Ideas Board and Tactical Doctrines 101

[SquireJames]

Hello there

In light of a rather long argument I had with myself over the role of certain vessels in KA2, I have decided to open this thread as a free for all ideas board. Basically, anyone who has an ideas for the mod can post them here, and I will post replys and my own ideas, to see what people think. Hopefully with the distillation of these ideas, we can together get some real gems and implement them.

Also, Tactical Doctrines 101. Simply put, an outline of how I invisage each ship type being used, sometimes each ship class itself. Again this connects with above, and I do have some ideas for how to make each ship type, from the smallest escort to the mightest batteship, fufill a function at every point in the game.

Tactical Doctrines 101

From the top then

Vessel Class: Battleship
Role: Flagship
Role Description: Flagship, Command Ship, fleet heavyweight designed to deal and to take alot of punishment. Usually fitted with some sort of very powerful weapon. These ships are pretty much like their early 20th century naval equivlents. Big, Heavy, but a bit dumb. Their only real method of attack is a full frontal assault, and a withering blast of weapons fire. Theres no real style, finesse, elan to their attacks, simply take the damage, and give the enemy a walloping.

Vessel Class: Dreadnought
Role: Capital Ship
Role Description: Generally, dreadnoughts are more rounded vessels than their battleship counterparts. While they trade off some raw firepower, they often gain stealth, manuverability, advanced weaponry or cheaper construction that allows them to be built in a series rather than as a one off, although still in small numbers. With a single battleship at their centre, a small group of these, maybe 2 or 3, forms the core of a heavy strike fleet. Note: Gorn,Tholian and ISC Dreadnoughts for the most part fill the role of a battleship, and are often as powerful as other races battleships.

Vessel: Battlecruiser
Role: Fleet Escort
Role Description: Forming a crucial part of a fleet, these vessels serve a dual purpose. Generally they can be found in the next layer of ships around the dreadnoughts acting almost as bodyguards to these precious capital ships. Further out, battlecruisers also form a strong mesh along with cruisers, battlecruisers act as rallying points and as general command and control cruisers that can by using their heavier protection and firepower, occupy an enemy who would otherwise cause crippling damage to a cruiser, and give the cruisers time to intercept, and also some supporting fire with advanced weaponry.
Note: The Federation seems to have reversed the rolls of its battlecruiser and its command cruiser, so in starfleet, the command cruiser really does fill the roll that it sounds like it was intended to do. This is mainly due to Federation ships not being warships as such, and so often they don't fall into the right boundaries compared to other races.


Vessel: Command Cruiser
Role: Minor flagship
Role Description: The term "command cruiser" is somewhat of a misnomer. These ships are the largest designed for individual actions, and as such often serve as explorers, pathfinders and as command ships in charge of small fleets of light cruisers. Often equiped with some form of advanced weaponry which can turn the tide of a battle when properly used.

Vessel: Cruiser
Role: Fleet cruiser
Role Description: The cruiser is the most cost effective ship in most races fleet. They are a good balance between firepower, crew complement, sturdiness, speed, construction time and cost, and manuverability. They are the bread and butter of most large fleet engagements. Gorn Euromastyx Class cruisers are a little different, they share this position with the Rattlesnake Class light cruiser, and the Federation operates a similar arrangement with the Constitution Class Refit cruiser, and the Miranda Class light cruiser.

Vessel: Light Cruiser
Role: Light fleet cruiser
Role Description: These cruisers are more or less just smaller versions of their larger brothers. They form the bulk of most small fleets, occasionally acting as a command vessel for a group of destroyers. The Federation Miranda Class light cruiser shares this role with the Akula Class destroyer, and usually the Miranda is a small command vessel for these groups, and in some cases can become the bulk of a small fleet lead by a single command cruiser.

Vessel: Destroyer
Role: Fast attack
Role Description: At first glance these ships seem too good to be true. Often armed with weaponry approaching that of a cruiser, a destroyers weakness is its weak hull, and small crew compliment. These ships are not designed to take part in large fleet engagements. They skirt around the edges of such battles, taking out targets of oppotunity such a mining facilities, freighters, small fleets of unsuspecting enemy vessels, and they avoid targets that they cannot bring down in a single swoop. They are the sharks of a races fleet, and should not be expected to last in battles like a cruiser or battlecruiser. The Federation and to a lesser extent the Gorn have twisted this ethos, and their destroyers have become fleet pickets of a sort, guarding the edges of major fleets, and bulking out smaller fleets of light cruisers.

Vessel: Frigate
Role: Basic attack and defence
Role Description: These vessels are the last line of defence for a race. They are the most basic combat designed ships, and while not spectacular, they hold their own. They are often useful in adding a little punch quickly and cheaply to a destroyer group.

Vessel: Escort
Role: Scouting and fast attack
Role Description: Essentially these are lighter versions of the destroyer. The Federation Oberth Class escort is more of a scout than anything else, but the Klingon Bird of Prey and Romulan Preax are light warships in their own right. The Tholian Feldspar is also somewhat designed for combat.

[SquireJames]

IDEAS!

Yup, thats what this thread is for, so I thought i'd throw a few at you, and see what you think.

I've noticed that for the cloak detection for the Federation and the Tholians, a ship that could move around the map with this ability would be really handy. The Oberth and Feldspar escorts are the natural choice for this ability. This would give the Oberth and Feldspar a cloak detection, the Preax has its crew killing CFDIC, but the other escort, the B'rel has no such ability. I am thinking of re-adding the gravity mines to the B'rel or perhaps some other such weapon.

On the subject of adding weapons, I was considering adding the anti-matter mines to every combat vessel, as with the mines on SFC II. I am not sure how this will effect gameplay, and it is more in the vein of SFC than KA. I have varied from the KA weapons in 2 cases, that of the Warriors Anger Class CC and the Stormbird Class CA, which I doubled the number of disruptors to 4, as i felt that 2 disruptors for these vessels were insufficient. Since both these vessels were based on the K'T'Inga Class hull, that when the heavy disruptors of the K'T'Inga were removed, you would think that the resulting space even when adding the extra power systems for the second photon tube (in the case of the Warriors Anger) or the M Plasma tube replacing the photon (in the case of the Stormbird) that there would be space left for a pair of standard disruptors. pIH Class frigates use this principle with the C, S and R versions, the space left when the heavy disruptors were replaced with standard versions was great enough to allow a substancial amount of marines, cargo, or science equipment to be carried. To get back to the original point though, I am not sure if adding mines would be a worthwhile addition.

One addition I am sure will work well is a subspace jump drive for the ISC. Basically it acts the same as the transient rift used by Species 8472, but stays open for longer so that a whole fleet can jump through it. This is a large device only fitted to larger ISC vessels, but provides a great boost to surprise and manuverability, allowing a fleet to suddenly appear where they are least expected, or to make a swift withdrawl. Along with the subspace slipway, and the plasmatic pulsar device, the subspace jump drive is one of the few advanced weapons employed by the ISC

So, what are your opinions of these ideas, and do you have any ideas of your own for KA2?

[WarrenG12]

i like the ideas u got here...though from the ideas u have here the Federation seem to not have a lot of tech behind them, just basically phasers and photons

[SquireJames]

Well essentially this is true. In SFB, and in Trek in General, the Federation ships have been the "norm" the control in which ever other vessels statistics are measured. They do possess larger than average crew complements however. Also, their ships essentially do just use Photons and Phasers. Their are some advanced weapons such as the QCB or the Assault Phaser, but as a rule its just increasing amounts of conventional weapons.

[WarrenG12]

well how abut use some from the movies......like a short term transwarp drive for the excelsior(ST III)..and maybe a shield override for the Constitution(ST II)

[SquireJames]

Hmm, I could try that, some sort of shield disruptor that has no 3d file, so it just brings the shields down for say 3 or 4 seconds with no effect seen. As for the Transwarp drive, its an interesting point. We know from ST III that it was Scotty's sabotage that caused it to fail, but would it have worked anyway? If it was just a single incident, and later proof of sabotage could have been found, why would they abandon the whole thing? Wouldnt they do further tests?

Perhaps this "Transwarp Drive" was infact the later warp drives we see on TNG, hence the new scale invented. It would explain why this drive seemingly dissappears from mention post ST III, and it also explains the massive improvements in warp drives seen in TNG.

[WarrenG12]

yeah true.....it would explain the new warp curves in /tng....another idea for the constitution....what about a type of homing torpedo that tracks cloaked ships like in ST VI

[SquireJames]

I may add that torpedo as a special weapon, along with the overide idea for the USS Enterprise-A only, to give it a (realistic) bit more wack than a standard conny, since lets face it, with Kirk and the rest of the legendary crew onboard, it can really pack a wallop, but adding more phasers or photons is unrealistic.

I've also decided that the older (and in the carriers case, larger) Klingon vessels only seen in the campaign (Ber'Taa, Qo'Nos and so forth, see unit lists) will no possess Cloaking devices. I am hoping this will give the Klingons a more unique feel, cloaking wise, to the Romulans. (The way these two powers use cloaking devices in tactical situations differ greatly)

[WarrenG12]

yeah...had a good idea last night for u.......what about this: an auxillary power shifting system


let me explain: it would be a total of two different tech...Attack mode and Defense mode

-Attack Mode would increase fire rate and engine speed by 25%, however it cuts sensor range, repair rate, and shield recharge rate by 25%...this would allow a faster, more powerful strike in a short amount of time

-Defense Mode would increase sensor range, repair rate, and shield recharge rate by 25%, however it cuts fire rate and engine speed by 25%.....this would allow to repair its damage faster and better avoid enemy patrols while heading back to base.

i feel this would enhance the player's strategy of how they handle the ship(s) that have this tech. My suggestion for ships to equip this to would have to be the Excelsior, Ulysses, and Yamato classes

[SquireJames]

Great idea I had one very similar for the original KATC but I never managed to implement it. I was hoping to have "Power Allocations" as in Klingon Academy. Maybe one for repair, one for shields, one for overload weapons and so forth. I'll definately see what I can do, as with A2 the new enhancer weapons (absent from A1 coding) should be able to accomplish this.

[WarrenG12]

Kool...i'd like to see that implemented...that would add more strategy and make the game maybe a little more challenging for the player

[SquireJames]

My only worry with the power allocations/auxillary power shifting idea is that whether the AI will know how to correctly use them? Otherwise we may be facing ships constantly armed for combat, making the whole point of the allocations mute. However, perhaps the AI is clever enough to use the defensive allocation when it is damaged, the offensive when attacking, and so forth. I would imagine it would have SOME idea how to use them, as it can use the weapons/shield/cloak enhancer correctly, and that is what these allocations would be based on. Perhaps the AI is dumb, but programmed not to even attempt to use these weapons, who knows? Only way to find out is to implement them and see how the AI uses them and reacts to them.