Federation: NCL+ (add 2 Battery and change Breakdown to 5-6)
Looks fun and quite balanced, might be a little weak overall but at least it might still be able to move after firing it's first Photon volley!
Klingon: D5L (add 1 Battery, add 1 Shuttle, remove 2 Tractor)
Funky Disruptor arcs and 6 ph-1's, looks a tough and fun ship to play.
Romulan: KDR (remove 1 Tractor) possibly add a FX ph-1 and/or a single Trans, F/Hull or Control box.
Interesting ship with 2 S-Torps and 2 D-Torps(racks), very easily converted to tournament standards!
The Sparrowhawk class is obviously another option but requires significant changes to the base ship and is also very similar to its Firehawk big brother.
Kzinti: MCC (add 2 shuttles, add 1 Battery, remove 1 Tractor)
Super interesting ship that is totally different to it's big brother.
Gorn: HHD (remove 1 Battery, remove 2 Tractors)
The Hefty Heavy Destroyer would be a great true two-third mover plasma ship, looks very balanced and interesting to play.
Tholian: ATC
As per current tournament ship.
Orion: TBR
As per current tournament ship.
Hydran #1: APA (add 2 Shuttles, remove 1 Tractor) might also need to add a 360 ph-1.
Three Hellbores, two Fusions and no fighters make this an interesting option.
Hydran #2: BAR (add 1 Battery, give ship 4 Fighters).
The ship is weak but with four fighters it would be an interesting challenge to both fight and fly!
Andromedan: Krait
As per current tournament ship. (my preference is to bring back the TR-Heavies and remove 1 panel from the front PA's.
Lyran: LDR
As per current tournament ship.
Wyn: WAX
As per current tournament ship.
ISC: CL (remove two tractors)
Would be another interesting plasma option.
Cheers,
-Jason G
Some general comments
1. The 5 current CWs are left as is. Several of these - WAX, TBR and ATC are at the top end of the current non-CW TC pack. This means the other ships, if balanced, must also be similar to the non-CW TCs. But, most (not all) are weaker.
2. My general thought would be to make all the ships weaker: FED NCL, KLG D5, Rom SpH, Kzinti MCA, Gorn [Not Sure], Tholian NCL - etc. and make adjustments upward or downward from there. That way the CW tournament would be substantially different from the current Tournament (though certainly harder to balance than your route).
3. As a minor nit, I don't care for the selection of LDR to represent the Lyrans. Aesthetically, I'd prefer a Lyran.
In general I agree with Paul
In general I agree with Paul here. I'd prefer to see smaller/weaker ships that are fun and fast to fly. I'm really thinking about a completely different set of ships balanced to a different(weaker) standard. The two sets of ships would be completely incompatible. I'd have to pull SSD's out to really comment on the list that Paul provided, but I was certainly thinking that I'd start with a standard Fed NCL. I'll see if I can dig out my SSD's and make some suggestions this weekend.
CW's
Hmmmm........one of the reasons I like the Command style CW's is that the extra firepower leads to battles that are faster, bloodier and more fun to fly! (I think the current LDR ship is a great example of this). Whereas the basic CW's generally have less firepower; less phasers, plasma ships have one S-torp instead of two, and some ships have less than four disruptors etc
In general ships with equal move cost produce better games than battles involving ships with differing move costs IMO. So even though I think it's best not to mix the CW's in with the other tournament cruisers I think aiming for a strength level equivalent to the LDR and ATC would make for good fast paced bloody battles that have a different feel to the heavy cruisers.
Which of the listed ships do you feel is too weak to match the LDR or ATC?
-Jason G
I've played a lot of CW duels.
The very top end of the CW curve are already in the tourney set. If you want to see a 'monster' CW, look at the current Jindarian TCL or the Hydran TAR. The ISC CM TC that's already out there is about where we should be trying to balance things against.
Unlike the Move 1 ships, most of the CW ships fly very similarly. They run around very quickly with standards, they slow to a crawl when overloading, and they're exceedingly vulnerable to damage. (Most have fewer than 12 total hull boxes).
Too Week
Which of the listed ships do you feel is too weak to match the LDR or ATC?
1. All of the plasma ships, though that might never change since in a faster environment, plasma is just going to be weaker.
2. Additionally, The Fed, Klingon and Kz, could not, most likely, put up a fight against the LDR.
None of the ships (that do not come from the original tournament) listed would have a chance against either the Orion or the WAX. Those two, in particular, are already at the top end of the standard TCs.
I am Surprised!
Wow, I was thinking that that Gorn ship looked really powerful and might even be too strong.......strange?!
I'm also very surprised that you see the Fed, Klink and Zin as weaker than the LDR, I'm confused.
-Jason G
BTW all the ships I listed can be viewed on SFBOL by starting a standard game offline and adding the ships to the map.
gorn
How is 1 S and 2 Fs too strong?
The plasma CWs are crap. Unmitigated Crap. OK... they are mitigated by the fact the one is modular and one converts to its NCA very cheaply in F&E.
In SFB.... those ships suck eggs.
The D5 should NOT get the K refit... its already a sick ship.
the Battle Raider, the LDR, and the Tholian CW all need to be tweaked downward.
Don't even get me started on the Hydran CWs.... I dunno how you balance them.
If you give me 2/3 move and 3 HB I'm not sure I could ever lose. Give me 6 St-IIs and I KNOW I'll never lose.
Gorn CW
The Gorn Ship I listed is the Hefty Heavy Destroyer, it has 2 S and 2 F torps and looks pretty strong imo.
A good way to look at the ships listed is to open a standard game on SFBOL then add the various ships, then you can easily use the tabs to flick back and forth to compare the various CW picks.
Cheers,
-Jason G
This ball hasn't rolled very far, eh?
It looks as though we may not be designers after all!
Whee!
Took the Kzin MCC out for a spin vs Sir Hoods Fed CLC, and am having a blast!
Drones are much the same, but with a pair of ADD's to pad them, its great. The phasers are totally opposite, with 6ph1, and ZERO ph3 to sheild them... I would love to get a set of these worked up, it would really liven up the the ship selection.
Ball! Make it Roll!
Ok, well, these ships are fun. We talk the talk the talk, lets get this going. We need to do all the work basically because ADB is done with SFB.
Ball is rolling!!!
Barry Kirk is working with me to put a CW Tourney ship for each race on SFBOL. So far we have a Fed, Klingon and Kzinti. Barry is volunteering his time but we are getting through the SSD's at a steady rate!
For the sake of simplicity each ship has the same special features as its big brother, ie. The Fed has 8 points of free overload power, the Klink and Zin each have a Scatter-Pack and Drone points as per their big brothers.
Any playtest reports can be posted here and would be much appreciated! Good ships to test the new CW tourney ships against are the ATC and LDR as these are equivalent in power to what I am aiming at.
Cheers,
-Jason G (Sir_Hood)
Thanks Barry and Jason
for making the ball roll. Man, that Andy Koch is a real taskmaster!
Lets fight then.
I am free this Friday morning early Jason, lets take some CWs out for a spin.
Sounds good to me!!
Sounds good to me!!
oops.
sorry Jason. Turns out I was not free.