Mars and Gettysburg

[scoutdad]

Very nice, cheers Matt.

I know it's very early..... but the Kzinti escort frigate doesn't seem to be on par with the others - I don't suppose it should be able to fire its anti-drones to cover friendly ships?

If only.
In the original source material (Star Fleet Battles), ADDs (or Anti-Drone Drones) can be used in defense of other units. This rule does not exist in ACTASF, so the Kzinti EFF is a bit weaker than the others

Remember though, theserules are still very much play test rules. Hopefully the final version will be included in ACTASF2... and hopefully it will include the ability to use ADDs in defense of other ships as well. OInly time will tell.

 

[Stu--]

Yeah I've played the source material.. to be honest I really wish they'd just binned drones in the first place. They just don't really fix in with the SFU as shown on the tellybox.
But I digress...

ADD's could be fixed very easily. Just give escorts the ability to use them defensively.
Eventually you'll run out. Me, generally, in the first throw!

 

[Zarathustra Suicune]

My laptop can't read it :/ Guess that's what the uni library is for

 

[Nerroth]

The Gettsyburg looks like it's got a few too many damage points; the Squadron Scale Ship Card for the ship only has 16 Hull boxes (the same as the CA and CC), which would translate into the same 32/11 value those other ships possess.

I don't have the Mars Ship Card to hand, but does anyone know off-hand how many Hull boxes it has?


EDIT: Also, is Turn 10 the ACtA:SF equivalent to FC's Turn Mode F? (Again, I don't have the BB Ship Card to hand, so can't recall its Turn Mode off of the top of my head.)

 

[Finlos]

From the sounds of things, ships with the escort trait can automatically defend ships within 8" so I wouldn't be surprised to see escorts quickly becoming quite popular. Escort ships may turn out to be too cheap but their defensive weapons have a relatively short range so this may not be a problem after all.

I don't have any ship cards from FC but the SFB Federation Battleship has 50 hull, so 100 damage sounds right.

I see the Battleship's gatlings have also been downgraded to Phaser 3s

Edit: The Battleship has a turn mode of 'F' in SFB but I don't know how that translates to FC

 

[Nerroth]

I don't have any ship cards from FC but the SFB Federation Battleship has 50 hull, so 100 damage sounds right.

Hmm, sounds fair enough then.

I see the Battleship's gatlings have also been downgraded to Phaser 3s

The FC version of the BB might not have phaser-Gs, which would explain their absence here. (Unless anyone has the Ship Card on file and can say otherwise.)

Edit: The Battleship has a turn mode of 'F' in SFB but I don't know how that translates to FC

Turn modes (mostly) stay the same, so would be F there, too.

 

[Finlos]

I took a quick scan of the list of Federation ship cards on the FC page but couldn't find the BB. Does that ship exist yet in Fed Commander?

 

[Nerroth]

It was published as a double-sized Ship Card in FC: Batttleships Attack.

(That file also introduced the Seltorian Battlewagon to the SFU; the SSD for that Sphere-killing monster wasn't published in SFB until Module R12 hit the presses. It's relatively rare to see a "new" ship not show up in SFB first, but it does happen now and then.)

EDIT: If it helps, there is a set of Master Ship Chart files available for FC. I would imagine that a new (Main Era Alpha Octant) MSC PDF will go up as soon as Captain's Log #46 and FC: Reinforcements Attack are published later this month.

 

[Greg Smith]

Remember though, theserules are still very much play test rules. Hopefully the final version will be included in ACTASF2... and hopefully it will include the ability to use ADDs in defense of other ships as well. OInly time will tell.

It does seem like the Plasma escorts gained lots of plasma-D's in order to use them as ADD in an escort capacity. Which of course they can't do...

 

[Nerroth]

EDIT: If Anti-Drones were to be allowed for use under the Escort Trait, there would need to be a new rule stating which range ADDs would operate out to; which would be either 2 or 3 inches, depending on which game (SFB or FC) one is drawing from.

That would mean the ADD-equipped escort would pretty much have to stay within base-to-base contact of the ship it's attempting to protect...

 

[Finlos]

Allowing Plasma-D torpedoes to operate in a manner similar to Federation drone racks (which they mostly do in SFB) would help explain why they're so prevalent on escorts.

Maybe it is worth my while to buy an FC rulebook after all....

So, allow Plasma-D torpedoes to fire offensively as normal, as presented in the ACTA rulebook

-or- (throwing an idea to the forum here...)

Allow them to fire as ADD racks but they have to roll a die and run out of ammo on a 1 or 2 but still have the reload trait

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

The thing with escorts is they really actually encourage you to launch all your weapons at them - otherwise you have to deal with all the defensive weapons on the ship the escort is defending PLUS all the weapons of the escort. Better to just go for the escort, take it down, and then go after the ship you really want to take out the next turn - so in that respect, ADDs on an escort will still be most useful.

-Tim

 

[Nerroth]

Plasma-Ds can be used as ADDs already, according to the latest errata file. (Each Pl-D AD is used up per shot, and has to be reloaded if it runs out.)

If you want to check the FC ruleset out, the best bet might be to have a look at the e23 version of the FC Reference Rulebook.

 

[Finlos]

Of course I didn't think to check the errara first.

Most (all I think, so far) Plasma-D have only 1 AD anyways so that doesn't really change much.

And thanks for the link.

 

[archon96]

plasma d the ADD that just keeps on giving. Ive always been confused on one thing. With the D's in the ADD role is it just against one volley of drones or against all drones that turn just like the standard ADD systems.

 

[Nerroth]

It occurred to me that if the rules for anti-drones (and thus for Plasma-Ds fired in "anti-drone" mode) were adjusted to allow them to be used at range, it may not affect the Escort Trait only; it might have a knock-on effect on the Intensify Defensive Fire! Sepcial Action, too.

(But, then again, it might not. Perhaps that Special Action would still run into the issue of whether the ship using it has an Aegis fire control system or not. If not, it still doesn't get to use its ADDs for anyone other than itself.)

 

[Greg Smith]

plasma d the ADD that just keeps on giving. Ive always been confused on one thing. With the D's in the ADD role is it just against one volley of drones or against all drones that turn just like the standard ADD systems.

Every volley, till they roll 1's.

Since they become the Anti-drone trait facing becomes unimportant. So a PH plasma D will cover the whole ship. I would guess a PH and a SH plasma D could be combined to ADD2.

 

[scoutdad]

GARY: The Fed Comm Mars-class battleship has the Phaser-Gs replaced by Phaser-3s.

IIRC when the BB card was released, the Ph-G hadn't been added to the game - hence the switch. Now since ACTASF is based on FC more than SFB - the ACTASF version has no Ph-G either.

 

[Stu--]

In any case.. if you're going to play it a bit 'semi-historical' as it were (ahem...)
then the Mars can't be on the table anyway. (they didn't build any)

Even as I write this I believ my nerd level is going up...

 

[Nerroth]

GARY: The Fed Comm Mars-class battleship has the Phaser-Gs replaced by Phaser-3s.

IIRC when the BB card was released, the Ph-G hadn't been added to the game - hence the switch. Now since ACTASF is based on FC more than SFB - the ACTASF version has no Ph-G either.

Thanks for the clarification.

In any case.. if you're going to play it a bit 'semi-historical' as it were (ahem...)
then the Mars can't be on the table anyway. (they didn't build any)

Not in SFB, no; but FC is a little more generous in terms of how many battleships were flying about in the Alpha Octant.

(The SFB take on things is still "true" in-universe, but FC makes less of a fuss about that sort of thing.)

-----

In terms of the CB, I mentioned this over on the BBS, but one of the main differences between it and the BC in-universe is in terms of how the respective hulls can adapt to X-technology.

The technology progression for the heavy cruisers runs from CA > CC > CB > CX, whereas the line for the BC went from the BCF/G/J to... nowhere. (There were other variants made out of the base hull, but the ship was too large to be upgraded into a true first-generation X-ship.)

This issue would be an in-universe factor affecting the expected performance of both hulls. The CB is not as durable as the BC, partly because if it were, it would be unable to then go on to become the Vincennes-class advanced cruiser. (Or, it would need to be "cut back", in order to then leap forward.)

To give an example from another empire, the Lyrans built two types of battlecruiser by adding a third central hull to the catamaran light cruiser; the Wildcat BC and Hellcat BCH. However, it turned out that the Hellcat was too big to make the jump to X-technology, so the Lyrans had to cut it back "down" to a Wildcat before they could turn the hull into a BCX. (If the CB had a similar problem, it would have to be "down-sized" to a CC before it could become a CX; fortunately for Star Fleet, the CB was suitable as a platform for X1-technology in and of itself.)

So, I would suggest that the CB should go back to the 32/11 Damage score as the CA and CC; it's not meant to be a bruiser like the BC in and of itself, but rather act as a signpost towards a ship class with an even greater legacy.


Not that we're likely to see X-ships in ACtA:SF any time soon, but still...