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Tholian PCs
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Patrick Doyle
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Joined: 18 Aug 2007
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Location: Norfolk, VA

PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:51 am    Post subject: Tholian PCs Reply with quote

Ships that have lost half of their non-phaser weapons can use thier probe as a weapon.

Can the Tholian PC use the Probe as a weapon ( 1/2 times zero equals zero) even when they are undamaged OR can it never use its probe as a weapon?

(please excuse me if this was answered at some point)

Thanks,
Pat
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Scoutdad
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Patrick: I've checked for the previous thread involving this question, but can't find it...

IIRC, the PC can use it's probe as a weapon at any time... even when undamaged.
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OGOPTIMUS
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Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Posts: 980

PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry Scoutdad Sad

Rule (5C4): A ship that has no non-phaser weapons cannot use a probe as a weapon unless it has at least one disabled phaser.

This was published in Communique #27.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, it's good to have an "official" answer to this. It means you can still use the probe launcher as a backup. That's better than being in the situation where all of your phasers are missing due to lucky weapons hits by the enemy and you have enough power for a probe only to find you're not allowed to fire one! It does make sense to me, since the ship does have a probe launcher so it might as well be allowed to use it if it's in that sort of situation.
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Scoutdad
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OGOPTIMUS wrote:
Sorry Scoutdad Sad

Rule (5C4): A ship that has no non-phaser weapons cannot use a probe as a weapon unless it has at least one disabled phaser.

This was published in Communique #27.

Oops. Some how I missed tat one. Guess I need to re-read the corrections in Communique more closely. Embarassed
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OGOPTIMUS
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scoutdad wrote:
OGOPTIMUS wrote:
Sorry Scoutdad Sad

Rule (5C4): A ship that has no non-phaser weapons cannot use a probe as a weapon unless it has at least one disabled phaser.

This was published in Communique #27.

Oops. Some how I missed tat one. Guess I need to re-read the corrections in Communique more closely. Embarassed


I miss a few here and there too. So I keep a word file with all the rules changes that I update each month (ish). Then, every so often, I print it out, and bind it into the back of my uber-rulebook, while putting an asterisk next to the rule number in the text.
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Kang
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Joined: 23 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well I knew about it but it always struck me as odd that you only need to lose one P-3 and then you suddenly have what is essentially a mini-photon sort of weapon.

Bonus!

Good job we're not allowed to fire on our own ships Wink
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's not really a mini-photon since it is even less accurate and pretty short ranging too. Also there's the issue that it costs 4 power points when you only have 15 power on the un-damaged ship in the first place. However, it does give you the ability to score more damage in a single impulse than the Ph-3 that you would lose to gain the probe as a weapon, which seems kinda weird. The energy-to-damage efficiency of the probe launcher doesn't come close to phasers mind you...
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Kang
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Davec_24 wrote:
It's not really a mini-photon since it is even less accurate and pretty short ranging too. Also there's the issue that it costs 4 power points when you only have 15 power on the un-damaged ship in the first place. However, it does give you the ability to score more damage in a single impulse than the Ph-3 that you would lose to gain the probe as a weapon, which seems kinda weird. The energy-to-damage efficiency of the probe launcher doesn't come close to phasers mind you...

Yeah I know all that but it still packs quite a punch - as much as the two disruptors on the T-DD at some ranges although obviously without the accuracy.

Getting clouted by a T-PC whom you thought had nothing with the heavy punch, especially in the rear arcs - don't forget the probe has a 360-degree arc - can still be a nasty shock when you forgot he'd have the ability to heft something pretty big at you!

Plus iirc you can fire a probe every turn - there's no 2-turn arming cycle like there is in SFB, nor a holding cost.

As an aside, does anyone know which other 'non-phaser weapons' count towards those we have to lose half of, in order to get the Probe as a weapon? Drones? Web casters? ESGs? Hmm...
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As for what "non-phaser weapons" need to be destroyed, I presume all of the above and anything else that is a "weapon" system, i.e. appears as a pink box on the ship card. So drones, photons, hellbores, fusion beams, disruptors, all plasma torpedoes, web generator (I know this is under "system" rules but I think the box on the SSD counts as a weapon), web caster, web breaker, particle cannon, ESG - I may even have missed some! Basically any weapon that isn't a phaser. Wink
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Kang
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeh, the pink box idea is a good 'un. I'm just finding it hard to think of an ESG as a 'Weapon'; I always thought of it as a 'System'. That's the old SFB habits again. But the ESG has a pink box, so a weapon it is.
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junior
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And the new ESG is much more of a weapon than the old one is.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, that ESG can be pretty darn nasty if you get on the wrong side of one. OK, getting the enemy into your ESG radius as a Lyran can be easier said than done, but if you can, those ESGs are just pure murder. Yay, guaranteed 4-to-one damage to power trade-off! Twisted Evil

ESGs are still good for defensive purposes, particularly against hellbores when you have about as many ESGs as the enemy has hellbores, then it's an easy way to prevent a lot of damage, always providing you have enough power for it!
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Kang
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Davec_24 wrote:
Yes, that ESG can be pretty darn nasty if you get on the wrong side of one. OK, getting the enemy into your ESG radius as a Lyran can be easier said than done, but if you can, those ESGs are just pure murder. Yay, guaranteed 4-to-one damage to power trade-off! Twisted Evil

ESGs are still good for defensive purposes, particularly against hellbores when you have about as many ESGs as the enemy has hellbores, then it's an easy way to prevent a lot of damage, always providing you have enough power for it!


There's another way of looking at that too: if you have hellbores, you can use them to mitigate ESG damage Smile

Another great thing about the ESG is that it's one of the few systems in the game that has a 'capacitor' for its power charge. Photons and plasmas are the only other ones I can think of at present, in that they can be held, albeit at a cost. Hellbores I don't really count for this purpose as they're more of a rolling delay sort of thing. And the ESG has no hold cost either.

The phaser capacitor is one of the SFB systems that I really wish had been ported to FC!
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The thing with phaser capacitors is that they required you to decide you wanted to charge them way before you actually used the weapons. In FC, most "single-turn" arming weapons are simply paid for at the instant of firing, and this is in keeping with the notion in FC of all power being reserve power, as it were. Multi-turn arming is an exception as it's a "continuous cycle" and so you have no choice about paying the energy to continue arming or not during the turn, you have to do it up front.

ESGs are the only exception to this general concept, since you cannot power them except during energy allocation or at the end of the turn, although you don't feel this as much because of the capacitor. Now, in some cases it could have been useful to have a capacitor for phasers, like in SFB. There are some races who are hurt more than others by not having phaser capacitors, such as the Federation who could do with being able to "pre-arm" them and using the extra power to close the range for the photon kill, and the Hydran Fusion ships who, between this same problem and not being able to do the same with the fusion beams (i.e. arm them and then hold them for less energy, freeing up power for movement), find it quite difficult to get to close range to deliver that battle-winning fusion/Ph-G shot.

These two are cases where it would be very useful to have a phaser capacitor, and in most cases you could conceivably find it useful to have a capacitor for phasers. However, I think on the whole the phaser capacitor concept was not ported over to FC because it would add an extra element of complexity to the game, and when you think about it *most* of the time you would be arming the capacitor at the start of the turn with about the same amount of power you would spend in that same turn on phasers anyway (although there are exceptions as above, mainly in "pre-battle arming" situations). Also since it affects all races, this therefore is theoretically even. I think that's the reason that it hasn't been ported over - in a way it's not necessary. While it does put some races at a disadvantage compared to SFB, I think it's just "one of those things" - after all, this is FC and not SFB and there are bound to be a fair few differences which affect tactics on a more minor level, while trying to keep the "feel" of each race the same as SFB.
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