OOC Chat

[Ramano]

As far as I know there is no rule against loading other types of fighters onto an ISD, so long as you pay to build them. And considering you throw a few squads of T/F MkIIs and some AGBs on there, your fighters are every bit as powerful as mine, so where's the even out for the MC-90?

And im in agreement with everything Dem said on the rule discussions.

[Dementat]

T/F MkIIs and Elite X-wings have limits of 1 squadron per fleet in their specs.

[Ramano]

-sniffs the air- Oh my, what is that delicious scent floating past. Oh wait, I know, YOUR WRONG!!! Sorry, I dont ever get to say that to you, wanted to treasure and savor it, lmao!!!

c/p'd directly from the stats:
TIE/F2's can replace all regular TIE Fighters that make up onboard unit compliments (after purchase, of course).

You are most certainly not limited to only 1 squad per fleet with those. And being basically on par with an A-Wing, theres nothing I can field that will break through that. So I ask again, why does the MC-90 take so many more CP to have then an ISD which is superior to the MC-90 in every way?

[Dementat]

My mistake, I confused it with the Elite Interceptor. Honestly I don't like the TIE Mk-II because I'm nostalgic and it isn't common canon tech.

[Ramano]

Im just saying, I think both the ISD I and the MC-90 should have the same CP cost, either 23 or 19 but both have their own strengths and weaknesses and neither stand above the other on any mark by enough to justify them not having the same CP in my opinion.

[SWSF Hale]

The ISD is superior?

MC90 is a unqiue command cruiser with Tier 1 stock units that kick ass. Rebel Assault Troopers, V-Wings, B-Wings, and yes, "a few more shield points" account for much, so does that x1 Hyperdrive compared to the x2 on the ISD (you want rapid response? you gotta pay for it). With an ISD, you at least get 4 more Command Points to use to make up the difference. ISD + ESC is a great combo and can certainly challenge a MC90 especially after you upgrade your fighters. Lastly, I threw in the MC90 so that if anybody is inclined to play the New Republic or Rebel Alliance other than you, they can have a powerful ship to lead the way as opposed to a one-sided fleet, so that if anyone does go with a VSD + NEBs combo, or a VEC + ACC + ESC combo, you in your 1 big ship can stand a chance. With the MC90, you're ready to go from Day 1.

Play it out yourself. As soon as that ISD's CSP is gone... so is the ISD. The ISD simply can't keep up with the fighter damage. Even with all those AUX pounding away at the MC90 as well.

Honestly... it all comes out in the wash. How you pick your fleet is crucial. I realize the New Republic doesn't have nearly as many options as the Empire, and so you might get forced into that traditional MC80 + NEB + NEB + NEB kinda of fleet that leans heavily on starfighters and decent capital ships.

What you don't understand how badass Rebel fighters are until you try to kill them. I was only able to knock 3.5 Y-Wing Squads down in my last post, and that was only after I threw EVERYTHING I HAD at them. And you killed what? 7 of my squads? AND stunned my leading ship? AND damn near killed the second? (BTW, if I was using TIE Fighters, you would've killed close to 9 squads).

PLEASE!

The classic tactic of Rebel SFs vs Imperial CAPs must be used if you wanna play Republic. Every Rebel Fighter devastates capital ships. Who cares if you loose a third of your total flight taking out the CSP? Next post you own the fucker. That's what you have to understand. It's not your 8 squads to his 6. It's your A-Wing to his TIE Interceptor. Your X-Wing to his TIE Fighter. Your B-Wing to his ISD. TIEs in this game take heat off capital ships for a round so that you can go pound for pound against the Rebel SFs. That was one other big reason why the TIE Swarm rule was added, because if we let Reb SFs steamroll through a TIE space patrol on a 1:1 basis, you'd only need a few squads to kill them all while the rest blast the capital ship to dust! Independent players have it no better. StarVipers are the GO TO starfighter if you wanna win. Everything else is just a watered-down version of a Rebel fighter.

Reb/Rep players simply outclass the Empire. It's the whole quality vs quantity dynamic all over again, only with more shit to throw in the fire.

We don't need to argue semantics... or create over inflated ships to make sure there is a 50/50 balance in everything.

[Ramano]

No, I fully understand that, what im saying is in late game. When the ISD is no longer running 4 T/F's and 2 T/B squads but running 3 T/F 2s, 1 Elite T/I, and 2 AGBs. Suddenly im not facing off against ties, im facing off against fighters that are every bit as good as the fighters im running. Thats when the advantage the MC-90 has justifying the extra 4CP is neutralized and we are left with an over-sized under powered ISD. And for the record, even without its fighter screen, 1140 damage in 1 shot is hardly defenseless. Thats all I did with 7 squads of Y-Wings attacking you. Also, your calculation seems to think after taking out the fighter screen on the ISD im still gunna have a full compliment left with which to keep attacking with, which im sure even Dem would disagree with you on that.

But alas, I just wanted to say my piece. I will defer to your ruling on the matter. Its not that big of a deal, either way I dont plan on fielding one, I just thought it was odd and was wondering if someone had some logic behind it.

[SWSF Hale]

I can see your concern. Though I have to point out that Assault Gunboats can be interchanged on a 1 for 2 basis, so you need to take out 2 TIE squads to put 1 AGB squad in. And it's 1 for 12 for AUX. At most an ISD can have 7 Assault Gunboat squads if it removed all TIEs and most all AUX (including landing barges). This would run the Imp player 420 KCs.

And when both players are pulling in 2000+ KCs a month, who cares?

I would be more worried about the ISD with 6 TIE Avenger squads than anything else.

The solution to all this is to make SFs way more expensive, so that if you loose your entire compliment you are legitimately set back for the month. If I used the same cost formula for Capital Ships with SFs, then all starfighters would cost x6 more than what they do right now. So for X-Wings we're looking at 330 KCs, for TIE Fighters 120 KCs.

Suddenly that 1000 KCs per Action Day just got spoken for. And those 6 TIE Avenger squads just ran you 2340 KCs.

I wanted to have the credits roll freely in this game, so that battles could be often and replacements cheap. That one fleet didn't work out for you? No problem, buy a different one. If SFs go up in price, so should ground units then (though not as severely), right?

If ya'll want a game where you have to pinch pennies, let me know and I can rework the specs right away. I'm actually kinda leaning that way myself, because with 2000+ KCs a month, players will easily stockpile credits or focus their spending on facilities. Either way it's more than enough to fight.

[Ramano]

Actually, I think I have to agree with that. Say dropping the auto 1000KC per month and you just get what you generate. I mean, if you can get credit generation up to 2000KC+ every month awesome, but it should take a massive amount of work to achieve that. Otherwise, like you said, we are gunna have multiple lv6 hero's by 3rd or 4th collection day.

Furthermore, I think you should leave the stats exactly as is for prices. The extreme low income generation teamed with the current prices stands to fix any problem with making replacements too easy to come by. Not to mention will finally add an heir of true strategy to the game as replacing things like ships and fighters will be difficult at best and make people think twice about so many "victory or death" situations, as well as making retreat a prized option again as it should have always been. And think Dem, it would make an INT usable again as well!

[SWSF Hale]

Can I get a quorum to rollback the Income to 500 KCs / Action Day?

[Ramano]

Well... perhaps, but whats the difference. 1000kc, 500kc, 10,000kc, if we are getting for free lets just leave it as is and have a huge battle every action day cycle. I mean im down for that if its what we want to do. But remember, even at 500kc, thats over a ship every action day, and thats not even counting anything you generate on your own.

I was simply thinking of a strategy perspective, imagine how much more important your choices in combat are if a single squad of fighters 80KC, your fielding 15 squads in your fleet, and you only generate 140KC every action cycle. God forbid you actually lose a capital ship. An INT would literally be the outright nightmare of everyone playing, as it should be! It just adds so much more to the game to have the low income generation and high costs, as I said, decisions start to matter. Strategy, planning, and scanning become important again, instead of just send in the fleet, if it dies, oh well, i'll just rebuild it.

It really comes down to, do we want a high strategy, high planning game, or do we just want an assembly line of destruction rolling for the next 3 or 4 months until we get bored with it?

And for the record, I just want to play so I dont care either way, but I lean a preference more toward high planning high strategy.

[Ramano]

Also, while im thinking about it, let us not forget that there will be flashpoints that happen we can use to generate income as well. At least I hope there will be, hale really made it sound like there would be. So if you suffer a major loss, you could always recoup at the next flashpoint, as well as anything you destroy I believe we get paid for too. 1KC per meter. So in honesty there are all kinds of other ways to make money, I dont see a need for the free stuff.

[SWSF Hale]

Economics will have everything to do with it.

If you have no money, then with the current assembly line prices strategy becomes necessary. Which is kinda why I was learning towards upping the SF prices to x6.... so replacing an ESC's loadout would cost you 660 KCs. If we did that and went down to 500 KCs/Action Day, suddenly the game is way more realistic, but still very "assembly line" because everyone will at least have a baseline level of income to sustain fighting. With extra income coming from Industrial Output, players pulling in ~700 KCs/Action Day are in pretty good shape. Heaven help the guy who gets his ISD blown away. He'll be saving for months.

My proposal:
1. Income lowered to 500 KCs
2. Starfighter prices increased x6
3. Ground unit prices increased x5

[Ramano]

And whats to stop me from just scrapping a ship and rebuilding it if I lose all its fighters? If it becomes cheaper to rebuild the whole ship then to simply replace its fighters, and I just use stock units. (Ok rebel players could get away with that more then imp players) Just saying, if its 400KC to build a QFBC, and its 660KC just to replace its fighters, whats stopping me from just rebuilding the QFBC and just getting more stock units with it? More over, whats to stop a person from say, building ships for the stock units, taking all the units off, scrapping the ship, and rebuilding to get more stock units.

Perhaps its just me but I dont see a grey area here. If we are gunna give out free money and having a running assembly line, why change anything? Just leave it at 1000KC and call it good. There really are only 2 types of gaming when it comes to pen&paper RPGs. You have slow and planned, or you have everything is expendable cheap. Its the economics that determine the pace of the game.

Basically what im trying to say is, if we are going to give away free money every cycle, lets just not worry about changing things, otherwise, take it all away. As I stated before, any free money every month turns the game into a running assembly line of destruction, which if thats how we want to play, just leave the 1000KC.

[Ramano]

Also, why did you guys wait for me in the mock? You had a wide open chance to take me out when I couldnt post last night. I mean I appriciate the mercy, but once the real show starts, I would suggest not offering such in the future, as you will almost certainly receive none from me. Remember, that is my one weapon, the fact I can be more active then everyone else playing combined. Its also why im not nearly as good here, because I cant make 6 posts per day vs your 2 or 3. God bless flashpoint, lol!