So what kind of Aux Cruisers were there in the Y years (I don't have my books)?

Maybe these would be better called Y monitors?

Dunno.

By Dixon Simpkins (Dixsimpkins) on Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 08:59 pm: Edit

SPP,
I am not convinced about the 'downgraded' NDDs. Fifteen years of on-again-off-again combat seems like plenty of opportunity to receive irreversable damage to PCs or WCs. As I understand, the issue is that repair and maintenance of those systems was problematic to the point of impossibility. The NDDs and NFFs were already nearly worn out by the time they arrived in the Milky Way. We already know the Tholians were unable to build new WCs and PCs in the early years. Did they have the ability to repair and maintain those systems on the ships they already had? For fifteen years of constant use? (twenty years, in the case of NFFs) Given battle damage?

Alan,
You are right about the web generators on a captured foreign ship. The Brothers of the Anarchist conversions establish that it was possible. I should have thought of that.

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar2) on Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 09:21 pm: Edit

Looking at the time frame, there is a chance that the Tholians would rush a NFF back into action during the Klingo-Tholian with the PCs replaced with phaser-1s...dependent on how far into the Holdfast (proper?) the Klingons had gotten...

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Dixon asked:

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Did they have the ability to repair and maintain those systems on the ships they already had? For fifteen years of constant use? (twenty years, in the case of NFFs) Given battle damage?

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By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 10:26 pm: Edit

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So what kind of Aux Cruisers were there in the Y years (I don't have my books)?

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By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 02:01 pm: Edit

Well,

1) Aux cruisers for all the empires.
2) Y monitors (iirc there are smaller monitors already in the "modern era")
3)Y era pods to make up the various ships you need. For example, a CV pod with 8 GAS for supporting planetary invasions.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 06:36 pm: Edit

Dixon Simpkins:

As I noted, it is a question of spares.

The Holdfast sphere never came under direct attack until the final battle just before it fled the Home Galaxy. Given how few ships remained, how long would the available stockpile of spares (however depleted by other ships needing repairs during the fall of The Will) have kept the existing NDDs and NFFs in combat condition? Remember that the spares also existed for the sphere's own weapons (although those weapons were all destroyed when the sphere passed through the radiation barrier to enter our galaxy). Even if you allow for some stockpiles of spares to have been depleted (in the home galaxy) or destroyed (as part of the devastation of entering our galaxy) with only a dozen particle cannons operable and the stockpiles of a sphere (however incomplete) to repair those dozen it is extremely unlikely that they "ran out of spares" in 15 years.

Stewart Frazier:

Both the NDDs were gone by Y98. After that point, it makes little sense to send a damaged or only partially repaired NFF out to fight.

Basically an NFF has (except for its particle cannons) barely more phasers than a patrol corvette (three phaser-1s, four phaser-3s and 1 web generator versus four phaser-1s and two web generators), and has no better command rating. If it is damaged at all, it makes far more sense to keep it under repair at the repair facility and use a patrol corvette to lead any task force that will not be involved in the direct defense of the sphere.

By Dixon Simpkins (Dixsimpkins) on Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 09:15 pm: Edit

I see. The Tholians were unable to build new particle cannons and web casters but had enough spare parts to repair what they did have. Thank you for the clarification.

The only way my idea would work is if a Neo ship had received serious damage to its PCs (or web caster) to require entire replacement of the weapon. Without the ship being destroyed in the battle. If it was destroyed it obviously couldn't be repaired in a 'downgraded' fashion. This situation seems rather unlikely.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 12:31 am: Edit

Module Y3 did include some auxiliaries:
- Small and Large armed freighters (phasers).
- Small and Large Q-ships.
- Small and Large Exploration freighter.
- Small and Large Troop Transport.
- Prime Corvette.
- Armed Cutter.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 01:08 pm: Edit

As an aside, I would hope that there could be room in Module Y4 for art like this!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 02:02 pm: Edit

Dixon Simpkins:

I am not trying to be a pain. I am just trying to do "due diligence." Star Fleet Battles tries to work from a background, and part of that background is the limits of logistics. Particle cannons were added to the game when the Seltorians were added to the game. Prior to that point we (to include us here at ADB) did not know what weapons the Tholians used in their Home Galaxy. We did not even know about Web Casters prior to the Neo-Tholians being added to the game. The entire Tholian background has grown in fits and starts. We needed an explanation of why particle cannons were not in general use by the Tholians in the time between their arrival and the arrival of the Seltorians, and we needed an explanation of why the Tholians did not have web casters between their arrival and the arrival of the 312th.

We did not even "know" the sphere was incomplete when we first "learned" it was a sphere.

We have "learned" a lot about the Tholians since they were first published, and may "learn" more in the future.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 02:31 pm: Edit

To address the issue of web generators on non-Tholian ships/conversions of captured ships to Tholian use.

It must be remembered that the Tholian Holdfast Dyson sphere was both incomplete (it was still under construction at the time it left the Tholian Home Galaxy) and badly damaged (not "combat damage", but as a result of its passage through the radiation barrier that surrounds our galaxy).

Further, the sphere had major shortages of the technical personnel needed to keep everything going (an incomplete sphere, panic flight from the sphere as the Seltorians approached, and massive casualties among them when the sphere passed through the radiation barrier). This is why the Tholians are not allowed to have any "legendary engineers," to include "legendary captains acting as legendary engineers" prior to the arrival of the 312th.

Now, things slowly got better. But it was a painful process. And the TK5 exists as a template. So there is a question of WHEN would the Tholians have the technical knowledge to do such a conversion?

They are probably not going to arrive with it. The autoforges were inside the sphere, but combining hulls (to make "C"s and later "D"s) was probably something that required a construction dry dock (which they had to build themselves). (building a "C" required having the auto-forges build the two hulls, then moving them by harbor tug outside of the sphere to the construction drydock to be assembled, same thing to build a "D".) They were also busy building ground based defense stations (replacing the ones destroyed on the outside of the sphere, plus additional ones for new colonies), and lots of bases (starbases, battle stations, not to mention commercial platforms, SAM Stations, etc.).

With so much manpower (Tholianpower?) tied up in this (and again the constant diversion of anyone who showed any kind of a gift for engineering into just keeping the artifical sun at the heart of the Dyson Sphere from "going nova"), when would the Tholians actually be able to convert a foreign ship? It was certainly a "lost art" (if it was ever an acquired art) in their Home Galaxy (they owned that Galaxy and had no need to convert anyone's ships).

Keep in mind that converting a ship for Tholian use is inherently more complicated than say converting a Federation ship to Romulan, Gorn, Kzinti, or Klingon use (just to name their neighbors) because all of those species use the same general atmosphere and temperatures. Circuits that work just fine for a terran would melt into slag for a Tholian.

This is not to say that such conversions are impossible, but that you have to keep the Tholian background in mind, and this may put the earliest date for such conversions out of the Early Years period.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 02:52 pm: Edit

Responding to a note SPP made earlier:

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As to the Peladine. Again, the history is not being properly understood. The Peladine AS CURRENTLY WRITTEN (emphasis) in Stellar Shadows Journal and Module E4 had no "W" series ships when the Lyrans showed up. The reason for this is very plainly stated in their history: They scrapped them all. The Peladine had a very efficient recycling system and having decided to build a modern warp powered fleet they scrapped the existing ships to do so. They fielded modern (by middle years standards) heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and frigates IN SQUADRON STRENGTH by Y121, i.e., by Y121 they had at least a dozen modern (by Middle Years standards) warships equipped with phasers, plasma torpedoes, and drones. There is no current accounting for how many additional ships they built (or had under construction) by Y128 or Y129, but the history notes "not many were planned" and there was "no sense of urgency." There is no specific year for when the Lyrans arrived in the Peladine system, but the Peladine had not left it yet (or what ships had were hastily recalled would be another interpretation, but the key point is that there were still no Peladine colonies outside of their home system). The history says that the Lyrans took "a little over a decade" to complete the conquest of the Peladine system, which was done by Y140, but that from their arrival in the Peladine system they swept the Peladine from space in "a few weeks." The delay in the conquest was not from the staunch defense put up by the Peladine fleet, but by the simple refusal of the planetary population to surrender to the inevitable (perhaps due to Lyran culinary practices on prisoners of war).

So there simply is not a historical basis for Peladine W series ships to have engaged in combat with anyone, and the lack of any "martial history" would make it unlikely that any "W" series ship was retained even as a museum ship (particularly given the Peladine mania for recycling).

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Personally, I think the Martians (and the quarantine/independent planets from GURPS Federation) would be more interesting than the Tellarites, but parsec-ages may vary on that score.


Speaking of the "outback" also-rans, would E3 already include any relevant W- or Y-era ships for that empire, or would they be open for consideration here?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 03:05 pm: Edit

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Personally, I think the Martians (and the quarantine/independent planets from GURPS Federation) would be more interesting than the Tellarites, but parsec-ages may vary on that score.

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Speaking of the "outback" also-rans, would E3 already include any relevant W- or Y-era ships for that empire, or would they be open for consideration here?

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By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 03:39 pm: Edit

Alexander Fulton:

The Peladine history as it currently exists states that they fought NO ONE. (The Lyrans when they arrived were combat veterans, the Peladine had not seen combat in over a hundred years. It is given as one of the reasons the Lyrans rolled over them so quickly.)

The Peladine history notes they developed warp power early, but used it mostly to more efficiently move around their own system. Their recycling system efficiency and population control regimens resulted in a lack of pressure to leave their home system. (I am not making any of this up, it is all in black and white in Stellar Shadows Journal #1 and Module E4, you might try reading the existing histories before making your proposals so that you can at least couch your proposals in "I want to change the Peladine background as follows."

The Peladine's first exploration ships had "special sensors", but were otherwise armed with just three phaser-2s and one drone rack. These ships encountered space monsters, and the encounters led to Peladine ships being armed wih plasma torpedoes.

But all told, the Peladine background is [to Gary Carney's horror no doubt (GRIN) (Gary, please take it as a gentle nudge in reminder of your desperate efforts to revise Inter-Stellar Concordium history)] rather non-violent after their great war with themselves and before the arrival of the Lyrans. It was also (unlike the Inter-Stellar Concordium) non-expansive. If the Peladine had not been so fanatical about population control and recycling, they might have been a power to reckon with when the Lyrans bumped into them, but they lost their shot at "being something" precisely because of their population control and recycling regimen.

The above is not to say the Peladine were wrong, but simply that fate worked against them.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 03:41 pm: Edit

Gary Carney:

At this juncture I do not know. Jeremy Gray is busy (something about being in the Navy and having a new born child) and has not responded to my recent E-mails.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 04:05 pm: Edit

I was basing my observations on the Peladine from the pre-published material (what Jessica had on her site), true, and not SSJ #1 and E4.

However, at least this:

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The Peladine history as it currently exists states that they fought NO ONE. (The Lyrans when they arrived were combat veterans, the Peladine had not seen combat in over a hundred years. It is given as one of the reasons the Lyrans rolled over them so quickly.)
...
These ships encountered space monsters, and the encounters led to Peladine ships being armed wih plasma torpedoes.

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By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 04:26 pm: Edit

Xander Fulton:

You are not reading what is written.

The Peladine fought no wars with anyone. Their introduction (as written by Jessica Orsini and not in any way modified by me) says:

"The Peladine had a handful of ships constructed for their colonization effort, but based on their lack of experience had no real planetary defenses or even a good tactical doctrine to employ the ships they had. They had developed weapons to arm the ships (based on scans of a few space monsters observed by their survey ships), but these weapons were not much better than those used by the Lyrans themselves."

and this ship description written by Jessica Orsini (and not changed by me)

"(YJR1.2) EARLY EXPLORATION SHIP (YEX): The ship upon which the Peladine Fleet would later be based. This ship was an explorer, armed only for dealing with the occasional space monster."

and their history (which did have modifications made by me to explain their great war with themselves before the Republic came into being, but their movement into space was not changed by me) as written by Jessica Orsini:

"The Phelan were at a loss since they were not taking the risks involved in space flight, and concentrated as much as they could on the development of larger and better lift systems. This led to an early breakthrough into impulse drives for the Peladine, and the efficiency of their reactors and recycling systems allowed them to quickly establish colonies all through their system. Even the Phelan were able to participate in space flight as a result, and some of the established colonies were designed for Phelan occupation. The Peladine, however, had no real need to go any further, and for most of the next 100 years only slowly improved their technology. They achieved warp capability 50 years before the Founding of the United Federation of Planets, but used this for little more than increasing the efficiency of their in-system ships.
"Beginning in Y100, the Peladine began exploring nearby systems with the idea of expanding out into space. During these explorations they encountered fantastic things, and learned that some of these were hostile monsters. Using their scans of these events, the Peladine developed weapons so that, if they ever encountered any of them again, they would be able to fight them. Over the next 15 years (from Y115 to Y130) as they continued to send out exploration ships. The Peladine entered into an ambitious program to scrap all of their existing ships (with the exceptions of bulk cargo haulers and the like) and build a new series of armed ships. These were designed to protect their new colonies (when they were established).
"Construction of the new ships was slow (there was no sense of urgency) and not many were planned. Perhaps if the Peladine had been aware that a Lyran survey ship had tracked one of their exploration ships they might have turned their energies to building defenses faster; then again, perhaps not. The result is that when a Lyran fleet arrived in the system, the Peladine quickly found themselves not only outgunned, but outnumbered. Their few ships fought bravely to try to save their system, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Lyran ships were crewed by veterans, and no Peladine had seen war in over two centuries. The Peladine were swept from space in a week, although it took more than a decade, until Y140, to fully subdue the population."

No different than the Inter-Stellar Concordium the Peladine had encounters with monsters, but monsters are generally not the same thing as being attacked by an organized military force. So, no, there were no "veterans."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 04:35 pm: Edit

I will add that while Jeremy Gray posited that the Borak and Peladine might (had they not been conquered) have expanded enough to have run into each other, and while this "alternate reality" might be allowed to run, it did not and can not happen. There is no direct contact between the Hydran and Lyran off map areas, and if the Borak and Peladine had fought, there would be, with the concomittant need for both the Lyrans and Hydrans to maintain fleets guarding the resulting border, which in turn impacts Federation & Empire in ways that cannot be added. So it is not going to be a reality.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 04:46 pm: Edit

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The Peladine fought no wars with anyone.
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No different than the Inter-Stellar Concordium the Peladine had encounters with monsters, but monsters are generally not the same thing as being attacked by an organized military force. So, no, there were no "veterans."

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Beginning in Y100, the Peladine began exploring nearby systems with the idea of expanding out into space. During these explorations they encountered fantastic things, and learned that some of these were hostile monsters. Using their scans of these events, the Peladine developed weapons so that, if they ever encountered any of them again, they would be able to fight them.

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Over the next 15 years (from Y115 to Y130) as they continued to send out exploration ships. T , the Peladine entered into an ambitious program to scrap all of their existing ships (with the exceptions of bulk cargo haulers and the like) and build a new series of armed ships.

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By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 05:02 pm: Edit

...and, to be clear, the only reason I'm suggesting this at all is because there seems a clear distinction in what has been proposed for the Peladine in content posted to date. In that, most of what is in Module E4/SSJ #1/etc is 'purely hypothetical, what the Lyrans programmed into their simulators'.

In contrast, the Peladine must have actually built some W-era (by design and tech level, if not by year) and Y-era (by design and tech level, if not by year) ships - ships that actually flew 'historically', and ships that are candidates for 'might have run into something they had to fight'. Even if, historically, they didn't see much (if any) combat - these ships actually existed, and were all in the Y-era (technologically). Which is a significant distinction from most Peladine ships, and the only reason I'm even suggesting this as an idea for Y4.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 05:26 pm: Edit

One point of comparison I might make in this case need not necessarily be with the pre-ISC; but rather, with the Baduvai Imperium.


The five founding ISC planets may not have encountered anyone else in their founding era, but they had still encountered each other. (And unlike the Ranel and Phelen, who emerged on the same world and expanded into space together, the five pre-ISC species met, clashed, and reconciled after they had become star-faring societies.)


In the case of the Baduvai, they are noted as first heading to the stars in Y17, though the earliest published ship for them in Module C5, the YSR, has a YIS of Y22 (though the ship as presented on the SSD would only be available after Y40, since the Imperium hadn't acquired warp-tuned laser technology until trading for it with the Jumokians in that year.)

There is no published data in what, if any, warp technology the Imperium had before their first push into the stars; but it is known that the Y17 entry in the timeline specifically says that they developed "early years warp travel", and that the YSR is "the first Baduvai vessel of any military importance".

Perhaps the Baduvai made the jump to the Y-era directly, from whatever technological state the home world was in by Y17? They were advanced enough to develop ship-mounted special sensors for their early survey ships, so (from a scientific/engineering perspective, at least) they seem to have been quite well developed.

Militarily, however, the situation was quite different. As noted, none of their ships had any direct-fire weapons until the Jumokians suplied them in Y40; even their own mass driver launchers were only equipped with data-gathering missiles until the Imperium adapted the first warhead-armed missile type in Y48 (according to the mass driver rules; Y44 in the timeline); and even then, they only did it when they were forced to by the onset of war with the expansionist Eneen. (This despite the Jumokians having warned the Baduvai about the Eneen four-or-eight years earlier. Fortunately, despite the problems the Imperium faced with reacting to such turns of events, they were able to use their technological and industrial capabilities to innovate their way out of the crisis.)


In any case, the Baduvai might not gain anything by having any pre-YSR (or pre-laser version of the YSR) SSDs published, even if they had ever fielded such earleir units. Given the similar constraints the Peladine are under with the history behind their own YEX, what if there simply isn't enough to any of their earleir ships to make them viable for publication?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 05:37 pm: Edit

Alexander Fulton:

And it has already been answered. Whatever they built, they scrapped. They engaged no one in any wars for 200 years (monsters are not someone, they are monsters). There MIGHT have been pirates BEFORE Warp, but after warp there is just no chance of it (the problem is that the Peladine did not leave their system, so there is no place for a warp powered pirate to hide from a warp powered pursuit ship, no rogue or hidden colonies to operate from). Sure, there was no doubt crime in Peladine space, but as long as they were a single system with a single government, piracy is not possible.

Their background pretty much says the weapons the Peladine developed were the plasma torpedoes they armed their ships with (weapons they developed beginning in Y100 from scans of monsters), so any ships prior to that point did not have plasma weapons. The ships were designed to defend their prospective new colonies from monsters, not from an invading fleet (or even pirates). Thus they had no "doctrine" for how to fight an invading fleet.

So, no. No pirates. No (actual) wars with the Borak. Any "W" ships are not likely to be armed with anything that is going to make an impression on anyone else's W ships because their heavy weapons (plasmas) were based on their scans of the monsters. Their early exploration ship (itself a year in service of Y100) has phasers and drones, so the best guess is that the Peladine may (in fact) have had lasers and atomic missiles (as was the norm with most empires). That does not mean in and of itself that they developed the warp-targeted lasers used by the Gorns and Romulans (and from their current history they did not go through the plasma-bolt only phase but went directly to seeking plasmas before they began building their new ships). They may have gone from lasers and atomic missiles directly to phaser-2/3s and warp 2 (Speed 8) drones like the Kzintis did.

There early exploration ship is a size class 3, movement cost 1 ship with only 16 warp (max speed of 17) in service in Y100. Their cruiser is a size class 3, movement cost 1 ship with 30 warp (before the refit) in squadron service in Y121 (21 years after the exploration ship is in squadron service). While the Hydrans built Survey Destroyers, currently no one else did, so it is unlikely that the Peladine built survey cruisers and survey light cruisers and survey destroyers and survey frigates. And with the lack of heavy weapons, based on their current tech, I question how much value there would be in another empire of phaser-2/3 and drone-armed ships with a maximum speed of 17. I also question if it is possible to squeeze in Speed 25 ships between Y100 and Y121.

The Peladine history could be rewritten (they are a playtest module), but there are a lot of hurdles you would have to cross to do so.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 05:45 pm: Edit

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I question how much value there would be in another empire of phaser-2/3 and drone-armed ships with a maximum speed of 17

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