Archive through January 26, 2013
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Tournament Zone:
Tactics Discussion:
Archive through January 26, 2013
Hah! I was one of the players in this game! I don't remember which RAT it was (30, 31 or 32?) but this was an entry round civil war between UpAllKnight and I. I don't even remember where the discussion was for this or exactly what I said, but Paul and I where not seeing eye to eye on how I played this. For what it's worth it was a 100% respectful debate with some heavy math provided by Paul.
Somebody should take this discussion up because IIRC Paul had some illuminating points.
so as I delve into the tournament zone more and more I have been seduced by the siren song of the LDR. I don't think I have won a fight in this little beast, but she keeps pulling me back like a bad-for-me woman in a good blues song.
My main issues are with D+D ships and cnruch ships
Any suggestions, other than asking Paul Franz to stick a warning pop-up on my coy of SFBOL?
Brendan,
How have you been flying the LDR? What tactics have you been using to fly against D&D ships?
Mike
Track the disruptor ship's power. Engage late in the turn if he doesn't overload, or dance away if he does. Trade your rear shields for his front shields to set up an overrun.
If you can't figure out how to stop his drones with ESGs and gatlings you might as well take up darts.
Crunch ships like the UFP can be out-maneuvered; save your #1 shield to use both gatlings at the same time. If he has to HET to face you his shuttle bay is locked for 4 impulses.
I have played the LDR about twice this year. One once and the 2nd the game was abandoned.
The LDR has miserable phaser 1 arcs. Unlike the Hydran, which at least has a 360 phaser 1, the LDR has no coverage for the gats from the rear. The ship is horribly vulnerable to any phaser hits reducing its already bad arcs to a complete lack of coverage.
In theory, the LDR should be a decent saber dancer. Even when, or especialy when, it is being chased (see Chris' previous comment). It can fish-tail 3 std disr our ot he L or R arcs - 1 better than the Kzinti. But you are going to get only 2 P1 vs 3P1 - which is probably a decent trade.
Whether or not you can butter up opponents well enough to have a decent shot at an overrun later on - I'm not sure. Likewise, profligate usage of the ESG vs. phasers to kill drones, might just suck up power. Your PG uses 0.5 power to kill any drone.
I'd think, as you said, the LDR would be decent vs. BP - at least if they try a ballet on it.
Overall the toughtest thing is the same thing the FED and LYR face against most opponents - they have nothing to tie up opponents phasers. The FED, he has more phasers and more crunch.
Brendan, several folks have heard, and followed, the LDR's siren song (myself included). And generally lost many battles.
But the ship is a blast to fly- I give it serious consideration every time I play a pickup game. Something about a fast, maneuverable ship that can do lots of damage even without its disruptors armed is just fun!
The only time I played it, I won the tournament in which I was playing.
I fought a number of D&D, including Ted Feys' Kzinti in the finals and Steve McCann's Kilngon in the Semi's. The think the LDR is well suited to fight D&D actually. I think it is not well suited to fight the Shark, but then the shark is pretty haevly overbalanced anyway (broken? Probably not, though close).
I'd suggest starting with my V@ article (CL 40, IIRC) and if you have any questions feel free to post or email me.
while I work on finding a copy of CL 40 or at least the article from Paul, I'm hoping to get some more ideas.
The biggest problem i encounter is being short of ints when damage exchanges occur. I can't seem to find a range that's optimal.
I try dancing around 6-8 and i get short of power quickly for weaps to avoid being over run, even with avoiding the trap of 4 Ols or the siren call of the RAM.
I get close and there is little i can do to mitigate damage incoming and being small accentuates the dam I do take.
Advice?
I have a question on opinions of opening moves (generally turn 1-2 plots) in tournament games.
My question is, to what extent and in what examples (and this may be dictated by RPS examples) do you try to get an unrequited or imbalanced shot by EA and maneuver; or to what extent do you stick with a consistent opening move that just cruises in and takes the nearest to even exchange you can get (the theory here is that once batteries and phaser caps are expended, the game becomes more tactically fluid and if you think you are an expert, you can pick up the pieces from whatever you are dealt in the first exchange).
An example, from a game I recently played, might be LYR v. KLI.
The KLI could corner dodge and hope to get an unreturned disruptor shot + his SP drones out ahead a bit. I think the disadvantage of that is the KLI, now in the corner, is going to have a tougher time preventing the LYR from overrunning, as he has no space.
Alternatively, the KLI could overload everything and for the middle for an oblique UIM-UIM exchange with the LYR. If he's clever, the KLI will only be down 1 p1, so this is a nearly even exchange. If he survives this OK, the LYR won't have UIM, and will have expended pcap and bats, and being slower, will not have the maneuverability to force an overrun in turn 2. So even though the LYR has some advantage here, as long as the KLI can control the range a bit, he's getting as close an even shot as possible.
i like the idea of setting up some shield damage before just heading into the exchange of internals. The risk is that through timing, your opponent gets a much closer overrun and you don't have weapons cycled; and/or you are slower.
My question is not so much about games vs. big plasma. The response against EPT is fairly doctrinaire, and in is in a sense a long opening move which either slowly gives BP an advantage or vice versa. The non BP opponent must always be aware that the BP may not be trying a ballet; but must be ready for it.
>>My question is, to what extent and in what examples (and this may be dictated by RPS examples) do you try to get an unrequited or imbalanced shot by EA and maneuver>>
As a Gorn, I generally try to get an imbalanced shot--the EPT isn't there to do damage, it is to push someone into a corner and once there, allow them to be mugged either by a mostly unreturned phaser/bolt shot on a rear shield of a fleeing opponent or an advantageous anchor situation (which is vastly less common than the phaser/bolt shot). Conversely, against, say, a Fed, I'll try to just get a mostly even exchange (i.e. a T2 anchor vs a fully loaded Fed) which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. If it works out ok, and both ships take, like, 75 internals (give or take), even if the Gorn is behind, in the long run, it wins that fight.
As a Kzinti, I try to get an advantageous yet mostly even exchange--the drones are there to suck up phasers and resources, the phasers and disruptors are there to shoot the enemy with, and if both sides end up crippled, that is super, as the Kzinti is the best crippled ship in the game.
I might disagree with you about the Kzinti, Peter. I think a Hydran with it's fighters in the tubes is the best crippled ship in the game -- As long as the opponent is similarly low of phasers --err, similarly damaged.
As the Hydran I usually look for a T1 exchange at R4 (and only at R4) of 5 phaser-1s and two overloaded HBs. Then I get out of dodge, because that's usually about impulse 20 or so (too far away from an EA to charge the fusions). It usually knocks down a shield and does a handful of internals. He's probably done about the same to me (always killing a HB in the process).
If he corner dives, I usually get in a R8 overload shot with the HBs without the phasers (to conserve on power the following turn). T2 of an opponent's corner dive usually means he accepts fusions that turn.
Holy crapolla Matthew, please play me in your Hydran while using that deal!
OK, that sounds a bit harsh and I wouldn't be surprised if you've had some success with doing that. The problem is that you are sacrificing a lot of flexibility in going for a R4 overload shot on turn 1. Especially against Lyrans and Feds who are simply going to hand your head to you if you try that. Your R4 alpha is only going to yield you about 10-12 internals provided both bores hit provided no reinforcement. What if your opponent holds fire and can then burn you through a rear shield at a closer range? Surely you can prevent this with a high speed at the end of the turn and a perfect oblique, but things don't always work out that way. Not to mention that if you have OLed even one bore in EA, you cannot guarantee range 8. Your opponent doesn't even need to completely bury himself in a corner to avoid it since you are pumping at least 9 power into the bores.
You are correct in that a crippled Hydran with fighters still in the bay is quite potent, but you had better be close to your opponent to take advantage of that or you are not much better than a lifeless hulk.
It usually takes a concerted effort to keep me from getting a R8 shot, since I usually leverage the Hydran's excellent power curve into a speed of 24-27 with HBs overloaded.
Against a Fed or other D&D Crunch race, I usually don't give out quite as much as I take. But then stop loading my (remaining) Hellbore and fly like a Ranger. This can usually translate into an anchor in the opponent's near future as I can then pour all power into speed and tractor.
The trick tends to be to wear them away with multiple phaser hits until both of us are so battered and bloody that neighter can do significant damage. Then the fighters come out and polish him off.
Plasmas tend to be my weak point, though. The above tactic doesn't usually work on them, since they can manage far more than the Hydran can take. This usually turns into the HB Saber Dance vs the Plasma Ballet and I haven't worked all the bugs out of that one.
So you are saying you OL both hellbores in EA?
My own choices in EA are designed to take advantage of asymetries. Apart from that, they are designed to minimize the range of variable outcomes. There are very few times where I am plotting to force an uneven exchange on T1 (or any turn, for that matter) since there are generally two consequences to such openings:
1. Since no ship (by design, though, again, the GBS by accident may be in this category) is broken, any plot whereby you can gain a huge adavtange on T1 must involve risks that would correspondingly leave you in the reciprocal. Since I am generally interested in proceeding to the endgame with minimal variation in how that is acheived, I do not make risky plots.
2. Turn 1 in particular is a bad turn to do too many high-risk plots since by the time engagement could plausibly happen (somewhere near impulse 16), a lot of information has been revealed to your opponent. This makes countering such openings less problematic. These sorts of plots are best left for turns where engagment will happen in the first quarter turn, or so.
@ Marcus:
Usually not. I'll OV one in EA, and the other from batteries. This gives me more flexibility in case they do manage to stay out of OV range.
I think Paul Scott's opinion addressed the nuance of the tactical choice I was thinking about most directly of the several responses so far (not to say that the other discussion wasn't baluable).
Paul, would you suggest a "Sauce for the Goose" doctrine do to speak? That is, in the interest of even odds (not saying you don't take better if given) aim for an exchange that generates 16-20 internals on your opponent; accepting that at worse your opponent should do the same? The theory is that at worst the volley size will have a lower variance of phasers, droned, and torps than smaller volleys.
OK Matt, that's not so bad.
David - I can't speak for Paul, but many experienced don't really have a strict expectation for their initial exchange. Instead, they are looking for a situation that will yield an advantage in later turns. That may even mean that they will be OK with being on the "wrong" end of the initial damage tradeoff if they are given something they can exploit at a later time. It may also mean that they may not even look to participate in a significant exchange early on.
As for me, I usually have a plan in place that allows me to adapt to what my opponent gives me. If they go with what I want or expect, then great. But my world won't fall apart if they don't 
One school of thought in chess is the idea of exchange...what am I willing to exchange for an advantage in space, location or development?
If you have a similar train of thought when playing SFB, what factors do you consider when conducting a cost-benefit analysis of an exchange?
There are basically three things you can exchange: Ship damage, renewables, and ammunition.
Of the three, ship damage is the most important because it is the only one that you can win with. So in most cases it's worthwhile to trade any of the others for ship damage, and if you can take less damage than you receive, that's good too.
Some ships do poorly exchanging ship damage, however. The Orion, Archaeo-Tholian and King Eagle tend to pitch more than their share of shutout games, and the Orion and Eagle are probably on the receiving end of more than their share as well. I would say that probably 80% of the games I've won in the Eagle are shutouts, and conversely, if I take more than 3 or 4 points of damage after the armor, I'm probably losing. Those three ships each have unique abilities (brick, web, and cloak) that make them more likely to cause a shutout, and they are all very fragile on the inside, which makes them bad at swapping damage and also more likely to receive a shutout.
Other ships, like the Kzinti and GBS, are happy to exchange ship damage, because they suffer so little from it. Plasma ships are somewhere in the middle, engine damage doesn't hurt them as much, but they are more vulnerable to weapon hits compared to the D&D guys.
The key thing about ship damage is that there is never really a tipping point, until you blow up. You just gradually get more and more beat up.
Ammunition is also very important. The key thing about ammunition is that it doesn't really matter until you run out, and then it matters a lot, because there is no way to recover ammunition. There are drones, of course, but many other kinds of ammunition also. Shuttles, boarding parties, pseudo-plasmas, T-bombs, cloak impulses, and Orion engines are all ammunition. Hydran fighters are kind of in a weird gray area between damage and ammunition. The thing that makes them not entirely ammunitiony is the fact that they can make decisions on the fly. Other ammunition, once you use it, it's used. Some games, like plasma vs. Kzinti, are almost entirely about ammunition management (unless somebody gets anchored). IMO, most of the flavor of the game comes from the different kinds of ammunition.
The third thing, renewables, is most interesting. Although ship damage can be repaired, I don't consider it renewable because the repairs are slow and finite. My definition of renewables includes board position, capacitive energy, PA capacity, and arming status. Board position is the most generally useful of the three, because you can trade it for the other two, or use it to press an attack that will damage your opponent's ship. However, you have to contest your opponent for it. Capacitors and arming status are totally within your own control. Some battles, mostly anything involving the Tholians, Seltorians, or Federation, have a lot of focus on renewables. Which makes sense, as these ships have very little ammunition, so they must have renewables instead. Capacitive energy is worth a little extra thought, because it includes not only batteries and phasers, but also heavy weapons that hold energy, such as web, ESG, and photons. The massive reserve of capacitive energy in photon torpedoes is the only thing that makes the Federation playable at all. Generally speaking, capacitive energy renews over time, and to some degree it can be exchanged for other forms of capacitive energy, even indirectly. Batteries, of course, can be exchanged directly, but weapons such as phasers can exchange their energy over a turn break indirectly because you can power something else with the energy you would have had to use to charge them. This is why I consider the common Seltorian tactic of leaving the PC capacitors half empty at game start to be such insanity. You are throwing away a resource, albeit a renewable one, for nothing.
I do not consider generated energy as a form of renewable resource, except in the way that time, in general, is a renewable resource in everything.
Sheap,
While I agree with all of the resources you've mentioned, they are not the only ones.
Space, for sure on a fixed map is a resource that can be exchanged. I know a lot of plasma players that'll exchange a fair deal to get the center of the map because from there they are vastly more effective.
Initiative is also something that can be exchanged. If I can get someone trying to run and gun from drones, I get free plinks on their bum, where very few TCs are effective combatants.
Furthermore, I think you fail to account for a couple of things in the resources you did mention.
You can debate if it's a different resource or the same as ship damage, but shield damage is an exchangable resource. If I can abrate the front shields of the ship, even if I don't do internals, I give my opponent something else to have to worry about. The head-on attack is no longer as pressing. If I can take down a shield, even without doing a single point of damage, I'm now putting control and constraints on how he's going to move.
As to ammunition, something that again could be considered the same resource or a different one is "readiness". Plasma ships pretty playing for the center of the board exchange some of their readiness for position. Exchange too much and you get mugged, too little and the gambit fails. Similarly, everyone's afraid to get to R2 on a Fed ... until the impulse after they fire. I've gone to turn 10 or later on several Feds without them ever firing the photons. So long as they're loaded, you've got to respect their authority. Later the turn or fire and the turn after he's going to take whatever's left, so I've seen people strategize to just never fire them till their in a solid situation and try to fight the game with their phasers. If your opponent is running, it's likely you're going to do more damage through the tail than he's going to do to the Fed's nose as he's running away.
David,
As a Vegan I can recommended neither sauce nor goose, but "sort of" is the best answer to your question.
I am not necessarily even looking to swap even internals and certainly only have fixed numbers in mind relative to damage thresholds I find acceptable.
For example, in an LDR v. FED fight I am looking to exchange as much damage as possible. The sooner both ships are down to 30ish internals the faster and more likely the LDR will win. The other hand sees the GBS. In the GBS, ideally, I want to arrive at both ships having sustained about 30-40 internals as quickly as possible, since in that range every other ship is losing signifiicant power, weapons or both and the GBS is still at 90%+ effectiveness. However, once both ships have sustained 60ish internals things have evened out.
In other ships, such as the ATC, internals must be kept low.
So the number of internals is not a fixed amount, but sure, I am always thinking about the thresholds above which both ships start becoming significantly impaired. It is among the asymetries I am looking to exploit that I mentioned in my first post.
For my own reasoning a lot depends on the ship I'm flying and what it's against.
Most of my turn 1 is to just either throw a little damage out and position for turn 2, while others are to draw off opponents resources, and other ships position is most important.
I normally do a lot of my play based on the tenets of set up a favorable exchange and then use your ships advantages to you know their advantage.
As for the FED and R2. In about half the field I would 100% disagree with that statement. Will it be on T1 that the fed gets R2..doubtful. But by T3ish If I am in a KZI, AUX, WBS, hydran, or ORI. I will be there and normally in the FA even.
The whole reason being as we all know is that vs drones the FED Alpha gets diluted too much so by the time it deals with ftrs or 4-6 drones the 40 ints are not enough of a deterrant for any kind of an overrun.
Heck in most Aux packages the Fed will be reaching R2 by T2 just because my spd 20 drones can't reach him on T1 so against a non-weaseling fed I will overrun in most AUX early T2. Of course the FEd can always try and do an alpha/ED/Weasel theory. But TRY is the operative word there.
The reason the FED is not a main contender is that about half the field just crush him under most circumstances. With 3 of them being played a great deal the Fed tends to die from them. As well at R2 a "6" still misses so it may only be 25ish internals.
Ah, I get to pontificate!
High speed, with a plotted HET, and patience for an opportunity to open up.
As an Andro (granted the old Andro TC), I would approach an opponent and wait for him to fire. The goal was to get to range 3 (optimum for the Andro) after his fire by utilizing an HET. Most races cannot deliver 60+ points of damage to discourage this tactic.
In a moment of weakness, I attempted this tactic in a battle as a Fed against a Rom many years ago. One can take a single S torp on a shield once. So after an HET and intentionally taking a lot of shield damage on my way in, I achieved range 2. (I recall that this was turn 2.) Yep, you guessed it, box cars. Instead of 64 + phaser damage, I had to settle for just phaser damage. Sigh.
There is the time that I played a crafty Romulan as a Gorn. As we approached each other he passed my RP arc. He then turned and charged me. I launched my LP S. He kept closing. He slipped and let it hit his #1 shield. As he was approaching obliquely, none of my phasers could hit that shield. I launched my LS F. He kept closing and let the F hit his good #6. Thinking his right side plasmas were out of arc I turned toward him to get my right side torps to bear. So he launched everything. (Yikes!) Nice FP arcs on the Romulan. By this time, we were so close that I couldn’t ED in time to use my weasel. After we exchanged some phaser fire, he turned off the next impulse having satisfied his turn mode and sped safely off. My torps could not catch him before the end of the turn and I was taking 100 points of plasma.
Lastly, my favorite victory. I was playing the Gorn against the "devil ship" LDR. I did not like my chances. 2 ESG, 2 Gats, 4 disruptors, and very good maneuverability. So, I enveloped both S's and traveled at my best speed (with HET available from batteries). The LDR charged at 31. I launched my RP 60 pointer and started slipping away. He took it at full strength. I launched my LP 60 pointer. The LDR hesitated a bit but decided to keep charging. He took that at full strength. He declared ESG activation. I HET'd the next impulse and charged him, launching my 2 F torps. To my surprise he kept coming. I guess he was intent on the overrun. I guess he thought that he could take the 40 points with a 10 point shield and batteries. Our respective alphas were at range 3 after the torps hit. As fate would have it, an ESG was destroyed by the plasma damage before it could form. The second ESG was destroyed by the subsequent phaser damage. Yes, my Gorn took internals. But the LDR took a lot more. That was a rare 1 turn victory for the Gorn!
I'm reposting this over from the tournament proposals thread because: I was hoping for comment, the thread discussion had moved on to SVCs nice idea tournament ship pools, and it really is more tactics than a proposal.
***
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