This is inspired by a conversation with Michael Lui in the F+E Discussion section (for those that didn't see it). He basically wanted an improved Cavalier Interdiction Carrier for the Hydrans.

In Y175 the Hydrans were developing the "ridgeback" expansion for their War Cruiser-to-New Heavy Cruiser conversions and a triad of ingenious engineers decided to attempt to apply the same technique to their Ranger/Dragoon class ships. The conversion would expand the Heavy Cruisers to have the weapons of a Light Dreadnought (without the extraordinary speed of that class unfortunately) for very little changes to their limited Hydran shipyard space.

The Hydrans actually designed ridgebacks for their three remaining 'combat' variants of their heavy cruisers, the Ranger, Dragoon, and Cavalier. The unique Picket would not be upgraded as it was not deemed important enough to warrant such an expansion. All of the ridgebacks would expand the durability and firepower of each ship to exceed that of the contemporary Lyran Battlecruisers or Klingon D7C but couldn't meet that of a Klingon C8 or Lyran DN (without fighters).

The Ridgeback would essentially widen the SSD to allow the additional systems. The ridgeback conversion installed the newest NCA engines (3 12 box warp engines) instead of the older Ranger engines (3 10 box warp engines). The ridgeback also allowed the additional shielding that the Mongol-to-Mohawk conversion allowed, notably 2pts per shield. The ridgeback also increased the hull to a Movement Class 1.25 ship (the largest drawback to the conversion on paper).

Utilizing an existing hull proved to be the largest stumbling block in the designs, as they all suffered from existing Ranger/Dragoon limitations that even by adding the ridgeback could not get past. The design limitations of 4 Hellbores upon the Hollander which doomed that design to not being considered, was matched by the new Lord Cardinal Heavy Command Cruisers offering the same Hellbore firepower as the harder to make Hollander Cruise-nought. While the Highlander was a vast improvement over the Ranger, the major bonus of the Highlander, it's command facilities, was just not needed by the Hydrans, who had enough command hulls between Iron Dukes, Iron Chancellor, Lord Marshalls, and Lord Bishops and the newer Heavy Command Cruisers. The Nobleman proved to be the single variant to be considered for production, as the Cavaliers were over six years old and increasing their potential strike capability was seriously considered. It is not known if a Cavalier was actually converted to a Nobleman, as at least one had been converted to a Lord Executioneer in Y178 and possibly another to a Lord High Executioneer in Y180.

DESIGNERS NOTES:
This design follows the similar design of the Gorn DNC (ie adding a section onto a cruiser to create a Dreadnought). As the Kiowa was officially built (module R9, with YIS:178) I have assumed that the Kiowa features 2 ridgebacks (one topside, one bottomside with a single engine attached to each, forming a "+" shaped layout for the engines) upon a Mongol/Tartar hull. I imagined that a Ranger+1 ridgeback would result in a "Light Dreadnought" sized hull and as such tried to come up with suitable terminology (I had tried Strike Dreadnought, but that just didn't make sense to me). If you expanded the concept to have a Ranger+2 ridgebacks you'd get a Heavy Dreadnought sized hull. Could a LB/LM be used for this to create a full-DN? My opinion is that would be like taking a CWL and making a NCA, for F+E purposes a LB/LM hull could be used to create these variants as the LB/LM would be "unconverted" to it's standard hull type. Side note, I had considered to name it a "Scotsman", but that would of been too vain I thought. :D

Highlander Series Cruise-noughts
All have 3*12 box warp engines, and 2 additional shields over the Ranger/Dragoon class.

Highlander Fusion Cruise-nought (HCF)
Allow the Ranger SSD to be widened some. Add 4 Center Hull to form a 5x5 block. Rotate the Trans, Aux, Emer to be vertical, center over Center Hull. Add 2 Shuttles to each side-bay vertically. Change 1 rear-bay fighter to shuttle, merge rear-fighter bay with shuttle bay, carries 12 fighters total (all hybrids Stinger-2/H at normal ratio). Add 1 FA-P1, and one flag bridge to the nose section. Add 2 APR between the rear shuttlebay and the tractors (move shuttle bay over in widening process). Add 2 (360)-P1 under the realligned Center hull.
MSC notes: Unbuilt variant. CR9. YIS: 176. SC-2
F+E notes: 8-10 (6)/4-5(3). Must use Major conversion, limit 1 per year. Conv. cost RN/LM: 3+2. Sub for DN: 8+6 (hybrid ship you know)

Hollander Hellbore Cruise-nought (HCH)
Allow the Dragoon SSD to be widened some. Add 4 Center Hull to a 5x5 block. Rotate the Trans, Aux, Emer to be vertical, center over Center Hull. Add 2 APR to each side-bay vertically. Add 4 shuttle boxes and merge rear-fighter bay with shuttle bay (creating 1 10-box block), carries 6 fighters total. Add 1 FA-P1, and one flag bridge to the nose section. Add 2 (360)-P1 under the realligned Center hull.
MSC notes: Unbuilt variant. CR9. YIS: 176. SC-2
F+E notes: 10-10(3)/5-5/(1.5). Must use Major conversion, limit 1 per year. Conv. cost DG/LB: 3+1.5. Sub for DN: 10+3 (hybrid ship you know)

Nobleman Interdiction Carrier (HCV)
Allow the Cavalier SSD to be widened some. Add 4 Center Hull to a 5x5 block. Rotate the Trans, Aux, Emer to be vertical, center over Center Hull. Add 2 Shuttles to each side-bay vertically. Add 2 additional shuttles at the bottom of the side-bays (left-right). Add 1 FA-P1, add 1 Flag Bridge to the nose section. Add 2 APR between the rear shuttlebay and the tractors (move shuttle bay over in widening process). The Interdiction Carrier would have 30 fighters, allocated into a 18 fighter oversized squadron and a 12 fighter standard squadron. It would have 3 Stinger-2Es,the standard Stinger-2 to Stinger-H ratio of 3:1, with 7 Stinger-Hs and 20 Stinger-2s.
MSC notes: unbuilt variant. CR9. YIS: 176. SC-2
F+E notes: 5-10 (15)/2-5(7.5). Must use Major conversion, limit 1 per year. Conv cost: CV: 3+8 (true carrier). Sub for DN: 12+30

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 03:10 pm: Edit

My big concern is that the design would spark a "my race too!" sort of arms race.

I can slap an oversize deckhouse on a D7, widen the primary-to-secondary hull bridge on the Fed CA, give 3rd-gen Roms "double-wide" pods (in addition to the expanded deckshouse for 2nd-gen Roms), ridgebacks for a kzinti (especially the CV/BCH hull)...etc.

Are we prepared to do this?

Since we already have BCHs, why do we need these?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 03:28 pm: Edit

John, anyone could propose a D7 with a rear-addon similar to the K-DNW (The D5 w/ rear-addon).

The same with a Z-BC with "saddlebags", see the Z-DNW.

The same with a F-CA saucer and DNG rear hull.

The same with a L-CA with a center section, oh wait, they can already to that.

My aim was for something that was obviously inferior to the BCH classes (higher MC) and introduced only a few years before (so wouldn't be picked often if at all).

Oh I agree, many would be "nah, pass." It's just that no one has tried proposing anything like that, yet.