Michael C. Grafton:

That nose plasma-G is a dead giveaway that it is not an Orion ship. An Orion CR only has one nose option mount, and a plasma-G requires two adjacent centerline mounts.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:50 pm: Edit

MGC: The planet is NOT in the Neutral Zone. That creates more questions than it answers: Why's there a Klingon settlement in the neutral zone? If so, why's there but a single E4B guarding it? A few others come to mind, and I'm sure SPP can think of two for every one of mine.

And I do NOT wish to write about an Orion ship ... in this story line.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 10:01 pm: Edit

SPP: I think I like the YCS idea ... explains a lot. If its commander is as old as his ship, he's fought battles AGAINST humans and might convince himself that they've joined forces with the Klingons. Thanks for helping me plug that plot hole. I suppose I should start thinking about how it will all look on paper.


Garth L. Getgen

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 01:49 pm: Edit

?? for everyone. At what point do you generally believe that an FRD would be assigned to repair a ship that was already at a Battle Station. Or would the BATS be used to repair the ship in most instances?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 01:54 pm: Edit

When the BATS is being used as a staging point for fleets operating in enemy territory, and you anticipating more ships being damaged than the BATS can handle.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 01:55 pm: Edit

When there is more ships then the Battle Station can repair in a quick manner.

Like after a SB assault. 4 Lyran DW's, 4 Klingon D5's, and a D7C, all crippled, all go to one station.

Which could you repair first?

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 02:15 pm: Edit

Fair enough. Thanks.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Ok I left this for SPP also but I have already started writing this scenario and I want to make sure I am not wasting my time (although I may still be).

Has the scenario involving the Golden Cub's (Lyran DND from R5) final assignment been published anywhere?

By Raymond Ford (Raymond) on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 - 01:12 am: Edit

The discussion on Orbital Defense Platforms inspired an idea on attacking a well defended planet. This idea assumes that the planet is protected by several ground bases (including ph-4s and at least one fighter base), DefSats, and an orbiting BATS.

A GW-era raiding force is going to have a tough time with such an array of defenses. Try to sneak up on the BATS from the other side of the planet and your ships will take ph-4 fire from the ground bases. Trying to silence the ground bases involves getting uncomfortably close to the same ph-4s.

The raiding force must get close to the planet at some point. The trick is to give the ph-4s and other defenses something else to worry about.

One possible approach is to use an asteroid such as the one in SH3.0 The Coming of the Meteor. The raiding force locates and moves an asteroid into a collision course with the planet. The planet's defenses must fire on the asteroid to reduce civilian deaths when it impacts the planet. Meanwhile, the raiding force can close with the planet and pursue its objectives - destroy the BATS and its fleet support facilities, destroy the planet's defenses, or cause devestation to the planet.

Essentially, this scenario would be an expanded version of SH3.0 with a small squadron escorting the asteroid instead of a single frigate.

That's about as far as I've developed the idea at this point. Any thoughts?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 05:34 pm: Edit

I was looking throught Module M.

They have the layout of the Hiveship in there.

Would it be too similar to the movie Starship Troopers for a boarding action against it?

With the objective to "Capture the Queens"?

LOL

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 10:34 am: Edit

Ed:

No. To the best of my knowledge, the scenario depicting the Lyran DND's last battle has never been published. (Or, most likely, even created.)

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 11:19 am: Edit

Ground bases.

Wern't fighters and shuttles specially invented to take out these cheaply?

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Not especially for that, but they do serve that role well. Most seriously defended planets have at least one squadron of fighters on the ground to defend against just that.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Looking for a place for this and here was the best choice.

I was re-reading the Campaign Designers Handbook. In the Command Limits chapter on page 35 is the sub-chapter "Joining a Battle in Progress". I had these thoughts:

JOINING A BATTLE IN PROGRESS

Forming a Fleet requires much coordination and planning. Maneuvering plans, Command Codes, seeking weapon frequencies, and communication codes and frequencies must be established to prevent any number of disasters not to mention to allow a coordinated attack/defense. Bringing in additional "Unprepared" ships on the fly can cause major disruptions and lead to accidents (such as drones not identifying friendlies correctly).

Reinforcements must be pre-established. This can be one ship or one squadron and cannot enter the battle until called on. Reinforcements cannot be called on until after a certain number of turns (I suggest 3-5) or until there are available command points to accommodate the whole reinforcement force. This is where careful planning is needed. One ship is not as powerful but can enter the battle earlier.

Once a reinforcement force is call on it can enter the map on the same edge as the original fleet started the scenario on; Speed max, WS3.

Reinforcement Squadrons must be legal formations with a Leader Ship. A reinforcement ship can be any class lesser than the Flag ship. This ship can be a leader and can replace a destroyed flag ship.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - 06:25 pm: Edit

I was looking over the Orion's Anarchist artiles in CL__ (forgot #).

It states that the Andromedan's operated Orion ships with their original weapons (ie no-andro weapons).

So that leads to an idea, Andro-Orions attacking the WYN cluster (WYN just thinking it's standard Orion's muscling in on the Cluster) then Andro's (even though they suck in the Cluster) being reinforcements for the Orions to try to break through.

Anyone think that would be a decent scenario?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 04:11 pm: Edit

I'm contemplating trying to write a scenario where one side has to go up a "hill" (historical reasons for the scenario).

I am considering 2 options:

1) All MC's on 2/3s of the board are increased. (Not really liking this one)

2) A "Blackhole" effect where if you are between 01xx-28xx you move something like this towards row 01xx:

Speed	Impulses Moved
1-8	32
9-16	16 32
17-24	11 22 32
25-32	8 16 24 32

Any other ideas?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Scott;

Do you have a proposed "mechanism" that is causing this effect? It might be easier to devise a good rule if we new what was causing it.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 04:52 pm: Edit

Well basically, I want to do a simulator scenario with one side fighting "uphill" in an analogy of a historic armor battle. As is a Simulator Race (C4) vs Alpha quadrant race.

The "uphill" slowing down the advance of the attacker. It wouldn't make a decisive differance, but slow down the attacker until they could cross the "crest" of the hill and resume normal movement.

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 05:13 pm: Edit

The easist way to create this "hill" is to use current terrain.

I suggest a black hole in 0115.
If this is too much, say it is a Neutron Star in 0815.
It has half the strength of a black hole so half the ranges FREX:

Impulses	Range
Every	1 Hex
2 5 8 11 13 16 19 22 24 27 29 32	3 Hexes
5 11 16 22 27 32	5 Hexes
11 22 32	10 Hexes
32	15 Hexes

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 06:04 pm: Edit

Simulating a "hill" would be most accurately done by altering movement costs of units based on facing. If row 01xx is the bottom of the hill, then you would have:

Facing B or C: MC +33%
Facing A or D: no effect
Facing E or F: MC -25%

Basically, the hill would create a pseudo speed.

Seeking weapons and shuttles would have their speed affected in a similar fashion, slowing while going uphill, speeding up downhill, or regular speed while moving perpendicular to the hill.

By Ed Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 08:12 pm: Edit

Try creating "heavy space". Do to a gravitional anomaly transversing this area of space slows movement, maybe it reduces your movement by 1/3(dont move every third mvt) or by whatever speed you need to fit what you want the scenario to accomplish. that way you dont have to worry about trying to coordinate the different movement classes.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 09:23 pm: Edit

You could borrow my Solar Winds and have one side upwind and the other down wind....I suspect you can still find the rules in the rule proposals section of the BBS.

Sailing up hill sounds kind of wierd, but you can do it by using the blackhole rules ( as mentioned above ) and reworking them to have one edge of the board being the centre of he black hole.


Alternately you could find other mechanisms such as a half speed rule when each vessel running up hill is pulled along by a phantom vessel that is linked by tractor and moving at the same speed in the down direction.
Alternately you could just increase the speed of seeking weapons and decrease the range of heavies comming up hill ( because phaser at really "hand to hand weapons") and get "un uphill battle" out of changes to those speeds and the tables.


Is this "agencourt"??? I would commend instead working on the idea of SPACE MUD.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 01:03 am: Edit

For Space Mud, there's already (P51.0) Drag Space, in module P6.

By Robert Gamble (Rgamble) on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Ok, scenario idea time, brought on by applying a bit of real world physics to a comment in the Designer's Notes section of the basic set.

SVC mentions the absurdity of an Impulse Engine ship traveling to the Federation. On the face of it, it is absurd. A crew signing up for a 20+ year mission just to blow up a few bases... except... to the crew, only a short time might have seemed to pass.

I think I read somewhere that 1 point of Impulse equals the speed of light. Now, for normal propulsion that's impossible, and as near as I can tell, Impulse engines are 'normal', if highly advanced, propulsion. So what it probably means is that 1 point of Impulse Power is equivalent to 99.9999999% the speed of light.

For those who know some relativity, the implications should be obvious. Note that I'm not an expert by any means, but I believe the upshot is, time on the ship goes much slower than time of any 'stationary' observers.

So... Let's say there's a Romulan Base (RB1) from which a warbird (WB1) leaves on a mission to attack a Federation Base (FB1) 20 light years away.

From the perspective of RB1, the Warbird leaves and arrives at its target 20 years later and destroys it. Contact is lost shortly after the Warbird reports an encounter with a Federation Cruiser captained by someone who always insists on giving his middle name.

From the perspective of WB1, they leave the base, ramp up to full impulse power, and a couple of days later (we're assuming VERY close to the speed of light remember) reach their target, blow it up and are then accosted by the pompous self-introducing captain of a Federation Cruiser.

Large scale invasions are no problem with Warbirds. The crews won't age much, and won't be bored by long travel times. The problem of course would be changing conditions between when the ships leave and when they arrive. Communication would also be an interesting problem.

Note, btw, that I'm ignoring the Time Dilation effects, if any, of Warp engines. It seems from the films and SFB background that time dilation isn't really a huge problem, and therefore the mechanics of Warp must minimize any such dilation.

Ok, one long 'intro' later, here's the very general scenario concept. Unrefitted Warbird is sent on a mission to take out an enemy base (Fed or Gorn), 20 years before the Roms receive their first KR ships from the Klingons. Just before the ship arrives, they receive a quick communication that they will have help.

They arrive, and see a Klingon ship already engaging the enemy force. Surprisingly to the Warbird crew, the Klingon ship is crewed by Romulans, one of the KRs.

So the timeline is:

Y1: Warbird departs.
Y20: Romulans have received KRs from the Klingons.
Y21: Warbird arrives at target, assisted by a ship 'from the future' according to their point of view as they've only seen a few days go past.

Ok, so the scenario is pretty vanilla, but I'd love to incorporate this as a historical scenario in the General War with an accompanying piece of fiction. So my first question is, does SFB's technology shoot down my concept. ;)

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Robert Gamble,

The problem isn't the technology, it's the geography (uhhh... astrography?) In the SFU those Romulan bases aren't 20 light years from their Federation targets, they're thousands of light years. One Federation and Empire hex is 500 parsecs (more than 1500 light years) across.