Star Fleet Battles - Cadet 6

Now we introduce the Romulans with their Plasma Torpedoes. Scenario #6, another ship to ship action. Plasma Torpedoes take 3 turns and 8 total energy to arm, but packs a massive punch. Two hits from a Plasma Torpedo at short range and full strength is going to really hurt any of the Cadet ships we’re flying for these missions.

Location: JC’s place Federation: JC Romulan: Me

Turns 1–2

My strategy: I think it’s best to close with the Federation ship and move only enough to keep it in the forward arc. This seems to work when the Romulan ship moves slowly. It can orbit a hex at low speed to keep the Federation ship in the front arc.

Turn 3

Continue to rotate. The Federation ship has to find a front facing. We pasted each other on this turn!

We also decided to write down our next movement as each of us would have an optimal move given the other’s move. By writing things down, we get less bias in the simulation of simultaneous action. Here is one sequence: → 1610 → 1609 → 1810

Turn 4

Cloak again. Orbit around a hex at speed 6 to keep the Federation in the front firing arc, chase as necessary.

Turn 5

More positioning, the Federation needs to get the Romulans in the front firing arc.

Turn 6

Fed almost outran the Plasma Torpedo, but it has a 25 hex movement allowance at speed 16 with a 1 hex turn constraint, so it would have taken out the Federation on the first impulse of Turn 7.

AAR

We’re getting the hang of the game now, albeit the simplified Cadet rules. Weaponry seems to dictate tactics, which makes sense. The Cloaking, long recharge, and power of the Plasma Torpedo require it to be carefully planned.

One mistake we made was assuming that the internal damage distribution was positionally important. It is not, the position of the checkboxes on the SSD only matter for shields.

We called this game a draw.

We have come to the end of the Cadet Training, with our next games, scenarios 7 through 12, being Cadet Graduate.