Olivette is well pleased with this scenario, but points out that she was only in a freighter once so she could produce the documentary trivideo "Frightening Frax Freighters and Hazardous Waste Lost in Space."

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:31 am: Edit

Uhg please dont make me ill. Lost in Space reminds me of the Franchise attempt of Janew... Runs to bathroom with hand clamped firmly over mouth

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Gorn Central Command would like to report that Battle Destroyer Squadron 6 (BDL+ Fafnir; BDD+ Wyrm; BDD+ Naja) successfully defeated the mysterious displacer beast menacing Mining Colony QX-57. No ships were significantly harmed in the encounter, and all cargo was secured and moved on.

(One procedural issue with the scenario--I assume that the monster moves *after* ships move, as opposed to before ships move like monsters usually do. If the monster moves before ships move, it will enter a hex, and then the target will leave before it can shoot. So I assumed ships moved and then the monster displaced on a target).

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 01:05 pm: Edit

I assumed the monster would displace in direct-fire, using the Andomedan displacement rules, then do damage during damage due to movement step next impulse.
You're right that this would often allow the target to move away first, though.
Mike, could this be clarified before I play the scenario out?

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:22 pm: Edit

It is my understanding the ship displaces and damages units after movement but before activity on the 8th, 16th, 24th, and 32nd impulses.

The way I have been playing it the monster displaces not using the dis dev Andromedan way, but is just moved as the last piece to move on its impulses.

It lands on a ship and strikes a random shield for 3D6 damage. Then activity happens, that ship that was attacked is then at range 0 the phasers in arc are determined by the shield hit, and the ship can fire at r0 vs the monster with any bearing phasers.

Range 0 is really the only good shot at the monster as its always a passive shot. I also highly recomend having EW at 0/1 for this battle. No reason to fire with a 1 shift from the dust terrain.

What I did was use the cosmic cloud counter, and set its speed to 4, but I would wait to move it till after all ships had moved, then it picks the closest target.

Im not finished but Destroyer Squadron 22, is over halfway done with turn 1 and has nearly 100 damage and shields absorbed. The Convoy is now safely on its way to the mining colony, and I don't think its imp 32 feeding will be in range of any freighters, it will skip imp 8, and by then the DD squadron will be making its second pass at the displacer.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:37 pm: Edit

Josh wrote:
>>It is my understanding the ship displaces and damages units after movement but before activity on the 8th, 16th, 24th, and 32nd impulses. >>

Yeah, I just had it move as if it were speed 4--ships would move on a given impulse, the monster would teleport onto a target, it would roll a die for facing, and shoot for 3D6 on that impulse.

>>Range 0 is really the only good shot at the monster as its always a passive shot.>>

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Ships have regular sensors in this scenario, terrain and all--the radiation effect limits sensor range to 25 hexes, but not really an issue in this scenario.

>> I also highly recomend having EW at 0/1 for this battle. No reason to fire with a 1 shift from the dust terrain.>>

Oh, sure--the monster has 10 natural ECM and the dust gives it an extra point, so it effectively has an ECM of 11. But 3 points of generated ECCM, and the shift is reduced to 2 (i.e. 8 ECM). And then the BSC has 2 sensor channels...

>>What I did was use the cosmic cloud counter, and set its speed to 4, but I would wait to move it till after all ships had moved, then it picks the closest target.>>

Yeah, that's how I worked it too.

Two other bits I just remembered:

A) Make sure your SFBOL is set to auto-log activity in the game. It'll make the GM's job a lot easier when looking at the files.

B) If you are playing with SFBOL but logged off line, you apparently can't write into the dialogue box. But then, as that doesn't get remembered, it isn't really helpful anyway.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:42 pm: Edit

The Orions have successfully completed the mission. No internal (or shield damage) when the fleet left the map. All cargo moved off map.

For those asking my fleet is:

Double Raider "Fluffy Bunny" - 5xF-torp.
Double Raider "Pink Teddy Bear" - 5xF-torp.
Double Raider "Soft Little Kitten" - 1F-Torp, 2 gatt, 2 Special Sensor.

You are, all of you, doomed.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:57 pm: Edit

Well I went to go play the rest of the game.

The saved game does not work now.

I have had this issue several times it loads a blank map.

But thats just as well because I hadn't noticed that 10 ECM change, that is a big deal.

In the original version it was all fire was as if on passive fire control, the only ECM it had was from the dust.

Thats why I said range 0 was about the only decent shot. I re read the thing looking for changes and completly missed that, so thanks.

I really wish I knew what it was thats making my saved games go blank. I am having to redo alot of work, and Im a bit leery of saving and assuming it will.

In the original version tractors were not able to pull the displacer so I really need to rethink the whole scenario. The change from passive to 10+1 natural ECM is a big change.

With that change id go slower, with 0/6 and hope the BSC can lend a bit more ECCM to get it down to a 1 shift. Still I like firing after its displaced and hit your ship. If it hits the 3 4 or 5 at least on my ISC DD's that takes half the phasers out of arc, but there easy to use later when a different ship gets hit.

So the changes were more than I had at first realized the monster does more damage, and takes more to kill, but the ECM change was huge.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Saved games can appear to go blank if you save them with a different player name than you try to load them with. It's more prone to happening in offline mode.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:22 pm: Edit

I always use the same player name.

I never use offline, the one time I did it loaded as a blank map.

I think im going to start incrementally saving at certain impulses, so if one of the saved games dies I can at least go back to that point.

This issue could be really bad if it happened in an EaW or Destroyer Squadron game, or the PH if it ever started happening to saved tournament games it would be a real bummer.

Ive had game failed to load happen in tournament. And the game had to be restarted but this is loading a blank map, with the turn set back to 1.01. There is no error message for me when it loads the blank map.

By Mike Johnson (Akira) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:27 pm: Edit

Josh- are you logging in using Offline mode or Authenticated mode? If the former you aren't really logging in as yourself, so to speak, so the client won't let you see ships belonging to GFB.

By Mike Johnson (Akira) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Troy- the monster moves during the movement segment after all other units. Its movement does look very much like andromedan displacement but is not the same thing.

By Troy Williams (Jungletoy) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:41 pm: Edit

Hey Mike for those us new to OL could you post a quick How To- I would hate play the scenario in the wrong mode or not have logging enabled or other rookie mistakes. Thanks!

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 04:42 pm: Edit

"In the original version it was all fire was as if on passive fire control, the only ECM it had was from the dust."

Was there a second version that I missed? (I will play it out this weekend)

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 05:43 pm: Edit

No im logged in and was also logged in when I did setup and the gameplay.

I hadn't noticed all the changes, so doing it over anyway.

One thing how do you get it to log moves.

If i finally get one done, send it to you and it works, thats several miracles in a row. And the games not logged anything ive done im going to have to do it all over again. With the increase to 500 damage and switch to 10+1 ECM thats going to be quite a few turns more than the original where fire was just done with passive and the 1 ECM.

For those who have finished, how many turns did it take.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Eol it was the much much weaker version that, spawned this saved game eating monster. There is only 1 Displacer beast scenario its the same one Mike sent us all, ive just played it with rules that had me confused now that certain things were changed.

I said I thought it was way too easy then, so we will see, im sure its very beatable still.

The trick is luring the monster away from the freightors and killing it before you make your exit, thats not changed but now you can tractor it, and its harder to hit with 10 more ECM.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 07:16 pm: Edit

SFBOL won't, as far as I can tell, log your moves. You can set it to log all activity (which will log everything you do, including take damage, except for moves). But I don't think it is capable of remembering your movement.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 07:18 pm: Edit

Josh wrote:
>>For those who have finished, how many turns did it take.>>

Well, in terms of actual play, I spent 5 full turns. But the scenario continued for hypothetical time after the 5 turns were over...

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 07:47 pm: Edit

Josh Wrote:
>>For those who have finished, how many turns did it take.<<

My game took a little over 60 turns.

I am not sure how Peter managed it in 5, since I have a lot more phaser firepower than he does, but it is probably something to do with the fact that I forgot to count the shield damage done by the monster against the 500 points.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 07:57 pm: Edit

I did it in 5 turns by:

A) Overunning the monster every turn with all 3 of my ships (more or less--I couple of times I managed to move dumb and not get one of my 3 ships to R0 on a given turn).

B) Not forgetting to count the shield damage done against the 500 points.

Granted, I stopped actually playing the game out when the monster went away, and I suspect that the game would take a lot longer than 5 turns if I actually spent the time loading cargo, but one the monster was gone, it was all academic at that point.

By John M Ledbetter (Daltwisney) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 08:12 pm: Edit

I haven't actually played it out yet, but mine will take 7 Turns, 6 Impulses.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 09:25 pm: Edit

Yeah. I also wasn't sure what a "BCS" was on the planet, so I chose to just ignore it, since I had a strategy going in that I know to 100% certainty would work and would not result in any damage to my ships. It was just a strategy that involved a lot of turns.

The BCS was probably a base of some sort which meant it probably had special sensors and could have made my shift go away.

By John M Ledbetter (Daltwisney) on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 09:36 pm: Edit

The "BSC" is a Civilian Base Station, and yes, it does have special sensors (2).

By John M Ledbetter (Daltwisney) on Thursday, July 21, 2011 - 05:26 pm: Edit

If anyone is interested, I'd like to have someone 'ride shotgun' when I do the first scenario. I've never actually used SFBOL, and could use a hand making sure I do things properly interface-wise.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Thursday, July 21, 2011 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Peter,
You wrote:

"SFBOL won't, as far as I can tell, log your moves"

You are correct. Though a log is created of the chat. It is saved to the logs directory at the same level as the library directory.