anyone bold enough to test drive this? (Aerotech/warship house rule)

[Cannonshop]

what it says on the box-I need someone to tell me what the flaws and breakdowns are for the following campaign special condition rules:

WS Scale stuff:  Fleet Doctrines

Fleet doctrines are meant to provide both an advantage and a limiting factor that is non-portable between factions.  These work like quirks for your forces, and are meant to function as both stereotypes, and as something to work in creatively by creating specific limitations.

They're not, at present, properly balanced ideas.  I want to see if anyone can use them all effectively.

Federated Suns/FedCom (suns side):

Ramming Specialist.  Yah, it sounds like  a joke. This ability applies to dropships and warships, and provides a -3 to the difficulty for ramming attacks against other space-naval/dropship or warship units.  It provides a defense bonus of additonal 10% 'ghost' Structural Integrity when a ramming attack is declared during the movement phase, and an additional 30% acceleration (with attendant fuel burn of times-three).  After the ramming attack is resolved (Successfully or otherwise) the 'ghost' integrity ceases to exist.

"...the most successful naval tactic employed by all sides during the FedCom civil war, was the ramming attack..."

Explanation: you train to do what works.  For FS and FC Naval training, ramming attacks were a staple of the Civil war and Jihad eras, while this tended to lead to losing a ship for every ship brought down, it WAS their most effective strategy, and subsequent generations of AFFS naval officers trained and drilled and refined doctrine around the Ramming Attack.

Function: To initiate a ramming attack, like other physical attacks, requires a PSR check.  For Non-Fedsuns units, this PSR comes at a penalty, but for Fedsuns, that penalty is mooted, and in its place, a temporary bonus to structure and a bonus to piloting skills is applied.

This ramming attack maneuver (and its bonuses) may not be applied to targets smaller than a dropship.



***

Ok, Guys, pick it apart and tell me HOW to fix it.  if this works out, I'll have more ideas covering the other factions.

[dgorsman]

Sounds like SFA (Special Fleet Ability), like SPA (Special Pilot Ability) for smaller unit types.  Also works as a nod to the more common acronym.

[Daryk]

Similar to the melee specialist SPAs, it does absolutely nothing against the usual anti-warship tactics of "shoot it... a LOT!"

[Cannonshop]

Next one:

Draconis Combine:

Conservation of Ninjutsu

For every DCA vessel dropship size or above destroyed, the remaining DCA units in the flotilla of similar size gain a bonus to one of the following elements (in order)

1. Piloting (-1 to all TN's)
2. Gunnery(-1 to all TN's)
3. Initiative (+1 to initiative roll)

This only applies to dropships, jumpships, or warships engaging in battle with opposing dropships, jumpships, or warships.  (meaning this doesn't apply when only facing fighter units)

Doctrinal Basis:  Per FM:Draconis Combine, the Draconis Combine Admiralty is remarkably competent, and grossly underfunded, giving them something of a deficit in large fleet actions, but they're highly competent at smaller scale (well, for warships and dropships) engagements.

Downside: When DCA Fleet elements outnumber their opponents at the beginning of an engagement (or until they don't outnumber them) they take the following penalties:

1. Gunnery (Increase difficulty by 1 for each dropship or jumpship the Draconis Combine has over their opponent.)
2. Piloting (increase difficulty on PSR rolls by 1 for every 2 vessels they outnumber their opponents.)
3. Initiative (penalize by 1 for every extra dropship, jumpship or warship)

are the penalties too harsh? should this be altered? do you think it would make for an exciting table-game to have this in play for the Draconis Combine Admiralty?

[Daryk]

I would use force ratios vice number of ships over/under parity.  That's simply too subject to abuse.

[Cannonshop]

I would use force ratios vice number of ships over/under parity.  That's simply too subject to abuse.

Hm.

I was aiming for 'easy to implement' more than strict mathematical precision.  The basic idea, is that the force with "Conservation of Ninjutsu" gets steadily tougher as they lose vessels, but also suffer a deficit when trying to operate with superior numbers, and they don't start getting the BENEFITS until they start losing ships-IOW at your 'baseline' if the DCA force has equal or fewer numbers, they don't get that bonus until they start losing hulls, but they take the penalty if they start with more hulls than their opponent.

The idea is to create a situation where the player, when setting up his force, wants to balance between having enough ships at the start, to start accumulating bonuses by losing a few, but not so many that he takes the penalties for starting with more ships than his opponent.

Literally following the Teevee trope of the same name.

I'm kind of imagining a situation where our hypothetical Davion player, and our hypothetical Drac player, are fighting a 'balancing act' game.  The Davion player absolutely wants to start with more hulls than his opponent, but it can bite him in the ass if he succeeds too quickly without succeeding completely.

IOW in this hypothetical matchup, the Davion player wants to win early, because the Kurita 'fleet special ability' is all about enduring losses to triumph and fighting at a disadvantage.

[Cannonshop]

FWL: Line-Dancing

FWL shipbuilding in canon shows a pretty good conceptual of mutual support.  which is weird, because their nation's cultural trope is all about being divided internally.

let us postulate that Naval doctrine actually formed the basis for their shipbuilding choices, which array out into nice carrier-groups.

FWL flotillas benefit from having specialists working in concert. (Obviously).

As long as a Free Worlds League Naval unit is configured in a coherent geometric shape (Triangle, square, diamond, pentagon with a ship at each point and so on)  The FWL ships gain a bonus to gunnery and initiative.

This extends to Smallcraft and fighters assigned to that formation's vessels, as a nod to the Atreus class as a carrier.

Formation discipline actually WORKS for the Free Worlds Navy.  as long as the geometric figure is 'even', this bonus applies to defensive gunnery (shooting down fighters, bracket-fire with weapons) and so on, and provides a bonus of -1 to the TN for their fighters. 

Downside:  When the formation is broken (by destruction or moving out of formation), the bonus vanishes unless or until the large combatants can assume another even geometric shape.

To put this into play, the major combatants from the FWL flotilla must each form a corner or point in a geometric shape (square, triangle, octagon, whatever).  The inside of the figure may be empty, or may contain a SINGLE large combatant (no more than one).

For this, defensive gunnery tasks gain a -2 difficulty for the ships themselves, offensive gunnery -1, and smallcraft or fighter units gain a -1 bonus.  With a single large combatant placed at the center of the formation, the entire force gains a bonus to Initiative of plus one pip on the die roll.

I know, compared to the Kuritans it doesn't LOOK powerful, but think about it: by arranging your ships in a formation, as a FWL player, you gain those bonuses across your entire force, including fighters.

I think this one's a powerful one.

[Daryk]

I think Line Dancing works.

As for the Conservation of Ninjutsu, just round the ratio so that the minute you're one ship more or less than the opponent, your bonus changes.

[Cannonshop]

Capellan Navy: Pushing it to the firewalls

Hopeless Battle syndrome, Xin Sheng, the Capellan people are marked with fanaticism whether winning or losing.

to that end, when pushed against the wall, they fight like lunatics and take very bad chances doing things that are objectively unwise.

This actually works for them-often enough, at any rate.

Upon the loss of 1/4th of a Capellan Naval group (aka losing one out of four dropships, or more) in a single turn, Capellan players may fire all Naval weapons except Missiles at double the rate (and ignore the heat effect for a full turn after), and gain 50% More MP for Naval Vessels-as long as they're closing with the enemy.

At the end of this bonus turn, the Cappie player needs to roll for critical damage to his own units from exceeding the design limits of his vessels.

Each large scale enemy kill during this 'berserk rage' extends the duration of the effect for a single turn, and delays the impacts of  each critical roll until the burst of "Pushing it to the firewalls" is over.

At which time, the accumulated critical damage will take effect before the movement phase of the next turn.

[Daryk]

I think that one works too.  I doesn't strike me as particularly balanced against the Ramming thing, but it looks objectively workable.

[Cannonshop]

Lyran Commonwealth Navy: Depressurized Operations.

Factions this is available to: 

Lyran Commonwealth, Taurian Concordat.

Mechanics of it: 

Critical hits only score on 12 or higher on 2D6, and only inflict 1 crit, if the crit is missed on the location, it's considered 'used' and may not be re-rolled.  Damage to Life support does not apply at all to combat beyond adding one additional system in need of repair for repair rolls, or as a system that must be repaired after-battle in campaign play.

Further;
Critical damage may be 'jury rigged'/repaired during battle on a successful PSR plus the number of critical injuries taken.  (for example, a ship with 1 critically damaged system may make a PSR plus 1 to repair it, while a vessel with 4 critical damage not already repaired needs PSR plus four to repair 1 system).



Why of it?:  Through most of the civilized galaxy, naval vessels operate at 1 atmosphere pressure and a shirtsleeves environment when going into combat.  The Terrans did it, the Rim Worlds did it, Davion, Liao, Marik,Kurita, and the Clans do it this way.

Starting in the post-Clan invasion era, the LCN (LAN) started doing things a little differently-they started dumping the atmosphere before the fight gets going, and fighting their ships 'at ambient pressure'.  This has several useful knock-on effects:

1. Fires and shockwaves don't propogate through vacuum.  This prevents the bulk of critical damage from impact hits and limits the spread of damage inside the vessel.  it also prevents the catastrophic rupture of the pressure hull, and reduces the cost to repair damage post-battle.

2. It makes combat damage control MUCH EASIER.

Downsides:

1. Crew costs and crew training in campaign multiply by 1.5 to 2.5 depending on branch.  (Jumpship/Warship crew cost 2.5, Dropship crew cost 1.5).

2. This doctrine does not extend to dedicated transport dropships for ground assault.

Intent:  This doctrine allows LCN vessels (Dropship or larger, but not transport dropships) to absorb damage well in excess of an equivalent vessel, effectively turning them into 'zombie' units able to keep going until Structural integrity is completely lost at near full capability, and it also speeds repair and recovery post-battle as the damage from even very large hits did not spread.

I admit, this one is out of my own vanity project, and I'm probably missing some logical outcomes with it, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple to implement without going past the point of grossly OP compared to the other Doctrines/SFA's posted here.

so, any thoughts to refine this?

[Daryk]

The "doesn't apply at all" language should be clarified.  Life Support critical hits should actually happen, just have no effect in combat other than to count as a damaged system for purposes of in combat repair.

And the Taurians should absolutely have this one from their origin.  Belters/Folk too, if they're considered "factions".

I LOVE this one, BTW!  :thumbsup:

[Cannonshop]

The "doesn't apply at all" language should be clarified.  Life Support critical hits should actually happen, just have no effect in combat other than to count as a damaged system for purposes of in combat repair.

And the Taurians should absolutely have this one from their origin.  Belters/Folk too, if they're considered "factions".

I LOVE this one, BTW!  :thumbsup:

Good Catch, I made the adjustment.

[kindalas]

I think that you should add ones for each house/nation where you have competent doctrine and not so much so.

So for the Lyrans who have a very powerful competent doctrine their incompetent one can reflect the social mech jock admiral. Or as Spock says "2D thinking".

For the Combine incompetent could be factional disharmony giving an initiative penalty as soon as a planned course of action spirals out into nonsense.

For the FWL it could be a good at building but bad at maintaining sort of penalty.

The Capellans can be a not really understanding the technology that they were gifted by their "allies" type penalty. Maybe the FWL, WOB and C* (and RotS) get a bonus against them because they have exploits left in their systems.

And for the Federated Suns whose bonus is dubious it can be an increased option of the XO placing the lives of the crew and the ship and the nation above the glory of the captain and shooting him in the head.

[idea weenie]

Comstar/WoB

Victory through superior technology

If a Dropship or Warship has an on-board NCSS of either size, it gets +1 to ts Initiative.
If a Dropship or Warship is linked via Naval C3 System to another allied ship, it gets +1 to its Initiative.

These effects stack.

(Not sure if ECM/ECCM would get a benefit from this setup.  Perhaps a ship datalinked can lend its ECM/ECCM over the datalink, sacrificing its own protection to allow the selected ship to get half benefit?)


The initiative bonuses do help, but these benefits do not help the mounting ships with weapons accuracy, weapon damage, armor protection, etc.  Plus in order to get these bonuses you have to install expensive systems.

[Daryk]

I think +1 is too low for a full up NCSS, and the two sizes should be differentiated.