Ground Combat MK2

OK some interesting points were made elsewhere about things defenders can do to mess up an invaders plans and why you do need ground troops

1 Transporters take too long at most you have each one sending 6 people at a time down ,given a GCS only has 8 thats 48 people at a time and you need to have your shields down to do it so what keeps the enemy from A shooting at the ship since they could detect the shields being down or B beaming comandoes up?

2 even in the 24th century decoys and jammers can fool orbiting ships ((see The Die is Cast 2))

3 anks are viable as are other armed vehicles((though they may use AG and forcefields,tnhough heavy elements have been shown to cause problems for phasers)) they can be used defensively and offensively though you may need a moified Intrepid class to land them .((note not once in 21 seasons of Trek have we seen them use the hand held phasers to destroy things wit high metal contnt in them))

4 Starfleet isn`t a military group .It may have been in Kirks era but by Picards they didnt even practicce conbat training((peak performance))They are explorers first and foremost with combat an afterthought.

Note that I am neither for nor against the whole ground forces/marine/whatever view, in fact I try to do my best to leave it as deliberately vague in my own games as they have in Trekdom (which takes some work mind you). I think however, that the technological resources of the 24th century are more than capable of landing ground units generally however. I assume that the ground pounders use troop transports that are specially designed to enable ground landings, dropships or mass transporters (the emergency transporters on the original Enterprise had I think 22-pads, just beef them up).

Should we ignore Voyager's constant refrain to "Expand the buffers"? This was what allowed them to pretty much empty the vessel on several occasions. Note that this is not a snide comment at all, Typhonis, and could simply be countered by saying that it is dangerous and weaker versus interference. Also note, that ignoring this horrifically empowering aspect of Federation technology is exactly what I intend to do. ("You want to do what?", "I don't care if Harry Kim could do it..." and "That was merely a dramatization based on the far less interesting voyage of Captain Janeway written by the Doctor." are going to be my stock responses)