Link to the second FCOL Tournament. Honestly, when I last played FCOL it was not really ready for tournament play. I entered this one, though, and encourage others interested to do so as well.
I am in too. Actually, FC tournament in this format works pretty well. I am not a big fan of 1 on 1 in FC.
One thing that would make it better would be not having a me too firing, but announcing firing simultaneously. This would make less exchanges at very close range as both players keep agreeing not to fire as they close. With the fear the other might fire, players tend to shoot sooner.
Me too is kinda at the core of FC. Remove me too and you need all the secret and simultaneous that slows down SFB. (Which should be an issue for online... but whatever)
S&S is actually faster. One of the things not well understood about FC is all the decision points. What seems like a simplified system, turns out to introduce multiple additional decision points in the game that end up eating up a lot of time.
and I have always played SFB (which to be honest was 20 years ago) as a Me Too game. Also you guys are going to have to explain to me how starring at a map for 20 minutes trying to decide if you should fire now because your opponent might causing you to lose weapons is faster then: I'm not going to fire. I am. Well then I will too.
While secret and simultaneous is slower on a single decision basis, the difference is that both players are making the decision at the same time.
Me Too in Fed Comm goes:
"I'm not gonna shoot."
"I am. With this."
"OK, in light of that, I'm going to shoot with this."
"Oh, in light of that, I'm adding this..."
"OK, since you're doing that, I'm adding this..."
...and repeat until the entire swath turns into "everyone shoots."
Note that in Fed Commander, this decision making loop happens multiple times per impulse.
It happens every movement phase when someone decides to speed up (or not speed up).
It happens every sub-pulse of the movement phase when someone decides to cancel a movement.
It happens every time fire declaration is called.
Because each of these cycles runs out through a lot of 'declare, react, re-react...' loops, it is particularly problematic with online play.
Not that Secret and Simul is unbreakable. There was a fad in tournament play to demand a fire declaration step every impulse to try and trick your opponent into shooting early that ran for a few years; preventing this fad from hitting FC was brought up in the design discussion about this rule. (I brought up the countervailing problem, that it more or less rewards going last in a decision loop). Both of these rely on gaming the partial information your opponent may be working from.
(One way to make secret and simul a bit more fluid is to make sure that both parties have some idea where the other guy will be at the next firing opportunity. SFB doesn't do this, but a few other games do. This makes for better information when plotting out secret and simul fire.)
Rules can't really compensate for playing with ass-hats as opponents.
"me too" firing decision
S&S revelation of WHAT you fire
ex
A: "I'm firing"
B: "OK, me too"
(scribble,scribble, scribble)
A: "Full alpha strike, 6 P1, 4 OL photons
B: "Crap, I thought you were going to take a potshot, I've just got 3xP2 and 1xDISR"
(resolve fire)
This way, the "me too" is limited to ONE opportunity.
Cards could be used for firing and for movement in FC impulses.
Direct Fire Card System: A set of cards that mirrored the weapons on a particular ship plus one that said "End of Fire" would be held by a player. At the start of Direct Fire, he arranges them with the weapons he is firing followed by the "End of Fire" card. If he is not firing anything, the "End of Fire" card is first. Players reveal their cards simultaneously and resolve fire.
Movement Card System: A set of cards shows every possible type of move a ship can make during a sub-pulse. These are placed in the order the player wants to execute movement (including accel., decel., HET, emer. decel., turns, slips, or anything else). All ships move simultaneously according to the sequence of the selected cards. Include a card for pursuit plotting to make a ship move like a seeking weapon toward another ship or object on the map. Perhaps also a card for avoidance plotting from something on the map (including a HET if necesarry).
This system eliminates the advantage of the fastest ship always being able to move last, but speeds things up a lot. I know, I've used the system (we made the cards ourselves).
The difficult thing is when a player controls multiple ships, but it's not really all that bad then, either. You just have to have enough cards. Buy those cheap Avery business card kits, design what you want your cards to look like, and print away.
We also use averaged damage across the tables. It makes combat results a little more like Starmada, but sure quickens the pace of a game.
Is basically pre-plotting movement with cards. This isn't a bad thing - I like pre-plotted movement in general if it's done well. (If your only experience with pre-plotted movement is the much deprecated SFB pre-plot system, you have experience with what might be the second worst pre-plot system out there, after Air Force Dauntless.)
Of course, if you made a part of the laminated card a radius 5 hexagonal area, you could draw your movement out in advance...which might be faster than fiddling with cards.
... without Skype. Too many problems with the interface. Lots of bugs in the ships. A small list from my game today:
One of my ships, the Hydran Mohawk had 11 shields! Whomever made this definition did not do well.
The Launch Fighter part of the interface does not work.
Adding fighters does show you the fighters, but there is no way to damage them that I could find, nor to fire their weapons.
Fighters are considered "shuttles" and therefore move at speed 8, rather than 16.
EM designation works fine - once. From that point on you are stuck with the EM label.
There are more, but that's an off the top of my head list.
My assumption is that not enough people use the interface and thus bugs just don't get reported the way they do in SFBOL. I'll be filing a bug report with Paul, but the interface is far from ready for tournament play.
As for FCOL itself, I agree that it is nor in the shape it should be. Trust me, it is not for trying. and, trust me, i am not saying you should let it slide. Tell Paul what you think.
(The ship card errors are caused by the person making them to not tes it out before submitting. Gar1138 has added a huge amount and he is dedicated to making sure they are not in error, and to redefine errored cards.)
It is not for trying. I play at least twice a week on FCOL It is quite fast for myself and Gar1138 as we know everything wrong with it and just go ahead and do a workaround before we trigger the problem. And, boy, does Skype help to communicate around the deficiencies.
We, especially Garrett, have made numerous notes to Paul, and only a fraction has been done. Some of the other things t watch out for:
1. Don't accelerate twice, as you will become something like speed 16+2, that does not exist. And it will be deducted from your energy.
2. The hit and run table has mistakes. Also, you cant change the numbers of marines on the client for a ship for when you send them to another location.
3. Some of the pregame arming is still wrong. ESGs don;t get the 2 free energy in each like they should. Others probably have problems.
4. The plasma arming gets confused.
5. There is no warning when you spend energy into the negatives.
6. There is no simultaneous reveal of movement for ships moving simultaneously.
7. When you drop tractor, the ships do not go back to their proper speeds, even though it says it does, and you need to force it to accept moves that it thinks are in error.
8. Some systems deduct energy, some don't. Always double check the energy to see it is correct.
9. And shield leaks don't work right. Usually, they do an internal but don't reduce the shield damage by 1. Also, when you reinforce damage above 10 to less than 10, it should leak, but doesn't.
If you got more, send them to Paul.
Also, I have a ton of improvements I know will never get in. Maybe I will share the list tomorrow.
As it is, sometimes I just wish there was a Cyberboard version for free,
Yes, I agree that the FCOL client does have a bunch of issues and quirks. I sometimes loose sight of how frustrating they can be since I know about most of them and can avoid them. Sadly, a lot of the issues stem from sloppy ship definition creation (as was mentioned above, I think folks never checked their work when they created some of the definitions). I'm happy to have more folks look it over and report issues to Paul.
Oh, there is a new bug that causes the system box "Base Reactor" to not count as energy during EAF. This effectively makes all the bases unplayable since they start with zero energy (the user has to manually adjust the base's energy each turn). This was working fine and just recently broke (I reported it to Paul this morning). Sigh.......
Turn 1, both speed 16. We close and since we will hit 16 on Impulse 8, I go EM starting Impulse 6.
Turn 2, both speed 16. I decide to allow him R15 shot, if he wants it. He did and fired on Impulse 1 at one Mohawk, taking the #1 down to 10 boxes (I re-enforced each shot) and doing 2 leak points. I launched my Stingers. Over the next couple of impulses, I chased and he crippled one of my Stingers. By the end of the turn, I got to range 3 on with my Rangers and uninjured Mohawk fired all but one ship (the previously injured Mohawk) with teh bearing fusions and phasers, doing substantial damage to his DW.
Turn 3, I moved 24 with the ships that fired, and 16 with the injured Mohawk and fighter. He moved 8. On impulse 1 I was at R0 with my Rangers, R1 with my uninjured Mohawk and R5 with the injured one. We fired. I blew up his CC, and all but blew up his DW (it was left with a couple internals). He did significant internals to, but did not cripple, one Ranger and the previously uninjured Mohawk. He killed my other Stingers as well. Over the next several impulses, My remaining Mohawk closed on his DN and fired at range 0 on impulse 5ish. It did 70ish internals that we did not roll. Consensus was playing it out would result in destruction of his remaining two ships with little additional damage to me.
My Mohawk and Patrick Doyle's Lyran DN were poorly done defs. I have fixed them and sent them to Paul Franz for uploading. I did not do a full check on every box, but rather just fixed those things I noticed (or in the case of the DN, was told) were wrong.
If you are using any ship and the def is wrong, post here and I will fix what you tell me is wrong and send it to paul for uploading.
Huh. I haven't been paying that close attention to FC, but don't Rangers have more fighters than that? Even in FedCom? How does it work out that you only have 2 stingers? (i.e. I'm wondering how the tournament works in these terms and what you have instead of stingers in all those fighter boxes or whatever).
Fed Com does not have the same S8 restrictions as SFB, so any Hydran can carry any number of fighters, up to its carrying limit (9 for the Ranger). I would loved to have built a Hydran fleet with all fusion ships and maximizing fighters. Unfortunately, the tournament rules (for this tournament, not the official tournament rules) restrict a player to 8 fighters. 8 fighters is too easily manageable (by an opponent), so I went the other route and took 4 full cruiser hulls then filled out my remaining points with fighters.
That seems like, what do you say, a rule that is ripe for abuse. I suspect that you having 4 full cruisers as a result is, well, the result of that particular flaw in the tournament rules :-)
if I was forced to follow S8. I would much rather have had a couple rangers and all 18 fighters, plus a gendarme and its 2 fighters (this was my intended fleet, 2x Ranger, 1x Gendarme, 20x Stingers) than the force I have now. So, yes, it was a "result" of a flaw in the tournament rules, but to the benefit of my opponents.
S8 is not in effect in Fed Com at all in any way. In the standard Fed Com rules, Hydran ships and fighters are completely independent, other than the number of fighter boxes on your ships sets the maximum number of fighters. There is never a minimum number in Fed Com.
The rule, setting the limit at 8 Stingers in the tournament, thus prevents the fleet I wanted to bring, but no special tournament rule was required to allow the fleet I did bring.
is what it says about Fed Com balance. ADB was extremely lazy in its haste to push Fed Com products out the door. They carbon copy ships, along with their BVP, into a new system with new rules, and just assume everything will be balanced. Even forgetting the a priori on this is false - namely that the BVPs in SFB are balanced - this has obvious flaws.
When they put it in a tournament where you use that BVP system to build your fleets, they unsurprisingly find it necessary to construct artificial (e.g. extra-rule) limits. No LDR. Limit of 8 Stingers, ect. It is a tacit admission that these things are not balanced, but a refusal to do the work to balance them (through either BVP or rules changes).
Of course the ultimate blame has to be put on Cole, but I think Mike West is a big contributor to the problem as well. Somehow the guy got himself appointed as Fed Com "rules guy", but he has no understanding of what is good for balance.
Anyway, it is what it is, but unless ADB listens to those few people who actually do know what they are doing, it is going to remain a borked up system.
Heh. I think a fleet of 2 rangers and 20 stingers probably would have been worse. But I also suspect that, like, 4 Hydrans cruisers that are are 100 points each 'cause you didn't need to buy fighters is also probably on the wrong side of balance. Don't get me wrong here--I'm not saying anyone did anything dubious here. I'm just questioning the tournament format.
So in general, if you are playing Hydrans in FedCom, you might have fighters, you might not have fighters, and the game does not rely on one or the other for balance. And if a Ranger has no fighters, does it just have, like, 9 extra shuttles?
I don't think we are disagreeing, i just want to make sure you understand it is not a tournament rule that does this. It is Fed Com standard rules. So, your quote above - " I'm just questioning the tournament format" is confusing on this issue.
Normally, in SFB, I would agree with you that fighters are pointed about right and the Ranger is a bit under-pointed and thus the S8 requirement in SFB forces balance where there would not be balance.
In Fed Com, fighters are better than their points, so really if unrestricted you are better off having as many fighters as you can field for the points.
To answer your question, a fighter box on an SSD that has no fighter in it is just an empty fighter box. It does not get replaced with a shuttle (though Fed Com shuttles are as close to useless as they can be, so it would not really matter).
The real problem with the tournament format in Fed Com is the use of BVP at all. They should take the time to create sets of fleets, not allow the players to select them from BVP. Even if all I did was a first pass through for every race, I would create a list of fleets that would be a lot better balanced than using BVP. It would then take, as it did in SFB, years of tweeking to really get balance right.
Regarding fixed ship definitions, I have sent in to Paul Franz a bunch of Tholian ships that needed fixing (just so we don't duplicate work, I have sent in CA, CAP, CWL, DD, DN, PC, PCW, TK5, NFF) . I have also sent in a number of other missing ships. All are awaiting inclusion into the FCOL library in a future update (which will hopefully be soon, but I don't know when). I am also available to make ship definition fixes, just let me know what I can do to help.
I would also like to comment briefly on the tournament rules and balancing. I readily acknowledge that SFB (and tournament SFB in particular) is far more balanced that FC is (and likely ever will be). However, I think it is important to keep in mind that FC has far different goals than SFB. I think FC is more about having fun battles, enjoying the company of your opponents, and the spirit of the game. Even in this specific FC tournament setting, it's way more about fun than rules lawyering and "win at any cost" thinking. I ended up taking the lowest point fleet for the tourney, simply because I wanted to fly a ship I've never flown before because it sounded fun. Anyway, I certainly don't want to start any kind of debate, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I'm looking forward to making new friends in the upcoming battles.
None of this really qualifies as a simple definition change, but I'll throw it up here just to spell out
the problems. I sent in a bug report about the Drone mounts, but reinforcement can't hurt when it comes to a code change.
Pocket Battleship: Does not exist, either scale
Auxiliary Battlecruiser: Does not exist, either scale
CA: It has regular option mounts, should have the Drone mount (which is incomplete, see below)
CW, DD: Okay, but need the updated option mounts.
FF: Good.
AuxC: Good, in that the regular option mount contains everything available.
The real problem is that FCOL needs a back-end update that adds to the Drone mount.
It only has the original Phaser-1 and Drone options in it.
It can have, as of the latest rulebook: Phaser-1, Phaser-G, Drone, Drone (Federation version),
ADD, Plasma-D, Special Sensor.
Then there is the whole question of one ship having Foreign weapons in a fleet, and if they can
replace option or mounted weapons. Can a CA replace its disruptors with Hellbores, for example?
Or is it just limited to different options in the option mounts. And is it just one weapon total,
or one type of weapon total? (Example: Can an AuxBC use 1 or up to 4 Photons in its option mounts?)
For FCOL purposes it's far easier just to deal with the option mounts.
Annnnnnnd, in closing, are the WYN's limited to one Phaser-G per ship like the Orions?
Bunch of stuff I *could* ask on the FC forum, but, well, no thanks, I'll let a braver person do it.
You know, I didn't intend to become a WYN Standard Bearer, but trying to figure out a way to avoid getting my tourney fleet wiped out has focused my attention on the flaws.
>>I don't think we are disagreeing, i just want to make sure you understand it is not a tournament rule that does this. It is Fed Com standard rules. So, your quote above - " I'm just questioning the tournament format" is confusing on this issue.>>
No, no, I got you. I meant "tournament format" in the sense of "whatever rules make the tournament go". It seems like that between the basic FedCom rules (that don't require fighters on ships that carry fighters) and the tournament rules (that are "buy a force with XBPV") result in things like the Hydrans bringing 4 cruisers. Which seems like both a good idea and about what will happen under rules like that.
Tholian DD fixed squadron. Garrett, I see you had already sent one. Can I suggest you resend your fixed Defs to Paul or that you send them to me and I'll press to get them uploaded.
EDIT: Just spoke to Paul. He has them and will get them uploaded.
"if I was forced to follow S8. I would much rather have had a couple rangers and all 18 fighters, plus a gendarme and its 2 fighters (this was my intended fleet, 2x Ranger, 1x Gendarme, 20x Stingers) than the force I have now. So, yes, it was a "result" of a flaw in the tournament rules, but to the benefit of my opponents."
That woud have been illegal under normal tourney rules even before the 8 stinger rule - it is to many points. For those not aware, this online tourney provides a disount to some races to encourage their use, so it may have squeezed in.
Back when I was playing around with 2009 origins rules with a regular opponent I tried out the max stinger fleet, which I think was 2 mongols[edit - meant mohawks] and a gendarme with 18 stingers in a standard 450 pts. That was seriously hard to beat. I posted about this on the FC forum, and then noticed that in 2010 the rules changed to max 8 stingers. I wondered whether my post was related or not.
"Unfortunately, the tournament rules (for this tournament, not the official tournament rules) restrict a player to 8 fighters"
It is the official origins 2010 rules that limit to 8 fighters, this tourney is based on those rules.
Yes, I see that 2010 does have the 8 fighter rule in the official rules.
2 Mongols and a gendarme couldn't carry 18 fighters, so presumably you meant 2 Rangers and a Gendarme or 2 Mohawks and a Gendarme, both would be 446 points with 18 fighters.
In this tournament, Hydran get a BPV multiplier of .96, so 2 Rangers and a Gendarme with 20 fighters is 447.36.
Email to Paul. Hopefully available for your next game.
-Paul
EDIT: The def was fixed, so you MC is now .5, not .66. There is nothing I can do on the def to fix the HB problem. Paul will have to deal with that in the interface.
I am in too. Actually, FC
I am in too. Actually, FC tournament in this format works pretty well. I am not a big fan of 1 on 1 in FC.
One thing that would make it better would be not having a me too firing, but announcing firing simultaneously. This would make less exchanges at very close range as both players keep agreeing not to fire as they close. With the fear the other might fire, players tend to shoot sooner.
This is expecially true in 1 on 1 in FC.
Me too is kinda at the core
Me too is kinda at the core of FC. Remove me too and you need all the secret and simultaneous that slows down SFB. (Which should be an issue for online... but whatever)
Me Too does not save time
S&S is actually faster. One of the things not well understood about FC is all the decision points. What seems like a simplified system, turns out to introduce multiple additional decision points in the game that end up eating up a lot of time.
Secret and Simul is faster
Provided the number of times you can trigger it is kept sane.
I hate S&S
and I have always played SFB (which to be honest was 20 years ago) as a Me Too game. Also you guys are going to have to explain to me how starring at a map for 20 minutes trying to decide if you should fire now because your opponent might causing you to lose weapons is faster then: I'm not going to fire. I am. Well then I will too.
Secret and Simul - Parallelism versus Serial Decision Making.
While secret and simultaneous is slower on a single decision basis, the difference is that both players are making the decision at the same time.
Me Too in Fed Comm goes:
"I'm not gonna shoot."
"I am. With this."
"OK, in light of that, I'm going to shoot with this."
"Oh, in light of that, I'm adding this..."
"OK, since you're doing that, I'm adding this..."
...and repeat until the entire swath turns into "everyone shoots."
Note that in Fed Commander, this decision making loop happens multiple times per impulse.
It happens every movement phase when someone decides to speed up (or not speed up).
It happens every sub-pulse of the movement phase when someone decides to cancel a movement.
It happens every time fire declaration is called.
Because each of these cycles runs out through a lot of 'declare, react, re-react...' loops, it is particularly problematic with online play.
Not that Secret and Simul is unbreakable. There was a fad in tournament play to demand a fire declaration step every impulse to try and trick your opponent into shooting early that ran for a few years; preventing this fad from hitting FC was brought up in the design discussion about this rule. (I brought up the countervailing problem, that it more or less rewards going last in a decision loop). Both of these rely on gaming the partial information your opponent may be working from.
(One way to make secret and simul a bit more fluid is to make sure that both parties have some idea where the other guy will be at the next firing opportunity. SFB doesn't do this, but a few other games do. This makes for better information when plotting out secret and simul fire.)
Rules can't really compensate for playing with ass-hats as opponents.
Right on Ken
"Rules can't really compensate for playing with ass-hats as opponents."
Fortunately, I can't really think of any online, but I'm sure they do still exist.
Something in between....
What about this:
"me too" firing decision
S&S revelation of WHAT you fire
ex
A: "I'm firing"
B: "OK, me too"
(scribble,scribble, scribble)
A: "Full alpha strike, 6 P1, 4 OL photons
B: "Crap, I thought you were going to take a potshot, I've just got 3xP2 and 1xDISR"
(resolve fire)
This way, the "me too" is limited to ONE opportunity.
S & S
Cards could be used for firing and for movement in FC impulses.
Direct Fire Card System: A set of cards that mirrored the weapons on a particular ship plus one that said "End of Fire" would be held by a player. At the start of Direct Fire, he arranges them with the weapons he is firing followed by the "End of Fire" card. If he is not firing anything, the "End of Fire" card is first. Players reveal their cards simultaneously and resolve fire.
Movement Card System: A set of cards shows every possible type of move a ship can make during a sub-pulse. These are placed in the order the player wants to execute movement (including accel., decel., HET, emer. decel., turns, slips, or anything else). All ships move simultaneously according to the sequence of the selected cards. Include a card for pursuit plotting to make a ship move like a seeking weapon toward another ship or object on the map. Perhaps also a card for avoidance plotting from something on the map (including a HET if necesarry).
This system eliminates the advantage of the fastest ship always being able to move last, but speeds things up a lot. I know, I've used the system (we made the cards ourselves).
The difficult thing is when a player controls multiple ships, but it's not really all that bad then, either. You just have to have enough cards. Buy those cheap Avery business card kits, design what you want your cards to look like, and print away.
We also use averaged damage across the tables. It makes combat results a little more like Starmada, but sure quickens the pace of a game.
Battlecards
already exist (or used to)
Your card based movement system...
Is basically pre-plotting movement with cards. This isn't a bad thing - I like pre-plotted movement in general if it's done well. (If your only experience with pre-plotted movement is the much deprecated SFB pre-plot system, you have experience with what might be the second worst pre-plot system out there, after Air Force Dauntless.)
card movement
If you do it just 4 sub-pulses (in FC) at a time, it would play a lot like Robo Rally, wouldn't it?
It would.
Of course, if you made a part of the laminated card a radius 5 hexagonal area, you could draw your movement out in advance...which might be faster than fiddling with cards.
The Game remains unplayable
... without Skype. Too many problems with the interface. Lots of bugs in the ships. A small list from my game today:
One of my ships, the Hydran Mohawk had 11 shields! Whomever made this definition did not do well.
The Launch Fighter part of the interface does not work.
Adding fighters does show you the fighters, but there is no way to damage them that I could find, nor to fire their weapons.
Fighters are considered "shuttles" and therefore move at speed 8, rather than 16.
EM designation works fine - once. From that point on you are stuck with the EM label.
There are more, but that's an off the top of my head list.
My assumption is that not enough people use the interface and thus bugs just don't get reported the way they do in SFBOL. I'll be filing a bug report with Paul, but the interface is far from ready for tournament play.
Paul: Congrats on your win
Paul:
Congrats on your win today.
As for FCOL itself, I agree that it is nor in the shape it should be. Trust me, it is not for trying. and, trust me, i am not saying you should let it slide. Tell Paul what you think.
(The ship card errors are caused by the person making them to not tes it out before submitting. Gar1138 has added a huge amount and he is dedicated to making sure they are not in error, and to redefine errored cards.)
It is not for trying. I play at least twice a week on FCOL It is quite fast for myself and Gar1138 as we know everything wrong with it and just go ahead and do a workaround before we trigger the problem. And, boy, does Skype help to communicate around the deficiencies.
We, especially Garrett, have made numerous notes to Paul, and only a fraction has been done. Some of the other things t watch out for:
1. Don't accelerate twice, as you will become something like speed 16+2, that does not exist. And it will be deducted from your energy.
2. The hit and run table has mistakes. Also, you cant change the numbers of marines on the client for a ship for when you send them to another location.
3. Some of the pregame arming is still wrong. ESGs don;t get the 2 free energy in each like they should. Others probably have problems.
4. The plasma arming gets confused.
5. There is no warning when you spend energy into the negatives.
6. There is no simultaneous reveal of movement for ships moving simultaneously.
7. When you drop tractor, the ships do not go back to their proper speeds, even though it says it does, and you need to force it to accept moves that it thinks are in error.
8. Some systems deduct energy, some don't. Always double check the energy to see it is correct.
9. And shield leaks don't work right. Usually, they do an internal but don't reduce the shield damage by 1. Also, when you reinforce damage above 10 to less than 10, it should leak, but doesn't.
If you got more, send them to Paul.
Also, I have a ton of improvements I know will never get in. Maybe I will share the list tomorrow.
As it is, sometimes I just wish there was a Cyberboard version for free,
I sent those, and more
to Paul. I also fixed the MHK def and sent that to him, so hopefully the corrected one will get uploaded to teh library before the next game.
Yes, I agree that the FCOL
Yes, I agree that the FCOL client does have a bunch of issues and quirks. I sometimes loose sight of how frustrating they can be since I know about most of them and can avoid them. Sadly, a lot of the issues stem from sloppy ship definition creation (as was mentioned above, I think folks never checked their work when they created some of the definitions). I'm happy to have more folks look it over and report issues to Paul.
Garrett
Oh, there is a new bug that
Oh, there is a new bug that causes the system box "Base Reactor" to not count as energy during EAF. This effectively makes all the bases unplayable since they start with zero energy (the user has to manually adjust the base's energy each turn). This was working fine and just recently broke (I reported it to Paul this morning). Sigh.......
Garrett
A few folks have asked, so...
here is a quick synopsis of my first game against Rikk Mast.
Me: Hydran - 2x Ranger, 2x Mohawk, 2x Stinger
Rikk: Tholian - DN, CC, DW
Turn 1, both speed 16. We close and since we will hit 16 on Impulse 8, I go EM starting Impulse 6.
Turn 2, both speed 16. I decide to allow him R15 shot, if he wants it. He did and fired on Impulse 1 at one Mohawk, taking the #1 down to 10 boxes (I re-enforced each shot) and doing 2 leak points. I launched my Stingers. Over the next couple of impulses, I chased and he crippled one of my Stingers. By the end of the turn, I got to range 3 on with my Rangers and uninjured Mohawk fired all but one ship (the previously injured Mohawk) with teh bearing fusions and phasers, doing substantial damage to his DW.
Turn 3, I moved 24 with the ships that fired, and 16 with the injured Mohawk and fighter. He moved 8. On impulse 1 I was at R0 with my Rangers, R1 with my uninjured Mohawk and R5 with the injured one. We fired. I blew up his CC, and all but blew up his DW (it was left with a couple internals). He did significant internals to, but did not cripple, one Ranger and the previously uninjured Mohawk. He killed my other Stingers as well. Over the next several impulses, My remaining Mohawk closed on his DN and fired at range 0 on impulse 5ish. It did 70ish internals that we did not roll. Consensus was playing it out would result in destruction of his remaining two ships with little additional damage to me.
FCOL Definitions for the Tournament
My Mohawk and Patrick Doyle's Lyran DN were poorly done defs. I have fixed them and sent them to Paul Franz for uploading. I did not do a full check on every box, but rather just fixed those things I noticed (or in the case of the DN, was told) were wrong.
If you are using any ship and the def is wrong, post here and I will fix what you tell me is wrong and send it to paul for uploading.
Paul wrote:
>>Me: Hydran - 2x Ranger, 2x Mohawk, 2x Stinger
Rikk: Tholian - DN, CC, DW>>
Huh. I haven't been paying that close attention to FC, but don't Rangers have more fighters than that? Even in FedCom? How does it work out that you only have 2 stingers? (i.e. I'm wondering how the tournament works in these terms and what you have instead of stingers in all those fighter boxes or whatever).
Not in Fed Com
Fed Com does not have the same S8 restrictions as SFB, so any Hydran can carry any number of fighters, up to its carrying limit (9 for the Ranger). I would loved to have built a Hydran fleet with all fusion ships and maximizing fighters. Unfortunately, the tournament rules (for this tournament, not the official tournament rules) restrict a player to 8 fighters. 8 fighters is too easily manageable (by an opponent), so I went the other route and took 4 full cruiser hulls then filled out my remaining points with fighters.
Huh.
That seems like, what do you say, a rule that is ripe for abuse. I suspect that you having 4 full cruisers as a result is, well, the result of that particular flaw in the tournament rules :-)
My force would be much better
if I was forced to follow S8. I would much rather have had a couple rangers and all 18 fighters, plus a gendarme and its 2 fighters (this was my intended fleet, 2x Ranger, 1x Gendarme, 20x Stingers) than the force I have now. So, yes, it was a "result" of a flaw in the tournament rules, but to the benefit of my opponents.
Also, in case you misread
S8 is not in effect in Fed Com at all in any way. In the standard Fed Com rules, Hydran ships and fighters are completely independent, other than the number of fighter boxes on your ships sets the maximum number of fighters. There is never a minimum number in Fed Com.
The rule, setting the limit at 8 Stingers in the tournament, thus prevents the fleet I wanted to bring, but no special tournament rule was required to allow the fleet I did bring.
The interesting thing to me in all of this
is what it says about Fed Com balance. ADB was extremely lazy in its haste to push Fed Com products out the door. They carbon copy ships, along with their BVP, into a new system with new rules, and just assume everything will be balanced. Even forgetting the a priori on this is false - namely that the BVPs in SFB are balanced - this has obvious flaws.
When they put it in a tournament where you use that BVP system to build your fleets, they unsurprisingly find it necessary to construct artificial (e.g. extra-rule) limits. No LDR. Limit of 8 Stingers, ect. It is a tacit admission that these things are not balanced, but a refusal to do the work to balance them (through either BVP or rules changes).
Of course the ultimate blame has to be put on Cole, but I think Mike West is a big contributor to the problem as well. Somehow the guy got himself appointed as Fed Com "rules guy", but he has no understanding of what is good for balance.
Anyway, it is what it is, but unless ADB listens to those few people who actually do know what they are doing, it is going to remain a borked up system.
Oh, Sure
Heh. I think a fleet of 2 rangers and 20 stingers probably would have been worse. But I also suspect that, like, 4 Hydrans cruisers that are are 100 points each 'cause you didn't need to buy fighters is also probably on the wrong side of balance. Don't get me wrong here--I'm not saying anyone did anything dubious here. I'm just questioning the tournament format.
So in general, if you are playing Hydrans in FedCom, you might have fighters, you might not have fighters, and the game does not rely on one or the other for balance. And if a Ranger has no fighters, does it just have, like, 9 extra shuttles?
Not a Tournament rule.
I don't think we are disagreeing, i just want to make sure you understand it is not a tournament rule that does this. It is Fed Com standard rules. So, your quote above - " I'm just questioning the tournament format" is confusing on this issue.
Normally, in SFB, I would agree with you that fighters are pointed about right and the Ranger is a bit under-pointed and thus the S8 requirement in SFB forces balance where there would not be balance.
In Fed Com, fighters are better than their points, so really if unrestricted you are better off having as many fighters as you can field for the points.
To answer your question, a fighter box on an SSD that has no fighter in it is just an empty fighter box. It does not get replaced with a shuttle (though Fed Com shuttles are as close to useless as they can be, so it would not really matter).
The real problem with the tournament format in Fed Com is the use of BVP at all. They should take the time to create sets of fleets, not allow the players to select them from BVP. Even if all I did was a first pass through for every race, I would create a list of fleets that would be a lot better balanced than using BVP. It would then take, as it did in SFB, years of tweeking to really get balance right.
Regarding fixed ship
Regarding fixed ship definitions, I have sent in to Paul Franz a bunch of Tholian ships that needed fixing (just so we don't duplicate work, I have sent in CA, CAP, CWL, DD, DN, PC, PCW, TK5, NFF) . I have also sent in a number of other missing ships. All are awaiting inclusion into the FCOL library in a future update (which will hopefully be soon, but I don't know when). I am also available to make ship definition fixes, just let me know what I can do to help.
I would also like to comment briefly on the tournament rules and balancing. I readily acknowledge that SFB (and tournament SFB in particular) is far more balanced that FC is (and likely ever will be). However, I think it is important to keep in mind that FC has far different goals than SFB. I think FC is more about having fun battles, enjoying the company of your opponents, and the spirit of the game. Even in this specific FC tournament setting, it's way more about fun than rules lawyering and "win at any cost" thinking. I ended up taking the lowest point fleet for the tourney, simply because I wanted to fly a ship I've never flown before because it sounded fun. Anyway, I certainly don't want to start any kind of debate, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I'm looking forward to making new friends in the upcoming battles.
Garrett
Here's the WYN problem list
None of this really qualifies as a simple definition change, but I'll throw it up here just to spell out
the problems. I sent in a bug report about the Drone mounts, but reinforcement can't hurt when it comes to a code change.
Pocket Battleship: Does not exist, either scale
Auxiliary Battlecruiser: Does not exist, either scale
CA: It has regular option mounts, should have the Drone mount (which is incomplete, see below)
CW, DD: Okay, but need the updated option mounts.
FF: Good.
AuxC: Good, in that the regular option mount contains everything available.
The real problem is that FCOL needs a back-end update that adds to the Drone mount.
It only has the original Phaser-1 and Drone options in it.
It can have, as of the latest rulebook: Phaser-1, Phaser-G, Drone, Drone (Federation version),
ADD, Plasma-D, Special Sensor.
Then there is the whole question of one ship having Foreign weapons in a fleet, and if they can
replace option or mounted weapons. Can a CA replace its disruptors with Hellbores, for example?
Or is it just limited to different options in the option mounts. And is it just one weapon total,
or one type of weapon total? (Example: Can an AuxBC use 1 or up to 4 Photons in its option mounts?)
For FCOL purposes it's far easier just to deal with the option mounts.
Annnnnnnd, in closing, are the WYN's limited to one Phaser-G per ship like the Orions?
Bunch of stuff I *could* ask on the FC forum, but, well, no thanks, I'll let a braver person do it.
You know, I didn't intend to become a WYN Standard Bearer, but trying to figure out a way to avoid getting my tourney fleet wiped out has focused my attention on the flaws.
Here is a link to the thread
Here is a link to the thread I started on the ADB forum to log the FCOL issues: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=3555
Let me know if I should add to or change any of them. Thanks,
Garrett
Paul wrote:
>>I don't think we are disagreeing, i just want to make sure you understand it is not a tournament rule that does this. It is Fed Com standard rules. So, your quote above - " I'm just questioning the tournament format" is confusing on this issue.>>
No, no, I got you. I meant "tournament format" in the sense of "whatever rules make the tournament go". It seems like that between the basic FedCom rules (that don't require fighters on ships that carry fighters) and the tournament rules (that are "buy a force with XBPV") result in things like the Hydrans bringing 4 cruisers. Which seems like both a good idea and about what will happen under rules like that.
Corrected Definitions have been uplaoded
Paul got the corrected definitions uploaded for the Mohawk, and Lyran DN and DW.
Sent to Paul
Tholian DD fixed squadron. Garrett, I see you had already sent one. Can I suggest you resend your fixed Defs to Paul or that you send them to me and I'll press to get them uploaded.
EDIT: Just spoke to Paul. He has them and will get them uploaded.
Great! Let me know if you
Great! Let me know if you need me to send you anything. Thanks,
Garrett
"if I was forced to follow
"if I was forced to follow S8. I would much rather have had a couple rangers and all 18 fighters, plus a gendarme and its 2 fighters (this was my intended fleet, 2x Ranger, 1x Gendarme, 20x Stingers) than the force I have now. So, yes, it was a "result" of a flaw in the tournament rules, but to the benefit of my opponents."
That woud have been illegal under normal tourney rules even before the 8 stinger rule - it is to many points. For those not aware, this online tourney provides a disount to some races to encourage their use, so it may have squeezed in.
Back when I was playing around with 2009 origins rules with a regular opponent I tried out the max stinger fleet, which I think was 2 mongols[edit - meant mohawks] and a gendarme with 18 stingers in a standard 450 pts. That was seriously hard to beat. I posted about this on the FC forum, and then noticed that in 2010 the rules changed to max 8 stingers. I wondered whether my post was related or not.
"Unfortunately, the tournament rules (for this tournament, not the official tournament rules) restrict a player to 8 fighters"
It is the official origins 2010 rules that limit to 8 fighters, this tourney is based on those rules.
2010 rules
Yes, I see that 2010 does have the 8 fighter rule in the official rules.
2 Mongols and a gendarme couldn't carry 18 fighters, so presumably you meant 2 Rangers and a Gendarme or 2 Mohawks and a Gendarme, both would be 446 points with 18 fighters.
In this tournament, Hydran get a BPV multiplier of .96, so 2 Rangers and a Gendarme with 20 fighters is 447.36.
Yes sorry - 2 mohawks. began
Yes sorry - 2 mohawks. began with M'' .. near enough same thing :¬)
Lee
Rhino Hunter Fixed
Email to Paul. Hopefully available for your next game.
-Paul
EDIT: The def was fixed, so you MC is now .5, not .66. There is nothing I can do on the def to fix the HB problem. Paul will have to deal with that in the interface.