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Quote:

... a BCH in all but name.

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By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 15, 2026 - 11:13 am: Edit

I note that the Romulans have a number of "heavy hawks" that fall - approximately - into the BCH category. I think most of them are somewhat inferior to a true BCH in integral combat power but cost about the same because of the cloak. The Killerhawk I think beats a BCH even without the cloak. But they all, even the mighty Killerhawk, are CR 9. And there are scenarios that treat a heavy hawk like a BCH.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, April 15, 2026 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Fair points, I tend to run Lyrans, CR 10 hulls are common for them.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, April 15, 2026 - 05:01 pm: Edit

CR 10 BCHs were a reaction to economies starting to face exhaustion and curtailing expensive dreadnought production. The ISC didn’t have that pressure - and arguably their CCX could also be considered sufficient for their “alternate CR 10 platform” needs.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, April 15, 2026 - 07:24 pm: Edit

The Command Rating of the ISC CC is the same as a Fed CC and not a Heavy Battle Cruiser.

Sure the armament matches but not the command, they still need a big brothers help. Thus they need a BCH to fill the gap.

Coming in late to the war you would think that gap would have been recognized and filled. I suppose that one could argue by that time they had the CCX but they studied their enemies before the invasion (just to see how crazy they were) and had experiences that should have addressed this without the X-tech requirement.

We also have a Y168 OOB for the ISC and I see the FF variant gap show up there. Yeah later in Y186 the FF is barely a speed bump on the road to pacification. I was more concerned with the earlier development offerings, its a natural progression to give ship classes the obvious variants.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 12:46 pm: Edit

I forgot to note: IMO - One of the fundamental keys to Echelon tactics is a good command rating.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 01:16 pm: Edit

Given the number of DN the ISC would have when they began pacification, maybe they felt BCH were not necessary?

--Mike

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 01:27 pm: Edit

There are also fleet limits on the number of PPDs in a fleet.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 01:38 pm: Edit

An echelon using a gunline group counts as two ships less so that makes up for the lack in a way.

And as Mike touches on, the intended doctrine of the pacification forces involves a lot of smaller elements establishing pacification bases and engaging small scale violations of the pacification cordons - the ISC simply did expect to be fighting that many large, stand up battles, and thus considered their DNs and CCXs for the role.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 02:46 pm: Edit

With the "Mapsheet P" timelines from Module C6 in mind, there might perhaps be scope for a potential future ISC product to represent ships which do not exist in the historical timeline, yet which might be of relevance when faced with "lost empire" Paravian (and/or "Shadow of the Eagle" Romulan) opposition.

For example: the "wartime construction" CW and DW each have "could have been built" year in service dates of Y170. Historically, the first prototypes did not appear until Y187, while these classes did not enter full series production until Y189 - when the devastating losses inflicted by the Andromedans upon the Pacification-era ISC fleet forced a radical set of responses back at Veltrassa. In a "Mapsheet P" timeline, however, one could expect the ISC to build these classes as soon as they could do so, as counters to the likes of the Paravian CW and the Romulan SparrowHawk.

In a similar vein, one could well expect some sort of "wartime construction" battlecruiser blueprint - perhaps one built up from the light cruiser? - to be drawn up by the ISC engineers, based on data sourced from elsewhere in the Alpha Octant. In the "Mapsheet P" timelines, the iSC would start building these hulls in, say, Y180 - not least to oppose the Paravian BCH, which has that same YIS date. Historically, however, I would set the year of first production to Y190, thus making it a part of the Concordium's desperate rush to rebuild the fleet in the wake of the Andromedan invasion.

As for mission variants, one could presume that the "Mapsheet P" ISC might start with a mix of plasma and PPD armament, and later consider heavy plasma iterations of such a hull for use against the Andromedans. Whereas the historical ISC might not field PPD variants of this hull at all.

In short, I would restrict the presence of an historical "wartime" ISC BCH to, say, Y190 - but make it available from Y180 over in the "Mapsheet P" timelines.

Would this be an idea worth spinning up a dedicated proposal thread for?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 03:03 pm: Edit

The CC already has the most weapons it can and a flag bridge. There really isn’t much that can be done with the actual SSD. We’d be looking at a refit that just upgrades the CR.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 03:08 pm: Edit

To clarify, the "wartime" CW is built up from the "peacetime" DD, whereas the "wartime" DW is derived from the "peacetime" FF. In each case, added bulk is added to the central hull, along with a third engine.

Similarly, the iSC HCW is further built up from the CW. Instead of three destroyer engines, it has two destroyer engines and two frigate engines - as seen from the Shapeways 1.0 miniature.

Thus, I would picture a would-be "wartime" ISC battlecruiser to be a three-engine hull, perhaps built up from the "peacetime" light cruiser. (Since installing three CL engines might be a bit much, how about adding either a frigate engine or a destroyer engine instead?)

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Is there an Early Years mobile base or Mobile outpost that can be upgraded to a YBS in the SFU? How is a YBS deployed without some sort of Early Mobile Outpost?

In F&E, one must first deploy a mobile Base and later convert it to either a Base Station or a Battle Station. How is this done in the EY era?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 06:23 pm: Edit

I took a harder look at the SSD and I guess I never realized that this CC is called a Flagship Cruiser but even with all the the same command spaces as the DN (2 Bridge, 2 Emer, 2 Flag, and 2 Aux Con) plus the 220 BPV cost its still only Commands at a 9.

Comparatively this CC vs the following empire ships has:
L-BC/BCH: Same Bridge, +1 Emer, +1 Flag, and +1 Aux Con
H-PAL: Same Bridge, same Emer, same Flag, and same Aux Con
H-OV BCH: -1 Bridge, same Emer, +1 Flag, and same Aux Con
K-C7 BCH: -1 Bridge, same Emer, same Flag, and same Aux Con...Klingons have Security
G-BCH: Same Bridge, +1 Emer, same Flag, and same Aux Con
Rom ROC: -1 Bridge, +1 Emer, same Flag, and same Aux Con
Rom NovaH/RoyalH: Same Bridge, +1 Emer, -1 Flag, and +1 Aux Con. (These 2 ships are CR 9 in F&E.)

Red indicates where the CC is not as equipped; blue indicates where it is better equipped.

Its been a long time since I really dug deep into the SFB side of things and you folks know better but I was looking at how this was translated over and looking at some of the gaps in the F&E SIT.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 07:43 pm: Edit

According to (OR17.0), the construction of Middle Years base stations was considered to be "a long-term project" - one which "would take years (and a considerable workforce) to complete" - even for a major Alpha Octant empire like the Federation.

The example given is the base station that was to be established in the Aurora system: first begun at some point prior to the system's disappearance from the Alpha Octant in Y130, it was completed "in haste" by the end of Y131 by the Aurorans themselves over in the Omega Octant.

However, there is as yet no published data on what, if any, design lineage there is from an Early Years YBS to a Middle Years BS. Nor, for that matter, is there data on what, if any, design lineage there is from the early supply dock to the later starbase.

As a further aside: the pre-Revolt Tholians had "modern" bases back in the M81 Galaxy, but they did not have mobile bases in order to help construct them. Although, their means of constructing space-based facilities was greatly aided by the use of Hive and Nest cargo haulers by their various "enforcer" species, in order to corral the materials supplied as "tribute" by the various subjugated species, and then deliver them to construction sites (most notably where the various Spheres were being built).

By the time of their arrival in the Alpha Octant, the Holdfast Tholians had lost any capacity to build such bases. Or rather, even if they had happened to retain the blueprints for such bases in their archives, they nonetheless had to make do with Early Years bases derived from captured Early Years Klingon templates, and then follow the same iterative steps as other Alpha empires in order to get "back" to the same standard of base design they had enjoyed over in the home galaxy.

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So, how to address these in game terms?

Firstly, I would suggest that it is not possible to directly build a Middle Years base out of its Early Years predecessor - but that it might be possible to salvage some of the materials and components from a pre-existing base at some point during the "modern" base's construction.

But, at which point? Without a mobile base, it might be necessary to keep the Early Years base in operation right up to the point at which the Middle Years base is made operational. At which juncture, the scrapping of the older base might provide a kind of "dividend" that could be fed back into the local economy. (Or, in F&E terms, you'd have to pay to build the new base from scratch, but get a certain amount of salvage EPs from the decommissioned base once the new base is finished.)

Secondly, there is the matter of how to concentrate the resources needed to build the base itself. Since both Early Years and Middle Years tugs have access to cargo and starliner pods, it would still be possible to deliver certain key supplies and specialist engineers to such-and-such a site - though it might be the case that more mundane freighter shipments of workers and materiel would be most heavily relied upon.

The Tholians would have certain exceptions to these rules, both in M81 and in the early Holdfast. At least in the latter instance, there would be a relative advantage to using cargo patrol corvettes in the Y-era, in that they would be faster in operational and strategic terms than, say, a Klingon T4 early tug would be.

Of course, I defer to ADB in terms of how best to address such questions, as and when they deem it wise to do so.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 09:42 pm: Edit

Middle Years MBs are Y140+ but require two F&E turns (one year) to upgrade to the BS (~Y160-165 for one turn upgrade to BTS?).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 09:46 pm: Edit

I would say it's not impossible to convert a Y-base to a GW-base, much easier than starting over.

You don't need a tug to build a base, you can build it (in peacetime) with freighters.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 10:19 pm: Edit

I have no issue with Y-bases being converted to MY/GW era type of bases.

My question is how are Y-era bases started? In the MY/GW-era, a MB is built at the shipyard and towed to the new location, deployed, and later converted to a fixed base.

How is the procedure different in the Y-era?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 11:42 pm: Edit

They are built in-situ, using freighters and such as noted, and taking quite awhile. What would that look like in F&E? That’s undefined, and trying to define it without having a need to do so before EARLY WARS is just asking to be painted into a corner.

“But I want to build a BATS in F&E without using a mobile base!”

Ok, you can - but only if that BATS is being built in hex that’s part of an unreleased fleet’s territory and at least thirteen hexes from any enemy controlled hex. Only something that safe is going to use that method rather than the much quicker place a MB and then upgrade. Does that sound good?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 12:16 am: Edit

Only in peacetime.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 03:09 pm: Edit

I'm cool with freighters building YMBs over several years in open space in peacetime.

Alex thinks we want to build a BTS in F&E without a MB, but he doesn't understand what I'm asking. I'm asking how are early era bases are built, deployed, and upgraded in contested or war time conditions? During wartime, is there some sort of platform that must be built at a shipyard, transported to an open space position, setup, and at a later time converted to a YBS?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 03:55 pm: Edit

>> is there some sort of platform that must be built at a shipyard, transported to an open space position, setup, and at a later time converted to a YBS

How about some kind of tug pod that's a precursor to a mobile base? It contains "seed" electronics, engineering spaces, power or whatever that other things are then attached to, to begin to make a base. It's not independently functional or modular. It doesn't use velcro so it's not as quickly upgradeable. I guess you could call it a "seed" pod?? :-O

--Mike

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 04:27 pm: Edit

I've been enjoying this thread, and I hope that this doesn't sound TOO stupid, but here I go off the deep end (again)...

If there's no big rush to build the station, what about a Commercial Platform delivered by a freighter being used as a "Construction Platform?

IIRC, there's a small freighter that was made for small scale manufacturing. The "Pod" for that ship could take the place of one of the two modules attached to the Construction Platform (with the other being a standard hangar, but loaded with construction shuttles instead of fighters).

Also, the raw materials for the base. A small ground mining station set on a metallic asteroid mines and processes the rock into the sheets of metal for the new base. The base sits in a close orbit and is built as the asteroid is slowly consumed.

This could also (in theory) explain why Base Stations are built places other than planetary orbit?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Note the BS YIS is Y120 …

One might think that the SAMS/CPL might be the start of the MB modules as neither has been given a YIS (yet - IIRC) …

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 10:25 pm: Edit

The YBS and YDK both have a YIS of Y65. So there has to be a way to build a base without a tug.