Federation Commander

Hello,

In a recent battle we were not entirely sure how to play ESG defensive fire. In summary are 2 ESGs fired as separate weapons, or as a combined volley against drones that have impacted the ship.

For example 11 drones have hit a ship with 2 ESGs with full capacitors. This is either 2 times 20 points - one ESG after the other, or 40 points to be distributed. So this will either be resolved as (points per drone allocated as below).

If treated as separately:
ESG1 against 11 drones
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

plus ESG 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

The above kills 9 drones, with 2 drones on 2 points.

If treated as a single volley (as phasers would be) we get 40 points to divide between 11 drones.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1

which kills 7 drones with 4 drones all at 3 points.

After reading some of the rulings on ESG which appeared to be more geared to hellbore interaction, the Lyran may have an option to spend his 10 points of ESG across two ESG weapons a point at a time as an ESG can fire multiple times in an impulse (assuming he/she declared this).

This gives

1 1 1 1 -- 1st point from ESG1
1 1 1 1 -- 2nd point from ESG1
1 1 1 1 -- 3rd point from ESG1
1 1 1 1 -- 4th points from ESG1
1 1 1 1 -- 5th point from ESG1
1 1 1 1 -- 1st point from ESG2
1 1 1 1 -- 2nd point from ESG2
1 1 1 1 -- 3rd point from ESG2
1 1 1 -- 4th point from ESG2
1
1 1 1 -- 5th point with ESG2
1

The above kills 9 drones with two drones on 2 points, same as option 1

So I think it comes down to whether the total damage is added together before distribution to targets, or not. Although a point at a time might give flexibility with a different number of drones, given phasers are used afterwards.

Thanks very much for your help with this.

Simon

All ESG bursts from a given ship, in a given phase, are combined into a single "shot". So you would kill seven drones and leave four with three points each.

Note that Anti-Hellbore mode works a bit differently, in that you can emit multiple Anti-Hellbore bursts in an Impulse. All of the power in a given Anti-Hellbore burst is combined into a single "burst", though.

I think this would be less of an issue at all if the controller of the drones had any control, but he doesn't.

If we assume you have 20 points of ESG damage to assign amongst 11 drones...

you could do this:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 _ _
or this:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
_ _ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
or this:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 _ 1 1 _ 1 1 1 1
or any other combination which satisfies the rules.

But the ESG owner gets to choose.

Remind me how SFB handles this: does the drone or the ESG player choose? I do recall firing phasers at a range of <ESG radius> + 1, to best augment the strength of my ESGs, but it's been a long time...

Of course, if all the Defensive bursts by ESGs on a given ship, on a given Impulse, are summed up and resolved as one volley, this becomes a fairly moot point.