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LDR vs. Gorn

 
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junior
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:42 am    Post subject: LDR vs. Gorn Reply with quote

I played my first game against an LDR player last night. And all I can say is, after that game I really don't understand why everyone was so uptight about the damage from Stingers.

The match-up was a 161 point Gorn CM (me) against a 140 point LDR CW. After a few turns of maneuvering, the Lyran finally turned in and pulled an overrun, ending in the same hex. I figured that the subsequent exchange of fire would hurt me, but that I would still get an opportunity to fire my plasma off and hurt him fairly badly as well (particularly since he had a slightly smaller ship). And then he totaled the damage. With pretty average rolls, his damage came out to 120 internals (against a lightly damaged shield). We didn't even bother to roll on the damage chart since there obviously wasn't any point in doing so.

As I said, why was everyone so uptight about speed 16 Stingers when there's a War Cruiser out there that can kill bigger ships in just one impulse?

After the battle, I sat and thought about different strategies to use the next time I face this same opponent, and after mulling over a few different possibilities, I'm forced to conclude that, quite simply, there is NO strategy that a Gorn player can employ against a semi-decent LDR player that will allow the Gorn to gain a victory.

In this particular match-up, the LDR outmaneuvers the Gorn. The LDR has six phaser-1s and four phaser-Gs, with six phasers facing forward (meaning that they can be fired en masse) and four to the side (the Lyran must put two phaser-Gs to the side, but the other two can face either to the side or forward). The Gorn has seven phaser-1s spread equidistant around the ship (meaning that they can't be massed for one big volley) and two phaser-3s on the side. The Lyran has three disruptors which can either be used to supplement the ESGs and phaser-Gs at close range, or used for long-range sniping. The Lyran also has two ESG fields which can be used for an overrun. The Gorn has its four plasma torpedoes, but the Lyran has enough power to safely run at speed 24+ and fire most of its weapons. And while bolting provides a long-range option (albeit an innacurate one), from what I can tell the three turn arming cycle means that the damage won't be enough to do the damage necessary. Carronades are a third way to use the plasmas, but there are only two and the arcs put the torpedoes on opposite sides of the ship (which, since the Gorn handles like a brick, effectively means that only one is going to get used unless the Lyran decides otherwise).


Can anyone think of something that I missed that allows for a decent chance to actually pull off a win?
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Notalent
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 3:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chuck and I were talking about this after you left. He thinks you should have went with the 2 turn plasma F to keep me at a longer range and try and pin me in to the corner and force some hits. I dont know if that would work.
Having played the LDR I find the CW to be undercosted. The power curve is better than the CA it manuvers better, and has better shields. Granted is has one less disruptor but that is better for the power curve, It cant absorb as much damage but has better shields so the 2 less hull doesnt matter. 4 ph-G even though they are RS/LS are devistating at close range. Worse for the plasma armed ships those 2 phGs take it down 15 points. Not a bad investment of 2 points of power.
The ship is forgiving of manuver mistakes, even a blunder that let a fed CLW get off 4 overloaded photons and 4 ph1 still only scored enough damage to knock my overrun down to 70 internals.
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Savedfromwhat
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure where stingers come in on a LDR/Gorn Fight, but The reason you were so badly hammered is in the fact that at range 0 his potential damage is through the roof and yours is... meh.

Even Bolting your plasma would leave you with a 66% chance to hit, ok odds, but not great. ALL of his weapons autohit you at that range, not to mention all that ESG fire. The trick when fighting LDR and Lyran is to knock out as many ESG's as you can so that your opponent has to waste power recharging them at the begining of the turn. It sounds like you let him get in too close too fast.
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junior
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Savedfromwhat wrote:
Not sure where stingers come in on a LDR/Gorn Fight, but The reason you were so badly hammered is in the fact that at range 0 his potential damage is through the roof and yours is... meh.


The Stingers were brought up as a semi-humorous reference to the complaints back before Distant Kingdoms came out that the tiny speed 16 Stingers en masse could do the exact thing that the lone speed 24+1 CW did to my ship. Or in other words, everyone got worked up about the Stingers but no one said a word about the LDR (and I should note that imo, the Gorn are unusually vulnerable to the LDR; I would guess that, for instance, a Klingon could pull off a successful saber dance). If the LDR CW gets within one hex of you in a duel, then it can reliably do 100 damage - before counting the phaser-1s and disruptors. Or in other words, it'll turn your bright shiny fresh off the assembly-line Heavy Battlecruiser into space dust, and nearly do the same to a Dreadnought. And if you keep the range open to avoid that fate, then it's got the long-range firepower to effectively saber dance with you (unlike the vanilla Lyran ship, it replaces all of the phaser-2s with phaser-1s).

Quote:
Even Bolting your plasma would leave you with a 66% chance to hit, ok odds, but not great. ALL of his weapons autohit you at that range, not to mention all that ESG fire. The trick when fighting LDR and Lyran is to knock out as many ESG's as you can so that your opponent has to waste power recharging them at the begining of the turn. It sounds like you let him get in too close too fast.


But you CAN'T knock out both ESGs. You can knock out one - if you can take his shield down (which is going to take a while since you need to keep the range open). But the second one is protected since it's the last system left, and he can just declare frame hits for the first half-dozen or so additional ESG hits. In order to hit him that many times on the relevant row, you'd have to have hit him for enough damage to effectively gut his ship anyway. Further, as I mentioned in my initial post, the CW can bring more phasers to bear. He has six phaser-1s in his forward arc versus a maximum of five on the Gorn CM (the other two are out of arc, and probably aren't going to get in arc against a more maneuverable ship like the CW). Furthermore his other heavy weapon - the disruptor - is effectively optimized for the game that you're playing (i.e. keeping the range open and sniping) while plasma bolts are not. So you're looking at a losing game if you try and play that way.

The Gorn problem is two fold -

1.) An inability to get in close to use torpedoes without dieing instantly, and
2.) An inability to bring enough long range weapons to bear to outdamage the LDR at a distance.

Add to that the poor turn mode on all Gorn ships, and you have a really bad situation.

Quote:
He thinks you should have went with the 2 turn plasma F to keep me at a longer range and try and pin me in to the corner and force some hits. I dont know if that would work.


I wouldn't have needed to use two-turn 'F's, as I still had the left and right Plasma-F launchers. Unfortunately, the Plasma-F has a fairly short life-span (four impulses), which is even shorter when you consider that after just a couple of impulses it's probably safe to let the thing impact and phaser it down. I don't think that it's realistic to expect that a couple of Plasma-Fs would manage to keep you busy for an entire turn (even if fired so that only one was in flight at a time).

Further, even with my attempts to use the torpedoes to herd you, iirc you were still outdamaging me with your long range weapons.
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terryoc
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's not the ESGs that are the problem on an LDR ship. It's the ESGs and the gatling phasers and the phaser-1s. At point-blank range, the P-Gs are dishing out 16 points of damage each. Plus 20 points from the ESGs, that's 72 right there. Then there's about 5 damage from each Phaser-1. The disruptors are almost redundant. LDR ships do what a Hydran fusion ship does, only better.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the LDR are a bit strange like that. I've never quite got how they manage to get away with having roughly twice as many Ph-Gs than the Hydrans (the Ph-G being one of their "special weapons") have on their ships in most cases, as well as having more Ph-1s and still keeping the ESGs of the regular Lyran ships. Oh and then you have disruptors for the long-range fire too. Shocked

I think as has already been said, the Gorn are particularly weak against the LDR and have virtually no options that give them a reasonable chance of a win. Other races such as the Klingons would still find it hard to saber-dance with an LDR because the LDR still have plenty of Ph-1s on their ships. So, while the two ships would usually be about equal in long-range firepower, the Lyran still has an edge in his ability to maintain the initiative in the fight since the Klingon pretty much has to stay away unless he wants a face full of Ph-G and/or ESGs, which would pretty much guarantee he is going to lose. The Klingon might have a slight advantage in firepower at range 4 if he can get his Ph-2s firing as well, this would probably be his best bet. At least the Klingons would usually have the edge in turn modes, which is always useful - the Gorn don't even have this.

Most LDR ships would have a job on to fire all weapons and move much in a single turn due to power demands. However, because they have such a variety of weapons to fight at any range, most of which are about the best you can get at any given range, the LDR don't need to fire all weapons in a turn to equal the firepower of most ships their size/point value. Taking all this into account, the LDR are really quite formidable, and most likely under-pointed - but did anybody ever say they weren't? Wink
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Bolo_MK_XL
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What I see in the confrontation is the basic tenant that SFB was ---
Ships of certain races/empires were designed to combat certain other ships/empires ---
FC has taken the theme of open combat by an empire vs any other to a point where balance is questionable to the nth degree ---
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terryoc
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now we know how the LDR were able to maintain their independence from the Lyran Kingdom!!

Lyrans and tigers and bears, er I mean kzintis and klingons, should be more balanced against the LDR, but will still have a tough time IMO. LDR points are too low.
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Notalent
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Davec_24 wrote:


Most LDR ships would have a job on to fire all weapons and move much in a single turn due to power demands. However, because they have such a variety of weapons to fight at any range, most of which are about the best you can get at any given range, the LDR don't need to fire all weapons in a turn to equal the firepower of most ships their size/point value. Taking all this into account, the LDR are really quite formidable, and most likely under-pointed - but did anybody ever say they weren't? Wink


Most do, but the CC has a good power curve, the CW has an ideal one. speed 24 and can still shoot all three disruptors and all of its p1 and pG and still have one battery left. Gorn and Romulan are in a tight spot, but even a Kzinti and Fed have trouble. Klingon have a better turn mode against the CC/CA but not against the CW. They do have better arcs and that could be the difference.
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Trust us, we're from the ISC we're here to help
Motto of the ISC Ministry of Peacekeeping

Never interupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.
I dont care if he is good I want to know if he is lucky
Napoleon
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

True, the LDR CW is turn mode B, being a light cruiser rather than a heavy cruiser, yet it is as powerful as most other heavy cruisers. I think the Kzintis would actually be worse than the Klingons when taking on the LDR, because your drones won't do an awful lot with all those Ph-Gs and ESGs, and you have lots of Ph-3s and relatively few Ph-1s which means that to put your phaser battery to its best use, you would have to close to within effective Ph-G range, at which range the LDR is still much better because he has Ph-Gs. With a Klingon, you have mostly Ph-2s and Ph-1s, so you stand more chance of being able to do as much damage to the LDR as they do to you.
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pinecone
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gorn CM vs. LDR Destroyer might be close to even (the LDR ship gets behind the gorn, but can't really do much damage as getting behing the gorn would require him to go slow, probably to slow to exploit ESG's)
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junior
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pinecone wrote:
Gorn CM vs. LDR Destroyer might be close to even (the LDR ship gets behind the gorn, but can't really do much damage as getting behing the gorn would require him to go slow, probably to slow to exploit ESG's)


That's what - a 70 point difference in ship costs? (the master ship chart doesn't list the LDR points costs and I don't have the ship card handy to doublecheck how many Phaser-Gs the LDR DD has)

Nearly two to one in points values to make it an even fight?

Shocked

I sure hope note.

Razz



Off the top of my head, the nationality match-ups against the LDR work like this -


Fed - Might work well if you can keep the range at 8-10. Fed drops into range 8 to fire overloaded photons and then moves back out again. The primary problem is the more maneuverable LDR ship might be able to control the range more effectively than the Fed.
Klingon - I think a Klingon should have a good chance at beating an LDR ship, but it's going to be a difficult fight due to all of the phaser-1s on the LDR.
Romulan - The cloak is useless (ESG overrun, followed by point-blank Phaser-G fire against a voided cloak), but the Romulan has all of its phaser-1s pointing forward so it might be able to engage in a long-range sniping duel. On the other hand, the LDR ship has the disruptors as well, and those will probably outperform plasma bolts. And the Romulan has to pay for the expensive cloaking device.
Gorn - See the other posts in this thread.
Kzinti - Probably space dust. The most drone proof ship in the game, and added long range weapons, against a ship with too many phaser-3s. Drones can be used to absorb damage if they're used to help protect against the ESG field, but they'll only absorb 4 points of damage each and I'm not sure if that's enough. And the Kzinti's only going to get one shot at it.
Hydrans - With Hellbores, sniping is impossible because the ESGs will eat the Hellbore fire. And phasers on Hydran ships are in short supply. Overruns are tempting fate because the Lyran has twice as many Phaser-Gs as the Hydran and a lot more phaser-1s. Fusion is doable, but only via fighter overrun. The ESGs and Phaser-Gs will blow up the mother ship if it's alone, but fighters should actually survive (albeit crippled; other weapons might finish them off, however) the ESG fields and will get a chance to blast the Lyran if they get within ESG range.
Orion - Depends on the weapons load-out. I'd avoid doubling the engines (to get the stealth bonus), get some long-ranged weapons (not hellbores) in the hard points, and snipe from range. Hopefully the stealth bonus will give you the edge that you need to beat him.
WYN - No idea. Never played them nor seen them played.
Andromedan - Same as WYN. And I haven't seen the FC rules yet.
ISC - The ISC has good enough sniping capability that I suspect that they might be able to pull off a win. The PPD is a very good long-range weapon, and the plasma torpedoes can be used to force the LDR ship to stay away. The LDR ship is thus confronted with either a choice to get picked apart at range, or eat a plasma torpedo or 2. I haven't actually seen the ISC played yet, so I might be way off. But it seems as if it might work out for the ISC ship.
Tholian - Tholians tend to have good forward-facing phaser-1 suites with disruptors. It should be a decent match-up if the Tholian can keep the range open.
Seltorian - Questionable. They have a good phaser suite, and the particle cannon is a decent long range weapon. But the web cracker isn't all that scary once your shields are down and it's only a short range weapon (ten hexes or less). Plus the Selts manuever like a tug. It might be a good match-up, or it might be a blow-out. I suspect that a lot of it is going to depend on the maneuverability of the bug.
Vudar - No clue. I've never even seen the rules for them.


Anyone see any problems with my thoughts?
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think the Vudar and the Andromedans are actually out for FC yet. Other than that, I'd tend to agree with you. The Romulans might not be such a good idea, because although all of their Ph-1s fire forwards, they usually will not have any more or even as the equivalent LDR ship. Plus, as you say the LDR disruptors will likely out-perform plasma bolts and so you will probably find yourself on the losing end of a sandpapering duel if you manage to keep the range open, and if you get too close you'll be space dust. You do have plasma, but the Ph-G and ESG combination is likely to be more effective than launched plasma, especially if the LDR ship is moving fast enough to at least partly outrun a launched torpedo.
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