Archive through September 12, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB General Discussions:
Archive through September 12, 2021
With regards to "No Attrition Units," I've had the screwball idea of each power having only one type of attrition unit, meaning if a power uses standard fighters, they ONLY use standard fighters. If another power has WBP enhanced fighters, they ONLY have WBP enhanced fighters (and can neither drop them nor turn them off)!
As a semi-side note, I also imagined the situation where folks on opposite sides of a contested border have to have different types of attrition units. In effect...
... The Hydran vs. Klingon/Lyran border sees Hydrans with their vast swarms of Stingers while the Klingons have G1 Gunboats and the Lyrans have pretty hefty numbers of (in the case of what I has bubbling in my alleged mind) Lynx INT.
and/or...
... The Romulan vs. Federation/Gorn border sees Romulans with Decurion INT facing Federation Mega-Super Fighters (F-14CM/DM) and Gorn Pterodactyl Gunboats.
(And, yes, in the second case, the Romulans would have a heckuvalotta Decurions 
)
In terms of "Seeking Weapons," after getting C6, I pictured the shuttle bay drone racks on Klingon ships (originally Type-F Drone Racks?) as Death Bolt racks (slower rate of launch, counter drone operations against Kzinti (thanks to the Spitfire option), but still a threat to the Federation ships (courtesy of armor?)) while the Kzinti, to separate them further from both Klingons and Lyrans, exchanged their standard Disruptors for Disruptor cannons.
(BTW: yes, I do recognise that these two ideas aren't compatible; the G-1s that I still normally want the Klingons using are not compatible with Death Bolts, nor would I want to change Death Bolt rules just for this.)
I have more, but these are actually among the least cuckoo of the alternative universes in my mind*
(* Yes, that does seem nuttier than the Planters catalogue)
Some of these ideas, while interesting, either don't require a new product (just some optional rules) or would require too much product (how thick of an SSD book would you need to provide General War fleets for all 5 ISC member species?). I would think about how much product you need to get your idea accross.
While "all direct fire" changes too much to be a single effort, "no attrition units" is really just an Alternative Hydran suggestion. The ships don't change, but the Stingers become some weird drone/fighter hybrids. That means new SSDs to match. So, it is eminently doable.
While hitting on the Hydrans, let's go for what a lot of people have always wanted: all hellbores all the time.
Hellbore Hydrans
The Hydrans never made hybrid carriers, but fusion beams and hellbores intro dates don't change. However, with the introduction of hellbores, the fleet just transitions to all hellbores. That means their MY ships are fusion ships with no fighters, but the GW ships are all hellbores with a transition period during the 4PW. They would develop full carriers, so the Stinger intro dates change. This makes the Hydran fleet way more conventional, but gives people what they want.
Oh, and no fusion/hellbore combos on the leaders. They are either all fusion or all hellbore.
Presumably, their government is more unified to justify this. With much better ships, maybe they don't get conquered during the GW. Or, as an alternative to the alternative, they stayed historical through their GW conquest, but when they came out, they used an all-hellbore conventional fleet. Presumably the conquest caused a massive governmental change that didn't happen in the main history causing them to centralize things and streamline their fleet. Even though I just thought of this variation while making the post, I think I like it better.
In fact ... SVC, can I have a topic for Hellbore Hydrans in The Stellar Shadows section? (Parallel to the no-drone Fed one.)
"how thick of an SSD book would you need to provide General War fleets for all 5 ISC member species?"
I think depending on how it was done between 120 and 240 pages.
It will for sure never happen in a million years.
But I still think it would be cool if it did.
The "all direct fire" talk makes me wish we had something in M81. A feature of scenarios set in the Home Galaxy is a lack of seeking weapons (even suicide shuttles). The LMC is fairly light on seeking-weapon too I suppose.
If the standard is "enough ships to play (empire X) in a campaign" that would probably rule out modern versions of the Fed member nations as well.
I don't think most of the Fed member nations are distinctive enough to warrant full fleets anyway. A product that focused just on the Vulcans and Andorians might be more successful, especially since both species are well known to Trek fans.
The Disunited Star Fleet scenario is basically unpublishable. Not enough Rigel and Alpha Centauri fans I'm afraid.
Occasionally we get a non-early years member nation's ship, but that's almost certainly the extent of what we'll get.
If there's ever a module Q we'll have a historic pre-unification Star Fleet. I don't know how realistic a module Q is (I'd like to see it, but I might be near alone in that desire).
I would love a module Q but I fear it suffers from the same difficulty that long plagued 2nd generation X-ships: a lack of consensus on what approach to take.
Some people want a momentum based vector movement system. Others would prefer to expand on the old sub-light rules from Commander's Edition.
The movement system to use is the least of Module Q's problems. (While I am partial do a hex-based vector movement system I have seen used elsewhere, normal SFB movement is fine.) Problems with Module Q include:
- It is really a bunch of isolated settings. Most of the empires aren't really interacting with the other empires until the Early Years. Even though the western powers all find each other late in the era, each interaction is almost completely separate from each other. No real multi-state efforts happen until the Early Years.
- The big draw, the Federation, has only the Romulans to fight. They have no other enemies and didn't fight internally.
- The original Module Q just gave everyone missiles and lasers. While other sublight weapons were hinted at in the Y modules, just about every single weapon would have to be made fresh for this rules set. That's a LOT of effort. At least X2 already has the weapons rules present.
- Secondary systems go away. No transporters (thus no marine combat) and no tractors. A lot of tactical options are simply lost.
- What to do about fighters? Romulans apparently had them. Did the Feds and Gorns? Perhaps it becomes a fighter dominated era? (At least with the Eastern powers?) How about bombers? Other small craft? The presence or absence of fighters will greatly affect the very nature of how the setting works.
Anyway, I just fear that the limitations of the now well developed in-game history pretty much makes a potential Module Q a very hard sell. Who knew that a cooperative Federation would prove to be problematic and that some brutal early Federation civil wars would have been helpful to the game?
Inventing new weapons is probably the biggest challenge. I recall that was a big headache with the development of the ISC member states.
I’m not concerned about the loss of “secondary systems”. The appeal of the old sub-light game was its simplicity relative to the main game.
I think the setting is fine. Opponents for the Federation are limited but this was true in the Early Years as well. I think almost everyone else has at least two opponents in this era.
By my reckoning these are the conflicts in the Q era:
Y8 - Klingons vs Dunkar
Y10 - Klingons vs Vergarians
Y12 - Klingons vs Vergarian mutineers
Y30 - Gorn vs Paravians
Y36 - Gorn vs Romulans
Y38 - Klingons vs Lyrans
Y40 - Federation vs Romulans, also Lyrans vs Hydrans
Y45 - Orions join the Federation vs Romulans conflict
Y48 - Lyrans vs Kzinti
Y50 - Klingons vs Kzinti
Y56 - Lyrans vs Carnivons, also Kzinti vs Carnivons
Y62 - Gorn vs Romulans (this is the same year that the Fed get tactical warp, but the Gorn don't get it until Y66)
Y66 - Gorn vs Paravians (escalation of existing conflict, also the year Gorn get tactical warp)
This era of roughly 60-70 years has many conflicts. Few of them involve the Federation or the Hydrans.
Another thing to consider is that the galaxy is full of inhabited planets that do not possess warp power, and this is the last era when they matter in any way militarily. Going back to the old show, Eminiar and Vendikar were such planets (remember the two involved in a simulated nuclear war with each other), and so were Ekos (space Nazis) and Zeon, Ekos having gone so far as to develop a sublight war fleet.
Were a module Q to ever materialise, one approach to the lack of enemies that I think would be very cool would be to have a new empire called "primitives" and have their ships be similar to the C4 Barbarians. Their ships would be filled with option boxes, and be used to stand in for the fleets of minor nations. They would represent the sort of militarily relevant sublight fleets of one-system-minors that the various major space nations encountered and fought in this era that didn't make it into the greater timeline. If the Klingons conquered their neighbours, then their neighbours either had no warships, or they had primitive warships. Same for every imperial power.
One possible problem though are the Vulcans. If the YIS date of "1" for the YVC and YVD mean that those ships in those forms are what was flying around in Y1 (with tactical warp, phaser-1s, and special sensors), then a single Vulcan YVD would be able to destroy every sublight fleet by simply staying at range and blasting away with a ph-1. No atomic missile would ever get through that phasering, and if it somehow did the special sensors could just turn it off. Unless the YVC and YVD got some sort of revision, or the Q-era ships had some sort of plausible way to fight the Vulcans, then the entire Q era exists only at the whim of any given Vulcan captain.
Shawn:
From my recollection, the Vulcans were surprised at Humanity's development of Tactical warp, as they never saw any need to research that concept.
i.e., even the Vulcans didn't have Tactical warp until Y62, despite having warp for *may* years earlier than Y1.
The problem is with the Master Ship Chart. It apparently fails to distinguish between the (unpublished) NTW Vulcan ships and the Warp-Refitted versions and erroneously gives the YIS of the latter as "1".
Just to reiterate what Shawn shared in a different format:
Sub-Light Era Opponents:
In the West:
Lyrans vs Kzinti, Carnivons, Klingons, Hydrans
Kzinti vs. Lyrans, Carnivons, Kliingons
Klingons vs. Kzinti, Lyrans
Carnivons vs. Kzinti, Lyrans
Hydrans vs. Lyrans
The Hydrans fought a border war with the Klingons in Y66 but likely encountered them earlier (date of 1st contact is not given). Module Prime Alpha mentions that the Hydrans fought pre-tactical-warp Klingon, Lyran, and Hydran pirates.
In the East:
Romulans vs. Gorns, Terrans, Vulcans, Rigelians, Alpha-Centaurans, Andorians, Orions
Terrans, Vulcans, Rigelians, Alpha-Centaurans, Andorians vs. Romulans
Gorns vs. Romulans, Paravians
Orions vs. Romulans
Paravians vs. Gorns
I listed the Federation member states separately since there was no United Star Fleet in this period and the various member states used their own unique ships and weapons.
Douglas:
My $0.02CAD here:
Unless we get clarification from the game designers, we can *not* make the assumption that the MSC is in error.
Until otherwise clarified, the Vulcans had their early designs prior to Y62, but they were not capable of tactical warp until they either researched it themselves after seeing Terran designs, or obtained the technology from the Terrans themselves.
While it is fine for us to ask for clarifications from the Steves, it's not our place to make such rulings.
The Sequence of Play clarification:
From Annex #2
Quote:This Sequence of Play lists almost every action that can be taken during the turn, in the EXACT order that they occur. These actions must be taken in the SPECIFIC order listed here. Actions within a step are sequential in the order listed
unless noted otherwise, e.g., shuttles launch at the same time whether they are manned or seeking.
I've always read this as meaning that not only is the sequence on a paragraph by paragraph basis but also sentence by sentence in each paragraph. Thus in the shuttle launch example called out above:
Quote:Launch shuttlecraft (J1.5) [including fighters (J4.0), wild weasels (J3.0), suicide shuttles (J2.22), scatter-packs (FD7.0), and cloaked decoys (G27.3), all are simultaneous]. Launch fast patrol ships (K2.32).
All shuttle launches are simultaneous but, as I read it, fast patrol ships launch immediately after shuttles not simultaneously.
Evidence to counter this idea would be the text for All of Step 3 Self Destruction where the first sentence says ship goes kaboom and then evacuation commence.
Seems like a pointless ticky-tack question but I find myself in a position needing an answer for more than just academic wants.
So, paragraph by paragraph or sentence by sentence?
Mike Dowd:
I don't see how NTW and Warp-Refit versions of the same base hull could be described by the same line on the MSC (they would have different BPV and would have entered service in different years). The Romulan and Paravian NTW hulls are separate line items from their warp-refit counterparts in their own MSC entries.
Russ Simkins,
"Quote:
Launch shuttlecraft (J1.5) [including fighters (J4.0), wild weasels (J3.0), suicide shuttles (J2.22), scatter-packs (FD7.0), and cloaked decoys (G27.3), all are simultaneous]. Launch fast patrol ships (K2.32)."
..my SOP 6B8 annex #2 in Module R1, among other functions has,
Launch shuttlecraft (J1.5), fighters, fast patrol ships (K2.32), wild weasels (J3.0), suicide shuttles, scatter-packs (FD7.0), and cloaked decoys (G27.3). Involuntary release of tractor beams to allow wild weasel launch (J3.452) may be a part of this action.
Russ,
You'll have a better chance for a definitive answer by asking in the Rules Questions topic.
It is indeed sentence by sentence when speaking of individual, independent actions. The most current SOP to my knowledge is the one in Module G3 and which is also the one posted on the Play Aids section of the website - R1 is an older version. From the G3 Annex:
"Launch shuttlecraft (J1.5) [including fighters (J4.0), wild weasels (J3.0), suicide shuttles (J2.22), scatter-packs (FD7.0), and cloaked decoys
(G27.3), all are simultaneous]. Launch fast patrol
ships (K2.32)."
So PFs are indeed launched after all shuttles.
Keep in mind some sentances aren't individual, independent actions, but are essentially reminders/explanations of previous ones. For Step 3:
"Resolve self-destruction by units plotted to do so (D5.0). This may include evacuation under (D21.21) which may involve many functions such as dropping shields (on receiving ships as well as the self-destructing ships), shuttle launches, and ship separations (D21.4), etc. See also (D7.7) for the possibility that enemy marines on board could prevent self-destruction."
Basically "Resolve self-destruction by units plotted to do so (D5.0)," is the only individual independent event that happens - the rest of the text is a reminder that a lot of things can then happen as a part of the process of resolving self-destruction.
Alex:
Thank you for the confirmation. I am indeed working off the G3 Annex#2 (though the PDF downloaded from ADB) dated 4/13/09. Man was G3 that long ago? Time flies!
Mike:
Sorry, unintentional. Too much jumping around the topics and decided to ask when I was in the wrong one. Doh! For penance I shall stop breathing for one hour.
"Self destruct in 5... 4... 3..."
"Emergency transport in 5..."
Lol!
It would seem I need to get the latest G3 Annex SOP (I did not know it was changed from R1).
all good
Wayne: The SOP is available for download here.
Russ: No problem!
Douglas:
I don't see why they can't be the same ship. NTW can be achieved by Impulse power in "jumps", or that was the way that I had read it, with a maximum speed of about warp 2 point something-or-other over a distance, but were completely incapable of sustaining a low warp field useful for tactical combat.
It's *entirely* possible that the Vulcans could have done this prior to Y62, but never thought of it. Their ships were certainly much faster at high warp than NTW was at this time.
Ergo, you don't *need* a separate entry in the MSC for essentially the same ship. Vulcan doctrine was to slow to impulse to conduct battle, albeit with much higher power reserves and devastating phaser weaponry.
Good thing for the galaxy that they were pacifists and explorers...
Mike Dowd:
The SSD for a NTW ship would lack the warp engines that appear on the warp-refit version of the hull (since NTW is produced by the impulse engines). That usually makes a substantical difference in the number of internals as well as the BPV.
Also any NTW ship in operation before the invention of tactical warp would not have warp-targeted weapons. So even if Vulcan ships had phasers in Year 1 they would not be equivalent to the phasers in use after Y62.
As noted here, non-tactical warp engines in the SFU allow for a ship to "cruise" at Warp 5.5, or just over nine parsecs a day. The warp field produced is "stable" enough to allow for long-distance travel - except for the five "pre-ISC" species, whose NTW drives were unusually short-ranged and unreliable, thus effectively confining them to the "Resource Worlds" prior to their development of the first tactical warp engines.
Actually, the era of the Resource World wars might make for an interesting stand-alone setting someday.
Also, there is still a degree of "space warping" involved when NTW era ships fight in combat - hence their ability to fight at high fractions of c without suffering inconvenient time dilation effects.
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So far as "sublight" Vulcan ships go, one might look at the precedent set by their Romulan cousins: the "sublight" Warbird has its Impulse engines in the nacelles and a bank of APRs in the primary hull, whereas the warp-refitted War Eagle replaces the Impulse nacelles with "true" warp nacelles and replaces the APR deck with a larger Impulse deck. In any case, the Warbird's overall power curve is lower than that of the War Eagle.
Presumably an SSD for a NTW-era Vulcan ship would have to make similar adjustments, though as noted it would retain the use of phaser-1s and early special sensors.
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So far as "pocket empires" of the non-tactical warp era go, an example of this would be the Yeney: a Dunkar-like species noted in Prime Directive Federation and in Captain's Log #52.
The Yeney, located in Federation and Empire hex 3108, control their home system plus four other star systems, but have been prevented from expanding any further by the Federation. Still, no doubt there are "threat files" in the Academy simulators speculating on a "breakout" scenario involving this highly xenophobic species.
And then there are the Wasp People of Vereb IV (in F&E hex 2903), though they might be more of a W-era threat, depending on exactly how "primitive" their warp-powered starships are supposed to be...