I made a quick spreadsheet for pincount (and ships to targets count). I'm honestly not sure how I should feel about that.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 13, 2021 - 05:12 am: Edit

Should be a fund turn.

The Coalition should have enough to take the easy route to kill the 3rd Fleet SB (i.e. let damage fall)….

...the Marquis SB can fall - but only via the SID route.

Are the Coalition happy to take the pain?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 04:14 am: Edit

We all make mistakes

Battle Order and

"I did get to "Bakija" in 1803: 8 ships-half withdraw-two pretend to be waiting to be the next flagship - one of the last two fights and dies-so 7 ships can get away scot free. "

Wrong way round

On the Coalition turn, the Coalition is never considered to be the 'defender' for the purposes of withdrawing half of their force prior to battle - even if the Alliance reacted in or reacted into a hex with Coalition bases in it.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 09:48 am: Edit

>>I did get to "Bakija" in 1803: 8 ships-half withdraw-two pretend to be waiting to be the next flagship - one of the last two fights and dies-so 7 ships can get away scot free.>>

Heh, yeah, the "Have 8 ships and only one dies" move only works for the Defender on a given turn--the Attacker can't Withdraw Before Combat (302.1), only the Defender can.

So as the Attacker, you can attack with 4 ships, and if something bad happens, only lose 1 (i.e. attack a target with D7C, D7V, 2E4. A reserve shows up. D7C, D7V get to be "declined flagships", so E4 is flagship, and you aren't forced to put the other E4 on the line, as you have to include half the eligible ships in combat, but excluded flagships are subtracted from this calculation).

The Defender can have 8 ships and then only lose 1. For example, the Kzinti can have a CC, CVL, 6FF sitting on devastated planet 1001. The Lyrans then send a fleet of 30 ships to retake it. The Kzinti can withdraw (302.1) half the ships from the hex before combat (but need to leave one of the 3 highest CR ships behind, and it must be the command ship by [302.133]), so the CC, CVL, and 2FF can flee. Of the remaining 4FF, 2 of them get to be excluded flagships, the FF selected earlier is the command ship, the second eligible FF gets to be left off the line.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 12:03 pm: Edit

We need to go back another hex then. Not a big deal; the fight in 1803 is eight ships a side, he just has a BATS and better ships.

Sorry for using your name when I was using the rule wrong... nor do I know how we missed that I couldn't actually use the rule we were reading.

Anyway. Glad I'm posting everything.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 02:32 pm: Edit

>>Sorry for using your name when I was using the rule wrong... nor do I know how we missed that I couldn't actually use the rule we were reading.>>

Heh, not a problem at all :-)

(Someone other than me originally had this printed as a tactical note in some Captain's Log issue 20+ years ago, so really, they should get the credit).

Yeah, on the attack, with 4 ships, you can get away with sacrificing 1; 5-6 ships means you have to sacrifice 2 (excuse 2 flagships, put up a flagship, 1 other ship, 2 others get to run due to only having to field half of the eligible ships); 7-8 means you have to put up 3, and so on.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 09:02 am: Edit

So looking at the Kzinti econ in the other thread; I realize that the Kzinti have a billion cripples that need fixing and all, but I'd still suggest building the one FF they can.

Yeah, it means not fixing a couple more FFs, but unless you actually need that extra pincount for something very specific, you are probably better off getting the extra hull in the long run (and this game is generally all about the long run). The crippled FFs will all get fixed eventually, but giving up that hull is a hull gone forever.

Yes. I know. There are always different views on "fix all the stuff" vs "build all the stuff and fix the other stuff later" and all, but I'll always chime in on behalf of "build all the stuff" (except for that double cost HN on the first turn of the Hydran OCS. That's a terrible idea :-)

By Karl Mangold (Solomon) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 09:31 am: Edit

So a thought regarding flagship exclusion and minimizing losses when fighting unexpectedly fierce opposition...
This happened to me (twice) in our game my last turn in Hydran space, once when a strong reserve showed up, another when a nearby fleet unexpectedly reacted in to protect the undefended asset I was attacking with a relatively anemic force.
It is tempting to simply cut your losses and put up the frigate (or couple of frigates, destroyer, whatever) for dead and evacuate the remainder of your fleet. But with a quick look at COMPOT and likely BIR, you can get an idea of how much damage your opponent might inflict in a pursuit round. I made the best out of a bad situation by using flagship exclusion and making a line of the cannon fodder in the initial combat round, with enough to leave at least one cripple. Unless there is some advantage for your opponent to retreat elsewhere, he will probably go for the low-hanging fruit of pursuit.
So in this case I put my remaining good ships (esp. the ones excluded by the flagship rule) on the line to flesh out my pursuit defense force, (remember you can include non-crippled ships up to the CR of your flagship after cripples are included), and make a more formidable line. This is advantageous because your opponent's pursuit force can't be more than 6 ships, which will probably put you on more equal footing. You may even end up with a higher COMPOT. And the 6-ship restriction means your opponents COMPOT is probably not high enough to direct kill any of your good ships. (Cripples are another story, but of course under normal circumstances you were giving those cripples up for dead anyway.) In this way, you can turn a lopsided battle into just one heavily-outgunned round, and one relatively equal round. You may or may not be able to kill any of his ships, but you certainly can inflict meaningful damage. I should say that of course you will be suffering more damage yourself, but it will be in the form of another cripple or two. So if you can deal with that in order to get back at your opponent, consider this as an option. The alternative is that he gets to kill your ships and get off Scot-free.
Just a thougt.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 09:37 am: Edit

Karl wrote:
>>It is tempting to simply cut your losses and put up the frigate (or couple of frigates, destroyer, whatever) for dead and evacuate the remainder of your fleet. But with a quick look at COMPOT and likely BIR, you can get an idea of how much damage your opponent might inflict in a pursuit round.>>

Oh, sure; like, sometimes, your opponent will only attack with enough ships to do, like, a handful of damage, and will probably only cripple a ship or two, and you might be able to run away, escape the pursuit, or do some damage in return and only end up losing the FF you were going to lose anyway (lose some fighters, cripple a cruiser, cripple an FF, flee, put the crippled cruiser in formation, the pursuit force probably can't do the 12 damage to kill the crippled cruiser in formation, etc.).

If you are in a situation where your 8 ship force can reasonably fight the attackers and reasonably expect to not end up losing more than the FF you'd have fed them anyway, you might as well fight. But a great deal of the time, this isn't the likely outcome, so you'll just feed them an FF and run. As losing a single FF (and getting salvage) is a way better outcome than crippling 4 ships and then losing 2 in pursuit (and not getting salvage).

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Replying to Richard:

The Hydrans are still getting a lot of EPs because I keep chickening out of the capital fights against lines of PAL (Form) Scout Tug (Scout) Carrier + escorts + X number of DG/LBs. Once my BATS is up in 0615 that will change, as then I'm much more free to attack in.

Lyrans had 6 FFF saved going into Turn 8. They gain 3 (I have been counting them by turn). Using 6 they end with 3 saved for CT9 (and will have 6 available on CT9).

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 09:34 pm: Edit

CT8 is complicated.

I really need to kill 1704 and 1803 to push the Kzinti out of supply. But doing so is going to be complicated given that due to repair costs, I am only now upgrading a BATS in 1401.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 11:09 pm: Edit

What is a Hydran scout tug carrier with escorts?
The Hydran Tug can only carry one pallet can it not?

Hydrax Lines should be LAV, CCs, LGEs...put them all up when the 20PDUs and SB are functional...you should get to 400+/- Compot Lines.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Monday, February 22, 2021 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Scout tug AND carrier, not both in one ship.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Monday, February 22, 2021 - 05:47 pm: Edit

I currently believe I have been executing the Hydran campaign poorly; I haven't been willing to take cripples as my pin count would suffer and the Hydrans might be able to make progress. But in the absence of real aggression, the Hydrans have been building full schedules and are rapidly becoming so strong that real aggression will require diversion of resources from the Federation front, which, oof.

[And double OOF if I want to go kill the Tholians on CT10.]

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 22, 2021 - 05:58 pm: Edit

Well, to be fair, it is very difficult to get both the Kzinti *and* the Hydrans in the expanded game; you crushed the Kzinti pretty efficiently. Which means that the Hydrans are likely to become pretty dangerous. You can still kill them eventually, but only at the cost of managing the Fed front.

In my previous game (NSCD2, the one we finished), I was super focused on whacking the Hydrans, hit their capital and stripped all PDUs off the homeworld on T4, and I still didn't get the Capital till T6 (which compromised my ability to attack the Feds on CT7, etc.)

Don't engage the Tholians :-)

I mean, it is a thing you can do, and with appropriate planning, the Tholians can be vaporized on T10, but it does put a big dent in your ability to deal with the Feds.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 02:13 am: Edit

Sounds like everyone is having fun

On A7 Builds - Feds probably don't need to build PDU's on Earth - certainly not at this stage.

If they have money to burn - send it to the Kzinti or overbuild FF's - or build the 3rd carrier!

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 12:11 pm: Edit

The number of Excel documents created in the processing of this game has really gotten out of hand, I'll say that. If you are creating spreadsheets by choice in order to track things you must be having fun, yes?



[Trent has spreadsheets for future Alliance turns already theorycrafted. I have two running, one with a sheet for every econ and one with ships and fighters at the beginning of every Coalition op move since CT7.]

The Feds do indeed have money to burn, and given that my focus is on eliminating Starbases this turn rather than taking planets, they'll have even more AT8 with full income.

Total Alliance income on turn 8 will probably be ~300, against just less than that for the Coalition. At some point (and to some extent I'm doing it now in 1704 and perhaps 0617) I have to actually fight some uphill fights against hardpoints to make progress. But I'm actively trying to pick the Alliance pockets and get "free" BATS and PDU kills, and cheap starbases like 2915 this turn, whenever I can.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 02:16 am: Edit

Saving BATS 1803 is actually a pretty big deal, because it means the Kzinti get to stay on the map and also regain fighters after the Starbase falls.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 08:24 am: Edit

I assume 1803 will remain connected to the main grid (coming out of the Barony)?

If it is in a partial supply grid, being on a base only gives in effect temporary supplies for forces in the hex (and not replacement fighters)*.

You can pay the 1 Ep cost for full supply (and some free fighters) though - and so 1 or 2 Eps in a partial grid could make a big difference though.

* - If you move out of the hex, you lose the temporary supply status - and so would move as Out of Supply.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 11:43 am: Edit

You see, we discussed this at length, because we weren't sure whether (in a partial grid THIS turn) being on the Starbase gave him supply. Fighters didn't matter (because of the declined approach CT7, he had fighters anyway), but we thought this was resolved because he was stacked with a base:

It appears that all the rules for drawing supply through partial grids are trumped by the "stacked with a base" rule... but now that I check the Q&A, apparently this doesn't apply to fighters. Interesting.

Why would a move out of the hex trigger a "check" for supply? Isn't this only done a couple of times a turn? I mean, a ship can move six hexes to a point outside the supply range without losing its movement points (although of course it cannot retrograde unless it manages to retreat into supply).

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 12:06 pm: Edit

So a ship on a friendly base is always in supply, even if the base is otherwise cut off from a main supply grid. Being on the base does not provide free fighter replacement; the main grid does that. If a ship is on a base, it can "buy" replacements at the "1EP pays for 5 ships in supply and 12 replacement fighters" rate.

If the ship is on a friendly base, but otherwise not in supply of a main grid, if it walks off the base, it is no longer in supply (as it is only in supply if it is *on* the friendly base). But for most purposes, this is kind of academic--if you start in supply (i.e. on the base), you'll be is supply for movement and combat purposes. If you are not *back* in supply by the time retrogrades comes around, you can't retrograde (as you can only retrograde if you are in supply).

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Well, it sounds like this turn will be "Oh, that's not good." instead of "Dear God what have I done." at least, as if I push him off 1704 the old fashioned way (as I intended when I thought 1803 would fall) I will at least not be opening up various things to a vicious and angry Kzinti fleet on AT8 (as the partial grid will only have 1 EP for fighters).

From 1803 it is surprisingly hard to pin a determined Alliance fleet out of (or even defend!):

1401
1502
1504
1807

All at the same time.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Graham

Partial Grids are weird.

Any Friendly unit stacked on an Allied Base (except a MB...or captured planet without PDU's) is counted as 'in supply' for everything - while they remain in the hex.

So Kzinti and Feds (and in theory Gorn, Tholian or Hydran - if they can get there) would always count as 'in supply' for normal combat with the 1704 SB.

So everything fights at full combat value.

Some things do require 'full supply', which are Drone Ships (unless a Tug is carrying Drone supply...) and fighter replacements.

(Salvage could go to a partial grid IIRC).

But if your not worried about drones or replacement fighters - you fight in effect at full effect

Peter has got one thing wrong though (and William and I got it wrong in our game too*), if a ship ONLY has supply from a Base (and is not paid for via a Partial Grid), if the Ship moves off the base - it is immediately considered out of supply - and so would only move 3 hexes (or 4 hexes for a Fast Ship).

If the ship doesn't get into a hex which has full supply (or another friendly base), it is out of supply for combat.

Hence why I said the ship has temporary supply - which only works in the hex with a base.

Paying the 1 Ep for 5 ships (and up to 12 replacement fighters) via 413.41 - upgrades it from temporary supply to full supply.

* We couldn't work out why this rule was needed - and Chuck confirmed it was a rules clarification in one of the Captains logs (which neither of us had!).

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 01:17 pm: Edit

So, this is by the by to this discussion, but whoever decided that "friendly" was the word to use to EXCLUDE allied bases, deserves blame for a lot of confusion. We thought for weeks (long ago at this point but still) that "friendly" bases included allied bases. Because, like, they're friendly, right? Not necessarily friends, but friendLY...

Fortunately we figured this out [because there are a bunch of places that "friendly or allied" is used, making the distinction] before I tried to use Klingon bases to supply Lyrans.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Graham

Sounds like you was interchanging 'Allied Bases' in Supply Grids (which you can't do) - with Friendly bases your stacked with.

'Empire' and 'Allied' would perhaps have been better words to distinguish between an Empires own bases and that sides (Coalition/Alliance) bases, for any particular rule.