It's noted in (R18.32) from Module C6 that the Paravian heavy war destroyer is distinct from other Paravian warships, in how it has a "V" shaped top tail in order to mount its pair of centre warp engines. (I'd be curious to see how this would be handled in miniature terms, should the HDW ever be added to the range of Paravian ships on the Shapeways storefront)

In the past, I had argued that the HDW (and, by extension, a would-be HWX derivation) should remain unique, in terms of being a four-engine warship deployed by the "lost empire" Paravian fleet. More recently, however, I've been wondering if a broader array of four-engine designs could be considered for the "Omega's Lost Futures" Paravians - or perhaps even for would-be "Stellar Shadows" Paravian-type hulls in Romulan service - so as to help further distinguish them from their counterparts in Module C6.

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For example, rather than going so far as to give the Omega-Paravians a "true" HDW, I was thinking that they could instead be given a "new light cruiser" which would look akin to what Federation and Empire would consider an "HDWK" - but without any "casual" fighters. So the four APR* boxes would be left as-is; the NWO boxes would be set as C Hull boxes; and the RA OPT mounts would be a pair of phaser-1s.

Such an "NCL" would not be a modular design, so any mission variants - such as one akin to what F&E would refer to as the "HDWP", to use against Andromedan RTN nodes - would have to be converted in the "traditional" manner. Such a ship could later be given an antiproton variant akin to those previewed in Captain's Log #54, though it would retain the inability to use the spinal lance if it were to be a Size Cass 4 ship the way the HDW is.

If for nothing else, such an "NCL" would allow for any potential HDW miniature to be added to Shapeways to be usable for the Omega-Paravians also.

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In the Alpha Octant, it might seem reasonable for the "lost empire" Paravians to design a four-engined heavy police ship, built up from the current three-engine POL design.

While little is as yet known about how most Omega empires handle their own "space police" duties, they could perhaps consider a "new destroyer" design built up from the FF, with the same engine layout as a would-be heavy police ship. Presumably an antiproton variant might be worked up later on, also.

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As with certain other Alpha Octant empires, it would not be entirely impossible to picture a four-engined new heavy cruiser or heavy war cruiser, derived from the war cruiser. One could picture a would-be NCA with four 8-box war engines, and a would-be HCW with two 8-box engines and 2 6-box engines (of the type used on the war destroyer).

That said, while it would not necessarily be impossible for the "lost empire" Paravians to field NCAs and/or HCWs, perhaps it might be more commonly seen in Omega-Paravian service? The NCA, at least; I would not be in a hurry to introduce the HCW to the Omega-Paravians.

In any case, given that the CW already has the same weaponry as the CA, it might be that the engineering limitations involved were such that the CW-to-NCA (or CW-to-HCW) adaptation would be no more heavily armed than the CW itself.

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The next step up could be a "new battlecruiser", built up from the heavy cruiser. With four 10-box engines, I would suggest it have a move Cost of 1.25. This would place it in the same category as the Seltorian light dreadnought, along with the Ymatrian Battleaxe battlecruiser, the Worb heavy cruiser, and other Omega "battlecruisers" proposed here. Such a ship would remain Size Class 3, and perhaps retain the ability to land on planets.

To put it another way, I would prefer if the Omega-Paravians built this hull rather than the BCH design seen in Module C6 - to include later considering an antiproton variant further down the road.

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And finally, there might be the potential for an alternate "new battleship" design, which had four 15-box engines of the type used on the dreadnought.

Perhaps, when considering a battleship design, the Omega-Paravians went this route rather than the battleship design as offered in Module C6 - not least to avoid the need to construct dedicated 20-box warp engines in order to power said BB design. But then, as the Klingons discovered with the B10, and as the Iridani might have learned with the Man-O-War battleship, balancing the warp fields produced by four DN engines would itself be a major engineering challenge. (Might this prevent the "NBB" from being used as a Raid Mothership variant, if the balance is too easily upset by the presence of tug pods?)

Presumably such a ship in Omega-Paravian use (or, at least, on their drawing boards) would later be considered for an antiproton variant also.

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Of course, none of the above ideas offer much in the way of originality, and it would be perfectly fine if it ended up that the HDW was the only instance in which the Paravian engineers (from either galactic octant) were in fact capable of successfully fielding a four-engine hull design.

Even so, I wondered if any or all of the above options might be worth considering for either or both the Alpha or Omega Octant incarnations of the Paravians. Or if there were other, better ways to pursue the same concept.