Monday, January 4, 2010

Simple Combat Quick-Play Guide

The Simple Combat Game is a way for you to quickly resolve combat between
vessels, or fleets of vessels. This is useful if you are playing a scenario
or campaign that involves more than a few ships. Otherwise a simple scenario
could take weeks to play through.

It is useful to keep a copy of the Simple Combat Template. This makes it
possible to copy and paste the basics of your bit of 'paperwork', add
however many ships you may need to, and change or insert ship names. Here is
a very basic template:

IKS rolls: o/d
USS rolls: o/d
Result:
IKS damage /15
USS damage /15

The first section is for points rolled (1d6 result times the appropriate
multiplier), and how the points are allocated (offense/defense). The second
"Result" section shows the calculated damage. In the case of basic AI ships,
the damage potential is 15.. so you would indicate 5 points damage with
5/15. Pretty simple.

If you are playing a single player game, roll a 1d6 to see who 'wins the
toss'. If you roll a 1-3, you do. Then you roll the 1d6 for your opponent
first. Allocate available points according to this multiplier chart:

2 (DS) Defense Sat/(FR)Freighter X1
3 (FF) Frigate X4
4 (DD) DestroyerX6
5 (CL) Light Cruiser X8
6 (CA) Heavy Cruiser X10
7 (CC) Command Cruiser X12
8 (HCA) Heavy Battlecruiser X15
9 (DN) Dreadnought X20
10 (BB) Battleship X22
11 (CV)Carrier X25
12 (STB ) Starbase/ (BS)Base Station X50/75 (reroll, 50/50)


Here is an example of simple combat between the Klingon heavy cruiser
Perseus and the Sha'kurian heavy cruiser Count: In this case, I won the
toss, playing as the Perseus. That meant that the 'AI' Sha'kurian ship had
to allocate first. (The point of all this 'coin tossing' is to add
randomness to the gameplay in the single player game. It puts the luxury of
being able to react to your opponent's first move on a totally random
footing. And of course, whoever rolled second first time rolls first the
next. Compare it to the coin toss to determine who receives the kickoff in a
football game ) That roll was a 6 (on a 1d6), for 60 points. Considering
that there were several other engagements going on at the same time, I
decided to play it safe, putting it all on defense. Lucky for the Klingon
ship Perseus, because that ship only rolled a 1.


IKS Perseus rolls:10 0o/10d
SRS Count rolls:60 0o/60d
Result:
IKS Perseus damage 0/25
SRS Count damage 0/15

For the next volley, the Klingon ship took its turn rolling first. It rolled
a "3", for 30 points, and put them all on defense. It didn't save him,
because the Count rolled a 6.

IKS Perseus rolls:30 0o/30d
SRS Count rolls:60 60o/d
Result:
IKS Perseus destroyed
SRS Count damage 0/15

You'll note that the Perseus is able to take 25 points of damage. That is
because all of my play has given me an "Elite" rating. The increased
available points is one of the benefits of that. For details, see
"Experience Points: How to Get Them and What They Get You". If you want to
take it a step further, you can capture ships using Simple Combat. You have
to cause 10 points of damage to lower the enemy shields, then transport
over. Ah, but to so that you have to lower your own shields. Do that by
giving yourself (just for the 'transport' volley) 10 points damage. A bit
tricky, with careful timing involved, but a great tactic. And of course, as
new races are added to Fantasy Trek, there will be a few necessary
variations to these rules (i.e. Tholian Webs).

So how do you capture ships? Most ships have six boarding parties to work
with, and thus a pretty simple template:

The numbers represent the members of the friendly away team. "1a, 2a, 3a"
etc represent the corresponding members of the enemy away team. Each team
rolls a single six sided die per team member. Add additional numbers as
needed for larger away teams.

1) 1a) .winner:
2) 2a) .winner:
3) 3a) .winner:
4) 4a) .winner:
5) 5a) .winner:
6) 6a) .winner:
7) 7a) .winner:
8) 8a) .winner:
9) 9a) .winner:
10) 10a) .winner:
11) 11a) .winner:
12) 12a) .winner:
13) 13a) .winner:
14) 14a) .winner:
15) 15a) .winner:
16) 16a) .winner:
17) 17a) .winner:
18) 18a) .winner:
19) 19a) .winner:
20) 20a) .winner:

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