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OctoBrrrrrr, it's getting cold! Speculation thread.

Discussion in 'News' started by colbrook, Jul 27, 2020.

  1. RolandTHTG

    RolandTHTG Still wandering through the Night

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    Was there anymore previews scheduled with a fan site this week, or are we waiting for a friday studio update to get more profiles to discuss?
     
  2. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    I don't believe we have knowledge of any third party news this week, just the Friday studio update. Maybe someone will surprise us...
     
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  3. Vocenoctum

    Vocenoctum Well-Known Member

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    I have a couple garbage cans and lamposts/ streetlights from the Marvel scenery thing, but I'd say if you put the stuff in you're asking for it to count as cover, so tacitly agreeing to it unless a prior discussion. I imagine an argument over board layout because one side of the board has a lot of fire hydrants so it's unfair! :)

    But, yes, now I want to see a giant fire hydrant that could cover half of a TAG, or perhaps a large stack of fire hydrants, just as a laugh.
     
  4. Urobros

    Urobros Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, my mistake, I have a confusion with "climbing plus"...
     
  5. Ceilican

    Ceilican Well-Known Member

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    I think this cover thing requires some outside-the-box thinking. Create walls and other terrain with a gap at the bottom about 4mm high. Then, the terrain doesn't obscure the base and it won't provide cover at all.

    Tongue firmly planted in cheek here...
     
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  6. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    So at this point I think we can all agree that Jump (and, by extension, Super Jump) is presented incorrectly in C1 (whether or not the limitations are by design, the illustration is wrong at the very least)... most likely because when they were re-working the rule to remove falling/fall damage, they forgot that meant an S2 simply could not clear with a Jump order something they wouldn't otherwise be able to vault over. If we assume this is an idiosyncrasy of C1 for the time-being, do we actually know that it will affect N4 (e.g. is it guaranteed that the skill will work exactly the same? Is falling and falling damage no longer a thing in N4?)
     
  7. archon

    archon Well-Known Member

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    When I build my asia-style table, I have some restaurants and the very nice looking tables and banks from AW including some retangled lamps accompanied by planters to make it look beautiful. So it could be a lot of tiny things on the table where a TAG could take cover now. Or the nice tables in our gaming group with small barrels, ladders or low walls. So yes it feels a bit strange and when I play with my friends we can agree that this things will not provide cover to S6+ or something. If outside of this - on turnaments for example - the game is played RAW than it´s sometimes better to keep the rules as they are and avoiding confusion.

    Despite some extreme situations may feel strange, I am confident that we will get used to it. Especialy on turnaments it will make the game faster.
     
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  8. Usashi

    Usashi Well-Known Member

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    Now I'm tempted to use fire hydrants as markers for nanoscreen.
     
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  9. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    upload_2020-9-15_21-52-8.png
     
  10. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    Water curtain
     
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  11. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    I brought this up in a Facebook thread, but it might be worth repeating here: In this game we already use Silhouettes as a way of abstracting models for LOF and movement purposes. In terms of game mechanics, all of the models are cylinders of various sizes, and if some part sticks out of the cylinder we just ignore it. The model is decorative, because the base (and an imaginary cylinder sitting on it) is actually the part you care about for all mechanical purposes.

    So maybe it's time to talk about buildings and terrain the same way—designate what bits are and aren't part of the silhouette of a terrain feature, and anything that doesn't belong to a terrain silhouette is ignored for LoF, cover, and movement purposes. You'd still have to discuss it ahead of a game, but thinking in terms of silhouettes is at least familiar to players as a concept. You'd start with the ground silhouette, then identify objects and structures that are big enough to have their own silhouettes. Assume that an object's silhouette matches its contours unless otherwise noted, and apply some common sense. So everything on the table is either an object with a silhouette, or part of something else's silhouette, and/or a special terrain zone, or it doesn't count for LOF/cover/movement/etc.

    Examples you could agree to during setup:
    • The curb of a sidewalk is not part of the ground silhouette, so it's decorative and doesn't provide cover. (In game terms the ground silhouette would have a tiny ramp where it changes elevation, in the same way that stairs ~ diagonal ramp in game terms when measuring movement.)
    • Trash bags, litter, small light domes on ship deck flooring, and scale models of rats are not part of the ground silhouette, so no cover.
    • The little nibs on Wildfire/Kaldstrøm buildings are not part of the building silhouette and don't provide cover.
    • Decorative planters and soda machines are terrain features with their own silhouette, so they provide cover when you're in silhouette contact with them. Plants in planters are decorative, not part of the planter's silhouette.
    • Wall-mounted air conditioners are terrain features stuck on the side of a building, you can claim cover when you're climbing the building and in silhouette contact with them. They aren't part of the building's silhouette, so you have to actually be touching the A/C unit to claim cover. Never mind, I'm a derp. You could houserule it, I guess?
    • Parapets are not part of the building silhouette, but the roof and walls are; parapets are separate features with their own silhouette. So you can claim cover when touching a parapet; if you're a bit back, you can't claim it, so someone shooting from the same level or higher has a clear shot, but shots from below don't because you can still claim cover against them due to the walls and roof beneath the parapet being part of the building silhouette.
    • Railings function as parapets, OR railings are not part of the building silhouette and are not distinct terrain items, so they never grant cover, OR railings are distinct terrain items but rather than providing cover they are a Saturation Zone.
     
    #451 wes-o-matic, Sep 16, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  12. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    I like it, although note that you can't claim cover while climbing, just with regards to the AC unit bit in particular.
     
  13. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    Oops. Yeah, I spaced on not being able to claim cover even when using Climbing+, my bad.

    Edit: To be fair, a Climb+ unit hunched down behind an A/C unit to avoid enemy fire halfway up a wall sounds cinematic AF.
     
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  14. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    The new cover rules granting cover from virtually every element your base(silhouette) might be in contact with kind of makes this moot though.
     
  15. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    That's what I'm talking about in the first place, the whole idea is to find a way to address "it's silly that you get cover from a coke can" while still conforming to the binary contact=cover approach of N4. Instead of having to measure everything against a pre-set array of 1/3 Silhouettes, you work with some simple guidelines about what counts as significant enough to provide cover of any kind. It eliminates the "TAG behind a fire hydrant/light pole" issue if everyone agrees on some broadly shared general conventions for how to decide what is what, and you just check in with your opponent at the start to make sure you're on the same page.
     
  16. krossaks

    krossaks Well-Known Member

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    Thats just sad. Having half of a fireteam unable to move or super jump just beacuse the other members always feeled unfluffy and arbitrary to me.
     
    #456 krossaks, Sep 16, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  17. HellLois

    HellLois What the Hell...Lois?
    CB Staff

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    That was a proposal on the table, but we discard it when we realise that not all the scenery elements are the same all over the world.
    Maybe my fire hydrant is bigger than one in other country. And if you have to create scenery categories, create "standard" sizes or grouped by types, that means two things. One, not everybody have the same type of terrains and it would be madness and the second ones is that we need to create more rules, when we try to reduce the size of the rules :)
    So, we think that if you try to optimize rules, creating rules, is not a good way :P
     
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  18. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I don't suppose you could give us an idea of what you actually did do with the existing scenery rules from N3? My group actually utilises them and likes them.

    Like we have a space hulk table that uses the scenery rules so people can chop their way through walls

    [​IMG]

    Is that still possible under the core N4 rules?
     
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  19. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    So, we think that if you try to optimize rules, creating rules, is not a good way :P

    This hits the nail on the head? As such, the nail no longer provides partial cover, as it has been sunk into the ground :-P

    At the end of the day, I think any miniatures game is going to require some level of cooperation between players (as others have been saying). Otherwise, in order to get an infinitely precise system, the game becomes infinitely complex (I think I’m just now realizing where this game got its name :-D) Let’s take the fire hydrant example to its logical extreme. How far off the axis of shooting before the fire hydrant isn’t providing partial cover anymore? 90 degrees? What about 87 degrees, still covering a sliver of the figure? And what if your opponent finds that you are, in fact, not completely in contact with the fire hydrant, but actually 1mm away from it? What if it’s not a fire hydrant. What if you’re playing on a flocked custom board and it’s a pebble? We know now that elevation grants partial cover bonus without the need to be prone necessarily, but how much more elevated do you need to be before it counts? An Inch? Above the opposing figure’s eyeline? The top of their silhouette? If the angle that they are shooting at is very flat and they can effectively see your entire base to the top of your head, even if you’re two stories up, does it count as partial cover? Maybe some of these questions will be answered. Perhaps they’ve already been answered… but I think for most people, the lack of a need to confirm that 1/3 of a figure is blocked for partial cover will simplify the game and make it faster in 90% of situations, and it will force players to just communicate more about ambiguous situations - and that’s what simplified rules solve. Even with the added precision of 1/3 cover, it is still cannot ever be precise/accurate ENOUGH for you to prove the edge cases that it is specifically designated to apply to if your opponent does not agree with you. The rules cannot help you if you think your figure is 33% covered and your opponent thinks it is 29% covered (note that if we're talking about a low wall, this is a difference of only about 2mm of vertical on an S7 figure). It’s a false sense of precision because our ability to perceive a few % of difference on a tabletop is not measurable. If my opponent wants to make a fire hydrant provide a TAG partial cover, they are shooting themselves in the foot if they want to have a fun game experience, because it just forces me to be super pedantic as well, and at that point the game is not fun anymore for either of us.

    I think a lot of the suggestions I’ve seen here are good, such as just agreeing whether terrain provides cover to different silhouette size units ahead of time based on your specific table (no need to make an official size list in the rules), as well as simply identifying parts of the scenery as ‘decorative’ with no cover bonus. Maybe also try to avoid 'ambiguous' terrain if you're playing tournament style games. I think also that it’s fair to keep the 1/3 covered idea in the back of your head as a guideline, even if it’s not ensconced officially in the rules. As much as I’m in favor of clear rules, I think this is a situation that I don’t want to see CB try to provide clarification for, because the only way to make it truly comprehensive is to make the rules unacceptably complicated for everyone but pedants, who will still likely find a way to game the system. Better to make the game more accessible to everyone and let the people who want to litter their table with fire hydrants just play against one-another.
     
    #459 Lawson, Sep 16, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
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  20. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    Wait, so for real for real a mixed fire team of super jumpers and non super jumpers or just people who want to walk in order to stay in cover have to declare jump. No offense but you being a semi CB employee need to go to CB and tell them this ruling is wrong dude. Tell them to errata that ASAP.

    After much contemplation I understand exactly why CB had to make a judgement call. It's not super clean while at the same time being super clean. Mandatory scenery purchases would have been bull shit, likewise for arbitrary minimums sizes. The good thing about this ruling is, players get to choose what they put on the table as scenery, and the cover system is reciprocal, and the tournament organizers can ensure things do not get ridiculous by making sure what goes down on a tournament table is reasonable. A friendly game outside of tournament should not be strict at all.
     
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