I once drafted a patent application to a *real life* cloaking device. It was fascinating. It had it's limitations due to the fact that there is no speed faster than light itself, but it effectively would have acted something like a chameleon. If the background environment didn't change, the protected object would be *literally* invisible, not just camouflaged. In a fast moving background, the object would appear blurred, but visible.

I tried looking for the publication, but couldn't find it in a reasonable amount of time....

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 07:01 pm: Edit

In another thread on the BBS, there was mention of “Fighters that Never were.”

I know that there are some saying that this could best be covered as a Captains Log Article, but before getting into that end of the field where the grass is tallest...I am curious what others think of the idea.

Rather than hijack the next module discussions, or seek an actual topic for this, just thought a general discussion could reveal if there is any “meat” on this carcass.

For example, in the Real World, one of the design proposals in competition for what eventually became the F-15 strike eagle was an enlarged F-16 variant.

Named F-16XL, it was truly a fighting falcon on steroids.

Delta wings for supersonic speed (Mach 2.05)
27 hard points for weapons, ordnance Or pods (fuel sensors etc.)
Empty weight, 21,000 lbs. fully loaded and fueled 48,000 lbs.
After burner thrust, 48,000 pounds thrust.
Vulcan 20 mm Gatling gun, internal.

The F-15 has two engines while the F-16XL only had one, the F-15 was the winner of the fly off officially.

In terms of SFB’s, a F-16xL is not superior to the F-15 fighters, but it was smaller and could be deployed to any carrier in service, where as the F-15s were restricted to one class of carriers.

What other ideas for “fighters that never were” do people want to see?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 01:03 pm: Edit

When I got Module M, I was looking forward to see what sorts of close support fighters everyone got (the Federation A-7 from the playtest module was something that, for whatever reason, struck a chord with me).

While I could go on (and on*) with stats for fighters like these that I've imagined, I'm more than a little hesitant to do so because none of them have been playtested.

(* and on and on and... )

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 05:07 pm: Edit

I suspect that a Fed A-7 is a dead equine.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 09:50 pm: Edit

Probably, Jeff.

Even if they're never done, I presented it as one of those other ideas as a "Fighter that never was."

Besides, during the years of development (basically Y160 to 165), what reference did anyone have for what fighters would amount to? The only things in service before Y165 were the old sublight Romulan fighters, the Kzinti AS and AAS, Hydran Stingers, and some planetary defense bombers.

As such, I have drawn a parallel between that time in SFU fighter development and Naval aviation in the immediate aftermath of World War I; the Navies of the world still weren't sure what role aviation would play in the foreseeable future. Heck, many experts were so unsure of anything beyond seaplanes and flying boats that when Langley was first sent to sea, she carried a coop for homing pigeons; they were seen as a potentially more viable capability for the ship!

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 11:58 pm: Edit

Jeff, the A-7 was removed due to game issues than the history.

As to the possibility of a cap log article, well heck... it’s already written, and published.

Guess I was thinking about whole new never published fighters.

Plus, IIUC, the Fed F-12/Gorn G-12 Thing is waiting in the wings, and that IS a built fighter.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 08:18 pm: Edit

Just for giggles and grins... the Kzinti Hegemony could never dream of building phaser Gatling fighters... tech sloshing aside, the technology and the economic situation just couldn’t support the kind of research and development needed to boot strap a phaser Gatling series of fighter.

If you look at the fighters, heavy fighters and bombers the Kzinti did build, I think you will find relatively few phaser 2s and lots of phaser 3s.

If the kitties decided to maximize forward direct phaser fire concentrating on phaser 3’s, how would they do it?

Could they build a 4xphasr 3 single space fighter during the early part of the General war? Would it cost them the use of one or more drone rails?

Is a 6 x phaser 3 2 space fighter possible by year 178?

I know the energy costs alone make it difficult.

Would a heavy phaser 3 2 space fighter in the space superiority role make sense.?.

Not asking for a historical real fighter, just if it makes sense for a “fighter that never was” example.

By James Day (Jbox58) on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 10:20 pm: Edit

Module J is not listed in the store. Has it been replaced?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 11:12 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick is working on the update. I forgot to do his fighter art today. Someone please remind me to do it tomorrow.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Sunday, August 23, 2020 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Here's an idea for The Fighters That Never Were: Fighters that were capable of competing with PFs.

It's mentioned in multiple places that there were two camps when it came to the theory for developing attrition units, the build even heavier fighters camp and the PF camp. Interceptors and Megapacks were developed in parallel, and for a while it wasn't clear who would win out; the PF camp or the heavier fighter camp. With the development of proper PFs, the PF camp won the argument everywhere except the Federation, who built the F-111.

We have Thunderbolt PFs as a what if for the Fed (and in the Andromedans win timeline), but what about having F-111 equivalents as a what if for the other powers of the General War?

The Gorn could just use the G-111, an F-111 adapted for plasma, but the rest of the octant could have unique (or Klingon-derived) designs.

This must have been proposed before somewhere (how could it not have been?) and The Fighters That Never Were would be the perfect place to put it.

By Dan Bostwick (Danbostwick) on Sunday, August 23, 2020 - 03:38 pm: Edit

I have a question on Monitors, or specifically their pallets. I know there is a support, fighter, and PF pallet. The obvious (to me) missing element is a self-defense pallet. Monitors are very slow, and are an entirely defensive unit. It seems like there would have been an self-defense pallet with some mix of phaser-3s/ADDs/plasma-D, maybe a few batteries or APR, or tractor beams, or something. I am picturing a system similar in concept to the self-defense pods for tugs.

Does something like this exist already?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, August 23, 2020 - 06:59 pm: Edit

AFAIK, Dan, there is NOT such a Monitor Pallet.

Between us, whenever I fly a Monitor, if I don't have the BPV to operate a full fighter squadron or gunboat flotilla, I still like to add a casual gunboat or two on mech-links (exception: Federation. With them, I exchange two ADMIN for F-7s) for local defense.

Doesn't always work out well; usually they get blasted by long-range fire before they can really do anything to protect the ship.

Still, Monitors already have a pretty hefty load-out of defensive weapons. I mean, most have a huge battery of eight phaser-3s (four LS, four RS) AND four tractor beams for drone defense.

They've also got huge battery banks as well.

What I'm trying to get at is, do they really NEED the sort of self-defense pallet you're suggesting. This is just my opinion, but I don't think they do.

HOWEVER, there's nothing that says you can't pull out the old "Crayon and Graph Paper" and make one up for your own fun; I do that sort of stuff all the time, and usually my SFU friends let me enjoy it.

(... While they enjoy blasting me to bits... )

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 24, 2020 - 09:18 am: Edit

The thing about self defense units, is, they are often used to assist in the execution of a different mission.

The classic mission is cargo/freight. Self defense modifications are a “bandaid” to increase the defenses of a tug or a freighter.

Monitors mission, basically, is to go to an under defended place, and defend it from all threats until proper defenses can be built.

The self defense mission is not directly compatible with the Monitor defense mission. One defends civilian or tugs from raider or pirate attacks, the other, defense of a Fixed point from all threats.

By Dan Bostwick (Danbostwick) on Saturday, August 29, 2020 - 11:08 am: Edit

Interesting points on monitor pallets. Thank you.

Monitors seem to be have been designed from the ground up with the pallet concept in mind. So you have a defensive unit (and to be clear, I mean a unit for defending a fixed position) with an inherit ability to augment its organic systems. Very forward-thinking

From there, we have three "special mission" packages - support, fighter, and PF. Gen1 fighters come in fairly early, so for most of SFU timeline there are two readily available - support and fighter.

I think what would happen in a "real world" scenario, is that once the concept of augmenting the monitors was tested and found to be working, there would be more pallet types introduced, including one which specifically augmented the unit's defensive abilities.

Now, I'll grant you the fighter module essentially *is* a self-defense pallet, and since every race operates fighters of some kind, I guess this answers the mail.

Still, I wonder if this might be an area worth exploring to add more flavor to planetary defense type battles.

I can see each race having a module that adds something to the unit's direct combat power. Maybe the module bay's infrastructure can't support heavy weapons (probably for the best), so this might be a combination of phasers, batteries, power, ADD/Plas-D.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Saturday, August 29, 2020 - 09:05 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Monitors seem to be have been designed from the ground up with the pallet concept in mind. So you have a defensive unit (and to be clear, I mean a unit for defending a fixed position) with an inherit ability to augment its organic systems. Very forward-thinking

---

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Sunday, August 30, 2020 - 02:20 pm: Edit

They would all be defensive garrison missions, though.

If the monitors tend not to move around a lot, they could become de facto support bases and have all sorts of annoying administrative tasks forced upon them until fighters showed up.

There could be a series of support pallets that have no game function and no real resistance to nearby antimatter explosions - subjugated planet garrison pallet, diplomacy pallet, container stacking pallet, shuttle landing pad, university science team support pallet, casino pallet.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, August 30, 2020 - 05:46 pm: Edit

Those sound like fin, Szamboni, but I suspect the description given for Monitors in AM kind of rules that out. They're just meant to take over from more mobile ships to protect a threatened asset (planet) and are intended to stick around only as long as a threat remains.

Pity.

I can hear the captain of a Monitor with a casino pallet taunting an attacking ship with, "Do you feel lucky? Well do ya? Punk!"

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Sunday, August 30, 2020 - 08:28 pm: Edit

What monitors lack most is power. The Kzinti are OK because of all the drones, but something like a Lyran is really gasping. So a power pallet with 4 APR, 4 Battery and some hull wouldn't be silly.

And otherwise, if you want the thing to guard the planet until something better (like a mobile base) shows up, you need to be able to see what's coming. That'll be a couple of Special Sensors, then. Not much use in a fight, but at least you won't be caught at WS0 and blown up trying to load photons.

And the poor thing has only two transporters. That's pretty sad if it has to move stuff about the planet. A couple of HTS might help too.

And if there's an unruly populace who don't appreciate the benevolent rule of the Empire / Hegemony / etc, some barracks, transporters and GAS could be handy to educate them.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Sunday, August 30, 2020 - 09:41 pm: Edit

So that's the Cargo/Lab/Hull support pallet that already exists, an APR/Battery/Hull power pallet, a Special Sensor (and maybe lab?) scout pallet, and a Transporter/Shuttle planetary operations pallet.

What about an early version of one or more of those to support the LMN in Y130?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, August 30, 2020 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Jim Davies: A lot of what you mention could be provided by ground bases, such as early warning stations for scout sensors, or garrison bases for ground troops. I imagine that a planet important enough to have a monitor assigned to it is likely to have some kind of ground bases and/or defense satellites.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 31, 2020 - 01:46 pm: Edit

I suspect that the "carrier pallet" was always available. It is just that in the years prior to the appearance of fighters it operated shuttles and had more cargo storage. Basically a monitor would "earn its keep" by serving as a transfer station for cargo. But it would not have any more weapons. Shuttles would probably be all Heavy Transport shuttles (three), the other shuttles would be all cargo, and the existing cargo would be hull. Crew would be unchanged. Launch tubes would be omitted.

But you are not going to have a weapons pallet/self-defense pallet, or a "power pallet."

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, August 31, 2020 - 02:41 pm: Edit

How many monitors do we have, and how many of their spots never do get that base built? Monitor attrition doesn't seem to be a big thing, so there could be quite of few them puttering around after a few decades of production.

It's possible that this month's "top-50 places that could use a monitor" list is largely the same as last month's, and the month before. The bottom 30-odd slots could have been holding up that list for decades as new base construction is always prioritized elsewhere.

Over time there could be many monitors administratively stranded at last-weeks-news hotspots-gone-tepid. They effectively become the base for the system, and the pallet space adapts to whatever the needs are for the local mission (ground suppression, pirate interdiction, caustic environment away team decontamination, shuttle platform).

Imagine being on a monitor twenty-five years into a six-month mission, with a poor crew dealing with decades of deferred maintenance, and Legendary Supply Sgt. Bilco himself having taken over most of the science pallet for his casino and Romulan ale quarantine.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, August 31, 2020 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Probably mostly an F&E thing....

A Monitor arrives at a system with xxx pallet...
Later, They determine they want/need something else....
How do they get it:
Return to a base and replace,
Freighter/Tug brings one,
One made on planet,if possible??????

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Monday, August 31, 2020 - 04:10 pm: Edit

...those dedicated staff officers have a way of getting things done...staffing just happens -- its part of staffing doctrine...

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Tuesday, September 01, 2020 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Between Alpha, Omega, and the LMC, who are the post-Unity Great Powers (when it comes to ability to project power)?

The Federation seems like the number one power, and the Klingon Empire maybe number two. I'm not familiar enough with Omega to assess them.

But if we were to come up with a list of the, I don't know, 8 Great Powers at the moment of the destruction of the last Desecrator, who else is on the list?