The Alunda do not "rely" on the PCG. It is a poorly designed system that, in practice, is seldom used in duels. I would keep it on the TC for racial flavor (including its ECM) but not worry about it.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 10:55 am: Edit

I would suggest limiting the event to Omega TCs only, and not expect more than one game per month.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Guys the Peladine TC is in the Pel defs.

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 01:51 pm: Edit

This even should be called BOT

Barry's
Omega
Tournament

By Robert Grey (Tugger) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 02:06 pm: Edit

I like the idea of mixing Omega and Current ships, as that will let us see how they fare against known ships. Even if only, say 1/3 of the ships in the tourney are current, that should get us some bearings.

By Benoit Rheaume (Bneus) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 03:33 pm: Edit

IMO having played vs the Souldra in a fleet battle, the CA is way too powerful, especially if it keeps its fighters.
Im just saying something should be done to it or switch to the CW/CL instead of the CA.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 04:33 pm: Edit

Andy wrote:
>>The Alunda do not "rely" on the PCG. It is a poorly designed system that, in practice, is seldom used in duels. I would keep it on the TC for racial flavor (including its ECM) but not worry about it.>>

You'll notice that I referred to it as a "limited kind of relying on". Yes. The PCG is horrible. But it is there, and a possible impediment to making an Alunda TC is that one of their small number of significant systems is for pretty much nothing but making ECM. Which tends to muck things up when making TCs (see: Vudar).

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 05:34 pm: Edit

Jeremy has a Carnivon TC here and I have a Paravian TC here. Neither has a DEF that I know of.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 06:24 pm: Edit

The PCG does not have the issues that the IPG has - the dynamics are completely different. The IPG has a potentially dramatic effect on the opponent's alpha strike and can quickly tip a game. The dynamics of a PCG make it more like a web snare, except I would trade it for a web snare any day, at least for duels. (In a fleet it is potentially more useful.)

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 07:10 pm: Edit

I've updated the document describing the tournament rules.

Since this is a non-sanctioned tournament, and is experimental by it's very nature. I've decided to let the Vudor have the ECM from it's IPG.

If there is massive objection to this, well i'll back off on that point.

The idea is to find out what works and what doesn't.

If ECM from the IPG is found to be unbalancing, than, i've made a mistake... Oh well... It can be undone in the next tournament.

The point here is that this is a playtest tournament. I'll be taking the data from it to tweak everything and make the next one better.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 08:00 pm: Edit

No objection on Vudar .. the whole point to the IPG is to make you fire through a shift ... folk act like its a uber weapon but its really not and is quite limiting.

To offset all the foreseen complaints though I would compromise with limiting ECM generate to ONE ECM per pulse. Given you have 4 pulses that still gives you 16 impulses of 1 shift or 4 impulses of 2 shift WHILE also still allowing you to use all your pulses to kill drones.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 08:46 pm: Edit

Interesting... I was re-reading my master rulebook. Yeh... I do that from time to time.

G36.32 Jamming mode


"... If not using the EW rules (D6.3), this procedure adds one to all direct-fire die rolls against, or from, the generating ship for each point of power used, to a maximum of three, and to the proximity of detonation for any seeking weapon striking the ship (D6.361)

Since the Vudor can use their IPG in jamming mode WITHOUT using the EW rules... I'm not sure why it's been banned from using jamming mode in tournament play.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 03:36 am: Edit

Barry: I vote you put into play the G36.32 rule (never knew that one either) for your tourney.

By Kerry E Mullan (Nomad17) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 08:14 am: Edit

Well on the vudar Barry what's your guess?

The reason the Vudar IPG is not seen or being allowed ECM is that it goes from a "well the opposition have to devote some resources to counter this shift" to the opposition gets my shift and their is not a dang thing they can do about it...and oh yeah I can have this coverage for up to 16 impulses a turn.

As many have said before this is deemed to strong of an option for the tournament as it gives the vudar too much of an advantage.

The vudar restriction was not due to players having difficulty determining what the shift was it was the tactical application of it that was the issue.

Is it really your statement 2 posts before that the difficulty determining the shift was why it was being banned from tourney play?

By Benoit Rheaume (Bneus) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 10:45 am: Edit

I have no objection using only the drone/shuttle killing way of the IPG, no ion/ecm cloud needed.

Although this has a bigger effect on drone users, On the other hand it is a big power draining item, but since the Feds are getting a G-rack, it just makes the Vudar a good ship vs those races, it still has no defense or special stuff for plasma or other seekers.

P.S. IMO only ecm used in tourney should come from natural sources.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 11:36 am: Edit

The problem with the Vudar is that it is too strong with the shift, too weak without it. Also, the shift induces some serious RPS issues that could make it hard to balance. Still, if the shift were limited to +1, I don't think it would be out of line.

With that said, I would again like to say that with the limited number of players and games that we'll be able to do, if you want meaningful results, the number of different ships needs to be limited. I would go with one ship per player, and mix in one regular TC from each of these groups: Big Plasma, Disruptor/Drone, Direct Fire, and a war cruiser hull. That means limiting the playtest ships to about six.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 02:02 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

The reason the Vudar IPG is not seen or being allowed ECM is that it goes from a "well the opposition have to devote some resources to counter this shift" to the opposition gets my shift and their is not a dang thing they can do about it...and oh yeah I can have this coverage for up to 16 impulses a turn.

---

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 03:20 pm: Edit

Alternately just limit the jamming to 2 impulses per pulse...

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 05:12 pm: Edit

So hey, not that I object to the endless nitpicking of the scientific inaccuracies of Earth II or anything, but rather than getting all het up about every possible issue to get het up about, why don't we just, ya know, go with whatever it is that Barry has for us, ship wise, and see what happens? I mean, like, in the name of actually playing something at some point?

I mean, I certainly have opinions on how the format should work on a completely practical level--a smaller tournament (i.e. 3-4 games) and a smaller number of ships is far more likely to actually result in people completing what they need to complete, but other than that, we got some stuff, so lets just use the stuff.

By Benoit Rheaume (Bneus) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Dude!! Earth II was for real, it was a documentary, and it happened in real time!! :p

Yes plz shorten list of available ships.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 12:35 pm: Edit

I would also like to point out that their is another source of ECM in the wild weasel.

Yes the Vudor can generate ECM with this device, but and it's a big but, there are counter tactics.

First of all, they can only maintain a +1 shift for 16 impulses and even than, it costs them four points of power.

Using standard ECM rules, a +1 shift could be purchased for one point of power for 32 impulses.

That is vastly different. In addition, the Vudar ECM is applied to the Vudar ship itself as well as his opponent. At the higher power levels, the shift can't be maintained even for 16 impulses.

A +3 shift can only last a max of four impulses. So, I don't think it's as bad as people say it is.

There is another reason why the Vudar is so important. Many of the Omega and LMC devices provide protection for a ship in different ways. Some of those devices are stated in EW terms and some of them are not.

I don't think it would be fair to say... well that race gets to use it's device because the rules are written without mentioning EW and that one can't use it because the rules are written without mentioning EW.

I mean, the Romulans get to use their cloak but the Vudar can't use their IPG in jamming mode? The cloak is much more powerful than the IPG. Just doesn't seem fair to me.

As far as reducing ship count. I did reduce it with Rev 4 of the tournament document. Are you saying you want it reduced again?

By Benoit Rheaume (Bneus) on Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 04:45 pm: Edit

WHY dont we just do a tournament using SFB normal rules(all rules) with the tournament barrier??

we are gonna find out if there are truely monster of ships out there..i mean, we all know of a race that we think is broken, and now we will know for sure

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 10:29 am: Edit

Benoit, there are a huge number of rules that are excluded from tourney.

EW is just one of them. I've seen a lot of people playing house rules where EW is not allowed.

The Master rulebook also mentions a set of rules whereby no powered EW is used.

This is what I'm suggesting. Since a lot of the new ships coming down the road really need the EW provided by the systems to function properly.

Some ships work by doing a lot of damage to the enemy and overwhelming them with sheer firepower. Other ships work by doing a little at a time and gradually bleeding the enemy down. In the cage fight, the guy using the later strategy needs some way of preventing the other ships from scoring a huge volley and taking them out of the game.

The Tholians have their web for that purpose. It's all about doing a little unreturned damage. If you think about it, the plasma has a similar idea in that you keep the enemy running so that they can't close and kill you.

Some ships don't do massive damage but are good knife fighters, they survive the initial blast and then keep hitting you before you can repeat it and take them down.

Some of the Omega and LMC races and the Vudar don't have massive damage, or plasma, and are poor knife fighters. They need a method of preventing damage so they survive long enough to win.

Some of them have devices that are described in EW terms to achieve that effect. This is why, I'm saying those devices need to be in the tourney. They may need some balancing, but I think that can be achieved.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 09:33 pm: Edit

So not a lengthy game, but Sackett and I played a game with the Drex vs the Chlorophon. We both fired at mid-long ranges on T1 (10-20), and the Drex did a lot more damage. On T2, more long range fire, and the Drex did more damage. We gave up at the end of T2, as the Chlorophon was too far behind (and the game was difficult to play due to a total lack of ability to add counters for the Chlorophon SC...). In that particular match up, the Chlorophon is really only good at long range (the quantum P1's blow if you aren't firing at range 15+ relative to other phasers), and the Drex is better at long range than the Chlorophon. And really good at getting around the asteroid hexes due to the advantageous moveing and cheap, double free HETs.


The Drex TC seems completely insane, with the -1 to hit all the time, meaning the guns never miss. That seems like it will be a problem. A lot.

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 09:51 pm: Edit

In general anything that messes with the dice is a problem in tourney games.