Squadron Duel - May 11, 2010

[cheethorne]

Duels are still popular, but now we will try for some small squadron stuff. These will last longer than the war cruiser duels we've been doing, but should be manageable enough.

Small Squadron Duel:
* 350 CPV.
* Weapon Status 2.
* Small squadron of at least three ships, with a war cruiser or light cruiser flagship and all other ships being size-4.
* The following special variants cannot be selected: carriers, command, commando, drone bombardment ships, escorts, maulers, minesweepers, PF tenders, SFG-equipped ships, survey ships, tugs, x-ships, heavy frigates, heavy war destroyers, or heavy war cruisers.
* Standard military ships only, so no police ships, auxiliary ships, monitors, x-ships, or civilian ships.
* No fighters (except hybrid carriers), PFs, legendary officers (including outstanding crews and computer controlled ships) can be selected.
* All accessories (like drone speed upgrades and T-Bombs) are drawn from the above CPV.

Since the campaign will be started on May 18, 2010, this will be our final one-shot battle.

[cheethorne]

Just wanted to make sure that everyone knew, for this coming battle you cannot select command / leader ships, but you can select scouts.

[cheethorne]

It was a fun set of battles. The duels were:

1) John - Klingon D5, E5, E5 vs. Chris - Gorn HDD, BDD, BDS (scout)

From what I was told, the battle was pretty back and forth, with roughly equal amounts of internals getting through to both players. However, the turn ended with the Klingons near the Gorns, facing the down shield. On the next turn, the Klingons would have unloaded onto an already damaged ship and likely have crippled it, which would probably have turned the battle in the Klingons favour.

2) Lucy - Federation NCL, DW, SC vs. Andrew - Ryn CM, FFM, FFM (all in the nebula)

Since the fleets were chosen before the match-ups were known, Andrew chose a fleet that emphases his missiles over direct-fire weapons. And then he had to face a squadron with one of the most special sensor heavy ships in the game, the Federation SC with eight channels. Lucy is still learning to play the game, so the turns were fairly slow, but her high speed kept Andrew's superior mobility from dominating the battle. The two maneuvered around for the first two turns exchanging some fire, some drones, and not much else. At the end of turn 2, Lucy unloaded a large number of her weapons on Andrew's CM, nearly taking down its front armor belt. Lucy took superficial damage from Andrew during the first two turns. Andrew's plan going into turn 3 was to move close and take out the DW with all of his fire, hoping to do significant damage before the Federation photons recharge. Unfortunately for Andrew, Lucy still had some unfired phasers and drones, which would have posed significant problems for him and his main fighting ship. At the time the battle ended, there was no clear way to determine who would have won, it was still anyone's game.