Topic: Anyone care to talk tactics?

[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.