www.ditl.org

General Overview

1. What is the in game date?

Post Star Trek Nemesis, same as the data on this website. The reasoning for this is it gives us a list that is at least a starting point for putting together orders of battle. I am certainly open to debate on making some minor changes to things from here, but for the most part we would use the DITL numbers since it is a readily accessible and most importantly a comparable source among the various powers.

2. What is the game objective?

Short answer, whatever you decide it should be. The longer answer is your objective should be whatever your power would be looking to do in the Star Trek universe. To guide the players through this process and give the game stability and structure discrete goals are included for each empire. These can and will evolve as the game moves along and other things take precedent for a time. More on this later.

3. Are there Cloaks?

Technical answer yes, they have not disappeared. Practical answer for the purposes of playability they are totally useless. The IC reason being that a revolution in sensor technology has rendered cloaking devices, of all types, totally ineffective. This is entirely a playability concern and will not change during the sim.

If you want to confuse someone at this point you have to use deceptive movement to do so.

4. Is there exploration and colonization?

Yes, though this will function differently than before. Dedicated non-combatant ships can be used to search for new worlds which you can then exploit for resources and expansion. There are other rare benefits and perils to exploration as well, but the overall purpose is to find new worlds suitable to development. You will notice much of the map is blank. New worlds will fill in the map over time as people discover them.

5. Can I design my own ships?

Yes, performance is determined by the DITL ship builder. A calculator to figure the development cost and time frame is provided. It will also calculate cost and time to improve certain components like Phasers and Torpedo tubes.

6. How are ships managed?

All ships are assigned to a fleet. This is all automated through a spreadsheet function. For each fleet a list of all classes that the player could use is given. The player simply assigns a number from the total ships they have. Provisions for up to 11 Fleets per player have been made. The spreadsheet will calculate the power and max warp speed of the combined fleet for you as well as that fleets endurance.

The player then can move fleets and re-assign ships as they desire. The map provides distances between stars that can be estimated close enough for our purposes. The spreadsheet includes a calculator that can tell you the distance for a given move based on the locations of the pixiles in the map if you want to be very precise. Otherwise just use a piece of paper like I do.

7. Can I have carriers?

Since I know this will be asked let's address it now. No. Why? Because the accounting is too complicated. You have to account for fighters/shuttles for each carriers. Those have losses. They have to be replaced. It creates a nightmare of tracking and won't add much to the game so the answer is just no. I know they were in the Star Wars game. They are not in this one. Deal with it.

Fighters and Runabouts are simply tracked as being part of the fortifications of a given system. This might make some people mad but playability is more important than this.

8. Can I issue tactical orders to my fleets in battle, how are fleet battles resolved?

Wholly at the discretion of the GM a battle MAY be played out in a tactical format under rules that follow this. Otherwise they will be conducted in a 5 phase battle that simulates ships closing in from range exchanging fire.

9. How is diplomacy conducted?

Between players, simply copy the game admin on all exchanges that are not public so I know what is going on. If I don't see it, it is not official for obvious reasons. If you want to have a treaty with another power all you have to do is writeup the terms. Know this though, the game admin will not enforce treaty terms. Just like in real life there is no one that can make the other power follow through on their end of the deal but you.

As an addition to the general IC banter there will now be a system that measures the alignment between two powers. More on this later but the basics of it are that this will allow you to leverage your leadership successes in one area to go against what the GM feels is the natural state of relations between two powers. In short achieving an alliance will take work and coordination on the part of both sides now.

10. Is there money?

Yes. I know the status of money in the Federation is...nebulous at best. But simply put we need a way in game to track economic activity and it is simpler to just assign everyone a generic currency unit with which to pay for everything. Feel free to call them credits or anything you want. The sheets refer to your GDP in kCredits (1,000’s of credits) which will be the basis of exchange between powers.

11. How does the Economy work?

The economy in this version of the SIM will be vastly different from the one you came to know before. In the prior versions each economy was a standalone entity. They interacted on trade alone and occasionally interest rates would move. This will not be the case moving forward.

Your economy can grow its base in two ways. Population growth and GDP growth. Both are driven by several factors that work in different ways on each figure. Taxes and your other economic decisions play into this. Growth rate is important over time for each empire. While that 500 credit growth in GDP may not look huge it is when it happens year after year after year.

The economy in this simulation is also less stable. Certain economic decisions that promote growth also expose you to either short-term or long-term economic risk. A short-term recession might see you have zero GDP growth or slight negative movement for a period of 1-3 years. A long-term collapse might see you have a period of 10 or more years of stagnation and negative growth. This is designed to give players a bit less certainty as to where they are going, and introduce situations that can stress the game environment. Such problems can also spread like regular economic crisis.

All your important economic data is exported to a central sheet each turn. If a more than one major economic power has a downturn then things can head downward for everyone for a while.

Trade will function differently in this sim as well. Rather than negotiating trade deals for certain amounts of goods, a tiresome and unrealistic premise really, trade will be based on the demands of various economies, the volume of exports available and the tariff rates of the various empires.

Finally things such as Anti-Matter and Ore will determine a market price for those materials each turn. You can then buy or sell for that price during the next turn.

12. How does ground combat work?

Ground combat is a very simple system as is raising an army. Each power can create a standing army if they choose or simply raise troops as needed from their population. Those troops are deployed to a fleet by order of the player. There are four grades of troops. Elite, Crack, Regulars and Militia. Elite troops are 4 times as powerful as regular troops. Crack troops are worth 2 times regular troops. Militia are worth one fourth of regular troops.

In general the following bonuses are in force.

Troops on defensive: x1.5 to combat power
Non-Marine Trained Troops Landing: 1/2 combat power

Combat is resolved by a die roll system based on the relative power of each ground force except there is no damage round for the loser. You either win or loose and the loser is wiped out. The winner takes casualties as proscribed in the damage round.

13. Can I play the Borg or Dominion

Initially, no. The Borg are not likely to ever be a player race. They occur like a natural disaster for the most part. Each turn there is a chance that they show up in one form or another. How the player/players deal with it is up to them.

The Dominion, maybe. If the game develops well and there is a good reason then they will be made active and we will seek a player.

14. How will the turns be structured?

The first turn is the setup turn (shocking I know). It likely is the most time intensive of the turns as you have to decide how to deploy yourself across your empire. Each player will be provided with the following.

1. The Map, as listed above which shows the planets in your control.
2. A list of the number of space stations, shipyards and other such things you can scatter across your Empire.
3. A spreadsheet which makes all the accounting for this very simple.

A spreadsheet key so you know what you are looking at.

Grey Cells- The vast majority of cells are grey. That means it is calculated for you and you need not input anything.

Yellow Cells- These are admin cells. I will enter the necessary information into this for you prior to each turn.

Red Cells- Player cells. These are the areas that let you control things. While the overall sheet is large to display info for you there are not nearly as many red cells and many of those that exist in the setup turn will become yellow in subsequent turns reducing your work even further.

Orange Cells- I bet you would like to know what was in those orange cells wouldn’t you? Those are just export cells for the economic model. They are numbers you already see, arranged in a strip form for cutting and pasting.

Player task are fairly simple.

1. On the tab labeled "Systems" You need to pick your major systems. Capital's and secondary homeworlds (more on this below) are already picked for you. Your job from there is to assign systems in a way to support your fleet operations. The definition of a major system in the game is one that has a major orbital installation that can support fleet operations. There is a balancing act. If you want to invade someone you need a jumping off point close to them. But the closer it is the more at risk it is as well. Put everything well back and you will be safe but have trouble projecting power. Do the opposite and someone might overrun your frontier and romp straight to your capital system.

All you have to do is find the name on the star chart and add it to the systems list in the spread sheet. Population is automatically distributed for you and everything else is calculated. Everything not on a major system is considered to be a minor system. Very simply this is the rest of your non-military population divided by the total number of minor worlds in your sphere of influence. Minor systems produce income and nothing else. As you lose control of your empire in battle it gives a basis on which to reduce population size as well.

Again, for all this all you have to do is select the stars you wish to make major fixtures of your empire.

2. Deploy your Fleet. The hardest part is already done here. You can see an overview of your fleet on the tab "Starships". This list every starship class at your disposal, its status as well as giving you a snapshot of your various fleets and a list of ships being built. All the player has to do is decide where they are going. To do that you go to the tab "Fleets".

You will see each fleet auto-filled for you with the ship classes at your disposal. You can do a number of things with each fleet.

a. You can name it whatever you want. By default they are listed 1st through 11th fleet. If you wish to be more creative feel free to go all Soviet and rename your fleets the 1st Red Banner Imperial Guard Galactic Armada. It is up to you.

b. You can deploy your fleet wherever you want within your territory. Simply list the star system you wish to deploy it.

c. You MUST pick a logistical base for the fleet. A drop down menu will allow you to select any of the major systems that can support a fleet. This is important because any damaged ships go here for repairs or for refits.

d. You can deploy whatever mix of ships you wish within the fleet. The sheet will figure their combined firepower and will figure a maximum warp speed for the fleet (ie the speed of the slowest ship).

3. Evaluate your shipyards. Your building programs underway are set for you based on my best estimates. You can modify them pretty simply, as well as expand production lines and add new ones within the following limits.

a. You may not produce more than 10 ship types. Period. I am pointing at you Starfleet. If you hit 10 and want to build something new you must shut down an old line of production. There are limits to each shipyards tonnage capacity AND limits on the absolute number of units your empire can build in a year (this is driven by warp core and weapons production limits calculated for you). One thing to remember, your shipyards each have a share of your warp core and weapon production. If everything is running as normal they can ship this stuff around. If you lose a system or it gets blockaded it can still build ship but cannot get any warp cores or weapons it was importing or exporting. BALANCE YOUR SHIP PRODUCTION ACCORDINGLY!

b. Once production is started it runs at that level every year until it is stopped. When it is stopped you lose all ships in progress (this is to capture the expense of shutting down the line). If you run out of money and have to slow your shipbuilding you have to pay again to bring it back up to speed.

c. You pay a price to establish a line based on the ship and number you want per year. You may no more than double this in any following year. You can start with as few as 1 per year and work your way up. Establishing and expanding lines of production is very expensive. This is by design. In a universe where many things can be replicated the primary cost driver is setting up the infrastructure to assemble and machine the parts of the ship together. Once your line is established building ships not as expensive. Cost reduce substantially each year production continues at a set rate.

Ship production cost is now driven by two factors. There is the fixed cost for the basics (warp core, computer) for each ship. The rest is driven by combat capability. As you create more capable ships they will cost more REGARDLESS OF THE MASS.

The bigger ships do necessitate more ore. That is where the penalty comes in for building bigger. Building large and heavily armed ships will be substantially more expensive this go round.

Additionally the establishment of new production lines will now put stress on the trained workforce at your shipyards. A yard that was producing 20 of the old designs might find its workforce stressed to build just 5 of the newest ship in your fleet for the first year or two. Your production will go up and down based on this. Monitor it carefully and don’t try to start new lines unless you can afford a downturn in production.

d. If you want to expand a ship yard you simply input the additional tons you wish to be able to build in the correct cell for the shipyard. The cost is calculated for you. Again, this is very expensive by design.

Again, all of this is calculated for you. All you have to do is input the number of ships you want per year and any increase you wish to have in your capacity. 90% of the work is done for you.

4. Research and Development- So you want to build your dream ship huh? Well this is where you go to do it. Be warned though. It is very expensive and can take a long time if you want to make huge leaps from where your tech currently sits. The setup is fairly self explanitory though you do need to make use of the DITL ship calculator to figure your strengths and you MUST attach either your own writeup or a screencap of the DITL screen when you do the R&D.

Your current max numbers are listed in each column. Simply input the numbers you used to create your ship in the DITL calculator and it will spit out a cost. Adjust the mass of the ship to try and acheive an optimum size. The basic factor at play here is this. More mass makes it cheaper to have more weapons and shields but more expensive to achieve high speeds. Finding the right balance is crucial. There is nothing stopping you from making a 150 ton ship that can outfight a GCS in a straight up fight. But it will take you 111 years to do the R&D on it.

You can also upgrade your torpedo and beam weapons here. Very simple system here. As an addition sensors can also be upgraded. Sensors come in two variants. Those on most ships and those on dedicated ships.

Long-Range Sensors will get you vectors and raid counts that are accurate within 20%.
Short Range Sensors will get you combat power estimates within 20%
Detailed Sensors will get you accurate totals, technical details, troop counts and other such information.

If you wish to build a dedicated sensor ship contact the GM for the cost associated with the R&D.

Free form R&D is handled on an as requested basis. Type in what you want and I will quote you a price or say it can't be done. On all R&D, ships included, I reserve the right to simply veto a design. This is a very difficult module to put together so if someone finds an exploit where some of the many formulas running in the background produce a strange result I will just congratulate you and make the necessary corrections.

5. Set up your starbases and ground forces. All your major systems will import themselves over to this list. It is as simple as it looks. You will be given a list of starbases you have been allotted. You assign them as you please to each system. You set the fortification level for each system and then you set a number of ground forces present on each system. Later if you want to build more starbases or troops that is listed below.

For the purpose of the game there are 4 starbase types.

Starbase 74 Equivilants- Big Boys, everyone has one or just a couple of these.
Spacedock Equivilants- Still big, everyone has a few more of these.
Starbase 375 Equivilants- Smallest Starbase that can provide fleet maintenence.
Deep Space 9 Equivilant- Fleets can operate from here but ships cannot be repaired or refitted here. Higher defensive value than 375.

NEW IMPACT FOR STARBASES- Starbases now play a more important role in your ability to extract resources and get them to market. They are driving the refinery and mine caps you see on the resource page. If you want more extraction you have to upgrade your starbase to handle it. This is designed to give the bases more importance.

Once you run through that setup the economics will pretty much run themselves and the turn to turn stuff is easy. To finish your budget you simple go back to the "income/expense" sheet, and see where you stand. If you don't have enough money you can raise taxes or borrow enough to make ends meet, either internally or from another player. Or you can cut back your expenses. Or some combination of the three.

How To Guide
Note: This covers new spreadsheet features and some old ones. If you still have questions read the old guide first. Anything not mentioned was likely not changed.

Income and Balance Sheet
The most important thing on this sheet from a to-do standpoint are at the top. The player must set a tax rate that is applied across the empire and set their intel operations as well as the amount of resources they will devote to counter intel.

Intel operations are similar to the previous trek sim but the counter-intel is empire wide now. The higher the better it is. You can look for specific pieces of information now and the GM will make a decision on what you get based on what you are after. If you are after the self-destruct codes for their ships those are probably nearly impossible to find. If you want your intel services to watch for indications they are activating reserves that would be nearly impossible to hide. This is more free form than in the past.

The borrowing/lending and the trade blocks should be familiar to anyone who was in the trek sim and the SW sim. The trade area is now there to account for special deals you cut since trade is handled differently.

Systems
This sheet should be 100% familiar to most players. It is pretty simple stuff. You will notice the growth rate for population is lower. This is by design.

Economics
This sheet is entirely new for everyone but it is fairly simple to use. Simply select from the pull down tabs and then set a tariff rate. Radical and frequent changes are discouraged. No one economic model is more valid than the others. They all open you up to various benefits and problems but changing course every 3 years is a sure path to disaster. Changes should be well considered.
Everything else is pure information for the player.

Resources
Again this should be largely familiar. Some cost have been tweaked and internal use works differently, but for the player there is nothing difficult here except columns J and K. Those list the maximum number of mines and refining facilities that can be supported by the starbase, giving you a bit more control and starbases a bit more importance in this sim.

Goals & Diplomacy

This one is all new. This is where the GM and player can interact a bit so everyone knows the score of things. Goals are set by the GM, though you can influence them by speeches or other policy statements for the most part these are meant to reflect the will of your people/other important power blocks in your empire.
Here is the complicated part.

Each achieved goal will generate a certain number of influence points for your leader. Each unaddressed goal will neither help nor hurt you. Goals you are currently failing at will reduce your influence over your empire. Why is influence important you might ask?

It limits what you can do diplomatically and domestically. The more time your leadership has to spend convincing people they are the right guys for the job (or shooting dissidents) the less time they have to do other things. This simulates that for us and should stabilize relations somewhat.
Your influence is first used to maintain power. The GM will assign an amount of influence needed for your domestic agenda each turn. If you are fairly stable then this will stay pretty stable as well. This is cell B-25.

With each other power you will start with a gap in your relations. If this gap is 200 points then you must over time dedicate 200 influence points to close that gap to 0 where an alliance would be possible. When both powers hit zero an alliance can be put in place.

Here is the complicated part. When other powers do things the gap can change in either direction. If you are the Federation and are close with the Romulans for some reason your gap might get huge if the Romulan player suddenly starts executing Vulcans working on a reunification program in the public square. You can look to maintain that alliance if you have enough influence but it will keep you busy working on that and able to do little else.

This will also put a premium on alliances communicating and working together, particularly as they get bigger.
Finally it gives me as the GM a way to communicate with the player exactly where I think things stand between two powers and you as the player a way to work over my objection towards your goal.

Last point, goals are dynamic and can change as things move along. If you achieve one goal you can bask in the glow of it for a while but new goals will sooner or later replace it. This should keep the game focused. If the player gets out in front of the issue and is publicly (ie in front of the GM in some form) working towards an obvious goal that is likely to be their next assigned goal. If the player nation flounders about with no direction you are at the whim of your people (me) as to what they will want you to do next.

Starships Tab
The Starships tab is identical to its prior version except for column O which allows you to refit a class per the refit rules addendum below.

Fleets Tab
The fleet tab is identical to its prior version.

Shipyard Tab
The shipyard tab is very similar in function to the prior version, though the calculations have changed somewhat and more information is presented.

R&D Tab
The R&D tab has some slight changes. You can now R&D sensor tech near the bottom right corner. You also are given information about the state of the art fire control for certain ship classes. This helps you put a ship into a certain class. As fire control advances sim wise these might change upwards, making this decades battle cruiser the next decades cruiser and so on. Those cells are for reference only really.

Bases and Army
This tab is upgraded in one area. You can now customize your troops to some degree for each category. There are still 4 troop categories; Elite, Crack, Regular and Militia.
Heavy Armored Infantry- Allows the use of heavy armored infantry to increase defense and assault values; available on Elite and Crack
Light Armored Infantry- Allows the use of light armored infantry to increase defense and assault values; available on Elite, Crack and Regular
Marine Training- Allows opposed landings without combat penalty; available on Elite, Crack and Regular
Special Forces Training- Increases success chances in special operations type environments, available on Elite, Crack and Regular
Civil Training- Makes troops more effective at quelling civil discontent and serving as occupying troops; all types
Everything else remains largely unchanged here. Just beware your selections are somewhat frozen on the troop types. If you change crack troops from not having armor to having it then those already trained will be rolled down into a category without that capability.

Battle Stats
Same as before

Appendix A (R&D Questions)

1) Can I R&D new weapons and design a ship for them at the same time?

Yes. Just input all the numbers for both the ship and your desired weapon increases and I will modify your sheet to use the new weapons numbers on the ship. You get the ship when whichever portion that takes the longest is done.

2) What determines my torpedo rate of fire for each tube?

This number is taken from the DITL numbers for rate of fire. You can find them under the fleets tab and the fleet strength introduction. Whatever your race has as its max rate of fire is what is used here. It is simplest here to use the Federation pulse launchers for either photon or quantum torps. They are a rate of fire of 1 round per second. Simply figure out how many rounds you wish the ship to fire and go from there.

3) What if I trade for a technology, how does it get deployed?

Technology trading will be SEVERLY curtailed in this sim. Items that cannot be traded under any circumstance include but are not limited to.
-Warp Engines
-Shipboard Weapons
-Starbase Advancements
-Shields
Essentially the rule of thumb here is that you can trade a thing but not a whole technology line. The R&D cost for technology includes the cost to build the production capacity for that weapon or engine. Simply transferring the blue prints won’t do this. If you want to transfer a technology ask first. The general answer is going to be no however.

4) Ship Rebuilds

A lot of people want to upgrade ships they already have. This is reasonable. For this sim you will pay a cost to update those ships. Here is how you do it.

1. I want to improve ship design X by increasing its speed, weapons, shields, ect. How do I do it?

Step 1- Pull up the ship in the DITL ship strength calculator. Make the changes you wish to make.
Step 2- Input the changes into the spreadsheets R&D section.
Step 3- The Mass of the ship must be equal to the previous model.

This will produce a cost and time frame to develop the improved design. Once that is done the following happens.

Go to the Starships tab. Input the new combat power for the ship in that section. That will give you the cost to refit the whole class. You must refit the whole class within one year. Period. No exceptions. Rebuilds are assumed to happen over the course of the year. During that year the class is not available for service. All fleet ships undergo the rebuild at their designated logistical base. ADDITION

If you refit a starship class a second time your base CR is the median between the present combat power and the original combat power. This means ships refit multiple times will get more difficult to refit moving forward.

Appendix B (Strategic Movement, Invasion and Supplies)

1) Lines of Communication

I wanted to clarify why logistical bases for fleets are important.

Figuring out a LOC is simple. Draw a straight line from your fleet to its logistical base.

If your lines of communication become obstructed you cannot send damaged ships off for repair. Additionally your endurance for that fleet will be cut by half and any deployed troops that fleet is supporting will be reduced by 10% per month due to attrition from being out of supply.

2) Planetary Shields

Planetary Shield systems can now be developed for your major and minor planets. For every credit you invest in the system you will gain protection against two ratings of attack. To illustrate:

If you spend 500,000 credits your shield would be rated against 1,000,000 combat points (defined as the short range firepower of a fleet). Any fleet of less power than that would be unable to deplete the shield faster than it can regenerate and would effectively be unable to damage it.

While the shields are operative on a planet you cannot bombard its surface or launch an invasion. Orbital installations are not protected by this (shipyards and space-stations).


4) Invasion and Blockade of Shielded Planets

You cannot invade a planet until its shield is destroyed. You cannot starve out the occupants. Planets are assumed to be self-sufficient.

A planet that has its shields up to resist an active attack contributes nothing to your economy until the blockade is relieved or the enemy leaves of its own accord.


5) Destroying a Shield

If you possess firepower in excess of the shields rating (you can scan the rating from in the system once it is in operation) then you can start to take down the shield, which can be a long or short process.

A shields rating is expressed basically by dividing its total output by 1 million (the smallest shield allowed). So a 5 million-unit shield is rated as a 5 for game purposes.

The rate of attrition is determined by dividing the combat power of the fleet by the rating of the shield. If the fleet is rated at 5.01 million it would reduce the shield by 1 unit per week, destroying it when it reached 0 during the 5th week.

This would be the case up to 10 million combat power for the fleet, when it would then reduce the shield by 2 ratings points per week, destroying it after 2.5 weeks.

If a fleet leaves before a shield is destroyed either of its own free will or because it is driven off in battle the shield returns to its full strength.

If your fleet is equipped with Plasma Torpedoes, Tri-Cobalt devices or some other such demolition weapon your attack rating is modified upwards. Tri-Cobalts are cheap to develop and deploy so if you want the bonus you should bite the bullet and do the work.

6) Special Supply Rules for Attacking a Shield

Attacking a shield uses up a large quantity of torpedoes and energy (in the form of anti-matter to power the beam weapons). You must have a fleet in supply to assault a shielded world. It must have clear supply lines back to the nearest logistical base in your empire or to a supply depot you have constructed.

7) Getting troops moving

Troops deployed in your major worlds are considered garrisoned. Any troops to the right of the bases listed in the bases and army sheet are considered garrisoned and priced accordingly.

If you want to attack someone, defend one of your minor worlds, or just have troops as part of a fleet just in case (in beta I replaced starfleet security with them essentially because I was looking for someone who might be....well competent at securing a starship) then you are working in cells D58. That assigns troops to that fleet, which can now move them around.

8) Deployed Troops and Supplies

When you launch your invasion, or simply drop your troops on some minor world to assert your dominance and alpha maleness you can't just leave them there to eat bugs. They need supplies. So long as they are not on a major world of yours you will have to keep either sufficient transports or a portion of your fleet assigned to supply them. This is why you need transports on some level. Obviously having your combat ships run supplies back and forth is not an efficient use of their time. If you choose to do this your fleet is pretty much stuck supporting those troops and running back and forth to supply bases. At any given time some portion of it will be on hand to fight at various places along the way but never all of it.

The moral of the story...use transports for major invasions. Assign enough and drop your troops off leaving the fleet free for action.

9) Loss of Supply

Troops out of supply will lose 10% of their number by attrition until they surrender or die. Supply is considered lost when an enemy fleet sits astride the supply line or no ships are assigned to provide supply.

Transports are unarmed. You will lose 1/3rd of them if an enemy fleet takes control of the space around the world on which your troops are deployed and another 1/3rd if you lose control of the world from which you are drawing supplies. The rest will revert to your transport pool. If troops are not deployed planet side all transports are considered co-located with the fleet and can only be attacked if your fleet is defeated.

Appendix C- Tactical Combat

If both players consent and the GM allows it this is how combat will be resolved.

There are three types of engagement, depending on how contact was made.

Meeting Engagement- Both forces meet, knowing the other force is coming and combat ensures. Everyone deploys along their back 1/3rd of the map.

Assault- The Defending force can deploy along 1/2 of the map. The attacking force must in its 1/3rd of the map.

Ambush- One force is caught by surprise by a force it did not expect. You do not get to move on turn 1 if you are ambushed and can only return fire. If you are the ambushing force you can deploy along 2/3rds of the map.

Essentially you can sub-divide your fleet or task force (whatever is engaged) however you choose. This is the part that is up to the players. For you to subdivide you are going to have to give me a breakdown of unit types in each group and figure the combat power (and break it into an overall/torpedo category) for each group you are using in a tactical situation.

YOU MAY HAVE NO MORE THAN 16 SUBGROUPS. NO EXCEPTIONS.

EACH SUBGROUP MUST CONTAIN NO MORE THAN 1 SHIPTYPE. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Each hex is 50,000 KM.

Turn Structure

Orders are issued in one shot, both tactical and movement but are executed movement first by the GM, then the shooting. Use more general orders if you want to shoot in reaction to what the other side does.

Movement Orders

Move-You can go move to any adjacent, unoccupied hex. You are allotted 3, 5 or 7 moves per sub-group per turn depending on the manuverability rating of each group. Highly rated groups move more. Low rated groups move less. Changing facing cost one movement point for each hex faced turned. (IE I want to go from facing due North to due South, this is 3 faces to turn so it takes 3 movement points). You can only move in the direction of facing.

Retreat- If you wish to retreat certain units from the map you may do so by moving them to the edge of the map side from which you started and waiting one full turn to jump to warp. If your enemy is faster than you at warp you must keep them from reaching your backline of the map for two full turns or your forces will be placed back on the map, facing the wrong way as they will be run down by the opposing force. This basically means you have to dedicate a force to holding the enemy off.

There is no provision for going to warp within a battlefield. Movement is completed and then attack orders will be given. Cloaks cannot be used once the tactical phase is entered. They can only be used to ambush an enemy fleet beforehand.

Tactical Orders

Attack- Pick an enemy target and open fire. Torpedoes are given a range of 1 Million KM, though their accuracy increases greatly as you close distance. Beam weapons are useful from 300,000 on in and your combat rating will be figured by adding your Torpedo and and a percentage of your beam ratings together.

Attacks are stackable which means that if three of your groups attack one enemy group it is all resolved as one combat action with the combined rating of your forces against their one.

When figuring damage each attack ordered is considered a separate event. Your forces now take no damage when attacking, except in Melee combat where both units target one another until someone breaks.

To determine the result of an attack your attack rating is totalled against the opponent's defensive rating for the targeted group. A random number, 1-100 is generated and based on the offensive vs defensive ratings three break points are calculated. If two forces had equal strengths in these two areas an attacker will win if the roll is less than 50 and achieve major victory if the roll is less than 10. The defender will achieve victory if the roll is more than 50 and a major victory if the roll is more than 90.

A defender achieving victory does not mean that no damage is taken.

Flank attack- If you are able to attack from the flank (defined as not directly to the rear of the enemy but behind the direction they are facing and the two adjacent hex faces to that) you get a 25% bonus to your combat power.

Rear attack- If you are able to attack from the rear quarter (directly behind enemy orientation) you get a 50% bonus to your combat power.

Combined attack- If you gain the bonus of a flank or rear attack it applies to the whole group that is involved in the attack.

Flagship attack- You can order your group to target the flagship of the enemy. Your combat power is reduced by 50% for this specialized targeting but your chances of taking out the flagship triple (normal chances are figured by taking the number of ships destroyed and dividing it by the total in the group so if the group has 50 ships and 10 are destroyed it has a 1 in 5 chance of being destroyed). If you take out the flagship your enemy loses the ability to issue movement commands for 1 turn while command is switched to another ship. Ships will continue to move as ordered the previous turn however.

Melee- If two units occupy adjacent space a commander may order their forces to enter a Melee in which all ships press to point blank range. At this point it becomes impossible to disengage except for retreat or rout of one of the two units involved. Any unit attempting to attack the two units in the melee must also enter that state.

Retreat- If you order a unit to retreat from Melee it will move at maximum speed to your side of the battle map. Once there it must wait one whole turn before jumping to warp. During that time it has an effective combat rating of 10% its total and will take heavy losses. You can do this to get out of a melee not going your way.

Rout- If a unit loses 50-75% of its units there is a chance it will rout with every ship making a mad break for its own safety. Klingon, Breen and Dominion ships will not rout under any circumstance (though this is not always a positive as routing preserves ships for later use that otherwise would be destroyed) Other powers have different chances of doing so based on their cultural standing.


Other Issues

When you issue your next round of movement orders you have one major decision to make. Will you send your damaged ships to the rear or will you have them soldier on and fight with you. Damaged ships fight at 50% of the combat power of undamaged ones. In any combat rounds that follow if you were to have more ships damaged those ships will be destroyed. So if you have 8 damaged ships with you and the result states 10 more were damaged then those 8 will be destroyed and you will have 2 damaged ships.

This will vastly increase your losses. You can mitigate that by sending the ships to the rear. If you win the battle or are able to successful retreat from the battle the sub-group to which those ships belonged you can repair them and use them again later. But you lose the firepower those damaged ships could have contributed.


Special Units

Starbases- Starbases are represented by a cluster of icons. They have no facing and may direct all their combat power in any direction at any time. Thus they may not be flanked. However the combat power of all units firing upon a starbase in a given turn are totalled together. Depending on the type of starbase its combat power will be reduced each time it is engaged and loses, until it is destroyed.

Special Section

Quantum Torps- For the purpose of the sim EVERYONE can use these to design ships. You just have to design them in or design a refit to equip them. That way everyone pays for them as they go along because it is part of the R&D cost for the ship.

On Goals

Working towards your goals is a productive way to approach the game that generates benefits for your empire. However working towards them all at once without thought can and will get you in trouble. Many of your goals are obviously going to but up against other powers goals. Each goal can either be achieved, neutral or failed. At times it might suit your overall plan to not be successful at one goal so you can be successful at another. Just realize that pursuing all goals at once is probably a recipe for disaster and make smart choices.

Also, you will all have some common phrases I wanted to cover.

Some goals say you should control 50% of an area or have it be neutral. What this means is that either you need to control half the systems in that marked area on the map OR have the ability to get to half (so worlds you control plus uncontrolled worlds would have to be more than 50% of the worlds there). If others control so many worlds you can't get to 50% then you fail.

Most of you have a common goals related to security and other such things and internal policy. This lets me communicate with you when you might be falling behind in a certain area.

The goal is for your written reports to contain only intel and military reports. Everything else will be on the sheet.

A note on sub-fleets

You can split your fleets up however you want. However you are responsible for providing me with the detail on it in an ORGANIZED fashion and I need to get that every turn. Otherwise I will assume your ships are where the main sheet says they are. If I get it one turn and not the next they will revert to the listed positions on the main sheet.

I can provide you an example form I have used in Beta or you can make your own. It just needs to tell me what ships are where from each parent fleet and what the combat rating of the various groupings are and what troops are with each group, if any. The more information I get the better your results will be. I would advise using excel but so long as it is clear to me each turn then that is fine. Nothing will stop you from breaking into however many groups you need (I have 41 task forces or patrol groups in Beta to cover the UFP) just make sure it is clear and easy for me to use.

Some notes on how supply rules work, since there have been questions.

Ok, here is the easy way to see where you can go with your fleets.

1. Look at your endurance rating for that fleet.
2. Look up the fleet speed.
3. Use the DITL calculators to figure how far you can travel in that given time. For example at Warp 9.6 if my endurance were 3 months I can travel 475 Light Years. This is basically your effective range.
4. Find a starbase you control or that someone is letting you draw supplies from.
5. Draw a circle with a radius of 475 light years around it.

Anywhere within that circle you can operate. For simplicity sake you are not mandated to return to base at any point, you just have to remain in that circle.

A couple of things to note.

1. There are no more supply dumps, you should have noticed that on the sheet. This is meant to make starbases more valuable. You can build one but it takes a year. Or you can seize one from someone if they don't blow it up.
2. Range drops by half in wartime. Running with shields up, sensors running and weapons charged eats more anti-matter. It just is what it is.
3. This map is much bigger. Like an order of magnitude bigger than the last one. Things that don't look far are really a long damn way apart.
4. If your LOC are cut then your circle gets cut in half. Your fleet won't die for lack of supplies but it will about face and return to the newly smaller circle to survive.


The basic rule changes that created this were here from the get go in v.2. This is not a rules change, just an illustration of how they are applied.