sanguinemetaldawn said:

The Operator also has a MIU amongst his starting equipment. And again, yes, the Tech Priest is better with Tech-Use, but the Operator don't suck in a stealthy Squad. Really, the Operator only loses usefulness when you play with an armoured regiment…. What is kinda' weird if you ask me :D.

sanguinemetaldawn said:

That is your prefference. But the ST with Intelligence comes with a marked decrease in ability to participate meaningfully in social scenes, doesn't have the complete set of Infiltrator abilities (though he comes close and could do in a pinch), and can't drive and fire boardweapons at the same time.

I'd also reserve judgement on the usefulness of Comrades until Hammer of the Emperor has been released. As Into the Storm and Inquisitor's Handbook have shown well enough, the gamelines aren't really complete uintil these kinds of book are out. A few more Advances and special rules for Comrades may well lead to a massive difference in their usefulness before and after release.

I just disagree with the assertion that the ST's pros you mention make him objectively better than the Operator. They just make him better at certain things, which depending on preferred playstile may not be enough to make up for the positive sides of the Operator. That some of those things are ones you might think the Operator should be best at is actually unimportant.

sanguinemetaldawn said:

I am omitting them quite on purpose, because they don't matter for the argument I was making. They help the Techpriest be better at some things, but do not help him be better at the things I that was pointing out at the Operator's strengths. The Mechadentrites will not help the Techpriest realize the guy in front of him is lying to him and is about to draw a weapon. The ability to communicate with machine spirits will not help him calm down a Catachan Barking Toad. None of the TP only talents will help him sneak into an enemy encampment, or allow him to then both drive the freshly hijacked Hellhound and fire its mainweapon without another PC present.

Note: I do really like you analysis, so please don't take my critique personal. Some people, especially on these forum, seem contractually obliged to critizise any thread about looking at the numbers involved in the game as powergaming, min-maxing, 'rollplaying', and done by obvious WoW players. I don't want to seem like one of them to you!

If one had to chose between ST and Operator, I would say the ST is the better choice, unless one really prefers the strengths of the Operator. Just, as soon as there are enough players interested in them that both being in the group is a choice, ST + Operator seems a much better choice than ST + ST.

If the ST is Jason Bourne, the Operator is Macguyver. Because Only War is so much about combat, Bourne will normally be the better choice than Macguyver.

If I weren't playing an Operator with roughly 10k experience in an Only War game I would probably agree that the Stormtrooper is in every way superior to the Operator after reading this thread.

However the one advance that saves the Operator from being overshadowed by the Stormtrooper is "Gunner". While the Operator may only be an allrounder that is inferior to the Stromtrooper in most ways when inside a Vehicle an Operator literally counts for 1.5 Stormtroopers. Sure that Stormtrooper might have some slightly higher skills and characteristics (if we're going by Characteristics and Skills only while ignoring gear) but the Operators Comrade can fire the vehicles weapon(s) while the Stormtrooper doesn't even get a Comrade.

Of course if the GM ignores Comrades or gives everyone a Comrade this advantages gets removed. The sames goes for single-passenger Vehicles such as Sentinels. At the same time the Stormtrooper usally has to spend EXP on weapon training and dodge while the Operator can operate all "his" weapons simply by virtue of Operate(Surface). Furthermore a ST will want all kinds of gadgets to perform his ST duties while the Operator can focus on those more specific to vehicles, like a good quality MIU which easily cancel out the cheaper advances the ST gets).

So yeah, a Stormtrooper that trys to outperform an Operator can do so when it comes to single-passenger vehicles. Even with multi-passenger vehicles the Stormtrooper will be equal or superior when it comes to operating a single position inside that vehicle but an Operator will be able to operate two positions at the same time while also having the superior starting gear for it. Furthermore there are things that the ST should focus on instead of operating vehicles so an ST that does try to outperform an Operator is wasting his potential.

Gokerz said:

My argument isn't so much that, its about the fact that it is a party based game.  What I am saying is if you have a party with Stormtroopers and at least 1 Tech Priest (which is likely, given the two are among the best classes in the game), the Operator ends up kind of like a fifth wheel, with no chance to shine.  The reason for this is the way the specialty (and others) is structured.

Basically, with one Int-ST and one Techpriest, you get - Stormtrooper, Techpriest, Operator, and Medic.  Thats the real issue with it.  The TP gives you all the TP stuff, plus the Operator's Tech (but better), plus the Medic's Knowledge.  The ST meanwhile gives the Operator's Piloting and Navigation/Fieldcraft, as well as the Medic's Medicae.  This is in addition to the standard stuff for ST and TP specialties.  The Tech-Priest's crippled Piloting is the most absurd part of the core specialty.

And that is the point of the conversion: to create Operators/Medics that can't be rendered completely redundant by a choice of TP and ST by other party members .  In view of the Psyker and Offense secondary Aptitudes, and Mechanicus Implant trait, this is assured.  This also makes the Adept a better medic than the Medic; having all of the Medic's skills and talents, and access to the Endurance psyker power.

Of course, yes, with a Psyker also in the detatchment/party, you do achieve redundancy.  But requiring 3 classes to achieve that is significant; requiring 3 classes to make 1 redundant is massively different from requiring 2 classes to cover 2.  Additionally, with the breadth of low cost advances made available by the conversion, the choice of how experience is spent will distinguish the character, in the end.  This is a far better outcome than relying on 2 or 3 skills to distinguish a Specialty. 

Really, that part of the Specialty chapter felt to me like an attempt to fluff or bulk up the number of Specialties.

AtoMaki said:

See, this is actually one of the issues with the class.  There is nothing stopping the Tech-Priest from acquiring the Agility Aptitude, making himself substantially quieter.  In fact, given the massive number of Characteristic Aptitudes the TP gets, its likely a TP will be able to choose one (such as Agility) that he wishes, making him better at Stealth and good at Acrobatics, of all things.

sanguinemetaldawn said:

The Techpriest with Agility barely reaches the point of not being actively detrimental to a stealth focused squad, but the Operator will excel in it (there is much more to being a good infiltrator than just having a good stealth skill, and the Op gets the most comprehensive Infiltrator package of all the OW specialities, easily outpacing even Ratling and ST in that role).

Honestly, the more I look at it the more I think the Operator is actually the all around better choice for a group than the Techpriest. The combo ST+Op seems much better balanced than ST + TP. The ST is wasted on driving a tank, with his access to one of the best weapons in OW every round that he doesn't shoot it at the enemy is a round that's badly used. The TP in the ST+TP combo would have to be the gunner, which isn't ideal. On average, the vecicle with ST+Op will be shooting twice as many weapons at the enemy as the vehicle with ST+TP. If a vehicle with ST+TP goes up against one with ST+Op, the former will be crushed, being seriously lacking in damage potential compared to the latter.

Tech use is one the easier skills to increase via items, and I can't really think of situations where the Operator won't be 'good enough' for anything you might need Tech-Use for (TP starts with Omnitool, Operator with MIU). The knowledge skills are nice, but don't come into play as often in a OW campaign and are mostly reactive. The TP will outperform the Op in white-room personal scale combat situations, but the huge amound by which an Op outdoes a TP in damage potential while in vehicle combat pretty much balances that.

Gokerz said:

I don't, no biggie ;) 

The thing about numbers is players will do it anyway, whether people like powergaming or not.  And as I see it, in this case it looks like the game massively rewards deliberate powergaming (via STs), and the point of the conversion is to give the Operator/Adept a much more distinctive and outstanding role.

Basically this is the thing, I do think the Stormtrooper is objectively better, and I am unhappy about that.

Lets start with Characteristic Advance tables; we assume additional Aptitudes are chosen so as to maximize similarity, enabling as direct a comparison as possible.  To this end, the ST chooses Intelligence and Fellowship, while the Operator chooses Toughness, and with his extra Aptitude, chooses Perception, in order to have one Characteristic with a simple cost of 100 XP.  Here are the resulting tables:

Operator

                                 Simple    Intermediate    Trained      Expert
Weapon Skill         500          750                    1000           2500
Ballistic Skill          250          500                    750             1000

Strength                 500          750                    1000           2500
Toughness           250          500                     750             1000

              
Agility                     250           500                   750               1000
Intelligence          250           500                   750               1000

Perception           100          250                   500              1000
Willpower             500          750                   1000           2500

             
Fellowship          250           500                  750              1000

Stormtrooper

                                 Simple    Intermediate    Trained      Expert
Weapon Skill         250          500                     750             1000
Ballistic Skill          100          250                     500             750

Strength                 250          500                     750             1000
Toughness           250          500                      750             1000

Agility                     100           250                    500              750
Intelligence          250           500                    750              1000

Perception           250           500                    750               1000
Willpower             500          750                    1000             2500

Fellowship          250           500                    750               1000

For an Operator to purchase all of his Simple advances, it will cost him 2850 XP.  For a Stormtrooper:   2200 XP

For all Intermediate advances: Operator:  5000  For Stormtrooper: 4250

So far the Operator has paid 1400 XP for exactly the same thing: across the board Simple and Intermediate advances.  Not to mention the ST has the option of 4 total stats at 100 XP for Simple.  And it only gets worse for the Stormtrooper with greater advances.

At Trained it is (7250 -  6500) a 750 XP, gap again, and…

And at Expert   (13,500 - 10,000) an enormous 3,500 XP gap in cost for the same thing.

Yes, intelligent choices will minimize the impact of fundamentally higher prices for the Operator's Characteristics, but lets not kid ourselves; the Operator has a small set of viable choices.

OK, so maybe the Operator makes up for it in other categories: skills and talents.

And we find that the skill advancement costs are identical except for 5 skills: Awareness, Scrutiny, Security, Survival, and Tech-use.  For each of the skills the Operator has 2 matrching Aptitudes, the ST 1.  So the Operator has a 1-step edge for 5 out of 28+skills.  Mind, if desired, the ST has the option of matching the XP cost for 3 of the 5, but at cost to 3 social skills.

Lets have a look at talents.  The Operator has 9 different talents for which he has a 1-Aptitude advantage over the ST.  But then we look at the Stormtrooper: he has a 1-Aptitude advantage over the Operator for 37 Talents; more than quadruple. 

I hope that Comrade is really good, because he has a serious hill to climb.

Interestingly, in the previous example of the Operator whose comrade would take the hit for him, that option is specific to Psyker only.  Which means the GM was forced alter the OW core rules to make the class more viable.  Ironically, there is one class that by core rules could take the hit to protect the Operator: the Stormtrooper.

I simply do not see it as an opinion; I see it as an unhappy fact.

sanguinemetaldawn said:

Guess you refer to my case there, so I must add: no, the GM didn't have to alter the core rules. The player simply grappled his Comrade, and literally used him as a shield. Otherwise, the Operator has the most specifically useless Comrade. That guy is only good when the Operator is driving a vehicle and completely worthless in any other cases. But this "situational dead weight" effect is an overarching problem with Comrades :(…