15 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

Sorry thought you were GA and GK essentially wanted me to hammer it out. As they say...

[...]

We don't? I thought we don't want to rush this as long as too many of us are in the VWC. But, ok, I also get impatient and I really want to start. On the other hand, for the rebels impatience is not a virtue...but leads to the dark side.

15 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

[...]

-Diplomats may block assaults on one planet. That planet may only be attacked if the diplomat protection moves somewhere else or the diplomat planet is captured/destroyed.

-Skilled spacers may choose one unoccupied planet at the beginning of the refit phase and gain either half that planets resource points, rounded down or access to it's special ability for the round. So situationally they can either be a "come from behind" upgrade tool, or a shipyard, spynet, or diplomat if they are available.

I like this fix for skilled spacers cause A. It's thematic, it represents skilled civilians working (by force or free will) for your cause behind the scenes. and B. It adds risk to the pick order. Skilled spacers are very strong, but are more and more limited as the game progresses and factions ****** up planets with abilities. So taking skilled spacers gives a big boost early, but could fade to nothing depending on final map state, leaving you holding a planet that doesn't give much benefit.

-I vote spynet and yards stay the same. They are the "baseline" we are tweaking the others off of, if we boost them, they just remain the most powerful.

[...]

I fear, the arguments presented here are still troubling the set of special assaults discussed here: The skilled spacers will never be used to mimic a repair yard, because those will all be already claimed. Allthough, they might be taken in order to mimic a spynet, this will merely happen because there are some skilled spacers planets that have a much higher resource value than the average spynet planet. Hence, they will merely be a nice way to get more ressources out of the spynet planets.

As written in the post I have linked earlier, the Diplomats seem to me merely of use to protect a repair yards planet - and even then only most likely for the imperial side in order to protect Corellia. Hopefully, I am wrong here.

Don't get me wrong: I consider thsese rules already to be superior to RAW. But I predict that the following will happen (and please allow me to post a *sigh* here when it does): All six repair yards will be taken in the game setup. In round 2 we will see two special assaults. No really viable different strategies here.

Here some specific wording for the Hyperlane Raid special objective for clarification and as base for changing:

Setup: [remains the same plus:] Before ships are deployed the imperial player deploys the two freighters beyond distance 3 of his player edge, directly facing the rebel deployment zone. It is deployed at speed 1 or 2)

Special rules: [everything is deleted for the following rules]: The freighters count as medium (?)* ships with hull 10, no armament, shields, or defense tokens. They do not get dials. They do not benefit from any upgrade card. They have at speed 1 one click at the first joint, at speed 2 they have only 1 click at the second joint. They are activated at the end of the squadron phase. When they are activated the imperial player may change their speed by 1 (but not to zero).

End of Game: [everything is deleted for the following rules]: The second player gains 1 victory point for each freighter not destroyed. The first player gains 1 victory token and his team gains 40 resources for each freighter destroyed. The winner's team gains in addition 40 resources.

Victory points: 20

* I think it might be better to take other ships than flotillas, because otherwise it would be an invitation to deal damage to them by ramming/parking in front of them without the obvious drawback for such behaviour.

I assume we still also have the house rule, that you cannot build a station/establish a presence after a successfull special assault, right?

6 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

We don't? I thought we don't want to rush this as long as too many of us are in the VWC. But, ok, I also get impatient and I really want to start. On the other hand, for the rebels impatience is not a virtue...but leads to the dark side.

I fear, the arguments presented here are still troubling the set of special assaults discussed here: The skilled spacers will never be used to mimic a repair yard, because those will all be already claimed. Allthough, they might be taken in order to mimic a spynet, this will merely happen because there are some skilled spacers planets that have a much higher resource value than the average spynet planet. Hence, they will merely be a nice way to get more ressources out of the spynet planets.

As written in the post I have linked earlier, the Diplomats seem to me merely of use to protect a repair yards planet - and even then only most likely for the imperial side in order to protect Corellia. Hopefully, I am wrong here.

Don't get me wrong: I consider thsese rules already to be superior to RAW. But I predict that the following will happen (and please allow me to post a *sigh* here when it does): All six repair yards will be taken in the game setup. In round 2 we will see two special assaults. No really viable different strategies here.

Here some specific wording for the Hyperlane Raid special objective for clarification and as base for changing:

Setup: [remains the same plus:] Before ships are deployed the imperial player deploys the two freighters beyond distance 3 of his player edge, directly facing the rebel deployment zone. It is deployed at speed 1 or 2)

Special rules: [everything is deleted for the following rules]: The freighters count as medium (?)* ships with hull 10, no armament, shields, or defense tokens. They do not get dials. They do not benefit from any upgrade card. They have at speed 1 one click at the first joint, at speed 2 they have only 1 click at the second joint. They are activated at the end of the squadron phase. When they are activated the imperial player may change their speed by 1 (but not to zero).

End of Game: [everything is deleted for the following rules]: The second player gains 1 victory point for each freighter not destroyed. The first player gains 1 victory token and his team gains 40 resources for each freighter destroyed. The winner's team gains in addition 40 resources.

Victory points: 20

* I think it might be better to take other ships than flotillas, because otherwise it would be an invitation to deal damage to them by ramming/parking in front of them without the obvious drawback for such behaviour.

I assume we still also have the house rule, that you cannot build a station/establish a presence after a successfull special assault, right?

Sure.

Truthfully, I am fine with ignoring the planet things and just going with what can agree upon as the altered special assaults. I am trying to be creative and work up something, but you could buff skilled spacers to the moon and back and we are STILL going to pick all the repair yards and declare special assaults rd 2 because in the first 2 rounds without repair yards you cant build up. They become wasteful in the late game. I expect that was the balance FFG was hoping for when they created them, but unfortunately it doesn't work. It's ALWAYS going to be better to get an early lead than play for the late game, unfortunately.

In order to fix this, we would have to completely re-write the campaign, which is beyond the scope of what we are able to do.

If we can, in 50 characters or less, make a house rule that puts a band-aid over some of the weaknesses of the campaign, that is enough. I am not looking to re balance an entire mostly-balanced-but-some-things-are-annoyingly-useless campaign.

I don't mind your interpretation of the hyperlane assault, we can go like that. And yes, diplomats are merely useful at forcing your opponent to attack a sub-optimal planet. But that is strategy no? Protect your "best" planet to make sure you don't lose it, because lets be honest, currently there is NO REASON for Rebels not simply assault Correlia every turn until they get lucky and win it. Similarly Imperials with the Rebels best planet.

Skilled Spacers is a wild card pick, that is what it is intended to be, but if you don't like it then by all means we can play them however you like. Give 1 token to 2 ships at the start of the match is fine. RAW is fine. Honestly I don't think we have seen a "great" alternative for these yet and the longer we talk about it the more everyone else in this thread falls asleep.

I do not concur with your assessment of the situation (naturally, considering that I made proposals about which I believe that they deal with those problems). However, as I have said earlier:

On 26.1.2018 at 9:00 AM, Darth Veggie said:

[...] Sorry, to all, if I start to monopolize this discussion. As I said, I am a house ruling maniac. If you get annoyed by it, simply write," f**k off, Veggie, let us play RAW!"

I think at least implicitly we are already there. Hence, I am out of the discussion. As remarked earlier, I consider nearly all proposals in this thread (including your last ones) to be superior to RAW. I can live with 'em.

Or simply say:

Tell the captain that I am disinclined to acquiesce to his request.

On 4.2.2018 at 5:24 PM, BrobaFett said:

House Rules:

-Gentlemans agreement on flotillas. Don't spam them.

Unless your name is Tokra. In this case you can use only one non flotilla

On 4.2.2018 at 5:24 PM, BrobaFett said:

-Imperial player may deploy 2 Gozanti beyond distance 3 of his board edge which must move directly forward speed 1 all game. They have 10 hull. Scoring rules changed to same as Show of Force. Game is still setup on a sideways map and setup rules apply.

if we change it this much, i would just remove the hyperlane raid and use show the force for both teams. Just change the stations with Gozanti (not counting as ship,. have to be deployed with obstacles). This way both have exact the same missions.
If we just use two Gozanti with 10 hull, but still keep the sideway map, it really mess up everything. Not to mention to two extra ships or something.
Just make the missions exact the same.

On 4.2.2018 at 5:24 PM, BrobaFett said:

-Diplomats may block assaults on one planet. That planet may only be attacked if the diplomat protection moves somewhere else or the diplomat planet is captured/destroyed.

You mean any assaults? You can even use it on bases/outposts to protect them?

On 4.2.2018 at 5:24 PM, BrobaFett said:

-Skilled spacers may choose one unoccupied planet at the beginning of the refit phase and gain either half that planets resource points, rounded down or access to it's special ability for the round. So situationally they can either be a "come from behind" upgrade tool, or a shipyard, spynet, or diplomat if they are available.

Sounds interessting. Just need to define the special ability.

On 4.2.2018 at 5:24 PM, BrobaFett said:

-I vote spynet and yards stay the same. They are the "baseline" we are tweaking the others off of, if we boost them, they just remain the most powerful.

I would maybe extend the spynet to two tokens per plantet, to to change it to allow to redeploy 2 ships, one ship and two squadrons or 4 squadrons.
But i have not so much experience with this token so far (we used it only once). If you say they are fine as they are, i am ok with it.

3 hours ago, Tokra said:

If we change it this much, i would just remove the hyperlane raid and use show the force for both teams. Just change the stations with Gozanti (not counting as ship,. have to be deployed with obstacles). This way both have exact the same missions.
If we just use two Gozanti with 10 hull, but still keep the sideway map, it really mess up everything. Not to mention to two extra ships or something.
Just make the missions exactly the same.

Id vote we remove them completely before we do that.

4 hours ago, Tokra said:

You mean any assaults? You can even use it on bases/outposts to protect them?

Yes, any single non-diplomat planet. That sound ok?

4 hours ago, Tokra said:

I would maybe extend the spynet to two tokens per plantet, to to change it to allow to redeploy 2 ships, one ship and two squadrons or 4 squadrons.
But i have not so much experience with this token so far (we used it only once). If you say they are fine as they are, i am ok with it.

Ok, lets make it that you can redeploy up to 2 ships, one ship and two squadrons or 4 squadrons.

1 minute ago, BrobaFett said:

Yes, any single non-diplomat planet . That sound ok?

Now it does . I had already some evil ideas .

We ready to come to a agreement on these so we can pick planets and get going?

Sure. i am fine with removing the Rebel Hyperlane raid and use the Show the force instead, if you say they are to unbalanced (i have not done so many CC so far).

Same with the change for the 3 tokens. Just need to define what you mean with special ability for the Skilled spacers.

And we can go on with picking planets.
The base on Corellia is fixed. What is your first pick?

As you might have noticed, I have now plenty of time. When do we start?

Who is the first one who want my proper rebel treatment?

Wow, I’ve read all that and I have absolutely no idea what has just happened.

I’ve not done CC before so I either need an idiot’s guide to the house rules that have been agreed or to use as few House rules as possible. If one of the special assaults is a problem I’d suggest we both use the one which isn’t a problem, I’ve no issue with Rebels blowing up imperial supply dumps or the Imperials ambushing vital rebel supply runs (or vice versa)

I agree...

We need to keep it simple.

AND we need to get started with the game not just endlessly talk options.

On 2/6/2018 at 3:12 PM, Tokra said:

Sure. i am fine with removing the Rebel Hyperlane raid and use the Show the force instead, if you say they are to unbalanced (i have not done so many CC so far).

Same with the change for the 3 tokens. Just need to define what you mean with special ability for the Skilled spacers.

And we can go on with picking planets.
The base on Corellia is fixed. What is your first pick?

Ok looks like we are down to 1 thing. What do we do with Skilled Spacers. How about we just delete them and add 4 resources to all the planets with skilled spacers? I don't know, seriously, out of the box is making things more confusing, so maybe we just go RAW with them and know they will never get used and them's the breaks.

8 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Ok looks like we are down to 1 thing. What do we do with Skilled Spacers. How about we just delete them and add 4 resources to all the planets with skilled spacers? I don't know, seriously, out of the box is making things more confusing, so maybe we just go RAW with them and know they will never get used and them's the breaks.

This sound great (add 4 resource to the planet). I saw never any use for this one. As attacker it cannot be used, and as defender you have most of the time fixed missions. And even if you have the 3 default missions, changing one does not change anything.

Ok there we go, don't know if that changes anything in build order, but probably makes some of the bottom picks a little harder. Ready to start selection? Our fleets are all in, and we are 100% ready to begin.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

This sound great (add 4 resource to the planet). I saw never any use for this one. As attacker it cannot be used, and as defender you have most of the time fixed missions. And even if you have the 3 default missions, changing one does not change anything.

tl;dr: Try increasing the power of base defense objectives. It fixes several problems at once.

I'll ... disagree with this. (Yeah, more peanut gallery nonsense.) It does make at least some difference at Centerpoint, Talfaglio, and Crash's Drift, where you have both campaign objectives and 1, 2, or 3 standard objectives. In those cases, switching out a standard objective can be even more useful.

Breakdown:

5 systems with campaign objectives only. (Forvano, Plympto, Raider's Point, Saberhing Asteroid Belt, Sileria)

3 systems with both campaign and standard objectives. (Centerpoint, Forvano, Talfaglio)

17 systems with standard objectives only.

Of course, if you're attacking a base, then you only see base defense objectives, and if you picking a Special Assault Objective you run that. That's actually a little boring, since you end up with a lot of identical mission settigns.

For a very experienced player (not me), being able to see the enemy fleet and then make a substitution to counter it is very powerful. Given how bad some of the campaign objectives are for attackers, being able to switch standard objectives can be very useful. If the other fleet has capabilities that can really srcew with you, like Strategic, being able to drop an objective with objective tokens is pretty sweet. It's also an interesting soft counter to standard Spynet: sub in Hyperspace Assault, if your other objectives are even less attractive.

Here's the thing: You're going to run a lot of base assaults, and they get boring. The base defenses aren't even overwhelmingly powerful when you have 500 point fleets. You're also far too likely to see the Rebels trying to crash Corellia on turn one, and on every turn until it falls. Yeah, you can prohibit that with special rules, but why not design it out? Two options for base defenses:

1) Double the effect of base defenses. This makes early attacks on bases way, way less attractive. You're not going to see them until one side or the other builds up a real economic lead, and it moderates runaway winner advantages, since the side with the advantage is going to bleed in those assaults.

2) Base defenses also include standard objectives. Essentially, you're playing two objectives at once. This can give you armed stations surrounded by minefields, fighter bases hidden in the outskirts of a nebula, and ion cannons targeting especially valuable enemy ships (Most Wanted). It makes the standard objectives for a fleet far more important, which makes Skilled Spacers far, far more valuable, since you'll be able to use them nearly every defensive battle. And, you get great variety in base defense battles. Finally, it makes the neutral planets attractive targets in the early game, which makes Diplomat inherently more useful, which make capturing planets with diplomats useful simply so that your opponent can't use them to prevent you from grabbing better planets. I particularly expect the Rebels to drop some of their cheap outposts on those, with the occasional base to keep the Empire worried ...

So, what are the effects of making base defenses much more effective?

A) Eliminates need for special rules about first-turn base assaults: they're impractical.

B) Makes standard objectives more important by i) reducing the number of early base assaults, ii) fighting more battles with only standard objectives, and iii) putting them into play in base assaults.

C) Makes Skilled Spacers more useful (see B).

D) Make Diplomats more useful by directing early battles toward neutral planets, instead of the most valuable systems that would normally be resolved as generic base defenses.

E) Increases attrition in the later rounds, especially for base attackers, making it harder for everyone to keep their fleets camped at 500 points. (This is a combination of less grabbing of the most valuable systems and more ships/squadrons dying).

F) Making it more likely for attackers to have to go in with scarred ships/squadrons when they start launching base assaults, leading to actual perma-death sometimes. Three cheers!

G) Increases the diversity of base assaults.

One simple rule change can address many of the problems that are so unsatisfactory or worrying in CC. Is it sufficient by itself? I don't know, but it's worth trying as an elegant fix, then seeing how thing are going after the first two turns, and then after the first three turns.

The correct answer to this is, "ssip ffo," but I'll be happy to act as rules evaluator/judge, analyze the situation after those two turns, take everyone's comments, and make adjustments as needed to keep the campaign fun. While no one has any reason to believe in my genius (except Brobafett?), it will probably be a lot faster to have a neutral judge make the decision without unending debate. I do have some qualifications; I wrote this rule for Attack Vector: Tactical:

Quote

(H1.25) THE COWARDLY DRAW: It’s assumed that the forces fighting in AV:T are seeking to engage the enemy. If one side doesn’t care to fight, it’s easy to disengage. Therefore, if, after ten turns, neither side has damaged at least 2% of the total of the boxes of at least half of the ships on the opposing side, the game ends in a cowardly draw. If one player maneuvered to avoid contact while the other maneuvered aggressively to make contact, the aggressive player should cry out, “Nyah, nyah! You are a cow-ard!” while making moose ears (thumbs to temples, fingers splayed open) and declare victory. After that, find someone who wants to play to win, rather than play to “not lose”.

[You can also mix standard and campaign objectives with the special assaults to make the battlefields more interesting.]

Interesting ideas, and I actually agree and really like this suggestion, so thanks for chiming in, but IMO at this stage AKA I want to start scheduling games TODAY I think this sends us back to the drawing board a little too dramatically.

Maybe next time?

16 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

at this stage AKA I want to start scheduling games TODAY I think this sends us back to the drawing board a little too dramatically.

At least it's a quick drawing board. Reduce everything to one change (base defenses + normal objectives for the system) and keep everything else the same. Boom. It's really easy to understand and remember, so little chance of errors in play.

I try for elegant rules design.

Let's do this!

If we get through the final assault I promise I'll make a nice PDF with all the house rules you could ever desire

As said. Your pick with the first base.

Not to pull things off topic but @elbmc1969 that makes a lot of sense.

@Tokra Imperials select nubia first.

@BrobaFett

There are some rumors, that there might be a Rebel base or outpost in the asteroid field at Saberhing. This is what least what several traders (i am pretty sure they are smugglers) said.
Additionally the Imperial regime noticed some strange activities near the repair yards in Selonia. There must be something going on.