A long discussion of marine boarding ships...
Long Range Drop Shuttle (LoRDS)
Military Shuttle 2 * 1.5 * Mass Streamlined
Q-Ship Base 1.5 * 1.5 * Mass
non-FTL
Thrust 8 2 * Mass
FCS DCM.1 * Mass Cloaking System, 2* Mass
At 50 CS per Cargo Mass a 10 Mass Long Range Drop Shuttle can deliver 325 CS
of troops to the surface for
70 points (Military Version) or 63 points (Q-ship Version)
That is about the Marine strength of an 80 Mass Dreadnought. For boarding
purposes you may wish to require a class 3 vehicle per 8 man squad as the
small craft alotted to each ship would be insufficient to transport so many
marines
in power armor. This conveniently amounts to ~1/4 the
cargo area, so a 10 Mass LRDS would have a total boarding strength of a ~70
Mass ship. I figure a class 3 vehicle is about right because that is what
mechanized infantry have.
Lets see:
6 Squads (32 each) + 6 Class 3 vehicles (12 each) +6*2 Crew
(Crew also boards, effectively you have 10 man squads,
or 2.5 BDF each) Cost per 10 man squad, 52.
Total Cost 312 For 15 BDF. The LRDS has its own 10 man squad
integral to its crew, +12 CS for a Class 3 vehicle = 324 CS
making a total of 17.5 BDF.
That leaves 1 CS for the ship's mascot, a small cat named Shadow. If you
assume the ship has a Class 3 ships boat integral to her design you can add 2
marines on a Class 1 space scooter. The scooter is normally used for external
damage inspections. For a nice even 18 BDF. Each vehicle should have its own
hull breaching equipment to get its marines inside. I consider that
reasonable equipment for an APC-sized craft.
Incidently, while these craft would have much less endurance
on the ground, they might have _some_ use in ground operations.
Maybe they have wheels and can use roads while having enough thrust to jump
over periodic obstacles.
On some missions it will be more appropriate to have the crew stay with the
vehicles, reducing the boarding factor to 14, or the marine strength of a 56
Mass ship. According to the book the marines can just board in power armor, so
I'd go with the 18 PDF figure for most boarding actions.
Because planets do not move unpredictably it is quite easy to approach fairly
closely under cloak. There is a chance that orbitting enemy forces will get
one shot before the LRDS is in the atmosphere. I imagine crossing an entire
system under cloak would result in navigation errors comparable to those of an
FTL transit, but for shorter hops the landers should be able to get right up
to the edge of the atmosphere on the right vector for landing before they
decloak. I don't recommend cloaking while trying to land however...:):):)
As Drop Shuttles are significantly heavier for the same drop capacity, (32
Mass of drop shuttles would be required for the same load), at about the same
cost, what could be the reason for going with drop shuttles?
I suppose some of that mass must be engine and fuel, to be able to get the
shuttle back up into space. LRDS might be considered to run out of fuel faster
by landing, but if a
deltaV of 7 Miles/Second is a significant portion of a ship's
fuel supply, how do ships get around solar systems in times less than months
or even years? Maybe drop shuttles drop in a straight line, exposing
themselves to much less
ground-to-space fire than a conventional ship entering the
atmosphere would do?
Can one use hyper to save time and fuel going from, say, Jupiter to Earth
orbit? That would really hurt the effectiveness
of system defense boats w/o FTL!
I suppose drop shuttles might be quicker to load and unload,
so likewise the Q-ship lander would be quicker to load and
unload than the heavily compartmented Military hulled lander.
Marine Boat-Support (MoBS)
Military Hull Streamlined 10 Mass 30
Thrust 8 20 Damage 5
Systems: FCS DCM Cloaking Device 1 Mass 20 6 Ground Troop Support Package:
1)
Long Endurance Fighter Bay or
2)
ADAF C Beam PCS C Beam PCS Enhanced Sensors or
3)
PDAF PDAF
level-1 Shields
C Beam
25 CS for supplies, troops. (usually vehicles for the ship's integral marine
complement)
The LRDS and MBS are designed to sneak onto a planet while the enemy still has
forces in the system. They also are used for Special Forces insertions.
Because they are part of the Marine Branch of the armed services, the ships
are commanded and crewed by the ground forces.
As in Vietnam, the air support flown by the marines will fly closer to the
ground, be more effective, and take more casualties from enemy action because
the support will be flown by someone who has seen firsthand what makes air
support effective.
The tactics of using LRDS and MBS is that your system superiority fleet enters
sensor range of the planet's orbit about a turn or so before the landing ships
are scheduled to decloak and enter the atmosphere. The cloaked landers attack
the planet from the opposite direction from the fleet. As the enemy fleet will
have broken orbit in order to intercept the attacking fleet they will have
fewer weapons which can attack the landing force.
The enemy forces then have to decide whether to return to orbit in order to
bombard the beachhead, thus being sitting ducks for long range missile fire or
to move away from the planet, conceding the ground support advantage to the
invaders. I'd hate to see the morale effect of watching your defending
fleet _leave_ while you are under attack, especially if
communications between the fleet and the ground forces is primarily at the
command level.
They would make great smugglers and are useful for keeping ground forces
supplied as well as getting them there in the first place. Without the cloak
they are probably the basic
ground-orbit, ground FTL-limit cargo shuttle.
How would the mechanics of ships in orbit attacking ships in the atmosphere
work?
What sorts of ground missiles could target a ship which enters the atmosphere,
either to provide ground support or to land troops? How would enhanced ship
sensors work versus stealthed ground targets?
> > A long discussion of marine boarding ships...
I had indeed thought about it, but the planet is going to be in the way of
some of your missile arcs. Missiles fly in straight lines after all. You'd
need three missile launch sites to cover the entire atmosphere. And the
concept can always be scaled down. Are you going to waste missiles on 14 point
ships? These same missiles would target any kind of lander I use, including
the
by-the-book Drop Shuttles. Targeting ground missile launchers
from space is very difficult without surprise. We are going to have to get rid
of them anyway, so sneaking in some ground troops or atmosphere capable
spaceships seems the way to go.
Of course, the biggest reason Cloaked Landers don't fear missiles is that
missiles can't be launched at them in time.
Hunh? You say? Read the sequence of events: Write Orders Fire Missiles
Move and _Decloak_ ships.
Your planetary launchers don't have anybody to fire at during their Fire
Missile Phase! You can fire all the beam weapons you like at them, but the
Landers are going to be in the atmosphere the beginning of the turn after they
Decloaked, and at the end of that turn they should be landed. If you can use
ground to space missiles against ground targets the Dirtside II people are
going to want to know about it!
> Brian Bell
> A long discussion of marine boarding ships...
I would think that such a ship would be hard pressed to avoid my planetary
missile system. I I place an equivilent point cost of missiles on the planet
that would give me 11 missiles to fire at your ship. If the planet is
represented by a 6" radius planet, gives an orbit of 6" above the planets
surface, that means that any ship in orbit will automatically be in range of
my missile launched from the planet. Goodby landing craft.
> Michael Sandy wrote:
> Hunh? You say?
Write All movement orders for cloaked ship (including launching order) Rotate
Move 1/2
Rotate & Cloak (placing marker) Other ships finish movement Write orders for
other ships
...
Write orders for other ship Decloak Plot out all cloaked ship movement Rotate
Move Ships 1/2
Launch from hanger Rotate (not for launching ships)
Move Ships 1/2
Write Orders Fire Missiles Resolve Missile Damage Rotate
Move 1/2
...
Seems to me to be quite effective.
> Write All movement orders for cloaked ship (including launching
> Seems to me to be quite effective.
> Brian Bell
Seems to me hard to read. Maybe it is my computer.
Okay, here is the problem:
LRDS and MBS cloak ~200" from planet for, I dunno, 10 turns.
Turn 1 Cloak and accel to planet +8 towards planet
turn 2 stay cloaked and accel to planet +24 to planet at 16
turn 3 "" +48 to planet at 24
turn 4 "" +80 to planet at 32
turn 5 stay cloaked and coast 112 to planet at 32 turn 6 stay cloaked and
decel 136 to planet at 24 turn 7 stay cloaked and coast 160 to planet at 24
turn 8 stay cloaked and decel 176 to planet at 16 turn 9 stay cloaked and
decel 4 188 to planet at 12 turn 10 stay cloaked and decel 6 194 to planet at
6
turn 11 Write Movement orders for Turn 11 Fire Missiles Resolve Movement, ie,
Decloak and enter Atmosphere on Turn 11
I may be out on a limb here, but it seems to me that all status changes for
Shields, Cloaks, Reflex shields and weapon's disabling for Wave Guns and Nova
Cannon should take place at the beginning of the Resolve Movement phase.
This particular tactic does make minefields somewhat more attractive, as they
will be able to hit the decloaking ship the instant it moves into weapons
range for them. There is always the Farragut approach of course... (Hopefully
famous naval quote left out so that some people will feel clever:):):)
The most efficient minefield-clearer is a Wave Gun, I don't know
why people use expensive special equipment to remove mines if they damage the
ship half the time anyway! But if someone were to have mine removing equipment
and a wave gun on the same ship, at the beginning of their movement phase when
they prepared to fire the wave gun, their mine removal equipment would no
longer protect them from the mines.
Adding a cloaking device to a Merchant Ship increases its cost by about 50%.
That is way more expensive than almost any other protection put on merchant
ships. Merchant ships with cloaking devices aren't going to be able to
contribute anything to a convoy battle, but they practically insure the safety
of the cargo, which is the important thing.
Cloaks are one of the most problematic aspects of Full Thrust. For example,
the requirement for taking a system in The Lafayette
Incident, 2178 (FT 2nd Ed, pg 36-38) requires all mobile forces
be destroyed or forced to withdraw. It is very difficult to force a cloaked
ship to leave. If you decide to send ships into low orbit anyway, you had
better hope that the defender has no
16 Mass Non-Ftl Thrust 8
Cloak Wave Gun 126 point Wave Gun Cloak Escorts
in their system. All of a sudden, 4 WGCE decloak and fry everything in low
orbit. Taking out the ESU Monitors and Troop Transports would
_seriously_ cripple Admiral Illyevich Grisheva's offensive! Who
needs Pulse Torpedos when Wave Guns don't miss?
I am having a hard time coming up with a fleet that could do well against a
WGCE defended system. The book disadvantages for the Wave Gun don't really
help since the WGCEs have no shields or other weapons anyway. If the Wave Gun
is lost in a threshold check the ship is pretty much lost anyway. Sure, you
could defeat them, but the cost could be quite high.
Example: Encounter at 54", WGCEs initial closing at 10", move 18" closer and
fire all wave guns in a spread at ~36". Next turn, all ships cloak and
recharge.
10 WGCEs can swamp a 40" base at 36". That should kill most of the attacking
fleets escorts right away, most of the ships fast enough to catch the WGCEs.
And the poor fighters!
I am at a complete loss for good attacking fleet composition and tactics
versus this sort of hit and run defense. It appears to get worse the larger
the fleets are on both sides.
Here is my best shot at it: Mass 10 AA Destroyer Thrust 8 Ftl Damage 5 FCS DCM
Port-Arc AA Beam.
Cost: 65
AA Destroyers fight Parthian style, always maintaining 36-54" from
their opponent, attempting to keep the enemy in their 8. Three of them can
average a threshold roll on a WDCE at >36". But there is a problem of spacing.
The WGCEs can wipe out a whole squadron of AA Destroyers while the AA
Destroyers have to target one WGCE at a time. To maintain a spacing such that
1 Wave Gun will hit at most one AA Destroyer they need to be 4" apart. At that
spacing you aren't going to be able to get 3 to 1 on the WGCEs. A ship big
enough to carry more AA Beams is going to be spending huge amounts on its
drive system.
The other alternative I see is a whole bunch of Submunition ships willing to
fire at 18". An 18 Mass Thrust 8 Submunition ship would inflict ~6 points and
cost about the same as a WGCE. If the WGCE side makes a mistake and lets the
Submunition ships close to 18" (and fire is simultaneous), then all the
Submunition ships would take 3d6 and probably die, and an equal number of WGCE
would be hurt bad, or half as many would be destroyed.
Without using Cloaks, Wave Guns, or Nova Cannon yourself, and
a 2-1 point advantage, how do you destroy, say 10 WGCE with
less than 50% casualties?
Please note whether you are using Cinematic or Vector Thrust rules in your
assumptions! Please note any applicable house rules that you play by as well.
At the heart of the matter is a different interpretation of how cloaked ships
move. We always have the player write out orders, at the time of cloaking, for
all turns he will be cloaked (implying that the cloaked ship is sensor blind).
I believe from your post you allow him to write orders for the cloaked ship
each turn (implying that the cloaked ship can see through the cloaking field,
but others cannot see into it). Your answer is correct for your interpretation
of the rules and mine is correct for our interpretation of the rules.
> At the heart of the matter is a different interpretation
Actually, I was assuming the cloak practically removes the ship from the
universe. It gets to the planet by dead
reckoning. Having written orders for turns 1-10 when it
cloaked for ten turns. During those ten turns the marines prepare for ground
assault, inspect equipment, eat a hot meal, that sort of thing.
On turn 11 I write the movement orders as if it can see the moment it
decloaks. So, the order: "Land on target planet" has validity.
> Brian Bell
Micheal, I can and do agree with the concept that the cloak removes one form
'realspace' and moves the ship into 'subspace' where it
cannot be observed. The problem for your marines comes at the
time of launch, unless you allow launching at the end of movement, if
launching is at the start of movement like missiles, then the assault craft
are stuck in 'subspace' because they do not have a cloak of thier own to get
back to 'realspace'. Just for the record, nova, wave, and reflex shields are
not currently used around this neck of the woods, too much of the
cartoon involved. Nova and wave are capital ship only weapons.
I do enjoy the discussions.
Bye for now,
On turn 11 I write the movement orders as if it can see the moment it
decloaks. I agree that he can write orders the moment that he can see. If he
decloaks at the begining of the turn, he can write orders for that turn. But
would be subject to missile attack. If he does not decloak until start of
movement, he would have written movement for that turn (as he could not see
during the orders phase).
> Micheal,
Launching boarding parties has to occur after the movement phase because
otherwise you aren't going to be close enough to board.
Boarding _is_ handled oddly. If people started using it a lot
we'd have to figure out whether PDAF, ADAF and C Beams could target the
boarding shuttles.
My guess is that both ramming and boarding involve some last minute maneuvers,
changing course based on where the target ship is. Some kind of rules fudge is
involved.
By the book it is unclear whether they mean to restrict Wave Guns to Capital
ships. They explicitly restrict AA Beams to Capital ships but they don't make
the same comment about Wave Guns.
For people who do want to use ramming:
Instead of using the d6 + Thrust rating competition to see if
the ram is successful, allow a ship to have its crew abandon ship before
ramming, letting the autopilot handle the ram itself.
Of course, instead of a d6 you get an automatic '1' for this check, and if you
miss, your ship will keep going and going... You might still want to have a
roll to see if they can even attempt the ram, they might not get everybody
off, some lifeboats could be damaged, etc..., but instead of needing a '6' on
a d6
they'd only need a '2+'.
> Boarding _is_ handled oddly. If people started using it a lot
Depends on what background you are using. Transporters wouldn't have a
"targettable" element. If the ships were _really_ close, there might
not be a need for boarding shuttles.
> My guess is that both ramming and boarding involve some last
I think that the taget ship would probably have to be crippled for any chance
in the game to do a boarding action.
> By the book it is unclear whether they mean to restrict
We like Wave guns on smaller ships. Less to blow up. One thing I've always
wondered is if there could be TWO waveguns on the same ship. I designed a
double barrelled wavegun cruiser (only one could fire at a time) and was not
pleased with the results.
> For people who do want to use ramming:
Why couldn't the autopilot be smart enough to shut down if it misses? A timer
could be used to determine if the ship should have impacted or not.
+++++++++++++++
+------------+ +----------------+
Brian, I don't use netscape to read mail. I use VM which can only handle plain
text. Do you think you could please not send html netscape mail to the list?
Thanks
david..
> Brian Bell writes:
[snip]
> Just for the record, nova, wave, and reflex shields are not
Just for the record, when they were written some of the systems (especially
those in MT) were actually intended for quite specific types of background,
rather than as general-use items for all games. It is our fault that
this was not explained very clearly. Wave Guns were intended for Anime style
games (especially Yamato battles),
Cloaks and Reflex shields for the sillier end of Trek-type backgrounds,
and
the Nova Gun was really a bit of an in-joke all along..... (it was
originally to be called the Futtock Gun*, and on a roll of 6 the crew were too
busy laughing to actually fire the thing...)
* Futtock is a corruption of Foot Oak, the keel timber of a woodenwall; GW
used the "keel gun" in Space Fleet, so we had the Futtock Gun.......
Of course, there is nothing to stop anyone using all the systems in every game
if they want to, but just bear in mind that this wasn't what we originally
intended. We'll try and be clearer about it in the FTFB and FTIII.
Jon: just fyi, I've enjoyed all the new systems, even the ones I'll never use
:) It make a very flexable and fun system even better. The
fact that apearantly 2/3rds of our "Universes'" aren't compatable,
even with the "Official" universe, makes it better. Keep up the great work..
I'll talk at you folks later. Randy "It's Not Fair!" "You say that so often, I
wonder what's your basis for comparision?"