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Yes, I understand you point, (and the caution was cute! .

That said, pausing a moment to consider the “What If…”

Five standard photon torpedoes (at 2 warp energy points each, )would require 10 warp energy points (2*5=10). Full standard Overloads, thus (6*5=30) warp energy points.

If, just grasping for a straw here, you used a GSC hull (because the GSC has more internal SSD boxes than a CA) and you ***could*** build a BC(L) saucer with 5 Photons…

Well, imputing the warp power requirements, and a normal GW era movement rate of 22 hexes per SFB turn, (22+30=52 warp points) minimum.

Let us assume that house keeping (life support+shields+active fire control.). Harder since we have not defined everything, and we are limited to a size class 3 hull, hummm.

Well, nice exercise.

This monster should be saved for the Scary Ships Contest.

Funny, the power of a B-10 Battleship squeezed into a large Cruiser hull, with a DNL alpha strike.

Should sell like hotcakes or hot dogs with all the fixings!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Five photons is called "breaking the game". You might as well throw out all engineering sense and do anything you want. Have fun, but don't bring it here.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Alan, I've read your recent questions and have a different take on things.

First, even though the Federation has a more robust economy to afford R&D, R&D usually discovers more about what doesn't work than what does work. Thomas Edison is said to have made about 1000 unsuccessful experiments before finally inventing a long-lasting light bulb. An in SFU example is the B-10 for which is said, "Ultimately, the completed B10s would have about six thousand tons of metal framework that they did not really need, but which was too expensive to remove."

Second, money isn't always the answer or a consideration. During WWII, as a reductio ad absurdem argument, the US economically could have afforded to deploy squadrons of F-35s.

Then there's a third argument that R&D made in one direction finds a use in another. It just may be that technology gained in PF research was useful in the production of the Z-YC and TADSC.

All three of these reasons also work for the X-Tech subject as well.


Mike Grafton, The tankers of WWII would not universally agree that the 76mm gun was superior to the 75mm gun. The shell of the 76mm lost about 50% of its explosive capacity in order to make it robust enough to be fired from the cannon.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 03:18 pm: Edit

John,

The discussions seem kind of OBE ("Overtaken By Events", not "Order of the British Empire", because that would be silly...) since SVC has expressed that he is not interested in either an "improved F-18" or first generation X-ships that are not based on standard-tech hull designs. But I will give the brief answer that I think your points, while true, are probably "neutral" regarding whether an improved F-18 or a new-design X-ship ought to exist. It does not seem (to me) that they support either the contention that such ships should exist, or the contention that they should not.

I could give some specific examples if you want. But really this seems to be a dead horse.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 10:08 am: Edit

The Drex Unity is comprised of self-operating, self-replicating, thoroughly-intelligent robots (the Drexari who originally built them no being longer involved in even their own gov't, let alone anything else). Indeed, the Drexari almost never leave their own homes, let alone board Drex warships. So, the questions is: why are Drex warships required to pay for life support?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 10:12 am: Edit

Keep their USB devices charged up.

By Patrick Sledge (Decius) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 12:41 pm: Edit

It possible that they're designed to operate most efficiently in a certain temperature range that the 'life support' maintains.

It's possible that having an atmosphere of some sort to allow heat transfer by convection is still desirable for cooling, and a system is needed to circulate it.

It's possible there are other vital systems which are more energy intensive on a ship run entirely by robots (Networking infrastructure?), that requires roughly the same amount of energy as a ship full of organics needs to keep its occupants breathing.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 02:31 pm: Edit

The Drexari do not continually inhabit their ships, but do (DO) on occasion ride along, perhaps for the experience of being shot at so that they do not succumb to boredom. There are clearly other reasons why a Drexari might choose to ride in a ship. In any case, the Drex robots are programmed to maintain life support so that any such Drexari is not discomfited having to wait for the life support to be brought up to comfortable standards before they board the ship.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 09:32 pm: Edit

On a side note: while most Drex fast patrol ship variants are designed never to carry a Drexari aboard, there is a distinct life support chamber aboard Drex recovery PFs. But, those are only activated when there is a need for them to do so - not least since the PFR suffers a number of limitations in terms of manoeuvrability while this is being done.

Speaking of PFs, it's notable that, despite how small Drex gunboats are by the Omega Octant average, the Drex found it quite difficult to install "casual" mech-links in any significant number on any given hull type, since even their "full-size" ships had been built to such narrow tolerances that adding these external hard-points was quite difficult for hulls not purposely adapted for use as "full" PFTs.

Which makes for an interesting comparison, in terms of the exacting standards to which most Drex military units are set - and why it might have been more "logical" for them to design their full-sized ships with latent life support capabilities from the outset.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 24, 2026 - 08:14 pm: Edit

In both Star Fleet Battles and in Federation and Empire, Auxiliary ships (small and large freighters) are assigned to specific roles.

These include, but not limited to:
Troop transports,
Repair Ships,
Exploration freighters,
Hospital ships,
Civilian convoys,
Military Convoys
Etc.

Not asking for any specific changes to the existing rules, just wondering if any given auxiliary could be refitted to a different role similar to the way tugs can change pods and tug missions?

For example, if a player/empire has no immediate need for troop transports, could he substitute the troopship for a repairshiip by switching the cargo pod (configured as a troop ship) for another pod type? Assuming he had a repairship pod or other type pod unused/unassigned?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, August 24, 2026 - 08:55 pm: Edit

Technically possible, but probably prevented by most being hard welded, since none can use the skids or ducktails that were added for base freighters (and the basic armed freighters IIRC) …

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, August 24, 2026 - 10:46 pm: Edit

I get that Stewart, but I guess what I was wondering if each empire (more for home run campaigns) simply get a set of small and large drive and command modules and a fixed number of pods(cargo, troop, survey, caerrier etc…) that they would handle like tugs and tug missions.

Its mostly unnecessary for F&E, but for a home run campaign for a larger gaming group, it would give more flexibility for how missions (type, quantity or complexity) could get resolved.

It would also give an option for more auxiliaries such as armed freighters, or ballast freighters (no cargo pods at all, just a command and drive modules)

Sure more book keeping, but its more for home campaign groups than F&E.

Anyway, just thought it was a nagging question to ask.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, August 24, 2026 - 11:13 pm: Edit

It is an interesting question worth answering.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 - 03:12 pm: Edit

For what it is worth, right now, an armed freighter cannot be any other type of freighter than a cargo freighter. You could technically combine different types of pods on a large or huge freighter (e.g., repair pod and a troop transport pod, or a repair pod and a luxury transport pod), but you are not going to take a Q-ship and put its pod between a small armed freighter drive section and an armed Command module, or make an auxiliary cruiser function as a Q-ship. Nor are you going to put skids and/or ducktails on a Q-ship or an armed auxiliary. Q-ships and auxiliaries are hard-welded from the start, in effect one piece ships, and do not trade pods to perform a different mission, They are what they are.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 - 06:05 pm: Edit

Not being able to upgrade a Q ship seems reasonable.

If a better Q ship is ever justified, ADB certainly could publish a SSd,

No justification for any rule change, but would something like this be a viable f&e balance option?

Nothing over powered, just a “player may exchange a troop transport for a repair ship, once per turn, no duplicates on subsequent turns, or may elect to return the converted ship back to its original mission a future turn.”

Could include other conversions not allowed under any circumstances (such as carriers, for example.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 12:39 am: Edit

It is possible to convert a variety of auxiliary types into certain other types over in F&E. See the various conversion costs listed on the Federation SIT.

There are certain limitations. For example: while an auxiliary can be upgraded to a larger type, it cannot be downgraded to a smaller type.

There are also certain production limits, alongside limits in terms of how far a given auxiliary can move in a given turn, as listed here.

As to where certain auxiliary types happen to be located: an example of this can be seen on the Y168 Federation Order of Battle - which also has a section stating how many of a given auxiliary type the Feds can operate at once.

-----

Also, F&E has rules which account for the handling of certain tug pod types - to include how many pods of a given type can be in service at once. See the above Y168 UFP OOB file for examples of this.

Fortunately, in most (but not quite all) cases, it's not necessary to keep track of certain tug pod types which are not presently in operation. Those, for the most part, are kept in a "pool" by dedicated staff officers; the exact details involved lie below the level at which F&E players need be concerned about.

So far as I'm aware, there are no rules in F&E which presently allow for tug pods to be "used up" for the production of auxiliary units. That said, given the need for actual tugs (and LTTs and other transports) to use those tug pods to carry out their own missions, I'm not sure how often, if at all, this would happen historically.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Repair Freighters in F&E are given as to the number a given empire has. You cannot increase them by (as far as I can recall) any means, nor can they be destroyed (effectively).

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 03:46 pm: Edit

(422.0) limits each empire to a specified number of repair ship counters per their OoB - but also notes that those counters “represent a concentration of tactical repair assets in a zone of intense combat.” The actual number of ships an empire operates is thus undefined.

As for tug pods to auxiliaries, I suspect this is case where, say, a carrier pod for a tug and the carrier body of an AuxCV may be very similar in game terms - we look at the SSDs and go “oh there is only minor differences!” - the in-setting design and engineering are *very* different. Tug pods are designed for quick coupling and uncoupling, the strain of speeds auxiliaries aren’t capable of, sometimes are capable of operating as independent ships, etc. Even if a tug pod could be used as the basis for an equivalent auxiliary, the Navy would view it as a colossal waste. An auxiliary simply wouldn’t be suited for becoming a tug pod.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick:

Balance Options in F&E contain a number of departures from normal rules.

Such as altering the regular rules as pertains to such things order of battle, bases, moth ball fleets (and altering the ship release schedules) etc.

You might not recall, but the purpose of such options is intended to adjust the game balance between opponents.

Removing one repair ship counter in a F&E game reduces a players repair capacity, and thus increases the degree of difficulty.

Increasing the number of repair ship counters thus gives the opposite effect.

Same applies to the number/type of troop ships of (in the case of the Federation) hospital ships.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 05:05 pm: Edit

And it is not something the players can control as they wish in the game. Your set of repair ships is set at the start of the game and remains unchanged throughout as I recall.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Tug missions include a repair ship mission.

Players do decide, from turn to turn, which missions the tugs perform.

So, actually, your statement that players set of repair ships being set at the start of the game is technically not correct.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Jeff, the number of repair ships IS set, the fact that one can augment them with one repair tug per turn doesn't change the number of repair ships, it just allows a bit of overload at a cost.