Archive through April 16, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB General Discussions:
Archive through April 16, 2021
According to CL51.
Capital in Hex 0101 Two systems:
Capital Major Carniva with an additional Maj and Min.
Volfram Major with two additional minor planets.
Ryan
Thanks Ryan!
RE: D6D Carrier Escort
Did the Klingons ever press D6D ships into service for use as carrier escort ships? Particularly for their earliest carriers (CVT and D6V) it seems like it would be an immediately available vessel that would potentially provide a more survivable escort than the E4 platform. Perhaps the B racks could be loaded with dogfight drones? The double drone control capability, as well as the scout channel functions would also be useful to the early Klingon carrier group, both offensively and defensively. The special sensors might also be useful to detect and track potential targets (or incoming attackers?) for the carrier at longer ranges.
With the large drone storage capacity in the cargo boxes, it does not seem like it would be too difficult to carry some dogfight drones, in addition to drones carried to perform drone bombardment missions. Perhaps a long range drone bombardment mission could be coordinated with a fighter attack from the carrier on the same target?
I have to admit I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the D6. For a ship that might not look all that wonderful on the surface, the Klingons managed to get such tremendous fleet value from D6 variants. Perhaps here was another opportunity for the D6 platform to economically add more value to the Klingon fleet?
--Mike
Mike, I used to try to have drone bombardment ships accompany carrier groups, but when I (finally) tried playing a reasonable historical force, I found the wonderful "Strategy" of having a fighter strike integrate in with a drone bombardment really couldn't be made workable.
For fighters to not be seriously outrun by even Speed-20 drones, they needed to have WBPs, which weren't invented until about Y180. By that time, the General War had been going on for several years and resources from both sides (Alliance and Coalition) had been stressed to the point where neither could afford to assign that many assets against a single target willy-nilly.
Long about Y180, we see Fast Drones, WBPs, Mega-packs, and Gunboats start to come on to the scene, again complicating any desire to add a drone bombardment ship to a carrier battle group. Even with the greater hit likelihood of the faster drones, there would be enough deployment of casual fighters and folks experienced enough with countermeasures to drone strikes as to probably have rendered the perceived effectiveness of a drone strike as low enough (especially relative to the expense of the ordnance) that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most D6Ds would have, by that time, been slated for conversion to D6Ps.
Still, in my heart, I really do like the idea of SOME sort of scout ship accompanying a carrier group.
Sigh.
This brings back memories.
First, there is zero advantage of having the fighter strike group accompany the flight path/escort the bombardment drones.
The drones (type IIIXXM) speed 20, and I suppose ATG. Have a 100 turn endurance (100 x20=2,000 SFB tactical hex range) can be (should be) ballistically targeted on a fixed target. Even a convoy has enough speed to evade a drone strike launched at maximum range. The drones may be programmed with up to three way points creating the possibility of “dogleg” flight paths.
The solution, is to program the flight path , which means the package of drones may be launched with a variety of options:
1. Drones are launched in “waves” of 6 drones, separated by up to 20 hexes each, representing the D6D capacity of Type B drone racks maximum rate of fire per turn. (Total number of drones limited by the maximum number available in magazines. Normally, a DB force could have up to 3 ships each. They may fire all, some or zero drones each. Depends if they are launching a maximum effort against a single target (such as a star base attack) or several opportunity/harassment attacks against different targets.
The reason to separate attacks is because the enemy may detect the drones in flight, and can deduce the most likely targets. This gives the enemy the opportunity (if the drones are, in fact, detected), advance warning for what ever targets are in range.
2. The drones may be launched in a stream, with the D6D moving with the drones at a slower speed so the player could launch all 100 drones (or fewer, or more if paid for by commanders option points) in. Line. Or he could separate the drones by a variable number of hexes so an enemy can’t destroy a whole wave with a well placed transporter bomb.
3. The drones could be launched in drone stacks of how ever many he decides (up to 6 per launch turn for a single D6D.) With careful movement, he could assemble a single drone stack of all 100 IIIXX drones, but as noted before a single TB would kill all of them in a single impulse.
4. He could, using different ballistic courses, and a variable launch sequence) arrange for a “time on target” barrage where all of the drones arrive at a time and place (say a map edge of a SFB tactical map) in up to 100 different hexes on up to all four map sides. Still on ballistic targeting, the drones could continue moving to a destination hex within 8 hexes of the target where the Active Terminal Guidance (ATG) takes over.
This time on target point is knowable, so a player could launch the fighters strike timed to arrive at the target location. (Note there is an obscure rule in the J rule sections that limit endurance of shuttles (which include fighters) to up to “several hundred” SFB game turns. Means the fighters could be launched before the Bombardment drones, but again, the fighters might be detected just as the DB drones could be.
In practical terms, the carrier group could time the fighter strike to just before the drones arrive on the map. Or he could arrive at the 100 hex range limit from the target, and launch the fighters several turns ahead of the arrival time of the DB drones. Note, early fighters are SLOW, often speed 8 or (in the case of Z-2 fighters) or speed 6 (in the case of z-1 fighters). Depending on the map used (over the years different maps have become available, as well as battle maps for use with miniatures that have different hex sizes and thus, a variety of actual number of columns and rows printed on the actual maps.).
If the 100 hex range is used, the DB drones would require 5 turns to reach the target hex(say a Star base or a battles station.). A speed 6 fighter 16+ turns to reach the target hex. A speed 8 fighter 11+ turns to get to the target hex.
So, in conclusion, it is possible to coordinate a fighter and DB strike.
Just adds a little complication to the game.
The D6D ad-hoc carrier escort is something that requires looking at the F&E rules and their implications as well. Firstly, by F&E rule (515.332) a drone ship loses its drone bombardment ability and scout functions when operating as a carrier escort and is treated as a standard warship in the ad-hoc role, reducing its attack factor by one-half (or three, which ever is more) and not gaining the escort defense bonus versus directed damage. It can also be targeted by directed damage regardless of its position in the carrier group. Essentially the only advantage of an ad hoc escort is that it's better than leaving a mandatory escort slot empty and counting against the flagship's CR.
From this, we can surmise that the drone bombardment mission is not merely "go to point A and launch these drones just so" but there is greater logistics and fleet coordination factors to consider such that acting in a drone bombardment role is incompatible with also serving as a carrier escort on the theatre/operational level.
Per the (515.0) rules over all, as medium carriers both the CVT and D6V can have two escorts, one of which has to be a light escort, so an escort group of an E4E and a D6D is a legal escort group - but then we run into the (515.332) problem above, where it serves in that role no better than a standard D6, and is essentially offering it up to the opponent to direct on at no penalty whatsoever.
There's the further issue that, at the start of the General War, the Klingon Empire has three D6D's (and another three in the Imperial War Reserve), which it is going to need to be out their doing the drone and scout jobs.
Then there's the carrier data tables in the Klingon MSSB showing the historical escort groups - neither the CVT nor the D6V ever got SC-3 escorts, and they didn't start getting F5 hull escorts until Y176, whereas the D7V's started replacing the first E4E of their escort groups in Y173 and by the end of Y176 all D7V's were being escorted by an AD5 and AF5. This clearly indicates the Klingons considered the CVT and D6V to be second-line/support carriers and would not have tied a D6D up witht hem in such a fashion.
Now scenarios, of course, are where the exceptions to everything happen, so there may well be a historical instance of a D6D being used in such a fashion and trying to set up a drone bombardment strike *and* act as an escort for a carrier coming in to follow up - but the historical outcome would basically be "and this showed why it's a really bad idea".
Type IIIXX drones fly in HIGH WARP most of the way and not at their tactical speeds.
This is well established in the canon.
Do you have a rule citation for that?
No. But the "History" has a story where they talk about the "drones dropping out of high warp." Maybe a story featuring the "Drone Ranger?" And some tholian fighters?
I know this conversation has been held on the BBS before. I think when I proposed a "EY/ MY" klingon Drone Bombardment ship.
Because type IIIXX drones were around a LONG time before the Klinks built a DB ship...
Otherwise until the speed upgrades kick in, you have 100 turns at speed 12 (IIRC). So 100turns x 12 hexes/ turn x 10,000 km/ hex = 12 million km range.
Which is a piddly range and wouldn't really need a special sensor for targeting. Heck, it should be in S level tac intel range.
IIRC SVC weighed in on this back in the day.
A comment on scale...
Without thw ability to travel at "high warp" even Type IIIXXF drones would have a range of 3200 hexes. The distance from the Earth (one of the Solar System's inner planets) to the Sun is approximately 15000 hexes in SFB terms. Put another way, a drone bombardment of Earth, even with Type-IIIXXF drones (but no high warp) would require the launching ships to be within the orbit of Mars.
Space is, in technical terms, really, really big...
Hmmm, not even half-way to Martian orbit (conjunction is about 7500 hexes so half is about 3750 hexes) ...
Note that the Earth-Moon system fits inside a 40-hex ring (~38 hex orbit) so that a phaser-4 can miss a target near Earth (or even one half-way between the two) ... [needs at least a 2x2 map grid to fit (84x60) the lunar orbit] ...
On the size of space...
During a bout of mental illness, I put a 1:1,000,000,000,000 scale of space together in my mind.
To this scale, one million kilometers is reduced to one millimeter. The 1.3 million kilometer diameter of the Sun is reduced to about the size of a full stop on our keyboards.
The 93 million mile/150 million kilometer average distance of Earth orbit is reduced to 150 millimeters/six inches.
The range of a Type IIIXXF drone is reduced to 32 millimeters/about 1.3 inches.
The distance from the Sun to Alpha Centauri, 4.3 Light Years/24 trillion miles/40 trillion kilometers...
... Is still a whopping twenty four miles, or forty kilometers.
Think about where your home or work is, and think about some place that distance away...
... And think about seeing something the size of a period on your computer keyboard at that distance.
Needless to say, wrapping my mind around things like this didn't do much good for the mental illness I was dealing with at the time
That's very helpful, Jeff. Sometimes here in San Diego it feels like traffic goes so slow that it'll take me 4.3 years to go 24 miles. Now I can imagine myself zipping along at the speed of light scaled down by a trillion. :p
When I was in grad school in Charleston (again) I found I could go MUCH faster than traffic on my moped or bike.
I would bet a modern electric bicycle would outpace cars in lots of congested places.
I just had a very odd thought: You remember Sam I am, who east Green Eggs & Ham?
He's probably a Vulcan, or perhaps a Romulan.
Why do I say that?
Because Earthlings are red-blooded, and thus why Humans eat red meat.
Vulcans and Romulans, as we all know, are green-blooded, so it stands to reason that meat from their animals would be green.
Yes???
Garth L. Getgen
Garth, he could be a Lyran who is dining on Hydrans....
So Drachinifel has done a video on the B10 for April Fool's day... here
Yes, the link has been posted many times.
Look what I found today.
https://zacgaming.wordpress.com/2021/04/15/a-blast-from-the-past/
And at the original price as well
Awesome find, especially at that price!
That's the expansion that I learned...
Lyrans MUST ram. 
It was my first as well. Such great memories
Wow. Amazing find!
Two more sitting in the shop. If anyone has doubles of the other expansions we can trade :-)
Is there anywhere that I can download the various faction logos from SFB? I am making a spreadsheet for F&E with sheets for each faction and I wanted to add a logo to the page to help make it all pretty