Federation Commander

The thread about a scenario for the Kirk vs Chang fight at the end of the star trek 6 film got me thinking about how I would try to make that an FC scenario. I've put this as a seperate thread, rather than hijack Enterprises thread. This isn't meant to me an exact replica of that battle, more using the film battle as an inspiration.


Fed CA vs the protagonist. The captain of the CA has discovered that a high powered diplomatic conference is going to be sabotaged by various forces who do not want to see success. He rushes to the scene to prevent the assasins from succeeding. He also knows that a new prototype cloaked ship will almost certainly be around the planet to stop him. The exact capabilities of the enemy ship are not fully known, beyond that fact that it has some super cloak.

Location map, based on a planet. Moving beyond range 35 disengages with automatic defeat for that ship.

Game length: end of turn 2 if the Fec CA does not save the conference, if he does then until someone is destoryed or disengages.

The Fed CA starts 33 hexes from the planet, facing the planet (any of the 6 hex lines emanating from the planet will do).

The protagonist does not start on the map, and will deploy per the scenario rules.


Victory. If the Fed CA does not transport a team to the planet by the end of turn 2 then the day is lost no matter what. Transport per normal - must be in 5 hexes of planet, must drop a shield, must pay the power to activate transporters. No actual marines boxes are used.

If the above is achieved then the FedCA must defeat the protagonist to ensure that the conference remains secure. The protagonist is after glory and hopfully still managing to scupper peace efforts.


The protagonist: Any vessel up to 90pts (or 91 for a gorn frigate), basically any frigate size ship. Kept secret until deployment.

Whatever ship is choosen, the following rules apply. The ship has a cloak. The cloak is free (even if it is a romulan with a listed cloak cost), no power is required. The ship may fire any weapons whilst cloaked - direct or seeking, drones may be guided whilst cloaked. Whilst cloaked the ship is automatically the 'fastest' ship for move order purposes. Other cloak restrictions apply as normal.

Deployment. The protagonist deploys at any point he wants on turn 1 or 2. He can do that at any point in any impulse (e.g. After direct fire but before seeker launch). On turn 1 he must deploy within 9 hexes of the planet, If he deploys on turn 2 he must be within 15 hexes of the planet. He can't deploy in the same hex as the Fed CA. He cannot be targeted or inspected until deployment (note the lab rules, you can't target the protagonist until the start of the turn following deployment). After deployment the ship card is freely inspectable etc as normal. The protagonist still fills out power/speed etc at the start of turns 1 and 2, he just doesn't have to actually move and is assumed to obtain whatever position he wants on deploying. He can't fire if not deployed. He can start with all normal pre-load options.


Follow the exhaust: The Fed CA may use labs to accumulate 'exhaust' points. The labs follow normal rules (+4 and half points against cloak per cloak rules). Exhaust points provides a boost to probe damage, 1 extra damage per 2 exhaust points. Remember lab points are obtained at the end of the turn. The Fed CA may start using the probe either per normal rules, or from any turn that he has some exhuast points. The probe ignores the cloak altogether.

Pedal to the metal: The Fed CA ship has broken interstellar speed limits to arrive in time to save the conference. It cannot have pre-loaded photons.


Notes:

Needs playtesting. Obviously.

Looks interesting.

I like it.

One question, when someone gets out to 35 hexes, both ships are within 35 hexes. Who loses.

Thats meant to be 35 hexes of the planet. Not each other.

Oh.

Why is the cloak free? That could overpower it. Watch that.

Some additional notes about some bits I was thinking whilst coming up with the scenario.

The conference is easily saved, saving the conference is simply to force the Fed to make some 'risky' choices in the first couple of turns.

The distance to planet and deployment distance for the cloaked vessel were designed such that the Fed can transport the team on impule 7 of turn 1 and Het away on impulse 8 without ever exposing the downed shield to a sudden deployment and firing oppurtunity. The downside is that it will need pretty much all power on turn 1 and a straight move ahead with no deviation. That sets himself up to face a ship that will accept he can't get a downed shield but can simply pop up before the transporter and take the shield down for the fed! a couple of ships are quite good at this, a lyran military police frigate with 2 ESG and phasers will hurt, as would a hydran lancer with 3 fusions and 2 gatlings. The shield may limit the internals done but will mean the Fed has a down shield going forward rather than one which will come back up 2 impulses later.

The Fed could slow down to start arming photons etc and wait to turn2 to send the away team, however, the extra time and deployment zone on turn 2 means it is impossible to avoid letting the other guy get a pop at the dropped shield. However, I've realised that the Fed coud wait till impulse 8 and force the enemy to deploy without an opportunity to shoot the drop shield. So I would probably change the time limit to rescue the conference by impulse 7 of turn 2. I want the Fed to have to take the choice between show a down shield or barrel in.

The cloak is allowed to move after the fed all the time to get round his speed 16 limit. This is a rule I actually think should be in game anyway. I like the fact that we don't have fiddly hidden movement, but not that it easy to force something that you supposedly can't see to move before you and effectively have the iniative. At any rate for this scenario the Fed will struggle to get range 0 shots against a ship that always moves after him, in fact if the Fed doesn't watch it, getting to close with a possibly inferior turn mode as well could see him getting badly outmanouvered and shot up without shooting back much.

The overload photons hurt even with a cloak, if they are fired close enough there is a possible 32 damage against a small ship. However so long as you avoid the range 0 shot the best hit odds are 1-3, so the 'average' volley can be probably be taken without to much worry.

The lab points will eventually build up to a massive probe. With all labs the CA has he can accumulate +8 damage per turn. On the other hand labs are often the first systems to go down. Also the order of things means that the Fed CA will not be getting any use out of them till turn 3 or 4, depending on when the enemy shows himself, as he has to be on the map to be targeted durng energy allocation which means the turn after deployment, then the points are calculated at the end of the turn, so it will be 2 turns after deployment before a probe can be fired with the bonus. Then the probe can only fire every other turn anyway.

The cloak vessel has an interesting choice - crunch or nibble. He's more or less guaranteed 1 good crunch, but it may or may not be against a down shield, and crunch tends to mean multi turn arming. Nibble type weapons on the other hand gives him a good pole to prod the Fed every turn which can make getting lab points awkward as well as put him off just hanging around to fire phasers every turn.

storeylf wrote:Whilst cloaked the ship is automatically the 'fastest' ship for move order purposes.

That would be an interesting twist to make it more attractive for any ship to cloak, not just for this scenario.

Any cloaked ship would automatically be the last ship to move in each subpulse; two cloaked ships would of course resolve their differences as per the normal move order but still move after all other ships in that subpulse.

I think I will experiment with that as a house rule. You can justify it by saying that the other ships, while they can see roughly where the cloaked ship is, can't see him changing his heading or decelerating until it actually happens.