Follow-up question regarding the mining of the crystals:

Do I have to deal with the Andros using their displacement devices on extracting the crystals?

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sören Klein

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 10:19 am: Edit

The ways to extract crystals are via transporter or shuttle. The Dis Dev is not one of these, so there you are.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 12:42 pm: Edit

The Dis Dev can be used to extract crystals from ships only by displacing the thieving ship that stole back into the moon the asteroids are being mined from.

Andromedans are just interested in galactic ecological conservation.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 01:48 pm: Edit

Trying to get everything answered.

Gregory S. Flusche: As Works and Fabrication are destroyed on "Cargo damage points," installing them would be the same as installing cargo as padding. So I do not see doing so.

Soren Klein: In regards trying to grab crystals with displacement devices, I do no see anywhere in the rules where a displacement device can be used to move anything smaller than size class 6 if it is not already inside something else. You can displace a shuttle or fighter, but nothing allows you to displace say a man in a space suit floating in space. Displacement devices are simply not that precise that they can lock onto something that small.

John Wyznynski: I am going with the shuttle's ship description and will make a note to amend Annex #7K I am pretty sure the "0.2" for the cargo volume of a prospecting charge somehow got confused to a prospecting shuttle having only two cargo points. So they can carry 10 spaces of cargo. However, as a normal admin can only carry two crystals and has a cargo capacity of 15 compared to the 10 of the prospecting shuttle, each prospecting shuttle can only carry one (1) crystal. (If these crystals were 5 points each, a normal shuttle would be able to carry three, so I am assuming the crystals in this case are somewhere between 5.000000000000001 and 7.5 cargo space points). Note that an HTS could carry four (not five) crystals, this is my ruling on the HTS.

John Stiff: I am afraid Rule #1 for the battle group plainly states both "no ship with a movement cost greater than 1.00" and "no ships of Size Class 2," and that second prohibition does mean you could not use the Jindairan BCH. As the mission has been revealed, I cannot allow you to benefit from the error, and can wish that it had been caught before. I am afraid I am going to have to impose that the BCH is in fact a third heavy cruiser, costing you a reduction of 35 BPV points that you cannot get back (note: you do keep the Commander's Options you spent for the ship, e.g., it still has two T-bombs).

To all in re Jindarian options. Because the Orions have drones, I cannot in good conscience give the Jindarians tractor beams at this juncture. I have reviewed the options available, and the rule governing the Jindarian option boxes and rule that each heavy cruiser (all three of them) has four (4) lab boxes (something that can still be hit and does overly protect systems until fairly deep into the Damage Allocation Chart when they do provide some protection to warp engines and phasers), and two Auxiliary Control boxes. There is no change in the ships' BPVs for this.

Eddie Crutchfield: Was your question re landing on the asteroid answered?

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 03:23 pm: Edit

*Probably* not important to get the crystals out, but rather to be the last player on the map.

Yes, yes. It is possible to win by crystal extraction alone, but seriously... just kick everyone's a!!!!

I've played the DCA scenario several times. It usually isn't by resolved by who is RIGHT, but rather devolves into who is LEFT.

By Eddie Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 03:39 pm: Edit

Yes Steve, I think so, the main point was to be that the shuttle has to spend a full turn landing, cannot just jump into the hex and land and just be picked up shortly there after, which if had been possible the shuttles would have been more useful, now can be used just not as fast.
.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 04:08 pm: Edit

Ted Fay:

The difference is that a normal game of DCA can be open ended, that is it ends when only one player is left to pick up the crystals. This has a 15 turn time limit, which even with the small size of the forces, is not a lot of time.

While no alliances are allowed, I would point out that everyone might want to count the number of transporters the different forces have to determine who needs to be killed. And that is why I never gave any though to solving the Jindairan issue by installing transporters in the options, it would have been too obviously an edge.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 06:03 pm: Edit

I thought I remembered a tactic where you can displace a plasma torpedo to cause it to lose tracking on its target (assuming it isn't targetted on the displacing unit).

Is there a size-class reason that you cannot do this?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 06:24 pm: Edit

Whoa, talk about missing the obvious … (didn't even think to look at the BCH size class as most are SC3)

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Ugh, I missed the BCH being a SC2. Most BCH's are SC3 - old age again.

I thank Petrick for the resolution of my errors. So, 3 Jindarian CA's with 4 Lab and 2 Auxiliary Control as the option boxes it is. (I will miss the 8 P1's that the BCH carries.)

I note that Prospecting Shuttles may only carry 1 crystal. I also note that the HTS shuttles may carry 4 crystals. (Maybe they will survive to collect 4 crystals.)

So with things being resolved, on with the strategizing!!

By Eddie Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 06:48 pm: Edit

Already counted Trans and shuttles.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 07:59 pm: Edit

Do Jindarians start with all their prospecting shuttles or do they have to pay for them?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 08:36 pm: Edit

They start with them.

By Kurt Byanski (Kurtski) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 08:23 am: Edit

Qixa Question: There are two general (unrestricted) UVM warheads available. The "standard" is used in the cloud and the "brick" is used for missions outside of the cloud. Can I assume the UVMs in this force are the "brick" version?

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 09:59 am: Edit

I've been planning on you using that, Kurt.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 11:55 am: Edit

Is that something that should have been picked before the scenario was announced?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 01:29 pm: Edit

Several items.

1.) I tried to be funny, and clearly failed. The thing about displacement devices is that there is no use of them to move something from outside of the given displacement device unit to inside the displacement device unit. There is nothing in (G18.0) that allows a displacement device to be used to recover something. It can be used to launch a satellite ship [(G18.55) and (G19.42)]. So, no, you cannot recover dilithium crystals with a displacement device. Note that (G18.663) allows things to be displaced from the surface of an asteroid, but at that point it is non-Andromedan displacement (G18.321), and only one crystal can be displaced per displacement device, and where it ends up may enable some other ship to transport it aboard before the Andromedans can.

2. Yes, the listed prospecting shuttles are included in the ship.

3. On reviewing the math, I have to allow a Heavy Transport Shuttle to carry six (6) dilithium crystals. Basically an Admin shuttle can carry 15 cargo points, and is allowed to carry two of the crystals, so each can be no more than 7,5 cargo points, which limits a prospecting shuttle to carrying only one (cargo capacity of 10 points). But four times 7.5 would yield 30 cargo points and a heavy transport shuttle's capacity is 50 cargo points, and six crystals would take 45 cargo points.

4. Seriously, the ultrawarp missiles carried by the Qixa should have been defined as part of the battle force, and at the least the Qixa should have asked (it is a legitimate question) if the action was going to take place in the Qixavalor nebula, and chosen ultawarp missile warheads appropriately. As this was always intended to be outside of the Qixavalor nebular, and there is no BPV effect, the missiles are all "Brick" types.

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 02:54 pm: Edit

I have to admit, I feel somehow overwhelmed by the scenario.

I have a preliminary overview of my opponents and my own assets, edges and flaws. And also a few good ideas of engaging the enemy battlegroups --- one on one.
The difficulty I'm facing now is engaging them all three together and anticipating their moves.

Am I running fast evading their plasmas?
Do I stay slow and have them eat my overloaded photons while they willingly lower their shields for transport?
Will I go for Waynes squadron first which was supposed to be my ally during General War but now obviously turned against me?

Or would it be worth the mission, if I let Wayne and Greg fight it out and go for one of Richards Intruders and overwhelm him with my BPs and drag him of to uncover their secret technologies?

So many decisions. So little time.

Thanks for the tough challenge, SPP.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Soeren Klein

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 03:21 pm: Edit

Soren Klein:

Uhm ... before trying to overwhelm Richard Eitzen's Intruders with your boarding parties, you should review (D10.521) and (D10.523).

It would no doubt provide a (temporary) warm glow to Richard Eitzen's cold Andromedan heart (do Andromedan's have hearts? No one knows, but a little imagining that they do harms nothing).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 03:38 pm: Edit

In answer to another question sent by E-mail and to avoid having to answer it again (since it does not reveal anyone's tactics).

Yes, normally dilithium crystals are only 0.05 cargo points under Annex #7K. However, that is a processed crystal ready for use in a warp drive system. The crystals on this asteroid are encased in lattices of material and can be extracted and manufactured into those 0.05 ones that your warp drives use. There is a lot of dross encasing the crystals which will be discarded in the production process, and if you had time (and were not under fire) you very much would have loved to have brought an ore-processing freighter to more efficiently extract the crystals, but all you can do now is grab the lattices to be processed at a later time. So while there are 150 dilithium crystal lattices on the asteroid for your purposes, if even a quarter of the volume of a given lattice is dilithium crystals that lattice would produce 600 actual crystals (or 90,000 crystals if you recovered all 150 lattices and all of them were only 25% dilithium) for use in warp drives. And before you question that such a windfall would be a glut on the market, remember that even freighter warp drives require dilithium crystals.

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Well then.....

Back to the original plan.

Lightening up his heart with hot glowing photons.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Soeren Klein

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 05:01 pm: Edit

By all means go slow and use a WW on my plasma. That will leave you a sitting duck for the Andros.

Ah I am going to start writing soon.

SPP can you please post the E-mail that I send my tactics to please. I am sure i could find it but sigh

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Gregory S. Flusche:

It is the eighth bullet point in the instructions, to wit:

* Tactics articles (written after the opposing force is revealed) must be submitted by the end of December 2019 by email to Steven Petrick at: Rules@StarFleetGames.com (which must include a copy of the force selection and the submitter’s NAME AND STATE/PROVINCE IN THE BODY OF THE SUBMISSION SO THAT THE NAME GETS DOWNLOADED WITH THE BATTLE GROUP AND NOT LOST IN THE EMAIL HEADER).

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 07:38 pm: Edit

Soeren, you aren't alone in feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the scenario.

I think if we were all being honest with each other, we're ALL feeling a little overwhelmed by the scenario.

Feeling overwhelmed, I already sent in TWO bad blatherings on the tactics for my group to use. If you've done better than look as idiotic as I have, then you're good.

(BTW, SPP? I've got my notepad out and am working on writing a more proper, thorough plan out with less of the blathering and dithering I'm so prone to whenn writing off the cuff. It is my high hope it won't be AS nauseating... )

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, December 12, 2019 - 10:45 pm: Edit

First draft written.

What are the odds that my opponent(s) will do what I think they will do?