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So that would make the printed SSDs of the prototypes rather than the production versions?

The solutions I see are to errata one, two, or three of the YISes, alter the SSDs, or a special Y60-65 rule that makes prototype drones less super; a percentage that lose tracking, or don't go off. Well, those wouldn't actually discourage using them, but I hesitate more extreme and less technologically justifiable faults such as homing on the launching ship. (Maybe while the drone is on the board it lowers the Scanner track of the launching ship, like giving itself an EW hit?)


The answer I think most likely to work is to put the K/Z War (Y50-82) into a "cold" phase while drones and the ships to use them are developed.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 10:12 am: Edit

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Quote:

Vulcans downgraded to phaser-2 in sublight era.

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By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 10:19 am: Edit

Back to the drones ...

The Klingons are easy to solve. They just didn't use F-racks until it was worth using F-racks. Prior to that, they are just shuttles. It solves the problem and makes sense for why they are F-racks instead of A-racks. They were a hurried solution that became institutionalized rather than corrected. (At least until a century later with the B-refits.)

(Also, to be honest, since the drones are F-racks, it would seem to me that any Klingon ship at any time should be free to simply toss the F-racks and get those shuttles back if so desired. Probably not a captain-by-captain decision, but it should at least be an Admiral-by-Admiral decision. Also, it should be allowed in one-off situations where it is expedient to jetison the racks and recover the shuttle bay. There should be some kind of "get rid of the F-rack" refit, at least in the Early Years.)

The Kzintis, however, are, uh, more problematic. They really need to have working type-I drones online with their initial tactical warp ships. Without that, they just don't work until the type-I drones do come online. They do need some kind of correction for that brief window.

By Patrick Sledge (Decius) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 12:57 pm: Edit

I suppose the first explanation that comes to my mind is that the launch system might have simply ready before the drones themselves were. Since the ships are presumably a longer lead-time item, they were designed with the expectation that the drones would be functional by the time the ships were built, and that proved to be incorrect.

The result was ships which had the launchers in place but had no ammunition to fire from them.

That could create a situation where the problem with the drones was sufficiently large (maybe they were prone to running circular, or spontaneously exploding, or something similarly catastrophic) that they couldn't actually be used until it was solved... but at the same time, the Klingons and Kzinti didn't want to pull those ships off duty to retrofit them back to an older system, only to have to pull them off the line again to put the 'new' system back.

That sort of development mismatch happens in the real world with complex weapons systems (See the 'Advanced Gun System' for the Zumwalt-class Destroyers for a great example).

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 12:57 pm: Edit

I was trying to be humorous.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Shawn Gordon:
Remembering that the Kzinti ships were more or less designed to fight other Kzinti ships, perhaps the Kzinti had some disagreement over who was going to run the Hegemony and turned their guns on each other instead of the Klingons.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 03:47 pm: Edit

I don't think an elaborate explanation is necessary for the Kzinti. If their WCA was introduced in the Fall of Y164 it's plausible they may not have seen combat until Spring of Y165 (the 1st 6 months being a "shakedown" cruise far from the border).

It's the Klingon timeline that presents more of a challenge.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 - 05:34 pm: Edit

Sorry, I meant to reference Y64 and Y65.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, July 27, 2023 - 09:51 am: Edit

Weren't the Kzintis more interested in fighting each other than anyone from the outside?

By James Cummins (Jamescummins) on Thursday, July 27, 2023 - 10:03 am: Edit

Or that prior to the YIS for the first drones, all ships with drone racks, are actually nuclear missile racks, and that they receive a free upgrade to drone racks once the drones are in service. Fixed with a small errata.

Reflecting the ships were designed to use drones, they have all the systems in place for drones, but since the drone development lagged the launcher and ship development, the first ships of the class were put in service with nuclear missile racks, that were immediately upgraded once the drones were available.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Sunday, November 12, 2023 - 01:15 pm: Edit

Type-F drone racks replaced the shuttle bay.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Thursday, January 11, 2024 - 01:51 pm: Edit

I have a question that I don't know where to put.

I was thinking about the many wars/skirmishes that took place in the years before the General War. I know that even the Feds and Gorns had a brief "misunderstanding." Does this leave the Klingons and Lyrans as the only two neighboring powers that never fought each other? If there is a reference to such a conflict, I don't think I've ever come across it.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Thursday, January 11, 2024 - 03:27 pm: Edit

I believe they fought at least two wars. One in the sub-light era, one during the Early Years (fighting over the remains of the Hydran Kingdom).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 02:02 pm: Edit

Module Y1 lists

Y38 to Y42 First Lyran Klingon War
Y40 to Y43 First Lyran Hydran war when the Lyrans first encounter the Hydrans while attempting to outflank the Klingons.
Y48 to Y56 First Lyran Kzinti War when the Lyrans again try to outflank the Klingons and bump into the Kzintis.
Y50 to Y82 First Klingo-Kzinti war.
Y88 to Y91 Second Klingon-Lyran war over spoils from the conquest of Hydrans.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Nice! I love the fact that the Lyrans discovered two of their neighbors while trying flanking maneuvers!