Basically, my thought is that a solution (assuming there is a problem) for the Fed should entail something that is not a radical change to the ship and is something present (or at least not greatly different) on Federation ships already and also something that would be in tune with the sort of things you find on sanctioned ships.

I mean, if it's weak against plasma, giving it a power-absorber mine would help - but that's not really something found on Feds (to be sure) so would not be a good proposal.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, August 01, 2013 - 08:27 pm: Edit

RA photon on a Fed TCC is never going to happen. Neither is a "free photon check box" that the Feds can check off as their first torpedo hit (or a "free ESG check off box" that the Lyrans can check off as their first drone hit for that matter). Such concepts (which the RA photon has been mentioned as an advantage) have been mentioned before, and rejected before. SVC assured me long ago that adding a drone rack to the Fed TCC was tested, and found to make the ship too powerful, which is why we have refused to go back and reopen that can of worms.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, August 01, 2013 - 09:37 pm: Edit

SPP,

Would that kind of restriction have a knock-on effect on any would-be "Fed-like" tournament ships that may or may not be a candidate for future consideration?

For example, the FRA BC has three standard and two light photons, which are split across the LF+L, FA, and RF+R arcs. Were there to ever be a TC based on the BC hull, would this photon arrangement be a problem, or would the unique circumstances of an Auroran hull relative to its Star Fleet counterpart make this less of an issue at first glance?

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, August 01, 2013 - 10:09 pm: Edit

Lol, anything to bring up Omega.

I'm not Steve, but c'mon. Of course an Omegan tournament ship is going to use the firing arcs of the empire involved, unless playtest shows that there's a reason not to. That's the whole point of tournament ships!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, August 01, 2013 - 10:16 pm: Edit

The only reason why I mentioned the FRA at all in this thread is because of their combination of a Fed design heritage (albeit one based on Terran hull types as opposed to the saucer-and-nacelle layout of most "modern" Star Fleet ships) and their historical use of the photon (with the caveat of their adopting light and heavy variants which don't exist back in Alpha).

None of the other empires in that region of the galaxy would have to worry about tripping over any "hangover" problems with their weapon suites. (Unless the Zosmans were ever allowed to take photons in option mount/modules, perhaps.)

But then, there doesn't seem to be much interest in an FRA BC even in the thread set up to discuss non-Alpha TCs, so it may not matter either way.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, August 01, 2013 - 10:23 pm: Edit

I'm sure an FRA tournament cruiser, if it existed, would use FRA technology and weapon arcs.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Friday, August 02, 2013 - 11:20 am: Edit

It might even come with shuttle bombs ... okay, maybe not ...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 02, 2013 - 11:52 am: Edit

Gary Carney:

Your question has indeed been answered. A Federal Republic of Aurora tournament ship should reflect the Federal Republic of Aurora.

By Chris Proper (Duke) on Thursday, November 14, 2013 - 11:22 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Well, if we are going to pretend, I'll go and pretend all the way back to my first suggestion - return it to its 1998 form but give it 2 batteries instead of 6.

I think this is basically where the ship is headed, but since it started with 3 batteries, its power will end up at 1999 or 2000 levels.

I'd like it to get there as fast as possible, so sure, I would add 2 AWR now or really, I'd add 2 AWR and 2 Imp., because I think if you want it to be a good ship that is where it will need to be. If you want bad, but playable, 2 AWR should do the trick.

---

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Thursday, November 14, 2013 - 12:54 pm: Edit

I don't know what the AWR will gain you that APR won't. Is there any non-Fed or non-Base unit who actually has AWR?

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, November 14, 2013 - 02:04 pm: Edit

DisDevs require warp power, so AWR would allow you to rearm it without reducing power for movement functions.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 - 09:16 pm: Edit

Well. I'm going to perform a little Forum-Resurrection here, and bring up a few things I've had on my mind since the publication of Module C6.

First the obvious:

Can we begin wrangling over the Paravian and Carnivon Tourney Cruisers? There has been some discussion this direction in other places in the BBS, but by posting here, I hope to awaken an official response. Hopefully the response will be along the lines of sooner or later bringing these races into the fold, rather than dismissing things before they get out of hand.

These two races would need some special rules regarding the tournament and their weapon systems. The QWT has an ECM component that will likely need to be removed completely, because of the largely EW-free nature of tournament. The Death Bolt has a special warhead component that will likely need to be removed completely, because of the no-special-drones nature of the tournament. Open for discussion is what hulls to use to represent these races: there is some worry that 4 QWTs are an open invitation for a mugging and some worry that Heel Nippers when added to Death Bolts will make Carnivons too deadly in a range-1 knife fight.

Less obvious, but quite pressing:

My understanding is that the 2006 revision of the Andromedan is the currently sanctioned ship because it is the version that was published with the latest tournament module. Is this correct?

On the other hand, there have been some rumors that because the 2006 version is still too strong, that there is no sanctioned Andromedan. After three years of playing with the 2011 model, can we finally give it the modifications that the consensus has agreed on (a pair of APR or AWR) and finally get this out into play? The Krait has been with the tournament in some form or another for so long as to be an expected fixture. I see this as a hole that should be filled.

And the less obvious and less pressing:

Can we finally get the Frax sanctioned? It has no special weapon systems and has survived with no changes for long enough that it should be deemed viable.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Matt wrote:
>>Can we begin wrangling over the Paravian and Carnivon Tourney Cruisers?>>

If someone makes some reasonable SSDs and puts them up on SFBOL, I'm sure that will start happening. As you note, there are a lot of special rules (well, vastly more so on the Carnivon than the Paravian) that need addressing, but at the very least, some posted SSDs to start with gives us somewhere to go from.

The Carnivon needs a lot of death bolt restrictions--as it stands, even as a worst case scenario, the Carnivon has 2x drone racks armed with only type IV drones. That are bigger than type IV drones. Then factor in the weirdness that is that once and a while, you can launch 2 per rack per turn. And they get to hit the shield you want them, even on a moving target. And that the ship doesn't need to tractor you to anchor you for a range 1 death bolt strike, and you get a whole lot to consider. Without even factoring in the (likely ignored) rules for tweaking the DBs.

The HNs are also likely problematic in a balance/power sense in the tournament game, as they allow you to get that zero energy anchor for death bolt strikes *and* they turn you a facing. Which in a lot of situations, will just outright kill you.

Not to say that these aren't things that can't be worked on and addressed, but it will probably take a lot of work.

>>My understanding is that the 2006 revision of the Andromedan is the currently sanctioned ship because it is the version that was published with the latest tournament module. Is this correct? >>

Yep. I'm pretty sure it is the one with 2xTRL and 8xP2.

The current playtest ship is almost viable. I think it needs 2 more APR to have a fighting chance. There are various opinions. It seems like it could get fixed and sanctioned without much work.

>>Can we finally get the Frax sanctioned? It has no special weapon systems and has survived with no changes for long enough that it should be deemed viable.>>

I don't know that it has actually been played that much (that anyone knows about). But, yeah, it seems like it is straight forward enough that getting it sanctioned shouldn't be much of an issue as well.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, June 12, 2014 - 08:54 pm: Edit

This looks like the place to post this. I have played some net kill games (tournament on SFBOL) against play test ships. I do not mind as i would like to play JIndo play test as well. There is however none of the play test ships listed in the report loss. So one can not report a loss/win against those ships. Is there a way to add that? Are is there a way to set up a place to report play test ship wind loses?

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Friday, June 13, 2014 - 06:33 pm: Edit

For the playtest ships you can use Federation and in the options field type in which playtest ship you were using.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Friday, June 13, 2014 - 09:26 pm: Edit

ahh thank you GFB that helps a lot,

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, October 01, 2014 - 05:28 pm: Edit

Over in the Platinum Hat thread, Justin wrote:
>>IS the playtest Fed TCC able to modify the loadout of the g-rack? Can it take IV's? >>

The proposed G-Rack Fed (which is completely unofficial, but something that a bunch of folks came to a consensus on) has a G-Rack that contains exactly 4xADD, 2xIM. No reloads. No changes.

That being said, as it is a completely made up, unofficial variant that we had been testing, I suppose you can do anything you want with it. But the proposed version (that has been played a reasonable amount) had that exact, un-changable loadout.

It was used at Council of 5 one year. And it won the tournament, but it remains to be seen if it won 'cause of:

A) The G-Rack.

or

B) It was flown by Paul Scott.

In the one game I flew against it as a Gorn, I came really close to killing him--I tractored the Fed, and needed to survive a couple of impulses of mizia abuse before I could turn, centerline him, and hit him with 70 plasma and follow it up with some phasers, which likely would have won the game. But on the last internal rolled on the impulse before I could turn, Paul rolled a 10 (his first on a volley of, like, 7 internals or so), and after we looked at my ship, I didn't have any more phasers in arc, so he killed my second tractor. The G-Rack had very little impact on the game--it required me to use a P3 to shoot down a drone on T2 the turn I came to catch him. And then didn't do much else.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Wednesday, October 01, 2014 - 07:51 pm: Edit

Peter - out of curiosity, what odds did Paul make with his Photon Torpedo shots?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, October 01, 2014 - 08:06 pm: Edit

He fired once, hitting 3/4 at R2. I got a bit lucky there.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, October 02, 2014 - 06:31 pm: Edit

My feelings on the G rack. It helps a lot against drone using ships. Saving at best a couple of phaser I's for offensive use. Something it desperately needs. As for the two type I drones. They just make a ship waste there phaser III's on drones then on the FED. Besides all that the feds added the G rack for drone defense against klingons and drone users. A ADD would be useless on the romulan front so the G rack was the answer. The few drones fired were not that useful other then the fact a FED could then use a ECM drone are even probe drones. Something the scientific members of starfleet were happy with. The G rack gives the fed a multi use weapon. I am very surprised that it has not been a real add on the the fed TCC

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, October 02, 2014 - 06:46 pm: Edit

It certainly helps the Fed in games against drone ships (where it is historically weak). It doesn't at all hurt in games against plasma or other DF races, where a couple Type I drones can suck up phasers or an ADD can shoot down a shuttle. Worst case scenario, it absorbs a 3 line DAC hit and saves a phaser.

The issue is if the Fed actually *needs* the upgrade--the big problem with the Fed is, more than anything, that the game usually hinges on a single throw of the dice (i.e. that first photon volley--you hit well, you are ok; you miss with one more photon than you needed to hit with, you are likely doomed). If the Fed is always perfectly average, it probably does fine across the board. But luck swings are very significant with the ship.

By Paul Scott (The_Rock) on Friday, October 03, 2014 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Very small sample size warning, but at that Co5N I fought a GBS (B1) and I think I remember a KZN as well. In neither fight was the G-rack a major benefit. I still think the Fed should get one, mind you, but I think it is probably overrated by most people.

If you add it you are going to have games where it is a huge deal - when it gets lucky and manages to kill 4 drones or when it was the thing that saved the Fed from getting smashed by a Fatty - but for the most part it is going to free up an extra phaser during the first exchange.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Saturday, October 04, 2014 - 01:21 pm: Edit

I don't think adding a G-rack to the Fed would break anyone's tournament.

By Chris Proper (Duke) on Saturday, October 04, 2014 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Fed is low enough on the totem pole where I agree it could use something. The G-rack fix seems to be popular enough with Fed players, and non-Fed players don't hate it.

From a RPS perspective having a popular Fed would help keep any Andromedan fix in check.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Sunday, October 05, 2014 - 10:46 pm: Edit

The g-rack Fed is long over due and seems to be balanced enough, it gives the fed something, pads a phaser, a little better against drns. If you want to make the Fed a legit and viable ship the g-rack seems the perfect answer.