/dcg/ Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander - Ramming Speed Edition

Just because I'm not creative enough to design a few scenarios while in a rush, doesn't mean that there isn't a need for more variety.

As shows, there is potential for game scenarios that aren't straight Deathmatch or Point Capture. One idea I was mulling over while driving was a convoy defense mission. Defender has an allotment of strike cruisers (and/or troopships) they need to move from one corner of the table to the other. The attacker enter using Rapid Response from the opposite corners of the table. Defender earns VP based on how many ships escape intact, attacker earns them based off of how many are sank. Could also possibly earn VP for other factors, like sinking a specific enemy classes, crippling enemy ships, etc.

They're the same as the New Cairo.

I dunno you guys are the ones with the issues what do you propose rules wise for a homebrew scenario.

I mean weve got
>Get more tonnage to the enemy's third of the field
How do you want to play this out, would it be only on certain turns, only in certain orbital layers, why third and not half?

>Kill enemy Admiral ship (variant: kill enemy battlegroup flagships and their admiral ship)
Does each player get a free admiral, what ship do they have to be in, or is it attacker defender, how do you avoid list tailoring (attacker gets fewer points?)

>Have the most tonnage spread out over the most quarters of the field
Would you do this as modified critical locations ie tonnage near a fixed point at a certain orbital layer on a certain turn, or the whole quarter at the end of the game, would scoring be tonnage based or points based?

>Defend already existing ground forces on some clusters while invading enemy held clusters
Do we play this attacker vs defender, or does each side get their own clusters, do troops/ships start already in play or are certain clusters just not worth victory points if taken?

>Bombard enemy critical military clusters
Attacker defender or both players have targets to destroy, do you also combine it with the previous option? Maybe their is an asymmetrical objective in which one guy has to deploy troops and hold and the other guy just has to bombard. How do you score would it be each cluster, or each sector, are certain sectors worth more.

>There are some good rules being passed around on the forums for speeding it up, though.

Whats wrong with the current form? (I have not heard much discussion about this other than people are dissatisfied). What has been proposed (beyond the official errata released recently) What do you think?

Im not saying there isnt, im just trying to annoy you enough into actually discussing it instead of going: well not enough variety time to leave.

I mean a fleet battle scenario is really easy to whip up, just dont put any objectives on the map winner is based on kill points, go nuts, hell you could even say atmo is not available for this scenario only low/high

I understand the devil's advocate route, but keep in mind you're just going to piss people off more often than not. There's a fine line between critiquing and criticizing, and that line has a great effect on /dcg/'s userbase's willingness to participate.

As for a straight fleet battle scenario, yes, that is certainly easy enough to set up. But as others have mentioned, even in the previous thread, a straight fleet battle invalidates a number of ship options for all sides, and basically turns into a 2-3 round clusterfuck as both fleets bunch up in midfield. While a pure slog seems entertaining in theory, cruisers crumple rather quickly under fire.

The Saratoga is effectively a unique counts-as New Cairo sculpt.

fuck you atmo is important for muh jelly frigates.
As for straight up slogs, longest I've seen a blue water engagement last was five turns to totally wipe out shaltari, and thats because they made me come to them. The last turn was a mopping up rather than a battle; a stray distortion bubble essentially decided the game early turn 4. They're very abrupt and short games that way, even at higher point values.
>assault enemy airspace
Low orbit specific, and points awarded by tonnage would be the obvious way to go about it. As for third, it means you have to actually push into their turf, rather than the current setup which largely involves going just far enough to threaten midline.
>Kill x target
That game would be over stupid fast, or else would be a stupid boring game of keep away without some serious shenanigans. Ships die way too fast to have the game revolve around a single VIP, or even a single VIP battlegroup.
>Land grab
Tonnage based, table quarters not just crit locations to give some maneuvering space. Otherwise its really just the same as we've currently got minus strike carriers

>Does each player get a free admiral, what ship do they have to be in, or is it attacker defender, how do you avoid list tailoring (attacker gets fewer points?)
The largest ship in each battlegroup is designated the battlegroup flagship.
The largest ship of all battlegroup flagships is designated the fleet flagship.

The fleet flagship gets an admiral with the highest AV available at that game size, otherwise, battlegroup flagships get admirals equal to 2 less than than that size. (all for free)

Killing the fleet flagship is worth 2/6/8 VP, killing a battlegroup flagship is worth 1/2/2 VP in skirmish/clash/battle.

At turn 4, if one player has twice or more the VP than the opposing player, they win and route the opposing fleet. Otherwise, the player with the greatest amount of VP on turn 6 wins. If tied, KP break the tie.

>Land grab
>Tonnage based, table quarters not just crit locations to give some maneuvering space. Otherwise its really just the same as we've currently got minus strike carriers

Oh boy Beijing-chan gets to be prom queen!

Beijing-sama should never not be prom queen. She's even cooler than Moscow-sama, she has a laser AND 6400 guns! Nobody else has that. I hope to be just like her one day.

Feel like this is going to simply be a huge fur ball in the center as indicated. I mean i like the idea in principle but the balance of the game does not really support only fighting as an objective even in a more limited form.

Not necessarily; there are two main objectives in that scenario: Kill the enemy flags, and keep your own safe.

By necessity, this would require sending your non-flags to kill their flags, while keeping your flags out of combat. This would mean that you would either keep your flags in the rear line, spread out on the front line, or going along the sides. Necessarily, the enemy would then have to split their ships to go after your flags, and yours for theirs.

How do you make the Perseus good?

Hardmode: Any changes made to its stats must also be applied universally to other applicable ships and remain balanced; changes to heavy guns are made to all heavy guns, changes to its hull is made to all cruisers, etc etc.

Impossiblemode: You can't change its loadout or model.

Give cruiser heavy guns the 'precision' rule that makes them do 2 damage on a to hit roll of 6. It isn't applied to BB cannonades because they don't have that funky turret design of cruisers.
Maybe switch those lights for mediums too.

Percy may never be good, but if she can be made playable then that's good enough for me.

Make her cheaper.

This was an easier sell before they buffed heavy guns in any way, but I always thought the points-scale was the first balancing option for anything.

The biggest problem is that in doing so, you're effectively telling each player that their biggest and most effective ship in each group needs to not be doing what its supposed to do and get stuck in. For everybody that isn't shaltari that sucks; a UCM fleet where the BBs, the moscows and the BCs aren't getting their guns to bear on target is just 150-200 points per ship wasted. About the only winners as far as not utterly ruining the biggest investments in your fleet are belles and the Heracles/Shaltari BBs. Scourge are utterly screwed, as are UCM. Hell, especially scourge. Most games you'd have six VIPs...no scourge fleet can afford to -not- have those six vessels sinking their teeth into the enemy, and the BTLs they get just aren't good enough to design a fleet around for long range work.

Which faction has the best memes

PHR.

Of course, the UCMs are most recognizable and understandable to us. PHR and Shaltari ones are mastercrafted memevirii that we just don't have the proper sophistication and hardware to understand.

The quirk among the IRL navies that actually fought battles constantly (as opposed to waiting around for gotterdammerung) was people started putting their admirals on heavy cruisers. As much accommodation for a staff as a battleship, and a whole lot more deployable strategically and tactically.
Is it that people aren't playing Space Station games? Not everyone has space stations (personally, I proxy), so somebody with a very limmited understanding of his scenario options may be behind this objectiveless meeting engagement battle to the death push in DFC.

Because user, seriously... if I had a fleet in that kind of situation and I was in any way disadvantaged...

>"Ok, fuck this. Commander, orders to division leaders. Refuse engagement. Climb and break orbit."

Who says you need to have your VIPs necessarily hang back? You just need to move in locations where there isn't a huge amount of firepower waiting to mince them. Remember, you'll have a lot more outright combat ships since you won't need to take strike carriers, troopships, or corvettes (generally). That's at least another 2-3 cruisers right there, or 4-8 frigates.

Do this in a very heavy debris-field region, so navigating is almost as important as shooting.

There's a busy discussion on the FB group about the PHR fleet's shooting game, specifically that its damage output is generally low quality and unreliable and must be offset with strong troop deployment strategies.

How do you folks feel about the thought that this argument somewhat justifies the outstanding cost-benefit ratio of PHR troopships?

I think they're wrong; PHR broadsides are efficient for their damage on standard orders, doing far in excess of other factions to a significant degree.
I wouldn't say that PHR broadsides couldn't do with a slight increase in damage across the board, but it's not critical to the point where exceptionally cheap troopships are required.

Broadsides aren't perfect, but if you have even the slightest idea what you're doing they can still be quite effective. Linked has done a lot for them, they could maybe do with another little manoeuvring buff but it's not desperate. Even if it was that still doesn't justify the Orpheus at all, I've seen the "half of these options are terrible, so make the other half overpowered" in fighting games and it worked out exactly how you'd expect: people spammed the strong moves and ignored the weak ones, and the character was overpowered.

Unless you have a super heavy amount of debris to play hide and seek in, spreading out is just gonna get your opponent to mass everything they've got and blow you away in piecemeal, to which the response is the same boring meat grinder in the middle issue. Iunno, I'm just not seeing making a VIP setup out of your own fleet a particularly good experience. Now, if you have a defender controlled VIP collection that's not part of their fleet, akin to an escort mission, and are rocking a lot of debris fields to make it feasible that the VIPs will survive past turn 2, then that might actually be a good time.

You're ignoring the fact that both players have VIP fleets, user. The enemy massing all their forces in one area just makes it easier for your to focus your fleet's firepower on them, while denying them the same advantage.

Thats just Kill points with restrictions though, its still gonna devolve into a giant furball and be over quick, the game is not balanced around protracted shooting engagments

>Thats just Kill points with restrictions though,
Exactly? That's kind of the point, user. The prompt was to create a scenario based on killing the enemy fleet that isn't just "kill as much enemy points cost as you can"

So, not DFC specific, but does anyone have ideas as to how to design a fleet game so that it doesn't have tinfoil ships?

Battlefleet Gothic had

Just assume ships with 0 hull are out of action. They take another crippling roll. If they suffer damage exceeding their 50% their base hull, the ship was destroyed instead of just being disabled.

Ships can disengage from battle by lighting their main drives. This counts as a full thrust but moves 0 inches. The ship cannot fire or turn, and leaves orbit by the start of the next activation.

...

>when you have to let the other factions know you're badass so you goldplate your missiles

I've played a decent number of games as PHR with the experimental rules and it seems to me their problem isn't firepower at all. I've gotten a decent number of double broadsides off in each game and they can do quite a bit of damage.

My problems are in how to actually apply the damage. For those broadsides to be worthwhile you have to be right in the middle of the enemy, and in approach types where your ships don't all deploy on turn one I've found that broadside ships end up isolated and destroyed without getting a chance to fire more than once (vs. Scourge was particularly horrific). It's not an impossible problem, but it presents some complex list construction issues that are not present in other factions.

OR I could ignore all that and spam troopships, which is dumb and boring.

>when you're so post-scarcity you diamond tip your bullets

So how are Junos and Angelos? Bears used to suck but now have a purpose since they carry flak/mortar teams, Havens are excellent for teleporting infantry around, Battle Buses and Jacksons both have their purposes and Invaders are just trash. But I'm not too sure about the PHR ground transports. Junos are a bit more heavily armed than Bears, but I'm not sure it's enough. Angelos seem better with MBT-tier guns and defence, but costing 60 points to carry one squad is a bit iffy.

They suck balls.

They don't allow you to carry more guys than a light dropship like the other races, the main gun is pretty useless against nearly every opponent, and you don't ever want to be in a position where you can shoot that gun either

That's about what I expected for Junos, but are Angelos the same? They both seem okay for softening up an occupied building before dumping troops into it, and they're pretty survivable with that skimmer bonus.

Angelos are pretty sweet, yeah, however you take them.

Triton is fragile, but Juno + Neptune is cumbersome to use enough that there is no advantage over just using more Tritons.

Valkyries in a Juno with no Neptune is a working thing, but gets yelled at by my autism, personally.

>I think if I ever played games outside of the cityscapes I'd appreciate Neptune+Juno at least a little- remember, you can actually hide behind vehicles in this- but I don't.

youtube.com/watch?v=3p43-lo5uA8

Comrade Dave responded to me and informed me that the reason I haven't gotten my shipping notification is because i'm queued to be shipped, but haven't been- with the Saratoga delay, they've modest backlog and are shipping in FIFO.

This is clearly all your fault, stop ordering Saratogas before me. And expect to see a lot of them.

We'll probably see tons of them in May and June, as well as tactics involving the mass use of Saratogas/NCs.

the problem with dropfleet isnt the crippling rules, its the firepower to ship armor system. Dropfleet much like Dropzone features a weapon system to armor system that is more equivalent to the current real world balance. That being that even the best armor in the game gives you jack all survivablity against the higher end of weapons. Lets take current warships, 1-2 good antiship missile hits would do in just about anything short of a fleet carrier anymore. The only way to not die is to not get hit. This isnt the pre WW1 where dreadnoughts could shrug off salvos of fire and trade shots for hours. DFC follows this same logic, ships all punch way above their belt, even a lone frigate can potentially do serious damage to a battleship in one go of shooting depending on its type (im looking at you close action frigates). So if you want to change the tinfoil ship design you need to adjust to firepower to armor ratio in the game. Alternatively you could further restrict shooting and make maneuvering more important so ships cant shoot at each other every turn all game once in "range".

Why not both? The great volume of damage and the crippling system both contribute to ships dropping like flies the moment something looks at it funny. A frigate that takes 2 damage has only a 1 in 3 chance of surviving its crippling roll and blowing up instantly. On a cruiser with 10 hull, 5 damage lost to weapons fire and a high chance of losing 2-3 more (plus negative side effects) means that whatever was shooting at it just has to give it a gentle push.

There seems to be far too many sources of damage and not enough means of mitigating it. Armor doesn't do much, PD only works against specific types of attacks and only succeeds on a 5+, and as you mentioned, the only real way to survive is to not get shot at in the first place

Simple; make critical damage have to pass an armor save (+1 penalty), while normal damage needs to pass two armor saves.

The "guns and laser" is a little niche to me. How often will someone be dumb enough to let you fire at will a BTL?

I understand the threat of it can be just as good, but for that point cost it doesn't seem worth it.

It's not actually that hard desu. Just don't wait too long between activations.

Thats what I was saying I think the greater share of paper ship syndrome in the game is how easy it is to do damage to ships, not necessarily the crippling mechanic, I think if ships were more durable the crippling mechanic would seem almost toothless by comparison.

Id would again be interested in a game where there is more emphasis on maneuvering and arcs are more restricted so shot placement became more about lining up shots rather than just always firing all the time.

So you make yourself predictable is the strategic advice?

Time to deploy posthuman-scale autism. PHR naming scheme, based on literature and poetry. Bonus points to the user who suggested the names of the Theseii.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Bellerophon-class heavy carrier, fleet flagship

Roland Deschain – Theseus-class light cruiser
To The Dark Tower Came – Theseus-class light cruiser

The Shadow Over Innsmouth – Orpheus-class assault troopship
The Doom that Came to Sarnath – Orpheus-class assault troopship

Völuspá – Andromeda-class escort carrier
Grímnismál – Andromeda-class escort carrier

The Castle of Cagliostro – Calypso-class ECM frigate
The Curse of Capistrano – Calypso-class ECM frigate

Philocleon – Pandora-class frigate
Bdelycleon – Pandora-class frigate

Odyssey– Europa-class frigate
Iliad – Europa-class frigate

XX – Medea-class strike carriers

'XX' means I can't think of a name for the little shits. Presumably something Lovecraftian to tie into the 'troopships = eldritch horror' theme.

>The Doom that Came to Sarnath
Excellent taste.

I get, and do not dislike, Deschain, but I kind of liked Childe Roland better.

The Fate of Howard Carter for your Medea, maybe. Or Colour Out Of Space. Or, even simpler- The White Ship.

That's... an excellent point. Got my Rolands mixed up.

What the Moon Brings – Medea-class strike carrier
The Whisper in Darkness – Medea-class strike carrier
The Quest of Iranon – Medea-class strike carrier
Sweet Ermengarde – Medea-class strike carrier

I'll think of more Medeas when I get more Medeas. Deschain's now Childe.

Not really. You don't need to fire off the laser every turn if there's more important stuff to do, and even if you do there's worse things than predictably doing big damage. 6 3+ shots, 8 4+ shots, a cobra laser and CAW that wouldn't be out of place on a Scourge ship ain't bad.

Design Borg/Jelly/Hedgehog destroyers, UCM is already ahead of the game

I could go for something like a symmetrical Vaygr Destroyer for the PHR layout, with that "vertical" layout to distinguish it from the UCM.

So I wonder if you do want to get rid of the ground phase, but don't want to play just grindfest,would picking 4-5 strategic locations on the board to try and control with tonnage be an answer?

Pretty much. An alternate idea is to use strike carriers and troopships as VIP cargo to escort/destroy

Bump

I've played escort missions in other space games, they always fail cause it's space, there's no way to stop the enemy from focusing on the targets within confines of game table

Well, terrain to provide 'cover' and a smaller attacker force. Add in a requirement for the attacker to survive, or a kdr where the defender cam lose his VIPs and still win.

This did put a smile on my face.

battlecruiser w h e n
I need my mass produced Perths

Perth-sama is well endowed. She will lead the UCM to victory

St. Petersburg is a real queen. Perth tries to do too many things and is more expensive.

I'd rather have Saratoga twins than a St.Petersburg. The only reason anyone cares about her is because she got buffed, and even then she's a huge target.

Saratoga twins are the hugest targets of them all. They can do a lot of damage but fall down in a stiff breeze, which means they'll be near the top of an opponent's to-do list. One St Pete is about as hard to kill as two NCs, and so should generally be a lower priority target unless your opponent is just scared of big things.

Plus as big as Petey is, it's not that expensive. Definitely an efficient price on a heavy cruiser.

Agreed, the Pete is effectively a budget Perth now, and that double tap cobra on WF is amazing if you can line it up.

>tfw no alt Shenlong
>tfw no alt Theseus
>tfw no alt Basalt

i want to sell my Civilian Liner but i cant seem to find a price estimate online... Any idea how much i should ask for it ? thank you

How do we fix the Vampire?

It's just so shitty.

>Tfw no shipping notification
It's like I'm actually a kickstarter.

Talking about the Saratoga's? Mine came yesterday. So fucking shitty to put together, massive gaps between the two parts of the ship. Some designs just really don't translate well to resin.

Three saratogas, two battleships, two corvette blisters, a two player starter set.

All ordered about ten days ago, but on hold and not yet shipped because of the Saratogas. And now you're telling me it's a shitty model? Just fuck my shit up senpai.

Gonna need a lot of hot water senpai. Mine took a fuck age to ship too, like nearly a month. If you want tomorrow I'll post some pics of my Saratoga's to show you what you're in for.

What about the models seen on the FB page? Is this a common thing, or did you just get a bad casting, user?

Two of my four have noticeable gaps. I think its just going to be the nature of this molded. Two separate contact points seperated by a void, just asking for trouble.

Two of the the four I've opened that is, I have little faith in the other two.

I think that is an example of how some parts of DFC aren't well expressed by unit stats. Lining up Saint Pete at the end of one turn pretty much forces your opponent into a very constrained activation order the next turn, and that's a worthwhile something.

>you might even catch some strike carriers out of atmosphere!

If it can line up a shot, St.Pete is going to badly maul if not destroy a ship per WF. Iirc, now that it got buffed to Burnthrough 8, it has the potential to do twice the damage of a Moscow in a single round of shooting.

Just bagged a Dropzone starter set where the guy had swapped the Scourge for PHR. While I might sell the PHR to a friend who wants to start them (although I might keep them, considering I do both factions in Dropfleet), what's the best way to add to Starter UCM to make it viable? As a reminder, I'll be getting:
3x Condors
3x Sabres
3x Rapiers
3x Bears
6x Colonial Legionnaire units

I've heard UCM air game is STRONK, and I do love me some air cavalry. The Longbows also pique my interest, as do Praetorian Teams in Falcons, though I've heard the Ferrum is the best damn thing in the army. Thoughts?

Not a UCM guy myself, but I have heard that Praetorian-filled Falcons are your best choice for troops.

Ferrums, absolutely. The Phoenix is the rudest thing you have, as well. Praetorians in Falcons are good, but equally you're going to have to take actual Troops instead of exotics. Legionnaires are what you have, but the flak and mortar teams are just plain better.

Praetorians in Ravens are a good choice, though you will have to play smart with them. To my understanding, Katanas are a good choice as well for armored options. I'm not familiar with the Ferrum though, my friends and I have barely expanded past starter units.

In terms of insertion options for UCM Legionaires, are 15 man squads per Bear on a Condor or 10 man squads in Ravens a better option? I'm still rather new, and I'd like to know my options (and I think dropping via Ravens is cool)

Raven. Anything that can solve 10 legionnaires can solve 15 of them; I'd rather be able to put them where and when I want them faster.

So how viable are pure close action scourge? No guns, no furnace canons, just djinni, wyverns, and manticores across the board, plus sc&troopships? Does the lack of range hurt that much?

The only time you should ever put regular Legionnaires in a Bear is when there's a heavy weapons squad in the other Bear and you want to keep things versatile. Even then you'd probably be better served just taking more mortars/AA guns.

It's probably not the best idea desu, but it sounds like fun.

How many planets do you think the PHR control, besides their homeworld and the moons?

Probably about four or five, but we know so little about the Sphere and its capabilities that it's hard to even guess.

As the first user mentioned, probably 3-5. We know they have a home star system, and have recently claimed the Tlalocan system as well. Because all of the fluff is explained from the perspective of the UCM, there isn't much to work with, but the general vibe seems to be that the PHR is more concerned with quality over quantity, so they'd more than likely control fewer worlds than the UCM.