John, your reading is correct. Composit teams cost 400 EPS (or more), as they are the product of 2+ Prime teams...

Just like R&D is 100 points to get a roll at 25EPs per turn; Prime teams are 200 EPs in four easy installments of 50EPs each.

By William Gary Glattli II (Wglattli) on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 02:38 am: Edit

Okay... so 200 EPs paid out over 4 turns. Got it. I think... :/

Gary

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 08:46 am: Edit

can you pay 200 in one turn and get it on T4?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 10:30 am: Edit

Rob, bank it and pay it out over four turns.

Guys, I'm not playing much in these topics because I *have* to get PD Feds done. I have SVC working down the hall from me and I have to focus on the work while I have the boss's ear, mind, and typing fingers.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 11:24 am: Edit

Guys, I moved the snow conversation to the General Discussions topic.

Jean
WebMom

By Christopher Braun (Beancounter) on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 02:01 am: Edit

Combat questions, as combat looms between the Klingons and the Kzinti...

A10.35(d):
1) I'm a little uncertain about this. A10.40(g) says that when a commando ship uses it's 'Troop' ability, it's effectively out of the fight. Yet, if I'm reading this correctly, a fleet of non-commando ships could devote all of their damage per round into capturing ships? (Likely while their opponent tries to blast them into oblivion.)

2) Ground bases - a) With the 4x DF modifier, I assume that capturing a set of ground bases is next to impossible? Or do commando ships get to ignore the 4x multiplier when using A10.40g? b) Can ground bases use A10.35d? I'm assuming so, given that the LGFO gives 4 capture points. If so, to garrisons count as 'Troop' ships?

A3.20 - DI and captured ships. When an enemy ship is captured, I assume that the captured ship is considered 'destroyed' for determining DI?

C13.3x - Annexing:
This is effectively using military ships to scout (B3.15) enemy territory and covert it to their territory?

Assuming so, then as long as the military units are destroyed (BS/BATS/SB, DefSats, and ground bases), the invading force can occupy the hex for 12 segments, forcing the civilian units to automatically surrender (C7.15), and in effect getting a free commercial base. Then, all that is needed is to build a BS, connect with trade routes, and it goes from minor colony (10EP) status to regular major colony status?

Thanks,
--Christopher, wondering how it's all going to turn out...

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 08:45 am: Edit

1. annexing: open space only
you must build a TCB and meet all the major planet peramaters.
mm is withdrawn does not surrender automaticly
unofficaly the 5X rules can come into play
defenders 15/15 attackers 150/140 defender could surrender to save lives

got to go

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 02:46 pm: Edit

While my opinions are not official....

1). Yes, a commando ship is under restrictions when using its capture ability. Regular ships may engage in the "capture form of attack". (Like directed damage, the enemy can not distribute damage as he wants.)

2). Ok, I'm fuzzy here. Using the small ground bases procedure (appendix 1/B), you are correct, the DF (the 4x value for 6 gound bases) would be multiplied by 5 (the capture DF value), making the capture of all 6 gound bases difficult. I am fuzzy if there are less than 6 ground bases or more than 6 (6 combined, 1 alone for example). Being me, I would assume that a lone gound base or less than 6 ground bases would not get the 4x DF and that a single ground could be captured (as they are no longer considered a group of six). Again, I assume that the GM would determine which group of ground bases would be grouped if there are more than 6. Argh...

A3.20 - See rules C2.40 thru C2.45. Looks like captured ships are treated as "poor crewed" ships.

C13.3x - Yes. The civilian facilities automatically surrender when there are no more military units present. I would assume that annexing may begin the segment after there are no more military units. The other alternative is to wait for the "front" to catch up. The TCB is yours, but it doesn't produce EPS until the proper conditions are met.

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 03:20 pm: Edit

john if you read the question he used minor planet so a TCB upgrade is needed.

2 he asked if cilvin ships in hex surrander, they can escape.

3. personal opion if a commado unit goes after a P4 unit they should lose the X4 advanage since that the effect of atmo and planetary ecm if they can attack from the surface it a straight fight like a PCU

4. actually captured ships should be withdrawn from the fight you would be unable to made them work commado are not salors!

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Oops.

2). It depends. "(C7.15) In a battle where only civilian units remain, the civilian units surrender and are considered captured
by the enemy."

Granted, one could have given orders to have the civilan ships flee before the battle. But, If they remained, they surrender.

3). Well, why not just kill the ground bases with regular damage. They are cheaper to rebuild than several ships. DFx4 is better than DFx4x5!

If one had a huge ship advantage and just 6 ground bases, I suppose one could justify capture. The ground base AF is not very great, just the DF.

4). Technically they need to be overhauled. But in the interim, they are treated as if they have poor crew.

If the enemy captures a captured ship in a subsequent battle, do those ships revert to regular enemy ships? (Food for thought!)

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 07:43 pm: Edit

Official answers (unless my rules wizards over rule me--grin).

A10.35(d):
1) I'm a little uncertain about this. A10.40(g) says that when a commando ship uses it's 'Troop' ability, it's effectively out of the fight. Yet, if I'm reading this correctly, a fleet of non-commando ships could devote all of their damage per round into capturing ships? (Likely while their opponent tries to blast them into oblivion.)

This is not true since A10.41 limits the number of troop and other ships of this type.

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 07:49 pm: Edit

2) Ground bases - a) With the 4x DF modifier, I assume that capturing a set of ground bases is next to impossible? Or do commando ships get to ignore the 4x multiplier when using A10.40g? b) Can ground bases use A10.35d? I'm assuming so, given that the LGFO gives 4 capture points. If so, to garrisons count as 'Troop' ships?

It is very hard to capture a set of GBs, but taking one or two is feasible.

It is certainly possible for them to use A10.35d as the rest of the units present.

No, bases as garrisons are not "ships" per A10.35g.

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 07:52 pm: Edit

A3.20 - DI and captured ships. When an enemy ship is captured, I assume that the captured ship is considered 'destroyed' for determining DI?

Yes

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 07:56 pm: Edit

C13.3x - Annexing:
This is effectively using military ships to scout (B3.15) enemy territory and covert it to their territory?

Not sure what you are asking here?

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 10:05 pm: Edit

Question, regarding your answer:

"This is not true since A10.41 limits the number of troop and other ships of this type."

R U saying that if there are no troop ships in a squadron that only 1/2 of the CAN slots may use the capture form of attack?

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Saturday, March 06, 2010 - 11:32 am: Edit

A10.41 only applies to tropp and other special ships, otherwise the normal combat rules work as stated.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 11:24 am: Edit

Looking for a rule.

I remember a rule in GC about "obsolete" (I think that's the Term of art) ships. For the life of me I cant locate the rule now, so can anyone tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree or whats the rule #?

Using V4C

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Look for 1st Generation Warp units, somewhere around the C20 area. [Do not have RB handy.]

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 08:49 pm: Edit

Thanks Howard C18 wasn't quite what I thought it was. Then again its been since before XMas I've been scratching around looking for my GCRB. (It was filed behind the couch.) Only found it ealier this week while cleaning for MiL inspection.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Saturday, May 22, 2010 - 12:21 pm: Edit

We've not (generally speaking) had a need to address obsolete ships too much- most games start around Y150 or Y160, so there are not too many older ships around (beyond the Romulans).

At some (multiple years in the future) date, I plan to talk to John and Mike about fleshing out something for older timeframes now that the SFB Y modules are starting to flesh the ship choices out.

If you have something specific that you think I should make sure to talk about, I can add it to my notes of things to cover (the list has about 20 items at this point). BBS posting or email (see profile) work.

Disclaimer- as the Romulan player in the current U4 and U5 games I have an obvious bias on this topic.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, May 22, 2010 - 05:15 pm: Edit

Not sure just "How" they should be handled. But the Old Roms and the Fed CL jump to mind as being a concern. Just how much "Does" it take to modernize them?

Just how long can a ship serve even with a SLEP. (Service Life Extension Program), and that would apply IMO to any ship not just those previously mentioned. War types would actually have a shorter life being extra crammed with weapons etc etc.

Thats what i was trying to bring to mind, but maybe thats some homebrew rules i read somewhere and got mixed into GC by my (increasingly) faulty memory.

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Saturday, May 22, 2010 - 07:49 pm: Edit

Technical so long as a ship hold air, has a working engines, is not a health hazard (leaking radation) it can keep going for a long, long time.
It is no longer first or second line but could be placed on Convoy duty, Base guardship, Survey escort, Survey, System Defense ship or reguled to pol ship.
What will kill them are lack of parts, or damage that is uneconmical to repair.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 12:24 pm: Edit

In GC, modernization costs are effectively zero- if the BPV goes from 45 to 140 (WB -> KE), you pay the points and you get the modernization for "free". This isn't realistic, but keeping track of the year a hull is placed in service is not practical with hand moderation. Pretty much all conversion type costs are flat cost vs. the F&E surcharge type, so it is somewhat of a wash and internally consistent.

John has had rules for "high maintenance" hulls in the rules at times (the old "H.I.B.R.E.D." rule), but they seem to have not made the "cut". On the other hand, the B10 no longer has to go back to a Starbase after every battle...

Use patterns would make a difference too- a warship that stays at home will wear more slowly than one that moves around a lot; one that was in battle (but not damaged) will age a bit more; one that was crippled will be more inclined to wear out faster. War hulls, just short of shock hulls, and shock susceptible hulls would also tend to wear out sooner.

Rob, I'd agree with most of your examples, but you don't want to send a fragile unit on survey duty. You want something well built, in current production, etc.

As a campaign rule, you could experiment with a lot of this. I'd be inclined to look at effects like this:

For old hull designs (and I'd include ships that didn't get a refit that was available which historically was widely deployed)-
take 2x as many repair slots (reflects dealing with fewer spare parts)
have reduced scrap value (and will not be bought by the GBC for scrap in any case)
require 2x the normal # of cargo boxes for supply
have 1 turn less of range when out of supply (i.e. treat 1st turn out of supply as 2nd, 2nd as 3rd, etc.)
reduce DTM and TWM ability (or maybe no TWM ability at all)
can not operate outside your space (i.e. no unsurveyed space, no allied player's space, no other empire's space, no un-nav space)
cost more EPs to convert

Consider a few examples-
after Y175 all Federation FFs fall under this penalty as they should have been upgraded to FFGs.
after Y173 all D6s suffer this penalty; D6Bs do not (the K refit was never applied to 100% of D6s)
SnipeS, SnipeS+, and SnipeA hulls get hit with these penalties over time (make sure that you allow a quick enough upgrade/refit path though- the limits I had in U1 left me with a 20 year (40 turns) backlog).

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Howard I was tending to think about the safe survey missions. Not a jump into the dark but surveying an astroid belt in a charted system, conducting long term studies that can't be automated but don't require a full scale SR. in short the scut jobs that every org has that pull badly needed resourses away from more important things or don't get done

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, May 24, 2010 - 08:05 am: Edit

Also consider that as a GM, if someone is wiggling in a rule loophole (for example, continuing to produce YSRs when SRs have been introduced), that the R&D department can inform the admiral that producing these ships is going to cost more than producing new ones because some of the old commonly produced parts (think floppy discs or 8-track tapes) are not being produced and they might as well start ordering the new ships.

As long as you apply the rule fairly and consistently and with warning, then do what you need to balance your campaign. Remember that adding economic rules and things that must be tracked add significantly to your workload and at some point you may have to sacrifice verisimilitude for getting turns done in a timely fashion.