Matrix Games Forums

Third party combat for ships is not quite implemented.

The option for third party resolution works for attacking other naval stacks at sea. It doesn't currently work for combats that result from interception or running blockades. Would be really nice to get this addressed, particularly because the majority of ship combat results from interceptions or blockade running.

Any chance that this could get fixed?

Can I ask what third party rules/game you use to resolve the battles?

Kai, the code problem with this is that interception and running blockade battles are resolved during the naval movement phase. I looked into this and could not determine a clean way to introduce third party resolution as in the combat phases? It requires exchanging battle files during the movement phase, not the combat phase. I'm not sure it's even possible to do this, but maybe Marshall could look into it if/when he returns to code development.

My humble suggestion is to resolve these naval battles in parallel (one using the game's regular naval combat, the other using third party resolution), and afterwards using the PBEM admin menu to implement the third party combat results (ie, change battle losses, final positions of winner/loser, etc.) This may not be ideal, but should work?

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Can I ask what third party rules/game you use to resolve the battles?

Form Line of Battle for naval battles. (Sometimes we will use Grand Fleet Actions)

Grande Armee for land battles.

Here are the conversion factors I use:

Converting EIA fleets into Form Line of Battle fleets:

Take the sum of the fleet factors on the side with the most fleet factors. EIA Light fleet factors are reduced by 1/3 and may only be used to purchase 4th rates or smaller.

1-5 Each fleet factor = 150 FLOB points

6-20 Each fleet factor = 100

21-40 Each fleet factor = 50

41-60 Each fleet factor = 40

60+ Each fleet factor = 35

In any fleet, the majority of ships must be 3rd rates or smaller. (One half of French 3rd rates can be 80 gun ships, other nations, only 74’s count for this limitation) For each EIA heavy fleet counter with 10+ factors, there must be at least one ship of 2nd rate or larger.

No non-historical ships allowed (no English 120’s, only one Santissima Trinidad)


Conversion to Grand Fleet Actions:
Take the sum of the fleet factors on the side with the most fleet factors. EIA Light fleet factors are reduced by 1/3 and may only be used to purchase 4th rates or smaller.

Use randomized Grand Fleet crew quality
1-5 Each fleet factor = 450 Grand Fleet points

6-20 Each fleet factor = 400

21-40 Each fleet factor = 250

41-60 Each fleet factor = 200

60+ Each fleet factor = 150

In any fleet, the majority of ships must be 3rd rates or smaller. (One half of French 3rd rates can be 80 gun ships, other nations, only 74’s count for this limitation) For each EIA heavy fleet counter with 10+ factors, there must be at least one ship of 2nd rate or larger.

No non-historical ships allowed (no English 120’s, only one Santissima Trinidad)

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

Kai, the code problem with this is that interception and running blockade battles are resolved during the naval movement phase. I looked into this and could not determine a clean way to introduce third party resolution as in the combat phases? It requires exchanging battle files during the movement phase, not the combat phase. I'm not sure it's even possible to do this, but maybe Marshall could look into it if/when he returns to code development.

My humble suggestion is to resolve these naval battles in parallel (one using the game's regular naval combat, the other using third party resolution), and afterwards using the PBEM admin menu to implement the third party combat results (ie, change battle losses, final positions of winner/loser, etc.) This may not be ideal, but should work?

I think that might work. Just ignore the in-game results, and use the admin editing to input the tabletop results.
I will have to play around with this and see.

Not as elegant as an in-game solution, but it may be a viable work-around.