Archive through November 15, 2002
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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Archive through November 15, 2002
We know that nobody has been able to adapt (or even capture) Andromedan starships, but what about "the other" invaders, the ISC? If a race (most likely the UFP, Romulans, or Klingons) were able to capture an ISC starship, what would the conversion(s) be like?
An ISC-CA with cloak?? Hmmm, interesting. For the Romulans that might be the only conversion. For the Gorns and Feds there might not be any. Well, Feds might put two Photons in the center. They might also replace half of the rear Pl-Fs with Drone-G.
Was there ever a historical time when the ISC where on the defensive against the Galactic Powers? Sure the ISC blockade ended, but that was due to the Andro invasion of ISC home space. If the Romulans ever had the audacity to capture an ISC ship I can imagine the ISC would be likely to rush in and squash the entire base where it was docked just out of spite.
Tos,
For an evil idea, have the Romulans "Give" the CA to the Tholians.
ISC VS the wedding cake...
;-)
Considering that the "Brothers of the Anarchist" article in CL24 featured Lyran/ISC conversions, I don't imagine there is any problems at all with converting ISC ships (or with ISC converting others' ships).
Also, using that article should be a good guideline on how disruptors/photons would replace, and be replaced by, plasmas and PPDs.
I wasn't saying there was a problem doing so, and I believe it is needed for campaigns; just wondering how historically likely such a conversion would have been.
Eww
How about Photon replacing the S-Plasma on the 2nd Echelon ships?
That way you get through the first line, and then get hit with overloaded Photons.
And if long range, PPD's+Prox's
Ouch.
Scottt: Wow, that would hurt. Photons in Echelon tactics.
Loren: Would the Feds use Drone-G or Phaser-G? The Ph-G would be more flexible.
I'm also wondering about an ISC conversion of a Fed CB with PPD, etc.
Brodie,
I'd say the G-rack. The P-G is flexible, but very limited in Fed fleets. S8 rules pretty much specify that P-G's are used exclusively by carriers or carrier groups.
RBN: Oh, I was going to answer you but Mike said it fine. Carriers and carrier escorts only. Sooo, if they were converting a ISC CV...maybe.
Good point, hadn't thought of the CVBG requirement.
Feds would replace the rear F's with drone-G. Maybe they would replace a pair of rear F's with a drone-G and a p-3. I don't think they would keep the F's, since plasma-Fs are in such limited deployment. I would imagine they would replace each pair of side p-3s on escorts with a single p-G, and replace the pl-D racks with drone-G. Photons would replace heavy weapons on all ships the same as disruptors in the CL24 Anarchist article.
This is the problem: If you convert ships efficiently, some hulls have more interior space than others and therefore make for better conversions. The Lyrans as well as the ISC come to mind.
To convert a ship from on race to another has to entail a certain amount of inefficiency. If a converted ship of a given class is better than the one the race currently builds, then that race has been terribly stupid somewhere along the line.
A Fed conversion of an ISC starcruiser would replace each S-torp with a photon, replace the PPD with two. naturally APR covert to AWR. Handling the F-torps is the hard part. given the limitations on them, it's not unreasonable to assume that they're half-space weapons. So you could replace all three torps with one G-rack apiece with the extra space written off to inefficiencies in convrering lateral F-torps to G-racks. (maybe the G-rack is a little larger than an A-rack, say 1 1/4 spaces) It would look funny but it wouldn't create a super-ship.
I realize that trading 1 PPD for 2 Photons means the ISC CC would have 6 photons. If really annoying, we can invoke conversion inefficiencies to trade the 2x PPD for 3x Photon. Or we can just let it have all 4 photons along with BCJ-style shock restrictions. The CC is the ISC equivalent to a BCH so it isn't unreasonable.
Or 2x PPD with 2x Photon and 2x AWR maybe
A definite idea. We might need to extend the central pylon, but it'd solve the problem.
The big question is how it would compare with the other Fed BCH's? And it does OK. It's down 3 batts but has 10 AWR as compared to 5. And it's short on P-1's.
Speaking of P-1s...
Another conversion would be 2x PPD-> 2xPhoton + 2xP-1.
Somewhere, I have a Fed ISC cruiser; if I can find it, I'll put it up. Not sure what I did to it, though, but it seems to me that the 2PPD, 2Phot, 2PH-1 is close....gotta check and see.
The Orion option mounts treat two photons or two Disrupters or two Pl-F as being the same internal space as a single Pl-S.
I would trade a single Disrupter or Photon for a single PPD.
So an ISC CA would have five photons and a CC/BCH would have six. I'd treat the CC/BCH as subject to shich if the two center photons are over loaded.
Rear arc Pl-F would become Drone racks for the Feds. The first two would be G-racks. The next two-four would be either B-racks or G-racks given the precident of the Fed NCD and BC hulls.
I'd call it four G-racks and two B-racks for an ISC CA/CC/BCH to Fed technology.
Trent,
I don't think that's quite right. Some time ago, the discussion about the size of an S mount came up. An S plus an F equal two "slots", with the S being about 1.75, and the F being the rest. So, you can only get 1 photon or disruptor in the same space as 1 S torpedo. I'm not sure about PPD's, though. Here is the actual quote from SVC:
Quote:R torps are two spaces, and Orions cannot use them. Two different rules.
S-torps are 1.something (current theory is 1.25) and F-torps are such that two photons/disruptors/phaser-1s equals one S plus one F.
Per SVC, R-torps are over 2 spaces, originally 4 spaces. The exact amount, as with S-torps, has not been set.
One assumes that some miniaturization of components has occurred over time. The roms have had the R-torp for what? About a hundred years?
Mike,
The last numbers I've see are 1&1/3 and 2/3 for S and F respectively. Means you could (in theory) replace an S torp with a pair of F torps. Also means an S&F = 2xDisr or 2xPhot.
Exactly. Which means you can't trade up a single S torp for a pair of disruptors or photons. I'd also think that means you can't trade a single PPD for a pair of photons or disruptors, either...but I'm not sure.
Federation Converted ISC Star Cruiser
Hah! Found it. This was my old attempt at converting an ISC CA to Fed technology, as a captured ship. Now I can remember some of the issues I had with it.
For one thing, those pesky S torps don't really trade out well. They're bigger than a photon, but not big enough for two. So, you sort of loose some punch, trading out a pair of photons for a pair of S torps. Also, the rear-firing F torps didn't make much sense to me, as the Feds don't fight echelon tactics. So, using the conversion "rules" I had replaced each bank of three F torps with a pair of G-racks. That added some rear protection, and some punch due to loosing the photons. (The current conversion rules state that weapons that are replaced must retain the original firing arc...however, drones are an exception, and get their usual 360-degree arc.)
I also converted the ships APR to AWR, which neatly powers the two photons, making this ship quite fast. The PPD stayed, and is the one obvious violation of the historical conversion rules. BPV is problematic...this bird was never playtested, just built.
I have no intention of submitting this; it was only the result of a thought experiment, nothing more.
Looks good to me Mike, except I really doubt the Feds would retain the PPD. The Photon+PPD mix is nasty indeed, but I don't think they would go that route simply because they woldn't have the facilities to support and/or replace PPDs.
Maybe the Feds replace the PPD with 2 photons. Or maybe just replace each PPD with a single photon. I know that seems like a horrible trade, but not all conversions are going to optimal (look at Fed ships converted to Klingon tech - ick.) The BPV would be much lower I would think, something much more like a "normal" CA.
The ISC/Lyran "Brothers" article probably provides a good starting point here. Not sure what it says about an ISC CA converted to Lyran tech, but I would think you could get ISC ships captured by the Feds by a simple two step process:
1. Convert ISC to Lyran following article. Ignore any conversion ph-1s or Ph-3s to ph-2s.
2. Replace each disruptor with a photon. Replace each ESG with two G-racks. Replace APR with AWR
Please forgive if I missed something...I don't have time to dig out the CLs to find that article. There you go... 
Yeah, it's all very conjectural. The PPD was kept mostly as a non-historical way to make the ship "fun." I'm pretty sure it can be replaced by 2 photons, which would give the ship a much more normal "Fed" feel. And, as I said earlier, I agree about the conversion not being optimal; trading an S torp for a photon isn't that great.
BPV I'm still unsure about (at least as the ship is now). The original ISC CA is a whopping 185 points; trading the six F torps for four G racks, and trading out the S torps for photons drops it somewhat, but I also added a bit for the AWR and the extra "oomph" a Fed gets from having that extra warp engine power (32 as opposed to 30.) So, I SWAGed it at 175. If I were to change the PPD to a pair of photons, I'd probably drop it yet again to something like 160 or so.
The Lyran/ISC article established that PPDs and Pl-G/S are the same size.
Therefore a single PPD can only be replaced with a single photon. However, the more likely exchange is to also replace a P-1, leaving 2xPhoton and 1xP-1 in the center.
