PBeM Summary, part 1

PBeM “First Contact: First Blood” Game summary

This is the first of two messages I’m posting summarizing the results of my
recent PBeM game. This message briefly describes the starting forces and
scenario; the second post will cover what actually happened.

Humans:

The scenario was built around the first fleet encounter between humans and a
previously unknown race called the Rahni. Earth is not united; the various
nations have joined together in “power blocks” to fund space fleets and
off-world colonies. One of these power blocks, the Pacific Rim
Confederation (“PacRim”) had a scout ship disappear while charting an
unexplored system. The Western Alliance (“WestAll”), PacRim’s chief rival,
learned of this and sent their 4th Interstellar Defense Fleet to investigate
the system. The human objectives were 1) make peaceful first contact, 2) if
attacked, capture at least one enemy ship, and 3) ensure at least one human
ship survives to report back.

Human Ships: 1 x Dreadnought (70 mass, 3 screens, THR 2) 1 x Battleship (52
mass, 3 screens, THR 3) 1 x Battlecruiser (40 mass, 2 screens, THR 2) 1 x
Heavy Cruiser (34 mass, 2 screens, THR 4) 1 x Missile Cruiser (30 mass, 1
screens, THR 4) 1 x Light Cruiser (28 mass, 1 screens, THR 4) 2 x Destroyers
(14 mass, 1 screens, THR 6) 2 x Missile Frigates (12 mass, THR 6) 4 x
Corvettes (10 mass, THR 8)

A-bats generally had one arc, B’s generally two, and C’s usually three.
The BB mounted a wave gun. The DN and CL had superior sensors; the BB, BC and
FM had enhanced.

Aliens:

The Rahni are a “proud warlike race,” who have conquered several other races.
They had recently learned of humanity, and sent “Warfleet Crimson” to
investigate. This fleet had captured the PacRim scout earlier, and was waiting
in the same system to see if any more of these “humans” showed up. Their
objectives were 1) allow no human ships to escape after learning of the
Rahni’s existence, 2) capture at least one more human ship for study, and 3)
ensure at least one Rahni ship survives to report back.

Rahni Ships: 1 x Superdreadnought (78 mass, 2 screens, THR 2) 1 x Battleship
(46 mass, 2 screens, THR 3) 2 x Heavy Cruisers (32 mass, 1 screen, THR 4) 3 x
Light Cruisers (26 mass, 1 screen, THR 5) 2 x Destroyers (12 mass, THR 7) 2 x
Torpedo Destroyers (12 mass, THR 8) 2 x Corvettes (8 mass, THR 8)

All ships have cloaking devices. They had no A-bats, but the SDN, BB,
CHs,
and DTs all had pulse torpedoes. B-bats generally had two arcs, and C’s
usually three. Most ships carried an aft-firing sub-munition pack. Only
the SDN and CLs had enhanced sensors; everyone else had just basic.

The humans had a 10% advantage in mass, while the Rahni had a 10% advantage in
points (due primarily to the cost of the cloaks).

House rules:

The aliens had “advanced” cloaks (ala Star Trek) which allowed them to "see
out." The human ships could scan for cloaked ships, detecting them on a
5-6
(superior/enhanced) or 6 (basic), modified as follows: -1 per 6” range
(or -1
per 8” for superior), +1 per 2” velocity of target, +2 per point of THR
target used, +2 if target had been detected last turn (ie -- tracking),
and
-1 if in aft arc.

The humans had “mini-missiles”, which had only a 12” range and a 2-turn
life; instead of “homing in” on any ship within 6”, these missiles had a blast
radius, doing 1d6 to all ships within 3” and 2d6 to any ships within 1”. These
turned out to be pretty ineffective, even though no ships carried any
*DAF's.

Most ships also had “Needle FireCons,” which allowed them to make
needle-beam-type attacks with regular beam weapons, but these played
little part in the battle, so I won’t talk about them much.

Game summary: TO BE CONTINUED....