Streamlining BFG

[horizon]

I'm advocating that plasma drive explosions roll the same number of dice they do now (cruiser exploding = 4), but that they roll against armor instead of acting like lances.  Its not a joke and can cause damage and kill escorts. And since they count as WBs, Eldar don't get a holofield save for no reason at all.

I'd prefer lance shots. Warp Rifts are deadly sh*t.

Eldar MMS have shields. (BFG: thus as well). But, yeah, no holo save under mms as well.

[Vaaish]

What can you do with selecting turret targets but go with the odds?  The odds are easily calculated by looking what ordnance they have on the board.  Its a no brainer decision.

That's a rather simplistic approach. By the same token, what can you do when shooting except go with the odds. Those are easy to calculate too just by looking at range and armor value. The entire game is based around understanding the odds and picking the target or action that best enhances your odds or limiting the odds your opponent has. 

I'm advocating that plasma drive explosions roll the same number of dice they do now (cruiser exploding = 4), but that they roll against armor instead of acting like lances.  Its not a joke and can cause damage and kill escorts. And since they count as WBs, Eldar don't get a holofield save vs a giant explosion because the expanding ball of fire cant see it clearly.  Also, its more deadly to ordnance now than before.

You are making it a joke. 4 lances from a cruiser as per the original plasma explosion might drop the shields on a nearby ship. 4 dice that hit on 5+ or 6+ is even less of a threat and might drop one shield. Not even enough to kill an escort. Saying the Warp Implosion is that weak is laughable. So what if it's more deadly to ordnance? That's about all it can touch now.

You should also check your facts, this one IS in the 2010 FAQ. Eldar can't claim holofields against the catastrophic damage from exploding ships. They get hit all the same:

"Exploding ships count as an area effect and cannot be saved against by holofields, though shields still work normally. See p.5 for more on area effects."

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

What I'm saying is that going for a shotgun gets you more damage output with any IN cruiser than turning to broadside.

This is wrong esp in the case of the Dictator because a Dictator turning its broadsides to a target ship and angling it correctly actually means the target ship is facing FP6WBs followed up by Str 4 AC and Str 6 torps. That is the correct shotgun. Similarly, the other IN cruisers can also benefit similarly from such tactics.


In short, turn the ship.

Next all this worry about WDI. It requires the correct set of circumstances which will not come up often. I really don't understand why your group is afraid of it.

As for bucket of dice, numbers of dice that high for BFG is effectively buckets of dice because it's rare one gets to that number with shooting and I would rather just have that number for shooting rather than boarding which is not the main aspect of the game.

[Phthisis]

@Vaash

That's very simplistic view of shooting.  Target selection is more than pure odds and composes a significant part of the game.  You'll fire at a ship that's harder to kill if its more valuable a target.  There's complex value judgement and cost benefit analysis based decisions involved, and the same situation can have multiple valid answers.
If youre comparing it to shooting, the closest analog is deciding whether to fire batteries or lances first out of a particular squadron.  The proper answer to this option is a no-brainer as well.

I'm glad they fixed that holofield save in the FAQ.  Its one of many glitches Andy Chambers left in the ruleset.  

I'm eliminating warp drive implosion.  9-12 on the Catastrphic table is Plasma Drive Explosion.  Plasma Drive is 3d6.  You roll the same number of dice as you do now, but you roll vs armor instead of a lance hit.  Any ordnance caught in the blast is destroyed.

There is still a 41% chance that an escort with 5+ armor will die.  Currently it's 68%.  

I wouldn't call 4 dice a joke.  It takes some pretty big WBs to result in rolling 4 dice a lot of the time.  Gunnery isn't a joke, is it?

Crazy idea!  Warp Drive Implosion results in a Warp Rift being placed on the table permanently.  Size is 3d6 radius.

@Admiral

I don't think that's legal.  Read the first paragraph of the 'Torpedoes' section of the 2010 FAQ. 

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

I don't see anything which can override the torps basic rules about attacking a ship when it hits its base. That first paragraph is a very quirky rule at best. You will not be able to prevent the situation everytime where a torp marker will hit a ship base, esp in ranges of 30 cm and below.

[Phthisis]

It says that it prevents torpedos from hitting 'vessels' out of the torpedos fire arc.  If the vessel is out of the arc, but the base is overlapping into the fire arc, the vessel is still out of arc.  By the wording, saying 'vessel' instead of 'base', I think it says the torpedos don't hit the ship.  I also think the rule at the top of pg 7 reinforces my interpretation.  This rule doesn't seem to have any purpose but stopping the tactic youre describing.
Otherwise the ruling isn't saying anything the rulebook doesn't already say.

But yeah, it could be written clearer. As this is the final draft, they'll need to FAQ this FAQ.

But this is really OT.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Well if they really changed it, that sucks. I don't see why they need to change it.

[horizon]

I don't read it that way.

The base is the radius of the ship. The rule is that ordnance impacts when it hits the base. Thus if the base overlaps into the fire arc (this rule is good in fact) the ship is hit.

(I'll mail Ray).

Pity you are so insisting on keeping the warp drive explosion out of it. Skilled players think about the blast radius of such a possible explosion.

Doing a warp rift as a result may be more harmful then the explosion to your fleet.


boarding
What is really wrong with the current system?

[Phthisis]

@Sigiroth

Turning about is no simple task for some of the larger modern day haulers. BFG ships are many times larger than these, depend upon an archaic system of operation (for the most part), and are far more complex. It isn't simply a matter of the helmsman yanking over on the wheel. Doing so without proper preparation will likely result in a ship torn in half, or at the very least a tremendous amount of casualties. Doing this while under fire would no doubt make the entire process more taxing.

While it's widely believed that it takes a long time for a large ship to turn, especially an enormous aircraft carrier, everything I can find on the subject suggests that they are surprisingly nimble.  Nimitz Class carriers are supposed to be able to do a 180* turn in 3 minutes.  They don't turn like that normally because it throws everyone and everything off balance.  But they can do it just in case they have to.  To me, this is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the negatives to a CTNH, BR or AAF.  The g-forces due to rapid velocity change are bound to throw things awry.

But, of course, we are talking about massive ships in space.  Obviously, they are built to be able to withstand the forces associated with the maneuvers they perform in special orders.  I've heard the 'turning could break the ship in two' argument somewhere before, but I've looked around and can't find it again.  It's not in the BFG rulebook that I can see.  What kind of preparation does the crew need to make a 90* turn that keep the ship from breaking in half?  If this were the intent of the games designers, a much better representation would be that the ship made the turn per the SO automatically, but if you failed the Ld check the ship would take damage or have a critical hit or something.  I don't think the ship's spine is in danger, especially when there is no fluid resistance to any sort of maneuver.  It's just a major inconvenience to the crew and that's why there's no damage for turning and why there are penalties for velocity change SOs.

Yes, it is. However, planning for the possibility of failure should be a part of your strategy. If you cannot stand the idea of a battle occasionally being decided by a freak occurrence rather than tactics then perhaps you should take up chess instead. You could do a BFG themed version, with escorts instead of pawns, light cruisers for knights, cruisers for castles, grand cruisers for bishops and a battleship for the queen. The king could be a super heavy transport. Lots of fun to be had.

There's a very wide chasm between the inert nature of chess and our relatively minor modifications to the core rules of BFG.  Our rules changes could be inserted into the BFG book with the change of a few paragraphs only. Large swathes of the game exist completely intact. There's plenty of room for chance and the possibility of failure and 'living up to it' as Horizon calls it.
The difference is that we turned the volume down on the randomness so the strategy could be heard more clearly.  We've replaced a SO system that rewards lucky dice rolling with one that rewards forethought, planning and good resource management.  We've instituted a boarding system that doesn't create scenarios like the Iconoclast vs. the Emperor and seems to be a fairly accurate representation of how powerful individual ships should be in boarding against one another and how they'd really fair in such an action while being a shade more predictable.  We've given ordnance a slight nerf to put the focus back on gunnery (something everyone seems to want done) and we have allowed bombers to pose a little bit of a threat to BBs while removing the widely disliked Turret Suppression rules.  And we've eliminated a mechanic that does little but gut somebody's fleet randomly when it happens while leaving in the cinematic explosions everyone loves.  
Despite these changes, the maneuvering, tactics and gunnery that everyone is used to using still works the same.  You can still completely whiff a shooting phase or have fantastic success.  You can still lose a crippled ship to an exploding hulk.  You can still have your shields collapse or your bridge smashed or your bulkheads collapse.  You can still have a hard time loading ordnance even!  But now it relies just a little bit more on you and your decision making than whether you roll good or bad.  

Now to the good stuff!!!

Alright, let's run with this for now. Some issues. Why would a ship under fire wait for the nod from the admiral before bracing? This is surely a captain's prerogative. As such,I don't think this should be an automatic pass.

Ok, first let's' look at the rules as they are now.  Ships can go on SO, but if they're in a squadron, the whole squadron has to go on a SO too.  A ship captain could put his own ship on SO, but he couldn't force it on other ships in his squadron.  Since all ships have to go on SO in a squadron, this appears to be a top-down command.  Someone with authority over the whole squadron is telling them all to go on SO simultaneously.  To support this, fleet re-rolls, which represent theability of the fleet commander to command, can be used on SO tests.  Why would the ability of the fleet commander effect a captain's ability to have his ship go on SO?  Because the fleet commander, in this case the player, is the one issuing the order for the SO.

More evidence on the top-down nature of SO is in the rules regarding failing a SO check.  In the current rules, if one ship or squadron fails an SO check, no other ships in the fleet can go on SO.  Why would an individual captain's failure to get his crew to successfully Lock On prevent another ship captain thousands of kilometers away in space from getting his crew to successfully CTNH?  The rulebook itself says that you can imagine that the confusion in getting the orders obeyed stops any more orders from being issued.  This also suggests that SO commands are given from from the top-down.  The fleet commander, the player, is the one issuing SOs.

BFI in the current rules is a special exception.  A ship can go on BFI in the enemy shooting phase even if there was a failed SO test in the player's previous turn.  This appears like it's the captain issuing the command himself.  Except that you can't put a single ship on BFI if it's in a squadron.  The entire squadron goes on BFI together, just like other SO.  Rather than saying that this is just a stupid rule, I see this as evidence that BFI is still issued by the Admiral.

Why would a ship wait for an Admiral to give a command before bracing?  Why did men stand in straight lines while other men shot at them for almost 100 years of warfare?  Discipline and the value of a cohesive line of battle. And, in this case, a Commissar on every command deck with a bolt gun and the authority and will to use it.  Why would an Admiral not want a ship under heavy fire to brace?  Same reason you as a player wouldn't.  They have bigger plans for the ship under fire than taking a couple of pot-shots while unstuffing themselves.

Also, since I think game>realism, forcing players to reserve SO out of their pool for BFI adds a great resource management dimension and forces an important strategic choice.  If you get greedy and blow all your SO in your turn without avoiding enemy fire in some way, you can expect to get your can kicked in the enemy's turn.

Similarly, why should carriers or torp boats need the admiral to tell them to reload? Surely this would be the default attitude only deviated from under orders from the admiral.

Yeah, that's weird.  There's no in-game penalty for having to RO other than not being able to go on other SO.  It even seems strange that a captain should have to remind his crew to put torpedoes in the tubes or refuel and rearm attack craft.  
I don't have an answer to this one.  But allowing any ship with ordnance to RO automatically reload makes ordnance overwhelmingly powerful and breaks the game.  And game>realism again, you have to make a choice between RO ordnance or doing something else that could be equally important.  

Also, how would a larger fleet be able to function?

This is actually one area where our SO system shines and something we specifically considered.  In the current system, no matter how big your fleet is, you have the same statistical chances of passing SO checks.  Right now, unless you roll crap for Ld, you have a good chance of getting one SO off, a little better than 50/50 of getting 2 SO passed, and a slim chance of a third.  Any more beyond that is just excellent luck.  Rerolls help, but if you have a very big fleet that needs to go on SO, you'll eat them up really fast.
In our system, you purchase the number of SOs you want in your fleet.  They're expensive enough that you won't want to buy more than you need.  That way you can build a large enough SO pool so that it's proportional to the size of the game you're playing.  Our sweet spot for 1500pts seems to be 3 SOs.  For 3000pts we would probably buy 6 SOs.  For 15000pts,  we could buy 30 SOs if we wanted.  This adds another strategic element to fleet design and allows you to scale the game to any size you like.

Lastly, this limit on the number of special orders seems to me to be just as much a limit on a player's ability to execute their strategy as rolling against leadership. It's just that the limit is known ahead of time and this doesn't seem all that great to me.

First, the player sets their own limit on the number of SO they want to play with based on their strategy and how many points they are willing to sink into it.  If you don't have enough SO to get what you want done, then you can't blame anyone but yourself.  No bad luck here.
Second, knowing how many SO you have allows you to coordinate your fleet reliably, but having limits to the number of SO makes you think ahead.  
For example:You have 3 SO in your fleet.  You've got a pair of carriers in a squadron that need reloading.  But another pair of your ships are likely to be under serious threat from an enemy squadron unless you can AAF past them, and one of those two ships has one of your lieutenants on it.  You've also got a good opportunity to cripple one of their carriers and gain local ordnance superiority but you'll have to LO to do it and you'll definitely miss the opportunity if you don't capitalize on your good position this turn.  But, you see two places where they could LO and cause some serious damage unless you BFI.  There are 5 places where SO could do you some good, but you only have 3 orders to burn.  What do you do?

In 1500 pt games, there are plenty of places where we wanted more SOs than we had.  But spending another 50-100pts on more orders would have made us cut back on the number of ships and put us at a disadvantage.


Those were some awesome questions Sigiroth.  Thanks for giving me the opportunity to spell out some of the reasoning behind these changes.


@Horizon

conducting ordnance interactions as appropriate to prevent targeting vessels out of fire arc due to proximit.

That's the part in question right there. The base isn't the ship, it's just near space. If they meant that you can't target a ship whose base is completely out of the fire arc, then that section is redundant as I don't think there was any question whether that was legal or not before the FAQ came out.   If you're preventing targeting vessels out of the fire arc, then the base doesn't matter as the vessel can't be hit.  This doesn't seem weird to me. Other fleets can't turn slantwise and get a ship in 2 firing arcs simultaneously.  Torpedoes shouldn't be any different.

I think about the blast radius for a WDI too.  It's not your own ships that get you, its drifting hulks and enemy ships.  You may not experience lots of explosions, but other players have the same chance of experiencing more explosions than is statistically average that you do of having fewer explosions than is statistically average.  You're just lucky, so its a bit easier for you to blow it off as a threat. 
Besides, it doesn't add anything to the game system.  It's a pity that you're insisting that another gaming group use it and write off their mathematical concerns as a lack of skill when you've been just lucky.

Doing a Warp Rift as a WDI would be more realistic than a bunch of lance hits considering what a WDI is.  It's the same blast radius as the current WDI, and you already take that into consideration when you play.  It's only a 1/36 chance of happening anyway, right?  Shouldn't be a problem for any of you since you can account for it in your strategy. 

Sorry, that was really inflammatory.  I'm just tired of my mathematical arguments being countered with accusations that me and anyone who agrees with me is just not up to snuff. 
Were WDIs not a part of the original game set, nobody would be asking for them or would even notice their absence. It's just a random die roll that adds nothing to the game but an extra opportunity for someone to lose the game based on dice alone. 

What's wrong with the current boarding system?
It's so abstract that it allows absurd results and boarding actions rely more on luck than strategy.  A boarding action, unless you really have them screwed over, is a shot in the dark.  Even Space Marine players don't consider it a viable strategy as they have a decent chance of losing and the payoff isn't there.

[Vaaish]

That's very simplistic view of shooting.  Target selection is more than pure odds and composes a significant part of the game.

Your're missing the point. The game is about the odds and you'll do what has the best odds of success. Faulting the choice of turrets targeting ordnance for simply falling on the odds while the odds are what dictates what you shoot at as well seems a bit shortsighted.

There is still a 41% chance that an escort with 5+ armor will die.  Currently it's 68%.

How do you figure that. Most escorts have 5+ armor. That means you need approximately three dice per point of damage done. With four dice being thrown, you average slightly more than one hit. In any event, this just smacks of you not wanting to change your strategy to include the possibility the ship could blow up in your face.

I wouldn't call 4 dice a joke.  It takes some pretty big WBs to result in rolling 4 dice a lot of the time.  Gunnery isn't a joke, is it?

Depends on what's shooting. I would definitely call 4 dice that hit on 5+ or 6+ a joke when you are shooting at a cruiser, grand cruiser, or a battleship. You're almost guaranteed to do no real damage. Depending on facing, a s6 battery can get you 4 dice. Worst case a s10 battery. Comparatively, that's not a whole lot. Of course you can say looking at the ordnance column it takes s20, but we're talking within 30cm if we are comparing the strength of the catastrophic damage shots and that takes considerably less firepower to pull off.

Crazy idea!  Warp Drive Implosion results in a Warp Rift being placed on the table permanently.  Size is 3d6 radius.

That you are even suggesting this in combination with your LD changes is mind boggling. Looking up your table, it would seem that the ld6 and 7 you want most things on the table to have would instantly cause the loss of whatever ship is touched by it since it will take a passed LD test on a 3d6 to prevent having your ship exit the battle.

Again, why with the boarding? As with Horizon and the Admiral, I don't want to chuck that many dice for something as minor as boarding. Shooting is fine since it makes up a large portion of the game. Boarding, not so much.

[Vaaish]

I've heard the 'turning could break the ship in two' argument somewhere before, but I've looked around and can't find it again.  It's not in the BFG rulebook that I can see.

It doesn't reference it under turning in the rulebook but the section talking about the minimum move distance does lay out that structural damage can happen if a ship isn't properly prepared to slow down.

[Phthisis]

@Vaaish

Your're missing the point. The game is about the odds and you'll do what has the best odds of success.

The game is about strategy and manipulating odds.  Target selection is a complex of target value and chance of success. If all you do is select targets that die the easiest, you'll not be winning the game.  I doubt you play this way. Choosing between torpedos and AC with turrets is so obvious its not even really a choice.  And it's a bonus to ordnance.  

How do you figure that. Most escorts have 5+ armor. That means you need approximately three dice per point of damage done. With four dice being thrown, you average slightly more than one hit. In any event, this just smacks of you not wanting to change your strategy to include the possibility the ship could blow up in your face.

I figured that by calculating the binomial distribution.  The probability that you'll roll 2 or more 5+ results on 4 dice is about 41%.  Calculating 'average hits' when dealing exclusively with whole numbers and an uneven distribution, such as a distribution caused by an event that doesn't have a 50/50 chance, can be misleading.
You're attacking me instead of the rule again.  If I was just raging about losing ships to explosions, why would I leave a possibility of losing a ship to an explosion?

Depends on what's shooting. I would definitely call 4 dice that hit on 5+ or 6+ a joke when you are shooting at a cruiser, grand cruiser, or a battleship.

8 lance shots vs a BB isn't going to do much either. But vs a crippled cruiser or a squadron of escorts....

The context of these blasts is that they generally happen in the shooting phase.  Knocking down a couple of shields can be a HUGE deal here.  For either player, it's knocking down shields that won't go back up before that ship gets shot at again.  Even a Plasma Drive Overload can mean the death of a healthy cruiser in the ensuing shooting phase.  And it's all up to the luck of the dice.

Again, why with the boarding? As with Horizon and the Admiral, I don't want to chuck that many dice for something as minor as boarding. Shooting is fine since it makes up a large portion of the game. Boarding, not so much.

If your only qualm is 'I don't feel like rolling 6 dice in this specific instance', then I'm doing pretty good here.  There's nothing that I can do about how you feel about doing something.
Actually, all these rules are standing up to fire very well so far.  I knew you lot wouldn't like them because this is going in the exact opposite direction of BFG:R, which you all helped write.  But there haven't been any criticisms that game balance is disrupted or that the mechanics we've created are broken beyond ones based on simple misunderstandings.

It doesn't reference it under turning in the rulebook but the section talking about the minimum move distance does lay out that structural damage can happen if a ship isn't properly prepared to slow down.

Ah, there it is!  I knew I'd heard it before.
This is a pretty good reason to use retro thrusters when slowing down.  

[horizon]

@Sigiroth

Turning about is no simple task for some of the larger modern day haulers. BFG ships are many times larger than these, depend upon an archaic system of operation (for the most part), and are far more complex. It isn't simply a matter of the helmsman yanking over on the wheel. Doing so without proper preparation will likely result in a ship torn in half, or at the very least a tremendous amount of casualties. Doing this while under fire would no doubt make the entire process more taxing.

While it's widely believed that it takes a long time for a large ship to turn, especially an enormous aircraft carrier, everything I can find on the subject suggests that they are surprisingly nimble.  Nimitz Class carriers are supposed to be able to do a 180* turn in 3 minutes.  They don't turn like that normally because it throws everyone and everything off balance.  But they can do it just in case they have to.  To me, this is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the negatives to a CTNH, BR or AAF.  The g-forces due to rapid velocity change are bound to throw things awry.

But, of course, we are talking about massive ships in space.  Obviously, they are built to be able to withstand the forces associated with the maneuvers they perform in special orders.  I've heard the 'turning could break the ship in two' argument somewhere before, but I've looked around and can't find it again.  It's not in the BFG rulebook that I can see.  What kind of preparation does the crew need to make a 90* turn that keep the ship from breaking in half?  If this were the intent of the games designers, a much better representation would be that the ship made the turn per the SO automatically, but if you failed the Ld check the ship would take damage or have a critical hit or something.  I don't think the ship's spine is in danger, especially when there is no fluid resistance to any sort of maneuver.  It's just a major inconvenience to the crew and that's why there's no damage for turning and why there are penalties for velocity change SOs.

In BFG ships have a minimum distance before it can turn (10000km). Considering a BFG turn is about 10minutes everything you say is already accounted for. A Lunar can do ctnh and all.

I also still think you need to read more into 40k/Rogue Trader and how it runs on Imperial ships (this is what you refer to most).

Yes, it is. However, planning for the possibility of failure should be a part of your strategy. If you cannot stand the idea of a battle occasionally being decided by a freak occurrence rather than tactics then perhaps you should take up chess instead. You could do a BFG themed version, with escorts instead of pawns, light cruisers for knights, cruisers for castles, grand cruisers for bishops and a battleship for the queen. The king could be a super heavy transport. Lots of fun to be had.

There's a very wide chasm between the inert nature of chess and our relatively minor modifications to the core rules of BFG.  Our rules changes could be inserted into the BFG book with the change of a few paragraphs only. Large swathes of the game exist completely intact. There's plenty of room for chance and the possibility of failure and 'living up to it' as Horizon calls it.
The difference is that we turned the volume down on the randomness so the strategy could be heard more clearly.  We've replaced a SO system that rewards lucky dice rolling with one that rewards forethought, planning and good resource management.  

Special Orders should be part of it.

And we've eliminated a mechanic that does little but gut somebody's fleet randomly when it happens while leaving in the cinematic explosions everyone loves.  

I never ever heard someone complain about that mechanic, you and your group are the first.

Despite these changes, the maneuvering, tactics and gunnery that everyone is used to using still works the same.  You can still completely whiff a shooting phase or have fantastic success.  You can still lose a crippled ship to an exploding hulk.  You can still have your shields collapse or your bridge smashed or your bulkheads collapse.  You can still have a hard time loading ordnance even!  But now it relies just a little bit more on you and your decision making than whether you roll good or bad.  

The only core thing I'd change is the IgoUgo system in BFG. Replacing it with a more simultanous movement/shooting system or a system like LotR SBG has.

Alright, let's run with this for now. Some issues. Why would a ship under fire wait for the nod from the admiral before bracing? This is surely a captain's prerogative. As such,I don't think this should be an automatic pass.

Ok, first let's' look at the rules as they are now.  Ships can go on SO, but if they're in a squadron, the whole squadron has to go on a SO too.  A ship captain could put his own ship on SO, but he couldn't force it on other ships in his squadron.  Since all ships have to go on SO in a squadron, this appears to be a top-down command.  Someone with authority over the whole squadron is telling them all to go on SO simultaneously.  To support this, fleet re-rolls, which represent theability of the fleet commander to command, can be used on SO tests.  Why would the ability of the fleet commander effect a captain's ability to have his ship go on SO?  Because the fleet commander, in this case the player, is the one issuing the order for the SO.

Sigoroth (and a lot others including me and sjizzles) advocate that individual BFI should be possible in a squadron. Sig made a good thread on squadroning. Read it I say.

More evidence on the top-down nature of SO is in the rules regarding failing a SO check.  In the current rules, if one ship or squadron fails an SO check, no other ships in the fleet can go on SO.  Why would an individual captain's failure to get his crew to successfully Lock On prevent another ship captain thousands of kilometers away in space from getting his crew to successfully CTNH?  The rulebook itself says that you can imagine that the confusion in getting the orders obeyed stops any more orders from being issued.  This also suggests that SO commands are given from from the top-down.  The fleet commander, the player, is the one issuing SOs.

Per thread I referred to.

BFI in the current rules is a special exception.  A ship can go on BFI in the enemy shooting phase even if there was a failed SO test in the player's previous turn.  This appears like it's the captain issuing the command himself.  Except that you can't put a single ship on BFI if it's in a squadron.  The entire squadron goes on BFI together, just like other SO.  Rather than saying that this is just a stupid rule, I see this as evidence that BFI is still issued by the Admiral.

Wrong conclusion per BFI, see thread.

Why would a ship wait for an Admiral to give a command before bracing?  Why did men stand in straight lines while other men shot at them for almost 100 years of warfare?  Discipline and the value of a cohesive line of battle. And, in this case, a Commissar on every command deck with a bolt gun and the authority and will to use it.  Why would an Admiral not want a ship under heavy fire to brace?  Same reason you as a player wouldn't.  They have bigger plans for the ship under fire than taking a couple of pot-shots while unstuffing themselves.

Weird. You say the helmsman does as the captain says (no disobeying orders and all) but now you say the captain is overruled by the admiral in the case of a captain protecting his ship.

If I was admiral and a captain did not brace I'd sent in a commissar. Imperial ships are rather precious you know.

Also, since I think game>realism, forcing players to reserve SO out of their pool for BFI adds a great resource management dimension and forces an important strategic choice.  If you get greedy and blow all your SO in your turn without avoiding enemy fire in some way, you can expect to get your can kicked in the enemy's turn.

Now it game>realism? iirc you started out with more realism...

Similarly, why should carriers or torp boats need the admiral to tell them to reload? Surely this would be the default attitude only deviated from under orders from the admiral.

Yeah, that's weird.  There's no in-game penalty for having to RO other than not being able to go on other SO.  It even seems strange that a captain should have to remind his crew to put torpedoes in the tubes or refuel and rearm attack craft.  
I don't have an answer to this one.  But allowing any ship with ordnance to RO automatically reload makes ordnance overwhelmingly powerful and breaks the game.  And game>realism again, you have to make a choice between RO ordnance or doing something else that could be equally important.  

Reload Ordnance is a tedious and careful process. It is a real special order.

<zip>

In essence you want special orders to (keep on) succeeding and do not like failure to dice. You created a pool system to do special orders.
Matter of preference I think. I prefer the dice.

A pooling system is kind of unrealistic as well if you look closely. As if an admiral has limited recources in ideas in his head.

@Horizon

conducting ordnance interactions as appropriate to prevent targeting vessels out of fire arc due to proximit.

That's the part in question right there. The base isn't the ship, it's just near space. If they meant that you can't target a ship whose base is completely out of the fire arc, then that section is redundant as I don't think there was any question whether that was legal or not before the FAQ came out.   If you're preventing targeting vessels out of the fire arc, then the base doesn't matter as the vessel can't be hit.  This doesn't seem weird to me. Other fleets can't turn slantwise and get a ship in 2 firing arcs simultaneously.  Torpedoes shouldn't be any different.

I can fire a torpedo any route I want. You too. I keep my torps in my front arc. On the edge, allowed. It runs it path and hits a base that gets in my arc. So it is hit. That is the base rule -> ordnance hits base -> resolve attack.
Gunnery needs stem.

I think about the blast radius for a WDI too.  It's not your own ships that get you, its drifting hulks and enemy ships.  You may not experience lots of explosions, but other players have the same chance of experiencing more explosions than is statistically average that you do of having fewer explosions than is statistically average.  You're just lucky, so its a bit easier for you to blow it off as a threat.  
Besides, it doesn't add anything to the game system.  It's a pity that you're insisting that another gaming group use it and write off their mathematical concerns as a lack of skill when you've been just lucky.

So I place my ships well away and I am lucky? No it is tactical skill. Maybe I disengage before the enemy can blow up my ships. So many tactical options.

You face a threat and change the rules. An approach I do not like.

Doing a Warp Rift as a WDI would be more realistic than a bunch of lance hits considering what a WDI is.  It's the same blast radius as the current WDI, and you already take that into consideration when you play.  It's only a 1/36 chance of happening anyway, right?  Shouldn't be a problem for any of you since you can account for it in your strategy.  

Exactly.

Sorry, that was really inflammatory.  I'm just tired of my mathematical arguments being countered with accusations that me and anyone who agrees with me is just not up to snuff.  

Again, you make the argument that we (I?) look down. You are again going in the role of a victim.

I did not accuse anybody. I just said it is a tactical thing. Get close and more dice and be in a blast. Stay further away get less dice and avoid the blast.

Were WDIs not a part of the original game set, nobody would be asking for them or would even notice their absence. It's just a random die roll that adds nothing to the game but an extra opportunity for someone to lose the game based on dice alone.  

No. Ships have warp drives. Players would wonder what happens if the warp drive blows up.

Same as ordnance, leave it out and wing commander/star wars fans would add it.

What's wrong with the current boarding system?
It's so abstract that it allows absurd results and boarding actions rely more on luck than strategy.  A boarding action, unless you really have them screwed over, is a shot in the dark.  Even Space Marine players don't consider it a viable strategy as they have a decent chance of losing and the payoff isn't there.

What is less abstract about yours?


Current system:
is the blastmarker modifier needed?
should boarding value be just remaining hits?
no turrets?

eg Iconoclas vs Emperor (on SO):
Iconoclast +1 chaos +1 special order = +2. Roll d6 + 1 hit value + 2 from mods
Emperor roll d6 + 12 hits.

Iconoclast rolls 6, Emperor 1.
result:
Iconoclast : 6 + 1 (hits) + 2 (mod) = 9
Emperor : 1 + 12 (hits) = 13

Emperor win by 4.



warning...
I target to shut down enemy options or biggets threats. At long range lances target escorts. Varies. No defined tactic for me.

[Sigoroth]

While it's widely believed that it takes a long time for a large ship to turn, especially an enormous aircraft carrier, everything I can find on the subject suggests that they are surprisingly nimble.  Nimitz Class carriers are supposed to be able to do a 180* turn in 3 minutes.  They don't turn like that normally because it throws everyone and everything off balance.  But they can do it just in case they have to.  To me, this is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the negatives to a CTNH, BR or AAF.  The g-forces due to rapid velocity change are bound to throw things awry.

Well the Nimitz class ships are quite small. Let's look at something a little bigger, such as the Knock Nevis (Seawise Giant). Its turning circle is 2 miles on a good day and it takes 5.5 miles to go from top speed (of a whopping 16 knots  ) to a full stop.

But, of course, we are talking about massive ships in space.  Obviously, they are built to be able to withstand the forces associated with the maneuvers they perform in special orders.  I've heard the 'turning could break the ship in two' argument somewhere before, but I've looked around and can't find it again.  It's not in the BFG rulebook that I can see.  What kind of preparation does the crew need to make a 90* turn that keep the ship from breaking in half?  If this were the intent of the games designers, a much better representation would be that the ship made the turn per the SO automatically, but if you failed the Ld check the ship would take damage or have a critical hit or something.  I don't think the ship's spine is in danger, especially when there is no fluid resistance to any sort of maneuver.  It's just a major inconvenience to the crew and that's why there's no damage for turning and why there are penalties for velocity change SOs.

There would be enormous strain placed on ships to just execute a normal turn. I think that the basic movement range (from half to full) and turning range (from 0° to 45°) already represents the limits of normal operation. Ie, this is where the helmsman is simply obeying the captain's orders. However, it is possible to exceed these limits using extreme measures. So it isn't simply an action, but a sequence of actions, a process. This process is not easy and so could result in failure to comply with the admiral's order. This seems to me to be the most likely rationale behind the requirement for a leadership test.

I think that this is the going interpretation, and so most people don't really accept the "30% of the time the helmsman ignores the captain" premise and thus see no reason for the change. This is not to say that it couldn't be the other way around, with limited but automatic orders, but that there's no convincing reason why it should be this way.

There's a very wide chasm between the inert nature of chess and our relatively minor modifications to the core rules of BFG.

Yes, a chasm in effect, but not in principle. Your stated reason for posting these revisions was that you wished to eliminate games being decided by, essentially, dice rolls. Taking this to the Nth degree, eliminating chance and even asymmetrical forces, leads to chess or some similar game. Obviously you're not looking to go this far, but the rationale for the change leads inexorably to this conclusion. BFG is a game of strategy and chance, meaning that some games will be won by strategy and some by luck. To say that the latter is an undesirable outcome means that you're essentially saying that you don't like BFG.

Now, given that BFG is a blend of strategy and luck it does come down to adjusting the blend to an acceptable level. This is what you're really talking about. However, I think your approach ('helmsman vs captain' & 'luck = bad') has been poor and served only to put people offside. Really what you're saying is that in your opinion:

"This sort of thing seems to happen too much and should be toned down a little. Furthermore, I think that orders should be automatic for X reasons and what do you all think of this idea ...."

BFI in the current rules is a special exception.  A ship can go on BFI in the enemy shooting phase even if there was a failed SO test in the player's previous turn.  This appears like it's the captain issuing the command himself.  Except that you can't put a single ship on BFI if it's in a squadron.  The entire squadron goes on BFI together, just like other SO.  Rather than saying that this is just a stupid rule, I see this as evidence that BFI is still issued by the Admiral.

I agree that the system of special orders is essentially a top down arrangement. However, your example of one ship bracing forcing the entire squadron to brace is a bad one I think. That is, I think that the decision to brace is inimitably a captain's and cannot be superseded by someone thousands of kms away. So in this case the decision to brace or not is made by you, the player as the captain, taking into account his orders. What you've pointed out about the current BFI affecting the whole squadron is therefore a flaw in the current system which should be fixed in any proposed change, not used to justify another flaw.

For example:You have 3 SO in your fleet.  You've got a pair of carriers in a squadron that need reloading.  But another pair of your ships are likely to be under serious threat from an enemy squadron unless you can AAF past them, and one of those two ships has one of your lieutenants on it.  You've also got a good opportunity to cripple one of their carriers and gain local ordnance superiority but you'll have to LO to do it and you'll definitely miss the opportunity if you don't capitalize on your good position this turn.  But, you see two places where they could LO and cause some serious damage unless you BFI.  There are 5 places where SO could do you some good, but you only have 3 orders to burn.  What do you do?

Switch to a better system. No, really, I'd rather tell all my ships what I want them to do and then see if they're capable of pulling it off than only picking and choosing some ships to execute orders. You may prefer it otherwise, but that's your prerogative.

Note: The reason why there are 6 special orders I think has a little to do with convenience (6 sided dice) but also as a recognition that these are difficult tasks and so require a leadership test and are mutually exclusive. However, I think that only 4 of these orders are tactical decisions belonging to an admiral. They are CTNH, AAF, BR & LO. Reloading should be automatically attempted unless specified otherwise by the admiral (ie, unless you specifically want no orders or a different order) or unless the ship can't (due to being on BFI). This means that RO should probably be taken off the Chain of Command. BFI should be taken on a ship by ship basis, against its own leadership and affect only that ship (escorts excepted).

[Sigoroth]

A note about the Iconoclast vs Emperor (BM/orders) scenario. While I haven't actually read the proposed boarding rules (too much to read after being away for a while) it seems to me that an easy fix would simply be to extend the BV bonus linearly. So +5 for being 5 times BV, +6 for 6 times, etc. So an untouched Emp defending against a single Iconclast would get 1d6+17 (BV 17 times greater) and the Iconoclast would get 1d6+3 (Chaos, BM, orders).