Federation Commander

These could be implimented in the 7th edition of the rule book.
Currently cloaking is worse than stealth vs seeking weapons.

Change 5p3c
Change second sentence to
It is much harder to hit a cloaked ship. Seeking weapons cannot be targeted on a cloaked ship, but those previously targeted continue tracking on the cloaked ship. When they would hit the ship the seeking weapons drop lock and miss on a die roll or 4,5 or 6, otherwise they hit for full warhead strength.

Change 5p3b
Change second sentence
Seeking weapons have a harder time tracking a fading ship. Seeking weapons that hit a fading ship loose lock and miss on a roll of 5 or 6,
otherwise they hit for the full warhead ammount.



These changes would take the certanity out of seeking weapons vs cloak.

Another change that could be made would be to allow the ship to fire weapons in the defensive fire phase while cloaked or fading. This would void the cloak for that impulse only unless the ship tractors the seeking weapon in which case the cloak is voided until the tractor is dropped. if this was done I would make the defensive fire phase work like this.

1e2c
Step zero add sentence
If the seeking weapon impacted on a cloaked or fading ship roll for loss of tracking here. If the ship is fading the seeking weapon misses on a die roll of 5 or 6. If the ship is cloaked the seeking weapon misses on a die roll of 4,5,6.

Then do defenssive fire normally.
Add
If a cloaked or fading ship fires weapons in the defensive fire phase the cloak or fade is voided for that impulse only. If a cloaked or fading ship tractors a seeking weapon the cloak is voided unlil the tractor is released.




I know this is against the spirt of cloak from the tv show how ever. Cloak is expensive in game terms. Both in ship cost and in enery cost. I feel these changes would help equalize the cost of cloak and help reduce seeking weapons as the ultimate weapon vs cloaked ships.


Comments?

Nicole


This was typed on an tablet. I cannot edit the stuff below this sentence. Please ignore the stuff below.

Nicole














uses tractors in the defensive fire phase
I know this against the spirt of cloak from the origional tv series but cloaks are expensive in game terms both in ship cost and energy usage. This would just negate the seeking weapon advantafe vs cloak to some extent.




1e2c
Step 0 add sentence
Roll for loss of lock do to target cloaking on the seeking weapon.

then use standard defensive fire with

ncrcalamine wrote: Change 5p3c
Change second sentence to
It is much harder to hit a cloaked ship. Seeking weapons cannot be targeted on a cloaked ship, but those previously targeted continue tracking on the cloaked ship. When they would hit the ship the seeking weapons drop lock and miss on a die roll or 4,5 or 6, otherwise they hit for full warhead strength.

I consider this worse than current position. At the moment I know and can plan for seekers only doing half damage. under this proposal I have no idea how many will hit for full damage. If there are lots I can expect that I will get hit for about the same damage as now, but it might be more or less. If there are only a few drones then there is significant chance of getting clobbered for twice the damage as now. Whilst I might get hit for less, you can't usually afford to take the risk of getting hit for more.

Cloak really needs to have the ability somehow to shrug off all seekers. PLUS it needs to do that before impact if it is chance based, you don't want to be waiting to until impact (unable to defensive fire) to find out how many you spoofed.

Either:
1) have all seekers lose tracking at the end of the turn when you would 'dot' all drones in flight. That simulates the drones retaining lock on for a short while after cloaking, and then dropping. A cloaker can plan around that, and the drone chucker can as well.

2) Have a chance of dropping seekers per impulse, so you roll for each seeker at the end of each impulse, if it rolls X or greater it drops. You get to see how many drones are dropping before they impact, and given sufficient room to uncloak can take appropiate action if they are not dropping fast enough.

3) just drop all seekers period.

storeylf wrote:3) just drop all seekers period.

Any potential change would need to be simple. Rolling a die for every single seeking weapon is probably not going to work. Rolling more than one die for every single seeking weapon is definitely not going to work. So, if cloak needs to be improved, then this is the most likely way to do it: Pick the point when all seekers are simply removed from play. Could be the impulse the cloak becomes fully effective. Could be an impulse or two later. But any potential change needs to be that simple.

Mike,

I would love to see seeking weapons disappear after being fully cloaked, otherwise I would never cloak against the Gorn. But realistically I am not sure if that would be too much of a benefit. How does it work in SFB with lock on? Is it highly likely to drop tracking?

It does seem foolish to keep paying a premium price for a system that is useless against your main enemy since as soon as you cloak you're going to get hit with a massive amount of seeking weapons.

In SFB, the opposing ship must roll for "lock on" to the cloaked ship. If the lock on is lost, then all seeking weapons from that opposing ship are removed from play. Keeping a "lock on" has varying degrees of difficulty to it. But basically, keeping the "lock on" is easier the faster the cloaked ship is moving, and harder the farther away it is.

That is why I mentioned a delay. Making the cloak be active for an impulse or two would still give the opposing force a chance to land those weapons, but would also let the cloaking ship avoid weapons too far away. It would help take away some of the cheesiest anti-cloak tactics, but still let seeking weapons hit if they are launched close enough.

If you want, make the delay based on how fast the cloaked ship is going. Say, immediately if the cloaked ship is stopped, 1 impulse at speed 0, 2 impulses at speed 8, and three impulses at speed 16.

Regardless, there are ways to nuance the point that seeking weapons go away to make it not be a complete shift of power the other way. It just needs to not involve die rolls for every seeking weapon.

I've mentioned the proposal before, but that was the point of my point (1) above. Removing seekers at turn end (where there is already a drone record step) represents the fact that they do not always lose lock straight away, but by making it always end of turn it is kept simple with no dice rolling to remember.

It doesn't reflect any speed or distance that SFB had in it, but then I don't see that level of detail as being needed.

I wou ld be fine with a rule thatseeking weapons lose lock as soon as you are fully cloaked.


Nicole

Personally, I like these ideas but I think that no weapon should ever be able to avoid the 'damage sponge' - no weapon should ever hit a cloaked ship for full damage. (Can't remember how it works in SFB....) Even the Carronade is subject to the damage sponge; seekers should be too.

If we do change cloak.

Cloaks should be voided if engines are doubled.

Nicole

There is already a rule for doubling engines whilst cloaked.

It doesn't void the cloak, but it does double the cloak cost, that seems reasonable to me.

I play orions and did not know that rule.

Ok

Nicole

Just curious, why the no roll to see if a seeking weapon hits a cloacking ship? Isn:t that exactly what 5L2 Orion Stealth Coating does now?

storeylf wrote: 3) just drop all seekers period.

I like the simplicity of this option. It would make cloaking devices more compelling to use.

I know this isn't a democracy for changing rules, but just to register my opinion FWIW, I like the idea of all seeking weapons losing tracking on a cloaked ship at the end of the Turn in which that ship becomes fully cloaked.

It might be more "fair" to wait a certain number of Impulses, but one of the basic principles of FedCom is simplicity. Granted, there are some things that seem to have been necessarily included that are not all that simple, but using the Turn break would be much easier.

I'm with Mike on the timing issue. IF there is ever a rules change, and IF that rules change is to have seeking weapons all drop tracking at some point, then I'd like to see it be the end of the turn.

The end of the turn is important for darn near everything else, why not this as well? We look toward the end of the turn to be allowed to recycle weapons, launching more drones, fixing our ships, shifting shields, etc. It may be artificial, but it is what we are used to.

Of course, if somebody would actually *test* this, that would be a good thing. Maybe I'll suggest this when our group runs the next game in our campaign.