From: B Lin <lin@r...>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 10:20:02 -0700
Subject: Coordinated Fleets
Following the thread on Co-ordinated fleets, here are some off the cuff ideas: CCC ships - with a certain allocation (1 mass, 3 points per unit) a CCC center is setup on a ship. A group of ships equal in number to the mass of the CCC center may fire at the same time (the CCC provides the coordination data for simultaneous time on target solutions that allow all the firing ships to have their fire reach a specific target at the same time). One one CCC may be in use on a ship at a time, each CCC is a separate system marker. Each firing ship can only receive data from one CCC at a time, so is not allowed to split fire, even if it has multiple FC's. Range of a CCC is 12 MU (or 24 depending on play balance) This will have more of an effect if the standard "alternating side" firing order is used, as it will alllows CCC'd ships to pack more punch in a single firing phase over individual ships. In the case of simultaneous firing games, perhaps the CCC should allow a "dice bonus" of 1 extra die per 4 or 5 (rounded down) to simulate the better "bracketing" of the target by such a co-ordinated attack. AEGIS Area Defense Ships - Ships armed with the AEGIS Area Defense Fire Control and Weapon systems are specialized anti-fighter and anti-missile platforms (mass 3, 9 points per system) which allows the carrying ship to engage fighters and missiles at range 12 MU doing 1-6 POINTS of damage per shot. One group of fighters or missiles may be engaged by each AEGIS system. AEGIS has no-anti-ship capability. Shield Ships - Oversized Shield generators (mass =R squared, R squared *2= points, level 1 only) that project out to R MU. Shield size is fixed and can not be altered during a battle (i.e. if you have a range 4 shield and decide to start the battle with the range as 3, it is fixed at 3 for the battle.) Ships within the generator range appear as if they had one extra shield (up to a maximum of 2). Projected shields are not allowed to overlap, shield ships must maintain their distance If their shield zones overlap, roll a systems check (-1 per overlap) on the generator to see if it overloads. In addition, the Shield ship must have FC to allow other ships to fire out of the shielded zone without penalty, one FC per firing ship (this is to co-ordinate the openings in the shield with the firing ship) For instance if a shield ship had only 3 FC's but was shielding 8 ships, only 3 ships could fire out of the shielded area without penalty per turn, otherwise the OPPONENT would receive the +1 shield bonus. Mobile Minefields, Laser/Beam Constellations Laid and controlled by specialized systems these small, mobile weapons form a "shell" around the operating ship. Each weapon is mass 1, 3 points and is basically an un-manned fighter. The control system is an enhanced fire control (2 mass, 6 points) which can target multiple short range targets at once. The launching system costs 1 mass (2 points) per launch tube. Various weapons are available - standard AF/AM beams (treat as standard fighter), Energy Torpedo warheads (treat as Torpedo, Short range only, single shot) or "death blossom" single-shot AF/AM munitions (treat as scattergun vs fighter/missile only). The constellation covers an area up to 12 MU from the operating ship (this includes the ranges of all the weapons, so a torpedo unit can only fire at a target up to 12 MU from the mother ship, not 12 MU plus short torpedo range). The constellation can move at a max velocity of 24 MU per turn, if the operating ship moves faster, then any deployed units are lost as t! hey fall out of communication/co-ordination range. Deployed units can only be recovered by specialized Mass 4 "tugs" which require a Hangar to operate. Just some thoughts, --Binhan