Archive through August 08, 2026
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: Rules Questions: Questions on Ships: Archive through August 08, 2026
By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 03:05 pm: Edit

Adding new Commander’s Options for Klingon players to fiddle with the number of racks and shuttles on their ships is a far greater change than rewriting a bit of the background for (FD3.6).

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Quote:

Adding new Commander’s Options for Klingon players to fiddle with the number of racks and shuttles on their ships is a far greater change than rewriting a bit of the background for (FD3.6)



THAT is, sure.

But that was just an aside. What I was suggesting in the overall topic of discussion, though, was the concept of Klingons releasing the MY-era designs without drones, as (FD3.6) currently says, and adding them back later in fleet-wide refits.

THAT requires no changes at all - it's literally what the game currently is doing.

The only ask on that concept is simply clarification on what the date of that 'oops, we need drones, after all...F-racks for everybody!' ...actually occurs on, and what the BPV shift would be for the ships before then.

As to the 'variable rack vs shuttle configuration'...yeah, I mean, that's a bigger thing, obviously. Probably worth looking at defining rules around, given (YR3.10) and (YR3.15) certainly imply it's possible, but...that's a bigger question.

What I'm just looking for here, is assuming everything is correct as-written, right now, with no changes. If all that's true...the Klingons had drones, decided to release a later generation of ships WITHOUT them, then changed their minds and added them back on at some as-yet undefined date. All of THAT we have with no changes at all - I just wonder what the date would be.

Or we can do with your suggestion and re-write (FD3.6). Which is a less interesting way to resolve the question, IMHO.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Given the similarities drawn between the Klingon and Soviet design bureaus, it could be as simple as F-Racks work, why change?

i.e. D3/D4s hrm drones may be worth having, lets start refitting ships with the F-Rack, the D6 being designed doesn't know to include drone racks in the design, and they simply add F-Racks on the slipway. Then the D7 starts being designed, the F-Rack is now an established system that works just fine, why change it. Then drone speed refits hit, and now better drone racks become desirable enough to be worth the design work to upgrade ships.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Quote:

Then the D7 starts being designed, the F-Rack is now an established system that works just fine, why change it



Mostly because (FD3.6) says that the D7 (and etc) were designed without drones. Not 'designed with the F-rack', they were designed without drones. The F-rack was added later, once it was decided they need drones, after all.

So either (FD3.6) needs re-written to say they were designed with the F-rack to begin with...or we just need a date for when the F-rack was added.

I'm in favor of leaving the rule as-is, and simply specifying when the F-rack refit happened.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 06:14 pm: Edit

I think way back before doomsday. There was a time were anyone could put a F rack in a ship as a commander's option.

not sure were or why i think this.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 07:34 pm: Edit

I haven't researched this exhaustively but it appears that Designer's Edition Expansion #2 introduced the rule (149.15) that allowed some empires to install a drone rack in place of a shuttle box (there was a rule for "auxiliary drone racks" in Pocket Edition but these added a box to the SSD rather than replacing a shuttle).

Although the racks in Expansion #2 were referred to as "F" racks they were "identical" to "A" racks and did not have any special rules other than the cost of installation (4 points). The firing rate restrictions were a Klingon specific rule that applied to all "pre-refit" Klingons ships, rather than to a specific type of drone rack.

There is also this interesting tidbit in regards to the B10:

"The B-10 had a large Shuttle Bay, and it appears likely that eight fighters would be carried in addition to four Administrative Shuttles. One contingency plan called for this bay to be filled with "Jump" racks in order to bombard the planet Earth from orbit".

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 09:48 pm: Edit

F racks are not optional, and won't be.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 10:27 pm: Edit

Quote:

F racks are not optional, and won't be.



I don't think anyone suggested otherwise, beyond a thought exercise?

The question is simply - Klingon middle-year-era ships have them before their B-refits, but don't originally have them (FD3.6). Not 'optional' - at some point they had no drones, then they had F-racks.

Sooooo...what's the year of that split, between "have F-racks before their B-refit" and "don't originally have any drones at all"?

It's just some date in there. No rules changes.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 10:45 pm: Edit

The date is way back there, before the four powers war.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 11:20 pm: Edit

Quote:

The date is way back there, before the four powers war.



The Four Powers War?? Golly, I'd hope so! Y158? Wow, I was thinking it was MUCH earlier.

I suppose it depends on the ship, though? For some reason, the C8 and C9 (Y167) apparently had F-racks, to begin with, which...why? I dunno, whatever. That's what the rule says.

Best guess I could throw out, and I have no idea why it would be rolled out this way, but trying to fit every rule, R-section, and SSD (more or less)...

Y120 - D6 with no drones
Y122 - D6 gets F-racks??*
Y133? - D7 with no drones
Y135 - D7 gets F-racks
Y167 (early?) - C8/9 with no drones **
Y167 (late?) - C8/9 with F-racks

B10, F5, and E5 don't matter as (FD4.3) already excludes them from the F/A-rack split.

* I'd REALLY love to push this date later, though, because it makes the D7 deployment with no drones SO WEIRD. Can we let the D6 run without drones from Y120 to Y135, and it gets its F-racks at the same time the D7 does?

** While 'before the Four Powers War' makes sense and I love that as a cut-off...it creates an issue. That's Y158. The problem is that the C8/9 didn't come into service until Y167, and (FD3.6) says they didn't originally have drones on them. This is annoying to me.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 11:22 pm: Edit

At the risk of potentially overlapping with the replies I had posted to the D6-related question in the parallel BBS discussion to this one, I might suggest a different way of approaching this matter.

In the "western" portion of the Alpha Octant, the Klingons and Kzintis developed drones at around the same time as each other - and, indeed, at roughly the same time that the Early Years Carnivons developed death bolts.

In the case of the Kzintis, drones were their primary heavy weapons, not least since they did not get around to acquiring disruptor bolt technology until much later.

For the Klingons, with their disruptor bolts, and the Carnivons, with their disruptor cannons, their respective seeking weapons were much lower priorities, tactically-speaking. Notably, much as the Klingons made use of jump racks inside shuttle bays for their drones, the W- and Y-era Carnivons did the same for their death bolt racks. (The "lost empire" Carnivons in Module C6 would have developed dedicated death bolt rack boxes, though even these require "deck crew actions" to operate the DBs stored therein.)

In the case of the Klingons, this was in the context of the "deckhouse" concept they had settled upon for their home-built starship designs. As noted above, leveraging the jump rack space out of the deckhouse shuttle bay in order to field certain mission variants with increased shuttle capacities (such as survey or diplomatic cruisers) made plenty of sense, especially in eras when drones were slower and/or less powerful than they would be by the onset of the General War.

In other words, while the "line" ships of each class would still be intended to have the jump racks as shown on their respective SSDs, this was in order to make it easier for certain mission variants to have them be swapped out for more admin shuttle spaces, if needs be.

Which, in the longer run, would make it easier for both the Romulans and the Federal Republic to discard the drone racks entirely, in favour of more shuttles. (Something of particular use for the FRA, given their access to shuttle bomb technology.)

So, if a rule as currently written talks about adding drones to ships not originally designed for them, I would suggest slightly re-phrasing this to refer to adding drones to base hulls not originally designed to have innate drone rack capacity: i.e. to have "stand-alone" type-A racks elsewhere on the hull, in the same manner as the Kzintis did.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, August 07, 2026 - 11:35 pm: Edit

Quote:

At the risk of potentially overlapping with the replies I had posted to the D6-related question in the parallel BBS discussion to this one...



*Blargh*, I really crossed the streams on this one. My bad! It really was two different questions I had? But, yeah, a bit of overlap. And probably I messed up how to discuss that.

THIS thread (question on ships) was specifically about the 'original D6', and what that looked like. At the very least, we know it had no drones, but what else? Question for this thread.

OTHER topic was (inspired by this question, granted) - what exactly WAS the timeline of the jump-racks in Klingon service? They started the Early Years without them...added them...then designed a new generation of ships (D6/F5/etc) WITHOUT them...then decided they needed drones after all, and added them back...

That just feels like an interesting story in the ~Y120 to ~135 period. And that was the question pitched in the other thread.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 12:13 am: Edit

The Klingon Empire in the Star Fleet Universe is famous for never throwing away a weapon.

They are also eminently utilitarian in their approach towards starship design, as evidenced with their retention of the "manta ray" starship design template they first developed back in the era of Non-Tactical Warp throughout recorded SFU history, iterative adjustments notwithstanding.

(The very first ships in Klingon service were recommissioned Old King hulls, which the Empire was no doubt eager to move on from at their earliest opportunity.)

In one sense, this applies to the kind of base hulls they draw blueprints for in each era of Tactical Warp technology - and, in certain cases, what kind of mission variants these base hulls are planned to be used for.

Now, since there is no dedicated product for the "sublight" era, we can't yet say for sure what kind of variants (commando, survey, diplomatic, etc.) the Klingons used for the D1, the D2, and the "pre-warp" D3 in that time period.

What we do know is that, as soon as W-, Y- and M-era warp technology proved viable, such mission variants appeared for the "warp refitted" D3, the D4, and the D6 in relatively short order.

-----

From the perspective of the Klingon shipwrights and engineers involved, the issue was to decide which systems would be common across all - or at least most - mission variants of a given base hull, and which would vary from one to another.

It's at this point where, for the purposes of this discussion, the matter of the jump racks would be of relevance.

For the "line" hulls - as in, the "standard" iterations to be deployed for patrol and combat operations - the jump racks as seen on the SSDs would be placed in the ships' deckhouses, as part of the "default" setup to be presented to the commanding officers to be assigned to these ships. This would be the case for the "line" D6.

In some cases, a given mission variant might get the same number of jump racks in the deckhouse. Or, they might get just one, with a total of three shuttle spaces in the deckhouse bay - as seen on the D6E.

Or, maybe the variant in question is constructed without installing any jump racks at all: this was the case for the D6N.

So, even though the D6 base hull in the above examples does not have dedicated drone rack space on the hull itself, it is still very much intended for the jump racks to be installed as standard on those variants which are deemed to require them.

-----

In other words, I would argue that, even with no "innate" drone racks being installed onto the base hulls in question, each "line" version of these base hulls still has its jump racks installed in their respective deckhouses from the outset, as part of the process of designing and fielding those particular mission profiles.

By this, there would be no window in which the Klingons "throw away" the use of drones in a given generation: they are, in fact, being deployed continuously.

Or, in short: I'd (once again) say that it's better to errata (FD3.6) in order to account for this, rather than try to cut against the grain of decades' worth of in-universe Klingon tactical doctrine.

But, of course, I leave it up to the folks at ADB to decide upon, one way or another.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 12:15 am: Edit

Does the timeline or another source give a date for the introduction of drones? I cannot find a specific date in what I can get to at home but I see ships earlier than 125 which have them. I would say it's going to be in the Y120s, maybe 3-5 years after introduction of the D6, maybe just one year or six months.

I actually remember US Navy warships that were retrofitted with harpoon missiles in the helicopter hangars. They had to roll the launchers out on the landing deck before they could fire. It was a special time.

I might comment that this is the sort of question that turns up when someone cannot find the answer, everyone says "what a disaster that this data is missing", ADB spends an entire day figuring out the year, then someone points to where the year was published in 1982 and asks why we changed it. That's happened before, several times.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 12:25 am: Edit

The Timeline says "Drones are first used in combat. Klingons and Kzintis deploy these new weapons simultaneously in an outgrowth of Tactical Warp technology. For a brief period, both races are deploying Non-Tactical Warp ships (which fight at sublight) armed with warp-speed weapons."

Module Y1 pg6

WHAT YEAR?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 12:30 am: Edit

Per (YFD0.0) in Module Y1 and in the 2012 Electronic Master Rulebook, type-I drones first appeared in Y65.

Types, II, IV, and V drones appeared in Y77.

Type-III drones were first used in Y83, though they did not get extended range until Y93. They did equip a form of ATG as standard; other drone types could not equip this system before Y126.

Type-VI drones did not enter service until Y95 (for defensive use against said extended range type-III drones), and did not get their warp-seeking guidance systems until Y122.

Prior to Y125, all of these drone types had a 50% reduction in warhead strength relative to "modern" drones of the same type.

Certain varieties of drone, such as slug or armoured drones, appeared in Y67. Most others, such as ECM or probe drones, did not show up until well after the Early Years period.

-----

As for the racks they could be launched from: per (YFD3.0), type-A, -B, -C, -D, and -F racks were first available in Y65.

Although type-E racks were rare prior to Y93, the year in which one of the first long-range drone bombardment missions (by the Kzintis, against a Klingon colony planet) took place.

Apparently a number of Kzinti lords "practiced" for such an attack by launching various long-range drone strikes against their domestic rivals within Hegemony-held space!

-----

On a related note: per (YFD7.0), scatterpacks did exist in the Early Years era; they can be used from Y81 onwards.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 12:43 am: Edit

G3 Technology Timeline has the same info:

Y65 ..................Drones (type-I, warhead 6 points) are first
used in combat. Klingons and Kzintis
deploy these new weapons virtually
simultaneously. Type A, B, C, D, and F
drone racks in service. The type-E
drone rack and type-VI drone were
also developed at this time,but were
used only as a means of launching
targets to be engaged by weapons in
tests. Type-VI drones were not
designated as type-VI

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Quote:

I would say it's going to be in the Y120s, maybe 3-5 years after introduction of the D6, maybe just one year or six months.



Y120s could work. Problem is that the F5 and D7 are also noted as not originally being designed with drones, and their YIS is Y135. If I had a 'pie in the sky' wishlist request for it - I'd pick Y133? This means the D6 SSD should get some tweaks to reflect an 'earlier' version (it's Y120 -> Y133 life), but only that ship would need anything. Y133 means we can say that the Klingon decision to drop drones from their Middle year designs was reversed - so the D6 got refit for them...and while the F5 and D7 were DESIGNED without drones (as the rules say), in practice F-racks were added on the slipways at the same time the D6s were getting them refit.

And to finish the ultimate wishlist off, and make the D6 feel a bit 'lived in' - give it another refit VERY early in its life to bridge more of a gap between Y-era and the D7. In fact, pretty much just start with a D4-like deckhouse.

It would look something like this

(Setting Y125 for that first major refit from the D4-style deckhouse to allow the SFU Timeline to check out better. Currently the official SFU timeline and GURPS: Prime Directive both say "Y125: The Klingons launch the first of the new D6 class." - which is confusing given a YIS of Y122. But if we consider this deckhouse refit the 'launch of a new D6 class'? Now it all checks out! As to the BPV of the refits to 'back out' some of the initial 'final D6' design, I took a SWAG using the old S3.3 rules)

EDIT: FWIW, checked through the scenario list in Module G3A. There are no published scenarios involving the Klingons from Y120 until Y136. So - no risk of messing anything up with nuance around the F-racks added in that date range.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Quote: F racks are not optional, and won't be.

I recall in the previous editions one could removed jump-racks and replace them with shuttles, but there was no option to add more such racks by taking out the remaining shuttles.

I presume this is no longer true.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 03:39 pm: Edit

Garth: rule number?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 03:48 pm: Edit

S3.3 had this:

Quote:

Replace one shuttle with F-rack............................................2

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 03:56 pm: Edit

Per the current Captain's Edition of (S3.3), "player modifications have been deleted".

it notes that the original purpose - as opposed to the purpose said rules ended up being used for - was to account for the creation of special variant hulls: with the publication of so many "mission variant" SSDs, this purpose was deemed to have been satisfied through those means.

Rule number (S7.0) has been provisionally reserved for a more comprehensive (and viable) set of modification rules: at this time of typing, no such rules have been printed.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 04:15 pm: Edit

I think it was more analogous to a "commander's option" than a "player modification". Much like replacing a shuttle with a drogue.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 04:46 pm: Edit

yes and thank the everyone for stopping a shuttle for a drone rack. Why everyone would have ECM drones

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Saturday, August 08, 2026 - 05:17 pm: Edit

The problem with the original rule is that it let ANY empire replace a shuttle with a drone rack (runaway tech slosh) rather than having the F-rack be a Klingon-specific rule. Limited to the Klingons there wasn't really much opportunity for abuse since Klingon ships typically don't carry very many shuttles and there is a definite disadvantage to having fewer of them (one less shuttle to be a scatter-pack or wild weasel).

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