• Registered: 2007-07-29
  • Posts: 55

Topic: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

I'm teaching the game to someone new tomorrow, so I'm printing out some ships right now.  I couldn't decide which ones, so I went to page 18 to read the flavor text.  There I saw that certain races have tech level bonuses.  So the ships in the sourcebook aren't balanced against each other.

Now, I'm all for asymmetric forces, but there are no drawbacks to the good races.  In real life if I get people hooked I'll play custom campaigns with building our own ships.  And we'll use the tech level rules from VBAM for certain.  But for a demo game I very nearly accidentally picked unbalanced forces to show off how balanced this point-buying customizable game is.

Am I missing something?

  • Registered: 2005-05-15
  • Posts: 84

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

The points value takes tech bonuses into account. So they are still balanced if equal point value battles are run.

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

Boneless wrote:

There I saw that certain races have tech level bonuses.  So the ships in the sourcebook aren't balanced against each other.

Now, I'm all for asymmetric forces, but there are no drawbacks to the good races.
...
Am I missing something?

Yes, actually. smile

From p.42 of the Core Rulebook:

Note that the evaluative process (see rule 6.2: The Combat Rating) is unaffected by TLs, as the combat rating is based upon the actual capabilities of the starship; TLs simply change how much "stuff" a ship may fit into a given hull.

Tech Levels actually play no part at all during the game itself -- they are only relevant during the construction process. And, since the Combat Rating is used to equalize forces, not relative hull sizes, tech levels don't impact game balance.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2005-06-15
  • Posts: 94

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

This confused me for a while.

So places where the combat rating uses the space units (I'm sure I've seen that somewhere) do it before applying the tech level adjustments?

I think this could help add some character to what I've been designing.  It is just hard to believe until you work it out.  I'll take a closer look.

andy

  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 811

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

Not exactly. 

The only effect that TL has on a ship is the SU requirements for items.

For example, suppose a weapon takes up 20 SU and increases the points of the ship by 10 CR for each one you add.

After the TL is applied, the SU requirements might go down to 10.

Thus, the ship can "hold" twice as many weapons and where you could originally get only 5 weapons on the ship, you can now put 10 weapons in the same space, therefore, the CR would increase proportionally.

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

andyskinner wrote:

So places where the combat rating uses the space units (I'm sure I've seen that somewhere) do it before applying the tech level adjustments?

The offensive rating for weapons uses the battery's total SU cost as a basis -- that's just a convenience to avoid re-calculating all the different factors.

Huh ... I thought there was an explicit statement in there that the weapons TL does NOT affect the ORAT, but I guess there isn't. I'll have to fix that in a revision.

In the meantime, be assured that the factions in the Sourcebook have their Combat Ratings computed properly.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2006-05-03
  • Posts: 44

Re: Factions in ISS book unbalanced?

In fact, I *would* pick forces of different tech levels, to show off how well the point system handles such match-ups.

-Will