Archive through September 20, 2019
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Ships:
R01: GENERAL UNITS PROPOSALS:
Flagship gunboat:
Archive through September 20, 2019
this proposal boils down to lower economic scale colonies are supposed to purchase these "police gunboat flagships" first, before there are other gunboats present at such colonies.
Flies in the face of economic and practical needs.
We still do not know how expensive this design will be, though numerous people above have pointed out that it will be at least double what a regular vanilla PF would cost. More, it will require a specialized base for servicing, fueling, and supporting the expensive and valuable special sensor.
Also, as SPP revealed in posting the relevant rule sections, a gunboat mission has a 48 hour endurance limit. Security (and other model Skiffs) can conduct missions lasting days or even weeks without loss of effectiveness or efficiency.
So, let's say, for example, planetary Mike West, over the objections of his expatriate klingon head of security, "mr. Ketrick." Has spent the entire defense budget of the colony "slice of heaven" on buying a gunboat flag ship.
May be, nothing will happen... pirate attacks are said to happen about 1% of the time... so may be Gv. West just might luck out.
Or... the Dread pirate, Captain Garth Getgen, and his loyal crew in the Orion light Rader, "sucker punch", upon finding out that the Cartels Buccaneer squadron scout special sensor is off line for lack of spare parts.... decides to go shopping for a gun boat variant that has a special sensor, and virtually no other defenses. (Well, mr. Ketrick has his side arm...)
Given that the colony has no other defenses, not even self defense sats, it's difficult to see how Mike West can stop The dread pirate Getgen from successfully acquiring his special sensor, thus earning the approbation and praise of the Cartel Crime Lord when presented with a fully working police flagship. The monetary rewards should be very good.
Now, if the roles between mr. West and mr. ketrick were reversed... what kind of defense could the colony have had?
Well... let's say the economic value of the gunboat flag ship was half again equal to a regular G1 PF. (Call it 38/2=19 bpv. Add 20% for commanders options. (38*.2=7.6 bpv.)
Enough to buy a regular G1... though there is no base to operated from... and extra points for spending on drone speed upgrades, other commander options. Might even have covered two def sats.... there are other choice possible.
Just does not seem like being able to sweep a mine, or runaway fast helps in the defense of a colony.
Is there a rule preventing small ground bases from operating minesweeping shuttles? If ground bases could get MSS to any mine within 6 hexes, that would take care of any weak minefield laid near the planet that the gunboat flagship could. Mines further away could easily be routed around.
Jeff Wile:
Sigh.
There are colonies and colonies.
Long ago we did an article about the establishment of a colony. We noted that for a lot of startup colonies (as opposed to government supported ones), the initial defense is basically the "militia." The citizens themselves having weapons in hand to keep thieves away.
During this period your "trade" is largely with Free Traders, who can land on the planet to offload tractors and take on grain (or what have you).
The second step (relatively cheap) is a ring of defense satellites. Why is this the second step? Because among the simple "support uses" (monitoring the weather for example) is that a satellite ring means you are now watching the approaches to your colony in the full 360. There will always be a satellite looking on the backside of the planet from your initial colony location. Your colony at this time may be keeping a few shuttles, letting you do some trading with normal freighters (a Heavy Transport Shuttle would be good for this). It is a low level maintenance load (depends on how many shuttles), but the shuttles are also good for maintaining the satellties (for example, rearming drone-armed ones, but in any case visiting them once in a while for their own maintenance needs).
As your colony continues to grow, you reach a point where "law and order" becomes more formal. That is to say you have people whose full time job is arresting the drunks and issuing tickets for violations of local ordinances developed by your colony's leaders. You might start having "customs" enforcement (something you can still use a shuttle for to go up and board a freighter), but you have to be careful not to drive off the occasional tramp freighter by being too strict, you need the trade.
The point is that there comes a time when your colony may breed sub-colonies, and not on the original colony planet. You might have a mining colony in the system's asteroid field (assuming it has one), or an agricultural colony (even if under a dome) on the second planet, or a scientific research colony on the moon of the fourth planet (because your original planet does not have a moon and you did not want "bad things" (tm) to get loose from the research.
But even though your colony has spread out, its total income-outgo is not enough to get the larger empire government to fund a defense force (an organized PDU). You are still building up to it.
In the "pre-General War" days you would eventually arrive at the point where you bought skiffs for the local system law enforcement job (Security Skiffs). But there are not a lot of skiffs to buy for your (local) tax credits (because if you read the articles on Workboats in Module R11 you will find that while Skiffs are not completely gone, the production facilities have largely shifted over to gunboats).
Thus you purchase "police gunboats" for your system policing.
Why do you not keep using shuttles? Because in the old days before the General War you did not have to worry about a few illicit fighters blowing your shuttles to hades. It takes more than a few illicit fighters to take out the gunboats. You are not often going to have all of the police boats in space at the same time. Four allows a constant rotation. Please note that there is not a "48 hour endurance limit." The text reads "An average mission lasts less than 48 hours." That is a mission, a go out, do something, and come back while probably burning fuel in high energy combat maneuvers somewhere at the midpoint. It is not the limit, and it may be that a Gunboat not doing anything in particular could "loiter" for twice that long if is not burning fuel on a fast run.
So, for "police activities within a planetary system," police gunboats are not out of line, and as noted, since gunboats do have limits on their capabilities, perhaps one special boat, but still cheaper than a leader (in terms of whatever the build cost is that keeps all PFs from being built on leader hulls to begin with, not the given economic cost). And maybe there are times the special sensor comes in handy (I am still bouncing on that one, but note I have not committed one way or the other, I have only pointed out issues, the biggest thing in its favor is that it was pretty common to have two sensors in every flotilla, my biggest problem is that I have not been able to come up with a real value for it on the proposed police flagship).
What about Federation colonies? Especially those towards the interior, where access to foreign imports of workboats would be limited.
Would Fed colonies stick with security skiffs? Perhaps upgrading to Slammer skiffs in the later years.
For some reason, I am under the impression that the Federation continued to build Skiffs, after the introduction of PFs by other empires. (modular couriers, regular Skiffs, security skiffs), and eventually added slammer skiffs.
Was there a published notation stating that the Federation stopped producing Skiffs?
For that matter, where's it published that other empires completely stopped skiff production when they started building PFs? Yes, production would be down, but I doubt that ALL skiff factories would be converted over.
Garth L. Getgen
To be honest, once the Orions are reabsorbed, I suspect they supply a lot of work boats to the Federation. Depending on how strict the Federation is on local systems using gunboats, they may sell anything they make to various systems.
ADM:
The subject of Orion buccaneer pattern work boats have come up before, in the topics that, sadly, have been deleted.
You will have to get confirmation from the steves, but there were various answers to different aspects.
1. No civilian buccaneer pattern work boats.
2. Some Kzinti and Gorn designed work boats did make it to the Federation, but only after the end of the General War.
3. I do not remember what the response was to Federation type workboats. The idea some one posted, (no, not one of mine!) was that the Federation never adopted PFs, but that the Skiff manufacturers COULD have retooled to start producing civilian work boats after Late General War(year 180+).
Just because the Federation government declined to build PFs, is not a reason the civilian sector would decide not to buy some such craft.
From the Perspective Article on Workboats in Module R11:
"The development of interceptors and gunboats grew out of existing skiff technology. Everyone had known for a decade how to put larger engines on skiffs (although this required new designs as the Security and Modular Cutter types could not handle more power or mount additional systems to use that power), but to build a combat-capable skiff required relatively gigantic engines, something possible only by adding dangerous warp booster packs to the largest engines a skiff-category "craft" could handle. Interceptors and the later gunboats were built in factories that had been building skiffs for decades, although once the true role, missions, and value of gunboats were known, existing skiff factories were turning out gunboats at maximum production and more new factories were built."
"Most empires reached a turning point within two or three years of gunboat development. Full gunboat deployment had been completed, meaning new production was required to maintain, not increase, gunboat strength). Gunboat production had increased to cover the loss rate. Most importantly, the need for more skiffs (simply to replace those that were lost in accidents or raids or worn out, let alone demand for additional ones to find resources for X-technology) had reached a crisis point. The result was the workboat, a gunboat modified for "civilian" use. The design was a much-simplified version of the cargo PF, with only a couple of phaser-3s for defense, a much smaller crew, larger fuel tanks, non-combat systems (tractor beams, airlocks, transporters, and often a shuttlecraft), and somewhat more comfortable quarters. (Workboat crews would live on their craft for weeks, rather than flying them only on combat patrols from the bases where military crews lived.) Without the troublesome warp booster packs, workboats had vastly extended range and endurance (and no build-up of ionic charges in their engines), but of course, far less combat capability. A small percentage of gunboat production diverted to workboats fulfilled the valid economic need for new skiffs. Because gunboats were mass-produced in huge numbers, workboats could be made more cheaply than skiffs.
"The Federation never built gunboats, so it never stopped building skiffs, and thus never had the "skiff shortage" of other races. In fact, the Federation sold skiffs during the General War to the Kzintis and Gorns.
"There were also gunboat variants produced for police use (with lower-grade weapons, smaller crews, tractor beams, transporters, and other changes), and for survey use, but these are in other products."
Federation Workboat ship description: (R1.PF7) WORKBOAT: The Federation never built PFs. The SSD provided here is conjectural and itself based on the conjectural cargo version of the conjectural Federation Thunderbolt PF. While the Federation never built or deployed PFs, Federation corporations purchased numbers of workboats from neighboring empires. Most Federation workboats were purchased from the Gorns, although considerable numbers were also purchased from the Kzintis and the Orion Enclave (which provided most of the workboats that were used in the Federation capital systems). However, it was not unusual in the border regions to find Klingon (on the Klingon border) and Romulan (on the Romulan border) workboats in use (purchased after the General War). Some corporations even acquired workboats from Jindarian Caravans.
Orion Workboat Ship Description from Module R11: (R1.PF7) WORKBOAT: The Orion cartels did not have much need for workboats, at least not in such large numbers that they could not get by with workboats purchased (or stolen) from the local economy on which the given cartel preyed. The Orion Enclave, however, saw the market for workboats in the Federation and modified the design of the Buccaneer-C to meet the need. The Orion workboat was the single most common workboat in Federation space, and some were sold to the Klingons, Kzintis, and Romulans, especially after the General War. (Some were found in Gorn Confederation space despite the efforts of the Confederation’s Legislature to prevent it.) The design is just a workboat. It cannot double its engines, does not have a suicide bomb, and does not have the built-in stealth features (the coating on the hull) of normal Orion PFs.
Federation Code Name: No reporting name was assigned, as these were lawful workboats.
A flotilla of three police gunboats might operate with one "on patrol," one "on standby" (it is actually the next one to go "on patrol" to replace the current one), and one "in maintenance cycle" (which becomes the "standby" boat while the first boat goes into maintenance cycle on its return). A surge could of course see all three boats in use. Maintenance cycle does not necessarily mean a full tear down of the boat's systems, but a check of system, replenishment of consumables, and etc. In most cases the boat in "maintenance cycle" just needs its crew recalled to become operable. Patrol cycles may last a week (since you are largely remaining inside the system and not burning consumables rapidly in a high speed dash to get somewhere in a hurry).
The "flagship" boat is of course the fourth boat, and provides (as has been noted) those additional capabilities. It cannot fully repair anything, but could carry a relief crew or a working party to a disabled freighter and get an engine working well enough to bring it into the system to await further repairs. It can carry a "police company" (or just a few squads, depends on need) to an outlying colony to deal with "security issues" (a broad range of possible duties). It can deliver needed supplies (the sub colony on Ruba IV of the Ruba system suffered a malfunction that destroyed its current food supplies, or its life support system needs to be recharged after it was contaminated in some way, or what have you). I can see it being able to sweep mines, but I am still not sure I can justify a special sensor when I cannot keep the boat in service 24/7/365. There is too much down time (not a problem for fast patrol ship scouts in flotillas or support flotillas because until they are deployed on a mission, the PF tender or base or PDU provides that capability locally, and with more powerful sensors).
If / when these police gun boats get published, I hope something is said about bases.
The "least cost" option would be to use the same PF basing options as the combat flotillas use.
If only four such gun boats are deployed on most colonies, a couple of modifications might be in order.
1. A security SSD box for all empires. Represents a brig, possibly a hearing/court room to handle initial arraignments and a safe and secure place to transfer prisoners to any of the various prison ships that got published a few years ago.
2. A extra hull SSD box to provide room for extra guards, relief crews, and accommodations for Judcial branch personnel.
3. A bridge box on the SSD to act as reserve flagship in the absence of the police flagship. (Or in those cases when there may just be only police gun boats present.)
4. One or two cargo boxes intended as evidence lockers for those times when criminals are apprehended in possession of the loot.
If the regular police gun boats do not have transporters, then having one on the base would be a really good idea.
1. A security SSD box for all empires. Represents a brig, possibly a hearing/court room to handle initial arraignments and a safe and secure place to transfer prisoners to any of the various prison ships that got published a few years ago.
RESPONSE: So you are saying we have to retrofit every, single, ship SSD (at least size class 4 and larger) and base SSD to have such a facility? Sorry, but the "brig" is basically subsumed into the hull and/or excess damage boxes. So are things like courtrooms (conference rooms, mess halls, etc.). So this is not going to happen.
2. A extra hull SSD box to provide room for extra guards, relief crews, and accommodations for Judcial branch personnel.
RESPONSE: Basically subsumed into the hull and/or excess damage boxes. Quarters for personnel are quarters for personnel. In all seriousness I could well see most of the personnel assigned to such an organization "living on the local economy." That is to say they do not live in "base housing" but live in civilian housing "off post" when not on duty.
3. A bridge box on the SSD to act as reserve flagship in the absence of the police flagship. (Or in those cases when there may just be only police gun boats present.)
RESPONSE: No one has said the police flagship gunboat will have a larger command rating, and such facilities have not been required for ground based fighters or fast patrol ship flotillas. I see no reason to begin "muddying the waters" now. Note that even fast patrol ship Leaders have the same command rating as standard fast patrol ships, not a larger command rating. All fast patrol ships (except Workboats) and Interceptors (except Workboats) have a command rating of "3," whether Leader, Scout, Variant, or Version. Further, it would appear all existing small ground bases have a command rating of "0," so giving this a "command rating" larger than "0" seems unlikely in the extreme.
4. One or two cargo boxes intended as evidence lockers for those times when criminals are apprehended in possession of the loot.
RESPONSE: Basically subsumed into any cargo and/or excess damage boxes. Storage is storage.
If the regular police gun boats do not have transporters, then having one on the base would be a really good idea.
RESPONSE: While not designed yet, I have no doubt that police gunboats will have transporters (no more than one) for the same reason security skiffs do. It is more efficient for boarding a freighter to check its papers and conduct a health and welfare inspection. It also allows the team to be recovered more quickly if an emergency comes up and the boat needs to rush some place else in the system. It is a case of "form following function" and the police function is different from the normal "kill them all" function of a military gunboat. (NOTE: "Kill them all" is not in this case an indication of atrocity, but simply that your average gunboat is not equipped to make prisoners of enemy crew, but to inflict structural damage.)
So... normal police gun boats are to organized into 3 or 4 boat "mini" flotillas that (I am making a guess) do not appear in F&e.
That, in the Federation, operations bases will continue to appear at some colonies (those that can afford to buy the Skiffs), but not at other colonies that haven't developed the economic ability.
In nonFederation empires colonies, those ones that can't afford a Police gun boat mini flotilla, will have an operations base only? And other, wealthier non Federation colonies, might have both operations bases, Skiffs, and a police gun boat mini flotilla?
Will police gun boat mini flotillas have their own unique ground base? Or will it be a standard PF ground base?
Jeff Wile:
Uh ... last I looked we were still in a "discussion" phase. I guess you could have me removed so that I did not participate. But nothing formally says that a police flotilla will be just four boats. I am "discussing" how it might work, and of course would defend my position on the matter until I saw something that caused me to re-think my position. It does not at this juncture mean I am right or wrong, or that I have in any way imposed a "fiat" (I use that word too much) that "I have spoken and so let it be written and thus always so."
I have noted that I am queasy about "civilian units" having special sensors. Mike West wants this for his police flagship boat (and the police do have special sensors on their police flagships and recently finally got a scout variant of the police cutter). But there is a big difference in the budget of a Federal force (the Police are basically the Coast Guard) and "local law enforcement." Major colonies and homeworlds have big budgets and several levels of law enforcement. A relatively minor (but growing) colony might have its customs enforcement and law enforcement necessarily combined because the budget will not allow to separate organizations.
The upshot as I have said makes me leery about adding special sensors (as are found on the current ground fast patrol ship base, although only one) to such an installation. And it is not written (as noted above) that a police flotilla will only be four boats. It might be six, it might be eight. We have not worked out the details.
Steve Petrick:
Gee. That's what I thought we were doing! 
You do raise a number of issues that I feel should be discussed.
Re:civilian Special Sensors. The only quasi civilian special sensor that I can recall off hand was the CCS (I forget what the letters stand for... communication control station may be?). It was used for sub space communications in an empire. Iirc, in the Federation, the Federation Postal service (union?) was responsible for handling non package communications. (See captains log#28 I think, or GURPs Federation for details.) might have been published in module R 8.
It might actually make sense that at a certain population level, the various Empires assign a ground base/government to a colony. Think of it as a equalivent to a post office, local armed forces recruiting office, county / provincial information office, Federation Court house, drivers license bureau, and Census offices.
In game terms, it's just a huge target, filled with hull that is located at the star port(casual fighter base) near the operations base. Might even act as a complemental extension to the operations base for higher population worlds.
For example, the postal union thing in the Federation would have a special sensor so it can access the sub space communications network. As such, the special sensor, in an emergency, could be used by colony in a combat emergency.
If the colony is too small for a PDB (planetary Defense Battalion) to be assigned, it would be the only special sensor for the planet. Being tied in to the same energy grid as the operations base would allow for cooperation / coordination with the ops base.
Other empires could have the same thing, but organized differently. Operations bases in Romulan service could be "Great House" affiliated. The (for lack of any name for this government addition to ground operations base, let's call it "Government Annex base" or GAB.) GAB would be a national asset that represents the Emporer of the Romulan Empire.
The Klingons might not have anything tied to the imperial system, just part of the General bureaucracy.
Now, moving on. The size of the local police flotilla should reflect the population. A police force in a rural location might have a sheriff and half a dozen deputies and a radio dispatcher. A police force for a world class city with a population in excess of a million citizens might have several thousand officers. Or more, if needed.
I would respectfully suggest that such police flotillas be organized into groups, the smallest population worlds would only have one. (State police in some states call them troops) so a police flotilla of 3 gunboats and a flagship might represent a troop.
As populations rise, more troops could be assigned. Two troops represent a column. Three troops a half police squadron. 6 flotillas (only found on the highest population major worlds or capital worlds.) might represent a planetary police squadron.
Just an idea for discussion.
Jeff Wile:
The CCS is a Communications Relay Station and was published in Module R11 under (R1.79). The key text in their ship description is:
"There are dozens of these in any empire serving as the switchboards for civilian message traffic (which is always heavier than the military’s traffic simply because there are so many more civilians transmitting). Duty at these stations is boring since they had to be located outside of planetary systems to keep interference with transmissions to a minimum."
So they are neither so numerous that one would be near a minor colony, and not deployed in systems in any case.
You would come closer with the System Activity Maintenance Station (R1.30), but its ship description makes it pretty clear that it is a military installation and not a civilian installation.
As I previously noted, the largest deployment of civilian special sensors is on "exploration freighters" and Civilian base stations.
As another issue, one special sensor on a planetary surface has little value, because the planet creates a massive blind spot (the sensor cannot see through the planet). That is why a Planetary Defense Unit/Battalion has more than one Ground Warning Station so that it can have special sensors watching all approach directions.
So I literally see no point in a ground base with a special sensor unless you can overcome the planetary blind spot.
I disagree that population density defines the size of a police force. What defines the size is the wealth to be guarded. You do not need a flotilla of police boats to guard a planet with a population of 30,000 (as an example) when the wealth that population produces will not pay for a single police boat. But a planet with a population of 5,000 that has a mine producing dilithium crystals ...
Are the police boats designed more for planetary defense or for "go out and deal with this" problems?
I think flotilla size would be decided by what number do you need to have a reasonably good chance of driving off a pirate. These would not show up until late General War so we are looking at the Orion DW, MR, and BR as the most likely adversaries?
Okay.
If I Recall Correctly, the ship descriptions of Bases, (Star Base, Battle Stations, Base Stations) also listed the number and types of ships that might be located there.
base stations had a chance of 1 to 3 police ships being present. (I think the Police ships respond from near by, and are not a garrison defense force.)
Base stations are not listed on the F&E map either.
I do not recall if any number has been published as to how many base stations exist in the various empires.
Instead of a ground base thingy, could the police gun boat flotillas be based on a civilian orbiting base that is a) larger than a SAMs, and b) smaller than a Base Station?
As such, it would not have more than 1 PoL class ship responding to an emergency... (typically, it would be the POL assigned to the F&E hex/area that this colony happens to be located in.)
The more I think about this, I have to admit that you have convinced me that a civilian base shouldn't have special sensors. I still do not feel that the police flagship gunboats should have SS either. Since the Federation now has a police scout... would it be out of bounds to suggest a police gunboat scout?
That means, that in addition to your posted suggestion that a police gunboat flotilla has 3 police gunboats, and a gunboat flagship, that the flotilla may have a gunboat scout present as well? That would fill up 5 of the 6 slots of a PF hanger if one were docked to this kind of civilian base.
Just to bolster the idea, this police gunboat scout wouldn't just be using the special sensor to detect hostile enemy ships, but could be used for traffic control, routing civilian traffic to and from the colon, emergency communications in case the local CCS went offline.
And just to throw one more idea out there for consideration. What if the 6th boat in a police gunboat flotilla was a troop carrier? Perhaps able to deploy riot troops any where on the colony world as needed?
Jeff Wile:
Not "located there," but "under the control of."
(R1.1C) NOTES: Normally, 4-6 police ships, 1-2 frigates or destroyers, and 1 light cruiser were permanently assigned to the starbase under control of the base commander. These are not included in the base’s BPV. Major fleet elements, under control of the fleet commander, would normally be found at or near the starbase during peacetime. The BPV of a starbase does not include the fighters, PFs, or ships assigned to it, nor does it include the augmentation modules attached to it or any pods docked at it.
A starbase controls a sector, but as it is immobile, it exercises control in part by having ships that patrol nearby space operating out of the base. Same for a battle station or a base station.
Base Stations were converted to battle stations before the start of the General War and so only show up on the Federation & Empire map if a player builds one, usually because he could not afford to build a full battle station. "By Y160, all base stations on national borders had been replaced with the more powerful battle stations.
(R1.3D) Normally 1-2 small ships (frigate, police) were assigned directly to the station (not under fleet control but included in fleet OB).
As to separate police gunboat scout and troop carriers, avoidance of that is the whole reason Mike West posited the police flagship to begin with.
As both planetary operations bases (originally to operate Skiffs and shuttles) and Ground PF bases already exist (with PF docking modules for bases) i question the need for some entirely new base for use by police boats. Note that so far I have discussed how I would view such a unit operating, and you should feel free to propose your own concepts of how many boats are required for a stable and effective organization (seriously, I am not trying to stifle debate and admit that I could be completely in error).
Jon,
I would think that if planetary defense is the goal then you won't want these till you've already purchased the DefSats and a few ground bases, and then I'd think a full up military flotilla (or if you're poor just 4 standard PFs at a base) would be better than a police PF.
The whole point of the police design is to give up some combat capability for additional utility. You don't need all that much utility when you're in range of the DefSat Transporter relays and of various shuttles and ground bases.
The Police PF must be primarily for some combination of flexibility and the ability to deal with problems more than 5 hexes from the planetary surface and that can't be solved via ph-4 shots from the ground.
Thus, a specialized police PF must, IMAO, be primarily for the "go out and deal with this problems" with planetary defense as a secondary purpose. But to a large extent, the PF weaknesses (short duration, short range, poor sensors compared to a ship) are EXACTLY what you do not want on a police unit that is expected to deal with the "go out and deal with this problems".
~40 EP for a cutter, or 25+ EP for a police gunboat? Neither will win a serious fight, both provide presence and can call for help. And the cutter provides presence at longer range with better sensors unless we mount a special sensor on the gunboat making it cost (much) more than the cutter for only slightly better sensors and still having shorter legs.
Thus, I really don't see the point. A police workboat, replacing the PF engines with longer duration/no warp booster pack engines can be operated by the police, and would be able to replace some fraction of the police missions. A workboat is cheaper, easier to build, and has a smaller crew and probably lighter maintenance cost than a cutter. So I can see police workboats, but when I look for a mission for the Police PF, it keeps seeming to me to come back with a 404 error.
Edited to add: A police cutter with 2 ship quality special sensors should come in at 70 EP or so, a PFS is 100 EP, and with much worse detection range. Special sensors make it HARDER to justify using a gunboat hull rather than a cutter.
Douglas Lampert:
Police gunboats are pretty much by definition not planetary defense units, but system control units. They would add very little to keeping Raider from hitting the primary colony (like any other unit, they may draw fire from something else important and provide a threat that makes it difficult to lower shields to land a raiding party to steal stuff the colony may have collected to load onto the next visiting freighter convoy).
Their function is to make sure that the asteroid miners (for example) are not engaging in selling the results of their labor and not paying taxes on the proceeds. They do this by being around to make it difficult for a smuggler to come in and get such material. Similar thing with any other satellite operation within the system. They also serve as search and rescue for lost shuttles (such as the planetary governor's VIP Yacht that has gone missing, but also your run of the mill prospecting shuttle).
They conduct health and welfare visits to the ore-processing freighter working in your system.
In short, their job is presence and security by such. Law and order.
I agree.
I could see a police PF being built for civilian convoy escort (casual PFs on a special skid or for an auxiliary tender) but those are primarily for combat and they might as well just use the military PFs under a different organization.
I could see a police PF flotilla that can handle police situations but I think you might just end up with a commando PF, a cargo PF, a repair PF, and whatever else mixed in with a standard flotilla so they have the ability to move a few troops and some cargo and fix a damaged freighter, maybe with a leader and scout but then you do not need a new design. You just note that some police forces field mixed flotillas.
Let's take a look at some of those special functions …
A PFM has a detection range of 10 for automatic mines when (fully?) manned (M7.321) while a PFS is 6 (M7.322) when using (G24.26) [a normal PF is 3].
For area control, a PFS has 75 range (D17.3) along with the GWS while a PF is 50 [TacIntell-A] with a normal ship at 100 and a scout at 150 when using (G24.29). [S5 is twice the range of A and allows individual tracking but with a 5 hex error, note that a Fed SWAC can track as a PFS when using a channel for (G24.29).]
Module R11, The Civilian Mission Ships (page 36), have many "space gaurd" ships, and system defence ships. would these be enough for the missions being discussed?