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As I summarized… over two years ago, I’ve taking out my frustrations over not having an opponent to keep up with a Star Fleet Battles campaign by soloing one by myself. Part of the point is to exercise the ruleset I wrote up, and part is to get some fleet practice in; though with being distracted by playing both sides, it’ll never be stellar play. At any rate, since it’s been eating up a fair amount of the spare time that generates entries for this blog, so I’m going to be putting up more of what’s going on here.

I started while the main group was finishing off Y162 play, so that’s where the campaign started. I went for a classic Federation vs Klingon campaign. Slightly after getting going, I discovered the Federation DDG actually exists this far back, and I’ve swapped out one of the normal DDs for USS Czar Alexander IV. With speed-8/12 drones it’s going to be a lackluster class, though she’ll probably be used as drone defense in fleet battles.

I contemplated swapping out a Klingon ship for a penal variant, with a rule that they always have to have one in service. But, that just means a succession of E4Js, which will probably not see much action so they don’t have to waste the EPV building a new one, so I haven’t bothered. Maybe a rule where they have to keep it in the hull of their current FF slot builds? (E4s now, F5s later, and someday—I should live so long—F5Ws; though I don’t see a FWJ; I do have the F6J….)

After studying what my general format implies for everyone, the assumed budget is 350 EPV per turn up through Y160, after which it goes up by 10/year. There’s a couple empires that temporarily blow this budget out of the water, and if using them, there’d probably need to be adjustments to keep them afloat. As it is, the Federation technically wants a budget of 402 EPV right now, but they do have EPs left over after the required four purchases, so it’s not a real problem; they just have to be cautious about getting new cruisers. On the other hand, Klingon equilibrium is 312 EPV, and they can just about build a battlecruiser per year. But the small ships they’re building are small.

The Klingons start with 16 EPV left over from the starting budget, 370 income, plus 100 OPV starting budget (shorting the recommended total by a lot to help setup, especially since I’m doing both sides, but not as badly as the early years campaign with Mark, where there was no OPV starting budget), and 37 income.

The Klingons considered using their extra budget for a D6S heavy scout to combat Fed scouts and bases, but then I remembered wonderfully flexible D6D. They’re also looking at the looming transition to speed-20 drones, and will concentrate on getting everyone drone funds over the next few years. For now, they’re just taking the extra cruiser, and letting the income go up a bit more while relying on basic speed-8 drones. T-bombs will continue being distributed among the fleet, with command ships taking priority. (They are also the priority group for drone upgrades, since they aren’t saddled with F-racks.)

Item		Hull #	Name	EPV	OPV
New Ship	E4	E4-9	IKV Insolent	55
New Ship	E4	E4-10	IKV Safeguard	55
New Ship	F5	F5-12	IKV Volcano	71
New Ship	F5	F5-19	IKV Dasher	71
New Ship	D6D	D6D-14	IKV Stormcloud	113
P Supplies	Drone Fund			18
T Supplies	6xT-Bomb	C6-1	IKV Victory		24
T Supplies	6xT-Bomb	C6-3	IKV Atrocity		24
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	D7C-4	IKV Devilslayer		16
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	D7C-11	IKV Dawnslayer		16
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	F5C-4	IKV Doom Leader		8
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	F5C-5	IKV Doom King		8
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	F5C-6	IKV Doom Lord		8
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	D7-4	IKV Conqueror		16
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	D7-8	IKV Thunderchild		16
Remaining				3	1

The Federation had one EPV left from the starting budget, with the same income.

Item		Hull #	Name	EPV	OPV
New Ship	FFG	NCC-320	USS St. Vincent	75
P Supplies	Drone Fund			2
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb				8
New Ship	FFG	NCC-321	USS Zhadanov	75
P Supplies	Drone Fund			2
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb				8
New Ship	DD	NCC-511	USS Alexander	94
New Ship	DD	NCC-512	USS Hannibal	94
Refit	CA	NCC-1604	USS Pennsylvania
	CAR			4
Refit	CA	NCC-1707	USS Hood
	CAR			4
Refit	CA	NCC-1713	USS Monitor
	CAR			4
Refit	FF	NCC-324	USS Dunnigan
	FFG			4
P Supplies	Drone Fund			2
Refit	FF	NCC-350	USS Chadwick
	FFG			4
P Supplies	Drone Fund			2
P Supplies	Drone Fund	NCC-301	USS Burke	2
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb				8
P Supplies	Drone Fund	NCC-302	USS Hornblower	2
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb				8
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	NCC-349	USS Shaw		8
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	NCC-359	USS Berg		8
T Supplies	2xT-Bomb	NCC-594	USS Cody		8
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	NCC-1706	USS Exeter		16
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	NCC-1710	USS Kongo		16
T Supplies	4xT-Bomb	NCC-1717	USS Defiance		16
T Supplies	6xT-Bomb	NCC-2101	USS Star League		24
Remaining				1	9

With half the fleet unavailable anyway, the Federation is concentrating on refitting FFs and CAs. All the FFGs (there’s two regular FFs left, the Shaw and the Berg) have their drone upgrades; the only other Federation ship with drones is DDG USS Czar Alexander IV, which is in reserve, and she’ll get her speed upgrade budget in Y163. T-bombs have been distributed to the active frigates, dreadnought, and scout, and the bulk of the active cruisers (missing one, USS Valiant).

The next step was assigning ships. The Federation put the minimal 2 everywhere, except at one base they gathered what few spares they had including the DN and SC.

The Klingons sent their four command ships after the four bases, but one of the D7Cs bounced the main Fed fleet. With most of the available force F5s, they declined to take it on, accepting they’ll have to clean up the rear next year. In six other regions, the Federation looked at what was coming at them and left.

However, in Region 4, the best Federation pair saw an opportunity. A CC and CA have an advantage against a D7 and D6. The E4s are a problem… but on the other hand, it might be possible to cripple/destroy one of them and then disengage before taking serious damage. And with current Klingon rear shields, bigger game is tempting….