Genearal SFB Tournament Tactics

Work in progress...

   This is meant to be more of a collection of thoughts than a complete "do it all" compendium.  I basically jot down whatever comes to mind and run with it.  

Setting Up Your First Attack Run

     Making that first attack work is one way to speed yourself to victory in this game.  Gaining an early advantage is paramount to maximizing your performance.  When planning your run, there are a few things you need to consider.

     First of all, you need to determine what effect you will have on the enemy ship.  Do you plan on making him turn off and run?  Do you want to force him to emergency decelerate and weasel?  Do you want to build a wave of seeking weapons that he will have to deal with in order to close with your ship?  Do you want to set up an anchor?  Do you want to weaken a shield so you can exploit hellbores if you have them?  Do you just want to go in there and blast him and hope you don't take heavy damage in return?  I will not explain each of these options here as I simply don't have the space or time.  What's important is that you have a game plan.  You must allocate for your game plan and try to stick to it.  This plan will obviously depend on what both you and your opponent are flying.

     Second, you need to determine what the effect(s) your plan will have on your ship.  If you put yourself at range 4 from a Federation ship, you had better count on taking some damage.  Very few plans result in your ship getting away scott free.  There is always some price to be paid for success, whether it's taking internal damage, having to burn an HET, or weaseling.  Concede the fact that to make your plan work, you will most likely give up something, and work that into your strategy.

     Third, you need to determine where the initial engagement will take place.  For most cases, the middle of the map is usually a good place as you will then have some space to run.  Corner dodging to overload photons in a Fed may seem prudent, but you will be stuck in a corner against seeking weapons and giving your opponent the entire map to run and reload.  Many plasma ballet strategies involve getting to board center first so that launched plasmas have a better chance of hitting their targets, or at least forcing them to run far into a corner or against a wall to avoid them.  Understand that board position is extremely important, especially when seeking weapons are involved.

     Fourth,  you need to set up an escape route from the encounter.  You will need someplace to run too after that first pass.  This goes hand in hand with step 3 above.  You need to have some idea of how you can get away to reload for the next big shot.  Maybe you plan on weaseling that stack of drones before they put your lights out.  What is important here is that not planning a way out is just as bad as not planning a way in.  The escape is still a part of your attack run!!!  Some strategies don't require an escape route, but those are usually the game ending ones.  The Gorn anchor comes to mind here.  

Direct Fire vs. Seeking Weapons

     One argument that has been going on in the SFB community for quite some time is the debate between the superiority of seeking weapons against direct fire ones.  Most of the ships that have the best records in tournament play carry either drones or plasma torpedoes as primary weapons.  These include the Romulan TFH, the Kzinti, the ISC, and the WYN AUX.  I also include the Klingon here because even though drones are not it's main weapon, it depends heavily on their use to be successful.

     One thing that makes the idea of seeking weapons so popular in tournament play is that the game is played on a closed map.  Unless you maintain a high speed for most of the game, you're eventually going to have to deal with seeking weapons being launched your way.  They force the opposing ship to act in order to avoid damage.  Seeking weapons are also excellent at drawing phaser fire from your ship.  This blunts the enemy alpha strike, while you still maintain all of your weapons to be fired at his ship.  What really gives seeking weapons their power is the fact that you get to maneuver them.  They can be placed to hit a down shield or put in an area where the opponent has few bearing phasers.  More importantly, seeking weapons can be used to determine an opponents maneuver options.  No direct fire weapon besides the web caster can directly do that.

     Now we'll take a peek at the merit of direct fire weapons.  For one thing, there is less that can be done to prevent the damage caused by direct fire weapons.  Looking back at seeking weapons, there is a multitude of ways to handle them.  They can be out run, phasered, weaseled, tractored, cloaked off, etc. etc.  Yes, wild weasels and the cloak can be used to mitigate direct fire damage.  Outside of that, all you can do is reinforce the facing shield and pray.  Unlike a seeking weapon ship, direct fire ships are less dependent on their opponent's abilities of evasion.  One disadvantage that DF ships have is the lack of distraction for an opponent.  He does not need to hold on to any resources to deal with you.  He can basically fire everything he has at your ship.

     So we come back to the Klingon.  Why does this ship excel in the hands of a competent captain?  Because it is a blend of both direct fire and seeking weapon capabilities.  Neither its disruptor (even with the UIM) and phaser layout, nor it's drone racks (even with the extra drone points and the scatter pack) is enough to win in the Klingon.  It is when you bring them all together that the ship shines.  Just for posterity, I am not a huge fan of the Klingon.  I prefer the Orion and Hydran myself.  I am merely using it to illustrate a proper marriage of weapon types.

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