Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through April 24, 2019	25		04/24 01:21pm

It is a tug built on a dreadnought hull. It is not a very good idea in the first place.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 12:32 pm: Edit

Richard,

Suppose, used as a heavy construction unit, it could reduce the time to upgrade a base -say from base station to battle station or battle station to sector base - by 30%, compared to older methods. So if previously it took, say, 6 months to upgrade a base, the capabilities of this behemoth would allow it to be done in 4 months. That could have very considerable value in the face of ISC "pacification" - even more so during the Andro invasion. I agree it's not worth the cost if all it can do is hall around cargo. but I want to see this ship made official, so I think it needs to be able to do some things better than an older tug can do. And the combat pods are an emergency measure for what is intended as primarily a highly capable logistics support unit.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 12:51 pm: Edit

It's more like a Monitor than a DN.

15 warp and a MC of 1.5. So max speed 10.

It's probably not viable for ANYTHING except internal empire defense.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Michael,

Where are you getting "15 warp" from? Take another look at the SSD. It has 45 warp, the same as a typical Federation dreadnought.

I have been assuming that, while it has a 1.5 MC with cargo pods, battle pods would raise that to 2. This would give it a maximum speed of 22 (23 with impulse). That's about as fast (actually, slightly faster, than a standard Fed Battle Tug (speed 20 - 21 with impulse) and a standard Battle Tug can certainly be used to attack enemy defensive positions.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Steve Cole has ruled out battle pods of any type on any "super dn-based tug" and has also ruled out building special unique pods or allowing double-weight pods. EVER. These rules will apply to "super tugs" of any other empire which are created by players outside of ADB. Remember that Steve Cole has previously ruled out even building super tugs and that ruling STANDS UNCHANGED. There will not be any super tugs in official SFB.

Note that the ship card says: THIS IS LAR BERGEN’S PRIVATE KIT-BASH AND IS NOT AN OFFICIAL SHIP IN THE STAR FLEET UNIVERSE.
DO NOT ASSUME THAT THIS SHIP COULD CARRY FOUR CARGO PODS OR TWO BATTLE PODS OR TWO LIGHT BATTLE PODS.

There will be no super tugs in SFU. Wasting a DN hull on this is just stupid. Players have often designed their own ships when ADB refused to allow them and as always the use of such ships requires permission of your opponent's girlfriend.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 01:22 pm: Edit

All of us miss things at one time or another (or, in my case, pretty constantly)...

Mike, the "L Warp" and "R Warp" are on either side of the two "Cargo" sections. The ship does have 45 units of Warp power available to it.

(... Aaaannd I missed the "C Warp" when I first looked at the Ship Card, so maybe I ought to shut my mouth... )

As far as the ship using anything other than cargo or repair pods goes, I quite well remember back with the Commander's Edition, I always wanted to have (Federation) Battle Pods on a BLM (as it was called at the time).

Since choosing to become more of a story-ist (as opposed to just an annoying munchkingamer*), I've invariably had MBs operate with one Repair pod, three Cargo pods, and have a crew consisting of a mix of old hands who are grateful for a quiet posting and ambitious, but relatively untalented youngsters who want a chance to show "How good they are."

(* Although no longer quite the "Munchkingamer," I'm sure there are plenty who might ask how much, if any, less annoying have I REALLY become... )

In all seriousness, the more I think of the capabilities of this ship, the more I'm liking it. IF, as it appears, the ship is able to carry TWO of the immense (32 box) Federation Cargo Pods while still only having a movement cost of 1.5 means that, compared with the Federation Tug from the Basic Set, this ship will either bring twice the supplies to the front OR will bring its supplies 50% faster.

On top of that, this ship has a good amount of firepower; perhaps even enough so it doesn't need an escort in many places where the Basic Set Tug does. Both these elements make this a wonderful ship to support Operation Unity.

In my opinion...

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 01:39 pm: Edit

Note SVC's 1:21 PM post. Pretty much the final word that the ship will not be an official SFU ship.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 05:07 pm: Edit

If anyone uses this or any other DN-based tug with battle pods or heavy pods then he is in violation of Article 3.14159. In such case, the BPV of the resulting ship is entered into the victory point system as 3,141.6 and in addition his opponent may confiscate any one product from the violator's SFB collection.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 06:16 pm: Edit

If you violate the rule, then like PI, you will be approximated!

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 12:52 am: Edit

So... my laptop may have thrown together a Solidworks model of Lars' super-tug. Because it wanted to.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 12:15 pm: Edit

Well, I guess that's one way to throw Pi in someone's face...

(I'll report to my booth now...)

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 01:18 pm: Edit

I chuckled and now I also want pie.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 01:44 pm: Edit

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749
445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066
470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055
596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831
652712019091.....


()


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 01:48 pm: Edit

Here is the 3d render that McCammon did. If three people (for 3788, or 3 for 3125, or 3 of each for both) promise to buy it, Jean will put it in the store. Maybe Jean and Will can figure out what the price would be.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 03:45 pm: Edit

From a background perspective, maybe one way to look at this design could be to make it a simulator mock-up from one of the "Paravian timelines" featured in SFB Module C6. As in, once Star Fleet became aware of the Paravian use of raid motherships, perhaps someone drew up this design to see whether or not the concept could work using Federation technology. Only in this case, a combination of engineering issues and doctrinal limitations would have prevented this hull from being either technically feasible (in terms of trying to build it) or operationally viable (in terms of how Star Fleet would, or would not, be in a position to make use of it). In other words, it could be tasked as a "Stellar Shadows" design, were its SSD or Ship Card to end up in some future product.

It's worth noting that the Paravians, alone in the Alpha Octant, would have dedicated their "early dreadnought" hulls to the raid mothership role, rather than fielding an equivalent to the Klingon C6 or ISC DNE. Part of this would no doubt be due to the unusually aggressive nature of long-range Paravian raiding activities, but perhaps there may be some sort of technical quirk in Paravian starship construction which enabled them to field raid mothership variants in the first place.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 03:47 pm: Edit

You know, artificial gravity being what it is, I bet you could hang a second tug from the bottom of those pods...

(In all seriousness, can the outer arms be shortened so the engines are level or even fractionally lower? That lower center engine is making my eyes twitch.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 04:15 pm: Edit

I do not see any reason to build a DN tug to carry fighter pods (to battle Paravians) when you could just build a CVA.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Something built (or just conceived/designed but not built) to support Operation Unity? Could a DN get through the energy barrier more easily than smaller ships, so a DN tug might be good for re-supplying the expedition bases between the galaxy and the MC.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Rather than carry the fighter pods in and of itself, the in-universe designer might have intended it to use its cargo pods to provide a long-range task force with additional supplies, as the Paravians would have done with their raid motherships. Which would go back to why, even had the ship been technically viable to construct, it would not have been built historically; Star Fleet simply would not have had the same (fanatical) motivation to use such a purpose-built ship for that mission in the way that the Paravians themselves would have - not even perhaps for Operation Unity itself.

On a side note, it's mentioned in Module C6 that most empires in the Alpha Octant eventually used mobile operations bases for this sort of role. Or, at least, that such units were deemed to be close enough in terms of function. Indeed, given the pressure the C6 Paravians themselves would later be under to field "combat" dreadnoughts of their own, one could see them turning to mobile operational auxiliaries as an adjunct to their reduced raid mothership usage.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 08:22 pm: Edit

Hmmm, going back into the mists of time, we find a Lyran Lion Tug from SFT #23, April '97.

[Nothing too special, normal pallet or K-pod usage for the most part though it could carry two double-weight K-pods!]

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 08:54 pm: Edit

My bad. The L & R warp are cleverly hidden.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - 01:59 am: Edit

I would buy one of each

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Wednesday, May 01, 2019 - 08:49 pm: Edit

One could easily create a scenario out of this...
The Super Tug is from another parallel universe and playable by three players/sides. The tug, the Federation (who wants to recover it) and the Coalition (who want to capture/destroy it).

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, May 02, 2019 - 11:29 am: Edit

Perhaps we should also remember some of the "Conjectural" designs already published? BBs, SDSes, and BB hulled CVAs for everybody in R5 and R7? "Conjectural" Federation Gunboats in Module K?

These are ships that have been presented, not as part of the fleets in the Canon SFU Timeline, but as options for players who wish to have their own timelines/campaigns.

For my 0.02 Quatloos worth, perhaps we might think of this DNT as something similar?

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Saturday, May 04, 2019 - 02:42 pm: Edit

I think the DNT would be great for a new SSJ. However, if it is able to carry two double weight pods and since this configuration would not block any of the shuttle hatches....

Well, I'm game to try out 48 F-18's on a single map.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 04, 2019 - 03:24 pm: Edit

It says "no double weight pods".

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Saturday, May 04, 2019 - 08:17 pm: Edit

OK I will buy three

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Saturday, May 04, 2019 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Can we please see an image drop of the whole family?
FFT, LTT, TUG, DNT