Looking at it from a different point of view, what do you want to accomplish from eliminating Smarba?

As we can see, regardless of what the point of change is, the story is so blown away that we can't really have a good feel for what would be "likely" to happen. Therefore, without a hinted at result, it is absolutely wide open.

So, instead of trying to figure out the point of departure, and going forward, it is probably a better bet to figure out where you want to end up, then go backwards to see where it started.

It really is that undefined.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 12:19 pm: Edit

My impression that the primary goal was a new modern line of Romulan ships based on the old WE/KE series. The second goal is a new timeline to put them in.

If there is no raid, and we need the 67 raid to fund the cloak, then a new option needs to arise for the Romulan to gain warp tech.

Some suggestions

Get it from a neighbor, either a Romulan - ISC war, where the Romulans capture key ISC installations. Steal it from the Gorns/ Feds, or the Federation gives them the tech in a completely stupid move to placate the warlike Romulans. The last would be the Romulans somehow getting it from the Tholians, which I have a hard time imagining.

If the Federation does it, then a possibility of the Romulans getting a couple of FR ships, putting cloaks on them, flying over to the Federation -Klingon border under cloak, and then instigating a Klingon - Federation war that spirals into the GW. This is an attempt to remove the two largest obstacles, in their plan to conquer the galaxy.

If it is the ISC option I can see a whole new dynamic where the remaining ISC, Gorn and Federation form a Romulan defense Pack, to defend against a larger and more dangerous empire. This is triggered by the Romulan entry in the GW on the coalition side.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 01:08 pm: Edit

Jim,

Remember one other important item. If the Romulans don't get warp technology from the Klingons, they don't get engine mounted weapons. So, that means the "King" variants don't happen. Or at least not like they are now, as all of the engine mounted F torps have to either disappear or be moved somewhere else.

Just another dynamic to keep in mind.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 04:23 pm: Edit

Mike;

True, I think is the idea to have a whole new Romulan Fleet.

But are we just looking for a modification to the WE/KE designs, or for something else radically different. If you look at the Federation the old CL is a radically different design than the CA. Which is a move from the warp enhanced impulse design to a new tactical warp design?
Will the new timeline gives the Romulans the chance to do the full redesign or will they only have the opportunity of modify the old hulls

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Jim,

Everyone seems to have different goals.

Some want to get rid of the Klingon-ish Hawks (and obviously the Kestrels) and go with good old fashioned, but updated, Eagles.

Some want to be able to use ships modeled on the TNG style Romulan ships.

Some want to use the Eagles as an inspiration, then build new designs.

Some want to just wipe the slate clean and see what they can come up with.

With all of these conflicting goals, I doubt any sort of consensus will ever be developed. It is just way too wide open.

As for you final question, assuming the Romulans gain warp no later than they would have with Smarba, they would have had plenty of time to make full redesigns. Again, my suggestion is that the latest you want to make the capture of warp is about Y150. That gives you plenty of time to integrate the discovery, refit the Eagles, then start pumping out your brand new blank slate designs in a timeframe similar to the Hawks.

By Herb Diehr (Direwolf) on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - 03:03 pm: Edit

My contention is that the Smarba talks take place, but are not signed. Some lesser papers are, transferring transporters, etc. (The + refit.) Espionage and other means used gained enough to get warp.

KE had to be developed on their own and took much longer.

The WB was the root of all designs, with some enhancements to cloaking and a couple other technologies of minor cosequence. More phasers, more crew. Less time in space.

The final goal is a fleet of very different ships (two examples given) to give some variation to the Romulans, getting rid of all Klingon influence.


Herb

By Kraig Uhl (Runningman) on Saturday, February 18, 2006 - 04:53 pm: Edit

Modular Eagle Classes would be interesting.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 12:30 pm: Edit

I thought so too, but "modular" the way the hawk classes are modular produces ships that look different and play almost the same.

What different kinds of "modular" could the Roms do?

One option occurred to me, which was to produce a unified hull design where every part of the ship is mass-produced and only assembled in a shipyard. CAs, CLs, and DDs all use the same front and aft section and have a varying number of "link" section between.

It would be harder to do extensible wing sections or warp drives, but the "real" Romulans would have similar problems.

By Herb Diehr (Direwolf) on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 01:08 pm: Edit

There are a couple of ideas I had on the idea of modular Eagle design.

First, these ships are made for campaigns in mind, not pick-up games, so that may shade views a bit. One way to lower costs a bit is to make each part the same way, so there are few parts not interchangeable between ships. This I simulate by having warp come in five's, impulse in three's, etc. This does create some interesting designs from time to time!

There are a couple of other little ideas I had, too.


Herb

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Herb,

Pick sixes for warp. It works much nicer on the smaller ships.

So, you get:
police: one engine (6 warp)
frigate: two engines (12 warp)
destroyer: three engines (18 warp)
war/light cruiser: four engines (24 warp)
heavy cruiser: five engines (30 warp)
fast cruiser: six engines (36 warp)
dreadnought: eight engines (48 warp)

For seven engines (42 warp) you can have some weird 1.25 or 1.33 movement BCH/DNL type ship.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 01:36 pm: Edit

Herb,

You could also eliminate the armor, which will give more internal volume for other systems.

By Herb Diehr (Direwolf) on Monday, February 20, 2006 - 12:22 am: Edit

Hi, Mike!

That kind of over-powers the frigates and DD, don't you think? The rest work fine!

Hey, Joseph!

No armor in any of these...! Already got rid of it.

Herb

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 20, 2006 - 08:12 am: Edit

Herb,

Not really. Most 1/3 movement frigates have 12 warp. Outside the Fed Police Cutter, I can't think of any 1/3 movement ships with only 10 warp.

And while most pre-war destroyers have 15 or 16 warp, all DWs run around with 18 warp.

So, no, they aren't necessarily overpowered.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - 03:45 pm: Edit

1/3 MC with 10 warp:
F-POL
K-G2
K-E3 (same thing...)
L-POL
H-GEN (I think... have to double-check)

Basically, any police ship that isn't a cut-down version of the FF (Z-POL), is 1/3 MC with 10 warp. In fact, the major difference (power-wise) between a POL and a FF is generally two extra warp on the same MC for the FF.

Mike: How do you plan on making a 6 warp POL work? Make it PF sized? (A one-engine PF could be entertaining... but why can't you WBP the bigger ships...? I'd avoid that here.)

Personally, I kind of like the idea of 'component' design... you have a standard set of components, each available in two or three sizes, and mix and match standard designs from there... a bit like Neo-Tholians, but without each class having a different rear hull.

So a POL is a 'small hull' plus two 'small engines'. The FF is the same with a 'small boom' added. The DD is a FF with 'medium engines' instead of 'small'....

Eh, just tossing off random ideas, don't feel obligated to pay attention to it. ^_^

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - 08:07 pm: Edit

James: Consider the Snipe-P which has 6 warp and move cost 1/4 which is the classic Romulan police ship.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, February 23, 2006 - 08:23 am: Edit

James,

OK, so I missed a couple police ships. Oh, well. You still want 12 warp on your frigates.

For a 6 warp Pol, just give it 1/5 movement rate and say it isn't a PF. Either let it be a type of Skiff (which isn't a PF and can't use booster packs), or make it a full SC 4 ship with a 1/5 movement rate. Either way, it isn't using booster packs. Or make it 1/4 and let it be slow.

Regardless, using 6 point engines works better for the rest of the fleet.

Or, looking at it from a different POV, assuming they developed warp well prior to the GW, say they did use 5 point warp engines. They would then use:
police: two engines (10 warp)
frigate: two engines (10 warp)
destroyer: three engines (15 warp)
light cruiser: four engines (20 warp)
heavy cruiser: six engines (30 warp)
dreadnought: nine engines (45 warp)

Then, for the GW era, they introduced 6 point warp engines, and replaced the 5 point engines on the frigate, destroyer, and light cruiser to make their war frigate, war destroyer, and war cruiser (respectively). They also prototyped the engines by putting them on the heavy cruiser to make the fast cruiser. The Pol and dreadnought are left with 5 point engines.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Thursday, February 23, 2006 - 01:52 pm: Edit

Rich: The SN-P comes under 'cut-down FF', just like the Z-POL. Since it is, after all, a Snipe.

Mike: Okay, the 5-6 box engine thing is an interesting idea, especially if they did some other refits with the engine upgrade to make the 'war' ships worthwhile. Also note that with an engine upgrade and a place to mount a 10th, they could attempt to turn their DN into a BB....

Of course, it makes sense to use the tiny engines, but I always like the bigger ones....

By the way, I see the occasional reference to Skiffs, where are they from?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, February 23, 2006 - 04:09 pm: Edit

James,

Well, obviously a few weapons would have to be added to "soak up" the extra power available as part of the "war" refit.

There is nothing wrong with using larger engines. However, I was just trying to run with Herb's idea of using multiples of a single engine type.

Skiffs and Modular Cutters are found in CL23 and (I think) Module R8.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, February 23, 2006 - 04:10 pm: Edit

I was thinking something a bit less drastic, myself. Not really changing the engines so much, but other parts of the hull.

Figure a bow and stern module. The bow module would be sort of like the hawk cruiser modules, the back like the destroyer modules. The engines and main body would remain static. I'm toying with a "for fun" SSD of a modular eagle cruiser; I'll post it later, when I'm satisfied with it.

By Kraig Uhl (Runningman) on Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 05:47 pm: Edit

Some interesting, to me, design ideas for an all Eagle class Romulan Star Fleet. Eagle class cruiser that feature a widen hull section and features a plasma R, with two G torps in FA/R and FA/L firing arcs. Figure it would be light on the phasers. War Cruisers that feature a Plasma M, without the X features, with the same G torps. Romulans would forgo the F torp on all but the smallest of frigates. All this means the Romulan Fleet is torp heavy and phaser light.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 03:04 pm: Edit

Some proposed Eagle II designs. These would be the equivalent of the SparrowHawk. The hull is assumed to be too small to safely mount or launch a single R-torp.

One is with cloak

The other, without

The with-cloak version assume some history that allows the roms to have a cloak, modern weapons and full-warp without signing Smarba.

The without cloak assumes that the roms developed warp drive early enough to abort cloak development. The Roms would build a larger hull because they would not be optimising for the cloak.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 09:35 pm: Edit

34 power does look to be a trifle high.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 10:35 pm: Edit

34 power is kinda high. Just swap the APR with Lab or (more likely) Shuttle, knocking it down to 32 power, which is just fine for a War Cruiser.