"A Conflict of Interest" Topic

I played a very enjoyable game last night pitting Starfleet against the Colonial Fleet. I wrote an AAR on my blog if you're interested:

link

Nice AAR, pretty funny really, thanks for posting.

Very cool. I am not a big Star Trek guy but I would think that the railguns and solid shot munitions would prove quite a problem for a fleet who defense was based on shields stopping directed energy weapons and not massive slugs of hardened composites. Or do the rules assume that the shields stop both energy and slug throwing weapons?

Although not exactly 'slug throwing', photon torpedos are actually physical torpedos so have at least some penetrative power.

I'd be more wondering how simple, solid matterials could stand up to the energies in beams and the like.

Also, in ST, navigational deflectors are shields that deal with solid objects.

Trying to figure cross-universe particulars is madness. Take it from one who whent, and never came back. ;->=

GM: Pretty sure the solid part is just casing, though I'd admit it'd have to be strong, at that.

All that aside, thanks Battlespace!

Doug

Great AAR! Thanks.

Well done, very cool looking game.

Very well written, and entertaining. 'Tactics'? Did the Colonial player actually forget part of their fleet on the first turn? ;)

I wonder how effective nuclear missiles would be verses the defences of TNG era vessels… hm.

No matter how you cut it, a directed energy shield (if such a thing is possible) would counteract any and all energy that comes its way – be that energy in the form of a beam weapon, an explosive, or a physical impact; all are just energy in different forms.

Someone on the Trekyards FB page was trying to argue that kinetic weapons throwing solid penetrator rounds would go straight through 'Trek-style deflectors. However, if that were true, then, as Doug mentions above, navigational deflectors would be useless.

Star Trek shields have been shown to interact with kinetic energy on more than one occasion and you are correct in pointing out that a Photon/Quantum torpedo does have a casing and contact initiated warhead. With that in mind it is a simple matter of math to work out how much "damage" is inflicted by a simple railgun round travelling at relativistic speeds as compared to a phaser burst. Einstein taught us that in the end its all just energy.

In the game you can design shields that can stop only energy weapons, only kinetic weapons, or both. For the above reason I design Star Trek ships with dual purpose shields. Another player who disagrees with me could of course design them with shields that only interact with energy weapons. My gaming group has a continuing argument over the type of shields Star Wars should have.

There are different design philosophies at work when BSG and Star Trek face off of course. Starfleet's phasers are much more sophisticated scalpel like instruments of war whereas the Colonials go for the quantity over quality theory on munitions. If a few hundred railgun rounds per minute are impacting a Nebula or Galaxy Class's shields it will feel it.

Trying to figure cross-universe particulars is madness. Take it from one who [went], and never came back.

You JUST won't listen, will you? ;->=

Doug

I've been doing it for 20 years now and don't plan on stopping any time soon :) We all have our dragons to chase.

Battlespace
In the game you can design shields that can stop only energy weapons, only kinetic weapons, or both. For the above reason I design Star Trek ships with dual purpose shields.

This brings to mind GW's BFG, one of the few games I did enjoy.
Except for.. that "if your admiral fails his command roll, none of the other captains can carry out there 'specail orders" (you got to be kidding me?)
In the age of space travel, I have to 'let' my ship sail directly in too Hvy enemy fire because I cant make Radio contact w my Fleet CO!? and not attempt to make my "Emergency stop/ Brace etc? (BLEEP) that.
OK sorry you can tell THAT rule made my ears bleed..and happy to buy someone at GW a free round of shock therapy. )

But on the point of Shields. I liked that BFG took both forms of ship defence into consideration. IIRC a "set # of hits" a ship could take by "Lance batteries" (energy) weapons.
They also had an Armor value per ship (physical armor) to defend from "Weapons Batteries" (ranks of various size solid projectiles) that were fired at your ship.

In 'my own' ST universe, my game was / is based on TOS, so no fighters, carriers etc. (I never saw those on TOS so I didnt add them to my game). I allowed 'drones' (guided missles) to 'attempt' to pass thru the shields, but.. they had to pass a die roll.
My idea being; the massive energy of the shield 'could' overload / cause the warhead to detonate from a safe distance. If not, the ship would then take damage. Or the 'captain' player could attempt to use a phaser shot to hit the missle, but that was a long shot.

Well … your admiral never has to be the first to make his check. You could move the most critical ships first and make their checks. Spend the points on admirals with re-rolls. And most folks never bothered using the squadron rules with their cruisers. A whole squadron checking once of the best command rating makes it a lot easier to keep the chain of successes going, and you only have to spend one re-rolls to let the whole squadron try again. The brilliant part is that once your squadron cohesion breaks up and you have ships going in all directions, it's much harder for your admiral to keep control of the situation! Elegant and under-appreciated.