Utility cruiser

Background:
The General War was ended by the economic exhaustion of the participants, without resolving any of its causes. Another war seemed inevitable. Whoever rebuilt their economy first would gain a significant advantage, but the war cruisers and war destroyers that made up most of the modern fleets were not designed for this role.

Several empires modified war their cruisers to be more like their pre-war cruisers. Non-combat equipment was added. The warp engines were modified for greater range and efficiency, at the expense of speed.

The first conversions occurred in the last years of the General War, when it was clear the war was coming to an end. Most were made during the relative peace of the ISC Conquest. As the Andromedan Invasion plunged the Alpha Octant back into full-scale war, they largely ceased.

Proposal:
Start with a CW
Increase MC to 3/4
Increase hull, possibly to NCA levels
Add extra boxes similar to NCA, but add Lab/Shuttle/Tractor/Transporter, no extra weapons or power. Increase systems to a level similar to that empires CA
YIS Y184 or Y185

Notes:
Honestly, the MC increase is there to stop the ship simply being a 'better' CW with all the abilities of a CW and taking damage better because it has more internals. A higher MC provides a balance factor to make the ships fly differently, not just more easily.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 12:22 pm: Edit

As I read your proposal a couple of things come to mind.

Where does the extra space come from to add the new boxes? Is there some kind of add on module that is connected to the base CW? Where does it connect? So, for example, would it be something like:

1. Klingon D5: Add "long range" collar?

2. Lyran CW: Add a "long range" pack similar to a power pack?

3. Romulan SP: Add "long range" modules replacing the standard A modules?

Or would these proposed long range packs be a different type of connection altogether?Would they be compatible with CW variants like carriers and scouts?

--Mike

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 01:27 pm: Edit

With all due respect to J Cochran, this sounds like a solution looking for a problem. At the point in time suggested the X ships are in the scanner darkly as well as most fleets are playing with gunboat designs in some fashion (even if they won’t be deployed for a few years yet).

There will be a glut of new things and a shortage of designer’s hours in the R&D bases to try and design a way to make a war-time budget cruiser modification process to convert the design into one with a 30 year service life. I’d think the powers that be better off looking at restarting the production lines for post-refit, pre-war full cruiser designs.

Worse, the ideas for building such ships wouldn’t begin until it was plain the General War had stalled out to a stalemate anyway.

I’ll defer to more researched arguments, but I just don’t see the utility of resources going into designing a stopgap when the skullsweat is being spent on bigger ticket items.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 01:40 pm: Edit

I thought there was a reference somewhere to a lot of surplus warships being demilitarized and sold on the civilian market. Rebuilding the economy sounds like a job for civilians, not the military.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 02:03 pm: Edit

I think it depends upon how the proposal is positioned. My sense is it might make most sense as a stopgap measure where relatively small numbers of CWs were converted to this "long range" design to help adapt the post-GW fleets to the re-emerging needs for "regular" warships.

So then the conversions might be too expensive to do broadly, and would be more of a niche. And it adds to the SFB flavor pile of odd ships that seemed like a good idea but didn't really work out for whatever reason.

--Mike

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 03:21 pm: Edit

Sadly, my thoughts are that, as a "Cost Cutting" mechanism (due to the economic exhaustion brought on by wartime spending), most War Cruisers would be mothballed, if not outright scrapped.

During the General War, construction of many/most pre-war designs was slowed down, but they never stopped; this is shown by how many of the X-ships are based on pre-war designs. Given the existence of these ships, the potentially expensive conversion might not seem all that worthwhile.

Meanwhile, there're also the NCA type designs. Some (notably Federation, Klingon, and Gorn) can be converted from CWs; others less easily.

Between expected drawdowns and the options for other ships to fill the role, I honestly wouldn't expect many of these designs to go anywhere past the proposal stages within their respective governments.

That being said, there are elements of the concept that I think have a great deal of potential, and IMO, this idea ought to be looked at.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 03:26 pm: Edit

The CW/DW itself isn't designed for long term use. Rules already exist to build a war cruiser "not-cheaply" so you can convert it to X-tech and that's all you'd be doing (and that takes new construction, no way to modify an existing ship).

Adding mass means adding hull volume which means you're building an NCA that is already in the game.

By Jeffrey Noel Cochran (Jncochran) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 08:54 pm: Edit

OK, my proposal is going nowhere, but I want to explain my reasoning better, and clear up some misunderstandings. I obviously needed a better background.

OP
“…be more like their pre-war cruisers…modified for greater range and efficiency…”

This wasn’t meant to indicate they were changed to the long lasting construction standard of the pre-war ships. Sorry for the confusion.

Mike E:
“Where does the extra space come from to add the new boxes?”

Many variants have more boxes than the base hull, so I hoped this wouldn’t be an issue (depending on how many boxes were added, of course) if the MC increased.
Steve C says otherwise. OK. C’est la Guerre.

Jeff A
“…most War Cruisers would be mothballed, if not outright scrapped…”

Scrapping old CW occurred to me, but I assume CW production continued right up until peace, and scrapping brand new ship seems like a bad idea. I can think of IRL examples of wastes of money, though.

I didn’t think of mothballing. It's so obvious now you've pointed it out. Facepalm.

By Jeffrey Noel Cochran (Jncochran) on Friday, September 30, 2022 - 09:02 pm: Edit

FYI, Mike's suggestions are different than mine, which was changing the base hull. Are they worth further discussion?

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, October 01, 2022 - 11:35 am: Edit

I would SUGGEST building a LTT or DWTug to prewar quality standards. Then having a dedicated pod it would tote around for all those "utility missions." So some hull, labs, etc. Or, building a HDW to prewar standards.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, October 01, 2022 - 01:51 pm: Edit

DWTs cannot operate pods except as cargo.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, October 02, 2022 - 12:13 am: Edit

To look at things from another direction, consider the conversion of surplus gunboats into workboats for sale on the civilian market - which, among other things, includes removing access to warp booster packs. Plus there's the sale of survey PFs to civilian agencies (with their phaser-1s downgraded to phaser-2s, for those Alpha Octant empires which have phaser-1s on their PFQs in the first instance).

Perhaps some of the surplus "war" hulls might be similarly converted into "workships"? Say, with an internal layout similar to, yet not quite the same as, a military transport variant - but without the ability to carry pods.

For as long as the hulls hold up, they could be used to carry cargo, to help prospect for new resources, and so on and so forth - and when their time is up, they could be lowered to a planetary surface for use as colonial platforms.

These would not necessarily be intended as a long-term alternative to civilian ships the way the workboat is to the skiff. But with a post-war boom in uncovering, extracting, and transporting the rare minerals needed to make advanced technology function, perhaps there might be a brief window for such "workships" to make their mark.