Question on Tholians

[H]

i was curious, 2 of the ships have "the web" yet it is listed as P and S. if this is a blanace issue, i guess you would have to live with it, but you would think it would surround the whole ship, or, given the ships firing arcs, would be FH to offer better protection. (bit like klingon enhanced shields cover their main firing arc i guess)
also, I see a tholian dread ship design, but no stats, when are more tholian designs coming? how many were there in the starfleet universe?

 

[tneva82]

i was curious, 2 of the ships have "the web" yet it is listed as P and S. if this is a blanace issue, i guess you would have to live with it, but you would think it would surround the whole ship, or, given the ships firing arcs, would be FH to offer better protection. (bit like klingon enhanced shields cover their main firing arc i guess)
also, I see a tholian dread ship design, but no stats, when are more tholian designs coming? how many were there in the starfleet universe?

Well. 100% immunity to seeking weapons would be kinda...Well I don't know. Romulans, gorns and kzinzi's might be screaming bloody murder

 

[H]

oh i agree on that front, unless of course their was a corresponding weakness of sorts, but i do think PnS is a silly arc, from a design perspective, unless you are a broadside fleet.

 

[tneva82]

oh i agree on that front, unless of course their was a corresponding weakness of sorts, but i do think PnS is a silly arc, from a design perspective, unless you are a broadside fleet.

Maybe they want to encourage enemy to be on their front where their main guns are?

"Okay so you managed to slip to my side but now your main guns are useless. Mwahahahahaha!"

 

[Myrm]

I can think of about 20 Tholian ships from SFB, before going to the NeoTholians. Several PC variants, more than one cruiser type plus variants.

The web rules in the game are VERY simplified and so pretty abstract. In SFB you start dropping counters of web all over the board and track energy fed in, size of the web, strength of the web and all sorts including measuring decay....thats the antithesis of ACtA.

 

[Captain Jonah]

i was curious, 2 of the ships have "the web" yet it is listed as P and S. if this is a blanace issue, i guess you would have to live with it, but you would think it would surround the whole ship, or, given the ships firing arcs, would be FH to offer better protection. (bit like klingon enhanced shields cover their main firing arc i guess)
also, I see a tholian dread ship design, but no stats, when are more tholian designs coming? how many were there in the starfleet universe?

Well. 100% immunity to seeking weapons would be kinda...Well I don't know. Romulans, gorns and kzinzi's might be screaming bloody murder

ROOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRR.

Over powered Webs, Nerf the Tholians.

ROOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRR.

Well we would be screaming because complete immunity to seekers on agile ships is just gross even if it is just P and S.

ROOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRR.

Nerf the Tholians

:wink:

 

[Commander Kretok]

Yeah, the Tholian rules we get in the main rule book seem very... "place-holder" for lack of a better term.

It's like they were put in there as an afterthought.

I know we'll probably be getting an expanded Tholian list and Tholian Web rules at some time in the future, but as they stand right now Tholians are rather lack-luster.

 

[billclo]

Yeah, the Tholian rules we get in the main rule book seem very... "place-holder" for lack of a better term.

It's like they were put in there as an afterthought.

I know we'll probably be getting an expanded Tholian list and Tholian Web rules at some time in the future, but as they stand right now Tholians are rather lack-luster.

I look forward to some better rules and units for Tholians. In open space battles they're well, meh. Behind web, at a Battle Station or God forbid a Starbase...ugh, ugly lengthy process rooting them out of there. One tends to lose alot of ships doing it.

 

[Ben2]

I wouldn't hesitate to take a Tholian force of destroyers and cruisers at the moment, as cruisers have a nice combination of 4 disruptors and 6 phaser-1s. 30 shields means 3 dice for Boost Power to Shields. It's agile, and it's only 170 points. I wouldn't hesitate to take it up against a D7.

However the Tholians and Orions in the rulebook are just there to give us a taste.

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

 

[H]

I wouldn't hesitate to take a Tholian force of destroyers and cruisers at the moment, as cruisers have a nice combination of 4 disruptors and 6 phaser-1s. 30 shields means 3 dice for Boost Power to Shields. It's agile, and it's only 170 points. I wouldn't hesitate to take it up against a D7.

However the Tholians and Orions in the rulebook are just there to give us a taste.

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

thats what got me interested, they definately look competitive

 

[Commander Kretok]

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

The web is supposed to be something like a long-range tractor beam right? Something that will keep enemy ships stuck in place while also defending Tholian ships against enemy weapons fire.

 

[Ben2]

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

The web is supposed to be something like a long-range tractor beam right? Something that will keep enemy ships stuck in place while also defending Tholian ships against enemy weapons fire.

In SFB it's a lot more complicated than that. It's a barrier ships cannot pass through or fire through, though Tholians can fire phasers through it. It must be kept charged by ships powering it up, and if there is no ships powering it the strength of the web decreases and eventually it fades away. To try to breach it you normally have to voluntarily get a ship stuck in the web to shoot one of the ships powering it.

This is me oversimplifying it as well. In SFB it is pretty complicated and requires a bit of paperwork. If ACTA can avoid all of that fuss and keep web in, then great. It was bloody complicated sometimes in SFB though.

 

[H]

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

The web is supposed to be something like a long-range tractor beam right? Something that will keep enemy ships stuck in place while also defending Tholian ships against enemy weapons fire.

In SFB it's a lot more complicated than that. It's a barrier ships cannot pass through or fire through, though Tholians can fire phasers through it. It must be kept charged by ships powering it up, and if there is no ships powering it the strength of the web decreases and eventually it fades away. To try to breach it you normally have to voluntarily get a ship stuck in the web to shoot one of the ships powering it.

This is me oversimplifying it as well. In SFB it is pretty complicated and requires a bit of paperwork. If ACTA can avoid all of that fuss and keep web in, then great. It was bloody complicated sometimes in SFB though.

maybe it could be statted as a special weapon, powerdrain, and must be within X distance of the ship,

 

[billclo]

When battleships comes out there will be full rules for web. Web is something that is highly complicated in SFB and will need to be very carefully handled to ensure it is balanced.

The web is supposed to be something like a long-range tractor beam right? Something that will keep enemy ships stuck in place while also defending Tholian ships against enemy weapons fire.

In SFB it's a lot more complicated than that. It's a barrier ships cannot pass through or fire through, though Tholians can fire phasers through it. It must be kept charged by ships powering it up, and if there is no ships powering it the strength of the web decreases and eventually it fades away. To try to breach it you normally have to voluntarily get a ship stuck in the web to shoot one of the ships powering it.

This is me oversimplifying it as well. In SFB it is pretty complicated and requires a bit of paperwork. If ACTA can avoid all of that fuss and keep web in, then great. It was bloody complicated sometimes in SFB though.

I've seen a Klingon player in F&E make the error of attacking Tholia with a defending starbase and sizeable enemy fleet. While he won, losing 50+ ships made it a rather Phyrric victory.

It's really hard to pull ships out of the web, and you tend to lose them quickly.

 

[Ben2]

The web is supposed to be something like a long-range tractor beam right? Something that will keep enemy ships stuck in place while also defending Tholian ships against enemy weapons fire.

In SFB it's a lot more complicated than that. It's a barrier ships cannot pass through or fire through, though Tholians can fire phasers through it. It must be kept charged by ships powering it up, and if there is no ships powering it the strength of the web decreases and eventually it fades away. To try to breach it you normally have to voluntarily get a ship stuck in the web to shoot one of the ships powering it.

This is me oversimplifying it as well. In SFB it is pretty complicated and requires a bit of paperwork. If ACTA can avoid all of that fuss and keep web in, then great. It was bloody complicated sometimes in SFB though.

I've seen a Klingon player in F&E make the error of attacking Tholia with a defending starbase and sizeable enemy fleet. While he won, losing 50+ ships made it a rather Phyrric victory.

It's really hard to pull ships out of the web, and you tend to lose them quickly.

Yeah, the web is what stops the Tholians getting wiped out, particularly in the period when all their neighbours veer between being indifferent to hating them (ie everything before about Y175). In the background they are pretty much dicks to everybody and aren't above kidnapping citizens of all the neighbouring powers to use as slave labour.

 

[Nerroth]

The pattern currently shown with the Tholians echoes that which had been the case in both Federation Commander and Starmada; where only a handful of ships, along with a basic adaptation of the "web snare" anti-seeker ability, was introduced on a provisional basis.

In FC, the Tholians got full rules for web generators, web casters and web fists in the later Tholian Attack module; while Starmada's equivalent ruleset was offered in the Alien Armada expansion book.

In both cases, the Tholian (and Neo-Tholian) fleet was presented alongside that of their Seltorian nemeses; which duly included rules for particle cannons (which the Neos used back in the hom galaxy in place of disruptors), shield crackers (a way the Marine-happy Selts had to help strip shields without damaging the ship about to be boarded) and web breakers (a side-function of the shield cracker, that allowed the Seltorians to breach the Tholians' ultimate defence... and thus set the stage for the biggest act of xenocide in the known Star Fleet Universe).


There was an old thread on the boards in which I went into a little more detail on the topic; but at this point, there isn't much in the way of news as to whether or not the Seltorians will end up joining the Tholians in book 2. (Which would be a shame; the two really go well together thematically.)

But, even if they miss out this time around, I suppose the bugs may well get their turn eventually.

 

[Ben2]

You can only fit so much in Battleships or it'll be like the telephone directory.

 

[Nerroth]

I wasn't asking for book 2 to be overloaded with ships; I'm all too aware that the kind of fleets I would be more interested to see will be years away, at best.

I was simply stating that, thematically, I personally think that the way in which rival factions have been paired together in FC (and, by extension, in Starmada) works well in terms of promoting in-universe rivalries; and that while breaking these pairings up again might benefit would-be players of the factions that end up jumping the queue, it may also take away somewhat from some of the broader impact that each set as a whole would represent.

 

[Ben2]

I was just kidding.

I know Battleships will have lots of ships for the races in the rulebook as well as the Lyrans (as we've seen the ship models for minis). I don't know which, if any, other races are being included.

If it is the same size as the rulebook (124 pages) and you get a dozen pages of rule/background for new races then that's still a lot of space for ships.

Matt might drop some hints. However we haven't seen Neo-Tholians yet either, so it might be that they get paired with Seltorians.

 

[Nerroth]

The ADB BBS had a submission topic running for Neo-Tholian design ideas; so far, there hasn't been any unveiling of its results, but it seemed that the intent was for the Neos to be a part of the second wave.

But, there's probably no point speculating overly much, since it seems that upcoming books seem to be moving away from being set to match FC/Starmada releases the way the first book had been.


For anyone who isn't aware, the ship list in A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is the same one seen in the first four Federation Commander modules (Klingon Border, Klingon Attack, Romulan Border and Romulan Attack) and the first two Star Fleet Starmada books (Klingon Armada and Romulan Armada).

This is where the ship compositions for the first twelve Squadron Boxes came from; since each of those was originally offered in the older Starline 2400 range, each keyed to a given FC release (over which the Starmada books were overlaid).

This may be another thing to watch for if book 2 moves away from this; some of the Starline 2500 versions of certain Squadron Boxes might have to wait until the missing empires in a given box are gotten around to.

As a further example, the FC modules Distant Kingdoms and Hydran Attack introduced the Lyrans/LDR, Hydrans and WYNs to that game system; both modules were consolidated in Starmada terms in Distant Armada, while a set of six Squadron Boxes exist in Starline 2400, three per FC module, to support these releases. However, if that set of ships are broken up for ACtA:SF purposes, one or more of the Starline 2500-edition Squadron Boxes may not be offerable right away, since they would include ships from empires that happen to miss the cut.

In the long run, once more books are out, it may not matter so much; but it may well be a factor in the time we have until we get there.