Archive through June 26, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(J) Shuttles and Fighters:
Casual fighters in freighter skids:
Archive through June 26, 2005
Joseph R. Carlson:
It would help if when you are referring to rules in a Captain's Log that you state you are doing so in your message. Particularly when you are using one that is stated: "This is a draft prototype rule from a future SFB product . . ." See Page #63, fifth paragraph down in the right hand column. So at this juncture what you are doing it generating a question of whether or not you can use the X-Technology Refit Rules to simply upgrade phaser-2s to phaser-1s, and no, that is not what the rule is for. You should put the question in the Captain's Log #31 After Action Topic.
Richard Sherman:
It is not a given that no freighters will be upgraded. Just as there are armed freighters, there might be a few X-Technology freighters simply because of the better defense they could offer. They would be the prey, of course, of Orion X-ships. But to say it would not be done is to overlook the fact that modern nations are generally not shipping cargoes in freighters that only use wind power, and that there are, to the best of my knowledge, no "coal fired boiler" freighters used by major nations either. Starfleet is somewhat different than modern (current) times because the pirates have real ships to attack, and freighters have what amounts to pretty hefty armament (a phaser-3 on a small freighter added to the phaser-3 on its shuttle is like having .50 call machineguns to protect a freighter going through the Malacca straits), but they need it because there are things in space (at least in the Starfleet Universe) that have to be dealt with with a phaser.
Michael Powers: The existence of phaser-1s on some Auxiliaries pretty establishes that they can be mounted on freighters. It is just generally not done because the systems needed to operate a phaser-2 as a phaser-1 (they are pretty much the same weapon) are both more expensive and harder to maintain. And frankly that is the principle reason that I do not think phaser-1s would be added to a freighter, even with the XP refit. The maintenance burden on the small crew would be too high. Might not even be done on an armed freighter for that reason.
David Slatter: The counter observation is that you are gambling on the PPTs. There are going to be six plasma-Fs, one targeted on each of your fighters. Chaff will not work, and concentrating your phasers has a chance of saving one, but allows me a closer and more effective shot with my three phaser-1s.
Sure, it is mindgame.
As to your siege, I have commented that a Light Raider is not a convoy raider. Skids make that even more so, and ducktails only make the situation worse. A convoy with two small freighters and one large freighter has one phaser-2, and three phaser-3s, plus three admin shuttles. They also have three transporters, one tractor and as many as 15 boarding parties (if run by the Petrick Shipping Consortium). Hitting one of the small freighters with plasma to disable it just means that the large freighter will tractor it, so you have to hit both of the small freighters so that the large freighter cannot drag them both. Or you have to hit the large freighter. But the whole force might park and wait for help with tacs.
The addition of Skids and/or ducktails (which did not exist when I was a young LR skipper) have just made the whole convoy battle impossible. Four General Skids adds four more phaser-2s (two on the Large freighter and one on each small freighter), plus four HTS shuttles that can be used as wild weasels by the owning ship. Ducktails on the ships add another four HTS shuttles, plus tractor beams on the small freighters. A convoy like that is not something I can tangle with and win easily.
And lets not talk about trading in some of those HTS shuttles for more admin shuttles, or the added Boarding parties the BPF for those skids and ducktails will provide in Commander's Option Points purposes.
And to me (as a young LR captain trying to make a quick credit by knocking over merchants), winning easily means NOT doubling the engines at all. If I have to double the engines, then I have already lost.
Once Skids and Ducktails showed up, my generally attitude as an LR skipper was to look for those small freighters and avoid the large ones that had skids and ducktails.
This question will probably kill the whole fighter in skids idea.
IF a fighter can be carried in a freighter skid and be deployed from it and the SSD box was able to handle that situation, what engineering criteria exist to stop one simply loading that shuttle bay with a jump rack???
Serious if I have four F-racks I can launch two IVM drone per turn which will be hell on the LR unless the LR uses her own drone to shoot them down ( using the Orion LR I was using earlier in this thread ).
Then the LR is left fighting with 3Ph-1s (360°) against an RA Ph-3 and three 360° Ph-2s.
Which basically means the LR had an advantage over the larger freighter with skids (Lash skids indeed ) of simply one Photon, which it'll have a hell of time arming if the Freighter runs and a hell of a time hitting with if the freighter goes for ECM.
Jump racks will really make a mess of the LR attack runs, particularly if the LR crosses a turn break near the frighter and thus will need to fend off four IVM drones in short order.
MJC
Even if jump racks in that context ws somehow legal, you forget that the LR has unlimited time and the freighter *will* run out of drones. Needless to say, the drones will be pretty ineffectual anyway unless fast, where LRs are hardly around in Y180.
where are you getting the CO's for this? SPP said that each drone had to be bought individually...
SPP wrote "ultimately a meaningless competition" I disagree. There are many reasons for face to face competitions. The lessons the veterans pass on to the "virgins" in barroom discussions alone would be worth the cost. Remember, we are talking about moving 1 hex or less on the F&E map... Not all the way to the capitol, but instead 1 facility for dozens of defense squadrons. Plus, as you know, there is really no teacher like being in the dirt to teach infantry tactics...
MJC wrote "what engineering criteria exist to stop one simply loading that shuttle bay with a jump rack..." Well, as you know, one of the MANY proposed self defense skids I proposed has type A racks and/or ADDs. In fact, my skids are more limited than just buying a large freighter ducktail and selling 2 HTS and then buying 4 f racks.
The point is that there should be some limited and reasonable kinds of defense skid for use when a cargo is especially needing it for reasons of 1) cost, 2) potential activity and 3) unavailabililty of escorts///
David Slatter: mjc is referring to the original concept, that of a "fighter skid" which carries a full-blown ready rack plus reload drones. The "Shenyang F-7 tactics" discussion is a recent mutation.
Also, if the freighter's going to run out of drones, it's certainly going to run out of fighter drones (and more quickly, too, because it will have spent BPV on fighters and won't have as many drones available.)
Michael Grafton:
The expense is just not justifed. You are calling for the empire to maintain 26 such facilities (one per province), and you cannot justify that expense. You could not justify the expense if you were only calling for three facilities for the entire empire (one at the Northern Reserve Starbase, one at the Southern Reserve Starbase, and one at the Home Fleet Starbase). There is also simply no reason other than your desire to have groups of planetary defense fighters traveling at random interverals to justify your fighter skid to move planetary fighters around like that.
I will say what I have said before, as a one off story I am willing to let the skid and fighters story go and perhaps we get something we can publish. But planetary defense fighters are not going to be willy nilly assigned as guards to the odd freighter now and then, traveling to other worlds. They are going to stay and defend their assigned world.
And you justifications do not so far make sense for all the planets of the Empire to be keeping various and sundry "Self Defense Skids" that can, at need, be added to a freighter that might NEVER COME BACK. Just because the Weary Donkey was in your system when you decided to add the Skids, and just because you thought it was going to come back, that does not mean that the Empire is not going to redirect the Donkey elsewhere, maybe even because you put the Skids on it. There are enough personnel being 'drafted' to man various operational tug pods when needed without adding hundreds, perhaps thousands, more wandering around with various self-defense skids.
The rest you can get by sending around the inspection teams, and either leaving experienced pilots to add seasoning, or leaving new pilots to take the best veterans with you to become instructors at the school where the Virgins can be taught.
David Slatter:
I NEVER said the Light Raider has unlimited time. Any Light Raider or other Orion performing an act of Piracy wants to conclude his business and get out of the area as quickly as possible. The Orion has no better idea when help will show up than the freighters do, but ever reload cycle he has not accomplished his task is another reload cycle that the police or fleet may appear. Light Raiders by themselves are looking for: Single Small Freighters, probably a single small freighter with skids and/or ducktail, Free Traders (if he can be nailed before it disengages), Armed Priority Transports (if he can be nailed before it disengages), Federation Express Boats (if he can be nailed before it disengages), Small Armed Freighters (if he can be nailed before it disengages), Small Armed freightes with a skid and/or Ducktail (if he can be nailed before it disengages), and Large Freighters. Large freighters with Skids are borderline questionable. Large Armed Freighters are doubtful, large armed freighters with Skids are flat forget it out of the league of a Light Raider and Large Armed Freighters with Skids AND a ducktail are flat nothing but trouble. Beyond that, a convoy of two small freighters, maybe a large freighter and one small freighter. Two small freighters with Skids and or Ducktails. But a convoy of one Large Freighter with Skids and one small freighter with a Skid is bad business. Get above that . . . well if you are desperate for a score.
If you are going after anything else not on that list, there either needs to be two of you (two LRs), or you need a bigger boat (to borrow a phrase). A DW might take on a large armed freighter. A DBR definitely could, but a DBR could also take on a small convoy. But if you are going after Large Armed Freighters or small convoys with a single ship, I would recommend you get a CR at the very least.
Michael John Campbell:
For one thing, for the time being there is no rule allowing you to install jump racks in any ship. I will quote (FD3.6):
"Other races did not use type?F racks, and Klingon ships with the B?refit have their type?F drone racks replaced with standard type?A racks (often with type?B after the Y175 refits). The only type?F racks in the game are on unrefitted Klingon ships of the types listed above."
Listed above simply noted that ships with the racks prior to their B refits. This was modified by Module Y, of course, but that only added more Klingon ships to the list, not freighters.
Thank you for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts (this is said with a grin and not intended to be inflammatory, but simply to note again that sometimes ideas founder on the shoals of the rules as this one has . . . so mayhap tis time to head for the life boat? GRIN).
David Slatter:
Additional note. What I said was that the type-VI drones for an F-7 have to be purchased individually. That is a specific rule pertaining to the F-7 in the F-7 ship (fighter) description. It does not apply to type-F drone racks at this time. If a rule ever shows up allowing ship modifications and allowing jump racks to be purchased, then it might be written that the jump racks come with no drones. For now, a Klingon D7 has two type-F drone racks, and has the drones (albeit slow ones) in those jump racks and does not purchase them (and indeed does not purchase the jump racks either as they are part of the ship).
The above having been said . . .
Right now, there is no Klingon version of the F-7. And the best that could be hoped for is that there was and you could use some of them to replace shuttles on the normal skids and/or ducktail of a freighter. No ready racks. No drones except what you buy. No pods except what you buy. No deck crews except the two that come with the freighter. No marines except what you buy with your Commander's Option Points.
So we are, as I have said before, letting Michael C. Grafton play out his scenario. And we all want to see if the Dread Pirate Campbell can make good on his boasting in the bar at the Orion Base that his Light Raider could easily take out a Large Freighter with fighters in its Skids . . . even if I am certain it never occurred to him that those fighters might be Z-1s controlled by that crafty Klingon Lt. Krafton.
While on jump racks, why don't we just suggest a good ol' mine rack w/ a 35 point party popper being mounted in a shuttle bay.
Lets see... errr! move on. Jump racks are too close to too many dangerous issues.
SPP:
Technically that's a rules reasons possibly based on ecco-political reasons and I asked for an Engineering reason. I'll accept it but the point was the one Steve Cain mentioned, it's just too much like having weapons in those SSD boxes.
Michael John Campbell:
Whatever.
Some of the differences between running a Red Flag competition here on earth in the late 1900s and early 2000s and trying to do so in any of the nations in Starfleet Battles.
As noted, every "province" in Federation and Empire is composed of numbers of small colonies that, individually, are of no importance at all, but collectively generate two Economic Points. For most of these the principle threats they face every day are the possibility that a space monster of some sort will show up, or that they will be visited by pirates.
Space Monsters are an impossible variable, so I fear I am going to ignore them (although obviously those in charge of trying to protect the citizens and wealth of the nation cannot).
Depending on several variables, colonies may range from virtually undefended to being worthy of the deployment of a full Planetary Defense Battalion. The deployment of defenses can be everything from "the planet actually provides something of greater value than other planets", to simply "location, location, location" i.e., the defenses are there because the planet was a good place for a fleet supply point.
So this brings us to the possible raiders.
Before fighters, the possible aggressors were Orions. But not all Orions were flying fancy stealth hulls (and in fact that is still true). A colony that had nothing but an Agricultural station could be attacked by a Large Freighter, particularly if that freighter had skids. The Phaser-3 on the Ground base would be no match for the phaser-2s on the freighter even with an atmosphere, and the freighter could tac new shields to face the ground base until it succeeded in destroying it. Of course a freighter making this type of attack would need to have a well planned getaway, and good knowledge on the potential of the police or fleet to arrive in time.
If that planet had a ring of DefSats, however, the possiblity of a dishonest freighter captain attacking pretty much vanished. Even a single phaser-1 ground base could make things too hard on such a freighter (before Skids).
So even before fighters, relatively weak planetary defenses were sufficient to deter attacks by individual pirate freighters. There still were pirate freighters, but they mostly operated honestly to cover their dishonest operations of receiving stolen goods from the real raiders, and moving supplies around for the real raiders. And the increasing numbers of police ships and fleet units in the distant reaches of the various nations further reduced the potential for an Orion freighter captain to 'conduct his own piracy' operations.
Of course it never died out entirely. (And of course governments tended to be somewhat suspicious of the Petrick Shipping Consortium . . . were all those 'Security Detachments' on the ships of the Consortium really only to protect the ships? Or to assist in looting colonies with only militia to defend them . . . Adding Skids and Ducktails which were not around when I founded the Consortium would have increased the possibility of the freighters being used as raiders).
So scaling up from the lone wolf freighter (with extra boarding parties and the weapons added by Skids) we come to the Armed Freighter.
Armed freighters were quite capable of hitting poorly defended colonies before fighters showed up. And their ability to disengage made it easier for them to escape after the raid, and meant that they did not need as much time to do so as the regular freighters. They had the firepower to suppress most planetary defenses on poor colonies. (A phaser-1 base and a ring of three DefSats is not going to dissuade a Large Armed Freighter. But a single ground based phaser-4 (if it had time to activate) backed by a string of three DefSats was enough to keep such a freighter "honest". (This is pre-Skids, add in the Skids and I might be willing to take on a single ground based phaser-4 and three DefSats with a large Armed freighter). Even better, the cargo moving ability of the HTS shuttles in the Duck Tail and Skids let the freighter complete its looting job and leave all the sooner. And the extra boarding parties that the HTS shuttles could land, plus all the extra ones you could carry . . . I mean a Large Armed Freighter with LASH skids and a Ducktail could easily land 14 boarding parties, four heavy weapons squads, and two commando squads (some of this represents purchases with Commander's Options), plus militia. With the shuttles, it could land 18 of the regular boarding parties (Heavy Weapons Squads, Boarding Parties, and Commandos) in a single turn, with a militia squad landing by transporter at the same time.
So the occasional Armed Freighter as opportunistic pirate is possible, before fighters. There would not be many of them, and their careers would be short. (The Orions would rarely use any of their own for such missions as they do not want the government to be after them and tracking them back to their Orion contacts. The Orions would also themselves hunt down and destroy any being operated by "independents" who just decided to take up a life of piracy because they do not tolerate competition in their space. You either work for the Cartel Lord and pay your percentages, or you work for nobody.)
Note, the above also covers Free Traders who decide to take up a life of piracy, but Free Traders have the option of entering atmosphere and landing to send in the troops, although the typical free trader will have at most ten boarding parties and one militia squad to take on the planet's defenders.
So, before fighters there was the possibility of a little light-hearted larceny by almost any freighter that happened along. A small freighter could hit a colony that had just started and had nothing much (so long as it had no real defenses at all), and that pretty much still applies. But it all comes down to a question of whether or not the small freighter's four boarding parties (that it bought with Commander's Options) and admin shuttle can beat whatever the colony has in the way of militia. If it had a skid and a ducktail that would give it eight boarding parties that it could buy with Commander's Options, plus two HTS shuttles to carry them down, and a militia squad (the extra crew unit that came with the Skid) that could ride down on the Admin shuttle. A Small Armed freighter can do it better, particulary if it has a Skid and a Ducktail (with a skid and Ducktail the Small Armed Freighter can have, countng its four normal boarding parties, 12 boarding parties, four heavy weapons squads, and one commando squad, plus two militia squads, and can lend ten normal squads in a single turn into combat with its two HTS shuttles and its one Admin shuttle, plus beaming down one militia squad), and can take on a somewhat tougher colony. (Having three phaser-2s, or two phaser-2s and some other weapon).
But not one with fighters, and it probably is not going to tangle with a colony that has DefSats and some type of ground bases.
So that is the threat from freighters pretty much. And a start up colony that does not come with good defenses does have to worry about that possibility. You are vulnerable to the Rogue freighter until you have some defenses, and those defenses may not protect you from a large rogue freighter with skids and ducktails. Or from a large armed rogue freighter, in particular one with Skids and a Ducktail.
But eventually your colony, as it grows and gains more wealth making it a more attractive target (i.e., likely to have small items worth a lot), you will acquire more defenses.
It does not take a lot to dissuade the attentions of Rogue freighters, or Rogue freighters with skids and ducktails, or Rogue armed freighters, or Rogue armed freighters with skids and ducktails, or Rogue free traders. A few DefSats, a few ground bases, a good militia organization. But it takes a little to get those things and in enough strength to do it.
Then fighters were invented.
A flight of six fighters is more than most freighters want to deal with. Six fighters are capable of launching a dozen drones (or six plasma-F torpedoes, or firing a dozen fusion charges). While the obvious solution is a weasel, the fighters do not have to launch all their drones at one time, and having a few incoming to draw the weasel or force you to expend weapons defensively versus the drones because you do not want to use the weasel and then get hit by more drones or have to burn all your shuttles as weasels as it means it will take ever more time to get the swag.
So with fighters, a colony becomes measureably safer from the most numerous possible threat, i.e., rogue freighters. And again, not all rogue freighters are independents who turn (however briefly before they are hunted down) to piracy because they are not making it as honest merchants, there are such freighters run by the Orions and they will sometimes be used this way.
But realize that a rogue freighter that is doing piracy is even more terrified of taking any damage than a "real" Orion ship (like an LR) is, and would be even more careful about picking its prey.
So back to our little area of space.
You have all these little colonies. Most of them have some sort of planetary defense. Many probably rely on a string of DefSats if they have nothing else. A lot of them rely on a few ground bases, probably supplemented by a string of DefSats. But a lot of them have a fighter base. In Federation and Empire terms this mostly means nothing. Enemy ships control the province by controlling the merchant traffic or disrupting same. They do not go around attacking all these little colonies. Some they do attack because they need small stockpiles and forward deployment points, and having an atmosphere makes that so much easier. So you get scenarios like Ayer's Rock. Some have a significant resource that needs to be taken control of immediately, so you get Morkedia III and its Dilithium deposits. But most planets can be ignored. They are not cranking out warships that you have to defeat, mostly they are just producing raw materials that might one day become starships, and shipping those to the production centers to be made into starships. And if you have cut the flow of those goods by controlling the merchant traffic, that is enough. You do not have to occupy all the colony planets to prevent it. And as "Return of the Hood" demonstrated, some shipping still goes on in occupied areas simply because there are a lot freighters.
So we have all these colony planets, many with their little fighter bases. A lot of them with only six fighters, some with a dozen, and maybe a few with more than that (and perhaps some bombers).
But NONE OF THEM are going to be sending some fraction of their fighters off to some competition. A small colony relying on its half squadron of six fighters is not going to send one, two, or four of them off to some competition. A somewhat better off colony with a full squadron is not going to do it. And if you are going to have this competition at all, what would be the point of only allowing the colonies that had large numbers of fighters participate? Further, if you did have all of these small colonies sending fighters to some competition, all you are doing is raising a "Red Flag" to the Orions that this is the Month they should plan on raiding all of these planets that have depleted their defenses to attend a competition.
Today, now, the present, we do not have this problem. If we send the fighters from Cannon Air Force Base to a Competition at Dusseldorf Germany we do not have to worry that Nefarious Dread Pirate Steve Cain (no offense intended to Steve Cain, his was just a name different from the frequently mentioned Dread Pirate Campbell and was the first one I saw above Campbell's) is going to raid the local citizenry around Cannon from his Zepplin. But Pirates are a fact of the Starfleet Universe. Every Colonly that has fighters has them because attack by Orions is always possible.
So, your Red Flag competition is, as I have said, at best going to be conducted by a traveling show of inspectors, not by sending teams of fighters from various colony worlds to one place to participate. The Colonies NEED their defenses and do NOT need to be sending Invitiations to be raided by Orions.
So, no, there is not going to be a "Red Flag" competition for National Guard Fighters where all the National Guards of various planets send their best pilots and leave their homes to be defended by the second string when the Orions come calling.
Too bad, the banquet and awards ceremony would have been impressive!
I wonder if they would have used the simulator technology to compare the pilots and rotate the award ceremony each year to the planet that won the previous competion?
One would think that a certain Federation planet would be hosting both the Federtion Banquets nearly as often as they host the Gorn ceremonies!
(nice premise for a Cap Log fiction thing!)
If you were to try to do the Red Flag thing at all, you would have to have rotating groups of fighters that arrived to "bolster" the defenses of the planets that were sending fighters and pilots and deck crews to the competition. And you just do not need to be doing that.
So there are inspectors that make sure the training of the various National Guard squadrons is up to snuff. They review the records, test the pilots, and recommend some be sent to the National Guard's flight training command (and probably many refuse the honor, at least in the Federation).
Which brings me back to the point that I do not mind Mike Grafton running this with Michael John Campbell as a possible story idea that might result in something publishable as a fiction piece.
But there is not going to be a "red flag" exercise that he can use as an excuse to be sending groups of fighters from a PDU as added muscle to a freighter because they just happen to be traveling to a Red Flag exercise that just happens to be in the same direction that the freighter is going in and they just happen to have these "fighter skids" that the fighters can use while traveling.
The Red Flag idea is a red herring in any case as the whole idea is that these skids exist and could be added to any any freighter at any time, not just to a freighter that happens to be traveling to the Red Flag event, so was not germane to trying to get these skids adopted in any case, so it is just a part of the fiction background.
All this being said, and noting again, I am still interested in seeing how the story comes out. Will the Dread Pirate Campbell successfully rob the freighter, or will the Wiley Lt Krafton send Campbell packing with his tail between his legs?
SPP and others;
With respect, I think you misunderstand what Red Flag actually is. You've been refering to it as a sort of "competition", which is incorrect. There are (or at least were, and I presume still are) Air Force-wide competitions for both air-to-air and air-to-ground aircraft and crews. William Tell and Gunsmoke would be examples. And some of these competions do use the Nellis Range Complex, which is also home to Red Flag. But Red Flag itself isn't a competition. It is a pure training exercise to give crews experience in large force/multiple MDS operations against an Integrated Air Defense System. No other range I am aware of combines the volume of air space cleared for military maneuvering (including supersonic flight), the amount of land cleared for expenditure of live ordnance, the electronic warfare capabilities, and the degree of range instrumentation. While some other ranges may match (or even beat) Nellis Range Complex in one or two of these aspects, I don't believe there is any place that matches it in all four.
The nearest Army analogy to a Red Flag exercise would be a rotation through the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. I've only been through one NTC rotation (I went as an Air Liaison Officer attached to a mechanized infantry battalion out of Fort Hood) and that involved units from one division only (not counting Opfor, of course) while a Red Flag will involve many different types of aircraft from many different bases. But by and large, the purposes of an NTC rotation and a Red Flag exercise are the same. Red Flag itself is no more nor less a "competition" than NTC is.
Sorry for the intrusion.
Alan Trevor:
No intrusion.
I was aware of what Red Flag was (in terms of being the Air Force version of the Army's NTC rotations), but was too busy to do more than just continue with Mike Graftons idea of a competition event, and just letting it run.
The problem remained that you could send planes and pilots to such a thing because the time investment is less (when discussing an Empire Wide competition), or because the threat is not there (when discussing taking fighters away from a planet that then may be raided by Orions).
It is just not something that could be done in the Starfleet Universe background.
SPP:
No offense taken; I do like a good profitable business.
Although between you and me, it is more then name 'dread pirate' than the actual deeds, I do have ethical concerns to concider.
To be quite honest, it is more a complement to my marketing department and their great success with the brand name publicity. I am afterall, just an honest salvage guy that has been known to pick up a bunch of ships that were 'adrift' without anyone aboard. It is not *MY* fault that they fled in their rowboat...err...shuttle when they heard that I was in the sector.
Quote:A flight of six fighters is more than most freighters want to deal with.
Under CL23 ( I'm not sure if those rules still apply ) a freighter may swap out her cargo pod for three skids.
So a large freighter with three skids where each cargo pod would be plus regular skids would be running around with 9Ph-2s all able to be fired through 360° plus an RA Ph-3 and a whole mess of transporters ( if any are LASH skids ) and shuttles and I think that can take on six fighters, particularly Stinger-F, F-4s and Z-1s...although it'll take a little longer.
Even with one Pod being an actual cargo pod, it'ld be a hellish weapon with 6Ph-2s.
M.C.G.:
Gotta love those initials...particularly with a one day match as I type being played at Old Traford.
Would you agree that at the end of the turn, your freighter is in 0922D and my LR is in 1316D?
If so, where are your fighters, how badly damaged are they and how far would you like to scroll the map?
I think you are still closing in on the fighters per your last post. I was cranking my freighter into a turn and you'd announced an intention to P1 one fighter and photon another.
I wsa intending to activate the ew pods the impluse before you got to range 8. Launch drones when Ic an get 3 in a stack (imp 19)
Frighter is holding 3 p2 and a p3 looking for a shot at a good range.
EA had ew and unraised general reinforcemetn IIRC.
I am away from my books and stuff.
Wish someone could play this out for me.
I think you'll find I R1ed 2Ph-1s on fighter #1, R2ed the Photon on fighter two and then I either R1ed fighter 2 with the last if I missed or veered and fired a Ph-1 only if the damage was enough for a kill ( depending realy on whether or not the photon hit ).
Then I droned off 2 IM-a drones at fighter three, and shot out to 4 hexes from the line of your ship and then since I had nothing left to fire turned and made station keeping.
The questions I have are, how much power left in my Caps, how badly damaged are your fighters and how much shield damage was on done to my LR from all those phasers?
Fighter #3 probably was able to hit the drones with drones ( so I sent the wrong kind of drones ) so you're not totally defenseless with one undamaged fighter on the board and two cripples plus one still embarked.
I think I'll have real trouble even with what you've got, it'll be turn 4 before my photon gets back to me and by that time I might be out of time before reinforcements arrive.
If we just kept going along in the station keeping coarse then our locations are as listed above.
I think you are going to have to do the resolutions yourself, particularly if you want to plug in EW as I don't know what your EW settings are!
Add to that the fact that you're the one who knows where your fighters are and when they're firing and it pretty much falls to you to keep track of the die rolls.
MJC: You would have known what the target units ECM would have been prior to firing and made any corrective use of batteries possible.
I think you managed to identify one of the few tactics that could cause the Orion to lose. If you close to range 1 to shoot at them, they get to shoot at you from range 1. Expect 23 from the phasers on the fighters plus another 10 from the freighter's phasers against the LR's 20 point shield. You will have a better than 2/3 chance of crippling each of 2 fighters.
Are your drones being launched at range 1 from the fighters? If so, the fighters can not launch drones to counter your drones but must use either phasers or chaff for defense. Drones are headed towards the LR; control may be turned over to the freighter; fighter phasers may have been fired at range 2 to prevent chaff usage from preventing DF fire. (MCG's tactics are his own but trying to launch drones in a defensive role after the enemy drones have destroyed the fighter seems an unlikely usage.)
Depending on how you deal with any drones launched, the end of turn situation should consist of the LR with a shield down and two fighters either crippled or destroyed. (One fighter is a near certainty; getting a second fighter is likely; getting all three is lottery winning luck.) The second pass should prove exciting.
Richard Wells:
Let MJC make his own decisions, the test is to see if he can justify his claim that a Orion LR will be victorious in an encounter with a Large freighter equipped with fighter skids (and fighters) in less time than it takes for reinforcements to arrive.
The clock is ticking...and help is on the way!
(Stay tuned, depending on the tactics chosen by both participants, we could be witnessing the end of the career of the Dread Pirate Campbel, or the theft and or destruction of a cargo of fruit cake. The future of the galaxy hangs in the balance...)
