Yeah, yeah, they are called Stinger-2s...ha ha


Anyway....I was reading the class history of the Stinger and I couldn't help but notice the fairly small size of the fusion beams on the Stinger. Another item mentioned was the fairly large size of a phaser-2 (I am not comparing the two weapons size wise....this is just how it seemed to read). I was thinking about swordfish drones and knowing that they basically produce a drone that can fire a phaser-2. My though was well, other than the fact that no one else uses fusion beams as a weapon, is there any reason that a double space drone could NOT carry a fusion beam?
Well, since the idea caught my attention I thought I would post it here.
Doubtlessly EVER "heavy" weapon has been at one time or another suggested for use by a drone (I'm sure some ambitious youth proposed a Drone that could launch a Plasma-R) but I believe that this possibility should be considered, especially considering that it could be nothing more than a stellar shadows project.

The history I see is this....
Remember the Hydran Expedition.....well not only did the Federation steal Phaser-G tech but they picked up fusion beam tech as a curiousity, though having little real practical use for it on their own ships. Some clever drone technician working on a swordfish drone mentioned an idea he saw after the latest news from the Hydran front...."Wow, I wish we could put a fusion beam on a drone!!" Well the friend he mentioned it to happened to know someone in the Federation research labs, who recalled he acquired fusion beam technology......and he set to work.

Basically the rules are painfully simple. The Fusion beam drones act just like swordfish, except of course with what table you usewhen rolling to hit and damage. There is no overload feature.


I don't expect this to be a hit with the crowd, but I thought those of you who are more knowledgable and experienced with SFB than I would have one or to comments......other than "NO!"

By Scott Iles (Smrl) on Wednesday, December 25, 2002 - 05:45 pm: Edit

The main difference I can see between a fusion beam and a phaser-2 (besides the damage) is the power: 1 point for the phaser, 2 points for a standard fusion beam. While there's no reason one couldn't technobabble an explanation how a drone could produce that much power, that will probably be the main objection against it.

If the Hydrans used drones, I could definitely see this. As an alternative to Swordfish drones for the Feds or Klingons, I can't see them putting a non-standard tech weapon on a disposable platform, unless fusions were really easy to build.

Just my two cents.

By Andrew C. Cowling (Andrew) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 06:12 am: Edit

Given that fighter fusions have to be charged by the parent ship (unlike fighter phasers, which are self-charging) it may be that a fusion drone would likewise need to be charged. If launched without charging, it would be treated as a null warhead (but would, doubtless, be more expensive than a null drone).

(In the same vein, I would suggest that if someone were able to install plasma-K onto a MW drone, they would still need to pay activation energy for those particular submunitions.)

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:35 am: Edit

And given that it would need charging, it would need some rather extensive power connections to the drone rack, resulting in a new kind of drone rack, which requires money that can ill be afforded mid-war for what amounts to a curiosity.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 11:00 am: Edit

There are a couple of other considerations.

Fighters able to use phaser-2s are a lot larger than drones. The phasers on those fighters are designed to be used over and over again. A phaser-2 on a type-IV frame is built to be used only once. A phaser-3 is irrelevant as a phaser-3 is obviously smaller than a fusion beam and obviously uses a heck of a lot less power to operate to begin with. So your whole discussion centers around the type-IV phaser-2 warhead. And at that point the power consideration DOES come into play. A fusion beam, like it or not, requires twice as much power as a phaser-2 to be fired, even though it fires only half as often. A type-IV drone is NOT going to be able to carry a one shot fusion beam AND the power to fire that one shot.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 11:06 am: Edit

Not to sound argumentative, but...

A Stinger can effectively add two charges worth of it's Fusion beams to extend the range right?

So if this was effectively just one Stinger Fusion Beam charge, limiting the range, would that make it work?

But it still does not get arround the problem of the 'fusion charge' has to be activated on the ship somehow, it's not like it's in Statis like a Plasma-F somehow.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 02:15 pm: Edit

I think that where this idea comes from is that a fighter cannot reload its fusion/disruptor/F-torp/D-torp/other energy-requiring weapon, but it can _hold_ that weapon indefinitely in scenario terms; so can a ready rack, for that matter. This implies that you can 'freeze' the charge in a weapon and hold it for zero energy, as long as it's a fighter-carried weapon. Sooo, couldn't you put that same "frozen" weapon into a 2-space drone? (Or maybe a Type-H drone, if you didn't have anything better to do with a Type-H drone.)

I'd say that the counter-argument is that even though a fighter is small, it's still larger than a Type IV, and there are extensive electronics and power-control systems involved in freezing the heavy-weapon charge which require more space than a drone has available.

You could handwave something claiming that a Swordfish is actually a bomb-pumped phaser that focuses a nuclear explosion towards its target, except that a ph-3 on a Type-IV doesn't destroy the Type-IV when it fires.

(Hm, that's an amusing defensive drone loadout-a Type-IV with a Stonefish or Starfish up front, and a ph-3 in the back...)

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 04:34 pm: Edit

You can hold a fighter fusion for the same "zero" energy that you can recharge the fighter's ph-G with.

But really, do we want a drone that can do 6 points of damage at range 2?

If any race were to invent a drone that fires a heavy weapon, it would be the Kzinti, with a disruptor firing drone.

But this way lies madness.