Archive through October 04, 2012
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development: Module Y4: Archive through October 04, 2012
By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 04:15 am: Edit

Like this proposal, for example.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 05:38 am: Edit

The Old CL design was pushed quite a long way, up to the OCA in the Alpha Octant and (in Omega) by the FRA. The CL & Zin Tug were considered heavy cruisers when built, so it's probable that those were chosen for upgrade because they were relatively large. You also see many sublight ships upgraded and used as system defense ships for a long time. I believe that most empires could have pushed the upgrades further and with smaller classes had there been the necessity for it, but only the Romulans did so. At some point, it just becomes more cost-effective to retire the old ships and build new frigates and destroyers incorporating the new technology from the keel up. Unless you're a Romulan, decades behind everyone else, with a major war coming and you need a modernised fleet now.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Quote:

You also see many sublight ships upgraded and used as system defense ships for a long time



Huh, really? Do you have an example of that, offhand - it's not ringing and bells? As far as I recall, the sublight ships that got upgrades (Klink F3/D3, Andorian/Vulcan/Terran/etc ships, etc) only got that one upgrade to tactical warp that let them...at fairly low speeds...briefly serve as reserves/system defense designs. The ships serving as system defense ships during the General War (GCA, etc) were refits of the first generation (new) 'tactical warp' ships, not sublight designs. And even those couldn't go speed 30.

Quote:

I believe that most empires could have pushed the upgrades further and with smaller classes had there been the necessity for it, but only the Romulans did so



I think the OCA (man, I keep forgetting that thing) is the only real good argument for that. I'm not aware of any other empire pushing a sublight design up to speed-30 engines.

In contrast, it was actually pretty common for the Romulans to get sublight designs up to speed-30 (the Snipe-B, Battlehawk-B and certainly Battlehawk-X, King Eagle, etc).

Quote:

Unless you're a Romulan, decades behind everyone else, with a major war coming and you need a modernised fleet now.



To be fair, at the time they were doing these refits as part of Smarba, they weren't actually planning on being part of the General War. It was with the delivery of the K9R Behemoth in Y172 that the Romulans formally agreed to enter the Klingon's war plans - 13 years after Smarba, and a full decade after the Romulans had started widespread refits of the Klingon tactical warp technology.

While they were surely preparing for their next war (they're Romulans, they are always preparing for their next war), it wasn't the 'crash program' that comment would appear to imply. Just the usual "upgrade everything we've got to the newest technology that can take it" approach the Romulans always use.

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Quote:

I think the OCA (man, I keep forgetting that thing) is the only real good argument for that. I'm not aware of any other empire pushing a sublight design up to speed-30 engines.



The Federation Police cutter, first started off as a Terran sub-light destroyer.

In Omega the FRA upgraded the design even more by upgrading it to a frigate and then into a destroter

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 05:06 pm: Edit

Actually, the police cutter didn't - this came up most recently in the 'deck plans' thread, but it's a new design. BASED on the design of the old Terran DD, in some ways, but it's entirely new construction.

By Dixon Simpkins (Dixsimpkins) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 10:22 pm: Edit

The Fed OCA was new construction built at the end of the early years as a competitor to the CA. It was based on the CL but was lengthened-it was impossible to convert existing CLs to OCAs. (CL#38)

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 10:52 pm: Edit

Ah, didn't realize that. My CLs are in storage at the moment.

So the Romulan ships remain unique in that regard. Still, IMHO, it's unlikely they had a 100% success rate (which is what we have at the moment, of course) - logically, there has to be SOME "didn't make the cut" designs.

By Dal Downing (3deez) on Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Xander, just to make a point. You may be arguing that the exsitancce of a Black Swan is impossiable. We honestly do not know for 100% certain that no other Empire except the Romulans did not upgrade any of thier sublight ships to GW standards. Its unlikely but we can not be sure.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Monday, October 01, 2012 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Another possibility for the Roms in Y4:

The actual sublight refit ships.

Module G3A Master Annexes points out that the SLWB year-in-service is Y66. So this is pretty clearly not the ship that fought in the first Earth-Romulan War in Y40-Y46. Which makes sense, given that:


That said, why haven't we seen refits of these earlier Romulan 'atomic missile' sublight designs before? Well, the answer would be pretty obvious relative to the comment on size difference in atomic missile racks to plasma-R torpedoes. Once Romulan doctrine switched to the new 'wonder weapon' in the plasma torpedo, ships that couldn't mount it had no value in the fleet...and that would be almost all of the older (pre-plasma) Romulan ships. We have seen (deck plans, SSD layouts, etc)...to field a plasma torpedo...the ship really does have to be literally 'built around it'. And since it didn't exist when these ships were being built...

So what of these older designs? Well, presumably, they'd still have wings to get the general 'bird shape'. And obviously wouldn't (couldn't) be "built around a single weapon", but instead have a couple atomic missile racks across the wing, which would be used alongside the lasers. Given the inability to mount a plasma torpedo (these designs would have been built decades before the massive plasma torpedoes were even a twinkle in an engineer's eyes), they would have never been refit with them...and so almost certainly would never have been refit with the mask/veil/cloak that has such a synergistic relationship with plasma torpedo arming cycles. As the Romulans had a fairly 'poor' economy, I doubt these ships would have been thrown away, outright, though.

Instead...refits to use newer targetting systems (WTLs in place of the original lasers), and give them to the internal police forces?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, October 01, 2012 - 11:48 pm: Edit

Nah. Those true sublight Roms became the original cargo and commando eagles.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - 12:31 am: Edit

Quote:

Nah. Those true sublight Roms became the original cargo and commando eagles.


Where did the atomic missile racks go? And in any case, F&E has conversion data to turn WE/KE into FE/CE, so it's pretty clear it's not a different ship type.

I was thinking around the idea walking home today, and it occurred to me there might be a way to "have ones cake and eat it, too"...what if the central 'saucer' portion of the Warbird/Hawk/Vulture/etc...the part that is obviously 'built around the plasma torpedo'...is the only new part?

Sort of like the WW2->Cold War "GUPPY III" conversions, only 'cut' the other way. The central body on the earlier designs would be some kind of rocket-tube-looking thing, but the wings and outer engines identical. So you take an old sublight 'warbird', slice the wings and engines off, and attach them to a new central body that is built around the massive plasma tubes.

So...kinda...the 'Warbird' that fought in the Earth-Romulan war WOULD be the same 'Warbird' that was later 'built around the plasma torpedo'. Kinda. But also not. The central body would be new construction. You could still say with a straight face, though, that "it's the same class of ship that fought in the last war". Just with a..."refit".

(Personal preference - I don't like that option, and would VASTLY prefer to see an entirely-new design for those older ships. More variety in the historical periods, gives the Romulans in the 'Early' era something economically believable for a police force, gives us something new for the Romulans in Y4, etc. However...this 'GUPPY' refit idea would be the most 'seamless' possibility with existing opinions.)

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - 02:52 pm: Edit

But even if the missile racks existed on some sublight Romulans in the time period when the Romulans faced warp capable opponents, would the missile racks matter? The missiles certainly won't hit any ships unless the opponent decides to stop moving at close range or tractor a missile armed Romulan.

Before the Romulans develop the Mask, atomic missiles have two primary potential uses.
1) The sweeping of mines since the Romulans with bolts and lasers can't do it. (Excluding very patient use of Wild Weasels or crazy stunts like using EM in a mined hex.) But I doubt this is a combat need since any Romulan that gets in position to sweep a mine is able to get past the mine without the mine exploding. Between scenario clean up can continue to be abstracted.
2) Limited seeking weapon defense to prevent Klingons from trying drone bombardment out of Romulan weapon ranges.

After the Mask, the Romulans won't spend time unmasked in order to guide missiles to target. Except for some rare cases when the Romulans have effectively won the scenario already, the missile racks will be just extra internals to take. I know no player will refuse the addition of extra internals but is it worth the page count.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - 03:00 pm: Edit

Not sure I follow your question, Richard.

What I'm referring to is the idea that the Commando Eagle and Freight Eagle are not the 'missing sublight design', as they are plainly variants of the War Eagle. And, in any case, the 'missing sublight design' we know carried atomic missiles and lasers (not WTLs, normal 'lasers', and not plasma, which hadn't been invented yet) as that war was fought entirely sublight by both sides.

The Gorn ships from this period we 'have' already - the WBB, WCA, WCL, etc - and they even start the 'Y-era' with tactical warp engines, but retaining their sublight armament (slightly improved) in WTLs and atomic missiles. The Romulan designs that would have been built to use atomic missiles and lasers...well, we don't have. The R-sections, Prime Directive, etc - all sources clearly state that the Warbird/Hawk/Snipe/etc were 'built around the plasma torpedo', but the plasma torpedo wasn't invented until Y66, so...

Presumably, these earlier Romulan ships would get the same type of update the Gorn ships did...WTLs and keep their 'atomic missiles' (speed 2, range 6)...which would be suitable against the earliest pirates, rogue freighter crews, etc. Police ship duties, only.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 12:44 pm: Edit

I don't see that as being any use. Nearly stationary ships armed with slow seeking weapons will never score damage on the warp capable opponents you list. In short, in nearly all games, there is no difference between a Romulan armed with missile racks and a Romulan without missile racks and no reason to add SSDs for missile rack armed Romulans let alone making different designs for those ships.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Quote:

Nearly stationary ships armed with slow seeking weapons will never score damage on the warp capable opponents you list



I listed no tactical-warp-capable opponents?

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 02:49 pm: Edit

You wish to add a set of ships with minimal utility whose planned primary activity is to deal with as yet unpublished units that have neglible game value. Why?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Quote:

...as yet unpublished units


Module Y3 has Romulan sublight freighters*. Module Y4 should (hopefully) have one SSD sheet of 'generic' sublight freighters to go along with this proposal. And Module Y1 has sublight Paravian raiders. Perhaps a 'generic sublight Pre-Orion pirate' would be appropriate for Y4, too.

And it's not like I'm suggesting a lot of these. It's more for the established background than anything else - one SSD design, with the R-section note pointing out that some of the old, pre-plasma, sublight ships continued to soldier on with very minor refits as police ships. For completeness sake - there would, after all, be a lot of these ships out there, still.

(And it's basically being thrown out there to give the Romulans *something* for Module Y4. Else, what else would they get? An alpha-sector product without one of the 'big 3 Franchise Trek empires' would be kinda silly, after all)

* Remember, this suggestion would be for the older ships re-purposed as police units. IE., primarily for dealing with "internal Romulan Empire problems".

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 06:10 pm: Edit

The (previously published in CL) sublight Romulan bombers haven't been in a Y module yet have they?

"Obvious" campaign conjectural (or unbuilt variants) like a sublight WarBird based scout (we have to finesse this in pretty much every Galactic Conquest game since you need special sensors to survey new hexes into your empire and the Romulans have enough headaches without being forced to wait for the Scout Eagle)? Falcon hull between the mask (veil?) YFA, and speed 20 Falcon with a cloak.

The background mentions unsuccessful Snipe variants (minesweeper and troop ship comes to mind) which I've never seen published?

Might the Romulans have built NTW monitors of some sort?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 06:21 pm: Edit

Howard - you don't have the Y-modules?

There is no Falcon 'upgrade' cycle, because it wasn't an earlier ship design...the mauler was designed net-new in the Y-era and entered service in Y119 (with a Veil - ultimately, all were destroyed and so it never existed with cloak and no warp, the Romulans just built new ones with the cloak once they had working warp engines).

Nobody but the Vulcans have special sensors in the Early Years, so clearly the Romulans (nor anyone else) will get an actual "scout" ship.

The Romulan sublight Bombers (and fighters) appear in Module Y3.

And no races have 'monitors' in the Early Years (yet - that was on the list of items I thought had potential for Y4, though).

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Xander- at work, no. However part of point still stands (it is entirely possible that GC is the thing that doesn't fit in the SFU)- you must have special sensors on a ship in order to survey new space in to your empire (F-EL/F-ES would of course work). Romulan scouts- New Hawks YIS 168+. Kestrels- Y164+. SE- Y166. Games start in Y160 or Y150. Slow ships + no ability to scout for 8 or 28 turns- you will lose as there is no way to grow your economy, short of a massive investment into R&D (2 years to get a roll, and a good chance it will take several more years to bring the date in by one year).

No Falcon historically existed with NTW + cloak- I get that. Like the NTW SE, I/we can eyeball what the hull would be.

Given that the Romulans did build NTW fighters and bombers while no one else did, it is entirely possible they did build something else no one else did. Given that their warships' speed, maybe they didn't build monitors (or maybe they built something smaller than a traditional one).

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 01:49 am: Edit

Quote:

you must have special sensors on a ship in order to survey new space in to your empire



I'm thinking some kind of exceptions will be added to F&E if they ever get around to doing an 'early years' module. After all, *nobody* (sans Vulcans and Tholians) has ship-scaled special sensors prior to the Y140s, yet everyone built empires in this period. In fact, explored MOST (not all, but certainly the vast majority) of the alpha sector, built huge fleets, and waged interstellar war.

So there must obviously be a way to do it in (early) F&E without a "scout". Because everyone DID.

Actually - that's an interesting point you made. F&E says you need a special ship to survey new space, yet empires did it in the Early Years. How? Maybe I have an idea - I suggested a ship idea up-thread some, the "sensor picket ship". Basically, a concept mirroring the transitional period of modern navies after WW2 and into the early Cold War - submarines that would deploy ahead of and around the fleet to provide early warning (in the same way that SWACS...I mean, AWACS...later would, before they existed).

It would be a ship geared around sensors and detection that just provides the (S4.22) bonus for the fleet it is in. In-game, it's really nothing special (aside from perhaps a lot of lab boxes, maybe another box on the sensor/scanner tracks, and probably no heavy weapons - there is no formal SSD box for this 'design focused on above-average sensors' concept). Something like that kind of proposal might be usable to survey F&E hexes?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 05:12 am: Edit

What are the time frames for the earliest "non Vulcan" (or Tholian) scouts?

How about EY special sensors were mounted in something like the mobile expoloration base thing (I forget what it's called but it is the large freighter sized ship what "unfolds" to operate. In one of the later C modules IIRC).

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 12:02 pm: Edit

Federation CLS is YIS 125. D6E is the same. Both are scouts built as survey ships.

My guess is that earlier survey was simply a matter of using lots of ships with multiple labs and a noticable risk of losing a ship to a hazard.

Then later they used a single dedicated survey ship with special sensors which could do the work faster and more efficiently.

There's stuff that was done early years by means unavailable in F&E and other games set later in the timeline. BATS YIS is 120, production is exclusively by conversion of MB, but MB YIS is 139. So you build your first MB 19 years after you started converting them to BATS, or alternately prior to the MB there was a different method of creating BATS which was so much less efficient that no one bothered once the MB came on line.

There's a way to survey without special sensors just as there's a way to build a BATS without a mobile base as the core.

That said, giving the Romulans a sub-light survey ship in Y125 wouldn't offend me.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Quote:

That said, giving the Romulans a sub-light survey ship in Y125 wouldn't offend me



Well, to be clear, it's not Romulans we are talking about, here.

It's everyone (except the Federation). All empires built out in the EY period (Y60s to Y120s), but no empires but the Federation had 'scout' ships. I suppose the conversation started with the Roms, but Howard brought up an interesting aside point...how did anyone expand their empire, given nobody had scouts?

So...something else is needed. Some kind of non-"scout" survey ship. Presumably, represented in F&E, it would have to have a significant penalty. Maybe makes the (505.21) roll with a "-3" modifier (results less than '1' treated as '1')? Would make surveying take roughly twice as long, which would explain why everyone dropped them like a hot potato when the proper scout survey ships came along.

Quote:

How about EY special sensors were mounted in something like the mobile expoloration base thing (I forget what it's called but it is the large freighter sized ship what "unfolds" to operate. In one of the later C modules IIRC).



Hmmm...well, I suppose it's a possible idea, but it's really not ringing a bell. Seems like something that would have been in R8, R11, or R12, but...I see nothing like it in those. I don't think auxiliaries can "survey" hexes in F&E, though? (I only have the 'base' F&E game, so...not sure if that changes with the expansions)

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 03:48 pm: Edit

Whatever is done should reflect that about 20% of Romulan territory is still unexplored in the base F&E rules.

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