Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through July 02, 2003	25		07/02 10:59am
	Archive through July 03, 2003	25		07/03 05:11pm
	Archive through July 05, 2003	25		07/05 08:36pm
	Archive through July 08, 2003	25		07/08 01:04pm

As the TACing rules stand nowit is much worse with starcastling then has been suggested. It is not that the TACing ship keeps a 'good' shield facing his opponet, but that he keeps a specific shield whcih is usually heavily reinforced facing his opponet.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 09:03 pm: Edit

Part of the reason, in my experience at least, that TACing isn't as big an issue in non-tournement play is that scenarios almost always have some objective to be acheived that TACing won't cut. In tournements, it's a duel and you can do it because your only goal is to kill the other guy. I don't see how it can be changed without being a major re-working of the game, even if the change is minor. Just my 2 cents.

By David Cheng (Davec) on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 01:03 pm: Edit

I just had a new thought to add.

A general theme of all this discussion can be summarized as "look at how TACs would be less effective if you make this change."

Perhaps we could take a different slant:
"Look at how powerful TACs are to begin with; maybe they need a little rebalancing."

OK, let's do that:

* _Incredible_ flexibility. There are very few limits as to when you can TAC. If I allocate 4 warp, I can TAC any time between 2-7, 8-15, 16-23, and 24-32. If I allocate 1 impulse to a TAC, I can take that TAC any time between 2-32. There isn't even a standard "8 impulse delay" between when I can take two TACs.

* _Huge_ timing advantage. I get to see the other player's move before I decide if I want to TAC or not.

* Low cost. One point of energy to change a shield facing.


At risk of moving this to the "To ask the question WHY?" category, let me ask a few WHYs:

* Why are TACs so flexible? Why am I not limited to warp TACing on _only_ impulses 8, 16, 24 & 32? Why am I not limited to impulse TACing on a single designated impulse, like 16 or 32 perhaps? Wouldn't this be more consistent with the other movement rules?

* Why is there no mandatory 8-impulse delay between TACs? Wouldn't this be more consistent with many other rules?

* Why does a speed 0 ship get to take his TAC "move" out of the normal impulse sequence of "slower ships move first"? Why does he get the benefit of seeing other ships' moves?


Now, I think I know the answers to these questions. The designers probably said to themselves:
"Wow, a ship caught going speed 0 is at a pretty big disadvantage. We'd better write some rules to help its survivability."

I respectfully submit the designers went too far. They created rules loopholes that can too easily be abused. Instead of a desperation move (as I believe was originally intended), years of play have shown that TACing can be a superior tactic.

What is worse is that in Tournament Duel situations, it can be an _unbalancing_ superior tactic.

The designers have even recognized this: by issuing the Non-Aggression policy in CL 22, they're admitting the abuse exists. With hindsight being 20/20 and all, I respectfully submit this was the wrong way to go. Instead of _closing_ the too-easily-abused rules loophole, they issued a policy saying "don't abuse the rules loophole."

SFB is a game where many players take pride in finding little rules loopholes to exploit. They (rightfully) view this as a competitive advantage.

If you want to prevent abuse, you've got to close the loophole.

Don't feel sorry for a ship going speed 0, and have rules loopholes to keep her alive. Fix the rules so players have less incentive to go speed 0, relegating it to the desperation tactic it rightfully should be.

-DC

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 03:15 pm: Edit

David Cheng: Back when the TAC was first introduced, the TAC had most* of the flexibility it now has but the moving ship was required to plot its movement. For over 20 years, ships have been able to react to an opponents movement with the use of a TAC. For the same time frame, some players have complained about the TAC making it difficult to get a safe and easy shot at a weak shield. Despite that, the game has worked reliably with the moving ship able to control timing and range and the TACing ship able to keep pointing one shield at the opponent.

* Ships gained free movement. TACs only switched to the use of the speed 4 chart and impulse TACs could work in the first half of the turn.

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 06:16 pm: Edit

The impulse TAC being taken in the first half of the turn is huge since it allows you to change 2 facings in 2 impulses (sometimes 3 in 3). The changes in the ED rules have also helped a ship that is TACing by allowing a ship to plot TAC then move and still be able to ED. Also the ED energy is now converted to shield reinforcement which makes using your batteries to TAC a reinforced shield look very attractive.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Jay, I'm a bit confused by your message. You do remember that when an ED is done all allocated (and unused) movement energy is converted to reinforcement. This includes anything allocated for a TAC (in EA). Not to mention that a TAC can only be bought in EA if the ship will be at speed 0 for part of the turn.

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 04:19 am: Edit

Right but the big advantage of TACing after other movement is that a particular shield can be kept facing your opponet. So if you ED, instead of using your batteries to reinforce, or HET or whatever, you can instead use warp power in your batteries to TAC and keep a particular shield (in this case the one with all of the remaining energy you plotted for movement) facing your opponet.

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 04:24 am: Edit

That is really my biggest problem with the TAC rules. Not that they are so strong when plotted, but that with a poor plot it is easy to ED against anyone with more close range firepower and have a very strong position.

A small fixed map makes this problem much more severe as a ship stopped in the middle of a single map can easily reach a decent fire range to any non-corner hex with a speed of 10.

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 02:11 pm: Edit

I think you overexagerate the effectiveness of shield reinforcement from ED. In many cases it winds up to be just a couple of points worth, and never more than 14 for a MC 1 ship, which is just about the size of a decent brick on a ship that parked at the beginning of the turn at twice the cost. At normal battle speeds, with half the turn left, you usually get a max of about 5 points of SSR. In most cases, an opponent can simply outmaneuver the 1 or 2 immediate TACs and hit the shield he wants anyway.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 11:30 am: Edit

Interesting. I was looking for topics to kill and found this one, which hasn't had a post in five years.

I think Peter has a point, but misses a point.

The TAC rules exist (ultimately) because of that trek episode where the enterprise had the warp engines down and was trying to turn at the last second to keep its weak shield away from the enemy.

The rule exists as about the only way a sublight ship can survive, and has to stay there.

Can you justify (engineering) adding a rule that says a sublight ship can tac last but a warp ship that just stopped has to tac first? If you can, we'll all go talk to Petrick.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 01:48 pm: Edit

SVC,

"Engineering"? You mean in-game continuity?

Suggestion:

Just because the warp engines aren't producing movement doesn't mean they're "off".

The influence of active, energy-prroducing warp engines puts a minor amount resistance to turns even when the ship is stationary. So there's a slight hesitation to any TAC (impulse or warp) from a warp-driven ship that would not exist in a sublight ship.

So if you want to TAC like a sublight ship, it's real simple: drop your warp engines.

By David Beeson (Monster) on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Hows about:

Warp engines don't turn on and off light a light swtich, they ramp up - (see accelleration limits)

Ergo: when a ship is stopped, the warp power to turn the ship involves initiating the engine which casues a slight delay.

the impulse engines: you just twist the exhaust pipe and drop the rods: instant power.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 08:44 pm: Edit

I'm not sure that there should be a difference but I'd consider these points.

IMO, an impulse engine inducts a kinetic impulse into a ships hull, evenly accross the entire hull at once. This is why there is no need to center the engines since the kinetic element isn't like rockets pushing the ship. To turn the ship all that is needed is to shift how the kinetic energy is applied to the hull. Very rapid and stable turns could be made this way.

Perhaps warp, even warp tacs, require some measure of forward (or reverse) linier movement and turns are made by redirecting the direction the ship is moving.

So impulse tacs are more of a turn-on-a-dime spin maneuver and warp tacs are just slow movement linier curve turns.

By William J Gauthier (Vortia) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Here's a really simple solution: Make Warp TACs take place before movement at higher speeds, but standard TACs after. Sure, sure, this gives a warp ship the ability to turn a shield, but it only allows him to do it once, and a highly mobily opponent will be back around him in no-time.

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 11:57 am: Edit

Just to show how big a dinosaur I am, I started playing with the Commander's Edition TAC rules when I first started playing SFBOL.

As Richard Wells alludes to, in Commander's Edition you had to announce after EA your TAC speed, 1-4, and then you earned your takes on that speed column. I think I confused a recent opponent when I announced how many TACs I had plotted.

Anyway, in the Commander's Edition, if you wanted to TAC on impulse 2 and impulse 8, you had to buy 4 tacs, even if you might never use the other two. If you used reserve warp to buy tacs, you had to announce the tac speed, and sometimes pay for tacs that you hadn't used previous in the turn.

The result was that TACs often did cost a few more points of power, and your intentions were better telegraphed to your opponent.

I like that the TACs are delcared after everything else moves. I think a great appeal of SFB is that if you really want to work to get it, the game gives players a lot of opportunities for "second chances". The game often a balance between attacking an opponent and forgoing a second chance vs. playing for a few more turns (perhaps in a futile effort). Compare SFB to other combat systems where the first exchange is so lethal - there basically is no way to reply to the attack. In any case, perhaps an unintended consequence in the Captain's edition was that the cost (power and complexity) for that second chance was lowered a bit making TACs just a bit that much more frustrating.

I wouldn't advocate changing the established Captains Edition rules - I'm just musing on the old old days.