While reviewing the Mæsron units set to be included in the February 2019 Shapeways batch, it occurred to me that, prior to the onset of the Mæsron strike carrier in Y180, the Alliance has, at this time of writing, no unit capable of deploying a "full" size-1 squadron of eight superiority, four tachyon, and two missile fighters.

The early carrier and the light carrier pod may only deploy ten superiority fighters apiece; the heavy carrier pod has 24 superiority fighters (in two squadrons of 12); the light fighter ground base has only eight fighters (four superiority and four missile fighters); whereas the medium fighter ground base has eight superiority and six missile fighters.

So, there would appear to be a gap in which a medium carrier may exist - one which would be a step forward from the quite limited DV (in that, for one thing, it would allow the Mæsrons to actually deploy their various iterations of tachyon gun fighters) yet not quite reach as far as the later CVS.

To that end, rather than taking the CVS SSD and simply removing items which would not be present in a prior carrier design (such as launch tubes), I was thinking that perhaps the Mæsrons went with a through deck, akin to that which they would later use on the Mæsron space control ship. With a smaller hull type to work with than on the SCS, perhaps one may need to make certain sacrifices in order to fit a full squadron of 14 fighters - say, by putting the superiority and tachyon fighters in the through deck itself, and the two missile fighters in place of the tachyon guns in the "floating" platform.

With no tachyon guns and a somewhat more cumbersome means of launching and recovering fighters, this might help prevent it from pre-empting the later strike carrier design. But on the other hand, perhaps a hull such as this might have an unexpected benefit once heavy fighters become available; not least since the CVS itself might need some adjustments in order to handle a would-be set of size-2 fighters (depending on how one were to go about designing such units for the Mæsrons to make use of).

In any case, such a ship could be present to take part in various encounters, such as the carrier duel with the Iridani Baron Uvambi, for which the Iridani Skiff-2 fighter type was first commissioned.

So, are there any thoughts on what an interim Mæsron carrier design might look like, and - if such a unit were to be made to exist - how best to keep it as being "something different" from the Mæsron CVS?

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - 01:20 pm: Edit

A fair question, Gary, but given the history of the Maesron, I don't think they'd do so severe of a strip-down and rework to change through-deck carriers into the Canon CVS. Sorry.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - 11:00 am: Edit

Gary, I did have one thought on this subject overnight and, while admittedly it doesn't address your idea for a full squadron, it might at least address the problems with the DV.

According to the timeline in the Omega books, the time between Y147 and Y161 is called "The Maesron Collapse." I can imagine that, during that time, there'd be a possible situation where a heavy cruiser came in with extreme damage and, in order to get SOMEthing out there, the folks at the repair yard might put their efforts into fixing the main hull areas and, due to the similarities of their pods, put one originally intended for a DV in place of the standard pod on the CA.

Now that I'm typing my thoughts (?) out, I've had another thought (uh-oh!).

If the ship survived, someone might use her as a test bed; expanding the main shuttle bays and add the specialized ready racks for Tachyon fighters (ready racks which, due to an inability to run power feeds for them, could NOT be installed in the pod) or missile racks to reload a Missile Fighter (ditto for the turbolift carriers to bring the missiles to the pod).

As a "Test Bed" of a ship, I can imagine an expansion of the shuttle bays to three shuttles each, and each one has one ADMIN, one TF, and one MF, both fighter types complete with ready racks.

Historically, this might also serve as a fig-leaf of an explaination for why Maesron fighter squadrons are fourteen fighters each...

... Maybe...

Anyway, the one thing that would remain constant would be her operating ten Superiority fighters; something that, while useful, might lead the Maesron Brass to conclude the need for additional Tachyon fighters, thus paving the way for the normal CVS squadron composition.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - 10:21 pm: Edit

To answer your points in reverse order, I'll start by noting that, by the time the strike carrier first entered service in Y180, the four tachyon gun fighters in its attendant fighter squadron were Improved Tachyon Fighters (OR2.F15), typically at least. For its part, the ITF is listed as having a YIS date of Y179, though the OR-section entry implies a year in service date some time earlier in the Y170s.

(To clarify, I'm going by the OR-section and MSC entries in the 2011 Omega Master Rulebook.)

By that point, the Mæsrons had gone through numerous design iterations of tachyon gun fighters; starting with the Gunfighter (OR2.F12) (YIS 131), the Tachyon Fighter (OR2.F2) (YIS 144), the Tachyon Fighter-A (OR2.F13) (YIS 156), and the Tachyon Fighter-B (OR2.F14) (YIS 168). It's worth noting that in the OR-section entries for these unit types, all three major Mæsron member species (the Tazol, Wallimi, and Vulpa) are reported as using them in "frontline units" - although it is as yet unclear what direction the Vulpa insurgents might have taken things beyond the TFb.

While it is possible that space-based installations may be making use of these fighter types - or, at least, that the option has yet to be explicitly ruled out the way it has been for Mæsron ground bases - it would appear that the implication is that the Mæsrons were using some sort of carrier capable of operating them, well before the more capable CVS entered service.


Now, as for how much this proposed design should, or should not, look like the CVS itself, I should also note that it took "years of development and a number of failed attempts" before the Alliance was in a position to deploy the strike carrier itself, according to (OR2.9). How much of this was due to the need to get the launch tubes to work properly is unclear. But it would seem that the Mæsron engineers had to do a lot more to get the CVS up and running than, to use an Alpha Octant comparison, the Federation needed to replace the New Light Carrier (R2.35) with the New Strike Carrier (R2.60).

With that in mind, it seemed semi-reasonable to propose that part of the reason why the CVS design took so much work to complete was that it did require a major re-working from what the Mæsrons had been using up to that point. A through-deck design might tick that box, in a way which would at least allow the Alliance to revisit the idea once the need to field a space control ship came along.

Actually, the data in the Federation Master Starship Book seems to indicate that by the time the NVS design entered service, the Feds had already built five NVLs; Star Fleet refrained from converting those which had survived to that point in time into this new configuration - though such a conversion was possible, according to the F&E Fed SIT. So it is possible that the Mæsrons, for one reason or another, never converted any of these proposed medium carriers into strike carriers, and were perhaps obliged to make use of both designs for as long as the former hulls remained in service.


Oh, and on another note, the Skiff-2 (OR14.F2) I mentioned has a YIS date of Y155, which would place Baron Uvambi's carrier duel sometime at or after this date. (Which was kind of awkward timing from the Mæsron perspective, as that was the year in which the second phase of the Civil War kicked off...)

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, January 17, 2019 - 02:48 pm: Edit

I wonder...

"What If" the Maesron worked both the angles you're thinking of AND the one I blathered about?

(Hey, maybe we can put together a proposal to SVC and SPP for a "Module Omega Jay?")

(...Aaaand with that thought, here comes the Slidarian Corporal, Punishment, to bodily throw me back in the agonizer booth with a resounding "GOOOONNNGG" and welding the door shut behind me...)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, February 07, 2019 - 10:33 am: Edit

One way to go could be to have the Mæsrons build two different carrier types prior to the CVS: the medium carrier proposed above, and a light carrier based on the light cruiser.

Say, if the latter ship replaced the CL's prow tachyon gun with a "^" fighter box, the TGs on the "floating" platform with "+" fighter boxes, and filed down a number of hull boxes (and/or reduced the number of admin shuttles from 4 to 2) in order to expand the port and starboard shuttle bays to add two pairs of "=" fighter boxes.

That would allow a would-be light carrier to field a "half-squadron" of Mæsron fighters - or, in other words, those included on the recently-uploaded Omni scale Mæsron size-1 fighter sprue.

In principle, the Alliance could perhaps consider a "light strike carrier" after the CVS itself is successfully fielded, though perhaps they might wait until after the first Mæsron war cruiser is fielded in Y187 before going in that direction design-wise.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 10:45 am: Edit

Well, I did something MOST unusual (for me); checking The Books before posting this ().

Maesron Medium Fighter Ground Base, which operated a full Maesron fighter squadron of fourteen craft, has a YiS of Y125; five years after the introduction of the DDV.

Gary, while I like your idea of the CVL, I'm afraid it looks like it would run contrary to Maesron fighter deployment doctrine, but then so does the squadron composition for the interim carrier I blathered about earlier, so yeah, I'll go on the record saying this thing looks like fun!


Fun...

I wonder...

Could these designs we're all talking about in this thread be part of the FRA Simulators, based on incomplete knowledge and preconceived notions by FRA Intelligence?