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Another consequence of recent discussions regarding encounter resolution is the idea of eliminating squadrons entirely and having a single "squadron" Task Force for each side in the battle as a tool to speed scenario setup. I'm going to throw a few ideas out there for everyone to discuss to weigh the pros and cons of this kind of change.

At the start of a battle, each player would assemble their starting Task Force. First up is the selection of a Task Force flagship, using the same criteria as today (highest CR in fleet, allowing crippled ships to be overlooked). Then, rather than having a per-unit Command Cost, the total number of ships in the Task Force would be based on a fixed amount (6, for example) plus the flagship's Command Rating. This establishes a baseline size for any given Task Force, even when the flag's CR is low (or zero!), but lets good command ships to field larger number of ships. For example, a Heavy Cruiser with 6 CR could command a total of 12 ships (including itself) in a Task Force. All other ships are placed in the Reinforcements Pool.

Task Forces of this size would be fairly typical for what would be considered and "average" VBAM battle, but it would prevent one fleet from bringing in an overwhelming number of ship squadrons in a battle like they can today.

You'd still roll for surprise and scenario length at the start of the battle. Given that fewer ships are going to be on the battlefield at one time in larger fleet engagements, I think we could safely reinstate the +1d6 combat rounds random component to scenario length.

So at this point the players have set up their Task Forces and are ready to start the battle. One significant change we'd see is that the pre-combat Scout usage would be shifted to being a per combat round advantage, which could make things more interesting when it comes to includes/excludes. Includes would force a player to add the specified unit to his Task Force. If that unit was in the Reinforcements, it would move to the active Task Force and that player would have to move another unit back. Excludes would work in reverse, forcing the player to move a unit out of their Task Force and another unit back in. As I believe it works now, you couldn't exclude the Task Force flagship; it has to stay in the battle.

The other various scout missions would also happen at the start of each turn. The Scout use during surprise and scenario length is a bit more questionable, and it might be best to remove those options or else tie them back into Intel or have it be more expensive and not have any effect on combat scout usage.

Actual weapons fire operations would remain largely the same with ships fire at ships, ships fire at flights, flights fire at flights, and flights fire at ships.

The one change that I would want to consider at this point would be to change the flight damage rules so that 1 x DV is enough damage to force a flight to dropout -- it isn't destroyed, but it is out of the battle for the rest of the round -- whereas 2 x DV would destroy the flight. This gets rid of the need for the 2E flight recovery rules, as flights would be more survivable and it would be up to the defender to decide if it's better to destroy flights or just neutralize them so they can't fire again later this round. Directed damage then becomes more useful, as a player may actually want to pay a surcharge to take out the fighters rather than have them be dropped out.

At the end of the combat round, you would be able to move a single unit back to the Reinforcements Pool (plus additional if you have tugs in the Task Force) and then move in additional units to fill back up to your command limit. The process would then then continue until the battle was over. This would prevent you from moving up a fresh battle line every turn, and but over the course of a battle you'd have the opportunity to move several cripples back and out of the way.

The biggest obstacle to this single squadron Task Force concept is that, because of the removal of Command Cost as a concept, you lose the natural limits that were put in place to deincentivize the use of all-battleship fleets. The one solution I can think of to that is to go back to something more akin to the 1E damage model where partial damage is concerned, where any extra damage leftover that is insufficient to cripple/destroy the weakest unit in your Task Force automatically cripples/destroys that unit. That had balance issues in 1E, but a middle ground could be to say that you put a "partial damage" token on such units. A unit that already has taken partial damage would be crippled/destroyed when it takes partial damage again, and at the end of a battle you would roll a d6 and on 1-3 the unit is crippled/destroyed or on a 4-6 field repairs were able to remove the damage.

The above is a bit more involved than I would like, but it's simpler than tracking points of attrition damage and creates an environment where you would still want to keep some escorts around to soak up damage because your all battleship battle line could end up taking more damage than expected just because there isn't anything else available to score damage to.

In order to prevent a player from intentionally gimping Command Rating in order to hide ships in the Reinforcements, you'd have to implement an "overkill" rule that any damage beyond that required to destroy all of the ships in the active Task Force would spill over into the Reinforcements.

For the majority of battles, this kind of scheme wouldn't make an appreciable difference from what we're used to in the present CSCR. You'd have to rely on Scouts more for formation levels, and you'd see a shift from squadron missions to ship missions, but those kinds of changes would be doable. It's in the larger fleet battles where you would see the most difference. You wouldn't have 7 Heavy Cruiser squadrons with something like 21 ships all duking it out at the same time. Instead, you'd have about 12 Heavy Cruisers on the line at a time, with reinforcements coming in as ships are destroyed.

The main advantage I see to this different approach is that you don't have to spend as much time setting up squadrons before a battle, and you would no longer have to worry about Command Costs. This would remove one the bigger balance problems in the game relating to the massive shifts between Command Costs at the low end and make unit design easier. However, it could also lead to a proliferation of all capital ship fleets that might not be much fun. It would also worry that Command Rating would end up us a dump stat that you would no longer really need as long as you had a core selection of good command ships. In that case, basing Command Rating off of the unit class and then having a Command special ability that boosts that would solve that problem. For example, a Heavy Cruiser might just have a base 6 CR, but a Command (2) would boost that to 8 CR.

This is just a thought experiment to see what people think and whether this is anything worth pursuing as either a replacement for the current rules or as a set of optional rules.

Battle at Regula

Federation
3 x Constitution CA (DV 8, AS 6, AF 2, CV 1, CR 6)
1 x Yorktown CV (DV 6, AS 4, AF 2, CV 5, CR 6)
4 x Miranda CL (DV 6, AS 4, AF 2, CV 0, CR 5)
4 x Larson DD (DV 4, AS 3, AF 3, CV 0, CR 4)
6 x Scorpio CT (DV 2, AS 2, AF 1, CV 0, CR 2)
8 x Shuttlecraft (DV 3, AS 1, AF 2)

Klingons
1 x Komo Val BB (DV 10, AS 11, AF 4, CV 4, CR 10, Stealth 1)
4 x K’T’inga CA (DV 7, AS 7, AF 2, CV 1, CR 6, Stealth 1)
3 x Tas’esta FF (DV 3, AS 2, AF 1, CV 0, CR 3, Scout 1)
10 x B’rel FF (DV 3, AS 3, AF 2, CV 0, CR 3, Stealth 1)
4 x Koreba FTR (DV 2, AS 2, AF 2)

Surprise
Federation rolls a 3 (Poor -1), Klingons roll 1 (Disastrous -3)

Scenario Length
Base is d6 (5 round). Federation extend by 4 rounds, Klingons by 1 round, for a total of 10 rounds.

Round 1
Federation Task Force (12 Ships, Flag: Constitution)
2 x Constitution CA (1 Defensive)
3 x Miranda CL
3 x Larson DD
4 x Scorpio CT
2 x Shuttlecraft FTR (Anti-Fighter)

Klingon Task Force (16 Ships, Flag: Komo Val)
1 x Komo Val BB (Defensive)
3 x K’T’inga CA
3 x Tas’esta FF (Defensive)
9 x B’rel FF
4 x Koreba FTR

The Klingons have 3 scout functions to spend. This isn’t enough to include/exclude anything, unfortunately (that requires 4), but they could raise/lower formations or lower the AS/AF of any enemy ship. They decide to halve the AS/AF of the other Constitution and then raise the formation of one of the K’T’ingas by 1.

The Klingon ships are all Stealth units, and were not detected by the Federation this turn. This gives them twice their normal Anti-Ship and Anti-Fighter values on the first round of battle!

The Klingons put the Komo Val and Tas’esta on a Defensive mission to give them +1 Formation Level in return for halving their AS. The Federation puts their flagship on a Defensive mission, but assigns the Shuttlecraft to a Anti-Fighter mission. That way they get a slight bonus to AF fire, and can’t be hit by enemy ship AF fire because they are staying behind in their own Task Force.

Fire Phase One:
The Federation has a total of 35 AS. The roll is 4-1 = 3, for 3 x 3.5 = 10 damage. Their admiral is tempted to use directed damage against the Tas’estas, but would rather thin the herd a bit. The Klingon admiral cripples 3 B’rels. The point of leftover damage is used to do partial damage to one of the crippled B’rels.

The Klingons have a total of 54.5 AS. This is doubled to 109 AS because of the Stealth bonus (!). The roll is 3-3 = 1, for 1 x 10.9 = 10 damage. The Klingons choose to cripple a Miranda with directed damage (9) and then the Federation scores the last point as partial damage to a Scorpio.

(** I realized after the fact that the Tas'esta doesn't have a cloak, so it wouldn't be getting the Stealth bonus. But it doesn't make any difference here because it isn't enough to affect rounding.)

Fire Phase Two:
The Federation ships fire on the inbound Klingon fighters. They have a total of 21 AF. The roll is 4-1 = 3, for 3 x 2.1 = 6 damage. The Klingons just don’t have the numbers to really break through (which is a reason why fighters should probably be beefier ANYWAY, but that is something else I’m still not happy with even in 2E), but they don’t really want to lose fighters either, so they choose to dropout 3 flights with the 6 damage.

(This does demonstrate that it might be better for defender “killed” flights to be dropouts, and directed damage be the true “kills” -- I’ll play it that way from here on out and see what happens!)

The Federation shuttles stayed in their Task Force on an Anti-Fighter mission, so they don’t get fired upon this round.

Fire Phase Three:
The Federation shuttles have 5 AF (4 AF normally, plus half their AS for the Anti-Fighter mission). The roll is 6-1 = 5 x 0.5 = 2 damage. The last Klingon fighter drops out, but is not destroyed.

In return, the Klingon has 2 AF and rolls a 6 - 3 = 3, for 3 x 0.2 = no damage. Welp, at least they didn’t lose any fighters, they just dropped out.

Fire Phase Four:
No Klingons remained to make their attack runs, so no attacks this round.

End of Round:
Neither task force suffered any combat losses. The Federation have a crippled Miranda and a partially damaged Scorpio, while the Klingons have three crippled B’rel (one of which has partial damage). The Federation player moves the crippled Miranda out of his task force and moves the Yorktown and its fighters into the battle.

Looking at 3.6.2.19 again, it says you can move an entire SQUADRON to the reinforcements normally. In that case, then a flagship should be able to move a number of ships based on its CR. Full CR is a little excessive, how about half CR (round up)? I don’t know, we’ll see how that goes in the next step.

The 1/2 CR ruling would allow the Klingons to move up to 5 ships to the reinforcements. That is enough to move the three damaged B’rels out of harm’s way. 1 K'T'inga and 1 B’rel are then brought up to the front lines to replace them. But the Klingons now have a problem. They moved three crippled B'rels out, but they only have two ships to bring back in! One of the cripples has to come back into the battle! That leaves the two crippled B'rels in the reinforcements. The Klingons are quickly running out of reinforcements in this battle!

The dropped out flights are restored to normal combat operations. No flights were actually lost this round, largely due to poor readiness and neither player being willing to use directed damage to score a kill. This seems to address the issue of flights being wiped out early in a battle, and keeps them relevant across a longer fight.

Across 10 rounds of combat, I could see both forces taking quite a bit of attrition as they start losing their lighter combatants and begin being forced to take damage to their heavier elements. A concentrated shuttle strike against the Klingon scouts is going to be high on the Federation’s priority list, but exposing the Yorktown on round 2 could be a misstep for them because the Klingons can very effectively reduce its Formation to 0 and use their firepower advantage to at least cripple it, if not destroy it completely.

The addition of some dedicated ship missions seems to cover some of the gaps in the basic concept of the single squadron Task Force. It gives players a bit more control, and it isn’t very hard to go through and assign special missions where appropriate. For the record, Defensive was giving +1 Formation but halving AS (I might halve AF, too) Anti-Ship gives +50% AF to AS but reduces AF to zero, and Anti-Fighter gives +50% AS to AF but reduces AS to zero. That way you can convert some firepower back and forth, but you’re taking a hit. And ships that don’t have any AS/AF can’t make use of those missions. I could see having a “Scouting” mission, too, where you gain 1 scout function but your AS/AF are reduced to zero, and have that be available for ALL ships (but NOT civilian convoys!). That would give players a way to get some scout functions if they don’t have any Scouts.

Any thoughts so far? I know this is just one round of combat, but it should give players a basis for maybe running a few tests of their own to see how it compares to their normal CSCR experiences and see what the feelings are.

Round 2
Federation Task Force (12 Ships, Flag: Constitution)
2 x Constitution CA
1 x Yorktown CV (Defensive)
2 x Miranda CL
3 x Larson DD
4 x Scorpio CT (1 partial damage) (Scouting)
8 x Shuttlecraft FTR (Anti-Ship)

Federation Reinforcements
1 x Constitution CA
2 x Miranda CL (1 crippled)
1 x Larson DD
2 x Scorpio CT

Klingon Task Force (16 Ships, Flag: Komo Val) (*Note, I realized at the end of Round 3 that I'm actually missing a ship here! Oops!)
1 x Komo Val BB (Defensive)
3 x K’T’inga CA
3 x Tas’esta FF (Defensive)
8 x B’rel FF (1 crippled)
4 x Koreba FTR

Klingon Reinforcements
1 x K’T’inga CA
2 x B’rel FF (1 crippled, 1 crippled + partial damage)

Assignments
The Federation puts the Yorktown on a Defensive mission and the 4 Scorpios on Scouting missions. All Shuttlecraft are on Anti-Ship missions. This gives the Federation 4 scout functions that it then uses to improve the Formation Level of the Yorktown by 4 (to 5).

The Klingons put the Komo Val and Tas’estas on Defensive missions, and spend their 3 scout functions to lower the Formation Level of the Yorktown by 3 (it is now at 2).

Fire Phase One
The Federation has 31 AS and rolls a 6! This gives them 6 x 3.1 = 18 damage. It’s time to neutralize the Klingon scouts. They are in Formation Level 2, which doubles their DV to 6 for the purposes of directed damage. All three Tas’estas are now crippled! Take that Klingon scum!

The Klingons retaliate with 53* AS and roll a 4-2=2. This gives them 2 x 5.3 = 10 damage. Not a good roll, and not anywhere near enough damage to take out the Yorktown like they’d hoped. In fact, they don’t quite have enough to do directed damage to it at all. The Klingons admiral lets the Federation player score the damage instead. He cripples 2 Larsons (8 damage) and 1 Scorpio (2 damage).

(* The 2E rules have you retaining fractions from cripples, but I think that is probably a mistake the more I play with it. Rounding up seems easier to deal with for mental math, as it still is a hit for most ships).

Fire Phase Two
The Federation has 16 AF and rolls a 2, for 2 x 1.6 = 3 damage. This is only enough to cause 2 Koreba flights to drop out, one for 2 damage and the other with the 1 partial damage, but is not enough to destroy a flight.

The Klingons have 26 AF and roll a 1-2=1, for 1 x 2.6 = 2 damage. This does partial damage to a Shuttlecraft, forcing it to drop out of formation.

Fire Phase Three
The Federation has no fire as their shuttlecraft are all on Anti-Ship missions.

The Klingon fighters have a total of 6 AF. The roll is 4, for 4 x 0.6 = 2 damage. Still not enough to destroy anything, but another shuttlecraft drops out (6 left).

Fire Phase Four
The Federation has 12 AS and rolls a 1, giving them 1 x 1.2 = 1 damage. This is not enough to score any directed damage against the opponent.

The Klingon fighters have 4 AS and roll 1-2 = 1. No damage.

End of Round
The Klingon scouts have been neutralized and are no longer going to be a factor. If the Klingons want to do any scouting, they’re going to have to sacrifice firepower from their B’rels and use them to go out and reconnoiter the enemy battle line looking for weaknesses.

It should be noted that neither side has lost any flights yet. This is because right now it takes 6 damage to destroy a Shuttlecraft or 4 damage to destroy a Koreba. Neither of these forces has very good AF weapons, which makes it very difficult for them to get the concentrated AF fire needed to actually destroy rather than dropout enemy flights. If we had an EA Omega destroyer in the battle it would probably have like AF 5 or AF 6, and at that point you’d see fighters falling pretty readily.

Round 3
Federation Task Force (12 Ships, Flag: Constitution)
3 x Constitution CA (1 x Defensive)
1 x Yorktown CV (Defensive)
2 x Miranda CL
2 x Larson DD
4 x Scorpio CT (1 partial damage) (Scouting)
8 x Shuttlecraft FTR (Anti-Ship)

Federation Reinforcements
2 x Miranda CL (1 crippled)
2 x Larson DD (2 crippled)
2 x Scorpio CT (1 crippled)

Klingon Task Force (16 Ships, Flag: Komo Val)
1 x Komo Val BB
4 x K’T’inga CA
1 x Tas’esta FF (1 crippled)
9 x B’rel FF (2 crippled)
4 x Koreba FTR (Anti-Fighter)

Klingon Reinforcements
2 x Tas’esta FF (2 crippled)
1 x B’rel FF (1 crippled + 1 partial damage)

Assignments Phase
The Federation moves the crippled Larsons and Scorpio out and a Constitution CA and fresh Larson DD and Scorpio CT in to take their place. All of the Federation reinforcements are now crippled.

The Klingons move two Tas’estas to the reinforcements and bring a fresh K’T’Inga and a battered B’rel bird of prey into the Task Force. The Klingons are rapidly running out of reinforcements and it’s probably only a matter of time before they are whittled down to what is in their active Task Force.

Federation keeps Yorktown Defensive, moves the flagship back to Defensive, and the 4 Scorpios Scouting. Shuttlecraft are on Anti-Ship.

Klingons set Koreba to Anti-Fighter. No scouting or other missions for them this turn, which might be a mistake.

The Federation uses Defensive Support (2 scout functions) to halve the AS/AF of the Komo Val, and then boosts the Yorktown’s Formation Level by 2 (just in case).

Fire Phase One
The Federation has 31 AS and rolls 6. 6 x 3.1 = 18 damage. They use 15 directed damage to cripple the Komo Val. The remaining 3 points are scored by the Klingons, crippling an additional B’rel.

The Klingons have 58 AS and roll a 2-1 = 1. This nets 5 damage. The Klingon commander can’t win for losing here! The Federation player scores the damage to destroy a Scorpio and then cripple the ship that already had partial damage.

Fire Phase Two
The Federation has nothing to fire at as the cowardly Klingons are staying Anti-Fighter.

The Klingons meanwhile have 26 AF and roll 2-1 = 1 for 2 damage. I’m starting to think these Klingons are all drunk on bloodwine. Sigh. 1 Shuttlecraft pilot gets scared at the warning shots and drops out to go talk to a counselor.

Fire Phase Three
The Federation Shuttlecraft are on an Anti-Ship mission and can’t shoot.

The Klingons have 12 AF and roll 2-1 = 1 for 1 damage. Another Shuttlecraft darts back to the Yorktown.

Fire Phase Four
The Federation have 6 Shuttlecraft left on their attack run, with a total of 12 AS. The roll is a 4, giving them 4 damage. Flights still get to treat ships like they are in a Formation Level one lower than normal, so they decide to swoop in and destroy a crippled B’rel (3 damage). The leftover point is lost.
(Just realized that all fighter damage is directed damage. Oops! I had to go back and fix last round)

End of Round
The battle is not going well for the Klingons. They are 3 rounds in and they are taking a beating because of their Disastrous readiness state at the beginning of this battle. This made me remember a rule from the 2E playtest days where fleets that started at below Normal readiness had a penalty to scenario length. In this case, I’d say that the number of rounds they could increase the scenario by would be reduced by their readiness modifier. That would only let the Federation increase it by 3 rounds, instead of 4. Not much of a difference, but if they had both been Disastrous or Bad it could definitely have reduced the length of the battle since neither side would have been ready for it.

No fighter flights have been lost still. This is quite an improvement over both 1E and 2E. The results of the fighter combat has also been lackluster, to say the least. That’s reasonable for the Klingons who have so few Korebas around (I should have given the K’T’ingas a flight each!), but the Federation are throwing around a decent little stack and still only managing to do some light damage thanks to the rule that they have to score everything as directed damage.

I have to say that this change in how flights are handled seems to feel more natural for a back-and-forth battle of this type, and makes the current low flight stats seem appropriate because while they are individually not very powerful, they also don’t suffer as heavy of attrition. In this case I can also see a real appeal for having good AF ships to deal with these threats, whereas before just a bit of background AF was often enough to swat the flights out of the sky.

As to the current rate of losses, it seems like both sides are bloodied, but neither have lost any major ships -- just a few escorts. And we’re now 30% of the way through the battle! Normally I think we would have seen a bit higher losses, including all of the flights. The crippling of the Komo Val is going to really hurt the Klingons, and I shouldn’t have been so aggressive. I wanted to try and get a good punch in with it, but it just didn’t work out because of my horrible rolls this battle.

I am ruling at this point forward that crippled units can’t perform missions because it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to be able to take advantage of that bonus. It makes them easier targets, definitely, but then they should be. More importantly, it means that an attacker could cripple all of the enemy’s light units to prevent them from being used to scout or perform other nefarious actions. It also makes a crippled ship easier to hit because they can’t use a Defensive mission to boost their Formation Level.

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I'm stopping the battle here because I keep making small mistakes because I am working as I go and not recording everything in a more consistent manner. But I think this gets the gist across and gives everyone a basis to start the discussion.

From this one experience, it seems easier to set up the battle because you don't have to put units into squadrons, and the limited battle line does mean that fleets suffer less damage per combat round. In this battle we still don't have hardly any destroyed units, though within the next round or two I suspect we'll start seeing more of the destroyers start popping. The Klingons are finally going to be back to Normal readiness, too, and not receiving penalties to their combat rolls. It's probably too little, too late but one could hope for a turn around.

The Federation's best bet would be to concentrate on taking out the Komo Val and reducing their Task Force command limit. On the flip side, the Klingons are probably going to have to use half their B'rels for Scouting missions to raise the Komo Val's formation to try and prevent that from happening, or else create an opening to cripple some of the Federation cruisers or carrier.

At this point if I were the Klingons I might consider using the Retreat rules to pull out of the system. I think they still have enough units left to put up a good fight here and survive for the full 10 rounds, but it's going to be a Pyrrhic victory or stalemate. The Komo Val is almost certainly doomed at this point, but I could see a few crippled K'T'ingas making it out alive. They may even manage to bloody the Federation's nose a bit before the end, but it's definitely not going to be a clear-cut victory for either side.

I personally like that the Scouting mission makes the scout rules more ubiquitous and meaningful, and with a better delineation of abilities I think it could be a really cool meta game where players balance the firepower of their available ships against using them to scout and buff/debuff as needed. The versatility of partially converting AS to AF or vice versa was also nice, but the trade off of not being able to use that stat for its intended role made me decide not to do it very often. In a battle without any fighters, I would definitely do Anti-Ship to convert 1/2 my AF to AS.

In this scenario it might have been the best option for both sides, but it wouldn't have netted them much. At one point I thought about giving a -1 Formation penalty to the Anti-Ship/Anti-Fighter missions, but I think that's a bit too severe. Losing the use of 1/2 of the stat is really a pretty big penalty against mixed opponents. Star Trek fleets are a bad representative of this unless you are fairly liberal with handing out CV based on shuttle basing, but in most other sci-fi settings you're going to have enough fighter flights running around that you wouldn't dare go full Anti-Ship unless you were sure your own flights could take care of the enemy.

At first glance, I really really like these rules.

I played around a bit with them today. Here's the first three rounds of a battle (and I'm a sucker for nice graphical layouts so I've got them as images here rather than text)






I also played one without layout, same forces.

Here are my initial suggestions:
1) Limit the number of missions that can be performed, maybe to the total CR of the flagship. Otherwise it is tempting to min-max by giving every ship on the board a mission, which creates a lot of modifiers to wade through.

2) Find a way to modify task force size by something other than the CR of the command ship. I played around with some hypotheticals and rather like the idea that the total number of ships in your task force has to be equal to or less than the CR of your command ship plus one-quarter the total CR of other ships in the fleet. Thus you get some benefit from designing a fleet with generally "high" command ratings.

3) To deal with moving ships to and fro, allow a player to move only the flagship's CR in ships out or in from reinforcements each round of battle. So if you have a command ship with CR 6, it can move 3 ships in and 3 ships out per turn, or 4 ships in and 2 ships out, and so on.

4) Clarify the effect that anti-fighter and anti-ship missions have, in particular on fighters and with regards to rounding fractions. It's easy to imagine an AF1/AS1 flight which is essentially always either AS2/AF0 or AS0/AF2 depending on the specific mission. If giving missions is a limited commodity, like in suggestion (1), this might be OK. Otherwise it creates time consuming specialization and number crunching.

5) For some reason this has rarely come up and I only just realized it's not in the core rule book. I guess I have more Scout functions available than usual with the new Missions system. When a Scout function is used to both double and halve the same ship, I just have them cancel out. Is the how you intended it to work? Or is there a preferred order of operations here?

6) The only overarching problem here is that if people want to use this special rule, they have to redesign their fleet lists from the ground up. With nothing to be gained (most of the time) from a CR4 over a CR3 light cruiser, since its CC of 2 is meaningless, most players will have wasted points. I'm not sure how to get around this right now, it'll need more tweaking. You could also find a way to make CC meaningful in this new context. For example, a ship costs its CC to move in or out from reinforcements, and a flagship can move only its CR in CC cost of ships each turn. It would just be nice if this alternate system didn't create a strong incentive for a total redesign.

7) Does Towing really matter anymore if I can move a crippled ship out of my Task Force and into reserve same as any other ship? I might just not have understood your rules change here, but Towing has always bugged me anyway as hard to use effectively, and being mostly freed from it felt like a blessing.

On the whole, though, I really like this 'squadron-less' world. Fighter combat feels less like a crapshoot (Arg! I sent them to the wrong squadron!), the addition of ship by ship missions can create good tactical choices (including, especially the Scout mission). You could even broaden the potential missions to include Guardian and Disruptor functions.

Your big concern seems to be how no squadrons will effect the strategic level, with the all-BB or all-DN fleet being a big problem. I feel like the difficulty of building and maintaining all-battleship fleets will keep them from being a metagame problem - they take too long to build, are extremely expensive to maintain, are vulnerable to Intel missions for sabotage, and so on. Also, the new per-ship Mission system means players will want ships which can do Scout and AF missions without putting a huge hole in their fleet's total AS/AF numbers, giving them a further reason to avoid 15-battleship fleets.

BroAdso wrote:At first glance, I really really like these rules.

It's definitely an intriguing notion, and it seems to keep combat interesting without having to worry about squadron assignments. I felt like I had more *choices* when I played my test battle, as it seemed like I had more interesting decisions to make as I fought the battle, especially in regards to missions.

1) Limit the number of missions that can be performed, maybe to the total CR of the flagship. Otherwise it is tempting to min-max by giving every ship on the board a mission, which creates a lot of modifiers to wade through.

I think this is a good idea. I had thought about that, playing around with flagship CR as the easiest limit. The other option would be to use the total Task Force CR as a base, for example +1 mission allowed per 10 CR. I kind of like having the option of giving every unit a mission, but you're right that it ends up giving players a bit too much latitude to just have their entire force perform special missions. And if these are SPECIAL missions, then they should be a limited resource.

2) Find a way to modify task force size by something other than the CR of the command ship. I played around with some hypotheticals and rather like the idea that the total number of ships in your task force has to be equal to or less than the CR of your command ship plus one-quarter the total CR of other ships in the fleet. Thus you get some benefit from designing a fleet with generally "high" command ratings.

I went with 6 + Flagship CR mainly to make things simple for players to remember. CR is kind of orphaned in this system, and CC is being ignored completely. A class based CR with a Command special ability could fill that void, but that still leaves you with the problem of a stat that is no longer as important.

When you look at a "standard" CA that has 6/3 CR/CC, that ship could command its own squadron of 3 CA plus up to 6 other squadrons of 3 CA for a total of 21 ships at once in the current rules. That does seem excessive, and I like the smaller battle line of just 12 ships and the rest waiting in the wings to move in or out.

A half way here would be for a player to designate a limited number of squadrons but have them fight as a single element, and use the CR of each "squadron command ship" to determine the total number of units present (or total CC, if that was retained). That doesn't seem to really help matters, though, because it returns to the same problem as before of requiring additional setup and tracking of who is a squadron command ship. Having a single Task Force flagship is much cleaner.

Another solution could be to add the CR of the top X number of ships in your fleet to arrive at the total. Then it would be important to have at least a few good command ships. Or like you said, maybe have the +X added to the Task Force flagship be based on the total CR in your fleet. In my example fleet the Federation had 72 CR (66 if you remove the flagship). If you had it be 10%, then that would have been a +7 vs the +6 I was already giving it, which would have been close. The Klingons had a total of 73 CR with the Komo Val or 63 without it, so again about a +7 bonus which would be acceptable. The easiest option is to just total the CR and divide by 10, round up, then add the Task Force flagship CR for the total. Then you don't have to worry about omitting the flagship from the total. And, like you said, at that point having decent CR on the rest of your units helps you bring more ships into the battle overall.

3) To deal with moving ships to and fro, allow a player to move only the flagship's CR in ships out or in from reinforcements each round of battle. So if you have a command ship with CR 6, it can move 3 ships in and 3 ships out per turn, or 4 ships in and 2 ships out, and so on.

I think this is a good idea, but for balance reasons I would be worried about players purposefully moving ships out of their task force without being required to move others back in. The reason being that I've seen players try to exploit the current reinforcements system to try and hide ships back there just to keep them from getting hit. But a limit of 50% x CR (round up) for number of ships you can move out would work and be limited enough that you'd never be able to swap out the majority of your ships.

However, that being said, the include rules could help overcome this by making it so that your opponent can actively drag the ships back in on his own, so even if you're trying to empty out your active task force, he could still use scout functions to force some ships back in. And the smaller task force sizes overall mean that we'd see less room for overkill abuse, at least that is what it looks like.

4) Clarify the effect that anti-fighter and anti-ship missions have, in particular on fighters and with regards to rounding fractions. It's easy to imagine an AF1/AS1 flight which is essentially always either AS2/AF0 or AS0/AF2 depending on the specific mission. If giving missions is a limited commodity, like in suggestion (1), this might be OK. Otherwise it creates time consuming specialization and number crunching.

I was always rounding up on the half. I don't worry as much about those little flights or gunboats that can gain a lot of versatility going back and forth, especially if we end up limiting the number that can be used for special missions. The special missions for flights might also be made into a Carrier trait specific ability, replacing the +1 DV that is there now. The reasoning being that only Carriers have the facilities to swap out mission specific weapons packages for the flights.

5) For some reason this has rarely come up and I only just realized it's not in the core rule book. I guess I have more Scout functions available than usual with the new Missions system. When a Scout function is used to both double and halve the same ship, I just have them cancel out. Is the how you intended it to work? Or is there a preferred order of operations here?

Correct, they just cancel each other out. That is something I should make clear when I update those rules with the results of whatever comes of this CSCR rules review.

It does work well for players to try and strategically boost the performance of a key unit if they think their opponent is going to try and debuff them this turn.

6) The only overarching problem here is that if people want to use this special rule, they have to redesign their fleet lists from the ground up. With nothing to be gained (most of the time) from a CR4 over a CR3 light cruiser, since its CC of 2 is meaningless, most players will have wasted points. I'm not sure how to get around this right now, it'll need more tweaking. You could also find a way to make CC meaningful in this new context. For example, a ship costs its CC to move in or out from reinforcements, and a flagship can move only its CR in CC cost of ships each turn. It would just be nice if this alternate system didn't create a strong incentive for a total redesign.

This is the biggest obstacle to the new system. Some elements of the rules convert without a problem, but the CR/CC system would need to be definitely addressed. Personally, as nice as the CR/CC split works in most cases, it makes unit design and balance incredibly more complicated, and I think you can blame that on about 2 years of extra development trying to get unit construction rules that generally worked. Part of the issue is that I was trying to keep the low CC values intact, but when you jump from CC 1/2 to CC 1 to CC 2 you end up with troubles keeping each of those CC breakpoints remotely balance with each other. Smaller ships already have an edge in combat efficiency in this game, and it has been difficult keeping them in a state where ships are all of fairly equal value.

The major advantage to removing CC entirely would be that the unit classes could be much more fairly staggered out and costed so as to use a linear CP-per-EP formula. That would almost certainly require increasing the costs of units, but that's not something I would have a huge problem with considering the relative success that Jay seems to have had with that in WAP. For example, we'd see a progress like this: GB (1), CT (2), FF (4), DD (6), CL (8), CA (10), CB (12), BB (14), DN (16), SD (18), TN (20). The costs are higher, but the number of CP would probably only be slightly off from where they are now.

But that only works if this is the best thing since sliced bread and we decide to commit to it as the standard rule. If not, then as you said then CC has to be integrated in a meaningful way. And at that point we're probably talking about a pseudo-squadron setup where you build some mock squadrons but have them actually serve as part of the single task force. Or have the stock VBAM squadrons but with much more limited command for fleet numbers, but that doesn't seem very attractive. But it's all part of the thought experiment.

7) Does Towing really matter anymore if I can move a crippled ship out of my Task Force and into reserve same as any other ship? I might just not have understood your rules change here, but Towing has always bugged me anyway as hard to use effectively, and being mostly freed from it felt like a blessing.

The two uses I can see for Towing would be that A) if you had a tug in the Task Force you could move additional ships out to the reinforcements; and B) in Pursuit scenarios a pursued fleet could let crippled ships be exempted from being placed in the Task Force because the tug was letting them remain at combat speeds. But both of those uses are edge cases, and tugs have been hard to really define well within the scope of the game. 1E's concepts were updated for 2E, but they're still kind of the "well, we have tugs but when would I use them?"

The OTHER use that I had kicking around for tugs was to use Towing to reverse the eliminate the combat penalties from being crippled, but that only work in a few limited settings where Speed Is Life and being able to maintain full battle speed (thanks to a tug) would make a difference. Otherwise, it might just be best for tugs to fall into a solid strategic role, but even then... (shrug). I would love for Towing to be more useful, but I haven't hit on a really great way to achieve that.

On the whole, though, I really like this 'squadron-less' world. Fighter combat feels less like a crapshoot (Arg! I sent them to the wrong squadron!), the addition of ship by ship missions can create good tactical choices (including, especially the Scout mission). You could even broaden the potential missions to include Guardian and Disruptor functions.

The elimination of squadron level assignments seems like it really speeds up play, while at the same time minimizing the amount of carnage that you see play out each round. In both of our test battles, we were three rounds in and beyond a few losses there wasn't a lot of dead ships on each side. In a standard VBAM engagement we would have seen all of the flights destroyed already, and probably a good number of ships crippled/destroyed on each side by virtue of each Task Force being quite a bit larger, giving each side more firepower than they do in this model.

I think the only reason the special missions work is because there are a small enough number of ships "on the board" each round that you aren't overwhelmed by the numbers and can deal with assigning orders to the dozen or so that are in play at any given time. It also seemed to give more options for how to deal with situations, especially for fleets that wouldn't otherwise have scout functions to spend. That helps to make small ships that can be sent out to recon more useful because you're not losing much in the way of firepower but you're gaining tactical versatility.

Similarly, it lets fleets that are caught with low AS or AF to get a bit more firepower where they're lacking in order to deal with an opponent. It's not terribly efficient since you're usually losing 50% of the stat being swapped, but every bit can help.

The flight combat change especially seems to patch one continual problem with flight survival, even in 2E, and actually removes the need for the flight recovery rule that 2E added. My worry is that flight mortality might be too low, but flights that can't be based would still be destroyed even if dropped out, so you'd still see some attrition even if flights weren't being destroyed outright by AF fire.

Your big concern seems to be how no squadrons will effect the strategic level, with the all-BB or all-DN fleet being a big problem. I feel like the difficulty of building and maintaining all-battleship fleets will keep them from being a metagame problem - they take too long to build, are extremely expensive to maintain, are vulnerable to Intel missions for sabotage, and so on. Also, the new per-ship Mission system means players will want ships which can do Scout and AF missions without putting a huge hole in their fleet's total AS/AF numbers, giving them a further reason to avoid 15-battleship fleets.

I think you're right, and if the prices of the ships had to be scaled up in a CC-less environment as I discussed above, then it becomes even less of an issue because the ships are going to be even more expensive (and at that point the build times would have to be changed to be uniformly 50% Cost, so it would take 5 turns to build a CA, or 7 turns for a BB. Or even a step down from that, as I can also see eliminating the GB tier and consolidating to match. But that would be a holistic change that would require a revision of the rules, which would be a drastic next step but one I'm willing to take if it ends up making the game play better overall in conjunction with a cleaner encounter resolution model.

One of the issues that these tests has put into context is that, as it currently stands, most of the battles that are fought in the CSCR end up involving all of the ships in a fleet anyway, so on the low end the single squadron Task Force is a net gain because you aren't really losing anything of value; all of the ships are going to be in the Task Force anyway, and you're just eliminating some of the busywork. In larger battles, the single squadron Task Force actually reduces the size of the battle, which to my mind is better because it allows greater control over what is exposed in the engagement and can result in more indeterminate / stalemate battles where two sides don't reach a conclusive end to the battle. I know some players don't like that, though, and would rather one side or the other remain in a system after the fighting is over, but I like having battles spill over from turn to turn as empires fight over control of a system.

I think it's worth exploring this option some more to hammer out concerns and see how to address them, and test them against our existing ships some more to see what breaks or what could work better.

Another idea to throw out there is that the flagship CR could end being used as a currency for all of these command actions. So moving units in or out of the Task Force, assigning special missions, etc. That would give you a limited pool of resources each round to do things, and it would mean if you're spending all of your points bringing reinforcements in then you won't be able to assign special missions to your ships.

The downside is that it might get a bit clunky to keep track up each round.

What I might do later today is try to create a shared public GoogleDoc that we can all go into and start editing or making notes to see how this could work and go from there.

We finished up the Cardassian v Federation battle tonight:






Ended up being pretty deadly in the last few rounds, actually - both fleets came out pretty depleted.

Both fleets made shifting tactical choices - in the first 3-4 rounds, the Federation fleet concentrated on knocking out scouting ability and small ships which could be used to support Scout missions, but paid for that in its loss of key carrier ships later on. The Cardassians boosted anti-ship and protected their Cruisers and Light Cruisers, which let them keep on delivering a beating despite more losses and worse roles, and a conservative fighter deployment kept Federation fighter attacks from doing much damage.

Some more isolated thoughts:

(1) Could Carrier become an EP-costing ability rather than a purely passive one? For each point of Carrier, one Flight Mission, Anti-Ship (+1AS), Survival (+1DV), or Anti-Fighter (+1AF) can be assigned to a fighter flight from the Task Force. Alternatively, each ship with Carrier in the task force means one flight can be given a Flight Mission.

(2) It seems clear that the number of Ship Missions could easily be the CR of the ship in command of the Task Force. A number of Ship Missions can be issued equal to the CR of the ship in command of the Task Force. I would toy with allowing a construction point costing ability like Command (X) to give the Task Force more ship missions, or an already existing one like Explorer (X) to allow a ship to perform missions without costing a command point.

(3) You could definitely base movement between the Task Force and Reserves on the CC of the ships being moved, which means that particular trait still has meaning. A Task Force can only move the Task Force flag's CR worth of ship CC back and forth each turn. I like this - it means if you want to protect that crippled carrier by moving it to reserves, that might cost you 4CC or the 6CR you have available, leaving you only able to move 2CC of ships back in to replace it this turn. This would really have helped balance in the last few rounds of the battle I was playing.

(4) It's worth explicitly clarifying that the number of fighters at play in the Task Force can only ever be equal to the total CV rating of ships currently in the Task Force, and that at the end of each round any flights over the CV rating of the Task Force have to move back to Reserves. Is this your intent? It's how I played it and it worked well, giving people a strategic incentive to protect/attack carriers. At the end of the battle, any remaining flights that can't be based in the system somehow would have to be destroyed.

(5) How does "deterrence" of fighters work in he case of Offensive flights in the Fighter v Fighter phase? For example, if I score 3 points of Anti-Fighter damage from my flights attacking the enemy fleet, but it takes 4 points to destroy the enemy flight (its DV is 2), as it stands, my 3 points of damage have no effect. After all, the enemy 'defensive' fighters are firing simultaneously in the flights v flights phase, and I can't 'deter' them from anything.

To sum up point (5), the '1x DV = Deterred, 2x DV = Destroyed' formula seems to work very well with ships firing at flights, and with defending flights firing at attacking flights, but puts attacking flights using their AF to clear enemy flights out of the enemy Task Force at a disadvantage, since there is no further phase to deter them from. Could this be solved by saying the for ships firing at flights, the 'deterrence versus destroyed' rule applies, but for 'flights v flights,' the rule no longer applies? That seems like it gets a little into the weeds for smooth resolution and maintaining coherence and similarity between phases, though, which isn't good design.

We're working on another, totally different, smaller scale battle in which Romulans attack a Klingon troop convoy to see how the new single-squadron rules work in such a different environment, will report back tomorrow or the next day.

I ran into the same situation in relation to shifting tactical choices. Early on in my battle I was concentrating on trying to take out the enemy carrier when it came into play, but the opponent (me) anticipated that because it was the obvious play and spent enough scout functions to insulate the ship and keep it safe.

Your battle did turn into a blood bath by the end, with quite a few significant losses. The Enterprise survived intact, but with the partial damage direction I'm still leaning towards (even if attrition damage is maintained in battle) you'd still have a 50/50 chance of that Ambassador class being crippled.

Replies to your thoughts:

(1) The Carrier ability would probably work better tied into the special missions system for fighters, but rather than being rated itself I would lean towards making the Carrier ability activate the option but the carrier's CR be the limit on flight missions. That would leave the ability static but make it something that would only be really useful on larger units. For example, a Carrier with 8 CV and 6 CR could then issue special missions to up to 6 flights.

(2a) I agree, the special missions for ships can be tied to flagship CR without any problem. That gives you good flexibility, but it's still going to be a significant number. Or, going back to CC, the cost for a special mission could be tied to CC. So it could cost 4 CR to put a 4 CC ship on a special mission.

(2b) If ships have independent CR values a separate Command (X) ability wouldn't work because you'd still be better off spending those points directly on CR. However, if ship CR/CC was entirely class based, then Command (X) would be the mechanism for allowing players to build "leader" variants that can provide their Task Force with extra "command functions". When combined with CC costs for these actions, it would scale pretty well.

(3a) I think we need to do more testing to see how often players think they want to try min/max'ing by hiding ships in their reinforcements. If we provide an opponent with a direct advantage (ex: overkill damage being scored against the reinforcements without any chance of enemy return fire; or easy include/exclude) then I think it might work out fine. This would make the include/exclude system more important as you would then be able to spend functions to push an enemy ship out or bring extras in.

(3b) And maybe we don't even need a hard maximum for the number of ships that can be in a Task Force? If the CC ends up being the limiting factor, then there could be a fixed starting number of ships based on various factors and beyond that players can start moving ships in and out as their CR/CC allows. That could be exploited to death by escort-heavy fleets, however.

(4) I think the best solution to this would be to make explicit that flights have a CC of 1 per 4 flights, and that ships can command a number of flights equal to their CV. That would allow you to keep the carriers in the reinforcements and then send the fighters out ahead on the battleline if you wanted to. You'd then just have to check flight basing at the end of the scenario. This would fix an issue with orphaned flights just blowing up immediately, which isn't very much fun.

(5a) I think the "deterrence/dropout" rules would need to be changed to a crippled/destroyed format where crippled flights still lose their combat factors but can still be attacked or take damage, but that the crippling effect is removed at the end of the combat round. That would make things more straightforward for the players. In your particular example, I would say that you'd do enough damage to cripple/destroy one enemy flight with 2 damage, and the other point is then lost. The fire is simultaneous, so they'd both still get to fire that round. A crippled flight that "drops out" basically took a hit and returned to the carrier, but wasn't destroyed outright.

(5b) This does illustrate that it might be best to make the rules consistent so that SHIP fire is scored by the defender unless used as directed damage, and FLIGHT fire is scored by the attacker. That would emphasize that fighter flights are more pin point weapons, but that they have a harder time breaking through enemy defenses to attack enemy ships.


I'll keep doing some testing on this end, too, and see what kind of results I get, and how that could relate to making scenario setup easier. I do like the extra decision making and cleaner flight management. I can see some avenues now for keeping CC, which would make it easier to use the rules with the existing unit construction system. By the same token, I'm also keeping my eye out for situations where it might be easier to reconsider how CR/CC operates, and if a more rigid class-based system would work better. I like having variable CR as it gives us five stats to vary between units. However, I can also see some advantages to collapsing some of the low end unit classes if it makes unit construction easier and offers more interesting play.

BTW, I love the graphics! It makes it easier to tell at a glance how the battle was going. Especially when you see all of the explosions enveloping that poor Curry

A sleepless night and a tired day later, and here are a few more thoughts that I've had on this subject:

1) I think CC can become the LITERAL Command Cost for giving units a command. That would allow the special missions to scale based on the size of the unit pretty naturally, and further restrict what a flagship can do with this available CR.

2) I am currently leaning fairly heavily towards fixed class-based CR/CC, as this makes it easier to control, and ships easier to design. That way you could have CR about equal to Cost, and CC be half of CR. If you then bump the classes up a small amount in cost you can end up with a progression like this: GB (4/1), CT (4/1), FF (4/1), DD (4/2), CL (6/3), CA (8/4), CB (10/5), BB (12/6) and so on. The smaller end has to be increased to a minimum level so that they can field some amount of ships, if the number of ships is based on the flagship CR exclusively. I'm also considering killing the 1 EP GB completely in that progression, but I'm still thinking.

3) The CR would then be the max number of ships the flagship can command, and the number of "command functions" it would get each round to spend. A flagship would get a +1 Formation bonus to help protect it from harm and represent its defensive position. If a new flagship is assigned, then it would either get no command functions or half its normal command functions that round.

4) I'm still concerned about moving units in and out of the task force, especially when it comes to out-of-balance forces. Having to pay CC to move in or out causes problems because you could end up losing your sole high-CR flagship and then not have enough CR to bring the auxiliary dreadnought back in to help control the fleet. You can get around this though by saying that you can always move one ship into your squadron regardless of cost, but that would be your only action.

5) A test battle that I started between some Narns and Colonials seem to show that having each flight be 1 CC equivalent works good for assigning special missions. The Colonials have the Pegasus (14 CR, 7 CC) and it can put itself into a Defensive mission and still have enough CR left to assign special missions to 7 flights. That covers about 2/3 of the flights in this battle, but in a full task force they would really need some extra command elements if they wanted to do more missions.

6) I'm still playing around with alternatives to the attrition damage system, using that partial damage I discussed up thread. Attrition works, but extending the 1E "if you have >= 1/2 DV, then cripple/damage the next weakest unit" might be better overall for keeping things simple, as long as the rule is consistent.

7a) Still really liking the flight cripple/destroy ("dropout") model. Crippling flights and forcing them to dropout helps keep them around, but in flight vs. flight combat you can really dig through the enemy fighters and take out fighters. It makes flights the best offensive weapon against other flights.

7b) Tying in with the above, I think shifting weapons fire so that it is consistent with ships dealing damage defender-first (with directed damage as an option) and flights as attacker-first (with direct damage bonus) is the best way to differentiate these unit types.

7c) Relating to unit restatting, with what I'm playing around with we'd end up with fighter flight costs increases to 1-5 EP (Ultralight to Superheavy) and being designed the same as ships. The increased cost can be compensated by removing their maintenance costs. For example, a 1/2 EP heavy fighter (maint 1/8) would now cost 4 EP and have no maintenance cost. That 3.5 EP cost increase is then the equivalent of 28 turns of maintenance. The chance that the flight will survive that long is low, and the maintenance overhead of the carriers might just cover that. But I'm going to test that theory.


I know this is a lot of spaghetti being thrown at the proverbial walls, but the combat results so far have been pretty intriguing if not compelling. I still have some concerns about absolute fleet sizes and battles possibly not being as terminal as they once were. 2E tried to reduce the all-or-nothing nature of the fights, but whether this would swing the pendulum too far in the other direction or not is still up in the air. However, when looking at VBAM as it stands today, a CA (6/3) commanded task force can include 21 CA, whereas a CT (2/1) task force can only include 6 CT so there is already a pretty massive imbalance. It gets worse when you consider the CA force COULD be 7 CA and 42 CT. At that point, with the system I'm tinkering with where the minimum fixed CR is 4, you end up at a 4:8 odds in the CT vs. CA flagship battle, which is far better than the 6:21 matchup presently.

With regard to the most recent iteration of ideas you just posted...

1. I really like this idea, it's thematic and effective.
2. Anything which avoids having to change the whole construction cost formula is my preference. If players are still free to set a CR, they can design "command ships" or choose to design "line cruisers" with lower CRs easily, and it's another meaningful choice for players to make.
3. I like the idea of having a fixed minimal number of ships in the task force, then the ship's CR being "additional" ships much better. This way, we can avoid having to scrap the whole construction system and the chance to build ships with more or less CR. The "base" number should probably be lower than 6, though - perhaps 4 is a good bet?
7a-7c. What do we gain by changing fighter construction cost and eliminating their maintenance? It doesn't seem like a bad idea, but is it a case "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

On another note, writing another test scenario or two, but for consideration, here's the draft of the rules I am using.

I. Task Force Generation
Generate the Task Force according to the following procedure.

a. Create a quick reference of all the assets present in the system to reference.
b. Each player chooses which ship will act as the Flagship of the Task Force. This ship must be the ship with the highest available CR, and may not be a disabled ship.
c. Each player may choose a number of ships up to 5+X, where X is the CR of the Flagship, to include in the Task Force.
d. Each player may choose a number of flights equal to the total CV of all the ships in the Task Force, to include in the Task Force.
e. Each player may choose a number of mines equal to the total Minelayer rating of all the ships in the task force.
f. If this is a Defensive Scenario, a player may include ⅓ of each type of orbital defense in the Task Force. The CV of fixed defenses is included in the Task Force CV for purposes of determining how many Flights can be included in the Task Force initially.
g. If this is a Pursuit Scenario, the Pursuing player can only choose a total number of ships equal to 3+½ the Task Force Flagship’s CR.

II. Pre-Fire Phases
Each turn, before firing, resolve the various missions, assignments, and special abilities and their effects on the task force. First, though calculate Base AS and Base AF for each Task Force by adding up the AS and AF values of all the ships in the Task Force (not ships in reserve and not flights).

IIa. Ship Missions Phase
During the Ship Missions Phase, each player can give out a number of Ship Missions. The Task Force cannot assign more CC worth of missions than the CR of its flagship, and giving a mission to a ship costs that ship’s CC. Any ship can be given one of the following missions:
1. Antiship: The ship loses all of its AF for the turn. It gains additional AS rating equal to ½ of its AF rating, rounded up.
2. Antiflight: The ship loses all of its AS for the turn. It gains additional AF equal to ½ of its AS rating. Round up.
3. Scout: The ship loses all its AS and AF rating for the turn, but the Task Force gains one additional Scout function to use during the Assignments phase.
4. Aggressive: The ship loses ½ of its AS and ½ of its AF (round up) but the Task Force gains one additional disruptor function to use during the Assignments phase.
5. Defensive: The ship loses ½ of its AS and ½ of its AF (round up) but the Task Force gains one additional Guardian function to use during the Assignments phase.
6. Any ship with the Explorer trait can be given a mission without counting towards the limit of total Ship Missions imposed by the Task Force Flagship’s Command Rating.

IIb Flight Missions Phase
During the Flight Missions Phase, each player can give out a number of Flight Missions. A ship with the Carrier trait can give out a number of flight missions equal to its CV rating, there is no other way to get additional FIghter missions. Any flight can be given one of the following missions.
1. Anti-Ship: the flight may not use its AF rating this round, but gains a bonus to its AS rating equal to ½ its AS rating.
2. Anti-Flight: the flight may not use its AS rating this round, but gains a bonus to its AS rating equal to ½ its AF rating.

IIc. Ship Abilities Phase
The player chooses how to distribute and use all the special functions available in their task force. This includes Scout, Jammer, Stealth, Disruptor, and Guardian functions.

IId. Flight Assignments Phase
All flights must be assigned either to your Task Force (defense) or the enemy task force (offense).
Stealth Flights may be assigned in a separate step after all other flights have been assigned.

IIe. Final AS and AF
Calculate final AS and AF values of each Task Force, now that all the modifiers from Ship Missions and Ship Abilities have been applied.

III. Fire Phases of a Round

IIIa Ships vs Ships.
1. Calculate damage and choose between Directed and Undirected as normal.
2. All ships track total damage out of their DV, crippling when they reach half their DV. This means ships can be at 10/10 DV, 8/10 DV, and so on without being crippled. Alternatively, a ship is crippled at 5/10, 3/10 or 2/10 DV equally.
3. If enough undirected damage is assigned to destroy all the ships in the Task Force, damage assignment must carry over to ships in Reserve.

IIIb Ships vs Flights
1. When ships fire on flights, calculate damage as normal.
2. When the player whose flights took damage assigns those damage points, a number of damage points equal to the DV of the flight simply ‘deters’ a flight from participating in the following fire phases. It requires twice the DV of a flight in damage during this round to actually destroy it rather than just prevent its participation in the following phases this round. Any damage left over after crippling or deterring flights is discarded.

IIIc Flights vs Flights
Proceeds as normal according to the VBAM Campaign Guide.

IIId Flights vs Ships
Proceeds as normal according to the VBAM campaign guide.

IV Reorganize Phase

a. If the Task Force Flagship has been crippled or destroyed, a new one must be assigned. Players must always choose the highest non-crippled CR ship available in the Task Force.

b. Make sure the total number of ships in the task force is not greater than 6+DV of the Flagship, plus any scenario modifications.

c. Reconcile by immediately moving, free of cost, any ships over the limit back to the Reserves Pool.

d. Each player may move ships and flights out of the Task Force into reserve or into the Task Force out of reserve. A ship costs its CC to move either from the Task Force into Reserve, or into the Task Force from Reserve. A flight costs its construction cost in CC to move into the Reserves from the Task Force or into the Task Force from reserves. Partial fractions of command costs left from moving flights or 1/2 CC gunboats are retained and may be used for other units during the reorganization phase.

d. Mines may be moved free of cost into the Task Force from reserves, but players can only move two Mines per Minelayer function their ships possess.

Repeat the Pre-Fire Phases, Fire Phases, and Reorganize Phase for each further combat round.

BroAdso wrote:1. I really like this idea, it's thematic and effective.

It seems to scale the advantages fairly well, too. For Defensive, the formation bonus is more useful the larger the ship is, and the same goes for converting AS/AF via those missions. The only mission that really doesn't scale is Scouting, but I think it's fine for small ships to be better in this role.

2. Anything which avoids having to change the whole construction cost formula is my preference. If players are still free to set a CR, they can design "command ships" or choose to design "line cruisers" with lower CRs easily, and it's another meaningful choice for players to make.

I agree that keeping this interchangeable is going to be the best option for 2E as it stands today. The math I was playing with at the slightly increased costs let me simplify the construction formula, with only needing a point or two adjustment here or there. Simpler is better, especially when designing units on the fly. CR is less important than it once was, and I don't want it to become a total dump stat.

3. I like the idea of having a fixed minimal number of ships in the task force, then the ship's CR being "additional" ships much better. This way, we can avoid having to scrap the whole construction system and the chance to build ships with more or less CR. The "base" number should probably be lower than 6, though - perhaps 4 is a good bet?

I think I could live with a basement of 4, plus the flagship CR. That would allow a force like the Jem'hadar that are small ship heavy to still get by with ships that might only have 2-3 CR. They'll just end up relying on attrition to bring more units into the battle. For example, your Excelsior only has 4 CR whereas a "standard" Excelsior would normally be ~ 8 CR. But if CR in general was reduced to being generally lower and more in line with the range found on other ships I think we'd be fine. The trick is then finding that floor where things balance fairly well.

Part of the problem is that it's ingrained in my VBAM DNA to want to see a cruiser with stats similar to DV 6, AS 6, AF 3, CR 6, CC 3, CV 0. But there's no reason that the ship shouldn't average a bit lower than that. Your Constitution is just CR 3 -- and with this single squadron task force model that actually works great because you're going to have a floor, and you could decide that you don't need more than some minimal number of ships and command functions to operate, preferring to put those points into other areas. That basically means assuming a drop in points, however, or at least a redistribution of them (and I think I'm comparing apples to oranges now that I see it, as your Connie is a CL and not a CA). Still, it is going from an average of 21 / 5 = 4.2 points per stat to 19 / 5 = 3.8 points per stat.

7a-7c. What do we gain by changing fighter construction cost and eliminating their maintenance? It doesn't seem like a bad idea, but is it a case "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

If it's not broke I hit it with a sledgehammer!

Joking aside, the main advantage is that it would scale fighters back up to be consistent with their new resilience and the fact that you're not going to be losing them constantly. Front loading the cost and maintenance into the purchase of the flight also turns them into an "add-on" of sorts that you can purchase once and not have to track turn-per-turn to maintain, which now that I think of it would be a good idea for these units that tend to die more quickly or you just have a lot more of them. I wouldn't want to lose maintenance for ships, but for flights and minefields it would make the bookkeeping easier.

I think what I'm going to do is set up a three-player playtest game with the various rules that I've been throwing around and just see how these things turn out. I'll detail that here on the forums as I go so that we can gather thoughts and input on what seems to be working and what doesn't.

d. Each player may choose a number of flights equal to the total CV of all the ships in the Task Force, to include in the Task Force.

I would do this, but then also let the player include flights at a cost of 1 CC per flight. That will let them protect their carriers and still field some fighter flights if they want.

e. Each player may choose a number of mines equal to the total Minelayer rating of all the ships in the task force.
f. If this is a Defensive Scenario, a player may include ⅓ of each type of orbital defense in the Task Force. The CV of fixed defenses is included in the Task Force CV for purposes of determining how many Flights can be included in the Task Force initially.

I was thinking for Defensive Scenarios, the defenses could be treated like ships for the purposes of inclusion OR have a separate pool of defenses included equal to X + Productivity, where X is that floor established for task forces (5 in your example). For example, a battle in a system with 4 Productivity could then include 9 bases or minefields.

The Minelayers would then act like carriers in that they could bring their Minelayer rating in mines with them.

This kind of causes the whole CV vs. Carrier debate from 2E development back into view. CV could be removed and replaced with the Carrier ability alone, but enough sci-fi has "casual carriers" that only carry 1 flight of fighters that I don't want to penalize them via a special ability.

g. If this is a Pursuit Scenario, the Pursuing player can only choose a total number of ships equal to 3+½ the Task Force Flagship’s CR.

I get where you're coming here, but would probably word it as "command limit is halved (round up)" or something along those lines. But that would keep the pursuing force at a disadvantage, at least for a little while. And the Pursued player would still have to fill out their task force with cripples first, which would balance that situation.

4. Aggressive: The ship loses ½ of its AS and ½ of its AF (round up) but the Task Force gains one additional disruptor function to use during the Assignments phase.

I think it could be written simply as you can reduce the formation level of an enemy ship by 1 level (same effect), just to make it clearer, but I like having the flipside of Defensive. Nice.

6. Any ship with the Explorer trait can be given a mission without counting towards the limit of total Ship Missions imposed by the Task Force Flagship’s Command Rating.

I'm not sure this would work out, as then players would be encouraged to make an all Explorer fleet just to get free missions. I think the idea is that they are operating out on the edge of the fleet?

During the Flight Missions Phase, each player can give out a number of Flight Missions. A ship with the Carrier trait can give out a number of flight missions equal to its CV rating, there is no other way to get additional FIghter missions. Any flight can be given one of the following missions.

Let me know how this works. I am playing that the flight missions come from the same pool as the other task force special missions right now, just to keep things simple and constrained. Having Carrier missions based on its CR is what I'd lean towards, which is close to what you have there.

IId. Flight Assignments Phase
All flights must be assigned either to your Task Force (defense) or the enemy task force (offense).
Stealth Flights may be assigned in a separate step after all other flights have been assigned.

I think we might be able to eliminate this entirely, as flights that aren't in combat could be purposefully recalled to the Reinforcements. But let me know how it works.

b. Make sure the total number of ships in the task force is not greater than 6+DV of the Flagship, plus any scenario modifications.

I'd probably tie this back to CR, but again let me know how it goes.

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As I think some more, if we can't go fully single squadron, some of the same results could be achieved if we slid back towards my 1E Skirmish CSCR and had squadrons fire individually, but then use the flagship CR to "activate" squadrons by paying CR = CC of the squadron command ship. I like what we're working on better, but that would be another alternative.

I have to say I like the single squadron concepts being discussed here.
It simplifies things greatly which helps with the immersion. Tactics become clearer, and the effects of actions seem more meaningful.
Since I typically consider each system to be a sector and scale up the turns to 3 months each I tend to view each round of combat as a separate battle occurring across the sector. The single squadron model makes each round of battle distinctive and makes that style of play more entertaining for me.
Just my selfish 2 cents worth
Also, about the tugs. Perhaps you could build capability to use tugs for specialized missions. For instance x towing factors could replace a trade fleet or transport fleet or even a colony fleet. This would generally be more expensive than a specialized fleet, but would be flexible so there would be occasions when it was worth it.
If you wanted to go all the way with it you could create modular units that attach with Towing capacity to create modular ships.

While I haven't done the "system as a sector" before, there have been some engagements in the past where it did make sense that it was a running battle over a larger span of time. The battles almost seem more personal, too, as you have greater control over a smaller selection of units, versus the "I throw my stack at your stack" with everything mixed together in one huge battle.

The one solution I had for tugs that kind of exists in 2E but was minimized in usefulness by the end was to have them primarily be used to restore crippled ships to full strategic movement (since crippled and Slow ships are restricted to one jump per turn). If I went back to a more regimented Crippled/Slow (1 Jump), Standard (2 Jump), and Fast (3 Jump) movement rate, then tugs become much more useful because you could use them to keep your fleet moving at maximum speed.

The problem with the above was that you ended up having to move ships one jump at a time during the Movement Phase, which isn't that big of a deal but it does slow turn resolution down a bit. However, it would give tugs a solid purpose, especially since 2E's maps are still larger than what they were in 1E.

I'm going to set up the 3-player scenario later tonight and create a very basic force list for each that is modeled on some current playtest thoughts and run it publicly so we can all monitor and comment on the progress and see what works and what doesn't.

EDIT: Because I think it may have been lost in the other thread, here is a link to a Google Doc I've started to start collecting feedback on changes and get comments from players on other aspects of the rules. Feel free to go in, review, and comment. I'm aiming to see what other optional rules may be required to go along with this, or if this does end up becoming the new standard I'd like to open up discussion on what works or doesn't work in 2E so we can work towards addressing those issues: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s_D ... sp=sharing

I like the "system as a sector" because I used to play Federation and Empire way back when. The idea of a hex 600 parsecs across and a turn of months helps make everything seem epic.
The rules remain virtually identical, its mostly just some definitions that change.
And I agree, single squadron battles do seem more personal. And when Those Who Serve comes out it will make elite ships and officers more effective and memorable.
They also write up well for an after action report.

I'm assuming these will be optional rules rather than the standard rules?