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	Archive through June 12, 2024	25		06/14 11:01am

Actually, Terry, I hadn't thought of Axion gunboats.

HOWEVER, since you bring it up, I've now pictured one.

Axion torpedo...

Waitaminit...

Mike? You're already looking at ideas, and mine have historically been awfully stupid, so I think I'll shut up now...

(Grin )

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, June 13, 2024 - 01:54 pm: Edit

Interceptors (surface and/or sub) aside, I was also wondering:

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Is the Frax HDW which has been drawn up to date a "surface" design? If so, might there be scope for a "submarine heavy destroyer" SSD also?

It would be interesting to consider which "HDW" missions might be best served with a "surface" design, and which would be more viable for a "submarine" counterpart...

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Also, to what extent does the current crop of work-in-progress Frax SSDs account for use in the Middle Years?

The other thread spoke of there being scope for a would-be DNE, CL, and DD; as well as less powerful "CA-" and "FF-" iterations of those respective hulls.

Has this been followed through in the current crop of SSDs - and, if so, to what extent?

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Speaking of the Middle Years, should any or all of the submarine SSDs (both new and old) have their year in service dates adjusted?

Historically, the Romulan mask and veil could not be used by ships equipped with tactical warp drives. While the later cloak could, it's doubtful that the Klingons would have gained much in the way of viable data on this system - to include whether or not a warp-capable ship can use it or not - prior to the Treaty of Smarba.

Although the concept of a ship with "stealth" coating was already known to the Klingons, courtesy of the Orion Pirates. And, I suppose, the Orions might have been observed operating a cloak in Klingon space at some point pre-Smarba.

And there are the revised veil and cloak YIS dates (and capabilities, for the veil at least) over in the Shadow of the Eagle timelines in Module R4J.

So, I was wondering:

For "historical" Frax, should their subs be impulse-powered-only until, say, Y160? And should the veil and/or cloak have their YIS introduction dates for the Frax be set, say, five or ten years after the advent of each technology in historical Romulan use?

Alternatively, might pre-Y160 Frax subs have no veil or cloak prior to Y160, and merely have the "stealth" coating?

For R4J timelines: might there be a set of parallel veil and cloak refits for "Middle Years" Frax subs - once again, perhaps a few years behind the first Romulan use of each technology?

And finally (for now): just as there might need to be some more Middle Years-compliant Frax "surface' ships, could the same also be true for Frax subs - warp or no warp?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, June 14, 2024 - 01:02 am: Edit

Middle Years designs have NOT been addressed at all. The effort is purely GW focused. Fortunately for me, the base hulls I have focused on are all late-GW for the most part.

The problem is that properly addressing the Middle Years would require completely reassessing the base hull designs to make them less anachronistic for the Middle Years. This would require adjusting current YIS dates to allow for the "older" designs to be introduced. Doing this would require more Petrick time and that is an extremely scarce resource. As such, I haven't even tried to approach that.

The HDW I created is a surface ship. It honestly didn't even occur to me to make a submarine one. But, there really isn't a reason it can't exist. That said, I'd have to see if the "HDW formula" could be applied to the submarine DD. I don't know; I'll have to look to find out.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, June 14, 2024 - 09:50 am: Edit

Last night, I thought a bit about FRAX subs while (trying to) drift off to sleep. One in particular stood out; the SCL (the one with the comment about "Slugging it out on the surface).

Armed with Disruptors, it's a good, flexible ship, but as with so much in the simulators, it got me thinking about the combination of Photon Torpedoes and the Cloaking Device.

Mike, have you done anything about having training in dealing with the higher shock Phots on any subs?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, June 14, 2024 - 11:01 am: Edit

If I recall correctly (and apologies in advance if this was not so), one of the provisional SSD listings offered during the development of Module C6 focused almost exclusively on General War-era ship types.

Fortunately, by the time the "final" list was locked in, the Middle Years era was more thoroughly represented - which, in my view, makes C6 a much more "complete" product. Although there might yet be room for a would-be Carnivon DNE as part of a potential follow-on module.

Similarly, both Module E3 and Module E4 offer playtest Middle Years ships for the Borak and Peladine respectively; while Module R4J makes a point of offering detailed SSD and MSC data for the Middle Years "Shadow of the Eagle" Romulan fleets outlined in that volume.

With those precedents in mind, I would favour seeing that same principle apply here: for what (little) it's worth, I would rather see the time and care be taken here, so as to integrate Middle Years Frax, Barbarians, and other simulator fleets organically with their General War-era counterparts, rather than go through all the trouble of offering a bunch of new SSDs now, only to later have to invent a would-be "Module C4M" to add in the Middle Years data at some point thereafter.

Of course, if ADB end up viewing things differently, fair enough.

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I suspect that any subs armed with photon torpedoes (or other non-Klingon weapons) might have to wait for the "friends of the Frax" concept to be further developed.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, June 14, 2024 - 05:06 pm: Edit

(bangs head on cinderblock pile)

You're right, Nerroth. Ah should'a remembered dat...

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, June 15, 2024 - 12:12 am: Edit

Again, the problem with doing Middle Years for the Frax is that it would take a non-trivial investment of Petrick time. Making the HDW, NCA (and variants), and various odd carriers requires Petrick time, but just to validate the designs and make sure they are acceptable. Doing Middle Years requires revisiting all of the base designs, figure out when drones are actually added, which racks when, figuring out if other design changes are needed, determining the revisited YIS date, the making sure the result is a cohesive whole. I mean I can make stuff up, but it would still all need to be validated, as it is changing existing stuff, it just adding things on top.

Plus, does anyone buying this stuff actually care about the Middle Years? I honestly have no idea if anyone but a few of us on the boards even cares about it.