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	Archive through April 05, 2011	24		04/05 08:00pm

Sounds like a termpaper!

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 02:23 pm: Edit

I don't have a lot of experience with them, but from the little I have played, I'd say why not use it? In a single-ship duel, you aren't likely to take APR on the first hit, so you'll have time to turn it off before it becomes a problem. In a fleet situation, don't double on your frigates, since they'll be the first to pop.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 02:26 pm: Edit

Gary Carney:

You are in essence asking the same question as an Orion Pirate doubling his engines.

It is all a matter of your own tactics and your own judgement of what is likely to happen.

If there is no risk, then you may as well double the HPRs and if nothing else, use the power as reinforcement (harder to do in Magellanic space) to delay or reduce the eventual number of internals when the inner shield is finally breached, or to repair shield boxes (same purpose).

The ultimate point is that the only risk is the possibility of chain reaction, and as long as there is no risk, you should double continuously because ultimately doing so can reduce the total number of internals your ship will take (if now allow you to maneuver for better position by freeing warp engine boxes for movement instead of recharging your laser Banks.

The question really only comes up when there is a risk of enemy internals getting to the HPRs, and even then you may be able to double one HPR bank while running another at normal level to soak up the internals (but be mindful of hit-and-run raids).

And of course if you need the power to make the final decisive attack, have the reactors chain react may be painful, but the enemy is dead.

In all matters, it is a judgment call, and one that only comes up when there is a chance your ship will sustain an APR hit.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 03:06 pm: Edit

I guess the viewpoint I was trying to look at it from was how much of a difference HPR doubling makes to Eneen ships in their historical context.

Without HPR doubling, are the power curves on Eneen warships (or rather, Eneen front-line ships, such as the NCL and DW; as opposed to reactor-heavy units like the Monitor) still relatively competitive with those of the Baduvai and Maghadim, or has the experience of Eneen players found them needing to make generous use of the doubled mode in order to match their main rivals?


One reason in particular why I was asking this was in light of how the Eneen might end up in FC (once the Omega project matures to the point that I can go back to the LMC again). In that game system, there is no chain reaction rule, and I'd be wary about trying to approximate one. While I could consider an alternative (such as simply doubling the number of HPR boxes disabled for each hit scored on a doubled reactor; though that would raise the question of what to do with any odd Damage Points that might cause) it might be more straightforward to simply treat Eneen reactors as standard types, if the ships could still be competitive.

That said, the different way things work in terms of power (e.g. no housekeeping) means that battle speeds are different from one game to another; but if not-doubling Eneen are still competitive with their historical foes here, it might make for a good basis of comparison over there.

But if they aren't, and need HPR doubling to survive, that would make the need to find a solution for the other game more pressing.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 08:00 pm: Edit

Gary Carney:

Well . . . competetive or not, if you remove the APR doubling you would need to reduce their point values in Federation Commander as the existing ones are calculated in part based on the extra power from doubling. Converting to a different system is always a problem, and you might have to carry over the chain reaction rule, or try to modify the rules somewhat as was done for Orion engine doubling. You would need to get some input from Eneen players (of which I am not one, sorry) on how they think such changes would impact the feel of the ships while trying to make them play within the Federation Commander ruleset.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 05:36 pm: Edit

SPP:

Fair point about the Point Value issues; though I will say that, if I can find a workable solution for HPRs, I'd sooner keep them than not.

That said, if any Eneen players are reading this, please post your .02c about how important you find the use of high-powered reactors in your games, and if you think it's an important aspect of the Eneen fleet worth retaining for any port to another game system.

By John Smith (Johnsmith) on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:32 am: Edit

Well, I've only flown the Eneen DD in a few duels. I don't think that you'd call that a lot of experience. But I pretty much always used the HPGs unless I had a down shield facing the enemy.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Understood, thanks for the feedback.

Who were you flying against?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - 04:20 pm: Edit

I posted this in the SFB section of the other forum; I was wondering if any of the ideas below squared with the experience anyone here might have had with the empires in Module C5 or not.

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Quote:

I've been looking over the stuff in Module C5 recently (as part of something else I had been working on), and noted a few things about the five empires.


Baduvai Imperium:

These guys are perhaps the most Fed-like of the Magellanic Powers, at least in terms of their issues with power.

The main cap each Baduvai ship has is due to the number of charged particle accelerators it's armed with. Since CPAs use a rolling delay, and cost the same amount of warp power regardless of which arming level you want to arm (or roll) at, your ship will pretty much have a constant portion of its warp output portioned off on every turn.

You can actually see how funny this can make things if you compare the "middle years" destoryer and the subsequent war destroyer. The DD has a single CPA-3 mounted on its lone 15-box warp pylon, which eats up three points of earp energy a turn. That gives the ship a working battle speed of 25. The DW has two CPA-2s, one mounted on each of its 8-box warp pylons; while that is a slight overall increase in close-up firepower (in exchange for the longer range of the DD's CPA-3), the six points of warp energy a turn spent on running these weapons means the unrefitted DW has a battle speed of 21! (This is rectified by the AWR refit; which adds a pair of warp reactors that allows the ship to go back to a battle speed of 25.)

On the other hand, the Baduvai do have the mass driver to help cut down on power costs. Their standard-config ships can use their class-I and -II mass drivers to decent effect at short to medium range; while most of the bombardment variants can use their class-III drivers to plant bunches of missiles onto targets as far as 35 hexes away.


Eneen Protectorates:

The Eneen counter Baduvai firepower with their own flexibility; the split firing arcs of their neutron beams encourages oblique or "broad-side" attacks, while plasma-Es can help clear out any close-in trouble.

Instead of the constant three-a-turn premium a CPA requires, the NB instead asks for five points of power per gulp, and then imposes a cool-down turn. NBs can't be held either; making their use expensive for an Eneen captain. Which is just as well they have those split arcs; alternating fire from one side to another over successive turns can help keep the power budget somewhat balanced. That said, you still can centerline an opponent with all of a modern Eneen ship's NBs, if you have the power and opportunity to score a decisive alpha strike.

The Plasma-Es are cheaper to budget for, with the 2+3 arming cost and free holds. Even with the plasma variant ships, they still aren't useful as an offensive weapon unless you can fire a lot of them at close range; they're really more useful at deterring pursuit (at least against other LMC ships, given the 3:1 damage ratio of lasers versus plasma).

Those HPRs help keep the Eneen ships topped up power-wise, but it may be best to not run them on doubled mode if your shields are starting to get too thin for comfort.


Maghadim Hives:

Easily the most in-your-face of LMC fleets, the Maghadim have the short-range firepower to make an impact up close, and the protection (and damage control ratings) to help them stay there.

The fire/fire/cool arming cycle for the tachyon beam may lend itself to a hack-and-slash over the two good turns, and a careful distancing to catch one's breath in the fallow turn. Although, in the bigger ships with three tachyon beams, I suppose you could try to phase your fire so that you're always rotating through two good TACHs per turn...

The Maghadim also have mass drivers, but no bombardment variants. MDs do make their larger carriers worth watching out for, though.

Some of their ships have L Opt boxes on their collars; medium lasers are better if you don't expect to get close easily, while twin lasers are good if you do (or if you expect incoming MD fire).


Uthiki Harmony:

These squids are lethal at shirt-range, but don't want to knife-fight at range 0 like a Maghadim. Rather, they'd be more comfortable at range 2, where all of their weapons are out of their myopic zones, and where they can use the TAG to good effect with their laser armament.

Boson drills are really handy against LMC shielding, with the ignoring of the Volley Reduction Factor for the "drill" and the penetrating damage from the "bit". Not so hot against the Andromedans, though, since the drill (unlike a shield cracker or energy howitzer) can't be absorbed by the facing PA panel.

Positron lancets are solid heavy weapons in standard mode, and very handy if you can get the shield down and dig through the hull in lancet mode. Against Andros, all lancet mode damage goes straight to degradation, which might help offset the boson drill's loss of effectiveness.

The TAG makes the short-range twin laser fire from an Uthiki ship that much deadlier; since successive TAGs can paint the same target over turn breaks, this could allow for some brutal hack-and-slashing if you are willing to stay close (but not too close).


Jumokian Resistance:

The Jumokians don't have some of the advantages which pirates in the Orion Cartels, or the old galaxy High Pirate Bands, enjoy as a matter of course. the best Jumokian ship, the New Destroyer, has a resoundingly ordinary power curve for its class; it can't double its engines like an Orion DW, and has no bonus warp engine like the M81 OGD.

Compared to the fleets they face in the LMC, this can cause a few issues. Yes, they can use CPAs; but since they have no AWRs, they have to use their warp engines to pay for the aofrementioned CPA-tax. Yes, they can take NBs; but they have no HPRs to help pay for them, and don't have the split arcs which give the Eneen such flexibility. Tachyon beams might not be so bad, since they can be held at a cost; but Maghadim weapons are under certain percentage restrictions, since they cannot be treated as a "home" operating territory.

However, it's not all doom and gloom; with the default self-defence Pinnace pack in place, the NDD has a Marine complement of no less than 18 (10 from the base hull, 8 from the pack) boarding parties! Even the OGD only has 12. Plus, you could swap out the self-defence pack for a commando pack, and go up to 30 BPs (10+20).

This would make the Jumokian want to act like an old galaxy pirate in principle, but use a very different doctrine in prctice. The OGD would try to dock the target freighter under its wing and use its spare power to make off with its new prize; the NDD would want to swing a good first punch to take down the facing shield, beam over enough BPs to take the target ship (or to raid a colony planet for resources) and use its distortion field generator to help it escape off the board.


Has any of this squared with their own on-table (or on-line) experiences wih the LMC empires, or are there other tricks you've had luck with when flying a Magellanic force?

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, July 29, 2011 - 05:59 pm: Edit

I was thinking a bit about the kind of tactucs which the Early Years ships in Module C5 might want to run with.

The shields are still not bad, despite the reduction of the VRF to 1/3; though the inability to reinforce them puts the onus more on trying to build them back up once damaged.

The Baduvai have an advantage almost no-one outside of Vulcan space shares; ship-mounted special sensors on their YSRs. That allows them to at least add a "free" scout to a Y-era fleet, one which can add to the force's mass driver fire without blinding any of its sensor channels. Even so, with nothing bigger than a destroyer, they'd still need command points to have more than six ships in a fleet; plus they don't have any CPAs yet to provide the crunch power that modern Baduvai ships have on offer.

The Eneen are quite another matter. They have the neutron gun, which is a decent heavy weapon for its era (especially since its range brackets directly overlap those of the fleet's early lasers). They also have ship-mounted special sensors, though use them on early corvette hulls that aren't as useful as their destroyer-sized Baduvai counterparts. Plus they have the early light cruiser, which is bigger than any early Baduvai ship in its own right, and allows the Eneen to field eight-strong fleets (once you count the free scout).

One thing I'm a bit surprised at, though, is just how much power the early Eneen ships have. While the Baduvai ships upgrade their warp engines when being refitted to modern standards, the early Eneen can't follow suit... but they still have the same overall power levels. For example, the Eneen YCL (and later CL) has a sixteen-box warp engine, four Impulse boxes, and five HPR boxes (which can still be doubled in the Early Years) to produce power; which leaves a lot of power available for a Y-era Eneen captain to keep in her pocket when flying at speed 25. I can't think of an Alpha Octant YCL that can match that power curve. (Granted, those HPRs are all in one row; which makes any reactor hits scored while doubled a serious problem for the Eneen player.)

I wonder if at least some of those HPRs ought to be treated as part of the plus refit (in order to allow the CL, and other "old fleet" Eneen ships, to compete with the middle years Baduvai and Maghadim), rather than left in place for the YCL (and YDD and others) to use?