Dave,
I think if you really want to mix it up, the first step should be adding the current selection of "play-test ships." These include (and their might be more) the new Andro, Jindarin, ISC CW, Tartar, Orion CA (?), I think a Vudar.

I don't know that I have the list right, but I think it is close. I'd start there and start making tweeks as people play those ships.

If I were in charge and inclined to do this, I'd make my best guesses on those ships and just add them and let the players sort it out. We'll figure out pretty quickly if there is a beast hidden in there.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 01:53 pm: Edit

Paul wrote:
>>Andro,>>

Almost good. But not quite.

>> Jindarin,>>

I think it is kind of a one trick pony.

>> ISC CW,>>

Some people seem to think this is not horrible already.

>> Tartar,>>

Horrible, horrible ship. Has no hope at all in 99% of games as it currently is.

>> Orion CA (?),>>

Kind of also a single trick pony--have seeking weapons and tractor someone with 25 tractor power.

>> I think a Vudar.>>

Vudar is interesting and not bad. But the main thing it needs is a reasonable way to use the IPG for EW, which there is no agreement for as of press time.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 02:03 pm: Edit

Peter,
What would happen if we just added all those ships. I really know very little about them. Are any completely dominating? Your description of the Orion CA makes it seam like it might be.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 02:48 pm: Edit

I agree with Paul that we could get some interest if we sanction the new playtest ships.
I don't think permanent, horrible damage will occur if we just toss those ships in and see (over the course of a year or two) which one everyone seemed to play.

By the same yardstick, we can tell that the currently sanctioned Andro is too weak since no one flies it (I think we will come to the same conclusion about the current playtest Andro, but YMMV). Judging from comments (and I've flown it once and agree) that the Tartar is really weak as well.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 03:00 pm: Edit

"I agree with Paul that we could get some interest if we sanction the new playtest ships."

To be clear, I am not presenting an opinion on that. I am actually skeptical that it would work.

My opinion, is, however:

1. I don't see harm, since if no new interest was generated, we could just un-sanction the ships in a year (or whatever); and

2. This is how things worked before and I am not really sure why we changed it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Be advised that Chief Tournament Marshal Steve Petrick is watching your conversation with interest but avoided posting to avoid influencing the flow of discourse. Do not assume that his silence implies consent or disinterest.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 04:15 pm: Edit

Paul wrote:
>>What would happen if we just added all those ships. I really know very little about them. Are any completely dominating? Your description of the Orion CA makes it seam like it might be.>>

Some of them could certainly be a problem--the Orion CA is certainly problematic and very one dimentional; it has significant limits on what weapons it can have, and starts with some drone rack, and really, the best thing it can do is double its engines, go 31, have a brick, a huge tractor, and grab/smother with drones. I don't think it can do much else successfully.

The Vudar, with full EW for the IPG, is definitely problematic (I played a few games against it with full EW; when things like tractors roll and miss and plasmas hit for 25%, it is a problem). I think it could probably work with EW limits, but no one has invented one that works yet. The default for the Vudar is that the tournament doesn't use ship generated EW, which makes the Vudar not horrible, but not real interesting--it is like a Fed that has improved drone defenses (the IPG on drone defense pulse mode) and photons that hit more and do less damage. It isn't horrible, but it isn't that interesting.

I think the Jindarian is almost workable, but very much a ship that if someone can just take a hit, chase it down, and tractor mug it, it'll probably die most of the time.

I think the ISC CW is harmless--I have no reason to think it is any better than the regular ISC, and is probably a bit worse due to being smaller. The TarTar is a failed experiment. I admire that the designers erred on the side of caution on a 3xHB ship, but as it stands, pretty much any other ship in the game can simply ignore the damage it does and just kill it outright. It might be possibly made viable with some tweaks (give it some/all P1s maybe), but as it is, it is mercifully weak.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 04:28 pm: Edit

Peter,
Thanks. From what you have written, it seems like a good choice would be to add everything except the Orion CA and limit the Vudar IPG to anti-drone (plasma and shuttle/fighter as well - or does it only work on drones?). Ships that are too weak are really not a problem. They get added and no one uses them, or a few folks that really love it use them. Hopefully you would just start tweeking those ships up in strength as time passed.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Adding extra ships is certainly a classic way of mixing things up.

I should mention that my previous proposal was designed to avoid a concern I have with this. The current 17 sanctioned ships have a RPS matrix of (17^2-17)/2 = 136 matchups. THis number is something of a struggle to get your hands around the probably rankings/best tactics for each matchup- but it is just doable. The task is made simpler because there are simlarities, and frankly, a few ships are kind of weak and safe to ignore.

If we add 6 more ships the RPS matrix increases to 253 matchups. As the number of ships goes up, I see some risk in losing the sense of "being able put your mind around the whole tournament". A potential risk is that the new ships will tend to be a bit on the weak side so as to be a bit conservative (this also makes them easy to ignore).

The approach I was trying to suggest also was trying to address 2 other goals (long games, and the current RPS matrix). The way I see it, doing something that slightly alters the current RPS matrix is easier to "grasp" or at least everyone will have a theory on how it would shake out.

There is some precedence for small rules changes making an impact like this. For example, the modification on how the unplotted mid-turn speed changes did affect everyone; but they also affected balance slightly. This wasn't a tournament only rule, for sure, but it had a big impact there.

Now I'm not saying I'm 100% prefering not to sanction these long time playtest ships. Actually, since they tend to fall on the "safe to ignore" side of things, then maybe thats not so bad. Rather I just kind of like prioritizing the subtle effect, like the mid-turn speed change.

I am explaining myself to explain my perspective. This is certainly a cousin to lobbying. But you know, I'm not trying to create an unreasonable expectation that ADB would necessarily adopt any changes in anyone's mind (although that is where they would come from). Rather I'm just discussing it.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 04:32 pm: Edit

"a good choice" assuming you wanted to do something. Again, I am remaining neutral on the value of doing something over doing nothing.

I'd also probably take this opportunity to give the Fed a G-rack (4ADD, 2 Type-VI - no reloads or mods) and see how that worked on the Fed.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 04:42 pm: Edit

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Quote:

To be fair, there has been some interest in evolving the tournament over past few years. I should recognize that there has been an effort to establish a sanctioned Omega tournament, or combination Alpha/Omega tournament.

I think the scale of the effort, and the fact that Alpha and Omega just don't mix historically, and that the eMRB just doesn't have Omega rules, and several other issues kind of have gotten in the way of this happening. Here the Omega ships really do need some playtesting, for not the least of reasons that even a large section of the Alpha experts would not even be in the position to guess upon inspection if the Omega ships are balanced with Alpha. Plus, if you add a dozen Omega ships in the mix, you do get something almost totally new.

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By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 05:03 pm: Edit

I have a thought, Paul mentioned that the die rolls for disruptors in his game were way below average. My admittedly small amount of experience showed this to be true as well. Is it possible that the die roll results built into the SFB online client are contributing to longer games because the weapons are not producing as much damage as they should on average. Would tweaking the code fix this?
I would support more ships and empires getting into the tournament. I don't have a ton of experience with tournament and frankly don't enter since I believe the learning curve would be rather steep and I would be basically a bye for any opponent I faced. Now if could play a ship than my opponent hadn't faced hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of times, I would be a little more gung-ho about a least even trying tournament play. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind losing a game (that is how you learn) I just wouldn't want to waste an aces time who would beat me so handily. I also agree that SFB Online games take a really long time compared to FTF games.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Id bet serious money that most players if they go and open there die roll monitor and check they would be within a few hundredths of a roll of being right on the average of 3.5.

Mine is at 3.513, there is nothing wrong with the die roller, and based on one game I dont see how you can make a case to change the die roller's code.

I dont really think the results will be that differnt if rolled by hand you can and will have very unusual strings of bad or good luck. That is the nature of random.

You could argue that we go to a weapos chart system where everything does average damage for the range its fired at but I dont think that would be good for SFB or the tournament.

By Jon Taylor (Vendetta) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 05:48 pm: Edit

I for one have never bought a single Omega product. Not that I couldn't, I just have no reason as I only play tourney. I think there are many players like me out here. I think that it would be a great idea for many good reasons to add one or two Omega ships. Let's not go crazy but let's add some new tech! I know it may cause us some problems but we will find them quick enough. We seem to stew on these kinds of decisions forever. Let's pull a trigger and take some chances. So what if a ship isn't exactly balanced right away? We will fix it!

Powers that be- I will buy products if we do this.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 05:54 pm: Edit

I should add that in terms of choosing a non-Alpha set of ships to consider adding in (if any), the dollars-and-cents cost of getting Module C5 (or ordering the C5 rulebook as a spare part) is lower than the cost of the Omega Master Rulebook.

If C5 were to be added to e23 at some point, that would make things even handier. (At the moment, it is print only, whereas the OMRB is available in both print and PDF forms.)

So, the LMC would be a cheaper investment than Omega would be, in terms of getting players up to speed on what the new ships would need in order to actually fly.


That said, it may turn out to be the case that the E3 rulebook, plus whatever amount the upcoming C6 rulebook (if made available as a spare part) might end up costing, could be cheaper still; since there would be even less in terms of "new" rules that the four "Lost Empires" would need in order to be flown properly.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 05:55 pm: Edit

I really like the idea of adding the Borak and Peladine. Both of those ships could be very easily integrated without a lot of hassle.

As for the Andro and Fed(G-Rack) I think if quorum could agree on what these ships should have we should use them at Council in October.

This would add four ships to the mix.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Jon wrote:
>>I think that it would be a great idea for many good reasons to add one or two Omega ships. >>

The big problem with the Omega ships is that they were specifically designed in a universe without drones, and as such, a lot of them have, by default, a lot of trouble with drones (generally due to having P3s, or even P1s, that reliably do less than 4 damage at range 1).

The current crop of Omega TCs are pretty viable in and of themselves (they have all been upped to pretty much tournament standards, and work fine), but a lot of them have significant problems with Alpha drone ships (and at least one of them eats Alpha plasma alive, due to having P1s that do 1:1 damage to plasma by default). Having Omega ships fighting other Omega ships works fine. Having them fight Alpha ships is a real coin toss, and would require a *lot* of work to balance out.

The Drex (i.e. the robot super computer ships) are problematic, as their main guns are stupidly powerful and they rely on a negative EW shift (i.e. they are generally -1 to hit all the time). The Kohligar (the jellyfish people) are problematic for the anti-plasma phasers mentioned above. The Hivers are proving to be problematic due to wanting them to have their cool fighters and balancing out, but that is more an issue of trial and error rather than any particular rule or system. I have no experience at all with the more wazoo Omega stuff past the Omega 1 empires (i.e. I don't think there even *are* proto-TCs for, like, the Dragon Ship people or the Transporter Ship people or the Shadows from B5 People). But the bulk of the existing Omega 1 empire ships work pretty well in and amongst themselves.

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Just to clarify my earlier post, I don't really believe that changing or adding ships will have a significant impact on tournament participation. I'd like to see some changes, just to mix things up a bit. I enjoy the challenge of new, which is why I rarely fly the same ship two tournaments in a row. That said, I wouldn't be wild about making a large number of changes at once. Pick a couple ships to saction/tweak, and see how they do. I wouldn't mind seeing a single tweak in each RAT after that.

I'm with Ken, the first two I would address is the Andro and Fed.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 07:07 pm: Edit

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Quote:

The Drex (i.e. the robot super computer ships) are problematic, as their main guns are stupidly powerful and they rely on a negative EW shift (i.e. they are generally -1 to hit all the time). The Kohligar (the jellyfish people) are problematic for the anti-plasma phasers mentioned above. The Hivers are proving to be problematic due to wanting them to have their cool fighters and balancing out, but that is more an issue of trial and error rather than any particular rule or system. I have no experience at all with the more wazoo Omega stuff past the Omega 1 empires (i.e. I don't think there even *are* proto-TCs for, like, the Dragon Ship people or the Transporter Ship people or the Shadows from B5 People). But the bulk of the existing Omega 1 empire ships work pretty well in and amongst themselves.

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By Kerry E Mullan (Nomad17) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 07:26 am: Edit

Maybe this is just me, but I thought the current train of thought is that there is difficulty in doing playtesting for the 1 or 2 ships out there that many want to become "competitve" in tourney games?

Adding another 20 ish ships seems to be more of a near overwhelming prospect. I mean it's fine to just throw caution to the wind and double or triple the current list of tourney ships with all individual and specialized rules for many of them. It seems to be a little much to see gt done in any kind of good timetable.

As well for Davids "fixes" ......um really? Other than again throwing a number of additional drone rulings(?? not sure what you want to call em), it just seems to be a let's give the KZI a leg up because instead of winning 60% of it's games, it only wins 58%. Many of the drone rulings are to limit non-KZI ships which really is just not needed.

Again plasma limited to 4 EPT launches per launcher means 15 turns would be the least amount of turns til it becomes effective. If 10 turns is the "time qualifier" some are spouting then giving the EPT routine til 15 seems counterproductive.

Again there are the odd games, but most plasma games go through turns quickly as it's either run from plasma or dish out damage so personally it hasn't been much of a problem.

About the only real thing I see coming out of this discussion is the fed upgrade for the Grack which I give thumbs up to. The new andro could be workable with the addition of prob 2 more CH and APR. Of course it will just go back to the pack and not be overdominating(well til Paul and Tom work their magic).

I am not sure balancing omega and LMC with tourney cruiser is something that is needed. There are so many RPS connundrums that balance for all or most will be difficult at best.

For instance the trobin was earmarked as overpowering as an undestatement, but against many drone races it sorta dies badly. Again seems a lot of work to get the balancing correct especially as the number of playtests would be extravagant.

I mean yes in a perfect world if all was balanced and worked integrally with all the added races the tourney may offer a lot more variability. Is this variability a good thing or not? As newer players may not want to have to learn 20+ races in the 5 mins before they have to play em I'm not sure adding double the current ships is a good thing.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Gary wrote:
>>Not all of the Omega empires beyond the "first 11" are particularly exotic in technology, though there are a few significant outliers.>>

Yeah, the Omega 1 ships, other than the Drex, are all pretty cut and dry (even the Alunda, who are just regular ships with funny back story/history/"technology"; as ships in the game, they work like all the other ones). As noted, the problem with the Drex is their reliance on EW rules, which the tournament doesn't use. Like, their technology isn't complicated or difficult (although the Enveloping Heavy Hyper Cannon is arguably overpowered), but that they rely on EW to operate as an empire means they either end up too powerful or lacking their specific color/flavor in the tournament game.

Also as noted, due to the wide range of kooky phasers on Omega ships, they do have a lot of trouble with standard Alpha drones--Omega P3s tend to do 3 or less damage half the time or more, and multiple models of Omega P1s don't do a minimum of 4 damage at R1. Meaning they they have to use a lot more phasers to shoot down even type I drones than regular Alpha ships.

The FRA, Iridani, Worb and Ymatrians are all pretty straight forward, if a few of them are not particularly interesting (the FRA, as ships go, are just slightly different Feds. I mean, not horrible, but nothing on them screams "Interesting Tournament Dynamic"; The Iridani are about the same--they have phasers and then slightly bigger phasers--I mean, they have an interesting background and history, but as tournament ships go, nothing real exciting).

The Souldra are problematic in a lot of ways due to their phase device (which removes them from the map, which is problematic for competitive play), their insane shield blocks (which are fine in multi-ship engagements but problematic in duels) and their complicated fighters. And special damage rules.

The RYN are nuts due to the transporters (and probably unusable in competition due to simply being too wonky); the Quixa don't work outside of their home terrain--I mean, they conceivably could with enough trial and error, but it probably isn't worth the effort.

The Branthodon are simply too wonky to make work, as they don't use energy allocation to any significant extent and their ships use way too many special, specific rules.

The Singers, I think, are just saddled with guns that are either too ineffective (Sonic Pulsers and their actual main gun) or too powerful (their advanced main gun) and probably just not worth the effort.

The Bolosco are the empire I have paid least attention to, but my initial impression is that they are overly complicated for not that much gain in terms of being effective or particularly interesting, but that is me.

I'm not saying that these ships should all be dumped into the regular tournament. Just they they exist and are fun to mess around with as an adjunct.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 02:18 pm: Edit

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the FRA. For one thing, they would be a means of helping to introduce new-to-Omega players to an Omega Octant tournament format (both as a ship to fly, and one to fight). While most of the BC's tech is pretty standard Alpha fare, it still has things like shuttle bombs, short-range cannons, and light photons to offer a few new tricks here and there.

Similarly, the Iridani would be easy ships for new players to settle in with, at least in terms of technology; getting used to the reliance on the L and R arcs might take time to settle in with.

If there were to be a dedicated Omega tourney (which added in the likes of the Andromedans for completeness' sake), having at least a couple of ships which aren't too far from an Alpha "norm" may be no bad thing; not least since it would help set a semi-familiar baseline for playtest purposes. (An FRA won't fight exactly like a Fed, but an Auroran TC could stil work as a good historically-relevant point of comparison when generating playtest data.)


But then, that leads to another issue. If it is determined that Omega is simply too large a setting to fit anywhere but in its own tourney (running in parallel with the current tourney format), would it be able to draw in enough players to be viable?

And again, Omega is only one of many non-Alpha settings out there to consider. Say if you had category "A" as the current Alpha ship list, and "O" as the candidates for an Omega tourney, where (if anywhere) would the ships that aren't currently in either go? (Assuming that A and O are each too large to go into the one list.)


Some of the choices would be easy enough; the "Lost Empires" would go in pot A, and there'd be room in pot O for the future Omega empires. (So, one day, you could have two distinct Paravian TCs; one based on C6, the other based on the Omega-Paravians.)

After that, you have categories that don't neatly fit into either category; "M" for the LMC, "S" for the simulators, "L" for Triangulum, "HG" for the Tholian home galaxy (once we learn more about what is, or was, out there).

In principle, each of those could be put into their own tourney categories. But if having even two tourney lists is already pushing it, would three or four (or more) simply be cutting things too thinly?

Of course, there is also the option of simply leaving some (or all) of these empires out of any tourney format altogether. while I could understand if that was the option ultimately taken, I would like to think that it wasn't always going to be the default option.


(But then, it's hard enough for non-Alpha ships to complete for slots in the regular SFB module production schedule; if there was only enough room for one avenue of development, I would rather it result in more "real" ships get published.)

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 02:18 pm: Edit

So instead of the LMC and Omega races (since it seems the consensus is that they have wonky rules that are problematic in tournaments), how about introducing the Simulator races? Particularly the Frax and Flivver. The Jindarian is possibly available, but I keep seeing how it's not allowed in the online RATs (not sure why).

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 03:19 pm: Edit

To a point that was already raised, a side-benefit of adding Omega, LMC and/or simulator ships is to increase the sales rates of those modules. This has additional potential gains in terms of those product lines getting more love as their sales increase.

I'd be up for a general increase in the number of options. Totally ceded that you'd need something that's a reasonable divergence, but not necessarily something crazy.

To that end, here's my list:
No Brainers:
- Frax
- Peladine
- Jindo (don't think it'd be popular, but doesn't mean it's not a good addition)
- Borak

The Good:
- FRA - close to Alpha to be recognizable, the SRC is an interesting twist. Give them Shuttle Bombs and they're unique enough to be "different".
- Trobin - Tune the power curve of the original version down just a hair and I think they're okay.
- Sigvirion - Totally different take on plasma tactics.
- Iridani - Limited pallet choice would give them a little bit of the Orion package feel without being horribly overbalanced.

The Bad:
- Souldra - Hard to balance as listed above
- Branthadon - Hard to balance as listed above, all new rules pretty much.

The Ugly (great additions with nasty debates):
- Vudar (there are rules for playing them without ECM in the rules, for the limited time it applies I don't see it as a huge advantage)
- Maesron - From a "grab and play" perspective, you'd need to have the TMs fairly tied down. I never play the existing Maesron because I can never remember all the package options.
- RYN - I think they're fine as is, would have to consider the tournament out of network likely. They don't match the "traditional" power curve and that'll concern people more than I think it'll actually impact things.
- Bolosco - Have the perks of the Iridani (above) and interesting tech. Have the Maesron's issue. Have a LOT of options you'd have to handle and you've got to make sure their power curve is appropriate. They have a major mug potential.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 05:25 pm: Edit

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>- Iridani - Limited pallet choice would give them a little bit of the Orion package feel without being horribly overbalanced.

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Quote:

- Maesron - From a "grab and play" perspective, you'd need to have the TMs fairly tied down. I never play the existing Maesron because I can never remember all the package options.

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