Archive through September 16, 2026
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: General Tactics Discussion:
Orion Tactics:
Archive through September 16, 2026
You did not specify whether the map is open or closed. I've presumed it's open. You did not specify whether or not the freighter manifest is known. I've presumed it is not. You did not indicate the freighter's most likely reaction on turn 1. I've assumed it runs away at maximum speed. If I approach it head on as I would prefer, I assume it turns at maximum speed and runs, during which time I'll gain likely 4 hexes on account of it initially heading towards me and having to turn. You did not indicate weapon status. I assume I'm ready and it is III.
More detail on my approach, but fundamentally it is the same as above.
Call for the freighter to heave-to as you proceed at high speed and doubled warp engines on the battle pass, some pre-plotted points in tractor, and the rest in forward reinforcement. If the freighter does not heave-to immediately, then tractor the freighter, fire OL disr and phasers at point blank range (range 0). Then, board with transporter and unfriendly shuttle landings. Force dock with the freighter and overwhelm the crew. Take your stuff. Get out.
LR has 10 warp, 2 impulse, 3 batteries. MC = 1/3. Life support = 1/2. Shields = 1 for full. Shuttles get loaded with marines.
Turn 1: No doubling. Assume the freighter runs away. at its maximum speed (17) You plot speed 28 (9 1/3 energy), 1/2 to life support, and 1 to shields. The 1/6 energy change gets dumped in the transporter (not enough to really power it). You gain 11 hexes (range now 19), and the presumed 4 more as it turns from my head-on charge. Net range down to 15 hexes.
Turn 2: Same routine, and it runs. I gain 11 more hexes and call again for it to heave to or suffer the consequences. I assume it fails to comply. Range down to 4 hexes. Hold fire.
Turn 3: Double warp engines for 20 warp power and 2 impulse (22 in all). Batteries remain full, phasers charged. Plot speed 30 for 8 impulses then speed 15 from impluses 9-32 so I will catch at range 0 on impulse 9 for 19 total moves (cost = 6 1/3 with no impulse). Then, overload disrupter (4), life support (1/2), shields (1), 4 in tractor (4), for 16. Put 6 into reinforcing the forward shield. The 1/6 left over goes into transporter. Retain full batteries in case they're needed for the tractor. Use batteries for transporters if everything goes according to plan.
When you get to range 0 on impulse 9 begin with tractoring the freighter. Then, fire (no drones yet).
Average damage on the battle pass is 10(disr) + 19 (3*ph-1) = 29. A large freighter has 9 shields in any particular direction. Internals = 20 (19 with battery, possibly less with reinforcement). Given 6 hull, 2 impulse, 1 APR, and 2 phasers, and say 3 misc internals (including some cargo), then your volley will probably bag 3-6 warp engines out of 8 total (and likely both impulse). If phases roll well could be more, if roll poorly could be less, but you need to be careful.
If the freighter is not rendered immobile by fire, then launch 1 drone timed and facing to hit the freighter on an up or down shield, depending on whether you want it to take the full 12 or to take only 3 to bag a few more engines. Use a second drone if necessary.
If the freighter stops instead of running, then tractor it anyway at r0 and then combine weapons and drones timed to move next impulse to hit the freighter at the moment of fire.
In any case, by the end of turn #3 the freighter should have no power (other results not likely).
Transport marines on board to prevent self destruction. Land marines by timing shuttle speed to arrive in the hex of the freighter on an impulse neither of you move, and then force a landing into the (likely destroyed) shuttle bay.
Record 1 engine damage from doubling.
Turn 4: Plot speed 0, maintain tractor. Force dock. Send in marines and militia. Overwhelm the freighter, identify what is most valuable. Begin CDR to repair the warp engine as a warp engine (1/5 turns)
Turn 5: Transfer the valuable cargo to your ship using docked transfer rates. (CDR at 2/5 turns).
Turn 6: Undock. Begin running at speed 10. (CDR at 3/5 turns).
Turn 7: Run at speed 20. (CDR at 4/5 turns).
Turn 8: Run at speed 31. (CDR at 5/5 turns). The warp engine burn is repaired as such. Then, when you reach disengagement stage, you declare disengagement by acceleration.
Battle concluded.
Edit. On the turn of undocking I think I'd have to change speed to 10 mid turn. Which means actual disengagement by acceleration won't happen till turn 9 after going 31 all turn (and turn 8 is speed 28 - max with 1 engine damaged).
-T
With regards to Non-Violent Combat...
I brought up using hit-and-run raids to cripple key systems. There are two things I neglected to bring up...
1. Lack of defensive guards on Large Freighters. IIRC, they have one BP. That makes a take-over by Boarding Parties a genuine possibility.
2. Downfiring the main phaser battery. While they are Ph-1, they can be downfired as Ph-2 or even Ph-3 to limit the possibility of doing any real, permanent damage.
NVC, 100%. Why? Because the standard DAC has Cargo right up there at the top of the #7 track (and not far down the #5 and #9 tracks), and I want to preserve as much of the cargo on this thing as I can (to maximize my profit).
@Jessica: Agree on NVC preserving cargo. The reason I wouldn't is because it gives up so much damage that disabling the freighter becomes difficult and the time to bolt goes up.
Additionally, the odds of losing valuable cargo are not that high if you use normal combat and are careful about the amount of damage you do. You only have 75 cargo spaces (3 boxes at half capacity - 25 each). The large freighter has 2500 capacity (50 boxes at 50 capacity each).
We can't assume a truly random distribution, but as a reasonable approximation the odds of damaging the cargo you want is likely 75/2500 = 0.03 = 3%.
So, for a 3% chance you damage valuable cargo you disable the freighter more quickly and get out of dodge before any cops can intervene.
My 50 quatloos....
YMMV
Edit: That's 3% on one cargo hit. On 10 it goes considerably up. So, yeah, there's an argument for NVC. Still, I'd value my hide over maximizing the score - unless I know what I'm going after. That could very much change the equation if I want to dramatically want to decrease the chances of damaging something truly immportant I want.
Ted Fay:
Sorry, I thought the information was sufficient to draw up the initial plan. I.e., a freighter is sighted and you must determine how to approach it, head-on, from the side, or from the rear. The freighter's weapon status can be GUESSED at, but loafing along at Speed 12 allows two points of warp power for thing like warming/arming the phaser capacitors (1 point to warm, 1.5 points to charge on subsequent turns, this warming cost is universal in SFB and the phasers cannot be charged until the capacitor is warmed as you are aware). Of the remaining power, the freighter has life support and low-powered fire control (both costing 1/2 point of power and drawn, in this case, from the battery) and shields (costing 1 point of power drawn from the impulse engine (two points) leaving one point of APR and (while charging the phasers) 1/2 point remaining. Obviously from the above it cannot have a suicide shuttle (3 points of warp power to arm), but this is all information you can either observe or infer. So, how do you approach it? And, WHY have you not activated your fire control, I am interested to know why you are engaging on passive fire control.
Quote:And, WHY have you not activated your fire control, I am interested to know why you are engaging on passive fire control.
Have you ruled out stupidity on my part? 
My battle plan is largely as I posted.
Turn 1: No AFC. Don't need it.
Turn 2: No AFC. Don't need it.
Turn 3: Raise AFC beginning Impulse #1. Pay for it by reducing reinforcement by 1. I won't be firing until impulse #8 anyway, and it will be up and active on Impulse #5.
Remaining turns: By this time, there is excess power without doubling, so pay for AFC to maintain the tractor for docking.
Otherwise, my approach is as described in detail.
Relevant of nothing, but I had pause not too long ago to think about what Orions could do with Type-E Drone Racks. Naturally, they'd need OAKDISC to really use it, BUT...
Type VI Drones do reduced damage to ships. If a freighter only has a one or two point shield up, are you going to want to risk excessive damage to the cargo you're there to loot?
Also, as is shown in Module J, auxiliary carriers frequently escort convoys.
Jeff Anderson: Why would you need OAKDISC? You can already launch drones at the maximum rate of the given rack and the ship cannot have more than two racks (it has two in this example), and the rate of fire would allow up to eight type-VI drones to be launched. You could only control three, but they are self-guiding and can be released to their own control. So, why is OAKDISC needed?
As an aside, I do not think type E drone racks are a valid choice because the Orion has to be aware of the dangers of wandering monsters, patrol ships (not to mention convoy escorts), and other (non-cartel, e.g., a Daven Cartel in the Hamilcar Cartel's space) Orions, where the need to have damage production is needed (as opposed to simply running away not being an option).
OAKDISC in this case (a Light Raider) just seems to run-up the cost of the ship (from the standpoint of the Orion Pirate or the band of Rogues) purchasing the ship (at least making it harder to make the payments to pay off the Cartel lord you are buying,, or leasing, it from).
Edge case, LR with C-Racks would find OAKDISC to be somewhat useful.
Steve Petrick:
Just playing devils advocate here, it could be a case of nepotism run amok…
Say that jga is a not too beloved nephew or son-in-law trying to get into “real money” of The Piracy game.
Not everyone in the Cartel hierarchy will be happy to see a noob promoted over the heads of career pirates who are (ahem) “more deserving”.
It is possible that the Cartel Lord ordered an underling to “set up” jga with a light raider, crew and sufficient stores, commanders options and other essential materials (damage control supplies, spare parts etc) not otherwise specified in Star Fleet Battles rules set.
That being the case, OAKDISC might only be a part of the scam.
No doubt the Cartel Lord will be charged for every credit, while jga gets left with OAKDISC, a poor Quality old wornout light raider thirty years past its prime, and every screw up, malcontent and drug addicted, alcohol addicted and mentally unstable failed recruit (who actually hasn’t managed to get himself killed off yet…) assigned as crew.
Might make an interesting comedy on the lines of F Troop with jga playing the part of the troop commander.
I have almost never flown Orions and had assumed that without OAKDISC, the Orion in question would have only been able to launch three drones a turn, regardless of the number of racks or type.
That's what I guess I deserve for being a law loving honest citizen...
(Please put hip boots on; it's getting deep here... )
I also think I was a little unclear; I would not imagine any Orion ship, save for POSSIBLY an early specialized anti-fighter ship, using Type-E Drone Racks in ALL its option mounts.
As a musing, imagine taking one Type-E and two Type-B racks as a load-out, the latter are loaded with Type-IV or Type-V Drones. Would the limits of labs identifying drones make it possible to possibly get the escort used to the Type-VI coming from the Type-E Rack (with its multiple launches per turn) and MAYbe the police ship decides that, instead of wasting valuable Ph-1 shots on Type-VI Drones, it'll just take the two damage point shield hits and try for maybe six points of damage to the Orion in question from its phasers?
(Probably not, especially with TacIntel rules, which, again, I've not played with, so again, I'm probably shooting myself in the hoof... FOOT...)
I also wanted to as about whether or not it's really viable to make use of a Type-VI Drones to finish battering down a weakened shield on a freighter.
I will ask at this point for forgiveness. The exercise was to be the basis of a fiction story and I wanted to know how an Orion pirate attacked a freighter with the goal of looting it. The freighter in question would turn out to be a Q-ship, but not knowing that, how does an Orion approach a target when that is possible? This is not a scenario where the opposition is spelled, nor is is written that HELP (a police ship or a patrolling cruiser, or perhaps another Orion who has an interest in the ship himself (and is obviously jumping your franchise). will arrive in so many impulses. I apologies for wasting all your time.
I don't think forgiveness is necessary, speaking for myself, I should have been more specific about fire control and similar things, I was thinking more along the lines of general description, and not specific "This is exactly what I am doing" tactical description. Given the topic, I should have been specific.
SPP, no need. I suspected as much and planned accordingly.
Feel free to take my approach.
Ted Fay, I am sorry, but the intention is for the Orion to survive and eventually escape, and if I took your approach, the Orion Light Raider would be destroyed, not able to escape with damage. Unless you can show me how an Orion Light Raider can survive an approach to Range 0 (as, a Q-Ship would hold my fire until you fired and began a turn away. even though my disruptors are unloaded for fear that the weapons draining into space would give me away, I am quite willing to run the risk of my tractor beams not grabbing you as I raised my fire control to full strength and then pounded you will overloads and taced fresh sheild to you depending on my armor, and to launch counter drones if you launch drones. I do not see how you can survive, much less escape.
There is always the Will Wheaton Curse.
Guaranteed, sure fired way for the Orion to escape.
There is even video “proof” documenting the phenomenon.
Look it up.
“The internet is forever”.
SPP: Depends on the Q-ship and what it does, but yes there's a very good chance that is correct.
And the tactics I suggested can be used to show exactly why the Q-ship idea actually works. My approach plan is just like the real-world U-boats waiting on the surface for the British WWI freighter crew to abandon ship before sinking it with gunfire, then getting hit by the much heavier concealed weapons on the British vessel.
Occams Razor: “The simplest explanation is often correct.”
If you want to explain how the Orion survives an encounter with a Q-ship, the simple explanation is “Bad Luck”.
Hence my reference to the Wheaton Curse.
It is a phenomenon concerning a former Star Trek actor, who happens to be a gamer.
There are academic articles and mathematic explanations concerning video clips of game play (using dice) where an inordinate number of ‘1’ results in a complete series of combat rounds. A number of game systems have been documented using D&D, Paranoia etc. (in the case of paranoia, high results on die rolls are bad, and in the case of wheaton, the results “flipped” when tested on a game system that high numbers are bad.)
In the case of an Orion verses Q-ship, bad die rolls are a sufficient explanation so as to prevent destruction.
And, it should be noted that the premise of this exercise is to illustrate a fiction story, not create a balanced scenario.
Bad Luck would certainly work as the QL is -1 on the initial exchange (Orion built-in ECM) … though either could launch drones for a counter-launch from the other ship (neither wants two drones without offering some defense) …
The problem is that I am trying to find a way to knock out the Orion's self-destruct mechanism. There is nothing (NOTHING) in the rules that allows this to happen short of boarding an enemy ship and having that ship attempt self-destruction, at which point your boarding parties can block it. The Orion then obviously has to flee to avoid capture (if it cannot win the boarding action). The Orion is a Light Raider, it is one of the first Light Raiders in service. I do not want to try to create a "new rule" such as was done in Captain's Log #3 (there is no game rule for causing a ship's shields to be down due to a saboteur on the ship). So, the only way to disable the self-destruct is with a friendly boarding action, which can end with all the friendly boarders killed and the ship fleeing. But the ship has to be in danger of capture, cannot be TOO BADLY damaged such that it cannot accelerate away. A Q-ship has from 8 to 12 boarding parties (plus Commander's Options) against the Light Raider's 8 (plus Commander's Options).
SPP;
But have you considered taking a... hint... from that CL 3 story? There may be no rule for a saboteur to drop a ship's shields. But an enemy boarding party on board can try to block self destruction. From there, it's only a small stretch to having a spy on board do the same thing.
Suppose the Federation police or Star Fleet (or equivalent from whatever local empire) managed somehow to get an expert undercover officer accepted as part of the crew. He has, so far, taken no overt action because his assignment is to gather information about the cartel as a whole in hopes of informing his superiors for a later. decapitating, strike against the cartel. But when he realizes the pirate has inadvertently attacked a Q-ship, he decides there is a greatly increased chance of the pirate being taken intact, providing vast troves of information about the cartel, if he can knock out the self destruct system.
Might there be a mitigating terrain factor in play?
For comparison's sake, (SH269.0) The First Intrusion from Module Y3 covers the arrival of the LR Amarillus into the WYN Cluster in Y136 - where its crew was surprised to find itself still alive, yet nonetheless facing the impediments of the WYN Radiation Zone; and, once those had cleared, confronting the survivors of the Usurper War of Y116.
(On a side note: in light of the data in Module C6, perhaps a future scenario variant could reflect this LR's "lost empire" encounter with the cluster Carnivons instead.)
In any case, perhaps a different terrain feature, or combination of features, could be leaned upon to alter the potential outcome of this proposed encounter, relative to what might be expected to happen in open space.
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Also, if this is intended to be one of the earliest LRs, that might narrow down which type of large Q-ship would be in service by that point in time.
According to Module G3, the Feds, Klingons, Gorns, Lyrans, and Vudar each had their respective L-Qs in service from Y130. Other Alpha Octant empires did not employ their own equivalents until later. (Surprisingly, the Kzintis did not field one until Y164...)
My point being that, depending on which Q-ship is present, the amount of potential damage scored in the first volley might be greater, or lesser, in terms of how much wold be considered suitable for the purpose of this scenario.
On a side note: if one was minded to take a side look at the "Carnivon Empire" timeline from Module C6, one might find a Carnivon large Q-ship with an RA heel nipper installed. So, if one was looking to impact the LR's warp engine capacity in a manner that did not impact the rest of the ship quite as badly, that might help matters somewhat...