Fleet Update #2 - Ready for Free Download

[MongooseMatt]

The latest Fleet Update is now ready for A Call to Arms: Star Fleet, and can be grabbed from;

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/fleetupdate2.pdf

This is another jam-packed issue with the latest news and thoughts on fleet strategy, essential for any serious admiral! In Fleet Update #2, you will find;

The Shipyard: Bringing you the Federation Light Raiding Dreadnought and the Klingon F6, both recently released as new models.

Klingons vs. Orions: A complete campaign using the contents of Squadron Box #5.

A Consitutional Timeline: A look at the Constitution-class through the years and the modifications made to it.

Fleet Doctrine: Looking at fleets from a historical point of view.

Dreadnought Variants: Early, Improved and, yes, Heavy Dreadnoughts for all the major fleets. We make no apologies to the foes of the Kzinti...

Drone Strike: Space just became a lot deadlier, with a variety of different drones and warheads now available.

 

[Da Boss]

Quick glance, interesting reading - however I noticed one imediate querry re the Constitution class.

The Plus refit increased the power systems and shields, added a drone rack, and two turret-mounted phasers-3 to the Constitution

However there is no Phaser 3 mount on that ship sheet?

 

[Myrm]

I think there is a mistake in the CA+ - either the description or the stats are wrong - it states it adds 2 turreted Ph3s in the description, but has added the rear Ph1s of the CAR in the stats

 

[Allerka]

Oh, jeez, you went and made drones more complicated anyway, despite the multiple requests not to. Ugh.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Oh, jeez, you went and made drones more complicated anyway, despite the multiple requests not to. Ugh.

The complication is minor and is in the set up/fleet building, not actual play (drones can have different stats, but it pretty much ends there). In practice, I expect variant drones to be relatively rare, given their cost.

 

[Allerka]

Oh, phew.

 

[Da Boss]

Of slightly more concern is that there is now a warship with 18AD drones...............

It is a pity to me that the weapon of choice in SFB for the Federation and Klingons appears to the be the Drone........even though its not actaully ever on screen.

The C6 and the C9 seem to be again oddly pointed as per the last update with the fed variants:

The C9 gains: Anti-drone1, 4 extra Phaser 1's, 2 extra Disruptors, 2 extra shields, for the loss of 4 Phaser 2's????

Does not seem to compute?

 

[billclo]

Is there any justification for the "unique" Trait to be applied to the Kzinti DND? In F&E at least, you are only allowed to build one.

Drone improvements, I suspect that's going to slow down the game even more. I'll play a few games with the new stuff and eventually report back I guess.

Thank you for the earlier variants of the DNs, and Fed CAs.

 

[Da Boss]

There are several new ships that seem to be unique from the fluff text?

If I get time later - I'll start a Fleet Update 2 "Issues" compliation thread.

 

[Myrm]

Oh, jeez, you went and made drones more complicated anyway, despite the multiple requests not to. Ugh.

Those drones are all in the source material so its to be expected that they would be added. In the SFU games though unusual drones did usually have some limits placed on them as well as points costs. I'd hope to see such limits evidenced in the Historical Deployment rules, especially for the Spear/Sword and Armoured types (that term always amused me in the context of a Futuristic Science Fiction game).

I do have some comments on the drones.

The VIs would have to come out for carriers - so something had to come out for them. However I did not remember a doubled fire rate for them in the source games ie double AD - otherwise I'd just say make them a free substitution for the loss of multihit/devastating and gain of 'ignore dodge'

Type IIIs have a 25 turn endurance, so at least 200hex range in SFB/FC terms. Would it not be sensible to just say unlimited range given drones currently abstract multiturn runs (or was the idea that 72" was effectively unlimited in tactical terms). I was interested how this was to be solved without making Type IIIs a moving unit.

Im not sure the Type II has a place in this game - after all with the refit type ships in we are looking at going to realms of slow medium and fast drones and really does 2 vs 3 turns of running make that much difference to defensive fire or will those three speed settings also have to be factored into the game....

What you have done with the Type V is actually what I expected to see on the Type IV - heavier so more damage but also I thought they were harder to kill - this of course places the Type V in the same bucket as the Type II.

This would effectively half the number of extras to add on basic drone types.

Im assuming the Phaser II upgrade should be Type IV and V (heavy frames) rather than the current Type VI and V quoted.
How are you doing 2 hits from an ADD system, per the quote in Armoured drones - a) is that SFU accurate and b) how does it work with a system where you roll, autodefend but may lose some ADD rating? If you do want it to be harder to kill by ADD, surely the only real way to do that is that each 1 or 2 on the ADD roll reduces the rating.

Those are my initial views for what its worth....glad to see them being specced up though

 

[Myrm]

There are several new ships that seem to be unique from the fluff text?

I suspect that like the OK6, this feature will be dealt with in the Historical Deployment rules, though given there were a couple of uniques in B5 expression of ACTA (Victorys in the wrong timeperiod from memory) - it could be added as a full all games feature.

If not expect me to buy a lot of Anarchist miniatures

 

[Myrm]

Another possible typo - the Spinosaurus fluff says it has extra Type R topredoes to defend it against more agile opponents - with only one Type R aboard I assume this is an error and refers to the Ds or Fs.....

 

[Da Boss]

I thought all FC drones were the same (as the primary source for ACTA?)

Not sure about the drone rules - however initially I am more concerende with the points issues raised and possible errors /typos such as with the phaser -3s for the Constitution reft.

 

[Myrm]

Of slightly more concern is that there is now a warship with 18AD drones...............

Scary beast isnt it - Type IIIs with Spearfish on all racks will be an interesting opponent even at 475 points. 18 phaser shots, average 12 hits per turn that are not stoppable and with 72" range potentially untouchable with a fleet line between me and thee. There's ways to handle it certainly and the cost is high but its a beast that does roar.

 

[Myrm]

I thought all FC drones were the same (as the primary source for ACTA?)

Not sure about the drone rules - however initially I am more concerende with the points issues raised and possible errors /typos such as with the phaser -3s for the Constitution reft.

FC doesnt have all the carrier action yet - at least not so far as I understood it, the various drones do turn up with fighters and for that SFB concepts will leak in - ie yes FC is the primary source but you use secondary sources when the primary fails so if they are not in FC, then you need to go to SFB at that point.

Equally I agree that the points and stats things need sorting first.

 

[Da Boss]

hmm not sure how to handle it myself - 18 dice is an awful lot.

Is the C6 and C9 same cost in FC etc - as they have hugely different values interms of their weapons etc

 

[Myrm]

You need an escort or two - phaser boats to get close whether thats Escort trait ships or simply ones flying on IDF. That or a fleet dedicated to a kill, fast ships, high shields phasers and boost shields. Yes it will hurt but 295 is a lotta points.

Its when Type IIIs get loaded things get really tricksey - a 72" range, hitting on 4+ between 18" and 36" still means the thing can stand off for some considerable incoming fire power.

 

[Nerroth]

Technically, the C9 (in its Klingon variant, as opposed to its Romulan adaptation) isn't in FC as of yet, but the C6 Ship Card (which is in FC: Briefing #2) costs 195 Points in Squadron Scale.

It is surprising how the Middle Years variants are being offered here, as opposed to being kept in reserve for their own setting; but given that I myself had asked for some of the pre-refit ships to show up, I suppose I shouldn't complain when they do.

That said, I would think that they might be worth noting as belonging to the Middle Years, as opposed to the Main Era; akin to how the various refits of Earth Alliance ships in ACtA:B5 were divided into their appropriate era-specific fleet lists.


In case anyone is wondering, the reason why the Romulans don't have an early dreadnought listed is because the appropriate hull type used hasn't been released in Starline 2500 yet. The Vulture was upgraded from a sublight hull type after the Treaty of Smarba; it had a "Middle Years-esque" War Vulture edition before the wartime King Vulture upgrade was incorporated. The first Condors were built as part of the third-generation series of hulls, while the K9R was delivered at a time when the Romulans were able to incorporate its full wartime suite of weapons as it was being converted.

(The Vulture mini has already been previewed in 3D form over here.)

 

[Captain Jonah]

Yay more new stuff. Thanks Mathew

Hummm.

Phaser 3s on the Connie have been mentioned.

I take it that the Gorn BC which is the refitted heavy cruiser is considered, like the D7, to be a cruiser and therefore not restricted to two ships.

Kzinti DND. Sigh. So that’s 18 drones on a single ship costing less than 300 points. That’s a potential of 30 drones against a single target if you have a scout, more when the other Kzinti Drone ships arrive. Having argued and waited to get escorts along comes a new ship with so many Drones that we are back to the entire fleet going IDF again. It’s a hard life in the Gorn fleet.

Fleet Doctrine. Ok Two Battleships, Dreadnaughts or Battle Cruisers. So that means the Kzinti can field two DNDs in a fleet then. Plus two scouts and a couple of other ships, hey its only 44AD of Drones against a single target, did you expect your Dreadnaught or Battleship to survive more than one turn? Plus with long range Drones they can hit one of your ships with 22AD or so before you have even left the deployment zone.

Drones:

Type 2s, 72” gives them a half range of 36” making them 4+ to hit from 16” to 36”. Giving them unlimited range would make them 4+ to hit across the entire map.

Armoured drones. Since an ADD is an automatic kill I assume here that you roll two D6 per armoured drone and empty the rack on a one as usual. This does mean that on average a 3-4AD ship with armoured Drones will use up one AD of ADD ammo every salvo.

Spearfish Drones do damage to the hull ignoring shields but do not have the multi hit trait. Do they retain the devastating trait?

Given that a Drone ship must replace all drone racks within a block with the same type of launcher and warhead but if it has separate racks each can have a different type of rack or warhead can we have a ruling on which ships end up with separate racks or combine racks into a single unit. For example the DWD replacing 3 Photons with Drones, is that Drones 3AD/1AD or 4AD. Likewise the Orion Salvager with Drones 4AD and two optional mounts.

Swordfish, I assume here that Plasma Ds firing as torpedoes can stop them while in rapid fire ADD mode they cannot. Also with Drones having to roll to hit above 16” do swordfish roll for each Drone fired at long range and then roll again to hit with the Phaser, I assume this is the case meaning that roughly a fifth or less of these will actually damage a target.

Loophole alert for the Feds. Switching to type VI(edited) drones costs 5 points per rack, removes the multi hit and devastating and doubles the AD, for defence this is very useful since any Drone hit destroys an incoming Drone. So a Fed ship with 2AD would pay 10 points to gain 4AD of type 6s, I hope that does not translate into 4AD of ADDs using the Federation combined Drone rack rule but the rule does not say this some people will try it. Otherwise the flattops are suddenly going to double the ADD on all ships with 1-2 Drones.

More after I have a good think about the new stuff.

 

[MongooseMatt]

It is surprising how the Middle Years variants are being offered here, as opposed to being kept in reserve for their own setting; but given that I myself had asked for some of the pre-refit ships to show up, I suppose I shouldn't complain when they do.

Bear in mind, this is all playtest material. When this all gets published for real, we may well split things up into different publications!