Some Noob Questions

[PaulB]

Thanks dude. Any more questions let us know

[Tyrel Lohr]

I'm alive, just recovering from another move and trying to get ready for work on some more VBAM supplements this weekend. So it's a great time to catch up with your long overdue questions!

Is it possible to get a supply route through an System without a Colony?
For example: Capital --> empty outpost--->Colony with Supply Depot

I found that the 1E rules are a little unhelpful in this regard, and I had this discussion with Jay when I was rewriting them for the final version of the 2E rules.

The official ruling is that you can trace a supply route out 2 jumps from a supply point as long as there isn't a hostile force in the way that would prevent this from happening. So if you above example you could trace supply over that distance fine, but if an enemy fleet moved into the empty outpost it would then prevent supply from being traced through that system.

The exception to the above is that the supply route can trace through contested systems. So if there are both friendly and enemy fleets in the Supply Depot system, you could still get supply to the empty outpost as long as there were both friendly and enemy fleets there, too.

What is the DV for Civilian Fleets and Shipyards? Cant find this essential stat anywhere...

I can't remember off hand, and I thought it was in the basic terms but it isn't there. I would recommend using a DV 10 for those units, as that is the blanket value we gave them in 2E.

Can anyone else find these in the 1E Campaign Guide to verify what they should have been?

[Tyrel Lohr]

Now in 2nd Edition, the default value for all fleets is DV 10 (Trade and Transport are also reduced in cost to 10, Colony Fleets are still 30)

Bah, I thought I caught all of those! Trade Fleets costs 20 EP in 2E, but I missed the cost on page 16 for some reason. Sigh. I have updated that in my working document.

So by that definition, I think that you can only NOT trace a supply route through a system which is controlled by a hostile power. Also arguably, you might say you cannot trace a supply route through a uncontrolled space. So you may be required to leave a ship in the system in order to maintain control of its space. However for the sake of simplicity, I'd just ignore that and just say as long as there are no hostile enemies there you can get supplies through. That's how I played it in my solo exploration campaign, and one of the designers, Tyrel didn't seem to notice or object to it so I assume that's how it's done.

Yes, that pretty much sums it up. I've always played that you get the 2 jump range unless there is an enemy fleet present to get in your way and impede the transit of your civilian freighters that are dropping off the supplies.

[Tyrel Lohr]

-By the rules, there is no way to attack a Spacedock, a Defsat or a Station, if the owner didn't want it?
-All combat rules are for fleets of ships with max. 1/3 fixed defenses, if only fixed Defences remain, they can't defend a planet or prevent a fleet bombarding and attacking?

This is something that Stefan brought up on the YahooGroup, and it is an oversight. The "MAY include fixed defenses" should be "MUST include fixed defenses" in order to prevent the defender from laughing and hiding their fixed defenses away behind a conveniently placed moon that the attacker won't attack for unspecified reasons.

Also as per that conversation, you can bombard or invade a system if you have orbital superiority. This is the definition for that, which seems to be missing from both 1E and 2E (despite me knowing that I had added this to the rules at some point):

ORBITAL SUPERIORITY
An attacking fleet achieves orbital superiority in a system if one of two conditions are met:

1) The attacking fleet survives a Defensive scenario in a system. The attacker's surviving units are considered to have broken through to the planet and have achieved at least limited orbital superiority.
2) There are no defenders present for the attacking fleet to generate a Defensive scenario against. The defender may not have any fleets in the system, or they may have been defeated or forced to retreat earlier this encounter. The system is now undefended, and the attacking fleet has total orbital superiority.

A fleet can only conduct orbital bombardment against or invade a system when it has orbital superiority.

Yeah I dunno how it was missed either, nor in the errata. I think the thing is that a lot of people just made their own fleets and units, they didn't work from what was in the book. Could be wrong.

I'm not sure where it went, either. I think you're right that most people had a source material book that they just cribbed unit stats off of and ran with from there. 1E was a lot more "the CM fills in the gaps" than I would prefer, and I think this is a good illustration of that there are some elements of 2E that could also stand to be updated via errata to make this more clear and provide final resolutions on these issues. Which is why I think working on adding the results of these conversations to a "War Log" free ezine supplement is going to be a good use of my time this weekend so that we have a "source of truth" to reference in the future and make this clearer.

And I'm more ashamed that I still have a mistake with Trade Fleets being undervalued in the text despite me updating it in the universal list at the back of the book. Sigh.

As I understand it, you can make countless scenarios between the same fleets in one turn, as long as one Player want it, and the other one didn't run. Your answer seems to say only one scenario is generated. I'm confused (more than normal)...

There is a finite number of scenarios that can be fought, at least that is how I've always played it. The best way to approach this, and what really should probably be enforced via errata, is to have the players step through each scenario step (Interception, Breakout, Deep Space, Defensive, Pursuit) and during each step declare if they are demanding any scenarios. That way you can work through the process and then proceed to the next step. You really should only be able to demand one scenario of each type against any given opponent. Player A could fight two Deep Space scenarios in an encounter if he generates separate battles against Players B and C in the same system, but if only Player B has ships there then he can only fight one Deep Space scenario. I've never allowed two opposing players to both demand separate Deep Space scenarios, either, but by the definition of the rules I guess you could do that.

This might be a situation where some discussion is warranted of whether or not there is a better way to step through these kinds of scenario declarations and make it easier to flowchart or resolve. I will fully admit to playing very loose with these rules in all of my games. I usually look at the two empires and see if they would want to attack each other, and what type of battle makes the most sense and then running that scenario or set of scenarios and moving on. But it is clunky and could be improved upon.

[Orok]

Thanks for the Update.

Yeah the rules need a CM, but we all want to play. So we give the CMless game a try. Not my best idea

Every Scenario only ones? Okay, that really a change to the rules as I understand them. I like the Idea of Fleets engaging each other for strike after strike until one is defeated. A round (a month in the the game) gives you plenty of time for it. I have this movie in my head of Fleets engaging each other with high velocity, change some hits and than have passed each other. They count their looses, reorganising the ships fit for battle and change vector for another pass by. Like the Lost Fleet books maybe.
I believe I stay with that, even if it is not the intended way

[Tyrel Lohr]

Definitely adapt the rules to your group's own preferred play style!

The way I played the rules, I always considered an encounter to be all of the battles that happened in a system during a month's time, and each battle was either the main confrontation in the system that month or in other cases each round was just another aspect of the fighting.

Part of the reason that 1E battles last so many rounds is because you have a limited amount of time to fight, and you can end up with stalemates where multiple empires still have forces in the system and the outcome of the fighting hasn't been fully realized yet. This makes it easier for players to move reinforcements in on future turns, and helps to replicate situations like you might sometimes see in settings like Wing Commander where the Terrans and Kilrathi are going to spend quite a bit of time fighting back and forth over control of a system.

The length of scenarios in 2E was reduced from 1E to increase this stalemate behavior, but it also removed the random factor (the d6 extra rounds) which might have been a misstep the longer I think about it. But continual testing will tell whether this is another situation where we might need to tweak the rules in the future.

Be sure to post more information about your campaign as the game progresses! It's very enlightening to hear what issues new players are running into with 1E and figure out how we may need to address them between both editions of the rules.