NOVA Squadron Radio – Episode 22 “Wave 5!”

Welcome to NOVA Squadron Radio! This week we please to be joined by 2012 World Champion Doug Kinney! We are still hip deep into Store Championship season so we cover a lot of that in the Flightdeck. In the News, we discussed some Armada stuff and how it relates to X-Wing! And in the Main Topic, we discuss Wave 5. All of that and more!

NOVA Squadron Radio is:
Ed Horne – Host
Kris Soehnlin – Co-Host and NOVA Squadron founding member
Ronald Brannan – Co-Host and NOVA Squadron founding member
Chad Brown – Co-Host/Editor
Sean Dorcy – Co-host
Bob Randall – Co-host
Kris Sherriff – Co-host
Doug Kinney – Very Special Guest!

Here are the show notes from Episode 22:

[0:00 – 1:51] Show Opening

[1:51 – 37:50] The Flightdeck: What we have been flying lately and local tournament talk

[37:50 – 1:11:06] The News:
-NOVA Open 2015 Registration: http://www.novaopen.com/
-Roundtable discussion with Doug Kinney, 2012 X-Wing World Champion!

[1:11.06 – 2:48:06] Main Topic 1: Wave 5

[2:48:06 – 2:51:39] Show Closing!


Musical Credits go out to the band ‘Insane Ride’ and their songs ‘Sound of Rock and Roll’ and ‘Wrong or Right’ found on the Free Music Archive at http://freemusicarchive.org/

Thanks for listening, and talk to you again in two weeks!

Here is the direct link: http://novasquadronradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/NOVA_Squadron_Radio_Episode_22_final.mp3

www.novasquadronradio.com

Did I mention that Doug Kinney was on the show???

Hey MJ.

You mentioned the games where you won, but took damage. Can you please calculate if you had won using my method that we discussed on Episode 20, or at least send me the cost of ships, damage remaining on each so I can calculate it using my formula to see if you would have won those games. I'm interested in finding that out.

Thanks Man.

Keep up the talk on MOV, until it gets fixed. Great show guys!

EP:20 logic

Take the cost of the ship / (hull+shields+ upgrades which increase them) and Round down. We'll call this Damage Value These are points you earn for each point of damage enemy ships have on them at the end of the game. This means if he heals a shield with R2 or some other method you won't get the points. Warhammer Fantasy, 40k and many other games have been doing this for years now. This is one the main ways to stop 2 ship meta and bring balance back to the game.

Examples:

Academy Tie Fighter 12 points, 3 hull, 0 shields. This means at the end of the game 12/(3+0) = 4 Damage Value

Obsidian Tie Fighter 17 points , 3 hull, 0 shields, +1 Shield Upgrade. This means you earn 4 mov points for each damage caused 17/(3+1)=4.25 Rounded down to 4 Damage Value

Soontir Fel 33 points, 3 Hull, +1 Hull Upgrade, Push the Limit. This means you earn 8 mov points for each damage caused. 33/(3+1)=8.25 Round down to 8 Damage Value

If people cannot do this type of simple math, I'm not sure they should be playing this game. I don't understand why some of your co hosts think this is so difficult to implement or use.

Ton's of games use this for their tournaments and it makes sense.

Sure you will have cases where people run away so you don't get full points, but that happens now. At least you get some type of rewards for 60 minutes of gaming, but you lost because his big ship had one hull left on it. In some cases we have to drive 4 hours to play, and it's so frustrating when people run away, so you cannot have a chance to win. I feel your pain.

Eagletsi111

NOVA Squadron...you guys are almost caught up on the waves! Great show!

An interesting suggestion... To play devil's advocate for just a moment....

Sean is always key on the show because as an experienced TO, he has seen and talked to pliantly of other TOs who can't seem to get the current rules for scoring correct. His concern would be that making it even more complicated (albeit a system that I understand) would only make things worse and not any better. Overall, there would have to be a great software package (cough...Cryodex) that handled all the weird math for everyone and left the possibility of mistakes to a minimum.

NOVA Squadron...you guys are almost caught up on the waves! Great show!

Well, so here was my thought process when starting this Wave-By-Wave review... and I know the running joke is that we are covering stuff that has been out for some time time. The meta is ever changing, and the usefulness of the ships and upgrades in those older waves changes each time a new release happens. So by covering every ship and every upgrade in the game, the listeners would have a library of content to go back on and learn from. So if a new player to the game would discover the show this week, they would have a lot of material to help them get into the competitive end of this game.

All of that being said, Wave 6 will mark the end of that until the Raider and eventually whatever Wave 7 will be. But we will have tons of Regionals and then Nationals stuff to go over by then.

I'm not the hugest fan of partial points for several reason.

(Part of me wishes it wouldn't take up so much time in the show episode after episode since it's not part of the game, but eh, your show)

But with partial points, in the movies, if the battle ends but your damaged, you live to fight another day. The falcon is still the falcon without a hyperdrive. Until something's completely dead it's just as dangerous as full health and i personally think it should be pointed as such.

My opinion.

But great show and I enjoy listening. Keep it up!

I'm not the hugest fan of partial points for several reason.

(Part of me wishes it wouldn't take up so much time in the show episode after episode since it's not part of the game, but eh, your show)

But with partial points, in the movies, if the battle ends but your damaged, you live to fight another day. The falcon is still the falcon without a hyperdrive. Until something's completely dead it's just as dangerous as full health and i personally think it should be pointed as such.

My opinion.

But great show and I enjoy listening. Keep it up!

I agree it will still be dangerous, but if it's damaged, it likely is also not as strong as undamaged. So you have just confirmed that partial points makes sense. Because if it escapes and gets away, the next encounter it would theoretically be weaker, because it would require resources to repair. Plus remember this is about rewarding players for flying better and scoring more points, So by implementing a simple adjustment like this. Which anyone can do it's basic simple math.

It just makes sense.. So everyone is on the same starting and ending field. I can tell you several times, I have shot both chewie and dash down to 1 hull point and lost because he killed one tie fighter. Tell me do you think it's more expensive to repair a tie or both yt-s. Resource wise the empire would easily call that a win.

That Ying - Yang IG build sounds pretty awesome. Might have to steal it!

I think you misspoke a bit when talking about Han Solo crew. Or at least your explanation of it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

When attacking, if you have a target lock on the defender, you may spend that target lock to change all of your (focus) results to (hit) results.

All it allows you to do is spend a TL as if it was a focus. He gives you a bit more flexibility when modifying attack dice. We've all taken a TL and rolled hit-focus-focus, or taken a Focus and rolled hit-blank-blank. Problem with Han is finding a place for him on a ship. The YT-2400 would likely rather have Kyle or Rec Spec. Chewy would rather have C3 and Gunner. He doesn't make too much sense on B-wings or the HWK. Really his best place is on the CR-90 which is what he came in. The Corvette can't focus so Han is 2 points well spend.

The EI + Expose with Han crew is an interesting build, but I think I'd rather just run Kyle who gives me that focus when I clear the stress. Also, I don't like Expose on the Falcon. That 1 agility isn't much, but its still something.

You mentioned the games where you won, but took damage. Can you please calculate if you had won using my method that we discussed on Episode 20, or at least send me the cost of ships, damage remaining on each so I can calculate it using my formula to see if you would have won those games. I'm interested in finding that out.

All off the games I was referencing were untimed VASSAL games played until either one side was completely wiped out, or one player forfeited. So the victory condition would not change at all, only the MoV at the end would. Note that the winner always gains the "non partial points MoV advantage" in a game that completes, assuming he has taken any damage on his surviving ships.

Using the current system, my squad's wins are averaging 100-15, but using partial points it would be about 100-44. I should have stated it this way more sufficiently on the show. When I lose the opponent wins on average 100-49, but with partial MoV it would be 100-59. So opposing squads are getting a "non partial points" MoV advantage of +10 points.

An interesting suggestion... To play devil's advocate for just a moment....

Sean is always key on the show because as an experienced TO, he has seen and talked to pliantly of other TOs who can't seem to get the current rules for scoring correct. His concern would be that making it even more complicated (albeit a system that I understand) would only make things worse and not any better. Overall, there would have to be a great software package (cough...Cryodex) that handled all the weird math for everyone and left the possibility of mistakes to a minimum.

I would agree with that. The complexity can be handled by the right TO, but otherwise you really want a comprehensive software package.

I'm not the hugest fan of partial points for several reason.

(Part of me wishes it wouldn't take up so much time in the show episode after episode since it's not part of the game, but eh, your show)

Well, I don't think I spent very long on it in this episode, it was just a sort of check-up on where the squad is at for MoV.

Like it or not, how a squad performs in MoV is absolutely central in the competitive tournament, even with the 75 minute rounds that we will be having at Regionals. You can't talk about competitive squads without talking about MoV now. I did the work to actually track what the MoV advantage is for a dual IG88 squad, so I felt that was useful information to share.

Edit:

True, but space battles also don't suddenly stop because of a magic clock in the sky too.

For what fraction of players in listJuggler did MoV actually matter?

For what fraction of players in listJuggler did MoV actually matter?

Generally anytime there is a final cut, there is a tiebreaker on MoV. It is in the backlog to analyze later someday when I really dig into all that data. (short answer, I don't have a quantifiable number)

And obviously MoV can and does determine the victory conditions within a timed game (i.e. 1 HP Fat Whatever), but we don't get reports on partial hit points remaining so there's no way to test that just by looking at the data.

I'm not the hugest fan of partial points for several reason.

(Part of me wishes it wouldn't take up so much time in the show episode after episode since it's not part of the game, but eh, your show)

But with partial points, in the movies, if the battle ends but your damaged, you live to fight another day. The falcon is still the falcon without a hyperdrive. Until something's completely dead it's just as dangerous as full health and i personally think it should be pointed as such.

My opinion.

But great show and I enjoy listening. Keep it up!

I agree it will still be dangerous, but if it's damage, it likely is also not as strong as undamaged. So you have just confirmed that partial points makes sense. Because if it escapes and gets away, the next encounter it would theoretically be weaker, because it would require resources to repair. Plus remember this is about the other player flying better and scoring more points, So by implementing a simple adjustment like this. Which anyone can do,.

It just makes sense.. So everyone is on the same starting and ending field. I can tell you several times, I have shot both chewie and dash down to 1 hull point and lost because he killed one tie fighter. Tell me do you think it's more expensive to repair a tie or both yt-s. Resource wise the empire would easily call that a win.

But it doesn't make sense...

This is a proposal that would radically change the game. There are gives and takes to a large ship. They are point hogs and they can only shoot at one target. The current system is simpler, fair, and balanced.

If you think the current system is confusing and causing some TOs problems.... any kind of partial points would make this even worse. Most large ships would disappear from the game, and the swarms would become even more common.

The current system works and is easy to understand. Keep your ships alive and destroy your opponents. The draw to this game is its simplicity (compared to other table top war games). MoV I think is a step in the wrong direction. I understand why it is there though.

I realize that there are members of this pod cast that feels pretty strongly about partial points and I respect that. I hope you'll digest your listeners' feedback on this though. It isn't a part of the game, it doesn't help to talk about it, we'd love to hear your thoughts on strategy in the current meta and rule set.

I realize that there are members of this pod cast that feels pretty strongly about partial points and I respect that. I hope you'll digest your listeners' feedback on this though. It isn't a part of the game, it doesn't help to talk about it, we'd love to hear your thoughts on strategy in the current meta and rule set.

I'm trying to shift my discussion to how squads perform in the MoV game rather than just appear to be lobbying for a change. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! You still need a metric by which you can judge how effective squads are in the MoV game. Even if partial points never get implemented from now until the end of time, comparing actual MoV vs what it would have been with partial points is the correct metric to use, because that most directly reflects the squad's real-world advantage even in untimed games.

I think you misspoke a bit when talking about Han Solo crew. Or at least your explanation of it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

When attacking, if you have a target lock on the defender, you may spend that target lock to change all of your (focus) results to (hit) results.

All it allows you to do is spend a TL as if it was a focus. He gives you a bit more flexibility when modifying attack dice. We've all taken a TL and rolled hit-focus-focus, or taken a Focus and rolled hit-blank-blank. Problem with Han is finding a place for him on a ship. The YT-2400 would likely rather have Kyle or Rec Spec. Chewy would rather have C3 and Gunner. He doesn't make too much sense on B-wings or the HWK. Really his best place is on the CR-90 which is what he came in. The Corvette can't focus so Han is 2 points well spend.

The EI + Expose with Han crew is an interesting build, but I think I'd rather just run Kyle who gives me that focus when I clear the stress. Also, I don't like Expose on the Falcon. That 1 agility isn't much, but its still something.

Yeah, this has been pointed out to me since the recording of the show, the player was not using the card correctly and I didn't catch it. Bottom line, I blame myself for having not re-read the card prior to the start of the game. After all, we covered it on the show, how dumb am I for having not thrown up a huge red flag and saying, 'that doesn't seem right'. I pride myself on my knowledge of the game, and this one just slipped right past me. No one ever uses that card so I was really surprised to even see it and now I know why it played so awesome in that game, because it was not being played correctly. I do not think the player was intentionally cheating at all, I think he just misinterpreted how the card worked and me as an experienced player should have caught that and corrected it. In the end, it was my fault it was allowed to happen at all. A mistake I will not soon repeat!

For what fraction of players in listJuggler did MoV actually matter?

Generally anytime there is a final cut, there is a tiebreaker on MoV. It is in the backlog to analyze later someday when I really dig into all that data. (short answer, I don't have a quantifiable number)

And obviously MoV can and does determine the victory conditions within a timed game (i.e. 1 HP Fat Whatever), but we don't get reports on partial hit points remaining so there's no way to test that just by looking at the data.

I think you misspoke a bit when talking about Han Solo crew. Or at least your explanation of it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

When attacking, if you have a target lock on the defender, you may spend that target lock to change all of your (focus) results to (hit) results.

All it allows you to do is spend a TL as if it was a focus. He gives you a bit more flexibility when modifying attack dice. We've all taken a TL and rolled hit-focus-focus, or taken a Focus and rolled hit-blank-blank. Problem with Han is finding a place for him on a ship. The YT-2400 would likely rather have Kyle or Rec Spec. Chewy would rather have C3 and Gunner. He doesn't make too much sense on B-wings or the HWK. Really his best place is on the CR-90 which is what he came in. The Corvette can't focus so Han is 2 points well spend.

The EI + Expose with Han crew is an interesting build, but I think I'd rather just run Kyle who gives me that focus when I clear the stress. Also, I don't like Expose on the Falcon. That 1 agility isn't much, but its still something.

Yeah, this has been pointed out to me since the recording of the show, the player was not using the card correctly and I didn't catch it. Bottom line, I blame myself for having not re-read the card prior to the start of the game. After all, we covered it on the show, how dumb am I for having not thrown up a huge red flag and saying, 'that doesn't seem right'. I pride myself on my knowledge of the game, and this one just slipped right past me. No one ever uses that card so I was really surprised to even see it and now I know why it played so awesome in that game, because it was not being played correctly. I do not think the player was intentionally cheating at all, I think he just misinterpreted how the card worked and me as an experienced player should have caught that and corrected it. In the end, it was my fault it was allowed to happen at all. A mistake I will not soon repeat!

Yeah... it isn't a card used all that often because outside of the CR-90, its not all that good. I've never seen him hit the table in a non-epic match. He'd be OP if he was essentially a TL+Focus every turn when you used performed a TL.

And that should have been a HUGE red flag for me that he was playing it wrong. He also was unaware that if he did the range for a target lock and made it, that that was his action. I had to have three people explain that to him before he would accept it.

Again, my fault. I really should have caught that.

I love that story about the Ion Pulse Missile sending Han off the board. I did the same thing to a 50 point Scum Kath with a double Defender list in a Store Championship that I played in. I know you made a mental error, but that's part of what's awesome about the Ion Pulse Missile. It's just one more thing you have to consider every turn, draining mental energy, and little lapses can cost you big. Going off the board is an extreme result, but even sending a Fat Han onto a rock for a turn can be an enormous swing.

As an aside, whoever is the Macho Man voice on the Cryodex commercial sounds, to me, like Rolf from the Muppets, which is flipping hilarious to picture him saying those things. I love it.

I realize that there are members of this pod cast that feels pretty strongly about partial points and I respect that. I hope you'll digest your listeners' feedback on this though. It isn't a part of the game, it doesn't help to talk about it, we'd love to hear your thoughts on strategy in the current meta and rule set.

I disagree with this 100%. Talk about whatever you want, it is your podcast and other people are discussing the weaknesses of MOV in the x-wing community. Exception: Imperial Assault and Armada. You aren't allowed to talk about those.

Another great episode fellas, thank you. Actually one of my favorites so far. There weren't any cards glossed over (other than ones covered previously). It all got its due diligence.

As far as where the podcast goes, I'd prefer you stick with X-wing. I am interested in an Armadacast but I'd rather you stick with what you know. If you've got an Armada or imperial assault segment, your dedicated X-wingers who don't play those will be bored. Trust that other dedicated folks out there will create their own casts.

To me it seems the biggest argument for partial points is the oh I got a big ship down to 1 hp and didn't get any points. If you want the points kill it. Generally you will have more ships than them and focus fire on it and keep improving your skills so you can block it better and keep it in arc longer.

I have to give a LOT of the credit for the commercials to Chad, he's the creative department ont he show. He did most of the voices as well, although my contributions were there as well.

Another excellent show, as always. I enjoyed the discussion on Ruthlessness; like Sean, I'm planning on slapping that on Vader once the new title and ATC are available as well. I think it has a lot of potential to help chew up some of the BBBBZ silliness that seems to be everywhere these days; while you're focusing down one ship, you're already softening up another. Sounds pretty good to me.

LOL... Yeah, I almost edited that part out because it was exposing a list Sean really didn't want out there just yet, but yes. I too am looking forward to the newer, more Ruthless Vader!