Engaged sathar forces outbound from Snowball. Lucky hit by sathar torpedo detonated magazine on UPFS Singing River (frigate) during initial engagement. Mhemne forces, together with assault scouts (UPFS Dirk and Heron) destroyed sathar frigate but UPFS Dirk lost maneuvering and pursued by sathar light cruiser. Damage to engines resulted in light cruiser overtaking and destroying UPFS Dirk. UPFS Heron remains on station in system.
*** FLASH FLASH FLASH ***
Spacefleet Signal Traffic
Background
With the loss of the single frigate comprising Exploration Group 1, the sathar decide to go with a stronger reconnaissance force and dispatch SBF-J2 (a light cruiser and frigate) to explore the route to Theseus.
Detected departing Snowball by PG Liberty, Spacefleet authorizes them to attack the sathar vessels on their way out of the system. The Mhemne offer some of their ships to help. Although limited in technology compared to the UPF and sathar vessels, the Mhemne ships will be able to make at least a single pass at the sathar vessels.
Three days out from the planet, the UPF and Mhemne forces intercept the sathar vessels.
Order of Battle
The Mhemne ships only posses limited chemical drives compared to the atomic drives of the sathar and UPF vessels and required significant help to boost up to the required speed. For the purposes of this battle they all have 25 HP, 2 ADF, 2 MR, and a laser battery. In addition, they can only use a total of 8 MR and/or ADF before their fuel supply is exhausted.
UPF
2 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
3 Mhemne vessels
Sathar
1 Frigate
1 Light Cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The UPF are the attackers in this scenario. The sathar ships are flying in formation moving at speed 15 entering from the right of the battle area.
The three UPF ships are in a formation with the three Mhemne ships flying together nearby. They are also moving at speed 15. The plan is for the Mhemne to make a single pass at the sathar vessels firing at the frigate and then continue on while the UPF continue to engage and hopefully destroy the sathar.
Initial positions. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The UPF and Mhemne forces drift forward maintaining their speed of 15. Perceiving the UPF forces to be the bigger threat, the sathar maneuver to take the UPF ships on head-on while also maintaining their speed of 15. No shots fires as the combatants are all out of range.
Initial maneuvering. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
Seeing that the sathar are tracking them, and hoping to draw them into the firing range of the Mhemne, the UPF forces pull up parallel the Mhemne course and accelerate to speed 19. They turn to face the oncoming sathar vessels in the hope that that will cause the sathar ships to fly up near the Mhemne vessels.
The UPF plan works (maybe too well) and the sathar accelerate to speed 16 and maneuver so that they don’t come into the forward firing arc of the frigate’s laser cannon and move into rocket battery range. However, that brings them within 20,000 km of the Mhemne ships.
Defensively, the UPF and Mhemne all focus their fire on the sathar frigate. Two of the Mhemne ships hit lightly damaging the frigates hull (5%) and knocking out its laser cannon. The UPF forces all miss.
Offensively, the sathar ships fire their energy weapons at the assault scouts and rocket weapons at the frigate. They miss the lead assault scout but the light cruiser its the second assault scout with its disruptor cannon damaging its navigation control system. They do much better against the frigate hitting it with a rocket battery and a torpedo that slips through the ICM screen destroying the UPF vessel.
Positions after initial engagement. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
With the UPF frigate destroyed right off the bat, the UPF forces are now seriously out gunned. The assault scout, its navigation controls system damaged, turns to port and accelerates to maximum to try to get away. It doesn’t have a perfect shot but fires its assault rocket at the sathar frigate. The other assault scout loops around and fires on the frigate from behind before heading off away from the sathar vessels at maximum acceleration. The Mhemne ships continue to drift away reserving their limited maneuvering in case they need it later.
Ignoring the Mhemne ships, the sathar vessels fire all their energy weapons at the two assault scouts. The lead assault scout is hit by a laser and electron battery as well as the light cruiser’s disruptor cannon seriously damaging its hull (60%) and crippling its damage control systems. The second assault scout is hit by a proton battery damaging its hull (47%).
The Mhemne ships fire at the frigate as they pass hitting with 2 laser batteries damaging the sathar vessels hull (33%). The assault scouts both fire everything at the frigate as well hitting with 1 laser battery and 2 assault rockets knocking out the frigates maneuvering (with the laser battery) before destroying it with the assault rockets.
The sathar light cruiser accelerates to chase after the assault scout directly ahead, ignoring the other ships. The assault scout fires its laser battery in defense but misses. The light cruiser fires its energy weapons at the assault scout hitting with its electron and proton batteries damaging the assault scout’s engines and knocking out its maneuvering capability.
Repair Turn 1
Neither of the assault scouts are able to effect any repairs. No other ships are currently damaged.
Positions after the first half hour. Click for full size image.
Turn 4
The UPF assault scout and Mhemne ships continue to drift away from the sathar ship. The assault scout being chased, lacking any maneuvering maxes out its acceleration as it tries to escape the pursing light cruiser.
The light cruiser hits the assault scout with its proton battery knocking out half of the assault scout’s acceleration capability. The assault scout misses the light cruiser. The light cruiser continues to accelerate as it chases the assault scout and maneuvers to come directly astern of the smaller ship. It drops a bit behind this turn but with the assault scout’s engines mostly disabled, it will close on it soon enough. It gets some extreme range shots with its energy weapons but misses.
It’s a tail chase now. The other ships are far enough away that they get away safely and we are just tracking the sathar vessel and its target. Click for full image.
Turn 5
Using what acceleration it has, the assault scout continues to speed up as it tries to get away. The LC hits it with its disruptor cannon igniting a fire. It returns fire with its laser battery but misses. The assault scout’s initial speed advantage temporarily takes it out of range of the light cruiser’s weapons.
To avoid having to draw long trails, and since relative velocity is all that really matters, I’ve adjusted the displayed speeds down. Click for full-size image.
Turn 6
The gap between the ships widen but the light cruiser’s greater acceleration will start closing it once again soon.
Repair Turn 2
Again the assault scouts fail to repair any systems.
Positions of the two ships still engaged after an hour. Click for full size image.
Turn 7
The light cruiser matches the assault scouts’ speed and will begin to overtake it on the next turn. (I forgot to save an image but it was just more of the same.)
Turn 8
The light cruiser starts to close the gap and is just out of range of its electron and proton battery weapons.
The gap between the ships start to close. Click for full size image.
Turn 9
The light cruiser closes to within 90,000 km. The assault scout fires on the cruiser with its laser battery but misses. The light cruiser fires with its energy weapons and hits with its proton battery destroying the small UPF ship.
And the fight is over after an hour and a half. Click for full size image.
Final Repairs
It takes another 8 hours but the damaged UPF assault scout manages to repair its damage control system (7 hours) and its hull (another hour).
Lessons Learned
That didn’t go at all like the UPF planned. They did manage to destroy the sathar frigate but expected their frigate to survive a bit longer. Poor shooting by the UPF and great shooting by the sathar on the first round definitely tipped things in favor of the sathar.
The Mhemne acquitted themselves well hitting with 4 of their 6 shots. Had the frigate survived the first round they might have tried to loop back around for a second pass but the quick destruction of the frigate put survival ahead of damaging the sathar.
The second assault scout almost got away but the long range hit by the light cruiser’s distruptor cannon that knocked out its engines, combined with its failed repair rolls, spelled eventual doom for that ship as it was seriously outgunned by the light cruiser.
The sathar finally won a battle but unfortunately for them it was just a minor one on the periphery of the battle.
After nearly two and half hours of fighting, Task Force Cassidine defeated the invading sathar forces destroying all but a heavy cruiser and fighter which are currently departing the system. The ships of the task force are almost all heavily damaged but only a single fighter was lost in the battle, the pilot of which ejected safely and has been recovered.
Rak’tal-ka, StarPlay News
Okay, I thought the Second Battle of Kwadl-Kit was a long one, this one went even longer. Sorry about the delay in getting it out but it took a while to play out. Task Force Cassidine just seems to like these long, spread-out battles. The map is going to really shift around this time as this fight involves a long chase and at one point it’s happening on two different maps as the battle spreads out. I hope you enjoy the narration. I also think this might now be the longest blog post yet.
Background
Fresh from the battle with the other sathar force in the K’tsa-Kar system, Task Force Cassidine is ready to face this new sathar threat. While the presence of the militia assault scout that recently disappeared trying to probe the source of the sathar fleets would have been helpful, it would not have made a lot of difference in the fight.
After the recently losses in the K’tsa-Kar and Truane’s Star systems, SBF-J1, crewed by veterans of the campaign against the saurians, look to turn the tide and chalk up a victory for the sathar forces. The fleets are fairly evenly matched with the UPF forces leaning more toward the larger ships with the loss of their assault scouts and half of their fighters in the previous engagement.
Order of Battle
This is probably the most evenly matched battle, in terms of hull points and capabilities, of any fight yet in the war. Looking at hull points, the UPF are coming into this with a total of 435 HP of ship compared to the sathar’s 441. Three of the UPF ships are slightly damaged: one fighter only has 5 of 8 HP, a frigate is at 29 of 40, and the battleship has a damaged stasis screen. Those were all battle damage that couldn’t be repaired in space after their recent battle in the K’sta-Kar system. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Spacefleet (Task Force Cassidine)
3 Fighters
2 Frigates
1 Light Cruiser
1 Assault Carrier
1 Heavy Cruiser
1 Battleship
Sathar
7 Fighters
1 Frigate
1 Destroyer
2 Light Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier
1 Heavy Cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The UPF elect to battle near the planet although with no station left to defend, they start far back from the planet at a moderate speed of 15 for all ships, including the fighters. The two frigates form a battle group and the light cruiser and the battleship team up. Those two groups form the center of the battle line. The heavy cruiser escorts the assault carrier toward the bottom of the battle area while the three fighters form a flight near the top. They deploy four of the six seeker missiles available on the side of the planet the sathar will be approaching from. The heavy cruiser and battleship each retain one seeker missile in their magazines for deployment during the fight.
Like the UPF, the sathar come in at only a moderate speed to try to gauge the other side’s tactics and responses before committing. They too are only moving at speed 15 but are split up to go wide around the planet. The sathar heavy cruiser and assault carrier, escorted by a destroyer come in opposite their UPF counterparts with a flight of three fighters just off their wing. The light cruisers, escorted by a frigate, come in opposite the UPF fighters, with a flight of four fighters off their wing.
Initial positions of the ships. The seeker missiles are not shown. Click for full sized image.
Turn 1
The sathar capital ships maintain their speed and advance on the UPF forces. The fighters accelerate to speed 20 and fly farther out on the wings of the formation.
The UPF ships converge toward the lower group of sathar capital ships. The heavy cruiser and assault carrier continue to advance at speed 15. The light cruiser and battleship accelerate to speed 17, the frigates to speed 19, the fighters to speed 20.
No shots are fired this round as the two forces remain out of range.
Positions after the first turn of maneuvering. Also the seeker missiles are shown on this one for reference. Unfortunately, the file was partially corrupted and the bottom of the map was cut off but the three sathar fighters just mirrored the maneuver of the fighters at the top of the map. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
The sathar all begin accelerating toward the UPF. The group centered around the heavy cruiser accelerates to speed 17 and flies straight at their UPF counterpart while their wing of fighters accelerates to 25 and makes a pass at the same group. All the sathar ships fire at the UPF assault carrier. The upper battle group accelerates to speed 18 and turns down toward the UPF forces while the upper flight of fighters accelerates to speed 25 and sets up for an attack run next turn as they are too far away to engage this round.
Defensive, the UPF ships all focus on the flight of three lower fighters with the UPF heavy cruiser taking a long-range shot with its disruptor cannon at the sathar destroyer. They don’t do too well and of the 17 shots fired at the three fighters, only one connects with each ship, knocking the hull integrity down by half on one, inducing a navigation control hit on a second, and knocking out the maneuvering on the third. The disruptor cannon shot at the destroyer also misses.
Offensively, the sathar fare a bit better. Two of the assault rockets hit the assault carrier knocking out half its engine capability and reducing its hull integrity by 17%. The sathar destroyer hits with its laser cannon further reducing the hull integrity of the UPF assault carrier by another 19%. The heavy cruiser’s distruptor cannon knocks out the assault carrier’s masking screen launcher.
The larger UPF capital ships maintain their speeds and converge on the sathar battle group. The heavy cruiser and assault carrier fly right over the group turning up toward the planet at the end of their move. The battleship and light cruiser maneuver down to take point blank shots at the sathar as well. The frigates accelerate to speed 20 and come just in range of their rocket batteries while the fighters accelerate to speed 25 and make an assault rocket pass from below.
Defensively, the sathar ships continue to fire at the assault carrier with their energy weapons while they fire their three rocket batteries at the lead frigate. The frigate is hit by two of the rocket batteries reducing its hull integrity by 28% and knocking out a third of its maneuvering capability.
The assault carrier is hammered by the sathar’s weapons being hit by 2 electron, 2 laser, and one proton battery as wall as a laser and disruptor cannon. All told the damage knocks out all of the UPF assault carrier’s weapons, starts a fire, damages its combat control system, induces a navigation control failure, and reduces its hull integrity by another 13%.
Offensively the UPF focus on the sathar assault carrier and heavy cruiser with the frigates and fighters firing at the assault carrier and the other ships firing on the heavy cruiser.
Only one of the fighters hit the assault carrier but it scores a critical hull hit dropping the carrier’s hull integrity by 40%. The frigates combine to hit with a laser battery, laser cannon and rocket battery knocking out the carriers engines and further reducing its hull integrity by 7%.
The sathar heavy cruiser fares even worse being hit by a barrage of weapons from the UPF battleship, light cruiser and heavy cruiser. All told it is hit by all 3 distruptor cannons, 2 rocket batteries, 3 laser batteries, two proton batteries, and an electron battery. The damage knocks out the sathar heavy cruiser’s engines and maneuvering, ICM launcher, laser battery, proton screen and stasis screen, cuts it damage control ability in half, and starts a fire. Surprisingly, the weapons did little hull damage only reducing the ship’s hull integrity by 25%.
Positions and course after the first shots were fired. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
The sathar fighter and heavy cruiser, both with no MR, fly straight ahead (to the left). The fighter slows down to speed 20 while the heavy cruiser, with no ADF either, just stays at speed 17. The fighter with the navigation control hit slows to speed 20 and spins to port flying up toward the planet while the remaining fighter from the lower group accelerates to speed 20 and goes after the pair of UPF frigates. The other fighters also speed up to 30 hexes/turn and go after the frigates as well, both fighter groups looping around the planet.
The sathar assault carrier, with its navigation control hit, pull to starboard and with no ADF, flies up away from the main battle. The sathar destroyer loops around to go after the UPF frigates as well and the light cruisers and frigate decelerate back to 15 and light up for a shot at the UPF battleship. The fire on the UPF assault carrier damages its hull (5%).
Defensively, the UPF frigates fire their laser batteries at the fighters and rocket batteries at the destroyer while the other UPF ships concentrate all their fire on the lead sathar light cruiser.
The UPF frigates miss the fighters completely but hit the destroyer with two rocket batteries seriously damaging it and deducing its hull integrity by 72%. The other ships hit the sathar light cruiser with 2 laser, 2 rocket, 1 electron, and 1 proton battery knocking out its ICM launcher, engines, and stasis screen, starting a fire and reducing its hull integrity by 16%.
Offensively, the sathar fighters hit the lead UPF frigate with and assault rocket reducing its hull integrity by 43% and the second one with an assault rocket as well reducing its already damaged hull (from the previous battle) by 38%. The destroyer also hits the second UPF frigate with its electron battery and laser cannon knocking out the frigates engines.
The sathar frigate and light cruisers hammer the UPF battleship hitting it with 2 disruptor cannons, 2 proton batteries, 1 electron battery, and 2 torpedoes that slip through the battleship’s ICM screen. The weapons short circuit the battleship’s defensive system, reduce its maneuvering ability by half, knock out its proton battery and reduce its hull integrity by 66%.
The two UPF frigates, now heavily damaged, drift on their current course firing at the destroyer as they leave. The assault carrier also drifts but its navigation control hit causes it to pull to port. Despite its weakened hull, it holds together. The battleship also drifts away from the fight firing all its weapons at the damaged light cruiser.
The UPF heavy cruiser turns parallel to the course of the assault carrier but lines up for a direct shot with its disruptor cannon at the sathar destroyer. It fires its rocket battery and torpedo at the undamaged light cruiser and uses its energy batteries to fire on the sathar fighters. The light cruiser follows a similar path and firing at the same targets. The fighters loop up around the planet and come up behind the sathar frigate firing their assault rockets at it.
The fire on the sathar light cruiser and sathar heavy cruiser damages both ships’ hulls reducing their integrity by 13% and 11% respectively.
Defensively, the sathar ships continue to fire at the battleship, hoping to destroy it before it can fly out of range. The sathar assault carrier makes a long range attack at its UPF counterpart with its proton battery but misses. The sathar destroyer fires at the lead UPF frigate hitting with its electron and rocket batteries knocking out the frigate’s masking screen launcher and damaging its combat control system.
The battleship manages to get off lightly and is only hit by 2 distruptor cannons and a laser battery cutting its damage control capability in half and reducing its hull integrity by another 14%.
Offensively, the UPF battleships hits the lead sathar destroyer with its laser and 2 electron batteries and slips a torpedo through the cruiser’s ICM screen destroying it and scoring the first kill of the battle. The UPF heavy cruiser manages to get its torpedo through the other light cruiser’s ICM screen cutting the sathar ship’s maneuvering in half but otherwise missing.
The UPF fighters hit the sathar frigate with all three assault rockets destroying it completely. The sathar destroyer is hit by disruptor canons from the UPF light and heavy cruiser, as well as a laser battery and two rocket batteries from the frigates. The frigates also manage to get a torpedo through the destroyer’s ICM screen. The combined damage from the UPF weapons obliterates the sathar ship. The sathar fighters get away with only minor damage: one loses 60% of its engine capability, one has its damage control capabilities cut in half, and the third loses 38% of its hull integrity.
Repair Turn
As the ships work on repairs, the lead UPF frigate finds that it’s hull is too damaged to repair in space and must find a way to a shipyard with only 30% of its hull intact. The other frigate manages to repair a bit of its hull restoring 10% of its integrity. The UPF assault carrier puts out the on-board fire while the battleship repairs 3% of its hull.
The two sathar fighters with hull damage find that they need a shipyard to repair their hull as well with their hull integrity sitting at 62% and 50% respectively. The sathar assault carrier restores 11% of its hull integrity while the heavy cruiser gets its fire under control.
Courses and positions after a half hour of combat and repairs. Things are starting to scatter as ships are damaged and lose maneuvering capability and control or are too damaged to risk maneuvering. Ships moving off the map will have a yellow number by them showing how many hexes off the map they are. Click for full size image.
Turn 4
The flight of four sathar fighters all go after the UPF assault carrier hoping to finish it off. They loop around to make a direct assault and then fly off to chase after the UPF frigates. The lone fighter, after firing its last assault rocket at the heavy cruiser loops around and starts heading for its carrier to dock and rearm. The fighter with the navigation control damage loops to port and fires one of its assault rockets at a UPF fighter as it passes by. The remaining fighter, with no maneuvering, along with the sathar heavy cruiser in the same condition, continue to drift away from the fight. The sathar assault carrier, with its navigation control damage, pulls to starboard and passes distantly in front of the UPF cruisers and assault carrier. The remaining sathar light cruiser turns to go after the battleship hoping to finish it off.
Defensively, the UPF cruisers fire at the sathar fighters hoping to take them out before they can fire their assault rockets. The battleship fires at the light cruiser pursuing it and the frigates get a couple of distant shots at the sathar fighters.
The sathar light cruiser is hit by one of the battleship’s laser batteries and both electron batteries which score a critical hull hit (integrity reduced by 26%), knock out its ICM launcher, and damage its navigation control systems. Four of the five sathar fighters are hit by the UPF ships knocking the hull integrity down to half on one, destroying a second and damaging the assault rocket launcher on the other two (including the lone fighter going after the heavy cruiser).
Offensively, the two fighters with working assault rocket launchers firing at the assault carrier both miss while the sathar fighter with the navigation hit firing at the UPF fighter hits with its assault rocket destroying the UPF fighter, the first (and as it will turn out, only) UPF ship destroyed in the fight. The battleship is hit by the sathar light cruiser’s electron battery, proton battery, and distruptor cannon knocking out its proton screen, damaging its combat control system, and reducing its hull integrity by another 12% (only 11% remaining).
The two UPF frigates continue to drift and fire long distance shots at the fighters. The battleship drifts away from the light cruiser firing at it as it goes. The two UPF fighters loop around and take a run at the sathar light cruiser firing their last assault rockets. The UPF assault carrier pulls to starboard and runs parallel to its sathar counterpart while the UPF light and heavy cruisers maneuver directly onto the sathar assault carrier’s tail and take point blank shots with all their weapons.
Defensively, the sathar light cruiser fires at the battleship and the sathar assault carrier fires at the UPF light cruiser. The UPF light cruiser is hit by a rocket battery reducing its hull integrity by 17% while the battleship is hit by an electron battery knocking out its ICM launcher.
Offensively, the sathar light cruiser is hit by one of the battleship’s laser batteries knocking out its proton battery and by both assault rockets from the fighters which damage its combat control system and knock its hull integrity down by 20%. The lead UPF frigate manages to score a long range laser battery shot on the lead sathar fighter knocking out its assault rocket launcher. The UPF cruisers hit the sathar assault carrier with a distruptor cannon and a laser, electron, and rocket battery knocking out the carriers maneuvering, laser battery, and masking screen launcher and damaging its combat control system.
Maneuvering and positions after forty minutes of battle. The UPF are stating to score kills and the ships are really starting to scatter. Click for full size image.
Turn 5
The group of three sathar fighters sets off after the two UPF frigates, the lone fighter, with its assault rocket launcher disabled, and realizing that the assault carrier is probably not going to survive the battle, attempts to ram the UPF light cruiser. The sathar light cruiser pulls to port and slows down, firing at the two UPF fighters. The other ships just continue to drift away with the assault carrier firing at the UPF light cruiser as it drifts.
Defensively, the UPF frigates fire at the remaining fighter with a working assault rocket launcher but miss. The UPF light cruiser fires at the oncoming fighter and destroys it before it can ram the larger ship. The UPF heavy cruiser hits the sathar assault carrier with its laser and rocket battery and reduces its hull integrity by another 36%.
Offensive, the sathar fighter misses the UPF frigate with its assault rocket while the sathar light cruiser hits one of the UPF fighters damaging its combat control system. The sathar assault carrier hits the UPF light cruiser with its proton and rocket battery short circuiting the cruiser’s defensive systems and reducing its hull integrity by 20%.
The UPF assault carrier’s loss of navigation control pulls it to starboard and the fighters, out of assault rockets, start heading back to the carrier to rearm. The heavy and light cruiser stay on the tail of the sathar assault carrier while the frigates and battleship continue to drift.
Defensively, the sathar assault carrier continues to fire on the UPF light cruiser hitting with its rocket battery for another 16% hull reduction on the cruiser. All other ships are out of range.
Offensively the UPF frigates fire at the pursuing fighters but miss. The UPF cruiser open fire on the sathar assault carrier and hit with 3 laser batteries, 2 proton batteries, an electron battery, a disruptor cannon, and two torpedoes completely destroying the sathar carrier.
This is the ships off the top of the main map (UPF cruisers and frigates, sathar assault carrier and fighters). The bottom row of hexes on this map exactly correspond to the top row of hexes on the main map (below). Click for full size image.Main battle map after turn 5. Things continue to spread out. Click for full size image.
Turn 6
With their carrier destroyed and being either out of weapons or their weapon system disabled, the three sathar fighters attempt to ram the UPF frigates. The sathar light cruiser pulls to starboard and accelerates back to speed 16, the lone fighter near the planet pulls to port with its navigation damage and the other two ships continue to drift away.
Defensively, the frigates fire everything they can at the incoming fighters hitting two with their laser batteries, the lead fighter for 75% of its hull and the second for a navigation hit but not enough to destroy them before they ram. Two fighters slam into the lead frigate and despite its damaged hull fail to destroy it only taking out 20% of the remaining 30% hull integrity. The third fighter hits the second frigate for a measly 5% of its hull integrity.
The UPF frigates and battleship continue to drift, the assault carrier pulls to port and the fighters continue to close on the carrier to rearm. The heavy and light cruiser start accelerating and turn to head after the sathar light cruiser. No shots are fired as everyone is out of range.
Repair Turn 2
The lead UPF frigate repairs the damage caused by the two ramming sathar fighters but can repair its hull no further. The other frigate repairs 12% of its hull integrity while the light cruiser repairs 3% of its. The assault carrier gets its navigation control system fixed as well as repairing 8% of its hull. The battleship repairs 5% of its hull and brings is damage control system fully back on-line.
The sathar light cruiser repairs its navigation control system while the heavy cruiser discovers that a shipyard will be required to bring its damage control system back fully on-line.
The upper map after an hour of fighting. The second blue line by the assault carrier should have fighters at the end of it but I forgot to move the tokens. Click for full size image.The main battle map after an hour. The poor sathar fighter can’t get is navigation system under control and is stuck near the planet. Click for full size image.
Turn 7
With its navigation control system repaired, the sathar light cruiser sets off at max acceleration to attempt to intercept the UPF battleship and finish it off. The damaged fighter comes to a stop near the planet as the pilot continues to work on its navigation control issues.
The UPF cruisers continue in pursuit of the sathar light cruiser while the assault carrier, its hull and navigation control fixed, starts to turn around and head back toward the planet. The two surviving fighters pull alongside the carrier and start docking procedures.
We’ve now shifted the map to track the sathar light cruiser pursing the battleship and the UPF cruisers pursing it. The other ships are effectively out of the battle. The planet is some 200,000 km off the left side of this map. Click for full size image.
Turn 8
The chase continues. The sathar light cruiser continues to close on the battleship but the UPF light cruiser, which had a slight speed advantage on the sathar light cruiser, continues to close on it as well as it starts to outdistance the older heavy cruiser that has a lower acceleration. The two UPF fighters dock with the assault carrier.
The gaps between the ships are narrowing. Click for full size image.
Turn 9
Since relative speed are all that matter, I’ve adjusted the speeds shown on the maps down so that the battleship is stopped and the other three ships have been scaled accordingly.
The chase continues as the light cruisers close on their targets. The UPF heavy cruiser is as close as it is going to get to the sathar ship unless the sathar vessel’s engines are damaged as the greater acceleration of the sathar light cruiser has allowed it to match speeds with the heavy cruiser. The UPF fighters are rearmed.
Repair Turn 3
The lead UPF frigate repairs some of its maneuvering while the other frigate repairs 10% of its hull. The UPF light cruiser also repairs 10% of its hull while the assault carrier brings its laser and proton battery back on-line. The battleship, expecting to have to defend against torpedoes from the the sathar light cruiser, gets its ICM launcher working again and repairs another 5% of its hull.
The lone sathar fighter repairs some of its maneuvering capability and starts to maneuver to meet up with the heavy cruiser. The sathar light cruiser repairs 13% of its hull while the heavy cruiser restores half of its engine capability and begins accelerating to out of the system.
The ships have almost come in range of the battleship. Speeds have been adjusted so that they are relative to the battleship being at rest. Click for full size image.
Turn 10
The sathar light cruiser continues to close on the battleship and the UPF light cruiser continues to close on the sathar light cruiser. The two UPF fighters, rearmed, launch from the assault carrier and go after the lone sathar fighter near the planet.
The heavy cruiser is now starting to fall behind. Click for full size image.
Turn 11
The UPF light cruiser continues to close the gap but it is looking like the sathar ship will get to the battleship before the UPF light cruiser can intercept it. The battleship, at relative rest to the other ships, rotates to face the direction it expects the sathar vessel to come from in order to bring its disruptor cannon to bear.
It’s taken nearly an hour, but the sathar light cruiser is nearly in range of the battleship with the UPF light cruiser in hot pursuit and gaining. Click for full size image.
Turn 12
Realizing it cannot quite get into torpedo range this round, the sathar light cruiser remains at its current speed staying at extreme range for the battleship’s defenses although this will also allow the UPF light cruiser a chance to close as well.
Defensively the battleships fires all of its energy weapons at the sathar vessel but they all go wide although one of the electron batteries would have hit except for the battleship’s damaged combat control system. The sathar light cruiser returns fire but also misses.
The UPF light cruiser and heavy cruiser close in on the sathar vessel but the heavy cruiser is still well out of range. The sathar ship fires once again at the battleship this time hitting with its distruptor cannon shorting out the battleships defenses and ICMs. The battleship and light cruiser return fire. The battleship connects with a LB damaging the sathar light cruiser’s hull (11%). The UPF light cruiser is still too far away and its shots go wide.
The UPF fighters hit the sathar fighter with one of their assault rockets knocking out it’s assault rocket launcher.
Repair Turn 4
The lead UPF frigate repairs its combat control system and is now as functional as it can be without getting to a shipyard to repair its heavily damaged hull. The other frigate restores more of its engine capability. The UPF light cruiser repairs 13% of its hull while the assault carrier also gets a minor hull repair restoring 1%. The battleship focuses all of its repairs on its hull, hoping to survive the oncoming attack and restores 13% of its hull integrity.
The sathar fighter under attack by the UPF fighters finally fixes its navigation control system while the other fighter restores some of its maneuverability. The UPF light cruiser fixes its combat control system and brings its proton battery back on-line in preparation for attacking the UPF Battleship.
Shots are fired as the ships once more come in range. Click for full size image.
Turn 13
The sathar light cruiser makes a pass on the battleship firing everything it can at the larger vessel and using its maximum acceleration. The lone sathar fighter, its navigation control issues solved, begins accelerating away from the planet, hoping to surviving the next two rounds of assault rocket fire from the two UPF fighters.
Defensively, the battleship and light cruiser try to take out the sathar light cruiser before it can inflict any more damage on the battleship. The UPF light cruiser, at nearly maximum range misses, while the battleship connects with 2 laser batteries, a proton battery, and its disruptor cannon slightly damaging the cruiser’s hull (8%), knocking out its laser battery and engines, and inducing a malfunction in its navigation control system.
The sathar light cruiser returns fire with all of its function weapons but in the excitement of the moment, the gunner all miss and the battleship escapes unscathed.
The UPF light cruiser closes to torpedo range on the sathar vessel and opens fire with everything it can. The heavy cruiser continues to close and the battleship fires a long range salvo at the now retreating sathar light cruiser. The fighters again fire at the lone sathar fighter, this time hitting it with one of their assault rockets and destroying it.
Defensively the sathar light cruiser now focuses on its pursuer and fires at the UPF light cruiser hitting with both its electron and proton battery inducing a fire and damaging the light cruiser’s damage control system.
Returning fire at the sathar light cruiser, the battleship misses and the UPF light cruiser hits with its laser, electron, and proton batteries damaging the ship’s hull (14%), knocking out its rocket battery, and damaging its combat control system.
The sathar light cruiser gets its shot and fails. It probably should have stayed closer to the battleship to get one more try. Click for full size image.
Turn 14
The sathar light cruiser pulls to port and holds together. The fire on the UPF light cruiser knocks out its laser battery.
Defensively, the battleship and light cruiser fire on the sathar ship. The battleship hits with an electron and proton battery starting a fire and knocking out its stasis screen. The light cruiser hits with its proton battery and disruptor cannon knocking out the sathar ship’s disruptor cannon and electron screen.
The sathar light cruiser fires at the UPF light cruiser but misses.
The UPF light cruiser continues to tail the sathar vessel closing to rocket battery range while the heavy cruiser starts catching up with the other ships. The fire on the sathar light cruiser damages its hull (6%)
The sathar light cruiser fires on the approaching UPF light cruiser hitting with its electron and proton battery damaging its hull (4%) and knockign out a third of its engine capability.
The UPF light cruiser hits the sathar ship with its electron and rocket batteries destroying it and ending the battle.
Final moves of the fight. Click for full size image.
Turn 15
The fire on UPF light cruiser damages its navigation control system.
Repair Turn 5
The UPF light cruiser gets its fire under control, the assault carrier repairs its rocket battery but discovers that any more repair of its engines will require a shipyard, and the battleship repairs another 11% of its hull.
The sathar heavy cruiser fully repairs its engines.
Final repairs
Battle repairs of the UPF ships continue over the next four and a half hours as the ships return to orbit around Ken’zah-Kit. In the end, the second UPF frigate can only get its hull up to 65% integrity, and the battleship can only get its hull up to 58%.
The lone sathar fighter meets up with the heavy cruiser and is attached to the hull of the larger vessel where it will remain until they get back to a shipyard. It’s maneuvering is fully repaired as the ships accelerate out of the ship. The heavy cruiser gets all of its systems repaired over the next four hours expect its hull which it is only able to restore to 81% outside a shipyard.
Lessons Learned
The sathar just can’t seem to catch a break and finish off the UPF ships. I though the light cruiser was going to finish off the battleship but rolled over 80 for every single attack so it missed completely. The battleship only had about 26 HP at that point. (On a whim I rerolled all the attacks and the second time it hit with a PB and RB, the latter did double damage and destroyed the battleship. But alas, that wasn’t the actual roll.) The same with the ramming of the frigates. I thought for sure the UPF frigate hit by two fighters was going to be destroyed, it only had 12 HP left but then I just rolled 8 on 2d10 for the hull damaged sustained. And it wouldn’t have done any good for the third one to hit it as I only rolled a measly 2 HP damage for that ship as well. There were several other times where I expected the sathar to get better hits but the dice were just against them. The UPF had bad spells as well but it didn’t seem to be at those critical, ship-finishing moments.
I considered having the light cruiser ram the battleship but the odds were in the favor of the battleship avoiding the ramming attempt and if it failed, the sathar ship would have been at point blank range for both the battleship and the oncoming UPF light cruiser so it didn’t try. Although it probably should have stayed a bit closer to the battleship as it ended its movement. But I really didn’t expect it to completely miss. This does have me thinking a bit about the ramming rules, however, so there may be a blog post about that when I have time to think on it some more.
The UPF are pretty beat up with the two cruisers and a fighter as the only ships not needing to go to a shipyard for repairs, but they only lost a single fighter. The sathar on the other hand lost everything expect a fighter and a heavy cruiser. Task Force Cassidine has now destroyed two major sathar fleets while only losing 3 assault scouts and 4 fighters.
There is one more battle coming up (in the Liberty system) and then things are going to quite down a bit as the sathar just don’t have very many ships surviving at the moment. They are done to just 9 fighters, 1 cutter, 2 frigates, 1 destroyer 2 light cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers, and two assault carriers but they are spread out all over the Frontier and the starship construction centers (and two are in the battle coming up in the Liberty system and may not survive). Its going to take some time to get them all together and build a few more ships.
In a short, high-speed battle around New Pale today, the invading sathar forces were destroyed or driven off by the militia and the augmented Strike Force Nova.
The victory was not with out cost, however, as both UPF battleships were destroyed in the fighting, along with one of the UPF fighters. While the sathar losses were much higher, we mourn the loss of the crews of those ships
Goolar Nadd, New Pale News
Background
With the arrival of Task Force Relief (battleship, assault carrier, and 10 fighters) and its merger with Strike Force Nova, the UPF and Truane’s Star militia outgun the invading sathar fleet nearly two to one. Despite these odds, the sathar continue on to engage the UPF forces although they aim for New Pale instead of Pale to avoid the UPF Fortress at that world.
Order of Battle
Pale Militia
Armed Station
1 Assault Scout
1 Frigate
Strike Force Nova
17 Fighters
3 Assault Scouts
3 Frigates
1 Destroyer
3 Light Cruisers
2 Assault Carriers
2 Battleships
Sathar
8 Fighters
1 Cutter
2 Frigates
2 Destroyers
1 Light Cruiser
1 Assault Carrier
2 Heavy Cruisers
The Battle
Setup
Expecting the sathar to make a run at the station as they have in other systems (and in the battle here over a month ago), the UPF position the battleships on either side of the planet, one supported by a destroyer and the other a light cruiser. Out from the battleships is a pair of frigates on each side with a pair of assault scouts out and slightly back from the frigates. There are two wings of fighters beyond and a bit back from each pair of assault scouts. The assault carriers, each escorted by a light cruiser, are far back from the planet. The capital ships and assault scouts are all moving at speed 15, the assault scouts are at speed 20, and the fighters are at speed 30. The eight seeker missiles from the two battleships are arrayed in an arc around the planet.
The sathar, recognizing that they are not going to win this fight, are planning a high speed pass hoping to take out the UPF battleships and assault carriers and then escaping the system. They line up in two groups directly opposite the battleships. The upper group is comprised of a heavy and light cruiser, a destroyer, and a frigate while the lower group is composed of a heavy cruiser, the assault carrier and cutter, and a destroyer and frigate. The fighters are divided into two flights of four, one on each wing. All of the sathar vessels come in much faster than the UPF expected and are moving at speed 35.
Positions of ships and seeker missiles at the beginning of the battle. The two main groups of sathar ships are represented by a single marker with the actual ships displayed at the top and bottom of the map. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar capital ships accelerate to speed 37 and fly straight at and past the UPF battleships. The fighters accelerate to speed 40 turning in to fire at the battleships as well.
Defensively the assault scouts and frigates fire their laser batteries at the fighters and the frigates fire their rocket batteries at their sathar counterparts in each group. The battleship and destroyer in the upper group, along with the station, fire at the sathar destroyer, while the battleship and light cruiser in the lower group fire at the assault carrier.
The defensive fire at the sathar fighters is fairly ineffective, slightly damaging the engines on three fighters and knocking the hull integrity down to 38% on two others. However, none are destroyed and all are able to fire their assault rockets at the battleships.
The sathar frigate in the upper group is hit by a rocket battery knocking out 30% of its hull while the sathar frigate in the lower group is hit by two rocket batteries knocking out its laser battery and slightly damaging its maneuvering.
The destroyer in the upper group is pummeled by the UPF destroyer and battleship being hit with 2 laser batteries, 3 electron batteries, a proton battery, a rocket battery and the cannons from both ships. In the end, it has it defenses knocked off-line, its electron battery and engines knocked out, a hit to its combat controls system, its hull integrity reduced by 68%, and a fire breaks out on-board.
The assault carrier in the lower group doesn’t fare much better. It is hit by 2 laser batteries, an electron battery, 2 proton batteries, a disruptor cannon and a rocket battery. It loses its laser battery and 65% of its hull integrity.
The sathar unload all of their weapons at the battleship they fly over with the battleships firing 3 ICMs at each incoming torpedo.
The Admiral Clinton (upper battleship) is hammered. All 4 assault rockets from the fighters hit knocking out its engines and maneuvering capability and reducing its hull integrity by 22%. The sathar frigate hits it with its laser cannon knocking out the battleship’s disruptor cannon. The sathar destroyer hits with its laser cannon, rocket battery, and a torpedo that slipped through the ICM screen knocking out the battleship’s torpedo and ICM launchers and knocking the hull integrity down another 16%. The sathar light cruiser lands a series of hull hits with its disruptor cannon and electron and rocket batteries reducing the battleships hull by another 28%. Finally, the sathar heavy cruiser hits with its laser, electron, and proton batteries as well as its disruptor cannon knocking out the battleship’s proton screen, damaging its combat control system and reduces its hull integrity by another 28%. In the end, the Admiral Clinton has only 6% of its hull integrity left.
The sathar is the lower group were not as effective firing on the new UPF battleship, the Admiral R’kazk’tar. Only one of the four assault rockets connect knocking out the battleship’s disruptor cannon while the cutter misses completely. The sathar frigate hits with everything but its torpedo knocking out the battleship’s torpedo and ICM launcher and knocking half of its engines off-line. The sathar destroyer hits will everything expect its torpedo inducing an on-board fire and knocking out 35% of the battleship’s hull integrity. The sathar assault carrier scores a minor (<2%) hull hit with its laser battery while the sathar heavy cruiser only hits with it’s laser battery and disruptor cannon cutting the battleship’s maneuvering in half and knocking the hull integrity down another 13%.
Each sathar heavy cruiser deploys a single seeker missile, about 40,000 km behind their final positions where they expect the UPF to end the movement to fire their torpedoes at maximum range.
The maneuvering on this turn was so complicated, that I almost did a sathar movement map and a UPF movement one but in the end I left them on the same map. It’s a bit confusing but so was the maneuvering.
The seriously wounded battleship drifts away from the fight and two frigates join it as escorts. The other battleship, its MR reduced by half, turns and uses the gravity of New Pale to gain an extra turn. The other ships also loop around the planet, accelerating as much as possible to come around and bring all their weapons to bear on the various sathar vessels. The fighters split their fire between the heavy cruiser and frigate in the upper group, and the heavy cruiser and assault carrier in the lower group, assisted by the assault scouts firing on the heavy cruisers as well. The other ships focus their fire on the smaller more maneuverable ships. The assault carriers and their escorts accelerate and cross the sathar battle line hoping to get out of the maneuvering arc of the larger ships. They fire what weapons they can at the sathar fighters. The fire on the sathar destroyer knocks out its laser cannon.
Defensively, the upper flight of sathar ships focus their particle battery weapons at the damaged battleship, hoping to finish it off but they all miss. They use their laser batteries defensively against the fighters destroying one, nearly destroying another, lightly damaging the engines on a third. They fire their rocket batteries at the light cruiser but they all miss.
In the lower group of sathar ships, all the beam weapons are focused on the fighters but only one hits damaging the fighter’s combat control system while the rocket batteries are fired at the UPF destroyer but they all miss as well.
The upper UPF assault carrier connected with its laser and proton battery destroying one fighter and knocking out the assault rocket launcher on the other. The lower assault carrier hits with it’s proton battery and almost takes out a figher but it manages to hold togheter. The carrier’s light cruiser escort hits the same fighter with its laser battery, damaging the fighter’s engines, and a different fighter with it’s proton battery damaging its maneuverability.
The sathar heavy cruiser in the upper group is hit by 5 assault rockets and a laser battery from the fighters and assault scouts which damage its combat control system, short circuits its defenses, and reduces its hull integrity by 98% nearly destroying it.
The sathar heavy cruiser in the lower group gets away fairly unscathed as it is only hit by 3 assault rockets from the fighters and assault scouts knocking out its ICM launcher and maneuvering and reducing its hull integrity by 16%.
The sathar frigate in the upper group is hit by 2 assault rockets from the fighters as well as an electron batter, disruptor cannon, and torpedo from the light cruiser which knock out its defenses before the torpedo destroyers the ship.
The final fighter flight hits the upper sathar assault carrier with four assault rockets destroying it. while the sathar destroyer is destroyed by its UPF counterpart which hit with its laser and rocket batteries as well as torpedo that got through the ICM screen.
The sathar frigate in the lower group is hit by its UPF counterpart with a laser battery that damages its maneuvering and a torpedo that slips through the ICM screen but only manages to take out the frigate’s laser battery.
Maneuvering and final positions after the first ten minutes of battle. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
With the assault carrier destroyed, the sathar fighters are stranded and so continue the attack on the battleships. The flight that lost a fighter loops around to go after the heavily wounded battleship (Admiral Clinton) while the other group goes after the less damaged one. The heavily damaged heavy cruiser just drifts away from the battle while the light cruiser from the upper group turns to make a pass at the less damaged battleship (Admiral R’kazk’tar) as it accelerates away from the battle. The lower group, minus the destroyed assault carrier, just accelerate straight away from the battle at the heavy cruiser’s max acceleration (it has 0 MR), staying in formation. They fire on the UPF destroyer as they fly away. The fire on the Admiral R’kazk’tar induces a navigation control hit.
The sathar also activate the two seeker missiles they deployed the previous round. Unfortunately for the sathar, the UPF did not react as expected and the only ships nearby are the assault scouts. Each seeker missile goes after one of the assault scouts but they both miss.
Defensively, the battleships fire at the incoming fighters as do the assault scouts and the frigates escorting the heavily damaged battleship. They are assisted by the station and the lower assault carrier and it’s escort. Together the UPF ships manage to destroy two of the three fighters headed for the Admiral Clinton and two of the four headed for the Admiral R’kazk’tar, inducing a fire on a third.
The upper light cruiser and assault carrier fire at the light cruiser as it passes. It is hit by 2 laser, an electron, and 2 rocket batteries damaging its combat control system and engines, knocking out its ICM launcher and reducing its hull integrity by 23%.
The lone light cruiser fires at the drifting heavy cruiser connecting with a rocket battery and its disruptor cannon destroying the heavily damaged sathar vessel.
Finally, the group of frigates and destroyer focus their fire on the fleeing heavy cruiser from the lower group connecting with 3 laser batteries, a rocket battery and a laser cannon damaging the heavy cruiser’s combat control system and reducing its hull integrity by 46%.
Offensively, the surviving figher manages to hit the Admiral Clinton with its assault rocket destroying the battleship. The Admiral R’kazk’tar is hit by an assault rocket from the two fighers and a torpededo from the light cruiser reducing its hull integrity by another 36%.
The fire from the remaining ships are focused on the UPF destroyer. It is hit by 4 laser batteries and an electron battery which knock out its masking screen launcher, short circuit its defensive systems, and reduces its hull integrity by 46%.
The surviving battleship, with its navigation control damage and seriously damaged hull, pulls to starboard but manages to hold together. Given the speed differentials, and despite the greater acceleration of the smaller UPF ships, Spacefleet decides to not purse the main surviving group of sathar vessels but the upper two flight of fighters do go after the lone light cruiser. The assault scouts and the frigate and destroyer group go after the surviving sathar fighters. The fire on the sathar fighter induces a navigation control hit. The fire on the light cruiser cause 9 HP of damage.
Defensively, the sathar light cruiser fires at the incoming fighters but only manages to hit one with a proton battery lightly damaging its hull.
Offensively, the UPF fighters hit the light cruiser with all eight assault rockets destroying it while the frigates and destroyer destroy two of the three surviving fighters with the remaining fighter having its combat control system damaged, its assault rocket launcher knocked out, its hull integrity reduced by 38% and a fire started onboard.
Final positions after the second round of combat, the destroyed sathar light cruiser, damaged UPF battleship and UPF fighters are off the top of the map while the fleeing sathar ships are off the left side. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
The fire on the battleship burns through the hull reducing its hull integrity by another 10%. Its navigation control damage causes the large ship to pull to port and the strain on its severely damaged hull causes it to break apart destroying the vessel after only 10 days of active duty. The remaining sathar fighter is obliterated by the combined fire of the destroyer and frigates.
Repair Turn 1
The lightly damaged fighters manage to repair their systems almost immediately and the destroyer manages to repair some of its hull. The sathar heavy cruiser manages to repair some of its hull as well.
Final Repairs
After another hour and a half the damaged UPF destroyer manages to fix as much as it can in space. All of its systems are fixed but the hull is stuck at 66% integrity and it will need to get into the starship construction center at Pale to complete repairs.
After another hour the sathar heavy cruiser has repaired enough of its hull that the surviving ships resume their acceleration out of the system. Another 2.5 hours later, it has repaired as much as it can outside of a shipyard. All of the internals systems are back online but it’s hull is stuck at 75% integrity until it gets back to SSC#5 for final repairs.
Lessons Learned
I knew the sathar were going to lose this one but I expected them to do a little better than they did. They managed to take out the two battleships, part of their primary objective, but didn’t do as much collateral damage as I was expecting/hoping they would. Part of that was the dice were just not cooperative, especially on the defensive fire round of the UPF move in turn one. I rolled a bunch of 80’s on the sathar’s to hit rolls and nothing really connected. Although the same thing happened to the UPF at another point so I guess it evens out.
The sathar misjudged the positions on the first round and were unable to make pass at the assault carriers like they wanted. They managed to get some ships out of the battle but not as many as I was hoping they would. The UPF really cleaned up.
The loss of the battleships will be significant, those won’t be replaced anytime soon. It will be interesting to see how that affects the fights going forward.
What are your thoughts on the battle? Share in the comments below.
Earlier today, in the space around Kawdl-Kit, Task Force Cassidine engaged the invading sathar forces. After nearly an hour and a half of fighting, the last of sathar forces were destroyed.
While almost all of the Spacefleet vessels sustained serious damage, battle losses were light with the Task Force only losing three fighters and three assault scouts.
Hours after the battle, repair work for the heavily damaged assault carrier and battleship are still ongoing.
Vah’zen’rk – Kawdl-Kit Global Reporting
This one was a doozie. This was the longest lasting battle as far as number of turns of play go. Although that’s partially because the combination of speeds, damage, and lack of maneuverability caused everything to get spread out. You’ll notice the maps shift around a bit, especially toward the end as I shifted the view to keep the main part of the battle in view. I might have to shift to a larger map grid. As always this fight held a few surprises, not the least of which was the final outcome.
Background
Reinforced with some additional ships from SCC#10, veterans of campaign against the saurians, SBF-B2 reenters the K’tsa-Kar system with the intent to wipe out Task Force Cassidine. The UPF forces, while somewhat outgunned, are determined to hold the line here.
Order of Battle
Task Force Cassidine
6 Fighters
3 Assault Scouts
2 Frigates
1 Light Cruiser
1 Assault Carrier
1 Heavy Cruiser
1 Battleship
Sathar
7 Fighters
1 Frigate
6 Destroyers
1 Assault Carrier
2 Heavy Cruisers
The Battle
Setup
Task Force Cassidine elects to hold the battle around the planet, hoping to use the planet’s gravity well to their advantage even though there is no longer a station there. With no station to defend, the UPF form up in a broad line far back from the planet and the oncoming sathar forces to give them time to study the sathar deployment before committing. The capital ships are moving at speed 15 while the fighters and assault scouts are moving at speed 25. The six seeker missiles (from the battleship and heavy cruiser) are deployed in an arc on the side of the planet the sathar are approaching from.
The sathar, also cautious for this major battle, come in relatively slow, with their capital ships moving at speed 10 and fighters at speed 20. The assault carrier, escorted by the frigate, take the center position with a heavy cruiser on either side which is in turned flanked by a trio of destroyers and a flight of fighters.
Deployment at start of battle with seeker missiles shown for reference (they will only show up later when activated). Click for full size image.
Turn 1
While the sathar destroyers all accelerate to speed 13, the rest just drift forward at their current speed.
Closing ranks to defend against the expected oncoming flights of fighters, the light cruiser and assault scouts join the battleship while the frigates join up with the heavy cruiser and assault carrier. The fighters slow to speed 20 to remain out of range of all of the approaching sathar ships except possiblly the lower flight of fighters.
No shots are fired as everyone is still out of range.
Both sides approach the planet. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
Yhe upper flight of sathar fighters accelerate to speed 25 and make a pass at the upper group of ships, firing on assault rocket each at the assault scouts and light cruiser. The lower flight make a pass at the UPF fighters and fire an assault rocket at three fighters in that group. The sathar destroyers accelerate to speed 16 and fly out to the flanks with the upper group turning to head back into the fight while the lower group keeps their forward firing weapons aimed at the UPF fighters. The heavy cruisers accelerate to speed 12 and turn to cross in front of the planet while the frigate and assault carrier remain at speed 10 but turn to pass below the planet.
Defensively, all of the UPF ships fire at the upper group of incoming fighters, while the more distant ships don’t connect, it adds to the crossfire and shots from the closer ship manage to destroy three of the four fighters while almost destroying the fourth (it has 1 HP left).
The surviving fighter fires at the light cruiser and knocks out its engines, it will be stuck at speed 17 until it can get those repaired. The lower flight of sathar fighters all hit with their assault rockets destroying three of the UPF fighters (half the flight).
The UPF activate two of the previously placed seeker missiles. Upon activation, each of them detects the nearby heavy cruiser and accelerate, driving home into the ships. Both cruisers fire 3 ICMs to attempt to intercept the missiles but they fail. The upper cruiser has its ICM launcher knocked out while the lower suffers a devastating hull hit (76 HP – double damage) nearly destroying it.
Ignoring for a moment the fighters and the upper group of destroyers, the UPF ships focus on the other capital ships. The remaining fighters, the assault scouts, and the frigates and make a pass at the lower group of destroyers. The heavy cruiser and assault carrier go after the severely damaged heavy cruiser and the sathar frigate, while the battleship and light cruiser go after the other heavy cruiser.
Defensively, the frigate, upper heavy cruiser, and assault carrier focus their fire on the UPF light cruiser damaging its maneuvering, taking out its laser and proton battery, slightly damaging its hull, and starting an on-board fire. The heavily damaged heavy cruiser fires at the UPF assault carrier knocking out its engines (stuck at speed 16) and severely damaging its hull (a little over 1/3 of hull integrity lost). The lower flight of destroyers focus their fire on two of the assault scouts. One is lightly grazed suffering a 20% hull integrity reduction while the other is destroyed.
Under combined fire from the UPF light cruiser and battleship, the upper sathar heavy cruiser has its maneuvering and proton battery knocked out, and suffers a 43% hull integrity loss from multiple hits. While the UPF assault carrier misses, the UPF heavy cruiser finishes off the heavily damaged sathar heavy cruiser with it’s pair of laser batteries. The shots by those ships at the frigate are much better. The frigate manages to intercept the heavy cruiser’s torpedo with its ICMs, but the sathar vessel is hit with the cruiser’s disruptor cannon and rocket batteries from both vessels damaging its damage controls system and reducing its hull integrity to only 8%.
The lower flight of sathar destroyers doesn’t fair much better. The lead destroyer is hit by an assault rocket and laser battery inducing a navigation control hit and suffering 28% hull integrity reduction. The second is hit by an assault rocket from one of the fighters which scores a critical hit and the laser cannon from one of the frigates and is destroyed by the damage inflicted. The last destroyer is hit by two laser batteries and an assault rocket knocking out 54% of its hull integrity.
First shots fired. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
The surviving heavy cruiser, having no MR, accelerates to speed 14 to come in range of the assault scouts and frigates. The seriously damaged frigate just drifts forward at speed 10 and the assault carrier follows it but accelerates to speed 12 and turns to cross its path near the end of its move All three ships fire at the UPF assault carrier. The upper flight of destroyers swoop down and are joined by the surviving fighter from the upper flight. They unleash everything they have at the UPF battleship. The lower flight of fighters loop around and fire on the UPF frigates (2 AR at one and 1 at another) while one of the destroyers loops around to fire at the lead assault scout with everything but it’s torpedo which it fires at the second frigate. The destroyer with the navigation control hit loops away from the fight but fires at the remaining assault scout as it passes by. The fire on the UPF light cruiser damages its combat control system.
Defensively, the frigates and assault scouts fire their laser batteries at the oncoming fighters destroying one and lightly damaging another. The frigates fire their other weapons at the damaged destroyer making the attack on them knocking out another 30% hull integrity and short circuiting out its screens and ICMs.
The UPF heavy cruiser and assault carrier fire their laser batteries at the sathar frigate (short circuiting its screens and ICMs and inducing a navigation control failure) and all their other weapons at the passing heavy cruiser. The battleship and light cruiser fire their disruptor cannons at the heavy cruiser, which combinded with the fire from the heavy cruiser and assault carrier, destroy that ship. They fire 2 laser batteries at the incoming fighter but miss and concentrate the rest of their weapons on the lead destroyer damaging its damage control system, inducing a fire, and nearly destroying it with a critical hit (only 8% hull integrity left).
The lone sathar fighter fire a salvo at the battleship. While most of the shots miss, the ones that hit are significant. The fighter’s assault rocket knocks out the battleship’s ICMs, the lead destroyer’s torpedo scores a critical hit knocking out 25% of the battleship’s hull, and the second destroyer scores a critical hit with its rocket battery taking out another 22% of the hull.
The UPF assault carrier is hit by both the sathar frigate and assault carrier knocking out its proton and laser batteries and multiple hull hits knocking another 40% off of it’s hull integrity. Shots at the surviving assault scouts destroy the lead assault scout while completely missing the other one. The lead UPF frigate is hit by an assault rocket damaging its engines while the other is hit by an assault rocket and torpedo knocking out nearly half its hull and acceleration ability.
The UPF light cruiser, with its engines nearly completely off line, turns to starboard and drifts down toward the lone sathar destroyer at the bottom of the map. The battleship turns hard to starboard and flies down over the wounded sathar frigate and flying past the assault carrier. The surviving UPF fighters and assault scouts loop around and make a run at the sathar assault carrier. The two frigates go after the lone sathar destroyer at the bottom of the map and loop back toward the main fight. The UPF assault carrier, severely damaged and with its engines disabled, drifts away from the fight escorted by the UPF heavy cruiser. The fire on the sathar destroyer rampages through the ship knocking out its engines and damaging its combat controls system
Defensively, the upper flight of sathar destroyers once again concentrate all their fire on the battleship, hoping to do better defensively than they did offensively. Their hope is in vain however as only one hit does hull damage (reducing it by another 10%) but they also induce a navigation control malfunction, knock out its stasis screen, and damage its combat control systems.
The lone sathar destroyer in the middle of the fight fires at the UPF assault carrier short circuiting its defensive systems and reducing its damage control capabilities.
The lone destroyer at the bottom of the map with the navigation control malfunction focuses its fire on the more damaged frigate knocking out it’s laser cannon.
The sathar frigate and assault carrier fire their energy battery weapons at the incoming UPF fighters (one is hit for a 38% hull integrity reduction) and the frigate fires its rocket battery at the assault scout (critical hit destroying the scout) and laser cannon at the battleship as it flies by (that’s the shot that induced the navigation control hit mentioned above).
The UPF fighters fire at the sathar assault carrier but only connect with one assault rocket knocking out the carrier’s maneuvering. The frigates work to finish off the damaged destroyer with the navigation hit but only manage to hit with a single laser battery inducing an onboard fire.
The light cruiser fires at the second destroyer in the upper group as it flies away hitting with its laser, proton, and electron batteries damaging it’s hull and weapons before the light cruier’s torpedo slips past the ICMs launched by the destroyer and scores a critical hit, destroying the sathar ship.
The battleship fires it’s disruptor cannon and a laser battery at the frigate hitting the laser battery and destroying it, two laser batteries at the damaged destroyer in the upper group, one of which connects destroying that ship, and the rest of its weapons at the third destroyer connecting with the electron battery and torpedo and knocking out 70% of the sathar vessel’s hull integrity.
Finally, the assault carrier and heavy cruiser fire at the damaged destroyer in the middle of the map destroying it with multiple hits.
While the UPF ships are fairly damaged, they are definitely in control of the fight at this point.
Positions after the first half hour of battle. This is the first of the map shifts (moved up slightly this time for that destroyer at the bottom to stay on the map). Click for full size image.
Repair Turn
On the UPF side, the damaged fighter fails its repair attempt on its hull which will have to be repaired at a shipyard, luckily it is still over 50% hull integrity and doesn’t have to worry about breaking up. The second UPF frigate and the battleship both manage to repair some of their hull while the battleship also effects repairs to its combat control system. The light cruiser gets its fire under control while the assault carrier repairs its damage control systems.
On the sathar side, the two damaged fighters repair their hull while the surviving destroyer from the upper group fails its hull repair, leaving it permanently damaged below 50% hull integrity. The other surviving destroyer gets its fire under control while the assault carrier repairs its maneuvering and combat control systems.
Turn 4
Recognizing that they can’t win, the sathar attempt to at least finish off the already damaged ships. To that end, the upper destroyer and 3 fighters go after the assault carrier. Though severely damaged, the destroyer manages to hold together (rolled 37 with a 30% breakup chance). The assault carrier turns away from the battleship and accelerates as much as possible. The other sathar destroyer, although it put its fire out, still has a problem with its navigation control system and pulls a turn to port. It also accelerates.
Defensive fire:
The UPF assault carrier and heavy cruiser fire defensively at the sathar fighters, using their ICMs to defend against the incoming torpedo, managing to destroy two of the three fighters. The battleship fires everything it can at the assault carrier causing significant system damage (all maneuvering, navigation control damage, half engine capabilities, and knocking out its ICM launcher) and some minor hull damage (20%). The UPF light cruiser and frigates fire long distance shots at the other destroyer but the shots all go wide.
The sathar fighter fires its final assault rocket at the UPF assault carrier knocking out that ship’s masking screen system. The sathar destroyer hits the assault carrier with its laser battery and a rocket battery but only causes minor hull damage (15% hull integrity reduction). The sathar assault carrier hits the UPF battleship with both of its energy weapons inducing a loss of navigation control and some minor (~6%) hull damage. However, that is enough to put the battleship below 50% hull integrity and with the navigation control damage, it could break up
At this point, I really thought we were going to loose the battleship. Especially when it takes even more damage as part of sathar defensive fire phase of this round. But that same destroyer saved the battleship as well. This is where the damage to all the ships combined with their high speed, really started to spread things out. Any of the ship staying in the fight (mainly the UPF light and heavy cruisers) I tracked on separate maps so they could loop around and come back in if the fight lasted that long.
The battleship, with its navigation control damage pulls a turn to port. Luckily its damaged hull holds together (rolled 24 on 14). The frigates, unable to reach the assault carrier, go after the destroyer at the top of the map. The light cruiser, with its limited maneuverability turns to try to come back around to the battle area. The UPF fighters make a final run at the sathar assault carrier before turning to return to their assault carrier. They also activate two more seeker missiles, one accelerates and slams into the remaining sathar fighter destroying it. The second starts to go after the battleship but as the battleship flies away, turns its sights on the sathar destroyer.
Defensively the sathar assault carrier misses its shots at the UPF fighters while the sathar destroyer hits the battleship for another 5% hull integrity loss and knocks out all of its maneuvering. The sathar destroyer connects with the damaged UPF frigate knocking out some of its engines and nearly destroying it.
Two of the three assault rockets from the UPF fighters connect with the sathar assault carrier, one of which scores a critical hit and between the two of them reduce the carriers hull integrity by another 64%. The UPF frigates, assault carrier and heavy cruiser all fire at the remaining sathar destroyer at the top of the map connecting with multiple weapons and destroying it. The battle ship hits the destroyer at the bottom of the map with a laser and electron battery reducing its hull integrity by another 24%.
Start of the cleanup phase for the UPF. Click for full size image.
Turn 5
The two remaining sathar ships are heavily damaged. The assault carrier just drifts away while the destroyer, with its navigation control system damaged pulls a hard turn to starboard and accelerates to speed 19. It doesn’t break up from the strain.
Defensively, the battleship is the only ship in range and it opens fire on the destroyer hitting with all of its battery weapons damaging its combat control system and short circuiting its defensive systems, knocking out its torpedo launcher, reducing its maneuverability, and slightly damaging its hull (6%).
Offensively, the destroyer fires back at the battleship and hits with both its rocket battery and a torpedo (the battleship’s ICM launcher is damaged) which both damage the battleships hull and nearly destroy it. It has only 6% hull integrity left.
If the destroyer hadn’t knocked out the battleship’s MR, it would definitely have broken up from the strain of the turn this round.
The seeker missile reverses course and heads after the battleship and sathar destroyer, the undamaged UPF frigate turns and accelerates to speed 24 to chase after the sathar assault carrier. The UPF heavy cruiser (off the top of the map) with no foreseeable danger to the damaged UPF assault carrier, turns and starts to pursue the sathar assault carrier as well. The light cruiser (off the bottom of the map) continues to slowly turn back to the combat area and the damaged battleship, frigate, and assault carrier just drift on their current course. Finally, the fighters start to close with the assault carrier to board and rearm.
Defensively the assault carrier fires at the oncoming frigate but misses. The destroyer takes its final shots at the battleship hitting with its laser battery. Unfortunately for the sathar, it only damages the battleship’s engines instead of damaging its hull.
Offensively, the battleship fires its final salvo, including a torpedo at the destroyer but only hitting with an electron battery damaging its engines and a proton battery knocking it out its rocket battery launcher . The UPF frigate fires at the sathar assault carrier but doesn’t hit at the extreme range.
Chasing down the stragglers. Click for full sized image.
Turn 6
The sathar assault carrier continues to drift while the destroyer’s navigation damage causes it to pull to port and fly up toward the planet, its reduced maneuverablity reducing its chance of breaking up and spreading out its movement. Defensively the frigate fires once again at the assault carrier, this time dialing in the range and hitting with both the laser battery (damaging the combat control system) and the laser cannon (16% hull integrity), nearly destroying the ship. The assault carrier returns fire but misses.
The UPF frigate chases down the assault carrier and surviving the defensive fire (laser battery hit for 18% hull integrity), hits the carrier with its laser cannon for 20% hull integrity and a rocket battery knocking out is proton battery and destroying it. The seeker missile continues to pursue the destroyer.
Main battlemap after an hour of combat. Most of the surviving combatants are off the map which has shifted down to keep the sathar assault carrier in view. Click for full size image.
Repair Turn 2
The two UPF frigates, assault carrier, and battleship all repair some of their hull while the assault carrier also repairs the short circuit in its defensive systems and the light cruiser restores complete maneuverability.
The sathar destroyer manages to repair 18% of its hull
Turn 7
The destroyer’s navigation control damage causes it to turn to port toward the light cruiser and it accelerates to continue to stay away from the seeker missile. The light cruiser, its maneuvering repaired continues a wide turn to avoid the seeker as well, otherwise, it could have closed on the sathar ship. The frigate turns after destroying the assault carrier, accelerating to chase after the destroyer. No shots are fired.
The map has shifted up again and the UPF light cruiser is back in view. It would have been visible last turn except for the map shift. Click for full size image.
Turn 8
Continuing to accelerate, the sathar destroyer’s navigation damage turns it to starboard and it passes within 40,000 km of the light cruiser. Defensive fire from the more distant frigate misses, but the light cruiser connects with its electron battery knocking out the destroyer’s masking screen. The destroyer returns fire and hits with its electron battery knocking out the cruiser’s ICM launcher.
The seeker missile continues to chase the ships but can’t catch them at their high speed. The light cruiser turns to run parallel to the sathar destroyer’s path. The frigate loops around and comes up directly behind the destroyer and the heavy cruiser completes it large turn and comes in directly at the destroyer.
Defensively, the destroyer fires at the frigate as it closes but misses with everything.
The light cruiser can only fire it’s EB and misses. The frigate fires its energy weapons (everything else is expended) and scores critical hits with both knocking out 52% of the sathar destroyer’s hull integrity (it only has 6% left). The heavy cruiser opens up with all of its energy weapons but misses as well.
Final positions of the ships still in view at the end of the end of the fight. The UPF heavy cruiser, has managed to turn around back to the battle area. Click for full sized image.
Turn 9
Now severely damaged after the hits from the frigate, and with the navigation control damage causing it to pull to starboard, the strain on the sathar destroyer’s hull is too much and the ship breaks apart as the crew tries to save it.
Task Force Cassidine has won the day, and while most of the capital ships are damaged (the heavy cruiser is the only one unscathed), they have only lost 3 fighters and three assault scouts. The crews get to work immediately upon field repairs.
Final Repairs
The frigate still in the fight completes its repairs in another half hour and just needs a reload to be fully operational. An hour an a half later the light cruiser finishes its repairs. An hour after that the other frigate completes as much repair as it can, its hull is only at 73% integrity but the rest of the work is going to need to be done at a shipyard. Another hour and a half (4.5 hours after the battle ended) the assault carrier completes all of its repairs. Finally, 6 hours after the battle is over the battleship completes the repairs of all its systems except for its stasis screen which is going to require a work in a shipyard.
Lessons Learned
I was really surprised the UPF did as well as they did. I really thought the sathar were going to win this one or at least leave Task Force Cassidine gutted. From a purely hull point perspective, the sathar had the advantage 631 to 518. Some lucky damage rolls, like the seeker missile doing 76 HP to the heavy cruiser on round two, and bad rolls on the sathar’s side, definitely helped tip the scales in their favor.
The other problem was that the sathar just couldn’t manage to finish off the UPF ships. The UPF battleship, one of the frigates, and the assault carrier were all nearly destroyed. They all were down to single digit hull points during the fight. The sathar just couldn’t manage to get the killing blow in. Those low hull points were late in the battle (expect for the assault carrier) so eliminating the ships would not have made much difference in this fight but eliminating them would have definitely helped the sathar’s war effort later on. As it is, Task Force Cassidine is almost completely intact. They will have to replace some fighters and assault scouts, but that’s relatively easy compared to having to replace a battleship and assault carrier.
What did you think of this fight? What should either side have done differently? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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.
Initial positions of this fight. Click for full size image.
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.
Initial closing movement. Click for full size image.
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.
Final positions when sathar frigate is destroyed. Click for full size image.
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.
Obviously, as I’ve been playing through the battles and coordinating the movements of the UPF and sathar forces for the Detailed Frontier Timeline, the events and conditions surrounding the Second Sathar War have been on my mind. A lot.
While the rules in the Knight Hawks Campaign Books are really geared around a balanced war game, I’ve been porting the scenario over more to the RPG side and looking at it from that perspective. In this post, I thought I’d collect some of the ideas I’ve had along the way. The topics are not necessarily connected or in any particular order but all relate to the how the Second Sathar War would impact or play out in the Frontier. So let’s get started
The Rim
I already mentioned this in one of the battle reports, but I’m not really considering the Rim in my narrative beyond the two battles I’ve already reported. I’ve never sat down and worked out the starship construction capabilities of the Rim, the order of battle for the Flight (the Rim’s version of Spacefleet), or any of those logistical considerations.
When I set this scenario up, literally decades ago, I didn’t have a copy of Zebulon’s Guide so the Rim was never in my considerations. Since I’m really just playing out that setup from so many years ago, and I never did the background work necessary for the Rim, they just weren’t part of the plan. I’m really just assuming that their fortunes go the same as in the Frontier.
Civilian and Megacorp Ships
I think handling these other Frontier ships is the biggest issue that moving this from a war game over to the RPG side of things needs to consider and I’m not sure how I’m going to address it completely yet.
In looking at starship construction based on the listed starship construction centers in the Frontier, I’ve estimated that without any changes to the SCCs, there are probably about 2300 ships flying around the Frontier, which is probably low. But let’s use that number to start.
There are 23 worlds in the Frontier (including Volturnus), so if you just divide those ships out, that’s about 100 ships per world. That probably shifts around a bit, for example, Laco, in Dixon’s Star, is an outpost world with very low population, so it probably doesn’t have as many ships. Neither would Volturnus. And the more heavily populated worlds probably have a little more. Morgaine’s World in Prenglar is also an outpost but since that’s the home of Spacefleet, I give them just as many ships as at least a medium population planet and say that those are all the Spacefleet ships.
Plus there are the ships that the megacorps own. We know that Streel and Pan Galactic have military ships, it stands to reason that WarTech and CDC do as well and I even gave some to Trans Travel in my timeline. So some fraction of those 2300 ships are going to be military vessels owned by the megacorps. All of which could do some damage to sathar ships invading a system.
Finally, and what I really want to focus on, is that given that piracy is a concern for ships in the setting, even the “non-military” ships are going to be armed to some extent or another, even if it is just a laser battery or three on any ship HS 6 or larger.
Let’s assume for a minute that every ship in the Frontier has at least a laser battery. Now some won’t have any weapons but others will have more than one so it probably all averages out. What happens if 50 of these ships decide to not sit idly by while Spacefleet dukes it out out with the sathar but join the fight?
First, lets just look at the “average” hull damage done by a laser battery. On the damage table, there is a 10% change of double hull damage, a 35% chance of regular hull damage and a 55% chance of damaging some other system. The laser battery does 1d10 damage for an average of 5.5 hull points of normal damage and 11 points when double damage is called for. Multiplying that out by the percentage that they occur means that on average, ignoring the damage from system hits, a hit by a laser battery does 3 HP of damage (11 points 10% of the time, 5.5 points 35% of the time and 0 points 55% of the time).
At an average of 3 HP of damage per hit, 14 hits kill a frigate, 17 kill a destroyer, 24 kill a light cruiser, 25 kill an assault carrier, and 27 kill a heavy cruiser. Do you see where this is going?
The next question is how often do these laser batteries hit? The base “average” chance to hit with a laser battery is 50%. But since laser batteries suffer from range diffusion, it’s only that high if the ships are within 10,000 km (1 hex on the game map) of each other. Getting that close means that the sathar can use their rocket batteries and torpedoes against you if they want and since these are civilian ships, we’ll assume they try really hard to stay out of the range of those weapons. So they shoot from 50,000 km (5 hexes) away and have a chance to hit of only 25%. Which means that the average laser battery shot, factoring in the miss rate, does a little over 0.75 HP of damage any given round.
That doesn’t seem like a lot, but remember that is an average taking into account of all the probabilities and that is per ship. So let’s look at those 50 ships. If you take 50 ships, each doing ~0.75 HP each time they fire, you have a combined damage output of 37-38 HP. And since the laser battery can fire both offensively and defensively, that doubles to about 75 HP each round of combat. That’s enough damage to take out any single ship expect a heavy cruiser.
And the truth is, that there is a good chance that the HP damage output is actually larger. We have 100 shots (50 ships, 2x each) at 25% to hit. So 25 of those shots hit the target. 11.25 (45%) of those do hull damage while the other 13.75 (55%) do system damage. But if the system damage results calls for a hit on a system already destroyed, you get hull damage instead. Some of those system hits are going to shift over to the hull side and increase the damage. (I really should write a program to analyze this and get the actual numbers.)
The bottom line is that in any give turn, that swarm of civilian ships could take out any one large sathar ship, two frigates, or a swarm of fighters.
From the sathar side, there is really nothing you can do about this. You are looking at 25-50 targets (depending on how you distribute the laser batteries), each with 30 or more HP, and taking out 2 or 3 each round is not going to make much difference in their damage output. They will overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Death by a thousand cuts.
This is something that the war game doesn’t have to deal with but which will definitely come into play in an RPG-level look at the conflict. Maybe the civilian and mega-corps ships won’t get involved. But if their worlds are threatened, I don’t really see them not stepping up, at least a good number of them. And what if Spacefleet calls for a 3rd Common Muster? (There has to be something in the UPF charter about that.) Then they will be involved. The sathar are going to need more ships.
Starship Construction Centers
In the war game, ship construction and replacement is very abstracted. Every 20 days, the UPF get 2 fighters and/or assault scouts for each fortified station on the map and a capital ship for every fortress. The sathar just have a base 35% chance to replace every ship lost in the previous 20 days.
A big part of this project for me was to see how using the starship construction rules, combined with the distribution of UPF starship construction centers, and giving the sathar some SCCs as well, would play out in the logistics of what ships were available for combat. I knew this would drag things out as you couldn’t replace ships that quickly but wanted to see what would actually happen. We’ll find out as this plays out.
But, as the first battles have been fought, and the UPF is looking to replace ships, I started really looking at the distribution of the SCCs in the Frontier. Until now I had just taken them for granted and not though much about it. And for the most part, the type of construction center and its location make sense for the SCCs described in the book. Analyzing that (and maybe reorganizing them) may be another post in the future. But three of the SCCs stood out as a little odd. Let’s look at those from least troublesome to most (in my opinion).
Clarion (White Light)
This is a Type III SCC which means it can have up to 20 hull sizes (HS) of ships under construction but they cannot be military vessels and cannot have atomic drives.
To me, this feels a little bit odd. White Light is the nexus for jumps to four different systems so it’s a major hub system (and the only access to Theseus). Maybe because it is the setting for the Warirors of White Light adventures but it seems to me that there should be a more major construction center here.
However, with the Type II center just a system away in Theseus, and the fact that the main output of the planet is resources, not industrial products, maybe having a small shipyard is okay even if the planet does have a high population and is a major crossroads.
Outer Reach (Dramune)
Like at Clarion, the Outer Reach shipyard is a Type III SCC. There are a couple of things that stand out for me here.
One is the lack of an SCC at Inner Reach. Given the animosity between the two worlds, which is part of the canon background material before you even factor in the events of the Dramune Run module, and the fact that animosity has erupted into fighting in the past, if Outer Reach has a SCC, I would expect Inner Reach to have one as well. I don’t see them being willing to wait for ships to come in from Fromeltar or Cassidine, they would want to be able to build them themselves.
The other issue I have is the SCC class. As a Type III SCC, this shipyard is not supposed to have the capability to produce military vessels or ones that use atomic drives. But since this world is the home of a major crime syndicate, and supplies and supports pirates, I see this shipyard as where many of those pirate vessels, which are assault scouts, corvettes, and frigates, are created. Thus the shipyard can obviously handle military class vessels and atomic drives and should really be a Type II.
Because of this, for the Second Sathar War, I’m classifying this shipyard as a Type II-s (the s is for small). It can still only handle 20 HS of ships total like a Type III SCC, but like a Type II, can build ships with atomic drives and military ships up to HS 6 (i.e. destroyers).
Pale (Truane’s Star)
This is the one that baffles me the most. The rules say that this is another Type III shipyard. Pale is classified as a medium population, which tends to indicate a smaller shipyard, but its main economies are industry and resources, which would lend itself to ship building and therefore a larger SCC. Having a Type III SCC here just doesn’t make sense to me for a couple of reasons.
First, everyone knows that the sathar have a jump route into the Frontier that goes through Truane’s Star. This was the locus of the First Sathar War that resulted in the founding of the UPF. Spacefleet has a fortress here, it would stand to reason that there should be a good shipyard to build up ships here as well.
Second, and more important to me, this is the world where Streel is headquartered. We know they make ships, the corvette is designed by them, and they have a number of ships to fight against the ships of the Pan Galactic Corporation in the corporate wars. Assuming the shipyard at Gran Quivera (Prenglar) is owned by PGC where they have their headquarters, and the one at Triad (Cassidine) is owned by the Cassidine Development Corporation where they have theirs, if the #1 and #3 megacorps have Type I SCCs, then the #2 megacorp should have at least a Type II shipyard, If not a Type I. It’s a matter of corporate pride and sustainability. I mean, if they don’t have their own shipyard, PGC and CDC could just deny building them ships and they’d have to travel even farther afield to Hentz or Fromeltar to get ships build. It just doesn’t make sense.
I’m leaving it as a Type III SCC for the Second Sathar War in the timeline, but if I ever revisit the SCC distribution in the Frontier, I think Pale will be getting a bigger one.
Other Thoughts
It seems I had one more item that I wanted to talk about but it is slipping my mind at the moment and I didn’t write it down when the idea occurred to me to write this post a week or so ago. If it does come back to me, I’ll have a topic for a future post.
Overall, the sathar did not fare too well in their initial foray into the Frontier. In fact, if this was just the war game, they may very well have lost the game as I believe every retreat condition that the sathar players could have chosen have been met. Although if I was using those retreat conditions, I probably would have set things up a little differently and made a few different choices. However, I’m not using those conditions directly and the sathar have another wave of ships coming later this month. After that, however, it might be a while as they rebuild their forces.
This post has given me the idea for a few other posts that may show up in the future. The first looking at the distribution of starship construction centers in the Frontier (and probably the Rim) and another looking at the average damage output by the different ship types. The third one would be a look at exactly what is in the UPF Charter. We’ll see when or if those actually materialize.
Have you ever tried to incorporate, in detail, the Second Sathar War into your campaign? What assumptions did you make and what ideas did you incorporate? What other ideas should I consider? Let me know in the comments below.
Arriving from the recent engagement in the K’tsa-Kar system, the local militia ships, together with elements from Spacefleet arrive back at Ken’zah-Kit just as the sathar arrived at the planet. Arriving just too late to prevent the destruction of the fortified defense station in orbit, the militia and Spacefleet vessels made quick work of the sathar invaders, destroying all five ships in just twenty minutes of fighting.
While several ships will need time in a starship construction center to complete repairs, the only loss, beyond the station, was one of the militia assault scouts which was lost with all hands.
With Task Force Cassidine in-system and only three days out, it feels like Ken’zah-Kit is secure for now.
Rak’tal-ka, StarPlay News
Background
The UPF forces had wanted to engage the sathar in deep space, but having jumped in on the opposite side of the system, they were only able to intercept the attacking forces as they approached the planet. The frigate UPFS Flying Cloud, which has been on a continuous high speed transit from the Liberty system before the fighting started, finally joins up with the rest of PG Meteor just a day before the sathar are engaged. Task Force Cassidine is also in the K’aken Kar system. However, they just jumped in a day ago and are too far away to participate in this fight.
With Task Force Cassidine coming in behind them and the militia and PG Meteor ahead of them, the sathar have to fight and intend to take on the smaller group first, hoping to defeat them and then join up with SBF-B2 that is currently en route from the K’tsa-Kar system before taking on the UPF task force.
While the UPF have more ships, the sathar have a slight hull advantage in this fight. It was supposed to be a tough fight for the UPF forces.
Order of Battle
K’aken-Kar Militia
2 assault scouts
1 fortified station
UPF – PG Meteor
3 assault scouts
1 frigate
2 destroyers
Sathar
1 frigate
2 destroyers
1 light cruiser
1 heavy cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The station is on the side of the planet facing the invading sathar forces and orbiting counterclockwise. With both fleets racing to intercept and coming directly from jumps into the system from opposite directions, they are starting on opposite sides of the map. The K’aken-Kar militia and PG Virgo are coming in fast on the left side of the map moving at speed 30. The K’aken-Kar militia assault scouts are high above the planet with the UPF assault scouts are below the planet. The frigate and destroyer are flying in formation in the middle and come in just above the planet.
The sathar, moving fast at speed 25, appear in their standard diamond formation headed straight at the station and planet. They intend to make a fast run at the station before engaging the smaller ships.
Initial positions for the battle. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar maintain their speed making a full frontal assault on the station, veering off just 20,000 km away to avoid colliding with the planet and turn toward the UPF capital ships and the militia.
Defensively, the stations fires all of its weapons at the closest sathar destroyer hitting with its laser batteries knocking out the destroyer’s masking screen launcher and causing an electrical fire. It also fires all of its ICMs at the salvo of incoming torpedoes.
Offensively, the sathar fire every weapon they have at the station. The UPF and militia forces can only watch helplessly as 17 of the 26 weapons fired, including 3 torpedoes that made it through the ICM screen, connect with the station and obliterate it.
Angered by the destruction of the station, the Frontier forces swoop in to exact their revenge. The UPF assault scouts use their maximum acceleration and swing up from below the planet to fire at the lower destroyer. The militia assault scouts line up for an assault rocket run at the sathar frigate and then veer off behind the planet, accelerating to speed 34. The frigate and destroyers slow to speed 29 to just come within rocket battery range and fire on the sathar heavy cruiser; they turn away from the planet at the last moment to prepare to fire at the sathar ships as they fly by.
Defensively, the sathar frigate and light cruiser fire their energy weapons at the militia assault scouts, each targeting a single ship, and their rocket batteries at the UPF frigate. The other three ships target the lead UPF destroyer. The sathar frigate misses completely but the light cruiser connects with its laser battery and electron battery damaging the assault scout’s engines and causing a loss of navigation control. It also hits the frigate with the rocket battery knocking out its laser cannon. The other sathar ships don’t do much better with the far destroyer and heavy cruiser missing completely while the closer destroyer only hits with its electron battery shorting out the UPF ship’s defensive systems.
While the gunners on the sathar vessels were not very effective, the same cannot be said for the gunners on the Frontier ships. The militia ships hit with one laser battery and both assault rockets destroying the sathar frigate. Similarly, the UPF assault scouts hit the lower destroyer with a laser battery and two assault rockets destroying that vessel. The UPF capital ships fare nearly as well. While the torpedoes didn’t make it through the screen of ICMs fired by the heavy cruiser, the large ship was still hit by a rocket battery from the frigate and each destroyer hit with their laser cannon, laser battery, and a rocket battery. Combined, the damage from the weapons disabled the cruiser’s distruptor cannon, damaged its engines, knocked out its maneuvering, and seriously damaged it, leaving it’s hull integrity at a mere 26 percent.
Courses and positions after the first round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
Seriously damaged, the sathar heavy cruiser just drifts away from the battle firing at the UPF frigate as it passes. The light cruiser and surviving destroyer loop around the planet (speed 25 and 26), buzzing the UPF capital ships and firing their torpedoes at the lead destroyer. They then train all of their energy weapons on the militia assault scouts and fire their rocket batteries at the UPF assault scouts.
Defensively, the UPF frigate fires at the heavy cruiser and connects with its laser cannon, cutting the large ship’s remaining hull integrity by over half but not quite destroying it. The UPF destroyers fire at the remaining sathar destroyer only missing with a rocket and laser battery. The weapons that do hit knock out the destroyer’s electron battery before ripping its hull to shreds. The assault scouts all fire at the light cruiser and two of the UPF assault scouts hit knocking out the light cruiser’s laser batter and causing significant hull damage with maximum damage laser battery hit (20 HP).
Of the weapons brought to bear, only the heavy cruiser’s electron battery misses the UPF frigate with the torpedo slipping through the ICM screen. The frigate has its damage and navigation control systems comprised and its hull severely damaged, knocking its hull integrity down to just 32 percent. The torpedo from the light cruiser misses the UPF destroyer, but it hits the trailing militia assault scout with it’s proton battery and distruptor cannon destroying it. It also hits one of the UPF assault scouts with the rocket battery knocking its hull integrity down to less than half.
The 3 UPF Assault scouts chase after the Heavy cruiser while the destroyers and surviving militia assault scout go after the light cruiser. The UPF Flying Cloud (frigate) with a damaged navigation control system, pulls a hard turn to starboard, looping around the planet. It manages to hold its damaged hull together and not break up from the strain of the maneuver.
The heavy cruiser fires at the incoming assault scouts but only hits one with a laser battery knocking its hull integrity to just 33 percent. The light cruiser fires at the militia assault scout hitting with an electron battery knocking out half of the small ship’s hull integrity. It fires its rocket battery at the lead UPF destroyer but misses.
The UPF assault scouts hit the heavy cruiser with 2 of their assault rockets finally destroying the larger vessel. The other ships combine their fire on the light cruiser hitting with 2 laser canons, a laser and rocket battery, and an assault rocket and torpedo. The torpedo took out the cruiser’s proton screen but the other weapons all ripped into its hull destroying it.
Final moves and positions. The heavy cruiser and assault scouts are an additional 8 hexes off the map with the assault scouts veering of at a range of 4 hexes after making their assault rocket attack. Click for full size image.
Repairs
The UPF frigate manages to hold together after another hard turn to port and then gets its navigation control issues fixed despite its reduced damage control capabilities. Over the next 3 hours it repairs the rest of its systems but can only get its hull to 75% without spending time in a shipyard. The militia assault scout repairs some of it’s hull but only gets it back to 66% before running into issues that will require a shipyard. The UPF assault scout hit by the heavy cruiser repairs most of its hull but has a little (13%) that needs attention in a shipyard. The other assault scout and the damaged destroyer get all their systems back online in under an hour.
Lessons Learned
This one didn’t go anything like I expected. With the ships staring out on the opposite sides of the map, I knew the sathar would get a free round on the station. I expected them to take out the station (it was a primary target) but maybe not as spectacularly as they did (170 of 140 HP with three weapons, including 2 torpedoes, doing double damage).
From there everything went pear shaped for the sathar. Their tactics were actually pretty sound but their gunners couldn’t hit to save their lives (literally). The sathar light cruiser gunners did just fine, constantly hitting their targets but the other ships, beyond hitting the station, were not so accurate. This really didn’t help the sathars’ cause as they were unable to eliminate the assault scouts and suffered a few more assault rocket hits than they would have liked.
That, combined with the absolutely amazing firing from the UPF, both just in accuracy in hitting and also some well-placed double-damage rolls on the first round (two AR for 34 HP each on the frigate and destroyer, a LB hit for 14 HP on the destroyer, and a RB hit for 34 HP on the heavy cruiser), destroyed two of the sathar ships and seriously wounded a third right off the bat shifting the balance of power to the UPF. Had those ships survived that first round, the UPF would have probably still won but the casualty list would have been much higher. The rapid destruction of the ships on round one allowed the UPF to focus their fire on round 2 and keep the engagement short.
The incoming SBF-B2, being a just slightly larger version of the fleet destroyed here (an extra destroyer plus an assault carrier with 7 fighters) doesn’t have a chance against the combined forces of Task Force Cassidine (which is roughly the same strength, substituting a frigate, 3 assault scouts and a battleship for the three sathar destroyers), PG Meteor, and the surviving militia assault scout. The sathar are going to have to reasses their strategy.
This will be the last battle I report that occurs in the Rim. I had these two battles set up in the timeline already so I’ve been reporting them. And while I really should have handled the sathar and Rim interaction in this timeline, the truth is I have never really worked out what the Rim has in terms of ships and ship production capability. So that will have to be a project for a future date.
A second sathar force was engaged today in the space around Stenmar by the surviving Flight elements in the system. Lacking reinforcements from the core Rim systems, the Flight forces were severely outnumbered and succumbed quickly to the sathar onslaught with only a single fighter surviving to seek shelter in the outer system. Before being overwhelmed, Flight forces managed to destroy a sathar light cruiser and a new vessel never seen in the Rim before.
Limited reports from the battle indicate this new sathar vessel falls in size between an assault scout and a frigate and seems to sport dual laser batteries. Not much more is known due to the limited engagement and savagery of the sathar attack.
Kaarln Duggart – Stenmar News Syndicate
Background
Intended to reinforce the original fleet sent to the Kazak system, this battle fleet was already preparing to depart when the first battle occurred. Surprised by the initial resistance in the Kazak system, the sathar committed their four new Cutter-class vessels to the conflict as well to boost the firepower of the fleet.
Worried about sathar incursions into the core Rim worlds, no reinforcements for the Kazak system were readily available so the surviving elements of the Flight from the first battle were all that remained to face the new onslaught. Seriously outgunned, they hope to pull off another victory relying on the success they had in the first battle with their assault rocket attacks.
The sathar have other plans.
Order of Battle
The Flight
10 Fighters
2 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
1 Fortified Station
Sathar
4 Cutters
1 Frigate
3 Destroyers
2 Light Cruisers
The Battle
Setup
The station is on the side of the planet directly opposite the sathar, orbiting counter clockwise. The Rim forces form up close to the planet with the frigate and a wing of 5 fighters above the planet and the assault scouts and remaining fighters below the planet. They are all moving at speed 20.
Having learned from the engagement at New Pale (Truane’s Star) four days earlier, the sathar forces come in fast, starting at speed 25. They form up directly opposite the Flight forces allowing them to bring their forward firing cannons to bear in the initial engagement, knowing that in later phases of the battle, this might not be possible due to the higher maneuverability of the Rim ships. The cutters form a flight to square off against the upper flight of fighters, a frigate and destroyer line up opposite the Rim’s frigate, the remaining two destroyers go after the assault scouts and the light cruisers plan to take on the lower group of fighters.
Initial setup for the conflict. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar all fly straight toward their intended targets. The cutters accelerate to speed 29 to come into point blank range with their laser batteries while all the other ships accelerate slightly to speed 26 to bring them within range for their rocket batteries.
Defensively the frigate and station fire at the sathar frigate hitting with a laser cannon and rocket battery from the frigate and a laser battery from the station. They manage to damage the frigate’s engines, knock out its masking screen launcher, and reduce its hull integrity by over half from a well placed hit with the rocket battery. The assault scouts fire at the lead destroyer and manage to inflict some minor hull damage with one of their laser batteries.
The sathar cutters open fire on the upper flight of fighters with their dual laser batteries, nearly destroying the lead fighter, damaging and reducing the maneuverability of her wingman, and destroying a third fighter. They missed the other two.
The sathar destroyer hit the Rim frigate with its laser weapons starting a fire and damaging the ship’s engines. The gunners on the sathar frigate must be veterans or well trained as they landed a hit on the Rim frigate with nearly every weapon fired, only missing with the laser battery. They knocked out the Rim vessel’s masking screen and damaged it’s hull with the laser cannon and rocket battery before it was obliterated by the torpedo.
The two fighters and remaining assault scout, all seriously damaged, just drift forward. The other fighters accelerate to 25 and loop around remaining out of range of the sathar energy weapons. They all fire at their closest target as they fly out.
Defensively the sathar continue to fire at the same targets expect that the frigate and two of the destroyers shift their fire to the station. The cutters finish off the two wounded fighters in the upper group and hit a third for serious hull damage an a navigation control hit. The fourth fighter remains unscathed. The light cruisers are not as effective with the first hitting one fighter for some minor hull damage, and another knocking out its engines. The other light cruiser misses with all weapons. While the destroyers both miss the station, the frigate hits with is laser and rocket battery doing some significant hull damage.
The assault scout hits the lead sathar destroyer with its assault rocket damaging its maneuvering. One of the cutters is hit with 2 assault rockets damaging its engines and nearly destroying it. The lead light cruiser is hit by all four assault rockets which rip through the hull destroying it.
Initial round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
The damaged sathar cutter and frigate drift away from the battle hoping to survive and get repairs done while the other ships finish off the Rim forces. All the other sathar ships loop around the planet to attack both the station and the surviving Flight vessels.
The surviving cutters loop around to go after the larger group of fighters below the planet. The two destroyers go after the group of fighters above the planet. The remaining light cruiser and third destroyer go after the Rim assault scout. The ships use their energy weapons on the smaller ships while firing their rocket batteries and torpedoes at the station.
Defensively the station fires at the cutter and frigate that are drifting away attempting to finish them off. The laser battery hits the cutter inducing a navigation control hit while the rocket battery hits the frigate knocking out some of its acceleration ability. The assault scout fires at the destroyer chasing it cause some significant hull damage with its laser battery.
The lead sathar destroyer in the upper flight only hits the lead Rim fighter with its laser battery inducing a loss of navigation control. The other destroyer is much more effective hitting with all three energy weapons destroying the other fighter.
The cutters eliminate two of the four fighters in the lower group, completely missed a third, and damaged the navigation control system on the the fourth. The third sathar destroyer hit the lone assault scout with its laser canon, destroying the smaller vessel.
The station fires all its ICMs at the incoming torpedoes. Despite this, 3 of the 5 torpedoes, and an equal number of rocket batteries slam into the station from different directions completely destroying it.
The lone Rim fighter above the planet, spinning out of control, manages to line up for a shot on the sathar destroyers, but the destroyers hit it with an electron battery that knocks out the assault rocket launcher before it can fire. The undamaged fighter in the lower group, hoping to eliminate the crippled ships to prevent their repair and subsequent use, races off after the damaged frigate and cutter, unfortunately, it is hit by two laser batteries from the cutters, destroying it before it can catch the crippled ships. The final fighter, its navigation control system damaged, spins to port and manages to get an oblique shot with it assault rocket launcher at one of the cutters, scoring serious hull damage on the ship (just over 60% of its total). Amazing, the fighter flies through the barrage of laser batteries unscathed.
Positions and courses at the end of the second round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
The damaged seriously damaged cutter with the navigation control damage pull a hard turn to port and breaks up from the strain of the maneuver. The sathar light cruiser and destroyer chase down the fighter that escaped the cutters and eliminate it with their energy weapons. The sathar allow the other fighter to escape.
Repairs
The damaged Rim fighter gets its navigation system repaired and, realizing it is no match for the combined sathar fleet, heads out to the outer system to find somewhere to take shelter.
Over the next hour and a half, the sathar repair what damage they can. All of the damage to internal systems are repaired but the three ships with hull damage (a cutter, the frigate, and a destroyer) all require time in a starship construction center to fully repair, the cutter and frigate are seriously damaged with less than half of the their hull integrity intact while the destroyer only has a small bit of damage.
Lessons Learned
The Rim leaders were forcibly reminded that while the fighters and assault scouts pack a serious offensive punch, they have little to no defensive capability and quickly succumbed to the overwhelming sathar fire without being able to return much of their own. With a lack of capital ships by Flight, the sathar effectively got two shots for every one that the Rim forces had.
The rapid advance of the sathar forces, here and at New Pale, have shown that the Rim and UPF fighters are quite vulnerable to a first strike by sathar forces that target them. They are going to have to stand off further from the beginning of the battle in future engagements so that the sathar cannot have that first strike advantage.
The sathar cutters seem to be effective against the small ships with their pairs of laser batteries and could proved to be quite useful in an anti-fighter role.
This battle actually occurred two days ago in the timeline. However, since I was still catching up on the battles from the opening day of the conflict, this posting got delayed. Going forward, the battles will be much less frequent and the battle reports will arrive on they day they occur.
After a nearly an hour of intense battle around New Pale, militia and UPF forces manage to drive off the invading sathar fleet destroying two sathar vessels and seriously damaging the other three.
Unfortunately, due to heavy losses and critical damage, the UPF and militia forces were unable to pursue the fleeing sathar ships which began accelerating out of the system for a jump back to Zebulon shortly after the battle ended.
While the sathar have been driven off, the losses around New Pale represent the most damage to militia forces yet seen in this conflict and the second highest loss of ships overall, coming in only after the massive battle at Prenglar two days ago.
Goolar Nadd, New Pale News
Background
The Truane’s Star militia is supported by the remaining elements of Patrol Group Virgo which just returned from being stationed in the Kazak system in the Rim days before the sathar fleets appeared. Bolstered by the Spacefleet forces, and having seen the success of the UPF forces in the other systems two days prior, confidence is high that they can defeat the sathar ships.
The sathar have learned from those other engagements as well. Knowing that there is a second fleet en route just 11 days behind them, this battle fleet has some very specific orders: Eliminate the fighters and assault scouts!
Order of Battle
Had Patrol Group Virgo not been in the system, and the militia not had the extra assault scout, this would have been the scenario I presented as “A Pale Prospect” in the Stand Your Ground article in issue 3 of the Frontier Explorer (p30) back in 2013. Before starting this timeline project, this is how I thought the first fight in Truane’s Star would play out.
However, the additional ships completely change the dynamics and with the sathar’s new tactics, this turned out to be the most interesting battle for me so far as it did not go at all as I expected. And the high speeds meant that the ships were flying everywhere on the map.
Truane’s Star Militia
4 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
Note that this is one more assault scout than described in the order of battle for the game in the KH Campaign Book. They captured this assault scout from the Star Devil pirates early in the timeline so it is available in the fight.
UPF – PG Virgo
8 Fighters
2 Assault Scouts
2 Light Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier
Sathar
1 Frigate
2 Destroyers
1 Light Cruiser
1 Heavy Cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The UPF and militia forces, deploying tactics that have worked in the other systems, set up in a broad line with the smaller ships on the outside, the two LC near the station at speed 15, with the assault scouts split into a flight of 4 (below the planet) and 3 (above), both groups at speed 20, and a flight of 4 fighters on either wing at speed 25. The assault carrier is on the far side of the planet orbiting at speed 10 with the militia frigate acting as escort. The station is in on the far side of the planet from the approaching sathar and orbiting counter clockwise.
The sathar, however, are not using the tactics they have used in other systems. With their new directive, they come in fast, high above the planet at a speed of 25! Additionally, they are formed up in an inverted form of their standard diamond formation with the heavier ships leading and headed straight for the upper group of fighters.
Initial positions of the UPF and sathar forces. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar ships advance straight at the fighters and at the last moment turn toward the upper group of assault scouts. The heavy cruiser remains at speed 25, while the light cruiser and frigate accelerate by 1 and 2 respectively to join up with the larger ship. They fire all weapons expect their torpedoes at the flight of 4 fighters. The destroyers accelerate to speed 27 and 28 and join up directing all their fire at the flight of assault scouts.
Defensively only the upper light cruiser and flight of assault scouts are in range and they fire everything at the lead destroyer. Only the light cruiser connects with its laser battery doing some minor hull damage.
The sathar open with a devastating barrage at the smaller ships. The light cruiser’s disruptor cannon vaporizes the lead fighter, while the disruptor cannon from the heavy cruiser knocks out the assault rocket launcher on his wingman. The third fighter is hit by a pair of laser batteries and the sathar frigate’s laser cannon damaging its acceleration and navigation control system and nearly destroying it. The final fighter is hit by an electron battery and destroyed.
The destroyers do just as well. The lead militia assault scout is hit by a laser battery, electron battery, and laser canon destroying it. The second assault scout is hit by a laser battery and laser cannon and also destroyed. The last assault scout in the group is hit by an electron battery and rocket battery knocking out its assault rocket launcher and nearly destroying the ship.
The sathar have done well, eliminating four ships and knocking out the assault rocket launchers on two others and severely damaging the last. Caught off-guard by the speed of the sathar advance and initial devastation, the UPF and militia forces scramble to react.
The surviving assault scout, heavily damaged, just drifts away from the battle at speed 20. The fighter with the damaged navigation control system pulls a hard turn to starboard remaining at speed 25 and flies away from the battle. Luckily, it doesn’t break up from the maneuver. The other fighter, relatively undamaged but unable to fight due to the loss of its assault rocket launcher, loops away from the sathar ships back toward the assault carrier and slows to speed 20.
The assault carrier and frigate accelerate to speed 12 and turn away from the oncoming ships. All of the other UPF and militia ships loop around and head toward the group of sathar ships centered on the heavy cruiser, the ships coming from below the station accelerating to get in range.
Defensively, the sathar continue to focus on the smaller ships firing all their energy battery weapons at the incoming fighters and their cannons at the wounded assault scout as it drifts by. They fire their rocket batteries at the light cruiser that has come into range.
All five cannons hit the assault scout causing a fire and damage to its maneuvering and damage control system before destroying it. Three of the five rocket batteries slam into the UPF light cruiser disabling its ICM launcher, completely knocking out its maneuvering and doing significant hull damage. The lead fighter is hit by a laser battery reducing its acceleration ability while the shots at the second fighter completely miss. The third fighter is hit by a laser and electron battery and destroyed. The final fighter takes a hit from an electron battery which starts an electrical fire on-board.
The surviving fighters with operational assault rockets fire at the light cruiser, three of which hit doing significant hull damage and causing a power short circuit knocking out its screens and ICMS. The assault scouts and more distant light cruiser fire at the heavy cruiser. Only two of the assault rockets from the assault scouts hit but cause significant hull damage (65% of total). The light cruiser hits with its laser battery and disruptor canon knocking out the heavy cruiser’s distruptor canon and acceleration capability. The other light cruiser hits the sathar frigate with its laser, electron, and proton batteries knocking out most of its acceleration ability and causing a fire.
Positions and courses of the ships at the beginning of the battle. Click for full image.
Turn 2
Unable to accelerate, the sathar heavy cruiser drifts down toward the assault carrier. It fires at the militia assault scouts with its energy weapons and its rocket weapons at the damaged light cruiser. The sathar destroyers decelerate and make a run at the undamaged light cruiser. The sathar light cruiser and frigate loop around and fire all their energy weapons and rocket batteries at the fighters and UPF assault scouts while they fire their torpedoes at the damaged light cruiser. The fire on the UPF fighter burns through over half of the small ship’s hull.
Defensively, the two UPF light cruisers focus their fire on their sathar counterpart hitting with multiple weapons reducing its acceleration ability, inducing a navigation control failure, knocking out its ICMs, and doing more damage to its hull but not destroying it. The assault scouts fire at the sathar frigate and hit with 2 laser batteries causing some minor hull damage. The station fires at one of the destroyers as they pass but misses and the assault carrier and militia frigate take long range shots at the heavy cruiser but also miss.
The militia assault scouts are both hit by a laser battery which knocks out all the maneuvering capability on one and slight reduces the maneuvering on the other. The lead (damaged) UPF light cruiser is hit by a rocket battery and torpedo doing some minor hull damage and shorting out its screens and ICMs. The trailing UPF light cruiser is pummeled by the destroyers having its screens and ICMs disabled and losing over half of its hull integrity.
The three fighters are each hit with a battery weapon destroying one, reducing the damage control capability on the second, and damaging the navigation control system on the third. The two UPF assault scouts are hit by a rocket battery and distruptor cannon respectively that knock out just over half of the first’s hull integrity and damages the assault rocket launcher on the second.
The seriously damaged fighter (off the top of the map) continues to spin out of control but still manages to hold together. The fighter with the disabled assault rocket launcher continues to approach the assault carrier, and the other fighter with the navigation control spins hard to starboard and flies off the top of the map. The assault carrier accelerates to speed 14 and loops down under the path of the heavy cruiser. The militia frigate splits off from the assault carrier and turns to engage the heavy cruiser. The lead light cruiser, its maneuvering knocked out, decelerates to speed 12 and drifts straight, currently out of the fight but trying not to get too far away. The other light cruiser turns to follow the heavy cruiser and manages to hold together through the maneuvering. The militia assault scout with no maneuvering left, decelerates as much as possible to avoid passing the sathar light cruiser and coming in range of its disruptor cannon. Unfortunately, it is now only 10,000 km away. The fighters still in the fight fire at the frigate while the assault scouts fire at the light cruiser. The fire on the sathar frigate does some minor hull damage.
Defensively the frigate and light cruiser fire at the assault scouts and fighters, destroying one of the fighters and seriously damaging the hull of the non-maneuvering assault scout and causing a fire on the same ship. The heavy cruiser fires at the militia frigate and knocks out its masking screens and reduces its acceleration ability.
Offensively, the frigate is hit by one assault rocket knocking out its laser battery, the light cruiser is hit by an assault rocket and two laser batteries destroying it, and the heavy cruiser is hit by the militia frigate’s laser canon knocking out its ICMs.
Courses and final positions after 20 minutes of fighting. Click for full image.
Turn 3
The sathar frigate accelerates and makes a pass at the assault scouts. The destroyers loop around to fire at the UPF light cruiser, and the heavy cruiser turns to strafe the assault carrier and flies out of the battle. The fire on the UPF assault scout burns through the hull destroying it.
Defensively, the assault scouts fire at the frigate and hit with a laser battery knocking out its laser canon. The station scores a long distance hit on the lead sathar destroyer knocking out its ICM launcher. The assault carrier hits the heavy cruiser knocking out its maneuvering engines. All other defensive fire misses.
Offensively, the sathar frigate hits the lead assault scout with a rocket battery, destroying it but misses with the torpedo aimed at the other assault scout. The sathar destroyers hit the UPF light cruiser with nearly everything, including both rocket batteries and torpedoes, and destroy it. The heavy cruiser hits the assault carrier with all of its energy battery weapons but the torpedo is intercepted by ICMs launched by the carrier. The hits knock out its navigation control system and causing some minor hull damage.
The two UPF fighters off the map continue to spin out of control but the damaged one doesn’t break up. The assault scouts make another run at the sathar frigate. The militia frigate strafes the sathar destroyers focusing its fire on the lead one and then loops around the planet. The lone UPF fighter continues to follow the assault carrier. The light cruiser off the map slows to speed 9. The assault carrier’s damaged navigation control system pulls it to port and it fires at the lead sathar destroyer as it passes by. The fire on the sathar frigate does some minor hull damage.
Defensively, the sathar destroyers fire at the militia frigate and while the lead frigate misses, the other hits with its laser and electron batteries knocking out the frigates laser cannon and maneuvering engines The defensive fire at the assault scouts miss.
The assault scouts hit the sathar frigate with a laser battery and assault rocket damaging its hull and knocking out its masking screens. From all the shots at the lead sathar destroyer, it is hit by a proton, rocket, and laser battery doing some significant hull damage.
Positions and courses at the end of the first half hour of battle. Click for full image.
Repair Turn
Almost every ship in the fight has some damage at this point. The only one that isn’t is one of the sathar destroyers.
On the UPF side, the fighter trailing the assault carrier, as well as the second UPF assault scout, repair their assault rocket launchers. The fighter that’s been spinning out of control from the beginning of the fight manages to repair its navigation control system as does the assault carrier. The carrier also repairs some of its hull. The militia frigate restores some of its maneuverability as does the light cruiser off the map. Unfortunately, the light cruiser’s hull repair runs into significant problems and its hull can only be repaired in a shipyard.
The sathar frigate puts out the fire while the other two ships repair some of their hull damage.
Turn 4
The sathar heavy cruiser, unable to maneuver and not wanting to risk acceleration and breaking up with its weakened hull, continues to drift away from the fight (its already off the map). The frigate, out of rocket weapons and with its energy weapons knocked out, is unable to fight and turns to follow the heavy cruiser, accelerating as much as possible with its damaged engines. The destroyers loop around the planet and strafe the assault scouts each firing all their energy weapons (their rockets and torpedoes are depleted) at a different assault scout.
Defensively, all ships fire at the lead sathar destroyer. The assault carrier and station hit knocking out its navigation control system and electron battery and causing some minor hull damage.
The lead sathar destroyer hits the surviving militia assault scout with it’s laser canon nearly destroying it. The other destroyer hits the UPF assault scout knocking out half of its hull integrity with it’s laser battery and damaging its combat control system with its electron battery.
The seriously wounded UPF ships continue to drift away from the battle or spin out of control while those that can, converge on the sathar destroyers again firing at the lead destroyer. The light cruiser (off the map) accelerates and starts to turn back toward the battle now that it has some maneuvering capability restored. With its limited maneuverability the militia frigate turns and takes long distance shots at the destroyers.
Defensively the destroyers fire their laser cannons at the militia frigate (which miss) and their energy batteries at the fighter and assault scout. Th trailing destroyer hits the assault scout with its electron battery slightly damaging its hull.
The UPF fighter and assault scout both hit the lead destroyer with their assault rockets. The fighter, frustrated at being out of the battle from the start, scores a massive hit knocking out nearly half of the destroyer’s hull integrity. The other assault rocket damages the destroyer’s combat control system. The gunner on the militia frigate lands an amazing long distance shot with the laser battery scoring a maximum damage hit and destroying the sathar vessel.
Positions and paths at the end of the fourth round of combat. There aren’t too many ships left and many have left the battle. Click for full sized image.
Turn 5
Knowing that it can out run the assault carrier, the destroyer fires its laser battery at the fighter and electron battery at the assault scout attempting to take them out of the fight and accelerates at maximum thrust to fly off after the heavy cruiser and frigate.
The assault scout and assault carrier return fire hitting with all of their batteries damaging the destroyer’s engines slightly and weakening its hull. The sathar’s electron battery connects with the UPF assault scout and destroys it. The laser battery misses the fighter.
With all of their ships damaged (expect the fighter) and many seriously out of position, the UPF commander calls off the pursuit of the sathar ships. The surviving UPF and militia vessels begin repairs and return the station.
Final ship positions and path as the sathar retreat. Click for full sized image.
Repairs
Over the course of the next thee hours, the UPF repair what they can and the assault carrier collects its scattered fighters. In the end most of the ships are fully repaired but the UPF light cruiser has hull damage that will require time in the shipyard.
The sathar form up and manage to repair most of their systems but all three ship have hull damage that will require time in a starship construction center to fully fix. While the damage to the destroyer is relatively minor (only 24% of its hull), the damage to the frigate and heavy cruiser is much more significant, 43% and 61%. Since they lost the fight here, they cannot use the local shipyard and must return to SCC#5 for repairs. They start accelerating out of the system being careful of the heavy cruiser’s hull.
Lessons Learned
When they want to, the sathar can do significant damage to the smaller UPF ships. Their tactics worked out quite well. In fact, much better than I expected. I really thought the UPF would win this one and eliminate all the sathar ships but would take significant damage. I never expected that the sathar would get away with three of their ships, although heavily damaged. The time to get those ships back into the fight will be much shorter than having to build new ones.
While the UPF and militia “won” and drove off the sathar, this was really a victory for the sathar in many ways as well. In the end, if you factor in the damage that requires a shipyard to fix, the sathar lost 198 hull points in this fight while the UPF and militia lost 228. If you just look at ships destroyed, then the sathar lost 2 ships for a total of 120 hull points while the UPF lost 12 ships, most of them fighters and assault scouts, totaling 200 hull points. Either way the sathar came out ahead. And they achieved their goal of taking out most of the assault rocket capability of the UPF forces in this system in advance of the next sathar attack in 11 days. While it doesn’t make up for the beatings they took in some of the other systems, it is definitely a boost to their morale.
There really isn’t much the UPF could have done differently other than be placed a little closer together for mutual support. The small fighters and assault scouts had no defense against the initial onslaught and paid the price. The only real defense there would have been to be further back from the station but then the sathar may have made a run at the station instead. This battle will definitely shift the tactics of both sides, at least somewhat. We’ll have to see what develops.
This is a big one and the last of the opening battles of the war. There is one more battle post coming tomorrow for a battle on FY61.287 that would have been posted yesterday but I’m still getting caught up. There are a few more fights coming soon but it will be a while before the next ones after that. Settle in, this is going to be a long write-up.
A major battle occurred today in the space around Gran Quivera between UPF forces and a massive sathar fleet that was more than twice the size of the fleets reported in the other systems.
Task Force Prenglar, aided by the timely arrival of Strike Force Nova returning from the Cassidine system, met the sathar forces as they approached the planet. After nearly an hour of fighting, and suffering major casualties, Spacefleet forces defeated the sathar invaders.
Frustrated by the inability to immediately get the more seriously damaged ships into the PGC shipyards for repairs, Spacefleet has sent a delegation to the Council of Worlds demanding activation of the Wartime Construction Control clause of the UPF charter that would grant them full control of all starship construction centers in the Frontier.
Kami Hemsley, Frontier News Network
Background
The sathar launched their biggest fleet of the opening offensive at Gran Quivera, hoping to strike at the heart of the Frontier and sever the various segments of the Frontier joined by this core system. With a fleet double the size of the ones appearing in the outer systems, and supported by a pair of assault carriers each carrying seven fighters, the sathar fleet outgunned Task Force Prenglar by a decent margin. Their only major concern were the two minelayers that were part of the Task Force. They fully expected to win this fight. And they may well have.
Unfortunately for the sathar, Strike Force Nova was already en route to the Prenglar system after an extended patrol of the Frontier and arrived in the system just hours after the sathar fleet was detected. With two of the Frontier’s major fleets to deal with, the tables turned and the sathar were now facing a superior foe. When news of the arrival of Strike Force Nova in the system reached the sathar commanders, they no longer expected to win, but they were committed to doing as much damage as possible.
Order of Battle
This is easily the largest battle I’ve ever played. And to make it even more complex I ran it all with the Advanced Combat rules. I’ve found that using the Basic Combat rules just makes the fights boring with the only option being hull damage. This one is going to be a doozie.
Task Force Prenglar
5 Assault Scouts
3 Frigates
2 Destroyers
2 Minelayers
3 Light Cruisers
1 Battleship
1 Fortified Station
Strike Force Nova
6 Fighters
3 Assault Scouts
2 Frigates
1 Destroyer
2 Light Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier
1 Battleship
Sathar
14 Fighters
2 Frigates
4 Destroyers
2 Light Cruisers
2 Heavy Cruisers
2 Assault Carriers
The Battle
Setup
Everyone knows that it’s a literal minefield between the sathar and the planet, the question for both sides is how the sathar are going to attempt to navigate it.
The UPF set up in a battle line with the center anchored by the battleships and light cruisers, with the destroyers, frigates, and assault scouts out from there on either side of the planet. SF Nova’s fighters are on the far wing above the planet. The line is positioned slightly behind the planet to allow the sathar to commit before the UPF move into the fray. The larger capital ships are moving at speed 10, the smaller capital ships at speed 15, and the fighters and assault scouts are moving at speed 20. The assault carrier, escorted by a light cruiser, along with the minelayers, are far behind the line above the planet and moving at speed 10. They plan to orbit out there and hopefully stay out of the fighting. In advance of the fight, the UPF have deployed all 40 mines from the two minelayers as well as all 16 seeker missiles (4 from each minelayer and battleship).
The sathar set up their capital ships in two of their “diamond” formations with some modifications. The HC is joined by an AC and there are two fighters with each of the frigates. In addition, there are two flights of 5 fighters on the far wings. The capital ships are all moving at a cautious speed of 5 while all the fighters are moving at speed 30. The sathar suspect that the fighters on the wings will fly around the mines while the ones with the capitals ships are intended to be used as sacrificial probes to clear a path to the planet and beyond. The sathar intend to punch through and fight on the far side of the planet where they believe the mine threat to be smaller.
The initial positions of all the ships. Click for full size image.And here is the starting positions with the mine field (red circles) and seeker missiles (grey counters) shown. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The two sathar diamond formations advance maintaining their initial speed with the destroyers on the wings flying in to close the formation with the heavy cruiser and assault carriers. The two flights of fighters on the wings accelerate to speed 35 and make a run at the assault scout squadrons on each wing. The other four fighter fly ahead of the diamond formations and as they approach the planet, split up with one from each pair looping around the planet and making a pass at the station (accelerating to 35) while the other two remain at speed 30 and turn at the last minute to line up on the destroyers.
Unfortunately for the fighters in the middle, but per the sathar plans, each pair trips 3 different sets of mines that the UPF had laid out. Unsurprisingly, all four fighters are obliterated. However, they have done their job and cleared a path through the minefield for the capital ships.
Defensively, the assault scouts all fire their laser batteries at the fighters. The more distant UPF frigates and destroyers also target the fighters in an attempt to destroy them before they can fire their assault rockets. The assault scouts manage to destroy the lead fighter in the upper flight while another has its navigation controls damaged and one has its maneuvering engines knocked out. The frigates and destroyers score some long-distance hits nearly destroying another fighter and causing an electrical fire on the one with its maneuvering knocked out (in the lower flight).
On the upper flight all four surviving fighters hit with their assault rockets seriously damaging two assault scouts and destroying a third. The fourth assault rocket knocks out the assault rocket launcher on the last assault scout. On the lower flight, only 3 assault rockets hit, two on the lead assault scout knocking out its LB and nearly destroying it. The other assault rocket slams into the trailing assault scout and it is destroyed.
With the sathar’s cautious movement placing their ships right in the middle of some of the seeker missile deployments, the UPF active two seeker missiles on either side of the sathar formations. Both missiles in each group home in on the light cruiser in each formation. The UPF also activate 2 seeker missiles in the more distant groups that they expect will intercept the formations on the next turn. The sathar light cruisers fire ICMs at the incoming seeker missile in an attempt to nullify the threat. Both missiles aimed at the upper light cruiser miss. One headed for the lower light cruiser is destroyed by the ICMs while the fourth missile slams home dropping the hull integrity of that ship to less than half.
The UPF ships on the battle line advance maintaining their speed with all of the ships preparing to engage on the next turn while the assault scouts get some maximum range shots with their laser batteries on this turn. The minelayers, assault carrier and light cruiser advance and turn in their orbit and fire at the fighters, attempting to take them out.
The fire on the sathar fighter damages its combat control system.
Defensively the sathar ships fire all their energy weapons at long range at the lead assault scout in each flight. The upper assault scout is hit by a laser battery from the frigate and proton battery from the assault carrier destroying it. None of the shots at the lower flight of assault scouts hit but the particle weapons from the light cruiser and assault carrier come close.
Offensively, only one of the assault scouts in the lower flight connects with the sathar’s frigate damaging its acceleration. One of the minelayers’ laser batteries connects with one of the damaged fighters destroying it, while the UPF’s assault carrier takes out a second fighter with its laser battery and the light cruiser takes out the navigation control system on a third.
Paths and positions for the first round of combat. Triggered mines are marked with a new counter I made for the fight. Paths of seeker missiles are shown in green. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
The sathar capital ship formations accelerate to speed 7 and each focuses all their fire at the closest UPF destroyer while preparing to defend against the incoming seeker missiles. The upper flight of fighters, two out of three of which have navigation control hits, spin a bit out of control but manage to line up briefly to fire their assault rockets at the assault carrier. The lower flight of fighters split up with the main group of 4 going after the assault scouts and the other one (with a fire and no maneuvering ability) just flies straight and out of the battle. All the fighters slow to speed 30.
Defensively, the minelayer and assault carrier group, as well as the lower flight of assault scouts, fire at the fighters attacking them while all other ships focus on the closest sathar frigate.
In the upper flight of sathar fighters, the UPF manage to destroy two of the fighters before they get their shots off. The third puts an assault rocket into the assault carrier damaging its acceleration.
The assault scouts in the lower flight all miss as they fire on the incoming fighters. The fighters on the other hand do a bit better hitting two of the assault scouts with assault rockets and destroying both of them.
The UPF capital ships fare no better than the assault scouts with only a single destroyer hitting the frigate in the lower formation with a laser battery doing some minor hull damage.
The sathar only manage to do a bit better. With all the weapons being brought to bare, the upper UPF destroyer is hit by 3 laser batteries and an electron battery slightly damaging its hull and knocking out all of its weapons except its rocket battery. The lower UPF destroyer doesn’t get off so easy as, despite firing ICMs at it, the torpedo from the sathar frigate hits nearly destroying it. It is also hit by an electron battery from the assault carrier that does a bit more hull damage.
The seeker missiles all home in on the closest heavy cruiser. The cruisers fire 3 ICMs at each incoming seeker missile. Against the upper formation, one of the seeker missiles miss while the other connects damaging the cruiser’s acceleration. On the lower heavy cruiser, one of the missiles is intercepted by the ICMs while the other impacts the cruiser and takes out nearly half of its hull integrity.
With its hull nearly destroyed, one of the UPF assault scouts in the upper flight drifts off the map and out of the fight taking a long distances shot at the sathar frigate as if flies away. Similarly, the seriously damaged destroyer just drifts by the sathar formation firing everything at the frigate as it passes by.
The UPF fighters accelerate to 25 and make an assault rocket pass at the sathar heavy cruiser in the upper formation before darting out of range and preparing for another run. The 2 surviving assault scouts in both the upper and lower flights make a similar run (remaining at speed 20) but fire at the assault carriers in each sathar formation.
The surviving frigates and destroyers loop around behind the sathar ships and focus their fire on the assault carriers as well. Defensively, the sathar ships fire ICMs at the incoming torpedoes.
The UPF battleships & light cruisers all slow to speed 8 and turn in to focus fire on the sathar light cruisers. The light cruiser, assault carrier, and minelayers continue their speed 10 orbit away from the battle.
The fire on the sathar fighter knocks out half of its damage control system.
Defensively, the sathar fire at a number of ships instead of really focusing on a few. In the upper group, the destroyers, assault carrier, and heavy cruiser spread their energy weapon fire across all the fighters, attempting to take them out before they can bring their assault rockets to bear. The destroyers in the upper group only hit with a single laser battery and electron battery seriously damaging the hull on one fighter and knocking out the assault rocket launcher on another. The heavy cruiser hits a third fighter with its laser battery but only scratches the hull slightly. The assault carrier does a little better and it laser battery destroys one of the UPF fighters. With the fighters and battleship out of range, the heavy cruiser and assault carrier fire their rocket batteries at the lead UPF light cruiser. Both hit taking out nearly half of the light cruiser’s hull. The frigate and light cruiser in this upper group focus their fire on the UPF battleship. While the frigate completely misses, the light cruiser hits with a laser, electron, and proton battery each doing damage to the battleship’s hull.
In the lower group, the sathar frigate fires at the damaged UPF destroyer as it flies by and hits with its rocket battery destroying it. The lower destroyers fire at the lead UPF light cruiser and one hits with a rocket battery causing some significant hull damage. The light cruiser fires at the battleship hitting with its laser and proton batteries knocking out the battleship’s maneuvering engines and damaging its navigation control system. The heavy cruiser and assault carrier split their fire with the energy weapons targeting one of the UPF frigates and the rocket batteries going after the lead light cruiser in the bottom flight. The rocket batteries both hit knocking out most of the ship’s acceleration and seriously damaging its hull dropping the hull integrity to less than half. The UPF frigate is hit by two laser batteries and a proton battery causing some hull damage, completely knocking out its acceleration, and damaging its maneuverability.
The four surviving UPF fighters all hit the sathar heavy cruiser in the upper formation with their assault rockets, destroying it.
The assault carrier in the upper group is hit by a laser canon, electron battery, and two torpedoes that slip through the ICM screen knocking out the carrier’s masking screen and ICM launcher, causing a power short circuit in its defenses, and taking out a third of its hull integrity.
The assault carrier in the lower group is hit by a laser cannon, two torpedoes, and an assault rocket. One of the torpedoes damages the carrier’s combat control system before it is destroyed by the other weapons.
The sathar light cruiser in the upper group is pummeled by the weapons from the two UPF light cruisers and the battleship being hit by a distruptor cannon, 2 laser, 3 electron, 2 proton, and 2 rocket batteries as well as a torpedo that slipped through the ICM screen. It suffers damage to its hull and a number of systems before finally being destroyed by an electron battery hit from the battleship.
The light cruiser in the lower group doesn’t fare any better. While it is only hit by 2 laser, 1 electron, 1 proton, and 2 rocket batteries, being already damaged by a seeker missile hit it is destroyed as the last rocket battery from the battleship impacts the hull.
Ships and positions after the second round of combat. Click for full sized image.
Turn 3
We’ve started to whittle down the number of ships on both sides at this point (either through destroying them or damaging them enough that they are out of the fight) so each turn will go a bit faster. But on the flip side, damage to acceleration and maneuvering means that the ship squadrons are going to be breaking up so maneuvering will become more complex and chaotic. There is still a lot to be done.
The sathar capital ships all accelerate to speed 9 and fire at the closest light cruisers, splitting shots between the each pair. The surviving fighter group decelerates to 25 and loops around to make a pass at the station. Unfortunately for them, they pass through another mined hex. Finally, the single surviving fighter that flew off the top of the map comes screaming back in at speed 32 and fires its assault rocket at one of the minelayers.
Defensively, the UPF battleships fire at the assault carrier or heavy cruiser in the sathar formation they are targeting. The light cruisers each pick a sathar destroyer and focus their fire on that ship. The frigates and destroyers spread their fire around the same ships. The minelayer and assault carrier group fires at the lone fighter. The mines are not very effective only damaging the assault rocket launcher on a single fighter; the other four make it through the minefield unscathed. The station fires on the incoming fighters.
The surviving sathar assault carrier is savaged by shots from the battleship and a pair of UPF frigates knocking out over half of its hull integrity, a laser battery, its maneuvering engines, and its navigation controls system. The lead destroyer in the upper group has over half of its hull integrity knocked out by the lead light cruiser while the trailing light cruiser and a UPF destroyer hit the trailing destroyer in this group damaging its maneuvering and damage control systems, disabling its ICM launcher, and nearly ripping the hull to shreds.
In the lower group of sathar ships, the UPF battleship and frigate completely miss the heavy cruiser. The lead sathar destroyer is hit by one of the UPF light cruisers knocking out its ICM launcher and damaging its combat control system. The other destroyer is hit by the other UPF light cruiser and a frigate for some serious hull damage. The station misses the incoming fighters but one of the minelayers hits the lone fighter destroying it before it can fire its assault rocket.
Having survived the barrage of defensive fire, the sathar open fire on the light cruisers and station. The station is hit by 2 assault rockets which damage its combat control system and score a significant hull hit. The lead UPF light cruiser in the upper group, already damaged, is hit by two laser batteries and a torpedo from the sathar frigate which destroy it. The second light cruiser in that group are hit by multiple weapons from the sathar assault carrier and one of the destroyers including a rocket battery and torpedo suffering only a minute bit of hull damage but significant damage to its acceleration and maneuvering and damage to its combat control system.
In the lower group the lead UPF light cruiser, again already heavily damaged, is hit by a laser battery and torpedo from the sathar frigate knocking its proton battery before the cruiser is destroyed by the torpedo. The second light cruiser takes a beating from the other sathar destroyer and the heavy cruiser being hit by 2 laser, 1 proton, 1 electron, and 2 rocket batteries as well as a torpedo. Knocking out over half of the light cruiser’s hull integrity, the shots also knock out its distruptor cannon and ICM launcher as well as damage its maneuvering capabilities.
The two surviving assault scouts, only one of which has a working assault rocket launcher, join up and make a pass at the sathar heavy cruiser. The UPF fighters make an assault rocket run on the sathar destroyers in the lower group where they are joined by the lower flight of UPF frigates. One of these frigates, whose acceleration is damaged, turns off to follow the assault scouts while the other two slow down to speed 9. The frigate and destroyer group slow to speed 10 and the frigates fire at the assault carrier while the destroyers each target a different sathar destroyer. Screening the smaller ships behind it, the upper battleship slows to speed 9 and pulls to within 10,000 km of the sathar vessels firing on the assault carrier. The damaged light cruiser in the upper group, with reduced maneuvering and a navigation control hit, turn to port and maintains its speed taking a long-distance shot at the assault carrier. The seriously damaged light cruiser in the lower group just drifts away from the battle followed by the battleship that has had its maneuvering systems knocked out. They fire long-range shots at the sathar heavy cruiser. The minelayer and assault scout group accelerates to speed 11 and turn away from the oncoming sathar vessels. They, together with the station, fire at the group of sathar fighters. The fire on the sathar fighter that has now drifted off the map damages its navigation control system.
Defensively, the sathar ships in the upper group fire everything at the battleship knocking out one of its laser batteries and causing some significant hull damage (a quarter of its total hull integrity). In the lower group the heavy cruiser and frigate fire at the incoming fighters while the destroyers target the assault scouts. One of the fighters has its assault rocket launcher disabled, taking it out of the fight, one is hit by a electron battery for some minor hull damaged and a third is hit by a laser battery, destroying the small ship. The lead assault scout it hit by an electron battery starting an electrical fire on board and the other is hit by an electron battery serious damaging it’s hull (dropping it below half integrity).
Despite the long-distance shots, one of the sathar fighters his hit by a laser battery damaging its combat control system and the UPF assault carrier scores an electron battery hit on another, destroying it. The surviving sathar heavy cruiser is only hit by the single assault rocket and an electron and proton battery knocking out its maneuvering and doing some minor hull damage. The lead sathar destroyer in the lower group gets off fairly easy as well being hit by a laser cannon and battery which damage in maneuverability and disable its laser battery. The other destroyer takes a bit more damage being hit by two assault rockets and two laser cannons dropping its hull integrity by more than half and damaging its acceleration and combat control systems.
The ships in the upper group are not so lucky. While the lead destroyer survives, it suffers a significant hull hit, has its electron battery disabled, and suffers a navigation control hit. The other destroyer is hit by every weapon fired by the trailing UPF destroyer completely obliterating the ship. The assault carrier doesn’t fare any better being hit by 10 different weapons from the battleship and two frigates and is completely destroyed.
Positions and course after a half hour of battle. Click for full size image.
Repair Turn
On the UPF side, the station manages to repair its reduced damage control repair system bringing it fully back on-line. The assault scout with the fire manages to extinguish it before it can do any damage. The other two assault scouts (one of which is off the map) both repair some of their hull damage as does the heavy damaged light cruiser and one of the battleships. The other battleship repairs its navigation controls system and restores some of its maneuvering ability. The upper light cruiser also repairs it’s navigation control system. The two damaged fighters both manage to restore their assault rocket launchers bringing them back into the fight. One of the UPF frigates restores some of its acceleration while one of the destroyers repairs its laser cannon. The assault carrier attempts to repair its damage acceleration but something goes seriously wrong and it seems that it is going to require a shipyard to fix properly.
For the sathar, the lone fighter way off the map gets its fire under control and the frigate in the upper group repairs its laser canon. The other ships all attempt to repair some of their hull damage (and most succeed although the destroyer with the navigation control damage does not).
Turn 4
The two sathar frigates and the less damaged sathar destroyer from the lower group all accelerate and turn to make an attack pass at the station. The destroyer in the upper group with the navigation control system damage makes a hard turn to port. Unfortunately, its severely damaged hull cannot stand the strain and the ship breaks apart. The sathar heavy cruiser and final surviving destroyer just drift forward firing at the assault scouts. The fighters fly out to attempt a run on the UPF minelayers.
Defensively, the UPF focus on just a two of the ships headed toward the station and the fighters. The first target is the sathar frigate from the upper group. All of the ships above the planet fire at that ship, which is really their only target. While the UPF frigates miss completely, the battleship and destroyers land a series of blows. However, despite hitting with 8 different weapons including a rocket battery and two laser canons, the frigate survives the blast suffering a near 75% hull integrity loss, a defensive power short circuit, and damage to its repair ability and maneuverability.
The UPF ships below the planet, together with the station, fire at the destroyer approaching the station from that direction. It is hit by 3 laser batteries and a laser cannon knocking out nearly half of its hull integrity and maneuverability.
Finally, the minelayer and assault carrier group fire at the incoming fighters reducing the acceleration and maneuverability of one, damaging the hull and knocking out the maneuverability of a second and destroying a third.
The surviving sathar fighters fire at one of the minelayers damaging its combat control system and inflicting some hull damage. The wounded and drifting destroyer and heavy cruiser fire at the assault scouts damaging the repair systems on both of them. While the frigate coming in from above misses the station completely, the ships coming up from below do much better hitting with both laser canons, a laser and rocket battery, and slipping a torpedo through the ICM screen. The station suffers a power short circuit in its defenses with the other weapons ripping into its hull including a massive explosion by the torpedo. All told, the station loses over half of its hull integrity.
The minelayers and assault carriers continue to accelerate away from the fight while the undamaged light cruiser loops back to engage the oncoming sathar ships. In an attempt to finish the fight, the UPF ships all spread out to target different sathar vessels. The assault scouts slingshot around the planet and make a run at the heavy cruiser which is also targeted by the UPF fighters. One of the UPF frigates and the destroyers chase down the frigate from the upper flight. Two of the UPF frigates go after the destroyer that made a run at the station, the battleship goes after the other sathar frigate, and the other two frigates go after the wounded destroyer with the heavy cruiser. The seriously damaged UPF light cruiser continues to drift away from the battle while the other turns to go after the surviving sathar fighters. The other UPF battleship, some navigation control restored, accelerates and turns back toward the planet as it slowly rejoins the fight.
The sathar all fire at the ships attacking them. The UPF battleship suffers some minor hull damage from a laser battery hit, one of the UPF frigates attacking the upper destroyer has its navigation control system damaged, and three of the UPF fighters are hit for a slight damage to maneuvering on one, a navigation hit on a second and the assault rocket launcher knocked out on a third. The most serious damage was one of the frigates near the sathar heavy cruiser being hit with a rocket battery that destroyed half of its hull integrity.
The sathar frigate from the original upper flight of ships, barely holding together as it is, is hit by two laser cannons and a laser battery, destroying it. The other frigate, despite being hit by 1 laser, 1 proton, and 2 electron batteries, as well as a distruptor cannon from the battleship, manages to pull through with only minor hull damage but also having its laser cannon knocked off-line, it acceleration reduced, and its maneuvering completely knocked out. The sathar destroyer that just attacked the station is hit with 2 laser canons, a laser battery, and two rocket batteries destroying it. The other destroyer is hit by a laser cannon, laser battery, and 2 rocket batteries. It too is destroyed. The heavy cruiser is hit by 3 of the 4 assault rockets that were fired at it and breaks apart as the explosions rips through the hull. The light cruiser manages to get a long distance hit on one of the sathar fighters igniting an electrical fire.
Positions and courses after the fourth round of combat. Note that the map has been shifted slightly to keep the minelayers and assault carrier on the map. The battleship and light cruiser at the bottom have moved off the map although the battleship is slowly maneuvering to come back to the fight (I’m tracking it on a separate map). Click for full size image.
Turn 5
The sathar fighter with the fire also has no maneuvering capability (or assault rockets left) and just drifts by the UPF light cruiser passing with 10,000 km of the larger ship which hits it with a laser and electron battery destroying it.
The other sathar fighter, also out of assault rockets, accelerates to sped 27 and attempts to ram one of the UPF assault scouts. It is intercepted by multiple hits from several ships that vaporize it.
The sathar frigate, having no maneuverability, accelerates to speed 15 to try to clear away from the UPF ships. However, between the battleship, the undamaged light cruiser and the frigates that were nearby, it is hit by 10 different weapons and destroyed.
The only surviving sathar vessel at this point is the lone fighter that was damaged on the first round of combat and has been drifting away for the past 40 minutes with no maneuverability. The two surviving assault scouts chase it down over the next couple of hours and eliminate it.
Ship positions at the end of the battle when the last sathar ship was destroyed. The map is shifted again to keep the sathar frigate attempting to flee on the map. Click for full size version.
Whew! That was quite a battle. And this is probably the longest post yet on the site clocking in a just around 5750 words.
Repairs
With most of the UPF ships damaged to some extent or another, it is six hours before all the battle damage that can be repaired has been. By then the lone sathar fighter has been destroyed and all of the ships return to take up orbit around the planet.
In the end, four vessels have damage that requires shipyard work to repair. On is the fortified station, having been reduced to less than 40% of it’s hull capacity, it is only back to 57% capacity before problems arise that require outside assistance. The assault scout severely damaged early, that drifted out of the battle, is only able to restore 80% of its hull and one of the frigates has a small hole in the hull that just refuses a patch.
The other ship is the assault carrier assigned to Strike Force Nova which suffered permanent damage to it acceleration. If it and its four surviving fighters remain with the Strike Force, they will not be able to execute any high speed risk jumps until that is repaired.
Lessons Learned
While the sathar played it well using the fighters to clear paths through the minefield, and did a good job targeting the assault scouts early to reduce the assault rocket threat, they were a bit too timid trying to traverse the minefield and came into the battle with not enough speed to clear it quickly. This severely hampered their combat options and it turned into a shooting gallery for the UPF ships which were free to maneuver. Had Strike Force Nova not been in the system, their tactics might have been sufficient and though they would have suffered some loses traversing the minefield, more ships would have made it across to really engage with the UPF. Next time they are in a system with minelayers, they might try something different.
One thing I completely forgot were the seeker missiles on the sathar heavy cruisers. After the fact I realized that I could probably have deployed them on round 2 or 3 and activated them to keep the UPF ships circling around in the mined area on their toes and possibly affected their maneuvering. If nothing else, they may very well have impacted the station and possibly have destroyed it. You would think that with the UPF seeker missiles flying around I would have remembered the sathar ones but it completely slipped my mind until I was doing this write-up.
The ability to maneuver in the minefield, as well as the superior numbers allowing them to focus their fire on more ships, really served the UPF well as they were able to whittle down the sathar ships and use their weapons to full effect. While they suffered some serious losses in numbers of small ships and the loss of the two light cruisers and destroyer, yhey gave much better than they took and definitely came out ahead.
The only real problem is that now most of the UPF force is in the center of the Frontier at Prenglar, while the sathar forces are on the periphery. It’s going to take some time to get ships where they are needed but at the same time, knowing that the sathar could strike at Prenglar again at any time, they have to keep forces here to defend this core world.
