That Sub Warfare Flavor...

Our crew is going to wind up being contacted with a urgent tasking from Starfleet Command. The argolus array has a new batch of software that allows for some limited tracking of a Romulan ship while cloaked. The problem is that it is very new, you must be fairly close, and that the only ship to be picked up is near the Cardassian DMZ and about to leave the array's range...

The crew is to track the ship, preferably without being discovered, all the way back to the RNZ. To me this would be something passive, so as not to give away that they are tracking the Romulans, and something close range, so that they have to trail within maybe a light year or so while the ship is at warp. When it drops to impulse the crew will have to either wait for it to go back to warp or close in dangerously close.

I'm looking for ideas and maybe some CODA rules ideas for this... I want it to have the feel of cold war submarines getting hull shots of Russian subs and ships without being detected.

Its going to be mostly time for tense RP aboard, but it could turn for the worst if the crew fouls up.

I'm reminded of the 'Crazy ivan' manoeuvre from the Hunt for Red october.. where the captain would occasionally alter his course, just to be sure to one was riding in his wake. In the same sense, the greatest problem you have is not whether the Romulans can detect your scanning beams, but simply whether they notice you following them! Also.. if you are following them, and they realise, they might lay a trap, by altering course to a waiting fleet of ships, but cleverly, so you don't realise there's a change... or simply keep allowing you to follow, as it allows them to sharpen their cloaking technology (Keep trying to new solutions, till you stop following them! which could lead for a chess like game of double bluffs!)

I guess part of the plot has to be about WHY they are following them? What period DW is this, pre the Romulan treaty, or post? Why are they following them at all, in either case? Simply because they can: So they can refine this new technology? Or for a plot reason, such as it's suspected this ship has an important McGuffin? Is the objective simply to follow them, so they can prove they went from point A to point B (such as to politically embarrass them) to find out what they are doing / where they are going and why, or to actually catch them, in the end: none or all of the above! :)

You're going to have to work out how the Romulans are being detected: Not neccessarily the treknobabble, but the conditions involved (only when traveling at warp?) what modifiers and to what skills the players get, and if this is something they get oboard the ship, or if it is relayed from the Argolus array (in which case, the Romulans could evade capture if they can figure out that's why, and block transmissions!).

Lots of conditionals to think on, so just ask away, and we can help! :D

Well that's why I posted, to get some help. :)

My thought is that the cloak and sensor race is ongoing. This is just a few months before the Dominion War, and its a matter of what are they doing in Federation space? They may be dropping off relays, tapping into Federation communications, interecepting ship rotations or something. The point is that they are barely detectable at warp, when close.

If the Federation ship is travelling at a EMCON other than just following the Romulans then they may not be noticed at the edge of range. What happens when they drop to impulse though and the crew has to close in or wait and hope they can reaquire when they go to warp again? These are the questions...

I want that feel of the conn officers and ops officers having a haggard appearance after a few days, with the XO and CO being on the bridge except for quick naps here and there because in just a few moments everything could change if the ship altered course, came about, the ship needs to be able to duck into a nebula or rig for silent running fast.

Did you ever see the TOS episode when the Enterprise first encounters the Romulans & their cloaked bird of prey? To me, that had the flavor of sub warfare, at least warfare b/t a surface vessel like a destroyer, and a sub. If that's the kind of flavor you're looking for, I recommend re-watching that episode.

A few problems with this scenario, that you need to be aware of. Not so much in the idea, I like the idea, but in the execution of it. I'll list it, more or less in order of what needs to be paid attention to.

First of all, as you say, it will have to be all passive. This gives the romulans the initiative, in any action. This makes it not all that dramatic of a scenario, as follows, IF you run it by die rolls only.

So your crew is sitting there, roleplaying...

GM: Okay you are still tracking those romulan guys.

Player CO: We continue to track him, until he changes course, or slows down.

GM: The romulans maintain course. Hours pass. What are you doing?

Player CO: We continue to track him.

GM: More hours pass.

Okay, so you get the idea.

On active duty, I was a Torpedoman, but qualified as Sonar Supervisor aboard a USN Cruiser. The old adage is true, as the EW warfare guys on other side of CIC told me, "Doing ASW is like watching paint dry."

What you will need to do is to inject that element of ASW that makes it just a bit not like star trek's always hot on the trail, always with a sensor lock, in that your crew, at some point, must LOSE CONTACT REPEATEDLY.

That's right, read that again.

The contest is not so much between your fed ship's passive sensors and the Romulans ion trails, but between captains and their individual tactics, and strategy, a la the episode "A Balance of Terror," as mentioned.

Perhaps you already have this idea... when the romulans drop to sublight, the range to detect them passively is drastically reduced. Okay, that's part of it.

However, since the romulans are doing sprint and drift as a tactic, the Feds can too.

So that if the roms do the Clear the Baffles maneuver, by turning, or slowing down and turning, thus to do a passive sensor sweep of what used to be their rear arc, then the fed ship can stop, as soon as they lose course track on the romulans.

Part of that is the skill of the helm / Engineering crew at stopping the ship... does the sensors guy detect the ship stoppage in enough time for the engineering crew and helm to respond, such that your fed ship is not Detected.

Basically, unless the roms want to take years to get where they are going at sublight, your feds can sit for 15 mninutes, whatever, while the Roms do their Drift/Scan.

As soon as your CIC / Bridge guys detect the rom main drive starting up, then your crew can start up, and continue following, assuming your intel guys in the fleet know the passive detection range of romulan gear, and assuming also that it is shorter than that of the fed ship. If not, the Roms can basically lead the fed ship into an ambush trap of a small fleet, lying cloaked. As the roms sail by, the fed ship unless they are really lucky, will get slammed.

You could even use this in a scenario, so that you do an intel briefing, where some SFIC LT. gives roms passive range as ... X LY.

Halfway into the scenario, skirting the edge of the range, the romulans have been doing slight zigzags, spring and drift, etc, as normal. Till a flash message comes from starfleet. A spy inside in deep cover on Romii has discovered that some romulan ships have been fitted with a new sensor system. If this ship they are following has it, they have been following this Rom guy, all along well withing the passive range by 2 or 3 Light Years.

Then it's the paranoia you are looking for. Do they know where we are? is this a trap? Does ther ship have this new gear on it? Do they break off, assuming this ship has the gear, or continue, because the mission they are on is important enough?

Okay enough on that. The second thing is, you need to set it up to not just have it that it's straight courses, for two reasons. If the scenario is a straight course all along, there is no interest.

If the romulans change base course, each course change leads to questions: do the roms have new orders? did they detect us? etc.

Plus, you need to have terrain in space, such as a nebula, where the range is reduced, plus also an area where sensors are really good, so that your crew has to lag waaay back to stay out of range.

Also maybe some kind of radiation field that they have to go around...in following the romulans, maybe they enter an area of space where there are "Sensor echoes" Sensors detect 4 or 5 tracks now, not just one... which one is the real one? is this an enemy fleet? or just sensor gohsts? Can the gear be fixed to recalibrate? How much will that affect the original mission?

Thirdly, you will need to have more to do than track the roms. You will need to have some NPCs aboard the crew to talk with, a la the scenes in any sub movie from The Enemy Below to Das Boot, to Hunt for Red October, to Crimson Tide.

Maybe a discussion of the politics, or some backstory, or resolution of interpersonal conflicts. More or less to pass the time between the various sensor checks. Not to say that you need backslapping, jokes, or something that will throw off the theme, but in a long arduous mission like this one, there needs to be lots of tension, and there should be.. which thus requires some kind of tension reliever.

I suggest your captain do things like the 24th century analogy of ... have the cooks make up a special batch of softserve ice cream (and then at the table pass out real klondike bars, or break out a tub of vanilla, whatevcer, depends on your players. )

Or have "the soda machines opened up to the crew", and you break out real ice cold drinks, that have been stashed away.

Things like that.

What I am trying to show is, you need that moment, where the crew says, "Wow, what a great guy/gal the captain is, here we are, tired as hell, worn out, up for 48 to 72 hours or more, and they know we are the best, doing our best, and our efforts are appreciated.

That moment where the captain makes a joke, and the crew knows, no matter what happens, detected or not, they will make it out alive, because their CO has their act together, and will be Decisive, and cool-headed.

Most of your sceanario will be B plot. Have one, tying it to crew NPCs, I think.

Eh, enough for now. Too many memories.

Hope this helped.

Actually, to flip this up on it's head: Howabout this for a scenario...

The Romulans are deep in Federation/cardassian Space... When they suffer an accident (which may be related to another plot, maybe even related to the crew?) it partially damages their cloaking device, so it is leaking: Maybe their nullifier core has malfunctioned. So they have the horrible problem that they cannot go to warp without becoming at least partially visible, due to their warp trail! They can't travel at low warp / impulse as it's over 50-100 lightyears to friendly space..... They are well and trully stuck!

So in come our plucky players, who begin to detect anomolous readings... Interfacing with the Argolus array tells them that it could be a malcunctioning Romulan cloaking device.. After the nod from Starfleet, they are off... chasing the rabit....

Introducing the element of knowing it is a chase creates a great deal more tension. The Romulan commander is going to use every trick in the book - trying to lose them in nebula's, in suns coronospheres', J+ planets magnetic fields, and jump about, evading the Federations longest range sensors as best they can. But still, it is only a ghost they are chasing, and they have to constantly realign their sensors, and deal with other hazards on the way. The Romulans don't want to be caught at it, but equally don't want to be caught period! So they may well use dirty tricks, and even attack the ship, if they a) think they can win and b) get away with it out of sensor range (in a Nebula for example).

Then change the game...

It could actually be a trap... The Romulans are only playing possum, and they want something from the PC crew or their ship.. Just when the PC's think they have them cornered, they reverse the tables on them, and they suddenly realise they have been led on a wild goose chase, they are now far from friendly teritory, and maybe they aren't actually Romulans ? :D

Awesome.

I like how you think Tobian.

LUGTrekGM, valuable insights. Thank you. I am going on the assumption that they have to be within the warp wake of teh romulan ship and that they have 520 degree sensors, but that the Romulans aren't transmitting much either lest they give away their position (The old adage about active sonar being like a flashlight in a warehouse).

The ship in question also has a masking system, it is based on the Prarie Masker baffle system on US ships, among others. It creates a subspace null field that surrounds the ship and when combined with EMCON conditions make it harder to detect, thus making it able to get close enough to do something such as search for the ship.

As for the chase... Its about the new crew getting to know their new captain and each other. Plenty of RP time with a background story :)

I liked that idea too LOL, I might run it myself hehe :)

A ship which is running on 'silent' is a lot harder to detect, but yes, you can't travel at warp, so some sort of masking system will help a lot here! There are a cuple of systems like that in Starships, for some mechanics :)

Got a page number? I can't find anything for it. Only place I found it was in Operations where its listed on the steamrunner.

Tobian, where are the masking system items mentioned in Starships? I can't find them.

Ok Page 12-13 - Monorefractive Plating TN: 14 to detect - anti sensor coating

Page 27 - Monotanium plating edge: +4 to lock on TN against the ship - upgradeable to +8

I missed the first one, thanks. That works out well :)