• Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Topic: Another dumb trait idea

So I was looking at a specific background and contemplating a conversion. I came up with the following idea for a kind of weapon which takes a long time to reach its target, but cannot be "shot down" like a seeker flight (and there are other, more seeker like weapons in the setting). I was wondering what others thought.

Weapon Trait: Delayed Attack
Weapons with Delayed Attack trait  do not make a "To-Hit" roll on the turn that they are fired. Instead, a target is declared and the weapon conducts its attack of the intended target during the next combat phase. Weapon Modifier: x0.8

Oh, and I am not at all sure that he modifier is very good, but I had to put something  wink
Erik

  • Registered: 2010-01-07
  • Posts: 35

Re: Another dumb trait idea

Obvious question is how you determine what the range is when you do make the attack roll.  Is it "locked in" when you announce the target?  If so, you can't run away from it, which seems odd.

  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Re: Another dumb trait idea

starbreaker wrote:

Obvious question is how you determine what the range is when you do make the attack roll.  Is it "locked in" when you announce the target?  If so, you can't run away from it, which seems odd.

Excellent point  :oops:  How's this:

Weapon Trait: Delayed Attack
Weapons with Delayed Attack trait do not make a "To-Hit" roll on the turn that they are fired. Instead, a target is declared and the weapon conducts its attack of the intended target during the next combat phase. The target must be within the weapon's Range on the turn it is fired, and the range modifiers (if any) are determined at this time. Weapon Modifier: x0.8
Any other suggestions on how this could work?


Here's another one I was thinking about:

Weapon Trait: Precision
Weapons with the Precision trait do not suffer a -1 Attack Roll penalty when making an attack using Directed Damage. Weapon Modifier: x1.1

Cheers,
Erik

  • Registered: 2022-11-16
  • Posts: 516

Re: Another dumb trait idea

I think you might be making this a little more fiddly than it needs to be.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not really a current Starmada player.

That being said, with a "delayed impact" weapon, which aren't unlike WW I and WW II torpedoes, couldn't you do the following:

Roll to hit normally, using the range that the ship is from the target.
Mark the target with the number of hits generated.
Then during the following turn's Combat Phase, simply "finish" the attack sequence by rolling for shields and damage.
The initial to hit roll represents the success of the firing ship locking onto the target, while the effects of the hit on the following turn represent the "slow travel" of the weapon to the target.

As for the cost, I don't know that I'd change much of anything. The weapon is still going to have it's normal effects, it's just that those effects are being delayed for a turn.
Kevin

  • Registered: 2009-08-03
  • Posts: 245

Re: Another dumb trait idea

So, I've not got much to say about Delayed Fire; it's an interesting concept, but I don't think I would use it because damage now is better than damage later.  Precision, though, I have some thoughts on.  x1.1 is definitely too low; using Directed Damage allows you to boost your expected number of hull hits from 1 per 2 damage dice to 3 per 4 damage dice by re-rolling all damage dice which are not hull hits ( 1/2 initial hull + 1/2 not-hull  * 1/2 of not-hulls turned into hulls = 3/4), for a multiplier of 1.5 (.75 / .5).  Against armor plating, the expected number of hull hits increases from 1 per 3 damage dice to 5 per 9 damage dice ( 1/3 + 2/3 * 1/3 = 5/9 ), for a multiplier of 1.6666 (.5555 / .3333), which for traits would round up to 1.7.  These numbers speak nothing of the versatility which directed damage generates as well for crippling a particular system, just of raw hull-damage power, which seems to be how most trait multipliers are determined.  Therefore, I would recommend an x1.5 multiplier for Precision, and just let it be an efficient counter to Armor Plating.

  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Re: Another dumb trait idea

underling wrote:

I think you might be making this a little more fiddly than it needs to be.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not really a current Starmada player.

That being said, with a "delayed impact" weapon, which aren't unlike WW I and WW II torpedoes, couldn't you do the following:

Roll to hit normally, using the range that the ship is from the target.
Mark the target with the number of hits generated.
Then during the following turn's Combat Phase, simply "finish" the attack sequence by rolling for shields and damage.
The initial to hit roll represents the success of the firing ship locking onto the target, while the effects of the hit on the following turn represent the "slow travel" of the weapon to the target.

As for the cost, I don't know that I'd change much of anything. The weapon is still going to have it's normal effects, it's just that those effects are being delayed for a turn.
Kevin

I like the simplicity of that...and this is why I ask  smile  I have a gift for over-complicating things!
Erik

  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Re: Another dumb trait idea

Nomad wrote:

So, I've not got much to say about Delayed Fire; it's an interesting concept, but I don't think I would use it because damage now is better than damage later.

 
Like I said, it was for a specific conversion, and I can't really see any reason I would design something from scratch with a limitation like that.

Nomad wrote:

Precision, though, I have some thoughts on.  x1.1 is definitely too low; using Directed Damage allows you to boost your expected number of hull hits from 1 per 2 damage dice to 3 per 4 damage dice by re-rolling all damage dice which are not hull hits ( 1/2 initial hull + 1/2 not-hull  * 1/2 of not-hulls turned into hulls = 3/4), for a multiplier of 1.5 (.75 / .5).  Against armor plating, the expected number of hull hits increases from 1 per 3 damage dice to 5 per 9 damage dice ( 1/3 + 2/3 * 1/3 = 5/9 ), for a multiplier of 1.6666 (.5555 / .3333), which for traits would round up to 1.7.  These numbers speak nothing of the versatility which directed damage generates as well for crippling a particular system, just of raw hull-damage power, which seems to be how most trait multipliers are determined.  Therefore, I would recommend an x1.5 multiplier for Precision, and just let it be an efficient counter to Armor Plating.

See, I never really thought of that effect (and I never would have even attempted the math!) as the specific system I was looking to port would be No Hull Damage as well  lol  Thanks for the feedback! I just throw everything against the forum wall and see what sticks...
Erik

  • Registered: 2022-11-16
  • Posts: 516

Re: Another dumb trait idea

I also thought of something else...
In addition to marking the number of hits, you'll also need to remember any weapon traits pertaining to the weapon that generated the delayed hits. This shouldn't be too much of a hassle, unless you're playing with a bunch of delayed weapons with differing traits.

As for point costing, Nomad may be correct.
"Damage now" is probably a little better than "damage later."
But I still don't think I'd discount the "delayed damage" trait very much.
Maybe the 0.8 as you've suggested, or possibly even 0.9.

  • Registered: 2009-08-03
  • Posts: 245

Re: Another dumb trait idea

Blacklancer99 wrote:

See, I never really thought of that effect (and I never would have even attempted the math!) as the specific system I was looking to port would be No Hull Damage as well  lol  Thanks for the feedback! I just throw everything against the forum wall and see what sticks...
Erik

Nah, I was just "The Guy Who Uses Directed Damage" in my group for a while tongue.  At some point I realized that turning shots at 3+ to shots at 4+ DD seemed to be working unusually well, and then I found myself unable to sleep until I'd done the math.  I think Precision + No-Hull might work out; 1.5 for Precision and .7 for No-Hull give 1.05, which is pretty close to the 1.1 you had in mind.

I guess my thought on delayed damage is that it could conceivably delay the achievement of victory conditions by a turn and let the enemy win instead, when normal weapons fire would've drawn the game.  Likewise, if you could've won on turn n with normal weapons but instead used delayed, the enemy has a chance to pull of a draw in turn n+1 before their stuff blows up from the delay.  It seems a little risky to me.  Games seem to me to be either totally dominated by one side, in which case it makes no difference, or very, very close, in which case it makes all the difference, especially when there are only a few turns of real shooting going on.  With delayed, you're basically losing one turn of firing (the last turn of the game).  Not as bad as losing half the turns of firing (as with Slow-Firing), so not as low as that, but .9 also seems a bit high.  .8 seems reasonable; if there are 5 turns of effective firing, and you're losing 1 turn, you're at 80% effectiveness, for .8.  Fewer than 5 turns of shooting makes this less than cost-efficient, and more than 5 turns of shooting makes it more than cost-efficient.

  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Re: Another dumb trait idea

Nomad wrote:

I guess my thought on delayed damage is that it could conceivably delay the achievement of victory conditions by a turn and let the enemy win instead, when normal weapons fire would've drawn the game.  Likewise, if you could've won on turn n with normal weapons but instead used delayed, the enemy has a chance to pull of a draw in turn n+1 before their stuff blows up from the delay.  It seems a little risky to me.

Did I mention that it was a dumb trait idea?  wink  Honestly, it was to represent a specific weapon conversion, and wasn't something I was looking to manipulate into a game-winning formula. In the end it is probably something that won't ever see the light of day...my gaming is restricted to my underground lair after all.
Thanks for the good points!
Erik

  • Registered: 2010-02-16
  • Posts: 346

Re: Another dumb trait idea

Recently, I have been amusing myself trying to convert the ships of Attack Vector: Tactical to Starmada versions. I have found that doing this requires a Trait resembling Delayed Fire.

    Ballistic taken as a Trait would be fired at a point rather than a ship. Range Modifiers would be taken from the distance to the Point-Of-Aim. If the shot hit, an ordinance marker would be placed at the Point-Of-Aim. If the shot missed, a die 6 would be rolled for scatter, shifting the placement of the marker by one Range Unit. A roll of 1 would shift it Forward of the Point-Of-Aim, a roll of 2 would shift it Forward & Starboard, a roll of 3: Aft & Starboard, a roll of 4: Aft , a roll of 5: Aft & Port, and a roll of 6: Forward & Port.

      The ordinance marker could be fired upon as though it were a boarding pod, breacher,fighter, striker, or seeker. If a target comes within range of the marker during the next turn, it may be fired upon using the distance between the target and the marker to determine range Modifiers. Within range of the marker means in this context, whatever is left of the weapon's original range after having the distance between the original firing point and the final placement ( after scattering) of the ordinance marker subtracted. As an example, a missle with a range of 15 is fired at a Point-Of-Aim that is 10 Range Units away. It could then fire at a target that came within a range of 5.

        While it would be reasonable to give this the same multiplier as Inverted Range Modifier, I am presently counting the vulnerability to countering fire as a severe enough disadvantage to cancel any positive multiplier. I am counting this as having no Space Unit Multiplier unless the Ballistic weapon is armored. I have not yet worked out the details of how to cost an armored ordinance marker.

          In any case, the ordinance markers could be fired upon and would be removed from the board immediately if hit. This would require that ordinance markers fire after ships.

            The only advantage that I can see for this Trait is that like the weapons from Attack Vector: Tactical that I am trying to model, it influences the way that ships maneuver. A player will try to move his ships away from ordinance markers.

              The principle disadvantage that I can see to this Trait is that if you have too many weapons with this Trait, the playing area will become cluttered with ordinance markers.