Eric - yes the CR is increased by +2, note (509.34) in which you use the best CR of any -one- pod...

By Mike Curtis (Fear) on Monday, January 07, 2013 - 10:25 am: Edit

This is not the strategy section, please take your discussion there and not in "my kitchen"

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 11:41 am: Edit

I ask that you all please take the banter elsewhere -- someone please delete all comments from January 07, 2013 - 10:25 am to this point.

FEDS {Done - FEAR)

By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 05:04 pm: Edit

Can a single rescue tug rescue a ship in combat, AND then keep a ship out of pursuit during the pursuit battle? Or is each of those items a different rescue tug action?

NVM, answered by inference in 537.21 that a tug could pull one out of the pursuit that was crippled earlier by the tug.

Rescue tugs *rock*, and can save you 5+ EP in a round *plus* essentially prevent pursuit.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 07:18 pm: Edit

Short answer is yes on rescue tugs. If assigned properly it can attept to save a unit in battle and then later in pursuit it can attempt to save the same or another unit from the pursuit battle. Remember, it is the role that the tug is assigned and not about the unit(s) it saves.

By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 10:25 pm: Edit

In CL37, page 81, lower right, there is the quote:

"...Steve Cole has come to realize that sophisticated F&E players are capable of dealing with simple fractions."

Now, about those half fighter factors. Can they be used in the calculation to determine damage done during battle and no longer "ignored"?

By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 02:12 pm: Edit

If the Tholians lose their homeworld, can they build a new capital/shipyard somewhere else?

FEDS:

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Quote:

(511.31) The race immediately designates a new capital,
which can be a planet or starbase. This must be an offmap
area if the race has one. The designated planet or
starbase must belong to the race in question. It must be
within the original territory of the owning race, and that
territory must still be controlled by the owning race.

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 02:59 pm: Edit

If the Sphere is under some form of Coalition occupation, perhaps the question might be; would the Klingons allow the Seltorians to use the Torch (in a battlwagon configuration) to destroy it, or would they rather keep it (and its resident population of Tholians) alive as a "subject world"?

But then, I recall a background note (from Module Y3, if I'm not mistaken) that said the Tholians had to commit their brightest engineering minds to the task of keeping the Sphere operable for at least a century after its first crossing of the energy barrier, and thus the Holdfast cannot have legendary engineers on any of their ships prior to Y180 (or thereabouts). If that is true, is there a risk that a Sphere damaged in the course of any would-be subjugation might collapse of its own accord?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 03:07 pm: Edit

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 03:43 pm: Edit

To clarify, in F&E terms, is the Tholian capital considered to be occupied by the Coalition if it falls (as in, the Sphere is still phsically present, and can therefore be liberated by the Alliance in a later turn), or is it destroyed (due to physical damage or internal collapse)?

And in a follow-on question, what happens to the Klingon colonies (such as Kalesta) which appear on the map in the event of a Klingon capture of the Tholian capital, should that hex be re-taken by the Alliance? If a non-Tholian force takes the hex, do they have the option of capturing those worlds directly, or do they hand them over to the Tholians (at which point they "disappear" off the map again)?

To put it another way, is it:

a) The Tholian capital falls to the Klingons. The Klingons "activate" the Kalesta colony worlds, but the sphere is still present (if inactive). In a later turn, the Alliance liberates the Tholian capital hex; the sphere re-emerges as the Tholian capital, and Kalesta vanishes off the map (where it is subsumed into the sphere's overall economic output),

or

b) The Tholian capital falls to the Klingons. The Klingons "activate" the Kalesta colony worlds, but the sphere collapses. In a later turn, the Alliance liberates the Tholian capital hex; in which case Kalesta may be captured in the same manner as a "normal" planet on the F&E map, but the sphere is gone forever.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Q511.31 - Request for clarification on FEDS ruling 14 Jan 2013.

The rule quoted in the FEDS ruling states, "It (the new capital) must be within the original territory of the owning race, and that territory must still be controlled by the owning race."

Assume that the Coalition sends a truly massive force and obliterates all Tholian supply points in a single turn, while also capturing the Tholian capital.

Please confirm that, under the literal wording of 511.31 the Tholians may not designate a new capital at all, because the "must" provision cannot be satisfied (no planets or SBs and no original territory exists for the Tholians at all). In effect, the Coalition has completely knocked the Tholians out of the war, with possibly the exception of a few surviving Tholian ships later adopted by the Federation as homeless ships.

By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:17 pm: Edit

307.42, Pursuits, do the limitations (no free scout/drone/admiral) apply to the force being pursued as well as the pursuing force?

And also, since crippled escorts can be pulled from the line, does that mean that carrier groups can be reformed during this period?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:28 pm: Edit

I would say yes. If you occupy every Tholian hex, the Tholians are conquered. They cannot create a new capital. (They probably have a diplomatic office "government in exile" in Fed territory but it cannot build a shipyard or produce EPs.)

As for Gary's question, the presumption is that the Klingons have eliminated the external defenses of the sphere and shut down it's ability to receive and emit traffic, thereby reducing it from a producing planet to a devastated capital. Only the Seltorians can "crush" the sphere, and rules have yet to be written as to how that might happen.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:52 pm: Edit

So, in Ted's example (where all of Tholian space has fallen to the Coalition), would the Alliance be able to re-start the Holdfast as a going concern if they later manage to liberate the capital hex; and would doing so force Kalesta and the other "hidden" Klingon colonies back off the map?

(If the Federation doesn't have the ability to repair the Sphere itself, can the Fed player transfer EPs to the re-started Tholian player to help the latter re-establish his capital defences?)


EDIT: And if the Alliance can "re-start" the Holdfast by liberating the sphere in a regular game, can they also do this in the alternate Klingon Eastern Marches scenario? (If the Federation managed to occupy that hex, the sphere would still be there, even if it's not shown on the map at the onset; which would essentially make it the reverse of what happens with Kalesta in the historical scenario.)

By Mike Curtis (Fear) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:54 pm: Edit

Ted, we had this happen at Origins in 2005 or 2006. I can't remember which one. The Tholians were taken out, nothing left. They had about half a dozen ships left and they were adopted by the Federation, I believe.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 05:32 pm: Edit

And one other Tholian question (for now, at least).

In the event that the Holdfast is under Coalition occupation by the onset of the ISC Pacification scenario, would the former-Holdfast hexes count as part of the Concordium's Pacification Enforcement Zone and Combatant Exclusion Zone (as shown under (625.22))?

Or, alternatively, would the ISC move to "restore" the pre-war borders, by forcibly ejecting the Coalition from Tholian space, and blocking further access to the Holdfast via cordon Charlie (625.C)?


Historically, the ISC pretty much left the Holdfast alone, as noted in (625.C22). In this case, however, the issue would be somewhat different; whether or not the ISC by Y186 would treat the conquest as a fait accompli (and now consider the Holdfast as being Klingon and/or Romulan territory), or if they would consider the occupation as contrary to their own principles.

(If the Pacification was still being run along the "pre-war" neutral zones dividing the Klingons and Romulans from the Federation, the effect might be the same either way, since each would still involve removing any Coalition military presence in Holdfast space. Which may act to "restore" the Holdfast by default.)

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 06:14 pm: Edit

SVC, thank you for the ruling.

Mike, thanks as well. It also happened in another of my games.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 06:19 pm: Edit

Origins 2005, as I didn;t make it in 06'.
Had a daughter decide to get married that same weekend and I had to choose one.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 07:11 pm: Edit

Did you at least get pictures of the wedding after you got home from Origins?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 01:56 am: Edit

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Quote:

And if the Alliance can "re-start" the Holdfast by liberating the sphere in a regular game, can they also do this in the alternate Klingon Eastern Marches scenario?

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By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Q537.2. Rescue tugs and webs. Can a rescue tug perform the "kill and rescue" mission from the support eschelon on a self-killed unit that had been stuck in the web? My guess is "no", but "yes, if the tug were in the battle force and outside of the web".

FEDS:

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Quote:

(537.223) Ships destroyed by directed damage, or which are trapped in a web, cannot be rescued.

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 03:30 pm: Edit

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Quote:

IIRC the Klingon Eastern Marches scenario presupposes that the Tholians never arrived in the first place.

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By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 12:15 am: Edit

A few dupes that were lost in older postings, and some new questions:

In CL37, page 81, lower right, there is the quote: "...Steve Cole has come to realize that sophisticated F&E players are capable of dealing with simple fractions."

So since so many of us are using computers and calculators, and can track fractions, does that mean we can track half fighters for compot purposes and half damage points for plus/minus point purposes with SIDs (or take 1 SB SIDS for 4.5, and 1.5 fighters, for 6)?

Now, about those half fighter factors. Can they be used in the calculation to determine damage done during battle and no longer "ignored"? Also, since we can track fractions, what about tracking half damage due to SIDS?

Can a blockade runner that decides to end its turn in the hex it targeted, be intercepted as any normal raid on a particular hex (nearby ships reacting on it, including free police ships)?

On the same note, just for clarification I think, does that blockade runner then block supply and other paths for the rest of the turn? Seems kinda silly to think a blockade runner can block supply for a whole fleet in friendly space, and open to some serious hammering for newly cut-off fleets on the offense.

And finally, what determines "friendly hex" when it comes to a blockade runner targets? Surely the same race, but what if it is conquered territory?

And in regards to retreats. If the enemy has a lot of ships at your capital, and your fleet loses a battle next door with a smaller fleet, does that mean that the smaller fleet can't retreat to its own capital because its "outnumbered" and retreat priority fails? I would think a friendly capital, regardless of ship counts, could always be retreated to. In our current game, some Tholians actually retreated *outside* of Tholian space as the capital was a battle hex with too many ship, and that just doesn't really feel right.

439.15 states that ships destroyed when trapped in a web only give Tholians salvage if they keep the hex. However, if they desetroy a ship in the web, losing the hex or not, should the attacker get any salvage at all? After all, these hulks surely wouldn't be left intact after any combat round, or a retreat. Also, on this same rule, I just want to confirm the last word is "Phase" and not "Round", as is mentioned in 439.11.

If the Tholian capital is attacked on turn 10, before being at war, is there any way to build/create things like prime teams, APT/PTRs, POLs, or other non-standard type units during the enemy's turn using deficit spending and/or salvage?

While Tholians cannot send ships to another empire to build webs (512.4), what if they take over a planet outside of Tholian space, would a planet and/or any base there then gain the web as well?

36 Tholian ships escaped and all of Tholian space was captured. 12 ships could be adopted by the feds immediately as Homeless. If the Gorn adopt 12, and the Kzinti then adopt the last 12, would those ships be considered in supply for their trips back to Kzinti/Gorn space? Along the same topic, can the Gorn adopt 12 homeless Tholian ships even though they are not yet at war?

And Finally, if the Tholians are completely pushed out of their home space, could the Federation cede them a province+planet that they could then use as a home through 448.1, even though they own nothing adjacent? This would then give them "territory" and if they could magically make 90 EP appear, they could build a new shipyard for their impressive 4 PC hulls per turn production schedule.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 02:05 am: Edit

One could choose to fighting retreat into his capital if adjacent...

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Quote:

(302.775) In the event that a “fighting retreat” enters a hex with a base (or a non-base unit which is treated as a base for combat purposes) special cases apply as follows:

A: If the hex contains a friendly base (e.g., starbase, mobile base) or planet, the conditions and penalties of a fighting retreat do not apply after the first approach battle. The retreating units are merged with the friendly units at the base/planet and conduct future rounds of combat normally (i.e., a fighting retreat just turned into a normal retreat).

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By Eric Smith (Badsyntax) on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 10:55 am: Edit

But based on retreat priority, there were more enemies in the capital than friendlies, and other hexes nearby (not in supply albeit) with less enemies than friendly, so the retreat priorities prevented units from retreating to their own capital under assault, and in one case, their only place to go was OUTSIDE of Tholian space!

Just smells *really* fishy.

I personally really think that capitals, if not all planets, should always be a valid retreat point. Its insane to think that the Tholians, that never even leave their home territory, would retreat out of it because their capital has baddies there and their own forces may be the ones to turn the tables.