And none of the published Andro OOBs are the true historical OOB.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:35 pm: Edit

Just a thing I thought of recently.

What if the Andro's Direct Damaged a ship and crippled it, if they got a chance to capture it then, without it being destroyed?

Thus giving an incentive for direct damage by them (avoiding the attrition factors) and increasing ship kills (possibly)

An Intruder coming up, and holing a shield, then transporting a bunch of Boarding Parties over is very easy for them.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:40 pm: Edit

I don't like that. I think the Andro's should get a big modifier when it comes to capturing ships, +2 or +3, but it should still be a destroyed ship.

Besides, late war, no economy, ships do blow up.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:45 pm: Edit

The problem is, all the DW/FF hulls will get torched, all the DWX/FFX will not, they will conviently get crippled and 'sent away' which the Andro's do not want happening.

They want to keep down the GP density.

Besides, it was an idea, that I just floated out there.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 01:05 pm: Edit

I suspect there won't be that many cripples. If the Klingons really are reduced to 50ish EPs per turn, how much will they really want to spend on repairs.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 02:21 pm: Edit

I know you can use reserves against andros. Reaction, maybe after they stop, but probably not before then.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 05:09 pm: Edit

SVC,
Will there be delayed reserves (ie, after 1 round or more of combat the reserves show up)? If not, there are several scenarios that seem to indicate Andromedan ships appearing, fighting, and leaving before reinforcements (ie, reserves) could arrive.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 06:19 pm: Edit

Once again, you cannot equate SFB scenarios with F&E turns. It's entirely possible for the andros to have an attack and then get away before reserves and then stay in the same 500 parsec hex and fight again on the same turn.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 06:32 pm: Edit

SVC,

what was debated around here was to limit GP races from just pouncing with a 120 COMPOT Reserve Fleet, on select Andro incursions.

1) Was to limit the GP's initial CR. Like Round 1, CR-3, Round 2 CR-2, Round 3 CR-1, Round 4 CR=full. (The GP's not able to react fast enough to the Andro fleet)

2) Allow any 'reserves' to be able to be used in Round 2 of the battle. Thus "The Best" is not always available" (It taking time for the Reserve fleet to get there, while the Andro's are doing the smack-down.)

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 09:09 pm: Edit

if the andros are allowed to concentrate every ship they have as they wish they should be unbeatable.

the forces that are good raiders for the entire map should ahve no trouble taking out the hydrans for example, then after the hydrans are offmap they can go after the lyrans, etc meanwhile the romulans and gorn are building lots of ships, but they have no way to deploy any of significant number of them until after the andros have finished with the hyrans, lyrans, kzinti, klingons, and are digesting the feds (well they may build enough bases across fed space if the feds allow them to participate in the tail ond of the fall of the klingons and then the defense of the feds)

SVC, yes the andros could attack with 2xDom and 20xINT and be devestating, but if they are taking that tactic they should be building missionaries not intruders, same hull, but twice as many sat-ships so you only need 2xDom and 10xMis to do the same job.

if the andro fleets are heavy with missionary style ships then this works, but I had the (probably mistaken) impression that missionary style motherships were fairly rare

I don't think anyone has been thinking that motherships would not be able to transfer ships between rounds or that you couldn't have more then 2 motherships in a given hex. My example of the 2xDom vs the galactic fleet was intended to indicate how much faster the andros run out of oomph then the galactics.

in my example before the BPV was 1800 galactics, 2100 andros and the andros were in trouble my round 3. if the andros had two loaded intruders as well that is an additional ~600 BPV of sat-ships (ignore the BPV of the intruders as they won't be fighting), which would let the andros last one more round before they got into trouble, meanwhile a similar force improvement for the galactics (say 3xCW, 2xDW) would let them last even longer (especially if the galactic is willing to kill ships)

I wasn't trying to indicate that there could only be 2xDom there, just that the andro forces are to easy to kill

if you scale the fight down

let the andros bring 1xDom (a raid) 24(32)=56 compot
let the galactics bring 7xCC = 63 compot
both sides are at about the same BPV (slight edge to the andros)

assume 30% damage
round 1 galactics do 19 andro does 17
andro takes it on sat-ships
galactic cripples 2xCC (1 minus point)

round 2 andros are 24(13)=37 compot, galactics are at 55. galactics do 17 andros do 11-1=10
andro takes it on sat-ships (4 plus points)
galactics cripple 1xCC (1 plus point)

round 3 andros are at 24 compot, galactics are at 51. galactics do 15+4=19 andros do 7+1=8
andros cripple Dom (5 minus points), galactics cripple 1xCC (1 minus point)

on round 4 the Dom would die if it stayed. so depending on when the andro runs you have
1. 3xCC crippled for the loss of all sat-ships
2. 4xCC crippled for the loss of all sat-ships and a crippled Dom
3. 5xCC crippled for the andros being vaporized

if you had a missionary there (600 BPV of additional sat-ships plus the cost of the missionary it self) the galactics would need an extra 2-3 CC (300-450 BPV) to finish them off while still having 2 uncrippled CC left at the end

change the 7xCC out for 9xCW and the result would be about equally lopsided in favor of the galactics. unless the andro always has access to additional sat-ships to extend their durability they just go down to fast. there's almost never a reason to direct so the damage just falls and each point of damage eliminates 1 compot, while the damage done to the galactic fleet cripples a ship so each point of damage reduces the compot by ~1/2

maby making it take 1.5 points of damage to kill 1 point of sat-ship would do the job, but as it stands the sat-ships are nowhere close to being as effective as they should be to match SFB

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 11:08 pm: Edit

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 12:32 am: Edit

part of my concern with just saying we give the andros a lot more motherships so that they have the staying power when attacking large targets is the problem of what happens if the players don't follow the historical uses of them.

if the andros need hundreds of motherships to threaten a dozen or so strongpoints aacross the map, what happens if the andro player ignores the strongpoints and floods all other points with his ships? this is the same type of thing that Pete was arguing with the federation mudslide (I know he didn't convince anyone since he dropped out to soon) in that case it was 'what if the coalition doesn't loose hundreds of ships over allied capitols and instead just occupies all alliance space instead', similar play 'misuse' of maulers and SFG ships has caused problems in the past.

as we look at giving the andros enough of whatever to do the historical job we also have to look at them with a non-SFB powergamer eye and figure out what the most effecive way to play the andros would be, if the two don't come at least reasonably close then something needs to change

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:45 am: Edit

I don't think the Andros need any more motherships than given in the SFB OOB (Jeff posted above).

They can conquer the galaxy quite effectively already. Saying that they shouldn't be allowed to concentrate their forces against 1-2 opponents at a time doesn't make sense. Of course the Andros would do that (or something similar). They have free reign to move across the galaxy, so why wouldn't they attack with overwhelming forces in 1 place rather than even forces in multiple places...

By Kent Wendel (Huskerfan) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 09:09 am: Edit

[HUMOR MODE ON]

Is there any way we can incorproate a rule for those cool belts the Andros wear that can turn a crew into 8" chalky white 12-sided dice?

How 'bout another rule regarding the female crew members being real "hotties"? (Okay, that's only their human form, but still, "A Rose by any other name, it's smell IS sweet"!)

[HUMOR MODE OFF]

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:03 am: Edit

Re: Andro Massing

How about this:

The Andro "Fleet Sheet" is broken into "racial areas", Hydran, Lyran, Kzinti, Klingon.

Each of these Areas is limited to XX motherships (printed on the sheet.)

Thus, the Hydran/Vudar area might have 15, the Lyrans 20, the Klingons 25, the Federation 30. Etc.

Not to hard to keep track of, compared to any other race. You put them out during the Andro "Move Phase" and return them during the Retrograde.

Simple, and clear.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:26 am: Edit

yep, I was wondering if something like that could work. Would be interesting if the Andros had about 60 motherships - i.e. some focus is possible, but not total mayhem on one race.

By Symon Cook (Symon) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 12:00 pm: Edit

"Is there any way we can incorproate a rule for those cool belts the Andros wear that can turn a crew into 8" chalky white 12-sided dice?"

Looked like Andromedan transporter tech to me.

"How 'bout another rule regarding the female crew members being real "hotties"? (Okay, that's only their human form, but still, "A Rose by any other name, it's smell IS sweet"!)"

It would explain the tapes silence on the matter. All those red-faced Federation captains.....

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 12:26 pm: Edit

Assuming the LMC F&E stuff we put together remains canonical (I hope it does), we have the following econ:

Baduvai: 48
Eneen: 44
Maghadim: 39
Neutral Worlds: 7

Total is about 138 EPs for the entire LMC, plus whatever they get from the Home Base.

They may get less than that -- captured facilities may not produce as much.

They may get more than that -- strip mining for short term gain.

Or, as SVC says, they may not use anything so crude as EPs at all.

We worked out a little bit of the Andro stuff from CL11, but mostly worked on the stuff prior to the Andro arrival, figuring it best to leave that a blank slate.

Mostly, we assumed that Andros could move from any (pre-recorded) sat base to any other prerecorded satbase, provided the chain of bases was no more than 4 F&E hexes apart, but that was an abstraction.

I suspect you folks have done something better than that already.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 12:38 pm: Edit

As to the Andros conquering the LMC, one thing we did with the LMC version of S8.0 is this:

For every SC3 unit after the first, you needed 3 SC 4 units.

There were no DNs in the LMC; the closest that ever got built was the Eneen MON.

The Baduvai built a command cruiser (CR 9), which allowed them to bring an extra ship to each fight and used that to conquer the Neutral Worlds before the Andros came...but even so, a typical high density battle line in the LMC would be:

CA, 3xDW, CW, 3xDW, CW

If I'm remembering my factors right, that's 52 COMPOT in a line.

The Baduvai would have
CS [CC equivilant], 3xDW, CW, 3xDW, CW, DW for 56 or so.

The max density dream fleet with the Baduvai CS with all its INTs leading a Maghadim CVA group and escorts with the Eneen providing destroyer support might get into the compot 80+ region...but it never happened historically.

(That Maghadim CVA group takes 3 turns to build and costs a LOT of EPs to create, for a race that has an economy of 39...the CS plus INTs are less that that but close.)

The "short handed lines" are also reflected in the build schedules -- economies that make the Hydrans look large generally aren't high cruiser density.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Slapping a limit on the Andros seems like taking a champ boxer and forcing an arm behind his back.

I really think that the Andros will be fine if they can form normal battle lines. They replace the SAT ships for free, so no problem.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 02:52 pm: Edit

The CA, 2xCW, 6xDW would be 60 compot (assuming similar factors to galactics & leader rule bonus). That does explain pretty well why the Andros had a relatively easy time of it in the LMC (as opposed to the Alpha Quadrant).

On Andro limits per race (ie, only xx motherships per racial territory), why??? Most military forces (at least those that enjoy success) will absolutely collect all forces possible in 1 place for important assaults.

The general theme of this discussion has been "How do we make the Andros competitive in late war fleets? How can we make it possible for them to attack well defended fixed positions?"
The answer is - don't force them to disperse their forces! Sure, 2xDOMs+ 10xInfestors can't take out the Hydran homeworld, but 10xDOMs, 20xINT, 10xINF, 30xCOQ, 15xMIS sure could give it a shot...

Another point (sorry for the longish/rambling post)...
a point that has been discusses is the example of a DOM + sat ships vs some collection of GP ships and how short the Andro staying power would be. I don't see a huge problem with this. For example, from David's post above, the Andro's could retreat after a few rounds and have no long term losses vs 3x crippled CCs. Repeat that for 3-4 DOM & 10-15 INT spread across Lyran space (for example), and all of a sudden the Lyrans now have 10-20 cripples that they can't really afford to repair (or they self kill because they know they can't afford repairs & need the salvage).

I'd still like to see some sort of damage absorption rule - I think someone mentioned 10 points per round or 1/4 of incoming damage (whichever was greater). This would model nicely the fact that small fleets have trouble with Andros, but large fleets don't (they can get over the threshold easily).

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 02:55 pm: Edit

Kent,

I was thinking the same thing!

How about:
Any ship crippled/killed when facing the Andros has a 2-7 (on 2d6) chance of being captured (the whole crew is turned into styrofoam peanuts).

However, every subsequent turn, there is a 2-7 (on 2d6) chance that any previously captured ships will revert back to the original races control (as the female Andro hottie couldn't keep her hands off Capt Kork and turned the ship back over to him). The ship is fully healthy (even if previously killed - the Andros can do amazing engineering feats).

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 03:03 pm: Edit

Tony, well my intention of preventing the 10xDom's chuggin into Hydrax is this.

To follow history.

Otherwise the Andro's will paste the weakest race at a time, and go onto the next biggest one, widdling them down every turn.

We know (us as players) will do everything possible to 'break the system'.

And truth be known, the history of the Andro War hasn't been written yet, so their might be "political divides" within the Andro's we know nothing about, yet.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 03:15 pm: Edit

The Andromedans won't be in a position (even with most of their forces deployed) to take out a capital "early". They need time for economic necessity to wittle down the forces.

Assuming their OOB is what Jeff posted (or similar) http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/37/3743.html, before Y190, the Andros don't have enough DOMs to make effective forces. Only after that point do they have a chance to take on a homeworld.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 03:20 pm: Edit

Actually there were three conection points from the LMC to the RTN node, iirc. Instead of unlimited movement I think Andros should get 36 movement points to use but they must hit an RTN node every 6 hexes. I would let it take 24 movement to travel to/from the LMC. That way they are fast but not fast enough to cover the ISC and Hydra at the same time. however a resever in the LMC could cover anything within 12 hexes of any of the 3 connection points.