Battle results for Feburary 4th:
Chernobog vs Dracos II:
Round 1:
This fight was, for a battleship fight, surprisingly short. The Chernobog raised its deflectors well in time to repulse the Dracos' lancet beams (note: this pic was taken a little late), preventing any early system damage...
It quickly became apparent that due to a lack of point defence, and the Dracos' hull design, the Chernobog's tachyon cannons were easily getting inside, quickly draining the Dracos' nano matrix, and leaving its weapons potentially vulnerable. Fortunately for the Dracos, railguns have high HPs...
And indeed, once deflector failure set in, the Dracos proved able to dish out severe damage to the Chernobog's weapon systems. That didn't prevent the Chernobog from claiming the first section kill, however...
The Chernobog lost one of its tachyon cannons and almost its others, but the Dracos just able to get lucky, as the Chernobog tore through its armour and began to dismantle its interior sections...
A hullshock later and it looked like the Dracos was done for...
It managed to hold out for a while, however, its now three remaining deflectors proving very effective on its now merely two sections. It might have had a chance had it destroyed the Chernobog's tachyon cannons when it had the chance (I.E. during deflector failure), but twice this failed to occur, and the Chernobog eventually busted through the stubborn Dracos' last two sections and took out the fight...
Round 2:
The Chernobog was a little slow in raising its deflectors, allowing its flak guns to be mostly destroyed by the Dracos' opening lancet shot. Once the ships got close, the fight at first looked pretty similar to last round, with the Cherobog's tachyon bolts easily getting around the Dracos' deflectors and draining its nano matrix...
The Chernobog again claimed the first section kill...
However, this time the Chernobog found itself taking severe damage from the Dracos' railguns and lancets alot sooner, losing two of its tachyon cannons early on...
Eventually, the Chernobog was looking severely worn down, its progressively smaller armament no longer able to break through the Dracos' defence...
Eventually the Chernobog lost the last of its deflectors...
...then began to lose sections...
...and finally went into hullshock and lost its last railgun, resulting in a victory for the Dracos II...
Round 3: Tiebreaker:
I rolled a dice because I don't trust the VCT anymore. The roll came up odds, so the Dracos II would play as the 'ally' ship and the Chernobog as the 'enemy' ship...
This time around, the Chernobog raised its deflectors well in time to repulse the Dracos' lancets... either that or the Dracos was slow on the trigger...
Something I forgot to mention about the last two rounds was that both times the fights had quickly become a corner brawl, and this round was no different. The Dracos was once again backed into a corner. The Chernobog again claimed the first section kill, and its tachyon cannons were quickly draining the Dracos' nano matrix. Again, due to the high HPs of railgun, this didn't prove critical...
The Chernobog began to break through the Dracos' armour, but even as it did, it began to lose weapons, starting with a tachyon cannon....
...and ending with the destruction of both of the Chernobog's gatling blasters and all four of its tachyon cannons, even as the Dracos went into hullshock...
It looked like the Dracos might just manage to hold out and finish off the Chernobog's weaponry, but a well placed blast from the Chernobog's mega beamer just as deflector failure set in quickly put pay to that idea, once again sending the Chernobog into hullshock...
It failed to recover... a close fought win for the Chernobog...
Winner: Chernobog
Dracos II vs Stalker:
Round 1:
The Stalker raised its deflectors in plenty of time, repulsing the Dracos' opening lancet shots...
From there, the ships pretty much settled onto the left side of the map and proceeded to throw things at each other's deflectors. The Dracos was able to damage the Stalker's weapons whenever deflector failure set in, but the Stalker's nano matrix prevented this from being fatal in any reasonable time frame. Equally, the Dracos' nano matrix was useful against the damage from the Stalker's Demeter drones...
The Stalker eventually claimed the first section kill. Its powerful plasma charges had nothing to stand in their way. With the help of the Stalker's two gatling blasters, they broke through the Dracos' foward-most armour section.
That's where the Stalker's good luck ended, however, as the Dracos soon after destroyed the first of the Stalker's four plasma launchers, just when the Stalker began a new tactic. It was now semi-circling around the Dracos... it seemed that even losing only one of its four plasma charges was a fatal blow, as the Stalker now seemed unable to break through anymore of the Dracos' armour...
The Dracos then proceeded, after a lot of useless volleys, to destroy two more of the Stalker's plasma charges. It then caught a lucky break, managing to send a lancet beam straight through three of the Stalker's six Demeter launchers...
Once it destroyed the Stalker's last plasma charge, however, the Stalker continued to semi-circle around the Dracos, back and fourth, losing no more weapons. It didn't have enough firepower to defeat the Dracos, but the Dracos wasn't able to hit it decisively enough to destroy anymore of its systems. It seemed this would continue indefinitely, and running the fight at 170-180 FPS (or thereabouts) for long periods didn't seem to help (the Stalker stubbornly held out no matter how hard the Dracos tried). So I figured had to choices... I could call the fight in favor of the obviously victorious Dracos, or I could be pedantic and leave the fight running in the hope that something would happen. I did leave the fight running for a good long time, but nothing changed, so I had to call the fight. I think it was pretty obvious by then that the Dracos had won the fight...
Round 2:
The fight went down in a quite similar manner to last round. Once the two ships closed to attack range (with the Stalker rasing its deflectors in time to stop the opening lancet shots)...
...they settled onto the side of the map and began to brawl in earnest. There were only two major differences. First, the Dracos had not lost a section when it destroyed the Stalker's first plasma charge, leaving the Stalker with insufficient weaponry to destroy any of the Dracos' armour, and second, the Stalker did not begin semi-circling the Dracos this time...
Eventually, all four of the Stalker's plasma charges fell, as did its flak guns...
A lucky lancet shot from the Dracos also destroyed two of the Stalker's Demeter launchers...
After that, however, complete stalemate, a stalemate I called in favour of the obviously victorious Dracos...
Winner by default: Dracos
Dracos II vs Uranium:
Round 1:
As in tis other fights, the Uranium barely got out of its corner when the Dracos got into lancet range. Fortunately for the Uranium, its deflectors were already up...
However, in a first for the battleship entrants, the Uranium proved so slow it wasn't, at first, able to fire on the Dracos II at all, being out ranged by the latter's railgun's. Eventually, the Dracos did get caught on the side of the map, allowing the Uranium to open fire...
Not that it mattered much. Not only was the Uranium able to cause any significant damage to the Dracos, but soon after, the Uranium's beamers, already severely damaged by a previous lanceting, now lost half their number...
It wasn't much longer before the other half of the Uranium's beamers were also destroyed, leaving the Uranium without any way of fighting back, an effective victory for the Dracos II...
Round 2:
The only difference between this round and last round was that when the Dracos hit the edge of the map, it continued to sort of 'slide' down towards the bottom left corner, preventing the Uranium from firing on it at all before it found itself disarmed...
Winner: Dracos II
I would also have run the Stalker vs Uranium fight today, but unfortunately, it turns out I'll need to test the Stalker and Uranium in the same way I tested the Big Armoured Turd vs Obfusaction III, and the Uranium has a problem in that the 360 degree weapon arcs of its beamers are technically illegal. This didn't make a difference during the Uranium's other fights with individual ships, but it might make a deference during the tests and also when the Uranium faces the two Dieterling equipped ships...
Anyway, the remaining fights (aside from Stalker vs Uranium), now that Arcalane has dropped out of the tournament (he just PMed me a response to a message I sent him asking him was he was going to do with his Tarantula), will be run once TH fixes the Dieterling bug...