Archive through July 23, 2020
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Tournament Zone:
Proposed Ship Changes:
Archive through July 23, 2020
Like Ted has said, the Andro is virtually impossible to balance due to its shield system being so totally different.
Since the Tournament structure is basically Heavy Cruisers, how about something completely radical!!
Make all damage to the PA panels permanent (with the only time power can go from PAs to Batteries is if a Panel is Destroyed.
The standard Intruder Heavy Cruiser is as Follows-
8 Forward and 6 Rear PA Panels
3 TR/H (FH, LS, RS)
8 Ph-2 (4LS, 4RS)
40 Power (32w, 4apr, 4imp) Warp probably should drop to 30 like other Heavy Cruisers.
Such a ship would retain the flavour of the Andros with their unique heavy weapon, DisDiv, and ability to use transporter bombs, while still allowing the ship to deteriorate over time like the other regular Tournament Cruisers.
I do understand this is radical but after 30 odd years of trying, the ship has proved a bugger to balance with its ability to suddenly wipe out very large amounts of received damage.
Such a ship would NOT retain the flavor of the Andromedans.
It would probably also be a holy terror.
Yeah, the Selt isn't *terrible*, it is just lackluster and also dicey.
The ability to fire the PCs twice per turn is generally best ignored, as it is mostly just wasting power. I have once or twice fired the PCs a second time in, like, a late game knife fight where no one is moving, but on an initial approach, or in a mid game situation, it is just a terrible idea. And then the 12 impulse delay over a turn break is the thing that gets you killed half the time (and the terrible to hit numbers get you killed the other half...).
Like, Ken Lin did very well with the Selt at Origins one year, just moving real fast and only ever having 3 power in the PC capacitors (just to fire OLs once at a time). It has a solid phaser suite (8P1, 4P3), and *can* do a lot of damage in close with the 4xOL PC and 3xSC, but again, it is very dicey (as the PCs are always 1 worse than disruptors, either on dice or damage brackets, sometimes both)--if it gets lucky, it can do a significant amount of damage. But if it gets unlucky, it does nothing.
Back to the Andro!
So in any case, I flew the current test Andro (2011, 3 batteries, but with 2TRL) against a fairly new opponent in a Fed.
I ended up at R4, as there isn't really a way to avoid ending up at R4. The Fed just shot me in the face. Hit 3/4 OLs, did 10 internals. They killed a TRL and the DisDev before I used it. The game was over, but I played a couple more turns. I did get a R2 shot on a rear shield a few impulses later, rolled well, but with only one of the TRLs to fire, did 25 damage, which cost the Fed a couple battery reinforcement, but nothing else. T3, the Fed got a R6 or 7 shot on my face, which was still mostly full of power, and did 30 internals.
I don't know that having TRH's in this fight would have made much difference--with 2TRH, I could have fired an early R8 shot for, like, what, 25 damage on a front shield and then running away to try and get back to it later, or if feeling risky, a R5 shot which is gonna do about 36 damage, which, with a little luck, can take out a front shield and do some internals, and the Fed shooting back at R5 is unlikely to get through the front panels (32+21=53 if 2xOLs hit), but at least would give the Andro some options.
With 3TRL, firing at long range isn't much of an option, but at least with 2TRL still alive to fire at R2, you are likely to do *some* internals through a back shield, and possibly take out a photon before the second volley.
Even then, if the DisDev wasn't killed on the 1st volley of internals (which is fairly unlikely on 10 in), I'd still have a fighting chance.
I'd like to see this ship try 3TRL as a halfway point to the 2TRH.
Would you put the 3TRL as all FH or FH/LS/RS?
I think splitting the arcs makes for more interesting tactics, although being able to fire 2 TRL directly to the rear might make it too hard to chase an already nimble foe.
Also, perhaps to balance the ship further, the number of T-Bombs could vary depending on the opponent-
1 T-Bomb vs Plasma Ships
2 T-Bombs vs Drone/Disr Ships
4 T-Bombs vs Direct Fire Ships like the Fed and Hydran.
My earlier post on this one suggests:
1 FA TRH
1 LS TRL
1 RS TRL
At least in this configuration against a plasma ship the Andro will have to get the target in FA in order to shoot the TRH instead of flying by shooting out of FH. I think this actually might really help BP and nothing else so far suggested really does.
This configuration also leaves the Andro with enough firepower should it lose a TR and deters a DF ship from chasing too hard or maybe get shot in the face with an offside TR beam.
>>Would you put the 3TRL as all FH or FH/LS/RS?>>
I'd just leave them FH.
Like, I fully embrace the theoretical idea of something kooky and drastically different (although that Intruder thing would just go forward, get shot for less than 80 damage, and vaporize its opponent at R0 centerlined :-), but in reality, still, I think just keeping going forward with the thing that almost already works is probably the best plan if we're gonna get anywhere at all, as opposed to radically starting over.
>>1 FA TRH
1 LS TRL
1 RS TRL>>
I think the problem with this is having 2TRL being able to fire directly backwards means that the ship will be able to do, like, 30+ damage when running away to someone following it into a corner. But if you make the TRLs, like, RP/LP arcs, the ship still has that 40 point strike across most of FA, at which point you start getting into made up arcs (LF/L for the always 180 degree TR beam) that the designers tend to want to avoid.
Like, 3TRL FH, 6P2 regular arcs is *still* probably not quite enough firepower for the 3xBTTY ship, but certainly better than 2TRL, and at least gives it some options.
The balance thing against the various opponents is the hardest thing with the Andro.
3TRL FH, 6P2, 3XBTTY *is* probably enough against a Plasma Ship but not enough against a Fed or Orion.
The allocation of T-Bombs could really help with this balance, with say 4 available against a Fed, you can throw out 2 when you get to around range 8-10, and the Fed is virtually forced to take 10 damage.
I think small things like this can make a big difference, and since the Andro is the only ship permitted T-Bombs, it is not such a radical option to assign the number received based on what opponent it is fighting.
It is not at all a terrible idea, to be fair :-)
IF the "powers that be" granted this Andro a Tournament Energy Module (TEM), in your opinion, how much energy should it be able to absorb to balance the battle?
I can already here the plasma ship captains objecting - being one, I would as well. But since we are talking about "hypothetical things", it is a fair question to ask.
The loss of a TRL and the DisDev really hurt. The TEM would not have helped much in this situation. But absent those two critical hits, it likely would be a great help.
>>IF the "powers that be" granted this Andro a Tournament Energy Module (TEM), in your opinion, how much energy should it be able to absorb to balance the battle?>>
The thing with the energy module is that there is no situation where the Andro needs *more* ability to clear energy from its panels. All of the finageling with the Andro is to *reduce* its ability to dump energy (and as such, to reduce its ability to rapidly regenerate defenses). Like, the Andro can do just fine with battery dumps, absorbing power, and radiating power. Giving it an energy module is just going back to the start of the problem cycle, when "reduce the thing to 3 batteries" is probably the best possible solution to the biggest issue with the ship.
With 3 batteries, as noted above at some point, the ship mostly can empty panels with standard 10% absorption, radiating 1 point per panel, and then if it can arrange situations that are beneficial, it can dump some amount of power into the batteries by dropping panels and panel levels, but never more than 15 points at a time (it isn't impossible that the ship could conceivably, under perfect circumstances, get 15 power from panels to batteries, then spent a bunch of battery power to refill phaser capacitors and start rearming the TR beams, and then dump another 10 power from panels to batteries, but this would likely only happen on the 4th of July, during a hail storm, and one baby zebra).
So the 3 batteries on the ship are an intentional, significant limit to the ship that there is no percentage in circumventing at this point. Basically, it comes down to jiggling the firepower up and down till we get a reasonable amount of offensive ability to match the current (3 battery) defensive ability.
Like, this particular game was not indicative of anything other than "The Fed can kill an Andro if it rolls pretty well", but then, we already knew that.
I think you are on the right track with the 3 TRL offensive capability combined with the 3 Battery defensive capability.
Looking at the SSDs on SFBOL, the 2010 Version looks the easiest to update, just move the Probe under the Bridge, and change the Battery block to 3 Battery in a line, also, is there any weird reason for the 7 Cargo boxes?? 9 or even 6 would be so much more aesthetically pleasing! 
Peter, if there is a way you can get the SSD updated on SFBOL, I would happily fly a bunch of practice games against the ship, could even try out the 1 T-Bomb v Plasma, 2 T-Bomb v DD, 4 T-Bomb v Other, as it can be tried without changing anything on the SSD.
Heh, I have no idea how SSDs get updated on SFBOL; I think Paul F has to do it. I'd really like all those 15 different Andros to vanish, and just end up with, like, the one.
"One Andro to Rule them All, and in the darkness....."
I really think Admiral Bakija should be voted in to be in charge of Tournament Ship design/proposals to the Powers-that-Be.
Anyone second that?
Peter,
Thanks for your opinion.
I shutter at intentionally reducing the Tournament Andro's ability to get rid of energy further. It is either reducing the number of batteries even more (to 2, then 1) or reducing the the number of PA panels. At some point, the Andro players will not want to fly it.
Perhaps the 3xTRL and 3xBat Andro is the last best hope after all.
Heh, well, already the ship is mostly unflyable.
Like, As noted, I think 3xBTTY is the way to go (this was Paul Scott's idea from, like, a decade ago); I don't think it needs to be less at all. But I suspect that 4xBTTY is still too much.
If the ship had 3xTRL at this point, I think it would be mostly viable, if a little on the weak side. But if it was mostly viable with 3xTRL, 6xP2, 3xBTTY, jiggling it up a little after that isn't super difficult (add a second T-bomb, or add a couple more hull/cargo or something) and probably easy enough to min/max to "almost balanced" once the firepower and battery/defense issue is hammered into something reasonable. Which I suspect is probably is at this point.
If there is any real 'need' to do something between 3 btty is just too little, and 4 btty is just too much, one way around that would be to give it 6 batteries that only hold 3 power each. Then you have that 18 midpoint capacity with a minor boost in that losing 1 btty is not 1/3 of your capacity lost.
And then with 3 TRL's you theoretically have a ship that will run out of power and still cannot hammer an opponent on the first pass as much as the 2 TRH's could.
Though you also still have the problem of two Andros fighting when neither can penetrate the front panels.
The nice thing about Tim's idea is that it gives the Andro a few more internals so that a battery hit or two doesn't just kill it dead.
Like, I'm not in charge here or anything, but I suspect that anything that invents new/made up rules is likely to be a non starter.
Still, the 2TRH/3xBTTY version was almost a completely reasonable ship when I played it a dozen times. Once and a while, you just got killed due to some brutal/bad luck internals; once and a while you could just kill someone on the first pass due to a bad play and a lucky shot on a rear shield. But most of the time, with the 3xBTTY and 2xTRH, the ship was pretty reasonable, and kind of a 50-50 toss up against most opponents. Which is all you can really ask for.
My recollection from flying the 3xTRL version, is that power was a huge issue. I think it was starting to suck wind by turn 3, while not having done any real internals. With 2xTRH, you've at least done a handful of internals to slow the other ship down a little as well. If we end up with 3xTRL, I think that we should consider adding a couple APR.
There's already at least one non-standard rule (Orion engines).
THey give the fed free ol power on t-1.
The Lyran has 360 p-3s
in fact AFAIK...every tourney ship was modified from the ssd books for the tourney.
Don't know why a fudge or 2 for the Andro is so anathema.
I'm ranting again
I don't know that I understand what you are saying?
The Orion TBR uses the same rules for Orion engines as the regular rules (i.e. they didn't change the rules for the Orion in the tournament).
The Powers that Be are generally loathe to invent new, made up rules just for tournament play. I mean, there still are a few that border on made up rules just for tournament play:
-Klingon drones aren't identified by rack (to allow them to use a type VI drone as a surprise).
-Klingon UIM never burns out (but as it is random in general, this is a modification).
-Lyran UIM always burns out (same thing).
-Limits on option mounts on option mount ships (which there is precedent for in the rules, however).
-Some various rules on things getting damaged on weird DAC rolls (ISC plasma F torps can be hit on drone or torp to protect the PPD, IIRC; Tholian snare hit on drone to protect the WC).
So there certainly *are* a few, tournament specific, made up rules just for the tournament to work, but generally speaking, I suspect that no one is going to be willing to make up new rules for the Andro, just to make the Andro work our (especially since the Andro rules are already super convoluted, it requiring folks to remember two different sets of them seems like a terrible idea).