Redesign BFG 2

You know I get the feeling tindalos does not know what to do and >redacted< so i was writing some kind of redesign document. Maybe we will see a much improved game. Most likly not...
At the very least maybe we get some good discussions going.
Also dont be to hard on the editing i tryd to make it as readable as possible, also also english is not my first language. And in know that my spelling is realy bad.

At first let me say that numbers can and will have to be adjusted so try not to be to sensative about any numbers given.

Basic

A Fleet restriction like the tt will be introduced.

Infinite escort
2 LC => 1 C
2 C => 1 GC
2 GC => 1 BS

Not only is this for balance reasons. Also this is for lore and common sense. Extremly valuble GC and BS would only every in the worst/extrem of circumstances fielded without an escort of less valuble ships and not just litteral escort ships. Or lesser orc ships would naturaly accompany bigger ships.
Tyranids get this in reverse starting at 1BS for 2 GC excluding the infinite scouts. It makes sense for Tyranids to operate in reverse except if you are faceing a pure scout/escort fleet.

Health, Moral and Crew.

At the end of the day you can make a crew count mechanic work but it adds a ton of information without adding much fun without heavy investment.
So doing away with Crew values and using the original tt mechanics.
A ships crew strength(Cstr) will be based on the health of the ship with some adjustments for race.

Cooldowns and Abilitys

All ships lose there extra abilitys like for example rally or recrew teleport. Also i find this design of creating a problem and fixing it with a specific hard counter ability silly and not much fun.

Commander

Commander skills. Some Abilitys like for example rally will be reintroduced in much improved form as commander abilitys.
Because commanders become extrem high valved target they get extra protection, not making them invurnable but making it so that they are not that easy to fokus down.

Stances

There should not be a need for a "scout stance" (running silent) again there is this need of creating a problem and then a hard counter.

In the tt every order (now the stances) was perfectly balanced because they had major and unique impact in what they did. In general I personaly would redesign every stance to have major drawbacks in one or more arrears but at the same time buff there primary roll.

So

"lock on" should be the primary choice if you want pure damage output. And it should be THE choice if it is not a ordnance carrier or commander ship that are or can be based more on abilitys. Not like it is now where reload gives a considerable attack speed boost. Not that it makes no sense but somewhere we have to draw the line with redundancy.

"reload stance" needs to change just giving a flat cooldown reduction is a bad idea. It forces the player to use abilitys as soon as they come of cooldown to have maximum impact and i am not a person how considers the game of how can better spam there abilitys fun. And it just compeds with "lock on" atm with the higher fire rate. My idea for Redesigned "reload stance"

Reload Stance will "bank" cooldown reduction. Lets say you were long enough in reload stance to have 20sec of cd reduction "banked" and you have an ability that has still 30cd. If you click the ability again at this point your "bank" goes to zero and the ability as only 10sec left.
This may even be able to reload charges. Yes this ability may let you use the same abilitys one after the other if you have enough reduction "banked".
You can keep the "bank" in other stances but you have to be in reload stance to use it. Not sure if there should be an upper limit but if, it should be generous.

"brace for impact" stance to a degree is already your primary choice if you expect a lot of damage or if the ship is fokust. Also it should be the only stance you can activate at any time but still it incures a cooldown on the other stances.

"running silent" there was no such stance in the tt but personaly i find this redundant.
This stance is only used for escorts and light light cruisers. I feel that you can easly make this a passive of what the stance is basicly doing if you realy need to. Just get ride of complete stealth (map effect like gas clouds are enough for that) and yes the community sayd less randomness but i find escorts and light light cruisers a good target for something like a dodge chance that lets them specificaly survive ranged abilitys like nova cannons and fokus fire.

Torpedoes

Bfg 1 was a close range brawler with very few ships so it was reasonable to make the perfect torpedo shot.
The tt had basicaly 2 typs of torps the straight flying kind and the kind that can change there direction at set intervals.
With a lot more ships flying around we need to change. The tt lets you shot torpedoes in any direction within a frontal 90 degree arc and less then the maximum amount. This would be a very good idea in combination with my redesign (explained later).

At first i would intruduce torps that basicaly behave like boarding craft because they are (except for ignoreing any kind of aircraft) maybe let them have wider turning arc but make them guided. And let us be able to autofire them on the same target as they should be weaker then the manual/normal torps. (later explained)

And second i would completly change the way how ordnance work more in line with the tt.

Example

We have a ship that can fire 6 torps at a time. We have a load icon, fire icon and a slot bar.(6free slots)
If we click the load icon we load more torps(manual and guided are mutaly exlusive) in the slot bar (min/standart 1) we did not slot/click more so the bar says 1 and when we click shot we fire 1 torpedo.
Know if we do this quick we can get a fan pattern like it is standart know OR we could slot all torpedos and when fired they fly as one and if hitting will potentialy do massive damage.
Or something in between.
If we have all 6 filled and we click again we start with 1 again.

The the cooldown/reload is for 1 torp at a time.

You know this is just a very detailed example of 1 way to do it, you can of course can make it look better. But at least it hopefully makes sure what i am trying to do here.

So enough for now this is just the first part, there is still a lot coming.

Tldr: If you dont bother reading i have nothing to say to you.

@Kando said in My Redesign of BFG 2:

Basic
A Fleet restriction like the tt will be introduced.
Infinite escort
2 LC => 1 C
2 C => 1 GC
2 GC => 1 BS
Not only is this for balance reasons. Also this is for lore and common sense. Extremly valuble GC and BS would only every in the worst/extrem of circumstances fielded without an escort of less valuble ships and not just litteral escort ships. Or lesser orc ships would naturaly accompany bigger ships.
Tyranids get this in reverse starting at 1BS for 2 GC excluding the infinite scouts. It makes sense for Tyranids to operate in reverse except if you are faceing a pure scout/escort fleet.
Health, Moral and Crew.
At the end of the day you can make a crew count mechanic work but it adds a ton of information without adding much fun without heavy investment.
So doing away with Crew valves and using the original tt mechanics.
A ships crew strength(Cstr) will be based on the health of the ship with some adjustments for race.

Just no.
We are in a video game, not tabletop. You basically want to completely restrict the fleet builds to lighter ships, it would NOT be fun, it would get boring after very short time, and contrary to your belief, it isn't exactly a common sense. Larger vessels may very well be casually deployed without escort, it wouldn't take the most extreme circumstances.

See a real life Battle of Denmark Strait, an engagement of battleship and heavy cruiser against battleship and battlecruiser, with some cruisers wondering the area and no destroyer or other escort in sight.
Some warships in the lore also hunt alone or nearly alone, especially chaos ships.

I assume you meant crew values, not valves. Again, its a bfga2, not tabletop. Why remove a very integral and interesting mechanic from the game? It gives boarding-heavy factions a reliable punch, otherwise SM, Tyranids or Dark Elves would be pretty much sentenced to winning their battles on RNGesus' blessing, if they crit they win, if the boarding action fails they lose. This way at least they will put a major hole in the ship's crew, bringing it to hulking eventually or applying a powerful malus/crit on the ship.

So please DO NOT suggest such destructive ideas.
As for the other points, like stances and especially, torpedo reworks, I very much agree. I may make more indepth comment on that tomorrow, as it is late.
But I just had to criticize the two points above, DO NOT suggest restricting the fleet compositions, we would have a repeat of post bfga2 launch days, when light ships reigned supreme with not a single heavy vessel in sight.

@Ahriman said in My Redesign of BFG 2:

Just no.
We are in a video game, not tabletop. You basically want to completely restrict the fleet builds to lighter ships, it would NOT be fun, it would get boring after very short time, and contrary to your belief, it isn't exactly a common sense. Larger vessels may very well be casually deployer without escort, it wouldn't take the most extreme circumstances.<

1. Casual = no to very low risk of loseing such a ship. Do i need to write more?
2. the Battle of Denmark Strait wasnt a full fleet engagement but again there is a BS accompanied by at least 2 HC
3. Those Chaos single ships whatever there size are not realy there to fight. They are are there to do as much chaos and/or plunder as they can and get the hell out. Raiding party unequal full Fleet.

So again my original point stands, bigger Ships are to valuable to not give them a certain size of escort fleet for any kind of real engagement. maybe we can reduce this number to a 1for1 ration but not only makes it more sense then a fleet of only BS (if it is played at the moment or not is not importent) i am 100% sure this restriction would benefit the balance in the long term.

I assume you meant crew values, not valves<

Yea sorry, already sayd my spelling is not the best.

Crew Values <

Because again it adds very little without heavy investment/work. Or are you fine with basicaly there are no diffrence if the ship has 1 crew or full crew? Or if there is an almost destroyed ship still flying about with full crew? Thats how it is at the moment... just silly. And i dont want to start with the mechanics and how it works with boarding balance wise at the moment.

But maybe this makes even more sense when i am finished writing up the redesigning of boarding.

@Kando said in My Redesign of BFG 2:

So again my original point stands, bigger Ships are to valuable to not give them a certain size of escort fleet for any kind of real engagement. maybe we can reduce this number to a 1for1 ration but not only makes it more sense then a fleet of only BS (if it is played at the moment or not is not importent) i am 100% sure this restriction would benefit the balance in the long term.

Balance or fleet variety? There's a difference. These waters have to be navigated very carefully.
If you really want to make a restriction like that, it should be something like: you pick a battleship and you have to pick 2 battlecruisers to be able to pick another one. Not pick 2 battlecruisers to be able to pick a battleship in the first place. Or pick cruiser/light cruisers situation. And speaking of battlecruisers: why not grand cruisers? Because GCs basically serve as capital ships when there's no BB around. And here we already have a complicated matter that can't be resolved with a simplistic system.

Or perhaps return to something like in the first game, where you had 1 BB slot, 2 BC's etc. only with other numbers, that perhaps may be scaled up with points limit?

As I said. This is a complex matter to be treaded carefully. At this point, the current system is better than outright forcing higher number of lighter ships.

As for your three points, you are correct. However look at it from the opposite perspective: whoever said the skirmishes in the game are in any way supposed to be full fleet engagements? They may as well be treated as a duo of battleships travelling to reinforce the main fleet, with no escorts available for the task, but they got ambushed by a chaos party or accidental Tau patrol?

@Kando said in My Redesign of BFG 2:

Because again it adds very little without heavy investment/work. Or are you fine with basicaly there are no diffrence if the ship has 1 crew or full crew? Or if there is an almost destroyed ship still flying about with full crew? Thats how it is at the moment... just silly. And i dont want to start with the mechanics and how it works with boarding balance wise at the moment.

Are you entirely sure about that? Do you mean a ship flying with one crew of the green layer or one crew at red layer? One crew at green layer means 2/3 of the crew still living, which is hell of a lot less difference then between no crew and full crew. If you mean 1 crew on red layer, then the ship is penalized quite a bit, with maluses on reload to everything and 2 critted subsystems.
Almost destroyed ship with full crew? That I can agree on, though there's a mechanic that can remove some crew points every 200 hull points lost. The crew could suffer more with hull damage, yes. Maybe a little silly, but not enough to call it completely stupid.

Now for the investment... I must disagree here too, partially. Yes, you need to invest a lot to hulk a battleship when you play as Eldar for instance.
...but is that even something that really has to be invested on?

Let's say AdMech, they won't do crap with boarding actions, but boarding actions aren't their general modus operandi in the lore in the first place. Hell, even IN doesn't actually do boarding actions unless necessary.

Nom'nids or Space Marines on the other hand... I don't know your exact experiences, but in my experience, if you're just a little bit careless, or play a close ranged faction against them (like orks) you may find yourself with an engine/generator critted ship, with a permanent -20% penalty to pretty much everything fairly quickly. And if THAT is little for you, then I don't know what to say man...

Especially light cruisers that would absolutely thrive under your proposed solutions can have one or two crew layers stripped after a single boarding action from 'nids. Imagine the crew layer crit takes out their engine or deck? No more light cruiser, next please.

Now, I'm not saying that the current boarding system is particularly good, let alone perfect. But to say it should be removed because it adds a lot of information to be mindful of? Way too much of a stretch. I say it adds additional depth to the game, a welcome depth.

Think of it like this, if the game was more "realistic", we'd need to fight battles in 3d space, having to accelerate/decelerate ships and change their orientation instead of this incredibly simplified naval ships like model of movement.

A little bit more information to be wary of is nothing in return.

@Ahriman

Balance or fleet variety? <

Both and point costs for many ships is EXTREMLY HIGH (all tyranid hive ships costs at least 50 more then in the tt for example).

Also dont get me wrong for a free for all mode i am absolutly fine with whatever you want to field (titans), even in the campaign. But for competative and any kind of real balance i realy belive this was not a good idea.

duo of battleships travelling to reinforce the main fleet<

This is not any kind of very low risk scenario. For 2 BS to even be considered as reinforcements (the most valued ship, that can not for the most part be reproduced) the battle would be massive and at this point they would 100% bring there escorts with them if there wasnt something serious happening. To defend from possible reinforcement form the enemy (depending on race), smaller skirmisher fleets away from the main battle or random bs like chaos and also to bring more ships were the loss would be "less?".

Are you entirely sure about that? Do you mean a ship flying with one crew of the green layer or one crew at red layer? One crew at green layer means 2/3 of the crew still living, which is hell of a lot less difference then between no crew and full crew. If you mean 1 crew on red layer, then the ship is penalized quite a bit, with maluses on reload to everything and 2 critted subsystems.<

Do you even realise that 90-99% of players will not understand what you are talking about or at best not understand how this exactly works, even after 10th of hours of play? Just because you may be fine with a mechanic does not make it in any shape or form good. There is a very big diffrence between complexity and depth.

Even at the cost of loseing all credibility, i am honest here, i have 131 hours played (to be fair, almost only campaign with most of the time auto resolve) and now that you mentioned "layers" some of my frustrating moments with boarding make some sense.
And sure this sounds noobish but trust me when i say that you can consider me a gamer that normaly does not need that much handholding to understand mechanics (i am 34 years old).

Its not like it is impossible to make a crew count work. But what does it get you?

• Better destinction between crew and ship health
• More complexity (more thinks to design, program, and Balance. And as a player to have an eye on)
• Some debuffs after certain thresholds of reduced crew.
• 100% chance of hulking ships
• Tindalos did some interesting thinks with it like the tyranids crew for charges ability.
  But to be fair the options are limited, tyranids crew for charges and recrew abilitys are already the best i can think of at the top of my hat. You could do things maybe like extra boarding/fighter charges. (ps: that is depth).

But then again why even bother?
If you want a 100% hulk just make it an option in the menu where you also choose which system to crit (last hit needs to be some kind of boarding action). You can debuff a ship at certain hp thresholds, extra charges sound not that interesting if everyone gets them and realy most factions can not logicly take any real advantage of such a "complex" system except for more/less crew damage. We simple dont need a extra system for boarding/craft to feel "special".

Instead of the hp bar being purely the ships hull you can think of the ships hp bar as its overall health, including crew.
Thats what the tt(and the first bfg) basicaly did and we have already rules to work of of that. And yes boarding/craft will get a rework.

You know who is a much better candidate for a redesign like that? Morale
These are just at the top of my head areas for improvement, the redesign will get more detailed.

• You can give factions diffrent kinds or adjustments for morale. Orks are very flighty (they swing a lot, good and bad) and space marines stay there ground where the imperial navy would crumble. And thats just as example. Instead of "just" having a lower/higher number before you run/mutiny.
• Morale is not adequatly represented, ether you are fine or you run/mutiny. You can and should do more with that.
• You can make the commander ship have "more" morale as it is the flagship and a leader is present.
• You can make it more interesting/dynamic than the tt where there was just more or less a leadership roll that you could fail.
• we have/had already abilitys that can take advantage of a better morale system.

Not everything needs to be super realistic or super complex. What i am doing is using the original tt as a foundation. The rules were as simple as possbile and at the same time as complex as they needed to, it was overall a good system. And Dice rolls can simulate a lot but take a lot of time. I improve or design something new where you can and/or should not do a 1to1 transition with just some adjustments. Keeping rts and the the fact you can do a lot more with the system on a pc in mind.

When you put it like that, I can mostly agree. But as I have stated before, need to be made with caution. Current system is far from perfect, but changing it for worse is... well... worse.

@Kando said in My Redesign of BFG 2:

Do you even realise that 90-99% of players will not understand what you are talking about or at best not understand how this exactly works, even after 10th of hours of play? Just because you may be fine with a mechanic does not make it in any shape or form good. There is a very big diffrence between complexity and depth.
Even at the cost of loseing all credibility, i am honest here, i have 131 hours played (to be fair, almost only campaign with most of the time auto resolve) and now that you mentioned "layers" some of my frustrating moments with boarding make some sense.
And sure this sounds noobish but trust me when i say that you can consider me a gamer that normaly does not need that much handholding to understand mechanics (i am 34 years old).

I understand it perfectly, I didn't get it for quite some time either until I literally asked for something on the forum. But still, it's part of learning the game, players won't get it initially, but initialy they will and that is enough. Still, reworking it to something better would be welcome, and I 100% agree with morale system, which is imo much more pointless and broken (overall, no particular direction) than the boarding. However, just because those systems are not super well polished, doesn't mean they deserve being removed altogether.

I think something like hulking yes/no option could be introduced in pre-skirmish options, because why not? Seems like a reasonable idea to me.