6 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I mean, I know the concept of Rieekan Ace Holes, But there are so many variations of it it’s hard to tell which is most powerful.

Whichever one let's me complain about today's boogieman, be it squadrons, flotillas, activations, Rieekan, or last/first?

depends on what I'm doing.... I tend to start with either the commander, add ships, add sqns then upgrades

OR

go for a theme or a tactic then slot in a commander who will work with that

13 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

What people?

Because beyond vague kind of mentions, getting an actual list out of these discussions doesn’t happen all that often...

i mean, I know the concept of Rieekan Ace Holes, But there are so many variations of it it’s hard to tell which is most powerful.

Iv yet to find people who are like DIS HERE BE TEH BEST LIST FOR WINNING EVER, But I have found people talking about list ideas that make me go yeah I wanna try that or if im on you tube Like Crabbok's videos on list ideas are always fun and interesting as It dose give me ideas and plans but Iv yet to truly find some ones list that im like yeah thats gonna win ALL THE TIME SO I MUST COPY YO.

Plus their is some lists and Ideas that people put up and im like yeah I dont see how this works or how to run it, Like I get the concept just not the execution.

On 12/5/2017 at 3:27 PM, Ginkapo said:

I have never and will never say such a thing.

I also disagree with both Biggs and Truthiness, though I see value in Truthiness' view.

List building should start with a bold idea, a bedrock for everything that follows.

This could be, 'maximum utility of Madine', which is where Truthiness' views stem from. However, it equally could be, 'maximum bombing damage'. Note I said bombing damage rather than simply maximum bombers. Just having a lot of bombers has no effect if you dont have intel.

What are you trying to do? What element are you trying to maximise? Do you want redundancy in your list?

This is my view as well. Now, that bold idea might involve a specific ship, commander, squadron formation etc., but the more room you allow yourself to expand and grow a list to its full potential, the more likely you are to find something genuinely powerful.

On 12/5/2017 at 5:03 PM, Pervertious said:

I am tempted to try out a 3 Arquitens list using Vader as my Admiral for that sweet sweet rerolly goodness, Turn them bad dice into deadly dice or knowing my luck................Blanks............

I did this over the weekend.

And went home without even winning the Scatter tokens.

8 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I did this over the weekend.

And went home without even winning the Scatter tokens.

Knowing my luck with dice My rolling I will watch my fleet go out in a blaze of missing every hit glory................

10 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I did this over the weekend.

And went home without even winning the Scatter tokens.

I feel ya.

Arquiten spam used to be my favorite fleet. But I can't seem to get it to work well in the squadron heavy meta of Austin.

I have a lot of thoughts about fleet building.

I spend a little bit of time in the fleet building sub forum.

Maybe some day I will write down some of the thoughts about patterns and general rules for fleet building that I personally stick to that helps me out, but I am so **** long winded that it would probably meander out of the realm of novela and start competing with War and Peace.

First off, don't think fleet building will help you win if you can't deploy or play. In my opinion success in Armada is 33% the fleet you bring, 33% how you deploy it, and 34% how well you fly it.

When I build a fleet I have only 2 goals in mind - FUN and SUCCESS. I want to win, or at least feel like I could have won, and I want to have fun doing it.

I think what I typically try to do - rather than using a commander, or an end goal, or whatever - is look at a list almost like a science experiment. I pick a variable, which is usually something that I think will be fun to play or something that isn't seen all the time, and then I surround it with constants , things that I am already comfortable with. This is something I have already played extensively, and KNOW that if the LIST FAILS it's not because of those elements, it is because of my variable piece. Then I can look at the failure of that piece and see if I can adapt it to fix it.

For instance, I am currently playing around with Warlord VSD's a fair bit.

So I start with my Warlord VSD, and kit it out. Then I add in my constant- in this case, `134pts in squads and a quasar and 3x gozantis, a fleet core I am very comfortable running and have great success with so I know is tuned and effective. After the game I can ask "If I took out the vsd and ran with a 115pt bid, would the result have been any different" and go from there. What did the VSD do well, what did it not do well? What did add to the fleet, what new weaknesses did it create? Then I can tweak the VSD, tweak the fleet around it, and play it again. Or pick something new and crazy for even more fun. Fun and Success.

Doing this has kept Armada fresh for me, as I get to think up crazy crack pot ship loadouts and play them and feel like I have a fighting chance without developing that resentment that everything not winning tournaments is bad.

To me it depends. Sometimes I pick something that I want to run and see if I can get it working/deadly. Recently I've been using an assault frigate and it's not bad! Spec it out and you can do alright with it as needed, it's not a bad ship. It's not as loved, but it can do ok if you realize what it is versus what it isn't.

Sometimes I challenge assumptions, (ie, Assault Frigates are bad), just based off the fact that it COULD be good or isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I stole the foundation of that plan from @Vergilius , so I gotta credit him with that (he used it to prove LMC80s are good, but the principle is the same). I'm playing around with activations, we'll see how this ACTUALLY goes. Part of this challenge comes from "accepted" thoughts (ie Raiders were bad until @Snipafist proved they weren't) and part comes from me being incredibly contrary when needed (hence why Rebels appeal to me!)

And sometimes I make insane lists that may either work in theory or crash and burn spectacularly. This is my January regionals plan. Nothing better than combining insane assumption challenging with ships that are really not easy to run well! And a minimal fighter screen that I need to punch above it's weight class in almost every game!

If I cut s Break this Christmas, I’m going to get my second permanent Interdictor.

Although I might have to split FC with someone to afford it.

Then Nose Punch has no carriers and I can test it more.

Even if it is the very definition of “T3 Jank.”

8 hours ago, Democratus said:

I feel ya.

Arquiten spam used to be my favorite fleet. But I can't seem to get it to work well in the squadron heavy meta of Austin.

Hm, with a QF1+Flight Controllers, and a Ace-heavy Interceptor squadron complement, I was fairly prepared to dominate the squadron game. I mostly did too, except that once the squadron game was over, my squadrons were pretty pathetic at laying down anti-ship damage. So, in that sense, the Pacific Northwest meta was not squadron-heavy enough.

Quote

Although I might have to split FC with someone to afford it.

FC?

Are you saying you're going to sell the Flight Commander?

24 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

once the squadron game was over, my squadrons were pretty pathetic at laying down anti-ship damage.

Sloane? Or do you think you just overinvested in squadron cover?

27 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Sloane? Or do you think you just overinvested in squadron cover?

No, my commander was Darth Vader.

It's hard to really do an autopsy on a tournament. My first two matches were not blow-outs. In the first match, I think if I had known about the specific timing of Intel Officer (or my opponent had not known about it) then that might have gone a different way. It's a counterfactual, so there's no way to really tell. Of course, if I had won my first match, then I would probably have lost my second, rather than winning it.

The point is: since I tended to win the squadron game, and then had all-but useless squadrons, then it's obvious that I overinvested in squadrons. Squadrons as AA cover are a form of insurance, and any insurance that does not pay for itself is overinsurance.

+1 to the idea of a big idea. That is really the expression that I've been looking forward to all this time, but never quite managed to find yet. But it also pretty much reflects exactly how I've built all my fleets, and it definitely reflects the advice I gave to a pretty good player about fleet building. One of the biggest problems I see in second tier lists is that they simply try to do too much. The player has a good grasp on upgrades and on the principles of how to make something powerful, but they simply get overwhelmed by all the choices and about adding every last thing. In fact, I think resisting that temptation is one of the most important things that even strong players have to manage. For me, I find the process of playing a list and refining it is largely a matter of pruning out what the list actually needs to do to win.

And sometimes relatively minor changes to a list can result in pretty drastic differences in how it plays and matches up against other fleets, and thus one hindrance is simply tweaking your list too much or adjusting too much to that match-up you just lost. There are a lot of good ideas that simply aren't developed on quite the level for the player to get good at them.

In this respect, list-building is much like writing a good thesis. If you're going to be efficient, then you've got to trim the fat, and the fat is simply whatever doesn't contribute to your big idea.

38 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

+1 to the idea of a big idea. That is really the expression that I've been looking forward to all this time, but never quite managed to find yet.

Could you give an example of such a 'big idea'?

8 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Could you give an example of such a 'big idea'?

"I think I can use the MC30's evades with Mon Mothma to save a ton of points by completely ignoring the squadron game, and then turn around and use those points to really dial my ship-to-ship up to 11."

"I bet I could use Hera, a pair each of hard-hitting anti-squadron and anti-ship squadrons, Han, and Yavaris to set up a really kickass squadron last/first that has the flexibility to be very effective against either squadrons or ships, while still being pretty points-efficient."

9 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Could you give an example of such a 'big idea'?

1. GH/Aceholes: Big-idea: create an absolutely huge mis-match in the squadron game, such that you win almost all squadron engagements by a large margin. Objectives and upgrades then support the squadron game design.

2. Ackbar Death Pickle: The side arc of the MC80 is the big idea, and although the objectives are often what wins the game, it is only because the side arc is so deadly that enables that kind of objective play.

3. Big bombers: JJ's first worlds list is a good example. The list sells out to bombers by taking 8 Y-wings. 2 generic HWK give one room to keep them moving and avoids the problem of a very large anti-squadron force limiting what a single Intel squadron can do, and two YT1300s keep the HWKs alive.

4. The big killer: Any list with an extremely deadly ship that can benefit from last/first/positioning. This can be spun out in a lot of different ways, from BTA to Aresius' Dodonna Liberty to DeMSU

5. The spread out killers: Usually several hard-hitting killers that can alternate activations. Examples include Ardhaedhel's MC30s, Ginkapo's Ackbar Star Destroyers, some of the early variations of my Madine's Exotic Dancers. I think JJ's and Truthiness' Madine lists both play off of this.

Of course, I don't think I've captured everything of the big idea in every list, but if you're curious, these are ways to get started. This isn't intended to be a complete list of big ideas.

My first step is probably finding a big idea, and then building to make sure that I've maximized that big idea. The second step is a series of questions and answers directed toward what I expect the meta to be. How do I answer this or that fleet that is currently out there? Then some of the list is secondarily built toward that answer. But what you don't want to do is try to build a list that kills with ships in some fashion and then put a bunch of anti-ship squadron upgrades in your list with primarily anti-squad squadrons. You're trying to do too many big ideas in that list.

13 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

I have a lot of thoughts about fleet building.

I spend a little bit of time in the fleet building sub forum.

Maybe some day I will write down some of the thoughts about patterns and general rules for fleet building that I personally stick to that helps me out, but I am so **** long winded that it would probably meander out of the realm of novela and start competing with War and Peace.

First off, don't think fleet building will help you win if you can't deploy or play. In my opinion success in Armada is 33% the fleet you bring, 33% how you deploy it, and 34% how well you fly it.

When I build a fleet I have only 2 goals in mind - FUN and SUCCESS. I want to win, or at least feel like I could have won, and I want to have fun doing it.

I think what I typically try to do - rather than using a commander, or an end goal, or whatever - is look at a list almost like a science experiment. I pick a variable, which is usually something that I think will be fun to play or something that isn't seen all the time, and then I surround it with constants , things that I am already comfortable with. This is something I have already played extensively, and KNOW that if the LIST FAILS it's not because of those elements, it is because of my variable piece. Then I can look at the failure of that piece and see if I can adapt it to fix it.

For instance, I am currently playing around with Warlord VSD's a fair bit.

So I start with my Warlord VSD, and kit it out. Then I add in my constant- in this case, `134pts in squads and a quasar and 3x gozantis, a fleet core I am very comfortable running and have great success with so I know is tuned and effective. After the game I can ask "If I took out the vsd and ran with a 115pt bid, would the result have been any different" and go from there. What did the VSD do well, what did it not do well? What did add to the fleet, what new weaknesses did it create? Then I can tweak the VSD, tweak the fleet around it, and play it again. Or pick something new and crazy for even more fun. Fun and Success.

Doing this has kept Armada fresh for me, as I get to think up crazy crack pot ship loadouts and play them and feel like I have a fighting chance without developing that resentment that everything not winning tournaments is bad.

I'd read that book. You definitely earned it sitting through my diatribes in Off Topic, which I might add I plan to return to in a couple weeks.

Another take on the big idea is one I keep doing: dual Large ships. I've got several variations, but each spins out a very specific way. The dual Liberties are battlecruisers, trying to avoid slugging matches with other heavy capital ships but able to gang up on them when necessary, using blistering speed to do it. The I-1s with JJ focus on overwhelming force, delivered with high agility. The I-2s with Motti focus on just existing and presenting inordinate threat bubbles. The theoretical dual Cymoons with be the I-2s on overdrive, providing immense standoff firepower. All are ruthlessly optimized for their strengths, but all are one idea: pure heavy metal.

In any case, I will I agree that if ind it's best when testing to isolate changes. One change I'm still undecided on is Han Solo versus a CN BH with Leia for the Liberties. Everything else when I'm testing that stays the same. Particularly if you're testing load outs (e.g. do I want DTT or XI7 on my Sloane ISD) be careful to avoid changes that cause second order effects, like making a tactical decision to target redirects with Sloane accs. I find it's often helpful to operate with the null hypothesis from statistics: if the change makes a significant difference, then consider it as the new default if the change was positive, and obviously discard on repeated negatives; if it doesn't elicit a huge performance change, don't assume either is automatically superior. The test variable can be the environment or the enemy, so see if that can tease out a difference.

As a last thing, I find it's more useful when optimizing to overdo the "theme" or big idea, and then try to walk it back. As you're doing that, it's also important to rigorously test when something's a failure. I took the CN BH version of the Libs to a store championship. No two games, the extra tokens and dial control were very useful. In the third, BH got in the way and probably got a Lib killed. That last part is why additional testing is important, because even I'm still not sure if it was poor flying on my part that caused the accident, or if the other two times I got lucky with the clear backfield. Thoughts to consider, and more hypotheses to run.

5 hours ago, Vergilius said:

But what you don't want to do is try to build a list that kills with ships in some fashion and then put a bunch of anti-ship squadron upgrades in your list with primarily anti-squad squadrons. You're trying to do too many big ideas in that list.

This is why I use Leia.

7 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Could you give an example of such a 'big idea'?

Moaaar dice with a single accuracy is the most potent burst damage in the game.

A cloud of Bwings is more effective than engine techs.

Engine techs is the only way to guarentee damaging your opponents hull.

Luke is a god.

Bombing is more effective than bothering to contest a squad fight.

Taking complete control of your opponents navigation is hilariously vindictive.

Moooar black makes ordnance experts viable as an upgrade.

A Jerry ISD cannot be outdeployed.