Task Force Commander, a new concept

[kiloton]

Every time I open my mouth it causes you work and a depletion of ink and laminating sheets..

[lincolnlog]

Ken,

That's okay, we want to get this one right. In the future I will hold off printing all the ships, and print just what we are play testing.

That will save materials. I think with the ship charts, we're almost there. The biggest concern was clutter in the PP area. I think I've fixed that and made the entire section of the card more efficient. I hope I'll have something to show the group today.

Bob

[lincolnlog]

Few ships can withstand 8-12 drones on a single turn while fighting effectively and many Kziniti ships can build up 8-12 drones quite easily.

That is probably an issue that can be changed. Fewer ships in SFB/FC can control more than 6. Though speed of drones can be curtailed also.

If your speaking of a Kziniti squadron, that's a different issue.

Bolo,

We are sticking to the exact drone control numbers per ship. But there are some ships with increased drone control. If I was fighting Kzinti, I would want my D5D. But for the most part you are correct, except for the Kzinti most ships are incapable of getting 6 drone in flight at the same time.

Bob

[ebesensei]

"Leaving no witnesses"? Even if all the Federation ships were destroyed, wouldn't they have gotten off some kind of subspace message about the attack or left log buoys behind for friendly ships to pick up later?

The Klingons' victory condition was essentially to destroy every other ship on the map to win.

I played one of the Klingon Captains; we were jamming all sub-space communications. Yes, we needed to destroy all the Federation warships and then before they could reach the table edge, destroy the Federation freighters carrying the Quadrotriticale.

[Bolo_MK_XL]

To prevent the "Get rid of all Witness", all that has to be done is send one of the warships forward at full speed.

[kiloton]

But the Feds could not win if the freighters were destroyed so we did feel it wise to use our ships to try and protect the freighters. Although I will admit it did not occur to me to send one of our ships off to send word. It would have just ensured the destruction of the freighters, though. But that happened anyway.

[kiloton]

I thought based on the conditions of the scenario that the Klingons really needed to just attack our warships and ignore the freighters. Once we were destroyed or mission killed then the freighters would be easy to pick off, assuming destroying us did not take too long. Given the point values, that plan seems unlikely to have worked so what they did was probably best. It at least ensured that the Feds did not win. It would be an interesting scenario to play again with different forces and see how it goes.

[lincolnlog]

It would work with 3 D7's or possibly 4 D6s. I would have to check the points. But the Klingon's were definitely under pointed. Not sure how I did that.

The D7's would carry the 3 FX PH-1's and the 2 ea Forward firing PH-2's. The D6's with the 3 FX PH-2's didn't pack any punch above the 4 disruptors. The Klingons could have turned onto the F and P or S arc border and then would have gotten 2 addtional PH-2's per offensive attack.

But, as a Klingon player, I would have drone swarmed the DDM's. In the back of my mind in the first turn when they launched at the freighter I was thinking "go for the DDM's".

Bob

[lincolnlog]

The D6 in Fed Comm seems over pointed. 130points for a D6 that represents a D6 with a B Refit, but without the K Refit. In SFB that D6 configuation would be 123 points. Meanwhile the D7 in Fed Comm has both the B & K refits for 131. 138 points in Fed Comm for the D7.

ACTA-SF gave both ships the K refit. Ironically the D6 point value is 94% of the D7 in both games in the configuration mentioned.

However, if the D6 has both the K and B refit the point value is 126 which is 96% of the SFB value compared to the D7 with B and K refits.

SFB D6 113 + B 10= 123 + K 3= 126 FC Point Value 130 (reflects B refit only)
SFB D7 121 + B 7= 128 + K 3= 131 FC Point Value 138 (reflects B and K refit)

123/131= .9389 SFB D6 B only/D7 B+K Comparision
126/131= .9618 SFB D6 B+K/D7 B+K Comparision

130/138= .942 D6-D7 FC comparison

[kiloton]

The BPVs may go up based on drone speeds. SFB assumes speed 8 drones so upgrading those using the SFB point system might account for the difference unless you already factored that into your numbers. I did not bust out my SSDs.

That does not explain the lack of K refit on the D6, though.

Even if point values were equal in our scenario, the Klingons very much seemed outgunned. And that was only allowing Feds partial overloads!

[kiloton]

It appears that Fed Com changed all drone rack types to either four-space A-racks or G-racks. The G-racks look identical in TFC but the other racks retain their six spaces as in SFB. Is that on purpose? It seems like in FedCm there was some attempt to reduce the power of drones based on other factors (lack of wild weasels, increased speed of drones, less defensive firing opportunities). I am wondering if the same needs to be considered in TFC, i.e., changing the six-space racks to four spaces.

[kiloton]

Well, looking at the ship cards, it appears that the drone racks are already four-spaces like Fed Com, not six like SFB. Not sure why my memory on that was off but it looks like this is already addressed!

[lincolnlog]

Well, looking at the ship cards, it appears that the drone racks are already four-spaces like Fed Com, not six like SFB. Not sure why my memory on that was off but it looks like this is already addressed!

Ken,

I didn't reply to the first post, because the Fed Racks are 6, 2 drones, 4 ADD. The other racks were all 4, but I wasn't sure what you were referring to.

I didn't add the drone upgrades assuming they didn't matter in FC since all are equal.

But I agree the D6 without the K upgrade is severely over pointed.

Bob

[kiloton]

We had a great rules discussion session last Friday and got some things worked out.

Some highlights:

1) Simplified damage control
2) More balanced drone rack reloading
3) Seeking weapon launch movement improvements
4) Variable speed plots

We will be running Kzintis for the first time on Friday 20 September with the new rules changes. Looking forward to it!

After Kzintis it looks like plasma will be tested for the first time with Gorn. I am really enjoying the way the game is shaping up. A big thank you to Bob for putting this together and spending all the time he has on it!

[lincolnlog]

Game tonight, Kzinti have the Klingons by 2 points in this match-up.

Klingons:

C7 192
D7 138
D7 138
D5 118
F5 82
E5 87
Total 757

Kzinti:

BCH 195
BC 144
CM 122
CM 122
FF 87
FF 87
Total 759