Federation Commander

[storeylf]

The tactics manual has a section on directed targeting. In that it says that targeting power is usually the wrong choice, there are a few reasons it gives, but the general gist of that section is target weapons over power. There is a brief mention of campaign ships getting away in that section as well, but only a cursory note.

In the tactics section on playing Romulans there is also another few paragraphs on directed targeting. That section is more binary, stating that you target weapons or nothing, but never power. To be fair the Romulan section clearly states it is tourney specific advice, and maybe that section on targeting weapons only should be seen in that light, but by the time you are reading the bit on Romulans targeting weapons you may have forgotten about that caveat, especially given how 'forceful' that statement is, and how it tries to back it up with Maths, that as noted in another thread I think is wrong.

I'm not a big tourney player, but I do want to offer a different take on targeting power that is less specific to the tourney scene. The strong advice given in the Romulan section (and by extension plasma generally) doesn't fit with games I've played. It is worth expanding on that little note in the directed targeting section about campaigns and larger scenarios, as most of the directed targeting advice seems very focused on small games or the tourney.

Most of our games have been larger multi ships fights. Often campaign games. Larger multi ship games can often provide different challenges, and campaign games often have a very different idea of 'victory'.

In larger (multi ship) games played on larger maps a key factor is keeping your fleet together. Ships can be very quickly overwhelmed when half a dozen ships shoot it, even from a mid range volley. If you can get that sort of volley in, and only have that 1 ship shoot back effectively at you then you have just gained an advantage. In a campaign it can be important to stop ships getting away, and actually destroy them - something that tourney players almost never worry about. Many of our games have ended with very minimal kills, or indeed none at all, as campaigns (depending on their structure) can very much alter your perception of a ships value, and a realization that once a battle is effectively 'lost' getting away is key.



The tactics manual looks at the percentage of each system taken out in a 10 damage block. Let's follow the same approach.
A run down DAC row 1 takes out 5 power and a battery.
A run down DAC row 6 takes out 2 Phaser, 1 torp and 1 drone.
Lets say we have 3 Fed NCAs and 3 Fed NCL. That is 24 photons, 42 ph1s, 12 Ph3s and 9 drone racks.


A weapon row hit has reduced the enemy weapons by 4.6%. Smaller ships than the above, say a frigate will be smarting, a cruiser not so much. Whilst the percentage damage on the individual ship is a lot higher, that is of much less importance in these larger fights, where it is fleet firepower that counts.

A power hit can't really be looked at in the same way. The overall power boxes of a fleet is not important. What counts is how individual ships are affected, and in turn how that affects the fleet. A ship that can't do speed 24 can't do speed 24 no matter how much power other ships have. A power hit to the NCA reduces it to 33+3 and an NCL is reduced to 27+1. A 10 block of damage will not reduce the ship to less than speed 24 directly. But lets consider another comment from the tactics manual.

One reason for not targeting power according to the tactics manual is that the ships still has the option to carry on at speed or slow down and power weapons. That is of course technically correct even in a fleet fight. But in a fleet fight your ability to maintain some semblance of formation is important, ships that slow down to keep weapons armed are causing you to split your fleet.

Let's assume we are talking the initial approach, with the above Fed force all coming at you holding overloaded photons. You reached range 10 where directed targeting was possible. For a 6 ship fleet doing 40+ damage is quite possible, even with just phasers depending on who you are playing. So assume you took a volley that after batteries destroyed a shield and scored 10 internals, then hit what you aimed at.

Weapons: The NCA lost 2 Ph3s 1 photon and a drone, plus 1 power. Next turn it can carry on with the fleet at pretty much the same speed 24 + 8 power spare (it repaired the one power it lost, and is no longer holding 4 photons), being down effectively 1 photon. It is now has more spare power than the rest of its fleet (barring batteries).

Power: The NCA has that extra photon still, but now only has speed 24 and 2 power spare (it repaired 1). That is 6 Ph1s less or 6 moves less. If you have planned correct it will never get into range 8 to fire the photons. Its ability to deal with seekers has also been compromised. If it wishes to keep up with the fleet it must drop some of its photons, to save holding power. It may have to drop more photons than you score by aiming at weapons.

That is for 10 internals. Let's look again at the 30 internal example from the Romulan tactics section. Again this damage is not all that hard to achieve with larger fleets, even from beyond overload range.

Weapons: The NCA loses 4 power and 2 batteries on average. So it will likely be 35+2 (but empty batteries?) next turn if it repairs a power, or 34+2 otherwise. It also on average lost 2 photons, 1 drone, 2 Ph3s and 2 Ph1s. This ship is still not doing bad with keeping up with the fleet, speed 24 and 6 or 7 spare power.

Power: The NCA loses on average 10 power and 3 batteries, 1 photon and 1 Ph3. It repairs 1 power. Next turn it has 29+1 (empty). In order to go speed 24 it must drop down to 2 photons held (whether it took a photon hit or not). Even that leaves just 1 spare power, which is really pretty bad. Or it must slow down to speed 16 and have 7 spare power.


In the 2nd example with 30 internals to power that NCA is probably a dead duck, or a millstone around the entire Fed fleet. It's offensive ability has been degraded far faster than by shooting at weapons. It is struggling to deal with seekers, and has probably caused the Fed fleet to break up, providing the enemy a possible superiority against either it or the rest of the fleet later on.

On the subject of plasma, Roms or otherwise. The tactics manual indicates that having done all this damage you will probably not be able take advantage of this due to a lack of remaining plasma. That is possibly true in the current tourney game with only 3 ships. It almost certainly isn't true in a larger game, where you will not have had to use all your plasma to achieve that result. You may have bolted some of it, but depending on your ships and size of fleet it may only take a couple of S or 1 R bolted to potentially get towards that amount of damage on top of phasers (or possibly a single normal plasma that the enemy ate on the way in?). It is highly probable that you will have some big plasma left to immediately send the way of that now slow ship.


In summary, when playing in larger games always bear in mind that when you can target your damage do not just consider the boxes that are lost on that 1 ship, but what affect it may have on the ability of the whole fleet to operate together. Aiming at weapons may reduce fire power of 1 ship but not really affect the fleet much, either total firepower wise or cohesion wise, but aiming at power can have a much bigger impact both in terms of effective firepower loss and ability to remain a cohesive fleet.

Equally if you are in a campaign where ships disengaging is a major factor, then bear in mind that aiming at weapons does almost nothing to stop ships getting away. If you want a decisive victory then you must slow ships down via engine damage, so aiming at power can be important when you are not expecting to do enough damage to slow them down with unaimed volleys.

[storeylf]

Added some additional data on power hits in the other thread, which may be of interest, as whilst the above uses the average of 10 power hits, that is a result that will never happen in this particular scenario. 8,9,11,12,15 are the main results you can expect.

[Klingon of Gor]

There was once a Zen master who liked to play Fedcom. One day, a young man seeking wisdom came to him and asked "Master, should I use directed damage weapons or directed damage power?" And the Zen master replied "Grasshopper, power IS weapons".

Consider a duel between a Klingon D7 and a Fed heavy cruiser. To make it even better, let's make it Middle Years. (Since I actually played that fight the other day). Suppose the D7 gets through the Fed player's shields and gets a few internals. Now it's been demonstrated that the best hits often come early on the DAC. (I can't recall the name of the effect. I worked 12 hours today. And the day before that, and the day before that...) Now if the Klingons get a few weapon hits, then the Feds lose a few phasers, and that's bad, because they don't have all that many phasers to start with. They lose a photon torpedo too. But what happens of they keep all their weapons, but lose a little power and have to slow down to power their weapons? In that case, I submit that the Feds may effectively lose every weapon that they have, if the Klingons are now able to dictate the terms of the engagement and the Feds can no longer hit them hard enough to win the game.

Note too that small ships may be affected more by power hits. Power is harder to repair thn weapons, and small ships have less damage control. Also, a ship with a 3/4 move cost will be more limited by the loss of power. Losing a point of power means losing more than one point of potential movement.

Storyelf has made some good points. I do think that there are times when directed damage power is the way to go. Some races and some ships are power rich, one example being Fed war cruisers. But some races and some ships are power poor, and the loss of a few points of power will limit their options in important ways. In Fedcom, power, as the Zen master said, power is weapons. Power, when you get down to it, is everything. The question of directed targeting is not always simple. As Musashi often said in The Book Of Five Rings, you must study this deeply.
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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Philip K Dick

[storeylf]

[Klingon of Gor]

[storeylf]

Been stuck in the house ill for the past several days and in the boredom I was just re-reading this. Not sure why I didn't respond at the time.