The obvious solution of “make the ships pay out of reserve engine power” has to account for all kinds of things, such

1. This means it could be used offensively to force an enemy ship to spend reserve power involuntarily.

2. At what point is it determined that an extra hex of actual movement has been generated and the cost assessed?

3. What happens if a ship can’t pay?

4. How can the penalties of 3 above be used offensively by forcing extra movement on an enemy ship?

By Dennis Surdu (Aegis) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 01:29 pm: Edit

Falling victim to an arcane tactic perpetrated by a more experienced player can often seem under-handed and is quick to bruise one's ego, but take the lesson to heart and become a better player, I always say.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Alex wrote:
>>The obvious solution of “make the ships pay out of reserve engine power” has to account for all kinds of things, such>>

Indeed, this comes down to "how would that even work?", but then, you also covered all possible questions in your post :-)

Like, again, I think this is likely more an issue with floating maps than it is with tractor beams (i.e. if you are on a fixed map of some type, you are going to spend a *lot* more time inside of a range where doing tractor beam shenanagins on your fleet are going to have negative ramifications), and floating maps exacerbate all sorts of other issues as well.

I don't think there is a realistic, manageable way to fix this tractor beam issue (which, again, I don't think is actually an issue that needs fixing) without making a rule that was, like, 10 pages long, and filled with endless specific instance clauses, which, even for SFB, is preposterous.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 10:41 pm: Edit

Guys...I understand your doubts as to how effective this is. But it works. It is easy to do. And it destroys Torps for a couple of points of power and using tractors that had no other use this turn. I think getting rid of torpedos for little or no damage is worth 2 points of power and the use of systems I had no use for By actively using two ships.

As for fixing this. Simplest answer is treat it exactly like a mid turn speed change in that you must pay warp energy to use the tractor in this way. At the least, we would be requiring the use of warp energy. While this bypasses the speed increase rule limit. It does so by technically slowing the ship as has been mentioned. It would be the same general reason you can turn sooner while at a speed you cannot normally turn at.

That would be my suggestion. And for anyone saying how do you check and enforce it. Same way you check and enforce mid turn speed changes. When you see someone use a tractor. And move on an impulse they could not move on at the speed they were originally going. They had to use warp or the one impulse they could use. Like with Tacs you could assign Warp or Impulse power to tractors and mark it on your EA as Warp tractor power Or pull it from reserve warp and mark it as used reserve warp applied to tractor.

As for the situation of enemy ships. Leave them as they are. They are fighting. While they might on an impulse gain a movement temporarily. They almost always lose it later. From turns, side slips and various moves. Most of the time they do not end up used delayed move. The moves are just cancelled entirely. Or reduced to a single move as they end up just combined having moved one Hex.

Anyway just my answer.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 11:49 pm: Edit

Mountains and molehills.

I say we leave the rules as-is.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 12:34 am: Edit

You keep claiming this will distort/destroy the game, despite decades of this being a known tactic not doing so. Data or it's just you telling everyone else this must change cause you say so.

The problem with treating it exactly like a mid-turn speed change is that it *isn't*. Before going into more detail below, I will make the general observation that it really seems like you are looking at this in the relatively narrow case of "Someone plans this out at the start of the turn and executes it over some, if not all of the turn", i.e. they are spending the entire turn using this to generate as much movement as possible. But any rule addressing this has to address it *whenever* it happens, regardless of why or the intentions involved.

So let's say you see me tractor one of my ships on impulse X, when it doesn't move, it then moves on impulse X+1 - so you then go "Aha, pay for that movement"? But what if I go "Why, this is just my ships moving under tractor?" what then? Do you wait until I drop the tractor and say "Aha pay it now?" That might work a bit better but then you have to keep that mind and ask for that later in the impulse, which in a tense combat situation, especially involving multiple ships can be well after a lot of other tense movement, resolving seeking weapon impacts, etc. Let alone if this is occurring at lower speeds so the plotted speed doesn't move for 2 or 3 impulses and the tractor/move/drop tractor sequence occurs within the window, when like literally an hour or more of play could happen. That is making for a lot of having to keep track of past events versus future events just to see *if* this happens. And since the rules can't determine intent, if the tractor is lost involuntarily this would still have to apply - and even more fun when you consider how that would interreact with (D22.0).

The idea of assigning engine power to tractors makes absolutely zero sense in the background of the game and adds even more record keeping complexity, as now tractor energy allocations have to tracked like batteries.

"Pull it from reserve warp power" - and if they don't have that available, then what? You keep being asked this, but you have no answer - yet that is exactly what *must* be answered if such a rule is going to do what you propose it does. And whatever that answer is has to apply regardless of *why* the situation triggering it has occurred or the intent of the players involved.

"Players" there also being key, because what logical reason, in the background or in the rules, would there be for not applying this to enemy ships? If the goal is to eliminate such free hexes, then we must eliminate them, not just in the cases you personally find distasteful, but whenever it occurs. After all, a friendly ship that gains such a hex can also lose it again later for all the same reasons as an enemy ship that you listed (many of which don't actually result in lost hexes of movement - alternating sideslips might slightly reduce total displacement in terms of how many hexes are between where you start tracking and where you end, but the ship actually moves the total number of hexes scheduled, it's just not doing so in an entirely straight line).

Which loops back into the earlier point of this rule requiring tracking of past actions versus unknown future ones - what happens if the ship that gained that extra hex and paid for it at the time of movement (at which point it's not even an extra hex yet, just a hex of movement at scheduled pseudo speeds because how else do you resolve the movement of tractored ships, and for all you or anyone else knows the intent is to stay under tractor) as you suggest, or when the tractor is dropped (making that hex "pop out" as an extra one compared to plotted speed) then ends up not moving as many hexes as it paid for originally for whatever reason - it ends up in a tractor link again for enough impulses to lose scheduled movements, runs into a tournament barrier, gets stuck in web (wait, do movement points generated in web count as hexes moved for this or not, yet another question), etc - does it get that power back? If not, why not - since it ended up moving less hexes than it paid for, this rule wouldn't apply, correct?

To return to an example I used before, which is basically the defining case that defining this rule would need to start working from:

Ship A is in hex 1021 heading A, Ship B is in hex 0922 heading A after movement is completed for impulse X. Both are moving at speeds that are not scheduled to move in impulse X+1. During impulse X, Ship A tractors Ship B. Their movement costs and power allocated movement are such that Ship B's pseudo-speed is scheduled to move in impulse X+1 but Ship A is not. When that movement occurs, Ship B moves directly ahead into hex 0921, which also moves Ship A into hex 1020. Ship A's #2 shield is down and a mine in hex 1120 is triggered by this movement, and the resulting internals destroy the tractor beam holding Ship B, releasing both to resume their plotted speeds.

This is the simplest case scenario - how do you envision the rule you want addressing it to apply? How would it function?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 12:39 am: Edit

Richard, it does make for a fun thought exercise in game design and considering the intricacies of SFB

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 01:00 am: Edit

Charles, didn't you claim last night, "Lol....Fine...we can drop it."? ...and then just keep on complaining about it? It's a DEAD issue. Jeesh, can't your bruised ego accept a loss from an arcane tactic and let it go?

If this has been known about for 40 years, and the Steves haven't done anything to change it, why do you think that it will be re-worked now? Give it up man, before you drive yourself into insanity and take the rest of us with you!

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 06:41 am: Edit

A Modest Proposal: Trial by Combat

Since Charles Carroll thinks this is a big deal and Peter Bakija and Alex Chobot think it is not, why not play a series of games on SFBOL to test it, with Charles having one fleet and Peter or Alex taking the other? Peter stated in his 5:30 PM 13 February post

---

Quote:

Games that have 1 big ship fighting against 2 smaller ships are generally vastly pro the large ship (i.e. a 150 point cruiser against two 75 point FFs, the 150 point cruiser is way advantaged). If they get a minor edge by being able to do this, more power to them. As they are at a disadvantage just for showing up already.

---

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:59 am: Edit

Charles wrote:
>>Guys...I understand your doubts as to how effective this is. But it works. It is easy to do. And it destroys Torps for a couple of points of power and using tractors that had no other use this turn. I think getting rid of torpedos for little or no damage is worth 2 points of power and the use of systems I had no use for By actively using two ships.>>

How is this any different at "destroying torps" than just, ya know, those ships moving faster? Why aren't that DD and FF (or whatever) just moving 4 hexes faster with those 2 points of tractor power? And how are the tractor shenanagins *more* effective at destroying torps than just moving faster? And why don't you ever need tractors for anything other than this? Why aren't you ever tractoring drones or tractoring opposing ships?

And again, I'm going to point to the idea that you are probably playing on a floating map, and that floating maps warp the game in all sorts of ways, the least of which is making plasma torpedoes mostly useless even *before* you start messing with tractor speed shenanagins.

>>As for fixing this. Simplest answer is treat it exactly like a mid turn speed change in that you must pay warp energy to use the tractor in this way.>>

That is not remotely simple.

I'm a DD (.5 MC) moving speed 20. It's impulse 2. I use a tractor and a point of power to tractor an FF (.33 MC) next to me. I slow down to 12. I move on impulse 3 when I wouldn't have if I were speed 20.

Ok. Do I pay for a point of warp power now? If I do, and then stay in the tractor on impulse 4, and not move when I would have if I was speed 20 (as for whatever reason, on impulse 3, this seemed like a good idea), do I get the power back?

If I'm a crippled FF paying zero for movement (i.e. I'm stopped), and a friendly DN tractors me to pull me off the map to disengage, the speed zero FF is going to move way more than it paid for (i.e. zero). Does it have to pay movement energy now to cover all those hexes?

What if I tractor an opposing ship and move it on an impulse it wouldn't have moved at it's regular speed? Does it need to pay for that against it's will?

What if I tractor a friendly ship, we stay tractored for a few impulses, lose some hexes of movement, but then later in the turn, gain a few back, and even profit one? Do the ships pay early in the turn, or get energy back? Or then pay later?

None of this is remotely simple.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:02 am: Edit

Alan wrote:
>>A Modest Proposal: Trial by Combat>>

Too soon, man, too soon.

>>So why not make that the first game? Peter takes a 150 point cruiser and Charles will see if he can neutralize its advantages with "tractor tricks". For the second game, both players take a small (say 500 points, with a minimum of four ships each) squadron.>>

'Cause there are simply too many variables in play to force this into a situation that proves anything in particular. Maybe the game in question will have plenty of situations where this will be helpful. Maybe it won't. What empires are in play, what weapons are in play, what kind of map is used (again, I suspect all of this is the result of "floating map" issues, and not "tractor issues").

You can't just play 2 (or whatever) games trying to force results and then claim results. Doesn't work like that.

And I don't need getting Fight Doctored either :-)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Here is a question for Charles on this point that I'm yet to see articulated:

How is a ship moving 24 hexes when it has a maximum speed of 20 through complicated tractor tricks, including all the penalties and hazards involved actually *better* than just moving speed 24 in the first place?

Ignoring for the time being "exceeding maximum allowed speed due to previous turn speed plots" (which isn't nothing, sure, but often is irrelevant) moving 24 hexes while plotting speed 20 (instead of just moving 24 hexes in the first place):

-Is less energy efficient on anything smaller than a CA, as you are gaining 1 hex per tractor use (1 power); a DD can gain 2 hexes with a point of power just used for movement. An FF can gain 3.

-Requires a lot of complicated shenangains--you need to be right next to another ship that probably needs to be of a different movement cost or moving a different speed (which then requires jumping through movement hoops to stay adjacent to get the full 4 possible extra moves in a turn). You need to have multiple tractor beams per ship (and a lot of smaller ships only have 1 of them).

-Again, results in moving at a slower speed, which gives up movement precedence (which, yes, is likely irrelevant if you are 30 hexes apart and running from plasma, but then this again comes back to "it is probably the floating map that is making this seem too good" rather than the tractor beam tricks).

-Uses your tractor beams. Which, again, often have better things to be used for (catching drones, crushing shuttles, anchoring opposing ships).

All things being equal, I'd rather just be moving speed 24.

Yes. The tractor beam tricks can help you with a tight turn if the impulse chart lines up right (i.e. you will get a move on the impulse you want to turn an the lower pseudo-speed from the tractoring). And yes, can get you to move further than you would be moving otherwise if you have a limited top speed (but, again, a great deal of the time, this will be irrelevant).

Yes. I get that the concept of getting 4 (or whatever) "free" hexes of movement (which aren't actually free, as they are all paid for with tractor power) over and above your maximum speed seems to fly in the face of reason and logic and sensible rules. But how is it actually *better* than just moving the higher speed in the first place?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 12:29 pm: Edit

Peter, the original case that Charles brought this up involved a game in which the two ships were damaged, such that they didn't have enough warp power to move as fast as they wanted, but did have enough other power to go at the max they could with warp (28 or so IIRC) and use tractor tricks to end up moving 30 (which they couldn't under available engine power).

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Alex wrote:
>>Peter, the original case that Charles brought this up involved a game in which the two ships were damaged, such that they didn't have enough warp power to move as fast as they wanted, but did have enough other power to go at the max they could with warp (28 or so IIRC) and use tractor tricks to end up moving 30 (which they couldn't under available engine power).>>

Ah, ok. Well, that is fairly corner case, I'd imagine.

Like, yes, in the exact arcane circumstances where this particular trick seems like a spectacular move, it'll seem like a spectacular move. But that covers lots of situations (i.e. "in this exact, unlikely, perfect situation, this weird trick is fantastic!").

I don't think extrapolating from "exacting arcane situation" to "this is always an incredibly powerful move!" is a particularly sound argument.

By Charles H Carroll (Carroll) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Mike I will address you first. I did drop it. But then Alexa and Peter keep bringing up good points. So the discussion is being continued without me. So I answered.

Alex. Yes there are many issues, no matter what supposed fix is put in place if you allow the rule to continue working. My solution was to give some minor validity to the movement problem created by Bootstrapping. I will assume you know what that is. Did this fix anything? No. But at least you had to pay with movement energy.

Peter. Number 1 this never has been in an open map situation. This is purely about how badly having speed changes that are not considered speed changes, effect seeking weapons on the one hand by rapidly running away from them faster than you legally can...and rapidly advancing on someone who knows you do not have the ability to do so.

How often in a game with a High Powered direct fire weapon race have you calculated out the top speed the enemy can close on you to get to overload range? So you can as an example Saber Dance. This puts me four hexes closer to you than you believed possible. Or maybe I needed 1. Or two...the point is. With power requirements being trackable. And having a very close estimation of capabilities at the speed you are running, an intelligent person who takes the time...can pretty much tell you what you best change speed can be.

Now does this totally break the game as Alex keep saying I have said. No. And I do not feel I said that. What I said, as I recall, and was trying to get across is that if you get this used on you enough, you will have to start doing it yourself to survive. And if it becomes standard practice where everyone does it. Then it degrades those who have their main weapons as seekers. Gorn, Roms, Peladines and Kzinti. Klingons...somewhat.

As for the Lets fight two ships vs 1. No need. The fact is that without two ships this is impossible for the lone ship to do anyway. Against any plasma race, they will see their plasmas score less damage against someone using this.

Peter makes the point that this can only happen if you lose certain tactical considerations, such as two ships must stay together. In most games, fleets seem to fly in a single mass because the ranges are always the same so maximum firepower always on same shield gives most bang for the buck seem standard.

Oh and back to Alex. You make a point about you leave tractor up and lose the bonus move. Sure mistakes happen and if so, you document that. And...this does a lot of the time generate a two move combo. Two ships moving at same speed and same move cost will always move twice. Delayed move result. That can also happen with different move costs or different speed results. You move at 11 and second ship moves at 8 and both should move. One moves then the other. So you leave the tractor up an extra impulse to gain both moves.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 02:11 pm: Edit

“An Excellent point Alex. Yet....as things stand, we have a totally unbalancing rule that totally ruins most if not all Seekers.”

So it ruins seeking weapons but doesn’t break the game? It’s totally unbalancing but doesn’t break the game?

You also failed to actually answer any of the questions I posed about how such a rule would actually work. You are still viewing this from a lens of “This is something be deliberately done to gain a tactical advantage” and not how the rules must view it, which is “this can’t happen, period, regardless of why or how.” The rules cannot divine intent.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Charles H. Carroll said: "How often in a game with a High Powered direct fire weapon race have you calculated out the top speed the enemy can close on you to get to overload range? So you can as an example Saber Dance. This puts me four hexes closer to you than you believed possible. Or maybe I needed 1. Or two...the point is. With power requirements being trackable. And having a very close estimation of capabilities at the speed you are running, an intelligent person who takes the time...can pretty much tell you what you best change speed can be."

No sarcasm is intended, this is truly a request for clarification, and perhaps I am somewhat confused by my preference for disruptors.

In my (now a days very limited) experience you cannot predict the enemy's power curve that accurately. Veteran "Photon" player may choose to not overload a photon torpedo or even to totally forgo loading one in order to have additional power for speed. In fact, reading the accounts of the winners of tournament play one often finds references to the phaser capacitors being left less than fully charged in order to have power to move. To not arming a plasma torpedo for similar reasons. Lord knows that I have, on occasion, left the disruptors empty in order to top of my phaser capacitors before, on the following turn arming the disruptors to attack. Lord knows I won a tournament game by tricking a Hydran into "overrunning," leading to his discovering that all that power was not reinforcing my facing shield, but in a tractor beam the kept his fighters on board.

Spending your power obviously allows it to be tracked. Letting your opponent see your Energy Allocation Form at the end of the battle lets him know where he was wrong.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Even through the last debate on the issue....

I dispute that being dragged/pushed by another ship, is "movement" in the sense, that is being disputed....
One argument to that point, is the hex change wouldn't be used to satisfy either Turn/Slip....
Just as Tractor Rotation to move a ship from 0-1 etc hexes would constitute movement...

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:06 pm: Edit

mark my argument against your statement would be...that since the ship moved...as in gained a hex. That cannot be anything but movement since it happened during the turn and during movement. Vs at start of turn and when movement does not occur.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:18 pm: Edit

Charles H. Carroll:

I think I see what you are trying to say. You can look at an opponent's SSD and see that a movement cost 1 ship has only 25 warp, and there for (assuming he has a point of impulse power) he can only move 26 hexes. And he uses "tractor tricks" along with his good buddy who also only had 25 points of warp power and an Impulse engine to move 30 hexes, and each ship only spent 28 points of power to do this.

Is that it? Note that I remain unimpressed. Two Klingon D7s would have 39 points of power each if undamaged. Running with housekeeping at speed 31 requires 35 points of power, which means one overloaded or two standard disruptors.

A K7R could have two plasma-S torpedoes on rolling delay, or hold them if they ere already armed.

So, again, I am at a Loss.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick

Sir I agree you cannot predict with certainty, something like this. But...speed changes can be added to this mix creating all sorts of issues (Without this tractor usage rule being applied.) But add this in...and it multiplies the unexpected and not normally possible movement.

For instance, you see me use a speed change. I cannot change speed for 8 impulses. Now with tractors, everyone knows you can slow down. But with this rule you speed up using tractors and most people, Obviously excepting those in this discussion, are not expecting your slowing down to mean you picked up 1,2,3,or 4 movement points.

To suddenly have you reach a pseudo speed, which is what this is, of 30 for the next 4 to 8 impulses. Makes your ability to run away, or close the distance between us totally outside of normal movement rules. (By outside I mean you are not allowed to do another speed change so you cannot possibly within the rules gain a lot of movement during the 8 impulses.)

Now obviously, once or if this becomes common knowledge and everyone does it, so forth and so on, it will not have as much affect. But even then, for seekers and you running away, the seeker that loses power the further it has to travel to hit you, is degraded if you stay in front of it 5 or 10 extra hexes.

And as a Klingon who comes to range 15 and will turn off. I am running speed 20....you are running speed 20. Your bats can give you a speed 4 increase. Mine can give me a speed 4 increase. So my catching you is going to be difficult. If I jump to max increase, I will close one hex. So now we are at 4. Or if I use the first of 4 tractor tricks. I do the same. Your max increase in speed is 4. Assuming 1 move cost ships. Mine should be 4. But is 8. Now...I can probably get to overload range. Depending on if this happened early in the turn. Now you could do a lot of other things to offset my photons, like EW, Put a WW out...again EW related. But it went from you came in...and turned as always but now I catch you or come very close assuming you do everything perfectly.

And as I have mentioned, I had this 4 point speed increase happen without me spending the 4 points of Warp gaining 4 points of movement should have required. For a Warp powered weapon race that can certainly make a difference. And all I spent for 4 movement hexes was two none movement power and used two tractors. I did have to do it on two ships. But each ship gained 4 movement. And spent just two power. Which effectively means I gained 8 movement total. 4 for each ship.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:32 pm: Edit

Alex

I may not be able to come up with the type fix you want. I did not design the game. I am simply pointing out what I see a serious flaw. Do you agree? Maybe maybe not. But this is what I am doing. Fixing it is actually not my problem. Though I am trying by making suggestions which you add in things to claim it would not work. I see everything you added in as just other ways people have cheated in the past. As in not keeping track or hiding what they did. If someone does this as they should, legally, then they could easily knowing...what they were trying to do in advance, which is the only real reason to do this. They would then keep a simple accurate record of hexes gained and power spent.

But that does not actually address the issue involved. Just makes it at least cost the same amount as having gotten that hex of movement. Or even costing double. Which you may say is absurd but hey, you got a point of movement. In mid turn speed changes that too can cost more power than you got movement for at times.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick

That can certainly be one of the issues this allows you to bypass. As I mentioned in the original complaint about this rule, A person managed for the entire turn. To run speed 30...pseudo? Effective...what ever you want to call it. Moved 30 actual hexes. With only 27 movement power available. Now that to me is simply wrong.

He used two ships which changed nothing to do with the movement power they had possible. Yet went 30 actual hexes each. That to me is something we should not be allowing.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 04:52 pm: Edit

You’ve positioned yourself as being more tactically astute and better at math than the entirety of everyone else who has played this game for over 40 years combined, surely doing some basic sketching out of how a rule addressing this would work can’t be beyond you. Not writing the rule out in detail, but just considering situations beyond the one you are hung up on. Your suggestions are flawed because they are too narrow in scope and rely on the rules knowing playing intention.

I’ve already posited a simple situation where that “unpaid movement” can be generated inadvertently - are you saying it’s ok to have it happen in that case?

BTW it’s not cheating if it’s legal by the rules, no matter how much you think it shouldn’t be.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Alex thanks for recognizing my brilliance and all lol. (laughing at the idea.)

The simplest solution is to do what other tractor rules have done. Make certain functions illegal. Such as if you tractor a friendly ship it cannot target anyone else because it messes up its fire control.

So if you tractor a friendly ship You can not use it to add hexes to your movement. (You are required to see if it would.) Or something simple along those lines. I dont know. I do know that what is being done has the potential to harm certain races more than others. It is hard enough to get torps to hit now. This rule makes it much harder and that is but one issue.