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	Archive through January 19, 2004	25		01/19 04:13pm

IIRC in Commander's Edition the Hydrans (and the Lyrans, Gorns, Tholians & other galactic non-drone users) could buy Type-F shuttlebay drone racks with commander's option points. This was eliminated (to reduce technology sloshing?) in Captain's Edition. Re-introducing it would give anyone the ability to use a few ECM (or other) drones, at the risk of a chain reaction, although as a Hydran I'd prefer a new way to swat Klingon ECM drones...and not to have to face Lyran ones.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 02:10 pm: Edit

It would also reintroduce the tech sloshing.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 10:27 pm: Edit

Worse, it was an incredibly exploitable rule (think of doing it with a Hydran RN, to every shuttle box).

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 10:36 pm: Edit

DavidK, nah, think of a Dragoon protecting the hellbores....

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 02:13 am: Edit

Stewart: Which is why special rules were added just to handle that issue back in Commander's edition. A lack of tech sloshing is better than having rules that change what systems suffer which hits based on what weapons where originally mounted.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 07:38 am: Edit

Aren't there drogues that do what this is asking? I dont have J2 but thats what I thought.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 01:13 pm: Edit

Yes there are but drogues limit the ship to speed 12. ECM widgets (drones, plasma) don't.

By Dan Ibekwe (Danibq) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Not much point filling a Ranger with F-racks;

i) They could only be mounted in bays that could hold admins and

ii) She's only got three seeking weapon control channels.

John Trauger - do all drouges limit the towing ship to speed 12? I thought that was only true of the decoy flavour. However, they're only availible after Y180 or so.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 02:34 pm: Edit

Non drone using races never developed drone seeking weapon drogues.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Tos, could you re-phrase that? I'm not sure what you mean.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 04:34 pm: Edit

All (deployed) drogues limit the speed of the towing ship to 12. Speeds faster than that will break the tractor link and destroy a deployed drogue regardless of type.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 05:12 pm: Edit

(G34.31) Seeking Weapons Drogue: ... This type of drogue is used by any ship equiped with drones ... except Lyrans.

Since non-drone using races don't use drones they can't field drone based seeking weapon drogues.

By Dan Ibekwe (Danibq) on Friday, February 06, 2004 - 05:53 am: Edit

Outline proposal; E-bombs

Subspace directed-energy target illuminators.

Carried & laid as T-bombs, but are given a target when launched.

Fitted with a time fuze, detonate after movement on second impulse after deployment, no damage to any unit.

Roll to hit target as a bolted plasma torpedo, but since the 'beam' is quite broad, ignore any EW shift.

Effect - on the impulse of detonation only, paint the target with 6 points of EW; the target treats this as loaned ECM (dazzle), all other units treat this as ECCM against that target (illumination - think of a moth in a searchlight). Multiple simultaneous hits have no further effect.


(I stand corrected on the drogue speed 12 thing - thanks)

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 08:54 pm: Edit

Dan, I don't know what the rules said. But I remember (very vividly) in my second SFB game ever seeing a Ranger launch 12 drones at once (I suspect he was using ATG to guide them). Captain's edition came out around then, so I never got that far in reading the Commander's edition rules.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 09:30 pm: Edit

I remember that rule being abused too. Heck, I remember the Ship Mod rules being abused...sometimes by me!

I wasn't so bad since the playing field was even but the game was more about who could come up with the best surprise rather than tactical prowess.

By Dan Ibekwe (Danibq) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 09:04 pm: Edit

David - If that was your second ever game I suspect someone may have been taking cruel advantage of your (then) inexperience! It sounds very dodgy to me.

I only came up against the 'filled with F-racks' ploy once, used by a Gorn CA in a squadron action against my Romulans. It left me suprised, but it left him dead (no WWs).

If, for sake of argument, the F-rack was to be re-introduced, it would be under the limitations of the seeking weapons channel rules under Captains ed., and they could further be restricted to only
1 or 2 per ship. I agree there would need to be safeguards against abuse.

But, I'd still rather have something to counter Klingon EW superiority (ECM drones, D6Ss) than just do the same stuff ourselves. How about;

Proposal - Hydran Fast EW Shuttle (FEW)

Introduced in Y172; basically a stripped down MRS sacrificing the cargo (personnel, mines, et.c) capability and the P-2 but fitted with fighter engines giving speed 15. All other stats,availibility et.c unaffected. Probably designed for remote operation as FEW will ever come back....

This gives us a platform that can loan EW to a ship (unlike an EWF) and is fast enough to stay with her, possibly being towed until needed. Will have a very short life expectancy, but will draw Klingon fire to about the same extent as their ECM drones draw ours.

A simpler approach might be to allow EWFs the option of loaning to their carrier...?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 04:45 pm: Edit

Dan, it was in a 5(?) player free for all, so it was probably either a group rules mis-understanding or a house rule I no longer recall.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 02:49 pm: Edit

AThis is another on going discussion of iatems under consideration for Extreme Measures.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Problem with most of these is that they could be copied by other races. How about a special firing mode for the Hellbore that, instead of causing damage, disrupted the enemies sensors, giving the unit 4-8 impulses of ECM penalties (similar to OEW effects).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 04:54 pm: Edit

Andy, maybe we should consider thaat.

What kind of numbers are you considering?

Would it be based on the total energy that was used to arm the Hellbore? War head strength?

Would it just be a +1 to athe current Electronic Warfare factors? -1?

I'm not sure what justification you would have for it, but you might want to consider that any "cheap mission kill" affect might have could push it into the "auto Reject" list.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 06:49 pm: Edit

I'm thinking a +3 ECM penalty for 12 impulses, 18 if an OL is used. I don't see any game-breaking side effects as 1. OEW is already in the game and 2. the Hydrans are giving up a HW shot for a temporary ECM benefit.

The big difference here is in style. The ECM-drone and ECM-plasma provide protection to just one vessel, and this protection can be shot down. The ECM-HB instead provides protection AGAINST one vessel with no way to stop it. However, 1. losing a drone space or a PPT is far less of a penalty than losing a HW shot 2. the ECM-HB has to hit 3. the effect is for a shorter duration.

Open questions.

1. can you be affected by multiple ECM-HB shots at once?
2. ESG interaction?


Notes.

1. This does allow for OEW beyond the 15 hex range of Scout OEW - perhaps instead tie the duration to the damage. 1 impulse per point of damage caused? This should balance that effect nicely.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 08:24 pm: Edit

The obvious solution to open quetion #1 is that no, multiple ECM-HB shots is not cumulative (i.e. it effects the electromagnecti/subspace bands at the same frequencies... more shots is like shipping coal to newcastle, its redundant and yeilds no benefit). I guess you can record 1 vote against, if you are keeping score!

For question # 2, I'll have to delay an answer until I can study the rules for ESGs again, its been too long since I've played against them.