BFG FAQ 2010 General Rules Questions

[Vaaish]

You can never go past defense on the gunnery table. The first column only denotes battery strength.

[lastspartacus]

Right, but I think it should be a possibility.

[Vaaish]

I think it would be nonsense. Defenses represent stationary and usually fairly large targets which are by nature the easiest to hit. How can get better than that? That category is best you can get out of your ships weapons since, no matter how well placed your shots are some are still going to go wide, whether because something doesn't arm correctly, or jenkins over on targeting node three slipped and knocked the aim point off kilter.

[lastspartacus]

I'm referring to things like column shifts and double column shifts for sunward.  Would those have no effect on defenses?

I don't know about you, but I certainly have an easier time shooting a well lit object five feet away than one a hundred yards away in dim light

[Vaaish]

if the defenses column represents the best shooting you can do, then it doesn't matter if it's lit up more because you are already at the peak of your ability. Well lit on the gunnery chart IS defenses. Dim lit at 100 yards is an abeam escort. Do the math.

[lastspartacus]

Who said its the best you could do?  Theres no math to do, what does math have to do with it?

[skatingtortoise]

with a moving object, i assume youre constantly having to compensate for trajectory/speed etc. keep in mind that gunners are constantly compensating for their own vessels movement, which is where the error comes in.

at interstellar distances, id say 90% hit rate against a non moving object is pretty good - its equivalent to a guy with a pistol firing at a target several km away, and no amount of backlighting is going to cut out the inherent error. its something of an abstraction, but it works.

if there were no 'FP' column and just letters from a-t, would that solve your problem?   

[lastspartacus]

for squadrons, do you roll things like AAF as one roll for the squadron?  itd be real confusing otherwise.

[Sigoroth]

Yes, the actual firepower column is not part of the table. Yes, an abstraction such as letters could be used in place. However it doesn't necessarily follow that the Defences column is the best that you could get. Shooting at those same defences at short range should be better. Of course, maybe there will always be some sort of loss in firepower no matter how easy the target is. This is debatable, but let's assume true for now. Well, as pointed out, the actual firepower column is merely an abstraction. It could be replaced with letters. Therefore, since WB firepower is an abstraction, there's nothing to suggest that firepower 12 (or firepower class L if using letters) couldn't cap out at 14, 15 or 16 dice. It is only if you assume that each point of firepower represents 1 potential die of damage that there comes a cap on the maximum dice that a given firepower can represent. Then you could argue that you'll never achieve 100% efficiency under any circumstances, but you couldn't argue that the firepower column is merely an abstraction. So it's one or the other. If it's just an abstraction then there's no upper limit and therefore 90% of no upper limit makes, well, no upper limit. If it's not an abstraction then you could argue for the inefficiency.

However that is surely debatable. It is not beyond reason to suggest that it is possible to get all shots on target. It's also not unreasonable to suggest some loss, regardless of how plum the target is. That is to say, neither scenario is particularly unbelievable. However, the boundaries of the current table are a little unreasonable. An abeam Eldar escort at long range, into the sun (BZ 1-4), with a dust cloud between should be practically invisible. Similarly, it should be easier to hit a defence at close range than normal range, particularly into the sun (BZ 1-4). So since there's reason for the extra shift left and it's not forbidden, logically speaking, to get 100% accuracy then it is a reasonable suggestion.

If you really really didn't think it possible to get 100% accuracy then consider this scenario: All WB strength on all ships is doubled. The values in the Firepower column in the gunnery table are also doubled. So they're 2-40 instead of 1-20. Now you could insert 2 more columns between the defences column and the firepower column, representing increased potential accuracy under certain circumstances while still giving less than "100%" accuracy. That's just an example of how both the "inaccuracy" as well as "better performance" could be operationalised, not a suggestion.

As an experimental rule I would suggest including the firepower column in the chart, as well as reducing incoming firepower by 2 or 3 for each right shift beyond the furthest right of the table. To give an extreme example, targeting an abeam Eldar escort at long range into the sun (BZ 1-4) through blast markers would lose you 8-12 firepower.

[horizon]

for squadrons, do you roll things like AAF as one roll for the squadron?  itd be real confusing otherwise.

Yep.

[Vaaish]

Who said its the best you could do?

The game designers. They are the ones who didn't make a column better than defenses for us to use so we have to take it to mean that's the best shooting you can do.

[Plaxor]

The firepower chart just represents some fraction that they decided, rounded to the nearest whole number.

The fact that fp20=18 makes it look like .9 for column defenses, and for the fact that the value listed averages to be 88% what the firepower actually is, makes it all the more likely that it is in fact .9

Also with that, it explains the 'plateaus' at 6 and 16

Here's a scope:

1=.9 rounded to 1
2=1.8 rounded to 2
3=2.7 rounded to 3
4=3.6 rounded to 4
5=4.5 rounded to 5
6=5.4 rounded to 5
7=6.3 rounded to 6
8=7.2 rounded to 7
9=8.1 rounded to 8
10=9
11=9.9 rounded to 10
12=10.8 rounded to 11
13=11.7 rounded to 12
14=12.6 rounded to 13
15=13.5 rounded to 14
16=14.4 rounded to 14
17= 15.3 rounded to 15
18=16.2 rounded to 16
19=17.1 rounded to 17
20=18

All perfectly true for the defenses column. So therefore, they multiplied by .9 there.

Now lets look at the 'closing cap ship' column. Having a guess, they likely did .7

1=.7 rounded to 1
2=1.4 rounded to 1
3=2.1 rounded to 2
4=2.8 rounded to 3
5=3.5 rounded to 4
6=4.2 rounded to 4
7=4.9 rounded to 5
8=5.6 rounded to 6
9=6.3 rounded to 6

That proves to be true there, and for the sake of your sanity I wont keep writing there. But then lets move another column to moving away capital ships: which ends up being .5, and abeam capital ships: .35 (seems like an odd choice.) then the ordinance column =.2




So therefore, the entire chart goes: .9,.7,.5,.35,.2

Interestingly this means that 1 eldar weapons battery is the equivalent of 1.35 lesser race weapon batteries. (according to firing at cap ships) 1.42 according to escorts, of course equal in the cases of defense and ordinance.


So then lances.... we all have this judgement that lances count as 3wbs at 30cm. Lets say you're firing at an assortment of types at this range. So we will count each column once. Jn this case yes, 3 wbs end up equaling 1.07 lances at that range, but with the way blast markers work, I think this is shifted to about 3.5wbs=1 lance.

[Sigoroth]

So then lances.... we all have this judgement that lances count as 3wbs at 30cm. Lets say you're firing at an assortment of types at this range. So we will count each column once. Jn this case yes, 3 wbs end up equaling 1.07 lances at that range, but with the way blast markers work, I think this is shifted to about 3.5wbs=1 lance.

No, 3WB != 1 lance at 30cm range if you take BMs into account, but you also have to take short range into account. Besides, you don't just throw your WB ships in any which way. You actively manoeuvre them. Lance boats you throw in wherever they fit. That is, since you have some control you don't merely average the gunnery table. Sometimes you're called on to fire at the far right side of the table, but the majority of the time you shoot in the 0.5 and up column.

[RCgothic]

Yup, in most engagements with my IN I consider WBs to be easily preferable to 3L. I don't use many long range ships, but with the lack of control over which facing I get to target at long range, and the additional right shift, you can easily see how Lances are far superior at distance.

Kudos for working out the chart though, I had been wondering.

[skatingtortoise]

argument for current gunnery table:

im sure its written somewhere that a lance strike is a precision attack, directed at a ship, and weapon batteries are more of a 'fill space with explosions' (like a shotgun) kind of weapon. assuming this is the case, then every time WB's fire then against an 'invisible target', they will still know the rough location, and by sheer weight of numnbers 1 or 2 will hit. conversely, against a short range defence, that element of 'scatter' will still cause 10% of hits to go astray.

that said, personally id have no problem with being able to left shift to the FP column, or right shifts from ordnance = 0. even a 100/80/60/40/20 % in columns would do it for me, as it would even out the effect of column shifts.