Federation Commander

Two-part Borders of Madness question regarding Scatterpacks.

I was talking to a friend who is much, much more experienced in SFB than I am, telling him about our Early Years FC campaign when we got on the subject of Scatterpacks. He was surprised that we used them at Fleet Scale with the full 6-drone loadout.

So, first part question. If scatterpacks were allowed as a BoM addition to standard FedCmdr at Fleet Scale, would you allow them to launch six drones, or reduce their loadout to three drones?

Second part is really a fishing expedition for opinions, concerns, and comments:

As I said, we are using SP in our Early Years campaign, which is all being fought at Fleet Scale. SP loadouts are 6 drones (3 drones for Heavy Drones

Hmm... it seems to have cut off the rest of my question. I'll submit that part of the question later this evening.

Well, you are charting well and truly in the Borders of Madness. As a result, whatever your group goes for is probably as good an idea as any.

Personally, I would recommend the "half as much" idea. A fleet scale ship has half the drone racks, so only carrying 3 drones makes sense to me. (For heavy drones, you are likely screwed. Probably one heavy and one normal drone is the limit.)

But that is just an opinion. It doesn't look like scatter packs are making it into Borders of Madness anytime soon, so, anything on that subject is just someone's opinion.

Even though I am sure that it will upset my Kzinti Ally, I do see the logic in reducing our scatterpacks to 3.

Hi Mike!

See, I figured that Scatter packs would work the same way regardless of Squadron or Fleet scale, since all weapons, drone control, and even suicide shuttles are full strength.

Our experience with 6-drone scatterpacks at Fleet Scale has been fine, though we're playing in the Early Years with 6-point warheads and speed 8 drones (or speed 16 with one turn endurance). Granted, we also use wild weasels and EW to help. And, since most fleets were required to be like 70% Frigates & Destroyers, most of the drone-carrying warships have a single shuttle to work with. (we also assume that A racks have 4 drones in the rack and 4 in the ready for reload before Damage Control is necessary to reload them).

I'm just nervous about using Middle/Late Years Drones in 6-drone scatterpacks at Fleet Scale.

desmith137 wrote:Even though I am sure that it will upset my Kzinti Ally, I do see the logic in reducing our scatter-packs to 3.

Well, my fine Imperial player, I'm happy to reduce Imperial scatter-packs to 3 drones each, if you'd prefer...

Just recall, at Fleet Scale you only get half as many shuttles to start with ---

SS and WW are limited or removed if you use SPs because of the lesser number of shuttles carried.

I would think the number of drones that could be carried via scatterpack would be reduced by half in Fleet Scale. The weapons on the ship cards are cut in half as are the number of drone launchers. Warhead strength would still be the same, though.

Just my two cents worth...

Having a theoretical scatter pack always use six drones regardless of scale is defensible. However, I would significantly worry about the play balance issues of doing so. Six drones in fleet scale is very hard to deal with, particularly if you have the whole fleet doing it. It will overwhelm the defenders' defenses and could easily end up being very overpowering.

Most ships with drone capability have their drone rack numbers halved in Fleet Scale. It folows then that scatterpacks should be reduced in the same proportion.

Three drones, not six.

Just call me the Invisible Man. Sheesh!

Thanks for the comments guys!

Mike wrote:Just call me the Invisible Man. Sheesh!

Sorry Mike. Didn't see that comment.....perhaps you're invisible after all