Federation Commander

These are fine vessels but I noticed that niether has double drone control. The C-8 can launch 6 per turn, and the C-10 even has 8 drone racks, yet the drone control seems grossly inadequet. Is this a typo or are these ships just gimped?

I think they're just "Klingon". Drones are always a secondary system for the Klinks. I'm not sure if there are any Klingons with double-control except maybe the bombardment ships.

Even some Kzinti ships (who consider the drone to be their primary heavy weapon) don't have double-control. I was chafing a bit on Sunday when my team's Kzinti NCA, CL, and 3 FFs could each put out 4 drones each per turn, but could only control 6 - this very quickly crimped our ability to put out the drone wave we would've like to. The lack of over-max with the drone count led to them mostly being shot down by our opponents' Orions (but at least those phasers were kept busy).

i can except that for the klingons in general, even for the c-8.

But the c-10 has 8 drones. Why would a ship have more drones then it could ever fire? seems like a waste of BPV imho.

pneumonic81 wrote:But the c-10 has 8 drones. Why would a ship have more drones then it could ever fire? seems like a waste of BPV imho.

You can take a couple of them off-line for reloading while still launching enough drones per turn to keep the weapons channels full.

But yeah, I think you're right. That is a bit odd.

Well, I was going to say for reload cycling, but there's also good old fashioned redundancy (which really only starts to come into play on the really big ships).

For example, how often do the battleships really use those aft-firing torpedoes? I've usually just seen them used to absorb torpedo hits that would otherwise taken out forward mounts.

I've used the rear firing on Plasma races, drive through the enemy and launch them after your forward alpha has hurt them.

The aft firing weapons have a use though, and can be fired any time they have a target in arc. The extra drones racks on the c-10 are literally unusable regardless of ANY circumstance, save being damaged or running out of drones in other racks.

Thats kinda like saying here are some Disruptors but you can never fire them until you loose ones you already have. Here are some phasers but you cant use them till you take internals.

It seems like it wasnt given any thought. Things like this stick out like a sore thumb when you compare it to the way the rest of the game works with such precision.

The problem is that even if this ship had single drone control in SFB it was ok to transfer drones to other vessles in your fleet, which made them usable at least sometimes (without having to first get hit internally). In fedcom there is no such rule, so ships with more then 6 drones really should get double drone control. This way the ship retains its ability to launch these drones and stay in the spirit of the vessel.

I think you should be able to transfer control in FC. And that would fix the drone issue you are talking about. However, you could compare the overload of Drones to the same problem the Fed battlecruise has with its photons. I beleive its teh Bismark class if I remember correctly.

Yes but the photon is a 2 turn weapon and it is somewhat handy to be able to keep photons around every single turn, other ships dont do that as well as the Bizmark.

The extra drones racks on the c-10 are literally unusable regardless of ANY circumstance, save being damaged or running out of drones in other racks.

Thats kinda like saying here are some Disruptors but you can never fire them until you loose ones you already have. Here are some phasers but you cant use them till you take internals.

Something of an exaggeration.

They can be used in any turn that you no longer have 6 out, like just after the other guy phasers some and you fire the spare 2. I've found that kind of 'reserve drone' fired at just a couple of hexes away to be a game winner before - dealt with 6 drones, both ships have exchanged fire, phasers and power largely exhausted and then chuck 2 more drones out.

They can be used in any turn that you no longer have 6 out, like just after the other guy phasers some and you fire the spare 2. I've found that kind of 'reserve drone' fired at just a couple of hexes away to be a game winner before - dealt with 6 drones, both ships have exchanged fire, phasers and power largely exhausted and then chuck 2 more drones out.

That is true, and it has been mentioned to me before, but it seems like that situation is so rare I have yet to be in it. I find often that a barrage of drones might take a turn or so before becoming a threat to the opponent.

However considering this small use, and the small use of filler while reloading, or backup for damaged racks, I guess they are at least useful to some degree. I still argue they are not worth the points that they no doubt cost. However it seems most people on this board hold that a ship with 8 drones should only control 6 if its klingon and are ok with it. No sense in making a fuss if no one has a problem with it besides me.

Could the C10 only control 6 drones in SFB? I really can't remember... Whether it could control 6 or 12, having it control only 6 in FC seems a bit silly. It just seems weird thinking that the ship's designers would say "well, why don't we give it a couple more drone racks, just in case they come in handy" and not go the extra step and give it an increased control capacity so that it can actually use those extra racks to maximum effect.

I understand that these extra racks could be useful in some situations, but since drones typically take a while to reach their target (and thus for the six drones already airborne to hit and not have to be controlled anymore) it just seems you won't get your money's worth with those extra couple of racks. This problem may be helped if you could transfer drone control to another ship which itself won't be able to use all 6 of its control channels, or maybe even by giving the C10 ability to control 12 drones.