| By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 11:32 pm: Edit |
Thyrm,
I was talking about both to a degree, the Tholians should probably qualify as a "both" race, along with the WYN and LDR (Klingon fighters), since these races have a limited shipyard capability and being primarily defense in outlook. Attrition units would allow them to protect their limited capital ships with out the diffusion of resources that I see with the "big" races.
ADM
| By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 11:41 pm: Edit |
Having glanced over the stirke PFTs I see no reason why. any race that fielded PFs would not at least considor production, or make 1-3 at any one time. They look like a good and possiblly "rush" convesion units to get PFTs back on the front lines.
ADM
| By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 01:58 am: Edit |
I guess I'm proposing a whole new ship class that is, in essence, a powerful scout that can run into a system and shred defenses with its PFs before warships can react to defend.
It has two uses: one is as a deep raider with the sensors to do the following: (1) detect ships at a strategic level; (2) warp into a system and move at high speed to outflank defenders (in the case of a convoy) while deploying its PFs and supporting them at high speed while having the ability to boogey out if it gets too hot (preserving a strategic asset, the fast PFT); and (3) be able to jam defenses and/or support other fleet elements as a fully-functional heavy scout in the event that it is operating with other ships. This last function makes it a diverse and functional fleet element, in addition to its ability to operate in an independent role.
Strike tenders are really an entirely different concept - they are expensive due to there special sensors (say 6), and their fast engines/hull.
I'm looking at something that is a heavy scout that is FAST (thereby having power to support its sensors) but is primarily a mothership for PFs. It is, in essense, a fleet/squadron ship all on its own, like an SCS, but much smaller and easier to produce. It has no heavy weapons (because it has PFs and operates as a scout). It has phasers and special sensors, and the power to move fast and use them. That's how it defends itself and its PFs/fleet.
This would be a late war unit, perhaps used as part of the Andromedan defense. It can survive an engagement with an Andromedan long enough to report by using speed and jamming (such as if it located a base/travel node) and has its PFs to take out any undefended target.
It's tactically different than a strike tender because it uses EW and speed, rather than firepower, to both survive and support its compadres.
I think its elegant, fun and a new type of ship.
| By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 01:59 am: Edit |
I'd do an SSD if I knew how, but I don't.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:09 am: Edit |
Oops:
In my post above from 9:22PM on 19 Feb, I meant to say the Selt Strike PFT may be underpriced, rather than overpriced. I'm still not sure, but with 40 points of generated power and 4 Particle Cannon and 8 Phaser-1, 140 points seems low. It does lose the web breakers, but that makes a lot more difference against the Tholians than against other races. Of all my comments from yesterday about the Strike PFTs, this is the one I go back-and-forth on the most.
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:41 am: Edit |
Alan Trevor
I've already changed this; my local copy has it listed at 140 BPV. I apparently forgot to upload the newer copy.
Quote:Robert Cole:
I generally like your Strike Tenders but I have a couple of comments.
1. The Klingon is badly underpriced. 120 points base cost when most of the Strike PFTs are in the 160+ range.
Well, theoretically, the Tholian was based off of the CVA, which is based of the CA, so there is only 3 APR swapped for repair.
Quote:2. The Tholian loses too much power. It drops 6 points (from 35 to 29) when most of the Strike Tenders drop from 2 to 4 points. The Tholian has a power-hungry weapon suite and 29 points isn't sufficient. The problem is that the Tholian changes 3 APR to Repair and 3 APR revert back to hull, presumably because of the way the boxes are laid out. I don't think any of the other Strike Tenders have power systems converting to hull in the conversion to Tender. Even if you have to rearrange some hull boxes (and perhaps increase the BPV), it needs the 3 APR back to be viable.
What would you recommend for this ship? The CHC is 162. The loss of 5 APR, gain of 3 repair, 2 tracs, and 6 mech links seems about right for 13 BPV.
Quote:3. I think the Hydran is underpriced, retaining 40 points of power even after conversion of some APR to repair. With 40 points, plus its weapons, plus its fighters, which it keeps, this is IMO the strongest of all the Strike Tenders. (It is not, however, as badly underpriced as the Klingon.)
And I do appreciate it.
Quote:Just my .02 quatloos worth.
Understood, and it makes sense.
Quote:Additional comments:
1. When I said that most Strike Tenders were in the 160+ range I was assuming a nominal drone load-out. Thus the Kzinti Strike Tender is 140 points but has 20 spaces worth of drones to fill. Since PFs are in the fast-drone time period I made the assumption that this would amount to at least 20 points, though the Kzinti could, for example, buy lots of Type-IV drones to reduce the cost.
The Seltorian hull design doesn't allow for many variants, and I think this ship looses the most systems in this conversion. I could see another 5 BPV drop, but not much more than that (4 heavy weapons, 12 phasers, and 40 power (3 reserve) is quite a ship at 135-140 BPV).
Quote:2. The Seltorian may be overpriced. It is one of the few inexpensive Strike Tenders but still generates 40 points of power. Its weapon suite is not nearly as cool overall as the Hydran weapon suite, of course.
2xPh-1s and 6xAPR does seem to be alot. Again, another 5 BPV is reasonable.
Quote:3. I believe the ISC Strike Tenders are probably overpriced. They have a huge amount of firepower, but like the Tholian they lost a lot energy generation capability. They either need to get some of that energy back or the BPV has to come down a bit.
If I didn't want comments, I wouldn't run a web page
Quote:I hope I don't sound too critical. I really like what you've done and would love to see this in K2.
. 42
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:41 am: Edit |
David Merritt
Exactly my point. They aren't over-powerful, and make (at least a small amount of) sense.42
Quote:Having glanced over the stirke PFTs I see no reason why. any race that fielded PFs would not at least considor production, or make 1-3 at any one time. They look like a good and possiblly "rush" convesion units to get PFTs back on the front lines.
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:42 am: Edit |
Marc Baluda
Which is fine and dandy, except that is just seems way too powerful.
Quote:I guess I'm proposing a whole new ship class that is, in essence, a powerful scout that can run into a system and shred defenses with its PFs before warships can react to defend.
I'm not adverse to the "Fast" DD-PFT idea, but the "Fast CA with 12 PFs" just seems too much. That's alot of resources on one boat, and as a fleet commander I wouldn't want to send 2xDNs + a great scout into combat alone. This is why most CVs can't raid.
Quote:It has two uses: one is as a deep raider with the sensors to do the following: (1) detect ships at a strategic level; (2) warp into a system and move at high speed to outflank defenders (in the case of a convoy) while deploying its PFs and supporting them at high speed while having the ability to boogey out if it gets too hot (preserving a strategic asset, the fast PFT); and (3) be able to jam defenses and/or support other fleet elements as a fully-functional heavy scout in the event that it is operating with other ships. This last function makes it a diverse and functional fleet element, in addition to its ability to operate in an independent role.
Truthfully, this is very close to what the Division Control Ship is... an SCS on a cruiser hull. No heavy weapons, but with Special Sensors. The only difference is: DCSs carry fighters and require escorts, and they don't have the "fast" engines. A Heavy Cruiser PFT is fine, just drop the "fast" engines and the 2nd flotilla of PFs.
Quote:Strike tenders are really an entirely different concept - they are expensive due to there special sensors (say 6), and their fast engines/hull.
I'm looking at something that is a heavy scout that is FAST (thereby having power to support its sensors) but is primarily a mothership for PFs. It is, in essense, a fleet/squadron ship all on its own, like an SCS, but much smaller and easier to produce. It has no heavy weapons (because it has PFs and operates as a scout). It has phasers and special sensors, and the power to move fast and use them. That's how it defends itself and its PFs/fleet.
This would be a late war unit, perhaps used as part of the Andromedan defense. It can survive an engagement with an Andromedan long enough to report by using speed and jamming (such as if it located a base/travel node) and has its PFs to take out any undefended target.
It's tactically different than a strike tender because it uses EW and speed, rather than firepower, to both survive and support its compadres.
I think its elegant, fun and a new type of ship.
If you have specifics in mind, email me at the address in my profile and I'll be glad to make one for you.42
Quote:I'd do an SSD if I knew how, but I don't.
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 11:20 am: Edit |
Alan Trevor
Seltorians are hard to judge... probably because no one really uses them. As things stand, the CAT is two BPV cheaper than the CA.
Quote:Oops:
In my post above from 9:22PM on 19 Feb, I meant to say the Selt Strike PFT may be underpriced, rather than overpriced. I'm still not sure, but with 40 points of generated power and 4 Particle Cannon and 8 Phaser-1, 140 points seems low. It does lose the web breakers, but that makes a lot more difference against the Tholians than against other races. Of all my comments from yesterday about the Strike PFTs, this is the one I go back-and-forth on the most.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 11:25 am: Edit |
Robert Cole:
I request you look again at the Tholian Strike PFT. It has the weapon suite of the (35 points generated power) command cruiser, not the (31 points power) heavy cruiser. (The CA doesn't have the LS/RS Phaser-1s - numbers 11 & 12. Only the CC and X-cruisers have those phasers on that hull. The ship looks even less like the Tholian CVA, since that ship has no disruptors. Also, it has a 5-box impulse engine, which neither the CA or CVA have. (They both have 4 impulse boxes.) I believe the ship needs the 3 extra APR that it would have based on the CC, even if that means increasing the BPV to compensate. The problem right now is that 29 points total generated power is badly balanced for the weapon suite and eventually adding the webcaster will make it much worse. 32 points of power but a somewhat higher BPV just makes more sense to me.
As far as the Selt goes, I keep changing my mind about BPV cost. I'm currently thinking 140 is probably about right, but don't be surprised if I change again. 140 seems pretty reasonable compared to the cruiser it is based on. But I tend to think that the current BPV for Seltorian ships generally under-rates them in fleet actions on a floating map (or a very large fixed map). A battle with a Strike PFT is inherently a fleet action. So 140 may under-rate it a bit if we were starting from scratch. But given current BPV of Selt cruisers and no indication that they are going to change, 140 may be right in line with the rest of the Selt fleet.
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 11:51 am: Edit |
Well... it looks like your right on the Tholian.
This leaves two options: Make the ship truly based on the CA (removing phasers), or make the ship based on the CC (removing 3 hull and making it Repair).
The CC version doesn't address the power problems, but the CA version probably would be rare due to the YIS.
Thoughts?42
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 12:04 pm: Edit |
Marc Baluda:
Two full flotillas on a cruiser-sized hull seems excessive to me. Several months ago I proposed on this thread (but didn't follow up on) the notion of an "oversized" PF flotilla analogous to the oversized fighter squadrons that Interdiction Carriers and Patrol Carriers have. The idea was that a heavy cruiser with no heavy weapons could carry 8 or 9 PFs that would act as one PF flotilla. A given fleet could only have one oversized attrition unit formation (either a fighter squadron or PF flotilla) among its 3 total allowed attrition unit formations.
The individual PFs were the same but the PF Leader and Scout had increased EPV to reflect that they had to be modified (in ways not apparent on the SSD) to be able to coordinate and support the extra PFs in the same flotilla. (The above description is more detailed than anything I had posted earlier.)
I hadn't considered making the PFT a fast warship, but if you add that capability, it would seem to approach your proposal. It would be a bit less powerful on independent strike but might be a bit better as a fleet support unit in major battles since your version would take up 2 of the 3 allowed attrition unit slots with 12 PFs while mine would allow 9 PFs but only take up one of the slots.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 12:48 pm: Edit |
Robert Cole:
I don't know how much work it is to shift boxes on the SSD-making program you use. But how about this as an alternate suggestion, if it is doable?
1. Re-lable the 3 boxes currently designated as "repair" as APR. This brings the ship up to the power generation level I think it needs.
2. Move the top two Warp Engine boxes on each engine one space outward. This allows room to...
3. Move the battery and transporter arrays one space outward, which in turn allows room to...
4. Move the third-from-the-left hull box down and right and move the third-from-the-right hull box down and left. This creates a 5*2 center hull and 4 now-unlabeled boxes, two each next to the flank disruptors. Those 4 boxes become repair.
5. Increase base BPV to 150, with further increases for snares/webcaster.
Comments: This ship will have extremely poor spacekeeping capabilities since it only has 10 hull for a Command Cruiser, a small CC but still a CC. In a campaign setting this ship should be restricted in how far it could operate from Tholian bases. For its presumed defensive role this is acceptable, since it would always be near a base. (Look at the F&E map, the Tholians have a base in every hex of their home territory.) The ship cannot support operations outside the Holdfast, except perhaps right at the border. To the extent that the Tholians operate at any meaningful distance outside the Holdfast they would need to use other types of PFTs. In this respect this ship is somewhat similar to certain LDR and Wynn ships.
What do you think?
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 01:56 pm: Edit |
Alan Trevor
While your ideas would definately create a CC-powered Strike Tender, I hesitate to change the SSD that much.
Another option would be to remove the 3 "lower" center hull (since the CC doesn't have these), then in place of the CCs 6 APR add 2xAPR and 2xREP.42
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 02:25 pm: Edit |
Robert Cole:
That could work. Since the ship has the same hull as the standard CC, it probably shouldn't have the restricted range anymore. This would leave the ship with 31 points of power, which is manageable (only barely with the webcaster refit) for the weapons. It will frequently find itself only arming some of its weapons because it can't afford to use all of them. But even at that, it has a very flexible weapon suite. With only two repair it will have very limited capability to repair its PFs, so its flotilla will be a bit more fragile than that of other races. I guess all this is the price the Tholians pay for still not being able to figure out how to build a full size cruiser.
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:33 pm: Edit |
Robert, I'm confused by the envisioned role for the strike tenders.
They're bad for fleet battles: I can kill both your PFT and a cruiser's fire power in one kill? TARGET!
They're bad for independent operations: They don't have the special sensors needed to raid effectively. They cost three to four times what a CW or NCA costs for an independent patrol. And they're still vunlerable to being run over by an X cruiser (or worse an X-squadron), so its not like there's much extra they can stop for the extra cost.
I suppose there's a bit of a role in a small squadron setting (large squadrons have the "target" problem of fleets). But there, I think I'd still prefer a standard because it will make a better squadron level scout than the FFS I'd have otherwise.
About the only race it seems to make sense for is the Seltorians who are notoriously short on heavy hulls, so its a way to get a cruiser based PFT without sacrificing combat hulls.
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:58 pm: Edit |
I'm not sure what to think about fast PFTs. The ones with 2 PFT flotillas are definitely out (I believe SVC has said that the SSCS [and conjectural Roms] will remain the only ship able to field 2 flotillas).
The question then becomes, what does the PFT give up to become "fast"? I'm not sure how to approach this and prevent them from becoming "uber" scouts that break the game (what one gets, IMHO, if one just takes a fast cruiser and replaces the heavy weapons with scout channels).
I'm also not sure how this is going to fit into the timeline for anyone other than the Lyrans and Klingons (and maybe the Hydrans). I wouldn't expect the ship any earlier than 2 years after the introduction of PFs (so Y180 for the Lyrans, at the earliest). For everyone else, by the time they're ready for the idea, they're facing X-squadrons which will eat these for lunch...
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 12:37 pm: Edit |
David Kass:
As someone who likes the Strike PFT concept, let me try to defend it.
First of all, I would say that your comment about the Strike PFT being a target in fleet battles applies with equal validity to the Strike Carrier. Now, it could be argued that Strike Carriers are different, in that they have dedicated escorts. But I don't think this is sufficient. In F&E, you pretty much have to go through the escorts to kill the carrier, but in SFB the situation is more complicated. Escorts tend to be good at shooting up large numbers of small things; fighters, drones, plasma. But with a few exceptions, they are not effective at engaging ships. If the enemy wants to target your D7V/CVS/Firehawk-B/whatever with massed photons/disruptors/hellbores/PPDs/TR-Beams there isn't ultimately all that much the escorts can do to stop it.
The second point to consider is what happens when the Strike PFT/Strike Carrier goes down. The attrition units lose a source of repair, and a source of rearming. I would argue that PFs are better off than fighters here because the only self-renewable weapons the fighters have are phasers, while the PFs have both phasers and heavy weapons. If a D7V is killed, its Z-YC fighters are reduced to a forest of phaser-3s once they exhaust their drones - powerful at short range but of very limited use beyond range-3. But if a D7T goes down the PFs still have phaser-2s and disruptors once the drones are exhausted. The Z-YC fighters would have a limited ability to rearm drones using the ready-racks of the escorts, but this capacity would be so limited relative to the total number of fighters that I think my larger point stands. An orphaned PF flotilla is better at continuing the fight than is an orphaned fighter squadron.
There is also the point of recovering the PFs if the the Strike PFT goes down in a fleet action. This is easily dealt with. Buy mech-link refits for a few of the other ships in the fleet. The PFs cannot be repaired or rearmed by these ships. But any PFs that survive the battle can be recovered and will live to fight another day. If you have a medium-large fleet of, say, 750-1000 points, spending 6 points to ensure the recovery of surviving PFs is nothing. (And for that matter, PFs are attrition units and many of them are likely to be killed outright anyway.)
I hope you will reconsider your argument about Strike PFTs not being viable in fleet actions. If the Strike Carrier, which is well established in the SFU is viable, so is the Strike PFT. In fact, based on my second point above (about the continuing combat effectiveness of an orphaned PF flotilla versus an orphaned fighter squadron0 a Strike PFT may be a bit more viable.
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:04 pm: Edit |
Alan, I've always found Strike Carriers to be weak in SFB in fleet battles (for many of the same reasons), so comparing Strike PFT to Srike carriers doesn't make the Strike PFT look any better. I should note that the non-strike heavy carriers in J2 look really good for this reason (although I haven't had a chance to actually try any of them).
While a carrier's escorts cannot protect it from direct fire, they can protect it from drones, plasma, enemy fighters and often even enemy PFs. This does provide the carrier with a significant advantage over the Strike PFT. Sure, a Fed photon heavy fleet can still kill the carrier, but a CV based one may have problems, not to mention most Kzinti forces and some Hydran forces. Protecting it half (or even 2/3ds) of the time is better than no protection.
A strike carrier's escorts can arm 1/3 of the squadron at a time (2 escort, 2 racks each), in most cases. While marginal, I find that it is sufficient to keep the squadron flying effectively. Don't forget that any other ship can always use (J4.8962) to also rearm the fighters. More importantly, the escorts (and any other ship in the fleet) can also repair the fighters. In my experience, repairs are critical in keeping both PFs and fighters active in the battle. Once the Strike PFT goes down, the PFs have nothing to replace their packs if destroyed (or dropped due to expected damage), meaning that it only takes a half dozen internals to score a mission kill.
Note that (R1.R1) (in module K) explicitly prohibits buying mechlinks on ships without buying the corresponding PFs. So your idea for recovering the orphan PFs is illegal. Unlike fighters that can land in any shuttle bay (and even if the ship still has its full shuttle compliement).
The net result of this comparison seems to be: Strike Carriers are weak in fleets (from experience) and Strike PFT are going to be even weaker and even more vulnerable. I still don't see them as fleet units.
I started looking at them more specifically and see major problems with the Klingons and ISC.
I see absolutely no reason to take the D7T over a DWP. Sure the D7T has a pair of drone racks, two extra repair and an marginally (arguably) larger phaser suite (on the other hand, the DWP does have the extra P1). But the DWP has two scout channels (backed by a cruiser's power curve) and the standard D5 limited aegis rig. If the Klingons wanted more heavy cruiser PFTs, they could easily have them without sacrificing any D7 to the task.
Even the D5P and D6P are close enough in matching the D7T firepower, that I'd consider them superior ships. I mean why sacrifice a pair of scout channels?
Both of the ISC designs look fundamentally flawed. I know of no size class 3 ship with 4 S-torps (I think the only 3 torp ship is the SPJ which is subject to shock). So I don't think the CTC is at all possible.
The ISC CC (Flagship Cruiser) explicitly refers to the hull as having the maximum amount of weapons the hull could carry. So I see no room for adding any boxes to the design. Furthermore, both of the Carriers based on the heavy cruiser hull lose the outer pontoon heavy weapons, without any replacement (having either 2 Pl-S or 2 PPD). The only other variant on the CC/CA hull (the CF) also looses two heavy weapons (in that case the two PPD in the center pontoon). Thus as near as I can tell, the CCT design is flat impossible.
The PFT based on the CC/CA hull would presumably have the same weaponry as the Fleet or Strike Carrier (2xPl-S or 2xPPD). Comparing a ship along these lines to the exisiting ISC PFT (which has 2 Pl-S), we see the loss of two scout channels in exchange for the CL -> CA hull improvements. As this point, I think the PFT is the better ship. If you really want an echelon core ISC PFT, I'd suggest a version of the PFT replacing the Pl-S torps with a pair of PPD. But, IMHO, the Pl-S are the better weapons for the ship.
With the exception of the Seltorian, this seems to leave only Alliance races with a Strike PFT design. The alliance has a design philosophy of not building offensively armed PFTs (see the discussion leading to R10). So none of them would build such a ship anyways.
This leaves the Seltorian one as a racial specific ship in K2...
| By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 12:42 am: Edit |
David Kass
They definately aren't for fleet ops. They are designed to increase the combat ability for small squadrons (a PFT-scout is a valuable unit and they aren't going to be everywhere), and for independant patrol (the original CA mission profile, IIRC). A CA+PF flotilla counts as 2 SEs in F&E, which means it could "pin" an X-Ship or Fast Ship (the most common raid ship... I know you can't pin raids, but such a ship would make for a great raid reaction ship).
Quote:They're bad for fleet battles: I can kill both your PFT and a cruiser's fire power in one kill? TARGET!
I don't see scout functions being necessary for raids. Fast ships are the most common ships used in F&E raids (as far as I can tell anyway), and I had the choice of a 8-9P COMPOT Strike Tender or a 2-7P MPF (Kzinti here), I think the choice is obvious (the scout sensors give a bonus in Small Scale Combat, but not enough to overcome a 6 COMPOT difference IMO).
Quote:They're bad for independent operations: They don't have the special sensors needed to raid effectively. They cost three to four times what a CW or NCA costs for an independent patrol. And they're still vunlerable to being run over by an X cruiser (or worse an X-squadron), so its not like there's much extra they can stop for the extra cost.
Truthfully, a Strike Tender does operate best as a squadron leader (which is why most are based on the CC-hull), and just because you don't have a PFT doesn't mean you can't have a medium-sized scout.
Quote:I suppose there's a bit of a role in a small squadron setting (large squadrons have the "target" problem of fleets). But there, I think I'd still prefer a standard because it will make a better squadron level scout than the FFS I'd have otherwise.
I agree that the D7T is probably not a good design as the Klingons retained most of their weapons on their PFTs.
Quote:I see absolutely no reason to take the D7T over a DWP. Sure the D7T has a pair of drone racks, two extra repair and an marginally (arguably) larger phaser suite (on the other hand, the DWP does have the extra P1). But the DWP has two scout channels (backed by a cruiser's power curve) and the standard D5 limited aegis rig. If the Klingons wanted more heavy cruiser PFTs, they could easily have them without sacrificing any D7 to the task.
Even the D5P and D6P are close enough in matching the D7T firepower, that I'd consider them superior ships. I mean why sacrifice a pair of scout channels?
No, there are no SC3 ships with 4xPlasma-S torpedoes, but I hope there will be (following the DNP pattern) in the future. My CTC is simply preparing for that.
Quote:Both of the ISC designs look fundamentally flawed. I know of no size class 3 ship with 4 S-torps (I think the only 3 torp ship is the SPJ which is subject to shock). So I don't think the CTC is at all possible.
Note that the ISC BCV (R13.45) and BSC (R13.46) retain the full CC weapon suite while adding fighters and/or PFs (and they keep more power relative to the CCT). The CCT loses both weapons (2xPh-1 and power (6xAPR). The CCT could be a “core” ship, once again, for the smaller squadron which doesn’t have the PFT, instead having a mere DDS for scout support.
Quote:The ISC CC (Flagship Cruiser) explicitly refers to the hull as having the maximum amount of weapons the hull could carry. So I see no room for adding any boxes to the design. Furthermore, both of the Carriers based on the heavy cruiser hull lose the outer pontoon heavy weapons, without any replacement (having either 2 Pl-S or 2 PPD). The only other variant on the CC/CA hull (the CF) also looses two heavy weapons (in that case the two PPD in the center pontoon). Thus as near as I can tell, the CCT design is flat impossible.
The PFT based on the CC/CA hull would presumably have the same weaponry as the Fleet or Strike Carrier (2xPl-S or 2xPPD). Comparing a ship along these lines to the exisiting ISC PFT (which has 2 Pl-S), we see the loss of two scout channels in exchange for the CL -> CA hull improvements. As this point, I think the PFT is the better ship. If you really want an echelon core ISC PFT, I'd suggest a version of the PFT replacing the Pl-S torps with a pair of PPD. But, IMHO, the Pl-S are the better weapons for the ship.
I’m not familiar with this discussion.
Quote:With the exception of the Seltorian, this seems to leave only Alliance races with a Strike PFT design. The alliance has a design philosophy of not building offensively armed PFTs (see the discussion leading to R10). So none of them would build such a ship anyways.
This leaves the Seltorian one as a racial specific ship in K2...
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 01:09 am: Edit |
David Kass:
I confess I overlooked R1.R1, but I would also note that "Some published scenarios and multi-scenario campaigns may create exceptions to this rule." I would also note that in a player-generated free campaign R1.R1 may well be superceded by "house rules". Never the less, you're basically right about that - point for you.
I disagree with at least some of the rest of your analysis, however. I don't think the escorts protect the carrier nearly as well as you do, though that they may be a reflection of different playing styles and fleet organizations.
Also, J.8962 doesn't allow "any other ship" to rearm fighters. Drones and Plasma D-torps can be reloaded this way. But if you're a Hydran or a Tholian you're out of luck. If you're a Romulan/Gorn/ISC with F-torps you're out of luck. And if you're a Romulan/Gorn/ISC with D-torps who lands on a Sparrowhawk-A+/HDD+/CL you're out of luck, since none of those ships have D torps. The Kzinti and Klingons are often in good shape to rearm fighters off of their standard warships, since they frequently have lots of drones. It's more problematical for the Fed's, however. An NCL+ has 12 spaces of actual drones, maybe less depending on the ADD situation. Fully reloading a single F-18CM would require 8 of those 12 drones, seriously reducing the NCL+'s own drone capability. If you're the Lyrans, once again you're basically limited to carriers and escorts as reload points since your standard warships don't have drones. To a limited extent, the drone/plasma D races can compensate for this with careful ship/ Commander's Options selection, but there's always an opportunity cost to do that.
Regarding repairs, yes the deck crews on escorts can repair fighters. But they have sufficiently few deck crews that it is a slow process. Depending on circumstances, it may take several turns for an escort to put even one fighter back into fighting shape. And PFs have a Damage Control rating of 2. It's not much, but they will sometimes be able to bring a key system or two back on line, while still fighting. I have on occasion done this, and even had it make a difference in the battle. But this is obviously very scenario dependent.
Overall, however, I continue to believe that an orphaned PF flotilla is better off than an orphaned fighter squadron, allowing for the occasional exception based on race and circumstances.
Regarding the DWP, D6P, and D5P - yes the Klingons (and Romulans) field PFTs with a reasonable fraction of a cruiser's firepower. And they are useful and flexible ships. And if the Alliance decided not to do this, it was a doctrinal rather than technological decision. But note that the Feds doctrinally did not field PFs - except that Module K has Fed PFs and PFTs. No one but the Klingons (not counting the Tholians in their Home Galaxy) ever fielded Battleships. But there is this Module R5 thing floating around. So one possibility for Module K2 would be to include Strike PFTs for other races as conjectural ships.
Regarding your ISC comments - actually there is a size class-3 ship with 4 S-torps, but it's an oddball. I'm talking about the Gorn Monitor. More seriously though, I suspect the ISC Flagship Cruiser, mounting 2 PPDs and 2 S-torps, could have handled 4 S-torps instead but the ISC never decided to go that route. I don't think there's a definitive ruling on that. But even if it couldn't have done so, the ISC Strike PFT might be changed to have armament more like the ISC Fleet Carrier or Strike Carrier (with suitable BPV reduction). This wouldn't invalidate the concept of an ISC Strike PFT. It would only mean that Robert Cole's initial concept had to be modified.
Finally, I would argue that the Tholians should be regarded as a serious candidate for a Strike PFT of some kind. They have so few cruiser hulls to begin with that they need to make the most of them. And a true Strike PFT is a much better solution for them than the CVA, if only because their PFs are so much more capable than their fighters.
All in all, I think we have to agree to disagree about whether K2 should include ships of this class. But thank you for responding to my earlier post and feel free to respond to this one if you wish.
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 09:35 pm: Edit |
Alan, I'm really surprised you think a Hydran fleet can't rearm the fighters from a dead carrier. Most of the ships in the fleet are themselves going to be carriers. I suppose in a small enough fleet there might be difficulty in rearming the hellbore fighters; my opponents tend to kill them first so I don't think I've ever had a problem. I've never had a problem with rearming in Fed fleets. Sure not every ship has the drone capacity (unlike a Klingon/Kzinti), but usually there are enough that can do it. Also, it isn't always necessary (or even desireable) to load the maximum number of drones. I hadn't thought of F-torp fighters, but then I find all plasma fighters to be so useless I almost never take them. I suppose my statement wasn't completely true there are a few races that can have problems, but all the primary fighter using races don't have problems.
As far as fighter repairs, the first thing I do in any battle with a carrier is have it transfer 2 deck crews (from the 10 extra it bought) to each escort so they have 4 (the maximum 2 per ready rack). Then they can do repairs just as fast as the carrier can (the primary reason is to let the escorts help with the reload duties, but its also useful for repairs). Also, every ship in the fleet has 2 deck crews that are often sitting idle and can repair just as fast as those on either the carrier or escorts.
My understanding is that even though R5 had conjectural ships, there was significant backlash and since then there has been a significant reluctance to publish conjectural ships. The exception usually being the one or two races that would never build a ship of a new "standard" class. Since there are now enough holes in the class concept, I don't see it as a standard class and I, at least, would be very disappointed to get a bunch of conjectural ships along these lines.
Hadn't noticed the Gorn monitor having 4 S-torps (but then almost all monitors break standard ship building rules).
Maybe I wasn't clear. I agree that such is much more what the concept would look like. But at that point, compare the resulting design to the existing ISC PFT (which has 2 S-torps AND the two scout channels). Much like the Klingon, at that point, I don't see the ship as being sufficiently better than the existing PFT to be worth building. I could see the ISC building a variant of the existing PFT replacing the S-torps with a pair of PPD (effectively the PFT equivalent of the light strike carrier).
Quote:But even if it couldn't have done so, the ISC Strike PFT might be changed to have armament more like the ISC Fleet Carrier or Strike Carrier (with suitable BPV reduction). This wouldn't invalidate the concept of an ISC Strike PFT. It would only mean that Robert Cole's initial concept had to be modified.
Note that the BCV and BCS are not the same base hull as the CC/CA, see (R13.45). This seems to be a true BCH hull (that the ISC never buil the basic version of, presumably since it would have been almost identical to the existing CC). I suppose there could be a PFT only version of the BCS (along the lines of the Lyran Hellcat BCH). But given that these would replace BCS in production, why wouldn't the ISC just go ahead and produce the BCS instead?
Quote:Note that the ISC BCV (R13.45) and BSC (R13.46) retain the full CC weapon suite while adding fighters and/or PFs (and they keep more power relative to the CCT). The CCT loses both weapons (2xPh-1 and power (6xAPR). The CCT could be a “core” ship, once again, for the smaller squadron which doesn’t have the PFT, instead having a mere DDS for scout support.
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 10:52 pm: Edit |
Robert, since your role for the Strike PFT seems to be different from what Alan was proposing for them, I'll answer it separately. I'll also try to comment on the F&E rationales, but my F&E rules knowledge is weaker.
As near as I can tell, the limit is on the number of PFT that can be built, so each Strike PFT is going to replace a standard PFT. It won't give extra PFTs (at least that is my understanding based on the Lyrans in F&E).
Quote:They are designed to increase the combat ability for small squadrons (a PFT-scout is a valuable unit and they aren't going to be everywhere), and for independant patrol (the original CA mission profile, IIRC). A CA+PF flotilla counts as 2 SEs in F&E, which means it could "pin" an X-Ship or Fast Ship (the most common raid ship... I know you can't pin raids, but such a ship would make for a great raid reaction ship).
Based on the SFB material, scout sensor are required for PF raids (see (K2.0) or (SH152.48), for example). I suspect this is partly due to the weaker PF sensor suites. I don't think these raids are represented yet in F&E (or perhaps since all but command PFT have sensors, its been subsumed into the current rules).
Quote:I don't see scout functions being necessary for raids. Fast ships are the most common ships used in F&E raids (as far as I can tell anyway)...
I'd agree if I expected every squadron to be able to acquire a CW-based scout. My impression is that in SFU this is not the case. I'm not even sure this is the case in F&E--note that since F&E doesn't handle squadron level action, some sort of approximation is needed. A rough estimate would be to take every stack on the map and divide it into one full battleforce and the rest into 5-6 ship groups. Does any Alliance race have enough CWS to give one to every (or at least 80%) of such groups (due to the topic of discussion here PFTs cannot be counted as CWS)?
Quote:Truthfully, a Strike Tender does operate best as a squadron leader (which is why most are based on the CC-hull), and just because you don't have a PFT doesn't mean you can't have a medium-sized scout.
Um, the rule in SFB is the same as in F&E, its 3 squadrons of attrition units. So it would be SCS + PFT, providing 2 PF flotillas and one fighter squadron. This is the standard operating force (see the Kzinti force in Operation Remus, led by the SCS Titan and the PFT Unicorn as a classic example). In a full fleet, even the D6S is streached for EW support (and most fleets have to make do with a weaker CWS), so the extra scout support from the (standard) PFT is very necessary. For example, as a Kzinti, I find I like to have a MSC, MPF and a SDF for scout support (I'd take a CD instead of the SDF, but just can't justify having them assigned to fleets).
Quote:There is one other place the Strike Tenders could see action. By the rules, SFB fleets are allow (IIRC) 3 flotillas of PFs in a single fleet. How are you going to fill out these slots? An SCS and 2xPFTs? Perhaps, but then again, perhaps by using a Strike Tender could give you more direct combat power and give you a 3rd flotilla at the same time. Food for thought.
Back when there was discussion of adding the R10 NCA ships to F&E (before R10 was published), there was a discussion of what the NCA-PFT factors would be (this came out of several players wanting to see the ships included as soon as possible). Many alliance players hoped/wanted things like 6-8P or 7-8P (and the SSD to support such). The flip side was that the Alliance PFT philosophy was to not include heavy weapons on their PFT. SVC made a comment to the effect that all the races would follow their philosophy. This is very obvious when R10 was released (I don't know what the actual factors are but my guess is they're something like 3-8P). My guess is that the alliance races can't afford the loss of a hull, so they won't build a PFT hull that might be risked in combat (or at least any closer than the scout echelon).
Quote:...I had the choice of a 8-9P COMPOT Strike Tender or a 2-7P MPF (Kzinti here), I think the choice is obvious (the scout sensors give a bonus in Small Scale Combat, but not enough to overcome a 6 COMPOT difference IMO).
| By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 11:32 pm: Edit |
DavidK As far as fighter repairs, the first thing I do in any battle with a carrier is have it transfer 2 deck crews (from the 10 extra it bought) to each escort so they have 4 (the maximum 2 per ready rack). Annex 6 limits the additional deck crews to 4 (and carrier only IIRC), its BPs that are limited to 10.
| By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 01:49 am: Edit |
David Kass:
Actually, I was referring to the fact that the Hydrans cannot rearm fighters by J4.8962 (or J4.8963) since you had stated in a previous post that "any other ship" can always use J4.8962 to rearm fighters, but in fact those rules are restricted to drones and Plasma-D respectively. You're right of course that the Hydrans have other ways to rearm their fighters and it was careless of me not to have addressed that. But they can't do it by J4.8962.
I think you're wrong about their being some sort of backlash against conjectural ships, however. Module R7 (Dreadnoughts at War) has heavy carrier and SCS (called Stellar Domination Ships) versions of the Battleships from R5. These are conjectural variants of ships that were never built in the first palce. The Feds even have a version that carries their conjectural PFs. In Module J2 (Advanced Fighters) you will find Seltorian conjectural Interdiction Carriers, Patrol Carriers, and Scout Carriers, conjectural heavy escorts for the Romulans and Wynn, and a Lyran Interdiction Carrier and Neo-Tholian Strike Carrier, both of which are "unbuilt variants". I don't even think that's a complete list of J2 conjectural. In Module R10 (The New Cruisers) there are by my count 13 conjectural or unbuilt variant ships, including ships for the Federation, Romulans, Gorns, Hydrans, Andromedans, and Lyrans. Backlash? As far as I can tell, conjectural ships are not only alive and well, but positively thriving in SFB.
You argue that the "primary fighter using races" don't have problems rearming their fighters if the carrier goes down. But surely the Gorns and Tholians, both of whom have great trouble rearming fighters if the carrier goes down (and both of whom have great PFs but generally weak fighters), would take a long hard look at Strike PFTs, and maybe reconsider whether their initial decision not to build such ships might not have been a little hasty.
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