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#513452
Here's a sample game in Lackey: Dominion vs ES9 cadets, v0.6 rules using the decks on the front page of the thread. A classic contrast in deck styles: strong, small Dominion team vs a million weenies.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j4k6ucdfuoxpl ... o.mp4?dl=0

Reflections on the format now:

- It does feel like real trek to me ... lots of decisions still to be made
- Time: this video 42 minutes, which is not bad given that online game time limit is 1.5x real life, but I'm on the hunt for even shorter. Not sure if it is because these decks need more optimising or because I need more restriction on the dilemma piles
- It's a bit ridiculous that the cadet player can start with 9 personnel, if I'd included all the zero cost personnel at the start it would've been 13 (!!) ... considering a maximum number of personnel in the bridge crew

It's not clear who the bridge crew are from commentary, the Cadet player starts with almost every cadet (not going to list them), the Dominion player starts with Odo, the Great Link's Saviour, Remata'klan, Turan'ekan and another 1-cost mook.

I played both sides of the game and then recorded commentary separately. I'm not sure whether to be pleased that the commentary doesn't come out like I've watched this game before and know every detail, or to be worried about my poor memory :shifty:

... and please excuse commentary and play mistakes.
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#514062
Updates to v0.6.2

Starting bridge crew can now only be 7 personnel in total, which is standard for the trek shows I bothered to count - they have a cast of 9 with 7 being useful and 2 being sort of extra (e.g. Wesley, Guinan, Neelix, Quark). A max count is necessary because it's not fun or flavour-full to start with two full away teams of 1 and 0 cost people.

Also, dilemmas are limited to 2 copies of each dilemma.

(will update the first page shortly and upload a new sample game)
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By bosskamiura (Thomas Kamiura)
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#514092
Is this the Mad Fritz format or the Bridge Crew format?

I'm having a hard time telling which it is by the branding issues you're having in your signature...

TK
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#518507
New ideas to test in 0.7:

1. Removing draw deck counter restrictions: they hurt affiliations/teams with discounts like Khan, Past Klingons or TNG (bridge crew can still be based on lowest points mission / 3); and mill is scary with limited deck size. With this rule you go back to 35 card minimum draw deck.
2. I still want total missions points to matter, so let's use the total points on missions to restrict the total cost of dilemmas, and I don't think it's a bad thing for game speed and variety to place some more control on dilemmas.
3. Possibly most controversial: 1 mission attempt per turn. This will kill the double-teaming advantage of weenie decks, but maybe they can use the extra card flow to allow more interesting things with verbs.
 
By willraiman (Will Raiman)
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#518524
Some thoughts, if you don't mind:

If you've already restricted the opening bridge crew to 7 personnel, is weenie rush still so strong that you need to limit attempts to one per turn?

The fact that you can start with any ship, but ships have variable strengths and costs, seems like a misstep. What about increasing the starting amount you can spend on your bridge crew, but also making us pay for our starting ship? This could be as simple as giving everyone 7 extra starting counters (such that the formula for starting counters would be 1/3Y+7), and then players who are willing to go with the Excelsior instead of the [Fut] Enterprise will get a small compensation.

And now a really out-there idea: What if, instead of starting with 7 personnel in play, you could start with 7 personnel or events in play? You'd still have to pay for the events, and they'd better be pretty good if they're going to eat up a personnel slot, but it might be a neat way to get certain strategies up and running faster. Just a thought.

Like what you're doing, I look forward to trying it out sometime.
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#518562
willraiman wrote:Some thoughts, if you don't mind:
Not at all, I’m very pleased to have some engagement here!

If you've already restricted the opening bridge crew to 7 personnel, is weenie rush still so strong that you need to limit attempts to one per turn?
It’s not about their strength but about how much time multiple attempts takes up. I recorded a cadets vs Klingons game this morning and it took 51 minutes!

It is the most weakly held of my 3 recent changes so maybe it won’t last.

If you think of another way to drastically cut time I’m also very interested.
The fact that you can start with any ship, but ships have variable strengths and costs, seems like a misstep. What about increasing the starting amount you can spend on your bridge crew, but also making us pay for our starting ship? This could be as simple as giving everyone 7 extra starting counters (such that the formula for starting counters would be 1/3Y+7), and then players who are willing to go with the Excelsior instead of the [Fut] Enterprise will get a small compensation.
Good idea. I was trying to come up with something simple, and I do like the idea of the superstar ships getting their time to shine. But maybe Y/2 including the ship instead of Y/3?

And now a really out-there idea: What if, instead of starting with 7 personnel in play, you could start with 7 personnel or events in play? You'd still have to pay for the events, and they'd better be pretty good if they're going to eat up a personnel slot, but it might be a neat way to get certain strategies up and running faster. Just a thought.
I'm a bit worried about combos here. But maybe that can be something to test in 0.8. What would you seed?

I also thought about allowing equipment to be seeded, which seems less prone to brokenness.
Like what you're doing, I look forward to trying it out sometime.
Awesome feedback, thanks! Keep it coming!
 
By willraiman (Will Raiman)
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#518575
Fritzinger wrote:It’s not about their strength but about how much time multiple attempts takes up. I recorded a cadets vs Klingons game this morning and it took 51 minutes!
So, this is an interesting point. It seems to me that the ultimate driver on the game time will be how long it takes to finish those two missions. And the way missions get finished is by running mission attempts. So mission attempts/hour should strongly correlate with lower game times, right? Like, all that garbage that isn't mission attempts is what is really slowing us down...playing cards, choosing who to load on ships, flying around, declaring end of turn, etc. A second attempt on the same turn means more dilemmas being put under missions, and the game progressing towards an end state.

Now, you've got data, so maybe I'm wrong, but if so...I'm really curious where the flaw in my reasoning is.
If you think of another way to drastically cut time I’m also very interested.
I've got one: The 3 counters per turn/saving up to 7 thing. This limits throughput of dudes who could be out solving missions. I get that it probably saves time *per turn* by making decisions easier, but it also adds a potential bookkeeping headache with counter-tracking. Once I'm already in my Play and Draw Cards Step, will 4 more counters really be the thing that breaks the clock?

Related...are you accidentally strongly-encouraging kill/capture/bounce dilemmas? If I Hard Time your 3-cost personnel back to your hand, that basically ate an entire turn of counters. Why would I waste my time on silly high jinks like making you have lots of Transporters skill?

Oof, and that just opened up another line of thought: If we only have 3 counters, then anything that gives you extra counters/draws/plays becomes proportionally much stronger. Surprise Party, for instance, increases your counters per turn by 33% instead of 14%. At What Cost now gives you 2.33 turn's worth of counters, instead of 1 turn's.
But maybe Y/2 including the ship instead of Y/3?
Perhaps. Let's look at the numbers for Mission value, y/3, y/2, and y/2-7 (what you actually get if you start with the Queen's Borg Cube in play).

MV Y/3 Y/2 Y/2-7
30 10 15 8
35 12 18 11
40 14 20 13
45 15 23 16
50 17 25 18

As we see, with a Y of 30, a 7-point ship actually results in two fewer counters to spend on crew. Whereas up at 50, the value of only dividing by 2 instead of 3 completely erases the cost of the ship, and you actually get one more net counter to spend, even with the 7-coster.

I might actually like this better, on reflection. Since it's a race to finish missions, a person willing to go in on a 50-pointer probably should get some advantage.

Have you graphed Y/3 vs. Average attribute requirement for each mission cost tier? That might be the best way to make sure 50-pointers aren't getting screwed.
I'm a bit worried about combos here. But maybe that can be something to test in 0.8. What would you seed?
Not sure, just a thought I had, since this is really giving me vibe like when Objectives were added in the Special Edition set of Star Wars CCG. They greatly accelerated the early game, and often put a number of "events" into play.

I think there's an upper limit on how broken combos could be here. Presumably, anything we could craft could, with some luck, happen to show up in an opening hand in Standard play anyway. Additionally, you are paying for it by having a slower start with less personnel, *and* you risk being taken apart by Event removal cards (in Star Wars, a lot more cards were immune to removal effects).

That said...if you stick with 3 counters per turn, I would start with Surprise Party (unless I saw my opponent playing Terok Nor, because I would assume that my opponent would start Dukat, Cardassian Representative).
I also thought about allowing equipment to be seeded, which seems less prone to brokenness.
Makes sense. We can already pretty much guarantee the equipment we want in Standard because of Fajo's Menagerie.

Of course, starting with equipment in play makes Fajo's Menagerie much stronger.
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#518641
willraiman wrote: So, this is an interesting point. It seems to me that the ultimate driver on the game time will be how long it takes to finish those two missions. And the way missions get finished is by running mission attempts. So mission attempts/hour should strongly correlate with lower game times, right? Like, all that garbage that isn't mission attempts is what is really slowing us down...playing cards, choosing who to load on ships, flying around, declaring end of turn, etc. A second attempt on the same turn means more dilemmas being put under missions, and the game progressing towards an end state.
I think I conflated two things: "time spent idling" and "total game length". More mission attempts by one player is good for game length but bad for time spent idling, which I'd like to address.

My hack for addressing both of those was to have fewer attempts by better crews, earlier. 6 attempts per mission seems unreasonable for 30 minutes (and a bit boring), I'd like a format where 2 or 3 attempts per mission is normal.
Now, you've got data, so maybe I'm wrong, but if so...I'm really curious where the flaw in my reasoning is.
I think using the word "data" might be overstating things :shifty: .

I think the possible flaw here is that multiple mission attempts requires choosing crews and that's a huge time suck in my experience.
The 3 counters per turn/saving up to 7 thing. This limits throughput of dudes who could be out solving missions. I get that it probably saves time *per turn* by making decisions easier... Once I'm already in my Play and Draw Cards Step, will 4 more counters really be the thing that breaks the clock?
Time per turn, and a few other considerations:

- in my experience new people spend waaay too long trying to decide who to play from their hand, when it actually doesn't matter. I'm telling people: "don't read the cards, just play 6 dudes, your deck is constructed well enough that they will have what they need to solve something when you get there"
- making your bridge crew matter. After one turn at 7 counters, your 10 counter bridge crew is just another bunch of mooks
- I want people to get familiar with 3-7 superstars that drive the deck. Gowron discarding treachery personnel to help honour klingons survive, Garak and Dukat gaining skills, Remata'klan dodging random selections. The game really starts at mission attempts, not at deciding on counters.
but it also adds a potential bookkeeping headache with counter-tracking.
I've been testing in lackey, I just drop counters on my HQ when I don't spend. Seems easy enough to replicate IRL?
Related...are you accidentally strongly-encouraging kill/capture/bounce dilemmas? If I Hard Time your 3-cost personnel back to your hand, that basically ate an entire turn of counters. Why would I waste my time on silly high jinks like making you have lots of Transporters skill?
100% kill becomes pretty powerful. Hard Time will always be tricky, but I am hoping that more ETUs (and that's why I was thinking of seeding equipment), Escapes will balance out other forms of kill. Maybe affiliation specific things like the Sao Paulo will make certain affiliations more popular at the start of the Bridge Crew meta.

Combat and engagements that kill one personnel are also much stronger. But if Ferocity is really good, maybe people will start playing the Sacrifice of Angels interrupts?

All that said, I found the way kill piles bury missions in dilemmas to make them far less damaging to game length than bouncing dilemmas.
Oof, and that just opened up another line of thought: If we only have 3 counters, then anything that gives you extra counters/draws/plays becomes proportionally much stronger. Surprise Party, for instance, increases your counters per turn by 33% instead of 14%. At What Cost now gives you 2.33 turn's worth of counters, instead of 1 turn's.
I still have the "no more than 7 counters" rule. It's not just about how many counters you can save, but also about AWC.

Also not against just outright banning some cards. Counter-drain springs to mind.

Will post more later, I'm stretching the definition of "lunch" here as it is :shifty:
 
By willraiman (Will Raiman)
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#518685
Fritzinger wrote:More mission attempts by one player is good for game length but bad for time spent idling, which I'd like to address.
I think that's a fair point. Thinking about who to place on each team is a huge decision tree. I guess one attempt per turn also discourages weenie rush (which, on reflection, would be pretty strong with only 3 counters/turn), so you may have brought me around on this.
I think using the word "data" might be overstating things :shifty:
Ha.
- making your bridge crew matter
I really like this as a design goal for the format. Might be worth adding to the description back on your first post.
but it also adds a potential bookkeeping headache with counter-tracking.
I've been testing in lackey, I just drop counters on my HQ when I don't spend. Seems easy enough to replicate IRL?
I suppose. It does add a component requirement, if a minor one. Probably not a game-breaker, just something to think about.
Related...are you accidentally strongly-encouraging kill/capture/bounce dilemmas? If I Hard Time your 3-cost personnel back to your hand, that basically ate an entire turn of counters. Why would I waste my time on silly high jinks like making you have lots of Transporters skill?
100% kill becomes pretty powerful. Hard Time will always be tricky, but I am hoping that more ETUs (and that's why I was thinking of seeding equipment), Escapes will balance out other forms of kill. Maybe affiliation specific things like the Sao Paulo will make certain affiliations more popular at the start of the Bridge Crew meta.
Fair enough. Let me the meta answer it, etc.
Combat and engagements that kill one personnel are also much stronger. But if Ferocity is really good, maybe people will start playing the Sacrifice of Angels interrupts?
Blah, I hadn't even thought of this. Capture decks, too.
All that said, I found the way kill piles bury missions in dilemmas to make them far less damaging to game length than bouncing dilemmas.
Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine what kind of madman wouldn't run their max allotment of The Weak Will Perish.
I still have the "no more than 7 counters" rule. It's not just about how many counters you can save, but also about AWC.
What about a just flat "always 3 counters" rule, so people don't have to worry about gains, drains, Surprise Party, etc. This plays into my next suggestion:

What about banning downloads? Very time-consuming action, as you look through your deck, find what you want, do reshuffles. They are, also, effectively free counters, so they bring things closer to the three-per-turn. PLUS...they aren't as important in a world where you start with a crew and ship (even less important if you allow events to start in play)(and I guess a download ban would require starting events for factions like Voyager to even exist in this format).

That just leaves card draws, cost discounts, and free card plays as ways to get around the 3 counter limit, right?
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By jjh (Johnny Holeva)
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#518713
Fritz,
I saw the thread title and thought this was going to be: pick/draft a bridge crew (star power!), here are some simple, 5 minute-ish deck/pile mods, and Go!

The "Bridge Crew Format" concept sounded so simple and fun to me! I love the Big Idea, but…

…I just had a chance to look over this and it is SO, SO very complicated. Too much math with X and Y... too much. None of this seems particularly simple, which was the objective, right?

Just one person's opinion. Regardless of the direction you go in, I wish you good luck and have fun!
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#518716
Thanks for the feedback Johnny! It would be a huge win for me if you'd keep an eye and engage when you see something interesting. For instance I don't think you have to worry about X and Y to comment on the design goals:

- getting to know and love the superstars in your bridge crew instead of having disposable "whoever you draw" mooks
- shorter game
- less uninterrupted time for one player
- easier for beginners
- not having to ban too many cards because they don't work with the rules
- similar amount of variety to standard (unlike slipstream where if you show up unprepared for Wolf-359 or Biogenic Weapon it's a bad day at the office)

But it sounds like you're already interested in those :). And Will reminded me that it's worth putting these up front, I owe that first page an edit.
…I just had a chance to look over this and it is SO, SO very complicated. Too much math with X and Y... too much. None of this seems particularly simple, which was the objective, right?
Thanks for highlighting this, I'm sure there will be better ways that the rules can be worded, and of course it's all in beta, everything gets to change :). Maybe there is a better way of achieving those goals.

Re simplicity, I actually do think these rules are net positive: the principle is to push some decisions earlier, so that the decision making load in-game is reduced. These are deck building rules. We already have to know about 20/35/5 and 3 copies of each card, and who can play at HQs. IMO checking the points values on a mission while deck building doesn't add much more to those things. (particularly since Ebelems kindly added a "total cost" field in the trekcc deckbuilder)

Crucially they aren't things we have to think about during the game, we just get them right for our deck once and play a bunch of games without having to consider them again. In return we get a game where new players aren't intimidated and slowed down by having to choose 2-3 cards to play out of 7+ cards in their hand every single turn.

And also for new players, you can bet there will be sample decks, so all a new player gets is the benefit without having to worry about deck building :).
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#518717
willraiman wrote:
Fritzinger wrote:More mission attempts by one player is good for game length but bad for time spent idling, which I'd like to address.
I think that's a fair point. Thinking about who to place on each team is a huge decision tree. I guess one attempt per turn also discourages weenie rush (which, on reflection, would be pretty strong with only 3 counters/turn), so you may have brought me around on this.
Plenty of room to iterate still, but I'd like to test it :).

Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine what kind of madman wouldn't run their max allotment of The Weak Will Perish.
I play a lot of Dominion so at least I get one under when you choose my Jem'Hadar :).

What about a just flat "always 3 counters" rule, so people don't have to worry about gains, drains, Surprise Party, etc.
I like this a lot. I do worry that it's an NPE when there are so many 4-cost cards that you could never play without a discount, and makes it harder to convert a standard deck.
What about banning downloads?
I think this is a strong option for game speed. It's a trade-off against all the cards that would have to be banned, or suddenly have weird costs that wouldn't make sense because their main thing IS downloading, e.g. Crom or Vintner.

Another reason I had for keeping downloads is that you need them to draw into some pieces of many decks (so many fewer counters for drawing). But maybe with starting events that's not a problem?
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