Re: [FT] FB2 Balancing Corrections Proposed

> Brendan Pratt wrote:
>
> [Difference between 6x4 and 8x4 ft tables]
>
> >>Allows a bit more time for acceleration, but no more lateral space
> >>to dodge in than a 6x4 table (assuming the fleets set up at the
short
> >>edges of the table). I'm not sure the difference between a 5ft wide
> >>table and a 4ft one is that critical (cf. the previous report where
> >>the 1500-pt Phalon fleet got virtually annihilated for only light
NAC
> >>losses on a 8'x5' table), but it does make it harder to dodge than
> >>on my 120x100mu table (equivalent to 10'x8'4"for you
> inch->>measurers) :-/

Of course the ship selections and loadouts may have played a part in
this
battle? - and of course the relative skill levels of your opponent and
yourself too.
My comments have been oriented around the disparity between weapon
effectiveness' from race to race. Tactics are always going to be a
contributing factor in the outcome of any given battle - I have played
tournament type wargames for 22 years now - including Evil Empire (TM?)
and
have won most of the tournaments I have entered - stated for the record
as I
believe that any battle I play using the Phalons; or indeed any battle
in a
competition I run, the results will be the same - Phalon or Sa'Vasku
victroy
every single time. To combat what I see as an improper imbalance in
technologies, I am introducing some specific tournament alterations to
the
Sa'Vasku and Phalon rules for Cancon 2001 - Beth Fulton contacted me off
list and I will send her a copy of said mods and she will circulate them
for
comment.

> >
> >As a generalisation, I would suggest that 8 x 4 playing
> >surfaces are more commonly in use than larger alternatives -
> >only said as I have played tournament style games since
> >1980 and have played in 5 countries.
>
> 9x5 (table tennis table) is the "recommended standard size" for 25mm
> games in several ancients/medieval rule sets, but no doubt the
ancients
> crowd claim all those tables for themselves <g>

Our ancients players do indeed horde the 8x5 tables - we have however
used
8x5 tables in test play - the results were exactly the same, although
games
did sometimes play longer - it often depended on how good the Phalon was
a
anticipating his opponents moves - however, we still saw most of the
victories go to Phalon or Sa'Vasku on any sized table regardless of who
played the forces.

>
> Not sure if Alan forwarded my recent NAC/Phalon battle report to you
> (1500 pts per side on a 96x60 mu table), so I'll risk repeating myself
> about it. My (Phalon) opponent initially thought of this
> (comparatively) small table as "duelling with assault rifles in a
> prison cell", but I (flying the NAC) had no difficulties keeping my
> ships more than 12mu away from the Phalons until I had killed enough
of
> them to safely outgun them even at point-blank. In the end the Phalons
> were massacred - they lost 1275pts destroyed, and the one CL which
> escaped had only two hull boxes and very few working systems left -
> while the NAC only lost a CE, three escorts and a fighter squadron
(491
> pts) with a DD being crippled (FCS lost) and the BDN needing its
entire
> pattern of kill-marks re-painted (not just the three new Phalon ship
> symbols :-/ ).
>
> In spite of my opponent's initial hopes, this was no different from
our
> battles on the large (120x100mu, and floating edges) table. Narrowing
> the table further and increasing the fleet sizes, eg. to 48mu and 2750
> pts <g>, would probably help the Phalons - but would it really be
> enough to turn the above rather one-sided slaughter *by* the NAC *of*
> the Phalons into its exact opposite?

see above

> >We are testing the rules very intensively with about 20 players at
our
> >twice weekly club meetings - there are a number of players at any
> >given skill level, all of whom have expressed the same strong
> >opinions about certain aspects of both Phalon and Sa'Vasku weaponry.
>
> After how many battles each? IIRC, in your post to Jon you mentioned
> about 30 battles in total (using all three of the alien races), but
> with twenty players that doesn't give each individual that many
chances
> to try out counter-tactics... it does take a bit of time to adjust
from
> anti-human to anti-Phalon thinking

At the time of the post, these were the 30 battles specifically relating
to
the new races against the old whose results I had access to at the time
of
the posting - many more similar results since then :-)

 > >>That said, the tactics needed to defeat the Phalons are
> >>quite different from those effective against the FB1
> >>designs (and against most custom designs you can build
> >>with FB1 technology).

agreed

> One of the more subtle differences is the range vs arc one. When
> fighting the FB1 human fleets, being in the right fire arc
(preferrably
> in the target's (Ax) arcs while keeping it in your own (Fx) arcs) is
> generally more important than the range at which you fight, since both
> sides' firepower drop of at roughly the same rate. The Phalons OTOH
> don't care much about which fire arcs your ships are in thanks to
their
> numerous all-arc weapons, but the *range* your ships are at is
> absolutely critical to them.

agreed whole heartedly

> Conversely a human ship doesn't care from which arc(s) attacking
> fighters approach since all its PDSs and B1s are all-arc, but most
> Phalon ships don't have the same PD strength all around (the
> Vlath-class SC is the only published exception). A fighter squadron
> hitting a Ptath-class "battleship" (really a battledreadnought if you
> look at its combat power) on the nose is faced by up to 7 Pulsers
> firing in PD mode; if instead it attacks up the Ptath's tailpipes it
> only has 2 Pulsers to worry about.

my own opinion is that you never ever have enogh PDAFs available against
any
opponent (big grin>)

> >Granted that you argument does hold lots of water - My
> >main counter is that two players of equal skill are not going
> >to have similar results over a number of battles
>
> Like the 35 playtest battles I and my main opponents fought, you mean?
> <G>

I can't comment there as I do not know you or your opponents - any
answer
would be foolish - play testing is a touchy subject, we (the Canberra
Game
Society) play tested B5 Wars for Aog and I felt we didn't do enough,
even
though we played 23 games and wrote copious notes - the game changed
dramatically from what we tested to what went to print and was much more
playable - I also tested material for the ADB during my Star Fleet
Battles
days - much of what went to print was poorly tested as only a few angles
were looked at. Perhaps the arguement I am trying to make revolves more
around the nature of tournament play and the introduction of new
rules....

>
> Two players of equal skill won't get similar results over a large
> number of battles provided at least one of them varies his/her
tactics,
> but it wasn't clear from your what different tactics and tricks the
> non-Phalon players tried. It was quite clear that the Phalon players
> *didn't* vary their tactics, but they were winning so they had no
> incentive to change anyway.
>
> >>Jon had a whole bunch of posts he was going to forward to you. Did
> >>you recieve those?
> >
> >Not yet - Alan Brain forwarded yours originally.
>
> Hm. Jon said to forward 'em all to you about a month ago... I'll see
if
> I have any of them saved somewhere.

Please do - I would like to read them

> >One other comment is that the Phalon plasma bolts don't
> >worry me anywhere near as much as the Sa'Vasku.
>
> I'm not surprised - the SV worry me as well.

> A couple of other questions:
>
> * Does your group use player-designed ships, or only the published
ones
> from FB1? (During the FB2 playtesting Alan said something about him
> very rarely using custom designs, though it does sound a bit curious
in
> light of his ST-to-FT conversions... Alan?)

FB1 and 2 only - we have too many min/max players to enjoy the endless
array
of optimised ship that would be thrown up if we played much self
designed
material (unless one party designed the ships and another party used
them).
 Many of our players have a strong Car Wars background and every week
saw
monsterous new designs often spawned by the latest Autoduel Quarterly -
such
arms races can get tedious and it then becomes fun to try to play within
the
limits laid down by the pre designed fleet books ( you probably have
some
idea of what I'd do with the FSE to redesign them :-}).

>
> * If you do use custom ships, have you flown human ships with weak
> hulls, massive armour and armed mainly with Class-1 beam batteries
> (with some missile or WG/NC backup)? With what results?
>

Close range set pulsers are better :-)

> The following three designs were offered to the IF admiralty by the
FSE
> designer Georgios Phallandros in 2182 AD (standard FB1 design rules):
>
> Voss-class SDN
> TMF 283
> NPV 999
> MD2
> FTL
> Weak hull (57)
> Armour 25
> Level-1 screen
> 5 FCS
> 66 Class-1 batteries (All)
> 12 SMR-ER (3xAP/FP/F, 6xFP/F/FS, 3xF/FS/AS)
>
> Ptah-class BDN
> TMF 161
> NPV 511
> MD4
> FTL
> Weak hull (32)
> Armour 8
> Level-1 screen
> 3 FCS
> 42 Class-1 batteries (All)
> 4 SMR-ER (FP/F/FS)
>
> Tulip-class BC
> TMF 94
> NPV 324
> MD4
> FTL
> Weak hull (19)
> Armour 6
> Level-1 screen
> 2 FCS
> 18 Class-1 batteries (All)
> 3 SMR-ER (FP/F/FS)
>
> After taking a single look at the blueprints, the IF High Admiral went
> into a fit and accused Mr. Phallandros of being an NRE agent
attempting
> to weaken the Federation. Indeed, Mr. Phallandros's very life was only
> saved by the FSE ambassador's presence; the diplomat calmed the High
> Admiral by testifying that Mr.Phallandros was in fact an FSE citizen
> living in Paris.
>
> If you had been the IF High Admiral, would you have bought the above
> designs instead?

If I understand your question - no, but I and several other players have
made an art form of using and defeating SML's - including the aptly
named
banzai jammers - ask Alan Brain about the 1999 Cancon tournament when he
was
using a NSL missile fleet.....

<snip>

Many thanks for the return posting Oerjan - keep them coming.

Brendan