(transplanted from Rules Q&A)

The suggestion was that freighters, equipped with the appropriate skids or ducktails, could carry a few fighters as "casual" fighters; these would be similar to Hydran hybrid fighter-carriers, in that the shuttle is replaced by a ready rack and a fighter.

Personally, I don't think this would catch on. Fighters would be too expensive for the average civilian freighter captain to buy, unless you're using Class-1 fighters in the Y180 timeframe, and you'd have to pay your pilots pretty well to get them to go along with that idea (unless you use remote control, which is even further past the budget of a freighter captain.)

You also wouldn't fit many fighters onto a freighter unless you removed every shuttle the ship carried, which isn't so good because there are too many useful things that a freighter can do with a shuttle.

Finally, we've already got things that do that--Auxiliary Carriers, and/or Shenyang F-7.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 02:55 pm: Edit

Hmmm. Remote control fighters might be the ticket - especially since:
1. If the fighter and pilot get blown up, you have to replace both of them, and not just the fighter.
3. Since FGB-S are on almost every piddly colony by Y175, they can't be that expensive.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 03:25 pm: Edit

Fighter bases are operated by the military (or at least the National Guard) and presumably they're paid for by taxes. Freighter captains have to do it on their own nickel (if the military decides that a convoy needs fighters, it's just going to send an AuxCV.)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 03:36 pm: Edit

That'd be one use for obsolete fighters.

that go from military service to planetary defense and from planetargy defense to auto-defenses for freighters.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Every fighter carried - even if it were an inexpensive fighter - is one less shuttle the freighter can carry. Don't forget that your average freighter (naval auxiliaries notwithstanding) is in the business of making a profit, not the business of waging war. Fighters only do one thing, and it's something that can't make money for the crew of the freighter, or the corporation the freighter works for.

Shuttles help facilitate making money; fighters don't (well, at least not directly).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 07:49 pm: Edit

Depends on how likely you think it is you'll be facing an Orion or privateer.

You don't make a profit if your ship gets shot up and your cargo gets taken.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 08:08 pm: Edit

John Trauger:

Two fighters backing up a small freighter are not going to run off a Light Raider, much less a War Destroyer.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 10:39 pm: Edit

If we are looking at flying a permanant cap for protection/scanner-range purposses, then you're looking at needing 9.33 fighter/pilots (which naturally becomes 10 ) and thus you might as well have an AxCVL escorting the vessel.


If you are talking about having a few fighters to escort, you then the run must be either very short ( which isn't unbeleiveible considering that a small number of freighters would be making the journey or else the CONVOY would warrent a CV-POL or a Frigate or a Q-Ship or an AxCVL ) or you start having a ship in a run that seems quite silly:- A single ship ( or a group of two at the most ) which enters into highly hostile territory but isn't a Q-ship or armed freighter or escorted by something ( heck a Fed DD+ can arm quite a few weapons and keep up with freighters ) or part of a larger convoy that warrented such escorts.

Basically the cargo is so valuable that it must be protected with armed protection yet is not on a Q-ship nor a large armed freighter nor escorted!?!


I can see skids and duck-tails being converted on Q-ships to further their offensive punch but not on regular freighters. Q-ships opperate in conjunction with a convoy of freighters and thus can use the shuttle of the other frieghters to offset the cargo handling duties and tend to go to bases ( because of the nature of convoys ) which in turns means that the base can provide some of the shuttle for cargo handling.
But I can't see it on a conventional commercial freighter because unlike the weapons of an armed freighter the full capability of a carrier ( EW and Deck Crews ) would be very limited ( EW loaning just wouldn't happen ) where as a Small Photon armed Freighter can hurl Photons at targets and quite often without a shift is the enemy target has little power like an LR.


Have armed Freighters with Skids and Ducktails yet been published. They'ld be pretty good as the extra Shuttle boxes ( and the use of shuttles as Ph-3 platforms ) help those ships take a pounding longer and would stop the enemy from saying; "target anything without skids or ducktails".

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 01:25 am: Edit

If you read Y-1 *ALL* general war shuttles are fighters (a speed 6 Ph3-360 is that), the question is how good are the fighters that any given freighter will carry. The published materials on the skid and ducktale fighters (not in front of me) clearly state it is not a common place to find a ftr on a freighter. But, who knows, a few wealthy captains might carry such in higher risk areas. Additionally, you might have a corporation that will fund four fighters in a convoy but won't pay for the fuel on the contracted POL escort that was the other option.
It is a classic risk and rewards business decision. Frankly, I can see from a business point of view having a stagecoach with a guy “riding shotgun" when the stage refuses to contract with the marshals or army to provide an armed escort. Now the same coach with a load of freshly printed Federation dollar bills will command more protection and might just get the marshals contracted for escort.

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 01:30 am: Edit

SPP:
Very true.
The other freighter captain is less likely to play dirty against you if you are packing two drone slingers. Plus the freighter can play dirty against the FT much better. I think that is almost verbatim what you guys published.
All said and done, I think less than 1% would have any fighters; more likely 1/100th of 1%.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 03:05 am: Edit

I expect the most frequent times fighters will be carried in ducktails would be when the freighter is carrying reinforcements to a planet. Being able to launch a few fighters fully armed is probably more satisfying than hoping the raider targets the wrong freighter as the fighters remain in storage. Might be good for one scenario with a special rule where losing carried fighters carries an extra VP penalty.

I doubt freighter captains would get permission to own fighters; seems like an easy way to have them move over to Orion hands. (Deck crew requirements might be a trifle more than some freighters could afford as well.) I would not be surprised if some regional police force commanders tried adding a few fighters (with both deck crews and BPs also on the chosen freighter) to temporarily augment a convoy defense. I doubt the handful of fighters will have much of an impact but if raiders treat convoys with ducktails slightly more cautiously that might make up for it. Like Q-ships, every freighter might not be one but the prudent raider will have to plan for that event or risk being crippled.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Well, I thought that I was suggesting MILITARY/POLICE owned and manned skid etc.

A small convoy toting stuff to the border or elsewhere bad coudl include a couple of three of these and thus discourage raiding CR/FFs.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Well, if the military or police are involved, why not just send a POV or AuxCV with the convoy? If two fighters are good, then six to twelve would be even better, and you wouldn't be requiring freighter captains to give up their shuttles.

Note here that I'm not playing silly games with modular skids. I mean, you could create a "carrier" by stacking four skids and adding freighter engines and a control pod, but again...why didn't you just build an AuxCV? Surely they aren't that hard to make.

I might see that "skid-carrier" as a special scenario unit. Or, perhaps, if there were a large "merchant marine" component to SFB, then fighter-carrying skids might be more prevalent. But really, in SFB, freighters are there to be targets. There are already a zillion things that carry fighters, and there's no reason to expect that a convoy wouldn't have one.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 05:56 pm: Edit

Because the cost of a POL or POV or AUX or AuxCVL.

These skids are basically JUST the needed stuff. The freighter does not pay increased MC or life support.

Sending a seperate vessel means paying for fuel and all the other expenses associated with a starship.

Besides if you decided to include a CVL, you could just stack a passel of skids like in SPPs article. The nice thing is that this allows you to disperse your combat power as desired and in a manner not detectable until the raiders commit.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 08:44 pm: Edit

The skid doesn't increase the SFB move cost, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't increase the ship's operating cost.

Also, the skid doesn't just fall out of the sky; you have to buy it. Given the likely profit margins your typical freighter captain sees, he isn't going to have the spare cash to buy a skid unless he can start putting that HTS to work for him.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 09:19 pm: Edit

At what set of points does the Admiralty choose to allow an unescorted freighter to ply her trade and yet allow her to have Star-fleet/national-guard fighters stationed aboard her to defend her.


Seriously, one frieght with such fighters isn't enough to run off an Orion LR.
Several Freighters and I'll ask this question.
If I put my cargo in a small freighter, have another small freighter as a decoy and have four large Freighter's escort me, do I need anything else to run off an Orion LR? I already have four 360° Ph-2s, Four RA Ph-3s, two 360° Ph-3s and if I drop down to speed 6, I can have a further six 360° Ph-3s.
Indeed four large frighters would probably be able to run off an LR by itself.

So which is cheaper, opperating a few (several freighter's worth) remote controlled fighters ( with all the logistical expense involved ) or sending a few large freighters as escorts, or sending an armed freighter or sending a Q-ship?


You see at a certain point, the cargo isn't worth fighting for.
If your large freighter has bulk iron ore or grain and you're alone and an Orion LR turns up and demands, your ship and cargo or else they'll fire and kill you all, wouldn't you as that freighter's captain say;" Hey, beam over and take the ship and we'll all pile into the ship's shuttle ( an Admin can carry two Crew Units at non-combat rates ) and sail for the nearest port and you can keep the •••• ship and its lousey cargo." Then the insurance company pays out ( because every member of the crew says when asked; "Yes, we were totally out-numbered and out-gunned so giving up the ship was the only way to save our lives" and the crew can go back to opperating a commercial venture with the insurance money.
It's only when the cargo is worth fighting for that the need for fighters in the skids and ducktails becomes apparent.
If you do have a highly valuable cargo then the money sets up a different set of options, you can afford to send an armed freighter, you can aford to send four empty large frieghters, you can even take some of the pay and convert it into something else ( not taking the danger money in order to convince the Admirals to send an AxCVL or maybe just not getting paided to make passage and thus the Admirals will have to send it on a Q-ship, which in essence is the situation.} If there is only a small number of values of the cargo between not being worth a fight and worth a fight for you but not worth escorting for the star-fleet, then the development of this system ( as opposed to already developed systems such as armed frieghters ) is unlikely as it's too much of a niche' market.


And that hasn't even begun to deal with a question of, who are he fighter-pilots/deck-crews working for and is their boss a security risk!?!

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 10:43 pm: Edit

Adding the fighters and a skid will turn an armed freighter into a ship roughly equal to the fighter carrying Q-ships of the Kzinti or Hydran. (2 phaser-2s, one drone rack, and 2 fighters for a drone armed small freighter with skid and ducktail compares well to the 1 phaser-1, 2 drones and 2 fighters of the Kzinti small Q-ship.)

Of course, the unit will also have a similar lack of effectiveness to the smaller Q-ships. I certainly can't see one operating by itself; that just seems like an easy way to lose fighters piecemeal. As a slight bump to an escorted convoy, it would probably prove slightly more useful and enough to prepare at very infrequent intervals.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 10:54 pm: Edit

There is, unfortunately, more to just adding a skid and fighters. There is a maintenance load that is heavier than that of admin shuttles. Drones require servicing as do the fighter and its considerably more complicated electronics. While any "Deck Crew" can perform combat repairs (scenario repair of a shuttle of any type), and can heft up a drone to fit it to a rail, you need the ordnance man and electronic specialists and etc. to keep the fighter operational over an extended period. Including tracking the spare parts and replacing the sealed black boxes that say (when you check them) that they no longer work.

There is a lot more to having a fighter than simply having a fighter.

While you can make a case that a drone armed freighter will have the Ordnancemen to keep the drones for such a fighter operational, it will not have the skilled deck crews and other personnel needed to do so without extra cost.

There are reasons fighters are so much faster than mere admin shuttles, even the advanced versions of admin shuttles are not as fast as the later fighters that serve with them when they are available. The increased maintenance of the fighter engines can be supported by a government and dedicated personnel at military bases, but hauling those people around on your freighter is just another expense, and freighters keep their crews as small as possible.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 10:58 pm: Edit

1) "the skid doesn't just fall out of the sky"
AS I SAID, the Military/Police/NG own them. Perhaps the NG sends a few crews to "Summer Camp" or "Top GUn" school annually at the same time they send off their annual export shiploads. A few weeks go by, the cargo is sold and used to buy "stuff" and the skid rides shotgun for the colony planets stuff on the return trip.

2) "At what set of points does the Admiralty choose to allow an unescorted freighter to ply her trade and yet allow her to have Star-fleet/national-guard fighters stationed aboard her to defend her."
AS I SAID, when there is a reason THIS cargo needs extra protection, yet there is no avalable excort. A large freighter with 4 fighters probably CAN hold off an LR for a while while rescue is coming...

3) "you can afford to send four empty large frieghters"
WHAT? Why do you have empty freighters around? Why not insert a XXX pod and just send one along? This is meant to provide an intermediate level of protection.

4)"And that hasn't even begun to deal with a question of, who are the fighter-pilots/deck-crews working for and is their boss a security risk!?!"
Well, there are certainly BONDED mercenaries available (like Blackwater, Dilignece, Controlled Risk, etc today) perhaps the insurance company might even provide the skid and the local NG has to man them. Everyone benefits...

THE POINT is that Starfleet, Police etc have WAY too many missions for all the milk run freigherts to get an escort. The REAL risk is to the insurers, colonies and export companies. Starfleet might have a couple to put on the ships that have to go into the border areas to supply starfleet.

FOr races with pfs, my "mini pf skid" toting one pf would be about perfect.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 12:30 am: Edit

I'm not convinced one large freighter with skids and four fighters could keep an Orion LR at bay as the fighters would be F-16s or F-18s or nearly retired F-4s.

That being the case I would say eight Fighters is more like the number one wants ( assuming no rescue in the short term ).

That being the case why not go to the expence of sending an AxCVL to escort that one large freighter!?!
If there answer is because the opperating of the AxCVL is greater than the opperating costs of just eight fighters on skids and two large freighters, then something has serverly been missed in the construction of that AxCVL.

If a half squadron of fighters cost less to opperate than say four large freighters, then this idea might be okay, but I dare say one of the reasons that there is interstellar ttrade is that fact that freighters are fairly cheap to opperate.

---

Quote:

THE POINT is that Starfleet, Police etc have WAY too many missions for all the milk run freigherts to get an escort. The REAL risk is to the insurers, colonies and export companies. Starfleet might have a couple to put on the ships that have to go into the border areas to supply starfleet.

---

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 12:45 am: Edit

"opperating of the AxCVL is greater than the opperating costs of just eight fighters on skids and two large freighters, then something has serverly been missed in the construction of that AxCVL."

You miss my point, here you are comparing the cost of operating AN ENTIRE Aux with a few skids.

A milk run is routine. While a cargo hold of "valuite" may be important to a single colony's fiscal health, it may not be important enough for starfleet to send escort.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 12:55 am: Edit

Why would the Insurance companies go "Rambo"

Well, as a safety consultant specializing in Military and Special construction, I have ot tell you that insurance companies DO provide all sorts of help in order to lessen claims.

You really have to be familiar with operating in dangerous environmetns to understand. For instance, I have negotiated security contracts to guard shipments of high value (ie Airport operational electronics).

I have had demining contractors hired because of the risks.

I have worked while guarded by 4 (or 8) ex royal marine (mercenaries) plus our Iraqi guards that would certianly look quite "ramboish" to you.

Suggest you look at the level of services provided by: Diligence, Controlled Risks, Custer Battles, Aegis, etc. A partial list of casulties in Iraq is at http://icasualties.org/oif/Civ.aspx

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 01:02 am: Edit

No, I'm not.

I'm compairing the opperating cost of an entire auxillary with the cost of opperating a second freighter to provide the fifth through eighth fighters.

---

Quote:

While a cargo hold of "valuite" may be important to a single colony's fiscal health, it may not be important enough for starfleet to send escort.

---

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 01:16 am: Edit

---

Quote:

I have worked while guarded by 4 (or 8) ex royal marine (mercenaries) plus our Iraqi guards that would certianly look quite "ramboish" to you.

---

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, June 03, 2005 - 02:01 am: Edit

Excluding the various essays on current politics, the combination of ducktail, skid and two fighters cost as much as 1/10 the standard colonial defense force. For that price tag, the fighters will only be able to cause a short delay before the raider neutralizes them. No chance that a colony would sacrifice that much for so little benefit. Easier to wait a few weeks and merge any freight with an escorted convoy.

A different situation exists if the regional police force command has several extra fighters and deck crews in current reserve. Using those to help augment a convoy by turning one freighter into a faux Q-ship presents some favorable possibilities.