A lone sathar frigate, detected three days ago shortly after it entered the system was engaged today by two militia assault scouts. While one of the assault scouts was heavily damaged in the encounter, the militia ships eliminated the enemy vessel in a single assault run.

Speculation rages as to the origin of the sathar vessel. There are unconfirmed reports that Spacefleet has established routes outward from Theseus toward the Great Void. Could it be that the sathar are coming in along those routes?

Victoria Sorensen, StarPlay News

Background

A lone sathar frigate jumped into the Theseus system as part of an effort by the sathar to chart a route to the Frontier from the Liberty system.  Due to an alert that the ship was headed in that general direction from the forces of PG Liberty, the Minotaur militia was on alert and patrolling the system.  The frigate was detected by two of the militia assault scouts and they vectored to intercept.  Unable to jump out of the system before being caught, the frigate turns to fight the oncoming militia ships.  This battle occurs in deep space.

Order of Battle

Minotaur Militia

• 2 Assault Scouts

Sathar

• 1 Frigate

The Battle

Setup

The opposing forces enter from opposite sides of the map.  The militia are moving at speed 30 while the sathar frigate is moving at speed 20.  The militia are the attackers in this scenario and will move first.  The sathar are not necessarily trying to destroy the militia ships but rather escape the battle.

Turn 1

The two forces close with each other but no shots are fired.  The militia ships swing wide to flank the sathar and maintain their speed.  The sathar frigate changes course to go after the upper assault scout and uses its maximum acceleration but remains just out of laser canon range.

Turn2

The closer assault scout turns to avoid flying into range of the frigates laser cannon and loops around, remaining at speed 30 and ends in a position to fire its assault rocket at the frigate.  The farther assault scout accelerates to speed 34 and makes a pass at the frigate firing its assault rocket from the same position where the other assault scout ends its movement but flits out of torpedo range to end its move.

The frigate focuses its fire at the closer assault scout while firing all of its ICMs at the incoming assault rocket from that ship.  The laser battery hits for 8 HP of damage.  The ICMs are ineffective and both assault rockets slam into the sathar frigate.  The laser battery from the second assault scout also hits the sathar vessel. The combined damage from both ships obliterates the sathar frigate and that quickly the fight is over.

Repairs

Unable to repair the hull damage, the wounded assault scout heads carefully back to Minotuar where it will enter the starship construction center for repairs.

Lessons Learned

The sathar should have matched the militia ships’ speed. Or at least started at speed 25. If it had, it could have brought at least its laser canon and laser battery to bear on the lone assault scout on turn 1 and possible even its rocket weapons (if it had started at speed 30). That would have significantly changed the outcome of the fight as it would have had another salvo at the militia and could have possibly eliminated one of the ships right away.

Once again this went faster than I expected. The damage rolls for the attacks were 18 and 20 HP for the assault rockets and 10 HP for the laser battery.  While I rolled well for the damage effects (all of the hits did hull damage which I wasn’t suspecting), I actually rolled really low on damage for the assault rockets as both of those were double damage rolls!  They should have done more on the order of 30 HP each.  But it was still enough.

The sathar have part of the route to the Frontier from Liberty mapped, but because of the misjump the frigate made, the route in not complete.