Archive through July 25, 2023
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: Rules Questions:
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Archive through July 25, 2023
no worries
The Badminton People of Zipzop IV is as good a place holder as anything else. The BPoZ IV ( read the B pause 4) kind of says it all, the reason there Be a Pause for the deployment of the D3's on the Kzinti front.
Also I would think the delay in TW drones would be an explanation of the F rack in Klingon shuttle bays, to allow them to deploy a weapon they thought was tactically irrelevant in the TW era, but could still be used against NTW units. Until a couple of years later someone develops a TW version and they are now stuck with ships not originally designed to use the TW drone
But I agree with you the it does have serious implications on the functioning of the earliest TW ships.
As for the Kzinti, I would suppose they knew about the D3's deployment and rushed their TW ships into production again with NTW drones, to have something on the border that could at least face the potential new threat even if they would not want to provoke anything since they would only have NTW drones until the following year, and their offensive capability was extremely limited until the TW drones appear. Which is unfortunate for BPoZ IV since without the distraction of the Kzinti war heating up they could not resist the Klingons. Geez this almost writes itself :D
Gents, let's not forget that the Y63 D3s have shuttles instead of a launching system. Late Y64 would see the first F-racks in place of those shuttles.
The Kzinti might have had a 'to be installed later' for their YCSs in order not to delay their deployments (or it was delayed until late Y64).
Stewart:
Is this the same extrapolation made above, or do you have a citation that specifically clarifies that the SSD printed in Y1 has the drone rack replaced with shuttles prior to Y65?
How common are the FedEx courier boats? Roughly how many were in service by Y170?? A few dozen, or a couple hundred??
Garth L Getgen
Undefined, but not many can be used by F&E players.
I remember decades ago someone said "We're playing that campaign in the rulebook. How many freighters do I have?"
The answer was...
"You HAVE 20,000. You get to use about a dozen. The rest cannot be used without causing penalties not defined in the rulebook. They don't have to be defined because the definition is that you'd lose the war when your economy collapsed."
Are FedEx even in F&E?? I didn't think they were, just "assumed in the background".
Garth L. Getgen
The FDX is the FedEx boats. You get a couple to start the game with. Speed 8.
Funny, I could have sworn there was an article in GURPS prime Directive, Federation Source book.
But I guess if no one remembers it…
The technology timeline (Y1, pg 4) states that Y65 was the first year drones were used in combat. Module Y1, p12, (YFD1.0) states "first used by the Kzintis and Klingons in Y65." This should be amended to state first used in combat or you infer that Y65 is the in service date.
A number of the ship descriptions in the various Y-modules state that atomic missiles were used through certain dates but this would not help with the general question of what is the in service date for drones.
I do not see the contradiction.
The contradiction produces this question, 2 years before the first drones, what was in the D3's drone rack?
Nuclear Missiles.
One thing I remember about the Drone Racks in the D6 and D7 was that they were once a part of a shuttle bay; indeed the Type-F Drone Racks were built for giving ships that capability.
Is it possible that the Drone Racks in the D3 weren't original equipment, and that they originally operated with four Y-ADMIN?
Ooh! Stupid thought just hit me! Early Klingon refit exchanges the extra shuttles for the Drone Racks shown on the SSD!!
(Yes, Corporal, I'm on my way back to The Booth...
)
By first used means that would be the date in service for drones, while first used in combat leaves the date in service for drones at a date prior to Y65.
The Klingons were at war with the Kzinti during that whole period. It makes no sense to have the newest superweapon deployed for years before they were used. By both sides.
To fix this poblem either the YIS dates of the earliest Klingon and Kzinti ships needs to be made later, a note needs to be added somewhere explaining what they had intead of drones, drone racks need to be a refit for Y65, or the Y65 drone note in the timeline needs a single qualifier like "widespread" added to it.
Or some other fix.
My personal preference is for a single qualifier like "widespread" added to the Y65 drone note in the timeline.
Shawn Gordon I would hardly call these speed 8 Drones superweapons.
Prior to Y165 they were still experimenting with how they work or maybe just considered a planetary bombardment weapon. It really isn't till the Kzinti start using them in mass that they might be considered a serious weapon system.
They are literally the only heavy weapon system of the Kzinti fleet in the W era. The equivalent would be the Feds developing and deploying the photon torpedo, making it the primary heavy armament of their capital ships, and then just not using it in the middle of a war for years until their opponents reached parity for no discernible reason.
Shawn Gordon
What about the phaser-1 as a heavy weapon?
Phaser-1 are only on bases in the Early Years so I think it would have to be a phaser-2. But is a P-2 really viable in the same location as the drone racks? What would the firing arcs be?
This discussion is getting a bit silly if we're bringing in phaser-2s. Phasers are very powerful if all you're used to are lasers, sure. This does nothing to explain why there are drone racks on ships before there are drones. It doesn't make sense, and phasers don't make it make sense.
The contradiction involves three facts:
1) Drones, according to the timeline are first used in Y65. The timeline date is confirmed in the section on drone availability, which states that type I drones became available in Y65.
2) Drones, according to the SSDs are first deployed on Klingon ships in Y63, and Kzinti ships in Y64. They have these in their respective YIS dates on their SSDs, so they are not Y65 refits replacing shuttles or any other such thing. It is also well-established that atomic missiles are not launched from drone racks, nor are drones launched from atomic missile racks, so they don't launch atomic missiles prior to Y65.
3) The Klingons and the Kzinti were at war in this period, and so deploying drones one or two years before their use is not a valid explanation for why the years don't line up. These were, for the era, wonder weapons.
I feel as though this discussion is following a pattern. Someone (usually me) points to these three facts, and then someone new comes in and takes one of the facts on their own and explains it in a way that doesn't satisfy the other two facts. Then the three facts are repeated to show how that answer is not adequate. Repeat.
I am perfectly willing to accept that there is no reason for this contradiction other than that the early years system wasn't designed with Y63 in mind. That's fine. It even says in the module Y1 early years preamble that the rules set was designed to let you play starting in Y80, but with some adaptation you could play as early as Y67. Strictly read, my question is outside the scope of the game anyway.
This is a problem affecting precisely zero players, and so has sucked up more brain power than it's worth. I'm happy just dropping it for now if everyone else is.
The only reason I even brought it up in the first place is that I am working on an unsolicited submission for module Q, and so for me (and only me) the specifics of the early technological progression timeline are very important. I will just proceed as though the SSDs are correct, and in the event that I finish the project, and the stars align in such a way that ADB likes what I've come up with and decides to move it to playtest or whatever step comes after liking a submission, ironing out this specific wrinkle will be up to somebody else, assuming it even still looks like a problem to anybody at that point.
Thank you everyone for humouring me and my question thus far, there is no need to worry about it more than we already have.
Heh. Module Q. Your big problem is not drones. Your big problem is that Vulcans have Ph-1s and Special Sensors in Y1. Have fun with that.
The fact that I am worried about minutiae like the dawn of drone technology and not Vulcans in Y1 with phaser-1s should serve as an indicator as to how far along I am.
Vulcans downgraded to phaser-2 in sublight era.
One other thing, prototypes can be available up to 2 years early (Y64 for the Kzinti and Y63-Y64 for the Klingons). Generally, there are one or two prototypes before general production, but early drone racks may be an exception to this.
Two, the Klingon drone racks are jump (F) racks which replaced shuttles (FD3.6) in the bay [and why chain-reactions (D12) include active drone racks on Klingon ships] ...