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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
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#574892
SudenKapala wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:16 pm (On a personal note, I like the difference between the two battle styles; it makes for (even) more diversity in gameplay. The basic, bare rotation damage has it's drawbacks and perks; so do Tactics. In one deck, I like to run the one; and in the next, I'm content with the other.)
I
(love you, Suden, but)
disagree with this rather strongly. The difference creates little diversity in gameplay. The two rulesets are similar in the important respects, but differ only in weird details (how they deal with the [Flip] icon, what attribute damage they deal, the required repair time, etc.). What the two systems create instead is confusion.

All the diversity we get from the way damage is done today comes not from having two bizarrely distinct rule sets for damage, but rather from the BBSD's impact on seed economy. The fact that your damage becomes more powerful at the cost of a seed slot is a significant and interesting trade-off. But, as I said, that is not a consequence of the rules (which are conflicting and repetitious in really the worst possible way). It's a consequence of the fact that BBSD costs a seed slot and there is no cheaper+weaker alternative available.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
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#574894
SudenKapala wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:16 pm
Yes. It would be horrible for the game if it were clear from the very start of the seed phase, that a player with no Tactics would not be able to ever attack an opponent. This would probably force everyone to run BBSD; essentially, this would reduce seed diversity from nominal 12 cards, to nominal 11 cards. That's not a good thing.
That is an excellent point... I lobbed that idea out there for discussion (as opposed to advocating for it), and I think that kills it for me.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Moderator
#574899
Mea culpa. I meant rotation damage, not default damage. Thanks for the corrections, everyone.

(Or, rather, I meant "default" not in the pure rules sense, but in the sense of "this is what the game defaults to if you don't have a BBSD".)

I still think it would be an idea worth exploring.
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#574902
BCSWowbagger wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 1:18 pm (The game already requires you to bring Rotation Damage Markers, so "bring some cards to do damage" is not a brand-new concept.)
I must have missed that meeting. I remember when RDMs were printed as helpful aids, missed when they became mandatory.

Knowing that, is the solution literally as easy as making the RDM -25%, removing the "this takes two turns" text, and then rotation damage is exactly the same as default damage?
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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#574906
Here's kind of what I (personally) have had in mind (since roughly three hours ago. always in motion, my opinion is). This is purely conceptual and not an actual proposal. I am open to many proposals and my mind has shifted slightly several times over the past week. This is just for discussion. Obviously there is no story on these at this point. (I have ideas, but that would be for Creative to decide.)
[Tac] Generic Damage
ATTACK 0
DAMAGE 0
Hit = [Down] [Flip]
Direct hit = [Down] [Flip] [Flip] [Flip]

Cloaking Device [all ship special equipment?] off line.
RANGE -1 [-2]?
HULL -25%
The average RANGE in the game is 7.4, so -1 RANGE would be roughtly equivalent to RANGE = 5.
[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Weak & Cheap
Seed one (for free)* on Battle Bridge side deck (any number of [Tactic] cards). The only [Tactic] you may use is Generic Damage.
*"Seed for free" scares people, but it doesn't actually need to use this phrase. It could just as easily download a replacement seed card like Unrelenting Lust, or like hoss-drone's suggested card earlier in the thread. I put "seeds for free" here simply to express the idea that this card should have no cost -- just like Rotation Damage does in the current system.
SIDE DECKS

NEW SIDEBAR: Tip: Bring a Battle Bridge
In order to deal damage, you should always bring a Battle Bridge side deck. If you don't have room in your seed deck for Battle Bridge Door, you can use Battle Bridge Door: Rotation Damage Replacement, which effectively seeds for free.
The Rulebook already has several "tips" sidebars like this that advise players to bring certain cards or a certain mix of cards. The one about sites is much longer.
TACTICS DAMAGE
Whenever any of your ships, facilities, or other cards are damaged, for any reason, your opponent must place Tactics cards on them as damage markers. If the damage is the result of another Tactic (like during a ship battle), your opponent must place ([Down]) or draw ([Flip]) damage markers as indicated by the Tactic. In any case where damage is not indicated by the card, your opponent deals default damage, which is two cards drawn from the side deck (or [Flip][Flip]).

The bottom (black) area of a Tactics card is known as the damage marker, and it indicates the results of the damage. As soon as the marker is placed on the damaged ship, any immediate effects are played out, such as crew casualties, systems going off-line, or downloads (for example, Engine Imbalance may be downloaded when Target Warp Field Coils is drawn as a damage marker). Second, the ship or facility suffers any attribute damage indicated by the damage marker (for example, Maximum Firepower's damage reduces the enemy vessel's SHIELDS by 2). Finally, HULL damage is added. When a ship or facility's HULL is reduced to 0%, it is destroyed.

ROTATION DAMAGE
Whenever any of your ships, facilities, or other cards are damaged, you or your opponent must place a single Rotation Damage Marker on them. These markers function the same way as Tactics.

If, for any reason, a Rotation Damage Marker is not available, you must instead rotate your damaged ship or facility 180 degrees to indicate its damage. If it has a cloaking device, that cloaking device is now off-line. If its RANGE is greater than 5, its range is reduced to 5. HULL integrity is reduced by 50%. If a ship with rotation damage suffers any more rotation damage, HULL integrity will fall to 0% and the ship will be destroyed.

If your opponent is using rotation damage, you are immune to any effects that would allow your opponent to [Down] or [Flip] your ships or facilities (such as Federation Flagship: Relaunched, HQ: Orbital Weapons Platform, or Breen CRM-114). No player may use both rotation damage and tactics damage during the same game under any circumstances.
REPAIR
At the end of each of your turns, you may remove one damage marker (random selection) from each ship that has been docked at an outpost (or other facility that performs repairs) for the full turn. As stated on the Rotation Damage Marker, however, rotation damage is only repaired after two full turns docked at an outpost or other repair facility.
We would also be able to go through the battle rules and remove all the passages that say "If you brought a Battle Bridge Door...", which would remove a significant amount of complexity from the ship battle rules. There are some other things in the ship battle rules we might consider eliminating or offloading at the same time.
This set of changes would get rid of rotation damage, but would still take care of Suden's worry. If a player forgets to bring a BBD or BBD: Rotation Damage Replacement, it would be simple enough to use tokens to emulate the effects of Generic Damage. Heck, you could even use ship rotation, bringing it full circle!

So players/playgroups that dislike the new system for whatever reason could still keep using something that is, in effect, basically the same rotation damage... but the game would no longer have to support the alternate system, and so we would no longer have to have conversations like, "My own [self] card has damaged my ship, and I have no BBD, so I will rotate my ship. Or wait! You have a BBD, so do we draw damage from that instead? *pauses the game to check the rules*." And we would no longer have to teach newbies two different damage systems, and the whole "yeah you're using rotation damage so just ignore literally all [Flip] symbols you see on cards, that's dead text for you" thing.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#574926
AllenGould wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:29 pm
BCSWowbagger wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 9:37 pm (The game already requires you to bring Rotation Damage Markers
I must have missed that meeting.
Whatever you were doing at the time, I guess I was there, too... Also missed it! :mrgreen:
BCSWowbagger wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 9:37 pm always in motion, my opinion is).
This is, objectively, how all opinion should work. Everywhere. Always. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Only then can we be open to better views, improvement, and innovation.
/wisdom
/soap box
Bagger wrote:(Many words, even more wisdoms)
This is a great solution. :D
However, paradoxally, I would actually even regret the fact that the 'for-free' seed card (that phrase doesn't scare me, per se; but Thou Shalt Not Be A Precedent! So I guess it does scare me after all) would limit the deck to only a single Tactic. As said, I do love the diversity and unexpectedness of Tactics-for-damage, and in that vein, could we somehow choose some low-powered Tactics -- and ID them on the doorway card (limited space! :? ) -- that are elegible, aside from the proposed Default Damage Tactic? Or... say... can we group them, with expansion set icons or other categories? (E.g.: "all [Tac] cards with [certain set icon], [other icon], or 'Target' in title"?)

Or... make all tactics eligible, but find a way for the free doorway to mitigate the Tactics used? By having it 'halve all numbers', halving the hull damage, and/or blanking out some other effect(s)? (This would make it decidedly more cumbersome! Which I myself advocated still advocate against. I'm just brainstorming, here, how to have our cake Tactics and eat them let Kirk eat static.)
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#574929
SudenKapala wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 10:10 am (...) brainstorming (...) make all tactics eligible, but find a way for the free doorway to mitigate the Tactics used? (...)
Much better idea (than my previous ones):
Bagger, combat-evolved wrote:[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Weak & Cheap
Seed one (for free)* on Battle Bridge side deck (any number of [Tactic] cards). You may only use [Tac] cards that show a maximum of, say, 20% hull damage.
:D
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
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Community Contributor
#574940
Awesome!

You know, I was actually fiddling around with this, and thought about putting it in my little concept up there, but then I thought "nah, that's too complicated, Traditional players will hate it."
[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Weak & Cheap
Seed one (for free)* on Battle Bridge side deck (any number of [Tac] cards). You may only use [Tac] cards that have a printed ATTACK bonus of 0 or less.
That would include the new proposed "Generic Damage" tactic but also Crimson Forcefield, Close Quarters Combat (a nice boost for [Maq]), Evasive Maneuvers (we need more defensive Tactics like this), Plasma Energy Burst, and T'Pol/Soong Maneuver (those last two are just basically accidents, but happy accidents).

EDIT: I ALSO like the idea of other versions of BBD that force you to focus on specific subsets of tactics, like the "Target" tactics, but I feel like those additional versions of BBD should probably cost a seed slot. The free version of BBD should be pretty limited, in order to make the tradeoffs work.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Moderator
#574946
Random thought, since this is meant to be more defensive in nature (I think?) maybe there should be some more limits: draw no Tactics in a battle you initiate (unless counterattacking), and maybe a limit on damage for Hits and Direct hits ( [Flip] and [Flip] [Flip] respectively, ignoring [Down] --that is, you still get the [Down] damage in addition to [Flip] damage, for purposes of Plasma Energy Burst and T'Pol/Soong Maneuver, since those don't cause Hull damage).

After all, "Crimson Forcefield" has 40% Hull damage.
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 - Gamma Quadrant
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#574947
BCSWowbagger wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 2:35 pm Awesome!

You know, I was actually fiddling around with this, and thought about putting it in my little concept up there, but then I thought "nah, that's too complicated, Traditional players will hate it."
[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Weak & Cheap
Seed one (for free)* on Battle Bridge side deck (any number of [Tac] cards). You may only use [Tac] cards that have a printed ATTACK bonus of 0 or less.
That would include the new proposed "Generic Damage" tactic but also Crimson Forcefield, Close Quarters Combat (a nice boost for [Maq]), Evasive Maneuvers (we need more defensive Tactics like this), Plasma Energy Burst, and T'Pol/Soong Maneuver (those last two are just basically accidents, but happy accidents).

EDIT: I ALSO like the idea of other versions of BBD that force you to focus on specific subsets of tactics, like the "Target" tactics, but I feel like those additional versions of BBD should probably cost a seed slot. The free version of BBD should be pretty limited, in order to make the tradeoffs work.
I like this a lot. I think this thread shows that there is in fact, a ton of design space for an entire cycle of new BBD's that do different things. My idea keeps you open and is like a"buy one get one " kinda free because the seed slot is still committed to a [Door]. James idea is truly free but allows for defense which then creates a nice push and pull meta with the original, my idea and probably other ideas yet to come.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#574959
SudenKapala wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:16 pm This would probably force everyone to run BBSD; essentially, this would reduce seed diversity from nominal 12 cards, to nominal 11 cards. That's not a good thing.
It has been suggested earlier in this thread that this is in fact already the case
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#574960
It should be noted that any "Seeds for free" BBSD that allows the seeding of tactics that provide any defensive value (shields, other effects, etc.) is functionally a de facto, all-encompassing nerf on interactive, battle decks.

There are some who would be quite happy with that. But those who like games to be interactive, and not just multiplayer solitaire, should be wary of any suggestions for just such a card.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#574965
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:27 am
SudenKapala wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:16 pm This would probably force everyone to run BBSD; essentially, this would reduce seed diversity from nominal 12 cards, to nominal 11 cards. That's not a good thing.
It has been suggested earlier in this thread that this is in fact already the case
Must've missed that. More importantly, it's not what I remember to have seen from the (few) tourneys I've played, so I don't come at it from that angle. (In fact, I've seldomly seen a BBSD used.) But somebody can probably, easily, run the definitive numbers for us...? Or has that been done already?

Anyway, I missed another -- very important -- thing.

James proposed a free BB [Door] that could only contain a new, 0 attack / 0 defense Tactic.
Building on that, I proposed using an easily ID'able subset of the general Tactic population. What I wanted to also do but forgot, was to remedy the attack/defense bonusses of that general populace.

My initial idea (for better or worse) was, that the free-seeding variant would only be a "damage marker side deck"! So, each variant* of the free [Door] should -- perhaps!? -- include something like:
Battle Bridge Door: Weak & Cheap wrote:(...) You may/must only draw cards from this SD to use as Damage Markers. (...)
That way, we bypass the other use of the Tactics. From the get-go, I thought that was only fair.
But thinking about that now, also really limiting the hull damage (or specific other damage effects) then, would perhaps weaken the for-free version of the battle system too much... :( I don't presume to be able to analyse/compare all the consequences. I'm just spouting ideas.

*: I loved the idea of multiple variants that the Bagger suggested, to allow for different subsets of Tactics.
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#574975
SudenKapala wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:12 am
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:27 am
SudenKapala wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 5:16 pm This would probably force everyone to run BBSD; essentially, this would reduce seed diversity from nominal 12 cards, to nominal 11 cards. That's not a good thing.
It has been suggested earlier in this thread that this is in fact already the case
Must've missed that. More importantly, it's not what I remember to have seen from the (few) tourneys I've played, so I don't come at it from that angle. (In fact, I've seldomly seen a BBSD used.) But somebody can probably, easily, run the definitive numbers for us...? Or has that been done already?
Not going to claim definitive anything, but the three-year numbers for BBSD says it's been in 214 decks. Which is well shy of AMS (464), Dead End (509) and Q's Tent (611).

Someone who has better access to the database than my "look at the number in the card search on the website" would be able to narrow that down (only decks in OTF tournaments, decks that placed well, etc and so forth).

OTOH, The affiliation HQ page does list BBSD as the #3 seeded card (behind AMS and Q's Tent), but the counts there don't match up with the card search so I'm not sure what the difference is. But even there it's well back of those two, and in the same range as Reunite Legends, which I don't think folks would consider a must-seed?
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
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Community Contributor
#574977
AllenGould wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:29 pmOTOH, The affiliation HQ page does list BBSD as the #3 seeded card (behind AMS and Q's Tent), but the counts there don't match up with the card search so I'm not sure what the difference is.
IIRC, Affiliation HQ counts all decks; the Card pages only count public decks. Funny little quirk, that.
DISCO Rox No More wrote:It should be noted that any "Seeds for free" BBSD that allows the seeding of tactics that provide any defensive value (shields, other effects, etc.) is functionally a de facto, all-encompassing nerf on interactive, battle decks.
This is an important note, worth noting.

I have some thoughts on this, but they stray outside the topic of this thread (and this thread has plenty to talk about already), so I will keep my own counsel for now. All I'll say is this general platitude: the nice thing about a big, broad nerf is that it can be countered by a big, broad buff, ideally at the same time.
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