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The Plasma Problem
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Klingon of Gor
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 01 Jun 2011
Posts: 150

PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 6:24 pm    Post subject: The Plasma Problem Reply with quote

This is partly a reply to the discussion on plasma taking place under the House Rules thread, but I'll post it here as per Mike West's suggestion.

I have not used EPTs in any game I have played. hypothetically, I would be unwilling to agree to such a house rule unless EPTs were limited to Romulans only. In my opinion, plasma is getting something of a bad rap. Granted, hitting someone with a seeker can be tricky, but sometimes turning the enemy away is all that is needed to set the table for eventual victory. The carronade, properly used, is a formidable weapon, and there is a discussion here on the board, started by Kang, about how to put the carronade to good use. Well played Gorns are competitive as is. Giving them EPTs will turn them into the Lizard Gods of the Universe. ISC really don't need any more help. Neither do the Orions, who can hang plasma Fs from every available option mount if they so desire, lay down a wall of plasma flame death, and then carronade whatever is left of the enemy into a blob of molten slag.

We come then to the Romulans. They do in fact have a problem. It's hard for them to lay down enough plasma to turn the enemy while still keep enough in reserve for a follow up strike after the enemy turns away, and they don't have carronades as a backup weapon. EPTs are one possible solution to this, though it might be simpler to just revise their point values down a bit. But the Romulans seem to be more in need of help than the other plasma races, and they're the only ones who could be given EPTs without unbalancing the game.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the plasma rules as written. I think careful thought must be given to the subject of plasma tactics.
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BTW, this is why I wanted the discussion in Tactics. You are saying that there is nothing wrong with the plasma rules. The only issue is that the Romulans are too expensive (presumably because of an ineffective cloak, which is a whole other discussion). However, others will say that plasma is flat out broken, regardless of the empire in question. (The ISC mask the issue with the PPD, but the argument is that it still applies to plasma-only ISC ships.) Why one side or the other is correct is in the domain of tactics.

Incidentally, I had thought there were some FCOL battles done to test this idea out between the "plasma is broken" and "no it isn't" camps. Did any of those combats get done? Could anything be concluded from them, if they did take place?
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The_Rock
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Joined: 16 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sure,
Patrick Doyle and I took plasma (me Rom, him Gorn) in the latest FCOL tournament. In every prior tournament, Patrick finished second and I finished first. In every Origins that I attended, I won. In every Origins I did not attend, Patrick won.

So far, Patrick is 0-2 with the gorns. I am technically 2-0 with the Roms, but one game came from a forfeit.

Now, in the FCOL tournaments, empires get adjustments to BPV. The Rom force I have is at *0.92 and Patrick's Gorns are at *0.96. Even with those adjustments, Patrick can't win.

My first game, my opponent, by her own admission, made multiple serious errors.

We'll see how things progress, but I think you should watch that tournament progress and you will see how serious the problem with plasma is.

Since I started playing in 2007, I have not lost a single tournament game. I don't think Patrick, until now, has lost many that have not been a loss to me. That Patrick may well finish this tournament 0-4 (and I expect I will finish 2-2 or 3-1) should tell you most of what you need to know.
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m1a1dat
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree that there is a problem with plasmas. I believe the real problem is that ships are much faster in FC than in SFB, and this is what gives the plasmas trouble. Compared to SFB all ships have a little more power (by not having to pay housekeeping) and there are only 3 speeds to choose from with the ability accelerate any time you want during the turn and can go from zero to 32 between turns. The pay as you go system makes ships faster still as you don't have to put power into phasers or other things that you might want to use before hand. That means you basically have to get right on top of someone to get a hit with launched plasma, and get plastered on the way in doing it. The ability to be able to launch to torpedo after it has been damaged does help with this and carronades are fairly effective too.

My group has tried with plasma sabots but that seems to make them a little to strong. Maybe they should bring pseudo plasma back. That would make the best option i think, but i have not playtested it yet.

Cloaking is another problem, it is not that much more effective than erratic maneuvering and harder to use. The sequence of play seems to make it more of an uncloak and launch than an launch and cover while you reload. Also not shedding any seeking weapons on you (which it should imo) is a detriment.

In the tournament i played Patrick's Gorns in my Klingons and he did make a few errors by just being unfamiliar with the plasma rules, like not knowing that the bolt arc is smaller than the launched arc so there was a couple times he couldn't bolt when he wanted to. Still i was able to pretty much outrun all the plasma he launched at me or let it hit mostly weakened and on a non facing shield
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The_Rock
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, fwiw, the OP has it reversed. Yes, the Cloak is not effective against most opponents. This is a combination of it providing too little protection against SW and the void penalties being too harsh. Even with the near uselessness of cloak (beyond turn 1), however, the Roms are in better shape than the Gorns because point-for-point they can bring more R-torps.

Ok, so they are restricted to flying mostly KEs and a Vulture, but if they do that, they are at least in the "OK" realm.

If you insist on flying Kestral's and 3rd gen ships, then, yes, you have the same problem as Gorns and you are more expensive because of having to pay a lot for a mostly useless device to boot.
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The_Rock
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2012 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sabot does not work because with no defense other than speed, plasma would be way to strong if it could guarantee hitting (even with a 180 HET) after 4 impulses.

PPTs "work", sort of, (well, they might work) but they break the "everything is disclosed" element of Fed Com.

the only reasonable solutions I see are:

1. EPTs -or-
2. Significant reduction of point value -or-
3. Sabot + significant increase in point value

EDIT:
Another change that I think would just be plain good for the game, period, and might fix most problems with plasma as well, would be to institute acceleration limits (e.g. limit upward changes in base speed over turn breaks).
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 12:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Paul (the_rock), as is probably obvious from his post, is talking tourney play. Not so sure the OP is.

If there are no BPV adjustmnents then I'm not going to disgaree that plasma has an issue in tourney play if you are up against one of the handful of really good players. If you are not playing tourney style games, or are not playing the few top players then plasma is ok.

I went through the online tourneys and looked at the results so far (where a game was actually played).

The Gorns have always been 0.96 adjustment, the Roms 0.92. The [..] is the opponents adjustment.

They have won the following:
gorn - frax[0.96]
gorn - selt[0.92]
rom - orion[1.05]
gorn - Fed[1.05]
gorn - orion[1.05]
rom - frax[1.00]
gorn - fed[1.05]
gorn - klingon[1.00]
rom - klingon[1.00]

This was a real draw:
gorn - hydran[0.96] (draw)

And they lost the following:
rom - hydran[0.96]
gorn - fed[1.05]
gorn - klingon[0.96]
gorn - orion[1.05]
gorn - tholian[0.96]
rom - lyran[0.96]
rom - fed[1.05]


So at the moment the plasma empires have won more than they have lost with the adjustments that have been used.

NB - the draw above, was Paul playing the hydrans, so the only game Paul has failed to win so far in the online FC tourneys has been against plasma.

Whilst Paul has his anecdote of only winning with his roms due to bad errors on his opponents behalf I would add that Patrick only lost against me due to 1 catastrophic error on his behalf, otherwise that would have been a Gorn win in what was an otherwise very good game from Patrick. However, isn't that how most games end up in the majority of cases - someone goofs up badly, or just more times than the other guy (which is that whole 'only stupid opponents' argument).


Incidentally, Paul and myself did play a Gorn vs Fed game on a larger map size. I still maintain that the small tourney map is a hindrance to plasma, you want a larger map for the most part. We did apply an adjument to the Gorns in that game as well, using the following logic:

The Feds NCA is 150 pts. Assume for the sake of argument that 4 photons is actually equal to the usual plasma cruiser 2 PlS + 2 PlF. The Gorn BC is other wise almost identcical to the Fed NCA, the only difference is the Fed NCA has better phaser arcs, and it has 2 drone racks where as the Gorn get 5 extra 'padding' boxes (3 yellows and 2 hull). The better phaser arcs and 2 drones are probably worth (a lot) more than the extra padding, so the Gorn BC should be less points than the Fed NCA, even on the (assumed) logic that plasma and photons are about equal.

We played 3 Fed NCAs vs 3 Gorn BCs. That was actually a very close game, and I think I was looking at a reasonable chance of a gorn win - until I made that bad mistake and turned a ship on subpulse 4 of some impule as I was getting close to cornering his feds (never turn on sub pulse 4!). Paul may disagree of course and claim he had it all in hand and he was only feeding me false hope Smile


Last edited by storeylf on Wed May 02, 2012 12:42 am; edited 1 time in total
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The_Rock wrote:
Also, fwiw, the OP has it reversed. Yes, the Cloak is not effective against most opponents. This is a combination of it providing too little protection against SW and the void penalties being too harsh. Even with the near uselessness of cloak (beyond turn 1), however, the Roms are in better shape than the Gorns because point-for-point they can bring more R-torps.

Ok, so they are restricted to flying mostly KEs and a Vulture, but if they do that, they are at least in the "OK" realm.

If you insist on flying Kestral's and 3rd gen ships, then, yes, you have the same problem as Gorns and you are more expensive because of having to pay a lot for a mostly useless device to boot.


I tend to agree with the OP here, I prefer Gorn over Romulan as plama goes. That may be our game type preference resulting in different opinions. I find more plasma is better than bigger plasma. I can see why the bigger plasma might be better in a tourney game, but for the games I've tended to play I prefer to be able to launch an 'S' and still have another left (as in the Gorn vs Fed game I played with you). Packing an 'R' usually means you have nothing if you launch it.
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JimDauphinais
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 12:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Phil Moore is playing the Gorns solidly in the current FCOL tournament and he is neither bolting nor using passive tactics. Now mind you I was playing against him in the second round with Seltorians (who were derated to 0.92 versus the Gorns being derated to 0.96), but he also won his first round versus a Frax player. He is now playing against M1A1DAT's Klingons.

In the first round Patrick played against M1A1DAT's Klingons and it has been reported that Patrick might have been a little rusty with the Gorns in that game. In the second round, where Lee had Orions maxed out on Drones versus Patrick's Gorns, it was apparently a close game and he might might have won it but for a mistake he made. I expect Patrick to win his current game against a Fed player. Patrick is not going to go 0-4 with the Gorns.

Paul (The Rock) with his Romulan squadron played his first round against an Orion squadron maxed out on photons, but that player made a few mistakes. Paul is currently playing against Lee's maxed out drones Orion squadron. It will be interesting to see where that game goes.

Quote:
NB - the draw above, was Paul playing the hydrans, so the only game Paul has failed to win so far in the online FC tourneys has been against plasma.


And boy did that kick off a controversy Smile

I took the Draw in that game with the Gorns. However, the draw was a product of Paul's Hydran Fusion crunch force that needed to close, a 6 turn game limit, little to no movement by the Gorns, very measured use of Plasma launches (there were always one or two S/R torpedoes in the air, but rarely more) and large amounts of Gorn suicide shuttles being launched. The outcome of that game is the main reason why the online tournament now has a 10 turn limit. Paul believes he could have beat my generally passive tactics if he had 10 turns to work with instead of 6. Moreover, my tactics were not going to win me the battle unless he became overly aggressive.

Finally, while being able to launch a large plasma torpedo on the first turn of a game has helped plasma a bit, for the record, I am in the acceleration limits camp. I think plasma does need a little bit more help and I feel it is the next simplest thing to try.
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Savedfromwhat
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just my two cents here, but... Lee if you're saying that there is only a problem for "high level tournament play" then how would changing plasma effect game balance for "low level standard play", I am sure you don't mean this but it comes across as saying that "well Paul and Scott are too good, their opinions don't represent the majority and so they don't count". It seems a shame to ignore the two best players in our little community.
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
ust my two cents here, but... Lee if you're saying that there is only a problem for "high level tournament play" then how would changing plasma effect game balance for "low level standard play", I am sure you don't mean this but it comes across as saying that "well Paul and Scott are too good, their opinions don't represent the majority and so they don't count". It seems a shame to ignore the two best players in our little community.


LOL - Paul and Scott, he's so good you see him as 2 people rolled into one!

Any change to the game potentially affects balance for every one, not just the few top tourney players.

Of course everyones opinions count. I do actually respect Pauls opinion a lot, and I'm not ignoring them. I just happen to view it very differently. Even though I accept their point at their level of play in tourneys I disagree with what the issue really is, an what sort of solutions make sense as a result.

They are the best players, but in the majority of game systems I've played over the years that has nearly always meant that such players find certain forces better/worse than others in competitive play because they are so good at understanding the system and the tactics to win, and have the ability to actually play that way. Don't underestimate that final part, it's often surprisingly hard to translate an explanation of how to 'easily' beat something into an ability to actually do it against a real opponent, that is part of what makes a top player. Look at Feds, there have been explanations on how to play them in a tourney, and they can be pretty potent in such a setting. Yet they still have an appalling record. So, no, I don't consider it a problem that the top players see some empires weak at their level of play, not because I don't value their opinion or whatever, but because I see that as just a normal part of being a top competitive player.

It is also down to Paul's concentration on tourney style games. Fed Com is not just tourney play. Tourney play is not even that popular on the face of it, even with a possible world wide player base online there has not been more than 16 players starting a tourney (never mind finishing), the latest has only 12? players. The game plays a lot differently in other 'environments', be it different victory conditions, scenarios, campaigns, larger maps, terrain etc. Saying plasma needs some 'fix' to accomodate a not particularly popular style of game does not seem that strong an argument IMO.

There are people who still lose to plasma, I've played against a couple who think plasma is broken but actually struggle to beat it. Not tourney games, but that again just reinforces that tourney isn't the only thing to consider.

I accept there is an issue in Pauls preferred style of game at his level, but that I do not see it as a plama issue per se. I see it as a wider points issue. FedCom has (as I am sure Paul and Patrick will agree) terribly pointed ships. It may be unfortunate, but I think Gorn and Roms have come off worst in that. That doesn't mean the issue must be plasma though.

Take a Fed CA and a Fed NCA. If one of them is correctly pointed then the other is not even close to its correct points, an NCA is worth a good bit more than the 3 point difference we currently have IMO. Certainly the NCA is the ship of choice (out of those 2) in tourneys.

As I noted in my previous post, I reckon the Gorn BC is significantly overpointed compared to a Fed NCA, not because plasma is 'weak', but for other reasons. Even assuming, for arguments sake, that plasma and photons are equal (and I've never argued that plasma is better) it is pretty clear IMO that the Gorn BC should be, what, 5-10? points cheaper than the Fed NCA and hardly anything like 10 points more, 2 Fed drones (an excellent secondary system) and better phaser arcs trumps 3 extra internals by a good margin and they are identical in every other way (energy, shields, turn mode etc). The same applies to a lot of Gorn ships, they are simply overpointed for reasons that have nothing to do with FedCom. Not because plasma is weak but, presumably, because the points were lazily copied from SFB with no consideration for the different game system.

The Roms are overpointed IMO because they are paying some surcharge for a largely useless cloak. I expect that if they had an actually useful cloak they would be pointed near enough correctly.

Quote:
However, the draw was a product of Paul's Hydran Fusion crunch force that needed to close, a 6 turn game limit, little to no movement by the Gorns, very measured use of Plasma launches (there were always one or two S/R torpedoes in the air, but rarely more) and large amounts of Gorn suicide shuttles being launched. The outcome of that game is the main reason why the online tournament now has a 10 turn limit. Paul believes he could have beat my generally passive tactics if he had 10 turns to work with instead of 6. Moreover, my tactics were not going to win me the battle unless he became overly aggressive.


Paul knew he had 6 turns (and in most time limited tourney games you are lucky to get even that), again, different enviroments make for different games, 6 turns or 10 turns can make a difference. Just as things like map size can.


There are 2 fixes to Pauls issue that make sense to me. Adjust the point costs of the ships, because regardless of plasma they need it anyway. The other fix is to re-examine the tourney, the tourney should be based around the game system so change the tourney not the game. Make the map larger - with no FTF tourney of note there is no particular reason to have the map size kept so small, that benefits plasma and widens the tactical choices for everyone. Add in some different scenarios, use stock squadrons etc etc. There are plenty of possibilities.
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Savedfromwhat
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lee, I meant Patrick and Paul heh I don't even know how I did that :O lol.

I understand where you are coming from, Plasma is incredibly good against bases, no wild weasels makes bases go from impenetrable walls to expensive targets with little benefit. Even adding scout channels doesn't really help that much. Anyway thats off topic. I believe that the Romulan's and the Gorn have come off so poorly in the points department is because in SFB plasma is very nasty, EPT's, Pseudo's, the fact that you are forced to close because you can't decelerate. Plasma is very good in SFB, and I haven't even used Sabot yet.

Anyway, the point is that a lot of these features of plasma weapons didn't get ported over and plasma races have suffered for it. Anyone who has played this game for a reasonable amount of time will be able to beat a plasma race more than 50% of the time, a lot more than 50% of the time. Plasma is a trick that catches you off guard the first time you face it, but once you know the trick it is pretty easy to counter.

So now that I have rambled let me sum up.

A solution that causes ships to be repointed is very likely NOT going to happen. Anything that requires ship cars to be reprinted is a worst case solution. Changing the map size will not help the Plasma races because it will help everyone equally. A bigger map would be a boon to every empire except maybe the Hydrans. Changing the tourney is the only solution that remains but that doesn't deal with the fact that plasma is still not right even in non-tournament games.

Bumping up the strength of plasma will help to alleviate the point cost imbalance for the plasma races, which I believe paid a surcharge in SFB for their "powerful" weapons system.
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I understand where you are coming from, Plasma is incredibly good against bases, no wild weasels makes bases go from impenetrable walls to expensive targets with little benefit. Even adding scout channels doesn't really help that much. Anyway thats off topic.


It isn't just bases I'm on about, certainly that is a scenario where plasma is hugely advantaged. Same with convoy type games (slow targets). But other factors can affect whether plasma is good or bad, be it victory conditions, time limits, map size terrain, historical only matchups etc etc.


Quote:
Anyone who has played this game for a reasonable amount of time will be able to beat a plasma race more than 50% of the time, a lot more than 50% of the time. Plasma is a trick that catches you off guard the first time you face it, but once you know the trick it is pretty easy to counter.


I dispute the the reference to 'anyone'. Good players = maybe, anyone = hardly.


Quote:

Anyway, the point is that a lot of these features of plasma weapons didn't get ported over and plasma races have suffered for it. [....] I believe that the Romulan's and the Gorn have come off so poorly in the points department is because in SFB plasma is very nasty, EPT's, Pseudo's, the fact that you are forced to close because you can't decelerate. Plasma is very good in SFB, and I haven't even used Sabot yet.


I believe that thinking is part of why we see things so differently. Not being an SFB player I'm not looking at things through SFB tinted glasses. Fed Com is a standalone game and is what it is. That the points were on the face of it ported to FedCom from a different game system without much consideration to the FedCom rules is the issue, and not what plasma did or did not do in SFB. That is part of what I meant by I see things differently to Paul. Whilst I accept his issue exists, I don't belive it is plasma a such. The points thing affects more than just plasma - Klingons suck big time in a non-adjusted points tourney, selts are far from popular. Within Fleets there are clear abberations (like the Fed NCA-CA comparison). The issue is not plasma at all, but the whole issue of point values in a style of game (highly competitive tourney) that relies heavily on them being close to perfect.

Should the points have been printed on the cards, no. But from my point of view that doesn't mean don't change them. It wouldn't bother me just have the new points on some separate sheet, they don't have to be reprinted on my card, I can ignore those and look at the errata sheet.

Quote:
Changing the map size will not help the Plasma races because it will help everyone equally. A bigger map would be a boon to every empire except maybe the Hydrans. Changing the tourney is the only solution that remains but that doesn't deal with the fact that plasma is still not right even in non-tournament games.


I disagree there. The smallish map cripples plasma empires, and klingons come to that. A larger map doesn't necesasrily help every one equally by any means. Some empires gain a lot from being on the small map, e.g. Feds may still be ok, but it definatley makes life harder for them, the overload on turn 1 is not the go-to strategy in several matchups on a large map. Even more so if you start at closer range as well (e.g. 26). Lyrans are great on a smallish map (easy ESG rams), whilst they are still good on a larger map, they don't gain in the way Gorn/Roms do.

The problem for Gorn on the current tourney size map is that they have no room to manouver once they are rearming. A 2 turn armer with decent play can handle the map size (or is facing someone also doing 2 turn arming as well), but the 3 turns of the plasma means you get snotted as you can't keep away from the enemy no matter what you do. This is compounded by the related issue that a crunch empire (and they are the ones that dominate in non adjusted tourneys) can close and force a full on, or close enough, launch knowing that if you don't do that they will get the short range shot as you are caught against the map boundary. Hence you are forced to launch everything and then get creamed whilst re-arming and trapped.

Both of those issues go away to a large extent on a larger map. You can force an enemy to deal with 1 or 2 plasma at a time whilst avoiding his crunch shots. That allows you to pace your launches better (whilst dealing damage if the other guy does not run), and if you do run out you have the room to avoid being trapped whilst reloading.

This is what happened in my game against Paul, he couldn't force me to launch all my plasma, or even launch enough to force the gorn to pull away to reload. He couldn't just take the few plasma I was launching as that would have resulted in him being sandpapered to death and in an even worse position when we did get close. Even after a mistake by me at the start which left me running from him for a while, Paul found himself being forced to run with me behind, and eventually looking at getting cornered whilst I still had enough plasma to deliver a couple hundred points of damage. In the end it was a bad mistake by me just before he was cornered that allowed him to get in a HET back on me in a way that split my plasma across shields, and gave him the upper hand in the subsequent exchange (and then I made another goof and got clobbered by 3 turns worth of drones that had been following me all game).

NB- as noted that game was also adjusted to a point that we both agreed more correctly represented a Gorn BC compared to a Fed NCA (on the assumption their plasma was equal to the photons). I don't think you can avoid the pointing issue.

The map size needs to be large to ensure that all multi turn armers can reasonably expect 1 reload whithout getting cornered, so long as they plan for it. It is currently unfair that plasma has no such possibility.

Quote:
but that doesn't deal with the fact that plasma is still not right even in non-tournament games.


In general I disagree. There may indeed be types of game where plasma is at a disadvantage, but the same with any other empire. But scenarios shoud be balanced no matter what. Non tourney size maps, appropiate victory conditions, campaigns (or any game where there is less emphasis on the points values of individual ships), terrain etc all make non-tourney play far less of an issue for plasma.
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The_Rock
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On the Draw, to be clear, it was a tournament strategic decision. Yes, I could have easily won in another 2-3 turns (because Fusion Hydran are pretty much broken in the tournament environment), but I also knew, in terms of winning the tournament, that a draw was acceptable and a loss was not. So I took no risk and when the Gorn just sat there and launched a ton of SS, I killed them rather than engage his ships where I could be tractored and killed. Many have suggested that I could have overrun him anyway (since Fusion Hydrans are broken in the tournament environment). Had a win actually been important, I might have tried. It wasn't, so I didn't.

to reply to a few other things above:

1. Yes, I am talking about balance in the tournament (or any other not-huge closed map). You cannot balance this game, on points, for all conditions. That is as true of SFB as it is Fed Com.

2. Yes, I also agree that no rules changes are needed. you could just go in and change the points and I agree with Lee completely that the Fed Com point system is the height of laziness on the part of the designers - you took points from a completely different game and just imported them. As I have also said, other than just making point brackets (e.g. all cruisers are 150, all DD are 100, etc.) the only other choice was to spend a lot of time getting the points right. that would mean a lot fewer ships published at this point. So, really, it might have been the lazy way, but it also might have been the best way as well. At this point, though, if the rules are going to stay the same, you need to adjust the points. Since, however, there are some easy things out there (EPTs, for example), I'd prefer to start with rule changes.

3. I also agree that the "best" tournament solution is to use stock squadrons. That is a huge undertaking, however, to get balanced. Patrick and I are (very slowly) trying to do something along those lines. that is how SFB works. No one worries about the BPV of tournament ships. They don't even have one.

This all brings me back to what is the easiest fix, and it still seems clear to me that adding EPTs is it. It is a one paragraph rule that improves plasma without the need to change all the cards (or without the need to refer to a chart instead of what is on the cards - though this has been done in at least one case with the LDR).

That still does nothing to help the huge point problem Romulans have for the inclusion of a useless device, which I also agree is a separate problem. One for which I have no obvious solution. Cloak in SFB is both more restricting and much more effective as a defense. Part of what makes it so restricting, however, is that acceleration limits in SFB. The cloak is a much more complicated issue.
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Klingon of Gor
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 01 Jun 2011
Posts: 150

PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2012 2:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I seem to have started a discussion.

I'll add a few additional thoughts. The R torp is an excellent weapon, but it has a few drawbacks. First, it cannot be put on a pivot mount. Romulans seem to do best when they can fight off center. Hawk class ships, if fitted with S torps, can more or less deliver a broadside. This is useful when fighting Feds, when you have to play keep away. It has some utility against Gorns as well, who have seeking plasma of their own. A Kestral can also deliver a broadisde, but not as well as a Firehawk, since the S torps are mounted LP and RP instead of FP, so they can only deliver one torpedo to the left and right arcs. Also, the R torp is bit like the Highlander. There can be only one. This is a serious handicap in a duel, where the Romulans lack a way to follow up once an R torp is away. (It may be less of a problem if a ship with the R is part of a squadron).
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