I created a alternate history scenario some time ago (5 years) wherein the 312th battle group linked up with the Tholian Homeworld en route to our galaxy. I played it using F&E rules (and 2 sfb combats) and was quite fun, but I never worked out a build order for the homeworld or had early years rules for implementing new bases and such. Anyhow, I was thinking of doing some more work on it, and thought I'd throw it in here and see if anyone has other interesting ideas to include. I tossed up my old writeup on a web page to save space here. Any insight would be appreciated.

http://webpages.charter.net/thegl/TholianInvasion.htm

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 03:40 pm: Edit

A few points:
- I think it'd be better to wait on something like this until Early Years rules for F&E are published.
- Alternatively, I'd rather see EY ships with reduced factors (rather than increasing Tholian factors) as that is the most likely EY F&E ruleset.
- In Advanced Operations, the Neo Tholians were published for F&E officially, and their factors don't quite match the ones you listed...
NDN 12-14W, NCA 9W, NCL 7W, NDD 5W, NFF 5
- Did you intentionally add 6xNDD & 10xNFF to the 312th starting fleet?

It would be hard to balance such a scenario, but it does sound very interesting.

By Scott Mikkelson (Thegl) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 05:08 pm: Edit

I agree more early years rules would enable this to be a complete scenario, but we did the best we could with what we had, and it was a fun alternative to regular F&E (for me, a tholian lover, and my klingon opponent who despises those Lava Rocks).

Yes, having early years ships with reduced factors would be preferable, but I went with what the captains log had out at the time, which used general war counters for early years.

The Factors had to be adjusted on all tholians, since they had general war firepower when everyone else was using early years tech. The only direct conversions that are available is the Tholian PC, which is rated (4) in general war, but in early years it is rated a (6)- Base stations counting as battle stations was the other conversion factor available. basically, the factors were adjusted up by 6/4 (PC stats). So a (W) has strength 3, and the the other units as listed. These values are what I'd like further input on.

The published historical documents indicate that several smaller ships were scrapped en route and and on arrival to get the large ships combat ready. Presumably without the exhaustion they suffered en route, they wouldn't have had to be scrapped. The actual numbers are just what a typical fleet would entail.

Balance is an issue, but not a big concern as playing this scenario is mainly a way to see how far into the galactic powers the Tholians could encroach before being stopped with thier obviously overpowered fleet (for the time period). One that perhaps could have occurred if one crafty communications officer had managed to see the signiture of a Home world traveling through intergalactic space.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 04:57 am: Edit

I would keep the F&E compots for the tholian ships as they were, and use EY compots for the Galactic powers, which are typically 4-6 (D4) or 5-6 (lyran YCA) for a cruiser. (attack-defence, uncrippled). This is based on the published EY F&E scenario "the hydran liberation".

I don't think the tholians will get very far. Quite simply, they will be pinned out until the combined buiding and economies of the galactic powers overwhelm them.

If however, the tholians are attacking only one of the Feds, Roms, or Klingons, and that race only has its home fleet and tholian border sqaudron for defence, then things would get decidely nasty for the galactic power.

EY fleets given in CL12 are not weak in numbers - there are LOTS of ships around - the fed/klingon border wfleets will see at least 30 ships on each side alone. The combined Fed fleet is over 130 ships. That little bunch of tholians, for all its immense compot strength, won't make much impact.

Another problem is supply. Each tholian MB costs 10EP, an almost prohibitive amount. The tholians will have to planet hop, maybe putting down the odd PDG.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 12:48 pm: Edit

Planet hopping isn't so bad for the Tholians. They jump out, grab a planet, put up a base (and web) and go from there.

The only vulnerability is the turn or 2 where the PGB is en-route/ being placed. However, even there, they can seriously out-compot any attacker.

It'll be hard for the Tholians to attack the Romulans (no planets to capture in range), but the Feds & Klingons have several jump points..

By Stuart C. Brennen (Evlstu) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 12:57 pm: Edit

I think this belongs with the "Tholian threat file" that was mentioned in a Captain's Log many years ago. I wish that it had been published. Oh well.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 07:31 pm: Edit

tholian ships vs EY ships should get a bonus for pinning, probably something similar to the 2:1 bonus that fast/X-ships get

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 05:01 am: Edit

I would have to go looking. But IIRC there was something in CL. Or maybe in one of the playtest modules that said Tholian PC's in the early years should use the DD F&E counter.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 06:05 am: Edit

CL 18

scenario 696 Hydran Liberation

Rule 696.283

"Early years forces count as half value for pinning non-early years forces. Essentailly, a crippled early years unit counts as 1/4 of a non-crippled non-early years units. Two fighter factors may pin one crippled early years unit.

HAH! Got the obscure ruling.

By Scott Mikkelson (Thegl) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 01:37 pm: Edit

Ahh, thanks for the ruling Davidas.

[quote] playtest modules that said Tholian PC's in the early years should use the DD F&E counter.[/quote]
Thats how I arrived at the increased combat values for all the Neo-Tholians in the early years.

[quote] That little bunch of tholians, for all its immense compot strength, won't make much impact.[/quote]
While there is no shortage of early year ships, the tholians are fielding such an overpowering fleet, the early year fleets are quickly depleted. The tholians will field a pair of 130+ compot fleets while the early years powers will have a tough time fielding 60 compot fleets (after web caster effects). The tholians will be crippling 3 destroyers a round, while the fed/kling 5-6 of thier heaviest ships. The whole point of the scenario is to see how far the tholians can encroach before they are stopped by thier limited production capacities. Its fun to think of how a modern aircraft carrier would fair in WWII. If they weren't limited by production, it wouldn't be much of a challenge for them.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 04:16 pm: Edit

Scott,
The point DAS was making was the weak (but large) EY fleets could pin the Tholian advance to 1 hex per turn (then retreat after 1 round of combat). The Tholians won't make it very far out of the holdfast with those big pin numbers around them.

By Scott Mikkelson (Thegl) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Uggh, I have no idea how I missed that (rather obvious) point; especially considering the other posts-and that this is exactly the sort of issues that I wanted raised...

I suppose two factors could come into play besides Davidas 696.283 that might help the tholians.

1) EY ships are limited to 4 hexes of movement a turn (IIRC).
2) The Command modules might give the Neo-Tholians a bit more pinning escapability.

I'll have to do some reading, and check exactly where and what is available to each power. Unfortunately, I think my Captains Logs are at my moms (I was doing some pleasure reading one weekend when visiting with the kids), so I can't check this stuff till our (unplanned till just now) visit to grandma's this weekend =).

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 04:03 am: Edit

As I said, if the tholians only attack one galactic power, and only deal with that power's home and border fleets, things will be very different. The Compot of the Neo-tholian fleet (normal combat values) will be around 95 max, while the compot of the galactic powers will be around 40 max (but with ~55 defence). That's still a big advantage for the tholians even if they do get pinned.
Another thing working in favour of the tholians is the early years persuit rules - you get TWO rounds of persuit if you have non early-years vs early years. So the tholians will be blowing up ALOT of ships if they can last to win the battle. If they can blow up more than 1YCA, 3YCL, and 3YFF per full turn (the Fed early year build schedule - klingon is similar in numbers), as I said, things could get decidely nasty for a Galactic power with only a border and home fleet to do the fighting.

I'm also under the impression that EY economies are halved from general war ones, so the Feds will only have ~105EP per turn.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 05:22 am: Edit

Oh - I just realised that there is another problem for the tholians...

No tug!!! Without a tug, going on the strategic offensive will be difficult - there is no ability to put down bases or PGBs.

You will either have to invent a Neo-tholian tug, or allow a unhistorically early CMC tug. Or the tholians will have to lump it without being able to put down those essential Web defences (even 1PGB is very useful for its EW, and it can't be Dirdammed).

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 05:27 am: Edit

Another obscure facet.

The Fed navy at this point was not under one banner (Starfleet was not yet formed) - that didn't happen until Y100+ IIRC. While I have no doubt that Fed space will contain roughly the same number of Fed ships, I have *no* idea how they will co-ordinate and be distributed. Furthermore, I'm not sure OOBs are printed anywhere - they certainly arn't in any CLs I've seen (I have 7-25). The only place that might help is the Early years SFB module (which I don't have).

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 06:26 am: Edit

I'm pretty sure the Tholian Will had a Tug. It's just we've never seen it.

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 10:29 am: Edit

Tholian Will Tug - Maybe since they had pacified things so well, they only used freighters and didn't see the need for a military tug.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 08:14 pm: Edit

The logical thing for the Tholians to do (if they wanted to conquer the quadrant) is to attack the Romulans en masse (the Roms would be HELPLESS...and that's WITHOUT webcasters), conquer Romulan space, make the Roms their new 'number 1 subjects' (or exterminate them...I think even the Roms would choose to serve the Tholians rather than die helplessly...), and proceed from there.

Given Romulan...um...'stubborness', I think the Tholians would have a single 'political officer' aboard each Romulan warship, whose only job is to blow up said ship if they start acting funny. I also imagine said 'political officer' would live in an 'escape module' that would be completely inaccessable to anyone on the ship.

So...what would Romulan 'servitor' ships look like in the New Will?

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 09:26 pm: Edit

If you presume the Tholians had an NDD and the facilities to make new web casters, but only had the yard capacity to make PCs...

Eventually, you get the Tholian DPW, where P means "Plasma".

Take current DPW.

Replace each pair of Range 40 disruptors with either an S torp and an F, or an R torp.

Replace each photon torpedo with an F torp.

Keep web casters.

Add cloak at the horrible KR conversion rate.

(This is fun to put on the map, exactly once. Mostly so everyone can see just how sick it is. Not to play.)

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 10:32 pm: Edit

Wouldn't have cloak. Roms get conquered waaaaay before cloak. Or even mask.

Yes, it is a sick puppy.

DD would have 2 F-torps, I reckon.

C would have 2 G's....CA would be 2 G/S and 2 F's.

I figure they would roll over the Gorn first (since the Gorns don't meet the Feds until Y155ish, Fed involvement is a non-issue) using the Roms as ground troops, since PC's kill Gorn YCL's real good (would the Gorns upgrade to a real YCA if the Roms get conquered? I think so...), and then spend about 30 years consolidating their gains.

By Larry E. Ramey (Hydrajak) on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 11:09 am: Edit

I think the reason they DIDN'T do exactly this is the shipyard capability.

Yes individually their ships are murder on anyone, but especially the roms. How do they get a supply line into Remus to actually conquer it?

You gotta come up with something. Maybe that provincial shipyard historically had an F&E style engineering team, but they used all their ability to figure out how to make the duel and tri hulls. What if they had a N-DD/N-FF slipway already built and could instead spend their efforts on making a slipway for a tug like ship. That + Mobile bases would be the end of the Roms.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, July 23, 2007 - 12:31 pm: Edit

Yeah, it's almost like SVC and SPP actually thoght about this kind of stuff back in the day when they wrote the background stuff...

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Thursday, September 13, 2007 - 04:09 pm: Edit

The Tholians still had PCs. All PC's could move cargo pallets and later Federation cargo pods.

These ships make CPC theater transports and groups of three can still act as tugs.

Note as well that an unbreakable groups of of 3CPC would be 18/9 compot unit in early years terms.

Lack of tugs is not the logistical limit for the early year Tholians.

Shipyard build capacity is.