PROPOSAL K2-011
Michael John Campbell
PF Leader Scout
Basically a PF leader with scout functions instead of weapons, reducing the command PF to a second row cheerleader.

When replying to an actual proposal make a separate reply for each proposal and include the reference number.

Alex Chobot: This just sounds like too many eggs in one basket.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 08:17 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-012
Mike Kuyper
Klingon F5 with three PFs on tractors replacing the rear phasers.
Dubious that there is room for that.
Might consider an E3 that hadn't been scrapped yet rebuilt to carry one of two inoperable PFs for resupply.

When replying to an actual proposal make a separate reply for each proposal and include the reference number.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 08:20 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-013
Mike Kuyper
Kzinti Drone Control PF, modified scout, can control 12 drones
Dubious there would be enough seats in front of enough screens on board for 12 individuals to control drones.

When replying to an actual proposal make a separate reply for each proposal and include the reference number.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 - 08:24 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-014
David N Dorris
Ground Attack Variant for the PF. Replace the heavy weapons with Transporter Artillery Racks that allow the PF to provide fire support to ground combat. The Transporter Artillery Racks would probably need an ammo supply of around 4-6 rounds.

When replying to an actual proposal make a separate reply for each proposal and include the reference number.

SVC: We have never really defined specific types of ground attack weapons, and I'm not sure we want to. I am however dubious about the TA stuff. We might just give it something and say it has a ground combat value of X.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, July 06, 2002 - 08:51 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-015
How about a completely new class of units. The Light PFs. These are PFs closer to interceptors in size (interceptor weapons on a more efficient hull), but with the full 6+6 PF engines (and other power systems). Move cost would be 1/6.

I'll use the Lyrans as an example.

Take the standard PF, remove both disruptors and 2 hull (shortening the booms). Re-arrange the center to add one disruptor (put the disruptor where the bridge, convert the battery to 2 impulse and replace the current impulse with the displaced bridge and battery).

The theory being that the PF did not really have enough power to overload both its disruptors (and didn't need the redundancy for damage purposes--a damaged PF left in combat will quickly become dead). Thus, only give it one disruptor--same power and damage when overloaded as the two standard disruptor shots on the normal PF.

The light PFs were primarily used as casual PFs since they sacrifice some of their long range abilities (the loss of hull space) in the process. They were also somewhat cheaper to build (and had smaller crews), further helping economically in their attrition role.

While the other races copied the design (or not), only the Lyrans really found them useful (and used them in large numbers). Klingons and Kzinti already have one disruptor PFs and losing drone racks doesn't gain anything. Only 2 plasma-F, while giving the first turn strike, prevented the follow-on (the ISC which only lose one F torp might find them somewhat useful). Both the Tholians and Seltorians found them useful in the rare fleet battles, but their lack of versatility (no long patrols and weaker when defending behind webs) and the two race's limited economics kept them rare. Maybe Orions would find them useful, but most have zero energy weapons available. The Hydrans might have found them useful (exchanging the "long" range of Ph-2 for lower cost without giving up fusion beams--but no Hellion or Howler versions).

SVC IS SERIOUSLY DUBIOUS of this one but leaves it for discussion. I think a better descriptor is "fast" PF but you're going to have to seriously cut down the internals to get that speed. I'm not sure the engineering supports it, gunboats are kind of a delicately balanced package as they are.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 09:22 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-016
Many people including SVC, SPP, Stan Taylor, and a dozen others
Police cutter PF Tender
Originally dismissed years ago as "police cutters were too small" a case could be made for some kind of PF deployment to support police operations and convoy escorts.

When replying to an actual proposal make a separate reply for each proposal and include the reference number.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 09:26 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-017
Various people
Basically a DN-SCS that carries more PFs (up to 12) which would mean giving up most of the offensive heavy weapons.
DUBIOUS use of such a large hull. If you want a non-combat platform use a jumbo freighter. Despite dubiousity, we'll see what anyone says, but this ain't going forward without a lot of support.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 09:42 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-018
Loren Knight
A special version of a PF with two 'heavy drone racks' each holding a single type-H? That'd be kinda cool.
DUBIOUS that this would be practical but if there is a lot of support....

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 09:49 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-019
Trent Telenko
Stike Tender
I'm thinking of something analogous to the Strike Carriers, i.e. heavy cruiser (or NCA) hull, cruiser firepower, but no special sensors. Such a "Strike PFT" would not have the scout capabilities of a PFT built on a war cruiser hull but it would have much more firepower. The squadron/fleet containing such a Strike PFT would still need scout support from another ship, so it might not seem like this gains much. But many of the war cruiser-based PFTs only have 2 special sensors while scouts built on war cruiser hulls generally have 4. Consider a war cruiser-PFT plus a heavy cruiser vs. a Strike PFT plus a heavy scout. Both require one heavy cruiser hull and one war cruiser hull. Both have about the same firepower (heavy cruiser plus PF flotilla) but the Strike PFT plus heavy scout has better EW capability due to more special sensors. But it also has the disadvantage that if the PFS is destroyed, the Strike PFT could not lend EW to the flotilla the way a war cruiser-PFT could. It could also be argued that a war cruiser PFT can support the fleet with EW while hanging further back from the enemy, while a Strike PFT, to be fully useful, has to get within effective weapons range. That is true, but it is also true of strike carriers, battle carriers, battle control ships, heavy carriers, space control ships, the ROC...

Some races might not build Strike PFTs since they already have PFTs with approximately cruiser firepower (Klingon D-5P and D-6P, for example). Using their heavy weapons would blind the special sensors, of course, but these ships have the option of either firepower or fleet EW support, depending on what the situation calls for. To avoid "cookie cutterism", some races might go the D-6P (EW capability and almost-but-not-quite-cruiser firepower) route while other races choose to build Strike PFTs with full cruiser armament, but no special sensors.

One thing a conventional war cruiser-PFT could do that a Strike PFT could not is RTN hunting. But this is only viable against small Andro bases since any major base would be too much for one PFT to handle anyway.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 09:52 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-020
Marc Baluda
Fast PFT
A fast destroyer/light cruiser hull that mounts 6 pfs, or a fast heavy cruiser hull that mounts 12 pfs, that can arrive on scene and function as a scout would be ideal for both raiding missions and fleet support. Giving such hulls sufficient special sensors would make them potent late-war heavy scouts that also alleviate the need for a separate PFT (or vice versa, a tender that alleviates the need for a separate scout).

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 11:33 am: Edit

On Proposal K2-020, the Fast PFT...

Years ago, I proposed putting the engines of the FD7 on the D6P. SVC? You entertained the idea, but opted to NOT pursue the design. In one Captain's Log (I vaguely recall it as #22), you published the proposal and your (VERY justified) reason for rejecting it.

Marc? While I personally think the idea is very cool, it's a powerful enough strike unit that, if they were possible, it's entirely possible that EVERYone would focus on having a fleet of them and ONLY them.

As I remember, SVC gave a Pseudo-Scientific BS excuse that the warp slipstream around fast ships is of closer tolerances than normal starship warp slipstreams and won't cover the Gunboats as a reason for why the various empires never deployed such units.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 11:38 am: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-016
Many people including SVC, SPP, Stan Taylor, and a dozen others
Police cutter PF Tender
Originally dismissed years ago as "police cutters were too small" a case could be made for some kind of PF deployment to support police operations and convoy escorts.

Comment:

This is not as crazy as it might seem at first glance.

Combine a casual fighter base, and a APT with some personnel, commanders options and you literally have a casual PF flotilla base.

You can’t, under the current rules have deck crews unless you transfer them from a true carrier or a PF tender, but using the Kzinti weight lifting team rules you can provide some services.

Exchange wounded crew members with replacements from the limited supply assigned to the ground base.

Heck, if you combined operations with three POL and a FLG, you could deploy one deck crew each from each of the ships, giving you four deck crews to man the casual fighter / PF base.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 12:51 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-019
Trent Telenko
Stike Tender
...
One thing a conventional war cruiser-PFT could do that a Strike PFT could not is RTN hunting...

When these were designed, RTN hunting was not a known concern.
I think that the efficiency argument of a larger scout offsets the loss of PFT squadron lending would work, particularly for the ISC, WYN, Orions, and Tholian tactics.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 03:24 pm: Edit

K2-016 Police cutter PF Tender

Elsewhere on the BBS, there is a thread discussing the "late" deployment of various police hulls in the Alpha Octant - and, by extension, which (if any) mission variants of said hulls might be in service.

With this in mind, I might sooner suggest that, by the time Interceptor and PF deployment begins in earnest across this Galactic octant, the onus might instead be on heavy police ships - akin to the LDR use of the trimaran military police hull - for such purposes.

Indeed, there already is an LDR MPP variant (R14.47) in Module R11; as with most other "light" PF tenders of its Size Class, it is limited to deploying no more than three PFs at a time.

Logically, a Lyran Empire equivalent would function along similar lines - and, by extension, so might equivalent hulls to be found supporting other Alpha empires' police operations.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, March 27, 2026 - 03:37 pm: Edit

K2-018 Heavy drone rack PF

By way of comparison, the Mæsrons over in the Omega Octant deploy fast patrol ships capable of installing tachyon missile racks; each TM is a physically large munition, perhaps comparable to an Alpha Octant large drone. However, in order to do this, the New Alliance was obliged to build a larger than average "volatile warp" PF; these are in turn limited to 4 per flotillla.

Notably, there is (as yet) no missile variant of the (conjectural) Federal Republic of Aurora PF. From an engineering perspective, it is possible that even had the Aurorans built gunboats, these would have simply been too small to equip TM racks in the Mæsron manner. (The conjectural FRA PFs in Module Omega #5 are comparable in size to the average Alpha Octant PF, and would have deployed six to a flotilla.)

So, engineering-wise, it is possible that the limitations imposed by Alpha Octant "hot warp" PF engines are such that the resulting frame simply cannot provide a stable enough platform for heavy drone rack deployment.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 01:15 am: Edit

Opinion on Proposal K2-012; Patrol Tender based on standard F5.

Respectfully, if you'd like to have that ship (I personally wouldn't, but maybe I'm in the minority ), perhaps take the changes that were done to the standard F5 to make the F5W, and do them IN REVERSE on the FWP?

As I said, it's not something I'd do, but it's no doubt still something VERY worthy of being looked at.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 01:24 am: Edit

Opinion on Proposal K2-018, Gunboat with Type-H Drones.

Triggers question, "Well if Gunboats can use Type-H drones, why can't there be Type-H Drone Rails on Starships?"

Bad road to go down.

On the other hand, IF all Drone using races were to build a Heavy Bomber variant that launched a single, or perhaps at most a pair of Type-H Drones, they could be said to represent the historical "Hound Dog" cruise missiles carried by USAF B-52s.

Heavy Bombers are only operated from planets where Gunboats have Starship Tenders. Fig leaf justification?

My 0.02 Quatloos worth.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 01:32 am: Edit

Opinion on Proposal K2-017; undergunned DN/SCS ships with 24 fighters and 6 Gunboats.

Federation have (Conjectural) SCSA, which ALSO has a full squadron of F-14s AND SWAC.

Hydrans have DN hulled carrier with FORTY Stingers and no heavy weapons.

Would we want for EVERYONE to have those? If so, wouldn't that require EVERYONE to have fighters like the F-14s? Wouldn't that require EVERYONE to have SWACs? NO THEY WOULD NOT.— SVC

Can you imagine a fleet battle between the Klingons and Kzinti, if both have carriers capable of deploying forty fighters into the battle, with all those Drones flying around?

It is for this reason that I would ask that the idea be rejected; trying to be fair to everyone would be just too messy.

If the ships are to be presented in any way, I would ask that they be limited to a Stellar Shadows Journal, with STRONG disclaimers.

My 0.02 Quatloos worth.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 10:10 am: Edit

Re: PROPOSAL K2-018 (Heavy Drone PF)

No. Can't do it on ship, no way to put on PF.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 10:22 am: Edit

Re: PROPOSAL K2-011 (Leader Scout PF)

I can see this as the command ship of a flotilla with 5 combat PFs. Normally both the PFL and PFS need to be held back a bit as they are costly to lose, pushing the other 4 forward. Now you can push 5 forward.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 10:30 am: Edit

Re: PROPOSAL K2-013 (Drone Control PF)

Scout PFs can already use one of their special sensors to control six additional drones, for a total of 12. See (K1.75).

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 01:12 pm: Edit

PROPOSAL K2-016 police PF

Direct replacement for police skiff. Both viable and needed.

By Kenneth Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 12:05 pm: Edit

K2-014 Ground attack PF
(alt proposal)
Use the Fi-Con as base but Mech-Links are replaced with 3 transporters and 1 Barracks.
Carries a Ground Combat Vehicle and 3 BPs and 1 HWS.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 12:49 pm: Edit

K2-015 Light PFs

I'm not entirely convinced that this would work well in the context of the "hot warp" engines used by the Alpha Octant empires.

That said, there is a place for "lighter" (and, indeed, slightly "heavier") gunboat types: over in the Omega Octant. There, the local "volatile warp" PF technology allows a given empire to settle upon what boat size - and, at the same time, which flotilla size - works best for them.

To give a few examples: the Federal Republic of Aurora (would have) deployed PFs in flotillas of 6, akin to those seen in Alpha or the LMC; the robotic Drex have 8 PFs to a flotilla, yet each individual PF is smaller (and somewhat weaker) than the average; whereas the largest and more powerful individual PF types, such as those used by the silicate Trobrin, are limited to four boats per flotilla.

So, I might suggest keeping this as a more Omega-specific concept. Not least since, if a given flotilla were to be given more (or fewer) than 6 boats as a balancing factor, the empire in question can then have dedicated PF tender variants drawn up to accommodate this.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 01:06 pm: Edit

K2-011 PF Leader Scout

In the Alpha Octant, this could provide somewhat of an interesting tactical option, not least for those empires with slightly higher power curves for their PFLs relative to their current scout PF variants. I'm not sure how widely operated it would end up being, though perhaps it might be something which certain empires consider to be of more use for lone PFTs sent on raiding (or anti-RTN) missions, rather than in squadron or fleet actions.

In historical terms, perhaps it could be tried out first by the Orions, through leveraging the option mounts on their Buccaneer-Ls for this purpose?

On a side note: this might make for more of an interesting concept over in Omega some day, where the aforementioned variety in "volatile warp" gunboat designs (and flotilla sizes) might make a leader-scout (or leader-jammer) variant proportionally more useful to consider for certain local empires - or for the Zosmans, who, as with the Orions in the Alpha Octant, might consider the use of such variants for "pirate" operations.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 09:47 am: Edit

K2-020 Fast PFT

I think stuffing so many extra PFs on a hull is asking a bit much. But something like taking a CF, adding a flotilla, and swapping two weapons (either the remaining heavy weapons or the “replacement” ph-1) for special sensors could be an attempt to revitalize the fast cruiser as a raider. The gunboats are the main offensive element with the fast tender supporting. With only two channels, it’s not going to be an effective fleet EW platform. The need for fast engines will limit how many can deployed.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, April 08, 2026 - 07:34 am: Edit

Deleted by self as wrong proposal.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, April 08, 2026 - 07:39 am: Edit

Re: PROPOSAL K2-019 (Strike Tender)

Yes. I don't need three "scout" tenders in a battle force.