Net result of all that

If a DOM + INT + 9 cobra fight a 120 compot galactic fleet for 5 rounds, each doing 30%....

If the galactic player DDs...

Andros deal 120 damage total, and have a DOM,INT, and 4 Cobra all intact at the end of round 5. They have spent 12EP on field repair.

If the Galactic player does not DD

Andros deal 129 damage total
Andros retreat at the end of round 5, all ships being maximally panel degraded (they can repair 3 COB if they are going to be pursued). They have spent 12EP on field repair, and will spend 9.5EP on general repair.

Obviously, it is better to DD andros, but this is very expensive to do on mother ships, and even when done against satships, the Andros have tremendous staying power.

In return, the galactics proabably took about 50 damage on fighters, 40 on PFs, and maybe crippled 6 frigaters (if the Andros were not directing). This will cost them 10EP (PFs) and 6EP (frig) in replacement and repairs. These costs are about even with Andro ones if no DD is done.

However, in order to extend that kind of staying power, the glactic fleet would need to be significantly larger, something like:-

SCS+3escorts, BCV+2escorts, [battlegoup].

backup- 3PFT, 5FCR, extra BCV group (else andros will direct),
3CW,6FF.

So, to drive off a DOM/INT group without taking an aukward number of cripples will require a quality fleet of at least 30 ships, mainly because of panels and the Andro field repair.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 09:27 am: Edit

Energy modules: up to six compot of SS factors can be converted to 0-2 factors (as opposed to 1-1 that they are now). If playing with SS counters it could be a 0-12 damage sponge. Also it might be able to protect a mothership it is sitting in from directed damage.

PSS: only if playing with SS counters but there is always a 1 in 6 chance of a directed damage attack on a SS being wasted on a PSS.

Just some thoughts.

By Dave Fowler (Davefowler) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 09:49 am: Edit

I think that we are missing an important part of the discussion. What about the victory conditions for the andro's?

Just as a side point, i'm a systems analyst and one of the things I ask my clients before we start looking at the details is. What is it that you want the system to do? (what's it's purpose in life so to speak)

I think that we need to conclusivly answer that question before we can figure out if andro sat ships blow up easy, or are simply replaced for eco points, pa panels etc.

The reason that I say this is that if for an example we set the victory conditions for the andro's is to hold X amount of hex's on the map at game end. Then we need to change it so they can stand up to post X-tech fleets fairly decently.

If on the other hand we say eco points disrupted or stolen is the primary victory condition then the ships don't need to stand up as much as they are primarily concerned with raiding and capturing spots out of the way for now.. (but yes still wanting to take over the galaxy)..

Do you kinda get what i'm after? Now the two above cases are by all means not the only victory conditions to choose from but I just wanted to toss this concept out to people and see what they said.

I think that once we've picked a victory condition for the andro's the rest will be easy, because in the long run we can always get Steve to change things to balance them out. This due to the fact that no one wants to play a major power that is fated to lose, there has to be some way for the andro's to win.

* steps of soap box * :-)

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 11:11 am: Edit

re: MWP

I think, for convience, a MWP=1.5 COMPOT, and if a Mothership is configured to carry them as a "m" for each hanger space carrying 4 of them.

So it would look like INT (mmm) for 3 hanger spaces of MWPs. (Or effectively 16 COMPOT from MWPs)

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 11:17 am: Edit

re: VC's

2 ways for the ANdro's to win:

1) I think the Andro's should get 1 VP for each turn they keep a race below a certain % of their income. After 18 turns, 100 VPs they win.

2) Once a race is kept below 50% of their income for X turns (6-10?) they will 'give up' and concede. If they get ?? races to concede, they win.

A race can only collect money from within 3 hexes of a supply point, so that will keep things vunerable to the Andro's coming in and toasting a base easily.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:11 pm: Edit

somehow I don't see economic victory points as being a good victory condition (while it may bake sense in the game universe players want to win, not just count points, and winning means dominating the map)

what the andros are out to do is to take over the galaxy, just like they did in the LMC. this doesn't mean exterminating the existing races, but it does mean reducing them down to just being an annoyance.

remember that historicly it was only the fact that ship construction hit record levels during the ISC conquest that allowed the galactic races to survive the andros

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:21 pm: Edit

DAS. I see you are trying, but man, KISS.

So they get blown up alot in SFB and not very often in F&E. Same goes for every game I have played with any kind of ship that is in SFB translating over to F&E.

Make a DOM a 24[12](32)/12[6](32)

To cripple, you have to do double the defense+PA, so to cripple is 36*2 for 72.

To kill, you have to do double bothsides, etc. So to kill, is 2*36+2*18, 72+36=108.

The DOMs will be pretty safe except over fixed defenses.

Let the andro soak off damage up to their PA rating. THis soaking is done after DD.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:30 pm: Edit

David S, you are missing the other way that the galactics could get more staying power, add in several more DW/CW ships. crippling a BG of 3x7 point ships and 3x5 point ships will absorb 36 points of damage and cost 7.5 EP to repair (efficiancy of 4.8 points of damage per EP)

PF's are relativly expensive to replace by comparison (4 points of damage per EP)

also look at the races production schedules, they have lots of small ships on the schedule and they are more efficiant to build then carriers, PF, or larger ships.

even if it does cost the galactics slightly more cash to repair their ships then the andros they have a lot more repair facilities and start off with a much larger income so are likly to be able to afford it.

David S.

your Dom+Int will start off doing ~24 points of damage per round and will start doing less damage as of round 2. so they will do <120 points of damage each round.

the galactics with 120 compot will do 36 ponits of damage each round and will not drop in compot until very late so they will do ~180 points of damage to the andros. the only way the andros can compete here is the super cheap repair by making cobras 6/5 units (note this means it only takes 1 point less to kill a cobra then to kill a CA which seems much too tough) if the cobras are a more reasonable 5/4 (same to kill as a CL/DD) then the andros will ~21 points of damage in the initial rounds.

I also don't understand why you say very few ships will be left in a highly degraded state after combat? unless the galactics direct on a mothership (very difficult with the formation bonus and their high D-compot) the andros will degrade them early to save the sat-ships and then retreat. where is the reason to kill them?

in short I'm missing something or your numbers aren't adding up

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Cfant, mostly I agree with you, the question is do we allow the andro to completely clear the PA panels between rounds or only partially?

completely clearing them is simpler, and probably represents SFB better (clearing includes clearing panel degredation), but it means that there is no way to drive a Dom off the line other then crippling it (difficult, especially if in formation)

paritially clearing them adds more recordkeeping, but it gives the galactics a way to force the Dom off the line and face a smaller mothership instead.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:41 pm: Edit

sat-ship capabilities

there are lots of different types of sat ships and they all have advantages/disadvantages.

one major problem in representing SFB is that in SFB you record the hanger configuration of each mothership and it can't easily be changed (this means the size of sat-ships carried)

the other issue is the number of different types of sat-ships

type	special effect
combat	none
MWP	higher offense-lower defense
scout	EW
troop	G
mauler	+
EM	additional PA panels (however they are represented)
PSS	decoy drawing fire from a real sat-ship
cargo	???

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 02:54 pm: Edit

David

here's a sat-ship capability for the cargo version:

cargo: allows 'theft' of EPs during raids similiar to Orions, instead of denial to the target.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 03:13 pm: Edit

craig, makes sense, what about during normal combat? (if any)

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 03:17 pm: Edit

No race concedes to conquerers. The Andros need 4 capitals to win.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 03:52 pm: Edit

Perhaps the panels should only be allowed to be cleared so many times before the ship gets crippled? If a DOM could only clear it's panels 4 times, then it won't be staying around on the line for too long. Perhaps if that DOM was to take damage a 5th time, it would be forced to cripple and get no benefit from the panels? Just musing here.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:15 pm: Edit

Robert, I'd rather see panels get partially cleared each time then deal with a rule like 'gets crippled after clearing it's panels 4 times)

1. it's easier to track

2. it better reflects that given a little time for repair the dom can take low levels of panel damage forever.

since it's been a couple archives since I posted it my proposal is to allow the andros to clear 1/3 (round down, min 1) of their panel capacity each round if they remain in combat and clear the panels completely if they are out of combat. you can direct at PA panels for any amount.

this way you only have to track damage to ships remaining in combat, but can force a Dom off the line (if it's panels are full it's much easier to direct on, but still not very easy as it's a large ship)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:19 pm: Edit

I haven't read this topic in forever.

If you guys think that the F&E rule for andros is going to include "panel clearing" you're out of you minds.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:20 pm: Edit

OK, here is an "example" when I was trying to do Operation Unity. So it follows the "deployment limitations" of OpU. (ie. only 5 "War" class ships in the battleforce. So 3FFK's,instead of 3DWs.)

This is using an all Kzinti line from OpU. So no Battlegroups, no Admiral.

It includes Sat-Ships as individiual counters.

Now if you go by the assumption of, if I bring a ton of ships, he will bring a ton of ships, it cancels the 'feed new ships forward' idea.

What I am trying to get across that the Andro's could be competative, this example isn't necessarily so, because it is 'vanilla' with nothing but 1 EM (I'm going with the idea of an EM-M, absorbing 3 damage a turn, or sacrificing it for 9), and 1 Scout ship. This is also with "Self-Repair" of Sat-Ship, thus replenishing them if they are not directed upon. (Small on a 4-6, Medium on a 5-6, Large 6)

													TOTAL
GP Force, Kzinti
SCS	MEC	DWE	DWE	MSC	NCA	CWL	CW	CW	FFK	FFK	FFK	FCR (backup)
11-12(6)P	6-7	5-6	5-6	4-7 ***	8	8-7	7	7	5	5	5	1-4[6]
29	6	5	5	4	8	8	7	7	5	5	5	0	94
Andro Force
DOM	ANA	MAM	EM-M	COB	COB	INT	COB	COB	COB
24	4-7 ****	7-6	0-3	5	5	15	5	5	5
24	4	7	0	5	5	15	5	5	5				75
Round 1
SCS	MEC	DWE	DWE	MSC	NCA	CWL	CW	CW	FFK	FFK	FFK	FCR (backup)
11-12(6)P	6-7	5-6	5-6	4-7 ***	8	8-7	7	7	5	5	5	1-4[6]
29	6	5	5	4	8	8	7	7	5	5	5	0	94
Andro Force												*30%	28.2
DOM	ANA	MAM	EM-M	COB	COB	INT	COB	COB	COB
24	4-7 ****	7-6	0-3	5	5	15	5	5	5
24	4	7	0	5	5	15	5	5	5				75
												*0.30%	22.5
GP let the damage fall. 3 absorbed by EM-M, so 25 damage, 5 COB crippled
Andro's, let the damage fall. 2FFK crippled for 10, 4ftr, CW crippled
Round 2
SCS	MEC	DWE	DWE	MSC	NCA	CWL	CW	CW-crip	FFK-crip	FFK-crip	FFK	FCR (backup)
11-12(6)P	6-7	5-6	5-6	4-7 ***	8	8-7	7	4	3	3	5	1-4[2]
29	6	5	5	4	8	8	7	4	3	3	3	0	85
Andro Force												*30%	25.5
DOM	ANA	MAM	EM-M	COB	COB	INT	COB	COB	COB
24	4-7 ****	7-6	0-3	3	3	15	3	3	3
24	4	7	0	0	0	15	0	0	0				50
5 Cobra's held inside.												*0.30%	15
GP let the damage fall. EM-M, sacrificed for 3*3=9, crip INT, +1 pt
Andro's destroy CW for 8, take 7. 2ftr, FFK crippled
Using Web Dice, I rolled 5 D6, I got:3,2,6,4,4. Thus 1 COB was repaired.
Round 3, INT in Form
SCS	MEC	DWE	DWE	MSC	NCA	CW	CW	xxxx	FFK-crip	FFK-crip	FFK-crip	FCR (backup)
11-12(6)P	6-7	5-6	5-6	4-7 ***	8	7	7	0	3	3	3	1-4[0]
29	6	5	5	4	8	7	7	0	3	3	3	0	80
Andro Force												*30%	24
DOM	ANA	MAM	EM-M	COB	COB	INT-crip	COB	COB	COB
24	4-7 ****	7-6	xxx	5	3	8	3	3	3
24	4	7	0	5	3	8	0	0	0				51
3cobra's in Dominator												*0.30%	15.3
GP's direct on crippled COB for 6, take 18 more. Mamba for 6, 12 more. Cobra, 7 more. ANA crippled for 7
Andro's direct on FFK for 6, CW crippled, 2ftrs
Using Web Dice, I roll 3D6, I got 6,1,4. Thus 1 COB was repaired
Final Fleets, Andro's retreat because of no EW ship.
SCS	MEC	DWE	DWE	MSC	NCA	CW	CW-crip	xxxx	FFK-crip	FFK-crip	xxxx	FCR (backup)
11-12(4)P	6-7	5-6	5-6	4-7 ***	8	7	4	0	3	3	0	1-4[0]
27	6	5	5	4	8	7	4	0	3	3	0	0
Andro Force
DOM	ANA	MAM-crip	EM-M	COB	xxxx	INT-crip	COB	COB	COB
24	1-4	4	xxx	3	0	8	5	3	3
24	1	4	0	3	0	8	5	0	0

Net Kills:
Kzinti Dead: CW, FFK
Andro Dead: Cob

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:23 pm: Edit

I have yet to hear any plausible reason why treating satellite ships like fighter factors isn't workable. It's certainly the way I intend to go. Even if you provide counters for a "refitted" andro with bigger sat ships (as fighter factors) you still have a lot fewer counters and a lot less complication. I do not see a need for satellite ships as separate counters except for that one with its own dizdev.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:32 pm: Edit

SVC, the question we have about treating them like fighter factors is how do you represent the arious special abilities that different sat-ships have?

a Dom carrying 9 vipers is a significantly different fight then one carrying a Mamba-class scout, mabma-class mauler, Cobra-class EM, and 3 vipers for example

if they were all combat varients then I would absolutly agree with you that fighter factors for sat-ships would work, and work very well, it's when you start considering the special abilities of the other varients that I see trouble.

we could go with a series of 'you can convert up to X factors of sat ships into Y' type of rule, but at then how do you represent strategic deployment of specialty types (I would assume that not every mothership carried a mauler for example, but given the effectivness of maulers in F&E they would if allowed to). At that point it seems like we would get into tracking how many of each type of sat ship were used so far in a turn in which case you may as well use counters

I would lover to hear that I'm wrong about this becouse sat-ship factors would eliminate a LOT of counters

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:40 pm: Edit

SVC, the problem "we" collectively see is this.

What happens when the Andro's show up to Hydran space and go through every battle for 20 battle rounds, and their is a "mauler" in the SatFactors, that can never be killed and just new "SatFactors" fed forward. Thus vaporizing 2SB and the Capital.

Thus using MANY more then the Andro player could ever produce in one turn, each and every turn.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:44 pm: Edit

Special Sat Ships:

Here's an idea: you have Scout/Mauler/whatever markers. The Andros get a set amount, with build rates and in-services amounts tweaked as needed. These can be staked and moved with a mothership, or strat moved around. They allow the mothership to use up to N factors as a mauler or X factors as EW factors ot Z factors as G factors (not necessariyl 1:1). These markes do not have to be used, they as they represent a concentration of these units to that mothership, but the mothership can still make sorties with standard combat satships. If they are used, they can be DD'd on and lost if all the sat ship factors are lost.

Just a half-random idea.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:47 pm: Edit

SVC, the reson we are talking about PA panels is a combination of a couple things.

1. figuring out some way to drive the best sat-ships off the line so that you end up facing the backups (otherwise the backups may as well be FCR class motherships like the missionary, they provide more backup sat-ships and will never see combat anyay)

2. figuring out a way to give the andros staying power in a fight without making the andro fleet 2/3 FCR class motherships.

to further explain #2

the galactic races can get staying power from their carriers (free replacements) or by having more normal ships take their turn in combat (especially with battlegroups, DW/CW class ships are very efficiant damage absorbers and the fleets tend to have lots of them)

a pair of Dominators is ~120 compot, if they are facing a galactic fleet in the late war they will probably be facing slightly higher compot. each round the galactics will easily be able to kill one or more sat-ships, (if they let the damage fall they will kill more then a Dom's worth of sat-ships each round). how many motherships need to be there to feed sat-ships forward to the Doms to let them fight for a reasonable time? the galactics at worst need to cripple a battlegroup worth of ships and probably have several replacements for them.

my (possibly falty) reading of the history is that the FCR type motherships are fairly rare, however the F&E mechanincs would make them very common

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Alex, what if all the sat ships aren't lost?

also if you have counters for Maulers, Scouts, Troopships, Energy Modules, Psudo Sat Ships, Mobile Weapons Platforms, Cargo (and any I've forgotten) then you may as well finish up and have counters for the remainder of the ships as well

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:55 pm: Edit

continuing my thought from two posts up.

to give the andros reasonable staying power without needing lots of backup motherships to feed sat-ships forward it looks like representing PA panels on the ships that allow some damage to basicly be ignored works well.

the reasons for looking into 'panel clearing' are that they almost work to well (which can be solved by not given them as many) and by only partially clearing them between rounds you have a way to drive the large motherships off the line.

the other idea that was posted was to give andros SIDS like steps and extend their staying power by allowing them to repair some SIDS steps each round. the record keeping needs of this were not liked.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Some random thoughts.

Perhaps the way to solve the "only ever see a DOM" problem is to set up the strategic situation so that the Andro wants/needs to hit many more targets than DOMs. Perhaps give the Galactic powers recovering economies to put a clock on the Andro.

As far as satships, I still favor using fighters. First, I'd suggest ignoring the difference between the various combat sat ship classes. At the strategic scale, they're sufficiently similar. I'd also ignore the cargo sat ships (freighters are generally ignored as well).

For the specialty ships, the Andro player has a pool of various specialty factors (scout, mauler, troop and EM) map wide (tracked on paper or with off map chits). Before resolving combat in a hex, the Andro can replace sat ship factors with specialty factors for any mothership in the hex. This is limited to one scout (group) and one other specialty (group) per mothership. Destroyed specialty points are permanently removed, others are just removed until the end of the turn. Counters for a few specialty ships could be included to be used like PDU on the battle board. The different sizes of sat ships could be represented by allowing the groups to be different sizes (ie there is a VIP scout group size (say 4 points), as well as a COB (say 5 points) and MAM one--7 points maybe).

As an example, a say a DOM has 32 sat ship points. It decides to exchange 5 of them for a 5 point scout group (2-5 ship with 2 EWP). And 7 for a large mauler (7+) ship. The scout is directed on so the 5 scout points have been destroyed (and are permanently lost from the scout pool). The mauler survives, but those 7 mauler points are not available to assigned to combat until the next turn.