JIM:
You need to still use 8 power to fully arm the photons on T1 The "Shot" comes on T2 usually.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 08:27 am: Edit

Pipe: Smoked!

Brian and I are in contact for R2 (Brian's Fast Fed vs my Hydran).

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 11:10 am: Edit

It actually takes 14pts to fully overload the Fed on turn 1.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 01:40 pm: Edit

MadJack (Archeo-Tholian) Versus Devil (Klingon)

Scheduled for Friday (4/13) at 9a eastern.

We got 2 turns done today. Working on it again tomorrow morning.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 02:20 pm: Edit

Brian wrote:
>>It actually takes 14pts to fully overload the Fed on turn 1.>>

Yeah, counting holding energy, correct.

You can have 2OLs armed and held (2+2) and then 2 standards armed, held, and then overloading them (1+1+4+4), for 14 total power.

With the Fast Fed, what, you get 3 held standards (1+1+1) and then need to pay (4+4+4) to overload them all, for 15 power on T1. That's kinda terrible...

By Ronald J. Brimeyer (Captainron) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 05:17 pm: Edit

When Brooke and I talked about the fast Fed, the idea was to trade a photon for a G-rack and 2 power. Then trade a P-1 for 2 P-3s. I do not know why it does not get 6 OL points at the start. Now that the old Fed has a g-rack. You are giving up a photon for just 2 power. Bad exchange.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 07:22 am: Edit

In general, Photons don't get any OL energy at WSIII. The "2 points per photon" is a special tournament bonus for the Fed.

The Fas Fed probably should get the free overload energy, but the SSD doesn't say anything, and I don't think it was established up front. I'd imagine given that we started with the Fast Fed not getting OL energy at the start, we should keep it doing that. Which'll bite Brian in the butt, and then possibly me as well :-)

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 11:14 am: Edit

MadJack (Archeo-Tholian) over Devil (Klingon)

Finished in about 4 full turns. Majead played well but was hurt by not experiencing web much before and by rolling bad when it mattered.

It was a fun and stressful game (for me).
Good game Majead!

By Steven Hecker (Sjhecker) on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Peter, I have an old rule set (1990), and Rule S4.32 makes a specific exception for photons at WSIII (2 points of overload per tube). Even has a note stating in Tournament, this rule is restricted to only the Federation.

Has this been changed in an errata somewhere? Cause we still play photons this way.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Huh. That's weird. Indeed, (S4.32) says that the photons can have 2 points of OL energy per tube at WSIII.

It does then also say "This rule if often restricted to the Federation only in tournaments".

Which could mean "This rule is often restricted to [the Federation only] in tournaments".

Or it could mean "This rule is often restricted to the Federation [only in tournaments]."

It is also possible that this has just been a regular rule all along, and no one ever noticed?

Weird...

By Steven Hecker (Sjhecker) on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 04:25 pm: Edit

My note doesn't have the word "only". "This rule is often restricted to the Federation in tournaments. Check local tournament rules".

I read this to mean, in tournaments, its possible only Federation Photons have overload energy and Option mount photons do not, but check local tournament rules for clarification.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Saturday, April 17, 2021 - 03:38 am: Edit

edit

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Saturday, April 17, 2021 - 03:56 am: Edit

(S4.13) normally at WS 3 full photon OL, the (S4.3) is for balance (S4.31) in Tournaments.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Saturday, April 17, 2021 - 04:10 am: Edit

I have been in different SFB battle groups playing in Patrol scenarios, some have WS 3 photons as starting "fully" loaded meaning to be standards, some as overloads.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, April 17, 2021 - 07:47 am: Edit

(S4.32) says "Prior turns arming allowed by WSII or WSIII cannot include overload energy". And then goes on to detail the Fed "2 points per tube" rule.

Steve, you are correct. The sentence does not include "only"; I misremembered when typing :-)

But, still, the sentence could be read as "This rule is often restricted to [the Federation] in tournaments." (i.e. only the Federation can use this rule in tournaments, and, say, an Orion with photons doesn't get this benefit).

Or, alternately "This rule is often restricted to [the Federation in tournaments]." (i.e. this rule is only used by the Federation in tournaments, and not a general rule).

I mean, it is probably the former, but man, this is blowing my mind :-)

I asked for a clarification over in general rules questions.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, April 18, 2021 - 08:32 am: Edit

Brian (Fast Fed) and I (HYD) are playing our round 2 game on Tuesday, 4/20 (Woo!) at 7:00pm ET.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, April 18, 2021 - 08:34 am: Edit

And it looks like "The Feds get 2 points of OL energy per tube" is just a general rule, not a specific tournament rule for the Fed TC.

The Fast Fed has 3 photons, so it could do:

Tube A: Hold full OL for 2.
Tube B: Hold half OL for 1.5, +2 for full OL.
Tube C: Holt standard for 1, +4 for full OL.

For a total of 10.5 energy on T1 to fully OL the 3 torps?

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Sunday, April 18, 2021 - 11:09 am: Edit

1.5 to hold all 3 = 4.5 + 6 more = 10.5. Checks out

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Sunday, April 18, 2021 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Does the Fast Fed have 4xAWR and 4xIMP like the Fed TCC?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, April 18, 2021 - 02:55 pm: Edit

I'm pretty sure it does. It has 40 power, so, IIRC, 32x warp, 4xAWR, 4xIMP.

By Andy Koch (Droid) on Monday, April 19, 2021 - 09:40 am: Edit

I think it needs the OL extra energy but... what does it really matter?

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 02:06 am: Edit

, and every empire may want a fast one as a choice

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 07:24 am: Edit

Wayne,

That isn't really an issue. The issue here is that a lot of folks think the basic Fed TC isn't that good (largely as a result of the way photons work in a single ship battle; i.e. the single throw of 4 dice often determines the whole outcome of a fight, where the difference of rolling up 1 or rolling down 1 is hugely significant), which is somewhat problematic for the Flagship of the game. As such, some folks thought it would be cool to invent an alternate version of the Fed TC that is less reliant on the photons, and as such, a little more average most of the time. I don't know if this particular ship is that, however.

Statistically speaking, the Fed is pretty average (in a large field of results, the Fed does fine, hovering a little below 50% wins, IIRC, last time we checked). But in any particular game or any particular tournament, the Fed is likely to just lose a game due to one throw of bad dice (i.e. the Fed gets to R8 on a plasma ship, takes the shot, hits with 1/4 photons; the Fed gets to R4 on a drone ship, takes the shot with a mostly clean escape route, hits with 2/4 photons; the Fed probably has lost both of those games at this point, regardless of all other factors). So while in 1000 games (or whatever), the Fed does just fine overall, it is very hard to actually win a tournament in the Fed, as getting that bad throw of dice in a particular single elimination game (i.e. the finals tree of 3 games or so) just ends you.

Again, I think the Fed TC is probably generally fine, and the Powers That Be have conditionally added a G rack to the existing Fed TC, so I think what needs to happen is that people need to play the G rack Fed more to collect data on that one and see how it does overall.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 04:42 pm: Edit

R2 bakija (HYD) vs romwe (Fast Fed) tonight at 7:00 ET.

(Brian! My email is currently broken, so I can't send email!)

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 05:22 pm: Edit

NOW! WHILE THE GORN IS HAVING COMMUNICATION DIFFICULTIES, CLOSE TO POINT BLANK RANGE, OVERLOAD ALL TORPEDOES, AND FIRE!!!! WE HAVE HIM AT LONG LAST!!