then, having looked at the movement chart and the Roms rotational rate you use the copious shuttles from the GSC to set them off one by one. You should be able to get all 60 points onto one shield in a single turn. And if the base uncloaks to shoot the shuttles you zork it with mass photons from range 15 with held WWs.

Two words: "mine field".

The Feds have no minesweeper, which makes clearing mines dicey. The Roms will stay under cloak and every 3-4 turns pop up to launch torps, which you will burn shuttles weaseling before you ever get to the base.

the time taken dealing with mines will also give the reinforcements ample time to arrive and you probably will not be able to disengage from minsweeping work in time to accelerate to meet the reinforcements.

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 03:42 pm: Edit

my favorite mine clearing device is a large ore carrier with auto pilot, set right at the base hex.

By John Swift (Sirbroadsword) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 05:13 pm: Edit

"my favorite mine clearing device is a large ore carrier with auto pilot, set right at the base hex."

To be honest, I can't really see how that would work. Not only is any damage going to rapidly strip the ore carrier of its engines, but the base-station player might even try to snipe at the carrier (again, to strip its engines) to prevent the tactic from working.

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 05:54 pm: Edit

Then you simply place a ship behind it to push it with a tractor beam (at least two hexes behind it so as not to receive any collateral damage from the ore carrier exploding).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 06:04 pm: Edit

The way SFB works, the ore carrier will run its full allocated movement no matter how quickly in any given turn its engines are destroyed. With many mine fields at 5 hexes thick, it'll do the job more often that not even without a push.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 07:51 pm: Edit

Well, except that M2.441 only lets a single mine be detonated for a single hex of movement. Even if the ship is doing EM, so sits in a single hex "moving" for multiple impulses before it leaves the hex...you aren't guaranteed you are going to trigger every mine in the path you are clearing.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 11:37 pm: Edit

Why are we debating about minefield tactics for this assault? Roch didn't say anything about a minefield being present.

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 07:42 am: Edit

Richard is correct,

No formal minefield is present only a few T-bomb may be present. And the Federation fleet do not have a Ore Carrier.

Thanks for the various comment.

Sound tactic would have Fed intercept Rom reinforcement before it joind up with base, but the variable here that could play against the Fed is the Rom may come in from a Point of entry on the opposite side of the map and it would place the base between the two fleet. The Rom reinforcement is present at Turn 1.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 06:46 pm: Edit

You could be looking at a long, long game.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 08:02 pm: Edit

Probably the best fed strategy is to intercept the reinforcments.

Once that passes or fails, take up station out at 15 and prox whoever has the worst EW one impulse before decloak is complete. Then start pounding the base. Both sides are on a timeclock: The roms it's wear on the base. For feds, it's available weasels.

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 - 02:48 pm: Edit

For those of you that have followed my thread started on Dec 23, about Fed CAR/DD against Rom KD4/BH/BH.

Well here a sitrep and final account:

Rom did capture the CAR and DD SD to avoide capture.
Fed Cripple one BH (only 2 Excess damage to go before destruction) and Damage 1 shield on the KD4.

Guess I will need more practice!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - 01:56 pm: Edit

Where do you think you made a mistake?

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - 02:38 pm: Edit

---------------------------------------------
Situation: Federation assault a Romulan Base Station.
Map: Fix 50x50, 6 Point of Entry/Exit of 3 hex all located at 25 hex from 2525.
Year: 164.
Federation force: 1 DN, 1 CAR, 1 GSC and 1 DD; WS3.
Romulan force: 1 BS with YPAM, 1 SNA, 1 SNP; WS3 located at 2525.
Romulan as 250Bpv of reinforcement coming in from one of the PoE.
-----------------------------------------------

Sitrep:
Turn 1 start:
Rom BS with YPAM at 2525, CW rotation 4, EW 0/6.
Rom SNA & SNP(1) at 2725A, speed 14, EW 0/0.
Rom Reinforcement:
KR & K5R at 5011E, speed 31, EW 0/0.
SNP(2) at 5011E, speed 18, EW 0/0 no FC.

Fed Fleet DN, CAR, GSC & DD at 5037F, speed 24, EW0/0.

KR launched 2 PL-G Imp 14 at DN, hit Imp 20 no damage (speudo).

Fed CAR, GSC & DD fired Photon Prox at KR, shield #5 gone 11 intenals (only 2 Ph and 2 Warp of value).

SNA & both SNP SC.

K5R launched 2 PL-F Imp 25 at DN, did not hit yet.

SNP(2) launched 1 PL-G Imp 26 at DD, will hit T2 Imp 1.

Base, KR & K5R fired on DD, shield #5 gone 10 internals (2 Ph and 1 Phot lost).

DN fire OV12 at SNP(2), shield #5 gone 17 internals (as 2 warps, 1 Imp, PL laucher and 1 Ph left).

Final Position:
Rom
Base with YPAM 2525
SNA 3422C
SNP(1) 3422C tactoring SNP (2) 3522E
K5R 3526C
KR 3328C
1 PL-G 4020A target DD
2 PL-F 3820C target DN

Fed
DN 4020A
CAR, GSC & DD 3920A

Action for Turn 2:
DN will maintain high speed to avoid damage from PLs
CAR, GSC & DD will aim for speed between 15-18 and regroup with DN.

Comment?

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - 02:42 pm: Edit

To John T

Where Do I think I made a mistake? Good question indeed. For one Rom ship were able to get very close at high speed will I could move fast enough.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - 08:10 pm: Edit

Roch; what were your photons being held or armed at?

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 01:38 pm: Edit

To Jon B.

DN had 4 OV12 on hold
CAR, GSC and DD had there on hold Prox

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 03:02 pm: Edit

So you had 4x 12-pt overloads and 10 proxies. Essentially prepped to work at distance but held enough OLs to punish a surprise charge.

Proxies are fine base-busting fodder, but I'm not sure they'd be appropos to intercepting and dealing with the reinforcements. 10 Proxies with average rolls work out to 20 pts of damage, which would bloody a K5's nose or dent a KR's forward shield but that's about it. Then they get to the base, which is what you wouldn't want. You wanted to force a fight away from the base and its pesky EW if you could manage it.

IIRC it was possible that the reinforcements would come from a direction where interception would be impossible. How did that go?

Your photon arrangement says you weren't really prepped to get down 'n dirty with the reinforcements. Your load would fit that situation with you essentially settling down for the long-haul bombardment.

Otherwise you might have wanted a more overloads.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Why only 12 point OLs? A Fed DN is undergunned so has plenty of spare power to hold 4 full OLs, and as you started at WS3 there was no reason not to. I infer that you got 3 hits; the extra 12 damage from 16 pointers would have blown it to little bits...

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 04:23 pm: Edit

It dpedns on what else Rosh had to do to get in position to use those photons. To make an intercept work, he'd have to plot a high speed, which would drain off a lot of the energy that would go to OLing photons. Rosh apparently took the WS-3 free OL energy and ran.

But if he was going to intercept reinforcements, the CAR and DD ought to be running 12-pt OLs as well.

Perhaps Rosh could elaborate on what his Turn 1 plan was.

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 10:25 am: Edit

Original plan was to come in to R14 from base and start bombarding it (hence the Prox) if ROM reinforment would come from opposite side of Base.

Random got ROM reinforment coming in on the same side ad FED Fleet but 26 hex apart (Rom 5011, Fed 5037). I change my EA to go as fast as possible and keep Fleet together and intercept Reinforcement, DD is the slowest ship in fleet and speed 24 was the best speed it could go. To keep reinforcement alive my opponent flied is ship at speed 31 toward the base, event with speed 24 the rate of closing was very bad and the best range I ever got to those ships was R11.

For turn 2, I will reload the photons on DN, CAR and GSC and move way from base and Rom Reinforcement at approximately speed 18 and vire back to face the reinforcement Fleet that is about 10 hex in my rear left quadran. So Turn 3 will have 9 to 10 Photon ready to hit the KR againt.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 12:44 pm: Edit

Are the reinforcments headed for you or the base?

If you, great.

If for the base, start loading up on weasels and prepare for a seige. Consider Mike Grafton's idea of seeding the base area with t-bombs.

By Roch Chartrand (Rochc) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 04:32 pm: Edit

Rom reinforcement have run strait toward the base like an arrow to be under EW cover as soon as possible. KR, K5R were not a match to go head on with my Fleet, that would had been to sweet.
Rest of the battle will be a longue one!

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Roch,

Opening move of what is now your seige:

The Romulans have 2 SNP. They do not have cloaks. Stand off at range 30 (or perhaps range 25 if you intend to use P1). Nuke them into oblivion.

If he goes under EM, start pounding on the base at range 25 or 30 until he either comes after you (which is what you want) or the base goes down.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 06:55 pm: Edit

He can't pound on the base unless the base cooperates by uncloaking.

But he can compensate for Snipe EM with loaned ECCM from the GSC.

The base can de-cloak to provide extra ECM to the snipes...at which point Roch blasts the base.

Since roch decides when he fires, he needs to keep track of base rotation and time his prox strikes to make sure that the base always has the same shield facing when he fires, even if he's firing at the snipes. That way if the base decloaks to defend, Roch has the option of getting shots on the base.

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 07:08 pm: Edit

You can even fake him out by switching targets. After he assigns SS ECM to one ship, target a ship not normally expected to be targeted.