Space Station upgrade in Campaign

[Democratus]

The time has come for a new campaign with my group. Wohoo!

My question is this. As part of my initial buy, I spent a Battle point to purchase a Battle-level space station. This is all well and good, but I wish to upgrade the station soon to a War-level space station - just as was done with Babylon 5.

Should this cost 10 RR (the difference between Battle and War) or should I have to spend a full 30 RR as if I was purchasing an entire new station?

Any experience with this or thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

For those wishing to follow the fun, we have a campaign blog:
http://www.b5-bats.blogspot.com

 

[Triggy]

I'd be happy with paying the difference so long as you don't lose any of the existing modules that have been purchased.

This isn't an official ruling though as there isn't an official ruling that I know of.

 

[Democratus]

Well, I seem to have started something rather appalling. :shock:

No sooner did I show up and build my station than everyone else saw what I was doing and built their own. Now there are 3 War-level stations in the system making the strategic locations all but invulnerable.

Since you can't take a location unless the battle is large enough to force the defender into including the space station - I doubt these locations will change hands.

I'm thinking about proposing a limit of 1 station per player just to prevent the entire game from devolving into trench warfare. I fear that this will quickly turn into some kind of space-Verdun.

Also. I just had my first battle as the Dilgar against the Centauri. Good lord, how is one supposed to fight effectively against a fleet of Vorchans and Sentri all lending each other Anti-Fighter and Interceptors?

Any advice for fighting the Fanheads would be greatly appreciated. My opponent almost exclusively uses Sulust, Maximus, Kutai, and Sentri.

 

[Da Boss]

re the Centauri - am a little confused by the "Good lord, how is one supposed to fight effectively against a fleet of Vorchans and Sentri all lending each other Anti-Fighter and Interceptors"

Granted Sentris can provide interceptor duty (or act as CAP and engage any fighter attacking the ship) but not both - also as soon as you roll a 1 when it is intercepting - its dead. (*) The Vorchan has no AF or interceptor of its own so use your fighters to overwhelm his. Only the Maximus (or a ship with a refit) can lend AF and / or interceptors in the Centauri fleet.

If he is not using a Balvarin you should be able to heavily outnumber him in the fighter war by using your own fleet carrier. Normally the Centauri attack ships (Vorchan) want to try and get into your side and rear arcs so his Maximus should have difficulty keeping up.

Interceptors are very effective against the Dilgar - try and use your weaker weapons to deplete them. Also concontrate on one ship and overhwhelm its defences
In the early stages where you are likely to have range advantage use CBD whilst firing missiles. Use your own Dart fighters as interceptors.
Take scouts (if possible in a pentacon with a Oclivitia Command Ship to give them effective CQ5 ) to make sure you get as many hits as possible.

re Space Stations - I thought it had changed that the location still can be taken even if the Station is not involved? (bit silly but perhaps to prevent the situation you are outlining)

(*) This is very important especially when using fighters as interceptors - Any one rolled kills a defending fighter - often I have found its the first number rolled! :lol:

 

[Democratus]

Oops. That was a miss-type on my part.

I meant Maximus and fighters supporting each other.

The Centauri use a fleet of Maximus with escorting fighters. Shooting at the Maximus gets intercepted either by the Maximus interceptors or the escorting fighters. Attempting to attack the fighters with my own is suicide because he lends anti-fighter to his fighters.

Attrition on fighters used as interceptors really isn't that bad, since only one flight can be lost throughout an entire bought of shooting (not one flight for every "1" rolled). So at most the enemy will loose one fighter per volley.

Add to this the fact that every battle so far has been at Skirmish/Patrol level and none has been more than 4 points. It's difficult to beat the Centauri at these small battles since their ships are so excellent at this level.

As for the station thing. Nothing in P&P contradicts that particular rule in the base rulebook. Only the parts about the cost per turn (changed to zero) and the requirement to include it in a battle (same as station and up) were changed. The part about needing to defeat the station itself was never altered.

 

[Da Boss]

I meant Maximus and fighters supporting each other.

ah that does make more sense

Attrition on fighters used as interceptors really isn't that bad, since only one flight can be lost throughout an entire bought of shooting (not one flight for every "1" rolled). So at most the enemy will loose one fighter per volley.

hmm not how I understand it - you roll interceptors vs the volly and for every one rolled a fighetr dies eg:

A Dilgar ship fires and hits 7 times - the Vorchan has 2 fighters acting as interceptors and so rolls 2 dice to start with

1st hit rolls 3, 5 - intercepted (needing 2's)
2nd hit, rolls 1, 4 - intercepted (needing 3's) but 1 fighter dies, and now only rolls one dice due to one inteceptor failing
3rd hit, rolls 5, intercepted (needing 4's)
4th Hit, rolls 4, goes through (needed 5's)
5th hit, rolls 2, goes through (needing 6's)
6th hit, rolls 1, goes through and fighter dies (needing 6's)
7th hit, auto goes through as no fighter remaining.

so from the a volley of 7 hits, 4 get through and both fighters die.

If you are mixing interceptors and fighters - its the same except that the interceptors still work when depleated (needing 6's to intercept)

does that help
Add to this the fact that every battle so far has been at Skirmish/Patrol level and none has been more than 4 points. It's difficult to beat the Centauri at these small battles since their ships are so excellent at this level.

Agreed The Glorious Repbulic is a formidable force

you may be right about the stations

 

[Democratus]

hmm not how I understand it - you roll interceptors vs the volly and for every one rolled a fighetr dies eg:

Well, the wording in the rulebook is this: "if any dice roll a 1, then a flight is automatically destroyed."

Everyone in our area has interpreted this to mean that during a single volley of fire, any roll of a 1 destroys "a flight" - which is one flight.

Otherwise, the rules should have read, "for each dice that rolls a 1, a flight is automatically destroyed".

It may seem a minor grammar difference - but it does seem to change the meaning to us.

So 4 fighters on defense can only loose a single flight per volley. It would take 4 different ships shooting at them to have a chance to eliminate all fighters.

I think - barring great luck - that the Dilgar simply can't win against the Maximus until the battle is of sufficient size to allow defense saturation. You can be certain that the Centauri player in our campaign will be selecting "-3" for every battle intensity roll, just as I will always be pushing with a "+3".

Wish me luck! It's quite frustrating facing down my own favorite fleet (with my miniatures, no less!) in combat. :?

 

[Iain McGhee]

Back to the original post, I'd have thought that you'd need to buy a new station. AFAIK there isn't any way to upgrade the PL of a ship or station (other than adding an Admiral to a ship) once it's added to your fleet, house rules not withstanding.

 

[Democratus]

Back to the original post, I'd have thought that you'd need to buy a new station. AFAIK there isn't any way to upgrade the PL of a ship or station (other than adding an Admiral to a ship) once it's added to your fleet, house rules not withstanding.

I agree that it does need some house ruling. But since there is an example in the rulebook of Babylon 5 both before and after an "upgrade" and since it actually happens in the show, it has a lot of precedence.

 

[Iain McGhee]

There's certainly a precedent with the Babylon station (and I think the Narn have a refits/other duties result that lets them replace a ship with a new variant which is similar to what you want to do), but I think that 10pts to push the station up a PL is a bit too cheap. Perhaps averaging the costs i.e. 20pts?

As an aside, I'm curious as to how you treat buying a station with your initial fleet. It's fine with Campaign Of Terror campaigns as the raiders have a hidden station and the system's owners start off with the Settled World, but in regular single-system campaigns no-one normally starts off with any Strategic Targets and the station rules require them to be positioned with an owned Strategic target. Another house rule or am I missing something ?

While I'm here, we play the fighters as interceptors rule the same way your group does.

 

[Da Boss]

hmm not how I understand it - you roll interceptors vs the volly and for every one rolled a fighetr dies eg:

Well, the wording in the rulebook is this: "if any dice roll a 1, then a flight is automatically destroyed."

Everyone in our area has interpreted this to mean that during a single volley of fire, any roll of a 1 destroys "a flight" - which is one flight.

Otherwise, the rules should have read, "for each dice that rolls a 1, a flight is automatically destroyed".

It may seem a minor grammar difference - but it does seem to change the meaning to us.

So 4 fighters on defense can only loose a single flight per volley. It would take 4 different ships shooting at them to have a chance to eliminate all fighters.

Wish me luck! It's quite frustrating facing down my own favorite fleet (with my miniatures, no less!) in combat. :?

Hmm confused - what do you mean by Volley

if a ship fires at another and scores 3 hits and the ship being fired at has 3 fighters defending, if he was really unlucky he could roll 3 consectutive 1's for each hit so all three would be elimintated.

eg:

hit one - has 3 dice to defend with, needing 2's rolls 1, 3, 5 so blocks but loses a fighter

hit two - has now 2 dice to defend with, needing 3's rolls 4,1 again blocks but loses a fighter

hit three - has now 1 dice to defend with , needing 4's - rolls a 1 and the fighter dies and lets the shot through

can you work me through how it works with your interpretation please?

I think if you are counting all hits from one ship as a volley and only one fighter cna be destroyed from that Volley - thats far too generous?

 

[Iain McGhee]

Seems I might have misinterpreted what he means by a volley too. We play that no matter how many 1's come up on a single intercept attempt, only one flight will be destroyed. However, each tier of intercepts can still lose a flight each (i.e. tiers meaning 2+ then 3+ etc).

 

[Democratus]

Here's how we work it.

Ship has 3 fighters acting as interceptors. It is fired upon by another ship which scores 5 hits.

The 3 fighters lend Interceptors 3 to the ship.

The first hit gets 3 dice on a 2+, rolling 1, 2, 5.
The second hit gets 2 dice on 3+ rolling 3, 4.
The third hit gets 2 dice on 4+ rolling 1, 6.
The fourth hit gets one dice on a 5+ rolling 3.
The fifth hit gets one dice on a 6+ (depleted) rolling 1.

During this process, a "1" was rolled so a fighter flight is lost. Also, 2 hits got past the interceptors.

If another ship fires at the defender, it will get 1 dice at 6+ (depleted) against all of the hits. A roll of "1" will kill another flight.

Rinse. Repeat.

 

[Da Boss]

hmm it seems a little too generous to me for the defender but each to their own

Going to loosing one fighter per tier may help some of the problems you have been experiencing.......... :?:

 

[Triggy]

Not that you should take this as canon but at any Mongoose event and when playtesting and when talking to or playing against Matt and when talking to Greg and Steve, I have never seen/heard anyone play fighters as interceptors in any other way than every 1 rolled kills a fighter flight...

Well, the wording in the rulebook is this: "if any dice roll a 1, then a flight is automatically destroyed."

I'd never considered your interpretation of the rules but as you point out it is possible to read it in the way you have done.

I'd suggest that although the grammar may be imperfect, the intent of the rule is to have every 1 rolled result in a destroyed fighter flight.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Ouch ! I'd take it that if the fellow who wrote the rules plays it that way than that's the proper interpretation :lol: Maybe he's got something against fighter pilots :wink:

 

[sidewinder]

The book also doesnt say what happens to the last flight to roll a 1. So if you had 2 fighters on escort (assuming no built in intercepter on the ship) and the first roll you roll a 1, 4. One shot is blocked and one fighter dies.
If on the next roll you get unlucky and roll a 1 again, the fighter dies but what happens to the shot. With normal intercepters the shot would go through, but these arent really normal. I'd say one shot is still blocked because it hit the fighter and not the ship.

 

[Democratus]

I'd say that the fighters lend Interceptors X to the ship for the duration of the turn. It's just also likely that they will die in the process.

So even after the last fighter is killed with a "1" the ship would still get a 6-up Interceptor roll against the rest of the incoming fire.

 

[Na-Po]

When the last fighter is killed you don't have the interceptor trait anymore
(or interceptor 0) so you can't get a 6+ roll.
(all assuming of course there is no interceptor aboard the ship)

We usually use colored dice to easily see the difference between interceptors granted by flights and those "built-in"
Whenever a die representing a flight rolls a 1 it's removed from the pool.
(indeed we play it same way as Matt and other guys around here)

 

[Democratus]

The supporting fighter rules are a bit fuzzy and unclearly written. They don't explicitly say that the Interceptor rating is removed when a flight is destroyed. Only that flights can be destroyed if they play the support role and that fighters acting as interceptors must do so for the whole turn. It doesn't even say that they are excepted from acting as interceptors once destroyed.

So we have treated it as a "pass off". The fighters escorting a ship pass an Interceptors X trait to a ship. In exchange, some or all of them may be destroyed in the process. But the trait has already been given to the ship (much like a Guardian array), it is no longer a property of the fighter flights. Their fate has no bearing on the Interceptors trait of that ship until the next turn when you count up supporting flights and lend Interceptors again.

It is all very messy and has caused no small amount of dissent in our gaming group. The open writing of the rules leaves much up to interpretation, as can be seen in Na-Po's take on things. The rules state that "any roll of 1" will kill a fighter. But his group only takes into account the dice lent by fighters.

Sometimes I wish fighter-interceptors simply wasn't allowed in the game. :?