BW 2018 Feedback

[ninja_bait]

I like Qwikwars. It should stay.

Sincerely,
ninja_bait

[stubby]

I'm axing QuikWars for this edition. Too many people were getting confused in the past about how it fit in with the full rules. It was turning into a weird speedbump barrier to entry.

It'll still be available in the 2010 rulebook though, so it's still around if you need it for something specific.

[ninja_bait]

[dilanski]

DOMINATION VICTORY

[stubby]

I've uploaded Chapter Nine: Vehicles. I didn't get to delete as much stuff as I'd hoped to - maneuvering types, thrust, and collisions are still in there, although I tried to clarify them where I could. But I did make some nice changes to Movement to offload some mental overhead. Vehicle movement now comes in three basic flavors: 5", 10", and 15" (Flight only). The 10" and 15" speeds decrease your maximum Armor d10s, so there'll be a tradeoff between speed and armor. You can still buy thrusters that let you trade speed for accuracy and power instead.

Speaking of Armor d10s - I was so excited to get rid of Structure Level in chapter 7, but it was carrying so much water in chapters 8 and 9, I couldn't live without it. So I've brought Structure Level back in an altered form called Weight class. Weight class is just the number of d10s in your Armor rating, and it covers all the ground that Structure Level used to.

Apart from the thrusters, there are now only two types of propulsion: Standard and Flight. No more quibbling over air flight versus space flight or whatever. If your units travel on a surface, they're standard. if they travel above the surface, they're flight. Under the ocean, the lobsters are Standard and the fish are Flight. In a space battle, the capital ships are Standard (they define the plane of combat that is the "surface") and the fighters are Flight.

Some minor refinements of chapters 7 and 8 to match the changes to chapter 9, but overall these are pretty minor changes compared to the previous chapter updates. I'll keep looking for ways to simplify 9 down further as I move forward into chapter 10.

http://brikwars.com/rules/draft/9.htm

[stubby]

Pretty good big update today. Chapter 10: Creatures is done, and a whole bunch of budgeting stuff is cleaned up. Everything about Unit Inches and Construction Points is now tucked away in sidebars towards the top of each chapter and no longer in the way of the main text. Stats icons are now a lot more consistent throughout the rulebook. All the big chapters are now shorter and more pleasantly bite-sized.

[aoffan23]

Taking a read through right now, and I'm liking the refinements that you've made so far. It's been a while since I read 2010 so I don't really know how the content differs, but visually it's really looking good. I especially really like the minifig weapon table with the pictures and hand icons.

One slight issue I noticed was the text in the Heavy Weapons section of chapter 3.1. Two of the small print sections are encroaching on each other.

[stubby]

There's a lot of CSS weirdness, you can see textblocks moving around in weird ways as you resize the windows. I blame Blitzen for trying to shame me into using CSS voodoo instead of good old reliable HTML table formatting.

I'm mostly noticing it since the last Chrome update. Stuff that worked fine for years doesn't anymore. If you resize the window and then maximize it again, everything works - some new thing in Chrome makes it get the formatting wrong while the content is loading, and then fails to correct it once it's all there.

[aoffan23]

Yeah I'm noticing that in a few places, strange issue.

I have a few questions:

6. What's the difference between a Medik rolling a 5 (no amputations) and a 6+ (no amputations, instant revival)? The text describing Ker-Triage! says that a roll of 5+ allows the minifig to instantly get up, but the table has different results for rolls of 5 and 6+.

7. Is there a need to have navigation arrows in both the top/bottom bar and beside the chapter icons? It seems a little superfluous with them being right next to each other. Even the ones in the top and bottom bars have separate URLs beside them, meaning that each navigation section has 4 separate buttons to go to the next or previous chapter. I know it's probably not a top priority, but I think you could condense that into one bar (though I know it's not as easy as it sounds).

8. This one isn't so much a question, but I think the bit in 4.1 about movement being stopped by entering close combat should be moved. I'm not sure if there's a logical place to put it in 4.2 or sometime in chapter 5, but it breaks the flow a bit by referring to stuff that hasn't been introduced yet. If anything maybe just make it one of those small prints with a reference and link to chapter 5?

[stubby]

The BrikWars Universe and The Spirits of the Game are in. Mostly stuff you've seen before, just presented in a different order.

Yeah I'm noticing that in a few places, strange issue.

I haven't figured out a workaround yet, but I'm trying different things as I go.

6. What's the difference between a Medik rolling a 5 (no amputations) and a 6+ (no amputations, instant revival)?

Ah! That's where I had a filesystem crash. All that text is from 2010, it's the part that didn't get saved when the server went down. I fixed it.

The 6+ results are what the Critical Success results were in 2010. I took it down to 6+ to line up with Over The Top rolls.

7. Is there a need to have navigation arrows in both the top/bottom bar and beside the chapter icons?

Possibly. I want to keep the page title in the header and footer, and I want to keep the navbar in the same spot on each page for fast page flipping, so it's tricky to make everything fit together.

8. This one isn't so much a question, but I think the bit in 4.1 about movement being stopped by entering close combat should be moved.

I'll think about it. It's an interruption to movement, so movement is where I want people to be thinking about it, but maybe it's better booted to later on.

[stubby]

Chapter D: The Dice is now up. A couple of changes - there's no longer an action penalty to keep track of for spending SN dice, so go crazy. Skill and Mind dice got combined into a single category; they now give you power over both Actions and Specialties. SN d12s now have a lot more ability to pass through obstacles. SN d8s are now better than other dice for buying Flight inches.

[AnnoyedZebra]

haven't played in a while - are vehicles as clunky as I remember?

[stubby]

haven't played in a while - are vehicles as clunky as I remember?

Standard Maneuvering
Using Standard Maneuvering, players shove their Vehicles and Creatures around in whatever manner feels natural, and save their focus and attention for parts of the game more likely to result in stuff getting blown up (8.4: Heavy Explosives).

[AnnoyedZebra]

sometimes it felt like vehicles never got blown up - I don't think we had enough anti armour capability in our games

[stubby]

I cut down the armor levels to max 3d10 except in special cases, that should help some. And flying vehicles even further.