Lorns Fan DFC Patch (german space magic in space)

Samspace. Is that with all Lorn's changes? I find they have made BBs more competitive by far.

I can't comment yet about the other changes. Im sure they will help.

I'm just saying that I feel the biggest advantage the Avalon has over the New York/toyko is signature. I think the lower signature is much more advantageous than a few points difference. It allows me a turn or two more of shooting before someone can spot me. A BB gets a major spike and almost everyone can see him turn 2.

A battlecruiser, for being such a powerful weapon, should have more trouble hiding.

@samspace

Short version at the end.

I think you are focusing a bit too much on the signature alone, as it depends a lot on other circumstances. With my changes (after the suggestion to reduce them by another 1") a UCM Battleship is barely more visible then a Scourge Cruiser or 3" more then a normal UCM Cruiser. That is not that much, in particular as the Battleship itself has +2" Scan range compared to the cruiser so it can be seen further away but can itself see further as well.

Let´s look at the effective minimum range range, what do I mean by effective minimum range? The ship movement + it´s scan that is usually the minimum range against a target on silent running. There Battlecruisers fare no better then Battleships for all factions except PHR there the Battlecruisers have a 2" advantage.

In regards to orders you certainly have a point for the Perth/Avalon as it does not require weapons free to bring most of it´s weapons to bear, thought bloom partially mitigates this at least in regard to visibility. So a Perth firing will be at least visible for 12"+ enemy scan. While a weapons free Beijing would be visible for 21"+enemy scan. Though that is part of the issue with the "gun" battleships and why they got most of the discount compared to those mostly defined by torpedoes and/or bombers. Those usually only get a minor spike similar to the Perth and this spike comes pretty much at the end of the turn. So they have a minimum visibility range of 9"-15" which again is not that different.

For Scourge this is vastly different if the cloaking field is still active as there we get 8" against 11"-17" or even 23".


However on the other side there is one "buff" to Battleships one should not forget, they give +2 admiral levels effectively reducing their cost compared to the +1 level from Battlecruisers. In total numbers, the Battleship always saves you 60P for the admiral, while the BC saves 20-40 (depending on the starting admiral level).

If we look at the purpose of a Battlecruiser, then it historically was a ship with Cruiser level speed and Battleship level fire power or a "poor mans" Battleship. DFC appear to clearly go with the former version with I find more interesting. Though Hawk did vastly overrate the staying power a Battleship has over a Battlecruiser (at least for Scourge and UCM) which in combination to the approach types punishing you for taking a Battleship let to their sad state (aside from the Diamond).
I would rather fix the approach types then buffing the Battleships further, or nerfing the Battlecruisers.
In particular as this had to be done to the chassis and in most cases only one Battlecruiser variant is really strong, which would result in further buffs for the affected Battlecruiser versions.



Short version

I think my changes made the difference between Battleships and Battlecruisers already a lot smaller, also I would rather not change the Battlecruiser chassis as it affects all of them even those which are not strong, lastly I would rather buff the ship having issues rather then to nerf the better ship. Unless it is better then all alternatives and competition from other factions.

I can't comment yet about the other changes. Im sure they will help.

I'm just saying that I feel the biggest advantage the Avalon has over the New York/toyko is signature. I think the lower signature is much more advantageous than a few points difference. It allows me a turn or two more of shooting before someone can spot me. A BB gets a major spike and almost everyone can see him turn 2.

A battlecruiser, for being such a powerful weapon, should have more trouble hiding.

Hmm. The signature changes mean the BB only really loses 1 turn of firing at most. And this is assuming either both parties run silent to engagement OR that the BB goes off silent 1st. The reality is that this is not always the case. Especially depending on the scenario.

Another point to note. A UCM player can now easily fit 2 Beijing into a 1500 point battle. A friend tried this recently. We will need more games to see if it is a viable option, it didn't seem OP. However it was a statement and it was nice to see a BB wing that required real dedicated effort to deal with (deal with not destroy). Really felt like BBs should... ie slow, lumbering but hell yes were they a dominant presence.

@Brutoni

If you play more games with the above changes feel free to give feedback, what you think worked (at least as intended) or what you think did not work or felt unbalanced/bad.

Ideally with the fleet lists and/or scenario you played and a description why. I cannot make as much test games as I like as my usual opponents are rather busy.


The same goes for everybody who tries to "patch" as well, also if somebody wants to post it on FB feel free, ideally with a link to the forum so TT-Combat is reminded it exists.

Since Destroyers are up I add my ideas for changes first in this post and also in the starter ones:

-Rework of "Atmosperic" weapons with this special rule gain +2 Lock to their lock value if they shoot at targets outside of atmosphere.
-The light Tropedo gains "Particle" as the Larger one.
-Clarification in regards to gaining spikes while in silent running (other then being active scanned) if a ship in silent running gains a minor spike for any reason it reverts to it´s normal signature, if it would gain a major spike it gains a minor spike instead.

-Kiev: gains Calibre (L) for the UF-9000 Twin Mass Driver

-All Scourge Destroyers gain the Cloaking crest upgrade at no extra cost unless stated otherwise.
-Succubus: Occulus Beams gain "Atmospheric".
-Inccubus: The 4 Attack Furnance Cannon profile is lost, the other profile is reduced to BTL 3, in addition the point cost is increased to 60P (+5).

-Ariadne gains Rare
-Odysseus gains Rare and Stealth
-Jason gains Stealth and the Kingfisher Drones gain +2 Attacks.

-Chromium: Thermal Lance gains Atmospheric
-Cobalt 50P (-5P)


Edit: The idea behind this is to give all factions a vessel capable of attacking atmospheric targets effectively and to boost this in particular against heavily armoured targets like the PHR Strike Carriers. Thus the Kiev is even more deadly then before against atmospheric targets, but with a Lock of 5+ against non-Light and 4+ against Light targets outside of it, it no longer replaces other combat ships outright.

For Scourge I found all but the Inccubus a bit lacklustre, since they lacked a Atmospheric ship the Succubus got that role and the Iccubus got a reduction in fire power also with the forced upgrade they are the only ship to get a price increase.

For PHR I wanted to prevent people from building a list purely with bulk lander capable ships (or at least nearly so) by limiting the amount of Destroyers that land troops. Also the Blokade runners got a very minor buff, though I might remove it. I am also thinking of a way to nerf the non-atmospheric combat abilities of the Jason and to buff the atmospheric ones further that fits thematically.

For Shaltari I did not want two damage "BTL" ships, thus one got atmospheric. Also I think the Cobalt is a bit underwhelming so it got a price cut.


I might add some more Calibre L to atmospheric weapons will do the maths on them killing strike carriers to decide that.

From fluff the Incubus should loose the focused shot. After all it has only one barrel for the Furnace Cannon. But because the single barrel is larger it can get 5 dice for attack?

From fluff the Incubus should loose the focused shot. After all it has only one barrel for the Furnace Cannon. But because the single barrel is larger it can get 5 dice for attack?

Why 5 dice? That would increase the firepower it has instead of reducing it. Also I am not fond of creating new BTL variants as those are always a pain to calculate.

Somehow half is missing. Teaches me not to write form my mobile phone

The thing is:
Fluff describes a Furnace Cannon as usually with two barrels. It can fire and damage a large area or it can focus to almost guarantee damage but on a smaller area.

Tome that reads that a single Furnace Cannon barrel has Lock 4+, 2 Attacks with BTL 4. Two barrels have either Lock 4+, 4 Attacks with BTL8 or they focus the beams on a single area for Lock2, 1 Attack with BTL4.

The Incubus has only one barrel. This alone rules out the focused attack. But this single barrel is bigger than on the Ifrit.
So the Incubus' Furnace Cannon should have one of the following profiles:
Lock 4+, 3 Attacks, 1 Damage, BTL(6), Scald
or
Lock 4+, 5 Attacks, BTL(4), 1 Damage, Scald
or
Lock 3+ 2 Attacks, BTL(4), 1 Damage, Scald, Flash (because Lock 3+ seems to be the threshold to gain Flash with BTL weapons)

I am willing to consider these if you can provide me with the results these BTL produce otherwise I stick with ones I calculated.