Somebody said there's an issue with TACs?
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: New Rules: (C) Movement & Maneuver: Somebody said there's an issue with TACs?
  Subtopic Posts   Updated
Archive through June 19, 2010  25   06/19 10:12pm
Archive through June 20, 2010  25   06/20 07:50pm
By Clayton Krueger (Krieg) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 04:20 pm: Edit

Oops, that's not the why I intended it. Only throwing out a suggestion for further discussion. I haven't been playing long enough, compared to most of the other players on the bbs, or have the necessary experience with play balance between tourney ships to make any serious prosposal. Thanks for the advice.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 06:29 pm: Edit

As I noted above, I think it should be changed, but it will have effects in the tournament so shouldn't be applied to this year's Hat or RATs until the effects have been properly playtested (and maybe some ships suitably tweaked). Maybe apply it in RAT 36.

My preference for HOW to change it: speed zero, and impulse gets to cheat. Simple.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 06:50 pm: Edit

I don't see it having any impact this year that needs testing. The only thing that will happen is that the stupid sit-and-spin tactic will finally stop. It should have been done ten years ago, and I don't vote for waiting another second.

By Gregg Dieckhaus (Gdieck) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 07:12 pm: Edit

Steve,
Right now I'm in the camp of changing TAC's to take place after movement. But I think you should change this after origins and let some of the other Ace players weigh in on the discussion.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 07:50 pm: Edit

Just to weigh in (everybody has said everything that should be said in my mind):

1: Tac's should be at speed zero, no other change
2: Tac change should only be in tourney
3: Tac's don't kill folk like the Fed, they make HET's

While I agree tac's suck and are cheesy, as Dale rightly points out anybody who plays non-tourney tac's are usually overcome by a determined player whereas not so in tourney where you can't sacrifice a pawn. If a change has to be made I would be ok with:

4: Tac's only after earned (i.e. impulse tac's on 32, warp tacs on the 4 column)

PS: I hear folk talking about a shield reinforcement change but can't seem to find it .. I see the superstack change (bad bad bad) but not the shield change.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 08:10 pm: Edit

Quote:

I don't see it having any impact this year that needs testing. The only thing that will happen is that the stupid sit-and-spin tactic will finally stop. It should have been done ten years ago, and I don't vote for waiting another second.

SVC,

I respectfully disagree. High turn mode ships, such as the Orion, will be advantaged in the tournament by eliminating or reducing TACs. In the extreme case, the WYN AUX will be further disadvantaged against the Orion (already a tough fight). Without the effective ability to HET (without risking 2/3 breakdown), and without the ability to effectively TAC, the WYN will be relatively easily outmanuevered and then defeated by the Orion.

This is just one example.

A change like this will do more than just eliminate the stupid sit and spin tactic - it will change the RPS dynamics of the entire set of tournament cruisers, and possibly disrupt the fine-tuned balance of the tournament order of battle.

Sitting and spinning is addressed by the non-aggression rules, which are clear and effective at eliminating abuse of TACs. I respectfully submit that we don't need to go any further at the risk of disrupting the balance of the tournament.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Here is a possible way to address one (minor) issue of concern:

Several people have expressed worry that this might start SFB on the slippery slope back to the bad (and they were VERY bad) old days when you needed to carry around mountains of addenda and errata; a problem supposedly fixed by the Doomsday Edition MRB.

If the TAC rules are changed, would it be possible for ADB to post a free downloadable .pdf of replacements for those MRB pages that would need to be changed? If that were possible, would it address the concerns of those worried about possible confusion resulting from amendments to the MRB?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 09:48 pm: Edit

Eliminate warp tacs entirely but allow HETs one per turn?

:O

[ducks and runs... fast!]


(We actually had HETs allowed once per turn as a house rule for a long time. It was still rare to use them although one HET was more common because we could still use another. Games with two HETs were rare. We gave up on the rule because we didn't want to get too used to not playing by the book.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 10:55 pm: Edit

This makes no sense. I cannot see any impact beyond eliminating sit-and-spin which we all agree is stupid and evil and a pain in the ass for the hard working judges. It doesn't hurt the WYN because if the WYN stops (the only time it can use warp tacs) it has the same turn mode as anybody else (whatever the tac rules say). I am getting a very unhappy feeling of people trying to bamboozle me, and i do not like it one bit.

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Put me down in the no change camp. Some people just don't like sit-n-spin, but that isn't sufficient evidence on its own that it hurts the game.

Changing TAC movement precedence *will* affect tournament ship balance a whole lot. Ships with cloak will certainly be hurt, since they often have not enough power under cloak to do much but TACs.

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 11:32 pm: Edit

As I have said, sit and spin, non aggression, is ancient history. Living in the 90s if you will. It doesn't happen anymore, plain and simple. Taccing is by and large an honest means of survival nowadays. Most times it is in the flow of the game and if you're not prepared for it, shame on you.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 12:04 am: Edit

which we all agree is stupid and evil and a pain in the ass
Evil, SVC, is relavant. Not an issue here.
Regardless of the others. You made your bed, lets all lay on it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 12:42 am: Edit

How often does one have more than one critical tac in one turn?

Most of the time you could react to enemy movement the following impulse using warp tacs while the enemy ship is several hexes away. Meanwhile you save your impulse tac, which would still give you the initiative when you need it for that critical impulse when the enemy make that final turn before doing something big. You can still act to save yourself.

However, if you adopt an overall starcastle tactic it will be harder to make work, particularly in a superstack.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 10:06 am: Edit

Quote:

It doesn't hurt the WYN because if the WYN stops (the only time it can use warp tacs) it has the same turn mode as anybody else (whatever the tac rules say).

I promise I'm not trying to bamboozle you or anyone else. The problem with the WYN versus the Orion is that if the WYN cannot TAC, then the Orion will (except for the first battle pass) completely control the relative facing of these two ships - to the detriment of the WYN. It doesn't matter that both the WYN and the Orion have the same turn mode at speed zero, what matters is that without the ability to stop and TAC the Orion will completely dominate the maneuver game relative to the WYN because at speed the Orion's turn mode is so much better.

You will see similar problems, but not as extreme, with the other TCs versus the Orion, as well as to a lesser extent higher TM TCs versus lower TM TCs.

I predict that if TACs are eliminated you should see a jump in the performance of the Orion. That will be the proof of the pudding (or proof that I'm wrong), if my arguments are unconvincing.

Sit and spin is, indeed, evil - but at least in the online tournament arena and at Origins 2008 (when I was there and played in Gold Hat) it just wasn't an issue. To the extent that it remains a problem, non-aggression rules handle the issue without having potentially balance-affecting rules changes.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 11:21 am: Edit

But the Wyn TC could still stop and TAC. It seems like it would just not have movement presidence for its warp TACs, which would only have relevance on impulses where the Wyn wants to react directly to the Orions move on the same impulse. For this the Wyn could use an impulse TAC because SVC has said that the "ship with the princess on board needs to be able to react to the Klingon battle pass using sublight maneuvering." [paraphrase]

In most cases that I can predict, the Wyn TC would be able to stop and TAC almost the same way, saving its impulse TAC for the critical moment when it must have movement precidence. Similar to an HET, it only gets this once (per turn). I think this preserve defensive TAC'ing but makes offensive TAC'ing much harder.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 11:28 am: Edit

You've GOT to be kidding me. The WYN STOPS and tacs instead of just turning? That's crazy.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 11:41 am: Edit

Quote:

You've GOT to be kidding me. The WYN STOPS and tacs instead of just turning? That's crazy.



SVC, that's exactly what happens. The reason why is that (after the first battle pass) the Orion has such better maneuver that the *only* way for WYN to bring its forward weapons to bear on the Orion is to stop and tac. While both ships are moving, due to the turn mode disparity and the high risk of the WYN doing a HET, the WYN is going to be nearly incapable of bringing its forward weapons to bear on the Orion. Worse, the Orion will - with a bit of patience - be able to control which WYN shield he is hitting, thereby also doing more internals.

It's already a problem for the WYN, so if TACs are eliminated or made more difficult, then the problem gets worse.

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 11:55 am: Edit

I'm in favor of changing the TAC rules. However, IMO, that change will completely destroy the balance of the tournament ships. Changing it before the Origins tournament could have disastrous results.

Respectfully,
Brian

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Petrick will let you know Wednesday.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 06:16 pm: Edit

After reviewing the situation, I have decided that no change is necessary or desireable.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 06:20 pm: Edit

My apologies for the fuss. This wasn't my idea; somebody mentioned it. and I asked what the issue was. There seemed to be support for a change, and I (too busy to give it much thought) came up with a simple way to make the change. At that point, others contested the need for any change. Petrick has asked me to discuss any future similar situations with him off line before starting a topic on them.

Administrator's Control Panel -- Board Moderators Only
Administer Page | Delete Conversation | Close Conversation | Move Conversation