Federation Commander

You are not "required" to buy any Stingers, if you do not want them. I've participated in many a SFB battle where, due to point balance - one or two Singers have been left out of the mix. You can purchase as few or as many as you want - up to the limits of the ships in your fleet.

Technically you're supposed to try and take them if you can. As mentioned, you can skip some if the points don't quite work out. But you should probably try and avoid things like multiple ships that "lost all of their Stingers in the prior battle".

If you're playing a 1000 point battle (just to pick numbers at random), not using 200 points worth of Stingers is probably going to cause some raised eyebrows.

Which is one of the reasons why I'm seriously thinking about making the switch to the Orion Pirates.

Just as an update to this -

Rule (5Q1f) in Distant Kingdoms explicitly states that a Hydran player is allowed to leave any and all Stingers behind if they wish. The shuttle boxes that would have contained Stingers are empty if the Stingers are not purchased. They are not replaced with normal shuttles.

So the Hydran player is, for instance, free to build a fleet of a dozen Hydran Fusion ships (which, other than the Hunter Frigate, all carry fighters) without using the Stingers that those ships are normally allowed to carry.

That is correct.

However, why you would do this with a fleet of fusion ships is beyond me.

Personally, if I am going to take a Hydran fleet and leave the fighters behind, I am taking ships with hellbores!

mjwest wrote:However, why you would do this with a fleet of fusion ships is beyond me.

I can think of three reasons/situations that I would consider an all fusion/no fighter fleet - if I was the kind to not fly fighters:

1. More ships for the cost as fusion ships tend to be a bit less expensive

2. Typically higher overall fleet speeds due to lower cost of Fusions and no need to power them until instant of firing

3. Fighting in terrain (asteroids) favors fusions I think.

mjwest wrote:However, why you would do this with a fleet of fusion ships is beyond me.

Not everything that the rules permit is actually tactically sound.



Though there could be a situation in which more cheap, undergunned ships (which is what Fusion ships basically are) might be more useful than fewer more expensive ships that are of roughly the same size. Given that three Dragoons cost roughly the same as four Rangers (before fighters are taken into account) and both ships can absorb roughly the same amount of punishment, an unusual scenario that emphasized a mad dash through a guantlet (or something similar) might actually favor a Hydran who spends his points on Stinger-less Fusion ships instead of Hellbore ships.

Good points, both of you.

I will not dismiss fighterless fusion ships quite so quickly ...

Hmm...

Running Hydran Fusion ships (sans fighters) as reverse Hivers might be an interesting experiment...

Though the idea kind of breaks down once you get to anything bigger than the Lord Commander, given that everything from the BCH on up includes Hellbores...


(For the ignorant, the Hivers are an Omega Sector race. The individual members are extremely small, and this carries over to their ships. Thus, what the Hivers refer to as a "Frigate" is what most other races refer to as a "Fighter", a "Destroyer" is what other races call a "Gunboat", etc... Reverse Hiver is a reference to the fact that Hydran Fusion ships without fighters are generally about the same points cost as a ship of the next class down. For instance, the Ranger Heavy Cruiser actually costs about as many points as your typical Light Cruiser.)

Related question - could I just buy a fleet of Stingers without Capital Ships? (Not saying I would, but you never know...)

No. Well, not really.

The intent is that fighters only show up in conjunction with ships that can carry them. So, you can't just have a squadron of 12 Stingers "just show up" for a battle. Something had to bring them there.

That all said, if that is what floats your boat and your opponent is willing to give it a shot, I certainly do not want to stand in your way. Federation Commander is about what its players consider fun battles, not deployment restrictions.

So, after carefully not answer the question, I hope that answer the question.

Doing stuff like that can cause issues, though. It's been pointed out that a starbase in SFB can easily be destroyed by its points value in admin shuttles, even though the latter aren't designed for combat (they're small enough that most of the starbase's heavy weapons are wasted; and there's a LOT of them because they're so inexpensive). Also, Stingers have a top speed of 16 which means that if the starships have enough room, then the Stingers will never be able to catch them.

"In Universe", you'd likely only find Stingers and other fighters operating independently if their carrier(s) (including Hydran hybrid ships) sent them on a raid against a convoy or a lightly defended stationary target (such as a small base or Floating Repair Dock).