Archive through January 26, 2010
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(FD) New Drones:
Webcracker Drones:
Archive through January 26, 2010
The presence of the Tholian Holdfast in former Klingon space was a thorn in the side of the empire, with many attempts made to remove them. A near-permanent Tholian Border Harassment squadron was formed specifically to weaken them, and several concentrated attacks were made - culminating in Operation Nutcracker in Y177. Along the way, weapons research was conducted to attempt to defeat (or duplicate) the Tholian Web technology, all without success.
This changed slightly in Y182, with the arrival of the Seltorian Hive Ship, and their dedicated anti-Tholian weapons. Although much research was spent on modifying or duplicating these for mounting on Klingon ships, none proved immediately fruitful. The Milky Way-galaxy copies of the weapons were simply not stable enough for repeated use. However, one-time use was finally proven achievable. This led to the development of a drone module, which burned itself out on use, that was effective at engaging Tholian technology.
Quote:FD__.1 CONSTRUCTION
FD__.11 MODULE: The Webcracker module is a one payload space module containing a single 'webcracker' charge. Historically, these were developed fairly late in the General War, and saw limited deployment entirely within the Tholian Border Harassment squadron, mounted to type-I drone frames.
FD__.12 MOUNTING: If mounted on a type-IV frame, the Webcracker module may be in either position. The two elements (Webcracker and bus vehicle) could have different targeting options, although this would be of limited utility.
FD__.13 AVAILABILITY: Webcracker drones are "limited" availability in Y183 and later to Klingon warships, although becoming "restricted" availability in Y184 to Tholian Border Harassment forces only. The module was "limited" availability to Seltorian ships carrying Klingon-designed fighters from Y183 on. No other empire duplicated or received this technology.
Quote:FD__.2 OPERATIONS
FD__.21 DAMAGE PROCEDURE: When a Webcracker drone enters a web hex, it 'impacts' the web and discharges its 'webcracker charge'. This immediately reduces the strength of the impacted web by 10 points.
FD__.22 TARGETING: A Webcracker drone can target 'web hexes' as targets. Additionally, if the 'webcracker charge' is in a multiple-space drone, the drone could also be targeted on any other unit possible for the bus vehicle.
FD__.221 A Webcracker drone could be launched on a ballistic course, and upon impacting a web hex, it would discharge the 'webcracker' charge normally.
FD__.23 ELECTRONIC WARFARE: A Webcracker charge is not effected by EW, but the drone itself (prior to discharge) is treated as a standard drone.
FD__.24 TARGETS: A Webcracker drone can accept any target a type-I drone can accept, as well as web hexes. Note that, as the 'webcracker charge' itself cannot damage ships, it would be of limited utility to target it at a ship (although this is possible).
FD__.25 CARRIAGE: In general, any unit (or rail) which can launch a type-I drone can launch a Webcracker drone.
FD__.251 Webcracker drones on type-III frames can only be carried by fighters on "special" drone railes (J4.233). Those on type-IV frames can be carried on heavily rails.
FD__.252 Webcracker drones can be launched by drone racks.
FD__.253 Webcracker drones can be placed in an SP.
FD__.254 An MRS may launch a Webcracker drone.
FD__.255 DefSats cannot use Webcracker drones.
FD__.256 Captor mines cannot use Webcracker drones.
The genesis for this idea was a discussion with one of our new SFB gamers who plays Klinks.
We had been playing a lot in the 'middle years', and started discussing some of the changes that late-war sees.
"Oh, drones are much faster...almost always speed 32. New ships come out, more attrition units...fighters get booster packs, and are speed 15 to begin with, PFs show up, etc. Tholians start using that Web Caster you'd seen once QUITE a bit more. LOTS of new toys in the drone module department - spearfish drones that ALWAYS score internals regardless of shields, swordfish drones that mount a phaser and fire from a distance, etc."
To which he replies..."So the Klingons finally get something that can deal with the Tholians?"
"Yeah, the spearfish is great against them - few internals so the 'always does internal damage' effect is very effective"
But that's not what he meant - "No, I mean dealing with the webs... Like, a 'Tholian Fracker' module."
Hmm.
Well, no.
So far. 
Reducing the strength of the web by 10 points is far to powerful. The Holdfast would not have survived to the end of the General War. It's also not the way web breakers work. Web breakers (it's web breakers, shield crackers, at least according to Seltorian terminology) reduce the web by a certain number of aggregate strength points, rather than direct strength. The difference is critical. I suggest this reduction be defined as aggregate strength. If 10 aggregate points is too few, make it 20, which is the maximum that a web breaker can do if fired at point blank range. At the level of 20 aggregate strength points, the Klingons can mount a non-suicidal attack on Tholian bases, but it is not so strong that the annihilation of the Holdfast is assured. A straight reduction of 10 strength would be a disaster, and very difficult to support from an engineering standpoint, given that the presumed source for this breakthrough works against aggregate strength.
I suspect this may be on the auto-reject list, as firstly it's sort of tech sloshing, and secondly, it's pretty well established in the history that extra-galactic technology is incomprehensible to Milky Way empires and was never adapted.
Apart from that, I suspect it may swing the balance vs webs in the Klingon favour. A squadron or fleet of Klingon ships with a bunch of these besieging a Tholian base is going to have a much easier time of it.
Alan - the verbiage of the damage was copied from the Seltorian web breaker. It is meant to be the "aggregate web strength" (which phrase I cannot find in any rules) reduced, exactly as the web breaker does. Just less efficiently.
Quote:as firstly it's sort of tech sloshing, and secondly, it's pretty well established in the history that extra-galactic technology is incomprehensible to Milky Way empires and was never adapted
And, in this case, it's still not. The reusable, chargeable, long-ranged, Seltorian weapon cannot be copied. Best the Klinks could do is something that does something like 1/2 the damage (at point blank), and burns out in one hit, and only even THAT after seeing working devices to study.
Indeed, one could even suggest (if it helps the argument or balance) that Seltorians were supplying a component from their web breakers to be used in the 'charge', and after the Seltorians are wiped out, the Klingons lose the capability to produce this weapon.
(That would be an interesting twist, actually - see a module go from 'limited' availability to 'restricted' in one area...then pretty quickly back to 'limited', and then gone. I don't think any other module quite does that...)
Quote:Apart from that, I suspect it may swing the balance vs webs in the Klingon favour. A squadron or fleet of Klingon ships with a bunch of these besieging a Tholian base is going to have a much easier time of it
I wouldn't say "much easier time of it" so much as "actually have a chance of it"*. Currently, a single Tholian Battle Station with a three-ring circus around it and any kind of even minimal forces in defense are capable of defeating a force FAR more powerful than BPV balance would indicate.
* Consider: this IS only a 10-point-from-the-total reduction. That's really not overbalancing, and it's quite limited in deployment at that.
Consider 2: the Seltorians already have this capability, and it's not considered "unbalancing" against Tholian bases. Rather, it just gives them a CHANCE.
Xander Fulton:
Point the first: There is currently no drone module capable of carrying a "heavy weapon". Like it or not, shield crackers/web breakers are heavy weapons.
Point the second: Your focus is too small, weed hopper. You still cannot snatch the pebble from my hand. (Please take the preceding in the humor intended, it is not meant as belitting or insulting.) You think only of the few drones carried by standard warships and of only small numbers.
Consider the beauty of the D6D. Consider that it is possible, using the way point system, to have all 154 type-IIIXX drones from a single D6D arrive in a single turn. Consider that three such D6Ds might be supporting a single attack on a single Tholian Starbase, allowing 226 such drones (half the total load of three D6Ds), of which half can be your web breaker drones (or 1,130 points of web reduction) to be used against the outer web, and the middle web (the other half of the drones). Consider that this does not even include the drones being launched by the normal ships engaged in the assault. This is of course using your Y184 availability which gives the D6Ds 50% restricted drones [they are marked "DB" in their notes column which under (S3.223) allows them to use the D% percentages].
So, combine your drone as written with the Klingon D6Ds, and the Tholian Holdfast is eliminated in one short vicious campaign sometime just after the Andromedans are defeated. (The Klingons would not be able to do it before the Andromedans are defeated obviously for political reasons, but if your drone exists as you have written it, the Tholians are dead because it would be impossible to stop the Klingon attacks through drone bombardment.)
The Seltorians do not already have this capability, because they were never able to mass this much reduction at one time.
Xander,
I'm about 90% confident that the term "aggregate" is used in section G10, which is the web rules section. I guess I'll have to check when I get back to my books tonight, though.
In any event, as long as it's clear the drone reduces the "aggregate" strength points rather than the direct web strength, than I agree it's not unbalancing. In fact it moves a fight that is currently hopeless for the Klingons (if the Tholians have not been caught at low weapon status and have adequate ship support) to a point where they might have a chance.
In order for Tholian survival into the ISC and Andromedan periods (which we know occurred historically) to make sense, attacking an established Tholian defense still has to be extremely difficult and expensive. But now that I know for sure what you are proposing, I feel comfortable that it will be, even with these drones.
SPP,
That's a good point about the D6D, but it seems to me that a couple of counterpoints could be made. One is that I assumed these drone modules would be very expensive, so an attack of the kind you describe would be very rare. That was perhaps a careless assumption on my part.
The other point I wanted to make is that given sufficient Tholian defenses, they might be able to save the middle ring. Your D6D bombardment produces a total of 2260 points of "web breaking". The outer ring will take 1050 before going down and the middle will take 630. If the Tholians can kill about 60 drones before they strike a web, the middle ring will survive, though in a "paper-thin" state. Actually, the Tholians don't even need to kill 60 drones outright. The Tholian minefield, properly set up, will force the drones to arrive spread out in time, though they all arrive in one turn. Once the early drones hit and the web strength starts to fall, Tholian ships can start putting power into it to build the strength back up before other drones arrive later in the turn.
As you mentioned, this also doesn't take into account drones launched by the close assaulting forces. But by the time these drones are available, the Tholians will have lots of drone-killing firepower and lots of web-reinforcing capability (armed web tenders, X-ships, Arachnid-PWs). I believe a truly heavy, and maximally efficient, Tholian defense can survive this attack with the outer ring gone and the middle ring weak but still existing. So, although the final assault would be vastly easier for the Klingons than it would be under current rules, the Klingons will still need to directly assault the web and endure the point blank phaser-4 fire.
Quote:Point the first: There is currently no drone module capable of carrying a "heavy weapon". Like it or not, shield crackers/web breakers are heavy weapons
This, while it has a similar effect to the web breaker, has several severe limitations:
- It has that mode ONLY. There is no 'shield cracker' capability.
- It is vastly less powerful. A web breaker can do up to 20 pts of web reduction, this cannot do more than 10.
- It is much shorter ranged. A web breaker can fire and do damage to a web (up to 5pts) 10 hexes away. This only damages a web at point blank (when it hits).
- It's a vulnerable drone module. Only 4 pts (or one ADD 'hit') to destroy a type-I drone, and the charge is lost. There is no way (even via EW) to reduce or impair the effectiveness of a web breaker.
Given the limitations of the above, it seemed to me that this - while having a similar effect (in much smaller scale) was trimmed down enough from the 'heavy weapon' that it may work as a drone module. (Consider Phaser-4s...effectively a 'heavy weapon', and not possible to use on drones, but scaled-down versions such as Phaser-2 and Phaser-3 emitters *are* possible.)
Quote:Consider the beauty of the D6D. Consider that it is possible, using the way point system, to have all 154 type-IIIXX drones from a single D6D arrive in a single turn.
...
This is clearly a concern, however...
Quote:The Klingons would not be able to do it before the Andromedans are defeated obviously for political reasons, but if your drone exists as you have written it, the Tholians are dead because it would be impossible to stop the Klingon attacks through drone bombardment.
...you are clearly correct on the above. However, per the suggested revision I made shortly after the first set of feedback was made (that is, this module requires a part supplied by the Seltorians, and so is only available as long as they are), this may not be an issue.
Module exists in Y183, becomes somewhat widespread in Y184 (were there any D6Ds in the Tholian Border Harassment squadron? Seems a bit of a waste given regular drones...and only that group was noted as having more than 'limited' availability), but would surely be back to 'limited' availability everywhere in Y186 when the Seltorians are wiped out, and by Y187/Y188, no more exist.
By the period of the post-Andro defeat in Y202, there would probably be enough in various places in the empire you could scratch together one such strike as you indicate, but not enough to wipe out the Holdfast wholesale.
Rare means extremely unlikely but not impossible.
At any given opportunity, the Klingons would use this tactic to eliminate the Tholians.
Alan Trevor:
Tholian Starbases and Battle Stations are very expensive as well. So is repairing shot up ships that had to sit in the web and be hauled out by other ships. If the bombardment would eliminate the web, then the base would be destroyed. Tholian ships would be destroyed rather than being able to hide behind the web of the base. Since 50% of any of the drones in a flight of bomardment drones would technically be "dummies" (i.e., only half the warheads in Y184 can be web breakers as it is restricted status) there Tholians are just doomed, which winds up making the attack "cheap".
Think about:
1.) The drones are targeted on the web (at least the web breaker ones are) and do not even need to be "targeted", but can be launched "ballistic" to "explode on impact". That means the 50% launched to reduce the web cannot be distracted by wild weasels, Wild PFs, or special sensors (or even a borrowed Federation SWACS). And special sensors cannot "turn them off". The only defenses are to shoot the drones down (which might include T-bombs or a minefield), or to tractor them. There are 226 drones arriving in one turn, 113 of them are "decoys" (these probably do have targeting information for various Tholian ships), so your chances of significantly degrading the drone wave are pretty slim even with a full Tholian fleet defending the base under attack. You can degrade them somewhat with "cast web", but that means coming out from behind your web defenses to cast the web, and allowing the Klingon ships to fire on the Tholian ships that do so.
2.) Include a Klingon D5V group with remote controlled Z-YCM fighters, and you can launch another 88 drones (all of which, if you took the time to hustle the deck crews before launching the fighters, and it might be 96 if you use a standard fighter rather than an EWF) might also be these drones, and again do not require guidance to hit the web.
The fact is that with these drones you are cracking Tholian bases with the drone bombardment support, something that was previously almost unheard of. (What were you going to do, throw a bunch of phaser-3 drones at the web and hope the Tholians were in range when they hit it?) This drone changes drone bombardment into "Kill one or two Tholian Bases (depends on whether you can have two three ship bombardment squadrons), whether Base Station, Battle Station, Sector Base, or Starbase, every six months in Federation & Empire. And there is pretty much not anything the Tholians can do about it.
The drones might be expensive, but compared to blasted Tholian bases and dead Tholian ships, they are cheap.
It seems to me that this debate can be resolved rather easily by the fact that there's a blanket rule that says that Web breaker tech cannot be transferred (If memory serves me correctly).
regards
Stacy
Quote:The drones might be expensive, but compared to blasted Tholian bases and dead Tholian ships, they are cheap
...except that production of them also requires the Seltorians still exist in this galaxy, sheltered somewhere in Klingon space. That's a VERY costly decision for the Klinks to make.
Quote:Web breaker tech cannot be transferred
The rule in question is a little more specific than that, which allows my suggestion circumvention of it. E15.13 reads:
Quote:Web breakers are extra-galactic technology (in the Milky Way). Even with captured examples, they cannot be reproduced or copied by any other race.
Web breaker cannot be used in Orion or WYN option mounts; exception: see (R15.Z2)
...and we aren't copying them - this isn't a re-usable, direct-fire weapon mounted on a starship. And we aren't reproducing even components of them - for each one of these warheads to exist, it requires the Seltorians provide some key component.
Xander Fulton:
In all honesty, no, the rule does not allow your little circumvention.
However, I wanted (for future game design) to demonstrate that you have to take into account all aspects, thus the D6D situation.
When proposing any kind of new drone, you have consider their use by drone bombardment platforms.
Obviously the drone would have had limited use for the Kzintis (outside of a campaign which pitted the Kzintis and Tholians against each other for some reason), but it would have been a major selling point for Orion Mercenaries hired to support Romulan attacks on the Tholians (or hired by any other empire for the same reason). The Feds would be in a similar situation to the Klingons if they suddenly decided to get rid of the Holdfast.
I also wanted defenses given more consideration. Ballistic drones are harder to stop than non-ballistic drones, and the Tholians do NOT have ADDs (I really could not fathom why you even mentioned them, honestly) and would be totally dependent on mines, direct-fire, tractors, and cast web to stop them. All of which makes the defending ships more vulnerable.
Admiral: We can eliminate the Tholians forever.
Emperor: What's it going to cost?
Admiral: I need one fleet, three D6Ds, and a number of type-IIIXX drones equal to one year's miitary budget. It will mean no new ship production for a year.
Emperor: But at the end of the year, the Tholians will be gone forever?
Admiral: No, your majesty, at the end of next MONTH the Tholians will be gone forever. You're just going to be paying the bill for a whole year.
Emperor: Hang on a sec while I write a check.
Quote:the Tholians do NOT have ADDs (I really could not fathom why you even mentioned them, honestly)
...mostly under the assumption that, as with 'Operation Nutcracker', the Tholians would seek outside aid in any "the Klingons are coming to wipe us out" scenarios. Potentially allowing Kzinti (or even Federation, if the situation was dire enough) aid...both of which do field ADDs.
Quote:However, I wanted (for future game design) to demonstrate that you have to take into account all aspects, thus the D6D situation
The off-map bombardment is definitely a problem with this suggestion, I agree, and was not fully accounted for (SVC's "conversation with the Emperor" the case in point). I suppose a solution to this would be to simply require that the module be double-space. (In such case, perhaps a 20-pt web reduction vs 10-pt would be more appropriate)
This would eliminate the problem of the 200-drones-from-offmap. Although, certainly, drone ships would still be able to field a frightening number of them...the launches would be paced in a way significantly easier to defend against.
SPP,
The problem I have with your analysis, though, is that you assume/allow no changes to Tholian tactics/deployment patterns to take the new Klingon technology into account. Here's an example.
There is a rule in Module K, I don't recall the exact number, that suggests that a standard flotilla typically has 2 Arachnid-Ws. I suggest that if the Klingons were capable of deploying this type of drone, the Tholians would junk that deployment for their base defense flotillas and the standard for base defense flotillas would be 5 Arachnid-PWs and a PFS (PFL not necessary for the dedicated base defense role, PFS would mean the base needn't commit a channel to provide the flotilla EW support and would have all channels available to support ships (or itself)). An Arachnid-PW has 4 phaser-1s, so assuming they fire at a range of 2 hexes (hiding behind the web, shooting at drones just before they impact the web) the 20 ph-1s on the 5 "shooters" take care of about 17 drones. Additionally, once the early arriving drones (see earlier post about minefield) start weakening the web, those Ar-PWs will start putting power into the web to counter the "breaking" before the late arriving drones reach it. By this time, (post Y175) 5 points of power will suffice to counter the 10 "breaking" points from one drone. The phaser capacitors already being full, each Ar-PW can supply approximately enough web reinforcement to counter 3 drones.
So that one flotilla, can account for more than 30 incoming drones all by itself.
Naturally, some of my defending ships are towing Ar-PWs on their mech-links.
And did I mention that my defending PCs are PCXs? And that my CPA "heavy phaser cruiser" has the full XP-refit for all its phasers, giving it effectively 24 phaser-3s for drone killing? And I should probably also mention that the base's fighter squadron consists of Spider-IIPMs, which effectively take out another 12 drones (11 if I include a Sp-IIE) per turn.
Now some of the drones killed would be, as you describe them, decoys. But on the other hand, I was still assuming PCXs for defending ships. Tholian space is so compact that some non-trivial percentage of the time, they would detect the approaching fleet earlier enough to get an X-cruiser or 2 to the base. That same compactness also means that either the D6Ds or the assaulting fleet itself might be intercepted by a Tholian battle fleet before it reached the target base. Based on F&E numbers, the nearest Tholian DN or X-cruiser should be much closer on average than would be the case for a similar incursion against a major empire, simply because the density of Tholian capital ships relative the size of the Holdfast is higher.
Now none of this assumes any new technology on the part of Tholians, merely some changes to deployment patterns (and increased production of CPAs). Obviously, the Tholians don't have the resources to make this kind of effort at every base. These drones would enable the Klingons to (comparatively) cheaply pick off the less well defended bases, and weaken the Tholians over time. But the major bases would still be very difficult for the Klingons to take.
I understand and agree with your argument that the engineering doesn't support something like this on a drone. Even given Xander's assertion that these could be smaller than true web breakers, I note that nothing smaller than a true ship carries a web breaker. The rules forbid them even on PFs. But if the Klingons did have this, I still think that the major Tholian bases would be hard (and risky) to take down.
[Signing off now but I'll check for your (or anyone else's) response later tonight.]
The Paladins would be pulling out the shiny rubber stamp of FUND IT before the admiral could even finish.
Though I would presume one would think the Klingons, not the Seltorians, would have to tool up whateve drone production facitilities they have to produce these. Why would Seltorians have drone production facilities after all? Thier handful of Klingon Fighters could probably by supplied that much easier by the existing supply lines that were feeding the Tholian Border Squadron.
Which means somewhere, some rock would have a factory producing Web Breaker Drones. They would be tooled to produce them, have the lines ready to go, and it'd just be a question of insert Item A into Control Circuit C, or what have you.
Meaning I can't see why the availability would ever drop off. Not that it'd be needed as is for more than the couple months it'd take to eliminate the Holdfast.
Even if you changed the strength damage for the module to as little as two or three it'd still be a great deal and cut a Tholian Base Assault time in half. Less time under the guns, more dead rocks, more Klinks sharing a crate of Romulan Ale after the liberation of Kalestra.
Ways of making this a LOT less easy:
1) Say the WC warhead only has 32 inpulses before it must discharge.
2) Make it a 2 space module
3) Require it to be on a special frame that only has 8 impulses duration (because the WC module is eating up all the fuel)
4) Say it cannot be placed in a Scatter Pack...
Etc.
BUT, I think this is a REJECTED deal from the get go. Neat idea doomed as unbalancing.
Quote:Neat idea doomed as unbalancing
When was the last time you attacked a defended Tholian Battle Station (forget Starbase).
*shudders*
I STILL have nightmares...
Talk about "unbalancing"!
That said - I like all of your ideas as 'balancing' suggestions. Perhaps the 8-hex-range is a little harsh, but something like this might be useful.
Quote:Which means somewhere, some rock would have a factory producing Web Breaker Drones. They would be tooled to produce them, have the lines ready to go, and it'd just be a question of insert Item A into Control Circuit C, or what have you.
...
Meaning I can't see why the availability would ever drop off. Not that it'd be needed as is for more than the couple months it'd take to eliminate the Holdfast.
The assumption would be that there is some key piece of technology - some critical component - needed for the Web Breaker to work at all that the Seltorians can produce (obviously - they can, after all, build more of them), but absolutely cannot be replicated by any galactic power (the E15.13 limitation). [Off-on-a-limb: Hell, maybe it's partially organic and requires freshly cloned material from their queen - SOMETHING about it is impossible to replicate 'locally', even with copies to study.]
As long as their hive ship exists, the Seltorians can produce this component and provide it to the Klingons to integrate in this proposed drone warhead for their shared use. When the Seltorians go away - only those drones already created remain, no more can be built.
I'd be cool with this with one caviat. When the Klingons deployed the SC-Drone they discovered that the Tholians had developed a Crack-Resistant Web and had already began to deploy it.
The Tholians retained a lot of data on hardcopies about the shield cracker (data gathered during the first Tholian assault on the starbase) that had been transmited among the Will during (but too late) the Seltorian Revolt. The Holdfast long had other priorities and lost portions of that data, but when the 312th arrived they could fill those holes. It took X-Technology to solve the problem but the result was a new web frequency (X-web and XP refit web had this ability) that resisted web breakers. Now web breakers did a fraction of the damage they one did.
But I doubt that would happen.
BTW: Reducing the web by ten points (strength points or power points?) is too much. One point is more like it.
Could be useful in dropping a web enough to get a ship out.
What is the problem though is that they would be used to get ship IN web, particularly into wedding cakes.
Alan Trevor:
Uhm . . . no, I do consider changes in Tholian Tactics and the limitations of such AND the Changes in Klingon Tactics the Tholian tactics cause.
It is not a static situation.
The overriding problem is that if the drones are effective as Xander said, two things doom the Tholians:
The Klingons have a far larger fleet and are no longe technology behind the Tholians as they were when the Tholians first arrived (with the exception of webs) which means the Tholians cannot defend every base in sufficient strength to save them.
And the Klingons only need enough reduction to be able to pass through the webs and destroy the defending Tholian ships. If the Tholian ships are desperately trying to pump power into the webs, the are lacking power to arm weapons, which means easy destruction of those ships.
Yes, you can have the titanic battle of Starbase Quartrax where the Entire Tholian Klingon Border Fleet reinforced by the Home Fleet made a heroic stand and saved that base, of course that meant Starbase Vortrax was destroyed, along with Battle Stations Syntax, Arrackax, and Ravak.
Speaking as the one that pushed for major revisions of the Tholian web rules pre-Doomsday to actually WEAKEN them somewhat let me sum up what the problem is: Tholian web is "brittle". What I mean by that is that tweaking the rules doesn't yield a transitional state wherein the web is slightly less effective, either it's •••• near absolute as a defense or it's next to useless. It's an either/or situation.
I suspect had the Tholians been made from scratch (like say the Hydrans) and not based on the show web would never have been brought into the game (although web casters and related probably would have been ok). But web was in the show and so it's in the game. The Tholian background as refugees in limited numbers explain why they have not conquered the Milky Way with their web tech.
regards
Stacy