Hi guys,
This thread is for discussion of the campaign I'm working on currently: Babaganoosh's Campaign.
*link now public*
This is still very much a work in progress and I am actively seeking feedback, and even better-playtesting.
This thread also serves to continue the discussion of this project that started on Cubanboy's store campaign thread.
Edited by BabaganooshUnprivatize the campaign link =)
I'm interested in this, and am working on a similar project, as I've mentioned elsewhere. Rest assured that I'll toss in a few cents when I get onto a proper computer, rather than my phone.
In the meantime, you can read up on my related thoughts in my "multi-level play" and "Flight of the Orokeet" threads. I think we're largely trying to do very similar things, and some collaboration might be very fruitful.
I liked Flight of the Orokeet idea. Inspired me to not skip the HWK when I bought it for 7.50.
I'm working on a new campaign system that I think could be pretty cool. I haven't run it or anything, but I'll give you the link to the google drive file with the WIP. It should be public. Feel free to use elements in your campaign if you'd like. The missions aren't ready yet but the core elements are there.
I really like some of your ideas!
I'm thinking I might do something similar except much more simplified. Goodness knows I gripe about complicated rules too much. I really like the recover and stuff.
I might try and play around with this where you dont get to replace pilots. you lose them, you lose them.
Great! Please try anything that looks good to you, and let me know how it goes. This is still highly experimental and I would love to hear what you think after playing with it. I personally think that having perishable pilots is going to make players more cagey and less reckless in the way they fly their ships, and I think that could be fun. But I don't want people getting too conservative with their flying, either.
I'm working on a similar concept, but much more complicated. It'll be online, with an online engine that will track losses, experience, requisitions, and provide a mission tree that neither player will know in advance. Anyone with an internet connection should be able to use it. (I say ' should ', because I don't want to tempt the internet gremlins.)
But it's definitely a WIP, not ready for review yet. Stay tuned.
I don't know if you're referring to my campaign, but that sounds very promising! I was planning to make printable pilot and ship trackers, but a web-based system would be much better. I would suggest making every additional layer optional, if possible, that way players can play with as many or as few additional rules as they like. Please feel free to plunder my ideas as much as you like.
Thank you. Sorry I should have asked if it was okay if I played with some of your ideas.
I did some theory-testing last night. Where I had a bunch of ships and made a few mock fights (ex 4x wings vs 8 tie fighters) and some random wins and losses.
First thing, the requisition upgrades are a good idea, but also hard to remember. Increasing PS is also actually interestingly kind of a pain. As you have to manually create a list for each new game that is custom and not relevant to the game stats.
Also, the more experience pilots will quickly outclass less experienced pilots. Adding 3 PS a mission is a lot. So I did a thing where a squad that is sent on a mission has to "return" during the next mission. So they can't be used until the next mission ends.
Making a squad slowly die off is tricky. As rewards tend to skew things very heavily in the victors favor, but then, you still want to reward them.
Imperials tends to have more ships and lose more ships that cost less. Felt more balanced to give some amount of points back to repair ships instead.
Your reroll idea is on the right track i think. But star wars dice tend to be really cold or really hot. Very one-sided because of how much a result means. I was trying to mitigate that a little by actually reducing the rewards and having more chance to save a ship by giving the victor the chance to reroll all non-hits, and the defender to reroll half rounded down.
I did anticipate the problem with remembering the increased pilot skill and upgrades; I plan to make printable pilot/ship cards that you can track these things on, instead of trying to just brute force remember everything. Hopefully that will mitigate the problem.
As for one player breaking away in power from the other; taking pilots out of the rotation for a turn is a possible fix; I do worry about giving the players too many things to remember, and limiting important player choices. Do you think it would be worth it?
I was hoping that what would happen is that when one player fields good, upgraded pilots and the other fields fresh pilots, the player flying upgraded pilots would be more worried about losing any ships and fly conservatively. Meanwhile the player with the 'worse' ships could play much more aggressively and focus down valuable enemy pilots, without as much worry for their own pilots and ships.
But I could see things getting out of hand eventually of course; I think the only absolute solutions to this problem would be to institute a sliding scale where increased PS increases the cost of the ship, which is very problematic, or to not implement pilot progression.
The repair issue between rebel and imperial ships is also a significant issue. There is also the impending meta shift in which rebels gain access to swarm-like lists and imperials gain access to more viable elite lists. I frankly hoped to dodge this issue using that excuse!
Edited by BabaganooshI'm going to let my computer take care of the 'remembering stuff' problem. Also I have built in a system where pilots gain 1PS every time they participate in a mission.
I'm going to let my computer take care of the 'remembering stuff' problem. Also I have built in a system where pilots gain 1PS every time they participate in a mission.
It's a real problem, for sure. I think a program could help a lot with keeping track of what pilots get experience and what pilots are available for missions, especially when list-building. For the tabletop, during battles I think an analog tracker like a pilot/ship card works best, since it is always visible.
In general, the main issues I am worried about are:
1:Runaway progression:
Problem: One player wins the first few battles and becomes unstoppable as the game goes on due to pilot and ship progression mechanics.
Possible fixes:
Pilot Death and Ship destruction keep progression manageable.
Pilots cannot fly consecutive missions (should slow down progression)
Increase cost for ships and pilots as they improve.
Slow down rates of progression
2: Complexity:
Problem: Too many limitations, caveats, and things to keep track of make the game not fun for some players (see warhammer 40k).
3: Balancing player choice with plot progression:
Problem: Forcing players to play specific missions can be problematic, especially if the missions are imperfectly balanced (almost definitely the case). But a campaign is not worth much if it doesn't build towards something.
Possible fix:
"Free-form" campaign mechanic allows players to advance the campaign at their pace.
4: Basic Progression balance:
Problem: Do increases in PS and ship upgrades affect imperials and rebels equally? Are the many ship upgrades available in the ship progression tables fair? Answer to both: probably not.
Possible fix: Change rate of requisition and experience gain for rebels and imperials.
Edited by BabaganooshAlternating squadrons isn't that hard.
I place the previous squadron back and turned on its side ("tapped"/"used" in Magic speak). Then you just keep putting the next squad in that spot.
I downgraded your exp and points in my system: you start with 150pts of ships, and $40pts to spend on anything (youll also note that this is very WISELY not spent until later, which makes me love it.)
To start the mission you have to buy upgrades with the money you have.
Winning or losing a mission gives you: $20 reward, spent on repairing unrecovered ships or upgrades.
Recovered ships are simply returned to full functionality. So you only really buy to replace dead ones. You end up losing more than $20 of ships, but its around like 30 to 40 only. so the slow death of the squadron is workable for many many battles of playing.
A winning pilot gets 2 exp. A fled or recovered pilot gets 1exp. At PS5, you can buy an EPT slot for 2exp. The max PS is 9. So highest PS pilots will be good earlier, but not later. Your own no-names will become more effective as they reach higher PS.
To flee, simply fly off the opponent's side of the map.
To play missions i had a few ideas:
Make some set missions you can choose from, and loser picks next mission.
100 vs 100. 75 vs 75. 100 vs 80. the attacker gets some reward, but the defender gets to place 4 asteroids in an 100vs100 and all 6 in an 100vs80.
$ = points.
Note: I dropped your requisition point upgrades completely, as its too hard to remember that on top of a huge list of other changing things.
I was also experimenting with an Assault and Defender position, that's a little more complicated, but it seemed to create the same effect of alternating squads.
You can also add things like Supply Capture missions: 75vs75, fair asteroids, winner gets $40 instead as prize.
And then of course, make your own missions as agreed by both sides. Death star run? Rescue mission? Ninja strike?
I think I've tackled all 4 of your problems, Mikael.
OH: Recovery:
At the end of the mission, put aside the fled and winning pilots.
For the killed pilots, roll dice for hits or crits. Winner gets to reroll all blanks/focus. Loses gets to reroll half rounded down blanks/focus.
Basically, its the same as Babaganoosh's for winners: Winner gets a reroll for each ship. Ive just added that loser gets half rerolls so you have more pilot continuity and less loss overall.
Ex:
4x vs 7 tie f. Rebels win:
1x left.
rebels roll 3 dice: 2 hits, reroll, miss. = returns 2 ships. Loses an x worth 21 points. Uses reward of $20 to buy it back.
empire rolls 7 dice: 3 hits, reroll, +2 more hits. = returns 5 ships, loses 2 worth about 25 pts. No big deal. If you win the next battle, you can choose to buy back the most useful pilots from the last two rounds.
scenario 1: rebels win again: rebels nearly full health, empire spends $20 to get the most needed ships back. Should be able to win some games from there.
scenario 2: empire wins: both sides have lost a few ships. Empire buys back the ones it wants with its $20 reward.
The $20 reward is perfect because most of the time you will end up losing slightly more than $20, so you cant keep buying back forever.
Winning the mission is better, much higher chance of not having to pay to get your dead ships back.
In terms of EXP:
rebels have 3 ships with 2 higher PS they cant use in the next match.
Imps have 5. but have lost more ships.
Playing in later matches is still good, with only a little bit of skew. as PS caps at 9. Also, lower Ps ships can still block! What a wonderful game we have.
Choosing different missions can also pit higher experienced ships versus lesser: ex.
Assault asteroid base: 80pts attacker vs 100pt defender. or 100attacker vs 100defender with 4 asteroids.
Of course, when you field a list, you arent just using 100 naked ships, but also using what money you want to use to buy upgrades. A typical list of upgrades goes from about 10 to 15, with the heavier ones going to around 20. This you can do simply by flying well, having an experienced fleet and spending your money on just upgrades/ordnance as you need.
Bombers are a good example of this. Higher PS bombers are brutal as they can TL and fire in one turn. BUT: missiles cost money.
Also again, by alternating squads, they can only see action some of the time.
I'm not sure exactly how many points of ships we should start at but it would be a good idea to have around 2.5 to 3 viable squad options from the total squad. So maybe 175 or 200.
I'm going ahead and slowing down the pilot progression; winning pilots get 2 points, fleeing pilots get 1 point. I'm holding off on instituting a pilot rotation effect: I'm still reluctant to put that kind of limitation on list building, especially since players will be working with a limited selection of pilots to begin with.
I'm holding off on changing the ship progression and replacement of destroyed ships though.
I downgraded your exp and points in my system: you start with 150pts of ships, and $40pts to spend on anything (youll also note that this is very WISELY not spent until later, which makes me love it.)
To start the mission you have to buy upgrades with the money you have.
Winning or losing a mission gives you: $20 reward, spent on repairing unrecovered ships or upgrades.
Recovered ships are simply returned to full functionality. So you only really buy to replace dead ones. You end up losing more than $20 of ships, but its around like 30 to 40 only. so the slow death of the squadron is workable for many many battles of playing.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean here, but I definitely don't want to allow a situation where one player could potentially just run out of ships halfway through the campaign. In order to make sure players reach the final battle, I think replacements have to be free. Otherwise, even with a constant flow of points to spend on more ships, players could get into a rut they couldn't get out of.
I also don't want to give the winning player more points than they can spend (as in they should have enough ships to field the full squadron they are using); giving players a steady income to spend on ships could give them more points than they could possibly spend, if they fly well.
The incentive to keep ships alive is in preserving your veteran pilots and upgraded ships
To play missions i had a few ideas:
Make some set missions you can choose from, and loser picks next mission.
100 vs 100. 75 vs 75. 100 vs 80. the attacker gets some reward, but the defender gets to place 4 asteroids in an 100vs100 and all 6 in an 100vs80.
I have plenty of ideas for missions, with attacker and defender specific rewards. Right now it is a dice-off to pick the next mission, with a re-roll if you won the last one; I like that mechanic because it rewards winning, but should prevent one player from completely controlling the mission arc (and having all the fun).
Edited by BabaganooshI'm going ahead and slowing down the pilot progression; winning pilots get 2 points, fleeing pilots get 1 point. I'm holding off on instituting a pilot rotation effect: I'm still reluctant to put that kind of limitation on list building, especially since players will be working with a limited selection of pilots to begin with.
I'm holding off on changing the ship progression though.
I downgraded your exp and points in my system: you start with 150pts of ships, and $40pts to spend on anything (youll also note that this is very WISELY not spent until later, which makes me love it.)
To start the mission you have to buy upgrades with the money you have.
Winning or losing a mission gives you: $20 reward, spent on repairing unrecovered ships or upgrades.
Recovered ships are simply returned to full functionality. So you only really buy to replace dead ones. You end up losing more than $20 of ships, but its around like 30 to 40 only. so the slow death of the squadron is workable for many many battles of playing.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean here, but I definitely don't want to allow a situation where one player could potentially just run out of ships halfway through the campaign. In order to make sure players reach the final battle, I think replacements have to be free. The incentive to keep pilots alive is in preserving your veterans.
To play missions i had a few ideas:
Make some set missions you can choose from, and loser picks next mission.
100 vs 100. 75 vs 75. 100 vs 80. the attacker gets some reward, but the defender gets to place 4 asteroids in an 100vs100 and all 6 in an 100vs80.
I have plenty of ideas for missions, with attacker and defender specific rewards. Right now it is a dice-off to pick the next mission, with a reroll if you won the last one; I like that mechanic because it rewards winning, but should prevent one player from completely controlling the mission arc (and having all the fun).
I did some play testing last night, just making imaginary results. Neither side should really run out of ships until at least 5 to 8 games into the campaign. Depending on how big you make the starting list of course.
I must say, in mine there is a little difference in that mine does have eventual depletion towards an end game, versus yours might be more suited to continual ongoing play. I think keeping the replacement mechanic is fine for that system.
Part of what I was going for was that emotional attachment and value is added when there is a possibility of eventually losing the ship. But being able to choose to buy it back seems like a good way to continue letting a player play what they really love. Makes using up your points rewards a careful choice. This also rewards using no-name squads and making your own story and characters.
Also this system allows you to return named pilots for their effects, in case they die early. Whereas in yours you cannot, the named deaths are more permanent.
I'd say its a difference in perspective versus function.
Ever seen things like Nuzlocke for Pokemon? You can only catch the first pokemon you meet on each area and anytime your pokemon faints, its considered dead forever and has to be released.
I put the starting to lose ships at around 5 to 8 because of how long it tends to take to play this game. Its kind of a more realistic amount of games and time to create a story arc and yet not take forever.
If its some big campaign with a whole store of people playing games all the time. Maybe better to have your replacement effects.
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If you have 200 pts of ships, that should easily be 2.5 to 3 100pt different squads you can make from those ships. With mixing and matching.
--
I guess the dice off reroll is just fine. I prefer just giving the loser the pick since it completely prevents snowballing. It also kind of makes sense in that the other side is scheming to do something while you attempt something.
Oh well. I'm just giving you mostly the system I've built up. Use what you need! But I think we are creating different systems alltogether anyway.
It's a real problem, for sure. I think a program could help a lot with keeping track of what pilots get experience and what pilots are available for missions, especially when list-building. For the tabletop, during battles I think an analog tracker like a pilot/ship card works best, since it is always visible.
For representation during play, I'm thinking just pieces of sticky-note over the PS of the pilot's card.
In general, the main issues I am worried about are:
1:Runaway progression:
Problem: One player wins the first few battles and becomes unstoppable as the game goes on due to pilot and ship progression mechanics.
Possible fixes:
Pilot Death and Ship destruction keep progression manageable.
Pilots cannot fly consecutive missions (should slow down progression)
Increase cost for ships and pilots as they improve.
Slow down rates of progression
Yes. As mentioned before, I'm limiting it to 1 PS per mission survived. The game as normally is a fairly deadly, and PS is not the greatest advantage in the game. But, there are other types of progression that should be kept in check.
At least in the outset, I'm going to have the strategic commanders of the players (they represent wing commanders, not admirals), as well as the circumstances coming out of previous missions, direct what missions get played, and try to make sure that those missions have at least some balance. So, in that respect, the effects of the progression will be kept in check by the fact that the underdog strategic commander (ie. the program) will 'know' that he's the underdog and refuse to fight in a battle in which that underdog status will be exploited (too much).
To pick up on your prohibition of fighting consecutive battles, I'm modeling that by way of having ships that were damaged in a previous battle spend some 'time out' in the repair bay. However, in a precarious position, the player can choose to put them into the battle, knowing that they go into it with some damage cards already on the table.
2: Complexity:
Problem: Too many limitations, caveats, and things to keep track of make the game not fun for some players (see warhammer 40k).
I thought that WH40K was a fairly popular game. I enjoyed it for a bit, though I grew bored with it because it didn't have a campaign aspect. When I tried to introduce it, my friends were simply not that interested. I'm hoping that a wider circle of friends/players will stave off that same problem this time.
Also, I plan to have much of the 'keeping track' problem done by the computer.
3: Balancing player choice with plot progression:
Problem: Forcing players to play specific missions can be problematic, especially if the missions are imperfectly balanced (almost definitely the case). But a campaign is not worth much if it doesn't build towards something.
Possible fix:
"Free-form" campaign mechanic allows players to advance the campaign at their pace.
The way I want to do this, after the first stages of the campaign, is to make it possible for the players to make some operational-level decisions. However, they're going to first have to earn the trust of their (automated) strategic commanders. Also, I want to have a more free-form opportunity available. Let's say that they feel they consider their strategic commanders mistaken. They might appeal to their commander's commander (ie. me) with an idea of their own, and I'll see if that's implementable. Of course, their direct commander might not be pleased with them for going over their head. So, essentially, that's a modulated version of the "free-form" that you're talking about.
4: Basic Progression balance:
Problem: Do increases in PS and ship upgrades affect imperials and rebels equally? Are the many ship upgrades available in the ship progression tables fair? Answer to both: probably not.
Possible fix: Change rate of requisition and experience gain for rebels and imperials.
In my mind, it's clear that the rebels face vastly different constraints than the imperials do. I plan on modeling that by having the rebels face scarce resources, and the need to create the logistical supply train to meet those resource needs. They'll have to get YT-1300s and GR-75s to ferry materiel from home base or to purchase stuff on the black market.
For the Imperials, their constraint is that they have to deal with a rigid order of battle. Initially, all they get is TIE/ln fighters. They have to earn the right - and have the need - to use different starfighters and bombers.
This thread is for discussion of the campaign I'm working on currently: Babaganoosh's Campaign.
*link now public*
By the way, I intend to steal your pilot progression ideas, regarding adding abilities, elite upgrade slots, and such-like.
sounds like a good idea too
"To pick up on your prohibition of fighting consecutive battles, I'm modeling that by way of having ships that were damaged in a previous battle spend some 'time out' in the repair bay. However, in a precarious position, the player can choose to put them into the battle, knowing that they go into it with some damage cards already on the table.:"
-Babaganoosh
This thread is for discussion of the campaign I'm working on currently: Babaganoosh's Campaign.
*link now public*
By the way, I intend to steal your pilot progression ideas, regarding adding abilities, elite upgrade slots, and such-like.
With the ship upgrades, I tried to be relatively 'fluffy', while being mindful of the relative power of ships and usefulness of the upgrades, but they are all untested.
I especially liked giving TIE Advanceds the systems upgrade slot, and A-wings the ability to stress and fire backwards (by rotating their laser cannons). Both seem pretty well justified and interesting.
sounds like a good idea too
"To pick up on your prohibition of fighting consecutive battles, I'm modeling that by way of having ships that were damaged in a previous battle spend some 'time out' in the repair bay. However, in a precarious position, the player can choose to put them into the battle, knowing that they go into it with some damage cards already on the table.:"
Yeah I'm seriously considering instituting this mechanic; i especially like the option of sending ships back into the fight damaged.
Maybe what I should do is send all recovered ships and pilots to the med bay/repair bay; that would slow down progression, and make recovery a little more painful.
In my mind, it's clear that the rebels face vastly different constraints than the imperials do. I plan on modeling that by having the rebels face scarce resources, and the need to create the logistical supply train to meet those resource needs. They'll have to get YT-1300s and GR-75s to ferry materiel from home base or to purchase stuff on the black market.
For the Imperials, their constraint is that they have to deal with a rigid order of battle. Initially, all they get is TIE/ln fighters. They have to earn the right - and have the need - to use different starfighters and bombers.
This sounds interesting; I'd be worried about balance. In terms of story, the rebels and imperials obviously have different issues. For balance's sake, I'm going to err on the side of similarity. I may have had a real problem if it weren't for wave 4 evening out swarm and elite ship access across the two factions.
In any case I'm going to digest all of this feedback tomorrow and update the campaign presentation.
I like what you're doing here. I like the Progressions for ships... not sure about the RP1 table for some of the ships with RP1 getting a specific discount and then RP2 giving all discounted. There would be almost no reason ever to not just save up for RP2 especially considering you just "protected" that investment in case that ship gets blown up next battle while you are saving up.
I agree that a sliding scale for pilot skill increase is needed. When I did something similar it was point for point up to 4 (which is where I allowed EPT) and then 2/1 till 7, 3/1 after that... not perfect but better than nothing. I would also suggest letting each side just upgrade 1 generic to an ACE at the beginning (someone PS 3-5)for free. Allows you to save on a few PS points up front and gives you someone to keep track of.
I like what you're doing here. I like the Progressions for ships... not sure about the RP1 table for some of the ships with RP1 getting a specific discount and then RP2 giving all discounted. There would be almost no reason ever to not just save up for RP2 especially considering you just "protected" that investment in case that ship gets blown up next battle while you are saving up.
I agree that a sliding scale for pilot skill increase is needed. When I did something similar it was point for point up to 4 (which is where I allowed EPT) and then 2/1 till 7, 3/1 after that... not perfect but better than nothing. I would also suggest letting each side just upgrade 1 generic to an ACE at the beginning (someone PS 3-5)for free. Allows you to save on a few PS points up front and gives you someone to keep track of.
I know what you mean about the ship progression; I think i can go back and iron that out without too much a sweat. Good catch!
As far as increasing the cost as pilot skill increases, it does get problematic pretty quickly. PS value is not worth the same points across different ships. For example it's worth more to have a high PS TIE Defender, compared to say a TIE Fighter, just because the ship's basic value is different, isn't it?
A clear-cut example of upgrades not being equal across ships is hull/shield upgrades. Hull/Shields are worth more on high agility ships, because they are better protected. You have to get through 3 agility dice on an A-Wing to get rid of an extra shield, but a y-wing's extra shield is much more easily dealt with.
I think pilot skill works in a parallel manner; increases in PS are intrinsically more valuable in ships that are themselves more valuable.
So costing the PS upgrades at 1 each across the board presents a serious problem, especially for swarm players. I could create a chart for each ship, but I worry I won't be able to make a fair system out of whole cloth. Plus it would be hard or annoying for players to track, no?
As for free aces, that's interesting. I do want people to have favorite pilots emerge from the ranks, and this is definitely one way to get that started. But players can buy higher PS generics or even unique pilots as of now at the start of the campaign; did you catch that in the rules? Besides I kind of hope that aces will emerge naturally through luck and smart flying during the campaign.
"I especially liked giving TIE Advanceds the systems upgrade slot,"
-babaganoosh
Haha, I was heavily advocating this as the fix for the Tie Adv. Allows it to become a true Multi-role fighter: FCS for Missiles, ADV Sen/enhanced scopes for dogfighting, sensor jammer for tanky.
Basically: -1 title. Add system slot.
Allows tie adv to also still use its best modification: engine upgrade for even better fighter role.
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I like Rakky's sliding cost for PS idea. Might be a good idea. But a little more complex than a simple cap. But I like it better.
Maybe a good way to do it is actually to say: buying the next level up should just cost however much that elvel is:
going from ps4 to ps5 costs 5 exp.
Then raise the exp gain back to 3 for winning ships, and 2 for fled or recovered.
EPT costs an additional 5pts at ps5.
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What I dont like is your RP table because I feel like certain things are overpowered and unbalanced. And besides, didn;t you want the squad to be nearly all one type?
I like what you're doing here. I like the Progressions for ships... not sure about the RP1 table for some of the ships with RP1 getting a specific discount and then RP2 giving all discounted. There would be almost no reason ever to not just save up for RP2 especially considering you just "protected" that investment in case that ship gets blown up next battle while you are saving up.
I agree that a sliding scale for pilot skill increase is needed. When I did something similar it was point for point up to 4 (which is where I allowed EPT) and then 2/1 till 7, 3/1 after that... not perfect but better than nothing. I would also suggest letting each side just upgrade 1 generic to an ACE at the beginning (someone PS 3-5)for free. Allows you to save on a few PS points up front and gives you someone to keep track of.
I know what you mean about the ship progression; I think i can go back and iron that out without too much a sweat. Good catch!
As far as increasing the cost as pilot skill increases, it does get problematic pretty quickly. PS value is not worth the same points across different ships. For example it's worth more to have a high PS TIE Defender, compared to say a TIE Fighter, just because the ship's basic value is different, isn't it?
A clear-cut example of upgrades not being equal across ships is hull/shield upgrades. Hull/Shields are worth more on high agility ships, because they are better protected. You have to get through 3 agility dice on an A-Wing to get rid of an extra shield, but a y-wing's extra shield is much more easily dealt with.
I think pilot skill works in a parallel manner; increases in PS are intrinsically more valuable in ships that are themselves more valuable.
So costing the PS upgrades at 1 each across the board presents a serious problem, especially for swarm players. I could create a chart for each ship, but I worry I won't be able to make a fair system out of whole cloth. Plus it would be hard or annoying for players to track, no?
As for free aces, that's interesting. I do want people to have favorite pilots emerge from the ranks, and this is definitely one way to get that started. But players can buy higher PS generics or even unique pilots as of now at the start of the campaign; did you catch that in the rules? Besides I kind of hope that aces will emerge naturally through luck and smart flying during the campaign.
Yeah I feel like just letting an ace become one through good flying is a better idea. Less rules too.
Also, aces are techincally pilots with 5 kills, in real life. You earn it, you dont just get awesome.
I'd say its close enough for ships that its fine. yes a ps5 defender is worth more, but you have to level up that particular defender through that many battles.
also for 30 pts, you would have 2 leveled tie fighters. point cost balances this game.
What I dont like is your RP table because I feel like certain things are overpowered and unbalanced. And besides, didn;t you want the squad to be nearly all one type?
A very reasonable reaction; the upgrade tables are, first of all, definitely unbalanced. I don't think it IS even possible to make a balanced chart in the first place. But more to the point, the imbalances I think you're talking about are there for a reason. And yes, I do want players to make 'fluffy' squadrons of one ship type, but the chart needs to be there for whatever ship type they choose. Besides, they can easily ignore the 1-type of ship incentive.
TL;DR The same bonuses are worth more to some ships than others. And some ships frankly need a hand, while others don't need as much help. Good ships get bad upgrades. Bad ships get good upgrades.
Let's look at two ships for an example. The TIE Phantom and the TIE Advanced. The charts go something like this:
PHANTOM
ADVANCED
Replace Missile slot with Systems slot in upgrade bar
Add EPT slot
Blerg: "I'd say its close enough for ships that its fine. yes a ps5 defender is worth more, but you have to level up that particular defender through that many battles. Also for 30 pts, you would have 2 leveled tie fighters. point cost balances this game. "
This is an interesting point. I think you may have convinced me here. I can put the point increases on the ship/pilot progression cards too, so it won't be too hard to track.
Well. Its mostly complex re-balancing youre doing. Which is fine.
I come from the Starcraft forums though, where people try and do this all the time, and most have little clue about the game and very little understanding of balance and restraint in the first place... so they tend to come up with unbalanced untested things.
My creative mind balks and says that it introduces too many hard to test variables. Whereas the PS level and the rewards/recover system ive actually done some quick theory testing with to try and get some decent numbers and see how it works. my first few iterations were completely unbalanced. the winning side easily snowballed.
Personally, I'd say "Fly casual" and if I ever played with you, I'd love to try it! I do think it does add a level of creative fun to the game where the ships become more custom.
One thing on the replacing missiles with systems means that the tie adv loses its role as a reliable missile carrier, which i think is sad, as most people say its actually even more effective than a bomber because it can survive easier and also has better maneuvering. of course, the problem is that the tie adv costs 5 more points than a tie bomber.
Considering the already possible uses of the ship, it has a few advantages. Has decent survivability. Can carry missiles. Is a decent dogfighter. Is overcosted. Likes engine upgrade for better maneuverability and R1 bonus.
By simply adding the systems slot as a title (and -1 cost) it gives the ship the possibility of utilizing all if its bonuses and reducing cost to add on more upgrades. Even -2 would have been an interesting thing.
Okay, this is becoming my fix the tie adv rant again. but anyway.
See what I mean by doing complex re-balancing is pretty hard?
So, the two problems with the replacement fix is that it loses one of its viable roles immediately. Second, the darn ship is still overcosted in points.
Yeah, I see what you're saying here. I'm the first to say it's unbalanced too, especially now without playtesting it.
All the components of the Campaign system are intended to be optional, and independent of one another; I would expect that serious players would want to drop the ship progression system altogether, and that would be fine.
I have to say... Its an interesting idea. I like feeling like the squad gets customized. Not sure how to do it though.