Klingon D5W

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Scoutdad
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Post by Scoutdad »

asguard101 wrote:I seem to remember that ships could transfer control of drones between ships, in SFB. Are ships in FC able to do this, or am I wrong about SFB.
No...
No...

You are not mis-remembering. In SFB ou can transfer control of drones, but in FC you can't.
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asguard101
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Post by asguard101 »

what's thet reason that rule wasn't carried over?
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Post by mjwest »

asguard101 wrote:what's thet reason that rule wasn't carried over?
To keep a lid on the number of drones. When ships can transfer control, you facilitate a lot more drones being able to be put on the board. Since ships can only control their own drones, this puts somewhat of a lid on the total number of drones that can be on the board.

Plus, it gives more incentive to kill opposing ships. If you cripple that Kzinti frigate, its six drones still keep chasing you down. If you kill it, the drones go away ...
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Scoutdad
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Post by Scoutdad »

Mike beat me to it... but trust me, as a Kzinti player from way back - I campaigned for the inclusion of a "transfer of control" rule, but Steve was adamantly against it.

As I have to admit, he was correct...

I'd like to be able to transfer control when I'm the Kzinti... but if playing against them, I realize how devastingly imbalanced that ability would become. With the lack of counter-measures... you'd never be able to stop the total number of inbound drones... and it does help speed game play by limiting the number of drones in play at any given moment.
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Kahuna
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Post by Kahuna »

Yeah, yet another rule I'm happy didn't come over from SFB. It made it so cumbersome to play against multiple Kzinti ships. Then add fighters and they start popping drones and I started wondering why I didn't bring a novel to read between impulses. Seriously though, yet another reason I'm glad we have FC now. Keep most the flavor with all the extra "nuts!".
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asguard101
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Post by asguard101 »

Ok so what would a good over all tactic for the Kzinti be, without the ability to transfer?
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Kahuna
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Post by Kahuna »

asguard101 wrote:Ok so what would a good over all tactic for the Kzinti be, without the ability to transfer?
Well I'm not exactly the Kzinti master, others might be. However, I've played them twice and enjoyed creating a wave and then bringing my ship just behind them. Make them choose between defending against my drones or targetting my ship.

At the end of the first turn I launch my drones. At the beginning of the following turn I launch another wave. This creates a lethal combination of two waves of drones. My ship followes behind them with overloaded disruptors and it gets dicey for my target. If I don't like the way the wave is working out, I simply retreat back behind the wave. While he's dealing with the wave, I usually have time to reconsider my next course.

Tactics have to vary, of course, depending upon your opponent. Also, sometimes I like to fire off my drones just to keep my target moving in a direction favorable to me. He's not likely to chase me either as drones moving towards you when you're both at high speed is very fast indeed. This limits his choices to move either obliquely, parallel, or in retreat, once more giving me the initiative and usually helps to keep his FA pointed somewhere else.

Drones usually help to dictate your target's speed as well. Drones moving at speed 24 are really nothing to sneeze at. Just when your opponent is wishing he could go 8 or 16 to finish arming his big plasma torps or wanting to double overload his photons, he's now got to contend with speed 24+ to keep out of the wave of incoming drones.

Not to say that there's no way to beat a drone ship, but just pointing out some ways I've seen people use the Kzinitis and drone ships successfully.
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Post by Steve Cole »

Kahuna: email that to Rules@starfleetgames.com with your real name and state/province of residence and it will be graded as a command note.
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Post by Kang »

Kahuna, you may also be interested in reading this thread:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federatio ... sc&start=0

where drone tactics are discussed at length.
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Post by Kahuna »

Hi Kang. Thank you for the link to your post about drones. I did enjoy looking reading through that. However, I'd like to point out that I wasn't the one seeking drone or drone ship information. The Asguard asked what his tactics as a Kzinti should be and I just shared some ideas as to what I do. Your post about drones was very good though.
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