SHADOWS:
-Cruiser-
The famous and feared Shadow cruiser. With its fighters, this vessel is more
than capable of crushing dozens of enemies at once. Few races every built
anything that could even stand up to one of these cruisers if they outnumbered
it as much as 10 to 1. The only thing that made these vessels vulnerable is
if they did not have a telepath for a computer core and the race attacking
them was using telepaths to jam them. (BTW, with a tad of aluminum foil,
toothpicks, and black spray point, this vessel is real easy to create a good
jhmini for)
*This ship ignores all jamming bonuses
*The defensive rating is lowered by the jamming field emitted from the
"spines" on the ship. As long as any structure is facing, use the lower of
the two numbers (the one in paranthesis)
*It can also regenerate 5 points of structure if that structure block was not
hit by weapons fire that turn. If structure was hit during the turn, the
cruiser can only regenerate 2 points. It can also regenerate 2 points of a
system if that system was not damaged that turn. If a system or was damaged
during the turn, the Shadow cruiser can only regenerate 1 point of it.
*If a system is destroyed, the Shadow cruiser can start to "regrow" it 5 turns
after the system was destroyed at a rate of 1 box a turn.
*The Main Beam on the Shadow cruiser has a new mode: "W". This is for
"sweeping" fire. Once the total damage from the weapon has been determined,
the Shadow player can elect to "sweep" it across space. Divide the total
damage by 2 (ie., half of the effectiveness is lost). Then divide the
remaining damage into groups as large as the owning player wants (up to 10
points per group). This damage is allocated as raking fire to as many
targets as the Shadow player wants. To-hits must be rolled for each target.
EX. a Shadow cruiser rolls damage and gets 135. It loses 1/2 of this to fire
it "sweeping", leaving it with 72 (drop fractions). It chooses to fire at
a flight of fighters and a cruiser. It allocates 10 points to each fighter
and 12 to the cruiser (in a volley of 10 and a volley of 2, treated as raking
fire). Upon rolling, 5 fighters are hit and the cruiser is. The remaining
fighter receives no damage (it was not hit).
*The Shadow cruiser does not use "power" as it is known to us. Rather, its
main beam can fire sustained for two turns always. Also, the cruiser can use
2 additional free thrust points sometime during a scenario, at the option of
the player. And, it has 1 extra EW point that can be spent once at some time
in the scenario, owner's option.
*The Shadow cruiser's thruster is on the primary structure and is
"omni-directional". It can act as any thruster, or any combination of
thrusters.
*Once enough Primary Structure damage has been allocated that the grey boxes
start to be hit, the cruiser starts to "wither". For each hit to a grey box,
allocated 1 point of damage to every system on the ship. In addition, all
regenerating on the ship stops. EXCEPTION: the cruiser can regenerate the
primary structure at a rate of 1 box every two turns. Once the damage is
above the grey, it can regenerate normally.
*When firing at a Shadow ship without a lock-on, the firing unit has a -4
penalty.
*The main beam also has a unique firing capability. If greater than range 2,
the beam hits as a normal weapon would (ie., hits the facing sector of the
target). However, if the Shadow ship is at range 0-2 it can spend one point
of thrust to raise itself above the plane a target is on. This gives it the
capability of firing its main beam and hitting any sector of the target of
its choice. If the required thrust is not payed, the main beam fires
normally (well, as normally as Shadow weapons can fire).
*Shadow ships have an unusual method of launching fighters. In the turn they
are launched, the Shadow player writes down the hex they will deploy in, up
to 15 hexes away, during the energy mine firing step. At the end of the
turn, during the fighter land/launch step, the fighters arrive at that point
and deploy there, as if they had been launched by a ship located at that
point. They have no initiative penalty the next turn.
*The vortex disruptor is fired with other weapons fire. The to-hit of a jump
point is 20, the only reason this weapon would miss is from a range penalty.
It causes the jump point to collapse, destroying all ships that entered it
during the turn.
*The Shadow cruiser can also "learn" to resist certain weapons. Each time a
weapon hits the cruiser, it "learns" by one more level. Subtract the levels
of learning from all damage from subsequent hits from that type of weapon.
The ship can "learn" up to 10 levels of any given weapon. Most Shadow ships
have learned this level on all Minbari weapons. All Shadow ships have
learned this level against Vorlon weapons. The "young" races have not been
adapted to very much yet (although, there are many Shadows that have learned
most of the Narn weapons to one degree or another).
*Shadow ships do not use jump drives. They "fade" in and out of hyperspace.
*Shadow ships also do not use engines or reactors as we know them.
NOTE: If an enemy race has telepaths on their ships, they can use them for one
of two purposes. To determine if a telepath can "jam" a Shadow ship, they
must roll 1d20. If the result is less than their P rating, the lock is a
success and they can jam the Shadow vessel, using method #2. To jam with
method #1, they must roll less than 1/2 of their P rating. Also note, Shadow
ships that have a telepath "core" are not susceptible to either method.
1) They can be used to "jam" the Shadow ships. This has the following
effects on each Shadow system's performance for each telepath jamming the
ship of at least a P12 rating (it takes two P6s to equal one P12 and one
P24 equals two P12).
-The thrust rating is cut in half
-The turn mode and turn cost is doubled
-The weapon fire controls are cut in half
-Range penalties are doubled
-Sensor rating is cut in half
2) Telepaths could also be used to try and force C&C criticals. For each
telepath used for this purpose, roll for one C&C critical. For any
result that does not pertain to Shadow ships, roll again.
Shadow fighters can also be jammed, and they are "targetted" as a flight.
-Fighter-
The Shadow fighter is another feared design. The only sure fire way to kill
one is to hit it with enough damage to destroy it all at once.
*It can regenerate 2 points of damage a turn.
*This fighter also ignores jammer effects.
*When fired at a Shadow fighter without a lock on, the firing unit suffers a
-4 penalty.
(
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