SPP,

Thanks for clearing that up. It does make a lot more sense.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, March 03, 2020 - 07:08 pm: Edit

I still stand by my contention that there are a LOT of targets in Tholian space without web defenses. No prepositioned asteroids, no strength zero web, etc

Planets, mining operations, herds of dilithium sheep, convoys, single freighters, etc.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 01:23 pm: Edit

Mike Grafton:

The issue would not be one of "targets" but "targets worth the investment of bombardment."

The Tholians are in the equation also because there have to be limits on just how much they can invest in web defenses inside Holdfast space. But high value targets are most likely to have such defenses (obviously a moving convoy is not going to have such, of course). Further, the Tholians CAN economize since there is very little risk of drone bombardment from Romulan space, and prior to Y171 virtually no chance of such coming from Federation space. The Orions, of course, might hire out ships configured for bombardment to the Romulans to support an attack for some reason or other (or the Federation for some clandestine purpose), but there is no current record of their having done so (outside of the Vudar Enclave off the top of my head).

But a single freighter is extremely unlikely to draw drone bombardment, because it is unlikely a single freighter traveling alone has a cargo worth the investment. We have a scenario where a mining planet has a strand of web defense, which alone would be sufficient to block drone bombardment (you cannot target a specific, or any, small ground base with drone bombardment, which means you are going after population centers by and large, but heck, kill enough miners and you shut down the mine anyway). Dilithium sheep only operate in asteroid fields, and you would lose so many drones to collisions with asteroids I just cannot see them as a valid target for drone bombardment (sorry).

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 06:41 pm: Edit

One comment on drone bombardment against a mining planet with a single web strand:

The web strand would stop the drone bombardment if the mining planet has enough warning to get the web powered up. Depending on how many units with web generators are present (and how much power they have available) when the incoming drones are detected, the Tholians may not be able to strengthen the web sufficiently to stop the drones, if the attack were not detected until late.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 07:41 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

And as noted, the problem is the value of the drones versus the possibility of success. Remember that prior to about Y180 the drones will almost certainly be only medium speed (much easier to stop and requiring less power than Speed 32 drones to do so).

Note that the strength of web to stop Speed 32 bombardment drones is only three to five points greater than for a Speed 20 drone. (Four points if there is no internal armor, six points if half the warhead is replaced by armor.)

External armor on a nominally Speed 32 bombardment drone makes it no harder to stop than a Speed 20 drone.

So you only need to get the web to Strength 21 (Speed 20 bombardment drones, whether normally medium speed or Speed 32 and reduced to Speed 20 by an external armor module) are trapped and cannot reach the planet) or Strength 24 (unarmored Speed 32 bombardment drones are destroyed on impact with the web) or Strength 26 (Speed 32 half armored bombardment drones are destroyed on impact with the web). Of course prior to about Y168 you only need web of strength 13 to block bombardment drones (Speed 12).

So, yes, it became harder as faster speed drones appeared, but that did not happen until pretty late. I imagine a short fiction story could be done about the fate of a Tholian Holdfast colony that was the first to be visited by medium speed drones and reacted too late as a consequence.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 11:09 pm: Edit

SPP,

I wasn't recommending it as a course of action, only noting that under some circumstances it would be possible. I don't recall the specific scenario under discussion, and don't know what all was at the mining colony at the time. But depending on Tholian forces available, it could take a while to raise even a 6-hex web to strength-21.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 05, 2020 - 01:34 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

The scenario I was thinking of was (SH177.0) Tangling the Web which was in Module M. On looking it up, it was of course not quite what my old memory was thinking of as it is a research station (on a planet) under attack, and the web is fully powered at the start.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, April 30, 2020 - 12:58 pm: Edit

Can someone tell me where I can find the write up of Tholian web tactics done by Paul Scott when he was beating everyone? I think it would have been done around 2005 in a Captain's Log but am not sure.

Thanks!

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 04:51 am: Edit

This is a follow-up to an exchange I had with John Christiansen in the "SFB General Discussions" topic. As it specifically concerns Tholian web defense tactics, I am posting my reply here.

First, the point at issue: The initial discussion concerned a two-strand "buzz saw" defense versus a three-strand "buzz saw" defense. I believe John and I agree the two-strand version is more efficient. I also noted that I considered the basic "wedding cake" to be generally superior to a "buzz saw" in any case. John replied that he agreed the wedding cake was better for a single scenario, but regarded the two-strand buzz saw as superior for an extended "siege". I want to respond to the latter contention.

First of all; what does he mean by "siege"? I believe this is what has in mind. A strongly-defended Tholian base, with full-strength wedding cake and adequate ships to maintain the outer web rings, is almost immune to direct assault. Command rating limits the total number of ships the Klingons could bring against the base and for every Tholian ship lost defending the outermost ring, the Klingons will lose more - either more ships or larger ships or both. They will run out of ships before the defenders do. So how does the Tholian base fall? Well, the Klingons have a huge overall strategic superiority and far more ships in total. Tha first assault, limited in size by the CR of the flagship, is crushed but perhaps kills a defending Tholian ship, maybe two, and cripples a couple more. The Klingon survivors disengage and the Klingons can then bring in a full-strength "second wave" while additional forces maneuver to prevent Tholian reinforcements from reaching the base. The second wave is also crushed but attrits the Tholian defenders enough that they no longer have sufficient ships at the base to maintain the outer layer of the wedding cake. The third Klingon wave assaults the "two tier" wedding cake and finishes off the rest of the Tholian ships. The fourth wave kills the defending battle station itself. This process (with some variation in the number fo "waves" required, depending on actual stengths of forces, and tactics used) is, I believe, what John meant by a "siege". It is very expensive for the Klingons, but they do have vastly greater overall resources and their just isn't a "cheap" way (except - possibly - for the Andros) to take down a well defended Tholian base with established webs.

Note: If I have misrepresented John Christensen's thinking here, I apologize to both John and to anyone reading this post. Presumably John will correct any misconceptions.

I need to say that I think this is an accurate description of how a well defended Tholian base falls. In a sense, it is a more extreme case of what happens with any empire's well defended base. If the Feds (or Kzinti or Hydrans) have a starbase (with fighters/PFs and minefield) AND a full supporting fleet, how can the Klingons take it in a single assault? They can't. CR limits make it impossible for them to concentrate enough combat power in a single fleet. But they can attrit the defenders so that a second or third wave can take down the starbase itself. The Tholian web technology makes the process even more painful for the attackers than would otherwise be the case.

So far so good; successive waves of attackers wear down the defending ships until the Tholians can't maintain the outer and middle web rings anymore. But the base can, in theory, maintain the full buzz saw by itself - no ships required. Here's the problen with John's contention, power. Let's suppose a two-strand buzz saw with each strand 30 hexes long. Prior to Y160, maintaining that web at its current strength will require 60 points of power. Only a starbase could do that. A base station or battle station would still require supporting ships. And even a star base will be stressed when it also has to arm phaser-IVs and generate EW. After the Y160 upgrade goes into effect, the power situation is eased, with only 40 power required to maintain 60 web hexes in our buzz saw. The BATS still needs ships in support (unless it has power augmentation modules - and even then it runs into problems when it also needs to arm phasers and generate EW), though not as many of them. After Y175 the situation improves for the Tholian again - only 30 power to maintain our buzz saw. But still... I think we can say as a general rule that a BATS with buzz saw still needs ship support and therefor is vulnerable to the defending ships being attritted in successive waves.

It must be admitted that a buzz saw does have advantages in preserving those ships. For a wedding cake, the ships maintaining the outermost web ring are adjacent to it and can therefor be fired at by attackers actually in that ring. For a buzz saw, those ships can sit in the same hex as the BATS, immune from fire until the attackers have run the gauntlet and reached a position to attack that center hex. But the wedding cake has advantages as well. Assuming sufficient ships, the Tholians don't need to just sit adjacent to the outer ring. They can move around in the ring of empty hexes between the inner and middle web rings, and dart out to reinforce the outer ring, then run back behind the middle ring. But because the Tholians can freely move through the middle of the wedding cake while the Klingons have to move around it, the only way the Klingons can counter this is to spread out there forces to threaten all sides of the wedding cake. And if the outer ring is at full strength, the Tholians can wait several turns without exposing their ships at all, using phaser-IVs from the base and phaser-Is from the ships to weaken the attackers, then move out in force against only a small fraction of the Klingon fleet. If the Tholians try to move to the "south" side of the outer ring to reinforce, any Klingons on the "north" side (or "east" or "west" sides) can't engage them. And Klingons have to be spread out in this manner. So the Tholians reinforcing the outer ring are only facing - perhaps two - Klingon ships which have already been weakened by a couple of turns of phaser fire. By contrast, the Klingons attacking a buzz saw can all move down the same "channel" between buzz saw strands (though not all in the same hex - due to the fact that the channel is almost certainly heavily mined) and concentrate all their (surviving) fire when they do achieve firing position.

And those mines are another way in which the buzz saw defenses are attritted. Suppose the atttackers try to force one of the channels but are devestated by mines before reaching a position to fire on ships or the base. The survivors flee but the second wave then assaults the same channel. If the waves are well coordinated, the Tholians won't have had much opportunity to reetablish the minefield before the second wave hits. (The Tholian ships may have placed a few T-bombs and the base may have a mine laying shuttle to replace some large mines. But this is unlikely to reestablish the minefield in that channel to its original density, if the second wave follows closely on the heels of the first.) So the second wave takes much less mine damage than the first wave and reaches position to assault the base directly.

And the reliance on mines highlights another reason why the buzz saw is less viable than the wedding cake in the late-war period, X-ships. Ordinarily, the assault force would have at most one minesweeper. And while it is good at clearing mines, it doesn't (with a few exceptions) contribute much firepower against the base itself, or any Tholian ships. But every X-ship has minesweeping capability. So if the base is important enough to justify sending an X-squadron against it, the attackers have multiple minesweepers in their force which do also contribute substantial firepower against the base itself and defending ships. Of course, those X-ship minesweeping capabilities also help the attackers get through the minefield that probably surrounds the wedding cake. But the wedding cake isn't nearly as dependent on the minefield. Once through the field, the attacking ships still have to move onto the outer ring to destroy (or drive behind the middle ring) any Tholian ships - and endure several turns of short-range phaser-IV fire in the process. Then they have to move onto the middle ring to destroy the Tholian ships maintaining it - enduring several turns of point blank phaser-IV fire. Even X-ships are going to take severe losses before they actually get a shot at the BATS (which might, you know, be X-tech itself). While the post-Y175 reduction in web maintenance costs mentioned above seems to make the buzz saw more viable late war, I believe that once X-ships show up this is more than offset by X-ship minesweeping capabilities for the simple reason that a buzz saw is so much more dependent on its minefield than a wedding cake is.

This post is getting long. There are a couple of other things that migh be worth mentioning but for now I believe this covers the main reasons why I think the wedding cake is generally superior to the buzz saw, even in the "siege" situation. I acknowledge there may be a few weird "edge cases" in which the buzz saw is better. But I think they are very few and generally unlikely to occur. But I very much look forward to hearing John Christensen's (or anyone else's who is interested in Tholian base defense scenarios) has to say about this.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 02:57 pm: Edit

I think I covered several of these points in a long ago term paper.

Once the Tholians get web capable PFs they are essentially immune to Wedding Cake assaults.

You take your phaser fighter squadron and cruise around atop the middle layer. When a klink comes to crash the outer layer, you CAREFULLY change speeds to you move the impulse BEFORE the klink is actually embedded. Fighters volley their whole phaser array at range 3 then slp into the inner veranda. Then the base, PFs & ships all just smash the ship to flinders.

The PFs accelerate to high speed and are held by a ship on a tractor to keep them from zipping away. tractor released at a suitable moment, PFs get to the outer balcony dump all their energy into web reinforcement & return. They can emergency deccel when they get to the inner veranda. Any damaged go to mom for repair.

Note that with mid turn speed changes the PFs can easily fire all their phasers, go speed 24 or so, and still have power to dump into the webs.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Alan, your assessment of my idea is both correct and accurate. Kudos on accuracy.

My idea for a mini-campaign would mirror a battle hex in F&E in which battle force ships can be changed between battle rounds, but so quickly that the web strength remains unchanged and ships stuck in web cannot be further hit as the only available target during the regroupings. I haven't been able to find such rules in any SFB rule book. It would probably require scenario specific rules for attacker distance with fire control shut off, and something else for Tholian force changes. A web stuck ship/cripple is the only case I can think of in which several F&E combat rounds can be played out in a single SFB scenario.

Since our first exchange of ideas I have come to a tentative conclusion that a wedding cake is more appropriate for bases smaller than a starbase (I haven't seen a sector base SSD) unless there are sufficient ships to help maintain power to the strands. I say tentative because the only acceptable test is combat, and I haven't played it out.

One tactical possibility you didn't include is that of the Tholian ships rotating attacking ships into a web strand before or after crippling them. Cripples still count against the command rating.

Also, the minefield of a two strand buzz saw would likely be concentrated into or adjacent to the two channels in the first 12 hexes of the channel. The Tholians know where an attacker must go. The minefield of a wedding cake is less efficient since the attacker can choose any direction, and during a siege would likely or eventually have cleared a safe channel. A buzz saw may be more reliant on its minefield, but it's also more capable of using one, as half of the explosive mines will be in the attacker's path. I haven't found any rules allowing captor mines to have directional detection zones, but this is where they'd be useful.

Overall you wrote an excellent analysis.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Tuesday, December 08, 2020 - 04:17 am: Edit

(M4.434) allows captor mines to have limited firing arcs as part of the pre-scenario programming.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, December 08, 2020 - 03:48 pm: Edit

John,

The Sector Base SSD is in Module R8. Its combat capability is between that of a BATS and a starbase, but much closer to the BATS. I believe it has the same weapons as the BATS but a bit more power. The most important difference, as far as combat goes, is the survivability. With all refits, a BATS has strength-40 shields. The sector base shields are strength-60. And the sector base also has more armor and more internals than the BATS.

Strategically, the BATS has more logistic support capability than the BATS does. It has far more cargo boxes (part of that "more internals" mentioned previously) and also has some "Fabrication" boxes, giving it a limited capability to convert ships to other variants, like a starbase.

Sector bases become available in Y175.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Tuesday, December 08, 2020 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Alan,

I inferred as much about sector bases from the F&E SITs. I'll have to dig to see if I have Module R8. For our discussion, a sector base's power is also relevant.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Wednesday, December 09, 2020 - 01:34 am: Edit

Sector Base:

36 power (12 Warp)

Housekeeping: 6.5 (w/ fire control active)

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, December 09, 2020 - 02:03 am: Edit

For a Tholian in a web defense scenario, the base doesn't need to pay for shields until the enemy reaches a position where it has unobstructed line-of-fire to the base. Your goal is to stop the enemy from ever reaching such a position in the first place.

On the other hand, the base probably is paying some power to maintain web. In a wedding cake, this is only a small amount. But it can be a LOT of power if you are using a buzz saw. On the... other... other hand, if the webs are already at full strength (defenders start scenario at weapon status 3), the base could choose not to pay for web maintenance for a few turns, using the power for other purposes and starting to pay for web maintenance when the buzz saw strands deteriorate to the point the enemy could get through them. For these reason, the "housekeeping" considerations for a Tholian base are generally different - more varied with the specific tactical situation - than for other empires.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, December 09, 2020 - 04:10 pm: Edit

I would comment that the first time I encountered a web spiral the rules did not limit their length. There were NSMs (Command detonated) in the channels, and captors in the webs. I do not remember now how long the web strands were, but the spiral seemed to fill the whole map, and maybe the base had power augmentation modules (because the fact that the base was not bothering to power its shields behind those webs does not provide enough power for those webs).

I do not mind admitting that I pulled out and left after barely starting down one of the openings.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Wednesday, December 09, 2020 - 05:56 pm: Edit

Steve, I don't blame you for leaving. I can see myself chuckling at the map and not even beginning. They may not have been introduced at that time, but buzz saws and web tenders seem made to go together.

Alan, I'm reviewing the rules, and I don't see a significant advantage to x-ships' mine sweeping abilities due to their by necessity slow speed during sweeping operations while at close range to a huge amount of phasers, even if the phasers are web muted. They may help clear a path toward the chosen web channel, but would be too valuable to send into it for mine clearing duties.

In reviewing the buzz saw, the best base rotation is in the opposite direction of travel of the web channels so the enemy moves toward weapons which were out of arc as the base rotates to bring them into arc.

Assuming a buzz saw and a wedding cake have identical bases and fleets, even though a buzz saw requires more power each turn, the fleet can co-locate with the base and initially expend almost no power for movement or shields. That power can go to either strand at the Tholian's leisure. One or two size class 3 Tholian ships can have shields up as a threat to the attacker to be wary of being tractor rotated into a web strand. That'll keep their weapons and tractors charged with energy which could be used for shield reinforcement.

A wedding cake requires that the Tholian fleet use power for movement and risk enemy fire to reinforce the outer web layer, even if that outer layer is the second of two due to the former outer one dissipating. Also keep in mind that a two strand buzz saw has 60 web hexes, and a three tiered wedding cake has 54. There's not much difference in power to keep them both at full strength, but one requires power for movement and risk to ships to keep the outer layers charged while denying the base most of its ability to charge the webs, and the hardest to maintain web tier is the one closest to the enemy.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 01:07 pm: Edit

John,

Some comments:

---

Quote:

Alan, I'm reviewing the rules, and I don't see a significant advantage to x-ships' mine sweeping abilities due to their by necessity slow speed during sweeping operations while at close range to a huge amount of phasers, even if the phasers are web muted. They may help clear a path toward the chosen web channel, but would be too valuable to send into it for mine clearing duties.

---

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 01:16 pm: Edit

Alan,

This is in response to your post dated Tuesday, July 09, 2019. "Generator buoys" are mentioned twice in the rules. (G10.8) has them maintain webs long term at strength 0, and (G10.833) has them maintain webs at "WS-0 Conditions between scenarios" which is greater than strength 0.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 06:44 pm: Edit

I gotta say that once that tholian PFs with web generators get deployed, you ain't going to break a wedding cake. Unless you have a plentitude of Web Breaker equipped Selts.

Those PF will be doing the deed with 12 defensive EW and I THINK they can also be in EM while dumping to the web.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 09:32 pm: Edit

Mike,

I agree that PFs with web generators are fearsomely efficient wedding cake defenders but I can't quite go so far as to say you won't ever break a wedding cake. I DO think that most^* attackers will take hideously heavy losses and will have to expend multiple "waves", as discussed in my December 06, 2020 - 04:51 am post above to wear down and attrit the defenders.

A couple of specific points: I'm not sure where you got the idea that the PFs could use EM while reinforcing the web. C10.521 seems pretty explicit that a unit erratically maneuvering cannot operate web generators. And if I am reading K0.323 correctly, a standard Tholian flotilla would only include two PFs with web generators. It is, I believe, legal to have a casual flotilla with all "Arachnid-Ws" but such a flotilla by definition doesn't have a PF Scout. That means the tender has to lend it EW and there could be power issues. Assume the BATS is the tender. It's spending 2¹/₂ power for life support and fire control. It doesn't need to spend power for shields at this point and a ship between the inner and middle web rings could power the inner ring. But it has 8 phaser-IVs (16 power) and wants to generate 6 ECCM to maximize their damage (6 power). Since a base can (unlike a "normal" scout) lend itself ECCM, it's also spending 1 power to activate a channel and 6 more power to lend itself 6 more ECCM, for 12 total. And, because the casual flotilla has no PF Scout, the base spends another power to activate a second channel and 6 more power to generate 6 ECM for that flotilla. Well, that's what it wants to do... but dosn't have the power. Something's got to give...

But I do agree with your larger point that PFs make Tholian bases incredibly difficult to take.


^*In my opinion, the Selts aren't the really scarey threat. That would be the Andros.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Saturday, December 12, 2020 - 01:30 am: Edit

John,

Yes, I'm aware of G10.8 and initial web strength as a function of weapon status. I'm not quite sure what you're getting a with your December 10, 2020 - 01:16 pm post. But in any case it leads into another issue I think we need to consider; Tholian bases caught a low weapon status. Either a buzz saw or a wedding cake may be in trouble if caught at low weapon status, and fall to an attacking force it could easily have repulsed at weapon status 3.

Now, WS-2 isn't too bad for the Tholians and in some circumstances I admit a buzz saw may be better than a wedding cake if the defenders are caught at WS-2. Generally, the defenders can quickly bring the buzz saw, or the middle web ring in the cake, up to sufficent strength to prevent enemies from moving through them. But bringing the outer ring up to the necessary strength is harder. So while I prefer a three-tier cake to a buzz saw, if the defenders are caught at WS-2 the comparison might be more a two-tier cake versus a buzz saw.

But consider the worst case of WS-0, or the even... uhh... worser worst case???... of a surprised base. There will probably no be time to bring either the buzz saw or the outer or middle web rings up to adequate strength. The enemy can simply blitz through them, losing a few impulses in the process, and move adjacent to the base. And since the enemy is moving across the buzz saw strands, he will only engage a small percentage of the mines, rather than the much larger percentage he would have to go through against a full strength buzz saw. This negates one of the buzz saw's biggest advantages. But the wedding cake's innermost web ring is only 6 hexes. Between the base itself and the ships, the Tholians probably can bring that web up to at least approximately full strength in relatively short time. And while that won't prevent the attacker from moving adjacent to the base and engaging with direct fire, it does largely (though not entirely; plamsa bolts, plasma sabot, swordfish drones) take seeking weapons out of the picture. That matters more for the Romulans than for the Klingons. But eliminating the drone threat (other than those pesky swordfish drones, which don't do a lot of damage) may allow the base to live longer, and therefore inflict more damage on the attackers, even against the Klingons.

So if the base is caught at WS-0 or is surprised, it probably is destroyed in any case. But on average, I believe the attackers will take more casualties against the wedding cake. And that should weaken their ability to attack the next base.

I also want to address the issue of defensive minefields in more detail. But it's late, so I will do that tomorrow.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Saturday, December 12, 2020 - 02:43 am: Edit

Alan, I don't have time to respond to anything other than enjoying the discussion. I am, and enjoying searching the rules.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, December 13, 2020 - 06:05 pm: Edit

One point of a buzz saw is that it forces the enemy to engage a very large percentage of the mines before it can hit the base itself; approximately half the explosive mines and all of the captor mines. What is often overlooked, I think, is that with the right tactics and right starting forces you can achieve similar or better results with the minefield around a wedding cake.

For a three-tier wedding cake, the webs are at distances 1, 3, and 5 from the base. I believe (though others may disagree) that the minefield should be placed just outside the outermost web layer for the explosive mines, with the captor mines placed within the wedding cake itself. This does require some care since Tholian ships will need to move adjacent to the outer web ring to reinforce, but can be handled by making the captor mines command controlled and by careful selection of sectors of fire and the size classes that they will engage. The Tholian can force the attacker to interact with all, or nearly all the mines in the field since those attackers must move onto the outer web at a point where they have a clear line-of-fire to the reinforcing ship. If the Tholian is "north" of the base, any attacking ships that want to engage must approach the webs from the "north. If the reinforcing ship is "east" of the base, the attacking ships seeking to destroy it must move into the web from the "east", and so on. This tactic is made even more effective for the Tholians if they can move around, reinforcing the outer web layer from a different point or ducking back behind the middle layer as the attackers approach the outer layer. Given the right set up, and enough ships, the Tholians can get nealy 100% utilization of their mines. Of course, some of those mines are probably swept before detonating. But minesweeping is a slow, tedious process and the time taken to sweep the mines will mean more unanswered turns of fire for the Tholian phasers. Arachnid-Ws are especially good at this tactic (see Mike Grafton's comment above). They are cheaper than patrol corvettes but generate more power while paying lower movement costs.

There's an alternate trick the Tholians can play with their minefield. Under M6.331 and M6.332 a minefield around a base must distribute the mines more or less equally around the base. For example, if the Tholians buy a single "package", each individual segment must have at least 10% of the mines. If the Tholians buy two packages, one package is deployed in three adjacent segments while the other covers the other three segment. And each individual segment must, again, have 10% of the total number of mines. But these restrictions are by numbers of mines only, not type. So for a "one-package minefield" the Tholians could clump all their large mines in a concentrated group while distributing their smaller mines among the other segments. Then, of course, they place their ships reinforcing the outer web such that any attackers trying to engage them must go throught the concentrated clump of large mines. For a "two-package minefield" they must have half the large mines in each three-segment arc but they can clump them near one of the seams where the two arcs meet and acieve similar results. For three or more packages they can't clump all the large mines together but must instead have more than one "clump". Note that for other empires, clumping the largest mines together in this fashion carries distinct risks. Suppose a Federation BATS on the Klingon border tries to create a partciularly strong clump in the "western" part of the minefield. This might work. But then again, the Klingons might circle around and attack the base from the "north" penetrating the minefield at a point where it is weak. But the Tholians can create a very strong clump adjacent to the outer ring and then, by proper placement of the ships reinforcing that ring, force the enemies (except for Selts or Andros) to have to move through it.

In sum, a wedding cake can also make extremely efficient use of mines, and in some case may be able to make more efficient use of them than a buzz saw.