HIGH PRIORITY DISPATCH
FROM: ADMIRAL HIGH COMMAND, STAR FLEET

TO: EMPEROR KHAVEK IV

DEAR HONORED ADVESARY,

We have been mostly successful in designing a new unit that will allow use to field larger numbers of the dreaded A20 Heavy Attack fighters. We find that in order to over come a few engineering problems we require a little divine intervention. G.O.D. says we have to get your permission for this. May we have it?

Please contact me so we can discuss this matter further. We are willing to negotiate.

Thank you for your time,

Admiral Star Fleet Command.

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 05:17 pm: Edit

humor/ falls out of chair laughing so hard he can't breath /

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 06:27 pm: Edit

ENGINEERING TECHNICAL ADVISOR, Kalgoney reported:

Sir!, the Widgits the espionage teams imported from that shop in Amarilo Texas, Earth worked.

With enough widgits, we could deploy the B-10 Class battleships!

Unfortunately, we don't have the exact prduction scematics, and havent been able to reverse engineer them.

the cheif spook, err... I mean head of the espionage department said the main contact was sombody named 'Steve'.... do you suppose...?!?

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 08:25 pm: Edit

>Since the Fed ACS is conjectural you have to
>get permission from the enemy to build it.

I believe the F&E rulings to date say you need the opponent's permission to build *more than one* ship type if it is conjectural.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 09:48 am: Edit

Trent: You would be wrong. You can never build any conjectural ship without permission unless there is a specific case (like that Gorn-Rom tradeoff).

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 09:34 am: Edit

So we are now back in the situation I warned you about where the Federation player has hordes of really nice but unusable F&E counters in his counter mix?

I will repeat now what I warned you about earlier:

It is a damned poor marketing decision.

By Oliver Dewey Upshaw III (Oliverupshaw) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 09:39 am: Edit

Trent just put them in the bag with the Gorn and Lyran CVA counters.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 11:10 am: Edit

Hordes? Hordes? Hordes? there's what, one? One is a horde?

We gave them a number of conjectural ships which they can use within the conjectural rules. Given players options to have fun by mutual consent is frankly a great marketing plan. Allowing one player to cheat and force everyone else to use his fantasy rules would be dumb.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 07:12 pm: Edit

Trent is being dramatic again.

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 07:51 pm: Edit

Actually, I agree somewhat with Trent, though I'd broaden that to the counter mix as a whole. Granted, the problem isn't as great when one considers that I'm using, hmm, 3 complete counter mixes, but, still, the numbers of Fed NVL groups, Klingon DV groups, and other counters of similar type leave one baffled, since no player in his right mind would want to come close to building the counter mixes for those.

I realize that the NVL and DV in particular were historical, but they only exist for 2 years of game time (4 turns) before being replaced by the much better NVS and DVS, so why so many of them, unless it was a limitation imposed by certain exingencies of the printing process?

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Saturday, December 11, 2004 - 03:32 am: Edit

Hmm. If one's a horde, maybe it should only be in every 12th copy or so? You know, a "rare" like they do in collectible card games?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 11, 2004 - 12:46 pm: Edit

The problem is that you have a max need at one point in time for a certain unit (say, a DV) and so you have to have that many DV counters. If you convert them to something else ASAP you still had to have them.

I once had a counter-swap topic on this BBS with things like "is there something on the countersheet you would trade for something else". I thought it simple to just make the swaps on the next printing. But no, what happened was....

1. People wanted to eliminate historically required counters and use house rules. That works for the 10% of elite players but not for the other 90%.

2. People wanted to impose their "style" on everybody else by demanding counter changes that would make it impossible to play the game any other way. One guy, for example, decided he would never build D5A SFG ships and wanted all of them removed from the countersheet, but others did want to use them.

I do warn you that this is NOT the topic to discuss swapping counters so don't start or I'll stomp on it.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 05:27 pm: Edit

SVC: I noticed above that you said that the HAC/LAC can carry photons. I don't have the corrections for R8 yet but in R8 the Fed Aux Cruisers can't carry photons making them pretty weak. Can the Fed Aux Cruisers carry Photons??

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 05:49 pm: Edit

I wouldn't know without looking it up. If R8 says no and I said yes, then obviously I was talking without looking it up. What does R8 say? That's all that counts.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 11:41 pm: Edit

R8 lists the weapons they have and lists almost every weapon except the photon. This came up in the after action report thread for R8 and I don't know what became of that issue. If the fed ship can't have photons then this will require different factors for the Fed HAC/LAC then everyone else.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 10:20 am: Edit

I don't regard it as "an issue". The chart says what it says. The R8 after action was published in CapLog and if it didn't give them photons there, they won't ever get them. I don't think you'd have to give them different factors.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 04:34 am: Edit

(AXC.0) AUXILIARY COMBATANT WARSHIPS
Chuck Strong
Based on research of CL30, SFB Module R8 and the R-Sections.


(AXC.1) TYPES

(AXC.11) Small Auxiliary Combatants (SAC): A frigate-like unit based on a single freighter hull. Factors 3-2/1.

(AXC.12) Large Auxiliary Combatants (LAC): A destroyer-like unit based on a double freighter hull. Factors 5-4/2.

(AXC.13) Jumbo Auxiliary Combatants (JAC): A light cruiser-like unit based on a triple freighter hull.
Placeholder note: Currently only the WYNs have versions of triple-hull auxiliaries (Battle Carrier & Battle Control Ship). Notional factors: 7-6/3.

(AXC.14) Heavy Auxiliary Combatants (HAC): A heavy cruiser-like unit based on a quadruple (ore carrier) freighter hull. Factors 9-8/4; Hydran 8(2)/3-4(1).


(AXC.2) PRODUCTION

(AXC.21) Costs: SAC, 2 economic points; LAC, 4 economic points; JAC (notional) 6 economic points; HAC, 8 economic points (Hydran hybrid fighter version, 8+2 economic points).

(AXC.22) Overall Limits: SAC, six per year (eight for Federation, Klingons & ISC; four for Tholians & minor neutrals); may substitute two SAC hulls for one LAC; may substitute three SAC hulls for one JAC (notional); may substitute four SAC hulls for one HAC.

(AXC.23) Locations: Due to the easy of construction and readily available freighter hulls, originally owned and undevastated major planets may build one SAC per year; starbases and stellar fortresses may build one SAC or LAC per turn; all other production take place at the capital shipyard. Overall build limits from (AXC.22) still apply.

(AXC.24) Conversions: Auxiliary combatants may be combined to form larger versions or sub-divided into form smaller versions:

(AXC.241) Up-Scale conversions: LAC; one point; JAC (notional) or HAC two points.

(AXC.241) Down-Scale conversions: one point for any conversion.


(AXC.3) COMBAT

(AXC.31) Operations: Auxiliary combatants participate in combat as any other auxiliary.

(AXC.32) Capture: Auxiliary combatants cannot be captured.

(AXC.33) Cloak: Auxiliary combatants cannot cloak.


(AXC.4) MOVEMENT

(AXC.41) Operational: Auxiliary combatants have an operational movement allowance of three hexes per turn and can enter hexes containing enemy units.

(AXC.42) Reaction: Auxiliary combatants can use reaction movement. While they can react to the movement of enemy units two hexes away using extended reaction, they can only move one hex per turn by reaction movement.

(AXC.43) Retreat: Auxiliary combatants are slow units in retreat.

(AXC.44) Retrograde: Auxiliary combatants can retrograde three hexes.

(AXC.45) Strategic: Auxiliary combatants can use strategic movement but only for a maximum of 12 hexes per turn.

(AXC.46) Reserve: Auxiliary combatants have an reserve movement allowance of three hexes per turn.

(AXC.47) Pinning: Auxiliary combatants cannot pin other ships, however, only SAC/LAC/JAC/HACs can pin any other auxiliary unit or crippled ship. Auxiliary combatants can be pinned as any ship could be.


(AXC.5) OTHER VARIANTS

(AXC.51) Heavy Auxiliary Carrier (HAV): Factors 3-8(12)/1-4(6); cost, 10+12; operates under the same rules for other LAVs.

(AXC.52) Federation Heavy Auxiliary Carrier (HAH): Factors 3-8(9H)/1-4(4^H); cost, 10+19; operates under the same rules for other LAVs. Free production under (526.47) includes one HAH on the PF4 turn.

(AXC.52) Federation Heavy Auxiliary Carrier (HAVH): Factors 3-8(10V)/1-4(5V); cost, 10+20; operates under the same rules for other LAVs. Free production under (526.47) includes one HAVH on the PF6 turn.

(AXC.53) Heavy Auxiliary PF Tender (HAP): Factors 3-8P*/1-4P; cost, 11+19; operates under the same rules for other LAPs. Free production under (526.47) includes one HAP on the PF4 turn.

(AXC.54) Heavy Auxiliary Space Control Ship (HASC): Factors 3-8P*(6)/1-4P(3); cost, 14; operates under the same rules for other LAVs. Free production under (526.47) includes one HASC on the PF6 turn.

(AXC.55) Heavy Auxiliary Troop Ship (FTH): Factors 3-8GGGG/1-4GG; cost, 8; operates under the same rules for other FTHs.

(AXC.56) Small Auxiliary Hospital Ship (FHS): Factors 0-2M/0-1; cost, 2; operates under the same rules for other FHL except a FHS may not support Devastation Recovery (451.31) alone but two FHSs working together (like an FHL) may support Devastation Recovery at a recovering planet.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 05:08 am: Edit

REALLY COOL!

How would one produce/upgrade to a Variant? Would they be restricted by (AXC.22)?

I like this very much. Good yob!

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 07:44 am: Edit

The rule looks, at first glance, like a good addition, but I have a couple suggestions.

Given the _extreme_ problems the WYN had with the mechanical reliability of their one heavy (4-pod) auxiliary, it might be appropriate to put some additional limits on that hull type. The R-section text describes at least 5 instances in which the Nancy (both in the original AxDN configuration and in the later AxBCS configuration) was left dead in space due to warp drive failures while attempting to reach maximum speed en-route to an outside incursion. At the very least, I would suggest that HACs should be speed 2 instead of speed 3, since they still retain the same engines as the civilian large ore carrier.

JACs should probably also be speed 2, since they retain the same engines as LACs, but on a larger hull. The R-section entries for the WYN AxBV and AxBS describe the ships as being so slow that each had to be relegated to static defense of a single system.

Perhaps also deny reaction movement capability to HACs and JACs?

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 08:43 am: Edit

(AXC.241) Down-Scale conversions should be numbered (AXC.242) Thomas Mathews 21 Mar 2010 (AXC.241) is already in use by Up-Scale conversions.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 12:40 pm: Edit

The WYN AuxDN Nancy classes, triple-hulled AuxBCV/BCSs and their other special auxiliaries will be handled within the WYN section of CivilWars.

JACs are currently a placeholder to account for the "slot". JACs might add a single LAC center warp engine to the bottom of lower pod hull or just keep the SAC engines -- either way you keep the same relative power -- all TBD.

As to restricted mobility of generic heavy auxes, nothing in the R-sections of SFB indicated they had restricted mobility over large auxes. That doesn't mean they cannot be restricted but I'll leave that to ADB. Who knows, maybe the WYNs had engineering challenges with powering their up-gunned heavy hulled vessels while the outside major powers used simpler standard generic hulls?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 12:48 pm: Edit

Most of my issues center around how these will be used and their impact on the "new" game.

Q1. So are these ships or non-ship auxes?

Q2. Why are we expanding the production limits that would add more ships when an auto-kill rule was just placed into the basic rules to control the issue of too many ships in the game (allegedly)? Simply going with the SACs you are proposing adding 12 ships per year per race (16 for the Fed, Kling, ISC).

Random thoughts:
The cost is reasonable but races like the Hydran don't bother with building all of their crap FF now. And these number are worse.
FF's have the advantage of being in a battlegroup where these likely cannot.
I think that merely for ship equivalents that would be produced that players would be forced to build them once their opponent begins doing so.
Seems like a surefire way to get into the Hydran capital.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 01:04 pm: Edit

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 05:08
How would one produce/upgrade to a Variant? Would they be restricted by (AXC.22)?

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 01:18 pm: Edit

I'd likely build SAC for use as garrisons. I don't see much use for LAC or JAC - ships of the same cost are stronger as well as more mobile and 'weak, slow ships that can't pin' are a fair way down my list of things to get with surplus EP. The HAC is tempting despite it's limitations, providing a density nine unit that can be built on top of the usual schedule at a discount to the equivalent warship.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 01:23 pm: Edit

The AC's can't garrison a planet. (508.23) states that it must be garrisoned by a PDU or ship (emphasis).