A few of my friends and I were designing a few ship recently when we started
tossing around the idea of using cloaking devices on some of the new ships.
When we referred to the MT rules on cloaking devices.
None of us were very impressed with the fact that you have no contact with the
outside playing area. The idea that we came up with was that a ship that is
cloaked can act just like any other ship except that none of its ships system
except for thrusters are operational. All power returns to ship systems the
turn following its uncloaking. Thus if a ship decloaks in an enemy ships
firing arc they have a free shot at a defensless and unshielded ship. The same
is true for ships entering cloak. During the order phase the ship cannot apply
any power or course change and must write in the move orders that the ship is
cloaking. When the ship is moved the player must announce that the ship is
cloaking. It moves its full velocity and then a bogey marker is placed at its
location. During the phase out stage the ships
weapons/screens/shields/etc. are all inoperational. Any ship attempting
to fire at the ship applies a -1 to all die rolls atempting to hit the
"phased ship" (this represents firCons not being able to get a good lock on
the target. This rule also applies to when a ship uncloaks) At the end of
firing, if the phased ship survives it bogey marker is removed from the board
and may move normally according to its movement orders.
So what do you all think? I would love to hear any ideas to make these rules
better as well as any other cloaking rules that may exist.
> A few of my friends and I were designing a few ship recently when we
Just recently (a couple months ago) Scott Field ran a small
Trek-oriented PBeM
FT scenario for myself and one other netter (hey, monty!). He had cloaked
ships in it (mine!:) and the way we handled it was that the uncloaked ships
could feed telemetry data to the cloaked ships, so the cloaked ships had a
clue about
what was going on in the playing field. But the cloak-capable ships
could not actively fire or anything like that while being cloaked. They merely
used the cloak as a means of maneuvering close to an opponent, and then
uncloaking to surprise and blow said opponent ship outta the water (this
tactic was tried by the Klinks, but apparently the Klink Gunnery Officer was
surprised himself by the suddenly close Freddie ship and faltered at the
controls; I trust that he had been executed and banished as appropriate to one
of his fallen rank).
Now, Scott had more extensive rules to govern other situations that may have
arisen (but didn't while I was playing; granted, I was unable to finish do to
interference of a vacation;), but you'd prolly have to ask him for those
details (I don't remember them off-hand). What we did with the cloak
seemed to work okay.
My $0.02, for what it's worth... Mk
In a message dated 96-08-11 15:46:34 EDT, you write:
<< A few of my friends and I were designing a few ship recently when we
started tossing around the idea of using cloaking devices on some of the new
ships. When we referred to the MT rules on cloaking devices.
None of us were very impressed with the fact that you have no contact with the
outside playing area.
(discussion of alternate cloaking scheme snipped)
So what do you all think? I would love to hear any ideas to make these rules
better as well as any other cloaking rules that may exist.
John Dattalo (jdatalo@erinet.com) Miamisburg, Ohio, USA.
> [quoted text omitted]
I'd suggest trying the rules pretty much as written. While the concept may
seem a bit odd (though it is oft used in Sci-Fi stories), the tension is
great fun. We play that the cloaking player records all of his movement for
the cloaked turns when initially cloaking (including the "uncloaking" turn).
The ship appears/disappears at the end of movement, allowing a good
suprise attack after uncloaking (if you've guessed right). The looks of
glee/horror
on a players face when he plots out the cloaked moves to discover his ships
in the perfect/worst place (it goes both ways) is really fun.
Brian
Back from the woods, time to learn how to use a fork again...:
> the Klink Gunnery Officer was surprised himself by
Once, during a Star Fleet Battles game, a Klingon player marked off crew hits
whenever he rolled spectacularly bad. He did more damage to himself that way
than anyone managed to do to him.
> Back from the woods, time to learn how to use a fork again...:
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!
I'll have to remember that next time I play SFB... ;-)
Mk
> Back from the woods, time to learn how to use a fork again...:
----------
From: I knew it! I'm going home in a bag! It's always the Corporal
thatgets blown up first.[SMTP:KOCHTE@stsci.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 5:37 AM
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject: Re: cloaking device rules
> Back from the woods, time to learn how to use a fork again...:
During our past campaign in a great tactical move I found myself in the rear
arc of a capital ship at close range with two pulse torps itching to eat
metal. After rolling snake eyes the captain of the ship ended up shooting the
weapons officer. Made for lots of laughs.