I have great faith that the minds here can do a little better than what is being delivered in the other thread about ramming. While the subject needs to be addressed there should be some obvious caveats.

1. Ramming will not be useful in all scenarios, really it is most useful in the scenarios that primarily envolve destroying the opposing capital ships. However a fleet of several Corvettes is probably going to be in good shape both to ram AND manuever and therefore remains viable in multiple scenario choices, making it a more viable choice broadly.

2. Ramming is going to work best when the rammer has a lot of fast low point ships and the opponent has very few high cost ships. So the question becomes is it effective enough in this scenario as to have a chilling effect on using high cost ships?

To be extreme I think the most Corvettes that could be taken while still meeting the necessary rules for a build would be 7. If their sole goal is to take out a Victory they are very likely to succeed. With that many capital ships you can surround the Victory with the Corvettes going into the side arcs first, so that when your opponent is forced to activate his Victory nothing is in the front arc then you slam the next few into the front arc it seems entirely possible to do enough damage to remove a Victory in one round while losing few if any of the Corvettes and the Victory is definetly gone by the second round this strategy is enforced against it. I think that should strongly argue that this build could have a coercive effect on Imperial commanders to avoid using the Vic.

So should there be a rules change to mitigate the strength of this strategy currently?

I believe so I say it from 2 perspectives.

1. The "Realistic" perspective: While 7 Corvettes ramming a Vic "in a real Galaxy Far Far away" might not destroy it, it is safe to say that the Vic would be out of a fight and in need of lengthy repairs which is essentially the same from a "game" perspective. On the other hand there is no version of the realistic space combat where ANY of the Corvettes survive this tactic. They are not jus going to have minor structural damage from skimming the shield deflector and then just be right back in the fight. If the Corvettes agree to ram the Vic that is a suicide mission and everyone goes down together. So for the "Realist" sure the 7 Corvette ramming party is viable but only if you want 7 dead Corvettes and 1 dead Vic. As this is not what would happen with the current rules it would suggest the "Realistic" perspective would require a tweak to the rules.

2. The "Game" perspective: This is a game not reality and all games are forced to make choices to approximate and hopefully be fun. You only need to look at the ship scale to see that we are playing a game that has had to do a lot of approximating. From a game perspective it just isn't terribly skilled or fun to have 7 fast manuverable ships hit a slow not terribly manuverable ship. It also does not seem to be in the spirit of the game. It appears to me that ramming was included as a punishment for poor piloting, or as a last ditch "I need one more hull damage to win this and if they get their activation I am toast" sort of decision. Ramming should be an accident or a tough choice made under duress not a game build. From a game perspective if you are trying to emphasize skilled piloting and resource managment this game plan does not require it. The "Game" perspective would also seem to suggest that a tweak is necessary.

So what would be the best (and hopefully simplest) way to change the rules?

1. Well in the other ramming thread I read a post where they house ruled that it was rolled dice based on ship size. This has a random element and removes the guarantee of damage. I would go one step simpler and just say that you take hull damage based on the size of the ship you were hit by/ran into. 1 for small 2 for medium 3 for large. This jives well with both the game and realistic theories I mentioned above. Piloting into a Vic was either a massive mistake (by either player), or a VERY carefully considered sacrifice for the greater good.

Please comment on your beliefs on the subject (and I realize looking at the numbers that even that might be too low to prevent the ramming strategy from being a good idea, but I was hoping to start a conversation).

I am sure there are plenty of great ideas out there!

Once again ramming as an opening tactic is Not again NOT going to effective, because the victory gets to shoot back!!! Plus there is going to be at least 1 other ship and fighters all of such are going to punish the corvettes severly. That means as long as the imp player is halfway competant a corvette spam with the intent to ram will result in a near slaughter for the rebel player. Why doesn't everyone get that!? There's one of theses ramming is overpowered threads every couple of days ands it's kinda annoying

The Vic 1 is the most cost effective ship for hull points. How well is this Corvette ramming swarm going to fair against a VVVG Motti list. Or even a GGGGG list.

Attrition will diminish the impact of this fleet / strategy VERY quickly.

From a game perspective it just isn't terribly skilled or fun to have 7 fast manuverable ships hit a slow not terribly manuverable ship.

Honestly the VSD isn't that slow. It would take a great deal of skill to get 7 CR-90's lined up so they all can ram a VSD at the same time.

Fun is completely subjective and should generally not be used as the basis for mechanics, because what one person considers fun, others don't.

It also does not seem to be in the spirit of the game.

First off, no one should ever be claiming what the spirit of the game is, because that like fun is completely subjective.

Second, ramming is a big part of naval warfare especially in the Star Wars universe.

It appears to me that ramming was included as a punishment for poor piloting, or as a last ditch "I need one more hull damage to win this and if they get their activation I am toast" sort of decision.

The rules and how they work are quite clear, you should only say what they were intended to be, if you were the one who wrote them. Alex was part of the Armada team, and he's had a lot of experience with X-Wing, which includes blocking as a big part of the game, so he knew full well how ramming would be used in this game.

The whole idea that damage should be based on the hull size is problematic. The size of the ship I run into doesn't matter, because it's mass isn't running into me, unless it's a head on, if it's a t-bone or rear end collision, the mass of the ramming ship is the only one that really counts.

So in order to really do that, you'd have to set up the rules so the relative position of the ship's change how much damage is taken by whom.

Lastly, FFG doesn't for the most part make changes to the rules, they may tweak things, like how large ships in X-Wing barrel roll, but they're not going to rewrite the whole overlapping section.

While the subject needs to be addressed

Why?

So what would be the best (and hopefully simplest) way to change the rules?

Simplest way is to not change it at all.

So should there be a rules change to mitigate the strength of this strategy currently?

No. And the idea that you need to change the rules for a tactic (not a strategy) that follows the rules makes no sense.

The whole idea that damage should be based on the hull size is problematic. The size of the ship I run into doesn't matter, because it's mass isn't running into me, unless it's a head on, if it's a t-bone or rear end collision, the mass of the ramming ship is the only one that really counts.

Well, no. It really matters a lot. Take the extremes: You're at 60 MGLT, ramming a small rock, say the size of your thumb vs. ramming the earth. Guess what will utterly annihilate your ship? The same goes for ramming a 'Vette with a 'Vette vs. ramming an ISD with a 'Vette. CR90 vs. CR90 will severly damage both ships, CR90 vs. ISD will flatten a CR90 on the ISD's armor plating, perhaps with minimal damage to the ISD. Let's stray from the 60 MGLT, to 1 MGLT: Nothing will happen to either ship, no matter who is ramming whom. At 600 MGLT, the ISD will be destroyed as well, as the kinetic force is too much to be soaked by armor and hull.

So far the "realistic" part (as long as there's no conversion for MGLT to mp/h and the masses and armor of the ships are unknown, we can't really say, what will happen, we just can say, what cannot happen and how physics generally works), the gaming approximation of this doesn't have to be close. I'd like seeing the smaller ship taken the damage open to reflect the bigger impact of ramming on the smaller ship, but if FFG doesn't change ramming (I don't think they will), I am not sad about it, ramming works quite fine and is not neraly as overpowered as some people think it to be. Especially, as it is easy to prevent.

Edit: There are many examples of ramming being a valid naval tactic; Fire ships being one of the latest, Galleys being some earlier example with a dedicated ramming prow.

Ramming isn't a viable tactic to build a list around. It's weak to too many things, and more likely to cause friendly damage than actually succeed in a lethal doom charge.

You want to show me ramming is viable, run a list that does it in a tournament and don't get spanked every game.

yeah, I still don't understand the fascinaton with ramming

ramming is not an ideal scenario in any specific instance except this:

you're close enough to any ship (regardless of size of max hull) that's about to die and your battery armaments left it with 1 hull. You can then access if the damage you take is worth guaranteeing the kill and the weird position you're going to find yourself in.

either that, or you can use the threat of ramming to force the activation of a vulnerable ship.

either way, you have to be at a significant advantage against the target to consider it

that's it

unless you roll utter garbage, you're always going to eclipse ram damage with shooting damage regardless of which end of the ram you're on. If you have 7 cr90s and you're not concentrating fire to instead focus n ramming...yeah, no

Please let people try to ram my victory 1's next tourney ...please lord lol

Please let people try to ram my victory 1's next tourney ...please lord lol

or your gladiators

Please let people try to ram my victory 1's next tourney ...please lord lol

lol thats exactly what I was thinking? How come no one I know tries this. I would love for someone to try it.

I think Ramming is going to be Armada's version of Blocking debates in X-Wing.

People who get burned by it, because they made a mistake, are new to the game, or just don't like it, declaring it's a broken mechanic and/or a loophole that needs to be fixed. But are unwilling to listen to suggestions on how to avoid it, or use it to their advantage.

in the mean time the vast majority of people here will point out how it's not broken, how it's not even always that effective or simply a valid tactic that was intended to be used in the right situation.

So the challenge to those who want it changed is this. Prove it's broken, or unintended. When you can provide actual proof that something is wrong, then we'll talk. Any mention of fun, intent, or spirit of the game pretty much automatically invalidates your argument. Because those are either subjective or unknowable.

https://youtu.be/RW_hGOFukMQ?t=5s

you can definitely make an argument for the spirit of the game based on its design (huge emphasis on planning ahead, massive emphasis on distinct ship facing etc.), but you couldn't make an argument that ramming is against it

what ramming does, first and foremost, is keep ships moving. You can block your own ship and lose nothing in this game (no actions, unlike X-wing) except FFg made it so you'll suffer two damage for your trouble Without ramming, something like fortressing would be a far more effective tactic and kind of negates the whole point of having to manage your ship's speed.

With ramming, you are either punished for not adhering to the game's emphasis on planning ahead (i.e, you goofed and had a ship going too fast or too slow or flying too closely together with another one), or it could be a fair cost to pay in order to pull off an amazing move you planned in advance

ramming an enemy ship is an incredibly minor event ito damage that it deals and an event of huge significance if you find yourself unable to clear an arc you don't want to be in (generally, a Victory's front )

Imo, there is a "spirit" to the game that can be gleamed from the rules (specifically) and the ramming rules are very much in the spirit of it

The biggest advantage of the ram is it ignores shields. This makes it situationly useful. Say a VSD has been taking a pounding from the rest of your fleet and you have a lone cr90 on the opposite side. Still full or close to full shields means firing won't do much, but if you can ram it you might be able to kill it. I can't imagine building a fleet around it though. Too hard to line everything up

Ramming seems fine in the games I've played, but I've yet to see anyone who went out and purchased a core set and 6 CR90 blisters...

I think you'd oughta be less scared of 7 ram damage, and more of the 21 CFed red dice headed your way

Imo, there is a "spirit" to the game that can be gleamed from the rules

When someone says something is against the spirit of the game, it's almost always because it's something they don't like, and have no better argument to make then something completely subjective and based on personal opinion.

The most we can really say about the spirit of the game, is that it's about capital ships in the star wars universe.

So if they were to start changing the game so that fighters were more important than Cap ships, or ground forces became the focus, then yes I'd say that could be argued based on the spirit of the game. But it's a very broad and generic thing, and seldom if ever suitable when talking about a single mechanic.

Ramming isn't a viable tactic to build a list around. It's weak to too many things, and more likely to cause friendly damage than actually succeed in a lethal doom charge.

You want to show me ramming is viable, run a list that does it in a tournament and don't get spanked every game.

this^^^

I add my voice to the challenge!!

So what would be the best (and hopefully simplest) way to change the rules?

Why the assumption that the rule needs changing?

I think this one sentence has made this thread no less than the previous. You are not asking how does the strategy work and how do you break the strategy.

Don't change the rules have the players change.

I can't see ramming as a primary tactic, but it sure gets used a lot to insure kills when I play.

Ramming is a viable tactic to build a list around.

Light No Fighters lists like 7 CR90 can do a guaranteed 7 damage a turn, which is enough to 1 shot an Assault Frigate or a VSD taking 1 DMG, still leaving 21 hull for the opponent to deal with.

Ramming alone is the reason Light No Fighters builds are viable in the W1 meta.

Balanced lists of 2 Ships + Fighters in particular are especially vulnerable as they can lose a capital ship a turn if they play carelessly.

I agree with the OP. Would like to see the ramming rules tweaked a little.

Ramming is a viable tactic to build a list around.

Light No Fighters lists like 7 CR90 can do a guaranteed 7 damage a turn, which is enough to 1 shot an Assault Frigate or a VSD taking 1 DMG, still leaving 21 hull for the opponent to deal with.

Ramming alone is the reason Light No Fighters builds are viable in the W1 meta.

Balanced lists of 2 Ships + Fighters in particular are especially vulnerable as they can lose a capital ship a turn if they play carelessly.

aiyah, don't stir the pot man!

7 CR90s ramming isn't guaranteed 7 damage, because 7 CR90s ramming is hilariously unlikely to happen. Where the hell would they even fit on the base of a fattie? And what about the system of alternating activations?

At best, unless played by some kind of Armada GOD, you're getting 2 rams realistically even the base size and angles of approach. You could probably up this to 4 rams with engine techs (if those work like that?), which is at least a good reason to take them on cr90s if you dont mind losing half their hull to their own damage , but let's not forget that beyond these theorycraft void numbers, there lies an entire strategic game that is going to be a bit more logistically challenging than just "rams happen"