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Turreted Maulers

For some reason I had got to thinking about Borak ships, which have megaphasers. These megaphasers are nearly as powerful as a phaser-4 but can only fire through the very narrow "mauler arc". But they are in rotating turrets so that narrow arc can be oriented through any one of the six shields rather than only firing through the front.

That, in turn, got me thinking about giving the Romulans (and perhaps Klingons and Lyrans) "Turreted Maulers" as "impossible" Stellar Shadows" ships.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, January 09, 2020 - 11:35 pm: Edit

About a decade and a half ago, Robert Cole generously ran a proposal on his site, the Shipyards of Vega, that I sent him.

Imagine this; a variant of the Intruder has a Terminator docked to its dorsal surface. The Terminator is on a turntable and, as such, is able to be rotated in any direction.

I called the Intruder variant the "Inebriator" class, with the suggestion that, "Whomever came up with this hallucination HAD to be drunk at the time!!"

The basic proposal was an inarticulate mish-mash of Qari turret rules with standard docking rules, but Robert did clean them up into something a LOT better.

All my records of the idea are long gone (as is the computer I was using at the time), so odds are the idea as a whole is unretrievable. Still, since you brought up the idea of turreted maulers, is this something in line with what you're thinking of, Alan?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, January 10, 2020 - 09:42 am: Edit

Sort of, I guess. But I wasn't thinking of one ship docked to a larger one, but rather of a single, purpose-built ship. And I was thinking in terms of Borak turret rules. I read the Qari rules a long time ago but have never played Qari. I can't recall whether their turret rules are the same as the Borak turret rules or not.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, January 11, 2020 - 01:22 am: Edit

I hope you have luck with this, `cause right now, I'm trying to picture a D-type hull with a HUGE box on its dorsal surface where it has the mauler and all its batteries.

As a miniature, I don't think what I'm picturing will work.

One thought I did just have while typing here is the Canadi'en Mauler Ships. I know it's not the same, but it is something, well, it does improve mauler arcs pretty darned good, IMO...

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, January 12, 2020 - 10:58 am: Edit

I have been considering Eddie Crutchfield s post about a Stellar Shadows Journal battle force idea.

I suspect that it will be difficult for all empires to field competitive battle forces from the ships available.

I would like to float a modified idea: that any empire that does not have every niche filled with unpublished ships, could substitute any published civilian ships useable by the empire in question. That includes free traders (and variants), small or large freighters (with or without military grade engines) and any armed civilian ships from R module 8(freighters equipped with skids and duck tails).

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Sunday, January 12, 2020 - 12:52 pm: Edit

That would work

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, January 12, 2020 - 06:48 pm: Edit

If you did include civilian variants, it pretty much limits scenarios to convoy, planetary defense, FEMA operations, search/rescue, anti piracy missions or Defense from fast raiders.

Still leaves the possibility of refugee missions where planets in the way of enemy invasions might want to send off planet non combatants (children, young mothers, retired citizens unable to work or fight etc.) might also include transport of valuable art, fungible commodities (gold, platinum, latinum dilithium etc.)

One other possible mission:rescue of science personnel from secret science outposts before the enemy can capture the outposts and learn the secrets, technology or revolutionary scientific data.

Not sure what the Klingon war policy is, concerning prison worlds. (Almost certainly found in kzinti worlds, possibly fewer in the Federation which is more "enlightened" concerning reeducation of criminal psychosis.). Might just be that the Klingons ignore prison worlds all together.