VBAM Second Edition Errata

Discussion about the Second Edition of the Victory by Any Means campaign rules.
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aelius
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by aelius »

Tyrel Lohr wrote:
aelius wrote:Page 120 says this in paragraph 3 of section 5.4.3.4
"The point costs for these abilities can be found on the Special Abilities Table. For example, it costs 2 CP to add a point of Assault rating to a unit class."
However the table lists the CP cost as 1.
I assume the table is correct, but ya know... :?:
The table is correct, and I'll have to update that description and make it clear that the Cost/Maint costs only apply once (i.e., they are not cumulative). Only the CP costs are paid per level, the rest apply regardless of the number of "levels" of an ability purchased.

Specific to your point, Assault only costs 1 CP per point. It used to cost more, but I collapsed the costs of the special abilities because it was making it too hard to give small ships special abilities, and eating up too much CP for larger units.
Yeah, I looked at it for a while and decided that must be how Cost/Maint was supposed to work. But it is nice to have confirmation.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Haukea »

So, got a question on the Shields special ability. The way I read it, I increase the cost of my ship by one, pay one CP, and I get a +1 DV that lasts until the ship is crippled. Whereas I can spend 1 CP, not increase the cost of my ship, and get a +1 DV that lasts until my ship is destroyed.

So except for the 'fluff' aspect, why exactly would I want to add shields to my ship, when increasing the DV by the same amount is cheaper and, overall in battle, better?

And also, to clarify on Boarding, does the Formation Bonus apply to 'boarding damage' (as the rules say it's directed damage), or, baring ships/bases with the Security feature, is boarding damage applied at a 1:1 rate. Also, does previous damage (crippled, or attrition) count towards 'boarding damage'?

ie: An Old Patrol Carrier, DV 2, no formation bonus. Does it require 4 points of boarding damage, or 6 points (DV 2 x 1.5 formation x 2 to destroy) to capture?

If it's crippled, does it only require 2 points worth of boarding, or does it require the full 4? (Or 3 and 6 depending on the answer to the previous question). Basically, are damaged ships easier to capture?
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

@Haukea: Bah, it looks like the side benefit of Shields (+1 formation bonus) was edited out at some point in the last pass of the rules. However, at this point, I think it's more likely that Shields will become a non-leveled ability that will just provide a passive +1 formation level bonus. That would make it a poor man's Guardian, but I'm not entirely sure I like that solution, either.

For right now, I'd say the best option is to play it as the unit gets a +X formation bonus, where X is its Shield level. That would make it very similar to Guardian, to the point that there's no reason for Shields (which we have historically had problems converting). I'll work on it over my vacation and see if I can't find a better solution, or else eliminate it completely and fold it into Guardian.

Formation levels do matter when scoring boarding damage. The idea there is that it's harder to deposit boarding parties to well-defended targets that are being shielded by the rest of the enemy fleet.

In your example, the Old Patrol Carrier (DV 2) is in Formation Level 0. Looking at the Formation Level Table on page 55, this means that the directed damage multiplier is 1.5x, which means it will take 6 points of Boarding damage to capture the carrier. If it's crippled, then it will only take 3 directed damage to "destroy" it and capturing it in the process. You're exactly right that crippled ships and bases are easier to capture, because you only have to apply one damage level to capture them instead of two.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by wminsing »

Yes, shields are always tricking since in some settings it makes sense to call them out and in others they should just be rolled in the DV values. Another option might to make it 'regenerating' DV; damage always takes out shield value first, and the ship regains it's shields value after every combat round, regardless of it's crippled or not. The makes Shielded ships good candidates for the left over damage points that nearly always result from a salvo. That last clause might break the 'ships lose abilities when they are crippled' rule though.

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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Shields to me were always trying to cover things like the Abbai shielding from Babylon 5 Wars, where it is an oddity that this one power has shields and no one else really does. For a setting like Star Trek or Star Wars, everyone has shields so it's better just to fold it into DV and leave well enough alone.

While I was on vacation I thought about it some more, and I think if Shields stayed as a rated ability that gave the ship a +1 formation level and then also conferred bonus DV equal to formation level that might set it apart enough from Guardian to make it interesting and have the intended effect of making Shielded ships interesting.

For example, let's say we have an Abbai Lakara cruiser that is DV 5 and Shields (2). Before it's crippled, the Lakara would then have an effective +2 formation level and be DV 7. If it receives its squadron's +1 formation bonus and is in a Defensive posture (another +1 formation bonus), it would be up to a level 4 formation with an effective DV of 9. That would make it a very tough nut to crack, but once it's crippled it would fall back (hard) to DV 5 and be easy to kill from there.

I was able to get through another editing pass of the main rules and have started on the optional rules and beyond. I've got about 5 pages of notes covering spelling/grammar and rules issues that I identified reading through the book. I'll get those written up over the next week and the errata updated.

Then I'll be updating the actual 2e rules with those changes and get a revised copy of the rules out to customers towards the first of next week (Aug 10) and get another print proof ordered to make sure that and other printing considerations are cleared up. If everything looks right, we should be able to get the print books here by the end of August and shipped out.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

One discrepancy I did find while reviewing the rules with fresh eyes is that there is still some ambiguity over just how many squadrons a flagship can command.

The intended rules are the same as 1e, where it's a flag squadron plus a number of additional squadrons equal to the flagship's CR. However, that "additional squadrons" part is what often causes confusion, as it did when Charlie was writing up the Encounter example.

At this point I'm leaning heavily towards going the simple, most straightforward route and saying the max # of squadrons in a Task Force is just equal to the flagship's CR and leaving it at that. Is there any reasons that people can see why that wouldn't work?


I also found that the blockade rules between the two sections don't quite jive with each other. I'm going to edit the rules this week to correct that. The correct interpretation is that you can blockade a system if its owner demanded a Defensive scenario and you refused but remained in the system.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

A question to players: do you prefer having the names of rule references be italicized as they are now, or is it distracting?

I am removing the ">" symbol from the body text because it looks out of place in the printed books and it is causing the justification to do strange things, and I just want to see if players prefer for the rules references to be italicized or not in the final version.

Any strong feelings either way?
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by aelius »

Italicized doesn't bother me.
And I like your Shield idea.
I never had any problem with the "additional squadrons" description. The flagship controls its squadrons plus a number equal to its CR.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Another quick sanity check as I finish up the updates to the rules:

I've started questioning whether or not the diplomatic state progression should be tweaked a bit to allow more a bit more flexibility in options when in Non-Intercourse and "smooth out" the progression otherwise.

What I'm looking here is:

1) Move the "must turn around and leave when you enter the other empire's systems" from Non-Intercourse to Non-Aggression. This leaves Non-Intercourse at a point where you can move in and attack them, but you still can't bombard or invade. This would make it easier for two enemy powers to fight back and forth without an actual declaration of war.

2) Make military access an element of the Trade treaty instead of the Mutual Defense treaty. Therefore opening up trade would allow ALL foreign traffic to move through your systems. This helps to address the fact that we no longer have the "Military" diplomatic state that we did in the proto-2e rules where two empires could have some military cooperation and open borders without being defense partners.

3) Remove the immediate declaration of war from Mutual Defense and replace it with a major bonus to declaring war or breaking treaties. How do you guys feel about this change? Has it come up in any of your games yet?


That's kind of the high points for what I have in mind there.

We had a request to move the Armistice rules out to a separate rules entry and discuss that more, and also add the Secret Diplomacy rules back in. That means pushing the content out another page in that section, and I just want to make sure that we get everything in there that you guys might want to see.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

With no objections submitted, I'm implementing the above changes in my diplomacy update.

I will get that update entered as I finish up the errata update this weekend (delayed by other VBAM projects), and then get the update pushed out to players on Monday barring any significant issues stemming from word wrapping.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by japridemor »

Just picked up the rules this week and am reading through them. All the typos and errors that I have spotted so far have been mentioned in this thread. Great job! I'm very happy to have 2e in my (digital) hands. I'll continue searching for typos and errors. Looking forward to the community putting up excel workbooks to design starships, bases, fighters and ground units.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Thanks, James! If you find anything else not mentioned in this thread please let me know so that I can get it updated in the draft.

I have to go through and finish updating the encounter example and finish filling out the Politics Phase, but then I just have the unit construction rules to go through and finish doing another editing pass on and then (knock on wood) it should finally be ready to get the final proofs ordered, okayed, and ready for the print edition to go out.

By the end of the weekend I should have a definitive update on that and several other upcoming projects.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Here's a reinstated block about building bigger ships and bases:

5.4.3.5 ▶ Titan Construction
Ships and bases that are bigger than the standard superdreadnought are called titans in Victory by Any Means. These rare vessels are no listed on the standard ship construction template tables, however players can use the following formulas to build new templates for these massive units.

First, choose a base Construction Cost for this new unit. It’s Maintenance Cost has a numerator equal to its Construction Cost divided by 3 (round up) and a denominator of 2. A ship’s Command Cost is equal to its Construction Cost divided by 2 (round down).

The base number of construction points that the new ship or base template has available is (3 x Construction Cost) + 2. Tech bonuses are applied normally to these units. These ships have a bombardment value equal to their half their Construction Cost (round up).

Example: A player is designing a new titan that has a base Construction Cost of 20. This gives the unit a Maintenance Cost of 8/2 and a Command Cost of 10. The ship has 62 construction points to spend on stats and special abilities, plus however many it receives from its tech bonus. The unit generates 10 bombardment value when it is used to perform orbital bombardment.
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by japridemor »

5.4.3.3 Tech Bonus

The second paragraph reads:

"The tech bonus for flights and minefields is handled similarly. Subtract 3000 from the unit's ISD, divide by 24, and then multiply by 2. Round fractions to the nearest whole number.<snip> From a practical standpoint what this meansis that the medium flight or minefield is acting as a baseline that is the equivalent to a corvette and every other flight or minefield is being adjusted from there."

So what I read is that medium flight/minefield gets (ISD-3000)/24*2

If so then:
superheavy flight/minefield gets (ISD-3000)/24*4
heavy flight/minefield gets (ISD-3000)/24*3
light flight/minefield gets (ISD-3000)/24*1

ultralight flight/mine then gets (ISD-3000)/24*0? No tech advance for ULF or ultralight minefields?
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Re: VBAM Second Edition Errata

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

This is the critical statement: "This is the number of extra construction points that is added to every flight or minefield unit at the current Tech Year. "

You run the (ISD-3000)/24*2 and then apply the CP bonus to every flight/minefield at that tech year. So if you're at year 3018, then it is (3018-3000)/24*2 = 1.5 = +2 CP to each flight/minefield template.

This puts medium flight/mine at 7, heavy at 8, superheavy at 9, etc.

This does mean that flights actually become more powerful quicker than other unit types and this can cause issues when designing units that are far beyond the 24 year VBAM Tech Year system, but for the basic rules it gives a suitable increase in ability to make developing new flights worthwhile and keeping them progressing at a fixed rate. I played around with having them be variable based on their costs, but this just led to the heavy/superheavy variants becoming terribly unbalanced over time. Which was then exacerbated by a flight always requiring 1 CV for basing (and variable basing was a non-starter because of the confusion it adds to the rules).
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