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My name was mentioned. For those who don't follow my blog here are my latest RAFM conversions.



I too would like Gears scaled to 1/100th - 15mm equivalent. It would make things so much easier with a wider choice of models and accessories available.

Looks good but you already knew my thoughts on that. I have to remember that my summoning spells have a 1d6 day casting time.

Got shipping confirmation for the Peace River + Utopia KS.

I'm mildly enthused.

Don't forget to post pics or a link her if you review it. I don't recall what was funded in the last couple campaigns.

 warboss wrote:
Don't forget to post pics or a link her if you review it. I don't recall what was funded in the last couple campaigns.

Sure thing. It'll be good motivation for me to build and take pics of some of the stuff.

--

The Utopia KS seemed to be all of the (very limited) selection of their units - Armigers and NKIDU drones for strike, recce and support squads.

The Peace River + NuCol one is a little longer a list, but it's the the same 4 gear types: the frontline, recon, fire support and strike gears of their respective factions.

Supposedly these are designed for more poseability than the original KS plastics, but I'm waiting to see what I can actually do with them.

 warboss wrote:
Looks good but you already knew my thoughts on that. I have to remember that my summoning spells have a 1d6 day casting time.

Plus or minus a variable that's all timey-wimey.

Other

Just ended up doing other games.

Apparently the MekTek crew is MekTek again and are working on Battletech goodies?

Eadartri wrote:Other

Just ended up doing other games.

Thanks! It's been a while since someone responded regarding the poll that I started to help the DP9 team zero in on real reasons why people choose not to support them.

Firebreak wrote:Apparently the MekTek crew is MekTek again and are working on Battletech goodies?

Pass. They accomplished little to nothing on HG so no reason to reward them just because they reverted back to using their old name. And, yes, I know the failure of HGA was multifactorial and I don't attribute all the issues with the original premise, marketing, and execution (or lack thereof) to them but they played their part.

Since I saw the HG thread was updated, I figured I'd check out the official forums as it's been a while. Damn, Mmmpi, don't hold back on how you feel about us, lol.

https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19313-ditch-the-presever-old-lists-philosophy/

Being told "we can't do that because Neckbeard McKeyboard-Warrior won't be able to play his list from 30 years ago" every time someone mentions structural change, while having the last 7 lists I made invalidated through an unannounced rules change being a non-issue. Now, I'm not opposed to change, or having lists invalidated. But I see no desire to play ball to keep the game locked in 1992.

It's a bit more nuanced in the thread and I actually agree with some of what he says but that's pretty brutal. I personally feel that models shouldn't be invalidated unless absolutely necessary but I'm ok with lists changing. If someone who put three of the same model in each and every unit can only use two in a differently named squad, I'm fine with that. It's the inability to ever use or severely restrict models that I'm opposed to and something that traditionally DP9 didn't give a feth about. From invalidating literally every model they ever made with the switchover from RAFM to this little gem with nuBlitz showing how much of my existing southern force I could use AFTER every conceivable squad swap from the Blitz: L&L to the Forged in Fire supplement, it's a significant issue for the history of the game. Literally every fig crossed out could not be used in any combination with any other fig also crossed out. Whole units (like my stealth squad) like my stealth squad because they disallowed the use of a model that could ONLY EVER be used in that squad which made the rest under the minimum model count necessary despite being legal theoretically but in practice useless.



If you don't think that this experience had a profound effect on how I felt about the game, you'd be wrong. As a last gasp of active interest in the game, I started a blog with variant skirmish rules to help address this issue that seemingly no one at Dp9 gave a feth about as well as joined the playtesting team for the never fully released Northern book to hopefully prevent the same from happening. While discussing things with Smilodon who was in charge of the project, I purposely went through the options to make sure that things were at least available somewhere in some form. Yes, some really niche sub-sub variants would fold into just a subvariant as a counts as (we were clear to point that out) but I was ok with that just like I was also ok with models moving around. There was an issue with an older OOP squad box not being supported in the rules and we were supposed to change it but I objected as it could still be played as is with the same models with most variants possible with the included bits but simply under a different squad entry (dragoon to strike or vice verse... can't recall which). I'm not opposed to change but you don't win over new players by screwing over the existing soon to be former. The same is true in entertainment. Also, for the record, I'm clean shaven and not Irish.

 warboss wrote:

It is hard to see the picture, why you can't play those cadres in the current rules? or are you referring to the forged in fire rules?
I think the current rules may lack some of the flavor restricted lists bring but they allow for a lot of freedom in making lists.

 Pointman wrote:

It is hard to see the picture, why you can't play those cadres in the current rules? or are you referring to the forged in fire rules?
I think the current rules may lack some of the flavor restricted lists bring but they allow for a lot of freedom in making lists.

I can't speak to the most recent couple of versions of nuBlitz as the last one I downloaded was the version that came out with the initial plastics from the first kickstarter. It was a pic from 2012 when the Forged in Fire book came out to show what happens when the existing players' collections seemingly aren't even considered. I'm not even referring to what might even be not worth fielding due to changes in rules/playstyle/points cost but rather just what from my collection could be used in any way, shape, or form from a ruleset that was only a few years old.

 warboss wrote:
showing how much of my existing southern force I could use AFTER every conceivable squad swap from the Blitz: L&L to the Forged in Fire supplement

I was able to convert about a half dozen of those unused fully painted models ripping off weapons and bits and gluing/repainting bits to make them usable in some way but the rest were completely useless at that time due to the combo of missing variants, new unit compositions, and general army requirements. I wasn't fieling some ultra niche force either but rather standard SRA. This wasn't some regiment of renown with special characters or options from a Gear UP! magazine or somesuch with unique rules but one of the two biggest and stereotypical forces the south has/had. I don't feel that was an acceptable ratio of invalidated portions of my army but YMMV. Mmmpi is exaggerating that people want armies from 1992 to be valid (or at least I hope he is joking and doesn't think that's true) whereas I was pointing out that players have to be vigilant because DP9 will feth over players using CORE armies made with rules less than 5 years old from first publication.

I agree with you on all accounts, the changes from L&L, Fied manual, FiF (and other big books) for army list building and the little and not so little detail changes where a complete mess and a big part of the reason many players simply left the game. I almost did, but like the models and setting too much.

The current rules may not be traditional silhouette but they are better for a wargame, that is why I'm still in and contributing to it. Otherwise I would be playing 2ed tactical. I play 2ed RPG so no big deal, just a smaller model count than the current rules.

Also agree the Mmmpi statement is way off, but everybody have an opinion I think, and that is his perception of the direction of the developers, justified or not it is his perception, he is being honest (even if a bit offensive in a pinch). One thing Dream Pod 9 keep failing at is making everyone happy . The new think they are catering to the old and the old think they are catering to the new.

Yeah, there are always going to be issues but the key is to try and minimize them within the existing design goals for the force you're working on. If you have to disallow completely so much of a typical force, I'd personally suggest that the design goal for the force was either overly ambitious or completely ignorant of what came before... or both! That's what we tried to avoid when doing the Northern book and Smilodon deserves the credit for that (I only helped out a little as I came on late). Unfortunately, that book was planned obsolete before it came out so it was all for nothing. Also, that damn light strider was stolen for the Paxton book! :(

 warboss wrote:



Since I saw the HG thread was updated, I figured I'd check out the official forums as it's been a while. Damn, Mmmpi, don't hold back on how you feel about us, lol.

https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19313-ditch-the-presever-old-lists-philosophy/

Being told "we can't do that because Neckbeard McKeyboard-Warrior won't be able to play his list from 30 years ago" every time someone mentions structural change, while having the last 7 lists I made invalidated through an unannounced rules change being a non-issue. Now, I'm not opposed to change, or having lists invalidated. But I see no desire to play ball to keep the game locked in 1992.

Wasn't actually talking about you guys here. I was talking more about the currently active members on the PodForum. There's been pushback over rules change proposals because some people don't want to make new lists, even using the same models. In general, the PodBay has stuck with those players over the newer ones, even when there's a way to circumvent a particular issue. I'm just tired of being told that they don't have to change a thing, while I haven't had a single list survive more than a few months. It's not the list changing that bothers me. It's the fact that it's weighted towards a few people. Again, no one who posts here regularly.

Ah, DP9. By the fans, for the fans. No, that's not a praise.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On one hand, you have the True Fans™ that DP9 will go to great lengths to please, usually in the form of rare legacy units, and if it breaks the game, or the balance or whatever, it's only a small price to pay to please the True Fans™.
On the other hand, you have everyone else. I would say DP9 considers that latter category expendable, but that would imply DP9 even acknowledges its existence. So, yes, sweeping army building changes will be dropped upon those non-people without any second-thoughts.

In the end, you get the worst of both worlds, a stubborn willingness to keep sacro-sanct legacy elements,regardless of how clunky it might be, and a callous disregard for compatibility between editions that would make GW blush.

It has happened with every new version of the rules. The only reason it has slowed down is because DP9 has slowed down every releases.

HudsonD wrote:On one hand, you have the True Fans™ that DP9 will go to great lengths to please, usually in the form of rare legacy units, and if it breaks the game, or the balance or whatever, it's only a small price to pay to please the True Fans™.
On the other hand, you have everyone else. I would say DP9 considers that latter category expendable, but that would imply DP9 even acknowledges its existence. So, yes, sweeping army building changes will be dropped upon those non-people without any second-thoughts.

I always thought the addition of special characters based on staff/superfans was the cringiest thing they ever did. Special charactes just IMO don't belong in HG as official special rules and I saw a reference during my foray to the official forums that they're considering bringing them back. I don't recall the overall reception to them being particularly positive other than from the people they were based on and those that hoped/prayed that they could yes-man praise themselves into the next book with their own.

Mmmpi wrote:
Wasn't actually talking about you guys here. I was talking more about the currently active members on the PodForum. There's been pushback over rules change proposals because some people don't want to make new lists, even using the same models. In general, the PodBay has stuck with those players over the newer ones, even when there's a way to circumvent a particular issue. I'm just tired of being told that they don't have to change a thing, while I haven't had a single list survive more than a few months. It's not the list changing that bothers me. It's the fact that it's weighted towards a few people. Again, no one who posts here regularly.

Are there many OG neckbeards in your parlance left there? When I last looked at the top commenters on the forum (sometime last year), most were either banned or AWOL for years. Other than a small handful of names (maybe 3-4), most of the few remaining posters aren't old timers. Whether that's due to actual disinterest or the discussion just partially or primarily moving onto other platforms like facebook is debatable though. What kinds of changes are you referring to in your own lists btw? Can you post examples of the kinds of things that they're reticent to change? I don't have a frame of reference myself regarding what's in and out for a couple of years.

 HudsonD wrote:
Ah, DP9. By the fans, for the fans. No, that's not a praise.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On one hand, you have the True Fans™ that DP9 will go to great lengths to please, usually in the form of rare legacy units, and if it breaks the game, or the balance or whatever, it's only a small price to pay to please the True Fans™.
On the other hand, you have everyone else. I would say DP9 considers that latter category expendable, but that would imply DP9 even acknowledges its existence. So, yes, sweeping army building changes will be dropped upon those non-people without any second-thoughts.

In the end, you get the worst of both worlds, a stubborn willingness to keep sacro-sanct legacy elements,regardless of how clunky it might be, and a callous disregard for compatibility between editions that would make GW blush.

It has happened with every new version of the rules. The only reason it has slowed down is because DP9 has slowed down every releases.

Yeah. So far it's been more good than bad, but there's a few hang-ups that keep happening. That and them making up rules that no one wanted or discussed. Current infantry was (and is) a hot button topic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:


Are there many OG neckbeards in your parlance left there? When I last looked at the top commenters on the forum (sometime last year), most were either banned or AWOL for years. Other than a small handful of names (maybe 3-4), most of the few remaining posters aren't old timers. Whether that's due to actual disinterest or the discussion just partially or primarily moving onto other platforms like facebook is debatable though. What kinds of changes are you referring to in your own lists btw? Can you post examples of the kinds of things that they're reticent to change? I don't have a frame of reference myself regarding what's in and out for a couple of years.

A few, though one or two are the biggest ones. It's not that we disagree on a lot of things, but the biggest of them and I disagree to epic proportions when we do run afoul each other. I don't really want to name names though.

The one that lit off my post was a change in how command models work with variant. Before, according to Dave (who's gone) a command + variant was a separate model from just a variant. So you could have say, 0-2 hunter gunners, and a command hunter gunner (or two if you had an XO/2iC). That got stealth removed in the current set, so now I have a bunch of squads with too many of the same variant. In the scheme of things, it's not that big a deal, but it was the proverbial straw. For the most part, I can probably find a way to reorganize them so most are in legal groups, but each force will have a few models left out. Thankfully most of the offending models aren't painted yet...

 Mmmpi wrote:

A few, though one or two are the biggest ones. It's not that we disagree on a lot of things, but the biggest of them and I disagree to epic proportions when we do run afoul each other. I don't really want to name names though.

The one that lit off my post was a change in how command models work with variant. Before, according to Dave (who's gone) a command + variant was a separate model from just a variant. So you could have say, 0-2 hunter gunners, and a command hunter gunner (or two if you had an XO/2iC). That got stealth removed in the current set, so now I have a bunch of squads with too many of the same variant. In the scheme of things, it's not that big a deal, but it was the proverbial straw. For the most part, I can probably find a way to reorganize them so most are in legal groups, but each force will have a few models left out. Thankfully most of the offending models aren't painted yet...

Fair enough. At the risk of triggering you... I personally think that even allowing command variants to fork off of others was a mistake in the first place let alone counting them as different for the purposes of list building. YMMV. If you're taking a command variant, it's role should reflect the name and not piggy back off of another variant for another role. That's the kind of sub-sub variant that I was referring to above in my initial post this week. Lest you think I'm just being mean, I know the feeling as I had command EW striking cobra something or other (can't recall the exact name at the moment) variants back in the L&L days that I converted/painted that were invalidated as well. I was mildly annoyed but I understood that such a offshoot of a niche of a variant wasn't likely to stick around and, if that had been the only category of change, then I wouldn't have complained. Instead, it was just the icing on the gak cake that DP9 served my newly painted (and yet to actually be used in any meaningful way) army. I think the fair work around is that your command gunner shoud be usable as a gunner variant WYSIWIG and the bits (assuming you had them on the model) that signify it as a command reflect that it is the CGL instead of adding unique additional rules.

edit: Found a better pic of the model. IIRC, I had two of them that I had to reconvert back down into something else after they were fully painted/based/ready to play. I know I had to rip off the EW bits (uplink cone on the shoulder plus dish/antenna on the back) and I don't recall if they lost access to the chainswords as well or if that was simply a prefence on my part as I reserved the swords for CGLs and it was pointless to have him as one without the upgrades.

I don't disagree about it being a possibly poor decision, but the fact that the change went unannounced is what I'm irritated with.

What I don't appreciate is having you characterize it as 'being triggered'.

It's not the fact that things change that I'm irritated with. It's the fact that changes are refused on the grounds that some people have legacy based issues.

Though honestly, having an ECM cobra would be cool, and there was an attempt to bring back 'lost' variants.

Could you post it's stats/equipment? I'd like to suggest bringing it back.

And yeah, Cobras only have Light Vibroblades now. A vet can upgrade to a combat weapon though. Though it's possible a variant has the L/MCW instead of a LVB.

 Mmmpi wrote:
I don't disagree about it being a possibly poor decision, but the fact that the change went unannounced is what I'm irritated with.

What I don't appreciate is having you characterize it as 'being triggered'.

It's not the fact that things change that I'm irritated with. It's the fact that changes are refused on the grounds that some people have legacy based issues.

Though honestly, having an ECM cobra would be cool, and there was an attempt to bring back 'lost' variants.

Could you post it's stats/equipment? I'd like to suggest bringing it back.

And yeah, Cobras only have Light Vibroblades now. A vet can upgrade to a combat weapon though. Though it's possible a variant has the L/MCW instead of a LVB.

I built the Brahmin Cobra Prototype that in the RPG with the MBzk and the original version (Brahmin Cobra) had a snub cannon. They both had ECM/ECCM 2, backup comms, and a satellite uplink in the RPG as well as the improved maneuverability (0 instead of -1) that in later L&L blitz you could add for 5pts. I won't pretend to know whether adding it back into the game is a good or bad idea as it's effectively a striking or assault command cobra depending on the version using the modern parlance which would make them an example of the type of variant of a variant in nuBlitz that I don't recommend incorporating.

Do you have any other examples of what you had changed in your list as well as specific examples of what they refused to change so as not to inconvienence legacy players? It's hard to get a good feel for the overall issue and the relative importance/scope of the changes you're referring to with just the single limited example you gave.

So maybe this:
Brahmin Cobra: EW:5+, MSC, MRP, LGM, MMG, MCW. Traits: Arms, React +, ECM, ECCM.
Striking Brahmin Cobra: The above but with a MBZ instead of a MSC.
Both at 15 points.

It would be missing the improved maneuverability, but that only exists in some subs or for duelists depending on how the stats changed.

It could be cool, but yeah, I don't know how it would play out either.

As for examples, it mostly a bunch of small stuff. People make suggestions that show promise, and they get shot down for this reason. It was one of the arguments in the infantry debacle. That 'powerful' infantry would ruin existing lists. I can go back and look for examples when I have time though.

Regardless of my opinions on the idea, good luck with it and I hope it plays well!

All that talk about missing variants and forced squad configuration changes is missing an important point.
It's not just what's legal and what isn't, it's also what works, and what doesn't anymore.
LBZKs were great weapon in previous versions, and accordingly a staple of southern units. Now *BZK barely compete with *ACs.
Cheetahs are pretty much dead...

As for infantry, well, what role is it even supposed to have ?

The infantry thing was never about lists, it was because they had to cost more if they where made more powerful. I wanted them cheap and simple to have the simple role of objective holders (sometimes with a little bit of teeth) but in the end it got changed to have a bit more teeth and cost more, now they are a bit overpriced, still not terribly overpriced bot not the cheap objective holders they where before.

I understand the frustration when our ideas don't get much traction but saying it is because of favor to some player secret inner cadre is silly. No body get everything they want, not all ideas are workable and the guys making the game have to step down and make the game, we are just giving ideas and wishes, that's all, we are not their bosses.

Bazookas are better now, they are a valid weapon choice, instead of like the light autocannons in blitz, the most common worthless piece of gear in the universe. The cheetah lack of agility compared as before is a shame though, but the game mechanic don't handle extremes as good, but in hindsight, the older blitz didn't did it either, we just liked it had the same RPG/Tactics stats, but the character element was not there to balance them, so cheetahs where just a pain and needed speacia weapons to deal with them or better just ignore them. What I really miss is the Iguana sturdiness, but I don't lose faith, maybe in a future we can change that if enough people pull in that direction.

Infantry was just as worthless before (at least now they can open cheap objectives and hold them), not going to start with the infantry armor waste of TV.

By the way, that cobra can be fielded now as a command variant of the strike cobra, razorfang cobra, no ECM/ECCM nor improved defense or anything, just a command variant, but the model is good.

What did they nerf on the cheetah to make it not mobile? It's been a while but IIRC it was the only 2+ pilot stat gear (assuming I'm remembering the stat name correctly used to avoid shots) in addition to some special traits though I don't recall what they did (reroll?) in beta nuBlitz.

I haven't looked at the bazookas either. Admittedly they were too good but at least in the alpha/beta for sure and maybe the initial release rules they didn't live up to their niche. Another forum poster came up with a small program to run attacks 10,000 times or somesuch to get the stats on how the weapons actually performed and the various bazookas cost for cost came behind the autocannons in almost every matchup (the lone exception being the Hbzk iirc against heavily armored targets). You were actually slightly better off shooting a MAC than a Mbzk at an armored target in addition to the MAC being significantly better at all other categories of targets due to the relative weighting of the extra attack dice. I don't know if they ever fixed that but I did bring up my concerns to Dave years ago.

It was just disappointing to me that rules were made up and names attached with no one actually checking whether they lived up to what they were supposedly supposed to do given that Blitz had similar issues with theory vs practice.

Pointman wrote:I understand the frustration when our ideas don't get much traction but saying it is because of favor to some player secret inner cadre is silly. No body get everything they want, not all ideas are workable and the guys making the game have to step down and make the game, we are just giving ideas and wishes, that's all, we are not their bosses.

Not true at all.
The rest of your post can be argued one way or the other, but the above is plain wrong.
Being in "good standing" with DP9 will see your ideas being adopted a lot more than silly behaviour like actual mathematical analysis or a critical mindset, and the "old guard", for what's left of it, has a lot of power there.

warboss wrote:What did they nerf on the cheetah to make it not mobile? It's been a while but IIRC it was the only 2+ pilot stat gear (assuming I'm remembering the stat name correctly used to avoid shots) in addition to some special traits though I don't recall what they did (reroll?) in beta nuBlitz.

I haven't looked at the bazookas either. Admittedly they were too good but at least in the alpha/beta for sure and maybe the initial release rules they didn't live up to their niche. Another forum poster came up with a small program to run attacks 10,000 times or somesuch to get the stats on how the weapons actually performed and the various bazookas cost for cost came behind the autocannons in almost every matchup (the lone exception being the Hbzk iirc against heavily armored targets). You were actually slightly better off shooting a MAC than a Mbzk at an armored target in addition to the MAC being significantly better at all other categories of targets due to the relative weighting of the extra attack dice. I don't know if they ever fixed that but I did bring up my concerns to Dave years ago.

It was just disappointing to me that rules were made up and names attached with no one actually checking whether they lived up to what they were supposedly supposed to do given that Blitz had similar issues with theory vs practice.

The Cheetah is now 3+ pilot and Agile, same as the Jaguar. Except without the armor, the structure, or the guns.
Writing a program to roll 10,000 attacks is a convoluted way to test stats, when you can just look at the numbers, and see the unbalances immediately.

Anyway, In all its incarnations since the first Blitz, HG has been the archetypal "hard to learn, easy to master" game. Lots of moving parts, but once you've figured out how it plays, the lack of balance makes for a very shallow gameplay experience. It's just that HGB is difficult enough to learn that it'll take you a few games to notice it doesn't really work.

I'll be honest, there are lots of good ideas and things I like in the latest incarnation of HGB, but the devil is in the details, and that's where DP9 has never put in the efforts. That core weapons don't work as they should just tells me this will be business as usual for the Pod.

 HudsonD wrote:

The Cheetah is now 3+ pilot and Agile, same as the Jaguar. Except without the armor, the structure, or the guns.

Wow.. that's just plain stupid. That was literally it's central niche in the entire game since the first core RPG book came out. I didn't bitch that they came out later on with faster gears (typically hover ones for NuCoal and then Paxton) but this just makes it bland as hell. fething stupid.

Writing a program to roll 10,000 attacks is a convoluted way to test stats, when you can just look at the numbers, and see the unbalances immediately.

No trouble at all.. It was barely an inconvienence! Or so he said. According to him, it was simpler to program it to run the attack scenario a large number of times so that randomness came down to a difference of typically less than 0.1% most of the time (a rounding error) than to try and figure out mathematically the exact statistical probability of success when the result was almost exactly the same. Even with my potato laptop at the time, it took only 2-3 seconds to spit out the results once I entered in the attack and defense conditions (stat values and pertinent traits). You can get an idea of potential imbalances but it's still nice to be able to say that (making up numbers here as I don't recall the exact ones years later) the MAC will still be 4.5% more likely to damage a particular strider than the equivalent bazooka that is supposed to be specialized for that type of encounter on top of that MAC being 14.2% more likely to damage a hunter as well.

 warboss wrote:

 HudsonD wrote:

The Cheetah is now 3+ pilot and Agile, same as the Jaguar. Except without the armor, the structure, or the guns.

Wow.. that's just plain stupid. That was literally it's central niche in the entire game since the first core RPG book came out. I didn't bitch that they came out later on with faster gears (typically hover ones for NuCoal and then Paxton) but this just makes it bland as hell. fething stupid.

Writing a program to roll 10,000 attacks is a convoluted way to test stats, when you can just look at the numbers, and see the unbalances immediately.

No trouble at all.. It was barely an inconvienence! Or so he said. According to him, it was simpler to program it to run the attack scenario a large number of times so that randomness came down to a difference of typically less than 0.1% most of the time (a rounding error) than to try and figure out mathematically the exact statistical probability of success when the result was almost exactly the same. Even with my potato laptop at the time, it took only 2-3 seconds to spit out the results once I entered in the attack and defense conditions (stat values and pertinent traits). You can get an idea of potential imbalances but it's still nice to be able to say that (making up numbers here as I don't recall the exact ones years later) the MAC will still be 4.5% more likely to damage a particular strider than the equivalent bazooka that is supposed to be specialized for that type of encounter on top of that MAC being 14.2% more likely to damage a hunter as well.

At that point, if you don't want to do it right and use combinations, just enumerate all dice rolls. Less trouble, and you will get exact numbers.

Less trouble than someone else doing the coding of their own volition and posting the tiny self contained program executable download link for free? I seriously doubt that. In any case, if you want to code it and provide me with the perfect program to calculate the exact value then I'm ok with that too. In the meantime, the brute force calculation that is within 1/10th of 1% of the actual value is good enough and significantly better than nothing (which is what the official DP9 stats/game mechanics were based on).

The bazookas got a range increase and a cost reduction (now they are auto cannon cost). They were bad because of lack of range and were not more damaging (due to accuracy) to everything but costed more than an autocannon. Now they are an alternative to autocannons, ACs are better against gears, nimble and soft skinned targets, bazookas are better at high armor targets. Not even in the RPG era the autocannon where as useful and comparable to bazookas, now the most common weapon make sense.

The cheetah lost of character is a shame, but giving them PI2+ didn't make them more nimble (not like +2 Piloting). On the other hand in blitz having +2 to defense was not a good game mechanic. But it looked like the RPG so we all were cool with it. I can't say I prefer it like it is now, but I understand the balance issue of giving such nimbleness to a model.

 HudsonD wrote:

Pointman wrote:I understand the frustration when our ideas don't get much traction but saying it is because of favor to some player secret inner cadre is silly. No body get everything they want, not all ideas are workable and the guys making the game have to step down and make the game, we are just giving ideas and wishes, that's all, we are not their bosses.

Not true at all.
The rest of your post can be argued one way or the other, but the above is plain wrong.
Being in "good standing" with DP9 will see your ideas being adopted a lot more than silly behaviour like actual mathematical analysis or a critical mindset, and the "old guard", for what's left of it, has a lot of power there.

Maybe before was like that (?) but currently I doubt anyone is in "good standing" with the developers, the guy dealing with the fans in the forums is doing a good job at stepping down and having a final say in each issue. Right now things are a bit more civil than in your time in the furums too. People just keep posting abut rules issues and sometimes you are in the side that get their vision other times you don't. There are different groups and sometimes more than one "band" in favor of a way of doing things but at the end it is the developers and their secret playtesting team to take a decision. For example, the Infantry issue, it is probably the hotter topic, Mmmpi and a few others wanted more powerful/useful infantry, others (me includded) just liked them as cheap objective holders. At the end the Mmmpi team "won" and infantry got changed, but in a way almost no one liked much (because powerful infantry can not be cheap), but that is the way it is. Now there is a group that want cheap infantry in favor of the current infantry and others that just roll with the blow and change tactics to account for higher TV cost infantry and thrust that DP9 knows what they are doing.

On other issues, on the other hand, ideas are sometimes taken almost literally and implemented in the game. Or modified slightly by other fans and a consensus reached. It help that there are fewer fans in the forums of course, but whatever is happening is a lot different than the "those in DP9 favor get all they want and we get nothing" or whatever. Realizing Infantry, the least relevant model in the entire history of the game, is the only case of strong disagreement seems like a big positive in the way tings are being handled.

Taking the decisions of a game developer company about their game as a personal attack or neglect is ridiculous. Anyone is entitled to get all personal but it is plain silly.