Romulans vs Klingons. Oh my...
- Thread starter Stu--
- Start date
The plasma user gets to declare in the shooting phase yes, but if a hoard of Romulans uncloak in front of you it's probably not a big surprise that they're going to shoot at you.
My rationale was that the plasma is faster and therefore less time is available to evade etc
In FC, if you thought you might get shot by plasma you really needed to plan for it the turn before. It's the fastest thing in the game and very difficult to outrun. Really, you're trying to make it take a bit longer to hit you rather than evade it all together.
Not without a serious reworking of the critical system!
I love the way crits now work - it's easy to take, but equally easy to ignore a barrage of minor annoying criticals, however serious criticals are the bane of big warships.
However again, unlike ACTA 1e and 2e, you have time to respond to these criticals by clearing off the little ones (especially the escalating little ones) before they occur, and all hands on deck! is a big part of that.
Maybe getting rid of 'all hands on deck' is harsh (though really other than a game mechanic I can't see what it represents.. Aren't the damage control teams already doing their level best to fix this stuff) - perhaps add +1 to the regular repair roll to account for this if you feel it too harsh - so a regular crew would fix a crit on a 4+
Personally I quite like the harshness of crits that aren't easy to fix, they are supposed to be 'critical' after all - real battle damage is almost impossible to fix outside a port but yeah, this is star trek
-other things that spring to mind would be to account a larger ship a better value since they would have more damage control teams, so that makes sense.
Tzarevitch
Mongoose
msprange said:
Also ships do leave port with less-than-full ammo and fuel loads for various reasons. It happens with wet navy ships, no reason it shouldn't happen in space too. An out of ammo result can also reflect a launch malfunction. Drone launchers are a mechanical system. That does happen to them. The drones may still be available but unable to fire until the launcher is repaired or reloaded.
I have to admit its been a while since I played ACTA (I still play FC every week though).
With plasma in ACTA I always found that there was one tactic basically - charge and get in whilst you have overwhelming firepower. Don't try and get clever with long range manouvering/cloaking. Use the terrain (there should be some) as much as possible to mitigate long range shooting. Once you are close nothing can withstand the sheer damage output of plasma armed fleets on a point for point basis.
There was some worry about klingon front shields, but it may be worth looking at it from another angle.
A klingon D7 being attacked through his front shield can take ~36 on the shield (probably a bit either way depending on rounding and volley size etc) and another 22 in hull hits. So it takes about 58 raw damage to kill a D7. A Fed CA takes 56 to kill as I remember, a Gorn about the same. The klink is not much stronger up front compared to other cruisers, he is just a lot weaker outside the front.
The Romulan equalivalent to the D7 is a KE. That takes 30 shield and 12 hull, the Rom is armored so will usually shrug off an extra couple of hits, needing more like 14 hull to kill, a total 44 hits. The larger klingon hull means it is more likely the devastating crits from plasma will contribute a bit of damage to killing it, so in practise you will not need to hit the klink with 58 damage, but maybe only 53. So there is only about a 10 point or less difference between the Rom and Klink even through the klinks front.
What can each ship do attacking wise? Ignoring special actions, but assuming range 8 (for P1 killzone and plasma optimal range) the D7 can bring 7 phasers for ~9 and 4 disrupters for ~6 and 2 drones for ~7 = ~22 damage. The KE can bring ~8 from phasers and ~39 from plasma = ~47.
Ignoring counter measures, in a single turn the Rom does twice as much more damage to the D7 than the D7 does to it, the Rom will have scored hull hits and possible devastating crits whereas the D7 is relying on luck to get an odd leaker. Over 2 turns the KE scores about 55 damage to the 44 from the klingon. So both have a good chance of killing each other in two turns of shooting.
Defensive fire can clearly make a big difference. If both sides do all the defensive fire they need to (or can rake up) you see the Rom give up 2 P1s to stop ~2D6 and the Klink give up 7 phasers to stop ~5 or 6D6. In such a case the Rom inflicts ~23 and the Klink ~6.
Big edge to the Rom in one turn, but over 2 turns, the KE is doing about 27 and the Klink about 21. Neither side is through the shield yet even after 2 turns of shooting (barring leakers).
This is a fleet game, so with say 5 D7s vs 5 KEs you are looking at the klingons dishing out ~100 and the Roms ~225 if they all go full offense. If the Roms put 2 KEs on one D7 then the D7 will not have those phasers to fire at the second lot of plasma. Two KEs should kill a D7 with noticeable overkill. Two D7s, however, will not kill a KE unless the one being plasma'd forgoes any defensive fire, then they can just about take out a KE - but that just means a D7 dies with less firepower at him and the rest goes onto the 2nd D7. There is a fair chance that 5 KEs can kill 3 D7s in one go even if they go defensive. If they do not go defensive you might kill 4 D7s in one go. The D7s struggle to compete with that.
Where the Roms struggle is of they lose a ship or two before getting to fire properly, or they fire outside range 8. Plasma in ACTA is not game where you dribble it in. Plasma is easy to defend against, but only up to a certain point. Every point over that threshold makes plasma increasingly potent, every point below it and plasma is increasingly weaker than simply losing a dice. If you fire at range 8 (in the above fleet) you may only be adding 15AD or about 37% extra dice compared to range 12, but that will increase the amount of plasma damage that gets through a defensive klingon by maybe 50%.
There are of course other factors that change things. The Klingons can overload, though that can be hard to pull off with more than a couple of ships (6" move and 6" range). Shield boost helps the Klinks if they are hit in the front, but the D7s can only throw 1D6 (other ships are better of course). The KEs can throw 3D6 shield boost which is pretty impressive, especially on subsequent turns when you are trying to repair shields. The klinks weapons may roll lots of 6s and ignore shields. Some klinks may well get caught out side Front shield arc and die really fast. However, SAs don't really alter the basic maths - the disparity in raw firepower at close range makes klingon front shields not that much of an issue, at the end of the day the amount of damage to kill a klingon cruiser is not much different to any other cruiser.
The point is that plasma is a very hard to system to balance given how it works. The klinks have to play well and to their strengths to beat someone who will wipe them in a simple shootout.
PS when I played the Roms in ACTA the KE was my workhorse ship, that is why I was using it in the above comparisons (and the D7 for the same points). It may be ultra fragile on the inside, but 30 shields, armored, command and very good plasma payload per point spent.
That comes down to what you mean by 'works'.
If you mean plays/feels just like SFB/FC then no. If you mean that klingons will have to use agility,drones, long range disrupters and avoid showing their rear. Whilst the Roms have to try and get into poistion to make a useful 'launch' then yes it works. That is what both sides are trying to do in ACTA and it is what they would probably be doing in SFB/FC, each game just represents it in a different way.
I personally am not keen in ACTA any more, plasma and drones feel wrong - but to be clear plasma is damn potent as it currently stands, hence if you are going to win you are likely winning big but if you are going to lose you are probably wondering how you are meant to win, the mechanics can't really leave much room for anything in between (and is often the case in any game with a super potent side/unit that has to be beaten by not letting it get its super shot off in the first place). I also feel ACTA is a bit to random, too much too often comes down to a couple of 50/50 dice rolls, and they are often ones revolving around defending against seekers (Evasive or IDF) as it happens.
With plasma in ACTA I always found that there was one tactic basically - charge and get in whilst you have overwhelming firepower. Don't try and get clever with long range manouvering/cloaking. Use the terrain (there should be some) as much as possible to mitigate long range shooting. Once you are close nothing can withstand the sheer damage output of plasma armed fleets on a point for point basis.
There was some worry about klingon front shields, but it may be worth looking at it from another angle.
A klingon D7 being attacked through his front shield can take ~36 on the shield (probably a bit either way depending on rounding and volley size etc) and another 22 in hull hits. So it takes about 58 raw damage to kill a D7. A Fed CA takes 56 to kill as I remember, a Gorn about the same. The klink is not much stronger up front compared to other cruisers, he is just a lot weaker outside the front.
The Romulan equalivalent to the D7 is a KE. That takes 30 shield and 12 hull, the Rom is armored so will usually shrug off an extra couple of hits, needing more like 14 hull to kill, a total 44 hits. The larger klingon hull means it is more likely the devastating crits from plasma will contribute a bit of damage to killing it, so in practise you will not need to hit the klink with 58 damage, but maybe only 53. So there is only about a 10 point or less difference between the Rom and Klink even through the klinks front.
What can each ship do attacking wise? Ignoring special actions, but assuming range 8 (for P1 killzone and plasma optimal range) the D7 can bring 7 phasers for ~9 and 4 disrupters for ~6 and 2 drones for ~7 = ~22 damage. The KE can bring ~8 from phasers and ~39 from plasma = ~47.
Ignoring counter measures, in a single turn the Rom does twice as much more damage to the D7 than the D7 does to it, the Rom will have scored hull hits and possible devastating crits whereas the D7 is relying on luck to get an odd leaker. Over 2 turns the KE scores about 55 damage to the 44 from the klingon. So both have a good chance of killing each other in two turns of shooting.
Defensive fire can clearly make a big difference. If both sides do all the defensive fire they need to (or can rake up) you see the Rom give up 2 P1s to stop ~2D6 and the Klink give up 7 phasers to stop ~5 or 6D6. In such a case the Rom inflicts ~23 and the Klink ~6.
Big edge to the Rom in one turn, but over 2 turns, the KE is doing about 27 and the Klink about 21. Neither side is through the shield yet even after 2 turns of shooting (barring leakers).
This is a fleet game, so with say 5 D7s vs 5 KEs you are looking at the klingons dishing out ~100 and the Roms ~225 if they all go full offense. If the Roms put 2 KEs on one D7 then the D7 will not have those phasers to fire at the second lot of plasma. Two KEs should kill a D7 with noticeable overkill. Two D7s, however, will not kill a KE unless the one being plasma'd forgoes any defensive fire, then they can just about take out a KE - but that just means a D7 dies with less firepower at him and the rest goes onto the 2nd D7. There is a fair chance that 5 KEs can kill 3 D7s in one go even if they go defensive. If they do not go defensive you might kill 4 D7s in one go. The D7s struggle to compete with that.
Where the Roms struggle is of they lose a ship or two before getting to fire properly, or they fire outside range 8. Plasma in ACTA is not game where you dribble it in. Plasma is easy to defend against, but only up to a certain point. Every point over that threshold makes plasma increasingly potent, every point below it and plasma is increasingly weaker than simply losing a dice. If you fire at range 8 (in the above fleet) you may only be adding 15AD or about 37% extra dice compared to range 12, but that will increase the amount of plasma damage that gets through a defensive klingon by maybe 50%.
There are of course other factors that change things. The Klingons can overload, though that can be hard to pull off with more than a couple of ships (6" move and 6" range). Shield boost helps the Klinks if they are hit in the front, but the D7s can only throw 1D6 (other ships are better of course). The KEs can throw 3D6 shield boost which is pretty impressive, especially on subsequent turns when you are trying to repair shields. The klinks weapons may roll lots of 6s and ignore shields. Some klinks may well get caught out side Front shield arc and die really fast. However, SAs don't really alter the basic maths - the disparity in raw firepower at close range makes klingon front shields not that much of an issue, at the end of the day the amount of damage to kill a klingon cruiser is not much different to any other cruiser.
The point is that plasma is a very hard to system to balance given how it works. The klinks have to play well and to their strengths to beat someone who will wipe them in a simple shootout.
PS when I played the Roms in ACTA the KE was my workhorse ship, that is why I was using it in the above comparisons (and the D7 for the same points). It may be ultra fragile on the inside, but 30 shields, armored, command and very good plasma payload per point spent.
That comes down to what you mean by 'works'.
If you mean plays/feels just like SFB/FC then no. If you mean that klingons will have to use agility,drones, long range disrupters and avoid showing their rear. Whilst the Roms have to try and get into poistion to make a useful 'launch' then yes it works. That is what both sides are trying to do in ACTA and it is what they would probably be doing in SFB/FC, each game just represents it in a different way.
I personally am not keen in ACTA any more, plasma and drones feel wrong - but to be clear plasma is damn potent as it currently stands, hence if you are going to win you are likely winning big but if you are going to lose you are probably wondering how you are meant to win, the mechanics can't really leave much room for anything in between (and is often the case in any game with a super potent side/unit that has to be beaten by not letting it get its super shot off in the first place). I also feel ACTA is a bit to random, too much too often comes down to a couple of 50/50 dice rolls, and they are often ones revolving around defending against seekers (Evasive or IDF) as it happens.
Hi StoryElf, I can't really comment very much on Romulan / Gorn strategy - we are playing Kzinti / Fed / Klink for the moment just to check out what's been written so far.
We'll do Roms later on when we're happy with what we've got.
As far as their weapons are concerned, in FC plasma is the devastating shot weapon so other than balancing how it functions and how hard it hits I don't see a massive problem. The same options available in FC should also present themselves within ACTA.
As an aside, if the Klingon is fighting toe to toe with loaded Romulans at very close range I think he's asking to lose - no gun is as big as the plasma-R.
We'll do Roms later on when we're happy with what we've got.
As far as their weapons are concerned, in FC plasma is the devastating shot weapon so other than balancing how it functions and how hard it hits I don't see a massive problem. The same options available in FC should also present themselves within ACTA.
As an aside, if the Klingon is fighting toe to toe with loaded Romulans at very close range I think he's asking to lose - no gun is as big as the plasma-R.
I like it - the point is that on a 'normal' turn damage control teams will be doing their best to fix it without impeding the ability of the rest of the crew to fight the ship. That means trying to fix parts of an impulse drive whilst the ship is still manouvring, for example - which explains why it's so damn difficult. The All Hands On Deck! action comes with some fairly stiff penalties, if I remember, which represents sending people other than just the damage control teams into the fray, leaving only a skeleton crew on the ship's systems.
Essentially, it's for when a ship is burning from stem to stern with escalating damage, and the greatest threat to life and limb is not the D7 lining up off the starboard bow but the ship's own fluctuating power grid, burning magazine deck and shaky life support.
The hulls really are not tiny compared to FC. You are looking at one value in isolation, and not considering how it fits in the game as a whole.
As you say that is about 1/3 - 1/4 the amount of internal punishment an FC cruiser can take.
But you cannot look at that and say they are tiny, this isn't FC. In FC a typical cruiser can deliver a crap load more damage than they do in ACTA, so having more internals doesn't mean much. If I do 3 times the damage but have 3 times the hit points then there is little difference overall.
A Fed cruiser in FC can deliver 40 plus damage just with its phasers at point blank range, where as the ACTA version will never be greater than 16. Photons deliver at most maybe 1/4 the damage. Which ever ships you look at you will find the ACTA damage output is far less than the FC damage output when it comes to direct fire weapons. A D7 can expect to do about 70-80 damage in an overrun attack, compared to maybe 25 in ACTA. In FC it is easier to get the overload pass as well.
So ACTA hull values are roughly in proportion to the damage that the ships dish out.
The way shields work in ACTA may seem a bit out, having reduced hull and damage output but kept shield values almost 1 for 1, until you consider that in ACTA you only have 1 shield so you actually have about 1/6th the shields that you have in FedCom. Different people may have different results, but in FedCom I will often have taken 2 or 3 full shields worth of damage on a ship, spread across all 6 arcs (maybe 70-80 shield damage). So again the shields in ACTA do not seem that far out relative to the damage output in the game.
To put it in perspective, in FedCom a Fed CA who gets to point blank range can take out an enemy cruiser (shields and internals), whilst a Klink D7 will maybe cripple one. In ACTA the Fed cruiser can on a very lucky day kill a cruiser, but will more likely leave the enemy cruiser seriously bruised but alive. The klingon will probably do some hull damage, but not much. ACTA ship overall are in fact a bit more robust than they are in FedCom in terms of raw damage numbers. That, however, is made up for to some extent by the critical system.
ACTA ships do tend to dish out more damage at long range than FedCom ones do when compared to their ability to take damage, but they do nothing like the damage that FedCom ships dish out at short range, which is very hard to avoid in many FedCom games.
For the most part ACTA is quite a nice and elegant game, but IMHO opinion it falls down badly on its over reliance on 50/50 SA rolls that have a huge impact on a players ability to feel as though his tactics are the decisive factor. That also, as I noted elsewhere, contributes significantly to the major issue of drones being the dominant weapon. The leaky shields and crit system already provides enough luck element to the game without needing more when using bread and butter SAs.
As you've said the shields are 1/6th of FC so boosting the hull does help make the fights more interesting, it also gives the critical system more time to come in to play before you are crippled - the crit system being an interesting part of the game.
Lets's also bear in mind here that in FC there's no similar 'crippled' effect.
I agree that weapon damage is not to-scale with FC (though I think that if you're playing FC and firing at range 0-1 regularly you're doing something wrong - that is 'uuber death nobody can survive range' which most likely ends with two crippled ships heading past each other at high speed; most engagements should be at 4-8 hexes (which is bad enough). If all you do is head toward each other and unload at range 0 it's not much of a game) but I don't think what you're doing there is a fair comparison.
Compare it at the 4-8 hex range band and it will match more closely, range 0 was always horrendous death in SFB.
The damage model in ACTA models it rather well until the very close ranges you mentioned - at very close ranges the ph-1 should probably be something like multihit-4 if you really wanted to copy the 'blowing each other away' phenomenon of a range 0 FC pass. (I'm not sure it's a desirable thing to copy but who knows)
Lets's also bear in mind here that in FC there's no similar 'crippled' effect.
I agree that weapon damage is not to-scale with FC (though I think that if you're playing FC and firing at range 0-1 regularly you're doing something wrong - that is 'uuber death nobody can survive range' which most likely ends with two crippled ships heading past each other at high speed; most engagements should be at 4-8 hexes (which is bad enough). If all you do is head toward each other and unload at range 0 it's not much of a game) but I don't think what you're doing there is a fair comparison.
Compare it at the 4-8 hex range band and it will match more closely, range 0 was always horrendous death in SFB.
The damage model in ACTA models it rather well until the very close ranges you mentioned - at very close ranges the ph-1 should probably be something like multihit-4 if you really wanted to copy the 'blowing each other away' phenomenon of a range 0 FC pass. (I'm not sure it's a desirable thing to copy but who knows)
The shields in ACTA are about 1/6th the overall FedCom shields, but as I was noting previously, in reality you will not be taking all your shields as damage in FedCom. In many FedCom games I can often manage about 2 or 3 full shields of damage in a squadron games, but unless you are playing 1 vs 1 then you will not be doing much better than that except in rare cases. In some games you will never get to use more than 1 shield (large games throw too much firepower out in one go), so shields in this game could be seen as superior to FedCom.
Extreme leaky shields and the shield boosting in ACTA make comparisons quite difficult. Whether shields are better or worse than FedCom probably depends on what level of game you are comparing to in FedCom. In a 1 vs 1 ACTA shields are probably weak. Squadron or small fleet feel about right (IMHO), large fleet games they are relatively strong in ACTA.
I can't say much about SFB, I haven't played it in about 25-30 years. FedCom I play a lot though.
In FedCom if you are playing on fixed maps like in ACTA then you cannot avoid the range 0-1 pass if one side wants it. Many FedCom tourney games are decided at very close range - Lyrans, Hydrans, Feds in particular are the dominant empires because they are so good at point blank range. Other empires have less desire to go close, but a klingon cannot avoid the hydran/lyran/Fed coming at him if he has a map edge stopping him running.
Even so look at range 4, A phaser averages 4 damage, that is twice the damage you will get in ACTA. At that range a photon averages over 5 damage, compared to 2 in ACTA - again over twice the damage, plus in FedCom you are much more likely to be firing overload photons making photons far more damaging in FedCom. Disrupters average twice the damage, and again are somewhat more likely to be overloaded. A plasma hitting at that range is about twice as strong in FedCom as well, pending on type.
The comparison I was trying to show was that whilst ACTA ships have good long range damage, on a par or maybe slightly better than a FedCom ship, the FedCom ships rapidly ramp up the damage as they get closer, and that is where most games are decided in FedCom. It may be range 0-1 or 4-8, but FedCom usually comes down to a decisive pass at those closer ranges, where the damage they inflict is on a scale that cancels out the extra internals such ships have in that game.
A fed cruiser with 6 phasers and 4 photons at range 4 has an excellent chance of leaving an enemy cruiser crippled, shield down and over half its internals out in FedCom. In ACTA the Fed cruiser will be very lucky to achieve that (assuming he can get the overload in a game where it is more difficult to achieve that shot). All you woud be doing by doubling the hull values as you proposed somewhere is making ships in ACTA much more durable than they are in the source games.
Whether or not that would make the game better or not I'm not arguing, but your early statement that hull values are tiny in ACTA doesn't really hold up as far as I can see. Yes, there is a different interaction between shields and hull in this game, but the hull values are not far out of kilter with the base game when you look at the ability to actually damage that hull value. Neither are ships overall weaker (shields + hull). There are times when photons leaks through and blows up a ship with crits when in FedCom that couldn't happen. There are also times where you overrun a ship and leave it with little more than a damaged shield when in FedCom that couldn't happen. But for the most part the survivability of ships is not far out in the game as it stands.
Until you start looking at drones and plasma that is which are both far more potent in this game than FedCom, but that is down to seeker rules and the defense mechanisms, not shield/hull values.
Perhaps it's better to say that in the right circumstances, the way that ACTA treats shields means that a ship can take a lot of damage prior to losing many shields - a Romulan Snipe for example can be crippled quite easily with shields still in good condition.
In addition, the critical system means one bad hit can be very bad.
The two taken together collectively mean that some lucky rolls can equal a lot of pain. I don't take issue with that, but doubling the hull points gives some safety margin against ninja dice - one of your main issues as you mentioned previously.
It also allows ships much more capability to disengage when damaged, means they can fight on for awhile even without shields and generally enhances (for us at least) the game.
As for drones - I've re-written that mechanism- take a look and see what you think (well upthread) I just havent had time to test plasma as yet.
Played a game today, Feds & Kzinti vs Klingons - 1000 pts Klingons, vs 1200 fed/kzinti.
We did the 'on the back foot' scenario and played for ~5 hours. We reckon we did about 8 turns.
Drone system seems to work okay, not one hit all day though there could have been had the dice fallen differently. Did however contribute to lowering the Klingon damage output and at one occasion forcing a Fed CA to basically divert everything to self defence.
I should also point out that the Kzinti forces were 'late' and so had less opportunity to concentrate their fire.
The double hulls did make the game slower - less stuff dies, overall this probably added an extra hour to the game.
Suggestion was to use +50% extra hull rather than +100% extra.
We will probably try this next time, though not sure that's the answer either.
Other option could be to make 'crippled' less restrictive, not sure yet - we don't really like that one hit prior to the crippled score you're OK but that extra hit then hammers you down to few weapons and low speeds. Perhaps make a ship moving into the 'crippled' zone roll a few auto-crits.
Anybody got ideas?
Also, we put back the 'all hands on deck' option, but with a maximum of 2 fixed crits.
We did the 'on the back foot' scenario and played for ~5 hours. We reckon we did about 8 turns.
Drone system seems to work okay, not one hit all day though there could have been had the dice fallen differently. Did however contribute to lowering the Klingon damage output and at one occasion forcing a Fed CA to basically divert everything to self defence.
I should also point out that the Kzinti forces were 'late' and so had less opportunity to concentrate their fire.
The double hulls did make the game slower - less stuff dies, overall this probably added an extra hour to the game.
Suggestion was to use +50% extra hull rather than +100% extra.
We will probably try this next time, though not sure that's the answer either.
Other option could be to make 'crippled' less restrictive, not sure yet - we don't really like that one hit prior to the crippled score you're OK but that extra hit then hammers you down to few weapons and low speeds. Perhaps make a ship moving into the 'crippled' zone roll a few auto-crits.
Anybody got ideas?
Also, we put back the 'all hands on deck' option, but with a maximum of 2 fixed crits.
for that size of game - we would normally look at a couple of hours max - but its always going to be a compismise between playability and detail.
Asyou note - a number of your options add time to the game - but if thats what floats you boat.
If you want to test it - try heavy drone user against Gorn
Asyou note - a number of your options add time to the game - but if thats what floats you boat.
If you want to test it - try heavy drone user against Gorn
Really? I don't think we have *ever* played a big(ish) game that fast.
We actually thought we were playing pretty quick, it's just that the improved resilience of the ships means they don't go down as fast and thus the turns don't speed up as much as normal.
Don't have any Gorn - though Klink v Rom should do the same.
We actually thought we were playing pretty quick, it's just that the improved resilience of the ships means they don't go down as fast and thus the turns don't speed up as much as normal.
Don't have any Gorn - though Klink v Rom should do the same.
Stu-- said:
1000pts is about 5 pts raid in old style B5 ACTA - we would play that in about hour a half - if is was good game and not one sided, much less if it was.
It should only take a few moments to move ships - epseically if you pre-plot with dice, ACTA:ST takes longer with firing due to the defensive fire/drones but again should not take long...
Gorns don't have cloaks or the speedy agile cruisers - they don't like Drones - but who does
