Fireborn's 2nd Tournament: Resolved at Last

Various custom ship tournaments go here, along with old encounters.

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Captain Trek
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Post by Captain Trek »

Ok, I've got the pictures up now... tomorrow I'll update the battleship gallery with the final lineup (Amethyst Longbow, Chernobog, Crossbow, Dracos II, Hallowed Storm, Stalker and Uranium).
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DarkenShroud
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Post by DarkenShroud »

Nice job on the pics, very accurate tourney as well. Good job thus far, your really bringing it to life. Keep it up
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Squishy
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Post by Squishy »

Appreciation bump.
Xerxes-17
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Post by Xerxes-17 »

Has this died in the arse again? :?
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Captain Trek
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Post by Captain Trek »

Well guys, sorry to keep you waiting, but here's the final non-Dieterling fight in the tournament, and it was interesting, to say the least...


Stalker vs Uranium:

Round 1:

Once the two ships got close...

Image

...the Stalker seemed content to run circles around the Uranium, unable to cause fatal damage with its weapons. Depending on whether it was jammed up against a wall or not, the Stalker would tend to hang only just outside of the Uranium's range, preventing it from capitalizing on the Stalker's regular deflector failures... and so the Stalker circled around the Uranium... and around... and around... and around... it became obvious that neither side was going to win... or even gain an advantage... the Stalker's Demeters were completely useless against the Uranium's passive and active defences, and the Stalker's maneuvering made it impossible for the Uranium to get a fatal shot in...

So, I had two choices... I could either call the fight in either of the Uranium or Stalker, the former based on my assumption that the Uranium would beat the Stalker in a short ranged brawl and the latter based on the Stalker's ability to hang back outside the Uranium's range and pound on it from there. Or I could resurrect the tests I used back during the Big Armoured Turd vs Obfusaction III problem. I really didn't want to call the fight, as neither ship really had a clear advantage (unlike the Cower vs Showehead fight, the Uranium was getting hit or else was stopping the Stalker's weaponry, as opposed to the Showerhead, which merely dodged the Cower's weaponry and would have been torn to pieces had the Cower been able to hit it and it was obvious the fight was never going to back the Stalker into a corner to allow the Uranium to take it out)...

Before any of that, though, I figured I might as well reverse the sides and see if anything changed... of course, nothing did...

So, tests it is I guess...


The 'player ship' test:

Just like last time, first I spawned each ship under player control, and its opponent under enemy control, to see if the ship could beat its opponent if I controlled it...

First, the Stalker. Due to its vastly superior speed, I found it was easy to get on top of the Uranium and disarm it using the explosion radius effect of the Stalker's plasma charges...

Trying to 'control' the Uranium proved to be a fairly fruitless endeavourer, due to the fact that the Uranium can barely move at all. None-the-less, I attempted to force the Stalker back into a corner (using accelerated frame rate of course), which was the only way the Uranium was going to beat the Stalker outright. At least, that's what I thought... Until I actually did corner the Stalker and the two ships still fought each other to a standstill. Naturally I wasn't going to let the Stalker get on top of the Uranium with its plasma charges (and indeed, the Stalker's AI range mostly prevented this), so the second round of the 'player ship' test was effectively a draw.

None-the-less, the Stalker wins this category overall. With the right control, the Stalker can defeat the Uranium, whereas the reverse does not appear to be true. This does not, however, automatically make the Stalker the overall winner, as normal combats in the tournament do not involve input from a human (rather two AIs duke it out). It does, however, give the Stalker an early lead in these tests...

Test 1 winner: Stalker


The 'gunship test':

The same system I used to test T.B.A.T. and the Ofuscation III was used here as well. In case you don't remember...

This test, first invented by Pwhk to test the balance of canon ships, involves spawning the ship to be tested and pitting it against ever larger waves of pirate gunships ('normal enemy' #5), starting with just the one, and then increasing the number of gunships by one each wave. Each time the ship being tested managed to destroy an entire wave, it would be awarded one point. If the ship being tested was destroyed, the ship would be awarded fractional points for the wave in question...

For example, if the ship being tested reached wave six (with six pirate gunships) and was then destroyed, but had destroyed 3 of the 6 gunships and 'damaged' (a gunship counts as damaged it has lost a third of its right side health bar or at least one of its blasters, a gunship with no blasters left counts as destroyed) 2 more, the ship would be awarded 5 (for destroying the first five waves) and 4/6 (or 2/3) points...

Pwhk considered the canon ships to be balanced if they were able to rack up 1 point for patrol ships, 2 points for destroyers and 3 points for battleships, respectively. This test is also a fun way to test the ships entered into any given tournament, with the ship that destroys the most gunships winning.

Note: The gunships are spawned in a particular formation. The first gunship is spawned a decent distance from the ship to be tested, and subsequent gunships are spawned either side of it, until there are five gunships in a row, at which point the first row is moved closer to the ship to be tested and a second row begins to take shape.

Also note: A ship is towed back to the point at which it started (or at least, fairly close to it) using a number of special tow ships called 'crackers' (for their cracker like appearance) after each wave. A ship is allowed to repair any damaged sections back to half HPs (or full HPs if the design is lucky enough to include a nano matrix) and all modules on a ship are allowed to fully recharged.


This time, however, I spawned the gunships outside of the weapons range of the battleship. I thought this was fair considering that my entire system for running the battleship fights involves spawning the ships outside of each other's range this time, as opposed to inside it as I had done with the frigate and cruiser fights.

One more thing, I had to use an older version of the game for this test, since the behavior of the pirate gunships has changed. In 0.88, they don't encircle the enemy ship anymore. So, I went back to version 0.85D (just for this test)...


Stalker:

vs 1: Gunship destroyed

vs 2: Gunships destroyed

vs 3: Gunships destroyed

vs 4: Gunships destroyed

vs 5: Gunships destroyed

vs 6: Gunships destroyed, Stalker 1 starboard flak gun destroyed

vs 7: Gunships destroyed, Stalker starboard gatling blaster destroyed

vs 8: Gunships destroyed

vs 9: Gunships destroyed, Stalker port gatling blaster destroyed

vs 10: Stalker destroyed, 1 gunship destroyed, 4 gunships damaged

Score: 9 3/10

Ultimately, what brought the Stalker down was being flanked and then cornered. By the time there were ten gunships, they had enough particle guns to hold off the Stalker's plasma charges, and earlier waves had already destroyed the Stalker's blasters...


Uranium:

vs 1: Gunship destroyed

vs 2: Gunships destroyed

vs 3: Gunships destroyed

vs 4: Gunships destroyed

vs 5: Gunships destroyed

vs 6: Gunships destroyed, Uranium 2 port armour sections, 1 starboard armour section destroyed. 1 starboard section destroyed

vs 7: Gunships destroyed, Uranium 1 forward armour section, 1 starboard armour section, 1 rear armour section and 1 port section and 1 port beamer destroyed

vs 8: Uranium destroyed, 7 gunships damaged

Score: 7 7/16

The Uranium, unlike the Stalker, can't keep out of the range of the gunships, so it had to rely on its onion-like hull to keep it alive. It also had trouble getting into weapons range. Fortunately for it, the gunships would frequently drift into range, or be forced into range by hitting the edge of the map. Again, the Uranium's hull was like an onion. Waves 6 and 7 blasted the hell out of the Uranium, and for all intents and purposes is was still fully combat capable (having lost none of its deflectors and only one beamer). However, the massed blaster fire coupled with the Uranium's range problems ultimately brought it down...

Test 2 winner: Stalker


Obviously, the Stalker has won out, having already won two of the three tests. However, I was curious to see what would happen in the final and ran it anyway...


The 'raider test':

As you may or may not know, this is an identical test to the 'gunship test', except that it uses alien Raiders instead of pirate gunships...


Stalker:

vs 1: Raider destroyed

vs 2: Raiders destroyed

vs 3: Raiders destroyed

vs 4: Raiders destroyed

vs 5: Raiders destroyed, Stalker port gatling blaster destroyed

vs 6: Raiders destroyed

vs 7: Raiders destroyed, Stalker starboard gatling blaster destroyed

vs 8: Raiders destroyed, Stalker 1 port flak gun destroyed

vs 9: Raiders destroyed, Stalker 1 starboard flak gun destroyed

vs 10: Stalker destroyed, 1 raider destroyed, 6 raiders damaged

Score: 9 2/5

Interestingly, the Stalker achieved almost exactly the same score as it did in the gunship test. What brought the Stalker down was the raiders being able to out flank the Stalker and thus avoid the majority of its weaponry, Eventually, the Stalker's six Demeter launchers just couldn't keep up, and the massed fire of two dozen repeater guns proved too much for the Stalker's rear sections to handle...


Uranium:

vs 1: Raider destroyed

vs 2: Raiders destroyed

vs 3: Raiders destroyed

vs 4: Raiders destroyed

vs 5: Raiders destroyed

vs 6: Raiders destroyed

vs 7: Raiders destroyed

vs 8: Raiders destroyed

vs 9: Raiders destroyed, Uranium 1 rear armour section destroyed

vs 10: Raiders destroyed, Uranium 1 starboard armour section and 1 starboard section destroyed

vs 11: Uranium destroyed, 4 raiders destroyed, 5 raiders damaged

Score: 10 13/22

The Uranium often had trobule bringing its beamers to bear on the raiders once those raiders got behind it, thus it would simply have to wait for the raiders to drift into the firing arcs of its beamers. Fortunately for the Uranium, there were no range problems this time, and once again, the Uranium proved the strength of its onion-like hull. In the end, though, it fell to the massed raiders...

Test 3 winner: Uranium


Well, that's 2 tests to the Stalker and 1 test to the Uranium. Ultimately, though, the Stalker wins out, its combined arms and superior speed proving to be better than simply having a (very) strong hull...


Winner by default: Stalker


Let me know when TH fixes the Dieterling bug, OK?
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Carcer
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Post by Carcer »

Its good to see the stalker actually worked. Sometimes.
Xerxes-17
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Post by Xerxes-17 »

Would it be possible for you to make an assesment of the uranium like you did for the previous designs Captain Trek?
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