“In Y152, a remote Lyran gem mining base near the LDR and Hydran borders suffered a catastrophic failure of its power plant after an Orion team planted explosives, heavily damaging the plant and the power lines leading to the habitat buried deep within the planetoid. The DD Silver Moon Scimitar was dispatched as the nearest vessel able to render assistance. While a landing party from the Scimitar frantically jury rigged a temporary fix to provide life support power, the Orion LR Lucky Linda returned to make sure the colony failed.”

Setup:

Small moon (no atmosphere) in 2215. 3 hex diameter gas giant planet centered in 2208.
Mining base power plant on side A (see special rules). The entire map is a dust cloud.

Lyran DD Silver Moon Scimitar in standard orbit above the base. WS1. Both shuttles are at the mining base power plant with 2 crew units and 2 BPs. No refits (including no esg capacitor refit). 2 T bombs

Orion LR Lucky Linda enters on any map edge, WS3, speed max. Armed with a fusion beam in the nose and 2 Phaser 2s in the wings. No refits. + 4 extra BPs and +2 combat engineers.

Before the scenario the Orion must choose one of the following missions and place a card of the appropriate suit face down between the players for mission confirmation at the end of the scenario.

Diamond: You want the jewels. Your VC is increased for every 5 cargo points you cature from the base. You lose one level of victory for every 4 families killed. Thieving Pirate.
Club: You have been hired to hurt the Lyrans as part of an elaborate long term attrition campaign. Only penalized at half the usual rate for disengagement. Three armed monsters.
Heart: You have been hired to forment labor unrest. VC level raised one level per 4 local militia killed. Comrade MAC-V is heartless when it comes to the revolution!
Spade: You have been hired by a rival mining firm. Recieve one VC upgrade for every 15 families killed and an additional level if ALL are killed. Bury the bodies and a new digger comes to town...

Special Scenario rules:
1) the mining base has no power, working systems or control stations. It has one entrance, 6 militia BPs, 50 defenseless family units (enemy BPs can kill these families at a rate of 5 families per combat round per BP if they are not engaged otherwise in combat, one family dies per round per enemy BP in combat inside the base due to collateral damage). It also has 100 points of armor and 25 cargo spaces of jewels. No more militia can be raised from the families.

2) Outside the base is one gcl at the improvised power plant. It has 2 control stations and no defense turrets. The Orions, if they control the GCL unopposed (or they control both control stations AND take no casulties in the current round) may destroy the transmission cables. If a shuttle is present, it may use its phaser as a single defense turret or it may hide from fire (forsaking offensive power in exchange for being shielded from specific allocation damage).

3) the Lyran crew units on the shuttles may act as Militia at any time.

4) Reinforcements: A pair of combat (??) skiffs enter on turn 8 WS3, speed max from map edge XX. NOTE that these skiffs do NOT have the ability to be landed and to act as power supplies for the colony due to handwavium issues. NEED ADVICE ON TIMING ISSUES!! TOO SOON??? TOO LATE???


Standard victory conditions:

*The Orion gets their victory conditions upgraded two levels if no shuttle is available to the Lyrans at the end of the scenario,
*They get their VC upgraded one level if they control the GCL for an entire turn (they destroy the cabling again).
*They get their victory reduced two levels if there is an operating shuttle at the base or available to the Lyrans after disengagement. They can get both the bonus for destroying the cabling and the reduction to their VC if a shuttle can return when victory conditions are calculated.
*They get their victory increased by three levels if they capture the base itself and then transport out their BPs and 10 cargo spaces (the Hexfire Tangerine Sapphires)

AUTHORS NOTE:
this scenario is designed to work the heck out of the Lyran and to be a high speed chase all over the place. A SLOW ship with a brick sitting over the base is going to experience a tractor slam into the moon.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 03:51 pm: Edit

Another note: For once an Orion without a darn gatling or plasma F!

And of course, this scenario designed to support a story I am working on.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 03:57 pm: Edit

A few notes.

Avoid imbedding entirely new rules into a scenario. Get the new rule accepted first so that you do not have to revamp your idea when it turns out to be rejected.

I refer here to using the shuttle's phaser as a defense turret.

No such rule. Shuttles are ground combat units normally, see (D15.0) (no time to look up the specific subrule, sorry).

Second, I SUGGEST (emphasis, I am not requiring you to do this or otherwise trying to force you to do it) that you modify the background and year to make this something that happened in what would become LDR space. Set the year as say Y142 and the area of space as within the "Dark Star County of the Enemy's Blood Duchy". Then add background data about Count Zehrk's family and administrators having skimped on the safety and back up systems for the colony, perhaps a lot of shoddy construction and other things. The historical outcome (no matter what the player may accomplish) was a bloodbath for the colonists, and this became one of the rallying points that led to the eventual revolt in Y145.

Again, you do not HAVE to do the above. It is just a thought.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 04:18 pm: Edit

SPP,

1) I can see the point about the phaser on the shuttle issue

2) The point is that this is a Lyran colony and they don't know what the heck is happening. The Orions are up to something, but what?

Pirates out for loot?
One noble playing some game on another?
LDR formenting revolution in the neighboring county?
Hydrans looking for attrition?

3) Finally, this is supposed to be the scenario for a fiction piece I am working on. So it is a bit "era sensitive."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 08:37 pm: Edit

Michael C. Grafton:

As noted, I was just making a suggestion to try to tie the scenario into the larger Starfleet Battles background, not requiring you to do so.

As to point #2, it was not clear to me from what you wrote that the LDR might have been involved in what was going on, apologies for the suggestion. I just missed that the LDR had to already be in existence for your background.

Carry on.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 02:12 pm: Edit

SPP,

In Y152, the time noted, the DDSC is getting busy messing with their neighbors, per the R section notes.

In fact, the r section says the DDSC gets CAUGHT in Y153! And the Hidden Dagger count tries vengance.

My fiction is designed to flesh out some of the background of that.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Michael C. Grafton:

Sorry I was not clear. I was withdrawing my suggestion for background development in light of the fact that you specifically wanted the LDR to be a factor, which meant of course that it could not predate the LDR's existence.