I have read and I have been amused!

Tack on the FFD1 to the dual F torp packages. IMO that's the best one of the bunch.

By Robert F Estrada (Racerx) on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 03:09 pm: Edit

Hey Marcus


I re-read my above mess


My Orion RPS was mistyped

Still a 0/10 0r 1/9 as High Power ( i.e 2 Hellbores/ Aux)

Still 3/7 or 4/6 as Low power Aux package (11g1)or Plasma F package

Still 2/8 as HBgD

The Orion was conjured, rather than built.
Evil Magic!




Racer out!

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 02:22 pm: Edit

I'd like to get folks thoughts on the TKE. I've been told it is a very difficult ship to fly. I've flown it a couple of times, unsuccessfully. However, this is a ship I'd like to learn well (if possible).

Any thoughts, good or bad would be helpful and appreciated. Thank you.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 03:07 pm: Edit

I hate the TKE because it's tedious (absolutely relies on cloak and extended games) and has a couple of really bad RPS matchups (like the Lyran, LDR, ISC, and the Orion). I don't fly it (unless for training purposes) and don't like flying against it.

To play the TKE successfully you must be patient and careful. Try to command the center of the board for plasma launch, but cloak in the corners. You will only rarely use an anchor, but having 6 batteries helps so that remains a threat.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 03:37 pm: Edit

I hate the TKE because it is tedious as well. It *has* to cloak in most games. Especially against other plasma ships, where the 1 big torp vs 2 big torps becomes a huge issue, so the TKE spends a *lot* of time cloaked, which results in 20+ turn games. It is horrible.

Against non plasma ships, it has some really bad match ups, and often still spends a lot of time cloaked out. Against plasma ship, you just end up cloaked and hiding and dragging things out forever, as most games are:

TKE launches R torp. Other plasma ship launches S torp. Both ships run away. Non TKE needs to run a lot further. Both ships turn around and come back. A turn is spent chasing. TKE gets cornered. TKE cloaks. TKE stays under cloak until it seems like a good time to launch the R torp again. TKE uncloaks, launches R torp, and weasels. Other ship runs for a turn or two. Repeat until it is turn 25 and someone gets really bored and makes a mistake.

Basically, what Ted said.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 06:51 pm: Edit

I'm too impatient to play ships with seekers (so why the heck am I playing the Peladine in farstars?).

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 12:07 am: Edit

The TKE is a great anchor ship.

If you can't get the anchor, it sucks.

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 10:15 am: Edit

Tim will tell you it's a great direct fire ship.

By Ken Lin (Old_School) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 12:58 pm: Edit

"Any thoughts, good or bad would be helpful and appreciated. Thank you."

My thought: pick another ship.

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 01:05 pm: Edit

It looks like it does have some advantages though i.e. 6 pt battery, 40 pt shield, PPT for all the torps.

Although to be totally honest, the cloak rules are going to take a little more experience for me too truly grasp.

By Robert F Estrada (Daredevil) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 02:10 pm: Edit

TKE

I think the PPT's for all three torps should not be de-vauled.

THE TKE is the best cloaking ship in the game

TKE requires a patient captain to fly sucessfully.

1.cloak, setup bolt-n-cloak
2.cloak-n-anchor
3. Make enemy expend resources, then attack


Racer

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 03:43 pm: Edit

David wrote:
>>It looks like it does have some advantages though i.e. 6 pt battery, 40 pt shield, PPT for all the torps. >>

Oh, it isn't remotely horrible. Certainly since it got the upgrade some number of years back (extra random, like, transporters and labs. And maybe a couple extra P3s), it is totally reasonable. I mean, it has a lot of uphill fights, but it is certainly competitive in most situations.

The problem, as noted, is that it *really* relies on the cloak most of the time. Which results in really long games where your opponent gets really irritated at you, as once you stop to cloak the first time, you generally spend the rest of the (very long and grueling) game slow/cloaked/weaseled/cloaked/reverse moving/slow/cloaked. 'Cause once you stop to cloak, you generally need to stay slow/under weasel to avoid the problems that come from trying to speed up. Granted, the TKE is better than the other Romulans as coming out of cloak at a reasonable speed, but still.

By Robert F Estrada (Daredevil) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 04:55 pm: Edit

I have seen a SFBer do this

Tim sheehey would

T1 EPT after a 31/17 plot or something tricky..hehe middle of board ..then launch

Then T2 shadow opponent
with the notion of anchoring for a close T3 battle pass w/ 2 F's and the R fast load...

This can be effective to the unweary

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 05:24 pm: Edit

I don't have a lot of experience with bolting plasma instead of launching torps. With that in mind, what are the disadvantages of bolting the R torp (other than missing of course)? Doesn't it still do the same amount of damage a regular torp would do at that specific range?

By Fred J. Kreller (Kreller1) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 05:26 pm: Edit

Bolts do half the warhead damage for stated ranges.

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Thank you.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 06:19 pm: Edit

Half damage and a significant chance of missing, even at close ranges, is big. But the biggest disadvantage is that you no longer have the threat potential of a loaded tube, or the threat potential of a big nasty torp on the board. Plasma ships are all about maneuver, and the position advantages you gain from having your opponent spending a lot of resources maneuvering around plasma, or the threat thereof. When you bolt, even if you hit, there is only one impulse when it is doing things to your opponent. When you launch, or threaten to launch, there are many impulses when your opponent is dealing with the plasma.

With that said, bolting can be effective to cross up people who have committed too strongly to countering seeking plasma or in situations where seeking plasma would not be effective (e.g. opponent has web, DisDev, weasels, cloak, etc.).

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Friday, May 28, 2010 - 04:53 pm: Edit

Thank you Andy. I went home and reviewed the plasma rules. A lot that I still haven't really used before so I look forward to giving it a go whether it be with the TKE or another plasma ship.

I'm also reviewing the cloaking rules as I've never used them personally. I 'think' I understand them but I know it's going to take a little trial and error with them, particularly the retaining lock on roles. As far as EW is concerned, tourny ships don't use those rules (with the exception of when a WW is deployed)?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, May 28, 2010 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Plasma also gets its ECCM in the tournament, but really, that only has an impact on keeping cloak lock-on.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 02:22 pm: Edit

So after again getting totally tooled by the Orion in the Gorn (look in the SFBOL world league thread if interested--the short version is the Orion cloaked on T1, forcing me to lose my enveloper, and then when we exchanged fire at R1 while tractored on T2, I just didn't do enough damage), I again wonder, what the heck is the Gorn to do against the Orion?

It isn't an unwinnable fight by any means, but I'm inclined to give it, like, a 7-3 for the Orion in RPS odds. You can win with tenacity and envelopers and getting lucky. You can win by the Orion getting sloppy and letting you tractor him on T1 with a big beam, but not that often, and it is really easy for the Orion to avoid this (just, ya know, stay out of R3, which is child's play for the Orion).

The killer in the last game was the Orion cloaking on T1. Which is something I have been concerned about for years, and resulted in me trying all sorts of wacky rolling delay on T1 shenanagins, which generally resulted in me being in a bad spot on T2 if the Orion doesn't cloak (i.e. most of the time). But if the Orion does cloak on T1, an armed enveloper is shot out the window for nothing (well, maybe a bolt shot that hits on a 1, or if you are really lucky, you can lanuch it, maintain lock on, and hit with the enveloper for, like, 1-2 damage per shield, maybe). I have always operated under the impression that a 2xHB armed Orion can't cloak on T1, but apparently, if it doubles the impulse, it can hold the HBs, cloak, and move 15 hexes. And probably have a couple shuttles armed with batteries if it wants. Which is brutal if you arm a T1 enveloper. But if you don't arm a T1 enveloper and the Orion plays aggressive on T1, you are fighting even further uphill than usual.

Ideas?

By Clayton Krueger (Krieg) on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 03:51 pm: Edit

Peter, I saw your game with Scott and I think you would have won if A) you had loaded 1 or 2 SSs or B) if you had released your tractor on the impulse the torps hit. Maybe option B wouldn't have meant victory for you, but at least the game still would have been in play. And if Scott didn't roll out of his mind, your chances would have been that much better. I think you were actually much closer to victory than you might think.

That being said, turn 1 Orion cloak is a tough situation for the Gorn loading an EPT. I haven't faced the situation personally myself, but I think I would put max energy into movement and try to end turn 1 within 5 hexes of the cloaked Orion. Leaving the afc off on turn 1, would leave you 24 pts for movement (3 HK, 10 for torps, 1 for ss) with another 5 from batteries for a total of 29 hexes you could travel across the board. To keep you from getting close to him, he would have to retreat into one of the corners. Range 5 would be ideal because of launching under passive FC, so you wouldn't have to wait first 4 impulses on turn 2 to launch when he uncloaks. Maybe you don't want to launch anyway and move in for the anchor, but your options would be wide open.

If he does uncloak beginning of turn 2, he'll have to HET and run at 31 to get away from the 2nd turn ept, or face an anchor attempt. If he runs, you get a nice unreturned phaser shot. And if he doesn't run, I would plan for a tractor attempt just like you did against Scott. 70 pts of plasma can work against ships with a soft interior, but a ss or two hitting home would make it certain.

If the anchor didn't work on turn 2, then turn 3 becomes a problem. What do you do when he HETs back into you. I would probably try to put as much distance between the two of us so that a double F torp launch could occupy the last 10 impulses of the turn, getting me to turn 4 and another ept launch.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 04:25 pm: Edit

Clayton wrote:
>>Peter, I saw your game with Scott and I think you would have won if A) you had loaded 1 or 2 SSs or B) if you had released your tractor on the impulse the torps hit. Maybe option B wouldn't have meant victory for you, but at least the game still would have been in play. And if Scott didn't roll out of his mind, your chances would have been that much better. I think you were actually much closer to victory than you might think. >>

Yeah, if I had a SS or 2 armed (I had one armed originally, but they so rarely actually help in those games, so I changed my mind at the last minute :-), I'm doing fine. If I drop the tractor (which I just plain forgot to do--I hit the fire button and said "Doh. Forgot to drop the tractor..."), I still probably get mauled by the rear P3s, as he is going 31 at that point anyway. If we swapped phaser dice, however, I think I'm doing great there :-)

>>That being said, turn 1 Orion cloak is a tough situation for the Gorn loading an EPT. I haven't faced the situation personally myself, but I think I would put max energy into movement and try to end turn 1 within 5 hexes of the cloaked Orion. Leaving the afc off on turn 1, would leave you 24 pts for movement (3 HK, 10 for torps, 1 for ss) with another 5 from batteries for a total of 29 hexes you could travel across the board.>>

Well, you don't know that he is going to cloak when you do EA, which is the whole problem. I had a totally standard "T1 vs Orion (but not trying for the sucker T1 anchor)" plot, which works fine if they don't cloak. If they do, you end up where I ended up--bolting an enveloper needing a 1 to hit. I probably could have dumped the batteries into movement on impulse 2 or so to gain 5 hexes, but then I'm still unlikely to keep lock on, unlikely to regain lock on with an enveloper even from close range on passive (does that even work?), and down 5 power on Turn 2, where it will really matter.

>>To keep you from getting close to him, he would have to retreat into one of the corners. Range 5 would be ideal because of launching under passive FC, so you wouldn't have to wait first 4 impulses on turn 2 to launch when he uncloaks. Maybe you don't want to launch anyway and move in for the anchor, but your options would be wide open.>>

Yeah, I think launching without the anchor is just going to get you killed a lot at that point--he just HETs and runs away, burns a couple engines, and comes back the next turn when you are down torps.

>>If he does uncloak beginning of turn 2, he'll have to HET and run at 31 to get away from the 2nd turn ept, or face an anchor attempt. If he runs, you get a nice unreturned phaser shot. And if he doesn't run, I would plan for a tractor attempt just like you did against Scott. 70 pts of plasma can work against ships with a soft interior, but a ss or two hitting home would make it certain.>>

Yeah, a SS would have made a *huge* difference there. But again, a gamble--most of the time, a SS vs the Orion just means you spend a long time in a long game with a 1 point power leech that you eventually launch to get shot down or kill a drone. In that instance, I could have had both armed and would have just blown him up. But that isn't usually the case :-)

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 04:26 pm: Edit

When flying the Orion I actually consider the Gorn to be the most difficult plasma ship to face. Funnily enough, I actually beat an Orion in a Gorn in RAT play a few months ago and I never fly the Gorn at all. OK, so my opponent (was it Carl?) did not cloak in turn 1. I understand the risk of arming an EPT vs. a guy that may cloak. a 2 HB package can certainly pull it off on turn 1, but he's burning an engine box for absolutely NO damage in return and little ground gained on the map. I mean, 15 hexes can't get anybody to the opponent's side of the map on a given turn. Also, look at the power with the impulse doubled. He'll have 30 plus batts. So:

3 to HC
6 to Hellbores
12 to cloak
10 to move
31 total power

So he's burning an engine box and emptying a battery to do this if he nas no special shuttles at all. That means that he'll be ever so slightly behind when he does pop out of cloak as he'll need to at least partially refill batts. Holding special shuttles will exasperate the issue for him.

If I where a Gorn (or TKR) with an armed EPT on turn 1 facing an Orion and the Orion cloaks on turn 1, I'd advise you run right at him. I'm assuming that you have 18-22 in movement, right? If you run right at him, 1 of 2 things will happen.

1 - He'll keep his distance and slip (or even turn) away from you so that he'll have some separation when he comes out of cloak. If he does this, you'll have plenty of map to run to on the next turn when he comes out. If you finish around range 5 or less, things can get really sticky for him when he comes out as you may have an opportunity to feed him 50 that he can do little about except for running to a wall. Which is good since you'll really have lots of room to run on turn 3.

2 - He'll under-run you towards the end of the turn. This will require a HET from him to get at you before the end of turn 2 if this happens unless you do something dumb. Remember, he can't move 15 hexes AND HET under cloak on turn 1 and you can have movement preference over him as long as you're going faster than 16 at the end of turn 1. If he is going to come at you Hell-bent on turn 2, he'd have to HET into you relatively early in the turn. You can then feed him 50 that he must either reinforce against or shoot a bunch of phasers at to avoid internals. Again, if he comes out of cloak at less than range 5, and he's even just circling to get to you, 50 points of plasma are either going to cause him some pain or force him to delay getting to you.

And Peter, you have beaten me (as the Orion) in this match up. It can't be all that bad, can it?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Marcus wrote:
>>And Peter, you have beaten me (as the Orion) in this match up. It can't be all that bad, can it?>>

Heh--I think most of those came from me being lucky and you probably being more aggressive than you needed to be :-)

What happened in this instance, the Orion went, like, 12 till impulse 6 and then 16 till the end of the turn (so you cloak out at 12 for the lock on failure benfits, but can accelerate to 31 on impulse 6 of T2 if you want). I ran right at him (maybe, like, 20 hexes plotted), he slips out some, we end at about R8. I lose an enveloper. On T2, I can launch 50 at him and run off (which is tricky, as I have the empty S tube facing him on impulse 32, which is avoidable if I just write off the enveloper all together) which will result in me losing a shield to some HBs and P1s at some point and him just HETing and running away, or go in for the anchor down 30 points of plasma, which works out less optimally than one might think.

I mean, again, I don't think the game is impossible or anything, but after years of being concerned about a T1 cloak from an Orion, and finally seeing it hit and kill me, I'm just further convinced that this match up is just horrible.

By Robert F Estrada (Daredevil) on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Why not hold stand S's( or Rolling delay them)


Speed 26
2 Trac
2 SS's


Here I come!

If he cloaks...you may get a juicy R0 phasers shot, if he turns away, you have control of the center.

T2 you can EPT, put out a 60 pt stack, or run away safely if he doubles everything.

Gorn is a fast ship, and has a wonderful hull for protection.

w/ Suicides as backup your good to go!

RacerX