-A joint challenge can only be made against joint defenders and not individual defenders? (True/False)

Currently true, although I am considering a tweaking of the joint challenge rules so that any number of players could be on either side and they would have to agree on how much bpv each player is using, rather than each having the same bpv range and thus requiring 2v2s or 3v3 etc.

-A joint challenge occupies the challenges available to the allies (True/False)

True.

-A joint defense occupies all of the challenges that can be made to the joint defenders (True/False)

True.

-Allies are not required to use the joint challenge and can make independent challenges (True/False)

True.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Ok, minor revision to the temp allies rule as below;

U10.94 Temporary Allies: If desired, challenges can be made by one or more players to one or more players, resulting in a multiplayer battle with two sides. Each side must determine how much of the scenario force each player will be allowed to bring as a percentage. IE: 2 players agree to issue a large Skirmish challenge, and that one player will bring 60% of the 510-560 bpv and the other 40%. Calculate victory conditions and bpv loss/gain per side and then award a percentage of that to each player based on the percentage of bpv that he brought to the battle.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Saturday, August 23, 2003 - 09:22 pm: Edit

Brian has brought up some good points about the Convoy Raid scenario.

1-the non-warships, or freighters at least, should be able to disengage without penalty. I agree but wonder if there is anything keepoing them from disengaging by acceleration on the second turn?

2-with those non-warships counting as double economic value, is the scenario feasable for the defender, considering he has half the warships the attacker has? Perhaps the attacker should have 3/4 the total bpv the defender has?

Input needed.

By Don Holland (Big_Noodle) on Sunday, August 24, 2003 - 09:43 pm: Edit

To prevent disengagement, the convoy has to disengage on the opposite side they enter on. (The supplies must get through) Obviously, no disengagement penalties apply to convoy ships or escorts as that is the mission. Also no penalty for raiders disengaging with a towed freighter.
The convoy enters within 6 hexes of 0130.
The Raiders enter from either/or the upper or lower edge of the 2x2 map


* To prevent loss of commerce, fleets will sometimes loan help to the sector escort commanders. To reflect this, roll on the following table. The additional forces have no cost, and are not added to the fleet.

2D6	Relief Help
2	6-fighter aux carrier
3	Standard FF of owning race
4	1 Escort carriers fighters in place of shuttles
5	Large Q-ship
6	Add 6 extra t-bombs to escorts
7	Sorry better luck next time
8	Small Q-ship
9	50/100 extra BVP for escorts
10	1 escort is towing a monitor*
11	Standard DD of owning race**
12	Standard CA of owing race**

* Worth double points if damaged
If disengaged, can appear during a later colony raid on a 1 in 6 roll.

** enters from any edge at start of turn 2.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, August 25, 2003 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Well, many freighters cannot disengage by acceleration... Also, if you start them off at speed 4 (or even 2), it may take a while to accelerate to disengagement speeds.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 01:04 pm: Edit

David, why not? You simply move your max speed after paying for housekeeping and so long as you have half your warp left at eot you disengage.

The general convoy scenarios don't help much either. They're either too specefic or don't address disengagement conditions.

I like Don's 'get off the other side of the map' idea and was considering the very same thing. Not so big on random freebies. Although it does get me interested in having the escort player 'slot' into the table actual forces from his fleet. BPV balancing will be heck though.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Geoff Conn:

Some units are specifically prohibitted in their special rules or on their SSDs from disengaging by acceleration. This prohibition takes precedence over the general disengagement rules. IIRC, armed freighters can disengage by acceleration but standard freighters cannot.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Well that solves that problem.

By Don Holland (Big_Noodle) on Sunday, August 31, 2003 - 06:05 pm: Edit

Let's try a second draft of the convoy proposal.
Note that in our campaign, all you have to do to disengage is get off the friendly board edge.

First a BPV range adjustment.

Size	Raider	Convoy
Small	150+12d6	170+2d6x10
Large	300+d6x10	330+2d6x10

Convoy set-up within 8 hexes of 0120
Raider sets-up within 8 hexes of 2001 and/or 2050

The next problem is that we have the same victory conditions for the convoy as we do for a fleet battle. A convoy has much different objectives.

Modified victory conditions:
Use a 50x80 map. The convoy must cross the map length-wise Convoy player receives 50% CVP for all freighters that exit off the far 80nn edge, in addition for any normal point for damaging enemy ships. The raiding force recieves no disengagement points for escorts that exit off the far edge Convoy ships that exit the 01nn edge give up the 25% VP.

Convoy raiding behind enemy lines is a dangerous and uncertain business. Even if the raid is a sucess, extracting your force from enemy space could become difficult. Reinforcements from the convoy's local patrols can also show up unexpectedly. An outnumbered convoy might also use their superior knowledge of local conditions to use terrain or weather to disrupt an attack.

Die roll	Event
2	Bad weather! See below
3	Distress signal works - ship 80-100 bpv enters*
4	Minefield! see below
5	Add large Q-ship
6	Police ship enters*
7	No event
8	Heavy escort add 50 bpv to escort force
9	Add small Q-ship
10	Asteroids! See below
11	After raid - 120/180 bpv force intercepts**
12	Distress signal works - 100-150 bpv enters*

* Rescue vessal enters from far edge on turn 1d6
** Fought as a separate challenge. Raider fleet
may repair 6 system and 12 shield boxes/ship

Bad Weather

die roll	Weather
1	Ion Storm
2	Sunspots
3	Dust Cloud rows 30-80
4	Nebula rows 30-80
5	place black hole in 4025
6	Heat Zone

Minefield

Place 2d6 large mines
4d6 small mines
2d6-8 large captor mines
2d6-4 small captor mines
on or between rows 30 and 40. All mines are hidden from the raiding player, see M7.1

Asteroids

Roll a die
1-2 use overlay 1
3-4 use overlay 2
5-6 use overlay 3

This will re-size the map to 100x100. Just ignore the extra hexes.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Monday, September 01, 2003 - 02:05 pm: Edit

First off, Terrain is already in effect by U10.52, using S5 for random terrain.

Random events are not in play for this campaign, but if they were I have charts already written up for these.

So lets concentrate on the setup and victory conditions;

First a BPV range adjustment.

Size Raider Convoy
Small 150+12d6 170+2d6x10
Large 300+d6x10 330+2d6x10


Tell me why the defender gets more. Is this balanced?

Straight bpv should balance the scenario but as we know in this case that may not work. Assuming we cannot count X bpv of the defender in determining balance because their only use is as 'disengageable/destroyable prizes' then how much bpv is enough? Or too much?

The generic convoy action scenario has one attacker versus one defender, and 2/3 freighters. Should the defender warship bpv equal attacker warship bpv then? Probably not just because of the few freighter weapons available.

So the bpv ratio is getting slippery.

Convoy set-up within 8 hexes of 0120
Raider sets-up within 8 hexes of 2001 and/or 2050


I think I might go with;
convoy within 5 hexes of 0115
Raider sets up second, within 5 hexes of 2130 or 2101

Single map. Make it bloody and fast. If there is a glaring error with this let me know.

Modified victory conditions:
The convoy must cross the map length-wise Convoy player receives 50% CVP for all freighters that exit off the far 80nn edge, in addition for any normal point for damaging enemy ships. The raiding force recieves no disengagement points for escorts that exit off the far edge Convoy ships that exit the 01nn edge give up the 25% VP.


Why 50% for disengaged freighters?

I'd table all this;

Convoy player
Score 50% for frieghter units that disengage by the 42xx edge.
Score for enemy units normally.
Ignore disengagement penalties for all units that leave by the 42xx edge, or escorts that disengage by any means after all freighters are disengaged/destroyed/captured.

Raider player
Score +50% for all destroyed/captured frieghters.
Score for other enemy units normally, unless they disengage off the 42xx edge or disengage after all freighters are destroyed/disengaged/captured.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, September 01, 2003 - 09:10 pm: Edit

Those BPV ranges look high to me for a convoy raid. I'd suggest:

	Raider	Convoy	Freighters
small	75+5d6	45+3d6	d3+1 pods
large	130+d6x12	90+6d6	3d3+2 pods
critical	300+d6x10	200+12d6	2d6+4 pods

The freighter pods refer to cargo pods and must be divided equally between small and large freighters (pods given to tugs can come from either pool). "Odd" pods can be assigned to either type of freighter. So 4 pods is 2 F-S and 1 F-L, 6 pods could be 2x F-L, 2xF-S or 1 F-L, 4xF-S. (d3 are d6 / 2, round up).

The convoy BPV can be used for buying escorts (including things like AxCV if allowed), "upgrades" to freighters (eg converting a freighter to an armed freighter--this costs the full value of the armed freighter, there is no discout for the "lost" freighter--or adding ducktails) or buying tugs (the tugs and the escorts come out of the player's military ships?).

Note that the convoy BPV are low for two reasons. First, the convoy also has the freighter. Second, the convoy's goal is not to fight (and win), but to survive. It is compensated by the extra VP for getting the freighters off the map. Since VP already use EPV and not BPV (important for the freighters), I don't think there should be a bonus for the raider (beyond the normal PV).

This is set up to used modified VC, not standard (ie the convoy does not score the difference in BPV as VP).

I'm not sure if these BPV are exactly the right ones (that will probably require some playtesting).

By matlockb (Matlockb) on Monday, September 01, 2003 - 10:41 pm: Edit

I don't think there should be a penalty for the escorts disengaging even after the freighters have gone. The disengagement penalty assumes that the area is the objective, and there will be losses if it is not held. The escorts are not looking for a fight, they just want to get the freighters through... they should be allowed to rejoin the convoy if they stayed behind to buy time for the freighters to get ahead - they are probably outnumbered, and were not looking for a fight in the first place.

Brian

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 12:24 pm: Edit

I don't think there should be a penalty for the escorts disengaging even after the freighters have gone.

?
There is no penalty for escorts disengaging once all their freighters are gone.

Will have to consider David's post later as its still early for my brain...

By matlockb (Matlockb) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Oh... I think I misread your earlier post... It says exactly what I said...

Sorry,
Brian

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 02:48 pm: Edit

David, etal;
By David Kass ;

Raider	Convoy	Freighters
small	75+5d6	45+3d6	d3+1 pods
large	130+d6x12	90+6d6	3d3+2 pods
critical	300+d6x10	200+12d6	2d6+4 pods

I would rather keep the convoy and freighters in one bpv total. Current ratio is 50% non warships or higher, but this ratio can be fiddles with.

Convoy defender as shown above is roughly 2/3 the attackers value. Was this an arbitrary decision or something drawn from scenarios or play?

Second, the convoy's goal is not to fight (and win), but to survive. It is compensated by the extra VP for getting the freighters off the map. Since VP already use EPV and not BPV (important for the freighters), I don't think there should be a bonus for the raider (beyond the normal PV).

What bonus?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, September 04, 2003 - 07:43 pm: Edit

Sorry for the long reply, the "short" answers turned out to not be so short.

The values of the attackers were selected to give a range of ship types.

Small is aimed at generating frigates at the low end and destroyers at the high end. Firgates are regularly seen as raiding ship. DD are a bit unusual as raiders, but it also allows for some of the "larger" frigate type ships as well as almost DW for later in the war. The BPV for large raids was aimed at CW at the low end and as high as a BCH (an unlikely, but fun raider) or pair of frigates. In between are things like cruisers and fast cruisers that make reasonable raiders. The critical raid is designed to be a squadron (say 2 CW + DW, if lucky) raid and/or a DNL plus support.

The 2/3 of the attacker's BPV for the defender was is partly accidental and partly based on my experience (both in playing scenarios/pickup battles and in designing scenarios). At 2/3 (plus a bit for the freighters), the defender can challenge the raider (and have a chance to punish mistakes), but the raider still has enough of an edge to be expected to score a number of kills (an expected result would be that the raider kills half the freighters before the rest escape). I was also looking at what ships could be bought as well as what would be reasonable for a convoy's defenses.

The small BPV was limited by needing to likely fit in one police ship (although the small armed freighter at 36 is always available). For the large convoy, it allows for a pair of police ships plus a bit of convoy upgrading (or, the player could go with a destroyer/DW or even a CL (and CW if very lucky)). The critical convoy was a bit more of a guess, but I looked at it as one tug, a CW and one more warship.

I separated out the number of pods to make sure the convoy had some "heft" to it so that the attacker has some targets to engage (and likewise the defender has to protect something of a flock). The requirement for both large and small freighters is due to them having different advantages (the large ones are better offensively but worth more victory wise while the small ones take more work to catch and kill, and are easier to scatter). Note that I'm not sure what you're defining as non-warships, so some of the next section is probably incorrect.

The concern I would have with a BPV ratio is that it may be too easy to "game." Consider if the defender spends the 50% non-warship BPV on armed freighters, Q-ships and tugs. Now there aren't any "soft" targets that need to be protected. The other "amusing" option would be for the defender to spend everything on basic freighters (say a dozen large freighters). Many are going to get off the map for a large bonus. There is enough close in firepower to force the raider to stay at range, so only a few will be "culled from the herd."

Even if going with a precentage, I'd suggest a lower value than 50% (maybe 20% but only include pure freighters, ie F-L and F-S). The minimum combat BPV is around 50 (a single police ship for most races). Below that and few races will be able to afford any warships. At 50%, that forces the defender's force above 100 BPV. This is implying a CC or larger as the raiding ship (140+ BPV) and eliminates the entire range of light raiders (apparently the most common historically). The other problem is that the entire point of the critical convoy is that it is heavily armed for its size (it isn't much larger than the large convoy--I'd even consider lowering it 2d6+2 or +3--but has over twice the defenses). This was intentional. It represents supplies that need to get through (and/or the heavy raiding activity of a static front).

I'm not sure what is gained by keeping the non-warship BPV a fixed ratio of the total. It seems to be more of a straightjacket than anything else.

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Quote:

What bonus?

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Quote:

Raider player
Score +50% for all destroyed/captured frieghters.

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By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Friday, September 05, 2003 - 01:00 am: Edit

By David Kass ;
Sorry for the long reply, the "short" answers turned out to not be so short.

No problem. I greatly appreciate your insight and input.

The values of the attackers were selected to give a range of ship types.

Very well reasoned out, I like it.

The 2/3 of the attacker's BPV for the defender was is partly accidental and partly based on my experience (both in playing scenarios/pickup battles and in designing scenarios). At 2/3 (plus a bit for the freighters), the defender can challenge the raider ...

Ok that's what I thought as well but wanted to see put into words backed by your experience.

Note that I'm not sure what you're defining as non-warships, so some of the next section is probably incorrect.

All units listed on a racial master ship chart are warships, even if they may be tactical transports, repair ships, etc. Anything listed on the general units master ship chart I consider to be 'non-warships'.

The concern I would have with a BPV ratio is that it may be too easy to "game."

Understood. But short of designing our own 'S8' rules for convoys, bpv is what we want to go with. So I'd like to keep it bpv for now and if we have to alter this later so be it. This keeps the campaign scenarios well within standard patrol scenario rules. Although after looking more closely at freighter types perhaps a requirement of two basic freighher variants for each specialized variant (like leaders) could be useful.

Even if going with a precentage, I'd suggest a lower value than 50%

SG19 has roughly 250 defender bpv vs 115 attacker. All 'non-warship' bpv though. Even a variable 'non-warship' ratio could be interesting.


Basically when scoring VP, one uses the EPV. Standard freighters have EPV values of 61 and 26 (compared to combat values of 18 and 12). So the raider gets a natural bonus for hitting the freighters (in addition to denying the convoy player their bonus). It could be that an additional bonus is still necessary.

So keep the bonus? I definitely want the focus of a convoy raid to be the convoy, either on attack or defense.

This might also be a scenario where both players should score... I'd suggest that neither side be penalized for disengaging in this battle

Sounds good.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Friday, September 05, 2003 - 01:16 am: Edit

Ok David, all, consider this;

Size	Raider	Convoy
small	65+6d6	100+6d6
medium	130+8d6	195+8d6
large	300+d6x10	450+d6x10

Non-warship ratio of convoy force yet to be determined. I'm still leaning towards a 50% minimum although I admit that is arbitrary.

Two standard freighters are required for every non-standard variant of the same size. (?)

Modified Victory Conditions
(these are unchanged right now because I think a convoy player should score points for forcing raiders to disengage, and a raider should score poitns for forcing an escort to disengage before his convoy is offboard)

Convoy player
Score 50% for frieghter units that disengage by the 42xx edge.
Score for enemy units normally.
Ignore disengagement penalties for all units that leave by the 42xx edge, or escorts that disengage by any means after all freighters are disengaged/destroyed/captured.

Raider player
Score +50% for all destroyed/captured frieghters.
Score for other enemy units normally, unless they disengage off the 42xx edge or disengage after all freighters are destroyed/disengaged/captured.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, September 06, 2003 - 05:05 pm: Edit

Under these rules, I would never raid anyone.

The convoy player can buy a FA-L with skids for 87 BPV and two F-L for 36 BPV (to meet the 2 standard freighters). The FA-L with skids is a dandy (a bit light on weapons but nice damage padding) destroyer. So, in effect, the convoy player can spend ~70% of the half of his BPV required to be spent on convoy BPV on "warships". The net result is that the convoy player spends ~85% of his total BPV on warships. If the skids are not allowed (since they are playtest), a Q-ship is (race dependent) 80 to 83 BPV, or still almost as good. Even regular armed freighters allow for over 80% "combat" useable BPV (and the large armed freighters are better).

So, consider the average medium raid. The raider has 158 BPV (say a D7W) to attack with and the convoy player has an effective 190 BPV to defend with, plus the freighters (call it a Fed DW, F-AL [photon] \w skids, and 2 F-L for the 223 total BPV).

The DW and F-AL have more than enough to keep the D7W away from the freighters until they disengage (for the bonus). At this point, it becomes a standard battle with the Feds having the advantage in firepower (but the disadvatage of two ships and the movement limitations on the F-AL). My guess is that the D7W manages to gut either the DW or F-AL before being forced to disengage. It might instead take the long range shots at the freighters and damage one and settle for damageing one of the "warships." The net result is that the D7W is going to score ~50 points for crippling either the DW or F-AL. On the other hand, the Fed will score 39 (disengaged D7W) + 2x30 (disengaged freighters) + 21 (disengaged crippled F-AL) = 120.

A small raid will average a frigate (small destroyer) facing a police cutter plus a small Q-ship and two small freighters. The battle will be much the same as above--the raider cannot attack agressively without getting killed so the convoy player is free to escort the freighters off the map and then either have the police and Q-ship force the frigate to leave.

If I wanted a squadron battle (what the large convoy will result in), I'd pick the actual squadron battle to avoid the BPV disadvantage.

Note that in any of the cases, if the convoy player has some bad luck (or makes mistakes), the warships and "fighting" freighters can just go ahead and disengage with the freighters. This does cost them some VP (for not forcing the raider to disengage), but doesn't give the raider anything extra. The raiding player is still looking at giving the convoy player an extra 30 VP (not to mention the chance to spend his non-warship BPV pool).

And this doesn't even consider the following trick. The convoy player spends all 223 BPV (large convoy) on 12 F-L (has an extra few BPV, maybe a couple of ducktails). It will take the freighters 4 turns to reach the 42xx edge and disengage (I think I have that right). The force has 24 Ph-2 and 12 Ph-3 (after all the shuttles are launched). This will prevent the D7W from going inside range 4 (and makes even range 8 somewhat risky). The D7W can cripple one freighter per turn (call it a range 8 pass with overloads). Getting one on the fourth turn will require skill and luck. The D7W will be missing its 3 forward shields by that time and the target will be close enough that the others can probably tow the damaged freighter off the map. Say the D7W then manages to go back and kill the three cripples. The D7W scores 61 x 1.5 x 3 = 275. But the convoy player scores 9 x 61 x 0.5 = 275 as well. So basically for only spending his non-warship BPV (and not risking his fleet), the convoy player managed to get 275 VP. And if even one of the three crippled freighters manages to disengage by sublight or they actually crack a shield and score internals on the D7W, the convoy comes out ahead.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, September 06, 2003 - 06:32 pm: Edit

I just realized this is in reverse order. I also wanted to reply to your 1:00 am post.

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Quote:

All units listed on a racial master ship chart are warships, even if they may be tactical transports, repair ships, etc. Anything listed on the general units master ship chart I consider to be 'non-warships'.

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Quote:

SG19 has roughly 250 defender bpv vs 115 attacker. All 'non-warship' bpv though. Even a variable 'non-warship' ratio could be interesting.

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By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 04:41 am: Edit

Not ignoring this, just on nightshifts currently and thus unable to give this the attention it deserves. Will have to come backt to this.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 07:08 pm: Edit

How about a new type of challenge, the probe (or pressure). Basically it is an attempt to attack along a long front looking for weaknesses.

The attacker selects the number probing attacks (minimum 4, maximum 12). For each attack, each player uses 75+3d6 BPV. All the attacks are considerd simultaneous so any given ship can only participate in one such battle. For each probe that is not met by a ship, the attacker can add an extra 150 BPV to any base attack or large fleet battle against the defender during the next turn.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 07:47 pm: Edit

Too many scenarios for 2 players to handle David. That would really require playing something similar to The Admiral's Campaign, where a group can play 2 sides and concentrate on one front.

Now it is interesting to point out in relation to our convoy discussions that I recieved CL24. In it is SL208, the battle groups scenario for that log.

That scenario has a DNL (or 400 bpv) attacking 600 bpv convoy (that magical 2/3 ratio you hit apon). But rather than a set/random amount of freighters or a bpv ratio on non-warships, the requirement for the convoy player is that you must bring at least 300 cargo points. Victory conditions include disengagement directions as we have already discussed, and also are based on the cargo points. It also has a convoy maneuver special rule.

I think this scenario is exactly what we are looking for. All we need do is vary the bpv amount while keeping the attacker/defender ratio the same and the rest is golden (but perhaps for the # of raiders special rule).

Have you seen this scenario yet?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 07:57 pm: Edit

I remember the scenario, but need to go look at it again. I remember it as being balanced very much in the convoy's favor (with the Hydran DNL being the only one that even had a chance, and often not a good one). I don't think I ever played it out, so I could be wrong. Remember that CL scenarios are still playtest scenarios and are not necessarily balanced.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 07:59 pm: Edit

I see your point on my suggestion. I'll think about a way of making it work as a single scenario to reduce the playing time.