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Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm
Posts: 9617
Location: Nashville, TN, USA
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I monkeyed around with some action/reactor points at lunch. I think I have a system concept that could work. It's a little bit more efficient for Warlords than Reavers, but a Reaver that goes with an assault weapon gains considerably over a Warlord that does so.
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*Movement - 2 points per move
*Basic Fire control - 1 point, allows all weapons to fire at -1 and allows support of assaults
*Increased fire control - 1 point allows 2 weapons to fire at +1, slow-firing weapons would be 1 point for 1 system (in other words 1 point bumps 2 weapons from Double to Advance or from Advance to Sustain with respect to to-hit numbers)
*Engage - 2 points
*Regroup - 1 point for 2d3 - take the highest, 2 points for 2d6 - take the highest
*Regenerate - as Regroup, but repairs shields
Costs for formations are paid for the formation as a whole. All titans in a formation must pay for the same movement.
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Running some comparisons of "action" costs:
Warhound:
Double - 5 points (4 move, 1 fire)
Advance - 4 points (2 move, 1 basic fire, 1 advance fire)
March - 6
Engage - 4
Regroup and Regenerate - 3 (1 move, 1 for BM removal, 1 for Shield repair)
Paired Warhounds:
Double - 10 points (8 move, 2 fire)
Advance - 8 points (4 move, 4 fire)
March - 12
Move, Regroup and Repair - 8 (4 move, 2 for 2d6 BMs, 2 for 2d6 repair)
Move, basic fire, repair/regroup - 6 (2 move, 2 fire, 1 for 2d3 BM, 1 for 2d3 Repair)
As you can see, a pair of Warhounds gains a bit of tactical flexibility.
Battle Titans:
Reavers:
Double - 5 (4 move, 1 basic fire)
Advance - 5 (2 move, 1 basic fire, 2 normal fire because there are 3 weapon systems)
Sustain - 5 (0 move, 5 fire)
Engage - 4 (2 move, 2 Engage)
March - 6 [possible problem here]
Reaver w/ 1 assault weapon:
Double - 5 (4 move, 1 basic fire)
Advance - 4 (2 move, 1 basic fire, 1 for 2 weapon systems)
Sustain - 3 (0 move, 1 basic, 2 for 2 systems to Sustain)
Engage - 4 (2 move, 2 engage)
March - 6
Warlord:
Same costs as basic Reaver, but a Warlord with only 1 assault weapon gains nothing as far as acitvation. A Warlord with 2 assault weapons performs as the Reaver with 1.
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Obviously, the assumption would be averaging 5 points per titan. I would assume -1 point for having BMs, which would translate into 2 weapon systems firing at sub-optimal values. A titan would expect to be able to perform Engage actions even though suppressed because of the lower points required to Engage, which I think is good on a number of conceptual points.
As weapon systems were damaged and didn't need to be activated, you might also end up with slightly better activation-point situations, so light damage could to a certain extent be mitigated. On the other hand, activation penalties like for reactor damage would reduce choices.
On the downside, it would also allow an unsupressed titan to engage and also regroup/repair, potentially making an assault titan a total monster - but maybe that's the price for letting a titan close on you without suppressing it... 
Also a bad thing, is that it also means that a titan that holes up and repairs could be a monster. At 5 points it could fire at basic fire and both repair and regroup at the 2d6 level, or you could expect a battle titan to fire at Advance fire levels and have 2 points to repair/regroup, basically a +1 to hit over the current Marshall action, though less flexible as to now BM/Shield repair is allocated.
Battle titans obviously have a hard time marching.
The net effect is that titans might be encouraged to be more static.
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BMs - I was thinking -1 to activation/reactor points for having BMs, -1 for retaining. There wouldn't be an activation roll per se, so they couldn't fail outright and wouldn't ever gain BMs for a bad roll. OTOH, they would definitely lose some ability when suppressed whereas they don't necessarily do so now.
The other trick is finding a combination of randomness and stability with respect to generating points. Just as a ballpark with the above points you could look at something like 2d3+1. SC rerolls would allow you to reroll (both dice). An unsupressed Warlord titan that rolled minimum points would still be better off than a Hold action, having the choice of moving and shooting at -1 or shooting normally, which is good because normally an unsupressed titan has no chance to fail activation unless retaining.
Another option would be 2d3/take the highest +3. That would average 5.4, giving most titans more ability than they do now and keeping the unmobdified minimum at 4 instead of 3, but limiting the topside. The extra benefits could offset degradation due to damage but might be too much.
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Quite a brain dump there, so take it easy on me... 
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Neal
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