Xander Fulton:

Why would you do that? Seriously. If you had the option of going full scale in the simulator (something I did not say, I started with five box shields in my list and went up) why would you not?

It is not like a five box shield changes anything I said.

Five box shield, hit by forty points of damage, I have a twenty box PA panel behind it, so I dump my four batteries into the shield, bang, 15 points in my two panels, all of which I can dump into my batteries on the next impulse by turning my facing shield away, and if somebody puts ten points of damage on my new facing five box shield I can just reinforce it with ten points from my batteries provided by the damage to my original facing shield.

It is not interesting. It just becomes how much power does the Andro have available to reinforce his shield, how much does he not reinforce his shield in order to put power in his panels that can then refill his batteries? And how big a salvo do I now have to fire to overwhelm not just his PA panels, but his shield and the power available in his batteries to reinforce it?

I at least am not interested, I guess you can try convincing SVC.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, April 02, 2011 - 05:11 pm: Edit

In short, it is not tactics, it is just number crunching. Sure, the Andromedan player needs to also ask himself if it is worth repairing a shield box or three in addition to clearing degradation so that he will have shields to again reinforce (he only needs one box after all). But it just becomes a numbers game. If you do not have enough firepower to get through the shield and his reinforcement and his panels, you may as well not shoot.

Like I said, I am not interested, I do not find the combination interesting. And I stress again "I". Someone may convince SVC that I am wrong, but honestly Alexander, I DID look at your proposal (a long time ago). I think I gave it as fair a shake as I gave anything that was proposed. And I just did not, and still do not, see the point. It just does not seem interesting to me. And I certainly did not see other players rushing in and clamoring for this. (Although I would guess it is somewhat of a surprise that Andromedan players did not since it would clearly massively raise the BPV of any Andromedan unit fitted with it, but maybe the Andromedan players also saw it as a not really interesting combination. Maybe the also saw it as eliminating tactics in favor of just crunching numbers.)

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, April 02, 2011 - 05:20 pm: Edit

That's perfectly fair. It's not something I have a strong enough opinion on to keep pushing - it simply seemed an idea worth having a discussion about. Seems like a discussion has been had, the decision makes sense, that's all that can be asked.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, April 02, 2011 - 05:24 pm: Edit

The only secondary defensive system I'd consider to be of potential interest for conjectural Andromedan units would be the Neutronium armour used in the Triangulum Galaxy; but even if it was worthy of consideration, it would presumably have to wait for some other avenue of investigation, being a non-Alpha system.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, April 02, 2011 - 05:55 pm: Edit

Gary Carney:

Then why did you bother to bring it up? Seriously. If you knew it would have to wait until Neutronium armor is FORMALLY PUBLISHED, which it is not (Module E2 is a PLAYTEST MODULE with all rules subject to change by final publication), what was the point of making the mention?

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 12:31 am: Edit

SPP; the listing for Suicide Sleds made me recall that there was something similar used in Farthest Stars. I had an Andro Cargo Sled (with escorts) going up against a certain target that was legal to the targetted by a Suicide Freighter. So I checked with Dale and with R1.33, and it seemed like the rules for Suicide Freighters already allowed for converting such a unit due to its cargo spaces. Therefore, I must ask what is so special about this unit that cannot be covered with already existing units and rules. (Jon Berry, 02 Apr 2011)

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 01:30 am: Edit

SPP: I was responding to Xander, not trying to say you needed to say more. Sorry, I will try to be more clear in the future.

I think the Andro X-ships appeared in starfleet times when I sent in some rules and the CQX and X-Cobra (don't remember the exact abbreviation).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 04:19 pm: Edit

Jon Berry:

Did your rules cover delivering the suicide sled by displacement device or transporter? Arriving at the scene of the attack in a mothership?

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 09:45 pm: Edit

SPP; no it did not. I drove it to the target the old fashioned way.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:09 pm: Edit

Cover Art

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Cool, Adam knocked another one out of the park!

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:21 pm: Edit

SVC:

Without a Credit / Debit card or a checking account (I only have a savings account) will that be available as an actual product and not on E23 ? I only pay with a money order (or cash if it is a local store) for purchases anymore.

Thanks, John

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:22 pm: Edit

Ooooh - purdy! Love the new Andro ship!

Kinda looks a lot like the cover of Module G3, though, doesn't it? Holding the two side-by-side, that looks like nearly the same angle and position for the Fed X-cruiser, and same for the Andro. (And the Klingon ship is in sort-of the same position as the Gorn on G3, and only 'banking' a little bit harder)

Maybe just flip it horizontally to distinguish it more from the other?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:48 pm: Edit

WAY TOO LATE, it's already gone to press.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Awesome. I'd buy it just for the cover.

I hope there will be a nice big JPEG on the dite somewhere soon.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - 01:11 am: Edit

I like the Tron-esque lighting on the Andro's PA panels...

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - 12:49 pm: Edit

BTW, having seen the Galleon in FC's Communique, it made me wonder if there are any special-purpose non-cargo pods it can carry. Obviously, the "battle pod" would be called "Mamba" or "Cobra". But having, say, a troop deployment pod or repair pod and stuff like that could be extremely useful.

(On the other hand, I can also see those functions just being handled by the relevant satellite ship.)

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - 11:06 pm: Edit

The pods that Mike West proposes above might also be docked to bases in the same way that Alpha bases dock pods to themselves for increased capabilities. Since it's part of a "Threat File" a Galactic intelligence analyst might assume that the Andros could do the same as the Galactics. Since an Andromedan BATS is four Satellite Bases docked together, a specialised pod might replace one of the non-core sat bases.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 09:38 am: Edit

Do note that I am not suggesting something new this late in the game. I am merely asking if such is there or not.

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Friday, May 13, 2011 - 03:17 am: Edit

I look at the image of the battle and I see one, maybe two things wrong with with the Andromedan (X?)-ship.

First is that, what appears to be the impulse engine appears to mounted on the top of the ship instead of the bottom. (Not really a problem because the ship itself either had the impulse redesigned for this craft or that the ship is actually shown flying upside down in the picture.

The second problem is more pronounced... regardless whether or not we are viewing the top or bottom of the ship, the empire emblem is facing the wrong way. The broader base should be facing the front of the sahip not the rear.

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Friday, May 13, 2011 - 06:31 am: Edit

George Duffy:

it is a "conjectural product" ok. What is "supposed to emulate a real ship" doesn't work for this module. If it was meant to "be real" then all of the Andromedan ships would have looked like that from the get go.

Hehe have fun with it

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 16, 2011 - 02:03 pm: Edit

This is Steven Petrick's Blog post.
Module C3A: The Andromedan Threat File will be heading to the stores soon. What is in it? Well, first you have to understand that almost everything in this product is conjectural.
First, there is the Andromedan "dissection beam" which can dismember ships, but is fortunately short-ranged. There are four ships which use it (including a Devastator battleship variant).
There is a mini-energy module, a little larger than a T-bomb (and uses T-bomb spaces) that allows even a satellite ship to dump some energy from its panels and beam it overboard.
Pseudo-satellites can pretend to be not just Cobras, but Cobras, Vipers, or Mambas, or any variants of those hulls. So when those three Terminators suddenly appear, things will get real exciting real fast.
There were a lot of proposals for Andromedans with Galactic weapons, and just doing a lot of SSDs replacing tractor-repulsor beams with photons or disruptors or plasmatic pulsar devices or what-have-you would have been easy to do. Too easy, it would have felt like cheating the players (at least it felt like it to me). But I did do a "plasma pod," basically a modified cargo pod that could create plasma torpedoes that would then be launched by transporter. This of course gave them a myopic zone (they need to recover from disrupted fire control before they can actually pursue their targets), but they can be launched in ANY direction, and can be placed anywhere within five hexes of the mothership carrying the pod. There is a phaser-1 refit for every Andromedan unit, just to let you know how nasty they could have been if they were able to upgrade those weapons.
There is an alternate Andromedan command system which allows more Andromedan ships to turn up.
There are rules to allow the Andromedans to use their transporters to place nuclear space mines (and limits on the numbers of them they can have), but also rules that allow even a satellite ship to use its transporter to transport another satellite ship . . . or even a mothership.
Energy modules might not simply sit and slough energy into space; they may actively pursue your ship, by displacement, and detonate on reaching it.
Spatial distorters are yet another function of displacement devices that can break up your formations, or suddenly increase the range to an Andromedan ship, or make it impossible for your fighters to land back aboard the base for rearming.
Historically, the Andromedan mobile weapons platforms never really evolved, but now they gain warp booster packs (allowing them to reach Speed 31), and Adder fast patrol ships make their appearance with a full array of variants. An SSD of mobile weapons platforms, and of the variants thereof, was included so that players do not have to draw the added (two box) booster packs onto the SSDs in Module J2. (These SSDs also include the phaser-1 refit as appropriate.)
There were requests for Andromedan fighters and bombers, and well, if the Andromedans could launch satellite ships, why not bombers? So the Andromedans are able to launch bomber squadrons into direct combat. There is no real Andromedan "carrier", but modified cargo pods convert any mothership into a carrier of sorts. One of the problems was not allowing large openings on the Andromedan ships that those nasty galactic players could use to crash land shuttles full of Marines into an Andromedan ship, so even the fighters and bombers are launched by transporter (but one transporter operation can launch an entire squadron . . . recovery is a lot slower though). Further, virtually all of the fighters and bombers were designed to be "Andromedan," i.e., almost all of the fighters, and all of the bombers, use power-absorber technology, meaning with a little time they can "recover from damage" and come back into the fight.
Variants of different Andromedan units not seen before are included. (What if the Conqueror were real, what would its variants look like? What if the Andromedans had upgraded the Viper like many Alpha Octant empires upgraded their frigates to heavy frigates? What if they upgraded their Cobras? Their Mambas?)
The first cut of Andromedan advanced technology rules appeared in Captain's Log #18, and are included, along with an array of advanced technology ships from an Intruder (the INX) down to the Viper (VPX), including rules for the X capabilities of systems included in Module C3A.
And, yes, there are suicide sleds that work like suicide freighters . . . but also a look at using cargo variants of satellite ships (Mamba, Cobra, Viper) as suicide ships, or even using a mothership that would otherwise have been taken out of service as a suicide ship.
Module C3A also includes a short timeline of the "alternate timeline" encountered by the Darwin. There's also an article looking at how the Andromedan conquest worked in that timeline, and an article about why the Andromedans did not seem to adopt, or adapt to, technologies in the Alpha Octant.
The only thing NOT conjectural in Module C3A is the Fall of Demorak campaign. This is, in a small scale (because the Lyran Democratic Republic is smaller than most other empires) the first campaign about an assault on a "capital planet". This means it is big, and it will take multiple playings to wear it down, and both sides will have to carefully expend their resources in the quest for ultimate victory.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, May 16, 2011 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Module C3A Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION
DESIGNER’S INFORMATION 2
PUBLISHER’S INFORMATION 2

DIRECT-FIRE WEAPONS
EC1 DISSECTION BEAMS 3

SYSTEMS
GC1 MINI ENERGY MODULE 7
GC2 SUICIDE SLEDS 8
GC3 IMPROVED PSEUDO-SATELLITES 10
GC4 PLASMA PODS 11
GC5 CHANGES TO DISPLACEMENT
DEVICE FEEDBACK
PHENOMENON 13
GC6 HYPER TRANSPORTERS 14
GC7 SPATIAL DISTORTERS 15
GC8 SEEKING ENERGY MODULES 17

SHUTTLECRAFT AND FIGHTERS
JC1 ANDROMEDAN FIGHTERS 19

FAST PATROL SHIPS
KC1 ANDROMEDAN PFs 22

EMPIRES
RC10 ANDROMEDAN INVADERS 23

MINI-CAMPAIGNS
T12 FALL OF DEMORAK 39

IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY
XC X-RULES FOR ANDROMEDANS 49

ANNEXES
ANNEX #1 51
ANNEX #3 MASTER SHIP CHART 52
ANNEX #3B MASTER PF CHART 56
ANNEX #4 MASTER FIGHTER CHART 57
ANNEX #5+ 58

SSD BOOK
SSD BOOK 67

SSD BOOK TABLE OF CONTENTS:

CONQUEROR VARIANTS
RC10.2 Conqueror-C New Monitor 68
RC10.3 Conqueror-D New Mauler Cruiser 69
RC10.4 Conqueror-E New Assault Cruiser 70
RC10.5 Conqueror-M New Transport Cruiser 71
RC10.6 Conqueror-R New Anti-Fighter Cruiser 72

HEAVY LARGE SATELLITE SHIPS
RC10.7 Heavy Python 73
RC10.8 Heavy Mamba 74
RC10.9 Heavy Anaconda 75
RC10.10 Heavy Queen Snake 76
RC10.11 Heavy Eliminator 77

HEAVY MEDIUM SATELLITE SHIPS
RC10.12 Heavy Cobra 78
RC10.13 Heavy Reconnaissance Cobra 79
RC10.14 Heavy Eel 80
RC10.15 Heavy Diamondback 81
RC10.16 Heavy King Snake 82
RC10.17 Heavy Terminator 83

HEAVY SMALL SATELLITE SHIPS
RC10.18 Heavy Viper 84
RC10.19 Heavy Courier 85
RC10.20 Heavy Rattler 86
RC10.21 Heavy Bull Snake 87
RC10.22 Heavy Asp 88

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY UNITS
RC10.23 X-Intruder 89
RC10.24 X-Conquistador 90
RC10.25 X-Python 91
RC10.26 X-Mamba 92
RC10.27 X-Anaconda 93
RC10.28 X-Eliminator 94
RC10.29 X-Cobra 95
RC10.30 X-Eel 96
RC10.31 X-Viper 97
RC10.32 X-Desecrator X-Starbase 98-99
RC10.33 X-Battle Station 100
RC10.34 X-Base Station 101
RC10.35 X-Satellite Base 102
COBRA PLUS AND VARIANTS
RC10.36 Cobra Plus 103
RC10.37 Terminator Plus 104
RC10.38 Eel Plus 105
RC10.39 Diamondback Plus 106
RC10.40 King Snake Plus 107
RC10.41 Reconnaissance Cobra Plus 110

ARMED DESECRATOR STARBASE
RC10.42 Armed Desecrator Starbase 108-109

DISSECTION BEAM SHIPS
RC10.43 Dissector 111
RC10.44 Incisor 112
RC10.45 Extractor 113
RC10.46 Devourer 114

GROUND BASES AND AUGMENTATION MODULES
RC10.47A Fighter and Bomber Bases 115
RC10.47G Fast Patrol Ship Bases 116
RC10.48A Fast Patrol Ship Augmentation Modules 117
RC10.48B Fighter Augmentation Modules 118

CARGO POD VARIANTS
RC10.49A Plasma Torpedo Pods 117
RC10.49D Advanced Technology Plasma Torpedo Pods 117
RC10.50A Fighter Carrier Pods 118
RC10.50C Bomber Carrier Pods 118

LARGE CARGO TRANSPORTS
RC10.51 Galleon Large Cargo Transport 119
RC10.52 Caravel Large Cargo Transport 120

FIGHTER AND BOMBER SQUADRONS
RC10.F1-3 Fighter Squadrons 121
RC10.F4-5 Heavy Fighter Squadrons 121
RC10.F6-8 Medium Bomber Squadrons 122
RC10.F9 Heavy Bomber Squadron 122

FAST PATROL SHIPS
RC10.PF1 Adder Fast Patrol Ship Flotilla 123, 125-126
RC10.PF2 Adder Fast Patrol Ship Variants 124

MWPs WITH WARP PACKS
R10.48 MWPs with warp packs 127-128

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 16, 2011 - 06:29 pm: Edit

Would the Fall of Demorak mini-campaign be readily convertible to Federation Commander, or would it need more Andromedan and LDR units to be ported from one game to the other before it would be viable in FC?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 16, 2011 - 07:31 pm: Edit

Probably better after some more units, but it would probably work.