I got this idea in the F&E thread for a one off ship.

Here is the rough idea:

When the prototype for the CS was built another was imediatly begun but the NCL put a stop to it before it could be completed. The mostly built but uncompleted ship was sent to be dismantled and there it sat for a number of years. When plans were drawn on how to convert the first CS into a heavy cruiser Star Fleet Command imediately looked up the old unfinished second CS. Litterally a day away from being cut to pieces it was pulled from the yard an upgraded to this design.

I will make an SSD soon but I'll mention what I have in mind.

Take a standrd CC rear hull (with refits) and replace the CS's small aft hull. The engines are resused and are the lower type as on the CS so the side saucer phasers maintain their excelent arcs. No changes to the saucer.

This cruiser is atypical in that it has vastly reduced lab facilities for a heavy cruiser but the Federation was at war and the CSA did that job nicely. Even the Klingons were impressed and placed extra effort in destroying it as soon as possible...they never did but it was crippled twice. Once by the ISC and again by the Adromedans. It was retired before it could partcipate in Operation Unity (much to the shagrin of it's Captain at the time the fact is that with reduced suport facilities it would have had difficulty just making the long voyage.) It was reinstated for a short time for internal security and considered for an XP refit. Instead it was retired and scrapped.

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Well, the problem that arises is this: If this could be done, why couldn't they have used these low-mount engines on a non-lab-deficient CC/CA? There must be a reason that we had to wait for the BCs to get decent phaser arcs on a MC1 hull. If it really were possible in the 160s, the CA+ refit should have moved the engines.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:07 pm: Edit

Is it really a problem? by the time this issue came up, the production of "real" ca's would have been (largely) comleted...and the production of CB's begun.

Not sure why you insist that such a refit would have been done in the 160's...especially since Loren specified that the ship he is proposing served in the General war... incase you are not aware of it, the Klingons invaded the Federation in August of 172... so if any CA's would have had the engines repositioned as part of the + refit (assuming the Federation would have done so) would have had to have been done after the General war had started...by which time many of the CA's would have already had the + refit completed.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:42 pm: Edit

Well, the one CS that was built has the lowered engines and the discription states this design was eventually implemented on the BC (in fact it was implemented on other ships).

For what ever reason the standard CA and the CX had the saucer level engines. Perhaps this was simply more stable and as such required less maintenance. But on a war specific hull this was a fair trade for increased combat capability.

The CSA mearly reused the engine nacells from the original design. It probably took some extra work to fit them to the CA aft hull as so didn't excite Star Fleet too much about making more. Still, it was an operational unit so they put it to work.

In F&E the ship is exactly the same except I'd be inclined to put two small restrictions on it. It suffers more from being out of supply, and it cannot be used for Op Calvery, and it cannot be used off map (range is too long). During the GW the first restriction is the onlyone that MIGHT come into play but only rarely.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:47 pm: Edit

Uh, Loren, you realize that Operation Calvary started from Federation space towards Klinshai, IIRC, and settled for attacking the NR SB, IIRC.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Uh, D'oh!!!!

Thanks Scott...

I meant Operation Unity.

Crycky oh mighty...[roll eyes and silly error]

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Changing the CS's rear hull as follows:

Add 2 AWR, add 2 Rear Hull, 2 (360) P-1s, Trac+??? (I don't know).

MC=1

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 07:32 pm: Edit

Loren: An interesting consideration is that per SVC the CS is not a war hull, as it is not discounted in F&E. It's more like a Fed D7 -- more combat-oriented than a typical Fed ship, but not a war hull in the traditional SFB/F&E sense.

Looking at the SSD more here are my observations: If you add the rear hull, 2 Scr BTTY can go back to TRANS, giving you 4 BTTY and 3 TRANS, so the 4 TRANS ought to revert to LAB anyway. The main problem (engine mounts aside) is that there are now a PRB and 2 DRN-G in the saucer. Those should probably go, too -- if there's room for them there when attaching the big hull, then why doesn't the CA have them (at least the DRN-G)?

In the end, then, you wind up with pretty much a standard CA. If you just swap rear hulls without any of this rearranging, you get:

6 BTTY
3 DRN-G
2 PRB
5 TRANS
4 LAB

in place of the CA+'s:

4 BTTY
1 DRN-G
1 PRB
3 TRANS
8 LAB

That's CCH/BCH-level reserve power and drone capability. Maybe if the breakdown is really bad (2-6?) so the ability to HET on reserve power isn't an issue that would work itself out... and it would explain why the CA+ and CB still had the high engines.

I suspect that in F&E terms this would just be a 9-point ship costing 9 -- the same as a CC just with a lower CR. No extra restrictions should be necessary.

[Edited to fix my inability to count TRANS in a CA rear hull...]

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 07:37 pm: Edit

Vorlonagent/Scottt: Add 1 DRN-G, 1 PRB, 2 PH-3 (360), 2 AFT HULL, 2 BTTY, 1 TRANS. Loren said a CC rear hull, so make the PH-1 360 instead of RH, too. (One must assume the refit would be included...)

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 08:30 pm: Edit

As far as what's a refit and what's not, my gut feeling agrees with you -- but that's not SFB canon. There are some pretty radical changes which are called refits, e.g. the Gorn CA's + and F refits. Specifically on engines, as I mentioned the Hydrans and Kzins re-engined ships as part of refits -- from 9-box to 10-box engines on the Z-CS, 10-box to 12-box engines on the Hyd. CW classes, etc. Remounting is not necessarily more radical than replacing the engines completely.

In my draft campaign rules I call things like these conversions, not refits -- e.g., F-CA to F-CA+ is a refit, H-PAL to H-PAL+ is a conversion. But I believe I'm breaking with SFB/F&E canon there.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 08:32 pm: Edit

actually, mounting s slightly larger engine to the exact same mount sould be easier then moving the engines to a new mount

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 09:05 pm: Edit

Thanasis: I rather agree with that but I also agree with David Lang. Moving the engines to a new mount is more than a refit and probably more than a conversion.

It's a big deal. Not so much for this ship but for the others.

To refresh what the issue is your saying the CS cannot be converted to a full Cruiser with lowered engines since if this could be done it would have been done on all cruisers but it wasn't so the CSA cannot exsist.

If this is what you're saying I really have to dissagree in that what you might do to one unique hull don't lead to doing on any others. They might have achieved it on this one at the time but it could have been too much of a headache to go all out with until some details were ironed out. The you see it on new designs.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 09:27 pm: Edit

The "WYN formula"

Yes we can do that. It just costs a lot for anyone besides the WYNs to bother with. (and we found out the hard way with the first one)

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 10:35 pm: Edit

Loren: I didn't at all mean to say that it can't ever be done, just that it probably isn't possible until Y176-7. The refit issue aside, if (e.g.) it were possible in Y175, then the changed engine mounts ought to have appeared on the CB instead of waiting for the BCH in Y177. But by Y177 the new mounts are clearly possible, so there's no reason not to make a CSA -- although by that point the BCG, CB, NCA, etc., are also available, so it would remain a one-off (as you presumably intended).

I think I got it in my head somehow that you intended this to be an early war conversion...

On another topic, what do you think about the extra PRB? Just delete the one from the saucer? (I can't see any reason for the ship to have to PRB...)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 12:30 am: Edit

Dunno, I haven't check it yet but probably convert it back to lab???

Intro date? Probably would be about that time actually. Prior to Y176 the Admirals hardly have time to look up from their tables to look at anything out of the box.

As I stated in the opening post the second CS sat incomplete waiting for years to be scrapped. I suspect that it's scrapping might have been delayed several times and could be a whole story in itself but I won't go into it. Suffice it to say it sat on death row through appeal after appeal and finaly got the call from Star Fleet while sitting in the chair!

I think it would be best to allow SVC decide the actual intro date.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 12:38 am: Edit

You know what you might call the command/heavy version of this design or maybe just this design itself a Super Heavy Cruiser:-)

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 06:20 am: Edit

Loren: You write ``convert it back to lab???'' -- I don't think the PRB in the saucer corresponds with anything in the CA saucer. The DRN-G maybe correspond with the CC's Flag Bridge spaces... If the thing didn't already have a disturbingly large number of DRN-G I would be inclined to put one in for the PRB, but that really would be overkill.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 08:14 am: Edit

Much as I admire Loren's proposals and contributions to SFB, this one I gotta question. By making the aft hull a full-sized CC+ one, you either do one of two things; you change the move cost from 5/6 to 1, or you get the ultimate munchkin cruiser; a CC with a 5/6 move cost. In the first case, you're defeating the purpose of the CS - that is, a cheaper, smaller and faster hull - to make what already basically exists; the CC. In the second, you're voiding the one major liability the CS has; small size. I think the CS is fine, especially with the plus refit. No need to make it bigger, IMHO. It sort of spoils the particular flavor the ship has, at least for me.

I will, of course, still happily post any SSD you come up with, Loren.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 09:12 am: Edit

Mike Raper:

Check out the F&E thread on the CS, SVC specified that the CS could be upgraded to a CA or to any CA variant.

It's not Loren who opened that door, but SVC.

By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 09:32 am: Edit

No, SVC allows a Fed CS to be converted to a standard CA or any standard CA variant. He didn't say anything about creating a new class of ship mixing the bonuses of the CS and the size of a CA. Sheesh.⁴²