1 posts · Nov 1 2006
From: Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@t...>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:04:35 +0100
> John Tailby wrote:

> Some immediate questions about the wording

> can missile remain stationary as area denial weapons.

The original intent was that a Heavy Missile burns 1 CEF in each primary

move phase, regardless of whether or not it actually moved that turn. I've
played it both ways though - the "space mine" capability is quite
interesting, though in my experience the main effect of it is that the
enemy uses otherwise unengaged anti-ship weapons to destroy the
loitering missiles before they get close enough to attack anything.

> Fighters escorting other fighters must start within 3mu but must remain

The non-condensed version of this rule reads:

"A fighter group within 3 mu of a friendly fighter group may declare that they
are escorting that fighter group. Both groups must then move
into base-to-base contact during the primary move, and must remain in
base-to-base contact throughout the turn. "

which is a bit clearer.

> Salvo missiles, plasma bolts and AMTs automatically gain a -3 DRM.

Not true, because the target's DRMs do not affect rerolls (analogous with
the reroll-screen interaction; screens are effectively a kind of
target's DRM). A Beam Die will hit a Plasma Bolt on an initial die roll of 6
(which
scores zero damage but allows a reroll) followed by a reroll of 4+.

Good catch BTW; the interaction between rerolls and DRMs isn't mentioned in
LL's condensed version of these rules.

> AMTs must declare an attack against all ships within 3 mu.

> all ships within 3mu.

NO missile, fighter group, plasma bolt or whatever moves during the attack
declaration or attack resolution phases. They are all left right where they
ended their primary move, launch or secondary move (whichever came last), just
like in the Fleet Book 2 rules.

> Kra'Vak scatterguns and Sa'Vasku interceptor pods

Yes. If you want to fire scatterguns or interceptor pods in support of some
other ship, or at some un-engaged target, you have to use FCSs to
control the fire. (You can do the same with PDSs too, of course.)

> Scattergun 6mu 1d3 1

No, it brings the scatterguns' capabilities into line with their cost against
all types of small targets, instead of making them slightly overpowered
against missiles and massively overpowered against fighters
:-/

Against *fighters*, scatterguns with ADFC capability are really worth
somewhere around 12 pts apiece - but since that cost would make KV and
similar scattergun-users utterly unable to defend themselves against
*missiles*, the FB scatterguns were instead priced according to their
anti-missile capabilities. Unfortunately I failed to factor in the value
of their ADFC capability during the FB2 playtesting, so that capability was

effectively free of charge in FB2... Bringing the scatterguns down to 1D3 hits
and removing their inherent ADFC capability brings their
anti-fighter
capabilities down into line with their cost, ie. 5 pts apiece.

Against *missiles*, the scatterguns usually waste much of their firepower
anyway. You don't need 1D6 hits to kill a Heavy Missile (even 1D3 is
overkill); and against an SM salvo a single scattergun is too unpredictable so
most players I've listened to prefer to use 2 scatterguns... with the

result that the salvo will be stopped four times out of five, but on average
half the scatterguns' hits are wasted... with the result that cutting them
back from 1D6 hits to 1D3 hits has a surprisingly small impact
on their anti-missile capabilities.

Against *plasma bolts*, finally, the scattergun goes from 1 beam die
without rerolls to 1D3-1 which is a 50% *increase* in firepower :-/

> You do not list stinger nodes as anti ship able to attack ordinance is

It is deliberate. The core point of the UFR is to allow ships to use most
of the points and Mass they've invested in weapons for anti-fighter
defence (though not all of that Mass will be equally good at the job). On SV
ships most of the "weapon Mass" consists of power generators... so if a SV
ship wants to use most of its "weapon Mass" to shoot at fighters, all it has
to do is route the power through its spicules or pod launchers.

> These fighter rules heavily favour one shot fighters like torpedo

It hasn't quite turned out that way in the playtests to date - partly
because torpedo fighters are so much more expensive than other fighter types,
but also because 1 CEF spent on a clever secondary move can often

give your fighters better protection than 3 CEF spent on unthinking evasive
manoeuvres.

> Having used a similar version of these rules it doesn't make a

> say 48" before they fire but you won't have enough firecontrols to

In my experience to date, whether or not it makes a difference depends rather
heavily on the target fleet's velocity. If the missiles can reach

their targets in the same turn they were launched, then you're quite correct
that there won't be enough FCSs. 'Course, if the enemy can launch Heavy
Missiles from 48mu away and have them reach you in a single turn, you could
always try closing at a slower rate (not necessarily *flying* slower,
mind you, but approaching on an oblique course rather than head-on);
whether this is a viable option depends a fair bit on the size of your gaming
table.

If OTOH it takes *more* than one turn for the missiles to reach their targets,
their ability to make evasive manoeuvres is *very* limited. Each primary move
including the launch uses up 1 CEF out of the HM's original
3,
so if it takes the missiles 2 turns to reach their targets they can either
burn 1 CEF on evading on *1* of the turns (but not both) or they can make a
secondary move so whatever target they want to attack is the closest one.
Two turns of fire against non-evading targets are rather more effective
than a single turn of fire against evading targets, not least because it

effectively doubles the number of FCSs you have available :-/

Also, if I understood your variant correctly you gave the Heavy Missiles a
flat -*2* DRM against anti-ship fire? That would reduce the usefulness
of
long-ranged beam fire against an incoming missile swarm quite a lot...
under the UFR heavy missiles usually can't afford any DRM at all until the
turn they actually attack, and even then they can usually only manage a
-1 DRM.

> Our version of how we play was inspired by these rules but we dropped

The endurance burn is certainly the most complex part of the UFR. For us it
hasn't been big problem with fighters (at least not when using fighter SSDs
like LL described), but it can be a chore when you have lots of Heavy Missiles
on the table. Our fighter group models all have IDs; not all of

our missile markers do :-/

Regards,