Got a chance to play a game F2F with the Uthiki Harmony TC, a friend had a copy of it. Probably outdated, but still fun.

The ship ended up absolutely shredding the Kzinti, though this was at least in part due to incredible rolling on the DAC (got a Lancet Overload through and rolled a 12 for great justice). I ended up knocking him out of control, the first time I'd ever seen it happen in a tourney setting.

T1 he intended to take the center and duel for a bit, but discovered promptly that drone waves don't do much when I have the equivalent of two FX Ph-G and when his disruptors do one point a shot after VRF.

T2 I plotted speed 21, plus some repairs and underloaded Drills (cycled some warp in case I decided to reserve-arm them). That saved my tail, as I managed to dodge R 0-1 on his rush by dint of being 4 faster than him and having the BANK systems to work with. Still lost my #6 (along with my inner shield, some hull, and a BANK), but due to the TAG combining with two of my TLs and a ML, so did he. Turned around towards EOT and launched one underload on Impulse 30. Finding no reinforcement and being at range 11, I fired the other two fully armed the next impulse (since he didn't have 6 batteries to be able to stop them from doing internals), whiffing with one but the other striking a control space and a disruptor.

T3 Was me doing the three Rs of a power-starved ship: Run, Repair, and Reload. Again I managed to barely get him into FA arc to launch the underloads. These all hit his #1, which proved critical in the coming turn.

T4 is when it effectively ended. I had my #1 facing, he was fighting to keep his #6 showing. We both had settled on this turn for an attack run. Three of my TLs had to shoot down drones during this turn, but the Zin twitched the wrong way at the wrong time and the last one plus my drills and ML fired into his #1. This would have hurt on its own, but the blank shield let me put both Lancets into him and the OL rolled a 12, stripping him of his last two control spaces and sealing it. He had intended to fire one impulse later and probably would have done me in from power damage.

In retrospect, the Uthiki harmony TC is not on quite as narrow a power budget as we'd thought going in. it also has two separate ways of messing with enemy maneuvers: the TAG system plus the Boson Drills. TAG makes it highly dangerous to come close if you have Lasers left (and with the BANKs, you will most definitely have power for them), but the Drills combined with VRF make midrange dueling a losing proposition as well.

The best way to beat it is from range 7-8 with focused volleys, or by clearing out the Lasers before the charge and praying to get outside of attack range by the time the turn break comes around. The latter tactic is not available to many of the TCs. The ship is also remarkably resistant to being knocked out in one round unless the player is astoundingly stupid or unlucky, requiring 41 points of damage to one facing before he starts taking internals (35 if from the rear arc).

I love the empire and ship, but I think it needs some tweaking downwards.

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 12:01 pm: Edit

Any thoughts on the authorization of the ISC T-CM? I used it last night in a JFF game against Racer X's Hydran. This is the first time I've used this TC (although I've used a similar class ship in FTF games). First impression is that I like the ship very much. It has less power than the standard ISC TC (six less I believe) but the MC of 2/3 greatly helps out in this department. Armament is almost identical i.e. 1xPPD, 2xPl-G, 6xPh-1 and 4xPh-3. The main difference is 4xPl-F as opposed to 2xPl-F. I don't see this as a major unbalance though since it has the one per turn restriction. It does offer a little padding for the PPD and larger torps, but then it's necessary in a smaller class vessel.

Thoughts?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 12:12 pm: Edit

I'm pretty sure the ISC TCM doesn't get to use the special "drone hit on F torp" rule to pad the PPD.

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 09:12 am: Edit

I'd forgotten about that. Still, all-in-all it is a nice ship to fly. I've enjoyed it in the FTF as well as in the JFF with Racer.

Does additinal play testing and battle reports need to be submitted on this ship? I'd be happy to use it/report on it against various opponents.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, December 11, 2010 - 04:21 pm: Edit

Just tried a quick playtest game of the Alunda TC vs Barry in the Kolighar TC.

T1: I move 16/31 split, put 8 power into the bio-bolts (which start at 12, so I have a total of 20) and hold my RS ARF. Barry OLs 3 of his torps and moves a 17/24 split more or less. We just close up the middle of the map. We both speed up. At about R7, I turn to cross his bow (me facing F, him facing D), launch 4x whipcrack torps (5 damage plasmas that just go for 16 hexes). We get to R4, my #2 to his #1 centerline. I blast him with 6 of my Bio Bolts at the 4 point arming level (hit on 8's for 11 damage each), using all the power in my capacitor and 4 points out of my batteries (the Alunda has weird batteries--only 3 of them, each holds 5 power, can only use one of them per turn, they recharge at 1 point per turn for free if you don't use them) and fire the ARF at him. The ARF hits, set to repulse. 5 of the 6 BB's hit for 55 damage. Barry stops 5 and takes 20 in, losing a couple P3s and a few power. Next impulse, I push him away a hex with the ARF, I get another Bio Bolt in arc and do 3 more internals (hitting an AC and a couple P1s), but he shoots back with a Anti-Matter cannon, an ACG, and shoots my little plasma torps with some P1s. He hits me for 6 to may facing shield and 8 damage spread around from the ACG, vaporizes two of my little torps (the Kolighar has micro-phasers that do full damage to plasma torps). We both turn (both facing E), I push him out to 6 hexes (at which point the ARF turns off) and I run for the rest of the turn. He kills my other two little torps with 2 more P1s, and we end the turn at R7.

T2: The 6x BBs I fired have to cool this turn, so I move 31/20/14, put 10 power into my bio bolts. Barry moves 31/17, holds his torps, and rearms his phasers. I turn and run, he has to turn and chase if he is to do any damage to me, so he ends up turning his down #1 to me at R7 or so. I fire 6x 1 power bio bolts into his ship over a couple impulses, and do about 12 more internals, killing a second AC and another P1 or so. He slows down, I slow down, I turn to get close to him, get to R3 off his down #1. I fire my 4x plasma whips into his down shield for 4 damage, which doubles to 8 'cause no shields. He takes his shot at R3 with 5x micro P1s and 2x OL AC. He takes the 8 in, he hits me with both ACs and I take about 16 internals, losing 2 bio bolts (only hit on torp/drone) and 1 of my plasma whips (hit on aux con) and a surprising amount of warp (I have a big center warp engine, but it is hit on any warp, not just c warp). We end up at R1, my #5 to his #6, so I tractor him with batteries I never used. We end the turn at R1.

T3: I move 0, plot some TACs, put 24 power into my bio bolts (+2 left over from the previous turn for 26). He goes 0, overloads his 2xACs as caseless torps (which means he can fire them sooner, but they don't do damage to shields in a weird way) and arms his phasers. Impulse 1 we both shoot--him all of his phasers, holding the torps for a possible down shield shot, me with 6x 4 power BBs. I luck out and hit with all 6 of them, doing 72 damage, and pretty much destroying his ship. He does another dozen internals, leaving me still in reasonable shape.

So the Alunda is fast and can do a lot of direct fire damage with the accurate and flexible bio bolts. the whip crack torps are cool, but most of the time, saving the plasma whips to shoot stuff is probably the better plan (plasma whips, of which the alunda has 4, are kind of like P3s that fire for free, only once each 32 impulses, do double damage to shieldless targets or as internals, and can fire as a 5 point plasma torp instead if you'd like). It has 2 Attraction/Repulsion Fields which, likely, are useful to hold one of and use it once and ignore the other one. And the Plasma Cloud Generator which is also just best ignored in most situations. It seems reasonably effective--the big problem I see with it in the long run is that with only 8 F Hull, it will lose its 3 batteries quickly, and that it has those kooky 5 point, recharging batteries is important (I used 5 reserve on T1, didn't have to recharge batteries and still had 5 to use on T2, and then potentially 5 more on T3 for free of the batteries are still there). And the Alunda can't use reserve warp, which is a problem (i.e. no reserve speed changes or HETs).

In this game, if Barry had fired an alpha strike on T1 when he had me at R4 centerlined, I would have taken about the same amount of damage as he did. I would have scored an extra 20 on him on some other shield with the whipcrack torps, but me getting shot at that point would have been very significant in the long run (the Kolighar, for those unfamiliar, is kind of like a 40 power Fed with 4 torps that are like slightly weaker photons with weird options to them, 8x micro P1s that do fixed damage but roll to hit, 2x micro P3s that are the P3 version, and 2x Anti Matter Cloud Generators that do up to 8 damage to everything in a single hex--ships just take the damage on any shields they want. Very good against drones).

I think the Alunda is reasonably playable (12x Bio Bolts, 4x PWs, 2xARF, 1xPCG, 38 power). I imagine that a Tholian could be a lot of trouble (due to the lack of reserve HET potential and no unplotted speed changes).

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, December 11, 2010 - 05:16 pm: Edit

ARF best uses:

1) To push away those sudden death overruns (like a Hydran or those guys with Plasmatrons).

2) To mess with the other guys "perfect oblique."

I forget the others... Comments?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, December 11, 2010 - 06:31 pm: Edit

I can see how the ARF is reasonably useful in general (as opposed to the PCG, which is not remotely useful in general--in a few corner cases, it'll be worth 1 or 3 power, but most of the time, it's gonna be a free hit) to keep someone far away. Or occasionally keep someone from running away. But putting 2 power into 2 of them to hold the from the start of the game is unlikely to pay off that often.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, December 12, 2010 - 10:01 am: Edit

Upon reflection, my spending 24 power on 6xOL bio bolts was probably not the most optimal firing solution at that point. With the bio bolts, the issue seems to not be how many guns you have to fire at any given moment, but how much power you have to fire out of them (i.e. you generally have more guns you want to use than power to use in them). In the FA, the Alunda TC can fire *10* bio bolts (which drops to 6 out of FA in the blind spots where FH/RH don't overlap; 8 o the FH/RH spine; 4 in the blind spots behind RR/LR and not directly backwards; 6 directly backwards).

Given 20 power on the first turn (you start with 12--adding 8 power is in no way out of the realm of reason) and up to 5 battery power, in the FA assuming R4, you can pull off (instead of 6x 4 point overloads for 66 max damage), like 4x 4 point "overloads" (44 maximum damage) and then 6x 1 point shots (maximum 24 damage) for a max of 68 damage (realistically, somewhere from 53-57 damage) at R4 for 22 power (20 from capacitors and 2 batteries). Leaving 3 batteries left for a couple other BBs that you can turn into arc later in the turn. And less cooling to worry about. Throwing those other 3 points of battery power into a 5th overload is doable if you don't need to worry about getting tractored (upping maximum damage from 68 to 75 but risking an extra miss), but firing the 1 pointers as 2 pointers is unlikely to be worth it, as paying double the power only gets 1 extra point of damage (and less chance of hitting--at R4, 4 pointers hit on 8s, 2 pointers hit on 9s, 1 pointers hit on 10s).

Just analyzing out loud.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, December 12, 2010 - 10:21 pm: Edit

If you look at the Bio Bolt table, the general rule is that the lower the power level of the bolt, the higher the damage/power ratio is. There are a couple of exceptions to that.

At range 5-7 the 0.5 power level is highly in-efficient.

At range 8-12 the power level 2 becomes more efficient than the power level 1. In fact at 8-12 power level 2 bio bolts are similar to standard disruptors. In fact the 8-12 range is the only range at which I would consider using the power level 2.

And the 4 power level is almost the same efficiency as the 2 power level.

The down side of firing more bio bolts at lower power levels is that you can't fire those bio bolts again until they cycle.

Your right Peter that power is a critical issue for bio bolts.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, December 24, 2010 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Is there an in-development FRA tournament cruiser out there already?

If not, would the CLA or BC make for a better basis for development?

(Indeed, if you went for the BC, would it be preferable to go with the tachyon missile refit, or to leave it with its SRC?)


Speaking of tachyon missiles, would the assumption for any TM-armed ship to have a set of the standard missiles, or would there be any kind of specialised tournament set they would carry into combat?

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, December 26, 2010 - 02:39 pm: Edit

Just finished up with the Hiver TC yesterday and e-mailed it to Paul..

I was planning on working on the Worb next, but I could switch to the FRA... or maybe the Iridani.

As for the FRA, I think the CAL is too light for a tourney cruiser and the BC would be a better fit.

My preference is to use the short range cannons rather than the tachyon missiles.

Let me know.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 27, 2010 - 04:23 pm: Edit

Actually, when it comes to the Worb, which class of ship would you base it on?

You could have a "Broad Worb" ship based on the CE; which is technically the only MC1 ship in the current Worb fleet. Alternatively, a "High Worb" ship would probably look like the MC 1.25 CA; though that class is awfully big...


Indeed, the Iridani have a couple of options, too. The Clipper would result in a tactically faster ship than the Galleon, and I'm guessing the one less module it can take might not be as much of an issue, if tourney Iridani are to be given a pre-set selection anyway.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Saturday, January 01, 2011 - 07:01 pm: Edit

Gary... The Worb are going to need a kit bashed ship.

I've been looking at it as follows...

All of the Worb have subspace missiles as their heavy guns. In addition some of the really large Worb ships have two Anti-Proton Beams and the Anti-Proton Lance.

At first I was looking at squeezing in the two Anti-Proton beams and a lance on a tourney cruiser, but than you either gut all of the subspace missiles are have a ship that is too powerful.

Therefore, I'm thinking of a smaller Worb ship with all subspace missiles and none of the anti-proton beams and lances. I can use those weapons on the Ymitrian.

I'm probably going to go with the Broad Worb Heavy Destroyer at MC 1 and then uprate the turrets.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Sunday, January 02, 2011 - 12:13 am: Edit

Translation: Needs more beer.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, January 02, 2011 - 11:39 am: Edit

Ken... you have little faith in me...

I can ramble without any Beer...

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 08:33 am: Edit

It helps to post when I've got the Worb SSD actually in front of me and my wife is in another building.

Gary, how about this for a Worb tourney cruiser.

Start with the Worb CA... I'm going to create a Light Cruiser.

Keep the move cost of 1.25
Keep the Turn Mode E
Keep the Breakdown rating of 4-6
Give it tourney standard shields 30/30/24/24/24/30
Provide it with 38 warp, so max speed is 31
Keep the impulse the same.
Remove two APR.
Total Power will be 45 + 4 batteries.
Left the batteries at 4 since this ship does not need to HET on batteries.
I'd have to give it 7 batteries to enable it to HET on them.
Reduce Tractor to tourney standard 2
Remove 2 Forward Hull
Remove 2 Aft Hull
Remove the AP-1 LS and the AP-1 RS from the forward section.
Remove the Lance and the two Ant-Proton Beams
Reduce shuttle to tourney standard 4.
Remove one 6 box from Sensor
Remove one 0 box from Scanner
Remove one 4 box from damage control
Reduce Excess Damage from 7 to 6.

Ship now has 113 internals which is a bit more than most TCs.

For weapons it's got 6 AP-1, 6 AP-3, 2 SEF, and 3 SSR.

It has 45+4 power which is much higher than most TC but it has a Move cost of 1.25 which is huge.

One slight mitigating factor on the 45 power is the energy cost of pivoting the turrets. The Worb can spend up to two energy pivoting it's turrets.

Does that sound about right?

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 04:22 pm: Edit

I would not recommend using the CA as the basis for the Worb TC. Too many factors in your design will create large RPS issues. Some problems:

- Lack of HET off batteries. But if you give it enough batteries to HET, it will have a huge advantage in reserve power.
- Too many internals
- Against DF opponents, it can slow down and have a big power advantage
- Against Big Plasma and war cruisers, it will suffer due to lack of speed.

I also would strongly recommend against two SEFs. For 1 point of power, this weapon can destroy a drone wave of any size.

I think a much better starting point for a TC would be the DH. Increase the warp to 24, give it two more batteries, increase the shields to tourney standard, increase the two FH AP-3s to AP-1s, and you should be in the ballpark.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 10:57 pm: Edit

I also think the CA is too big a ship to go with.

You know, I kind of think the CE might make for a half-decent template. While the Broad Worb were reluctant to part with their phaser doctrine, in principle there would be nothing to stop another Worb sub-caste from building a ship on the same hull type. (Well, the High Worb might not deign to, given how much trouble they gave the Yellow Worb over the DM; but they aren't the be-all and end-all of the Technocracy, much as they claim to be.)

Plus, it is a MC 1 hull...


Maybe start by replacing the CE's turret (4 AP-1s, 2 AP-3s and a probe launcher) with the FA turret from either the DH (3xSSR, 4xAP-1, probe) or CA (2xSSR, 2xAPB, LNC, 2xAP-1)?

Either way, the base hull has six AP-1s, four AP-3s and four SEFs; but, as the ISC tourney cruiser shows, such things can be trimmed down if needs be.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 02:55 am: Edit

If you really want a MC 1 ship, the CE would be a place to start, but it would need a lot of modification. Let's see...

- Give it TC shielding
- Give it 30 warp
- Replace two tractors with two battery
- Replace the turret with the forward turret from the CA
- Replace two SEF with one probe, reduce remaining two SEF to one SEF
- Reduce 2xLS and 2xRS AP-1s to 1xLS and 1xRS

This version would be a little weak in the phaser department (except at very close ranges) but has a strong heavy weapon suite. I could see upping the phasers to 8p1+2p3 in exchange for getting rid of the LNC.

I like the idea of using the CA turret with the APBs. With 3xSSR, the ship is too weak. With 4xSSR, the ship is too scary, and fighting it becomes too much a matter of running around and staying out of range 4. The mixed SSR/APB armament gives it a little more flexibility while making it tougher to land an overly-massive alpha strike.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 11:42 pm: Edit

Gary,

Somehow in all that, I missed a key point. You said CE and I kept looking at the heavy DD. Once, I looked at the Escort Cruiser it started to fit.

Andy,

I'll also need to drop the shuttles to two. Yes, I agree to put the CA turret on the thing. I'm also going to add in two more APR to bump the power up to 40 because SSR, APB, and the Lance are all power hungry.

I was working on a DH version of it, where I was only upgrading it to 22 warp... But now that I see the CE, that makes more sense.

I'll call the modified CE a CL or actually a TCL.

As for the one SEF versus two SEF issue. The counter to wiping out the whole drone wave is to space out the drones. SEF only stay up for a max of 8 impulses and have a 64 impulse cooling period.

Yes, the SEF can wipe out a whole drone wave, but so can an ACG and the Koligahr has both of those.

One SEF is incredibly expensive to repair and can be gone in the first volley. They are like ESGs in that they are highly vulnerable to damage.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 02:11 am: Edit

I'd suggest calling it a TCM, if only to note how it's bigger than your average CL, but still smaller than that massive Worb CA...

(Maybe even assign it a particular sub-caste? There are a few in the R-section that haven't been given a distinct unit type yet.)

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 12:39 pm: Edit

When faced with the SEF, yes, you want to space out your drone wave. But that can be difficult to do with a scatterpack.

The ACG can do bad things to a drone wave - IF the drones are all clumped in one hex, and IF it hits. At launch time, the drones should be too far away for effective ACG use. It's pretty easy to arrange for the SP drones to be in two hexes when they hit range 1 - still an easy target for the SEF, but the ACG only gets half of them. And the ACG takes 1 point of power for each point of damage, and tops out at 4 damage, which will not kill a heavy drone.

The SEF can do 4 points of damage for 1/2 point of power. With careful timing and maneuver, one point of power is enough to let you sweep through 4-5 hexes of drones, destroying them all. If you are facing a more widely spaced drone wave, 8 impulses should be more than enough time to wipe it out - if it is too widely spaced, you will not have to deal with it all in one turn, anyway.

The cooling period is significant, but there is only one scatterpack, and even the Kzinti takes at least two turns to rebuild a big drone wave. So I stand by my assertion that two SEFs will unbalance the ship against heavy droners.

---

Quote:

I'll also need to drop the shuttles to two.

---

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, January 06, 2011 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Gary,

TCM it is..

Andy,

Oops, meant to say I'll drop two shuttles leaving four remaining.

Based on the CE, I'm currently considering the following build.

2 SSR
2 APB ( can be hit on drone or torp to pad the SEF )
8 AP-1
2 AP-3
1 SEF

15 total weapons. A little below average...

40 Power
5 Battery....

Move Cost 1
Breakdown 4-6
Turn Mode E

As for total number of internals, I'm going to shoot for the high end of tournament ships. Maybe not as many as the Hydran...

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, January 06, 2011 - 08:19 pm: Edit

Make it 7 AP-1 and 4 AP-3

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Friday, January 07, 2011 - 01:37 am: Edit

It needs a free HET. Breakdown 4-6 is a major penalty, and I don't see anything that compensates for it. Turn mode E is OK because it is racially accurate and compensated for somewhat with the turret.

Having the APB hit on drone or torp is also a big disadvantage. And it doesn't pad the SEF, which is hit on Flag Bridge.

Other than that, it looks reasonable. While the weaponry in some ways is a little light for a direct fire ship, the ferocity of the phasers and SSRs at close range give it the ability to influence board position.

Note that the Hydran has pretty average internals for TCs. The biggest TCs are the Selt and Kzinti.