BFG:R Adeptus Mechanicus

[Bessemer]

@Talos: 

Actually I did notice this proposed earlier on, but things were starting to get lost in a sea of quotes and re-quotes so I thought it best to stick it up.

[Vaaish]

Vaaish, if you think that the gifts are not a factor in making this a competitive list, why are you against putting a point value on them an allowing people to pick the ones they want? Is it just that you don't want everyone picking AWR for everything?

I'm partly against it because I've seen this route tried many times and every single time you end up with one thing everyone wants and a bunch of options no one takes. This usually leads to either nerfing the popular option or boosting the power of the unpopular options which leads to power creep.

I also don't think these lists needs pendulum swing changes to fix issues. If total randomization is a problem (well is a problem if you base your fleet strategy on getting a random upgrade), then the first step is to provide a means give the player some control over the result, not ditching randomization entirely.

We already have some control with being able to choose the gift on a roll of a 6 for ld and to a lesser extent with the magos selecting one gift. This has worked for a very long time but there has always been some pushback usually because a player wants AWR and gets FDT and has no way to place the gifts he gets to HIS liking.

The next step would be to increase the control the player has over the result, hence the idea of a gifts pool. You still don't know what gifts you will get each time but you can place them where you like and at least two of them you get to pick.

Ideally, you should be able to strip gifts entirely from the admech fleet and still have it play different than IN. Unfortunately it seems a lot of people start admech and think, oh cool IN with more shooting and AWR would make this awesome. They then decide what ships to take and how they want to play around getting that upgrade and when they don't get it, it throws them off mentally. I know that's a lot of what happened when I first started trying to play with admech. I took too many upgrades and put too much faith in gifts. I lost a lot until I started ignoring the gifts taking upgrades sparingly.

[afterimagedan]

If you are up for working on it, I would be entirely open to working on having no gifts purchasing or randomization and just have integrated changes, maybe with some ship by ship upgrades. I think that would be a great idea.

[Vaaish]

I'm not looking to start radical changes to admech, just incremental adjustments. If there is concern that the gifts are needed make admech competitive, the place to start is to play admech with no gifts and adjust to make it competitive. Once that's set, we should be able to add in gifts with the standard rules and see if the gifts cause balance problems.

If its felt that the fleet itself is fine and the issue lies just with the gifts I would recommend incremental adjustments to the existing system before throwing it out entirely. This is where the idea of the gift pool comes into play. Incrementally give players more control with the least intrusive changes before moving to a far more complex point system to maintain balance.

[afterimagedan]

They don't need gifts to make them competitive necessarily, it is just where the points are being spent. A page or two back, we seemed to conclude on a point adjustment to the IN ships that accounts for the bonuses they get. We are already there.  Technically, they are as competitive as everyone else now.  The gifts can now just be additional things to add to ships to make the list not so boring.  That's another reason I think we should just have point values on gifts and let people buy them. 

Why the increment? I mean, we are here, working on it now. It's not going anywhere and the 2010 admech list is always there. For example, all we really need to to is find out what the gifts will look like, find what sort of limitations we want to put on them (percentage of ship cost or set point value, limit of 1 gift per 750 or just making a list of a few that each ship can take, etc.), and vote. 

Personally, I would like to see it be like the tyranid evolutions, where each level of ship is allotted a certain amount of gifts that can be taken for the points. Maybe, we could strip the gifts down to 10-15pt upgrades and make two gift charts. For example, Firepower and Structure. Each list would have 3-6 options you could buy and we could allow cruisers to take a minimum of 1 upgrade, max of one from each.

[afterimagedan]

STRUCTURE
Emergency Energy Reserves: When crippled,
the ship does not reduce  turrets, shielding or
weapons strength. The vessel still counts as
crippled in every other respect.

Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed,
as well as +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special
orders.

(some cool name?) The ship adds +1 to its leadership when
attempting All Ahead Full, Come To New Heading
or Burn Retros special orders.

Advanced Shielding: Ignore all negative effects
of having a blast marker or gas clouds in contact
with the ship's base as it applies to leadership,
movement and repairing critical damage.

Repulsor Shields: For each
hit against the ship's shields, roll a D6. On the role of a 6, the hit is ignored
and no blast marker is placed. It is as if it never happened.
This effect goes away if the ship suffers “Shields Collapsed” critical
damage.

ARMAMENT

Fleet Defense Turrets: Two fleet defense turrets
are added to the ship capable of protecting itself
or any one other vessel within 15cm each
ordnance phase, adding +2 to the turret strength
of the ship it is defending (this does not alter
bomber attack rolls when used to defend another
vessel). These otherwise work exactly as normal
turrets do in all other respects.

Gyro-stabilized Targeting Matrix: Ship
weapons are reduced to 75% instead of 50%
when on All Ahead Full, Come To New
Heading or Burn Retros special orders. Nova
Cannons still may not fire. The ship adds +1 to
its leadership when attempting Lock On special
orders.

Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries
shift left on the gunnery table before all other
modifiers are applied.

Overcharged Lance Capacitors: Lance hits count as double
on rolls of a 6.

[Bessemer]

(some cool name?) The ship adds +1 to its leadership when
attempting All Ahead Full, Come To New Heading
or Burn Retros special orders.

Directional Vectoring Clusters?

[Vaaish]

Ok, if we feel the AdMech ships are competitive without the bonuses then lets discuss how making gifts a fixed point choice makes the fleet less boring. You already know people want to buy what synergizes best with their fleets. Creating a list of gifts with fixed points practically guarantees that eventually everyone will take the same set of optimal gifts. That makes for very boring lists. I've seen it time and again.

I'm advocating incremental changes because they are the safest way to adjust a list. Sweeping changes have far higher probability of being unbalanced and pose a much higher degree of difficulty to balance since you are removing the baseline.

all we really need to to is find out what the gifts will look like, find what sort of limitations we want to put on them (percentage of ship cost or set point value, limit of 1 gift per 750 or just making a list of a few that each ship can take, etc.), and vote. 

See this is the problem. You sound like you've already thrown out the existing gifts and are looking for an entirely new solution. We already know what the gifts look like, or at least have a very good baseline of how powerful they should be. The current set of gifts add flavor without overshadowing the ships, personally I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here. The limitations we currently have on these gifts is also good. One per capital ship means the whole fleet has some flavor. The issue isn't the gifts, or the number you have, it's the means of distribution.

If you haven't noticed, the thread has gone something like this:

1. remove random gifts and give them each point values.
2. implement limitations on certain gifts to force variety
3. try to increase the power of gifts to match the perceived highest powerlevel

Now we are further complicating things by creating a whole table of gifts dedicated more things AND giving greater access. This is feature creep. This kind of thinking doesn't end in balanced lists.

Keep it SIMPLE. Look for elegant solutions that require the least change for the best result. 40k is complex, don't go that route.

[afterimagedan]

See this is the problem. You sound like you've already thrown out the existing gifts and are looking for an entirely new solution.

It's not a problem just because you see it as a problem. Some people would like to see changes to the gifts, you you call that a problem, so it is?  Alright Vaaish, if you knew that people wanted to change the random gifts aspect of Admech, how would you do it? You have a decent idea with the roll random then apply thing, but it's still randomizing.

I agree with keeping it simple. Having gifts with appropriate prices that you can take 1 of seems awfully simple.   You say you have seen people just optimizing time and time again, but what about all the other times in BFG that people spend points on different things because they are balanced and appropriately priced? People debate between Lunar/Lunar and Gothic/Dominator a bunch, but both are viable and appropriately priced options. Giving compelling options (what we have been trying to do in changing the gifts) and pricing them accordingly is something that every game does and it doesn't have to go down the route of power creep or optimizing.

[AndrewChristlieb]

The problem that keeps being avoided is that the "gifts" are not equal. If they were then we wouldnt have several pages of ways to "fix" them.

[Vaaish]

Alright Vaaish, if you knew that people wanted to change the random gifts aspect of Admech, how would you do it? You have a decent idea with the roll random then apply thing, but it's still randomizing.

I'll humor you, but why ask a question you already know the answer to?

There is a difference between feeling something is too random and feeling that something shouldn't be random at all. In my years of playing I think the most complaints haven't been that the gifts themselves are random but that there is too much randomness in their assignment. Usually it's because you don't get the gift you hoped for on one ship and then get it on a different ship with no recourse.

This is why I'd put in the gift pool. It gives the player the ability to assign the gifts as they see fit but retains the randomness that creates variety. This eliminates the need to create limits on each gift or fiddle with points to make things like AWR less attractive or come up with entirely new options.

I agree with keeping it simple. Having gifts with appropriate prices that you can take 1 of seems awfully simple.   

Don't confuse the appearance of simplicity with a simple solution. You are simplifying the act of selection but it will do so by either making all options equally dull so as to make the gifts boring or by accepting that some gifts will be more popular at the expense of less exciting gifts. It's very easy to say we need to make the gifts have the appropriate price, but it's a very complex process to do just that; a look at nid fleets prior to FAQ2010 should be proof enough.

[afterimagedan]

Alright Vaaish, if you knew that people wanted to change the random gifts aspect of Admech, how would you do it? You have a decent idea with the roll random then apply thing, but it's still randomizing.

I'll humor you, but why ask a question you already know the answer to? I was asking if you had a way to make it work without the roll then apply thing you already mentioned. Your answer to this indicated that you will not abandon some level of random determination of gifts, so we will have to just agree to disagree on this who subject.

There is a difference between feeling something is too random and feeling that something shouldn't be random at all. In my years of playing I think the most complaints haven't been that the gifts themselves are random but that there is too much randomness in their assignment. Usually it's because you don't get the gift you hoped for on one ship and then get it on a different ship with no recourse.

This is why I'd put in the gift pool. It gives the player the ability to assign the gifts as they see fit but retains the randomness that creates variety. This eliminates the need to create limits on each gift or fiddle with points to make things like AWR less attractive or come up with entirely new options.

I agree with keeping it simple. Having gifts with appropriate prices that you can take 1 of seems awfully simple.   

Don't confuse the appearance of simplicity with a simple solution. You were not talking about the simplicity of making the solution, you were talking about keeping the fleet list simple, so I responded to your point. You are simplifying the act of selection but it will do so by either making all options equally dull using the word dull here is very subjective so as to make the gifts boring or by accepting that some gifts will be more popular at the expense of less exciting gifts again, "less exciting" is very subjective. just because you see the same gifts in your game group doesn't mean that everyone does it that way. It's very easy to say we need to make the gifts have the appropriate price, but it's a very complex process to do just that; a look at nid fleets prior to FAQ2010 should be proof enough. the entirety of BFG:R is about juggling prices to try to bring the best balance to things while making sure we have fun an interesting options. I don't see how this is the slightest bit different than all the other BFG:R changes.

Andrew: They don't have to be equal, just properly priced.

[afterimagedan]

(compromise time) Alright how about this... Random rolling, then apply, like you said earlier. But, rolling a 6 for Ld means that the player can pick a gift to add to the pool (change) AFTER all the lds are rolled (change). So, then you can look at the pool you already have and choose one to match ones you already have and make a plan how you will approach applying the gifts.  Will you compromise with me, peeps?

Also, the vote on secondary commanders and admirals would not really apply to Admech because, while they are imperial, they aren't really an "imperial fleet," imperial navy style. We will probably have to vote about secondary commanders for Admech if we want them.

[Vaaish]

Dan, this sounds very close to what would already happen if the pool was added. Could you explain what's different?

For instance, would the gift chosen for rolling 6 replace one in the table or add a gift in addition to what's there?
ie. you have 5 eligible ships, one rolls a 6 you now have 6 gifts total in the pool.

If this is adding an additional gift does it mean that ships will still only be allowed one gift leaving you with extra in the pool or could you assign the extras (similar to how the magos ship gets two gifts)?

[afterimagedan]

Well, I was thinking rolling a 6 meant that ship got to pick its own.

I'm assuming this order:

1. Roll leaderships.
2. Roll for gifts minus ships that rolled a 6.
3. For each six rolled, pick a gift.
4. Assign gifts.

The add a gift option is a cool idea too:
1. Roll leaderships
2. Roll gifts
3. And six rolled during leadership, pick an additional gift
4. Assign gifts.
5. Discard remaining gifts.

I kind of like that second option. This gives some picking power plus the randomness and also forces the player to learn how to utilize all the gifts. I like it.

My only remaining concern: the balance concern of mine would be easily foxed of we made the existing options a little more scaled to a AWR , which seems undisputed the more powerful option. That way, because admech ships are basically built on IN ships with some changes, and we are going to have admech ships be more expensive compared to IN ships, it seems like the most balancing option, considering the points are mandatory, to make the other gifts more viable compared to AWR.