Topic: On Hull strength

[Holocat]

Every now and again, I start mucking about with sfc1 and OP's shiplist with shipedit, but I never did understand a large part of it.

what do those numbers on hull and armour MEAN, exactly?  I mean, yes, the higher it is the more damage you can take, but how do these numbers actually corrispond to damage?

how does forward/center/aft differing hull strengths affect the durablity of craft?

If someone could produce, or point me towards a damage chart or FAQ that makes these numbers make sense, i'd be grateful.


Meow,

Holocat.  

[Rod O'neal]

Well, assuming it follows the SFB Damage allocation, armor is the 1st "system" to take damage after your shields are penetrated. All damage will be applied to armor until it is gone. Hull is supposed to denote non-critical areas on the ship. Crew qtrs. etc. that would be hit but not degrade the ships ability to fight. It works as a sort of "7th" shield and protects some other systems. Batteries and shuttle bays, for example, tend to be "shielded" by hull on the Damage Allocation Chart (DAC) ie, it will take damage before those systems. Forward hull takes damage on Forward hull hits only. Rear, or aft hull takes damage on rear hull hits only. Center hull can absorb hits to both. Therefore, center hull "protects" better. Hydrans, for example, are designed to fight in close and will need to sustain damage without losing many critical systems, so they have a lot of center hull. I hope this helps. The DAC rules from SFB would explain it better.

[Holocat]

Thanks!

Alright, I think I get it;  In SFB the hull number was sort of a extra, non rechargable shield.  This of course, raises more questions:

  I've seen a small bit of a DAC for SFB in an attempt to understand Mizia attacks better, and things like cargo and hull are listed there;  while you still have 'hull' can you still have you systems hit, like the DAC would imply?  What is, generally, the chance of having your hull save you as opposed to having a system hit?

  Would a number such as 'HULL CENTER 10' then mean that there are ten spots on the DAC where hull is mentioned, or ten columns where hull is mentioned, or...?

  Is armour a slot on the DAC? (haven't seen armour on the small five-column DAC that i've seen...)  Or is it more like a shield, where you have to remove all points on it before you can hit other systems, or...?

  There's ANOTHER number on the shipedit chart that states 'excess damage'  Is this just more hull, or...?

  If hull is just another spot on the DAC, how, exactly, does a ship die?  What are the conditions that have to be met for it to go kaplowie-plow?

Hope i'm not being too much of a pest with these questions,

Holocat  

[Rogue]

Good questions about battle mechanics. The DAC from SFB derived the way damage was applied to the starship, of course. As two six sided dice were used it weighted towards hitting systems near 7 and less so at either extreem. Mizia refers to increasing probability of connecting on weapons systems by taking your shots one weapon at a time. Usualy a heavy weapon, phaser or the like was possible to 'roll' on any given shot. If you alpha strike (firing all facing weapons all at once), you tend to destroy fewer weapons systems but you tend to destroy more power systems. My favorite on a first strike is alpha and mizia afterwards as the opportunity presents itself. A heavy alpha-strike can eat up a lot of power systems. (as in a broad side of overloaded photons) Disruptors make excellent mizia weapons as they stand a good chance of inflicting a couple of points in damage at moderate range. PPD's are even better!

Armor does not appear on the DAC as it comes into play after any shield penetration untill it is gone. After that, non-critical systems appear more often and higher in the bell-curve. However, each number has a track you progress through. It's been a long time but if I recall... say you roll three 7's an 8 and an 11, the seven track may show hull in the first and second column but you get shuttle in the third. 8 might be bridge and you got a torpedo on 11. But the tracks after that may are usualy a different system. Cargo also tends to absorb a lot of damage. Even more so than hull if I remember, because many tracks will read hull/cargo or cargo/ battery. You get to choose what damage your ship takes. Therefor cargo protects more important systems.

Excess damage... it's been years, but I think that's when your ship runs out of that +1 more... it goes BOOM. Excess damage is scored when when you hit a system that your out of. No more hull, cargo or aux. control (for example) on that track will be recorded as excess damage. Then you determine you explosion strength by a simple formula relating to power systems. Anything within a certain radius records damage from that direction.

Hope this makes sense.  

[Holocat]

Alright, i've edited this post into near oblivion, but here we go again:

When a ship is damaged, the following happens:

First, armour is depleted, making armour like a single use shield.

For the sake of simplicity, let's say there's no armour affecting the roll.  What happens is this:

1.  Each weapon's gets a shot at a system;  The higher the damage it causes, the higher the column on the DAC it strikes.
 
2.  each weapon gets a roll of 2d6, hitting a row (or track, as I now realize it is called).
  the space from the damage column and the track's 'roll' determines the system that's hit.
  a) critical systems can only be hit once per volley
  b) hitting 'hull' on a track degrades the hull score by 1
  c) hitting 'cargo' on a track degrades the cargo score by 1

3.  When either a) a destroyed system that has not been repaired, or b) the hull or cargo when they are at 0, the hit is recorded in excess damage.

4.  when excess damage hits -1, the ship explodes.

I have yet more questions, provided you all aren't completly put out yet:

 How is track 1 hit? 2d6 = 2-12

 If damage determines which column is to be hit, and range is a large facter in determining damage, is there a way to exploit this?  I mean, can you try to determine which column your enemey will be hitting on (through trying to adjust what adverage damage he does through things like ECM and range), to keep critical systems safer?

 Does this mean that Mizia makes it easier to destroy a SHIP than massed volleys?  If ANY destroyed system that is hit again counts against excess damage, wouldn't destroying alot of systems make it more likely you'd hit something that's taken as excess damage?

 What happens if a critical system is hit twice (they can only be hit once per volley)  where does the second strike go?

[Rod O'neal]

Quote:
Thanks!

Alright, I think I get it;  In SFB the hull number was sort of a extra, non rechargable shield.  This of course, raises more questions:

  Actually, hull is just areas of the ship that would contain systems, rooms, etc. that aren't used in combat. Therefore, taking damage to it doesn't degrade the ships ability to fight. "7th shield" is an SFB term applied to generally non important systems that, when you take damage, you'd rather get it there.

  I've seen a small bit of a DAC for SFB in an attempt to understand Mizia attacks better, and things like cargo and hull are listed there;  while you still have 'hull' can you still have you systems hit, like the DAC would imply?  What is, generally, the chance of having your hull save you as opposed to having a system hit?

    When you look at the DAC the rows of systems next to the numbers 2 thru 12 are what gets damaged on the dice roll. On the num. 6 row, for example, the first "system" that would take internal damage would be F hull. Everytime a 6 was rolled for an internal you would take a F hull hit until you were out of F hull then you would move to the next system on the row. In this case, it would be Impulse. So, the more F hull you have the more times you could absorb a hit on a dice roll of 6 before you'd have to take a hit on your impulse engines and loose power. Tactically, the F hull is "shielding" your impulse engines from damage. The 7 row starts with cargo, then F hull, then Battery. If a 7 is rolled you would first take damage on your cargo bay until it was all destroyed. (If your ship doesn't have Cargo, as many don't, you skip over the system you don't have and take damage to the next one. In this case F hull.) Then you'd take damage to F hull, 'til it was gone, and then Batteries. Cargo and F hull is, again, "shielding" your batteries from damage. On a roll of 8 you would first take damage to rear, or A hull, before taking damage to your aux. power system, which is the next system on the 8 row. These are the most likely dice rolls, so the more hull and/or cargo you have, the better your ship takes damage without starting to loose power from these common rolls.

  Would a number such as 'HULL CENTER 10' then mean that there are ten spots on the DAC where hull is mentioned, or ten columns where hull is mentioned, or...?

    I'm not sure here? The num. 10 has nothing to do with the DAC in this instance. Probably denotes the amount of C hull on a particular ship.

  Is armour a slot on the DAC? (haven't seen armour on the small five-column DAC that i've seen...)  Or is it more like a shield, where you have to remove all points on it before you can hit other systems, or...?

    No. Armor will take any damage that penetrates the shields until it is used up. Then you go to the DAC to roll for internal damage to the ship.

  There's ANOTHER number on the shipedit chart that states 'excess damage'  Is this just more hull, or...?

    As was said in the prior post, "Once you run out of Excess Damage, one more hit and your ship goes *BOOM*.

  If hull is just another spot on the DAC, how, exactly, does a ship die?  What are the conditions that have to be met for it to go kaplowie-plow?

    See above  

Hope i'm not being too much of a pest with these questions,

    Not at all. Sorry about the lengthy repply. I hope this helps Rod

Holocat  

   

[Rogue]

Quote:
Alright, lemme see if I have this straight:

The DAC was in SFB a 14 column chart on which two 6 sided dice were rolled.  For every 'point' of damage scored on a ship without a shield to absorb it the following would happen.

1.  Armour would be subtracted from the score.  If any damage remained after that, it would

2. Be allocated to the DAC;  One roll for every point of damage past the armour.
  a) every time a roll scored, the victim looks down on the DAC;  The first slot in the column is the system hit.
  b) for multiple rolls of the same score, the next box gets hit.

-For every hit on a DAC box with HULL on it, one point is subtracted from the HULL score.
-For every point on the DAC that hits CARGO, one point is subtracted from the CARGO score.

3. When a system that has already been hit (twice in SFC) and not repaired, or the hull/cargo hit when their value is zero, the hit goes to excess damage.

4.  When excess damage hits 0, the ship dies messily.


I have more questions!

  -I vaguly remember the damage scored being how one entered a column on the DAC, thus how the mizia attack worked (lower damage = lower column, which contains more weapon systems+multiple hits on critical systems).  If this is true, i'm really lost as to what/why your rolling.  Can you ppl explain exactly what happens when X damage hits a ship?

  -if your rolling 2d6, how do you hit column/row(?) 1?  the lowest 2d6 can do is 2...

Confuzzled, but learning quickly,

Holocat.
   

*Awww, you beat me to the reply. Hopefuly you remember the DAC better than I do as it has been years. Isnt the basic rules in the SFB folder with SFC? I don't know at the moment as I don't instal it with SFC. However if you do, the DAC may be included with it. Look in your Taldren folder and it might be there*

You just about have it. The DAC is a 12 row an index chart. When players fire their weapons they may score damage value based on their roles. Some weapons are hit or miss, while others vary in damage (phasers). Damage is always based on the weapon at a certain range with eletronic warfare shift, if any. Say a phaser at rangs 6 might score 0,1,2,2,3,4 depending on your roll.  On a given volley you determine the amount of damage. Then you use dice to see what you hit once you get past the shields and armor. That chart has lines 2 - 12 for the possible rolls. The columns go on for about ten or so steps naming different ship systems as it progresses from 1st to last column. When that volley is done you start from scratch on the next volley. There is actualy an alternate system of using index cards that simulates the DAC. The results are supposed to be about the same but easier than all the dice rolling.

The point to mizia is if you look at the DAC in the first column you will find Torp and phaser on results 3 and 11 IIRC. Non criticals, like hull, cargo are grouped around  the more likely outcomes of 5 - 9. (note. more important systems do occur later in those tracks but you have to score enough internals to get to them) Whereas if you fire a disruptor into a down shield and score internals for say 4 points, you have four rolls to to try to score a weapon. If you do that on consecutive turns/impulses you stand a greater probability of hitting a weapon system. The reason this is so is because if you roll two 11's in the same volley the first hits the phaser but the second time might read emergency bridge. But had you rolled an 11 in the first volley and the second you got two phaser hits. And it has to be a facing phaser if available. Yay!

Actualy you can make judgement as to firing all facing weapons or just one or two depending on the tactics. The risk to mizia is that weapon might get knocked out having never fired. SFC is more mizia friendly than SFB. Simultaneous exchange of all facing weapons was more the norm in SFB for fear of losing a shot. A reason to fire second in SFC is to make your reinforcements count. Because pulling the trigger on a phaser in SFC depletes your energy and shield reinforcements drop accordingly. And by a unreasonable amount at that. Say 4-8 points for firing a single phaser. This isn't a rule to live by but something to be aware of. The reverse is true of your opponent. If he pot shots you with phaser you can reply in kind because his reinforcements just got depleted. Your advantage! Disruptors, however, have their own buffers and don't deplete the phaser capacitors when fired.  

[Stormbringer]

The way excess damage worked was each number possible with 2d6 had a row in the DAC and had a number of systems ranged across it. EXAMPLE:  The first time a 3 was rolled the first system in the 3rd row was damaged. (one box was marked off.) the next time three was rolled the next system in the three row was marked and so on. When all the systems in row three (as an example) were hit any additional threes would go toward exess damage boxes. I think that if all exess damage was destroyed the ship blew up even if hull or other systems were left in the other columns. There may have been a cumulative chance of destruction per excess damage box marked off but I don't remember well enough to be sure. And of course, the process applied to all rows in the DAC not just the three row I just used as an example. So tougher ships had more excess damage boxes on the SSD. Of course armor and other factors also simulated tough ships but this allowed even small low powered low armed ships to be tough to kill.

[Rod O'neal]

Now you see why the rulebook for SFB is so thick. As tough as this seems, you ought to try movement  

The way mizia works is there are systems that can only be hit one time per volley by a particular die roll. A single volley can be multiple weapons fired at the same time. For example, you hit some poor sucker with 100pts of plasma all fired at the same time. Let's say he's in a CA. 30pts, or so, are taken by the facing shield, dropping it. If he has armor, let's say 10pts of armor, then another 10pts is absorbed by the armor, destroying it. There are now 60pts left which must be rolled and allocated per the DAC. If you look at the DAC you'll notice some systems which are BOLD and underlined. These systems will only take damage once per volley, on that particular die roll. Even if you have more than one of them. An 11 roled would hit a Torp the first time you rolled it. The next 11 you rolled would then skip the torp, even if you had more torp hits on your ship, and score a phaser hit. The next 11 you rolled would skip the torp and the phaser, since they can only be hit once in a single volley on the 11 roll, and proceed to the next system. In this case, impulse. Continued 11 rolls would continue to hit impulse until it was all destroyed, because, on the 11 row, it isn't BOLD/underlined. With 60 internals you would never hit another phaser or torp before you finished if you rolled all 11s. Now, if on consecutive impulses you scored 1pt of damage at a time and rolled 11s each time, you'd hit a torp on each roll until they were all destroyed and then any facing phasers until they were all destroyed. On a D7, for example, firing through the #2 or #6 shield, you could take out all the disruptors and almost every phaser on the ship with about 12 internals. If you scored 1pt of damage per impulse and rolled 11 everytime. (The Klingon Capt. would probably never play SFB using your dice again though LOL) This is an extreme example, of course, as you'd never roll all those 11s in a row, and the opponent wouldn't let you get that many shots in a row on the same shield, but it's only for example.
The other way to Mizia someone is to combine different types of weapons in a single shot. Seeking weapons count as a seperate volley from direct fire weapons. Even if they hit on the same impulse. Enveloped plasma is also a seperate volley. As are enveloping hellbores, and PPDs. So, even if you can't get the opponent to sit still for multiple shots through the same shield, you can fire different combinations of weapons to impact at the same time and achieve the Mizia effect. I'm not sure if SFCs damage allocation system takes all of this into account or not. I'm pretty sure the PPD was changed to NOT take full advantage of the Mizia concept and I'm not sure if seeking weapons or enveloping weapons get it either. Maybe someone else knows this.
As an FYI, The Mizia was named after the person who invented/discovered the technic. I think his first name was Steve. I'll bet you when he first used it everyone was screaming CHEESE!!!!!!
   

[Holocat]

Thanks for reminding me about that cadet's handbook;  I completely forgot about those pdfs.

Ah, with a chart infront of me it begins to make sense;  Thanks. =)

Hey, anyone have a link to a STANDARD DAC?

And jeeze, no wonder this game became a computer game;  I bet a third of the dice rollers were thinking "It would be so much easier if we could get a computer to do all the math"  

In the cadet manual, it shows an example where the forward hull and rear hull points are used to stop an attack from the forward quarter;  Can any hull protect against any attack in SFC, or is this just a simplification in the cadet handbook?

I'm afraid to ask, but how IS movement more complex in SFB?

[Rod O'neal]

Quote:


I'm afraid to ask, but how IS movement more complex in SFB?

Capt. edition rulebook
Section (C.0) MOVEMENT = 34pgs of fine print.

Section (D4.0) DAMAGE ALLOCATION = Alittle more than 3+ pgs. Same fine print though.  

[Holocat]

O_o

[Rogue]

Quote:

Quote:


I'm afraid to ask, but how IS movement more complex in SFB?

Capt. edition rulebook
Section (C.0) MOVEMENT = 34pgs of fine print.

Section (D4.0) DAMAGE ALLOCATION = Alittle more than 3+ pgs. Same fine print though.  

You got that right. The rules were what made the game endearing and also difficult to find people who were willing to learn it. And there was always the eratta! (I've heard that plasma weapons are being tweaked to this day). Add in the hex map, chits, impulse chart, turn modes, side-slipping... etc. (yes, it goes on adnausium) We tended to agree to play  free  movement, which lead to the great fiasco. I choose an Andromedan with a super computer. Which forced plotted movement for my opponents. I was never forgiven. (No, you can't play Andy with a super computer or we'll take the game and go home... nya!) It is amazing the havok one can raise on your hapless enemies by calling your ship last. A fully loaded Intruder is a thing of beauty.  

[Rod O'neal]

[quote

You got that right. The rules were what made the game endearing and also difficult to find people who were willing to learn it. And there was always the eratta! (I've heard that plasma weapons are being tweaked to this day). Add in the hex map, chits, impulse chart, turn modes, side-slipping... etc. (yes, it goes on adnausium) We tended to agree to play  free  movement, which lead to the great fiasco. I choose an Andromedan with a super computer. Which forced plotted movement for my opponents. I was never forgiven. (No, you can't play Andy with a super computer or we'll take the game and go home... nya!) It is amazing the havok one can raise on your hapless enemies by calling your ship last. A fully loaded Intruder is a thing of beauty.  



I used to play Andy's too The meanest thing I ever did though was to choose a year before fast drones and AWR refits. Those old galactic ships blew up so nice

[Rogue]

Quote:


I used to play Andy's too The meanest thing I ever did though was to choose a year before fast drones and AWR refits. Those old galactic ships blew up so nice  

Yes they did, Rod, yes they did. I particularly appreciated the look of inevitabie doom dawning on the opponents expressions. This is when we were trying to see how Andy's systems played against the traditional races. If I remember, it was right before the time the Dominator was specified and the BPV's went up. Yes, Andy played very well indeed.    

[Holocat]

Being one of the ones that never heard of SFB before SFC, i've only heard sketchy things about the andromedans and the Tholians.  If I might interject for a moment, could someone tell me about:

Web rules:  So complicated they were never implemented?  What are they, exactly?  The rules I mean.

Andromedans:  From what you're telling me, it sounded like it was the cheeze race of it's day;  What made the Andromedeans so powerful for their day?

 

[Rod O'neal]

   

Quote:
Being one of the ones that never heard of SFB before SFC, i've only heard sketchy things about the andromedans and the Tholians.  If I might interject for a moment, could someone tell me about

Interject? It's your post. I was afraid we were hi-jacking it

   Web rules:  So complicated they were never implemented?  What are they, exactly?  The rules I mean.

I don't think it was the rules for web that kept it out of SFC. I think it was more the graphics and how to write the code. Web is basically terrain to block, or if your opponent is really inept, trap your opponent. Your opponent can't fire or fly through it. So 1; you cast or lay the web inbetween you and your opponent to force him/her to maneuver in a way that's benificial to you.
2; You use web to block your opponents fire.
3; You use web to catch and delay your opponents seeking weapons.
4; Web Casters also have a direct fire mode. About as powerfull as 3 or 4 standard loaded disruptors, depending on range. They fire just as fast and are about as accurate.
I really believe it has more to do with coming up with an interface more than the rules that makes it so tough to design. Most of the rules deal with powering the web and how long it takes to dissapate. Easy calculations for a computer

   Andromedans:  From what you're telling me, it sounded like it was the cheeze race of it's day;  What made the Andromedeans so powerful for their day?

Andromedans have just proven all but impossible to balance against the other races because of the drastic difference in there systems when compared to the "Galactics". They're extra galactic, from the Andromedan Galaxy. So they wanted to make their systems really different. All of the other races use basically the same systems. All have shields etc. that operate the same way from one race to another. The only things you have to balance are avg. damage per turn, and power curve. Mix in different ratios of maneuvering capability to firing arcs and damage to defense ratios and you can pretty much balance them. Now, they've done all the calculations on these variables with Andros but there's, in my oppinion, one Andromedan system that screws up the entire calculation. The displacement device. The DisDev allows the Andromedan player to instantly transport itself anywhere, up to 12 hexes (Range 12. in SFC terms) or it's allied ships or opponents ships anywhere up to 6 hexes from their current location. Now, displacement can fail and, IMO, this is the only way a properly flown Andro ship can loose. So you never put yourself in a situation where if you fail displacement you die.
 With all the standard BPV calculations the "original" Andromedans were so far out of balance that an Andro player wrote a tactics paper where he proved a 90bpv Andro destroyer would beat an 150bpv cruiser 100% of the time and there wasn't anything the cruiser capt. could do about it! So along came the "Doomsday" edition of the rules. (That's actually the official name for them. I didn't make it up ) They changed the way many of the Andro systems and rules worked and this was supposed to balance them. Well, as of right now, the current Andro tournament ship is a DW. All of the other races, except the Orions, fly what are basically "suped-up" versions of their CCs. Even though the tournament rules are badly balanced against prefered Andro tactics, and always have been.
Another thing that makes them hard to beat are their rules. I've never counted, but there's probably 50 pgs. of Andro only rules. If you don't play them, then odds are, you aren't going to know them all. If you don't know their rules, how can you be effective against them? It's like the first time someone "castled" against you in chess. You looked at them and said, "What the hell did you just do?" Right before you lost your Queen
  Sorry for the colorizing. Just trying to make it easier to read.    

 

     

[Holocat]

What happens when someone runs into a tholian web?  Do they stop, take damage, become disabled?
'delays' seeking weapons implies that they aren't destroyed outright when a web catches them;  It holds them in place? (that would imply that plasma torpedos degrade over time rather than distance...)

3-4 disruptors is about 8-12 damage;  Per turn and with dizzy accuracy would make a rather compelling weapon in SFC.

I'm still not clear on how the displacement device makes the andromedans an irresitable force to deal with.

Anyway, thanks to all those teaching me about the finer points in SFB,

Holocat.  

[Stormbringer]

Quote:
What happens when someone runs into a tholian web?  Do they stop, take damage, become disabled?
'delays' seeking weapons implies that they aren't destroyed outright when a web catches them;  It holds them in place? (that would imply that plasma torpedos degrade over time rather than distance...)

3-4 disruptors is about 8-12 damage;  Per turn and with dizzy accuracy would make a rather compelling weapon in SFC.

I'm still not clear on how the displacement device makes the andromedans an irresitable force to deal with.

Anyway, thanks to all those teaching me about the finer points in SFB,

Holocat.  

Well for one thing, you can't count on control of what shield is facing them, nor having weapons of choice ready to bear on them but they can appear facing your weakest shield and ready to fire. Also because of turn modes they can screw up your tactics even if you executed perfect tactics (versus any other race)

I'm amazed no one mentioned the fact that thier power absorbing armor allowed them to use your weapons' fire  to charge thier systems.

Also they had the dreaded " turn the other guy's crew into grey dodecahedrons" ray

[Holocat]

That reminds me to ask:

On top of everything else i've asked (web rules, andromedian cheeze weapon stories) What conditions have to be satisfied for a Hit to a ship to destroy crew and/or marines?