I agree that the matchup itself an issue, Gorn vs drns.

I disagree that changing map size is necessary.

I liked having the 1st turn to get set up and check out my opponent. Engaging late turn 2 is not a problem.

IMHO the Gorns can most def force an opponent into a corner on this map size, much like a tourney game, and early too. There is too much analysis based on this one battle and the tactics and strategies used here. This could have been played differently with a different outcome. Again, the matchup is bad, agreed, but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater and blame the environment or the rules.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 02:14 pm: Edit

>>IMHO the Gorns can most def force an opponent into a corner on this map size, much like a tourney game, and early too..>>

The problem here is that unless someone does this in practice, it's all just hypothetical. Saying "This can happen!" without actually showing that it can happen basically means nothing. Maybe you are right. Maybe you are wrong. There is no way to know unless you play this same game with similar forces and do it (which is why the TC's and the regular tournament environment is something you can balance--the game is a manageable size, so someone saying "I can do X in this game" is generally a demonstrable thing; playing a tournament game takes, like, 3 hours under optimal conditions. Playing one of these takes, well, a lot longer than that).

Pinning someone against the map involves running through 2 turns of drones at a time, twice in a row (drones launched late on T1 and then early on T2 followed by drones launched late on T3 and early on T4). Shooting down 18-24 fast drones (often that must be shot at R2 as they hit the next impulse, many of which are unidentified, some of which are armored, etc, etc.) and then 12-18 more fast drones, on the same turn, with forces this size? Not realistically manageable.

By Frank Lemay (Princeton) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 02:26 pm: Edit

Making the map 60x60 will not make plasma vs plasma tedious, especially if the Sabot is in play !

Cheers
Frank

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Sold!

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 02:38 pm: Edit

I used to play with a group, most of whose members (including me) strongly prefered playing on a floating map. To obviate the "plasma on a floating map" issue, we generally made the fights "about" something either stationalry but valuable (a mobile base, for example) or slow moving (a convoy of standard - not armed - freighters). Gorns were very formidable in such battles. But unfortunately it's impossible (or at least, difficult) to incorporate something like that into a tournament.


The C7 is a beast, even by BCH standards.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 02:55 pm: Edit

By the way, if anyone wants to hear some of Paul's thoughts about his recent Seltorian vs. Federation battle, he has spoken about it quite extensively in several recent episodes of the Star Fleet Universe On Call podcast.

While I don't wish to speak for Paul himself, I suspect that he'll talk about his battle in the next round of this tournament there also...

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:20 pm: Edit

pretty sure I am matchup up with him in R2. Looking forward to it.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Gary remember on drones the 32 speed actually appeared in 178 as a limited item and 179 as a restricted item. in 178 a ship could have 10% Kzin, 20% in 179 a ship could have 25% and a Kzin 50%. A map sizing would help 2 stacked on top of each other would be 60 by 42 or 1/2 the size now, I have ran games with that size many times and it works well, another idea I found that worked was terrain. Many times we would take the double sized map and put a standard asteroid field map covering the bottom of one and the top of the other. The terrain evened out the speed advantage of drones, almost better off with speed 20, the extra ECM of the asteroids also took away some of the DF advantage, had to get closer and risk it against plasmas. I built one using the over lay function

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:27 pm: Edit

Yes I get the drone machines.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:29 pm: Edit

One other item that did not help was limiting the COs to 10% rather than 20% in S8, cost limited the T-Bombs available to dispatch drones

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:36 pm: Edit

>>To obviate the "plasma on a floating map" issue, we generally made the fights "about" something either stationalry but valuable (a mobile base, for example) or slow moving (a convoy of standard - not armed - freighters). Gorns were very formidable in such battles.>>

Oh, absolutely. If there is a base, or a planet that is being attacked, or a convoy, or something reasonably fixed, the Gorn can do great, even on a floating map. Just in random open space (or a huge map), they are starting on sketchy footing.

Like, again, I suspect if I had been matched against a significantly less drone forward force, I probably could have done fine, even on the huge map. But the combination of "giant map" and "all the speed 32 drones" was a difficult to climb wall.

>>The C7 is a beast, even by BCH standards.>>

Yeah, that ship is bananas. Like, I certainly played games with it on the board at some point in my life, but probably also not since, like, the 80's. The weapon arcs, the huge amount of power and batteries, the turn mode, the strong shields. It is a monster of a ship. I mean, it is expensive. But man.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 03:46 pm: Edit

>>One other item that did not help was limiting the COs to 10% rather than 20% in S8, cost limited the T-Bombs available to dispatch drones>>

Oh, I dunno, I had plenty of t-bombs (I had maximum t-bombs for my force, less one, and I foolishly gave the BDS 2 t-bombs and the HD 3, rather than giving the BDS 1 and the HD 4); t-bombs are hard to deploy against drones when your opponent is very invested in avoiding t-bombs with the drones.

T-bombs are great for killing drones when they are bunched together and you are running away from them. They are difficult to kill drones with when you are moving towards the drones, and the drones are spread all over the place, and you don't know who the drones are targeted on, and the drones are craftily maneuvered to disguise their target as long as possible.

Like, 50 points of CO's can get you:

-An A-MRS (8 points without drone upgrades, we have definitely established :-)

-10 t-bombs (40)

And have a couple points left over, which, if you don't hit exactly 500 with your force, is probably another t-bomb or something.

I mean, we'll see what happens in Dana's next game (against some Fed force?).

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 04:04 pm: Edit

HDD had 3? I thought in the S rules somewhere it was 20%(in this case 10%) of the BPV of the ship, CO were per ship, not fleet wide. Did I miss that in the rules we listed? (S3.26) INDIVIDUAL: Ships cannot “pool” their BPVs to buy equipment for the entire squadron. Each ship buys its own options as an individual. Equipment can be transferred between ships during the scenario by (G25.0).

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 04:14 pm: Edit

The scenario rules said:

"The players may select commanders options, and the adjusted total must not exceed 550 BPV."

The S rules say that each ship can get 20% of its BPV in CO's. We just had an arbitrary limit of +/-50 points for CO's. So the HD (with sabot refit) costs 121 BPV. 20% of that is 24 points.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 07:59 pm: Edit

I bought my Rom force with the limited COs in mind. I paid for the drogues with force points. I bought a 3-point phaser refit for the BH with COs to max out the points spent. Then in the case vs Feds bought some T-bombs.

There is also the victory conditions. If You went for 500 no Commander options. Then You would get the points over 500 added to you victory point total.

I am working seven days a week. 10 hour days... it will end soon. If I did not need the money,

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Monday, March 24, 2025 - 10:48 pm: Edit

Wow, a flood of messages since I last posted.

Just to reiterate, my goal is to ultimately come up with and play numerous times a format that has a balance level equivalent to Module T, and also to permit the use of the most advanced technology in SFB, short of X-tech. When players were selecting forces, we had ships from Y182 that we wanted to include (Seltorians), since they are in the cruiser tournament, and ultimately players were asking about access to heavy destroyers on a equal footing, even though some races did not get these until like Y184. So the concept of going back to Y178/Y179 to try to limit fast drones, IMO is not the right way to deal with this.

The idea that we just can't balance D&D vs Plasma ... Module T did it, so a fleet battle format should be able to do it too.

While Dana clearly played a great game with a "come from behind" victory, the overall victory was not overwhelming at 106%. Victory levels, however, do not determine advancement in the tournament.

Peter has explained many things, including the challenge of fast drones, yes, but also other factors and choices. Several weeks ago I posted that the floating map tactic for plasma, splitting your force and attempting to pin enemy units between plasma from different directions. This has the added benefit of clarifying drone targets very easily. Of course there are demerits to this approach as well, but the point is one game does not make a trend, and alternate tactics matter. I'm happy to play plasma on the existing map with no terrain, but I do understand the rationale that says a fast drone centric force on this map has some pretty important advantages.

Additionally, if a Gorn player sees that he is matched up with a Klingon or Kzinti, then in selecting COs there could be a focus on plasma-D drogues to provide some defense ... or plasma-F drogues so that ship bourne plasma F can be used for carronade shots. I think there are additional creative tactics available for a Gorn player to experiment with to deal with drone waves.

Justin, you are not interested in changing the map size, I hear you, but you also suggested earlier adding a class M planet in the middle, something that can assist in disrupting seeking weapons, if maneuver is used well. So, the idea that I floated was to reduce the map size slightly (84x60 > 60x42), and add the class M planet as a balancing factor. That's not a "fish bowl", but it does give some terrain to try to use as an additional defense, while also giving a little less room to outrun plasma or drones, and to attempt to pin an opponent's forces up against the wall. It also makes EDR a little bit tougher, but not certainly still possible.

Clearly this tournament will continue under the present rules. Now that we've played Round 1 completely, the idea was to begin to enforce the time limit on EA time, and the progressive leaky shields if EA is late. Players thoughts on this?

I'm considering the format of the next tournament scheduled for Autumn 2025. These are the possible changes, in pursuit of balance:

1. Random selection from several maps. Select the map once the match-up is determined, but before commanders options are selected.

* 84x60 open space (current)
* 60x42 w Class M (maybe small moon too?)
* 60x42 w five hex Gas Giant with ring
* 60x42 with some form of Asteroid Belt
* 60x42 Nebula
* 84x60 w Black Hole

(note that only plasma sabot should be able to outrun black hole effects ...)

2. Possibly a VP based advancement, and VPs for securing the Class M planet with boarding parties. No troop ships with barracks are permitted. Addition of only those rules from Module M for this purpose (basically a single ground combat location on a random hexside of the planet). This is traditional Star Trek TOS style, for sure.

3. Possibly adding 100 BPV (600 force BPV) and 675 after CO, and allowing a force to include a single SC2 unit (no BB class), but if selected then only half of the ships (round down) can be SC2 or SC3. For example, a force of C7 + D6D, + 2xE4 (or maybe 2xF5 with extra BPV) is perfectly legal, possibly a force of C8 + D6D + 2xE4 with the extra BPV. Likewise the Gorns could squeeze in a force of DNF + CS + 2xDDF, for example.

Are people feeling like the C7 is too monstrous? Well, take a DN to even it up!

4. Possibly permitting any race to use up to two casual PFs, while Lyrans may use four casual PFs. Likewise any race may use a single casual carrier with up to six fighters. Hydrans fighter limit wouild be increased from 18 to 24. Each four drone racks in the force reduces the available fighters by two. Each six drone racks reduces the number of casual PFs by one. This would give the Gorns, for example, the ability to take a heavy battle destroyer with six fighters, while putting a limit on Klingons or Kzinti adding a similar number of fighters or PFs. This gives some ability to add some drone defense in the form of fighters, while limiting the playability issue of a cloud of drones and fighters.

These are just ideas in the pursuit of a fixed format with balance.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 12:48 am: Edit

Geof, I am working on an idea for a league, where the victory would be based on a series of games. Each ship ypu pick would in effect be one of your teams players, prior to the start up you would draft a team from the race you choose. Each game round would be a different year, the season might start with year 172 and progress 1 or 2 years at a time for each round, each round would be a random number of points. When I get it put together a little better I will send it to you, it might have some ideas you might use. The one thing it would do would be to keep each player in the race to win the championship and not get knocked out in one round.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 07:48 am: Edit

Up a bit, Gary wrote:
>>Even so, under the current tournament setup in this thread, it is possible to take a Gorn heavy battle destroyer, and to install a pair of plasma-D racks - either both with AP arcs, or 1 LPR and 1 RPR - in its RA weapon option mounts.>>

That is an *excellent* idea, except--the East Siders don't get HDWs till y181-y182 (I was looking into the YIS dates of HDWs for possibly a cool scout, and discovered that half the empires had access to HDWs, and half did not, in y180).

[Sad trombone noise].

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 08:03 am: Edit

>>Additionally, if a Gorn player sees that he is matched up with a Klingon or Kzinti, then in selecting COs there could be a focus on plasma-D drogues to provide some defense ... or plasma-F drogues so that ship bourne plasma F can be used for carronade shots. I think there are additional creative tactics available for a Gorn player to experiment with to deal with drone waves.>>

Oh, sure. I considered plasma D drogues, but they likely are about a wash with t-bombs for the cost when you have to choose (and here we had to choose)--you can kill 6 drones with plasma D's, but gotta slow down to 12 to do it, which is probably about the same effect as needing to be moving off in some oblique direction to get the T-bombs to get some drones, and the t-bombs are probably a little more flexible. Like, not saying that the plasma D drogue is a bad idea at all (I strongly considered them), but I dunno that it is going to have a vastly different overall effect than the same points sunk into t-bombs.

Like, I'm not here claiming that everything I was doing was the be all and end all of brilliance or anything. And, like, I had a chance here, which I squandered by getting my BDS vaporized due to an "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time" error. But I do think that my particular matchup (average Gorns vs drone heavy Klingons) was a rough one from the get go (due to random chance, which happens, and I'm not, like, complaining about it or anything), and it certainly highlighted some possibly detrimental aspects of the format.

But I think, in general, the format as currently presented makes plasma less attractive as an option and drones more attractive as an option. Which maybe there is a way to fix. Or maybe it's fine to just lean into drones.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 09:25 am: Edit

To quote the notes from (FD2.32):

---

Quote:

NOTES: Players should use reasonable judgement in their selection of drones. [Since no one does, see (FD10.6).] While it may seem perfectly logical to some to use only the best types of drone (such as the II-X and IV-X), this did not happen in the actual service. The better drones were more expensive and more difficult to produce and often just not available. Smaller ships (with their lower-ranking captains) received advanced models only if the larger ships were fully-stocked. Players who restrict themselves to only the very best (and most powerful) ships and weapons are missing a great deal of the game. Throughout history, many decisive battles were fought with “outdated” or “inappropriate” weapons because the new ones were not available in quantity. The “Falklands War” of 1982 is an example of this, where outdated Skyhawk jets bombed “anti-submarine” ships.

---

By Frank Lemay (Princeton) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 10:05 am: Edit

Geof,
I do not see a tree for R2 match ups.

I think the following has advanced.
Dana's Klingons
Frank's Lyrans thanks to Dave !
Justin's Feds
Paul's Seltorians.

Is this correct ?

Cheers
Frank

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 10:38 am: Edit

>>Speaking of which, I should note that the most recent revision to the tournament setup in this thread did in fact allow a single ship (of certain types) with a YIS date later than Y180 to be selected in this tournament.

So the Gorn HBD would, indeed, have been up for consideration here;>>

Huh, I forgot that had happened. I remembered talking about the YIS dates of HDWs, but forgot that there was some sort of accommodation put in there.

I think the HDW w/D-racks is likely a great choice when facing a drone heavy force, but against a drone light/no drone at all force, it is probably not that great of a choice, which is an issue with blind force selection. But at least good to know that it is theoretically an option!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 11:41 am: Edit

Just let the Gorn buy one Aegis ship even if there's no carrier in the force. That will give them the wherewithal to handle a drone force, and make selecting Gorns a bit more viable in this setting.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 12:45 pm: Edit

I just want to state again, that I strongly disagree that this map size somehow favors any race or weapons.

This is over-analysis of a single battle and the conclusions drawn are deeply flawed. There is no issue with this map size or with plasma vs drns.

I am not trying to flame anyone, I am speaking purely from a logical, strategic, and tactical perspective.

Simply put IMHO this is much a do about nothing. The format is perfect and I like the idea of 600 bpv with standard 20% COs. If you want to put a planet or a planet with a small moon in the center for some flavor and something to fight over, great! Other than that this is all just over analysis IMHO and should not be used as any sort of measuring stick for plasma vs drns.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 01:19 pm: Edit

>>There is no issue with this map size or with plasma vs drns. >>

>>I agree that the matchup itself an issue, Gorn vs drns.>>