New Mission for Hospital Ships

(4LB.0) Healing Prime Teams: Wounded Prime teams may be restored per F&E rules in (522.5) or by spending one complete turn on a hospital ship at no EP cost. The PT must be on the Hospital Ship at the beginning and end of the turn the PT cannot move to or from the Hospital ship during the turn it is being healed.

Rational: Prime Teams contain a small number of sentient beings, much smaller than a G unit or IGCE. Hospital Ships in combat (451.32) can restore such units to full functionality “immediately” including PTs used in supporting G missions. While a wounded Prime Team may include the deaths of sentient beings. These units would also have personal transferring in and out due to promotions, permanent injury, and other non-game considerations regardless of the status of the Prime Team as a whole.

Lawerence Bergen originally wrote the concept for the above rule for an EB scenario and all credit should go to him. The proposed rule for F&E came about from the discussion we had regarding the existing Hospital Ship rule (451.32)

By Michael Parker (Protagoras07) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 11:11 am: Edit

Thomas,

I have actually thought alot about this topic in general terms, and I think there is a problem with the core assumptions.

While a Prime Team is listed as wounded I think that is mostly a nicely framed convenience. In combat a Hospital ship can 'heal' a wounded prime team, this seems to me to be a very proximate in time issue. In other words because the prime team got 'shot up' in the battle and dedicated hospital ship is in the battlehex, one surmises the prime team receives immediate medical aid that prevents most of the personell in the team from perishing. However, if a Hospital ship is not proximate in time and locaton to the Prime Team when its 'wounded' I think that then means some or all of the prime teams key personell have perished, requiring they be replaced.

So the problem then to my mind is that it makes little sense to say a Hospital ship can do anything for a wounded Prime Team after the fact. I don't believe the wounded actually means team members with bandages in traction, but rather literally key members that have now died. It would honestly to me at least make more sense the wounded prime team spent a turn on a troop ship 'recruiting and training' new members rather than on a hospital ship.

Mostly this seems useful for Prime Teams on survey missions, and perhaps something to allow a hospital ship to be assigned to the Survey area should be considered.. but unless I miss the mark on what I believe the 'wounded' status of a prime team to be, I cannot see how a Hospital ship could logically be used as you suggest.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 11:26 am: Edit

Wounded could mean disabled, and disabled could be anything that prevents them from operating effectively.

By ROBERT l cALLAWAY (Callaway) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 11:52 am: Edit

Hospital ships seem few and far between the odds that a prime time and a Hospital ship are within range of one another would be small, on the other hand a warships sickbay would be more likey advailable to them

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Random thoughts...

I too have given this a bit of thought...

I am sure we could figure out another way to do this in the field or at a SB but I was also looking to make more use of the Hospital ships so that we would see use/construction beyond the original starting forces.

There are many more ways to damage PTs now than when they were introduced. They were primarily used in combat situations...the raid pool/espionage starts (mostly) in the capital.

IMO the price is too high (currently) to fix them...IMO it should be 50% of original cost (5.0 * 50% = 2.5 EP)...after all that is what base repair on a ship costs...Most players would rather build a FF or repair a DD/DW/CL hull rather than a PT for the same cost...you can start a new colony for the same price as fixing a PT. Ideally I would like to see even lower repair costs of about 1.5 EPs (or even 1.0) using the existing method of repair.

My original proposal for Espionage was much cheaper in upfront cost and the final draft raised it up a bit. I always thought that as a result, the price to fix a PT should go down in order to promote the use of the missions.

I think that the field (non-raid/espionage) use of them should have some method of repair in the field. This proposed rule considered all of what you guys are saying and built in repair at a cost of time (Zero EP's)...they are out of action for 6 months in the field. Plenty of time for the team to be replenished. Damaged in spring...out of action while healing/training/whatever in the fall...back to action in the spring at zero cost.

Survey is offmap and combat is in the field...moving them around in a game this big is one of those things that usually the "non-counting" crew wants to solve within the game (even with APT/PTR were introduced).

I understand that it is not like the Marine forces where you have..."Well it looks like Charlie here isn't going to make it...better let the Andorian Consulate know his nephew isn't going to be coming home for Christmas...Hey YOU!...Yes, YOU...you are the new weapons guy on the team...get your gear...you leave in 10 for the USS G Williker, report to your CO in shuttle bay 6, deck 24...in 5."

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 03:07 pm: Edit

The thing is, IMO, why couldn't a vanilla SB do the same thing as a Hospital Ship?

Surely, 1 of the 6 B-Modules will be a "Hospital Module".

By Bill Stec (Billstec2) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 03:44 pm: Edit

How about a rule wherein if you had a hospital ship in the support echelon and a friendly ship was destroyed, you got X amount of EP back due to more of the crew surviving?

Say you have a CA destroyed, maybe .5 to 1 eps back due to improved crew survival - trained crews are expensive and of course there are never enough...you could make it variable depending on the hull class of the destroyed ship, but that's complicating things.

Of course the ep reward is negotiable.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 06:02 pm: Edit

Hospital ships don't have better facilities for a few than any cruiser, they have facilities for large numbers. I think any cruiser or base could do for a Prime Team what a Hospital Ship could do.

Now, throw in a Legendary Doctor and that is a different matter.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Scott: Exactly...but again I was looking for a way to use the H ships a bit.

Bill: not sure...

Loren: Yes, large numbers, planetary numbers. I am sure there would be at least one group of specialists on the H-ship that would each meet or exceed the skills of any ships chief med officer and very likely approach the level of any single LD.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Loren, part of facilities is the staff on hand. A cruiser in your example has a much smaller of number of doctors and nurses. Most of whom will be general practioners and not specialists.

A Hospital ship would have have a much larger staff of doctors and nurses. Many of whom would be specialists in various fields of study in medicine.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 01:27 pm: Edit

A Prime Team is a group of ten men, women, and sentient things. Since a standard cruiser is equipped to handle many more casualties (on the order of five to ten times that as a result of combat), from cuts and scrapes to massive epidermal burns to would-be fatal internal injuries, I think a hospital ship tending to the care of a Prime Team is overkill (so to speak).

A war cruiser might be the level where care starts to decrease but probably not by much at that level.

Indeed, a cruiser is likely to have the most cutting edge medical facilities although may not work with as many experimental proceedures as a hopsital ship or starbase (or major planet), although a cruiser, by nature of being "out there" does tend to run accross to more strange new diseases and injuries than, say a hospital ship would. Depending on the nature of a Prime Teams mission, it might be better to have an experienced field madical officer at hand than doctors used to treating large numbers.

It seems to me that these are well equipped and trained straight doctors ready to deal with mass casualties, with a select number of specialists and a lot of interns. I would suggest that a hospital ship is not better at it's job than a starbase would be, except that it is mobile.

So, if you want to give a Hospital ship that abilities medical of a starbase, that makes sense. If an ability doesn't exist, it should exist for starbases first.

A "Heal a Prime Team" ability should be able to be used if any reasonably sized ship can deliver that Prime Team to a starbase or Hospital ship.

This means that in places where a retreat could not reach a starbase then if a hospital ship is nearby you could go there.

It seems reasonable that hospital ships would be deployed near battle fronts because of devestated planets.

So if the enemy devestates a planet, it allows the defender to deploy a hospital ship in that area, which by proxy, increases the survivability of Prime Teams operating in the area.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Loren, I think the idea is that the hospital ship is THERE and can treat casulties that would die without IMMEDIATE help.

So the primes get saved in the nick of time.

So an entire hospital ship can function like a single legendary doctor.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 07:01 pm: Edit

I don't think this a valid idea. Hospital ships treat MASS casualties. As for the questions about the cost of repair, those would go into a proposed changes topic, not a barely related proposal.