Dark Energy Nebula Duel

This is specifically intended for a dual between two heavy cruisers (most tournament cruisers would work), but should be adaptable elsewhere.

Two cruisers, engaged in combat near the front line, suddenly experience massive power failures. They have entered some kind of dark energy nebula, that is having no impact on the ships, sensors, shields, or phasers, etc in any way...except for completely stopping the reactions in their warp engines intermittently (at the end of each turn). They can be kick-started by dumping pure antimatter into the reaction, but this risks damaging the engine, and the effect of the dark energy cloud means it only lasts a short time. The dark energy cloud isn't showing up on sensors, so it's not a simple matter of just leaving!

Effect - Energy Allocation

• At the start of every turn, before energy allocation, each ship captain rolls one die (1d6) for each warp engine, if they wish to try to 'start' their warp engines (this decision is made for all engines, or none). The captain can choose to roll another die for each engine, and another...as many times as he wants. However, any time a roll is made, a dice must rolled be for each engine (IE., he can either choose to add a die roll to all engines, or choose to stop rolling where he is).
• The die rolls become a running total for each engine, which is ultimately the amount of power available during energy allocation (and the turn) from that warp engine. IE., rolling '1', '3', and '6', across three rolls, means that the warp engine in question can generate 10 power.
• If the running total for any given engine exceeds the number of warp boxes available in that engine, there is a blowout in the engine. A number of boxes are marked off, equal to the number the die rolls exceeded the available boxes. IE., if a total of '18' was rolled, with '15' warp boxes present, 3 boxes are marked off. The 'start' attempt on that engine failed for the turn in question, and it generates no power that turn (on subsequent turns, it can attempt to be 'started' again, noting, of course, the now reduced number of warp boxes)
• Destroyed engines are not rolled for. No more power can be generated from a destroyed engine until it is repaired, of course, at which point rolling for it commences.
• At the end of each turn, after the Final Activity phase, the dark energy stalls the warp engines out, and the process must begin again the following turn. (The choking effect is very brief before more power starts flowing in...for purpose of acceleration limits, tractor auctions, or other cross-turn effects, there is not considered to be an interruption in energy flow as a result of the engine re-starting)

• The impact on amount of power generated by a given warp engine is the only effect on ship movement the dark energy nebula has, however...
• For high-speed shuttles, fighters, and seeking weapons (speed 25 or higher), roll three dice (3d6) on launch, and deduct this from the maximum possible speed of the unit.
• For moderate-speed shuttles, fighters, and seeking weapons (speed 13 to speed 24), roll two dice (2d6) on launch, and deduct this from the maximum possible speed of the unit.
• For low-speed shuttles, fighters, and seeking weapons (speed 12 or lower), roll one dice (1d6) on launch, and deduct this from the maximum possible speed of the unit.
• Drones become inert after 32 impulses out.
• Shuttles and fighters lose all power and become 'dead in space' after 64 impulses after launch. (Landing and performing one deck crew action on them resets this clock)

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 06:35 pm: Edit

...the above is not really formatted in the 'standard terrain rules' format, as it was just scenario special notes in a one-time case. However, I thought it might be amusing to start writing up more completely. First step - bounce off the board for feedback!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 07:56 pm: Edit

The nature of this terrain favors ships with very large engines (think Gorn or Rom DN). Freighters and extremely small ships such as POLs, certainly INTs and possibly PFs will have no "safe" first roll.

Suggest exceeding the engine capacity result in a single destroyed warp box. A bad die roll could blow out a small freighter's engines in one shot.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 08:06 pm: Edit

There are quite a few terrains in SFB that are impassable for certain classes of ship - this would definitely be one of those. As you say, it's entirely possible freighters or police ships would blow out their engines on the first attempt to re-start them. They'd be basically stuck at sublight, making for the nearest system, while broadcasting distress calls. (The background battle/setup would apparently indicate that the storm "blew into" the system pretty quickly - presumably, it would "blow away" again pretty fast, too. Maybe just a few weeks, at worst. Outside the scope of an SFB battle, but not enough that anyone dies if stuck in it at sublight.)

As noted in the intro, this really was intended to add flavor to a ship-vs-ship duel, but I'm not entirely convinced that being impassable to some units is a flaw of the terrain type for a formal proposal.

(As to the 'favors fewer number of larger engines' - yup, absolutely. This balances out in some cases, though, in that - well, the Romulan DN isn't exactly going to show up on its own. A Romulan DN in this terrain *is* advantaged against a Fed DN...2 engines vs 3. But the rest of the Romulan fleet - heavy hawks - are going to be pretty disadvantaged against the Federation escorting cruisers...4 engines vs 2.)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Losing one warp box doesn't make your terrain any more passable for small ships. You may be inflicting to extreme a consequence for over-starting a ship's engines.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 08:43 pm: Edit

I was going to argue that, and it occurred to me that in changing something after we tested it, maybe you have a good point, now.

This is worth thinking about - I mean, I'm not terribly keen on everything BEING able to pass the terrain, but...hmmmm.

Originally, we had an over-start blow out the entire engine. So, obviously, the 'gets no power from it' was part of that (the engine was gone). In toning down the damage from that, the 'gets no power' thing actually becomes the major handicap vs the damage.

Indeed, the threat of getting NO power from an engine on a turn by over-starting it is...in a warship-vs-warship duel...actually a pretty big deal, even if no damage is done.

So your idea of a single warp box damage, obviously combined with the already present 'don't get any power this turn'...hmmmm...that's worth testing. (Still not sure it's *needed* though - practice will tell, but the goal is to make this a really difficult decision. More power? Or go easier on the engine? This is only a difficult decision if much is lost for making it poorly.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 01:26 am: Edit

Since this is a dark energy nebula, would that mean Souldra units are unaffected... or, perhaps, have a way of drawing sustenance from the surroundings? When they aren't feasting on the life force of their victims, that is.

(And what about the Loriyill? Their magic ships are able to go into the Void in numbers sufficient to take out the fortifications at the Black Sun, as well as the various dark matter caches in the Wasteland and beyond the Galactic Rim. If any non-Souldra force could have some means of getting by in such conditions, it would be them.)


Oh, when it comes to damage from the nebula, what if it used the same Dark Matter Damage Procedure that Souldra weapons use, should things go wrong?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 02:41 am: Edit

Dark Matter != Dark Energy. Souldra are non-factors, here.

That was intentional.

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 09:36 pm: Edit

alpha numero uno

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Well... I guess you could say that even if the Souldra life forms are (dark?) energy beings, the forces at work here could be an order of magnitude higher than the levels they're more comfortable dealing with.


Actually, I wonder how the Souldra would handle themselves, even if they are affected. On the one hand, their ships all have those giant centre (dark) warp engines; on the other, their Shard and DMT operations might be affected by the rules on fighters and seekers.

Speaking of dark warp, here's a question; what happens if a Souldra player in this circumstance chooses to use his L and R dark warp engines to generate impulse power, and only used the C dark warp engine to produce actual warp power (as they can choose to do under (OR13.033))? Would that still count as trying to "start" the engine, even if it's not producing the same type of power?


You know, just after I finished posting the last response, I was thinking "hasn't the Souldra thing been mentioned with dark matter/energy terrain before?"... before realizing the thread in question was in the same sub-board! Ahem.