SFB Survivor

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Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.6

Player signups are closed, but players may sign up to be XO or replacements at [email protected].

• The game begins at WS3. Ships begin at speed max, unless a request is made for some other speed. • You cannot transfer control of seeking weapons between units due to the FOG. o Submunitions (Scatter Packs and Multi-Warhead drones) are partially exempt from this rule provided they were under control at the time of release.

Plotted Movement: • Ships must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit or evade course. • Ships may conditionally adjust their movement to react to another ships actions (including HET), but cannot tie conditional movement to any other ship’s movement, facing, hex, range, TAC or speed change. • A ship may not plot a pursuit or evade plot on an enemy seeking weapon or shuttle, but they may perform conditional movement to attempt to keep a specific shield facing the weapon. ECM Drones, ECP or friendly seeking weapons are not eligible for conditional movement in any way. Example of a Legal Conditional movement: When a 22-point or greater plasma enters range 8, maneuver to keep the plasma off my #3 shield. • Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship. While I won’t steer you into a black hole, don’t expect to be scoring many victory points either.

Conditional Actions: • You may not plot conditional actions based on an enemy ship’s current speed, facing or hex. • You may plot conditional actions using speed, facing or hex on drones (excluding ECM drones), plasma (excluding ECP), shuttles and fighters (you might not want your fighters keeping station on your ship). • You may plot conditional actions on impulse, range, facing shield, shield status, which of your ships weapons are in arc, or any observable action. Victory Points: • Victory points are scored by doing damage to an enemy ship. • Damage to shield reinforcement, shuttles, fighters and seeking weapons generate 0 victory points. • Shield damage caused by enveloping plasma generates 0 victory points. • Direct fire damage caused by a shuttle or fighter generates 0 victory points. • Shield damage caused by non-enveloping seeking plasma generates 1 victory point. • All other shield damage generates 2 victory points, including suicide shuttles and fighter seeking weapons. • Internal damage causes 3 victory points, including suicide shuttles and fighter seeking weapons. • Every ship that contributed to a ship explosion on the impulse of explosion is credited with any victory points earned by damaged caused by the explosion. • Victory points from mines are credited to the ship or team that laid the mine, see friendly fire. • Friendly fire from any source is permitted during team play but counts towards the enemy team’s victory points. • If the sides are unbalanced, one or more players will be randomly excluded from scoring victory points (or having victory points scored on) for the turn. Excluded ships will be announced after EAF.

• At the beginning of the game, you may pick one ship as your called target. Any damage you do to that target scores double victory points. This information remains secret until victory points are awarded following the break in which the damage was done.

Reward Challenge: • Effective impulse 16 of each turn the ship that scored the most victory points in the previous 32 impulses on the team that scored the most victory points in the previous 32 impulses may attempt, but is not required to displace one enemy unit. • Displacement occurs at the end of impulse 16. • The results are known shortly after the release of the SITREP. Displaced Ships: A ship that is successfully displaced is under the full rules for displacement (G18.3) with the following modifications: • A successfully displaced player is moved 2d6 hexes in a random direction, but not beyond the board edge. • A displaced ship gains 0-50 self repair points, as determined by (die roll - 1) * 10. This information is not made public. • These points can be allocated immediately and take effect at the end of the turn. • These points cannot be carried over into subsequent turns. • A displaced ship may allocate 0-5 reserve power on impulse 17 in an attempt to recover hidden immunity. If a secret die roll is less than or equal to the amount of reserve power used, and hidden immunity is available to recover, that Captain gains hidden immunity.

Free-For-All: When approximately half the players are left (the exact number will not be known by the players) the game becomes a free-for-all and the following rules are in use: • The player who scores the most victory points in a given turn is granted individual immunity at Fleet Council and cannot be voted out. • Each turn the remaining players vote out one ship. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships.

Map and initial placement: • The map will begin as a large square and shrink by one hex in each direction at the start of each turn. • The initial size will be determined once the number of players is known, but expect 49x49. • The barrier is a tourney barrier, but causes no damage and forces no stop if impacted during a map shrink maneuver.

• Any ship displaced into a wall will bounce off the remaining hexes.

• It is not possible to disengage in any manner except being voted off. • Initial board placement will alternate by team in a circle along the map edges.

• No fighter cap is permitted launched at game start. Sequence of Play: 1) Players submit letter of interest to [email protected] 2) Players submit ships, subject to approval 3) Players submit Commander’s Options 3) Players are assigned a team and board position (facing is not revealed until after EAF) 4) All players SSDs are posted

4a) Players submit Bonus Target ship and any pre-game (0.28) actions (no offensive launches). 5) Players submit EAF 6) Starting speeds, ejected players and any ships sitting out the victory point calculation for this turn are communicated to players 7) Players submit SOP for impulses 1-16 8) SITREP is sent to players 9) The ship scoring the most victory points on the team scoring the most victory points may attempt to displace one enemy unit 10) The displaced player receives and may allocate any bonus repair points 11) Players submit SOP for impulses 17-32 12) Team or individual immunity is determined based on victory points scored during the turn 13) SITREP is sent to players 14) If only three players remain the final five players who have been voted out will vote for the winner. Game ends. 15) Eligible players vote for who to eject and play hidden immunity 16) Map shrinks by one hex in each direction 17) Return to step 5

Ships Selection: • Players may select any one ship, from any ADB published source, within limitations including: o No SC1 or SC2 ships o No Interceptors, PFs, PFTs (all Lyran PFTs without special sensors are allowed, but may not field PFs) o No Carriers, Carrier Escorts, MRS, Remote Control Fighters, Cloaked Decoys or SWACs o Non-Hydran casual carriers are limited to 2 fighters, which may be mega-fighters o Hydran casual carriers are limited to 6 single space fighters or mega-fighters. o No ship with more than 5 drone racks, excluding ADD racks o No more than 1 Scatter Pack per ship. This special shuttle can be recovered and reloaded, but cannot be used for any administrative purpose. o No Drogues o No Maulers, Minesweepers, Tugs or Pods o Modular ships that are legal combinations but that do not have an SSD are permitted. o No ship may have more than 3 heavy plasmas (PL-S or PL-R), so the Romulan SPJ is allowed, but a FHJ is not o No special crews, legendary officers or penal variants o Only Anarchist ships with published SSDs are permitted o No X-Ships or XP Refits o Ships that add a warp engine without a movement cost increase are excluded. Small emergency boom style engines are not excluded. o No General units or bases o Races are restricted to the following: Federation (excluding CAC), Klingon, Romulan (excluding FHZ), Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion (excluding BCH and BRD, must choose a cartel, max one non- cartel weapon), Hydran (max of 6 fighters), Lyran, WYN (excluding AxDN), ISC (excluding CA(C) and CS(C)), LDR, Seltorian and Peladine. o Ships may select commander’s options up to 20% of their combat BPV o Ships selected by two players may be rejected. Ships selected more than two players will be rejected. o The moderator has final approval on allowed ships. Munchkin ships may be retroactively excluded. o It is the players responsibility to supply the moderator with any unusual ship SSD and special rules.

Commander’s Options

• A-Admin and other Advanced shuttles are assumed.

• WBP are included for all shuttles and fighters (unless upgraded to mega-fighters)

• Selection of mega-fighters is a Captain’s prerogative, they do not require expenditure of CO points.

• Ships with optional barracks (not standard equipment) may purchase up to an extra 10 BP.

e-Mail Etiquette:

• e-Mail subject should be in the following format:

SFS.[ship designation].[turn].[impulse].[SOP/EAF/CO/SITREP/etc.].rev[0, 1, 2, …]

• SWDP should be cut and paste (or attached) at the bottom of each SOP. Submitting an SOP pre-game might be advisable so that I might comment on any obvious oversights, contradictions or unclear intentions.

• It is advisable to explain in paragraph form your intentions for this break.

• I will be encouraging a standard format for comms, EAF and maybe even SOPs eventually, but will process turn 1 with whatever you give me. SWDP

• Each Captain is expected to submit a Seeking Weapon Defense Plan.

• Actions can only be taken based on the current location of a seeking weapon. You are not allowed to take an action based on the state of a seeking weapon in any prior state (previous impulse). The following is illegal: “Ignore any seeking weapon that has shown through its movement that I cannot be the target”. The following is legal: “If a drone is at range 1 and has my ship in its FA, attach a tractor.”

Fleet 1 FS1 Fed NAL 1001 HS1 Hydran CHA 3001 KS1 Klingon C7A 5010 ZS1 Kzinti BCH 5030 OS1 Orion HDW 4050 PS1 Peladine CCH 2050 RS1 Romulan KCR 0141 WS1 WYN PBB 0121

Fleet 2 FS2 Fed NAL 5040 HS2 Hydran OV 1050 OS2 Orion HDW 2001 RS2 Romulan KCR 4001 RS3 Romulan KE 5020 TS1 Tholian NCA 3050 WS2 WYN CF 0131 WS3 WYN WSC 0111

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 06:58 am: Edit This topic is open for business.

Jean WebMom By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 08:45 am: Edit w00t! Thanks WebMom Jean!

It's time to take on a new challenge. This should be interesting because if you take too weak a ship, you are likely to be voted off early. If you take too powerful a ship, you will be voted off early in the Free- for-all portion. Quite the conundrum...

Perhaps Tos should sticky the latest Ruleset to the topic header?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 09:13 am: Edit Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.2

Players apply by sending in an initial note of interest to [email protected], followed sometime later by their ship and commander’s options.

General: • All non-optional rules are in play except as noted herein. • 16-impulse breaks, players must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit course. • Players are split between two teams of approximately equal BPV by the moderator. • The team that scores the most damage, defined as shield damage or internals on ships (not shuttles, not reinforcement) gains immunity for the turn. • The ship that did the most damage on the team that did the most damage may attempt to displace one enemy unit. • The team that fails to score the most damage votes out one ship on their side. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • Fixed Map size and initial placement to be determined based on the number of entries. • Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship.

Free-For-All: • When there are 8 players left the game becomes a free-for-all and the following rules are in use: • The player who scores the most damage in a given turn is granted individual immunity and may attempt to displace any one enemy unit. • Each turn the remaining players vote out one ship. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • When down to the final three players, the last five players kicked out vote for the winner from among the final three.

Communications: • Player identity will be secret. • There is no pre-game planning session. • Each player is allowed to send four 128 character messages to a single ship each break. There are no team or group comms. • Only the player receiving the ship-to-ship message will be allowed to read the message, but it will be public knowledge which ships sent messages where.

I'll make this sticky once we get closer to a final ruleset.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 09:17 am: Edit

Quote:

How are commander options dealt with?

Does damage caused by Tbombs count towards one sides/one players total? - and how is "freindly" damage from Tbombs counted?

Other banned things, currently you haven't banned mines, special sensors or webcasters is this intentional?

· TB and NSM are permitted. · Special Sensors and Webcasters are permitted. · CO are within standard 20% limits. · Damage from mines will be credited to the ship (or side) that laid the mine, regardless of who it hit.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 09:18 am: Edit Five requests to play received. Sign-ups are now closed. Just kidding.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:24 pm: Edit Tos:

What, exactly, do you mean by:

"The player who scores the most damage in a given turn is granted individual immunity and may attempt to displace any one enemy unit." What is 'displacement' in this scenario, given no Andros?

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:33 pm: Edit I'm hoping, displacement into subspace for a duration of at least 15 years.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:34 pm: Edit Next question:

"players must plot an actual course"

Can players plot contingency movement? If ship X goes here, then move me there, otherwise go here?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:39 pm: Edit If you score the most damage, you get to attempt to displace (G18.3) one enemy unit after EAF and before impulse 1. Think of it as a Master's ability conferred to reward particularly aggressive play. Think of it as an Exile Island corollary.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 01:42 pm: Edit The movement plot rules are intended to be roughly analogous to the FFA rules. You cannot plot a conditional course based on any observed ship movement, but you can plot based on a ship action (including HET, but not including TAC). You can plot a conditional course based on seeking weapons or mines, but not fighters.

Good questions. The theory is simple, but it is necessary to lock down the details.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 02:08 pm: Edit What's the BPV limit?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 02:17 pm: Edit There is none, just be warned that players tend to gang up on the most powerful unit.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 02:44 pm: Edit Jeff: The only limit is the max SC3 ship size.

Tos - thanks for the answers. I'm sure I'll have other clarifications as we go on, since I've never played FFA.

In fact, could someone who IS playing FFA give a run-down of what types of conditionals are allowed or disallowed, for those of us who are new? (Instead of me asking about each one that occurs to me.)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 04:53 pm: Edit Jim, this was the FFA1 basis, but I'm expecting tweaks based on user feedback:

Quote:

Orders Submitted: Pursuit, evasion and station keeping plotting is prohibited except for seeking weapons and non-fighter shuttles. 16 impulses at a time, no breaks and a limit on conditionals to 10. You can have un-limited standing orders. (i.e. conditionals that do not change for the entire game). (No conditional or standing order for movement except ED.) The limitation is so that the moderator does not accidentally drop a Andromedan Devestator in the middle of the board and kill everything in site. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 05:01 pm: Edit FFA playes are encouraged to discuss their experience with the plotted movement. I'd like to build something a bit more buttoned down.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 07:47 pm: Edit If the team that does the least damage has to vote a ship off their side and gets one of their ships displaced, won't it pretty much insure that they'll keep losing?

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 07:52 pm: Edit Honestly, the way FFA1 was handled as far as plotted movement was concerned, it was well done. The rules were simple. I didn't see anything in FFA1 that was broken, so I don't see a reason to fix it.

Quote: "Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship. " Not that I intend on being late, but can you elaborate on this? Granted, you may have not given this significant thought so you don't need to respond immediately . . . just something to think about.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 08:20 pm: Edit

Quote:

Quote: "Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship. " Not that I intend on being late, but can you elaborate on this?

Basically it means that I won't fly your ship into a black hole and will try to shoot down drones, but short of that, well, lets just say you don't want to be late.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 08:21 pm: Edit

Quote:

If the team that does the least damage has to vote a ship off their side and gets one of their ships displaced, won't it pretty much insure that they'll keep losing?

Sometimes the ISC CA that finds itself in the middle of the enemy fleet can dish out more damage than it takes. See FOG2.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 10:35 pm: Edit "If the team that does the least damage has to vote a ship off their side and gets one of their ships displaced, won't it pretty much insure that they'll keep losing?"

Maybe there could be a Survivor type merge and split in to 2 new groups before the merge at 8 players.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 09:32 am: Edit At some point before the final 8, there may be a mixing of teams. There also may not be. I'm a bit leary of the chaos this would cause. By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 09:51 am: Edit Actually, I'd like to see the player with the most damage able to displace their own team's ships as well. There may be a case where one of the teammates is lagging behind or out of position and the displacement can be used to bring it closer to the action for concentrating fire.

As for the comms, I think they're too limited. I'd like to see the possibility of a player being able to send 1 comm either to one ship, or to the entire team. I guess it depends how much coordination you want the teams to have.

As for the movement. I liked the way it was done in FFA, because you really have to guess where you think your opponents are going to go and prepare contingencies. Thinking ahead is crucial in this game.

As for the map, I would suggest that you institute the shrinking map - start with a 49x49 map and the edge shrinks by one hex in every direction every turn. That means the Map would be 39x39 on Turn 6, 29x29 on Turn 11, and 19x19 on Turn 16 (if we should make it that far, but that would require 18 players).

To determine the overall winner, have the players rank the final 3 with points: First place gets 3 points, second place gets 2 points, and third place gets 1 point. The player with the highest cumulative score wins.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 10:54 am: Edit In Survivor, when a player is sent to Exile island, there is a chance of a hidden immunity idol being found. Let me think about that some more.

I don't want the teams to be coordinated. No fleet comms.

Map size is still TBD, but a shrinking map is likely. The rate of shrink you suggest sounds reasonable.

One jury member, one vote for winner.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 01:27 pm: Edit What's wrong with "at the end of each turn, BOTH sides have to vote a ship off their side with the ship scoring the highest damage gaining immunity."

You can run events. You can have a space hockey puck on the board. The ship that scores a goal gets immunity, but damage done to the puck doesn't count as damage scored against a ship.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 04:31 pm: Edit I think that would be fun in a face-to-face game... but PBEM with 16 impulse breaks is going to be tough enough as it is.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 06:22 pm: Edit To determine the total team damage it could be the average (the total damage / number of ships on the team).

The individual ship should still be based on the total points for that unit and not an average.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 07:41 pm: Edit one could also take total damage/(sum of team move costs) By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 09:26 am: Edit I don't know about the limited board size. A smaller board advantages plasma players. I know that lurking was a problem in FFA, but with the advantages of scoring damage here, I don't see it as a problem. People will either mix it up, or they'll wave goodbye at the next Tribal Council.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 09:35 am: Edit Perhaps not. If the player takes a big ship and hangs back for a turn or two, his team mates might not vote him off knowing that they need his strength if they are ever to have a hope of mounting a comeback.

Also, what will be the starting locations of the ships? Will they be set up on either side, or interlaced in a big circle as per the FFA, with alternating friendly and enemy ships? I think I prefer the latter to encourage quick mixing.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 10:21 am: Edit There will be a circle. Most likely the sides will alternate as you travel around the circle.

Jim, it is well known to FFA players that seeking weapons have an advantage when ships plot movement, but the game has to come to an eventual end. Remember, the most threatening ships will be at a disadvantage in this scenario once we get to the half way point.

Damage is damage, there won't be any particular calculation performed to adjust the amout.

In Survivor, to balance uneven teams, one or more of the team mates sit out the competition. The easiest way to do this is to announce that damage will not be counted by one or more random ships on the side that has more ships. I'm leaning toward making this announcement after EA and before impulse 1.

Now it occurs to me that Survivor tends to have two challenges per turn, one immunity and one reward. We have two breaks per turn, so there would appear to be an opportunity here. However I also seek to avoid making things overly complex. Rule proposal in next post.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 12:18 pm: Edit Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.3

Major Changes: Displacement happens on impulse 17. Hidden Immunity Sequence of Play

Players apply by sending in an initial note of interest to [email protected], followed sometime later by their ship and commander’s options.

General: • All non-optional rules are in play except as noted herein. • Players are split between two teams of approximately equal BPV by the moderator. • 16-impulse breaks; ships must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit course. Ships may conditionally adjust their movement to react to another ships actions (including HET), but cannot tie conditional movement to any other ship’s movement, TAC or speed change. • The ship that did the most damage on the team that did the most damage in the first 16-impulses of each turn may attempt (but is not required) to displace one enemy unit. • The team that scores the most damage, defined as shield damage or internals on ships (not shuttles, not reinforcement) gains immunity for the turn. • Damage caused by mines is credited to the unit who laid the mine. • The team that fails to score the most damage at the end of the turn votes out one ship on their side (see hidden immunity). Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship. While I won’t steer you into a black hole, don’t expect to be scoring any damage either.

Free-For-All: • When there are 8 players left the game becomes a free-for-all and the following rules are in use: • The player who scores the most damage by impulse 16 may attempt (but is not required to) to displace any one enemy unit. • The player who scores the most damage in a given turn is granted individual immunity. • Each turn the remaining players vote out one ship. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • When down to the final three players, the last five players kicked out vote for the winner from among the final three.

Displaced Ships: • A ship that is successfully displaced is under the full rules for displacement (G18.3) o A successfully displaced player is moved 2d6 hexes in a random direction, but not beyond the board edge. o A displaced ship gains 0-50 self repair points, as determined by a die (roll-1) * 10. This information is not made public. o These points can be allocated immediately (16th impulse) and take effect at the end of the turn. o These points cannot be carried over into subsequent turns. o A displaced ship has a 1-in-6 chance of receiving a hidden immunity idol. Only one ship at a time may hold a hidden immunity idol.

Hidden Immunity: • Hidden immunity can be played during the EAF portion of any turn, right before the votes are counted. • A player with hidden immunity may play it for his ship, or for any other (non-destroyed) ship, but hidden immunity may only be played when the owner is eligible to be ejected. • If the player that played the hidden immunity gained the most votes, that player is immune for this vote and the player with the second most votes is ejected. • Once a ship is destroyed, any hidden immunity it may have becomes available to future displaced ships. This information is not public.

Sequence of Play: 1) Players submit letter of interest to [email protected] 2) Players submit ships and Commander’s Options 3) Players are assigned a team and board position 4) All players SSDs are posted 5) Players submit EAF 6) Starting speeds, ejected players and any ships sitting out the damage calculation for this turn are communicated to players 7) Players submit SOP for impulses 1-16 8) SITREP is sent to players 9) The ship scoring the most damage on the team scoring the most damage may attempt to displace one enemy unit 10) The displaced player receives and may allocate any bonus repair points 11) Players submit SOP for impulses 17-32 12) Team or individual immunity is determined based on damage caused 13) SITREP is sent to players 14) If only three players remain the final five players who have been voted out will vote for the winner. Game ends. 15) Eligible players vote for who to eject, submit their EAF and play hidden immunity 16) Map shrinks by one hex in each direction 17) Return to step 6

Ships Selection: • Players may select any one ship, from any ADB published source, within limitations including: o No SC1 or SC2 ships o No Interceptors, PFs, PFTs (all Lyran PFTs without special sensors are allowed, but may not field PFs) o No Carriers, Carrier Escorts, Fighters (excepting Hydran), MRS, Mega-Fighters, Remote Control Fighters or SWACs o No ship with more than 5 drone racks, excluding ADD racks o No more than 1 Scatter Pack per ship. This special shuttle can be recovered and reloaded. o No Drogues o No Maulers o No Tugs or Pods o No special crews, legendary officers or penal variants o No X-Ships or XP Refits o No General units or bases o Races are restricted to the following: Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion (excluding BCH), Hydran, Lyran, WYN (excluding AxDN), ISC, LDR, Seltorian. If you want more races, you can moderate. I’m not going to try to moderate this and learn new rules at the same time. o Ships may select commander’s options up to 20% of their combat BPV o Ships selected by two players may be rejected. Ships selected more than two players will be rejected. o The moderator has final approval on allowed ships. Communications: • Player identity will be secret. • There is no pre-game planning session. • Each player is allowed to send four 128 character messages to a single ship each break. There are no team or group comms. • Only the player receiving the ship-to-ship message will be allowed to read the message, but it will be public knowledge which ships sent messages where.

I'll make this sticky once we get closer to a final ruleset.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 12:20 pm: Edit That's easy: The reward challenge happens from impulses 1-16, the immunity challenge happens from impulses 17-32. Damage on enemy ships in the 1-16 segment does not count towards the total damage calculation at the end of the turn. What to use as a reward is a challenge...

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 02:09 pm: Edit Each player is allowed to send four 128 character messages to a single ship each break Can you send 1 message to each of 4 ships?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 03:28 pm: Edit Yes, a single message can be sent to four ships, at the cost of all of your channels.

Note, only out channels are tracked, you can receive any number of in messages.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 04:01 pm: Edit I think, Tos, you added confusion in your response to Jeff.

I think what you really mean is that a ship can send four messages. Each message is received by only one ship.

(The way your answer is worded, it sounds like you have to send the SAME message to each ship, which is not true, I think.)

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 04:08 pm: Edit Tos: Are you anticipating any strategizing sessions, any BBS, any pre-game communication among the teams? I get the impression that you are not, which is OK by me. But if you are not, then I think you should allow each ship to send 4 comms prior to turn 1, between posting the SSDs and receiving the EAFs. Otherwise, you play the first half of turn 1 with no comms whatsoever.

With a limit of 4 channels, you'll be able to issue some info to about half your fleet, so it's likely to cause as much confusion as clarity.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:19 pm: Edit There is no BBS or group strategizing time. You are under FOG rules for communicating with other Captains, which is to say that outside the game you cannot communicate with other Captains. All communication is done via comm. The first comms are sent 1.01 and received 1.16.

You get 4 outgoing comms of 128 characters. If you send the same message to 4 ships it uses 4 comms. If you send a different message to 4 ships it uses 4 comms.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:20 pm: Edit Tos, can you confirm this is correct:

"That's easy: The reward challenge happens from impulses 1-16, the immunity challenge happens from impulses 17-32. Damage on enemy ships in the 1-16 segment does not count towards the total damage calculation at the end of the turn."

Damage is calculated in 16 impulse blocks, and not for the full turn.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:49 pm: Edit That is not how the current rules were intended. Immunity is damage over the full turn, displacement is damage over the first 16 impulses.

I treat the quote as a suggestion to change the rule. I believe it would have the affect of discouraging combat during the first half of the turn, which is undesirable. The players are welcome to debate the point, but so far immunity damage is calculated over the full turn.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:52 pm: Edit

Quote:

I think displacement should happen after impulse 16, and the displaced player should know where he was displaced to.

That is the intention, however phrased that way it brings up an interesting point. Should the rest of the players know where he (or even who) is displaced to?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 07:49 pm: Edit What happens if the vote is a draw?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 07:53 pm: Edit

Quote:

What happens if the vote is a draw?

Everyone votes again. If it is still a draw, then one ramdom non-imune player gets ejected.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 08:42 pm: Edit 8 current player signups.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 09:05 pm: Edit Excerpt of posted rules: "Major Changes: Displacement happens on impulse 17"

"o A displaced ship gains 0-50 self repair points, as determined by a die (roll-1) * 10. This information is not made public. o These points can be allocated immediately (16th impulse) and take effect at the end of the turn. " ------end of excerpt ------

I think I'm reading it right when I say that I think you have this a bit backwards.

My feeling is that Displacement should happen on imp 16 (very last thing on that imp). Moderator reveals new location and facing publicly. Moderator sends secret announcement to displaced ship number of self-repair points. Moderator announces when i17 orders are due. player allocates repair points so they can be go into affect at end of turn.

Or am I wrong?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 10:53 pm: Edit You are correct.

9) The ship scoring the most damage on the team scoring the most damage may attempt to displace one enemy unit, the results of which are known publicly

Quote:

Displacement happens on impulse 17.

This is an artifact of early rules development that was not caught during proof reading. Statement should have been: Displacement happens publicly between impulse 16 and 17.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 04:09 am: Edit Tos,

A question on stingers, the way I read it at the moment damaging stingers scores no damage as they are a shuttle whereas damage they cause is credited to the launching ship. Is this right?

If so I think this makes stingers too good. To a lesser degree all the special roles shuttles are like this I feel killing shuttles should be damage with the possible excpetion of killing them with explosions.

Oh thats a thought who if anyone gets the credit from ship explosions? Third parties damaged by colateral damage? Do ships voted off explode

Overall I think this looks really fun. By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 11:00 am: Edit Tos: A suggestion on the Reward/Displacement and Imunity counting.

The Reward/Displacement is awarded based on the damage scored between impulse 17 of the previous turn and impulse 16 of the current turn (the last 32 impulses prior to the reward).

Immunity is awarded at the end of the turn, based on the current turn. (Again, the last 32 impulses.)

So on turn 1, the Reward is based on 16 impulses, but after that, it's based on 32 impulses - the last half of last turn and the first half of this turn.

Reason: because as it stands, early-turn damage counts for both challenges, while late-turn damage only counts for one, so this would encourage early-turn damage. I think encouraging early-turn damage is just as bad as discouraging it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 11:11 am: Edit I'm relieved that you think it will be fun. As in the real Survivor, people will get pissed off when they get voted out, which will put a temporary dampener on the 'fun' quotiant, but it should be a hoot.

Good point on the Stingers. Here's the deal, the Stingers can't count toward damage points because if they do they will be destroyed on sight, and I want them to have a chance to survive a few turns. On the other hand if they do close the amount of damage they cause will skew the victory points the other way. The only fair thing I can come up with is damage from fighters do not count toward the damage totals.

Add:

• Damage caused by fighters does not credit the owning ship or side.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 11:13 am: Edit I don't think ships that get voted off should explode. They should just disappear.

Question - what about any mines or seeking weapons they launch? If I've got 100 points of plasma off my bow, and voting the launching ship off would eliminate the plasma, I know who gets my vote!

And if there is a tie for the expulsion vote, I think the vote of the person who won immunity should be the tie-breaker, not a random roll. At the very least, I think the random roll should be among the tied players, not all players.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 11:38 am: Edit Voted off just disappears. You might for strategic reasons early in the game choose to vote off an undamaged ship that is surrounded by enemy units to deprive them of the damage points. Poof. Gone. (Do things really go poof in a vacuum?)

Seeking weapons on the board will continue to track provided they are capable of self-guidance from that point forward. Damage they cause is still credited to the team, but not the individual (now gone) ship that launched them.

The random roll is how they do it on Survivor. It adds drama. Do you really want to cast your second vote the same way in the event of a tie between two other players, knowing that a second tie means you might be randomly booted? Let me think about the 32 impulse reward idea.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 11:41 am: Edit Tos:

Here's a suggestion, for what it's worth. It would make calculating things a little harder, but might solve the problems of shuttles, fighters, and ships doing and taking damage.

Instead of each point of damage on each unit counting the same, have each point of damage count based on the value of the thing destroyed.

For example, ships normally have a BPV of about 1.5 - 1.8 times the number of internals they have. This is a rough estimate, and there are some outliers, but it's close enough for our purposes.

A 4-point Admin shuttle has 6 internals (2/3 per).

A 5-point AAdmin has 8 internals (5/8 per).

A fighter usually has a BPV equal to its internals (1 each).

Shield damage should probably be worth about half a point each.

How does this work out?

Sheild hits: 0.5 points per box Shuttle hits: 0.6 points per box Fighter hits: 1 point per box Internal hits: 1.75 points per box.

If you wanted to get really detailed, you could give each ship a different value for its internal hits based on BPV/#Internals. But that's probably getting a little too complicated.

The effect, though, is to encourage ship damage, but give some benefit for killing attrition units. Otherwise, a fully-loaded Ranger could be a great selection - lots of damage potential, while preventing your opponents from gaining any points at all for defending themselves from the fighter swarm. To say that killing the stingers on a Ranger is no value is like saying that killing the photons on a BCJ is worthless.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 12:04 pm: Edit It appears that conjectural ships are allowed. Is that the case?

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 12:18 pm: Edit I like the 1/2 points for shield damage, it kind of negates the advantage of envelopers like EPTs and HBs. Although just to make it simple, I'd say 1/2 points for shield, shuttle and fighter hits, and 1 point for internal hits.

And I took that CNJ ships were allowed was a given. Makes for some interesting choices...

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 12:55 pm: Edit I also too it that CNJ, unique, a LP ships were available. The point is to see how abusive a ship you can come up with that won't get you voted off first chance.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 03:27 pm: Edit Can anyone say Flambe Hawk?

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 04:04 pm: Edit Sorry, the rules say no maulers allowed...

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 04:14 pm: Edit Brad: What about 1/2 point for shields, 1 for fighters and shuttles, and 2 for ships?

Here's the problem math. Say I attack one of the archeo-tholian or early Rom designs with 30-point shields all around. 30x6=180 shield boxes. I can get 90 points for destroying the shields without ever scoring an internal, but some of those ships have only 70-80 internals - less than the value of their shields.

Which was actually my problem with giving a full point for shield boxes - the shields on a ship shouldn't be worth more than the ship itself - and every ship in the game has more shield boxes than it has internals.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:02 pm: Edit Conjectural and outlandish ships are permitted, provided there isn't something so outlandish that it gets rejected by the moderator (who has final say). You want to pick something a bit unusual because if everyone picks the same BCH I’m going to disallow it.

I see the point in reducing the effectiveness of enveloper type weapons. We don’t want a battle that so heavily favors plasma.

I won’t be adding a point value to fighters or shuttles. Deal with them at your leisure.

Since I don’t see any point in dealing with fractions, how does 1-point for shields and 5-points for each internal sound? Any less and it won't be worth tracking shield hits at all.

The damage bonus is designed to encourage combat. Shields or ships matter little to the Masters.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:14 pm: Edit Rule: Orions must choose a Cartel and get one 'any' weapon.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:34 pm: Edit Here are examples of ships that would be legal, but would be rejected by the moderator: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R3_j5_d77.gif http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R2_j5_cac.gif http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R4_j4_fhz.gif http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R8_j2_brd.gif

This is an exaple of a ship that would have been allowed, were it not for it being SC2: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R6_j4_dnr.gif

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:35 pm: Edit 1 point for shields and 5 for internals would mean noone would be willing to fire first.

Im not going to knock down some shields and earn 30 points so the next guy can do 30 internals and score 150 points...

With 1 point for shields, 2 for internals you are far more inclined to shoot earlier, try and knock down a shield, and maybe get some internals and take out a couple of weapons.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:36 pm: Edit I have 1-1, 1-2, 1-4 and 1-5. Anyone want to propose 1-3?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:39 pm: Edit "Here is an example of a ship that would be legal, but would be rejected by the moderator:"

Whats wrong with 4 engines and 8 heavy weapons on a cruiser hull?

I love that BPV. 170... I would think 190 or even 200 would be closer to true value.

I think they screwed up a little though. Should have added a docking station to the boom and put 2 small Centre Warp engines and another couple of disruptors. Or maybe some 360 Ph-1 on a swivel mount.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:40 pm: Edit Jason, I added a few more examples while you weren't looking.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:41 pm: Edit "http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R2_j5_cac.gif"

I actually lol'd. I have a feeling it would be useless on a floating map, but could take down a Dreadnaught on a fixed map.

Clearly inspired by the LDR.

"http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R4_j4_fhz.gif"

Should be legal, but firing any weapon, or moving above Speed 4 should require a shock roll.

"http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/R8_j2_brd.gif"

Isnt this how all Orions look? Or do I need to question my playing partner on where he sources his ships?

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 05:59 pm: Edit Here is my idea: 1pt for damage scored on seekers/shuttles/fighters 2pts for damage scored on shields 3 or 4pts for internals.

While envelopers do a lot more shield damage, they also take a lot more power to arm. Also means that if you throw out seekers you give the enemy more to shoot at. There should be some reward for self protection. This also helps the direct fire races who have a harder time closing/damaging the enemy. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 06:42 pm: Edit Seekers, shuttles and fighters are 0 points. That part is set in stone. The open question is shields vs internals, and shields are worth 1 point. That only leaves determining the value of an internal.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 08:34 pm: Edit Why not keep it as one as well. Keep it simple.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 09:37 pm: Edit I strive for simple, but at 1:1 damage an enveloper is unrealistically high scoring. I'd like for people to take something other than the KillerHawk.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 10:01 pm: Edit Simple would be 1 point for shields, 2 for internals.

Maybe some theorycrafters could do some quick numbers on 8 v 8 battlecruisers in terms of how much damage can collectively be done each turn.

With reduced communications it would be hard for everyone to coordinate (though not impossible) so chances are early on it will be mostly shield damage being done.

That said, if someone fires 3 or 4 plasmas early, they become a target to be voted off because they wont be doing much for another few turns. Immunity on T1, gone on T2.

So there could still be a use for direct fire ships.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 12:24 am: Edit Don't be so down Tos. you'll see a sparrowhawk-J too...

IMO enveloping plasma costs such a serious amount of power (especially with a sabot kicker) that a ship thowing too many of those around isn't going to be able to keep much speed.

I think it's a self-limiting problem.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 01:20 am: Edit The ISC CA(C) from CL#27 is excluded.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 01:26 am: Edit Proposal: With the belief that plasma is advantaged, how about this victory point system:

1 point for shield damage not caused by plasma 1 point for internal damage 0 points for shield damage caused by plasma

That should help to knock big plasma back down to size.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 06:22 am: Edit Brad the Flambe Hawk isn't a Mauler so it would be allowed. EXCEPT its one of the examples Tos posted as to what wouldn't be allowed.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 09:37 am: Edit Ah, I was thinking of the Flame Hawk. I didn't realize those SFT designs existed. As for the damage problem, I recommend 1 point for shield damage caused by plasma 2 points for internals or Shield damage caused by any other source.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 12:09 pm: Edit Is it plasma that's advantaged or enveloping plasma? I suggest 1 point for any damage (shields or internals)caused by an enveloping weapon (EPT, Hellbore, PPD) 2 points for damage by any other method

Second point: FFA(1) disallowed NSMs. Will Survivor allow them or not?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 01:05 pm: Edit Plasma is a seeking weapon. Seeking weapons are heavily advantaged due to 16-impulse hidden plotted movement. They are advantaged, just as drones were, because they can see where they are moving. Direct fire ships get to wander around in the dark.

Drones have been mitigated by the no more than one scatter pack, no more than 5 racks limitation. So far, other than the very necessary elimination of drogues, plasma hasn't been neutered. Eliminating shield damage victory points for plasma, I believe, would be sufficient deterent to an otherwise wonder weapon.

This isn't conjecture. The drones and plasma in FFA proved considerably more effective than their BPV would predict.

NSMs are permitted under the normal rules, however, I will be adding Minelayers as a prohibited class (which basically boils down to 1 per Romulan, another sop to the plasma brigade). Maybe I should eliminate cloaks? That would make moderating considerably easier.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 02:07 pm: Edit

Don't forget to eliminate cloak decoys, first !

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 02:20 pm: Edit I suggest 1 point for shields, 3 points for ship internals, and I would still like to see some value for hits on fighters.

My suggestion for shield damage for enveloping weapons is to give them 1 point for each box they scored on the shield to which they did the most damage, nothing for the other shields. Enveloping S would get 10, tops.

And I don't see a problem with damage from normal plasma. But then, I've never played FFA, either. But eliminating point for plasma shield damage will make it practically impossible for plasma players to ever win challenges. Everyone else will have an option to get easy points from shield damage. So I suggest that plasma get half for shields.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 02:28 pm: Edit Jim, part of the objective is to discourage plasma chuckers, though I do like your enveloper solution. Ship Selection: I'm expecting a published SSD for a ship to be legal, however, in the case of unusual modular combinations there may not be a published SSD. So I extend my definition to include all possible modular configurations, even if no SSD has been printed.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 04:26 pm: Edit Tos: If you and everyone else who has ever played FFA really think plasma is a problem, then the solution is easy - all plasma does half damage.

Even better, I think, all ranges are doubled for plasma. That way, if you predict your opponent's moves just right and are able to get the close-range launch, you get full damage, but you can't just launch at range and have the plasma track the enemy down. The plasma player has to predict his enemy's movements and act accordingly just like the direct-fire player does. More importantly, he has to come into overload range of the DF player in order to get full plasma damage.

Plasma S: 30 at 1-5, 22 at 6-8, 15 at 9-10, 10 at 11, 5 at 12, 1 at 13.

Plasma F: 20 at 1-3, 15 at 4-5, 10 at 6, 5 at 7, 1 at 8.

That may be going a little too far. I might suggest that when the torp gets to its 4th damage category (10 for S, 5 for F), it holds there until it gets to whatever range that damage would normally hold. Changes the chart to:

Plasma S: 30 at 1-5, 22 at 6-8, 15 at 9-10, 10 at 11-23, 5 at 24, 1 at 25.

Plasma F: 20 at 1-3, 15 at 4-5, 10 at 6, 5 at 7-14, 1 at 5.

Further suggest that this not affect damage from plasma bolts. That would always be based on the original charts.

By Chad Carew (Blackhawkckc) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 04:47 pm: Edit What about leaving plasma damage alone completely, but having phasers damage them at 1:1?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 05:43 pm: Edit How big a problem is plasma? Is it "better than it should be" or "overwhelming"?

Solutions differ.

I remind the moderator that plasma's power is an artifact of 16-impulse breaks.

I suggest the problem is with the 16-impulse breaks, not plasma. 8-impulse breaks will solve much of the problem.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 06:03 pm: Edit The unbalancing problem of plasma, as I understand it, is that in a 16-impulse break system, a direct- fire ship has to do a good job of predicting where his opponent will be at a given point in time, get into a position to attack him there, and make good on the attack. A plasma-chucker only has to get within 10-15 hexes of a target and launch, and the plasma does the rest. Fire and forget.

Eight-impulse breaks would help, but only a little. And from what I gather, the 16-impulse break is one of the things that makes FFA fun and unique. Another thing that would help would be the ability to change your movement plot to react to a plasma launch. But again, the plotted movement is one of the things that makes FFA fun and unique.

We start with a premise of the game - Survivor is an FFA game with a twist, and FFA means 16- impulse breaks and plotted movement. If we accept that these are GIVEN, then we have to handle the imbalances that those rules generate - like uber-powerful plasma.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 07:38 pm: Edit Jim,

A plasma could be launched and hit its target during a 16-impulse break. The trget is forced to react from written orders, and as we've seen from FOG, that's a problem.

8-impulse breaks cuts back on that possibility very greatly. where it is possible, the threat is much more easy to calculate.

I've played in Play-by-snail-mail games with 8-impulse breaks. Plasma did not seem to be unduly advantaged, though I'll admint to having a small sample size of games.

But if we're going to walk in knowing plasma gets an excessive advantage, the answer is simple.

Ban plasma.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 07:53 pm: Edit OK that was a little too flip.

Seriously thouhg.

What is the problem here. yes plasma is advantaged. But as long as both sides have about the same amount of plasma, they should be balanced.

Knowing the power of plasma, the plasma ship's teammates (I wouldn't say friends) will be looking for an opportune time to vote a plasma ship off the fleet.

The problem is self-limiting right until you get down to the final 8 players. At that point, there might be something to worry about.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 10:14 pm: Edit When attempting to resolve the plasma issue, do not fail to factor in that plasma ships will have a difficult time gaining immunity - only generally possible once every three turns vs other ships having more frequent opportunities.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 16, 2009 - 11:00 pm: Edit The problem occurs when more than half the players choose a plasma ship. That is worth avoiding, not by legislation, by incentive.

The best approach I've heard so far is based on victory/damage points: Plasma on a shield: 0 Non-Plasma shield damage: 1 Internals: 2 Plasma is still plenty powerful and becomes more so as ships start loosing shielding. We are talking about ships armed with five or more plasma torpedoes. There will be plenty of opportunity for plasma internals.

With this rule the Klingon player thinking of taking a Romulan won't bother, while the Romulan will still take the Romulan.

New rule: Friendly Fire is permitted during team play but counts towards the opposing team's victory points.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 01:20 pm: Edit Quick question. Since they are official enough to be included in SFBOL could Jessica's Peladine be included? (Not just the SSJ1 SSDs but her site specific ones as well.)

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 01:40 pm: Edit A comment about Kenneth's question just for clarity. Even the non-printed Peladine are in SFBOL and appear to be quite balanced.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 01:43 pm: Edit A seperate question: Is there any kind of incentive to bring in a smaller ship? Otherwise, I'd suspect we'll see nothing but big SC3 ships (which really wouldn't be that horrible).

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 02:09 pm: Edit Glenn, If you take a smallish ship, chances are you may be the first player to start talking about the next variant .

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 04:52 pm: Edit Further clarification.

SFBOL is only supposed to have official ADB ships/units Paul Franz was given the OK by SVC to allow the unpublished ships from Jessica's site to be included in the mix.

I was mostly wondering if that would be "official" enough.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 08:52 pm: Edit I'm OK with Peladine ships. No new rules to learn there.

I'm expecting mostly large ships, but there are a few specialty war cruiser sized ships that would be fun.

My advice is if there is a big ship and a slightly smaller ship that fits your strategy, try to take the slightly smaller ship.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 10:28 pm: Edit I don't see what the big problem with Plasma is. There were 4 plasma ships in the FFA. Of them, only two have done anything of consequence, and even then it was using small plasma of the 20 point variety. The King Eagle with the Sabot-R was the second ship destroyed, and the Trobrin has fired its plasma-H only once for no internals. Is it that big a deal? The drones did far more damage than plasma. By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 01:18 am: Edit Tos, Please confirm. Only Hydran fighters.

Therefore, no fighters for heavy war destroyers (normally 2), WYN fish cruisers (normally 2), or Romulan hawk cruisers that carried up to 8).

Obviously HDW cannot add fighters.

Obviously no survey cruisers converted to carriers.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 01:34 am: Edit Already asked that, and he said no to those.

I was dissapointed too.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 02:19 am: Edit "The ISC CA(C) from CL#27 is excluded."

There goes my choice

I assume the CS(C) is also banned?

The problem is that you will ban ships which get chosen by too many people as you want diversity, but if people want a chance to win then they are going to be looking at BC/CCH/BCH sized ships, and with seeking weapons being so OP in a 16 impulse break game there arent a lot of ships to choose from.

"A plasma could be launched and hit its target during a 16-impulse break."

Exactly. So the person who does the best is the person who writes the best list of conditional reactions. Im not sure if thats what SFB is meant to be about, though it may be what PBEM FFAs are all about.

"I'm OK with Peladine ships. No new rules to learn there."

Punishes those of us who dont have SFBOL but have all the published ADB stuff.

Or is there a website with the SSDs and new weapons (if any)?

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 09:25 am: Edit http://www.jessilaurn.com/ ...has all the Peladine ships.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 10:58 am: Edit As the CS(C) (4PPD+6F) is the same ship as the CA(C) (4S+6F), merely replacing the torps with PPDs, it too is banned. You can consider any ship with more than 2 PPDs or more than 3 S/R torps to be banned as well.

I can’t help it if the plasma Captains in FFA1 were ineffective. The difference from FFA1 is FFA1 didn’t give you bonus points for shield damage and the ships had far fewer plasmas. The range and damage of an enveloper skews the curve in SFS. People who would not ordinarily take a plasma ship will opt for one because of this advantage and I end up with an all plasma free-for-all. Plasma ships also tend to have the highest BPV, making them more attractive. I’ve got to do something to reduce the demand. If you want to fly plasma because it’s the ship you feel you will have the most fun with, then fly plasma. Don’t fly it just because you think it’s the best choice given the scenario rules. No one that picks an ISC CCb, Romulan KHKb or Gorn BCHb will have any trouble scoring victory points.

New Rule: Casual carriers may take up to two casual fighters, and they all may be of the mega variety. This will make my moderating job harder, but it’s worth it to encourage smaller ships. Note: A ship with 4 heavy fighters is considered a true carrier, and therefore excluded. Note: The SuperHawk is a true carrier and therefore excluded.

Rule Clarification: Modular ships may take any legal combination of modules, even if no SSD has been created for it. Exception: Only a Sparrowhawk may mount the J-module. Mounting modules that turn a ship into a carrier, PFT or escort would not be allowed by other rules.

Rule clarification: Any ship with an extra warp engine tacked but no movement cost increase (see SSJ) is excluded. BCHs with tiny emergency warp engines are not excluded.

Only Anarchist ships with a published SSD are permitted.

Quote:

"A plasma could be launched and hit its target during a 16-impulse break."

Correct. PBEM is all about planning for contingencies and forcing people to think ahead. You can’t plot your movement based on a ship turning toward you on impulse 17, but you can plot your movement based on a 50-point plasma being launched within range 12 of your ship.

Anyone want to request the FRAX?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 04:56 pm: Edit "http://www.jessilaurn.com/ ...has all the Peladine ships."

Is it me, or do those BPV seem a little low?

200 BPV for 3 PL-S, 2 PL-F, 3 Drone racks, 8 Ph-1, 3 Ph-2, and more than enough power to fire everything... But a ship with 4 PL-S is automatically banned?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 06:40 pm: Edit BPV hardly matters in this game, as BPV has nothing to do with winning, losing, or performance.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 06:54 pm: Edit I agree some of the Peladine are questionable on BPV, but there are some nice ships there.

I'm debating whether to join this or not. I am watching the rules discussion with interest. Having not played any of the FFA PBEM, I don't have much input on the rules, though.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 07:13 pm: Edit "BPV hardly matters in this game, as BPV has nothing to do with winning, losing, or performance."

True. I should have kept my points separate.

1. I think for a normal game the BPV is too low.

2. I think that allowing the Peladine BC in SFS while banning the ISC CA(C)/CS(C) is wrong.

Though I suspect it will be banned anyway, because a lot of people will take it.

Huge numbers of plasma, huge numbers of drones, a scatter pack, heaps of phasers, tons of power, 2 shuttle bays.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 07:52 pm: Edit Anyone want to request the FRAX?

How about a sub?

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 08:26 pm: Edit The guided missile sub is fun.

------

Sky_Captain

I am also debating whether to join this or not. I was (still am) in the FFA. I am not overly concerned with the rules (if I play, I'll adapt to whatever they are) so I will let others hash them out.

My concern is playing "survivor" rules and whether or not I'll enjoy them. I've probably watched 5 minutes of Survivor during its entire existence because I have not been enticed by the premise or the presentation. Same is true for all other "reality" shows and "talent" contests.

Will my desire for SFB win out? Stay tuned for next week's episode.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 08:32 pm: Edit

You have watched about 5 more minutes of Survivor than I have. By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 09:15 am: Edit I'm for inclusion of the Frax, but I didn't bother asking for additional races since I thought Tos's list was ironclad.

And I have to admit, the KH-Kb draws my attention like a magnet, but then so does the Tholian NCA.

And Tos, I thought you couldn't plot contingency movement plots no matter what was coming your way, you could only emergency decel. Is this a change from the original FFA?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 12:46 pm: Edit Not sure if its a change or just a difference in interpretation.

My interpretation for purposes of SFS is your movement can be reactive (conditional orders) to an action, but not a ship movement. You can react with weapons fire when a ship reaches a set range, but you cannot change your plotted movement based on a ship entering a set range. Your ship can react to seeking weapons, shuttles or fighters movement, but not to a ship.

Legal Conditional Orders: Move F if a ship decloaks within range 8. HET C if a unit launches a wild weasel within range 6. ED and launch a WW speed 6 direction A if a plasma of strength > 29 moves to range 5 or less. Fire 4 overloaded photons at any ship that moves to range 8. Announce a speed change from bats to 21 if more than 3 drones are launched within range 12. All pursuit, lead, evade, etc. plots are prohibited for ships, but legal for fighters and seaking wepaons.

Illegal Conditional Orders: Lower a facing shield and beam a TB SC=3 Count=1 off the #2 and #6 shield of the Klingon C7. Tac A to keep the Klingon C7 off the #1 shield. If the Romulan KH announces a speed change, increase speed with bats to match. If the Tholian turns A, Launch torp B, PL-Sb PPT at Tholian. When the Orion reaches range 6, turn A. Set pursuit plot on (anything).

I'm not sure how to boil that down, so let me know if that's clear.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 12:49 pm: Edit Ship selection will happen in rounds. Round 1, players select ships. Anyone who didn't get their ship rejected (duplicates or munchkin) will have their ship locked in. If another player selects your same ship in a later round, they may get rejected due to being a duplicate, but your ship selection is safe.

For those on the fence, join in. The worst thing that can happen is your ship gets blown up quickly.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 02:52 pm: Edit Rules for movement conditionals change from this on Jan 12:

Quote:

16-impulse breaks, players must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit course. To this on Jan 14:

Quote:

16-impulse breaks; ships must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit course. Ships may conditionally adjust their movement to react to another ships actions (including HET), but cannot tie conditional movement to any other ship’s movement, TAC or speed change.

That's pretty clear. I can set conditional orders, including conditional movement orders, on any trigger EXCEPT normal enemy movement (but HET and ED are actions, not movements).

I think I missed that when scanning the modified rules. I don't think I would have argued for such strong restrictions on plasma had I known that it was possible to alter your course when plasma is approaching.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 03:25 pm: Edit The weakness of the Pedaline BC is that, for 200 points, you have only 8 phaser-1s, only 2 of which fire anywhere other than FA.

It's strengths are more power than a Gorn BCH, a huge block of center hull to protect power systems, drone racks to provide an extra assault capability (and protect phasers), plus more batteries and tractors than the Gorn BCH.

For 200 points, I think the ship is superior to the 192-point Gorn, more than the BPV difference would cover. But I'm not sure it's totally overbalanced. What it loses in firepower, it makes up in speed, drones, and better DAC positioning.

But it's still not as dangerous as a ship for 4 S-torps or 4 PPDs.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 04:21 pm: Edit I'm plotting on submitting a ship this evening, once I get some things worked out. Hey, I might be the first in!

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 05:07 pm: Edit "The weakness of the Pedaline BC is that, for 200 points, you have only 8 phaser-1s, only 2 of which fire anywhere other than FA."

It has enormous power, and can easily fire 2 envelopers. The next turn it has to drop back to 1 enveloper, but can make up for it with a Scatter Pack.

Turn 3 its stuck with only 2 PL-F and a scatter pack, but if the scatter pack is used early, then towards the end of the turn you can fire 3 heavy drones with a bit of armour.

Turn 4 you are back to 2 envelopers.

"But it's still not as dangerous as a ship for 4 S-torps or 4 PPDs."

4 PPDs in a game where you move impulse by impulse would be lethal. But in a PBEM I dont think it would be as dangerous. Especially when people will be trying to keep some range, so that the seeking weapons are most effective.

4 PL-S like the CA(C) and the power to envelop and move is certainly over powered. But I really would struggle to choose between the Peladine and ISC.

Both are incredibly strong choices.

Yet only 1 is legal.

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 06:17 pm: Edit Right oh - finally got off my behind to register...and post something. Regarding the Peladine 200 BPV ship and any other ship that creates a cry of "Not Fair!":

- You better do really well with it and win immunity or you will get voted off for using it - because everyone will hate you - It will be deleted if more than one person tries to use it.

So it doesn't really matter - only 1/2 gain immunity to start with and only 1 once the teams go away and it is all on all. It is unlikely that anyone will win immunity all the way through. It will be more about the negotiating and voting off. Do you vote off a very good player early? and ruin your chances of winning team immunity? Or do you vote off the weakest link early, then the the obvious threats later. This will be the fun part...and one that can't be governed by a dice roll, MSC, BPV, banned or not banned.

Consider this - you may have the best SFB game of your life, only to find out that your team lost overall, everyone on your team got scared of your skill and threw you off...That is why this will be so much fun becasue it is about the people and not the game tactics...

Ever heard the phrase: ##Place## would be a great place to live except for all the ##locals##

Eg Texas would be a great place to live except for all the Texans...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 06:53 pm: Edit I'm hearing a lot of concern over the Paladine BC. Would folks prefer that I outlaw the following ships:

Paladine BC ISC CA(C) ISC CC Romulan KH Hydran OV Would folks prefer I put on a 199 BPV ship cap (excluding CO and drone speeds but including fighters)?

Would folks prefer a 179 BPV limit?

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 06:56 pm: Edit I've followed this thread with interest, although I'm not sure I'll be signing on due to other commitments. Still, I wanted to comment on the whole fuss over the Peladine BC.

I've found the Peladine to be perfectly workable in a campaign that I run.

As for the BC, keep in mind it's more than 200 points when you factor in drone speed upgrades.

Also, I'd imagine *any* BCH is going to be on the high end of what's allowed. The only ships I can think of that would be as powerful - or moreso - given the limitations are certain race's Battle Tugs (Klingon, Kzinti, Lyran - all of which are SC 3).

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 07:14 pm: Edit No Tugs but

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 07:31 pm: Edit "Would folks prefer..."

The more ships which are banned, the harder it will be to create a wide range of choices.

The OP ships will find themselves banned anyway, as the power-players all choose them.

Plus, as has been said by others, if you dont win immunity and youre in a monster ship, chances are you will be voted out.

I think the rules should be about what is best for the moderator to moderate, and the players to play. Banning individual ships just encourages the sneaky players to find a ship which the moderator hasnt comprehended as to how powerful it is.

Me? I will be in my trusty CW. Big enough to survive a long range strike, small enough to be ignored by everyone.

You may as well send me the cheque for $1m now

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 08:43 pm: Edit Are Britianian's allowed?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 08:45 pm: Edit No Britianian's. No Frax. The last time I opened the window things went poorly.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Monday, January 19, 2009 - 10:07 pm: Edit The one thing that was interesting in this was the fact there was no BPV cap at all. So I would not want to see one instituted.

If certain ships are deemed too powerful, that should be taken care of, either by multiple player selection - but only if we have enough players - or being voted off.

I would prefer certain ships be removed other than a BPV cap.

*Personal log - must ensure no CW survives.*

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 08:39 am: Edit I would prefer if there was no BPV cap, because I have a feeling that the captains will be self- regulating. I wasn't aware that we could enter ships right now. I thought we were still determining what was legal and what wasn't. I'd rather wait until all the rules were hammered down before we start submitting ships.

And a Klingon C7A choice is looking intriguing...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 09:12 am: Edit Captain's will be self regulating, up to a point. I'd like to give Captains the option to take a 150 BPV CLC, but its a difficult choice when they know they could start next to a 230 point ISC. Limiting the BPV may actually produce more variation, not less. Something to think about.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 11:23 am: Edit While that would mean I can't bring in my precious 210 bpv WYN scrap Cruiser, I fully agree with TOS. Might I suggest that for each bpv above 150, you sacrifice 1% of C.O., and something similiar if you pick a lower bpv (of course, my suggestions could be accepted, modified, or ignored. Just thinking out loud). Has there been discussion of legendary officers yet?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 11:35 am: Edit No crew or officers for this go around.

I'll set the BPV cap at 179, 199, 219 or 999; whichever majority prefers.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 01:11 pm: Edit First ship selection received. I would classify it as on the small end.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 01:21 pm: Edit TOS, Until all the rules have been finalized, I'll refrain from making a selection.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 02:17 pm: Edit How about setting a BPV cap of 174, with ships allowed above that limit for a loss of 0.5% of available CO Points, to an upper limit of 214 BPV? That should limit most excesses, I think.

Btw, are we allowing more than one ship? }>:-)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 03:12 pm: Edit One ship each. I know it was done before, but I'd rather not implement a declining CO scale. Note: I have not announced a date for ship selection. If anyone submits a ship and then later changes their mind before the deadline, they may do so.

If you want a particular rule changed, better start discussing it here.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 03:14 pm: Edit What Brad said.

I would also like to see the final edition of the rules before selecting a ship. (I have at least 4 possible ships at this time)

What is the latest version of the rules, with all the recently published adjustments incorporated?

Concerning BPV limit, I prefer 999.

Although I don't think I'll exceed 600 myself.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 03:16 pm: Edit So stasis field generators are allowed? (C7A, D7A, not D5A - 6 drone racks)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 03:55 pm: Edit SFGs are allowed, and I'm expecting to see one. You forgot to list the DWA.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 04:24 pm: Edit Tos, I think you need to repost the latest draft. I think the Peladine are now allowed, and you are allowing casual carriers, correct?

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 04:38 pm: Edit BPV limit = 999

I'm down to 2 or 3 different ships, depending on te BPV limit (if any).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 05:07 pm: Edit Ah, scratch the DWA. Just noticed it is of the 6-drone variety.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 05:54 pm: Edit BPV limit = 999 with either no restrictions on ships to choose from, or a whole heap of banned ships.

Im down to about 12 ships. Made a list of the best looking 1 or 2 ships from each race.

It would be interesting to see an SFG used in a FFA. I'd assume if it made it to the final 8 it would never be employed.

Tos, I think keeping a running total of statistics would be important in helping people decide who to eliminated (damage scored, damage received, number of impulses within 8/15 hexes of enemy ships, etc.), and also in deciding the overall winner at the end.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 06:19 pm: Edit Latest draft to be released tomorrow.

The winner is not a statistic. I'd have to look back in the posts, but I think I allowed casual fighter up to a max of two.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 06:39 pm: Edit If I was on the jury I'd be interested in knowing who scored the most damage, or spent the most time cloaked, etc in order to make up my mind who to vote for.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 07:39 pm: Edit That is a perfectly valid thing to base your vote on, but having the moderator publish statistics may influence others to take them into account when they otherwise may have decided based on some other metric they feel is more important.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 10:09 pm: Edit I don't think its the moderator's job to keep tabs (statistics) on all units . . . its the survivors' job to be observant.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 04:25 am: Edit BPV limit,

My "vote" either none or a floating one with reduced CO options.

On the rules given the ability to react to enemy actions I would be in favour of allowing plasma to score damage. It might be fair and not too much of an adjudication nightmare to make shield damage casued by EPT and hellbores to count at 1/2 the rate of other damage and I'd suggest the PPD could be added to that list too.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 11:56 am: Edit Next question: Given that Webcasters are allowed, it seems intuitively obvious that cast web is allowed.

Is generated web allowed. Can a Tholian create a globular web as terrain, if given the time and resources to do so?

I would assume yes. Issues noted previously in another PBEM topic would be self correcting. If the Tholian tried to hide, he would not gain immunity and would likely get voted out. Either during team play or FFA play. And if the globular web was created too near the edge the shrinking map would eliminate it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 01:21 pm: Edit No restrictions on web, other than those you mention. A crippled Tholian might try it as a defensive strategy.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 01:40 pm: Edit Cast web is allowed?

Seriously?

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 02:08 pm: Edit Well, with the new rules, you can have conditionals to avoid the web if it is cast, right? I don't see a problem.

Speaking of Rules, I was thinking about the plasma. It's kind of unfair that only plasma is singled out for the damage it can do in one of its modes. I would like to see Bolted plasma count for full points, just like other direct fire damage. It takes a long time to recharge, so I think it makes sense to allow points for a weapon reduced to half damage.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 02:32 pm: Edit I would think bolted plasma and caronnades would be at full damage.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 02:42 pm: Edit John: If statis fields are allowed, why would cast web not be? I think this game will be a proving ground to justify all of the restrictions we have placed on abusive tech in Fog games. But the point here is that you don't have to DEFEAT the abusive technology - you just have to tell it to go home.

So, can a captain held in a statis field vote?

On cast web, take a look at the types of ships that it comes on - mostly disruptor-armed Neo-Tholians or, maybe, photon-armed Archaeo 'W' refits. These ships probably aren't going to be winning immunity very often - so you can probably vote them off whenever you want to.

Also, note that if you can't place a web based upon your knowledge of an enemy ship's position and movement, your chance of catching anyone ON PURPOSE is practically nil. It would even be difficult to use it to 'herd' someone if you can't tell where they are. Makes the web a lot more of a defensive weapon than an offensive one. Given that web is highly dependent upon placement relative to its target to be effective, and given that you can't make it's placement dependent on target position, I think you'll find that web is nowhere near as effective as you fear it will be.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 03:06 pm: Edit Jim,

Except the side that wins any given turn doesn't vote anybody off.

A stasis or web caster ship won't encounter the the problem of being voted off unless their side loses. While web and stasis aren't damaging weapons, they are weapons that greatly inhibit the ability to inflict damage.

Two or three turns of only one side voting players off will create an imbalance that will insure that side will be forced to continue to vote players off.

I don't think this will prove anything to anybody about systems banned in FOG. With 16-impulse breaks, it's brain-dead easy to abuse web. Sure it will argue against un limited use of web but nobody is advocating that now.

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 03:28 pm: Edit About unbalanced teams: I have noticed that on many "reality" shows, like survivor, once one team outnumbers the other by more than 2 people, they do a team shuffle and make them balanced again.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 03:28 pm: Edit John, I don't think you need to fear imbalance too much. We might only get 10 players, at which point after two rounds of one team voting, you end up going to a FFA format.

Now, if there are 18 players, that makes things a little more difficult, but not too much so. Just add the following rule:

"If one team loses three immunities in a row and if there is an even number of total players remaining, prior to the start of the next round the players are randomly shuffled into even teams.

If there is an odd number of players, then players will be randomly shuffled into new teams after the following turn's vote, regardless of which team won immunity."

I think that would mitigate the problem somewhat.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 03:49 pm: Edit That does dilute the Survivor concept of "competing tribes"

Me, I'd want both sides to vote a player off every turn and set terms for individual immunity.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 04:25 pm: Edit I'm likely to do a team shuffle if things get unbalanced, assuming there are enough players to make it matter.

Bolted plasma and carronades receive full victory points, good catch.

Captains in stasis do not get to vote and cannot be voted off.

The Free-For-All segment may not start with the final 8, but could be some other number. You will never know exactly when the merge (FFA) will occur.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 04:51 pm: Edit I'm changing the hidden immunity process and need your help.

The current rule is you receive hidden immunity on a roll of 1-6.

I'd like to change that by giving the displaced Captain some hidden mission to perform within the next 16 impulses. Success of the hidden mission cannot be known to the other players.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 07:25 pm: Edit That sounds cool.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 07:49 pm: Edit Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.4

Players apply by sending in an initial note of interest to [email protected], followed sometime later by their ship and commander’s options. General: • All non-optional rules are in play except as noted herein. • Players are split between two teams of approximately equal BPV by the moderator. • 16-impulse breaks;

Plotted Movement: • Ships must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit course. • Ships may conditionally adjust their movement to react to another ships actions (including HET), but cannot tie conditional movement to any other ship’s movement, facing, position, range, TAC or speed change. • Ships may conditionally adjust their movement based on seeking weapons or shuttles, but not on ECM Drones or ECM Plasma. • Late SOPs will result in the moderator controlling the ship. While I won’t steer you into a black hole, don’t expect to be scoring any victory points either.

Fleet Council: • The team that scores the most victory points gains immunity for the turn. • The team that fails to score the most victory points at the end of the turn votes out one ship on their side (see hidden immunity). • Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • In the event of a tied vote a new vote is called for. In the event of a second tie, one random player will be ejected. Ask yourself if maintaining the integrity of your alliance vote is worth the chance that you will be voted out. • A ship in stasis does not get a vote and cannot be voted out. • If teams become unbalanced the moderator may force a random reshuffle of teams. • When down to the final three players, the last five players kicked out vote for the winner from among the final three. • Ships voted off disappear. They do not explode. Any seeking weapons controlled by an ejected ship may continue if they achieve their own lock-on. Free-For-All: When approximately half (moderator may vary) the players are left the game becomes a free-for-all and the following rules are in use: • The player who scores the most victory points in the previous 32 impulses, effective impulse 16 of each turn, may attempt (but is not required to) to displace any one enemy unit. • The player who scores the most victory points in a given turn is granted individual immunity at Fleet Council and cannot be voted out. • Each turn the remaining players vote out one ship. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships.

Displaced Ships: A ship that is successfully displaced is under the full rules for displacement (G18.3) with the following modifications: • A successfully displaced player is moved 2d6 hexes in a random direction, but not beyond the board edge. • A displaced ship gains 0-50 self repair points, as determined by (die roll - 1) * 10. This information is not made public. • These points can be allocated immediately and take effect at the end of the turn. • These points cannot be carried over into subsequent turns. • A displaced ship may allocate 0-5 reserve power on impulse 17 in an attempt to recover hidden immunity. If a secret die roll is less than or equal to the amount of reserve power used, and hidden immunity is available to recover, that Captain gains hidden immunity.

Map and initial placement: • The map will begin as a large square and shrink by one hex in each direction at the start of each turn. • The initial size will be determined once the number of players is known. • Initial board placement will alternate by team in a circle along the map edges. Sequence of Play: 1) Players submit letter of interest to [email protected] 2) Players submit ships, subject to approval 3) Players submit Commander’s Options 3) Players are assigned a team and board position 4) All players SSDs are posted 5) Players submit EAF 6) Starting speeds, ejected players and any ships sitting out the victory point calculation for this turn are communicated to players 7) Players submit SOP for impulses 1-16 8) SITREP is sent to players 9) The ship scoring the most victory points on the team scoring the most victory points may attempt to displace one enemy unit 10) The displaced player receives and may allocate any bonus repair points 11) Players submit SOP for impulses 17-32 12) Team or individual immunity is determined based on victory points scored during the turn 13) SITREP is sent to players 14) If only three players remain the final five players who have been voted out will vote for the winner. Game ends. 15) Eligible players vote for who to eject and play hidden immunity 16) Map shrinks by one hex in each direction 17) Return to step 5

Ships Selection: • Players may select any one ship, from any ADB published source, within limitations including: o No SC1 or SC2 ships o No Interceptors, PFs, PFTs (all Lyran PFTs without special sensors are allowed, but may not field PFs) o No Carriers, Carrier Escorts, MRS, Remote Control Fighters, Cloaked Decoys or SWACs o Non-Hydran casual carriers are limited to 2 fighters, which may be mega-fighters o Hydran casual carriers are limited to 6 single space fighters or mega-fighters. o No ship with more than 5 drone racks, excluding ADD racks o No more than 1 Scatter Pack per ship. This special shuttle can be recovered and reloaded, but cannot be used for any administrative purpose. o No Drogues o No Maulers, Minesweepers, Tugs or Pods o Modular ships that are legal combinations but that do not have an SSD are permitted. o No ship may have more than 3 heavy plasmas (PL-S or PL-R), so the Romulan SPJ is allowed, but a FHJ is not o No special crews, legendary officers or penal variants o Only Anarchist ships with published SSDs are permitted o No X-Ships or XP Refits o Ships that add a warp engine without a movement cost increase are excluded. Small emergency boom style engines are not excluded. o No General units or bases o Races are restricted to the following: Federation (excluding CAC), Klingon, Romulan (excluding FHZ), Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion (excluding BCH and BRD, must choose a cartel, one non-cartel weapon), Hydran (Max 6 fighters), Lyran, WYN (excluding AxDN), ISC (excluding CA(C) and CS(C)), LDR, Seltorian and Peladine. o Ships may select commander’s options up to 20% of their combat BPV o Ships selected by two players may be rejected. Ships selected more than two players will be rejected. o The moderator has final approval on allowed ships. Munchkin ships may be retroactively excluded. o It is the players responsibility to supply the moderator with any unusual ship SSD and special rules.

Communications: • Player identity will be secret. • There is no pre-game planning session. • Each player is allowed to send 4x128 character messages to a single ship each break. There are no team or group comms. • Only the player receiving the ship-to-ship message will be allowed to read the message, but it will be public knowledge which ships sent messages where. • The first communication will be sent 1.01 and received 1.16.

I'll make this sticky once we get closer to a final ruleset.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 11:51 pm: Edit Tos: One thing about the relationship between this and the TV Survivor. In the TV version, the game continues until there are only two players left. The last challenge always gives the one who wins immunity the option of which of the other two players to eliminate. Then, the last seven to be voted off choose the winner from the two who remain.

As for the unbalanced rule, I understand the need for it, but I'm not sure I like it. I don't want there to be a time when any player's contributions don't count. But random shuffling (as Brad suggested) could result in teams that are more unbalanced than the ones you had before. How about:

After the vote to eliminate a player, if one team has two more ships than the other, one ship from the larger team will be selected to move to the smaller team. The selected ship will be the one that will, in the moderator's opinion, create the best balance.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 08:09 am: Edit Old Survivors had a final two. New Survivors have a final three. By the time we get to the final three I am expecting them to be hulks, so there won't be much purpose in continuing.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 09:28 am: Edit Shows you long it's been since I paid any attention to the show.

I think, by the time we get to the final three, it will be three relatively pristine ships. Why? Because if you think there's a chance you might get voted off, the #1 way to prevent that is to go finish off a cripple. Destroyed ships have to go first. So I'm excpecting the last three or four players to sweep the board in order to prevent the vote from being any real threat. You don't need immunity if the vote is not in doubt.

We'll see who's right in the end.

Now, if this isn't really the way you think things should go (if you think the vote should always count for something), then we add a new wrinkle - you don't have to vote for the destroyed ships. If your ship was destroyed and you don't get voted off, you get back into the game - in a 150-point (max) ship of the moderator's choice.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 09:41 am: Edit Jim's idea has precedence: In the Survivor:Pearl Islands (the one with a Pirate Theme) Once the teams were down to a certain number, the producers brought back all the cast-offs and had them compete in a challenge. If they beat one of the established tribes, they got to vote one member back into the game and the losing tribe had to vote one out. If they beat both tribes (which is what happened), then the cast- aways got to vote two players back into the game and each of the other tribes had to vote a player out.

(Yes, I'm a bit of a survivor junkie. And if you think that the person who plays the best tactical game on the map is going to win, you've got another thing coming. Everyone had better brush up on their interpersonal skills. )

Btw, are players allowed to send more than one message to the same ship since they have 4 channels available?

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 10:10 am: Edit Jim, The ship finishing off the cripple had better make sure that while doing so, no other pristine ship turns them into the next cripple to be finished off. If both agree to fire x number of weapons into the cripple and one reneges, things could turn strange. The reneger had best make sure the cripple blows up, otherwise the original cripple may join with "he-who-was-stabbed-in-back" to vote against the reneger.

Brad, I agree. Winning this will be primarily based on interpersonal skills and who can (and does) trust whom, and secondly on tactical skill.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 02:28 pm: Edit It's going to be hard to employ interpersonal skills with only four 128-character comments every 16 impulses.

Do you think it would help if I used 'Summer Glau' as my alias?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 02:56 pm: Edit Portraying yourself as helpless River Tam or as a Terminator?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 02:59 pm: Edit When was River Tam helpless?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 03:03 pm: Edit Well now, that's up to the other captain to decide, isn't it?

River Tam often SEEMED helpless - she didn't really show her abilities (except for once or twice) until the movie.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 04:19 pm: Edit River Tam was a moody, unpredictable, borderline psychotic who could read your mind. if that's the image you want to project for survivor...

...OK, that's not a bad image.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 05:00 pm: Edit Conditional actions may reference the impulse, weapons arc, range, facing, shield or speed of an enemy ship, but may not reference the ship's hex or use the hex in any kind of calculation. Laying a TB two hexes ahead of the Orion’s current position on Impulse 25 is an illegal order because in SFS you don’t know the Orion’s hex on Impulse 25. The only time you know the exact hex of a target is on each SITREP. ECM Drones and ECM Plasma fall into the same category as ships, the current hex cannot be used in a conditional.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 05:01 pm: Edit Actually, the choice between River Tam and Cameron the Terminator is one of degree. River is a dissociative psychotic mind-reader trained to be an assassin. Cameron is a remorseless android sensor net programmed to be an assassin.

But my initial reason for choosing her was much more basic than that - If YOU were on an island with Summer Glau, would YOU vote her off?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 05:11 pm: Edit Depends on who else was there.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 10:00 pm: Edit I'm reconsidering what you can plot a conditional action on so ignore my 1/22 5pm post until I get it figured out.

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 01:51 am: Edit Tos, just make it up as it happens and tell 'em whether they can do it on the spot or not. If they can't no wasted power or object. Otherwise we may start the game after you have considered all the potential variables...I pose the question to everyone - How many variables are there in SFB?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 07:57 am: Edit With unlimited BPV there is a chance someone may decide to take TBs. If they do, a foreseeable occurance, it seems reasonable to explain how they can be used.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 08:03 am: Edit 2nd ship received (but to the wrong email address). Please use sfbsfs @ yahoo . com.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 11:23 am: Edit Jason,

Even if Tos decides later that some use of conditionals is illegal, it's still a good idea to give us all a starting point. If it's always up to Tos on a case-by-case basis, the penchant is there for some players to spend the next three years arguing their point. Best to have a set of guidelines, then you can decide what falls within them or outside them.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 03:53 pm: Edit I'm thinking of removing conditional actions based on a ships: 1) Current Speed 2) Facing 3) Hex 4) ECM Drones and ECP Plasma The above restrictions apply only to ships, not drones, plasmas or shuttles. You will always know which hex/facing/speed a non-ECM drone, non-ECP plasma and shuttle is in.

Leaving you to base conditional actions on: 1) Impulse 2) Range 3) Which target shield is facing you 4) Shield status of facing shield 5) Which weapons arc your target is in Specifically this is which of your weapons are in arc, you can't base a conditonal on a weapons arc your ship doesn't have.

Will that make placing an offensive TB sufficiently difficult without giving away too much information?

I'm not inclined to limit conditonal orders at this time but reserve the right to do so in the future. If you want to write 30 conditional orders, the least I can do is read them. Be warned that excessive conditional orders will result in your crew making non-negotiable errors in following them.

Every Captain is expected to submit a Seeking Weapon Defense Plan (SWDP) as a standing order for their ship. If you've never written one of these before, expect it to take some time.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 04:00 pm: Edit Tos,

I think you WANT a standardized SWDP.

Really.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 04:16 pm: Edit Perhaps, but its part of the experiment to force Captains to think ahead.

Given the scenario limitations, I would be surprised to face more than 30 drones in a turn.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 04:29 pm: Edit Sounds fine to me.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 05:13 pm: Edit It's your sanity.

Spend it as you wish.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit I volunteered to moderate a large untested PBEM free for all with minimal restrictions. Sanity wasn't a pre-req.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 23, 2009 - 06:32 pm: Edit not going to get any this way either. By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, January 24, 2009 - 11:40 am: Edit In fact, I'd say sanity would be a disqualifying characteristic. I think I lost mine around turn 2 of Fog 4.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, January 24, 2009 - 11:48 am: Edit

Quote:

(You can write conditionals based on) Which weapons arc your target is in. Specifically this is which of your weapons are in arc, you can't base a conditional on a weapons arc your ship doesn't have.

This will give some ships advantages. For example, a Gorn BCH can divide the space around him into 12 distinct slices, whereas a Fed BCH could only get 8, I think. Of course, since you cannot make movement changes based solely upon where your enemy has MOVED, I'm not sure it's that much of an advantage.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, January 24, 2009 - 05:55 pm: Edit I believe current count has us at 11 players with 1 pending. Looking forward to 16.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 26, 2009 - 06:21 pm: Edit 12, 1 pending.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 10:54 am: Edit 13. The pending converted. Looking for three more. Spread the word.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 12:18 pm: Edit I'm on vacation for two weeks until after President's day. Do you think we'll be moving forward before that time?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 02:39 pm: Edit We won't have started by then. Maybe late February. This is intended to be kept to a nice leisurely pace.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 03:35 pm: Edit Tos: On SWDPs - Moderating Fog 6, I have a hard enough time remembering the details of TWO SWDPs - I can't imagine how you will maintain the details of sixteen if they are not uniform.

I would suggest that you (or we collectively) publish a basic SWDP for all ships, and let each player put modifictions to the base on their SOP as part of their standing orders. Better to be looking for variations on a theme than 16 different themes.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 03:41 pm: Edit With 16 impulse breaks and far fewer drones, I only expect to look up a couple of SWDP at a time.

The original FFA did not have a unified SWDP and some Captain's paid for the oversight.

I appreciate the advice, and you are absolutely correct, but it doesn't mesh with what I'm looking to accomplish for this battle.

Captain's: If you don't want your ship to have a SWDP, you don't have to. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 04:51 pm: Edit If someone is found to be sending out too many drones, or has an annoying SWDP, I can always rig the vote to get rid of them.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 05:22 pm: Edit What? No camera of us putting in our votes?

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 12:20 am: Edit I think Tos may record who votes which way, but won't reveal who is 'behind the mask' so to speak until the end.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 09:21 am: Edit Technically, the players aren't supposed to know who voted for who at Tribal Council, so i'm okay not knowing who voted how until after the game is over.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 02:02 pm: Edit Draft Timeline:

Signups - Continue until at least 16 players (current 13+1)

2/16 9AM EST: Ship Selection

2/23 9AM EST: Commander's Options

2/25: Map Placement SITREP

3/2 9AM: EAF

3/6: 1.00.SITREP

3/13: 1.01.SOP SWDP

3/20: 1.16.SITREP.Preliminary

3/27: 1.16.SITREP.Displacement

4/3: 1.17.SOP

4/10: 1.32.SITREP 4/13: 1.32.VOTE

4/15: Vote Results

4/17: EAF

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 02:37 pm: Edit Tos: Since we're all going to be anonymous, I'd like to suggest that when someone gets voted off, their true identity is revealed. You should collect their 'final comments' and publish them all when the game is over. You know, when we get togther in Madison Square Garden for the two-hour final special show and the award of the million dollars.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 02:39 pm: Edit Good plan. I'd like to post the voted off comments real time on the web site, edited for spoilers.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 04:02 pm: Edit After much fence sitting, I'm in. e-mail sent.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, February 07, 2009 - 12:50 pm: Edit Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.5

Players apply by sending in an initial note of interest to [email protected]. Ship selections by 2/20/2009 please.

Sequence of Play: 1) Players submit letter of interest to [email protected] 2) Players submit ships, subject to approval 3) Players submit Commander’s Options 3) Players are assigned a team and board position 4) All players SSDs are posted 5) Players submit EAF 6) Starting speeds, ejected players and any ships sitting out the victory point calculation for this turn are communicated to players 7) Players submit SOP for impulses 1-16 8) SITREP is sent to players 9) The ship scoring the most victory points on the team scoring the most victory points may attempt to displace one enemy unit 10) The displaced player receives and may allocate any bonus repair points 11) Players submit SOP for impulses 17-32 12) Team or individual immunity is determined based on victory points scored during the turn 13) SITREP is sent to players 14) If only three players remain the final five players who have been voted out will vote for the winner. Game ends. 15) Eligible players vote for who to eject and play hidden immunity 16) Map shrinks by one hex in each direction 17) Return to step 5

I'll make this sticky once we get closer to a final ruleset.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 03:10 pm: Edit No debate. Maybe it's time to make this 'sticky'.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 04:31 pm: Edit ok. one item.

After EAF of any turn the teams may be shuffled to form new teams or the game could become a free- for-all.

Before EAF, please. I'd like the option to plan knowing who my freind are or aren't.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 05:14 pm: Edit What happens to seekers in flight if you suddenly swap sides and your 100 point enveloper is heading towards your new team?

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 05:57 pm: Edit I think that's handled under the "friendly fire" rule.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 07:45 pm: Edit It wouldn't be much of a surprise if you knew it what was going to happen before EA.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 04:35 am: Edit Tos,

You have fighters direct fire as not gaining victory points, does a player still gain victory points for damage scored by a fighters seeking weapons?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 08:21 am: Edit Seeking weapons do normal victory points. Fighter direct fire does 0. A Hydran Ragnarr can come in with 12 casual Mega-Stingers. You will have a powerful force, but you won't be scoring VP.

You may only have two non-Hydran fighter, and only on ships with casual ready racks. A non-carrier survey cruiser that normally carries 4 or 6 fighters could legally field 2 fighters. The S8 rule requiring 75% is not in effect.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:40 pm: Edit Jason - obviously, you should launch your plasma so that it hits before EOT. Not only does that get you points towards immunity, it also means that you have no messy friendly fire issues.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 10:55 am: Edit Accorindg to your schedule, today is the deadline for ship selection. Are we a go?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 12:01 pm: Edit Nope. Haven't built the list of ship submissions, but I've got maybe half of them.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Time to start knocking heads, then.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 01:15 pm: Edit I'll get mine in this evening (after I get home).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 03:43 pm: Edit I've got 15 players signed up. I'd like 16 players and one alternate (I'm leary of the seriousness of one of the signups).

Of those 15 players, 8 have submitted ships. I've emailed the people with missing ships to get them in.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 04:36 pm: Edit 15 players: 3 teams of 5.

Of course, that would mean hostiles on both sides at the beginning.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 04:47 pm: Edit Ship selection is in.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 05:18 pm: Edit Ship selections rolling in, thanks.

We have our first bounced ship due to excessive demand. All varients of the LDR BC/BCH are excluded. I've emailed those folks who selected it and asked for a new ship.

Also, I miscounted and we do have 16. Still prefer one alternate, but I'll leave full Captain roles available of folks still want in.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 10:08 pm: Edit Second bounced ship. All those who selected the Tholian NCH, its time to pick a new ship. Not bad for a well hidden Captain's Log ship. By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 11:39 pm: Edit I think it would have been better to wait for all first round selections, then you could have said which ones were picked by 1 player and therefore accepted, and which were picked by more than 1 and therefore dumped.

Then you could proceed round by round.

For my second pick I may end up choosing a ship which was accepted by someone on their first pick, and therefore I get bumped again, and end up chasing my tail right down to a Destroyer.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:10 am: Edit I should add, you are also rewarding people for being slow.

If I waited until the last minute to select my first round choice I could see all the ships which have been declined, and then make my choice, increasing my chance of my first round pick getting through.

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:19 am: Edit If my ship is successful in the first round and someone else picks it in the second or third round does that mean I lose my pick and have to pick again?

Even though nobody else chose it initially? Or does it get locked in from the successful first round?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 02:08 am: Edit If you chose it in Round 1 and noone else did, then its yours. Noone can pick it from then on.

But my issue is that if you want and see all the ships which get banned, then you can save your Round 1 choice for something else.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 02:15 am: Edit I think part of the problem is that this setup has forced players to take the short route and pick the best BC/CCH/BCH they can get their hands on as early as possible.

I thought about that, and remembered an axiom from my B5CCG days. That is "To win, play for 2nd Place". It meant that the 'best' tend to get targetted early and often, leaving less 'powerful' targets intact into the mid/late game, where they hold sway. So I stopped looking at the top tier picks (the BCH's et al), and went for what felt was the next step down.

I am absolutely certain that I was the first person with their ship selected, and I am equally confident that no one will have chosen the same base hull as me, simply because I'm not playing for 1st, I'm playing for 2nd, to win.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:22 am: Edit Tos: When are COs due? I have a ship, but haven't sat down and microcalculated my COs.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 09:25 am: Edit There are currently 16 players. About 2/3 have selected a ship.

For a ship to get auto bounced at least three (not two) players need to select the same ship.

To Jason's point, he is correct that by the published rules I should wait until all first round selections have been made before announcing bounced ships. I did not do so for two reasons: In the interest of time, and I forgot my own rules. I'll be more careful going forward. Jason, you won't be penalized by my error.

David, I don't have a hard deadline on COs yet. Technically you could change things right up until 1.01 speed change announcements. I advise players to get their COs in earlier than that so I can spot and resolve any errors. My suggested CO date is 1 week after everyone's ships have been selected.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:08 am: Edit When will the final rules be posted in the topic header? I'd like to go over the rules before making my final selection.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:22 am: Edit followup: found rule version 0.4, reading now, will submit ship today.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:26 am: Edit The current 0.5 (2/7) rules are final until they change. I'm assuming I will need to make a request to Jean to get them sticky, which is something I've just avoided doing. Based on a lack of comment to the negative, I expect I'll get them sticky soon. Maybe after I read them one more time.

There is a draft timeline somewhere up thread. This was purely a draft to give folks a feel for the pace of the game - slow turn around for PBEM, faster completion due to 16 impulse breaks. The actual timeline will look signficantly different. Right now it will be an accomplishment if we can get through ship selection this month. Want to help? Get your ship selection in soon.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:27 am: Edit Glenn, please reference the 2/7 0.5 rules, not the 0.4 rules. I think I recall making some notes, so I won't be able to make anything sticky until tonight best case. On the other hand, maybe I'll just do my taxes instead.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:51 am: Edit Tos: In order to avoind having my second choice step on the toes of any of your first-round choices, could we send you a general idea of what we're looking for and have you send back a list of possibilities? Otherwise, this could go on for weeks.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:50 pm: Edit Regarding shield damage and internals. I'm assuming this is (regarding shields) 2 pts (1pt for plasma) PER shield box, correct?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 01:40 pm: Edit Glenn: Yes, victory points are scored by box.

Jim: With 1600 ships to choose from it should be fairly easy for 16 players to find a ship that hasn't been taken by three players. I could send you a list of the 1598 still available ships, but I won't. You are supposed to pick your ship without knowledge of what others have chosen.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:37 pm: Edit Tos said: "Jim: With 1600 ships to choose from it should be fairly easy for 16 players to find a ship that hasn't been taken by three players."

When I made my list of ships which would do well I came up with 8 or 9. I have a feeling most other players would have done something similar.

Sure, we could guarantee ourselves a ship by going for a Selt Light Cruiser, but to succeed in the game its going to need to be able to do constant damage, absorb a lot of damage (anything which can be killed in 1 impulse is going to get killed in 1 impulse), but still not be an enormous threat to others and get voted out if ever we dont top the damage meter.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:49 pm: Edit I'm pretty sure a vanilla Fed DD would be a safe pick, also.

I tried to think "outside the box" and pick something different. When will I know if my ship selection was accepted?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:43 pm: Edit

Quote:

Jim: With 1600 ships to choose from it should be fairly easy for 16 players to find a ship that hasn't been taken by three players.

While that's technically true, you know as well as we all do that about 1500 of those ships are not going to survive. And we're all looking for a gimmick, I think, which is why the Tholian NCH was a prime choice.

Just trying to get some closure here.

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:59 pm: Edit Quote: Jim: With 1600 ships to choose from it should be fairly easy for 16 players to find a ship that hasn't been taken by three players.

Munchkins and metagamers slowing it down for everyone that is just out for fun...just pick a random ship and start!!!

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 06:15 pm: Edit "Munchkins and metagamers slowing it down for everyone that is just out for fun...just pick a random ship and start!!!"

Would be even funnier if Tos assigned ships.

"He got 187 BPV with 17 CO points, but I got 186 BPV and 18 CO points. According to my spreadsheet that left me 0.03% behind in damage capabilities".

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 06:39 pm: Edit hey...metagaming *is* fun. But Tos would be the last person here to ever assign ships. He's too much of a plotter and planner to deny that particular brand of fun to someone else.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 07:41 pm: Edit I think the problem with metagaming is that once the ships are selected, half the field will be resigned to the fact that they wont win, because someone came up with something more clever than them.

Not the best way to head in to a game which may take a year or more to play.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 08:10 pm: Edit Jason

This game has a better remedy than most.

If someone looks too clever by half, vote them off the island. This game is as much politics as tactics and firepower. The game may well go to a shrewed negotiator flying a humdrum ship.

This is, in part, why I lobbied for both sides to have to vote ships off at the end of a turn. The rules assume that both sides will "win" turns over the course of the game, giving both teams a chance to play the political game. The moderator can heavily affect the outcome if a one-sided game forces a ship transfer.

The other solution is to change one's ship choice NOW. It doesn't appear that anybody is stuck with their choice YET. if you have to metagame to be effective, you still have time to go ahead and do it.

OTOH, If you like your ship and don't want to metagame, play it as it comes without regret. you have at the very least been forewarned that you're stepping into a shark tank.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 08:20 pm: Edit Politics is going to be tough, due to the restrictions on communications.

None before we start, and 4 pips every 16 impulses.

So really, I cant see the comms at I16 being much more than "hey vote the Fred off, Photons are useless".

Then you hope that the others you messaged agree.

Certainly early in the game it will be nearly impossible to make deals.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 08:31 pm: Edit The other option still holds - Rethink your choice if you're concerned it won't cut it.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 09:30 pm: Edit On a different note:

Tos,

Does damage from fighter-launched seeking weapons count for victory points?

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:09 pm: Edit Vorlon,

By what was written in the rules and what was not, I concluded (and predict) "Yes".

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:12 pm: Edit There are many different types of gamers I suppose:

Type A: I like to be assigned a ship and make the best of what I get...kinda like being in Starfleet or Navy here where you get your posting and tough luck...(I always push the random button in SFBOnline tournament pick up games)

Type B: I guess others like to look at every mathematical angle and enjoy the construction of what they deem to be the most effective ship and CO options.

Now what would be interesting would be to get Type B people selecting the ship and Type A people flying their selection for them...

The world is such a wonderful diverse place...

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:28 am: Edit COs: Soooo.... we can select our COs based on the ships we find ourselves facing?

(Can you guess which food group I'm from? I knew you could... ;)

Cat.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 08:39 am: Edit Cat,

By what was written in the timeline and what was not, I concluded (and predict) "No".

This due to CO selection occurring before anyone sees a SitRep/map.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 12:33 pm: Edit A really interesting twist would be to have everyone select a ship, then assign those ships randomly.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 12:45 pm: Edit That would be an interesting twist. I'm for it, since ship selection really doesn't matter much in this format.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 12:55 pm: Edit Despite the love of the ship I selected, sounds like fun to me, too.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 01:26 pm: Edit That would be different.

But since we've actually submitted our picks based on what we want to fly, not face off against...

I'd still go for it.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 02:12 pm: Edit since we've actually submitted our picks based on what we want to fly, not face off against... A POL/FF Free for all, anyone?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 02:23 pm: Edit Damage from fighter seeking weapons does count for victory points. Damage from direct fire fighters does not.

I don’t expect knowing your opponents will affect your CO points, but it might. In short I keep going back and forth on this. Let me think about it some more when I get a chance to clear my head and get the ships finalized.

You will fly your ship. Ships won’t be distributed randomly.

I now have everyone’s first pick. First round is over. If you have not been notified that your first pick is no good, then it’s good. I have all but one second round pick.

I’m thinking I’ll tell folks what ships made the map, but not who is on which team.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 03:56 pm: Edit J. Laikind

Pol/FF would be an upgrade for me, considering the Skiff I submitted.

No, wait!

That violated the rule stating no general units.

I hereby replace that selection with a new one - Tholian Web Tender.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 04:14 pm: Edit The field is complete. Below are the ships that have joined the battle. If you do not see your selection, please let me know by email as I've screwed something up. Fed NAL Fed NAL Hydran OV Hydran CHA Klingon C7A Kzinti BCH Orion HDW Orion HDW Peladine CCH Romulan KEb Romulan KCRb Romulan KCRb Tholian NCA WYN PBB WYN WSC WYN CF By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:11 pm: Edit

So none of the LDR BC(H) losers went after the LDR CCH (4 disr, 8 P-1, 4 P-G, 2 ESG) as a second choice?

And only one of the Tholian losers took a step down to the NCA?

Interesting....

======

I guess it is time to get to work on COs.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:32 pm: Edit Its time to get to work on COs.

I'm going to have teams done before you have COs done, so I plan to announce teams (but no map positions) before COs. COs due by 2/23.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:38 pm: Edit Will you want the FOG mapmaker for this?

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:40 pm: Edit Stupid question:

What do the notations "KEb" and "KCRb" signify?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit If a ship has refits available, are they taken out of COs? Or is it assumed we start with the latest version of whatever we chose, and then spend our COs?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit "What do the notations "KEb" and "KCRb" signify?"

That you didnt choose a Romulan

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:46 pm: Edit All of the ships are fully refit, but the 'b' denotes the sabot refit. I wasn't consistent with listing refits so its safe to ignore. I will want PBEM tools, and instructions on their use.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:58 pm: Edit Tos,

If I remember, I'll send you the goodies tonight.

The mapmaker uses Python. I wrote a readme and documented the ini file.

Since the mapmaker uses a bazillion small gif files, it takes up 40-50 meg, but like 1.3 MB when compressed, IIRC.

Bug me by email if you have questions.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 06:26 pm: Edit Surprised at the two Orion HDWs, since they double engines using the SC3 rules and not the SC4 rules.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 07:35 pm: Edit Fleet 1 FS1 Fed NAL HS1 Hydran CHA KS1 Klingon C7A ZS1 Kzinti BCH OS1 Orion HDW PS1 Peladine CCH RS1 Romulan KCR WS1 WYN PBB

Fleet 2 FS2 Fed NAL HS2 Hydran OV OS2 Orion HDW RS2 Romulan KCR RS3 Romulan KE TS1 Tholian NCA WS2 WYN CF WS3 WYN WSC

And no, if your ship is listed in both fleets, I'm not telling you which you are in yet.

Teams will alternate in a circle around the outside of the map.

If I have any last minute players that beg me to come in I may allow it, but I get to pick their ship. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 07:37 pm: Edit Someone talk me through the web site setup. I've got scans of all of these, but most web sites I've seen don't use scans. Someone want to volunteer to build the web site for me? I should be able to manage it once its put together.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 11:21 pm: Edit New Rule: At the beginning of the game, you may pick one ship as your called target. Any damage you do to that target scores double victory points. This information remains secret until victory points are awarded following the break in which the damage was done.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 11:57 pm: Edit Ooohh.. Nice rule.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 12:17 am: Edit I would advise anyone uncomfortable with what can happen in a 16-impulse break to study the FFA archives: http://www.geocities.com/theandromedan/ffa.htm

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 09:53 am: Edit If on the off-hand chance your target ship suddenly is on your team, when (and if) do you get to reselect your target ship?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 09:59 am: Edit You don't get to reselect your target ship. If the sides swap you just might choose not to shoot at it until the game goes free-for-all.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 12:57 pm: Edit I presume that means you can't reselect even if your target is destroyed, etc.

Choose wisely, freinds. Choose cunningly.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 01:01 pm: Edit Tos,

I can send you everything I have for the Fog 6 web site. It probably would not take me long to modify it for you, at least at a basic level. If you are planning to host it on your own web server, I can send you the files.

As for other tools, you'll want to talk to Frank Brooks. He took all the tools I used in Fog 4.5 (which were written in SAS and not very transportable) and wrote them in something else (can't remember what right now, but I think it was something portable). Frank used those tools in Fog 5. If you have any questions about how they worked, either of us could probably give you support.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 04:33 am: Edit Tos,

What weapon status will be at and will drone and plasma users be able to start with ECM "thingies" on the map and other impulse 28 turn zero launches or not (assuming WS III; I predict agonisier type howls should you now tell us we start at WS 0 )

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 07:36 am: Edit WS0: Glee from Disruptor/Drone users. Howls from BP users and Hydrans.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 08:24 am: Edit How about WS2 as a compromise?

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 09:30 am: Edit Whatever Tos decides

I was assuming WS III but was unsure whether we would get to put our toys on the map from turn 0 FOG6 style or not. The WS 0 was just a joke I tell you just a joke leave me alone I'm flying the .... (hum even as a bluff I upset someone)

Runs away and hides

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 10:08 am: Edit Relax, its WS3. I want to see some early carnage.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 10:34 am: Edit Tos will ECM plamsa and drones be allowed out at the start of the game from "turn 0" launch as WS 3 allows? Will other drones and or fighters be allowed out?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 11:00 am: Edit Fighters are not allowed out except as a fighter cap, which is only available to carriers, which are excluded. So no fighters out early.

Drones and plasmas can be launched at 0.28, but you won't have a target other than yourself until 1.01.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 11:45 am: Edit Tos,

Once I get the Fog 6 4.04 sitrep out, I'll have a little time to help with the web site. If you E-mail me your scans of all the ships, I'll get things in the right format for you (and I promise not to use the FedCom-color SSDs that I used in Fog 6: I know you're not a fan.)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 01:38 pm: Edit My scans aren't as clean as the ones commonly found on PBEM sites, but I'll forward them all the same.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 23, 2009 - 12:56 am: Edit Clarification on CO points: All ships are equiped with WBP enabled A-Admin for no CO charge.

I'm under the impression that the maximum number of additional boarding parties a ship can add is 10, including commando and HWS. So if you want 2 Commando and 2 HWS you can only get 6 standard boarding parties. I couldn't find a rule that made this explicit though, so if someone can confirm this and point to a rule or ruling, let me know.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Monday, February 23, 2009 - 01:07 am: Edit Annex #6 lists the number of Commandos and regular boarding parties as different entries which indicates they are separate limits. There is a limit of no more than 2 Commando and 4 HWS, including conversions of existing boarding parties and the purchase of additional boarding parties. (See the NOTE at the bottom of ANNEX #6, Module G2, Pg. 126.)

HW Squads are of no more value than regular Boarding Parties when aboard ship (D15.81).

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Monday, February 23, 2009 - 11:21 am: Edit G28.31 seems to indicate that any ship with Barracks can purchase more than 10 BP's, but I can find no firm corroboration for this. Of course, given the ship selection stated so far, This could only come into play of one of the Orions chose to be a commando ship.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, February 23, 2009 - 01:35 pm: Edit IIRC you can buy 2 commandos and upgrade 2 BPs to commandos.

You can do the same with HW Squads. Since they do not get their 2-point combat power when fighting in a ship, it's a lot less important. Buy 2 more but they'd just be 2 more BPs.

So if I remember the rules correctly, a ship could have +14 BPs of which 10 are BPs, +2 commandos, +2 HW squads, with the option of converting 2 BPs to additional commando units.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 02:40 am: Edit You go away for a week, don't read the boards and see what happens...

Guess I'd better get my COs to Tos (late - but he's a nice fellow... ).

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 12:15 pm: Edit TOS, will you accept SOPs, COs and movement in excel? If not, I'll convert to text format.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 12:34 pm: Edit Excel is fine.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 03:48 pm: Edit Should we make our conditional actions PowerPoint presentations?

Im guessing most people will have dozens and dozens of conditional actions which need to be checked each each impulse.

I get the feeling you havent quite considered just how mammoth the task of moving each ship each impulse and having to check the conditional orders of every other ship every single time (ie. literally hundreds of checks each impulse).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 03:55 pm: Edit This has all happened before and will all happen again.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 04:23 pm: Edit Perhaps setting a hard limit of 10 conditional orders per player would help keep the complexity down. I found in the FFA I never had more than 8 conditional orders in play at any one time, along with my standing orders that I submitted at the beginning of the game.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 06:02 pm: Edit "This has all happened before and will all happen again." I think the 16 impulse breaks is going to force people to create far more conditional actions than they normally would in a 4 or even 8 impulse break game.

As Brad suggested, it may be a good idea to limit it to 10 orders. Thats still 160 orders to skim through each time a ship, unit, or seeking weapon moves.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 06:29 pm: Edit Jason, were you in FFA? I ask because I was and never once created more than a few conditional orders. Now I'm known as something of a wall flower so perhaps your experience was different.

Remember, most things on which you might write a conditional order are not allowed under the current ruleset.

Fellow FFA players, how many conditional orders did you write on average? Paul?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 07:14 pm: Edit "Jason, were you in FFA?"

No I wasnt, but was it 16 impulse breaks?

The potential for unexpected things to happen is huge, so having a set of conditional orders to account for this is going to be probably what wins the game (other than being lucky and scoring lots of damage, or being lucky and getting overlooked when it comes to voting people off).

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 10:44 pm: Edit I was in FFA and, like Brad, I had about 7 standing orders. Beyond that, conditional orders ran 3-5, except when I was planning to be in heavy combat and most all weapons had specific conditional orders for firing. Around twice in 8 1/2 turns (17 SOPs) I made it to 10 conditional orders.

And it was 16 Impulse breaks.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 12:43 am: Edit You guys must really be itching to play. I've already got 10 CO lists that look close enough to correct.

The way I operate is on the revision system. I recommend you submit your SOP or EAF or CO or whatever .rev0. If before I send out an SOP you feel like changing it, just send me a .rev1. Now it makes very good sense for you to submit on time, but there is a day or two after that in which you can sleep on it and make changes before it becomes final (with the release of the SITREP).

Jason, I have an understanding of what I'm getting into. I'm not happy about it, but I do believe I understand it. For what its worth, if I discover that I'm over my head in some area, I will not hesitate to adapt the rules to something I can handle. I also understand I have to do my taxes (something I'm actively avoiding) before this gets busy, so you may all get to hold your •••• horses until I'm good and ready.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 12:46 am: Edit COs missing for FS1, HS1, HS2, RS3, WS2, WS3. Yes, I'm intentionally using the nomenclature I gave a few posts up so you start getting used to seeing it.

Apparently no one is worried about seeking weapons as I haven't received any defense plans for those yet. By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 02:01 am: Edit I want to be sure of my CO's before sending in a SWDP.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 06:05 am: Edit It's the defense plans that worry me. Can someone give a newbie (namely me) some pointers on defense plans?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 08:33 am: Edit •••• the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Its not always the most effective approach, but works reasonably well for the moderator.

If you want to get a bit more complicated you might decide to tie in your ADD, Phasers and Tractors into conditional actions based on range from a seeking weapon and seeking weapon type. I'll note that SWDP should be considerably easier to write for one ship than for an entire mixed weapon FOG fleet.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 09:45 am: Edit Tos,

I didn't play in FFA, but the restrictions on limited information that you are imposing here might make people interested in expanding their conditional orders. If I can't do a following plot or make some conditional action on my opponent turning, then my conditionals might have to get even MORE complex so that I'm actually able to achieve something. I don't know, I haven't written anything down yet. But I can see the possibility.

I'll send you an example via E-mail, and you can tell me what you think.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 11:38 am: Edit In FFA, my Standing Orders constituted my SWDP. In part these Standing Orders were based on what the opposing ships were and what influx of SW I could expect. This wasn't too bad, based on the opposition being individual ships with cooperation unlikely.

However, since SFS is starting out as "team" play, this could become a more significant set of orders. It's obvious that the source, quantity, and type of SW have increased significantly, making the SWDP more complicated to be effective.

I see the list of conditional orders being set up SOP-by-SOP to cater to the evolving situation. Primarily it will involve weapons instructions for attack, but would also cover system usage as needed, and could also involve some overrides of Standing Orders as needed. ANd for SFS, even changes to movement plot could be incorporated. With more variables in play, the number and complexity of conditional orders will also likely increase.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 12:23 pm: Edit There is no data net between ships for SWDP, even when in a team. You need only be concerned with your own ship's capabilities. Technically, there's only situational advantage to be gained by even attempting to defend a teammate.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 01:51 pm: Edit Apologies for my lack of clarity. I was not trying to infer a team SWDP.

I was trying to claim that my single ship SWDP would be more complicated to implement under SFS than FFA because of the increased liklihood of more than one ship targeting my ship (at least during team play), probably from different directions and ranges. I could be facing many more SW of various types if, through the limited coms, a 2-on-1, 3-on-1, or worse situation developed and I still basically had only my ship to provide defense.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 02:11 pm: Edit COs first

SWDP next.

CO rough draft done. Fine-tuning tonight.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 03:20 pm: Edit "There is no data net between ships for SWDP, even when in a team. You need only be concerned with your own ship's capabilities. Technically, there's only situational advantage to be gained by even attempting to defend a teammate."

But I can still make conditional orders based on the proximity of other ships (whether on my side or not).

Is Lab information shared?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Quote:

Is Lab information shared?

No. You cannot write a conditional against someone else's lab. Ideally you won't know on a SITREP either, but this ideal may have to be abandoned if found to be impractical.

You can make conditional actions based on the proximity of other ships, but not conditional movement. I really aught to get those rules sticky. Not gonna happen tonight.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 03:38 pm: Edit SWDP that depend on historical movement of a seeking weapon are disallowed. You cannot determine on impulse 14 that a seeking weapon moved on impulse 8 in such a way to invalidate you as the target. Your long range sensors are not sufficiently accurate in fog to get reliable readings and the point defense safeties have all been engaged to avoid an erroneous sensor echo from blowing up your ship. Your conditional orders are fire or no fire using the information available in that impulse only.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 03:40 pm: Edit There are 23 drone racks and 8 scatter packs for those who haven't been keeping their records up to date. Split among 16 ships that’s 1.5 drone racks and 0.5 scatter packs each. Of the drone-equipped ships, the median has 4 drone racks. Yes, a well-timed assault means you will need to be able to deal with about 10 drones, but since ships have no more than one scatter pack (reloadable), this should be a one-time event. Some of you will have troubles with 10 drones. None of you should have troubles with 4 drones, unless you leave an exploitable hole in your SWDP. Those of us who have been playing for a while know that such holes are all too common. By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 04:20 pm: Edit " Yes, a well-timed assault means you will need to be able to deal with about 10 drones,"

Now I realize why 2 Rom KCRs are out there. 3 D-racks will take care of that.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 06:51 pm: Edit I thought D Racks were used for the Romulan Anchor...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 07:08 pm: Edit Max of 2 offensive D-Rack launches per ship per turn. Not particularly scary, unless you count that they can do it again, and again, and again.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 26, 2009 - 07:31 pm: Edit Rule clarification:

Quote:

• Ships voted off disappear. They do not explode. Any seeking weapons controlled by an ejected ship may continue only if they can achieve their own lock-on. Any launched fighters or shuttles are allowed to continue under player control.

The underlying reason for this is the FOG in this scenario prevents the transfer of seeking weapon control.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Thursday, February 26, 2009 - 11:38 pm: Edit "...prevents the transfer of seeking weapon control."

Prevents all transfer, or prevents transfer to another player?

I count 3 ships (2 ORI, 1 WYN) that could have fighters with seeking weapons. I would have assumed that SW launched by the fighters could have control transferred to the ship, assuming all requirements were met.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 12:29 am: Edit Good question. Based on the theory that this is a terrain induced effect, I'm going to go with fighters may not transfer control of seeking weapons, but scatter packs and multi-warhead drones can transfer control to the launching ship.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 09:50 am: Edit *incoming message from drone-armed fighters* !@#^#@%!@^#$@%#@#!! *message complete*

Bad news for drone-armed fighters, unless ATG can be added to, like, most everything. ======Correct me if I am wrong:

SPs would require the transfer because they cannot control drones. As no other player can control the drones and fighters (except EWF) cannot assume control of drones launched by another unit, the ship would be required to assume control if the drones cannot achieve immediate self-lockon, as opposed to fighters which guide the drones they launch unless they voluntarily transfer control.

MW drones most likely won't need this rule because the limited range of the submunitions (type VI) will almost certainly dictate release of the submunitions within a range from the target where the submunitions automatically acquire their own lockon. As other drones will almost certainly need the control channels from the ship, most, if not all, type VI drones could be expected to be released to their own guidance. But at least the rule covers any exceptions.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 12:32 pm: Edit If anyone wants to update their COs due to this recent revelation, feel free to do so.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 12:45 pm: Edit Isn't ATG a restricted item for most races? I would think we still have to keep within the drone availability limits.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 27, 2009 - 01:16 pm: Edit You still have to keep within drone availability limits and CO points, but most of you have some room, particularly those with fighters.

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Sunday, March 01, 2009 - 08:11 pm: Edit Tos said:

"If anyone wants to update their COs due to this recent revelation, feel free to do so."

Heh heh - I'll have some ATG on my T-bombs too please...

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, March 01, 2009 - 08:56 pm: Edit "Heh heh - I'll have some ATG on my T-bombs too please..."

Then Im going to require stealthed jet packs on my Mega Commandos.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 02:17 am: Edit I want EW pods on my A-Admins.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 07:13 am: Edit As long as I get my jet packs.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 - 11:08 am: Edit Tos,

I'll try and post this on the Survivor site as well but the 16 impulse breaks didn't cause endless conditionals in the FFA. Some issues on SWDP certainly and fighting the dragon rules on occassion. I also had to read the mutiny rules and reread tractor rotations rules a few times. I had a deliberate policy to err on the side of SWDP against seeking weapons if I had doubts about a players wording.

Having played the early turns I think the 16 impusle breaks coupled with no conditional orders effecting movement (except Emdec) made conditional orders fairly simple to write and adjudicate. If you can't change where you are going many options are excluded. Tos you may wish to reflect long and hard about allowing movement changing conditionals.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 - 11:19 am: Edit There seems to be relatively few things you can change movement on, but if I'm wrong, I can always change the rules mid-game. I'll know quickly if its going to create a problem.

Currently: • Ships must plot an actual course and may not plot any type of pursuit or evade course. • Ships may conditionally adjust their movement to react to another ships actions (including HET), but cannot tie conditional movement to any other ship’s movement, facing, hex, range, TAC or speed change. • A ship may not plot a pursuit or evade plot on an enemy seeking weapon or shuttle, but they may perform conditional movement to attempt to keep a specific shield facing the weapon. ECM Drones, ECP or friendly seeking weapons are not eligible for conditional movement in any way. Example of a Legal Conditional movement: When a 22-point or greater plasma enters range 8, maneuver to keep the plasma off my #3 shield.

Is there something specific you think will cause me trouble?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 - 11:22 am: Edit Note on scheduling.

This is a big undertaking and I'm really having to psych myself up for the challenge. Eventually I'll get in a groove, but the learning curve is going to be steep. You should expect slow SITREPs at first as I get a system in place to assist moderating. As the ranks thin out, things should get faster. Right now I'm dragging my feet and I recognise its about time we get things rolling. Shudder.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 10:53 pm: Edit Starting hexes went out.

Ship Assignments for those of you in duplicate ships went out.

Let me know by email if you didn't receive what you thought you should.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 11:00 pm: Edit I'm trying to build my SWDP, but am running into issues on how best to phrase it and put it all together. Does anyone have a template of a SWDP they can share?

Also, Tos, do you mind if I use my Fog6 EAF and SoP forms for this?

By Jason Whitaker (Kahali) on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 11:05 pm: Edit I double that - what sort of format do you want for things and does anyone have a copy I can use.

Cheers

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 05:45 am: Edit I'll make a third motion for a sample copy. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 09:39 am: Edit On EAF and SOP, I will not be requesting a standard format on turn 1, but reserve the right to do so on some subsequent turn. I won't know what I want until I try to force feed it into some existing or new PBEM tool.

I won't be distributing a formal SWDP, but if someone else wants to, I won't stop them.

Generally you want to consider:

Identification protocal (labs)

Tractor Beam protocal ADD protocal Drone/PL-D protocal

Phaser protocal - Drones (range, phaser type vs. drone type)

Phaser protocal - Plasma (how much target damage to do to the plasma)

There really isn't that much to consider for a single ship. This is a useful exercise to everyone to go through at least once. Thinking through the conditionals will make you a better SFB PBEMer.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 02:56 pm: Edit Do we know what each ship has in their option mounts?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 03:48 pm: Edit Not yet. Given that the option mount ships are all relatively small, I'm inclinded not to tell you until after EAF.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 10:45 pm: Edit Clever board set up. Forces us to engage eachother in small groups.

Can you give a new breakdown for when EAF and SWDP are due? And then when you expect T1 I1- 16 will have to be in?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 11:59 pm: Edit No dates yet. I've got some unrelated balls in the air still. There's a chance I may have to delay things a bit before we can start. I'll let you know when I know.

That said, there's no reason you shouldn't submit your EAF and SWDP early. You can always revise them and having a few in will help me get things set up on my side.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 10:24 am: Edit 1. What kind of wall surrounds this combat area?

Other than it shrinks every turn, is it a tournament barrier that stops a unit upon impact and imparts damage? can one move off the map and "disengage"? (this would seem to qualify as voting yourself off.) is it something else, and, if so, what?

2. What happens to a unit that is in a map edge hex when the map shrinks?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 12:02 pm: Edit The map edge is a tourney barrier, you cannot voluntarily disengage. Anything against the edge, including ships, shuttles, T-Bombs and similar stable objects, gets swept up with the wall. Getting caught in a wall sweep is not the same thing as hitting the wall. You do not take damage and do not come to a stop. Any unit displaced beyond the wall will bounce the remaining number of hexes.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 10:28 pm: Edit Tos, if after we get back our Sitreps we discover that something we requested in I3 (whether automatic rule or specifically requested) has been missed, and this has subsequently had an impact on a number of ship actions over the next 13 impulses, what will be done?

In FOG6 Jim makes corrections which tend to be fairly minor, though can sometimes have an impact on shield/internal damage, etc. But with only 4 impulses at play there isnt usually much missed and certainly nothing game breaking has required him to do a major redo (that Im aware of).

When we consider that a decision missed very early in the phase can have a huge impact, will you end up rolling back all the moves/seekers/direct fire weapons, etc?

I should add, that this has the potential of revealing conditional moves from other players (where you will organise them to do something, which subsequently does not occur... but we will still be aware of it).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 10:29 pm: Edit I've got a vacation booked 4/6-4/16. I expect to have email access while gone, but I don't expect to do any moderating during that period. Can someone remind me why I volunteered for this again?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 10:31 pm: Edit Jason, I will strive for correcting major errors with a SITREP revision. Not so sure about minor errors.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 10:32 pm: Edit "Can someone remind me why I volunteered for this again?"

For the thanks and adoration of players who love massed battles but simply dont have enough friends to be able to play it themselves.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Monday, March 09, 2009 - 04:04 am: Edit Tos: So you will be aware and truly grateful to all those of us who have run FOG lo these many years...

Gratefulness can be expressed in many ways... monetarily being perhaps the easiest...

Jason: Having done fairly major corrections in FOG before (although only over 4 impulses usually) 'rewinding' tends not to reveal anything much. So you find that in the first sitrep JS3 launched a plasma, but in the 'revised' sitrep he didn't. Does that really reveal anything? I suggest we just live with the 'FOG' of mistakes - don't plan on them, but realise that they do occur, but randomly.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, March 09, 2009 - 11:56 am: Edit "Can someone remind me why I volunteered for this again?"

Same reason I moderate Fog: Because you want that feeling of god-like power that comes from watching your minions struggle against unbeatable odds, vainly trying to find solutions to problems when you already know they are doomed.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, March 09, 2009 - 02:48 pm: Edit ah yes, the power of DOOM.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, March 09, 2009 - 03:36 pm: Edit My experience on correcting Sitreps has been that four impulses isn't long enough for things to get out of hand - you can usually go back and correct pretty easily. I'm not so sure about 16 impulses. But this is Survivor - if Tos screws up and and that ends up costing you, he can easily give you a freebie to make up for it - that's how the game is played. That not really allowable in Fog, where the scenario is pretty well set and moderators shouldn't insert themselves into it.

That having been said, there have been two times when I have made a mistake that could not be easily corrected. In one case, I went back and re-did the sitrep, much as it pained me. In another case, I asked the aggeived party to accept the resuts as they stood (said results being still pretty good for him) and he graciously did so.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Monday, March 09, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit There were a few of "redos" in the FFA game, IIRC. But, in those cases, the conditionals generally affected 2 ships: the shooter and the target.

One, for example, was when the cloaked KE underran the Dragon, only to find out that the dragon ignores cloaks for some attacks.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 05:45 pm: Edit Can we get some facings for our ships?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 07:32 pm: Edit John: I suspect the operational term will be: pick one. And I doubt you will know anyone else's until after it's much, much too late.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 07:40 pm: Edit That's sort of what I expect, but would like the point nailed down.

I'll just write more conditional orders then.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 09:17 pm: Edit "I'll just write more conditional orders then."

Im up to 87 conditional orders. Anyone beat that?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 10:07 pm: Edit To bad I only read 20 conditional orders starting somewhere in the middle. Kidding. Sort of. Look, I am not limiting what you do. With that flexibility comes an implied contract that you will not make my job impossible. You want 87 conditionals this break because things are really sticky? Go for it. But it had better only happen once.

With regard to map placement, Jim is correct. Initial ship facing 1.00 will be revealed 1.16.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 11:53 pm: Edit I was also hoping for ship facing, but alas, life is life. Speed is life! TOS, would you please repost starting positions and teams? Or post a link to the post? I've had recent computer problems (still recovering) and any help would be appreciated. Note: After seeing the ships selected, I should have gone Drex or Andro. (though both would be voted off early, I'm sure)

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 09:08 am: Edit Tos, just for your own sanity, I recommend limiting each player to a set of unchanging standing orders given at the beginning of the game, then a set of up to 10 conditional orders with each SOP that can be changed after each sitrep.

Seriously, the more conditionals you have, the less likely you are to actually *think* about what your opponent will do, which could lead you to being overkilled more quickly. And think of the poor moderator - you want them to come back, don't you?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 11:21 am: Edit I know that if I got 18 ships' worth of 87 conditional orders for every Fog break, I'd give up the game.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 07:27 pm: Edit Once again I had my tongue in cheek. I think I have 14 or 15 conditional orders. I have a few more to do, so will end up with around 20.

Im structuring them the way Tos recommended, so it will be very easy to scan through them any time a possible event trigger occurs.

In fact, Tos, I think you should make that compulsory for everyone to structure their orders according to your: Labs Phasers v Drones Phasers v Plasma Tractors Transporters etc.

This will make it a lot easier for you to moderate.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 11:38 pm: Edit "With regard to map placement, Jim is correct. Initial ship facing 1.00 will be revealed 1.16"

Wouldn't it be OK to state facing after EA and speeds are announced?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 12:09 am: Edit I agree ship that facings should be announced after EA and speeds, but before we need to do 1.01-1.16. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 01:15 pm: Edit I may announce facing on 1.01, but I'm not sure why it would matter since everyone would have their turn mode satisfied. What I can tell you is that you will tell me your facing as part of EAF.

I've had a series of minor health ailments attack me over the last three weeks, partially accounting for my lack of setup progress.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 01:26 pm: Edit Glen,

Fleet 1 FS1 Fed NAL 1001 HS1 Hydran CHA 3001 KS1 Klingon C7A 5010 ZS1 Kzinti BCH 5030 OS1 Orion HDW 4050 PS1 Peladine CCH 2050 RS1 Romulan KCR 0141 WS1 WYN PBB 0121

Fleet 2 FS2 Fed NAL 5040 HS2 Hydran OV 1050 OS2 Orion HDW 2001 RS2 Romulan KCR 4001 RS3 Romulan KE 5020 TS1 Tholian NCA 3050 WS2 WYN CF 0131 WS3 WYN WSC 0111 By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 04:18 pm: Edit Star Fleet Survivor (SFS) PBEM FFA Variant Game Moderator: Tos Crawford Draft Version 0.6

Player signups are closed, but players may sign up to be XO or replacements at [email protected].

General: • All non-optional rules are in play except as noted herein. • Players are split between two teams of approximately equal BPV by the moderator. • Teams are subject to change. After EAF of any turn the teams may be shuffled to form new teams or the game could become a free-for-all. • 16-impulse breaks. • The game begins at WS3. Ships begin at speed max, unless a request is made for some other speed. • You cannot transfer control of seeking weapons between units due to the FOG. o Submunitions (Scatter Packs and Multi-Warhead drones) are partially exempt from this rule provided they were under control at the time of release.

Victory Points: • Victory points are scored by doing damage to an enemy ship. • Damage to shield reinforcement, shuttles, fighters and seeking weapons generate 0 victory points. • Shield damage caused by enveloping plasma generates 0 victory points. • Direct fire damage caused by a shuttle or fighter generates 0 victory points. • Shield damage caused by non-enveloping seeking plasma generates 1 victory point. • All other shield damage generates 2 victory points, including suicide shuttles and fighter seeking weapons. • Internal damage causes 3 victory points, including suicide shuttles and fighter seeking weapons. • Every ship that contributed to a ship explosion on the impulse of explosion is credited with any victory points earned by damaged caused by the explosion. • Victory points from mines are credited to the ship or team that laid the mine, see friendly fire. • Friendly fire from any source is permitted during team play but counts towards the enemy team’s victory points. • If the sides are unbalanced, one or more players will be randomly excluded from scoring victory points (or having victory points scored on) for the turn. Excluded ships will be announced after EAF. • At the beginning of the game, you may pick one ship as your called target. Any damage you do to that target scores double victory points. This information remains secret until victory points are awarded following the break in which the damage was done. Fleet Council: • The team that scores the most victory points gains immunity for the turn. • The team that fails to score the most victory points at the end of the turn votes out one ship on their side (see hidden immunity). • Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships. • In the event of a tied vote a new vote is called for. In the event of a second tie, one random non- immune player present at Fleet Council will be ejected. Ask yourself if maintaining the integrity of your alliance is worth the chance that you will be voted out. • A ship in stasis does not get a vote and cannot be voted out. • When down to the final three players, the last five players kicked out vote for the winner from among the final three. • Ships voted off disappear. They do not explode. Any launched fighters or shuttles are allowed to continue under player control. • Any seeking weapons controlled by an ejected ship may continue only if they can achieve their own lock-on, but no seeking weapon can transfer control to any other unit in FOG.

Hidden Immunity: • Hidden immunity can be played during the Fleet Council portion of any turn, after the vote, but before the votes are counted. • A player with hidden immunity may play it for his ship, or for any other active ship, but hidden immunity may only be played when the owner is at Fleet Council. • If the player that played the hidden immunity receives the most votes, that player is immune for this vote and the player with the second most votes is ejected. • Once played hidden immunity is returned to sub-space for the next displaced Captain to find. • Once a ship is destroyed, any hidden immunity it may have becomes available for future displaced ships to find. This information is not made public. Free-For-All: When approximately half the players are left (the exact number will not be known by the players) the game becomes a free-for-all and the following rules are in use: • The player who scores the most victory points in a given turn is granted individual immunity at Fleet Council and cannot be voted out. • Each turn the remaining players vote out one ship. Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships.

Map and initial placement: • The map will begin as a large square and shrink by one hex in each direction at the start of each turn. • The initial size will be determined once the number of players is known, but expect 49x49. • The barrier is a tourney barrier, but causes no damage and forces no stop if impacted during a map shrink maneuver. • Any ship displaced into a wall will bounce off the remaining hexes. • It is not possible to disengage in any manner except being voted off. • Initial board placement will alternate by team in a circle along the map edges. • No fighter cap is permitted launched at game start.

Sequence of Play: 1) Players submit letter of interest to [email protected] 2) Players submit ships, subject to approval 3) Players submit Commander’s Options 3) Players are assigned a team and board position (facing is not revealed until after EAF) 4) All players SSDs are posted 4a) Players submit Bonus Target ship and any pre-game (0.28) actions (no offensive launches). 5) Players submit EAF 6) Starting speeds, ejected players and any ships sitting out the victory point calculation for this turn are communicated to players 7) Players submit SOP for impulses 1-16 8) SITREP is sent to players 9) The ship scoring the most victory points on the team scoring the most victory points may attempt to displace one enemy unit 10) The displaced player receives and may allocate any bonus repair points 11) Players submit SOP for impulses 17-32 12) Team or individual immunity is determined based on victory points scored during the turn 13) SITREP is sent to players 14) If only three players remain the final five players who have been voted out will vote for the winner. Game ends. 15) Eligible players vote for who to eject and play hidden immunity 16) Map shrinks by one hex in each direction 17) Return to step 5

Commander’s Options • A-Admin and other Advanced shuttles are assumed. • WBP are included for all shuttles and fighters (unless upgraded to mega-fighters) • Selection of mega-fighters is a Captain’s prerogative, they do not require expenditure of CO points. • Ships with optional barracks (not standard equipment) may purchase up to an extra 10 BP.

Communications: • Player identity will be secret. • There is no pre-game planning session. • Each player is allowed to send 4 messages per break, received with the impulse 16 and impulse 32 SITREP. • Each message is of a length no greater than 128 characters and is sent to a single ship. • You may send more than one message to a ship. • There is no limit as to the number of messages a ship may receive. • There are no team or group comms. • Only the player receiving the ship-to-ship message will be allowed to read the message, but it will be public knowledge which ships sent messages where. • The first communication will be sent 1.01 and received 1.16. e-Mail Etiquette: • e-Mail subject should be in the following format: SFS.[ship designation].[turn].[impulse].[SOP/EAF/CO/SITREP/etc.].rev[0, 1, 2, …] • SWDP should be cut and paste (or attached) at the bottom of each SOP. Submitting an SOP pre-game might be advisable so that I might comment on any obvious oversights, contradictions or unclear intentions. • It is advisable to explain in paragraph form your intentions for this break. • I will be encouraging a standard format for comms, EAF and maybe even SOPs eventually, but will process turn 1 with whatever you give me.

SWDP • Each Captain is expected to submit a Seeking Weapon Defense Plan. • Actions can only be taken based on the current location of a seeking weapon. You are not allowed to take an action based on the state of a seeking weapon in any prior state (previous impulse). The following is illegal: “Ignore any seeking weapon that has shown through its movement that I cannot be the target”. The following is legal: “If a drone is at range 1 and has my ship in its FA, attach a tractor.” Fleet 1 FS1 Fed NAL 1001 HS1 Hydran CHA 3001 KS1 Klingon C7A 5010 ZS1 Kzinti BCH 5030 OS1 Orion HDW 4050 PS1 Peladine CCH 2050 RS1 Romulan KCR 0141 WS1 WYN PBB 0121

Fleet 2 FS2 Fed NAL 5040 HS2 Hydran OV 1050 OS2 Orion HDW 2001 RS2 Romulan KCR 4001 RS3 Romulan KE 5020 TS1 Tholian NCA 3050 WS2 WYN CF 0131 WS3 WYN WSC 0111 By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 05:03 pm: Edit Tos, did you not get my message from last week?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 07:25 pm: Edit Received and processed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention as I actually did miss it.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 06:03 am: Edit Tos,

Do you intend to have a rewards challenge on turn 1? By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 08:51 am: Edit Yes, for which victory points will be recorded 0.0 - 1.16.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 08:59 am: Edit Hey, we've got a header! Thanks to Jean.

You are very welcome. -- Jean

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 12:47 pm: Edit You know, just because I'm not ready to start doesn't mean you shouldn't be sending in early drafts of your SWDP. I'll also accept EAFs, Target Ship assignments and 0.28 actions.

Now if you all don't move without a deadline, I'll give you one.

You have until 3/31 to provide me with Target Ship and 0.28 actions.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 06:33 pm: Edit Target Ship ?

Ive submitted EAF, and will send you 0.28 actions once I find out what Target Ship means.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 07:10 pm: Edit I'm still writing my SWDP.

And deciding who I'm going after.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 07:20 pm: Edit Jason,

Target Ship: The secret ship that you score double victory points for doing damage to.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 09:15 pm: Edit Thanks. I have only skimmed over the more recent rules updates, so I guess I need to have a more thorough look.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 10:15 pm: Edit Is there any significance to cum victory points?

Or is the only concern victory points per turn/challenge?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 10:51 pm: Edit Victory points are scored in a 32 impulse period and are used toward reward or immunity. Cummulative victory points have no significance.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:01 pm: Edit Much obliged.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 07:55 am: Edit EAF in processing. SWDP in processing. I figure that'll get me killed.

Thinking about Target Ship. Is it too late to modify Commander's Options?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:59 am: Edit You can modify what you wish. In fact, I'd suggest some of you drone chuckers consider buying some ATG.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Monday, March 30, 2009 - 11:17 pm: Edit Tos,

EAF submitted moments ago. Target included. Turn 00 activities included.

Now proceeding to SOP, including SWDP.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, March 30, 2009 - 11:20 pm: Edit Thank you Michael.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 10:36 am: Edit Are the SSDs of the ships posted anywhere? If we don't have the SSD for a particular ship, it makes it difficult to know what you're up against.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 12:02 pm: Edit Derek, The only 2 SSDs I had to work to locate were the WYN Scrap Cruiser (WS3) and the Peladine Cruiser (PS1). Peladine I found at (IIRC) Jessica Orsini's website. The WYN ship I requested via e-mail from someone I thought had a copy (and he did). The remainder can be located in published ADB products, which you may or may not own.

I have e-mailed you (your profile-listed e-mail)these two SSDs. They are the only two I have in .pdf format. The remainder I look up in their respective ADB products.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 12:31 pm: Edit I've got all the SSDs ready to post, but haven't built the web site yet. I'll be starting vacation Monday and have some pre-vacation prep to get done. eMail me if you need the SSDs, or ask Jim Hart, who gave them to me.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 05:59 pm: Edit Tos,

I sent in my stuff, including revised COs, SWDP, and even my EAF! But I didn't follow the email etiquette in my email, so I re-submitted properly.

I forgot to ask, can you handle Excel files? (Since I did my EA in a spreadsheet.) Would you rather have a text file?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 06:22 pm: Edit Excel is fine, until I figure out what I want.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 - 08:17 pm: Edit Game web site updated. Please make a note of it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 02, 2009 - 08:09 am: Edit I've been receiving a flood of EAFs and other good things. This is good, but I need to remind everyone that I'm off on vacation soon. EAF, 0.28 actions and target ship are not due until 4/24. SWDP are not due until 1.01 SOP.

Thanks to all those who got their stuff in early. It will help me organize my systems.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Monday, April 06, 2009 - 03:11 pm: Edit Tos, when will the options of the Orions be announced?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, April 09, 2009 - 02:02 am: Edit Tos is on vacation - please hold all questions until his return.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, April 20, 2009 - 01:46 pm: Edit Orion options will be announced after EA with the initial speed plots. I'm intentionally keeping some things unknown to confound you scheming.

Reminder: EAF for turn 1, facing and 0.28 actions due 4/24. I intend to start looking at them at 9pm EST, but won't make any progress that weekend due to being committed. Expect your 1.01 SITREP on or about 5/1.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, April 20, 2009 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Gee, Tos, I didn't figure you would need to be committed until sometime in Turn 2.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 12:27 pm: Edit Gee, I wonder who's flying the WSC?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 09:33 pm: Edit I believe the WSC is being flown by the person who created it. But I dont know who that is.

That said, even if I did know who created it, I wouldnt necessarily know who they are anyway !

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 23, 2009 - 08:18 am: Edit Update:

EAF due date delayed until Monday midnight EST. I won't be able to start processing until at least then, so no reason to make you submit days before I can look at them. This also means I haven't studied any of the messages already received. If you find yourself with an unanswered question, please email me at my toscrawford account to bring the oversight to my attention.

Thanks for your understanding.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Thursday, April 23, 2009 - 08:56 am: Edit And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by....

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 23, 2009 - 12:12 pm: Edit But what I got was a dingy in the fog.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Thursday, April 23, 2009 - 09:08 pm: Edit Well then, you'll want to consider the previous two topics, which deal heavily with fog. Does your boat have a bell? Because then you might have ….

| one ringy dinghy.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, April 24, 2009 - 09:12 am: Edit GROAN!!!!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, April 24, 2009 - 02:07 pm: Edit Thank you, Lilly Tomlin.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 12:13 am: Edit Believe it or not there are still some Captains that have not submitted their: Target EAF SWDP (due with 1.01 SOP) 0.28 Actions CO Corrections 0.01 Ship Facing

Reminder that when you do, the proper format is:

SFS.S.1.EAF.rev0 SFS.S.1.01.SOP.rev0

I will be contacting folks by email with missing information, but I have to process everything I have received before I can do that, which takes time and I'm only half way done checking.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 02:24 pm: Edit Working on EAF and hopefully SWDP. EAF getting prio. This fell off my radar.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 10:51 pm: Edit

Quote:

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Monday, March 30, 2009 - 11:17 pm: Edit

Tos,

EAF submitted moments ago. Target included. Turn 00 activities included.

Now proceeding to SOP, including SWDP.

Info resent. No changes.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 11:46 pm: Edit I haven't built a decent system to track info, which is why no one is late, they are just misplaced.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 01:41 pm: Edit To the folks contacted by email who's EAF I couldn't find, there was an error in the Excel math that failed to account for energy spent charging WW and SS. Unfortunately since I BCC'd you, I have no idea anymore who I sent it to.

I'd send the Excel EAF out to everyone, but I'm still busy modifying it as I get new data, and I don't want to cause confusion when I standardize on something for turn 2.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 04:02 pm: Edit TOS, I know you're completely capable but if there is any need for excel help, I'd be happy to offer my services.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 04:31 pm: Edit I have an excel EAF I produced independently.

I'd rather use it unless there's an issue or something this sheet does massively better.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 06:24 pm: Edit Use what you like. I'm just using one sheet to track all power for everyone, which makes it ungainly for personal use. I may request a specific EAF form for turn 2, but if you don't want to use it, you don't have to. The advantage of using it is I'm less likely to make a keying mistake as I transcribe it.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 07:04 pm: Edit Not to mention, if we all use the same spreadsheet (at least the EA portion), then all you need to do is copy and paste everyone's EA without transcibing errors.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 07:19 pm: Edit That's a good argument. I'll take a look at it.

Pity though. I like mine.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 07:50 pm: Edit text documents for the win !

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Text documents can't check your addition.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 12:34 am: Edit And for any of you that don't have excel, there is a free spreadsheet program available that you can save files under excel format. I have it on my thumbdrive when I work on my farStars spreadsheet at work.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 03:50 am: Edit OpenOffice is what I use.

Even though I have plenty of Office CDs to choose from.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 01:32 pm: Edit I believe I got mine from portableapps.com, I'll check it out. It was free.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Friday, May 01, 2009 - 12:04 am: Edit Tos,

If you need I can write macro's for the main sheet to import from the player sheets.

As long as no one changes the rows and columns on the player sheets you would be able to import the data for each turn.

Ken

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, May 01, 2009 - 09:23 am: Edit Ken, thanks, but it won't be necessary. Even if I have to transcribe every EAF it only adds a few minutes to the process.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 01:13 am: Edit Update: I'm waiting on at least one EAF. I'm harassing the person, but he doesn't read this board so save your spit balls. If he doesn't come up with one soon I'm sure I can come up with something for him

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 08:10 am: Edit Make him HET.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 05:23 pm: Edit Put everything into general shield reinforcement?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 06:06 pm: Edit including life-support By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 08:32 am: Edit But no fire control

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 09:17 am: Edit I have a plan, but he probably won't like it. Hopefully a turn from now we will have 'excess' players who can fill any future gaps.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 02:22 pm: Edit My concern is that anything that'll show up as "unusual" such as unpowered fire control or speed zero that is clearly announced may lead other players to see that unit as a sitting duck and easy points.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 03:13 pm: Edit I won't make it that easy on you.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 05:21 pm: Edit Note to self: Modify EAF and SOP to have down shields, unpowered fire control and speed 0. Set trap for unwary enemies...

Hey, this was a NOTE TO SELF! What are YOU doing reading it?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, May 17, 2009 - 07:45 pm: Edit I don't know how Jim and David did it. After all this time I am still missing 4 EAFs and have rejected one. E-Mails being sent.

I could really use some floating XOs if someone knows someone not already playing.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, May 17, 2009 - 08:11 pm: Edit I think its the new format. With FOG there is a set group of people who play each time around and are used to the format, and trust it.

With a new PBEM people arent as heavily invested in it, so some may not be too fussed by deadlines which arent really deadlines.

I have a feeling that once we get in to the game people will be more careful with submitting things on time.

Maybe for the first vote we get rid of 1 player from each side who didnt submit their form. Or perhaps all of them are dropped. But we dont know who they are until the end of the turn, so we may still shoot at them.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 11:07 am: Edit Tos: Jim's email harrassment ^H^H^H reminders I think are probably what worked best in getting things in on time - and even that didn't work always.

Oh - and a regular schedule. Hard to do at this stage, but something to work towards.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 10:41 am: Edit Tos: It's still early and you haven't been in a position to NEED to strictly enforce deadlines. If you are getting to the point that you need to strictly enforce them, here's my advice.

First, publish to this BBS the ship designations of everyone who is currently late. Nothing motivates people like embarrassment - which is why I send out my weekly harrassment notes with ship designators for anyone who is late.

Second, set a new deadline and announce some penalty for anyone who misses it, like having one random shield stuck a minimum level, unable to raise until impulse 16, for every day they are late.

If embarrassment and dangerous penalties will not motivate them to get their EAFs to you, then my advice is to drop them from the game, because it's quite likely they'll be nothing but trouble from here on out.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 12:45 pm: Edit That's one of the advantages of the Survivor model. I'll have replacement players after the first few turns. The problem is I need to get through the first few turns first. Dropping people now just upsets a delicate balance.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 02:01 pm: Edit Now is when it's most important to stress punctuality because it sets the precedent for the rest of the game.

All the PBEM duel options are on the table once more. Suggest setting a deadline and dinging hull boxes once it is passed.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 03:19 pm: Edit That part is taken care of. The folks that are late have a hard deadline. If they fail to submit their EAF by that date, I will submit one for them.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 09:00 pm: Edit The problem with announcing who is late, is we then get a good idea of which ships are going to be flown by Tos, and therefore which become easy targets.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 09:06 pm: Edit That's an advantage too if you think about it.

Punctual player with an even choice of who to go after may target consistently late players.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 05:38 am: Edit I have trouble with "flown by Tos" and "easy targets" being in the same sentence.

Just trying to influence the judge

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 09:04 am: Edit Since this is the first EAF and may be indicative of future tardiness, perhaps we should just remove those players and reshuffle the teams, if necessary. Since we all now have EAFs, I'm sure we could tweak our EAFs to take into account any changes.

Rather this than constantly waiting for the same players who may never show up again in the game.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 09:32 am: Edit If this were a real game I would probably do as you suggest. Since we will have players voted out fairly quickly (every two SOPs), I'm OK with having a few zombie Captains out there for the unlucky first few exiles to fill.

I have a plan. I can't tell you my plan. We should be underway shortly. My goal is to start before FOG finishes.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 09:56 am: Edit You realize there's a chance that Fog may be over by Monday...

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 12:44 pm: Edit Tos has a plan. We do not know the plan. The plan has a goal.

Tos is a Cylon.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 12:46 pm: Edit BTW Tos, I "think" one of your captains in this has just lost Internet access for a couple of weeks. See my post to the moderator (Jim H.) over in the Fog 6 thread.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 02:24 pm: Edit Thank you Richard. I noticed in the FOG6 thread.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, May 23, 2009 - 03:46 pm: Edit Survivor has begun.

SFS.1.01.SITREP should be in your mailboxes. Everyones' turn mode is fullfilled so I have chosen to accept your first movement as defining your original facing.

SOP due Thursdays at midnight EST. SOP 1.16 due 5/28.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, May 24, 2009 - 01:23 am: Edit Some of you have noticed that the mail system has decided to make a hash out of the SITREP. I'll be reposting tonight, but there will be some minor revisions tomorrow.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 07:22 am: Edit Minor revisions/errata delayed due to my enjoying my Memorial Day holiday. Since I expect many of you are in the same boat, SOP due date is delayed until next Thursday, 6/4.

Here's what I'm planning to do so you can squak about it before I do it. Some players submitted hexes with facing, others didn't. What I underestimated was that some people really wanted a facing. So I'm planning to update the SITREP with facing tonight (which will take a fair amount of research). If you haven't sent my your facing, please do so or I'll provide one for you.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 08:49 am: Edit About... face! Forward... Warp!

Warp, 2, 3, 4, Warp, 2, 3, 4...

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 10:31 am: Edit Tacky always marched.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 6, 0, 2 1/2, 0

I assume webmom is familiar with Tacky the penguin....

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 11:50 pm: Edit SFS.1.01.SITREP.rev1 released. SOP and SWDP due date 6/4/09, 12pm EST. I will be keeping to Thursday due dates where possible.

I didn't do a good job with initial facings. If you don't like your facing, forward me the email where you specified otherwise.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - 02:05 pm: Edit Tos,

Could you send future sitreps to either vorlon-at-vorlonagent-dot-com and/or nojtspam-at-otfresno-dot- com?

I do read my g-mail but not as often as those.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - 02:18 pm: Edit John, done.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - 04:15 pm: Edit Thanks.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 05:56 pm: Edit Survivor 24+ Hour SOP Reminder

SOP are due no later than midnight EST Thursday (though I would treat 9pm as a kindness).

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Thursday, June 04, 2009 - 12:59 pm: Edit Oh, carp!

Now I have to figure out who I really want to kill. Or how to keep from dying quickly.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 02:20 pm: Edit I haven't processed every SOP yet, but right now Michael Guntly is well in the lead for best submitted SOP format.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 04:25 pm: Edit Thanks. But what I provided was nothing more than new content in the basic format requested by Vandal for Fog6. I did incorporate additional content to help me (and perhaps the moderator) keep track of my ship, but otherwise Jim was the source of the basic format.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 04:49 pm: Edit Its the extra attention to detail that won you honors. Not everyone sweats the details.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 04:55 pm: Edit TOS, please send me my EA (in the original excel format). Along with all my problems, my computer took a serious dump and now I'm working on my backup. Thanks in advance.

Glenn

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 05:28 pm: Edit Hey, Tos, why don't you send us all Mike G's SOP, so we can see what sort of detail you are looking for.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 05:32 pm: Edit And, just to give credit where credit is due, the format that I requested for Fog 6 was the format used by Allan Hill in Fog 4. I always found his SOPs easiest to process because he listed any definite actions out to the side of the movement, so less scrolling up and down, plus he referenced any conditional actions, usually by number. Many of the players adopted it for Fog 6, which made my life much easier.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 06:21 pm: Edit Jim Hart, You could distribute one of my Fog6 SOPs for BS8, yes? Same level of detail.

The only person who needs my SFS SOP is in the captain seat of a ship that used to be 10 hexes 9 hexes 8 hexes 7 hexes from my ship.

*stares into sky* *whistles*

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 08:57 pm: Edit Michael, I'm going to be defining a standard format, probably turn 2, so for now its probably best not to muddy the waters.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, June 07, 2009 - 11:54 pm: Edit I'm very sorry to bring this up, but can a url be posted for the existing map. Many things were lost during my computer mishap. beyond my EA, all else was lost. And thank you TOS, for sending me my EA.

Glenn

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 01:08 am: Edit http://crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/sfs.html

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 01:10 am: Edit Lots processed. Lots more to do. Lots and lots of work. So far one ship has taken 23 internals. Still missing some SOPs so I can't give you more than that.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 08:33 am: Edit 23 internals already? WOW !! I thought this was going to be a really slow starting game.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 09:23 am: Edit With every ship starting at range 10 to two enemies, I was expecting someone to blow up by 1.16. I was not expecting a slow-starting game. If you were... maybe those internals are on YOU.

Tos: Question - should we be using this topic to discuss the game, or should be be letting our in-game comms do the talking?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 10:49 am: Edit Survivor isn't nearly as structured as FOG. As long as players DO NOT LET IT BE KNOWN what ship they are flying, and avoid specifics, things should be OK. I'll clamp down if things start to get out of hand, but commeting about the game in the past tense (Did you see how he ran into all 4 TB!) is fine and fun.

Rules for open communications: 1) Do not tell anyone what ship you are flying. 2) Do not discuss alliances, past or future. 3) Do not attempt to influence or discuss the future. Discussing past SITREPs is fair game.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 06:51 pm: Edit Jim said: "With every ship starting at range 10 to two enemies, I was expecting someone to blow up by 1.16. I was not expecting a slow-starting game. If you were... maybe those internals are on YOU."

I'll know in about a week, and you'll know if I start talking about when we are going to start Survivor2 planning

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, June 09, 2009 - 09:17 am: Edit Well, every ship out there has the OPPORTUNITY to get tag-teamed by two opponents. And given that the ships aren't all the same size/BPV, you could get teamed up on by two ships that are both larger than you. And given that we didn't get to send out comms that arrived before the first SOP, there have been no deals struck, no alliances made. These first 16 impulses are probably the most deadly. At least, if you survivie these first 16 impulses intact, it will be as much the luck of the draw as any great effort on the part of the Captain.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, June 09, 2009 - 10:53 pm: Edit Can someone volunteer to send me a 50x50 map in PDF format with hex numbers?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 01:33 am: Edit 117 actions recorded so far, including some fancy footwork from the Kzinti. 3 ships remain to be processed.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 01:58 pm: Edit Tos: How big do you need that map to be? Because you could download the background images from one of the Fog 6 maps, if that's all you need.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 02:05 pm: Edit Thanks Jim, that worked. I tried doing that a year or two ago and it didn't work, so I assumed it still didn't instead of trying it.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, June 12, 2009 - 11:04 am: Edit

Remember, one of the hex numbers is wrong.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 09:55 pm: Edit Update: a broken dryer (that I decided to try to fix myself), leaking hot water tank, some homebrew bottling and a few now empty growlers of beer kept me busy this weekend so I don't have much progress to report.

I have processed all orders and have things in decent shape, but I still need to do a considerable amount of housekeeping to get things in order for a proper SITREP. Once that's out I will expect there to be several revisions necessary, so I won't be rushing you for an SOP.

On the plus side, I wrote up Survivor for Frank as a PBEM update for Captain's Log. Hopefully we will get some good press (and new converts) out of it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 12:17 am: Edit I've got all the ship information in, conditionals processed, actions done, SSDs marked and summary roughed out. Still no progress to report on the map, comms or final formatting, which will have to be done by hand.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 08:54 am: Edit Thanks for the update, Tos. Looking forward to the first turn fireworks!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 10:16 pm: Edit Preliminary SFS1.1.16.SITREP released by email. If you expected it and didn't get it, email me.

Maps, Websites, SSDs and Comms have not been created yet.

Rules for open chatting: You may discus past actions revealed in the SITREP You may not discus future actions You may not reveal which ship you are flying or which team you are on You may not negotiate or discuss alliances

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 11:49 pm: Edit Updates 1.16: FS1 Movement is wrong. FS1 ends 1.16 in 0710D at speed 18.

The web in 2348 should be 2248.

These and many more will be incorporated into the revised SITREP.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 12:31 am: Edit Game Web Site Updated: http://crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/sfs.html

SSDs are up to date, but still no 1.16 map. Click on SITREP to get to the meat.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 04:50 pm: Edit Tos: not to bug you or anything, but while you are waiting on the map, some comms would be nice.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 05:02 pm: Edit people can blame me for the map delays. I'm getting everything all set up nice 'n neat for Tos.

The two tribes will have unique looks that won't be recyled FOG counters.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 05:24 pm: Edit Ooh, can mine have big drag racing tires and a pennant on the back? Please please?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 05:39 pm: Edit

Which one is yours?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 06:53 pm: Edit Mine's the one with a flag on the bonnet.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 10:37 pm: Edit I'd like some floppy bunny rabbit ears, a fluffy cotton tail and a top hat.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 10:46 pm: Edit Ares, the March Hare.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 11:10 pm: Edit Updates: WS1 launched a TADSM 1.01 the followed the ship and hit one of WS2's Fighters with a RALAD.

WS1 missed with one disruptor causing 8 less internals on WS2.

WS2 takes 15 internals: Bridge, 7xFH, 4xAH, Ph#10, RW, Ph#11.

WS1 Attempts to displace TS1. Attempt Fails.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 11:18 pm: Edit WS1 missed with one disruptor causing 8 less internals on WS2.

I wondered how that '5' roll with a +1 EW shift managed to hit.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 11:42 pm: Edit SFS1.1.16.rev1 has been sent to your email accounts.

And now, the long awaited Comms:

From To KS1 HS1 KS1 ZS1 KS1 FS1 ZS1 KS1 ZS1 OS1 TS1 HS2 TS1 FS2 TS1 FS2 TS1 RS3 WS1 RS1 WS1 ZS1 WS1 HS1 WS1 PS1 RS1 WS1 RS1 PS1 RS1 FS1 RS1 HS2 HS1 KS1 HS1 ZS1 HS1 OS1 HS1 HS2

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 11:48 pm: Edit I'm calling for SOP 1.17 to be due 7/9, after Origins and July 4th.

Hopefully this will give me time to create an SOP template.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, June 19, 2009 - 12:23 am: Edit Comms went out by email. If the above lists says you get or sent a comm, you should get an email. If you expected an email and didn't get one, let me know.

Oh, and I did miss one comm that came in late, reposted here for your convenience: From To TS1AllTS1 sticks out tongue, waggles fingers in ears, and says "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo! Ppppphhhhhbbbbbtttttttt!"

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, June 19, 2009 - 02:11 pm: Edit Work on infrastructure for a map is going apace, but is not done. I think you guys will be happy with the final result.

I'm going down the list.

Feds: done Klinks: done Roms: done Hydrans: done

The first set is the hardest because one has to make the support counters (shuttles, drones, plasma, TBs)

I had to make Overlord counters and Fed NCA counters (only remembering that Jim sent me his NCA counters right *after* I made mine)

Looking ahead to the peladine, I need a question answered. Do the Peladine have counters? If so what's their color scheme? (Hydrans are white on green, Feds are black on blue, etc). I'll make one up if I have to. I even have one in mind.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, June 19, 2009 - 05:54 pm: Edit By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Ares, the March Hare."

Ah! You are refering to "HAres"

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, June 20, 2009 - 03:43 pm: Edit The Peladine are pink on a purple background. The ships are crewed by girls between the ages of 12 and 15, and Hannah Montana is the Emperor of the Peladine Empire.

That's why Peladine ships have plasma AND drones - a girl's got to have the right accessories for any occasion.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Saturday, June 20, 2009 - 10:38 pm: Edit You mean Empress....

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, June 20, 2009 - 10:44 pm: Edit Yes, Empress would be the proper honorific. Off with my head!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 02:37 pm: Edit Mapwork almost done. All racial counters done (crosses fingers) now it's putting everything together in the mapmaker.

And debugging that.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 01:58 pm: Edit Debugging done. Even got a minor feature or two out of it.

Tos sent me a proper sized map. The FOG6 map is a little small. I'll make sure the units all place properly and hand the maps off to Tos to put up on his site.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 03:45 pm: Edit A little small? It's 50x50, how much bigger does it need to be? All I did was add a row in both directions to the 49x49 map you were using for Fog 5.

I'm guessing your new counters are a little larger than the old ones?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 04:16 pm: Edit Same counter size. Just new color schemes.

Maybe it was the FOG4.5 map I was using. Whatever, it was too small and Tos sent me a new map.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 09:49 pm: Edit to all the aeatgerly await ing a new map released on thew wpe. It was homebrew night, oso eat your heardt dout.. By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 11:09 pm: Edit From the above, Im going to say it was more a homebrew night and day.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 07:58 am: Edit John went above and beyond to get a map out. Than you John.

This is not integrated into my site yet, but these are the map links: http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-white.htm http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-black.htm

The SSDs are still on the regular site.

In other news I have been making progress on a standardized data entry tool. Its still got some development left and plenty of QA, but so far I'm happy with the flexibility I've been able to include.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 12:36 pm: Edit Looks good, but I still think there is plasma and some drones missing from the map. Any chance of adding those?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 01:31 pm: Edit brad,

Can you point which ones?

Are they on the summary or overlooked?

That one TB is a unit I happened to find that was not on the summary but I was too busy getting the stupid code working to look for missed stuff.

Report it here or e-mail me and I can add them fairly easily.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 02:08 pm: Edit Lets see,

There's the Plasma from RS1 and the fighter from WS1. I thought more stuff was missing, but they're there.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 02:52 pm: Edit A misplaced web was reported too. John, I suspect you are operating off the summary 1.16.rev0. The 1.16.rev1 SITREP corrected some of these items, but I'm not sure a Summary.rev1 was ever produced.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 02:59 pm: Edit I can do a quick update tonight but I'm travelling, so I need some help.

I need a list of units in the sitrep that aren't on the map (if any).

I need a list of missing units (if any) and all their summary data, preferably formatted as Survivor summary line that I can copy/paste with minimal changes. I can take care of the web as long as all the positions in the sitrep update are right. But if someone wants to take a stab, I THINK

Facing A = vertical line "|" Facing B = 60 degree line "/" Facing C = 120 degree line "\" Facing D = horizontal line "-"

TS1.W4 should look like 3048D TS1.W7 - W11 should all have a facing of C

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 04:26 pm: Edit Just to make it clear, I'm travelling too and can't help tonight either.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, June 26, 2009 - 11:21 pm: Edit Maps updated to reflect web changes.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 06:49 pm: Edit Update: The hex of web that’s in 2348 should be in 2248. This was correct in some parts of the sitrep, but not others or the map. There is also some situations where the web strength is right in some sections and backward in others.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 06:54 pm: Edit I do a quick map update tonight

EDIT: NVM. Looks like map is right.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, July 10, 2009 - 02:07 am: Edit Reminder, if your SOP is not in, it should be.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 01:02 am: Edit I truly hate to say this, but due to personal reasons, I'm out. And I truly love the WSC. I'm sticking with farstars holy because I've been involved for years and will not let my allies and opponents down in that forum. Aside from that, I cannot let my distractions dictate any further harm. Since this game began shortly ago (relatively speaking), I must bow out. My apologies and regrets to all involved.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 01:36 am: Edit I'd prefer these announcements be made by privately by email. Due to the nature of the game I will continue flying the ship until a Captain can be found, which could be as early as the next vote.

Glenn, if your situation changes and you want to submit an SOP, even an occassional SOP, let me know.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 10:18 am: Edit TOS, my lack of common sence had escaped me. For that, I am sorry.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 06:54 pm: Edit To those of you who tried and failed to use the SOP form, thanks for making the effort. I was seperated from my computer last week and had a choice of sending out the non-updated sheet or none at all. I didn't have access to my updated sheet, which might have mitigated some of the problems you may have run into. I'll try to do better next time, but this is going to be an on going process. By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 10:56 pm: Edit Tos, In trying to plot actions in your spreadsheet, there was a row for each impulse. I had a conditional order which, depending on the impulse, and location of target from my ship (which weapons had the target in firing arc), could have resulted in anywhere from two to max weapons being launched/fired. And this could have been triggered on more than one impulse. In the case of SW launched, target, facing, speed, tendency, etc. were all requested. Do I need to make an entry for each weapon individually on each impulse with the condition listed every time so as to cover everything? This one conditional order listed in text format would have taken over a hundred lines in the spreadsheet to cover the possibilities for each weapon on each impulse. Is that what you wanted?

On the other hand, I had no problem with the movement worksheet.

PS I noticed the subject line on my SOP e-mail included 01.00.5 rather than 01.16.6E, in case you might have missed it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 11:15 pm: Edit Its possible that what you want to do can't be handled, in which case try your best and give me a text description of what you are trying to do.

On the other hand, in this case I think you can leave the impulse number on the Actions form blank and apply a condition. The first impulse the condition is true I will execute it. Do list every weapon though as that will simplify my tracking of each weapon and ensure I have all the information I need.

I'm glad you have no problem with the movement sheet, but I do. I'm trying to kill a bug with the range calculation, and complex Excel formulas are not so easy to debug.

My thinking is I'll work in parallel on the form along with the SOP. This means the SOP will take longer to get out, but I should have a better form for you all to use next time.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 02:18 pm: Edit I completely frogot abotu the SOP form. Tos, Let me know if resubmitting using it is worth the time.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 05:35 pm: Edit Don't worry about it. What I needed was a few people to try it so they could uncover the shortcomings and see which areas required more explination. My big problem was because I was sick, I sent out an unrefined version, which probably caused more problems than it was worth.

Unfortunately being sick I lack the concentration required to solve some of the technical problems. Maybe I'll farm them out. Anyone want to debug why my range calculation formula doesn't work?

I got enough feedback and can manually adapt the open format into the new format to test conditionals. This is going to take several turns to get right, so give it a shot for 2.01, if your ship SURVIVES!

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 05:37 pm: Edit Tos,

Sent it to me.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 09:03 pm: Edit FS1 Wins the best use of the new form award. Congratulations FS1!

I'm still missing some SOPs. Please try to get them in before I get to you.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 11:14 pm: Edit My biggest problem was redoing the whole EAF in a totally different order.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 11:56 pm: Edit The EAF was optional for this go around, but at least it gives you experience for turn 2, though I acknowledge the EAF is more than a bit counter-intuitive. I'll see what can be done about that. The reason its all scattered the way it is is due to limitations in Excel. I built it so that the energy weapon section could individually support the Iron Duke's ready racks, but that's quite a few empty lines to put smack dab in the middle of the EAF form for most applications.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - 08:09 pm: Edit Just hide the lines that are not being used.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, July 16, 2009 - 12:41 am: Edit That works, until some enterprising ensign decides to delete the lines instead of hiding them.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, July 20, 2009 - 08:30 am: Edit Tos, how are we doing for SOPs?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, July 20, 2009 - 10:06 am: Edit I'm not sure I understand what question you are asking. I don't have 100% of the SOPs in, but I have what I expected and the game will go on. I have made only some progress on the SITREP and tool as both require levels of concentration that have eluded me for much of the past week. I'm hopeful this week will be a bit better.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - 08:28 am: Edit Sorry, I should have just asked if you had them all in yet, but I got my answer and more. Good luck sorting out the conditionals!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, July 25, 2009 - 03:45 pm: Edit Nominee for worst moderator headache: WS1, WS1.F1, WS2.F2, WS2, WS2.F1 and associated drones. Keeping all these units straight is a pain.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 12:15 am: Edit Good day today. I was able to concentrate.

I have processed all SOPs and all conditionals for all ships.

Next is formatting. Then comms and maps. I'll dole stuff out as its available.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 12:18 am: Edit Happy: RS2 HS1 KS1 RS3 ZS1 FS2 OS1 PS1 WS1 OS2 WS3

Unhappy: HS2 RS1 TS1 WS2 FS1

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 02:45 am: Edit Missed a close range scatter pack. Two hours to resolve. I think I have the Summary ready, but I'll sleep on it first. Time for bed.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 12:08 pm: Edit SFS1.1.32.SITREP.rev0 has been released.

Still pending are Maps, Comms, SSDs, Website updates, Victory Points, etc.

I'll continue to dribble these out as able.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 01:31 pm: Edit Web site has been updated, including a Blog. SSDs have been updated. Still no map, comms or victory points.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 02:16 pm: Edit Comms should be in your inbox. I've also sent a Comm summary. If you didn't receive any comms, check the comm summary to see if you should have. You should have if you sent or received a comm.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 02:24 pm: Edit I need an open opinon on formatting:

The text files don't do columns well, and I'm not going to take the time to space it out all nice and pretty.

What do people think about getting a SITREP in Excel format where I can control column spacing better?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 02:38 pm: Edit Victory Points:

Green Wins Turn 1 with 184 VP.

Blue ends Turn 1 with 138 VP.

I will need a vote from Blue Team Members (FS2 HS2 OS2 RS2 RS3 TS1 WS2 WS3) on who will be ejected from your team. Votes will be tabulated at 7/31/09 11pm EST. Who will be the first Captain voted out of Star Fleet Survivor?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 05:02 pm: Edit Survivor maps are up http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-01-32%20SITREP.htm http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-black.htm and printer-friendly http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-white.htm

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 26, 2009 - 05:17 pm: Edit Wow! Thanks John!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 01:57 pm: Edit Enterprising Captains have found some errata that needs to be integrated into the SITREP. It doesn't look like anything too major, but I guess that depends on if you are the one being hit with the type-IV drone.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 04:58 pm: Edit OK, here's the gist of things.

WS2.F1 was crippled on 1.17, before he launched his drones. The non-launched drones didn't turn into MW drones, and the now unlaunched submunitions aren't about to run out of endurance.

FS1 had a lab and ADD action, which killed a drone.

Net effect, a bunch of drones disappear and WS2.F1 was not recovered, putting him somewhere else on the map that I haven't figured out yet at speed 14.

That's all for now.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 04:25 pm: Edit SFS1.1.32.SITREP.rev1 released, as are some comm updates. The map has not been updated yet and the changes are minor. There will be a 2.00 map as the map shrinks one hex in each direction.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 02:12 am: Edit Good news is I've made good progress on the EAF form. Bad news is I've got more minor errata coming out soon.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 07:29 pm: Edit Tos, I don't mind SitRep in Excel format. In fact I think I might prefer it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 01, 2009 - 01:06 pm: Edit Is there anyone who won't accept an Excel based SITREP?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 01, 2009 - 01:14 pm: Edit The Vote has been submitted and tabulated. If you didn't get your vote in by the deadline, your vote wasn't counted. Better luck next time.

The first Captain voted out of Star Fleet Survivor is: Captain Glenn Hoepfner, WS3, WYN Scrap Cruiser

By all indications the ship's rudder was broken and was destined to impact the map wall by turn 3.

A 1.32 SITREP.rev2 and 2.00 Map will be produced when I get around to it. A new data entry form will be distributed for EA's. As this is something of a milestone in PBEM history, if successful, I am extending the deadline for EAFs until we can compelte a round of QA on the form. I will be on vacation 8/15-8/23, so if things go well EAFs will be due around 8/10. That should give me enough time to collect straglers and get a 2.0 SITREP out before I go.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 09:30 pm: Edit Tos, are you allowing eliminated players to get one last 512-character message so we get to hear their parting thoughts, a la survivor? Maybe post them to the main web page?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 09:46 pm: Edit I'll accept a closing thought, but I won't require it.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 11:38 pm: Edit The first Captain voted out of Star Fleet Survivor is: Captain Glenn Hoepfner, WS3, WYN Scrap Cruiser

I had considered this one of the more broken ships, so its interesting to see it gone so fast. Perhaps targetting it early was deliberately to avoid giving it a chance in the 1-on-1 stage of the game.

This game certainly is heating up. A massive board, yet a bunch of the ships will be within 10 or 12 hexes of each other early in T2 (from looking at the direction they are all currently pointing)...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 11:50 pm: Edit Reminders:

1) There's still a minor SITREP revision that I have to process. 2) EAFs aren't due until 8/10. 3) I am QAing an EAF Excel form. When its ready I will distribute it. e-Mail me if you want to participate in the Beta QA. 4) Discussion about the game is encouraged, provided the following rules are adheared to: a) You do not disclose which ship you are in. b) You do not discuss alliances.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, August 03, 2009 - 11:23 am: Edit SFS1.1.32.SITREP.rev2

Some minor corrections: PS1 movement was off by a hex. Now in 1837A.

Some drones that were reported as not launched still had a launch action listed.

FS1 took two ADD to kill the drone, not one. HS2 launched his Stingers 1.17, they didn't just appear out of subspace.

Minor stuff, but important for PS1 and those chasing him.

I'll compile a corrected SITREP and redistribute shortly so you all have something current and complete to build your EAF off. Map will take slightly longer.

This represents the final change to the 1.32 SITREP. From here play the ball as it lies.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Monday, August 03, 2009 - 06:56 pm: Edit Is the web page set up yet?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, August 03, 2009 - 07:53 pm: Edit The web page is setup, but doesn't have the latest SITREP revision or latest map revision.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, August 07, 2009 - 10:29 am: Edit As expected the spreadsheet went out with errors. Two things have been reortd so far. 1) the movement calc for turn 2+ is using the wron source field. I moved the fields around to make data entry easier and it broke the formula. 2) I got protection happy and didn't test. If you can't enter data where you thik you should, disable protection on each sheet and try again. There is no password so just click ok.

I'm out of town on a PDA so can't fix these issues until Sunday. Same problem as last time, ran out of time to do proper QA. Appologies.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 12:17 am: Edit EAF due Thursday 7pm.

I'm excited to report that more than half of the EAFs are already in (though that may have something to do with the moderator moving the date repeatedly).

I'm away on vacation next week. I don't know if that will make me a faster or slower moderator.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 09:39 am: Edit Making good progress. I've only got one EAF that's late at this point, and I'll be writing his in a few minutes. Since I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to get the 2.00 Summary out today. Better yet, have a map out, but that might be a step too far.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 02:52 pm: Edit I've got the 2.00 SITREP and a basic map out. Should be in your email. Still working on getting the map to behave as cool as John's does. http://crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/sfs.html

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 03:04 pm: Edit Tos: ZS1 announced ED and was at speed 0 at the end of last turn. How is it moving speed 22 now? Did it have another amazing transformation as it did last turn? Or is this an error?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 03:29 pm: Edit ZS1 is moving speed 10. Your sensors much be picking up the rebound from the wall closing in.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 05:07 pm: Edit I've got the map working properly now. All is well with the world. http://crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/maps/SFS1-2-00-White-Map.htm Turns out the problem was a lower case issue John warned me about. It works in Windows, buy Unix (Yahoo site) chokes unless I get the case right.

I'll be away on vacation for a week. I'll be able to check in, and may be able to issue some minor corrections, but I expect to loose the ability to maintain the website. Hopefully not too much major is found. The Kzinti's true speed is now correctly reflected on the web, but doesn't seem to be worth issuing a formal revision for.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 02:40 pm: Edit

Quote:

Your sensors much be picking up the rebound from the wall closing in.

Hanson, run a Level 3 diagnostic on all sensors. We seem to be picking up an echo - or that Kzin is equipped with the mythical Positron Flywheel.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 11:41 pm: Edit It's been noted that I didn't do a good job identifying which ECP/ECM Drones were destroyed. RS2 EW should be 5/0. Please let me know if I've failed to account for a change of status for any other ECP/ECM Drone by email.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 03:40 pm: Edit Ah, I had thought I posted a reminder that SOPs were due. Apparently I did not. SOPs are due, and late. Get them in.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 05:03 pm: Edit

It may not have been complete. It may not have been accurate. It may have overlooked too much. But it was submitted. (And in Excel.)

Now the moderator's headaches may begin....

PS Mine will likely begin when the results are distributed....

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 30, 2009 - 06:46 pm: Edit We are now just short of a week past deadline and I have received 4 SOPs. 4 out of 15. Not very good guys. The game will go a lot quicker for me when I just start blowing up ships that don't submit SOPs. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 30, 2009 - 11:59 pm: Edit Good. I've found five more Captains that don't want their ship blown up. That's progress.

On another note, it has been brought to my attention that not everyone is in the habit of checking this tread to see if SOPs are due. I will make an effort to be more remindful by email in the future.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, September 07, 2009 - 09:44 pm: Edit Tos,

Any update to the status?

If they haven't entered something by this point, just have them move in a straight line and use their weapons defensively.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, September 07, 2009 - 11:28 pm: Edit I'm not waiting on anyone at this point, I've just been busy enjoying my weekend. I'll put my nose to the grindstone and figure out what to do next as soon as I can work up the gumption. At this point you should consider the delay mine.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 08:54 am: Edit SFS1.2.16 update request:

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 12:52 pm: Edit We are not there yet. I've been out sick for a while now and just went back to work today. Its going to take a few days of focusing on real life before I'll get back to Survivor. Its still near the top of my list, but it probably won't be this week. I do wish I had caught a long enough second wind to knock it out before FOG7 started, but I have had limited success achieving the concentration levels needed to process a Survivor SITREP.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 03:28 pm: Edit That's why I prefer my sitreps in the convenient, four-impulse bite-sized servings.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 08:03 pm: Edit That's why I prefer my sitreps in the convenient, four-impulse bite-sized servings.

Careful Jim. He may decide to only process a random selection of 4 out of 16 impulses for you

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 01:23 am: Edit Or I might decide to blow up Jim's ship and put him in charge of moderating this nightmare of my own creation.

On the other hand, if I could just clear half the ships off the board this wouldn't be nearly as complicated. Hmmm.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 01:42 am: Edit On the other hand, if I could just clear half the ships off the board this wouldn't be nearly as complicated. Hmmm.

I'd be happy to put forward a list of ships for consideration !

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 05:21 pm: Edit On the other hand, if I could just clear half the ships off the board this wouldn't be nearly as complicated. Hmmm.

Doing my best, Sir!

If you want to (A) get people to send in their paperwork on time and (B) clear ships off the board, the obvious answer is to reduce the speed of each ship by 1 for every day they were late with their SOPs. Not only would you clear the board, the ones you are losing would be the ones causing you the most headache.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 07:45 pm: Edit Or reduce their shields by 1 box from each facing for each day (or maybe hour if youre feeling cruel).

Though we'd end up hoping people were late so their shields are suddenly at half strength.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 07:51 pm: Edit Or do one point of damage to a random shield per day, accounted as if scored by the enemy.

If someon has a shield down, they could be unlucky and get an internal.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 08:16 am: Edit Those ideas might actually work since this isn't so much a team game as FOG would be. However, Tos has said that he has everything he needs to process the sitrep, but it might be a good thing to implement for the next SOP.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 11:07 am: Edit I have everything I need, except the spare sanity I'll loose in the process.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 02:19 pm: Edit I have some to spare.

To misquote the Gene Hackman Lex Luthor:

"Actually I'm full of sanity. I just never used any of it."

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 08:36 pm: Edit I'm even more sick with a fever now than I usually am, so don't count on any progress for a few more days. Its disappointing, but to no one more than I.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 03:52 pm: Edit My health returning, I have now reviewed the SOPs received and can report:

I have SOPs for 10 Captains. I have a possible for 1 Captain. I have 4 Captains who don't wish to continue. Next step, convert the non-standard SOPs to standard SOPs.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 04:18 pm: Edit Tos, what are you going to do with the ships of the four captains who don't want to play anymore? Should we expect a team member shakeup at the end of this turn?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 04:39 pm: Edit Do we have replacements that want to step into someone else's ship?

Can we let Glenn come back?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 05:34 pm: Edit Glenn is welcome back, but he bowed out due to other commitments. Anyone else that wants in is welcome, but contact me soon before I make your intended ship disapear.

I'll see what the impact on everything is, but a team shake up is likely. Right now I don't even know which teams lost ships. I just haven't gotten to that point yet.

Once we get down to 12 committed players it will make my job easier anyway, so I'm OK with this.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 08:52 pm: Edit John, I bowed out as TOS suggested (and in probably in the wrong way, and for that I do apologize to TOS). Since then, one commitment has passed but a new one has since occured. I have learned that I harm both and the third if I commit to a third. But I do appreciate your suggestion.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 09:12 pm: Edit I figured since you were the one voted off the island...

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 10:40 pm: Edit As a result, I'd be too ashamed to "volunteer". In all respects, I hope this scenario concludes successfully.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 09:49 am: Edit Glenn, that's bizarre. There is nothing to be ashamed about. This is a game. RL comes first.

By Derek Meserve (Sepeku) on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 10:57 am: Edit If ships disappear or teams change, are we going to do new SITs or keep with what we have and possibly fire on a new friend?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 12:11 pm: Edit I haven't finished thinking through that yet. I'm leaning against changing teams this break, but it could happen at mid-turn.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 12:51 pm: Edit Seriously Tos, if 4 players have gone down the tubes it might be best to declare the SOPs we gave you null and void and call a "Mulligan". Then you can just go about the business of culling the herd and rearranging the teams, if required. (And maybe shrink the map by another two hexes in each direction.)

After you're done, ask players for a new SOP. I know there are probably a bunch of people's orders that would change if they knew the new lay of the land. And doing so *now* means that players will be able to focus on damaging ships that matter so we can finish the game quicker. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 01:10 pm: Edit That's one idea Brad, but I've got another that should allow me to move forward with the SOPs and teams that I have. Less disruption to less people that way, but I'll keep the Mullican idea in mind if it doesn't work out as I hope.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 03:59 pm: Edit My urgent commitments should be in hand by Sunday. With those out of the way I hope to make some progress on the moderating. Right now I have determined that the no-shows are fairly distributed so as to cause minimal 'team' disruption.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 07:06 pm: Edit Well my entire SOP (and even EAF) was predicated on a certain ship being on the map and being where they were. If for some reason that ship is not there, do I have any chance to redo my EAF and SOP? Or do I and my team) have to live with my having what turns out to be a ridiculous EAF and SOP?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, October 04, 2009 - 11:00 am: Edit I understand. I'm not planning on having ships just disappear for that reason. Your SOP may not work (haven't studied it) but it won't be because the ship simply disappeared.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 12:43 am: Edit I corrected and consolidated all Actions into the moderator's Action form. Next stop, movement.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 06, 2009 - 12:56 am: Edit Ship Movement consolidated.

Next I think I'll plot out impulse by impulse movement on a map, then process the actions. Thinking of doing seeking weapons after that, or maybe before.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 - 01:34 am: Edit Well I don't know what happens yet, but FS1 and OS2 found themselves uncomfortably close on 2.14.

Impulse map done. Next I'll process the actions.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, October 08, 2009 - 11:25 pm: Edit No progress. Not feeling well.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 04:41 pm: Edit I hope you're feeling better. So what's the status on the actions resolution?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 06:45 pm: Edit Almost. Still getting over the dregs. Should get a few more hours in tomorrow, but not tonight. Doing this job with a fuzzy head is a recipe for revisions.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 01:17 am: Edit No progress to report. Can't shake this sore throat and associated aches and pains. Will try again Friday or Sunday, but Saturday is right out.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 02:00 pm: Edit Just rest. Take a week.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 10:51 pm: Edit The good news is I made a little progress. The bad news is I crashed my computer and lost all my progress. The worse news is OS2 smacked FS1 silly before the forced reboot.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 01:12 am: Edit Recovered from the crash. FS1 got some return licks in on OS2, less than hoped, more than expected. About 65 more actions to process and some work to carry over non-ship movement from turn 1.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 12:16 pm: Edit So how goes the work on the remaining actions? Can we expect a Sitrep by the weekend?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 04:06 pm: Edit Broken computer this week. Data files are backed up and safe, just inaccessible. I am committed to getting this out, so fear not on that score.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, October 25, 2009 - 06:32 pm: Edit Computer back online. No progress to report tonight, but I'll make an effort to get back swinging this week.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 26, 2009 - 12:03 am: Edit Got a second wind and was able to account for last turn's left over drones, shuttles and plasma (I hate drones). RS2 mistimed (M3.32) and had to kill KS1's drones the old fashioned way.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 26, 2009 - 12:30 am: Edit Just to put things in perspective, WS2.D5 was chasing FS1. Resolving the drone movement and actions took about 20 minutes.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 26, 2009 - 12:52 am: Edit Another 20 minutes to resolve the next two drones, but at least one of them did 12 internals.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 26, 2009 - 01:10 am: Edit Down to 31 conditionals left to process. That's enough for tonight.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 26, 2009 - 11:53 pm: Edit Surprise! SFS1.2.16.SITREP has been sent to your mailbox. In addition to a whole list of have nots, I have not updated the website.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 12:57 am: Edit I realized I wouldn't have a chance to work on this Wednesday (its my drinking homebrew night) so I forced myself to get a working map up: http://www.crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/sfs.html

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 10:37 pm: Edit Come on guys, can't you all find some mistakes? OK, I know the Fed double slipped, fine, I'll fix it to make no difference. I know the WYN fighter forgot to move, whatever, corrected on the map. But there has got to be some more before I issue a revision. If you don't find anything I'm going to be forced to process the comms, and God knows I'd like anything but that.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 11:14 pm: Edit Make all comms CLEAR.

That should make it easier.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 04:47 pm: Edit You know what would be a handy addition to the webside?

A guide to each ship. Whatever's public knowledge as of Turn 1, Impulse 1: make and model of ship, option mounts, fighter types--that kind of stuff. By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 12:09 am: Edit A big mistake was made that is going to require significant revision.

I failed to note that the C/D mounts on OS2 are wing mounts and assumed the firing arcs were FP.

The actual firing arcs for OS2 are as follows: A-FP B-FP C-LP D-RP E-RA F-RA

That means PL#D was not in arc to launch with all the rest of the plasma, but did become in arc and launch on 2.13. Alas, not so lucky. Try as I might I couldn't manage to hit a down shield with the 2.13 plasma launch.

But wait, it gets worse. The same orders caused a 2.15 launch of 2xPL-F-RA, which are scheduled to hit somewhere early next break.

I have to plot things out but the important points are FS1 is still toast, but 20 less internals may allow it to spit back at OS2 before it goes down.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 01:30 pm: Edit OS2 has informed me that it wouldn't really be fair to hit FS1 twice with the same torps as he already hit him with the two rear torps, so it's only the one torp I have to reallocate.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 08:09 pm: Edit Revision 1 is in your mailboxes. The site has been updated and mostly seems to work. If you are OS2 or FS1 this SITREP matters. If you aren't, not much changed.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 08:21 am: Edit Tos, when do you want the next SOP from us?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 10:44 am: Edit I'm working now on the Excel form to fix a few bugs I found. I'd like to take some time to clean that up and get a new input sheet out to you.

Basically at this point I consider getting the Excel sheet fixed and tested in the wild so that it's clean by the time FOG7 starts is more urgent than getting an extra SITREP processed. I'd like FOG7 to go as smoothly as possible right from the start.

Finally, I need to post a SITREP revision to tell people who get DISDEV'd by OS2, but OS2 hasn't told me who he wants to DISDEV yet.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, November 07, 2009 - 01:41 am: Edit I'm stuck on some Excel formulas involving Hex math, and my head hasn't been clear enough to solve them. Would anyone be willing to write some complex Excel formulas for me? If I can farm out the deep think stuff I'll be able to focus more on the big picture and fine tuning.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Saturday, November 07, 2009 - 08:51 pm: Edit Tos, I have a functioning hex range calculator in Excel.

I also have a way to extract hex numbers as column/row, but it requires that the hex numbers be put in as text, not as numbers.

Email me or give me a call.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, November 08, 2009 - 02:09 am: Edit Unfortunately I've had the hex range calc working.

I've been working on identifying heading (which direction you slipped) so I can issue a warning on a double slip. Turns out the problem may not have been with the heading calc, but rather a direction move calc that came before it (you can enter a direction or a slip-direction instead of a hex number and the calc figures out where you go), so I was bashing my head against the wrong wall. I did get everything I intended to get working working, now I've got to find something else to fix. I even got turn mode warnings to work.

Once I've finished QA I'll make sure you get a copy Ken, there are some formulas in there you don't want to recreate if you ever find a need for them.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 12:20 am: Edit The website has been updated with SFS1.2.16.SITREP.rev2, as has your email.

The big happenings is OS2 displaced KS1 two hexes backward.

Good progress is being made on the PBEM data entry tool, but not tonight. No deadline set until I can get the updates out to each of you.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 12:30 am: Edit No sooner is the SITREP out that I find out 4 drones from KS1 went hidden cloak on me. Expect another revision.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 01:03 am: Edit The drones turned out not to be that diffiuclt to process this time, so the revision (still .rev2) is out and the website is updated.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 08:51 pm: Edit With help from ZS1 I've found, and hopefully fixed, a bug that prevented the SOP Entry Form from working in Open Office. Several new features are also incorporated for the 2.17 SOP to prevent nifty problems like the dreaded double side-slip.

Once I get the thumbs up from ZS1 I will transcribe your existing orders into the new template, then send you the file ready to receive your 2.17 orders.

I don't want to rush things, so when I set a deadline, it will be a reasonable period after Thanksgiving.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, November 15, 2009 - 09:20 pm: Edit Two minor revisions:

RS1's EW is not 1/7, it's 6/0 (ECM/ECCM). FS2 and his drones are still on Blue team, even though his drones appear to be working for Green team on the map. This should not be construed as a secret attempt by FS2 to attack one of his own teammates.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 01:11 pm: Edit FS2 and his drones are still on Blue team, even though his drones appear to be working for Green team on the map. This should not be construed as a secret attempt by FS2 to attack one of his own teammates.

Does this require any work from me in terms of software or counters to keep from recurring?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 05:34 pm: Edit I don't think so, its just me entering the wrong team on the summary report.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, November 30, 2009 - 09:39 am: Edit Tos, how is the spreadsheet debugging coming along? Do you have a new version we could try out for the next SOP to catch the next round of bugs?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, November 30, 2009 - 09:51 am: Edit Soon. I'm on target to get it out in the next day or so. The sheet is ready, but I'm tranposing the data from each of the previous submissions into the new format. That should make it easier for folks to follow along when it comes time for them to enter their SOP.

My bad on the delay again.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, November 30, 2009 - 09:29 pm: Edit Updated SOP forms should be in your inbox.

SOPs are due 12/11/2009.

Lots of manual processing to get each individual SOP out, so I can assure you I made a mistake somewhere. When you find it, or aren't clear as to how to use the form, ask. If I'm not responding, poke me at my toscrawford email address or IM of the same.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 - 05:10 pm: Edit For the record, I really dislike the Sitrep format.

I just found it difficult to wrap my head around the information.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 - 06:33 pm: Edit That's strange. I liked it. The dropdowns at the top let you filter for what you're looking for.

You want to see all of QS3's actions, you can filter out everybody else and extract everything he did. That to me is far superior than searching the list for events of interest.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 - 07:13 pm: Edit Roger:

Not that I'm entertaining suggestions, but can you recommend an approach that would make it better for you? Ugly SITREPs has so far been intractable problem for PBEM.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 05:05 pm: Edit I had not noticed the quick sort capability set up. Now that JT mentioned it, I'm liking the format even more. Just as long as I maintain an advanced-enough version of Excel to read the file. I've still had some minor issues with the SOP file, but so far thr SitRep file is working dandy.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 05:22 pm: Edit

I almost didn't mention it. It could put new and better tools in the hands of my enemies.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 07:42 pm: Edit Michael, one of the reasons it took awhile to get the latest SOP tool out was to increase its cross- platform compatibility. I hope I was successful. That said, I have been pushing the rational limits of Excel (learned a bunch along the way too). Now if someone can think up a way to sweep each page into a centralized moderator version, I'm all ears.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 09:19 pm: Edit Tos, Procedural question: When filling out this next SOP, should we retain for reference the actions we listed in the first half of the turn, or can we erase the actions that are no longer applicable and/or doable?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, December 03, 2009 - 01:06 am: Edit Either is acceptable, provided its kept in impulse order (I have to be able to copy all the valid orders in one block).

If you had a general order that was not associated with a particular impulse, and you no longer want to do that order, delete it.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Saturday, December 05, 2009 - 05:03 pm: Edit Tos,

>>Now if someone can think up a way to sweep each page into a centralized moderator version, I'm all ears.

Open office supports macros - have the moderator sheet with the macros and the player sheets without them.

Ken

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 10:09 am: Edit So how is the Sitrep generation coming? Is anyone outstanding that we have to ready the gatling spitwads?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 11:27 am: Edit So here's the situation:

1) I lost track of time (thought deadline was this week) and didn't remind players of the deadline. That means most folks are late, but it's my fault.

2) Of the forms I've received in, players are reporting fewer problems with the input form. 3) I had a bad link to speed in my sheets and the reported speed of everyone in the summary and on the map are wrong. The movement is correct, just the posted speeds are wrong.

I'll post again a bit later as to what I'm going to do about this.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 02:34 pm: Edit I thought we were still back at movement plot submission. I didn't realize we were expected to have complete orders prepped and ready.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 03:16 pm: Edit Update: SITREP.rev3 sent out by email. Current Speed corrected for all ships.

Deadline is now 12/20 for your 2.17-2.32 SOP.

I know we are in the middle of the holidays. If that won't work for you, letting me know would be best.

I'm working on the map update and will post back here when that's ready (no email).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 03:42 pm: Edit Map is up to date. SOP due 12/20.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 28, 2009 - 01:58 pm: Edit I am short 4 SOPs, but since this is mid-turn I expect I can extrapolate from the 2.16 SOP reasonable orders and get the ball rolling. If you are one of those who have not submitted, there is still time to do so, but hurry.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 11:09 am: Edit I've extended the deadline some for someone who wants to get his SOP in but is getting tripped up by the holidays.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 04, 2010 - 03:17 pm: Edit That would be me.

My apologies to Tos and everybody else in the game. I just couldn't concentrate during the holidays (I was travelling for the entire last two weeks)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 04, 2010 - 03:47 pm: Edit No problem. I couldn't concentrate either. Just got started last night, so you are only a tiny bit late. Haven't gotten to your ship anyway (though was tempted to).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 11, 2010 - 09:59 pm: Edit My stuff should have hit your inbox over this weekend.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 11, 2010 - 10:08 pm: Edit Cool. I'll get to this eventually (read: probably not soon). I got the easy third done, but I lack the concentration to tackle the hard parts. You don't want me releasing a SITREP that I wasn't able to concentrate on.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 11, 2010 - 10:28 pm: Edit Heck freakin' no. Take your time.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Monday, January 18, 2010 - 06:39 pm: Edit Tos, How's the progress?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 18, 2010 - 09:56 pm: Edit Haven't been well. No progress to report.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, January 29, 2010 - 02:01 pm: Edit Felt better today. Completed the movement for all ships (a milestone). Five ships fell off the map and disengaged. That's five less ships to process next turn, which aught to help.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, February 01, 2010 - 03:37 pm: Edit We haven't lost anyone else during this hiatus, have we? So can we expect a sitrep by next Monday?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 01, 2010 - 03:43 pm: Edit Unfortunately feeling better is a day-by-day thing that did not include Saturday, Sunday or Monday. The SITREP, when it is finished, will be timed not to interfere with FOG7.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - 08:36 pm: Edit Made some progress today. Consolidated the Actions into a standardized format and fixed a ship movement error. Next step will be tracking the sub-ship unit movement and processing the actions one at a time. Turns out there are far fewer actions this break than last, which should help some.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 12, 2010 - 07:36 pm: Edit Taking the next week off, not that that should come as much of a surprise to anyone. I always said if I were ever worth what I was paid, I'd be a PBEM moderator, and now I am.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 07:13 pm: Edit I can't find survivor's web page right now.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 11:24 am: Edit Neither can I. The page is being transferred between service providers, which I knew was impending, but I wasn't expecting a long outage. I'll check into it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, February 19, 2010 - 11:24 am: Edit Looks like the site is back up. I'm expecting to be out of commission this weekend, but plan to restart plugging away on the SITREP come Monday.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 05:56 pm: Edit Miraculously I think I've got all the fighter movement plotted.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - 01:09 am: Edit Got the on-board drones moved. I think I'm ready to start processing orders next.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - 05:39 pm: Edit TRUE conditional orders identified. Consequences next, but not tonight. Homebrew meeting night.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 02:36 pm: Edit I'm not positive yet, but it looks like WS1 is going to get hammered. FS2 might get punched in the stomach, but should survive. Most of the rest of you look fairly safe this turn, but we'll see.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 03:56 pm: Edit Proper impulses assigned, new seeking weapons plotted and actions formatted for SITREP. Haven't done any rolls yet so I don't know how bad things have gotten for WS1 and FS2, but it doesn't look good.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 11:58 pm: Edit Two power outages later (I work on my desktop, so that's a bad thing), I'm close to done with the actions. Got a few drones for OS2 to shoot down once the power stabilizes, then double check to see if any drones were forgotten or if any data was lost data in the outages. Friday looks to be another good day for further progress. Comms don't take long. Generating the summary does. Hopefully the map doesn't give me any grief. Updating the web is always a pain, and I just switched to a new hosting companies and have to figure out everything from scratch, but I'll send out an email with attachments first.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 04:27 pm: Edit I've got a summary done, and a map generated. It seems to pass my QA.

My website has changed service providers, which means I have to figure out how to load it from scratch. That could take a bit longer.

I think I'll dole out what I've got by email so you can start QAing the result. Meanwhile I'll work on the website.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 04:31 pm: Edit Would you like an interim map posted to my site?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 06:08 pm: Edit I attached a map, I take it it didn't come through usably?

Thanks John, I'll take you up on that. Just grab throw the summary tab into a text file, but you already know that.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 06:18 pm: Edit Looking at the map at work, no the map didn't come out too well. I'm not surprised. The paths to all the image files are all relative paths not absolute.

I'll try to have it up tonight. No frills, which translates to mean "no SSDs."

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 01:16 pm: Edit Apologies for not getting a map up. My e-mail screwed up and didn't deliver Tos' sitrep to home. [sigh]

So I brought most of what I need to work.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 02:58 pm: Edit Tos: Question about the voting-off procedure. The rules say:

"Destroyed ships must be voted out before functioning ships."

How does that work with ships that voted themselves off (disengaged). Do we have to vote them off before voting off healthy ships?

Not that it matters to ME, since I'm not the one with the vote. But it will matter to a couple of people: the voter, and the one voted off.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 03:18 pm: Edit Disengaged ships cannot be voted for.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 04:22 pm: Edit When I'm doing the SITREP, I can't tell one team from another. Is it obvious who scored the most victory points this turn?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 05:02 pm: Edit My money would be on Blue, meaning Green will likely be voting someone off.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 01:43 am: Edit At long last I have an interim map up.

You can find it at http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/survivor/map-white.htm

This map has no tooltips, no data boxes, no links to SSDs, but it'll at least tell you where everybody is.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 02:28 pm: Edit Tos: I don't know if anyone was shooting at their preferred enemy. But even if all of Green's fire was at preferred enemies and none of Blue's was, Blue would still have more points. Here's the rundown:

BLUE:

FS2: 80 OS2: 240 RS3: 121 ------TOT: 441

GREEN:

FS1: 32 KS1: 87 WS1: 20 ZS1: 48 ------TOT: 187

OS2 is the big winner for the turn, and Blue beats Green hands down thanks to him and RS3.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 02:36 pm: Edit Here's my full accounting. Let me know if I missed anything. TEAM Unit Shield-P Shield-O Internals POINTS B FS2 16 8 16 80 B OS2 84 52 240 B RS3 4 39 121 BLUE 104 8 107 441 G FS1 16 32 G KS1 30 9 87 G WS1 10 20 G ZS1 24 48 GREEN 0 80 9 187

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 03:08 pm: Edit Hey Jim, thanks! That saved me a bunch of pain.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 09:46 am: Edit I haven't seen anyone email me with corrections on the SITREP. Can you let me know what needs to be changed in the next couple days? I'd rather not do all the web work twice.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 03:05 pm: Edit No problem, Tos. It took me all of 10 minutes. And since I'm not moderating Fog 7, I have some time.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 11:38 pm: Edit Are you suggesting moderating is going to eat up a lot of my time?

Oh dear...

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 03:55 pm: Edit Why, yes, Jason, it is. But you at least have the luxury of doing it during your morning and afternoon commute. I'm afraid that if I tried to moderate during my daily commutes, that could be quite dangerous, given the lack of public transit in my area.

Plasma slams into BS4, moderator slams into BMW.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 02:03 am: Edit Any update on what is happening here? When should we be getting you our next SOPs?

Is there a vote taking place?

Can I get fries with that?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 01:18 pm: Edit I'm still not sure what actions were taken over the second half of the turn. Apparenlty my copy of that e-mail got munged somewhere along the line.

Without that, my tactical planning for turn 3 is a little awkward.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 03:08 pm: Edit John, I sent it out to you twice. Not sure what's going on. Maybe it's landing in your spam filter?

I'll send it from another account to see if it gets through. Jason, can you send John a copy of the SITREP too? Maybe John's account just doesn't like me. As for the status, we are on hold until I get my taxes submitted. I'll send out an email asking for votes today. You will have until April 16th to reply with your votes. That will be a hard deadline and if I only get one vote, that will be the vote that counts.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 03:31 pm: Edit Tos,

OK. I got it. Thanks. The error is mine.

I keep forgetting to check for tabs in excel.

I'll get to work.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 03:42 pm: Edit John, files sent. Let me know here if you didn't get them this time.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 03:44 pm: Edit see above.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 03:58 pm: Edit The vote request has gone out to the active Green players. If you are an active Green player and did not receive an email, please contact me by email and we'll get things sorted out. The deadline for the vote tally is April 16th.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 09:52 am: Edit Tos, because of the massive bail-out of all these players, perhaps you should plan to remove 5 hexes from each edge instead of just one? Every ship is far enough from an edge that it should affect anyone.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 11:23 am: Edit Any seconds?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 12:06 pm: Edit Sufficient votes have been received, the final vote will remain unread, FS1 has been voted out by unanimous decision. This is for advanced planning purposes. A formal 3.00 Map and Sitrep will be created when your humble moderator digs himself out of the hole he's dug for himself. Meanwhile, sound off on the proposal to eliminate 5 border hexes.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 12:57 pm: Edit First reaction was not. But what the hack, right? Makes it more of a cage-match.

Shrink away.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 01:14 pm: Edit The motion has been seconded. All in favor? All Opposed?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 08:28 pm: Edit Shrink it. Will help to speed things up.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 04:57 pm: Edit No objection to shrinkage.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 09:41 pm: Edit Wait until you go swimming.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 09:31 am: Edit Hey, that water was REALLY cold!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 11:19 pm: Edit Still buried. FOG7 is taking up all of my free time (not).

Operational notes: 1) FS1 has been voted out. 2) Assume that the map shrinks 5 hexes in each direction. Anything impacting the border will be dragged along with it. 3) Feel free to begin working on your EAFs (or someone let me know if I've skipped a step). 4) No deadline yet. I'll give everyone a week from when I get the 3.00 map out (which won't happen until I can see daylight, and that ain't looking like this week) to finalize their EAFs. 5) I will make some effort to have Turn 3 go faster now that we have trimmed things down to the core players. 6) I promise that Survivor will stay ahead of FOG7.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 04:21 pm: Edit Is there any deadline on when you want EAFs yet?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 11:40 am: Edit Not yet. I've got a pile of personal stuff that takes precedence, plus a job that's going through some upheaval that require my immediate focus. When I ask for EAFs I want there to be some expectation that I can process them in a reasonable amount of time, and that's not right now.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 01:28 pm: Edit Update. Progress, but haven't reached a comfortable point yet. My plan is to wrap up everything in June, then get us started at a reasonable pace. For the plan to succeed I'll need to complete my reorganization (moving and configuring my overstuffed den into the currently being renovated by me basement). I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for the basement renovation and as soon as I'm re-setup there I'll be a go for Survivor. Think end of June.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 09:17 am: Edit I'm in the middle of installing hardwood on my second floor, so end of june works for me, too.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 12:51 pm: Edit I've got the floors down. Electrical 90% done. Walls 95% done. Plumbing 50% done. Moving the office is the part that scares me.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 04:39 pm: Edit I can see what's taking so long. You really should complete the plumbing and electrical work before you put the walls up, you know.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 05:34 pm: Edit No one told me that. All everyone that has seen it has said is that I should throw out the junk instead of building around it. Seems like a silly idea to me. What if I might need my junk?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 08:47 pm: Edit Then its not junk. By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 05:12 pm: Edit Might have been an idea to stack all your junk on the east side, finish the west side, then move the junk to the west side and finish the east side. Of course, having seen your basement once upon a time, I don't think you could possibly cram all your junk into half your basement, even if you stacked it floor-to- ceiling, wall-to-wall. And I'm sure you've picked up more junk since then.

The important question, of course, is whether there will be room for your junk once the walls are up.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 09:21 pm: Edit Not only that, but my office has as of this weekend has moved into the basement, compounding the junk. Now all I need is to wire up the Internet access, install the tankless hot water heater, connect the steam boiler to my 30 gallon boil kettle, plumb the slop sink, figure out the best way to fly sparge 1, 2 or 3 rectangular coolers and plumb that, run a phone line to my desk, add some better lighting, install the TV and associated wiring, rig up an entirely unorthodox surround sound setup, rack my Tripple into a Cornelius, fill the CO2 and propane tanks, wire up the freezer to frig conversion thermometer, plus the associated sorting, inventory and excess junk purging.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 08:51 am: Edit I can't get into my living room with all the bedroom furniture in there. At least the job is almost done. I feel your pain, but take it from me there is light at the end of the tunnel.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 09:20 am: Edit With me out of my office (me, much of the junk remains) the wife plans to clean and paint, followed by moving my son's bedroom into it, followed by clean and paint, followed by moving our bedroom. Somewhere during this she also wants to clean and paint the living room and the sunroom, so I may have the order of some of this backward. Getting back into Survivor will be a relief.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 10:53 am: Edit Looks like Fog 7 might actually catch up with you, Tos. In six months or so, Fog will make it to the end of Turn 2, and it looks like you'll still be playing musical living spaces with your wife and kids.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 01:31 pm: Edit That's the reason for the short delay, to give me time to focus on organizing my space, then I can focus on Survivor. Obviously my main concern is my living space and brewery, which will consume considerably more of my time-flow than I expect the next several phases too. Surprisingly all the big construction has already been done. Sort of shell shocked by that considering how much work it was.

I'm of the mindset that FOG7 will not catch up with Survivor, or at least that's my goal. On the other hand, I intend to have SITREPs due on alternating weeks with FOG7, giving FOG7 right of way.

Show of hands, is it better to build a living space with a poker table or a 9'x4' conference room table for a non-F&E player?

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 02:00 pm: Edit Unless you tend to play SFB with the MegaHex map or miniatures, I think the poker table is best. Especially if you have one with cup holders for your micro-brew beer bottles.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 02:19 pm: Edit I built my gaming room with an 11' x 4' conference table...

But then again, I play F&E as well as SFB/FC with minis... and Blue Max with 1/7s scale models - s othe table has been filled quie often.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 07:07 pm: Edit NERDS !!

All I get is some space in the garage to store my stuff.

The only allowance is, I get to keep them in the part of the garage which doesnt flood.

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 08:17 pm: Edit You mean people play SFB without minis?

By Fred J. Kreller (Kreller1) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 08:25 pm: Edit As much as I hate to admit it, yes.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 12:37 am: Edit Heck, nowadays I only play SFB with counters once a year. The rest of the year I'm lucky to get a black and white printed map.

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 03:37 am: Edit True, to be fair, I play more games on SFBOL than tabletop these days. But still, to paraphrase a certain beer commercial...

I don't always play SFB tabletop. But when I do... I prefer minis.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 07:49 am: Edit I only get to play using SFBOL but my account expired a few weeks back.

That said, FOG7 takes up a fair bit of my free time 1 week in 2.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 09:13 am: Edit I think you could get the best of both worlds with one of those 4x6 oval-shaped poker tables - you'll have enough room to lay down minis when not in use for its primary function.

Admittedly, I find my dinner table suffices for both endeavours.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:28 pm: Edit Personally, I would go for two sawhorses and a 8'x4' sheet of plywood with a thick vinyl-backed table cloth. Fold it up when you're not using it. But that's me. Of course, when I play, I generally play on Steve Rushing's coffee table.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 01:49 pm: Edit I have a friend who does that, but the table is a pool table.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 06:56 pm: Edit I cant remember the last time I played SFB face-to-face.

Used to have a semi-regular monthly-ish game going. 2 of the guys moved interstate, and the others were never really that serious, and only turned up because we had a group going.

Of course, getting married, having kids, and only having 1 car doesnt help things either...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 10:37 am: Edit For the last month work has been approaching panic mode, and I don't see that changing next month. Resumption unlikely to begin until September. Enjoy your Summer. I still plan to stay ahead of FOG, but it's going to be tight.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, July 12, 2010 - 11:15 pm: Edit A Challenge has been made !!

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, September 02, 2010 - 04:27 pm: Edit Well, It's September, and FOG7 is rapidly closing in on the start of turn 3. Any movement on the SFS front?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, September 02, 2010 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Yeah we will be there in a couple of months

Im out of action for big chunks of December as Im taking some long service leave and am going to places where internet doesnt really exist.

So Tos should be able to overtake me again.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, September 03, 2010 - 09:47 am: Edit I'm on target for getting a SITREP out in September. The current plan is to survive the long weekend, which includes hosting a birthday party and all the requisite prep. Following that SFS floats back up to the top. I'll review where we are and request whatever it is I need with enforced deadlines sent by email. Deadlines will not occur on the same week as a FOG7 deadline.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 03, 2010 - 01:52 pm: Edit

I'll get to work on my stuff then.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, September 03, 2010 - 06:04 pm: Edit Yes, Id better get my orders together. I dont even remember where I have them (possibly on any of 3 computers).

Maybe send everyone an email saying youre still alive, and that you will send a request for orders soon, and plan on turning them around and releasing a SITREP ASAP after.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Saturday, September 04, 2010 - 08:14 am: Edit I believe we need to send an EAF in for turn 3, yes? Is this simultaneous with the SOP for Imp01-16? Or after the post EAF SitRep?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, September 04, 2010 - 10:01 pm: Edit There's also one or two bugs in the SOP sheet that might be worth fixing before asking for the next batch of orders. Have to see how complex that will be.

I have everyone's latest orders. When I'm ready to resume I'll forward out the latest orders from everyone, possibly with a point release of the order form (which would delay things by a few more days).

The folks that remain are a core group, so receiving orders is something I would expect to continue in a timely manner (if I can learn to poke people and stay on a schedule like Jason does).

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Sunday, September 05, 2010 - 03:30 pm: Edit Micheal,

IIRC, the last post was for 2.16, and we need to submit our SOPs for 2.17-32 now. Tos' promise was to stay ahead of Fog 7 - well, Fog 7 is at 2.20 now. To get ahead, Tos needs 2.17+ SOPs pretty soon, then needs to process them and get a 2.32 sitrep out within the next five weeks.

Tos, is that the current situation? Please confirm.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Sunday, September 05, 2010 - 06:47 pm: Edit But I already have a SitRep for 2.32 (dated 03/09/10), including all the ships that disengaged (because the captains dropped out).

What I have not yet seen is a call for turn 3 EAF.

A .pdf map was provided by separate e-mail later that day, ahead of the web site getting updated. Don't know if that ever happened.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, September 05, 2010 - 07:02 pm: Edit I dont even remember what I last submitted. Once we are starting again I'll have to look through my files and see.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, September 06, 2010 - 10:27 pm: Edit Ah, found it. The web site at Tos' location: http://crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/pbem/sfs/sitrep/sitrep.html is still at 2.16, and I had mis-filed my 2.32 Sitrep E-mails into my general SFB folder, not the game- specific one. Now I have them, and yes, we were at 2.32. Sorry for the confusion.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - 08:03 pm: Edit Can we confirm that we haven't lost any more players?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, September 26, 2010 - 12:22 pm: Edit Update: I'm running a little behind schedule. Work actually demanded that I work for the whole month. The nerve. I'm supposed to be getting relief soon, but I'll believe it when I see it. Stacked up behind work is getting two computers systems operational, which isn't as easy as it might sound. The last round of parts is expected next week. Then Survivor. October is looking good, but will require weekday development as all my weekends are already booked.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - 09:47 am: Edit Well, it's October. FOG7 has now caught up to SFS and will pass it by next week. Since the momentum for this game seems to have pretty much fizzled out over the last six months of inactivity, perhaps we should just can this game and start over using the lessons learned so far?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - 12:58 pm: Edit That would be OK with me if someone else wanted to moderate it, but I don't think it's a good idea until the secret sceanrio PBEM gets off the ground.

My status: Work is no less crazy, but I've wrapped up just about every other chaotic thing on my plate (barring one remaining shoe to drop and a handful of smaller distractions, like needing to brew a batch of hard cider between now and 10/31).

The spreadsheet needs attention. There is a bug with one of the move orders that needs to be fixed, but that should only require a couple hours of concentration, then another hour of repeating the change on each players sheet. I'm not aware of anything that would require a major rewrite. This has to be done before I can send out emails asking for new EAFs.

Basically I'm ready to restart. If the players would prefer not to, that's OK with me and I understand. If the bulk of the players chose to continue then continue we will.

If you don't want to play, sound off here or send me an email.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 02:51 pm: Edit The spreadsheet also has issues with Excel 2010. 2010 feels it has to strip out your careful formatting. It thinks some of your stuff is a garbled file. It was fine with 2007.

Oh BTW, the web versions of Office are up and running.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 04:52 pm: Edit I won't be offering Excel 2010 support anytime soon, but I can support an XLSX format 2007 version.

My primary support will be macro-free XLS for as long as I can manage it, though obviously its getting a bit ridiculous to enhance the Excel paradigm any further than it already is. I'm not happy with how conditional movement is implemented, but that fix will have to wait until the system is coded in a proper UI.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 06:46 pm: Edit Maybe just send all the remaining players an email asking them to rank from 1 to 5 (1 being not at all, 5 being YES PLEASE) how much they want to continue.

If you dont get an overwhelming majority of 4's or 5's then drop it. Because all that will happen is at the end of the next SitRep 1 or 2 more will drop out, then 1 or 2 more, then 1 or 2 more.

I agree that it may be best to see how Frank's Rom v Gorn game goes, and maybe retry this another time, when a moderator who can keep things moving is able to do it.

It certainly is/was a very interesting format.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 10:24 pm: Edit It would need to be an 8-player game with 1-2 backup players. If this goes forward or not I'm still going to make the necessary fixes to the Excel form and figure out where we left off.

That said, I will take you up on your advice and reach out to the remaining players. Remind me if I haven't done it by Monday.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, October 15, 2010 - 08:04 pm: Edit Communication went out by email to current Survivors. If you think you are currently active and did not receive a communication, please email me.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 18, 2010 - 04:20 pm: Edit Survivor is complete at 2.32. There were many survivors. Alas your contractual obligation was that only one would receive the million PBEM credit reward and therefore the reward is forfeit.

I enjoyed moderating this game and learned what I set out to learn, but not even PBEM players can function with 6 month SITREP frequency. Hats off to Jim, Jason, Cat, Frank and the countless others who have the discipline to make PBEM a reality.

Feel free to discuss the pros and cons of the format and its future scenario suitability. Feel free to discuss your role, what you were going to do next, and how you were planning to become the sole survivor.

The website is updated to 2.16 and it's unlikely I will update it to 2.32 status. I believe John or someone posted a PDF of the latest map somewhere, and if someone could post a link to that it would be appreciated.

I would be happy to share my moderator spreadsheet for anyone interested to see how I did things, just email me at the SFBSFS account. I may wait a week just in case some fool tells me he would like to pick this up where I left off.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 18, 2010 - 04:28 pm: Edit That means we have to wait a whole week for the unmasking, related discussion, what-if poker and trashtalking...

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, October 18, 2010 - 05:48 pm: Edit I would have killed you all. Every last one of you. I had a master plan.

But Im not going to reveal it.

For a week...

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 18, 2010 - 05:57 pm: Edit You wouldn't have had to kill two of us...

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 09:44 am: Edit Guess which one I was?

Thanks for all the work starting it out, Tos. I hammered and was hammered on, and I had a lot of fun. I really like the 16-impulse format as it allows for some crazy things to happen. I'd be willing to give it another go at soon as someone choses to moderate. I thought the spreadsheet worked pretty well, although it was a bit difficult to work in shuttles movement.

In terms of parameters, I think I would cap it at 12 players (one at each clock facing) with 1-2 reserves, as 8 players is just too few to get a feeling for teams. I would break it down into individual combat at 6 ships, with the final 2 ships being voted on. By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 02:40 pm: Edit 16 impulses felt like WAY too long. I've done 8-impulse breaks back when there were play-by-snail- mail games. I'd much prefer that.

I don't think 16 ships is too many. I've been in total Free For All games that packed 20+ ships into a single SFB map. Once the fights gets going, the ships bunch up, leaving plenty of maneuver space. You'll note our board quickly developed vast tracts of empty territory. of course, those games did start some ships in the center, not just at the edges.

The shrinking map made things interesting from a mapmaking perspective. The mapmaker assumes a constant background against which to place the ships. change the background for one map, you change it for all that have come before.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 09:32 pm: Edit Can I find out who my teammates were, or perhaps who was on each team or in which ships?

Or which ship I was in?

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 09:57 pm: Edit I'll agree with Brad, I liked the 16-impulse format because of the crazy things that could happen. I consider it almost impossible to cover all contingencies that could occur over 16 impulses.

Further, I had no like or dislike of the map size or that it was shrinking. It had ample room for 16 players and the only reason it may have seemed to have a lot of space was we actually lost more than one player on the first turn. I would think having less players (12,8,?) would require a correspondingly smaller map.

I'm still undecided on the "Survivor" aspect, as I still have never watched the show nor the commercials for it - zero interest.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 02:01 pm: Edit I guess we're in the final cooldown period to see if anybody steps up to volunteer to moderate.

I would have liked to have seen Glenn's WYN garbage scow run a little longer.

But yeah some crazy things did happen that couldn't have happened on shorter break schedule. More on that when the game is completely dead instead of "mostly dead" as it is now.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 05:15 pm: Edit Everyone: Tos may have given a week, but unless he has heard from anyone willing to moderate by this time, I'm pretty sure no one else is going to take over. Fog 7 is still in full swing and Frank is trying to put together a Gorn/Rom scenario fleet action. I'm not interested in moderating this Survivor game because too many people dropped out - it no longer tests the theory.

I could possibly be persuaded to moderate a new Survivor-type game using modified rules if there is interest after Frank's game gets started. OTOH, if I'm moderating Survivor and Frank is moderating the scenario, who would moderate Fog 8 should Fog 7 end soon? By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 05:27 pm: Edit

Jim's probably right, but I notice he didn't unmask either.

FOG7 may well be decided in Turn 3 (which is on temporary hold so some new players get comfortable), but it may take another turn after that before the dust really settles. Then there's the inevitable talking through the fight, what worked, what didn't, then there's talking out FOG8 rules.

FOG8 won't be good to go until this time next year soonest. If Troy's project is together enough to handle a FOG, I'll consider running FOG8.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 05:40 pm: Edit Jim and John, you may not need to worry about finding someone to moderate FOG8. And no... it wont be me !

Im hoping FOG7 EW and Speeds are out tomorrow night. I dont want to rush the new GS2 captain, so he will have all the time he needs, but he hasnt asked any questions in a day or 2, so Im hoping this means he is close (and not simply snowed under with work/life issues).

If the tools are good enough, then it may well be easy enough to have many games running side by side, perhaps alternating weeks with the FOGs and with the non FOGs.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 06:30 pm: Edit I have non-FOG and un-FOG games I'd like to try my hand at running, too.

I remember having a lot of run with Richard Eitzen's particular style of Free for Fall game and think FOG-style anonymity and messaging limits would work to overcome the way his games would dissolve into arguments about collusion and teaming up.

I'd like to experiment with a game I played FtF called Blindsides where there are two teams but players start out not knowing friend from foe until they get a certain tacint level on each other.

Despite my misgivings about it, I'd consider giving Steve Rushing's concept of an open-forum "FOG" a try, just to give a fair test to the open end of the communications spectrum.

And yeah, I have some ideas about running actual FOG games too...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 08:30 pm: Edit Jim makes a good point. In light of FOG7 being in full swing and Frank's gaming getting off the ground, I think it's better for PBEM if we simply bury Survivor and start the after party.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 10:32 pm: Edit I'll dip my toe in to the water and maybe start the ball rolling, while still leaving it all somewhat vague.

I was still alive and managed to do maybe 2 or 3 points of shield damage, but not to my favoured target.

In return, I took no damage, despite expecting to eat a few hundred points worth of plasma.

Any guesses which ship I was in charge of? By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 09:47 am: Edit Jason, I'll bite: We're you TS1?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 12:59 pm: Edit I'll dive in. I was HS1, the Lord Admiral.

I was originally going to take a Lord Cardinal (hellbore CCH) but I put Lord Admiral (fusion CCH) down as my choice. Tos suggested I keep it and I think it was a good choice.

I didn't really get to do a lot of damage. I went defensive facing RS2 and survived but I forgot to toast his stupid ECP. I made sure to correct that mistake later but Tos kept forgetting to make a note of it so my slight revenge never really had an effect.

I was allied with KS1 and ZS1 and we were going to try to go all the way. I guess the 2.32 map never got up on Tos' site. I think he sent us a image file or PDF. FS2 was sitting close to KS1 and me. I was hoping KS1 would see the stasis opportunity, TAC and nab FS2. I was going to time it out so I'd be nice and close when KS1 would be likely to lift stasis for drone impacts. The Fed would have made such a pretty explosion too...

Before my alliance cemented, I had a creative thought. With three messages per break, I used one to put out a diplomatic feeler to the enemy. I chose HS2. It occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn't ally (or at least establish non-aggression) with someone on the other team. Once we shrunk to 8 players, the game was going to go free-for-all and teams wouldn't mean a thing. I figured both hydrans fighting back to back would be a powerful force. With TS1 to finish the trifecta, we probably could have gone all the way. Disappointingly, HS2 never answered and dropped out with the first wave of losses. By then KS1 had done pretty well by me with his drone launches, so by the end of Turn 2, I felt a good deal of loyalty to him anyway. I would have been so torn if I had both alliances going at once.

At the start of Turn 2, I put a lot of planning into the possibility that OS2 might try to run behind me or try to sneak up on my ship, which was going slow after its e-decl on Turn 1. I had orders for my fighters to go after him and his fighters that were just waiting for a "trip wire" move that told me OS2 was looking my way. Sadly, it never came.

I didn't think OS2 would turn for the NE corner with RS1 moving in that direction, but RS1 turned off somewhere (I forget now) so it turned out to be the right choice for OS2.

The craziest thing I saw came from both RS2 and me not really wanting to fight each other. We both hugged the map edge. On Turn 1, RS2 went right through my hex and kept going. I SO wish I could have shot something but I'm sure that goes both ways.

Who was RS2? You had my eternal enmity. After weathering your plasma on Turn 1, I wanted some serious payback later in the game.

Lessons learned:

1) It takes a lot to plan a break for Survivor. I really wish I'd been in the Free for all that Survivor borrowed its format from. If you're gonna plan for everything, you have to identify big eventualities and key actions that indicate what they are. Since you can't respond to him on a hex-by-hex basis, you need to write alogrithmic orders and range- based if-thens.

I came up with what I thought was a very innovative algorithm-based SWDP, though Tos might differ.

I used its concepts in my in-game orders.

2) Communication over 16 impulse breaks is useless for coordination. Simply too much happens. Ships are reduced to an uncoordinated armed mob.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 03:18 pm: Edit

John, just curious, but why did you try to ally with KS1 and ZS1 over the others (like me )? Was it because of proximity? What would have happened if they turned out to be incompetent Captains? Would you have dropped them if a better option came along?

I tried to do something similar to what you did, but I guess they liked your comms more than they liked mine. Nobody seemed interested except 1 ship, and that captain bailed by 2.16.

I believe it is possible to provide workable orders through communications if the sender has a bit of forethought. If everyone on the team understands what the overall objectives for next turn are (ie Disr ships fire on closest enemy ship on 3.17, end turn around 3035B), the system could work.

Whichever team was able to concentrate first would probably have won.

And I thought range or action based If-Thens were the only type of conditionals there are.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 04:24 pm: Edit I wish I was a better moderator. This could have been a fun scenario with 3-4 week turn around.

The folks that didn't receive return comms were usually sending them to ghost ships. I did my best as moderator to give it three-seconds of throught and then do what I expected a defensive minded Captain might do, with the hope that someone would eventually step into each seat. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

I did have fun moderating and your brief discussion has already brought a smile to my face. Keep it up.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 05:10 pm: Edit Who were you, Brad? Since I still don't know, all I can do is run through my thinking in general.

Proximity was a big consideration. Proximity, past experience and a little contrarian investing. I consciously downgraded small ships and plasma in my thinking for practical reasons and because I liked the notion of forming a "plasmas-need-not-apply" alliance just because of how common plasma was. I'm a contrarian, what can I say?

THINKING SMALL Small ships were downgraded for being small. It quickly became apparent that being small so as to minimize ones threat to the big dogs was a bad short-term decision. Being small means you're an enemy target. And your team is going to vote off the ship perceived as the weakest (this happened to Glenn H's scrap cruiser). That said, kudos to OS2 for his ability to put together a potent package on a DW hull.

POXIMITY If you didn't run plasma, you mostly failed on proximity. I wanted allies who I could fight alongside, make openings for my hellbores, and drone-chuckers have ECM drones too. Maybe I could pick one up.

DOWNGRADING PLASMA I knew from reading Survivor talk that Plasma was powerful in the 16-impulse-break format because it could take somebody unawares. But everybody else knew it too, so I figured everybody would come prepared. We wouldn't be seeing a repeat of a plasma surprise. Plasma was essentially "fighting the last war". RS2 tried it on me and found me with contingency orders in place.

My experience with Eitzen FFAs years ago told me that plasma is a drag two turns out of three. You get your fun one turn then you're down for two. You're vulnerable on the reload turns and don't have the ability to exploit openings that occur every turn. Think of OS2. Great performance against FS1, but when was he going to be able to repeat it?

Both factoids put together argued that plasma boats were sub-optimal alliance choices.

LOYALTY My primary loyalty was to KS1, who supported me directly or indirectly with both his drone launches. ZS1 was his ally, who I accepted for the same reason he accepted me. We both liked KS1. If ZS1 got in a jam or toasted, I could cut him loose without much concern beyond how it would affect my alliance with KS1.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 06:06 pm: Edit I was KS1 btw. I was thinking of Stasis opportunities but was really more interested in saving them for later in the game.

The reason why I got in touch with the other direct fire guys is because I saw us being able to combine our firepower every single turn, and we could very easily vote out someone who had already used up their plasma.

My goal was to convince big plasma to burn down opponents, vote them out, then we'd clean up the mess.

I started going very slowly because I had a huge amount of plasma on either side. I had most of my conditionals based around firing OL DIS and WW'ing plasma. When both the plasma guys moved away from me on T1 I knew I was going to survive a long time.

I had the ability to do continuous damage, I had other direct fire guys on my side with plans to do the same thing, and the plasma guys would have to risk coming towards me to have any impact. And even then, its 1 turn, I can weasel, then my partners in crime would overwhelm them. For most of the game I actually regretted taking the stasis version, but figured that it may well pay off hugely in the end game. Far more so than 2 extra Ph-1. If we could corner someone and freeze them while my team get in to place, we would obliterate them the second the stasis field dropped.

I didnt much care about proximity of my allies, either. I sent my comms out to 3 other DF players. Didnt really even care who to begin with. They were all on board from the beginning as well, but then one (FS1 maybe) got pounded, so the plan switched to voting him out, and I was going to find a replacement.

But once I got confirmations, and could see we were all thinking in similar ways, I knew we had a powerful bloc going.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 06:14 pm: Edit Were you going to go after FS2? If so what was your plan?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 06:33 pm: Edit Id have to check the map and refresh my memory. Not sure who my target was.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 06:47 pm: Edit JT,

I thought about going after you but then FS1 headed in your direction for a while (late turn 1) and I thought better of flying into the midst of three Team 1 ships (also KS1).

Then FS1 presented an opportunity by turning away from you, so I dumped on him (conditional orders) turn 2 (he was my preferred target anyway) to get some points for my team and remove at least one of your team's ships. I then headed south during the remainder of turn 2 to link up with others of my team, in part to receive some cover for reloading.

Risking RS1 was a calculated choice deemed to be the less dangerous move, but he did have some weak shields that could possibly have been exploited with my remaining weapons at the time. Plus I had an escape route plotted if it was necessary; it just would have put me on the defensive for quite a while. It turned out to have worked well.

I did not figure plasma to be a total drag in this ship during the reload turns. Reason 1 - the two fighters were still available to annoy enemy ships (6 plas-D each at 1 per turn), at least till they died. But this would mean weapons were used that did not damage my teammates and did not generate opposing team points, which could give us an edge at removing another enemy ship. Reason 2 - this Orion ship was specifically from the cartel based in Gorn space (I forget cartel name). Therefore, it specifically could use the 6 plas-F as carronades (noted in design and accepted by moderator). If necessary, I could operate as an escort to protect my teammates or just defend myself or potentially dart in for a quick range 5 broadside on a down enemy shield. Internals generate team points and potentially get an opponent removed.

Plus anyone who wished to treat me as the weakest ship and best target was dealing with the fastest, most maneuverable ship on the board, at least till I snuffed all my engines, but I did not plan to double more than one engine per turn except under the possibility that it was the 3rd turn of arming for all the plasma, and I would have a full load again. And I got 2 stealth ECM if I did not double any engines. And I had 7 ECPs available at the start of the game. And I had a cloak if it was opportune to use it. So I was ready to have a lot of fun just making myself hard to hit and drawing attention from my side's heavy hitters. (Psst - chase the decoy....)

Plus I hoped to benefit at some point from cast web if it was in our best interest for me to be the recipient.

So no boredom here and a lot of chance to spread havoc around for a lot of turns, not just every third turn. At least as long as I did not get myself stuck in a corner or surrounded.

Captain (OS2)

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 07:02 pm: Edit I was RS2.

I quickly figured out I was waaaaay out of my league in Survivor. My only previous PBEM experience was in Tournaments before SFBOL. The 16-impulse break was very long to make contingency plans due to my inexperience. So I tossed plasma at HS1, hoping to cause him to weasel. Then I totally misjudged movement and missed the firing opportunity. I was glad HS1's stingers stayed on board, but my contingency orders would have dealt with them before they could fire - at least, I thought so at the time.

Fortunately, I caught the hint that KS1's scatterpack was targeted on me, and was able to deal with it.

I do not believe I will ever play PBEM again, it's just not something that excites me.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 07:14 pm: Edit Well-played, sir; Both strategically and tactically.

Question: would you be seeking carronade opportunities or just accepting them if you lucked into them?

Turn 1, you quickly turned into a non-issue, but Turn 2, you were looking straight at the shield on my ship that RS2 weakened. I was rather paranoid of you either trying for a shot at my weak shield or trying to slip in behind me. And me plodding along at speed-10...

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 09:23 pm: Edit I would not have been actively seeking carronade opportunities as a first priority. Preference would have been to get the torps fully reloaded.

However, since the goal (in my mind) for the first, what 6-8 turns, would have been to score points against your team to get your ships voted off, and secondly to inflict damage even if we had to vote off one of our ships occasionally, I would have intended to fly in such a manner that should such an opportunity show up, I could possibly take advantage of it.

So first, fly defensively so as to get plasma rearmed, second fly so as to obtain offensive carronade opportunities that might arise, third fly so as to help defend (carronades) teammates as the need may arise (even if it means delaying the first priority for a while). I know this would not have been easy, as it would have required possibly shifting priorities quickly via conditional orders as the battle evolved. But I think it would have been fun trying.

Do you think an initial offensive carronade shot would have come as a rude surprise on a supposed rearm turn? I know firing arcs would have precluded a mega-alpha strike as the plasma were FP,FP,LP,RP,RA,RA and the P-1 were FX,FX,LS,RS. But firing everything that could bear, followed by an HET to hit the same shield with as many of the remaining weapons as possible could have hurt.

************

I found my initial design:

Y192 Orion HDW (Omega Cartel) (110)

A,B = Plas-F(FP) (+2) C = Plas-F(LP) (+1) D = Plas-F(RP) (+1) E,F = Plas-F(RA) (+8) 1,2 = Cargo 3,4 = AuxCon (+2) 5,6 = Lab (+4) 7,8 = Shuttle (+6) Cloak (+20) OAKDISC (+12) Plas-F Sabot Refit (+6) Ready Rack Sabot Refit (+.5) Carronade Refit (+0) 4 A-Admin replace Admin (+0) TOTAL = 172.5

G-18DM (+19.5) G-18DM (+19.5)

Commander's Options (20% = 34.5)

2 T-Bombs (+8) 10 BP (+5) 2 Commando (+2) 2 HWS (+2) 1 Dummy Wpn [Plas-G (FP)] (+1)

Pods for fighters not available to casual carriers, either in basic supply or as Commander's Options.

With 6 Plas-D on each fighter (12 total) and 24 reloads, additional reloads appear unnecessary. Fighters won't last 24 turns.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 22, 2010 - 11:37 pm: Edit Tell me thats not a Dreadnought !! By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 01:05 am: Edit

A dreadnought?......

Nah.

Not even SC3. Can't carry but 2 T/Bombs.

But remember, smallest ship on the map so I'm an easy target.... Don't be afraid. "Here Cruiser, Cruiser, Cruiser. Come on, boy. Over here."

......

(Anybody seen a convoy? I'm hungry.)

*walks down the street, hands in pockets, whistling absentmindedly*

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 01:08 am: Edit OK, as long as we're unmasking...

I was the Tholian NCA. I originally chose the NCC, but apparently, so did someone else, so Tos threw them both out. I knew I wouldn't be the largest ship in the game, but I was hoping that my webcasters would make me important enough to my allies that they would allow me to stay around. I spent most of the game trying to make alliances with plasma players on my side, hoping to set up a "I catch 'em, you crush 'em" team dynamic. But I never got any response to any message I ever sent out. Failing that, I was going to use the web to herd enemy ships into the guns of my teammates, cut off enemy escape routes, or intercept torps/drones launched at friendly units. But again, I never got a message.

The Peladine was my selected target because, frankly, I hate the Peladine. Too many options, too powerful, they need to die. And I did him a few shield hits before he ran away from me.

My Turn 1 goal was to catch the Peladine in web and convince HS2 to come finish him off. But by the time HS2 got the message, he was already moving too slow and heading the wrong direction.

I bought the globular web for one reason only - it allowed me to get out into the center of the board unscathed. Who is going to launch plasma at a ship with a circle of web to defend him? It made me the least-desirable target for Turn 1, and after that, there were too many variables to predict. Maybe I would use it again, maybe not.

If I run a Survivor-type game, my plan is to run it more like the TV Survivor. The first half of each turn would be a 'gift' challenge, the second half would be for immunity, and there would be an open BBS at mid-turn and over the turn break for team-building, back-stabbing, and chaos. The BBS would be open while I am processing the Sitrep, to give the players something to keep their interest while I'm busy. I might also try specific challenges, as a test for some of the Special Missions that we have theorized for Fog. But I would keep the 16-impulse cycle. And I would fix some of the movement issues, and weaken plasma, by going back to a modified version of the Boxed Edition rules - all movement is plotted, plasma can only be launched on impulses 16 and 32.

By Michael F. Guntly (Ares) on Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 01:48 am: Edit Jim,

I was one of those who caused the elimination of the NCCs. There must have been a third to get them all thrown out. Tos may have allowed 2 as he did allow duplicates of some other ships. But 3 was an auto rejection of the ship for everyone.

My records don't indicate that I received any comms from you. Though I did send one to you that should have arrived on 2.32 indicating my intention to begin rearming.

******

If I were to vote on a preference for a future FFA type scenario, I would definitely be interested in an Eitzen-type scenario (c.1998) as John Trauger mentioned.

PS John, there are a lot more Omega ships available now compared to 1998 when only Omega 1 was published. And some players like to use them (hint!)

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 07:44 pm: Edit There were three Tholian NCC selections, which surprised me. Don't recall who the third one was. Then again two Orion HDW surprised me too.

The ship I had the most fun flying (not that I was supposed to) was the King Eagle. The Captain wasn't interested in playing, but I convinced him to give me a one or two sentence description of what he wanted to do and went from there. The combination of plotted movement and cloak is powerful, but no more powerful than web casters, SFG, fighters, etc.

The Fed that got eaten was my least favorite ship as dealing with seeking weapons from different directions caused more than one SITREP rewrite.

My biggest takeaway is that its better to have fewer committed players, ships, and moderators with hot- swap backup players at the ready than to have your scenario target number of ships. My second biggest takeaway was that I think I'll stick to strategy and scenario design and let the professionals do the moderation from now on.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 11:03 am: Edit Well, I may as well uncloak.

I was WS1. Also known as Last Wyn Standing. Heck, I was the only xS1 stading in the south half of the board after RS1, PS1 and OS1 all bailed the game by 2.16.

Based on the ruleset, I didn't think plasma would be that useful from a generating VP perspective. I wanted to be able to get as many points for my team as possible, and single-turn weapons seemed to be the best way to do that. I chose the WYN PBB mostly because it had 6 disruptors, a decent number of phasers and the power to use them while moving at fleet speed. It also had ESGs for ramming and sweeping pesky drones away, and two fighters that I could use even after my ship got wiped from the map. That they were WYN allowed me to use a variety of fighters, I still wanted a mix of some seeking weapon capability, so the Glad-DM and TADS-CM provided me with that.

I first sent out Comms to KS1 and RS1 to ask to form an aliance, using the KCR plasma to crush ships, my fighters and KS1 drones for defence, and the Disruptors to punch holes in enemy shields. However, only RS1 ever got back to me.

Once I saw my placement, I knew I wanted to stay away from the Scrap Cruiser, and I knew that the WYN CF would want to stay away from RS1. I set up to look like I was going after the Scrap Cruiser, but immediately turned away on 1.02 and went after the CF. I calculated that an ESG would be able to hit the CF by a certain impulse, and I tied my conditional orders to fire all my bearing DF weapons upon the target of my ESG impact. Sure enough, WS2 moved exactly as I predicted and got me the first reward. I tried to displace TS1 so that he would end up with rear shields right in front of PS1, so the latter could pump him full of damage. But TS1 was too far to displace.

By 1.32, I was in fairly close proximity to RS1 and I thought we would be able to form a block to break through to the majority of our fleet in the upper right corner of the map. I sent out comms to all the remaining xS1 ships to let them know of my plans, to try and get some form of an overall team strategy percolating through their heads.

Then 2.16 rolled around and I discovered that my erstwhile ally had bailed on me - as did every allied ship around my location, leaving me surrounded by enemy ships. I was left with two options: one was to go after TS1, since I didn't want him dropping web-breaks all over the place; or continue flanking south around FS1. I chose the latter because I didn't want to get trapped by RS2 that was rapidly steaming to the southern half of the map and still had some plasmas loaded. But had I know that RS3 was decloaking, I would have chosen the former option without hesitation.

This was the mistake that cost me almost half my ship. I had assumed that Tos would note the decloaking the same way he noted the cloaking (ie. Announces Cloak, +1 Range due to Fade, +2 Range due to Fade, etc.). But no, I completely missed the one line in the sitrep that simply said "decloak", with no fade-in countdown (which I probably would have picked up on). So I planned on the false set of assumptions that I would be dealing with only FS2 when I was actually being set up for a two on one. I lowered my shield to set up a TB wall that I might be able to flashcube RS3. I figured that there was only a 17% chance that FS2's photons would hit me (my karma caught up to me, I guess), and I set up my fighters to phaser down any drones or plasma that came my way.

I had to do a double-take when I got the last sitrep.

Now, had I known the moderator was the one maneuvering RS3, I would never have approached them at all. Tos, was the launch of the Pl-Rb your doing, or was that in the orders cut by the captain-who- bailed-and-has-not-been-named?

Speaking of dropouts. I for one would like to know who they are as it significantly impacted my game more than probably any other player on the board. So at the end of the turn, my new plan was to drop another TB in front of RS3 and have the fighters chase him down and alpha him point blank as payback. Meanwhile, I would zoom up near HS1, whom I hoped would take pity on me and displace me after he won the reward by smashing FS2 with Fusions and Hellbores.

Overall, I was still interested in playing, even at the end. I had hoped my damaged status would still be incentive to keep me around, since I wasn't as much of a threat to less-damaged ships.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 01:38 pm: Edit NON-SURVIVOR-RELATED POST

Jim,

The Peladine was my selected target because, frankly, I hate the Peladine. Too many options, too powerful, they need to die. And I did him a few shield hits before he ran away from me.

That's funny. I don't have a grudge against the Peladine, but looking at the ships, it struck me that a full load of BP PLUS drones was a touch excessive. I've never faced the Peladine in combat, so I don't have any personal measure of if/how much this combination can be abused.

My hatred for being overpowered is reserved for the Jindarans. I also dislike the Seltorans, but not because they're OVER-powered. I consider their heavy weapon to be rather lame.

Mike G,

John, there are a lot more Omega ships available now compared to 1998 when only Omega 1 was published. And some players like to use them (hint!)

Well, the ship selection criterion is format of the Eitzen Free For All is "any officially published ship (real or playtest) in the game". With the addendum that if the moderator doesn't have the SSD or the rules for how the ship works, the player provide them. I'm not a big Omega guy. If I ran an eitzen-style FFA, Omegan ships would need the player to send me rules.

One thing that Eitzen did that I will not replicate is handing out free bennies to a ship that's too weak. If I want to take a an EY Fed Pol into the game (and I have), that's my business. I shouldn't get rewarded for choosing a lame ship.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 01:47 pm: Edit Mike G:

Do you think an initial offensive carronade shot would have come as a rude surprise on a supposed rearm turn?

It definitely could have. I at least wasn't thinking "carronade". You could have done some serious damage to my fighters if I had them try to come after you when you were "weak". The one thing I knew is that if you were near me, I couldn't allow you the option to reload in peace. Hence my concern for you getting behind me. Everybody was vacating that corner so it looked like just the place to go for some peace and quiet.

I figured you wouldn't want to get anywhere near RS1. How were you gong to handle him? Roger,

Sorry this wasn't your thing. I was new to the 16-impulse breaks myself and yeah I agree with you, though we seem to be in the minority.

I was glad HS1's stingers stayed on board, but my contingency orders would have dealt with them before they could fire - at least, I thought so at the time.

That's why the stingers stayed on board. I knew you could do enough defensive D-torp launches to kill them all. I wanted to wait until you had expended some shots on other things.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 02:37 pm: Edit Brad, I was the first drop-out (with the scrap cruiser). Life for me had spiraled out of control and I had too many PBEM commitments at the time. I apologize to all of you. Now that my Life's positional stabilizers are fully engaged, should there be another Survivor (of any kind), I'd like to throw my hat in.

I'd suggest nothing larger than SC4 and no HDWs.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 04:22 pm: Edit John, Jindarians are sometimes quite weak, sometimes very strong. And I think since they hit them with the nerf bat they arent anywhere near as much fun.

I dont think they should ever have been treated as a race. More as NPCs or monsters.

I thought some of the ships in this game were ridiculously under BPV (or ridiculously overpowered for their BPV). While it may have been a fun format to try them out, I dont think it really made it fun for the other players.

As far as players quitting, I think a friend I recruited managed to be the first to quit here and in FOG7. He's also quit a couple SFBOL campaigns we were running, as well as a couple of F&E games.

He loves SFB/F&E but these days puts it last any time he has to make choices with his time.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 05:22 pm: Edit I like Ken Burnside's analysis of Jindos. Assuming competence on the part of both players, you can predict the outcome based on what ships the non-Jindo player chooses. You don't need to play the battle out. Typically of Ken, he goes in to more detail but that's the gist.

The Warp Rail Gun, which is what I hate about the Jindos, is an insanely powerful, efficient weapons system. The nerf bat didn't really change this in my mind. And their weapons system is so out of balance compared to anything else in in SFB, it creates this weak/strong duality that can be predicted by the choice of ships.

They'd be much less obnoxious as monsters. Consistency is a huge thing in situations like this. Sorry your friend dropped, but these things have to be made a priority or you may as well not do them.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, October 25, 2010 - 06:47 pm: Edit Yeah I replaced him with another friend who so far has been on the ball.

I guess the difference between a guy who is planning a wedding, studying, has 2 full time jobs, and is planning to sail around the country, vs a guy who just got retrenched and the size of his payout was enough for him to take 6 months off before bothering to find another job...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 12:42 am: Edit Brad, IIRC the decloak, launch and cloak was ordered. You just happened to be the best target at the time. In some ways it would have been better had RS3 (KE) not uncloaked as it kicked off a long string of conditional orders from the Kzinti BCH.

In the TV show the strong tend to make it to the merge, then the weak start voting them out because they are too much of a threat. While many ships were over-the-top, that was by design to see how people would choose to vote people out once the individual competition started. Alas we never found out.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 08:35 am: Edit

Glenn, I think you were voted out, not dropped out, so no worries from me.

I guess my beef is that most of my game plan went out the window when the players around me bailed. I suppose I should have expected it, but I thought the drop-outs would be a little more... distributed around the board.

I'm not sure I'd restrict it to Size Class 4 ships. I liked the variety of ships that came into the match, and it just goes to show that in SFS that bigger is not always better. Interesting how some of the Battlecruiser captains dropped out. I thought they would stick around the longest.

Tos, did players give a reasonable explanation as to why they dropped out, or did they just suddenly not return your calls?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 09:41 am: Edit Half and half. Some dropped without a word. Others apologized, but bailed for pick-a-reason. Some signed up but never did anything at all.

I would have had more success had I pestered people weekly, but each delay I could blame on someone else made it easier for me the moderator to be late, so I didn't pester much.

Thinking I could find some replacement captains I kept the zombies in the game for a bit. If I didn't get a T2 EAF I plotted for them to simply disengage off the map using no more than a single turn and going straight until they reached the map edge. They would defend themselves, but little more. The theory being if you built your EA around targeting a zombie, at least he didn't just magically disappear, you'd at least have a chance to score some points.

I feel I outsmarted myself on the scenario in some ways. Moderating 12 players and 4 zombies is tough enough, but when you add in points each break, comms, displacement rolls, shrinking maps, 16 impulse breaks, ammunition, etc. it got to be too much. I could handle the 16 impulse breaks (still hated drones) but by the time I finished those I didn't have the energy to deal with all the other necessary accounting. I think I even sub-contracted the points out one break to a player (Jim?). That helped alot actually. Alas I'm more of a big picture guy, managing the details isn't my strong suit, which is why I support making a PBEM moderator tool that is really good at managing details.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 03:02 pm: Edit I won't even consider stepping into the moderator's chair without a good set of tools. We're getting to the point where I'd consider it.

Speaking of which, Tos, I have a suggestion for your tool. How hard would it be to support move functions the way you support weapons? using dropdown menus? Maybe separate warp-using functions from impulse-using?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 08:00 pm: Edit The move rule already supports directions (A/B/C/D/E/F) and slips (SA/SB/SC/SD/SE/SF). How much easier do you want?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 09:31 pm: Edit Not the move. The EAF. I didn't make that clear.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 09:46 pm: Edit I'm still not clear, but I think you are asking for a drop down button for breaking, tac, impulse tac, movement, het, em. Why would that be helpful?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 10:05 pm: Edit That's what I'm asking for.

Why? Efficiency of organization, aesthetics. Has anybody in FOG yet used energy for braking? But you still have to cover the possibility.

I'd also like some clear way of designating move energy for TACs vs forward movement, such as being able to write "TAC" in the "speed" column.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 04:14 pm: Edit John: On why I hate the Peladine. Class for class, their ships have about the same BPV as the equivalent Gorn. But compare the Peladine CCH in SFS with the Gorn CCH:

All 8 Ph-1s sweep the FA. S-torps are FP. 42 power vs 39. 7 BTTY vs 5 Additional 3 Ph-2s RX Additional 2 drone racks 4 more labs

It's not the most abusive ship I've ever seen, but with a BPV on par with the Gorn CCH, it's underpriced, overpowered, overgunned, and fat. And I think it has a better turn mode, too. The only thing it's light on is control spaces - and by the time that matters, it doesn't matter, you know what I mean? And the comparison holds true, class for class, all down the line.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 06:39 pm: Edit Jim,

I thought Peladine were overbuilt as well. I just never looked at their BPV closely enough to realize that they didn't pay for the advantage. I can see why you went out of your way to target the ship.

Kind of reminds me of a play-by-snail-mail game I was once in. I knew from a previous game that two players were going to ally even though the game was free for all. I made a point of nufflifying their collusion by going after one of their ships after he had exchanged alphas with someone else.

His wingman chased me across the board to try to exact vengeance.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 08:35 pm: Edit You mean someone created a race and their ships are way overpowered???

NO WAY !!

I 'spose youre going to find a problem with my Rom PBB (stolen BACK from the Wyn) which has 3 PL-R for under 300 BPV???

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 09:15 pm: Edit Your PBB wasn't published by the ADB. I think the Peladine have only been published as playtest ships, but they've still been published. That grants a measure of respectability to the Peladine.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 06:59 am: Edit Like original Jindar and original X-Ships?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Exactly.

Or Supplement 2 X2 ships.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, October 29, 2010 - 11:36 am: Edit Take a look at their CW, too. Yes, it's 140 points. It's also the only Plasma CW with a full cruiser torp suite (2xS, 2xF). Plus 6 Ph-1s (all sweeping FA), 2 drone racks, 32 power, 26-point rear shields, and 12 Center Hull. For only 8 more points, the CWL gets two RX Ph-3s upgraded to Ph-1s, adds one power, one btty, and one lab.

Never allow player-designed races into a game. Official SFB publications only, please.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 29, 2010 - 05:03 pm: Edit So I shouldnt have allowed the secret weapon upgrades in FOG7? OH BOY !

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, October 29, 2010 - 05:13 pm: Edit

Shhh! I told you not to mention those.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, October 29, 2010 - 05:34 pm: Edit OK, Survivors. I'm going to start a discussion here of how the rules played out, in hopes of getting some new ideas for the next Survivor. (Which I promise to moderate unless called upon for Fog 8.) Don't go getting your hopes up, because I'm not planning to start any such game until after the Gorn/Rom game Frank is working on. I just want to get people's impressions of how this Survivor played out documented while they are still fresh in our minds.

I'll open with a couple of observations. First, communication was too limited. It's hard (perhaps impossible) to form alliances, betray alliances, back-stab, and manipulate your friends and enemies with a few hundred characters twice per turn. But it's also difficult to do that if you're posting in a BBS where all comments are public. What I would like to find for the next Survivor is a BBS that allows private comments that can only be read by the players posting and by the moderator. Anyone know of any?

Because I would LIKE to keep team boards open at all times. If not that, I would like to have them open while no paperwork is being done. For example, the cycle would be:

1: Open BBS while planning is going on. 2: Close BBS. 3: Get EAFs and 1.00-16 SOPs. Open BBS 4: Close BBS, post 1.16 Sitrep 5: Get 1.17-32 SOPs. Open BBS. 6: Close BBS, post 1.32 sitrep. 7: Get T2 EAF and 2.01-16 SOP. Open BBS

The point being that the only time you can openly communicate is after submitting paperwork and before seeing the results of that submission. I think being able to 'talk around the camp fire' would keep player's interest, give them something to do while the moderator is processing, and allow them more time for machinations.

(This would also be a test to see if the concept of open BBS would be workable in Fog.)

Another idea I had was 'challenges' - things you can do that get you victory points over and above combat. These would change every turn (or maybe every 16 impulses). They would also be designed to encourage ships to close with one another. Nothing concrete on these yet, but what do you think of the idea?

That's all for now, but let me know what you think of these ideas, and of the rules used in SFS1.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 29, 2010 - 08:58 pm: Edit You could just use Yahoo Chat for the open discussions, and then allow people to send emails to eachother via the moderator.

Maybe to avoid constantly forwarding things around, limit them to a handful per break. I really liked the format and would definitely play again.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, October 30, 2010 - 01:46 pm: Edit My challenges didn't grant victory points, but did grant a displacement attempt, which could have really messed someone up. This was a pain to moderate because it meant that I had to keep up on the victory points and re-figure out the displacement rules each time they came up.

Some games have 'accomplish this mission, gain x-victory points' and there might be multiple eligible missions, some contradictory. I can only imagine this would become a pain to keep balanced in short order. I'd also be concerned that them might take away from traditional combat, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Open comms could be as simple as a Yahoo group with the moderator announcing open and close with a post.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Monday, November 01, 2010 - 10:13 am: Edit The idea of missions is really to encourage combat, not make something else more important. By creating missions that require units to come to a specific point (or points) on the map, you encourage closing and perhaps using weapons to prevent the other guy from getting too close. Immunity would always be based on combat: these would be 'material' challenges where you can pick up useful stuff. Each would run like this:

1) Something new appears on the board. (Asteroids, shuttles, ships, terrain)

2) There are things on it or about it that you can gather. The method of gathering will be explained. Some might be by tractor, some by lab, some by transporter, some by shuttle, some by entering a specific hex.

3) If you successfully gather something, you will get 10 VPs and be told what it is. It will be something that will give you an edge in combat, in Fleet council, or in fleet coordination.

4) There will never be enough of them that everyone can have one - they'll have to be fought over. And they will never be placed so that one ship has easy access and others do not.

5) Using a combat ability must be determined in EA and lasts no longer than 1 turn.

The combat benefits will never be so great as to be overwhelming, but they'll be big enough to be valuable. Examples might be:

- 4 extra power - 10 points free shield reinforcement - a free HET - penetrating weapons (all shields treated as leaky) - Range improvements - +1 to all phaser damage

Just ideas. But you don't know what you'll get until you get it, like the material challenges on Survivor.

By Troy Williams (Jungletoy) on Monday, November 01, 2010 - 12:58 pm: Edit Jim- I think many of the communication controls you are trying to resolve will be when we get the PBEM portal setup. Everyone participating could be allocated forums for private team messaging and private individual messaging for one-to-one communications. The availability of these resources is controlled by the moderator and allocated accordingly. Not mention 'vote' buttons for booting people out of the galaxy. I think all-in-all the portal system will allow far ranging moderator capabilities and automation for any sort of PBEM variant. I was chatting with Ken and we briefly touched on getting turn around times for EAF/SOP down to a turn a week. I'll be setting up conference calls in the coming weeks so we can get an idea of what moderators need and want and prioritize appropriately. Once we have a stable base, creating 'variants' for the base will be accomplished easily.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 04:08 pm: Edit Troy: That sounds great. I look forward to seeing it in test.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 04:16 pm: Edit Question for SFS1 players. Did you find the comms too limiting? Do you think a BBS that's open during 'down time' would be better? Or do you think the BBS should be open all the time, even while filling out EAFs and SOPs?

I chose to have the BBS open only during down time because, while TV Survivor lets people chat all they want between challenges, they usually don't have a lot of time to think about how to handle a challenge once it's been presented to them. Having the BBS down while EAFs and SOPs are being completed prevents discussion of specific tactics, and since the board changes so much in 16 impulses, any discussion you might do for tactical purposes has a good chance of being useless when you get the Sitrep. You can tell your teammates what you PLANNED to do, but you won't know what actually happened until the BBS closes and you get the Sitrep.

Opinions?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 05:05 pm: Edit Opening and closing the board could be a pain for you. Especially if you have to do it every break. But you've done that before so you know how it goes.

You still need to allow player some way to connive and backstab.

Consider allow a few short (128 - 256 character length) ship-to-ship messages each break.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 05:51 pm: Edit Opening and closing a Yahoo Group board is as easy as clicking a button, and it sounds like Troy's tool would be just as easy, so I dont think there would be a problem there.

Jim, would you still go with 16 impulses? Or look to dropping it back to 8?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 06:19 pm: Edit I'd like to drop to 8 because I can plan for 8 fairly well. I can plan for 16 but it takes a lot more time.

I can see the argument that 16 allows more interesting situations, but 16 also favors those capable of strategic thinking than tactical innovation, if that's an issue.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 06:52 pm: Edit 16 is annoying because the game comes down to who has the better conditional orders, and just encourages people to come up with 101 possible moves. By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 09:39 pm: Edit I like 16, but 8 is good. If we did 4, I'd just play FOG.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, November 03, 2010 - 10:59 pm: Edit Fortunately for me, no one submitted 101 orders for any given break. The one who threatened to, Jim, never pushed the limits.

The biggest comm problem with SFS1 was that too many of you were talking to ships that didn't have Captains. It started to get so bad that I almost responded "We're not available to take your call right now, but if you....

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 10:34 am: Edit I'm planning to stay with 16 impulse breaks, primarily to make this game significantly different from Fog. I don't think 8-impulse breaks would provide enough of a difference to keep this game unique. But I'm going to handle the limits on conditionals the way Tos did - by limiting the things you can react to. In fact, I may go back to 'boxed-edition' rules: totally plotted movement, plasma launched on 16 and 32 only, stuff like that.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 02:28 pm: Edit ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 05:27 pm: Edit I take it you object, John?

I've been playing SFB since the early 1980s. I started off with the boxed set and the expansion booklets. Gorns had speed 20 G torps. Drones were speed 8. The concept of zipping around the board at speed 24 hadn't been theorized yet. It was a VERY different game. But it wasn't a BAD game, just different.

Because we are used to high speed, lots of options, and ships with power to spare, that sort of game seems strange and limiting.

Bear in mind that I'm just throwing out ideas. How about we have 16-inpulse breaks. Your movement for the first 8 cannot change, but you can specify TWO movement plots for the last 8, a primary and secondary, and TWO conditions that would cause you to use the secondary one?

As everyone who has moderated a sixteen-impulse-break game agrees, the number and complexity of interacting conditional orders is the biggest time-consuming headache. So I says, limit them. Or play Fog.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 05:42 pm: Edit Once you start to limit movement, you then make seeking weapons even more overpowered than they already are.

So I do like your idea of restricting when you can launch.

Id be willing to give it a try. Assuming the new automated tools are even better than the ones we already have, you could absolutely storm through the turns and the game would be done very quickly.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 05:53 pm: Edit Jim,

I've been playing since the early 80s, too. I didn't have the money for the boxed set and expansions in those days but the friend who introduced me to the game did. We NEVER played the way you describe.

So I guess you could say I disapprove. Or you could be reminded that there's a reason why nobody plays that way anymore.

I could do the movement plot idea. It'd take a little while to wrap my mind around the full implications of it. Would a ship be able to E-decel or HET from conditional orders during those first 8 impulses?

Plotted movement favors seeking weapons, especially plasma. DF, especially disruptors, are hurt by plotted movement, unless you're allowing ship to use pursuit plots.

Why not limit a 16-impulse period to 10 conditional orders if complexity of orders is an issue?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 06:46 pm: Edit You guys must be OLD !

Ive only been playing since about 1990/91 so I missed all the ridiculous "ruling of the week" type stuff.

John, from what I saw, seekers were weak in the Survivor game, and given the push to unite all the direct fire guys, maybe seekers actually need a bit of a leg-up, as opposed to say FOG where seekers (when played PROPERLY) are very powerful.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 07:12 pm: Edit Try telling FS2 seekers were weak.

Be glad you missed SFB's endless errata days.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 08:21 pm: Edit

Do we blame the player, or the seeking weapons

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 09:09 pm: Edit

Quote:

You'd be mistaken in that. Putting everyone's conditional orders was actually one of the easier things for me to manage (provided no one uses compound conditionals). Turn 2.32 had 150 combined conditionals, which includes players actions and random responses like rolling for lock-on to a cloaked unit. 66 were relatively easy to determine were False. 68 were marked True. Filter to see only True. Assign impulses as needed. Interpret player action into moderator result. Fill in the appropriate columns for each seeking weapon details. Filter a few times to assign the proper phase to the action type. Use formulas to intelligently assemble the result snippets into a coherent whole. Save the xls as a player version. Delete the columns the players don't get to see.

Orders took awhile, but it was one of the more satisfying pieces of moderating. Dealing with FS1's demise was painful, but most of that was that I had made a few mistakes and had to rework the results.

The key for me was ensuring that all orders were in the form of If-Then and not in the form of If-Then- Else or If-or-Then. I could process and conditions, but or conditions had to be parsed to their own lines.

Using this approach and an order input form that forces players to enter orders in a precise format, I'm of the opinion that a computer with each condition type built into a function could identify when a condition turns from False to True.

Example: When [ship A] is [Range=8] from [ship B] then [Fire] [4] [Ovl Disr]

The computer then runs through all 32 impulses to see when this condition becomes True. It would take some time to define and code each function and format, but much like Structured Query Language (SQL) it can be done. And SFBSQL can be defined by non-developers allowing us to multi-task. But alas, I've posted in the wrong topic.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 09:10 pm: Edit Count me against things that would change the rules. Its hard to remember 18-months in that some rule was changed, even if you are the moderator.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 09:55 pm: Edit I find it hard enough just to remember all the regular SFB rules. Many times Ive had to look things up, or ask. Even in the current foglet.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, November 05, 2010 - 02:32 pm: Edit I've moderated tourney PBEM. Even that is a tutorial on the rules.

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Friday, November 05, 2010 - 04:53 pm: Edit I'll think about what Tos said about the conditionals being fairly easy given the proper electonics. I don't like to change the rules either. But we already have some rules changes for scenario purposes (what you can see and make decisions upon, for instance) that sort of open the door. And I'll re-read the rules on plotted movement, see what they allow. (I know they allowed emer decel.)

Note to those of you who work in consulting or any profession where you have to gather requirements from another group of people. If you ask people what they want, they'll never be able to tell you. But tell them that you're going to give them something they don't want, and suddenly the comments start flowing.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, November 05, 2010 - 08:12 pm: Edit ...With the attendant problem of giving them what they asked for not what they really needed... By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, November 06, 2010 - 12:29 pm: Edit Jim, I can forward you the Excel forms I used to moderate. Your tools are much more advanced, but I would have taken a different approach and there might be something useful in there that can be integrated into what you've got.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, November 08, 2010 - 01:47 pm: Edit As of now we need to start coordinating our releases.

Jim owns the moderation and report generating tools

Tos owns the database and user interface

I own mapmaker.

We all need to keep each other updated on the latest we have.

By Brad Bellows (Gambit) on Thursday, November 11, 2010 - 09:18 am: Edit

Jim, often the consultant gets fired if they move too far off message.

I'm okay with the idea of a primary and secondary movement for the last 8 impulses. What I really like about the SFS format is that those with foresight tend to perform best. Its the seat-of-my-pants type players that end up bowing out early.

I like the idea of open BBS, but sometimes you want to have a conversation that you only want certain players to hear. How would you deal with that?

By Troy Williams (Jungletoy) on Thursday, November 11, 2010 - 12:56 pm: Edit Brad,

When we get this ported and formalized into the portal we are developing many such features can be moderator enabled but remove the moderator from being the actual switchboard. I'm noting all of these types of questions and requests so we can make the job of moderation much easier and robust enough to allow any variants to be accommodated as well. :-)

By Jim Hart (Vandal) on Thursday, November 11, 2010 - 01:43 pm: Edit Brad:

That's why yoy make sure that your first presentation sounds just close enough to the requirements to be viable, but far enough from the need to be useless.

As for movement, maybe it won't be that big of an issue, but I really don't want too many conditional movement possibilities that have to be checked 16 times per sitrep.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, August 25, 2011 - 12:02 pm: Edit Can we archive and delete this topic?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 25, 2011 - 02:52 pm: Edit Paging Tos Crawford...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 01, 2011 - 12:07 pm: Edit You can archive and delete this topic.