Well, it could be because the CL (BPV=84) is less expensive than the DD (BPV=90). Go figure eh?

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, December 07, 2009 - 08:42 pm: Edit

B11.80 says in part " Some empires may have discounts on specific units; if an empire does, then the discounted units will be listed in that empire’s special rules.". Typically this is for FF type hulls, but not always as Gary has noted.

Empires with multiple "FF" type hulls (Klingon E4/F5; Romulan SeaHawk/Snipe; LDR FF/MP) get discounts on one or both types (or none).

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Friday, December 11, 2009 - 12:10 am: Edit

Oh my, another question... Fighters...

I'm looking for a quick and easy answer to what I'm sure might be controversial. The question being: With races with multiple fighter types (read: Federation) with varying BPVs and YIS dates, some going up with time, some going down, how should I handle all the fighters? Should I give the lists to my players and let them decide what they want, should I only use the best, or force historic carrier squadrons on them?

On the Fighters note, EW fighters? Should I include them, or write them off as the bookkeeping nightmare that they appear?

Thanks!

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Friday, December 11, 2009 - 01:28 am: Edit

1. fighters are a flat factor # 2/1 doesn't matter which one or race they are 2/1 bomber are treated as int for factors in GC EW birds are factored into Sq factors

other then that it all cosmedic for the players

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Friday, December 11, 2009 - 07:45 am: Edit

Christopher, EW and EW fighters don't play a role in GC.

As for multiple BPV fighters, remember you will have people doing "Early Fighters" tech even if they don't do an early carrier tech. Fighters are useful for stuffing on starbases and on ground bases. Let your players build what they want as long as the YIS matches what they can build, is my suggestion.

My role in one of the games was to be "Russia in winter" for our alliance. With nineteen starbases (and creating one per turn) and lots of ground bases, I could both crank out lots of fighters and make it Very Difficult to quickly take a system and I could do that on a budget! (I wasn't even playing the Feds!) It would have been interesting -- could I hold the enemy off and cut his supply lines before he could successfully take the system? In some ways, I wish we could have found out the answer (says the ISC Queen).

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Friday, December 11, 2009 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Some specific examples- I would allow the Feds to build CVAs and stuff them with F14/A10s. I would allow them a limited number of CVSs with F15's. I would allow the Feds to use F18s (when available) on any carrier (even those which historically had F20s). I would allow them to interchange A10/A20s were I feeling generous. I would allow them to use F18s anywhere (see below for ready rack limits), but limit their use of F14/F15/F16/A10/A20 fighters to historical hulls.

I would not force the Feds to have the gatlingless F14/F15s from Captian's Log (if they want to build them for some reason, go ahead).

Comments in SFB that such and such an inferior fighter stayed in production/service on some CV hulls should, for purposes of GC, be ignored. I.e. While the Romulans historically had sublight bombers in service (or CH1/CH2 types when the CH3 was the "new model") in SFB, I would not force them to do so in GC. Fighter production takes cash and uses up a physically limited part of the available production slots. A player that is constantly upgrading fighters is not building ships/other stuff...

I would generally track SFB rules on ready racks. I.e. if the player puts A10s on the CVA, you have to visit a Starbase, shipyard, FRD, or the like to "convert" the ship's ready racks to F18s.

Rob, I'm pretty sure that fighter BPVs are used to figure out AF/DF values (group into squadrons of 6 or 12 then do the math). If not, you guys are going to see a very large number of Romulan sublight G-O/G-L fighters in place of the 5x or more expensive newer models...

I believe that we decided to treat EC fighters as normal fighters in GC- not worth modeling. Note that scout PFs would count (in a battle), but not on the strategic map.

Cloaked decoys came up. I can not recall off hand if the decision was to axe them or discuss them at a later date (empire specific tech, so it does not have to be in the rulebook). SWACs would fall in a similar boat. If you allow one, you should allow the other.

Fighter or bomber based ground defenses most certainly have their uses. The ISC Emperor (different game than the one with the ISC Queen) can attest to what two score fighters and a score of bombers can do to a gunline.

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 10:41 am: Edit

Are there ANY operational caveats to building, or using, the various DLX designs introduced in Module R9? The official material suggests a long line of reasons why these units received an IMP (Impossible) designation on the MSC... but what hoops would a player have to go through to be able to build and use these units in GC?

Gary

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 12:11 pm: Edit

Personally, I can't see any hoops to jump through. Anyone can build BBs, and everyone but the Klingons have an IMP designation.

I personally don't the War Ship Status stat in the MSC. I simply stated all the ships and let my players choose what they wanted. If you want to run a historical campaign, then I would suggest using that stat. Otherwise, it's your campaign, your desiscion.

You could make them spend research to allow them to make the DLX class. Though if you look at the stats (Feds for example), you can build two CX for 480 EP compared to the 400 EP for a DLX; this gives you 80/74 A/DF vs. 49/66 A/DF, and you have to take 19 damage on two different ships as opposed to 33 damage on one ship before you suffer the 50% reduction in AF. (As far as I know - the DLX class suffers the same 25% penalty as the DNL class for being a "fast" ship)

I personally don't see a real benefit to fast ships in GC; first you need HPM to take advantage of it, then you need a squadron of fast ships to take advantage of the speed. Most FF and CW will have a speed of 4 with HPM, and don't suffer the 25% reduction in AF.

Mind you, I'm still hammering out my campaign - I don't know what the pro's take on it is.

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 02:32 pm: Edit

In any GC campaign, any player worth his salt is going to be getting his (or her) primary X Ship units into the game +10 years early. With the way the R&D rules are written now, that means that most players will have to employ between 3-4 timed tech R&D projects. The necessary units (in my opinion) to make an elite X Squadron include:

1) CAN 10 command ship. Now, some races get lucky on this one. The Feds and Lyrans have ONLY one CX/CCX design available to them and they are BOTH CAN 10. But if you are the Kzinti, your X cruiser comes in 2 flavors: BCX (CAN 9) and CCX (CAN 10).

If you are the Feds or Lyrans, one timed R&D project gets you your main X Cruiser 10 years early and you can have more than one of these in a SQ as it is the only SC3 X cruiser design available. Also, you do NOT have to burn a regular SC3 conversion slot to make a CX (Fed) or a CCX (Lyran) and these are the mainline X cruiser designs.

The Kzinti's will have to have 2 R&D projects to keep up with the Feds or Lyrans. Also, in order to build a CCX, the Kzinti will have to burn a SC3 conversion slot to make the CCX as it is considered a variant of the BCX (same as with the non X versions).

As the Kzinti player, since getting a CAN 10 X ship will require a second R&D project anyway, why not R&D the DLX as opposed to the CCX? They are both CAN 10 and the DLX does NOT require a conversion slot to build... whereas the CCX would.

Also, on a side note, I contend that the DLX does NOT count as a "Fast" ship and should NOT be hit with that respective attack penalty. Putting X tech on a DNL means that the DNL and the DLX should be considered as 2 completely different animals.

Note that there are other races than the Kzinti's that have this issue as well.

2) Regular main line SC3 X cruiser. Everyone has this one covered well.

3) CLX or CWX design. Neither of these are really worth building. Both designs take up the same number of CAN slots as the mainline SC3 X cruisers and they are less powerful.

4) HDWX. Your main, and I would say ONLY SC4 X ship design you need to build. You will use your SC4 conversion slots on these to make HDWX(P)s (to stock your X SQs with PFs) and you will use the basic combat variant as your SC4 X ship of choice as they are the most powerful unit you can get for that size class and they get EFO bonuses on CAN.

Anyway, this went a little far afield on the topic, but building the DLX seems like a good deal to me, especially when you consider that the DLX will be the SQs command ship and will not count against the CAN limits (for that SQ).

Gary

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 12:12 am: Edit

Gary- C19.40 limits the number of CAX/NCAX type hulls to 4. Using CWXs instead allows 5. CLXs are limited to 6. This is one reason one might not "build the best".

Generally speaking (we should probably spell this out)- historical hulls (except captured/purchased hulls) are available to players, unbuilt variants would also be available to players, campaign conjectural hulls are probably available to players (i.e. tugs; subject to GM review), conjectural hulls require an R&D project but are otherwise buildable, impossible hulls are probably not available even with R&D. BBs are an exception to the above- pretty much every player will go and build them as it allows greater squadron density (at worst it replaces a DN/DNH). I assume that John made them available to everyone to get rid of the old H.I.B.R.I.D. rules that the B10s in the previous GW campaign were stuck with, and then after the building frenzy that happened in U1/U2 placed the production limits on them.

I would assume the DLX is not an option, except in U3 (where everyone got them to combat the Andro threat).

G3 lists the Federation, Romulan, and Gorn BB designs as conjectural, not impossible (I didn't check further). The comparison between DLX and BB hulls both being impossible is thus not valid.

Fast ships in GC are "point" solutions. The DN/CA based ones have some value. The NCA/CW/DD/DW/FF based ones get smacked coming and going (AF reduction, DW reduction for war hulls, limited production, etc. vs. commonly available CW/DW/FF "fast" ships many empires get).

I put techs in GC into 4 buckets- 1- get ASAP (ex: ESS & SY specialization), 2- get after the previous set is in progress (ex: QCB & HPM), 3- get eventually (CEFO-III as a Romulan [look at the numbers for the SPM if you don't get it]), 4- I'll never use it (Improved Colonies).

As noted, HPM has enough utility that I shall get it eventually, but it is not among the first 5-6 things I'll work on.

CAN 10 X hulls- be glad you are not looking at the Romulans-
FHX- Y182, CAN-9
FHFX- Y185, CAN-9
NHX- Y187, CAN-10
K7X- Y183, CAN-9, 25% foreign hull penalty
KRMX- Y186, CAN-8, 25% foreign hull penalty
KEX- Y186, CAN-10

So I can add X tech to a Klingon based D6 mauler as fast as I can get a (weak) CAN-10 X ship based on a hull design that has been in service for ~150 years? The only plus is that the NHX is an X version of a base hull. The Kzinti only have to wait a year between the CAN-9 and CAN-10 designs, not 4-5...

CAX vs. CCX- remind me in a few weeks about this one.

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 12:57 am: Edit

Money, that the key to what you build the max AF/DF this is why the gorns leap on BB tech with their weak DD/FF they need the BB to get any decent denisty and their sq go BB, DN, CVA, SCS and max pfs.
X ships are the same limited amounts of money and the need to buy the maximun ships that why cw/dw are popular.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 01:07 am: Edit

DWs are a sugar rush- +1AF, -4DF (2 for war hull, 2 for SC4). A serviceable DD design is typically a better choice in GC- you often end up with a similar cost to build (after throwing in SY spec and auto SY), and a slightly higher AF+DF.

Empires like the Gorns (DD is weak even when treated as a FF) and Romulans (BH gets nailed with its own DF mods and the SeaHawk YIS is too late).

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 02:19 am: Edit

Howard wrote:

"Gary- C19.40 limits the number of CAX/NCAX type hulls to 4. Using CWXs instead allows 5. CLXs are limited to 6. This is one reason one might not "build the best"."

Actually, rule C19.40 gives those hull limitations for an "Elite X Squadron". In my perusal of the rulebook, I have found ONLY 2 benefits to building an Elite X Squadron.

1) (C19.30g) May qualify a ship for Fleet Formation III bonus (D7.0) when in elite X-squadrons (C19.40).

2) (C19.40) An elite X-squadron may contain up to four SC3 hulls. This increases to five if they are war cruiser hulls or to six if they are light cruiser class hulls. Elite X-squadrons may carry more PFs than normal (C20.21).

So, Elite X Squadrons can use the FF III bonus and carry extra PFs... but I see no prohibition in the rules which says that an Elite X Squadron is the ONLY type of X Squadron which can be built.

Logically a "Regular X Squadron", which gets neither of the two Elite bonuses should be able to be built as well. So, the Federation could, say, build a X Squadron with 11xCX and it should be legal. After all, it does not go over CAN limitations... it just won't qualify for the Elite bonus rules is all, right?

However, IF C19.40 provides the guidelines which EVERY X SQ MUST obey... then the rules really should spell this out in no uncertain terms. At the moment, they do NOT do this.

Thank you.

Gary

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 05:29 am: Edit

[smacks forehead] I got to learn to read more carefully.

So, now that I got my mini-campaign up and running, a few more questions that have popped up.

R&D teams - are there any limits how many teams you can have going?

Related: Rom player wants to bump up CW/DW production by devoting 10 R&D teams @ 25 EP each. I've already told him that it's not practical to devote 10 teams (Y160 start) as it'll take 2 years just to get the first roll. Now they want to know about assigning multiple teams to the same project - 6 teams @ 25 EP each and 4 teams @ 25 EP each (getting their rolls at the end of the first year, rather than the second like the other 6).

I've told them that if this is allowable, they'd have to continue pumping 50 EP per turn into those projects to keep getting the rolls. How does this all sound?

DI (A3.20) - I've read and re-read this, to no avail. Could I get an example please?

Other than that, nothing much to report at the moment. Running a smaller map w/ 10 races, planning on introducing the Andromedans and/or Souldra.

Thanks.

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 05:55 am: Edit

Christopher:

Technically, you don't have independent R&D teams so much as you have projects undergoing R&D. Each R&D project has 1 R&D team working on it and that team cannot get a die roll until you get its funding up to 100 EPs. Every 25 EPs invested after that gets you a die roll on that project (one die roll per turn). 100-175 EPs gets a success on a 1 out of 6. 200-275 EPs gets a success on a 2 out of 6. Etc...

Keep in mind that if you have a Legendary Professor, you can assign him to give a +1 on the R&D die roll for a project (assuming the project has at least 100 EPs in it of course).

Unless you want to use the mass investment type R&D, but that is best for techs which only need one success and you need that tech NOW.

Gary

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 10:05 am: Edit

chris they can o it that way but it a drain on their money 10 teams=250 p0ints which is 2 rolls right their second turn your up to 500 that 5 rolls and a almost sure hit compared to 10 projects @50 each

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 11:20 pm: Edit

I'm not sure what Rob is saying.

Gary's answer is correct. Chris, yes it would take 4 turns until they got any rolls and then it would be 10 as the rules are presently written. I would suggest that you rule that you can get no more than one advance from a crash program, and one from scientific R&D in a single turn (2 total). As written, one can abuse the intent of the rules and get something close to +10 years early in 2-4 years by going for a massive broad R&D program which generally removes the point of the brute force method. I"ll check with the rules committee to see if they disagree on this.

IMO, if an empire can, at start, dump 250EPs a turn into R&D they are either suicidal, or the income is too high.

R&D into timed tech should be doable, but I personally assume that for the full 10 year advance it should be something that requires long term planning (i.e. ~24 years in advance), or crash R&D.

There is no limit on how many R&D projects you can have- cash tends to force a limit. :-) I've seen a score in U2 (different R&D rules). The excessive R&D activity was why the rules were detuned to their current state.

A3.20. The Admiral starts with 3 ships, each with 5DF (15DF total). They set a 30% DI. 15*.3=4.5 (5). Once the force takes 5 points of damage _FOR THE TURN_ it reteats. That 5 points can be from one battle in a single segment, or it can be from multiple battles over the turn (i.e. 1 point per segment over 5 segments or 5 points in a single segment).

I assume that the intent of the Elite squadron rule was a maximum stacking limit. These are limited availability hulls like command hulls. Sigh.

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 02:31 am: Edit

Howard - I'm trying to dissuade him from making this R&D charge, though other players are thinking along similar lines. My fault, to add some variety to the game, here's the summary of the tech rule I introduced:

You have 7200 EP to spend on timed tech, getting a 1 in 6 chance to advance per 100 EP. Any failed attempts will be reduced in value 50% and added to your status sheet as R&D in progress - however, it may not receive any additional rolls until 100 EP had been invested under normal R&D rules.

So, now I have several empires with projects with 3 or more attempts at 100 to 250 EP that they've started, and obviously want to continue. (Oddly enough, the Rom player dumped his free R&D into Fighters and PFs to start, and decided to go with the CW/DW tech once the game started. I think h may be a problem.)

Looked good on paper. Now, not so sure. Maybe I need to start vetting ideas on here for campaign v2...

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 07:00 am: Edit

chris way to much money for R&D the chicago game gives 3-4 hundred start.
If you have started between 150-160 the Rom is working at getting decent ships and combat power
He really doesn't have a lot of options

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Hi GM Braun,

Did any players do 12 timed techs (scientific method) at 600 each? That would be 12 successes.

Rob has the best idea, reduce the amount of the free eps for the next campaign.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 04:51 pm: Edit

300 to 400 for at start R&D is typical as Rob noted, I believe. We went higher for U3 (Y186 start date so you'd expect most critical R&D to be done)- 7200 but that was for crash R&D, not timed.

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 09:36 pm: Edit

John - The ISC player came close - 10 @ 500 for his BB.

Because it's only been a week since they picked and submitted their fleet lists, I've told them that I made a horrendous mistake (which some agreed with). To keep everyone happy, I've changed it to 18 years of timed tech advances, limited to 7 years in any one area (allows everyone to get their dreadnoughts advanced to be purchased at start). Tech R&D starts from there, you YIS dates can still only be advanced 10 years total. They seem to be happy with the racial R&D projects I gave them to start.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, December 21, 2009 - 12:34 am: Edit

As an ISC player, I am smiling!

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 10:10 pm: Edit

In reading C14.50 Prime Teams, am I right in reading that it takes 200 EPs to create a prime team then you must spend 50 EPs per turn over 4 turns to fully train them?

Just looking for a confirmation that I am reading this correctly is all.

Gary

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 11:15 pm: Edit

Uh, I read it this way (paraphrasing), it takes a total of 200 eps to create a PT. This is achieved by spending 50 eps for 4 consecutive turns. Jean, is this the correct meaning of the sentence?

(I admit that I did a double take upon the first reading, thinking 400 eps -- but that can not be right.)

John