Extremely small devices that can be embedded in a ship's warp bubble and "ride along".

Wake-riders require a warp bubble to maintain station with the ship. If a ship loses its warp bubble, it immidiately loses all wake-riders in that bubble. A ship making tactical warp maneuvers, whether used or unused is considered to have a warp bubble. A ship stopped by E-Decel or hitting a tournament barrier is considered to have lost its bubble.

Wake-riders have no engines, but can maneuver inside the warp bubble. Once launched, a rider passively rides in the warp bubble of the ship that launched it.

A ship's warp bubble can handle a limited amount of wake-riders. 4 for DNs and BBs, 3 for Cruisers, 2 for DDs and FFs.

Units smaller than SC5 may not operate Wake-riders. I'm unsure about SC5.

Bases with active positional stabilizers may operate wake-riders.

Wake-Riders may be launched via Probe launchers, ADDs and G-racks, E-racks, plasma-D racks or shuttle bays. A wake-rider takes up a 1/2 of a drone space.

Wake-riders are configured for a given ship or base in advance of combat. A ship or base may not operate wake-riders that are unconfigured or belong to another ship.

Wake riders require control. One seeking-weapon control channel will control all wake riders associated with a given unit. The launching unit must maintain control of its own wake-riders. Control may not be transferred. If for any reason a control channel cannot be allocated to the wake-riders, the riders are lost.

Wake-riders take 2 points of damage to destroy. Wake-riders are unaffected by area-effect damage such as asteroids and dust clouds, gravity waves, mine explosions and WW collateral damage. Wake-Riders ARE damaged by ESGs. A ship with an ESG set to range-zero cannot damage its own wake-riders.

Wake-riders are unaffected by Web. If a ship operating wake-riders is put in stasis, the wake-riders are put in stasis as well.

Wake-riders are launched as if they were seeking weapons.

A Wake-rider does not do anything when launched. It must be activated to do anything besides take up space in the ship's warp bubble. A rider may be activated upon launch or at any time afterward. There are no delays.


Types of wake-rider

Intercept Rider: When a seeking weapon or non-seeking shuttle attempts to impact (or land on) the ship that launched the intercept-rider, one and only one rider (of any type) may be activated to intercept it per impulse. One a 1-4 on 1D6 and intercept-rider will hit the incoming object, attacking as if it were an ADD. Material objects such as drones and shuttles are damaged or destroyed as if hit by an ADD. Intercepted plasmas detonate prematurely doing less damage. Use the WW Collateral damage chart. Unlike WW collateral damage, the damage is done only to the ship's facing shield. Intercept-riders may enagage a non-seeking shuttles if that shuttle is attempting to land on the ship that launched the rider. Intercept-riders may NOT engage any seeking weapon or shuttle that are simply in the same hex. The weapon or shuttle must be attempting to impact the launching unit or land on it. Intercept-riders cannot engage SC5 or larger targets.

Control rider: This rider will control one seeking weapon. The rider has no native ECM or ECCM and does not pass along any ECM or ECCM from the ship. The control rider has a maximum range of 15 hexes. Control may be passed to to a rider as if it were a fighter. The rider will function for 96 consecutive impulses after activation whether it receives control of a seeking weapon or not.

Flare Rider: produces 1 point of ECM. Flare riders are incompatible with ECM drones and plasma. A ship operating both must to choose which to accept ECM from. Flare riders will lend ECM for a maximum of 64 consecutive impulses from activation. Flare-riders may be activated on the impulse of launch.

Phaser-Rider: A phaser-rider may fire one P-3 shot when activated. The rider is considered to have 2 ECCM. There is no P-2 rider. A phaser-rider may fire on the impulse of launch.

Boom-Riders: Carrying a 3-point explosive charge, the rider has several uses:

1. A boom-rider can work like an interceptor and attack a drone or seeking shuttle about to impact the ship. Only one rider (of any type) may be assigned to intercept the drone or shuttle per impulse. It is not considered a drone for "drone vs. drone" purposes. It simply does its damage. If the damage is sufficient to kill a seeking weapon, that weapon does no damage to the ship. Boom-riders have no effect on plasma torps. Boom riders may enagage a non-seeking shuttles if that shuttle is attempting to land on the ship that launched the rider. Boom-riders may NOT engage any seeking weapon or shuttle that are simply in the same hex. The weapon or shuttle must be attempting to impact the launching unit or land on it. Boom-riders cannot engage SC5 or larger targets.


2. If destroyed by an ESG, this rider will explode, subtracting its warhead damage from any remaining ESG strength in addition to the two points that were expended killing the rider(translated: one of these will knock 5 off an ESG).

3. boom-riders can be used to clear the way through an asteroid hexs and similar effects. the 3-point warhead acts exactly as 3 points of clearing phaser damage with the advantage of being usable when the ship is moving through the asteroid hex in question. The rider must be triggered before the roll for asteroid damage is made.

Sensor Rider. A sensor-rider will function for 96 consecutive impulses after acivation. It also has several uses, allocated on a turn-by-turn basis.

Tac-intel: It gathers tac-intel as a fighter's sensor pod.

Research: On impulses 8, 16, 24, 32 the rider will give its ship information on a single nearby target based on the closest range between the target and the ship on that impulse or the 7 previous ones. Range-3: 1 point, range-2, 2 points, range-1: 3 points, same-hex: 4 points. It cannot be given more than one target on any given turn but its target may be changed between turns.


An intercept-rider and a boom-rider cannot both target a shuttle or drone on the same impulse. It's one or the other. One rider PERIOD engages the target per impulse.

How may wake-riders can a ship carry? Not sure.

What happens if a ship has more wake-riders in its wartp bubble than room for them? It loses the extras, but I'm not sure of the procedure.

Can wake-riders be targetted by the enemy? yes but under some restrictions. The enemy has to be close and be watching for them. Not sure how that will work.

Because wake-riders are extremely short-ranged, I'd like them to be usable even when the launching unit is cloaked. conditions and restictings need to be worked out.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 08:25 pm: Edit

John,

Interesting idea. What YIS? Is this GW or X tech?

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 01:04 am: Edit

Y200 PLEASE.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 11:15 am: Edit

I have to say, this is one of the most innovative things to come down the pike in a long, long time.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:54 pm: Edit

How about making this a race specific item (for a new race)?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 01:25 pm: Edit

Ya, I think that would be better.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 02:00 pm: Edit

If it is for a new race only we will likely not see this anytime soon.

I think this would fit into X2, perhaps as the new weapon everyone gets. This appears to be a defensive weapon. Have you though about an offensive version? All ships have universal way to fire an offensive type (Flare Rider that lends offensive EM, 2 points, to the target ship), a probe launcher.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 02:34 pm: Edit

Can we make a web anchor into a wake rider?
regards
Stacy

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Jessica, Joe, thanks for the compliments.

To be honest, I wasn't sure WHERE the little guys fit best. That's why I posted here.

They're obviously 180 or later critters.

For all I know, I just gave the Xorks a new toy.

By benjamin sun (Ben2207) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 03:27 pm: Edit

How about a 2-space LR drone version for offensive use?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Lesss, I think you're wrong about Y200, I think Y206 is more like it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 06:16 am: Edit

Why can't they be hurt by area effect damage ( mine/ship explosions )?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 06:34 am: Edit

Yes, a T-Bomb should kill these things easily.
An emer decel would leave them adrift inspace too, btw

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 07:46 am: Edit

They would indeed make for a dandy X2 gadget. As for limits, it could be done on a warp point basis (figuring that the more warp you have, the stronger your warp bubble is for actually holding them, and the more powerful the helm computer is for taking the little buggers into account). Say, one for up to ten warp boxes on the ship, two for 11 to 20, three for 21 to 30, four for 31 to 40, etc.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 10:10 pm: Edit

Nice idea.

Some comments:

Sensor Rider: Nearly all ships gather tacint better than a fighter with a sensor pod - so using it to gather tacint isn't very useful.

Intercept Rider: Attacking drones is cool and dandy - you are using up a drone defense asset to do it, just allowing it to function later in the SoP. Attacking plasma I don't like - plasma is a lot meatier than drones and harder to distract. Having a ship effectively be able to weasel any single plasma at any speed with its ADD's is, IMO, too powerful for such a cheap unit.

Flare Riders: How many can you use at once? As many as your warp bubble can hold?

Cloaked use is probably a non-starter as a cloaked ship can't control seeking weapons, although perhaps they could launch, but not activate them.

By Barton Pyle (Bart) on Monday, May 30, 2005 - 08:13 am: Edit

Very very nice idea.

I would like to see either one race getting them or each race develops its on versions of riders. For example: The Feds with the Sensor rider, while say the Lyrans with the Flare Rider. A poor attempt at their own ecm drone.

By David Crew (Catwholeaps) on Monday, May 30, 2005 - 09:05 pm: Edit

Barton: ...and there is a problem. I can think of very few SFB systems that all (or many) races have, but each race uses a different version.

The analogy to what you are suggesting with wake riders would be drones. All drone modules are shared by all drone using races without restriction (except in some VERY limited years). There might be restrictions on deployment maybe, but not access usually.

The only example I can think of to support your position is the Gorn carronade, and even that sloshes to Feds and Orions.

SFB in its history has always been tech-sloshing. If one race develops something, other races will use it just as soon as they can. The only exception is if you make this a capability of a new race (like Andros or Xorks).

Actually this is a neat idea for the Andros - gives them something else to do with their T-bomb hatch... ... and they ARE the ones who need seeking weapon defenses... (of course, the Andros hardly need a new toy...).

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 01:18 am: Edit

For the Andros I would prefer a "packman" counter measure; it eats drones (seeking weapons) and is beamed back aboard and the energy but into the batteries. Kind of like a reverse PM.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 04:06 pm: Edit

The reason wake-riders are unaffected by most area-effect damages is the same reason mines are. They're small, compact, simple.

Dave Crew: thanks for the analysis.

Sensor-Rider, tacint mode: Wake-Riders, due to their small size and extreme proximity to the ship may be controlled by a cloaked ship. The Rider would function as a "periscope" for a cloaked Romulan or Orion.

Intercept-Rider vs Plasma: Yeah, I came to the same conclusion. Too powerful. In the detailed writeup I have on my hard drive, their effect on plasma is changed to +6 natural ECM effecting the plasma only. This would likely force a roll for ECM-reduced seeking weapon damage. That seems more balanced.

I also intended that intercept-riders were targeted mostly like mines. You can set them for various SC, etc. If they are facing multiple acceptable targets, they roll randomly. You cannot make a wake-rider target a specific unit save by crafting its targeting criteria.

Flare-Riders: You can have as many as you can fit in your warp bubble. Note that a Flare-rider is much shorter-lived than an ECM drone. Since a DN or BB can only operate 4 wake-riders, it would give large ships a small advantage using Riders over an ECM drone. For SC3 ships, it's a wash. They're allowed 3 Riders.

I'm not sure I like the idea of connecting available warp power to the number of Riders a ship is allowed. Does the interior volume of the warp bubble contract when generated by damaged engines?