You should do that, yes.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 08:02 pm: Edit

disagree entirely about 2 maps being enough space, simply not true. 4 maps is ideal just closer starting range is all that is needed.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 08:35 pm: Edit

I mean, it depends on what you are trying to do.

4 maps is essentially infinite space, and not significantly different than a floating map. If you want to have a situation where folks can just run away with basically no limit, 4 maps is fine. If you want a situation where folks are largely required to fight while having room to maneuver, 2 maps is likely sufficient.

On two maps worth of space, you can basically run across the map for two full turns before you hit a wall. On 4 maps worth of space, this probably ups to 3 turns of "I can just run away". Which certainly is a thing one might to want to facilitate. But my experience is that 2 maps worth of space to fight on generally is sufficient. You can be far enough away that you can't be shot, but if someone wants to chase you, they'll catch you in about 2 turns. Which seems fine?

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 08:38 pm: Edit

again, completely disagree, as a plasma player with sabot I would also want the squadron actions in a fishbowl.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 08:39 pm: Edit

I cannot seem to find a way to see my opponent's squadron, is there a pdf or something geof? Or is this double blind and we dont know until we put ships on the map?

Using tac intel?

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 09:32 pm: Edit

Justin,

You need to submit your CO while knowing your opponent's race only, then I will send you both the forces. You don't get to know your the opposing force before selecting your CO.

You get to re-select the CO in round 2, but of course, you know the force you are up against, since it was revealed in round 1.

The mirror battle is less significant here than it is in the normal cruiser tournament, which is a true "mirror". Here, the fleets are all different.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 09:36 pm: Edit

I did not change the four maps, since we are playing with plasma sabot and all fast drones. I can imagine that a seeking weapon force could chase a fleet (or elements thereof) and force at least a disengagement, if not a "considered destroyed" result, it will just take multiple turns to do this.

In a future fleet tournament, maybe we can consider changing the size of the fixed map, but I kept this one to be the same size as CL15 rules on purpose.

By David Hanson (Glimaash) on Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - 11:57 pm: Edit

I do not have an issue about the map size. The area allows for a variety of battle tactic that a small board makes difficult.

I'd prefer that we start in the middle of map A (2130ish) and map D (6345ish) around R50. That would allow forces to close to firing range on the first turn should they want. Having a little space behind would allow a side to maintain distance for a turn should they feel they need it to get ready. Starting at WS3 make most ship ready for battle on turn 1.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 07:10 am: Edit

>>again, completely disagree, as a plasma player with sabot I would also want the squadron actions in a fishbowl.>>

Dude. Settle down with the accusatory language.

My point is simply that with a map this big, there is no way to force engagement. At all. Any amount of seeking weapons being launched will result in forces running away until the seeking weapons are dealt with. I'm pretty confident that any games that take place on maps this big that see seeking weapons on both sides will see a lot of nothing happen for a very long time.

As noted, I am in no way suggesting that we change the map size *now*. Everyone built forces based on the rules as presented. And that's what we got, and that's fine. I was simply suggesting that *in the future*, if we do this sort of thing again, a smaller map might be in order. I mean, we'll see what happens here. But again, I suspect that 4 maps is too many maps.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 07:14 am: Edit

>>Using tac intel?>>

We are not.

All the rules in use are in the post where all the rules for the event are posted (see: Feb 4th).

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 07:21 am: Edit

Geoff wrote:
>>I did not change the four maps, since we are playing with plasma sabot and all fast drones. I can imagine that a seeking weapon force could chase a fleet (or elements thereof) and force at least a disengagement, if not a "considered destroyed" result, it will just take multiple turns to do this.>>

As noted, I suspect what is going to happen, in situations where both sides have seeking weapons, is that there will be a very long period of time where nothing significant will happen other than seeking weapons being dealt with (i.e. outrunning plasma that will never have a chance to corner anyone and running away from clouds of drones that will be shot down and t-bombed, at which point both sides spend a few turns coming back around to do it again). Due to the vast size of the map, taking bold action (i.e. crashing plasma, or spending a lot of resources to fly through drones) to try and corner someone is unlikely to seem attractive ever, as the edge of the map will be incredibly far away most of the time.

Again, for clarity, I'd never suggest (and never was suggesting) we change the map size *now*. As we all picked forces based on the rules as presented. We got what we got, and we'll see what happens, and it is certainly possible I'm incorrect.

>>In a future fleet tournament, maybe we can consider changing the size of the fixed map, but I kept this one to be the same size as CL15 rules on purpose.>>

Which is totally reasonable.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 08:03 am: Edit

And now that I'm looking at the matchups, I see that my matchup is the only first round matchup that has two significantly seeking weapon based forces (Gorn vs Klingons with 12 drone racks).

So our matchup will likely result in a lot of nothing happening for a very long time due to the size of the map. The Fed vs Lyran fight, however, is likely to be very action packed!

By David Hanson (Glimaash) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 09:25 am: Edit

The Lyran and Federation 1.2 match will continue this afternoon and 4pm Eastern.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 10:27 am: Edit

Its not accusatory I am just counter pointing your efforts to change the format of this or future tournaments to suit your specific needs, it clearly offers you and the ships you prefer an obvious advantage.. dude.

More to the point it is completely unnecessary and simply moving the starting distance of the 2 sides closer would suffice.

STRONGLY DISAGREE with your efforts to make future 500 bpv tournaments on 2 maps, not necessary.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 10:31 am: Edit

I like 4 maps, that is the map size designated by the tournament rules, just move the ships close ~ 50 hexes to start if you want to have action T1.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 10:52 am: Edit

Justin wrote:
>>Its not accusatory I am just counter pointing your efforts to change the format of this or future tournaments to suit your specific needs, it clearly offers you and the ships you prefer an obvious advantage.. dude.>>

How about you take a step back and take stock of how you are coming across here.

You seem to be under the impression that I'm trying to do something that is based on what is or is not in my best interest. I am not. I am making a suggestion based on what probably makes an event like this manageable and playable. You disagree. That's fine. How about you take a deep breath and try to avoid coming across as belligerent.

>>More to the point it is completely unnecessary and simply moving the starting distance of the 2 sides closer would suffice.>>

Sure. Maybe you are correct. Maybe you are not. Maybe I am correct. Maybe I am not. We can have this disagreement without you getting bent out of shape and accusing me of trying to manipulate the system to benefit myself. Which, again, I am not doing.

>>STRONGLY DISAGREE with your efforts to make future 500 bpv tournaments on 2 maps, not necessary.>>

Sure. You are welcome to disagree. That's fine. You don't need to use all caps, or accuse me of motives which are not the case. You can just make your case without getting bent out of shape.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Just trying to go with the GMs rule set.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 12:38 pm: Edit

Moving on.. is there any possibility of putting a class M planet in the exact center hex? Or am I just dreaming here?

Just something to use for additional tactics.. maybe its too much but I think something like that would add some spice and open up more possibilities, though I guess some would try to over use or abuse terrain even if it was just one planet in the center hex...

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 01:35 pm: Edit

As a disinterested observer, I will note that planets tend to slightly favor DF fleet builds. The planet is frequently used to break line of sight and attract seekers to target the planet.

One way to mitigate this issue is to impose a VP penalty on the player that damages the planet.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 02:27 pm: Edit

>>Just trying to go with the GMs rule set.>>

I never suggested otherwise. But ok.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 03:16 pm: Edit

I have always found that a double map fitted top to bottom has always been sufficient with two player fleets. I do have a map from Game science that is 59 by 34 that also seems to work very well. 84 by 60 would probably work well for a multi player scenario like a dilithium or maze of asteroids like Graw used to run at conventions, just wait until you play on a regular map that is wrap a round.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 05:25 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, February 10, 2025 - 11:28 am: A potentially fun idea would give everyone 2 tournament ships and give that a go. Maybe next tournament.

---

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 05:32 pm: Edit

Okay, I don't have a dog in this hunt, nor a ship in the fight, but here's my two-cents worth (while we still have pennies):

Solution to map size: Place a small moon in the middle of the map. All ships must start 20-25 hexes from said moon. Any ship that moves more than 30 hexes away from the moon has retreated from the battle zone and will disengage (i.e., leaves the game).


Garth L. Getgen

By David Hanson (Glimaash) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 06:53 pm: Edit

The Federation-Lyran Affair.

Turn 2 is in the books. Took 2.5 hours as Ed is still learning the SFBOL client.

We closed to R22 by the end of the turn and the Lyran's let disruptors fly, destroying the MRS deployed late in the turn. Feds have two other shuttles(likely SP's) that were launched. They will blossom early on turn 3. Next turn things should start getting interesting.

Game continues Tuesday 7pm eastern.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 08:45 pm: Edit

When it comes to be map.

Remember one thing, this is the first time this tournament has been run. This will be a learning experience for all. So when the next fleet tournament occurs we will take what we learned and change the setup and/or rules.

Note: Previous experience with Federation Commander fleet battles on FC Online showed that when playing in the fish bowl the BPV values are skewed, so a multiplier was added for each empire. (i.e. an Orion ship in the fish bowl is worth more) The multipliers were adjusted many times. There were many tournaments played so it took a bit for things to be worked out.