Having found a Ground Zero Games model on ebay the other day I have become interested in the fleet for the Oceanic Union Defence Force (OUDF). This fleet is made up of the Australasian region countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The model’s starting price was 99p with free postage, so I bid 99p and waited. And I won it! How cool was that? A battle cruiser for 99p, fantastic bargain. I am now considering increasing the fleet, once cash and time permits of course. I looked up the OUDF fleet on the web http://fullthrust.star-ranger.com/ here they suggest a fleet history and doctrine along with a series of ship plans and stats. The suggested universe is that the OUDF has few large ship yards and so can only build certain things in certain ways. Therefore, their ships have been built to be as cheap and economical as possible. Each ship over a certain size has a basic hull design with the usual bits and pieces, fire control units, a few weapons, shields etc., but also has a number of interchangeable bays. The bigger the ship the more bays it will have. Each bay is only eight mass so you are a little limited as to what you can put in them. The idea is that you can decide on what bays you need before a game and a series of suggested bays has been provided. This means that OUDF ships do not tend to have heavy class three beams, so can lack range, but make up for this with quite tough hulls and plenty of the more cost effective class two beams. This means they get more firepower for their money but at a cost many may find too high. As long as each bay does not use more than eight mass the world is your oyster but, eight mass is a really annoying amount; not quite enough for fighter bays or heavy weapons or many other things. You can add some weapons that cost less than eight but then have to make up the shortfall which can be a bit wasteful. That said, if they get in amongst and enemy fleet they can put out a huge amount of fire. They can mount plenty of cheap class twos’ with 360 degree arcs, so be warned. A lucky player can do very well with an OUDF fleet. God knows why I am looking at them then!
Ground Zero games have also created several new fleets and weapon types and so the range of possibilities for the bays has increased somewhat. There is a new weapon called a Graser, fires like a beam weapon but does damage like a torpedo; 1D6 per hit. This means that the weapon can be very destructive although the hit rate balances this. The Graser also has a longer range than beams too, eighteen inche bands rather than twelve. The draw back is the cost in mass. These new weapons are big and so the OUDF still has the same issues over bay size. It can mount some larger Graser weapons but only if they have a very narrow field of fire. A class 2 Graser with just one arc of fire costs nine mass. A class one with 360 degree fire costs four mass. Perhaps this will give them the much needed range they have lacked, especially if one can be mounted in the main hull. If so, it will be costly and reduce the number of other weapons available; as well as the arcs. As with everything, it seems to be a trade off.
A second new weapon is the Anti matter torpedo. At two mass each they seem cost effective and if they hit a target can be destructive, a perfect hit will inflict three D6 worth of damage but with a blast radius of three inches. Anything at the outer edge receives just one d6 of damage. The trouble is that these new missiles are prone to attack by fighters or any other anti fighter type weapons. But they are quite cheap. It may be possible to really up-gun these OUDF ships but they may end up hitting nothing at all or destroying all before them.
I will be redesigning my new battle cruiser with these new weapon types into a new class, the ‘Woolamaloo’ class, named for the Monty Python Australian university. Keeping with that theme each new ship will be called ‘Bruce’, to stop any confusion. They will be able to make things really hot for their enemies, hot enough to boil a monkeys bum in fact. I know it’s a strange turn of phrase but I heard the Prime Minister use it. ‘S'hot enough to boil a monkey's bum in 'ere, your Majesty,' he said and she smiled quietly to herself.
This here's the wattle - the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle or you can hold it in your hand. Amen.
Iwade Village Hall,
