Tactical use of multifire

[Capt.Hunter]

My players are a tricky bunch, and I've recently had them using the multifire rules to their advantage. Here's how:

When fighting vessels with high shield Thresholds, they don't use multifire. The reason being that (for example): Their ship shoots five multifire bursts from a Type X phaser at an enemy with shields equal to a Galaxy-Class (Threshold 400). Even if all 5 hit, the combined multifire damage is 400 - not enough to get past the Threshold. So they fire single shots multiple times (incurring the Multiple Action penalty). Again, none of the shots can penetrate the Threshold, but each shot does 200 damage to the shields. So before, they hit with 5 beams and knocked the shields down 33%, now they hit with 3 and knock them down 50%!

Against ships with lower (150-250) Thresholds they'll use multifire because any damage getting past the shields is multiplied by half the number of hits, usually doing more damage than a single shot would (assuming it could get through the shields).

It's often quite hard to rule whether or not they can do this, since they can only manage it against ships in the SRMs, as I keep the stats of my own designs carefully hidden. They're using "Player Knowledge", but it can be difficult to spot exactly when they're up to it.

Does anyone else think players should be able to do this, and if not, how could I guard against it?

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"The more top brass briefings I attend, the more I want to take a phaser to the whole lot of them..."

Captain Matt Hunter, USS Tempest, NCC-81205

[Steve Long]

While I dislike, and often object to, players using game rules knowledge as the sole determinant of what they do, I don't really see anything wrong with what they're doing here. One of the reasons I put the two options -- multiple shots and Multifire -- in the rules was to provide this sort of tactical flexibility.

In theory, at least, the Multiple Action Penalty should balance the advantages of firing multiple shots. If you find that it doesn't do so in your campaign, consider increasing the M.A.P. for that maneuver, or make some other changes to bring things back in line with what you want.

Steve Long

[calguard66]

Why should you negate your player's finding an advantage? That's the whole point of tactics. In the real world I use HEAT rounds against certain targets, SABOT against others... and for others I use a machinegun. I use my knowlege and experience to engage a target in the most efficient and effective manner.

How else would you suggest the decide when to use multifire, or individual weapon fire? Flip a coin?

It seems reasonable that an experienced Starfleet Tactical officer would know the abilities of a commonly encountered Threat vessel, and the best way to engage them.

Just use the same tactics back at them...

Otherwise, you might as well roll a single die... on a 1-3 they win, on a 4-6 they lose... if their ship is more powerful 1-4 they win, etc.

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[Cmdr Powers]

Well, we might be about to test this out in the Akira vs D'Deridex simulation. One of the original objectives was testing the use of fighter craft in starship combat. Starfleet Attack Fighters have 6 separate single spread torpedo tubes. This means that an SAF could fire all 6 launchers with a multiple action penalty of -5 (mitigated by the fact that the SAF's will engage a size 10 vessel, giving them a +8 to hit!). Or the SAF's could do one multifire of 2 torpedoes, using 2 tubes, and fire the remaining 4 tubes for a total MAP of -4, still versus +8 to hit. The one thing they can't do (according to Space Dock) is multifire all 6 launchers.

Now, unfortunately, a D'Deridex has a threshold of 430, so its going to be hard for a single fighter to hurt her. Ah, but we're going to see wings of 3 or 4 fighters moving in and acting together. The shields come down and the warbird blows up. They might even try the wolfpack maneuver.

Its going to be an interesting engagement...

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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott

[Old Soldier]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by calguard66:
...In the real world I use HEAT rounds against certain targets, SABOT against others... and for others I use a machinegun...

...It seems reasonable that an experienced Starfleet Tactical officer would know the abilities of a commonly encountered Threat vessel, and the best way to engage them...
</font>

You must be armor. (and they said the cavalry was dead!)

You pretty much took the same stance I was going to. The problem with role playing vs roll playing is often just trying to pin down when a character would know what the player is trying to do. In most cases, the character will actually be smarter or at least much better trained at what they do than the player is... otherwise, we'd all be out there doing what our characters do for a living!

I wouldn't worry too much about this sort of thing. There are plenty of plot devices you can use to force continuity and humility on your players if you need to. And there are ways of dealing with the most savy of rules lawyers. All it requires is a bit of creativity and a cool head.

"Platoon... volley fire, two rounds HEAT, cross by sections, at my command!"


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"Any society which is willing to surrender essential liberties in order to gain security, shall in the end have neither."

[This message has been edited by Old Soldier (edited 04-05-2001).]