Special Abilities
The Super Spy Mission
The Bird Men are a very sneaky race and are very good at spying on planets. They have developed one very special mission that reflects this skill. This mission is called the Super Spy mission.
The Super Spy mission causes a small spy team to be beamed down to the planets surface. This team reports back to the starship an exploration report on the planet, the type of clans on the planet, how many clans on the planet, and whether or not they have a starbase. It will also report back the planets friendly code, the amount of megacredits on the planet, the number of mines, factories and defense outposts. Lastly it will report back how many minerals are on or in the planet as a total aggregate amount.
There is a 20% chance that the spy team will be discovered and the enemy will receive a message to that effect and be warned. A cloaked starship that is performing this special mission will remained cloaked while effecting this mission.
Note: The Bird Men’s Super Spy mission has been improved for host version 3.2. See Host Ver. 3.2 Area at the back of this manual for the specific changes and improvements.
How to Initiate The Super Spy Mission
To select the Super Spy mission you need to go to the main starship screen. To do this press the [F1] key from anywhere in the game. Then toggle through the choice of starships until you find the starship you wish to Super Spy with and then press [ENTER] . This will take you to the main starship screen.
Once at the main starship screen you press the [M] key to bring up the primary mission menu (Table 2.5 pg. 26). From here you press the key that corresponds with the Super Spy mission ( [9] ). Now the Super Spy mission is selected. Remember that cloaking starships will remain cloaked while doing the Super Spy mission.
The Bird Men’s Fleet
The Bird Men share several starship designs with the Fascists. The Bird men starships come in a wide range of sizes and most come heavily armored and pack heavy firepower. The Bird Men’s starships come in only one paint option and that is basic bird.
The Bird Men love to paint giant birds onto the bottom of their hulls. This is done so that they can make low flying passes over planets and scare the natives out of their skins. They visit this terror on the natives just before they land and get out of their starships in their bird looking battle armor and assume control of the planet.
Other Special Abilities Of The Birdmen
Raceplus
The Bird Men’s Brightheart Class ship now has the ability to allow the crew to plant a bomb onboard an enemy ship. This bomb will explode and cause damage to the enemy ship. This is an ability that is linked to the Bird Men’s Brightheart Class ship. This mission will only function from this type of vessel and only for the Bird Men.
This missions success rate is dependent on the configuration settings in the RPCONFIG setup. The % chance of the mission failing can be set between 0 % – 20%. So when this is set to a percentage number the program will check to see if the sabotage crew gets caught by ship security on the enemy vessel. The other configurable setting is the number of Bird Man ships that can perform this mission to the same ship. The range is 1-10. So if it is set to 5, you can have up to 5 ship performing this mission simultaneously to an enemy ship.
To perform this mission several requirements need to be met. The Bird Man ship needs to have at least 41 crew people on board. They need to have forty supplies and some fuel.
To perform the mission the Bird Man ship(s) set their friendly code to EGG. Then they transfer at least one unit of fuel to the target ship (this is just the targeting mechanism). This will cause the forty supplies on the Bird Man ship to be used (as equipment and bomb parts) and they will disappear. In addition to the supplies and fuel costs the mission automatically beams forty crew people onto the enemy ship. This is the point at which a check for Bomb Fail occurs. If the mission is successful a bomb will go off and the enemy ship will take the equivalent of 1 mine hit of damage. Also, the forty crew people will be placed back onto the Brightheart.
MINE HIT DAMAGE = 10000 / Hull Mass
If the mission fails the following occurs. The crew that beamed over are captured and eventually spaced. There is a 50% chance that these prisoners will give away the command codes to the Brightheart before they are spaced. If this happens the Brightheart (that had the failed mission) will have its warp speed set to zero and its cloaking device will deactivate.
Gryphon & Jupiter
1) Remote ID.
This ability is shared with the Privateers. A Skyfire class starship on an intercept mission and warp 0 can use its targeting scanners to thoroughly scan the target ship. With FC “RID”, the ship will report the other ship’s drivetech, number and tech of beams and torp launchers, number of torps or fighters, mission, primary enemy, damage, different kinds of cargo, fuel and the FC. The default range for both races is (162) ly.
2) Beacon-Minefields.
Birdman ships can convert their torpedoes into deep space mines and, instead of deploying them into a minefield, place a remote-response beacon on them and hide them under a small portable cloaking shield. After receiving a signal, the beacons collapse the cloaking fields and deploy the mines into regular minefields. For an added bonus, the Beacon minefields allow one mine field totally inside one another! The deploying ship must have the FC of “DBx”, where x is “H” for half of torpedoes, “Q” for a quarter of torpedoes, “A” for all torpedoes, and “T” for three fourths of torpedoes. The max total amount of beacons in the universe is 100. The minefield size is determined with standard minefield size calculation, number-of-mines=number-of-torps-used times tech-of-torps-squared. After deployment, the beacons remain linked to the ship that deployed them; when that ship uses FC “UMB”, all beacons that ship has created will be converted into regular minefields. If the deploying ship is destroyed, the Birdmen must get another torpedo ship with the same id number to deploy the beacons; otherwise, the beacons will remain floating about, unclaimed. The Imperial Mig class scout can detect and destroy the beacons; see its appropriate section.
NOTE: the deploying ship may stay cloaked for the entire time!
3) Honor Device.
Birdmen have the Honor Device installed on all ships with more than 10 crewmen. See the Universal section on the Honor device for details.
4) Ship Warp Interdictor.
In addition to the universal Planetary Warp Interdictor, the Bird ships can have a Ship-based Warp Interdictor installed into the hull. Just like the Planetary Interdictor, the Ship Interdictor is installed by joining the ship with a Neutronic Refinery vessel; However, by default it is less powerful and uses less fuel than the planet-based device. To install the Interdictor device, the ship must be at the same location as a Neutronic Refinery ship and have the FC of “BWI”. To engage the ship interdictor, use the ship FC of “EWI”; you must have more than (20) fuel units to use the device. When the device is engaged, all ships of all other races are slowed down to warp (4); the Birdman ships can tweak their engines to go up to two warp factors higher than the other races’ ships. Therefore, the Birds within the field can go the max of warp (6). Races that the Birdmen are allied with can also use the Bird advantage when in range of the Ship Interdictor. Ship-based Interdictors are destroyed if ships are captured by another race.
5) Romulan Sneak Attack.
The Birdmen, needing a combat advantage, can use their ships’ stealth to help them defeat unsuspecting opponents. The Bird ships can keep themselves cloaked until the last possible moment, and come out of cloak firing all weapons, not giving an enemy ship time to detect them and raise their shields. Therefore, a Birdman ship can take one enemy ship by surprise by setting its mission to cloak, a numeric FCode, and having the first three letters of the ship name be the ID number of the enemy they want to ambush. The ship must have warp factor 0 in order to minimize their drive emissions and stay concealed from detection. The Federation ships have slightly better sensors and can detect the Birdmen ship powering up its weapons before other races can, so they have time to raise their shields to (25%). A special configuration option lets the game host allow or disallow the Romulan Sneak Attack against ships that are towed by any other race than the ship’s owner (if a ship of the same race tows them, they can be attacked, regardless). For example, if the setting is set to allow, the Birdmen can tow out a ship to a waiting Dark Wing; if the setting is disallow, they cannot. This ability cannot be given away in a team game.
6) Red Wind fighter Steal.
The Birdmen share the Red Wind fighter Steal ability with the Privateers. See appropriate section for details.
Nemesis & Jupiter
1) Planetary cloaking shield.
Being a sneaky cloaking type, the Birds have greatly missed not being able to hide their own planets. But now they can, with the help of the planetary cloaking shield. Of course, it is quite impossible to make the planets totally disappear from view, but it is possible to fool the enemy sensors for them not to be able to achieve a transporter or a weapons lock. Therefore, no enemy ship will be able to fight or ground-assault the planet, making it extremely tough to take over. To the Birds’ disappointment, all the enemy computers are different, making it harder to fool them. Therefore, only one race at a time can be blocked, making it necessary to have an alliance to take over Bird planets, unless you want to wait for a failure (suggested rate: 10%) to occur. Failure is computed for each individual ship, so the more ships you have the more chance you get of penetrating the cloak. Any Birdman ship can build a cloaking shield with the FC “BCS”, using 50 of each mineral and 100 MC taken from _the planet’s surface_, while staying at warp factor 0 and not towed. From then on, the cloaking shield will protect the planet. The cloaking shields are permanent installations, so they will not be destroyed during an invasion.
One more benefit for the Birds is that their ships can build the cloaking shields over any planet, not necessarily Birdman. So it is possible to sell the shields to allies, getting money/minerals/ ships in return. One catch here: the installed cloaking shields on allied planets will be totally ineffective against the Birds themselves.
To activate an installed cloaking shield, use FC “CSa”, where is a race number to use against, 1..9, a, or b. The “CS4” will protect against the Fascists and against their missiles (see below). Cloaking shield uses 20 units of fuel per turn of use. All Birdman planets with 200 colonists or more get a free cloaking shield built automatically. Star Bases at the planets CANNOT set their missions to “force surrender”. Otherwise, the shield will NOT work. Planets WILL protect against ships going into their warp wells.
2) Enhanced Energy Management to Cloak
The Birdmen must use enhanced energy management features in order for the cloaking devices to work. Cloakers can’t just go around expending energy since that can be detected by the crudest scanners. Now they can use the same energy-management techniques on a Neutronic Fuel Carrier and the Large Deep Space Freighter, making them twice as energy-efficient as before (and burning one half the fuel it did before!) No special FC is required. The ships cannot to or intercept to enjoy fuel economy.