That's the BattleTech Method.

... as a former FASA Marauder.

... FanPro Commando.

... Catalyst Tester.

Its Clunky as Hell, and quite often ignored/forgotten.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

This one is not perfect as well. But solves at least one problem of the double tab.

Yes it does with last-first double tap (what is actually solved by hard bids) but now you have as many double taps as ships you have above the opponent.

This give to flotillas the activation squadron quality they don't have right now. I would play 2 Gozantis with EHB Yularen and Aresko and activate 8 squadron before you can answer it. Put BCC and it will be nasty.

Locally, the last/first double tap has largely disappeared. People are bidding to go second.

This has been a byproduct of the new objective choices. You can build such nasty fleet/objective combos that going first seems like a punishment.

1 hour ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Yes it does with last-first double tap (what is actually solved by hard bids) but now you have as many double taps as ships you have above the opponent.

This give to flotillas the activation squadron quality they don't have right now. I would play 2 Gozantis with EHB Yularen and Aresko and activate 8 squadron before you can answer it. Put BCC and it will be nasty.

It is not worse than it is right now. Currently you have all the activations in the end. On a 7-4 it means 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1 (mean 3 activations in the end, and the first and last on each round). You just split this extra activations over the round and give the second player the last activation.

And btw, this is exactly what i am doing right now with the many gozanti. I have all the time in the world where my opponent can not interfere at all. And i use 10-13 squadrons for this.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

I have all the time in the world where my opponent can not interfere at all. And i use 10-13 squadrons for this.

How are you pushing and keeping alive 10 squadrons with 3 gozanti repeatedly?

21 minutes ago, geek19 said:

How are you pushing and keeping alive 10 squadrons with 3 gozanti repeatedly?

3 Gozanti?

The Crazy Bastard runs 8.

5 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

3 Gozanti?

The Crazy Bastard runs 8.

Part of me wants to ask how, but another part of me wants to ask WHY?

2 hours ago, Tokra said:

It is not worse than it is right now. Currently you have all the activations in the end. On a 7-4 it means 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1 (mean 3 activations in the end, and the first and last on each round). You just split this extra activations over the round and give the second player the last activation.

And btw, this is exactly what i am doing right now with the many gozanti. I have all the time in the world where my opponent can not interfere at all. And i use 10-13 squadrons for this.

Yes but now your activation are after so you need keep them alive and unengaged. I mean, of course activation advantage is an advantage, but being able to activate your huge amount of squadron during your second-third activation rather than your sixth-seventh is... a finisher. Now you can do it during your last activations, your opponent at least can activate his ships and try to do something.

6 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Part of me wants to ask how, but another part of me wants to ask WHY?

You answered the question on your own .
These "why" "wtf" "wow" when they saw the list is already more than worth playing it.

And for second i do it exactly because this is insane. I have 8 ship activations and 10-13 (depend on the list) squadrons this way.

27 minutes ago, Tokra said:

You answered the question on your own .
These "why" "wtf" "wow" when they saw the list is already more than worth playing it.

And for second i do it exactly because this is insane. I have 8 ship activations and 10-13 (depend on the list) squadrons this way.

What's in it usually? Tarkin? Rhymer and a slew of bombers?

Isn't that the fleet that won German Nationals?

1 minute ago, Matt Antilles said:

Isn't that the fleet that won German Nationals?

And the Player behind it

I read the data differently. The compelling part of the meta for me was balance 3 aspect of the game: alpha striking, ship activation control, squadron control. However, it appears that bidding for activation control game has largely disappeared since a majority of fleets have 4 to 5 ship activations and the growing number of large ships. With the cheap ship activations, the balancing act between those 3 aspects seems to have disappeared.

I feel list building has become much more cookie cutter, where you pick an alpha strike and then decide how to fill in the rest to meet specific set of requirements, such as activation fodder, fighter screens etc. Also, with flottilas as the go to ship activations, and both fractions' flottillas flying very similarly, each fraction feels less unique. Trying to maximize the utility of raiders is allot different then maximizing TCR-90 or even a CR-90B added for activations. With a disparity in points between flottilas and the next cheapest activation, the selection and balancing of squadron to quality or purpose of extra activations; i.e. do I want to take a raider and 15 points more in squadrons or just a gladiator.

Finally, Demo, Rhymer and Yavarsis only appeared in approximately 60% of lists, compared to flottilas in over 90%. Implying those particular uniques were good, ample alternatives exist to them. Compared to flottilas, where only a small set of lists/archtypes exists that exclude them entirely. If the first flottila was present in only 60% of the list, I would argue that they are good, but not meta defining.

21 hours ago, shmitty said:

Locally, the last/first double tap has largely disappeared. People are bidding to go second.

This has been a byproduct of the new objective choices. You can build such nasty fleet/objective combos that going first seems like a punishment.

Agreed, now that you can have 3 purposeful objectives to benefit Squadron heavy lists or strategic token shenanigans. Highest bid I saw at a local tournament in Boston yesterday was 6 points.

1 minute ago, Hydralisk101 said:

Agreed, now that you can have 3 purposeful objectives to benefit Squadron heavy lists or Intel token shenanigans. Highest bid I saw at a local tournament in Boston yesterday was 6 points.

Pretty sure you meant strategic token shenanigans, but the point remains valid.

11 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Pretty sure you meant strategic token shenanigans, but the point remains valid.

Still reeling from the beatdown pt106 gave with his World's practice list! It's a doozy.

2 minutes ago, Hydralisk101 said:

Still reeling from the beatdown pt106 gave with his World's practice list. It's a doozy.

Some more useful stats:

For those in the, "its not flotillas, its Relay" group

Curious Wave Jive tournament Statistics here:

Percentage of All fleets with Relay: 32.44%
Percentage of Bottom Quarter with Relay: 7.11%
Percentage of Top Half with Relay: 18.67%
Percentage of Top 8 with Relay: 13.78%
Percentage of Top 4 with Relay: 7.56%
Percentage of Winners with Relay: 2.67%

I thought these numbers would be a lot higher. They are not.

The numbers suggest that if someone takes Relay, they take Relay value 2. Either one Lambda, One Jendon or 2 VCX.

Well,, lets get some more stats!! Comparison of Wave 5 top 4 with Wave 3/4 Top 4

Wave 5
Points spent on Squads : Avg 90.66, 5% 0 or less, 25% 55 or less, 50% 107 or less, 75% 133 or less 95% 134 or less
Points spent on Flotillas : Avg 34.97, 5% 0 or less, 25% 18 or less, 50% 36 or less, 75% 54 or less 95% 54 or less
Bids : Avg 4.886, 5% 0 or less, 25% 1 or less, 50% 3 or less, 75% 6 or less 95% 15 or less
Admiral point cost : Avg 30.34, 5% 20 or less, 25% 30 or less, 50% 30 or less, 75% 30 or less 95% 38 or less
Points spent on non-flotilla ships : Avg 239.1, 5% 177 or less, 25% 201 or less, 50% 241 or less, 75% 261 or less 95% 311 or less
Avg number of non-flotilla ships : Avg 2.914, 5% 2 or less, 25% 2 or less, 50% 3 or less, 75% 3 or less 95% 4 or less
Avg points spent on a non-flotilla ship : Avg 85.11, 5% 60 or less, 25% 71 or less, 50% 86 or less, 75% 91 or less 95% 124 or less

Wave 3&4
Points spent on Squads : Avg 81.37, 5% 0 or less, 25% 44 or less, 50% 98 or less, 75% 120 or less 95% 132 or less
Points spent on Flotillas : Avg 29.33, 5% 0 or less, 25% 18 or less, 50% 36 or less, 75% 36 or less 95% 54 or less
Bids : Avg 6.556, 5% 0 or less, 25% 0 or less, 50% 4 or less, 75% 12 or less 95% 19 or less
Admiral point cost : Avg 30.3, 5% 20 or less, 25% 30 or less, 50% 30 or less, 75% 30 or less 95% 38 or less
Points spent on non-flotilla ships : Avg 252.4, 5% 189 or less, 25% 218 or less, 50% 234 or less, 75% 283 or less 95% 326 or less
Avg number of non-flotilla ships : Avg 2.852, 5% 2 or less, 25% 2 or less, 50% 3 or less, 75% 3 or less 95% 4 or less
Avg points spent on a non-flotilla ship : Avg 91.93, 5% 70 or less, 25% 76 or less, 50% 91 or less, 75% 105 or less 95% 120 or less

Based on this, the trend was to spend more on squads and less on combat ships.

6pts less per combat ship.

6pts

Interesting stuff.

Seems to be a slight increase in squad play. Could be attributed to the new squad packs and aces added.

The increase in flotillas could be people finally accumulated more. I for one just bought a second Goz last month. Also, they are just that good to have and people realize this.

Bid is definitely smaller, which could be a result of CC objectives. More people want to play second or don't care about being first.

10 hours ago, pt106 said:

Points spent on non-flotilla ships

10 hours ago, pt106 said:

Avg points spent on a non-flotilla ship

Can you explain what these are? Point spent on the base cost of the ship vs upgrade on the ship?

5 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

6pts less per combat ship.

6pts

So the ships people are taking with flotillas (wave thour) aren't very different from the ships people are taking with flotillas (wave 5)? Are you saying wave 5 / CC didn't really change anything other than a 10% increase in fighters (which makes sense since we got like, 30 new squads in this wave)?

Maybe this needs to be compared to wave 2?

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

Can you explain what these are? Point spent on the base cost of the ship vs upgrade on the ship?

Avg points spent on a non-flotilla ship is the amount of points spend on ships other than flotillas and ship upgrades. I calculated it as 400 - bid - admiral cost - cost of all squadrons - base cost of all flotillas (assuming cheapest version)

7 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

6pts less per combat ship.

6pts

And it matters a lot once it is a difference between 399 pts and 405 pts. Think about archetypes and a minimal feasible cost.

15 hours ago, pt106 said:

Well,, lets get some more stats!! Comparison of Wave 5 top 4 with Wave 3/4 Top 4

*snip*

Based on this, the trend was to spend more on squads and less on combat ships.

Some good stats here, so in case others were having trouble parsing: