[FT] Henti was Re: [FT] Command FireCon (long)

G'day Schoon,

> So just for clarification...

Sounds cool.

> Cool. Not quite what I'm looking for here, but I do like the idea.

Basically its a bit of a lost colony kind of thing. In a nut shell:

There's the Henti Hayaxa ("we are companions" in ancient Persian). These

guys are the descendants of a UN sponsored colonisation mission that went
badly wrong - everyone on Earth thought they had died in an explosion,
but these guys had actually been sent 300 yrs into the past and parsecs away

(this was inspired by somebody's lost USAians idea, sorry I've forgotten

who that was). They didn't end up exiting the jump as one group but got
smeared across a few systems (some ships in quite a literal sense) and by the
time they run back into the human sphere of influence (conveniently in the
middle of the Xeno war) they've developed some quite strong and unusual
cultures, created an alliance and system of government to federate them,

had wars with themselves and 4 alien species and generally been around. The
aliens include the 2ft tall teddy bear like Horocca (based on the Hoka) who
are all for peace love and understanding (just don't get them annoyed); the
rather aggressive (amongst other things) Shlandarsh, which are 8ft long
aquatic repitiles; the arthropoid Glacdu who are probably best described as a
cross between an insect and a starfish, they use changes in skin colour to
comunicate; lastly there's the Narpo, they have a true hive mind which
requires a critical mass to operate (separate one out for too long and its as
dumb as a well educated door post), there culture is exceedingly complex as it
follows a strict caste system based on an individuals current sex (there's
four) and life stage (only two of those).

The extra tech used (I don't claim these are balanced, as I haven't had the
time and because they don't need to be for the storyline) includes:

Henti: It took them a while to get over the setback of crashing into somewhere
so completely foreign so they've only just made it back to an equal footing
with the rest of humanity (i.e. no new tech, though they tend to mix weaponary
more and go for wings similar to light horse, shield walls etc of ancient
battlefields)

Horocca: These guys use massive FTL spines to transport whole fleets around.

They have no screens or amour, but they do have directional shields. These
cost 1% mass of the hull per arc they cover (the arcs match the fire arcs).
They reduce 6s to 1 hit (re-roll unaffected), they do not effect 4s.

To try and reflect their small size they get twice the number of hull boxes
for the same cost/mass, but their ship size bands are only half as big.
They also get 12 fighters per group, but their fighters only do one hit on a 5
or 6. They only have 3 fighter classes (standard at cost 24, attack at cost
30, and interceptor at cost 24) and all have the speed of human fast fighters
(36" normal move and 18" secondary move).

They have the same main thrust rules, but in addition they have "solar sails"
(probably a very poor choice of name as Laserlight has pointed out to me
before) which add extra thrust. If you have partial sails (mass=5% of the hull
mass, cost=2xmass) then you get 2 extra thrust and with full sails (mass=10%
of the hull mass, cost=2xmass) then you get 4 extra thrust.

Their beams are EFSBish and have a central charge storage site (mass =
(#dice it holds)/2, cost = (capacitor #) x mass  so for the first
capacitor on the ship its 1xmass, for the second 2x and so on up to a maximum
of 4

capacitors on any one ship) which feeds into the different beam heads. Each
beam head may only connect to one capacitor. The class of the beam is how
many dice it rolls at 0-6", for each 6" after that it loses one dice
until all dice have been exhausted. Thus a class 1 would only have a range of
0-6", whereas a class 6 (the biggest class) would have a range of 36"
(starting with 6 dice at 0-6" and ending up with 1 die at 30-36"). All
the
beams hit on a 5 or 6 with 6 being 2 hits and a re-roll. They are not
effected by class 1 screens, but a class 2 screen does see a hit on a 6 only
inflict one point of damage. The class 6 has only 1 arc, the class 5 has 2
arcs, the class 4 has 3 and the class 3 has 4 and only these 4 classes may
target ships. The class 1 and 2 have all 6 arcs (i.e. 360 degrees of fire) and
may hit either fighters, missiles or ships with the

same chance to hit (i.e. 5 or 6 etc.). One functioning fire control is
required per target.

Their mines have two forms (inspired by narn energy mines in EFSB). The first
are single large mines. These are placed during the missile fire phase (i.e.
before ship movement), to do this one mine per launcher is fired out up to 24"
and then they sit at that position for 3 turns. Anything which gets within 3"
during that period causes the mine to go off they have a 3" blast radius. Any
ship touching that blast takes 1D6

damage and any ship with more than half of its hull within the blast takes 2D6
damage. If the mines are not activated by the completion of the third turn
then they are simply removed. The second form is a net 3 small mines in a
triangle formation, with each side of the triangle being 2" long. You also
place these during the missile fire phase. They have the same
3-turn
life expectancy as the single large mines, but they only have launch range of
18". As with the large mines anything which comes within 3" of one of

the 3 smaller mines sets that mine off and they inflict 1 D6 damage
(regardless of how much of the ship ends up within the 3" blast radius).

However, the explosion also sets off the other 2 mines in the group and
anything within their blasts also take 1D6 damage - so if a ship is
touched by more than one blast it takes damage from each blast. One
functioning fire control is needed during mine launch regardless of the number
of mines or types being launched. The launcher and loads (2 mines per load)
are bought separately. The launcher costs 2 mass, 10 points, normal mine loads
cost 1 mass, 6 points and nets cost 2 mass, 8 points.

Shlandarsh: They do not have fighters, but they do employ a lot of STL
(sublight) ships (carried in specially built hangers on baord their mammoth
ships). They rely almost solely on cloaking and reflex fields for self
preservation. They have little use of conventional weapons (though their

smaller ships do use railguns and submunition packs), their larger ships

all carry wave guns with the exception of their SDN which has a nova cannon.
Apart from this they are only armed with PDS. <This is a shockingly difficult
race to play... though lost of fun!>

Glacdu: Being a radially symmetrical species their ship design follow suit.
Their propulsion systems take up 10% of the mass per thrust rating, but this
allows them the equivalent of a main drive in all directions. They also use a
fuel which produces a more inert plasma, tactically this means they may fire
through an arc in which the engine has just performed a main drive, but can
only do so at one target in that arc (regardless of the number of fire
controls the ship has).

They do not possess shields or screens of any form, though they do employ
armour quite extensively. They only have 2 fighter classes (standard and

interceptor, both at cost 24) and they act as if have a class 2 human screen
in actuality they are very heavily armoured. There are 3 fighters per group
(unlike the humans who have six), but they are more resilient due
to their armour a PDS roll only does 1 hit + a re-roll and a 4 is no
hit. Some of the elite fighters also have an endurance of 9... but these are
few and far between and only given to the best of the best.

The ships encountered so far seem to be built around the philosophy of a

huge number of class ones, a sturdy hull and a lot of armour (allowing
prolonged short range combat) with a single 6 arc beam of higher calibre

and some missiles or submunition packs for added firepower. They have also
developed what can only be termed a class 5 beam in human terminology. These
mammoth beam weapons take up 16 mass with one arc and 4 mass for every extra
arc (though the Glacdu only ever seem to build them with the

full 6 arcs in keeping with their design philosophy). Due to the enormous
energy they put out they can overheat if a 1 is rolled on a firing roll then
you immediately do a threshold check on that weapon as if the current hull row
(i.e. one which is currently being marked off in the damage taken process) had
been filled.

Narpo: Their ships possess extendable boarding arms (actually I haven't
figured out what these really are, whether they tunnels of energy pods move
down or what) which fire out as if a weapon and attaches to the target ship
on a 3+ at 0-12", 4+ at 12-24" and on a 5+ at 24-36". In every movement
phase after attachment movement is plotted and carried out as normal, but if
the two ships end up more than 36" apart then a D6 is rolled and on a
3+
the target ship is pulled back to 36" (adjusting its speed/vector
accordingly), however there is a -1 to the roll for every 6" beyond 36"
that the two ships end up apart. If the firing ship is still alive and
attached during the fire phases (beginning with the turn after the initial
attachment) then a boarding action may be attempted. The arms are 4 mass

and cost 3xmass. If an arm holding a ship is going to let go it must be
announced/done at the beginning of the turn (before missile/fighter
movement) and can not be fired again until the next turn.

The Narpo do use screens, missiles and beams (so far only class 3 or below
have been reported) and these do not function any differently to human ones.
They have only 2 fighter types (which seem to fly in pairs, consisting of one
of each type) and these are the equivalent of human interceptor and attack
fighters.

Their ships can also display an unusual sensor array that allows them to

lend out FC to neighbouring ships (this appears to have been an incidental
technology accruing from their need to get around the problems of long range
communication). The array is 2 mass and costs 5xmass and allows the ship to
lend its FC to anyone ship (per functioning array) within 6". Obviously the
ship itself can not then use those FC to fire its own weapons.

No ships smaller than a FF have been sighted and it's theorised that these
smaller vessels do not exist in the Narpo fleet as they don't constitute a
large enough colony to function efficiently in the long term. This initially
caused a storm of controversy as they have been observed to use carriers in
much the same way as humans. It is now thought that the theory is a valid one
as the restricted task list and short term nature of fighter missions would
not be a problem whereas long term small ship missions would be if some
critical density is required for complex task completion.

Cheers

Beth