While John Pepper's idea of mounting an HDW module to the outside/top of a war cruiser wasn't workable, a purpose-built ship the size of a war cruiser but with space for an HDW module might be. Thoughts?

By Phil Shanton (Mxslade) on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 07:40 pm: Edit

It might in wartime, but are there any peace-time (ie Prime Directive RPG) benefits?

Or would these ships have to be scrapped because they don't have spacelegs?

I always found HDWs to be useless in campaigns if they weren't being used for battles [as opposed to using them as patrol and utility vessels] (maybe I am just playing the game wrong)

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 08:03 pm: Edit

A limited number of ships with greater flexability, at the very least the Gorn financial people will love it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 08:56 pm: Edit

Wouldn't a war cruiser size ship have the HDW module attached in the same way an NCA gets a rear hull attached?

I'd love to see an HD5.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 09:19 pm: Edit

It sounds like a great idea.

Post-GW ships, allowing each empire to be able to configure a ship in the field to whatever mission which is needed.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 12:21 am: Edit

I don't want to rain on the parade but...

The empires already have HDW/HDXs (X HDWs) and they come out Y180 and the X versions are generally 2 or more years later. These ships are already the size (box wise) of a CW and have the move cost commensurate with that status even though they are technically SC4.

Do we need yet another multi role ship that is essentially the same thing since they rarely (if ever) get their roles changed? As shown in the flavor texts.

Maybe I could see it as some sort of desperation measure during the Andro war when anything and everything could have been tried AND there is a distinct lack of "new" ship designs being fielded. But most people want to play with stuff (IMO) during the GW.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 07:09 am: Edit

I think the Romulans should be the only empire to have modular ships above the HDW size.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 11:01 am: Edit

Do continue. This is an R13 thing so there is time for the concept to develop.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 11:15 am: Edit

I agree with Kludge. Aside from the size class, most of the existing HDWs are darn near CWs in all but name. Might be OK as limited run experiments by some races, but it would seem silly for most races to have both a CW(modular) and a HDW production run going when the HDWs alone would be good enough.

Or are we talking about something bigger, like something basically the size of an NCA (30-32 warp / move cost 1) with CW level weapons and the option boxes of a HDW?

I could see some races finding this more appealing than others. The HDWs with 3 heavy weapons (Feds, Lyrans, Gorns come to immediate mind) are more than adequate. However ships like the Klingon and Romulan HDWs are a little lean on heavy weapons. Something with weapons closer to a CW might be appealing in their cases.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 12:25 pm: Edit

Based on War Cruisers makes sense to me. The HDW has got to be a cramped operation. An NCL based design would provide more elbow room.

I don't know if there is a mess of war cruisers around after the war but converting a few of these to a HCL would seem reasonable, particularly during a time of rebuilding.

Maybe these would be RPL.

One thing of note, I wouldn't add more modularity on an HCL than is on the HDW. Just the benefit of adding the HDW systems to the heavier hull is enough.

I'd also point out that and HCL (or whatever it would be called) would be pretty interesting up against the ISC, and would be yet another effective unit against the Andromedans.

Which brings up an interesting point. The nature of the attacks from the Andromedans is that they can strike anytime, almost anywhere. This was probably very destabilizing as a victim empire could lose support units regularly with no ability to even know what support units are at risk. As such, I would think there would be a call for more HDWs and maybe an HCL class more able to defend itself from an Andromedan attack.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 02:04 pm: Edit

I guess my basic question is, are we talking about (1) a CW with systems yanked out to make room for 4xNWO, 4xAPR*, and 2xOPT-RA, or (2) are we talking about taking a CW and just adding those ten boxes?

If (1), then looking at the existing HDWs, there needs to be some kind of gain someplace (probably in heavy weapons) to make the design worthwhile. HDWs are basically the size of a CW already, albeit classified as a size class 4 ship.

If (2), were talking about adding ~10 boxes to any existing CW. I got to imagine that would increase move cost, which starts to push them in the NCA size range. I guess you could split the difference and increase the movecost to 3/4 (still functional with 24 warp) and not improve the engines, but I think we would find such ships lacking in power curve in the period of Y180+

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 02:42 pm: Edit

I would want the extra systems applied exactly the same way they are applied to HDWs. Raising the move cost to 3/4 works fine for me.

I don't think the empires would be thinking fully about their combat capabilities, but rather the overall flexability given to the fleet in a time when rebuilding requires that flex and later when the Andros can attack that flexability directly.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 03:00 pm: Edit

My first through is why bother? We build a second MC 2/3 ship with identical HDW multi-role capabilities to the HDW.

We either use a super-sized HDW module (or use two) or there's no discernable point to the ship. A HDW does the same thing and costs less.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 03:46 pm: Edit

I think that these would be better mounted on a non CW-hull as John T. states above. I'd suggest an NCA-hull.

The HDW is really a CW if you count system boxes (essentially). So is a CW-HDW going to have the same number of boxes as a NCA?

And of course the magical question. Does the 2 Hybrid fighters come with them?

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:25 am: Edit

What about using the CA hulls instead of the NCA? Take for example, the Federation. They have the (unbuilt) Modular Light DN that puts the HDW equipment into the rear hull. For the Feds, the same could be applied (in theory) to the CA base-hull - although built more like a CB, I would assume.

We know that the hulls survived production to the end of the war (although as CBs / CXs), so why not scale back to continnue to use those hulls in such a manner?

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:02 am: Edit

I like that idea (modularising CA hulls) better than doing it to CW's. Sending CA's up against PFs and X-ships is pretty much wasting lives, but those hulls can still provide good service if not used for direct combat roles (CWs don't suffer quite so badly since they're faster). The downside is the same as for the HDWs - modules are a bit of a pain (requiring notes about wthe SSD), and either don't really add any new capabilities to the game (is a CA-modular-carrier really that much different in play to a CA hulled CV?) or permit borderline explotative designs.

By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:15 am: Edit

I'm against the idea - almost entirely because the published HDWs are some of the ugliest (visually, not talking about capabilities) designs in SFB.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 10:47 am: Edit

I liked this idea, but I think the publication of the Module R10 NCA variants makes NCL-HDWs obsolete.

Why go to the bother of making my modular NCL into a scout when i can just use the published NCA-scout?

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 11:44 am: Edit

Because the Modules can be repalced quicker and faster than building a new NCA variant in times of crisis.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 12:51 pm: Edit

Thomas, yes, they make sense. But it is almost like buying a book of the same stuff already.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 02:01 pm: Edit

I see what your getting at Nick. It's the opposite way that I'm looking at it from. As I mostly play F&E these days, things for campaigns interest me. While I'm not a major supporter of this idea, I understand the logic and appeal of it.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 02:54 pm: Edit

They would be great for F&E.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 04:35 pm: Edit

So, HDWs take up a Destroyer build slot, would F&Eers give up an NCL slot for one of these? (assuming cost and factors were reasonably incremental).

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:08 pm: Edit

Maybe, It would depend on the situation. However, some modular ships tend to get more use than others in my opinion.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 18, 2014 - 05:31 pm: Edit

File transfered to the R13 project with a note that there was no need for these expensive ships because the HDWs had proven that most of them would serve their entire careers in one role, and anyway, the HDW and CW are the same size so there really wasn't any point.