Metagaming Cloaked Ships

[Kaltharion]

Hi everyone,

I just picked up ACTA:SF and I have to say I'm pretty excited. I've been pouring over the rules and I am looking forward to playing my first game.
I imagine a game vs. romulans to be very much like the ST Episode Balance of Terror. Slow, deliberate, and very costly for both sides...
That being said, I'm a little concerned about metagaming cloaked ships. What is to stop a player from sending their biggest baddest ship against your Romulan KCR9 Dreadnought and not a snipe that is also cloaked? Do you just mark your ships with a token and leave it at that?

But I know gamers, we like to win
Do you go for realism? or do you just say, "That's my dreadnought. TRY to kill it." ?

I picked up these gale force 9 heroclix shields to represent sensor blips for cloaked ships as I feel that it adds a sense of dread. "What am I seeing on sensors?!?"

 

[SneakyPete]

Cloaked ships are not hidden, they are left on the table and maneuvered as normal but have the Stealth trait while cloaked, it is when they uncloak that you don't know exactly where they will be as they can move in any direction 6 inches and turn their heading 45 degrees.

There are no secret moves or measurements in ACTA SF so don't worry about metagaming.

 

[Halfbat]

There is an argument that the size of the ship could be determined anyway by its 'ion trail'...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well you could always say that outside of 36" you cannot get a lock on a cloaked ship and so cannot identify its size of type.

Makes for some fun on a 6 by 4 when the Romulans come on cloaked and untill you can get ships close enough all you can see are several groups of those sensor markers. If the Romulans are hugging both edges your ships are too far apart to attack both before you know who and what they are.

Would make for some tense set ups :twisted:

 

[Myrm]

The basic rules of SFB and FC assume that the cloaking device primarily prevents weapons locks and accurate location rather than identification. THis has followed through in ACtA - you know that that's a Condor, you just cannot persuade your highly expensive nuclear tipped missile to agree where it right at this point in time (Heisenberg would be proud, we can tell how fast its going but not where it is).

As such, metagaming which cloaked ship is which is not relevant, as you have the information by default.

SFB has a section of advanced rules called tactical intelligence which conceals data from the other side - so as they scan it and use labs and special sensor to gather information you get hull size, class, type, specific ship and current weight of the captain's log in ever increasing detail as you use more scanning power and close the range. I do not know if thats an option in FC or not.

So while the SFU does have that sort of graded fog of war in it as a concept it is in an optional rule for SFB, and you would be getting into a world of bookkeeping for ACtA. Its certainly possible to generate some rules that match the SFB one (or rather FC if it does this at all) but I wouldnt want to see it as a standard rule. Where you do develop such, or use them - then yes you want concealment type pieces.

 

[storeylf]

FC has nothing like that, everything is in the open. A cloaked ship stays visible on the map, all that happens is that it is harder to hit/damage.

 

[McKinstry]

Well you could always say that outside of 36" you cannot get a lock on a cloaked ship and so cannot identify its size of type.

Makes for some fun on a 6 by 4 when the Romulans come on cloaked and untill you can get ships close enough all you can see are several groups of those sensor markers. If the Romulans are hugging both edges your ships are too far apart to attack both before you know who and what they are.

That seems a very easily implemented addition to a scenario and certainly would increase the tension level.

I can see that as a good convention or demonstartion type game.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

If you went with blind cloaks (what is it), but wanted some balance go with size classes. Frigate/Crusier/Dreadnought as seperate sensor readings - so it's a Dread, but is it the KC9R or a Condor. Cruisers would be scary - lots of different hulls/types.

Though fully blind is far more interesting.

 

[Ben2]

You could house rule this, you could even go so far as to have dummy markers.

You'd have to do it for friendly play though.

You might try it for doing a recreation of Balance of Terror. Throw in a comet, a constitution and a war eagle, and have it be the first encounter the Federation have with a cloaked ship.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Scenario Chasing Ghosts.

A raiding party has been detected in a radiation nebula close to busy trade routes. A force has been dispatched to hunt them down. The raider force is smaller but hidden within the nebula where they are shielded by many false sensor echoes.

Raiding force is 66% to 75% of attacker but all raider ships start as a sensor blip until an attacker can get within range to use labs and the make an 8+ roll of 1D6 plus number of labs. Any ship revealed is revealed only for that turn, lab rolls are made in the movement phase for individual ships. Note ships with Lab 1 or 2 can combine labs and the roll is made using the total in the movement of the last ship to be added.

There is a second, false, blip for every raider ship, these are moved by the raider player. Any time a ship is revealed and then lost again place two blips on the ships location and move them separately to reflect the fact that the attacker does not know which is the real ship only that one of those blips was a ship.

Make half the length of the map the nebula. The raiders have been modified for the raid so their sensors do not see ghosts if the attacking force comes into the nebula.


Scenario Hunting ghosts

A deep strike has been launched against a Romulan convoy slowly moving from a resource world to the main shipyards. The convoy consists of several mixed freighters and an escort of warships. The entire force apart from two destroyer sized ships is under total emission control and moving slowly enough that they are totally cloaked with no more than the faintest subspace ripple to indicate they are even there.

All convoy ships apart from the two escorts with active sensors move 2” per turn and are represented by sensor blips. There is no way to tell what a blip is unless a ship can get close enough to make an 8+ roll adding labs to a D6 (or optionally gain enough lab points).

The warships with the convoy have shut down all systems in order to maintain this level of stealth. Each must roll an 8+ CQ for every weapon system, trait and shields. Destroyers may roll to activate a maximum of three systems a turn, cruisers four systems and Dreadnaughts five systems.

Note that the ships of the convoy apart from the escorts have working cloaks and are considered to be under cloak. They can activate all weapons and traits without voiding the emission control but if they raise shields they are revealed as normal cloaked vessels. They can make the roll to activate shields but chose not to raise them to maintain emission control. All rolls to activate systems are made in the damage repair phase at the end of each turn. Raising shields that have been activated is declared during movement, a ship can declare it is raising shields, be revealed as a cloaked ship and then de cloak or move 6” under cloak that turn.

Activating and raising systems does not require a special action.

Optionally the Romulan’s can be replaced with a special Orion force using limited cloaks that only work at such slow speeds and under complete emission control. These ships are new builds coming from secret ship yards to be sold to the Orion clans. Once revealed the Orion ships operate normally and do not have cloaks

 

[Myrm]

For that scenario specifically I think some Orions in the SFU have cloaks, they have not added then yet as general units for play in ACtA but they would make reasonable scenario option for a non point system

In general - fog of war type stuff is useful for convoy raids otherwise Qships are less useful. Whether its a simple lab test to id the target or the full TacticalIntelligence rules from SFB, fog of war in some scenarios can be used to add a lot.

Its worth making some scenario rules for it.

 

[storeylf]

You might try it for doing a recreation of Balance of Terror. Throw in a comet, a constitution and a war eagle, and have it be the first encounter the Federation have with a cloaked ship.

And watch the war eagle die badly. 7AD of plasma won't take out a constituion, which has 6 phasers minumum on any facing plus 2D6 shield boost, it will barely dent its shields.

Fire photons/phasers at the war eagle under cloak, eventually you'll whittle it down on leaks that fail to stealth the damage.

 

[Ben2]

Yeah, in a situation like that I'd come up with a rejigged war eagle and special cloaking rules.

Also the Enterprise in Balance of Terror would be the unrefitted one, so you'd ditch the rear phasers, ph-3s and drone.

It's be interesting to have a think about and balance it.