Topic: Anyone care to talk tactics?

[Clark Kent]

I was just curious if anyone would like to share how they approach battle scenes, and how they deal with battles tey are in.  I'm also interested in how long a battle lasts for others.
I personally prefer feds (ok, so I'm not very original), flying a  CLC or one of the BC_ excelsiors.  Sometimes I will up it to a drednaught or a battleship, or maybe an experimental in OP.  Typically, if I'm approaching an opponent of equal or greater BPV, I will keep a low speed while I overload photons, arm a scatter pack, and if necessary a wild weasel, reinforce shields, and if I have a ship with enough power I will try to match my oponent's ECM with ECCM.  As I approach I will often keep a speed of as low as 4so I can load as much power into my shields as possible, I let him blast away, most often not able to get through my forward shields, then around distance 2-3 I will open up with an alpha strike, pass, set torpedoes to normal and increase to maximum speed my ship can go and charge all weapons at once (14 on a BCF). 
From there I generally keep the battle fairly close in range (less than 10, while I try to keep my strong shields to him, being fairly piucky about the shots I take, focusing on weaker shields or ones that I've already blasted through.
For maneuvering purposes I don't like to drop below 10 after my initial alpha strike, and usually if I use my scatterpack, I drop it after my initial pass once I'm out of range of an AMD.
Typically, i opt to keep my photons charging throughout the battle rather than take the extra power I could have if I were to disarm them.
Typically my battles last between 5-10 minutes.    Anyone else?

[Nemesis]

It varies a lot depending on what I'm flying and what I'm opposing as well as the mission objective.  My basic style though tends towards the sabre dance, which is why I'm so comfortable flying Klingon.  It also explains why mostly I am not comfortable in larger ships (with a few exceptions), my favourite Klingon hulls are the F5 and  D6/D7 mainline and Command variants.

A key thing though is that I watch power usage closely and will switch fairly frequently how  and if I'm arming my heavy weapons on a bank by bank basis and my ECM status.  I frequently will turn off some of the heavy weapons or if using plasmas will underload them.

One thing I do that many players don't is I switch my view around, I don't stay constantly on the "face towards enemy" viewpoint.  The top down view lets you "thread the needle" around blackholes, asteroids and mines quite easily.  It has saved me many times.

[Soreyes]

Ahh heck. I just Charge launching a lot of drones. And hope one or two hit

[Nemesis]

Thats why I like having terrain vs drone boats.  Asteroids, planets and blackholes are sooo useful for sweeping the drones out of space for me. 

[marstone]

 Well, against AI.  I fly drone boats.  Launch a wave, I then outrun them.  Tractor enemy, emergeny stop.  alpha strike just before the done wave hits, thus 12 drones, and all weapons hit one shield.

Average battle length has been under 2 min, best time 1min 20 sec.  (crossing the map takes the longest)

Multi-ship battles are similar.  Try and take the side ships first.  Might do the tractor, emergency stop, if the range to the other enemies is open.  Otherwise, look for a longer fight with weasels.  (that is mainly, fire a good drone wave to draw weasel.  before the weasel is over drop scatter pack timed so it will arrive after the weasel is voided.  fire more and watch the fireworks)

Non drone boats.  I like the saber dance style.  Range open, speed high, mid range fire to remove a shield

Against real players, (since I started to play again this year, haven't really played much since SFCIII came out and the group I was in switched to it, I didn't like it)  Real simple.  Fly in fight, blow up from to much damage (only pvp I have been involved in has been against ships two classes bigger then me, but I hate to retreat tho have done so once in a frigate against a dreadnaught fight)

Kurt
/|\

[Nemesis]

My anti AI battles tend to be longer as I minimize the usage of consumables so I don't have to keep returning to base, taking no internal damage is part of the goal.  I also use only the default # of drones rather than buying extra reloads all the time.  When on the Dynaverse getting drafted while out of consumables is rough.  I try to reserve scatterpacks and other consumables for human opponents. 

Some tactics I avoid using except against the AI or against people who try to use them against me.  Tractoring someone into an asteroid, planet or blackhole for example.  Using the map edge to defend my damaged shields is another.

[Clark Kent]

Something I jsut thought of: when flying with a fleet, I like to take all my ships head on against the most powerful of another fleet, having them fire only when I command.  That way, I can pretty much knock the biggest duck out of the pond on first strike.  Seems to work well in minimizing damages to my fleet and putting the odds in my favor.

[Soreyes]

Thats why I like having terrain vs drone boats. Asteroids, planets and blackholes are sooo useful for sweeping the drones out of space for me.

 

I should point out that in PvP I pretty much suck  
There have been a few times I have surprised some people. Sometimes it does not come down to tactics. Sometimes guile and misdirection works.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I like long-range, cautious tactics. If I'm a Romulan, launch a plasma then turn away. If I'm a Lyran, saber-dance with the disruptors. It's slow, but it does bring down their shields. And then when they're not expecting it, do an anchor or ESG overrun.

[Panzergranate]

I tend to fly addition ships, not stock. If I'm Fed it is alway a Hunt Mk.II.

Shields are always al round boosted as I tend to maneuver a lot and can't be arsed to have the distraction of fiddling with the shiled settings.

All photons on standard yield.

Main tactic is to move away from the enemy formation to charge forward and aft photons and have a good scan of the enemy. I then target my other squadron ships onto the key target ships in the enemy fleet, not always the largest as sometimes it pays to destroy the most agile first.

I then also jump through the ships lauching shuttles and/or fighters to add to the friepower.

While the escorts are busy I then turn and attack the best tactical target in the scenario, usually the lead ship and perform a fly over shoot up at [oint blak range firing both forward and aft torpedoes and dropping a well timed mine into the path of the target. If i'm lucky I manage a hit and run on the enemy transporter system in th efirst run and prevent them hastling me with mines or boarders.

I then head away to make distance and recharge weapons. If the target pursues I bombard it with aft torpedoes and both aft and all side Phaser banks.

I reserve Scatter Packs for use on pursuing ships to take out forward shields and allow direct fire damage to be inflicted at range.

Once the target is suitably crippled and is unable defend itself adequately, I turn and finish it off with hit and runs combined with suicide shuttles and direct weapons fire.

Another tactic of mine is to lure a larger hostile ship into an asteroid field and use a bit of judgement ot tractor it slightly off course just enough to colide with an asteroid.

Skilled flying around asteroid dust clouds will damage pursuing enemy ships, drones and fighters.

I also like to lure a drone dependant pursuing enemy into a star's radiation field so as to render these weapons, shuttles and fighters useless. The latter die in seconds on entering the radiation.

The tactic here is to take out either the number 3 or number 5 shield and then make maneuvers so that the enemy spends the majority of the time with this shield gap facing the star. Works every time for me.

I prefer to fly the Klingon AD5 if playing that race. Frigate choice is the E4K or F6. Destroyer choice then it has to be the brilliant E5 and with the K refit if possible.

I don't play other races other than Fed or Klingon.

My son prefers the Hydrans and Gorns, especially now that the stock models have been replaced with the true and correct models.

[Don Karnage]

well for me i first set my torpedo to proximity (explode near the ship).

then i use a probe to see what's i face and plot some commando to destroyed the drones and add (if they have one) and the tractor beam.

then i already have a scatter pack ready and suicide shuttle  that i will lunch on them, i wait so i have destroyed the add for both shuttle.

also i will re enforce my shield and put the ecm eccm to 3 both and flight at speed of 20 max and fire all weapons when  i get close to 5 (to do the most damage to them).

i always play fed and only in single player since the com with the game is not connected to the net.

[Panzergranate]

I always set my ECCM to maximum as I like my weapons to have a good chance of a hit.

I deploy shuttles to attack as they tie up enemy weapons and what shooting a shuttle isn't shooting me!! Fighters make for a bigger nuisance obviously.

I'd still recommend targeting the enemy's transporter system for the first hit and run and usually do this when the enemy attempts a first mine against me. Stops both enemy mines and enemy hit and runs, leaving my ship safe to hit key systems with raiders everytime I fly past.

Another cunning tactic is to launch a shuttle towards an objective and tractor it, shut off all propulsion and it will tow you ship, with appropriate towing speed penalty behind it at speed 10 usually. Good for attacking static targets such as bases so that all power on your ship can be reserved for the attack.

Another is to tractor shuttles and fighters then ram them into asteroids or just take them on an unpleasant ride through a dust cloud. Works on PFs to some extent.

I won't mention dropping shuttles at the right moment to waste enemy fighter's missiles as some folks don't like folks using tactical initiative in games.

[Slider]

It's all about winning the first pass for me. 

Winning the first pass allows you to dictate the pass of the game.

I first see what the match up is; since I typically fly a Disrupter boat my approach centers around gauging my opponents attack strategy fast med slow approach and then forcing them to make a first shot that causes less damage than mine. 

I prefer they fire first but if thats not the case as with many smart foes I then look at how close I can get to hit them with an alpha at an optimal gun arc angle while sliding away from their optical angle. 

If they counter that then I look at his ECM/ECCM. If hes actively countering me then I take a shot at an angle that favors my ship. Then I try to angle 2 Shields at him for his shot. 

While power management controls are not everyones bag (I dont like messing with them) I think the really good pilots get into the habit of changing them but only against even or better opponents.

Taking the above approach and all things being equal what happens is you set things to 23541 as you load, then once your guns are ready you go to 23251. This means your committed to fire first then your going to at a decent range say 8-12 angle your shields so that your opponent feels he needs to fire before your out of optimal range. In the mean time you have a considerable amount of reinforcement defending two shields of if your really good start taking it on one then roll to the other just as he breaks through.

This works real well in 2 v 2 and 3 v 3 when the opponents don't sync their fire. If the first guy doesn't get in the energy pours right back into shields forcing the next guys phasers to have to soak through it all again to get internals.


After the shots are exchanged I look to see who won the pass and what their exit looks like. Some guys slow down some guys speed up and ECM ecm ECM. I constantly watch ecm on approach and as we pull away. ECM is a full time thing for me.  I prefer to slow down and recharge right away. Depending on my opponents ship and his recharge rate second pass is all about getting to another shield that will cause him grief, so if I knock down 3 I look to hit 5 or 4 if he'll give it to me. Once that occurs then its all about falling back to 12-18 and "bleeding him out" as a klink or finishing if I'm lyran.

Normally my battles vs evenly matched ships is 10-20 minutes vs most pilots but some guys have good defence and drag it out longer.

Be cool to see match up talks, though I think most of us at that stage of the game fly the same way.

[Tus-XC]

I'm a big rom pilot, and i tend to like mid era ship (KE, KVL).  My tatics are about waiting for the other guy to screw up really.  I have alot of patience so i'll gladly wait for you to do what i want you to do (and i'll nudge ya in right direction of choices for my end game ).  I tend to enjoy making a good mine field... smaller ships like the ones i fly don't have a problem getting through them, an equalizer for me (especially if they don't know where the nuke is... or if i've even deployed it).  O and i love cloaking, its fun.... and not many people are willing to take advantage of it due to the power constraints... but used right it'll throw off you oppoenent and give you an edge.  Longest fight (versus human) was a 2 hour 1v1... i forget what they had but it ended up being a draw (i tink it was a klinker). 

[Nemesis]

While power management controls are not everyones bag (I dont like messing with them) I think the really good pilots get into the habit of changing them but only against even or better opponents.

Using Shift+ScrollLock you can save those settings.  I do so for each ship as I use it so that I don't have to waste time at the beginning of a mission to get back to my default settings.  Proper power management has won me battles fairly often.

One battlefest long ago came down to me in my D7 (what model I don't recall but it wasn't one of the best or worst) against a Romulan ship that I didn't recognize.  The Romulan was very heavily armed and I was unsure if it was one of their top cruiser designs or a BCH as some of the Romulan cruisers are really well armed.  I asked the Romulan and he told me it was his CA.  That meant I was in trouble so I used a desperation ploy.  Frontal attack and Gorn anchor.  At the end of it I was running away at Green Alert doing speed 4 (my ship was gutted), my Romulan opponent was confused as he was chasing me at speed 18 and I was escaping.  He realized too late that the anchor was to push him too close to a black hole.  If his power management had been set correctly he could have accelerated to escape.  His settings however gave priority to weapons and I had made very sure that he was charging all of them, which rendered him unable to accelerate.

Then of course it turned out that he was wrong and was in fact in a BCH which meant that I had the advantage of being in my C7 when he was in his Dreadnought.  He then made one more mistake.  He knew me well enough to know that I don't handle large ships like BCHs and DNs as well as I do cruisers and smaller.  The C7 flies like a cruiser, not like a BCH, that underestimating cost him his DN. 

[Nemesis]

O and i love cloaking, its fun.... and not many people are willing to take advantage of it due to the power constraints... but used right it'll throw off you oppoenent and give you an edge.  Longest fight (versus human) was a 2 hour 1v1... i forget what they had but it ended up being a draw (i tink it was a klinker). 

I sometimes fly Romulan as they are one of my favourite races to fly.  I prefer (when allowed) squadrons of 3 Battlehawks and part of my strategy with them is to fly in line and cloak each ship as it fires and rearms.

I also will cloak when I think my opponent is about to fire, but uncloak before there is a visible effect.  The partial cloak reduces the effectiveness of many weapons especially photon torpedoes. 

Waaay back when Romulans were complaining that the most recent patch (to EAW) had crippled the plasma torpedo I took on a friend who was abandoning playing Romulan for Fed because of the patch.  In a Battlefest I started with a WB+ and he was cocky and lost his FF and DD then properly flew his NCL to wear me down from a distance.  Among the tactics I used to take down that F-NCL was partial cloak then uncloak to cause his photon torpedoes to miss, he never noticed.  When he finally thought he could hit me from behind that trick caused his full overload alpha strike to miss which when combined with my HET put him staring down the throat of a plasma R fully armed.   His crippled NCL was saved when his computer crashed.  The WB+ had very light shield damage. 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I don't know why a lot of the SFB veteran sites have maligned the cloak tactic so much. It seems like the best tactic for the Old Series ships. Heck on some ships it seems like the only tactic.

[Clark Kent]

I think it's because cloaking can be a very difficult thing to master, moreso than a lot of other tactics.  I know I use it sparingly.

[Nemesis]

Cloaking in SFB also had variant optional rules and required either absolute trust of the other player or a non player to audit his actions to make sure he wasn't changing things on the fly.  Who wanted to audit?  Everyone wanted to play.

Also if you use the cloak against non traditional enemies its effectiveness plummets. 

Cloaks are very poor vs short range disruptors and hellbores especially overloaded.   ESGs do damage AND void the cloak for phaser and disruptor fire.

Remember in SFB the disruptor could be fired a 2nd time after only 8 impulses (1/4) turn as long as the two firings were on different turns so a D7 for example could outrun your plasma, come in with overloads while your cloaked, fire at 0 range, move off, HET and hit again 8 impules later with overloads then run for distance having dropped 2 of your shields (likely 1 and 4) and done some internals all before you could rearm your plasmas. 

Hydran Hellbore armed ships and fighters can just rip apart a cloaked ship.

[Panzergranate]

My son's favourite tactic, if he's playing Hydrans, is the above overloaded Fusions at point blank range. Not so good on fighters as it destorys the weapon, but hey, fighters don't usually live long enough to firre again against a Klingon warship anyway!! I don't think that they're allowed to overload Fusions of fighters anyway??!!

The main thing with SFB was the out of game development of starships designs. There was always that theme of finding a use for redundant hulls or finding ways of adapting existing hulls to fill needed roles.

I believe that it is this feature of designing and developing ships, instalations and equipment, from SFB, that has carried so well over to SFC and Armada to ensure there success and following. As it is stated in the 1988 rulebook for SFB Volume III, "Star Fleet Battles is a game that has no visible ending!!" So here we are in 2007 discussing playing SFB on SFC games platforms, speculating ship designs, tactics and creating models posting on Battle Clinic.

Perhaps the failure of Legacy and some other Star Trek games was the fixed and limited in game ship choice and gameplay.

I'm still hoping that afuture incarnation of SFC will be in 3D coordinates so that starship firing arcs will finally make sense. Maybe one day.

[Nemesis]

Last I knew the SFB rules only allowed fighters to fire their weapons in standard mode.   A squadron of 9 fighters firing their fusion beams (18 total) at long range was actually quite effective.  By the time the target ship closed their forward shield was mostly down leaving them very vulnerable to the H-RN that carried them. 

In SFC2 there used to be a Hydran Lancer variant with 4 fusions on one hardpoint.  Suicide overload on those 4 fusions was enough at point blank range to destroy or cripple a D6/7 hull.  The damage done to the lancer was insignificant in comparison.  I shocked a few people flying that Lancer, then they moved the Fusions to separate hardpoints making it more expensive to repair them all. 

[Panzergranate]

I remember my first SFB game, back in the early 1980's, where I was invited to take over the command of an F5B because the original commander had been executed for cowardice in theface of the enemy and incompedence.

Anyhow, the rules were new and alien to me and complex when compared to naval warfare games, but I knew many classic naval tactics.

The Klingon mission was to blow the crap out of a Fed BC but the pair of DD escorts were holding us away as a combined force. We had a D7D with us and I came up witha plan, based on the naval tactic called "Fleet baiting", as used successfully by Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada. Basically the tactic involves making a dummy attack run, maybe firing a few shots and legging it away. You can guarantee that some idot will go impetupus and come out after you. This breaks up the enemy fleet formation, compromised there fire plan and weakens their overall firepower.

So I suggest this and we run with it by going in with my F5B and another F5B and then legging it away in a chosen pre-planned direction. The Feds fell for it better than expected and came after us with both DDs. When they were two turns away the D7D when in and engaged the BC. In the meantime we had managed to position the F5Bs between the stricken BC and the DD escort and I actually managed to fire a torpedo at extreme range, my only shot in the game, which duly missed. The DDs didn't want to mix it with us for some reason after the other F5B player somehow managed to make them believe he was running an F5D, which he wasn't. I wasn't in complete understanding of the rules then but now know it was something to do with fooling enemy sensor scans at long range. It made them keep at extreme range and not engage us anyway.

The BC was destroyed and the Fed DDs left the map before we could catch them.

For the next cam,paign game invite, at a wargames club, I was given guest command of a D7D after the comander was executed, etc. but that's another story.

Klingons just have the best warships in SFB and SFC!!

[Nemesis]

Way back a couple of friends wanted to play an SFB Captains Game between the 3 of us to rank are relative skill levels.  I didn't yet have a chosen race so I told them I'd play whatever race they wanted me to play.  They said pick whatever you like.  Since one of them was a Fed and the other a Kzinti I said I'd play  Klingon as those 3 races border.  They decided that Klingons were too flexible and wanted me to play something different.  I went through every race and for each one they found a reason to fear my playing it.  They ultimately chose Klingon as being weakest.  That is when as a psychological ploy I named my D7 the IKV Nemesis and is of course where my forum name comes from.  Given practice as Klingon I found it suited my style and they have regretted the choice ever since. 

The Captains game was never completed due to a question I was asked.  Namely how I thought the three of us would be ranked.  The Kzinti I said would be "promoted to a desk job" the Fed kicked out of Starfleet for incompetence and myself as continued in command, a Legendary Captain too valuable to promote.  When he questioned how I would get the points to rate that high I explained that in the Surprised Reverse I was going to capture all 5 ships.  He said it was impossible but the 2 of them gave up without completing the Captains game.  I had noticed a "bug" in the Surprise Reversed that allowed the captures (fixed in a later edition by the way).   Eventually I told them my plan and they conceeded that it would have worked. 

We had planned after the Captains game to play a 3 way battle each of us with our ship and any captured vessels.  I had already captured a Gorn CA and they knew I was planning on capturing the 5 Kzin and was planning to make a stab at the Orion CR (a long shot but possible).  They didn't want to face me commanding 7 or 8 ships to their 2.  I wonder why? 

The funniest moment for m in SFC was in an on line battlefest.  Myself in an K-FWK chasing a Romulan BCH and being chased by TWO Federation BCHs.  The Feds were texting back and forth about how the three of them needed to team up to take me down as I was still in my "Frigate".  They ignored my corrections that the FWK qualified as my destroyer as my E4 had been destroyed already.  What none of them knew was that the Romulan was running at speed 31 directly at the border and would be able to turn in only if he reacted immediately and was using the "Towards the enemy" view so he was looking backwards.  The Feds saw me fire followed by the Romulan exploding.  They were too far back to see the border itself.  Then they saw me HET straight at them (to avoid going off side myself).  The Romulan had my E4 destroy both his FF and DD as well as cripple his Sparrowhawk and had taken significant damage on his CA from the FWK and was unwilling to fight me no matter what the ship advantage he had, which explains why he was running.  When the game crashed the Romulan had left the game and both Fed DNs were crippled while my K-D7D was still in prime shape with missiles still available.

The quickest defeat I ever had was when I fired my alpha on a Fed CA and he dropped his shield (which I only damaged).  At which point my preprogrammed Hit and Runs went off, dropping MY shield and allowing him to put HIS alpha strike on my bare hull.  That only ever worked the once.  Sneaky S.O.B. .

[Panzergranate]

I've played Baconfest with my son and we both played the Gornand teamed up.

Now a good two ship team tactic is the fly by shoot plasma up.

What we would do is stay clear of battle until we'd charged up the Plasmas, select a victim and pass by either side of the victim's ships and fire Plasmas at point blank into eith side. We'd then do a U turn and fly by again firing the other side Plasmas into the sides once more. Anothet U turn and attack usually finished the victim off.

Tis tactic takes some synchronised formation flying and it helps if the victim is dumb enough to head towards the Gorn ships. I've been on the receiving end of the same tactic in an SFB game and once seen, never forgotten.

Today my 17 year old son wanted to see what the Kzinti are like to play against in SFc1 and to practice for the future Kilingon - kzinti LAN campaign we have planned witha few friends.

feeMy son has never played against Kzinti ever before, so this was a new experience for him. He is a verteran at blowing the crap out of the stock game races though. He usually likes to play as Gorn with Klingon second choice.

The sides:

My son: 1 x D6DB with 2 x  D15 "Javelin" fast destroyers for escort. This is his favourite formation in skirmish games.

Allied AI: 2 x K-FOL ore carrier, 1 x K-OPS ore processing station.

AI Kzinti: 1 x CC+ and 2 x DW

Map: Large Planets.

Period: Middle.

The game starts and my son doesn't bother to scan the enemy. (Big mistake as he's no idea what a Kzinti ship is armed with!!)

The Kzinti head straight for the K-FOLs, which are headig for the Kzinti.

My son set the speed of the D6DB to 14 and charges weapons. He orders the two D15s to go and chase the first Kzinti ship he clicks on. He drops behind the D15s at speed 14 to their speed 31 and locks onto a target.

The Kzinti CC+ dumps out a massive drone salvo and kills a K-FOL first hit!! My son eclaims, "Whoah!!" ,and  realises that he's now in big trouble here. He looses off at the CC+ and sees all his drones PDed,

The D6DB does a U turn and heads away. A passing Kzinti DW drone dumps into him and takes out the aft shield. D6DB starts to head away still at speed 14 as the Disrupters are still being charged for overload.

My son decides to tell the tow D15 fast destroyers to protect the remaining K-FOL. Under a minute later the Kzinti CC+ dumps into it and it goes Nova. Cue son deciding to run for it. However he's still at speed 14 as he's forgotten that the Disrupters are on overload. Yep, even now he's optomistic that he can manage a good blast at the enemy.

The CC+ does a fly by drone dump into the D6DB inflicting serious damage and all aft shields are out. He issues orders for the for the D15s to attack the CC+. The DWs take out both D15s within a minute.

The Kzinti close in on the D6DB. He decides to head straight for the K-OPS in the hope that it will give protection/act as a decoy target. The DWs start duming drones at him from behind. Out of WW he starts dumping mines. The D6DB takes another massive drone dump form the CC+ and one of the DWs. The D6DB goes to Brown Alert as the speed drops to 2.

The D6DB dies. The K-OPS dies 2 minutes later under a massive drone dump.

There endith my son's frst encounter with the Kzinti!!

I have a feeling that a big lesson was learn here and this was, "Don't ever go in close to a big Kzinti ship until it is out of drones!!" and, not forgetting the golden rule, "Always scan unknown hostile warships!!"

That was against AI and in a few weeks he'll be playing on LAN with human players!! He does have a few weeks to prcatice tactics on the AI Kzinti before we start the LAN campaign so I'm hoping that'll he'll improve before then.

[Nemesis]

That was against AI and in a few weeks he'll be playing on LAN with human players!! He does have a few weeks to prcatice tactics on the AI Kzinti before we start the LAN campaign so I'm hoping that'll he'll improve before then.

The switch to playing against people is a big one.  People don't (most of us anyhow) always react the same way in the same circumstance - especially if it failed the last time.

My first SFC1 games against real people were against 2 friends in a Battlefest.  The first one I lost the next 2 I won.  I needed time to adapt to real people and they didn't know I'd been playing against the AI for 2 weeks - they didn't know I'd bought the game while on vacation.  They had been playing each other for a couple of months and knew each others style well.  My style (once adapted to playing people) was different and they then needed time to adapt to me.

In one of those early battle fests I was playing Fed as was one of my friends, the other was playing Lyran.  We were all in CAs, I was the last to lose my CL.  The Lyran decided to charge towards me to get me into the battle sooner counting on my seeing the other Fed as the bigger threat.  I turned and ran for the Saturn class planet and ran around the curve.  The Lyran chased me and once he was around the curve he yelled out "WHO DROPPED these &*^% fighters?".  They were my shuttles not fighters and in those days the SFC1 ships were over equipped with shuttles.  While the other Fed was laughing and the Lyran was stuggling not to lose his shields to either the Fed or the Shuttles I quietly completed orbiting the planet.  From the other Feds viewpoint I was UNDER the rings and not visible.  The first he knew what I had done was when I hit him with 2 volleys of overloaded photons and miziad my phasers through his #4.  The Lyran was right - the other Fed was the threat. 

[Panzergranate]

A trick my son's developed against Human and AI Lyran ships is the " Stagered Drone Volley", where he holds all but one drone rack on his D6DB / AD5 /D6Z, fires this rack and then fires the other quickly afterwards. The leading drone take out the ESG and the following drones do the damage.

So far nobody has come up for a defence for this tactic. He always excutes it at close range, hence why he was surprised to find that Kzinti ships are Drione Boats and that his standard "never fail" tactic was useless!!

I always deploy all my shuttles as they increase my firepower some what. We've modified our SFC 1 allow other races to carry fighters.

Losing fighters and suttles is easy, just fly into the star's radiation field.

I also use the shuttles to scout and extend my sensor range. If you have shuttles in play, then scans and tactical intelligence of the enemy's ships are more detailed at range.

I some times let the shuttles form up first, into a large group, either around my ship or an ally, or around a planet. I then let them loose against some crippled enemy just t add to their missery.

My first target for hit and run is always the enemy ship's transpoter system. It leaves me free to hit and run without the hastle of return raids or mines. Taking out the ECM unit makes the ship an easier target and cripples the enemy's targetting systems. The icon represents the sensors, scanners and ECM of the ship, so hitting this blinds the target ship.

Am I the only one who's figured this tactical advantage out yet??!!

So my H&R target priority list is always:

Transporter

ECM

Weapons

 

[Nemesis]

Am I the only one who's figured this tactical advantage out yet??!!

So my H&R target priority list is always:

Transporter

ECM

Weapons

In one battlefest in SFC1 I started with a E4G commando ship.  My 2 opponents (1 Klingon) thought that funny as the ship is almost unarmed.  My second ship was a F5G commando ship also almost unarmed, the other Klingon thought that hillarious while the 3rd player was concerned with fairness as they were both getting combat ships.  My 3rd ship was the D5G another Commando ship.  The Klingon was laughing so hard that when he lost his ship and had it replaced with a D5G it took him time to understand what it was.  I knew immediately.  My first pass took out his transporters, neutering his ship.  The 2nd and 3rd destroyed his sensors.  Then the 3rd players CL approached and I maneuvered so he would hit the other Klingon first followed by my knocking out HIS sensors.  Running with 6 ECM and intermittant erratic maneuvers they couldn't touch my ship. 

I was unware at that time that sensors could not be fixed.  Many players (including myself) came to feel that hitting sensors in SFC1 was a "cheese" tactic due to the unrepairable nature.  In SFC2 they became repairable.

Are you using the final SFC1 patch?  The so-called 1/2 shield patch?  It makes the game more interesting.

[Panzergranate]

Yep, running the SFC 1 V1.03 patch so that Romulans don't become sitting ducks when cloaked (AW!!!!!!) and other corrections to bring it in line with SFC rules.

I've seen the Lyran tactic of ESG ramming used a lot in the current LAN campaign we are running. They use this tactic to take out the shileds and then deliver a hammer blow with the direct fire weapons combined with ht and run raids. As Lyran ships are either equal or less maneuverable than Klingon warships, then it is possible to avoid this tactic. However, in the thick of battle, it is still possible to have some sneaky furball manage one ESG ramming on you.

This is a very, very old SFB Lyran "dirty" tactic that still works well in SFC.

It is devestating and we've had a Lyran CA ESG ram a K-C8 leaving it a shambles in a recent LAN game. You can pretty much figure what happens to a frigate when this happens to it.

The tactic we use, as Klingons,  to deal with the fleabags using ESG is to shut down all but one Drine rack on a D6DB / AD5 / D6Z and fire this at the Lyran ship, then quickly activeate and fire the rest. The first Drones take out the ESG and the others do the damage.

If in a formation we try to coordinate a group firing of Drones for a similar effect.

A fly by and well timed Suicide Shuttle drop followed closely by a Drone salvo can also have a similar effect.

It is possible to target Drones with Drones in SFC 1.

I'm lucky in that I have a repair cost  table to hand when I play and plan out my repair order as some things are power hungry to fix compared to other systems. A Plasma launcher is the most costly thing to fix.

How one manages Damage Control does affect the outcome of the battle.

In campaign games and skirmish my son likes to beam off the enemy's spare parts at th beginning. I prefer to collect them from planets.

[Nemesis]

I've seen the Lyran tactic of ESG ramming used a lot in the current LAN campaign we are running. They use this tactic to take out the shileds and then deliver a hammer blow with the direct fire weapons combined with ht and run raids. As Lyran ships are either equal or less maneuverable than Klingon warships, then it is possible to avoid this tactic. However, in the thick of battle, it is still possible to have some sneaky furball manage one ESG ramming on you.

This is a very, very old SFB Lyran "dirty" tactic that still works well in SFC.

It is devestating and we've had a Lyran CA ESG ram a K-C8 leaving it a shambles in a recent LAN game. You can pretty much figure what happens to a frigate when this happens to it.

The Kzinbane Onion takes advantage of the Mizia principle.  With the Onion you set each ESG for a different diameter and as you "ram" each one impacts separately.  Once the shield is down you are at close range to fire all your other weapons one mount at a time to enhance the Mizia effect.  It can quite effectively strip a ship of weapons and power.

The early Battlefest I mentioned where I used a D7 hull to push a Romulan BCH near a black hole thinking that it was a CA had me use a technique I call "The Hammer" against the Romulan DN.  I came from behind (#5 shield) and fired all my forward weapons, but not my missiles.  This knocked down his #5 and stunned some of his weapons.  Then the overrun put me able to fire backwards with my aft weapons (again not the missiles) onto his #2 shield.  Due to how close I was his plasmas could not yet fire.  He was just reaching for the Z key to fire when WHAM! he is hit hard through the #5 and can't see a thing to cause it.  Damage was substantial and more weapons were stunned or destroyed but he still had a chance when WHAM! again through the #2 shield and again he couldn't see anything.  His ship is now in terrible shape and he had no clue.  Then I single fired my missiles and he understood.  As I did the over run I dropped 1 scatterpack behind him and another ahead.  They were too close for point defence to automatically take them down and so close as to be under the ship image and therefore unseen.  My shields were not even scratched and he was hopelessly crippled.

The current patch level to SCF2:OP allows the point defense to stop this from working with scatterpacks.  It still works with suicide shuttles though.

[Panzergranate]

I do like dropping point blank Suicide Shuttles.

OK there are two tactics for dealing with a Kzinti ship. One is to make full speed feignt attack runs to make them loose off Drones and then run away and drop a well placed mine to take the Drones out. Kzinti ships are poorly armed once the Drone Racks are empty.

The second method is to sit on top of the Kzinti ship at under range 1 and pelt it with everything you can. This does mean that you do have a Tiger by the tail and omce you move over range 1 you'll be Droned. I've seen this done but its extremely risky.

My son subscribes to the tractor push out of the map method of winning tornaments. I've found that turning 45 degrees to the pusher and applying full power to movement and setting tractor repulse to 5 whilst keeping all hit and runs targetted onto the enemy's tractor system sometimes pays off.

I have tractored and pushed PFs and smalller ships into asteroids and the occasional planet as they fly by. It does takke split second timing and good positioning. It only takes a few seconds to perform and aways surprises the enemy. It is also how you're supposed to win the spy missions in SFC 1 campaign. Grab the spy ship and ram it into the nearest asteroid!! There, dead in 10 seconds flat!!

Also sitting in a dust cloud counts as an extra +2 ECM points, deals with fighters or shuttles and affects intelligence scans.

My son played an online X-Box 360 games of Legacy yesterday. God, it was boring to watch as the battle dragged on and on. The Klingon D7s he was using had been stripped of more than half their Phaser armament, leaving only the wing Phasers. The Constellation Class cruiser he was up against fired aft torpedoes form top and bottom engine pylon tubes which do not actually exist if you look at a physical model or diagram. It was also missing the under saucer front single Phaser mounts as seen firing in TNG "Peak Performance" and none of the torpedoes actually fired from the correct under saucer front launcher tubes.

Some of the ship's weapons choices seem pointless. Why would scouts be armed with a point defence Gatling Phaser only??

The game seemed to consist, mainly, of jumping about the map at Warp Speed, blasting away at each other in a shoot em up fashion and retreating to lick wounds. Tactical possibilities were lacking. It seemed to be a 3D starship dog fighting game.

Perhaps if I hadn't played SFC I'd think that it was fantastic, but I realise that it isn't.

SFC sets the standard measure for Star Trek starship combat games.

We've had Legacy for months and I've no incling of bothering to play it as, from what I've seen, Its lame.


 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Panzer, I think it's cool that you and your son are playing Starfleet Command. I've tried getting my dad to play, but he is too into his flight simulators.

By the way, when you're fighting the Kzinti, are they using Fast drones?

[Tus-XC]

I'm lucky, i got my dad to play... its fun kicking the old guy's arse .

And i just remembered my all time favorite tatic (until it was killed).  As i said, i like KE's and KVL's, ask anyone who has ever flown against me and they would attest to that fact (to give you an idear, i'll take those two ships over a KHK or a KCR).  One of my more prefered tatics was to fire a psuedo R at my enemy, watch them ww, and then promply fly over them (cloaked) and drop a nuc.  Back in the day, ww used to fly pretty fast so w/ the nuc on his front sheild i would drop my ww, and watch the fire works.  I think i annoyed several of me fleet mates in OPS w/ that stunt .  Boy do i miss the good ole days.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Nice to hear from an Old series captain! I can't fly them to save my life, but they are more interesting than KHK cheeze. The 3v3 gamespy fights with 6 killerhawks can be fun though, there's nothing like shooting down Gorn.

[FPF-DieHard]

Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

[Panzergranate]

This tactic I use is a little difficult/impossible  to try out if flying a Klingon warship due to lack of rear firing weapons. Why would a Klingon warship be moving away from battle anyway??

This tactic works well with any warship with decent rear firing weapons (Federation, Gorn, etc.) and deals with enemy warships heading towards you head on.

Steps are as follows.:-

1.     Approach target ship headon.

2 .    Hold fire until at point blank range.

3 .    At range 2 or under drop Suicide Shuttles using the Q key.

4.     Immediately on passing over the victim fire all aft firing weapons into his aft shield.

5.     Slow ship for a tight turn and fire remaining forward weapons as they come to bare on the victim's damaged shield just compound the damage.

6.     Throttle up and either move in for the kill or head away for a recharge and repair any minor damage received.

This tactic usually works because the enemy will reinforce his forward shields an not his rear shields. However the sneaky bastard may infllict the same tactic on you during the maneuver so it is a gamble.

Federation F-FH Miranda Class heavy frigates or Mk.II. F-CL Hunt Class work very well with this tactic, die to seperate forward and aft firing tordedoes. The Hunt Class has equal forward and aft Phaser capability so is particularily effective.

If planning to use this tactic then choice of ship is key. Also, before trying this out do evaluate the intended victim for aft firing weapons just in case he has similar plans for you.

I also run the ECCM at 6 because I want my torpedoes to hit home. Don't forget to target hit and run on the enemy transporter and ECM either .

The AI is always a sucker for this tactic.

 

[Clark Kent]

Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

yeah, I wouldn't mind checking a few out.

[Nemesis]

This tactic I use is a little difficult/impossible  to try out if flying a Klingon warship due to lack of rear firing weapons. Why would a Klingon warship be moving away from battle anyway??

Part of the saber dance involves moving away at times.  Also the Klingon "fire hose" is straight backward.  On the D6/7 ALL phasers fire straight backward.   One use of the fire hose is missile defense.  As you out run (or try to) the missiles your firehose can flush away the missile swarm following you.  It can also dissuade an enemy from following you with weak shields as the only thing you can't fire aft are your disruptors. 

An ideally performed sabre dance has your enemy fireing on the exact ine between either your #1 and #2 shields or between #1 and #6.  That way to penetrate your shield he has to do double the damage of the weaker shield and that only allows half the damage in the other half goes against the stronger shield until it falls.  On that exact line all disruptors and all but 2 aft phasers can fire as well.  Having caused your enemey to split damage on your effectively doubled shield while fireing a higher percentag of your weapons than he was of his you can then turn rapidly to bring the remaining 2 phasers to be used either offensively or defensively as needed.

This was of course much easier in SFB but a credible attempt can be made in SFC.

[Panzergranate]

The Kzinti, my son had his first experience of, were firing fast drones, lots and lots of them. He's more used to dishing them out rather than dodging them, and so, didn't have a tactic in mind. His learning curve, regarding anti-Kzinti tactics, is steepening up a bit. I'm still  preparing a SFCSPB13.txt list with models and SSDs for an upcoming LAN campaign. Somehow I don't think it'll be a walkover like the current Klingon - Lyran one we're currently engrossed in. It's gonna be a late period campaign so the Kzinti will have just about everything in SFB.

I could discuss the tactics/strategies used in this campaign like the feline fleabags using Survey Cruisers carrying Troop Landing Pallets for their hit and run raids. The L-SC can see our scouts and patrols before we see it and so infiltrates easily into our lines. And if a scout, skiff or corvette does spot it, the L-SC outguns it.  This caused us to field more frigates than we wanted to during this campaign, just to plug the scanner and defence gaps in our front line. This affected our overall replacement ship budget and we had to reduce other capital ship numbers, etc.

Apparently the Lyran L-SC can be used in a similar role to a Klingon D5G, except with a scout/ECM/steathl facility as well.

Anyone have any tactics for tackling Kzinti Dreadnaughts with Klingon warships and surviving?? OK what ship type(s) iis best suited to the task?? Remember it'll have a human player and, the chances are, a lot of support. The maximum number of ships any side in our LAN campaign can field is 9 x ships. That means that only 3 x ships will have direct human control and the others will have AI captains.

Suppose a hypothetical game scenario where the Kzinti players have a 1 x DN, 2 x CW and 6 x DW in late period, how would anyone suggest this battle group be taken out, and how. You can use up to any 9 ships from SFB and FASA in the Klingon force. The goal is to take out the DN mainly, as these are expensive to replace in a campaign.

[Soreyes]

Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

I think I have the film where I took out t00ls Lord Biship with my DF

[Nemesis]

Anyone have any tactics for tackling Kzinti Dreadnaughts with Klingon warships and surviving?? OK what ship type(s) iis best suited to the task?? Remember it'll have a human player and, the chances are, a lot of support. The maximum number of ships any side in our LAN campaign can field is 9 x ships. That means that only 3 x ships will have direct human control and the others will have AI captains.

Suppose a hypothetical game scenario where the Kzinti players have a 1 x DN, 2 x CW and 6 x DW in late period, how would anyone suggest this battle group be taken out, and how. You can use up to any 9 ships from SFB and FASA in the Klingon force. The goal is to take out the DN mainly, as these are expensive to replace in a campaign.

Without looking up the Kzin designs I would say that they are heavy on the missile loads so you want missile defense.  The AEGIS equipped ships were designed specifically for missile defense of fleets so one of them would be a natural.  I'd also say that they have suffient anti missile ability that it would be useless to try and use missiles against them and would go for ships which though they have missile defense are optimized for direct fire. 

I wouldn't go for a DN of my own which would allow the use of ships that used D series hulls rather than using some of the F series which are a little small for such a battle.  There are a couple of good AEGIS equipped D5 variants to look at.  Depending on the BPV you have to go for I'd be looking a D hull based Wolfpacks each with one command or specialty ship. 

You might need to use one F squadron depending on how the BPVs work out and they might best be used by following a D series wolfpack and finishing off opponents left vulnerable without loaded weapons.  The F Wolfpack would need a good human pilot in the command ship tightly controlling the other 2 ships to keep them from suicide runs.  They could also use their maneuverability to "swoop in" and act as a missile interception unit should one of the other ships be in danger of being overwhelmed.  They would need to keep their speed up and avoid close contact with enemies capable of substantial firepower.  They can also be effective mine layers to destroy a missile swarm.  Remember if they use a "sweeper missile" for setting off mines you can lay 2 mines in a row, the sweeper missile gets the first and the 2nd gets the swarm.  The F hull in that case can also try to destroy the sweeper missile rather than wasting the 2nd mine.

You will need to watch the Phaser load outs of the Kzin ships.  The Phaser 3 forest that some of them carry can be devastating at close range.  Don't close within 3 of any ship so equipped and you greatly reduce the effectiveness of their Phaser suite. 

To lower your BPV costs consider minimum load outs of mid speed missiles.  The Kzin is likely to use maximum load outs of high speed and that is costly.  If you don't waste the BPV on missiles that are not going to get through aynow  you can buy more of the larger hulls and have an advantage.  The AEGIS ship is only there as a defender, you  might even consider giving it maximum loadouts of the free slow missiles to make it cheaper. 

One thing I have noted with fleet battles is you can often tell which ships are AI controlled.  When you can identify them - target them preferentially.  The AI is more vulnerable and easier to take down so if you can identify them hit them first leaving the tougher human controlled ship unsupported when you go after it. 

[Julin Eurthyr]

Anyone have any tactics for tackling Kzinti Dreadnaughts with Klingon warships and surviving?? OK what ship type(s) iis best suited to the task?? Remember it'll have a human player and, the chances are, a lot of support. The maximum number of ships any side in our LAN campaign can field is 9 x ships. That means that only 3 x ships will have direct human control and the others will have AI captains.

Suppose a hypothetical game scenario where the Kzinti players have a 1 x DN, 2 x CW and 6 x DW in late period, how would anyone suggest this battle group be taken out, and how. You can use up to any 9 ships from SFB and FASA in the Klingon force. The goal is to take out the DN mainly, as these are expensive to replace in a campaign.

If you've got OP & the OP+4 shiplist, bring in as one squadron 2xEscort War Destroyers (D5 hull escorts, use Type IVF drones) and 1xInterdiction Carrier (D6 hull, gutted of weapons but packing 12-16 ftrs, load up with Dizzy fighters).  Use the basic escort, not the aegis (AD5) escort, save the BPV since all OP ships have the same level of semi-limited aegis...

Deploy the fighters ASAP, assign them "defend target", escorting one or both of the "attack" ships (the escorts).  Fly "echelon" formation (V) with the carrier in the back, or, if possible, leave the carrier in the back-field and only use the fighters / escorts.  Don't lose the Carrier under any circumstances!!!

Keep the whole formation at 15+ from the DN till you're ready to commit.  This prevents unplanned fire from the AI (wings/fighters).  8xAMDs combined with fighter phasers will eat up any drone wave the Kzin's throw at the formation.

When ready to commit, fly in fast.  IIRC, the escorts have double drone control, so they can field 10 drones each (4 from racks & 6 from scatter).  Unless the Kzin's flying MECs/MACs on the wings, they won't be able to stop the drone wave.  Scatters first to eat up PD, then rack.  FIghter dizzies add up quick (each 4 pack = one 2-weapon bank's damage), and, if they get a close in shot w/ phasers (after any AMD is gone) there will be serious amounts of pain on the DN (each full squad = damage from a Ph-G, minimum)

Scratch one DN, while loosing (typically) a handful of fighters and probably one of the escorts...

Remainder of fleet at your discretion, recommend one or both of the alternate wings be led by C7s if possible...  "peace through superior Cheezipower"

[Panzergranate]

Hmmmm.... I like the fighter angle and the idea of a wolfpack to hunt down the Kzinti dreadnaught units before they can do too much damage.

We've been practicing test runs againstthe AI here, just like today's millitary does, to try out various ideas. Generally they end with massive casulties on the Klingon's side and a maybe kill of the Kzinti DN. The DN took out a D5D in one salvo during one test.

In our current Lyran campaign we operate Klingon Z1, Z2 and ZY fighters from mainly Auxilary Carriers, D5Hs or N6s. We use the N6s as heavy carriers. It works out cheaper on points in campaigns ad the Klingons don't go in for carriers as they're seen as a waste of warship resources. The D7V is just a waste of a good warship hull. We  can buy 2 ro 3 Auxilary carriers for the cost of one D7V or C8V.

However it is possible to take out a whole fighter squadron by hitting it with a single Drone, it is one of my favourite tricks in SFC (and SFB).

OK so a wolf pack consisting of maybe a C7 with a pair of D6DBs supported by 3 x D18 Laratan heavy destroyerss, an N6 carrying 2 x CVA Pods or 1 x CVA Pod and a Drone Pod, with escorting F6 frigates or E5K Battle escorts. Sounds like it might work. The only trouble is that fighters are slow and if running them as warship Drone defence, we'd be restricted to speeds of between 12 and 16. (We run SFB fighter speeds).

The general plan is to stay alive until the DN (and escorts) has used up its Drone racks. As it has tripple reloads, this'll take some time but some of the lesser racks might expire halfway through. Also to take out as many, of whatever the escorts are, as quickly as possible thus reducing the enemy firepower.

Kzinti do seem to have limited Ph2 capability due to the numbe of Ph3 mounts carried. It's almost like taking on a monitor, except monitors are dog slow and well shielded. 

The problem with AI is that you can't play psychology games on it, only fool it. Just not so much fun.

On the missile loads of Kzinti DNs.... Scary levels!! OK having CW and DW escorts is a worst case scenario but they might go for MAC and MEC. The MEC is a little bastard to encounter on its own, especially if you're on the wrong ship.

I think that the Kzintii are the toughest oponent any Klingon player can play against compared with the usual pushover Feds, Hyrans and Lyrans. The Gorns are a close second. Maybe the Romulans third.

[Julin Eurthyr]

From one who's been in SFC for a while:

The only way a drone takes out a full fighter squadron is if they're weaker fighters.  All SFC fighters are designed with WPBs on, so some of them only wind up being able to eat 5-6 damage per fighter.  Due to "carry-over damage" implemented in fighter squadrons, a single Type-IV (24 damage) can wipe out a full squadron... BTW, in SFB, drones and fighter explosions do not do collateral damage to any other objects in the hex.  So, without that provision, SFB has it set that, for the most part, one drone = one dead fighter.

That was already accounted for.

My recommendation called for using ZD-equivalent fighters.  Learning about the SFB ruling, that's not an option anymore, don't want you stuck with (after boosting) speed 20 fighters that fall after eating 5 damage per fighter.

Continue sticking with the ZYs, but get the booster packs.  That'll enable the fighters to do speed 30, even though they'll die in 7.5 points of damage (rounded up to 8 damage) each fighter.  Again, this fraility was accounted for.

Now, the ship choices for the Anti-DN wing:
Flag: a 12 to 16 fighter carrier.  I was thinking the Interdiction Carrier, based off the D6V hull.  If your aux carriers are that capable, since they'll (hopefully) be out of the action, then stick with the aux.
Wings: 2x D5E (AD5) escorts.  D5Es are cheaper, since in SFC every ship has the identically same effective aegis system.  Stick with the cheaper BPV ships since Aegis does nothing for you here.

IIRC, the 2x D5Es carry something like 8 G-racks between them all, meaning that, in SFC, you have 8xAMD6 on the table, supplanted by fighter / escort phasers.  The Kzin wing can throw no more than 36 drones up at once, the first wave or 2 should shatter spectacularly against your AMD forest, whether he's packing Type Is or IVs. 

And therein lies the heart of my strategy.  Staying at range 15+ with the fighters innate 2 ECM (1 shift), will mitigate or negate damage to the fighters from phasers / dizzies, and if he's stupid to launch drones into the PD wall you have, they shouldn't last long enough to dream of hitting a fighter, nevermind actually hurting your attack wing.

When ready (you've shattered a few drone waves and reloaded AMDs and you're approaching from opposite the wingmen if they've survived), you set up the kill.  Fighter drones, chasered by scatterpacks (12xType Is) and a full rack launch from the D5Es (8xType IVs) is sending obviously fatal damage at the DN.  It'll take the full resources of the DN wing to stuff this launch, as it should be fairly well spread out.  If the Kzin tries to T-Bomb them, feed the t-bomber a full phaser alpha through the down shield, and pray your fighters try the same, as each (should be still full) ZY squadron will hit like 2xPh-Gs.
One assosciate slaps a tractor on the DN to prevent a weasel, and the DN should pop quite nicely, or be so crippled a monkey in a shuttle can kill it.

Only weakness of this entire plan is the lack of energy weapons in the portrayed squadron, so pray that the opponent doesn't wizen up and start flying tons of MAC/MEC escorts (the Kzin equivalent of the D5E).  Hence the concept of planting 1 or 2 C7s in other squadrons of the attack force, the C7s (D7s if necessary) can smack around the MECs / MACs before the DN is popped by the fighter/D5E combo...

[Panzergranate]

I've checked out the master fighter list in SFB Volume.III. and ZYs can carry a Phaser Pack instead of drones. This could be arranged with a bit of shiplist editing. It also shows that the Klingons don't run PhG unfortunately, only Ph3.

Another suggestion, put by one of the team during pre-campaign beer meetings, is to perhaps let the Kzinti DN force penetrate deep into our lines, shadow it throughout with L22 BOP or K2 scouts so that we know where it is at all time and simply divert convoys and potential targets away from it. The plan would be then to perform hit and run raids to gradually whittle the escorts whilst other units shut the door in oiur lines behind them. Then we attack!!

If we run a N6 with twin CVA Pods or a CVA and SCS Pods. The N6, equiped in such a way, can put more than 24 fighters and/or shuttles into the battle and can also defend itself better than the D6V. It also gives us the option of reconfiguring it afterwards for other missions, the D6V would leave us stuck with a carrier we might not need later.

I tend to fly AD5s in normal in game campaigns, as they just seem to be a decent general purpose warship. The D5E does OK but is second rate in comparison.

We have heated discussions about our campaign start of ship purchasing strategy. OK we will have enough points, as will the other side, to purchase around 200 frigate sized warships. This is based on BPV and will be fed into the camapign management computer. There is no going back once it's in there. Needless to say, the more larger ships we buy, the smaller our fleet becomes. we have the choice of a small fleet of capital ships or a giant fleet of small freighters.

However, based on certain factors and places held during a game, it is possible to buy in replacement ships to correct the mistakes made at the beginning and losses. This causes heated in campaign discussionsions.

Now, at the moment, we have one person who believes that we should cough up a lot of BPV points on monitors to defend our frontline systems. As you probally know, the K-MON costs a fair bit in BPV points before adding the mission pallet. About a D6 cruiser and a couple of F5 frigates. The plan put forward is to field a considerable number of these equiped with either SCS, FTR or Drone Bombardment pallets. We're talking about maybe 30 x cruisers worth here.

I'm against the plan as the K-MON has a battle speed of 12, a Warp Speed of about 2 and is tactically useless for any other purpose than defence. They are, however, well covered for point defence mounting 8 x Ph3 and indecent numbers of Dis3s, Ph2s, etc. shields are decent too (36 all round) and power is provided by 24 x APR, 3 x Impulse and 6 x Warp. The K-MON outguns any Klingon BB easily!!

They can be destroyed though!!

However the FTR pallet carries 24 fighters and therefore the suggested fighter strategy could be launched from a monitor.

By the late period, Klingon warships carry the fighter shuttle, which takes more hits but still carries the same armament.

The current Lyran campaign ended yesterday as they could no longer afford the BPV points to replace their losses they were taking throwing various warships at us in a desperate effort to retake lost territory. We managed to seize and hold an isolated pocket deep inside their territory, with a distant action fleet, which happened to include their quadrant shipyards, key resource worlds and minor facilities. This deprived them of in campaign BPV points. Needless to say they were desperate to take it all back and diverted stuff to throw at us. However we were well dug in and managed to occasionally resupply our losses, which we could afford to loose. Meanwhile we opened new offensives elsewhere and they were so depleted that the Klingon war machine just chewed its way through paltry token Lyran opposition.

The new Kzinti LAN campaign is set to kick off in a fortnight. I'm still setting up the SFCSPB13.TXT shiplist already for it and sorting out the models required. Still afew things left to find, download and convert to SFC 1 yet. Running fighters in other races in SFC 1 takes a lot of arranging, but it is possible to do.

[Panzergranate]

We decided to kick off the new campaign early and spent Friday evening loading up the old PC, that acts as the campaign manager, with ship, intsallations, coordinates and orders. This took a few hours for both sides to complete, allowing for arguments over purchasing policy and BPV spending.

However we managed to squeeze in one LAN battle when the campaign computer had day 3 of the campaign have a Kzinti infiltration group run into one of our supply convoys.

The sides were as follows.:-

Kzinti:
 
1 x MCC, 1 x MSC, 4 x MDC.

Klingon:

1 x E4K Escort Frigate, 2 x A3 Corvettes, 1 x AuxCv, 1 x FQS, 4 x FSPh.

Map: Large Planets.

We divided the escorts up and I had an A3 Corvette with a couple of FSPh to protect.

It took the Kzinti about 3 minutes to obliterate the whole convoy. The E4K was taken out in the first 20 seconds when it tried a head on suicide run on the approaching Kzinti warships.

I ordered my freighters to head for the large gas giant and mad e a run from the right side of the Kzinti pack for a Drone and Disrupter strike. However the MCC and two of the MDCs broke off and started chasing me.

I dumped out shuttles at them, which lasted 10 seconds. Both my scatter packs were either destroyed or failed to hit due to the speed of the targets.

I ran at speed 31 for the Class M-planet and then took a 110 degree trun tight around an asteroid and headed for the AuxCV and FQS only to see both explode in close succession. I was now the last remaining Klingon ship in the game. I altered course for the Moon and skirted a close orbit, then ran for the star.

The A3's PD turret was overwhelmed with the amount of Fast Drones now in pursuit and I'd used up all the mines.  A few managed to slowly crawl up and score hits. I managed to score three mine hits on one MDC, which had negligable effect.

The Kzinti  gave up on Drones but were still in Phaser range.

The aft shield started to give out as Phaser hits from range 30 kept pouring in. It failed and I piled all damage control into the engines until the spares ran out. The ship slowed and the Kzinti posse closed in for the kill, however I had other plans and turned to fight. I targeted and discharged the feeble armament of the Corvette into the Medium Scout Cruiser, flying in an S maneuver, to keep the unhit shiields facing the enemy. Then a massive combined 20 plus Drone salvo hit home on the A3 and it was all over.

So first blood in the campaign to the Kzinti.

A post mortem of the game from the other Klingon players followed.
 
The AuxCV managed to launch all of its fighters but most were destroyed when both it and the close by FQS exploded. Whta was left of them were damaged and were picked off by the MDCs as they passed through the explosions. They didn't have time to fire a shot. Apparently he was attacked by two MDCs.

The other A3 had a go at the MSC and was taken out. The two frieghters it was supposed to protect were Droned out of existance by the passing MDCs as they headed for the AuxCV, FQS and FSPh.

It was a bit of a shock how bloody quick the nine Klingon ships were destroyed and that some didn't even manage to fire a shot.

We kind of need a bit of a rethink of how on earth we are going to protect our convoys as Escort Frigates, Corvettes, Q-Ships and Auxilary Carriers are absolutely useless against Kzinti MDCs. Kzinti frigates we can deal with as they're not that good.

We don't want to end up nicking AD5s and D5Es from warfleet escort duties just to protect convoys. We didn't spend a huge amount of BPV points on the numbers that we do have.

Any ideas of how to protect convoys from MDCs on the cheap??!!

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Could you hide your escorts and Q-ships behind the planet, and have the Fsph's near the planet? The small freighters would look alone, but then when the Kzinti come, the rest of your ships pop out from the other side of the planet and focus on one Kzin.

It might work if the other player didn't know what ships you had, but it doesn't sound that way. Oh well 

EDIT: Does anyone have tactics specifically for Frigates? Most articles online seem to focus on other things, but I really like the small ships too. I remember IKVnemesis saying one of his favorite ships was the F5.

[Panzergranate]

I prefer frigates and destroyer games, usually as they are cheaper on BPV, are more agile and harder to hit, size class wise.

The initial plan, for my squadron anyway, was to send the tow FSPh towards the gas giant planet, do a half orbit and scurry over the map edge, thus escaping. I was planning to back up the E4K player with my A3 to run "interference" with the Kzinti medium cruisers.

The tactic was hopelessy doomed to failure because of the following:

The freighters are dog slow, and being on AI, charged their weapons thus slowing them up even further.

The Kzinti medium cruisers can move at speed 31 and rely on their Drone armament whilst powering down most of their direct fire energy weapons, which is probally what they were doing, as they never dropped below speed 31 throughout the masacre.

A sole Kzinti MDC took out the E4K instantly in a massive Drone salvo, so guess what a squadron is like to face with a freighter or corvette.

They had a medium scout cruiser, which can scan the far side of the gas giant, so there was no hiding really. This is basically the medium cruiser with special sensors replacing the Disrupters. It has a greater sensor range in the game. They knew what we were and had to shoot with before we were in range to scan them.

Perhaps I should have commanded one of the freighters and ran for the map edge with everything shut off. the other AI frieghter would have been caught, obviously.

The other tactic might have been to stay as a tight group and run for the map edge in formation. I wasn't the lead ship in the battle as the E4K called the tactics in the game.

His tactic of forming up the fighters en masse around the AuxCV and then letting them loose on the enemy proved to be a huge mistake as when the carrier took a 16 Drone hit from two of the Kzinti ships, the explosion caught them all.

Now, if we'd been using F5Ks or E5Ks things would have been a little different I think.

My son went for the run in formation tactic with his A3 and two freighters but ended up being caught up with and taken out.

The game was a bit of a shock for us as, in the previous Lyran campaign, the Lyrans don't have the ships or firepower of the Kzinti. This formation worked out well aganst the Lyran Wildcats and Tomcat PFs. Obviously it is useless against the Kzinti, if they intend to use medium cruiser hull based ships to raid with.

The thing is we initailly spent a lot of BPV on 50 x alsorted corvettes and a dozen or so escorts, specifically for system and convoy escort duties. Bugger, can't trade them in now!! We'll just have to gradually replace them using our reinforcement and replacements BPV points, when we manage to receive any.

The saving on initial campaign BPV was so that we could buy more cruisers and destroyers. I hope that this pays off when we attack.

It would be interesting to know (but we can't) exactly how much of thier initial camapign BPV budget the Kzinti players have spent on MC based hulled warships??!! If they've spent out an large numbers then they might have made cut backs in other warship types like cruisers. This could be interesting if they have, a battle against Klingon heavy cruisers could be interesting.

Well, next game meeting we'll see what we can do about them.

At the moment, the porblem is to figure out what mission profile is for this medium cruiser force, what their next objective is and how many more similar battle groups are lurking out there, then how to deal with them.

[Clark Kent]

This may be pathetic, but I was unaware that the scouts had sensor advantages over other ships in the game.  In the Feds, i've only found one kind of scout- SC, I think there is a refit version of that ship as well.  I never messed with scouts because of the lack of weaponry making it kinda difficult to use in battle.

[parmenionsShade]

How can one find out whether a ship has extra sensor arrays, or other such things?  I can't find anything listing such in the vessel libraries.

I've also noticed that some ships recharge fighters faster than others.  Do ships have different numbers of shuttebays that effect such things?

[Panzergranate]

The number of Deck Crews determines how fast the fighters are rotated and back in the fight.

In the shiplist, the Sensors and also the Special Sensors determines the range and effectiveness of tactical information from targetted ships.

All svouts, cruiser scouts and science vessels carry special sensors.

The Klingons run the K2, L22 BOP, F4S, F5S, D5S and D6S as scouts. Also there are the D6E and D7E exploration/survey cruisers. The Klingon idea of exploration is far removed from the Feds ideas.

The Kzinti use the FS, MSC and CS for the same role.

In both cases, scouts are just the normal warships with the Disrupters removed to mount the Special Sensors.

IN SFB, scouts have special abilities both on and off the map. In campaigns they can scan double the amount of space that a standard warship can cover. If you're defending or hunting victims, a scout capable vessel increases your chances of detecting prey. I you're attacking, a scout capable vessel can help you to avoid enemy patrols. A scout cruiser can cover more space again over a frigate sized scout. Needless to say, taking out an attack group's scout really does blind them.

Their combat value is compromised but they have on map tactical advantages, such as a high ECM rating, and have extended targetting range for torpedoes. I've fired a Photon at range 50 with a Federation scout cruiser on standard settings.

Scouts also negate enemy ECM jamming and so have a better chance of a hit when being jammed.

In SFC, the capabilties may be limited when compared to SFB, but the game still uses them to some extent. The Ship Edit claim that Special Sensors don't seem to do anything isn't exactly true, from what I'cve discovered. It was just the fact that SFC 1 didn't actulally have any ships. in game, that used Special Sensors.

The chances are, that later SFC games have Special Sensors available but not used.

As a ship receives damage to Sensor, the tactical scanning ability is affected both in SFC and SFB. NOtice how some ships, like freighters, have to be closer to the enemy to scan them effectively??

[parmenionsShade]

Tactics-wise, how does one handle ships like the Hydran Escort Cruiser?  I just took down a Klingon C6 (flown by AI, though) flying one of these fellows without so much as losing a shield.  The devastation 5 PGs can wreak is awe-inspiring, and with no heavy weapons to power, it seems like it would be next to impossible to avoid such a cataclysmic attack.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Those Hydran ships are very powerful. Their only problem is that without heavy weapons, they don't have much long range firepower. And also I don't think Hydran ships have many ph-1s, so beyond range 3 or something, they can't hurt you much.

I know there are some ace Klingons around here, and they could dance around at range 15 and speed 30, sniping away at the Hydran's shields with disruptors and ph-1s. Actually, I used to hate Klingon ships but now I love them.

A Gorn/Romulan also could lob plasma at the Hydran ship while it tried to chase, because some of the plasma arcs are like dang 180-degrees facing backwards. It's amazing. The plasmas could do good damage at range 10-15 if the Hydran is following, and ph-G's wouldn't even touch the plasma ship at that range.

[Panzergranate]

A Hydran escort cruiser eh??

Definately not with fighters or PFs unless in large numbers and prepared to suffer huge losses. The h-CE is designed to deal with these little pests.

Knowing how bloody useless the F-NCLE was with all the Ph-Gs and no decent ranged drect fire weapons, I'm guessing that  the H-CE will have the same major tactical flaw.... lack of ranged weaponry. Such warships usually have to operate with a destroyer or two to protect them from anything bigger than a fighter, shuttle or PF.

So we have to deal with a lone H-CE without protection.

Ny personal tactic....

Use 3 x F5K or 3 x E5K. The E5K is a better ship, being a fleet escort destroyer. However this would be out of role for it, so I'll go with the F5K frigate.

Stay clear and charge up everything, maybe overload Disrupters.

Stay in tight formation, close in for the kill  at best possible speed (Whilst closing on the H-CE, hIt the play button on cassette player for the Doomsday Machine music.... Da duh, Da duh, DA DUH, Da Duh, etc.)

OK the H-CE can only blast one target at a time, when we're in range, and so only one ship will cop a packet, so to speak.

Hopefully the H-CE will be dumb enough to fire as soon as we come under range 15, which will ensure most shots will miss and what odes hit will have reduced hit points.

Close in to range 2 and let the bastard have it and drop suicide shuttles, fly over, drop cluster packs and pedal away like f**k, maybe lock a tractor onto th poor bast**d F5K that copped it and launch a probe at the H-CE to have a good look at the mess.

Option from here are (A) Steer clear and recharge for another run, patching up the damaged ship in the meantime, maybe leaving iit out for a while for repairs, or (B) turing and following up the attack as soon a possible, obviously with shuttle support.   

Escorts are best tackled with large numbers on frigates or destroyers than a lone cruiser or light cruiser, in a points balanced game.

[parmenionsShade]

So I've been doing some thinking about Fusions, and have come to the general conclusion that they just suck.  Phaser 1s do better damage for energy at every range.  If one were to replace a Fusion hardpoint with a pair of P1s, the phasers would do superior damage to the Fusion in normal operating mode at every range, and do superior damage to the overloaded fusion (at half the energy!) at every range but zero, where the difference is slight.  Unless there's some incredible advantage to suicide overload, which I, for one, never use, or some flavor reason for using fusions (like if they were to take up very little volume, so including fusions on a shape is spatially efficient, if energy inefficient) they just seem like a way to weaken the Hydrans.  Imagine how devastating a Ranger cruiser would be if its Fusions were replaced with PGs...

Any thoughts?  Is there some advantage to Fusions I've overlooked?  Or do they really just plain suck?

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Personally, I agree with you. Maybe if they recharged every turn, instead of having that "cool down" they might be ok.

But they do have cool sound and sfx.

[Panzergranate]

The power drain on overload and then the power cost to repair the damaged weapon once it is fired on overload (5 points of power, if I remember right) does make them pretty questionable as a weapon system. Basically it is just a small Torch Drive being used as a directed weapon. Sandblasting a target with Photons and Helium exhaust at close range does seem pretty primitive by the 23rd century.

I think the fact that Orion Pirates use Hydran Hellbores but ignore Fusion Beams says it all.... they're crap 21st century short range weapons.

I've only played Hydrans a few times, found the weapons infuriatingly limited tactically, and have avoided playing them since.

Their ships, both the wrong in game ones and the correct SFB ones, do make for nice looking targets when viewed from a Klingon warship!!

They do have a few decent tactical ship, ike the tug carrying the bombardment pallet. Always makes quick work of destroying battlestations and starbases, not to mention ground instalations with all those port side only firing Fusion Beams. This is the only time Fusion Beams seem to be of any tactical use.... faltening defence positions.

Yep, generally Fusion Beams suck!!

There are worst, even shorter ranged weapons though.... Particle Beam Cannon anyone??!! A magnetic sheld will shield the ship against a hit and partical beams form into a bloom, rather like a Blunder Buss, a short distance after firing, then disapate under their own repulsive charge.

[parmenionsShade]

It really is a shame fusions are so terrible.  I'm rather fond of the Hydrans: I like Phaser Gs and Hellbores a lot.  But when I play multiplayer, I generally go with the Romulans.

That business about that particle cannon: was that a SFB reference?  I confess I've never played the game.  My brothers are not fond of board games (alas) and being a physics major, I haven't time to sink an entire day into a single board game.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I haven't played SFB either, but the PC seems kind of like a disruptor, except that it is less accurate and can fire 2times/turn.

Here's a firing chart for it:
http://www.smileylich.com/sfb/ssd/sel-bcs.gif

[Panzergranate]

There is a proper scentific website that points out exactly how certain wepons would operate in space, most of which was research from the 1980's Star Wars programme.

I mixed up the Plasma Cannon Blloom problem with the Particle Beam Cannon, but the magnetic field defence is true.

The US millitary tested PBCs and found out that placing a magnetic field of eitherlow powered  permanent  magnets or low powered coils around a target repelled the particle stream regardless of how much power was used. Yep, standing in front of a particle cannon with a horse shoe magnet would protect you completely!!

The Plasma Cannon isn't affected by magnetism but the charge of the Plasma bolt forces it apart soom after firing and disippates it in a bloom. Still very devestating at close range though. Think of a scatter gun.

Nukes in space aren't very devestating either, lacking an atmosphere to turn to plasma and amplifiy their blast, they would just pit and buckle the target ship's hull.

Ion cannons came out favourably. Would kill the crew but leave the ship intact. Magnetic fields don;t stop it, only thick metal hull "armour" would limit its effects to the outer decks and areas of a ship.

KEPs (Kinetic Energy Projectiles) In space, very devestating. Rail guns rule!!

Lasers.... thumbs up as well, especially negative image types.

Phasers (Ploarised tight bandwidth modulated lasers)....  bigger thumbs up due to better power imput to efficentcy ratio. Phasers were invented in 1966, hence why the change from lasers to phasers in the 1966 pilot episode.  Back then it was big news in science journals and TOS needed to be a projection of where technology then would evolve into. In real life, the Phaser stays shelved in millitary research, as it has no practical civilian use.

The idea is that one can tune the phaser to cut through a target material more precisely and to greater effect over a longer range.

I can remember reading about the difference between a phaser and a a laser in a laser science book back in the 1970's at the local library.

It's strange how the reason for the laser to phaser change in TOS story has changed since the 1970's from the inclusion of a real device to a figment of imagination to allow writer's more licence. Strangely enough, ohasers still operate in TNG, DS9 and VOY the same way as the real thing does in labs, with modulated beams, etc.

I found the website back in January 2007 by accident. It's out there somewhere so go and find it. It is facinationg to read and picks holes in many Scii-Fi shows past and present.

[Panzergranate]

Our weekend LAN campaign battles for the Kzinti - Klingon campaign was so and so in nature.

Their medium cruiser raiders managed to not be where we figured they'd be and we had cruisers et all all in the wrong places on the campaign map.

Meanwhile, they hit an industrial planet and facilities outside their obvious projected target area.

Fortunately, we had a monitor (K-MON + SCS Pallet) in place lurking there. Also the system was defended by defence satellites and Impulse Powered Fighter Pods.

Map: Medium Planets.

They attacked with the previous line up and made a beeline for the K-MON, which, in turn, headed for the protection of the nearest defence satellite, deploying shuttles in batches of four as additional point defence.

Meanwhile, my command of a Fighter Pod,  was  pedaling slowly towards the obviouse target Blue Planet so as to enjoy the protection of its defences. I was deploying fighters in a similar manner, having them form up around me.

We also had a couple of player flyable ZY Fighters deployed and when I had all fighters deployed, I ordered them to follow  my personal ZY Fighter. The K-MON ordered the shuttle to follow another player Fighter and we attacked en mass with a large number of small craft.

Menawhile, the Kzinti forces had relised that the K-MON was gonna take some serious effort to kill and a Drone exchange errupted between them. Up until then, they had steered well clear of the lumbering and slow heavily shielded "Tank".

The Def Sats died as expected, pretty early on in the battle, but had bought us time to deploy fighters and shuttles for a mass attack.

We decided to concentrate on the Kzinti Scout Crusier, thus blinding them if they broke of and escaped. A concentrated attack of shuttles and fighters chewed it to pieces and it was finished off with a few Ph3 blasts as we headed for the next target.... one of the MDCs.

This put up a stiff fight. The other one had suffered serious damage in the encounter with the K-MON and was making distnace at speed 16 with the K-MON in pursuit at maximum speed 12, firing waves of drones at it and Dis3 batteries. Needless to say, it died.

The Kzinti players decided to break off the attack on the defences and make a run at the Blue Planet. They launched their last remaining Drones at long range at the Planet and I ordered the FTR Pod to defend intercept the Drones as best it could. Its point defence Ph3s did reduce the number of Drone hitson the planet, so the Kzinti decided to save Drones and destroy it with direct fire first.

However we had already guessed their plan and were pedalling as fast as we could with the shuttles and fighters to back it up.

Seeing the hordes decending on them and having used up their last Drones, they chickened out and made a run for the star and map edge. We pursued until at range 70 of the star and broke off, before the radiation at range 65, wiped us out.

The K-MON was repositioned to defend the Planet, should they come back and the controling player stated that he still had a few Drones left, should they turn to fight again.

Our losses were a 3 x DEF SAT, alsorted fighters and shuttles.

They lost 1 xMDC and 1 x MSC. The latter should make it hard for them to evade our patrols from now on.

Fighters do seem to be their Achilles Heel and the monitor was a bit of a shock to them as well.

I really must make a better model of a K-MON though, as the one I originally made is poor.

 

[Panzergranate]

I forgot to add in the other LAN campaign battles that we played out over the weekend to cover 3 campaign "days".

Two seprate groups of Kzinti frigates, 1 x SF and 8 x FD, entered Klingon space, located and attacked two seperate convoys. In the forst attack all 9 Kzinti frigates were destroyed for no losses by Klingon convoy of 3 x A3 corvettes, 2 x A2AK corvettes and 1 x FSPh and 3 x FS

The second convoy consisted of 3 x A3 corvettes,  1 x FSPh and 5 x FS. ONe FS was detroyed. All 9  Kzinti frigates were destroyed.

(Kzinti frigates are really crap!!)

A Kzinti invasion force entered a large planetary system only to find a Klingon task force camping there. They made the fatal mistake of not running away!!

The Klingons forces were:

C8K (IKV Fanatic), 2 x D18 Laratan heavy destroyers, 1 x D6K, 1 x D6S, 1 x D6V, 1 x D5L, 2 x D5K

The Kzinti forces were:

1 x CC+, 1 x CS, 1 x MAC, 3 x MDC, 3 x FTL.

It was a Turkey shoot and all Kzinti forces were destroyed. I chalked up 2 x FTL flying a D18 Laratan. We left the C8K on AI and it just wiped the Kzinti out on auto pilot

The C8K, 1 x D18  and D6s engaged the warships whild the D5s and my own D18 chased down the fleeing large troop ships. We didn't even bother to launch fighters or shuttles!!

No Klingon losses.

C8K (IKV Londas) and 2 x D18 (IKV Violence and IKV Bad Moon), in pursuit of surivors of the Monitor battle, were caught in open space by another Kzinti task force consisting of 1 x MCC, 4 x MEC, 1 x MCV, 3 x MC.

Despite pedaling like f**k for the map edge to disengage, the C8K was destroyed in a hail of drones. Both D18s suffered the same fate.

No Kzinti Losses.

So far all the battles hve been in Klingon space. We are allowing them to throw ships at us so that we can chew them up. They've lost quite a lot of BPV points worth of ships, equipment and troops so far, which they're replacement BPV points won't cover completely, when reinforments are allowed to be bought soon in the campaign.

[Panzergranate]

Another campign "day" this evening.

A Kzinti warfleet consisting of 1 x CC, 1 x MSC, 1 x CV, 3 x CH and 3 x DW turned up in one of our asteroid mining fields and attacked the mining station there.

No Kzinti losses obviously.

They came within extreme special sensor range of one of our frigate goups, who are now in pursuit.

A Kzinti warfleet consisting of 1 x CC, 1 x MSC, 1 x MCV, 3 x CH and 3 x FTL launched an attack on a medium resource planet system.

Klingon forces were: 1 x F5L, 2 x F5D, 5 x F5K and 1 x F5S scout.

I commanded two of the F5Ks and the F5S, my son flew 3 x F5K and Dave flew the F5L and 2 x F5Ds.

We kind of figured that they'd expect us to play campaign strategy and make a beeline to destroy the MCV and MSC, so we didn't. We didn't head for the 3 x FTL troopships either.

The cunning plan was to all go for the CC and hopefull take this out. However, we had to feign an attack on the troopships by heading straight for them, dumping out some Drones and then peddling away as if fleeingthe field wheb the warships started after us.

The Kzinti sent the 3 xFTL to the blue planet accompanied by the MCV and MSC whilst the posse of the CC and 3 x CH chased after us.

We fled towards the star and into the radiation field until range 50 and then cut speed to 9,  turned and reversed course at the Kzinti posse. They fired Drones at range 15, which obviouly died in the radaition zone. This left them vulnerable and all 9 of our frigates flew over the CC and hit it at range 2 before increasing speed to 31 and heading for the blue planet. The trick worked and the CC was destroyed. The 3 x CH had declerted to engage us and lost ground accelerating and turn to pursue.

One of the F5Ds died as well from Kzinti direct weapons fire.They had concentrated their fire of the F5Ds for some reason and another was badly damaged during the maneuver.

I ordered my 2 x F5Ks to follow the F5L and took the stricken frigate in tow behind my F5S scout, hoping to add a bit more speed to it. However, speed 15 was as fast as I could tow it at and the 3 x CHs were closing, so it had to be cut adrift. Dave had ordered his F5L to follow my son's 3 F5Ks and carried the flag over to manage the damage control personally. Aparently it was a real mess and he decided to leave it toi ts fate and went back to his F5L.

I cut the tow and Dave ordered it to the moon in the hope that it might either survive or act as a decoy. A wave of Drones finished it off.

My own ship was over range 40 from the main mass of frigates, who were now going in for a do or die attack of the FTLs. Via the F5S's special sensors I was able to survey the damage of their attacks. The Kzinti CHs were just in range to annoy me with Ph2 fire and I decided to try to decoy them by heading for the nearest map ege and away from the other frigates.

Meanwhile, one of the FTLs blew up.

My son was down to his last F5K and Dave was now busy trying to keep his F5L alive as the MSC and MCV had taken a personal interest in him and was taking chunks out of him after his port side shields gave out.

The CHs  didn't take the bait and continued after the frigates. Not before launching all their shuttes after me, which saw me back on course for the star again.

Dave, seeing the CHs closing and being designated flotila commander in this scenario, sent, "Every Klingon for himself!!" and pormptly headed for the nearest map edge.

My son's F5K was so badly shot up by now to run away, decided to turn and attack one of the FTLs again. The MSC took him out though the FTL he targeted dropped speed to 4 after he went Nova over it!!

My dive into the radiation field killed off the horde of shuttles and I warped out of the system.

We decided to order the F5L to the reserve pool and the F5S to lurk in a distant just in special sensor range nearby square to monitor Kzinti activity in the captured system.

The loss of this system will knock 750 BPV off of our replacements points purse.

Replacements can be bought, if required, every 10 campaign days.

The campaign goal is to deprive the opposing side of the ability to replace losses by capturing or destoying various BPV generating resources. Without ability to replace losses, the opposing forces become weaker and capturing more resources becomes easier. It is a more realistic attrition system than Hex flipping and both sides have to carefully consider all kinds of factors, even down to what ships to buy as replacements.

General BPVs generated by planets and bodies per 10 campaign day period  are:

Blue Planet = 500 BPV.
Red Planet = 300 BPV.
Moon = 250 BPV.
Gas Giant = 100 BPV.
Asteroid Field = (Small) 50 BPV, (Medium) 100 BPV, (Large) 150 BPV.
Asteroid Belt = (Small) 25 BPV, (Medium) 50 BPV, (Large) 75 BPV.
Odd Asteroids = 5 BPV.

Also freighters traveling between systems and asteroid belts/fields, generate BPV in the campaign. Freighters are given orders by the controling side and then ply between designated  systems, adding their BPV contribution to the purse every time they reach a system They continue to trundle backwarsd and  forwards until destroyed or re-assigned. Freighters also cost BPV to replace.

Contribution to the BPV purse:

Small freighter = 2 BPV.
Medium Freighter = 4 BPV.
Large Freighter = 6 BPV.
Ore Carrier = 8 BPV.
Cargo Pod = 4 BPV.

Facilities:

Ore Processing Station = 200 BPV.

The campaign map is 65535 x 65535 squares. Each square represents 1 light days' worth of movement. All ships are assumed to travel at their best cruising speed, not maximum speed.  Therefore, a ship cruising at Warp 3 (27c) coveres 27 squares per campaign day. An average Klingon or Lyran warship with a crusing speed of Warp 6 (216c) covers 216 squares in a campaign day.. Most Kzinti warships cruise at Warp 5, being behnd other races in Warp technology. Freighters all cruise at Warp 3 (27c)

A ship on Impulse Power will cover 1 square per day.

Both side have fleets as large as 250 ships and facilities logged into the campaign manager computer. Both sides have to enter a seperate password to continue the camapaign, so no spying is allowed.

Scouts and special sensors. Range of surounding squares Long Range Scanable by ships:

Shuttle = 0
Fighter = 0
Freighter = 0
Any Warship = 1
Scout = 2
Survey Freighter = 2
Survey Pod = 2
Survey Crusier =3
AWAC Crusier = 4

Long Range Scan Jamming ranges:

Scout = 1
Curvey Cruiser = 2
AWAC Cruiser = 3 (Federation only so far with this ability with USS Marco Polo NCC 1290 and USS Magellan NCC 1291)

N.B. If any member ship is jamming then a fleet is unable to long range scan surrounding squares.

OK, this is why both sides are using at least 1 scout or survey type vessel in their fleets. They'd be blind and vulnerable without them. It also makes them key targets to hit as well.

[Panzergranate]

I thought I'd add a tactic I find myself using a lot recently, when doing the unusual (fiorr a Klingon) thing of having to run away from a huge posse of hostile ships.

OK, we'll call this tactic "Barnstorming" and the reason why will become clear.

This is a tactic intended to help a lone ship increase the distance between itself and a posse of human controlled , AI controlled or mixed formations.

You will need a large planetary body for this tactic. Oprha Winfrey might do but be careful not to be mistaken for a snack!!

Head for the planetary body at maximum speed by tellinghelm to orbit it.

When within range 15, take over the helm and fly as close as you dare, idealy as close as rabge 1 to the surface. This requires some skill and some of you will probally be very good at this, other will crash and burn!!

Do this for half  to three quarters of the orbit and then head out into space again.

OK what does this do to the enemy ships.

Assume that there are 3 x hostile ships hot on the lone ship's tail taking pot shots at range 30 to 40. One ship is human controlled and the other two are AI controlled.

The AI controlled ships will not go closer than range 15 and will skirt wide around the planettary body. This means that they will loose ground, maybe even become out of range to fire.

The human player is faced with a dilema here. If he tries to copy your flight path, he could crash and burn!! A good result for you. He needs to copy your flight path otherwse he will loose ground on you and maybe move out of weapons range. Another bonus for you!!

If he manages to not do this then he will have created a distance between himself and his AI allies, perhaps giving you a tactical edge. If we're taliking of a buch of frigate chasing a CL or CA, then to suddenly be the only frigate near the prey is not a good idea.

Huggung planets like this takes a lot of skill and practice but will force a chasing ship to either chicken out and loose ground or risk adding a new crater to a moon.

For the advanced version of this tactic, have your allied players tell their respective helms to follow your ship atrange 1 as you perform the maneuver.

We haven't perfected this in practice sessions yet, ending up in formation crashes so far!!

Best not to try this after drinking beer either (see crashes above!!).

 

[Panzergranate]

We managed to track a Kzinti SSCS led formation in today's campaign meeting.

Their course was projected and we met them in open space with a seriously considered task force consisting of:

1 x C7, 2 x D6P, 1 x D7E (IKV Mystique), 4 x D7K and 1 x AD5

The IKV Mistique was providing jamming for the task force in ambush and other patrol scouts were keeping tabs of the Kzinti SSCS group's progress.

Contact was made in large open space and the Kzinti force was determined to be made up of:

1 x SSCS, 1 x SC, 1 x CC, 6 x CH

I flew the D7E and 2 x D7K

Dave flew the C7, AD5 and 1 x D7K

My son flew a D7K and both the D6P.

We did a feint attack on the Kzinti formation and then turned tail and headed away at speed, dumping cluster packs and firing Drones at the pursuing Kzinti cruisers.

Meanwhile, my son, in command of the D7K and D6P squadron, headed off of a tangent from the SSCS and away from us at speed 20 charging up weapons.

As cunningly planned, the SSCS lagged behind the cruisers because of its slow acceleration and speed. But then it spots the D7K and D6P squadron out on its own and decides to head for them. This was part of our plan.

My son turned towards the SSCS and dropped speed to 15. He switched control to one of the D6Ps and the distance closed. For some reason the SSCS player must have made the big mistake of not having the target tactical scan display up because what happened next definately caught him by surprise.

The SSCS dumped out Drones and what wasn't PDed splatted on boosted forward shields.

At Range 2, as the Klingon ships were about to overfly the SSCS, the D6Ps let loose all 8 of their Plasma Torpedoes, dumped Suicide Shuttles and fired everything else capable of firing. The result was a fatal for the SSCS as it just stopped dead.

Meanwhile, a big starship dogfight was happenening about 180 clicks away and carnage was in progress. The enemy seemed to be confused by the D7E tag and must have assumed that it was an anti-Drone cruiser, like an D5E and not a heavy cruiser scout. They generally steered clear of it. The C7 and AD5 did attract a lot of fore and the AD5 was taken out.

When the SSCS was trashed by the D6Ps, the SC and CC broke off and headed for it. I broke off with the D7E and gave chase but ran into an aft Drone salvo, reducing mt speed to 16 for a while. I still managed to knock the last of the CC's aft shield out with what weapons still fired. Meanwhile, the SSCS was nuked out of existance by a Drone salvo from my son's D7K. He now turned away, at speed 20, from the closing SC and CC to charge up the Plasmas again.

Meanwhile my crippled D7E had attacted the Vultures and a battered Kzinti CH started after me. Luckily Dave had spotted it and popped out to deal with it. However, the CH managed to loose of a fair amount of Drones which caught up with me damned quick,taking out all power. Speed dropped to 0.

However, I had some hangar left and launched a Shuttle on protect me. I locked a Tractor onto the Shuttle and then told it to head for my son's D7K. It worked as I was moving at maybe speed 10, being towed by a Shuttle. This eneabled me to focus what power I had left on repairs. I managed to launch a second Shuttle on protect me mode.

Both my own D7Ks ended up destroyed. The surviving Kzinti CHs, Drone racks exhausted, were now in trouble and were trying to cut their losses and running for the map edge, but Dave kept forcing them to turn and fight with his battered D7K by taking pot shots at their shield gaps.

My son took out the CC's forward shields and weapons systems with the D6Ps and then turned to engage the SC. He ordered his D7K to back up Dave way over the map.

My D7E could manage speed 20 now and the bow Ph1s were back online. I had traces of forward shields and decided to have a go at the disabled CC. Dave's D7K failed to stop the CHs from exiting the mpa edge. Only two Kzinti CHs had survived.

A quick check with Dave revealed just how bad things were on his last ship. He was out of spares, lacked power, had two Phasers left and was out of boarding parties, so I suggested that he sit the rest of the battle out as we didn't want to loose yet another heavy cruiser.

The SC was making a run for it from the middle of the map and had my son's posse in pursuit. I wasn't going to catch the SC and the CC had died before I was even n range. I set course for Dave's D7K hulk. and left my son to catch the limping SC. It died in pretty spectacular fashion well short of the map edge.

The campaign computer was told the battle results and both sides issued new orders to their respective survivors. In our case, we ordered the fleet back to a starbase to await the arrival of reinforcements from the rear line reserve pool deployment zones or to attach up other survivors.

We figurethat the Kzinti players did the same with the 2 x CHs.

Somehow, I don't think the surprise element of the D6P "Plasma boats" will work again next time we use them. The tactic we used won't work again either.

Other skirmishes were a few one on one with scouts fighting scouts. These were Kzinti infiltration probes and missions. The puny Kzinti FS is no match for the L22 BOP or K2 Artor. Also some Kzinti FS were intercepted when they attempted to attack lone border skiffs and gunboats on our flanks.

One of our infiltration L22 BOP scouts, deep inside their lines, has detected a few interesting targets for later.

We'll see what the Kzinti players do tomorrow afternoon (Sunday), when we continue the campaign.

Meanwhile there is much celebration of a victory, at last, on the Klingon side. It cost us a lot though in D7Ks, AD5  and C7!!

Our current losses look like they'll exceed the BPV bonus for replacements. We might end up having to use D5s to replace D6K and D7K losses, if we want to keep numbers up.

[Age]

well for me i first set my torpedo to proximity (explode near the ship).

then i use a probe to see what's i face and plot some commando to destroyed the drones and add (if they have one) and the tractor beam.

then i already have a scatter pack ready and suicide shuttle  that i will lunch on them, i wait so i have destroyed the add for both shuttle.

also i will re enforce my shield and put the ecm eccm to 3 both and flight at speed of 20 max and fire all weapons when  i get close to 5 (to do the most damage to them).

i always play fed and only in single player since the com with the game is not connected to the net.

Don they are talking online her on the Dyna.

Originally posted by FPF DieHard
Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

DieHard .I would upload all those films up to YouTube.

[Panzergranate]

I found a website, a few months ago, dedicated to actual space weapons science from the 1980's Star Wars defence programme. Particle Cannons were tested along with other ideas, to hit incoming nukes.

Particle cannons worked out to be more damaging than Lasers BUT the particle jet could be simply deflected / repulsed by even a low level magnetic field.

The Plasma cannon (basically an artificial Solar Flare Gun) would be a short range weapon as the shots immediately expand into a "bloom" due to charge repulsion and limited gravitational attraction. Range was estimated at a few hundred metres.

Kenetic Energy Projectile (KEP) offered the best performance especially when fired from a recoiless llaunch such as a Rail Gun. Range is unlimited, accuracy against moving targets over range, depends on the deflection shot software on the targeting computer.

Nuclear Warheads are not that effective in space as these depend highly on atmosphere to generate heat and plasmatised gas for blast effect. Rather like a depth charge needs water to fully fuction effectively.

Kind of explains the move to Anti-Photonic and Anti-Matter based weapons in Star Trek.

Disrupters have been a subject of US and other millitary research. The Cubans accused the US of using Sonic Disrupter based weapons against some of there troops duingthe Grenada Invasion.

Disrupters in space need a medium through which to transmit the wracking shock wave, normally carried by atmosphere. In Star Trek, a jet or burst of particle based energy is projected at the target and the shock wave is transmitted by it. Depending on the frequency and magnatude (in Tetrawatts) of the sonic shock wave contained within, determines the effect the range and effectiveness of the Disrupter hit.

As with Particle Cannons, Phaser and Lasers, Disrupters are a near light speed weapon.

Rail Guns, Plasma Cannons, etc. are extremely low velocity weapons, with velocities of bellow even 1/10th light speed as they both use magnetic acceleration coils to launch the shot.

Missiles and Torpedoes can be sublight, lightspeed or Warp capable depending on the propulsion technology used. Therefore Warp Speed Nukes are feasable.

I liked the idea of the large cloaked Skipper Anti-Ship Missile in Wing Commander. It was Impulse Powered. Now there would be an interesting weapon to incorporate into SFB and SFC.

SFB Volime.III. introduces Klingon shield burrowing Drones, Point Blank Ph1 Drones and other devious types. It also intruduced the Plasma Rack (PlaR), but the less sais about that the better.

 

[Panzergranate]

Fighters...... we have some arguments about one particular fighter operational subject here in our LAN games.

This is whether it is better to let the fighters head off towards the target as they launch or to have them circle the carrier and wait until all the squadrons are together in a huge wing formation.

Needless to say, with the latter "form up" tactic, some of the bigger carriers take quite a long time to launch all their fighters, even in fours!!

Having watched a few carrier vessels destroyed whilst in "form up", which also takes out most of the circling fighters in the blast zone, I'm not a big fan of the tactic.

I prefer to send out one squadron at a time at the enemy, as they're ready to go, keeping the carrier vessel (usually an K-AuxCV, K-AuxCVA or Tug/Pod CVA) next to the map edge and then having it leave the map once all the fighters are out.

I have tried the pre-arranged form up on a planet tactic, sometimes in conjuctions with other fighters and shuttles from allied player CV, CVA and SCS vessels, which seems to best suit attacks on fixed instalations such as starbases, defence platforms and other big fixed targets. The problem is disguising the tactic from the enemy players as they will send out units to deal with the still massing fighters and shuttles.

So which fighter launch tactic do players prefer and it would be interesting to know why??

[parmenionsShade]

I thought when the carrier is destroyed/disengages, the fighters are destroyed, too.  I've definitely seen fighters blow up when their carrier is destroyed.  What mod are you playing?

I never play fleet actions of anything like the scale you do, so I can't contribute much, but in my limited experience, I've found that sending fighters out piecemeal is just asking for them to be destroyed one at a time.  Of course, I generally use CVAs and escort carriers, no AUXs, so I suppose the risk of the carrier being killed is much lower for the classes I tend to use.

[Panzergranate]

We run SFC V.1.03 this end. I figured out, ages ago, how the game uses the ship list and how to manipulate the shiplist to allow race, other than the Hydrans, to use fighters.

SFC 1follows SFB rules exactly regarding fighters and shuttle, in that they survive after the destruction of the launch vessel. However, those that have lost their launch vessel, will continue to attack the assigned target, protect an assigned object or, if the object to be protected is destroyed, attack the nearest enemy target.

The Klingons only dabbled in a few CV and CVA warships, believing them to be a huge waste of resources and warship hulls. Instead they use purpose built auxliarries and tug CVA pods in front line roles, unlike other races. The Feds only use auxilarries as second line carriers.

The D5V, D6V and D7V light carriers are typical half hearted Klingon experiments with carriers, which are lame when compared to a D5H, N6 or T7 with a CVA pod or two.

There was only one C8V built, which was the Klingon CVA attempt and regarded, by the high command, as a waste of a Dreadnaught.

If SFC 2 and OP has fighters blow up when the launch vessel leaves or is destroyed, then this is not following SFB rules!!

Are you sure that they die in later SFC versions, instead of just being mopped up by the enemy??

As for piece meal squadron attacks on enemy vessels, they do seem to last longer and are more effective when supporting other warships attacking the same target.

It's managing to have the time to organise the fighters into a larger combat wing, whilst dodging the enemy's incoming fire, etc.

So if piece meal squadron attacks are no so wise, where is best to form up the squadrons into a combat wing?? Around the launch vessel or arrange a form up point clear of the battle?? Fighters do work better enmasse.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Hi,
Could someone post some tactics specifically for hellbore-armed Hydrans? I'm sort of fed up with disruptors, but I still like fast, dancing-like tactics. Those newer hellbore Hydrans seem really nice (like TAR, APA), but I just don't know how to fly them. Would a modified saber-dance work (heck, I can't even do the regular sabre dance )?

Thanks,
Rob L.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

I was just curious if anyone would like to share how they approach battle scenes, and how they deal with battles tey are in.  I'm also interested in how long a battle lasts for others.
I personally prefer feds (ok, so I'm not very original), flying a  CLC or one of the BC_ excelsiors.  Sometimes I will up it to a drednaught or a battleship, or maybe an experimental in OP.  Typically, if I'm approaching an opponent of equal or greater BPV, I will keep a low speed while I overload photons, arm a scatter pack, and if necessary a wild weasel, reinforce shields, and if I have a ship with enough power I will try to match my oponent's ECM with ECCM.  As I approach I will often keep a speed of as low as 4so I can load as much power into my shields as possible, I let him blast away, most often not able to get through my forward shields, then around distance 2-3 I will open up with an alpha strike, pass, set torpedoes to normal and increase to maximum speed my ship can go and charge all weapons at once (14 on a BCF). 

...

OK, I haven't read the whole thread yet, and I know I'm coming into this a week late, but would everyone who would let a slow moving Fed BC close to a range of 2-3 please raise their hands, lower their shields, and prepare for boarding by a peacefull team of Klingon emmisaries...

[Nemesis]

Hi,
Could someone post some tactics specifically for hellbore-armed Hydrans? I'm sort of fed up with disruptors, but I still like fast, dancing-like tactics. Those newer hellbore Hydrans seem really nice (like TAR, APA), but I just don't know how to fly them. Would a modified saber-dance work (heck, I can't even do the regular sabre dance )?

Thanks,
Rob L.

I've flown Hydran but I'm far from an expert.  Long ago I was flying as Hydran on the Dynaverse and had an LBX.  Only its 4 Ph-1 are upgraded to Ph-X none of its other weapons or fire arcs are adjusted.  It gains shields and power but is otherwise just the non X Lord Bishop.  It has a weapon layout that annoyed me.  The Hellbores can only all be fired dead ahead, on any other arc you can at most fire 2 of the 4.  The ship appeared to be a forward centerline ship which should give the Lord Bishop a bad reputation that it doesn't have.  I fought a number of battles vs the AI and could not figure out how to handle it properly.  That LBX drove me crazy trying to figure out how to fly it. 

Then I encountered Tribble in a Lyran BCH (no PFs but top of the line otherwise), almost exactly the same BPV.  Part way through the battle it clicked.  I left the fusion beams off, overloaded one pair of Hellbores and normal loaded the other pair.  I then did a figure 8 pattern closing to range 8 to fire the overloads and pulling away to his stern at range 15 when firing the normals and again pulling away towards his stern.  He was always trying to fire overloads when I wasn't closing in or normal loads vs my overloads.

When he was suitably softened up I boosted to all overloads and suicide loaded the Fusion beams then with reinforced #1 shield went in.  The battle was completed in that pass. 

Tribble made 3 mistakes:

#1/ As I upped my ECM he upped his ECCM.  Then he didn't notice when I dropped it from 6 to 0.  That gave me a 10% power advantage.

#2/ He tractored me at range 3.  His ESG was active at range 2.99.  I waited to break the tractor till his ESG was down. 

#3/ It was the listening post mission.  He didn't need to fight me.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Thanks for the tip. I'll see how it goes.

[Age]

What are some good tactics against plasma flying a Fed CA or CL?

[Nemesis]

What are some good tactics against plasma flying a Fed CA or CL?

Phaser boat.  Turn off the photons and keep your speed up.  You have more phasers than him and will have more free power.  Never close enough for his Plasmas to hit.

[Panzergranate]

My son has played a lot as Hydrans and uses the same tried and tested tactic....
 
He overlloads all Fusions, meanwhile launching Fighters and Shuttles to keep the enemy distracted.

He then closes fast for a close in attack, forward shield reinforced, aft shield off completely.

He then fires at point blank range, passes over the target, drops Suicide Shuttles and Mines with the Q and M keys whilst activating the aft shield and powering down the forward shields.

The whole attack is in a straight line so the Hydran Ship passes over the victim.

He then makes distance to render any repairs and snipes at the crippled victim with the Hellbores, just to keep adding further damage via the weakened or destroyed shields. So far it has always been a fool proof tactic for him though his ship does receive a fair plastering especially from certain Klingon warships.

However it is pretty devestating to over races, especially Feds.

The GORN Double Drive By Shooting.

This is a team skirmish tactic we've used many a time in SFB and SFC LAN games and is more effective with larger ships. It is essential that both Gorn ships have swivel side firing Plasmas, as will be explained.

This is a two player synchronised maneuver that is a good idea to practice on AI before trying it on human players.

1:    Maintain distance until Plasmas are hot.

2:    Select a victim.

3:    Fly towards victim with both Gorn ships in parallel, no more than range 4 apart and matched in speed. (Speed doesn't matter in this tactic!!)

4:    Gorn shup (A) passes to the left of the victim, Gorn ship (B) passes to the right of the victim.

5:    Fire all weapons, from both Gorn ships, into preferably the #3 and #5 shields respectively.

6:    Gorn ship (A) performs a 180 HET to Starboard and Gorn ship (B) performs an 180 HET to Port and targets the #3 and #5 shields again.

7:    The Victim should now be either destroyed or severly crippled so either board, Suicide Shuttle,Mine or leave for later.

8:    Goto step 1.

My son and myself always use this tactic if playing Gorns in a LAN skirmish whether against AI or humans.

There is no counter tactic, even if the victim knows what is about to happen, apart from cloaking ( cowardly Romulan trick!!) , which puts them in a new fix!! In this case, drop shuttles to buzz around and then attack as soon as they decloak.

If the victim tries to turn away then they expose the very shields the Gorn ships are after. If the victim tries to fight Gorn ship (A) or Gorn ship (B), the unaffected Gorn ship still inflicts terminal damage.

Shield and ECM/ECCM options are up to personal choice. My son always attacks with his aft or away shields turned off so that he can spare more power to facing shields. He does have to do some fancy and quick finger work to switch his shield around during turns, but it works for him.

I always run with ECM at 1 and ECCM at 6 as I like my Plasmas to hit home. I'm yet to miss in this maneuver!!

NOTE: This tactic doesn't work against the ISC unless one can break up the echelon formation and seperate out individual ships for prey.

We've developed the tactic in Baconfest and managed to survive with just a pair of CLs, even taking out larger AI ships.

It just takes practice and dicipline to perfect.

[Dash Jones]

Panzer, interesting tactic with the planet thing.  I haven't tried that before, might see how it works when playing as a Rom.  Sounds interesting.

[Age]

What are some good tactics against plasma flying a Fed CA or CL?

Phaser boat.  Turn off the photons and keep your speed up.  You have more phasers than him and will have more free power.  Never close enough for his Plasmas to hit.

That would sure take some time depending on who you were fighting.

[Panzergranate]

You'll need a Romulan warship fitted with Plasma S (Swivels) as sideways firing into the most vulnerable shields (#3 and #5) is key to the strategy.

Note that hitting these shields leaves the victim unable to risk turning to fight as you and your ally's ship HET for the second raking stern to bow pass run. Unless he stays heading away from you, which is what you want, he exposes the now destroyed #3 and #5 shields.

We have tried a similar tactic with a Hydran Tug carrying a Hellbore Bombardment Pod. OK the emsemble is intended for the bombardment of Battlestations, Starbases, Defence Instalations and Planets, only fires to Starboard and is a bit clumsey, but this is the only Hydran ship with sideways firing Hellbores and in large quanities.

In a LAN skirmish (Hydran - Lyran) I managed to take out the #2 and #3 shields of a Lyran CA+ on a single bow to stern point blank side firing Hellbore pass, though lack of maneuverability of the Hydran Tug meant that I was unable to make a quick enough turn to starboard to exploit the damage. Needless to say the CA+ made distance, played the speed advantage and called in allied escorts to deal with me.

Probably would work better with allied ships to exploit the damage inflicted.

So, if you see a Hydran Tug heading towards you, best scan and probe it first, just in case its carrying a Bombardment Pod.

Some of the FASA based ships can inflict sizeable sideways Disrupter firepower (no Phasers!!) and we've managed similar attacks with D18 Laratan Heavy Destroyers against various frigates and heavy frigates. The FASA ships do have better Disrupter firing arcs than SFB Klingon warships, but at the cost of zero Phasers.

It might work with a F-CFS.

Best to experiment with a null modem connection, so that you can player with an ally, and test out tactic on "Baconfest" against AI players.

It would be interesting to see what Romulan warships can use the tactic and which can't. It is important to be able to take out the #3 and #5 shields preferably in the first pass, but second will do. Just taking a chunk out them in two passes isn't much good.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

I thought I'd add a tactic I find myself using a lot recently, when doing the unusual (fiorr a Klingon) thing of having to run away from a huge posse of hostile ships.

OK, we'll call this tactic "Barnstorming" and the reason why will become clear.

This is a tactic intended to help a lone ship increase the distance between itself and a posse of human controlled , AI controlled or mixed formations.

You will need a large planetary body for this tactic. Oprha Winfrey might do but be careful not to be mistaken for a snack!!

Head for the planetary body at maximum speed by tellinghelm to orbit it.

When within range 15, take over the helm and fly as close as you dare, idealy as close as rabge 1 to the surface. This requires some skill and some of you will probally be very good at this, other will crash and burn!!

Do this for half  to three quarters of the orbit and then head out into space again.

OK what does this do to the enemy ships.

Assume that there are 3 x hostile ships hot on the lone ship's tail taking pot shots at range 30 to 40. One ship is human controlled and the other two are AI controlled.

The AI controlled ships will not go closer than range 15 and will skirt wide around the planettary body. This means that they will loose ground, maybe even become out of range to fire.

The human player is faced with a dilema here. If he tries to copy your flight path, he could crash and burn!! A good result for you. He needs to copy your flight path otherwse he will loose ground on you and maybe move out of weapons range. Another bonus for you!!

If he manages to not do this then he will have created a distance between himself and his AI allies, perhaps giving you a tactical edge. If we're taliking of a buch of frigate chasing a CL or CA, then to suddenly be the only frigate near the prey is not a good idea.

Huggung planets like this takes a lot of skill and practice but will force a chasing ship to either chicken out and loose ground or risk adding a new crater to a moon.

For the advanced version of this tactic, have your allied players tell their respective helms to follow your ship atrange 1 as you perform the maneuver.

We haven't perfected this in practice sessions yet, ending up in formation crashes so far!!

Best not to try this after drinking beer either (see crashes above!!).

I call that "planet skimming".   Used it a few times myself in my "career".   It's a good way to shake persuit and can also be used offensively with practice, provided that your opponent decides to pursue more closely.

If they do then two options present themselves.  Most pursuers will attempt to bore a hole in your back shield while holding their heavy weapons for the knife fight, anchor or overrun.  But as you approach the planet a funny thing happens...they stop firing.  Thats because they are usually expending alot of concentration trying to imitate your tactic.  If they are close enough you can use T-mines to break down their front shield without to much fear of phaser reprisals on your open hull.  This will give you a decided advantage if you decide to pull away from the planet and he's still pursueing since his front shield or shields will probably be weaker than your back ones.

The next tactic I have used is fairly aggressive and risky.  Basicaly your attempting a game ending gambit.  If your opponent is highly skilled and is still gaining on you (which means they are almost directly behind you) set your tractor to 2 or 3 and when ready het around (obviously NOT into the planet lol; turn outboard from the planet... seems like stupid advice BUT in the heat of batle it happens).  Grab him and tractor him into the planet.  When you make your move ensure that your tractor is set on neutral (turnwise that is) and when you grab him direct it so he will be swung into the planet.   The moment you blow him up hit the dead stop button; just to make sure you don't follow the fate of your opponent.  This tactic is best done with a Light Cruiser or below since heavy cruisers and above don't just come to dead halt like smaller ships do. 

Well thats my contribution to this interesting thread.  I've got a few more though...

But remember the game really isn't about tricks and gambits.  Fundamentally sound play, knowing what range to fire from, knowing your ships power curves, knowing when to fire phasers or heavies or both, will get you far more kills than any number of spiffy tricks.

 

[Panzergranate]

My son goes wide on asteroids and then turns in tight to pass on the far side. The pursuer, intent on closing the range by cutting the corner, suddenlly finds rocks and dust damaging the front shield. Only works on the non-veteran and rookie though.

His other tactic is to let you catch up when close to an asteroid, HET and tractor ram you into the asteroid. He will shut off all weapons to enhance shields and tractor power to do this and if you try to shoot it out with him, you'll loose. The only answer to the "Push of War" is to drop weapons power to increase tractor repulsion or increase propulsion power in order to break free or turn the tabls and drag him into the asteroid.

Being in a smaller ship hasn't stopped him so far springing this on an opponent with success!!

As far as dirty tricks goes, this one caps it so far!!

It's also the correct way to quickly complete the SFC 1 "Kil the Spy" mission. Tractor and ram the Smegger into a convinient asteroid!!

I always target the #3 and #5 shields, when in pursuit, as then my victim knows that to turn and fight will leave me with a clear shot at internal damage.

[Verroc]

If were talking sfc 1.

 As a rom first post of call is to charge weapons, sounds daft but to many people used to get to speed before there phs were charged, its a bad mistake. Then ECM full. Never set ECCM as ECCM does nothing but counter ECM. Then get to FULL speed. Prob the op, if hes had ECCM, kill your ecm (then hes wasting 6 power) and charge sheilds, but never all sheild. Just those you intend to to take damage on.

Basic rules.

NEVER take damage on your rear sheild.

never fire all at once.

never fire plasma heading to your op.

always focus on the same sheild.

force the player to show you that sheild.

Then we get race specific, and go to advance tactics.

[Clark Kent]

I was just curious if anyone would like to share how they approach battle scenes, and how they deal with battles tey are in.  I'm also interested in how long a battle lasts for others.
I personally prefer feds (ok, so I'm not very original), flying a  CLC or one of the BC_ excelsiors.  Sometimes I will up it to a drednaught or a battleship, or maybe an experimental in OP.  Typically, if I'm approaching an opponent of equal or greater BPV, I will keep a low speed while I overload photons, arm a scatter pack, and if necessary a wild weasel, reinforce shields, and if I have a ship with enough power I will try to match my oponent's ECM with ECCM.  As I approach I will often keep a speed of as low as 4so I can load as much power into my shields as possible, I let him blast away, most often not able to get through my forward shields, then around distance 2-3 I will open up with an alpha strike, pass, set torpedoes to normal and increase to maximum speed my ship can go and charge all weapons at once (14 on a BCF). 

...

OK, I haven't read the whole thread yet, and I know I'm coming into this a week late, but would everyone who would let a slow moving Fed BC close to a range of 2-3 please raise their hands, lower their shields, and prepare for boarding by a peacefull team of Klingon emmisaries...

Surprisingly, if it's a decent matchup, point for point, it's rare that anyone breaks through my shields, whereas if they are going a decent speed, they don't have the power to reinforce their shields enough to keep from getting severely damaged.  If we're talking Cruisers of battlecruisers against each other, sometimes what will happen is my forward shield will take a heavy pounding, but still be standing, so after I hit the gas and speed up, i simply keep my forward shield away unless I find myself in a good position to launch another alpha attack without getting nailed hardcore.
This has worked well against DN's, but not the heavy hitter DNs.  those and battleships or big carriers I make sure to keep my distance because reinforced shields or not, I will get raped if they launch an alpha attack on me.  usually with a matchup where I'm seriously outclassed i would much rather run.

[Verroc]

Surprisingly, if it's a decent matchup, point for point, it's rare that anyone breaks through my shields, whereas if they are going a decent speed, they don't have the power to reinforce their shields enough to keep from getting severely damaged.

If were talking sfc 1 i'd be happy to take you up on that. Im sure i could scratch those sheilds

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

Heh.  Well we still have a small group of players who matchup everyday on gamespy. (SFCOP).  We could always use another player.

But I rather think Clark is probably thinking of range fighters who use reduction as their primary tactic.  Lets say a Klingon who sabre dances between range 8 (skimming 8.9) to 15.  Or perhaps an ISC who uses his ppd at range fifteen and out. I know some fed pilots who rarely did lose a  shield to these tactics if done right.

But Gorns and Miraks will often elect to anchor, Hydrans and Lyrans prefer the overrun, and even Klingons flying "old school" will come in when they feel the time is right below range 4 to knife fight.  Not to mention the mauler...most of which can down a reinforced front shield (even with engine doubling).

So...I rather doubt those claims.  But heck, maybe Clark is onto something.
 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Hi KR_Rondo,

it's "Roychipoqua" from Gamespy. I love OP, it never gets old.

[Panzergranate]

Kind of agree with Verroc on the "don't Plasma head on" tip.

When playing as Gorns I usually target the rear side shields as I pass and pull a HET to swing around and lay into the rear shield.

Fortunately, Gorn warships have plenty of other weapons to fire with whilst warming up the Plasma Torpedoes, unlike the Romulan warships.

If playing Gorn versus anyone, it pays to remember the combat advantage of Gorn boarding parties during hit and run or capture attempts. Big lizards do usually win close combat, even against Klingons!!

I've introduced the SFB Romulan "Cloaked Decoy" as an experiment, into a FMSE scripted scenario and let my Unsuspecting 17 year old son  play it.

Needless to say, the "Decoy" cloaked Sparrowhawk that flagged up, moments into the game, saw him break off from escorting his AI freighter and speed across the map to engage. Imagine his surpirse when the first Phaser hits killed it before his Photon Torpedo salvo reached it.

Meanwhile, the real AI Sparrowhawk ambushed and took out a freighter, by the time he'd sped back and recharged his Photons.

Cloaked Decoys are a simple shiplist modification. They take 12 internal damage to kill, are set to move at any speed between 1 and 12, and project a cloaked image/signature of the parent warship that launched it.

Costs peanuts and fools both AI and Human players alike.

Works very well in FMSE scripted scenarioes where they can be pre-deployed so as to attract attention first.

Good at wasting a turn of enemy weapons fire also!!

[Clark Kent]

Heh.  Well we still have a small group of players who matchup everyday on gamespy. (SFCOP).  We could always use another player.

But I rather think Clark is probably thinking of range fighters who use reduction as their primary tactic.  Lets say a Klingon who sabre dances between range 8 (skimming 8.9) to 15.  Or perhaps an ISC who uses his ppd at range fifteen and out. I know some fed pilots who rarely did lose a  shield to these tactics if done right.

But Gorns and Miraks will often elect to anchor, Hydrans and Lyrans prefer the overrun, and even Klingons flying "old school" will come in when they feel the time is right below range 4 to knife fight.  Not to mention the mauler...most of which can down a reinforced front shield (even with engine doubling).

So...I rather doubt those claims.  But heck, maybe Clark is onto something.
 

I think that kinda gets to the meat of why I started this thread.  i rarely am able to fly against a live opponent, I'm usually against the AI, who is almost always willing to come in very very close on his first pass.  On the handful of occasions where I have had someone keep their distance, I drop to regular photons, hit the speed, reinforce rear shield and egress for a better line of attack. 
I'm kinda a stubborn one wit the photons, I don't really like to turn them off, but have on occasion. 
But that's the whole point- when you fly against AI all the time there is a very limited set of tactics you run into, so i started this thread up to see if I could learn more.

[Panzergranate]

The thing with palying against human players is the thought of, "Am I using cunning tactics here or am I being suckered into playing exactly the tactics he wants me to play??"

Sometimes, closing in for the kill is exactly the trap the opponent wants you to fall into.

I sometimes slowly start to drop my speed and hold back on weapons fire just to fool opponents into thinking that my ship is crippled and strapped for power more than what it really is, just to fool them into closing in for a kill.

In the confusion of a large LAN battle, nobody has the time to study their tactical scans of a target, especially those fool enough not to even have it up!!

My son is one who never seems to have the target tactical scan display up, and is often caught out by this.

My son will go even as far as dropping  shields that face away to mimic a shiled failure, just after being hit on that shield. He knows that the player ahs already emptied his best shot into that shield, so isn't likely to repeat the attack until he's recharged.

Seeing an aft shield out on my son's warship doesn't actually mean that it is out, he might be bluffing to make you want to come after him!!

Human players can be diveous bastards sometimes!!

[AcePylut]

Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

Damn, I'd post, quite possibly, my favorit kill ever.  It was a KOTH semifinals match... 230 late.  The opponent took that ISC boat at 229?  (right around there), I took the BCHF at 218.

I think the totally unorthodox and noobie tactic of having a couple little pf's out there messed him what he was thinking.  I kept the pf's out of I torp range for the most part, pulled them back in when they did get hit to repair them. 

He didn't really know weather to take out the pf's or the BCHF.  It got to the point after about 15-20 mins that he focused on the pf's, and totally ignored me as I did an ESG Mizia + double SS on his rear.  That was the match.

No way a BCHF should ever beat that ISC boat.  But hey... sometimes being unpredictable is the best tactic of all.

All I've got right now is a 2v2 film of 230 late match, me and a bud in a pair of Democracy Battlecruisers against a KHK and a different, non KCR, Rommie (can't remember).

The one Rom lover got pissed that we wouldn't run up into range 3 and ESG him, and instead stay out in front, separated about 15 kliks, and just dizzy'ed and phasered his KHK to nothing.  Like I'm going to get in close to an R torp, 4 S's, and 6 F's or whatever it was, when I can stay at range and with the game just as easily, albiet a little longer.

Got another good film of me and my L-BCHP fighting a Fed BCJ.  I timed an EM clickity click perfect, caused all his OL phots to miss, then laid chase, and as soon as I heard the HET from the BCJ, Erratic'ed again, all but 1 OL Phot missed.  Then I got right on his butt, range .2 or so, opened his aft shield, marined all his aft firing stuff... and that was that.  He did have the advantage until I got on his rear without a HET, though.  Once that happened, ol dizzy's are da bomb. 

[Dizzy]

Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

The opponent took that ISC boat at 229?  (right around there), I took the BCHF at 218.

I think the totally unorthodox and noobie tactic of having a couple little pf's out there messed him what he was thinking.  I kept the pf's out of I torp range for the most part, pulled them back in when they did get hit to repair them. 

BCHF CANNOT repair PF's. It is not a tender and only has mech links fwir. Recalling them back to repair and relaunch should have seen you forfeit the match for unsportsman like conduct.

[AcePylut]

This was like 5 years ago, so my memory is sketchy on the subject.  I do remember I was pulling them back in when they got hit.  Probably thought at the time it was for repair.  Might have just been to recharge shields.  Don't remember exactly.  What I do remember was pulling them back in after an I torp when after them, and you can pull them back in and relaunch them.  They were the standard pf's that come with the stock boat, so I wasn't expecting them to do much except be a distraction. 

[Dizzy]

Well, in gsa matches, you'll see casual tenders repair and relaunch PF's because they CAN... What I meant to say is that you shouldnt. We dont do that on the dyna. Gotta have a full Tender. But you're right. That CCZ shoulda edged that BCHF. A T model woulda stacked the deck too high for the CCZ imo.

[AcePylut]

So let me ask... back then around 2002, could a BCHF repair pf's by pulling them back in or not?  I really don't remember exactly.  I do remember that when I'd launch any sort of "fighter" type craft, I'd keep an eye on them and pull them back after they'd shoot their weaps.  So that developed a habit of "keeping a close eye and pulling any fighter-type craft (by fighter type, i mean fighters, pf's, etc., ie the mini ships that you control from the shuttle panel) back in after a turn or so", and that's what I would have been doing.

[Panzergranate]

It always pays to keep an eye on one's AI allies.

I also pays to keep an eye on opposing players renouned for not payiing attention to their own AI allies, for opportuities!!

I've never played SFC 2 EW, so are auxilary PF tenders allowed, as in SFB??

These always proved to be popular, depite they're easy kill status, as they were cheap in campaigns and allowed for more PFs to be maintained and fielded in a battle fleet.

[AcePylut]

I've only ever done online matches in the wonderful Mpig and Lamespy.  Never played in the Dynaverse.

So basically, a team calls out a bpv and anything goes.... unless there's some agreed upon terms like "300 late no x" or "270 late no dreads" etc.  Pretty much nobody flew tenders... because, for example, in a 200 late match, if you wanted fighters that were worth anything, you'd be flying a fighter carrying frigate  against another guys heavy cruiser... and when confronted with a match like that, all the other guy had to do was to pick off an kill one "fighter" at a time... and then when all your fighters were gone, you'd have a frigate against his bch and that would be death for you.

[Dizzy]

Yeah, the game engine allows you to recover and repair any number of PF's you launch. But the BPV's are not modified in such a way to accomodate this. In SFB and for all practical purposes, casual tenders, those with only 2 PF's are not supposed to be recovered repaired and relaunched becuase casual tenders do not have repair and rearming bays. Only Tenders do, those ships with 3-4 PF''s. The game engine doesn not distinguish between the two and so you are left with an all or none setup. So in such cases, a number of players and campaign rules have used 'house rules' whereby casual tenders are only allowed to recover, but not relaunch PF's.

[Dizzy]

So basically, a team calls out a bpv and anything goes....

In those situations, casual tenders are a steal because you are getting a bpv cut on not having mech rearm and repair bays, yet are able to exploit the game engine in being able to rearm and repair them anyway.

[Dizzy]

I've only ever done online matches in the wonderful Mpig and Lamespy.  Never played in the Dynaverse.

You should try a dynaverse sometime... We use PBR like 'Fleeting Rules' that cut down on the cheese combos and we often try using historical allies and enemies along with proper SFB loadouts. Quite a different game and some say much more challenging because the aftermath of your battle has consequences.

[AcePylut]

Yeah, the game engine allows you to recover and repair any number of PF's you launch. But the BPV's are not modified in such a way to accomodate this. In SFB and for all practical purposes, casual tenders, those with only 2 PF's are not supposed to be recovered repaired and relaunched becuase casual tenders do not have repair and rearming bays. Only Tenders do, those ships with 3-4 PF''s. The game engine doesn not distinguish between the two and so you are left with an all or none setup. So in such cases, a number of players and campaign rules have used 'house rules' whereby casual tenders are only allowed to recover, but not relaunch PF's.

Ah yeah, I kinda remember a lot of people griping that fighters would also be restored to full strength for free everytime they returned to the mothership.  Didn't know it was a similar situation with pf's.

[Dizzy]

Fighter replenishment is covered by the number of deck crews. We use a 2/3rds rule of ftrs in SFC to SFB. Works well when using SFB ftrs with warp booster packs.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Last posted in over a year ago, this is too good not to be bumped!

Lately, I have realized how useful those phaser-1s can be. I have heard the tactic called the "phaser enema" - where an opponent who turns to run from your plasma reveals their rear shield to phaser fire. It seems like the phasers actually do more damage than the plasmas during the course of the battle, like when two cautious plasma ships are playing the ballet game.

Sometimes with Klingon ships, I like to turn the disruptors off right after firing, and boost that power into the rear shield and speed, so that opponents using the above phaser trick will have to get through ECM and several points of reinforcement. But it does keep the dizzies only every 1 and 1/2 turns...

[Panzergranate]

I had an interesting book for Chrismas and amongst all the WW2 naval usual ship info complete with fates, like the IJN Surya CVA was sunk by a single bomb dropped by Dive Bomber Ace, Commander Best, which penetrated the deck elevator during the battle of Midway, was some of the ships involved in the Atlantic U-boat battles.

The Flower Class Corvette was the most numerous warship of WW2 with 166 hulls built over a 2 year period (167 if you count the fictional "HMS Compass Rose from the film "The Cruel Sea").

These little comercial trawler based ships carried the most advanced electronics detection of any warship and specialised in solely hunting U-Boats and turned the tide of the Battle Of The Atlantic, sinking more U-Boats than all other vessels, aircraft and blimps conbined.

Armament was 1 x 5.5" dual purpose gun, 1 x 20mm. Oerlikon autogun and 1 x 25 barrelled SONAR targetted "computer" fired "Hedgehog" anti-submarine mortar launcher.

This device fired all 25 depth detonated bombs over a set pattern and were fired automatically by the ship's "computer" at the correct moment, ahead of the Corvette and had a 100% on target hit rate, hence the high kill rate of U-Boats.

Now picture the situation in SFB during the General War after "Eagle Day" when the Romulan Empire decides to attack the Federation.

Pretty soon after the event the Romulans would have conducted their own version of the "Battle Of The Atlantic" against Federation colonies and outposts, in order to weaken them and render them impotent or easy meat for capture.

With the Lyran and Klingon Fronts tying up so many warships, the Federation would not be able to spare enough escorts for all essential convoys and Q-Ships, as players of SFB and SFC have found, are no match for an experienced Romulan player using a cloaked ship.

I would surmise, using tactical reasoning, that the Romulans would have operated large numbers of Snipes, which were clearly obstelete against proper frigates from enemy races or even their allies, in a similar role as WW2 U-Boats operating a "Wolf Pack" system in order to prosecute a blockade and starvation system against key Federation postions too strong to immediately directly confront.

The Federation would begin to feel this campaign and would be unable to donate more than a few FFR, CLR and conventional warships to cover every convoy and counter the blockades.

With the shipyards hard pressed, the Federation would not also be able to build aditional hulls or convert over vessels.

However the commercial shipyards, being unable to build warships of any type, can churn out freighters almost as quickly as they are lost, rather like "Liberty Ships".

Then some bright spark at Star Fleet, with and interest in WW" naval history, remembers how Corvettes won the "Battle Of The Atlantic" three centuries before.

By removing the backbone spine from a small freighter, extending the engineering hull to double its length and welding the two together, the 23rd century version of the Flower Class Corvette was created.

The commercial shipyards could churn out several hulls a week.

Armament was 1 x Ph2 FX, 1 x Ph3 and 6 x Cargo Tranporters with a store of 24 Transporter Bombs. The ship carries a single Special Sensor and 6 x Btty (for the Cargo Transporters).

Shields = 5 all around.

The Corvette only has very basic special sensor functions, enough to break lock ons, aid with the detection and hunting of cloaked ships, etc. but cannot act as a proper scout.

I've created and experimented with a model of the Corvette in SFC both as hunter and the hunted in games and basically the result of an attack on a cloaked Snipe, even a Snipe C, is as follows.

1- The Corvette makes its attack run, Snipe player cloaks.

2- The Corvette chucks out 6 x Transporter Bombs onto the Snipe inflicting serious damage.

3- The Snipe is unable to maintain its cloak, due to damage, and de-cloaks.

4- An accompanying escort warship finishes it off.

As the Snipe player I found that there were some tactics that could be employed to dodge the Transporter Bombs such as dropping speed to under 4. However, the Corvette player can make feined runs to force the Snipe player to slow down and drop behind the convoy it is supposed to be attacking, which will allow it to escape, ths a result to the Federation player.

The Snipe player can lure the Corvette to lag behind any warship escorts and Q-Ship with the convoy, de-cloak and hit it with a Plasma (Corvettes were one or two hit wonders even in WW2), quickly cloak again and move onto attacking the convoy.

We've had some fun here playing around with the concept of Corvettes, developing tactics to use with and against them.

We've worked out that a typical formation for an average convoy would be 2 x Corvettes to support a Q-Ship or Escort warship.

It was quickly worked out that a lone Corvette is fair game for an uncloaked Snipe, so some sort of warship deterant to be close at hand to deter such a tactic.

A massive Transport Bomb deplyment is still the best way to nail a cloaked ship in SFB and SFC, it is just that normal ships don't carry enough Transporter Bombs or Transporters to deploy them in meaningful quantities.

I'm working on an SSD for submission to ADB.

[Nemesis]

Link to an old tactics thread

[Panzergranate]

Auxilary PF Tenders and Auxilary CV and CVAs first appeared in the 1988 Comander's Edition Ruleset, which SFC 1 and SFC 2 are most closely built around.

In the SFB campaigns and the LAN SFC 1 campaigns (we run here) Auxilary PF Tenders and Carriers are cheapo BPV fill ins that allow more flexible coverage of a larger area than ploughoing the points into a proper warship equivalent.

Being able to field more PFs or fighters in more theatres of operations is a bonus.

On the negative side, where as a proper warship based version can travel across space at Warp 7 (or Warp 8 for the Feds), Auxilaries, being freighter based, trundle at a more slower pace of Warp 3 (27c).

Swings and roundabouts.

I prefer Auxliaries as it doesn't feel so bad losing one of them against an BPV expensive proper warship version.

[Soreyes]

Sometimes in PvP the people who you are going against know your tactics. I think everyone knows my tactics since I fly nothing but a DF or a DWD. On Dyna Campaigns I do a lot of deep striking. So a lot of times I get some of the better pilots coming on over to kick me out of the area. What this leads to is a lot of one sided battles. Mostly against CA or higher Hulls.

All I can say is that I take basic Drone tactics and at times Pervert them
The new tactics I figure out work about 10% of the time, but when they do 

Scratch 1 R-PRA, H-LM, K-C7 and several D-7Ls (Have to admit the C-7 was in a Nebula)

[FPF-Paladin]

Generally if I'm in something obviously undergunned or 1+ hull sizes smaller, and I manage to get internals on them, I consider it a partial victory for me...  geez, takes a lot of balls to face a C7 in a DF 

[Panzergranate]

It's the same with SFB and other wargames in that regular opponents know the way you'll play a situation.

Other considerations are historical and technological doctorines and constraints that either hamper or assist you.

I also play WW2 1:76 Scale (25mm.) wargaming, usually the European 1940 early campaigns, where if playing as the French player one is about as handicapped as possible, or the Soviets in 1941, where despite having a well equipped and dynamic army, poor command and control restrictions (no troop or tank radios), poor ammunition quality and tactical restrcitions make winning a game very difficult.

I've never liked balanced wargames as they're not realistic in nature. Being up against it stimulates the mind into some radical tactical gambits.

[Soreyes]

Generally if I'm in something obviously undergunned or 1+ hull sizes smaller, and I manage to get internals on them, I consider it a partial victory for me...  geez, takes a lot of balls to face a C7 in a DF 

    Did not have much of a choice with the C-7. I was Deep striking and got caught   The pilot of the C-7 made a tactical Error...... Kind of. He got on my Tail and started to close the gap. When he got to range 8, I hit emergency Stop and let loose with 6 Type IV drones at range 2 into his #1 shield. All six hit and gutted him. His phasers did some major damage to my ship. But I still had 3 drone racks and could get up to a speed of 12. My next pass did him in

What I like about the DF in a Nebula is that I can turn off the Phaser Three's, crank my ECM up to six, and still fly at speed 30.... with out really loosing any Shields

[Panzergranate]

You forgot to pop a couple of mines during the farntic maneuvering.... or were you trying not to be too cruel.... 

My best victory, in a LAN skirmish, was flying an Fderation Auxilary CVA and taking out a pair of Klingon F5 somethings.

They'd never come across an Auxilary CVA so assumed that it was just a large freighter rigged to carry fighters, so adopted tactics solely for dealing with the fighters I was busy scrambling to attack them.

I concentrated all 16 x F4 fighters onto one F5, and this player cunningly led them a safe distance away, so that the other player could make a seemingly safe attack.

My drone racks opened up at point blank and he wasn't expecting a drone salvo, followed up with the Phasers and hit and run, first on the transporters and next on his beam weapons.

I then dumped out a cluster pack and sent him to Storbakol. Death in a mere matter of seconds.

I pulled back my surviving fighters and launched shuttle to supplement them, putting them on "Protect Me".

Having witnessed the true firepower of a AuxCVA, the other player decided that he'd better live to fight another day and disengaged.

My AuxCVA just wasn't even close to fast enough to give chase.

For those not in the know, even the smaller AuxCV  carries more weaponry than a large Q-Ship, plus fighters too.

Though, in SFB, AuxCV and CVA are restricted in fighter choice to older types, like F4 and F8 fighters.

[Soreyes]

If I wanted to go into battle against a carrier I would have to go with the MIRV variant of of the Kzinti HDW. Gives you two Disr, 5 PH-1, 2 PH-3, a butt load of ADD, 1 MIRV rack and 5 B racks..... and 2 fighters. Not to mention that you have enough power to arm your weapons and fly at speed 30 with 3 ECM.

 I just get the enemy fighters to follow me and take em out 1 squadron at a time. Fire a MIRV into a squadron followed closely by 5 Type IV drones and most fighter Squadrons go Poof. except for ISC Torts, HYD Sting II, and FED F-14s

[Nemesis]

They'd never come across an Auxilary CVA so assumed that it was just a large freighter rigged to carry fighters, so adopted tactics solely for dealing with the fighters I was busy scrambling to attack them.

I concentrated all 16 x F4 fighters onto one F5, and this player cunningly led them a safe distance away, so that the other player could make a seemingly safe attack.

My drone racks opened up at point blank and he wasn't expecting a drone salvo, followed up with the Phasers and hit and run, first on the transporters and next on his beam weapons.

I then dumped out a cluster pack and sent him to Storbakol. Death in a mere matter of seconds.

Which is an excellent example of why you use probes on unfamiliar ships and assume that they have abilities they haven't used yet until proven otherwise.  Having an adjacent computer where you can look up the ships specs is an advantage for those who have it (not one that I use though).

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I have a question about Klingons: How to be more aggressive?

In a duel environment, most of the time I do the standard saber dance, and sometimes get an oblique phaser strike at range 8 or 4 -- like when the other player fires off proxies and is empty. But when the enemy chases, I usually turn off the dizzies and run at 31, putting power into the rear shield, phasers, and ECM. Then I try to fire ph1 at their front until it goes and they stop chasing.

However, I have a feeling that there is a more aggressive way to fly Klink, but I just don't know how. I would like to be a less conservative/passive pilot, with Klinks at least. Any suggestions?

[marstone]

They'd never come across an Auxilary CVA so assumed that it was just a large freighter rigged to carry fighters, so adopted tactics solely for dealing with the fighters I was busy scrambling to attack them.

I concentrated all 16 x F4 fighters onto one F5, and this player cunningly led them a safe distance away, so that the other player could make a seemingly safe attack.

My drone racks opened up at point blank and he wasn't expecting a drone salvo, followed up with the Phasers and hit and run, first on the transporters and next on his beam weapons.

I then dumped out a cluster pack and sent him to Storbakol. Death in a mere matter of seconds.

Which is an excellent example of why you use probes on unfamiliar ships and assume that they have abilities they haven't used yet until proven otherwise.  Having an adjacent computer where you can look up the ships specs is an advantage for those who have it (not one that I use though).

SFC probes are way differrent animal then SFB probes though.  SFC ones are a billion times more usefull.

[Nemesis]

SFC probes are way differrent animal then SFB probes though.  SFC ones are a billion times more usefull.

True but I assumed SFC based on his saying "My best victory, in a LAN skirmish,"

In any case SFB rule D17 has to do with intelligence. At a range of 14 the K-F5 could have read the number of heavy weapons and the number of phaser mounts (though not the type of mount) and number but not type of drone racks that are not in shuttle bays.

In SFB I used probe drones to gather such intelligence information from a longer distance. 

[marstone]

SFC probes are way differrent animal then SFB probes though.  SFC ones are a billion times more usefull.

True but I assumed SFC based on his saying "My best victory, in a LAN skirmish,"

In any case SFB rule D17 has to do with intelligence. At a range of 14 the K-F5 could have read the number of heavy weapons and the number of phaser mounts (though not the type of mount) and number but not type of drone racks that are not in shuttle bays.

In SFB I used probe drones to gather such intelligence information from a longer distance.

yes, but in SFB a probe only has a range of 6 so you only get a max of 6 hexes closer, not the SFC across the map.  So information is still hidden even after a probe is launched.  It helps, some, could change the course of an attack some.  But it doesn't give a ship break out like SFC does.

[Nemesis]

yes, but in SFB a probe only has a range of 6 so you only get a max of 6 hexes closer, not the SFC across the map.  So information is still hidden even after a probe is launched.  It helps, some, could change the course of an attack some.  But it doesn't give a ship break out like SFC does.

Probe drone.  It is a standard drone with the warhead replaced with a sensor package.  As I recall they could even relay information from one to another so you can launch them in series to gather data from longer distances. 

[marstone]

yes, but in SFB a probe only has a range of 6 so you only get a max of 6 hexes closer, not the SFC across the map.  So information is still hidden even after a probe is launched.  It helps, some, could change the course of an attack some.  But it doesn't give a ship break out like SFC does.

Probe drone.  It is a standard drone with the warhead replaced with a sensor package.  As I recall they could even relay information from one to another so you can launch them in series to gather data from longer distances.

probe drone yeah, wasn't thinking that way.  Quick check on rules, no, no relay ability on them.  But they do have a good range.  I do think that is what SFC bases their probe on (except for speed).

[Soreyes]

The thing I like about the SFC probe is, lets say that I come across a R-RKL and decide to attack in my DF. (ask Dizzy) As soon as the RKL spits out its plasma. I launch a probe at the RKL. For a few seconds I can see what tubes were launched and which ones are still holding there plasma. Gives me the chance to decide weather to continue my attack or to run like a scared little kitten

[MrBad151]

I have a question about Klingons: How to be more aggressive?

In a duel environment, most of the time I do the standard saber dance, and sometimes get an oblique phaser strike at range 8 or 4 -- like when the other player fires off proxies and is empty. But when the enemy chases, I usually turn off the dizzies and run at 31, putting power into the rear shield, phasers, and ECM. Then I try to fire ph1 at their front until it goes and they stop chasing.

However, I have a feeling that there is a more aggressive way to fly Klink, but I just don't know how. I would like to be a less conservative/passive pilot, with Klinks at least. Any suggestions?

If you want to really learn how to play a Klink, fly some of the early/mid era ships.  These ships are known as "Glass Arses" because they have almost bare min shielding on the rear half of the shields. 

About the best situation to be in, is flying in circles with another ship.  You will find that 90% of you weapons (including your heavy weapons) will hit him, while only 50-70% of you opponents weapons can hit you (and often times NOT his heavy weapons).

Feds.. Easy to learn.. easy to be good.. Almost impossible to master
Klinks.. Hard to learn.. hard to be good.. if you made it this far, there aren't many who can stand against you!

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

If you want to really learn how to play a Klink, fly some of the early/mid era ships.  These ships are known as "Glass Arses" because they have almost bare min shielding on the rear half of the shields. 

About the best situation to be in, is flying in circles with another ship.  You will find that 90% of you weapons (including your heavy weapons) will hit him, while only 50-70% of you opponents weapons can hit you (and often times NOT his heavy weapons).

Feds.. Easy to learn.. easy to be good.. Almost impossible to master
Klinks.. Hard to learn.. hard to be good.. if you made it this far, there aren't many who can stand against you!

Thanks. This sounds interesting. So the weak rear shields of the F5/D6/D7 force you to be aggressive? I guess this could work because in early era, there are no ships with those nasty swivel-mounted plasma-S pointing that could be a real threat to a chasing Klingon.

One concern -- what is keeping the other player from HETing and smacking me with overloaded photons or fusions? Let's just say the F-CA/K-D7 matchup.... does the Klink try to stay at range 15 while circling the opponent's rear, or get within range 8?

[Nemesis]

It isn't about being more aggressive but about using more finesse.  You have to use your advantage in maneuvering to keep the opponent from making a powerful attack on you while allowing your best attacks to hit him (the F5 and D6/7 hulls do their best along the 60^o right and left line).  Also you would not be closing in to his powerful photon/plasma ranges until his facing shields are worn to a frazzle. 

On that 60^o angle the D7 can fire all disruptor's, drones and 7 of the 9 phasers and as you turn away you can fire the remaining 2 aft phasers as well.  If you have maneuvered correctly against an F-CA you are hitting his 3, 4 or 5 shield and he can only fire some of his phasers and none of his photons. 

Maybe someone can point you to a more complete writeup of how the sabre dance is done. 

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

I have a question about Klingons: How to be more aggressive?

In a duel environment, most of the time I do the standard saber dance, and sometimes get an oblique phaser strike at range 8 or 4 -- like when the other player fires off proxies and is empty. But when the enemy chases, I usually turn off the dizzies and run at 31, putting power into the rear shield, phasers, and ECM. Then I try to fire ph1 at their front until it goes and they stop chasing.

However, I have a feeling that there is a more aggressive way to fly Klink, but I just don't know how. I would like to be a less conservative/passive pilot, with Klinks at least. Any suggestions?

If you want to really learn how to play a Klink, fly some of the early/mid era ships.  These ships are known as "Glass Arses" because they have almost bare min shielding on the rear half of the shields. 

About the best situation to be in, is flying in circles with another ship.  You will find that 90% of you weapons (including your heavy weapons) will hit him, while only 50-70% of you opponents weapons can hit you (and often times NOT his heavy weapons).

Feds.. Easy to learn.. easy to be good.. Almost impossible to master
Klinks.. Hard to learn.. hard to be good.. if you made it this far, there aren't many who can stand against you!

Klinks.  If you fly old school yeah hard to learn hard to be good.  But the drone anchor made Klinks very popular and made them fairly esy to fly when piloting ships able to fire more than than two drones.

Fortunately for me my last fleet (I was Gorn and Fed mostly in my dlyng days) was a decent Klink fleet and I learned how to sabre dance. It a very satisfying feeling to do it right.

[MrBad151]

It isn't about being more aggressive but about using more finesse.  You have to use your advantage in maneuvering to keep the opponent from making a powerful attack on you while allowing your best attacks to hit him (the F5 and D6/7 hulls do their best along the 60^o right and left line).  Also you would not be closing in to his powerful photon/plasma ranges until his facing shields are worn to a frazzle. 

On that 60^o angle the D7 can fire all disruptor's, drones and 7 of the 9 phasers and as you turn away you can fire the remaining 2 aft phasers as well.  If you have maneuvered correctly against an F-CA you are hitting his 3, 4 or 5 shield and he can only fire some of his phasers and none of his photons. 

Maybe someone can point you to a more complete writeup of how the sabre dance is done.

While I agree with 99% of what you said, I don't think you have to wait until his shield are worn to a frazzle.  That seems to imply that you must stay at range 15 until most of his shield are already gone.  Most decent players won't let you hang out at that range for that long. 

Remember the Disrupter might seem like a weaker weapon compared to the photon, but it isn't.  While the 9-15 range is probably the best for Klingons, even at 5-9 range the disrupters out do photons.  Yes, he can get lucky and nail you will 4 overloaded photons, but odds are that he won't, he will probably only hit you with 2 maybe 3.  While each turn you are hitting him with 3 to 4 of your disrupters.

On Klingon ships drones are more for tying up phasers than for anything else... I know, I can already hear the Klinks protesting.. but really thats about all they are good for.  While they newer ships have more drone racks, the extra drone racks are really just there to off set the new anti drone defenses ships have i.e. AMDs.

While the drone anchor seems like a really good tactic, it isn't all that great.  A good pilot can live through it and make the klink pay for trying it.

If a Fed or Hydran HETs, launch drones, drop a scatter pack if you have one, and hit Erratic Maneuvers.. and try not to let them get closer than range 5.  Hopefully you are keeping points in ECM.. his HET probably just cost him his points in ECCM.. so unless he get fairly lucky you will probably still give better than you receive.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I think it all comes down to what our personal version of the Saber Dance is. If there are cautious and aggressive players, I am the cautious one, so instead of circling and hitting the rear shields, I like to hang around range 15-22 and keep firing at their forward shield. My key strategy is to take that shield down so that they have to expose their hull to phaser and disruptor fire in order to point at me. It's natural for them to want to get to range 8 or closer, but if their #1 shield is gone, that makes it hard for them to keep up a chase when the Klingon can easily turn off the disruptors, fly at 31, and fire phasers backwards all day through that burned shield.

Since Klinks have great arcs and can fire almost all ph-1 through all six shields and disruptors through five shields (if D5, C7, etc), it actually means that Klingons have stronger shields because we can spread the damage across every shield -- the long-range battle is between their one forward shield and the Klingon's five shields, so the odds look pretty good. The lack of awesome Klingon arcs are actually why I think Lyrans are so hard to fly. While a Klink can fire most phasers in most directions, the Lyrans have so few pointing to the back and sides, so it's a lot harder to deal with aggressive pilots.

I agree with you about the drones, especially when they are slow drones like the kind in most standard multiplayer matches. They are mostly useful against someone who goes slow, or to influence the movement of a chasing opponent.

[MrBad151]

I think it all comes down to what our personal version of the Saber Dance is. If there are cautious and aggressive players, I am the cautious one, so instead of circling and hitting the rear shields, I like to hang around range 15-22 and keep firing at their forward shield. My key strategy is to take that shield down so that they have to expose their hull to phaser and disruptor fire in order to point at me. It's natural for them to want to get to range 8 or closer, but if their #1 shield is gone, that makes it hard for them to keep up a chase when the Klingon can easily turn off the disruptors, fly at 31, and fire phasers backwards all day through that burned shield.

Since Klinks have great arcs and can fire almost all ph-1 through all six shields and disruptors through five shields (if D5, C7, etc), it actually means that Klingons have stronger shields because we can spread the damage across every shield -- the long-range battle is between their one forward shield and the Klingon's five shields, so the odds look pretty good. The lack of awesome Klingon arcs are actually why I think Lyrans are so hard to fly. While a Klink can fire most phasers in most directions, the Lyrans have so few pointing to the back and sides, so it's a lot harder to deal with aggressive pilots.

I agree with you about the drones, especially when they are slow drones like the kind in most standard multiplayer matches. They are mostly useful against someone who goes slow, or to influence the movement of a chasing opponent.

Not to say your stratgey isn't a good one, obvously it must work for you, otherwise you wouldn't use it.  The problem I see, is if you meet up with someone else who is cautious.  In order to keep that range you must keep a superiors speed to mine.  The extra power I am not using on movement I put into specific reinforcement on my number 1 shield.  Everytime you fire and turn away, your recharging weapons are doing to drain your reinforcement.  I fire every time I see your rear shield.  Once I bring down your rear shield.. you can no longer keep the range.. no longer run..

Now that your primary strategy is no longer an option.. what are you going to do?

I have seen many Klinks die trying to break the Gorn Castle...(the Fed can castle.. but not nearly as well  ).  Not that the Gorn Castle can't be broken, but you have to be able to switch tactics and strategy.  Sometimes you can't be the cautious pilot.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I think it all comes down to what our personal version of the Saber Dance is. If there are cautious and aggressive players, I am the cautious one, so instead of circling and hitting the rear shields, I like to hang around range 15-22 and keep firing at their forward shield. My key strategy is to take that shield down so that they have to expose their hull to phaser and disruptor fire in order to point at me. It's natural for them to want to get to range 8 or closer, but if their #1 shield is gone, that makes it hard for them to keep up a chase when the Klingon can easily turn off the disruptors, fly at 31, and fire phasers backwards all day through that burned shield.

Since Klinks have great arcs and can fire almost all ph-1 through all six shields and disruptors through five shields (if D5, C7, etc), it actually means that Klingons have stronger shields because we can spread the damage across every shield -- the long-range battle is between their one forward shield and the Klingon's five shields, so the odds look pretty good. The lack of awesome Klingon arcs are actually why I think Lyrans are so hard to fly. While a Klink can fire most phasers in most directions, the Lyrans have so few pointing to the back and sides, so it's a lot harder to deal with aggressive pilots.

I agree with you about the drones, especially when they are slow drones like the kind in most standard multiplayer matches. They are mostly useful against someone who goes slow, or to influence the movement of a chasing opponent.

Not to say your stratgey isn't a good one, obvously it must work for you, otherwise you wouldn't use it.  The problem I see, is if you meet up with someone else who is cautious.  In order to keep that range you must keep a superiors speed to mine.  The extra power I am not using on movement I put into specific reinforcement on my number 1 shield.  Everytime you fire and turn away, your recharging weapons are doing to drain your reinforcement.  I fire every time I see your rear shield.  Once I bring down your rear shield.. you can no longer keep the range.. no longer run..

Now that your primary strategy is no longer an option.. what are you going to do?

I have seen many Klinks die trying to break the Gorn Castle...(the Fed can castle.. but not nearly as well  ).  Not that the Gorn Castle can't be broken, but you have to be able to switch tactics and strategy.  Sometimes you can't be the cautious pilot.

That is true, and my biggest problems have come from opponents who castle well. The trouble is closing with the castler...usually they are holding a crunchy ace up their sleeve like lot of plasma. The best I've been able to get from closing is a lot of damage on them, but the tougher ship (darned Gorn) make it through with maybe half hull left, and Klingon debris floating around. Or it might turn out with two gutted ships, but a Gorn with little power can castle a lot better than a power-ridden Klink can dance. This is why I am trying to learn to be more aggressive (at the right times!).

I try to avoid showing the rear shield (as long as they are slow, flying away with the 3 or 5 shield facing is good), and I usually have the reinforcement set to the rear shield, so the power from offline disruptors goes to back it up. Unfortunately, this reinforcement will never match that of a castling ship because I am also trying to move, and it means I am firing disruptors less than once a turn.

Sometimes I try to play on a large black hole map so it is tough for a castling ship to stay safe while slow, but I suppose that is kind of slimy  .

[KBF-Crim]

Speed is life

[Nemesis]

While I agree with 99% of what you said, I don't think you have to wait until his shield are worn to a frazzle.  That seems to imply that you must stay at range 15 until most of his shield are already gone.  Most decent players won't let you hang out at that range for that long. 

Among the advantages of the disruptor is that you can change its overload status quickly.  Your opponent if a Fed or Hydran can't.  They have to make a choice and stick with it for 2 turns at least.  You can on one pass come into that 9-15 range and jump back to 16 reducing his damage if he fires then compared to yours and if he overloaded he can't even fire his heavies.  The very next pass you can hit that 5-8 range and fire overloads jumping quickly back to the 9-15 range perhaps before he fires. 

Your opponent has to respond very quickly to fire in the same range category as you and he never knows if THIS pass you will be in overload range or not.

If he fires first he risks that you will close in and fry him seriously from close range.  If he fires late then he is firing at a worse category for damage.

To stop the tactic they don't have a lot of choices.  They can disengage.  They can turn off some weapons to get increased speed.  They can try to castle but the disruptor is very resistant to ECM.  Most opponents will hold on thinking you will slip up and that then one attack will equalize things.  Due to limitations on sensors they may not even realize how well your shields are holding up compared to theirs.

Remember the Disrupter might seem like a weaker weapon compared to the photon, but it isn't.

It loses a bit from SFB because if you worked it right in SFB you could fire it twice in a 8 impulse time frame hitting the same shield twice.  It is a powerful weapon when used right.  It is among the best at cloak piercing.  It is ECM resistant.  It also fires rapidly.  What it doesn't do is equal the heavy one shot punch of the Photon or Plasma.   You need multiple hits to get superiour damage and you need superiour damage as his ship is bigger. That is where finesse comes in. 

On Klingon ships drones are more for tying up phasers than for anything else... I know, I can already hear the Klinks protesting.. but really thats about all they are good for. 

There are different styles among those who fly Klingons.  There are those who fly the "drone boats" and there are those like myself who fly the mainline ships.  My preferences are K-F5/B/C/K/L/W/WK/WL or the K-D7/B/C/K/L.  Notice none of them are drone boats or specialty ships all are mainline or command vessels. 

Though the drones can do damage mostly they are just a damage sponge.

While the drone anchor seems like a really good tactic, it isn't all that great.  A good pilot can live through it and make the klink pay for trying it.

With mainline ships the drone anchor is almost useless.  Some ships can get away with it due to their total fire rate.  Drop a scatter pack, anchor follow up the scatterpack with a full barrage from the ship and pop another scatterpack and your opponent can be in serious trouble.  Not usually my style, it lacks finesse.

There are many good tactics.  One thing many fail at is remembering that your Disruptors have 3 settings, standard, overload and OFF.  There are times to use all 3.  Use the overload at the wrong time and your opponent will be faster and will close with you.  Use the off (on one or more banks) and you have excess power for speed or ECM.  Never forget that each of your banks can be at a different status.  You don't need to overload all, sometimes it is better to overload one bank while turning the 2nd off. 

If the opponent does take down your shield (or has fired all his weapons and has a weak or downed shield) a Klingon ship can be the master of the T-Bomb shower.  Planting 5 T-Bombs on an opponents downed shield can make them wish they hadn't knocked down your shield.  To do so most effectively you need to switch to the top down view (also useful for "threading the needle" between mines or asteroids).  The screams of pain from the recipient of a 5 T-Bomb mizia attack are quite pleasant to hear .

The typical Klingon vessel has a maneuvering advantage and a little more power as advantages against their enemy.  The disadvantage is they NEED to do a "one two punch" where due to the relative fragility of the Klingon hulls and heavier punch their opponents need only a single "knockout punch". 

The sabre dance is intended to weaken the enemy to where you can do the knockout punch while keeping them from using theirs against you. 

[KBF-Crim]

 Never assume your enemy lacks the will to take a bloody nose....

[MrBad151]

Woot! Great discussion!

Many Klinks are so concerned with the sabre dance they forget why thier ships have such great firing arcs.  You only need FA weapons to do the sabre dance...  So why do Klingon ships have such good firing arcs?  For the often forgotten part 2 to the sabre dance...  The knife fight!

The secret to an aggressive Klingon is switching from the Sabre Dance to the Knife fight at the right time.  Unlike a lot of ships Klingon ships have a lot of weapons the don't show up on the SSD.  Like Nemesis mentioned T-bombs, and Hit and Run raids.  Klingons tend to have more transporters then comparable sized ships of other races.

I'm not sure I agree with "Fragility" statement.  It might seems that way since Klingon are always getting hit with large amounts a damage at one time, but personally I think klingons take damage as well as, if not better than most other races. 

Take a Gorn and a Klingon, both lose one heavy weapon due to damage.  The Gorn loses say 30 points of Plasma damage, and possibly the 3 turns he spent arming it.  While the Klingon only loses 5 points of disrupter damage and at most the 1 turn spent arming it.  The Gorn damage output from that point on is considerably less while the Klingons is only slightly reduced.  Also because of the superior firing arcs on a klingon ship they are less affected by losing weapons.  For many races losing 2 phasers might mean not being able to fire in a direct at all.. but for a Klingon, it just means he is firing 3 phasers instead of 5.

I will agree that disrupters are somewhat ECM resistant..  depending on what you mean by resistant.  The are far less effected by ECM than photons are, but still can find that even a single shift can cause them to start missing far more often then hitting.  The only direct fire heavy weapons that I would say are REALLY ECM resistant are the Hellbore and the PPD.  Phasers are also fairly ECM resistant especially at shorter ranges.

[Nemesis]

Unlike a lot of ships Klingon ships have a lot of weapons the don't show up on the SSD.

Even the lowly attack probe can be a battle changer at times.   Hit and run a Romulans only R Torp and even in space you can hear them scream. 

I'm not sure I agree with "Fragility" statement.  It might seems that way since Klingon are always getting hit with large amounts a damage at one time, but personally I think klingons take damage as well as, if not better than most other races. 

As a former SFB player I know the Klingons are more fragile.  They have fewer total systems boxes to absorb damage.  The DAC (damage allocation chart) also awards more damage to forward hull of which the Klingon D6/7 hull only has 4 boxes and once those boxes are gone start hitting more important systems.   Fewer systems and important systems hit sooner make them more fragile in fact.

I will agree that disrupters are somewhat ECM resistant..  depending on what you mean by resistant.  The are far less effected by ECM than photons are, but still can find that even a single shift can cause them to start missing far more often then hitting.  The only direct fire heavy weapons that I would say are REALLY ECM resistant are the Hellbore and the PPD.  Phasers are also fairly ECM resistant especially at shorter ranges.

Agreed they aren't the most resistant but they are better than some.  Overloaded disruptor's make short work of cloaked vessels (Hellbores do it quicker still) for example. 

The knife fight is something that needs to be done with as much care as the sabre dance itself.  Especially vs Fusion/Gatling armed Hydrans and the forest of Ph III aboard most Kzinti.  It must be timed right and the correct range for the opponent used. 

Never assume your enemy lacks the will to take a bloody nose....

Most are willing to close but lack the patience to properly handle a sabre dancer.  Many will tend to believe the dancer fears a bloody nose, those ones tend to fire first eventually giving the gap in their offensive fire power allowing you to close to knife fighting range and rip them apart. 

Always the attack mode must adapt to the enemy capabilites, both of the ship and the commander.

[MrBad151]

Having played my share of SFB, I don't remember the klinks being that fragile.  Klingons has security boxes that could be used a hull hits, extra transporters meant they didn't run out, thus forcing more important systems to be destroyed.  If I remember correctly the one area the Klinks were weak on, and the feds had an over abundance of were labs. 

Just because a system is destroyed, doesn't mean the fighting capabilities of that ship are reduced by the same amount for all races.  Destroy a Roumlans only R-Torp, and his fighting capabilities are far more reduced than destroying a single Disrupter on a Klingon ship.  Losing an S-Torp hurts a Gorn far more than it does a Klingon to lose a Drone rack.

Can a Klingon ship take as many internals as say a Fed or Gorn? No, but their fighting capability is reduced less per system lost than many other races.

[marstone]

Actually Security Stations were hit on Flag bridge hits.  So they didn't pad much.  Gorns had the best padding with all the center hull they have.  Klingons were the worst. 

But Klingons also had alot of semi-good weapons so a loss of a few wasn't as bad.  Say a Klink loss two phasers, they would be a P-3 or P-2, but a unrefitted Fed CA would loss two P-1's.  1/3 of it's phasers.

But in the long run, Mizzia really hurt a Klink.  As those row one hull's didn't take long to remove.

[MrBad151]

You guys are counting "X"s on a SSD.   I am talking about a ships ability to fight despite those "X"'s.  I have seem many a Fed go down in flames even though the Klink took more "X"s simply because he couldn't get the Klink into a non destroyed weapons firing arc, while the Klink kept shooting with crossdeck firing phasers.  The Klink was able to out maneuver a the Fed well enough to stay out of his remaining firing arcs while using his own superior firing arcs to continue the battle.

I do concede the Flag bridge/security station point.. its been a very long time since I have played SFB.

Although... it does bring up a question I have been meaning to ask.  Why are there still double internals in SFC?  I would have thought someone would have modded/patched them out.  Is it not possible or just not desired? 

Way back when I heard that SFC went with double internals to make the battles last longer, but having played PvPer games that lasted over 1 hour and some going 1.5 hours, I always wondered if that was really wise.  I always thought double internals allowed players to be far more bold than they really should have been.  I have seen a Fed chase down a fully armed plasma ship knowing the internals he would take wouldn't cripple him and as long as he could catch the  plasma ship he had a good chance of winning.  A 30 pt plasma in SFB was far more terrifying than a 30 pt plasma in SFC.  5 Points of internals in SFC may not even destroy a single system, while 5 internals in SFB destroyed 5 systems!  That is a huge difference.

I have often wondered which race took the biggest hit from this, generally I have to lean towards the Klingons as they typically have more firing opprotunities at a down shield, and their weapons do less damage.  If I hit your ship with a disrupter... I might not even destroy a single system, while if I hit you ship with a plasma, I will destroy something, even if it just a few hull.

[Lieutenant_Q]

Plasma races took the biggest hit with Dbl internals.  The reload time of their plasma torpedoes is too long to make up the loss in damage.  The crunch of the weapon is lost.  Even a Plasma F with single internals could seriously ruin someone's day.  Fire it into a weakened shield and that is going to leave a mark.  But in SFC, I don't even consider an incoming F worth the WW.  Yes its going to do some damage.  But at worst, I'm going to lose one weapon, or a couple of warp boxes.

Honestly, I'd hate to see real Andros done with Dbl internals.

[Nemesis]

You guys are counting "X"s on a SSD.   I am talking about a ships ability to fight despite those "X"'s.  I have seem many a Fed go down in flames even though the Klink took more "X"s simply because he couldn't get the Klink into a non destroyed weapons firing arc, while the Klink kept shooting with crossdeck firing phasers.  The Klink was able to out maneuver a the Fed well enough to stay out of his remaining firing arcs while using his own superior firing arcs to continue the battle.

With every refit the advantage in the # of weapons the Klingons had declined.

The D7 starts with 15 weapons and adds an ADD to take it to 16.  The Fed CA starts with 10 weapons and as earlier pointed out gains 6 bringing it to equal number of weapons and improving its overall coverage. 

Having played my share of SFB, I don't remember the klinks being that fragile.  Klingons has security boxes that could be used a hull hits, extra transporters meant they didn't run out, thus forcing more important systems to be destroyed.  If I remember correctly the one area the Klinks were weak on, and the feds had an over abundance of were labs.

Looking at the DAC the Transporters are destroyed on a 4 as the 2nd non repeatable hit after phasers.  Not much help there and it means no one ran out quickly on their cruisers, not even the Feds.

On a 7 after F.Hull is gone it hits battery, shuttle APR, Lab, Phaser then any warp engine.  In SFC each of those hits is important to the D7.  The F-CA is cushioned from those hits for sometime and has more of at least some of them. 

6 on the DAC also being F.Hull meant that the quick loss of F.Hull was further compounded and continued hits were on impulse, lab and Left Warp.  All these are important systems in SFC and only the lab was not in SFB.  Again the F-CA was cushioned.

Before someone mentions that 8 hits A.Hull and hurts the Feds remember that it is the only common roll that hits A.Hull whereas both 6 and 7 hit F.Hull compounding the damage from the point of view of the Klingon but not the Feds.

I would love to see a patch whereby the direction of fire affected hull damage.  Hit a Klingon through their weak (in the base model) aft shields and you hit the stronger hull.  Hit a Fed the same way and the hull is fragile and more important damage is hit easier.  Directional damage is applied to phasers why not hull?

[Nemesis]

With our discussion of relative ability to take damage we actually expose one of the weaknesses of SFB.  Later designed races took into account experience with the existing races and customized them to avoid weaknesses in older ship designs and their weapons were designed to take those weaknesses into account. 

Consider the Hydrans.  Strong center hull so they are protected the longest versus the 3 most common rolls.  Their major enemy is the Klingon Empire and their major weapon is designed to hit the Klingons ships in their greatest weakness - the glass rear shields.

It is unfortunate that SFB didn't tell the designers "get stuffed with your super ships". 

[marstone]

I don't just look at the X's on the SSD, I flew Klingon for years in SFB, Fed was my second race.  Klingons take damage worse overall, they are better flying ships so help to balance it out.  But once damage rolls in, you just watch your weapons get stripped.  I agree, lossing a few weapons on a klingon isn't then of the world like lossing the main torp on the Roms or Gorns (but then they had 8 impulses to fire even after it was destroyed, so stripping a plasma off didn't always save you from being hit by it)

The weaknesses of the Klingons was something I liked to play around.  Take a scanner or sensor hit on a klink and it usually hurt, take a moderate blow past your shields and vital systems started to fry. (on the other hand, Disruptors were fairly cheap to repair with CDR).

I am not sure how close the DAC works in SFC compared to SFB as you don't truely get to see an SSD as damage rolls in.  Wonder where the DAC chart is stored in SFC??? hmmm

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I am not sure how close the DAC works in SFC compared to SFB as you don't truely get to see an SSD as damage rolls in.  Wonder where the DAC chart is stored in SFC??? hmmm

Kind of unrelated, but I think it would be great to be able to see your ships SSD in-game, so you would know how many hull boxes, labs, and excess damage you had left. Wonder why they didn't do this in the first place, beside being more work? Even just a text list could be useful. For example, it could say: Labs 7 (current) / 8 (normal). Right now, beyond the cryptic hull meter and the weapons, there's not much to gauge a ships condition on. 

My take on Klingon hull fragility is that Klingons fight best undamaged, with all of their power (duh statement - who doesn't?). But as their engines take damage, they can no longer keep up the SPEED. Other races can lose a lot of engine power and still be effective -- a Romulan who still has enough power to sit there, cloak, and arm heavy plasma is still a real pain even if it is damaged. But since Klingons rely on speed so much, a good amount of damage that keeps them from moving fast is critical.

[marstone]

I think they didn't do the full SSD since it would be very crowded on the small area they display it.

[MrBad151]

I would be interested in knowing how many internals it takes to destroy a D-7 vs Fed CA in SFC, not counting shields.

Since I like to fly plasma races I often thought they took the biggest hit because of double internals, but I am not so sure.  If you do 30 points or even 20, you know you will at least destroy one system.  You could fire a disrupter 2 or 3 times and not actually destroy anything.  Where the plasma races really got hurt in SFC is the fact that you can change speeds at will, unlike SFB, where your ability to change speeds was extremely limited. Another Facet of SFC that hurt plasma races is the fact that plasma always follow.. not necessarily taking the shortest route to the target.  So overall the plasma races may have taken the biggest hit in SFC.. but not necessarily because of double internals.

Another point I would like to add to the Klinks taking a huge hit with double internals is the fact that in SFC people aren't scared of running up and doing an alpha strike.  Disrupters just don't bite that hard in SFC, and you can unload on a klink and fly away in pretty good shape, add to that all the repair parts you can have on a ship and there is nothing keeping you for chasing down a Klink.  In SFB it seemed battle were fought a lot more at a distance, where Klingons tend to excel over many races.

In SFB you thought twice and perhaps three times before you turned a weaken shield towards your enemy.  The thought of your enemy taking a pot shot at a weak shield and scoring a few internals (thus destroying a few systems) was enough to influence how you moved your ship.  In SFC a couple of internals aren't that scary.  More than likely you won't even lose a single systems, so a weakened shield doesn't really affect your movement all that much.  Obviously in SFC if you have a down rear shield you won't want to spend a lot of time running, but it wouldn't keep you from showing your weakened rear screen for a short time while you spin around.  Even this effects the Klingons more than a lot of other races.  In SFB, fed might be weary about showing a weakened shield to a Kliink at a range of 15 knowing that those disrupters could probably knock down his shield and destroy a few, perhaps critical system, not so in SFC.   So Klingons have a harder time influencing how others fly their ships in SFC than they did in SFB, which takes away, somewhat, from their own superior maneuverability.

[marstone]

double internals hits the plasma races hardest, because of the damage chart and the first column hits, a large volley (plasma) would stun lots of systems but may not double up on many.  But, the disruptor being fired many times would take out weapons because of hitting the same die roll more often on different small volleys.

[Nemesis]

double internals hits the plasma races hardest, because of the damage chart and the first column hits, a large volley (plasma) would stun lots of systems but may not double up on many.  But, the disruptor being fired many times would take out weapons because of hitting the same die roll more often on different small volleys.

Add the regeneration system and it hurts the Klingons more.  I've repeatedly had times in a K-D7 against an I-CA where after doing in excess of 200 internals the I-CA never lost a weapon or enough power to slow it down. 

[MrBad151]

After doing a bit a research, it seems Taldren went with the SFB DAC... unaltered.  Which is rather suprising.  I would have thought they would, at the very least, changed the first row to "hit twice", to counter having double internals.  Apparently it by design that large volleys would do mostly Hull and engine damage and very little of anything else. 

I guess it makes some since that a plasma race would want to do engine damage, to slow their opponent, thus making it easier to hit them the next time.  It doesn't make a lot of since to do 130 internals to a ship and only take out 2 systems. 

An article I read said the people had done a bit of testing and found that a Hydran could hit a Fed CA for 130 pts of internals and only destroy 2 or 3 systems.  The article was written sometime after EAW came out but before OP.  The author had asked Kothozoth (what ever Magnum mans company's name is) if that was going to be changed in a patch.  Magnum responded," No, it was as the designers intended."  According to the article doing 8-10 pts was the optimal damage to maximize the Miza effect.

Nemesis, as to why it didn't slow the I-CA down, I can't say.  I would have thought that with a 200 pt volley, you would have done lots of Hull and Engine damage as intended, but perhaps you wiped out every other system you can't see, i.e. Labs, transporters, bridge.

Considering how the DAC effects large volleys I am going to have to swing my voted back to plasma races being hurt more by the Double internals.  Here is what Plasma races are up against.

1. Acceleration- ships can accelerate away at anytime from Plasma torps thus reducing the damage taken.

2. Double Internals reduce the "crunch" power of a plasma torp compared to other weapons.

3. Large volleys do mostly Hull and engine damage while leaving most weapon systems untouched.

4. Compounding #3, engine damage slowly repairs its self at no cost in power or  repair parts, engine damage can also be sped up by using repair parts.

You would think that with the above mentioned handicaps that it would be almost a deal breaker for races that use plasmas and render ships that rely on plasma for their primary heavy weapon totally worthless. Considering the above, Romulan ships should be unplayable.  While Gorn have lots of phasers to off set plasmas, Romulans have to rely very heavily on plasmas.  I am left wondering if there is something we are not taking into consideration...

 I can tell you that I have fought and either won or held my own against some of the best pilots this game has seen while I was flying a Gorn ship.  I have flown a Gorn ship against Magnumman-icop, iceman, topdog, Frey, shadowlord, and a few other Klinks, with impossible to remember names.  I can't say I beat them all, but I at least held my own.

Something I should add, the article I read said EAW used the SFB DAC, but didn't say how they "knew" that for sure.  I can't really see how they could test it since you can't see  most of the systems on a ship or even see most of the systems being hit.  It could be they just assumed SFC used the same DAC, and it doesn't.  Even if SFC doesn't use the SFB DAC it would appear it uses something similar from the way damage is allowed small volley vs large volley.

[Nemesis]

Nemesis, as to why it didn't slow the I-CA down, I can't say.  I would have thought that with a 200 pt volley, you would have done lots of Hull and Engine damage as intended, but perhaps you wiped out every other system you can't see, i.e. Labs, transporters, bridge.

A D7 can't do 200 pts in one volley.  It is during a long slow battle, hit after hit totaling in excess of 200 pts.  I believe the "stuns" regenerate so by the next time you hit the same system it has healed.

An article I read said the people had done a bit of testing and found that a Hydran could hit a Fed CA for 130 pts of internals and only destroy 2 or 3 systems.  The article was written sometime after EAW came out but before OP.  The author had asked Kothozoth (what ever Magnum mans company's name is) if that was going to be changed in a patch.  Magnum responded," No, it was as the designers intended."  According to the article doing 8-10 pts was the optimal damage to maximize the Miza effect.

Four suicide fusion beams at range 0 on the #4 shield of a K-D6 (unrefitted) can destroy it.  I've done it.

[MrBad151]

OK, I thought "stun" was a temporary state weapons were in for a short time after being hit.  The Icon would flash for a few seconds and you were not able to fire the weapon.  I thought a hit could do one of 3 things, 1. damage a weapon (turn it yellow) but it still worked. 2. Damage and stun a weapon (cause it flash yellow for a few seconds and render it inoperative for a few seconds then the icon turned yellow) afterwards it would be still work.  3.  Destroy a weapon (doing 2 pts of damage or the second point of damage) and turn it black.

[Nemesis]

OK, I thought "stun" was a temporary state weapons were in for a short time after being hit.  The Icon would flash for a few seconds and you were not able to fire the weapon.  I thought a hit could do one of 3 things, 1. damage a weapon (turn it yellow) but it still worked. 2. Damage and stun a weapon (cause it flash yellow for a few seconds and render it inoperative for a few seconds then the icon turned yellow) afterwards it would be still work.  3.  Destroy a weapon (doing 2 pts of damage or the second point of damage) and turn it black.

In SFC with double internals the first hit stuns it and the 2nd destroys it.  The stunning effect being temporary is fine but if that first point of damage is erased too rapidly the Klingon with the sabre dance is greatly affected as the time to make the next hit to destroy it allows the first hit to be erased before the 2nd finishes the job.  That is what seems to happen to me when fighting the ISC ships.  The Romulan with its much greater punch may well manage to with one shot hit a system with enough damage to destroy the system instead of merely "stun it". 

[Soreyes]

Never assume your enemy lacks the will to take a bloody nose....

When I first started playing SFC. I got some very good advice from Fluff, Green and Matts. It went something like this.

"I'll take a Bloody Nose to crack your skull" 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

OK, I thought "stun" was a temporary state weapons were in for a short time after being hit.  The Icon would flash for a few seconds and you were not able to fire the weapon.  I thought a hit could do one of 3 things, 1. damage a weapon (turn it yellow) but it still worked. 2. Damage and stun a weapon (cause it flash yellow for a few seconds and render it inoperative for a few seconds then the icon turned yellow) afterwards it would be still work.  3.  Destroy a weapon (doing 2 pts of damage or the second point of damage) and turn it black.

In SFC with double internals the first hit stuns it and the 2nd destroys it.  The stunning effect being temporary is fine but if that first point of damage is erased too rapidly the Klingon with the sabre dance is greatly affected as the time to make the next hit to destroy it allows the first hit to be erased before the 2nd finishes the job.  That is what seems to happen to me when fighting the ISC ships.  The Romulan with its much greater punch may well manage to with one shot hit a system with enough damage to destroy the system instead of merely "stun it".

This is scary news! I never knew that the first point of damage disappeared after a while. As if doubled internals weren't enough, there are partially regenerating doubled internals?!?! (partially because at least things like hull or lab do not regenerate over time)

[Nemesis]

This is scary news! I never knew that the first point of damage disappeared after a while. As if doubled internals weren't enough, there are partially regenerating doubled internals?!?! (partially because at least things like hull or lab do not regenerate over time)

Notice I did say "but if that first point of damage is erased".  This is what appears to happen often when I fight the I-CA with a K-D7, I haven't had the same difficulty with other ships.  It may be because of the difference in firepower/size being enough that I just can't inflict the same damage quickly enough that it shows up.  A ship with more "punch" does not seem to have the same issue.

[Panzergranate]

It is fine to toatl up the firepower of the various ships in SFB and SFC, but nobody has mentioned that the FOCUS of the available firepower onto a victim from a particular facing of the ship.

Klingon warships have excelent forward facing weaponry, allowing for maximum first pass damage on chosen victims and other prey.... the skill comes in not suffering any significant damage from the victim during said first pass.

[FPF-DieHard]

Speed is life

Not always . . .

[FPF-DieHard]

I would be interested in knowing how many internals it takes to destroy a D-7 vs Fed CA in SFC, not counting shields.

With D2 loadouts it takes about 250 internals to kill a cruiser unless you have MASSIVE damage in one volley.   This assumes the standard 10 spare part in a battle lasting at least 10 minutes.

[FPF-DieHard]

It is fine to toatl up the firepower of the various ships in SFB and SFC, but nobody has mentioned that the FOCUS of the available firepower onto a victim from a particular facing of the ship.

Klingon warships have excelent forward facing weaponry, allowing for maximum first pass damage on chosen victims and other prey.... the skill comes in not suffering any significant damage from the victim during said first pass.

Correct, but that advantage is minimized when you only have 3 ships in a Fleet as opposed to 12 in SFB.

[Panzergranate]

Unless you're flying a "fast" warship with plenty of spare engine power, speed is crippling and reduces firepower.... unless one is a dishonourable Kzinti hiding behind drone racks.

For Romulan early tech players, look speed up in a dictionary or ask non- early tech Rommie players about it.

Some ships, like the Klingon F5Y, have only Disrupters which eat power, not forgetting the cloaking device, so speed is a problem if one wants to shoot back.

I usually fly at Speed 19 but drop to Speed 9 once the victim is ready for the final coup-de-grace.

Speed 19 allows for enough power to charge all weapons, boost shields, etc. and is high enough to jump to a higher speed to outrun Speed 22 and 32 drones.

The turning arc is OK at these speeds too.

[Age]

Never assume your enemy lacks the will to take a bloody nose....

Yours would bleed the hardest.

Speed is life

That all depends on who your oppenent is with stock 2552 or OP+ shiplist.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Speed is definitely nice most of the time!

Say you're flying Klink, and the other player is a Hydran. We know that Hydrans have great crunch potential and durable hulls, while Klingons don't have either. If the fastest the Hydran can go is 24 while holding overloads, it makes since to go faster than them so they don't chase you down and close the range. It would be suicide to hang around at slow speeds and let the Hydran get close because in this example, they would CRUSH the Klink badly.

It's a similar situation with defending from plasma ... yes, you can weasel or reinforce, but the first is limited and can be countered by an anchor, and the second really doesn't work for other reasons. The best choice is avoiding the plasma with speed. The exception would be to take a plasma hit (the bloody nose) in order to do more damage and turn the tide of a match.

[Tus-XC]

bah... i likes going nice and slow w/ me rommies (WE, KE, KVL)... if i didn't i could drive my opponenet insane w/ the constant cloak - decloak - cloak - decloak...

[Nemesis]

It is fine to toatl up the firepower of the various ships in SFB and SFC, but nobody has mentioned that the FOCUS of the available firepower onto a victim from a particular facing of the ship.

Klingon warships have excelent forward facing weaponry, allowing for maximum first pass damage on chosen victims and other prey.... the skill comes in not suffering any significant damage from the victim during said first pass.

Actually I did

On that 60^o angle the D7 can fire all disruptor's, drones and 7 of the 9 phasers and as you turn away you can fire the remaining 2 aft phasers as well.  If you have maneuvered correctly against an F-CA you are hitting his 3, 4 or 5 shield and he can only fire some of his phasers and none of his photons.

[Nemesis]

Unless you're flying a "fast" warship with plenty of spare engine power, speed is crippling and reduces firepower.... unless one is a dishonourable Kzinti hiding behind drone racks.

As I've said before your disruptor's have 3 settings, other heavy weapons have at least as many settings.  One of those settings is OFF.  There are tactical reasons to fly with some weapons disabled and phaser recharge rate at less than 100%.

For Romulan early tech players, look speed up in a dictionary or ask non- early tech Rommie players about it.

I quite like the R-BH myself, one of my favourites.  I've flown the R-WB against an F-CA (and won).  How important speed is, is variable.  For some ships it isn't important at least against some enemies. 

When flying Romulan I use ALL the plasma settings.  Enveloping, shotgun and most importantly UNDERLOADING.  If you don't then you are missing a significant part of the potential firepower of the ship. 

Some ships, like the Klingon F5Y, have only Disrupters which eat power, not forgetting the cloaking device, so speed is a problem if one wants to shoot back.

The K-F5Y is a bastard ship that shouldn't exist.  It should dump the disruptor's either for a longer term arming weapon (Photon or Plasma F) or for special sensors and be a scout.  The cloak combined with disruptor's is STUPID.

[Age]

Some ships, like the Klingon F5Y, have only Disrupters which eat power, not forgetting the cloaking device, so speed is a problem if one wants to shoot back.

The K-F5Y is a bastard ship that shouldn't exist.  It should dump the disruptor's either for a longer term arming weapon (Photon or Plasma F) or for special sensors and be a scout.  The cloak combined with disruptor's is STUPID.

That is why I always change mine to photons.

[Panzergranate]

I agree, I've only flown the F5Y a few times and the lack of Phasers is more than an agravating Achille's Heel. In a one off skirmish LAN scenario to capture a Hydran Listening Post Freighter (see the ADB SSD site), I didn't even manage to fire the Disrupters more than once before the Hydran's fighter complement took me out. Lack of Phasers was the problem in more ways than one.

The weak Disrupters, on the F5Y, couldn't even penetrate the un-reinforced shields of the H-LPF, and can only just make a point or two damage through only small freighters of any race, unless the target player decides to reinforce the target shield.

So, the F5Y is kind of pointless and useless for any role in SFB and SFC.

Just try setting up a FMSE scenario with an F5Y versus one or more small and large freighters.... and prepare to be frustrated.

The K2 scout, which fannon has apparently as the alledged "Small Klingon scout vessel", in one TOS episode shown as a whirling light show in the distance, because of ECM jamming, lacks both cloak, Disrupters and a meaningful amount of Phasers (a few PH 2), relying on strong ECM for defence.... which doesn't really workout in practice.

The F5S scout sorely needs a cloak, but does have Phasers.

The F6S, as the SSD given on the PHD website, is probally the best scout option prior to the BOP's debue, carrying Disrupters in the top engine nachelle.

Actually, the F5Y isn't even much of a threat, so isn't even worth firing at, in a large battle, unless one has run out of viable targets.

[Julin Eurthyr]

This is scary news! I never knew that the first point of damage disappeared after a while. As if doubled internals weren't enough, there are partially regenerating doubled internals?!?! (partially because at least things like hull or lab do not regenerate over time)

Notice I did say "but if that first point of damage is erased".  This is what appears to happen often when I fight the I-CA with a K-D7, I haven't had the same difficulty with other ships.  It may be because of the difference in firepower/size being enough that I just can't inflict the same damage quickly enough that it shows up.  A ship with more "punch" does not seem to have the same issue.

As far as I know, the only things that regenerate "free" are engines (approx. 1 box every 2-4 turns) and shields (rates based on labs).

"Stun points" don't.

However, there are "features" in the repair system that can mess with someone's head.  As a veteran ISC pilot, I know of quite a few ways to "stretch out" an I-CAx series hull's "survivability"...

1.  The "stealth hull", aka the shuttlebay.  The shuttlebay pads a few important rows on the DAC after hull is gone but before you really start gutting a ton of weapons.  A single screw can repair the entire 6 box shuttlebay of the "combat" I-CA family, restoring 12 more "padding" points to protect the ship.  Shuttle bay repairs are also fairly quick.

2.  Take advantage of the "phaser priority rule".  All I-CA variants from W on up (W,P,Y,Z) carry 3xPh-3 on each side in a single hardpoint per side.  The first 8 phaser hits will take out an entire Ph-3 bank and a Ph-1 bank (if the shots come in through shield 6 that commonly takes out the LS Ph-3 bank and the LF Ph-1 bank).  Repairing those 2 banks quickly enough will protect the remaining Phaser banks on the I-CA hull, requiring another 8 phaser hits to knock them off again.

3.  (Ab)use the "hardpoint repair system".  This one is more commonly used on the CC family (especially the "stock" design with both PPDs on one hardpoint) but is also applicable to the I-CA.  The PPD is the second longest weapon to repair in the game (behind the Pl-R), and the CC's twinned PPD hardpoint is the single-longest repairing heavy weapon hardpoint in the game.  As the repair system keeps the hardpoint in "repair mode" for the "full duration" whether completely restoring the hardpoint or just cleaning one stun damage off of it, tossing a repair onto a "stunned" PPD just before it takes a second hit will make it "invulnerable" for the full repair cycle, but it will remain fully functional during the entire timeframe.

[Panzergranate]

Actually, APR, AWR, BTTY, Lab, Sensors, Scanners, Impulse and Warp are all freebe repairs.

Having a repair strategy is just as important as the game strategy. Damage Control is about managing all those lucky hits your assailants managed to score on your ship.

If short of magic screws, I tend to pool weapons repairs on one side of the ship so that I can at least have the ability to have some concentrated firepower in some direction.

I've also noticed that systems under repair can be hit and destroyed, so sometimes it is better to wait until the onslaught, say a Drone wall is over with, then start with the repairs.

Another strategy, in a multi-player game, is playing  a "Ptarmigan Bluff", where like the wild fowl, one delays any repairs for several minutes, makes a bogus attempt to disengage, which gives the enemy a chance to scan the vessel and see all those blacked out weapons systems.

The enemy will ususall, if sensible concentrate their fire on the more combat viable allies that pose a real threat. The enemy will believe that they'll be able to catch up and make a kill or capture later.

One can then start handing out the magic screws and make repairs, before making a surprise return to the battle.

I've played it a couple of times and have seen it played in both SFB and SFC LAN games.

In SFB, it plays on abusing the enemy's use of "Tactical Intelligence" rules, though in SFB one is pretending that there is no Damage Control Teams left onboard or that the damage has overwhelmed the surviving Damage Control teams. In SFC, that one has run out of materials for repair.

 

[Age]

Actually, APR, AWR, BTTY, Lab, Sensors, Scanners, Impulse and Warp are all freebe repairs.

I wouldn't say Warp is freebie repair as you have to use parts to repair your warp engines and it take more than one depending damage.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Lab, Sensors, Scanners, ... are all freebe repairs.

Just wondering, how do you know that these three systems repair automatically like the power systems? I don't like how labs, sensors, and scanners are "invisible" while you are in a match, and you can't repair them with the magic screws (although sensors show up on the repair panel in SFC2 and OP).

Is there a way we can test this? Maybe taking a 4-lab ship with a bunch of damage, waiting a while for the labs to come back, and then seeing if the shields come back as quickly as normal after the labs have had a chance to be fully repaired.

[Nemesis]

Actually, APR, AWR, BTTY, Lab, Sensors, Scanners, Impulse and Warp are all freebe repairs.

I wouldn't say Warp is freebie repair as you have to use parts to repair your warp engines and it take more than one depending damage.

Power systems definitely do regenerate.  You can repair them as well but given time they do self repair.

[KBF-Crim]

Dont forget guys...some things...are simply a result of the translation to real time crossed with the limitations of human programing...

[Panzergranate]

I've already seen the shields repair after 10 minutes due to Lab repairing itself in a game many times over.

However, there does seem to be a set order of self repair with Lab repairs coming way down the list. I've noticed that Lab doesn't seem to repair until after full engine power is restored.

It needs further experimentation to figure out what is actually going on, but I figure that Damage Control operates in a similar fashion as in SFB, with the priority that a player would logically assign to repairs being automated.

Damage Control does seem to also be capable of being destroyed. I've had instances where ships with low Damage Control ratings just remain as unrepaired hulks, even when I'm flying the affected ship.

The rate of repair also seems to vary suggesting that the automated Damage Control can itself suffer and be affected by battle damage so is a valid hit location in SFC.

The "Magic Screws" may be just a way for a player to have some limited prioritising powers over the automated Damage Control system.