Lieutenant's Manual: Determining Points Value Alpha Test

[First Sea Lord Randall Bills]

The following was just posted to MITS.com (5/3/10):

>>>>>
Point System Open Alpha Test

It’s been a long few weeks since I posted a development blog of any kind. For any unaware yet of the situation, Catalyst has been going through some upheavals; business mistakes were made and I’ve had to focus all of my attention on fixing those errors and laying the ground work of new processes to prevent it from happening again. It can’t be done overnight, but we’ve made amazing strides in the last month and half and will continue to march forward, every day better than the last as the ground work we’ve laid begins to catch momentum.

We’ve reached a place, however, where I can start looking around some and getting back to various other work put on hold. I spent most of a year updating MITS.com almost weekly, so it felt odd to have to go so long with only occasional fiction posts…but hopefully this is a sign of me getting back to regular posts.

“Okay, okay, but what about Leviathans?!” That’s really what you want to know, right?


What all this means for Leviathans is that it won’t be available for a Spring release. What’s more, at this time I simply can’t tell you when it will be ready. There’s too many factors at work now. Obviously once I have more concrete news I’ll be shouting it from the forecastle. I can say, however, that we’ve some really exciting developments going on beyond the boardgame that may ultimately help launch Leviathans in a great way…developments I hope to be able to share with you as well in the near future.

While you all await that news, however, I’m here to announce the Point System Open Alpha Test. I’ve been kicking the point system around for some months now. As with everything about Leviathans, I’ve tried hard to balance a workable system with a simple system. For those that have seen the Battle Value System for BattleTech…well, it’s pretty complicated. Then again that game has far, far more moving parts, shall we say, and trying to address all of that in a game balancing framework is enough to unhinge the sanity. Leviathans doesn’t have near that same issues…but it still has its own internal complexity and addressing that in a way that’s relatively easy has been challenging.

However, while I’m happy with the over-all direction, there’s still some niggles I’m not too happy with. With that in mind, and more fully embracing the Creative Commons aspect of Leviathans than ever, I’m tapping the growing community to playtest the Point System as fully as possible in the month of May.

On both DriveThruRPG and the BattleShop you’ll find a free PDF, “Point System Open Alpha Test”, containing the Point System as it pertains to the Lieutenant’s Manual (as well as all other released PDFs), along with extensive examples for ease of understanding and use.

As mentioned in that PDF, I’ve started a “Lieutenant’s Manual: Determining Points Value Alpha Test” on the forums, under the Game Rules Discussion. Any specific questions regarding the Point System should be directed to the thread, where I’ll try and answer as often as possible.

Comments will be received until May 31st, at which time we’ll lock the thread. Anyone that provides feedback on that thread during that time frame will have their MITS.com forum name included in the credits for the Point System.

Thanks for your patience while we work through what’s occurred and start getting back on track for preparing to release Leviathans down the line. And of course we remain committed to bringing you great, new web content as well. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy some game play while you help me blast this system into shape!

See ya next duty shift!

>>>>>

So start that electroid charging and warm up your dice...enjoy...and thanks for your coming comments!


Randall

[Bronzite]

OK, I'll kick off the discussion.

After reading through the rules, one question immediately leaps to mind: What are the limits to the various values in the game?

For instance, we have a selection of weaponry available in the PDF's, but no comprehensive weapons list.  What are the ranges we should expect the points system to cover before it breaks down?  Similarly, what are the speed ranges?  Breach numbers?  Knowing what these values can be allows us to determine whether the point system holds proverbial water in the ranges it needs to, and lets us write off places it might go off the rails at the extremes of speed, distance, and armor.

The answer, of course, may be that they should work for all values, or that you're hoping our analysis will help set some bounds on the numerical properties of Leviathans, and that is perfectly acceptable, as well.

--Bronzite

[Worktroll]

Bronzite,

Where you're heading comes under the question of construction rules, which is something that a fair bit of effort is being put into. We're not ready to release those details yet; what we're looking for is whether, given the range of ships available at the moment, the PVs for the ships correspond with your experience in gameplay.

For example, the alpha PVs for HMl Beagle comes out at 79, that for Pontbriand comes in at 108, of HML Evesham at 125. This implies that 3 Beagles should be able to take on two Eveshams on equal terms - their smaller size being compensated for by their no-hit spaces, and their initiative/speed advantages. THat sort of thing.

W.

[Tonbo Karasu]

I'm not sure whether (or how) it can or should be represented in a points system, but I have noted in the past that there is a definite performance implication dependant upon whether the map is fixed or floating.

For example, in my local BT competition we used a small fixed map (time implications) which I abused horribly once by fielding 8 UrbanMechs.  Their appaling speed was entirely offset by the fact that the enemy had nowhere to run away to and my force was really punching above its weight (8 AC10s at 1 target is enough to make most things think again).

Should we try to test this in multiple situations or stick to one or the other?

[Tonbo Karasu]

I've been playing about with a spreadsheet calculator which I think is now pretty accurate.  So, here's the values for all ships that we know about,

HML Anfield   65.4
HML Beagle   79.1
HML Raven   69.0
HML Charger   119.7
HML Courser   107.5
HML Hertfordshire   89.6
HML Evesham   125.7
La Gloire                   60.9
Montpelier   74.5
Pelletier                   71.5
Agile                   86.3
Ardent                   97.7
Pontbriand   108.0
Philip II Augustus   111.9

Note that Anfield and La Gloire will become more pricey after we have rules for torpedoes and the points cost for them (I'm guessing it will be about 50 per slot)

[pianobar]

Of note, the last step in the .PDF indicates to round up to the nearest whole point value, so people who are looking at the #'s without reading the whole .PDF will want to keep that in mind.

[Bronzite]

I've punched in the British ships (except Anfield) and show some differences in point value (in the fractional format provided earlier, as it seems to matter for most of these):

Beagle 79.1 (Even)
Raven 68.7 (-0.3)
Courser 119.1 (+12.2)
Evesham 125.7 (Even)
Hertfordshire 90.1 (+0.5)
Charger 120.1 (+0.4)

Not sure where the variance is, or which one of us is right.

[Tonbo Karasu]

Hm, not sure.

Here's the breakdown by area that I got

Ship	SI	MP	Turn	Breach Vals	Target Dice	Miss	Guns
Beagle	162	100	10	275	24	12	276
Raven	180	90	10	228	24	60	166
Courser	126	90	30	287	48	24	626
Evesham	120	70	30	342	44	0	799
Hertfordshire	154	60	20	306	48	24	420
Charger	140	100	27	252	48	36	744

[Bronzite]

OK, I replaced the 2 #6 flank armor slots on Courser with extra guns, which caused the huge discrepancy there.  There were also breach problems on Charger, and I suspect Raven (although I haven't found them yet.)  Finally, your Turn number for Charger is incorrect -- you subtract 2 from the 10 for every pair of steering gear, so the Turn value is actually 24, not 27.

Go-go-gadget peer review!

[Worktroll]

You can't believe how bad it was between Pianobar & me on ... version 0.6, wasn't it? Many hands make light work (no, I don't mean fluorescents ...)

W.

[pianobar]

Haha, don't remind me. You got what, where? Oh...hrm, no -this-. Oh durr, how'd I miss -that-? Making multiple sets of numbers match is crazy thing, but that's how it goes and is what's needed. I think my wife officially wrote me off that week.

[Bronzite]

OK, I finished the analysis on the remaining British ships.  I dropped 3 breach points off Raven's quarterdeck, and you're missing 5 breach points off of Hertfordshire somewhere.  Otherwise, I think we're in agreement now:

HML Beagle   79.1
HML Raven   69.0
HML Charger   120.0
HML Courser   107.5
HML Hertfordshire  90.1
HML Evesham   125.7

If you get the chance, post your breakdowns for the French fleet, and we can do a comparative analysis on those, too, and then we should have good, validated numbers for all known ships (at least, the ones that carry weapons we have rules for.)

[Tonbo Karasu]

Ah, missed an Armour slot on the bow.

Here's the French.

Name	SI	MP	Turn	Breach	Location	Miss	Guns
La Gloire	162	120	8	216	24	60	84
Montpelier	162	80	20	217	24	60	270
Pelletier	162	120	10	219	24	60	188
Agile	133	90	16	318	38	0	378
Ardent	140	80	20	330	38	0	485
Pontbriand	140	120	20	284	48	24	580
Philip II Augustus	130	80	24	324	44	12	644

I'm pretty sure that the spreadsheet calculations are working correctly now.

[Bronzite]

OK, my comparison shows Philip is underarmored by 12 points somewhere on your model, and that Pelletier's fore and aft guns are all turreted on your spreadsheet, where as only the bow gun in the #3 slot should be in a turret.  Otherwise, we are in agreement:

Ardent 97.7
Agile 86.5
Philip II Augustus 113.4
Pelletier 69.1
Montpellier 74.5
Pontbriand 108.0

[pianobar]

Helpful hint: If points are off by factors of 6 on breach #'s, look for Armor Slot differences. While it's not 100%, almost always there's either an extra or forgotten Armor addition to the #'s for a side.