Topic: PBR v4.0

[KHH Jakle]

This is for discussion.

Key new differences:
- hull size of Command Variant relative to the rest of the squadron is a factor
- Large Carriers (the ones that require 2 escorts) can replace one with a escort base class (the line version)
- Fast Cruiser rule replaced with Limited Production Rule: this would be a catch all for limited production ships (like Fast Cruisers) that can be used in place of a line ship, but you can't have more than one.

Some of what this all means isn't clear until you see your races matrix - but I am not going to put a matrix together unless I know the rule is accepted.  So ask questions and I will answer in here.

 

Patrol Battle Rules ? v. 4.0

 

Command Variants:
·         Command Variants consist of BB?s, DN?s, BCH?s and the Command Versions that exist for virtually all designs of standard Cruisers, Light Cruisers, Destroyers & Frigates. 

·         Your squadron is limited to one Command Variant, and only in 2v2 or 3v3 matches.  Command Variants are off limits for 1v1 duels.

·         The Command ship must be either the largest hull class in the squadron or only one step lower, i.e. a D5L can be the command ship for 2 D5W?s, but a FWL cannot.

 

These are limited to 2v2 or 3v3 matches since these vessels did not operate alone (in normal circumstances). 

 

Some PF races have BCH and DN type vessels that also are full PF Tenders.  These will be denoted with an asterisk (*) and mention at the bottom of that races Matrix.  These ships will count as both Command and Combat Support.

 

Refer to the Patrol Battle Matrix for a by race breakdown of BCH?s and DN?s and the other Command Variants.

 

True Carriers and Escorts:
·         Large Carriers are restricted to use in 3v3 battles and the other 2 ships must be carrier escorts.  At the Squadron Commander?s discretion, a single escort can be replaced with the stock line class of an escort.

·         Small Carrier are require only a single escort

·         Escorts must have their carriers and cannot be used without them

·         The carrier?s escorts can not be of a larger hull class than the carrier they escort.  Ex:  a Fed NVS (Light Cruiser Hull Class) could have any escorts, as the largest Fed escort is the CL-Hulled NAC.  However, a Fed FFV (Frigate Hull Class) could only have FFE?s as escorts.  Heavy Cruiser Hulled CVS or Dreadnought Hulled CVA can have any escorts.

 

 Refer to the Patrol Battle Matrix for a by race breakdown of Large and Small Carriers and Escorts. 

 

 

Combat Support Vessels:
·         Combat Support Vessels were specialized attack vessels that never operated in close proximity to the enemy alone

·         Only a single Combat Support Vessel may be used, and only in a 3v3.  Refer to the Patrol Battle Matrix for a by race breakdown of Combat Support Vessels

 

Note for the PF races:  PF Tenders are not considered Carriers but rather combat support vessels.  Escort ships were provided for the PF races, but they have no Carriers to escort, so I have listed them under Combat support vessels as well.  Any future mod that is used that provided True Carriers to all races, then those escorts will be subject to Rule #2.

 

ISC PPD Deployment Limit:  ISC squadrons are limited to a 4 PPD?s for a 3 ship formation.  These can be on multiple ships or a single ship. 
 

1st Gen X Ships:  Teams can deploy 1st Gen X-ships in two ways. 
 

·         Option A ? A single Heavy Cruiser Hull X ship can be used as a Command Variant.  These ships are listed with the Command Variants on the Matrix.  All other ships must be non-X. 

·         Option B ? All Ships in the formation must be X ships.  These formations are still limited to single Heavy Cruiser X-hull.  1st Gen X ships for each Race are listed on the Matrix.

 

Additionally, the use of 1st Generation X-Ships will be restricted to ?Advanced Era? Matches.  All Advanced era X2 ships (all ships beginning with an ?X? ? ex. XCA, XCF, XCB) will not be used in Divisional Matches.

 

Limited Production Warships: 
·         They can be used independently (1v#).

·         In larger formations, there can not be more than 1 (one) limited production ship in the squadron. 

·         This does not impact the number of command variants or combat support ships allowed in the formation.

 

 

 

These rules apply to restricted designs (above) that were relatively few in number or specialized.  When consulting the Patrol Battle Matrix, it is important to remember that the Matrix is simply a list of ships that fall under the above restrictions.  All unlisted ships are under no restriction whatsoever and can be used at will. 

 

[FPF-DieHard]

- Fast Cruiser rule replaced with Limited Production Rule: this would be a catch all for limited production ships (like Fast Cruisers) that can be used in place of a line ship, but you can't have more than one.

I do not like this at all.   Makes for too many cheesy combos.

[FPF-DieHard]

This is for discussion.

Key new differences:
- hull size of Command Variant relative to the rest of the squadron is a factor
- Large Carriers (the ones that require 2 escorts) can replace one with a escort base class (the line version)

These are cool.

Does anyone else besides me think a Battleship escorted by 2 police ships is retarted as well?  Am I alone on this view, is it worth discussing?

[KHH Jakle]

- Fast Cruiser rule replaced with Limited Production Rule: this would be a catch all for limited production ships (like Fast Cruisers) that can be used in place of a line ship, but you can't have more than one.

I do not like this at all.   Makes for too many cheesy combos.

To be perfectly honest....I was thinking the same thing.  

I am almost of a mind so say that the Fast Cruiser rule should be totally removed and have them thrown back in to combat support.  I don't know.

[FPF-DieHard]

- Fast Cruiser rule replaced with Limited Production Rule: this would be a catch all for limited production ships (like Fast Cruisers) that can be used in place of a line ship, but you can't have more than one.

I do not like this at all.   Makes for too many cheesy combos.

To be perfectly honest....I was thinking the same thing.  

I am almost of a mind so say that the Fast Cruiser rule should be totally removed and have them thrown back in to combat support.  I don't know.

I need to pay more attention, they were removed from combat support? 

[KHH Jakle]

Does anyone else besides me think a Battleship escorted by 2 police ships is retarted as well?  Am I alone on this view, is it worth discussing?

Hmm...that's sort of the inverse of the command rule as it's written with the proposed v4, which concerns itself with only the command ship being rediculously small relative to the ships it 'commands'

But you are right - IMO it is as retarded to have even a Dreadnought escorted by police ships....

Let's see - for a DN hull (which would include BB's) at least one of the ships in the squadron must be a CL-hull or larger?  That would then cross over to the Large Carriers as well - if you have a F-CVA, at least one of those escorts would need to be an NEC/NAC/ECL.  Extend this to BCH's (which are Pocket Dreads) as well - of course then I'd have to make a BCH list on the matrix so everybody knows what their BCH's are....

  

[KHH Jakle]

I need to pay more attention, they were removed from combat support? 

Yeah...that was an outgrowth of something that come up right before GZ shut down.  Go read v3.2 

[Corbomite]

Does anyone else besides me think a Battleship escorted by 2 police ships is retarted as well?  Am I alone on this view, is it worth discussing?

Hmm...that's sort of the inverse of the command rule as it's written with the proposed v4, which concerns itself with only the command ship being rediculously small relative to the ships it 'commands'

But you are right - IMO it is as retarded to have even a Dreadnought escorted by police ships....

Let's see - for a DN hull (which would include BB's) at least one of the ships in the squadron must be a CL-hull or larger?  That would then cross over to the Large Carriers as well - if you have a F-CVA, at least one of those escorts would need to be an NEC/NAC/ECL.  Extend this to BCH's (which are Pocket Dreads) as well - of course then I'd have to make a BCH list on the matrix so everybody knows what their BCH's are....

I think that the large spread of BPV's between each race's dreds makes this impractical.

[FPF-DieHard]

Hmm...that's sort of the inverse of the command rule as it's written with the proposed v4, which concerns itself with only the command ship being rediculously small relative to the ships it 'commands'

But you are right - IMO it is as retarded to have even a Dreadnought escorted by police ships....

Let's see - for a DN hull (which would include BB's) at least one of the ships in the squadron must be a CL-hull or larger?  That would then cross over to the Large Carriers as well - if you have a F-CVA, at least one of those escorts would need to be an NEC/NAC/ECL.  Extend this to BCH's (which are Pocket Dreads) as well - of course then I'd have to make a BCH list on the matrix so everybody knows what their BCH's are....

  

I all depends on the type of game you want to play and the type of league you want to be.

Do you want to attempt to emulate battles that would have been seen in the General War?  That being the case, some kind of minumum hull class rules should be needed.  In a "real" war, no DN/BB would ever be escorted by anything smalled than a CL.

Now I'm guilty of doing this, but taking a DN/BB with 2 FFs is power-gaming in munchkin land.  There is nothing wrong with that if it is within the rules, we as a league just need to think about what kind of battles are more intersting to fight and what is the most fun for everone, as well as what makes logical sense in the SFB/F&E universe.

[FPF-DieHard]

I need to pay more attention, they were removed from combat support? 

Yeah...that was an outgrowth of something that come up right before GZ shut down.  Go read v3.2 

I totally missed this and would have been violently opposed to it's passing had I known it was being debated. 

Fast Cruisers are RARER than any other specialty ship, this rule simply does not follow the spirit of what I believe PBR is going for.

[KHH Jakle]

Well...that's easy for me - the rules are supposed to emulate real historicall type battles and comply with S8.0, with tweaks as necessary.  So I would err on the side of stricter limits.

One tweak is with DN's/BB's.  Per S8.0, you can't even field one without 4 other ships, so a 5 ship formation.  For the sake of making all ships available (theoretically) i had to ignore that.

But in my mind....it is more appropriate to force you to also pay for 2 CL-hull or larger ships to be part of that squadron as a qualifier to get a DN/BB.  A compromise would be to make it only one CL-hull.

But that's me.

[KHH Jakle]

I need to pay more attention, they were removed from combat support? 

Yeah...that was an outgrowth of something that come up right before GZ shut down.  Go read v3.2 

I totally missed this and would have been violently opposed to it's passing had I known it was being debated. 

Fast Cruisers are RARER than any other specialty ship, this rule simply does not follow the spirit of what I believe PBR is going for.

like I said....I've been second guessing it's implementation.

In KHH's first match v GDA, we used this.  After the fact, it didn't feel right.

[Kroma BaSyl]

I would agree with reclassing fast crusiers as support, but it ain't that big a deal to me.

I do like the idea of requiring to CL class ships to escort a BB/DN though.

[762_XC]

The Command ship must be either the largest hull class in the squadron or only one step lower, i.e. a D5L can be the command ship for 2 D5W?s, but a FWL cannot.

This can be interpreted in too many ways. You will need to specify exactly what ships can command what, or there will be arguments.

An FWL is a war destroyer. Isn't that one step below a D5, which is a war cruiser? What is the hierarchy between DD's, DW's, CL's, and CW's?

[762_XC]

I do like the idea of requiring to CL class ships to escort a BB/DN though.

If you're going to force command ships to the largest class on the same argument, you should do this as well.

[FPF-DieHard]

But in my mind....it is more appropriate to force you to also pay for 2 CL-hull or larger ships to be part of that squadron as a qualifier to get a DN/BB.  A compromise would be to make it only one CL-hull.

But that's me.

This is worth discusing the merits.  Most races have cheap CLs if you need to trim points and the line War Cruisers do give you the most firepower per BPV point anyway.

I always found it amusing that the D5K is considered a "cheese" ship in SFB.   Not because of how it stacks up on its own, but when you put 10 of them in a fleet NOTHING can touch it at even BPV.  

[FPF-DieHard]

The Command ship must be either the largest hull class in the squadron or only one step lower, i.e. a D5L can be the command ship for 2 D5W?s, but a FWL cannot.

This can be interpreted in too many ways. You will need to specify exactly what ships can command what, or there will be arguments.

An FWL is a war destroyer. Isn't that one step below a D5, which is a war cruiser? What is the hierarchy between DD's, DW's, CL's, and CW's?

Use Move Cost as the determining factor.  Quick, easy, undebatable.

[KHH Jakle]

The Command ship must be either the largest hull class in the squadron or only one step lower, i.e. a D5L can be the command ship for 2 D5W?s, but a FWL cannot.

This can be interpreted in too many ways. You will need to specify exactly what ships can command what, or there will be arguments.

An FWL is a war destroyer. Isn't that one step below a D5, which is a war cruiser? What is the hierarchy between DD's, DW's, CL's, and CW's?

Use Move Cost as the determining factor.  Quick, easy, undebatable.

Sorry - I didn't clarify my terminology.

When I use generic terms like FF-Hull, CL-Hull, CA-hull, DN-hull I am referring to the buckets that ships are grouped in the ship selection interface: ex, the D5, D5K, D5L, along with all the F5H's are CL-Hull, while the D7, D7L, D5W are all CA-hull.  More generally, FF's, DD's, DW's are FF-Hull.  CL's, CW/NCL's, HDW's are CL-hull.  CA's, NCA's and BCH's are CA-hull.  DN's, BB's are DN-hull.

Firesoul has I think accurately captured this across all races and fixed some of Taldrens errors, like saying the NCA's were CL-Hulls.

I like this better than using movement cost just because - in my mind - it's easier.  But that can be hashed out one way or the other pretty easily.  The bigger part is to get everybody - or a decent majority - to agree to the principle
I

[Dfly]

Well, I agree with trying to limit ship formations to having ships closer to the same size within the same formation.  If the Command ship can only be 1 size class smaller than the biggest ship as proposed, why can there not be a limit on the frig protecting the BB? i agree, there should be.  I suggest this:

BB needs minimum 1 heavy and 1 light

DN needs minimum 2 light

Heavy command needs minimum 1 light and 1 frig

light command needs maximum 2 heavies

frig command needs maximum 2 lights


Would this work for you guys?  check it out if you like in the game and SFB.  Please feel free to suggest other combos or whatnot.
I do know that this basic idea of groupings I put up here should fall very close to within the SFB guidelines of grouping.

On the Fast Cruiser ruling,  I like having it seperate, where you can actually use one of them and a combat support vessel, but I also understand that they were not used a lot as the numbers were few.  To put them back into the combat support group is not a bad idea, though i like to use them in combo.  I will support either or, no matter.

[762_XC]

The Command ship must be either the largest hull class in the squadron or only one step lower, i.e. a D5L can be the command ship for 2 D5W?s, but a FWL cannot.

This can be interpreted in too many ways. You will need to specify exactly what ships can command what, or there will be arguments.

An FWL is a war destroyer. Isn't that one step below a D5, which is a war cruiser? What is the hierarchy between DD's, DW's, CL's, and CW's?

Use Move Cost as the determining factor.  Quick, easy, undebatable.

Sorry - I didn't clarify my terminology.

When I use generic terms like FF-Hull, CL-Hull, CA-hull, DN-hull I am referring to the buckets that ships are grouped in the ship selection interface: ex, the D5, D5K, D5L, along with all the F5H's are CL-Hull, while the D7, D7L, D5W are all CA-hull.  More generally, FF's, DD's, DW's are FF-Hull.  CL's, CW/NCL's, HDW's are CL-hull.  CA's, NCA's and BCH's are CA-hull.  DN's, BB's are DN-hull.

Firesoul has I think accurately captured this across all races and fixed some of Taldrens errors, like saying the NCA's were CL-Hulls.

I like this better than using movement cost just because - in my mind - it's easier.  But that can be hashed out one way or the other pretty easily.  The bigger part is to get everybody - or a decent majority - to agree to the principle
I

Fine, except I disagree with the notion that a DW should be classed with frigates. That has always seemed completely absurd to me.

DH's idea is more logical - use move cost.