Federation Commander

storeylf wrote:I hadn't calculated only 18 getting destroyed.

Assuming a Fed SB:
turn 1 imp 8 = 24 drones at range 21
turn 2 imp 1 = 12 drones range 18

impact impulse 7

The SB if it goes full defense (which if you keep range it may as well) should deal with:
6 from drones.
3 from long range fire using weapons about to go out of arc
8 at impact with ph4
4 at impact from ph3+add
12 tractors
3 and a bit with battery.

That is 36 drones.

Shouldn’t it be 2 from long range fire using weapons about to go out of arc?
Let’s look at how much power the SB is using:
20 from 10 PH-4
24 from 12 photons (you have to load all of them since the photon that’s out of arc will eventually get in arc)
2 from 4 PH-3
36 from batteries on drones
30 from batteries on disrupters and PH1 from the CLs.
That’s 112 power. The SB can only keep this up for 1 turn before having to let some damage through. On the turns where drones aren’t striking, there’s enough power to basically fire weapons, but not refill batteries.

storeylf wrote: At the end of that turn 2 of your ships are prevented from launching unless they start dropping drones currently tractored. You could drop just 4 to start with so you can launch the 2 drones each for those 2 ships (4 free kills to the SB). At the start of the following turn The SB has a couple of choices - hold tractor and make you drop them, or drop some any way. If he drops 4 he is pretty safe, the ADD and batteries will handle those on impulse 1. That leaves 8 tractors definatly free again this turn, you could then drop the other 4 drones as you launch on impulse 1 with those tractors having been used for this turn. Again, unless you do head in he has no reason to not go full defense. With 4 tractors unuseable for turrn you are looking at an average 7 drone hits, 44 batteries leaving 39 shield hits and a burnthrough. There is some variance in that due mainly to the ph3/ADD rolls at impact time, that could go in his favor as well as yours. You are then left with a last wave of just 24 drones (which never gets through) before you retire to reload. Whilst you retire to reload he allocates power to repair shield, when you return you are looking at an undamaged SB. Of course you could throw in range 18 disr/phaser, but they are unlikley to have a decisive effect, anything they do will also have been repaired when you pull back to reload.

The CLs can keep up drone fire indefinitely. They have 4 repair points and fire 4 drones per turn. You can reload at the rate of 1 drone per repair point even on partially loaded racks. Any drone racks that can’t fire, reload at the end of the turn. All CLs can keep up a constant 6 drones per 2 turns rate. Also, you can only battery 44 damage once. After that, you simply don’t have enough power to keep it up. 7 drone hits every 2 turns plus 24 disrupters and 12 PH-1 will whittle down the SB quite nicely.

storeylf wrote: In the mean time, the SB will have been firing what ever heavy weapons he has at you, The SB can fire a volley of 8 heavies and a couple of pairs. Disrupters average 8 on the big volley and 2 for each pair, batteries can reduce that a lot. Photons are your worst enemy, as although they don't hit much, your small ships have to deal with 13% or so chance of taking 3 or more hits from the big volley. In a long range duel the fed photons will do more damage to you than you are doing the SB. Pulling back to repair is just weakening the drone attack.

The good thing about the range 18-24 attack is that you have 3 shields per ship to soak up and still fire disrupters and PH-1. You can use all 6 shields if all you’re worried about is launching drones since drones are 360. I expect that it’ll take a long time before the SB forces even 1 CL to retreat.

storeylf wrote: As noted by someone else, the Drone Frigate really is the Kzinti SB killer of choice. There really isn't any defense against a group of them unless you are tholian or hydran, tholians being able to take on practically any amount of drones, and hydrans can handle about 80 per wave, so 72 should allow for a few extra misses. Against Hydrans, range 18 is not a good range, you are starting to take noticeable damage from hellbores.

Yep.

storeylf wrote: 334 would do more than that, that was for 100 internals, I couldn't be bothered working out the extra 20 odd internals you would score with 334 damage. Also that was before MWest pointing me to the rule about bases treating warp/imp as reactor. Taking that into account a range 12 launch gives an expected spread of 16 power and 9 weapons. Range 8 launch gives 32 power and 18 weapons.

As for the Condor, you seem to have rather little respect for the killing power of an SB, if the SB decides to go offensive then at range 8 the Fed SB can cripple a Condor with ease, and with a bit of luck on the photons can kill one, or finish it with the drones or next turn given how bad a state it will be in.

Plasma chuckers are looking good, but they are not the charge in and watch the SB die to hundreds of points are plasma that you seemed to think originally, you should be prepared to accept the loss of a ship and be prepared to handle the need to finish it off with either close range phasers or another plasma cycle. Gorns seem the best bet, the cloak is mildly useful but the extra firepower you get on the gorns will probably be more useful.

If the SB goes all offensive on a Condor, then 334 pts of Plasma will hit, mildly reduced by 4 PH-3 and maybe some batteries. I would expect 200+ internal hits which should be almost all the SB’s weapons (especially if you add in some range 8 PH-1 fire) and should lead to an easy kill with the other Condor plus War Eagle. The SB can fire 8 PH-4 and 8 overloaded Photons at the Condor. At range 8, this is probably enough to cripple the Condor, but probably not kill it. In exchange, the SB is essentially a gutted hulk. Of course the Romulans could launch at range 12 and avoid this scenario. 270 pts of Plasma is still a quite respectable amount of damage and the Romulans can repeat this attack 3 turns later.

With Gorns, it’s not even that close. The SB dies quite handily and the Gorns might not even lose a ship depending on how they choose to attack the SB and how much time they have.

storeylf wrote: Its not just the damage they can do. They can make it harder for ships to simply sit at range 26 whilst armimg, they can shoot you obvioulsy, they can tractor you as you run in, they shoot drones that go past them, or launch hit and run raids, drop suicide shuttles in front of you etc. How much difference they make will obviusly depend on the matchup.

The extra ships are what you ought to have for a decent SB battle, other wise the static nature of the SB does turn it largely into an excercise in maths and playing the odds, in which the winner may well have been determined to a good extent at the point the forces are chosen and will likely only vary due to lady luck and bad dice rolls. I can't imagine personally wanting to play a sceanrio where it was just a SB vs an equal attacker, it just seems a tediuosly boring scenario.

Heh, if the 2 Fed CS/CA try to interfere with 6 Gorn ships at range 26 away from the cover of the Base, I expect them both to die without accomplishing anything. If they try to tractor some ships as they rush in, I expect them to die as well from 30 or so Ph1 at range 1-2. Even if they stop a ship each, that still leaves 4 Gorn ships ready to launch at range 8 or 12 which we already determined would gut the SB.

storeylf wrote: Give the new(?) rule on Bases taking power damage, I'm not sure the Feds are as simple as you initally stated either - dive into range 1 only works if you can be really sure you finish the job there and then, which the ships you used can't, now that it no longer takes auto frame hits. It essentially becomes a suicide run. Starting at range 26 and moving in leaves you at range 1 on impulse 8, that means you are very close just as the SB weapons cycle back again next. If the (fed) Sb fires at range 5 on impulse 7 then you will have 3 NCLs close to cripppled, averaging about 6 photons and 9 ph1s lost overall. If you 'me to' then your average damage with those ships drops heavily (from 289 at r1 to 149 at r5). If you don't then your range 1 damage is hit heavily (from 289 to 127 average). Drones/suicide shuttles can probably force the DW to hold back a couple of hexes as well (or soak up some phasers). Even if the DW and other NCL close to 1 with all weapons still to fire (the DW will almost certainly have to use half his phasers on drones and accept a down shield) that is only around 300 damage all told of which about 130 get through the battery/shield/armor. A quite badly damaged SB, but 3 Fed ships are also heavily damaged and still under range 10, with the other 2 intact ships at range 1 as ph4s come back on line, the SB will still have around 7 ph4s plus the 3 he can repair if he wants. He will almost certainly still have quite a few tractors left, so if he kept a few points of power back at the end of the turn he could well have tractored the (more or less) powerless ships at the end of imp 8 ensuring that they stay at range 1 for a phaser 4 kiss, and any ships with a facing down shield (the DW?) can expect a decent boarding action. Thats against a fed SB again, you'd probably do better against Klingons - they'd probably have to concentrate on 2 ships at range 4/5, which pretty much guts them, but you get to range 1 with an extra NCL, on the other hand the following turn he can fire remaining disrupters again and you have gone from 3 heavy damaged, to 2 probable cripples.

No smart Fed will end the impulse at range 5. They’ll time it so they jump from range 8 to 4, or from 6 to 2 in one impulse. That should change the expected damage enough to favor the Fed. Don’t forget that the Fed is going to be launching drones at the SB as well. 5 extra drones when the SB has fired out most of its weapons is going to hurt (especially if the ADDs or PH-3 get killed off by photons and phasers from the Fed)

I still stand by what I said earlier about holding out until the cavalry arrive. Any realistic SB siege would have a time limit, at which point a respectable relief force arrives and closes down the show. A Starbase is a major, major target and is very valuable; all available relief ships would come tonking up at max warp as soon as the alert was given. Usually, in 'real life', sitting and popping away is not going to be an option.

With patrols and other early warning systems spread all over the frontier, one would also think that a starbase wouldn't even need to wait for any friendlies to show up, they'd be tracking and shadowing the enemy force.

And as mentioned before, the starbase is very likely to have it's own small fleet, even if it's just some freighters or a frigate or two.

Now that I have access to my charts, I can do the math. Assume a Fed SB.

1) At 12 hexes, it's probably not worth it for a SB to fire upon a Romulan or Gorn force. 8 PH4 average 36 damage and 8 photons average 21 damage for a total of 57 damage. Probably not going to take down anything serious and it leaves the base wide open for the force to approach to within 8 or 4 hexes and nuke it. Given that, I would expect the base to hold fire, or perhaps just fire with photons.

This leaves 270 plasma from the Rom force or 330 from the Gorn force. The base can phaser down about 80 pts of damage, and battery away 44, leaving 46 internals from the Rom or 106 internals from the Gorn plus all the armor is gone. For the 2nd pass 3 turns later, even if the shield gets repaired in the process and even if all weapons were intact, the Rom would do the above damage plus 40 since there is no armor left. The Gorn would do the same. By this point, the Gorn can probably drive in and kill the base with phasers. The Romulans might want to reload for a 3rd pass.

So the net result would be a 5-6 turn victory for the Gorn and 8-9 turns for the Romulan. It could be quicker for either side if they're willing to lose a ship and get closer for a launch.

2) At 6 hexes range, the SB can do an average of 167 damage. For the 4 NCL + 1 DW force, this is enough to cripple 2 of the ships or kill 1. Assuming the base fires and cripples 2 ships, the other 3 ships can reach range 1 and fire 11 fully overloaded photons plus 16 Ph1. The Ph3 plus the phasers on the crippled ships take care of any drones launched by the base. The 3 ships average 176 from the photons plus 85 from the PH1 for a total of 261 damage. This is followed by 5 drones impacting the base since presumably the base will be taking out PH3 first on phaser hits. That's 321 damage, or 221 internal hits, plus any damage from remaining photons from the crippled ships. I think it's safe to say at this point that it's simply mopup for the attackers.

If the base waits for a 2 hex shot, average damage from 8 PH4 plus 8 fully overloaded photons is 253 damage. Enough to kill 2 ships or cripple 3. However, the Feds now have 19 fully overloaded photons plus 28 PH1 (saving their PH3 for drones). This averages 403 damage, plus 5 drones for a total of 463 damage or 363 internal hits. Base dies quicker than the 6 hex shot, but the base does more damage to the attackers.

The CLs can keep up drone fire indefinitely.

Not at the rate I was assuming. You can as you say keep up 6 drones per 2 turns and reload on the turn you fire 2 per ship, ie. 36 drones, a turn gap and another 36 drones. That takes the pressure of the SB though (and gives ph4s the option to fire offensive if it wants).

Shouldn’t it be 2 from long range fire using weapons about to go out of arc?

Over a turn you will rotate twice, all weapons will be in arc at some point, so you get 4 ph4 shots with weapons that are not in arc at impact, at long range 2 should kill 1 drone and a mid range 2 will kill 2. And don't forget that at impact the ph4s can down grade to ph1 to save some power.

7 drone hits every 2 turns

You won't get 7 hits every 2 turns firing every other turn, that happens when you pile on the drones one wave after another. On the drone front you are stuck with either slow the rate of fire which gives the SB a turns breathing space between volleys or pile it on and take several turns to reload.

If the SB goes all offensive on a Condor, then 334 pts of Plasma will hit, mildly reduced by 4 PH-3 and maybe some batteries. I would expect 200+ internal hits which should be almost all the SB’s weapons (especially if you add in some range 8 PH-1 fire) and should lead to an easy kill with the other Condor plus War Eagle. The SB can fire 8 PH-4 and 8 overloaded Photons at the Condor. At range 8, this is probably enough to cripple the Condor, but probably not kill it.

I wasn't meaning that the SB would go on to win, just that you seem to underestimate the killing power of the SB, to the point of not even thinking it would cripple a condor at range 8. In fact it can do that with ease and isn't far off killing it (something it might do with a little luck ).

No smart Fed will end the impulse at range 5. They’ll time it so they jump from range 8 to 4, or from 6 to 2 in one impulse. That should change the expected damage enough to favor the Fed.

I wasn't sure where your 1 acceleration would be done, but your stated tactic requires you end up at 5 or 4. Ending at 4 is somewhat better. If you 'me to' fire the 3 NCLs then you average 197, about 50 more than you did at range 5, but you also increase the damage taken as well on those ships. Working out all those internals from multiple seperate volleys of unknown indivdual strength is to messy. If it was a single volley I'm sure the SB would go on to win, but the individual volleys alter the damage spread towards key systems so maybe it won't.

This is one of those scenarios where using the special sensor rules from hydran attack (with the Sb getting the 8 shown on the card) woud make a noticeable difference.

5 extra drones when the SB has fired out most of its weapons is going to hurt (especially if the ADDs or PH-3 get killed off by photons and phasers from the Fed)

With the stated tactic it is not possible to impact with the 5 drones until the following turn, you will need to readjust to get them in.

mojo jojo wrote:
2) At 6 hexes range,

If the base waits for a 2 hex shot,

Neither of which occur under your initial attack run, which was start range 26, move speed 24 and 1 accel to reach range 1. You must end at 5 or 4 then go to 1 using that run speed.

storeylf wrote:

mojo jojo wrote:
2) At 6 hexes range,

If the base waits for a 2 hex shot,

Neither of which occur under your initial attack run, which was start range 26, move speed 24 and 1 accel to reach range 1. You must end at 5 or 4 then go to 1 using that run speed.

In a way this sums up most of what I've been getting at. I don't doubt that an equal points attacker has the edge in many cases (significantly in some matchups), but the intial post made out it was little more than load, charge, shoot and the SB goes booom.

They all require more thought as to what to do, as the SB is more robust than that and can kill ships pretty quick if you get it wrong, in some cases 1 hex can make all the difference between dying and winning (fed charge), and in others between stalemate and potential decision (kzinti at 25 or <24).

storeylf wrote: Not at the rate I was assuming. You can as you say keep up 6 drones per 2 turns and reload on the turn you fire 2 per ship, ie. 36 drones, a turn gap and another 36 drones. That takes the pressure of the SB though (and gives ph4s the option to fire offensive if it wants).

The CLs can certainly shift to 3 and 3 if necessary to reload, depending on exact drone levels. I think that's pretty obvious in context. Let's assume drone racks a, b, c, d.

Turn 1: All 4 fire. a, b, c, d have 3 drones left
Turn 2: a, b, fire. c, d reload. a, b have 2 drones and c, d have 4 drones.
Turn 3: a, c, d fire. b reloads. a has 1 drone, b has 4 drones, c, d have 3 drones.
Turn 4: b, c, d fire. a reloads. a has 4 drones, b has 3 drones, c, d have 2 drones.
Turn 5: a, b, c fire. d reloads. a has 3 drones, b has 2 drones, c has 1 drone, d has 4 drones.
Turn 6: a, b, d fire. c reloads. a has 2 drones, b has 1 drone, c has 4 drones, d has 3 drones.

etc.

You can fire indefinitely using this pattern.

storeylf wrote: You won't get 7 hits every 2 turns firing every other turn, that happens when you pile on the drones one wave after another. On the drone front you are stuck with either slow the rate of fire which gives the SB a turns breathing space between volleys or pile it on and take several turns to reload.

As proven above, you can keep up the pressure indefinitely. Eventually the SB uses up batteries and then with only 76 power, the excess drones will keep leaking through, bolstered by disrupters and PH1. SB dies.

storeylf wrote: I wasn't meaning that the SB would go on to win, just that you seem to underestimate the killing power of the SB, to the point of not even thinking it would cripple a condor at range 8. In fact it can do that with ease and isn't far off killing it (something it might do with a little luck ).

It would take a ridiculous amount of luck. The Condor has 18 weapons, 8 Control, 22 systems, 28 hull, 66 power, 10 frame, 36 shields, and 6 pts that can be batteried. The SB would need to inflict 194 damage (perhaps a little less since some systems may never be hit). Since 8 PH4 average 76 pts of damage at range 8, you would need 114-118 damage from overloaded photons. This is 8 out of 8 photons, or a 1 in 256 chance.

In fact, since the Condor has 142 internal boxes not counting frame, the SB would need to inflict 71+36+6=113 damage to even cripple it. The PH4 inflict 76, so you would need 37 from photons or 3 photon hits to cripple it. That's a 14% chance that the Condor isn't even crippled. That's about 37 times the chance that the Condor is killed. The exact probabilities are a little different from this since I'm assuming average rolls for the PH4 shots since the math gets complex if you try to calculate it out.

storeylf wrote: I wasn't sure where your 1 acceleration would be done, but your stated tactic requires you end up at 5 or 4. Ending at 4 is somewhat better. If you 'me to' fire the 3 NCLs then you average 197, about 50 more than you did at range 5, but you also increase the damage taken as well on those ships. Working out all those internals from multiple seperate volleys of unknown indivdual strength is to messy. If it was a single volley I'm sure the SB would go on to win, but the individual volleys alter the damage spread towards key systems so maybe it won't.

My initial post was my initial impressions without looking at the charts or the board. Obviously I can and would adjust during an actual game. And the range 6 to range 2 move leaves the SB at a massive disadvantage.

storeylf wrote: With the stated tactic it is not possible to impact with the 5 drones until the following turn, you will need to readjust to get them in.

See above.

storeylf wrote:If the (fed) Sb fires at range 5 on impulse 7 then you will have 3 NCLs close to cripppled, averaging about 6 photons and 9 ph1s lost overall.

By the way, I'm very curious about this calculation. I'm getting 187 average damage for the SB at range 5 between 8 PH4 and 8 overloaded photons, or 62 apiece spread among 3 ships. That's 30 internals after shields and batteries.

90 total internals should be the sum of every damage track times 1.5 on average (Every 60 internals should on average hit each box once).

This should total 18 power, 6 battery, 30 hull, 3 control, 7.5 phaser, 3 torp, 3 drone, and 19.5 system boxes.

That's only 3 total torps and 7.5 total phaser, of which the PH3 should be the first ones lost on each ship. Seems like even the damaged NCLs will survive to devastate the SB. And it appears that the SB's best bet is to concentrate on 2 ships instead of 3.

Mojo, your calculations don't take into account that the ships don't have an infinite supply of "stuffing", only about half the hits will be non-power/weapons.

I actually tried this on some actual NCL cards and found that 30 internals knocked out some weapons and most stuffing, plus some power. If the SB divides the average damage between two NCLs, the NCLs are pretty much wrecked.

The SB can (and should) launch suicide shuttles and (if available) drones at the charging ships to suck up a couple of phasers. This will also help to prevent the attackers using Evasive Maneuvers on the approach.

storeylf wrote:Over a turn you will rotate twice...

And that's an extremely important point. The single biggest weakness of a base is its lack of mobility. You therefore want as much 'movement' as possible - rotation - so always rotate your base twice per turn. There's no real reason not to, and it keeps your options open, well, more open than they would be if you were rotating slower. Anyone see a tactics article from this one?

terryoc wrote:Mojo, your calculations don't take into account that the ships don't have an infinite supply of "stuffing", only about half the hits will be non-power/weapons.

I actually tried this on some actual NCL cards and found that 30 internals knocked out some weapons and most stuffing, plus some power. If the SB divides the average damage between two NCLs, the NCLs are pretty much wrecked.

The SB can (and should) launch suicide shuttles and (if available) drones at the charging ships to suck up a couple of phasers. This will also help to prevent the attackers using Evasive Maneuvers on the approach.

For 30 internal hits, my calculations should be close enough. A NCL can definitely take 6 power, 2 battery, 10 hull, 1 control, 2.5 phaser, 1 torp, 1 drone, and 6.5 system boxes. It's not going to be exact (in particular the NCL has exactly 10 hull), but it should be reasonably close.

I agree that the SB should be focusing on 2 ships, but storeylf was assuming a 3 ship target in his analysis which IMO dilutes the SB's firepower too much.

You can fire indefinitely using this pattern.

..

As proven above, you can keep up the pressure indefinitely. Eventually the SB uses up batteries and then with only 76 power, the excess drones will keep leaking through

As also proven you have either dropped to a regular stream of 18 drones a turn or 36 every other turn. 18 drones a turn isn't requiring tractors or batteries, and 36 every other turn gives one turn of pressure and a turn to recover. Drones used that way will never use up the batteries in itself nor get drone leakers through.

If you really are going to sit back there, then the SB can go for full survival mode and doesn't bother attacking you at range, which you say is irrelevant as you will just pull back that ship to repair. Then 18 drones a turn (no tractors or batteries needed) and battery away your direct fire leaves the SB using.

12=photon hold (other SBs may be zero, e.g. klingon),
16=ph4,
2=ph3
(3 drones and 3 reload each turn)
30 = battery

==60 power (indefinate survival).

OR

36 drones every other turn:

15=photon hold (9 hold 3 load/shoot)**,
16=ph4,
2=ph3
(6 drones and 6 reload every other turn)
12 battery (drone)
30 battery (direct fire)
12 tractor

==87 power

followed by
15=photon (9 held and 3 reload).
12 ph4
30 battery (direct fire)
4 tractor

==61 power

148 power over 2 turns, that is maintainable indefinately.

** Photons can't defensive fire but they can shoot at range 3 (or less, but assume worst case), averaging 2 kills per volley and saving 24 battery.


Again, The Kzinti CLs may get the SB with a different tactic, but you can't just do as you are saying, at some point you have to be more decisive and get closer.

PS: This is another scenario where SB sensors would really make a difference, either killing drones or reducing your direct fire average. Even if you spread the direct fire over 6 impulses (6 CLs), for 6 power the SB would reduce the direct damage from 30 to 18 on average, saving 12 power per turn in battery usage, leaving 2 to kill 2 drones.

It would take a ridiculous amount of luck. The Condor ... This is 8 out of 8 photons, or a 1 in 256 chance.

I'll have to recheck then when I get a another chance, I thought I had it down to needing 2 extra photons and a couple of extra phaser points.

By the way, I'm very curious about this calculation. ....

90 total internals should be the sum of every damage track times 1.5 on average (Every 60 internals should on average hit each box once).

This should total 18 power, 6 battery, 30 hull, 3 control, 7.5 phaser, 3 torp, 3 drone, and 19.5 system boxes.

I can't check my original figures at the moment, but you are forgetting directed damage, I think my assumption was 1)4 ph4 directed at weapons, 2)4 ph4 directed at weapons and 3) 8 OL photons not directed. That gives a reasonably even spread of the average internal damage as I remember, but the first 2 ships take a high proportion of weapons hits on average. Ship 3 can be pretty random. According to my DAC calculator that came out as 6 torps and 15 phasers (of which 9 will have to be ph1) as an average round overall. I also, vaguely, remember assuming that one had taken 10? or so damage at mid range from 2 ph4 going out of arc, as they wouldn't have a chance to switch shields on that pretty straight and direct charge in.

I agree that the SB should be focusing on 2 ships, but storeylf was assuming a 3 ship target in his analysis which IMO dilutes the SB's firepower too much.

That decision is less about taking out the NCLs, though doing good damage is certainly a consideration, but more to do with putting the Attacker in a position where he will want to 'me to' at a longer range rather than keep closing for auto hits. He can of course take the chance that the photons are left unscratched, but that favors the SB more often than the Attacker. If you take out 2 ships that means the 3rd NCL closes for 4 auto hits and 6 range 1 phasers, without stopping any extra damage that turn on the 2 that you do target.

storeylf wrote:If you really are going to sit back there, then the SB can go for full survival mode

Of course you better hope you don't roll bad on a photon volley...

The easy counter is to simply move to 15 hexes and keep doing the same thing. At this point, the expected direct fire damage is too great to battery away indefinitely. The SB can shoot PH4 at a CL and do significant damage, but each PH4 shooting this way is an extra drone that's hitting plus there are 3 shields that need to be worn away. The best move for the CLs is to probably shoot at 15 hexes on turns where the 36 drone wave hits, and stay at 18+ on turns where it doesn't to mimize expected PH4 damage. Note that due to the low speeds that the CLs are going to be at, they'll have plenty of power to repair shields as well every turn.

storeylf wrote: I can't check my original figures at the moment, but you are forgetting directed damage, I think my assumption was 1)4 ph4 directed at weapons, 2)4 ph4 directed at weapons and 3) 8 OL photons not directed. That gives a reasonably even spread of the average internal damage as I remember, but the first 2 ships take a high proportion of weapons hits on average. Ship 3 can be pretty random. According to my DAC calculator that came out as 6 torps and 15 phasers (of which 9 will have to be ph1) as an average round overall. I also, vaguely, remember assuming that one had taken 10? or so damage at mid range from 2 ph4 going out of arc, as they wouldn't have a chance to switch shields on that pretty straight and direct charge in.

I don't think you can reasonably expect any mid range ph4 damage to accrue since the attacker can simply leave that damaged ship 1 hex behind the others. I did forget about directed damage however.

storeylf wrote: That decision is less about taking out the NCLs, though doing good damage is certainly a consideration, but more to do with putting the Attacker in a position where he will want to 'me to' at a longer range rather than keep closing for auto hits. He can of course take the chance that the photons are left unscratched, but that favors the SB more often than the Attacker. If you take out 2 ships that means the 3rd NCL closes for 4 auto hits and 6 range 1 phasers, without stopping any extra damage that turn on the 2 that you do target.

I think the point is moot since the Fed ships can jump from range 6 to range 2 and at range 6, you can't expect enough damage from just 8 PH4 to take out enough weapons from 2 NCLs. Your best bet is to either concentrate on 2 ships, or wait for the 2 hex shot. In either case, the SB gets gutted.

Mojo, you seem to be ignoring the power costs of movement.

If the Federation attackers start the turn at Range 26, and want to end the turn at range 2, that costs 24*0.75 = 18 points of power out of 32 generated and two batts for 34. Holding full overloads costs two points per tube, so that's 26 points total spent there. That's enough for their six phaser-1s, but without acceleration they won't be jumping from range 6 to range 2, because they will only move 3 hexes per impulse. Without accels or decels they'd hit range 5 at the fire phase of Imp 7, then 2 at Imp 8. Assuming they decel to end imp 7 at range 6 then accelerate, that's 1.5 more points of power spent so they only have 4.5 power left, or 6.5 if they don't choose to save battery power for reinforcement. But that's more damage to one of the ships. On top of that, the SB is likely to have launched seeking weapons at them that they'll need to deal with, either with phasers or tractors (assuming they used their own drone racks to launch drones at the base), which will eat up some more power on one of the NCLs. Firing weapons at one of the ships just before they go out of arc will either damage a shield or force power usage for reinforcement, or both, so when that target gets to close range it will suffer more pain.

I really want to game this out but I don't have Battleships Attack and the SB is not on FCOL.