Variant initiative determination in High Guard '80

[Carlobrand]

What fundamentally decides range is acceleration: the fleet with higher acceleration will tend to decide the engagement range. Since the acceleration of a ship in combat is determined by the amount of energy left for maneuver after weapons and defenses are powered (unless using emergency agility), agility tends to decide the engagement range.

Conduct a bidding war. The player who lost initiative in the last round (decide randomly on the first round) declares how much, if any, agility he will spend to gain initiative. The other player then counters with his own bid. If the other player's bid is equal to or greater than the original bid, the first player may accept this or raise his bid, and the second may respond by accepting that or raising his bid. This continues until both players agree on the amounts bid. Neither player may bid more than the maximum fleet agility (the agility of the slowest deployed craft in their fleet; don't count craft that are docked to other craft). Neither player may reduce a bid once it is made.

The highest bid wins initiative. If both bids are the same, initiative is determined normally by die roll (the larger fleet still gets a +1 DM to this roll).

Agility spent on determining initiative is not available during the combat step: a fleet of agility 6 that spends 4 points to influence initiative will subtract 4 from their agility during the subsequent combat step.

If this rule is used, a ship may be declared to be using its emergency agility during the initiative step, at any point during the bidding. The ships are diverting power from weapons to try to maintain the desired range (most often to get to long range so they can make a break-off attempt).

In effect, fleets may use agility to decide range or reserve agility to defense while yielding initiative to their opponents.

 

[Mako]

Sounds like an interesting, and useful process.

Though the multiple bidding, raising/rebidding, could take a while.

I'd say to curtail that, one bid - "winner takes all" in the process, since presumably, this is simultaneous.

That should speed up the process.

Of course, the one you've proposed works perfectly fine too, if you don't find it too time consuming.

 

[mike wightman]

Try this one.
Initiative.
1d6+(as much fleet agility you want to commit up to squadron max) + other usual DMs (fastest fleet, more ships)

agility used in initiative can not be used as a defensive DM.

Fleet agility is as usual the agility of the least agile ship in the fleet.

 

[Condottiere]

Should be in the group, since you can use faster ones to shield the slower ones.

 

[mike wightman]

No you can't unless you split your fleet.

Your fleet has to maneuver at the acceleration of the slowest least agile ship or your fleet gets strung out.

It's a function of HG maneuver abstraction and becomes even more obvious if you use vector based movement instead.

If you want to keep your fleet as a coherent unit then you are limited by the slowest.

That said I agree you could split your fleet into squadrons or divisions and fight out each of those mini-engagements, in which case the agility of the subgroup would be used.

 

[McPerth]

Is really initiative worth losing agility?

Agility is the best defense your ships have, while initiative is only used to decide the range. Thilw range may give you some DMs (depending on the weapons you have), I guess they will seldom (if not outright never) offset losing the Agility ones.

 

[mike wightman]

Being able to close to short range for a meson spinal attack may sway the battle in your favour.
Similarly being able to stay at long range may hamper a meson spinal enemy while you pour in the missiles.

You would have to weigh up the benefits odds wise to being an easier target vs a better chance to hit your opponent.

 

[McPerth]

Close range meson fire has a +2 DM. Missile fire at long range has +1 DM (and -1 DM at short range). And both sides will have this DMs.

If you have to sacrifice more than 2 agility to keep the enemy messons at long range, you still lose, and if he sacrificed none (or less than you), he's on advantage...

Same for missile to keep at close range...

 

[Carlobrand]

Is really initiative worth losing agility?

Agility is the best defense your ships have, while initiative is only used to decide the range. Thilw range may give you some DMs (depending on the weapons you have), I guess they will seldom (if not outright never) offset losing the Agility ones.

I'm playing with this in combination with some other variants I'm trying to develop, one of which is a visual range combat scenario. That one gets nasty because the spinals can't be used and the energy weapons hit harder.

Also working with a variant that puts more punch in the particle beam, giving them a bonus on the damage table that depends on their power input. Since particle beams deliver 5 times as much energy as a nuke, it never made much sense to me that they got the same roll, and they were rather easily rendered obsolete by armor as a result. Punching them up makes them a good alternative for someone who prefers to snipe from long range.

 

[McPerth]

I'm playing with this in combination with some other variants I'm trying to develop, one of which is a visual range combat scenario. That one gets nasty because the spinals can't be used and the energy weapons hit harder.

That's nice, but see that if agility is so sacrificed, the combat will be deadlier (as more weapons will hit).

Also working with a variant that puts more punch in the particle beam, giving them a bonus on the damage table that depends on their power input. Since particle beams deliver 5 times as much energy as a nuke, it never made much sense to me that they got the same roll, and they were rather easily rendered obsolete by armor as a result. Punching them up makes them a good alternative for someone who prefers to snipe from long range.

That's not how I read it...

If we take the power calculated for the BG as a basis, a factor 9 PA bay (TL15 100 dton bay) will deliver 60 EP to the target, while a factor 9 nuke missiles battery will deliver 900 (equivalent to a factor P PA spinal). Only the larger spinals deliver about 10% more than a single missile bay using nukes...

So, where do you take this about PAs delivering 5 times the power of a nukes salvo?

 

[mike wightman]

Actually the #9 PA bay only delivers 45EP to a black globe.
The amount of EP is calculated as factor x single turret EP - which for the PA is the barbette and its 5 EP as per the example on page 42 of HG '80.

Another thing worthy of note is that the original printings of HG'80 didn't have the rule that agility is a blanket DM for all weapons. It was added in TCS and later print runs.

But if you played the original version turret and bay weapons are a lot more useful because they hit more often.

 

[McPerth]

Actually the #9 PA bay only delivers 45EP to a black globe.
The amount of EP is calculated as factor x single turret EP - which for the PA is the barbette and its 5 EP as per the example on page 42 of HG '80.

You're right, sorry, my fault (I missread all energy weapons inflicted their full EP, byt taht's only for spinals).

in any case, the missiles EP delivered was right, so, the question stands:

So, where do you take this about PAs delivering 5 times the power of a nukes salvo?

Another thing worthy of note is that the original printings of HG'80 didn't have the rule that agility is a blanket DM for all weapons. It was added in TCS and later print runs.

But if you played the original version turret and bay weapons are a lot more useful because they hit more often.

I guess the HG in FFE's The Classic Books is 1980 one (is tha date given in the copiright), and on it, in page 46, among the to hit DMs (beside the missiles and bams tables) target's Agility is listed as - DM, as it is in page 47 besides the spinal weapons tables. So, what weapons are not?

 

[mike wightman]

It's the print run that determines if the errata was included. The one on FFE CT cd is print run 5, the one in the big floppy book CT:0-8 compilation is print run 12

I have five copies of HG 80, two of them are print run 1 so lack the agility DM on the turret/bay weapons tables on page 45, the agility DM only appears on the spinals tables.

When A5:TCS was published it made the point that:

The agility modifier applies to hits by all weapons types. It was accidentally left off the list of modifiers on page 45 of High Guard.

As I said, later print runs of HG'80 corrected the page 45 DMs.

So to answer your question - the weapon tables on page 45 were originally not affected by agility.

 

[Carlobrand]

A factor 9 missile battery is a salvo of many missiles - don't recall how many and my books aren't handy atm. Since the salvo doesn't do any more damage than a single missile, it appears the BG is intercepting more missiles than would otherwise actually hit. One missile does 100 EP, or 200 at TL 13, so that's the baseline for what's actually hitting the hull at any single point.

 

[McPerth]

A factor 9 missile battery is a salvo of many missiles - don't recall how many and my books aren't handy atm. Since the salvo doesn't do any more damage than a single missile, it appears the BG is intercepting more missiles than would otherwise actually hit. One missile does 100 EP, or 200 at TL 13, so that's the baseline for what's actually hitting the hull at any single point.

See that this happens with all turret weapons too. A factor 9 beam lasers is 30 weapons, yet, if it damages a ship, the damage is the same as a single beam laser...

 

[kilemall]

I tend to think about HG abstract as how it would play out as vector movement.

So how about this.

All battles start at long range.

Second round is straightup initiative as you suggest, 1d6 + Maneuver 'Bid' +1 biggest fleet size DM + presumably Fleet Tactics.

From that round on, the range does not change unless one fleet rolls 3 or over. This is because battles would not switch ranges that quickly.

Gives more of an incentive to expend Emergency Agility when fleet range is more important then a round of firing.

Also makes short range more of a finishing range since it will likely take 2-3 emergency agility rounds to escape.

 

[kilemall]

See that this happens with all turret weapons too. A factor 9 beam lasers is 30 weapons, yet, if it damages a ship, the damage is the same as a single beam laser...

The far more egregious damage issue is the same results hitting maneuver whether it is a Type S or an AHL, same maneuver hit knocks down the same maneuver speed.

 

[aramis]

I tend to think about HG abstract as how it would play out as vector movement.

Rules for that are in Mayday.

 

[McPerth]

The far more egregious damage issue is the same results hitting maneuver whether it is a Type S or an AHL, same maneuver hit knocks down the same maneuver speed.

The main difference is that the type S would also sustain several criticals due to factor vs size effect...

 

[kilemall]

Rules for that are in Mayday.

I don't like the ranges OR the time scale.