DirkSJ wrote:mjwest wrote:One comment I can't let pass: Federation Commander is supposed to be fun and exciting. Plasma ballet is as boring as watching paint dry. The whole point is to be able to have a full battle in an hour or so. Running around waiting for your opponent to get bored and do something stupid is not a real tactic. It is also outright illegal in tournament where you basically have a hard time limit.
So, if the only way to make plasma work is to run around for 10+ turns waiting for your opponent to get bored and make a mistake, then that would qualify as broken in my book.
Note that this is not me taking a side. Just sayin' ...
Two folks from the "plasma is fine" side have made this their argument: Plasma is fine when you ballet and take 10+ turns. Will either of you or anyone else take the stance that plasma is fine in a 1 hour 3-5 turn game?
If not then, as I read MJW's post, plasma is not fine. If we aren't closing, maneuvering for best shot and blowing things up then we aren't playing FC. Flying around in circles for hours waiting for the perfect shot isn't FC.
There's a rule in AVT that says "rule disputes should be settled in favor of ships blowing up because this is a game about ships blowing up." I feel the same about FC.
The issue here is migrating to what people see FC as being about. I consider it to be pretty much everything I wanted from SFB.
FC does meet MWests criteria - you
can have a decisive fight in an hour or so. That doesn't mean every game or matchup has to go that way. If you want a fast game play a 1 vs 1 duel, or 2 crunch races against each other. But bear in mind even a classic klingon vs Fed duel can go on for way longer than an hour or so between good players playing seriously, does that mean there is something wrong with photons or disrupters? You can have a squadron level fight with 2 players in an evening, way faster than SFB.
So plasma are 'broken' because it takes time and patience and that is the 'only' tactic. Actually there are tactics like close and tractor. Of course that probably fails against a decent opponent.
You see a lot of people post that the way to win with Fed is to close and hose. There are other tactics, but they probably fail against decent opponents. Horror of horror! photons are broke, they only have 1 reliable general tactic.
In any given matchup each side likely has 1 clear overall stategy/tactic, there are other strategy/tactics available, but they are often risky and hence avoided by good players unless desperation calls. Plasma is no different to photons or disrupters in that regard. How far do you take the 'only' viable tactic defintion of broke? what constitutes viable - viable against all possible matchups, viable against only top class players, or more 'average' ones?
what classes as a tactic - what variation pushes a tactic to be different to another variation. take a rough guide to the 3 plasma games I played:
Rom vs hydran(w 18 stingers) - stay cloaked, bide time for the perfect time to uncloak with a given ship and fire 3 plasma at 3 stingers to guarantee 3 kills, I lost a snipe but killed enough stingers to win. tense game of patience and cat and mouse waiting for those moments whilst being whittled away under cloak by gatlings and fusions.
Gorn vs rom - expended all Plasma S to force the Rom CC to keep running wide and facing away, whilst phasers and plasma Fs achieved local fire power supremacy against 2 smaller Roms. Hardly a high scoring game, only 3 ships being 'damaged' at the end - but I won, even lanuched 3 plasma S at range 20-22 at one point just to bias a turning decision the Rom CC was about to make.
Rom vs Klingon - First half of the game ripple fired all plasma against 2 ships forcing them to run, and the third ran to avoid seperating. I Sscore damage as they run using phasers etc, then second half of game run, evade, cloak like a chicken, won as the klingon couldn't make up the points I scored in the first half in the remaining time.
Non of them were exactly fast and 'aggressive', all were low scoring. 1 involved me using the cloak limit to the hilt, the other running like hell for a couple of turns (after the other guy had run like hell for 2 turns it might be added - another point to consider when talking about legality, why woud it be legal to run that long just cos you have plasma chasing you, yet it be illegal when you have nothing useful to fight with until rearmed).
I maintain that there is no issue with plasma generally, the issue appears to be down either:
A) to the tourney setup itself favoring certain races (or indeed, maybe as much to do with peoples assumption as to how the other guy has to play a certain style even if it doesn't suit his race/weapon).
B) a desired style of play coloring opinions of how the game should play, and very subjective definitions of 'exciting'.
