First Battle: the rest of the action

 

Again, apologies for the photo quality - best I can do indoors on a British winter evening. Anyway, this is taken from behind the Kzinti fleet, and I hope you can make out the details okay. The two Kzinti Frigates and Light Cruiser of their left wing have sprinted forwards, opening up a gap with the cruisers to their right. The Lyrans are more evenly paced. The white counter near the top left shows a Lyran ESG destroying the wave of drones launched by the Kzinti Light Cruiser. Elsewhere, drone missiles have appeared in abundance from the Kzinti fleet, especially the carrier groups. The combination of fighters and carriers makes these stacks of missiles very potent, and unfortunately for the Lyrans they are heading towards the two pairs of Destroyers. Fortunately for the Lyrans, though, this means that the main Kzinti strike ammunition is not going anywhere near their more valuable vessels.

Above is a close-up of the advanced Kzinti left. The Light Cruiser in the centre of this photo is facing off against a Lyran Light Cruiser. However, this is where the peculiarities of disruptors can be noticed, because this weapon type cannot hold its energy from one turn to another; this means they have to be discharged, and there are quite a few heavy Lyran vessels all in range of the lone Kzinti Light Cruiser. So guess what happens:

The Kzinti Light Cruiser has the local initiative, which it uses to stay out of overload range from the Lyran equivalent, but this doesn't stop the Lyran ship's phasers combining with the disruptor power of several other cruisers. The result for the Kzinti is the loss of two front shields plus internal damage. I use a shipboard morale system to determine at what point a captain will hit the warp engines and bug out. Basically, a ship will have a morale rating equal to its command boxes - I am trying to make the SSD matter for a bit more than just power totals and so on. The larger Kzinti ships tend to have good bridge and auxiliary control spaces, so this ship has a base starting morale of 7. Morale is reduced by one each for the loss of a shield; taking internals; for being hit in the warp engines (a point for each engine once only); a point per command box hit; and one point for every box of the Impulse engine destroyed, because that is what powers the ship's movement in combat. So the CL Mystic is already down to 2 morale from 7. Once it reaches zero, the captain will order the ship to leave - basically, this guy is a nutter and sticks in there. Note this does mean that Klingon vessels have unfeasibly high morale due to the presence of all those Security details!

Elsewhere, the disruptor energy discharge does quite a bit of unexpected damage to the main Kzinti fighter squadron, especially that poor guy in no.6, despite the negative modifier applied for using main ship weapons against diminutive fighters. The Lyrans have a lot of disruptors. The smaller fighter wing at the extreme right of the Kzinti fleet fares better than this.

In return, the first waves of Kzinti drones slam home. Too many drones from the central carrier force means that quite a few get through the defences of the Lyran Destroyers in combination with massed fighter phasers, and the results are rather gruesome. The two central Destroyers are crippled in quick succession.

Nasty. You'll see a bit of variation between the damage on the two ships, with the second one taking more internals in total due to variations in the fighter phaser attacks - they rolled really badly against the first one, but the combination is still enough to knock the stuffing out of both vessels. Especially since the carrier joins in with its own disruptors.

This really is not a good day to be a Lyran Destroyer captain! More drones are heading their way from the carrier group immediately following the fighters.

A similar strike pattern is being enacted against the other two Lyran Destroyers facing the Escort Carrier and its fighters, but here the tale is rather different. I rolled for the six Kzinti fighters here to see what they would do, and they danced out of effective phaser range of the Lyran vessels. This is very sensible. Even so, the smaller drone wave plus longer range fire from the carrier puts a dent in the front shields of both Destroyers. Rather ominously for the Lyrans, they are now out of defensive power, and another wave of drones is coming.

The picture above shows the very light amount of damage being taken by the smaller group of fighters; the Lyrans are far too busy trying to stave off impending drone doom to take many shots at the annoying little sods responsible for the missiles.

Moving back over to the other side of the battle for the moment, here we see the outgunned Kzinti Frigates meeting a Lyran War Cruiser and Fast Heavy Cruiser. The Lyrans, however, choose not to use overloads and the two smaller Kzinti vessels remain intact apart from some badly damaged shielding.

Next in is the continuing face-off between the two Light Cruisers. The Kzinti CL Mystic has sideslipped in with its intact no.6 shield now facing its Lyran counterpart, so that shield goes down too. This time, however, the Lyran has no support from the other cruisers.

Well, apart from the other Light Cruiser, which swings wide around the Kzinti Frigates and lines itself up rather nicely to take the Mystic from behind. It is not looking good for the sandwiched Kzinti.

The photo above explains the lack of continuing support from the heavier ships in the Lyran centre. At the top of the shot a Lyran CA Heavy Cruiser and Kzinti Battlecruiser trade shots, while next to them the Lyran flagship prepares to take on the other enemy Battlecruiser. This is the sort of one-to-one where the Lyrans excel.

The full attention of a Lyran Battlecruiser can be rather lethal - the shot above shows what is left of its Kzinti opponent. The Lyran shrugs off the few drones coming its way, fired in desperation by the enemy captain, and unleashes its power at close range, followed by a classic ESG ram that does 60 internal hits. Ouch. Oh well, at least it still has a central warp engine, if not much else.

Further into the centre of the fight, a Lyran War Cruiser swings into support the two poor Destroyers, while from another part of the line another Lyran CA Heavy Cruiser executes a perfect ESG sweep of the main Kzinti fighter force. Above you can see what the combination does to them. The far rightmost Kzinti fighters take some phaser damage from a War Cruiser and are also about to experience the effects of an ESG attack.

However, at this point, with their mission accomplished, the Lyrans hit the warp drives. Apart, that is,  from two vaporised Destroyers and another two that slip into silent running, crippled by the smaller carrier group. The Lyran force has reached its pre-set fleet breakpoint.

Overall, I have to say this was a successful experiment. It took three hours for me to play the whole thing to a satisfactory conclusion. I sort of used a limited Impulse system to adjudicate local fights when they arose, but in my next attempt I may well do all movement, then all fighting, just to make it a bit easier on myself. It was a bit tiring, but enjoyable. If the Lyrans had a higher morale value, the Kzinti would have seen more losses. Their fighters were more than half destroyed, with the remainder out of drones; the ships were half way through their ammunition. The Lyrans had local tactical advantage over the Kzinti left, and had the battle continued the latter would probably have lost their Light Cruiser and both Frigates. However, they live to tell the tale. This time.