Well, I have stated more poor luck often enough - so will come clean on two things...

This turn - I have actually 'won' two Small Scale Combats!

Hurrah!!!

Only probably about a dozen or so SSC's to go (winning all of them) to get back to 'average'!!!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Well thats freaky - after 14 battles (ignoring the 2 SSC's) Averages are

VBIR 3.214286
Coalition 3.214286
Alliance 4.214286

A whole +1 on the dice - for 14 battles (and with the breaks on the 5% chart)....thats about +55% damage William has done.

And that also ignores - big compot battles, William rolls well (4 large battles so far, rolls are 3,5,5,6 v 1,2,3,3 for me!!!) - so basically - take double the damage in large battles.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:33 pm: Edit

Which roller did you use for those 14 battles Paul?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:47 pm: Edit

PBE Gamers and the above one on this page - split 5 dice on the first battles and 9 dice on the second batch of battles!

About all I can say is the dice roller on this page is alot fairer...

....although William has still rolled an average of 0.22 per round higher - which isn't too bad (2 pips over 9 rounds).

I just need to start outrolling him AND get some of the lucky rolls he has enjoyed.

What is so annoying is basically I have 3 choices to give a good chance of killing something...

1) Put Cruisers on the line to give a good chance (20% normally) of killing an Alliance Escort.

2) Go high on the BIR

3) Hope for an average or higher roll.

....and need 2 of the 3 to 'come up'

When ever I use cruisers - William WILL get enough to direct kill one - so in deep space battles, I generally don't do that (I have lost so many Romulan Cruisers for an Escort, it's amazing)

...and my luck is just so bad in rolling 4+ - 'a fair chance' of success, never happens.

What really bugs me - is that William always gets the roll I need to say kill a good hull (so 'lucky' rolls do occur - but not for me!!!)

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 03, 2013 - 07:17 am: Edit

Well, dice gods continue to smite me.

After 16 rounds of combat - average is 3 v 4.06 - and again, timing is everthing.

William gets another 50/50 roll - I miss another 2/3rds chance roll.

So - another 2 dead Coalition hulls - for no real gain.

I don't think William has missed a roll yet this turn - I have missed 4 moderate chance rolls (1/3rd, 2/3rd and 2 x 50/50's).

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 10, 2013 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Well, after 19 rolls - William is still outrolling me...

VBIR = 3.578
Coalition = 3.157
Alliance = 3.947

In addition, relevant rolls again are still favouring William

Coalition = 33/67 0 of 1 got, 50/50 1 of 3 got, 67/33 0 of 1 got
Alliance = 33/67 1 of 1 got, 50/50 2 of 2 got

So - on average I am down 50% and William is up nearly 200%!

In other words - William it hitting every roll needed - again.

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar2) on Sunday, February 10, 2013 - 11:08 pm: Edit

He (William) has been blessed by the Dice Gods???

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, February 11, 2013 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Yes.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 02:57 pm: Edit

Well, another win for William on the dice - and another 50/50 William gets.

So after 20 rolls

Williams has won 13 (average roll 3.9)
I have won 5 (average roll 3.05)
Draws 2

I have never played a game where one side constantly rolls so badly - missing key rolls - and the other constantly rolls well - and almost always gets key rolls.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2013 - 04:27 am: Edit

Well, 22 rounds and averages are 3.09 v 3.95.

The new dice roller isn't as 'neutral' as the test dice indicated - sample of 17 rolls so far gives an average of 3.235 v 3.647 - so still over 10% higher for William.

Has anyone used a system where you ignore a roll if it re-occurs too often?

So far on turn 21, I have rolled close to average on 1's, 5's and 6's (all occured 3 times) - but no 4's, 7 2's and 6 3's. .

So at say 50% over average - you roll a different dice, weighted to what hasn't come up.

(Say if a 2 or 3 was rolled, you would reroll with a D6 faced 1,4,4,4,5,6 - although I can guarantee a re-roll would give me a 1)

Williams dice, not surprisingly are slanted the other way -

4 2's, 4 3's, 4 4's, 4 5's, 5 6's and only 1 1!

Please, before I lose my sanity are there any workable solutions out there?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2013 - 11:00 am: Edit

Hurrah - I have more or less the average on 6's now... shame Williams has had 50% more 6's than average though.

Why is it, where I have EW and William doesn't - only about 1 in 6 battles do I benefit.... in the current battle, where somehow I forgot a scout - it's had an effect in both rounds?

Seriouly - we need a solution to the terrible dice the Coalition are suffering.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 16, 2013 - 11:08 am: Edit

Just done some more analysis on the dice

5 Key (with regard to my turns plans - but they all have large forces - 80 compot plus, most are around 100) Battle Rounds so far - average is 2.4 v 4.4

8 Moderate Battle Rounds 4 v 4.25

8 Minor Battle Rounds (comput less than 50 generally) 3 v 3.5

So - not only the bigger and the more important the battle - but William does more % damage than I do (ignoring the dice breaks, which generaly but not as massively as they have been) - thats +5% a round - or an extra 25 damage I have taken - just in those 5 battles.

In any WWII game - With my rolls - the Germans would have lost the invasion of Poland.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 17, 2013 - 03:32 am: Edit

Hurrah - finally won a round..... shame I missed the 1/3rd chance to kill a Federation CVL.

EW effect benefit is 3 for 3 on William now in this battle (double what it should be!!!).

Still no roll of 4 for me and William has a single 1 after 24 rounds.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 17, 2013 - 04:16 pm: Edit

Triple hurrah - won another round and round 4 is when EW didn't have an affect!

25 Rounds, averages are

VBIR 3.64
Coalition 3.4
Alliance 3.84

Last 2 round have closed the gap a little.

Still no 4's for me, and Willians up to 2 1's!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, February 18, 2013 - 06:15 am: Edit

Well the battle over 2106 rages into the fifth round.

Both sides are using cripples - fortunately the Alliance more so than the Coalition but my reserves are now fully committed!

Coalition for once have not had any hulls killed (both sides know it is a close battle) and the Kzinti have lost a already cropped EFF and (fanfare please!) the Federation have lost a CVL, the directing of it may cost me the battle but a 20 Ep hull tempted me too much!!!

Coalition have also spent a Klingon Command Point.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 05:23 pm: Edit

Well, the battle over 2106 is into it's seventh round!

Dice are slightly favouring me (round 5 was a 5 v 6 - but no greater % for William and round 6 was 3 v 2 which was 5% greater for me)

after 27 rounds - average is
VBIR 3.51
Coaltion 3.33
Alliance 3.78

So - differnce is narrowing, but still over 10% higher for William.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 23, 2013 - 10:31 am: Edit

Well, 2106 ended after 7 rounds and no persuit (assuming I got thr 2/3rs persuit - there was a 50/50 chance of doing no damage after owed and fighters - as I only had a DN, C8, D5 and 2 x E4's left uncrippled!)

Very close. but not result it a good win for the Coalition.

Coalition for once lost no hull (William didn't direct early on as he could have won - and later wanted to reduce the persuit damage!)

Lyrans - crippled BC, 2 x 3CVL
Klingons crippled - 5 x D5, 2 x F5, 3D7V

Kzinti - crippled EFF killed (plus a small fleet out of supply now)
Federation - CVL and NCL killed.4CVA, CC, 4 x NCL, TG and TG+VP crippled.

No Alliance ship escaped battle unhurt.

Still haven't rolled a 4 - and dice averages are now 3.67, 3.5 and 3.78 (last averages were wrong - failed to update the Sum correctly!).

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, March 09, 2013 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Well, two more battles and dice return to normal.

Over 2306 - average dice might have meant it fell - planet still had 4 PDU's - but not alot defending.

Poor roll v an average - so I mauled 3 PDU's and ran. D6M, 2 x D5 and F5S crippled in exchange.

Over 2509, another 2 rolled for me, so two Coalition cripples for 1 Alliance.

Averages are 3,67, 3.4 and 3.77 - after 30 rolls.

By Andrew Bruno (Admeeral) on Saturday, March 09, 2013 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Paul, yer bringin' me down man...

In the immortal words of some obsure spice smugglin' frieghter captain:
"NEVER TELL ME ODDS!!"

If you have a plan for the position you are in, by all means let me know. Otherwise, since I always ditched Hnrs Alg to go play SFB, here's another quote from said smuggler:

"No reward is worth this..."

Just go get 'em, dude!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - 04:13 pm: Edit

Another battle...another let off for William! No fighters for William....and not only did I roll a 1 for combat (and the VBIR went down)...but I rolled a 6 for persuit - so didn't get a chance to kill the crippled Fed ships!

Averages are 3.54, 3.29 and 3.65.

10% higher dice over 31 rounds seems pretty signifcant?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, March 16, 2013 - 04:47 am: Edit

Everyone sat down?

On the 32nd battle round......I finally rolled a 4!!!!!!

Averages are now 3.43, 3.19 and 3.53.

Which was then followed by another failed persuit.

Persuit's are probably the single area where the Alliance has been massively lucky - and the Coalition universally bad - either in getting the required roll to achieve as persuit - or get the required damage to kill the main target.

Overall though it does mean the Alliance has alot of crippled ships - which would normally die in a persuit battle (probably 2-3 ships a turn).

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, March 18, 2013 - 04:50 pm: Edit

And with that, turn C21 comes to a close. Both sides have large stacks of crips in the triangle bounded by Earth, Kzintai, and the NR SB. Neither can hope to repair it all next turn.

The Fed supply line into Kzinti space is barely intact. But unlike last turn, there won't be any planets the Feds can retro to from Kzintai that are in the general direction of Earth. This makes any A22 assault on Kzintai more painful.

The upshot is that the Alliance attacks in the Kzintai region have succeeded in killing 10PDU and crippling a lot of Klingon and Lyran ships. At a minimum, this will make any C23 assault on Hydrax more complicated. But there was a considerable cost in both ships and planets. Whether it was worth it remains to be seen.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, March 18, 2013 - 05:39 pm: Edit

Indeed - interesting turn.

Alas the dice upset afew Assaults - I thought I had enough to take 2 more minor planets - and dice blew those chances.

I did make afew mistakes in my Op movement - somehow a couple of heavy ships ended up in the wrong place and so some of the assaults were harder than I wanted.

Atleast - the Kzinti space and North West Federation space is nicely broken up and Economic wise - the Feds will hopefully be hurting!

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Tuesday, April 02, 2013 - 09:13 pm: Edit

I just worked out the Fed economy. They are indeed hurting. Income is 167.6 -- down 4EP from last turn, and 14EP from two turns ago. But with repair expenditures of 67EP (including from last turn's CEDS) and drone expenditures of 9.6EP, the Feds only have about 90EP for builds and conversions. Something has to give, which most likely means their builds will consist of a BC, a bunch of necessary escorts, and a lot of FF, with the rest skipped.

And that 67EP in repair expenditures is happening even *without* the big wave of crips from the Kzintai battle. Most of those are still making their way to repair points.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, April 03, 2013 - 04:45 pm: Edit

Was hoping to have hurt the Feds more - but the dice didn't allow that.

Overall - a so so turn for me - couple of mistakes in Op moves and afew unlucky combat rolls meant some key battles were lost.

The entire on map Kzinti force, is now Out of Supply (afew units might get Fed supply) - and if 2306 had fallen (I didn't notice the Fed defenders were so weak - but it did have 4 PDU's), pretty much all Fed North West Space and Kzinti space would have been outside supply range for the Alliance.

Alas 2306 didn't fall - and the Fed supply tug will keep the Feds and some Alliance ships in supply.

Atleast both sides now have a stack of cripples!