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I've been thinking about the basic idea that the Kzintis would go for Quantity and the Klingons would go for Quality in their drones.


What if instead the Klingons opted for a special drone launchers that fills the role once taken by the ADD ( added to the D7 in the B refit ).


SADDs Super AntiDrone Drones
A SADD shall work in all ways as an ADD except where covered here.

Preamble
The Klingons wanted to develop a weapon that could provide effective fire against drones and fighters for the X2 period and set about building AntiDrone Drones that were about the size of a type I drone.
These Super AntiDrone Drones were known as SADDs and were fired from Klingon ships via a special drone rack designed solely to fire SADD rounds.
The Drones were larger and had much bigger motors (few things beat cubic inches, even in the 24th (X2 period) Century) that allowed them to travel faster and further than conventional ADD munitions.
The hyper-velocity drone would fly to close proximity to the target and detonate a small nuclear divice that would spray focused X-rays and subatomic particals at the target.
The slow rate of fire of the SADD was a limiting factor but the ability to hit targets in R4-8 and the ability to harm ships offset that drawback.

Launcher
A SADD launcher is marked as a SADD on the SSD of the vessel and in all other ways opperates as an ADD.
..... A SADD launcher has 6 spaces each holding one SADD round per space. No other types of drones ( or ADDs ) may be loaded into the SADD launcher.
..... A SADD launcher must recycle and reload before it may fire again. This period takes 4 impoulse thus if a vessel fires a SADD round from her SADD launcher on impulse 5 she must wait until impulse 9 before she may fire again.

Additionally when the SADD is fired at greater ranges the directional thrusters of the SADD round must be used to aid in reaching those longer ranges ( some Klingons refere to this penalty as the small target parrallel ) and the thrusters will cause vibration in the SADD launcher that will cause the SADD launcher to be forced to wait extra impulses before the SADD round may be moved from the SADD rack to the SADD launcher mechanism.
If the SADD round is fired at R9 or 10 then readying the SADD after fire takes one extra impulse.
If the SADD round is fired at R11 then readying the SADD launcher to fire again will take 2 extra impulses.
And if the SADD is fired at R12 then readying the SADD launcher to fire again shall take 4 extra impulses.

Fire
When a SADD round is fired the To Hit calculation is applied as though the weapon were an antidrone but using the following table. Note the table also lists the minimum readying time as a helpful aid.

Range	0	1	2	3-4	5-8	9-10	11	12	13+
To Hit	Na	1	1-2	1-3	1-4	1-3	1-2	1	Na
Readying Impulses	Na	4	4	4	4	5	6	8	Na

Damage
When a SADD is fired on a ship (or PF) one must determine whether a facing shield box ( or General Reinforcement point ) is facing the attacker during the declaration of fire stage of the impulse.
If one or more shield boxes faces the attacker then the damage done by the SADD round against the ship or PF is 2 points of damage.
If no effective shield boxes are facing the attacker then the SADD round shall inflict 6 points of damage against a ship or PF.

If the target is a shuttle then the SADD round shall inflict 3D6 points of damage against the shuttle if it hits.

If the target is a drone then the SADD round shall inflict 3D6 damage against that drone ( making SADDs slightly less effective in drone defense compaired to ADDs but since almost all the X2 Klingons vessels had GX-racks as well, they could choose to load and fire ADDs as a second line of defense in a drone heavy enviroment, but the ability to fire on fighters at effective ranges and fire one ships was seen as a balancing factor for the drawback).


Deployment
Generally only one SADD is employed on a ship. Escorts may have more but the Klingons liked to retain at least some GX-racks for offensive and defensives work particularly because they could be used to launch conventional antidrones ( and the type IX drones was still "the bee's knees" for killing drones at very long ranges ).

SADD Starfish Drones
In Y195 the Klingons developed a kind of uber-stingray drone that allowed a one space warhead module ( the forward module ) to be loaded with a single SADD round and fired, like a single shot starfish warhead. The warhead module costs 4 BPV and is an X warhead module (Limited availiblity until Y200 then Restricted).
Unfortunately for the Klingons this was a bad move as the other drone using races soon copied it and thus made their GX-racks quite a bit more flexible (gaining a limited mizia ability and another (see swordfish) aegis-proof way to do some damage to ships ).

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 11:09 am: Edit

Considering the damage output, and the to hit rolls, you'd be better off with another disruptor... The only advantage over the disr is the firing rate.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 11:22 am: Edit

Yeah 66% to hit for 2 damage against a sheilded target at R8 seems like a weaker standard disruptor shot, but extra shots in a turn, no power, no EW effects and 360 degree firing are all nice.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Seems like a nice idea on first glance, but I'd have to see the whole ship to judge its effectiveness.

Would the SADD ammo be able to be fired from a Gx rack?
Or would the Klingons have a special rack for these?

This would be a good weapon to follow up a Mizia attack with. The drone damage is separate from direct-fire weapon damage already, and this does 6 points to an unshielded target.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Ooops, I said that a SADD launcher can not launch any other kind of drone ( including ADDs ) and failed to mention that a SADD round can not be launched from any other kind of drone launcher until the advent of the single shot starfish version of warhead module.

I think you'ld find that ADDs fire in the Direct Fire step and thus wouldn't inflict a drone step mizia attack, only a DF mizia attack on the following impulse if held for that impulse and the enemy doesn't do anything to stop it.
Also 66% to hit for 6 damage ( unshielded ) is about as powerful as an overloaded Disruptor not using UIM (and that's as powerful as the weapon will get killing ships).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 - 11:54 pm: Edit

On the subject of SADD rounds and ESGs.
SADD rounds are destroyed by ESGs without any reduction in the strength of the ESG except when an ESG is raised at R0, in which case the warhead detonates outside the range of the ESG and thus the X-rays pass through, so the weapon inflicts it's regular damage without any interferance from the ESG ( and without any reduction in ESG strength ).

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 12:33 am: Edit

Is there a Seahorsey version?

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Monday, February 13, 2006 - 06:55 pm: Edit

I'll take that as a no

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, February 13, 2006 - 09:21 pm: Edit

I think I already said this in the Seahorse drone thread.
Once seahorse drones are solidified, we'll know how to place them on X1 and X2 drones.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 03:08 am: Edit

mjc; fair enough. But, in the meantime, I think you ought to read the ATG rules