From: stranger <stranger@c...>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 19:30:31 -0500
Subject: [FT] The Cloaking Device v0.2
The Cloaking Device v0.2 Ships equipped with a cloaking device are able to operate virtually invisibly. The benefit is not without its drawbacks, as from time to time the cloaked vessel's image will quickly blink in and out of a ships sensors, and a cloaked sensors are virtually blinded while in cloak. To simulate this the following rules can be used, CLOAKING: When plotting movement a ship may be plotted to cloak. The player then pre-plots any number of moves. When movement is conducted, the player marks his cloaked vessels as now CLOAKED. In the movement portion of the turn that the ships last plot is used, the player moves his still cloaked vessel through all of his plotted moves. The vessel is still cloaked, but has appeared momentarily as a blip on all ships sensors. To uncloak must also be plotted as a movement action, therefore must be plotted in advance. DETECTION: In the fire phase, just prior to firing weapons, the detection value of all cloaked ships is determined. Each non-cloaked ship rolls 1 dice and detects all cloaked vessels where the dice roll was less than the detection value. If a Nova gun effect is on the table, no detections are possible. A ship may not detect a cloaked vessel in its own aft arc if main thrust was used. No detection of cloaked vessels is possible the turn after a wave gun is fired. DETECTION VALUE=Thrust used of cloaked vessel (so that a vessel that accelerated by 2 and turned by 2 has a detection value of 4). DETECTION VALUE DIE ROLL MODIFIERS +1 per thrust used by scanning vessel. +1 per thrust used by the uncloaked ship using the most thrust. +1 Scanning Vessel is a non-military vessel (may not apply to scientific vessels, not cumulative with enhanced or superior sensors) -1 Scanning Vessel is equiped with enhanced sensors. -2 Scanning Vessel is equiped with superior sensors. All detected cloaked vessels are moved by their movement plots to their current position and marked as detected. Ships may fire dumb weapons at the DETECTED vessel, counting the range as DOUBLE (or add 12", whichever is greater) the actual range. Dumb weapons are: Beam Batteries, Pulse Torpedoes, Needle Beams, Submunition Packs, PDS, K-guns, MKP Packs, Scatterguns, Stinger Nodes, Lance Pods, Leech Pods, Spicules, and Pulser Batteries. Basically, if the weapon is guided, steered, or in any other way is homing, it cannot be used. Note that Needle Beams only do hull damage. FIRE CONTROL SOLUTION: Cloaked vessels may be fired at normally if a Fire Control Solution can be achieved. In any turn that a cloaked vessel is detected, and has been detected by more than one vessel for 2 of the last 3 consecutive turns, or 6 of the last 10 conecutive turns if detected only by a single vessel, a Fire Control Solution is achieved on the cloaked target. In this case all weapons, to include fighters, may attack the cloaked vessel. ALTERNATIVE: Instead of keeping track of the number of turns of detection roll a dice: If the cloaked vessel was only detected by one ship this turn, a roll of 1 on a d6 results in a Fire Control Solution. If two or more vessels detected the cloaked ship a roll of 1-3 on d6 results in a Fire Control Solution. IF THIS IS THE FIRST DETECTION SINCE CLOAKING NO FIRE CONTROL SOLUTION IS POSSIBLE. A Fire Control solution is possible only on the 2nd and later detections after cloaking. TACTICAL COM-NET: It is assumed that all vessels in a task force are linked in a COM-NET, and may fire on any detected cloaked vessel. It is not necessary for a ship to detect a cloaked vessel to fire on a detected cloaked vessel. Players may wish to rule that allied vessels not of the same nationality have not linked their tactical systems and must independently detect cloaked vessels. ACTIVE SENSOR SWEEPS(VERY OPTIONAL): These rules assume all detection is passive. If you are willing to let vesseles fire while cloaked, then use this rule as well. Active sensing drowns out passive sensing, so if any ships are actively searching for cloaked vessels, passive detections may not be made. The searching player designates all ships that are actively scanning, then rolls 1d6 for each cloaked vessel on the table. If the roll is less than the total number of actively scanning ships (or 6 in any case), then that cloaked vessel is found and a FIRE CONTROL SOLUTION is achieved. The cloaked ship is moved to its current position. Cloaked ships, found or not, can fire on any ship using active searching. Any cloaked ship that fires that is not found must be moved to its current position, and is considered to have been detected for purposes of "first detection" found above.