Starfleet Battles....

Velociryx · January 15, 2002, 23:45

Nawww...forget those cheesy computer games that try to simulate SFB. Forget ADB's "Federation and Empire" which attempts to make a tactical game into a strategic one....pound for pound, the best pen and paper game ever created is the original Starfleet Battles.

::sigh:: Damn, but I've had some good times with that game.

For my money, NOTHING beats the ragin' Kzinti in the modern (post refit) era. The Kzin live and die by their small ships, no doubt. Their cruisers and larger are only average (and generally slightly inferior to) all other races, but in a squadron level action, a trio of Kzinti Drone frigates can LAY WASTE to anybody else's trio of Destroyers.

Even the might Gorn don't have enough shuttles to run a fully armed Frigate squadron out of ammo, and thanks to having almost no DF weapons, the Kzin FFD can put in flight enough drones to simply implode any DD of any race, without breaking a sweat OR worrying over control.

Plasmas? Useless. The FFD (Kzin) won't be going anything less than 30 anyway. (nothing else to do with their available power).

Photons? Ha! There's no Fed DD that can maintain battle speed while charging its photons!

Disruptors? ::shrug:: Disruptor armed ships generally have painfully thin shielding and no internal fortitude, and the Kzin shielding is sufficient to withstand a few long range snipes before blowing the enemy up.

Weasle? Heh...sure, go for it. And once you're out of shuttles, you're moving too slow to escape the NEXT wave of drones.

Got a second weasle? That's okay, we got plenty more drones where those came from. You'll run out of shuttles AND be going too slow to escape the final wave.

No....when you see a group of little Kzinti Battlecats in the 'hood, the best thing you can do is fire off a warning shot to make yourself feel better, and turn the other way....

-=Vel=-
(formerly known as Cajun Cat)

ravagon · January 16, 2002, 03:02

I'll take on that dinky little FF squadron of yours and make mincemeat out of it. Me and my Andromedan Dominator.

Comes complete with satellite ships too btw.

Damn I used to love that game but it was just sooo hard finding people to play against.

...Oh yeah, er, hi Vel.

I had actually been planning to grab a copy of Starfleet Command (I or II) one of these days if they ever got all of the bugs out in the hope that it had the same feel as SFB. Heard it was a bit of a let-down for the diehard SFB fans but I'd hoped to find out differently...

I actually rather like F&E too and even went so far once as to try and run the combat portions of F&E thrpugh SFB.
I think I got about 8% of the way through the first round in a couple of weeks ...

Enough wool-gathering, back to your post.

I noticed that a number of the major races were *cough* "conveniently" *cough* left out and I feel the need to rectify that situation

The little matter of the main Kzinti rival with their ESG's. Very handy against all those drones - although their carrier commanders really do have to be more careful about their own fighters when firing the things off (Nexus somethingorother).

One of my personal Favs - those methane-breathing tripeds from Hydra. Almost as many fusion-armed fighters as the Kzin have drones.

The good old Rom's have their fancy schmancy little cloaky thingummys to break any locks.

And I'd stack up your Kzin against my Neo-Tholians anyday

Many of the Kzin opponents had begun mounting ADD's and more Phaser III's on their escort class ships during the refitting era. And try launching drones against a Fed SWAC shuttle or something with Special sensors boosting the defending ECM. Ouch.

I think I've forgotten most of the rule specifics but there must've been a ton of things one could do to counter a tactic (and counter the counter) in almost any situation. Attention to the details. And there are just sooooo many details. One of the things I really love about this game.

Darnit Vel. Now how am I gonna get through work for the rest of the day?

Oh the memories ...

PS: Cajun Cat? I have a vague memory of that name. You weren't in any of the tournaments by any chance were you?

[3rd attempt to post - Hope the servers not going down again

]

Urban Ranger · January 16, 2002, 05:40

Starfleet Command sucks.

Okay, with that out of the way, the real trouble with playing a bunch of Kzinti FFD's are points. You have to pay points for fast drones and more points for restricted and limited varieties. Soon your squadron of FFD's won't be facing up other races' DD's but heavy battlecruisers

Of course, as noted you'll have serious problems against the Hydrans and the Tholians.

Drone using races tend to fare well against plama races because drones don't take up power so their ships can zip around at high speeds.

Klingons and Feds have an easier time, because they can use their drones, ADD's, and phasers to take out the incoming drones, while their heavy weapons take out the Kzinti ships. Then there are the Lyrans. Oh, you don't want to play against the WYNs either.

One more thing you need to keep in mind: t-bombs. Roll one of them out of the shuttle hatch and a whole swarm of drones eat it.

The beauty of Starfleet Battles is there really is no one dominating tactic, race, or ship design. The really gross imbalances [Lets say I take a swarm of interceptors (precursors to P/F's) against your squadron of FFD's

You're deadmeat]have been taken out over the years.

.

Urban Ranger · January 16, 2002, 05:43

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
The little matter of the main Kzinti rival with their ESG's. Very handy against all those drones - although their carrier commanders really do have to be more careful about their own fighters when firing the things off (Nexus somethingorother).

The Lyrans had only one heavy carrier, the Red Claw Fury.

DinoDoc · January 16, 2002, 13:26

Am I the only one here that actually likes Starfleet Command and realizes that there will be some differences between a turn-based game and a real-time one?

General Ludd · January 16, 2002, 15:56

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Am I the only one here that actually likes Starfleet Command

Yes.

Deffinately one of the biggest wastes of money in recent history - not only was it released in Alpha Condition, it's only been patched to Beta quality, and still lacks any depth or variety to the game.

DinoDoc · January 16, 2002, 16:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld
Deffinately one of the biggest wastes of money in recent history - not only was it released in Alpha Condition, it's only been patched to Beta quality,

Which version of the game are we talking about? Starfleet Command II was an excellent game for the time I played it especially after they got the metaverse up and running. Of course, I've never played the original table top game so I don't have a basis for comparison on that point.

In fact, I think I'll reinstal the game to night and play it again.

Urban Ranger · January 17, 2002, 01:40

The problems with the game are many. The quality of the game is low, the interface is worthless, and the "Dynaverse" is a complete joke. The most important thing is the game failed to capture what the original game is about.

It doesn't help that the computer controlled ships (the "enemies") cheat like usual.

Velociryx · January 18, 2002, 13:16

Oh...I know it....I mostly wanted to couch my post in that manner cos I KNEW it'd draw a reaction/start discussion!

And yep...I intentionally "glossed over" the races I'd have a tough time against! LOL

Tho....'member, post Y-180 drone upgrades were automatically factored into the ship cost (IMO, making the Kzin overpowered, especially their smaller ships).

-=Vel=-

PS: Cajun Cat - Rated Ace, Kzin....

(second fav race - A tie between Gorn and Neo-Tholian...gotta love that Web-Fist...OUCH!

korn469 · January 18, 2002, 21:20

Quote:

The problems with the game are many. The quality of the game is low, the interface is worthless

urban ranger thinks the same about windows

Urban Ranger · January 19, 2002, 02:00

Quote:

Originally posted by korn469
urban ranger thinks the same about windows

No, Windows is worse

Urban Ranger · January 19, 2002, 02:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Tho....'member, post Y-180 drone upgrades were automatically factored into the ship cost (IMO, making the Kzin overpowered, especially their smaller ships).

-=Vel=-

Well, don't you forget that some ships have different economic and combat BPV's. The FDD is one of them IIRC. You are supposed to use the higher value for "build your own fleet" scenarios. That means a fixed amount of BPV is going to buy you a lot less FDDs than you expected.

I think a squadron of Hydran Hellions are going to be deadly against ya.

Damned things got 2 gatlings and a hellbore each

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 00:44

Well, I have to say that my favourite games were always campaign-based where you wound up facing whatever your opponent threw at you with whatever you had handy.
None of that evenly-matched bpv stuff. (Although I know which end I preferred to be on

).
That way those DD's of yours ended up facing off against more powerful ships - which was after all the way things happened for the Kzin in the general war, with the Kzinti-Hydran forces completely outgunned by the Klingon-Lyrans until the entry of the Feds.

*Does some quick brushing up in a vain attempt to out-Vel Vel

*

As UR pointed out, T-bombs were a good defense against a closely packed swarm - although I'd guess there wouldn't be too many Kzin who would pack em that tightly a second time.

Tractors are also rather handy vs drone swarms as a final close-in defense - especially for the overpowered Gorn ships - which also brings up a Kzin version of that Gorn ("anchor" I think it was called?) tactic. Although they don't have the same power/shielding they don't need as much either - Kzinti ships closing the range and locking an opponent with tractors to neutralize a weasel can be very effective. An opponent almost certainly can't hit you with phasers knowing they'll be needed to defend against a point-blank drone swarm.
Other drone-using races, although not as adept as the Kzin, also had the scatter-pack shuttle option - launch an SP shuttle just as you would a weasel, wait until the cats close to try and shoot it down and give them a nasty surprise when they wind up fighting what they thought was another weasel. (One has to either have another weasel ready/ a lot of PD weapons or a very sturdy ship with this tactic though

)
My favoured tactic using my favourite race though would have to be using the Andro's Displacement Device (also useful against the Tholians/ISC

). No better way of avoiding drone swarms than to be somewhere else.

The Kzin OTOH also had their "special option" payloads - multi-warhead, armoured and several that ended in the word "fish".
I used to enjoy firing off combination armoured/MW swarms - not too closely spaced

to see an opponent gape in awe as he failed to kill an armoured drone and have it slam into his shields - then think he could ignore the other "low-bang" "armoured" drones which then turn out to be MW.

[Edit: Doh! Can't spell for peanuts today]

Urban Ranger · January 21, 2002, 05:46

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
Well, I have to say that my favourite games were always campaign-based where you wound up facing whatever your opponent threw at you with whatever you had handy.
None of that evenly-matched bpv stuff. (Although I know which end I preferred to be on

).
That way those DD's of yours ended up facing off against more powerful ships - which was after all the way things happened for the Kzin in the general war, with the Kzinti-Hydran forces completely outgunned by the Klingon-Lyrans until the entry of the Feds.

That's what we did one summer with F&E - use it to set up scenarioes to resolve in SFB. I was playing both the Kzinti and the Hydrans. It was fun for a while, then it became more like work. We didn't get very far since a lot of these battles were huge. Not as big as Meeting of Giants [2 Andro Doms vs a Fed SCS and a Klingon B10

], but ususally involved at least half a dozen of ships on each side, plus battlestation or planet, plus fighters, etc.

It was fun to trade fighters and drones for Coaliton ships. The battlestation was great for EW against any Coalition fleet that did not have a couple of scouts (Klingon and Lyran scouts are wimpy

).

I kept knocking off their scouts and tugs that, after a while, they were scared to bring them in

, which was quite an interesting dilemma for the Bad Guys.

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 06:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

[2 Andro Doms vs a Fed SCS and a Klingon B10

]

A fed SCS and a Klingon B10 versus 2 Dominators!!!

Yikes! Did the Andros not have sat ships or something? I wouldn't have wished to be in the Fed/Klingon players shoes.
Don't think I've seen that scenario before (As one who always liked the Andro's I think I'd remember it if I had

).

I agree about the BS/SB matchups. In F&E you can use directed damage but playing that sort of match-up in SFB could be rather problematic at best.

Velociryx · January 21, 2002, 13:14

Hi Rav and all! (Loved your comment, btw Ravagon!!

)

Yeah...I found F&E to be entertaining, but a LOT of grunt work and a lot of really HUGE battles, tho it always surprised folks when that relatively little Kzin fleet could send a MUCH larger one packing.

Absolutely true that the Hydrans can be a real BEAR for a Kzin player...noooo denying that! The upshot tho, is that just as Kzin ships tend to be slightly smaller than the comparable BPV ships they'll be fighting (due to paying for special drones and yes! GOTTA love those higher percentage of armor, multi warhead, and swordfish drones! WhoooHooo!), so too will the Hydran ships be smaller (and thus, about the same size as the Kzin) thanks to having to buy those fighters...and fighters are *awfully* easy to kill with disruptor fire.

Of all the races that pos a significant challenge to the Kzin, the Hydrans are probably my least worrisome. In the case of Fusion armed ships, just saying out of range 3 will be sufficient for a win. Sabre dance them to death...kill the pesky fighters and don't let them close.

Hellbores are a little trickier (and IMO, more dangerous), but even they can be dealt with, given slower arming cycles and a wicked cost to arm.

I HATED fighting the Lyrans tho...blast those ESGs!

In essence, there's really only two ways to play the Kzin, making them, IMO, a GREAT choice for a relatively new player.

You can either launch a drone swarm and follow them in, or sabre dance (or some combo of the two). 'bout the only race I feel comfortable sabre dancing with would be the Hydrans and Plasma chuckers. Klingons have better arcs, so that's out, but they can't take a punch, and lots of phasers or no, they can't stop all the drones AND do significant damage to a pretty sturdy Kzin ship. Gorn ships are fun to fight...can't turn worth a crap and, though they have power and LOTS of shuttles, I never use my drones on them 'cept for the kill. Roms are sneaky, but that applies to Roms fighting anyone...annoying opponents@ LOL

Feds are actually not too bad to deal with. If they overload torps, just stay out of range and dance them to death...if they standard/prox load, wait till they fire, and charge in. Phaser ones are awesome things, but many, if not most will have to be used on drones (cos you're right, most Kzin players never launch their drones in a single impulse, specifically to avoid the easy t-bomb....shotgun racks, a scatterpack (and even better, a scatter AND a shatterpack!) load out, and with many ships having double control, the Kzin can lure out the WW, nix it, and field so many drones that the opponent can't cope.

Ahhh, that's why I love small ship actions with the Kzin. Your average frigate/destroyer can MAYBE stop 6 drones, firing most if not all weapons at them. 2-3 shuttles max. And a single drone hit will wreck, if not bring down a facing shield.

Three Kzin Frigates then, could *easily* field 24 drones--having another six at the ready, for the same turn--(and if even one of those had double control, control them all), post WW, which would be enough to implode (or nearly so) a pair of DD's.

:: sigh:: Ahhh, the memories....

-=Vel=-

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 22:24

Muahahaha! [Darth Vader mode] I have you now! [/Darth Vader mode]

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
...and fighters are *awfully* easy to kill with disruptor fire.

These would be those same disruptors you didn't arm as you were too busy maintaining speed 30?

Heh heh.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
In the case of Fusion armed ships, just saying out of range 3 will be sufficient for a win. Sabre dance them to death...kill the pesky fighters and don't let them close.

Hellbores are a little trickier (and IMO, more dangerous), but even they can be dealt with, given slower arming cycles and a wicked cost to arm.

Now thats interesting. I always found keeping out of hellbore range (or lethal hellbore range anyway) to be much easier than keeping out of fusion range - due mainly to the reduced power load, hence increased speed of the fusion-fighter ships. I was pretty busy launching drones to tie up their gatling phasers (didn't want to get hit by those at point blank as well as the fusion beams) too. I think I managed to break even against the Hydrans overall but as my successful ships always came away damaged I always felt a bit overmatched.
I tended to play more in the advanced era too which meant I was facing the nasty version of the stinger with about 4 fusion charges and a phas-G. Those things you just had to kill, and quickly!
I remember one matchup against a HB/Fus combination cruiser type (forgotten the name of this one

) whence one of my (weakened) shields was taken out by a hellbore and one of those aforementioned fighters performed one of those range-0 maneuvers on me and delivered a nasty blow through the down shield. Big ouch!

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
I HATED fighting the Lyrans tho...blast those ESGs!

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Feds are actually not too bad to deal with. If they overload torps, just stay out of range and dance them to death...if they standard/prox load, wait till they fire, and charge in. Phaser ones are awesome things, but many, if not most will have to be used on drones (cos you're right, most Kzin players never launch their drones in a single impulse, specifically to avoid the easy t-bomb....shotgun racks, a scatterpack (and even better, a scatter AND a shatterpack!) load out, and with many ships having double control, the Kzin can lure out the WW, nix it, and field so many drones that the opponent can't cope.

Ahhh, that's why I love small ship actions with the Kzin. Your average frigate/destroyer can MAYBE stop 6 drones, firing most if not all weapons at them. 2-3 shuttles max. And a single drone hit will wreck, if not bring down a facing shield.

Three Kzin Frigates then, could *easily* field 24 drones--having another six at the ready, for the same turn--(and if even one of those had double control, control them all), post WW, which would be enough to implode (or nearly so) a pair of DD's.

Yeah that duoble control thing really was a lifesaver for the Kzin. Sacrificed a lot of relatively cheap drones for a few "less cheap" opposition ships. Only thing going against them really was the relative imbalance between their economies/fleets and that of those they faced. Lot like the Hydrans with their fighters. They gave better than they got but then that was what they HAD to do. Even bpv exchanges were a net loss for the Kzin.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
:: sigh:: Ahhh, the memories....

-=Vel=-

Couldn't agree more.

[And on another note - from the sudden appearance of several new threads - It looks as if somebody has been busy!

I'll have to take a looksee. Whenever I get a spare week or so though. Crikey you manage to get through a lot!

]

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 22:37

Incidentally, have you ever tried a matchup between the Kzin and that conjectural race the Klingon DSF made up as an "aggressor squadron"? Called the "Frax" I think.
Appeared in one of the issues of Nexus/Capt's Log.

If you wanted a challenge as a Kzinti player, they were it! Absolutely lethal to the Kzin. Very overpowered. Complete disruptor armament and had a deadly pseudo-special weapon called the Anti-fighter defense (AFD) - a combo ADD (with 12 rounds) and gatling phaser.

And they had these in numbers comparable to most races phaser III's.
I think they had one special "sub"-type ship too. Used drones which could be fired while cloaked.

If a Kzin player can break even against those guys, well, thats saying something.

Velociryx · January 21, 2002, 23:08

Yeah...I've got that FRAX edition...Yowza! Those guys are tough!

And I totally agree about the Advanced Stinger...THERE'S a ship with a big bullseye on it if ever there WAS one! LOL (or, if said player facing the Stingers *doesn't* play it that way, he certainly will next time! Two of those guys can blow up a frigate!

Ahhh yes! C'mon over to my site and check out the latest happenings with the game design! I'm having a blast with it so far!

-=Vel=-

Urban Ranger · January 21, 2002, 23:26

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
A fed SCS and a Klingon B10 versus 2 Dominators!!!

Yikes! Did the Andros not have sat ships or something? I wouldn't have wished to be in the Fed/Klingon players shoes.

The Andros have full complement of sat ships, and the Grand Alliance (that's before Operation Unity) has their escort ships, including the first Fed CX - sorry to forget to mention it.

It's a big nasty slugfest, since the Feds have fighters coming out of their collective nose, and the B10 has them potentially deadly SFG's.

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
Don't think I've seen that scenario before (As one who always liked the Andro's I think I'd remember it if I had

).

It's in one of the earlier Captain's Logs, too bad I don't have it on hand now.

BTW, what do you think of the changes made to Andros in the Captain's Edition? The main one being putting baby TR's on the sat ships.

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 23:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

The Andros have full complement of sat ships, and the Grand Alliance (that's before Operation Unity) has their escort ships, including the first Fed CX - sorry to forget to mention it.

Ack! A CX. I knew that sounded too good to be true

LOL
Fast overloads and rapid-pulse phasers aren't good news for the Andromedans.

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
BTW, what do you think of the changes made to Andros in the Captain's Edition? The main one being putting baby TR's on the sat ships.

Actually I'm still going by the old Vol 1-3.

In this part of the world it seems to take a loooong time to get a hold of all of the parts for something like this so I generally stick with what I've got until/unless I can get everything at once.

Urban Ranger · January 22, 2002, 00:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Absolutely true that the Hydrans can be a real BEAR for a Kzin player...noooo denying that! The upshot tho, is that just as Kzin ships tend to be slightly smaller than the comparable BPV ships they'll be fighting (due to paying for special drones and yes! GOTTA love those higher percentage of armor, multi warhead, and swordfish drones! WhoooHooo!), so too will the Hydran ships be smaller (and thus, about the same size as the Kzin) thanks to having to buy those fighters...and fighters are *awfully* easy to kill with disruptor fire.

It's always a two-edged sword

When you use disruptors on the fighters those are disruptors you won't use on the capital ships

The Hydran counter tactic is to either follow the fighters with the ships or the ships with fighters. If the fighters lead, you have to either content with killing some fighters (not too easy to kill out of shot range, particularly when EW rules are in effect) with your disruptors, or use them at a longer range at the ships.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Of all the races that pos a significant challenge to the Kzin, the Hydrans are probably my least worrisome. In the case of Fusion armed ships, just saying out of range 3 will be sufficient for a win. Sabre dance them to death...kill the pesky fighters and don't let them close.

That's because you have never seen a properly executed Hydran Anchor

Hydran ships are extremely durable given their famous "second shield" (unified hull design). A hydran ship with phaser capacitors charged can fly in at max speed and slap a tractor beam on your ship. Now you can't shoot at their fighters, and you know what a couple of Hydran fighters can do at range 0, right?

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Hellbores are a little trickier (and IMO, more dangerous), but even they can be dealt with, given slower arming cycles and a wicked cost to arm.

But hellbores have a better probability than disruptors at long range, and once you have a weak shield you're in trouble.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
In essence, there's really only two ways to play the Kzin, making them, IMO, a GREAT choice for a relatively new player.

My experiences are just the opposite.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
You can either launch a drone swarm and follow them in, or sabre dance (or some combo of the two).

The difficulty is how to handle drones properly. Even if we ignore drone mods, which is quite difficult, you still are left with the problem of using drones. Simply, you need to know how many drones to launch so the enemy is forced to do something. Too few, and he'll just pick them off with phasers. Too many, and you become prone to t-bombs. You'll have to just launch enough so he can't kill them all with phasers, and staggered so a t-bomb can't get them all. It's rather tricky, acutally.

Personally the Feds seem to be the most straightforward to handle.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
'bout the only race I feel comfortable sabre dancing with would be the Hydrans and Plasma chuckers. Klingons have better arcs, so that's out, but they can't take a punch, and lots of phasers or no, they can't stop all the drones AND do significant damage to a pretty sturdy Kzin ship. Gorn ships are fun to fight...can't turn worth a crap and, though they have power and LOTS of shuttles, I never use my drones on them 'cept for the kill. Roms are sneaky, but that applies to Roms fighting anyone...annoying opponents@ LOL

The Klingons also have a better turn mode, and better shields after all the B and K refits. They also get P-1's with the K refit. Not to mention better drone controls and ADD. You're right, though, Klingon ships are flimpsy, once they start taking internals they'd better off running away.

Plama races got a lot better after they get the type-F plamas which cost them no power to hold. Also the downloading rules help. Still as I said before drone races have the advantage facing plama races.

Roms aren't easy to play properly. Cloaking can't save your hide if you aren't careful

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Feds are actually not too bad to deal with. If they overload torps, just stay out of range and dance them to death...if they standard/prox load, wait till they fire, and charge in.

Wait till somebody pulls a Kuafman Retrograde on you

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Phaser ones are awesome things, but many, if not most will have to be used on drones (cos you're right, most Kzin players never launch their drones in a single impulse, specifically to avoid the easy t-bomb....shotgun racks, a scatterpack (and even better, a scatter AND a shatterpack!) load out, and with many ships having double control, the Kzin can lure out the WW, nix it, and field so many drones that the opponent can't cope.

There are many counter to this. For example, the Fed player can fake a WW launch. Since they have tons of shuttles they can afford to lose some. Anyway, if you think he's launching WW and kill the first shuttle that comes out with your long range disruptors, watch out. Also, Feds have drones that can take out your drones and your shuttles. Scatterpacks can be zapped by prox photon fire. Since Kzinti ships generally are short on shuttles you can't pull some of the stunts like the Feds.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Ahhh, that's why I love small ship actions with the Kzin. Your average frigate/destroyer can MAYBE stop 6 drones, firing most if not all weapons at them. 2-3 shuttles max. And a single drone hit will wreck, if not bring down a facing shield.

That depends what kinds of small ships. A fully loaded Kzin FF generally won't face FF of another race due to point problems in the "build your own fleet" scenario. You better watch out for the War destroyers of other races, particularly the Klingon D5, which is quite a nasty piece of work. Have you seen the D5A in the Commander's Edition? Downright sick - they simply replaced the probe launcher with an SFG

Quote:

Three Kzin Frigates then, could *easily* field 24 drones--having another six at the ready, for the same turn--(and if even one of those had double control, control them all), post WW, which would be enough to implode (or nearly so) a pair of DD's.

Enough, if you play them properly, that is.

Urban Ranger · January 22, 2002, 00:12

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
Actually I'm still going by the old Vol 1-3.

In this part of the world it seems to take a loooong time to get a hold of all of the parts for something like this so I generally stick with what I've got until/unless I can get everything at once.

Why don't you check on Amarillo Design Bereau's website? Maybe they have links on mail order companies?

When you said Vol 1-3 I assume you meant the Commander's Edition, not the Designer's edition, which happens to be in 3 volumes?

Urban Ranger · January 22, 2002, 00:18

Hey Vel,

This is for you. It's on the official SFB website.

Urban Ranger · January 22, 2002, 00:23

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
I remember one matchup against a HB/Fus combination cruiser type (forgotten the name of this one

)

That's probably a Lord Bishop or a Lord Marshall. The Overlord is Hydran's BCH (heavy battlecrusier), and Lord Commander doesn't have hellbores.

Khan Singh · January 25, 2002, 00:22

Ah. SFB. Well do I remember my epic battle of Invincible, Macarthur and their fleets against the deadly menace of two Andromedan Dominators. I managed to lose Macarthur, but after their point blank encounter with a Federation fighter squadron and a few turns of Invincible's disrupters, those two Dominators will not be conquering our galaxy.

But that was back when I was hard-core. Now I count myself lucky if I can finish a hand of mah-jong in an evening. Sleep is just so much more attractive now.