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'The only way I can see is if the invasion is successful. The Romulan space assets are wiped out. THEN the Tholians arrive, cutting off the newly conquered territories from the main part of the Empire. Romulans revolt, capturing a large number of Klingon ships, and also technical knowledge (experts sent to upgrade Romulan industrial capacity). In preference to restarting production for their old-school ships, they start making Kestrels.'

Win.

In fact, given the plasma tech available to the Roms at the time of the Conquest (ie, no warp...no mask...and most importantly, NO SEEKING PLASMA..range 5 bolts ONLY), the Kestrals are going to use DISRUPTORS.

I would say that the Roms, being Roms and liking punch as well as range, would go with disruptor cannon (like the Kzinti's almost did).

Since the Roms don't develop seeking plasma in this timeline, you can either say the Gorns develop seeking plasma much earlier than normal, or B) go with another heavy weapons system.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 04:59 pm: Edit

I still leave them with plasma. The Romulans have to know that seeking plasma is somewhere close; they just have to find it. Besides, they are retooling their shipyards; no reason to go and completely retool their weapons factories, too.

I specifically had it take them until seeking plasma to get all of the production lines fully humming along, anyway. So, their main production are Kestrels with seeking plasma. They're good.

(Back when I had a Klingon fleet involved, I had the new production be Kestrels, but the existing ships stay with disruptors for exactly that reason. The disruptor is better until Y88. After that, seeking plasma totally blows it away. So, the existing D3s and F3s were just Klingon ships with the F-racks removed [no drone factories]. The new Kestrels were pure plasma.)

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 03:11 am: Edit

Even with full engineering details on how to build Kestrels, and how to build the tools to build Kestrels, why would they build Kestrels, instead of designing their own new-generation ships?

Logistics greatly favor designs with commonalities to existing ships in the fleet. Historically, since there were so many Klingon-built Kestrels in service, this issue would have favored new Kestrel production; if you have to make and supply Klingon-type spares anyway, you might as well make more Klingon-type ships. But if you don't have any KRs in service, why build any, instead of your own custom, keel-up designs using at least some of the parts (and Romulan-standard screw fittings, etc.) already in production for the sublight series?

The only way you're going to get the Romulans to build Kestrels is if you put a lot of actual Klingon ships, and probably a bunch of Klingon machine tools, in Romulan hands. Otherwise you're going to get Romulan-specific new designs at best inspired by the Klingon designs (see the "slightly modified F5 boom" mentioned in R4.N2).

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 08:32 pm: Edit

I just had a thought (and yes, it hurt).
Let me see if I can flesh this out.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 11:45 pm: Edit

If there are tactical warp fleets operating from Romulus at this time on (be they Klingon, Romulan or whatnot) how would this effect the rate of expansion - or the kind of reactions sparked by the neighbours?


If the Federation discovers a warp-powered enemy on its Romulan border, would the Sixth become that much more of a priority - and how would that have a knock-on effect on the fleets on other fronts?

Would the Gorns be able to successfully complete their Paravian blockade - or would the Sun Snake attack end up not entirely wiping the birds out this time around? (Even if you leave in the loss of Paravia, that could still leave the option of turning any surviving ships which don't go to stalk the Omega Octant to become the core of a more vicious set of local raiders.)

Indeed, would the Gorns be driven to expand in other directions to try and build up their economy - maybe running into the Federation early in the process? (Since this is before the Border Declaration, and at a time when the Feds had not done very much in the north-east direction, the Gorns might even get to worlds like Skoleos and Hahrnohk-7 - or perhaps even Chicago, if you want to be more ambitious - before they run into Star Fleet.)

Plus, what happens if one of the ships liable to be going 'east' - from whatever empire or faction - ends up running into the Inter-Stellar Concordium? Y2 already has several rules covering an early ISC activation* - and given the timing of such an encounter (when the concept of peace hadn't quite bedded down so much just yet) things could get very interesting.


You could end up with an Octant where a tactical warp empire on Romulus causes the Federation to be smaller (perhaps unable to spare the ships to claim the Kzinti Zone of Influence, on top of any space the Gorns might get to first?), but with the wider balance of power affected by a larger Gorn Confederation (and/or Kzinti Hegemony?) plus an early-activation ISC... with some Paravian raiding cells thrown in for good measure.


Could be fun.


*I just had a look at some of the rules in that module - and even though an early-activation ISC would have to wait until Y168 for Plasma-S torps like everyone else, they can field plasmatic pulsar devices ten years after making contact. So, if they encounter another empire early enough, they could start fielding their Middle Years ships and bases as early as Y125, with their PPDs mounted and ready to go!

Lovely.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 12:47 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Even with full engineering details on how to build Kestrels, and how to build the tools to build Kestrels, why would they build Kestrels, instead of designing their own new-generation ships?

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Quote:

The only way you're going to get the Romulans to build Kestrels is if you put a lot of actual Klingon ships, and probably a bunch of Klingon machine tools, in Romulan hands. Otherwise you're going to get Romulan-specific new designs at best inspired by the Klingon designs (see the "slightly modified F5 boom" mentioned in R4.N2).

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By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 12:57 pm: Edit

As for a "real" Early Warp Romulans proposal, I can see three main directions to guide the efforts:
1) Give them warp early, but keep things crappy so Smarba still happens.
2) Give them warp early, but change their history to keep them in check.
3) Give them warp early, and see where it takes you.

Personally, I tend to one of the first two options. The primary reason is so that the changes are confined to just the Romulans, without changing the history of the whole area. Everyone else stays the same; only the Romulans change. I figure it has a much better chance of actually seeing the light of day if the scope is kept in check that way.

For #1, it is pretty easy. Give them the standard "Eagle" designs that are effective against their neighbors (big plasma will do that), but keep their ships' speeds limited so that when Y158 rolls around, the Klingon tech is still a big upgrade over their stuff. Fundamentally, from Y159 onwards, there is no difference.

For #2, they go it alone. They can introduce new designs for either their Y-era or MY-era (or both). The new designs would be total blank-slate: do whatever you want. These ships would all be directly comparable with their competition. Of course, that would mean they would crush everyone else, so to prevent that, change their internal history to keep them in check. Hello Civil War!! Add one (or two) as necessary to keep them from doing anything out of line.

The result of #2 is that the overall power structure of the empires is unchanged after about Y170 or so, but there is no Smarba, no Kestrels, no Hawks. Instead, the Romulans ally with the Klingons for some other reason, and use their own cool ships.

For #3, who knows? Do what you want. There are no guidelines, so anything can happen. The Romulans could conquer the whole Sector for all we know. Since it is so ridiculously wide open, I tend to ignore it. Several such things have already been proposed, why add a new one?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 29, 2018 - 04:18 pm: Edit

MIKE WEST: If you can turn this into a self-contained booklet of rules, scenarios, history, and SSDs (or lists of changes for Petrick and I to make to SSDs for the various games) then I will be happy to put it into the PDF store and print hard copies for anyone who wants to buy it. But you need to get it done before Jean is ready for you to start on PDT.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, January 29, 2018 - 05:41 pm: Edit

In light of Module C6's publication, it might be as well to consider basing this project on one of the alternate Paravian timelines offered in that volume. Indeed, alternate Paravian timeline #3 from C6 - one of the two which makes use of Mapsheet P - has the Romulans develop early tactical warp drive in Y68 (as the Gorns in that timeline are too hard-pressed by the Paravians to intervene), yet fail to advance it further prior to the Treaty of Smarba.

This would enable any Early Years (and/or Middle Years) Romulan ships created here to be featured in scenarios alongside their Gorn, Paravian, and/or Inter-Stellar Concordium counterparts; and perhaps also make it easier to expand upon the Paravian material previewed for Federation and Empire in Captain's Log #48 as discussed over here, perhaps in concert with the proposed Middle Years F&E rules printed in Capain's Log #52.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 29, 2018 - 06:33 pm: Edit

I don't think it's necessary to involve the Paravians.