Archive through April 26, 2005
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Archive through April 26, 2005
The was an air desaster once when the captain knew he wasn't going to make a landing so he ordered "Take Off power" and the co-pilot took off the power instead of going to full power. It was a terrible accident.
I like Haunted House and in the days of heavy computer involvement there should be no chance for that to be mistaken. The squadron name is Spector Squadron with the two flights being named Banshee and Ghost. Fitting I think.
Angels in space fighter days could refer to one thousand kilometers so Angels 10 would be one SFB hex.
Feet wet is a bit olden days and more fitting to it's actual meaning. What might be another call for leaving the atmosphere?
Gone Vaccume? (nah)
Passed wind? (really no!)
Suggestions?
SPP;
Possibly, though going from atmospheric to exo-atmospheric doesn't seem to me exactly analogous to going from over land to over water. And that still doesn't change the fact that a fence check is performed airborne, or that angels 10 seems a very peculiar place to perform the described actions.
I apologize for breaking in like this. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth (keyboard?) shut, since I'm not really a player in this thread.
From: Quartermaster Department
To: All Fighter Department Heads
RE: Supply Reminder
If possible, during any mission not involving immediate threat to our military garrisions it is recommended that any Phaser Pod loaded on a fighter be saved and unloaded/recharged at either Fighter Base. As we do not have a copious ammount of replacement Pods, we must conserve the ones we have for reuse unless jetisoning it is to save the fighter or pilot's life for future use.
Thank You from your friendly supply Officer
Capt. Tenhoff
(Just because you can speed up 1 hex/turn doesn't justify losing a $100K piece of equipment.) 
Alan:
I'm doing the best I can. I was never a jock, so I'm kind of winging it. Sorry.
And now, back into character:
The radio crackled in my ears. It was the Wizzo in Banshee 4. "Heads up, Tank, I've got a reading for you. Streaming now. Not good."
There it was; the too-long neck, the screwed-up energy signature. A G1 gunboat, inbound on an intercept course. I swore to myself, and muttered a quick prayer. I switched to the command frequency.
"Haunted House, this is Banshee 3. Bandit inbound 180 mark 2, 50 kk. Identified as G1 gunboat. Request instructions."
As I waited the few seconds for a reply, the thought occurred to me that, for us, the battle for the defense of Cassandra IV just ended. Either we engage that monster, trying to get a read on the drone wave that it's sheperding, or we disengage, effectively taking us out of the defense. Either way, we're done.
Sometimes it sucks to be a fighter jock.
OOC: SPP, right now at this moment, how far out from home is my element?
Alen Trevor, aren't you one of my pilots? You ARE one of my pilots RIGHT?
Ahem, RIGHT?
Scott Tenhoff: At this point if jettonsoning the phaser pods helps stop one drone from impacting the surface or the loss of just one fighter it is worth it. The loss of one fighter will result in 4 to 8 less kills which means 4 to 8 more nuclear explosions on the planet.
Remember, you live here too!
Craig: I mentioned earlier that I went through this (albeit vey quickly) yesterday. I made no special efforts or repeated iterations/variations to find an "optimum" pattern. What I did was (and this all assumes a 1-hex stack of drones):
1) End the turn 0 at range 35, launch drone 1 (type I).
2) Go to speed 12 for turn 1. This gives me three moves before I can launch a second (type I) drone. These moves are to slip right, forward, slip back left, so effectively only closing two hexes.
3) Announce speed change to 25, launch drone 2 on 1.08
4) HET directly away and run to end of turn. Drone stack will close to 22-ish, IIRC, by EOT
5) Run at 25 till 2.31, then HET back to engage again. Launch drone 3 (type-VI) from range 13-15 or so. Speed changes ought to allow me to move 26 hexes rather than 25, but I didn't bother to figure those out precisely. Fire gatling
6) Drop to speed 12, same pattern as turn 1, launch drone 4 on 3.08. Fire gatling at range 2, HET, speed up.
7) Drones will overtake and pass the speed 25 fighter during turn 3. The phaser pod can be fired at range 1 once the drones come back into arc (assuming none of them killed the fighter), and then immediately dropped.
8) If you do all this right you should end turn 3 with the drones 1 hex in front of you, from where they will increase the range to 2 before your next gatling-fire opportunity.
9) Continue chasing drones back toward planet. Expect to get one last gatling shot in the 9-15 bracket, so use it to clean up any you only damaged earlier. You may be able to manage a turn 4 shot at 4-8 and then a final turn 5 shot at 9-15, I'm not quite sure.
One thing we should figure out is how far out we can do all this while maintaining (between the fighters and the ground bases) continuous tracking. If, at some point the drones are more than 35 hexes (IIRC) away from both the fighters and the bases we will lose the ability to track them individually and know which drones have been damage and by how much.
As a SWAG, the above procedure will bring the fighters 110-120 hexes back toward the planet. Therefore, the fighters should probably intercept the drones at a distance of 120-130 hexes, which would put the drones ~155-165 hexes from the planet.
In a similar vein, I think the drones should hit range 100 from the planet with their movement on impulse 29 of whatever turn. That will put them at range 97 from the planet at the end of that turn, so they will be at range 1 from the planet at the end of the third turn (3*32=96). On the fourth turn they will enter the atmosphere on impulse 1, but will not be able to impact until impulse 1 of turn 5, so the fighters and shuttle will have an entire turn to close and kill with phasers. If we accept the drones being at range 97 from the planet at the end of turn N, that would put them (97+64) 161 hexes from the planet at the end of turn N-2, which is within our acceptable range for the fighters to begin engaging.
OOC:
Guys, are you listening/reading? We've got other problems RIGHT FRIGGIN' NOW!!!!
[sorry for the dramatic "yell," but my alter-ego is suffering from adrenalin overload at the moment...]
Roger, you take Banshee 3 as the Cap lead, you and 6 (Banshee 6, EWF).
In Character:
Banshee 3, you and 6 are cleared to proceed in direction Alpha-1 at maximum speed. Recon the incoming drone flight from that bearing and report contact. Do not engage till you get a signal back to us. Radio silence till you make contact. God's speed Tank.
Banshee Flight, we are a go. Maintain a close orbit once aloft.
Everyone should be weapons hot till we hear otherwise.
Did I miss something? There is a Gunboat here now?
Yep, the CAP has reported that there is a gunboat on the board. SPP did mention somethng about the possibility of a D5P lending ECCM to a D5S to evaluate the drone strike launched by 3 D5Ds.
As to how accurate that is? Well, do you really trust your enemy to tell you what he has and will do?
No gunboat Cris. That was a week ago (game time) when a G1G did a surprise flyover and dropped hundreds of decoys and presumably a Dagger Team of some other team.
The G1G had spent weeks coasting in unseen and then jumped us. I ordered OEW and that made the G1G spend an extra shot on a drone launched from a DefSat. He was forced to bug out before getting a better scan of the planet and the 429th PDU. It all happened in just a minute and it was gone.
Jumper Decoys numbered in the hundreds all over the planet so a Klingon team could be anywhere or there could be none at all and the Klingons are forcing s to spend resources for zero risk (once the G1G is out of the picture). The primary mission might have been to scan the PDU and make us think it was a drop mission.
Or there could be a Klingon RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
Sorry.
Read Richard Sherman's post at 7:40 p.m. There is another G1 out there right now and our two fighters are in a pickle.
Crips I missed that post. That was an error of my picking up new posts on the BBS, sorry.
I need basic info. How far out are my fighters and how far away is the G1?
I can't give any order until I know that except to order the EWF to maximize ECM immediately.
"Banshee 3, this is Haunter House, turn 120 degree away and give me Range and your distance from base. Just one bogy or is there more? Banshee 6 go to maximum Counter Measures now."
"Comm, advise Star Fleet we have a Klingon Gunboat in the area, possibly on an attack vector. It wouldn't surprise me if there was one with each drone wave."
"Banshee flight, proceed in vector-A at full speed."
Lt Frazier came out of his office, "Sarge!" he yelled.
"Sir, all phasers are hot and running. Nothing running inbound yet but we are currently scanning at 101%."
"Good, go to Counter-Measures 2 ... no make that full and see if we can get anything on a quick long range, see if there are any other presents out there. Anything from CAP or the other bases?"
"Yes, sir, they're running a recon over Annapolis. They're out-of-arc though. Both Annie and Chico haven't reported ready yet. Both fighter bases are in scamble mode."
"Put them on channel 5, just in case and make sure we have a line to both stations (GWS). This is NOT going to be easy."
"Sir, do we have a shuttle to assist in evac?"
"DARN, that's what I forgot, Let me call ... " as the door closed behind the lieutenant returning to his office to call the garrison to see if a shuttle was on its was or not.
[OOC - I'm hoping that as a 'base' we can get S2-S4 level information on any active forces in the neighborhood.]
Loren,
I would have the drones show up at the 100 hex range on turn 4 impulse 35. This will allow the fighters to be launched and out of the atmosphere.
Ken
Ken, would that be T4-I25 or T5-I3 (T4-I35)?
Richard Sherman;
Not a problem. I was out of line earlier.
Loren:\Sorry, I missed that post.
if we want the firing opportunity at 9 hex range for the end of turn 3, count back 96 hexes (3 turns worth of 32 impulses each) and I think you get (((32*3)+9=105) if you want the action to start at 101 hexes, subtract 101 from 105 and the result is 4.
Unless I miss understood the request, I think we want the action to start at 101 hexes from the planet, on impulse #4 of turn 1.
Another way of putting it, is that the drones are tracked from 105 hexes out starting on impulse #1.
Memo
To: Col Knight.
From: Major Wile
Re: Surprise Contact from G1 gunboat.
2 possibilities spring to mind:
1. a full squadron is making a stealth approach to assist the drone strike in a "sneak attack" on the unsuspecting 429th PDU. with out further info, I rate this no more that 25% likely.
2. the same G1G is making a stealth approach to deliver a further contingent of ground troops to reinforce the 1st group from last week. with out further information, I again rate this 25%
Umm, Col Knight, If I understand correctly, there is contact information that indicates a G1 gunboat 6 hexes from the 429th PDU....(see "tanks" contact report above)
recommend opening fire with the appropriate phaser IV batteries.
there will be time for the phasers to recharge before the drones arrive, and perhaps we will have baged a G1?
given the possibility of a full squadron around...perhaps Captain Kass unit should be requested to make a full 360 degree sensor and scanner sweep of the immediate area around the planet?
thank you.
Major Wile.
Banshee Flight, this is lead, go to full burners bearing on Vector-Alpha.
Switching comms to battalion:
Roger Haunted House, Banshee is en route, max speed.
Now, if I understand this, there is a G1 6 hexes from the planet. Where is Banshee's 3 and 6, and where are my fighters right now?
If you could perhaps knock that guy down before he burns 2 of us out of the sky, that would be awful nice.