Archive through October 25, 2023
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development:
Module C4R: Back to the Simulators:
MODULE C4R#:
Archive through October 25, 2023
It would seem that if you just took the ten simulator empires from C4 (the Britainians were done elsewhere of course) and compared them to the ships in R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12, and so forth, you could generate a gigantic list of "SSDs worth doing". My DSSDAA Mike West recently sent me this note:
"The simulator empires, on the other hand, are completely and totally wide open! Outside the Frax, who are relatively complete (though still missing a couple items), all of the other simulator empires are either basic (Qari, Triaxians, Sharkhunters) or completely uncovered (the rest). Without adding any empires at all, you could get at least three C4Rs (i.e. C4R1, C4R2, and C4R3) out of the missing ships. And none, not even the Frax, have published auxiliaries of any sort. They are absolutely wide open."
We might also want to check around and see what new ships for those empires were published in other locations than C4 itself and at least reference them in the eventual product(s).
We want to crowd-research a list of "missing" ships. For example, does every one of those 10 simulator empires have an HDW? A fast cruiser? A police flagship? A jumbo gunboat tender?
I would definitely be interested in the product, even as a PDF only without counters.
Battleships: Frax (C4), Barbarians (Captain's Log).
Dreadnoughts: All have them in C4 or P6. Only the Canadi'ens lack at this time.
Heavy Battlecruisers: Only Frax, Qari, Sharkhunter, Barbarian (C4).
Heavy Cruisers: All have them (C4 and P6).
War Cruisers: All have them (C4 and P6).
Light Cruisers: Most have war cruisers instead.
War Destroyers: All have them (C4 and P6).
Destroyers: Most have war destroyers instead.
Frigates: All have them (C4 and P6) except Hispanolians.
Police Ships: Only the Frax have them.
Tugs: Only the Frax have them, no pods. They also have an LTT. Some minor empires got DWTs in Module P6.
PFs: Frax, Qari, Triaxians only (C4).
Interceptors: No one has any.
Carriers and Fighters: Frax, Qari, Sharkhunter, Canadi'en (the later in the playtest section on website), Flivvers (Star Fleet Times). Some bombers were in Captain's Log.
Module P6 had many variants, some combined on one SSDs for most of the small empires.
Fast cruisers for the Frax, Qari, Sharkhunters and Triaxians were in Star Fleet Times
Some issues of Captain's Log had variants.
Heavy War Destroyers: No one has one.
New Heavy Cruisers: No one has one.
Police Flagships: No one has.
X-ships: Frax only (P6).
Early Ships: All got them in a Captain's Log.
Generic units: Battle Stations for Frax, Qari, Triaxians, and Sharkhunters were in a Captain's Log. There is conversion data for Frax (Captain's Log) and Canadi'en (website) generic units.
Star Fleet Times had Barbarian triple-engine CA and DD. The rest will need to be done, possibly along with 4-engine designs???
Note, soem empires only have CW and DW designs, and not CL and DDs. If C4 SSD book gets reprinted, might want to consider combining CW/CL and DW/DD SSDs by using shaded boxes.
For what it's worth, I would like to see pods specific to each empire rather than using ones from the real empires. Even if the Frax used ones based on Klingon pods but with Frax characteristics.
We really need empire-ship not ship-empires.
For example:
Heavy War Destroyers, empirees that need one: Frax, Britanian, Hispaniolan, Sharkhunter, Triaxian, Flivver, Deltans.
Personally, I'm more interested in those simulator empires which are closer to being "possible" (in the sense that someone could potentially build them in-universe) than those who veer more into "impossible" territory.
Of course, technically the Borak and Peladine fit into the former category, once their "historical" design trees are cut down by the Hydrans and Lyrans respectively...
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With that in mind, would it be an option to sub-divide the simulator empires into such categories?
As in: the Frax and the Barbarians are perhaps the least "impossible" simulator empires - axion torpedoes notwithstanding. While on the other hand, there are those with more exotic technologies, such as the Triaxians and Flivvers.
So if there were too many SSDs to print all at once in any event, perhaps a way to sub-divide them would be to go from on end of the plausibility scale to the other?
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Or, one could combbine the Frax material here with whatever the "friends of the Frax" have in store, and treat them as a stand-alone simulator product.
The biggest things the Frax are missing are their MY-era ships. They have a CW and DW. They don't have a CL or DD. Those would be interesting. But the Frax are the most represented of the empires. Which makes sense considering they are also the oldest and have been around for a lot longer than any of their compatriots.
The next most developed are the Qari and Triaxians, followed by the Sharkhunters. Only the Frax, Qari, and Triaxians have gunboats, and only those three plus the Sharkhunters have fighters. These empires have a decent foundation, but still need a load more to fill them out with what is missing. The others outside these four basically need everything.
The problem with a "plausibility" scale is that the Frax aren't really very "plausible" either, unless you toss the subs and probably AFD. Good luck on that sale. Honestly, the only one that is truly "plausible" are the Barbarians, and that's only because they use the technology of a single, existent empire. Everything else is, by design, loaded with gimmicks. Besides, isn't the whole point of the simulator empires the gimmicks? Shouldn't we lean into them, not minimize them? (I don't know. I am legitimately asking.)
I recommend starting with the Frax, Qari, and Triaxians because they are the most well-developed of the empires, then grow from there. (I exclude the Sharkhunters because they are so mono-maniacally focused on their one "trick" that they feel pointless if not fighting cloaked ships. And even then the cloaked ship can just not cloak and have a straight-up standard fight.)
After that, it's whatever people want to see. I hope for the Flivver, but that's probably just me.
SVC, I don't understand the example you provided. It follows what I did, but your statement above it seems contradictory. Did you want
Frax: Battleship, dreadnought, heavy battlecruiser, ....
For each empire instead?
Maybe the Frax didn't use CL and DD since the Klingons had no corresponding ships. Maybe they just did DN, CC, CA, FFL, FF, POL? Not that I'd mind seeing a CL and DD.
Empire by empire please, the ships we NEED not the ships already published. Although if a ship is in an odd place (Caplog or newsletter) it should be listed as a "grab this as you go by".
Possible unpopular opinion...
Why are these simulator empires around? (Hear me out, I'm not being flippant and shaking my cane at the whippersnappers on my lawn) Perhaps I should restate this...
WHAT LESSONS DO THESE EMPIRES TEACH?
Since every Sim Empire other than the Frax is far from fleshed out, they have a certain style and lend themselves to certain tactics. So it seems (at least to me) that these certain tactics they lend themselves to are the lessons. Either in learning to face or learning to defeat them.
Perhaps If the goal of the simulation is to TEACH SOMETHING that has nothing at all to do with fighters, the Sim Empire probably doesn't need carriers. If the Sim Empire doesn't teach dealing with Pirates, then they probably don't need police ships... See where I'm going?
Here is the crux of my possibly unpopular opinion, Rather than creating a bunch of ships for these Sim Empires, show us what they teach.
All that said....
Mike West: Is there a canonical "creation" date for the introduction of the Frax as a school opponent in the Sims? Because if they were introduced in say Y165, do they really need to have designs for the MY-era? (and I'm going to carefully step around the confusion of reading that as all-caps-possessive rather than Middle Years thank you very much)
This question along with the "What do they teach us" questions might go a long way to shoring up the weak spots in the Simulated TO&E.
They are here to satisfy the demand for new empires without wrecking the balance of F&E and history of the game. Being simulators, they can do weird things to make them more interesting. They get carriers and fighters and X-ships and all that other stuff so players can use them as empires in campaigns.
Jeff Guthridge, bottom line they are fun. Also a lot of people use them in alternate timeline campaigns and settings beyond just SFB.
I am currently playing the Qari in A Campaign and there are a lot of need classes missing from all the almost all the Sims to make them viable empires.
Jeff: I don't remember if a specific date was ever picked, but given that they canonically have EY ships the answer is most likely, "When they opened the DSF academy."
Nick: The reason I assume there should be a CL and DD is because the designs of the CW and DW are purely tuned to the GW; they don't really work in the MY. There should also likely even be an "unrefitted" CA to go with them. Note that this doesn't mean it has to be a CL and a DD. It could be just a super-DD (like the Feds) or a weak CL or whatever. It's just that the mainline Frax fleet is tuned to the GW level of effectiveness. There should be something scaled down to match MY ships.
Considering I've been toying with my own ideas for a Sim Empire (please don't cringe too hard, I'm only breaking about six items on the insta-reject list) I can appreciate the desire for playing outside of the usual.
I fear I don't know enough about C4 (other than aside from the Frax who seem to have gotten the Lion's share of creative energies spent on them) to offer much on where designs might be missing.
Note, the Frax have a CA based SR I forgot to list.
Nick, we need a list of the ships they NEED not the ships they HAVE.
SVC: Oops. But how do you want that defined? Base hulls only, or every variant? For the latter, do you want EVERY possible variant that's missing? How far do we take it, frigate variants as well if they have corresponding CW/CL and DW/DD variant? Heavy command cruisers?
SVC how is this?
FRAX (Missing):
Base Hull: NCA, HDW, HCW, Heavy POL.
Leaders: CCH, NCC.
Fast: BBL, CW, NCA.
Carriers: BBV, SDS, CVD, ACS, DCS, NCA, CW-scout carrier, FF, POL.
Escorts: NCA.
Commando: NCA, FF.
Minesweeper: FF.
Scouts: NCA, FF.
PF Tenders: NCA, DW.
Transports: NCA, DW, FF, Pods.
Police Flagship.
Stasis: DN, BCH, CA, NCA.
Maulers: CA, NCA.
Drone: CA, NCA.
Torpedo Variants: CW.
Submarines: DN.
Generics: Starbase, Base Station, Monitor, Def Sat?, Ground Bases?
Interceptors.
I did not include X-ships or Early Years Ships.
You can ask Mike if he wants X-ships and Y-ships but I think just noting that the empire in question has none will be enough for now.
Can you define the posts you did incorrectly so I can delete them and declutter the topic?
It occurred to me that I did a series of simulators based on WWII bombers. I think they got published somewhere. They should be added to C4R.
DESIRED ships...
FRAX "Diagonal Turret" warships, like the U.S.S. Maine (whose mysterious explosion led to the Spanish/American War)
Qari ships based on tanks like the US M3 Lee/Grant Medium Tanks, with a fixed arc main gun and smaller secondary gun in a 360 turret
EighthAirForce "Escort Fighters;" P-38, P-47, P-51, all with all of their firepower in FA, but boy what a load!
(Eight Ph-1 for a P-47? Four Ph-1 plus a Ph-M for the P-38?)
Sharkhunter Bombthrower Escorts
These are a few off the top of my head. With your permission, I'd like to suggest more, once I get my straitjacket off... 
SVC, the following can be deleted:
October 24, 2023 - 02:06 pm
October 24, 2023 - 09:45 pm
October 24, 2023 - 10:12 pm
The Bomber empire was the 8th Air Force from Stellar Shadows Journal #1.