Far from the homeland, the war is cold and the warriors are lonely.
In the days before war, hope rose in the stars. A new realm had been found that could be reached by a pattern of wormholes. While the wormholes were far-flung in Imperial Space, they all clustered together on the far end in the Colonial Zone. The systems were rich, and the natives were primitive. Some races came for conquest (and money!) while other came for noblesse oblige (and money!), but all the Great Powers came. Here, those who felt confined in Imperial space could make their own homes. Here, strange new worlds could be found. New civilisations. New adventures. Old enemies could work together, or simply ignore each other. Here was peace. (For the Imperials. For the natives, things were a little harder.)
Alas, nothing lasts forever.
When war came to the homelands, capitals starved for cash and resources put the call out to the Colonial zone. The money must flow. War came to the Colonial zone as well. A different kind of war. There were no shipyards, no logistics, little imperial population, and a great big empty swath of stars to hold onto. War here looked very different than it did back home.
PFs became the weapon of choice, even for the idealistic Federation. (There were lots of eager native volunteers to fill the boats.) Without massive battle fleets, a single tender could control a large patch of space and squadrons could roam free to wreak havoc upon one another. These combatants clawed at one another in these small boats, struggling to get the most resources back home to the "real" war. Everyone knew that whoever won back there was going to clean up in the Colonial Zone.
Welcome to the life of an attrition unit. Come join us in command of a squadron. Your home needs cash. Your ships need repairs. The enemy is everywhere. And whatever happens, you won't be missed.
_____________________________________________________________________________Flotilla ConstructionWhile you can control a single boat in SC if you wish, the focus of the campaign is flotilla command. You have two ship slots in SC, which you can fill in the manner you feel serves your empire best. Some boats come loaded with other boats, giving the total number of boats you can have under your command as six. (Eight for the Lyrans.) There are a few rules on how you can build your flotilla. Since I'm writing in the English language many rules will have an exception.
PFs are divided into leaders, line, and support boats. Leader and support boats may be purchased in the shipyard while line PFs are in the "bays" of the leader PFs.
1) You may NOT simultaneously own two off the SAME boats purchased from the shipyard.
Exception: Interceptor leaders. If you wish, you may control two interceptor leaders.
2) Races with more than one class of PF (Roms, Kzin, Hydran) have a leader and line version of each class. (eg.: Rom Centurions and Starhawks, Hydran Howlers and Harriers and etc.) A leader may NOT carry a line PF that is not of its own type. (eg. A H-HWLL may not carry H-HARs). The line PF of each class is easily recognizable, as it has the same abbreviation as its leader minus the final "L" in the name. You may
NOT carry a leader version of two different PFs: only one leader per player at a time, unless you want to take two interceptor leaders. Sorry, no CENL's backed up by STHL's.
Exception: There is no leader version of the Lyran Fi-Con. Any Lyran PFL (not INTL) may carry Fi-Cons. (The PFLs are bobcats, the interceptors are lynxes.)
3) You may buy freightors if you wish. They are relatively cheap. However, all "real" ships -- including real frigates -- should cost a couple hundred thousand PP. They are supposed to be priced beyond reach. If you find that you can afford one, please don't. They aren't supposed to be available.
4) Bases are represented by PF tenders and Aux PF tenders, and are able to be purchased in the shipyard. They are recognizable by their name and by the fact that they are affordable. For example, a BS_AxPFT is an auxilliary PF tender that is used as a base station. They are affordable. _____________________________________________________________________________Flotilla Operation1) Your PFL (if you have one) MUST launch its PF's as soon as possible. I suggest setting a hotkey to launch all fighters. (I use the "F" key.) If you aren't sure who drafted you then you might be anxiously scanning and probing for a few moments, but try not to take too long. No one should get bitchy with a stopwatch, but the idea is to get them out there as soon as possible.
2) Once the line PF's are launched, you may NEVER recall them within a mission. It is (barely) possible that the AI might get a crippled line boat recalled while you are in a different boat. EVERYONE SHOULD BE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THIS IN A POSITIVE MANNER AND NOT CRY "CHEAT!" If this happens, you are prohibited from launching the line boat again during that mission. Again, see above warning. If the AI happens to get the boat launched again, do the right thing and self-destruct it. My first (and likely last) response to anyone who claims their opponent cheated in this manner will be to reply, "No, he didn't. Get over it."
3) Fi-Cons are free to launch their fighters whenever they want. Once launched, they cannot be recalled. (See rule two for "oops" caveats.)
4) This is a war of attrition between boats that don't have the big, self-sustaining warp engines of starships. Casualties are expected and acceptable, and getting caught with your "tanks dry" is a daily hazard. You may NOT retreat from combat unless your leader or your support boat has been killed. Loss of line boats do not allow you to disengage. Once you have lost your leader or your support boat, you are free to disengage with any surviving boats.
_____________________________________________________________________________The Map ConceptThis is supposed to represent a different kind of warfare. To reflect this, the map will work a little differently than you are used to.
1) (Virtually) No planets. The fortified planets seen in the Imperial Zone simply don't exist on this wide open, primitive frontier of the colonial zone. If a race wants to defend a valuable system, they must deploy boats to do it. And that's your job. "Planets" on this map will be represented by high econ hexes. While some may be easily recognizable by the presence of terrain such as asteroids, some others may not. This is in keeping with the concept that the Colonial zone is a wild frontier. You do not have detailed maps of the enemy's turf and must find his resources through good old-fashioned legwork.
2) No bases. No expensive bases have been built in the Colonial Zone, and now that war has broken out in the Imperial Zone none are going to be for the forseeable future. The role of bases on this map will be filled with PF tenders. When you assault a "base", you will actually be assaulting a tender with its flotilla. In the wild frontier of the Colonial Zone a tender squadron is a potent weapon, as it projects power over a large stretch of space. Likewise, killing a tender helps to empty surrounding space of the infestation of its annoying boats. Bases will be destroyable, but you probably won't kill them with the first successful mission.
3) Invulnerable capitals. There will be a few planets on the map. These are the provincial capitals of each race, and are considered far too powerful for mere attrition units to conquer. Taking them would require a large battle fleet from the Imperial zone, and they won't be coming until the war back home is over. Thus, you may NOT take missions in an enemy's planet hex. You are free to take missions in your own provincial capital. (Piracy is universal, and it's your job to protect those goods your colonials are sending home.)
_____________________________________________________________________________Victory ConditionsIn this war of attrition, there are three things that are important:
1) Attrition of enemy boats
2) Economic gain sent home to aide the capital's war effort
3) Number of tenders in space
Keep track of how many leader or support boats you kill, and report them as they happen. (Details on reporting procedure later.) At the end of the war, each race and each alliance will be ranked from 1 to 8 according to how well they did in each category. The alliance with the lowest total ranking will be declared the winner of the war in the colonial zone. More specifically, the race with the lowest total score will be declared the overall winner of the campaign. So yes, even if you get hosed in one category because your race "suks roks", you can still win by taking the other two categories.
_____________________________________________________________________________The usual rules
1) Don't forfeit your way across the map or log off to avoid mandatory missions. You must take a mission if you get mandatory one, or call for someone else to come and draft you.
2) Don't run around and keep a player in mission just to keep him in mission. There are many ways to fight, but if you don't intend to fight -- ever -- then leave the map.
3) Don't exploit a bug if you find one.
4) Don't cheat
5) Don't be abusive towards other players. It makes me sad and then I have to strat banning IP addresses. And that's no fun, because I want as many people to play as can.
It is specifically legal (i.e cheerfully allowed) to lose missions in your own hex in order to give it to an ally! However, it is specifically illegal to log on as the enemy, lose missions in his hexes, and then log on as yourself in order to conquer them. There is defnitely some rock/paper/scissors with some of the races, so granting allies bases may prove useful.
That's about it. I'll update if there are issues.
-Herr Burt
Topic: Squadron Commander: Rules of Engagement (Read 5430 times)