R vs B Alliance Turn 5 in Review

by on November 12, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

After the failures in my efforts to keep the Coalition from just disrupting everything in sight, it should be no surprise that income was down again. Kzinti income dropped another four EP from 63 to 59, while Hydran income dropped nine points to 40.

The Kzinti scrapped a Lyran DW that was captured in the Coalition portion of the turn to raise another 1.5 EP. Production was limited, consisting of a CV group, an extra MEC (to replace one lost last turn), BC, FF. Repairs were even more limited, adding up to less than last turn’s. However, that repaired all the crippled escorts and a good number of regular ships, so the backlog is slightly better. I also repaired and converted a captured D5 to Kzinti technology. It would probably been better to wait until money was flowing in from the Federation, or the repair backlog is clear, as the conversion is not necessarily cheap (3 EP). But having it sit there for two turns has been bugging me, so that irritant is gone. If we were using the EW rules in Combined Operations, I would have sacrificed quite a bit to get it in service and converted to a D5S. A good heavy EW platform for the Alliance is worth quite a bit in the early going under those rules.

Meanwhile the Hydrans had even tougher decisions to make. Turn 5 is when the first Cavalier carrier is scheduled. Hydran carrier groups tend to be somewhat weak in ComPot, but they protect valuable fighter-carrying ships from harm. I wanted to build the CV, but with 10.5 fighter factors, it has a cost of 31 EP, slightly over 3/4 of the Hydran income. Free fighter factors reduce this to 19 EP, but that was still too much to be able to afford the escorts, much less more prosaic things like repairs. So I canceled the entire group, repaired a few things (pretty much everything with fighter factors), and built DG, 2xHR, and two PDUs on the homeworld.

Operationally, the main plan had been to visit the Lyran MB in 0902 and kill it before the conversion to a BATS completed. However, the arrival of three sets of tugs with PDU/MB pairs at 1001, 1202 and 1504, and four Klingon reserves in Kzinti space caused an entire re-think of the prospect.


Kzinti front


Hydran front

Combats:
1601: Klingon: dest F5
1507: Klingon: dest cripF5, cripE4, BATS; Kzinti: crip CL, FF
1506: Klingon: dest F5; Kzinti: capture planet
1303: Klingon: crip D5
1504: Klingon: dest 2xTGB, crip D7, 2xD6, 5xD5; Kzinti: dest DF, crip CV, CC, BC, MEC, 2xCLE, 2xEFF, FF
1202: Klingon: crip D6V, F5, 2xE4A; Kzinti: crip CC, DD, 2xFF
1302: (Fighting Retreat) Klingon: crip D7
0819: Klingon: dest E4
0419: Klingon: crip E4; both sides retreat to 0418
0418: Klingon: dest cripE4
0519: Klingon: dest 2xcripF5L, cripF5, F5
0416: Lyran: crip 2xBC, CC, 2xCA, CL, 2xDW dest TGC, 3xCW, 3xDW; Hydran: crip HR, dest HR, 2xLN, CR
0417: Lyran: crip DW; Hydran: dest crip HN

Things did not really go as planned. Mostly because the dice decided to be disagreeable and the Kzinti failed the initial approach battle at both of their major battles. The Hydrans rolled lower than the Lyrans in all four rounds at 0416 (and the pursuit), which forced them to expend the stored fighters of the FCP just to get that far. In all cases casualties were higher than hoped simply because of the trouble in getting to the target. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t even roll the 3 or higher I needed to kill a lone D7 in a Fighting Retreat.

However, two Klingon and one Lyran tug are dead. He’s only built four since the beginning of the game (after missing them the first turn, he’s been building at the max rate of 1/year), so it will be much harder to pull this ‘four simultaneous sets of bases at once’ trick.

I had tried to distract the Klingon reserves by striking at Klingon space itself again, but he ignored it, letting me take out a BATS and (temporarily) capture the neutral zone planet. If I can keep doing that, he’ll run out of BATS and become especially vulnerable to having the supply grid in Kzinti space disrupted….

And now, I sit tight and wait for the coming storm. I’m pretty certain that there won’t be a turn 7 invasion of the Federation this game, so I’m presumably going to facing everything he can throw at me on the upcoming turn 6, and turn 7 after that will be worse. The Federation will interfere on Turn 7, but the 4th Fleet reserve won’t be able get to the Kzinti capital….

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Vassal Update 4

by on November 7, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Okay, the new version of the F&E Vassal module has turned into quite an undertaking. For some reason, I’ve decided work through just about every idea I’ve had for the module and not gotten to, and put them in the upcoming 1.3.

With any luck I won’t need to do this again for quite a while, because this is certainly the biggest update I’ve had in ages. Certainly, it has the longest feature list of any update I’ve done.

Anyway, last week I put in just about every legal heavy fighter carrier conversion outlined in (530.221), and not just the couple of ‘common’ ones that actual counters have been provided for.

Now, I’m redoing all the HDWs. I went with the AO route originally, just general counters with a box that marked what mode they’re in, but not actually giving specific stats. That saved me a lot of effort, and since the module didn’t give the combined total in the stack viewer at that point, it had minimal effect. Now, I’m providing a separate counter for each legal mode. I’m also putting in a sub-menu that allows quick switching between modes.


Who do you want to be today?

So, anyone who’s waiting for the ISC War update, sorry for the delay, as all these extra things I’m doing are pushing back the release of that. The good news is the delay has given me time to notice a couple things hidden away in the rule book to put in the module, such as overlays for the new provinces the Romulans and Gorns annexed at the end of the General War.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Pony Tales Episode 1 – Evening Flight, Part 1

by on November 1, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Posted In: RPGs

Well… where to start…?

A few months ago, all four of us here became aware of a show that’s doing quite well outside it’s normal demographic: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Dave in particular has really taken to it, as it’s done a lot to help raise his spirits, and he went so far as to write an RPG based on the show, using a trimmed down version of the Open D6 system. Of course, once Pony Tales was done, several of his friends started asking ‘so when’s the game?’

Of course, he’d done it more as an intellectual exercise, but it’s hard to say ‘no’ when people are coming up with characters on you. So Saturday night, six of us got together to adventure in the Valley of Heart’s Delight, a march on the southern edge of Equestria.

I’ll admit, I’m the one who wasn’t entirely prepared. I like the series, but my mental space has been elsewhere for the past month or two, and inspiration was not striking. Still, I have a basic feel for Marathon, Postal Express pony.

We also had Windshear (Baron) a pegasus who works for the coastal patrol, Astra Rose (Lance) an unicorn surveyor, Trot “Tongs” Ironhoof (Dusty) an earth pony mechanic/blacksmith, and Silver Tuppence (Smudge) the unicorn accountant for the Marquis in charge of the valley.

The story started the morning after Nightmare Night; Abendstern [Evenstar], the youngest daughter of the Marquess had gone to attend a party in nearby Ponyford. That morning, she and her two guards had not been heard from at the Marquis’ castle and Silver Tuppence was tasked to find the missing daughter as quickly as possible.

This will be the boring version of the session; we have a group full of quick-witted people, and various silly lines and shared geek-culture references zipped by all night. But, most of them were highly situational, and my mind has retained hardly any of the byplay.

Going down to Ponyford, Tuppence met two ponies who have had dealings with the household before; Astra Mare had been party hopping herself in Ponyford, and Marathon, who was delivering a new surveyor’s scope to her (and having been out flying the previous night, he was possibly the only non-hung over adult in the town). Tuppence questioned Astra about the parties last night, but she didn’t know much beyond seeing the guards… drinking, possibly heavily.

A quick scouring of the center of town followed. Astra used her magical talent to send materials to manage to locate a piece of one of the guard’s armor… up in a tree. With pegasi, and unicorns who can use telekinesis around, there’s plenty of ways it could have gotten up there. As I flew around, I noticed that it seemed like the number of gryphons that attended last night’s party was perhaps unusually high. The bit dropped, and I checked out the tree again, and there was indeed a gryphon feather there, dyed red.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Gallopston (the major town on the coast, and the next stop down the rail line from Ponyford), Windshear and Tongs were having encounters with the missing guards. They didn’t know where they were (well, until told), how they got there, or… where Abendstern was. They could remember her meeting up with a unicorn mare, and the two of them buying the guards some drinks… but nothing past that. After some time figuring things out, Windshear and Tongs set out with the guards for Ponyford to figure out just what’s going on.

After the two mini-parties met up and started exchanging notes there were a few avenues to explore. It eventually occurred to us to ask, and then the two guards realized that their memories from last night didn’t just fade into a drunken haze, but more just stopped. A check at the train station ticket window revealed that somepony matching the description of the mare who joined Abendstern last night had bought a ticket for a couple stops down the line. Cue traveling music.

Tracking her down once we were there took a little effort (Astra kept digging herself in deeper), but we eventually got to where she lived on the outskirts of town. Midnight (as her name turned out to be) was very startled, and a bit scared to see a large group arrive, with the guards in tow. Desperately explaining, “It was just a little prank!” it turned out that that this unicorn’s magical talent is good for putting ponies to sleep. She had agreed to help Abendstern get away from her escort for a little while (…which she has been known to do before) by knocking them out, and putting them on the train for Gallopston. Presumably, she was still going to return to the castle on her own the next morning; the last Midnight had seen of her was as she boarded the train to go home, and Abendstern stayed behind in Ponyford… with a griffon named Little Claw that had helped with the plan.

That prompted a trip to the Marchioness’ family lands in wine country. Abendstern naturally spends some time there, and it attracts a number of griffon workers in during “Griffon Summer”, which in the valley is the period just before Nightmare Night. It turned out that Little Claw was employed there (not very successfully), and is something of a misfit, he hasn’t done well at the winery, for a while he was interested in a group of young toughs that celebrate the more belligerent ‘warrior past’ of the gryphons (who like to dye their feathers with red ochre in imitation of old practices), and Abendstern was one of the few griffons or ponies who spent any time with him.

This led us to the Marquess’ castle. Most of the party checked on what Abendstern had been doing, while Marathon and Windshear flew off to check with a nearby Griffon community about Little Claw. He indeed did come from there. He hadn’t been home for a little while, but as he’d been working at the winery, that was normal.

Our return to the castle from that trip pretty much ended the night, as a couple of us were already fading fast. But there were a couple last things: checking with the palace staff revealed that Abendstern’s friend Midnight had visited her quite often lately. Midnight had given us the impression that they didn’t know each other that well…. And a quick check into Abendstern’s finances showed that she had been saving a fair amount of her stipend… and that she had recently cleared out her bank account.

In all, we all had a great time, and everyone had something to do. I contributed most to the early part of the session, where I think I asked a couple pertinent questions. Baron and Lance are somewhat stealing the show, but they’ve got the quick wit for that to happen quite naturally. ^_^

[Smudge, comment nit-picks on this! I want to clean it up a bit. 😛 ]

└ Tags: , ,
2 Comments

Gentlemen—The Great Experiment

by on October 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

One of the problems that Star Fleet Battles has struggled with for… decades by this point, is electronic piracy. While the game is complex, the components are simple, and ever since the rise of BBSes, there have been problems with copies of SSDs being traded around on the net. Since most products in the line are vehicles for presenting new ships, that is is a problem for ADB’s bottom line, and the root cause of their generally anti-electronic stance, which has thawed somewhat recently.

This Tuesday, ADB made a PDF version of the Basic Set SSD book available through e23 for $7.50.

Traditionally, SSDs are photocopied by players for use in the game. Today, a lot of people have spent a fair amount of time scanning their SSDs in so that it easy to print out what’s needed on a moment’s notice. Now, there’s a way (for a few, but common, ships) to be available for printing out without going through that time, and without needing a scanner. And of course, the quality is very good, since this is straight from the electronic file that generates the printed book.

However, Steve V. Cole writes:

“We are considering the idea of putting most of the SFB SSDs on e23. However, there is concern over piracy. There is also concern over sales. Frankly, how well basic set sells (and how much trouble we have with pirates) will determine if any others are ever uploaded. If you want the SSD book for module this or that, buy the basic set one if you’re serious.

“This is the current version. Not every SSD has necessarily been updated with the most recent bells and whistles such as advanced shuttles and crawford boxes. We will do that when we have time (new products come first) and you’ll get the update free.

“I always resisted putting stuff on e23 because of pirates. We have had 10 times as many pirates since e23 as before, and for exactly the reason I predicted (you don’t have to scan a copy to upload it). Joel spends at least a day a week hunting pirates and demanding that the files be taken down. Sales have been steady but I had been led to believe (by those of you who campaigned for this stuff) that we’d be selling five times as many.”

So, if you think this is a good thing for ADB to be doing, discourage piracy when you see it, spread the word that this PDF version is for sale, and of course, consider if it is worth $7.50 to you.

I will also note, that the Basic Set SSDs are missing a few features compared to more recent ones.

SVC has gone on to write about that:

“Steve Petrick, intrigued by my incremental way of doing some tasks, has agreed to update one SSD per day until they’re all done. (This won’t happen on some really busy days, or days he is not here, but then some days he might do two or them.) Today he actually did the first six. Counting the front page as done, that’s 7/48.”

If you have an e23 account when you buy the PDF, you will automatically be informed when an update is posted.

└ Tags: , , ,
2 Comments

R vs B Coalition Turn 5 in Review

by on October 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Turn 5 is never pleasant for the Alliance. There’s been plenty of time for the Coalition’s material and economic superiority to be felt, and there’s another two turns until the Federation gets involved, one way or another. However, last turn’s twin capital assaults did a lot of damage… to the Coalition fleets, and it was possible I was looking at a respite because of that.

The relatively low number of things to spend EPs on means Belirahc is still trying to find things to do with the Lyran economy. The Lyrans overbuilt another 3 DWs this turn (they also overbuilt 3 on turn 3), and he’s finally taking the Lyran ability to convert catamaran to trimaran ships seriously. He also accelerated next turn’s CA, which leaves me wondering what he’ll do next turn….

The Lyran mobile base in 0902 is now set up, which finally puts most of Kzinti space in supply range of Lyran units. He immediately paid to upgrade it to a BATS, and paid for two PDUs. From our conversations, he’s obviously planning on handing planet 1001 over to the Lyrans and setting up the PDU there.

Meanwhile Klingon production is fairly boring, other than the fact that they built three PDUs of their own.

Movement concentrated entirely in the Hydran theater at first, before switching over to Kzinti space. Not entirely sure of his intentions, I mostly stayed on the capital, with only minimal defenders on the two remaining starbases. While he didn’t go for the capital, he is pressing into the backfield, and the link between the Old Colonies and the capital, which I did my best to defend against. He also gave me a couple of small opportunities. A stack of crippled Lyrans passed back out of Hydran space, and I pinned one with the fighters of a BATS they were passing near. After everything else was committed, he moved a Lyran DD into 0816, possibly meaning for the Lyrans, instead of the Klingons, to claim the province. I detached a RN from the captial to squash that.

Kzinti space got very messy as he finally started trying to disrupt the provinces that he was unlikely to be able to control (such as the one the Kzinti capital is in), and tried to cut off the Marquis area from the main grid. This was a problem for me, as I didn’t have much in the Barony to react with, and some of the action was out of range of the capital, leaving me to dole out ships from the fleet sitting on the major planet in 1502. By the ending parts of movement, I was surprised when he actually sent Lyran and Klingon forces into the capital, I had managed to convince myself that this going to be a purely regrouping turn.


Kzinti front


Hydran front

Combats:
0114: Hydran: dest BATS; Lyran: crip DD, 2xFF
0315: Hydran: dest BATS; Klingon: dest 2xE4
0515: Hydran: dest BATS; Klingon: crip F5
0714: Hydran: dest BATS; Klingon: dest F5
1303: Kzinti: crip CL
0415: Hydran: fighters (independent squadron); Lyrans: dest cripFF
0816: Lyran: dest DD
1701: SSC; both sides retreat.
0117: SSC; Hydran retreat.
0215: Hydran: dest SB; Lyran: crip STT, 3xCW, CL, DW
0519: Hydran: 2 PDU, crip AH; Klingon: crip 2xF5L, 2xF5, capture planet
0716: Hydran: dest HR, SB ; Klingon: crip D6, 5xD5, dest 2xD5
0319: Lyran: dest CW, DW
0718: Hydran: crip HR, 2xTR, dest HN; Klingon: crip E4, E4A, dest 2xD7, D6, dest E4
1301: Kzinti: dest CLE, EFF; Klingon: dest D5, F5L
1702: Klingon: crip 2xF5
1601: Kzinti: crip BC; Klingon: crip F5
1502: Kzinti: crip CM, dest 3xPDU; Klingon: crip D6M, D5, dest 3xD7, 2xD5
1401: Kzinti: Kzintai: FRD; Keevarsh II: 2xPDU, devastated; Vielsalm II 2xPDU; crip MEC, dest CL, capture DW; Lyran: crip CW, dest CA, 2xCL, 2xDW, DWS, DD, 3xFF; Klingon: crip D7C, D5, E4A

Overall, things went well on the Hydran front—if you can call losing most of the fixed defenses on the cheap ‘going well’. The biggest problem is that I didn’t have enough to keep the Klingons from taking 0519, which makes the connection between the Old Colonies and the capital tenuous at best. At the moment, it is intact, but something is going to have to be done.

Kzinti space was a real mixed bag. I wasn’t able to keep him from disrupting every province on the board (other than 1801, which he can’t go into), but the connection between the Marquis area and the main grid (via the Barony) is intact. He managed to kill an FRD (oops) and devastate another planet, while knocking the defenses off yet another, but the cost in ships is high, and he’s already not doing too well in that department.

Belirahc still needs to figure out his carrier doctrine. He’s using them, but often he’s not taking damage on the fighters. Certainly, he has no reloads available most of the time, which means once the fighters are gone, the carriers are not of much use. However, with the current escorts, the ComPot density of the groups are low enough that the only real point of the carriers is to absorb damage and not need repairs afterward.

During retrograde, I’m gratified to see a nice backlog of cripples moving back to Coalition space, but this turn has pointed up that I need to do something about my backlog as well. Outside of carrier groups, the Kzintis do not have very many intact ships left.

Belirahc is getting quite serious about holding the space he has taken. The Lyrans are now setting up a MB and a PDU at 0416, and are also setting up a MB at 1001. Meanwhile the Klingons are setting up a PDU and MB each at 1202 and 1504.

At the moment, most new Lyran forces are headed for Hydran space, while Klingon builds are going to Kzinti space. It will be interesting to see what he does next turn, because if he wants to do a Turn 7 invasion of the Federation (which I’m guessing is unlikely), a lot of ships may need to pull out of other areas.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment