THE NEW THOLIANS

 by Ethan and Gideon Marcus

For years, the Tholians have been the bastard children of Star Fleet Battles.  Included to maintain consistency with the show, almost no creativity was put into these ships.  Their primary armament consisted of impractical webs and historically inaccurate phaser-Is.  Newer ships were made only to provide mirror-image counterparts to the developments of other races.  No more.  The new Tholians are tough and original--and a hell of a lot of fun to play.

             Herein you will find several new rules for the Tholians.  Peruse and enjoy.

(69.01) Web Generators can be used as tractor beams.  They may not be used as tractor beams on the same turn that they are used for to control web balls.

(69.02)  Each web box not in use as a tractor beam can fire & control one Web Ball (Ball).  Balls move 12, can be fired on any impulse, and last until the Tholian decides to stop using them.  A new ball may be fired the turn after an old one is removed.  They cost one energy unit to launch, and nothing to maintain.

(69.021) If a ball enters the same space as its target (specified at launch), it attaches itself to it.  The ball increases the target's cost per hex for movement by one level (2/3 to 3/4 to 1 to 1.5, etc.)  It also pushes the turn mode over to the right one chart.  Balls are cumulative.  If enough balls hit a ship to force it off the turn mode chart, it can neither move nor change facing.  Shuttles and drones hit by web balls are immobilized.  Drones immobilized in this way still expend fuel.

(69.022) A ship hit by web balls now pays more for its movement.  Determine the energy spent on movement that turn.  If the ships does not have enough energy allocated to complete its movement plot, the ship only travels the distance the ships has energy left for.  The target still calculates impulses at old speed.  It simply stops when it runs out of energy.

(69.023) Tholian web balls are only destroyed at the Tholian players whim, or by an application of  reverse tractor beam energy by the target ship.  If the ball has already hit, the target ship must apply energy in the amount of the reciprocal of the mass base * 3 per ball.  If the ball is still travelling, it may be dispersed at a range of 1 if energy equal to the mass base * 3 per ball.  Thus, it is easier for little ships to ward than escape; vice versa for big ships.  The mass base used to calculate reverse trac energy needed is the intrinsic mass base for the ship--not the mass base after it has been hit by one or mor web balls.

(71.62) Tholian tractor beams function at a range of  2 at 100% power and at a range of 3 at 50% power.

(71.63) Tholians may store energy in tractor beams up to 2/3 their ship's warp power.  Each turn subsequent to the first turn energy is placed in storage, one energy unit must be spent each turn to maintain it.  If a Tholian captures a ship with this energy, the stored energy is not lost as long as one unit a turn is used to maintain it, and as long as the enemy remains captured.  If a capture attempt fails, the stored energy is lost.  Tholians may capture drones and shuttles for just one point of energy.  Energy stored may be used for reverse tractor beam as well.  

(71.64)  Ships captured by Tholians may be pushed away to range 2 or 3 as well as rotated as long as capture can be maintained.  If the Tholian moves while the ship is captured, the captured ship obeys as if attached to an invisible rope--it must stay within the distance it was captured at (or pushed to), but only moves if the movement of the Tholian would cause it to be outside that limit.

(80.1) Tholian ships all use Plasma-T(x)s as their main armament.

Obviously, these new rules make playing the Tholians totally different.  Thus, we came up with some new ships to reflect the new Tholian philosophy of space combat:

[Image]The new Patrol Cruiser:

To convert the existing Patrol Cruiser into the New Tholian Patrol Cruiser, simply change the Phaser-1s to Plasma-T1s.  The web boxes now take on the additional roles as outlined above.

[Image]The new Tholian Base Station:

The Tholian Base Station uses Plasma-T4s.  The torpedo is a web ball launcher.  All tractor beams are now web generators (as outlined above).

[Image]The Tholian Monitor--a Cruiser (SSD)

Usually providing extra punch for a pair of patrol cruisers in a battle squadron, the Monitor falls somewhere between a light and a heavy cruiser in strength.

[Image]The Tholian Repair Ship (SSD)

A remodelled Patrol Cruiser, the repair ship shuttles from patrol group to patrol group, carrying spare parts to keep the groups going.  The cargo boxes act as repair boxes.  They can repair up to twice the number of undamaged cargo boxes.  As each cargo box is used, it is marked off, but not counted as destroyed (the empty bays can still be destroyed in combat).

[Image]The Tholian Fuel Carrier (SSD)

Part of the patrol group maintenance fleet, the fuel carriers are fast and unarmed, designed solely for this purpose.

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