Steve Petrick:

If all the Empires used similar technology, achieved the same results, then it is by definition, equal.

It is the fact that the Federation choice to forgo the use of PF technology that creates a performance difference.

The use of older technology solutions (police ships, skiffs, civilian ships and colonies etc.) provides the same level of security both before the introduction of PFs as well as after the point where PFs are introduced.

It is the improved performance of PFs used by nonFederation Empires that provides the difference.

To put it another way, fighters, while they can react the same distance as PF’s, fighters have a mission duration, on station, measured in hours. (Whatever the duration of “several hundred Star Fleet Battles Turns” works out to be.)

That means, fighters must return to base.

So, In order to provide the kind of coverage, for example, monitoring the possible approach of enemy raiders (generic reference to include a variety of threats) a PF patrol (I assume a single PF, not a sorte by an entire flotilla) can spend (mission duration less time required to arrive at and depart from) time on station.

This is compared to a fighter (two fighters?!?) that could spend only a fraction of the same time on station, even though the travel time consumed by fighter or PFs are essentially the same.

I suppose a fighter squadron could ***In Theory *** stage a succession of patrols on station...

But in order to accomplish that, the entire fighter squadron would have to be involved, to the cost of being able to accomplish any other required duties.

A PF flotilla, could rotate a series of single flights (each patrol requires a mission duration of up to 96 hours) means for an entire week (seven Terran days) 1 3/4 PFs per week.

Bottom line a fighter squadron would require 100% effort 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, while a PF flotilla accomplices the same mission using less than 33% of its strength.

In this instance, PFs are vastly better than fighters (or bombers, for that matter) in conducting this one type of mission.

It goes directly to the nature of the technology.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, August 14, 2021 - 08:57 am: Edit

Jeff I am going to throw in a few things in this.

Space is huge. Read the Tac Intel rules. At 150 hexes A scout can detect a ships size class and location. Ships get that info at 100 PFs at 50 and shuttle/fighters at 35. A PF scout gains it at 75.

Each hex is 10.000km across. Even adding the strategic levels to this. The area to cover is huge. You can not cover the whole Fed/Rom border. No matter how many PFs frigates or what have you. Yes you can set up Pickets in areas you may think they may travel. You can cover the space lanes were freighters will travel on.

A Cruiser on station will respond as fast as it can to a distress call. In the show how often did the Enterprise get there as the attack happened more often it was after and they had to then hunt down the attacker like the Gorn episode.

There is good reason why the Orion pirates can operate they way they do. Why Jindarians can hide as they do. Why it was so hard to take out the Andros Node network.

Just saying.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, August 14, 2021 - 11:10 am: Edit

SPP, my comment was a knee-jerk one that missed quite a few of the relevant facts.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 14, 2021 - 01:32 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

PFs are limited duration designs. They are not Station Ships. They react to things found by station ships because they do not have the endurance to remain on station for extended periods themselves. They also do not have the sensor range to do the job [again, see (D17.3)]. The mission you are trying to define was handled before PFs showed up, and the method and ships for handling it were in place. PFs were not Station ships, they were force multipliers that could react to the situation.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, August 14, 2021 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

To try this again.

Borders are borders. Front lines are front lines. Before there were PFs borders existed, and when there was war, borders fluctuated as the front lines shifted. While all this was happening, there were forces covering the region. These were not PF, because PFs has not been invented yet. They also were not fighters for the same reason (noted exception for the Hydrans and technically the sunlight romans). In terms of watching for major incursions requiring fleet elements to respond the existing system of monitoring the space works. That includes a lot of different things. Raiders slip through (pirates, Andromedans, monsters).

When PFs (and of course fighters). became available, they might respond to such incursions. You would seldom send a single fighter, or PF, to report on such a movement, so you are not going to have a single shuttle or specially designed ship, because you are going to lose to many of them investigating things they are inadequate to handle.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Sunday, August 15, 2021 - 12:24 pm: Edit

I'm not sure I understand how shipping (or even fleet movement) works in the SFU.

This is my understanding, please point out where I'm getting it wrong if I'm making a mistake: Tactical warp allows a ship to move and fight at up to 32x the speed of light, and is extremely useful for combat. Pre-dating tactical warp is "strategic" or "non-tactical" warp, which requires an impulse engine and allows a ship to move between 32x and a very very large multiple of the speed of light, but leaves the ship vulnerable to even a trivial amount of damage. Ships in SFB travel at non-tactical warp the majority of the distance to their target, then slow down to tactical warp and engage in combat.

That's fine, I understand all this (again, point out what I'm getting wrong please).

But shipping doesn't make sense in this movement regime. Why would a freighter ever travel at tactical warp speeds if it could travel at non-tactical warp speeds? There are many scenarios involving a convoy of freighters moving through an area, and then getting ambushed by pirates/enemy forces while moving at tactical warp speeds. Why would this be possible?

If there's 300 light years between a factory and a market, and a freighter had the option to travel 3000x the speed of light to get there, why would any portion of its journey be at anything remotely close to tactical warp speeds? Fuel savings makes no sense as an answer since slowing down to tactical warp for more than a trivial leg of the journey would impose a proportional cost in time that it would render trade impossible or at least multi-generational.

I must be missing some key component of the picture to make this make sense.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, August 15, 2021 - 07:37 pm: Edit

Shawn Gordon,

I think normally when enemy are encountered the Freighters drop down to tactical warp.

Perhaps in some areas the terrain may drop the freighters down to tactical warp.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 08:08 am: Edit

TGhere are THREE kinds of warp.

Non tactical warp is generated by Impulse engines and isn't much faster than light speed. This is what the "pre Smarba" Romulans used to get around. Else they'd never be able to build an empire at all. In this case, they are basically helpless at anything above speed 1.

Tactical warp is the use of warp engines and results in a stable field that allows for shields. Up to speed 32

Strategic warp is even faster and allows you to go at your maximum speed when not in combat.

IIRC SVC has said something about how "Warp doesn't scale perfectly to the "Warp X is equal to X cubed lightspeed" at higher speeds.

Which makes sense given how vast the distances are in the SFU.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 08:25 am: Edit

quoting mike G: Non tactical warp is generated by Impulse engines and isn't much faster than light speed.

Well, relatively not much faster, when compared to tactical/strategic warp. It still give you probably equivalent to Warp 4 or 5 in hops and jumps. Otherwise, the Romulans could not build a space empire, let alone attack the Federation.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 10:53 am: Edit

Per Prime Directive:

Non-tactical warp can get you up to Warp Factor 5.5 (166c).

Standard warp can get you up to Warp Factor 7 (343c), with a dash capability up to Warp Factor 9.25 (791c).

Ref: GURPS Prime Directive 4E, p 160.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 11:06 am: Edit

Any time you try to assign hard numbers, though, you can run into problems. That's not just an SFB issue. It was an issue in Star Trek, and in a lot of science fiction generally.

See, space is, and pardon me for lapsing into technical language here, really, really big. One F&E hex is approximately 1600 light years across.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 11:11 am: Edit

Reading up computer operated starships just wondering is juggernaut considered a battle computer

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Jay Gustafson:

In re: Juggernaut and Super Computer Rules

Juggernaut is NOT a Super Computer and does not use the (G11.0) rules.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Re: Jay20
I'm pretty sure unless something says the phrase "super intelligent battle computer" in its description it doesn't use the rules for super intelligent battle computers. Robot-controlled freighters and computer-controlled Andros don't use those rules, and I'm pretty sure neither does the Juggernaut.

Re: Warp discussion
Interesting to learn more about warp travel. I had not realised there were three types of warp. I think this still doesn't explain why a freighter convoy would drop from strategic warp down to tactical warp.

I can understand a scenario like what Wayne laid out where the freighters drop out of higher warp because they're expecting trouble (and need shields), but this cannot be the explanation of every encounter could it?

This would allow for no surprise encounters (which exist), and would call situations where everyone wasn't at WS-III into question. If the warp regime Wayne laid out was the only explanation, all encounters would be expected.

Tactical warp (up to 32c) is combat speed. If standard warp is between 343c and 791c, then a convoy should never ever slow down when being ambushed or intercepted. The attacker would be out of range as soon as they slowed down to attack the convoy if the convoy just stubbornly refused to drop out of higher warp.

There has to be more to the picture than I'm seeing.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:31 pm: Edit

If you close to within weapon range of an enemy while at high warp, you die.

So you drop out of high warp if you spot an enemy or something that looks vaguely like it might be an enemy ahead of you, regardless of weapon status or preparation for engagement.

Detection ranges in SFB aren't that much longer than weapon ranges, once you drop out of high warp, you're engaged and need to disengage based on the normal combat rules.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Dlampert:

So this means that all convoys are expecting it when they're ambushed, they just might not have had time to arm everything?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:48 pm: Edit

As I understand it, and I may be wrong, Freighters are built to travel only at the most economical speeds. The end result is that they cannot disengage by acceleration. This is reinforced by the very small crews. The faster engines seen on warships are also maintenance intensive, which is one of the reasons for the much larger crews. Even warships do not cruise at multiples of warp faster than freighters, but are capable of doing so at a price (that higher maintenance cost).

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:52 pm: Edit

If this is the case, about how long is a typical freighter underway from port to port?

The trade routes must be a fair bit shorter and slower than I had imagined they'd be (which isn't a problem for the fiction, it just means there's more freighters than I was thinking).

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 12:55 pm: Edit

Some years ago, when I was having a SEVERE mental health crisis, to save my life (literally), I dove into a mathematics hole (and pulled the top over me) and worked out a trillionth scale model of our corner of the universe.

The hard numbers I came up with there might be useful for this discussion?

Anyway, at one trillionth scale, one million kilometers is reduced to one millimeter. That means that...

... One hundred hexes (a special value for sensors, phaser fours, and other items), at ten thousand kilometers per hex, normally one million kilometers, is reduced to one millimeter.

... The distance from Sol to Earth, 93 million miles, which is about 150 million kilometers, is reduced to 150 millimeters, which as those of you who served in artillery know, is six inches.

A BILLION kilometers at this scale becomes one meter. The orbit of Saturn (IIRC) would be about one meter from the Sun, so that would overfill your average desk.

The 4.3 light year distance from Earth to Alpha Centauri is about twenty four trillion miles, or forty million kilometers. Trillionth scale? twenty four miles/forty kilometers. Think about nearby landmarks and their distances from your home or work, and you ought to be able to put that into perspective just as easily as I can.

Yeah. Basically something the size of your desk that far away.

Now, then the 1,600 light years per F&E hex. Figure roughly nine trillion kilometers (or five and a half trillion miles or so?) per light year, and the trillionth scale model for a single F&E hex is still bigger than the Earth.

Now, let's go back to that one hundred hex/one million kilometer detection range for non-scout ships. Basically, isn't the trillionth scale version of that, the one millimeter of it, about the same size as the period/full stop on your computer keyboard? Comparing that detection range with an F&E hex the size of Earth is, IMO, a pretty daunting comparison.

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 03:30 pm: Edit

If there's a thousand colonies of various sizes in each hex, there could be a *lot* of freighters doing local milk runs even without counting ships passing through or those leaving to make the long run into the capital cluster.

(For comparision, there are 835 ports on Earth for ocean-going traffic. There are 56,000 merchant ships including 17,000 general cargo and 5400 container ships.)

The less magical transporter technology is, the more cargo ships will be needed to shuttle stuff around. Magic 3D-printing transporters eliminates the need for all freighters, but if they are limited to just displacing 1m x 2m cylinders around, then we need freighters for everything that's more than 5 kkm from a relay. (Dial back the magic food replicators, and you get an enormous about of traffic just moving species-specific foodstuffs around in melting-pot empires.)

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, August 16, 2021 - 06:13 pm: Edit

A billion km is only 2/3rds of the way to Saturn since it's a bit more than 10 AU from Sol (an AU is the distance from Sol to Terra [Sol III])...

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - 08:10 am: Edit

IIRC the background has lots of those 1000 "Places of interest" being stuff that probably gets very few freighter calls. I could see the following:

Booniestan has a SINGLE guy that is harbormaster and warehouse boss.

Incoming freighters beam/ shuttle down their stuff to his place. It might be no more than a clearing for landing shuttles and a pole barn. He gives the freighter the coordinates (a RFID more or less) and those get beamed up/ put on the shuttle.

I assume the freighter also takes "orders" for whatever (like medicines/ replacement parts/ mail order brides, etc)

Defense vs pirates is that they are so low value that a pirate can't make his vig on the profits of raiding the place. Nothing of real value is stored at the warehouse (it's all bulk export stuff) and incoming stuff which does have value gets parceled out to whoever ordered it pretty much the same day...

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - 12:37 pm: Edit

The transporter relay is really go to cut down on places for incoming cargo to sit. Once the freighter starts beaming down canisters, the warehouse AI is going to be passing them on to individual destination transporter pads.

A factory may be stacking their supplies in a shed out in the desert somewhere until they need them, but consumer products are just going to disappear into the population.

Everything being one transporter button away could result is major decentralization of the supply chain. Even factories could have each workstep in a different locations (in orbit too). The population could be scattered across the continent in small hamlets with small fabshops subbing in for factories. When an outgoing freighter arrives, finished goods can be gathered from all over the planet at the last hour to a central shuttle pad (or beamed into a waiting pod in orbit).

A pirate raid on many planets is going to come back largely empty-handed unless they're going to spend time ransacking individual houses or have a map to where the factory is stacking their canisters. (Oh, yeah, none of the canisters are labeled since the AI keeps track of the RFID tags. The canister of Brillo pads looks just like the one with the silk sheets, so choose wisely.)

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - 12:55 pm: Edit

Secondary pirate defenses:

When the pirate arrive to ransack the house, the alarm system unlocks the doors and beams anything of value out to the forest. If the pirates track dirt onto the nice carpet, the alarm system beams the pirates into the ocean (and anything of value they may be carrying into the forest for later retrieval).

Since there's nothing of value left in the house anyways, some household AIs have been known to place priority Amazon Now! orders for claymore mines or to borrow alligators from the local zoo.

Since any pirate landing teams who plan on making it back to the ship will need to carry body armor, life vests, parachutes, and transporter disruptors, veteran pirates will often settle for fast raids on soft targets like apple orchards rather than dealing with a household AI or being stuck with another batch of Brillo pads. (McIntosh is in season.)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Steve Zaomboni:

1.) You cannot transport anyone who does not want to be transported.

2.) The pirates generally know what they are there for, i.e.,. they have the information on the locations of things by various means before they arrive to raid.

3.) The problem you are overlooking is that the Pirates have the ship's sensors, and are perfectly willing to use their systems on the people. The A.I. may be willing to sacrifice the people to protect the cargo, but the people are not willing to see their homes (not to mention themselves) reduced to carbon by products just to give the pirates a bad day.

4.) The information the pirates have will include the location of the A.I., and they can reduce it to carbonized remains also.

Basically consider if you have enough capability to fend off the pirates, and if not, hope the pirates will onlly take a little and leave you alive so that hey can come back and raid you again in the future. Consider that they might choose to carry you or your loved ones into bondage in the depths os space working for them.