Federation Commander

SWO_Daddy wrote:On thing I found with the rear firing heavy weapons, at least in SFB (which is my normal poison), is that they tend to become damage pads. If anybody remembers the Doomslayer from CL3, it had a rear firing photon, and it could cause some interesting and likely unintended effects:....

That Doomkeeper is an awful lot like what a Bird of Prey would be in SFB imho.

If comparing SWO-daddy's SFB Miranda to a CX, I think the CX would win. It would be close, but the CX would win.

Under the conditions of STII's initial battle pass, yeah, I'd say a CM would leave quite a mark, particularly if the Ph-Ms get in the game. If the size of an SFB hex and what we see on screen in that film is to be believed, we're talking a phaser hose at range 0, followed up by a couple of photon strikes before the CX really does anything. (We'll imagine for a second the shields are not down of course). There is a reasonable chance the CM would score ~70-80 points at range zero, with phasers alone. I don't know that even a CX could really shrug that off. Even with the shields, plus pouring all the batteries into reinforcement, those internals would be extremely painful. And if a photon hit through that down shield a few impulses later...its over.

A buddy and I tried to recreate that battle pass back when I first got into SFB. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a way to win after taking that kind of hit. After a while, we agreed that the close range surprise attack on screen could not be reproduced in SFB without some really funky scenario rules. I mean come on...I can't think of too many people who would lose in a battle where they got to basically overrun a cruiser with a cruiser before their opponent could fire back.

Maybe what we saw on screen was really like a range 5 battle pass...

From what I recall of most ST series, the majority of battles ended up at 200, 500, 800 meters -- No one using the range of weapons to their fullest ----

Close and hose for every empire --

Somehwat off topic, but I think the reason it's "close and hose" is more for cinematic effect. I mean, it would be hard to film a battle where the ships barely even get close enough to be in decent visual range, and make it edge of your seat action and exciting.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, it would just be harder.

And I think the FASA game had a recreation of the ST:II battle, or so I've heard. Might be worth checking into.

OGOPTIMUS wrote:Somehwat off topic, but I think the reason it's "close and hose" is more for cinematic effect. I mean, it would be hard to film a battle where the ships barely even get close enough to be in decent visual range, and make it edge of your seat action and exciting.

I think the original series had longer ranged fights. With Sulu stating the ranges as 50,000 or 60,000. I think they did this for a different reason: with combat at that distance, you didn't actually have to show the enemy ship thus saving money in special effects.

Of course, the original series didn't stick to any system either. I was watching That Which Survives this weekend and in that episode, the Enterprise is transported 990.7 light years away and then fly back to where they started in no more than two days. A trip that would take the Voyager almost a year. Woooooosh

I recall an episode of ST:TNG involving the big E vs. a Borg ship (may have been the "Locutus" two-parter) in which the big E pulls up to a range of 40,000km from the Borg and some stuff took place at that range. On screen it looked as if both ships were facing off from a few hundred meters. Cinematic dramatic effect, but the dialog clearly stated 40,000km.

As for the ST:WoK battle pass, what if those phaser shots from the Defiant were Ph-3 shots and were directed at power? I think even Ricardo himself said something of the kind to Kirk about depriving the big E of its power. Plus, there's nothing that says that each energy blast from the Defiant was an individual phaser shot.

There are several ways of looking at that.

Mike wrote:As for the ST:WoK battle pass, what if those phaser shots from the Defiant were Ph-3 shots and were directed at power? I think even Ricardo himself said something of the kind to Kirk about depriving the big E of its power. Plus, there's nothing that says that each energy blast from the Defiant was an individual phaser shot.

There are several ways of looking at that.

That's Reliant, not Defiant

And I agree, Khan and co. were using directed targeting. Spock says, "They knew exactly where to hit us." Even though they were firing the megaphasers, they could have been downloaded as ph-1 or even ph-3.

Wolverin61 wrote:

SWO_Daddy wrote:On thing I found with the rear firing heavy weapons, at least in SFB (which is my normal poison), is that they tend to become damage pads. If anybody remembers the Doomslayer from CL3, it had a rear firing photon, and it could cause some interesting and likely unintended effects:....

That Doomkeeper is an awful lot like what a Bird of Prey would be in SFB imho.

Okay, I just gotta know the history on this one.

Let me guess though: It was the frigate that battled the Fed NCL and then Dissappeared?

pinecone wrote:Let me guess though: It was the frigate that battled the Fed NCL and then Dissappeared?

The "Doom" ships, with the sole exception of the Doomslayer, are just personal creations of Jeremy.

BTW, the ship you are thinking of is the Vandal, a time-displaced FX.

Yeah, Mike beat me too it. The "Doom" ships are just a personal project of mine from back in 2002. Nothing "official", with the partial exception of the Doomslayer SSD, which is my own take on an update from the ship that appeared in CL3. I added something and mad a couple of changes based on the fiction. The ships have their fare share of problems, not the least of which is power. SVC has been pretty emphatic that these guys will never be a part of SFB. And photon armed Klingons in FC went a different way.

Vandal ... the back to the future FX. I've always wondered, what would have happened if the Vandal went back to Y170 and met itself (as an F5)? Would all Klingon F5s turn into muscle cars and Admiral Kang get relieved by a midshipmen? <Runs for Cover>

hedgehobbit wrote:I believe those are Fed Frigates.

Fed Frigates ROCK!

pinecone wrote:The miranda class in comparison the the Constitution is a Light Cruiser, not a Frigate.

Officially (as in, from the 'canonistas'), it's been a 'light cruiser', 'exploration cruiser', 'frigate', and 'heavy frigate'. The latter one was used by FASA and most fan publications, so that's the one that's pretty much stuck.

djdood wrote:That's one thing about ST:II that has always struck me as odd. The Reliant out-guns the Enterprise in a big, big way.

Yes and no. The Enterprise (TMP) actually has a lot more phaser banks. Everyone forgets the aft and ventral ones. The 'collimiters' on the rollbar add wider arcs, but don't add firepower. (Also, ALL Phasers from TMP were initially designed to channel warp power - this was overriden specifically for the Enterprise after the wormhole incident).

The chief advantage the Reliant really has is the addition of two aft-torpedoes. More guns, however, doesn't often equate to 'more powerful ship'. You still have to have the power to bring to bear, as well as have those firing arcs being useful. Reliant has somewhat of an advantage here, but not nearly as decisive as looking at the model first leads you to believe.

My guess would be that the turn mode of the Reliant would be less since we are talking the difference between a heavy and a light cruiser. Not that the Reliant is a nimble ship in any stretch but it should have a little tiny bit more agility than the Enterprise CX should. I would assume that the Reliant would have had all of the same upgrades the Enterprise got.
The SSD I have shows that there are two FH-RH photons, otherwise the bpv and the ship are essentially the same ship as the published one. It otherwise has the same armaments, sensor ratings and everything else.