|
VendoViper posted:In preparation for this LP I have been working on a custom VASsaL module for rendering the board state, it has been a fun project. So far I have automated facing, TurnMode, made little shield graphics that go up and down. I have not found a good way to implement SSDs or energy tracking in my module. There is an official Federation Commander module, but they haven't found a good way either, they have objects you can click the boxes on, but its built out of about a 1000 layers, and I don't have the time or the will to implement that when paper or a spreadsheet will do the job better anyway. From what I know of ADB's policies, you're kind of on thin ice with this. I used Maptool when I ran the abortive campaign that has been talked about here.
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2017 04:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 01:40 |
|
|
VendoViper posted:As far as I can tell even talking about this game puts you on thin ice with the people who sell it. Fair enough, but I did want to mention the issue. Also, I managed to find the old threads if you're curious. Main Thread Alliance thread Coalition thread I also have to give berryjon a belated apology. I got too ambitious with my scenario design, got over my head, and lashed out. Also, don't get overambitious with your scenario design - you'll probably wind up over your head. EDIT: Feel free to pull anything I wrote in those threads if it would save you time, and I'd be perfectly willing to participate both as a captain and (in scenarios I am not participating in) assisting in running the thing. I think the system I was using worked well enough, I just tried to do too much at once. Gnoman fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Jun 17, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2017 04:13
|
|
|
Added Space posted:From what I remember, shields take a turn to warm up but you can power phasers any time you like? Other way around. You can power shields on the first turn of a scenario, but (at default weapons status) you need to spend a turn warming up the phasers. Tagichatn posted:Isn't there a maneuver that lets you turn in place without moving or something? It has some sort of penalty I think but might be worth it if the ship gets behind us. Tactical maneuvers. The downside of this is that you remain stationary and have to spend a few turns accelerating to get back up to speed.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2017 04:51
|
|
|
wedgekree posted:Looking forwards to the thread! Is there anywhere legitimat eto purchase the rules or get PDF's of them? I'd love to get into it if there's a good plac eto buy them online. http://www.starfleetstore.com/star-fleet-battles-c-1/?zenid=d9c11de640727f1a80ae911ed9e7b695
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2017 11:41
|
|
|
Photons are a very potent and versatile weapon, with the main drawbacks being their fairly long charge time and high power cost. A salvo of fully overloaded photons can wreck most ships in the game, while proximity fused photons outrange almost everything.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2017 03:00
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:For anyone following along at home, for context check out "The Balance Of Terror" from ToS Season 1. The Romulans make their screen debut. In that episode they are piloting a much older "Bird of Prey" without warp engines. These War Eagles are much more advanced, developed in response to their encounter with the Enterprise. In SFB, the ship flown in "Balance of Terror" is a Warbird. The War Eagle is a Warbird with warp engines strapped on. Important note to Added Space: Viper is probably NOT using the Hidden Cloak rule (which makes the ships actually invisible to the other side, and is only useable with an impartial GM) I was using with Romulans. He will probably be using the standard rule where the cloak is "only" an extremely effective ECM system and you always know what hex the ship is in. Still powerful, but might not be what you were expecting.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2017 19:14
|
|
|
Kavak posted:So is SFB using a different definition of Warp Drive or is it saying the Romulans did not have faster-than-light travel during the Earth-Romulan Wars? The "no-warp" thing came directly from the show. In Balance Of Terror the Romulan ship is explicitly stated to be sublight. Early on SFB just took this at face value, but later on introduced the concept of "Non-Tactical Warp", which is a low-grade warp field generated by the impulse engines that takes so much of their power you can't possibly fight while using it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2017 06:06
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:I only own the Captains Basic Set. So unless we switch over to Federation Commander (I have the Klingon Border). We will need to wait for me to get at least a SSD book to make the Tholians interesting, as mine only has a Corvette. The Tholian web device does look neat. What is up with Hydrans? I strongly suggest you pick up the Master Rulebook ($50) at the very least. That covers the rules for all systems, and allows you to use any random SSD you find (although you'll still run into trouble with parasite units) without much hassle. It's also properly organized, where getting the same rules in separate products is a pain in the neck.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
That DD is effectively crippled. Smaller ships in this game are extremely vulnerable to Warp damage due to the proportional move system - because the move cost of a Gorn DD is 1/2, each Warp box destroyed is the same as destroying 2 on a cruiser-sized ship such as a War Eagle. With the ship's current power of 14 Warp 1 Impulse 0 APR 0 Battery and the normal upkeep cost of 2.5 points (1 fire control, 1 shield, .5 life support, going from memory), it has 12.5 units of power remaining. Because it is more favorable to the ship, assume that the Impulse power has already been used. The ship will need 4 points of energy to arm weapons (It will need 3 points to finish the torpedo and 1 to reload the phaser) next turn This limits the speed of the ship to (12.5-4)*2, or 16. If you can get even one solid Plasma-R hit on the cruiser, you've won. That said, IIRC you probably have to wait until turn 3 to fire plasmas. Unless I've forgotten a rule (my rulebook is currently in another castle, you can't "fast-arm" plasmas with battery power.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 00:44
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:Luckily for the Romulans next turn is turn 3. Unfortunately for me that means I will need to handle like five plasma torpedoes and four ships. I really need to figure out how to automate the impulse chart. On the bright side though plasma torpedoes move every impulse. I copied the entire chart into Excel and used conditional formatting to have the cells change color based on ship speed and impulse. I marked each column on the chart with the number of ships moving that speed, and kept updating the impulse number. Whenever a ship was scheduled to move, that square would turn green. It worked quite well.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 01:30
|
|
|
Added Space posted:Yeah, this game has a bunch of weird, self-negating rules. Some things can only use warp power - but warp engines are 90% of your power supply and this is never a problem. Sure you can teleport over boarding parties - but they'll only work if the target is basically scrap anyway. You can do scientific analysis - but this is just a skill gate for pre-made missions. Warp-only systems can be a huge problem. A lot of ships have quite decent Impulse or APR banks to charge weapons from, reserving their Warp Power for movement, but photon-armed ships can't do that. The Federation DD has the theoretically impressive battery of 4 photons - except it is almost impossible to charge all 4 photons off of a single 15-point Warp Engine. Later versions of the DD experimented with swapping a couple of photons for Drones or Plasma-F torpedoes (acquired from the Gorn in limited quantities) or upgrading their APR to Auxilary Warp Reactors (AWR), but this only helps so much. Edit: Also, the scientific analysis rules are also a critical part of tactical intelligence if you're using those cumbersome optional rules.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 02:01
|
|
|
Tagichatn posted:How does firing a pseudo torpedo affect the ship? We don't lose the real plasma torp charge? Every plasma torpedo tube has a single Pseudo Plasma Torpedo, or PPT in any given scenario. It costs no energy to fire, does not need to be armed, does no damage, and otherwise behaves identically to a real torpedo in every way, including the loss of apparent strength due to phaser damage. There are many uses for them, the most common being to disguise the arming cycle of your weapon (reducing the effect of the Plasma's long charge cycles) or to fire it along with a real torpedo to draw fire (the target ship knows there are more incoming then there should be, and thus knows that there are fakes, but has to decide which one to shoot at and risks disaster if the guess is wrong). The only effect on the firing ship is that they no longer have a PPT for that tube, and thus cannot fire any more fake torpedoes from that tube.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 02:33
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:Impulse 4 These are both wrong. It takes 2 points of phaser fire to remove one damage point from a Plasma torpedo (FP1.611). The Plasma-S took 21 hits, so it would have been reduced by 10 points, hitting for 20. The Plasma-R took 4 hits, so it would have been reduced by 2, hitting for 48. In this case the difference is minor - the Gorn ship didn't survive either way, and the Romulan one can still tank the hit. Added Space posted:I'd board it, but that dinky little thing isn't worth Romulan blood. All non-essential power to speed and weapons. Given them one chance to surrender. If they refuse, blow them away. Plasma Torpedoes (absent phaser fire) degrade annoyingly quick, but not that quick, having a certain number of range bands before beginning to quickly deteriorate for the last few hexes of their run. Plasma-R torps degrade at 10, 15, 20, and 25. Plasma-S degrades at 10, 15, and 20 , G at 10 and 15, and F at 5 and 10.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2017 17:02
|
|
|
Tagichatn posted:Holy poo poo, our torps do 50 damage? That cruiser got vaporized. Although I guess one of us would be in similar trouble if the cruiser fired both torpedoes. The Gorn cruiser carried two Plasma-S torpedoes. Each does 30 damage max, so two of theirs is only slightly more than one of yours. A War Eagle has 25 shields and 5 armor, so a full-strength Plasma-S can't even break into internal damage on a virgin WE. Two of them would do a fair bit of damage at full strength - but after getting through phaser fire they'd be weakened to the point where the damage would be relatively minor. War Eagles are fairly tough ships.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2017 21:17
|
|
|
The way for the Gorn to win here would be to present a possible target at the start of Turn 3 to entice the Roms into finish arming their plasmas, then break off. Plasma-R torpedoes can't be held, so if you finish arming them at the start of the turn they become a "use it or lose it" weapon. Then there would be another long charge cycle in which the Gorn could strike. Even then it would be dubious - the Gorn were ludicrously outgunned in this scenario.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
Yes. The Gorn gave the Feds a small number of Plasma-F launchers, and received a lot of Federation fighters in exchange. There's a lot of technology trades like that in the game.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2017 22:34
|
|
|
The Orion pirates are neat, but I don't think the OP has the necessary rules to make them fully interesting. Not entirely sure, since I've been using the Master Rulebook exclusively for so long I'm not actually sure what is in the Basic Set.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2017 22:30
|
|
|
That's what I thought. What makes the Orions really interesting is their option mounts, and those aren't currently available.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2017 05:26
|
|
|
You just have "2 reloads" shown for the Drone-G racks. Barring very unusual circumstances, Type-G Drone Racks (which are the only standard drone rack that can fire Anti-Drones (E5.0) ) either have 1 reload of drones and 1 of anti-drones, or else 2 reloads of drones and one of anti-drones (if the Y175 refit is present) as per (FD3.72). Are you following this, or treating the racks as just a 4-shot rack with two reloads? Secondly, is customizing the drone loadout possible? Basic Set does not seem to include speed-16 and speed-32 upgrades, but it does include Type II/V fast drones and Type IV/V heavy drones. Third, I'd like to participate in this scenario.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 04:06
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:
It isn't that difficult, conceptually. Each bisected box is one drone space. It is bisected in case you're loading half-space type-VI drones or ADDs. The three little ticks are the reloads - if you don't have the Y175 refit then you just color in one of the little boxes before play, just like you would fill in the drone and phaser-III boxes (plus the extra shields) if you're using it as a CL instead of a CL+.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 04:48
|
|
|
MJ12 posted:So drones. Drones are like plasma torpedoes in that they're seeking weapons. I think you're mixing some information from Starfleet Command in here. In Star Fleet Battles, slow drones are speed 8, Medium drones are speed 20, and fast drones are speed 32. There are also the Moderate speed drones (Type II and V) that are speed 12, and Type III drones move at 12 instead of 8 in their slow modes. Plasma Torpedos are also speed 32, except with the late-timeline sabot rule that allows them to go to speed 40 (by double moving on 8 specific impulses). Warheads are either 12 (Single-space type I, II, III or double space III-XX) or 24 (Double-space type IV and V). Slow drones are very difficult to use offensively, but if you can get a decent salvo going (the only way to do so in this scenario would be to use a scatter-pack shuttle) even slow drones can do pretty good area denial and soak up phaser energy. Once you get Medium or Fast drones, they become a huge threat.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 21:06
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:I'm curious what's up with the other Starfleet Command races who aren't present here, the Lyrans and the ISC. No, they're from SFB. They're just not in the rules the OP has access to.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
MJ12 posted:There's a whole bunch of other races which never showed up in SFC too, right? Like the Andromedans and the Tholians and the WYN? To summarize: The Tholians are an isolationist race, originally extragalactic, that is now unable to build any but the smallest of their ships and controls a very small area of space. They have the Tholian Web as a unique technology, which allows them to lay energy "webs" in space to trap starships. They were a bad fit for SFC because of their extreme isolationism and their unique ability being impractical in that engine. The WYN star cluster is a small region of space surrounded by a "radiation zone" that cripples ships that enter it. The WYN are a collection of various races who got stuck in the star cluster and, unable to get out, formed a civilization on the inside. They were a bad fit for SFC because they can barely leave their home system, and any ship that tried attacking them would be left completely unable to fight after passing the Zone. The Andromedans are an extragalactic race that invades this galaxy after the General War was over. They function very different from everyone else, using "Power Absorber Panels" instead of shields, and have a "displacement device" that acts as a transporter for entire starships. They were a bad fit for SFC because their technology was so different from everything else, and SFC focuses on the General War era which the Andromedans are outside of.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2017 21:55
|
|
|
The D6 alone is almost a match for both Federation ships put together, and there's a time crunch. The upside is that the F5 is a fairly pathetic little ship with low firepower and no damage sinks to speak of. There are only two viable scenarios here, and the time crunch makes one of them a bad idea. The bad idea is to keep the range way open and plink away with proximity photons, which are better than disruptors at extended ranges due to fixed damage. That won't work here because we have a freighter to protect. That means that the only chance for victory in this lopsided scenario is to charge in with overloaded photons and try to smash the D6 in a sudden attack. This, however, has heavy risks - Federation CLs aren't exactly the fastest of ships, and if the Klinks can keep us at medium range they'll rip us apart.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2017 07:10
|
|
|
You're right - a WW is useless. However, loading the G-racks entirely with anti-drones (for those unfamiliar, anti-drones are a short-range weapon that can only target drones and shuttles and fires once per impulse until running out of ammo) will completely neuter any drone threat, and drones won't be of any offensive use to us anyway. The real trouble is that we're limited (in practical terms) to a speed of 20, less if we want to overload torps, arm suicide shuttles, or use ECM (if that's even available, OP only has the Basic Set).
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2017 08:39
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:I will admit, running this thread has already exceeded the number of turns of Star Fleet Battles I have played out in all other contexts. So If my scenario design is a bit wonky, you will have to be forgiving. However to craft this one I did use the "Battle Points" listed on the SSDs I have. Are these wildly inaccurate? This scenario is currently stacked 222 Federation to 184 Klingon. Battle Points are a pretty good measure, but they're primarily a totaling of system values, which does not (and can not) take into account all factors of a design. The simple fact of the matter is that the D6/7 is one of the better base chassis in the game, and the Old Light Cruiser is one of the poorer ones. On strategy, I've had a chance to sit and plan it out. I see two basic plans. Turn 2 attack If we go full ECM, warm up the phasers, and put full overload on the photons on turn 1, we can make a speed of 10. For turn 2, we'd then drain all batteries, allocate the two points a tube to complete arming, put energy into the phasers, and move at a speed of 19. Hopefully this will be enough to get into overload range of the D6, punch through a shield, and do enough damage to delay them significantly. Turn 3 attack. If we go full ECM, warm up the phasers, and put full overload on the photons on turn 1, we can make a speed of 10. For turn 2, allocate the two points a tube to complete arming, put energy into the phasers, and move at a speed of 13. On Turn 3, we would then only have to expend 2 points of holding energy and the phaser capacitor would be full. Along with draining all batteries, this would allow us to make our attack run at a speed of 29, giving us a much better chance of getting into point-blank range and crippling the D6 The Turn 3 plan makes it much more likely that we'll get into a good shooting position as long as we avoid major damage, but the Turn 2 plan potentially lets us get our shot off faster. This is important because we'll be eating 6 disruptor bolts every turn. We could focus on the F5 instead, as it is much more fragile. Normally I'd recommend deleting it right away, but in this case I'd much rather face a virgin F5 and a heavily damaged D6 than just a virgin D6, especially since our crusiers are not going to come out of this run unscathed. However, there is an alternative strategy that just occurred to me after checking what rules are in the Basic Set. We could send one CL+ on an attack run to tie up the Klingon force. Then the other rushes to the freighter (which would normally have a maximum speed of 16) and slaps a tractor beam on it, towing it at speed 31 across the board. We'd be almost guaranteed to lose the attacking ship, but there's a pretty good chance that the other one would get the freighter far enough ahead that the Klingons couldn't kill it. EDIT: On second thought, I'm not entirely sure how well that would work. The tractor rules are hideously complex. Gnoman fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Aug 3, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2017 05:14
|
|
|
I'd only suggest arming suicide shuttles if we lose photon tubes without losing too much warp power. We just don't have that much power to spare, and photons are an overall better means of delivering damage with said power, especially against Klingons and their superb anti-drone phaser complement.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2017 07:32
|
|
|
berryjon posted:Problem is, we are only told that this is a "Heavy" Civilian Freighter. Does that mean it's a Heavy Freighter with a move cost of 1? Or a Large Freighter with a move cost of 0.5? I Based on the OP stating that he only has the Basic Set, I assumed that it would be a Large Freighter with a .5 move cost. IF I did the sums right, with the freighter using all 8 warp power for movement, a CL+ could get the ship going to the speed limit, although the combined move cost might impose a hard cap on the amount of power it could use. I also think I can get the speeds in the attack plans one or two higher across the board. I just realized that the spreadsheet I use for energy allocation is hard-set to use 1 Impulse for movement, which is suboptimal for a .66 move cost ship unless it runs out of Warp Power. I'll fine tune that when we nail down the details and issue orders.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2017 17:33
|
|
|
I think we should go for the "send both ships on a Turn 3 death ride" plan. Drone loadout 100% Anti-drones Energy Available: 24 Warp Engine 4 Impulse 2 WARP Reactor 3 Battery Energy Allocation: Drain 0 Batteries 1 Life Support 0 Fire Control (No weapons, no need for shooting) 2 Shields 1 Point to warm up the Phaser Capacitor 6 Points to Photon A (Creating a full overload when two points are allocated to finish arming next turn) 6 Points to Photon B (Creating a full overload when two points are allocated to finish arming next turn) 6 Points ECM 7.92 Points Movement (all Warp) for Speed 13 .08 Points remaining Move Plot 13A EDIT: Also, if you email me at the address I set up for my previous game (sasfblp at gmail), I may be able to help you with your asset creation. Gnoman fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Aug 7, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
At present, I see no need to alter the plan, with the exception that the geometry makes a turn 2 attack more likely. With that in mind Energy Available: 24 Warp Engine 4 Impulse 2 WARP Reactor 3 Battery Energy Allocation: Drain 3 Batteries 1 Life Support 1 Fire Control 2 Shields 7 Points Phasers 2 Points to Photon A 2 Points to Photon B 6 Points ECM 11 Points Movement (all Warp) for Speed 19 .08 Points remaining Move Plot 19B, sidesilpping at every opportunity to merge with Oslo Oslo should do the same, but keep the batteries in reserve (or put them into shield #1 Reinforcement) and move at speed 14. That will allow us to get into position to fire through the same shield I'd like to request a turn break when either of our ships are within 3 hexes of one of theirs.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2017 00:03
|
|
|
The drones in a rack are not a reload. FD2.31 quote:All drone racks are presumed to be loaded with Type-I-Slow drones. The ship has one set of reloads (enough to reload all of its racks one time) on board. (Any exceptions will be noted in the ship specifications) This is included in the BPV of the ship. FD3.72 quote:RELOADS Type-G drone racks have two sets of reloads, one of which is entirely anti-drones and the other of which is identical to whatever is loaded in the rack itself. I refrained from pointing out this error because I had decided to go with all ADDs anyway, and the chances that we will need more than 16 anti-drones per ship are extremely slight, so I decided that I would bring it up later. We may, however, need more than 8, and the rules don't allow two ADD reloads and one drone reload. I could have specified a mix of drones and ADDs, but I was concerned about Klingon scatter-packs and didn't want to spend the time needed to unload drones and load ADDs.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2017 22:34
|
|
|
VendoViper posted:See could this get more confusing. There are four lights okay. You have ADD's in your tubes, 8 of them. You have 8 more drones to pull in during whatever the rules for reloading are. Both sides will not be alive for 16 turns. First, the racks are loaded with 8 anti-drones. Anti-drones can fire every impulse, meaning that you can easily shoot them dry in a single turn as long as there are enough drones or shuttles (you can't fire an ADD at anything else) to shoot them at. Second, you still seem to not be getting it. The drones in the rack are not reloads, as per the rules I just posted (with cites so you can double check them yourself). A normal drone rack has four drones with one reload. That means that there are EIGHT drones allotted to that rack. A type-G rack is special, because it is the only drone rack that can fire anti-drones, which normally require their own dedicated rack. It has two reloads, and one of those has to be all anti-drones. That means that the default load of a Type-G rack is four Type-I-S drones loaded in the rack, one reload of 4 Type-I-S drones, and one reload of 8 anti-drones. This is explicit in the rules. Even if it wasn't, the English definition of the word "reload" (to load again) should have made it obvious. To use an analogy, imagine that you are holding a loaded pistol, and have two spare magazines in your pocket. The gun is your drone rack, and the two magazines are your reloads.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2017 22:53
|
|
|
Xenocides posted:Not necessarily. You could though. If the base loadout is 8 antidrones then you would have a total of 24 (with 8 in the rack as they are a half-space each). That is the loadout for this scenario - as mentioned, I was afraid of Klingon scatterpacks, and even if this works there's a fair chance that we'll be lamed enough for single-drone launches to be a threat.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2017 03:45
|
|
|
Aye. You wound up ending my LP, if you recall. I've been toying off and on with restarting that, probably will if this one doesn't make it.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2017 04:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 01:40 |
|
|
In this case, the problem was merely lack of practice using the rules. The issue wouldn't have been a problem during the game, and would probably resolve itself quickly with a little more playtime. SFB does have a few horrendously complicated rules, but those are mostly the result of several moderately complicated subsystems interacting. The problem is exacerbated by the number of expansions the game has, leading to a lot of references to rules you might not have. This is one reason why a Master Rulebook is a good investment.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2017 18:42
|
|