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	Archive through May 05, 2017	25		08/13 11:34am
	Archive through August 17, 2017	25		08/17 05:52pm

Glenn Hoepfner:

No, no, not back to ensign . . .

try Sub Cadet, third grade.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 04:20 pm: Edit

When there is a hull breach it is your job to put your finger or arm or whatever extremity fits into it to keep the air in. The pension plan is terrible but on the bright side we find it is rarely necessary. Welcome aboard.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 04:21 pm: Edit

And, believe me, you do not want to be a Sub Cadet, fourth grade (something about the zero-gravity latrines and plumbing fixtures of encounter suits).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 05:25 pm: Edit

We need some easy way to track the number of times an Orion doubles the power of his ships engines, some indication of spare part usage (above normal usage, that is...) and the amount of loot a pirate generates during the campaign.

Something more than "bragging rights" or "brownie points"... and we must recognize that this is a unique requirement for an Orion Pirates game. I suspect no other captain in a SFBs setting would have any need for the information.

I imagine that a more economical Orion pirate captain would clearly be superior to one who hypes his engines every time and brings in the same amount of loot.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 05:52 pm: Edit

It is a baseless rumor that a duty of a sub-cadet, 3rd grade is to beam out to suspected mines and test them to see if they're fake, using a cheap percussion tool. Supply insists that they are quality tools and very suitable for the job.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, August 17, 2017 - 10:48 pm: Edit

78% of the time the percussion tool survives the explosion of the mines/ unfortunately the operator of the percussion tools have a near 100% fatality rate. *we had a decendant of wrong way corrigan. he ended up on a reciprocol bearing to the suspected mine location. however the percussion tool was transported corectly with such accuracy that it impacted one of the mine sensors. The good news is, the tool survived!

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 02:57 am: Edit

I think the easy way of tracking would be to count repair points that would be needed to counter damage including engine doubling. Subtract that from cargo spaces stolen to get a rough profit calculation. It does look like a pirate campaign might be a bit unconventional as the winning strategy might be to use CDR to repair cargo instead of repairing warp.

The numbers seem to work at first order glance. LR doubles engines twice in order to fill the cargo bay with 75 spaces would have 55 points beating out a different LR that chooses not to double engines but only gets one turn of cargo transport for a total of 20 points.

Double warp engines to steal wheat: Pirate loses
Meet Q-ship get crippled because engines aren't doubled: Pirate loses

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 10:35 am: Edit

that might work. At least it would allow compatible stats for ships of the same design (I.E. LR light raiders).

That means by definition all Captains must have the same kind of ship, no variants that have different numbers of cargo boxes and they must have identical engines...

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 11:59 am: Edit

Jeff: How so? Different ships simply means the costs of your ship and of doubling are slightly different.

The BPV difference in ships should already take into account how many engine boxes you wreck when you double and how much power that generates.

An engine box presumably needs the same spare parts whether on an enforcer CA or a LR, the repair costs are the same after all.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Having several players use the same ship and whoever gets the most points wins is easy to implement. Figuring out the range of points needed for victory conditions would take a lot more work. Each potentially included scenario would need to be tested multiple times to determine expected outcomes.

Balance would come from an estimated operational cost to run the ship. Bigger ships would need to gather more cargo spaces just to break even.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 01:08 pm: Edit

I would stick with everyone having the same ship size if you are playing it as a linked set of scenarios. If you are setting up a system with random events and randomly generated scenarios then the game becomes more RPGish and varying ship types make more sense.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 01:39 pm: Edit

Were Salvage Cruisers operated by independent operators or were they usually or exclusively owned by the Cartel Lord? Anyone know?

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 02:00 pm: Edit

In the Star Ship Name Registry there are no Salvage Cruiser independent operators listed. However, the list is only the known names, there could be an independent SAL looking for scrap.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 02:46 pm: Edit

I wonder if more thought needs to be devoted to Orion Pirate operations than has be revealed to us. SPP posted above a huge load of implications in this topic.

A source of trained officers and crewmen all with what I assume is Orion Academy training (and assuming there is only one Orion Academy...) means a relatively safe and secure location invulnerable to attack by the Major and Minor Alpha empires.

We know that there were Orion Dreadnought designs, but If I Recall Correctly, no Orion Pirate Shipyard produced any actual Dreadnoughts... that means the CA style hull was the largest production unit provided by one or more Orion shipyards.

If each Orion Cartel had a shipyard, they must have produced LR, BR, DW, SAL, SL, CR and CA hulls to meet the demands of both Cartels and independents.

Just wondering how new cartels were created?

Did an independent operator acquire his raiding squadron (just for discussion purposes, let us assume 2xLR, 2xCR a SL and a SAL) move into a new territory, locate a good (unlisted/charted) star system, start a colony, bring in a bunch of involuntary technology workers (slave labor) and build a ship yard?

Does this mean there could be Orion Cartels (unknown to date in star fleet history) operating in the off map F&E areas for the Hydran, Lyman, Kzintis, Federation, horn and Romulans?

Lots of questions?

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 02:48 pm: Edit

It was mentioned somewhere that the Orion cartel map was just a 'for instance' type thing and that it definitely changed over time.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 02:59 pm: Edit

My general concept for the Orion Campaign is an Orion "Fleet Captain's" campaign.

Thus it would be similar to the Fleet Captain's, Frigate Captain's and Survey Captain's campaigns. A set of scenarios representative of the kinds of things Orions do that differentiates them from normal ship captains.

Some of the other differences is that in a Fleet Captain's campaign you might have everyone taking a Federation Cruiser through its paces, or you might have player A with a Federation CA (or NCL, or CL) while player B takes a Klingon D7 (or D5 or D6), and player C takes a Kzinti ... and so on. (Same for the Frigate Captain's Campaign except obviously smaller ships, frigates, destroyers, war destroyers, and the Survey Captain's Campaign would use survey ships.)

For the Orions you might have everyone take a Dragon's Cartel CR (whether owned by the Cartel or an independent working in the Cartel's territory, and assuming cruiser captains), or player A might be Dragon Cartel, Player B Daven Cartel, player C Lion's Heart Cartel ... and so on. (I imagine the Orion Captain's Campaign taking into account a combination of the Fleet Captain's and Frigate Captain's campaigns allowing the players the options of starting with smaller ships, LR, DW ... while I know the HDW and DBR are size class 4, I think those need the kind of opposition that would be met by a CR ... or larger ships, i.e., CR, MR, BR, AR, HR, maybe SAL. Again, all might start in the same Cartel, or each be operating in a different Cartel's territory. In the former case, the opposition would always be identical, and option mounts would need to be discussed, i.e., everyone should probably have the same option mounts, but maybe allow selection to reflect different tastes. If they are in different Cartels, the opposition will be "generally the same" but reflect the empire being operated against and that would also affect option mount selections.

Not all scenarios would involve stealing cargo (taking part in the defense of a Cartel base would not allow for any cargo to be stolen, for example). But the cost of repairs to your ship will cost you points. (But not if you are fulfilling a mercenary contract where the "host" has to pay for your repairs as long as you are in good standing on the contract.)

So like the other "captain's" campaigns, there are a series of scenarios to be completed to determine who the most successful captain is. And it is possible that even the most successful of the Orion captains in the campaign will not gain enough points to do more than "retained his command," but there is a chance to win promotion to a larger ship.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 03:17 pm: Edit

It is stated in some fiction that the Orions do have an academy. but many of their officers come from other academies or from no academy. Much of their crew and officers would come from ex-naval officers and crew and from the merchant classes. You could also bring in unskilled workers and pay them a pittance and train them "on the job" in exchange for doing muck work.

The biggest ship built would be the BCH.

I do not think it would be necessary for every cartel to have its own shipyard. Independent operators can and do move between cartels and can buy their ships elsewhere. The Cartel Lord could easily buy their ships from another shipyard. Using slave labor in a shipyard seems like a recipe for disaster unless you want ships riddled with hidden design flaws and problems. Historically slave labor is rarely good for anything beyond menial labor like mining and agriculture. To build a shipyard (and later ships) I would want well-compensated workers who want to keep their jobs. I would guess shipyard workers would not be informed as to exactly where they are so they cannot betray the location of the shipyard if arrested later.

I would guess a new cartel would be formed by either a VERY wealthy pirate or, more likely, by a group of wealthy criminals pooling their resources to buy an enforcer ship, a few other ships, and the parts for a base or battle station for repairs and heading out to virgin territory. You put the word out that you are open for business and can probably attract fresh blood (operators) drawn to an area that has not had a piracy problem and is probably low on Q-ships and escorts compared to more established areas. The only other thing a cartel really needs is a steady stockpile and pipeline of the parts needed to maintain and repair ships.

Later the cartel could find a hidden planet and begin work on a repair yard and then slowly upgrade it to build LRs or DWs and work your way up the chain. You would also have to deal with the reality that the forces of law and order might destroy a shipyard every now and then.

An Orion cartel could go to the off-map area but pickings are probably slimmer out there. The Romulan off-map area is not really settled until really late and until the General War there is not much in the Federation or Gorn off-map. The Hydrans, Lyran, and Kzinti probably have enough to be worth raiding.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 03:44 pm: Edit

My idea for a campaign is quite different. It would require a GM to play the Cartel Lord and all the players captain a ship working in that cartel. They do not need to have the same sized ship.

Divide the campaign into turns (probably a quarter of a year). At the beginning of the year various franchises of varying wealth (and in different empires if the cartel has more then one) are auctioned off. Players have the option of investing in informants to increase their opportunities. Each quarter they get a number of options to perform a mission depending on how much information they are being funneled and partly based on luck. Mercenary contracts could also be offered.

For example a CR captain might get the following options:

1) Mercenary Work - Klingons are looking for a pirate to put a ground force down on a Kzinti colony to sabotage a drone production facility. They want a pirate to provide plausible deniability. They will provide 8 boarding parties. Defenses are expected to include......

2) Armed Priority transport carrying high-value refit equipment to a border starbase. Naval assets are in the area and you can expect a quick response.

3) Small convoy carrying refined ore with a single police escort. Small armed freighter in the convoy is carrying highest value goods but all cargo valuable.

4) Moray Eel spotted. Klingons are paying a premium for any information on the beast.

5) Lone freighter with moderately valuable cargo. Low risk, low reward.

Meanwhile as time passes you can alter things as new ship classes are created, wars break out, maybe a coup against the Cartel Lord and players choose sides.

You would have to put values on cargo and create a lot of random charts which preferably the players will not see. It would be more like a cross between an RPG and a wargame campaign. No one wins as such though some pirates will do better then others.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 03:54 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

You would need to research your monsters as, outside of having to stop the Moray Eel from attacking a colony, it is a very, very, VERY safe monster to be near. It moves 12 hexes a turn in a straight line, and will not attack anything that does not attack it. The upshot is that you have defined a very boring scenario for your Orion captain which can be defined as:

Go to Range Zero of the Moray Eel with the same heading and speed; roll one die at the end of each turn to see how much lab information has been gained.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Yeah, definitely. I just picked a random monster and that name came to mind. A lot of monsters are tied to scenarios and would have to be vetted for how appropriate they are.

Also, depending on how you want to structure the campaign not every player would necessarily have a scenario in every scenario turn. If you did get a Moray Eel you do not bother running the scenario and you just get the money. If you do not have a scenario you can play the law enforcement forces in another player's scenario.

A better description would be that there is a monster and you have no idea what type it is. If you get lucky and it is harmless. Hooray. If you run into the Death Probe.......uh-oh...

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 04:06 pm: Edit

I am working on a set of scenarios like the Frigate Captains game with an Orion flavour (similar to Steve Petrick).
The more involved RPG type campaigns would be many and as varied as there are players.

All good

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 04:32 pm: Edit

I have noted this before, but will put it out for some thought.

Back in the 1980s I created a pirate campaign for a friend of mine who (for whatever reason) wanted to run a pirate ship. The campaign was done for one player, and it worked back then because there were not many variables.

Basically a deck of cards determined what the Orion found in his "franchise." The Orion would not see what cards were drawn until after the scenario was completed. It has been so long that I have forgotten a lot of the details, but it worked something like this.

If the first card was a numbered red card, the ship was a small freighter (mediocre cargo), if an ace it was an armed version (valuable cargo).
if the first card was a numbered black card, the ship was a large freighter (mediocre cargo), if an ace it was an armed version (valuable cargo).
If the first card was a Jack it was a Free Trader (mixed mediocre/valuable cargo).
If the first card was a Queen, it was an armed priority transport (Very valuable cargo).
If the first card was a King, it was a Federation Express (extremely valuable cargo).
A second card determined when a police ship would respond, Ace, a police ship of the empire is escorting the freighter (cargo is increased in value). 2-10 the number of turns before a police ship arrives. Face Card, no police ship.
A third card was drawn for Jokers.

Jokers: If the first card drawn is a joker, it is assumed to be the last card drawn, and the second card is treated as the first card drawn, the third card as the second card drawn.
If the second card is a joker, the third card is treated as the second card drawn.
If any of the drawn cards is a joker, to include the third card, the freighter is a Q-ship of the appropriate size. Cargo on Q-ships is generally the same as that on Free Traders, i.e., of mixed value) (or maybe if the third card drawn was a joker, it was ignored, the third card was drawn just to have the possibility of a joker, but there was some rule I have forgotten covering what to do if both jokers were drawn.)

The point was that any ship the Orion player might attack might be a Q-ship and he had to keep that in mind.

The Campaign ended after about four encounters, but that was because after the fourth ship attacked him, causing him to flee because he had figured out it had to be a large Q-ship, only to have it revealed that it was a bog standard large freighter running a heck of a bluff he was basically too embarrassed to continue the campaign. (It should be noted that back then there were no rules prohibiting freighters from having T-bombs ... or nuclear space mines ... and his pirate ship had suffered some rather significant damage in one of the previous encounters with an "unarmed" large freighter that had T-bombs along with its phaser-2 and phaser-3 ... T-bombs because, out of kindness I guess, I changed the nuclear space mine he ran over into a second T-bomb without telling him it had originally been a nuclear space mine. Plus he was lucky that the freighter started at WS-0, or I might have been able to slap him with a suicide shuttle through his down #1 shield on top of everything else I did to him ... but that is digression.

As noted, I have forgotten a LOT of the details. I know a deck of cards was used, and jokers meant "Q-ship," but I am pretty sure the selection process also included the possibility of an APT or a Free Trader, or a Federation Express being encountered. But back in the mid to late 1980s, the only freighters you might encounter were standard large and small freighters, armed variants thereof. Nowadays there are skids and ducktails to account for (even on the armed freighters), but also other possible targets (prospecting freighters, cruise ships, luxury transports, executive transports, for example).

Naturally if he had been promoted to a Raider Cruiser, I was going to have to modify the ship selection process to account for his more powerful ship. Even then the premise for the campaign was for him to (had he been a successful captain) eventually work his way up to command the Cartel's enforcer ship.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 05:12 pm: Edit

As an aside, it was running that campaign that pretty much set me off on this "doubling the engines is going to cost you" thing.

Every time the Orion captain in that campaign attacked a hapless freighter, he doubled the engines on his light raider.

Yes, it was embarrassing when a Large Freighter ran him off (he doubled his engines for basically no reason that time).

But given the armament of his ship, when he attacked the freighter that actually hurt him:

Light raider has (10 warp and 2 impulse =) 12 points of power.
He doubled that (24 points of power). Went Speed 31 (-11 points of power leaves 13), paid housekeeping (-2.5 points of power, leaves 10.5), held three fully overloaded photon torpedoes (-6 points of power leaves 4.5), and reinforced his #1 shield (-4 points of power, leaves .5 for transporters) leaving him three points of battery power.

He had a 20 box #1 shield with the four points of reinforcement.

The freighter he was chasing dropped its shields. He could not figure out why.

After the quarter turn delay for having the shields dropped expired, the freighter beamed out a T-bomb directly in his path and raised its shields.

He ran over the T-bomb (with the four points of reinforcement, plus the three points of battery, that left him with a shield of 17 boxes).

On his next move he ran into a nuclear space mine that the freighter had earlier rolled out of its shuttle bay, as noted, I changed it to a second T-bomb without telling him it had actually been a nuclear space mine. That left him with a forward shield with a strength of seven.

He closed to Range 1 (he did not want the photons to miss), and the freighter (having him centerlined on its #4 shield) cut loose with its phaser-3 and phaser-2, scoring exactly seven points of damage (disappointing, would have been nice to have gotten the full nine points), wiping away the last of his shield, and launching the shuttle in his face (he did not know that the freighter had started at WS-0 and so the shuttle could not be a suicide shuttle).

The Pirate captain snarled, fired two phaser-1s at the shuttle, vaporizing it (dummy suicide shuttle) and unlimbering his remaining phaser and all three (fully) overloaded photon torpedoes on his nemesis.

I did mention that his facing shield was down?

He scored 12 points (13 if you count the engine doubling) of internal damage on his own ship.

Of course he scored 30 or so points of internal damage (after subtracting the nine points for the #4 shield) on the freighter, and despite using non-violent combat (which caused some portion of the damage to do nothing ... he did not want to risk damaging valuable loot) did well enough to knock out all of the freighter's power systems.

Even so, my large freighter had (not counting the other shield boxes, sensor, scanner, damage control, and excess damage) caused damage to 34% of that light raider (12 damage points on a ship with 35 damage points).

And that is the reason that freighters in Star Fleet Battles are forbidden from buying T-bombs and nuclear space mines. (Well ... that and various convoy battles where Orions, and raiders from opposing empires, were severely damaged by mines laid by "civilian" freighters).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, August 18, 2017 - 05:54 pm: Edit

You know, if I had not changed the nuclear space mine to a second T-bomb, the Orion captain of that ship would have achieved "legendary status."

The captain of a ship, even a light raider, that was crippled by a freighter would obviously be a legend, spoken of in hushed tones in pirate dens, with incredulous tones where the crews of the star fleets mingle, and boisterously celebrated where merchant crews gather.

10 points from a T-bomb plus 35 points from a nuclear space mine, minus a 20 box shield, four points of allocated reinforcement, and three points of battery reinforcement means the ship would have taken 18 points of internal damage (it has 35 internal boxes plus sensor, scanner, damage control, and excess damage), plus one more point of internal damage for doubling the engines for 19 points of internal damage, leaving 16 internal boxes undamaged.

That's assuming he did not "lose it" and continue the attack, taking a phaser-2 and a phaser-3 at near point blank range plus the feedback of any of his remaining photon torpedoes. He could conceivably have been the Legendary light raider captain whose ship was destroyed by a large freighter.

I have to admit I had never really thought about that before.

Of course, that is no longer possible since freighters cannot have nuclear space mines and T-bombs in the present ... but back then.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Saturday, August 19, 2017 - 12:58 am: Edit

Was this the same campaign I remember someone talking about where freighters were using Commander's Options to buy a ton of boarding parties to make stealing the cargo much more difficult?

Is it still legal for freighters to buy Commander's Options (just not mines)?

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Saturday, August 19, 2017 - 01:19 am: Edit

I admit I give him some props for choosing such a power hungry option mount choice. Three photons on a light raider you almost have to double regularly.

I used to have a feeling of invulnerability when flying an Orion that could double its engines. Some friends and I were playing a published scenario in the old TFG Prime Directive and in the scenario an old light cruiser drops you off on a jungle planet and you are expected to traverse the wilderness and make it to a prefab shelter several days away with minimal equipment. A shuttle crash lands with an important scientist working on ways to defeat the cloaking device. An Orion Light Raider arrives in orbit and you have to steal weapons and fight your way to the shelter while Pirates and the Romulans who hired them scour the jungle for you. When you arrive you can send a distress signal and then just have to survive.

After the scenario I told the GM that if I was the Orion pirate captain I would have fought off the light cruiser and then they could have captured the scientist at their leisure.. He challenged me to fight it out. We set requirements that basically forced the light cruiser to charge at the planet at high speed to beam the team up quickly before they were overrun. I outfitted my ship with three plasma F torpoedos figuring he I could use doubled engines to put enough of a brick on my shield to get close and hit him with all three and survive. His ship was badly crippled. Mine had one warp engine left after the exchange which burned out from the doubling effect.

After that I played Orions more carefully.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 19, 2017 - 11:42 am: Edit

Jon Murdock:

The rules on Commander's Option Points allow ships to purchase them, and freighters are ships. But those rules were part of the late 1980s [when it was virtually standard that any given ship with enough BPV would purchase a dozen T-bombs, (which cost only one point each back then), and two nuclear space mines (which cost three points each back then and any ship could have two if it had the points)].

Today rule (S3.213) specifically precludes "standard freighters" from purchasing T-bombs, and nuclear space mines were precluded (M2.7) from purchase from all ships except Romulan ships, minesweepers, and minelayers.

Nothing under (S3.2) currently precludes freighters from using Commander's Option Points, nor prohibits them from using those points to purchase boarding parties (which became my fall back position after freighters were stripped of mines). But SVC has pointed out that having all of those "bully boys" sitting around on freighters drawing paychecks when the chance of any given freighter being attacked is so low is an expensive proposition, and it is probably cheaper to just pay the insurance premiums on the freighters.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 19, 2017 - 01:21 pm: Edit

I will admit that it was amusing to see the expression on a pirate captain's face when he lowered a shield on his ship to beam boarding parties onto a freighter in a convoy, only to have the various freighters lower their facing shields and, together with the escort ship, counter-board his ship.

More frequently, though, I think the convoy simply sent additional boarding parties to defend the ship the Orion was boarding.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 19, 2017 - 01:40 pm: Edit

I think I should also note that back in the 1980s all ships basically had unlimited dummy T-bombs. Whether you bought a T-bomb or not, you could beam out the trash from your ship's trash receptacles and it would be seen as a possible T-bomb. So when I beamed out a T-bomb in front of the pursuing pirate ship, he went ahead and ran over it because ... well I was already locally infamous for cluttering maps with dummy T-bombs, and he may have thought that the T-bomb the freighter had beamed out was a dummy in an effort to buy time for a police ship to arrive by getting him to swerve around the "T-bomb." But even if it was "real" he had what amounted to a 27 box front shield, and a 10 point T-bomb added to the 12 points of feedback damage he was planning on from his overloaded photons would have left him a five box shield, which would definitely have stopped the phaser-2 even it it rolled a one, so his worst case scenario was four points of internal damage from the phaser-3, and possibly only one point of phaser damage.

Running into the mine that was rolled out of the hatch was the real surprise game changer.

There is a learning curve to tactics, and a lot of people think of freighters as just targets and do not consider that they are capable of putting up a fight at all.

There are, however, loopholes in the rules that the Merchant Services can exploit to deal humiliating lessons to over confident raiders.

A single phaser-3 is not much of a threat, and many an eager young captain has learned the hard way what a forrest of phaser-3s deployed on mobile platforms (admin shuttles, every freighter has at least one) can do at close range. (I still remember the shocked expression on the Klingon commander when I first played "Karg's First Command" and his F5 squadron got shot up by my "helpless convoy" assembling at the planet.)

And of course there was the fun incident where my convoy was "overrun" by the enemy cruiser, who discovered that a convoy at WS-II can use the weapon status rules to meet him with a forrest of shuttles ... in that case suicide shuttles.

He never overran a convoy again after that experience.