Federation Commander

Just a question about how ground bases in Reinforcements Attack are deployed on a planet or asteroid. I gather that the six ground bases numbered 1-6 are spread out evenly to face outward on the six adjacent hexes, but what about the other ones? Would a given colony have ALL of them? Could several of them be facing the same hex? Could there be more than one of a given type? And most importantly, which one has the coffee shop?

Just going by memory of the different types of bases here, but in any case... As far as i know there are no set deployments of bases. Each base would be bought individually for your scenario/campaign or what have you. They could be all in the same hex or spread out depending on the type of colony. A small mining colony would probably have a mining base and probably def sats and maybe a small ground base for defense. A major operation would have more substantial defenses. That said, putting six phaser-4 bases to defend one mining base one one hexside is a but to much, so use common sense. A capitol world would probably have a phaser-4 base on each hexside and many other defenses. There might be some good info on major planetary defenses in SFB or F&E, but i don't know where to look for it off hand.

Since they are your bases, you can put a coffee shop in each and every one if you want

(5L9b3) Ground bases can be said to be "localized" or "remote." Remote bases are not connected, even if they happen to be on the same hex side of a planet. Localized bases are within a mile or so of each other, and have a unified energy grid. While they take damage as individual bases, they all use the same pool of Energy Points.

Evidently you can put multiple ground bases on a single hexside of a planet, but as m1a1 said, common sense should rule.

I personally am wondering what kind of ground base set up a small colony might have if it had a facility that served as a "space port". This would be a ground facility instead of an orbiting facility. It would serve as a focal point and orbital control center for landing/taking off and for beam ins and beam outs.

Specifically, I have in mind a small colony on a planet in a part of Federation space that was close enough to the Kzinti border to be overrun by the Kzinti invasion of the 2nd Federation-Kzinti War. This would not be Mantor or even close to it in size.

And a follow up question, too. After the Kzintis took over, what part(s) of it would be destroyed and what parts would the Kzintis make functional and use?


Anyone with reasonable ideas?

I would think the "no more than three units firing from a hex-side" rule applies and puts a practical (if not a formal) limit on ground bases per hex-face of a planet.

But even though the Power Station ground base has two Ph-3s, its main purpose is to provide power for other ground bases. I could see having more than 3 on one hexside of a planet if the "extra" ones were not expected to use their paltry weaponry (at least not use it combined with other ground bases).

What are the "Works" boxes on the Mining Station ground base?

They are the "works" of the mine. Elevators, ore mills, union halls, etc.

I was reading the SFB scenario SG48 this afternoon, and it calls for four (4) Ground Based Defense Phaser-4s per hexside of a planet that's rich enough to think they can go without the Tholian Will. (A variation suggests making it a Seltorian planet by adding a web breaker base to each hexside.) You can name your own caveats; it is another system, another galaxy, possibly a harder-than-historical simulation for training fleets, etc., but there's one data point. (Suggested tactics for the Rebels are to fire everything at the fleet to be sure to score internals, not using one of the phaser-4s to pad the other phaser-4s.)

(SG48) is a bit of an outlier. More typically, putting one Ph-4 base on each hex side of a planet would be considered a pretty good arrangement.

We did an article once defining what a battalion is. I forget right now, but somebody can find it.

There can be as many bases as you want to pay for, both in the background and scenario BPV sense.

Svc:

the article is titled "Advanced ground combat" it is in Captains Log #31 on pages 69 & 70.

the article titled "New Rule: (S8.7) Buying Ground Troops" is in Captains log #37 on pages 64 S& 65.

these are the only 2 that I know of.

A question for clarification.

Suppose a small troop transport lands on a planet with an enemy controlled ground base. Can all 60 of the troop transport's Marine squads be unloaded in the same turn and enter combat with whatever the ground base has to fight them?

Edit: Just found 5F2a where it says a landed ship can transfer up to 6 Marine squads per turn to a planet. This would mean it would take 10 turns to unload all 60 squads from the small troop transport.

No, a ground base battalion (defense battalion). We did that one too.