Archive through December 23, 2011
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: General Tactics Discussion:
Romulan Tactics:
Archive through December 23, 2011
The key phrase in Terry's solution is "If the defending ships can be dealt with"
If the roms can dispose of the defending ships, killing the base is trivial.
Which means the first strike from surprise has to hit the ships. Even if the roms have enveloping torps available (and they don't), it would only add up to half the damage needed to kill the asteroid. They can't make that up before they'd have the Orions all over them.
Terry hit upon two points that when combined should kill the asteroid quickly.
First was the asteroid itself only needing 400 points to be destroyed. Which in turn would destroy the base and any ships that were docked to it (or at the very least heavily damage them)
Second was using the NSM and t-bombs set for various size classes.
Have all three ships fly over the base dropping NSM and beaming t-bombs all within one hex of the asteroid all set for size class 6 or larger. Anything lifting off the the rock will trigger some mines, causing damage to the asteroid and all of the docked ships. If enough are triggered over the right ships, catastrophic damage will occur adding more damage to ships (possibly causing a cascade effect) and the asteroid. This, combined with plasma salvo, plus any shuttles that you launch and get within two hexes of the asteroid (thus triggering more mines), should destroy the asteroid within one or two turns.
Edit:
Of course the raiding ships should close under cloak at slow speed until they approach the closest hex before being detected under passive sensors. This should be done by the end of the turn (First or second).
At the start of the next turn, after his opponent has finished his EA still based on WS-0; all three ships (Single file with the WEs leading... in case of any hidden mines) should decloak and charge the asteroid; attacking and dropping mines all around it; then launching unmanned shuttles back toward the asteroid to trigger the mines.
[Theme music - "JAWS" should also be played leading up to the battle, then switching over to "The '1812' Overture" (Beethoven's 9th symphony?) when the attack is launched 
]
Edit #2: BTW - The docked ships would have batteries charged, but wouldn't necessarily have reserve warp or even reserve impulse in them at WS-0
Being stopped at WS-0 isn't such a restriction as people seem to think. You're not surprised. You can go speed 10 from EA, put whatever you like into reserve and load whatever weapons you have. Apart from phasers and special shuttles, you're good to go. Even the silent running affects only shields (until raised in EA or by reserve, depending on how the scenario specifies it) and plasma-F, ditto.
TacIntel helps the Roms somewhat, but it's not enough to get very close, in that the presence of something is detectable at level S1. Even S5 (rough location and enumeration of all ships) is 147 hexes from the base after cloak, or 97 from the ships. However, we have asteroids. Assume 1 hex in 3.75 has a rock in it, for 1 ECM. This is the Module B asteroid map density. So at range R, there's a shift of sqrt(R/3.75). So at 22 hexes (=49 after cloak) which is B to a ship, there's a +2 shift, giving level S5.
That assumes they're coming from behind the base, which means a) they know in advance which way the base is facing or got lucky, and b) they need to maneuver to hit it, which may not be practical. If the base can see them, they're seen at 32 hexes.
It all comes down to the question of when is turn 1, impulse 1? Is it when the Orions achieve Level A?
"It all comes down to the question of when is turn 1, impulse 1? Is it when the Orions achieve Level A?"
I leave that to whoever feels the urge to scenario-fy this; I'm doing this as a tactical exercise, after all.
I am somewhat surprised that no-one has mentioned large amounts of suicide shuttles, tho.
You don't get large amounts of SS when most of your ships are War Eagles (grin). The Roms would also need to start pretty close to get early hits with them (a WE can only move 21, so against a normal ship starting from zero and fleeing would close 11 hexes on turn one and one more on turn two, plus or minus any tractor games). If the Orions were Surprised rather than just WS-0 they'd be easier targets, though the Roms have done pretty well to catch special sensor equipped Orions even at WS-0.
Advice Requested:
I am a long time SFB player who has spent nearly all his time in the West. I have decided it was time to move East and have taken up the cause of the Romulans vs my local two opponents. In the past week, I've fought two battles, and both were left in mid-progress. (one vs. Tholians and one vs. Feds)
I'm basically completely new to the Romulans and plasmas. I broke out the SFB Tactics Manual but found it lacking in several of the areas I've been struggling with.
It is my second fight that's giving me the headache:
2 Improved Fed FFs (75 BPV each) vs. 2 Snipe-B Frigates (75 BPV each)
It's a fixed map.
WS-III at start
I told my opponent I gave him 25 to 1 odds in his favor to sweep this fight. We're turn three now, and it's looking like it is coming true.
My mighty 9 power and 3 batteries is not going very far to make it even a semi-close fight. I pay my upkeep (Fire Control, Shields, Life Support) and that's 2.5 power. I then pay one to hold my Plasma-G. There goes another 1 power. That leaves me 5.5 power to play with.
He has those blasted photons which can nail me hard once he gets within range eight. Even at 1-2 chances, he has a possible four rolls, and a single hit knocks my 20 shield down to 4 and a double hit knocks a ship out of the game.
My plasmas are an annoyance to him and nothing more. He comes into range eight, cracks a photon shot, and then hikes his speed up to 30 and runs them out every time. I lack enough power to follow him and do anything about it. He is almost lazily wearing me out of plasmas this way. I can't get in to anchor him and lack the power to do so. I can't get a plasma to hit him with anything more than four points of damage left on it I'm running out of launchers and pseudos and running out of options.
He's about to make a third battle pass at me with two photons loaded and ready a second FF coming in with the same. I've got three plasma Fs left and another two turns before my first round shots are back online.
Despite the BPV matching, was this an insane fight to even begin?
He finds it boring (all that circling), but hardly challenging. He's begging me to adopt another race to learn how to use...
Maybe he should adopt another race to play ---
If a game is boring playing a one shot wonder weapon, is as much his fault as yours ---
Bolt when he hits range 10 and then cloak/evasive maneuvers? He's in the plasma glory zone before he is in overload range...
Read (FP12.0) ECM plasma if you are using ecm rules.
I had the same thought as Terry. If he's got the power to charge overloads and run out the plasma, don't let him run. Get him on the oblique, bolt everything in arc, then turn away and cloak. Keep the range open until you're all the way under, then have a plotted decel timed for just after full cloak. This forces a reroll in case he retains lockon.
Small plasma requires almost perfect timing. Despite the even BPV, these ships are from wildly different eras and the numbers may not quite match up.
Snipes are a bit expensive for what you get in my opinion. In this matchup you do need to make good use of the cloak - that range 8 dance is much less effective against cloaked targets. Not that it is.a panacea - in particular, uncloaking near anything with a drone rack can be very painful.
You might also like to give some of the other Roms a try - staying with small ships the vastly superior battlehawk is just ten points more, for instance. the cruisers match up reasonably well against equivalent Feds too.
You also have NSMs which WILL ruin his day if you can drag him over one.
you cloak on a dime. Definitely start using that.
Bear in mind that you as a new Romulan player are at an innate disadvantage just from that. And you haven't chosen the most sterling example of the Empire's technical ability to start with.
Also remember that there is a combat damage vs cloak chart. Once a weapon hits a cloaked ship there's still a roll to see if it does full damage.
[nods] I third the cloak option. Photons are pretty bad against anything with an ECM-like advantage. Tag him at range ten when he can't tag you, then cloak. If he wants the shot with overloads, he has to do close to range 3 and roll against that blasted (G13.37) chart.
At that point he's likely to hang out and try to catch you with phasers when you uncloak. But if he decides to shoot his wad at your cloaked ships, you come out ahead.
*sighs*
First, don't pay for fire control. Your plasma's are self-guiding, and you don't need a lock-on to launch them at targets 5 or more hexes away. The only time you should be firing phaser's anyway is when you uncloak directly behind him at range 1 to put the boot in.
Secondly, don't give him range 8. Launch your G-torp at range 10, and commence plasma ballet. Don't forget to cloak IF NECESSARY.
Thirdly, Nuclear Space Mine. See if you can talk him into using Hidden Mines. Heheheh.
Fourthly...for the love of Ghu, DON'T BOLT. It's tempting, but rarely worth it.
Fifthly.....you can fast-load that G-torp as an F. Just sayin'. And NEVER launch your F-torps unless you KNOW they are going to hit. You don't have the power to reload them effectively.
And lastly....yeah, Snipes basically suck. You have the misfortune to be fighting one of the best frigates in the game with one of the worst. You can still win this, however.
Finally....plasma requires PATIENCE. Coming from a D&D background, you are used to Blazing Disruptor fire every turn, and swarms of drones flying around. Battles tend to get decided quickly. With plasma chuckers, this is NOT the case. When your main weapon takes 3 turns to reload, expect battles to last around 9-10 turns or more, especially when using 1rst-gen Rom ships.
If I were you, I would cloak, starcastle, and start reloading your torps. Watch him turn blue. You want to lure him in close, so that you can play Nuclear Space Tag with him. And don't be afraid to set off that NSM yourself, if it means catching his ships in the blast radius....you have 8 whole impulses to launch a plasma torp if the launcher gets hit....he loses a photon tube, he kisses that overloaded torp bye-bye INSTANTLY.
PS.
Be sure to practice chuckling ominously at various points in the battle. Works wonders at driving Fed players crazy.
Quote:And NEVER launch your F-torps unless you KNOW they are going to hit. You don't have the power to reload them effectively.
This is an important point. As awfully overpriced as the Snipe-B is, it's important to remember that those F-torps were an afterthought. They are there to discourage overruns, and that's basically it. With the publication of Module R10 (and this is in the MRB, too), the use of ECM Plasma has given them somewhat of a new life...at least, the PPTs in those tubes.
I can't tell if you are playing with all the rules in the game, but I've certainly run into more than a few Fed players who insisted on playing without hidden mines and without EW (ECM/ECCM). That is - they'd only play a game that it was a guaranteed win for them.
The tournament ships are balanced very, very differently from standard SFB, and the standard SFB BPVs only come *close* to working out when in context of the full ruleset. ESPECIALLY (double, triple-y, quadruple-y) true for the Romulans. The Fed HATES an EW disadvantage - and with the ability to just leave fire control off a lot of the time and gain the (D19.31) Passive Fire Control bonus, and (FP12.0) ECM Plasma Torpedoes, you can run most of a game with him facing 5 ECM at no power cost to you. And, of course, remember that your own plasma torpedo has 3 ECCM built in.
Net-net is that he could not (even if he wanted to and had the juice to spend) power enough ECM to actually distract your torpedo any amount at all, while having enough left over to drill completely through your defensive EW.
And let's not forget the NSMs. Those are big, big, BIG booms for ships of this size. 35 points, and you've already payed for it in the ship's BPV, so...use it!
As weak as the Snipe is for it's BPV, you are going to run into the same issue with a lot of the smaller Romulan ships. None of them are very good for the cost - I think maybe the presence of cloaking devices, in additional to being some percentage calculation, has a 'min cost', too, or something. I dunno. And in any case, the NSM is factored into the BPV of the Snipe, too, and it's an odd...system. In some situations, at this size level, it's an overwhelmingly crushing advantage. In others...valueless. So...weird effect on balance with small squadrons. The more ships you start bringing in, the most it evens out.
For 'learning old-series Romulans', the Battlehawk is probably a better bet - but my personal favorite will always be the War Eagle. There are only a handful of ships that can cloak on battery power alone, and the War Eagle and Snipe are two of these.
Meh. If he was a TRUE Romulan, he'd be flying Warbirds. LASER Warbirds. With sublight shuttles.
I am going to post a more detailed response in a while, but at the moment, my burning (plasma) question is:
How does one get the plasmas to hit if he comes into range 8, takes his OL shots, and then turns away at high speed?
I only have two Gs, and two PPT for them, and even if one of his OL torpedoes hits, my front shield (or flanking shield) is basically wrecked in one go.
(If two of his four hit, it's frigate over and basically game over at that point.)
I often get told to 'keep him outside of range 8', but in all honestly, how do you keep a speed 15 to 30 movement ship from doing so when you have enough power to get to speed 20 if you're lucky? (and if I keep running away and never trying to close with him, when's the fight going to happen?)
Only having two Gs, and him having so many ways around them, I find it next to impossible to avoid that range 8 shot and get my glowing tracking gifts for him to arrive down his chimney so to speak. (aka hit him with a plasma with more than a few damage points left on it)
(Even if a full power G hits him, he gets two internals or even less, and I have a three turn crawl in a hole to come back to even attempt it again...)
If you fire a G when he's at say R12, he's got a choice. You start the cloak right after. "Do I continue taking the route IN for the OL shot or do I risk the damage (could be a psuedo)" will run through his head.
If he goes in, you've got him. By the time he gets to OL range, the plasma will be 3-4 hexes away from him and you've got a nice dent on him. You, on the other hand, will at least be 3/4 of the way down and handily holding the EW advantage.
If he's holding full overloads, and coming in/out fast enough to avoid the plasma, I'd like to learn some things from his EAF...
Mike the FFG can move and hold overloads at 28 not using batteries. 12 Warp, 3 impulse and an APR. 4 to hold Photons, 2.5 to run the ship leaves 9.5 or 28 plus still having 2 batteries that could be reserve warp, plus he could be using mid-turn speed changes to increase his speed at the right time. Myself I might also have a probe armed, since this is a fleet engagement, then I can see who the plasma is targeted on much earlier. As a Fed player I have always found the Romulan a challenging matchup.
Sure, but at that point, you're not running any EW at all. Throw, say 2 points of ECCM in there to counteract just the passive fire control and you're slowing down considerably.
Throw in another 3 points to counteract some of the cloaky goodness and you're SLOW (at least in comparison to a plasma).
If he's always coming in under a hold, it means he's making 3 turn passes and you've got reloaded G's to match him bead for bead. If he's taking 2 turn passes, that second turn, the photons are still sucking the speed dry.
The Snipe-B requires different tactics. As was suggested, skip the FC. That leaves enough for 26 move. A 21/31 plot will do fine. Launch your Gs (or just one) around 10-12. Turn off. If he charges them, then you drop a pair of Fs, and keep running. If he turns off, you turn back in, let him run them out a bit, then drop your Fs when you know they're going to hit for damage. (You did say fixed map). Accept the Snipe-B has a 5 turn re-arm cycle. Get the Fs loaded. Then the G. Then engage. It packs one heck of a punch for a FF - 60 pts of plasma - but lacks internals, power, shields ... ;)
The NSMs can cover 14 hexes, or a line 6 long. Use that line to retreat behind.
Never give the Fed an r8 shot. If he charges, feed him plasma on the way in, and cloak. Even at r0, the Photon sucks against cloak - 50/50 to hit, feedback, and cloak damage modification.
And once shields are cracked, remember you can EPT ;)
(Although the line about chewing gum and walking at the same time comes to mind)
It should be underscored that snipes are NOT a good starting ship for a novice romulan.
Agreed. But if you learn to fly them right, flying the Kestrels and 3rd-gen ships is a snap.
Also, erratic/evasive manuevering is your friend. Just sayin'.
I dunno that there is much connection between the generations, though. The Hawks, and the Kestrels especially, you basically just fly kinda like Klinks. Pretend you don't have a cloak at all, just blast around the map at top speed turning off slightly to chuck a plasma torpedo at the ship trying to catch you. (Well, that's over-simplifying, but the overall tactics for these ships are just wildly different from the old-series ships)
Erratic maneuvers are cool, but you have to time it right, since you can't launch plasma while jinking around.
On this ship, probably more energy efficient to just cloak instead of EM.