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Even with those formatting options in mind, you can't display an image directly from an off-site address, and even ones hosted on-site require express priviledges; you have to link to the URL directly instead. (So far as I'm aware, that is. Apologies if I'm mistaken on that front.)

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Nice work, by the way!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 01:03 am: Edit

In the background fluff about the lost Aurora colony, does it say how many Star Fleet ships were lost? Specifically, how many police cutters? And does it give the names of the lost ships?


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 08:03 am: Edit

Garth; terms like "several" are used, specifics are avoided, and none of the POLs are named.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 11:03 am: Edit

Not even in the scenarios?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 11:54 am: Edit

Hrm, I did not think about scenarios, I'll go look.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 12:49 pm: Edit

After going through the scenarios in the e-OMRB, and Captain's Logs 42-46, no POL is listed by name.

I do have 4 FFs and one FFS by name, the FF was based on the POL but was not listed as a conversion. Judging by the name used, I do not think they reused them, but here they are anyways.
FF 1) Guardian, 2) Vindicator, 3) Bremen 4) Lübeck
FFS 1) Thompson

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 12:56 pm: Edit

At this time, only two named ships are known to have been in the Aurora system at the point of transferrence in Y130: the Federation CL Leinster, and the Orion CR Throne of Ozymondas.

Leinster left the Aurora system in Y132, with a crew of Star Fleet loyalists who sought to return to the Federation. Their fate is as yet undetermined. The Throne signed a deal with the nascent government of Aurora III to act as its eyes and ears, and would go on to acquire near-legendary status for the citizens of the (Federal) Republic.

There are two other Auroran frigates named in a published scenario: the Ajax and Achilles, from the FC scenario The Lost Pirate from Captain's Log #42.

It is not yet known if any of the named frigates (or frigate variants) are either re-purposed POLs, or new construction in the Omega Octant proper.


(Filling in those kind of blanks is the kind of thing I would like to have a crack at one day.)

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 02:11 pm: Edit

Ah Fed Commander; I have no idea what may be listed in that, primarily an SFB and GPD guy, that dabbles in F&E.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 02:23 pm: Edit

The only other FC scenario which includes any Auroran frigates is an adaptation of Encounter at Aurora from SFB, which I put into the Omega Playtest Rulebook. Those ships (the Guardian and Vindicator) have been listed above already.

Of course, I would like to think that there will be more material for Omega in FC someday...

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Well, the problem with "several" is the POL went into full production in Y127, and Aurora happened in Y130. Even allowing for two years of pre-production prototype ships, there could not have been more that 50-60 cutters in operation when Aurora happened. Just how many is "several"? I can see two or three, and maybe even five to seven, cutters assigned to help set up a new colony, but I just can't see eight or more being there.

Consider that there are 33 major/minor planets on the F&E map, all demanding a police presence, and the rest of the fleet would be spread around to cover what they can of Federation speace. No matter how important the Aurora colony was, it would make no sense to send a third of the available cutters to it.


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 06:16 pm: Edit

Garth;
The Aurora Colony was being used as a staging base in preparation for a major colonization effort Coreward. This preparation included building a "minor" shipyard, how many POLs might be there either in anticipation of the colony efforts, or being built, I do not know. I will note that there was an Orion CR (also a new design in Y127) with a fully functional Cloaking device, a device that was not developed by the Romulans until Y140. So the answer appears to be, as many as needed

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 11:16 pm: Edit

The published Throne of Ozymondas material is unquestionably a misinterpretation of the data tapes, because neither cloaking devices nor ADDs (one supposedly being in the Throne's cargo bay) came into service until Y140. Perhaps two ships are being conflated? There may well have been an Orion ship of some sort near the Aurora colony in Y130 (perhaps an aging WDR that was raided for parts to keep the Fed POLs and CLs in service), and then a later CR (with cloak and an ADD) that arrived in the Y146 cosmic storm that otherwise only brought over a dead star system.

Similarly, it would seem reasonable that some of the POLs might have been Federation WDDs (YR2.3) assigned to colonization support. In both cases, without the Y-era data having been understood at the time of translation of the Omega tapes, data about W classes that arrived with the Aurora colony could have been misunderstood.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 11:54 pm: Edit

That's "possible". The background fluff about Aurora conflits with the fluff about the WDD. Early Years says that the one and only WDD slipway was used for years to build POL, then scraped once they could build POLs at starbases. But then Omega says that Aurora had a POL shipyard. That could "suggest" that there were other POL shipyards elsewhere.

I'm writing background fluff for the POL, and I'm trying to make sense of it all. Actually, I had an idea come to me while typing this. Maybe I can work it all into something interesting.

By the way, in my view the WDD and POL were radically different ships. They had the same basic hull shape, and the POL used some design features from the WDD, but I believe the internal layout would be so different as to require a whole separate set of deck plans.


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 12:19 am: Edit

The fluff on the Auroran FF says it is based on a reversed engineered POL that was optimized to use its available space more efficiently.

So Garth, how would you optimize the Fed POL?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 01:08 am: Edit

Well, why do they need to reverse engineer the POL? If they had a POL slipway at Aurora, they have everything they need from the get-go. Whatever. First off, the A-FF would be based off the Masterson-class POL with the warp pylons pependicular to the hull. My deck plans are for the Callahan-class with the swept-back warp nacells. So, I'd have to account for the differences, and then figure out what top convert.

But off the top of my head, and if memory serves, the A-FF gives up a cargo box and gains an APR and a couple of phasers. What I would do is swap the power generators port/starboard for APR, and put power generators where the center-line APR is now. Giving up the cargo box makes room for a second bottom phaser. The dorsal phasers would go in the spare parts (future drone rack) space aft of the shuttle bay. I'd reduce or eliminate the brig / security to make more crew quarters. If memory serves, the the photon becomes three phasers (there is room for that), and the forward phasers become light-photons, which would be tight but do-able (might have to cut back the lab space).

Make the Aurora FF deck plans is a lot easier than making the three-engine POL FF.


Garth L. Getgen

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 03:45 am: Edit

---

Quote:

The published Throne of Ozymondas material is unquestionably a misinterpretation of the data tapes, because neither cloaking devices nor ADDs (one supposedly being in the Throne's cargo bay) came into service until Y140.

---

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 10:03 am: Edit

Terry,

Do you have a reference?

The cloaking device would most likely be a veiling device (Y119).

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 10:54 am: Edit

I do not remember where, but SPP and Gary Carney had this discussion, and this was one of SPPs suggestions, IIRC. i.e. It came from somewhere, this is most likely where.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 01:12 pm: Edit

To follow up on Steven's Y146 idea, what if the "original" Orion was an LR, and was actually used for gathering data beyond the "storm cluster"; but that the ship was either lost or crippled (by the Zosmans, perhaps?) by the time the CR arrives?

One could then say that perhaps the CR might have been somewhat damaged in the transition to Omega, and that what remained of the LR (which may no longer have been mission-capable by then) was summarily gutted in order to help get the CR operational.

That would still allow the Aurorans to have a ship that could be said to have gone out and gathered the first key pieces of information about their near surroundings (not least that they had landed smack in the middle of the Pax Mæsra) and still account for the "regular" Throne to go about its business thereafter.

(And, if/when we get some actual Zosman SSDs, a scenario could be generated showing the encounter which, one way or another, took that LR out of service.)


It should be noted that the logistical buildup at Aurora III was incomplete by the time it was "lost". Along with the POL yard and CL maintenance dock (which itself was hastily retrofitted into an impromptu cruiser yard), there was an incomplete Base Station in orbit which had to be hurriedly completed post-Y130.

In the case of the POL/FF yard, I had assumed that either the yard might not have been 100% complete, or that it simply hadn't actually built a single ship by the time of the transferrence. Reverse-engineering one of the POLs in order to build FFs would have been as much to help the engineers on-site to get some actual experience and understanding with how the hull type worked, but also help them figure out what kind of room they had to work with then it came to turning the hull onto the first FF (or later into the FFS or FFE).

By Dal Downing (3deez) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 02:01 pm: Edit

What if it was a Civilian Slipway used for building freighters and pods.

Once they popped up in Omega they immediately started trying to figure out how they could build a cutter. Did the FRA ever consider building Auxillar Cruisers or did they instead make the decision to jump straight to cutters which in theory and are the same size as a Freighter?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 02:32 pm: Edit

Historically, the FRA gained access to the four Mæsron civilian hull types from Captain's Log #20 (small freighter, large freighter, passenger liner, express boat) in Y162. But presumably they would have had to have made use of the freighters and transports they brought with them from the Federation (or learned to construct prior to the agreement with the Mæsron Alliance) in order to sustain their own economy.

It's not yet clear what kind of facilities they have in-system to build such craft, however. (Perhaps They might have been obliged to allocate time in either of their two warship slipways to this task, unless the Mæsrons provided them with a civilian facility as part of the deal in Y162.)

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Gary, I'm thinking more in the lines that the slipway was completed in Jan/Feb Y127 and was up to full production. Most of these new-production cutters had left, but "several" were still there. The part that needed reverse engineered had to do with the items that changed the most. Specifically, the photon torpedo. Because Star Fleet was in a massive build-up themselves with the new CA/DD/FF lines, all the "modern" torpedoes were going to them. The company building the POL had a bucket load of mothballed WDDs and other ships from that era that they were stripping parts from, including the photons. The shipment of said cannibalized parts was due to arrive at Aurora the month after the colony disappeared. Ergo, the FRA could build more cutters but didn't have any weapons to put on them. They had to re-invent the photon torpedo. (They made other changes, such as they didn’t need a twenty-cell brig.) The loss of the Aurora slipway was a huge set-back for the cutter program, and the company almost went broke. At least, that's -MY- idea. SVC could reject it, obviously. Wouldn't be the first time he tells me I'm out to lunch.


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 03:48 pm: Edit

Garth, I like that suggestion, it fits nicely into established history, but still adds something new to help explain why the FRA went with the photon types they wound up using.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 03:59 pm: Edit

The only question I would have is this: can the early (non-overloadable) photon from a W- or Y-era ship be used as an (overloadable) photon in the TL12 era, or does it need to be taken out and replaced with a brand new mount?

If the firm in question was able to modify the older photon launchers to modern standards before shipping them to Aurora III, well and good; but if not, they may have to order (or build) new photons instead.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 23, 2013 - 04:18 pm: Edit

Gary, good point. I would presume they would rebuild any and all cannibalized parts they gather from the boneyard. In the process, they upgraded whatever was preventing them from being overloaded. And just what was it that kept them from being overloaded? Was there some major design change, or was it simply because no one had the idea yet to say "Hey! If we add a second plasma conduit right here, we can get a bigger bang out of these suckers!"??


Garth L. Getgen