By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 02:10 pm: Edit

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 02:13 pm: Edit

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 03:04 pm: Edit

Or with a late war ship I just outrun the suckers while killing the Intruder who is silly enough to stay near that useless pile of crap instead of manuvering, or if he manuvers they are almost worthless since they are out of their range.

Or I guess you could waste half their weapons by using one TRL as a tractor, hope the intruder does not need to displace.

A PF absorbs more points of damage, has more heavy weapons, more and better phasers (AND I get both heavy weapons and phasers without having to pick one or the other and shock for the privelege), and it moves fast enough that you have to actually kill it rather than ignore it.

TWO fighters are ALSO as hard to kill (much, much harder for anyone with seeking weapons, which is EVERYONE but the Tholians, Andros, and Hydrans), faster, and harder hitting.

IIRC all weapons on MWP are limited to range 15.

Is anyone seriously going to argue that the BPV of 20 is badly off?!?

If not then consider that 330 or so is a typical PF squadron at 12ComPot, and that Megafighters squadrons run about 180+Drone speed upgrades and count 6 ComPot. Late war attrition units use close to 30 BPV/ComPot, and suddenly people want to give these things 10 BPV/ComPot!

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 03:31 pm: Edit

I don't think the Shock limitation is that big a deal.

There are 2 scenarios (mainly) I see the Andros using these:
- base defense against drone chuckers. In this case, load up on the ph-2 version. You need all the phasers you can get.
- every other occassion. 8 extra TRLs are a blessing. Each MWP carriers what amounts to a Ph-4 for damage purposes. If there are no range limits - these things are great.
The Intruder pops them out, they wait until their fire control comes up, they all fire TRLs, any that shock are sucked back into the hangar for repairs. If the Galactic ship gets in a race, the Intruder sucks up the MWPs and wins the race. If the Galactic is coming toward the Andro, the MWPs lack of speed is un-important. If the galactic is shooting at MWPs instead of the Intruder - heck that's what attrition units are for.

I'm not saying these are wonder weapons, but they provide a lot of usefullness to the Andros.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 03:32 am: Edit

I'd say the MWP is 2 factors. Sure, it has no power generation, but it can close and cannot be ignored entirely. 10 pts in BATS will be enough to allow it to engage for 2 passes.
And it gains the usual andro advantages - it isn't worth firing at unless you can blow it up - it can pop in and out of the mother whenever it pleases - its a PF which can shoot its heavy weapon out to 15 (few can) -

Finally, the Andros need every bit of help they can get. To ask them to use up a hanger slot with four 1-2 units is a joke - they have better things to put in there.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 04:53 am: Edit

remember that all sat-ships are just factors (with some factors being able to be converted to EW and/or mauler factors)

as such the only difference between the viper/cobra/mamba/MWP is the total factors on the mothership which will probably be handled by giving them a multiplier to the sat-ship factors at a given year

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 04:11 pm: Edit

Yep, the Andros have better things to put there than 1-1 MWP, which is all they deserve to be, but nothing in the rules on MWP says they were a good idea or at all common! You are probably normally using standard SatShips, which ARE worth having and CAN move at a reasonable fleet speed.

Real SatShips are better, a few bases can add extra MWP. The only reason we need factors for them is for bases since otherwise SatShips are abstracted.

In any case note that MTP are not allowed except to bases, and are limited to one per base (see the organization section of the MWP rules). So the two TRL issue is irrelevant, the P2 is better in any situation where the OpFor has seekers and it is ALL you can take in any case.

DougL

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 11:22 pm: Edit

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 12:58 am: Edit

Joe,

Just trying to figure how many factors the Andro bases should have.

Douglas,
If MWPs are limited to 1 TRL variant per base, and can't be on ships - then I withdraw all positive comments about them. They are an abomination.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 05:03 am: Edit

One can assume that MWPs are just factored into Satship factors, as even bases have hangors.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 01:23 pm: Edit

Cfant: Yep, bases hangers have a known number of SatShips, which for consistency with ship hangers will have a known ComPot based on hanger size. But IIRC you can add an additional 12 or so (have to check the rules) MWP as base augmentation modules. Is this 6 Compot (treating them as fighters), 12 Compot (treating them as 1 ComPot each), 16 Compot (treating them as heavy fighters), or 24 Compot (treating them as PFs)?

Since this is added to a known hangar size we need an actual value, it also feeds into how effective Andro PDU are.

It strikes me as a minor point, but ultimately they will need factors. I think given how capable contemporary fighters are they should be 1 ComPot each, but I could see anything from 9 to 16 ComPot for a group of 12 as reasonable.

[Edited]

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Chris, Bases don't infact have hangers, at all.

The only way to allow MWP's (or Sat Ships) to be based with them is the MWP Module, which replaces the "external cargo Pod" of the SatB. (I think it even says this MWP module is collapsable and when deployed is as big as the original SatB) I believe it only holds 6 also (but more can be docked externally). There currently isn't a way to assign Sat Ships to bases in F+E at least (ie. SatB+2Mambas)

The way I figure it, for the "Sat Ships" for Andros:

Mamba: 6 or 7 COMPOT
Cobra: 5
Viper: 4

Now MWPs: 1/4 space, has same potential as a Cobra or Viper. So they should between 1.20 and 1.333. I keep pushing for 1.5 because that is the easiest to calculate.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 03:19 pm: Edit

The organization section of the MWP section mentions base groups of up to 18, so I assume someone can mount 3 modules, I do not have my rules handy to check the details.

I see no praticular reason to assume that 4 MPW = a viper or cobra. IME Larger SatShips are typically a better use of Hangar space, and the MWP looks like it will extend that trend.

In any case 1.333 is the same as heavy fighters. Since they come in groups of six and we are abstracting as factors anyway I see no real problem with declaring the MWP as identical to a heavy fighter (I would probably rather have the fast-heavy-megafighters in an actual fight, and the BPV bears this preference out, but 1.333 is in the ball park).

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 05:24 pm: Edit

[DRAFT Player Andros in pre-operation unity]
I see the Andro Invasion Plan as follows:
STAGE ONE (scouting) no F&E game effect
STAGE TWO (RAIDING) Andros can RAID under the Advanced Operations rules with one MotherShip. Andros can conduct an unlimited(virtually) amount of raids. If they decide to fight fleet actions, these are always conducted as pursuit battles, with the Andros being the pursued (to represent the fact that the Galactics were always trying to run the Andros down). Additionally, the Andros can function as Orions on a Piracy Mission to collect EPs.
STAGE THREE
Once the Andros collect a certain level of EPs in a sector - say 35 EPs- (West, Central, East), The Andros are allowed to conduct Fleet level operations and buy command points and use 1 command point to add a mothership to a battle force. 2 command points can be used when attacking a planet(is this too uber?).

Once the Andros have conducted their first fleet action the galactics( in that sector) realize the Andros have a some sort of network of strategic movement nodes(or after X turns of raiding). However they don't know how to look for them. [INSERT REASEARCH RULES]

STAGE FOUR

All andro raids and actions can be tracked to their base. Roll 2d6, -1 for each ship over one and add the EW of the highest scout. On a 12 or higher the route to a base is found (otherwise the fleet moves 1-6 hexes in a random direction). Reserve fleets can be called up if in range(by both sides). Andros are not allowed to use command points due to surprise. Reserve fleets called up do not get added to a forces pool for battle rounds equal to distance/2 round up.

The Galactics need to be scouring the galaxy for those routes the Andros used to, something only a sole scout could do well (hint SSCS). There are only three entry points into the Galaxy from the LMC. These entry points can only be discovered as such on a roll 6 on a die 6 upon winning a hex and staying in that hex to gather information.

STAGE FIVE OPERATION UNITY
Once all 3 routes are found, Galactics have figured a way how to progress to the LMC. They then can progress up the 5 areas to the LMC. Each one has a SAT base. Note the galactics must build a SB at each entry point to block further raids into the Milky Way. However any Andro bases and ships in the MW can conduct piracy and raids until found and destroyed.

Galactics are limited in what they send to OP Unity. No unique ships (also , must have at least one other of the same counters in the MW as in OU first). Limit of one of each class(except Carrier escorts). This represents the somewhat realistic racial tension of where races were still worried about defending their territory from pirates and one another.

This is obviously a huge scenario and you may want to pick a sector(East, Central, West) and Year of start is required as well as orders of battle.
OOB TBD (until SVC does this, likely will be a max number of DNs, BCH, CA, CL, DD, FF, NCA, DW, CW, fighter factors and PF factors)... Each race gets 5(too generous?) years(7 for Feds and Klingons) of their economy to spend on ships, etc. and 1 year of economy on PDUs/ Ground bases and extra SB/BATS. Note production limits based on chosen start year minus these years.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 05:59 pm: Edit

Chris, how many motherships can they put in their raid pool? you seem to imply that it's only one total and that seems pretty pointless.

By Michael H.Oliver (Mholiver) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 06:10 pm: Edit

well in away the Andros are a 100% raiding races...how many years did it take then to get here....so let the Andros have a few more riader then the reat of the races.... remember tht the Andros doing hit and run raids taking what they needed... so this way then can do this early in the game and later cut the number down on raids

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 06:32 pm: Edit

By Michael H.Oliver (Mholiver) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 09:06 pm: Edit

yes 1 ship per raid ,but more raids

but taking planets ...the Andros set up bases in open space ...right or wrong.....i cant remember the Andros till they took over LDR later in the game that the only planet I know they take ...and a gain I made be wrong

By Chris LaRusso (Soulcatcher) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:08 am: Edit

Yes, the limit of Raids in stage two is how many motherships you have. Think of this stage as something like the 100 years war. It think though there needs to be a progression of what the Galactics can respond with (rather than just a single ship). Is it possible for someone to post the playtest rules on Large scale raids?


The Andros have to be somewhat successful at raiding to make Galactics cover things other than their capitals. Then they can do fleet actions.

Here's a rule if the Andros raid a planet: roll a 2d6 ... on a 12 the Andros decide the planet is suitable for colonization.

FYI... The Andro raids generate the income from what they capture/disrupt similar to Orions on Piracy missions.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:10 am: Edit

The only written example of the Andro's pasting a planet is the LDR, but SVC has said in the archives that the Andro's Conquered planets.

The Andro's set up numerous bases in open space (their RTN network), which SVC hasn't said, but I think us players are hoping for, isn't going to be represented on the map. Because it will take ~100 counters to show it on the map.

So I think me, and all others, have taken that to mean that many planets far from the capitals (IE the Klingon Major down by Tholian Space) were probably conquered and held (ie. Multiple PDUs) by the Andros.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:19 am: Edit

What about this to give the Andro's an "Incentive" to colonize.

The First time the Andro's gain over 20EP from on-map, they get to choose to "develop" a new ship (These will be ships from the Andro Threat File), and each will have a "target" to achieve. Roll 1D6 and keep a running total, when it reaches the "threshold", the ship is gained, and can be produced. If they have 40EP they get 2D6.

Andro Threat File is a ton of "conjectural" Andro ships, like the Conquerer in R10.

That way, it will give the Andro's an incentive to try to keep and hold territory (as all these are better then the vanilla ships). Lets face it, what's exciting about having 30 Conquistadors.

Ships would be:
Conquerer (Conquistador upgraded to NCA)
Intruder++ (Intruder upgraded with belly-pack like Conquerer)
Dominator++ (Dominator upgraded with belly-pack like Conquerer)
Devestator (Good old-fashioned Battleship)

A Conquistador is 10-10 (5), a Conquerer would probably be 14-14 (5), 3EP upgrade maybe

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:59 am: Edit

Scott,

Not a bad idea. However, I'd make the incentive even bigger than that...

All mothership reinforcements the Andros receive are base hulls. They don't have the ability to produce ANY variants at start (this is implied by Op Unity - all reinforcements are base hulls). The Andros can spend xx EPs to get a dice toward one hull variant.
Conquistador - carrier variant (more hangars)
Conquistador - combat variant (more TRH)
Conquistador - Belly Pack (R10)
Conquistador - mauler variant (mauler!)
and similar progressions could be followed for the INT & DOM.

That would certainly be an incentive to start capturing territory...

By Michael H.Oliver (Mholiver) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 01:27 pm: Edit

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 01:31 pm: Edit