There is an SFB scenario in Captain's Log #35 where things happen the other way around: an experimental weapons test in the vicinity of a base goes catastrophically wrong, producing a rift in space which is represented in game terms as a black hole. (There's an FC translation of this scenario in CL40.)

The setup is presented as a simulator scenario, since no government would admit to such a fiasco taking place (even if such an event were likely to happen in the first instance). But it's the closest thing to a "unit with active positional stabilizers parked close to a black hole" circumstance which is currently provided for in either game system.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 10:58 am: Edit

Orions might do it. Defensible, good protection from drones, minor assist in dealing with plasma torpedoes. Plus, no one in their right mind would go anywhere near a black hole.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 11:21 am: Edit

While not quite the same as a black hole, there is a playtest scenario in Module R107 in which the Hydrans are attempting to establish a mobile base in the vicinity of a neutron star - one which the Nicozians have taken an interest in.

(The Nicozians are on the search for a new home star, since their old one is on the clock. Finding a new one which fits their exact needs is an ongoing problem, however - one not helped by the insanity those Nicozians separated from the "home" collective inevitably experience.)

Perhaps one could consider modifying that scenario to cover an equivalent event in Holdfast space?


Speaking of Tholians dealing with difficult terrain features, it is noted in a background article from CL41 that the home galaxy Tholians had problems dealing with the remnant Nebuline (the last holdouts of a rival M81 empire, one of three which had opposed the Tholians' rise to galactic dominance in the Great Martial War), due to the Nebuline possessing some sort of unique technology which made them unusually effective when fighting in a nebula. This initially allowed a number of Nebuline colonies to survive the Tholian conquest unscathed, and later enabled them to facilitate the spread of non-Nebuline piracy.

Since most web functions do not function in a nebula, and since a Tholian "enforcer species" would be unable to operate transporters in a nebular environment (which would prevent the Seltorians at least from leveraging their large boarding party complements), one could see how that might be a particular sticking point for the Tholian efforts to assert their Will over these last holdouts.

The M81 Pirate ships in CL40 are "export models" (stripped of key Nebuline technology), based on yet-to-be-published Nebuline originals - which are in turn derived from "wingless" hull designs used by the Nebuline regular navy (such as it was in the wake of the Tholian triumph).

It would be very interesting to one day see more about how these Nebuline technologies worked, or if there may be more to their story in Prime Directive Tholians should that file gear up for publication some day.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 11:43 am: Edit

Base near a black hole: See (G29.27).

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 12:16 pm: Edit

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Quote:

So positional stabilizers do not absolutely prevent a unit equipped with them from moving, they simply keep the unit from being perturbed out of its current movement situation which is defined when the stabilizer goes active.

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By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 12:20 pm: Edit

Why not build a base far away from a black hole, then nudge it towards a blackhole in a scientifically mathematically course that will allow an elliptical orbit, and at its closest point (range 1) hit that positional stabilizer button. I'm mostly joking but . . .

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 01:01 pm: Edit

The positional stabilizer takes some undefined amount of time (longer than a scenario) to take effect, so probably not. Also, from the description above, the Positional Stabilizer would not alter that elliptical orbit in any way.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Yeah, I see what you mean. But that got me thinking. An orbit is an orbit, regardless if its perfectly circular or elliptical. Yeah, I know, semantics. But then again . . . I'm mostly joking (but a tad less so now).

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 02:10 pm: Edit

Stabilizers cannot be activated within 200 hexes of a black hole.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 02:36 pm: Edit

Pity. Could have been fun.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 07:13 pm: Edit

But what if the black hole appeared (black hole mania scenario?) while the base was already there?

I apologize for being insane.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Great and are battle force has to some how rescue the science crew yahhhh oh yuck

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 03, 2016 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

I could swear I answered that earlier today, but the message is not here. Perhaps I forgot to post it.

In any case, once more the answer is in (G29.27). The rule specifically allows for the unusual circumstance of a black hole simply appearing near a base (perhaps God DOES "play dice with the universe" to paraphrase Einstein (I believe).

As someone else noted, this was used as the set for one of the scenarios and a fiction story in an issue of Captain's Log, a science experiment gone horribly impossibly wrong.

But, beyond that, there is just no way to predict that a black hole is going to magically appear next to your base.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, March 03, 2016 - 05:14 pm: Edit

When I was in High School we had a local campaign an Intel had found a pirate base in the neutral zone. The Orion player was hopelessly outgunned in the scenario and asked if he could have the base in hazardous terrain. We said sure.

He designed a map where his base was in orbit around a black hole with a bunch of planets all around getting sucked in. There were also two variable pulsars, the scenario was in an asteroid field in a combined nebula-heat zone-radiation zone. There were probably other terrain effects I have forgotten.

We laughed when he laid out the conditions and figured it would be fun. Very few ships escaped alive and the base died when a gas giant getting sucked into the black hole crashed into it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, March 04, 2016 - 01:19 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock,

If you ever read "Red Shirts" by John Scalzi you might not think it was so fun.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, July 09, 2019 - 11:15 pm: Edit

This is a continuation of a discussion about minefields from the Federation Tactics topic. I'm afraid I sort of hijacked the discussion, arguing that minefields around Tholian bases would be much closer in, due to the webs.

This afternoon Mike Grafton posted a comment to the effect that he didn't think Tholian bases routinely have web at strength zero at all times. I replied as follows:

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Quote:

I don't think Tholian bases routinely have a zero strength web at all times.

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By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - 01:26 pm: Edit

Ok, "G10.835 states that a surprised base would have zero-strength web" shows me to be wrong!

Learn something new every day.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - 01:28 pm: Edit

Michael,

Don't feel too bad. If I were to list everything I've been "sure" of over the years, but which later proved incorrect, it would be a long post.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, March 02, 2020 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Recently in the F&E discussions, I mentioned that I didn't think drone bombardment would be effective against Tholian bases, due to webs. Tim Linden responded that DB could be effective using Swordfish drones, whose phasers could be used against Tholian ships powering the outer webs; or by having Klingon ships dive into the web, tractor Tholian ships, and pull them into web hexes in which drones from the DB mission had accumulated. While these tactics could work, I believe they will be very difficult to pull off against the Tholians. (And to be fair to Tim, he acknowledged in his post that neither of these tactics would be easy to pull off.) I had meant to post in the Tholian Tactics section why I thought these tactics wouldn't generally work. But as usual with me, I procrastinated an didn't get around to it till today.

In the first place, how many Swordfish drones can the Klingon DB forces hit the web with? A D6D (with Y175 refit) has 6 Type-B racks with double reloads, a total of 108 spaces in the racks. It has 4 cargo, with a total of 200 more spaces to support the DB missions. This gives it 308 total spaces, or 154 Type-IIIXX drones. Three D6Ds acting in concert could hit the base with a total of 462 Type-IIIXX drones for the DB mission. But while "DB-designated" ships can load completely with Type-IIIXX drones, they are still subject to normal availability limitations for payload spaces. So that massed DB strike includes at most 46 Swordfish drones (for the Klingons - in a non-historical assault the Kzinti could have more). But suppose hypothetically that the Klingons got special dispensation to make all those DB drones Swordfish (which presumably uses up a large percentage of their total stocks). Could the Tholians respond?

The first thing to note is that if the drones impact the outer web from the same direction, they basically prevent the Tholians from reinforcing the web from that side but don't, in and of themselves, cause problems for Tholian ships reinforcing the web from the other sides. They allow the Klingon ships to cover fewer web hexes, and can be useful in that respect. But it is a very expensive way of going about it; approximately 450 Type-IIIXX drones with Swordfish modules is a significant cost. And the Klingons will still need to send ships into the web on those other sides, to be blasted by the base's phaser-IVs.

If, on the other hand, the Klingons spread the bombardment drones out (using their waypoints) to cover the entire outer web, they can put approximately 15 DB drones in each hex. This still seems enough to ruin a Tholian's day. A ship moving adjacent to the outer web to maintain it can be hit by 30 phaser-IIIs firing at one-hex range (although hitting two different shield facings) and 30 more firing from two hexes. This still seems enough to cause severe damage to any Tholian trying to reinforce the outer web. But this only works if the web-maintaining ship is the same one the drone, operating under "Wild Boar" procedures, has accepted as a target.

So... a group of drones is approaching the web from the "north". The Tholian ship, which we will call "Patrol Covette #1" pulls back behind the middle web ring. As the approaching DB drones reach 8 hexes from that PC, they accept it as the target. They will now not shoot at any other PC except PC#1. At the same time, the drones approaching from the "south" accept "PC#2" as the target, since it is closest when they reach 8 hexes. (Note: the drones won't accept any ship as a target until after they "open their eyes" once past the final programmed waypoint. If they "open their eyes" before or in the web hex in which they become trapped, they accept the closest eligible target (PC#1 in our hypothetical example). If the final programmed waypoint is after the outermost web, they aren't targeting anything yet, and never threaten anything until they get past the web and reach the last waypoint.) So in our example, the drones coming in from the north are targeting PC#1 and the drones coming in from the south are targeting PC#2, both of which are hiding behind the middle web ring. After the DB drones have accepted their targets, the two PCs switch places. PC#1 moves adjacent to the south edge of the outer web, but the drones there can't shoot because PC#2 is their target. PC#2 is meanwhile moving to maintain the outer web, from the "north" side and the drones in the north web hexes will likewise ignore it.

Note that this tactic also answers for a Klingon ship diving into the web to tractor the Tholian and pull it into a cluster of DB drones trapped in the outer web. PC#1 is reinforcing from the south. A Klingon dives into the web to grab it and pull it into the hex, which contains a lot of Type-IIIXX drones with explosive modules. But those drones have already accepted PC#2 (which is currently on the opposite side of the wedding cake) as the target so they ignore PC#1 even if it is in the same hex.

This hardly exhausts the advantages of the web in nullifying DB missions. For example, let us suppose PC#1, currently hiding behind the middle web, needs to move (for some reason) adjacent to the outer web in a region where lots of Swordfish are targeted on it. It launches a wild weasel, which heads out towards the outer web. Now if a Klingon ship wanted to blast a wild weasel, so that it could launch drones later, or fire its disruptors and phasers later in the turn without facing an ECM shift, it would fire enough of its weapons to kill the weasel, but it wouldn't fire everything. Swordfish drones aren't that smart. Let's suppose the Swordfish are programmed to fire at range-2. The weasel moves onto the middle web ring and 60 Swordfish drones (assuming 15 in each of the 4 outer web hexes within two of the weasel) all fire on the weasel, blasting it to oblivion. The fact that this is overkill about 30 times over makes no difference to the Swordfish. The one shuttle craft has just accounted for 60 DB drones!

And then there are mines. The Tholian's "regular" minefield will probably account for few if any DB drones, both because the Tholian probably hasn't set them to detonate on targets of that size and because the DB drones will not arrive in a big "clump"; so any mines that do detonate will only kill a few drones. But the drones will accumulate in the outer web hexes, even if they arrive at different times. And in addition to the standard minefield, the Tholian may well have command-detonated mines in the outer web itself, to use against Klingons diving into the web to attack web-maintaining Tholians. The Tholians can wait until a large number of DB drones have accumulated in a single web hex and then kill a dozen or more of them with a single command-detonated mine.

This doesn't exhaust the topic, and I haven't examined yet the ways in which the Klingons might try to cross up the Tholians during a drone bombardment. For example, the Klingons might set some of their drones to accept other targets. If the Tholians are convinced that a bunch of drones have targeted PC#1, but if they were actually programmed to target cruisers and ignore PCs, and if the Tholians then move a CA or CW into the supposedly safe zone, it could be embarrassing. But in general, I don't think a DB is much of a threat to a prepared (a base caught at low weapon state might be a different matter - but the Klingons could probably kill that base with - comparatively - light losses even with out DB) Tholian defense. I shouldn't suggest that DB has no value what so ever against a Tholian base. but if the Tholians are prepared it is more a "nuisance" or "annoyance" than a real threat. And I don't think it comes close to being worth the economic cost.

There is a possible exception which I confess I have never played out. That would be a Klingon DB mission in support of a Seltorian base assault. I don't think even the Seltorians are much of a threat to Tholians simply as far as their respective technologies are concerned.^* But the Seltorians reinforced by Klingon DB at least bears thinking about.


^*For my money, the Selts are actually third, considering only technology and not total level of resources. The Andros are first (by a long way) and I think the Hydrans are actually second. Tholians in this galaxy are simply much better equipped to defend their bases against Selts than was the case in M-81. But that's a subject for another post.

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Monday, March 02, 2020 - 03:27 pm: Edit

Fascinating! Well thought out.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, March 02, 2020 - 05:54 pm: Edit

Drone bombardment is not entirely about the base itself, or units inside the web supporting it.

Drone bombardment could be laying down fire on the Tholian relief force trying to reach the base, held in the commander's hand for that eventuality. It strengthens the forces that may already have previously been weakened assaulting the base, and makes it harder for the defenders to "breakout" to support the force trying to help lift the siege.

If you are the Klingons, or the Federation (or a rather large mercenary Orion force sent in to try to disguise which empire is trying to remove the base) you are not going to take down a fully operable base with a maximum deployment of Tholian defense forces already within the cake. You have to hit the base while the maximum deployment is not there. That means you have to allow for the relief force arriving while your attack force is trying to wear down the base. And particularly before web casters and snares, drone bombardment can be useful to support a blocking force keeping the Tholian reinforcements at bay.

Remember that in Federation & Empire a single turn is six months. and the multiple battle lines have little to do with the actual fighting but are intended to give a feel for what would have happened. A lot of single ship duels, squadron squabbles, raids on convoys and colonies, and a few Fleet on Fleet slugfests.

Bombardments can also be done when bases are "under repair" and might be targeted to take down asteroids being brought in to be new web anchor points, thus delaying full restoration of the defenses and tying down Tholian forces while an attack is directed elsewhere.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, March 02, 2020 - 06:50 pm: Edit

SPP,

It's a good point about the DB mission at the F&E level not necessarily being meant to target the base itself or its immediate defenders. But it doesn't seem to me sufficient to turn it into a serious threat. It's still more at the "nuisance" level, I think. If the Tholian relieving force is maneuvering in open space, it can avoid the DB, though doing so may delay its arrival at the threatened base. But will the DB delay the Tholian reinforcements enough? With even moderate defenses, the base can hold out much longer than other empires' bases can, provided it had adequate warning to get the webs powered to a reasonable level. And until the Klingons actually commit substantial forces into the web, the reinforcements aren't needed. They can "hover" in the vicinity but stay out of weapons range until the Klingons have put some large percentage of their forces into the web, and still get there before the web goes down. While they are "hovering" they can deal with any DB targeted on them. Once most of the Klingon assault force is committed to the web, and hence immobile, the Tholian reinforcements can engage them. Timing the DB sufficiently closely to interfere with this, strikes me as possible but very unlikely. The Klingons will need a fleet (or at least a squadron) of ships to intercept the reinforcements, in addition to the fleet actually assaulting the wedding cake. They have enough resources that they may be able to do this and defeat the Tholians by weight of numbers. But it still seems to me that the DB makes a very limited contribution to the process.

Having said that, I can see how DB might make a contribution to the overall attempt to subjugate the Holdfast; by attacking freighters (much less able to deal with incoming DB drones than warships) or mining colonies that aren't webbed or have only a single web. (In F&E I believe the Tholians do get income from the province, so these colonies must exist.) And (as already mentioned) I could see them being useful against a base caught at poor weapon status, therefore having only weak webs. But against a fully alerted Tholian defense I still don't see them as a genuine threat.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, March 02, 2020 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

And that is where staff work and intelligence come into the game.

Did various diversionary efforts keep the Tholians off balance such that the assault had enough time to wear down the defenses of the selected base. The Tholian Defense forces are in the end very small and cannot be everywhere. If the Klingon staff work and intelligence sources got the Tholian reserve forces in anticipation of the attack to move towards base Quatro, and instead the Klingons attacked base Cinco, the extra time it will take for the reserves to get there may be the edge needed to blow the base down. If not, maybe the Klingons have weakened the base enough that the reserve force MUST reach the base to save it, and be forced to engage while in effective drone bombardment range in order to try to save the base (or at worst evacuate key personnel and material and cover the withdraw of the remaining battered defending ships).

As noted, if you can put a D, CC, 3xCA, 3xDD, 3xPC, an SC, and a Web Tender at every Tholian Border bastion, none would ever fall. But at the start of the General War that is virtually the entire Mobile Tholian Fleet (DN, 4xCA, 4xDD, 12xPC, 3xSC, 3xCPC, 2xCMC, 6xCU, 2xFLG, 2xPV) to defend one base. Sure, you have 1xDD, 9xPC, 2xSC, 3xCPC, 2xCMC, 6xCU, 2xFLG, and 2xPV to defend the other four, and defend your convoys. And sure as the General War progresses you will have more ships waiting for when the Coalition comes, but prior to the General War there are vulnerabilities, and paranoia keeps the Tholians from ignoring the Federation and the Romulans have attacked before. The Tholians are subject to being ground down on numbers, and sometimes attacking a Tholian base is literally just to bring Tholian ships to succor it so that they themselves can be attacked and destroyed.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, March 03, 2020 - 02:40 pm: Edit

SPP;

I agree with most of what you said in your post from yesterday evening, but still disagree about the issue at hand.

Tholians have a small fleet. Some bases will be only weakly supported - Roger that.

Klingons use deception to lure Tholian mobile reinforcements out of position - Roger that.

Klingons hit weakly supported base, which will live or die depending on how quickly the Tholian reinforcements can get there - Roger that.

Drone bombardment slows down the responding Tholians enough that the base falls - uhhh... well...

Sure, it could happen. But I think it's very unlikely. 99 times out of 100 the Tholian reinforcements either get there in time in spite of the DB, or they would have been too late even without the DB. And that 1 time in 100 it's the DB that made the difference... I'm dubious. I can't deny the possibility. The probability on the other hand... There seem to me to be too many things that have to happen just so... for the DB to be the deciding factor. The DB mission (in general)^* would have been planned and launched with pre-programmed parameters many turns ago and from hundreds of hexes away. And the Klingons have to hope that von Moltke the Elder was wrong about plans surviving contact with the enemy.


^*I'm not really sure how close those DB ships can be and not count against the command rating of the flagship of the force actually assaulting the base. If they are with the actual assault force they have more options for drone usage, but also reduce the number of ships the Klingons have to actually assault the web, unless the Klingons to commit ships to web assault that are (a) expensive and difficult to replace, and (b) not very good for that particular mission.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, March 03, 2020 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

Slight correction.

I never said that drone bombardment would slow down the reserves, although as the conversation progressed I can see how it might be inferred that was my meaning. What I was saying is that drone bombardment can support the forces opposing the reserves.

Unless the force in question is very small, drone bombardment by itself is not going to slow a reserve force much. Too many phasers, too many tractor beams, and disruptors can be effective against drones also.

It is sort of like the point that an obstacle loses most of its value if it is not covered by fire. It takes very little time to clear an obstacle if no one is shooting at you. If a Tholian reserve force is engaged by a Coalition blocking force, arriving bombardment drones simply exacerbate their situation, i.e., they cannot simply target all of their weapons on the Coalition ships.