Freighters are so slow that crews cannot survive.

By James Southcott (Yakface) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:30 am: Edit

Ug....I'd rather be on an E4 that is part of the first line against a fortified Hydran capital, than on one of those 40 ships.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:46 am: Edit

Would the Wyn have some sort of mauler ability against any ships in their first round out of the zone?

IE, the ships limp through, and there is no time to form up to protect anything. Perhaps only on the first round of combat (as after that, things have settled enough for the invaders to form some protective ranks).

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 11:09 am: Edit

Just allow them unlimited direction.

And a bonus to captures (2-4 w/o Prime Teams or Commandos)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 11:42 am: Edit

Yeah, that too.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 11:57 am: Edit

Another possible suggestion then, what if the Wyn defender got to choose both BIRs for the 1st round?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 11:59 am: Edit

Yeah, that too.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:29 pm: Edit

The WYN will be ugly.....good.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:40 pm: Edit

Problem is, if they are that ugly, why will the coalition ever attack?

Historically it looks like the coalition badly underrated the defenses, and the two attacks had the effect of being probes to find out how tough they actually were.

I do not know how to make this sort of misestimation likely in a game. In a game the coalition will typically know how tough the WYN are, and attack only when they think they can win anyway.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:46 pm: Edit

That's where the limitation on ship numbers comes in.

Also, the reason to attack is that the WYN cluster will be a very rich, easily defended resource generator.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:56 pm: Edit

From AO:

KLINGON FORCES FOR OPERATION RIPOSTE` C7, 2xD5, D5D, F5L, 2xF5, D5V, AD5, F5E, D5P, D5S, D5J, MD5, MB, TGA, Prime.

LYRAN FORCES FOR OPERATION LIONHEART DN, BCH, 3xCW, 3xDW, CWS, PFW, STJ.

Those are probes?

The only thing that saved the WYNs vs the Lyrans was a Kzinti SCS w/o escorts.

The Klingons (I can't recall seeing anything about that in detail.)

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Yes, those are probes, they have no hope against SVC's described WYN and they have far fewer than his limit of 40 ships a turn.

AFAIK the WYN held at the boarder against both, neither managed to force its way into interior space or attack the PDU's, given this, they are not only probes, they are FAILED probes!

WYN is comparable to the Tholians or a capital system in terms of income, and expected expense of taking it, send either of those fleats into one of those alone, and there are two (2) choices.

1) You are a moron.
2) It was a probe.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 05:47 pm: Edit

or perhaps both

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Since we are headed for the EVENT DIE ROLLS. Is there a possibility of having an 'event die roll' for the Lyran/Kzinti/Klingons that results in a small ship 'disappearing' near/into the cluster as a bonus to the WYN fleet? (It doesn't have to be a huge chance of success just something to reflect the concept of defection/sacrifice into the cluster.)

Another possible way is a die roll to take one ship out of a destroyed ship pool from any battles within 6 hexes of the cluster (limit on size class/hull type would be appropriate here).

Could even do both. Just looking to add some fun interesting twists that are not too complicated. They wouldn't impact the game all that much either since historically no one ever took the cluster down.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 02:58 am: Edit

"Historically it looks like the coalition badly underrated the defenses, and the two attacks had the effect of being probes to find out how tough they actually were.

I do not know how to make this sort of misestimation likely in a game. In a game the coalition will typically know how tough the WYN are, and attack only when they think they can win anyway."


How about if the coalition wanted to try to take the cluster, they must first do such a probe, say with like 20 or so ships, and fight for several rounds (how many? 5? Until half the force is crippled?) to get a feel for the defenses.

Since they don't yet know how many ships can safely get inside the cluster, each successive probe can include 10 more ships than the one before.

They attack with 20, next time with 30, next time with 40, until they win or decide it wasn't worth it.

Perhaps even include a political rule that says if the 40 ship force didn't succeed, then the invader loses the stomach for another try at it. It could make that last attempt rather bloody indeed.

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 11:15 am: Edit

If that is the case Kevin then the reward needs to be pretty great indeed as the damage being taken is pretty large indeed (especially when those ships are better used elsewhere really).

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 11:46 am: Edit

Actually, if we make the battle result for the first wave a bit more random than is typical and assume the forces we see are simply the first battleforce of a planned 40 ship invassion everything might make sense.

Send a relatively low quality battleforce first, if you can absorb all the losses on the cheap (say by killing battlegroup ships) then start sending through the heavies covered by the survivors of the first force (since the first force survivors are NOT at 1/2 defense factor they can absorb the loses from later waves). If you cannot absorb the losses on the cheap, then cripple everything and withdraw the entire force.

Can we justify a more random than usual BIR adjustment on round 1 of each invassion? I think so, the coalition really does not have the ability to manuver to keep the range open but the speed with which defenders arive is critical, so a random coalition choice of BIR on battle one seems reasonable. (Say you ignore normal random BIR, the WYN pick a BIR normally, then roll a d6 and add for the final BIR.)

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:10 pm: Edit

What are the factors of WYN ships? Are there any rules for WYN aux cruisers in F&E? We need an order of battle including factors to really figure anything out.

Based on the BPV a WYN AXC should probably be a 4 ComPot frigate, OTOH I have always considered this ship badly under BPVed in terms of combat power.

It has paper thin shields, aux manuver restrictions, max speed 25, standard configuration has two racks, two disruptors, two Ph-1, one Ph-3, which sure looks like a 4 point frigate at best.

OTOH it has more than enough power to overload everything while at max speed after housekeeping, with the FOUR batteries still available for EW or reinforcement.

Suddenly it looks like a 5-4/2 or maybe even a 6-4/2 unit.

The AXBC is scary, it can move speed 31, with 4 overloaded disruptors, and still have 2 spare power to hold suicide shuttles or refil capacitors + 8 batteries for EW or shields. And the shields are standard heavy cruiser shields rather than frieghter shields. The only real weakness is manuver.

10-8/4 with a Mauler ability seems reasonable to me. (Seriously, the justification for the power of maulers in F&E is largely based on the ability to go fast with full weapons and lots of power, this ship can do that!) If it is not given a mauling ability I would make it a 12-8/4 unit.

(Note, the reason for the fast drop-off in attack factors is the lack of padding and the relatively vulnerable weapon suite.)

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:14 pm: Edit

I'd say make the AXC a 5/3 unit and be done with it, the AXBC, egads.....no mauler ability for the ship, make it about a 10/5 or maybe a 10-9/5

I think the WYN Fleet should get a mauler type ability with the first few rounds of combat in the cluster, but maybe just multiple Directed Damage or something.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:16 pm: Edit

Shock for all WYN non-fish ships might be good, since they are so 'overgunned'.

Not to represent it shocking itself, but they are so fragile that a lucky volley could cripple them.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:29 pm: Edit

SHock would be very bad, as an entire line of ships might "shock" themselves. Being very short ranged and not very mobile already make up for overgunned state of being.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 01:03 pm: Edit

No shock! Shock isn't relevant to the WYN since their shipyard is in the battle hex.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 01:14 pm: Edit

to represent the effects of the radiation zone
the radiation penalty starts at four and decreases by one each battle round until it hits zero, add the radiation penalty to the Wyn BIR and subtract it from the attacker BIR. this lets the Wyn dish out lots of damage for the first few rounds while the attackers are struggling to get sensors/etc back online and can't do much to the Wyn in response.

no mauler or multiple DD bonuses, limit the special rules to one place, the BIR and let everything else go from that.

given the overgunned status of the ships they should probably have split compot (say the AuxC is a 7-3, a F5 upgunned to a BC is a 10-5 etc) it may be reasonable to give the Wyn a higher then normal command rating (with the non-fish ships not being allowed outside the cluster)

this matches the history of the Wyn throwing everything that can fly at the attackers immediatly as it's their only chance to win. after the BIR penalty of the attacker wears off the attacker won't have to direct, the ships will be killed rapidly anyway, but before the radiation wears off the ships will survive and dish out a LOT of damage

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 01:36 pm: Edit

David, that sounds like a pretty good idea. Makes the Wyn dangerous, but whent he radiation effects wear off their ships will die pretty fast.

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 02:42 pm: Edit

The WYN OOB should start at the with historical ships, but production should be random AND unknown to all parties, until a probe is launched.

So if a probe is launched on turn 5, (for example) five rolls on the production chart would be made as follows:

1 - Random Pirate Ship Mercenary during this turn & reroll during future attacks
2 - Reroll during future attacks
3 - Reroll during future attacks
4 - Add AuxCA or Modified FF to OOB
5 - Add Modified DD to OOB
6 - Add Aux BC to OOB

This would be in addition to any ships sold/transfered/captured by the WYN.