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	Archive through September 02, 2009	25		09/04 11:57am

If you use the D17.3 information chart to launch drones would that make a differance?

I want to launch a drone at a size class 3 ship I need level A Tac Intel (range 35).

To launch at a specific ship I would need level D (range 9) and keep this level of tac intel.

I am not sure if this would add an extra level of complexity that would be worth it.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 - 10:23 pm: Edit

For many players, it seems that they treat Fed/Klin/Kzin fighters as drone bombardment units. They keep them at ranges where there is little risk to the fighters. Playing against such tactics is tedious and boring. Often it becomes a math problem as to how many drones does it take to overwhelm the defenses.

As such, I have played around with this idea myself over the last few years, I had come up with the following ranges:

15 - Fighters
20 - Heavy Fighters, EWF, Two-Seat Fighters, Fed F-14/F-15
25 - Bombers, PFs, Fed F-111
35 - Ships and Bases
(Megapacks add 5 to the range)

Obviously others have similar ideas, but the ranges do vary somewhat.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 - 11:44 pm: Edit

Mike West,

I used the word "negates" not the word "eliminate". Negate meaning to nullify or invalidate. You stated in your original post "Single space fighters have an absolute limit of 8 hexes on all of their weapons. Phasers, drones, plasmas, disruptors, photons." Also you stated "Having to get to range 8, and *stay* there, significantly...". Range 8 does negate many of the uses/tactics of drones.

Alan I agree with your post regarding playability it is the number of drones. John W pointed this out as well.

I suggested a way of addressing some of this and it doesn't change the SSD . Special rails are required to launch drones with ER, ATG, or Type-IIIs. Further require the purchase of the special rails. Adding range restrictions for standard Type-I and Type-IV would also help in controlling the number of drones. I think range 8 is to limiting.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:09 pm: Edit

I have not read the whole topic, and I am NOT making the following statements as a means of shutting things down, okay? This is not me saying "drop it and go away", nor is it me saying "cool, keep going, I love it." This is just me making an observation.

Observation: Plasma torpedoes have absolutely no trouble seeking a target 35 hexes away. If you put this restriction on fighters, by definition you are putting this restriction plasma torpedoes. You are in effect saying that plasma torpedoes have to be guided to their targets and are not self-guiding until they reach the range at which a fighter would be able to launch a plasma torpedo (whether type-K, type-D, or type-F). I do not think the Romulans (or the Orions) would agree with the effect of that on their cloak tactics.

Observation: Seeking Weapons are not Direct-Fire weapons. Phasers are defined as working in "slashes", the amount of damage at a given range reflecting how much of the slash actually cut across the structure of the target and how dissipated the beam is by the range. The accuracy needed to get the slash to optimually dance across the target is outside of the fire control scale of a fighter, or a PF for that matter (limiting even phaser-1s to 15 hexes range on such units). However, seeking weapons operate on the "reflected energy model", and SVC has defined that as akin to a flashlight beam. The flashlight beam itself does no damage, but the reflected energy which the seeking weapon has been told to pursue is what the seeking weapon pursues. This is limited to 35 hexes range no matter the scale of the projector (whether a Starbase or the drone-control pod hung under a fighter or MRS shuttle).

Observation: If you start down this path, not only are you massive redefining fighters, but also MRS shuttles, and Federation SWAC shuttles.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 11:57 am: Edit

I'll bite on these.

Re Observation 1: There is already a huge discrepency between plasma torpedoes and drones. A plasma torpedo can self track out to 35 hexes, while an ATG can only do it out to 8. Also compared to a fighter, a plasma torpedo never acquires a target on its own and if it loses its target it dies. A fighter is tracking everything around it and is transmitting that information to a drone (or plasma) it controls. So the fighter's targetting/tracking system has to do a whole lot more than that a plasma torpedo. I don't have a problem with them being different.

Re Observation 2: A crusier has a lot bigger "flashlight" than a fighter. It also much larger sensor array to see the reflection; a fighter might have a 1 meter array versus a 10 meter array for the crusier. As we are not talking about self guiding drones, it doesn't matter how big their "flashlight" is. (It is the controller that matters, as there would be no reason to have control limits.)

Re Observation 3: I'm fine with including MRSs and SWACs.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 01:28 pm: Edit

Special units and pods could extend range. Give MRS and EWF's R30, SWACs R35, and Drone Control Pods R20.

Ground bases might have a number of control channels (and be eligible for double control ComOp).

I'm not jumping in to demand any change, but I wouldn't be opposed to something like this (certainly not against exploring it). I can see some positive aspects to it but a change like this would have lots of tendrils into other rules, all of which would have to be found, studied and fixed if needed.

I think the chances of a new rule that affects so many other rules would be highly unlikely to happen short of a new edition of the entire game of SFB.

It seems to me that at this point, new rules need to be fairly well self contained. This is not one of those.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 01:33 pm: Edit

Point 1) I agree with John in that I don't see why a limitation on a fighter's fire control would imply a limitation on a plasma's fire control, but I don't make the rules and know the underlying assumptions. I did try to intentionally set this up such that plasma torpedoes don't change at all, and I still don't think they need to.

From what I can tell of the rules, the plasma only uses the "flashlight" to get the target, or while being guided by something else. Once it enters self-guidance, it appears to use something other than the "flashlight" method. (Witness the +3 ECCM it gets when guiding itself.) Even if the fighters "flashlight" is weak, that shouldn't necessarily put any limits on whatever technique that plasma use for self-guidance.

So, I don't think there has to be a hard link between a fighter's targetting ability and a plasma's ability to guide itself. Just saying they use different technologies for guidance is sufficient to completely sidestep this issue.

Point 2) Again, I agree with John. We already have variable power "flashlights" in the game (c.f. the 8 hex range of ATG drones). I see no problem saying that ship and base "flashlights" are much more powerful than fighter and gunboat "flashlights".

Another tack is just with the targetting computers. If your targetting computers can't keep a lock on something, it really doesn't matter how powerful the "flashlight" is. So, that would be a second way to explain the limitation.

I really don't see this as a real limitation, since there are so many ways to work around it.

Point 3) OK. I have no problem with that. In the case of a SWAC, you can always give it a greater limit (like using a gunboat's limit) to reflect its increased power and capability. But, quite frankly, limiting a SWAC to a gunboat's limit and an MRS to a fighter's limit is a perk of the proposal, not a disadvantage.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 02:38 pm: Edit

John W wrote
"Also compared to a fighter, a plasma torpedo never acquires a target on its own and if it loses its target it dies."

WRONG.

A plasma torp can guide itself just fine.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 02:58 pm: Edit

I think Mike G meant to say that a plasma can be launched under PFC so can in a half-baked way acquire a target on its own. At the moment of launch it's still being told to aim at that thing over there and then spends the next few hexes of movement improoving its lock-on. Whether it truly acquires the target on its own is a matter of debate.

It certainly dies if it loses its target, as John W said.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:19 pm: Edit

John Wyszynski:

Observation #1: The plasma torpedo's guidance system is, by definition, smaller than a fighter (or else no fighter could carry and launch a plasma-K torpedo, much less a plasma-D, or a plasma-F). The guidance system is by definition providing its own "flashlight", otherwise the fact that a target has "cloaked out" would have no effect on the plasma torpedo.

Observation #2: Sorry, but it is not the POWER of the flashlight, but NUMBER of channels. Thus any ship can be easily upgraded to control six seeking weapons, and could control seeking weapons even before fighters could (albeit, a ship with no seeking weapons could only control three), even before shuttles could (MRS is first shuttle able to control seeking weapons). Single space fighters armed with drones mostly were limited in the number of flashlights they could mount (most of them only two). Two-seat fighters mounted more (and had a dedicated GIB to operate them), as did heavy fighters and bombers. However, fighter drone-control channels were limited in that they could not accept transfers of control, not even from another fighter in their squadron (excepting the two-seat EWF fighter, and fighters later equipped with drone control pods). So if a Squadron of F-18s at 35 hexes range from a fixed target launched two drones per fighter on Impulse #1, 12 of the drones would go inert after moving 12 hexes (the type-VIs), and you would have 12 drones left to deal with, all of which would be type-I frames.

If the squadron of F-18s launched one drone each on Impulse #25, they could launch another drone each on Impulse #1, and both of these drones might be type-Is [an F-18, and indeed most fighters, cannot launch two type-I drones in one turn or within a quarter turn (J4.24)]. Note that the limit on launches of type-I drones applies to all varians of the F-18, including the F-18CM.

THE EXCEPTION is a remote controlled F-18, which can be ordered to launch all of its drones, but note that it can only control two of them still, the other drones must be guided by other units.

And of course a squadron of F-18B+s, or F-18Cs, could be fitted with type-III drones, and could launch both of those in a single turn under (R1.F9), but it takes a lot of doing to get all those type-III capable rails loaded with type-III frames.

Now, the F-14, F-15, TAAS, and Z-Y all form some exceptions. The F-14 can launch two type-Is in the same turn, provided both have the same target. The F-15 (and the F-15 can control four drones) and TAAS can launch two type-I drones on different targets provided they are launched on different impulses. The Z-Y can launch two type-I drones on the same or two different targets on the same or different impulses. This is all under rule (J4.25).

There are variants of the TAAS and Z-Y that can access (R1.F9), but they do not gain much benefit from it as they are only launching, in the final analysis, two single-space drones (albeit with internal guidance and 25 turns of endurance), and they have to be launched at different targets. The F-14 could launch four such drones in a single turn, although again at different targets under (R1.F9).

But for the most part, you are raising an issue about 12 fighters launching 12 drones a turn if they are standing off at range. If they are close enough to use their dogfight drones to try to spoof your defenses, they are pretty much close enough to be shot at.

And one of the best defenses against fighter launched drones is your own defending fighters launching counter drones in response to enemy fighter drone launches.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 10:39 pm: Edit

I think we should focus on the playability factor, and not bother with Treknobabble 'explanations'.

It does what it does because its a game. This is Star Trek, not Harpoon.

Anything that nerfs fighters/ATU's is a plus, because A) the current fighter rules pretty much killed the game, and B) J2 nailed the coffin shut. To wit, megapacks @ 'remote-control' fighters. Yeesh.