Moderators: mjwest, Albiegamer
but please give it a shot.
To keep it uber-simple, along the lines of a 1 or 2 paraghaph rule, Escorts can only fire phasers at effective range 2 against seekers impacting allied escorted ships during the defensive fire phase (if you want hand-wavium: The limited size of the ADD and limited electronics package prevents the ADD from locking onto the drones, as the ADD will always lock on to the larger target - ie the ship you are trying to protect)toastie wrote:But how do you handle escorts with ADDs?
imo, that's too many firing opportunities for the ships with Gatling Phasers (Hydrans and Federation escorts). I think it would work better and keep things just a little more balanced if you were to enforce a "four pulses of fire" rule, similar to the full aegis rigs in SFB. There won't be THAT much of a difference, due to drones being the primary target. But in the odd cases when it does make a difference (possibly against a Plasma Torpedo, for instance, with an escort player who wants to 'exactly kill' the torpedo before moving on to the next one), it will help keep things a little more balanced. And rolling one phaser at a time on the ships with Gatling Phasers can take a little while, especially if there are multiple escorts in range...TJolley wrote:To simulate Aegis, the escorts declare their fire and resolve all thir fire BEFORE all other ships declare and fire thier weapons. In addition, escorts can fire one phaser at a time, roll and determine the results before firing the next phaser.
I would like to keep ADDs, otherwise most Klingon escorts are going to be pretty useless. Just add 2 to the die roll, or say they hit on 1-2 instead of 1-4. It is a small addition to the rule:TJolley wrote:To keep it uber-simple, along the lines of a 1 or 2 paraghaph rule, Escorts can only fire phasers at effective range 2 against seekers impacting allied escorted ships during the defensive fire phase (if you want hand-wavium: The limited size of the ADD and limited electronics package prevents the ADD from locking onto the drones, as the ADD will always lock on to the larger target - ie the ship you are trying to protect)toastie wrote:But how do you handle escorts with ADDs?
Yes, I could have written that more concisely, but was just building upon what TJolley wrote. It makes sense to limit the capability to range 2 or less, and since standard defensive fire is at range 1, escorts being further away are penalized an additional hex. Figure that since Escorts have to fire before the seeking weapon gets too close to the target ship, they might not have an optimal firing solution. Also, it is not necessarily a negative. For example iin SFB, f the escort is 2 hexes to one side of a ship, and the seeking weapons approach from the other side, the escort would only ever get to fire at range 3 or greater. Under this rule in FC, the escort gets to fire at range 2. What this does is make Escorts behave very differently than in SFB. In SFB, you would most likely place the escort between the enemy, and the ships it is protecting. In FC, you want them to be 2 hexes inside the formation as they can protect more ships this way.Mike wrote:So, by this "effective range of 2" do you mean that if the true range is 2 or less, the phasers fire as if the range was 2?
I was thinkg in 'minatures' terms. It sux to have stacks of ships when you are playing with minis. Our group usually plays where at the end of every impulse, no 2 ships may occupy the same hex..yea a house rule, but works out well when you are using minis.Sneaky Scot wrote:Nice one. However, I have a question about the range 2 thing. Do escorts always fire a a range of 2 hexes, regardless of where they actually are? I think your rule is nice and simple, but would it be better if the escort has to be in the same hex as the ship it is protecting? The escort would count as one of the three units allowed to fire from that hex.
