Andy wrote:
>>Perhaps, although keep in mind the fighter torps are standards, and the ship has split arcs. Focusing all your firepower in a single strike wil be difficult.>>

Oh, sure--but getting, like, 7xST off at R12 or so will be very easy. As will getting an alpha of 3xOL ST and 4 more standards from a bit further back. Which can do a lot of damage.

>> But it could certainly be toned down if need be. What I don't see are the kind of issues with it that make ships hard to balance.>>

I guess I'm not being clear. The issue is that if the ship is going to be small enough to be arguably a traditional Hiver vessel, it is going to be small enough to get whacked by a standard TC in a single shot. On the other hand, if it is just, like, a standard SC3 CA with a couple Barbs stuck on, it will be neither particularly Hiver flavored or particularly interesting. So you could just give them a Hiver BC with TC shields and a couple Barbs, but I'm unconvinced that would be particularly interesting. Giving them a slightly smaller ship than regular TCs with more fighters is more interesting, for my money, but possibly difficult to make work.

>> As you say, the technology is straightforward, and I don't see big RPS issues. It looks slightly above average against drones, OK against plasma, maybe would struggle against strong DF ships, but overall, not harder to balance than the others.>>

It is more of a conceptual difficulty than anything else--its technology is all very straight forward (it has slightly different disruptors and phasers). But for it to work as a Hiver with a small ship and multiple fighters, there is a lot of opportunity for the ship itself either being too weak or too strong. It isn't just a matter of taking a standard CA and adding a couple guns and energy, and adding or removing a fighter is a big chunk of firepower in one fell swoop.

All things being equal, I suspect that making a viable Hiver TC will be easier than a lot of the other, more wazoo empires. But to make it work as a smaller ship with multiple fighters is likely tricky.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, April 24, 2011 - 08:39 pm: Edit

The current Hiver is based on a BC with three Hiver II fighters.

I've actually never played it since it was posted, although I did play test it's predecessor a couple of times. That was based on a CA with four or five Hiver II fighters.

The Hiver II fighter is different than the Hydran Stinger II. It can be faster and tougher, if it uses it's power for increased speed. It's weapons tend to be longer range, although they don't do anywhere near the damage.

Because of this, the Hiver IIs tend to be much more survivable than the Stinger II. It takes a lot more firepower to kill the fighters, than it does to kill the Hydran fighters. On the other hand, it is easier to ignore them... at least for a little while.

A pair of Stinger IIs, if completely ignored can do moderate damage to any ship in a single turn, if they get to range one uncrippled. This means that if the Hydran comes in with it's fighters, you have to divert fire power to them. A Stinger II will do an average of 28 points of damage each at range one. A pair of them would do 56 points of damage.

A Barb II can do a max of two PW-3 plus and OL it's Sting torpedo for about 16 points of damage. Three of them could do a max of 48 points of damage. Less than the pair of Hydran fighters could do. If the Barb's hang back to range four, they will usually do about 10 points of damage each. Therefore, it really doesn't make sense for the Barb's to get any closer. At range four most enemy ships are going to have to divert a lot of firepower to kill the Barb's.

There are a couple of ways of playing it. One of them is that the Hiver BC could lead the fighters in, and trade blows with the opp ship. If the opp ship, shoots at the Hiver, probably crippling it, the fighters can run in and blast away, doing some internal damage. They would have an excellent chance of still being at close range for the follow up shot at the beginning of the following turn.

So, the opp ship would take one good blast from the Hiver, plus two good shots from it's fighters.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 08:21 am: Edit

Barry wrote:
>>The current Hiver is based on a BC with three Hiver II fighters.>>

Interesting. I gotta go look at that. Is there a clever way to look at SSDs on SFBOL without having an opponent in the room that I don't know about?

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Peter,

Two ways to do this.

First. log out of online mode, and log back in using Offline mode. From Offline mode, you can open a game and view any ship.

Second, use the Graphical SSD Definition tool, load the .def file for the ship in question. There is a bug in the definition tool, in that it will open with the ship showing as a blank. Just resize the window a tiny amount and it will paint the ship.

All of the ship boxes are painted in blue, but you can erase everything by the menu Tool/Selection Mode. Once in the Selection mode, select everything using Ctrl-A and than hit the delete key.

Just remember, don't save the .def file, or you'll have to delete the whole file and redownload it.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 03:28 pm: Edit

You can also normally look at SSDs by going into a non-tournament room and simply adding the ships you want.

I don't think there is anything weird about Omega tournament ships that prevents this (but I don't know for sure, as I've never wanted to look at an Omega ship). You should be able to find them in the "Tournament" tab in the add unit dialog if you select the appropriate race.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 05:01 pm: Edit

Oh, cool. I never knew that. Thanks guys!

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Ok, cool. So the current Hiver TBC has 4xST (2xFA, 1xRF/R, 1xLF/L), 4xPW1 (2xFA/R or L), 4xPW3 (2x360, 2xRA/L/R), 2/3 move, 35 power, shield cost 1 (does it have a Life Support cost of .5?) and 3xB2 fighters. Looks totally reasonable. It has only a 2 dam con, which is interesting.

Looks fun. I'll give it a whirl at some point.

This is a totally minor, not important point, but for the love of punk rock, if possible and convenient, please put the 3 fighters in the middle of the row of 7 shuttles (i.e. have 2 shuttles, 3 fighters, and then 2 more shuttles).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 06:49 pm: Edit

One quick thing about LMC TCs; do the Jumokians have a playtest cruiser?

If not, the only current cruiser hull they have in print is the CL, which is possibly a bit small; but, in theory, one could weld two NDDs together to make an impromptu TCA...

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - 09:35 pm: Edit

I talked to Ken Burnside about a Jumokian play test cruiser. Currently, none exist.

Ken suggested that it might be a good idea to put that idea on the back burner for a while, since the Jumokians are going to be tough, mostly for people to get used to fighting them.

I'm going to let people get used to playing and testing the three LMC TCs that are currently available first.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 01:55 am: Edit

Fair enough.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:33 pm: Edit

BaldnForty ( Koligahr ) defeats CrashandBurn ( Fed ) in 3 turns.

This was with the 5 AC, 6 PM-1 variant of the Koligahr play test TC.

Turn 1

Kol plotted 17/26
Fed plotted can't remember but mid range speed

I overloaded the FA ACs and held the side ACs as standards. I had two suicide shuttles warming in the bay.

Fed corner dived while overloading his photons.

I charged south down the board closing up the range.

At the end of the turn we were about range 12 with the Fed heading north near the east edge of the map. Kol was heading south and north west of the Fed.

Turn 2

I plotted 17/31/17

Fed plotted 15/27/ and lower speeds

I held the FA ACs as overloads, and overloaded the LF+L AC.

At about range seven, I accelerated up to speed 31

At about range five, the Fed accelerated up to speed 27 which left me with the movement initiative.

As things worked out, I was able to arrange to do two very crucial things, first I made a range five to range three jump. Second, I achieved a front hex row centerline shot for me.

The upside to this was that, I made it to the range three range bracket where my AC and PM are more effective, without spending a single impulse at the range four range bracket where the Fed is effective. Also, I was able to fire every weapon on my ship in one massive alpha strike.

Bottom line, is I pulled a Nero.... "... Fire Everything". I overloaded the RF+R AC with reserve warp power.

The downside to that, was that this sacrificed my front shield

Any case, I fired everything, and CrashandBurn replied with four 16 point photons and two P1. He thought he would be able to HET and hit me again on my down shield, but realized the next impulse that he was moving too fast to HET.

Everything hit!!!! All five ACs, all six PM-1s, both PM-3s, and both ACGs hit.

Damage was 5x12=60 + 6x4=24 + 2x1 = 86 plus the 16 from the ACGs spread around.

Crash hit with three out of four photons and did 57 back at me.

I decided to not use my two remaining batteries for reinforcement and ended up losing 4 batteries. Not that it mattered.

Bottom line was he took an additional 29 internals more than me.

I launched a suicide shuttle to prevent him from getting to my down shield without taking the sui on his down shield.

He tried to launch a shuttle, but I pointed out that his shuttle bay was gone before he launched it.

I headed south after the pass and he eventually swung back around to chase me, but the battle was effectively over at that point.

Turn 3

I plotted fairly slow speed and plotted a HET. Also, I overloaded the three FA ACs as double shot caseless shots.

Also, recharged all my remaining phasers.

Don't remember how fast he was going, but it was slightly faster than me.

Impulse one I started emptying out my shuttle bay, anticipating it's loss.

Any case we ended up closing and reached range zero where we unloaded again.

One of the nice things about ACs is that they can be fired at range zero even if they are not overloaded. Even better, at that range, they don't do feedback if they are not overloaded. If they are overloaded they still do two feedback.

Any case, I fired three caseless double shots and four PM-1 at range zero. That was all I had.

He replied with six phaser 1s.

My ACs did 36, but he had a 27 point shield, so they did nine in. My PM-1 did 28 damage, but since the caseless shots didn't damage the shield, he got to use it again, so he took a total of 10 points in.

I took about four or five in plus another six point volley of feedback damage.

Crash conceded at that point, since he was in very bad shape and was about to take another three or four in from a manned shuttle.

Crash seemed to think that the Kol may be a bit strong, but...

In that first crucial firing pass, I had outstanding luck and one of his photons missed. True the ACs hit on 1-5 at range three and the photons are 1-4 at that range.

Which brings me to the second thing, he made some tactical mistakes on the first firing pass, which I exploited ruthlessly.

1. He gave me the range five to range three jump.
2. He let me have the front centerline shot.
3. He didn't fire all his phasers during that firing pass and was going too fast to HET and hit me on the down shield again.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Barry wrote:
>>As things worked out, I was able to arrange to do two very crucial things, first I made a range five to range three jump. Second, I achieved a front hex row centerline shot for me. >>

Yeah, this right here, far more than anything else, made all the difference. That the Fed was moving 27 instead of 26 (so no HET that he was planning on) and didn't have movement precidence or didn't make you guys do simultaneous movement, meant that he moved, you got to jump from 5-3 where you get a huge boost in effectiveness and the Fed doesn't. I suspect that if John knew the Kolighar better, he'd have moved to avoid the 5-3 jump (shooting the Koligahr at R4 is *much* better than R3 for pretty much everyone involved. Except the Koligahr). And if you guys were both speed 31, it might not have happened anyway.

>>The upside to this was that, I made it to the range three range bracket where my AC and PM are more effective, without spending a single impulse at the range four range bracket where the Fed is effective. Also, I was able to fire every weapon on my ship in one massive alpha strike.>>

Yeah, again, while it this is a solid win for the Koligahr, I don't think it is necessarily a measure of the Koligahr so much as a measure of what happens when your opponent lets you do what you really want to do :-)

>>Any case, I fired everything, and CrashandBurn replied with four 16 point photons and two P1. He thought he would be able to HET and hit me again on my down shield, but realized the next impulse that he was moving too fast to HET. >>

Yeah, I think too if he had fired all his guns when he shot you at R3, you take an extra 20+ in (4xP1 assuming the Fed wasn't centerlined too, which I think it wasn't), if not a bit more if the P3's are thrown in. Which would have made a lot of difference at that point.

>>1. He gave me the range five to range three jump.
2. He let me have the front centerline shot.
3. He didn't fire all his phasers during that firing pass and was going too fast to HET and hit me on the down shield again.>>

These all seem far more significant in this particular game than the Koligahr's particular gun outlay (which, currently, seems possibly on the level of reasonable-ish). If the Fed moved to avoid the range 5-3 jump (and probably a centrline) and shot at R4 with all his guns, the Koligahr takes a lot of damage and either shoots back at the same time and does a lot less damage *or* holds fire till R3 and does a lot less damage in return due to being out an AC and 3 or 4 phasers.

Again, I'm in no way saying that Barry didn't play a good game or anything of the sort. Just that this particular game is far more an indicator of what happens when you let your opponent get an optimal shot than it is an indicator that the Koligahr is particularly strong.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 07:51 am: Edit

It also didn't hurt that the dice gods were in my favor and not in favor of John.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Saturday, June 04, 2011 - 02:18 pm: Edit

Well this topic has been dead for a month

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, June 04, 2011 - 08:59 pm: Edit

Heh. Yeah, I haven't played any Omega games since the tournament ended. When WL kind of opens up, I suspect I'll be back playing Omega again.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, July 22, 2011 - 02:23 pm: Edit

I suppose this would count as an "other"; but I had been wondering if the M81 Pirate Raider might not make an interesting basis for an alternate TC.

The OGR is in print for SFB (and FC) in Captain's Log #40; though the ship as presented there is not too far removed from the version offered on the things-to-playtest page.

The ship already has shielding and power levels comparable to some of the pre-existing MC 2/3 TCs; while the range of weapons it can take in its option mounts is more limited than an Orion, it still offers a very different sort of platform for the old galaxy weapons it can take (particle cannons and shield crackers) than the current Seltorian does. (Presumably, if any new M81 weapons ever get added to the game, those which the pirates might have had access to historically could be future options here.)

In terms of weaponry, I was thinking that adding a phaser each to the four pre-existing banks (so a third Phaser-1-FX, a third Phaser-1-RX, a second Phaser-3-LS and a second Phaser-3-RS) might be a way to bring the ship's firepower up to tournament level; it already has enough option mounts to make do in that regard.


I wonder, though; what would happen if it tried to snag an Aux Box under that oversized wing?


(One issue such a ship might have is which group is it supposed to operate with. Unlike the Omega and LMC playtest TCs, there isn't really an M81 tournament setting to speak of; we have a Seltorian, but the Neo-Tholian has disruptors instead. While it could still be useful as a "wild card" ship, perhaps it might have to wait for some other fleets from the old galaxy, not least the "wingless" Nebuline naval warships, to be truly viable...)

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, July 23, 2011 - 11:12 am: Edit

>>I wonder, though; what would happen if it tried to snag an Aux Box under that oversized wing? >>

The AuxBox would blow it up?

The problem with the M81 Pirate Raider is that if it is restricted to M81 Galaxy weapons (i.e. PC and WB), it will be horrible--the Selt is already not that good, primarily 'cause the PC just isn't particularly good in the tournament duel environment (PCs are arguably very good in fleets on open maps; they are horrible on a fixed map in single ship duels); if it is not restricted to M81 weapons, it becomes another nightmare to balance.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, July 23, 2011 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Would part of the issue for the PC on the Selt be as much due to its less-than-agile turn mode, though?

An OGR would be much more maneuverable than the Selt would be; though it would have less room to pad its weapons loadout with shield crackers.

On the other hand, it could still be flown as a phaser boat... but then, we already have one of them.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, July 23, 2011 - 03:30 pm: Edit

The turn mode isn't an issue. The size of the map is the issue--if you fire at R15 and turn off, you can't run for long enough to make it worth the effort, as you end up getting caught in a corner.

That, and a ship that is pure DF and has no seeking weapons or otherwise some way to manipulate your opponent's movement (like ESGs, webs, or fighters) tends to have a lot of trouble in the tournament. The Fed has, at least, an incredibly damaging initial strike, but still, is generally regarded as not that good. The Selt doesn't have the incredibly damaging initial strike, the dual shot capability is mostly useless on the tournament map, and just is all around not that good.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Thursday, August 04, 2011 - 10:29 pm: Edit

The Vari particle beam multi shot capability might be a little better since.

1. The shots are cheaper.
2. It can fire overloads twice per turn.
3. The delay between shots is 8 impulses instead of 12 impulses.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, August 04, 2011 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Yeah, I think the Vari's PB are much better than Seltorian PCs. As you note, they are cheaper, I think they are more accurate, and more importantly, they don't have the 12 impulse delay. And they end to have more of them (including the one in the back).

By Andrew Granger (Captaincf) on Friday, August 05, 2011 - 06:43 am: Edit

OK, I am joining this conversation VERY late. Are there Omega TCs somewhere?

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, August 05, 2011 - 08:56 am: Edit

There are a bunch of playtest Omega TCs in the library on SFBOL. They are mostly on the "experimental" level. Some of them are pretty well examined and work well, some have been played a few times and may or may not be workable, some have never been touched.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, August 07, 2011 - 11:07 am: Edit

Actually the Vari Particle Beams do less damage and tend to be slightly lower accuracy than Selt Particle Cannons.

On the other hand they have the following advantages.

1. Only have an 8 impulse firing delay.
2. Can fire twice per turn overloaded.
3. Take slightly less power to fire.

With Particle Beams, I can get two overloaded shots for four points of power. With Particle Cannons, I pay four points of power for an overloaded and a standard shot.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, August 07, 2011 - 12:38 pm: Edit

Barry wrote:
>>Actually the Vari Particle Beams do less damage and tend to be slightly lower accuracy than Selt Particle Cannons.>>

I know they do less damage (for less power), but compared to the PC in terms of hitting:

R0: Identical (1-6)
R1: Identical (1-5)
R2: Particle Beam hits more often (1-5 vs 1-4)
R3-4: Identical (1-4)
R5-6: Particle Beam hits more often (1-4 vs 1-3)
R7-15: Identical (1-3)
R16-24: Particle Beam hits more often (1-3 vs 1-2)
R25-30: Identical (1-2)
R31-40: Particle Beam can hit on a 1; PC can't fire

So in all cases, the Particle Beam hits the same as the PC, and in some significant places, it hits more often (R2, R5-6). And it can fire out to 40 where the PC can't.

Again, yeah, less crunch power. But for 4 power, it fires twice for upwards of 12 total damage if OLed, which isn't bad, given that the ships usually have a bunch of them.