Galaxy-Class Starship

The Galaxy-Class Starship forms the core of any Federation task force interested in spreading the Federation's directives of seeking out new life and boldly going where no one has gone before.  It is built as both a ship of war and a ship of science, as well as to be the flagship of a task force.  It also is the undisputed king of launching auxiliary units and generating teams to put pressure on your objectives.  This ship could, in a single turn, launch 4 combined auxiliary units and probes (Type 6 Shuttle, Class 1 Probe, Detach the Saucer Section, and launch a second probe or shuttle in standby).

Look for us to have a more in depth look at auxiliary units at a later time.

Captain's Chair:

Address: Test (Difficulty 3) Command + Diplomacy to inspire a unit at Comms range.  This sets the ship apart.  With an inspiring officer in the chair, such as Picard, you can potentially inspire 2 different ships (your target ship and the Galaxy Class) early in the game, then use those 2 ships to form teams without dropping your crew below your default value.

Call Alert: Adjust alert by 1, or up to 2 if a priority action. 

Warp: Social / Technical / 1 Energy to engage warp. Standard on all ships.  This ship has Warp factor 9 (18")

Helm:

Impulse: Technical / 1 Energy to engage impulse.

Detach: Technical x2 / 1 Energy to separate the Saucer Section. Something unique to this ship is that you can split it into two separate sections.  While this could be used to put pressure on two different locations at once, it can also be used as a last ditch effort to abandon an already heavily damaged Starship, as the Saucer will not have the damage cards, and full hull.

Instruments:

Sensors: 4" in 360*, 4" + Sensor Value in 90* to the front.

Comms: 6" in 360*, 6"+ Sensor Value in 90* to the front.

Probe: Social / Technical to launch a Class 1 Probe

Sensor Lock: Security / 1 Energy to lock a unit at sensor range

These are all fairly standard values, though the 90* arc of the forward sensors and comms make this ship very positional.  With the most power devoted to sensors on Green Alert you will have 7" to sensors and 9" to comms.  Access to Class 1 Probes can make up for that, as you can launch probes rearwards or forwards to scan things you don't line up to.

Engineering:

Ready: Gain Energy equal to Energy Value plus the highest Technical here.

Green / Yellow Alert: Transport personnel within Sensors range.

Fairly standard engineering section, with an 8 energy maximum capacity in the reserve.  Energy recharge is highest at Yellow Alert ***, with 4 Energy Value (or 3 if you are at Yellow Alert * or **).  Green Alert ** drops your value to 0 though, so be careful as you advance through the levels. A strong Technical officer stationed here can make up for an Alert level with weak energy recharge, or allow you to nearly recharge your entire energy bank in a single turn.

Tactical:

Fire Weapons:

Phaser Arrays (x3) - 180* to the front (x2), 180* to the back (x1) - 1-4 Weapon Energy, 6" range, 1 blue die per energy spent.

Torpedo Tubes (x2) - Fore x2  - 30* turning, Aft x1 - 30* turning, 1 weapon energy.

Phaser Arrays are a decent amount of dice, for a good arc, but lack keywords to make the shots hit much harder than the dice allow.

While the ship has 3 locations you can shoot torpedoes from, you can only fire a maximum of 2 per turn.  At the moment this is the only ship with a difference in maximum number of attacks and maximum locations you can attack from.

Medbay:

Medical Care: Test (2 difficulty) Science + Biology to heal personnel here once.

Advanced Study: Security / Technical to remove 1 peril from this chip.

Advanced Study is an interesting addition to the medbay, and given what Peril can do in certain cases, may be enough to prevent you from giving up victory points or damaging your ship.


Cargo:

Ready: 1 Energy to ready an officer here.

Ready or Priority Action: Form a team.

Deploy: Security / Technical to launch a Type 6 Shuttle

The Type 6 Shuttle is a way for your teams to split off and get to objectives distant from the Galaxy-Class Starship.  With an Impulse of 5, and a Warp of 4, this auxiliary unit is better suited for in system mission, though it can run to deep space if threatened.  It's minimal hull and 2 dice phasers do not lend it to engaging the enemy in a firefight though.

Alert Level:

The progression for the Galaxy-Class is from Impulse speed and sensors, to shields and weapons as you go from Green to Red.  Yellow *** has your highest energy value, and is enough weapons power to fire a bank of phasers and launch a spread of torpedoes with minimal investment in energy.  Red Alert * meanwhile, gives a full phaser salvo, or one array without spending any reserve energy.  The ship could remain at the Green Alerts if called upon, due to not being particularly energy intensive if officers are the ones doing priority actions.

Defenses:

Hull:

The ship has 8 total hull with damage steps at 6 and 2.
Other damage thresholds of note are a damage card at 6, crew injury at 3, another damage card at 2, and another crew injury at 1.

The ship has a resilience of 3 for preventing additional damage cards.

Damage Cards:

Fore: 1, Fore/Aft: 3, Aft: 2

Warp Core Breach is bad, and is fortunately a purely Aft card, with the second worst being Fried Conduits, which can drop your shields just in time to suffer another attack.  Fried Conduits is annoyingly a fore/aft card.

Shields:

There is only a slight favor towards forward shields, with the fore being at most 1 above the aft.

Unless you are by an obscuring feature, your evasion stat is merely 1, or irrelevant.

Crew:

At a full crew compliment, the Galaxy-Class has 5 steps (with 2 extra for inspired crew).  With a science value of 3 until the 3rd step down, it is entirely reasonable to expect the Med Bay to be able to recover crew levels, even without a doctor leading the test.

Officers:

This ship wants a skilled captain in its Captain's Chair.  At least an Intrepid Captain, but Jean-Luc Picard really makes the ship sing.  With Julian Bashir backing them up, with a lack of Diplomacy, you can almost be assured of 2 units being inspired, and Julian is a strong contender for sitting in Engineering, keeping the workers there healthy or something.  Meanwhile, your generic Reliable Commander or Daring First officer can fill nearly any role that requires skills instead of energy, keeping the ship running lean.  With the shear amount of auxillary units and teams from inspired crew this ship can make, you'll probably want many of your team leader officers on this ship as well.

Upgrades:

The USS Enterprise-D title is a very good one for this ship, giving you and the other ship that you hail an advantage token.  Perfect for Picard to begin negotiations with.

With the number of torpedo tubes available, quantum torpedoes might be a worthwhile upgrade, but for 6 points you would be committing to a fight to get your value worth.

The Denube-Class Runabout is a modest improvement over the Type 6 shuttle in terms of sensor range (and thus transporter range), impulse value, and warp value.  For just 3 points it may be worth taking as a more reliable way of getting your teams onto their targets.

Escape Pods seem like a waste, when you can detach the saucer section instead.