Peter also E-Mailed his report to me, and I thanked him for it. I am waiting to see more playtests one way or another. Without playtest reports, there will not be a sanctioned Andromedan, and by the same token, without playtest reports to prove one way or another if the ship is workable, there cannot really be changes made to it. Neither Paul Franz (the head Andro guy on the staff last I heard) or I want to unleash a monster into the tournament.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - 09:34 pm: Edit

Peter,
With this Andro you can not fill your panels. So running through the ESG to get a Range 2 shot is not the best tactic. You definitely would have been better to stay outside at range 5 and then turned off. With 3 batteries doing a panel dump is a lot more difficult.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, November 25, 2011 - 08:50 am: Edit

Oh, sure, it wasn't necessarily the most optimal plan ever (although again, if I didn't roll 6, 6 with my TRHs, I'm probably ok there anyway), bit it certainly was a good way to see what the Andro can take. And the answer is "Not eating full ESGs followed by a R0 overrun..."

:-)

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, November 25, 2011 - 10:11 am: Edit

Inconclusive Playtest #2

bakija (AND) vs crashandburn (WAX HgDD)

We only played for about 45 minutes, as by the end of T2, I had a 6 year old hassling me, so time to end. On the other hand, the Andro had a significant leg up when we ended.

T1: I move 16 till 19 and then 31, roll both TRH, hold the dis dev, and put panels on standard. This plot, again, uses 1 net power from my batteries. John moves 21 most of the turn. He corner dodges immediately, so I kind of slip wide to avoid any combat this turn. He launches 4 drones, and we end at about R18, me facing F, him facing D, with 4 drones on the map kind of a bit in front of him.

T2: I move 16 till 8, 31 till 23, 21 till end, roll TRH, panels at standard, DisDev held. This costs 3 net battery power. John moves 21 till about 10 then 31 for the rest of the turn. We close a bit, I speed up to 31, he speeds up to 31. Through a judicious slip and then a turn, I end up at R3 off his #1, with his drones 1 hex from my ship. I announce displacement and fire. I roll well on the TRHs, a little low on the 4xP2, and do 51 damage to his #1. He has no reinforcement (he had a bunch on his #6, but he couldn't keep me there) and takes 21 in, losing a couple P3s, a disruptor, a couple points of power, and a bunch of fluff. He holds fire. I hop over him, ending up 3 hexes directly behind him (as he can't HET at me, being a WYN). The rest of the turn I just run off, slow down to 21, and turn to run along the top NW map corner as he turns around to chase me and his drone close in. We end the turn with me buried in the corner, him at about R7 facing me with his #2. I transport a T-bomb that will kill 4 of his 6 drones on the map, and we call it here.

The WYN still has a game, but having no #1 shield and no ability to HET makes it rough from here. Hypothetical T3, I run at high speed to get out of the corner and evade while rearming, and T4 I can engage again with an HET and DisDev available.

This version of the Andro seems to be generally slower and it is certainly possible that it will run out of power. T1, I only moves 21 hexes and lost net 1 power. T2 I moved 24 and lost net 3 power. T3, having to recharge 4xP2 (4), 2xTRH (6), DisDev (2), panels (5), turn on ship (2), that's 19 power before moving, out of 28, leaving 9 for speed. Assuming I need to move another 24 hexes or so, minimum (to avoid the WYN getting too close to my rear panels) that is another 16 energy, meaning 7 out of batteries, when I'm already down to 11 in the batts. So I could pull all of this off, but on T4, I start the turn with 4 battery power (unless I get shot), which isn't enough battery power to move fast, HET, and fight.

So with 2xTRH, 28 total power, and only 3 batteries, it seems certainly possible to starve the ship out of power in the long run.

I'll e-mail this to SPP again.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Friday, November 25, 2011 - 05:54 pm: Edit

Thanks Peter.

Come people. Lets get this thing tested. I will see if I can play next weekend.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, November 27, 2011 - 03:47 pm: Edit

Playtest 3

bakija (AND) vs gaiusfrakkingbaltar (KLI)

T1: Andro moves 16 till 19 then 31, rolls TRHs, holds displacement device, panels at standard (1 net battery power used). Klingon moves 16/21/31, arms 2xOL, 2xSTD. He launches the SP early as I just close in. The SP opens up, he slips out a bit to try and get the SP drones in front of him, but it doesn't work as well as planned. We both speed up to 31 and close quickly. I end up at R3 off his #1 with no drones in danger of hitting me, so I announce displacement and we both fire--I roll well with 2xTRH and 4xP2, doing 54 damage. He hits with 3xOL and 4xP1 making me reinforce my panels with my batteries and take a leak point. The Klingon takes 24 internals through his #1, losing 7 power, a couple phasers, and a disruptor. I successfully displace away. The rest of the turn is the Klingon turning around a bit while I set up a situation where I can kill all his SP drones with my t-bomb and do that. We end the turn at about R12 or so. At the end of the turn, I put 4 battery power into my phaser capacitors and I absorb 3 power into my batteries and radiate 6 power into space.

T2: I move speed 21 all turn, rearm my TRHs and disdev, and put my panels back to standard as I have exactly 24 power (well, a bit of degradation too) in my front panels. This again uses 1 net battery power. The Klingon moves 15 all turn, recharges things, and arms a standard disruptor. I just run around the edge of the map all turn while the Klingon turns to chase me. I get to fire a couple P2s into his down #1 at R14 or so, scoring 2 internals, hitting nothing real important. I spend some time trying to see if I can clear my panels with a dump, but I have too much power to get into my batteries by turning off all my panels, and if I just turn off my fronts, I mostly fill up my rear panels at standard, so I can't get power into batteries that way, and I have better dissipation capabilities in my front panels. Near the end of the turn, he launches 2 medium drones and zings my rear PAs with a standard disruptor. He turns his down #1 away from me. At the end of the turn, we are at about R12. He fixes a disruptor. I absorb 3 power to my batteries and radiate 6 from the front and 1 from the back (front panels now at 16 full up, rears have 1 degradation).

T3: I move 15 till 18 and then 30 the rest of the turn, finish my TRHs and disdev, and arm panels at standard. The Klingon moves 21 most of the turn with 4 standard disruptors armed. He launches 2 fast drones. I turn to engage him, he turns back. I end up killing the two fast drones with 4xP2 and get around his two medium drones by speeding up to 30 a few impulses early off of batteries. He hits me in the face with 4x standard disruptors. I try and angle for a shot on his down #1, but he keeps me off of it. We eventually end up at R3, oblique on our #6 shield facings. He fires all his facing phasers into my front panels and almost fills them up at reinforced, but doesn't do internals. Next impulse I slip into R2 of his #3 shield right on the edge of my FH arcs. I announce displacement and fire 2xTRH and 2xP2, scoring 45 damage, doing 20 in. He ends up down 14 power total. I successfully displace and run away the rest of the turn and we call it here.

I haven't take any internals and my front panels are almost full (probably about 56 capacity out of 60 before dissipation on the end of T3). The Klingon is down 14 power, two shields, and a bunch of weapons. The Andro is almost out of battery power at the end of T3 (only about a fraction of power left in the batteries, but I could probably absorb about 5 at the end of T3). On T4, the Andro was going to be slow (maybe speed 15 all turn), but the Klingon was probably too damaged to take advantage of the situation.

I suspect that this version of the Andro is probably still pretty strong against Klingons, Kzintis, and plasma ships. The ability to score 20+ internals on the first exchange is significant. Granted, if the Klingon had corner dodged on the first turn to get the SP drones out in front and peppered the front panels with standard disruptors, that would have helped a lot.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Monday, November 28, 2011 - 12:05 pm: Edit

Out of curiousity, how much power did the AND start the game with in batts?

I wonder of a turn 1 iron jaw defense wouldn't be interesting to try. With only 15 batt power, the AND might start to get power challegned pretty quick.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, November 28, 2011 - 05:09 pm: Edit

The Andro has 3 batteries, and the old one had a maximum amount of, like, 25 power, so presumably the current one can start with full power in the batteries (i.e. 15).

With the armament it has now (2xTRH, 6xP2, 1xDisDev) and power (24x warp, 2x imp, 2xAPR, 15x max battery power) Turn 1 looks like:

-Life Support: 1
-AFC: 1
-Standard PAs: 5
-2xTRH: 6
-Hold DisDev: 1

Which is 14 of 28 static power. Meaning it can move 21 total hexes without using batteries. If it has to HET, mid turn speed change, or reinforce panels, it uses up a lot of battery power quickly. After the initial exchange, rearming the phasers and DisDev will also start to suck away power, as will keeping the PAs at reinforced if needed (it'll usually use 3 batteries to reinforce the first shot, and then 8 power on the next turn keeping them reinforced). Indications are that without a reasonable dump potential, the batteries will run dry pretty quickly.

That being said, this ship is still very dangerous. And still is likely to result in games where its opponent does zero internals (which is incredibly frustrating and makes people hate the game...). Being able to do 50+ damage at R3 with 2xTRH and 4xP2 is going to make a lot of people very sad if they aren't super practiced vs the ship, especially as very few ships will be able to do any internals in return.

Using the above Klingon game as an example (which went not that well for the Klingon, as Josh was incredibly rusty against the Andro, if he ever played a game against it when it had TRHs at all), I probably would have corner dodged on T1 to get the 6xSP drones out on the map and in front of my ship, and angled to engage on T2 with the Andro having to shoot a couple drones, and then deal with a couple fast drones, and planned on taking the first shot on a bricked shield (putting up, like, 10 reinforcement on my #2 or #6 and hoping that drones help him shoot there), then HET when he disdevs if needed and chase the ship into a corner, saving fire for the rear panels. If you can get a good phaser shot from reasonably close followed up an OL disruptor shot at the start of the next turn, that should do some solid internals, hopefully making the rest of the game not that unwinnable for the Klingon.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Monday, November 28, 2011 - 09:45 pm: Edit

Remember that you were counting on the Dis Dev to funtion properly. If you roll a six, your going to be in some difficulty as you than have to burn your HET, and probably accelerate on batteries too.

If I remember correctly, using the Dis Dev after shooting is a bad strategy for single elimination tournaments.

Better to Dis Dev into position to fire.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 10:44 am: Edit

I don't know that that works that well--when you displace *in* to a firing situation, you suffer from the 4 impulse fire control delay, and often suffer from getting hit by a bunch of seeking weapons.

Sometimes in the Andro, you roll a 6 in a situation where it will kill you, and so it kills you. That has always been a problem with the Andro. Using the displacement to jump over a bunch of plasma for a close range shot is probably a good plan if it won't get you killed doing so, however.

Usually, however, you can risk the 6 as long as you can HET away as a backup escape plan. You used to be able to just do a R0 overrun of most opponents, do devastating damage to them, and then move off and empty panels, and not need the disdev ever. This model probably can't do that. So it might need to play the "get to R3, shoot, displace" game more than the older one. And once and a while, it will roll a 6 and not displace, and then once and a while when it rolls a 6, it'll get killed (if HETting away at speed 31 doesn't save you).

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 12:15 pm: Edit

Peter wrote >>> And still is likely to result in games where its opponent does zero internals <<<

The Andro PA level is very non graphical, unlike ordinary shields (although SFBOL remedies this somewhat); so it can be pretty hard to know how well you are doing against it.

To a lesser extent, the Orion, and to a lesser extent the WYN and the other war cruiser the neo tholian, share the likelihood of having few or no internals in the games that they win. Because they have fewer internals to begin with, they have other capabilities which balance (or overbalance) against this defecit. If those capabilities are used well, then it is like guarding against taking internals - if they fail - the eggshell cracks quickly.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 12:53 pm: Edit

My point about "not doing internals" is that one of the big problems with the Andro when it was dominant was that it often won having taken 0 internals of note (maybe a leak point or two). Which is *incredibly* demoralizing. And makes people hate the game. If you lose but messed up your opponent some, you can generally walk away from that game feeling like you could have won if things had fallen your way (which may or may not actually be the case, but the perception is there). Even the Orion or WAX will generally take internals.

The old Andro was attrocious at this--if you go and read Paul or Lee's articles from when they won in the Andro, 90% of the games ended with the Andro having taken 0 internals. Which is bad for the game as a whole, for my money.

The current playtest Andro, even if it is more balanced and more reasonable (which still remains to be seen, but that is why we playtest :-), still has the potential to kill someone and take zero internals. Which blows.

Using the Klingon game I posted above (which, again, was hardly the most optimal Klingon strategy, but as the most optimal strategies against the Andro are often very opaque, this is understandable); the Klingon played a game that, against most other opponents, would have been reasonably effective. Against the playtest Andro, it resulted in taking 24 internals and then 20 internals and being killed, having done zero internals in return. Which is a demoralizing endpoint for a game (I realize that occasionally, any match up can end like this, but with the Andro, it was always endemic).

I realize that the Andro is always going to be very difficult to make work. But I'm just hoping that we can end up with a ship that is reasonably balanced (I'm totally ok with "on the weaker side of reasonably balanced", but that is me) but doesn't result in incredibly one sided games all the time, still.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 02:36 pm: Edit

Peter, I don't disagree with you. There are other matchups which require specialized strategy - the Kzinti vs. big plasma ballet isn't very forgiving either. I do think the Andro, by nature of the PA panels, is likely to be very "binary". Either it doesn't take internals and it wins. Or, it starts taking a few and loses quickly. There is a very fine line. The nature of the PA panels also means that as you step away from that balance, I think it becomes more quickly unbalanced than regular alpha ships. So, balance it against the Lyran and it will murder the Kzinti, for example.

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 02:48 pm: Edit

The Orion has the same balance problems though.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 05:21 pm: Edit

David wrote:
>>Either it doesn't take internals and it wins. Or, it starts taking a few and loses quickly. There is a very fine line.>>

Yeah, see, that is, and always will be, a problem with the ship.

The previous, mostly bad Andro (the one with 2xTRL and sometimes 8xP2s) couldn't win most games, but the games were certainly games. One of the main problems with the Andro doing 50+ damage with incredible reliability at R3 while also being mostly immune to internal damage at that range is that it will, more often than not, as you note, either take no internals at all and win, or get shot up real bad and lose. I can't really envision a situation where the Andro is taking internals and still being able to win, given the current hull set up of 6xC Hull and 2x Cargo and then only the 3x batteries.

But again, playtest it a lot!

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 05:53 pm: Edit

Hm. Plasma bolts hit just fine at r3. Avoids the whole displacement-over-the-seekeing-weapons problem, too.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Well, kind of? If you hit with all 4 bolts and are centerlined exactly and are a Gorn, you are then doing, what, 73 some odd damage? Which is 13 internals to the Andro? That is a lot to risk for maybe 13 internals. If you aren't exactly centerline, you get to shoot 2 bolts and 4xP1, which is doing nothing. The TFH gets to get 2xS bolt and 1xF bolt out of centerline, which if they all hit do 45 damage. Add in 4x P1s and you might even do an internal.

Bolts are hard to use on the Andro.

By Bill Schoeller (Bigbadbill) on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 11:46 pm: Edit

Bolting must be done on the rear panels. Still hard to make it work well.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 07:44 am: Edit

Oh, certainly. But if the plan is to alpha bolt on rear panels, the Andro is going to get an unhindered R3 shot on the plasma ship's face. It's rough. Given that the TRL Andro could occasionally kill BP, I suspect this one might be murder on them. Someone try that out.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 09:23 am: Edit

Two S and one F bolt is 40 damage, not 45.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 10:52 am: Edit

Ah, yes. Apparently I was imagining that the F did 15. So that's even worse.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 03:20 pm: Edit

Here is the key to beating the Andromedan. Constant damage to the panels. Because the Andromedan can no longer do a panel dump.

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 10:56 pm: Edit

Just completed a playtest game with the Andro versus a Wyn Aux Hellbore, Drone B, Phaser - G, Disruptor... and did manage a good panel dump.

His first shot, hit with the hellbore overloaded and did decent phaser damage. It didn't even require reinforced PA panels.

In fact I waited till after the turn break and dumped the front panel putting 10 in the rears and 6 in the batteries.

Game went as follows.

BaldnForty ( Andro playtest ) versus Droid ( Wyn Aux )

Turn 1.

I plotted speed 1-20=15, 21-32=30, the Wyn Aux went 1-17=17, 18-32=16..

Mostly we headed towards each other.

On impulse 1.18 he launched five drones at me.

On impulse 1.29 I got to range three off his #1 shield. Had to turn to get the perfect shot... Those andro firing arcs are really nice.

He did a total of 19 phaser damage + 11/11 hellbore damage.

My dice sucked and I did 33 TRH damage and 13 phaser damage for a total of 46.

He managed to iron jaw that, but his front shield was completely gone.

I displaced behind him after the firing pass.

At the end of the turn, I realized that my batteries were completely full, and raised the panels to reinforced just to suck three power from the batts.

During EOT I, transferred three power to the batts, and dissipated 6+4 more power.

Turn 2:

I plotted 1-32=24, but did a speed change up to 30 near the end of the turn.

Wyn Aux went speed 1-17=24, 18-32=27

I spent most of the turn running from the drones, but near the end of the turn had managed to get around them.

Droid turned around and tried to chase me into the west side of the board. He did have the problem of a down front shield and when he turned that away from me it gave me an opportunity.

Impulse 2.32 I did a HET which put him in my front centerline at a range of three. I was off his #3 shield.

The drones were a few hexes away, and had I failed the displace, I would have had to slip right in front of him to keep away from the drones.

We called the game before EAF for turn 3, but I did roll the displacement and it succeeded. Just for grins...

My dice rolls for the impulse 3.1 alpha strike would have been, 2, 5 for TRH and 3,5,4,5,1,3 for phasers...

Total damage of 59 on a 24 point shield. Not enough to kill him, but it would have been unreturned, since I would have displaced behind him and running away and he was facing the wall.

I have some ideas on how to fix the andro, and I'll try to get to talkshoe tomorrow night to discuss them.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 07:49 am: Edit

To be fair, I think the Andro is extra good vs the WAX in any situation, as the WAX:

A) Generally doesn't have incredibly overwhelming firepower, especially in a blind tournament--the heaviest armed ship it is going to be will be H, H, D, D and 4xP1s which can't bust through panels, well, ever, and that package is going to be rare. Usually the ship will have a gatling, which means only one HB, and some not heavy hitting side guns.

B) It relies heavily on medium speed drones and tractoring someone.

C) It can't HET.

I'm giving the current playtest Andro, like, a 7-3 vs the WAX.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 08:41 am: Edit

(Barry, make sure to e-mail a playtest report to SPP)