...so an intelligent opponent, realizing that you have parked, simply doesn't break overload range with you until next turn. If at all. What does he lose?

The problem with parking is that it's hard to get going again if you need to. You have that awkward speed-10 or less turn where you are vulnerable as hades.

You have turned your ship into a base. No plasma tosser needs to get closer than 10. The Fed can arrange to be holding overloads every time he breaks into range 8 and he can optimize his shield reinforcement because he's controlling what shield he shows you. Sure it's not as good as what you can do but hey, sooner or later the slot machine will pay off. The disruptor races are at a disadvantage facing a parked opponent because they can't deliver an endlessly repeatable seeking weapon attack or an overwhelming DF attack.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 12:28 pm: Edit

COMPRIMISE SOLUTION:

Warp TACS occur as if at Speed 0 (i.e. turn first)

Impulse TACs occur as they do now (i.e. turn last)

While not completely addressing the issues in the Tournament, is does have a huge impact. More importantly, it doesn't break the EY Romulans.

By Timothy Sheehy (Spydaer) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Well, I guess I will go with the flow here and continue the thread on why parking is so awesome, instead of commenting why TACs are a joke.

---

Quote:

...so an intelligent opponent, realizing that you have parked, simply doesn't break overload range with you until next turn. If at all. What does he lose?

---

By Ben Moldovan (Shadow1) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 12:57 pm: Edit

Personally, I just don't think it's necessary. All due respect to Tim's skill, which is most likely much much greater than mine, not everyone subscribes to the "park every time you can get away with it" theory. That said, once in a while - due to power situation or whatever, you just feel like you don't have any choice. Being slow and losing the initiative is enough of a disadvantage, as far as I'm concerned, without making it worse. Dealing with lots of drones is nasty enough, without making weaseling even worse. You can only weasel a few times against plasma as it is, and when you do you're at a disadvantage - I don't see the need to make that worse.

Going back to the Kzinti, I think you have a much bigger problem with the Lyran. I've seen a well-played Lyran against the Kzinti. For all the complaints (at least in the past) from Lyran players about the problems with ESGs, they work quite nicely against drones, and then they have a boatload of phaser ones besides.

By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 01:31 pm: Edit

I just don't see the problem here. Park away. You have non-aggression rules for tournament play.

Don't change the game because parking is a useful tactic in tournament play.

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 02:39 pm: Edit

I aggree with Andy Palmers Idea of making Warp TAC's at speed 0, and keep Imp TAC's as last. This gives warp tacs the same movement priority as HET's which are warp only anyway. It also gives everyone a once a turn emergency movement.

The only problem I can see with this is that it could allow for a poor man's HET. Warp TAC at speed 0 then Imp TAC on the same impulse. (I need to reread the rules to see if there are any restrictions already in place.)

Ken

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:18 pm: Edit

Peter, I think you are underestimating the effect of the TACs on multi-ship engagements. While a fleet can usually arrange to have some ships shooting at the down/weak shield, the ability to TAC last at least halves that damage (they have to cover both possible arcs, splitting their fire). This can still be significant (consider a CC facing a pair of FF). It is true that it becomes mostly irrelevant in large fleet games (8+ ships/side), but these games are rare in my experience--most games are actually squadron battles.

For non-tournament (and I am at best a casual tournament player), I would be more worried about the opposite problem. Stopping is already a large enough penalty, removing the movement advantage of a TAC may totally eliminate any viability of such tactics, thus reducing the tactical richness of the games. It is already a desperate move in a squadron battle for a ship to ED and pop a WW. Without having TACs last, will reduce the recovery chances from difficult to impossible, eliminating the battle (note that in a squadron battle, half the enemy firepower is a hurt ship, the full firepower is a dead ship).

Also, a lot of scenarios are going to have to be re-evaluated with such a change.

IMHO, the right way to make stopping less ideal in tournaments is to move them closer to real SFB. Give drone ships their full reloads and unlimited ability to prepare SP. Now stopping to weasel an SP just isn't worth it (in a standard game, I'll trade an SP or even ten drones for a stopped opponent--they'll eat my second or third one). Allow the full use of EW (and EM). This allows a ship to approach a stopped ship without giving it a chance to use its extra power for a "good" exchange (firing at a ship under full ECM and EM isn't effective and the opponent could always have chosen to instead use the power elsewise, wasting the parked ship's ECCM, evening the power advantage).

By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:27 pm: Edit

What David said - this problem is related to the tournament, not to SFB. Don't change the general rules because people are playing "non-aggressively" in the tournament (and I wouldn't recommend any more "tournament only" rules).

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:32 pm: Edit

Marc wrote:
>> I just don't see the problem here. Park away. You have non-aggression rules for tournament play. >>

But you already said that TACing in non tournament play just gets you killed (I don't agree with this statement, mind you, but you did say it). If TACing gets you killed, how is changing the sequence of TACs going to get you any more killed?

If it is already a bad idea, then how is making it more of a bad idea going to have any effect on the game at all?

-Peter

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Marc wrote:
>> What David said - this problem is related to the tournament, not to SFB. Don't change the general rules because people are playing "non-aggressively" in the tournament (and I wouldn't recommend any more "tournament only" rules).>>

Parking is just as much of an attractive tactic to a non tournament duel as it is a tournament duel. As such, this isn't a "tournament only" problem.

-Peter

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:36 pm: Edit

TACing earlier in the impulse would still allow the TACing ship to protect a weak shield, it just wouldn't allow the TACing ship to control which shield was hit.

By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Peter:

"If TACing gets you killed, how is changing the sequence of TACs going to get you any more killed?"

It won't - it's just a pain in the butt rules change that everybody has to deal with to address a tournament problem. That's my point, in addition to the fact that you already have the non-aggression rules.

"Parking is just as much of an attractive tactic to a non tournament duel as it is a tournament duel. As such, this isn't a "tournament only" problem."

Non-torunament duels have different rules, like EW, commander's options, and so forth. This is David's point, which is an excellent one. Further, people don't play boring, non-tournament, parking biased duels in non-tournament play because they don't have to: you play what's fun with your friends, not what you have to during a tournament. While this isn't my primary point, I thought it important to raise that non-aggression is not a problem in normal SFB because it's usually BORING and nobody will play with you. ED is different, as I've discussed, and there are sometimes valid uses for ED (and parking), but it usually gets you killed.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Peter wrote:

---

Quote:

Parking is just as much of an attractive tactic to a non tournament duel as it is a tournament duel. As such, this isn't a "tournament only" problem.

---

---

Quote:

If it is already a bad idea, then how is making it more of a bad idea going to have any effect on the game at all?

---

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 07:22 pm: Edit

All. By keeping Impulse TACs the way they are, you address 95% of the TACs in non-tournament play. BECAUSE TACing is less common and less useful in non-tournament play, you rarely have more than one opportunity per turn to fully take advantage of the "move last" ability of TACs. If Impulse TACs maintain this ability, you haven't changed anything.

However, in the Tourney, you often have multiple opportunities per turn to use the "move last" ability of TACs to your advantage. By limiting this advantage to Impulse TACs only, you have reduced the advantage of TACs in Tournament Play without impacting non-tourney play to a great degree.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 07:26 pm: Edit

What you've done in non-tournament play is upped the cost (significantly for some ships) of taking advantage of the "move last" ability (most ships have a MC < 1). Many parked ships don't normally use impulse tacs. Now that may be fine (there are some other subtle advantages to impulse tacs), but it does have a larger effect than you indicated.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 09:38 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

1) May already BE in overload range
2) I may be in first turn arming of my hellbores, so other ship may feel compelled to engage.
3) Opponent may 1-12 drones in flight, and realizes I will easily gun them down if his ship does nothing but stay away. (And dropping a scatterpack is one of my favorite reasons to hit the brakes)
4) Opponent may be doubling engines, and he will burn out if he does nothing but play keep away. (Another reason I love parking)
5) Opponent may have overloaded in EA himself, and sees himself dumping weapons if he doesn't enter range.
6) Opponent may have a better turn mode, or more disposable power than me, and only way for me to have any kind of movement preference at all is to reach speed 0. (The TACing issue)
7) Easiest way to start a reverse movement is to park for a turn.
8) No need to decel if going 0, since you are already doing 0. Can EASILY speed up if situation warrants it.

---

By Timothy Sheehy (Spydaer) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Peter:
The humorous thing here is I would think everyone would be DYING to get this rule changed. Apparently, I am the only person on the planet who does park, and am darn lucky I get any success whatsoever out of it while I'm at it. I guess I will continue taking advantage of what I think is a unbelievably strong option and keep parking. It is a real pity some of them don't come to Origins next year to instruct me....

MJC:
As I said, sometimes parking is silly, and against a Fed it would be....HOWEVER...

If the Fed's answer to me parking was to counter park at range 4, I would not believe my good fortune, since it would mean I would win that game, HUGE!! The only question would be if you would blow up in 8 impulses, or imp 1 next turn. (Likely imp 1 next turn)

Regardless, it just makes things easier for me, I guess.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 02:47 am: Edit

Well, I guess I'm out of this discussion.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 09:03 am: Edit

David wrote:
>> It is already a desperate move in a squadron battle for a ship to ED and pop a WW. Without having TACs last, will reduce the recovery chances from difficult to impossible, eliminating the battle (note that in a squadron battle, half the enemy firepower is a hurt ship, the full firepower is a dead ship).>>

I'm not seeing it as something that will be negative at all. What I see is an increase in the well timed 4-14 speedy weasel plot, which strikes me as a vast improvement in the game. Yeah, decelling is a desperation manuver, and if TACing becomes less advantageous, decelling becomes more of a desperate manuver. Which is a good thing.

Anything that keeps ships moving strikes me as a good thing. Stopping is supposed to be bad ("Speed is life"). Decelling is supposed to be a bad thing. As it stands, however, stopping, parking, or decelling simply gives you unprecidented manuverability advantages, and unless your opponent decides to turn off and wait for you to speed up, the stopped ship has a significant advantage, in both power and manuver.

I like Andy's compromise solution (Warp TACs happen at speed 0, Impulse TAC happens afer movement) as a way to keep the Y era Romulans (or Pods or very crippled ships) viable.

My pal Dave suggested a 4 impulse delay between TACs as a viable possibility. Strikes me as a bigger change than adjusting the sequence of play, but certainly a possibility.

-Peter

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 09:05 am: Edit

Tim wrote:
>>The humorous thing here is I would think everyone would be DYING to get this rule changed.>>

Ya'd think so, wouldn't you. Pretty much everyone I know thinks it is a reasonable idea. Apparently we are all insane.

>>Apparently, I am the only person on the planet who does park, and am darn lucky I get any success whatsoever out of it while I'm at it.>>

It is crazy man. Who would think such a kooky fringe tactic would ever work.

>>I guess I will continue taking advantage of what I think is a unbelievably strong option and keep parking. It is a real pity some of them don't come to Origins next year to instruct me....>>

Judge!

:-)

-Peter

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 12:13 pm: Edit

Why not fix the TAC rules to reflect realism? Let the TACing ship shift continously small fractions and always have the enemy ship facing the center of the shield. No more hanging around the shield boundaries. Aren't you glad SFB doesn't do that?

If the moving ship has a high enough speed, the moving ship can avoid shooting at the reinforced shield with ease. Consider a ship which is TACing and has a down #2, reinforced #1, and standard #6 against an opponent in a hex that would fire on the #1 but near the shieldboundary line. The opponent moves to a hex that can fire on #2 so opponent TACs to bring #1 shield to cover. The opponent can then move back across the shield boundary line and hit the #6. Repeat as needed. Eventually the moving ship will get a good firing opportunity.

I have had success at conventions with a TACing heavy doctrine. But I think more often that is a result of opponents playing to the strengths of the TACing unit instead of exploiting the advantages of mobility. I could see how my opponent could win the battlepass despite my TACs but my opponents went for the obvious course instead of going for a less decisive attack. The TACing opponent is proffering a trap; don't fall into it.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Richard wrote:
>>If the moving ship has a high enough speed, the moving ship can avoid shooting at the reinforced shield with ease. Consider a ship which is TACing and has a down #2, reinforced #1, and standard #6 against an opponent in a hex that would fire on the #1 but near the shieldboundary line. The opponent moves to a hex that can fire on #2 so opponent TACs to bring #1 shield to cover. The opponent can then move back across the shield boundary line and hit the #6.>>

At which point the opponent Impulse TACs. And if the moving ship is moving at high enough speed, his turn mode will be difficult to satify, and the window that includes:

-Being able to turn,
-Being in a reasonable range,
-Not having run past your opponent.

Is generally a total of, like, 4-5 hexes. If the TACing opponent can TAC twice (which it probably can), it is going to keep you off the bad shield.

>>Repeat as needed. Eventually the moving ship will get a good firing opportunity.>>

By then it has been shot to pieces.

>>I have had success at conventions with a TACing heavy doctrine.>>

Lots of people have. Which is why there is a full page of rules instructing players to turn in their opponents to the judge for non agression. Which is a viable solution, but I play this game to play thegame, not to turn in my opponents for non agression. I'd much rather have the game encourage active play through in game rules, not through making the best tactic against a parked opponent "fly off to range 9 and call the judge", which currently is the best tactic against a parked opponent.

>>But I think more often that is a result of opponents playing to the strengths of the TACing unit instead of exploiting the advantages of mobility.>>

Playing the game is playing to the strengths of the TACing ship. Running off to range 9 and calling a judge is the best way to exploit the advanatge of manuverability. Certainly a possible solution. But an unsatisfying solution.

>>I could see how my opponent could win the battlepass despite my TACs but my opponents went for the obvious course instead of going for a less decisive attack. The TACing opponent is proffering a trap; don't fall into it.>>

Clearly. But it is such an incredibly attractive trap to set. And the best way to avoid the trap is to go to range 9 and call the judge, which is unsatisfying at best.

If the TAC sequencing was changed, parking would cease to be attractive, and would become the fringe, desperation move that it supposed to be. Which would be bad how? Stopped ships still have a hige power advantage over moving ships, and even if TACs happen before moving ships move, they have incredible manuvering (especially if the Palmer Compromise were enacted) advantages.

-Peter

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 02:55 pm: Edit

Peter: In the situation mentioned, if the TACing ship follows a TAC (to protect a down shield) with a impulse TAC (to protect a weak shield), the moving ship has several impulses before the next TAC is earned to cross the shield boundary line and get a free shot at the down shield. One only has a limited number of TACs and can't hide every shield facing. I include turns and sideslips in getting across the boundary line. I think most ships can get the necessary 3 boundary crossings in 8 impulses if moving in excess of speed 24.

I say trap because the best counter is to snipe at one of the weaker shields on the TACing ship and veer off. My opponents tended to inexplicably charge for the center of my strong shield while I was sitting there TACing. I guess they bought into the whole must defeat enemy within 2 turns after I weaseled. But circling me to chase the down shield won't work nor would a straight forward overrun.

Changing this rule would also make use of a WW suicide if faced with a ship with decent DF firepower and seeking weapons. Mucho-rebalancing of everything would be needed.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 04:32 pm: Edit

Richard wrote:
>>Peter: In the situation mentioned, if the TACing ship follows a TAC (to protect a down shield) with a impulse TAC (to protect a weak shield), the moving ship has several impulses before the next TAC is earned to cross the shield boundary line and get a free shot at the down shield.>>

Only if the "attacking" ship doesn't fly past the parked one. Or get shot to pieces at range 1 while firing back through a 10 point brick. Or doesn't get tractored as the moving ship is foolishly spending 10+ power on movement where the parked one isn't.

Given a perfect situation, sure, the moving ship might be able to move around the parked one after it uses 2 TACs but before it gains a new TAC, and might be able to get to the weak/down shield. In practice, this doesn't actually happen much. It mostly results in surfing the shield boundry as you close, turning or slipping to force a single TAC, and then getting to range 1 and shooting eachother (on the shield of the parked unit's choice), where theparked ship has a 10+ point power advantage in the engagement.

>>One only has a limited number of TACs and can't hide every shield facing.>>

Yes, a limit on TACs. And you can't protect every facing. But it is *really* easy to keep a closing ship on an up/rienforced shield. And usually with only 1 TAC. I do it against the Orion all the time (I park against Orions on a regular basis, as it is the only way to gain a manuver advantage). No matter how well the Orion manuvers, I can almost always keep him on my good/rienforced shield. Barring multiple HETs.

>>I include turns and sideslips in getting across the boundary line. I think most ships can get the necessary 3 boundary crossings in 8 impulses if moving in excess of speed 24.>>

Not while within 4 hexes. And still be able to turn. And be able to shoot. While moving in excess of speed 24, you have an awful lot of energy in movement (+/-20?). The parked ship now has a 20 point power advantage. Meaning rienforcement or tractor. And 5 TACs. and an HET if necessary.

It simply isn't that easy to get on a shield of choice against a parked ship. In fact, it is quite difficult.

>>Changing this rule would also make use of a WW suicide if faced with a ship with decent DF firepower and seeking weapons.>>

Why? It would encourage a well timed 4-14 speedy weasel, which already works just fine (and this change would not impact at all), rather than simply parking, which is what the current rules encourage.

>> Mucho-rebalancing of everything would be needed.>>

Still not seeing it.

-Peter

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Okay, let me see if I understand this.

You want to change the rules so that a ship cannot tac a different shield to face an ESG ram, which will be a good thing for Lyrans, some WYNs, and possibly a pirate or two.

You want to change the rules so that a ship faced with seeking weapons that might turn and hit him [the "Zimdars Dipsy Doodle" (see "Seeking Weapons Trajectories by David Zimdars in Captain's Log #11)] on any given movement impulse will have to accept the hit on his weakest shield, since seeking weapons move after ships except for Tactical Maneuvers. This should no doubt please Kzintis, Klingons, Feds (non-tournament), WYNs, a bunch of Orions, not to mention the various plasma boys, but does not do much for the Hydrans, Tournament Feds, Tholians, Andromedans, Seltorians, Lyrans, or LDR (except for the Selts, Lyrans, and LDR having some access to drones in their carrier groups). Of course, technically this one does apply to all the races except the Andromedans since everyone has access to Suicide Shuttles.

Given the way damage works, the odds of a badly damaged ship having impulse power late in a game to rely on a sublight tac as its last gasp to turn a good shield is also a joke. Most ships have little impulse, it tends to be blown off quite quickly after the forward hull is knocked out, Center Hull ships (Hydrans, Archeo-Tholians, and Gorns) tend to retain impulse longer, Orions less so as they only have six hull boxes at all, and Romulan Eagles even less than Orions since they lack the cargo boxes. Andromedans are of course their own problem. (You might, some of you, remember that the early problem with the Vudar in playtest was their requirement to have impulse power to arm their heavy weapons. Impulse power gets blown off after only a minor amount of damage leaving the ships with weapons and no power to arm them.) So are you now requiring (with a special rule on Impulse Tacs) ships to prioritize repairing an impulse box to retain this unique (under the proposed rule) capability, or are you only going to consider looking at "healthy undamaged ships" in the discussion? (Be it here admitted that when I am losing badly, I do tend to repair an impulse box to try for that last gasp sublight disengagement in an effort to save my crew. I have only separated a boom one time that I can recall just now, and have never turned off a boom impulse engine to use the "circuit breaker" rule.)

(Limiting the discussion to "ships" and in essence undamaged ships, is a brilliant tactic since it leads down the desired path of trying to get people to agree to a rules change by not considering other aspects of the timing of tactical maneuvers, or the condition of a ship in a mid-to-late game situation.)