Archive through March 03, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 photons: Archive through March 03, 2003
By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 11:45 pm: Edit

Why do we have to have an instability rule?

X1 has 12 point fastloads, 16 pointers are not too much larger.

if a torp can go to 24, then it can easily absorb 16.

Also, why can you not hold them? Then you make them disruptors and this is NOT what we want to do.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 01:48 am: Edit

Why do we have to have an instability rule?
To avoid having a FED XCA load up the Photons as 8+4 ( read that as 8+0 because X2 BTTYs can hold warp over a turn break ) and have a collosal localised throughput.


X1 has 12 point fastloads, 16 pointers are not too much larger.
Perhaps so but I say, 12 point holdable fastloads and 16 point non holdable fastloads is enough of an improvement over X1 to be considered a tech level jump ( in the fastload aspect anyway ).


if a torp can go to 24, then it can easily absorb 16.
Yes and the instability rules says any more than 6 points of warp pumped into a photon in one turn creates an unstable photon that can not be completed nor held.
12 Point fasloads can be held.
16 Point Fastloads can't be held.

24 Pointers built as 6+6 can be held ( and are the only ones that can ).
24 pointers built by 4+8 ( or 5+7 ) can't be held.
24 Pointers built by 8+4 can't be built.


Also, why can you not hold them? Then you make them disruptors and this is NOT what we want to do.
Since Disruptors under X1 holding ( even overload holding) exists for disruptors and the tendance for X2 Disruptors is for Disruptor Caps, unholdable Photons will not make Photon Disruptor-like nearly as much as the Disruptors will be Photon & Phaser:- like.

The point being that you can have holdable Fastloads, you just need to tone down and use 12 pointers ( just like X1 ) and you can have holdable 24 Point warheads:- you just have to be really careful about you arming proceedure.

So the limitation isn't there in the rule, it's there in the application.
GW Photons can get a localised throughput of 4 ( 16 damage ( hiting half the time at R8 ) for 2 points of power on the turn of attack ( 16 x 3/6 : 2 = 4 ) but the 24 point photon can't yeild more than 2 ( 24 x 3/6 : 6 ) and no more than 3 ( 24 x 3/6 : 4 ) if one wants to accept the instability problem.

So we can have 24 point photons but having 24 point photons firing every two turns with heaps of availible power won't come to pass if we go with the instability rule.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 01:54 am: Edit

Quote:

I guess that's still open to debate.
I would say 9+ is still an OL.


That reminds me.

I'm for 9 to 12 point warheads simply being anounced as to be fired as Standard or Overload at the instant of firing.

The ability to fire in the 0-1 range ( and take feedback damage for the privelage ) being countered by the fact that the weapon can not be fired at that instant outside R8 and Visa Versa with Firing them in standard.


The truth being that 8-12 warheads in X2 inside R8 aren't really going to have much influence over the game ( like putting 0.5 points of resrve warp into you standards to create overloads in the MY period ) so why not let them be fired as overloads or standards at the firer's descression at the instant of firing.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 02:33 am: Edit

Ah well.....is all conjecture anyway.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 06:41 pm: Edit

Quote:

So the limitation isn't there in the rule, it's there in the application.
GW Photons can get a localised throughput of 4 ( 16 damage ( hiting half the time at R8 ) for 2 points of power on the turn of attack ( 16 x 3/6 : 2 = 4 ) but the 24 point photon can't yeild more than 2 ( 24 x 3/6 : 6 ) and no more than 3 ( 24 x 3/6 : 4 ) if one wants to accept the instability problem.


Oops...I'ld come a cropper somewhere.
The 8+4 can't be build.

What I mean was you could accept a Localised throughput of 1.5 ( 4+8 arming ) if you were willing to accept the instability problem and wanted 2 points per tube of power freed up during the turn of your attack run.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 09:39 pm: Edit

How about this:

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 01:00 am: Edit

I'm not sure allowing 10 plus 2 power would be a good idea, there'll be a lot of munchkins who insist of 20 point fastloads, and beside that do you want an R8 localised throughput of 5!?!...that's 10 at R1 BTW, which is better than a Ph-1...although a Ph-G is 14.66 so it's not un thinkable, just can you imaging putting 4 Ph-Gs on a ship and powering them up with 2 power!?!
I think 10+2 is going to be bad even if you do restrict fastloads to 12 ( which is okay by may but there's a lot of pro 16 point fastload people around.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 03:12 am: Edit

We can handle the munchkins by simply writing the rule that says "No, you can't do _____."

What do you mean by localised throughput?
I always understood throughput to mean damage output over 6 turns (plasmas shoot twice, photons shoot 3 times, phasers shoot 6 times) so you can compare the total amount of damage the weapon can do.

If you're worried about a ship starting the scenario with needing only 2 power to finish arming a 24 point torpedo, consider the fact that Feds already start WS-III with 2 power to hold 16 point shots. The difference is, if the 24 pointers are not fired on turn 1, then they cost 3 to hold, not 2.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 05:16 am: Edit

Quote:

What do you mean by localised throughput?
I always understood throughput to mean damage output over 6 turns (plasmas shoot twice, photons shoot 3 times, phasers shoot 6 times) so you can compare the total amount of damage the weapon can do.


I mean ( and it's probably the wrong term ) Average damage divided by the total power to arm for throughput and average damage output per point of power to arm during the turn of the fire point for localised throughput.

It's how the Bastard Sword Dance works.
By generating up 12 point photons and only investing 2 power in the last turn, you have a localised throughput of 3.


Quote:

If you're worried about a ship starting the scenario with needing only 2 power to finish arming a 24 point torpedo, consider the fact that Feds already start WS-III with 2 power to hold 16 point shots. The difference is, if the 24 pointers are not fired on turn 1, then they cost 3 to hold, not 2.


S14.13 could be taken to mean standards not overloads, I was always under the impression that no more than 4 points of power could be considered to have been loaded into Photons on previous turns @ WS-III.


I really don't like the idea of plugging ten points of power into the Photon in a single turn.
E4.411 makes it quite clear than only 4 points of Warp Energy may be added to overload a standard Photon torpedo.
That doesn't change for X1 and the introduction of fastloads.

If the then got and make a jump that says yuou can add 8 additional points of warp in any single impulse, we are douibling the capability which is a bit strong considering we are building a one tech level jump and we have no drawback...the overload function may have doubled the output of MY over Y Photon torps ( on a torp to torp basis ) but at servere costs, the Holding energy went up, there was feedback damage if fired too close and there was an R8 maximum range.

If we say we can blast in 8 points total then the 6 additional points is only a 50% increase over the X1 and GW limits.


The real question is this.
If the Klingons are running arround with +2 UIM and Disruptors linked to Disruptor caps which are linked to the Phaser caps and they have 6 impulse cycle.
They will do an average damage of 24 points of damage each turn at range 8 ( or 48 damage over two such attacks or two turns ).

And then the Feds hurl four 24 point photons at R8 hitting with half of them...for 48 points over two turns, but the Feds have the aspect of crunch power.


The Big question is how do we deal with the crunch power issue?
And I say it should be dealt with by the inbstability rule and the 6 points of warp in a single turn limit.

The Klingon ability to rush in on the turn of rearming could easily be offset by alternate arming but that would offset the crunch power.

I would say that since we want the ability to deal with a high ECM enviroment through overloaded proxies and that we want the ability to disarm our proxies into standards during the turn ( say a 4 impulse delay ) then well have to make big consession to the diruptor boys.

And that means either 6 disruptors on a cruiser or we have some other drawback, like the 24 point photons are a mungrel to build because they need such specific arming.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Localized throughput = "damage to power ratio on the turn of firing without considering power from previous turns", right?

I'm not sure that's incredibly valid as a concern or measure of efficiency. If you want a 24 point photon you have t put in the 12 power to get it at some point. And if your enemy gives you a full turn to rest and put most of the arming energy into your photons, he deserves to get stomped for not pressing you on your reload turn as any competent player would.

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 07:09 pm: Edit

Call it "crunch throughput", if you will. It's not as important as the overall throughput number, but is an important secondary consideration.

You can't let "crunch throughput" get too large or it throws balance out of whack too. Consider a weapon that's just like the disruptor, but takes 20 turns to charge and does 20x as much damage. If a ship with this weapon has it charged (say WS-III?), an opponent with disruptors has little chance of winning, when hitting with two "uber" disruptors will vaporize his ship at r8.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 07:22 pm: Edit

Quote:

I'm not sure that's incredibly valid as a concern or measure of efficiency. If you want a 24 point photon you have t put in the 12 power to get it at some point. And if your enemy gives you a full turn to rest and put most of the arming energy into your photons, he deserves to get stomped for not pressing you on your reload turn as any competent player would.



1) What's the starting range?

2) What's the accelleration limit...I mean quadrupple or Plus 20 and I have 48+6 warp that I spend on arming say 10+2 Photons, I'll be moving at 8 on the first turn and be able to jump up to 32 on the second. When you factor in 5 Point BTTYs that can hold warp power over a turn break, you get some pretty deadly capasities...like a speed of 28 on my arnming turn using just 4 batteries.


As for it not being a valid measure.
The measure is, how well does the weapopn work in comparison to SSReo, which can only be delivered up ( ignoring the effects of BTTY ) on the turn of fire and be useful.
An R8 UIM Disruptor has a localised throughput of 1.2 so it's better at that range to fire your disruptors than to generate SSReo, a 2+6 arming Fed at Range generates a Localised throughput of 1.333 and so it's also more useful to fire your photons at that range than generating SSReo. If you just considered the total power to arm then you'ld come to the conclussion that the throughput being 1.0 that one could go either way and generate SSReo if one wanted to...mind you X1 8-12 point fastloads at R8 do have a localised throughput of 1.0 and so the Fed might be better off generating SSReo than firing at that range, or maybe he'll just go down to R4.

Localised through put helps in understanding that area of crunch power that people just tend to veiw naturally rather than statistically, specifically that you can't save up SSReo over several turns and have it there for when the enemy fires his heavy weapons.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 08:37 pm: Edit

MJC,

OK, I can see that. It's a measure of one-shot crunch.

So back to the topic at hand: If we allow a possible 10+2 arming sequence for a photon, tell me what's so bad about a localized throughput of 5. (6?)

Please address the counterbalancing argument that it's almost impossible to put 10 points into a ship's entire inventory of photons and not make the ship vulnerable to a competent enemy. If someone can throw that kind of power into their weapons and actually pull it off, I think they're welcome to the benefits.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 10:12 pm: Edit

What's the top speed be if an XCA put 40 warp into its torpedos on the first turn?
What's the top speed be if a CA put 24 warp into its photons?

Don't you get the same speed in both cases? 8-10.

If that's the case, then 10+2 = 24 warhead seems very Fed-like for X2.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 10:21 pm: Edit

So back to the topic at hand: If we allow a possible 10+2 arming sequence for a photon, tell me what's so bad about a localized throughput of 5. (6?)
Oops...yeah, six.

Okay, well what happens latter in the Xork invasion period.

If an X1 cruiser can have 40 Warp Engine boxes and an X2 cruiser can generate 1.5 power per box, then it stands to reason that an X2 cruiser could have at the uppermost design limit of a pair of 20 box warp engines that produces 1.5 power per turn.
If we take from that 60 points of warp power a 40 point lump to power the Photons ( and that asumes that there are no AWRs to power the Photons, and we have Warp Power help in the our five 5 point BTTYs then we can Move at 31 on turn 1 and load up those 24 point warheads whilst just consuming 10 points of 25 points of warp power.
On the second turn the 8 points of power being flooded in to the warp tubes can come from teh engines without any kind of problem.


Even in the trade wars period, with 48 warp power and 4-6 points of AWR, the ship could dump in 10 points of Warp per tube and still move at 15.
Or alternately it could run at ( lets say 32 costs an extra ten points of warp power ) a speed of 32 and pass 2 points into each tube ( without touching the AWR power, although one point of impulse will be used ) and then use the Fed Hack `n' Slash to fire off 4 close range 24 point photons and crawl away at a speed of 15! ( that's 30 for 8 impulses, 16 for 8 impulses and 8 for 8 impulses and she can jump straight up to 32 from 8 if we improve the accelleration abilities to 4 times or +20 and that is pretty leasurely decelleration considering X1 uses 6 impulse blocks and X2 might have 4 impulse blocks...even with times three and +15 she could have a 7 impulse block at a speed of 28 and decellerate to 14 for 6 impulses and she'ld have enough to hexes of movement to go at 10 for the rest of the turn which would allow her to jump back up to 30!...no use of the five three point BTTYs.)

How do GW ships compete!?!

A B10 oppoents can only move at 31 and ( 79+12 - 61 - 6.5 - 22 = 1.5 ) fire 8 drones and her phaser array and 5 of her 8 facing disruptors on overload and one on standard and have 1.5 power left in thbe BTTYs.
And can only do that for one turn before she has to start powering any phasers that she wishes to employ.
After a turn of doing that she could power and fire all her disruptors and all her facing phasers ( assume perfect oblique ) ( 79+1.5 -6.5 - 11 ( the left over caps from the previuos perfect oblique were used and the player chooses not to recharge the Ph-3 ) -32 ( all facing disruptors ) = 31 which is a speed of 16 )...and this is before anybody deals with EW dropping the number of charged diruptors by one standard and one overload ( unless the speed drops by 3).

All in all an off turn speed of 15 isn't too bad against a GW opponent and indeed is so good that the X2 ships will easily be able to inflict huge quantites (even with X1 style BTTYs, the five BTTYs will allow for 15 points of impromutu tractor whilst the B10 only has 12) of damage during the arming period and stay out of trouble during the non-arming period...and the X2 is theoretically cheaper than a B10.


10+2 and 2+10 arming are bad moves if we want to retain a Plays Nice situation with GW vessels.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 10:35 pm: Edit

What's the top speed be if an XCA put 40 warp into its torpedos on the first turn?
48(Engine)+6(AWR)+1 Imp - 40 = 15.


What's the top speed be if a CA put 24 warp into its photons?
7 until the AWR refit makes it 11 ( but that require 1 point of BTTY to house keeping )

Don't you get the same speed in both cases? 8-10.
No the X2 is much faster!!!

If that's the case, then 10+2 = 24 warhead seems very Fed-like for X2.
It has a fed feel and I'm not against a Fed Feel...you're talking to Mr six 24 Point Photons have a Fed Feel here, but it'll make the Play Nice aspect of the game blow away like dust.

Consider the Fed Hack and slash.
How do you stop a Fed that can move at speed 32 from getting to R1???
Convince him that he'ld rather Oblique you at R4!!!...that's about your only option.
By running up to really close range and hurling 64(R4) or 80(R2) or 96(R1) points of photon based damage as soon as the turn break arrives, and running fast enough to leave the Feds will murderalize ( As Buggs Bunny likes to say ) the GW ships.

As much as a Fed feel will be a good thing, some Fed actions will become beyond a joke as the dynamic changes from no warp availible at 31 to 14 warp availible at 31 (MY to X2). And thus some of the MY and GW abilities of the Fed will need to be watered down ( or left as they are ) and not have their capasities uniformly increased.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 10:49 pm: Edit

There are a lot of details that are assumed in your analysis that haven't been settled on.

Quote:

If an X1 cruiser can have 40 Warp Engine boxes and an X2 cruiser can generate 1.5 power per box, then it stands to reason that an X2 cruiser could have at the uppermost design limit of a pair of 20 box warp engines that produces 1.5 power per turn.



I don't think anyone has settled on 1.5 warp per box.

Quote:

and we have Warp Power help in the our five 5 point BTTYs then we can Move at 31 on turn 1 and load up those 24 point warheads whilst just consuming 10 points of 25 points of warp power.



5 point batteries are Andromedan tech and Old X2 Supplement material. They're not on the current X2 proposals.

Warp capabable battery power is only seen in the Old X2 Supplement. Play balance dictates that we DON'T give batteries that ability for this X2 discussion.

Quote:

Even in the trade wars period, with 48 warp power and 4-6 points of AWR, the ship could dump in 10 points of Warp per tube and still move at 15.


That assumes that no warp power will be used for other purposes, such as EW, housekeeping, and recharging batteries. Take one of the posted Fed XCAs and do an EA form for it.

Quote:

How do GW ships compete!?!
A B10 oppoents can ...



The B10 is not the best way to compare an XCAs BPV. The B10 is a unique ship, and was never designed to duel in the first place.

The XCA is not designed to replace the B10, it's designed to replace a squadron of cruisers.

On "X2 Playtest Reports" I posted some squadrons that would make more realistic opponents for an XCA. 3 D5s come in at close to 400 points.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 10:52 pm: Edit

MJC,

15 is not exactly a blistering speed.

To expand the scenario, You're putting 40 out of 60 total power (assuming 6 impulse)into weapons.

Minus 4 housekeeping leaves 16 for everything including speed.

Care to spring for a ASIF? Minimum power is 1 for my system, and more like 6-8 for other proposals. The ship closes to a vulnerable crawl.

EW? Another 8 points and we haven't even decided if the special bridge costs anything.

Holding weasels or suicides? More power.

Let's not even talk about what happens if the phaser caps are dry (2x caps does make that less likley)

Clearly the batteries can end up badly drained for this, especialy if it has to use heavy EW and/or one of the more expensive SIF proposals. I think a GW ship can cope with this situation.

Now graduate to 60 warp plus another 12 other power for 72 that blows the lid off the hard choices.

Seems to me that a 60-warp upgrade would be unbalancing, so we simply don't upgrade to 60-warp during the Xork invasion. We stay at 48. (Jeff, there's your answer about 1.5x boxes)

Problem solved.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 11:06 pm: Edit

This discussion hinges on whether or not X2-Batteries can hold warp for multiple turns. It says they do in the rules.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 11:16 pm: Edit

For that matter, the poll we did showed most people favored 44 to 46 warp, not 48. That, and the fact that we don't know how much AWR an XCA will have (say four or five), and you get a result closer to Jeff's original. This is all very conjectural right now, but we're arguing in circles over this and making it harder than it has to be. I still think a simple 50% increase in photon damage and power over 1X is a good start. Take this example:

1X CC: 4 photons. Normal arming is 8 points in one turn for two turns. Out of forty warp, you have 32 left over.

2X CA: 4 photons. Normal arming (at 12 point standard warheads) is 12 per turn for two turns. With 46 warp, you get 34 left over.

With all the other X2 stuff we're seeing proposed, you may well have less power to play with than the 1X ship did. And fast loading makes it even worse; a fast load of 16 point warheads will be horrendously expensive...32 points. Even if you had all warp in your batteries, and drained 'em dry, that's still a huge, huge amount of power to put into a weapon...especially one that hits so poorly.

And yes, you'll knock the stuffing out of any 0X ship that gets close enough to you. But hell, shouldn't a 2X CA with a BPV of 350 or so be pretty darned dangerous?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 11:29 pm: Edit

Mike, Loren,

My analysis takes warp in the batteries into account. Given a pretty rosy scenario (48 warp, 6 AWR, 6 Impulse), putting 10/tube into photons leavs the ship badly strapped for power, even when you toss in the extra 15 for an assumed 5 batteries.

If you're strapped for power at the end of the equation, it doesn't matter if the batts are holding warp or not. There still isn't enough to go around.

Result: dropping in 10/tube will be an unworkable or extremely rare occurance.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

As it should be! I agreed with your post, John...I was just pointing out a somewhat simpler alternative.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 12:13 am: Edit

If you're strapped for power at the end of the equation, it doesn't matter if the batts are holding warp or not. There still isn't enough to go around.

Result: dropping in 10/tube will be an unworkable or extremely rare occurance.
No It'll happen all the time if you let it.

How does a GW ship or group of ships ( althought he only thing the group of ships have in their advantage is the possibility of overkill ) deal with a ship that has 48 Warp and 6 AWR and runs at the GWs at speed 32 ( using 40 Warp and 1 Impulse, although I'ld like ships to go faster then 32...maybe the left over AWR will go to paying for the A.S.I.F. and Life support ) and then over the turn break, at what ever range it's reached, dump ( 3 point caps even with Ph-5s allows the second shot for free...8 EW can come from BTTY if need be, you have 15 points in the five three pointers...4 house keeping ( which will likely be 3 Impulse and one BTTY )...hurls 4 24 point photons and 6 Ph-5 shots ( and still has 6 points of power left in the Caps ) and then has enough power to walk away at speed 15!?!

Sure the 2 D5s that didn't get cruicified will race in and balst their four Ph-1s and 8 Overloaded Disruptors against you 50-50-40-40-40-50 shields but the A.S.I.F. and Caps-to-SSReo will take a lot of the sting out of that...At R4 the D5s are only looking like dealing up 58.33 points of damage ( although there is the possibility that some Damage will be done by the cruisifed D5 on the same shield as the other D5s but it's unlikely that they'll get all three to hit so I accounted for two hitting the same shield).


The X2 Photon just shouldn't be able to arm 10+2 or 2+10, the idea of it is too devestating.
Even arming as 8+4 and 4+8 and remaining stable will give the Fed XCA the ability to grossly damage enemy ships even though the Klingon XCA is running around with 4 Disruptors that bearly scratch the enemy.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 02:16 am: Edit

My solution for the Klink was that 4 heavy disruptors was not enough and six was a little too much. I went with(actually Mike Rapers original K-XBC design) two rear firing H-Disr. as the balance. This also had the effect of making the Klingons the Kings of the Oblique attack. Originally there was four FH and two RH but this along with the cool Klingon Phaser arcs was too much. So I ended up with 2xFA-L + 2xFA-R + 2xRH. If you see the exterior design I created these arcs fit perfectly.

MJC: Though I still feel 24 points is too much (and 20 as well but 18 arms uneven) I'm glad to see you being conservative here. I agree with you. We could say that 50% of the energy to arm a warhead over 16 must be added on the first turn for stability. An arming chart could be given to denote the minimum turn A arming energy IF you want to arms a particular size war head. You could add less energy the second turn and end up with a lesser warhead if you choose.


Photon Heavy Overload
Minimum Energy Requirements Table
Warhead 17-19 20-23 24
Turn A minimum 4 5 6
Turn B minimum 4 4 5


Remember, I'm presenting MINIMUM energy requirements. To acheive these warhead sizes you would have to put more energy into one of the turns.

This is all given MJC idea. I'm still partial to mine. :)

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, March 03, 2003 - 01:38 pm: Edit

An X0 photon can be armed as a 2+2 standard.
When OL, it can be armed 2+6, 2+3, 6+2, or any other combination.

If you have a turn where you're short on power (reload and run away, for example), you can put only 2 power in this turn, but still have the option later (no matter how costly) to fill a full overload later.

The reason I proposed 10+2 (or more properly 2+10) is to keep this option open for the Fed ship.

Sure, if you put 2 points to each torpedo on the first turn, then ramp it up to full OL on the next turn, all the lights in the non-essential areas will go dim and the ship will slow to a crawl. But that's how Fed ships have flown since the overload setting was invented.

It comes down to playtesting. Analysis on the bulletin board is not going to be sufficient.

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