As I was driving home after sending another class of high school seniors on
their way, I realized that I had a cool FT scenario that I'd never posted to
the list. I offer this up in supplication and in the hopes that my OT
transgressions will be forgiven.
Repair Yard Raid
Defender: After unexpectedly heavy fighting in this sector, your fleet has
taken heavy damage. Those units that have not been damaged or destroyed are
spread out in an attempt to both engage the enemy, and protect your border
worlds from his attacks. The pride of the Sector Fleet, the Super Dreadnought
(Insert Name Here) sustained heavy damage during a fleet action in which the
enemy fleet was routed. It has been rotated back to a repair station well
behind the front lines in order to refit, repair, and take on replacement
crewmembers. Currently it is in spacedock, with drives, screens, and weapons
systems powered down so that maintenance and repair may be performed. Only
point defense systems are currently operational. Additionally, only a skeleton
watch crew remains on board while the repair work is underway. As no attacks
in this area are expected, the ship will be sufficiently protected by a light
cruiser squadron with destroyer support, as well as several squadrons of
fighters based upon the repair base.
Attacker: Intel has learned that the enemy Super Dreadnought (Insert Name
Here), thought to be destroyed during the recent fleet action at (Insert...you
get the point), actually suffered heavy damage and was able to withdraw under
its own power. After further inquiries among some covert sources, it was
discovered that the SDN is undergoing repairs at a supply base well behind the
front lines of the current conflict. Given that both our fleet and the enemy
fleet are currently stretched to the limit, it is highly unlikely that the
enemy will be able to offer more than a token defense. Due to the losses
suffered in recent weeks, it is imperative that the enemy SDN be permanently
crippled or destroyed, as its continued existence and eventual repair may
likely spell the end of our efforts in this sector. To that end, you have been
given command of a raiding consisting of (I usually run it with a
Battlecruiser, a couple of heavy and light cruisers (including a PDS variant)
and a variety of destroyers). Your mission is to destroy or cripple the ship
so that it may not be repaired. Survival of your strike force is of secondary
concern.
The scenario is always a quite enjoyable one to run. I typically run it with a
Komarov SDN, but it ought to work with an SDN of any fleet as the
target. The SDN has taken damage (Usually about 1 1/2 rows of hull
boxes, roll for threshhold checks as normal for the first check to see what
other equipment was taken out). As stated in the scenario, all systems on the
SDN are shut down except PDS. In order to get them up and running, the player
controlling the SDN may begin rolling repair rolls starting on the third turn
of combat. For the purposes of the scenario, damaged systems must first be
rolled for repair, THEN to start up on the subsequent turn. Until that time,
he's got to rely on his
fighters, light covering forces, and spacedock armaments (armed w/class
1 batteries). Also, since he's got a skeleton crew aboard, he's limited
in the amount of crew to start systems, usually down to 20%-30% of the
full crew factor. I dont' count the civilian repair workers, since they're not
combat trained, they wouldn't stick around to run the systems anyway. This
scenario is fun, because it's a real nailbiter for both players. Can the
attackers destroy the SDN before it gets enough of its systems up and running?
Or will the SDN get its critical systems going in time to defeat the
attackers? Give it a shot, you may have to tweak it a little, but I'm sure you
and any other players will have fun with it.
Mark Reindl schrieb:
> Repair Yard Raid
Nice one.
> Also, since he's got a skeleton crew aboard, he's limited
How about dicing for the crew too, to simulate dispersed crew being called in
and taking up positions?
Start off with your 20% - 30% and treat the other crew elements as a
system.
Greetings
> --- Mark Reindl <mreindl@pacbell.net> wrote:
> systems on the SDN are shut down except PDS. In
BTW, what do you require for repair rolls? Same as for damaged systems? Seems
to me it would be easier to turn on a ship's guns than to fix them.
Same roll. I justify it mainly because I always assumed that they were powered
by some sort of reactor, which needed time to get up and running.
Mark
> John Atkinson wrote:
> --- Mark Reindl <mreindl@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Mark Reindl wrote:
> Same roll. I justify it mainly because I always assumed that they
Here is where there are troubles with the psb. Current naval warships fall
into two categories of cold iron. There are the vessels that can crash start
and respond to all bells within sixty seconds of someone pushing the start
button and vessels that require several hours before they can start turning
shafts.
Some psb for various types of powerplants: [Another of my exercises in SF
writing]
Forced quantum singularities:
FQS systems have only two levels of operation-- Full rated power and
thermal runaway, resulting in matter-energy of the remaining mass of the
singularity. As the energy output is the indirect conversion of mass to energy
(via black hole evaporation), very little fuel is needed, but it is
used constantly. Power level control is counter-intuitive, as adding
less fuel will cause power to increase and adding more fuel will decrease
power. If the matter injectors cannot transfer enough mass to the singularity
to match its current output, the output increases without limit (BAD THING
tm). There are two main disadvantages of FQS power systems. The first is that
it must have enough built in redundancy that segments can be taken out of
service, while still maintaining the required mass transfer to the
singularity. The second is that it is difficult to securely mount a point
mass. FQS systems are also saddled with an enormous mass penalty. Although too
dangerous for planetbound powerstations, the FQS has one advantage for
shipboard use, they are easy to eject from the vessel in emergencies, as, once
the containment field is released, nothing will keep them from passing through
the hull and the exit hole is easily sealed. Being at full power anyway, the
FQS powered starship (though not necessarily her crew) is always ready for
action.
Inertially Confined Fusion: ICF initially used a spherical wavefront generated
by multiple laser beams to compress a pellet of fuel to the fusion ignition
point, but modern systems used gravity waves. The power is available in
pulses, but the pulses can be very close together. Depending on the nature of
the gravitic subsystems, this is pretty much an energy on demand system that
can go from zero to full power as soon as the injectors come on line. As the
injectors are little more than pellet guns, startup is little more than a
handshake with the field generators to announce a pellet's arrival. Black
starts (no external power) on cold iron are practically impossible.
Fission: Fission piles are problematic for instant starts, as they are usually
operated with only delayed neutrons. However, a small number of pulse reactors
(they take advantage of doppler broadening to shutdown after releasing an
enormous burst of neutrons) can dump enough neutrons into the fission core to
kickstart a fission pile without threatening to push it
into it prompt criticality (a-bomb). Unfortunately, there is a serious
risk of damage to the fuel elements from the thermal shock, so fission piles
are typically ramped up to full output over the space of several hours.
Energy Conversion: The response time of the the powerplant of a starship
depends more on the energy conversion processes than the actual energy source.
The raw energy is in the form of heat, and we typically want electrical power.
Magnetohydrodynamics allow electric power to be generated directly from the
gas coolant of the power plant, but require a significant volume to expand the
gas. Warships accept the space requirements of an MHD, because they do not
require extensive radiator arrays on the surface of the ship. Merchant ships
trade surface area for volume by using a liquid coolant (typically water, due
to its low cost) to achieve high efficiencies by exhausting the waste heat
into the black depths of space through some form of heat engine,