I'm a big fan of adding more TCs, even though I don't favor adding them to the standard RAT.

Benefits:
- More variety in JFF tourneys
- Provokes interest in other universes (Omega, Mag, etc.)
- Provides a wider stable of ships that can be used for pickup games or quick scenarios.
- Provides a training avenue for players interested in learning about tactics with other empires.

I can't overstate the value in having a nice big set of ships, that are reasonably balanced for duels, even if they are never allowed in a sanctioned RAT.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 06:12 pm: Edit

Short Theory on the Progression of Play in a Tournament Game

At each point the game, a player can generally analyze the relative advantage each player / tournament ship has if he were to play a slower, longer range game over several turns (finesse, or ballet) vs. quickly engage for the knife fight (banzai). By relative advantage, I mean the player’s opinion of his odds of winning the game. In this context, relative advantage is not entirely divorced from the player’s preferences and skills, but for discussion purposes I am considering expert players who would generally agree in the analysis based on the tournament cruisers inherent strengths and weakness, and the state of shield and internal damage and other resources in the game at that moment.

Whether the analysis yields banzai/finesse; finesse/finesse; or banzai/banzai; the overwhelming tactical requirement for victory is that at any point you do not “throw yourself on the spear of your opponent” in the attempt to transition into the endgame. This phenomena is when a player thrusts in for the attack, but fails by exhausting his opportunities, and then subsequently loses to a much stronger counter-attack from your opponent. I will define the situation where a player is likely to execute a much stronger counter-attack “counter-attack favored”. A key concept is that very often on any given impulse of the game, both ships are “counter-attack favored”.

In response to the dual “counter-attack favored” phenomena, I think most players adapt (or pend) the finesse or banzai tactical preference to a period of what I call the “opportunistic defensive press” with the goal of either creating and exploiting windows where their opponent is not “counter-attack favored” OR essentially wearing down their opponents defenses (shields) to the point where the next (Mizia) blow will so reduce the target that no favorable counter-attack is possible. The “opportunistic defensive press” tries to accomplish this by always trying to do no worse than trade damage that leaves both parties in the equivalent state; and generally always avoiding firing at ranges and situations of high variance, where shear luck creates so much damage/degredation that the game is lost (or even the possibility of regaining “counter-attack favored” status is impossible). Through the accumulation of damaged shields, weapon cycling, maneuver, etc., windows to take make a strike from which your opponent will be permanently disadvantaged will open (and thereby transition into the endgame).

Generally speaking, banzai oriented ships must engage during a “window” prior to the point a finesse oriented ship renders his opponent to fragile to withstand a battle pass. A key attraction of the finesse style is that it is logical that the finesse ship may in fact achieve a permanent “counter-attack favored” status over his opponent prior to his opponent becoming truly defenseless. In that case the game may transition into the endgame more rapidly because the disadvantaged player may choose to attack with low odds sooner rather than wait for even worse odds later.

With these concepts in mind, I divide the progression of the tournament game into three phases:

a) the opening move, where both ships have mutual “counter-attack favored” status. During this period the “opportunistic defensive press” is generally used to lay the basis to opent the window for the first definitive attack;

b) the mid-game, where both players repeat turns of the “opportunistic defensive press” until one (or both) players perceive a window for a definitive attack (where the “counter-attack favored” status is temporarily broken), or an attack on a defenseless opponent, or a desperation attack motivated by imminent vulnerability; and thereby initiate a definitive attack;

c) the end-game, where the definitive attack either succeeds in achieving a permanent advantage for the attacker OR fails (usually allowing a devastating counter attack).

###

How the Theory Might Guide Improvements to the Tournament Game

Within this framework, I propose we can understand the phenomena of “the games may be going for more turns in some circumstances than is desirable”, by understanding what phenomena are providing the incentive *not* to engage in a definitive attack.

I propose that significant fraction of the disincentive is that the situation where both sides our “counter-attack favored”. The hypothesis is then that the dual “counter-attack favored” situation is lasting for too many turns.

Futhermore, I hypothesize that this may be at least partially that the certain weapons, which tend to be used as the “reserve” to enable the counter-attack, are lasting too long into the game, on average. If one makes slight rules changes to make them unavailable a bit sooner for both sides, then both may lose the “counter-attack favored” status a bit sooner on average, and there will be no real incentive to avoid a definitive attack, and transition to the endgame.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 06:50 pm: Edit

I had one idea I'll just throw out there.

First, we have too many tournament ships. And by the way, we need to add the rest.

So let's have a two-level system.

There is a pool of lots of TCs, maybe 30.

From that, we pick (by a process I'll define later but it will involved expert RPS charts) a selection of 12 for each tournament. Only those 12 can be used in that tournament.

One RAT a year might include one or two omega or simulator or other non-alpha ships.

Just thinking out loud.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 07:01 pm: Edit

I like that idea, Steve. -Dave

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Steve,
Love it.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Perhaps each RAT could allow for one or two "wild card" TCs?

The wild cards needn't be non-Alphas, but even if 9 or 10 out of 12 ships were drawn up based on the RPS charts, there would be room for others to pop in here and there.

This would be useful for some of the newer TCs which may not have a lot of playtest data behind them already.

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 07:08 am: Edit

Steve, I'm with Paul and David. I love that idea. It would make each tournament unique and interesting.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 05:14 pm: Edit

The only problem I see with this is that you will have to annouce what ships will be available at least six months before any tournament starts so players can hone their skills.

For Council the announcement would have to be made in March for the following October.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 06:05 pm: Edit

I do not agree. I'm thinking 30-45 days is more than enough. For each player at least one of the ships will be one he is well familiar with.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 06:47 pm: Edit

Heh. I was thinking even shorter. I just figured whenever you started taking signups you would announce it. For the SFBOL RATs that would be 2-3 weeks. I am good with whatever ADB decides, but I don't see a concern with pre-announce times.

Plus, while the first few tournaments might take some heavier thinking, once the new ships are announced and sanctioned, they will get enough play that people will be familiar with them. In fact, one of the really neat things about this idea is the SFBOL NetKill tournament. Assuming that for that (it is not a RA event, after all) all the ships would be available.

Anyway, the idea sounds like fun to me. Enough so that I am not even fussed about the details.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 07:13 pm: Edit

I like the idea. Keeps things from getting static.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 09:57 pm: Edit

So is the NK tourney using only the sanctioned ships?

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 10:22 pm: Edit

If knowing the ships well in advance is a concern for a lot of people, maybe one option would be to have a small number of ships that are alway included. A core group, if you will. That would give everyone an option to practice up in one of the "core" ships if they wanted. I'm thinking 4, maybe 6 ships.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, January 25, 2013 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Cool idea on having a pool of TC.

Can the SFBOL be set up to simulate a random match-up between TC?

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 12:58 am: Edit

It can, but you also get a chance at the myriad of defunct playtest ships. when you open up the room, you hit the "random ship" button, next to the ship-selection-dropdown

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 09:16 am: Edit

NK can use any ships on the tournament list as far as I know. You could use the Tartar!Tartar I say! Tarrrrrtarrrrr!!

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 02:48 pm: Edit

You say it like it was captured by the Orions, or something...

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 04:06 pm: Edit

Time to plug my Paravian TC again. Generally based on the CL28 rules.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 04:09 pm: Edit

I note that Masters 2013 is due to start soonish. Allowing some of the goofball ships into that would soon flush out the really weak ones, as they'd tend to end up as the winners. You might want to hold a normal Masters as well, though you might be pressed for time, what with the Hat and World League.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Well, up here in the Central NY area the Ithica Cup is run about 2 months before Council. I would want to know the ships before the Cup.

By Ron Brimeyer (Captainron) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 05:08 pm: Edit

Ken

Once the "pool" is created, you can announce which ships will be allowed at council.

I am with Paul on this. Announce allowed ships when you announce a Rat signup. Then players can decide to enter or not.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 06:50 pm: Edit

The pool idea was for online events. I had not envisioned FTF convention events using anything but the standard ship mix they've always used, and frankly, see no reason for that to happen. (You would have to have Petrick either pick or approve your pool and he's not going to get involved in that.)

Ken, the pool thing doesn't apply to cup or council so just don't worry about it.

By Jon Taylor (Vendetta) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 07:24 pm: Edit

I played a game tonight against the Frax, for the first time. I don't know how many of you have looked at the Frax lately but believe you me, it is broken, as is. Super tough ship. Too tough. WAY WAY to tough. The consensus of the 3 guys in the room is that a place to start would be to remove two p1's from it. I think it might still be pretty tough but worth a shot to tweak from there if we want to push it into sanctioned tourney play. We also talked about taking the TM up one to D, but that might hurt it too much

I have to say, the ship is actually very very cool and would be a great addition to the tourney. Definitely a whole different kind of disrupter drone ship. And mostly awesome.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 07:33 pm: Edit

I was the FRAX captain. I had thought perhaps to turn 2x Ph-1s to Ph-3s. Vendetta suggested dropping the 2x Ph-1s entirely. It could probably go to TM D, but I wouldn't do anything else to it in that particular case.

As it is, it has too many problems at very close range (0-1) to dissuade an overrun (drones just absorb phasers rather than complicate movement, odd arcs compared to movement, the weakest shields are the ones it fights out of). This leads it to favor a finesse/dance/ballet approach (which it does very, very well).

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, January 26, 2013 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Jon wrote:
>>I don't know how many of you have looked at the Frax lately but believe you me, it is broken, as is.>>

Huh. While I have never actually played it or played against it, it looks, on paper, just like a P1 Shark (8xP1, 4xDisr, 2xDrone), with fewer P3s, weaker #2 and #6 shields, and an extra point of power. And the kooky firing arcs.

I mean, it looks like it has some play to it, but it doesn't look particularly scary.