Federation Commander

I did the test tonight. I did brief my friend on this experiment, so a big caveat is that this test wasn't under "true" battle conditions. Also, the dice were kinda freaky.

We basically started far apart and each plotted speed 16. We got to range 3 before declaring alpha strikes. Neither one of us wanted to fire at range 7 and allow the other guy to get closer to attack.

We fired all phaser 1s and all disrupters overloaded. The freaky thing was that ALL 12 OVERLOADED DISRUPTERS ON BOTH SIDES HIT!!!

Internal damage after batteries was 36 for the DN and 41 for one of the CMs. The DN lost 3 disrupters, 4 ph3, 5 pwr, 1 btty, 2 add, and all tractors. The CM lost 2 ph3, 3 ph1, 16 pwr, 2 btty, 2 add, 1 trac, and 2 frame. At this point, all drones were launched at each other. Since it was a simultaneus launch, the drones couldn't target each other and thus targetted the other ship. The DN targetted the fresh CM with 6 drones and the CMs targetted the DN with 8 drones. The DN repaired a disrupter and 2 hull boxes for extra padding and the wounded CM repaired a ph1.

Next turn, both sides declared speed 8 except for the crippled CM who declared speed 0. This may not have been the best tactics, but we were in a hurry and wanted to finish the fight since we didn't have a lot of time. The DN made a turn to get its 2 shield facing the CMs. The fresh CM had paid a point of acceleration and using a sidestep and move forward, was 1 hex away from the DN with his 1 shield facing the 2 shield of the DN. All drones had impacted. The CMs adds killed 2 drones and the CM used 2 ph1 and 2 ph3s to try and kill the remaining 4. 3 were killed and 1 impacted. The DN had 7 facing ph3s and 1 remaining ADD. He was saving his 7 ph1s for the CM. 6 out of 8 drones were killed, leaving 2 to impact. With no tractors left, the drones hit.

Both sides did their alpha strike. Again, all overloaded disrupters hit except the wounded CM missed with 1 out of 3 at range 3. The DN took 32 more internals through the 2 shield (+24 from drones) and the fresh CM took 41 (+12 from drones) through the 1 shield. Including previous damage, the DN was down 8 ph3, 3 disr, 24 pwr, 5 btty, and 3 add. The CM was down 2 disr, 2 ph3, 3 ph1, 15 pwr, 2 btty, 2 add, and 3 frame.

At this point both sides launched their drones again and we figured everyone would die in the resulting cataclysm.

I'd be interested to hear from the DN player and why he did what he did. Was he just trying to to get the game finished due to your short playing time and not really thinking about it much? From my perspective nothing he did seems to make sense. As I said earlier the DN has the edge but can't just snooze through the fight.

We basically started far apart and each plotted speed 16. We got to range 3 before declaring alpha strikes. Neither one of us wanted to fire at range 7 and allow the other guy to get closer to attack.

I'm assuming a starting range of 35, thats about where we start for a duel.

There is no real reason for the DN to charge in for a turn 1 O/L exchange. Relatively speaking he has a massive long range advantage. Either going speed 8 and/or tacking to the side in order to keep the intial exchange at range at 9-15 works far better for him, it leaves 1 CM usually taking a noticebly weakened shield for very little in return. We know that he is not manouverable enough to avoid a close range pass if the CMs want it, but that doesn't mean he just piles in without at least one longer range shot to weaken them.

Keeping the range open also gives him the drone advantage. You want 12 drones heading at the CMs before they get to fire O/Ls. Launching 6 on impulse 8 which cannot be immediately countered by CM drones, and then another 6 on impulse 1 of turn 2 leaves 1 CM facing 12 drones probably before he even reaches o/l range. If they launched 8 at the DN on turn 1 then they only have 4 drones left for counter drone. The CMs appear to want to get close, so they are speeding towards the 12 drones, whereas the DN is happy to keep the range apart, so they impact to late to launch another lot at the DN drones. The CMs either:

1)If range and speed allow, drop 4 existing drones, so they can launch 8 at the 12 incoming drones.
2)veer away with at least the targeted CM, that is preventing the CM doing what they want (close), and what the DN wants (stay at range).
3)Use weapons to kill drones, weapons/power defending rather than attacking.
4)take it like a man.
5)some combo of the above. Either way the CM player is left having to do something that interfers with his ability to close and alpha.

With an extra ADD and large numbers of ph3 the DN is more efficient at defending against drones coming at it. That doesn't mean you want to end so close that his first 8 drones will impact on impulse 1 next turn, and then be able to launch another 8 drones, that leaves you facing 16 drones in just a couple of impulses at the same time as dealing with close range overloads from the CMs.

Next turn, both sides declared speed 8 except for the crippled CM who declared speed 0.

OK, he's put himself in a bad position and been fairly unlucky on the damage results and taking noticeably higher than average damage. He's got 8 drones just an Impulse away, and another 8 waiting to fire as soon as they impact. 1 CM still intact and possibly closing. However, the situation shoud be easily retrieved.

It's not an unreasonable assumption that the damaged and intact CMs will seperate this turn. The DN can still get out 6 more drones (for 12 total) on the intact CM, and that CM will be in trouble at that point if he uses weapons to fire at you instead of defending himself, as the damaged ship can't help him. So if the DN can cope with the drone deluge he is still in a good position. Why is he going Speed 8!, he still has 50+ power (not sure how much battery was used). Go speed 16 and HET or speed 24 to turn and slip. Either way you can avoid the drones all turn after that, whilst seeing what happens to the intact CM and the 12 drones it has to face and leaving behind the knackered ship.

The other reason you want to go a bit faster is to minimise the damage you take at this point, by extending the range a bit. Don't worry to much about clobbering him with direct fire, One CM is badly damaged and can be left behind, the other will ideally follow and split from the other and get clobbered by 12 drones, or veer away from 12 drones or use a lot of firepower on 12 drones. Whatever he does he will struggle to seriously hit you without being hammered by drones. Look to be a good distance away next turn where his badly damaged CM can't do much, and the other has to take you on alone. Whilst we don't know what speeds the CMs will choose yet, we can make some guesses. The damaged CM will probably go speed 0 as he will want to get what may be his last volley in, and overload for max effect. The other CM will probably be wanting to overload as well, which limits him to speed 16 base. Declaring 24 should give you move advantage, guaranteed drone evasion, ability to keep a hex or 2 further out and leaves at least 14 power for battery and any extra.

At speed 24 you are guaranteed to out run the drones coming at you, if his good vessel goes speed 16 (or 8+) and closes to fire everything at full power he gets to range 2, gets hit by 6 drones, of which at least 2 and probably 3 get through on his front shield (either knackering it or doing internals). His 2 CMs then max out at 6 disr and 5 ph1, Assuming 5 disr hit then you are looking at about 20 internals after 12 battery. Then you launch the next 6 drones with the CM at range 2, with him having only 2 ADD left, and with the drones guaranteed to hit no matter what he does. He takes at least 24 internals from 4 drones on another shield. You still have 2 power left for possible ph1 pot shots. His most damaging option should leave his good ship a bigger mess than yours.

If his good ship decides to beat the first drones wave they can do so, but the DN is left essentially unscratched. At that point I may not even launch the second wave, instead opting to keep it until the end of turn so that you move back to an attack run with 12 drones again nect turn, if he has gone defensive then another 6 drones is not going to do much and will reduce you options next turn.

Either way, at the end of the turn you should be a good distance away (beyond overload), with a cripple out of the fight to a fair extent (barring long range pot shots), and you should be in a good condition relative to the good CM, who has to take you on more or less alone. Shield 1 will now have 10 points rotated back in, DC can bring back a couple of power.

I just want to know who 'whilst' and 'knackered' are. Actually, it's nice to see someone use words that make me think.

I was thinking the same thing while reading the duel. "Why would the DN do that!?" was my most prevalent thought. However, I've done very similar when I'm trying to get on to the real fight or my time is limited as well.

It goes to show that it isn't just die rolls or the size of your ship that determines the fight. I'm certain even a police corvette can take a DN if the DN is willing to let him.

storeylf wrote:I'd be interested to hear from the DN player and why he did what he did. Was he just trying to to get the game finished due to your short playing time and not really thinking about it much? From my perspective nothing he did seems to make sense. As I said earlier the DN has the edge but can't just snooze through the fight.

Yes, we were in a time crunch. I stated in my post that this wasn't a true battle test.

storeylf wrote: I'm assuming a starting range of 35, thats about where we start for a duel.

There is no real reason for the DN to charge in for a turn 1 O/L exchange. Relatively speaking he has a massive long range advantage. Either going speed 8 and/or tacking to the side in order to keep the intial exchange at range at 9-15 works far better for him, it leaves 1 CM usually taking a noticebly weakened shield for very little in return. We know that he is not manouverable enough to avoid a close range pass if the CMs want it, but that doesn't mean he just piles in without at least one longer range shot to weaken them.

Keeping the range open also gives him the drone advantage. You want 12 drones heading at the CMs before they get to fire O/Ls. Launching 6 on impulse 8 which cannot be immediately countered by CM drones, and then another 6 on impulse 1 of turn 2 leaves 1 CM facing 12 drones probably before he even reaches o/l range. If they launched 8 at the DN on turn 1 then they only have 4 drones left for counter drone. The CMs appear to want to get close, so they are speeding towards the 12 drones, whereas the DN is happy to keep the range apart, so they impact to late to launch another lot at the DN drones. The CMs either:

1)If range and speed allow, drop 4 existing drones, so they can launch 8 at the 12 incoming drones.
2)veer away with at least the targeted CM, that is preventing the CM doing what they want (close), and what the DN wants (stay at range).
3)Use weapons to kill drones, weapons/power defending rather than attacking.
4)take it like a man.
5)some combo of the above. Either way the CM player is left having to do something that interfers with his ability to close and alpha.

With an extra ADD and large numbers of ph3 the DN is more efficient at defending against drones coming at it. That doesn't mean you want to end so close that his first 8 drones will impact on impulse 1 next turn, and then be able to launch another 8 drones, that leaves you facing 16 drones in just a couple of impulses at the same time as dealing with close range overloads from the CMs.

We just closed in because otherwise the CMs could stay at around 20 hexes or so range and/or erratic maneuvers to minimize damage. We'd waste another turn to get the same effective result.

If the DN shot 12 drones over 2 consecutive turns at 20 range, the CMs don't even bother to close or launch drones. They run away and make the drones run out of endurance, leaving the DN at a disadvantage in drone numbers later in the fight.

We decided to skip all these preliminaries and go to the meat of the fight.

storeylf wrote: OK, he's put himself in a bad position and been fairly unlucky on the damage results and taking noticeably higher than average damage. He's got 8 drones just an Impulse away, and another 8 waiting to fire as soon as they impact. 1 CM still intact and possibly closing. However, the situation shoud be easily retrieved.

How has he been "unlucky" in damage results??? He got 6 overloaded disrupter hits out of 6 shots at 3 hexes range. He did much higher than expected damage. Given average damage, both sides take about 16 fewer internal damage points which actually would've benefitted the CM more since more of those last 16 hits were on "meat" and less on padding, whereas more of the last 16 DN hits were on padding. Given an imbalance in luck (let's say only 2 disrupters hit for the
DN), the DN could've been much worse off. Of course the luck could've swung the other way as well.

storeylf wrote: It's not an unreasonable assumption that the damaged and intact CMs will seperate this turn. The DN can still get out 6 more drones (for 12 total) on the intact CM, and that CM will be in trouble at that point if he uses weapons to fire at you instead of defending himself, as the damaged ship can't help him. So if the DN can cope with the drone deluge he is still in a good position. Why is he going Speed 8!, he still has 50+ power (not sure how much battery was used). Go speed 16 and HET or speed 24 to turn and slip. Either way you can avoid the drones all turn after that, whilst seeing what happens to the intact CM and the 12 drones it has to face and leaving behind the knackered ship.

If you move 24 or 16 with a HET, you're going to get 6 overloaded disrupters through your rear without effective retaliation. The 2 CMs have enough phasers to stop the drones without any problems. You'll likely have 2 down shields and even more internal damage. It may still be a good move, but it's not quite the no-brainer you're making it out to be.

The thing that has me thrown in this whole thread is that everyone seems to think the DN has an advantage and specifically some kind of drone advantage over the two CM's (keep in mind not taking one side or the other here). Yes the DN can control 12 drones and can launch 6 each turn. However the two CM's can also control 12 drones between them and whats more they have 8 racks between them not 6. This means that the two CM's have a higher throw weight (the number of drones they can deploy each turn) than the DN. This means that during a two turn period the two CM's need to deal with 12 drones and the DN needs to be able to handle 16 drones or to put it another way the DN needs to handle 12 drones and the two CM's only need to handle 8 drones between them.

Yes, we were in a time crunch. I stated in my post that this wasn't a true battle test.

Fair enough, I was reading the 'not true test' as a reference to the discussion on the tactics/thread, the time factor wasn't mentioned till later.

We decided to skip all these preliminaries and go to the meat of the fight.

All those prelimaries result in degraded CMs and a largely untouched DN. Non evasive range 20 is damage to CMs but no noticable return (due to battery effect). Evasive is using power that would have gone to weapons or movement, and still likely means damage as they close through 9-15. It also means signalling when you want to shoot an impulse in advance. Running 3 turns from drones means taking more damage from direct fire but not doing much back. Non of this damage is immediately decisive, but extra damage now means extra internals later.

How has he been "unlucky" in damage results??? He got 6 overloaded disrupter hits out of 6 shots at 3 hexes range. He did much higher than expected damage.

Sorry, my bad phrasing, I was referring to damage he had taken, not done. He took noticeably higher than average damage, and had been fairly unlucky in losing 5ph3, 3 disr, all tractor, 2 ADDs. Though the flip side was that he was left with little power damage, and in the position he was in I think I'd prefer power actually.

<<---Geeky/boring maths alert--->>
I'm extrapolating somewhat here from the report, so correct me if i'm wrong. Whilst we have to accept random chance, its part of what makes the game fun, it is worth understanding just how lucky or unlucky certain volleys were. You said the dice were freaky, but not how freaky, only emphasising the Disrupters.

The DN went speed 16 (24 power) fired all ph1 and disr on overload (31 power). He took 36 internals 'after batteries' which I took to mean the 7 remaining battery power. That is 51 shields basically, so he took 87 damage. 48 from a lucky disrupter volley, and 39 from ph1 which is an even more lucky volley than the disrupters! 6 disrupter have an 8.7% chance of all hitting, the chance of getting 39+ ph1 is only about 7.7%. The expected damage by the CMs was 66, so he did 21 over the expected damage. Doing 87 damage via what ever combination of hits/misses etc only occurs about once every 140ish volleys.

The CM took 41 internals, after 2 battery (the CM had the power for it, so I assume he used it) he took a total of 73 damage, 48 from a lucky disr volley and 25 from ph1. That is a really unlucky ph1 volley, less than a 2% chance of doing that little damage. The expected damage for the DN was 62, so he did 11 over expected. His total damage is good but not that uncommon, about every 7 volleys do that damage or more.

If I undertstand your turn 2 explanation, the CMs did a total 52 internals with the 2 drones added in. That is another good strike, through a 36 point shield, and 6 battery. That appears to be a 70 point strike from the CMs direct weapons, compared to an average of 60, not in the same category as turn 1 but still nice (about a 1 in 5 chance of that damage or greater). The DN was almost spot on average.

If you move 24 or 16 with a HET, you're going to get 6 overloaded disrupters through your rear without effective retaliation. The 2 CMs have enough phasers to stop the drones without any problems. You'll likely have 2 down shields and even more internal damage. It may still be a good move, but it's not quite the no-brainer you're making it out to be.

Either way, with the 5 out 6 hits you actually got the DN takes no internals (~28 damage after batteries on which ever shield). In order to do any internals at this point you have to throw in the phasers, which means taking more drone damage. The idea here isn't retaliation, its to extend the fight away from the crippled CM (and their drones) and let the other CM handle the drones, which are likely to 'retaliate' to some extent anyway. I'd prefer the speed 24 as it keeps a HET for later.

They didn't have enough phasers to stop the drones in the game you played, The CM took damage from the first 6, and after that had only 2 ADD/3 tractor left. The second ship couldn't help as the drones impact before he can fire. The first CM could use the other ph1s he kept back for the DN, but you didn't when you had a range 1 shot, preferring to shoot the DN instead, would you have held back because you had a range 2 shot instead?

Overall, and luck depending as ever, if the CMs go all out for the DN the CM probably takes more internals than the DN, if the CM goes all defensive, and use what ever can't help against the DN, then the DN probably takes more shield damage than the CMs, If you do as you did and go sort of half and half then the damage should be fairly even.

By the end of the turn the the DN is 20 odd hexes away from the crippled CM, I reckon at that piont the CMs are at a major disadvantage, as they can't operate together very well.


PS: If you are interested in taking this to the online game, then I may try and get used to the client, and even pay what ever it is to play it. I'm sure it could be an interesting game (and I assume a game can be saved so we don't have time forcing a rush).

storeylf wrote: All those prelimaries result in degraded CMs and a largely untouched DN. Non evasive range 20 is damage to CMs but no noticable return (due to battery effect). Evasive is using power that would have gone to weapons or movement, and still likely means damage as they close through 9-15. It also means signalling when you want to shoot an impulse in advance. Running 3 turns from drones means taking more damage from direct fire but not doing much back. Non of this damage is immediately decisive, but extra damage now means extra internals later.

Non-evasive range 20 is a few points of damage that gets rotated to the 2 or 6 shields. Evasive uses power, but as you correctly pointed out, you're not going to do significant damage anyway at that range. And if you drop evasive on the turn you decide to close, you'll get the close range engagement anyway. I'd take a few turns of 20+ range shots from the DN to burn off 12 drones if the DN launched that many.

storeylf wrote: Sorry, my bad phrasing, I was referring to damage he had taken, not done. He took noticeably higher than average damage, and had been fairly unlucky in losing 5ph3, 3 disr, all tractor, 2 ADDs. Though the flip side was that he was left with little power damage, and in the position he was in I think I'd prefer power actually.

The Disrupter hits hurt, but the ph-3 is padding. He chose ADDs instead of regular Drone racks like I would have done. He probably should've taken a frame hit instead of the last tractor, but he didn't think about it. As you said, if he had lost 10-12 power and fewer weapons, he may have been worse off.

storeylf wrote: <<---Geeky/boring maths alert--->>
I'm extrapolating somewhat here from the report, so correct me if i'm wrong. Whilst we have to accept random chance, its part of what makes the game fun, it is worth understanding just how lucky or unlucky certain volleys were. You said the dice were freaky, but not how freaky, only emphasising the Disrupters.

The DN went speed 16 (24 power) fired all ph1 and disr on overload (31 power). He took 36 internals 'after batteries' which I took to mean the 7 remaining battery power. That is 51 shields basically, so he took 87 damage. 48 from a lucky disrupter volley, and 39 from ph1 which is an even more lucky volley than the disrupters! 6 disrupter have an 8.7% chance of all hitting, the chance of getting 39+ ph1 is only about 7.7%. The expected damage by the CMs was 66, so he did 21 over the expected damage. Doing 87 damage via what ever combination of hits/misses etc only occurs about once every 140ish volleys.

The CM took 41 internals, after 2 battery (the CM had the power for it, so I assume he used it) he took a total of 73 damage, 48 from a lucky disr volley and 25 from ph1. That is a really unlucky ph1 volley, less than a 2% chance of doing that little damage. The expected damage for the DN was 62, so he did 11 over expected. His total damage is good but not that uncommon, about every 7 volleys do that damage or more.

If I undertstand your turn 2 explanation, the CMs did a total 52 internals with the 2 drones added in. That is another good strike, through a 36 point shield, and 6 battery. That appears to be a 70 point strike from the CMs direct weapons, compared to an average of 60, not in the same category as turn 1 but still nice (about a 1 in 5 chance of that damage or greater). The DN was almost spot on average.

If you move 24 or 16 with a HET, you're going to get 6 overloaded disrupters through your rear without effective retaliation. The 2 CMs have enough phasers to stop the drones without any problems. You'll likely have 2 down shields and even more internal damage. It may still be a good move, but it's not quite the no-brainer you're making it out to be.

Either way, with the 5 out 6 hits you actually got the DN takes no internals (~28 damage after batteries on which ever shield). In order to do any internals at this point you have to throw in the phasers, which means taking more drone damage. The idea here isn't retaliation, its to extend the fight away from the crippled CM (and their drones) and let the other CM handle the drones, which are likely to 'retaliate' to some extent anyway. I'd prefer the speed 24 as it keeps a HET for later.

They didn't have enough phasers to stop the drones in the game you played, The CM took damage from the first 6, and after that had only 2 ADD/3 tractor left. The second ship couldn't help as the drones impact before he can fire. The first CM could use the other ph1s he kept back for the DN, but you didn't when you had a range 1 shot, preferring to shoot the DN instead, would you have held back because you had a range 2 shot instead?

Overall, and luck depending as ever, if the CMs go all out for the DN the CM probably takes more internals than the DN, if the CM goes all defensive, and use what ever can't help against the DN, then the DN probably takes more shield damage than the CMs, If you do as you did and go sort of half and half then the damage should be fairly even.

By the end of the turn the the DN is 20 odd hexes away from the crippled CM, I reckon at that piont the CMs are at a major disadvantage, as they can't operate together very well.


PS: If you are interested in taking this to the online game, then I may try and get used to the client, and even pay what ever it is to play it. I'm sure it could be an interesting game (and I assume a game can be saved so we don't have time forcing a rush).

IIRC, the DN used 5 power from batteries to absorb damage. I don't remember if he used the extra to store or if he used a couple of accelerations. Average damage for a PH1 at range 3 is 4.3. 8 Ph1s is 34.7 damage, so 37 net damage is 2.3 greater than average. 7 PH1s is 30.3, so the DN did 5.3 less than average. It may have been mildly bad luck, but frankly bad luck on phasers is acceptable since the distribution is so narrow. If he had rolled what he did on the phasers with disrupters, he might have gotten only 2 or 3 hits (I don't remember the exact distribution of rolls). That would've left the CMs in a great position since the 2nd one would be largely intact.

As I said, having all disrupters hit for both sides was an advantage for the DN since more of its hits were on padding whereas at the end of the volley, almost every CM hit was on something important.

Just had an interesting variation of this scenario. My friend and I decided to randomly select races by pulling chits from a cup. I got the Romulans and he got the Federation. We each had 500 pts to build a fleet. I selected 2 firehawks and a king eagle for 498 pts and he selected a DN, NCA, and DW for 500 pts.

Turn 1, our fleets got to range 10 or so. I fired all PH-1 at the DW, knocking down most of its 1 shield. The Feds rolled poorly and only got a few damage on a FH which was absorbed by batteries. 7 drones were launched at the KE.

Turn 2, we both declare speed 24. I was afraid of his drones and he was afraid of plasma. We got to range 4 and blasted each other. The DW was a hex behind. I fired all PH1 and bolted all plasma (1 R, 4 S, and 6 F) at the DN and he fired 13 photons and lots of PH1 at a single Firehawk. This left both ships basically a gutted wreck. The DN had 3 photons, 1 PH1, and about 14 power left while the FH had NO weapons and 14 power left. 3 more drones were launched at the KE (fortunately all drone racks on the DN were killed). I turned away and managed to kill 5 drones with my PH3 and RX PH1 from my 2 ships. His NCA and DW turned to follow. The DN repaired 2 power and my FH repaired 1 PH1

Turn 3, I led the drones on a merry chase and used my PH3s to kill the rest of them. As our ships went past each other, he took down my 6 shield and killed a PL-F on the FH while I took out the 1 shield and did a handful of internals on the NCA. The DN repaired 2 power and the crippled FH repaired a PL-S.

Turn 4, he fired everything at the FH. Fortunately one of his ships was at a shield boundary and I was able to spread the damage. His DN managed to hit twice with photons from range 12 at my 4 shield. He took down both my 3 and 4 shields and did about 15-20 internals, but didn't get a torpedo. My KE did a HET and got a range 2 shot at his NCA with only 5 shields left on the #1. I shot 4 PH1 and 1 PH3, doing 22 internals. At this point, he conceded since the next turn would see the almost undamaged KE and lightly damaged FH with almost full Plasma vs a hurt NCA, an intact DW, and a DN on its last legs with all photons expended.

The key was the turn 2 exchange where I essentially traded a FH for most of a DN. The remaining FH plus KE was significantly better than the NCA plus DW.