Federation Commander

Here's another dumb left-field idea for planetary defences...

All habitable Class-M planets have one feature in common – oceans.

Surface ships will not last long against starship firepower, but submarines can be a major thorn in the side of an attacking force.

A generic submarine is treated as having twenty damage points, and being crippled on six.

It is armed with twenty four drones, and can control six of these at any one time.

The owning player secretly records which hexside of the defended planet that the boat is on; while submarines may travel freely about a world’s oceans, it would take days to move from one hexside to another and this is outside the scope of the game.

Submarines may operate at one of three depths – surfaced, shallow and deep. They may dive or climb one depth level at the start of each impulse.

A submarine starts the game at shallow depth, but it's location is only revealed when it first launches drones.

A surfaced submarine can be fired upon from a maximum range of four hexes without any modifiers or shielding.

Surfaced submarines may launch and guide drones, but a boat would only normally surface in combat to surrender or allow the crew to abandon ship.

A submarine at shallow depth may be fired on as a cloaked ship from a maximum range of four hexes. If the submarine did not launch drones in the previous Launch Phase, all weapons fired at her receive a +2 shift in the least favourable direction.

The water above a shallow submarine counts as a twenty-point shield. Since you can’t make holes in water, this ‘shield’ returns to full strength at the end of each Offensive Fire Phase.

Submarines at shallow depth may launch and guide drones.

A submarine at deep depth may be fired upon as a cloaked ship from a maximum range of one hex, always receives the +2 weapons modifier and may not launch or guide drones. The ocean provides the equivalent of a 50-point shield, which returns to full strength at the end of each Offensive Fire Phase.

A crippled submarine may not operate at deep depth and may only launch or guide three drones per turn.

Submarines may be bought for the defences of class-M planets or small gas giants for 40 points each.

This is called 'thinking outside the box', Dan

There's a further extension to this. Why limit it to Class-M planets? Small (Uranus/Neptune) or large (Jupiter/Saturn) gas giants are also 'oceans' in that they are covered in deep layers of fluid. Why not have subs on these? I'd think it was harder to hit a submerged sub on a gas giant than on a Class-M; deeper in, more radiation background, that sort of thing. However, subs would probably have to surface to a similar depth in order to launch....

Trust a Hydran to think of this sort of thing

Dan Ibekwe wrote:Submarines may be bought for the defences of class-M planets or small gas giants for 40 points each.

I'm already there, mate

Large gas giants...may need larger subs. You could have the 'Planetary Defender (Deniable)' from Ian M Bank's The Algebraist, but I'm not sure that the FC world is ready for that, yet

Come to think of it, Hydrans = Dwellers...well, sort of.

The world in general is not ready for Iain M. Banks

I'm wondering if an EM pulse could disable the electronics of underwater craft?

If so, all a starship would have to do would be to launch an EM pulse drone into an ocean to disrupt any subs that might be lurking down there.

Then tractor their puny A$$ out into space where they explode due to their inability to retain air.

Transport a T Bomb into the sub? Doah not SFB.

In the twenty-first century, submarines can be detected by satellites spotting the ridge of water over the top of the sub. I don't know what kind of sensing devices they'll have in the twenty-sixth century, but I'm sure an orbiting starship will be able to find a sub without too much difficulty.

A sub's ability to remain invisible is its best protection. Once it's found, shockwaves through the water generated by nuclear weapons, or even orbital bombardment by starship weapons, would kill it. Ground bases are just more practical.