does anyone else feel plasma's are too easy to kill.

[tneva82]

Meanwhile you can defend yourself from Drones with Anti-Drone, Tractor Beams, your own Drones, or defensive fire.

If anything I feel that Plasma should have been nerfed instead of Drones.

Well not all fleets ships have anti-drones and feds have to give up attacking with their drones if they want to have anti-drones. Also anti-drones run out.

I'm playing pbem and first turn plasma cooked up ship instantly. But then again it was frigate completely unsupported facing 3 ships worth of plasma nastyness so no suprise it got cooked!

Last turn I managed to survive practically untouched by plasma. If it hadn't been for roll of 3 1's out of 4 2+ phaser attacks there would have been no plasma hitting my ships. Even one 1 would have been fine as it was 4 dice vs 3AD of plasma.

Thing about plasma vs drone is though a) drones outrange plasma big time, being 18" vs 8" for optimal range and drones being able to reach out to 36"...Plasma's are real weak beyond 12". Also drones shoot EVERY turn vs every 2nd turn with plasma's. And reloading hinders due to power drain and unable to use other special actions like boost shields.

Something you should be trying to do is get them to shoot at target you KNOW they are going to shoot and position ships with IDF(you need obviously multiples due to CQ test) behind. This way you can cover the ship with plenty of ph fire. And next turn when they are reloading you can fire up in return with full strenght. That's what I'm doing(well hopefully. I don't know where the gorns will move next turn while reloading). Defend vs the plasma barrage, survive mostly unscathed and next turn strike with vengeance after only being able to strip bunch of shields(and finish off wounded ship).

(Albeit by the nature of pbem it's not quite the same as real game. Simultaneous movement all at once affects it a bit)

 

[Commander Kretok]

Thing about plasma vs drone is though a) drones outrange plasma big time, being 18" vs 8" for optimal range and drones being able to reach out to 36"...Plasma's are real weak beyond 12". Also drones shoot EVERY turn vs every 2nd turn with plasma's. And reloading hinders due to power drain and unable to use other special actions like boost shields.

True enough, but I've gotten hit by a full-strength short-range de-cloaking Romulan Plasma strike and it was enough to one-shot one of my D5 War Cruisers. Mult-hit D6 with 12 attack dice added up to something like 40-ish hits. OUCH.

I know you're going to say that it's my fault for letting him get that close, but even with average rolls for multi-hit that's still a bit too powerful if one full-strength strike can one-shot a Cruiser.

Meanwhile my options for attacking back aren't as good. I have to leave the Phasers unfired to use later for anti-Plasma defense. My Drones are easily blocked by the wide variety of ways to defend against them. So that leaves only my Disruptors to do any damage in retaliation.

 

[archon96]

Best thing to do is hold back for plasma defense then when he's re-loading let him have it. IDF is essential for this defense, my son runs a very heavy frigate fleet and surrounds his kirov and dreadnought with enough IDF i can never kill anything, evening targeting a frigate gets problematic because of overlapping IDF.

 

[Ben2]

Fighting plasma I think ships with good phaser coverage are a necessity.

Facing the enemy a Fed battle frigate can put 4 phaser shots either side of the centre line, and has a total of 6 phasers for 110 points.

Looking at the list though, the Texas class can put six phasers either side of the centreline and has a total of 8 phasers, as well being able to turn the same, still having 2 photons and a drone, and being able to take a lot more damage for 20 points more. Is there a more phaser efficient ship than the Texas class?

You'd have to do some number crunching but dropping 6 Battle Frigates for 5 Texas Class leaves you with a net gain for the number of phaser shots, gives you better phaser arc coverage (because you gain 10 phaser-3s in turrets and the forward phaser-1 battery is F, P, S not FH), doesn't change how the fleet would maneuver, the ships can take more damage, it costs ten points less and the only drawback is losing an initiative sink.

You may not want to tell your son about that one.

 

[archon96]

yes but with 3 torps compared to two the battle frigate can better take advantage of long range torpedo strikes. out of the 18 torpedoes available my son averages about a third of them going past shields. yes he has hot dice but it get very painful.

 

[tneva82]

True enough, but I've gotten hit by a full-strength short-range de-cloaking Romulan Plasma strike and it was enough to one-shot one of my D5 War Cruisers. Mult-hit D6 with 12 attack dice added up to something like 40-ish hits. OUCH.

Well before drone nerf kzinzi's could destroy cruiser per turn up to 36" away, every turn. Unlike plasma which requires getting within 8" and can only do every 2nd turn. And are pricier ships to boot in case of romulans with their cloaking.

Meanwhile my options for attacking back aren't as good. I have to leave the Phasers unfired to use later for anti-Plasma defense. My Drones are easily blocked by the wide variety of ways to defend against them. So that leaves only my Disruptors to do any damage in retaliation.

As I said your phaser's aren't forced for anti-plasma every round. Compared against drones where your defences DO need to be on every turn!

In the pbem game now is nice turn where I don't have much of plasma to worry about when the plasma chukkers are reloading. Time to killzone phaser them back! Zap zap zap.

And generally plasma chukkers tend to have less phaser's than say feds have. As my opponent has commented: Damn 1AD phasers So when they are reloading they are in trouble. Trick is to survive the plasma strike! And for that it helps if you can force the issue by giving them target you want to pester and make damned sure it's covered by some IDF. Preferably so that attempting to fire the IDF'ers will result in plasma getting too weak due to range!

Now is that going to make you invulnerable vs plasma? Nope. Good thing too. Nothing should make you invulnerable. But it makes your ships survive it better and it's allright to lose ships as long as enemy is losing them faster. And there's no anti-phaser firing to help them when you unleash some killzoned ph-1 death against your enemy

 

[H]

True enough, but I've gotten hit by a full-strength short-range de-cloaking Romulan Plasma strike and it was enough to one-shot one of my D5 War Cruisers. Mult-hit D6 with 12 attack dice added up to something like 40-ish hits. OUCH.

Well before drone nerf kzinzi's could destroy cruiser per turn up to 36" away, every turn. Unlike plasma which requires getting within 8" and can only do every 2nd turn. And are pricier ships to boot in case of romulans with their cloaking.

Meanwhile my options for attacking back aren't as good. I have to leave the Phasers unfired to use later for anti-Plasma defense. My Drones are easily blocked by the wide variety of ways to defend against them. So that leaves only my Disruptors to do any damage in retaliation.

As I said your phaser's aren't forced for anti-plasma every round. Compared against drones where your defences DO need to be on every turn!

yeah, damn 1ad phasers, and loosing all but 2 dice of plasma last turn was a kick in the knackers, but thats the nature of the beast, we saw what happens when it works, even at 12", so loosing some dice, it wioped out a frigate in one turn. plasma is good if you can overwhelm a ships defence, as battles go on, i suspect it will become less effective

In the pbem game now is nice turn where I don't have much of plasma to worry about when the plasma chukkers are reloading. Time to killzone phaser them back! Zap zap zap.

And generally plasma chukkers tend to have less phaser's than say feds have. As my opponent has commented: Damn 1AD phasers So when they are reloading they are in trouble. Trick is to survive the plasma strike! And for that it helps if you can force the issue by giving them target you want to pester and make damned sure it's covered by some IDF. Preferably so that attempting to fire the IDF'ers will result in plasma getting too weak due to range!

 

[H]

True enough, but I've gotten hit by a full-strength short-range de-cloaking Romulan Plasma strike and it was enough to one-shot one of my D5 War Cruisers. Mult-hit D6 with 12 attack dice added up to something like 40-ish hits. OUCH.

Well before drone nerf kzinzi's could destroy cruiser per turn up to 36" away, every turn. Unlike plasma which requires getting within 8" and can only do every 2nd turn. And are pricier ships to boot in case of romulans with their cloaking.

Meanwhile my options for attacking back aren't as good. I have to leave the Phasers unfired to use later for anti-Plasma defense. My Drones are easily blocked by the wide variety of ways to defend against them. So that leaves only my Disruptors to do any damage in retaliation.

As I said your phaser's aren't forced for anti-plasma every round. Compared against drones where your defences DO need to be on every turn!



In the pbem game now is nice turn where I don't have much of plasma to worry about when the plasma chukkers are reloading. Time to killzone phaser them back! Zap zap zap.

And generally plasma chukkers tend to have less phaser's than say feds have. As my opponent has commented: Damn 1AD phasers So when they are reloading they are in trouble. Trick is to survive the plasma strike! And for that it helps if you can force the issue by giving them target you want to pester and make damned sure it's covered by some IDF. Preferably so that attempting to fire the IDF'ers will result in plasma getting too weak due to range!

yeah, damn 1ad phasers, and loosing all but 2 dice of plasma last turn was a kick in the knackers, but thats the nature of the beast, we saw what happens when it works, even at 12", so loosing some dice, it wioped out a frigate in one turn. plasma is good if you can overwhelm a ships defence, as battles go on, i suspect it will become less effective

 

[tneva82]

yeah, damn 1ad phasers, and loosing all but 2 dice of plasma last turn was a kick in the knackers, but thats the nature of the beast, we saw what happens when it works, even at 12", so loosing some dice, it wioped out a frigate in one turn. plasma is good if you can overwhelm a ships defence, as battles go on, i suspect it will become less effective

Yeah. Plasma is something you really need to keep eye on because if it catches you pants in your knees then you WILL get hurt. Don't let ships wander into plasma range without adequate phaser support!

(and note to self: Even up to 12" plasma can be dangerous. Don't get too confident just 'cause you aren't within 8" of plasma chuckers).

 

[McKinstry]

The mortal enemy of plasma is the successful CQ check on the Intensify Defensive Fire special action.

Not firing those phasers offensively that are used in defensive fire on the turn before is not a big deal because thanks to the reload requirement, next turn you get essentially a free hack. If you are a drone using race and survive that plasma strike, the next turn you can suck his offense down to zero making him defend against drones while you phaser/photon/disruptor your merry way through his fleet. Plasma users don't have ADD or drones with the exception of the KRC and their almost ADD Plasma D's.

 

[H]

yeah, damn 1ad phasers, and loosing all but 2 dice of plasma last turn was a kick in the knackers, but thats the nature of the beast, we saw what happens when it works, even at 12", so loosing some dice, it wioped out a frigate in one turn. plasma is good if you can overwhelm a ships defence, as battles go on, i suspect it will become less effective

Yeah. Plasma is something you really need to keep eye on because if it catches you pants in your knees then you WILL get hurt. Don't let ships wander into plasma range without adequate phaser support!

(and note to self: Even up to 12" plasma can be dangerous. Don't get too confident just 'cause you aren't within 8" of plasma chuckers).

yup. certainly can, when 3 ships fire a combined 21 dice, it's still 12 dice at 12",

 

[Commander Kretok]

So, other than liberal use of IDF, what are some good anti-Romulan or anti-Gorn tactics?

How does one avoid getting blasted apart by plasma?

Are the tactics different for each fleet?

 

[Ben2]

So, other than liberal use of IDF, what are some good anti-Romulan or anti-Gorn tactics?

How does one avoid getting blasted apart by plasma?

Are the tactics different for each fleet?

Formation and fleet selection is important.

If your Klingon you want to keep the enemy at range 13+ for Gorn (only the dread has R-torps so you might see some 1 dice Plasma-Ss, but not much else). All the double bubble ships except the BCH have basically the same phaser coverage all the way round. Gorns also have large arcs on their plasmas (some ships having PH and SH on their plasma-Fs so they can be fired behind).

With Klingons the standard Klingon tactic of keep the range open and chip away applies.

With Kzinti ditto (concentrate disruptor and drone fire on a couple of key targets, throw drones elsewhere to keep your opponent on their toes if you can.

Romulans can use their cloaks but may also wish to look at the sort of integrated formation the Federation would use.

Federation - integrate formation based on a few heavy hitters with big photon batteries (DNGs, BCs, etc) in a formation of cheaper ships with large numbers of phasers. They go IDF and nail incoming plasmas, while the formation as a whole throw out drones, photons and spare phaser shots to target key Gorn ships and break up and disorganise the enemy formation. A DNG and 2 Kirovs can put 14 photons and 12 drones on something.

Against Romulans, again a mutually supportive formation to shoot down plasmas using IDF is advisable. The cloaking device limits maneuverability and speed, but prevents you giving them a battering until they want to fire. So outmaneuver them, isolate a ship and pound it with phasers. Use drones to punish ships that decloak, either to prevent them shooting your ships with phasers or to slam them if they have already used them. The War Eagle is a great example of this, if you drop 4 drones on them and they only try to swat them with their one tractor beam, you know they want to fire their R torp.

 

[tneva82]

Federation - integrate formation based on a few heavy hitters with big photon batteries (DNGs, BCs, etc) in a formation of cheaper ships with large numbers of phasers.

Another way is to go for fighting ships with generous banks of phaser's. I'm doing nicely with trio of wolverines currently. With potentially up to 8 ph-1's and 2 ph-3's they can defend themselves adequately(Especially with another in IDF support!) and switch to attack as needed.

 

[archon96]

for gorn there is a medium cruiser variant with r type and i will be using two in my fleet, i also think the heavy battle cruiser has an r type variant.

 

[tneva82]

for gorn there is a medium cruiser variant with r type and i will be using two in my fleet, i also think the heavy battle cruiser has an r type variant.

Only one I could find on quick search was the epanterias class medium cruiser.

Begs a question. What's the firearc of that torpedo-R? It replaces FH and has no mention of new one so technically wouldn't it be FH? But pretty much every other plasma-R that I recall is F...

Do the gorns have particulary nasty mounted plasma-R?-) FH plasma-R is plain nasty! Especially on 195 pts platform.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Begs a question. What's the firearc of that torpedo-R? It replaces FH and has no mention of new one so technically wouldn't it be FH? But pretty much every other plasma-R that I recall is F...

Do the gorns have particulary nasty mounted plasma-R?-) FH plasma-R is plain nasty! Especially on 195 pts platform.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Gorn ships don't manouver, as they let the torpedos do the manouvering for them. I suppose this would be expressed as a wider fire arc.

 

[Finlos]

I just checked my SFB material and the Gorn CS plasma-R should have a Fore arc. There is a good case to be made for giving it a FH arc but expect that to get errata'd to a Fore arc sooner or later.

 

[tneva82]

I just checked my SFB material and the Gorn CS plasma-R should have a Fore arc. There is a good case to be made for giving it a FH arc but expect that to get errata'd to a Fore arc sooner or later.

Wonder why nobody catched that before. If it was RH arc then only reason I could think of that not being popular choise would be that the base ship itself is complete junk so even having FH plasma-R would not compensate.

 

[archon96]

Just looked at the book and its a R type FH arc on the medium variant. Thats nasty to say the least.