The Fed is only, ONLY, allowed to swap ADD for type-VI, and that was out of the goodness of my heart because ADDs are worthless against the Andromedan, and have absolutely minimal use against the Plasma Empires and Tholians (shooting up shuttles), and only slight use against the Hydrans (shooting up shuttles and fighters).

And if you keep whining for improvements (like a scatter-pack) I will take it back (Grin).

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 02:35 pm: Edit

Just asking to see what is ALLOWED, not asking for improvements! Sheesh! =)

So, to be clear these are the Fed's ONLY options for the G rack:

Standard load: 2*IM, 4*ADD.

Variations to standard load: exchange 1*ADD for 1*VIM drone up to 4 times.

Correct?

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 02:37 pm: Edit

A Fed with a scatter-pack would be terrifying; I thought the Fed was pretty good without the drones, although no doubt that is a "house metagame" issue because it appears a lot of folks did think the Fed was weak. Being able to win games in one impulse from outside range 2 is a fantastic threat, even if sometimes you also sometimes miss. I think four Feds is probably tough news for the Orion... At least, I always felt a (careful) Fed had a huge advantage against any Orion loadout.

No Klingons (maybe the would-be Klingon captains are those seduced by that G-rack), no (other - the Gorn being myself) big plasma, and almost half the field toting four disruptors.

I need to read up on the Andro rules because we haven't had the Andro in our paper games yet...

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 03:42 pm: Edit

The Andro is VERY much an odd duck. Its defensive systems are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT in kind from shields. Its weapons are fairly straight forward. It's displacement device will also require some reading.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 04:47 pm: Edit

Ted wrote:
>>Do we have the SSD with the Drone-G ready for the Fed yet?>>

Yes (check a few posts up :-).

>>Also, is the new playtest Fed allowed to exchange it's 2*I medium drones for 1*IV medium drone, or is its rack fixed at 2*IM and 4*ADD?>>

It is listed as 2x1M, 4xADD, and they can swap ADDs for type VI (dogfight) drones. Type IV drone is not an option. More than 2xIM is not an option. More than 4xADD is not an option.

It isn't 100% clear if you can swap ADDs for type VI drones piecemeal or if it is an all or nothing swap, however.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 04:52 pm: Edit

>>I need to read up on the Andro rules because we haven't had the Andro in our paper games yet...>>

Yeah, as Ted points out, the Andro is really weird. Although this particular version is not super good, but might be almost viable. But even then, if it is completely unfamilar, it might be really difficult to deal with.

It goes very fast most of the time (speed 31 when attacking), has 60 point defenses for the first shot, and can theoretically regenerate its defenses pretty quickly (but this particular version is a lot harder to do that with). It shoots with a very consistent, about 50 points of damage, attack at R3 or closer every 2 turns (assuming no drones sucking up phasers). It has a displacement device that lets it jump 6 hexes instantly once every 2 turns.

It's worth looking up the rules, as two are in the event. But on the upside, there are 4 Feds, and Feds tend to be real good at just killing this version.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 06:41 pm: Edit

No Romulans? That has to be a first.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 07:14 pm: Edit

The threat of type-VI drones frightened them off (Grin).

I am pretty sure the SSD is clear on it being either four ADDs or Four type-VI.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 08:13 pm: Edit

The Fed G-Rack SSD says:
"Federation player has the option to replace the ADDs with Type VIM after learning opponent."

Which I suppose is clear enough!

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Monday, September 14, 2020 - 11:27 pm: Edit

I look forward to observing the Tournament games.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 12:07 pm: Edit

This is interesting reading for the Andro, but possibly terrifying for anyone flying a Galactic ship:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Archives/SFB%20Tournament%20Zone/Proposed%20Ship%20Changes%20Archive%202010.pdf

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 12:51 pm: Edit

Graham,

That is the old Andro - and precisely why it was nerfed. This tourney is trying to swing the pendulum for the Andro back in the other direction, but more towards the middle instead of the old (way too powerful) Andro.

It is my opinion, not shared by everyone, that the Andro does not belong in the tournament. It is too much of an odd duck, and it's technology mis-matches with galactic ships make it non-viable. It will almost always die against a Fed or an Orion, but be too powerful against the other GP ships. It's the nature of its defensive systems. If the Andro is powerful enough to take on the Fed or Orion, it will completely wipe other GP ships.

I know the purpose of this playtest is to try to "balance" the Andro, but it is my opinion that doing so is not realistically possible. It just doesn't belong in the tourney with GP technologies, as it will always have very serious RPS issues (plasma killer, advantaged against disrupter, but meat against Fed and Orion).

But, the powers that be (SPP and SVC) continue to support the Andro in the tourney, so it is what it is. You need to be able to deal with it if you play tourney games.

The key principle you need to know when fighting the Andro is that shooting it gives it power. Therefore, ONLY shoot it when you can do enough damage to punch through the panels and do real internals. Typically this means holding your fire for a range 4 or less strike on its rear panels, and it often means you need to have a HET ready (perhaps with reserve warp) so that you can get that shot if it displaces past you after its battle pass.

The Federation is EXCELLENT at doing this, with its high crunch power photon torpedoes. The Orion can out-manuever the Andro to get on the rears, and use huge reinforcement to blunt the first battle pass. That's why they're anathema to the Andro.

Other empires... need to take their chances, but they can still beat the Andro if they get a decent alpha strike on the rear panels at R4 or less.

So. Go kill an Andro!

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 01:07 pm: Edit

What about slightly modified SSDs based on the opponent? There's already a pseudo precedent with option mounts. Granted those aren't specifically tied to the opponent but I'm betting everyone creates their loadouts with specific enemy races in mind.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 03:42 pm: Edit

Ted wrote:
>>It is too much of an odd duck, and it's technology mis-matches with galactic ships make it non-viable. It will almost always die against a Fed or an Orion, but be too powerful against the other GP ships. It's the nature of its defensive systems. If the Andro is powerful enough to take on the Fed or Orion, it will completely wipe other GP ships.>>

Like, the thing with the current Andro is that, as noted, I think it is possibly almost viable. Yes, it will likely lose most of the time vs the Fed. And probably the Orion. But, well, there are numerous ships that have *terrible* RPS situations (Fed vs Romulan; Gorn vs Orion; Neo Tholian vs a lot of gun heavy ships, etc.). But against most other opponents, it actually isn't that terrible. Plasma can kill this version *without* acing on a rear panel alpha bolt (as it inevitably slows down, and the envelopers start hitting it). D+D ships are just fine against it. I don't know how Tholians work against it, but they have guns? I dunno.

I think this Andro has the potential to be completely reasonable. I mean, I think it will tend to be kind of brutal against people who don't know what it does, but will probably be pretty reasonable against folks who do.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 03:51 pm: Edit

>>What about slightly modified SSDs based on the opponent?>>

Heh, I'm pretty sure that is on the top of the list that The Powers That Be have of "This will never happen!", as in a practical sense, once you start doing that, it'll never stop.

Like, in general, the goal is for the tournament ships to be reasonably balanced across the board (somewhere between 45%-55% win percentage in total). ADB has decades of tournament records that support this; there used to be a really good website (the Schirmer stats) that may or may not exist anymore that had incredibly detailed ship by ship statistics, and generally speaking, in the grand scheme, most ships were in the "reasonable" zone overall, even if they had a few terrible matchups (i.e. a bad RPS or Rock/Paper/Scissors; like, I think the Fed only beats the Romulan TFH, like, 30% of the time, historically, but the Fed totally dominates some other ships in a similar fashion, like, say, the Orion, so it tends to even out).

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Yeah, Shirmer's site is good. But I'm not sure how accurate the statistics really are. The problem is that the top tier players know the lower tier ships are not so good, so they don't play the lower tier ships. The result is that there's going to be some bias in the data.

It would be better if you gathered that data from among top tier players. E.g., take the top 25 players and have them play all the ships in round-robin in games against every other ship (that's each player playing in each ship against at least all the other ships). It would require 8100 games in all, with each player playing 324 games, resulting in an overall 25 games for each matchup of ship X against ship Y (with all 25 of such games being between different players).

Which is a massively tall order that's likely never going to happen - but I think then you would have a *much* more accurate statistical data set that reflects the true RPS of each ship against every other set.

So, instead, we're stuck with experienced player's eyeballing and various RPS guesses.

But I don't know any veteran tournament player that considers the Fed to be a real competitor. It's got bad RPS matchups against too many ships (Rom, Kzinti, Gorn, ISC) and unreliable photons against other ships.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 04:09 pm: Edit

I'm pretty sure that the Schirmer data took this into account (i.e. he ran stats that were "ace vs ace" level stats, and also "adjusted so that all players were average" to address specifically the "good players don't take bad ships" issue).

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 08:59 pm: Edit

Ted,
While I agree that balancing the Andromedan is difficult I don't think it is impossible.

Question: Do you think the Romulan TKE is balanced? (i.e. at least a 50% winning against some opponents?)

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 09:27 pm: Edit

@Paul, Yeah, I think the TKE is more or less balanced. However, it is an underperformer IMO. While the R torp is very nice, it's a one shot wonder leaving you very little in deterrence once it's reloading. It's also a relatively small hull. That being said, I'll fly it occasionally just for the fun of it.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 09:11 am: Edit

Heh. I think the TKE is moderately balanced (i.e. I suspect it is probably on the low end of acceptable), but I also think it is *terrible* for the tournament (likely in the same way that Ted thinks the Andro is terrible for the tournament, but at least with the TKE, the Romulans already have another, perfectly viable, if not above average, TC in the TFH), as it is basically obligated to cloak aggressively to win most of the time, resulting in very long, drawn out, defensive games, in a situation where the tournament wants to encourage timely games, aggression, and penalize non-aggression.

The TKE has resulted in most of the excessively long games I have ever played, and most of the "this is probably textbook 'non-aggression' that should be penalized" play that I have experienced. As the TKE needs to cloak early and often, and then once it is cloaked, it slows down, and once it slows down, it is TACing and weaseling and cloaking and TACing and weaseling and cloaking. And then 18 turns later, the game is still happening.

Yuck.

By Gregg Dieckhaus (Gdieck) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 11:59 am: Edit

I think as Peter said the problem with the TKE is it pretty much has to cloak... ALOT. The R torp can fire on 1,4,7,10 ... if the opponent starts weasling R torps... it is definitely a long game. Probably much longer than the tourney allows.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 12:26 pm: Edit

Concur with Peter and Gregg. My heart sinks when I see a TKE on the other side of the board. It sinks not because I'm afraid, but because I'm about to have to play a 20+ turn battle....

So, yeah, I'd also exclude the TKE from the tourney for that reason (which is entirely different from the reason I'd exclude the Andro - that one just doesn't "fit".)

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 02:50 pm: Edit

Just outlaw wild weasels for both sides for TKE games. :-)

By Timothy Linden (Timlinden) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 04:05 pm: Edit

- *terrible* RPS situations (Gorn vs Orion;)
- the Fed totally dominates some other ships in a similar fashion, like, say, the Orion

Huh. As the Orion the Gorn is the least desired plasma ship I want to face. Though that is partially as Romulan's cloaks will burn out against me. I'd only give the Orion a decent edge here, not a major edge.

And I find the Fed only beats the Orion 50% of the time at best, and that presumes the Fed gets his range 2 shot without needing to shoot drones, which is not all that easy to arrange. (At which point all the photons have to hit or you still pretty well much lose, thus the 50% win chance)

Against the old Andro I never won, including a game where the displacement device failed all three times. The current one I can see being able to run down and kill as an Orion though.

Tim.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 04:30 pm: Edit

>>Huh. As the Orion the Gorn is the least desired plasma ship I want to face. Though that is partially as Romulan's cloaks will burn out against me. I'd only give the Orion a decent edge here, not a major edge.>>

The issue is that the Orion is stupid fast, can avoid plasma, can shoot you in the face with Hellbores, can keep shooting you with Hellbores, and can still kill you on a reload turn by HETing into a down shield with a gatling.

Like, I have beat Orions, certainly. Once and a while you can catch them with a tractor beam when they don't expect it. Once and a while, the long game comes out in your favor. But I think most of the completely humiliating defeats I have had in the Gorn came at the hand of the Orion (i.e. the game is effectively just over before the end of T1 or T2). There are simply too many guesses you have to make, and too many moves the Orion can make that hose you if you guess wrong, and it is too easy to lose 'cause you slipped the plasma instead of turned it (or vice versa), and then the speed 31 HET gets around it and kills you.