Archive through April 04, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E PRODUCTS:
F&E Future Products (Far Term):
F&E Andro War:
Archive through April 04, 2003
the andros can have more then 2 ships in a hex, just not more then 2 in a battle force, but the problem is that if you have a pair of Dom's and a dozen Int's all that the galactics will ever fight is the Dom's.
think of what would happen with carriers if escorts could be shuffled between rounds. you would only see the best carriers on the line, all the rest would become FCR's to feed them fighters and escorts.
Andros don't have escorts so there is no wy to drive a Dom off the line except to damage it.
if we were to say that sat-ships can't be transfered between ships between battle rounds that may solve it, but it would mean the andros would need even more large ships as they would have a very short effective life in combat.
Scott, I agree with the need to have some damage just go away, but we do differ on how much it needs to be.
there definantly needs to be some reason for the andros to attack everyone, otherise they will concentrate and wipe out one race to forma solid defendable base and expand from there.
Saying that you cannot reuse the DOMs each fight, with new Sat SHips is silly. The only way the Andros will be capable of a stand up fight is if they can get 2-3 DOMs to the big target hex of the turn.
Dave, that is what they actually did though. They systematically took on everyone, more or less one at a time. Without the ability to find the RTN, the races were out of luck and short on time.
continuing the discussion on B-10 vs Dom durability.
both are killed by about the same amount of damage. for a B-10 this is 24+12=36 points of damage.
however if they both take two vollies of 150 points each at different times the andro will have taken ~40 internals (depending on how well they were able to clean out the panels) while the B-10 will have taken ~150 internals and will definantly be crippled, if not close to dead.
however the dom has a lot fewer internals, especially considering that PA panels release additional damage if they are hit.
so if a Dom has a compot of 24-12(18)/12-6(12) with (18)/(12) being the damage absorbion then it would take the same number of points to kill as a B-10, but would shrug off multiple rounds worth of damage that would easily combine to kill a B-10. the damage absorbsion rating on the crippled side only applies if the ship starts out the round crippled (it will still have close to the origional number of PA panels, but be much weaker internally so once damage starts penetrating it will die easily)
or we could have it be 24-12(12)/12-6(6) where directed damage would have to go theough both uncrippled and crippled damage absorbsion but only the exposed value would be subtracted from general damage
I also think that the should not be limited to motherships, the sat ships do the same thing on a smaller scale, a large sat ship would be ~8 compot or 8-4(4)/4-2(2) where several of them will absorb damage without being crippled at all. if you think of 4 large sat-ships ve 4 CA's the sat-ships should be able to spread out much of the damage across the different ships without any of them being damaged much
Christoper, can you point me to a referance for the andros taking on one race at a time?
If I were running the andros without such a limit I would completely obliterate the race of my choice (say ISC or lyran), setup shop there and all I have to do is to keep you more then 7 hexes from my core area and you can't bother my rear. I don't need the RTN at all.
my impression was that they basicly attacked everywhere at once, the ISC got hurt the most becouse their ships were spread out to much and so were picked off in isolated bunches, the galactics had roughly the same number of ships, but concentrated in smaller numbers of larger fleets and within reaction/reserve range of each other so while they lost outlying ships and bases they kept a larger percentage of their forces. this cut the ISC down from fleets with the ability to cower the other races to roughly parity, i.e. enough to defend themselves, but not enough to continue their 'peacekeeping' mission.
ya know, instead of giving them a new rule we have to keep track of, why not just raise their defense factors factors? A DOM at 24-30/12-15 sounds good to me. Mamba would be 9-8/4, Cobra 6/3 Viper 4/2.
If a DOM can carry 4 of these things, that would make it 24-30(36)/12-15(36).
I think that the DOM should be around 60 or so in COMPOT, with the SAT ships.
I don't have the Andro rules here, so I cannot look up what I thinking of DL.
But, What are the Andros going to hold? They will strip mine planets, putting PDUs there till they are done, and then off come the PDUs and on to the next target of opportunity.
SVC has stated recently that the andros did indeed capture and occu[py territory with the objective of staying there permanently.
as an andro if I could make my rear area safe for a few turns I would build a desecrator SB there and start pumping out ships directly, drive the galactics back a little at a time (with massive waves of sat-ships if nessasary, remember they do have an op-move of 4, have a large number of sat ships opmove and then a Dom fly in to be the flagship and I will eventually drive you back. think of a line with 2xDom, 6xlarge sat-ship combat varients, 3x large sat-ship maulers, large sat-ship free scout, compot ~126 with a fair amount of EW and everything is disposable)
the andros took over the LMC (but didn't quite manage to exterminate the existing races) they were expectign to do the same thing here.
the problem with just upping the d-compot of the motherships is that it doesn't accuratly reflect the fact that a bunch of andros that take damage on their PA panels, but no itnernals can be back to perfect condition very quickly. if you just up the D-compot of the mothership you still have to resolve damage if it's more then 1/2 your smallest ships (or more then your smalles ship with the X-vaients), with the biggest sat ships only taking 8-12 to cripple (assuming you bump their D-compot up as well) then 12 points of damage forces the andro to cripple something, 18 forces him to cripple two things or kill one thing. 18 points of damage against a pair of Dominators would be absorbed in the PA panels, blead off between combat rounds, the degredation cleared and they would be at full strength the next round rather then being down a sat-ship.
run this senerio with the smaller sat ships (mediums should be about 6-8 each, smalls about 4-6 each) and you find that a small amount of fireower against an andro fleet wears it down pretty quickly over a few combat rounds, but really should justvanaish into the PA panels with no andros lost.
Well, if we could do away with SAT ships being represented as a number on motherships, then the PA degradation could be represented as a number in () on the counter.
So, a DOM could be 24-18(12)/12-9(12). Or whatever.
TO DD it, you would have to go through the degradation amount AND the ship hull, so 30 defense or 21 for a cripple.
Should maulers be able to use their ability vs. Andros? I think X ships would get their ability, but I can't really see a mauler being used successfully against an andro.
as far as maulers vs the andro I don't see them being much less effective against andros then against other fleets.
I would say leave them as is and fix the maulers against everything at once.
Now what about Disruptor races? The Disruptor is much better at causing internals, though not a huge amount bigger.
I am thinking we could just give them a +1 to their die roll, after other modifiers. That would be about a 2.5% bonus. So, figure an extra 2-3 damage per battle round.
the improvement of the disrupter counters it's lack of crunch power, I think it's a wash
Maulers are gonna be a lot better against galatic races because the Andros move alot faster on the tactical battlefield (just like X ships). A maulers coolest trick is when it can hit a ship through a downed shield several times in consecutive impuses (miza I think its called) and then bang! you got a ship with virtually no weapons. So I think they would be less effective against the Andros for that reason, not to mention the displacement device.
do maulers have a reduced effect on X-ships? if so then let's give the andros the same benifit, if not then let's not
I couldn't find a rule on xships/maulers, but there ought to be one. Anyone know for sure?
(523.33) the mauler can only provide a 1:1 effect equal to one-half of its normal attack factor
That's in regards to targetting X-Ships...
(523.33)
Mauler effect against an X-ship is attack factor of mauler divided by 2 and rounded up (CW maul for 4 and Cruiser for 5).
What if the defensive COMPOT of Andro motherships were raised, and then allow their ships to use a SIDS like system to take damage instead of all or nothing. So, if we say a DOM has 30 defensive COMPOT, we can break that down to 6 5 point Andro SIDS steps. Then, to represent the ability of the Andro ships to dissipate damage from PA panels, allow each mothership to "repair" one Andro SIDS step per round. Allow ships not in the battle line to perhaps do the same, thus allowing the Andro's the ability to cycle ships out to give them time to dissipate damage from PAs.
the problem with a SIDS approach is the recordkeeping.
it would do a really good job of accuratly matching how the andros work, and would solve the problem of only the best motherships showing on the line (now you get enough motherships in once place and they can cycle through the line and repair themselves between rounds and just wear down the galactics, but that makes sense as well)
however one of the great simplifications that makes F&E playable is taht instead of the detailed damage records of SFB in F&E ships ahve two posible states, fully functional or crippled and this state is recorded by which side of the counter is up. bases are handled by the sids counters, which works for two reasons. 1. there are relativly few daamged bases on the map at any time, and 2. there are very few cases where there is more then 1 base in a hex so there's no confusion as to which base has the SIDS steps.
the main reason for CEDS repair initally was to eliminate the confusion about which carrier group had a missing or damages escort becouse it was just to messy to try and keep the damaged/destroyed counters with the right counter in the stack
DavidL, about the Andro's and SIDS-like steps.
It could be argued that ONLY the motherships in the battle will be the ones with the SIDS taken.
Because after the battle they are all repaired by in the Repair Phase. (For free or cost EPs to be determined)
If it did cost EPs, it would just like DB at the end of combat. "Oh, I used 3.6EP of drones, mark it off the Economic FOrm". "Oh, I need to repair 4.5EPs of Andro Motherships,mark it off the Economic Form."
Scott, Ok, so it's just the ones in the battle hex (note that this could still be several), what happens if the andros can't afford (or don't want) to repair all of them?
this could work
if a Dom takes 6 5 point SIDS steps (we definantly need a different name for them 
) can we somehow show the difference between real repairs and clearing PA panels?
I'm thinking that the first three steps shoudl be able to be repaired for free, but the last three should cost. the problem is how can we indicate that step 4 was taken, but the PA panels were cleared so it's taken 1 step, but that can't be repaired for free.
this may be more bother then it's worth, but it would be the most realistic.
how about this for a modified version of the origional damage absorbion proposal
andro ships have several PA panels on them, each one absorbs 2 points of damage, a andro in combat can clear 2 panels per round. one not in combat can clear all the panels in one round
when you are directing on an uncrippled andro you only have to punch through the Pa panels on the uncrippled side, the ones on the crippled side only count if the ship starts crippled.
andro compots could be: format O-compot - D-compot (PA panels)
dom 24-12(9)/12-6(3)
mamba 8-4(2)/4-2(1)
cobra 6-3(2)/3-1(1)
viper 4-2(1)/2
this way the damage to the PA panels is cleared for free, but if you get through that you are actually scoring damage on ships. the andro can voluntarily take damage on the panles, but unless he has time to clear them between rounds it's not a free ride
also since PA panels are cleared for any ships not in combat we only have to track the panel status for the ships directly in combat
The easiest way to track this, would be of course Rice Dice. But I doubt SVC will endorse that.
So David. You are saying, if I want to direct on a Dominator (clean), I have to direct on a "21" defense unit. But -1 from that for every Panel that is already full.
If it came in as 24-12(7). It would only be "19" to direct on it.
re: how to refer to Andro Damage Steps
AIDS=Andro Incremental Damage Steps.
But I don't think it will fly.
no, each panel is 2 points of damage.
whcih in retrospect is a stupid thing to do.
make each panel 1 point and you clear 5 points of damage per ship when in combat and the compots would be
Dom 24-12(18)/12-6(6)
manba 8-4(4)/4-2(2)
cobra 6-3(3)/3-1(2)
viper 4-2(2)/2-1(1)
so directing on a Dom would cost the same as directing on a B-10
for the B-10 it's 48 to cripple and 24 to kill = 72 points
for the Dom it's 36 in Pa panels, 24 to cripple, 12 to kill = 72 points
David, not that it really matters, but to keep the numbers straight, the B-10 is a Attack 20, Defense 20, 4 fighters. Not 24 straight up.