Okay, we're tired of fighting battle after battle with no goals. So we tried
the old standby of destroying the convoy before it reached the other end of
the table (about 84" long). We did this three times. I have an alternative: a
convoy chase where the attackers are pursuing the convoy. Then I wrote up a
small research station ("Gamma") with two scenarios. 1) "The Gamma Device", in
which a new weapon system has been perfected and a task force is sent to pick
it up. The enemy doesn't know why but they sent a task force to find out,
arriving at about the same time (what a coincidence). I added a die roll per
turn, 6 being needed, for a spy aboard the station to radio the reason for the
activity. I'm restricting the scenario to have no nova cannons or wave motion
guns. 2) "Rock Station Gamma" where a spy station is hidden in an asteroid
field and the enemy has finally sent a task force to deal with it. Station
reinforcements have already arrived and camouflaged themselves among the
asteroids, unless they activate any systems or are successfully scanned by the
enemy they look like "rocks". I had a recent thought of allowing the station
side to have jammers on some asteroids but what would it cost? As a ship
totalling
36 (4 hull + 1 hull box + wide area jammer)? Or with a single
jammer totalling 25 (3 hull + 1 hull box + jammer)?
No NC or WMG allowed in the scenario. Should the points be even or should one
side have more? The attackers since they're being ambushed or the station
defenders being at speed 0? Can salvo missiles distinguish between a ship and
an asteroid? What if an asteroid has a bogey device on it?
Any other scenario ideas? They don't have to have the base in it.
Something else came up about bases being superships having multiple sections.
If a NC or WMG hits it does every section take damage?
Do we not use sections when designing from FB1?
Glen
G'day Glen,
> 1) "The Gamma Device",
Sounds pretty good.
> 2) "Rock Station Gamma" where a spy station is hidden
I'd say you could have either actually.
> Should the points be even or should one side have more?
Guess it depends on how much their defensive position is worth. If the SMs
can't detect the difference between rocks with bogey devices and ships then
give the attacker more. I'd build the defense side first and then base the
attackers on that, so how many support vessels are there in the asteroid
field?
> Can salvo missiles distinguish between a ship and an asteroid?
Guess this comes back to the argument of why can't they tell the difference
between scouts and SDNs. Personally I'd say they could tell the difference
between rocks and ships, unless the rocks have bogey devices on them or the
ships dive behind the rock at the last second (ala ever space movie in an
asteroid belt I've ever seen, I think), though not sure exactly how'd you'd
manage that in FT (maybe if end such that the ship ends with an asteroid
between it and the SM marker(s) and the ship is within 1" of the
rock??).
How are you going to deal with collision damage?
> Any other scenario ideas? They don't have to have the
Off the top of my head:
1) Rather than just destroy a convoy make it that you have to board it to
capture some special cargo on one of the ships, you can make it extra
interesting by having one ship transporting marines (Kudos to laserlight for
thinking up this scenario)
2) Invasion - have a fairly large attacking force hit a smaller defender
which can't 'rout'/strike the colours as they're defending home, at the
start of the game roll a D6 and that's when some major extra defenders turn
up, and/or every turn roll D6 and that's the number of sublight system
defense boats that make it to the battle (will come in at fairly high speed).
We used both of these for the ESU attempt on the IAS homeworld
system and it worked well - we had an extra twist that not all my
sublight boats were well armed, some were actually science vessels so we
rolled an additional D6 for each boat coming in to see what kind it was.
3) Incursion - you must make it through a bloackade to drop off
troops/package/payload
4) Evacuation under fire - your worst enemies are here to take the
planet
and you've got to get the newly ex-Pres out before he becomes the newly
late Pres.
5) Stake the claim - however gets to that 'gold' bearing asteroid first
gets the 'gold'
6) Kidnap - like (1) except you're after a VIP (as a captive not as a
corpse) rather than merchandise
7) Pirate ambushes - was it Indy or someone that had written up some of
those??
Hope that at least gives you some germ of an idea.
> Something else came up about bases being superships
Well just as a gut reaction I'd say the WMG only does damage to those sections
actually facing it. NC is a bit tricker though, maybe full strength to those
facing it and half strength to the sections that aren't (curl around effects
of the blast)?? I'd roll for each section independently rather than take one
roll and apply it everywhere.
> Do we not use sections when designing from FB1?
I'd use sections, but build each section seperately (as independent
vessels) and stick them together in the end - I'm guessing thrust isn't
going to be an issue for the station right?? Some clever sole has designed a
B5 SSD (sorry can't remember the URL), but that maybe a place to start for
inspiration (worked well when we did a "shadows run the blockade to blow up
B5" scenario). Another alternative would be just to build SUPER massive ships
and then split it up into sections.
Cheers
Beth
Nice scenarios.
I played in one such game at GZG-ECC involving a large space station
orbiting a planet. Much Fun. The idea of the game was to board the space
station while taking out opponents ships. The game devolved into "kill the
station". But very Much Fun.
Wave Gun: I would suggest that all sections facing the wave gun be damaged by
it. The sections in the shadow of the front sections, may be protected or take
less
(-1d6?) damage.
Nova Cannon: I would suggest that all sections would take damage from the nova
cannon, as it is omni directional within the plasma sphere.
I would not worry about the cost of the decoys or jammers. Just balance the
scenario (unless each side is allowed to bring thier own ships/designs).
If you need to price them use the cost on p. 22 of FT for drones and weasels.
You can use the Area ECM from p.6 of MT for the Jammers.
Until the ships "power-up" the missiles would be unable to distinguish
between the asteroids and the ships.
I would suggest that an asteroid with a bogey on it would attract MT
Missiles/Salvo missiles just as any ship would. The missiles would
probably not detenate, as thier sensors would not be spoofed at attack range.
So the MT missile could probably continue on the next turn, but would have
wasted a round of endurance.Salvo missiles, may not attack (depends on how
stupid an AI you think that they have), but could not attack anything else as
they commited to the asteroid.
Section desinging in FB1: Split the mass of the station into X number of
units. Decide if the station has a central power core, or a seperate one for
each section. Cost a Thrust 1 engine if the station has a central core. If the
station has a central power core, design the station so that the other
sections surround the core. Treat each section as a ship. Give it hull, FCS
and weapons. If using the central power core, the central section may not have
weapons, but may not be attacked until the outer section facing the attacking
ship has been destroyed. If not using a central power core give each section a
power core.
Cost this core at 1/2 a thrust 1 engine.
Give the station a lot of armor and screens (may be in central section).
Give the station a lot of PDS. You may want to make one section of the station
a "bay" section and have it house a large number of fighters. Anyway, just my
suggestions.
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
-----
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> 2) "Rock Station Gamma" where a spy station is hidden
Beth has already give some good suggestions on possible scenarios. Here are a
few of my own...
1 - Variation on the convoy idea. Large Armed Merchantman or Cruise
Liner under attack by Raiders. Begin the scenario with the Merchantman side
already damaged by 30% and raiders by 15%. Merchantman is placed in center of
the table and Raiders randomly outside the 12" band. Relief Force enters by
the end of turn
1.
Objectives:
Relief Force - Protect the Merchantman and destroy the Raiders.
Merchantman - Escape destruction.
Raiders - Board the Merchantman, capture vital cargo or capital, and
escape. Note: House rules will need to be developed to cover the boarding or
capture of the merchantman.
2 - Supply Pickup. D6 supply markers are placed in the center of the
table, two fleets enter from opposite sides of the table. Objectives:
Side A - Recover all supply markers and exit from original table edge.
Side B- Destroy Side A or supply markers.
Note: Some house rules will need to be developed to handle the recovery of the
markers (ie tractor beams) and how they may be destroyed.
Finally Michael Brown has done some interesting FT scenario cards. They can be
found at, http://myweb.veriomail.com/mwbrown/scenario.htm
I've reworked these cards into a more "card-like" format. I'd be happy
to share them with anyone who is interested. Let me know [off list] and I'll
send you a copy, they are in a MS Word format (please specify Mac or Win
format).
Thanks for the ideas. I don't have any idea how to do a simple boarding party
action so mostly we play 'destroy the enemy' scenarios, although I try to
needle beam FTL drives on the target vessel but this usually doesn't work
since the enemy targets needle beamers first.
Glen