Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through July 17, 2019	13		07/20 04:37pm
	Archive through July 18, 2019	37		08/06 10:01pm
	More Information Needed	1		09/30 05:32pm
	Evaluation Complete	94		09/30 05:32pm
	Available for R13 selection, NOT confirmed	23		10/08 04:20pm
	Assent Reserved for future consideration	4		09/30 05:21pm

Mike Grafton became the 300th player to propose a passenger liner for the mass transport of colonists or other travellers. As usually, the response was that a standard small freighter or Free Trader can do this job so no new ship is needed. Mike responded, with some validity, that cargo doesn’t complain about how long the trip is, and cargo doesn’t have to be fed or entertained en route. As such, he theorized, there would be need for something that could carry hundreds of people and go faster, maybe fleet speeds. After some consideration this idea was put into the Module R13 file for later reconsideration.
========
[Steve, passenger liner versions of the large and small freighter and the free trader and APT hulls have already been published.--Jeff Wile]
Who knew? Did they have the larger Graftonwarp engines?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 19, 2019 - 04:59 am: Edit

Orion war raider, Jeremy Gray design, but get the extra power from bigger impulse engine to avoid creating a new warp engine.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 20, 2019 - 01:11 am: Edit

Fed FW: an attempt to get SOME use out of the FFGs when conversions to FFB could not be done fast enough.
Add one ph1 FH, one AWR, one drone rack, maybe a hull box or two.
Increase shields from 18 to 20
Move cost increases to 0.4
Gary Carney, Garth Getgen, Mike Grafton, Alan Trevor
Service date Y177, many conversions done, real ship.

Any FFB variants not published yet need to be in this module. Every ship from Captain's Log is added but doesn't increase the retail price.

Not interested in a fast frigate.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 20, 2019 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Matt Shaw proposed a new way to build a Lyran mauler: take a Saber-Tooth Tiger (STT) and install a standard center dreadnought section, producing a Lyran dreadnought mauler with two advantages. First, it would retain some of the conventional weapons, and second, it could be converted from an STT in the F&E game system. (Currently, the STT cannot be converted into the DN-based STL because the STL uses a single center mauler while the STT uses a pair of mauler cannons in the side sections of the hull.) Arguably, the DTL (Double-Tooth Lion) would have the 10 mauler attack factors of the STT not the 12 of the STL. It might be possible to convert it into a TTL (Triple-Tooth Lion) with 12 (or 14?) mauler attack points but no conventional weapons. This will be reviewed for Module R13.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 06, 2019 - 10:01 pm: Edit

A "fast" police ship able to respond quickly to problems and chase down pirates and raiders.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 06, 2019 - 10:08 pm: Edit

Escort version of police ship to work with police carriers.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 10, 2019 - 12:50 am: Edit

Across the board, every empire, design: Fast BCH.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 02:11 pm: Edit

Richard Sherman proposed an Old Strike Cruiser based on an Old Light Cruiser. His plan would add a belly pack and a frigate engine to the underside of the oCL, adding two photon torpedoes, two FX phasers, a movement cost of 1, with thirty total warp.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 02:20 pm: Edit

Loren Knight proposed a tug variant of the old Federation CL. He was inspired by the flat bottom of the ship. In his view it would have been easy to weld a tug saddle to the cruiser's belly in a spot where turbolift and power connections could be made. Given the cruiser's engine power and inherent the tug would be slow in a scenario (which would make battle pods difficult to use) but perhaps not in operational movement.

By James B. Pennington (Cutlass401) on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 09:12 pm: Edit

James B. Pennington proposed a planetary defense ship created by taking mothballed Old CLs and adding one of those belly packs that Petrick hates so much. He theorized that the Federation might have done this in the dark days after the Klingon invasion when Federation planetary governments were screaming for defenses. Published history would seem to indicate this was rarely done if at all.
This belly pack he designed Would include
4 AWR
2 BTTY
2 C Hull
2 Photon-FA
1 P-1-360
2 P-3-360
MC: 1
TM: D
BD: 4-6
BPV ~+25
The slow speed of the design was to be accepted in light of their defensive mission.
It was thought that when Star Fleet was ready for offensive missions that the ships could be easly converted back to the standard CL design.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, November 03, 2015 - 12:35 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor proposed a Federation x-tech drone bombardment ship. Start with a DDX. All photons converted to drone racks. Four (two?) phaser-1s converted to Special Sensors. All AWR converted to cargo.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 05:44 pm: Edit

It should be noted that the Federation DDX as it stands can be converted to the DB mission if you really, really wanted a DB ship. (I am sure others have noted this, but I cannot remember for sure.) If you are really trying to use the DB mission to try to create a "battle scout" then it will not suffice.

Basically (my suggestion, your mileage may vary), convert existing drone racks to special sensors; convert AWRs to cargo for reload bombardment drones; convert four photons and three FH phaser-1s to six type-BX drone racks. Ship retains six phaser-1Xs (three LS and three RS) for self-defense. It can do the DB mission and has enough drone throw-weight with advanced drones to be scary for a non-advanced ship, but is not all that threatening against an advanced ship (even one smaller due to the access to X-aegis).

But if you want a drone bombardment platform, there it is. It would at least be competitive with the Kzinti FDX which was designed from the start as both a tactical scout and a bombardment platform.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, November 14, 2015 - 03:16 pm: Edit

Federation X-Ships (at least those formally published) typically have two type-GX drone racks (CX, DDX, FFX, CSX, DWX, NAX, NASX, HVX, HDWX). The exceptions being the DGX, and the GSCX and its GVX variant which have four type-GX drone racks. A fleet composed of one of each of these ships (assuming the option mounts on the HDWX were not also drone racks and excluding the non-X drones on any attrition units and ignoring any possible X-MRS shuttles) would have a drone throw-weight of 30 drones.

Type-GX drone racks hold six drones. That they are type-G racks means the Federation retains a desire to use anti-drones defensively against the Klingons and (possibly) the Kzintis, plus Orion ships with lots of drones and unexpected enemies. That the Federation does not switch entirely to simply anti-drones goes back to the issue of the Romulans (and possibly the Gorns, Tholians, and Jindarians, and possibly other "unknown foes) where anti-drones are less than useful.

While some published Klingon X-ships have no drone racks at all (D5PX, DVHX), one has only one drone rack (MD7X), six have only two drone racks (DX, FX, FSX, D7AX, HF5X, F5WX), four have four drone racks (D5X, D5SX, D5JX, D5WX), one has six drone racks (DXD), and one has eight (D5DX). All the drone racks are type-GX. A fleet composed of one of each of these ships (excluding the two ships with no drone racks at all, assuming the option mounts on the HF5X were not also drone racks and ignoring any possible X-MRS shuttles) would have a drone throw-weight of 43 drones.

Published Kzinti ships typically have six drone racks, of which four are type-GX and two are type-CX (BCX, CCX, CMX, CMSX, NAX, DWX, HDWX), some of have six drone racks, but all are type-GX (FDX, CMDX), some have only four drone racks, typically four type-GX (CMVX, FEX), but one has two type-GX and two type-CX (FKX), and one ship has only two drone racks, both type-GX (CMPX). A fleet composed of one of each of these ships (assuming the option mounts on the HDWX were not also drone racks, allowing for the second shot of the type-CX racks, and excluding the non-X drones on any attrition units and ignoring any possible X-MRS shuttles) would have a drone throw-weight of 88 drones.

Now, note that the drone throw-weight is only for a fast look. It would be unusual to have such fleets (some would require a command point to exist at all). But a typical duel between a cruiser squadron of three CXs against three DXs would have the same drone throw-weight (six drones per turn less any drones from scatter-packs, multi-role shuttles, or gunboats). However, either of those squadrons might want to take some anti-drones if opposed to a Kzinti squadron of three BCXs which can put out four times their throw-weight of drones in a single turn (24 drones), albeit doing so would empty the CX-racks in two turns.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Jeremy Gray and several others proposed "Carronade Cruisers" which would only be used by the Gorns. This involved replacing each plasma-S or plasma-G with two plasma-F torpedoes. This was, they said, to take advantage of the carronade technology. Meanwhile, William J. Gauthier proposed similar conversions of Gorn, Romulan, and ISC ships in order to increase short-range firepower. (Two plasma-F torpedoes have 33% more impact than one plasma-F torpedo, plus they do not cost energy to hold. A ship armed with all plasma-Fs would have many advantages over the standard ship ... as long as it could get to very short range when it wanted to fire. Many wondered if the Gorns were salivating over the Carronades or the forest of plasma-Fs.) A carronade destroyer was published in Module R12.

There were some controversial elements to the conversation. Jeremy Gray wanted to add an extra plasma-F to the Gorn cruisers, something the engineers rejected as impossible. Some who proposed such ships exchanged each plasma-S for three plasma-Fs, and this was also rejected by the engineers.

No final decision has been made on such ships. Some feel they are different but no better than the standard ships. Some feel they are so superior that they make the original ships obsolete. The ISC rear-firing plasma might be said to indicate that placing three plasma-Fs on each wing would limit the ship to only launching one or two per turn per wing.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - 02:30 pm: Edit

More than a few players suggested “new heavy battle-cruisers” that would be the BCH versions of the NCAs. The idea isn’t far fetched at all (whatever you added to a CW to make an NCA, just add something bigger) but this is an “obvious variant.” That does not mean we would not publish it in a future module, but it does mean that no one player gets credit for designing or suggesting it. (It is in the SFB Module R13 selection topic on the BBS even as these words are printed.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - 02:32 pm: Edit

More than a few players proposed “new heavy scout cruisers” by just applying the “NCA upgrade package” to an existing CWS. This obvious variant is under considering for SFB Module R13 and if not selected for that product will remain in the selection pool for SFB Module R14.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - 02:33 pm: Edit

More than a few players proposed “new heavy escort cruisers” by just applying the “NCA upgrade package” to an existing CWE. This obvious variant is under considering for SFB Module R13 and if not selected there would remain in selection for SFB Module R14.

For all I know/remember, we already did at least some NCA-SC and NCA-ES ships.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - 02:34 pm: Edit

Nobody suggested an NCA verision of a CW commando ship, carrier, PFT, or LTT, but we might as well list them here just to be complete. At least some of these may have already been done.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - 04:29 pm: Edit

In Y175, the D7AK "Spellbinder" was badly damaged in a battle with Vice Admiral "Cracker Jack" Radey (SH81.0), and brought in for repair.
Also in the repair yard was the D6M "Death Blow", which had been crippled by a previous engagement, and nearing full repair.

The Klingon Admirals considered taking the boom section from the "Spellbinder" and putting it on "Death Blow", and renaming the ship, "Frozen Death". The Admirals thought that the huge battery capacity could serve two roles, firing the mauler and operating the power hungry SFG. However, the idea never made it off of the bar napkin before it became well known that no Klingon Captain would ever fly it, due to its lack of forward phasers or any other heavy weapons.

Steve Petrick thinks something somewhere makes ESG-mauler combinations disallowed.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Friday, February 24, 2012 - 02:32 pm: Edit

(R3.XXX) D7AD Drone Armed Stasis Battlecruiser: Reviewing the design studies of the D5A battle performances of the D7A and D5A, a design review was made to examine the practicality of replacing the disruptor armament on the D7A with drone racks. The reasoning being that removing the energy cost of arming disruptors allowed more energy to be applied to the SFG and other systems, plus the larger drone armament allowed for the ability to place a greater mass of drones ready to impact a targeted ship as soon as it came out of stasis hold.

Further reviews of the larger hulls using SFG systems was also conducted. The B10A carried the SFG as more of an weapon of opportunity and had the power to use it and it’s massive disruptor armament. The C7A, it was decided, benefited already to an increased power availability, and the increased drone suite of the C7 design gave it a significant ‘drone throw’ ability already. The C9A was evaluated with the idea of replacing either 2 or 4 of it’s disruptors with drone racks, but the idea was discarded.
It is unclear if any D7As (or D7Ds) were converted to this design. It does have double drone control.

‘Obvious variant’: Idea came from my opinion that the SFG ships based on the D5 hulls had a better power curve than the D7A.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 17, 2019 - 03:02 pm: Edit

A PFT-only version of the BC and DN for the Gorns (a la Lyran BCH, DN or the Romulan ROC) have been suggested many, many times. As a matter of fact, these have been suggested for pretty much EVERY race that does not yet have one.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, December 06, 2009 - 01:59 pm: Edit

Gary Carney asked if the Klingons after the General War might have resumed selling ships to the Romulans? He noted among other ideas that a Klingon FD5 fast war cruiser might replace two disruptors and two drone racks with four plasma-D racks. The idea is intriguing in that the Romulans, devastated by the Civil War, might need more ships at a time when everyone else is reducing their fleets. The Romulans, Gary theorized, might save money buying cheap ships rather than building new ones.

By James B. Pennington (Cutlass401) on Thursday, February 15, 2007 - 05:36 pm: Edit

James B. Pennington proposed an Imperial Eagle, but did almost everything wrong. Based on and better than the King Eagle, he set it almost a decade earlier, before the Romulans could build the 15-box engines he used. He designed an entirely new hull when the Romulans h had plenty of Eagles to convert and were spending money to design the hawk series. He included four torpedoes (R, G, 2xF) but without any explanation of how to make the G fit and mounting the F-torps on the engines long before the Romulans thought of a way to do that. Saying the engines were new and inefficient, he gave it a movement cost of 1.25 when it was more logical to downgrade the engines, but once we looked at that G-torp it was clear that 1.25 was correct (as you'd have to make the ship nearly twice as thick to put the G-torp under the R-torp). In the end, it looked like his ship would make more sense a year or more after the King Eagle as a never-built upgrade of that ship. Just add some decks below the hull, give up the ability to land on planets an accept the lower speed as matching the War Eagles.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, April 09, 2007 - 02:38 pm: Edit

Anyway, my favorite one that I would love to see is the KR version of the C5. Assuming that the center disruptor can be converted to a full Pl-S, the resultant ship would be a very useful and fun conversion, and would serve as a great counter point to the Shrike. The Shrike as a plasma suite of Pl-R, Pl-S, 2xPl-F. The KLR (what I called the conversion) would instead have 3xPl-S, 2xPl-F.

Another one I like is the K9S. The basic idea is that the Behemoth gets its deckhouse (and the back half of its rear hull) tricked out with the full C8S treatment to convert the K9R into a full SCS.

Finally, Jeff Laikind suggested a conversion of the D7W. I don't know what the Romulans would do with the extra drones (and the C7 conversion would imply they might just be deleted), but it could still be an interesting conversion.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, April 09, 2007 - 04:56 pm: Edit

K6R: This is a conversion of the C6. If the Romulans had insisted on a dreadnought being included in the initial batch of ships, it would have likely been a C6. It is pretty much just like the unrefitted K9R, except that it loses the Pl-R. So, it ends up having the same armament as the K7R despite being a dreadnought. Eventually, it would have been upgraded to be a full K9R/K9RB.

K1: This is a conversion of the G1. Actually, this isn't a converted G1, as converting an actual G1 would be stupid and pointless. Instead, it is a design conversion that assumes that the Romulans made their initial gunboat design based on the G1, rather than the Eagle hull form that resulted in the Centurion. It ends up being a very balanced design with 2xPh-1 FX, 2xPl-F with LP/FP/RP arcs, and a tail Ph-3. While no where as sweet as the Pterodactyl, it is much more balanced than either the Centurion or the base Starhawks.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Monday, April 09, 2007 - 08:28 pm: Edit

I want a K2R.

Drones and ADD replaced with Pl-D. Security Station replaced with Btty. Install cloak.

A lovely little ship...

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, August 11, 2019 - 09:02 pm: Edit

Romulan Warp-Refitted Skiffs (Y162)

The Romulans continued to build sublight skiffs up until the Treaty of Smarba after which they switched to building the standard skiffs that had been in service in other nations since Y130 (they never had the “early” warp-powered skiffs). However, there were thousands of sub-light skiffs still in operation in Romulan Space and production could not meet the demand of replacing them all. Consequently, the Romulans converted some of their sublight skiffs to warp power.

Warp-Refitted Seeker Skiff:
Changes to the SUSK ssd:
Delete the side impusles engines and replace with standard 3 box warp engines.

Warp-Refitted Security Skiff:
Changes to the SUSSK ssd:
Delete the side impulse engines and replace with standard 3 box warp engines.
Lasers were usually upgraded to P-2
Some of the security skiffs were sold to civilians (in non-security roles) in which case they may be equipped with P-3 or the original warp-targeted lasers instead of P-2.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, January 30, 2015 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Conceived from the same notion as the MVD, the Kzinti Drone PFT Raider (MPD) was more acceptable to the Kzinti admiralty. The 50% reduction in repair capability to place the drone racks was considered acceptable given this was a raider ship. It was unpopular with captains due to its lack of phaser armament and thankfully, due to a shortage of MPF hulls, only one was built, which served its purpose satisfactorily.

From the MPF...

Replace 2 ADD to 2 Type B drone racks.
Replace Ph-1 3,4 to Type B drone racks.
Replace 2 repair to 2 Type B drone racks.
Replace 2 APR to 2 cargo (100 spaces of drones)

Escorts remain unchanged.
Has 4 F&E drone bombardment factors, and is a SFB drone bombardment ship.
YIS: 182
F&E factors: 2-7SP/0-4P

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Several players (including Jeff Wile, Robert Cole, Benjamin Sun, Thanatos Kinias, Mike West, Craig Tenhoff) tried to figure out a way to convert old pre-war Kzinti CVL or CVE ships into ships that were more useful, i.e., that had more fighters.

Steve Cole said: I am not going to accept "moving the admin shuttles to mech links". I'll consider other theories, proposals, and concepts. And not moving some of the fighters to mech links.

Work then began, but never really finished, on two pathways.

The first was to remove boxes that could be spared to add shuttle boxes. One aspect was to add phaser 3s or drone racks to the wings, expanding the footprint by a tiny bit but matching the BC or CVS so they thought they could get by.

The second and less successful path was to expand the hull with saddle bags or a ridgeback. This inevitably led to a higher movement cost and a fourth engine.

In the end the idea was laid on the desk of Steve Petrick to do both conversions of both ships.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Randy Blair proposed a Kzinti MVD drone Raider. This was a CMV war cruiser-carrier with the disruptors and some other items removed to add drone racks (six total) and a special sensor. The ship would send its fighter squadron on a long-range strike supported by drone bombardment. The problem is that these two missions are best conducted from different ranges. A carrier must be escorted but that far from the enemy the escorts have nothing to do and are just wasted. The best place for the CMV is in direct combat using its disruptors.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 03, 2010 - 05:41 pm: Edit

David Slatter brought up a problem that the Tholians have: early command ship. The biggest Fleet they can field until Y113 (other than at a base) is four PCs, since one PC has a command rating of three. (Others argued that four PCs could wreck the concurrent Klingon fleet of D3s and F2s.) Even then, the Tholians are limited to a fleet of six ships (led by a DD) until the cruiser appears in Y159. In early times that would be D4s and F4s, not really a problem, but once the Klingons get the D6 things are going to be a problem. David proposed taking a PC in Y90 and removing things (e.g., web generators) to make space for a flag bridge and a higher command rating (5 or 6). In Y120 or so they could do the same thing to a destroyer, pushing the command rating to maybe 7. SVC thought the idea plausible but left it up to Steve Petrick to make the final decision including whether to put such ships in R13 or Y4.

By Dal Downing (3deez) on Sunday, March 10, 2013 - 06:00 am: Edit

Dal Downing proposed that the Orions build a fast cruiser for those situations when the cartel crimelord needs to get a heavy ship somewhere in a hurry.

Obviously it has to be cut back to a normal CAs (or BC) Weapon Mounts Hardpoints and it will have to give up 2 Heavy Mounts because of the Fast Mechanics. But, what if instead of saying that they were replaces with just Phaser they were instead replaced with 2 additional Drones giving it the 4 Drones that were reportedly part of the design. SVC said this was a problem because Kzintis use massive magazine D-racks that the compact and stealthy Orions did not have room for.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, August 10, 2019 - 05:48 pm: Edit

The selection of Non-Rock Jindarian ships is rather weak. A Non-Rock BB, DN, CVA, SCS, BC, BCS, BCV, CV, CVS, CC, CA, CL, CVL, CEA, PFT design would be nice to see. It follows that a non-rock DNX, CAX, CLX, DDX, SCX, FFX would also be nice to see.