Federation Commander

OK, After finding a 4th dedicated player we have started another campaign similiar to our last one.

The main rules are:

Collect income
Pay upkeep
Repair ships
Buy ships
Place new (degraded crew) ships
Place new freighters
Place raiders in holding area
Write orders
Reveal orders
Pay offensive supplies.
Move ships
Place raiders in raided areas
Purchase Orions
Fight battles / retreat losers
Return raiders
Place new ships (that were not placed earlier)
Collect freigter income
Buy tug stuff

Start and End
============

The game starts with each player having a Starbase in their home zone. They have no ships.
The game ends when someone loses that starting Starbase, the winner being the one who destroyed it.

Collect Income
==============

Receive 25 for the home area.
+1 per region you control (apart from home region).


Pay Upkeep
===========

Total the EP cost of all your ships, you pay 5% (1/20) of this rounded off in upkeep.
+ 1 per command ship (DN, BCH, or 'command' vessel).
+ 1 per ship that can carry fighters (whether it does or not).


Repair Ships
============

Damaged ships at a planet or FRD can repair for 1 point.
Crippled ships at home base or FRD can repair for 2 points.
Carriers replace lost fighters if at a planet. (The 1 pt extra maintenance covers the supply of extra fighters).
Damaged bases and defsats are auto repaired each turn for free. That includes any destroyed defsats that are replaced for free so long as you stilll hold the region. Destroyed bases are not replaced.


Buy Ships
==========
Secretly work out what ships you want to buy. They cost 1/10 the ships BPV, round off (half up). Carriers/hydrans must buy with all their fighters as well.

At the start of the game each empire has limited ability to build large ships. The following shows what turn you can start to build each size ship (in Move Cost).

1 = 1/4
2 = 1/2
3 = 3/4
4 = 1
6 = 1/25, 1/5
8 = 2

You may only build 1 ship of each size class above in any turn, but can other wise build as many ships as you can afford given that limit.

You may use a slot to buy a smaller size ship, but not a larger ship.


Place new Ships (degraded crew)
===============================

New ships can be placed now for immediate use this turn, but will have a degraded crew. There is 50% chance at this point each turn that any existing degraded ships lose that status (not penal ships which are permanently crap).

Draw convoy lines
===================

If own a planet and it is not yet connect to the home base then draw a line from the planet to the next zone, or from the end of such a line to another zone.

Once that line reaches the home region you star collecting its income at the end of the turn. This line represents your convoy route, it can be raided.

If you lose a region which a line goes through then the while convoy line collapses and you have to re-start the process of redrawing it 1 zone at a time. So protect those lines!



Place Raiders in holding Box
============================

Any non crippled Fast ships/light raiding DNs can be placed off map as raiders for 2 point each.


Write orders
============

Secretly write your move orders for the turn.

Each ship can only move 1 region per turn.

Pay Offensive supplies
=======================

For each of your ships that is trying to move into another players zone pay Move Cost points in supplies. The overall total across all attacks is rounded UP.

E.G. you have 2 FF, 3 DDs and 2 CAs attacking enemy zones this turn, that equals 4.5, rounded up to 5 points.

Move ships
===========

All ships are moved as per the orders. There is no pinning etc, moves are assumed to be simultaneous.

If 2 forces are attacking each other they do not cross in the middle. The one that moves is determined randomly and the other stays put, unless one side has a scout and the other does not, in which case the side with the scout decides to move or await the attack.

Place raiders
=============

Ships in the raider holding box can be placed in any zone, enemy or friendly. If they join friendly ships then they can fight with them as normal.

If they are put in an enemy zone with no other friendly ships then they are raiding and cannot control the area. They can fight any enemy there, including convoy lines, but afterwards are placed in the nearest friendly zone (after all battles are resolved).

Purchase Orions
===============

One orion mercenary may be purchased per upcoming battle. They cost the same as a new ship would, however, so long as the orion survives half of that (rounded down) is refunded after the battle. The orion will only fight for one battle, he does not join your fleet afterwards. Orions do not count towards your command limit.


Fight battles
=============

Any zones with 2+ players in are battles. If there are multiple battles to resolve then each player rolls a dice and the winner chooses one to fight.

If more than one player entered a region then roll to see who arrived first, second etc. Battles are fought as soon as there is more than one side in the zone. The winner can choose to fight the next person as they arrive with whatever they have remaining.

Either side can choose to retreat if they want before the battle. The defender chooses first to do so.

The battle will take place around any terrain or planet or bases if the region has any.

Convoys cannot be directly attacked by non raiding ships. But they cannot retreat either and are automatically destroyed if abandoned.

Raiders on their own can always attack convoys if they want, which can be defended by any other ships present. Convoy raids do not take place around bases, and will ony take place around terrain if the convoy decides to, I.E. the raiders always catch them away from bases, but they can only be caught where they travelling which may not be near danagerous terrin if they so choose.

Only a certain number of ships can fight. Nominate a ship to be the command ship. It can control itself + as many ships as thats ships DamCon. So A cruiser means you can have 5 ships. If the command ship is a proper command ship then you get a +2 bonus ship rating. So a CC can command 6, and a DN 8. Bases and Defsats do NOT count to the count limit.

All standard FC rules apply to weapon restrictions etc (e.g. PPD limits).

You can only have 1 special ship per 5 normal ships (or part thereof). Special ships are Drone ships, Scouts, aegis, Maulers and Carriers.

Battles last a max of 10 turns, after that if the attacker has not cleared the defenders he 'loses' and must retreat.

Post battle Damage
------------------
A ship that ends up crippled is marked as crippled in the campaign, until repaired. A crippled ship takes DamCon *10 damage at the start of any subsequent battles.

A ship that is damaged at the end of a battle gets 4 turns of DamCon (or from the point it disengages) if it is still damaaged by even 1 box then it is marked as damaged, until repaired at a planet. A damaged ship start any subsequent battle with DamCon * 3 in damage.

Fighters that are lost are noted, but any fighters still alive are auto repaired at the end of the battle so long as there is carrier space in the victorious force to carry them. Fighters beyond the remaining fighter boxes are lost. Fighters still on the map of a retreating/destroyed force are all lost.

NB Frame hits still count as a non repaired box, so a ship that takes frame cannot possibly repair itself using damcon and will therefore always be noted as damaged after the battle. However, we do not track frame hits at the campaign level, so it will not start future battles with the frame hits.

NB A ship can never get reapir its campaign status during a battle, if it started 'damaged' then no matter how much it repairs itself during the battle it will end at least damaged still.

Captures
--------

A captured ship cannot be used. It provides 25% of its value in EP.

Convoys raids
-------------
If raiders are attacking a convoy you must have 100 cargo boxes per 10 points of convoy value on the lines in that region.
Before the battle you can swap one freighter for a Q-ship at the normal cost of a Q-ship (6 for small, 10 for large).
The value of the cargo is evenly spread around the convoy. After the fight count how much % of the cargo was destroyed (even if repaired) that is the % value of the convoy lost this turn, rounded up. Assuming no Q-ships, this means 1 point per 10 cargo or part thereof.

E.g. If you gave 2 convoy lines throgh a zone of 10 and 15, then you have a 25 pt convoy needing 250 cargo boxes. If you lose 150 of them then you have lost 15 of your convot income for that turn.

Retreats
========

Losers, or those who choose to retreat, must fall back after all battles are complete. They must move to another friendly zone, that is closer to the home base (or no further away if that isn't possible) than where they are if they can. If they cannot move to friendly zone then they must move so that they are closer to one than where they are. If they move into a zone that has (non retreating) enemy ships in they must fight another battle with those now. If they retreat/disengage from this extra fight via whatever means then roll a dice. On a 1-2 they are damaged, 3-4 crippled, 5-6 destroyed, +1 if the ship is already damaged, +2 if crippled.

Again roll to decide who chooses a force to retreat if it may be important on who retreats first.

Return raiders
==============

Any raiders that were in enemy zones on their own (and arrived via the raiding box) must now be moved back to the nearest friendly zone. They do not worry about how far that is, they just arrive back safe.

Place new ships
===============

Any ships bought this turn but not placed earlier are now paced at the home base. They have standard crews.


Collect freighter income
=========================

Completed convoy lines generate the value of the planet they come from in points.

Buy Tug Stuff
==============

If a tug is an area you may purchase a base item, or FRD. Bases may be built up through the stages of Mobile base, Base station, battle station, starbase. Each stage cost the same as though you were buying it as a ship, e.g. a Mobile base costs 10. Upgrading a Mobile Base to a base station costs another 14 etc. Bases cannot move afterwards. They are ssumed to be around the planet if built in a planet zone.

Defense sats can be built around a planet, costing 10 for a group of 5. They pay upkeep as normal, but they are always restored to full strength of 5 at the start of any battle, so long as you keep control of the region. The cannot control a region though if an enemy ship enters.

An FRD can be built at a planet for XXX?. They can ony be moved by the tug. A tug cannot build anything in a turn it moved an FRD.

A tug can only build/upgrade one thing a turn.

Tuhs are used to place monitors. Monitors can only be placed at planetsm and can't move. Monitors do count towards your command limit in a battle.

=========================================


The main change is to convoys, in order to remove clutter they are now represented as convoy routes (That take time to setup) rather than individual units. Some other tweaks to deal with things that came up before.


Additonally, Andros are in as one side. they follow the following special rules:

1) Only ships with DisDevs may move on the campaign map. Satellite ships can survive and hold or fight in regions if they find themselves alone (by accident or design), but they will not be able to move out unless carried by a mothership. Satellites forced to retreat from a region without a mothership are dead.

2) Andro 'convoys' are immune to raiders.

3) They follow the same ship building program as Galactic powers. i.e. 1/4 ships only on turn 1 etc.

4) All andro Disdev ships also count as Raiders.

5) They do not use command limits, they use normal Andro rule of no more than 2 disdev ships, plus whatever they carry.


Note that as the smallest ship available with a Disdev is the Python (3/4 ship) it will be turn 3 before they can move out the hme base, which means others will have an edge in zone grabbing. The mothership rule could prove nasty - lose a mothership and the sats can't move, lose the sats and you need to go back to base to pick up more. The Raider rule is to mitigate against the cons and make them feel more like the background.


Additionally the LDR have been seriously uppointed. LDR ships with 2 gatlings cost 10% extra and 4 gatlings cost 25% extra. This means their small ships start off about the same as we have played them before, but the larger ships with 4 gatlings are now a noticeably higher cost, the LDR CA is now on a par with the ISC CA.

The 4 players are:

Andro (Green).
LDR (Yellowy)
Feds (Blue)
Gorn (Orange)

The starting map looks like:


I forget where the terrain is, and will fill that in later.

Basically the Left/Right players have a safer start, with only 2 neighbours, the Top/Bottom players are more central with 3 neighbours but access to more planets. Not sure how this will play out, but it may create a more interesting dynamic than having everyone exactly equal.

ldr if 2 g's * 1.1 , if 4g's* 1.25 OK

We've played the first 7 or so turns. The map as it stands of the end of that turn is below.

HIghlights so far.

The Feds have spread out fast, grabbing everything they can. However, they are a bit thin and have ended up with only 1 planet - well they have a second which is cut off and due to be taken over by the Gorns I suspect.


The LDR have gone very much towards the Andro side, taking advantage of their inability to move out the home zone till at least turn 3, and now have 50pts of planets (but only 1 completed convoy route). They did grab the central 20 point planet on turn 3, but as they were finishing the convoy route the Feds swept into an undefended zone 21 with a frigate and collapsed it.

The Gorns have steadily advanced from their area, un-opposed by the LDR and surrounding the Feds early grab of the 20pt planet near them. They look ready to grab the 20 pointer to add to their nice haul of planets. Thye have also got 3 BCHs! advancing towards the Fed.

The Andros just had to watch the zones disappear for a couple of turns whilst building Sat ships, then they have moved out. however, they are now quite concentrated as a result, and have just forced out the Feds of region 8 when 2 Conq with Cobras turned up (The Feds ran rather than fight), and after a brief engagement the Python beat off an LDR FF in region 3 as they both arrived at the same time.




Planets with 5 dots around are defsats.
Ships with * are degraded
Ships with # (the LDR FF) are damaged.
The funny shape in region 37 is a Fed Mobile base, the Tug has started base building.

Note that as the smallest ship available with a Disdev is the Python (3/4 ship) it will be turn 3 before they can move out the hme base, which means others will have an edge in zone grabbing. The mothership rule could prove nasty - lose a mothership and the sats can't move, lose the sats and you need to go back to base to pick up more. The Raider rule is to mitigate against the cons and make them feel more like the background.

What about the Recon Cobra (CBR) that appeared in Communique several issues back? It has a Disdev and a move cost of 1/2.

mattruh wrote: What about the Recon Cobra (CBR) that appeared in Communique several issues back? It has a Disdev and a move cost of 1/2.

Totally missed that, I was thinking the recon Cobra was a cobra with sensors rather than TRs, and never looked at it closely. Though I'm reasonably happy with how things have felt, the andros being late to the region grabbing feels more correct.

A quick and rambling recount on the first campaign session.

I am playing Gorns and really enjoyed the first session of the campaign, good company, relaxed and fun! I did wonder as the newbie would everyone immediately make inroads into my home areas, thankfully, they did not!
The first couple of turns I was really feeling my way and just spreading out. Even though just opening moves, these turns have already given the campaign a certain early pattern. The Feds, to my right, spread out quickly in all directions gabbing as much territory and income as possible. The Andromedans with their need to build ships with a displacement device were slow in expanding. Although I am on the other side of the map from the Andros their slow start seems to have been to my advantage as the LDR choose to move towards the Andro areas unopposed for the first few turns, rather than turn towards me. Not wishing to be embroiled in a war on several fronts, I declined to move aggressively towards the LDRs home areas, sending only a solitary Gorn frigate to take control of undisputed areas, and so a buffer zone has been created between the LDR and myself (for how long I do not know!). This gave me more freedom to act against the Federation to my right. The Federation had expanded in several directions and their forces are more scattered than my own. This has allowed me to cut off the Feds 20 point planet, on which they have a tenuous hold and move aggressively towards their other assets.

My acquisition of planets and establishing trade routes have no doubt been noted by my opponents and I am pretty sure raiding parties will be active in my area in the next few turns. My hope is that as the other three empires have already begun to skirmish they will be too preoccupied about establishing their own disputed borders than worry about little old me (fat chance!).

At this moment in time, I am glad I am so far away from the Andros as I do not really know how to tackle them with a plasma force. It looks like the Federation and myself are set for some conflict in the next few turns, Their weakly held 20 point planet should fall easy enough so I will have to see what their next move is. What I do with my strong force moving towards the Federation home area depends a little on the LDR and how long our informal truce remains in play. I might see some Andromedans raiding in my area and it would be good to get some experience in fighting those before we meet in any serious battle, I need to get my tactics worked out.

Next week should see the following questions answered.

Federation. Their initial movement has dispersed their forces. They are building a base around their planet facing the Gorn space. Is this a defensive move or is the base a jumping off point for future invasion of the peaceful and gentle Gorn Confederation? It is also not clear what their intentions are towards LDR and Andro areas are.

LDR. The LDR currently have disputed borders with the Federation and Andros, will they also push towards Gorn space and open up a third front?

Andromedans. The Andros have a couple of significant fleets who are currently outgunning the more dispersed units of the Federation and the LDR. Will the Feds and LDR continue to cede ground to these forces or concentrate their own for a counter strike? For the Gorns it is a question of how much raiding they are going to conduct in Gorn territory.

Stay tuned

(edited because for some reason this system does not like the possessive apostrophe!)

Looks Like fun!

A good game so far.

New convoy rules and my initial lack of understanding of them has stuffed me somewhat.

I think my only option is

A. buy a battleship (or ships)

B. Attack, Everyone invading the peaceloving and heavy armed Federation.

The Gorns will rue the day they cut off my planet and invaded Federation Space.

The LDR have also made minor incursions in to Fed space, they have even talk about a truce and Non-aggression pact.
From past experiance I would trust a Deneben Slime worm first.

Captain Jack that is fighting talk where we Gorns come from...

I think you have misunderstood my intentions - you thought I was going to attack the planet but we are far too peaceful for such an aggressive gesture, but as we had already fueled up our ships we thought we would have a little fly around the planet anyway... harmless really, sorry we cut off your convoy route, that was regrettable.

Anyway, you don't want to pick on me, look at all those nasty Lyrans, with their mighty ships and Andromedans with all their weird stuff. I will tell you what as a sign of friendship I will let that brave and fearless police cutter leave the planet and be on its way and then I will treat your settlers on the planet fairly (-ish). Can't say fairer than that!

Captain Jack wrote: A. buy a battleship (or ships)

B. Attack, Everyone invading the peaceloving and heavy armed Federation.

Well, for someone who is heading out in all directions something heavier than Police cutters, scouts and a Tug would maybe be useful. Even T J Hooker in his POL can't hold off that many enemies, at some point a Hooker look-a-like in a real ship will be useful.

Attacking the LDR convoy line was a mistake as well, that has just meant the Andros face a weaker LDR and can therefore send more stuff your way. The Andros care not for agreements, everyone will be subjugated equally.

PS the mobile base cannot be upgraded to a police station. That requires the mobile crime scene investigation unit as the first step.

You greatly underestimate the power and the fighting spirt of my police cutters, scouts and tug!

My faithfull Orion allies will turn the tide.

p.s I do not think the attack on the LDR supply line a mistake, yes he would have higher income, which could have been used against me!

p.s The Feds will get discout for hiring Orions?

we were on the start of turn 7 prveviously.

That turn saw the Gorns attack the isolated 20 point planet with a BC , 2 CLs and 2 BDD (both degraded). The Feds bought an orion, and whilst the result was never in real doubt, the degraded crews showed how poor they can be, failing to stop even the odd drone that impacted. The Gorns did, however, learn to respect the DefSats as he was forced to circle the planet chasing the enemy. The end result was a damaged BDD and a crippled BDD for the loss of the POL. The Orion got away (giving the Fed the 50% refund on the hire cost). The planet falling to the Gorns.

On the Andro front, turns 7 - 9 has seen the the Intruders barge their way through to the 20 point planet and beyond, with the LDR not daring to stand and fight. The Andros did however leave an LDR CL flying around the back lines and lose the 10 point planet, but that was expected and they made no attempt to stop it, just concentrating on pushing the LDR closer to their home.


All the 3 Galactic powers have contructed DNLs to go raiding or act as fast reserves,as well as act as a decent command ship.

We are now half way through turn 9, the Andros have attacked the LDR in area 1 and a battle is due to be fought, next to the pulsar. A large LDR force has concentrated in area 22 to face the Andro Intruders hiding in area 31s nebula. The large LDR force looks like it significantly out shoots the main Andro force, and if there is a fight it could have a major impact on the campaign. Whether the Andros will face such a force remains to be seen.

On the Gorn side the Gorns are trying to trap and take out a lone Fed frigate from collapsing more convoys, after losing a 15 point convoy route to it. Gorn forces are also building up near the Feds remaining planet, but the Feds have gone into NCA production big time in order to even out the war ship balance.

The current map is as below.

Asteroids: 5, 23, 21, 11.
Nebula: 31, 32, 36.
Comet: 30.
Pulsar: 1, 39
Black Hole: 38
Dust: 10

Fed Mobile base in 37, and the planets with 5 Dots have DefSats.

Well another fun campaign session on Friday night. I as the Gorn commander approached the LDR and suggested a non-aggression pact and the setting up of a neutral zone of two areas between us, this is holding for now.

In terms of building ships, I have built a scout, a couple of BCs and two light raiding dreadnaughts. Fast and raiding ships have a very valuable function in the campaign as they can raid and rapidly reinforce key areas.
The USS Annoying, or whatever the Federation commander is calling his battle Frigate that is swanning around inside Gorn space, chased away some of my frigates and took a poorly guarded Gorn planet with the help of a light raiding dreadnaught. I had allocated a raiding dreadnaught to its defence but due to poor positioning of my units I had to bring it on degraded and in the end felt keeping it to fight another day would be more useful and so ceded the planet. The next turn I took the planet back with the aid of two light raiding dreadnaughts and even though they were both degraded the Federation decided they were outgunned and left. However, the USS Annoying, had some weird Satellite navigation error and moved deeper into the Gorn space, it is now surrounded by BC, DNL and so forth, I cant wait to get rid of it!

The main objective for the Gorn during this session was the taking of a Federation planet held by a solitary police cutter and DefSats. Being aware that the Federation would call on Orions to in support of their planet, I jumped in with a sizable force BC, CL, CL, BD (degraded), BD degraded. This was more than enough to do the job but as I am relatively new to FC and my opponent more experienced, especially with commanding Orions, I was still a little nervous. I was reasonably confident of taking the planet but was concerned over the damage the photon armed DefSats and predictable arrival of an Orion would cause me.

The Federation contracted an Orion BC to help defend the planet and as I flew in formation towards the planet, the Orion flew out to meet me. I was anticipating him closing to carronade range (he had 3 plasma F) but just outside this range he launched his 3 plasmas at my BC and launched and fired everything else at one of the BDs. The BD took minimal damage and my BC turned away until the plasma Fs were nearly spent. The Orion high energy turned away and my BC launched an S plasma at him to encourage him to keep moving away.

As the Orion kept his speed high to escape the plasma, the police ship ventured forth. Now I was within range of some of the DefSats who targeted the BDs luckily causing little damage, a plasma S was dispatched to deal with one of the DefSats I thought I would be flying past shortly. To my surprise the police ship kept coming towards me with a predictable result, I took little damage and it was evaporated!

By this time, the Orion was on the other side of the planet and had evaded the earlier plasma torpedo. My BC had returned to the main fleet and they all turned in to meet the Orion as he circled the planet. The Orion obviously did not want to meet all my ships face to face and began to turn around. I had to run through three more DefSats, which in turn crippled and damaged the BDs. However, despite having the turning circle of oil tankers the Gorns managed to get the Orion in Carronade range. The Orion craft was pretty well shredded but with sufficient power to accelerate he managed to disengage (mine had all been pumped into weapon systems).

Therefore, the planet was taken under stewardship of the great and benevolent Gorn Confederation. It was good to be bloodied in battle, as this was only my fourth game of FC and the first in which I had played the Gorns and used plasmas. The battle was pretty one-sided but the Federation aim was to take down a ship or two so they did get something out of it. I apologise to my fellow players for the amount of time it took me to fumble around trying to work out firing arcs and keeping track of weapons fired, it must have been a painful process to watch! I was a little lapse with my drone defence, as I did not really consider them a major threat to my mission but the inability of the degraded ships to auto-kill a drone even with a phaser 1 was alarming! I can see the DefSats being a significant aspect in the game, especially the photon firing ones, in a more even battle they would have been more significant.

Over on the other side of the map a couple of Federation and LDR units were tearing around inside Andromodan space, however the Andros had bigger fish to fry and so these were largely ignored.

There are two main actions on that side of the board, which look to be significant. First, and most pressing, is that the Andros have moved into an area that if captured would cut all the convoys to the LDR homeworld. It looks as if the Andros have a little bit of an advantage with their forces available and so this one is going to be a nail biter.

Nearby both the LDR and the Andros had two sizable fleets, the LDR ceded a little ground giving up a planet to the Andros and now both fleets are on the verge of a major battle. In many ways the LDR are the strongest power in the game against Andros, they have both good long range weapons, disruptors, which they can field in force, and short range devastation that really no one else can handle. It will be interesting to see if the Andros, with their Infester fleet are ready to take them on yet or if they hold out for a Dominator! The Andros of course have a lot of tricks up their sleeve, so watch out for the next session...

Next week might begin to see one of the empires begin to feel the strain.
Will the LDR hold their convoy routs against the Andromedans?

Will either the LDR or the Andromedas commit their main battle fleet in a decisive conflict? How will the Gorns and Federation respond to that?

Will the Gorns drop a 1000pts fleet onto the last remaining Federation controlled planet in their sector?

Will the USS Annoying continue to serve its name, or will it finally be reduced to space junk?

Will the Federation launch an offensive against the Gorns or sweep up the easy picking on the other side of the game board.

All will be revealed next week