The latest version of this rule I've read said that the commodore and two ships with him were "unpinnable".

Should the Hydrans manage to get a commodore on turn 3, the expedition becomes a simple matter. The commodore is unpinnable and always in supply, and he brings along an HN or two to sacrifice to any attacking coalition force.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 05:58 pm: Edit

Better not let this information out!

it could (in theory, anyway) let the alliance activate the Federation on turn 5...which would change the flow of the game significantly!

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 07:32 pm: Edit

Supply should change to "always in Supply if within 6 hexes of a pupply point"
(cannot be knocked out of supply by enemy action)

Also the Direct damage rules is a little severe, there is no reason why a Mauler cannot be used with (308.72) restrictions.

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Turn 5? I can see Alliance Turn 4. Accomplished as follows:

T3A - Move 3 1st Fleet Ships from 1216, 6 hexes NE. Fight 1 Round, Losing 1 Ship and retreat NE.
T4C - Refuse to pursue ships into NZ, since retreating Hydran will activate Federation early. Rearrange East Fleet.
T4A - Hydran's cross border and Federation activate.


A simple way to stop this would be to allow a admiral or possibly a commodore to block an opposing commodore.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 09:52 am: Edit

Obviously, the unpinnable thing won't work.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 10:21 am: Edit

Why not treat LCs like F-ships in that in takes two ships to pin his ship.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 10:48 am: Edit

Or X-Ships (ie, they can't be partially pinned).

By James Southcott (Yakface) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 10:53 am: Edit

I've not seen the playtest rules, so can someone tell me, do LC's do anything other than have an effect on pinning?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 11:11 am: Edit

(3CM.0) LEGENDARY COMMODORE
From time to time there emerges from among the ship captains of a fleet one leader who, through courage and genius, can get more done with fewer ships against higher odds than anyone else. These are the Legendary Commodores such as Phil Kosnett and Tony Stocker.

(3CM.1) LIMIT: The Federation, Klingons, and Romulans may have no more than two Legendary Commodores at any given time. The Gorns, Hydrans, Lyrans, and Kzintis may have no more than one at any given time. The Tholians can have one after the arrival of the Neo-Tholian 312th Battle Fleet.

(3CM.2) COUNTERS will be provided in a future product for Legendary Commodores (or rather, for the CCs they command). These are marked with a star in the “special” position.

(3CM.3) CREATION: Any time that a battle force gets an unmodified die roll result four points higher than the opposing battle force (e.g., a 5 compared to a 1) AND there is an opening for a Legendary Commodore, the commander of one CA or CC or CF in the force is discovered to be a Legendary Commodore. This ship is then replaced by one of the special Legendary Commodore counters. (These are a standard CC with the special mark.)
(3CM.31) In the event of a mixed-racial (allied) Battle Force, the Commodore must be found in a ship of the same race as the flagship.
(3CM.32) If there is no CA or CC in the battle force, then one of the other ship captains is discovered to be a Legendary Commodore and is transferred to a CA or CC or CF in the battle hex; if none is available he goes to the capital and takes command of the next CA or CC built or repaired there.
(3CM.33) If the Legendary Commodore is “created” on a ship which has no command variant (e.g., a Romulan KR) he is transferred to another ship in the same hex (or a newly-built ship) which has a command variant.

(3CM.4) EFFECTS:
(3CM.41) The Legendary Commodore’s Ship automatically gets the formation bonus, even if another ship is in the formation bonus slot. If the Legendary Commodore’s Ship is in the formation bonus slot, it receives only the normal benefit, not any extra benefit. If targeted by directed damage, the Legendary Commodore’s ship is immune to the “mauler effect”, i.e., maulers act as any other ship, not with the usual “double” effect.
(3CM.42) The Legendary Commodore’s ship has a command rating of 10. If the Legendary Commodore’s ship is part of a pursuit force, that force can have one additional ship.
(3CM.43) If a Legendary Commodore is in the battle force, the die rolls on the Combat Coefficient Table for that battle force receive a +1 bonus. If two or more Legendary Commodores are in the same battle force, only one of them gets this bonus. If two opposing Legendary Commodores are in the same battle, both get this effect.
(3CM.44) If a battle force including a Legendary Commodore attacks an enemy drone ship, carrier, or PFT which is not in the enemy battle force but is supporting it, the ship is attacked at 2:1 rather than the normal 3:1; but maulers do not have their special effect as this is an attack of maneuver, not firepower.
(3CM.45) A Legendary Commodore ship and two other ships with smaller attack factors (not bases or slow units) which are with his ship are never out of supply, can pass through one hex of neutral territory, and cannot be pinned.
(3CM.46) If his ship is crippled, it is repaired at no cost in the next repair cycle without having to use a repair site or repair ship.
(3CM.47) Legendary Commodores do NOT:
(3CM.471) produce any EW effect.
(3CM.472) provide any immunity to SFGs, EW, or maulers (other than his own ship being immune to maulers).
(3CM.473) convince a PDU to give up PFs or fighters.
(3CM.474) have the reaction range of a scout.
(3CM.475) produce any additional effect on ground combat.
(3CM.476) automatically receive a prime team but could be assigned one.

(3CM.5) RESTRICTIONS: Legendary Commodores cannot be transferred to other ships. If a Legendary Commodore and an Admiral are in the same hex, the Legendary Commodore loses all benefits and special effects. If an Admiral moves to a Legendary Commodore’s ship, the ship is changed to a regular CC of the owning race and the Commodore is considered “killed” and available for replacement.

(3CM.6) FATE: If the Legendary Commodore ship is crippled, roll one die. A result of 1-2 means that the Legendary Commodore has been killed; replace the ship with a regular ship of the same class. Any other result has no effect.
If the Legendary Commodore ship is destroyed, roll one die. A result of 1-5 means that he has been killed with his ship. A result of 6 means that he survives and takes command of a CC or CA in the same hex, replacing that counter with the Legendary Commodore ship counter.
This rule was proposed by Garth Getgen.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 01:15 pm: Edit

First, I don't like this special ship counter. Use a "Commadore" counter just like an "Admiral" counter.

Some of these abilities need to be toned down. They look better than Admirals in some area.

Commadore should not be created in battle force where Admiral is present. The presence of the Admiral would prevent a lower ranking officer from taking control of the battle.

Would require that a Commadore use a CR8 (or better) as flagship. Raises the flagship CR to 10 as rule states.

The unpinnable thing should be change to something like adds 1 to pinning strength of the ships invloved. That is normal ships count 2, where if Fast or X ships are invloved, they would count as 3.

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 07:47 pm: Edit

This seems pretty much to duplicate a Legendary Admiral (+1 CR, +1 combat), plus getting free repair, enhanced DIRDAM, etc. So basically if Kosnett ever makes Admiral he loses half his `magic powers'... Does he gain anything?

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 11:05 pm: Edit

Note: There are vast numbers of ships in F&E, and very few command personalities. I am all in favor of expanding the role of leadership and creating a hierarchy, both for Admirals and for Commodores.

(3CM.1) greatly limits the number of commodores available in the game. There should realistically be far more Commodores than Admirals in a fleet. A limit of something like 1 commodore for every 20EP, sounds good. Feds: 11, Klingons: 7, etc...

(3CM.3) provides special counters for 'Commodore Ships'. I think that a Commodore counter (like an Admiral counter) is much more appropriate, and would require fewer counters to implement.

(3CM.46) which allows a ship to repair itself at no cost, is way over the top. The idea is keen, but I suggest that the normal cost of repair should also apply. Parts is parts.

(3CM.43) which provides a +1 bonus on the combat table is ok. It would be rather more interesting if commodores had a rating of 0 to +2, much the way that Admirals have an effectiveness rating.

(3CM.43) also limits the effect to one commodore per battle. However, if an Admiral is also present, the bonus should be additive for each commodore present. Hence the Admiral would coordinate multiple Commodores as his staff. Example: A legendary Admiral and two regular commodores would indeed give a +3 bonus. Without the Admiral present, the restriction stays at one commodore. This makes admirals more important, and integral to the use of multiple commodores. Rossi

(3CM.43) It would also be useful if a Commodore could decide to add (+1) to his die roll, or subtract (-1) from the opponents die roll. Sometimes the goal is not to maximize damage to the enemy, but to minimize the damage to friendly forces. Alternatively, this ability might be used to effect the BIR. Rossi

More ideas:
-A Commodore may be placed in command of a Battlegroup. The battlegroup may then consist of 7 ships, but only count as 5 for command purposes. (note: in effect, the commodores ship is added to the battlegroup for free). Rossi

-Promotions. A commodore should be promoted to Admiral under certain conditions: Breveted as a result of the loss of the commanding Admiral, or possibly again achieving the conditions of (3CM.1). Regardless, there should be some path.

-Admirals and Commodores located at bases or planetary defenses should also provide some logistical benefit to the position. This could be free strategic moves, the ability to effect the approach battle, or effect the BIR.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:19 pm: Edit

changing the die roll and changeing the BIR are effectivly the same thing

givieng admirals -1 to +1 but commodores 0 to +2 and then allowing them to stack seems overpowering (especially if there are a lot of admirals)

with these proposals a commodore who gets promoted to admiral becomes significantly less effective.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:20 pm: Edit

allow a commodore to give +2 compot for the ship they are on instead of modifying the BIR/Die roll. this is much more in line with their influance on the battle

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:25 pm: Edit

(3CM.46) which allows a ship to repair itself at no cost, is way over the top. The idea is keen, but I suggest that the normal cost of repair should also apply. Parts is parts.

This could easily just be that the ship the Commodore is on, pays the normal repair rate during the Field Repair phase.

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:46 pm: Edit

It's a nice set of rules (mostly), but do we really need them? This strikes me as pure chrome (and overpowered chrome, at that).

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 06:49 pm: Edit

You know what ... I had trouble remembering ever making that proposal. Let me use the Way Back Machine -- I think what happened back on the on GEnie board, I posted a bunch of different ideas of various things that maybe could be done to get Legendary Captains into the game (this pre-dated Legendary Admiral rules). I think Steve took all these things and rolled them up into one formatted rule. {shrug} I jsut don't remember. Even if I was home, I wouldn't be able to check, because I lost all my archives in a hard drive reformat.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 07:56 pm: Edit

I do not disagree. Let me divide up the discussion. There are a few different points. This is not just chrome, its a chrome steering wheel.

Case A: Fewer Admirals and more Commodores. This comes to mind as a natural part of naval hierarchy. We could reduce the number of Admirals allowed, and/or increase the number of Commodores.

Case B: Commodore counters. These should be like Admiral counters. The point is the Commodore, not his ship. A rule may state that he must stay with a particular ship unless it is destroyed, but lets say no to legendary ship counters.

Case C: Commodore effectiveness. This should range from 0 to +2 in a way similar to that of an Admiral. The majority would be the standard +1 type.

Case D: Commodore Flexibilty. We should allow Commodores to either add their effectiveness to their own combat die roll, or subtract it from the enemy combat die roll. -or- as a separate option, allow a Commodore to add his ship to the Battlegroup at no additional command cost. (note that this is very similar to doing 2.5 to 5% more damage).

Case E: More Powerful Admirals. At the moment, an Admiral is like a free command point, and his effectiveness adds -1, 0, or +1 to the BIR of his own battleforce. To make an Admiral more powerful than a Commodore, we could allow an Admiral to have one or two commodores on his staff. The effectiveness of the Admiral and his Commodores would be additive.

There is currently no way for an Admiral to be killed, and so the proposal that a Commodore could be breveted into the Admirals chair is a non-starter. There might still be another way for commodores to get promoted.

Historical notes: Military history is full of personalities who made good brigadiers, but lousy army commanders. If it seems like getting promoted to Admiral might curtail the usefulness of some Commodores, it is understandable.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 08:07 pm: Edit

Steven
A) most races only have 4 admirals now, how far should they be reduced? (and if there are very few the penalty for drawing a poor admiral becomes more severe as you won't have anything else to counter the penalty)

that being said there is some logic to there being more commodores, but there are only so many flagships to go around. to many and they loose value

B) yes I agree the commodore should be able to move todifferent ships

C) why should there not be legandary commodores who are legendary in how incompent they are?

a +2 BIR/die roll is VERY significant, the only other thing in the game that gives one side a modifier of 2 is a EW shift of 4 or more

D) when this was discussed for admirals it ended up being decided against becouse of the problems of simulantious decision/revalation of the choice made. there are already lots of points in the combat sequence where both sides decide in secret and reveal at the same time, adding another needs to be considered very carefully (this doesn't matter much in a friendly face-to-face game, but in a tournament or computer version you do go through every step)

E) other then letting commodores stack with admirals how is this making admirals more powerful?

admirals do get killed and retired via several means (including as of PO assasination)

it's not a matter of some commodores becomeing less effective it's ALL commodores being far less effective as admirals then as commodores

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 08:17 pm: Edit

If (and it's a big if) this rule is going to stay, why Legendary Commodores and not Legendary Captains? After all, the "commodore" is tied to his ship, which says captain to me; a commodore IS an admiral, only an admiral of the lowest rank.

Regardless, I think we do have to be careful not to make these commodores/captains better than admirals; there should be very different effects for both.

I agree on using counters for these lads as was done with admirals.

Drop 3CM.46 entirely.

There should be limits on the number of these lads in service and, please, no command hierachy. Let's try and keep the game at the strategic level.

By Todd Lovas (Qwerty) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 11:14 pm: Edit

From what I understand, at least in the age of sail, a commodore is mearly a captian that is in charge of a small fleet.

Much of my reading is in the Napoleonic era and typically a commodore is a captain on detached duty with small fleet on special assignment. He is given the "rank" for a time period to accomplish a special task. Thereafter he would revert to the title Captain.

Secondly its my understanding that the commodore is often supernumeairy(sp?) to the command structure of the vessel he is on. His "flagship" would then have its own captain.

Personally the rule above does seem to be more in flavor with that of a Legendary Captain than Commodore. I'd rather see the commodore role be something more temporary, that adds some bonus for a short time. Wouldn't it be interesting to create commodore that allowed his flagship and x number of other ships to do something neat like 7 or 8 hexes of movement, and draw supply , (Op and Retro) for 1 turn. Maybe not a just a limit on the # of ships but also on the size classes or command ratings.

Personally I (and Lawrence) do not use admiral quality. So the Admiral is little more than a free command point. I like to see something done to beef up admirals and have there be less of them.

If there were Admirals/Commodores/Captains they could all be given different "spheres" of influence. An Admiral should cause strategic effects and Captains tactical, while Commodores should be somewhere in the middle. Ideally maybe 1 admiral, 1 commodore and 2 captains. Double the number for the Feds and Klingons, maybe Romulans as well.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 12:51 pm: Edit

At various times the USN has had an actual rank of commodore.

Why fewer commodores that Admirals? There are not according to any draft of this rule I have seen! There are fewer LEGENDARY commodores than there are admirals in fleet command.

Legendary commodores are a rare subset of commodores, F&E admirals largely represent a big command staff letting you have a bigger fleet. If not using the variable admirals OPTIONAL rule then there are ZERO admirals in any fleet who can be considered legendary, hence any Legendary Commodors at all gives more commodors than admirals. "Problem" solved.

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 02:53 pm: Edit

Todd, in no circumstance does a flag officer ever command the ship he is travelling on; the flag officer commands the fleet, the captain of the flagship commands the flagship (Gene Roddenberry notwithstanding). The rank itself is a flag rank, and is the lowest-ranking of the admiral ranks (whether it is a permanent rank in the navy in question or not). The fact that the rank may be only temporary does not, in any way, change the fact that the person holding the rank is treated as a flag office for as long as the rank is held.

As for beefing up admirals in the game, there is already a set of rules in place; the effectiveness option.

I'm still uncertain of why this rule needs to be in the game. If the main motivation is to replicate Kosnett/Stocker, don't we already have that under the admiral effectiveness rules (a +1 admiral)?

By Todd Lovas (Qwerty) on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 04:22 pm: Edit

John, I think we are agreeing on the command structure. And I concure that the rank is the rank as long as its held. My point was only that the rank of commodore is is temporary. Once promoted to captain or admiral you have that rank for life unless promoted/demoted. Not necessarilly so for commodore. This is why I think its silly for a commodore to be tied to a ship.

Actually I don't see the effectiveness beefing up admirals in the sense that I was thinking. I was thinking more along the lines of better strategic/supply situations. Maybe better rates on field repair, longer supply, cheaper DB or whatever.

I don't say the rule is necessary, just something to add a little flavor. Actually these are the type of rules that I see as being optional.

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Friday, September 17, 2004 - 05:24 pm: Edit

I'm not totally against some sort of commodore/captain rule, but I think it'd be better to do it without altering admirals and yet make commodores/captains something other than duplicate admirals (and also not that powerful).

Maybe an LC provides a compot increase (+1, +2?), providing a capture bonus (+2) if his ship survives the round, possibly grants his ship the form bonus box? Basically, some extra goodies but nothing like the more (very) powerful rules like 41, 43, 44, 46, etc.