was it ever stated what the new "160 point" equivalent value is?Excellent question. No, it wasn't. For now it seems 375-400 is a decent equivalent.
was it ever stated what the new "160 point" equivalent value is?The average point increase is about 2.28, so about 365 points.
Interestingly enough the 4K and 4T Rokurokubi models have the same PV. The only difference is one special ability; ENE. At first I thought this was a sign of imbalance but now I'm thinking that with two points of structure there's little real difference.
Amusing all the same though.
Hello. This is my first post, only got around to registering in response to the Alpha Strike Companion Open Beta Test. :)
My gaming partners tend to argue that the ON1-M should be higher in point value compared to the ON1-K in point value to offset the slightly higher attack value and additional SPECIALs on the ON1-M even though it is a little fragile in terms of armor or structure.
Now, I have got my copy of the revised BETA Point Value System, and in the BETA Point Value System, the Orion ON1-K is now 39 points versus the Orion ON1-M at 36 points - In other words, the ON1-M is slightly cheaper despite slightly higher attack value and additional SPECIALs on the ON1-M even though it is a little fragile in terms of armor or structure.
So the question is : Is the new calculation a little too harsh in penalizing structure and armor values, or is this just a fluke for the Orion ON1-M vs ON1-K?
It's a fair question, but I think things are reasonable in that regard, in that 1 less point of armour, 3 less points of structure, and no OV are nothing to sneeze at: the -M has significant drawbacks here to offset SNARC and an extra point of damage at medium and long. To put it another way, do you feel the extra one potential damage point a turn worth the ability to take 4 less damage in return? Bear in mind that Flak and LRM aren't worth anything right now.
However, perhaps the effect should only kick in for units moving 10" or less, not 12" or less. What do others think?Well in the normal game 5/8 is enough to get into range, only 4/6 units seem to have that problem with me. So having the Brawler modifier for units moving 8" or less would be enough for me.
More Experienced: for each 1 point of Skill Rating lower than 4, multiply the Final PV by 1 + (0.1 per Skill Rating below 4, min Skill Rating is 0).
When Alpha Strike was first released, I ran a few test scenarios to get familiar with the ruleset. For Inner Sphere vs. Inner Sphere I found the game balanced, but for a combined arms IS vs Clan battle the results were very one-sided in the favor of the Spheroids. During the test, an elite artillery lance of LT-MOB-25 proved incredibly effective for their points.
As an exercise, I recalculated the point value of the two forces under the new system. Previously, they were both 185 points. Under the new system, the IS force came in at 580 points, compared to 386 points on the clan side. This calculation much more accurately reflected the way the actual game went.
By the way, I'm primary a lurker here, but wanted to thank whomever came up with this system. I think that this is exactly what Alpha Strike needs (assuming it is rolled into the MUL!).
27.8% for the Gladiator over 8 turns is more than 1 kill. It's got nearly a 2.15% chance of having killed all three by turn 3. (27.8% * 27.8% * 27.8% = 2.15%?) thats nearly 5% by turn 4 and keeps going up from there.?
Also, I don't think you considered the reduced damage the Locusts will do each time one of them is destroyed.
And, I beleive the PVs are taking into account the proposed standing still option where that Gladiator could choose to increase its chance to hit those Locusts fairly dramatically in return for giving up its own TMM. That would be hell for those Locusts, with the Gladiator having the option of giving itself a 50% chance of hitting one each turn?
The Wasp would normally be 9.5 points, rounded up to 10. However, as it only has short range weapons and a move of 12" or less, it gets the Brawler modifier, which gives it a 25% discount. It's meant to duplicate what I call the Charger Effect, which is that the Charger doesn't suck just because it has short range weapons, but because it has such a hard time bringing them to bear as well.
However, perhaps the effect should only kick in for units moving 10" or less, not 12" or less. What do others think?
I did take the death of a Locust into account, actually. By turn 4 the Locusts should have hit only 3 times on 11 shots (with one of them having been killed by turn 3 or 4), and one of those shots going into he Gladiator's rear, doing an average of 2.3 damage each hit. As for the standing still option, you are correct in that I did NOT take that into account. I chose not to so as not to bring tactics into the equation. I went purely off of math. If the Gladiator stood still then the Locusts would hit on 5s and a 6, standing an 83.3% chance of doing 7 damage that turn (with one firing from the rear arc). Assuming the Gladiator hit and killed one that turn (at only a 50% chance) he would be left with only 2 armor points, and only be able to shrug off one more hit from a Locust; which would still have a much higher chance of hitting it then the Gladiator would of hitting them.
As for the 2.5% chance of getting 3 kills in 3 turns, I'm willing to bet my chances of winning a game against those odds.
I also noticed that thrust seems to be weighted extremely low for large craft. There seems to be little meaningful difference in cost between a low-performance merchant dropper like the Buccaneer (1.5) and something insane like the Dragau (4.5). For a massive difference in combat performance, one costs three points more than the other.
It was felt that speed wasn't actually all that valuable for aero units (other than the magic over-10-Thrust threshold), what with no TMM and no terrain to move over. Would you disagree? If so, why, and how might you want to fix it? Detail is important. Thanks.
Thanks for the response. Interesting description for the "Charger Effect". :D
For that, I think 10" or less would be idea - anything less and we will throw in the rest of 8" into it, which might be a bit too much.
I've noticed one error in the PV provided there, so anyone using it, don't take them for granted - the Fire Moth-H is listed as costing 13 points, when (unless my math is WILDLY wrong) it should be 16.
Move Rate 6.25 = 26*.25
...+IF(ISERROR(FIND("AC3",$P2,1))=FALSE,-0.1,0)+...
An issue that I've bumped into repeatedly is a.... killer threshold, above which the 'Mech is extraordinarily lethal. It seems to be around 7-9 points.
Specifically, the Executioner-D is the one that I'm having doubts about. Despite costing 58 points under PV 2.0 (and this IS a situation I had under my own system!) it can regularly destroy units all out of proportion to its points cost - even worse with just a single skill upgrade. With 7/7/2 and OV1, it can deal out 8 points of damage in a single blow.
When you stack it up against the AS7-D, which costs 52 points under the new system, it seems to have a lot more than just 8 points of advantage (so far in 8 games where they've come to blows, the Executioner has come out on top 7 times even counting lancemates).
Yes, it could be down to tactics, keeping out of range etcetera, but it is rather hard to stay out of MEDIUM range - especially when you're up against a unit that goes 10/8j.
I'm thinking the advantage the Executioner has might be down to that 'killer threshold' of 7-8 damage, which lets it breach armor regularly on anything but the heaviest of designs, and outright kill most Sz2 units or smaller.
I'd want to do more testing, and track down more units that breach that damage threshold of 6 or 7 points (they are quite rare!), but perhaps adding an 'overkill' area to the PV, where if a unit deals more than X damage you increase the multiplier or something, could be a fix.
You feel that way after using the new beta point system? Or is this based on the current published point values?
I believe the new point system is presented in the beta is assuming the ability to use the stand still for a -2 to hit option. And to get the jump TMM bonus, the jper would have to take a +1 to hit penalty.
So the Atlas, with skill 4, at long range against a +4 TMM, would need a 10 if standing still.
The jumper would need, with skill 4 and long range, 9.
That would make the point costs more appropriate? If those rules change or end up not being used at all, then yes, I agree high TMM needs to cost more. But do you think it needs to cost more with those two rules in particular?
If the Atlas stands still, it suffers a -2 to-hit it as well, aff?
I think the total To-hit modifier at it's max needs to be accounted for, primarily. A Jenner IIC 2 has a +4 to-hit modifier at max, a Locust has a +5 To-hit modifier at max. Both of these really ought to cost more than half of an assault mech, owing to their difficulty to hit.Wouldn't this make them also overvalued against units that are less affected by to-hit modifiers?
What do you mean, can you give me an example?Any unit with abilities that reduce the to-hit or ignore the to-hit. Such as:
Sounds more like Stealth armor is undervalued. Maybe a multiplier of the TMM instead of a flat amount.
Other week we tried playing using the rules for giving up your movement mod to get +2 to hit. It did make hits much more likely, but it also made the attacking unit a really juicy target. Seems like a good balance of risk/reward.
Skill | PV modifier |
0 | 1.50 |
1 | 1.42 |
2 | 1.31 |
3 | 1.17 |
4 | 1 |
5 | .86 |
6 | .75 |
7 | .66 |
8 | .61 |
Sereglach,To streamline pre-game play, however, if we're advocating a switch to using these numbers it'd be best to round them to the nearest imho, like so:
After reading over and applying much consideration to your post, I have discovered a problem.
Piloting skill is calculated after PV, but the pilot skill only affects a portion of the mech's abilities (namely, it's offensive value).
Now, we could add in the pilot skill as part of the PV equation, and just multiply the pffensive value by the modifier.
Or, we could figure out what the average percent contribution the offensive value gives to the total.
That's 42%, by the way.
So, if we apply the same base-line average shot as we did to the movement modifier and calculate based on the difference from "4", we come up with the following...
Skill PV modifier 0 1.50 1 1.42 2 1.31 3 1.17 4 1 5 .86 6 .75 7 .66 8 .61
These modifiers should balance well, and are based on the same logic as the movement modifiers I provided earlier.
Skill | PV modifier |
0 | 1.5 |
1 | 1.4 |
2 | 1.3 |
3 | 1.2 |
4 | 1 |
5 | .9 |
6 | .8 |
7 | .7 |
8 | .6 |
To streamline pre-game play, however, if we're advocating a switch to using these numbers it'd be best to round them to the nearest imho, like so:
Skill PV modifier 0 1.5 1 1.4 2 1.3 3 1.2 4 1 5 .9 6 .8 7 .7 8 .6
Remember, what Alpha Strike is trying to achieve is NOT perfect mathematic accuracy of all odds involved in the game's play, but an easy-to-use and enjoyable simplification of Battletech's rules using Battleforce as a starting point. Taking the fractional accounting too far kinda ruins that.
Besides, what difference does .03 in the cost of a 40 point unit make?
I always hesitate to say "It seems to be perfect"I like the sound of that regardless :D
I'm recalculating point values for some heavy Aerospace assets for a campaign and had some questions regarding special abilities. Currently, it appears that only PNT (Point Defense) is mentioned in the BattleShop PDF, but the units I'm working with have fighter and small-craft bays, marines, et cetera. How should points for those be calculated?
EDIT: Also, should Extreme range values be incorporated into the Offensive Value calculation? I only recall seeing S/M/L in the PDF.
iamfanboy,I really hate to be dismissive, but I think you're thinking about this like a Battletech player, where lights had literally no ability to stand up to anything heavier than themselves and had no real 'on-table' role when taken as part of a BV-balanced force. That was a problem with Battletech itself, NOT with the idea of light units: the rules themselves simply don't favor units which can't take at least 10 points of damage in a single location, and the typical size of a Battletech game (4-6 mapsheets) just didn't allow the strength of lights to reveal themselves in a game of maneuver.
I would disagree with you about the movement modifier point value being balanced. I plan on playtesting the multiplier for movement mods as well as the modifier for pilot skill. My results with the current beta though thus far is that a +4 or +5 modifier can make stuff pretty ridiculous to hit still even with the -2 for standing still, and it's still cheap as hell, even under the new beta values.
Please try out the replacement Defensive Interaction Rating "step D" that I outlined in a previous post, and let me know how it works on your end!
I really hate to be dismissive, but I think you're thinking about this like a Battletech player, where lights had literally no ability to stand up to anything heavier than themselves and had no real 'on-table' role when taken as part of a BV-balanced force. That was a problem with Battletech itself, NOT with the idea of light units: the rules themselves simply don't favor units which can't take at least 10 points of damage in a single location, and the typical size of a Battletech game (4-6 mapsheets) just didn't allow the strength of lights to reveal themselves in a game of maneuver.
I want to make this clear, though: The main reason I'm being dismissive is that I spent some 6 months with a group of cutthroat players trying as hard as I could to break my own points system and found that speed HELPS, but doesn't WIN the game. It's an issue that I had myself so I examined, dissected, and tested the hell out of it in many different permutations with the help of some real bastards. The results were conclusive: if you pay too much for speed, it does nothing to help game balance. Speed is not armor, ARMOR is armor.
Think about the roles that a light unit is supposed to play. On the tabletop, they SHOULD are skirmishers, screeners, and flankers - while they may not be able to fight a heavier unit head-on, if that heavier unit doesn't have screeners of their own then they should be punished for it by being pounded from out of range or by simply being outmaneuvered.
At first, the tactic you're describing does seem to work out fine - the ability to peck at heavier 'Mechs from 30"+ away and never get hit by anything in return is impressive, for a given value of 'impressive' (I don't call taking 3-4 turns getting through an Atlas's armor for a single structure hit impressive). However, what's less impressive is when scout hunters or even other scouts close the distance, when artillery gets to within 31", or even a cluster bomb dropped from a quick overhead pass takes care of the issue.
If my opponent were foolish enough to take NOTHING but slow line 'Mechs, then there's a problem (on his end, not mine). But the use of even a bit of combined arms and there's no issue whatsoever.
I think part of the problem is that you aren't thinking in terms of a battlefield, but of raw numbers. If a Skill 3 Atlas sat in woods and fired at a group of Fire Moth-Cs at long range in woods then yes, eventually the Atlas would come off worse unless it got really lucky. But why is it just sitting there?