Federation Commander

Kang wrote:

kirbykibble wrote: if going against a ship that has many seeking weapons, the cloak impairs the opponent of targeting you of any seeking weapons.

This is a very good point. A cloaked ship cannot be targeted by seeking weapons until it decloaks; this has to have value during the approach.

If the cloaked ship can get into a position outside its opponent's primary plasma arcs before it decloaks, then it's good. However, if the opponent has many drones, of course, then it ain't gonna help you to avoid the drone wave, but once they have been dealt with, you can re-cloak.

I can see that there's the potential for lots of research into flying cloaked ships and getting the best from them.

Most of the time I find evasive maneuvers more useful than cloak.

That's fair enough, but EM gives you no protection against seeking weapons.

EM allows speed 24+. That is great protection (vs drones especially).

Kang wrote: This is a very good point. A cloaked ship cannot be targeted by seeking weapons until it decloaks; this has to have value during the approach.

What you are missing is that during fade out you CAN be targeted by seeking weapons so you have to deal with the drones/plasma or you WILL get hit. against any opponent with more than 2 racks you simply can't afford to cloak.

So no this has no value during the approach.

Saved - I thinking your both talking past each other. Approaching while under cloak should make you immune to seeking weapons, but fading in to fire does pretty much void that advantage. Same problem fading out after you have fired.

That leads back to the cloak.is of minimal value in a duel but can open up a lot of things in a fleet engagement.

Aye - when I was saying intial approach in the OP, I was meaning where you cloak beyond range 25 and come in under cloak.

But like Saved said, against anyone with more than a single nuisance drone rack (or any plasma) you have problems cloaking after that. Either there will be seekers already coming at you, or they will be waiting for you to fade and launch at that point.

Even in larger actions I don't see huge use in cloaking in such circumstances, sure your other ships can help shoot the seekers, but that mean you have 1 ship under cloak (at speed 16) and the others restricted whilst defending it, which in a game heavily based on manouvering is not usually good. Drones are about limiting enemy manouvering, so job done on a 2+ for 1 offer. It can be useful to get a damaged ships 'safe', but that just doesn't feel right - when I think of romulans I think of them using the cloak offensively, not simply to try and escape with.

The above also means keeping your ships close together, which whilst nomally a good idea, is not so clear cut here. A good way to mitigate against always having some one practically on top of you whilst cloaked is to spread out a bit - so that the enemy has to split up as well, or accept that he will have ships uncloaking from different angles and launching plasma whilst the one he does sit on top of will just stay cloaked.

Kang wrote:

This is a very good point. A cloaked ship cannot be targeted by seeking weapons until it decloaks; this has to have value during the approach

It does. Assume a King Eagle dueling with a Federation heavy cruiser. The KE declares fade on impulse 1 of turn 1, before it is in range of the Fed's drones. Because the Fed player cannot now target the KE with drones, this eliminates the possibility of the Fed firing a drone on impulse 8 of turn 1, follwed by a second drone on impulse 1 of turn 2. Thus the KE will now need only one phaser instead of two for point defense. In the meantime, the KE can get it's heavy torp up and ready (As an S), and can recharge it's batteries. Thus on turn two, the KE voids the cloak (which allows him to plot speed 24) , and pays only two points in holding cost for the heavy torp, which can now be brought up to an R, and the KE can come in with full batteries. (The KE plotted speed 8 on turn 1, so it has power available to recharge batteries used in getting the torp ready on turn 1) It will have an extra phaser available as well, since it will face only one Fed drone. Romulans don't generally have much in the way of point defense, so avoiding that double drone volley is useful. In fact, the KE has only four phaser 1s, so saving even one of those phasers for offensive use is worthwhile.

After this, the cloak is of limited value. If the Romulan cloaks, the Fed will likely park on top of him, and while his photons will be less likely to hit, he can still damage the Romulan badly with his phasers.

I'm thinking that evasive manoeuvres has a more of an advantage than cloaks because EM goes into full affect the impulse after declaration.

kirbykibble wrote: In addition, EM has a 1 in 6 chance of a seeking weapons to miss the ship.

That's orion stealth not EM.

Klingon of Gor,
If the fed does fire his phasers remember it is going to be at range four or fivr and eaxh individual phasers damage is reduced by 50% rounding down. Phasers don't hurt especially with 5the batteries of reinforcement. Also if he parks on top of you the best shot he will get is a range 4 photon blast and then he will eat 80 to .100 points of plasma on the same shield. It will all boil down to the wonder weapons roll 4 photons is much more devastating than 3 to a KE.

Savedfromwhat wrote:

If the fed does fire his phasers remember it is going to be at range four or fivr and eaxh individual phasers damage is reduced by 50% rounding down. Phasers don't hurt especially with 5the batteries of reinforcement. Also if he parks on top of you the best shot he will get is a range 4 photon blast and then he will eat 80 to .100 points of plasma on the same shield. It will all boil down to the wonder weapons roll 4 photons is much more devastating than 3 to a KE.

This assumes that I have live plasma to deliver. If I have live plasma, and my my heavy torp(s) hold for only 2, then I prefer to attack at my best possible speed. If I'm waiting for my plasma to recycle, then I'm going to be waiting for at least two turns. (Assuming I'm going for the two turn F). In fact, heavy plasma can be thought of as a four turn weapon. Consider a KR/K7R/KRC. On the third turn of arming, I'm paying eight points for the plasma S torps. But the following turn, they hold for 2 each. So if I make my attack run then, it's four extra points of reserve power, and that can make quite a difference. On the other hand, if I'm getting phasered at point blank range, even a wait of three turns can seem like forever. Consider too that in a multiple ship engagement, you won't just be taking phaser fire from one Fed ship. In a squadron game, you might be looking at a BC and a pair of NCLs. How many phasers can they throw down the front centerline?. A KE has excellent sheilds and a big battery stack, but even so, that's going to hurt. Note too that a range four photon blast from three Fed ships might just cause at least one of your ships to blow up.

We then turn the question of fighting Gorns. Plotting speed 16 will make it impossible to run out their plasma. We might turn our phasers on the incoming to reduce the damage, but that also reduces the damage we can inflict on them, and in the meantime their phasers will be working away on us. Then there is the matter of carronades at close range. Very ugly. Since they will be free to plot speed 24, we may be reduced to tagging them with bolts. Hitting the enemy with bolts while he pounds you with seeking S torps is not likely to end well for you.

Klingon of Gor wrote: It does. Assume a King Eagle dueling with a Federation heavy cruiser. The KE declares fade on impulse 1 of turn 1

Klingon of Gor wrote: This assumes that I have live plasma to deliver. ... Consider too that in a multiple ship engagement, you won't just be taking phaser fire from one Fed ship. In a squadron game, you might be looking at a BC and a pair of NCLs

You are changing the scenario in the middle of the discussion. Are we talking about fleet engagements or single ship duels? Are we talking about cloaking turn 1 (when my plasma is armed) or some other time?

I was rebutting your assertions based on the criteria that you brought to the table.

I find that cloak/plasma is weak against the Photon (which is arguably overpowered in FC) and seeking weapons in general. In the Fed CA vs. King Eagle duel the Romulan can use the cloak to their advantage because one 6 point drone can be mitigated with shields (mostly), but against the Gorn it would be suicide to cloak as you would take 30 to 50 points of plasma damage. Considering that the main opponents for the Romulan are the Federation, Gorn, and ISC the cloak is rather limited historically and not as useful on that basis.

In other words I agree with you that fleet engagments are not the time to use the cloak and seeking weapons are very nasty. But in the case of the CA/KE duel, I find this to be a mostly fair fight but would still like to see the Enveloper added to the game.

savedfromwhat wrote:

I was rebutting your assertions based on the criteria that you brought to the table.

A fair point. I will confine myself to a CA/KE duel for a moment.

First of all, if I'm coming in with live plasma, then I'm coming in at speed 24. I'll cloak on Turn 1 to escape a double drone volley, but then the cloak's coming off, and I'm going to attack at my best speed. There is no reason to surrender the initiative. At speed 16, the Fed can centerline me, and inflict more damage.

The question is what to do after I fire the R torp. I can cloak, turn away, or bore in. If I cloak, I've surrendered the initiative. The Fed can target me with a drone, and then start pounding away with his phasers and/or photons at the range of his choice. Also, if I cloak, I can't deliver the F torps. against the sheild I hopefully just knocked down. In my opinion, cloaking is tactically my weakest option. He'll get two or three turns to pound on me at the range of his choosing. I'll take a drone hit, plus whatever direct weapons he can bring to bear.

A KE has quite a bit of reserve power. It hasn't really got all that much in the way of weapons to power, and that leaves a lot of power to pour into movement. A King Eagle is fast as a thief. Given that I have more reserve power than the Fed, speed and evasive maneuvers may be a better exit strategy after I've launched the plasma than slowing down to cloak.

One additional point, which I neglected to mention last time. With only one heavy torp, the King Eagle needs to make it count. That means that the Romulan needs to hit that CA with seeking plasma. A bolt, even if it hits, won't be enough. So the Romulans need to set up a good shot. They can't afford to let the Feds dictate the terms of the engagement. That Fed CA can run speed 24 sustained, and it can go speed 24 + 1 for at least a short dash. An R torp runs a while, but it won't run forever. The KE needs to set up a good plasma shot. That's easier to do attacking at speed.

During the first two turns of rearming, the R torp only costs two points to power, which still leaves the KE with a lot of reserve power to maneuver with. So to repeat. Speed and EM may offer better protection than cloak. Once the turn 1 impulse 8 volley is off the table, cloak isn't worth all that much.

Klingon of Gor wrote: First of all, if I'm coming in with live plasma, then I'm coming in at speed 24. I'll cloak on Turn 1 to escape a double drone volley, but then the cloak's coming off, and I'm going to attack at my best speed. There is no reason to surrender the initiative. At speed 16, the Fed can centerline me, and inflict more damage.

Why would you waste 8 points of power to go 24 if you are going to cloak outside of range 25, secondly why do you feel you need to go 24 to hit with your torpedo? The Fed ship will have a much more difficult time centerlining you if he is going 24 than you think. Remember he has no batteries turn one and standard load photons unless he is very careful, he is only a threat on turn 2 (baring a turn one speed 0 weapon charge). The double drone volley isn't a concern. Also use the cloak to your advantage why remove it so quickly, force your opponent to either slow down or slink away.

Klingon of Gor wrote: The question is what to do after I fire the R torp. I can cloak, turn away, or bore in. If I cloak, I've surrendered the initiative. The Fed can target me with a drone, and then start pounding away with his phasers and/or photons at the range of his choice. Also, if I cloak, I can't deliver the F torps. against the sheild I hopefully just knocked down. In my opinion, cloaking is tactically my weakest option. He'll get two or three turns to pound on me at the range of his choosing. I'll take a drone hit, plus whatever direct weapons he can bring to bear.

I find it interesting how you point out that cloaking abandons all initiative and the Fed player can now 'pound away at a range of his choice'. Well this just isn't true. If it was my choice I would fire my photons at range 1 or range 0, but because of the cloak I can't, the best I can get is range 4 or range 5 and that is likely only if I slow down or burn my HET (Which are both things the Romulan wants to see happen). Let's look at "baring in"... This is problematic at best depending on launch range, are we making best possible speed as the romulan to press the attack? Is the Fed ship fully overloaded at this point? if he isn't fully loaded why is he moving straight at us? For sake of argument lets assume some key factors.

Turn 2 Situation (turn one both players delayed and loaded/overloaded heavy weapons)
standard tournament fixed map.
turn 2 Fed heads in speed 24 with overloaded Torps
Turn 2 KE heads in speed 24 with armed plasma
What range would you fire at KoG?
At range 11 the fed moves in 4 more hexes (assuming he accels) and you move 3 (assuming that you don't accel) more now you are at a range of 4, he can fire overloaded photons and have a good chance to hit with 3 out of the 4, then HET and run. That would be a waste of that R torp for sure...
at range 9? same situation only a range 2 shot from the fed
range 8? now he just eats the R torp and closes to range 1 or 0 and hits you for 64 plus whatever phasers he musters knowing that he only needs to turn or slip to take the 40 points of plasma F damage on a different shield while you have a big 80+ point crunch on your number one, you could have fired the F's with the R, but then he would just turn and run.

Klingon of Gor wrote: A KE has quite a bit of reserve power. It hasn't really got all that much in the way of weapons to power, and that leaves a lot of power to pour into movement. A King Eagle is fast as a thief. Given that I have more reserve power than the Fed, speed and evasive maneuvers may be a better exit strategy after I've launched the plasma than slowing down to cloak.

You may be looking at this as a Star Fleet Battles player, in Federation Commander, ALL POWER is reserve power. All batteries do is save power from turn to turn and allow you to block damage (which becomes 2:1 blocking under cloak due to the 50% damage reduction). With that in mind the KE has 3 more points of power but significantly less weapons then the FED.

Klingon of Gor wrote: During the first two turns of rearming, the R torp only costs two points to power, which still leaves the KE with a lot of reserve power to maneuver with. So to repeat. Speed and EM may offer better protection than cloak. Once the turn 1 impulse 8 volley is off the table, cloak isn't worth all that much.

EM reduces your turn mode by 1, that is bad when you are a D, It has its uses, but like all things in this game it is situational.

Do you have Fedcom online?