The name alone got me thinking (uh-oh
); what exactly would classify as a possible, "Utility Cruiser?" Immediately, my mind (?) went to a version of a CW, enlarged to NCA size, with the extra space being used for the same systems used to enlarge a DW to HDW size.
With that thought in mind, I went through all the prospects for the class and came up with a list of criteria for such a conversion.
Among these are...
... The Canon NCA has to have a major firepower upgrade over the CW it's based on. This is for "Storytelling" purposes; if these ships are to have an improvement over the NCAs in one area (namely conversion flexibility), there has to be a balancing cost to make up for it (namely these "Utility Cruisers" had to have something, and I chose raw combat capability, where they're outclassed by the NCAs that were obviously built instead).
... The CW to NCA conversion had to be something fairly easily done WITHOUT major rebuild/internal changes. This is because of some reticence of having this sort of "Improvement" with a ship that (as stated in the previous paragraph) doesn't see much of a firepower improvement.
With these two parameters, the only candidates that came to mind were Gorn and Lyrans. Given that the Lyrans already have a variant of the Panther with HDW type systems, I chose to go with the idea of this being solely a Gorn project.
As far as the ship herself goes, it's SSD will probably be a fairly simple conversion from the Canon HDD. It has a rear bubble with the additional systems (four APR*, four NWO, and two OPT boxes) and the same WARP engines as the CM/CS. It'd also have the Movement Cost, Turn Mode, and Breakdown Rating of the CM/CS.
Shuttles remain at four in two bays, with the shuttles able to be tranfered between them normally, but the NWO/OPT/APR* in the rear hull can be converted into a third bay that can't transfer with either of the other two bays, if desired.
(Between us, with the Emergency Carrier, using this ship as a carrier would be a bit more awkward, but it ought to be a bit faster?)
The shuttles would have the OPTION of being two ADMIN and two GAS, OR, given that it was partially inspired by the HDW, perhaps two G-12, one ADMIN and one GAS.
Anyhootch, the "Class History" that I've been mulling for a couple hours is that, when the Gorn first did a conversion of an HDD to CM, the rather tight-fisted Confederation BuShips also pushed through a (slightly) less comprehensive conversion of an HDD which, with the flexibility of the internal systems, MIGHT just enable the Gorn to match the tremendous flexibility of the Romulan Sparrowhawk. While the ship never lived up to that potential, the prototype(s?) saw yeoman service in a variety of roles.
Again, this whole idea was inspired by the suggestion from JNC, so I would like to give him equal credit/blame for the idea.
What do you all think of the idea? Does this have any merit, or have I taken one too many skillets to the cocoanut?