Concerns and Possible Solutions

[Keeper Nilbog]

All the games i've played (though mainly against Klingon or Romulan - i'm using Klink's till i get around to the Gorns), have generally not used the IDF SA, your too busy doing other things. The game against the Romulans was the only one where the drones played a major part.

Most ships appear to be able to handle a salvo or 2 of drones, but it does tend to reduce Phaser availiblity. Haven't tried the Kzinti yet, and as most of the learning games we play are around 600 (the one with the Romulan's was 1000pt - and great fun), it will be interesting to see if the 'drone zerg' will be noticable at that level.

 

[dalek4890l]

Possibly the simplest solution woul be to just make some drone armed ships a little more expensive. This will annoy everyone that has carefully planned out their Kzinti, Federation and klingon fleet but in every war (and playtest) there are casualties.

Personally I don't think they are over powered as every race (so far) has something that works against them: the klingons have their own drones,ADD and less expensive ships; Federation have copious multi-purpose drone racks; the Romulans can cloak and the Gorns have reloadable ADD racks called plasma D. I don't think the upcoming Lyrans or Hydrans will have problems either.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Possibly the simplest solution woul be to just make some drone armed ships a little more expensive. This will annoy everyone that has carefully planned out their Kzinti, Federation and klingon fleet but in every war (and playtest) there are casualties.

Personally I don't think they are over powered as every race (so far) has something that works against them: the klingons have their own drones,ADD and less expensive ships; Federation have copious multi-purpose drone racks; the Romulans can cloak and the Gorns have reloadable ADD racks called plasma D. I don't think the upcoming Lyrans or Hydrans will have problems either.

Not yet we don't, or do you know something the rest of us haven't heard yet :wink:

I would be more than happy to add a few D racks to my ships even it it adds 10 points to the cost :lol:

Anyway cloaking while in line of sight of a Drone fleet is akin to hanging out a sign that says kill me please. 4+ stealth save means only half the Drones auto hit but you have no defensive fire.

Staying cloaked means you get hunted down and peppered with phasers and disruptors, its slow but sure defeat to stay under cloak.

Everyone on the non plasma side of the map can more or less handle mass drone attacks.

 

[dalek4890l]

Hello Captain Jonah,

Sorry about raising your hopes with the D-racks...I haven't actually played the Gorns so I assumed that as there are rules for them someone must have a D-rack :? . I'm sure they are on their way though .

With the Romulans I was thinking more along the lines of starting cloaked (2+ stealth) or cloaking outside the drone range just to avoid the range 36" drone hordes. Cloaking really close up (within the killzone of anything) isn't recommended (at least I don't recommend it) against anyone unless there are some particular 'tactical circumstances' that make it the least worst option

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Only ship (as far as i remember) with D-racks is the Romulan KRC Cruiser

 

[dalek4890l]

Indeed it is; blame this on some baggage from playing SFB when the D-rack was first introduced. Mainly this was to give the plasma races something other than a drone to fire from their fighters and to explain what happened to those ADD racks that were on the ships the Klingons sold to the Romulans. At the time the Gorn escort (HDE) was noted in the rules as 'This design is substantially different than first thought (and built).'. It then went on to replace two plasma -F launchers with four plasma racks.

I unreservedly apologise to any Gorn players I may have given false hope to.

 

[Nerroth]

If it helps, the only currently-published Gorn escort in FC is the CLE, one of the ships included in Booster #92.

So, if the units from that file were to be added to a future book, that'd be at least one option for Gorn fleets should it make the cut at some point.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I don't have a problem with the D-Rack. I have a problem with not having any :lol:

CLE, HDE, DDE, all fine. I thought it was the old designs converted over to escorts rather than the new war builds like the HD. Doesn't matter, just give us poor Gorn something with 4 D-Racks, Oh and the escort trait so we don't have to use the 8+ crew check just to fire at drones attacking ships next to us :roll:

I do remember fun with my ISC DD escorts and charging across the from of a Klingon Carrier strike wing just spraying plasma Ds, I then ran off at high speed with a lot of drones chasing the ship and 16 Ds heading for his fighter wave :twisted:

I still think IDF should have no crew check but be defensive only but that is an old horse long flogged. :wink:

 

[Da Boss]

If a Gorn escort or the option to change some plasma torpedoes to Plasma D versions is needed it would be very little work to relases this as part of the "re-release in any revised verison of the rulebook." - just add it into the rulebook (there is space in the fleet list for the Gorn pages)

In fact it would be a good time to have the suggested stats published and let people test it out priot to the re-release.

It does some silly to have to wait until X or Y booster pack is released to provide what may be required variants where it is unlikely there will be or indeed needs to be a specific model for the ship.

 

[Nerroth]

Alternatively, maybe some of the Booster #92 (and upcoming Reinforcements Attack) escorts could be fodder for a future issue of Captain's Log, or the upcoming successor file to the old Signs and Portents magazines? (They wouldn't actually need new minis, since they share the same hulls as their standard combat variants.)

 

[Da Boss]

You could have a variant for each Empire produced each month (when its all up and running) -with nice pics and descriptions etc....be a nice article, a way of enhancing the game and distributing backgorund to newer players and an opportunity to haev people test out designs for inclusion in main rules sets.