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Infinity puzzles

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by QueensGambit, Aug 23, 2021.

  1. tox

    tox SorriBarai
    Warcor

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    upload_2021-8-23_13-23-59.png
    It does, man. It does.
     
  2. fatherboxx

    fatherboxx Mission control, I'm coming home.

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    Berserk is Normal rolls for both, not Face to Face
     
  3. tox

    tox SorriBarai
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    Too few gaming night... >_<
     
  4. Koval

    Koval Well-Known Member

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    First off, in a real game, there's a good chance that the right answer is to spend orders elsewhere. But that's not really in the spirit of the puzzle.

    The safe play is to break the link, spotlight with the hacker, and then shoot missiles. But it's going to use up a lot of orders. From an efficiency standpoint, theres also the option to use NCO for a free speculative fire.

    Berserk is, of course, the most efficient. But the team doesn't have a doctor and its dependent on both a crit and 2 failed ARM rolls. So I dont like it for those reasons.

    If you have chain of command elsewhere in the list (Farzan?) I would consider this one:
    • Activate the team, with Asawira as the leader. Move the Asawira out of LoF.
    • Depending on Andromeda's ARO, your second skill can be a pistol or CC. Neither is great, but you're favored in both. Remember the goal is to get to safety, not kill her.
    • Spend another order, this time with the LT as the leader. Move as close as possible to Andromeda.
    • If she dodges, shoot her 3 times on 15s. If she shoots or guards, drop 3 templates on her.
    If you're not confident in the Ghulam making it to within 8, you can use smoke from the NCO for "free." This has the added benefit of getting the LT into cover at the Asawira's starting position. But I wouldn't prioritize it, since we're looking to trade.

    I'll also point out that having Yara in the team pretty much trivializes the problem. Andromeda is not allowed to declare Guard as an ARO against smoke shooting.
     
  5. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Lots of great answers here, including plenty that I hadn't thought of!

    Let's put some numbers on some of these plays.

    Suppose we decide, with @RobertShepherd , that we need orders elsewhere so we're going to do this quick and dirty, and we're willing to accept some risk to the Asawira. So we jump right in and activate the fireteam with Asawira as the lead.

    If Andromeda AROs with Guard, we have to CC back. The Asawira's CC is only slightly better, and Andromeda has a much better weapon. We're 40% to wound Andromeda but only 8% to kill her. She is 37% to wound, 29% to wound twice, and 13% to kill the Asawira.

    If she AROs with the Zapper, we have to Dodge (or face an unacceptable 64% chance of bricking the Asawira). With the Dodge, we're 19% to lose the Asawira (and 0% to harm Andromeda).

    If she AROs with suppressive fire, the odds depend on what we do. In his current position, the Asawira is shooting 5 dice on 8s vs. 3 dice on 9s. Not actually great - mimetism in suppression is pretty tough. The Asawira is 33% to wound, 12% to kill Andromeda. She is 21% to wound, 4% to 2-wound the Asawira.

    If the Asawira slides to the right along cover, we find out whether there's a spot where he can see Andromeda from outside 8". If there if, he's shooting on 11s and the odds go to 49% to wound, 12% to get wounded - much better. We risk discovering that we can't get her from outside 8" - it's too close to eyeball reliably.

    If we want to be sure of getting her out of 8", we can leave cover and move backwards. We'll have to take two fights out of cover before we reach new cover from another building. For those fights, we're 35% to wound, 27% to get wounded - close to an even fight. This was my play at the table, and it's one of the worst options odds-wise. I lost both out-of-cover fights and ended up with an unconscious Asawira. That said, it may be the most order-efficient option if we're committed to taking risks.

    Suppose instead we Berserk with @tox . We're 76% to wound Andromeda, but only 21% to kill her - the Asawira has good CC but a lousy weapon. In reply, Andromeda can Zapper with a 64% chance to take out the Asawira, or suppress with 86% to wound, 63% to wound twice, and 35% to kill outright, or CC with 96% to wound, 76% to 2-wound, 35% to kill. So I think we can rule out that option.

    Likewise, if we try to trade with a B2 Nanopulser, we're only 25% to kill Andromeda vs. her free Zapper, suppression, or Guard.

    I'll leave those numbers for now and see if they change anyone's answers. I haven't yet run the numbers on Spotlight, or sneaking past and shooting her in the back.
     
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  6. obyiscus

    obyiscus Member

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    The Asawira was approx 6.5 inches away so couldn't leave 8 while seeing her and staying in cover. I think spotlighting is the right call. If you fail to target then atleast she has likely broken suppression making the Asawira much more capable of shooting her.
     
  7. obyiscus

    obyiscus Member

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    Berserk makes it a normal roll so MA doesn't impact the opponent's die, and dodging with Andromeda does nothing as the Asawira still auto hits. Berserk is likely the worst option as you have a decent chance of losing the Asawira to a free d-charge or zapper and are trading for a throwaway delay piece.
     
  8. obyiscus

    obyiscus Member

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    He retreated back with the Asawira as leader leaving cover and engaged in a shootout. First order they bounced. 2nd order the Asawira moved to get cover and shot again. Andromeda Crit and hit and put him to unconscious. Eventually after 2 spotlight attempts and an order on the missile bot Andromeda went down.

    In the end spending the command token to put her on suppression was worth the command token. It spent way more than 2 of his orders and took the asawira out for the turn (until he used regeneration).
     
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  9. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Yup, that was definitely the case in our game. In the puzzle, I simplified the layout slightly and a consequence is that it's no longer clear whether there's a spot to see Andromeda from out of 8" while staying in cover. So an answer that involves moving the Asawira to the right to test whether such a spot exists is a fair answer :-)

    I'm leaning towards that as well, but @RobertShepherd makes a fair point that you might be willing to make a riskier play if you need a lot of orders elsewhere. I'm waiting to see more answers before I run the numbers on the Spotlight option.
     
  10. Xagul82

    Xagul82 Well-Known Member

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    Has someone already mentioned dodging away with the Assawira? Moving it to a better spot and reforming the link?!
     
  11. Ayadan

    Ayadan Knight of the TAG Order

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    The problem I have with Spotlight is that it's one die against one. Sure, you break the suppressive fire, but Andromeda still has her flash pulse. And aside for the Asawira, it's not a trivial weapon to be hit by. That's why I opted for a plan with no opportunity to Andromeda to even shoot back.
     
  12. fatherboxx

    fatherboxx Mission control, I'm coming home.

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    the most important weapon in this puzzle is zapper
    because asawira that goes into unconcious can just regenarate, the bricked one would need to reset (mostly likely on AROs from whatever runs in sight) on 2s
    also andromeda can dodge with +2" in response to spotlight and guided missile - two successes and she hugs asawira
     
  13. Muad'dib

    Muad'dib Well-Known Member

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    My first thought seeing this thread last night was to Berserk the Asawira, but I nixed that when I realized it meant taking a guaranteed hit D-charge to the face. My second thought was using the Ghulam NCO to drop smoke in front of Andromeda. If orders are more important to you than command tokens, you could reform the core as a 4-man link (without the Asawira) to give the Ghulam smoke B2, and then spend another token to bring the Asawira back in. Putting the smoke down also gives you the option of just straight up ignoring Andromeda (by advancing the team around to the right in the illustration). Drop a pitcher on her during your reposition movement and spotlight her later when its convenient.
     
  14. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    Once you break the suppressive fire you can just shoot at her from outside of 8.
     
  15. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    The risky play is also the only one that doesn't require you to break the link. Normally I'd be relatively blase about that but at least in HB I tend to want a good number of command tokens for converting group two irregular orders regular to fuel a cheap attack run with a daylami at some point during the game.

    On a related note if you are going to run some numbers I'd be interested in a hypothetical where the Asawria was Yara Haddad instead. I lean toward her in my HB builds (for core link gunfighting specifically) and some over/under relative to the more expensive Asawira would be interesting.
     
  16. Ayadan

    Ayadan Knight of the TAG Order

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    That's why I mentionned Flash pulse. And there is absolutely no way for the Asawira to escape safely without firing some smoke grenades. And I already know how unfair Smokes on 11 can be (I played Guarda de Assalto enough to learn this). I'll give you that in my proposal, Andromeda can still succeed her ARM rolls and still be alive at the end while my core is spread all over the place (I faced a Nikoul Sunday that received too much hits to be believable). But I don't have better in my book than Normal Rolls beside automatic hits.

    The Flash pulse can incapacitate the four LI in the puzzle quite effectively and the Asawira will sweat before getting out of major danger.
     
  17. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Here are some more numbers:

    @Ayadan proposes to Cybermask the Barid KHD and walk around to Andromeda's back arc. Assuming he is in the 0-8" band (otherwise he has a very long walk!) and has her out of cover, against her Dodge he's 56% to wound and 18% to wound twice. He gets to keep doing it since she can't safely turn her back on the other units, so the average orders to kill her will be around 2.5. It looks to me like about 3 orders to walk around her, plus one to Cybermask, so I'm gonna estimate this play costs around 6.5 orders total.

    It's a low-risk play, but not quite as low-risk as @Ayadan would like, I think. If Andromeda waits until the Barid is close she can Discover him on a 16. He'll probably take the free shot against her Discover, but is still only 19% to do 2 wounds. So the Barid is likely to find himself caught in the open with his pants down and only one wound on Andromeda.

    @Koval proposes to trade the Ghulam Lt using her B3 shotgun template, a reasonable trade given their respective point costs (we'll assume we have Chain of Command somewhere on the table.) Three auto-hits from a shotgun is 57% to kill Andromeda, which is pretty good. But Andromeda's Guard is almost guaranteed to take out the Ghulam (98%). That's about a 43% chance of sacrificing the Ghulam without successfully trading.

    @Xagul82 proposes to Dodge the Asawira to safety. That won't work, because you're Dodging on an 11 against Andromeda's CC 24. If you want to escape the Asawira, the way to do it is Move into total cover, then shoot if she Suppresses, CC is she Guards, and Dodge if she Zappers.

    Several players have suggested breaking the link to drop smoke safely. Without link bonuses, the Ghulam has a 55% chance of landing the smoke. You can try to get her +1B by reforming a 3-troop link, but if the Ghulam Lt turns out to be outside 8", you've wasted a command token.

    Another popular suggestion is to not kill Andromeda at all. I'll accept that as a potential answer even though it's not the goal I posed in the puzzle :-) You'll have to move the link away, though, otherwise in her active turn Andromeda will rampage through them with her Guard fork. You'll need to get down smoke so that all the link members can sneak past, so you're looking at quite a few orders. Say, one to move the Asawira to safety (with the 29% risk of going down), one to get down smoke using link bonuses, then three to four to move the link far enough away and set them up in a safe spot. For that many orders, I think we might as well just kill Andromeda unless there's something we want the link to do elsewhere on the table anyway.

    I'll do them as an addendum once the puzzle is concluded :-)
     
  18. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    And finally, the Spotlight numbers. Saved for last because I suspect they'll turn out to be the best solution, but we'll see.

    Against Andromeda's Reset, the Barid is 47% to spotlight her. Once spotlit, a guided missile is 82% to wound and 62% to wound twice.

    @Hecaton proposes that once we force Andromeda out of Suppression, we start shooting at her with the Asawira. From outside 8" without cover, the Asawira is 58% to wound her and 31% to wound twice, vs. 8% to get stunned by her Flash Pulse. If Andromeda happens to be Targeted, that goes up to 71% to wound, 42% to wound twice, 5% to get stunned. And if we can find a spot to shoot from cover outside 8" while she's targeted, our best possible shooting numbers are 79% to wound, 52% to wound twice, and 1% to get stunned.

    Alright, I think that covers all the numbers. I'm gonna let it sit for another day for any further comments and suggestions, then I'll post a synthesis solution taking into account the great ideas from the thread.
     
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  19. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    The Asawira is still within 8", right, so Andromeda would either Guard or use her Zapper?

    Assuming the targeting works, definitely hit her with the ol' missilino though.
     
  20. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Yeah, we have to get out of 8" before we can start shooting. Either we Move, opposing the Guard with CC or the Zapper with Dodge, or we put down smoke first and then Move. I didn't run the numbers on shooting while still inside 8", since Andromeda will always Guard or Zapper at that range (once we've gotten her to drop Suppression).

    Yup, the numbers bear that out. I was curious as to whether a fully linked Asawira might actually be more deadly than a guided missile against a Targeted victim, but it turns out the missile is still slightly better. 82%-62% vs. the Asawira's 79%-52%.
     
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