While the Kzintis looked at the CVC a CV (BCH) hull with 24 fighters early on in their carrier development life, it was ultimately decided that the CVS was a better all around carrier. However the advent of heavy fighters and PFs resulted in looking the CVC being built as a CDC with PFs replacing 12 fighters. Essentially the DCS on a CVS hull.

Changes to the CVC SSD:
Swap forward Labs and Tractors, add Mech Links to forward Tractors.
Replace 6 Shuttle with 6 Repair
Replace 3 PH-1-360 with Special Sensors
Replace 4 ADD with 2 B-Racks and 2 C-Racks
Replace 1 ADD with Tractor, add Mech Links to Rear Tractors.
Replace 3 Shuttle with 3 Cargo.

While the design was considered for production, it was never built. The demand for X-Ships and attrition units took precedence over building a new ship. The cost of converting the existing DCS or CVL hulls was deemed to high for the war weakened Kzinti economy.

It was again considered for conversion from the existing DCS after the General War for the sole purpose of hunting down the Andromedan RTN, but rejected because of other needs and demands.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, March 05, 2018 - 02:43 pm: Edit

To be sure that everyone understands where Thomas Mathews's proposal is coming from, he is talking about a conversion of a "Stellar Shadows" ship found in Stellar Shadows Journal #1. The CVC SSD is on page #36.

And, truthfully, I have doubts we are going to be doing conversions of SSDs found in Stellar Shadows unless we decide to do another Stellar Shadows product.

Beyond that,

I am assuming the nine "shuttles" he is changing to other things were in fact fighters and the ship would retain three admin shuttles.

I am assuming that the "mech links" he is adding to the "rear tractors" refers to the one tractor he got by converting an Anti-Drone and the one existing tractor in the front right corner of what can be considered to be the "rear" of the ship.

I will note that his manner of making these changes would require Stretching the ship as he has left no room for "text." That is to say if you converted the first six fighter boxes to repair, you would change the word "shuttle" at the start of the column to "repair." In order to convert the next three boxes to "cargo" you would either have to move the entire stack down one row of boxes, or delete three fighter boxes in order to insert the text "cargo." After that, you have to either move the column under the "cargo" boxes down a box length, or delete three more fighter boxes, in order to insert the text "shuttle" back in.

In short, you have to either delete six boxes, or have to lengthen the SSD by two boxes in order to make the proposed changes.

Another issue is that the Kzintis typically do not make much use of collapsible repair bays (and while he has provided "repair" systems, he has not noted if any of the mech links are "repair capable" and normally use an "internal repair bay." Generally we make some effort to put the repair systems near the mech links (whether internal or external) where repairs can be made. Normally a ship of this size able to operate a full flotilla of PFs would have seven (7) mech links. Six external, and one internal (which would be the only repair capable mech link).

As a design feature, normally one should try to match special sensors to labs, that is to say that normally if a ship has three special sensors it will also have at least three labs (sometimes more). This is because the information gathering function of special sensors only operates if the given special sensor can be tied to a lab box. [See (G24.25) and (G24.27).] There are exceptions to the special sensor and lab allocation, mostly in the more militaristic empires (see Klingon E4S and D5S), but the Kzintis usually have enough labs to fully support the information missions.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, March 05, 2018 - 06:28 pm: Edit

SPP, thank you for pointing out a couple of my glaring errors.

You are correct, the 9 shuttles that are changing are in fact fighters. Leaving the 3 admin shuttles intact.

The two rear tractors with mech links would be the repair capable ones.

The version I'm proposing does lose 3 total boxes. As 9 of the 12 fighter boxes become other systems. The remaining 3 fighter boxes are lost. However, as you have pointed out that the Labs and Special Sensors are equal on almost all other ships it would be possible to convert one of the three "lost" fighter shuttle boxes to a lab to give the ship an equal number resulting in a net loss of 2 total boxes.

It would also be possible to delete the cargo boxes that I suggested. My intent with including the cargo boxes was for repair parts for the PF flotilla. However, upon seeing that the DCS (BC hull) does not have them, there lose would probably not be that significant other than the total number of boxes lost would be 5 or 6 total as compared to the original ship.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, March 05, 2018 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Thomas Mathews:

As noted, the problem remains that you are stretching the SSD to allow room for the text, and as noted I have severe doubts we will be publishing variants of Stellar Shadows ships.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, March 05, 2018 - 08:07 pm: Edit

If I'm not mistaken, both the CVC and the CV have the exact same total number of boxes. I only used the CVC SSD because it was easier for me to describe the changes needed.

Bold used for emphasis only.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, March 06, 2018 - 11:02 am: Edit

Thomas Mathews:

You can cite the number of boxes being the same all you wish. It does not change the fact that in order to fit the boxes you have to stretch the ship outline (in order to fit in the labels, i.e., "cargo" and "repair" each need the space of a row of boxes to be fit in), and that is something we normally try to avoid. There are exceptions, yes, but the general rule is if you want to convert ship A to variant B the ship outline is not changed. You are, as I have noted repeatedly, stretching the ship outline by two boxes.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, March 06, 2018 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Length of BCH (exclusive of engines): 27.5 boxes.

Length of CVC (exclusive of engines): 27.5 boxes.

Length of CV (exclusive of engines): 28.5 boxes.

Length of CVS (exclusive of engines): 28.5 boxes.

Length of BCV (exclusive of engines): 28.5 boxes.

Length of BCS (exclusive of engines): 28.5 boxes.

Length of proposed ship (exclusive of engines): 29.5 boxes.

Number of boxes (exclusive of warp engines, sensors, scanners, damage control, excess damage, and shields):

BCH: 92.

CV; 93.

CVS: 96.

BCV: 102.

BCS: 104.

CVC: 102.

Again, you may keep the box count the same, but in your case you are stretching the ship outline by a row of boxes more than has been done previously. Most ships add boxes by virtue of adding a large swatch of unitary boxes, i.e., the carriers add large shuttle bays and give up other boxes. In the specific case of the Kzinti BCH it worked in reverse in that the CV/CVS hulls were designed in the game before the BCH was designed, so there was more white space on the SSD of the BCH.

Your proposal, is as I have stated repeatedly (and none of this is intended to sound harsh, only conversationally explanatory) stretching the SSD to make all the boxes fit. A stretch here and stretch there and those who come after you will propose converting that extra space you are creating into something else, like a better version of the BCH that has more power because you are creating the space to add another row of APRs to the hull. There are consequences beyond the proposal to be considered, and stretching the outline is opening doors.