A New Universe for ACTA's

[Da Boss]

I can see several issues with a hidden cloak.

1) When we did a Star Trek conversion of Full Thrust many years ago, we had hidden cloaks with plotted movement. Over a couple of turns, it was quite easy to get completely lost. By plotting movement by eye, the end result could be wildly inaccurate. Obviously a simpler more abstract system would be neccesary- hovever not so abstract to make the opposing player feel cheated ("How did you get over there and turn around?!!") .

Yes I recall that vividly My Klingon ships tended to end up off the table when they de-cloaked and that was with only a couple of ships each!

Simple is often the best way so we can concentrate on blowing things up!

 

[godsgopher]

While I think some kind of advanced Rule for Invisible movement would be very cool. The practical side of it could get a little involved. Were I standing across from a player who wanted to use such a rule, I would insist on nothing less than they write down each turns move...

Turn 3: Move 4 ahead, Turn right 45, move 2, turn right, move 4.
Turn 4: Move ahead 10
Turn 5: Move ahead 5, turn 45 left.

Then they would have to show it to me when they de-cloaked. Its not an undo-able thing but its time consuming doing this for more than a small handful of ships. And ultimately impractical for faster game play involved 10+ ships.

But you obviously can't shoot at such a cloaked ship, or much of anything. Anyway all good ideas.

 

[AdrianH]

How about this:

During setup, declare which ships are cloaked. Thereafter, use a special action "Engage Cloak", which takes effect in the End Phase and means the ship is cloaked next turn.

Cloaked ships move after all uncloaked ships. They also have Stealth. (Count this as being built into the Cloak trait, so if you lose Cloak you don't still have Stealth.) Cloaked ships can not attack or be attacked.

A special action "Detect Cloaked Ship", requiring a high CQ to pass, means the target is uncloaked for the purpose of movement only. It must move in normal initiative order. It can be attacked, though it still has Stealth. But its cloak is still up so it can not shoot back.

This doesn't need the advanced book-keeping needed for true invisibility, but is still better than plain Stealth. The risk for a cloaked ship is getting caught and being liable to attack without being able to shoot back. Besides, cloaked ships will cost more than uncloaked equivalents - assuming they have equivalent weapons, a Romulan Kestrel will cost significantly more points or be at least one PL higher than a Klingon D-7.

 

[Burger]

I guess the problem with that Adrian, is what if both sides have cloaked ships? Who gets to moves last (and therefore metagamingly know where the enemy are)?

 

[AdrianH]

If both sides have cloaked ships then those move in initiative order as normal, after all uncloaked ships. It's not perfect, but it beats having to keep track of half a dozen ships which aren't on the table.

Another possibility is that neither side places cloaked ships on the table to start with. The cloaked ships can choose one of two special actions - "Engage Cloak" or "Detect Cloaked Ship". If a ship is uncloaked, either because it didn't "Engage Cloak" last turn or because the other side succeeded with "Detect Cloaked Ship" this turn, put it on the table anywhere you like. (Or, if you're keeping count of turns, put it within a distance from your table edge equal to number of turns * ship speed.)

Of course, if you declared "Detect Cloaked Ship" this turn then your ship won't be cloaked next turn, and you might not pass the CQ check. Still, someone will need to do it, or the game will end on turn 12 as a no score draw. Which is probably an accurate representation of what happens when two cloaked fleets meet and neither side wants to drop their cloaks. :lol:

 

[MongooseMatt]

We are so not having hidden movement

However, it looks like we _will_ have translucent ships as an option, so you can swap your painted model out for a see-through one!

 

[godsgopher]

Great... Now I have to buy a Romulan ship just to paint half here and half faded away just to make other players jealous

 

[Greg Smith]

Da Boss has an excellent FA ship painted as decloaking. I have a transclucent TARDIS, but never got around to painting half of it. I wonder where it is.

 

[Myrm]

The Source Material for the SFU is going to wind up being SFB.

Tracked like a homing missile, we can do. All weapons fire in ACTA is assumed to have "hit" anyway, when you "roll to hit" you're just rolling so see if you hit powerfully enough to do damage. Maybe to represent being a homing missile it can be precise, or SAP.

We have normal, slow-loading and one-shot. .

A combination of the torpedo system from Victory at Sea, the Interceptors trait from Babylon 5 ACTA and the Slow Loading from both can provide a variety of methods to simulate some or all of SFBs seeking weapons. A few novel traits to do special things like the plasma R shotgun and you are fine. This in fact is how I would be tempted to do drones and smaller seeking weapons - although it could do plasma too, I'd like to see some differentiation.

You can also use seeking weapons on table using the Fighters rules from B5 the same as the Gaim suicide fighters really rather nicely - I think this fits plasma and suicide shuttles from although it is more bookwork and it allows the use of PPTs if that becomes a useful balance less likely if only 3 turn armers become slow loading. You could do drones this way but for playability you'd have to have 'drone swarms' - so effectively a fighter counter that flies and impacts with some damage points.

Either works in rules terms and it will require actual old lead/resin on the table to test which is best for ACTA style gaming.

 

[Rambler]

3) There may be anti-cloak weapons, which would require the players to knowing where the cloaked ship is. In SFB/FC isn't there a Plasma Carronade which can hit cloaked ships?

Going back to Balance of Terror, couldn't Sulu or Chekov see a distortion on the view screen when the BoP was cloaked? .

Carronade are a anti cloak function of the Light (Type F) Plasma Torpedoes. It is basically a cloud of plasma fired at a hex doing a small amount of damage and letting you look for the void to shoot at.

Also yes you can see a distortion where a cloak ship is to shoot at. In SFB you had to roll for a lock on with a penalty and once you had a lock on three was still a penalty in range and damage to hit it. Fed Com got rid of Hidden Deployment and has special rules for what you can and cannot shoot.

 

[Da Boss]

Da Boss has an excellent FA ship painted as decloaking. I have a transclucent TARDIS, but never got around to painting half of it. I wonder where it is.

I'll put it a shot of it up as its a awesome thing by McKickaha

 

[godsgopher]

I rushed home after work and using an older miniature painted up a Romulan warbird cloaked. its still a little rough, but I think I got the general idea across.

 

[Iron Domokun]

The Zocchi plastic versions of the Federation ships used whatever plastic was to hand when they were made. Some were transparent and were sold as "cloaked" versions.

 

[Nerroth]

Translucent ships for the Romulans and Orions would be handy.


Sppeaking of the Orions, what kind of access would they have to cloaking devices in ACtA:SF?

In FC, Orion Ship Cards list an optional cloak cost, which a player may add to the ship's Point Value in order to equip it with a cloak. In Starmada, it's simpler still; you have some Orion ship diagrams which have cloaks equipped, and some which don't.

 

[Rambler]

Translucent ships for the Romulans and Orions would be handy.


Sppeaking of the Orions, what kind of access would they have to cloaking devices in ACtA:SF?

In FC, Orion Ship Cards list an optional cloak cost, which a player may add to the ship's Point Value in order to equip it with a cloak. In Starmada, it's simpler still; you have some Orion ship diagrams which have cloaks equipped, and some which don't.

Why would it be different than it is in the SFU? Cloaking Devices can not be damaged in combat only by Hit any Run Raids. So if it is kept the same way in ACTA:SF you would have a check box on all Romulan and Orion Ships but only 25% of your Orion's will actually field one.

 

[Nerroth]

I was talking about the availability for the Orion player to have cloak-equipped ships in their fleets (which, as I have noted, is already different in Starmada than in FC) not how the cloak might be targeted (or not) during combat...

 

[MarkDawg]

I wish they were not doing TOS era I wish it was TNG-DS9 I would like to do the dominion wars. I think it would fit a war game better anyway. I also bet that price tag is pretty steep.

 

[Rick]

As I understand it, everything Trek from ST the slow motion picture onwards is unavailable to use (or hideously expensive), putting it firmly out of reach at the moment. However, the new ACTA will still be Trek and you could always make up your own house rules/stats to cover those era's.

I think it would fit a war game better anyway.

Not sure you quite understand how Starfleet Battles differs from TOS - SFB IS more like an original series version of the Dominion War in that it shows a much more militaristic side of Trek than TOS was willing to show. From what I remember of SFB, the TOS Organian peace treaty never happened and the Federation and Klingons went to war?

 

[Greg Smith]

Carronade are a anti cloak function of the Light (Type F) Plasma Torpedoes. It is basically a cloud of plasma fired at a hex doing a small amount of damage and letting you look for the void to shoot at.

So does it work with hidden movement?

 

[godsgopher]

The TOS show was Gene Roddenberry's Utopian future and social commentary. It was also one of the first, if not the first Sci-fi to focus on something other than ray-guns and spaceships. Star fleet at its heart is a war story. We will be playing out 40+ years of warfare between all the galactic powers, not sitting on the bridge after a mission commenting upon what it means to be human and to look onwards and upwards.