Archive through March 07, 2008
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Archive through March 07, 2008
Ah ha. Forget my scenario idea then. ;)
Additional background you need to consider is that in SFU, "sublight" ships like the Romulan Warbird are capable of Non-Tactical Warp (NTW). I think it is explained in the GURPS book, and possibly several other places.
Just to have some fun.
Take the faction of the speed of light that is your speed and square it and the result is the amount of time you lose ( as a fracion of each second ).
So at 99% of the speed of light 0.992 yeilds .9801 second missing out of every second or 0.0199 of each second experianced which is 71.64 seconds out of every hour.
Hi. One idea for a scenario I've had bouncing around my head for a while goes like this...
After the conclusion of Operation Unity, a Federation cruiser is patroling the outer fringes of the LMC when it discovers the burned out hulk of a Tholian destroyer.
Reviewing its data tapes, The Crew of the Fed Cruiser learn that the ship was part of a strong Tholian task force enroute from their home galaxy and following the trail of the original refugees. The Task Force; being led by two Tholian Battleships, was attacked by an Andromedan Devestator (The Flagship of the Invasion forces, newly arrived from the Andromeda Galaxy.)as it approached the LMC (The Tholians are unwittingly approaching the Andromedan main shipyard.) The Admiral in charge, not knowing the reason for the attack, immediately ordered his Battleships to turn and engage the unknown attacker to cover the escape of the rest of his convoy...
The question is, Can such a battle be made equal with the good prospect of all three Battleships being destroyed or totaled? The optimum result would be loss of the Devestator for the Andros and the total loss of the Tholian forces...
Would this make for an interesting fight, and How would such a battle actually fare? estimated time of the Battle would be between year Y178 and Y183, meaning that if any of the Battleships survive, it will have a definite impact on future events. The Tholian ships have their Particle cannons as they had a ship to service them...(Regretably destroyed shortly hereafter.}
Marc,
I'm not sure of the fleet composition given there are two Battleships in the same Tholian force (isn't there a limit on the number of Size Class 2 vessels in a force at '1')? Also, are Neo-Tholian Battleships conjectural (even in their 'home region')? It would certainly be an interesting set up, but not sure it could be made 'historical'. Given that I don't have R5 (where I assume the Battleship is present), I can't really estimate balance.
Here's a scenario idea that's been floating in my head for a few days.
Basic Concept:
Fighting retreat through Tholian space by Klingon (or Romulan, or possibly Fed) ships. The era would be General War or earlier (I like older ships, they have more character 
).
The invaders are limping back from a battle that destroyed a key target, with a pursuit force following. If the retreat route were open, there'd be no problem, but a handful of Tholian PCs are racing behind the invaders to slow them down with web until the reinforcements can arrive.
Worse, the retreat route is partially through a sparse asteroid field (the 'weak link' in a stronger asteroid field created by the Tholians over a long period of time). The retreating force must overwhelm the just arriving PCs before they can set up a defense that will slow the invaders until reinforcements arrive.
Now.. the scenario has potential to be very unbalanced, as I envision the pursuit force being relatively strong. However, I don't really plan to force the players to play out from the point the pursuers arrive (though they could). The main scenario will be built around opening a hole to retreat through before a certain amount of time has passed. Initially the defending force would be small, but a handful more ships would arrive before the end, so progress for the invaders would be good at first and then start to slow (assuming good play by both sides).
So three questions:
1. Has this scenario concept already been done, and if so, where might I find it? ;)
2. If not, does it sound fun/interesting?
3. Does anyone have suggestions on era, force size/composition?
Right now it's a very general concept in my mind, but I'll probably flesh it out some this week.
RobertG
Pursuit Force - no more than 6 ships, say 2-3 SC3 + 4-3 SC4 (at least 2 DD).
Blocking Force - 2-3 PC (as an alternative, add another PC that was in the area but didn't make it time historically)
Retreating Force - 2-4 crippled ships, one DN or CC, 2-3 SC3, 3-4 SC4.
RobertG: There are several similar scenarios to what you propose. The first example I could find was (SH152 in S2) where PFs tries to push past a D5 to get to their tenders. And yes, done right, these are very fun to play though taking a lot of playtest prep work to get to work.
Stewart: I'll test out some variation of the force ideas that you had. I'm not sure I'll make all of them crippled, perhaps the Tholians left one of the smaller ships undamaged (as an interesting dynamic to give the retreating force a choice of whether to stay together, or send the undamaged ship forward to try to disrupt the web laying, with the likelihood of getting shot up doing so).
Richard: Just got S2 in the mail yesterday so will give it a look. I'm setting up a test scenario in SFB Online (the offline mode) and will probably do some very basic testing at first (ie, levels of damage to retreating force, number of asteroids, whether any web should be laid at the start, etc).
I'm debating something similar to the (behind enemy lines) Kang scenario (Lone Grey Wolf), or at least an alternative to the 'hard coded' (reinforcements always the same at same time) version. But intially I'm going for a simple, relatively low density game.
Still playing around with the Tholian 'trap' scenario idea but while reading The Early Years, another idea popped into my head. It might be 'obsolete' due to a similar scenario already being created but figured I'd float the concept and see if it's already been done, or whether it would work:
Era: End of Early Years, start of Middle Years
Year: Y135 (or 136, forget which is the reclamation war by the Hydrans).
Basic Background: This would be the first (or one of the first simultaneous battles) conflict between the Hydrans and the Klingons in the Hydrans' return to reclaim their territory. Unknown to the Klingons, the Hydrans in the Old Colonies had spies from Klingon subject races who gave information regarding key bases that the Klingons had created in former Hydran territory.
The initial Hydran plan was to draw off the defending ships, D4, and even some D3 vessels, from the defending bases with their own 'Early Year' vessels while the new Hydran classes (Ranger, etc) smashed the bases. The goal would be to eliminate the bases before the defending ships could return to positively identify the Hydran ships, hopefully keeping the Klingons from realizing just what they were up against for awhile.
The base scenario would simply be one of these battles. A Ranger against a Klingon base at a Hydran world on one map, the defending squadron having gone out to meet the Early Year Hydran ships on another map. The Klingons will have two 'victory conditions'. The first will be to defeat the Early Year ships. The Klingons can not return to the first map until they do so. The Ranger will appear on the first map a variable number of turns after the initial battle begins.
The second part of the battle will be slanted heavily towards the Hydran, but the Klingons will now be tasked with gaining information on the Hydran ship and its fighters, and disengaging at least one ship to warn the Empire of the new threat.
An Alternative Scenario idea, dependent on the D6 having been in production (if I recall, it was created right about the same time frame so if there are some, there aren't many, which is ideal)
Unknown to the Hydrans, the Klingons had begin production of their D6 class. This remained unknown because the Klingons and Lyrans considered the old Hydran Empire to be a backwater, and only the older vessels were stationed here, with the newer ships sent to more important areas. However, one D6 was chosen by the government to display the power of the Klingon Empire to its subject races and was in the process of doing so. Coincidentally, it had reached the conquered Hydran territory when it received a garbled transmission from a nearby base and moved to investigate.
The D6 had stumbled into one of the above battles and will be represented as a reinforcement on a variable turn (possibly changing the victory conditions).
Ok, just got home and looked at the 'In Service' dates. So the D6 was in service for 13 years. I'd doubt that the ship would be unknown to the conquered Hydran region, though likely quite rare.
Perhaps instead, the 2nd scenario sees a new F5 or/and D7.
Anyhow, shall play with the concept some and work up an OOB for the scenario along with the rest based on the template.
Just curious about something. I read in a couple of older Captain's Logs that putting something online reduces the chances of publication. Is this still the case for this website? ie, if I post a 'finished' version of a scenario that I've done some playtesting on, is it less likely to show up in a Captain's Log for 'official playtesting'?
In other words, if I think I have a good, publishable scenario, is it best to just e-mail the appropriate person, rather than posting it here?
I've been away from this for a bit... But in review of my post dated May 16th and Robert Gamble's comments, there are numerous scenarios that feature two size class two ships on the same side... "Radey To the Rescue." Calvary Charge" and "A Meeting of Giants." for example... whether there is a rule outlawing two Battleships in the same force I don't know. The Problem isn't the Tholians as in their Galaxy, the BB is real. The Question is whether the idea of the Devestator being destroyed before being deployed into the Galaxy is enough to get around the declaration of the Devestator as Conjectural. Putting aside that question... How would a Tholian force of say 2BB, 2NCA, 4NCL, and 4NDD fare against the Devestator... By the date suggested... The Andros do not have a mauler in their SS ship complement.
Actually, I think the Devastator is as conjectural as the Tholian BB. IE: Not in our galaxy but possibly back in their home galaxy.
Thanks! Now the question remains:
Is there a good probability of wrecking all three Battleships in this fight?
Okay I've let this sit for a bit but just thought I'd ask again if anyone has any opinions on how the matchup of Tholian vs Andromedan BBs as outlined in my posts of May 16, 2006 and October 3, 2006 above would work out. If the Battleships can realistically be expected to gut each other? Would this actually make for an interesting fight or would this work out as a relatively run of the mill fleet battle writ on a ponderous scale?
Can the BBs gut each other? Challenging since the Tholians have limited crunch ability against numerous PAs. Remember Tholian refugees should have particle cannons. But the Andros will be stymied by the large number of web casters. Likely result will be several turns of desultory sniping followed by the Tholians being able to turn away and join the now escaped convoy.
Will it be interesting? Other than having so much mass on the map at one time that should all 3 BBs enter the same hex a black hole would form, what makes it interesting? Dropping it down to 2 NCAs versus a Dominator with some form of clock would make it play faster.
Thanks. I appreciate the straight critical response. Part of the idea was that Yes I was using BBs but the other idea was that two races that don't normally mix it up would have reasons to fight and the Tholians would not be all entrenched. BUT The fact that They would only need to fight that delaying action and then run points the biggest flaw and that is the Tholians would require a better reason to commit to a fight to the death... If the Tholians are being attacked then they would have a reason to fight to the death but then they start out dug in and an Andy is going to need a compelling reason to dive into that mess....
Oh well! Looks like back to the drawing board!
Greetings all...
Just reactivated my account here, and I have a couple of scenario concepts to pitch. I still haven't dropped the two earlier ones (the Hydran one of which is in a separate topic in this forum; the other one being a Tholian trap type scenario which I described above). But I also decided I wanted to perhaps start with something a bit more straightforward, but unusual, and it occurred to me that a battle in which both sides had convoys involved, might be interesting (and for that matter, I wasn't able to find a scenario that did such a thing).
The basic concept was:
Side A during the General War, attempts to set up a Mobile Base in a backwater portion of enemy territory which would be close enough to an important target to provide an effective staging point. The site is chosen because enemy activity is low and it's hoped that the defense ships can consolidate the area while the base upgrades...
The problem for Side A though, is that the convoy which brings the original Mobile Base in doesn't have much of a defense force. The true defensive vessels were part of another operation that was supposed to be easy to complete but took longer than expected. The braintrust in charge of the operation decided that the timeline requires the base to be brought in nevertheless and given their presumed knowledge of fleet movements which create the window of opportunity to drop the base, send in the convoy anyhow, with only a Q-ship to help protect the base (along with the other convoy vessels).
Side B's fleet movements indeed do allow this to occur, and the site was beautifully chosen. No one notices until the base is partially active. And then a convoy from Side B with a small naval escort notices. The Naval Vessel's commander immediately realizes the danger the base represents and orders the convoy to help him destroy the base.
I'm thinking the title for the scenario would be: "A Base Too Far" and that to make it historical, I might focus on the end of the General War with an "Arnhem" type plan (From WWII) where the Hydrans sneak in to create the base in Klingon Territory, from which an assault on a key starbase could be staged, ending the war before Christmas (or Festivus, or Hydraxius).
A final complication might be that part of the eventual defense force shows up as a reinforcement, lending a bit of urgency to "Side B's" attempt at taking out the base.
So, my first question is... any obvious logical holes regarding the presumed role of the base and getting it there under the nose of the enemy?
My second question is, what size convoy would be needed to set up a mobile base (and if this is in the rules, I apologize...)
Robert, not to be a wet blanket, because the ideas sound really great and we need all the scenarios we can get...
The Tholian Trap sounds very much like "Escape from the Holdfast" published in CL #8 and rewritten for Fed Comm and published in Briefing #1. - The Klingons capture a web-capable PC and then are manuevered into a Tholian Trap while trying to get it out of the Holdfast.
The two Convoy idea is very similar to "A Passing Engagement" This scenario was just recently released for Fed Comm nd involves two opposing convoys (with escorts) that happen to pass through each others routes and engage in combat. It doesn't have a Base of any kind in it, but it is a tremdously enjoyable scenario, especially considerig the fact that most of the units involved are never the most units chosen in any pick-up battle.
Perhaps a minicampaign?
Tony, thanks for the comments!
Hmmm, I'll have to track down "Escape from the Holdfast". Not that a newer take on a similar subject couldn't be done, especially if the only other directly similar battle can only easily be found in FC.
Again, "A Passing Engagement" sounds cool, but since it's a FC scenario, a more directly applicable to SFB scenario could still be fun, especially since the one I have in mind has something of a twist to it.
Michael, I was thinking that for the convoys... but part of my reasoning is I want to work on a scenario that my group can get published and that won't take a tremendous amount of time to playtest a few times (unlike the Hydran scenario, and probably the Tholian trap scenario). So while it could become a mini-campaign, with this scenario concept as the first one, I haven't thought much beyond the initial scenario.
I suppose the base would 'grow' over a couple of scenarios, followed by the operation that the base was created for and then perhaps the retaliation if the operation failed.
I think historically (since obviously this Operation hasn't been mentioned previously in any history of the General War) this attempt was a failure. Perhaps the base survives the initial attempt to destroy it referred to above, and activates, but previously undetected forces (to continue the similarities to the Arnhem campaign in World War II) in the area assemble to hit it and its defenders (and maybe the follow-up convoy with the parts to become a base station), destroying it, thus turning it into a "Good idea that if it had worked would have been very effective, but because it failed has since been forgotten." In a mini-campaign, obviously the Alliance player would be able to continue if they manage to survive the first two scenarios but everything after that point would be 'hypothetical'.
Ok, brief force composition for the Mobile Base convoy clash mission:
Alliance: Hydran Mobile Base, only partially activated (full shields, a couple of boxes on each of the tracks, half power, half weapons)...
3 x Hydran Tugs
1 x Large Freighter
1 x Small Federation Q-ship
BPV (Approximately 240 or so, taking into account the status of the base)
Notes: There were more Tugs in the initial convoy, but the Hydrans refused to leave more than 3 in the original defense. Since the Feds were supposed to already be there to help, the Hydrans felt they were being more than generous in leaving behind three ships (I did think about just making it three Fed Tugs as they could have brought the entire base between them, but given the difficulty in coordinating such an endeavor, especially when those Tugs would have had to already be in Hydran space, I left the Fed presence to the Small Q-ship which likely was loaned to the Hydrans at some point for the mission). The overall plan for the mission is the Hydrans would supply the base and a supplemental force for the eventual attack, but the Feds would supply the primary base defense and eventual attack forces.
Coalition Force:
4 x Large Freighters
2 x Small Freighters
1 x E3
1 x G2
BPV = 180 (without drone costs)
The real problem in balancing this will be that the Klingons only have to destroy the base to win, which is why I have their BPV less than the Alliance forces. Any initial thoughts on whether the balance needs to be tweaked up or down? Along with any other thoughts/comments...
Note (This is updated from the above based on some random thoughts I had on lunch break and while re-reading).
Ok, brief force composition for the Mobile Base convoy clash mission:
Alliance: Hydran Mobile Base, only partially activated (full shields, a couple of boxes on each of the tracks, half power, half weapons)...
2 x Federation Tugs
1 x Large Freighter
1 x Small Federation Q-ship
BPV (Approximately 220-230 or so, taking into account the status of the base, and the pods attached - 3 cargo and 1 repair)
Notes: I left the Fed presence to the Small Q-ship which likely was loaned to the Hydrans at some point for the mission. I envision the Q-ship having an intelligence operative aboard who can supply the correct codes to at least pass a cursory query by any Klingon vessels not expecting to see anything untoward passing through. The 2 Federation Tugs were sent basically on a dry run to Hydran space through Klingon territory with the Q ship to make sure the codes were working properly. The overall plan for the mission is the Hydrans would supply the base and a supplemental force for the eventual attack, but the Feds would supply the primary base defense and eventual attack forces.
Coalition Force:
4 x Large Freighters
2 x Small Freighters
1 x E3
1 x G2
BPV = 184 (without drone costs)
The real problem in balancing this will be that the Klingons only have to destroy the base to win, which is why I have their BPV less than the Alliance forces. Any initial thoughts on whether the balance needs to be tweaked up or down? Along with any other thoughts/comments...
FWIW, "A Passing Engagement" sounds a lot like "The Unwanted Battle", (SL75.0) from Captain's Log 3. Mind you, that one wasn't very popular, so it probably needs a rehash. Freighters can't fight each other very well because they'll blow each others' weapons off too quickly. And then the single remaining P3 can't break through reinforcement.
Regarding the above scenario, I find it unlikely that the Feds and Hydrans would ever have been in a position to cooperate on building a base. If it were that far into Klingon territory, there would certainly have been a bunch of warships to protect the incredibly valuable tugs. There certainly wouldn't have been something as slow and feeble as a small Q-ship. But that aside...
The E3 and small freighters have an effective range of 2 apart from its two disruptors which it can't afford to overload. The G2 and large freighters have an effective range of 2. So they have to charge in mob-handed and try to swarm the base before the defenders can mizia all their weapons off. I can imagine each tug dragging a couple of ships off to mug them.