Topic is Closed for Submissions for Captain's Log #53. Submissions after this point will be considered for Captain's Log #54.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 24, 2019 - 05:11 pm: Edit

TED FAY, drop me an Email. I need you to clarify something in your venn diagram thing. You are an expert talking to expert judges (who understand your point) but you are way over the heads of normal players. I need a sentence or two explaining and giving an example of just what is a balanced venn diagram between your four factors. Is the baseline 25-25-25-25 or 30-30-30-10 or something else. You assume everyone you are speaking to knows what is the baseline but for less advanced players you need to define it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 24, 2019 - 05:19 pm: Edit

A note to everyone: please just stop using dashes. Apparently, none of you know how to use them. I have removed all but one of the ones in the 30 pages of player-written stuff I have edited so far.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Saturday, May 25, 2019 - 12:45 pm: Edit

SVC, I will get something to you this weekend.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, May 25, 2019 - 04:42 pm: Edit

I think that about 90-99% of people use dashes incorrectly.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 25, 2019 - 10:21 pm: Edit

I just need to know what the "normal, baseline" split is. Everything proceeds from that, and you never said what it is. One or two sentences. I can write them for you and you can just fill in the numbers.

"A typical baseline allocation is __% to build pincount ships, __% to build ships with high compot, __% for special mission units, and __% for infrastructure. As we shall see, your strategic position and goals will cause adjustments to these numbers."

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Sunday, May 26, 2019 - 09:13 am: Edit

Ah, OK. I was going to re-write the whole thing for you since I've had further thoughts on the how the baseline numbers will vary depending on strategic position, total economy, etc. But if that's all you need, then let's make this easy and use those two sentences you just wrote:

"A typical baseline allocation is 50% to build pincount ships, 30% to build ships with high compot, 10% for special mission units, and 10% for infrastructure. As we shall see, your strategic position and goals will cause adjustments to these numbers."

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 26, 2019 - 10:21 am: Edit

I can kick it to the next issue... or you can give a rewrite a try if you can get it to me by Wednesday noonish.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Sunday, May 26, 2019 - 08:24 pm: Edit

@SVC: Acknowledged. I'll let you know by then.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 07:48 pm: Edit

@SVC: Here is a complete re-draft. Feel free to use whichever one you want. This latest version includes a fifth category for the Venn diagram.

A Strategic Approach to Federation and Empire Economic Planning
Ted Fay
USS Texas

The game of Federation and Empire (F&E) is a game of economics, as noted in the rules themselves since the game’s inception. Thus, a strategic approach to economic planning will greatly improve your performance, especially for the grand campaign which is expected to last more than thirty turns. Of course, F&E is more than just a game of simulated economics. Both maneuver and combat are critical aspects of game play. The things you buy with available economic points (EPs) during the economic phase of the game are designed to help you with both maneuver and combat. Thus, before turning a strategic approach to economic planning, we first address what your empire needs to succeed. First, we address movement, second, we address combat, and third we address the economic approach.

First, we address movement. Of the defined types of movement in F&E, the chief forms are operational movement, reaction movement, retreat movement, retrograde movement, and strategic movement. This strategy article assumes you are familiar with each. Being able to dominate your opponent in most, if not all, of these movement forms is key to victory. The things you buy with your EPs can affect each form of movement. For example, buying bases and other supply points affect the operational range of your forces for operational, retrograde, and strategic movement. Buying more ships increases the odds you can pin your opponent in a key strategic sector during operational movement, and thereby accomplish your military goals during the combat phase for a lower repair cost and fewer ship losses. Buying fast ships allows you to build reserve fleets with extended range. Buying scouts allows your forces to react two hexes instead of one. Many such examples exist. You do not have enough EPs to maximize effectiveness in all of these areas.

Second, we address combat. Many factors affect how much damage you will take to accomplish a military goal, such as to destroy a starbase, capture a planet, or drive an enemy from a position. The damage you take will result in economic losses, either directly through the cost of repairing ships or indirectly in the opportunity cost imposed by lost or unavailable ships. Of these factors, the most import are your ability to field a combat line having combat potential (compot), your ability to absorb damage as inexpensively as possible (such as by taking damage on “freely replaceable” fighters), and your ability to field specialty ships which can make achieving a military goal less expensive for you, more expensive for your opponent, or both. Specialty ships include units like maulers, carriers, scouts, penal ships, etc. You do not have enough EPs to maximize effectiveness for all three of compot, damage absorption, and specialty ships, much less while simultaneously maximizing

Third, we address the economic approach. You never have enough EPs in F&E to “do everything,” so the question is “what is the best bang for your buck?” For example, for the Lyrans, it would be wonderful to field a combat line of 12 dreadnaughts (a devastating 144 compot) in both the Hydran and Kzinti theaters by turn 15, but will that deprive the Klingons of EPs to build enough ships to have the pin count necessary to dominate Federation movement, and thus actually win the war? F&E players have argued over these questions since the game was first published.

One approach to help find the optional answers to these questions for YOUR empire in YOUR game is to represent competing economic needs as a Venn diagram. All of the things competing for your F&E EP can be boiled down to four categories: infrastructure, damage absorption capacity, compot capacity, pincount capacity, and specialty unit capacity. Note that each of the four categories can affect both movement and combat, as described above, but ultimately whatever you buy is going to be in one of these four categories.

The infrastructure capacity category includes hard infrastructure, such as bases, colonial development, survey ships, planetary defense units (PDUs), field repair docks (FRDs), repair facilities, etc., as well as soft infrastructure such as additional strategic movement, field repair, etc. Infrastructure can directly increase your economy, such as through colonial development or allowing for the flow of diplomatic income, or increase the operational range of your navy into enemy territory.

The damage absorption capacity category relates to units which can better absorb damage for a lower cost. If you buy seven Federation FFs for 21 EPs, you get 35 damage absorption. If you buy a CVS for 22 EPs, you get 14 damage absorption; however, the CVS gives you fighters which can be freely replaced when lost in combat, whereas repairing FFs costs EPs. A Romulan could buy a mauler for 10 EPs, but buying two SP(A) war cruisers provides 14 damage absorption, versus 10, for the same economic repair cost.

The compot category relates to any unit which has a “high” compot. You define what you mean by “high”, but a recommended number is any unit which has a compot density of 9 or above. High compot units allow you to field battle lines with compots that exceed 100, preferably exceeding 110. High compot lines mean that not only do you do more damage to the enemy, but you take less damage as well. If you are doing more damage to the enemy than he is doing to you, then he cannot fight you as many combat rounds, and thus you take less damage. During combat, in many cases, “compot is king” (though do not take this euphemism as always being true).

The pincount category relates to any unit which increases the total capacity of your navy to pin enemy units. The pincount category relates to any unit with a “low” compot; i.e., 8 or below. Make no mistake, while a horde of Klingon E4 frigates might not terrorize the Federation defenses at Earth, the same horde lead by a C8 might be able to pin the enemy during operational movement and thus improve the odds that the Klingons can dictate when and where combat will take place with more valuable, heavier units. Note that there is some overlap between pincount and compot, because a “normal” dreadnaught still counts as a pincout of “1”. However, the pincount category specifically relates to buying more, cheaper ships, as opposed to higher compot but expensive ships. After all, with 16 economic points you could build a C8 dreadnaught, or you could overbuild three E4 corvettes. Which is better – 3 more ships to help pin the enemy but that have limited value in combat, or a 12 compot C8 which only counts as 1 pincout, but which is highly valuable in combat?

The specialty unit category relates to any unit which serves a specialty role, but which is more expensive than an ordinary ship of the same hull type. For example, a Kzinti SC costs 3.5 EPs and a Kzinti FF costs 2.5 EPs. A Kzinti SC has two less compot than a FF; however, the SC has one point of electronic warfare for use in combat and also allows extended reaction during the opponent’s operational movement. Which is better? To build the SC or to build the FF and then use that extra EP to repair one of many crippled units in the darkest days of the war?

All five categories are valuable. If all are valuable, then decide which is MOST valuable to accomplish your current or long term strategic goals. Assign that category the highest percentage of your available EPs in the Venn diagram. Be flexible. Your assigned percentages may vary from turn to turn, but if you have an over-arching strategic approach to the General War, then overall you should try to follow your allocations over the course of every period of terms spanning roughly 3-5 turns. On any given turn, may sacrifice one of the categories somewhat for the sake of the long term goal, but overall you should stick to your assigned percentages.

Naturally, your assigned percentages vary tremendously based on your specific scenario as well as on your specific situation. However, some general principles can be stated. Pincount is most important because, without it, you cannot pin the enemy and thus you cannot dominate the map and apply your more powerful ships where they will do the most damage. Compot is second most important, because you need to win battles and do so more cheaply by doing more damage than you take. Third is infrastructure, but consider that you can rely on much of the infrastructure you already have and also captured planets as supply points. Thus, in many cases, infrastructure can be downgraded to be about the same as damage absorption and specialty units. Do you REALLY need another Klingon starbase over Hydrax, or would that 60 EPs be better spent just overbuilding 12 E4s to help keep the Hydrans from reaching their former capital in the first lace, or would that 60 EPs be better buying a couple of carrier groups useful for taking on some of the seemingly limitless number of Hydran fighters?

For the Coalition in the early stages of the General War, a rule of thumb is that you should assign about 20% of your EPs to compot, 50% to pincount, 10% to damage absorption, 10% to infrastructure, and 10% to specialty units. If you go over these amounts in one area, then you either need to rethink your priorities in your Venn diagram, and set a new Venn diagram, or you need to cut back in the area in which you are considering over-spending.

For the Alliance in the early stage of the General war, a rule of thumb is that you should assign about 10% to compot, 40% to pincount, 40% to infrastructure, 5% to damage absorption, and 5% to specialty units. Note that damage absorption includes carriers, but you will rely on free fighter factors to stay within that 5%. You need the pincount (especially later), and the infrastructure allocation allows you to buy more PDUs over the capital – which also helps fund King Compot if the Coalition is going to try to take your capital.

As the game progresses, your Venn diagram is likely to change. As the Coalition advances into Federation territory, it may become more important to produce more ships in order to occupy more area and still dominate movement in the theater. Thus, you might shift your priorities to 60% pincount and 5% damage absorption and 5% specialty ships.

As with any strategy, there is no magic bullet or “best” set of percentages for your Venn diagram – though there are worse ones (any Venn diagram that completely ignores one of the five categories is likely not a good one). The important thing is that you are setting a budget with an understanding of how you are allocating your economic priorities to achieve a military goal within the game.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 10:49 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Second, we address combat. Many factors affect how much damage you will take to accomplish a military goal, such as to destroy a starbase, capture a planet, or drive an enemy from a position. The damage you take will result in economic losses, either directly through the cost of repairing ships or indirectly in the opportunity cost imposed by lost or unavailable ships. Of these factors, the most import are your ability to field a combat line having combat potential (compot), your ability to absorb damage as inexpensively as possible (such as by taking damage on “freely replaceable” fighters), and your ability to field specialty ships which can make achieving a military goal less expensive for you, more expensive for your opponent, or both. Specialty ships include units like maulers, carriers, scouts, penal ships, etc. You do not have enough EPs to maximize effectiveness for all three of compot, damage absorption, and specialty ships, much less while simultaneously maximizing

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By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 12:14 am: Edit

Ryan, thank you for pointing out that error.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 12:16 am: Edit

A Strategic Approach to Federation and Empire Economic Planning
(Revision 1)
Ted Fay
USS Texas

The game of Federation and Empire (F&E) is a game of economics, as noted in the rules themselves since the game’s inception. Thus, a strategic approach to economic planning will greatly improve your performance, especially for the grand campaign which is expected to last more than thirty turns. Of course, F&E is more than just a game of simulated economics. Both maneuver and combat are critical aspects of game play. The things you buy with available economic points (EPs) during the economic phase of the game are designed to help you with both maneuver and combat. Thus, before turning a strategic approach to economic planning, we first address what your empire needs to succeed. First, we address movement, second, we address combat, and third we address the economic approach.

First, we address movement. Of the defined types of movement in F&E, the chief forms are operational movement, reaction movement, retreat movement, retrograde movement, and strategic movement. This strategy article assumes you are familiar with each. Being able to dominate your opponent in most, if not all, of these movement forms is key to victory. The things you buy with your EPs can affect each form of movement. For example, buying bases and other supply points affect the operational range of your forces for operational, retrograde, and strategic movement. Buying more ships increases the odds you can pin your opponent in a key strategic sector during operational movement, and thereby accomplish your military goals during the combat phase for a lower repair cost and fewer ship losses. Buying fast ships allows you to build reserve fleets with extended range. Buying scouts allows your forces to react two hexes instead of one. Many such examples exist. You do not have enough EPs to maximize effectiveness in all of these areas.

Second, we address combat. Many factors affect how much damage you will take to accomplish a military goal, such as to destroy a starbase, capture a planet, or drive an enemy from a position. The damage you take will result in economic losses, either directly through the cost of repairing ships or indirectly in the opportunity cost imposed by lost or unavailable ships. Of these factors, the most import are your ability to field a combat line having combat potential (compot), your ability to absorb damage as inexpensively as possible (such as by taking damage on “freely replaceable” fighters), and your ability to field specialty ships which can make achieving a military goal less expensive for you, more expensive for your opponent, or both. Specialty ships include units like maulers, carriers, scouts, penal ships, etc. You do not have enough EPs to maximize effectiveness for all three of compot, damage absorption, and specialty ships.

Third, we address the economic approach. You never have enough EPs in F&E to “do everything,” so the question is “what is the best bang for your buck?” For example, for the Lyrans, it would be wonderful to field a combat line of 12 dreadnaughts (a devastating 144 compot) in both the Hydran and Kzinti theaters by turn 15, but will that deprive the Klingons of EPs to build enough ships to have the pin count necessary to dominate Federation movement, and thus actually win the war? F&E players have argued over these questions since the game was first published.

One approach to help find the optional answers to these questions for YOUR empire in YOUR game is to represent competing economic needs as a Venn diagram. All of the things competing for your F&E EP can be boiled down to four categories: infrastructure, damage absorption capacity, compot capacity, pincount capacity, and specialty unit capacity. Note that each of the four categories can affect both movement and combat, as described above, but ultimately whatever you buy is going to be in one of these four categories.

The infrastructure capacity category includes hard infrastructure, such as bases, colonial development, survey ships, planetary defense units (PDUs), field repair docks (FRDs), repair facilities, etc., as well as soft infrastructure such as additional strategic movement, field repair, etc. Infrastructure can directly increase your economy, such as through colonial development or allowing for the flow of diplomatic income, or increase the operational range of your navy into enemy territory.

The damage absorption capacity category relates to units which can better absorb damage for a lower cost. If you buy seven Federation FFs for 21 EPs, you get 35 damage absorption. If you buy a CVS for 22 EPs, you get 14 damage absorption; however, the CVS gives you fighters which can be freely replaced when lost in combat, whereas repairing FFs costs EPs. A Romulan could buy a mauler for 10 EPs, but buying two SP(A) war cruisers provides 14 damage absorption, versus 10, for the same economic repair cost.

The compot category relates to any unit which has a “high” compot. You define what you mean by “high”, but a recommended number is any unit which has a compot density of 9 or above. High compot units allow you to field battle lines with compots that exceed 100, preferably exceeding 110. High compot lines mean that not only do you do more damage to the enemy, but you take less damage as well. If you are doing more damage to the enemy than he is doing to you, then he cannot fight you as many combat rounds, and thus you take less damage. During combat, in many cases, “compot is king” (though do not take this euphemism as always being true).

The pincount category relates to any unit which increases the total capacity of your navy to pin enemy units. The pincount category relates to any unit with a “low” compot; i.e., 8 or below. Make no mistake, while a horde of Klingon E4 frigates might not terrorize the Federation defenses at Earth, the same horde lead by a C8 might be able to pin the enemy during operational movement and thus improve the odds that the Klingons can dictate when and where combat will take place with more valuable, heavier units. Note that there is some overlap between pincount and compot, because a “normal” dreadnaught still counts as a pincout of “1”. However, the pincount category specifically relates to buying more, cheaper ships, as opposed to higher compot but expensive ships. After all, with 16 economic points you could build a C8 dreadnaught, or you could overbuild three E4 corvettes. Which is better – 3 more ships to help pin the enemy but that have limited value in combat, or a 12 compot C8 which only counts as 1 pincout, but which is highly valuable in combat?

The specialty unit category relates to any unit which serves a specialty role, but which is more expensive than an ordinary ship of the same hull type. For example, a Kzinti SC costs 3.5 EPs and a Kzinti FF costs 2.5 EPs. A Kzinti SC has two less compot than a FF; however, the SC has one point of electronic warfare for use in combat and also allows extended reaction during the opponent’s operational movement. Which is better? To build the SC or to build the FF and then use that extra EP to repair one of many crippled units in the darkest days of the war?

All five categories are valuable. If all are valuable, then decide which is MOST valuable to accomplish your current or long term strategic goals. Assign that category the highest percentage of your available EPs in the Venn diagram. Be flexible. Your assigned percentages may vary from turn to turn, but if you have an over-arching strategic approach to the General War, then overall you should try to follow your allocations over the course of every period of terms spanning roughly 3-5 turns. On any given turn, may sacrifice one of the categories somewhat for the sake of the long term goal, but overall you should stick to your assigned percentages.

Naturally, your assigned percentages vary tremendously based on your specific scenario as well as on your specific situation. However, some general principles can be stated. Pincount is most important because, without it, you cannot pin the enemy and thus you cannot dominate the map and apply your more powerful ships where they will do the most damage. Compot is second most important, because you need to win battles and do so more cheaply by doing more damage than you take. Third is infrastructure, but consider that you can rely on much of the infrastructure you already have and also captured planets as supply points. Thus, in many cases, infrastructure can be downgraded to be about the same as damage absorption and specialty units. Do you REALLY need another Klingon starbase over Hydrax, or would that 60 EPs be better spent just overbuilding 12 E4s to help keep the Hydrans from reaching their former capital in the first lace, or would that 60 EPs be better buying a couple of carrier groups useful for taking on some of the seemingly limitless number of Hydran fighters?

For the Coalition in the early stages of the General War, a rule of thumb is that you should assign about 20% of your EPs to compot, 50% to pincount, 10% to damage absorption, 10% to infrastructure, and 10% to specialty units. If you go over these amounts in one area, then you either need to rethink your priorities in your Venn diagram, and set a new Venn diagram, or you need to cut back in the area in which you are considering over-spending.

For the Alliance in the early stage of the General war, a rule of thumb is that you should assign about 10% to compot, 40% to pincount, 40% to infrastructure, 5% to damage absorption, and 5% to specialty units. Note that damage absorption includes carriers, but you will rely on free fighter factors to stay within that 5%. You need the pincount (especially later), and the infrastructure allocation allows you to buy more PDUs over the capital – which also helps fund King Compot if the Coalition is going to try to take your capital.

As the game progresses, your Venn diagram is likely to change. As the Coalition advances into Federation territory, it may become more important to produce more ships in order to occupy more area and still dominate movement in the theater. Thus, you might shift your priorities to 60% pincount and 5% damage absorption and 5% specialty ships.

As with any strategy, there is no magic bullet or “best” set of percentages for your Venn diagram – though there are worse ones (any Venn diagram that completely ignores one of the five categories is likely not a good one). The important thing is that you are setting a budget with an understanding of how you are allocating your economic priorities to achieve a military goal within the game.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 01:51 am: Edit

Email, Ted, email.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 09:35 am: Edit

Done. For what it's worth now.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - 09:52 am: Edit

@SVC: I discovered more errors in the above, so I emailed you a new version entitled "Revision 2." Please discard all prior versions and start editing from revision 2.

Thank you.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 10:38 am: Edit

The Commercial Case for 1009
Stewart Frazier USS Ohio

With the addition of commercial convoys (and their additional funding), a case for upgrading the battle station in hex 1009 to a starbase has been put forth. Now the initial cost is a valuable tug plus the (substantial in the early Klingon game) fee of 28 EP. The reasoning for 1009 is that it is two turns of travel for the convoy (the minimum required) plus it cuts the transit time in half for both the Klingons and Lyrans allowing both to collect twice the revenue over the course of the game (instead of the Klingons collecting on Turns 8,16,24, and 32, they collect on Turns 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, and 34 with similar benefits for the Lyrans). However, in order to work, the base must be upgraded by Turn #6 (as the convoy can reach that hex returning from the Lyran starbase in 0608) which as most Klingons players will tell is not an easy thing to do as they are having a two front war, usually with one or both alliance capitals under assault.

Still there is some ‘extra’ funding by selling some ships to the WYN plus using WYN trade rights and their bank (the Lyrans do get a slightly better deal as they can sell their destroyers for a 5 EP profit [5 cost versus 10 received] while the Klingons can only match that by selling mothballed F5s [1 activation and 6 received]. Early captured territory also aids with the payment needed. Just remember to convert an F5 to an F5T as only newly built units can move outside the empire (601.1611) on Turn #1 and can reach the WYN via blockade running [fortunately both can be placed (320.513) in the raid pool (Klinshai being more than 6 hexes away from the Cluster and the Cluster requiring Operational Movement under (449.0) for entry)].

One upside is that the upgrade is paid by the third delivery on Turn #14 (or its fifth delivery [Turn #22] if one insists that the original Turn 8 and 16 payments must go to the treasury), longer if fighters are added. The main downside is usually fewer repairs and/or conversions. Of course, one can ask the Lyrans for some assistance as they also benefit (plus the extra funds could buy more FRDs to help the repair bill along, for both parties). Last point, escorts, these convoys are allowed two (515.43) and those early escorts (E4[A]s) can be useful.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 11:19 am: Edit

Stewart: I *think* there's already a tac note on this one.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 06:33 pm: Edit

Yea, '1009' in CL #29 by Jimi LaForm though he added some defense ability...

Hmmm, forgot about diplomatic income to help play for the upgrade as well.

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 10:34 am: Edit

Don't forget, shortening the route helps the Lyran also and the Lyran can help pay for it with EP transfers.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 11:15 am: Edit

The Lyran DD: A Diamond in the Rough
Ted Fay
USS Texas

The Lyrans always have problems producing enough heavy cruiser hull types, as they are limited to one such hull type per year as production (2 once the NCA hulls come online in Y174). However, if you adjust your damage absorption and conversion strategies early game, you can preserve as many of your DDs as possible for conversion to NCA variants.

Early in the midgame of the General war, starting in Y174 (turn 12), you can start converting your DDs into NCAs. Starting in Y175 you can start converting them into NCCs, NMCs, NCFs, and NSRs. In Y176 you can convert them into NCVs, NTGs and the excellent NSC scout. In Y178 you can convert them into NPFs, NSVs, and NDS. Note that some of these conversions will not be available if you are playing without some of the game expansions.

The base DD->NCA conversion, while expensive at 5 EPs, is still a minor conversion. That means that when Y174 rolls around, you can convert many of your DDs each turn at some or all of your starbases. Thus, you can convert your DDs into a lot of high quality cruisers very quickly.

Of course, you will still need battle group capable ships. However, by turn 12 you should have built up enough DWs and their variants to fill that battle group role. By converting DDs to NCCs and better, and using DWs in your battle groups, you can substantially increase the combat potential of your battle lines, which increases damage to the enemy and reduces the damage you take by forcing the enemy to withdraw more quickly.

To maximize the effectiveness of this plan, you can make some minor adjustments to your early game damage absorption strategy and conversion strategy. While you should certainly use your DDs in combat, do not self-kill one when the “required kill” rule is in effect. Do not self-kill DDs for a short term gain. In situations where the enemy will be likely to direct, and the battle is not important, consider using FFs on the line instead of DDs. You lose only 3 combat potential, but preserve your DDs. Finally, do not convert your DDs to other variants, or do so sparingly. Thus, when Y174 (turn 12) rolls around, you can start rapidly converting your DDs to NCAs (and starting in Y175, some of their variants).

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 11:21 am: Edit

Kill Lyran DDs
Ted Fay
USS Texas

This tac note is the flipside of "The Lyran DD: A Diamond in the Rough".

If you are playing Alliance during the general war campaign, and the Lyran player puts up a DD on the line, consider killing it with directed damage. Of course, do not make this decision blindly, as tactical and strategic circumstances can dictate the wisdom of directing and the wisdom of directing on an available target. Sometimes you really need to kill that mauler threatening Kzintai Major.

However, killing a Lyran DD only requires 16 damage points, as opposed to, say 28 damage points for killing a more valuable Lyran CC or 26 damage points for a STT or D6M mauler. By killing a Lyran DD, you prevent that DD from growing up to an NCA in Y174 or an NCC in Y175 when the Lyran player gains the ability to use a minor conversion to convert DDs to NCAs. Killing DDs in the early game limits the total number of cruiser hulls that will be ultimately available to the Lyran player, helps prevent higher Lyran compot lines later, is likely to cause more damage to the Lyran player by using fewer damage points to kill ships, and still reduces the Lyran player's total pin count.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 12:21 pm: Edit

The STT and D6M require 28 points to kill via directed damage.