Federation Commander

storeylf wrote:Can you confirm whether I was understanding the acceleration bit - I had read the acceleration (combine the 2 costs) as simply combine the 2 acceleration costs, so that the frigate towing the DN needs 1.75 (1.5 DN + .25 FF) energy per impulse of acceleration, so in as per my previous post the frigate would end up spending 20 power for a full turn of effective speed 8+1.

Crap. You are right. I always forget about that rule for acceleration.

Yes, the Frigate has to spend two points of energy to accelerate in an impulse.

Associated with this topic, is there any limit to the amount of power that can be allocated to movement in one turn, like there was in SFB?

For example, say an Orion raider doubled his engines and had a tractored large freighter in tow, would it be able to allocate sufficient power to move both ships at speed 32? [well, 24+1 for the whole turn].

The maths is ok - 40 power from doubled warp engines, move cost 1/2 + 1/2 for CR and F-L, could technically allow 40 hexes of movement, although obviously 32 is the max - but would the rules have a problem with it?

For example, say an Orion raider doubled his engines and had a tractored large freighter in tow, would it be able to allocate sufficient power to move both ships at speed 32? [well, 24+1 for the whole turn].

I doubt it, the highest base speed you can declare is 24. That gets knocked down to 16* for towing the other ship. From there you can accelerate at a higher than normal cost, but accelerate only gives you +1 per impulse for an effective 16+1.

*can't remember move costs of those ships, so assuming it just equates to 1 speed level lower.

mjwest wrote:There is also one other non-movement restriction. If a ship is tractoring a friendly ship (i.e. they are on the same side of the battle), the ship that is being tractored may not fire offensive or launch weapons. (The launch restriction was a later update.)

Oh, bum. I didn't know about that. What a shame; I thought that had been properly left out in the SFB to FC porting operation. Where does it say that restriction, please? Apart from in the SFB rules, that is

storeylf wrote:I doubt it, the highest base speed you can declare is 24. That gets knocked down to 16* for towing the other ship. From there you can accelerate at a higher than normal cost, but accelerate only gives you +1 per impulse for an effective 16+1.

*can't remember move costs of those ships, so assuming it just equates to 1 speed level lower.

Oh, that's right, of course - we don't add the movement costs for base speeds, we lower the movement band. The addition of movement costs is for accel/decel, isn't it? Thanks for that - my bad

Kang wrote:

mjwest wrote:(The launch restriction was a later update.)

Where does it say that restriction, please?

Briefing #1 Rules Update, entry for (5D6c).

mjwest wrote:Yes, that is a completely valid tactic.

Just be careful. Doing that means you are "stopped" for the rest of the turn, and if the other ship drops the tractor, you will still be stopped.

Obviously, it's a trade-off, and one you might be forced to make if he has loaded guns pointing at your down shield ...

So, are you saying that even if you are stopped in this situation you can still be "dragged" in tow?