Using shuttles as wild weasels/scatterpacks makes sense in terms of a one-off emergency solution to a problem, but it seems likely that as their tactical uses became more standardized that specific equipment would be developed and deployed.

As a Commander's Option, a ship may replace a single administrative shuttle with a pair of Weasel Pods. Both pods are stored in a single shuttle box and are destroyed if the box is destroyed. Weasel Pods act and are deployed exactly like normal Wild Weasels, except that they are destroyed by 4 points of damage.

As Commander's Option, a ship normally capable of using scatterpacks may replace a single administrative shuttle with a pair of Scatter Pods. Both pods are stored in a single shuttle box and are destroyed if the box is destroyed. The scatter pods are initially loaded with their own load of drones, which can be upgraded for extra cost as normal, within the normal drone purchasing limits. Scatter pods can hold 6 spaces worth of drones, exactly as for normal admin shuttle scatterpacks. Scatter pods are always loaded and available at the start of a scenario unless the scenario states otherwise. Scatter pods otherwise act and are deployed exactly like Scatterpacks, except that they are destroyed by 4 points of damage. Scatter pods may be retrieved and reloaded from the ship's normal store of drones following the standard rules for scatterpacks. A Scatter Pod's drones can be unloaded following the normal procedure for use in the ship's own launchers.

A qualified ship may carry both Weasel and Scatter Pods, trading in two admin shuttles. No ship may replace more than half its administrative shuttles with pods, so if a ship quallified to carry both Weasel and Scatter pods only had 2 or 3 shuttles, it could only replace one shuttle with Weasel or Scatter pods. Likewise, a ship with a single admin shuttle could not use pods at all.

Pods are always unmanned and can not be flown in an inactive mode from one ship to another. They may be rolled out of the shuttle bay while inactive and retrieved for use by a diferent ship via tractor beam.

Weasel Pods cost 5(?) BPV for the pair.

Scatter Pods cost 5(?) BPV for the pair, plus the cost to upgrade any of the drones.

By Kevin M. McCollum (Sfbl5r) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:39 am: Edit

Let me get this straight, a ship commander, who may or may not see a battle in a given cruise, is going to trade in a highly versatile shuttle for something that is very limited?

Looks like you are trying to add drones to ships with limited reload drones.

Give it a rest. Please.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:45 am: Edit

I should have added that Pods are generaly only used when a ship 'knows' it's going to be in combat. i.e. Not when on a generic patrol/convoy escort/surprised mission/scenario. During wartime, they would be allocated exclusively to frontline units.

By Andrew C. Cowling (Andrew) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:45 am: Edit

Fascinating idea...

Regarding the Scatter Pod: you may wish to consider the fact that at present, Plasma-D scatter-pack application is limited to shuttles normally armed with D-torps (MRS and Fighters), and restricted to their normal load-out. If I could buy Scatter-D-Pods as substitutes for Admin Shuttles, they would go onto all my carrier escorts faster than you can say "knife". I would also be desperately attempting to beg, borrow, or steal them for every other ship in the fleet.

(You may also wish to look at the discussions on Drogues - I think it is in the J2 New Product Development Thread.)

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:49 am: Edit

Thanks for the clairification Andrew. I'll edit out the Plasma D references.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 12:07 pm: Edit

Stephen Fairfield:

Care to explain precisely why any non-drone using member of the Joint Chiefs of Fleets is going to say yea to giving the drone using races up to twelve extra spaces of drones preloaded on a pair of scatterpacks that are apparently ready to launch at Weapons Status Zero for the cost of buying five spaces of drones? If I were to just buy the drones it would cost me 12 BPV before any improvements, and here you are giving me essentially seven spaces of drones and two launch platforms for two BPV (the cost of the admin shuttle I am trading in).

I have been a Klingon player for a long time, and I can tell you that I would vote to quash this.

By Robert Cole (Zathras6) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 12:10 pm: Edit

Also this sounds somewhat similar to the Drogues currently in development for J2...

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 12:25 pm: Edit

Lets see how the Drogues work out before we start pursuing this. Keep it in the back burner for now.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:00 pm: Edit

My only comments:

Kevin, I can tell you one reason a commander would use this instead of a shuttle; because destroying an expensive, high-tech shuttle in order to do either of these jobs is a waste of a shuttle. I mean, I use them too...but if someone offered me a cheaper alternative to blowing up one of my shuttles, I'd take it. Not that I think this rule can be used in its present form, but the reasoning behind it is solid, I think.

SPP: Game, set and match, I think. Unless there is some other way to balance this, it does favor the drone races/plasma races in a significant way. I'm with Kenneth...let's see how the drogues work.

By John de Michele (Johnd) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:05 pm: Edit

I don't know...taking a 50-point R on a shuttle seems to be pretty cheap compared to taking a 50-point R on your ship. I would have to agree with Mike and Ken, though; let's see how drogues work first.

John.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Mr. Petrick,

Perhaps I wasn't clear (or am not clear in my own thinking). They way I intended it to work was that the Scatter pods would cost 5 + the cost of the 12 spaces of drones carried by the two pods.

Scatter Pods could be required to spend 1 or 2 turns being fed threat data and being programmed, so that they would only be fully available if the scenario started at WS-III.

Since they are smaller than admin shuttles, perhaps they could be limited to 4 spaces of drones. Note that since they only take 4 points to kill, they are a bit easier for an enemy ship to destroy before the pod can launch

As to why non-drone Fleets would allow scatter pods (assuming the above restrictions are applied to make them more balanced)?

1) It's logical (I think) in terms of in game weapons development. Captain A uses a scatterpack as a one time firepower multiplier in a desparate situation. The maneuver is so successful that it's quickly copied by everyone that can. Eventually it becomes a standard tactic and a standardized platform is designed to make use of it so Captains can stop wasting expensive admin shuttles.

2) They can get Weasel Pods to offset the Scatter Pods, though admittedly the cost and the drawbacks of weaseling may not make this anybody's favorite solution.

I confess to detesting drones in general (except on Kzinti, who I don't play, but usually play against with my Lyrans), and I proposed this idea mostly for the Weasel Pods (which I notice have raised no objections yet). But I couldn't think of any reason why, if wild weasels were standardized, that scatter packs wouldn't be as well, so I included the Scatter pods in the proposal as well. Which is certainly not a reason to support them of course. Perhaps, for whatever reason, scatterpacks can't be turned into a standard option.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:26 pm: Edit

Stephen Fairfield:

You said: "Perhaps I wasn't clear (or am not clear in my own thinking). They way I intended it to work was that the Scatter pods would cost 5 + the cost of the 12 spaces of drones carried by the two pods."

The text of your proposal said: "The scatter pods are initially loaded with their own load of drones, which can be upgraded for extra cost as normal, within the normal drone purchasing limits."

and

"Scatter Pods cost 5(?) BPV for the pair, plus the cost to upgrade any of the drones."

There is nothing in the orignal text of the proposal that says the drones are purchased above the cost of the pods, merely that upgrading the drones will cost extra BPV.

Consequently, I fear, and I apologize if I was in error, that the only way I could read that was the way I did read it.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Mr. Petrick,

No appology is necessary. The error was mine and your concern was well founded.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 01:34 pm: Edit

John:

Sure...but if you can take a 50 point R on a cheap, disposable pod, it beats trashing your shuttle. I agree, though, that it beats getting your shipped creamed by a 50 point R.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 02:03 pm: Edit

*sigh*

The problem with most proposals like this is that you will have to increase the opposing technology as well to maintain balance.

Like extra plasma psuedoes for instance. Or antidrones. Or phaser Gs. Then people complain there are too many pseudoes/phaserGs/antidrones on ships to fight without scatterpods....and it goes on and on.

I would think this one is dead on arrival for exaclty that reason.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 02:18 pm: Edit

Geoff,

I agree with you up to a point. I don't know what the situation was way back when, but I assume there were similar problems when Wild Weasels and Scatterpacks were introduced.

I think all my proposal does for WW is give the ships (admins shuttles +1) potential weasels, 2 of which are easier for the seeking weapon ship to phaser down.

For the scatter pods, they give the ship the ability to put out 8 drones, 4 per pod, only 2 more than a normal scatterpack, and the pod is easier to kill prior to release than a 'real' scatterpack. Yes, it has the added benefit of not drawing on the deploying ship's store of drones, but I think that's less important as drone ships upgrade their racks and carry more reloads.

I guess my point is that I don't think any new offense (for Weasel Pods) or defense (for Scatter Pods) is needed.

And these are a lot more limited (and less expensive admittedly) than the drogues being discussed for J2.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Stephen W. Fairfield:

"Yes, it has the added benefit of not drawing on the deploying ship's store of drones, but I think that's less important as drone ships upgrade their racks and carry more reloads."

Well, on that score I disagree. Running out of drones is always a big problem for drone ships. They do not carry enough NOW. One of the reasons I go for an MRS shuttle when I run a drone-armed cruiser is the extra drones it brings with it.

My MRS shuttles tended not to last long in combat (mostly because my opponents gradually figured out that the shuttle I dropped thirty hexes away was there to control drones, allowing my cruiser to use Erratic Maneuvers at need). I learned a long time ago not to bring an MRS into close combat until the battle was almost over. But I have gotten a lot of value out of the extra drones, and its service as a drone control platform (although watching a Fed narrow salvo three proximity photons at one was an interesting effect . . . and annoying because he got it).

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 03:47 pm: Edit

Allowing that the Scatter Pod does offer an advantage by coming with it's drones, does 5 + the cost of the drones seem a fair price to pay for that, or would it be more appropriate that the pods be supplied unloaded with the ship's captain having to decide whether to devote part of his limited drone stores to the pods (i.e. be loaded exactly like normal scatter packs, except for the smaller capacity)?

By Jonathan Perry (Jonathan_Perry) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Is there some way to request a moratorium on new weapons for the existing alpha races? This is a general question, and not specifically directed at Stephen or his proposal.

By Kevin M. McCollum (Sfbl5r) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 04:17 pm: Edit

I want to second that motion. This is getting ridiculous.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 04:40 pm: Edit

Come folks, this is the Proposals Board -> New Rules. No one obligates you to stop in and read our pointless babbling. We don't waste anybody's time but our own, and those interested enough by a topic to follow it.

I trust that Mr. Petrick and Mr. Cole have been at this long enough that you needn't fear them adopting anything posted here on a whim, so it's not necessary for you to waste your own time reading this section of the board and posting arguements against this or that proposal.

I think SFB is quite a good rules system, one that I enjoy tweaking in various ways to see what happens. Occasionally I think of something that I think may be of interest to other rules-tinkerers and post it. I realize that the chance of any proposal actually being incorporated officially is infinitesmally different from zero.

To be perfectly honest, I agree that the game doesn't need tweaking. But needing something, and having fun doing it are two different things.

The only way I see anything here being "officialy" adopted would be if, at sometime in the distant future, the less wild ideas proposed here got collected into a hypothetical Module Z (Optional Rules) along with such traditional experimental/optional rules like the Positron Flywheel or Hidden Cloaking.

In short, we're not hurting anyone, so please feel free to ignore us.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 04:50 pm: Edit

I have to support Stephen W. Fairfield on this. This IS the proposals board topic, and the whole point is to allow people the opportunity to make their case. And, as he has noted, just because someone makes a proposal, it does not mean that SVC will incorporate it into SFB.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 05:41 pm: Edit

Think of this as the brain-storming area. People throw all kinds of wild ideas up here, most of them not viable. But on rare occasions you DO stumble onto the kernel of a good idea that can be developed into something actually useful.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:19 pm: Edit

I agree with you up to a point. I don't know what the situation was way back when, but I assume there were similar problems when Wild Weasels and Scatterpacks were introduced.

Thats what prompted the introduction of pseudoes and add racks in the first place, more or less.

I think all my proposal does for WW is give the ships (admins shuttles +1) potential weasels, 2 of which are easier for the seeking weapon ship to phaser down.

Double the potential weasels it would normally have you mean. And once its out, it has more than likely already done its job.

I guess my point is that I don't think any new offense (for Weasel Pods) or defense (for Scatter Pods) is needed.

Sorry but I disagree, for historical and balance reasons.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 04:27 am: Edit

Jonathan and Kevin: So thats it? We're done? No more changes for the alpha quadrant? Nothing new to try? No new dynamics?

I hope not. When the ADD came out, we were all over it. When drougs come out we'll be trying those. I like the game evolving. Lets toss around ideas and see if something works.