The Flotilla Debate

[Green Knight 9,731]

Perhaps this has come up before and if so I apologize. This isnt just directed at the OP but the subject as a whole as i've read in other threads.

 

Someone suggested to counter the lifeboat flotilla, the admiral ability should be limited to range. 

 

Part of the reason I think its fine for Admiral abilities to not be limited by range is canonically, we have never been given an example where the admiral's communication lines have been limited. In fact both the Battle of Scarif and Endor are great examples of how Admirals Raddus and Ackbar, even deep in enemy territory over highly secure and secret Imperial installations, could easily relay commands to the fleets. Those are both situations one would and should expect the Imperials to jam ship to ship comms but they didnt most likely because they couldn't. Likewise the Executor was still in communication with Death Squadron in the asteroid field without any difficulty. In canon there has never been a problem with an admiral commanding the fleet in the moment...unless there are Noghri involved, but then that's no longer canon.    

 

Gameplay wise I get the concern of a lifeboat for a six round game as that can be a genuine problem. However I don't think a range rule should be applied to the admiral abilities. No need to punish all for the cowardice of some.

 

Honestly I would merely shame the person to pull a lifeboat stunt. 

 

Maybe "lifeboat shaming" could become a thing?

[Beatty 1,730]

Funny. I bring a CR90 ready to go Lifeboat hunting but I have yet to have someone run one into the corner. I keep hearing how it is a big deal and is happening all the time and is ruining the game from a few posters here but I have not seen it happening at all. I know it happens but is it just a local meta issue with a few players? That is my belief from not only my own experience but also from the responses and battle reports I follow.

I know it happens but to what extent? Because it seems to be far more rare than what some would lead us to believe.

[Critias 877]

As previously pointed out, there is no "solution" for this interaction other than 1) ignore it or 2) dispatch assets to engage it ...

 

As previously pointed out, there is no "solution" for this interaction other than 1) ignore it or 2) dispatch assets to engage it...

 

 

Yeah, so basically like everything else in the game.  Or, really, like everything else in every game ever, because at this point you're literally complaining that the only ways to deal with admirals in flotillas is to ignore them or to not ignore them.

[ovinomanc3r 4,436]

1) About the data I can't say a thing. I don't know a **** but I read here and there that we have whatever but lifeboat spamming. As I said I am not sure about it.

 

2) From the lore perspective I think there is no problem with lifeboat flotillas and to put range on the commanders abilities has no sense for me. As I said before, again: FOR ME, the commander abilities are not the commanders orders. I can't imagine Vader saying "try it again" over and over. The commander orders are the dials and the command tokens. The ability is the idiosyncrasy of the commander translated in a way of fighting. Everyone in the fleet know her role and what the commander expect from them. Vader's subalterns take more risk because they dread Vader more than the dead and they not need Vader near aronund feel this fear. They just need to know he is there. What happens when the commander die? We still giving orders cause the most ranked officer (no matter who this guy was) take the command but we loose our commander ability because the morale fell down and what the fleet usually did is not working at all. Out of topic: it could be interesting an officer with a commander-like ability that only works "while the commander is died".

 

3) From the balance/unbalance issue. I am in the balanced boat. The "points saved/spent" argument has some holes, I think. First of all, the lifeboat is not saving the flotilla+commander points as I wouldn't saving 66 points if I sent 6 interceptors to the corner just to be there. I would be wasting those points. So the lifeboat is saving the commander points but wasting the flotilla points. Flotillas are cheap but even with that it means you are saving 2-20 points. It is not a great advantage, it is not big or good either but I will agree that is an advantage. Let's go with the hunter problem. How much points I need to waste to take down the lifeboat? If I use, let's say, 2 decimators or Hera+Luke or CR90B-SW7 I wouldn't be wasting 44-48 points. I would be taking down 38-66 points and SAVING my 44-48 points. It means 82-114 points and this is a big advantage. If the lifeboat guy fight against my hunters then we are adding more and more points to a battle around the flagship and then, the lfeboat is the center of the battle. Of course this probably won't happen but the thing is that the only reason to don't go after the lifeboat is not it is hard to kill, or it is a waste of points. The reason is there is something more valuable than the lifeboat, something I can win with even if I don't kill the flagship.

 

4) As I don't like to be a destructive kind of tertullian I will let some ideas that come to me. I didn't dedicate much time so feel free to change whatever you want. If something would be necessary to suggest to FFG (and I think is not) should be something like the following I think:

 

- Assault Objective: Execution Order

 

SETUP: nothing special.

SPECIAL RULE: while the first player's flagship is defending, the attacker may add 1 accuracy icon its attack pool. If the first player's flagship is destroyed the second player gains 1 victory token.

TOKEN REWARD: 50 points.

 

- Defense Objective: Rescue Mission

 

SETUP: the 3' edges of the play area become the player edges. The first player deployment zone is within distance 1-5 of his edge. The second player deployment zone is within 2 range ruler lengths of his edge. The second player places all obstacles adding 3 asteroids. Players take turns deploying fleets as normal, but must deploy all ships before deploying any squadrons. The first player must deploy his flagship at distance 1-5 of the second player deployment zone and beyond distance 5 of the 6' edges.

 

- Navigation Objective: Diplomatic Route

 

SETUP: After placing obstacles, the players alternate placing a total of 6 objective tokens in the setup area, starting with the first player. Each token must be placed in the play area beyond distance 5 of both player's edge and at distance 5 of all other objective tokens.

END OF ROUND: if the first player's flagship is at distance 1-2 of at least 1 objective token, the first player may remove 1 objective token from the play area. If the first player didn't remove an objective token this round the second player gains 1 victory token.

TOKEN REWARD: 20 points

 

Play with this against a lifeboat fleet, see what happen and tell us. I think it is more elegant than avoiding people to use flotillas as flagships. The first one let you one-shot the lifeboat as soon as you get a shot. The second one put the lifeboat in front of your nose. It could be protected with fighters but then you get a battle around the lifeboat that could reward you and if you kill the lifeboat you won't gain too much points but the firt player could loose the commander during the first 3 rounds easily. The last one put the first player on the edge. He must choose to avoid you to gain some points or expose his flagship to your fire. Even if he remove 3 tokes you get 60 points what is the best he can save with lifeboating if you think he is really saving something. And I think with this objectives there are some funny tactics if you are the first player and you don't have lifeboats.

 

Have fun!!

[Ardaedhel 10,840]

Why is this travesty still at the top of the front page?

[Sygnetix 140]

As previously pointed out, there is no "solution" for this interaction other than 1) ignore it or 2) dispatch assets to engage it ...

 

As previously pointed out, there is no "solution" for this interaction other than 1) ignore it or 2) dispatch assets to engage it...

 

 

Yeah, so basically like everything else in the game.  Or, really, like everything else in every game ever, because at this point you're literally complaining that the only ways to deal with admirals in flotillas is to ignore them or to not ignore them.

Inspiring debate is hardly complaining.

[Sygnetix 140]

 

3) From the balance/unbalance issue. I am in the balanced boat. The "points saved/spent" argument has some holes, I think. First of all, the lifeboat is not saving the flotilla+commander points as I wouldn't saving 66 points if I sent 6 interceptors to the corner just to be there. I would be wasting those points. So the lifeboat is saving the commander points but wasting the flotilla points. Flotillas are cheap but even with that it means you are saving 2-20 points. It is not a great advantage, it is not big or good either but I will agree that is an advantage. Let's go with the hunter problem. How much points I need to waste to take down the lifeboat? If I use, let's say, 2 decimators or Hera+Luke or CR90B-SW7 I wouldn't be wasting 44-48 points. I would be taking down 38-66 points and SAVING my 44-48 points. It means 82-114 points and this is a big advantage. If the lifeboat guy fight against my hunters then we are adding more and more points to a battle around the flagship and then, the lfeboat is the center of the battle. Of course this probably won't happen but the thing is that the only reason to don't go after the lifeboat is not it is hard to kill, or it is a waste of points. The reason is there is something more valuable than the lifeboat, something I can win with even if I don't kill the flagship.

 

 

Thanks for the input. Just one point of contention with your counter example, though. If you were to send the fighters you described, nothing prevents your opponent from tying those up away from the fight with a squadron or two of his own. If I saw you split that off, I'd feed it a TIE Fighter or two just to delay it. Because of that delay, even if you're able to clear both of those units, there's a very high probablity that you wouldn't be able to clear the lifeboat afterwards. Even if you were able to get to it and kill it, it would be round 5 or 6, again, at best.

I think the big disconnect people have is not seeing how different the weight of the points involved are. In this example scenario, if the Imperial player were to park 38-56 points worth of assets in the corner (say some squadrons that exactly tally the lifeboats value) those points are 100% out of the battle whereas the same cannot be said for the lifeboat. It's trying to account for this difference that initially led me not to include the value of the admiral in the cost of the flotilla when calculating it's worth. An attempt to explain this....phenomena? Interaction? Imbalance?

Edited January 23, 2017 by Sygnetix

[Sygnetix 140]

Why is this travesty still at the top of the front page?

Because you and your ilk control nothing beyond the value of the input you interject. Since all you can do is behave like children while hiding behind the anonymity provided by the internet, that value is truly low. Enough is enough. Now go play outside, the adults are talking.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Sygnetix

[Undeadguy 5,749]

 

Why is this travesty still at the top of the front page?

Because you and your ilk control nothing beyond the value of the input you interject. Since all you can do is behave like children while hiding behind the anonymity provided by the internet, that value is truly low. Enough is enough. Now go play outside, the adults are talking.

 

Reported.

[TallGiraffe 3,447]

I seriously don't think it is a problem as I play both factions and face a variety of lists with very few of them using flotillas for their admiral and only once did they run with one of them. Even then I could have hunted with ease.

[ovinomanc3r 4,436]

If you were to send the fighters you described, nothing prevents your opponent from tying those up away from the fight with a squadron or two of his own.

So he is not wasting just the flotilla value rather than the fighter escort too and then the logic continue... you will need 3, 4, 5 decimators, relay squadron, intel source or whatever to kill more and more points around the lifeboat OR just ignore as you said becoming those fighter escort a waste of points.

Even if you were able to get to it and kill it, it would be round 5 or 6, again, at best.

What would be awesome as I would get the points. I think our focus too much on the commander ability and how to finish it what could be necessary only sometimes. I usually don't care about commander ability. I mean, I did before lifeboats cause there were all inside of a cute package of points, ability, ships battery armament. Now I must choose what will work better for my tactic and I think this is better. Before there was one no-mind choice.

if the Imperial player were to park 38-56 points worth of assets in the corner (say some squadrons that exactly tally the lifeboats value) those points are 100% out of the battle whereas the same cannot be said for the lifeboat.

No they are not out of the battle. They are actually fighting for the success of the battle gathering some valuable points in a boat that is not hard to kill at all. What they really are is beyond of dangerous batteries so they could get the points or not but for sure they are safe. And again, if there are escorts for the lifeboat there are more points to get.

[DiabloAzul 2,636]

In this example scenario, if the Imperial player were to park 38-56 points worth of assets in the corner (say some squadrons that exactly tally the lifeboats value) those points are 100% out of the battle whereas the same cannot be said for the lifeboat.

 

They are only out of the battle if they fail to kill the lifeboat. If they succeed, and particularly if they succeed early, then the return on investment is worthwhile.

 

Scoring X victory points with X points' worth of unit hardly constitutes an "imbalance", and there is still a balanced battle of 400-X vs 400-X points going on elsewhere in the field.

 

The question for the Imperial player, of course, is whether forgoing the opportunity to table the Rebels in exchange for getting an X-point advantage in the main battle is strategically desirable.

.

[TallGiraffe 3,447]

Why is this travesty still at the top of the front page?

Because you and your ilk control nothing beyond the value of the input you interject. Since all you can do is behave like children while hiding behind the anonymity provided by the internet, that value is truly low. Enough is enough. Now go play outside, the adults are talking.

Also at this point you're just looking for positive reinforcement that you are in the right for your argument that lifeboat flotillas are bad for the game for all rather than just a local meta or two issue.

[Eggzavier 1,689]

Funny. I bring a CR90 ready to go Lifeboat hunting but I have yet to have someone run one into the corner. I keep hearing how it is a big deal and is happening all the time and is ruining the game from a few posters here but I have not seen it happening at all. I know it happens but is it just a local meta issue with a few players? That is my belief from not only my own experience but also from the responses and battle reports I follow.

I know it happens but to what extent? Because it seems to be far more rare than what some would lead us to believe.

Add me to the list of people who have never actually seen this with their own eyes.

The most recent regional I attended I even brought a flotilla hunter - ended up not needing it, as none of my opponents even put their admiral on a flotilla, much less tried to hide them.

(Just as long as we're still interjecting personal experiences as evidence of a problem in the meta)

[Undeadguy 5,749]

 

Funny. I bring a CR90 ready to go Lifeboat hunting but I have yet to have someone run one into the corner. I keep hearing how it is a big deal and is happening all the time and is ruining the game from a few posters here but I have not seen it happening at all. I know it happens but is it just a local meta issue with a few players? That is my belief from not only my own experience but also from the responses and battle reports I follow.

I know it happens but to what extent? Because it seems to be far more rare than what some would lead us to believe.

Add me to the list of people who have never actually seen this with their own eyes.

The most recent regional I attended I even brought a flotilla hunter - ended up not needing it, as none of my opponents even put their admiral on a flotilla, much less tried to hide them.

(Just as long as we're still interjecting personal experiences as evidence of a problem in the meta)

 

We do it quite often in the RTP area. We are Rebel scum and flee at the first sight of trouble. But it's never been an issue for us. We know how to deal with it. Sometimes the risk pays off, other times we get wrecked for it.

[Sygnetix 140]

 

In this example scenario, if the Imperial player were to park 38-56 points worth of assets in the corner (say some squadrons that exactly tally the lifeboats value) those points are 100% out of the battle whereas the same cannot be said for the lifeboat.

 

They are only out of the battle if they fail to kill the lifeboat. If they succeed, and particularly if they succeed early, then the return on investment is worthwhile.

 

Scoring X victory points with X points' worth of unit hardly constitutes an "imbalance", and there is still a balanced battle of 400-X vs 400-X points going on elsewhere in the field.

 

The question for the Imperial player, of course, is whether forgoing the opportunity to table the Rebels in exchange for getting an X-point advantage in the main battle is strategically desirable.

.

 

But that's the point. There is less risk vs reward for the lifeboater than the pursuer.

[Sygnetix 140]

 

 

In this example scenario, if the Imperial player were to park 38-56 points worth of assets in the corner (say some squadrons that exactly tally the lifeboats value) those points are 100% out of the battle whereas the same cannot be said for the lifeboat.

 

They are only out of the battle if they fail to kill the lifeboat. If they succeed, and particularly if they succeed early, then the return on investment is worthwhile.

 

Scoring X victory points with X points' worth of unit hardly constitutes an "imbalance", and there is still a balanced battle of 400-X vs 400-X points going on elsewhere in the field.

 

The question for the Imperial player, of course, is whether forgoing the opportunity to table the Rebels in exchange for getting an X-point advantage in the main battle is strategically desirable.

.

 

But that's the point. There is less risk vs reward for the lifeboater than the pursuer.

 

Let me reframe that.

There's less risk of being destoryed vs the reward of your admiral being 100% completely safe throughout the battle for little (to frankly none) points investment.

vs

There's high risk of not being able to kill the flotilla in a reasonable amount of time (or at all) vs scoring the points for the commander and flotilla.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Sygnetix

[Undeadguy 5,749]

So I've played with lifeboats quite often with Sato, and I run them at speed 1 facing away from the battle. I don't put them off to the very edge of the deployment area. I try to set them in the middle running towards an edge so I can adjust their course if my opponent plans on sending something to kill my lifeboat. I can't tell you how many times I've come very close to getting caught from an ISD going speed 3, deployed on a pursuit path. Luckily it happens by round 6, but running from an ISD is still pretty scary.

 

One way to mitigate life boats is to have more deployments than your opponent. This way you can set up an intercept path instead of chasing. It doesn't take long for a Raider going speed 4 to spring across the map to pop a lifeboat before turning in towards the fight by turn 4-5, which I'd think is the best time for a Raider or CR90 to get into the fight since they can swing in from the flank and are less likely to die. Granted, all of this hinges on having a flotilla hunter and having deployment advantage.

[CaribbeanNinja 6,207]

My opinions:

 

Because of the introduction of the flotilla-class and their use, there are a lot of fleets out there that specifically bring answers to them.  There are flotilla hunters that are so good at popping them you better be ready. (Such as an H9 MC30c).  Also, these hunters are good at killing a heck of a lot of other things, so their point cost is not wasted.

 

If you put your commander on a flotilla, you are taking a pretty big risk.  You can swing him away from the battle, giving the enemy a choice on whether to deal with the flotilla, but the risk is still there.  

 

I disagree with your premise that the flotilla and specifically a commander on a flotilla is an issue at all.  Sometimes I put my commander on a beefy ship, sometimes I put him on a not so beefy ship (Including Raiders and CR90s).  Is is a fleet composition choice.  The choice has always been there.  As soon as the Empire got the Gladiator/Raider people started putting commanders on it.  The rebels always used CR90s to ship their commanders.

 

I also think that the argument about theme and communication is not valid becasue this is such a small abstract (6x3) area we are dealing with.

[Forresto 2,200]

I play rebels and i'm used to imperial fleet admirals living on Motti+Blast Door ISDs. I would welcome a lifeboat.

[JgzMan 401]

Because an Admiral can apply his effect regardless of range to any ship, the lifeboat flotilla is effectively an 18-23 points investment. The Admiral is not factored into this because he's not a factor in the tactic of placing a cheap unit in a corner. He adds nothing to that specific ship because he factors into the cost of the fleet since he affects the entire force. If you'd like to include the cost of the fleet admiral into this discussion, the viable way to calculate his cost is on a per-fleet list basis. In order to calculate his cost for that specific lifeboat flotilla, you'd have to average his cost per ship. For simplicity sake, let's call the Admiral Dodonna in a 4 activation fleet. He effectively increases the cost of that lifeboat flotilla but +5. Because this increase in cost is on a per-fleet basis, feel free to adjust any of the following effective counter-play costs by -.5.

 

 

And we're done here. You make some great arguments, one way or the other, but you are in no way sending a 60-point ship to kill an 18 point ship. You're sending a 60 point ship to kill a 20-40 point Admiral. Killing that one ship will hurt all the other ships, so there's no relevance in averaging out the points. Killing a regular ship deprives the fleet of that ship; killing a Flagship deprives every ship in the fleet of the Admiral's bonus.

 

In the end, though, sending out a "lifeboat" flotilla just gives me another interesting tactical option to consider. It might be worth simply ignoring entirely, or it might be worth sending my entire fleet chasing it down. (probably not that last one, but who knows)

[DiabloAzul 2,636]

Let me reframe that.

There's less risk of being destoryed vs the reward of your admiral being 100% completely safe throughout the battle for little (to frankly none) points investment.

vs

There's high risk of not being able to kill the flotilla in a reasonable amount of time (or at all) vs scoring the points for the commander and flotilla.

 

Maybe, maybe not, depending on a million circumstances. I don't think there is a solid basis for making a sweeping generalisation to the effect that this will be the case more often than not.

 

What we know is the following:

 

-If, based on his own perception of the circumstances, a player feels confident that he can most likely destroy the flotilla with a small point investment, then his optimal move is to send an execution squad.

-If, on the other hand, that player considers the risk too high for the potential reward, then his best move is to ignore it and concentrate on the main battle.

 

This is (or should be) trivial, true of any tactical decision, and indicative of solid game design.

 

Now, if the cost of units were such that the Imperial's optimal response were (almost) always to ignore the lifeboat, that would then raise a new question:

 

-Is the Rebel player in a better overall strategic position, despite being outnumbered in the main battle?

 

If the answer is negative, lifeboating cannot be a dominant strategy.

If the answer is affirmative, lifeboating is likely a dominant strategy.

 

Even assuming that lifeboating were a dominant strategy, this is not necessarily a problem, inasmuch as dominant strategies (bring Demo, bring squadrons, choose fleet-appropriate objectives, etc.) are inherent to Armada and to most other games. A serious balance problem arises only when a dominant strategy is narrow. Given that a flotilla represents less than 5% of your total build cost, i.e. 95% of your strategic decisions are still open, lifeboats would not constitute a game balance problem even if they were used in every single build by every single player. Even in that extreme case, the only real complaint would be theme.

 

In summary, even if

1) it were impossible to efficiently kill lifeboats (which is not supported by evidence), and

2) having a lifeboat made it more likely to win than not having one (which is also not supported by evidence), and

3) every single build included a lifeboat (which is definitely not supported by evidence),

...the only problem would still be a subjective feeling.

 

Which is fair enough, theme can be very important to a lot of people! It's certainly important to me.

 

I just think there is no evidence at all to support an actual game balance problem, and only anecdotal evidence to support a theme problem.