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I've never seen the point to the asteroid anchors in a wedding cake - globular web holds together quite nicely. Spend the points on ships, mines or extra bases.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, September 08, 2003 - 11:28 pm: Edit

This could work for a buzzsaw web formation or with the base mounted between two layers of web.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 08:43 am: Edit

Andrew Harding:

I agree there's no need for asteroids in a wedding cake. But as an option, asteroids can be useful as platforms for additional Phaser-4s (or a bomber base - fighters or PFs could be stationed at the BATS itself). If you wish to use asteroids in this way, in my opinion they should not be used as web anchors. They should be between the inner and middle rings, where they are protected from enemy fire for a number of turns.

One of the reasons I prefer a wedding cake to a buzz-saw is that with a wedding cake, asteroids + additional Phaser-4s is an option I can choose or ignore, depending on how I want to spend my points. With a buzz-saw, the asteroids at least are a necessity.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 05:18 pm: Edit

I believe that there are two reasons for the asteroids in a wedding cake, neither tactical. 1) They're used to mount the web generators that maintain them at strength 0. 2) It allows for individual segments to be dropped if necessary without dropping the entire ring (eg to let allied ships through or to do certain types of maitenance).

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 06:36 pm: Edit

D. Kass: No, actually, they don't. The Seltorians overall do not have sufficent web breake4rs to be a serious threat to the Neo-Tholian fleet they supposadly defeated. We've tried that one to and the result is about the same. Seltorian fleet destroyed, Tholians lose at most a couple small ships. It simply takes to many web breakers, at to close a range to the web, to be a serious threat. Even with the breakers the Tholian FLEET gets in a free phaser strike at least once, and usually more than once.

Regarding the NBB, it was the defender because it happened to be sitting there when the Seltorians attacked the base. It was part of a short lived campaign game.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 07:00 pm: Edit

What web efficiency is the hole galaxy Tholians assumed to have? GW grade? MY grade?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 07:00 pm: Edit

What web efficiency is the home galaxy Tholians assumed to have? GW grade? MY grade?

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 07:41 pm: Edit

The Tholians in the home galaxy are at the (G10.322) level which is the best GW level.

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 08:14 pm: Edit

I'd note that it's a heck of a lot cheaper in energy for a suprised base to go from zero strength web up to a full wedding cake if you have asteroid anchors in place and a base with webcasters by dropping the zero-strength web and casting between the asteroids.

Strategically, then, it makes at least some sense for Tholians to choose that pattern over globular web and phaser-4s.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Putting up the short segments of web might be faster, but they do come with some drawbacks. The ships charging a segment must be adjoining that segment making them easier to target by the attacking force who can ram the web at the right place. A large Seltorian fleet can also take down a web segment 6 hexes long or shorter with relative ease.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 11:24 pm: Edit

Web casters would make it a pretty quick job.

IIRC, you can cast permanent web if you string it between end points.

It's power-efficient too.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 12:06 am: Edit

(E12.21) lets you lay it fast if you have preset anchor points. Unless you are laying very short web segements, those web segments will still need a lot of reinforcement. No web segment can exceed 5 hexes wide so the Seltorians can quickly knock it back down.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 12:10 am: Edit

Steven E. Ehrbar, et al:

Doesn't work that way. You can't cast web adjacent to any other web(even if both casts are simultaneous). Suppose you have six asteroids around a base to form a ring. You could, for example, cast web between numbers 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. But once you have cast the web between 1 and 2, you could not cast between 2 and 3, nor between 6 and 1. So 3 of your 6 segments for each ring will still have to be layed the old fashion way. And oh, by the way, the outermost ring will be 30 hexes total (see G10.22 and G10.23). Since a webcaster can create only 5 hexes of web at a shot, the outermost ring must contain more than six anchors if you are going to use a webcaster to lay even some of the segments. And even if cast web did work that way (which it doesn't), a Starbase with only 6 webcasters can't put up enough segments fast enough if it's caught with webs down for some reason.

You can have webcasters on your bases if you want. As for me, I still want maximum possible Phaser-4s on the base and all my webcasters on fleet units. Globular web without anchors is the most efficient defense for Tholian bases.

(Note that David Kass and I disagree about the long term possibility of this (see his post above). He believes only asteroids can support a web long term while I believe a globular web can be supported long term, and neither of us has (so far) been able to convince the other.)

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 03:56 am: Edit

Richard Wells:

Sure, but it's a lot faster to put them up, join them, and strengthen them quickly when you're using webcasters than without.

Example:

Cast Web: First impulse, starbase casts six four-hex long webs, each anchored on an outer asteroid and a ship, say two auxillary tenders, two PCs, and two web PFs. Second impulse, anchor ships move one hex toward the asteroid that doesn't anchor their web, and lay web for six energy each. All six segments are now linked, and a 30-hex 300 web strength point web exists. Furthermore, the various ships (especially the web tenders) have plenty of additional power to add to the web on the third impulse.

Powering Zero-Strength Web: The two auxillary tenders, two PFs, and two PCs dump every point of power they have available (except for life support) into thirty-hex web. A 30-hex, 236 web strength point web exists (if I counted the avialble power right), with no more power available for reinforcement until next turn.

(Furthermore, in the second the Tholians must spend resources on the zero-strength-web maintaining equipment, which does not show up in SFB but is an economic factor).

Alan Trevor:

I think I addressed your rules concerns above.

I agree, BTW, if I'm playing the Tholians in SFB, I want globular web (for the lower BPV) and ph-4s for my tactical situation. I'm just trying to come up with some reason why Tholians act like they do. ;-)

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 08:13 am: Edit

Steven E. Ehrbar:

Fair enough. If you are going to use webcasters to try to rapidly build a web around a base, your method for doing it is a good one. I still don't think the decreased power/increased speed over simply dumping power into a pre-existing zero-strength globular is sufficient to make up for the reduction in Ph-4s however. And in this galaxy, in a campaign setting, that's also 6 webcasters that are not available to be mounted on cruisers or dreadnoughts. One additional point. This requires that the inner and middle rings not exist at all, even as zero-strength web. The only weapon that zero-strength web blocks is a webcaster (in cast mode, a webfist can fire through zero-strength web). But I'm beating a dead horse here. From your last paragraph, we seem to agree pretty well on this.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 02:58 pm: Edit

I know this is kind of an old topic, but I joined the board recently, so please don't kill the newbie. Anyhow, about 7 or 8 years ago, the group of friends I used to play with decided to do an SFB campaign. It was an alternate history starting towards the end of the General War in which the Tholians and the Andromedans allied with each other. We had a pretty well thought out background story to it and had planned a rather large number of scenarios to play during the campaign. Without going into too much detail, the Andros and Tholians decided that they could conquer the galaxy and allied to do so. The Andros helped the Tholians expand their ecomomy to the point that they could build some more shipyards. The first thing the new alliance did was to make a MASSIVE push into Romulan space and also to take the opportunity to settle some old scores with the Klingons. Using the resources captured from the Roms and Klinks, they began expanding shipbuilding for both Andro and Tholian. We also allowed the Tholians to build Neo-Tholian ships, in a limited way (ie, a fleet limit on Neo hulls), including the NBB, NDD, and NFF because Module R5 says the Tholians had blueprints and plans to all Old Galaxy ships. We also assumed that between the both races they could figure out how to build Particle Cannons again, so we let them use PCs on the NFF and NDD because of the longer range.

We had it all planned out that the GPs, maily the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons, would fight a gradualy losing war until the Seltorians arrived and helped beat the Tholians back. We also were working on a series of scenarios where the Andromedans search for and locate the Seltorian home base and attack it. If the Andros won, then the alliance would continue, if the Seltorians survived, the the Tholians would try to back-out of the alliance and the Andros would basically have to fight a large portion of the Tholian fleet in addiation to the rest of the GP fleets. We were even working on a MASSIVE fleet battle towards the end involving TWO Andro Devastator Battleships!

Well, we playing part of the first scenario we planned out, a plain old everyday fleet battle between the Tholian/Andromedans on one side and the Federation/Romulans/Klingons on the other. We gave-up on the campaign because we discovered quite quickly that a combined Andro/Tholian fleet could pretty much just walk through a combined Galactic fleet. Think of trying to close on an Andro ship just to have a web cast right in front of you, you either turn-off or get stuck, but either way the Andro just displaces over the web and rips into your #4 shield, THEN the Tholians open up with phasers through the web. Not pretty for the GP at all.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Possibly the most devious and horrific alliance I have ever heard. It must have been glorious!

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 11:32 am: Edit

Yep. Very devious, very horrific, and VERY unbalanced. Although it WAS fun to dogwalk a GP fleet without really breaking a sweat. MUHAWHAWHAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I was the group's resident Fed and Andro player, so I could've taken either side, but I was the only one in the group with any Tholian experience (and not much experience, mind you). If we'd had an experienced Tholian player, I'm sure it would've been much, much worse.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 02:42 pm: Edit

And I thought Tholians + Big Plasma was bad...

Of course, if you ever do the plasma-armed andros from the threat file, you'll learn new brands of fear also.

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 04:46 pm: Edit

Plasma-armed Andromedans? I find that...interesting. *evil grin* I haven't heard much about the Andro Threat File, are there any other alternate weapon Andros that might be in it? Anyhow, to stay on topic, I'd say Tholians as a major race would probably be bad, very bad.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Chris,

I got to play the Andro. Imagine being able to shotgun and envelop torps just because you feel like it...

Now we have sabots to play with too. *evil grin*

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 08:09 pm: Edit

Actually.... if you want to talk evil alliances...

Tholian-Souldra-Drex

Tholian can cast web, Souldra can just phase right through it, and the drex can assume the same role photon ships do for the tholians.

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Years ago, some folks I knew ran a campaign where the Tholians and Romulans were allied. They did some weird things with plasma torps. They allowed the torps to pass the web or stick at will. If a torp struck a web, instead of getting stuck, it ran down the web until it hit something. They also used plasma torps to reinforce web by shooting it at the web and using the energy from the torp to pump up the web.

Boy, did the rest of us die.

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 01:57 pm: Edit

Munchkins.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 03:20 pm: Edit

At the very least, if you give those races some non-standard tech, the other races get some too.

It'd only be fair.

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Oh, definately Munchkins.

On the other hand, running into totally unexpected stuff can be interesting, in a "Wow! I ran into that and lasted 5 whole minutes!", as long as you don't take it too seriously.

By Brian Downer (Briand) on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 08:50 pm: Edit

You could make the Tholians bigger without making them a fully "major," resident race. Say, swap the creepy extra-galactics around a little: Have the Andros snoop around the Tholian home galaxy a while, surveying for invasion prospects. Then they get caught and traced home, and eventually defeated. Kinda brings new meaning to the term "Galactic Powers," eh?

To make a long story short, you put the Andro refugees where the Tholians historically were and have the Tholians (with Seltorians?) invade the way the Andromedans did. This gives them full Neo fleet strength but limited WC production. There are lots of cute things you can do from here, to include:

*Tholian Invader Sphere. The concept here is a Tholian take on the Seltorian Hive Ship. Militarize a Dyson Sphere (perhaps smaller than the historical one, but with better shipyards) and send it off to play with the Milky Way.

*All sorts of things with the Andros. Did they lose/replace some of their technology, maybe TR beams? What can they build here, what can they jury-rig here, so on? Can they even survive in the same position the Tholians were in?

*The home-galaxy Tholians were lazy and technologically stagnant for hundreds of years. Would conflict with the Andromedans push them to deploy X-technology, and is it even fair to the GP to have X-tech Neo-Tholians invading our galaxy?

*Do the Tholians pick up the RTN technology from the defeated Andromedans? This would make the eventual Unity-type scenario a great deal more difficult, as getting through the webs to get at the Tholian equivalent of a satbase would probably be a chore.

I'm afraid I don't really have a group to test this sort of stuff with (nor the sort of practical experience to say which spiffy idea is going to be hideously un-fun in practice), so this is just thought exercise for giggles.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, May 31, 2009 - 02:55 pm: Edit

One interesting idea could be for the Tholian sphere to crash-land in Omega, rather than Alpha, and have the survivors form a kind of agreement with the silicoid Trobrin Empire (still no tech-sloshing, though).

On the one hand, Omega is already at Middle Years level by the Y80s, so the edge the Holdfast had in the Alpha Octant would be gone - but on the other, given the right circumstance, the exiles might find common cause with a local species looking to pursue its own Silicon Destiny...


(Maybe the Bolosco could show up in Alpha instead, while the Tholians end up in what had become Bolosco territory on the edge of Probr and Trobrin space in the regular timeline.)


Much as the FRA and Maesrons grew to co-operate in historical Omega, something similar could happen for the Tholians and Trobrin.


(Although, the Tholians would have the slight nuisance of being a prime target for the Souldra, once the Invasions hit...)


When it comes to running Tholian campaigns, I was wondering if they might not have some kind of restriction what might require the use of an ally, or subject race, for them to reach their full expansionist capabilities.

While the Tholians can use enviro-suits, it was simply impractical (and no doubt distasteful) for them to occupy alien worlds directly - not least in terms of picking out colony planets for them to live on.

Hence, the drive to build spheres, and the related need for someone to do the whole resource-extraction thing for them.


When the Seltorians went after the Will during the Revolt (something which, despite outnumbering the Will's fleet 4 to 1, would have been impossible prior to the development of web breaker technology) they were able to use the Battlewagons - Nest Ships with their bays stripped out and equipped with web breakers - to knock out said spheres... and thus be able to reduce the overall industrial capacity of the Will and exterminate a significant chunk of its total population in one go.


A Tholian player with only one sphere, and no subject race, should perhaps have significant limitations in terms of the amount of resources/EPs they can extract from conquered planets or provinces, as well as having limitations on how many colonies they can find.

However, should a Tholian player gain an accomplice, or a subject species, then they could (or would have to) rely on them to extract resources fully - and thus open up the possibility of being able to build up enough resources needed for a new sphere or two.


(This would not only put a premium on having an ally/slave race, but give an allied species significant economic leverage when dealing with the Tholians, since they would have more of a say in just how many EPs are handed over. Since slave races are, in principle, less uppity about this, so a Tholian player would be able to more directly allocate resources between sphere-building and supporting the operations of the slave race... but maybe there would still need to be some kind of quotient required to stave off revolt?)


And when it comes to spheres in general, they should both be the strength of the Tholian empire, as well as being its critical weakness... should the opposing factions (or a revolting slave race) repeat the Seltorian trick of web-breaking the sphere/s into oblivion.