Seth,

Thanks for the answers. I see your meaning now. You didn't mean the Klingon "Couldn't" HET, but rather that a HET wouldn't save it even if performed. Makes sense.

I've seen players not arm some or all of their Heavy Weapons when staying far away or when traveling at high speed. But I've never seen anyone not arm Phasers at all and just rely on their Batteries to fire. I suppose, if you don't anticipate having to fire Phasers, it makes sense, if your Capacitor is completely empty and you need to squeeze out every last point of energy.

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 09:32 am: Edit

Wayne,

Thanks for the response. With Skill set aside, I was interested more in whether there were any kinds of Design (SSD) or Rule issues with the Bad Matchups.

Peter has clarified it all for me.

Thanks again.

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 10:03 am: Edit

Peter,

Excellent Information as always! Thanks for providing the answers and clarification.

The Fed having trouble with Drone Users makes sense. On one hand, the Fed is reliant on PH-1's for firepower. On the other hand, this is the nature of the Drone, to force the enemy to use up Phaser Fire.

"The Orion is just too fast and has 2 HETs, and has too much power, and generally has 2 hellbores" is something we have touched on before. Personally, I believe the ability for the Orion to Double Engines (and thereby get Super Speed) may be unbalancing. But that Rule has been there for a very long time, so I could be wrong.

The Double HET's is also suspect to me, but I'm sure there was a good reason behind its origin.

The WAX sounds like a monstrous ship. Being able to take a ton of Internals, having lots of Drones, a Gatling, and Hellbores sounds really tough. I don't have much experience flying against or with this ship, so I can't comment on its balance (in terms of all of these factors).

It is disturbing to hear the Hellbore may be too Advantaged. Conceptually, I love the idea of an Implosion Effect around an enemy ship (and what looks cooler than how it looks in Star Fleet Command?!) Mechanically, I like the idea of hitting all the Shields at once and exploiting any Vulnerable Openings. But I can see how this weapon may be too much. I will have to go back and analyze the Energy to Damage Ratio and see if it works out for Standard and Overloaded.

Normally, if a ship has a down Shield, it can turn away to protect that area (hence the Maneuvering Aspect in SFB). But the Hellbore seems to bypass this tactic by exploiting that missing Shield no matter which way you turn.

"The WAX has hellbores, which are stupidly advantageous, and on the Orion and WAX, don't fall off the ship on the 3rd internal like on the Hydran" brings up a good point about the number of Heavy Weapons and how that affects rolls on the DAC. Clearly, a ship can be made "tougher", not just by increasing its number of Internals, but also by giving it multiple Heavy Weapons that survive after an initial Alpha Strike.

On a side note, I am also looking at Fleet Battles when designing things, not just Duels (which aren't Tournament Rules/Environment either). So whatever conclusions may be drawn from this discussion may work out differently in Fleet Battles with Multiple Ships on each side.

Thanks again for the great info, Peter.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 12:20 pm: Edit

Norman wrote:
>>is something we have touched on before. Personally, I believe the ability for the Orion to Double Engines (and thereby get Super Speed) may be unbalancing. But that Rule has been there for a very long time, so I could be wrong.

The Double HET's is also suspect to me, but I'm sure there was a good reason behind its origin.>>

The Orion is a strong ship, but it has some terrible matchups, and a lot of average matchups, and often loses the game on a lucky/bad guess (i.e. it put 20 reinforcement on its #2 shield, and ended up getting shot on its #1 shield instead, or something). And, as noted, across the board, it is probably perfectly reasonable, and probably has a very average win/loss ratio. It just happens to kind of be murder on the Gorn (and way less so on the Romulan, as the cloak helps the situation a lot).

>>The WAX sounds like a monstrous ship. Being able to take a ton of Internals, having lots of Drones, a Gatling, and Hellbores sounds really tough. I don't have much experience flying against or with this ship, so I can't comment on its balance (in terms of all of these factors).>>

It is also a strong ship. But has weaknesses (it can't safely HET, if it stops, it takes a long time to get back up to speed due to acceleration limits, it doesn't have a lot of phasers). It has some very hard matchups (the Orion, the Tholians, the Romulan, Kzinti, Klingon, and Shark are both probably advantaged over it as well).

>>It is disturbing to hear the Hellbore may be too Advantaged.>>

Here is the thing with the Hellbores--they are stupidly effective, but power hungry, and on the Hydran, very vulnerable to internal damage (i.e. every time the Hydran takes, like, 3 internals, it risks a HB falling off the ship). But on the Orion and WAX, they aren't vulnerable to damage, as the Orion and WAX get to "pad" them with drone racks, so the Orion and WAX generally keep their hellbores way longer than the Hydran does, and late in the game is where the hellbores tend to provide the most advantage, due to hitting non facing down shields and doing extra volleys of internals and stripping more weapons off. Late in a game, when everyone is crippled, the Hydran is probably out of hellbores, as it lost them to damage; the Orion and WAX probably have one or both hellbores left, as they lost drone racks (and then repaired drone racks) instead.

Are hellbores *too* strong on the Orion or WAX? I dunno. Maybe? But the hellbores (and the gatling, which has the same issues on the Orion and WAX vs the Hydran--the Hydran loses the gatlings to damage, due to not having that many phasers to hit where the Orion and WAX have more phasers to take hits on, so the gatling is pretty much the last phaser it loses) are basically standard equipment on those ships. Yes. You *can* take option packages on the Orion or WAX that don't have 1-2 hellbores and a gatling, but doing so is generally just a bad idea and putting yourself at a disadvantage for not much gain, so it rarely happens (i.e. 90% of the time, any Orion you run into will be armed with Hellbore, Hellbore, gatling, drone, P1 or drone, drone, as it is in the vast majority of situations, just the best option package; the WAX similarly *always* has a gatling and at least one hellbore, as not having a gatling and at least one hellbore is just a bad decision).

It is notable that in the Ace of Aces tournament, I lost 3 of my 4 preliminary games, and in all 3 of those losses, I likely premeturely (and inadvisably) surrendered due to being at a disadvantage and then also 'cause *all three* of my opponents had 2 hellbores on their ships (Orion, WAX, Hydran). I arguably could have probably pulled the game out against both the Orion and the WAX (the Hydran game was a 100% lost cause due to a total whiff on my guns in our first exchange), but odds were that the two hellbores on both those ships (that did not get damaged in any of the significant amount of internals that my opponents took, due to drone rack padding) were just going to mangle me in the latter half of the game. Could they have missed? Sure. They sometimes miss (and even then, why do they get to roll 2D6 to hit? Why was that even necessary, what, 35 years ago?), but odds were the hellbores were going to kill me in the long run. If in *any* of those 3 games, my opponent had lost a hellbore or two? I would have kept playing and felt like I had a reasonable chance. But as the didn't, it seemed like a losing proposition.

Are hellbores *too* good? I dunno. Probably not. Are they too good not to take if you are the Orion or WAX, and then pad them out with drone racks? Absolutely.

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 12:58 pm: Edit

Thanks Peter, more excellent info and clarification.

Suddenly, I remembered that the DAC has DRONE separated from TORP Hits. So I wondered Why is the Hellbore protected during Internal Damage when other Drone Racks get destroyed on the DAC?

After looking up the Hellbore, I found my answer. The Hellbore too is destroyed on DRONE Hits. Perhaps this is the problem. Not only is the Hellbore an excellent weapon for destroying ships with a Down Shield, but it is protected from being destroyed on the DAC by the existence of other Drones on the ship. This wouldn't happen if the Hellbore was destroyed on TORP Hits.

Looking up the Fusion Beam, I can see why. The Fusion Beam is destroyed on TORP Hits. So the Hydran's "new" secondary Heavy Weapon couldn't be hit on the same item on the DAC. It had to be DRONE in order to be different from the Fusion Beam's TORP.

And I noticed what you pointed out, that the Hellbore uses Two Dice to hit, not One Die. LOL! I never noticed this before (or just read over it quickly).

Ah well. These things will not be changed this late and far into the game. But at least now I have a better understanding as to WHY they happen.

Thanks again for the valuable insight.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 01:36 pm: Edit

Norman wrote:
>>After looking up the Hellbore, I found my answer. The Hellbore too is destroyed on DRONE Hits. Perhaps this is the problem. Not only is the Hellbore an excellent weapon for destroying ships with a Down Shield, but it is protected from being destroyed on the DAC by the existence of other Drones on the ship. This wouldn't happen if the Hellbore was destroyed on TORP Hits.>>

If it were destroyed on TORP hits, it would get protected by other torpedo hits (like fusion beams, for example, which, well, you point out later). The issue is not that hellbores get hit on DRONE hits. It is that the Orion and WAX can combine hellbores with drone racks (well, the WAX is wacky and has special damage rules for the option mounts, but the effect is identical) to protect the hellbores from getting hit, where the Hydran does not get to do this. As such, on the Hydran, the hellbores fall off the ship quickly. On the Orion and WAX, the hellbores generally survive until well into the game, and well into the game is where the hellbores are most effective.

Again, does this make hellbores *too* good? I dunno. But they are good enough to generally be standard equipment (along with the mandatory gatling) on Orions and WAXs, and *not* taking them on the Orion and WAX is basically putting one's self at a disadvantage (the Orion gets 2 option packages in a tournament, so it is generally going to use HB, HB, gatling most of the time, and then have some backup package for the small number of fights where the HB, HB, gatling package seems disadvantageous, and usually is either an all phaser package (4xP1 and the gatling again) or a plasma F package (2xPlasma F, the gatling, and then a fusion beam and a p1 in the wings, as the Orion is allowed to have a fusion beam in the wings for the extra TORP hit).

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 05:53 pm: Edit

So the Orion is about a 50/50 ship overall. As has been said, it has some good matches and some bad ones, and many that are even. Almost every Orion takes a HB package. Take away the HB package, I have to wonder if it would still be a 50/50 ship? The Orion often has less crunch power than every other ship, 5 opt mounts, most ships mount 6 torp/disr weapons. So with the Orion first pass makes a weak shield. T3 pass you are now down power, HB's mean you get to hit the weak shield no matter how they maneuver. T5 pass, you are relying on the HB to get the down shield hits because you are really short of power. I mean, who is afraid of a Orion with 3 disr, 4-ph-1, 2 drones, 6 ph-3. It's a poor Kzin/Kli.

Why do good/bad matches exist? Some ships weapon systems (ranges, power needed, arcs) interact good/bad with another type of ship. We could have even matches, everyone could fight a Klingon or a Kzin. Actually, for such different types of weapons and ships I think the designers have done an amazing job.

Why does the Orion have 2 HETS? Take a look at the Orion regular ships, many of them are nimble, A turn modes, most have 2 HETS. Orion ships are small and maneuverable, that is their thing.

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 06:16 pm: Edit

Also, not every ship really has significant good/bad matches. If you check long term stats you might see some are 53/47 over a 1000 games against another. There are a few ships though that have a matchs that is more like 65/35 and another that is 40/60.

As well, I'd say if a ship has a good match, it also has a bad match. You just take what comes to you when you enter the tourney and see the matchups. If you think everyone likes Orions take a Fed.

By Joshua Ivan Driscol (Gfb) on Saturday, November 20, 2021 - 08:26 pm: Edit

That's kinda what I was thinking everything evens out in the end but with photons at r 2 you should expect more than 2 hits. I got 2 hits and didn't crack my opponents shields. I no doubt could have if I didn't need to worry about 5 drones each turn and 2 suicide shuttles.

Like droid said it's a difficult match but I chose federation because I wanted to act as a springboard for my opponent. Carry on Droid and win the tournament again.

Next time I'll play the Shark and Droid can try Gorn and we will have a blast. I'm in it for the process more than the final outcome.

By Seth Shimansky (Kingzila) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 12:02 am: Edit

I personally feel the Orion in the hands great player is almost unbeatable with the 2 Hellbore and drone package. The great player might lose when his dice sucks. In the hands of a good player its a fight but nothing past that. I would knock it down a small peg. I am a nobody with no authority on rules changes. I have thought about it and what would be a fair solution. When the engines are doubled that ship in theory should be easier to target - its glowing like a super NOVA. I believe there should a full modifier when both warp engines are double and 1/2 when one warp is. I believe the range should be closer by 2 with both warp are doubled and range is one closer when warp is doubled. So the other ship should do more damage by a little. At range zero there is no effect and weapons are doing max damage anyway. Overload weapons cant fire past true range 8. I believe the Orions has so much of a edge with all the HET'S on average 3 a game and speed - this makes the Orion work a little harder. Just a thought but as a Hydran player this would great. Or maybe drop that idea and make it harder on Orion with seeking weapons. One other idea to solve the AUX & Orion Hellbore not being hit because of the drone padding is to make DAC work around it. The 2nd hit must be the Hellbore.

By Joshua Ivan Driscol (Gfb) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 02:39 am: Edit

That would ruin the orions day. While you're at it give the Federation ship a second g rack for experimental trials. No changes to the Shark it's a thing for the ages.

What can you do to help the poor Seltorian. Is it going to need fighters to compete. The particle cannon is simply too weak and too out of sync with the secondary and tertiary armaments the phasers and shield crackers.

The Seltorian seems to struggle with everything but Tholian and it's a shame the bugs deserve better.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 10:53 am: Edit

Dana wrote:
>>Almost every Orion takes a HB package. Take away the HB package, I have to wonder if it would still be a 50/50 ship?>>

That certainly is a good question, and the one upon which all this revolves, I suppose.

Like, the only thing I object to (in a theoretical/design sense) with the Orion (and WAX) in regards to hellbores is that they get to circumvent one of the main balancing factors of the hellbore by padding the hellbores with other weapons that the Hydran (who are the main hellbore race) doesn't get to do. Which always struck me as a little wonky. And possibly too good.

Like, if there was some sort of adjustment to the damage rules (which I'm not at all expecting to happen or even actually advocating for, just spitballing here) such that there was something like on a ship with mixed weapons like that, the HB had to get hit first rather than last, it'd probably work out better for everyone. But then, that would also kill the Tholians if blanket applied. So I don't know what an actual solution would be here if needed. Which certainly remains to be seen.

I mean, what we all know is:

1) Hellbores are incredibly effective, and probably the best heavy direct fire weapon in the game.

2) The become most effective late in the game, when ships have multiple down shields, and every small volley of internals can be deadly. The Hydran is disadvantaged here, as the hellbores just fall of the ship where the Orion and WAX get to keep their hellbores till late in the game.

3) They are generally understood to be the strongest weapon in the tournament environment, such that no ship can have more than 2 of them, except for the playtest Tartar, which is *terrible* as a result.

Like, again, I'm not actually suggesting anything change here, just, ya know, spitballing concepts.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 10:59 am: Edit

One way to balance HB padded with drones is for ALL drone & Torp results to hit a random (not player chosen) system.

So sometimes the drones pad the HB and some times the HB gets hit first.

Plasma would use the same rule, so no more F torps always die before the others...

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 11:06 am: Edit

Yeah, that's probably a terrible solution to these issues :-)

I suspect that in the grand scheme, if anything needs tweaking, it's just limit the Orion and WAX to a single hellbore (like in the actual game, where hellbores and gatlings and fusion beams are always incredibly limited), but then, the arguably best WAX is the one with 1 hellbore anyway. But I suspect that an Orion with, like, hellbore, photon, gatling, fusion, drone is still gonna be a strong ship. And avoid the late game possibly excessive advantage.

But then again, probably just leaving things the way they are is fine.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 02:26 pm: Edit

Could a "tournament-specific" rewrite of D4.3223 fix, or at least reduce, the problem?

There's already precedent for "tournament-specific" damage allocation rules. In "standard" SFB the Web Caster is hit as a Drone but a Web Generator or Snare is hit as Flag Bridge. So a Tholian CCW has no padding at all for its Web Caster. It could conceivably lose the single most important box on the SSD to a volley that scored only one point of internal damage. (And Web Casters are not quick or cheap to repair.) This fragility is something that a Tholian has to take into account both in selecting his force and his tactics. But I presume it was regarded as undesirable for tournament play, hence the tournament-only change such that Snares are also hit as Drones.

So what I've been pondering is a tournament rule change to D4.3223 such that, for Drone hits, you have to kill a "best" system on the second drone hit rather than the third. This would still give an Orion a bit of Hellbore padding (which is more than the Hydrans get), but they do lose a Hellbore on the second Drone hit, rather than the third. Would that help?

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 05:04 pm: Edit

Leave things as they are, and challenge the veteran players to use what some consider lesser ships in the Tournaments.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 12:50 am: Edit

Greetings Captains,

Looks like Game2.4
Spartan's RFH vs madman's ORI(HGH1B/FGFff)

Is scheduled for
Tuesday 07:00 Japan / Monday 16:00 Central.

Dana, please correct me if this is in error.
I assume that the package selected is HGH1B.

Regards,
Geof

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 10:39 am: Edit

Game 1.04 Completed last night.

Andromedan over The_Hood.

End with a Range 0 exchange of fire.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Well, to ADB's credit, they have changed tournament ships over the years for balance purposes.

Of note:

The original Andro beat every ship except the Fed or Orion. It was weakened.

The Wyn Aux from Hell had an upgrade to 20 APR (and no cargo) - an admitted mistake.

The Lyran got more power and a temporary UIM. (It is still this way.)

The Orion once had 4 option mounts in the nose. I took PPD and 2xHB (and did well).

The ISC had a phaser upgrade to 8xP1 once and did well (before going back to normal).

The lonely Seltorian has Partical Cannons that hit like a photon and does damage like a disruptor. We await tweaking!

The lonely Jindarian awaits treaking. Needs warp rail guns and AWR (in my opinion).

Those are ships my poor memory remembered!

The Kzinti is the workhorse of tournament cruisers. (I believe it is the most stable of tournament cruisers.)

ADB knows a "tweaked" ship was "popular" when they needed to make more SSD's!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 12:24 pm: Edit

John wrote:
>>The Kzinti is the workhorse of tournament cruisers. (I believe it is the most stable of tournament cruisers.)>>

I think of the original "modern" TCs published in CL6 (? The B10 issue), I'm pretty sure that:

-The Kzinti is unchanged.

-The Gorn is unchanged.

-The Firehawk is unchanged.

-The Fed is still officially unchanged, but we are currently trying it with a G rack added in.

(All of them are changed from the original, first draft TCs published in some middle era Nexus magazine. #10 or 11 maybe?). None of this is important, just interesting history :-)

By Andy Koch (Droid) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 04:59 pm: Edit

The Best Aux is probably 11g1.
Looking at the standings, is it really so that John is flying a gHBD....which puts the gat in the nose?

By John Rigley (Crash) on Monday, November 22, 2021 - 08:59 pm: Edit

I have been flying the AUX for the close to 35 years. Even back in the days when the AUX could take any weapons, I had my GATs in the nose. but that's before the great purge that change it to must take 2 home weapons and only one GAT.
That was back in the days when the AUX was the Bath tub that no one took. It was so unloved , so I just had to take it up. learned what and how to kill other ships with it. Then came the Purge , and I had to start from scratch, which took several years to learn new tricks on how to kill ships.
So yes Andy the only real place for the Gat is in the nose. As it gives you 3 battle pass with it. And if needed it works real good to kill drones and Plasma as you chase someone. Every time I have tried it in a wing, its always on the wrong side.
And as for padding the HB, I am sure Andy would agree , its not the drone its the disruptor. nothing hurts more then losing one or two drone racks that are full in one damage volley.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Tuesday, November 23, 2021 - 01:34 am: Edit

Madman's Orion over Spartan's Firehawk

It was a good battle, ending with a turn 6 exchange of fire and anchor with plasma that came up short. I have many thoughts about this matchup, hopefully will add a battle write-up and analysis a bit later.

In short, I do not consider that the Orion, even with two hellbores to be out of balance. Certainly it requires a lot of skill to fly, but it is vulnerable, it is not the "ten-foot-tall" soldier. Things were actually going quite well for the Rom, until I started making mistakes. The ability to outguess your opponent is key, once your pool of options begins to be reduced, your opponent's planning process becomes much easier, and your chances of success decline.

Nicely played, madman. Good luck in the next round.

By John Rigley (Crash) on Tuesday, November 23, 2021 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Peter Gorn vs Crash AUX

Nasty little game where my AUX could not hit the side of a Gorn. As I missed with at least one heavy weapon every time I fired, and the phasers like to roll 5 and 6. The only time my phasers rolled well was to kill off 24 points of the 70 that was going to hit me. Of which I took 16 internals I believe. The game came down to Peter failing his second HET roll. As he was trying to set his self up for a good Bolt shot on my down shield.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 23, 2021 - 03:21 pm: Edit

2.1 CrashandBurn (WAX gHbD) over bakija (GRN)

T1: I move 15/17/24 with tube A enveloped, 5 reinforcement on my #6, and a weasel. WAX moves 31 all turn. We go forward. He turns across my bow. I launch a standard S torp out of my B tube. He closes. I turn to my right. He gets to R8 on my #6, fires OL disruptor, OL direct fire HB, 4xP1. Disruptor misses, he scores 10 damage on my #6 after reinforcement. He turns off. I turn to follow. He launches 5 drones all over the place. We end at about 12 hexes, him moving directly at the N wall. U launch my enveloper at him on 1/32.

T2: I move 17 some then 26. He moves 30/21/27. I follow, kind of moving to avoid the drones. He eventually turns to face the NE corner of the map. I turn to follow him. I shoot down a couple drones and then get around the rest of them. I close on him as he goes towards the corner. He slows down. my enveloper catches up and hits after 24 moves for 10 damage spread around his ship. He launches a few more drones. He is clearly caught in the corner. At 6 hexes, I launch my facing F torp, turn in the next impulse, launch 50 more plasma in the same hex, fire some P1s at his #1 shield, and then HET out of dodge, avoiding all 6 of his drones for the rest of the turn. He slips away a little, shoots up my plasma with all his phasers, rolls well, and then when my stack of 70 plasma hits his #3, it takes down his shield, finds some reinforcement, and does a grand total of 16 internals, hitting 11 hull/cargo, a control box, a warp, 2P3, and a disruptor. Yaa. We end at about 6 hexes, me running from him and the drones.

T3: I move 26 all turn and recharge what I can. He chases me at 25. I just move SW across the map, he chases me. Late in the turn, We end up at R5, my #4 to his #1. I hit him with 4xP1, leaving his #1 at about 2 boxes. He fires 4xP1 and an OL HB at my #4, but the HB misses, and I lose about 11 shield boxes. We end the turn at about 6 hexes again, him behind me, 6 drones on the map.

T4: I move 0 with some TACs, then 4 from 16, arm an enveloper, recharge things, arm more weasels. He moves 31/21. Impulse 2 I TAC my enveloper in arc and launch it at him, hoping to chase him off. It works. He turns and runs. I weasel all his drones (avoiding collateral) he just runs away all turn. I use some batteries to speed up to 8 for the rest of the turn on impulse 11 or so. WAX gets to the North edge of the map, gatlings the plasma, and it hits him when he has to slip into it after it had moved 24 hexes, and he takes 1 damage (which I think he stopped with reinforcement). We end the turn real far apart.

T5: I finish an S and F torp on my right wing, move 8/17. He moves 21 most of the turn. I kind of move towards the middle of the map, he kind of loops back at me, launching drones, getting another 5 on the map. Nothing much happens, and we end at about 10 hexes, with his 5 drones about 4 or 5 hexes away in all sorts of hexes.

T6: I move 17/26, have S+F armed on the right side of my ship, my phasers and batteries are full. The WAX has 1 or 2 box #1 and #3, and has since repaired a disruptor and both damaged P3s, and a couple shield boxes. He moves 21/30. I can mostly avoid the drones if I don't do anything rash. He turns in kind of off my #3 shield. I avoid the drones, but have to shoot down 2 of them and then tractor 2 more of them. He launches a couple more drones. He gets R6 off my #3, fires 4xP1, OL disruptor, OL HB. Disruptor misses again, but HB hits, leaving my facing #3 at about 10 boxes, and my previously damaged #4 at about 3 boxes. He is moving speed 30 and can turn in an impulse or two, and if I keep evading the drones, I'll accomplish exactly nothing this turn, and then come back in 2 turns and we'll end up in the exact same spot. I decide to second HET to set up a potentially game winning bolt shot on his 1 box #3, break down, and the game is over.

John played very well. This game is rough. There is little more demoralizing than hitting someone with 70 full on plasma and destroying nothing but 11 hull/cargo, 2P3s, a warp, and a disruptor. Gah.