Escort Ships

OGOPTIMUS · Post by **OGOPTIMUS** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:11 am

I'm looking at converting some my my miniatures into escort ships, FFE, FFR, DE, ECL, etc. I'm guessing these evolved over time to include things like phaser Gs, but what type of conversions were in effect during the early years of the war, around the time of the Romulan invasion on the Day of the Eagle?

I assume these ships lose some, if not all, of their photons and replace them with some type of phasers.

Normally, I would look at some other sources that are usually available to me, but they're not at the moment, so I need to ask.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 2:38 am

Since Fed Comm has no refis, one would assume they go to the final configuration - which is:

FF to FFE: Photons become Drone Racks - LS / RS Phaser-3s become Gatling Phasers - Add one REAC and a third DRONE

FF to FFG: Add one DRONE and one REAC

DD to DE: Photon C and D become Drone Racks - The RS / LS Phaser-1 become Gatling Phasers - The LS / RS Phaser-3s near the rear of the saucer become drone racks - 4 of the LAB boxes become CARGO.

CL to ECL: Both Photons become Drone Racks - The LS / RS Phaser-1s in the wings become one Gatling Phaser and one Drone Rack each - The rear section has more significant changes, with i drone, 1 BTTY, and 2 phaser-3s going away and replaced with 2 shuttles and 2 labs.

There were various stages of refits in SFB as indicated on the SSDs.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:16 am

Scoutdad wrote:FF to FFE: Photons become Drone Racks - LS / RS Phaser-3s become Gatling Phasers - Add one REAC and a third DRONE

FF to FFG: Add one DRONE and one REAC

Not quite. Assuming you are trying to go from the Federation Commander FF to a fully refitted FFE, then you are right about the photon/drones and phasers. But the REAC and third drone are already present on the FC FF.

Likewise the FC FF already is the SFB FFG. The FC FF already includes the drone and REAC that you mention.

DD to DE: Photon C and D become Drone Racks - The RS / LS Phaser-1 become Gatling Phasers - The LS / RS Phaser-3s near the rear of the saucer become drone racks - 4 of the LAB boxes become CARGO.

The SFB DE is one of the most munchkin ships in the game. Note it is the DD's REAC that is turned into CARGO, not the LAB. Also, the FC DD's drone rack is deleted outright (the DE has a total of four drone racks). And all four side Ph-1s become Ph-Gs.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:48 am

That's what I get for just going by the SFB SSDs w/o thinking that the FC version was already an upgraded FF... D'Oh!!!

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:27 am

I'm kind of missing the point of doing the escort conversions. Without AEGIS, those extra phasers aren't nearly as useful.

I've toyed with a few similar things, but wasn't impressed enough to keeping exploring it.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:09 am

I've done conversions for the FFE, the DE, the ECL, and the NEC. Outwardly, they aren't very different from the regular FF, DD, CL, NCL.

In fact, I had to label the bases in order to keep track of which was which from 3 or 4 feet away.

I'll take some photos showing the differences and post them in the next day or two.

junior · Post by **junior** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:01 pm

djdood wrote:I'm kind of missing the point of doing the escort conversions. Without AEGIS, those extra phasers aren't nearly as useful.

They may not be as useful (especially since you only get one firing opportunity every four sub-pulses), but they're still quite handy. That goes double if your opponent makes the mistake of letting you overrun one of his ships with your 'escort' and its Ph-G compliment.

TJolley · Post by **TJolley** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:27 pm

One thought for escort ships if you wanna try some 'house rules' is to allow escort ships within 1-2 hexes of allied vessels to fire thier phasers against seeking weapons targeted on allied vessels during the defensive fire phase of the impulse that seekers impact.

This goes a long way toward allowing escorts to..I don't know..ESCORT

It also makes folks think about the escorts, not just ignoring them and launching stacks of a couple of dozen drones or multiple plasma torps against the DN/BC, whatever the large ship the escorts are supposed to protect.

It's a good one-line house rule that makes a huge difference in tactics. All of a sudden, when building fleets, having escorts makes sense other than to burn off the few points left over, and the attack tactics change as you want to delaawith the escorts before overwhelming the capital ships with seekers

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:38 pm

TJolley wrote:One thought for escort ships if you wanna try some 'house rules' is to allow escort ships within 1-2 hexes of allied vessels to fire thier phasers against seeking weapons targeted on allied vessels during the defensive fire phase of the impulse that seekers impact.

I really like this rule. You should post it over on the "other" board under FC proposals. If (and when) escorts are released, this would really be a good way to allow them to do what they were designed to do... escort.

Plus, it has the advantage of being short and simple!!!

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:21 pm

I think that has good prospects as well. It's short and simple enough to be a note on the relevant ship cards.

TJolley · Post by **TJolley** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:43 pm

/hand-wavium on

Oh yea..escorts always fire at range '2' (regardless if they are at 0,1, or 2 from the ship they are escorting that has seekers impacted on it) This simulates that the escorts are providing intercepting fire to the seekers as they close on thier target. The target vessel gets 'final protective fire' using it's own weapons in self-defense, firing at range '1' (per existing rules)

/hand-wavium off

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:14 pm

chuckle...

I still like the rule. There needs to be some reason for escorts to exist or they wouldn't... but they do... so there must be... but I can't find it... I must look harder... no reason to exist... but... they... do... cogito... ergo... sum... argh... head swelling... ready to explode... must find mind-numbing activity...

Hey, Britney's in the news again...

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:10 pm

Escorts will (of course) make a lot more sense when (if ever) non-Hydran fighters happen. Till-then, there's certainly plenty of toys to play with.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:42 am

I also like the idea about escorts being able to fire at drones impacting other ships.

I still don't like the "range 1" fire at drones impacting on your own ship, though (grrrrr)...

toastie · Post by **toastie** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:17 am

I'm not sure how else you could do it. In SFB, you can't fire at range 0 on seeking weapons that impact.

As far as escorts go, I like the 1-2 hex rule. But how do you handle escorts with ADDs? Would you change the to-hit at range 2, leave it the same, only let them fire at targets 1 hex away, or something else? For simplicity, I think you'd have to let ADDs keep their to-hit, at least it makes up for how they are depowered compared to SFB.