Archive through September 10, 2012
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development: Module Y4: Archive through September 10, 2012
By Jeff Johnson (Jeffro) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 03:10 pm: Edit

The ship yard left to the Klingons was (a) positioned as a test to determine which subject race would take over the empire and (b) was [in my Star Fleet Universe] only a subset of the technology that the Old Kings were capable of.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Quote:

They were advanced enough to fight very effectively against some nasty opponents. But the indirect implication is that they only had non-tactical warp, or the Klingons really would have been able to conquer everyone.



FWIW, Module Y1 does specifically state that without "Heavy losses in the unfortunate Tholian wars, and a devastating Kzinti raid that ravaged the main shipyard left behind by the Old Kings", the Klingons would have been able to likely conquer the entire alpha sector.

This, to me, makes me think the Old Kings very much were powerful, cutting-edge ships.

If I were writing the history? I'd suppose the Old Kings, those that chose to leave, left with everything they had that could move. So whatever was left behind was in some state of disrepair - if the warp drives worked to spec, they probably would have taken the ships with them.

So what the Klingons got was effectively the Old Kings junkyard and empty factories. Potentially powerful...but you need to figure out how to USE the stuff, first. And since the Klingons apparently never figured out how to repair the damaged TacWarp engines (or the galaxy would be a very different place, indeed), they probably just moved the ships around using NTW and fought them sublight until they finally figured out TacWarp engines and started strapping them to the remaining ships (W-era style).

Net result maybe something like a size-class-2 monitor, but without the APR. Grossly underpowered for its size, terrible at maneuvering, but with a staggering array of weapons for when it does lumber into position. (And you could imagine that, back in the ancient past when it DID have working - powerful and modern - TacWarp engines, it would have been a monster to be feared, indeed)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 04:32 pm: Edit

I don't think it was the ships themselves that gave the Klingons of that era an edge; but rather, the logistical advantage of having the additional yard capable of bolstering their fleet.

The original Old King hulls the Klingons reverse-engineered may not have been any more powerful than the first D-series "manta ray" hulls the Klingons started building instead; there would have been no particualr reason to make the change otherwise. (Unless it counted as a point of Imperial pride; to satisfy the need to have a recognisably "Klingon" hull type that highlighted their status as the true inheritors of the Old Kingdom.)

The sheer expense for a TL9 empire in trying to construct even one set of slipways for their home yards was enough of a limit for everyone else; the Klingons were essentially given a free bonus, since they had their yards at Klinshai (which they presumably built themselves) and the Old King yard which the Kzintis eventually took care of.

Losing that yard meant that, as vast as the Deep Space Fleet was, they could no longer (re-)build its strength in the same manner as they had before; so bounding back from losses on the Tholian front, or adjusting to reverses like the Hydran Liberation, would take longer for them this time around.


That's not to say that the Old Kings' ships wouldn't have been forces to be reckoned with at their height; but that their true gift to the Empire was not in the hulls in and of themselves, but in the building blocks they left, intentionally or otherwise, for the Klingons to make use of in their own right.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 04:48 pm: Edit

Quote:

The original Old King hulls the Klingons reverse-engineered may not have been any more powerful than the first D-series "manta ray" hulls the Klingons started building instead; there would have been no particualr reason to make the change otherwise.



...well, aside from the obvious reason that "the Klingons just COULDN'T build anything of that tech". If you bombed the modern world back to the stone age (okay, lets say 'Amish'-like tech), the remaining population, if they came across a modern computer that had a working battery, could probably figure out how to run it...but they'd never be able to BUILD one, again (or, indeed, use most of its capabilities). So if they had to start building their own machines, they'd be starting from a mechanical typewriter and vacuum tubes. Building primitive power plants (wind or waterfall) to give the remaining computers electricity? Sure. Operating a fission nuclear power plant? Not a chance in hell.

I think that's the situation the Klingons found themselves in. They had an advantage, because they did HAVE the ships, and as slaves on them could probably remember enough (and at least read the native language) to fight using them...but couldn't come close to building them. So the resulting Klingon designs would be entirely native by necessity...it was the only option ever open to them. As the Old King ships were lost in battle (or even heavily damaged), that was it...nothing to be done for it, it's lost forever.

(That is to say, if the advantage the Klingons had was the ability to build things in an Old Kings shipyard...you've got lots of problems. Why were their first native designs so backwards? Why did they even HAVE native designs instead of keeping up production of Old Kings ships? Why were their weapons so similar to everyone else in the galaxy - indicating home-grown tech?

On the other hand, if the advantage the Klingons had was the ability to keep fighting the ancient and powerful ships they had access to...but had little hope of anything but the simplest repairs to, and no ability to build more...then everything makes sense. They didn't build more of them because they couldn't. They didn't copy the technology because they didn't know how. They had to re-invent their own ship designs for space combat because they didn't have any other option. etc)

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 06:29 pm: Edit

A different analogy might be the Milky Way Tholians.

They fully understood the basics of the equipment they arrived with and what was possible with equipment they didn't have.

What they lacked was the deeper science behind things and the infrastructure to do any more along those lines. No theoretical physicists and no university system to make more means no new advanced physics for at least a few generations. It took a long while to start to build that kind of knowledgebase up, but they at least had societal memory of what was possible and the rough underpinnings of how it was done. It also made it easier for the Feds to offer usable tech help (if the Tholians would take it).

IIRC, the Klingons were partitioned from the deep science of many things by the Old Kings, much as they later did with their own subject races. They probably had a longer climb up the tech tree to try and understand what the "magic" was behind that big red button on the Old Kings starship their great-great grandfather swept floors on.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Xander,

The issue is that the Klingons knew how to use the ships. If the ships were truly advanced (to say, GW-tech), then whether they could replace them for a while is secondary to the fact that they have them and they are so ridiculously advanced over their opponents. Really, if they had access to GW-era equivalent ships, how did they ever lose any of them to opponents that were non-tactical warp?

So, it is one thing to say they lost the ships to whatever, but if they were truly advanced, then the Kzinti would never have been able to do anything against them. (Not with lasers and atomic missles, anyway.)

That is the incongruity I am talking about. If the remaining Old Kings ships were tactical warp ships, then they don't lose any, as they will kill anything they come across. If the Old Kings only had non-tactical warp, then they pretty much sucked as a precursor races as their technology was remarkably pedestrian. (Which, as an aside, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps they were able to build their impressive empire with just non-tactical warp. While their technology wouldn't impress a "modern" Klingon, their accomplishments should be all the more impressive!)

Also, nothing we say here is going to resolve anything, anyway. The only way for this to be solved is for the Steves to sit down, sift through what has been written about the Old Kings, and decide what they want them to be like and truly have done. That will take time and effort, and I imagine this is rather low on the priority schedule. So, rather than trying to help them make up their minds for them, why don't we just register the general request (some Old Kings remnant ships in Y4), acknowledge the issues, and work on other items that can be included?

Remember, until work happens on Y4, nothing we "decide" or argue now really means a whole lot. Just list the ideas and some possibilities and move on. The answers just aren't going to be decided until much later when it becomes necessary to do so.

By Jeff Johnson (Jeffro) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 07:16 pm: Edit

>> nothing we "decide" or argue now really means a whole lot

It matters to me, though. The Donjebruche campaign needs answers to these questions pretty much right now. The speculation here is pretty darn useful for what I'm trying to do.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 07:24 pm: Edit

Quote:

The issue is that the Klingons knew how to use the ships.



Per note in the last few posts - it really doesn't matter if the Klingons DID know how to "use them" or not - if the ship could have flown out of the galaxy, the Old Kings would have taken it. So what got left behind must not have been working properly. Question is - can the Klingons REPAIR them?

Will has my thinking right on with pointing out the parallel with the Tholians. "Kinda knowing how to use" most of some-very-advanced technology does not make one an Empire. It gives you an advantage, sure, if you can get enough of it working again, but is not the stuff galaxies are conquered with.

Quote:

Really, if they had access to GW-era equivalent ships, how did they ever lose any of them to opponents that were non-tactical warp



Who says they did? The note in Module Y1 indicates that the shipyard was destroyed alongside the D4 being in service...well past the point of 'lasers and atomic missiles'. So the Klingons may well have never encountered anybody who could stand up to the few Old Kings ships they could reconstruct before the Tholians arrived and overpowered them.

Quote:

Also, nothing we say here is going to resolve anything, anyway



IMHO, it can be useful to discuss concepts that HAVE been written. For example, the notes brought up here about what Old Kings technology was available when. Gary's note that the PD material indicating the Old Kings were TL12, for example, was not something I had recalled.

Maybe it's helpful just to point out a research project is needed, here, but the general idea is that based on the timelines identified in Module Y1, it very much makes sense that the Klingons would have SOME Old Kings ships operational in the Y-era, and Y4 is, indeed, a great spot for that.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 06:47 am: Edit

I would hazard that the "Old Kings Fleet" the Klingons inherited was actually the "Old Kings Mothball Fleet." And the ship yard they got was a W to Y era automated maintenance/ construction facility in the NTW era around Year Zero.

And the Kzinti smacked the part that made the necessary stuff (the Flux Capacitors) so they had to start the high tech stuff working from scratch (and of course all the science would be so secret you wouldn't get all the benefits of an open scientific community gets).

So the Klingons got some remarkable for the day ships that were still zorked by the Tholians (and Kzintis when they were suprised)...

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 08:15 am: Edit

Quote:

if the ship could have flown out of the galaxy, the Old Kings would have taken it.



Point of order, but we don't know where the Old Kings went AFAIK - or how they went there. They may have flown to another galaxy, disappeared into another dimension, or just walked in ever-decreasing circles until they disappeared up their own bums. I consider the idea that they left the galaxy in starships to be a plausible possibility, but we just don't know what really happened.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 08:29 am: Edit

For that matter the Old Kings Shipyard may have been a civilian facility that made freighter parts, not a cutting edge military shipyard. It would still be head and shoulders above what everyone else has, and still become obsolete.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 10:44 am: Edit

Which gets back to my primary point. We just don't have enough information to make even informed speculation. Before we can decide more than "Want to see some refitted Old Kings ships used by the Klingons" the whole Old Kings situation needs to be defined by the Steves. Because we just don't know. And they have way more important things on their plate to handle.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 01:04 pm: Edit

Well, unless, of course, Y4 makes the 2012 product list.

Klingon W-type refits of remaining Old Kings ships would be a natural thing to include, if it fits with the history.

By Mike Dowd (Duellist_69) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 11:01 pm: Edit

IIRC, the Klingons were the Navigators for the Old Kings' Navy. They certainly weren't 'deck sweepers', but neither were they Engineers.

I think they definitely had the ablility to fly the derelict ships, which (if I again recall correctly) needed to be restored from a mothball state.

Maybe they couldn't get the TacWarp engines to work, and had to rely on NTW only. Maybe their big bonus wasn't a shipyard, but was the extra power from the warp engines in sublight combat?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 11:35 pm: Edit

The Klingons worked "at first as soldiers, and later as technicians" on Old Kings starship crews [GURPS Klingons]. After the Klingons were dropped back on Klinshai by the Kings, the Klingons wrote down what they remembered of stellar geography. That was later used when they managed to get access to the starships left in Klinshai orbit.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Friday, August 24, 2012 - 09:46 am: Edit

I would think that the ships left behind would be non-warp capable local system ships. If the Old Kings were heading out to the open stars enmasse they would take every warp capable ship with them.
My guess is that the Klingons made it to the Old Kings ships and used the technology and data files to build their own non-tactical warp ships. So there would not be any old kings ships to refit as what was left behind would be glorified skiffs.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 24, 2012 - 11:24 am: Edit

Quote:

non-warp capable local system ships



Except in none of the alpha sector races we are familiar with are there such things. Even the skiffs and workboats noted as being mostly in-system-only craft are warp capable. (It's the difference between a trip from Earth to Mars being a few years at sublight vs a few hours at warp)

In any case, Module Y1 states that the Klingons reverse-engineered the Old Kings tech to gain their technological level they had, so one must assume they had warp drive of some kind.

Further, as noted earlier, Module Y1 indicates plainly that it was the Old Kings ships the Klingons used to start building their empire. States flat-out that they started contacting other former slave races with those ships (PD: Klingons might spell that out further, too).

Granted, it's largely believed this would be during the Q-era (sublight combat, NTW between-system transit), but since most things that could fight well from that period got warp engines strapped to them to become W-era TW-capable ships...

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 03:50 pm: Edit

The Navy History and Heritage Command Facebook page posted a few pics today that led me to a fascinating article on what turned out to be a footnote in naval warfare.

Specifically, the Radar picket submarine designs - used as a stopgap capability between the less-survivable pure surface ships in the role (destroyers as pickets were far too easy to sink) and the development of air-based radar pickets (the AEW/AWACS aircraft).

Relevant to the SFU, I thought something like this would make a fascinating variant hull for the Early Years period. Since we know only the Vulcans were able to get scout channels on regular warship hulls in this period for fleet support, that presents two possible paths to my thinking:


Obviously, by the general war (and even MY era), these designs would serve no purpose as "real" scouts get created that can keep up with and fight with the fleet proper. But they'd be an interesting stop-gap capability, in the same way the radar picket boats were from 1946 - 1960.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 07:27 pm: Edit

I believe auxiliary scouts already exist. Don't know what product they're in though.

Without special sensors, it's not a "radar boat". So you fall back on pre-WWII methods of scouting (no aircraft that are faster than ships) and use a regular warship to do that - the traditional role of the cruiser.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 08:42 pm: Edit

Quote:

Without special sensors, it's not a "radar boat"

I disagree completely - nothing about a sub being a 'radar boat' caused for atypical sensor gear for a regular warship. At the time these were being deployed, all warships had comparable radar to what was on these boats - the sensor system wasn't different, they were just deployed far outside the fleet formation.

The only reason subs were even USED in that role was the discovery during WW2 that, if you put a regular warship (with roughly the same sensors) that far away from the fleet, you were inviting having it picked off too easily by the enemy. If a submarine recognized a situation was untenable, it could dive. (Doesn't mean they didn't first TRY using surface ships in the role, it just turned out that subs worked better)

The closest equivalent in the SFU would be destroyers (most likely) or cruisers purpose designed to operate at a distance from the fleet. As with the radar pickets, nothing special about their sensors, they were just designed to operate far outside the fleet range - which means (given lack of cloaking device for most races) concentration on low observability (stealth coating) and speed.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Sunday, September 09, 2012 - 08:01 pm: Edit

Xander,

There is already a listening post freighter:

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/playtest/Playtest_Ships.htm#F-LP

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, September 09, 2012 - 09:03 pm: Edit

That's a general-war era ship, which isn't what this topic is about; and uses many special sensors, which isn't possible in the Y-era; and is noted as a 'supplement to bases', not meant for deployment with the fleet, so does not relate to this suggestion.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, September 10, 2012 - 01:15 am: Edit

Freighters in this role are basically suicide missions, if it can detect an enemy force, then it will be detected in return (and most likely destroyed). I don't see freighters in this timeframe being used for this purpose.

Also Xander, calm down a little. :-)

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, September 10, 2012 - 02:05 am: Edit

What confuses me is why everyone keeps responding to a 'freighters' suggestion that I never made. Forget freighters, nobody is suggesting freighters.

Boggles the mind.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, September 10, 2012 - 02:19 am: Edit

From your original post, first bullet point:

Quote:

Non-warship naval auxiliaries of some kind that could mount a single scout channel and could thus be used for early detection, although would almost never be in the resulting battle, itself.



In the SFU, non-warship naval auxiliaries are modified civilian, that is freighter, hulls.

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