BS (KLI) v. Sir_CatWhoEatsPhotons (FED) - scheduled 8/30/24 at 7:00 p.m. Central time.

Come watch Bill eat his next victim...

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 - 07:34 pm: Edit

CrashandBurn (FED) over Andromedan (SEL)

4 Fully Overloaded Photons hit. End of Story.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 - 07:39 pm: Edit

In the tree, Spartans ship choice is wrong - he is playing ISC

By John Rigley (Crash) on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 - 08:42 pm: Edit

Bug guts all over my FED ship.
T1 Fed did a short corner dive to the right , only to turn back to face the center direction F. At R15 Bug fires 4 PC hitting for 6 on the #1.
T2 the Bug ship turns to his right and runs to the edge of the map , jockeying his speed from 17 to 24 several times. The Fed slips along behind him doing the same speed jockeying 17 to 24 then 17 to 26. Around imp 20 Fed got to R8 and fired 6 p1s for a whopping 13 which he bricked of 5 damage. He did 5 in return Fed bricked off 2 damage.
T3 Fed came out doing speed 17 for the turn. Bug was speed 14 for the turn . The Bug ship worked his way up the edge till he turn right . At which point I turned to my left. Keeping my #1 out of his arc’s. Are #6 shields are facing each other .At R6 he starts to fire his shield crackers as we closed. Hitting for 8 damage to the #6 which is down to 20 left now.we get to R4 we both fire . He gives me 4 ol PC and 6 p1 , doing 37 damage I think . I fire one OL Photon and 2 p1s for like 21 damage. My internals were not bad lost 2 p1s and drone rack. Next imp no one move but the drone I launched. But I HET to face E to get a new shield up and set up for a R2 shot , as he can’t turn. Next imp I move straight to get R3. The Bug HETs to B to give me his #2 shield. Next imp he moves to give me the R 2 shot I wanted. Three Ols and 2 p1 hit for 55 damage for 25 internals. Next imp I move and slip away ,still in the R2. And fire 4 p1 and 2 p3 for a other 25 internals. Next imp the Bug took the drone on his #6 for 2 more internals which were power hits.
The Bug concedes on the turn break. Down 13 power all his battery, and half his weapons. I only lost 2 phasers and a few power.
Was a good try Paul but my photons were hot.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 10:01 am: Edit

---

Quote:

4 Fully Overloaded Photons hit. End of Story.

---

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 10:09 am: Edit

Are you ready to do your part.. against THE BUG?

DO YOUR PART

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 11:35 am: Edit

Ted - he hit with 1 one photon, on one shield. And then later, hit with 3 on another shield. And the bug was still squished with like 50 internals.

We agree- we need a Fed ship that doesn't basically automatically win or lose on one roll of 4 dice. Honestly, it is ridiculous that a game with this much complexity has such a weakness in tournaments with what should be the premier ship.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 02:14 pm: Edit

@Jack: I've argued this point for years with no traction. The powers-that-be firmly believe that there's nothing wrong with the Fed TCC and that there's no need for a TCF with fewer photons, more phasers, and a better power curve.

There's some data to back that position. Overall, the Fed TCC's win rate is decent enough. Plus there's one Fed fleet captain win (Bill Schoeller, I think, Ironically enough given our upcoming matchup).

My problem is that the overall statistics don't reveal the Fed TCC's specific weaknesses against big plasma, Kzinti, Klingon, AUX (both), and ISC - which is more than half the field. Or it's dominance over Orion, Selt, LDR, and (to a lesser extent) Hydran Lyran, Tholian (both), and Orion. Also, consistently winning enough games to win tournaments is difficult due to the dice unpredictability.

The Federation is *wonderful* in fleet combat, where the law of large numbers smooths out the variability and the long range of the photon damage becomes important.

But in duels on a fixed map the Federation has *inconsistent* performance, particularly against plasma races, the AUX, and the Kzinti.

It's one of the reasons I semi-retired from the tourney field (I come in when there's trouble reaching the threshold of 16 players, just to support the tourney). I'm pretty tired of the same old RPS game and the lack of an interesting and consistently viable ship by fielded by the iconic namesake of the game.

I offered to spearhead an effort to adequately playtest a Fed TCF. However, I was rebuffed.

My opinions. But my opinions are not what matters here.

I'll continue to play tourney occasionally, and I still play SFB generally. But when I play tournament I'll usually pick Fed because one way or another the game will be over fast (usually on the losing end when the photons miss due to my own bad luck). That way I can go back to my other hobbies...

Don't get me wrong. I'll always fly my best and win if I can. To do anything else would (in my opinion) be dishonorable.

Anyway. /endrant

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Are Madjack and Spartan tgoing to finish tonight or will the game need to be adjudicated?

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 04:22 pm: Edit

We aren't finishing tonight. We could not start because both our ship picks were in accurate to begin with and it took a week or so for you to clear the air on that.

We have played a few hours and 3 turns, I think. We are scheduled to play Saturday night at 5p eastern. I do not know if we will finish then or not. Probably not. He is in Japan and I am in Ohio- we have big time difference and work schedule issues.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 01:46 pm: Edit

Proposed revisions to SOME tournament ships:

Seltorian: REPLACE 4xPhaser-3 LS/RS (2 each) with 4xPhaser-1s.

Orion: Use a Heavy Cruiser with restriction that center warp engine canNOT be doubled, add two batteries, no cloaking device, loses the ECM bonus.

Jindarian: Double the LF+L and RF+R phaser-1s, no other changes.

LDR: Increase FA Phaser-1s to four.

ISC: Double FH Phaser-1s to four.

WYN: No Changes

LYRAN: No Changes

ANDROMEDAN: Add three phaser-2s, one to each phaser battery

HYDRAN: Double 360 phaser.

FOR NOW, discussion?

By Daniel Bitseff (Cadet_Stimpy) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 02:11 pm: Edit

So the Selt would have 12xph-1 & zero ph-3? Sounds crazy.

Does ISC need upgrade? Thought that was already a top tier ship. Same with Hydran.

I would love to playtest the LDR proposed change.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 02:52 pm: Edit

I think these are all kind of bananas? Which might be the point?

The Seltorian is a little on the weak side, but then when it had 10xP1, it was basically unbeatable.

The Orion is fine.

The Jindarian has never been legal for sanctioned play, and the issue is with the basic design of the rail guns.

LDR is probably a little on the weaker side, but with 4x FA P1s, it would be insane.

ISC is a totally reasonable ship that wins a lot. Giving it 4xFH P1s would make it insane.

Andromedan is certainly weak. Giving it an upgrade is not out of the realm of reason.

Hydran is just fine as it currently exists. Adding an extra 360 P1 is probably a wild upgrade.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 03:11 pm: Edit

1. LDR - Give it a 1 shot UIM like the bigger Lyran.

2. Lyran - nothing

3. Orion - nothing

4. Klingon - nothing.

5. Gorn - nothing

6. TKR - nothing

7. FH - nothing

8. ISC - nothing

9. ATH - nothing

10. Neo - change FH P1 to FX and this will be a very good ship. Simplest best change to any ship we could make IMHO.

11. Andro- Keep nerfed and forget.

12. Hydran - nothing

13. Shark - Remove 1 FX p3.

15. Kzinti - nothing

16. Wyn Aux - give it +2 on first HET. Still breaksdown on 5-6.

17. KE - nothing

18. Selt - I will let others give input. 12 p1's seems crazy and probably won't help enough.

19. Jindarian- Never played against it so don't know if the ship would be better with 2 more p1's.

20. The Fed- the Fed is a disaster to the tournament to me. When is the last time it won a tournament? The 90's?

Seriously though - I would overhaul it. The DDL has plasma F's on it. Is there a legit cruiser variant with plasma F's?

How about 2 photons, 2 plasma F (FP), 1 g-rack, everything else the same?

Or 3 photons, 1 plasma F (RP), 2 g-racks

Or something else, anything else, that isn't 4 FA photons?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 04:29 pm: Edit

I think removing a front P3 from the Shark is totally reasonable. I think giving the LDR a one shot UIM is totally reasonable.

I'm iffy on upgrading the NTC, on the grounds that the ATC is already completely competitive and reasonably strong, and the Neo, as much as I love it for reasons of nostalgia, doesn't really need any fixing. If you wanna do well as a Tholian, be the ATC, and the ATC is more "historically" accurate anyway.

The Andro is fine as being basically unplayable.

I dunno that the WAX needs any help. It does very well. It has a small number of very bad matchups (the Orion? Uh, not much else?) and a lot of very advantaged matchups.

I don't know that there is ever going to be any consensus on fixing the Fed, other than giving it the G-Rack, which we already succeeded in. There aren't ever gonna be any large scale reboots of the ship. As it stands, it is hard to win a tournament with, but is largely totally fine in any single matchups (well, except the ones that are basically hopeless, like the WAX and the Romulan).

I dunno that there is a good way to fix the Seltorian. It is certainly weak, but it is the result of the bad PCs (which are not at all designed for single combat on a fixed map--the bad to hit/damage breaks relative to disruptors all the time, the 12 impulse delay over a turn break is *terrible*, that it can fire twice is almost completely irrelevant in the tournament environment) and lack of worthwhile secondary weapon system (drones/ESGs) that disruptor ships get. You can keep giving it guns until it is too good, which is what happened when it had 10xP1s. Currently, it is *almost* viable; I have won some games in it. Ken Lin did very well at Origins with it (second or third place?) one of the last times there was a tournament at Origins. I mean, yes, I agree that it is weak, but I think it is weak on a fundamental level, and not on a "we can tweak it a bit, and it'll suddenly be solid!" level.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 05:41 pm: Edit

Wow, proposal to add Phasers to ISC?

Back in like 1995, there was an ISC that had 3xPh-3 on each side (RS/LS). It was pretty powerful, I flew that ship to victory in the Patrol at Origins that year. Shortly thereafter, the ship lost those phasers, and became what is sanctioned today.

My opinions:

ISC = no changes needed, it is competitive and balanced as is.

WBS = agree, -1 FX Ph-3

FED = Here is a radical idea, give the Kirov/Bismarck/Classic options ...
* 2xPHOT, 2xDRN-G (maybe + scatterpack?)
* 2xPHOT, 2xPLA-F
* 4xPHOT (current)

(note, since I play mostly plasma, the FED is not so scary, since I tend to fight him at range 9-10, or present a shift with WW). BS's win in the FED did blast my RFH to bits in 1994 ... nice job, Bill!

NTN = I'd say experiment with FX phasers ...

WAX = why does it need a change?

LDR = solve the UIM envy issue, I guess ... will this create Ph-G envy in the big brother?

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Jack, you around?

I guess we have some pressure to wrap it up. I can play at our normal time window Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri ... (all -1 day for you).

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 07:01 pm: Edit

The Neo-Tholian is weak. Why not make it average? Even with FX p1 it's not likely to be better than the Archeo. Adding FX p1s isn't going to make the Neo-Tholian a top 5 ship.

It's the most obvious ship to improve to average by doing almost nothing.

By David Cheng (Davec) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 11:45 pm: Edit

For several years, at the Council of Five Nations tournament, we played with the following changes to sanctioned ships:

1. Fed TCC gets a G-rack. This seems to have now been semi-officially adopted by ADB.

2. LDR, Ph1's 1 & 2 (FA) are converted to FX. We see this being very complimentary to the two FX disruptors, allowing this ship to fight out the flanks more effectively.

3. We allow one of the Fast Fed options. I forget which configuration, but Peter will probably remember. Unfortunately, very few players took this ship. Even Brook Villa, who lobbied for it for years, chose to fly other ships when he played.

If you gave me the power to choose, while I think giving the LDR a 1-use UIM is probably more powerful, I would still choose the FX phaser conversion. Over a longer battle, I think helping the LDR become less reliant on the #1 shield is more valuable.

-DC

By David Cheng (Davec) on Friday, August 23, 2024 - 11:56 pm: Edit

Jack Taylor:

20. The Fed- the Fed is a disaster to the tournament to me. When is the last time it won a tournament? The 90's?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, August 24, 2024 - 06:18 am: Edit

One change to the Selt could be to give it dual shuttle bays. That would make suicide shuttles a good secondary weapon.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Saturday, August 24, 2024 - 09:13 am: Edit

Ok so two shlubs Paul Scott and Bill Schoeller won a tournament in the Fed, my mistake. They are bottom of the barrel. Some of the absolute worst. I mean if they can do it, anyone can!!

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Saturday, August 24, 2024 - 09:33 am: Edit

Peter - I don't really agree with you on the ATH and NEO. The ATH only works in the hands of a real specialist web master. I consider myself pretty decent and don't think I would win more than 50% of my games in the ATH- probably not even that many. You have to play it perfect or you're dead. And then play it 4 perfect 4 times in a row. No one has played it perfect in forever and now it is hardly ever played at all. Is the ATH actually great if no one plays it and it doesn't win tournaments, or even contend to? Cause that's the case now.

The Neo is a better ship for most players to play. It has a back-up plan and is resilient. The only problem it has is that it can't do hardly anything at range 4+ through its 3 and 5. If you count the ability to bolt or launch torps out the 3/5, it is literally the worst ship there is firing out those shields. Well, the Orion I guess is just as bad. The Neo by performance is bottom 3. Why not improve it through an easy change? It's not going to dominate anything no matter what.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Saturday, August 24, 2024 - 06:28 pm: Edit

I was ready to play at 5p eastern tonight and Spartan was a no show. Not sure when we will pick it back up now. Not before Tuesday next week.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, August 25, 2024 - 08:17 am: Edit

Jack wrote:
>>I don't really agree with you on the ATH and NEO. The ATH only works in the hands of a real specialist web master. I consider myself pretty decent and don't think I would win more than 50% of my games in the ATH- probably not even that many.>>

Heh, like, I suspect that the reason that the ATC is not played more often (and as such, people get better at it) is 'cause, well, there are two Tholian ships. Like, the ATC is hard to play, but it is also potentially *incredibly* good. But fair enough.