Command and Tactics pool in ship combat

[uglymug]

I'm a bit curious how they work. Most skills pools are capped by traits of the ship, but I don't see a cap for Command or Tactics. Do I just roll dice for the sum total of all command and/or tactics crew skills with no cap?

According to the wiki, command provides standard dice for evasion, range change , and escape. Tactics provide standard dice for accuracy, range change, and escape.

If I do something crazy and decide to recruit like 15 commanders or military officers do I just get to roll a whole handful of extra dice on those rolls?

[Cory Trese]

Yep! About 20% up to your max standard score for your ship will be converted into points.

Give it a try, we have a number of people who favor this type of build, especially on the smaller ships.

I hope you have good results. We haven't yet built an AI that uses it, but that depends on success rate a bit with players.

If you can make it work, post us a saved game!

[Cory Trese]

It does appear that the most successful players using this build are combining their pools out of a hybrid of Jobs, rather than just spamming 1 source of Tactics.

I suspect this diversification provides two advantages -- one, the Talents and two the secondary or primary skill on some of the diversified jobs are combining for ship-based (ie, strong) dice pools.

[uglymug]

Mar 20, 2018 20:39:49 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Yep! About 20% up to your max standard score for your ship will be converted into points

I'm a bit confused by this sentence. Do you mean to say that command and tactics can only contribute up to 20% of the dice for any given roll?

[fallen]

Tactics and Command are standard dice, which have a 20% success rate:
startraders.gamepedia.com/Dice_Mechanics

[tenbsmith]

The difference between strong and standard dice is important to understand. The strong dice provided by ship-based pools have a 40% success rate, so they're stronger than standard dice. Combining the 20% success rates of two standard dice gives you a 32% chance of one success and a 4% chance of two successes (a 36% chance of 1-2 successes). So, two standard dice give approximately the same amount of success as one strong dice. This 2-standard-to-1-strong ratio is a handy rule of thumb when making design decisions. 

[drspendlove]

Of course, two standard dice are slightly different than a single strong die as they can yield two successes versus the cap of 1 success for a strong die. But that rarely is a big deal.

[fallen]

The long and the short of the story is that ship combatants do very well to have high Command and Tactics! Critical skills to keep the entire crew moving efficiently and effectively during void battles.

[uglymug]

Ha, okay, thanks! Yeah, I know the difference between standard and strong dice since I played a lot of Templar Battleforce. Which is why I had been ignoring command and tactics previously since I knew they provided only standard.

But it seems like they're a very significant possible source of ship combat dice since you only need to devote the crew slot towards a commander or military officer. I'll definitely be keeping a few slots open for these guys on ships in future playthroughs where I'm planning on a lot of ship combat.

On my current play though, I'm definitely noticing range changes going much more smoothly with a Zealot/Commander captain, a Mil. Off/ Pistolero Officer, and a Mil Off + Commander junior crew.

It seems like quite the advantage over the AI since they never recruit specialists so thier only source of command or tactics is officers and navigators.

Right now, I'm crusing around in a Vengance-class with the Agility-focused Chaser Engine. Weapons are Torp, Missle, 2 x Heavy Rails. And I seem to be very consistently making my range change rolls /w Perfected Approach + that command + tactics pool.

Damage mitigation at range 5 and 4 is more about taking it on the chin w/ heavy armor. I start making dodges once I hit range 3 w/ my agility.

And I noticed that one of the best things about railguns aren't so much thier damage, since they don't do *that* much more than missles. It's thier ability to proc Distortion Field which is incredibly good crippling effect with a heavy accuracy penalty. Basically, once I get to range 3 and proc Distortion Field the enemy isn't getting another hit for the rest of that battle.

Which also makes me wonder what other unique crippling effects some of the other weapons have.

[fallen]

uglymug - great feedback and awesome to hear that you've found a range 3 strategy that is so successful! Agility is very powerful once you reach that spot. Using any Twitch Surge?

[uglymug]

Nope, not generally. Perfected Approach by itself seems to be carrying the day, even with my lower speed. I do have a nav module and an accuracy scanner for +nav to help with the range 5 and 4 range change rolls as well.

Since the Chaser Engine is only 3rp to advance, combat generally goes like this.

Turn 1, (Range 5) Perfected Approach, Advance, Fire Missles and Torps.

Turn 2, (Range 4) Clear Status effects or Vigilant Scanners, Advance, Fire Torps and a Railgun.

Turn 3, (Range 3) Fire Both Rails, and sometimes a damage talent, or clear status, or defense, or boarding. Missles serve as redundancy for rails if one took a hit, and am more likely to just go all out on boarding if that's the case.

Sometimes I'll use twitch if I get a few range change fails, but that doesn't seem to be happening all that often.

[Cory Trese]

Nice!