Please don't ask where this screwball idea came from, BUT...

As we all know, the Romulan War Eagle can reach no faster than a speed of 21. One shock of the King Eagle is its full (fifteen box) Warp engines.

This has triggered an evil thought in my (alleged) mind.

WHAT IF the Romulans were to equip a modified version of the War Eagle (or King Eagle) with "Fast Warship" type Warp engines?

I know that this does goes against the normal "Fast Warship" conversions, but I'm actually not thinking of this as a "Real Warship;" I'm thinking about it as an exercise vessel in Gorn simulators.

The reason for this is because of the standard practice of reducing the "Heavy Weapons" load-out for Fast Warships; IMO, it just doesn't fit the Romulan Warbird/War Eagle to reduce the Plasma-R.

HOWEVER, Gorn simulators have an option; the Plasma-A; in "Short Range" mode, it has nearly the same hitting power as a Plasma-R at point blank ranges, and in "Long Range" mode, it comes close to the same ability at extreme ranges as the "Raunchy."

Basically, what I'm proposing is taking the Warp engines on a War Eagle, expanding them to eighteen boxes each, and "Reducing" the Plasma-R to a Plasma-A.

All other factors (except BPV) would remain the same. Same phasers, same turn mode, same breakdown, same T-bombs, same NSM, same crew, same Boarding Parties, same, same, same.

This ship would exist solely in Gorn simulators.

Does this sound like it might be interesting to anyone, or do you think it's just a waste of ADB time?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 07:35 pm: Edit

For comparison's sake, the Romulan FastHawk retains the pair of plasma-S torpedoes from the "base" FireHawk; while the Fast SparrowHawk retains the plasma-S torpedo from the "base" SaprrowHawk. In both cases, the "side" plasma-F torpedo mounts are removed and replaced with phaser-1s.

In the case of a would-be "fast" Eagle-series hull - which might be viable in one or more of the "Shadow of the Eagle" timelines from Module R4J, perhaps - I would suggest starting with the Queen War Eagle (R4J.41) or the Queen Storm Eagle (R4J.43).

In both cases, the simplest route might be to replace the 15-box warp engines with 18-box "fast" engines - and, while doing so, to swap out the engine-mounted plasma-Fs with phaser-1s. As with the case of the FastHawk, the "central" plasma mounts - the lone type-R mount from the Queen War Eagle, or the pair of type-S mounts from the Queen Storm Eagle - would be retained.

However, since these are quite old hulls being talked about, it might be necessary from an "engineering" perspective to go one step further; namely, by also reducing the "central" plasma armament from the Queen Storm Eagle to a single type-S mount, and/or swapping in a pair of FA phaser-1 mounts instead.

Or, to borrow a leaf from the King Eagle-X setup from Module X1: perhaps a "fast" Eagle series hull "loses" the space taken up by the second plasma-S torpedo on the base hull (so no FA phaser-1s can be swapped in), but instead gets a second RA phaser-2 on the back of each "fast" nacelle? That might show a bit more design continuity with what is already in print, in terms of where the base hull is eventually capable of going design-wise.

So, that might be a "fast" ship with a single plasma-S and four phaser-1s on the central hull, plus a forward-mounted phaser-1 and a pair of aft-facing phaser-3s on each nacelle. How does that sound?

Whichever option is taken, I would sooner stick with "historical" plasma warhead options, if only to make it easier for the "R4J" timelines to make use of such a hull design.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Taking a King (or Queen) Eagle, enlarging the engines, and replacing the Plasma-F with Ph-1s is reasonable and follows established patterns. It also retains the Plasma-R; the reason for the base ship.

There is one thing that popped up in my (alleged) mind shortly after I mumbled the first post; cloaking costs. With the enlarged warp engines, it cloak cost under warp has GOT to be magnified. Pulling a number out of an orifice, how does a Cloak Cost of 20/4 sound?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 10:08 pm: Edit

(Oh, and not that it's important at all, but with so much history already present for The Game, I do feel a touch awkward with trying to present a new, "Real" ship for it; it feels to me like I'm trying to "Change" well established history. That's the main reason why I wanted to present the design as nothing more than something out of a simulator, and the Plasma-A torpedo, as something from Gorn simulators, seemed... No, FELT like a good "Fig Leaf" in that regard. )

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, February 06, 2025 - 10:55 am: Edit

Yeah, I don't think it would be possible to upgrade a War Eagle hull to make it a fast ship. The original hull is a SUBLIGHT design! Real fast warships are designed specifically to make the warp bubble have reduced "warp drag", which was simply not an issue with the original ship. So this thing is going to be a simulator ship, I think. Other than that, I think that a fast Eagle is an interesting idea.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, February 06, 2025 - 02:37 pm: Edit

For comparison's sake, the King Eagle-X has a cloak cost of 18/4. But then, at the time I typed up my last post in this topic, I had been under the impression that it had 20-box warp engines; it actually has 18-box warp engines, so that was an oversight on my part.

With this in mind, I would sooner scale the "fast warp" engines here down to either 16-box or 17-box types.

But, since both the King (and Queen) Eagle(s) and the King Eagle-X tend to set their respective cloak costs at one-half of their total warp engine outputs, I would suggest the cloak cost here be set to either 16/4 (if 16-box nacelles are used) or 17/4 (should 17-box nacelles be used instead).

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In terms of engineering constraints, one could argue that, since it is possible to develop a first-generation X-ship version of this hull type, it might not be entirely out of the bounds of possibility for there to have been an interim "fast" design.

That said, I agree that it should be campaign conjectural in the "historical" timeline - but I would still ask for it to be considered for use in one or more of the "Shadow of the Eagle" timelines supported by Module R4J.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 02:03 pm: Edit

I don't see why there couldn't be a version of the Queen Eagle that has 18 box engines and replaces the Pl-F with Ph-1s. I might say that it should be based on the Queen Storm Eagle, instead. Or do both, I dunno. Nothing seems out of line for such a ship.

I really don't see them doing it to a King Eagle, though. There just isn't enough of them, and the need for them is just too great.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 11:12 pm: Edit

(Methinks I'm starting to see why nobody's proposed this idea before. Cloaking device, "Fast" ship, Plasma-R... This thing will be the bane of the mobile base based logistics network that either the Feds or the Gorn would ever hope to have supporting operations in Romulan space.

(Still, I am glad that we've discussed the idea... )

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, February 08, 2025 - 11:31 am: Edit

Keep in mind that the Romulans already have a "fast" cruiser with a cloaking device and two plasma-S torpedoes historically, in the form of the FastHawk.

Indeed, it would likely be a fairly plausible option engineering-wise to modify a FastHawk into a "Fast RegalHawk", which replaces the pair of S-torps with a single R-torp...

On a side note: given the reduction in disruptor bolt mount space on the "fast" nacelles of the Klingon FD7 relative to those of the "standard" D7, might a would-be "FK7" be obliged to lose the K7R's plasma-F torps only, or to lose the larger S-torp mounts instead?

In any case, I would not see the retention of a single R-torp (or pair of S-torps) on a "fast" version of the Queen War Eagle (or Queen Storm Eagle) to be too much of a deal-breaker, at least not when compared to what the Romulans already get out of their "fast" hulls historically-speaking.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, February 15, 2025 - 01:01 am: Edit

I don't see a Fast QWE or Fast QSTE being out of line. They would be nightmarishly fast, though! The change is blatantly obvious (being just add warp boxes and swap Pl-F -> Ph-1s). Since I'm playing with the other random Romulan ideas, I'm hitting these, too.

I'm looking at the idea of a Kestrel FD7. I would think it has to retain the Pl-S as it is a D7 variant, not a D6 variant. (A D6 variant would be stuck with a pair of Pl-F.) Again, this change is blatantly obvious, just like the two ships above and would be a direct conversion of the FD7 with Pl-S in place of the disruptors.