User:Wikkileaker/sandbox

Wikkileaker (talk) 12:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Apparently we are unfamiliar with the literature for space colonization. In his book "Mining the SKy" Lewis suggests that a profitable activity for a moon colony is the manufacture of heat shields for sale to Earthside space powers/corporations, to be used for aerobraking returning spacecraft.

Ship systems in Star Fleet Battles
Ship systems common to all races in SFB include transporters, tractor beams, laboratory boxes, and shuttlecraft. Transporters can be used to place small space mines (often called "transporter bombs") up to 5 hexes from the ship (through a down shield). Another favorite use is to transport boarding parties on an enemy ship with a facing down shield to execute "hit-and-run" raids on key enemy systems, or to actually attempt to take over the ship if other friendly ships can also land an overwhelming number of boarding parties. Tractor beams can work out to a range of three hexes, and are used to stop enemy drones or fighters, or to execute the "anchor tactic" against an enemy ship. This is used to keep an enemy from retreating from an attack by slow drones, fighters, or plasma torpedoes. Tractors can also be used to drag an enemy ship someplace it wishes to avoid (such as within firing range of the Phaser-4s of a base) or to move a friendly ship too crippled to move itself. Tractors used by high-speed ships can be used to "death-drag" fighters to destruction. Laboratory boxes play a role in Emergency Damage Repair in which key systems can be returned to service quickly. They also provide a means of collecting tactical intelligence or information on space monsters in the solitaire scenarios.

Shuttlecraft or "admin shuttles" can perform several missions which play important roles in starship combat. Their basic mission is to transport priority cargo to places that transporters cannot reach (the equivalent of one cargo box). Shuttlecraft are equipped with a single phaser-3 and can be deployed for the shuttle fighter mission, though their slow speed of 6 and damage rating of 6 hit points limits their usefulness except in fleet encounters, when their large numbers (especially among some races like the Federation, Gorns, and ISC) can make them a formidable adjunct to fleet firepower. Shuttlecraft prepared for the wild weasel mission act as powerful decoys for enemy seeking weapons. When launched all enemy drones and plasma torpedoes switch their targetting from the launching ship to the wild weasel; however, severe restrictions are placed on the protected ship (max speed of 4 and no sensor lock-ons or weapons fire) else the weasel is "voided" and the decoyed seeking weapons again begin seeking the formerly protected ship. These restrictions are so severe that most competent captains can defeat enemies who resort to the wild weasel; however, the clever weasel user will have a second or third weasel warmed up in his shuttle bay to replace the voided weasel and regain immunity from seeking weapons. Shuttlecraft may be armed as suicide shuttles. These are equipped with antimatter bombs that explode for 18 damage points and are launched as seeking weapons which home on their targets using the drone rules. They take three turns to arm from a cold start and require three points of arming energy on each turn. Drone-armed ships may arm their shuttlecraft as scatterpack shuttles. These are multi-warhead weapons created by taking drones from the ship's racks (or reload storage) and loading up to six "spaces" worth on racks welded to the outside of the shuttle. The shuttle is launched as a seeking weapon and after certain parameters are satisfied the drones "scatter" and start pursuing their designated targets. In effect it's a quick way to deploy many drones, but some ships must be careful to observe the limit on the number of drones that can be controlled at any one time. All races have an advanced type of admin shuttle called a Multi-Role Shuttle or MRS which is armed with extra race-specific weapons (torpedoes) and can lend electronic warfare support to one starship. MRS shuttles can perform all the standard roles of the admin shuttles.

All races have certain general-purpose units in common. These include the base stations, battlestations, and starbases that serve as maintenance, repair, refit, and logistics points necessary to the operation of a star fleet. Like most all of the general units used by all the races, a common generic SSD is modified with weaponry specific to each race. The one weapon common to all is the heavy Type 4 phaser which can hit for up to 20 damage points. Another type of general unit used by all races is the Fleet Tug, which comes in the lightly-armed transport version and the heavier combat version. Various "pods" or "pallets" are available to quickly change a tug's mission capability to include such roles as a "battle tug" with near-dreadnought firepower, a "carrier tug", a PF tender, a fleet scout, an "assault transport" with the ability to land great numbers of boarding parties or armored vehicles on enemy planets, or a drone bombardment ship. A smaller version of the tug based on the race's war cruiser is known generically as the Light Tactical Transport or LTT, with approximately half the capability of the fleet tug (but much more availability in the shipbuilding schedule). All races have civilian small and large freighters, and specially armed modified examples called Q-ships used to combat piracy and commerce raiders. Other variants of civilian freighters are known as Auxilliaries, for instance the small and large Auxilliary Carriers which host one or two fighter squadrons respectively, on lightly armed, inexpensive hulls. There are specialized varieties of civilian ships, such as the Large Ore Carrier and the Federal Express dispatch courier. For anti-piracy patrol and miscellaneous work most races have Police ships which are usually modified versions of the most inexpensive warships, the frigates. For defense of planetary systems there is the Monitor, which packs near-dreadnought firepower on a light cruiser hull, but which lacks strategic and tactical mobility and ability to absorb punishment. All races deploy the Fleet Repair Docks which facilitate repair efforts on both the tactical and strategic gamescales, and most importantly serve as logistics and retrograde points in the strategic game Federation and Empire.

Weapons in SFB are of two basic types: direct-fire and seeking. Direct-fire weapons travel at hypervelocity and score damage on their targets instantly. The owning player announces his targets, rolls dice, modifies the die rolls for various factors, and the damage is resolved against the target(s) immediately. Phasers and torpedoes (except plasma torpedoes, see below) are the most common direct-fire weapons in the game. Phasers can score major damage only a relatively short range; therefore most all warships rely on their torpedo armament (especially overloaded torpedoes, see below) to inflict major damage farther out. In contrast, seeking weapons are represented on the game map with a counter, and must pursue their targets and enter the target hex before they "detonate" and score damage. Most of the races use seeking weapons, either the drone or the plasma torpedo. Drones are guided missiles that home on their targets. Because they cost no energy to launch, and are available to so many launch platforms (ships, fighters, shuttles, PFs), many drones can be put into flight to overwhelm an enemy's ability to intercept them (they are individually easy to destroy, and can be destroyed en masse by space mines/bombs and ship explosions), but there are control limits on how many can be guided to the enemy at one time. They also have a limited ammunition supply that can be quickly exhausted. Plasma torpedoes are powerful weapons (the Type R can hit for 50 points, the most of any shipboard weapon, and a typical General War cruiser can pack 100 points of firepower in its Type S and F torpedoes) but cost energy, lose warhead strength in pursuit of targets, can be "phasered down" in strength, and most importantly, require three game turns to arm from a cold start. The Federation and the Western races prefer the drone (Kzintis and Klingons), and the Eastern races prefer the plasma torpedo. Three races do not use seeking weapons (except for the suicide shuttle): Lyrans, Hydrans, and Tholians. However, they do have other weapons with special capabilities.

The warships of all races use the direct-fire phaser. The type 1 phaser, or phaser-1, is the most powerful type of shipboard phaser in the game (but for certain extraordinary units, such as the alien Juggernaut). The phaser-1 is used by all the races; however, the races in the Western half of the strategic game map (Klingon, Hyrdan, and Lyran) originally deployed the less-efficient phaser-2 and only later upgraded some (by no means all) of these to phaser-1. Klingon ships are famous for having all their phasers able to fire down the hex row behind their ships (apparently for defense while in retreat, or according to some as a precaution against mutinous subordinate Klingons following the squadron leader after the enemy). Kzinti ships are well-known for having fewer phaser-1s and many more of the short-range phaser-3s, though later Kzinti ships substituted antidrone racks for some of the phaser-3s in the drone defense role. Romulan ships (those not purchased from the Klingons) have fewer phaser-1s than their Federation and Gorn opponents, but usually with superior firing arcs. Gorn ships have more phaser-1s with arcs arrayed all around the ship. ISC ships tend to have more phaser-1s than all other races (for their class) with wide forward arcs (though ISC ships tend to be far more expensive). Except for most Klingons, all races use small numbers of phaser-3s not only for point defense, but when taking damage to absorb phaser hits and better protect their phaser-1s.

Electronic Warfare systems are common throughout the Alpha Octant. All starships can allocate to their EW systems a number of power points up to their current sensor rating (always the maximum of 6 for an undamaged ship). Up to an additional 6 points may be "loaned" to a ship from a support ship with special sensor boxes (most usually the Fleet Scout or an MRS shuttle, and most drone bombardment ships), and all ships may perform Erratic Maneuvering to gain an additional 4 points (with less accurate fire control of their own as a penalty, and an impaired turn mode). However, some races have advantages in loaning EW to their ships because of their use of EW drones or built-in stealth capabilities (Orion warships have 2 points of built-in ECM). Ships with an active Wild Weasel shuttle gain an extra 6 points of ECM. Terrain features like planetary atmospheres and asteroid hexes provide additional ECM to units occupying them.

RESERVE POWER

Systems and ships of SFB Races and Empires
Most races in the game have special weapons unique to their space fleets. Although many types of weapons are common to several races (particularly in the Eastern and Western regions of the galaxy), most races have at least one "specialty weapon" they alone use on their starships.

Federation
Federation ships are notable for the photon torpedo. This is unique for being able to "hold" overloads from turn to turn. An overloaded torpedo is one armed with double its normal arming energy (for photon torpedoes four points on each of two turns) and scores double the damage of a standard-loaded torpedo (16 damage points rather than eight), but overloaded torpedoes (of all types) burn out past range eight and score zero damage at ranges of 9 or greater. The photon torpedo is also rather inaccurate and needs to be fired within 4 hexes of its target to gain a hit probability of better than 50% (a compensation for this is that the more powerful Federation phaser-1s become more significant than the Klingon phaser-2s). That the photons on most Federation ships are limited to a 120 degree arc straight ahead (the FA firing arc) does not help. But its chief virtue, its heavy maximum damage potential of 16 points per overloaded torpedo, makes up for these deficiencies because it confers on Federation warships what players call "crunch power". The Federation's main enemy, the Klingons, with their disruptors cannot land such a crushing blow in a single impulse on a single shield. Because Klingon ships usually must wear down Federation shields over several turns the Star Fleet ships have more opportunities to turn fresh shields against the Klingon attacks, and can take defense measures (EW and Erratic Maneuvering) during turns when they are reloading their slower-firing photons. Against their other main enemy, the Romulans, the fact that Federation ships can score such grievous damage at one time, instantly, with direct-fire means they can wreck their Romulan opponents before the Romulan plasma torpedoes can catch up with them, and then the Federation ships can turn and outrun the incoming plasma torpedoes before they can hit with full warhead strength. Naturally, the Romulan ability to "bolt" his plasmas complicates this scenario. And the photon's advantages against Klingon disruptors tend to diminish in full fleet encounters involving the maximum of 11 warships on each side; with so many of the lower-powered disruptors available, and more accurate at ranges out to 15, a large Klingon fleet still packs the firepower to destroy Federation ships wholesale every game turn. In this scenario it's to the Federation's advantage to break up the fighting into small squadron actions over the battlespace, where the crunch power of the photons can be employed to maximum effect.

The Federation Carrier Battle Groups are particularly fearsome, though expensive and infrequently encountered except on the most highly contested battlefronts. The premier Federation fighters, the F-14 Tomcats, carry 8 drones of the most advanced types and a Gatling phaser (see Hydrans below). The A-10 Warthogs pack standard-load photon torpedoes, though can be fitted with Gatlings as well. The F-15 Eagle had similar capability and was deployed on the Federation CVB carrier, but was mostly deployed for planetary defense, as was the also-Gatling-armed F-16 which had far fewer drones. The late-war heavy and superheavy bombers approached Fast Patrol Ship firepowerand durability. The unique-to-the-Federation SWAC shuttle (Spaceborne Warning and Control) has a special Wild Weasel mode which attracts ALL seeking weapons within 15 hexes, and can be activated and deactivated at will. The two SWACs on a Federation CV can make an entire swarm of enemy drones or plasmas exhaust themselves pursuing each in turn back-and-forth. None of the other races had this capability until the Fast Patrol attrition units were deployed in their scout variants. Incidentally, the Federation never officially adopted the PF, instead preferring to develop larger advanced fighter types. Due to player demand the Federation Mustang PF was published as a purely "conjectural" Federation PF.

Federation starships, in general, tend to be larger than their counterparts in enemy fleets, with more shield boxes, more shuttles, more batteries for the all-important Reserve Power, and more hull and laboratory. The greater number of lab boxes makes combat repair of key systems under Emergency Damage Repair faster. Fewer transporters and boarding parties limited Federation prospects in close combat. Federation ships tend to have inferior turn modes to their Klingon adversaries, and their substandard breakdown ratings make High Energy Turns (after the first) more risky. Federation ships originally did not use drones but later refits "scabbed on" a multi-purpose Type G drone/antidrone rack. There were a few Fed ship classes that had significant numbers of organic drone racks, but almost entirely the Federation relied on its carriers and fighters to create massive drone swarms.

Klingon
Sometimes Klingon ships may wish to close to overload range, especially when equipped with the Ubitron Interface Module fire control system. But for the most part, Klingon ships rely on their disruptors to wear down their opponents at relatively long range, out to 15 hexes. To attain this under most battle conditions, they wish to keep the range open for as long as possible. A maneuver informally known as the "Saber Dance" involves turning in circles at the desired range, firing each revolution as firing arcs permit (the later Klingon ships have vastly expanded disruptor arcs, such as the FH Forward Hemispheric disruptor battery of four on the D5 War Cruiser). The excellent turn modes of most Klingon ships greatly aided the Saber Dance.

Notable features of the disruptor are that it fires every turn and it must be powered the turn it is fired (it cannot be "held"). These make possible surprise tactics involving a high speed run at an opponent made possible by leaving the disruptors unpowered. The fast disruptor ship can close rapidly and end the game turn within overload range. Then at Energy Allocation the disruptors can be powered up and discharged during the next turn's first impulse for guaranteed shot. This tactic is most effective for ships equipped with the Ubitron Interface Module (see below). It's most risky for Federation opponents but is viable for Kzinti or Hydran opponents.

The original Klingon designs like the D6/D7 cruisers and F5 frigates (really destroyers) used drones purely as auxillary weapons; they were too few to threaten most opponents. The few drones were best used defensively, to intercept incoming Kzinti drones and whittle down their numbers so the plentiful Klingon phasers could handle them effectively. Later when most forward phaser-2s were upgraded to phaser-1s an antidrone rack was added to deal more effectively with the increased Kzinti and Federation drone firepower of the later war years. Due to these developments (in part), the later Klingon ships also began using their own drone firepower more for offense. They always had the ability to arm scatterpack shuttles, but the small numbers of drone racks limited the number of reload drones available for these. Later more Klingon designs were built with substantial drone firepower of their own. Typically, and most prominently in this regard was the D7D cruiser, in which the four rearward-facing waist phaser-2s were replaced with four high-capacity drone racks. Not only did this increase drone firepower, it cleared the second shuttle bay with two more shuttles (total four) and made available many more drones for loading scatterpacks. The Klingons also deployed large carriers and many more of the smaller carriers than did the Federation (though not nearly as did the Kzintis), and though their fighters technology never did catch up with the Federation's (no Gatlings), they could match the Kzintis on an equal basis and could blunt the onslaught of the Hydran fighter swarms. The greater drone firepower of later Klingon ships often suffered from drone control limits.

In general Klingon ships suffered from thinner shields, especially in the rear, fewer hull and lab boxes, and fewer batteries for less of the very important Reserve Power. They did mostly have more transporters and boarding parties. SECURITY STATIONS, MUTINY.

The Klingons deployed several "special" technologies the Federation never did. Their Ubitron Interface Module fire control system for their disruptors gave them an option for closing to overload range against the Star Fleet. Its greater hit probability over the photon provided an edge against the superior crunch power of the photon. The Klingon Stasis Field Generator made approaching a Klingon fleet with a ship so equipped a tricky proposition (especially so for the Hydrans with their ultra-short range weaponry, at least until they became armed with the Hellbore). The Klingons, along with their Lyran and Romulan partners in the Coalition, deployed the keel-mounted Mauler weapon, which was ideal for destroying enemy bases and heavy ships. The Klingon Deep Space Fleet was the only fleet that actually constructed a Battleship class warship, the famous B10. The other races were given purely "conjectural" designs.

Kzinti
The Kzintis are the premier drone-using race in Star Fleet Battles. The original Kzinti warships were weak in disruptor and phaser firepower, and relied almost entirely on their drones. That these early ships only had available the slow speed-8 and speed-12 drones made use of the Anchor tactic practically mandatory. This required the attacker to close to effective tractor beam range. Though tractor beams can reach out to three hexes, the defender has a three-to-one advantage in defensive tractor energy to the attacker's. So unless the attacker was substantially larger or committed much more energy, he had to get much closer to effectively anchor the opponent. Most often the defender was prepared for this, making the attacker's approach quite risky. The best bet for the Kzinti was to secure a local superiority in ship numbers or quality and overwhelm a vulnerable target in the enemy fleet; one ship would leave disruptors uncharged and plot for maximum speed with maximum ECM and erratic maneuvering, and of course plenty of power for the tractor beam. Its escort(s) would provide protection and distract enemy weapons fire. If the anchor could be secured it conferred devastating advantages over the defender. He could not retreat from the slow drones, he could not launch drones or shuttles of his own, and any wild weasels would be voided (the tractor beam was effectively a giant arrow of energy pointing out the target). If the anchorer was of greater size class, the enemy ship could not even fire weapons at any other ships. If it failed to break the tractor beam, it was usually smothered in a wave of Kzinti drones.

The advent of the speed-20 (medium speec) in Y168 made Kzinti ships much less reliant on the Anchor. Enemies could still turn away and avoid Kzinti drone swarms for a time, but as a result they became less dangerous and thus the Kzintis could use their disruptors and phasers to better effect. It's probably no coincidence that at this time the Kzinti fleet began refitting its ships with double the former number of disruptors (cruisers went from two to four disruptors, the frigates doubled from one to two, and the frigate's drone racks went from two to four). Kzinti disruptors now generally numbered as many as those of the Klingon ships, and enjoyed better firing arcs (on the battlecruisers 180 degrees overlapping in the forward arc) but the Klingon Ubitron Interface Module gave the Klingons the edge at overload range, and most Klingon ship classes enjoyed a slightly advantageous power curve. The Kzintis never matched the Klingons in disruptor firepower but substantially closed the gap, though the Klingon phaser upgrades reduced the Kzinti advantage in that department (though the numerous Kzinti phaser-3s provided better "padding" for the bigger phaser-1s).

In these years just before the General War (which the Kzintis joined in right from its start) the Fleet began a program of carrier-building. A specially enlarged battlecruiser hull (later to serve as the basis for the Kzinti Heavy Battlecruiser) was produced with a capacious shuttle bay of twelve boxes for a complete fighter squadron. Novel methods of deploying, recovering, and servicing fighters were developed and perfected. Specially outfitted escort ships were produced to protect the vulnerable fighters returning from their strikes, having expended nearly all their fuel, weapons, and chaff, and at risk due to battle damage. These new carrier groups, as they were called, became the backbone of the Kzinti fleet's strategy of staving off the larger Klingon and Lyran fleets comprised of seemingly-unlimited numbers of quickly-built ships. The carriers would send their squadrons into the thickest of the fighting and through their sacrifices permit the more valuable and irreplaceable Kzinti starships to disengage in order to once again take on new squadrons of the "attrition units" as fighters were conceived. The strategy was to force the Klingons and Lyrans to trade hard-to-replace starships for swarms of expendable fighters. It succeeded in saving the Kzinti Homeworld Kzintai and keeping the Hegemony from being overrun by the hordes of Klingons and Lyrans. Its ultimate commendation was that the Klingons and the Federation followed suit themselves and followed the Kzinti practice of deploying their fighter strength in specially-organized carrier battle groups.

The Kzinti Attack Shuttle was the Alpha Octant's first drone-armed fighter to enter service. Its purpose was to provide a more robust platform than the scatterpack shuttle for the launch of massive numbers of drones. A later version gained the ability to guide its own drones and could be sent on independent missions far from its carrier or starbase, and made possible standalone planetary defenses. Successor fighters flew faster and when the Warp Booster Packs became available they moved fast enough to threaten enemy starships. So-called "assault" fighters with standoff weaponry became available like the DAS, or Disruptor Armed Shuttle, which in quantity out to range 10 gave warships new problems. Still later the "heavy fighters" with more drones and weapons, and improved EW capability, and Heavy Carriers (with two squadrons of 12 fighters) conferred "Queen of Battle" status on the fighter carrier at the height of the General War in the period Y173-179. Kzinti fighter technology kept pace with their Klingon adversary, but never reached the acme of the late-war Federation fighters with Gatling technology and internal weapons bays.

The vast proliferation of Kzinti drone-armed units (ships and fighters alike) made salient a key advantage the Kzintis possessed over the Klingons. There are many types of advanced drones available to fleet commanders for additional cost. However, the number that can be purchased is subject to racially-rated restrictions. Drone occupy a certain number of so-called "drone spaces". A standard type-A drone rack has four, the high capacity type-B rack has six. For each space in the racks, there is another space not on the SSD for drone reloads (from which emptied drone racks are replenished during combat). On a space-by-space basis, Kzinti ships are accorded advanced drones up to 20% of their drone storage spaces (including the reload storage spaces). In contrast, Klingon ships are accorded only 10% maximum of advanced drones. This Kzinti advantage was increased with the Y175 refits, which doubled the reload drone storage. This advantage was perhaps blunted by the Klingon refits which added antidrone racks to nearly all their fleet combatants, and the increased number of Klingon drone racks overall.

The Y175 refit benefitted the Kzinti warships in another way as well. The four Type-A racks were upgraded to two Type-B (as were all the Klingon racks in their own Y175 refits) and two fast-firing Type-C racks. The C-rack held four spaces and could fire two drones each game turn instead of one. So it emptied itself faster and thus became available for reloading sooner, while the slower Type-B racks were still discharging their drones to keep up the ship's inflight drone firepower. The newer ship classes becoming available during the General War (war cruisers, destroyers, and NCAs) incorporated double drone control (double the ship's sensor rating, or 12) aided the management of the larger numbers of drones inflight, as well as greater availability of self-guiding drones. The broader deployment of antidrone racks on the new classes allowed the ships to follow their own drone waves and intercept enemy drones targetted on their offensive drones.

The Kzintis pioneered the Drone Bombardment ship, originally frigates upgraded with six racks and the long-range Type IIIXX "cruise drones". Later the Scout Drone frigate substituted an array of special sensor boxes for the disruptor, so the bombardment squadrons could seek targets for themselves without the services of a scout frigate detatched from more important fleet duties. Naturally, the Klingons later copied the idea and in the end deployed even greater numbers of these useful and effective standoff units.

Perhaps the most important type of new advanced drone was the Electronic Warfare drone. This substituted an ECM transmitter for the warhead. The EW drone was targetted on a friendly ship, and the drone flew formation with it and "loaned" three points of ECM to protect it from enemy fire. Multiple EW drones could be assigned a friendly target, but only one at a time could loan ECM to it; the extra EW drones acted as "flying spares" that instantly took over when the active drone was destroyed. The EW shift given by an ECM drone was the one thing that could give a Kzinti ship an edge over a Klingon coming into overloaded disruptor range with a Ubitron Interface Module.

Armor modules made possible the "slug drones" the Kzintis used to tear down Lyran Expanding Sphere Generators (see below). The Kzintis benefitted disproportionately from the new drone technology advances because of their edge in proportion of advanced drones available for purchase.

Hydran
Hydran starship technology is peculiar to their region of the Alpha Octant (though the Federation later copied the Gatling phaser and produced it in limited quantity).

The original Hydran torpedo weapon was the Fusion Beam. Its hit probabilities are configured like those of phaser weapons (rather than hit-or-miss, it's a spectrum of damage). It can fire instantly from a cold start (like the disruptor) but after firing requires a turn for cooling before it can be powered again. A standard fusion charge can be held for one point of power, but not overloaded fusions. Most importantly of all, the fusion beam is an extremely close-range weapon; effectively impotent beyond range 2. However, within ranges 1 or zero, and overloaded it is the most powerful of all shipboard weapons. It has a special "suicide overload" setting which requires 7 power points and scores double the damage on the overloaded fusion beam table. When fired, the firing fusion box is marked as destroyed and one additional point of internal damage is scored on the firing ship. Wikkileaker (talk) 04:56, 10 January 2017 (UTC)