Archive through April 26, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
New Defense PDU configurations. Stellar Shadows idea.:
Archive through April 26, 2005
Currently, the organizational structure of PDU and accumulations of Defense Battalions are linear and can be described as "square" type units.
2 Battalions to the Regiment, 2 regiments to the Brigade and so on.
Limits on the total number of battalions on any given "world" are no more than 6 per minor world, no more than 10 btns on a Major World, and no more than 20 to a capital world.
For a Stellar Shadows F&E variation... what if a race elected to adopt a "triangular" style formation?
2 ways to approach the subject...
first, if 3 battalions to the Regiment... and 3 regiments to the Brigade, and 3 Brigades to the Division and 3 Divisions to the Corps... would (ultimately) mean little change to F&E... and hence just a semantic difference in view of the limits to how many individual battalions could be present on a world... tactically the difference would be a cost increase to how many fighters (or PF's) were present in a hex given the change in the organization of PDU's...
The second option would be to increase the number of battalions allowed on each minor world, major world and capital world.
the new limits (along with the triangular formations) would be 9 btns per minor world, 15 btns on a major world and 30 btns to a capital world.
Any change in the Table of organization would only result after the race doing the change becomes active in the General war... and the normal starting units would remain the same on all planets and PDU's...
its just that the race "deciding" to go triangular would then have the ability to exceed the maximum number of battalions they could build on the worlds in their empire(compared to the established limits per the normal rules).
This would expand the number of battalions, but also increase the number of fighters and PF's available in each battle hex that had such a Triangular Unit in it.
IIRC each Minor world "starts" the game with 4 btns. that would be 12 COMPOT (3 per btn for 4 btns) and 24 Fighter factors (6 per btn and 4 btns). if the owning race expanded the defenses agressively, they could have (at max) 9 btns (3 more than the normal rules allow) for 36 COMPOT from the btns, 72 Fighter Factors, or a combined total of 108 COMPOT before such other items (like star bases or ships or nonship units) could be added in.
Such an option would not materially benefit the Alliance as the Hydrans and the Kzintis do not have the economic resorces to build up to the current maximums (and build the full capacity of ship production and repair battle damage)... but such a change would be a huge advantage to the Coalition in the late game when defending against the Clliance counter attacks.
Such an advantage would seem to be worth a lot in Options points, but with out play testing it would be difficult to quantify it. a guess would be such a option should be worth +20 atleast...perhaps more?
disdvantages:
1. increased cost to moving PDU's so would need a regular tug mission, plus a LTT. (1.5 capacity, not just a single tug mission.
2. econ points spent on what is essentially a defensive mission. If the goal is defeating the enemy, points might be better spent on ships, if you are forced into a defensive strategy...recognise that you are losing the war...and this is the best way to "soak" the attacker with massive cassualties.
3. Psychological...make the defenses at a capital world so incredibly strong that no one would even dare try to devastate the world because the expected casaulty rate on the attacking ships will approach 100%.
Advantages:
1. in "theory" if your opponent makes a practice of attacking heavily fortified and entrenched positions with large frontal assaults... you can attrition so many ships from his fleet that you would be able to recover the strategic initiative...and so long as he also doesnt adopt the triangular structure...you would be at a comparative advantage when attacking his worlds...maybe.
2. by using the "free fighter" replacements for lost fighter factors (assuming the defense battalions that the fighters were attached to survive) you can trade your enemies ships for "cheap" attrition units on your worlds... the problem is the enemy has to do what you want him to do... and there is no guarantee that you will have a cooperative foe.
Using this option will materially strengthen the coalition defenses while providing little help to the alliance in the early historical game.
Might have some benefit for non historical games...but unless the smaller races (such as the Kzinti and the Hydrans) have both time and econ points to upgrade the defenses...it will not grant them the same level of use as larger races (Lyrans, Klingons Fed or Romulan).
Tholians are a special case. (see webs)
A particularly vicious variant would be to allow the initial starting forces to be "triangular" (basically ad 50% to all PDUs at start.
this would be a material aid to the Hydrans and Kzintis. should only be used when there is a HUGE disparity between the knowledge and experience of the players...with the less experineced players playing the Kzinti and Hydran races.
Jeff, that would probably skew the game balance to the breaking point. Even as a game-balance option, I think it might be too much. Plus it could teach bad habits to new players. Of course, one never knows unless it's playtested.
Garth L. Getgen
Going from a binary to a trinary organization would make more sense, militarily, though I would point out that, in that case, the terms 'regiment' and 'brigade' are effectively interchangable, and the brigade would actually be eliminated (or should be), so that the hierarchy would be 3 battalions to the regiment, 3 regiments to the division, and then 2-3 divisions to the corps.
Instead of increasing the number of battalions, however, which won't fly, for a host of reasons (I can already hear the assumptions about how this is all a plot to make the Alliance harder to defeat), why not introduce benefits for having higher organization levels present, in a manner similar to how the leader rule works with ships?
Regiments would get a +1 attack, brigades +2.
That would serve to represent the fact that, as units reach higher and higher levels of organization, they become greater than the sum of their parts. A regiment has assets attached to it that individual battalions do not posess. Brigades have similar advantages over regiments that regiments have over battalions.
Garth and John:
That is why I suggested it as a stellar Shadows variant... it would "break" a normal game.
But IIRC SSJ is where off the wall things can be suggested...
Now, Johns suggestion of increasing the (guessing) the COMPOT of a PDU based on the "level" of organization that it is at might be an intriging variation...
say single Planetary Defense Battalions (PDB) with a 3 COMPOT, 6 fighters factors (as a result of going "triangular) gains a "quality" bonus of +1.
so the nominal bonus point could be used to satisfy a single point of damage?!? adds to thetotal COMPOT that the unit generates? some other effect?
if a regiment (normally has 2 battalions) would gain +2? and a brigade, (normally has 6 battalions) gains a +3, a division gains +4, and a Corp a +5...
then you'd have to decide how these "nominal points" can be used to resolve casulties...(or if they can...)
there might be some value in making the PDU's more dangerous by increasing the COMPOT that they generate... but leaving the units as vulnerable to directed damage as the current rules allow.
wow.
I'll have to think the ramifications of that over... especially how that would change things (like the Coalition attack on the Hydran Capital world...)
what if the effects were cumulative? say a major world with the equalivant of 16 btns (2 corps organized as 2 corps) would that mean each gets the +5 bonus...so the total is 10 more COMPOT?
PDU already get plenty more effective as you add more.
I hope I don't sound too rude here, but this is starting to sound like a "Dilbert" cartoon - just re-draw the lines on the org chart and productivity magically improves.
The two battalions per regiment, two regiments per brigade, etc, is, I believe, an abstraction for purposes of the game. I don't think it means that this is the way ground forces are actually organized, necessarily. The limition on PDUs deployable to certain locations is a rule to make a game work and has nothing to do with whether a "brigade" actually has 4 battalions, or six, or fifteen in any given Empire's ground forces. The "regiments" and "brigades" in F&E are really coins for making change, nothing more.
I could be wrong (it wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last) but that at least is my understanding of the system.
Alan-
No you dont sound rude, and I agree that just redrawing the organization lines does not magically produce an improvement.
If you go back to the original post, I tried to make that point by saying "would (ultimately) mean little change to F&E... and hence just a semantic difference in view of the limits to how many individual battalions could be present on a world..."
the improvement comes by increasing the total number of battalions in the exsiting unit composition (a 50% increase in each units COMPOT by the simple expedient of ading 50% more battalions).
IOW there would still be battalions, Regiments, Brigades and Divisions and COrps... just 1 extra battalion for every 2 battalions that the system originally called for.
If you want to call it a convention, fine. I think it is a semantic distinction that means very little unless the total limit on how many
battalions can operate on any given minor world, Major World or capital world changes.
Use it, or dont use it, its up to the individual players... but I am suggesting that it can function as a different kind of variable.
(it could also provide for the "instant kill" rule that SVC has sometimes talked about to address the expanded ship counts that some F&E games have reported from time to time.)
Jeff, the quality increase would come about only when a 'full' unit was present. Battalions would get no increase, as they simply don't have the extra support, but when a regiment (or brigade, division, etc) is present, there are elements attached directly to the headquarters (and dispersed throughout the component battalions) that create the greater than the sum of its parts effect.
As to the PDUs representing actual battalions, why not? I never saw anything in the designer's notes to suggest anything different. A PDU battalion is simply the F&E equivalent to a coastal artillery battalion, and would be in line with the scale of the rest of the game (with a G representing a battalion of Marines, for example).
John, Yeah, I can see that.
Just like in the real world, there are "assets" present at division or Corps level that a battalion wouldnt normally have unless they were "reinforced" with such divisional stuff.
That would actually make some sence as (in the RWM) 8 infantry battalions would be basically the same 1 battalion, 8 times over... but at each "increase" in organizational size... certain other equipment, weapons and things become available.
Mortors would get progressively larger as the "Parent" unit increases. say a regiment gains a regimental scout company or a engineer company or even a company of tanks or APC's or even trucks (gound mobile!)
at the Brigade level, you would see smaller howizers instead of mortors, and at the divisional level, rifled artillery (larger size, more range)...
This might actually work for the "regular game" instead of what I suggested.
That was my thinking, yeah. Of course, we'd still have to get around the problem of SFU "history", which doesn't make sense 
John, what about the cumulative effect?
for example, at a capital world (assume normal rules) where the limit is 20 battalions.
using your suggestion where each regiment gains a +1, that would mean 20 battalions organized as 10 regiments would get (IIUC) +10 COMPOT.
does that mean that the 10 regiments organized as 5 brigades (each getting a further +2 bonus?!?) get +10 points more? or by going to the brigade level "just" adds +1 for each brigade?
That would mean the bonus increases by a further +5 (since there would be 5 brigades present).
and if you went to the division level, you could get 2 1/2 divisions (since SFB conventions holds that fractions 0f .4999 get rounded down and fractions of .5000 get rounded up) for a further bonus of +3?
and if the 3 "corps" get combined into 2 Army groups... should the bonus get a further +2?
When all is settled, the acumulated bonus are: +10+5+3+2=20 COMPOT.
Not a lot...but these could be free hits...that a player could give up instead of general damage against his existing PDU's...
a powerful change to the game system.
This is not a good suggestion. PDUs already stack very well above about 8-10 when with a SB. What we need is an incentive for people to put 1-4 PDUs on a planet and then stop.
"What we need is an incentive for people to put 1-4 PDUs on a planet and then stop."
Have the planet fund its own defenses. Additional money, spent only on their own defense, enough to build one PDU per turn up to their normal number (2 PDU for minor, 4 for major). The planet still produces its normal income while doing this.
Should they build defenses while they are devestated? I don't think so, but how will they ever become undevestated if they don't build defenses?
Obviously, captured planets don't build defenses to assist the capturing player.
I really don't see what the deal is here.
PDUs work fine, have had very nice bonuses added over the last several years, and really don't need a tweak, even for Stellar Shadow.
How about you come up with something to replace PDUs as a proposal, something completely different.
such as?
Well, there is the possibliltiy of gound bases (like BATS or a Star Base) physically on the planet...
suppose you "built" a BATS equilvilent on each hex side of a planet...instead of PDU's.
(or just a Base station, since it is some what cheaper that a full BATS)
SFB's rules does allow for such ground based bases like BATS and SB's.
would get expensive...but if you traded the existing PDU for it, it would offset some of the price...
you would end up with something like Gibralter or Correigidor Island or singapore were supposed to be in WW2, heavily entrenched fortifications that would be virtually indestructible to the technology of the day (ie no atom bombs) and provide a safe haven for ships and aircraft to operate freely from the protected bases.
Hmmm
I'll have to think about that one.
intruiging.
If you did not care about planetary devastation, a SB or BATS on a planet would be immensly powerful, simply because the enemy must approach to 5 in order to get a shot.
This would be especailly amusing if said SB happened to have an SFG (assuming SFGs can work in atmosphere).
That is an interesting idea. Would be less powerful COMPOT wise to account for the atmosphere of the planet, but would be harder to kill.
So, a ground based SB would be something like 24-48/12-24. Would be a bear.
CFant, why would a grounded base be degraded by atmosphere, they ignore it (P2.722) except for seeking weapons...
Unless it was built on a small asteroid, the various hex sides of the planet would allow some coverage to multiple approaches (in SFB terms)
so say you built a BATS in hex sides A,C and E... you could have 2 out of 3 BATS shooting at the same target...(or Starbases, if you were willing to spend the econ points for it).
also, Chris' point about atmosphereic effects is well taken...an attacker would have to close to 5 hexes range to be able to "shoot at" the defenses...I suppose that would equate to a higher BIR?!?
man...2 BATS or 2 starbases at 5 SFB hex range?!?
it would toast a B-10...and still have enough other phser IV's to seriously damage a number of other ships...
Gee, who needs a mauler with something like that available?!?!
Stew, you would have to account for the lack of rotation, thus bringing fewer weapons to bare over certain arcs.
I guess the problem for the ground base would be it blind side. The enemy approach that way, and then pop up to say hello with 10 (expendable)ships and 36 fighters. Sure, the SB toasts ~three war cruisers, but then it's toast as well. It would be particularly vulnerable to a pure fighter strike. 72 phas-3s will put a dent even in those shields.
However, you can put down two bases, whereupon you have no blind side. This would be significantly more powerful. It would be an interesting twist on the base stacking rules.
I guess I'd rate a single ground-based BATS something like 10-20/5-10, but it can't use its compot (can use EW) unless the enemy declares BIR 4 and an attempt to target it. It still only has 3 SIDS. Two BATS will mean that one gets to use its compot whatever, both can use EW.
It would be a very good way of making bases more durable without making them overpowerful. Definately worth a rule, especially as it is in SFB.
If you're making ground based BATS/SB so difficult to kill, then why are PDUs so easy to kill?
Andy:
Look at the difference in compot between 1 btn, 4 btns (the most that can be targeted in a single attack (or perhaps I should say combat round), a single BATS, 2 BATS, 1 Starbase and 2 starbases.
IIRC 4 btns have 12 COMPOT, cost 28 Econ points.
compare with the costs of BATS and starbases, then compare with the COMPOT that BATS and STarbases have... I think the reason is because 2 BATS (which would be in 2 different hex sides of the planet) are more resistant from damage than PDU's.
they are bigger targets, and have better shields than what PDU's are equipped with. (especially after the late war upgrades!)
If you wanted to be really tough... combine PDU with a grounded BATS or Star Base... and let the attacker have to choose between attacking 4 or the Btns or the BATS...
They are not that easy if you think about it.
10 points to kill a 3 COMPOT unit. Sure, maulers help here.
40 points at a pop to remove 4 units, then another 24 points of fighters go away.
That is the only real drawback to PDUs, and not something that I would want to see changed, as they are already harder to deal with than they used to be.