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Old 04-10-2019, 12:06 PM   #31
TheAmishStig
 
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Originally Posted by juris View Post
How much do people move each turn anyway?
Movement is between 0 and 5 car lengths each turn...aside from a different procedure for maneuvers, it's conceptually the same as if CWC had single-phase movement instead of 5-phase. Line up on the start mark, move to the end mark, pivot using the key if not going straight, repeat as necessary.

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Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard View Post
It's not a problem at all. The cars were set up that way for the teaching game but you can easily vary the amount of armor on each side by adjusting the sliders on the dashboard.
Leaves me excited to see the full car-creation rules...things like how armor points and crew points are decided for any given division.
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Old 04-10-2019, 12:30 PM   #32
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

For the version of the rules we used at FnordCon this past weekend, the Armor sliders on the four sides of the Dashboard are set to whatever you have agreed upon as the Armor value you are using for your game. The way to customize your per-side defense beyond that in the current rules is to equip Structure cards to specific sides of your vehicle.
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Old 04-10-2019, 12:56 PM   #33
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Originally Posted by Aleph View Post
For the version of the rules we used at FnordCon this past weekend, the Armor sliders on the four sides of the Dashboard are set to whatever you have agreed upon as the Armor value you are using for your game. The way to customize your per-side defense beyond that in the current rules is to equip Structure cards to specific sides of your vehicle.
Jimmie pointed out that I was overstating the flexibility of the rules - it's been a while since I played and I think we rolled back some of the stuff I was trying in the current version of the rules. Sorry, guys, got overly enthusiastic.
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Old 04-10-2019, 01:31 PM   #34
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Sorry, guys, got overly enthusiastic.
Don't feel too bad, that makes two of us. I'm curious to see what becomes of the rules once they're finalized.

And I swear to fnord, I will get a first impressions review written at some point, but I can't in good conscience write something where I just fawn, given how much I've stressed it getting a fair shake. Fanboying is no more fair than going in with a chip on my shoulder, after all.

Also: Hey Jimmie!
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Old 04-10-2019, 02:20 PM   #35
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

Odd -- my experiences were almost exactly the opposite:

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Originally Posted by Magesmiley View Post
The armor (thus far) is equal on all sides, which makes forward mounted weapons a considerably less great of a tactic.
The main problem I saw with F-mount weapons was: The heaviest-damage weapons were all restricted to F or B arcs only; this meant pretty-much everyone in my games lost all their F armor on the first turn of combat.

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A driver and gunner are pretty much standard, so two weapon shots per firing (unless someone has offed one of them).
The "custom car" event I was in, I only had one weapon per facing; it proved no major handicap...

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Given the armor, crew, and weapon situation, the best way to line up shots is often along the diagonals, allowing two sides of weapons to bear on a target and easy shifting of sides to soak up hits.
...and this is why. :)

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Originally Posted by Magesmiley View Post
And speed is the single biggest defense in the game. [...] One thing that was apparent though was on the small battlefields, staying at speed 5 all the time was tantamount to suicide. I *did* try the tricked out high speed car in one of the design our own games. Alternating between a speed of 3 and 5 courtesy of a couple of items (that I personally think were underpointed) and being tactical in my use of ace tokens that game proved very effective against the other players - two of the cars were nearly trashed and the third had a breach on one side. My own car was only down a couple of points of armor on any side - and while I didn't have the heaviest weapons, they were heavy enough.
For the "custom" event, I also tried to design a "reroll generation machine"; at the start of each turn, I generated two Aces, and *seven* Control markers. Add to that the devices which negated engine damage from heavy acceleration and braking, and the device for converting a yellow maneuver die to a green -- well, at one point in the game, I performed *three* speed-5 D-2 maneuvers in one move, and suffered a whopping *one* point of tire damage. For this, I ended up with no fewer than *five* available rerolls. (And given my luck with dice, I needed them....)

That said: I spent most of the games at Speed 5, and never really had a problem with control -- the playmats were big enough to allow "edge of the world" tactics, saving Control for when it was needed. So I can't agree with the statement "staying at speed 5 all the time was tantamount to suicide".

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One other observation from the games (which I brought to Randy's attention to watch out for) - your best target is usually the player seated to your right. Why? Because you can change speed immediately before your move, and then make your moves. This can have a massive impact on the positioning and who can fire at whom (all moves are done before anyone fires). In the case of the player on your right, you will move after that player three turns out of four, giving you a big edge in determining the final position of your cars relative to one another... and which weapons both of you can use on each other.
For me, this is where the game really fell on its face, and for this reason. Back'n'th'day, I was a master at "playing Reflex", always being in position to select my move after everyone else; knowing where everyone was going, I could then select a target, take him apart, and move on to the next. Here, it was "well, there's now way I'm going to be hitting any of those guys, while they will have every opportunity to hit me". It got old really fast.

One other comment: Instead of all the fiddly little bits which *will* get lost or ruined (so says the _X-Wing_ player with many minis, but few tokens), why not take a page -- or rather, a character card -- from _The Fantasy Trip_, and make the dashboards dry-erasable?
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Old 04-10-2019, 02:35 PM   #36
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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. . . make the dashboards dry-erasable?
The dashboards are locked. They are not dry erase components.
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Old 04-10-2019, 02:45 PM   #37
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For the "custom" event, I also tried to design a "reroll generation machine"; at the start of each turn, I generated two Aces, and *seven* Control markers. Add to that the devices which negated engine damage from heavy acceleration and braking, and the device for converting a yellow maneuver die to a green -- well, at one point in the game, I performed *three* speed-5 D-2 maneuvers in one move, and suffered a whopping *one* point of tire damage. For this, I ended up with no fewer than *five* available rerolls. (And given my luck with dice, I needed them....)

That said: I spent most of the games at Speed 5, and never really had a problem with control -- the playmats were big enough to allow "edge of the world" tactics, saving Control for when it was needed. So I can't agree with the statement "staying at speed 5 all the time was tantamount to suicide".
I'm not sure how you managed 7 control markers at speed 5 - when you got up to a speed of 5, two of the control markers (the ones on the speed section of the dashboard) got covered up, which only left a possible 6: 4 for the tires section, plus the 1 for the improved suspension, and another one if you took the amateur driver (which if you took it meant you didn't get the two green reroll dice for the veteran driver).

I was alternating between 3 and 5, as it let me keep seven control markers when I went 5 and five on the turns I moved 3. (You get your control markers based on your speed at the start of the turn and change speed right before movement.)
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Old 04-10-2019, 02:54 PM   #38
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Armor is the same on all sides? That does not work on any level. Hopefully that will change it can't be an insurmountable problem.
I talked with Randy about armor a fair bit. They had repeatedly run into issues where armor got all dumped on one (or two) sides when it wasn't even all around. And the armor is figured separately - the current rules used about 1/4 of your points. They also had issues assigning a point value to armor values, as people tended to go all or nothing.

Each side of a vehicle can mount a single structure card. The one in the prototype set is the steel plate which I previously mentioned (which there were 4 copies of). This is nominally how one increases your defense on a side. However... speed was still a better defense by far.
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Old 04-10-2019, 03:22 PM   #39
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Originally Posted by Magesmiley View Post
I talked with Randy about armor a fair bit. They had repeatedly run into issues where armor got all dumped on one (or two) sides when it wasn't even all around. And the armor is figured separately - the current rules used about 1/4 of your points. They also had issues assigning a point value to armor values, as people tended to go all or nothing.

Each side of a vehicle can mount a single structure card. The one in the prototype set is the steel plate which I previously mentioned (which there were 4 copies of). This is nominally how one increases your defense on a side. However... speed was still a better defense by far.
Makes me wonder if there's not some easy to explain guideline that could handle it, like 'No more than half can be allocated to one facing' (which would be 6-2-2-2 at worst with our test cars), or 'no facing may have more than double the armor points of any other facing' (which would be 4-3-3-2 or 4-4-2-2).

Though it might get out of hand at higher armor totals [like 10-9-5-6 for a 30-armor car], I'm not in a place where I can run all the permutations.

Your work with "+2/-2 speed with no consequences" and 43Supporter's work with abusing rerolls...I get the feeling testing is in the 'game-breaking loophole' phase. Hopefully word makes it back to Randy/Jimmie and they can get those sorted out before launch.
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Old 04-10-2019, 03:53 PM   #40
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Default Re: FnordCon Update

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Originally Posted by TheAmishStig View Post
Your work with "+2/-2 speed with no consequences" and 43Supporter's work with abusing rerolls...I get the feeling testing is in the 'game-breaking loophole' phase. Hopefully word makes it back to Randy/Jimmie and they can get those sorted out before launch.
The design/dev team are paying attention to these reports. Quietly. Behind the scenes. (Meaning they aren't going to jump in and start replying -- they're too busy writing more stuff for the game.)
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