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After the one fight on the border in Y162 it was time to advance the campaign clock to Y163. I think both sides will end up with nearly everything available in a second campaign round, and there’s two of the better defensive bases to deal with, so I expect these rules will naturally have heavy fighting at this point. It certainly proved so here.

There’s one new design available: The Federation FFL can be prototyped (regular service in Y165). This is a plasma-F version of the FF. Since the charging pattern is 1-1-3 and holding cost is 0, it should be a bit faster than the normal FF/FFG—except on the final turn of arming. It loses the long-range firepower of the proximity torpedo, but should be a good knife-fighter for fleet battles. I’ve never used one, but now may be the time.

The Klingons went for two options I had considered earlier: an F5S and F5C in place of the normal builds for a ‘heavy’ slot and an extra scout. I worked up a real loadout for the D6D, which required another 10 EPV for the drone fund, and speed-12/20 drone funds were allocated to all the command ships:

Caryover                                               3    1
Income                                               380   38
Item                  Hull #   Name                  EPV  OPV
New Ship   E4         E4-12    IKV Adamant            55

New Ship   E4         E4-13    IKV Keeper             55

New Ship   F5C        F5C-7    IKV Fire Keeper        89
P Supplies Drone Fund                                  4
T Supplies 2xT-Bomb                                         8

New Ship   F5S        F5S-34   IKV Scorn              80
T Supplies 2xT-Bomb                                         8

P Supplies Drone Fund C6-1     IKV Victory             8
P Supplies Drone Fund C6-3     IKV Atrocity            8
P Supplies Drone Fund D7C-4    IKV Devilslayer         4
P Supplies Drone Fund D7C-11   IKV Dawnslayer          4
P Supplies Drone Fund F5C-4    IKV Doom Leader         4
P Supplies Drone Fund F5C-5    IKV Doom King           4
P Supplies Drone Fund F5C-6    IKV Doom Lord           4
P Supplies Drone Fund E4C-1    IKV Sworn               4
T Supplies 2xT-Bomb                                         8
P Supplies Drone Fund D6D-14   IKV Stormcloud         10
T Supplies 2xT-Bomb   F5S-8    IKV Deceiver                 8
Remaining                                             50    7

IKV Stormcloud drones: Her good drone percentage allows one Type-III ECM drone per rack. One slot per rack gets Type II-eX (1/2 space external armor for speed 8 and four turns), one slot per is Type-IIX, and the remaining three are Type-IIs, except for rack 6, which has a Type-V. D6Ds have 200 spaces of extra storage allocated in proportion to the racks, which would be 90xII, 8xV, 32xIIX, 32xII-eX, 30xIII ECM. (This is the first time I’ve done up such a fancy loadout; hopefully it’s all correct.) This will all convert to equivalent Type I-Ms in Y168 (I should get so far….)

I did all this without looking at the D7C SSD, and forgot they start with a pair of 6-space B-racks. Even the C6 is using all normal 4-space racks. So I underspent on them, and went with 3 × Type-II, 1 × Type V, 1 × Type-I drone per rack on them until the drone fund could be expanded to the full 6 points next year.

Star Fleet would like to have another big scout, but has decided it’s not worth the extra cost. They are also saving EPV by field-testing the FFL, but there won’t be enough next year to prototype the CS. That will have to wait till Y165, or later.

Caryover                                               1    9
Income                                               380   38
Item                  Hull #   Name                  EPV  OPV
New Ship   FFL        NCC-318  USS Freyberg           69
					
New Ship   FFG        NCC-326  USS Ernest J King      75	
P Supplies Drone Fund                                  2	
					
New Ship   DD         NCC-513  USS Ahriman            94	
					
New Ship   DD         NCC-514  USS Rahman             94	
					
P Supplies Drone Fund NCC-528  USS Czar Alexander IV   4	
T Supplies 6xT-Bomb   NCC-2100 USS Federation              24
T Supplies 4xT-Bomb   NCC-1705 USS Excalibur               16
Remaining                                             43    7

With construction done I separately figured out fleet assignments, and then looked to see what was matched against each other. Star Fleet put their two wounded cruisers into reserve to get them fully repaired for Y164.

Region 3: 110-515 – Klingon retreat before combat
This got two Klingon ships as part of the initial sorting out, but then missed out on anything else. So, when it came to the second pass, they gave it up and swapped in a pair of E4s while the original D7 and F5 went to region 1. The Federation is disappointed, as the FFL is there, and they wanted to try it out before committing to another next year.

Region 1: 565-725
The Klingons only have so many command ships, and a D7 force ran into a DN fleet here. Since not fighting puts everything in reserve anyway, the Klingons will presumably fight and try to damage something before being forced to disengage.

Region 2: 669-704
With three DDs, this is largely a bombardment force guarding the base. The Klingons will hope the CC and CL come out to play, but this could be a static battle.

Region 5: 766-738
The Klingons managed to fill the EPV allotment exactly (since that changes every year, don’t expect to see it happen again), and have a good base-busting force (D6D and F5S), so they have what it takes; we’ll see how well I do with it.

Region 6: 589-574
This is the most even contest of the lot, and I’ll be playing this first (I’ll see if anyone else is interested in doing it with me), to set the momentum of the year.

Region 4: 568-518
This is the one fight the Klingons have a real advantage in, and have two strong squadrons (Ds and Fs), so Star Fleet will probably fight to do damage and leave.

Region 1.3: 473-308
This is the one BS left behind by the Klingons last year. They sent enough to be sure of it. The pair of DDs and the BS could give them a bloody nose, but Star Fleet is considering just leaving content with having diverted five Klingon ships for a year instead of risking the DDs. [Star Fleet eventually did just abandon the base after seeing serious damage to other DDs.]