Federation Commander

Looking at the new early years rules, some things jumped out at me.

- The zero energy anchor (launching drones at range 0) ALWAYS works, because no ship can move on the first sub-pulse of any impulse. Paravian Quantum Wave Torpedoes can be launched at range 1 and are guaranteed to hit.
- This can be combined with Carnivon Heel Nippers (see Captain's Log #39 supplemental) to rotate the target ship so that your Death Bolts launched on the same impulse will hit the shield you want (or at least, rotate the target 60 degrees, which may put defensive weapons out of arc). A high energy turn can save the target, but HETs are darn expensive for Early Years ships. And the consequences of breakdown are pretty nasty for ships with so few internal boxes.
- It's all about getting in close. No overloads and the best phaser is a phaser-2, so you need to get in close to inflict decisive damage.
- Suicide shuttles are still speed 8, and do good damage (3 points per point of power), making them quite effective with the zero energy anchor thing. If they get through, a potential 18 points of damage is really deadly to these ships. Still, finding 6 points of power to arm a full size SS is going to be difficult.
- If the Tholians had arrived with fully overloadable Particle Cannon technology, and web casters, they'd own the Alpha Octant by now. As it is, with phasers that outrange everyone else's, they're a real threat.

The Original tholians did have one or two DDs, and FFs, I thought (though the FF don't have web casters...)

You know, I'm at work so my memory might be fuzzy on this, but as Terryoc pointed out, I don't think any of the first wave Tholians had Web Casters. I think that only arrived with the Neos...if my memory serves. Even so, PH1 technology combined with laid webs was evidently lethal enough.

The Holdfast had two NDDs and four NFFs in service during the Early Years - and both of the NDDs had operational Web Casters.

However, when they were lost, the Holdfast could not duplicate the technology prior to the 312th's arrival.


And an interesting note, in case they ever make it to FC - the Jindarians had all of their base hulls (the four asteroid ships, the two strike cruisers plus their destroyers and frigates) throughout this period also, which would have made their Caravans pretty much untouchable.

Indeed, a squadron of metal ships trying to clear an asteroid field for use would have been more than anyone outside of the Holdfast would have wanted to deal with - and even then would have still been tricky for the Tholians to handle.

How did they lose thos ships? Against the Wimpy Middle Years Shipsof the Klinks, it seems impossible (Especially the NDD's)

Remember that the Tholians were heavily outnumbered by the Klingons and Romulans.

And, other than those NDDs and NFFs, they only had PCs. And only the "new" ships had particle cannons, the PCs just had phasers.

They built the DD after all the NDDs and NFFs were destroyed to keep some "heavy" units around.

Yeah, but I think even a warp powered frigate/Destroyer (Especially one with WC's) Could wipe the floor with an Early years DN, or even a whole fleet of ships. The Klinks shoudn't have been able to get even close to the tholian DDs, Whether because of the WCs, or the fact that their ships were sublight.

It's true that even the PCs essentially behaved like X-Ships, but the Klingons weren't sublight at that time. The new D4 cruiser and F4 frigate were in service 10 to 15 years before the first NDD and NFF were destroyed. And then there were the D3 and F3 refitted cruisers that used to be sublight for combat, but by the Early Years (Module Y1) were fighting at tactical warp speeds.

And, as I'm sure many SFB players will attest to (I'm not one of them), X-Ships were/are not invulnerable. Put enough "conventional" ships out there and the X-ship will go down.

Or in other words, those NDDs and NFFs may have been running around with dreadnought firepower (actually, probably less than that) but they were still just frigates and destroyers. One good volley from a cruiser squadron would still have been enough to blow them up.

If one is strictly looking at the Y-era ships seen east of the Federation (Romulan, Gorn, Paravian, ISC) how do the ships found play out in FC terms?


Indeed, do they tend to balance out better against each other than they would against the Y-era Four (or Five, if you count the Carnivons) Powers side of the Octant?