Federation Commander

Brother Stormhammer · Ensign Joined: 23 Mar 2013 Posts: 7

I've been using the ISC a lot in local play lately, taking a plasma-enhanced break from my Kzinti, and, in a classic bit of tabletop karma, I'm having a few issues dealing with drone avalanches in multi-ship engagements. You know it's bad when you find yourself seriously considering popping a plasma-F at a drone Laughing

Any advice on the finer points of drone-swatting with the ISC would be appreciated (at least until I go back to playing the Kzinti, of course!).

storeylf · Fleet Captain Joined: 24 Jul 2008 Posts: 1897

Speed as ever is the best defense. If you are speed 24 there should not be too many times you have to worry about being hit by mass drones. It is not like ISC have to get past them like some empires need to.

Hard to say though without a bit more context. Small battles or larger battles? what constitutes an avalanche?

General tactic for myself with ISC is move forward, kill something(s) at range 10 with PPDs and mass Ph1s (that stops their drones). Turn whilst dropping Pl-S and some F-s and see how enemy reacts to plasma. Against drone lobbers, if plasma forces some ships to run as you go in opposite direction then the range 25 limit may force more drones to drop, if there are too many drones you can just out run them. You have plenty of Ph3s so should be able to kill plenty of drones. Sometimes you may have to accept that a Pl-F is what you have to do.

If the enemy is at the drone limit (likely with kzinti), consider whether killing drones early in the turn so he can launch more is something you can handle, and worth getting him to run out faster.

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

A big battle is not three small battles going on at the same time. Even with equal BPV fleets in both contexts, a big battle has enough ships to destroy a ship in one volley, and enough seeking weapons to overwhelm any ship's defenses. You can't do anything about direct fire (if you blow up, you blow up) but you can do things about seekers. Run like heck back through your own fleet and let the off-side weapons of the various ships pick them off.
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terryoc · Captain Joined: 07 Oct 2006 Posts: 1386

Playing as the ISC, I have had to launch defensive F-torpedoes at drones. Too bad the ISC ships don't mount D-racks.
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mjwest · Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 2:10 pm Post subject:

BrentO · Ensign Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 23 Location: Kansas City

Well the new ISC Aegis ships have D's. The ISC would be pretty kick butt if they replaced each of those F's with D's. I don't think any sort of drone onslaught could ever hit them then!

Captain Jack · Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 2:33 pm Post subject:

Unless I am looking at the wrong ship, the new ISC Aegis is not a 'True' aegis. So don't get caught out by this.
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mjwest · Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 4:03 pm Post subject:

Nerroth · Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:58 pm Post subject:

There are a couple of oddball ISC ships in SFB which have plasma-Ds, such as the War Dreadnought in Module R9.

Ironically enough, the most likely opponent for the DNW is an Andromedan force, against whom the D-racks would be pointless. From what I recall, the DNW was designed for the war the Concordium thought it might fight, rather than the one it ended up getting.
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Brother Stormhammer · Ensign Joined: 23 Mar 2013 Posts: 7

Thanks for the input, folks! *taking notes and adjusting squadron / fleet tactics as needed* I apologize for the delay in saying thanks, but have been away from the 'net for a bit.

Not exactly a follow-up question, but prompted by a post-battle BS session at the local game shop. Given that a large (8-10 ship) ISC echelon has 'issues' with maneuverability (similar to the issues that a planet has), is it ever better to form multiple small echelons? I know that division of force can result in defeat in detail, but given the PPDs range, the separate forces could still be mutually supportive.

DNordeen · Commander Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 564

They might still be mutually supportive, but you'll probably end up hitting different shields and "wasting" damage points while all of your enemy's shots hit a single shield.
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paulgenna · Lieutenant SG Joined: 21 Nov 2011 Posts: 109

Having played the ISC a few times against a Fed fleet using drones I found the following works:

Lots of players like to target a single ships so I had that ship slow down and let the other ships get ahead. The other ships then tried to get the drones to land on them at the end of the impulse so the majority of PH3 shots would result in a kill. Usually not many drones made it through so the targeted ship could fire their PH3 at the remainder.

When the enemy targerts multiple ships then the ISC PH3's and Plasma-F's usually do not have much of a hard time dealing with them.

Remember the ISC ships usually have a fair amount of power so if you have to tractor a drone you can afford to do it.

storeylf · Fleet Captain Joined: 24 Jul 2008 Posts: 1897

I found ISC have less issues than others in larger battles. Everyone has to split up in such a battle, so it's not like you have to do something others don't.

Most empires do not have a combinations of weapons with different ranges in the way the ISC have. The ISC can have 5 or 6 ships a hex in front of the 3 PPD ships. The PPD ships can still shoot at optimal range (10) whilst the other ships are range 9 and ready to drop plasma. Both stacks are at a good range to fire their heavy stuff. The enemy if he splits up (as he needs to at some point) has issues bringing everything to range 8 at the same time due to everything having that range 8 break point. That gives the ISC a bit of an edge with it being a lot easier to split his fire over 2 range brackets.

Having your shooting hitting different shields is not likely at the longer ranges unless you have really split up a lot.

The plasma and rear firing plasma goes a huge way to making your maneuvering a lot easier, when you launch he has to decide what to do, split up with some ships out running plasma whilst others continue or something else. For the most part you were probably planning on turning away anyway so you are not usually faced with that sort of dilemma.

The interesting bit for the ISC is which ships to lose (or encourage the enemy to shoot). This depends on your type of play. In one off games you are probably happier for him to shoot escort ships and therefore the fact they are in front and a more likely target is not an issue. In a campaign game losing escorts ships can be a swine unless you have the replacements available as it means you can't deploy as many PPD ships. I've found myself losing a DD in one battle and then also having to drop a CS from the next battle in order to bring me back within the PPD limit.

paulgenna · Lieutenant SG Joined: 21 Nov 2011 Posts: 109

Usually I had the two different fleet levels going and if a ship was targeted, by drones or plasmas, in the first group I slowed them down tell they got with the second group. The first group wore down the drones and the second group almost always finished them off before they hit the targeted ship.

I found it easier to keep the ISC together versus the other races. For the most part once the ISC hits the opponent at 10 hexes with PPDs you have either wrecked a ship or brought down the forward shields that the player will usually choose to turn that ship. Another way to keep the enemy from closing much is to launch a couple of S-Torps so they time around 8 hexes out. This keeps races like the Feds from getting to that deadly OT range.

I believe the write-up for the ISC suggests DD's and FF's in the front group followed by CL's and CA's, second group, and then any DN's in the last group. I never extended beyond two groups that way the front group was not to close to the enemy.

Nerroth · Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:43 pm Post subject:

I may be mistaken on this, but I believe that when the ISC Echelon was first written up, the SFB game rules in play at that time had much more serious side-effects from ship explosions, so it was less of a good idea to go for a superstack.

(But then, even in Captain's Edition, a superstack with a fleet of Juggernaut Empire ships on the table is not such a good idea either.)

But another factor was that, in-universe, the various empires were not supposed to fly their fleets around in stacks. The background describing the Echelon was written with the assumption that the "real" squadron commodores and admirals were keeping each ship a hex or two apart from its closest fellows. In that sort of setup, the Echelon as a battle formation "works" better on the tabletop.

In fact, one of the things I'd be interested to see about the ISC in Starmada and (one day, fingers crossed) in A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is whether or not the Echelon has enough breathing room to work the way it is supposed to work, when you have games that prevent any sort of stacking at all. (At least I think the Admiralty and Nova editions of Starmada prevent stacking; ACtA:SF certainly does, in its current incarnation at any rate.)
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