Editing Star Fleet Battles (section)

=== '''The Andromedan Invaders''' ===

'''''Overview''''' 

oh boy where to start

The Andromedans are just one big unknown. No one knows where they came from, what they want or even what they look like. No Andromedan has even been seen dead or alive and their ships seem to have a built in auto-destruct device that triggers before capture. Hell even their boarding parties are just combat robots. They do not communicate, accept surrender or offer terms, they just destroy. Some military intelligence officers have even theorized that each ship is operated by a single individual. With the Andro's you just never know.

No evidence regarding the physical appearance of the Andromedan race has been catalogued by an Alpha Octant government. Andromedan boarding parties are comprised entirely of robotic combat systems. While Module C3 includes data on Andromedan ground stations, established for a number of uses on conquered planets, no concrete link between these activities and the Andromedans' true nature have been determined - though from the evidence uncovered at Andromedan agricultural depots, it has been postulated that if the Andromedans are organic, they must be capable of ingesting anything which could even remotely be considered organic.

Information on the holdings of the Andromedans in their home galaxy is unknown, although it has been hinted in Federation Commander that the Andromedans hold sway over M31 (or at least the portion where a Tholian exodus fleet arrived, after fleeing M81 in the wake of the Seltorian Revolt). Over the course of the Invasion, their holdings included the LMC, as well as significant portions of the Alpha and Omega octants during the War, yet their success in other regions of the galaxy are currently unknown.

'''''Technology'''''

Andromedan starships are divided into three main categories - Motherships (BC's or DN's analogues, thankfully the Andromedans never completed their Battleship sized Demolisher class of ships). Cruiser sized solo ships (CA and CL's) and Satellite Ships (escort analogues). Each kind possesses Tactical Warp engines - allowing them to fight at FTL speeds - yet Satellite Ships are transported by Motherships for strategic deployment and usually operate in tandem with the parent vessel and in fact are often deployed in the middle of combat by use of the Motherships Displacement Device as a surprise assault or in fast attack mode.

Andromedan warships operate on quite different principles to those of races in the Alpha Octant or Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Instead of shields, their vessels are protected by efficient power absorption panels, which are able to absorb incoming fire and use it to power their own systems.

In terms of weaponry, Andromedan vessels were armed with Phaser-2 analogs as well as Tractor-Repulsor Beams. A terribly powerful beam weapon capable of tearing a target warship apart. In addition, they used the formidable Mauler cannon on one of their Satellite Ships to attack enemy installations.

Perhaps the most prominent example of superior Andromedan technology, the Displacement Device allows an Andromedan Mothership to literally teleport itself several thousand kilometres instantaneously - or do the same to a target starship. (you think your safe by saber dancing? Get over here!) However this technology is also a strategic weakness as no more than two Displacement Device-equipped Motherships can safely operate in the same sector of space as sub-space just cannot handle the abuse of physics the DD causes.

In all, a combination of an Andromedan Mothership and accompanying Satellite Ships are a threat to even larger squadrons of Magellanic or Galactic vessels, with fleets of Andromedan ships a danger to heavily fortified systems. 

In game the Andro's were designed to give players a new and alternative play style and to shake up the game meta which had become to be dominated by the plasma races. The Andro ships play nothing like anything else in the game and can be a tonne of fun to play if you can master all the added rules and strategies.

'''''History'''''

''The Launch from Andromeda''

There is no direct information regarding the initial deployment of Andromedan forces. Year after year, successive waves of Andromedan warships were launched from Andromeda, heading for the Lesser Magellanic Cloud - the springboard for an invasion of the Milky Way. Included were the components necessary to construct the first Desecrator - the starbase which would provide the hub of Andromedan operations in the Cloud.

''War in the Cloud''

The LMC had been home to several star-faring races unfortunately, these races could not stand against the onslaught of the Andromedans, and were crushed, one by one, as the invaders used the Cloud to gather resources and launch raids into the Milky Way. The Eneen and Baduvai fell first, and the Uthiki Harmony (a semi-autonomous state within the Baduvai Imperium, composed of a race of squid-like invertebrates) was destroyed, and the Uthiki themselves virtually exterminated as a race. The Maghadim held out behind their radiation shell, along with a number of Baduvai and Eneen colonies, until the Andromedans swarmed into the Core of the SMC in Y183. The Chomak Community, the last Magellanic faction left standing, was conquered in Y185. While elements from these races struggled for survival out in the Fringe of the Cloud, these scattered groups were only saved when the Unity races arrived in Y202.

''Preparations for Conquest''

Once established in the Cloud, the Andromedans prepared a chain of Satellite Bases linking the LMC to the Milky Way, which served to establish a Rapid Transport Network into (and within) the galaxy proper - which allowed their vessels to travel at superior strategic speeds. (Their vessels could use the Network to travel between nodes at Warp 15, far in advance of what their enemies could achieve, but were slower than Alpha Octant warships of the same period without the RTN.)

The first official contact with the Andromedans for the Federation and Klingon Empire came in Y166, when an Intruder was engaged by Galactic vessels. Over the next decades, further sightings and ship classes were encountered, yet the fires of the General War swept these accounts from the minds of the Alpha races.

In the Omega Octant, the Andromedans were first uncovered by the Chlorophons, who spent the years of the Superpower Wars and most of the Second Great War investigating the mysterious race. However, most of the Omega races were too pe-occupied fighting each other - and the ancient Loriyill Collective was too concerned with their search for their ancient nemeses, the life-draining Souldra.

In Y186, the ISC Pacification Campaign began, and the Alpha Octant races were primarily concerned with the buffer zone created by the Interstellar Concordium, while the Omega races fought the Second Great War to a conclusion. Neither octant's inhabitants were prepared for what was to come.

''The Onslaught''

In Y188, the Andromedans launched their first currently-documented full-scale operations against the Milky Way Galaxy.

In the Alpha Octant, the ISC bore the brunt of the initial attacks - as it was the largest power, and was spread across the octant in its peacekeeping role - taking severe losses to the invaders. The most serious moment came when the renowned Echelon of Judgement - a powerful squadron of ISC X-ships - was rushed all the way from the Klingon-Federation border back to defend the capital world of Veltrassa from an Andromedan deep strike. Over the coming years, the War spread to other races in the Octant - the Federation was assaulted by the Invaders in Y192 - and former enemies were forced to co-operate for mutual survival. Most of the Alpha powers were forced into defending their core provinces, but had learned of the effectiveness of X-ships in the fight against the Andromedans. However, the Lyran Democratic Republic was unable to hold out from the Invaders, and was crushed in Y195 - a bitter lesson for the Alpha powers in what to expect should their own efforts prove insufficient.

In the Omega Octant, which was less advanced technologically than the Alpha races, the Andromedan invasion commenced with the occupation of the abandoned Ryn Nebula and the destruction of the Iridani New Kingdom in Y191, and went into full swing in Y192. As if this was not unfortunate enough for the Omega races, the Andomedan assault corresponded with a Souldra expansion into the octant, which smashed the Bolosco and Singers as star-faring races, and left scores of vessels and colony worlds drained of life. Each invading force inflicted great losses on the Omega races, with the prospect of eventual defeat looming. (It should be noted that despite the concurrence of the invaders' actions, the two races were just as likely to fight each other as anyone else, and were not co-belligerents.) While the Loriyill managed to defeat the Souldra, the only bright spot in the war against the Andromedans was found in the successful liberation of the Iridani Cluster from Andromedan control, which was followed by an Iridani Crusade into the Milky Way to aid the Omega allies. However, without external assistance these efforts would not have been enough to hold back the tide.

At present, nothing is known regarding the Andromedans' fortunes in other regions of the galaxy.

''Operation Unity and Operation Concerted Strike''

Things looked bleak for the Alpha races until the discovery of the RTN in Y195 by the famed Federation Galactic Survey cruiser Essex, which was soon realized to be the Achilles' heel of the invasion force. Over the next few years the Alpha races severely disrupted the Network, facilitating a rolling back of Andromedan successes. The Magellanics had long known of the RTN, and the Iridani had made a similar discovery in the liberation of their Cluster, but neither were able to fully capitalize on their findings - unlike the allied Alpha powers, who took to the destruction of the RTN with great effectiveness.

Finally, in Y201, the allied races of the Alpha Octant launched Operation Unity, a three-pronged strike against the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, where in Y202 the Unity powers and the remaining Magellanic fleet assets destroyed the two remaining Desecrator starbases, breaking the back of the invasion.

(Recent data presented in Module C5 indicates that there were three Desecrators in total present in the Cloud. The first was built in Y145 and destroyed by the Magellanics in Y154. The second was built in Y152, but remained undetected for several years. It was crippled by a Magellanic assault in Y163 and destroyed in Y202 while attempting to build a Devastator battleship. The third Desecrator was completed in Y158 and was also destroyed in Y202. In addition, the Andromedans had been attempting to build a new Desecrator in Iridani space, but these efforts were reversed when the Iridani re-took their home worlds.)

Afterwards, the Andromedans remained a nuisance for the Galactic and Magellanic races, but the specter of full-scale war was finally removed.

'''''In Game'''''

I have to stress once again the importance of properly understanding the unique rules of the Andromedans. Without the handicaps of the proper rules the Andro's are stupidly OP and playing them so is tantamount to cheating and very unfair to your opponent. Don't be ''that guy''.

Remember it's common courtesy to hand your EA sheet to your opponent after the game, it's a good way to keep everyone honest and helps you learn from your defeats. Again don't be ''that guy'', be honest and upfront and you'll be invited back to play. 

''Types of Andromedan ships''

Andro's come in 3 flavors. 

You have your Motherships which are equivalent to a BCH or DN and tend to carry at least one smaller Satellite ship in a interior hanger but the chonky boi's can carry up to 6. These guys are named with aggressive verbs like; Intruder, Invader, Aggressor, Imposer, Dominator,  ect ect.

Next you have the "solo" ships which are CA or BC equivalents who may or may not have a Displacement Device but never have a hanger and tend to work alone or in pairs at most. Names after snakes like Cobra, Krait, Asp, Mamba ect ect.

Lastly you have the Satellite ships which fill the escort role. The neat thing about Sat ships is that their Mothership can use the Displacement Device for launching and recovery. They are fully functional ships in their own right and a group of 3 Sat ships will chew a CA pretty handily. 

''Systems''

Andromedan ships are unique in the fact that they have a closed power generation loop. In an Andro ship all power must be used, it cannot just be discarded like a galactic ship. This is super important to know and understand as it's the core of Andro gameplay.

Andromedans primary defense are their Power Absorbers (PA's) which fill the role of shields but unlike galactic ships PA's don't just negate damage they turn it into power for the Andro ship to use. Any damage done to a PA panel can be moved into the ships batteries at the end of the turn. NOw there are many "tricks" to moving power around before the end of the turn but each one comes with risk of course. Also Andro batteries are vastly superior to galactic ones as they can hold 5 points of power each compared to the single point of a galactic ship so most Andro ships will have anywhere from 25 to 100 points of battery power storage. (Good luck trying to tractor them or win a EW war).

Contrary to popular belief Andro ships do suffer from power shortages. In fact most of the time an Andro ship struggles just like any other ship. A good opponent will only fire at a Andro if they know they are going to some damage past the PA's so for most of the game your forced to rely only on what power your ship has (which is typically lower then galactic races). Small tip; start the game with your batteries full, I know it sounds counter intuitive but trust me for the first few turns you'll be glad to have that power to use.

Ok lets talk about the most complex part of playing an Andro; the Power Absorber panels. They are the primary defense of Andromedan ship and are both better and worse then galactic shields. PA's banks are split into two on a Andro ship. The forward bank which covers shield arc 1,2,6 and the rear bank which covers 3,4,5. So Andro's have more more shields per facing then galactic ships but lower total shielding levels. PA's also cost a lot more power to use then shields but this isn't usually an issue as you can keep them at lower levels to save power and boost them up if needed. The real strength to PA's is how fast you can regenerate them, which is much faster then a galactic ship can repair it shields. However unlike galactic shields the PA's can be destroyed by internal damage or Hit and Run attacks. Plus of course you can move the power stored in the bank into your batteries at the end of the turn and use it to overwhelm your opponent. 

Which brings us into the real issue with Andro's in the fact that your power system is closed. You cannot just dump the power you have. They typical death of an Andro is a where you get a PA panel or battery blown up but unlike galactic ships that power just doesn't vanish it has to go somewhere because of the closed power system. If the Andro player doesn't have room to store the power it turns into internal damage which then in turn has a good chance to blow out more PA's or batteries and then even more damage goes internal which in turns blows out more PA's and so on until the Andro goes supernova. This is called a "Cascade Failure" in game terms and is the standard way an Andro ship will die. Sometimes all it takes is that one battery hit at the wrong time and BOOM!

There are many different tactics to handling PA panels as you can raise and lower them at will to shuffle power around and help you re-generate them. Also as PA panels absorb damage their capacity to store power get lowered, this is called degrading and allows galactic ships in sufficient numbers to sand away at you until your PA panels are useless. In game turns 10% of the incoming damage registers as degradation. (This does NOT subtract from the total damage absorbed btw). 

example:

A typical tactic is to oblique approach with panels at standard levels, yes you can switch to re-enforced levels before fire hits see the sequence of play, lash out with your TR's at what range you think best, crunching a shield with luck and then announce intent to Displace. If the opponent fires (if he doesn't you save power and keep the PA's at standard) take the return fire on your now re-enforced front bank then Displace away and zoom off. When at a safe range drop the front panels entirely (which are not exposed to enemy fire...hopefully) and the power now flows into the rear panels with excess moving into the batteries. The turn ends and you move power from the back panels to the batteries and your back PA's vent what your allowed (if needed) and bring the front panels back up to standard. Now your front panels are clear, except for the degradation (which your working to fix of course). You now zip around at high speed and run your ship off the batteries to make space while recharging your TR beams, next turn your repeat.  During this same time period your opponent has been able to repair exactly 3 shield  strength.  Scary huh?


I do want to point out that PA's have to obey a lot of the same rules as shields which means you do have to wait 8 impulses between changing panel levels so do take that into account when planning your power dumps and don't get caught with down panels or you'll be sorry. Watch out for weapons likes Hellbores and enveloping plasma torps which can definitely screw up your power management schemes.

One last note for PA's is that they "leak". Disrupter damage can sneak past the PA panels cuz Disrupters have a disruptive effect right? (it's a fudge for game balance as Disrupters just don't have the 1 turn punch to get through PA's) In game for every 10 points of damage done 1 point will "leak" past the PA's and do internal damage. Now this actually really sucks because chance are that that damage will knock out something important so it's in the best interests of the Andro player to cut down on the number of Disrupters firing at them as quickly as possible or your ship will be leaked to death in short order.

Next up in the line of weird Andromedan tech is the Displacement Device (or DD for short).  It's basically a teleporter which moves a ship or object directly from one location to another instantaneously.  The Lore catch is it abuses physics so hard you can only ever have two on the map at anyone one point in time, if a third DD is activated a miniature black hole opens up and swallows all three ships instantly. The laws of physics will only take so much abuse I guess but of course the real reason is game balance and the DD is a very powerful tool so have a Andro fleet with 6 or 7 DD's would be a nightmare to fight against. The DD can be used on yourself, an ally, a seeking weapon or an opponent and all 3 choices have conditions applied.

Most commonly a DD is used after a battle pass to GTFO out a Dodge without letting the opposing ship get a clean shot off. The catch is that you have to announce "intent to displace" as part of your weapons firing sequence so your opponent will know that your going to jump away before he makes his choice to fire or not. You can also announce your going to displace but plan to cancel said displacement (technically you do need to note this but most casual games don't care) however you do suffer some penalties that can complicate your next few impulses, the biggest being you can't displace again for a minimum of 8 impulses. So you close to your range of choice, announce intent to fire and displace then your fire off your TR's and PH-2's and (hopefully) jump out 8 hexes. Normally you will either fire at 9 hexes to avoid any overloads or fire at 3 hexes where your TR's have an excellent damage bracket but the galactic races only have a OK chance to hit depending on the weapon, then displace away to avoid a Phaser barrage at range 1 or 0. Some new Andro players will think to close to range 4 announce then displace OVER the target into it's #6 shield arc so they can savage a weaker and hopefully not re-enforced shield. This can work but most players only fall for it once and will have a HET ready to counter this. The final use for a DD is as a "free" HET as after you displace you get to select your heading so you can instantly do a 180 and turn the tide on a ship chasing you whose hoping to get some fire into those smaller, probably full, back PA's. Suddenly he's now closing  Andro's center-line and wishing he was anywhere else. 

When you instead choose to displace a enemy ship they will also suffer some penalties for 8 impulses. The biggest one being they can only fire at the displacing ship due to "fire control being disrupted". So this to a typical tactic of displacing the largest ship towards your Mothership, whose PA's can handle the incoming fire, allowing the Sat ships to open up with no fear of return fire.

Now the DD isn't all roses as it does have a major thorn in the fact it has a 1 in 6 chance to just not work. After anouncing intent to displace and exchanging fire you then roll a D6 and if you land on 6 you aint going nowhere bub. Good Andro players will have





work in progress

'''''Fleet Action'''''

Ok so with all I've said so far your probably thinking that Andromedan Fleets are probably massively dangerous right? The Lore builds them up to be an almost unstoppable force that required the whole Alpha octant to put aside their differences and work together to over come. They came within a hair's breadth of conquering the galaxy and their ships on an individual level are extremely powerful so a Andro Fleet must be something to be fear. Right?

Well...no actually.  While in the Lore the Andro Fleets ran roughshod over the galaxy in the game Andro Fleet are extremely weak believe it or not. How you ask? That Intruder and Cobra thrashed our little 4 ship, 500 BPV fleet! Well your almost on target there. Little is the key word.  In any battle under 700 BPV (give or take) Andro's are still very strong but once you move up into the 800+ range you start seeing DN's supported by either CA's or BC's and suddenly you have enough 1 turn firepower to brew up any Andro ship, motherships included.

The Andro's advantage, which they do pay heavily for, is their ability to rapidly regenerate their defences. But what use is that when there is enough firepower on the table to blow you up in 1 turn. It actually turns out that Andro Fleets are fairly weak to any galactic power fleet of appropriate size. Andro's have to pay the PA tax (just like the Rommies have the cloak tax) so you will always be out numbered in a equal BPV fight which means after that 700-800 BPV range your ships will die no matter what you do once a turn due to the sheer number of shots coming your way and if your enemy has more ships then you...well I'm sure you can guess the rest. Now this has always been a sore spot with the Andro players, given how the Lore treats the Andro's but the Dev's have come out and plainly said they have no real way to balance the Andro's for both small scale battle, which the game was designed around, and the large scale fleets some players like to use so we just have to accept that Andro Fleets are going to be just speed-bumps to the galactic powers.  It sucks but you can't have everything.

If this really gets your dander up you can play the conjectural "Demolisher and Devourer" classes of Andro battleships which are stupidly OP because they were never meant to be played in game and were created for a scenario in Operation Unity.  They are present in game but only as half completed hulks that the galactic powers have to try to destroy and the Andro's have to try to save. But really they're not balanced in the least so use at your own risk.