaris destroyers (5+5D+5C3) each at minimum for just this reason.)

It's really too bad that the combat stats didn't get more play in 2k8. Thanks to my shenanigans with stealth frigates, I have a very good idea of how the relationship between C3 and S works, but actual shooting didn't get a lot of time in the spotlight thanks to the game winding down so quickly from player dropout.

Edit: Scratch all this, I forgot about an important detail and didn't check up on it until just now. Fleet throw weight is 20% of base weight, not the full basic points total. I think the player raising all this objection didn't read it either; I should have double-checked. >_> Still glad to discuss the rules and possibly get more players (I could use a co-moderator if anyone's interested) though.