bakija (GRN) vs Spartan (TFH)

Three turns in.

T1: GRN moves 17/31/26 (26 moves). TFH move 20/31 (on 14) for a total of 27 moves (it is possible that some of that was batteries, accelerating early). We just close, neither of us turning. I move past his FA. At R6, our #6 to #6, TFH launches 2 standard S torps. Next impulse, I slip in, now #5 to #5, launch a standard S torp. TFH fires 4xP1 at my #5, does 9 damage which all sticks. TFH turns off, I turn off, I shoot 4xP1 at R8 at his #4, do 7 damage, he stops a couple with (presumably batteries). We both fly off in opposite directions, avoiding plasma, ending the turn at about 10 hexes.

T2: GRN moves 31/17/24 (24 moves) TFH moves 27/18 (22 moves). We both evade plasmas. I get hit by both his plasmas at exactly 25 moves for 1 damage each. They are both real, I block the damage with 2 reinforcement. He takes my S torp at exactly 25 moves for 1 point, it is a pseudo. We just come back around, turning towards the middle of the map again, ending the turn at about 15 hexes.

T3: GRN moves 24 all turn. TFH moves 18/26/19 (23 moves). GRN turns north, TFH turns south. At about 9 hexes, the TFH launches both (real) F torps from tubes C and D. GRN closes in. TFH doesn't turn off. At R5, #6 to #6, GRN bolts S+F, fires 4xP1. Both bolts hit, phasers roll ok for 39 total damage. TFH takes 9 in, losing hull, bridge, a couple power, and a P3. Next impulse, speed 26 TFH moves, speed 24 GRN does not. GRN HETs in place, from A to E. TFH HETs also, from D to E. GRN again bolts S+F, fires 3xP1. GRN lucks out, both bolts hit again, phasers roll hot, another 39 damage. After 5 reinforcement, TFH takes 10 more in, losing 4 more power, P3, 3 batteries, and more hull. Plasma Fs close in, GRN fires a P3 into one of them, and they hit the #3 for 28 damage, scoring 3 internals after a point of reinforcement, blowing up a hull and 2 phasers. GRN is behind the TFH, and trying to avoid a lot of phasers in the hole. Ships move around some, TFH slows down, GRN turns to face TFH. TFH hits GRN #1 over a few impulses with some P3s and some P1s, leaving GRN #1 at 12. GRN hits TFH #4 over a few impulses with a P3 and a P1. ROM gets a single P1 in the GRN down sheild, does 4 more in, hitting a phaser and hull. GRN finally gets to turn off and get out of dodge.

At the end of the turn, ships are at 6 hexes, TFH facing A, GRN facing C, GRN #4 facing TFH #3, out of TFH FX. TFH has moved 2 hexes towards a turn mode.

GRN shields are 12-30-0-24-15-30, 7 internals (4 hull, 3 phasers).

TFH shields are 30-30-24-13-0-0. 19 internals (6 power, 2 phasers, 3 battery, bridge, hull).

TFH has both S torps coming up next turn. GRN has no torps for a while.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 13, 2024 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Tnx for the report! I'll post it on FB.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 20, 2024 - 06:45 am: Edit

Peter and Geoff will continue
22 maj 2024 at 18:01 EDT
T

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, May 20, 2024 - 11:04 pm: Edit

MadJack (Lyran) over Sir Stimpy (Gorn) in 11 painful turns. I may try to write this one up, but maybe not. Summarizing, I played pretty well for 3 turns right up until impulse 32, turn 3. I moved my ship to range 3 impulse 32. That caused me to be overly worried about getting anchored. There was no attempt t4 but I was hampered. I also made a mistake t4 when Daniel launched 2 torps on different impulses that I intended to take on separate shields but miss moved my ship. That caused me to use my het and one of the torps was a fake. I ended up getting a little chewed up t4 because Daniel played well and I did not. At some point in the middle turns Daniel had a range 8 S-bolt attempt that missed on a down shield. If it had hit I might have conceded, but it missed. I did play about as well as I could for several turns to finally get into a position where I could win the game. It was tough going. Daniel did finally make a mistake and I was able to get a range 8 shot on his mostly down but reinforced #1. I hit a bunch of P1s and he gave up. I have watched Daniel play several times now. I think this was his best game I have seen and the 2nd hardest game I have played this year.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, May 21, 2024 - 07:05 am: Edit

Good job, guys! And thanks for the summary, Jack.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 06:24 pm: Edit

The Peter and Jack game has been postponed due to forces beyond control. Will post the continuation time in the near future (probably playing this weekend).

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 09:27 pm: Edit

Edit: Peter and Geof game.

Jack already put the hit on Peter.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, May 24, 2024 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Our continuation is scheduled for 6:00 pm (ET) on Sunday, May 26th.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, May 26, 2024 - 08:04 pm: Edit

spartan (TFH) over bakija (GRN).

T4: Ships start at R6, TFH facing A, GRN facing C. GRN moves 24/20 (20 was probably battery). TFH moves 14/25/14 something. GRN just moves away, TFH turns and follows. Ships end at R10, GRN closer to wall.

T5: GRN moves 24 something; TFH moves some sort of 24/14 plot. GRN gets close to the wall and turns North. Romulan turns in and launches a pair of S torps at R10. TFH turns off, GRN hits the wall, weasles the torps, one is real, one is fake, takes a little collateral on #6. GRN speeds up to 4 late. Ships end at about R9.

T6: TFH moves 0, accelerating to -9 at some point. GRN moves 9/4. GRN closes in some. TFH starts moving -9. GRN launches enveloper. TFH decells. Enveloper hits weasel. TFH launches F and a few impulses later an enveloper. GRN launches weasel that will gets killed by the F, GRN takes a little collateral on the #4, ends the turn at R6 from speed zero TFH, with the enveloper about to hit the enveloper on impulse 1.

T7: GRN has an advantage here-3 armed torps to the TFH's F and possible fast load, while TFH is speed 0. Oh. Wait. The TFH can cloak. GRN is speed 4/14/12. TFH is zero, cloaks, moves 0/9/5. GRN closes in, hoping to get a R1 shot on one of the TFHs down shields through the cloak. TFH speeds up to 9, gets near the wall, slows down to 5. GRN can't possibly get a shot on a down shield due to the wall. GRN resigns, as the GRN doesn't have the patience for this game any longer; TFH will stay under cloak until it is rearmed, come back out, launch some torps, eventually the GRN will run out of weasels and game will rapidly fall apart.

Fighting Romulans is terrible.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, May 26, 2024 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Peter,

I take it tournament SFB doesn't include carronades for the Gorns?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 27, 2024 - 12:40 am: Edit

Alan, good question. I just looked it up in my copy of the tournament rules and they are indeed on the list of excluded rules. I had totally forgotten about them since i never play non tournament games ^^

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, May 27, 2024 - 08:00 am: Edit

There are no carronades in tournament play, no.

So as a post script to this game--my opponent played well, and did the things that he needed to do to not lose to the point that we got to, but the game had then devolved into "Romulan moving slowly/TACing while cloaked against the map edge", where it could just sit under cloak, protecting down shields, and whenever the Gorn got in a vulnerable situation, uncloak for a few impulses, launch a torp, and then recloak to avoid burning weasels until the Gorn is out of weasels. If I had managed to get a shot on one of the Romulan's 2 down shields on T7 and done 5 or 6 internals, even through the cloak chart, I would have still had a game. But once that failed, the game was over. I mean, it was going to take another 10 turns of not much happening for the game to actually end, but it was, generally speaking, over at that point, and I wasn't interested in playing those 10 more turns.

This game (GRN vs Romulan) is *incredibly* tedious in general (see: 4 turns of basically nothing happening other than the Gorn burning 2 weasels and then Romulan burning 1 weasel), and when there is no time limit to the game, it is just nightmarish.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 27, 2024 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Cheer up, no rommies in second half (no Gorns either ...)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, May 27, 2024 - 04:01 pm: Edit

I'm not sure I know what that means? I didn't choose a ship yet?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, May 27, 2024 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Right, sry I got it wrong.
Jack, can actually pick Romulans, since he flew Lyrans.
Geof otoh must switch from Romulans however.
I continue fly pirates because of reasons.

You flew Gorn and have to switch to something else on the Alliance side. So must Daniel. Matt can choose Gorn if he like.

I'll list the ships each one of you can pick in separate mails I am preparing.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Thursday, May 30, 2024 - 10:25 am: Edit

The next half will formally start on Monday.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Friday, May 31, 2024 - 08:48 am: Edit

Half-time and new ships:

Daniel - Hydran
Matt - ATC
Peter - Kzinti

Geof - Klingon
Jack - LDR
Carl-Magnus - Orion (PPPf1, FgFff)


chart

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Friday, May 31, 2024 - 09:07 am: Edit

I was not quite so well aware of the power of the cloak on the emotional state of my opponent, but now I understand it more, thank you, Mr. Gorn!

More seriously, Peter played a great game overall, and in turn 3, helped a bit by strong dice. I was 100% not going to take a center-lined shot, and do my best to avoid a one-two combo on the same shield.

After I was down like 19 to 5 internals, and used by btty for reinforcement, so I could not bolt quick-loads ... I had to track you down with S-torp launches. Then I had mistakes in speed plot, with a need to decel, and then launching an extra, obvious fake ... so at that point, I pretty much had to cloak in order to stay alive. I was just likely to be close to the wall, and able to get my down shields hidden just in time.

Its not as glorious a victory as I would prefer, but I'll take it! Good Game!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, May 31, 2024 - 08:41 pm: Edit

Again, like, if I could have managed to get some damage in you while you were cloaked on T7, it would not have been hopeless. But once you got against the wall, while cloaked, and slow, the game had reached a point of inevitability.

Like, I think the existence of the cloak is bad for tournament play in general, and I think games without time limits are made vastly worse by the ability to cloak, and I'm generally not interested in 20 turn games against cloaked ships (which I have played, and don't really want to play more of), but, well, that's what we got these days. So when the game fell into the "the game is now going to go for another 10 turns, but then, inevitably, I'll be killed, as I'll run out of weasels faster, as I don't have a cloak" phase, I was way more willing to resign than play that out.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 02:21 am: Edit

I suppose one could have some kind of limit for online play. Measured in number of turns rather than time.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 07:50 am: Edit

Yeah, I dunno that there is a good solution here.

In the days of FtF tournaments, there was generally a hard time limit on games--3 hours? 4 hours? Something like that, depending on the event and context. And at the end of that time limit, the game was adjudicated by a knowledgable judge (at big cons, there would be a couple judges who came up with a winner). As, generally speaking, folks didn't *want* the game to get adjudicated (as it was kind of a coin toss, especially if the game hadn't progressed real far in the allotted time), both players usually had an incentive to do their best to finish the game inside of the allotted time frame.

In many years of FtF tournament play at big conventions, the vast, vast majority of games I played ended without adjudication (i.e. we were finished inside the time limits). Of the small handful of games I played that *did* get adjudicated (maybe, like, 5 total in something like 15 years of going to Origins), I can say the majority of them (if not all of them) involved cloaking Romulans (there might have been an adjudication against a pre-nerf Andro once?).

It is just too easy for a game to devolve into "Romulan had to stop and cloak to avoid getting killed (when anyone else would just get killed). Now it is stopped and cloaked and tac-ing and in the corner and if moving, moving slowly. Trying to attack it, especially with another plasma ship, has become an absurd exercise in patience while the Romulan can't come out of cloak and speed up, as it will just get killed, so it stays under cloak, poking its head out once in a while to launch enough plasma to either draw a weasel or make the opponent run away for a while."

When the game had a time limit, when a game against a Romulan devolved into this state, one could play, looking for an opening, but knowing that at *some* point, the game would get called on time, and the judges, when determining the outcome, would generally take the "The Romulan has been slow/cloaked/buried in the corner for 8 turns" into account (usually as a net negative).

In most games (that don't involve a cloaking device), there is a realistic upper limit of time a game is going to take (in turns, if not actual time), as you can always do *some* damage, and you can realistically (if, say, a plasma ship) expect to run a turtle opponent out of weasels, and so the game will eventually get to a tipping point. Against a cloaking Romulan, especially in another plasma ship, running it out of weasels is incredibly difficult, as most of the time (after the game has devolved into "slow/tac/cloak"), the Romulan doesn't need to use a weasel until the opponent is stupid lucky and rolls a 1 for a lockon, and *then* the Romulan can just weasel.

With SFBOL, there is neither a realistic time limit, nor a convenient panel of judges to adjudicate games. And no realistic way to implement a blanket time limit. So I got no solution here.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 08:38 am: Edit

The cloak vs cloak limit could be universal. (That's 128 impulses per ship which suggest 256 total was the limit of the judges patience.)
Massive attack is not sanctioned so it would be possible to set a limit for the next event.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 02:54 pm: Edit

That certainly could be a viable solution, but then it also would probably negatively impact the effectiveness of the Romulan to some extent. I mean, yeah, 128 impulse of total cloaking is 4 full turns of cloaking, which *should* be generally sufficient for most reasonable situations. But knowing that the Romulan's cloaking device self destructs (or whatever) at the end of the 128th impulse of use would certainly affect how play moves, and might result in the Romulan becoming less good, which might then require the Romulan getting a slight tweak in some direction (as the Romulan is currently balanced for tournament play *without* a self destructing Cloaking device.

I mean, I'd be totally ok with that, personally, but I'm also not someone with an unbiased viewpoint (i.e. I'm soundly on record saying "Cloaking is bad for the tournament as a whole" :-)

But then, again, a blanket 128 impulse cloaking limit is a *very* broad window, and *probably* wouldn't really harm the ship generally speaking?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 06:37 pm: Edit

It is not giving an advantage to romulans, it is more of a "extend the game button" for a player.
A TFH or TKR without it would still be comparable to a Gorn.
Not so man phasers or durability, but better fire arcs and maneuverability.
I would trade the cloak for a double shuttle bay or a couple of phasers any day.


Myself i loathe the thing. It gives the Romulans flavor, but you pay for it three times: By higher bpv, less weapons, and energy when operating it.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, June 01, 2024 - 09:39 pm: Edit

Carl-Magnus wrote:
"It is not giving an advantage to romulans, it is more of a "extend the game button" for a player."

I'm not sure I get what you are articulating here--the cloak is clearly some kind of advantage for the Romulan; it existing on the ship at all, even if it is never turned on, makes the Romulan's opponent work around it; you can't launch a lot of drones at a Romulan, as it can just cloak out. You can't plan on chasing a Romulan into a corner and mugging it, as it can just cloak. Even if a Romulan *never* pays for the cloak, it gains benefit from it being there (same for the Orion).

That the cloak exists at all makes the Romulan's opponent plan around it, and take it into account, which generally means holding things back and not taking actions that would often be advantageous against an opponent *without* a cloak.

Limiting the cloak in some way certainly will have *some* effect, overall, on the Romulan's general utility and effectiveness. The main crux is if it will have any *significant* effect on the balance of the ship. Which, well, remains to be seen.

I think, in general, the Romulan (TFH is the best of the three; TKE is the worst) is probably reasonably balanced as it is against the field. It has some bad match ups, some good matchups. It is probably one of the stronger ships in the tournament (top 5?), but not particularly overly effective on average, historically speaking. But I do think that the general lack of a time limit and lack of time out adjudications makes the Romulan a little better than intended, assuming the player flying it is willing to just play for a long time, which I think is bad for the tournament environment.