Archive through April 15, 2021
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Archive through April 15, 2021
So did I...
I was on the road when Trent started the game with Majead, but I arrived home in time for him to realize he had gotten confused about which torpedo tubes were hot and was, in fact, charging into a 50-point plasma broadside, not empty tubes, and that the 2 reinforcement he used to keep a shield up earlier in the turn were now preventing a HET...
Judging from the EA's I saw, it was an interesting and super-atypical game, where the Gorn went slow with reinforcement against the Klingon's reliance on OLs.
MadJack (Archeo-Tholian) Versus Devil (Klingon)
Scheduled for Thursday (4/12) at 9a eastern.
Oh, and Evans - Cridland is going to take place in about 4 1/2 hours on SFBOL. We delayed it so I wouldn't be neglecting my houseguest last Thursday.
Romwe (Kzinti) over Cridland (Fast Fed) 3 turns. (I started in 2530A)
I opened with overloaded photons and two weasels, 15/17/28. We both flew up the map, the Kzinti launching four speed 20 drones. I turned to F, taking the Kzinti's 3 overloads, standard, and P1s in the Range 6 bracket on my #2., and then in order to get a range 4 shot, back to A.
At range four, I used the ADD and 3 P3s to kill the two nearer drones, and then fired my alpha, rolling only one photon hit and doing a few in (6 I think?) hitting a disruptor. This was 1i30).
I HETted out to direction C, and we went to EA.
On turn 2, Romwe chased, launching a scatter pack, and I turned around in the southeast quadrant of the map to direction B then direction A, losing my #4 shield to Kzinti phaser and Disruptor fire.
On Turn 3, to overload the photons, I decided to park with my weasels. Unfortunately, due to the scatter pack's proximity, I had to launch the weasel before firing, which allowed the Kzinti Range 1 before my AFC came up.
At this point I was probably in trouble, but if I immediately launch the second weasel in response to Kzinti fast drones (2), I probably live to fight another turn. But I shot the drones, got shot in return, losing a photon, after which I didn't really have the firepower to devastate the Kzinti anyway.
I fiddled around trying to get the down shield for a few impulses, but it didn't work out and I conceded.
Well played by Romwe, and I got convincingly outflown in the knife fight.
As for the fast Fed, I don't think I'd ever fly it by choice. You are down the 8 OL energy relative to the normal Fed, which means that on T1, you only have one extra energy over the standard Fed... and it has one extra OL photon.
After that, two energy is okay, but it feels like flying a Fed with a missing photon mostly. I was short of energy for speed on T2 even though I only had 6 in the photons that turn. Parking just felt like the worst of both worlds, although I've never been comfortable parking in this game.
This was a great game, Graham. I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind and have time to respond.
1) You fired your Alpha on T1 at R4 and then HET. Why did you HET at this point? Your #2 was damaged and it sounds like your #1 was facing the Kzinti at this point.
2) The use of the Weasel and the Disruption of AFC prevented you from returning fire with Overloaded Photons. But you knew that Scatterpack was closing in. Should you have used a different tactic to counter the Scatterpack, like Movement, Tractors, Shuttles, or Phaser Fire? It seems like the Weasel made you a sitting duck in this case. Perhaps you should not have tried to Overload the Photons due to the Extreme Energy Cost?
3) You exchanged fire instead of launching a second Weasel. Would you reverse that decision if you could? If you had your HET still, you might have used it here...
4) Why are you flying a Fast Ship against a Standard Ship? Shouldn't it be Fast Ship against a Fast Ship or Standard Ship against Standard Ship? Seems like an Odd Matchup.
Thanks.
Graham wrote:
>>As for the fast Fed, I don't think I'd ever fly it by choice. You are down the 8 OL energy relative to the normal Fed, which means that on T1, you only have one extra energy over the standard Fed... and it has one extra OL photon. >>
Yeah, at this point, I'm not quite sure what the point of the Fast Fed is. Like, when someone invented it a number of years back, it had the G rack, and was theoretically less reliant on Photons, but currently compared to the regular Fed:
-3 Photons, 7xP1, 4xP3, G rack. 40 power. No free overload energy.
vs
-4 photons, 8xP1, 2xP3, G rack, 38 power, 8 free overload energy.
I'd take the regular Fed over the Fast Fed every single time.
I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here or anything, but I'm not really quite sure what the advantage is to the Fast Fed here. It can HET at 28? That's nice and all, but it has significantly less damage output than the regular Fed, and nothing really to mitigate this issue.
I'm gonna again state: We got the PtB to put a G rack on the regular Fed. Let's work with that one :-)
At the end of turn 1, The Kzinti had fired a little earlier, before the Fed got to range 4. So it was ready to turn in, with 4 hot drones. Also the other 2 drones would impact on i32 if he didn't turn off or shoot them. So he really had 6 drones, plus the Kzinti to deal with. If he didn't HET and run, he was getting mugged on impulse 1.
Norman wrote:
>>4) Why are you flying a Fast Ship against a Standard Ship? Shouldn't it be Fast Ship against a Fast Ship or Standard Ship against Standard Ship? Seems like an Odd Matchup. >>
The rules of this tournament dictate that you get handed a ship when you start, and then the winner of each matchup advances to the next round with the loser's ship (so Brian is now fighting me in R2 with the Fast Fed). So the short answer is "He got handed the Fast Fed".
The more pertinent answer to your question, however, is that the theory is that the Fast Fed is hypothetically a balanced tournament ship against all the other tournament ships. It probably *isn't*, and was a larky design someone invented a number of years ago as an alternative to the regular Fed. But now that we got the regular Fed to have a sanctioned playtest G rack, I'm not sure why the Fast Fed is even still in circulation :-)
In order:
Norm:
1. Because I had fired everything on my ship and there were still drones in the air. I had tractors for them, and a P3, but then I have nothing for eight impulses and I thought the Kzinti could have a couple tractor (he had 1).
2. Well, I considered it. Phasers weren't really an option (that's a lot of phasers), and if I run, I'm also running from his ship, and I have a down #4. So I decided to park.
3. I mean, sure? But at the time I was concerned he would just fly past me and my shot would take place from further away.
4. What PB said.
Peter:
As to ship balance, that's kind of how it felt to me. If you OL the photons, you have one extra energy and one less photon T1. On turn two, you have four extra energy... kind of, but that only because you already "lost" a photon. The Fed isn't a good bet against a Kzinti anytime and this Fed especially so. That's not to take anything away from Romwe, who outplayed me anyway.
Brian: Yes, that was what I was thinking. 
Peter: Yes, got handed the fast Fed. But you play what you brought, you don't win tournaments by avoiding people, and Romwe played really well anyway.
Graham wrote:
>>As to ship balance, that's kind of how it felt to me. If you OL the photons, you have one extra energy and one less photon T1. On turn two, you have four extra energy... kind of, but that only because you already "lost" a photon. The Fed isn't a good bet against a Kzinti anytime and this Fed especially so. That's not to take anything away from Romwe, who outplayed me anyway. >>
The traditional Fast Fed comes with 2x Photon, 10xP1, 2xP3, a G rack (possibly 2)? and then 40+ power. That ship is arguably nuts in the tournament, as history has indicated that anything with 10xP1 is bananas. So we got this wacky version (I don't even remember who designed it originally; it might have been by committee?), which had the G rack originally when the regular Fed didn't, so seemed at least interesting. But I suspect that it is just undergunned in general (which is always a better starting point for a TC design), but I don't know that it is worth putting a lot of work into trying to get it up to speed.
I watched part of the game yesterday and could not see any real advantage for the fast Fed. I didn't count internals - is it smaller too?
It is a cool ship but not cool enough. I like the extra p3's over the 8th p1 myself. My first thought was, the ship is TM D. So "fast" but still clumsy.
Quote:The traditional Fast Fed comes with 2x Photon, 10xP1, 2xP3, a G rack (possibly 2)? and then 40+ power. That ship is arguably nuts in the tournament, as history has indicated that anything with 10xP1 is bananas.
One Type-G rack, 42 power. I believe in F&E the Fed CA has 8 compot for both attack and defense while the CF is 7-8. (Am I remembering correctly/) This always seemed off to me from an SFB perspective. I've fought a couple of duels with a fast cruiser versus a standard heavy cruiser (Fed CF versus Klingon D7 and Fed CA versus Klingon FD7 - all ships had all available refits and fast drones and I was Fed in both games) to see what would happen. In both my opinion and that of my opponent (from our admittedly small sample size), the fast cruiser is heavily favored as either the Fed or Klingon. It just has too much power for a "conventional" heavy cruiser to cope with. That doesn't mean the fast cruiser would be any empire's "standard" cruiser. My understanding is that not only is it more expensive in its own right but that it requires special fuel and has far more onerous maintenance requirements. These logistic limitations would restrict its use to missions requiring its superior strategic speed and range and prevent it from being a general purpose cruiser. But the fact that, apparently, in F&E a heavy cruiser is slightly advantaged over a fast cruiser in a duel always struck me as a bit wrong.
Thanks for the responses, everyone.
That seems like a Strange Rule to be forced to use the Loser's Ship as opposed to keep flying the one you Won With...ah well, there must be good logic behind it.
It is also odd that the Fed would have been forced to HET due to 6 incoming Drones at the end of T1. I can understand closing and firing Overloaded Photons on T1, but perhaps the timing of the engagement was off? I don't know...
Anyway, just want to note that I am not critiquing Graham's Tactics or the fact that he lost. I am just trying to learn from this deeply strategic game like everyone else. If everyone flew perfectly, there would nothing to learn.
>>That seems like a Strange Rule to be forced to use the Loser's Ship as opposed to keep flying the one you Won With...ah well, there must be good logic behind it. >>
That's just the structure of this tournament (it's called the "Masters Tournament"; presumably from "you are a master in any ship"). It is not an official, sanctioned tournament. It is just a goofy thing we have generally done once per year for the last two decades or so.
Well, I'm the first to critique my play because I did not play well in that game, really, but I think the "real" mistakes came later.
I thought I got pretty much exactly what I wanted Turn 1. OL photons, fire on i30 inside R4 (at R4, but you can't have everything and you can't risk R1 to a Kzinti, especially with only 3 photons; remember, I simply can't kill him in one shot at any range, I don't have the firepower), escape to EOT without getting tractored.
I missed with two of three photons on 1-4, which wasn't good, but that's flying the Fed(s). On T1 and T2, Romwe also had bad disruptor dice, so that evened out.
The basic problem is that the Fast Fed is actually down BOTH energy and weapons to the standard Fed for 4 turns. (40 energy to 38, but you have to make up the 8 overload energy). In tournament, overloads are how you fire photons, so that's just 8 energy you are down, plus the weapons.
I would try the 2xPhot/10xP1 Fed, although I strongly suspect that it, too, would be sub-par (I can outfit an Orion with 2 photons, 6 P1 and a gatling, get turn mode "a" and 2/3 move plus 15 extra energy, and not be good enough to win tourney games (no one plays a PgP11 Orion).)
Now, my experience was against a Kzinti. I strongly suspect the Fast Fed may be markedly better against plasma, for instance. But it's still going to be really bad compared to the (not amazing) normal tourney Fed unless it at least gets the 8 OL energy. With 8 OL energy, you are trading a photon and a P1 and some hull boxes for 2 p3s with stupid arcs and 2 energy. Without it, you are trading a photon, a P1, and some internal rigidity for... 2 p3s with crappy arcs.
With the OL energy you'd at least be a threat to do something scary on Turn 1. Without it, you spend 15 on OL phots (compared to 14 for the normal Fed... which is overloading four of them) and have one extra discretionary energy point which if you put it on the right shield will substitute for a one of the missing hull boxes, at least.
Heh.
Didn't mean to wax rhetorical, but the more I think about it the less this makes sense. It actually didn't feel hopeless while I was playing, because you can always hit with 3 photons and then you are off to the racetrack.
Graham wrote:
>>I would try the 2xPhot/10xP1 Fed, although I strongly suspect that it, too, would be sub-par>>
Indications are (historically speaking), that any ship with 10xP1 is going to be killer in the tournament, regardless of what the extra weapons are (assuming there are some extra weapons...).
I'd think the fast fed should actually have all the extra power (42 or 44) fast ships have to offset their less weapons.
And I am not really sure why at least the Federation still does not have full overload energy for its photons given the weapon status start.
2-turn weapons mostly don't, I think? I know Peter and I had this discussion and he had concluded the Vudar had to OL its... whatchamacallits... on T1 with turn 1 energy.
Oh, I agree that 10 P1 is brutal on any ship, assuming it has HW's. 2 Photons is not "Heavy Weapons" the way they are ordinarily understood in tourney. I mean, comparing a 2 photon 10 p1 Fast Fed to a 11 Shark or Gorn or especially a Lyran (over which it doesn't even have a power advantage) doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
How bad are photons that we would trade them for P1's even if they came with free OL energy on T1? Because that's the trade you're making (in addition to trading a few hull boxes for a couple of power).
Fed Tournament ship should just be the normal Federation TCC , and give it the G rack and full overload energy WS 3.
Graham played turn 1 well, imo. It was when he stopped that things went badly for him. It's my opinion, that anytime the Fed stops against the Kzinti, they are dead. Peter and I don't agree on this. He's played the matchup a lot more than I have, so he's probably right.
Heh, yeah, I think the only way for the Fed to survive against the Kzinti is to weasel (and generally, weasel a lot :-). I mean, it doesn't always work, and it still needs to not miss with the photons excessively. But I think the Fed trying to run is much more likely to get it killed.
The only time I've ever personally witnessed a Fed victory over the Kzinti, involved a r8 jackpot on turn 1.
Rule 1 of going slow against a drone ship: Do not weasel unless you have a whole family of weasels.
Instead of giving the Fed full OL energy on T1, I'd give it 2 more power. Its real problem is that it can't reload efficiently. Giving it full OL on T1 means that it can (and will) always charge on T1 to get the centre of the map, whereas now there's a bit of variety. And the all-or-nothing nature of the photon means that there would always be the full-OL 4-photon gamble on T1 but the usual nothing much afterwards.
It was Brook Villa who came up with it. I am not sure why it wouldn't get 6 free OL energy for the photons in the beginning? It seems like it was fiddled with to give it more power then the only real advantage the FED has was taken away.
Anyway, it was just a lark. Given that this tourney was just a lark. We all acknowledge the G rack FED is the FED we use now. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it Bakija!
As to the FED/Kzinti: It's pretty hopeless. The Kzinti will make the FED use a bunch of phasers for drone defense in OL range, and even a jackpot with little to no phasers isn't going to hurt the Kzinti enough. Then the Kzinti will just get on top of the FED and never get off.