Federation Commander

I know we don't have deceleration due to damage in Fed Comm, and a jolly good job too

But I have a question regarding batteries and damage. This example is an unusual circumstance, I admit, but let's say there's a Klingon F5 which starts the turn with full batteries and no damage. In Energy Allocation, he receives his 20 new points of power from his generating systems, for a total of 22 points in the pile. So far so good.

Now, let's say he selects speed zero and does not accelerate in the first impulse. During the Direct Fire phase of that impulse, his #4 shield takes a right royal clattering and is downed, with the loss of a couple of minor systems - say they rolled a '5' for a Lab and F Hull. The Klingon did not reinforce the shield, and has therefore still not used any power - he didn't return fire either, for whatever reason. The enemy ship, damn his eyes, now launches hit-and-run raids on the batteries of the F5; both raids are successful, and the batteries are disabled.

Now, in Star Fleet Battles, the power in those batteries would be lost with the batteries themselves.

But what happens in Fed Comm? Is the 2 points of battery power lost? Granted that if the F5 had reinforced the shield for those two points of damage, the power 'in' the batteries would have been 'used' anyway, so the ship would have been left with the 20 points generated - and yes I know that it's not specifically battery power that's used first, especially if you don't use the power tracks on the ship cards, but on smaller ships the power tracks kind of 'name' the first two points of power in blue and 'therefore' they're battery points.

But still if the batteries are destroyed, and no power has yet been used, surely the power that was in the batteries, with no other escape, will be lost?

The reason I'm asking this is because I am doing some in-house rules experiments with larger-capacity batteries [think X- or Andro- batteries] and I wanted to know what you guys think would/should happen to the ship's power when any battery, not necessarily such a 'big' battery, is disabled.

Ideas, anyone, please?

No because you get all of your energy at the start of the turn.

Kang wrote:I know we don't have deceleration due to damage in Fed Comm, and a jolly good job too

Honestly, have you ever seen anyone ever use that rule in SFB?????

Saved from is right. It was decided not to use Energy Balance due to Damage in FedCom. The Power is yours untill the end of the turn it can not be "blown away".

The same is true for movement. You can have all your Warp Power shot off in the first Impulse and still move at your plotted Speed for the next 7 Impulses. You can also still pay for Accelerations and Decelerations as well with no Remaing Warp Boxes for the rest of the turn.

I am sure MJW will come along and add a offical stamp or rejection but these same questions were asked when the boards first came up.

You all got it correct.

You get your Energy Points at the very beginning of the turn during Energy Allocation (1E1). This total is then available for use during the turn, starting with selecting your base speed and so on. At no point during the turn does damage have any affect on your available Energy Points.

During a turn, the only thing that the loss of batteries will affect is your ability to use shield reinforcement (3C5). If you have lost all of your batteries, you have no ability to use shield reinforcement.

Hope that answers the question.

Kang,

If you're playing around with ideas for multi-power-point batteries, consider that they will become top targets for hit&run raids.

And even though X-ship stuff will all be done in-house, it brings up the interesting idea that X-ships may be a little like Orion ships in that once they've taken some damage, they can become vulnerable very quickly. Sure, X-ships will have lots of other advantages over standard ships, but if they are carrying, say, 12-15 points of power in 4 or 5 batteries, the downside might be that it will take 12-15 points of power to recharge them AND if the batteries are damaged, some of the X-ships' special capabilities might go away because they won't have the power to do them.

Gentlemen, thank you for a comprehensive set of answers on this thread. My question has indeed been thoroughly answered and I will go rewrite my rules to take this into account.

There is also a flip-side to this.

Yes, you get to keep your power, but it may not always be to your advantage. For example, for an Andromedan, he may want to lose five points of power with a disabled battery......

All interesting points, though. Thanks guys

Tony,

If you are working on some Andro rules, I'd love to have a look at them! I could never really get my head around them in SFB (especiaslly that emptying panels trick thing).

Who mentioned the Andros? Oh, I did..... the question was more about batteries, though

Guess I'll wait for Mr Cole's version then!