Office of Naval Intelligence

TERRAN FLEET

Sensor and ECM
Okay. We all have seen the More Thrust rules on ECM, Advanced Sensors, and Cloaking Devices. Other than the cloaking devices, the prior two systems have little intrinsic value in a fleet tactical equation. That or I'm REALLY missing something here. So I am proposing a more practical, tactical value for the Advanced Sensor and ECM systems.

Cloaking devices are a royal pain to deal with. You have to hunt down the other ship and/or hope you get lucky enough to have one of your units in firing position when the 'ghost' ship pops up.
I propose that Advanced Sensors have a chance of detecting the cloaked ship as follows.

• Enhanced Sensors: on a roll of 6 will detect the cloaked ship
• Superior Sensors: on a roll of 5 or 6 will detect a cloaked ship

Once the detected ship uncloaks it may recloak and the Sensors will have to make a new roll to detect it once more.
Cloaked ships that are illuminated by sensors in this fashion are not left totally useless. Any fire directed at such a ship suffers a -1 to all die rolls as the Firecontrol sensors act all witchy.

ECM, which stands for Electronic Counter Measures, (yes, I know you already know!) does very little other than screw up enemy sensors. Okay. I'd like to stress the COUNTER in ECM and ask a simple question. If it screws up sensors, such as the superior and enhanced, WHY then does it NOT screw up Firecontrol Sensors? (AHHHhhhh you say.) So, what I am proposing here is to give any ship with an ECM or in the area of an Area Effect ECM system a passive defense capability against other ships. Don't panic, it really isn't that much. But it WILL have an effect.

Modifiers for ECM:

• -1 to die rolls for damage by Beam Weapons, Needle Beams, Railguns, and Standard Mines.
• -1 to hit rolls for Pulse Torpedoes
• -1 to die roll for number of missile locks with Salvo Missiles.

Advanced (Optional) Mines
The description in FT describes the standard mine as pretty much nothing more than a typical bomb-pumped beam design. One shot, one use, and about as effective as using birdshot on a swarm of mosquitos. Lots of bang and no real effect. That's okay if you like that sort of thing. But it cheats the true effectiveness and purpose of the mine.

The standard land mine and even ocean mine are area denial weapons. Not even tanks will mess with a minefield, nor will battleships or aircraft carriers treat them lightly. For a simple, light defense or a token defense of, say, an outer colony world or insignificant deep space processing facility, the standard mine would make sense to deploy. It's cheap, small, reliable, and will handle the typical pirate or small raider. For the larger vessels though. It's a waste of time. (okay, enough maligning the things, onto the options.)

Strategic Defense Mine:
The SDM is slightly larger than the typical BPM. More effective, longer ranged, and re-usable if proper support is available, this mine is useful around important targets, denying the enemy area of maneuver, and having a real chance of HURTING something.

The SDM has a detection and strike range of 5". It is slightly more massive and expensive than a standard mine and does not use beam technology. Instead, the SDM is a floating submunition pack. An SDM may be reloaded by an appropriate Fleet Auxilary Vessel in 4 hours per mine. How that breaks out to game time is up the GM of course.
Damage to a target is the same as a close range hit from a shipboard Submunition Pack.
Roll 3d6. 1,2,3= no damage. 4,5= 1 point of damage. 6= 2 points of damage. Shields do not reduce damage. Sixes will not be re-rolled for extra penetration damage.

Mass: 2 per mine (added to standard minelayer system cost)
Points Cost: 4 per mine (added to standard minelayer system cost)

Automated Seeker-Killer Satellite:
The ASKS, better known as the ADDER for reasons later apparent, is a large, remote Salvo Missile Rack deployed with an independent FC system, basic sensors, and enough firepower to make even a superdreadnought take one VERY seriously.

Typically, this weapon is deployed only to defend strategically vital installations and areas and never in large numbers. During testing, a rather problematic glitch in the FC system was discovered and has yet to be corrected, though research teams are working feverishly on doing so. This glitch is what gave the ASKS the moniker of ADDER. It will sometimes misidentify a friendly vessel and fire upon it. The admiralty is, of course, very concerned about this flaw, but have decided to continue deployment of this weapon due to it's greater value. Especially in the face of the Kra'Vak threat.

The ASKS can be reloaded by an appropriately outfitted Fleet Auxilary Vessel in 12 hours for each ADDER. How this will break down into game time is up the the GM of course.

The detection range of an ADDER is 12". Any ship entering that area will be attacked. Friendly ships entering the 12" zone must roll 1d6. A 1= an FC glitch on the ADDER and it will attack the friendly ship as it would an enemy vessel.

Resolve the ONE attack of this weapon as you would normally do so for a SMR (FT Fleet Book: Vol.1).
This mine is large enough to be detected and targeted by Point Defense systems (though NOT Class-1 batteries) and Interceptor Fighter squadrons per standard missile interception rules.

Mass: 5 each mine (plus the cost for standard minelayer system)
Points Cost: 15 each mine (plus the cost for the standard minelayer system)

Gravitic Mine:
This little joy toy does no significant damage in itself. It does, however, really mess with a ships designate manuevers.
The GM creates a small singularity within itself that affects everything within 3" of the mine. The mine consumes itself as it implodes and creates the intense gravitational field of the singularity, of course.

The mine will detonate when an enemy vessel comes within 3" of it. The effects of this artificial singularity vary, depending on ship class.

Mine effects are as follows:

• Fighters, missiles, and other mines are automatically destroyed in the area of effect.
• Escort class vessels suffer 2 points of damage (hull stress) and are forced into a 3 point radial turn around the mine.
• Cruiser class vessels suffer 1 point of damage and are forced into a 2 point radial turn around the mine.
• Capital and Super class vessels suffer no damage and are forced into a 1 point radial turn around the mine.
• Starbases, Asteroids, meteors, debris fields,etc. will be pulled to the center of the gravity field (the mine's former location) in a straight line and stop.
• Planets, Moons, planetoids, and other objects of stellar size, are unaffected by the mine.

Radial turn movement is resolved as follows:

• Make an immediate 1 point turn towards the mine
• Ship continue 1" forward
• repeat as necessary until the required point change is reached.
• Note: Ship's facing will not change if vector movement is being used.

This makes this a really nasty thing to drop in, say, an asteroid field or other place with lots of objects to collide with or course plotting is critical to avoid collisions.

Mass: 3 per mine (plus standard minelayer system cost)
Points Cost: 8 per mine (plus standard minelayer system cost)

NOTE:
Each of these optional mines may be neutralized by the standard minesweeping system as described in Full Thrust.

SA'VASKU FLEET

Bio-Torpedo
Operatives have observed a previously unknown weapon in use by the enigmatic Sa'Vasku. This weapon appears to be some sort of biological torpedo.

This weapon is 'grown' only prior to launch and seems to be 'fired', though spit may be more appropriate, at targets within the ships forward three arcs. Much like the Terran Advanced Pulse Torpedo.

Any ship that is hit by this torpedo doesn't appear to be overtly damaged. Immediately. Within minutes, the ship struck by one of these torpedos, begins to malfunction and eventually explode. Examination of gathered and carefully isolated debris in a vacuum chamber, reveals that the target ship was actually eaten by genetically tailored organisms. It should be noted, that no crew bodies were seen amongst the wreckage.

The Bio-Torpedo has a maximum range of 24". When fired, 1d6 is rolled to see if the torpedo hit the targeted ship. Success is as follows:

To hit (d6):,br>

• at range 0-8"= 4,5,6
• at range 9-16"= 5,6
• at range 17-24"= 6

The target ship will suffer two points of damage per turn after it is hit for each torpedo that successfully hits. Threshold rolls are made as normal. This infestation may be stopped by a successful damage control repair roll for each torpedo that hit.

Bio-Torpedo Energy Cost= 10 for each torpedo

Drone Pods:
The rules presented in MT for the Sa'Vasku drone pods did not address the number of pods that may be stored for later use within a Sa'Vasku ship. After several test runs on varying ideas, it was determined that the Sa'Vasku ship's mass divided by 20 would equal the number of drone pods able to be stored by the ship.

This may, at first, seem to make a Sa'Vasku carrier inferior to say, an NAC Fleet Carrier. However, that is not the case. Terran carriers may only launch two fighter squadrons at the same time. Any Sa'Vasku ship may launch all of its drone pods (fighters) at once. This can mean a very large wave of fighters suddenly in the battle. Not a really insignificant tactical advantage I'd say.

Any Sa'Vasku ship may grow drone pods if it can pay the energy cost and store them to the afore mentioned limitations. This makes a 20 mass Sa'Vasku ship the smallest vessel capable of launching a fighter strike.

I hope this provides an acceptable solution to others to this officially unanswered question.

KRA'VAK FLEET

Sun Bomb
The Kra'Vak have developed a horrifying new weapon. The few survivors of the recent battle near the Pan African Union call it a Sun Bomb. ONI analysts suspect that this is an adaption by the Kra'Vak of captured Wave Gun or Nova Cannon technology. The Kra'Vak weapon is a railgun fired projectile that unlike the Terran Nova Cannon, does not ignite when fired. Instead, it travels at the speed of a normal railgun projectile to a targeted point and then explodes into a ball of highly destructive and short lived, plasma. Point Defense has proven to be slightly effective against the projectile prior to its ignition.

The Sun Bomb is a mass 1 projectile and must be carried in a magazine within the Kra'Vak vessel. It can only be fired from a Class 2 Railgun or larger and the magazine must be feeding a designated railgun to fire the munition.

The Kra'Vak player fires the Sun Bomb during the same phase as missile fire, and being placed as a missile salvo in arc of the railgun. The Sun Bomb has the same range as the railgun firing it. It will detonate if any ship comes within 3" of its target point, turning into a 3" diameter plasma ball. Ships passing thru this plasma ball will suffer 3d6 damage, not affected by shields, nor do 6's count for penetration damage. The unlucky ship within 3" may attempt to use its PDAF only to destroy the charge prior to its detonation.

Sun Bomb

Mass: 1 per charge Points: 10 each charge

Also available now, packs of 6 plastic black hex bases for ships, such as you'll find in the new packaging for the Full Thrust Miniatures. I hate to say however, that it is still better to build your own for the DNs and up for better stability of the model.