Hello everyone!

Thanks to SVC for setting this thread up.

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In recent years, as a given Alpha Octant empire has been placed under the microscope as part of the ongoing Master Starship Book project, this has led to new SSDs and new data points for each empire in turn.

A good example of this is with Module R4T, which emerged alongside - and which, in turn, informed the "final" release of - the Tholian Master Starship Book.

Beyond this, the likes of Module C6 and Module R4J have opened new doors of their own: be it for the "lost empire" Paravians and Carnivons on the one hand, or for the "Shadow of the Eagle" Romulans on the other.

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So, with talk of there being an ISC Master Starship Book on the horizon elsewhere on the BBS, I wanted to use this thread to try and determine how many "new" SSDs, and/or new data points, might one day be added, beyond those which exist in print for the Inter-Stellar Concordium to date.

And, indeed, to see whether or not it would be best for this material to be offered in a future R4T-esque "single-empire" product ("C2A"? "R4I"? Or suchlike?), or if it was better to fold these units into a future "full" module, such as Module R13 or Module R14?

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For my part, I plan to add two more posts after this one: the next one to explain the concepts I had in mind; and, in the one after that, to post a provisional SSD list based on the above.

Of course, if there any any comments, things to add (or perhaps remove) from this discussion, or other ideas, please post them in this thread!

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 05:32 pm: Edit

C4 is simulator empires. Do you mean C2I?

I would like to see the pre-unified ISC empires from Y2/3 modernized.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 05:57 pm: Edit

In my view, the main historical venue where "new" ships might need to be added for the Inter-Stellar Concordium is during the Andromedan War.

As noted in a number of prior modules - not least in Federation and Empire: ISC War - the ISC was content to lean on their range of "peacetime construction" starships while maintaining their neutrality during the General War, as well as during the ISC Pacification Campaign.

While blueprints existed - or, at least, could have been made to exist - for a range of "wartime construction" ships in the Y170s, these remained unused for the most part. Although, according to an R-section data point in Module R12, one "prototype" war cruiser (from Module R9) was built in Y187, in order to ensure that the yard in question had the tools in place to build more (or, perhaps, to convert some out of pre-existing destroyers) should this be required later on.

This "later on" happened in a way none of the ISC planners had expected, as the first waves of Andromedan attacks struck the dispersed forces stationed along the various Pacification cordons. In terms of sheer numbers, the ISC suffered severe losses across the board: as noted in a separate R-section note from Module X1R, "losses had been so heavy among ships of all classes that there was a serious shortage of specialist ships". To make matters worse, with so many of the surviving ships stranded far from home, an even greater burden was placed on those ships that could make it back to ISC home space.

This led to two parallel responses.

The first was at the ISC capital shipyard, where the "war" classes - such as the aforementioned CW, the war destroyer (also in R9), and heavy war cruiser (in R12) - went into full series production.

The second was out in the semi-isolated cantonments that formed out of the surviving Pacification cordon forces. There, a range of "system" hulls, such as the NCA in Module R8 and the NDD and NFF in Module R11, were converted out of pre-existing ships.

Tactically-speaking, the key difference here is that the "war" classes have added warp engines to off-set the added mass on the hull, thus maintaining an equivalent battle speed; whereas the "system" hulls could not do the same, and were this slowed down as a result.

Here is a look at what the ISC HCW miniature from Shapeways 1.0 looked like; see how the pair of frigate engines are installed above the Z-axis of the base hull, thus adjusting the top-mounted phasers from 360-degree to FA firing arcs.

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So what does this mean, in terms of new SSDs?

Well, for one thing, with so many losses among "peacetime construction" variant hulls, and the need to bolster the effectiveness of those which survived the first waves of attacks, there'd be a need to produce a range of "wartime constriction" mission variants.

For example: in the case of the war cruiser, there could be leader, scout, commando, minesweeper, carrier, escort, PF tender, and other such variants.

On paper, there could also be "strike" (PPD-armed) variants of the "standard" war cruiser, and of a potential war cruiser leader. In practice, however, these might be deemed to be sub-optimal against the Andromedans in the historical timeline here in SFB. Although they would likely be a more popular option over in Federation Commander, where the PPD is a much more dangerous weapon to use against the Andromedans.

Similar variants would no doubt be needed for the war destroyer - minus the PPDs, of course.

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However, there is another concern.

According to its R-section in Module R12, the ISC ended up building more HCWs than any other Alpha Octant empire. While it is a powerful ship in its own right, its mix of destroyer and frigate engines might work against it logistically-speaking - which might explain its listing as an RPL hull on the R12 SIT.

By contrast, there is, as yet, no "true" equivalent of say, the Gorn medium cruiser or Lyran new heavy cruiser in print for the ISC. Not that there necessarily needs to be one: might the HCW serve this role instead? Plus, any such design would have to be called something else, since both the "CM" and "NCA" designations are spoken for by other ISC designs.

So, the question is this: should, or should not, a "true" Move Cost 1 "war" ship, with four destroyer engines, be made to exist?

If so, would it have the same kind of variant hulls seen for other "new heavy cruisers" in products like Module R10?

But, if not, might the HCW be given these variant hulls instead?

In the former instance, I was thinking of calling it the "new star cruiser", or "CNA".

But in the latter instance, it's not quite without precedent for a heavy war cruiser to be the basis for a range of mission variants. Although, in fairness, this is because the base hull in question - that of the Romulan GryphonHawk in Module R12 - is modular. It might be more of an ask here, where each would-be variant HCW would need to be "hard-welded" in place.

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Another note:

In Captain's Log #37, there is an SSD for an advanced technology war cruiser.

Similarly, there might be cause for X1-ship iterations of the other "war" classes noted above - and, indeed, for certain mission variants of note, such as fast patrol ship tender.

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So far as "system" hulls are concerned, there might not be quite as much a need for new SSDs there, relative to what the Concordium needs back at home.

Still, much as there is an advanced technology system cruiser in Module X1R, similar X-editions of the NDD and NFF might be welcome also.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 05:57 pm: Edit

R4I?

I'm not sure about the "Who's Who" within the ISC peoples, but there is one race that're chlorine breathers and another who are aquatic (I want to say it's the Q'naabians for the former and the Rovillians for the latter, but I'm probably WAY off ).

Koogie? This fact alone makes me think that the modernized pre-unified fleets a reasonable proposition.

(And, like you, it's one that I'd LOVE to see.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 06:15 pm: Edit

The above refers to "war" and "system" ships, as well as to their historical use during the Andromedan War.

In this post - which I guess I needed to make before I got to the provisional SSD list - I wanted to go over a few more "peacetime construction" ships, as well as talk about where, and when, they might be of use.

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Right now, there are no "leader" variants of the ISC light or strike cruisers, akin to other Alpha empires' leader variants.

In principle, I'd see no reason for there not to be such units historically - though, of the two, a would-be "strike cruiser leader" might be of more use prior to the Andromedan invasion than in the midst of it.

Similarly, it has been suggested elsewhere on the BBS for there to be a light carrier variant of the ISC SR, as well as for a couple of additional survey variant hulls.

Other such ships, to include those listed here yet not already noted above, might be up for consideration, perhaps.

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beyond this, there is the question of what ships might be useful in the "Mapsheet P" timelines of Module C6, and/or in the "early warp Romulan" timelines from Module R4J.

A separate thread exists for a would-be Module C6R, which might offer more ships - and, perhaps, more alternate timelines? - for the "lost empire" Paravians and Carnivons. As part of this, one option could be to lean into the precddent set in Module R4J, in terms of determing what an alternate timeline ISC technology tree - and set of SIT listings - would look like, relative to what happened historically.

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For example: in the "standard" timeline, the ISC first build a command cruiser in Y168, which conveniently is the same year they begin fielding ship-mounted PPDs.

However, in "Mapsheet P" timelines, the ISC is faced with an extended Middle Years period, in which it is confronted by Paravian and Romulan opposition. Thus, there might need to be an "early command cruiser" without any PPDs, akin to the "CA-" offered in the 2016 edition of Module C2.

Further, not only would they likely be obliged to build those "war" classes as soon as they are available, they'd get more use out of any "strike" variants against Paravian and Romulan opposition. Although the Andromedans would continue to pose a different set of challenges later on.

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So, if there is still room in a future product to spare for this as a secondary objective, I would very much like to leverage the data in C6 and in R4J as much as possible, so as to give ISC players - and players of other "eastern" Alpha empires also - more opportunities for battle!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 06:30 pm: Edit

With the above data in mind, this is what I had in mind:

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Module R4I WIP SSD List, v1 (19 May 2025)

Non-X “war” hulls (31):

War cruiser variants (11):
CWS (Strike) FEDS Recommends: CWK
CWL (Leader)
CWSL (Strike/Leader) FEDS Recommends: CWKL
SCW (Scout) FEDS Recommends: CWS
CVLW (Carrier) FEDS Recommends: CWV
CVSW (Strike/Carrier) FEDS Recommends: CWVK
SRW (Survey) FEDS Recommends: CWQ
CWG (Commando)
CWP (PF Tender)
CWT (Transport)
CWE/A (Escort)

War destroyer variants (8):
DWL (Leader)
DWS (Scout)
DWV (Carrier)
DWE/A (Escort)
DWG (Commando)
DWP (PF Tender)
DWT (Transport)
DWM (Minesweeper)

Heavy war cruiser variants (12):
HCWS (Strike) FEDS Recommends: HCK
HCWL* (Leader) FEDS Recommends: HCL
HCWLS* (Strike/Leader) FEDS Recommends: HCKL
HSCW* (Scout) FEDS Recommends: HCS
HCWV* (Carrier) FEDS Recommends: HCV
HCWSV* (Carrier/Strike) FEDS Recommends: HCVK
HCWR* (Survey) FEDS Recommends: HCQ
HCWRV* (Survey/Carrier) FEDS Recommends: HCQV
HCWT* (Transport) FEDS Recommends: HCT
HCWA* (Escort) FEDS Recommends: HCE
HCWP* (PF Tender) FEDS Recommends: HCP
HCWG* (Commando) FEDS Recommends: HCG

X1 “war” hulls (8):

X-war cruiser variants (4):
CWSX (Strike) FEDS Recommends: CWKX
SCWX (Scout) FEDS Recommends: CWSX
CVWX (Carrier) FEDS Recommends: CWVX
CWPX (PF Tender)

X-war destroyer and variant (2):
DWX
DWSX (Scout)

X-heavy war cruiser and variant (2):
HCWX FEDS Recommends: HCX
HCWSX (strike) FEDS Recommends: HCKX

Non-X “peacetime construction” hulls (6):

Command cruiser variant (1):
CCE (“early” command cruiser)

Star cruiser variant (2):
HSR (survey)
HSRV (survey/carrier)

Light cruiser variants (3):
CLL (leader)
CSL (strike/leader) FEDS Recommends: CLKL
SRV (survey/light carrier) FEDS Recommends: CLQ

X1 “system” hulls (2):

X-system destroyer (1):
NDX

X-system frigate (1):
NFX

PRE-TOTAL: 47.

Optional: new Move Cost 1 "war" hulls and X1-hulls (17):

New star cruiser and variants (13):
CNA FEDS Recommends: CN
CNAS (Strike) FEDS Recommends: CNK
CCNA (Command) FEDS Recommends: CNL
CNASL (Strike/Leader) FEDS Recommends: CNKL
SCNA (Scout) FEDS Recommends: CNS
CNAV (Carrier) FEDS Recommends: CNV
CNASV (Carrier/Strike) FEDS Recommends: CNVK
CNAR (Survey) FEDS Recommends: CNQ
CNARV (Survey/Carrier) FEDS Recommends: CNQV
CNAT (Transport) FEDS Recommends: CNT
CNAA (Escort) FEDS Recommends: CNE
CNAP (PF Tender) FEDS Recommends: CNP
CNAG (Commando) FEDS Recommends: CNG

X-new star cruiser and variants (4):
CNAX
CNASX (Strike) FEDS Recommends: CNKX
CCNAX (Command) FEDS Recommends: CNLX
CCNASX (Command/Strike) FEDS Recommends: CNKLX

REVISED TOTAL 64 (with HCW variants retained), or 52 (with marked HCW variants removed).

*Denotes HCW variants which would be removed if "CNA" base hull and variants are to be added, and if only this hull or the HCW were to be given such variants.

FEDS Recommends standardization as it makes it easier for player-opponents to better recognize variants of the mother hull type. (Players can easily 'recognize' the standard vs 'recalling' some non-standard nomenclature especially in F&E.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 06:41 pm: Edit

Note that all of the above are based on the "unified" ISC hulls the Concordium built historically, as well as in the "Mapsheet P" timelines from Module C6.

With the IMSSB on the way for SFB, and with the Andromedan War looming over in F&E, I'd argue that there are plenty of these units still to be consolidated into a single product - which is my main focus here.

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I would suggest that there be an entirely separate product set aside for the concept of "modernizing" the five pre-ISC planetary fleets - which would include having to design alternate Y-era hulls for each faction, in lieu of the "two-prong" ships that were historically used by the unified Navy and Police.

How about this: maybe "R4I" could be used for the "unified" ships here, and "C2A" could be set aside for the "dis-unified" concept later on?

And to clarify: yes, the Q'naabians are the ones who are native to a Class-R (oxygen-chlorine) environment; the other four species breathe normally in "standard' Class-KL/M/N/O (oxy-nitrogen) atmospheres.

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EDIT: The thread title should be adjusted now. Thank you kindly!

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 08:20 pm: Edit

I'm kind of dubious about the HCW variants, including the HCWX, precisely because of the logistical issues you alluded to in your 5:57 PM post.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 10:48 am: Edit

I am dubious about the entire war druiser/destroyer variant program. This smacks of Chessboard Syndrome. List every hull type down the left side, list every plausible variant of any hull across the top, fill in the intersecting squares (e.g., scout variant of destroyer) with the rule number of the existing ships, look for empty squares, propose “missing” ships. The step he skipped is “would such a variant of that hull be workable? Useful? Plausible to be built at the time and place it would be available?”

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Personally, I'd be warmer to some of these variants if they were somehow weird and ineffective and weren't build in quantity. Perhaps a few good stories about internal ISC political, logistical, or computer problems that resulted in a few really bad designs?

Or perhaps throw a really good design in that simply wasn't built because of similar political problems? It might make the "empire that designed their awesome fleets via computer simulation" a bit more real.

I think SFB is often at its best when there are real differences between the empire's ships, and a good chunk of the ships are non-optimal. It adds quite a bit of flavor to the game, and provides more interesting challenges for the captains.

--Mike

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 12:52 pm: Edit

From an engineering perspective, the ISC are in a not entirely different situation to that of the Lyran Empire, at least in terms of how readily a given "peacetime construction" hull can be turned into a larger "wartime" design.

In the case of the Lyrans, the "catamaran" FF can be sliced down the middle and made into a "trimaran" DW or HDW; similarly, the Lyran DD can become a CW, an HCW, or an NCA.

In the case of the ISC, rather than cutting the original hull in two as the Lyrans had done, they instead weld additional bulk into the pre-existing frigate or destroyer hull, along with placing the added warp engine (or engines, in the case of the HCW) needed to maintain a high battle speed. This can be seen on the Shapeways 1.0 mini lined to further above, which has the added bulk installed "below" the Z-axis on the baseline destroyer hull.

So far as "mission variants" are concerned, I'd argue that the same logic which applied for the Lyrans applies here also. As in, if the Lyrans have a "peacetime" destroyer scout on hand, they can just as easily upgrade it to a war cruiser scout; so too can the ISC upgrade a pre-existing destroyer scout into a war cruiser scout, if called upon to do so.

And, in F&E terms, there are other factors in play: such as how many EPs it costs to build a typical "wartime" hull relative to a "peacetime" one; what kind of slipway or repair depot track such-and-such a base hull type can use; and so on and so forth. (In the case of the Concordium, here is a certain amount of data on this in ISC War, as well as in the ISC SIT PDF.)

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One difference, of course, is when such conversions would have been carried out.

According to the SIT data in Module G3, both the ISC CW and DW count as "regular production warships" in Y189, yet are marked with "unbuilt variant" YIS dates of Y170. (Although, technically speaking, the CW counts as a UNQ ship in Y187 and Y188, as noted above.)

Since the ISC stayed out of the historical General War, they chose to focus on building up their "peacetime construction" designs, and saw no great pressure to do otherwise.

Even when production ramped up in the final years leading up to the Pacification (which I will cover in more detail further below), and during the rollout of the Pacification cordons themselves thereafter, the ISC still saw an acceptable rate of losses among their "peacetime construction" fleet - though they did build that "prototype" CW in Y187 as a precautionary measure.

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A more formal account of what happened next will largely have to wait until the Adnro War module is placed into full formal development. And, to be clear, I have no intent to try and pre-empt discussions that rightly belong over on the F&E portion of the BBS, at a time of SVC's choosing.

But, based on the scenario data in ISC War, at least, there are a few salient points to consider.

As can be seen in the respective Order of Battle dispositions for the various cordons in the Driving Winds scenario, the bulk of the ISC fleet had been dispersed across the Alpha Octant, from Cordons Alpha through Foxtrot, per the end of the "historical" portion of the scenario in Spring Y188. Although the ships assigned to Cordons Yankee and Zulu (facing the Gorn and Romulan borders respectively) would be stationed at, or at least much closer to, ISC home space.

Further, according to (625.515) in ISC War, the Concordium began running their economy at "wartime" levels 10 turns prior to the onset of the Pacification in Spring Y186. Thus, by the end of the "historical" part of the Driving Winds scenario, the Concordium would only just be reaching the end of their ability to leverage their "full" economic output.

So by the time the ISC is set to suffer devastating losses (more than 2/3rds of their pre-invasion total, according to Module C2) to the Andromedans, which as noted in Module X1R is set to include mission variants of all types, they'd be obliged to try and replace what losses they can, and to increase the combat power of the ships they have remaining - all at a time when their economy has only just started to suffer the early effects of economic exhaustion.

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In short: in the face of the Andromedan invasion - something which their own action during the Pacification unwittingly made them uniquely vulnerable to - not only can they leverage their respective "war" classes (and mission variants) in response to this crisis..,

...they can't afford not to.

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And on a side note: over in the "Mapsheet P" timelines, the ISC are as much a belligerent as any other in the General War.

So they'd be similarly obliged to deploy "wartime" hulls and mission variants of their own, in order to face off against their Romulan and "lost empire" Paravian counterparts.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 01:11 pm: Edit

To answer the point about sub-optimal ship designs:

That is something which crops up in such places as Module R9 and Module X1R - and, indeed, is at the core of the "system" hulls seen out in the semi-isolated cantonments.

There was a certain degree of panic which set in at the ISC capital when the invasion broke out - especially when attacks started being carried out against the home worlds themselves. This led to certain "rushed" builds and X1-conversions, such as was the case with the ISC CMX and CAX in X1R.

But at least they still had the capital yard to make use of. The cantonments elsewhere in the Alpha Octant had no such luxury; they were obliged to make do with whatever conversions they could. Although it is noted that their level of ingenuity was quite striking, given what they had to work with so far from home.

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To look at it from another angle:

Ironically, the Andromedan War makes even some of the "regular" ISC designs - mainly, those armed with plasmatic pulsar devices - sub-optimal (again, in SFB, not in FC).

In principle, one could offer a few more plasma variants - both non-X and X1-ship types - which replaced the PPDs with more S- (or M-) torps.

Say, a "CCT" and/or "CCTX" design?

In which case, the issue might then be how, and/or when, the Concordium admirals get around to implementing such changes - and thus, how long the "standard" hulls were obliged to face Andromedan opposition before this could happen.

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All said, I should note that the "Mapsheet P" timelines offer plenty of opportunity for the ISC to display a more "imperfect" technological progression.

Since First Contact with the Paravians takes place in Y110, the ISC - still in the Y-era technology-wise by then - are hard-pressed to respond to this ferocious new threat, as well as to take on the further burden of dealing with the Romulans not long after.

Some of the ship classes and variants proposed above - such as the early command cruiser - would be a part of this.

Historical SFB and FC players are used to seeing the ISC flagship cruiser as a de facto heavy battlecruiser, placed either as a duelist or at the core of a medium-sized Echelon.

But, while an "early" variant (which, like the "CA-" in Module C2, I'd suggest would have had no heavy weapons in its central "prong") would still be a powerful ship for its era, it would be a much reduced combatant by comparison - especially if, as I argue elsewhere, the "Mapsheet P" ISC were still obliged to wait until Y168 before rolling out the PPD.

So while the main focus of this thread is on the historical ISC fleet, a secondary effort to shore up the ISC side of "Mapsheet P" would, in my view, be a useful one also.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Module C6 showed the Paravians and Carnivrons as they might have been, had they survived to the GW era with their respective weapons technologies advancing to that point as well.

What if, instead of their unified fleet, the member races of the ISC developed their unique racial weapons and ships up to GW standards? What would GW type Plasma Drones look like? The Plasma Blasters? What sort of phaser arrangements might these GW era member race ships have?

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Yes to what Jeff is saying. This to me is much more interesting than ships that do the same thing as existing ships but just have different box arrangements.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - 04:27 pm: Edit

I agree that a product looking at "modern" versions of the five pre-ISC fleets would be interesting - as would "modern" rules for the five "plasma-type" weapons provided for these factions in Module Y2.

(Indeed, I was speculating elsewhere about whether a "modern" version of the plasma-vortex launcher might be worth considering for the Nebuline of the M81 Galaxy.)

However, I don't necessarily agree that such a concept should be covered in this thread.

Better, perhaps, for it to have its own dedicated thread, and/or would-be module designation, so as not to trip over a product which is aimed at covering "unified" ISC Navy and Police hulls.

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On the topic of would-be "wartime" mission variants, it is true that there are some types which would make more sense than others, depending on the timeline being discussed, and when on said timeline one is taking a closer look at.

I've noted earlier that "strike" (PPD-armed) variants are sub-optimal against Andromedan opposition in SFB, but not in FC; by contrast, such variants are quite useful against "Mapsheet P" Paravians and Romulans.

In a similar vein, carriers and escorts might be considered less than optimal against the Andros also - not least since non-X aegis is of little use when the only enemy attrition units are mobile weapon platforms, and when that same enemy has no seeking weapons. However, such variants would be quite viable against "Mapsheet P' Paravian and Romulan opposition.

By contrast, fast patrol ship tender variants would be of welcome use in both the historical and "Mapsheet P" timelines - especially from Y195 on, when the ability to go after the Rapid Transit Network begins to be realized.

Against the Andros, commando ships are of little use in open space combat, but are important when responding to raids and planetary invasions. and are useful in "Mapsheet P" direct battles against Paravian and Romulan warships.

Minesweeper variants don't show up at the F&E scale of things - or over in FC, for that matter. But, they are of use here in SFB, even in the face of Andros using displacement devices.

No matter the war, logistics are a key component of any battle force. So transport variants would be equally critical to maintain.

As are survey ships, not least depending on the kind of losses to be inflicted in the "off-map" Distant Zone against the Pacification-era crop of ISC survey cruisers. Plus, they can help chase down RTN nodes from Y195, also.

Echelon or no Echelon, there'd be a need for a variety of command and leader platforms, regardless of timeline. Particularly so in the case of plasma variant for use against the Andromedans.

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So, while I of course would welcome a broad variety of mission variants for use in both timelines, I would say that the leader, PF tender, minesweeper, commando, survey, and transport variants would be higher priorities against the Andromedans than certain other types.

Which, technically, would be true on "Mapsheet P" also, once the Andromedan War breaks out in those timelines...

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 07:30 pm: Edit

Been thinking a lot about a "Modernized National Fleets Universe" for the ISC over the past couple days. As much as I would enjoy it, I see it as a non-starter; SVC has shared enough about the business side of ADB, Inc. for me to know it'll take more time and effort to make (especially given the quality for which Our Hosts are famous) than expected sales would justify.