Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through January 07, 2010	22		01/07 07:46pm
	Archive through March 15, 2010	25		03/15 11:23pm
	Archive through July 14, 2011	25		07/14 05:58pm
	Archive through November 09, 2015	25		12/05 06:59pm
	Archive through January 24, 2020	25		01/25 05:38pm
	Archive through June 09, 2021	25		11/01 09:32am
	Archive through November 02, 2022	25		11/03 10:12am
	Archive through November 06, 2022	25		11/06 11:01pm

EW in general puts a BIG crimp in the speed of ships. A maximum of 6 power will likely be used to power ECM/ECCM. EM costs power. With the scout, up to 6 power per scout channel is needed to lend ECM/ECCM. Let us not forget the 1 point of power needed to use a scout channel.

The fleet admiral has more decisions to make where EW is involved.

I do like your idea of "dogfight" drones in SP shuttles. I haven't used them before. I did not know that they ignore EW.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, November 06, 2022 - 09:54 am: Edit

I'd prefer to not have EW for this campaign. In part because of how destructive it is for feds but also because it really slows things down. That's dou ly true in fleet battles where scouts are involved.

In general I prefer games with EW. I enjoy the added tactical layer it gives. I also usually like to play a more drawn out battle where I snipe for a little while before turning in. The slower speeds EW causes help with that strategy.

I rarely go to a full 6 points of EW during allocation. Changing it up is a great use of batteries. A single battery during the fire phase can stop one point of damage with reinforcement but if you plan it right then it could stop any amount of damage with an ECM shift.

I think I'll start a conversation in the general tactics thread about how people like to use EW in their games.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Sunday, November 06, 2022 - 08:34 pm: Edit

I'm not sure how you get 12 ECM on every Hydran ship? I mean to do that, you need a 2x(number of ships) scout sensors and _a LOT_ of power to maintain 12 ECM on every Hydran ship, unless I've missed something else obvious?

I was more speaking to the fighters, which "have" to be crippled before they get into a good firing position. They can fairly trivially have 6-10 ECM, but not more than that. I would generally not expect many ships, except the scout and base itself, to have more than 6-10 either.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, November 06, 2022 - 09:36 pm: Edit

There's a base, a scout, and only 3 other ships. That means there is plenty of channels and power to go around.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Sunday, November 06, 2022 - 11:01 pm: Edit

I mean yeah you have enough, but you're still talking about every ship allocating 6 ECM for itself, and then another 35 power from the base + scout? I think you're more likely to see a few high value targets with ECM up there but probably not the entire force. If the plan is hard turtle, then that would be pretty easy, but I feel like that gives too much control of the field to the Feds?

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, November 06, 2022 - 11:18 pm: Edit

A +2 shift is devastating for photons. It's +3 with erratic maneuvers. I'm not saying it's what will happen but it's definitely what I would do in order to get the fusions and gatlings in close.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Monday, November 07, 2022 - 12:34 am: Edit

That's the problem though, you can't "get in close" that way, because it's too expensive on power. You can turtle, get your +2/3 shift, and stay at the base, but you can't chase the Feds and maintain that.

Because I was curious about it, I actually ran the numbers, and yeah it's tough. The base can't give itself 12 ECM and loan 6 to three of the ships, because it has 33 power and the total cost to do that is 34 (6 ECM, 4 to power the Sensors, and 6 to each sensor).

Housekeeping is 6.5, so assuming _no_ weapon re-arming there's 26.5 power left. For easy math, let's assume you burn .5 battery to make that 27. That's exactly enough to run 6 ECM for self, and 3 sensor channels running with another 6. One for self, and two of the other ships.

That leaves the rest for the NSC to cover, which has 30 power, meaning to have all Hydrans running 12 ECM, it would have to generate its own 6, plus run 2 sensors for 6 more. One for self and one for the remaining other ship. That runs 20 power, after housekeeping that leaves a whopping 6 power for movement and other functions.

TL;DR: I think you're underestimating the cost to run 12 ECM on 5 units. Yes, it can be done, but you're absolutely just barely moving or parked at the base. Turtling is a strategy, and maybe it would work, but you're not going to "close in for Fusions and Gatlings" on that ECM level.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, November 07, 2022 - 08:40 am: Edit

Something amusing to do is to WEASEL while the Feds are at long range.

They will have a very hard time hitting a weasel with DF weapons. And a small CAP of Gatling fighters should be just fine vs any drones.

Heck you can send the weasels in the direction away from your opponents. If they are sitting at range 30 and have speed 20 drones, you should be able to get your weasel to get to range 35+ from their ships which means they'd drop off tracking unless the Feds came closer.

Then you could play shuttle shuffle games to recover the weasels

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, November 07, 2022 - 09:50 am: Edit

The main fleet can make it out to 30 hexes if the NSC stays back at 15 from the base and loans the other three ships 6 each. The base would loan to itself and the NSC.

Also, they only need +4 ECM to guarantee a shift of 2, not +6. They can't get a shift of 3 if the Feds go the full 6 ECCM. And they can't get any shift at all vs. 3 or 4 of the Fed ships. The count depends on how fast their NSC wants to go.

The real danger to the Feds is if their NSC gets crippled without being able to do the same to the Hydrans'. They'll be at a major EW disadvantage. That's death for photons.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, November 07, 2022 - 10:23 am: Edit

Note that natural ECM from EM is -not- cumulative with the small target modifier.

It's a simple enough matter for Fed ships to have enough ECCM to guarantee no shift when firing at a wild weasel, even at 30. A WW can be destroyed easily enough with paired narrow salvoed prox photon torpedoes.

Also note that the most ECM a fighter can have, combining generated points, loaned, EM and small target is '10'. With scout assistance, at least some Fed ships can completely overcome this.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, November 07, 2022 - 10:57 am: Edit

Fed ADDs, dogfight drones, and Starfish drones will also ignore that ECM. Even so, there are a lot of fighters on a fixed map. They don't have warp booster packs, which helps the Feds.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, November 13, 2022 - 06:38 pm: Edit

I'll put battle reports up in the campaign thread.