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	Archive through January 04, 2007	25		01/04 05:57pm

Douglas E. Lampert:

The Klingon D6DP was in Module R9. It was designed by Tos Crawford and specifically noted that the combination was found unworkable and the ship class was never built.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 04:53 pm: Edit

Apologies are offered.

I started to write the above response to Douglas Lampert about 3:14 pm (just after my previous reply which, when posted showed up after Douglas Lampert's comment). I only got as far as typing in Douglas' name when I was pulled away to deal with other issues, and as you can see by the same stamp on the reply, did not return until nearly an hour and a half later. The reply is not in any way meant to be a slap at John Wyszynski, or Tos Crawford, or anyone else. I simply was not aware that anyone else had posted in the interim before I sat down to figure out what the heck I had been doing before I was distracted (since all that was on the screen was Douglas' name), and only scrolled up enough to read his missive (which since I had not left the topic, it had not refreshed to show posts since then). I honestly was not aware that I had been gone so long. Amazing how time just vanishes when you are busy.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 05:05 pm: Edit

I do wish I had named it a D7P instead of a D6DP. The small amount of extra space may have been all that was needed to make the idea work.

I submitted a E3DB design once that had three drone racks and was designed to operate in pairs like the Chickenhawk. Lost the SSD somehow. It was rejected if I recall correctly because the E3 was considered too small to do 1/2 a DB mission; so I knew from the start that the PF-DB role would be a tough sell.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Hmm. If you assume that the *entire* supply on board a DF is used in one (F&E) combat round of bombardment....

104 Type-IIIXX drones. Launching 3 per turn will take 34 turns (with two spare drones).

Drone bombardment is most often used for base sieges. I haven't done any SB battles (much less defended ones), so I'll defer to anyone who can claim experience there, but I recall the Fed vs. Rom Admiral's Game campaign being reported on the board did produce something like a 15 turn siege with a smaller base and smaller fleet maxes. So I guess 30+ turns is not too unreasonable as part of the contingency planning.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 05:57 pm: Edit

I think part of the confusion is that just about anything (minor exceptions) with a drone rack can load a type-III-XX drone and send it on its merry way to some far unseen area (either determined by scout sensors or by other intelligence means).

That does not mean that "just about anything" counts as a drone bombardment ship in F&E. Gunboats could never do it (nor would there by any reason for them to do so).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 07:07 pm: Edit

James Lowry:

A type-IIIXXF drone has a range of 3,200 hexes. Depending on how you want them to arrive you will usually be launching them at a LOT less than that range.

Much of drone bombardment consists of launching the drones in directions other than directly at the eventual target. Including launching them AWAY from the target. The drones then use "Way Points" to execute turns (even HETs) to face the target, resulting in numbers of drones arriving in "time on target" attacks. Some of the drones may have some of their remaining Way Points (those launched later than others) on the map, so that a target might launch a wild weasel only to discover that several of the drones have not yet gone active, but will pass by the target to their next way point before Heting back towards the target.

Drone bombardment is not simply three drones a turn arriving on the map. It is entirely possible to have the entire bombardment drone capacity from three Klingon D6Ds arrive on a given map during a single turn by a judicious plotting of way points. (Faster drones usually require the bombardment ship itself to be operating at a fairly high speed to properly deploy the drones into their designed waves.) The problem is that doing so allows them to be destroyed by a few mines or distracted by just a few weasels. Normally you want some number of drones to arrive over several turns to support your general attack, and will be quite happy if they simply tie up the defender's defensive abilities and weapons fire to allow your ships to get in some unanswered punches.

Should be obvious that most of a drone strike will be launched and inbound before the assault on the base crosses the 100 hex limit for its phaser-4s. And the full strike can be tailored to arrive on a single turn (as noted, generally not a good idea) or over any number of turns up to the limit of the number of drones available to be launched.

Just depends on what you were expecting to be there defending the target, and what you thought the best arrival times and numbers to support your attack.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 08:09 pm: Edit

Ah, right, forgot all about the way points. Way too used to normal drone tracking. (I do remember a nice article about the entire thing in an issue of Nexus that is I-know-not-where right now.)

Still, it does take a while to set that up (33 turns... ), so the enemy will know you're up to something before the main assault gets going.

Going to have to find time to think about this for a bit.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 11:41 pm: Edit

I would pay money for a reasonably complete ship design guide that notes all the little ins and outs like PFs *can't* reload their own drones and the like.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 01:24 am: Edit

Has a scenario ever been written wherein a flight of drones arrived at the same time as the main attacking fleet?

I could see an F5 attacking a protected ComPlat might get escorted in by drones launched form D6Ds that were needed as part of a bigger invasion somewhere but I've never seen a combined DB/direct-assault scenario.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 09:44 am: Edit

Don't want to be a buzz-kill, but wouldn't 6 PFs (which count as ships after all) require 18 other ships to be present in order to show up by S8 (if you were using it)? Since that's over everything's command limit it would be impractical to have a full flotilla of them and if you don't, it's not really any better than a PFD.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 10:27 am: Edit

Um no. That's totally wrong. A PFT can operate a full flotilla on its own. PF's have no requirement for other units other than a PFT (which can be a planet or base as well as the ship). You can also have a casual flotilla but that would require three ships casually carrying two each (of six with one but no more than two per non-PFT).

And that is basically the (S8.0) rules.


ALso, under S8 it not possible to have 18 ships at all in a battle.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 10:32 am: Edit

Michael John Campbell:

The only scenario I am aware of is (SH4.0) "Cruise Drones" in Basic Set.

As to an attack on a base as part of a direct assault scenario, see the variation (SH239.64) to (SH239.0) "Sector Command" in Module F2.

I cannot imagine a Commercial Platform that would be worth the cost of a the type-IIIXX drones, so please do not submit the scenario.

There have been a few other scenarios proposed with off map drone bombardment being a part, but by and large most players simply do not want to be bothered with trying to plan the arrival of the cruise drones.

Michael Kenyon

I would believe the intent would be that the PFDs would still count as one "flotilla". After all, standard Klingon G1s and G1Bs and Kzinti Needle-Ds operate as parts of flotillas or as pure flotillas (they do include leaders) and are PFs, not drone ships.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 11:51 am: Edit

Loren - Michael's point wasn't on deployment of PFs but of "DB" vessels (assuming _each_ PF was counted as 1 "DB" ship).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 11:57 am: Edit

Yeah, I got that too late when I read SPP post. I have self administered a smack to the head.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:03 pm: Edit

Loren Knight:

Michael Kenyon was referring to the rule on Drone ships in (S8.0) which requires that a drone ship have two non-drone ships in support for a battle on a map, and if a PFD was treated as a drone ship rather than a PF, it would indeed require that 18 ships be present (counting the PFDs), and thus his accounting. I am quite sure he was aware that you cannot have 18 ships in a battle force under (S8.0).

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:03 pm: Edit

SPP,

The intent would be to count the flotilla as one ship for escorting?

I asked Mike (Growler) a semi related question RE: the Federation VDB. for (S8.25) (S8.34) (S8.351) (S8.47).

He said that if more than one S8 condition applies to the ship then it must meet all of the stated conditions. Wouldn't that apply here? IF the DB PF concept was even workable?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:04 pm: Edit

Sorry, another example of a message started, then interrupted.

On a side note: (see following message)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Class:

Why does a drone bombardment ship alternate launching drones from three of its racks when there is no difference in timing and drone throw-weight between launching from all six racks simultaneously and then reloading all six racks? In both cases, you launch 18 drones over six turns, and there is no rule that otherwise limits you to launching just three type-IIIXX drones a turn.

Anyone know the answer?

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:13 pm: Edit

Raises Hand:

The crews which are reloading the drone racks can alternate between racks. While they are loading one rack, the other is launching. The next turn the first rack is launching and they are loading the other. If you launch and reload all six at once, you need twice as many crews. Of course this doesn't really show up in SFB.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 12:13 pm: Edit

So that it can't be caught with its short down ... er, with empty racks. DB raids require the SB ship to be relatively close to its target (~ Earth to Venus) making the DB ships vulnerable during their attack.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Andy Palmer is correct.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Kenneth Jones:

PFs are PFs, and (S8.23) very specifically says that each flotilla of six PFs counts as a ship, not 'each individual PF counts as ship'. So six DB PFs (one flotilla) would still be one "ship" under (S8.23). Now note that the rule says that for its purpose one PF is a ship if there are no other PFs present. But if you had two "DB" PFs, they would be "one Flotilla" (assuming no other PFs were present) and would count as "one ship".

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 02:47 pm: Edit

SPP and MJC,
Scenarios with drone bombardment and ships include the LDR mini-campaign (Klingon ISF vs LDR with a D6D providing support) and the WYN-Kzinti mini-campaign in Module X. The WYN-Kzinti is the larger of these two, by far.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 05:34 pm: Edit

Thanks for the clarification SPP.

I don't use many attrition units, (I prefer "real" ships.) So my rules-fu is weak in those areas.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, January 05, 2007 - 10:41 pm: Edit

You could probably get a solitaire game out of a DB event.

Say DB drones are launched to devistate a mining planet. After the launch it is realised that some of the miners are in fact POWs. And it is realised that a frigate could be sent to rescue the miners before the drones arrive with time to spare.
Unfortunately DefSats eat up time trying to get within transporter range and it becomes a very close run thing.

Since the Drones put the frigate under a time limit, the player becomes his own enemy and a solitaire game is born.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, January 06, 2007 - 02:43 pm: Edit

Michael John Campbell:

And this differs from "The Frigate must rescue the prisoners in five turns or a defending cruiser will arrive and blow it to pieces" in what way? Having DefSats affects the frigate as much if there are no drones as if there are, so why go to the bother of trying to figure out on what turns what number of drones are going to arrive on the map and fly towards the planet? At that point you are investing a great deal of effort into something for no practical purpose.

By Greg Ernest (Grege) on Monday, January 08, 2007 - 10:23 am: Edit

John: PF's not being able to reload their own drones is a fairly basic rule about PF's.

In many cases, it's just a matter of knowing the rules for the ships which you put on the table. Admittedly, their are many exceptions to the basics, but I can't think of too many wargames which don't encounter this problem.