THE AUTOMATIC REJECT LIST
Updated 26 Jan 2008 (items added every year)
Further updates 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019.
This list has been around for years (it was first published in CL#10 and was several years old at that time), and it was first official posted on the site in 2002. Everything on this list has been proposed before, and we don’t go to the trouble of putting it on the list unless it has been proposed several times. So, here is the list. Two big causes of things on this list are Technology Sloshing (giving an empire weapons from another empire) and Obvious Variants (compare the list of hulls with the list of common variants and see what is missing).
Remember that this is the list of things not to bother proposing, not the list of things that will never be published. Some things are on the list because we have them on file, not because we don’t plan to publish them.
The way submissions get accepted is that you think of something we never thought of, not just something we haven’t published. We want CREATIVITY not the ability to find an obvious variant.

C–MOVEMENT: Unplotted deceleration by means of (C12.0).
Turning starships upside down (bringing off-side weapons and shields to bear).

D–COMBAT: Offset-firing arcs (standard arcs rotated 30°).
Increasing the explosion force (we just reduced it!).
Giving a ship free EW points for its speed.
Any weapon that only affects shields.
Any weapon that only affects crew or disables warp engines (would result in too many captured ships).
Any weapon that only affects sensors (or only scanners or only special sensors). These are rejected because they would provide a "cheap mission kill" capability that dis-rupted the tempo of battle.
Any means of tractors damaging or dismembering ships.
Using a single 12-sided die for the DAC.
Procedures to target damage on a specific part of a ship.
Improvements in non-violent combat.

E–DIRECT-FIRE WEAPONS: Any procedure to put a phaser-4 on any mobile unit that is not a monster.
Changing the max or minimum range on PPD overloads.
Having maulers damage everything in their firing arc.
Underloaded weapons (a proposal has been on file for years and never found necessary).
Improvements to the photon to "balance" DERFACS.

F–SEEKING WEAPONS: Allowing other drones to use the tar-get search procedure of the type-IIIXX.
Warp seekers for drones other than type-VI.
Warp seekers for plasma torpedoes.
Systems to change the target or speed of a drone in flight.
Proximity-fuzed drones.
Drones with mine warheads (damage everything in one, or seven, hexes).
Wild weasel drones or probes.
External drone launch rails for ship.
Putting plasma-D torpedoes (or plasma-Fs) in scatter-packs other than fighters or MRS shuttles as already provided in the rules.
Cloaked drones or plasma torpedoes.
Drones that look like a ship to a mine, causing it to detonate.
Towed sensor arrays to allow cloaked ships to "see."
A drone able to do damage as a hellbore.
Any system to provide player command and control of any drone (so it can ignore WWs or EW) other than a probe drone as defined in the probe drone rules.

G–SYSTEMS: Putting PFs inside pseudo pods (except at the Orion player’s birthday party).
Mounting pods on tugs backwards or sideways.
Warp gyroscope (allows ship to fly sideways).
Putting a plasma-R into an Orion option mount.
Putting a mauler into an Orion option mount.
Allowing ESGs to cover only a 180° (or less) arc and so increase the damage in the hexes it does cover.
Allowing ESGs to have a direct-fire function.
Cloak improvements. (Doomsday has been printed, and cloaks work just fine as they are.)

H-POWER SYSTEMS: Any system involving an involuntary transfer of power from one ship to another or causing some power systems of the target ship to shut down.

J-SHUTTLES: Having a WW cease to function after a set time.
Letting MRS shuttles carry EW pods.
Anything other than a shuttle or drogue as a wild weasel.
Stealth fighters.
Fighters able to reload heavy weapons while in flight.
Fed A18 with a photon.
Fighters with phaser-1.
Fighters with X-tech.
Mega packs with X-tech.
Lyran indigenous fighters.
Fighters more advanced than currently in SFB.

K-Gunboats
Any attempt to give the Federation any kind of Gunboats or workboats during the General War.

M–MINES: Medium mines (a proposal is on file).
Mines able to be set for detonation after a specified delay.
Any form of moving mine.
Mines equipped with tractor beams or webs.

R–SHIPS: Minor empires or new empires, at least for now. If you read this several weeks/months/years from now, do not assume that the policy has changed. Ask before work-ing on a new empire.
Andromedan PFs, interceptors, fighters, shuttles, or WWs.
B10s, battleships, super-dreadnoughts, etc. for other empires. We have them all in Module R5.
Behind-The-Lines ships: A frequent proposal is a ship able to go behind enemy lines for various missions and able to defeat any other single ship so it can survive the mission. If such a ship were possible, it would be in the front-line battle fleet, and players would put it there.
Captured and Converted ships. This includes things like the already published TK5 and OK6, i.e., "half of a Klingon ship plus half of something else."
Carrier, SCS, or other variants of BCHs (already done for Module R5; no proposals considered).
Carriers with Aegis able to escort themselves.
Civilian Yachts: We have received dozens of such propos-als, which are always armed to the teeth "so they can defend themselves."
Combat or strike scouts (scouts equipped with non-blinding weapons).
Commando ships with the armament of standard warships so that they can "fight their way through." Commando ships do not need such weapons for their missions.
Diplomatic ships: Only the Klingons built these.
Drone modules (like a cargo module, but has 6–12 drone racks) for bases.
Export ships: For example, Fed NCL sold to Gorns and fit-ted with Gorn weapons.
Federation proposals: CA variants (escort, drone are obvious variants). Tugs with more photons.
Heavy PFs that are not conjectural (e.g., Lyran trimaran, Double Bubble Gorn, or Twin Hull Tholians).
Lend-Lease ships: see export ships above.
Maulers for empires that don’t have them now.
Obvious variants (leader, scout, carrier, PFT, commando, drone, minesweeper) of standard warships which do not already have them (e.g., Klingon F6, E5, Kzinti DW, Orion DW, Gorn BDD, Fed FFB, Gorn CM, etc.). You might suggest or ask for such a ship, but if we agree it is needed, it will be designed in-house.
Orion dreadnoughts, CVAs, battleships, monitors, survey ships, or tugs. (Some have been published as conjectural ships.)
Parallel designs (e.g., a new destroyer for an empire that has a perfectly good one).
PFTs on DN hulls (e.g., Romulan ROC and Lyran Lion).
Repair variants of war cruiser. (They were all designed in 1985 but were not published.)
Repair variants of any warship.
Submarines: Cloaked ships are as close as we get.
Technology sloshing (giving a weapon to an empire that doesn't have that weapon).
X-ships: X-variants of leaders other than CCs.
X-ships: Second-Generation X-ships. (When time, we will do these ourselves.)

S–SCENARIOS: Bismarck scenarios and campaigns based on WWII and the Fed BCH (several are on file).
Scenarios based on historical incidents mentioned in SFB (e.g., Operation Remus). We already have these on file or would prefer to do them ourselves. Except for some of them. Ask First. Please.