I popped in on that game but was unable to view the Koligahr counters or SSD. I wonder why that was?

And next time take a Maesron or Chlorophon. Much more interesting races to fly

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Friday, June 13, 2008 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Marcus.

Check near the beginning of this thread for a post on how to get the counters and SSDs to work.

Basically, it is a lot of work for Paul to add a new Tourney ship. They are different than regular ships.

With Standard SFB, the ships are stored in the library and tools are provided so that people can edit those ships.

Tourney ships are intrinsic to the client and therefore people are locked out from modifying them. And for good reason.

Long story short, because a lot of ships were going to be added and possibly modified on short notice, Paul created a new method of adding these ships. However, that method is not fully debugged.

There is a work around to allow you to see the counters. That workaround is early in this thread.

As for the Maesron, the Tachyon Missiles aren't implemented yet. That's coming in the next client release. As for the Phons, the subspace coagulators aren't working yet... I'm looking to see if I can make them work.

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Monday, June 16, 2008 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Cool, thanks for the heads up Barry! It will be interesting to see how you guys get the Souldra to work. I can see that being a world league pain.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Wednesday, July 02, 2008 - 07:03 pm: Edit

I've been offline for a long time... Will have some time over the weekend to check back in...

Has anybody been using the Omega or LMC ships?

If so, please let me know about any issues or problems.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Friday, July 04, 2008 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Second playtest report for a Koligahr.

BaldnForty versus CrashandBurn...

One technical issue was that damage to my ship was offset for John. I think that we both had different versions of the ssd graphic. Since, I recently updated all of the SSDs to make them smaller.

Note: John has never played a Koligahr before and didn't know the rules of the ship he was fighting against so it was almost a first contact scenerio.

His feeling is that the Kol may be a bit overpowered, and he may be right... This is a playtest ship after all.

Anyway, here is what happened.

John was on top I was on the bottom.

Turn 1...

Overloaded 3 of the AC and had a standard load on the RF+R AC. Moved at speed 16 for most of the turn and acceled up to speed 26 near the end.

John, Turned left and followed the map edge for most of the turn at slow speed.

Near the end of the turn, John turned towards me and impulse 32 ended with us at range 6 and we had each other centerlined.

I launched a manned shuttle, batteried up an overload for the 4th AC and fired everything except the RS cloud and the P3s.

3 AC hit the cloud hit, and 5 Micro Phaser 1s hit for 56 damage. He took the 8 points from the cloud on his #4 shield.

John did not return fire that impulse.

This took out, both p3, a p1, 2 warp, and a photon.

Turn 2:

I recharged the phasers, plotted a HET and high speed, but did not bother charging any of the cannons.

Impulse 1, I fired the Micro P3 and scored an additional point of damage.

Impulse 2, I HETd directly away from John and he fired his alpha at me, 3 remaining photons, and 7 remaining P1 doing 51 points of damage. I batteried 5 and took 22 internals. Both P3, a cannon, and the cloud generator I had just fired. Also took out 4 power.

He then turned to run, and when my turn mode was satisfied, I turned to follow.

Turn 3:

John started in Hex 1301 and I was about 10 hexes behind him. So, I overloaded 2 of the cannons, and poured on the antimatter knowing that his photons were empty. John plotted speed 4. At range 2, he weaseled, so I fired the RS cloud... and it missed...

Then I overran him and at range 0 fired my alpha on his rear shield which had taken 8 points of cloud damage on Turn 1.

My alpha consisted of 8 Micro P1, 2 overloaded cannons, and 1 standard cannon on reserve warp power.

even with the weasel, all 3 cannons hit and 6 MP1 hit for a total of 72...

John conceded at this point, since it was an unreturned shot.

Since this was a playtest of a Omega tourney ship, who does this get reported to?

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 09:50 pm: Edit

Well, just finished up a game a playtest game with Lord_Goofy. He had a system crash on turn 1 and when he returned from it. He had no large map. So, I was in kinda hidden movement.

Scott took an Andy and I took the Trobrin Monster. I will be nerfing this ship severly.
It is obviously 2 powerful.

Turn 1, we closed to range 3. I fired the RS medium implosion bolt and Scott fired his alpha and displaced away. Thanks to 8 points of general reinforcement and batteries, I took 2 internals which got stopped by armor.

Turn 2, I started at speed 17 until I had turned twice and accelerated up to speed 28 in hot pursuit of andy. Near the middle of the turn, the medium torp impacted for 7 points on his rear PA panels.

Around impulse 24 or so, he fired phasers at range 6 or so on my down shield, but it just hit more armor.

Impulse 31, I fired the RS Implosion bolt and 4 Radiation P-1 and both Radation P3 at range 3. Did about 42 points of damage.

Impulse 32, I turned and scott slipped directly in front of me, centerlined at range 1. Keep in mind that he didn't know I was there. Also, he wasn't sure about the rules, he thought he was in a blind spot for the Implosion torps.

I opened up with the other bolt and 2 P1 doing another 30 points of damage. This did about 12 internals. Also fired the LS and FH torps.

Turn 3, Impulse 1 the 2 torps hit for 54 more damage. Gutting the Andy. Of course all my 3 turn arming weapons were empty. But he had nothing left to fight with anymore.

I'm thinking of reducing the 2 medium torps to light torps and cutting the armor in half from 12 to 6.

Not sure if the Heavy torp needs to be reduced to a medium torp?

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 02:40 pm: Edit

Are there SSDs available anywhere for the Omega tourney ships?

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 02:46 pm: Edit

They are added to the library in the latest update

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, August 31, 2008 - 05:55 pm: Edit

The new Trobrin TCC has been added to the library. It is significantly nerfed and may be usable now.

I'm planning on redoing all of the Omegas that have been posted so far with the following changes.

I will reduce the warp to the standards for Omega ships, typically 26 warp.

Omega ships are slower than alphas, and this might maintain that flavor.

The next one to be udated will be the Maesron and the changes will include

1) Reduction of warp to 26
2) Increase the #1 shield to 32
3) Removal of 2 Phaser 1W that are not in the official SSD.

4) Modifications of the Tachyon Missile loadout.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 08:27 pm: Edit

Here are the Tachyon Missile loadout for the new Maesron TC.

Please anyone feel free to comment. Yes the missiles are godly, but the ship has a lot of compensating weaknesses.

Differences between Tachyon Missiles and Drones.

1) Tachyon Missiles are not automatically destroyed by hit by other seeking weapons. They take damage like a shuttle.

2) Tachyon Missiles can't explode or fire phasers until 4 impulses after launch. Their anti-tractor is fully functional though.

3) The Maesron ship has 2 Tachyon Missile launchers. Each launcher holds 3 missiles with no reloads. Firing rate is 1 missile per turn in addition each launcher is incapable of firing on consecutive turns. If the ship loses a launcher, it can only fire a missile every other turn.

There is no 8 impulse delay over turn breaks for the 2 launchers. You could fire Turn 1 impulse 32 from launcher 1 and Turn 2 Impulse 1 from launcher 2

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 08:33 pm: Edit

The Maesron ship has a total of 6 missiles between the launchers 3 missiles per launcher. It can't transfer the missiles between the launchers.

For the Tourney Cruiser you can pick 6 missiles which would be any combination of the following types.

1) Speed 24 Armor 14 Explosion 24 Anti-Tractor 3 Points.

2) Speed 24 Armor 14 Explosion 12 Anti-Tractor 1 Point, and a Phaser PW-1.

3) Speed 18, Armor 22, Explosion 12, Anti-Tractor 5 Points.

4) Speed 18, Armor 10, No Explosion, 5 Phaser PW-3 Modules, Anti-Tractor 1 Point.

Note that the Armor refers to the number of points of damage to destroy the missile.

Note that phasers and Explosions cannot happen until 4 impulses after launch. But during the myopic period, the missile won't go inert if it enters it's targets hex.

Note that option 4 missiles can only fire 1 phaser per impulse and all of the phasers have to have their targets set at the moment of launch. The phasers could have the same or different targets and the bus missile could be targeted differently than the phasers, it could even be ballistically targeted.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Please remember that the Maesron Cruiser is substandard in the following.

1) Max Speed is 27, it only has 26 warp move cost 1.

2) Slightly less than standard Phasers, 6 PW-1 and 4 PW-3.

3) You have to centerline the opponent to fire all 4 Tachyon Guns.

4) Tachyon Guns, are similar to photons, but don't quite have the crunch potential. Yes it can do 16 points of damage, but only at range 1.

At range 2-3 max damage is 12 and at range 4-5 max damage is 10.

Also tachyon guns are expensive to hold, twice the hold cost of a comparably armed photon.

So, it needs powerful missiles to make it fightable.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 11:56 pm: Edit

Trying to make a balanced TC by giving it uber TMs is not going to work. I don't think giving Omega ships 26 warp makes sense - these are basically Y-era ships. We don't know what the GW era Omega ships look like - for all we know they have full warp. You're just going to create ships that have serious RPS issues. If you make them able to stand up against heavy seeker opponents, they will be too strong against everyone else. Conversely, balance them for DF opponents, and they will be too weak against heavy seeker opponents.

I would suggest starting by upping the warp to General War standards, i.e., 30 boxes. Give it 8 PW-1s. As for the missiles, I would suggest something more reasonably representative of the missiles that you would normally see.

I'm not sure I understand your TM loadouts. When you say speed 24, do you mean propulsion-24, or speed 24 after subtracting for the weight of the modules? It is not possible to build missile (1) and have its end speed be 24, at least not if you are following (OFD1.2). Conversely, there is no speed-18 propulsion module.

Note that the availability year for the modules you are proposing is well into the X2 era. Basically, you are proposing putting X-tech missiles on a ship with Y-era warp.

I would suggest allowing the Maesron player to choose the missile loadout. Give 12 BPV for TM upgrades, with a max of 3 BPV allowed on any single missile.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 05:56 am: Edit

I agree with all Andy writes except that I think the TM missiles would need to be limited to a few basic designs to fit with the very limited selection of drones for Alpha races.

I'd suggest

A) Speed 32, Armor 08, Explosion 08, Anti-Tractor 1 Points. "cost 1.5"

B) Speed 26, Armor 12, Explosion 20, Anti-Tractor 2 Points. "cost 4.5"

C) Speed 20, Armour 14, Explosion 24, Anti-Tractor 2 Points. "cost 5"

A) and B) are based om 32 propulsion frames and C) on a 28 propulsion frame. "cost is just for fun"

Perhaps no more than 3 missiles of any one type?

These don't include functions that aren't allowed to normal drones in the tournament rules like ECM, phaser's or ATG.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 10:49 am: Edit

That missile selection seems reasonable, although I would not make them all fast propulsion. Maybe something like

A. sp 32, ar 8, ex 8, at 1
B. sp 23 (prop 28), ar 12, ex 16, at 2
C. sp 15 (prop 24), ar 16, ex 24, at 2 (enlarged)

With a limited selection, you wouldn't need to worry about the BPV cost of each missile. (TM BPVs are way high, anyway.)

The only downside would be that the Maesron opponent would be able to ID the missile based on its speed.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 11:18 am: Edit

I tend to agree with Andy as well. I'd rather see a ship with power comparible to other TCs, and with weapons that follow the existing rules as closely as possible. Giving the Omega ships 30 warp, 5 Bttys, and 6-10 "other power" (the range of power available to other MC1 TCs) - effectively changing the "guts" of the ship - and keeping the modification of their rules to a minimum seems like a more direct way to keep things balanced.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 06:53 pm: Edit

OK...

This all started with mods made to the Trobrin. The initial Trobrin as introduced here was basically the standard CA with Tourney shields, 30 warp, tourney batteries, and tourney trac.

I was essentially unbeatable. So, SPP suggested the following changes to it

1) Reduce Warp to Omega Standard 26
2) Reduce Armor to 4
3 Reduce 2 Medium Torps to Light

Leave the shields, trac, and batteries at standard tourney levels.

Given that I was trying to follow the spirit of what he wanted which was to keep the Omega "Flavor" for the Omega ships. I dropped the extra warp and 2 extra PW-1 on the Maesron.

However, by doing that to the Maesron, it was way too weak. Hence I upgraded the missiles. All of the them used either 28 or 24 prop modules. And extra anti-tractor were the improved late era type.

As for TM using phasers, SPP didn't seem to have a problem with that... Given the massive limitations on numbers and firing rates, these were meant to be uber-drones.

As for these ships being Y-era ships. Omega cruisers with 26 warp were the norm even as late as Y215 unless I have my timeline wrong.

The reasoning for 4 standard types with 2 different speeds was that there is still some doubt as to exactly what the missile is. You need to lab it to know.

I welcome everyone's comments here and if as it seems to be the consensus that 26 warp ships won't cut it. Then I will put everything back to 30 warp.

The Trobrin ship with 26 warp and the severe nerfing has been posted though and I would like to playtest it a bit. It might be more viable than most people give it credit for.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Oh, The Koligahr with 30 warp is still posted and I think so is the Maesron with weaker TM and 30 warp... So let's playtest them a bit.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 08:32 pm: Edit

I would not judge other Omega TCs by the strength of the Trobrin. The Implosion Bolt is munchkin-cheesy powerful, and the Implosion Torpedoes, although short range, will throw you for a loop if you're only used to dealing with Alpha Quadrant plasma.

If your original TC had 2xIB, 2xITM and 1xITH, then I'm not surprised that it was far too strong. To make a balanced TC with 30 warp, I would give it 2xIB and 1xITH (and no other torps). The armor could stay as on the CA, but the shields would need to be weaker than standard TC strength.

---

Quote:

As for these ships being Y-era ships. Omega cruisers with 26 warp were the norm even as late as Y215 unless I have my timeline wrong.

---

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 09:56 pm: Edit

One thing to keep in mind. The Omega Tournament cruisers are not suppose to fight Alpha Tournament ships. They will be their own separate tournament. So they just have to be relatively equal against each. There will be RPS issues period, just like the Alpha Tournament ships.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Just completed a playtest game with the new Maesron TC... This is the one with 26 warp and X2 missiles.

Goofy (ISC) defeats BaldnForty (Maesron Playtest)

I took 3 of missile type 1 with 28 prop (24 speed) 14 armor, 24 explode, 3 anti-tractor

and 3 of missile type 2 with 28 prop (24 speed) 14 armor, 12 explode, Phaser 1, and 1 anti-tractor.

Turn 1:

I plotted speed 20 the whole turn and launched a type 1 about impulse 16 or so. At range 15, I fired the LF+L Tachyon Gun and hit for 5 points. Then I turned left to bring the RF+R TG to bear. At range 10 or so, Scott opened up with the PPD and launched an EPT.

Got to range 7 where I fired an alpha of 3 TG at 5 energy level and 5 PW-1.

All 3 TG hit and the PW-1 did well so I scored a few internals.

I realized at that point that I couldn't reach range 11 with the EPT, so I might as well turn in and get it with my off side phaser.

Scott chose that time to fire 2 more plasmas at me. An Right side F and the other G.

I weaseled them both and my 1st tachyon missile went away.

Turn 2.

Launched another Tachyon missile a type 2 with a phaser and discovered how power starved this ship is...

Putting 8 into movement and 3 each into the TG, and 4 into damage control, I didn't even have the power to charge phasers!!!

The tachyon missile surprised Scott by firing it's phaser for 5 points of damage into his rear shield. He fired 4 P3 at it and took it down before it could hit him though.

Turn 3:

Started the turn off at range 9 or 10 from Scott and max speed previous turn was 8.

I was gonna take an overloaded PPD and there wasn't much I could do about it. So I loaded the TG up to the 5 energy level since I knew I was gonna get range 8.

Fired off a Type 1 missile.

3 out of 4 TG hit, and one of them at range 3 with 7 power in it.

Scott let the 24 pointer hit him. But pounded me with a 6 pulse PPD and near the end of the turn tractored me and fed me 5 P1 and 2 fast load plasmas.

Game over.


In my opinion...

I didn't play the most optimal game... but I don't think this Maesron is too overpowered. If anything possibly the reverse. The tachyon missiles while individually powerful, just don't have the numbers to make them truely dangerous.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 01:39 am: Edit

Paul,

Why would you want to go to all the trouble of making a set of Omega TCs, and not have them balanced against the Alpha TCs?

The whole point of the tournament cruiser is to have a ship that is part of a balanced set. And while you end up sacrificing a little Omega flavor to make them balance, you enrich the tourney set a whole lot more by making them compatible.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 01:48 am: Edit

Barry,

Sounds about right for Maesron. It's usually hard to get TMs to be more than an afterthought. You really have to time your launches so you can build a "wave" of two. The rearm turn is pretty rough, although you can do a little better by arming one of the side TGs at a lower level (or not at all).

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 07:17 am: Edit

It was my first time....

Will be back on line tonight to try again.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 12:36 pm: Edit

Paul, when I first built the Wingnut TCs, it was expressly so they could run against someone with the standard TC set. Indeed, one of the fun things to do, for certain definitions of fun, is to fight a standard against a Wingnut that you don't really know the rules for.

Which is THE major reason the Omega TCs went up to speed 30 on Warp, because otherwise, they die horribly to plasma.

The Magellanics are probably closer to being 'right' than the Omegans are - they're not halfway between the Y era and circa Y179 era ships like Omega are.

The definition of 'right' will vary from person to person. For some people 'right' means "I can do whatever I do against another ship, and it will still work", for others 'right' means "My ship will force you to change your tactics."

I am very much in the "new TCs should require new tactics to beat" camp. It was this discrepancy in 'right' that made me stop working on this project a decade ago. The people who I needed for buy in on the project (the large cadre of tourney players) didn't want to learn new rules and develop new tactics, because it consumed effort they needed to keep on top of their game for the regular tournament.