Charles, what do you suggest as a fix?

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:17 am: Edit

The easy fix is that same player ships....do not get to move a second time. They get the turn mode change. But since they are on the same side they are not going to cancel their own movement most of the time. Enemy ships are trying to slow you down and or stop you. One side or the other. And make it easier to hit you. Not assist you to escape a situation.

So simply state in the rule that the delayed movement does not occur for ships by the same player. Everything else remains the same. Since it is being used to generate more movement points for friendly ships and none for the enemy ships...which would happen if opposing people were involved. It can stay over the turn break because that makes sense. You payed for the tractor to do this last turn. You pay for the tractor to continue this turn to get the move. So it effectively cost you 2 points for one move even if it was not warp energy. And that would eliminate this problem where people are generating extra movement in order to avoid things that should not be avoidable at least not the way it is being done.

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:21 am: Edit

Mark is it nit picky? Or has someone found an exploit and it now needs to be addressed? I know I have been playing since the 80s and never saw this before.

It requires someone to do the math in advance for speed reduction from tractor. So most people would not and have not bothered to figure this out nor did it occur to them.

Is it nit picky to try and get a slight modification? I am not saying lets junk the tractor rules and rewrite them. Just in this one small part add a line. Or even just a few words. "Does not apply when ships of the same player uses it."

All in all the tractor rules work great. In this one instance it is being abused now.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:23 am: Edit

Regarding: "But since tractored...only one ship moves this imp. Other ship delays movement."

This is not so. Movement is NOT delayed. Both ships plot movement. If the result is forward (likely with friendly ships), the group moves forward 1 hex.

The only exception that I recall is where deferred movement occurs is on impulse 32. Even so, the tractor link must be maintained thru to the next turn. Then the ship that had deferred movement does move the tractored group on impulse 1.

An common example: Say your ship and an enemy ship are tractored. You plot forward and due the facing of the enemy ship his plot opposes yours. The result is that both ships try to move but the result is no movement at all.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:34 am: Edit

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Quote:

And that would eliminate this problem where people are generating extra movement in order to avoid things that should not be avoidable at least not the way it is being done.

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By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:52 am: Edit

What Chuck is complaining about is a well known use of tractors in fleet battles. We've (our group of 5 players) been using them CONSTANTLY in our personal campaign. You can use ships tractoring each other to accomplish the following:

--NOT move on a subsequent impulse when otherwise you would have.

--DO move on a subsequent impulse when otherwise you would not have.

--Move on Impulse #1 when otherwise it is impossible to do so (via delayed movement when both tractored ships move in the same direction on impulse #32).

--Combined that last with a tractor rotation (if the ship size classes permit) you can move one of the ships TWO impulses prior to fire on Impulse #1 (rotate one ship away during tractor rotation phase and then actually perform the delayed movement on Impulse #1).

While you cannot establish a tractor from Ship A to Ship B again within 8 impulses, recall that Ship B can still tractor Ship A within that time. When you have 3 or more ships available in a fleet battle, the number of tractors you can perform quickly and effectively evades the delay requirements.

Of course, other penalties apply (fire control issues, etc.)

However, the bottom line is that these tactics are especially useful against seeking weapon races (primarily big plasma).

In my experience, these tactics do NOT break the game, particularly when you know to expect them. Plan for your opponent to do these things and time your launches and strategy accordingly. Use a small part of your total seeker capacity to herd enemy movement until he is in a disadvantageous position and you can launch more plasma that is more likely to hit or force a weasel (which usually results in victory for YOU in the long run).

I have both defeated opponents, and been defeated by opponents, whether or not I've used these tactics or have had them used against me. In other words, they can be beaten. You just have to understand that an enemy moving at high speed with all of his ships has the following capabilities that you should expect him to use:

1) The ability to turn more quickly at a high true speed (your turn mode is at your pseudo speed, not your true speed).

2) The ability to move on impulses that his current speed does not call him to move on.

3) The ability to NOT move on an impulse that his current speed would otherwise call for him to move on.

4) The ability to arrange for one, possibly two (for a tractored ship), hexes of "movement" on impulse #1.

The effect of Tractor Tricks (tm) is to add some complexity to the prognostication required to anticipate your opponent's movement choices.

The other thing to do is NOT cut your opponent a break if he makes a math mistake. I've seen this happen MANY times (and I myself have been a victim of this type of error). He ends up moving (or not moving) because his math on predicting pseudo speeds was wrong. When this occurs, punish your opponent's error. That is one of the dangers of attempting to use Tractor Tricks (tm).

Finally, it is untrue that you gain movement for nothing. Every hex of movement is accounted for with power; however, sometimes that "power" is effectively transferred from one ship to the other. There's no "real" power transfer, but each hex of movement was paid for by some ship.

Note also that Tractor Tricks (tm) do not work very well when the true speed of your fleet is low. If the true speed of your fleet is high, then you would be moving most impulses *anyway*.

IMHO the richness of SFB tactical play would be diminished if these rules were altered. The solution to Tractor Tricks (tm) is to anticipate their possibility in fleet play and plan accordingly, not change the rule.

My nine cents.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 11:56 am: Edit

Quick caveat on expected enemy capabilities in fleet battles: It is not ALWAYS the case that an opponent can perform tactics 1, 2, or 3. The math of the pseudo speed has to work out, *and* all other rules have to be satisfied. I.e., it won't help you to turn NOW if your turn mode at the pseudo speed still isn't satisfied. It also doesn't allow the non-moving tractored ship to turn.

Anyway, my bottom line is that these rules are GOOD for the game because they encourage tactical richness in fleet battles. Just make sure the rules are followed rigorously.

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Ted the delayed movement occurs every time you tractor someone....beginning of the turn middle, or end. Doesnt matter. If it was only at the end. Then it would not be a problem.

But you made a seriously bad statement. You do indeed gain without paying movement cost when in the middle or early turn you gain a hex of movement by moving two consecutive impulses when you are not supposed to move one of those impulses. And as I mentioned you can do it a total of 4 times over a turn for 4 extra hexes with two ships. It gets worse with more and with different sized ships which can get different times to move easier.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 12:28 pm: Edit

Delayed movement doesn't occur every time. It occurs only when both tractored ships move on the next movement, and then only if the resulting movement would have been TWO hexes.

Therefore it is NOT a true gain of movement - just an apparent one. That movement was bought and paid for by the combination of the two ships. Remember, this only works when one of the ships effectively lost a point of movement on impulse X, which is then compensated on impulse X+1.

You need to recheck the math. The math does work. You are not getting something for nothing. You ARE getting a redistribution of when those movements occur.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 01:11 pm: Edit

What rules reference is delayed movement under?

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 01:14 pm: Edit

@Ginger McMurray: Please see G7.36 and review the examples.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 01:23 pm: Edit

@Ted: I see no way to read that section which would indicate that there is ever a time when multiple hex movement via tractors doesn't get delayed.

There's an example of delayed movement that specifically states it gets delayed and the example is for impulse #10-13.

I think the sentence "Ships cannot move more than
one hex in one impulse" is very telling. Perhaps we're looking at different releases? I'm looking at the current Master Rulebook.

Note: I'm not saying this rule is broken or needs to be changed. I'm just trying to make sure we're all speaking the same language.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 01:59 pm: Edit

@Ginger: Perhaps I mis-worded something in my original post. It was never my contention that tractored ships can move twice in one impulse because of delayed movement. Rather, my contention was that delayed movement did not result in *actually increasing* the total number of hexes moved when looking at the total number of hexes of movement paid for by the pair of tractored ships. Movement of the tractored pair *might* be redistributed over multiple impulses using delayed movement rules.

Maybe you're referring to my example where I said you could end up moving TWO hexes in one impulse (effectively). It can be done, but it requires planning, it can only be done over the turn break and on impulse #1, and the ship size classes have to be right. Here's the procedure.

On Impulse #31 Ship A tractors Ship B. Both ships are called to move on Impulse #32 at their pseudo speeds.

Say that Ship A is called to move first on Impulse #32, and does so. Ship B's declared move is in a direction that would have caused the tractored pair to move two hexes on Impulse #32. Therefore, Ship B's move is delayed.

During the final activity phase, Ship A declares that it is maintaining the tractor into the next turn.

During the tractor rotation segment of the initial activity phase (note this is after energy allocation but before Impulse#1), Ship A announces that it will "tractor rotate" Ship B. Due to the size classes of the two ships, the player notes that one of the options for the rotation is to push Ship B *away* from itself (i.e., to increase the range by 1 hex). Therefore, Ship B is pushed forward one hex, away from Ship A - which accomplishes an "apparent movement" of one hex for Ship B only.

Assume Ship A paid sufficient energy to maintain the tractor link and the range between Ship A and Ship B is still 3 or less.

Then, on Impulse #1 Ship B performs its delayed (and previously declared) movement, dragging Ship A along for the ride.

Then net result is that both ships move impulse #1 due to delayed movement. However, due to the tractor rotation, Ship A *effectively* got TWO hexes close for purposes of impulse activity and fire actions on Impulse #1.

I was recently a victim of this brilliant tactic. The opponent closed the range from 4 to 2 this way, tractored me (when I wasn't expecting it, thinking I was safe from tractors at range 4) and let me have a full wad of plasma torpedoes. Note that Ship A had to drop tractor on Ship B on Impulse #1 to make this work.

It was a TOTAL victory for him. Ironic, really, given that Chuck has been arguing that Tractor Tricks are so unfair to plasma empires....

Since then I resoundingly defeated this same opponent when he made a Tractor Trick mistake, combined with my own well-planned Tractor Trick usage.

The point here is not that I'm better or worse than my opponent (Marcel Trahan in this case) - it's that Tractor Tricks aren't broken so much as just a part of the game that adds more tactical richness to fleet combat in SFB.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 02:18 pm: Edit

Gotcha, thanks!

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Ted no one has ever in any post said 2 ships move in the same impulse when tractored. The issue is and always will be, that I am scheduled to move, and have power applied to move 19 times (Using 19 for example). over the next 4 impulses I might move 3 times...and miss a move. So I look at the impulse chart and yep...if I tractor my other ship, Our speed is cut in half. So 1 move 2 move 3 dont move. 4 move. So on 1 after move we tractor each other....and as often happens, the half speed will also move every other time as this is. And so 1 we moved. 2 at half speed I move and drag the other ship. Now at this point nothing we have moves. it is impulse 3 in this example. And we are dead in the water at half speed or full speed. But because of the tractor rules of delayed movement, we now will move on impulse 3 and now the 1st ship that moved last impulse drags the second ship along with it. Then after move. Drop tractor. And on imp 4 we all move again. So...we moved all 4 impulses. When we payed for 3. And were scheduled for 3 moves. And if we do not do this again this turn. At the end of the turn we will have moved 20 hexes after paying for 19.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 03:37 pm: Edit

Charles H Carroll:

You yourself noted that a ship with a closing plasma, in order to use this trick you might have to blow your (often one and only) HET bonus, and that means you are also blowing five movement points of warp engine power, to face away from the approaching plasma. Actually, 10 points since presumably your partner ship will also have to do a HET to face away from the pursuing plasma. (I know you used War Eagles in a hypothetical example, but I am going to ignore this as by definition to use an HET they cannot be moving any faster than Speed 16).

If your primary premise is that this is being done to escape seeking weapons, then why were the seeking weapons launched to begin with at a fleeing enemy? Either you are always burning 5 extra points for high energy turns (and eventually breakdowns will fix that problem) or you are always running away, i.e., not pointing your primary heavy weapons at he enemy.

As to Impulse #32. In order to gain that extra hex of movement over a turn break, you have to retain the tractor link over the turn break. If you drop it during energy allocation, the extra move is lost. See (G7.36C-3) which states:" If the tractor link is released before an owed movement point is conducted, it is simply lost." So the movement on Impulse #1 of Turn X+1 ("X" being the turn the tractor link was established) will cost you two points of power, the point to establish the initial link, and the point to maintain the link over the turn break, or the movement is lost.

I am sorry, but the rule is not going to be changed.

So, yes, you are obviously moving slowly

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 04:01 pm: Edit

I have had this tactic used on me in the campaign. My answer has been sneaky, sneaky Feds. However in those cases I was wanting the Feds to run away from me it was just fine. The times I did expect a Hit even with tractor tricks. He used a WW... sneaky FEDs
As a Plasma User the rule I want gone is the •••• WW ah well it will stay so I shall deal with it. I will make sure fore every dead shuttle the captain has 30 pages of paper work to justify that dead shuttle.

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Steve you missed the entire point about the torp.

I am not facing away...but as often is the case say with Klingons. I am oblique. So an moving at an angle to you. I never have to HET doing this unless head on.

Instead I slow down and gee...my turn mode is now satisfied. So I turn away...and am now running away from the torp and can run straight if I want to.

But the torp is going to nail the tar out of me in two moves because I stop moving then. But...thank goodness I have a second ship here. Next impulse we both will move at the speed we are going or at half speed which is what the tractor trick will do. So...I tractor the other ship. Now...we SLOW down....and I turn which I could not do before because I had not moved far enough. Now though I need less movement to be able to turn and so will do so. Same as my other ship. I turn when we move the first impulse under tractor, he turns when we leap forward for an extra unpaid hex of movement because of the delayed tractor trick. So now after the tractor trick we are both facing totally away....torp was in direction a to us. We were in direction F....now we are in direction E and can just run straight. And we gained an additional hex of movement. Not only that. But now we are moving at normal speed again since we drop tractor after the second move. And we will move the next 3 moves lets say. But it will now hit instead of last impulse. Now it will hit 4 impulses after it should have. Yet...oh look...if on impulse 2 we do the tractor trick again from the other ship, we slow down again and gain another hex of movement then get 3 more hexes of movement...and by then...the torp is dead. having gained 8 hexes of movement on the torp instead of it hitting me 8 impulses ago.

So this does indeed totally screw all torp users in any fleet engagement. Now can you always time this that well? Probably not. But you can take the time to figure out your movement curve and see when you need to tractor, or maybe bump up speed by one to reach yet another tractor trick.

And if never being able to hit with a torp does not break the game. Then I do not know what does.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Charles H CarrolL:

Under the rules of seeking weapons you can "lead the target." The torpedo must have the target in its FA arc when it is launched, and must move so that it gets closer. The target will turn away and employ sideslips to keep the range open and turn again when he can. At that point you are pursuing him and engaging his rear flank shields with phasers. If he wants to engage, he has turn back, and that is probably why you did not launch all of your plasma. If he turns back you get to pummel him at shorter range with your plasmas.

There are reasons not to launch all of the plasmas you have at one time and to cycle them, unless you can tractor your opponent and dump the load on him at one time.

War Eagles are slow (so are Snipe-As, BattleHawks, and Vultures), and so are the Warp Refitted and Early Years ships.

You can keep running once you start running.

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Steve we seem to be discussing two totally different concepts. Yes I did mention the secondary issue of War Eagles being able to move at speed 23...20 warp and 1 imp so 21 is their max. Yet with tractor tricks two WEs can get up to speed 23 effectively. As in they will actually move 23 hexs while having paid for just 21 hexes of movement. And they will get an extra 2 moves without having any warp energy to move those two hexes with.

Now....with that said, for the last few posts...I was talking about the game bring broken not because of WEs and impossible speed. But because of Torpedoes launched toward someone who is moving to slowly to out run them. Is it always possible they could WW sure. But that is usually suicide. Could they do an unplotted Speed change? Again sure. But going up in speed means you cannot turn maybe and so that is bad.

But what I am seeing repeatedly, is someone who sees torps hit the board. And knows he cannot outrun them, who uses tractor tricks to slow down speeding himself up by one hex per time he uses tractor tricks. And so gains another hex of movement against a torpedo which causes less damage by the torpedo when he was going to be hit and could not escape.

And being able to do this several times with two ships. And even more with 3...the ships race off at a slower speed but are now as fast as a speed 32 torpedo and so stay ahead of it for many impulses. Reducing its damage to next to nothing. By spending 1 point each of tractor.

Now...the rule is very reasonable. When dealing with enemy ships. It is completely fair. We each have a slight chance to get maybe an extra hex of movement. But since we will not be dropping tractor, re tractoring, tractoring again...so forth so on...it is a one time extra hex of movement. And if the tractor is not broken by force, or by being dropped, you will slow way down for the rest of the turn. Not speed up to as fast as a torp.

The rule made perfect sense for enemy ships. You move. I move, we have slower speeds so lower turn requirements. Oh look I can bring a fresh shield to bear. Oh...drat...you turned and brought more weapons to bear. I side slip you side slip since we are not on the same side, we do not really gain anything.

But when you are working together...and intentionally using this to game the rules and system, then it becomes a really bad thing.

And that is what I am seeing. Now we can point to the fact that it has been around forever. But realistically, it has not been used this way for as long as I have been playing and I started back with Ken Burns in the 80s. He designed a Klingon trick...that you accepted in a starlog and then killed because it was like this, made the game broken.

Anyway, I do not mind someone hetting...and using speed changes to outrun a torp. They have paid a steep penalty to do so. This? This is rewarding them and costs them a single point of power. per ship per movement hex gained. But two ships gain the movement for one basic point of power. So cruisers are now moving for 1/2 a point of power and it is not even warp. And....they are outrunning for at least a few extra impulses for that point of power a speed 32 torpedo.

To me, that is a serious issue in so many ways. It violates the movement cost rule. It violates the speed change rule. Since you can do this several times in 8 impulses AND can do a real speed change during the same 8 impulses. So slow way down....then 2 impulses later double your speed....change speed up...then slow way down...then 2 impulses later speed up double. So you could have 5 speed changes in 8 impulses. And 4 of them are huge ones.

And somehow you say this is not an issue. I see it as being one because it is not just that. It is ships can now move faster than they have warp. Torps can be outrun which could not be outrun at the speed you were going.

This has so many variations of rule violations to it. Oh and you can side slip twice in a row with friendly ships helping each other illegally side slip. So...its all good???? Really????

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:17 pm: Edit

The bottom line is that "tractor tricks" allow a medium speed fleet to move many, if not almost all, impulses - as if they had all plotted high speed. It doesn't always work, and the math has to be right, but it *can* be done.

Chuck appears to think this long standing rule is unfair to the seeking weapon empires.

In a sense, he is right. It is possible to outrun plasma this way.

However, in my experience a plasma empire can use the same tractor tricks to ALSO move most impulses at medium speed.

Thus, you still have a "rabbit and hare" dynamic when flying against a direct fire race (launch plasma, opponent runs, you chase, etc.) - which exists to some extent whether or not you use tractor tricks.

If you don't like the effect of the rules and their tactics, that's a value judgement which I can't argue with.

Speaking for myself only, it doesn't bother me, even when I fly big plasma fleets.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Charles H. Carroll:

The rules have worked well enough for at least 35 years (when I started playing, I cannot say for previous to 1985), and while I worked my way onto the then Staff by about 1987, I was not in a position to "change rules" in 1985. The only person who could do so was Stephen V. Cole, not Steven Petrick.

Tractors work the same for both sides. whether the tractor is between a Coalition ship or an Alliance ship, or between two Alliance ships, or between two Coalition ships. It makes no sense for the tractor's movement effect to be different just because the two ships are on the same side. Note: MOVEMENT EFFECTS (emphasis, not yelling). There are fire control effects if a friendly ship tractors another friendly ship, and size class also has effects; See (G7.91).

The tractor link works the same way, and yes the Alliance Ship might want to drag the Coalition ship toward a plasma torpedo launched by another Alliance ship and all the rules apply even if the motivations are different and both will be attempting to counter the other. But the Mechanics are the same.

So, I am sorry, this is not going to change.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:23 pm: Edit

Charles,
You are confusing MOVEMENT with BEING MOVED, they aren't the same thing....
Being pulled to the side, has the same affect, but isn't a Side Slip, being pulled/pushed doesn't count to satisfy your Turn Mode....

Seems to me, you have come to the point of reaching to justify your argument....

From my view, the tactic has one (1) pro, an unlimited amount of Cons if used.....

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:43 pm: Edit

Mark S. Hoyle:

Charles H. Carroll has categorically stated that his experience indicates the effect makes victory for plasma) and other seeking weapon empires) much harder and thus sees a need to eliminate the effect in the name of game balance. So I do not think you can say he is "reaching" or than in his view there are "cons" to counter the "pro."

The rules work the same for both sides and Charles H. Carroll's experience says that in battles were only movement cost 1 cruisers are present it gives too much of an edge. (I may be overstating by all of his statements to date seem to indicate fleets of pure movement cost 1 ships as, as noted, smaller ships are shorter on tractors, SkyHawks being a notable exception), and shorter on power).

While he has not specifically stated so, this seems to be at least partly an issue with how he plays the game (no fault to him, we are all of us different). I honestly have never (and I mean never) engaged in a fleet battle where the smallest ship present was a movement cost 1 ship. Fleet battles that I fought have always been mixed affairs with usually no more then five movement cost 1 ships [BCH, Cruiser Squadron, Cruiser Carrier), and frequently less than that (the Cruiser Carrier is frequently a light cruiser carrier) in a full 13 ship fleet]. Charles H. Carroll seems to be saying that he (and his opponents) only does (do) fleet battle with movement cost 1 cruisers so that he can employ this tactic. That is to say since all of ships are movement cost 1, there is always one able to tractor pair with a ship in danger of being reached by plasma and always plenty of power in batteries or allocated to do this.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, April 09, 2020 - 05:48 pm: Edit

I saw a fleet of 11 move cost one or more ships used at least once that I recall, but certainly not the norm (Pal 10Dg).