Scouts and variants

Scouts and variants

I can vaguely remember this being talked about but cannot find it again and since I’m getting old and my memory is going I cannot remember what is going to happen.

At what point are the scouts and variants going to be appearing, will they be in the once a year big books or more often in other places such as supplements or articles (S&P if it resurfaces or other such).

Not the stuff than needs new models but all the things that can be used with existing ships or a modicum of modification.
 
There are scouts among the ships in Battleships*. Battleships will be out sometime later this year.

If the models are ready for release before the book, there will probably be a pdf. There is an journal coming at some point, but I have no clue what is going to be in that.

*As ever, playtest information is subject to change.
 
Dunno when they will be officially appearing. Scout rules are in the main rulebook I understand. You can take a rough guess at what a scout would look like by taking a frigate or light cruiser and swapping the heavy weapons (photons/disruptors/plasma) for the Scout trait.
 
In the most recent version of the errata (although this is aparently being revised) two of the stations get the Scout trait.

They should be very useful ships when they turn up :)

WARNING NOW ENTERING NON OFFICIAL AREA - HOUSE RULE /IDEA

Have been playing around with some ideas for ships - would have looked at some kit bashes but not still no sign of my fleet box as yet ;(

Huntress Class Scout 155pts (D6 Variant)
The Huntress was designed in the early years of the General War, as although the Romulans were nominal allies of the Empire, some elements of the military were concerened about the effectiveness of the cloaked raiders that the Romulans employed. The Huntress class were designed to seek out such raiders, ideally as part of squadron and destroy them. The progression of the war meant that only two ships were produced and never used against their intended targets, but acted as ECM support vessels in several battles. Based on the reliable hull of the D6, the Huntress was equiped with primarily defensive weapons but also had enough firepower to deal with smaller Romulans ships at close quarters.

Ships of the Class: Huntress, Hawkslayer,

Turn: 4, Shields: 20, Damage: 20/7, Marines: 4, Craft: 2 Shuttles,
Traits: Agile, Anti-Drone 1, Labs 6, Scout, Tractor Beam 2, Transporters 2,

Phaser 1............18........F,P,S....2.........Accurate+2, Kill Zone 8, Precise,
Light Disruptor....15.......F..........4............Accurate +1, Multi-hit 2,
Phaser 3.............6........T..........3.........Accurate +1, Kill Zone 2, Precise
 
Day Boss until we see a actual Scout written up it is hard to say if it is a single scout trait or if it is one scout trait per heavy weapon replaced. What is universally consitant is scouts can not fire anything except low powered phasers or drone or they void their scout ability by blinding their own special sensors. Scouts could probably have a special rule stating that they can fire any phaser as a phaser 3 or as its normal value subtracting one from each scout trait for each full powered phaser fired.

Note bases might be exempt to blinding.
 
thanks interesting information :) so you can't really have a sub hunter type ship?

I am just playing around with stuff really until I get my ships............. I like making stuff up :)

I don't think you will have mutiple Scout traits on a single ship from the way its written in the rule book - could be wrong though....

Bases must be exempt as they have loads of guns like Phasers 4's etc and nothing that says they can't use them all - although there is also nothing that I recall in the Scout trait rules about the blinding effect you mention. It might just be the ships that have it in ACTA won't have heavy weapons..........or it might not.
 
Unless CTA:SF starts introducing some original ships or variants, then the scouts will not have heavy weapons as no existing scout variants of the main empires in the Star Fleet Universe have any (that I am aware of), except for drone launchers.
 
Scouts don't carry heavy weapons since firing anything bigger than a phaser 3 (or a drone/anti drone) shuts down their special sensors.

EDIT - bases are an exception to this rule.
 
General rule of thumb is that special sensors typically replace heavy weapons and in some cases phasers, for the reason Nomad mentioned. I expect the Klingon D6D will be a popular ship when it's released. Scout trait and 6 AD of drones!
 
Also you have those pesky survey cruiser that mount light cruiser torpedoes and special sensors on a cruiser frame.

Da Boss - Sub Hunting no but during the Andromedan invasion they started basing fighters on the scouts when they were hunting Rapid Transport Nodes.
 
Ah, yes. Wait until you see the Kzinti SSCS Super Space Control Ship. It's an dreadnought with flighters and fast-patrol boats AND scout sensors, without giving up disruptors or drones.
 
Sgt_G said:
Ah, yes. Wait until you see the Kzinti SSCS Super Space Control Ship. It's an dreadnought with flighters and fast-patrol boats AND scout sensors, without giving up disruptors or drones.

I love this ship, but its also the one responsible for making our SFB games an exercise in book-keeping!

My hope is that ACTASF sticks around long enough and grows so that you can have one of these bad boys leading your fleet and with all the fighters and PFs in tow. Now that's a battle!

-Tim
 
Finlos said:
General rule of thumb is that special sensors typically replace heavy weapons and in some cases phasers, for the reason Nomad mentioned. I expect the Klingon D6D will be a popular ship when it's released. Scout trait and 6 AD of drones!

Actually I find the profussion of drones across all the fleets a bit dull - ah well - I quite liked my ship design ;)
 
While I agree that they're perhaps a little too proliferate, they aren't that wide spread. Unless you could the Plasma-D as a drone, the only Major empires that use drones are the Kzintis(primary heavy weapon), Klingons(supplemental) and Federation(supplemental). Minor "empires" that use drone are the WYN and the Orion Pirates (both use pretty much anything they can get their hands on however).

Meanwhile, Disruptors are about as proliferate, with 3 major empires using them (Lyrans, Klingons and Kzintis), as well as the WYN, LDR, Orions and Tholians. Plasma is similar as well.

And also, I feel silly for forgetting the various survey cruisers. :oops: Though in my defense they're survey ships, not fleet recon and e-war support units (what I think of when I think "scout").
 
The Federation Survey Cruiser mounted both sensors (4 of them) and photons (2 of them) and could carry six fighters. Just about the most useful scout in F&E.

A good question is whether the bigger scouts, mounting 4 sensors in SFB/FC, would get scout 2, and be able to use 2 sets of scout abilities. This would make larger scouts more 'scouty' that the frigate scouts.
 
Alternatively, since most of the scout functions are based on crew quality checks, scout ships with more sensors in FedCom could get a bonus to Scout-based Crew Quality rolls?
 
Each photon/disruptor/plasma/ph-1 or -2 et.c shot 'blinds' one sensor channel.

So, you could allow scouts with multiple sensor channels to fire 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever AD of those weapons without losing their scout ability; if they fire more, they're blind for the rest of the turn.
 
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