Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through November 14, 2005	25		11/19 09:03pm

Jeremy, while out to sea be thinking of some good action fiction possabilities. Keep your ear open for good command speak and crafty lines.

You are in a possition to write some neat stuff I'll bet. Maybe a story from the PoV of a weapons officer?

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Friday, November 18, 2005 - 08:50 pm: Edit

Back from a long week at sea guys. Nothing like going 103 hours on 11 hours of sleep. Did some cool stuff and it was a good week, but I'm dead. I'm also now the ship's Senior Watch Officer, so more authority, but with it, more work on top of what I already have as OPS. Don't expect much from me tonight. Having a beer, going to sleep.

Will mess with an LTT tomorrow while watching Michigan beat Ohio State. Go Wolverines! Back to the WYN in the AM...

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, November 19, 2005 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Gratz, Jeremy.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Saturday, November 19, 2005 - 05:16 pm: Edit

As promised, a WYN LTT and an SSD for an LBT carrying a battle pod. Nothing too surprizing here, except maybe that the pod blocks part of the arcs on the disruptors. The LBT is a pretty nasty warship, if slow. Using option mounts as drone racks, it could fire up to ten drones a turn, but it could only control nine. Probably would want to put an ADD or phaser in the other wing.

The WYN seem to have opted to put cargo boxes on most of their medium to light ships to provide for extra resupply rather than rely on resupply by tugs. Any tugs or LTTs built for the War of Return would have almost certainly been pressed in to service as repair ships, warships, carriers, or troop transports.

Comments?

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Saturday, November 19, 2005 - 09:03 pm: Edit

Disregard my comment about drones above...can't add.

By Bennett Eugene Snyder (Planner) on Saturday, November 19, 2005 - 11:54 pm: Edit

Any possibility the pod PH-1s could be 360 degrees instead of forward, or is there something that blocks their fire, like the nacelles?

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 12:06 am: Edit

This is a Kzinti pod without any modification. Increasing the Ph-1's arcs really isn't possible.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 12:34 am: Edit

That's a tough fish! With the BP that really is a scary unit. Put drone rack-B's in the options and you have a little Base buster.

I could certainly see the Wyn strongly considering an LTT for the War of Return, although it would likely be conducting normal tug duties (repair and supply) unless things got nasty. The LBT is a mini-DN!

By Bennett Eugene Snyder (Planner) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 09:26 am: Edit

The LTT as a repair ship would be the way to go for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. No guarantee that a support vessel would show from a confederate in the Hegemony, and any WYN repair freighters can't make the passage through the cluster. It could be done by having the crew travel on one of the warships while the other is on autopilot, but you run the risk of it being captured by a Klingon or Lyran, or that forces loyal to the current Kzinti leader intercept the War forces when they come out of the radiation zone.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 01:00 pm: Edit

Here ya go Bennett, the Pilot-R Light Repair Transport (LRT). Space for 800pts worth of cargo, plus repair facilities. A couple of PFs could be carried as cargo haulers or for local defense. Pretty decent support for the Usurper's fleet.

By Bennett Eugene Snyder (Planner) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 05:41 pm: Edit

This is beautiful, Jeremy. Utilizing the two PFs means a larger ship doesn't have to be assigned to defend the LRT. And the LRT doesn't have to get too close to the action, unless necessary.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Here ya go, one more weird duck. WYN CGT. Ground assault anyone?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 09:44 pm: Edit

Wanna make that one really stand out? Give it a weird turn mode; like D to the left, and E to the right or something.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Why? You can do the same thing with the Klingon and Kzinti tugs...they don't end up being a lame dog?

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 04:40 am: Edit

That LTT is way too good. It's only a sliver off being as good as a D5, and has interior cargo with pod carrying ability to boot. Pretty much every other hull makes considerable sacrifices to become a tug.

At least 2 DSR should be removed.

If the Wyn could build this fish, why bother with any other variant?

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 06:43 am: Edit

D5H only loses the drone/ADD racks but retains complete phaser and disruptor suites.

Not sure what can be removed from the WYN design since all the weapon mounts are located away from the new cargo bay. Maybe the rear mounted phasers can be dropped; converting 2 APR and 1 TRAN into 8 cargo is impressive.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 08:42 am: Edit

Actually, it loses 2 APR, 2 Battery, and a TRAN to get 8-25 point cargo boxes. Removing the rear Ph-3 is certainly possible, but it leave the ships phaserless to the rear (unless the wing options are phasers, maybe that is OK). One other thing that can be done to tone it down is convert the wing drone racks to tractors. I did this on the tug to keep it from being too much of a monster.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 10:37 am: Edit

I though about the Wyn LTT being too good as well. It is a tough nut. But the Wyn are unique in a way. Perhaps there should be a few special rules like no crew in pods when passing through the zone?

This is a ship where range is not an issue. It will basically never travel more than four or so F&E hexes in a F&E turn. Maybe it won't have as much of a top "high warp" speed, having less tourqued up engines.

There are things that can balance it out on a stratigic level.

Also, pods will be limited so they could never just build a fleet of these.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 10:47 am: Edit

Eh?

I would have thought pods would be *easier* to build than ships...

BTW, it's not so much what the tug gives up to get cargo, its what it gives up to get the ability to tow pods. 2APR 2BTTY, and a TRAN is a pittance to pay for 8 cargo and a pod attachment. You should *always* lose some weapons, like the D5H does (ADD and Drone racks, while a smallish payment, are at least something). After all, the pod attachment will use a hardpoint normally reserved for weapon attachment.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 11:47 am: Edit

I assumed pods would not be built but would be stolen or purchased pods.

A weapons hard point would seem inadiquate for mounting a pod. The mounting structure is large and would need to graft through to the main frame supports (probably in multiple areas).

Remember, these things have to stay attached during an HET!

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 09:38 pm: Edit

Well, the Kzinti LTT loses 2 labs, 2 aprs, 2 tran, and 2 Ph-3s for 12 cargo boxes - an 8 for 12 trade. The Klingon gives up 6 boxes and gets 10 (although losing 2 drones, 2 ADDs, and 2 APRs hurts a lot more). In neither case does a ship give up both power and reserve power, which can have just as much combat impact as losing weapons.

The WYN LTT above loses 5 boxes for 8. Pretty close. As I mentioned above, dropping the drones in the wings or the rear phaser-3s is a possibility to tone it down a little. But if you look at Kzinti model, it preserves almost all of the CMs offensive firepower - not every LTT must follow the Klingon model. Besides, the WYN are building this a good ten years after everybody else (or at least thinkining about it), so a design that preserves a bit more offensive punch is not totally unrealistic. The cost should be appropriately higher, but I don't the LTT as a fundamentally flawed ship.

As for the pods, the WYN can certainly lay their hands on pods. But for the War of Return, where they would have some Kzinti units fighting alongside them, it makes sense that they would build a tug or LTT that would use the Kzinti pods interchangeably. In that way, they might not need to invest in some types, building only they types they would need in the opening stages of the War. Kzinti sources could provide the rest.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - 07:45 am: Edit

I'd lose the Phas-3s or the wing options as you say. Then you are just about top-end allowable. While this is a later ship, there is no reason why the Wyn (with a small economy) should be able to design a munchkin LTT.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 12:37 am: Edit

Dropped the ph-3s. Check the links above for the new version.

By frazikar on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Hmmm, could just replace the rear ph-3s with batteries to keep the reserve level and put ph-1 (LS/RS) in the option mount to keep some rear phaser fire...

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 06:46 pm: Edit

Nah, she has to live without the hefty reserve power. I'm not going to keep chasing the internals on this one. If anything, the thing this ship is REALLY hurting on is transporters. Pretty poor for a tug.