I agree that there should be mentions where additional gunboats can be found. In fact, I think the various entries should be included in the R section that reference where they can be found.

On Gary's last point, I would take a different approach. I recommend that no alternative histories should be referenced. Currently, there are vague comments about the Federation gunboats being available if players so desire to use them. I think it would be better to outright state that if Federation gunboats are used, then these are the consequences: no F-111, SWACs, or Federation Third Way. This needs to be explicitly stated and codified so there is no ambiguity. Plus, it makes sure there is an overt cost to using them.

In fact, if you wanna get wild about it, make this offer to any empire. If you forfeit gunboats, you get SWACs, and improved heavy fighter, and the Third Way. I could see this being an option for, say, the Kzinti. Probably wouldn't work, but it would be cool if it could.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 02:25 am: Edit

Oooohhh
F111 analogues for all empires. IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; NOT K25.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 11:31 am: Edit

Just my opinion, but losing the F-111 and SWACS and "Third Way" may be too big a penalty for the Feds getting to use Thunderbolt PFs. To be sure, the Thunderbolt is a very good PF, better in my opinion than the Klingon G1. But losing all three of those capabilities still seems to me a bit excessive.


THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 11:47 am: Edit

I’m here for the Stinger-111.


THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 12:24 pm: Edit

I like the idea of presenting Third Way units as an option for SFB simulator play and player-created campaigns. Trying to figure out how it would all work as an F&E option is an F&E problem and beyond the scope here. It would certainly be cool to address and add as an option for that game system, but that’s not necessary to add these units to SFB IMO.


THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Actually ... the flatbed CVA and F-14, A-10, and SWAC was introduced into the game well before gunboats were introduced into the game. (Real-world timeline, not game timeline.) Fun fact: originally the CVA only carried ten A-10s, not twelve.

In-game, the timeline for SWACs means they really are initially introduced before the Federation even had a hint of the idea of gunboats. In practical terms, what would likely happen is that the Federation would build an initial set of SWACs for the initial CVAs, then have to abandon them because they we too expensive to build, maintain, and keep producing when PF scouts superseded them. However, from a "let's keep things not too complicated" point of view, it becomes "no SWACs".

If I were to redo it, I would say that if the Federation made gunboats, they can operate SWACs on CVAs only until Y179, when they are retired in favor of gunboats. Then, I'd change the introduction date of the SCSA to Y181 or something like that to give the CVAs something to convert to. I'd probably also state that CVAs after Y180 operated with F-14s and F-18s rather than A-10s or A-20s.

Also, don't forget that a single SWAC costs as much as two standard PFs, and one scout PF is cheaper than two SWACs. Production would stop immediately, and existing ones would be phased out ASAP.

But I don't get to redo it, so the simpler approach is to say, "No SWACs".

I hadn't though of F-111s for other empires, but that would be cool!


THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 01:21 pm: Edit

I'll agree with Mike that it's not unreasonable to say that the SWACs will all be gone by the date of the deployment of the first Fed PFS (they know the PFS is coming well in advance).

But I'd like the SWAC to exist from Y171 to PF deployment (or at least interceptor deployment).

Then you can say that anyone else using the third way gets something similar to the E3 SWAC at the time that they'd usually get a PFS as the tech development that would normally go to fitting most scout functions into a PF goes instead into fitting some scout functions into a heavy shuttle.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 01:29 pm: Edit

I'll discuss it with Petrick. If we go that way, that would mean no one got a swac but the feds no matter what decision was made.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 01:35 pm: Edit

To clarify, there are two circumstances in which alternate timeline "Feds" acquire gunboats.

The first is the "no Third Way" route, as taken by the Federal Imperium in Module R4J: the kind of restrictions noted above, are in keeping with that setup, though I would not mind the "E-2s showed up in limited numbers prior to the deployment of Interceptors" clarification.

The second is the "Third Way, but PFs show up much later on" route, as turned to in desperation by the "dark future" Federation in alt-Y198. The way in which this deployment of fast patrol ships might have affected Star Fleet's use of fighters and carriers might be worth detailing also - if only to highlight the degree of pressure which the UFP was placed upon by the Andromedans in the absence of the Darwin's critical data on the RTN.

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In either case, I don't see a reason not to make at least a brief reference to them here, if only to encourage someone reading this product who has yet to learn of either setup to check out where they can find out more about them.

Not least since it can't be assumed that new readers of this module need necessarily be aware of such alternate venues already. So why not offer the opportunity, if only in a brief sentence or two, to raise awareness of them here?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 02:05 pm: Edit

For what it's worth, F&E2010 already allows for other empires to pursue the third way via (502.9) THE FEDERATION THIRD WAY.

In my experience, even when not using the third way, the non-Fed empires lean as heavily as they can into fighters anyways, as the free infinite replacements are just too strong to pass up.

PFs have to be used sparingly to resolve damage, as they are just as expensive to replace as any even numbered ship is to repair. 5 factor and 7 factor ships are cheaper to repair than PFs are to replace.

Bring on the third way!

--Mike


THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Mike weren't both PFs, and the carrier introduced in Expansion 2, another interesting fact was that the old DN was allowed 2 F14s.


THIS IDEA IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 03:26 pm: Edit

IIRC even in F&E2010, non-Fed 3rd Way is optional (meaning players have to agree to experiment with it).

THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 10:04 pm: Edit

Will there be a review of Federation bombers?

I know it sounds like it should be in a J module (J-2?), but if you are actively considering an opt out for SWACs, F-111 and “third Way”, the other option available to the Federation is expanded Bomber production along the lines the Kzinti Hegemony used to bridge the period between early fighters and full production of PFs.

THIS IDEA BELONGS IN ANOTHER PRODUCT; IT IS NOT PART OF K25.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 02, 2025 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Jeff, don't complicate the job. That just isn't part of K anyway.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, July 03, 2025 - 02:01 am: Edit

Gary, I'm not terribly worried about "late introduction" of gunboats for the Feds. Sure, it could be a side note in a throw-away paragraph somewhere, but I'm looking at an explicit rule stating how the Feds can choose to use gunboats at their introduction and what the repercussions of that decision would be. And, as an expansion, generalizing that to all of the empires as an option.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 03, 2025 - 11:29 am: Edit

In the historical timeline, there is a case in which Federation heavy war destroyers (R2.85), as well as their advanced technology counterparts (R2.213), are affected by the availability of F-111s rather than PFs.

For most Alpha empires, it's possible to configure an HDW or HWX into a fast patrol ship tender, with a "full" flotilla of 6 PFs. This is done by installing special sensors in the RA weapon mounts; repair-capable PF mech links in the NWO boxes; replacing the APR/AWR boxes with Repair; and installing PF mech links onto the base hull's tractor beams.

However, since there is no such thing as a "casual" F-111 mech link, things are a bit different for the historical Feds, in terms of configuring an HDW or HWX as a single-ship scout carrier.

Per notes by SPP on this matter, they would keep the sensors in the weapon mounts - but instead deploy a "short squadron" of 4 F-111s, by installing the kind of fighter mech-links seen on the Federation GVX; installing cargo boxes instead of repair; and swapping out the "casual" F-18s for admin shuttles.

Over in Federation and Empire, these configurations are known as the HDWZ and HWXZ respectively.

These would be of particular use from late Y195 onwards, as Star Fleet tasks them with chasing down Andromedan Rapid Transit Network nodes.

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On a side note: my understanding is that a revision of Module R6 is in the pipeline.

If so, might it be worth updating the Federation HDW's R-section data there, in order to formally account for this "-Z" configuration in SFB terms?

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In would-be "Third Way" doctrines for other Alpha Octant empires, there might be a use for equivalent "HDWZ" and "HWXZ" configurations here, not least once there is a need to chase down the RTN.

No doubt other "anti-RTN" lone carrier variants with F-111-alikes would be useful against RTN nodes here also.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, July 03, 2025 - 02:45 pm: Edit

A note from the original thread, I am moving here:

As a side note, there is no need for A-20 analogs for other empires because these already exist. The A-20 is just the Federation heavy assault fighter. Everyone else already has their heavy assault fighter. The only special case is the F-111.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, July 04, 2025 - 09:10 am: Edit

So, if one were to consider what other Alpha Octant empires' "F-111-alikes" would actually look like, what kind of engineering issues might be involved?

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In the case of the Gorns, there are plenty of precedents - not least with the G-101 and GB-111 - to make a good guess at a G-111 conversion would look like:

1 Phaser-2-FX
1 Phaser-2-FA
1 Phaser-3-RA
2 Plasma-K
6 Plasma-D
3-space bay
1 EW Pod

The bay rules would be equivalent to those already in print for the G-101 and GB-111.

And just as how the F-111 cannot have photons installed, the Gorns cannot install plasma-F launchers on this G-111.

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But for those empires which don't have "off-the-shelf" size-2+ fighter frames to work with, what then?

By and large, size-2 fighters in the Alpha Octant have 16 damage boxes; this includes the F-101 and G-101. However, the "lost empire" Paravian Thunderswan and Carnivon Dingo heavy fighters each have 18 damage points - the same as the F-111, A-20, and G-30.

Further, there's the question of weaponry.

In the case of the Federation, there is a "split" between the F-111 as a "drone" fighter and the A-20 as a "torpedo" fighter; a similar split would exist for the Gorns, between the proposed "plasma-D/-K" G-111 and the existing "plasma-F" G-30.

In theory, it could be that other Alpha empires trying to build size 2+ fighters could run into similar design issues as faced by the Federation and Gorns. As in, just as an F-111 (or the proposed G-111) has no photon (or plasma-F) armament, might other drone- or plasma-armed F-111-alikes go without such things as disruptor bolts, disruptor cannons, plasma-Fs, and other such "heavy" weapons?

In practice, however, might there be certain Alpha empires which have their own exceptions to this? Say, by allowing the Hydrans to put a hellbore on their would-be size-2+ fighter, even if most non-Hydran Alpha empires have to go without such a "heavy' weapon here?

Although, this might be less of an issue for certain fighter-mounted weapons in Alpha, such as fusion beams or quantum wave torpedoes; those seem to be somewhat "lighter", in terms of how they can be installed on a given fighter frame, relative to "heavier" weapons like hellbores or disruptor cannons.

Personally, from a "game design" perspective, I'm not fond of the idea of letting other Alpha empires - with the possible exception of the Hydrans - have size 2+ fighters which were "better" than the historical F-111, in terms of what kind of weapons they could, or could not, be equipped with.

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On a side note:

Over in Federation and Empire, a squadron of F-101s has 8 combat factors; a "full" squadron of 6 F-111s has 9, while a "short" squadron of 4 F-111s has 6; whereas a squadron of A-20s has 10.

In terms of HDW or HWX configurations, this is represented by -A designations for A-20 carriers; -Y for F-101 carriers; -Z for a "short squadron" of F-111s; and (had been) -H for a "full squadron" of F-111s (until relatively recently, when this was removed as an option over in that game system).

Should other Alpha empires get the same "Third Way" treatment as shown here, it might be worth seeing if any of their fighter types would warrant a similar treatment.

At the very least, it would seem "logical" for the Gorns to have equivalent factors for the G-101, G-111, and G-30 that the Feds have at present for the F-101, F-111, and A-20 respectively...