MadJack (Klingon) versus Bakija (Fast Fed)

Scheduled to begin 5/2 at 7p eastern

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 01:44 pm: Edit

We have discovered a Gorn Agent who has infiltrated the Federation using Cosmetic Surgery. Note carefully what (and how) he eats in the Cafeteria.

THE FEDERATION CAPTAIN IS A GORN SPY!!!!!!

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 06:08 pm: Edit

I'm sure we can catch him out, though. When he goes 31/16 with only one torpedo tube overloaded on turn 1, he'll have given himself away.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, May 01, 2021 - 07:53 am: Edit

You mean I *can't* envelop my photons?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, May 01, 2021 - 10:13 am: Edit

Anyone recall the tv show "V" ???


Garth L. Getgen

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Saturday, May 01, 2021 - 01:53 pm: Edit

Yes

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, May 01, 2021 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Unfortunately.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, May 02, 2021 - 08:38 am: Edit

I still have the shades.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, May 02, 2021 - 08:51 pm: Edit

Masters Final:

MadJack (KLI) over bakija (Fast Fed)

It's over! Jack played well, and the Fast Fed is terrible. It unsurprisingly lost all 3 games it was in.

T1: I fully overload my torps (10.5 power), move 16/28, have a weasel, a point in tractors, and 1.5 in HET (40 power). Jack moves 16 till about 27, then 31. He has 4xOL, but some might have been battery (unclear; didn't check at end of game). Jack launches his SP on impulse 1. It opens on 10 with 2xFast and 4xMedium drones. He kinda corner dodges some, and comes back around with his SP drones between us. I just go forward, slipping in occasionally. His 2 fast drones get to R3, I ADD one of them, but miss. The next impulse, both fast drones get to R1, so kill them both with all 4 of my P3s; he launches 2 more medium drones. We get inside of R8, but I'm out of his FA. Impulse 32, he turns in, facing my #5 at R7 with his #6. He shoots me with 4xOL, 5xP1s. 2xOL hit (I get lucky and he rolls 2x6's), but his phasers roll up. I take 27 damage on my #5, and kill a drone with a second ADD shot. I use 4 batteries keeping the shield at 1 box. He has 5 drones on the map.

T2: I move 28/14, hold my OLs, rearm my phasers and batteries, have 2 in tractor, and hold the weasel. He moves 28 for the impulses I see in the turn. Impulse 2, I HET around to face him, as he is moving 28 and can't counter HET immediately. I ADD another drone (2/3!). Next impulse I close in a bit, he slips out some. I ADD a 3rd drone with my ADD rack running out of ADDs. We close another impulse. I shoot a P3 at one of the close drones, but roll a 6, so there are 2 drones closing on me, which I tractor. There was another drone in there somewhere, but I don't remember what happened to it. We end up at R1, my #1 facing his #6, and I am compelled forward on my next move (slipped in to avoid the 2 drones this impulse, when I tractored them). He launches a shuttle and 2 medium drones. I launch a shuttle. I blast him with 3xOL, 6xP1; use P1 and P3 on one of his new drones (AK). I do 48 with photons (taking 12 feedback on my #1), roll mediocre on P1s, and do a total of 77 damage. After 5 batteries, he takes 42 in, which messes him up some, but not enough to win me the game. Next impulse, I go forward, take the type VI on the nose for 2 damage (I lucked out and shot the actual drone), his shuttle is not a suicide (mine isn't either). He shoots through my 1 box #5 with 4xP2 and 2xP3 (having lost 4xP1 on my volley). I take 24 internals, which aren't terrible, but still. Next impulse, we end up at R2. He tractors me with 2 power at R2. I surrender.

I have nothing I can do about his incoming type IV drone (they he will launch as soon as the tractor gets me). We end the turn at R2, after I'm hit by a type IV drone, and on T3, the Klingon still has 3x disruptors, some phasers, and a couple drone racks. I got some phasers and not much else.

The Fast Fed is kind of terrible. 3 photons at R1 just isn't enough damage to justify going to R1. When I had to HET into combat, I knew I was doomed, but there wasn't much else to do at that point. There were drones and disruptors and a Klingon coming for me.

Well, a good, fast tournament! Congrats to Jack!

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Sunday, May 02, 2021 - 10:07 pm: Edit

Peter's description is pretty much spot on. He does miss the most important part of the whole thing however--

He is beatable! I finally beat Peter!! Monkey off back!!

Adding to what Peter said-

T1- I had 4 overloads, 1 in trac, 4 HK, 18 moves. That's all 39. No special shuttles as I mostly expected to lose my shuttle bay before they could come in handy. My plan was to get the scatterpack out there in front of me so he would have to deal with drones at range 3-4. I put 2 fast drones in the pack because that would make it more likely I would get 2 drones out of the ship racks t1. That all worked like I planned pretty much.

T2-

I put 5 in phasers, charged 2 overloads, 3 in tractor, had a 28/15 split movement plan where all the rest of my power went. I was 90% sure Peter would HET back towards me and was happy enough to let that happen. I thought it likely I would get phasers on the hurt shield and he would have to use a bunch of firepower on drones. My overarching plan is try to get phasers onto the down shield and tractor him so he can't get away turn 3. Again, mostly everything worked to plan here.

Peter graciously conceded when he did as his situation was pretty grave. He wasn't really hurt but I still had a t-4 that I was going to be able to get onto a down shield probably. Even if I don't, I still have 2 overloads and a p1 to fire wherever that drone hit. Plus I can still get 2 shuttles out on the board for a total of 3. It was going south in a hurry. Fun quick game, excellent and scary opponent.

Fast Fed = Not very good!

It does not matter however that Peter had a crap ship that lost 3 times in a row. Just would like to be clear cause--

I finally beat Peter!! Monkey off back, it counts!!

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, May 02, 2021 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Congratulations Jack Taylor

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, May 03, 2021 - 07:28 am: Edit

Woo! Congrats :-)

Yeah, I considered a slightly slower plot of something like 28 till 8 then 14 (instead of 28 till 16 then 14), which would have saved me from the tractor beams--me using 4 batteries on T1 to keep my shield up got me killed on T2, as I didn't have enough power to avoid getting tractored at R2--but if the Klingon had just run away at that point, it was't a good move. I mean, it wasn't real likely that the Klingon was gonna HET away on 2 and just flee, but it also wast impossible.

I probably could have just not HET into the fight, tried to keep the range open, and dealt with all the drones, looking for a shot on T3, but doing that, it was not at all unlikely that he was gonna get a follow up shot on my weak #5, and even if he didn't, getting the 3xOL (one off battery) and 5xP1 on a rear shield late in the turn was gonna be a problem for T3, as again, I was going to need to HET back to get him if he kept on me.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, May 03, 2021 - 11:44 am: Edit

Is a description of the tournament "fast Fed" posted anywhere? It's obviously not the "standard" CF.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, May 03, 2021 - 02:23 pm: Edit

It's something some folks designed and it is in SFBOL. I think it is pretty much take the standard Fed TC and then:

-Remove 1 photon.
-Add G-rack with 2xIM and 4xADD.
-Phasers are 2xP1 FH, 3xP1 360, 1xP1 LF/L, 1xP1 RF/R, 2xP3 360, 1xP3 LF/L, 1xP3 RF/R.
-16 box warp engines, so 32xWarp, 4xIMP, 4xAWR.

I think that's it. It isn't that good.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, May 03, 2021 - 07:41 pm: Edit

Peter,

Thanks.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, May 03, 2021 - 09:09 pm: Edit

I think the Fast Fed would be a good and probably balanced ship with 4 photons. The phaser suite to me is just plain better then the standard Fed TC. It's not going to lose the p1's very fast and repair a bunch of p-3's if it needs to. It could be a very effective phaser boat maybe.

Does anyone know - are there any Fed cruisers that are move cost 1 with a turn mode C?

I think it would be nice to have a balanced Fed cruiser that is a top 5-7 ship.

By Majead Farsi (Devil) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 08:05 am: Edit

Congrats Jack! Good try Peter. I may have played you in the Klingon with the Fast Fed and the Fast Fed won! I kind of remember you saying, who would want the normal Fed when you can have this one. Like any ship the fast fed has weakness and Jack played really well and utilized it. But my own personal opinion is that the Fast Fed is better than the normal Fed 80-90% of the time. I feel you have a lot more options with it.
My penny worth of thoughts!

By Majead Farsi (Devil) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 08:09 am: Edit

Jack, you would need to go to NCL and smaller for turn mode C on a Fed and they will not be move cost of 1.
Feds are a very miss photon kind of ship in tourney but in normal SFB they are good!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 09:09 am: Edit

Majead wrote:
>>I may have played you in the Klingon with the Fast Fed and the Fast Fed won! I kind of remember you saying, who would want the normal Fed when you can have this one. Like any ship the fast fed has weakness and Jack played really well and utilized it. But my own personal opinion is that the Fast Fed is better than the normal Fed 80-90% of the time. I feel you have a lot more options with it.>>

That seems certainly possible, but likely in a situation where I had never even seen the ship before.

Now that I have been looking at it a lot, and have played it, it seems sketchy, at best. 3 photons just isn't enough damage output at close range, and firing at mid ranges, you are about as likely to hit with 1 as not, which is generally going to get you killed. Maybe if it had an 8th P1 it might have some legs, but as it is, well, it just lost 3 games in a row.

By Ronald J. Brimeyer (Captainron) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 08:23 pm: Edit

If you give the Fast Fed 8 P-1s. 1 LS, 1 RS, 3 FH, and 3 360. 2 360 P-3s and 2 RX p-3s. I think it could be competitive. If we want to mess around a bit with it in Netkills and other non-sanctioned games. Just my 2 cents.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 08:47 pm: Edit

I am not sure this Master's tournament results are truly representative of what the Fed CF is capable of. I mean look at the matchups:

CF versus Kzinti - well yeah, almost always a dead Fed and he didn't even get overload energy either.

CF versus Hydran - well yeah, Peter was playing Hydran, he doesn't suck. Even if it were someone else that is still a very tough matchup for any Fed.

CF versus Klingon - well yeah, Peter can't beat me 3 times in a row when he is flying a crap ship that only has 3 heavy weapons against my 2nd best ship that I have played hundreds of times Still counts

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Tuesday, May 04, 2021 - 09:14 pm: Edit

The real problem is the 4th photon. The Fed CF will be forced to shoot at range 3-4 in many battles as it is very likely to lose a photon if it waits. If it does fire at range 3-4 it is likely to only hit with 2. If it does wait to fire but only has 2 photons left at range 0-2 same problem (only 2 photons). He just can't hurt anyone enough with 2 photons and whatever phasers are left that haven't been blown off or used to shoot down drones and suicide shuttles.

As a working example - the other day against Peter I shot turn 1 at Peter and could have done 4 internals to him at range 8 if I only miss with 1 UIM disruptor instead of 2. If I had gotten a photon there the game would have effectively been over before Peter could shoot at all. Obviously that doesn't work. At a minimum, it needs a way to take a single small group of internals and not be out of the game.

By Majead Farsi (Devil) on Wednesday, May 05, 2021 - 05:52 am: Edit

In the last 2 tournaments I played with the FED. One was vs yourself Jack. I do not know what it is , maybe my crap play or bad luck! Its has been very rare to hit with 3 out of 4 photons at a range of 3-4. It has got to the point that I think you either get to range 1 to shoot or just fire at range 8. chances are 2 will hit anyway and at least you may have a chance of running away.
At range 1 exchange between a Klingon and Fed after all damage is applied etc taking into account some Fed phasers being used for Drone defence. The Fed will lose 80-90% of the time on the subsequent turn as its out of weapons. This will haven with the Shark too! Most exchanges are done at the 3-4 range and for some reason (no idea why) The Photon in tournament does not get its average hits, at least most of the time. In regular SFB and groups of ships, is not the same though and it does better.
I guess if the FED did get average hits at range 3-4 most of the time, then it maybe quite tough to beat.
My head starting to spin just trying to think about this
Best leave it alone and just play with something else!

By Brian Evans (Romwe) on Wednesday, May 05, 2021 - 10:21 am: Edit

My $0.02 on the Fed CF. It's real problem, is that it doesn't have enough power to make up for the loss of offensive output. I never really felt like it was that "fast". If we want it to actually play different that the current sanctioned Fed, I think it needs a couple more power. That will allow it to maintain a little higher speed. If we did that, it might play more like I envisioned a "fast" Fed playing.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Wednesday, May 05, 2021 - 11:27 am: Edit

I agree with you Brian. In my game with Peter T1 he used 4 batteries to avoid internals and 2 points from his phaser cap killing drones. He really did not have a choice on that stuff. I have a bunch of drones out there still so he's got to charge the phasers, put 2 in tractor, and recharge the batteries. He is down 8 power from turn 1 going into turn 2 not shooting me at all AND he has to HET into battle for a decent shot. It's not that fast and definitely not that powerful. And even if it gets the shot it wants, it's not that scary.