(520.7) Deathrider PFs
(520.71) Late in the war, several empires (the Federation being a notable exception) transformed some of their PFs by stuffing them full of explosives and ramming them into enemy positions by remote control. Combined with the traditional Special Attack Forces, these were designated as SPFs.
(520.72) Empires may create SPFs on the second turn of PF deployment. They add 3EPs to the cost of an SAF.
(520.73) SPFs have the effect of adding 2 SIDS steps to the basic damage an SAF produces. This is reduced to 1 additional SIDS step when disrupted.
(520.74) Using an SPF fills up one of the ship equivalents available for attrition units.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 01:17 pm: Edit

Not a bad idea, but too strong.

I suggest 1 extra SIDS step if not disrupted.
A fair bit more damage to disrupt them (12?).
No extra damage if disrupted.
Uses 1 ship equivalent of attrition.

This would indirectly "force" a defender to direct on one PF squadron at 1:1 on top of the regular SAF or accept an additional SIDS. The penalty the attacker pays is that those PFs have no compot.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 10:52 am: Edit

Not bad...I like the proposed changes DS has.

I think to spend 3 EP and have it only absorb a few points of damage (from being directed on) seems a bit of a heavy cost.

What about giving it a general offensive compot to add?
Or maybe some form of attrition causing damage against opposing fighters (3 or 6) or PFs (2) (disrupted or not)?

By John de Michele (Johnad) on Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 12:28 pm: Edit

I think the whole point of death riders is that they are unmanned. How about reducing the cost by half, i.e., 1.5 eps, to reflect that you're not spending any money training a crew?

John.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, May 22, 2009 - 07:38 am: Edit

I would disagree.

The explosives would cost a lot, and you still have to get the PFs there. And if you reduce the cost to 1.5Eps, this is way too good. As it is, it effectively costs nothing - 3EPs are what you pay for the PFs anyway, and you have a situation where you are forcing the enemy to direct on an attrition unit - which is very, very strong even at 1:1.

By Dave Butler (Dcbutler) on Friday, May 22, 2009 - 12:40 pm: Edit

This is probably one of those "subsumed into refits" things (i.e. late-war SAFs invisibly include Deathrider PFs). Regardless, it's an interesting concept. Some thoughts:

1) David Slatter is correct; 2 SIDS is too good.
2) There needs to be some indication of whether or not the cost to disrupt an "SPF" is greater than the cost to disrupt a SAF.

Specific suggestions:

1. One must pay the full cost for the deathriders; the production lines for free PFs aren't set up for such "custom" jobs, nor can you convert existing PFs to deathriders (cheaper to build them outright).
2. Rather than a flat +1 SIDS, make it a modifier to the die roll in (520.42); damage to the deathriders would reduce the the modifier. Perhaps +3, reduced by 1 for every two deathriders destroyed.
3. If suggestion (2) is used, then the SAF and the deathriders could be targeted independantly, but as part of the same directed damage. Defenders would still disrupt the SAF portion, but could choose to not reduce the modifier.
4. Deathriders only count as a single factor (same as a fighter) for the purposes of X-ship attrition (predictable flight paths). I strongly doubt that anyone would use them as a shield for their combat PFs/fighters, but it's best to be sure.
5. [edit] The more I think about it, the more preferable it seems to have the deathriders seperate from the SAF. (This forces the use of a PFT or CPF to carry them.) As partial compensation, allow deathriders present without a SAF to roll on the "disrupted" column for SAFs. (Probably with a -1 to the roll, -2 if "crippled", -3 if "destroyed".) If present with a SAF, they add to its die roll.
6. [edit] It should be clearly stated that deathriders provide zero COMPOT.

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Friday, May 22, 2009 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Aren't Death Riders supposed to be PFs that have reached the end of their useful life?

By Dave Butler (Dcbutler) on Friday, May 22, 2009 - 04:48 pm: Edit

(K7.0) says that most were, but that many were new construction. So, fair enough, it should be possible to use existing PF factors to reduce the cost.

Having just reread (K7) the thought occurs that since Death-Riders can be targeted on actual ships (if one's willing to abide by (K7.3)), there might be an argument for some mechanic for attacking ships.

Given that controlled Death-Riders can fire weapons (at most two per turn), they might not have zero COMPOT after all.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, May 23, 2009 - 07:18 am: Edit

Haven't yet played with PF's (no game has reached that far) - but I wouldn't like another attacking unit to be basically get to add Compot, force the enemy to direct on it AND have a beneficial benefit in SID's attacks - it's just too much!

i.e. - 2 of the 3 (at a cost), yes, but more than that it becomes an autobuild.

By jason murdoch (Jmurdoch) on Saturday, May 23, 2009 - 09:46 am: Edit

As deathriders are remote control should not the Electronic Warfare enviroment come into play? It is pretty hard to send a signal and receive telementry when someone is jamming ones signals. And in the chaos of battle who is stearing the deathriders? Should a scout (possibly in the support echlon) be assigned to controlling the death riders.
Two SIDs is too much as any spare tractors on the base will be used to keep them away in preferance to drone

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 23, 2009 - 12:45 pm: Edit

Better check the SFB rules. I see no way for anything to interfere with the signals controlling a deathrider, suicide freighter, or a drone.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, May 25, 2009 - 06:06 am: Edit

Reading Dave Butler's post, I have to agree. Deathriders should probably be subsumed into a late-war SAF upgrade.

Stopping a SAF of freighters would be very much easier late-war with all the extra firepower on hand. Simply adding more freighters would not work well due to the extra costs that would incur, and the effects on command limits.
The SAFs would need deathrider upgrades to simply maintain thier ability to threaten anything at all.

One other question? Can the SAF's use EA for anti-trac, or are they entirely like a drone? becuase if they fill out any kind of EA, they would be very hard to stop with tractor beams.

By Dave Butler (Dcbutler) on Monday, May 25, 2009 - 12:56 pm: Edit

According to the last paragraph of (R1.33C) (from module R1), "a suicide freighter will repeat the Energy Allocation written by the crew at the start of the turn they evacuated."

(Death-Riders get to fill out a new EA form every turn, but have a priority system for what they must pay for.)

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Monday, May 25, 2009 - 08:41 pm: Edit

An alternate proposal for Death-Riders:

Starting on the PF3 turn, a player may designate one PF flotilla per battle force as Death-Riders. This could be a casual or partial flotilla. The conversion from normal PFs is done by the dedicated staff.

The Death-Rider flotilla is treated as a mauler (308.4), with a strength equal to normal value of the flotilla (up to 12). The Death-Rider flotilla can be used as the single directed attack (308.44).

The Death-Rider flotilla is automatically destroyed in the attack. This damage is not counted against either directed or voluntary damage. (The death-riders blow themselves up.)

By Dave Butler (Dcbutler) on Monday, May 25, 2009 - 09:35 pm: Edit

I'm not sure that we need more directed damage. Still, I'd been thinking along those lines for a "what's the most powerful rule that I could be convinced to accept" thought experiment. Based on that, some comments on using DRs as DirDam against anything that isn't a base:

• If it's at no cost (beyond the cost of a regular flotilla), it's a non-starter in my book.
• There has to be a method of directing on the DRs before they impact (they're soft enough targets that they shouldn't be too difficult to destroy).
• Whatever the method of direction is, it can't take up the director's one DirDam (it's just too good to force a direct on attrition units).
• There has to be some Battle Force composition requirements on the attacker: each DR takes up control channels (based on AuxCon for ships with half-sensor control!).
• There should be some BIR obligation on the force using DRs: the controling ships have to stay within 10 SFB hexes of their DRs. This implies that those ships must close to within 10 hexes of the target, which is awfully close to knife-fighting range.
• There should probably be an extra vulnerability of the controlling ship(s) to Directed Damage.
• The DRs should have reduced COMPOT (they can only fire two weapons a turn), probably no more than 50% (I prefer zero compot, but allows permits a second direction, if any DRs survive).

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 12:00 am: Edit

hmmm -

Cost, it's seems mainly software rather than hardware (other than the anti-matter needed), but could have a cost of 0.5 EP (total) to cover the anti-mater...

directing - if its part of the SAF, increase the SAF D by 1 per DPF added up to 5 (similar to the CPFs) [add 1.5/DPF ?]...

Directing, there must be six 'consorts' to take the SAF to its target (520.4) so that should be enough control channels...

BIR requirement - the SAF is BIR 4 already (520.4)...

vulnerability - there are six ships with the SAF/DPF, crippling a controlling ship (assuming one ship per DPF) one would not disrupt the DPF formation, nor the SAF...

DAMAGE: non-disrupted DPFs add 1 SIDS, disrupted DPFs add 1 SIDS on a separate roll of 5 or 6 (not on the SAF roll)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 11:41 am: Edit

Not saying it's how I'd go, but the simple solution is "After Y182, all SAFs are really death riders but they work exactly the same way."

By Mike Curtis (Fear) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 12:22 pm: Edit

You have to love the KISS principle

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 12:35 pm: Edit

KISS principal? You mean stick out your tongue and sing, "I...wanna rock and roll all night"?

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 02:30 pm: Edit

>"After Y182, all SAFs are really death riders
>but they work exactly the same way."

Except for the Feds, who still use feighters with military engines, Skids and Ducktails plus workboats filled with marines.

;:-)

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 10:06 pm: Edit

"After Y182, all SAFs are really death riders but they work exactly the same way."

Hmmm, could tie it to an empire's PF3 (one year after?)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Sure, not that it matters, but sure, fine, ok, tie it to PF3. Nobody ever had a hard and fast list of what is really in a SAF in the first place, so if you want to imagine it has death riders strting in PF3, knock yourself out!

By jason murdoch (Jmurdoch) on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - 02:41 pm: Edit

SVCs made this irrelevent but in the interests of being complete:
Going back to the issue of the EW enviroment
Rule K7.334 says that the controling ship must have a lock on to the Death Riders or they go inert.
So there must be a controlling ship and should its (sensor/scanner?) track be damaged and there is a change in the electronic enviroment there is a chance the lock on may be lost

By Grant Strong (Phoenix) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 11:10 am: Edit

Actually, Steve might be onto something. If Death Rider SAF’s have a greater operational movement speed than the current 3, SAFs would become useful again in the late war. Using the KISS method, a short rule saying something along the lines of, “After PF3 a given race’s SAFs may move X hexes a turn.” “X” being 4-6 moves depending on what would be balanced.
The problem with SAFs in the late war is their high cost of 10 and the only fixed defenses left are over capitals or Coalition/Gorn SBs which are usually 4-6 hexes away from the nearest supply node.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 10:10 pm: Edit

Why would they move faster, unless you committed a PFT to each SAF?

I mean, otherwise the Deathriders should only have an operation move of one hex away from a base or PFT, like any other PF.

(And if the PFT was an auxiliary, then we're back to slow speeds again.)

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Friday, May 29, 2009 - 02:55 pm: Edit

>The problem with SAFs in the late war is their
>high cost of 10 and the only fixed defenses
>left are over capitals or Coalition/Gorn SBs
>which are usually 4-6 hexes away from the
>nearest supply node.

*Cough*
Logistical Task Force
*Cough*

*Cough*
Military Convoy
*Cough*