| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 01:09 pm: Edit |
Discussion of Middle Years can begin here.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:01 pm: Edit |
The Middle Years are basically the period from about Y120 to Y157. It starts when the speed 31 ships start to appear through the beginning of the four powers war. Basically this is the time period where SFB started; no refits, no fighters, and no war crusiers.
The purpose of this topic is basically to provide discussions of what happens between the Early Years (Y1/Y2) and the explosion of ships and technology during the Four Powers and General Wars. Many of the ships of this period are already in the game, but many classes of ships came a went before and have yet to presented. Also some ships of the early years were upgraded and remained in service until a "modern" class replaced it. Some of these ships appeared in Captain's Log 20. Here's a opportunity to figure out what additional ships are needed to make the timeline work.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:25 pm: Edit |
Let's start with listing what Middle Year ships are already in the game, starting with the ships of the Y120 decade.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:35 pm: Edit |
The Y130 decade
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:42 pm: Edit |
The Y140 decade
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:46 pm: Edit |
The Y150 decade (thru Y157)
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 06:52 pm: Edit |
During the middle years the Romulans still don't have warp engines, so they get no new ships. The Tholians only get a few new ships as most of the technology in the early years. The Andromedons, ISC, and Seltorians don't appear until after MY. The LDR are using standard Lyran ship during MY. The Jindarians have all of their basic ships long before this period.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 08:15 pm: Edit |
Captain's Log 20 included several Klingon ships from the Middle Years:
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 10:23 am: Edit |
Around Y120, the Federation developed a number of improved systems, most notably speed 30 warp engines and type 1 phasers. It would be years or decades before they were able to field new ship designs to incorporate all these improvements. From Y120 to as late as Y140 the existing fleet recieved refits to take advantage of these two most important improvements. These ships didn't have additional photon torpedos, improved sensors, scanners, and shields of the replacement designs. Later some of these ships were rebuilt to the new designs; but most of the new designs were newly built ships.
| By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 10:53 am: Edit |
For the Romulans, you can probably consider the Veil and intitial Cloak periods or everything from the Veil to the Treaty of Smarba as being the MY period. This covers Y119-Y158. Their ships are pretty well defined in Module Y1 and would get the addition of the specialists ships in Y2 (commando ships, etc.).
The Tholians of the period are pretty well established between current products and Y1.
The Hydrans start up again the in Y130s and are pretty well established. You can probably consider all of their development post-War of Infamy and Pre-Hellebore (Y156) as being Middle Years era.
The ISC of the period are completely undefined and could potentially be the basis of their own module. (?)
The Gorns have few designs of this period and could probably use some fleshiing out, similar to the additional ships provided by the Klingons (leader variants, etc.).
The Federation of the period would include National Guard ships of the member races, upgraded to speed 27-31. Some of these might be in R8(?). They could otherwise use some fleshing out of the saucer designs(leader variants, etc.).
With the addition of the ships in CL, the Klingons look to be in pretty good shape. The Kzintis could use some leader variants,etc.
The Lyrans have pretty good selection and, with their political structure, and how it is tied to ships, they may or may not merit leader variants.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:23 pm: Edit |
Like other races around Y120, the Klingons developed speed 30 warp engines. They were one of the quickest to develop and field new ships to take advantage of this. Unlike other races, the Klingons had great difficulty with type 1 phasers for their ships and they were not part of the general refits. Some of the existing fleet did have the warp engines upgraded:
| By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:28 pm: Edit |
Another MY Klingon ship from CL: The D7Z in CL13. Entered service in Y141. First use of Ph-1s by the Klingons.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:30 pm: Edit |
During the Middle Years, the Kzinti had difficulty achieving the same level of warp drive improvements that other races had. They were able to deploy speed 27 warp engines for the Strike Crusier ships around Y120. They had better luck developing type 1 phasers but didn't start using disruptors on they're ships until the new designs were introduced.
| By Stan Taylor (Stantaylor) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:47 pm: Edit |
John, where are + refits mentioned for Klingon EY ships?
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:52 pm: Edit |
The refits for EY ships in the above postings are my proposals as to refitting those ships to be used into the MY era. Sorry if the wording implied that I got them from somewhere else.
| By Stan Taylor (Stantaylor) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 01:59 pm: Edit |
One interesting aspect of the early MY is how to handle mixed fleets. the MY ships are far superior to EY ships but it would take at least a decade before EY ships could be relegated to mothballs since shipbuilding takes alot of time.
Each race would have to decide how to use a mixed fleet, either using only one type on a given front, have separate fleets on the same front or mixing them within fleets. The last option is problematic since the EY and MY ships have vastly different speeds (both tactically and strategically) and tactics. None the less, commanders are going to find themselves fighting battles with forces that don't work well together but can't afford to forego using half of their fleet. (this parallels X-ships usage in the late GW)
This should create some interesting scenarios for things such as the Kligon-Kzinti war in the 120's (4tH?).
I like this issue since it's very much a problem with real world militaries as new tech is always being brought in. Example: At the beginning of WWI, dreadnoughts were clearly superior to older ships but all navies had huge numbers of predreadnoughts in their fleetsas they still had some utility.
| By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 03:31 pm: Edit |
I would imagine integrating MY and EY ships followed similar lines as integrating GW and X1 ships.
| By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 04:18 pm: Edit |
A similar situation occurs in EY with the Warp-Refitted (speed 17) and Early (speed 25) ships. It usually results in the slower units being relegated to a phaser-support role in order to maintain fleet speed.
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 05:42 pm: Edit |
Quote:This should create some interesting scenarios for things such as the Kligon-Kzinti war in the 120's (4tH?).
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, September 02, 2002 - 03:08 pm: Edit |
Given that the Gorns are penny pinchers and don't have any real opponents during the middle years period, I don't see them developping many ships. And maybe not any more than what they already have (they have one of each minimum variant).
| By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 01:11 pm: Edit |
Under situations like that, you build a few exploration ships and look to expand your mean cubic volume.
Heck, that's probably why they bumped up against the Feds. There was probably a group of Gorns who were frustrated by peace with the Federation. It's a direction the Confederacy couldn't expand.
| By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 03:13 pm: Edit |
quote: "Heck, that's probably why they bumped up against the Feds. There was probably a group of Gorns who were frustrated by peace with the Federation. It's a direction the Confederacy couldn't expand."
I wouldn't think so. The benefits of allying with the Federation would far exceed the benefits of a little expantion. The improvement of the interior and security against the Romulans to note. Sure there was a misunderstanding at first. Not too surprising given the Gorns previous history with the Romulans. But then once the fog had cleared the benefits were obvious and overwhelming.
Just my humble opinion.
| By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 04:30 pm: Edit |
I have a recollection of some acticle or something mentioning that the Lyran and Kzinti both built Light Crusier Scouts before the four powers war, but none survived the conflict. Does anyone else remember such a mention? They would fit into the Middle Years.
| By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, September 06, 2002 - 03:30 pm: Edit |
John,
As I look at MY refits for EY ships, I believe that system restrictions would be lifted, but the warp engines would stay the same.
So, transporters go to 4 hexes, tractors get an extra hex range, HW can overload, and Kzinti and Fed P-2 -> P-1 (since that is just fire control systems).
I am making the assumption that they will be building new ships as fast as they build warp engines. Therefore, I doubt they would have any "excess" engines to use to upgrade EY ships. (There would be a few exceptions, but they would be fairly rare.)
| By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, September 07, 2002 - 10:24 pm: Edit |
Why wouldn't transporters go to the standard range 5?
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