As a player of F&E I have oft wondered why more CL variants are not available. Currently, the only conversion available for the CL is to the BC and its variants as a major conversion.

There have been several times while playing F&E that I had wished I had been able to convert a CL into an escort or a scout. Generally, given the relative cost, a CL is inferior to a CW variant or a DD/DW variant. However, in a pinch, the CL variant would have been very useful such as when I needed a heavier escort or scout and a DW/CW was not available. Hence, proposed year in service for these ships correspond to general war years where the occasional pinch for an less-than-optimal specialty ship would be likely to occur.

I didn't see any evidence that such CL variants have been proposed on the BBS. They might be "obvious variants," but at least from my F&E perspective their inclusion in the SFU would be useful from time to time.

I'd like to suggest the following:

CLS: Light cruiser scout. Replace 4*Ph-1 with special sensors. Replace 2*Disr with 1*Ph-1 FA/L and 1*Ph-1 FA/R. In F&E terms this unit would be a 3 point fixed scout with combat values of 3/6*[1/3]. YIS 168. BPV TBD.

CLE: Light cruiser escort. Replace 2*Disr with 1*Ph-1 FA/L and 1*Ph-1 FA/R. Equipped with limited Aegis and full Aegis according to appropriate year. Shuttle bays would be equipped with ready racks. In F&E terms this unit would be 6e/3 [3/3]. YIS 171. BPV TBD.

CLG: Light cruiser commando ship. Replace 2*Disr with 2*Cargo. Replace 2*F-Hull and 2*A-Hull with 4*Barracks. Replace 4*Ph-1 with 4*shuttle (4 bays total, including one heavy assault shuttle). In F&E terms this unit would be 2g/6 [1g/3]. YIS 168. BPV TBD.

Thoughts, suggestions?

SVC or SPP, do you think these variants will have any traction?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 07:33 pm: Edit

I will also pipe up and suggest that there might be a variant Lyran CL that has Klink D5 style engines (with the Disruptors on the nacelles). YIS perhaps 3 after the D5 comes out?

Left on the scrap heap of history when the BC proved to be so excellent a conversion...

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar2) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 08:19 pm: Edit

Hmmm, history has a lot going against you there

CLS, not many nations went into heavy scouts (except the Klingons with their D6S) and the Lyran were very reluctent to go with the CWS design (which they got from the LDR) believing that the SC/DWS would work (supplemented by scout tugs)...hmmm, thinking about it, there may be a CLS built near the end of the 4PW that didn't get support (never finished/built too late and converted to a regular CL?)

CLE, late into the carrier 'race', the Lyrans went with the CWE for their crusier (heavy) escort...

CLG, this is a maybe as the Kzinti did have a CLG of their own, but with the DDG working (and convertable to a CWG)...

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 10:41 pm: Edit

I don't like CLE as an escort, as people are going to then propose the trimaran version...

which is definitely not a Lyran thing (super heavy escort that is).

In fact, that's a problem with ANY Lyran CL variant.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 11:54 pm: Edit

Would the players then ask for BCH variants of CL variants?

CLE begets BCHE...
CLS begets BCHS...
CLG begets BCHG...
CLV begets BCHV...

...the only way I see such variants being remotely conceivable is if the connecting center hull is the only portion modified. That way they're left with standard CL outer hulls.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 12:06 am: Edit

The BCHS could be fun, a little bit work it could be a survey unit, it already has cargo, though it would probably NOT be a Tug.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 12:08 am: Edit

They could always ask, but it's perfectly possible to say - no you can't get those variants. Or maybe you could.

Mostly I'm interested in some CL variants that give the Lyrans some options when the better hulls for the cost are not available for whatever reason. I seriously doubt that these variants would be abused in either SFB or F&E.

Another note on the BC equivalents. Already have area control ship and battle control ship variants. AS for commando variant, seems illogical to gut a massive ship of the line, so just don't see that happening. For BCE I suppose I could see that, and there's at least some precedent with the Rom FHM (9 point escort) - but again it can simply be disallowed if that's a problem. I don't see a scout version as being that useful given 4 ESGs.

So I don't see BC variants as an issue.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 04:37 pm: Edit

In all seriousness, the Lyrans might not have gone with the trimaran designs. If you eliminate those, these ships become possible as conjectural what if the Jaguar had not been built?

With the Jaguar class available these variants simply would not have been built in the General War. Partly because CLs cannot be built as fast as DDs/CWs and are too valuable when later upgraded to BCs.

The only other option would be that they were variants that were built and operated during the Four Powers War or were built before that war. Much like the variants of the Kzinti CL. Like the Kzinti CLs, they would be lost during that war and not replaced. However, I do not think a Command Cruiser variant (I know no one has suggested one here) would really be possible without a really odd background due to the way the Lyrans operated, something like some count built a command light cruiser instead of a heavy cruiser for his personal flagship, perhaps for economy reasons.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 04:58 pm: Edit

SPP:

My idea for the Lyran CL was to provide for an occasional specialty ship when a CW or DD was not available for conversion, but when the specialty ships is needed or desired. Few if any would actually be *BUILT* (emphasis only), as the CW is clearly the superior design for the specialty functions, and the CL is not that much better than a DD, and you are right that conversions to BCs are the fates of most of the CLs. However, that does not exclude the occasional conversion, even if such ships are not built.

Realistically, (game play experience) when playing F&E it's not that uncommon for a Lyran fleet to be sitting on a SB and a CW or DD is not available and you want the conversion to a specialty ship for whatever reason (it's happened to me several times). Note that "not available" is not restricted to simply no such ship being present. There are times when I have 3*CW and I don't want to convert one because that eliminates the leader bonus for subsequent combat, or I want to keep the compot of a battle group as high as possible (such as when I only have 3*CW and 3*DD in the fleet). An extra CL specialty ship would allow me to preserve the battle group compot and get the specialty ship I need at that actual turn it's needed.

Additionally, the Lyrans start with a lot of CLs at the beginning of the general war (20+ I think), and it is not until very late that all of the CLs have been converted to BCs. In the meantime, putting a few of the CLs to use as specialty ships could be quite helpful in order to allow the CWs and DDs more mainline battle duty, as the CL is not efficient to repair (from an F&E perspective) but the CWs and DDs are great to absorb damage. The specialty CL can serve as the scout or escort in the meantime. Additionally, there is no reason why a specialty CL could not be converted to a BC late in the general war when the specialty CLs would be completely outclassed by late war hulls and the vanilla CLs would have already been converted to BCs.

In summary, specialty CLs provide three uses: 1) They help free up CWs and DDs for mainline battle duty, where they are especially useful in battle groups. 2) They provide a specialty ship option when the Lyran is in a pinch and a CW or DD is not available for conversion. 3) The Lyrans start with many CLs, and thus will not miss converting BCs in favor of CL specialty ships until late in the general war, whereupon the specialty CL may very well be upgraded to a BC after a long and distinguished service which is no longer needed.

I have no vision of a command CL variant. The Lyrans are overflowing with command ships, as even their CAs have a command rating of 9. At this time, my proposed variants are limited to CLS, CLG, and CLE (which are the actual hull types I sometimes crave while playing F&E).

Again, this proposal is based on a perceived need or useful desire for the Lyrans while actually playing F&E, not hatched as a scheme to think of some obvious variant to get a publication.

Thanks again for considering.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 06:42 pm: Edit

Ted Fay:

You are overlooking a major problem.

A conversion in the game is just pay a few EPs and have the appropriate hull.

A conversion done once is easy to apply again and again.

An ENTIRELY NEW CONVERSION is a painstaking process.

If you had converted a CL into a scout before you know how to do it and what problems you encountered and how to overcome them.

If you have not, and you are considering doing a one off conversion because you want a scout, it is going to take LONGER to do, and the ship yard is probably already building a destroyer/CW that you can redirect the construction of.

I seriously doubt during the General War such a conversion of a CL hull would be undertaken simply because there will always be a CW hull available and you know how to do the conversion.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 06:50 pm: Edit

SPP:

My main line of argument is based on a practical need for these units (at least a few of them) based on actual game play.

From a pseudo-science reasoning point of view, you can always have a good reason to refuse a particular class of conversions, such as the difficulty in prototyping you mentioned. My counter would be that the Lyrans always knew how to do the conversions, we only just found the data and hence added the variants to the known database.

I sense a reluctance to add the CL variants to the game. If it is acceptable to you, I would like to address the source of the reluctance. In fact, if it would not be a waste of time, I would be happy to discuss these ideas over the phone. If OK with you I will email you my phone number and we can talk 10-15 min sometime in the next few days.

Like I said, I'm looking to add these units to the game because I would like to actually use them in game play. However, it is determined for whatever reason that Lyran CL variants are not good for the game, then I totally understand.

V/R
-Ted

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Actually the idea that there WERE specialty CL variants would be very compelling if they were the ones selected for the initial BC conversions as the CW variants came out. So there at the start of the Gw you are seeing the results of the frantic conversion of the least capable CLs into into BCs...

What does F&E say there is at the start of the GW?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 07:07 pm: Edit

The one big thing missing from the CL variant catalogue is the CL based LTT.

1) IIRC the R section data says the Lyrans came late to the Theater Tactical Transport concept because (something like) "they were unable to build light tactical transports smaller than a CL."

2) There is no way to move pallets at speed to the tugs that need them.

By Chris Proper (Duke) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:50 pm: Edit

If the prototypes were developed for the four powers war and then shelved, it would be easy enough to dust off the plans during the general war.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Ted Fay:

Whether you want the ships for Federation & Empire or not the fact is that there are no counters for them in that game. So you are going to have to convince SVC that adding them would be a good thing.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Ah, yeah, adding counters is a problem - and they would have to appear in some future product.

Hey - isn't it true that ships have appeared without cardboard counters in Captain's Logs? They usually get counters eventually in a future product, but a Capitan's Log might be a good place to introduce such variants.

As for convincing SVC, I think my main 3 arguments why the proposed CL variants are a good thing are listed above and repeated here.

1) They help free up CWs and DDs for mainline battle duty, where they are especially useful in battle groups. Vanilla CWs and DDs are good compot ships and very efficient to repair, and thus I would rather have them on the line as vanilla ships and save the "lesser" specialty ships for CLs which I would not want in direct combat so much. Similar reasoning would apply to SFB.

2) They provide a specialty ship option when the Lyran is in a pinch and a CW or DD is not available for conversion. Right now the only option for CL conversion is to a BC. In F&E that's a very limited conversion in terms of numbers (one per turn nominally, two if you build an extra SB and pay the surcharge, three if you build the SB and also a conversion minor shipyard). The Lyrans start with 23 CLs, and with other desirable major conversions (CA to STT or CA to DN) the Lyrans will have plenty of CLs for conversion grist and nowhere to go except to the limited BC.

3) Because the Lyrans start the general war with 23 CLs, they will not miss converting BCs in favor of CL specialty ships until late in the general war, whereupon the specialty CL may very well be upgraded to a BC after a long and distinguished service which is no longer needed.


Its based on these three reasons why I think Lyran CL variants are a good thing to add to the SFU. They could be introduced in a captain's log and later on cardboard counters could be added to a future product. For F&E, counters could be added to the next F&E project (not ISC war, obviously - maybe Civil Wars). For SFB, I'm not sure but some future product in the mix. In the meantime, for both games, paper counters could be put into the CLs and players could use those as desired until the nicer cardboard counters come out.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 05:17 pm: Edit

Ted Fay:

Again, after you have convinced SVC that they need to be added to F & E, a case you have not made other than that you, specifically, would convert CLs if you had the option, which is (I am sorry) not an overwhelming acclamation of need. And the next product is ISC war, which does not seem to have an opening for adding a handful of Lyran onesies and twosies.

But, again, it is SVC you have to convince to have them in Fed & Emp. Me, you could probably convince to have them show up in the Four Powers War as I already indicated, but if that is not good enough for you, sobeit (GRIN).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 05, 2019 - 06:28 am: Edit

Steve P, didn't we do these? If so, let me know to delete this.