Late in the general war, several empires, starting with the Klingons noted that the HDW was a smashing success. And the HDW frame had reached the pinnacle of performance.

Thus an alternate design based on the CW was also produced. The key was the introduction of the OPT system boxes.

Production was limited due to the competing need for "regular" CWs and the ability of the HDW to be produced in smaller production facilities.

Questions & Comments? Basically a HDW with the boxes rearranged? Maybe a tiny bit bigger?

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 03:38 am: Edit

I think that the history says that they _weren't_ a smashing success? At least the modular part...

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 04:08 am: Edit

Keep in mind the 'H' stands for heavy. HDWs were larger than DWs. They are CW size.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 12:08 pm: Edit

I like the idea of an MCW that has similar rules to how the HDW works. I'm not remembering the historical story with HDWs, but vaguely thinking that a DW facility that couldn't build CWs could make HDWs, working from that assumption then maybe a CW facility that couldn't build full CA hulls could have started making MCWs later in the war. Could be interesting.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 01:34 pm: Edit

The "HCW" designation has already been used for a class of ships in Module R12.

SVC edited the posts to say MCW (multi-role war cruiser).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 01:38 pm: Edit

To give an example of the HCWs noted by SPP above, the Romulan GryphonHawk replaces the central SkyHawk engine with a pair of SeaHawk engines, and has a Move Cost of 3/4. Notably, it is still able to swap out its modules as easily as a SparrowHawk can - as in, they are not hard-welded to the hull as they are on a FireHawk - so it is still a "modular heavy war cruiser" of sorts.


I want to say that the concept of doing cruiser-sized HDW equivalents may have been mentioned as a proposal in a prior issue of Captain's Log - and that it might have been turned down at that time. (Apologies if I'm misremembering one or more of these details, which may well be the case.)

In any event, I'm not sure if it would be wise to go any further down the "every Alpha Octant empire gets another new modular ship class" route.

However, as I mentioned over in the Module K2 topic, I would find it interesting if there were to be an historical non-Alpha empire which was built around (G33.0) - so long as it was a concept which was exclusive to this empire in that particular setting. (For example, I wouldn't want a range of Omega Octant empires to suddenly get HDWs, but it might be something to consider for one of "Omega's Lost Futures"...)

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 02:29 pm: Edit

Wouldn't a heavy war cruiser basically be the new heavy cruiser hulls?

(SVC Notes: We're talking multi-role war cruiser, not enlarged war cruiser. The HDW is indeed CW sized but the MCW will not be CA sized.)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

Nope.

A new heavy cruiser is a war cruiser expanded into being a heavy cruiser. It is heavy cruiser, not a heavy war cruiser. Not being pedantic here, this is the case.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Pretty much yes Jon M. These new (whatever they are called) would end up being a modular or option based design though, with rules similar to HDWs, which I still think might be interesting. Maybe call them "Modular Heavy Cruisers" or something similar. I think "MCA" and "CMA" are available.

[Edited to reflect that MCWs won't be bigger than CWs.]

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 03:22 pm: Edit

[Removed as it didn't follow the current thinking but was an earlier idea for a larger ship.]

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 03:33 pm: Edit

SPP:

Did not mean to suggest that the terms are the same. More a question if there is a gap between the war cruiser and new heavy cruiser that a new ship type could fill. The heavy war destroyer fits into a war-hull ship gap between a war destroyer and a heavy cruiser (where the pre-war light cruisers were).

Is there a big enough gap to design a new ship?

If the heavy war destroyer modularity was not a big success would this idea be implemented. Seems like having a few modular ship types beyond tugs would lead to a logistics nightmare unless your entire fleet design philosophy is built around it like the Romulans.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 05:34 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

Romulan Modular Ships (SparrowHawk and SkyHawk) can be seen as one of those things that looked good on paper, and even worked in peacetime to some extent.

It can also be seen as something of a logistic disaster in war.

The upshot is that the Romulans were going to the expense (and it was an expense) to build ships that were modular, and then either overbuilding modules to try to have the right set of modules at the right place (easier to do in the early part of the war when they were on the offensive) or having to fight a lot of battles with the wrong modules because there was not time to withdraw a ship from the fighting to change its modules to support operations (more common in the later war years in responding to Alliance offensives). Or the simple problem that the modules you need are not available because they are in use by another fleet, or are "in transit" from somewhere else and you cannot wait around for them. Remember, the changing of modules requires the ship to be at a base (and a starbase at that), they cannot be changed by repair freighters or fleet repair docks closer to the front.

The result was that a lot of nominally "modular" Romulan ships (as with the Heavy War Destroyers of other empires and even the Romulan Empire) were fitted with a set of modules when they were launched and carried that set of modules for the duration off their active service.

I think if you asked around you find that most of the Romulan players of Federation & Empire seldom change the modules of their ships after they are launched.

So I would find it doubtful that any other empire (especially after introducing the Heavy War Destroyers) would consider adopting the Romulan model of "modular ships" more widely, at least while the shooting is going on. I can, however, see almost any government looking at the idea in "peacetime." Indeed, you can see this mirrored in the Federation which had the thought that the Galactic Survey Cruisers could be used to support the fleet in time of war (first as commando ships, later as light carriers, and later still after encounters with the D6S as heavy scouts) to justify their expense.

NOTE: The above represents an opinion, not a "fiat" saying that this discussion is dead. The Star Fleet Universe is very much an integrated whole, and you need to consider how empires would look at the Romulan experience with Modular ships up to the point where you are trying to convince your own empire's government to go that route. And I just do not see a lot of Romulan players in Federation & Empire pulling ships back willy-nilly to do module changes, both because of the time (moving to the starbase, losing a move to change modules, and then trying to get where you need to be) and fiscal (module changes cost economic points) expenses.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 08:24 pm: Edit

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 09:12 pm: Edit

As an F&E player, I almost never change the modules on a given SP? or SK?. The rare exception is usually the result of a conversion during repair of the base SP or SK hull.

It has been noted in Captain's Log #52, and possibly before that the Gryphon Hawk is also modular for most variants, and it is a Heavy War Cruiser that falls in between the SP and the FH.

Note: I am not saying that I don't approve of the concept just that as a practical matter a given hull usually stays that way unless I have extreme need of a variant from the base hull. Carrier escorts come to mind here.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Thursday, February 22, 2018 - 10:25 pm: Edit

Speaking "historically" or from the perspective of someone trying to justify them, my main thought is this: The tactical needs of a war obviously change fairly quickly. Another carrier, another escort, a scout, another command ship, who knows what you'll need. By rearranging some components and modular design patters, even if your long term thought is that you rarely if ever change one of these ships after launch, the fact that you can spend the majority of the 6 months to a year of construction building anything and then you can purpose it during the last month or less of construction could be of huge strategic value.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 02:03 am: Edit

I wasn't asking for a HEAVY CW, I was asking for a CW with a few of the HDW features.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 03:38 am: Edit

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 03:39 am: Edit

I got agree if nothing else each Empire would probably build a few hulls for trials. Then probably abandon the ideal like the Strike Cruisers.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 11:44 am: Edit

It's not that hard.

1. Look an an HDW and make note of how many of which kind of option boxes it has.

2. Look at a CW and find corresponding boxes you can turn into option boxes of either type.

3. Convince Petrick it's a good idea.

Ok, the last one may be hard.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 12:04 pm: Edit

F&E may be a bad example for the uses of modularity. In F&E you buy what you need/want at the moment of completion. With a more detailed construction system you started a new scout or minesweeper or escort or whatever over a year ago when you started work on the ship and you might find a year later that you have a glut of that ship type and need something else instead. If you play F&E you see the state of the board and bring on the variants you need.

The Romulans would have a bit of an advantage in that you probably build and plug in the modules later in the process and can switch what your new construction ship will do much later in the process. Might be an article in there somewhere and possibly some insane new optional F&E constructions rules.

In a sector commander game modularity would be a big help for the Roms dealing with ship losses (assuming, as has been pointed out, that you can get the right modules when you need them).

I agree that trying to build modularity into small ship classes would be unworkable. If each fleet has 1 or 2 modular ships there will not be a lot of modules to use in the first place and they will almost never be where they are needed.

It might be worth considering one empire trying to use CW sized modular ships after heavy war destroyers came out but I doubt they would appear generally. That would be every Empire making the same mistake twice at roughly the same time.

Who would try it? Maybe the Hydrans with their low ship count wanting to preserve flexibility? The cheap Gorn Parliament thinking it will save money? Maybe the ISC once the Andromedan Invasion begins thinking it will bolster their defenses after losing most of their fleet in the ill-fated pacification campaign?

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 12:42 pm: Edit

Jon, there is nothing wrong with the concept of modular ships. The problem lies in their actual implementation in combat.

In most SFB games you can buy the variant you need, assuming a BPV game. The only times you might be faced with having the wrong ship for the mission is a historical scenario or something like Battle Force 550 scenarios where you have created your force before knowing the actual mission.

In F&E your battle force is dictated by the ships you have in the hex. Sometimes you have the wrong ship in the wrong hex, e.g. escorts without a carrier or vise versa. Proper planning can usually prevent such issues, but not always.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 01:16 pm: Edit

I've always figured that modularity would require the modules to be ubiquitously available to be worth the trouble. The more build limits and transport limits that were imposed on it, the less likely it was going to be used.

Something like a 30-meter well deck that could stack freighter skids could provide a way to make make useful mission-specific configurations without having to coordinate going back to a starbase to swap wings (and hoping another ship isn't using the one set of wings for that mission I was allowed to build). A half-hour with a yard tug and the ship is ready to go.

There's already a civilian infrastructure that is packed with skids, and they're cheap enough to have extras piled up at every major trade junction and railhead. (A couple chartered freighters could shuffle stacks of them around in the background, leaving tugs free to do tug stuff.)

(Changing the size of the well deck would accommodate smaller or larger ships or even specialized ships within the same hull.)

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Civilian skids are a bit different though. They are pretty standardized and do not require specialized crew to run.

If I stick a skid on a freighter it does not change the ship much. If I turn my sparrowhawk into a carrier or a scout I need new trained personnel or pilots and deck crews.

The cost to have all the modules, equipment, and personnel around just in case seems cost prohibitive. Most empires do this to a degree already with tug pods but modules add another wrinkle to the logistical equation. I suspect with the Romulans and heavy war destroyers it was more a matter of calling the local starbase or even the capitol and begging/wheedling for the modules you need. Then your legendary supply officer trades them some consignments of toilet paper for the module you need.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

NOTE AGAIN: This is opinion, not fiat. I am not trying to shut down the discussion, but noting the things that to me interfere with the idea.

Well ... you are trying to get around, or just ignore, the baseline rule that changing the modules requires a STARBASE at the very least. (It is possible that the addition of various "satellite shipyards" in Federation & Empire has expanded the locations where this can be done). Also note that a given Starbase can only change three (3) module sets in a given six-month period. (There is no rule I am aware of in Federation & Empire for "over module changing" as there is for "overbuilding.") There are not a lot of starbases, and "sector commodores" will probably be working from "battle stations" which cannot change modules.

And as noted, repair ships and fleet repair docks cannot change modules.

So your sector commodore, if he wants a scout, is going to have to request that it be provided by fleet command, not suddenly decide to convert one of his on-hand SparrowHawks, GryphonHawks, or SkyHawks to the scout configuration.

Further, a sector commodore deciding to make such a change would be without that ship for several "rounds" (the swapping of Modules arguably takes at least two weeks, and maybe four), it is not something you do in a day or an off hand couple of hours while the crew goes on a coffee break.

Now sure, as has been pointed out by Thomas Mathews, if you have a ship that is badly shot up and you are sending "out of sector" for repairs you might talk fleet into swapping out its modules while it is repaired, but in either case (trying to get the Modules changed without repairs being needed, or as part of the ship being repaired) the specific ship is not going to be available to you for a round or two of the campaign.

Worse, campaign special rules might provide that if you send a ship out of your sector for any reason, Fleet might keep it rather than return it. (You sent it out of your sector, obviously you do not really need it, and Fleet things some other sector needs it more.) That would of course be a "random event" rather than something you could control or count on (and Random Events might say Fleet has decided that you need a ship more than someone else and is providing you one of type "X," and perhaps allowing you to define the modules it will arrive with, or perhaps not).

But in a sector game, you pretty much are NOT going to have an ability to change modules (without sending the ship away) because you probably are not going to have a Starbase in your sector.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 03:53 pm: Edit

I must be misremembering. I remembered it as a Battle Station could change out one set of modules and a starbase could change out three. It has been a while since I have played F&E and I rarely get far enough to get the Romulans involved in any case.

But yeah, that makes it more difficult to convert the ships though it would ease the logistical burden of moving modules around quite a bit. I was thinking the Romulans would have to ship their parts all over the place but they really only have to worry about the capitol and their starbases.

Like you said though: probably easy in peacetime but a hassle during a war.

By Jamey Johnston (Totino) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 04:03 pm: Edit

This is a really interesting discussion!

I am leaning more and more towards the idea of thinking of these modules as just the finishing touch part of the ship construction (possibly even to the extent that you can't change them barring a major repair/refit).

So the fleet designs a new War Cruiser that has a main component (with maybe just a small number of heavy weapons? Phasers, bridge, lab, a small shuttle bay? etc. basically all the core components) and then a module that specializes the craft. As far as how this is presented in SFB, it would be similar to the HDW SSD, with a few OPT boxes but limited configurations.

Functionally, the War Cruiser still takes about the same amount of time to build, but it's done in a different order, with the module being the last piece. This way, the role of the ship could be changed very near the completion date in comparison to other races.

In a campaign where construction is done, a player using these new ships gets to see the results of battles during the turn and decide what it is built into (I need a new command ship with Flag capability, I need a scout) at point of construction. For other ships you have to lock in a construction decision at the beginning of the process.

I think that it would be something worth considering for an empire to try.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 04:40 pm: Edit

While it might be worth doing you also end up having to deal with the downsides the Romulan fleet has to cope with. Minesweepers without strong forward shields, overgunned commando ships that cost more, scouts with weapons they generally cannot fire, etc.

There is an advantage to purpose-built ships and full conversions in that the variants tend to be better designed.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 04:41 pm: Edit

Jon, See F&E rule (433.432) for Romulan modular ships and F&E rule (525.222) for HDWs. However, the short version is that only starbases may perform modular conversions.

Again, I'm ok with the concept of a modular war cruiser along the lines of the HDWs.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 06:59 pm: Edit

A part of the issue with Romulan modular ships is that they have always fallen outside the scope of both SFB and F&E in many ways. In SFB they are only relevant to a campaign, and then only if the rules were written specifically to make them relevant.

F&E works in 6 month turns, modules are a 2-4 week issue that have a hard time finding a place being represented in 6 months turns. It's not that modular ships are practically useless as they can sometimes seem to be in the SFU, its that their usefulness is rarely represented in SFB or F&E

I've always thought that there should be some special rules to make Romulan modular ships more relevant in some ways in F&E. They are fine in SFB, in SFB they are what you make of them in your campaign.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 07:14 pm: Edit

As an example of what I am talking about, if you had a campaign with 2 week turns then you might say a ship has to be in the hex at the start of the turn, and can't leave on the turn the module swap is completed. So it had to enter the hex the previous turn, and can't leave until after 2 full turns. This effectively means it takes "3 weeks" for a ship to change modules. In a campaign with 2 week turns this would stand out, with 6 month turns this capability falls between the cracks.

Just as the fact that you choose construction variants on the same turn you build them in F&E means you can't represent a potential advantage of Romulan modular ships being discussed here. In effect, all ships in F&E have the "modular" build option. If you have to pick builds at the turn before, then the modular ships could be selected on the turn of placement and represent their modular construction advantage. But, since all ships build this way in F&E, it can't be represented that way.

Romulan modular ships usually "fall between the cracks" of how both SFB and F&E work which makes them confusing to newer (and even a lot of older) players.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 08:16 pm: Edit

The "Modular advantage" can, I say again CAN, occur in Federation & Empire.

If I decide I want to convert a D5 (for some reason) into some variant of that ship, and it is more than six hexes from the starbase, it will be out of action all next turn (next turn it enters the hex of the starbase, and has to wait there until the start of the following turn before it can be converted and move back the front).

A Romulan ship can enter the starbase (one move) be converted (one move) and move four hexes back to the front while my D5 is sitting at the base.

Further, the Romulan ship might make use of a pair of modules that were dropped off by another ship that was converted, or have been purchased in advance as a stockpile.

While it is an advantage, it is (as noted) very difficult to capitalize on, especially when you are on the offensive. Somewhat easier when you are defending closer to your starbases, but often still very hard to full capitalize on.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 08:57 pm: Edit

Yes, it does have an impact. In SFB it is easily represented however it needs too be whether it is published scenarios and campaigns or player created ones.

But in F&E working in 6 month turns, many ways that Romulan modules might be represented in the game fall through the cracks of "low resolution time". The construction one is another example. Being a minor point in the grand scheme of things, ship construction in F&E was not designed around the Romulan modular ships. It was, of course, designed around everybody else.

As others were mentioning, it should be a big advantage too them in construction. Everyone else would have to choose substitutions a turn in advance, but modular ships would get to choose substitutions as the pieces were being placed. My guess is that the thought of designing the entire galaxy's ship construction rules around a single generation of Romulan ships never occurred too SVC, for understandable reasons. It's just another example of how the "2 week modular ships" fall through the cracks of F&E's "6 month turns".

This is what "special rules" are for, to account for situations like this. Which brings my back to my original point that I've always thought that F&E should have some special rules for Romulan modular ships. To "pull them back up out of the cracks of time" that they fall into.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, February 24, 2018 - 02:17 am: Edit

Totino and Turtle,

Thanks, the darn thread was getting hijacked.

So a CW (or LTT) with some HDW features. Not overgunned or extra endined.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Saturday, February 24, 2018 - 01:03 pm: Edit

I don't have the time, and my SFB stuff is mostly first release Captain's Edition stuff from 1990, but I've been thinking that there is a really great SFB campaign in this discussion. The Romulans have always been very popular, and a campaign focused on the advantages of their module ships would set the "lore" for how that works and how they use it. This is currently a very confusing and difficult thing to understand within the SFU, this campaign could also solve that issue in addition to having the potential to be a particularly good campaign on a strategic level.

Maybe ADB should start a thread for making a "Romulan modular ship" campaign game. In fact, I happen to know that SVC has always had a campaign like this in mind that he calls the "Vulpes Campaign" which is where that Roxxanne Vulpes character you've probably heard mentioned comes from. This is one of those very old ideas who's time has probably come at this point.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, February 26, 2018 - 01:24 am: Edit

What kind of a campaign? You run a Sparrowhawk that keeps getting its modules swapped out?