Generalized question

[greywolf79]

What do you find is the most tedious/boring/time consuming item in playing the table top game that could be made easier or faster with a program (examples - generating an opposition force, starting funds for a unit, contracts for a mercenary unit, converting currency between the realms, etc)

Just curious what others find as the most bothersome part that might benefit from a simple program to help make it easier/faster.

[Force of Nature]

Play Alpha Strike. Your welcome.

[Death by Lasers]

  The fire declaration and resolution system can be tedious in larger games.  To plan your attacks you need to mentally work out the target numbers, then you need to declare your shots, then you need to do that for all your units, then once you are done with all that and need to move on to fire resolution you have to go back and remember what you fired and what the to-hit number was.  Now you can write down everything but notation adds time.  It's not a big deal in small games but in larger ones it's easy to loose track and be forced to recalculate everything in your head.

  Digital record sheets that could fit on a tablet would be perfect for this.  It would have to be very streamlined though and be faster/easier than writing things down but something that you let you quickly tap your to-hit variables and save everything for later combat resolution would be great.  Something like what Megamek does for you but using inputs from tabletop.

[Colt Ward]

From what my wife said there is an app for that, I would have to ask what it is since I never used it.

[Kit deSummersville]

When you come up with the app for creating more free time let me know.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Play Alpha Strike. Your welcome.

  The fire declaration and resolution system can be tedious in larger games.  To plan your attacks you need to mentally work out the target numbers, then you need to declare your shots, then you need to do that for all your units, then once you are done with all that and need to move on to fire resolution you have to go back and remember what you fired and what the to-hit number was.  Now you can write down everything but notation adds time.  It's not a big deal in small games but in larger ones it's easy to loose track and be forced to recalculate everything in your head.

  Digital record sheets that could fit on a tablet would be perfect for this.  It would have to be very streamlined though and be faster/easier than writing things down but something that you let you quickly tap your to-hit variables and save everything for later combat resolution would be great.  Something like what Megamek does for you but using inputs from tabletop.

I don't really think DbL was repeating and confirming what FoN was saying, but he may as well have been.  One of the more subtle changes in Alpha Strike is the removal of a phase just for attacks declaration.  You could do the same thing in CBT/Boardgame BattleTech.  It will speed the game up, not just in a meta sense but also in a gameplay sense.  Watch targets melt much, much faster to enemy fire when you declare each shot after having seen the cumulative effect of the preceding ones.  Of course, that may or may not be a goal in "speeding up" CBT.

[Cryhavok101]

Figuring out how/if fire spreads each turn once you set it. Tracking fire can take more time than the whole rest of the game, especially on paper mats you don't want to write on.

[Highball]

.

[Weirdo]

Why are the DropShip templates different sizes when by the rules they all gave the same ground footprint? ???

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Why are the DropShip templates different sizes when by the rules they all gave the same ground footprint? ???

Sometimes the rules themselves are wrong.

[Weirdo]

Well until the errata gets pushed through, the rules is what they is.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Well machine guns being inaccurate at 91 meters and beyond is a rules thing that doesn't even represent the in-universe "reality".  90 meter wide dropships being crunched  inside a space 30 meters across is another time the rules "get it wrong", even if the construction rules do arguably imply that there is indeed matter compression technology at work in the BTU.  However having multi-hex dropships is a house rule that doesn't really do much harm, or at least as much harm as messing with the weapon ranges anyway.

[Highball]

Why are the DropShip templates different sizes when by the rules they all gave the same ground footprint? ???

Because I took the time to make sure they are all done to the proper scale and with the correct silhouette. I never passed them off as official, just more accurate. Maybe one day in the next TRO they are in someone will take the time to do them all accurately instead of quickly. Until then it is just a fan made contribution to any universe the fans wish to use them in.

[Arkansas Warrior]

Play Alpha Strike. Your welcome.

You find playing Alpha Strike to be the most tedious/boring/time consuming thing at the tabletop?  Interesting.

[Kit deSummersville]

Well machine guns being inaccurate at 91 meters and beyond is a rules thing 

Not if you use all of the rules.

[StoneRhino]

One of the more subtle changes in Alpha Strike is the removal of a phase just for attacks declaration.  You could do the same thing in CBT/Boardgame BattleTech.  It will speed the game up, not just in a meta sense but also in a gameplay sense.  Watch targets melt much, much faster to enemy fire when you declare each shot after having seen the cumulative effect of the preceding ones.  Of course, that may or may not be a goal in "speeding up" CBT.

We used to do that to speed things up, but when you have a player that keeps on firing at a single light mech until it is dead, it sucks the fun out of the game. It does so by reducing the necessary thought to select a target and assign the amount of fire that you believe will be needed to take it down. Having to choose to fire x amount of weapons at a light mech gives lighter units a chance to survive as the person can only adjust in the next turn instead of dumping more shots until they hit or run out of weapons to use.

[Death by Lasers]

We used to do that to speed things up, but when you have a player that keeps on firing at a single light mech until it is dead, it sucks the fun out of the game. It does so by reducing the necessary thought to select a target and assign the amount of fire that you believe will be needed to take it down. Having to choose to fire x amount of weapons at a light mech gives lighter units a chance to survive as the person can only adjust in the next turn instead of dumping more shots until they hit or run out of weapons to use.

  Yeah, as much as it slows down the game the targeting and firing resolution phases add a nice tactical element to it.  A big part of my game experience is trying to figure out just how much firepower is enough to get the job done.  You have turns where you blow an entire companies firepower on a lone mech for it to be dropped with the first shot by a gauss slug to the head and alternatively you turns where you try to distribute your shots just perfectly only for the targets to come out alive and returning fire the next turn.  It really makes you think carefully about just how much you want to throw into each target.

[ActionButler]

I have solved that with a 60 second hourglass timer for movement and a 30 second hourglass timer for fire declaration.

That... is such a good idea.

[Simon Landmine]

You have turns where you blow an entire companies firepower on a lone mech for it to be dropped with the first shot by a gauss slug to the head

(And, if you're playing MM, it will still calculate how many of the other shots hit, too, sometimes resulting in the target taking multiple forms of terminal damage in the same frenzy of destruction, just to really rub it in.)

[Sartris]

I don't really think DbL was repeating and confirming what FoN was saying, but he may as well have been.  One of the more subtle changes in Alpha Strike is the removal of a phase just for attacks declaration.  You could do the same thing in CBT/Boardgame BattleTech.  It will speed the game up, not just in a meta sense but also in a gameplay sense.  Watch targets melt much, much faster to enemy fire when you declare each shot after having seen the cumulative effect of the preceding ones.  Of course, that may or may not be a goal in "speeding up" CBT.

We play cbt with alpha strike targeting. It allows me to plan much more ambitious scenarios for our relatively short three hour window. It doesn't suck too much tactical nuance out of the game.