So some simple mine warfare rules, so the various minesweepers could eventually be included (as they do eat up valuable hulls):

- Add some "Minefield" counters, that on the back have "Reduced".
- Put MS in a hex, pay 3 EP, MS builds a minefield there. They must be around a base/planet (or some static force).
- MS must stay in that hex to maintain the minefield. If at any time a minefield does not have an MS present, it is removed.
- When attacking a base/planet with a minefield, there is a -1 to the die roll. If the attack force includes an MS, this modifier is nullified. When the -1 is applied, the minefield counter is flipped to the 'Reduced' side.
- If a 'Reduced' counter, and an MS counter, are in the same hex, 1 EP can be applied to flip the counter back over.
- Reduced minefields do not apply the -1 to attackers.
- Mine warfare ships in a hex maintaining a minefield can be attacked at 3-1. They do not use a command slot, and do not contribute attack or fighter factors.
- HDW's can do this mission, but it'd be a waste of a good warship.

Most of the mine warfare ships in game are simple 1 point conversions, using base hulls. 1 or 2 are provided per front at game start. They have pretty low attack factors as the heavy weapons are usually replaced with mine racks.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 26, 2023 - 01:02 pm: Edit

Eric Smith:

Minesweepers are used in combat, either to sap a route through a field for raiders to hit the protected area behind it or directly in support of an attack. They do NOT maintain the field.

A starbase (or Bats with a smaller field, or a base station) usually maintains its field (if it has one) with Minesweeping shuttles (to clear mines that have malfunctioned, or have been laid by the enemy) or Minelaying shuttles (to replace mines that were eliminated by the enemy in an attack or raid (includes mines triggered by enemy units and mines the enemy swept).

To create the initial minefield, or to reinforce it, you employ Minelaying Freighters. A small freighter has the capacity of laying 100 large mines, or 200 small mines, or a combination of the two (a large freighter can lay 200 large mines or 400 small mines or a combination of the two). Compared to a minesweeper (Federation minesweeper on old light cruiser hull) can lay 48 small mines or 24 large mnes or a combination. Most minesweepers carry even smaller numbers of mines in their mine racks. Note that a "Free Minelayer" appeared in an issue of captain's log for, at first, laying initial minefields, but it had a pretty limited capacity, however its background noted that as the freighters took over the role of establishing minefields the free minelayers took over the role of "hasty minefield repair" since they were as fast as normal ships and could get to a base to repair a field faster than a minelaying freighter and carried more mines than a minesweeper.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 26, 2023 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Further, your proposed mine warfare rules simply do what SVC has pointed out about putting mines and minesweepers in Federation and Empire. The attacker simply brings a minesweeper with him to attack the base and nothing really happens for all the added counters.

By Eric S. Smith (Bad_Syntax) on Thursday, January 26, 2023 - 07:20 pm: Edit

Good point Steve, so perhaps instead of MS creating it, it just maintains it and an MS is just used to offset a mine field.

Maybe just allow 1-2 minelayer convoy type units for a faction that could go around and lay minefields for EP cost.

Yeah, if they are always used to offset, they are kinda mitigated, but lots of things in the game can be mitigated. If team A has scouts, team B brings scouts, no EW shift. Same thing, but yet we have scouts.

Just tried to create a simple system that'd allow mine warfare if desired, even if it didn't do all that much overall. I don't think anybody would want rules that drastically change anything, so I tried to make something that if you chose to keep it subsumed and ignore it, very little would actually change in the game.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 27, 2023 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Scouts have other functions than gaining or blocking a die roll shift. Consider that deploying a scout grants reaction distance. Arguably the "free scout" rule allows an extra ship in a battle force. This is not cancelled by the other side having a scout.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, January 27, 2023 - 07:24 pm: Edit

Also, note that Lyrans (with ESGs) could, under some circumstances, ignore the minefield - by using their ESGs to breach it ...

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, January 28, 2023 - 01:22 am: Edit

And the *quality* of the scout matters - even when not using the full EW rules, the survivability matters.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, January 28, 2023 - 01:33 pm: Edit

Honestly, rule (313.0) is probably the most base of all the rules outside of the actual base rulebook. Any rules environment in which minefield rules are going to be used *are* going to be using (313.0), so scouts are absolutely not just “oh we each have one so they cancel out.” Further, a scout on its own is useful where ever.

Minefields are static elements and known ones - especially at this scale. A minesweeper or minelayer is only useful at those locations, in the cases of a base under threat or being attacked. In a game with thousands upon thousands of counters, what *interesting game choices* does adding another 2-4 unique counters per empire, at 3-4 copies each, add?

By Eric S. Smith (Bad_Syntax) on Saturday, January 28, 2023 - 10:14 pm: Edit

Because those minesweepers eat up precious hull slots. To ignore them completely, means more ships in the game on the line. Needing a couple minesweepers on a front would help. This game has a TON of rules for special case ships. PAGES of rules for some ships or classes. To say that we should ignore mine warfare because it doesn't add to the game, when the same could be said for a dozen other rules, isn't a very good argument though.

Fact is, Minesweepers exist in universe, just like light dreadnoughts or small auxiliary scouts. While they may not be something that is going to be a significant change, who would want that? Just a minor ship with a minor role that can occasionally make a couple of percent difference.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Sunday, January 29, 2023 - 12:01 am: Edit

It is a good argument, that I supported. It's the argument the designer considered in the original design of the game, and that has been the topic of discussion for decades since.

Yes there are tons of rules for special case ships - many of which are very intentionally "and here they are for historical interest and flavor" - ultimately if the Klingons build a few E7s instead of D5s isn't something that affects the dynamic of the game.

Ships related to rules that do affect the dynamics of the game, like light dreadnoughts, get that accounted for in the expansion that includes them - they are added to starting OOBs, production limits get adjusted as needed, etc.

Mine warfare, at the F&E scale, has a unique dynamic in that the minor role where it would occasionally make a couple of percent difference will be the the absolutely most pivotal battles of the game where both sides are basing their entire strategies around those shifts: starbase assaults and especially capital assaults. And the rest of the time it would be a non-factor, as a side that is just rolling up a handful of border BATs is doing so with such ease that such a shift won't make any difference either way.

So again, we are back to "Any where it matters, the one side is *of course* going to have the minefield supporting ship there, the other side is *of course* going to have the minesweeping ship there, and hey look they cancel out" and we are back to where we started.

And unlike pretty much every other special ship type, they don't do anything outside of those very
specific instances.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, January 29, 2023 - 06:15 pm: Edit

I'm not particularly keen on the concept of adding mine warfare to F&E.

That said, Module C6 notes that the "Mapsheet P" Paravians benefit from their minesweeper variants being able to retain the full suite of quantum wave torpedo mounts from the base hulls they are derived from. Which, on the one hand, makes their minesweepers more useful in direct combat... but which, on the other hand, leads their more aggressive captains to take them into battle, rather than waiting for the minesweeping missions the Paravian admiralty wants them to be used for!

Also, the Romulan Sparrowhawk-D retains the full firepower of the "base" SparrowHawk hull, though it is less effective than "lost empire" Paravian minesweepers at leveraging this firepower to actually sweep mines. Still, the modules can be swapped out, or back in if needs be.

So if one was to go to the trouble of factoring mine warfare into a given operational or strategic campaign system, there are certain Alpha Octant empires for whom this might offer some unorthodox advantages - or disadvantages, depending on your point of view.

By Sam Benner (Nucaranlaeg) on Sunday, January 29, 2023 - 09:33 pm: Edit

If there's a minesweeper that's particularly effective, it can be introduced without giving everyone minesweepers. The Paravian minesweeper, say, could force the defender to choose BIR at least 2 when it's attacking a base. And that could be the only minesweeper in the game, with a note that "other minesweepers exist and are assumed to negate each other's effectiveness; this one is just more effective and thus worth representing."

No reason to do any more than that.

By Eric S. Smith (Bad_Syntax) on Monday, January 30, 2023 - 06:20 pm: Edit

There are a total of 55 minesweeper variants in SFB. Races have from 1 (orion) to 6 (Feds). This excludes general small/large minelayers and other common ships all races may have. Police flagships would also gain a mine warfare ability, but those are already in game (so one could argue that minesweepers are already in F&E, just not all of them).

Second to all the missing HDW's, which are already in the game, these are the last class of ships that have not been added to the game.

One could easily assume stuff like APTs or PTRs would just be subsumed into the rules as they aren't very significant, but they are in the game, and a lot less significant than minesweepers.

Its been decades since I fought a minefield defended base in SFB, but I recall it being a lot more difficult than the 36 combat factors on a starbase would indicate. A minefield has a significant impact on the enemy fleet ability to close range.

A more complicated rule along the lines of an enemy minefield preventing the attacker BIR from being over 1 (or 2 with an MS, though it can be directed again). Each turn an MS is present would allow a 1 increase, as the minefield is depleted. This would probably be a huge benefit to the alliance though, as it would make bases tougher to crack (as they should be). Maybe each minefield point is -1 to the enemy max BIR or something. It should cost EP to make minefields, which may make them too expensive to use in all but the most important bases.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Monday, January 30, 2023 - 09:08 pm: Edit

Just to throw my two quatloos in... I ask your indulgence if I've got this wrong, and your help seeing the light if that's the case.

Does F&E really benefit from having this additional layer of complexity? Its not about having the ship, but also having the rules around the ship that makes it a minesweeper and not another auxiliary pressed into front line service.

Mines are a thing, but at the same time when you reduce a ship down to COMPOT, there comes a line between what is valuable to simulate and what simply clogs the rules up with edge cases intended for rare use... that somehow end up in almost every use case (players of war games wanting to be Patton, Custer, or Hannibal rather than the rank&file guy that got it done without earning metals or notice).

Strong points that would be defended by mines are intended to be hard to crack, so what about a SB assault in F&E could be made easier by having a minesweeper along to draw fire almost as fast as the scout?

In SFB, everyone I played with wanted to bring a minesweeper for that massive #1 shield of 30+ boxes, because it meant they could wade into the slugfest and not worry with maneuver, or with the crazy notion that they could lay a minefield during a scenario to setup some tron-esque lightcycle trap..

Now I can see mines being around a fixed point, or lain as stellar barbed wire along a pinch point, but the SFU doesn't need jump points, star gates, or any of the other McGuffins used by writers to concentrate a fleet of ships into such a compact formation that mines become strategically effective. At the scale of seasons of time and light years of distance F&E is fought at, mines are at worst a major tactical consideration and yet only a strategic speedbump. Its yet another aspect of SFB that was abstracted out to let one arguably fight a war on a galactic scale in a weekend, rather than a year.

So I ask again, what is the value add here? What benefit is there in having yet another ship type to possibly have to build/convert?

I'm not saying there is no value it, I'm saying I can't see it. Is there not already enough variety in the hull types to already give the logistics folks conniptions now?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 11:37 am: Edit

Some kibitzing from the peanut gallery...

1. In SFB, minesweepers don't really "nullify" minefields. They reduce the pain of trying to breach the field. But a well-laid-out field, covered by the guns from the BATS and any defending ships/fighters/PFs, is still a major hassle for the attacker.

2. Certain empires (Lyrans, with their ESGs) and ship types (Tholians with web casters, maulers, X-ships from any empire) have intrinsic advantages breaching minefields, even without formally-designated minesweepers.

3. I don't know if this level of detail is appropriate for F&E. But if it is to be included, I think it should be included in more detail than Eric Smith's original 26 January proposal.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 12:23 pm: Edit

Overall, the issue is none of us (since we aren't G.O.D.) are saying that it's *impossible* to have a set of interesting, meaningful, and usable set of mine warfare rules with mine warfare ships, but that it's a huge ask, bordering on the *improbable*.

Going all the way back to (802.0) in the core book talking about the original mine warfare playtests and how it reduced down to "And then attackers just brought a minesweeper anywhere there was a minefield and everything cancelled out" means this is something that has been considered and experimented with from the beginning, and has had decades of players noodling about it. What this means, practically, is that any such proposal needs to really more developed and in-depth that some spitballing that comes down to "and if they bring a minesweeper it cancels out the minefield" to get any real interest and traction amongst the F&E playerbase, let alone with the designer. Personally, I'd want to see a full cased rule backed by some personal playtesting - really anything less would just end up going like any F&E mine warfare proposal has gone (c.f. this thread).

That, of course, means it would also be based in a deep understanding of the game dynamic - adding mine warfare would not be comparable to adding APTs, for example, because mine warfare, as I have pointed out, would be affecting the dynamics of the most critical battles that are fought over the course of a game - and nothing else. Whereas something like APTs is just giving players more options for doing stuff they could already do.

By Eric S. Smith (Bad_Syntax) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 02:57 pm: Edit

I understand the arguments folks make against them. Basically they would add very little to the game.

However, there are a lot of rules that we could already say that to. Some of those rules evolve over time as well. In the original game, there were no 'leader' ships (minus the F5L). Later any 3 would add 1 compot for the leader. Eventually we got battlegroups that added onto that. Now we have actual counters for leader variants. These ships really add very little to F&E, add complexity (now you gotta count #s to see how many leaders you get). I'm sure at one point people were using the same arguments against having them. Yet now we have them.

Heck, heavy fighters, based on the way fighters are dealt with, are completely pointless. In BPV terms 6 of them are not usually worth any more than 12 regular fighters, yet in F&E we have have tons of carriers to hold them, tons of new rules dealing with them, and overall it has added very little the game perhaps outside of F111s since the feds have no PFs.

The feds had:
8 MS (CL hull)
2 NMS (NCL hull)
2 FFM (FF hull)
4 DWM (DW hull)
That is 16 hulls that we have names for. No way that size of a force should just be ignored as "not relevant". That is 96 COMPOT they converted to minesweepers, many while fighting off an invasion.

So my proposal isn't trying to say "this rule is going to be AWESOME and add so much to the game!" as much as it is a very simple proposal, to fill in a current void, that would have very little impact on the game overall. We have countless references to unique rules for all sorts of units in the game already, so why all the hate against minesweepers?

In mine warfare in SFB you have 3 things that would go on:
#1. Creating minefields. Probably done by auxiliaries, and maybe even created for the role and converted back after. I don't think we need F-ML and F-MS in the game because they themselves are not the targets, and once they lay their mines (which is the EP) they are just freighters.
#2. You are attacking something defended by a minefield. Maybe an MS isn't really something that gets used here. Still though, a minefield *DOES* make it more difficult to attack something, so surely that should be modeled somehow.
#3. Thinking more about it, an MS would probably be mostly used when an enemy base or planet was taken, to clear out the mines leftover. So maybe an MS would be required to complete the takeover of a world. Kind of like how hospital ships help recovery, an MS would be required for takeover if the world had a minefield.

So, v2 of my proposal:

- Add a few "Minefield" counters for each faction, on the reverse side it says "Breached Minefield"
- Pay 3 EP for a minefield counter, place it on a planet or base. You can add as many as you desire.
- If a base is destroyed with a minefield present, the minefield also goes away.
- If a planet is captured with a minefield present, the minefield still exists.
- If a minefield exists around a planet in a province, -1 EP is produced by that province. No matter how many planets are in province, if any still have an enemy minefield presence, it is -1 EP total each turn.
- Each MS on that planet for a turn removes an enemy "Minefield" or "Breached Minefield" counter. Multiple MS can be combined for this, and multiple counters can be removed in one turn.
- When attacking a base/planet with a minefield, there is a -1 to the die roll if any "Minefield" counters exist (ignored if on the 'Breached' side)
- Each time an attacking force attacks something protected by a minefield that does NOT say 'Breached', flip one of the minefield counters to the "Breached Minefield" side.
- For combat purposes, 'Breached' minefields are ignored, everybody knows the paths through them.
- An MS (or x-ship) can be attached to an attacking formation to ignore the attacking penalty. This unit does no use a command slot, nor does it contribute to COMPOT. It can also be directed against at 1:1.
- 'Breached' counters can be flipped back over for a 2 EP expenditure, assuming control is still retained in the hex, and no enemies are in that hex and no enemy scouts adjacent.
- 'Breached' counters can be flipped back over for a 1 EP expenditure, assuming control is still retained in the hex, and no enemies are in that hex and no enemy scouts adjacent, AND an allied MS is present (they can fill in the gaps, reprogram stuff).
- If 50% of the attacker COMPOT consists of x-ships, the -1 penalty is ignored and a minefield flipped.

So the purpose of minesweepers is cleaning up remnants of minefields left over from defenses that were breached, though they can help detecting mines in attacks. While some races may be better on a tactical level dealing with mines (ESGs!), using them means they are not fully participating in the fleet action, so they are still reduced in offensive potential. Either way going through a minefield in an attack breaches it, just one way does so with less reduction in potential.

The EP reduction is due to civilians having to take longer routes, or demanding higher prices, due to the dangers of mines. Keep in mind that minefields have all sorts of settings, captors, delays, command detonation, etc, etc that can cause all sorts of issues long term.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 03:37 pm: Edit

The issue here is at what level of granularity do you stop.

Between this and the Legendary Officers proposal, I think that the original poster really wants to play SFB with some level of overall economic and military strategy.

F&E has its level of granularity to *allow* the players to command large fleets and keep the game rolling. Anything finer will gum up the works and either turn it into an unplayable morass that takes a week to resolve a 6-month turn, or destroys play balance to the point that people will simply stop playing.

I might respectfully suggest applying the Admiral's Game or Operation Unity at the Federation Commander scale instead of trying to adapt F&E.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Again, the difference is many, if not pretty much all, of the things you have been mentioning have been adding more options to being able to do things that you can already do in the game. Heavy fighters allow you to make carrier groups with higher density but at the trade off of not being able to feed in replacement factors from other carriers during an ongoing battle. But if someone decides they just don't want to bother with heavy fighters or with APTs or what not, they just...can.

Versus something that is adding a whole new step to combat resolution that players *can't ignore*, which is what this does. And, *again*, does so during the most critical combats but only those. Further, the more complex you make this system, especially in terms of EP costs, the more ripple effects you have to consider and the harder it will become to balance.

Like, if your proposal is truly that simple, why do you think you are the first person in nigh 40 years to have come up with it? Go ahead and playtest your rules and come back and let us know how they work.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 04:57 pm: Edit

So, the Hydrans can spend 18 EP and get a -6 die roll mod against the Coalition at Hydrax?


I don't think so.

***

Minesweepers can be in the battle force without taking a command rating slot? No, I don't like that.


*** Mines were generally a terrible addition to SFB (note that in FedCom they've been removed entirely), and I would prefer to just pretend they're abstracted into bases already in F&E and not create rules forcing players to explicitly add them to the game. No please.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Eric, I fear what your doing is tantamount to trying to teach a course on trading Stock Options using a stock copy of Monopoly. Yeah, they are related but the game just doesn't have those rules.

I mean no offense, it just seems like the nook your trying to explore is one of several that are abstracted out to streamline the conversion between a Tactical level game (like SFB) and a Strategic level game.

Take a step back and think on the last time you or someone in your group had to build a drone package for a Kzinti fleet action. It takes several hours even if you know what your doing, longer if you want to get the maximum the rules allow.

I hope you see what I'm getting at. Where is the value in simulating this level of detail? I don't see there is any, but I'm willing to entertain explanations as to why I'm wrong.

I have not played F&E with a skilled partner ever. I know I don't know all the tricks. I remember playing a couple of games in the 90's when I bought my set, but neither of us knew what we were doing, and I have not played since. I do not claim any sort of competence at the game. I might be wrong on this, but I don't think I am.

--
At the risk of sounding condescending (not my intent), and in case you have never done anything like building a Kzinti fleet drone package before, here is an exercise that might help you understand my opinion. Take a Kzinti CVA and era appropriate escorts (i.e. you choose the year), then add one or two cruisers, say a CS or CD, three destroyers and three frigates swapping one of the DDs or FFs out for a dedicated scout. Now start tallying all of the drones you need to allocate, and look at how many drones can get on the board in one turn if the entire force alpha-launches, how many more from a second launch from C racks later in the turn, how many can the fighters pickle off, what your reasonable scatter-pack plan should be, and so forth. How many of those drones launched have to be ATG drones? How many scout channels have to be dedicated to controlling drones. These questions are just straight research, after that you have to 'buy' your loadout. How many points do you get? swapping 2 type I's for 1 type IV is easy enough, but what about if its in the era when Type II and V drones are useful? Oh, don't forget to buy speed upgrades, they are not automatic. Add in your limited and restricted availability drones, maybe even a few customized drones for flavor, make sure the fighters have their loadouts seen to, and their reload stockpile is up to scratch, perhaps pre-deploying parts of it on the escorts so that they have supplies to put into their read racks...

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 05:57 pm: Edit

Richard, the proposal is -1 shift for *any* minefields being present, not *per*. Multiple minefields provide redundancy, not a stacking benefit.

By Eric S. Smith (Bad_Syntax) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 07:04 pm: Edit

@Mike. Sure, what granularity do you stop is a good point. However, minesweepers are hardly more granular than APTs, PTRs, Admirals, Generals, SWACs, pinwheels, the 23/77th unique units, penal ships, or any number of dozens of other rules that barely make a difference. Point is, we have rules that are far less important already, so why is mine warfare missing?

@Alex. My point was heavy fighters in SFB add nothing, yet they were added to F&E. So, trying to say because mine warfare in SFB is no big deal as a reason to not add it to F&E is ignoring history.

@Richard. Read closer. Max of -1, the count just allows it for more turns. Also, that MS in the line adds nothing, but it also CONTRIBUTES nothing. Its just a target.

@Jeff. No idea where you are getting that from. All I am trying to do is propose a way to integrate a clearly important part of the universe in a game that already deals with far less important parts of the universe. I played a game once with klingons vs kzinti, and based on optional rules at the time the Klingons were able to put more drones in the air, which was kinda funny. I have no desire to play SFB again. My point is, F&E already includes lesser aspects to the universe, so by excluding this one really makes no sense at all. It is clearly an important part of the universe, far more important than many of the rules already in F&E taken from SFB, so to ignore this one seems kinda silly.

Heck, based on the rule growth of F&E every update, to think it won't be in there eventually goes against all the historical additions of very unimportant rules.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 07:24 pm: Edit

"a clearly important part of the universe in a game that already deals with far less important parts of the universe."

By what metrics?

As for mine warfare being "unimportant" - it was important enough to be part of the original design, evaluated, and discarded - with a section in (802.0) explaining why *to this day*.

As SPP has pointed out, your proposal still comes down to "and the attacker brings minesweepers and the net effect is zero" that is SVCs own reasoning as to why.

Yes, there are discrepancies between how some things work between the two games (see also: maulers, maulers, and maulers) but that comes down to them being different games, and certain decisions being made to highlight different things for the goal of interesting gameplay.

And for someone telling people to read their posts more, you really need to go back and read the one where I said there is definitely a possibility for interesting, fun mine warfare rules to exist - but your proposal, being the the same essential one that got discarded 40 years ago and gets repurposed regularly *isn't it*.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 07:52 pm: Edit

Hmmmm, if anyone really (REALLY) wants to evaluate how well a minefield works ...

Set up six route on a standard map from 10xx to 32xx, using a CA and/or CW, speed between 12 and 20 (different speed on each route). Design a standard (M6.2) 100-point tripwire minefield, placed between 15xx and 23xx (standard 30 x 5). Run all six routes without any defense while ignoring the sensor ans captor mines (this gets very raw numbers) and note the condition of the ship, crippled, wrecked (have trouble against a freighter), and destroyed. This gives raw damage against F&E 7/8 (cripple), 9/10 (wrecked, and 11/12 (destroyed). Using four more routed, and add in the sensor/captor mine and let the captain make some decisions (emergency deceleration, slidslips, etc,). Again, this is for raw numbers on the end state of the ship.

Now that the easy part is done, let's move on the bases.

Take a base station and add one 100-point minefield designed for range-8 and range-15 (this is going to thin the field a bit) and run the CA and CW twice against the base. Once, again, raw number generation, no captors (just the BS). Two more runs with captors and the evaluation should be done.

If feeling good at this point, either add another minefield to the BS or upgrade to a BTS (and add the minefield). Generate the raw numbers as above.

If you wish to use more than one ship, it will depend on how you swap the 'lead' ship out ...