This idea is a result of my "Errant Wind" scenario. It occured to me that they should be an easier way to upgrade fleets in peacetime, and this might be it..... perhaps not, it may be a dumb idea. Anyway, here it goes.


During periods of extended peace, older ships in service tend to go obsolete as new technology overtakes them. Often, these older hulls are put into a "mothball fleet", to be activated in times of war. However, many of these ships proved to be overmatched in combat, and were relegated to the role of support ships, many being converted to variants.

All empires sought to bring these older ships up to par with their contempories prior to the General War, with limited success. These various programs were known as the Service Life Extension Program, or SLEP for short. The old hulls had old systems removed, replaced with modern weapons and electronic systems. In many cases, their engines were replaced with larger, modern ones.

In general, empires tried to upgrade their older light cruisers to their NCL standard as much as possible (weapons loadouts, EW). Some designs were more successful than others, the most ubiquitous was the Romulan War Eagle which was improved all the way to the King Eagle command cruiser. Some models were actually an improvement over the war cruiser design; the D6, being a larger hull than the D5, actually could hold the D5 loadout with ease, and being larger could sustain more damage.

The war interceded before any of these programs got too far off the ground. However, the designs existed.

Affect on F&E: factors to be determined, but generally, take a CL and covert it, and get a ship that's 6-7, 7-7, 8-7, or 7-8. Costs to be determined. These ships would count as NCLs.

Scenarios would be allowed to replace some or all of their mothball CLs with these ships. During the war, these ships could be converted via SLEP. Had there been time, SLEP would have been more cost effective than scrapping ships.


NOTE:
This will likely have more of an impact on SFB than F&E, but it might make for some interesting ships. D6s made over with D5 weapons, Fed CLs with new engines and the NCL loadout.

By jason murdoch (Jmurdoch) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 04:08 pm: Edit

What about metal fatigue. A D6 hull may be larger than a D5 but it will have been stressed, strained and contain lots of welded over bullet holes.
The cost in time of these conversions would be quite high and the shake down testing would have to be extensive. One can see the Lyrans with their more money than build schedule benefiting from this the most

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Battle damage would be the greatest stress on a ships hull but there is mention of service life in various SFU publications. I would guess this is the safe operational life of the ship without a major overhaul (which is short of the actual maximum life). Major overhauls would attend to rimarly hull struts and beams with some sort of scan and reform method.

The way I picture it would be that the ship is brought into a ship yard where the hull can be fully stabilized. The the overhaul crews go in and pull all the stuff that is going to be replaced and all the stuff that must be moved to get to all of the ships major componants. Then the major hull componants are scans for stress fractures, warpage, and other weaknesses. That portion is then strengthened by the appropreate methode. One might be actual matter reformation (see PD Matter Reformers). The ship is then refitted to the new specifications and sent to trials.

This process is cheaper than building from scratch, but is still significant, which is why it would be done either after a major repair or a class conversion (which might actually be a componant that drive conversions of old ships).

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 05:31 pm: Edit

Having sat through many briefings where Service Life Extension is discussed for our own modern air craft I can honestly say that they do over time simply become too costly to maintain and are an absolute pain to upgrade. Some aircraft (such as the A10) handle these upgrades better that others (F117), but all become a drain on resources and are phased out eventually as a cost savings. That’s all part of what our Air Force Depot Level Repair units manage.

In truth, the only really old ships upgraded with success are the Fed CL, the Rom SN, BH, WE, VUL hulls, the Kzinti TG-T and the old DNs that where upgraded to the newer GW era designs. The success of each varied. The D6, F5, and even E4 hulls that survived in mothball had been extensively retooled but were still fairly modern ships compared to the Fed CL and Rom Eagle hulls. All originally sublight compared to the Middle Years Klingon ships. By the GW I think all these older ships that remained in service where pretty well pushing their max capability except the Eagle series ships that the Rom continued to upgrade even into the GW.

It seems to me that what you’re asking for is all ready factored into the game.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 07:24 pm: Edit

"What about metal fatigue"

That is ignored when they are activated as mothballs.... I don't see rearing its head any more than it already does.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 09:16 pm: Edit

Might want to ammend the title of the thread to 'service' life...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 09:19 pm: Edit

If you think about the technologies of the day you can get past things like metal fatigue and weld cracks.

A matter reformer is much like a replicator but you get the same material as you put in, only it is shaped differently within ungodly exact tollerances. Instead of a part being made of several welded parts it is reformed as one piece. No imagine a portable scanner that can isolate problem areas of a particular part of a ships structure. That scanner then feeds that data to a remote reformer (much like a transporter but it is able to rearrange atoms but not move them to another location) that repaires the problem. It's a big job requiring time and expertise but what you get is a main strut that is virtually new having never been actually replaced.

Welds would then be used to tack things together and remote reformers turn them into on contiguous piece. Even at right angles, it's as if they were forged that way, not a welded joint.

What you do have to be careful of is that there is no stress on the part you are reforming, because once it is in the reforming process it would pull apart. Energy has no material strength. So it can be a fairly involved process. But this is why the ship is placed in a ship yard where it can be fully stabilized and all physical stresses are nullified.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 09:27 pm: Edit

You know, perhaps war hulls forgo some of the more advanced construction techniques and do things like straight welding and such. Remote reformation bonding would be somewhat time consuming and energy intensive.

Further, this sort of overhaul technique might be what make extenting war-hulls service life possible.

By Douglass E. Howard (Doug_Howard) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 10:54 pm: Edit

I agree with Loren about metal fatigue not being an issue for essentially the same reason.

The thing with ship designs in SFB is that upgrades and conversions for the various hull types represent maximizing a particular hull type. To do what you're proposing would essentially rewrite the SFB side. Bearing that in mind I'd suggest dropping the concept of "D6 with D5 weapons" (or trying to squeeze out extra combat factors into the same older hull types).

However there are some other possible benefits for having an extra maintenance program:
1. Possibly allow for some random number of hulls being brought out of mothball to be converted for half/quarter/free (or something) cost of construction to variants (such as converting a D6 to D6d or an F5 to an F5S) but balance that by allowing only one conversion type per type removed from mothball fleet per turn.

2. Allow some to be traded in on a point for point basis for newer war cruiser designs to represent the looting of those hulls for stuff to shove into the newer construction or the changing of those hulls into modified newer hulls. (not the same as a D6 is now a D6+D5 rather it might become a D7 or lessen the costs of building two D5s etc. Essentially subtract the cost of the mothballed fleet ship sacrificed/upgraded from the construction of a specific new ship(s). In this sense the mothball fleet becomes both a boneyard/reservoir of parts and mothball of available hulls in one shot.

Short version:
1 above allows for cheap variants from existing ships while 2 allows for cheaper new construction by looting/rebuilding the mothballed hulls.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 11:13 pm: Edit

I think this would have a far greater affect on SFB than F&E.

If I really could take a Fed CL and turn it into an ACLa+ (A for attack) with FOUR phot-tubes and 25 warp engine boxes (two POL style 5 point engines and 15 point centre engine)...it would radically change SFB. But if my understanding of F&E is correct and every man and his dog; wants varrients, then people would take those old hulls out of mothballs and convert them under the existing conversion rules.

This in not to say that this area of exploration wouldn't create fun vessels...just that it should be an SFB idea that alters F&E rather than the otherway around because it is SFB that will see the greatest possibility for "blow-out".

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 11:18 pm: Edit

One's also gotta ask the question.
"If I can stick four Phot-tubes on a well maintained Fed CL, why can't I have six on a well maintained CC?...I'ld be willing to settle for a well maintained CA only having five phot-tubes if it meant I could get CC six shooter!"

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 11:41 pm: Edit

mjc,

The idea is to upgrade them as much as practical towards the NCL standard. Some ships just won't make it. still, maybe the Fed CL can fit one more photon than it has..... in F&E terms, maybe that makes it a 7-6

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 12:23 am: Edit

Better to turn all the old old CL's to troop ships. They land on planets and although they cannot easilly take off again, they can act as a base (not technically as an SFB rule) until the conflict is over.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 01:29 am: Edit

---

Quote:

In general, empires tried to upgrade their older light cruisers to their NCL standard as much as possible (weapons loadouts, EW).

---

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 08:08 am: Edit

"Do we really want to create a super refit to all older vessels of all glactic powers and thus change about a thousand SSDs? "

No, about 7. Just base CL classes, not variants.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 09:21 pm: Edit

Quote:"No, about 7. Just base CL classes, not variants."

That does not appear to be the case:

Just looking at the Master Ship Chart, (module G2) Shows the following line items for the CL class:

Ship Type	Crew Units	BPs	BPV
ACL	40	6	113
CL	37	8	98
CL+	37	8	111
CLD	37	8	104
CLD+	37	8	109
CLH	40	4	100/70
CLS	35	8	110/95
CLV	37	8	110/88
CLV+	37	8	115/93
CMC	41	32	100/80
CVE	37	8	118/103
ECL	40	6	100
MS	30	6	94/80

Even if you adopt Joe Stevensons "Base CL classes" definition (which I assume means things like the plus refit, Aegis for example) it still leaves 9 SSD's that would require an additional refit.

Then you must add back into the count those SSD's that have been published since G2.

Such as:

Ship Type	Crew Units	BPs	BPV
LSC	37	8	124/104
LSC+	37	8	137/117
LHV	37	8	110/100
CLX	47	14	175

And there are atleast a half dozen CL variants pending IIRC that would also merit a separate SSD, should any of them ever get approved.

And lest we forget, there is also the Omega Race Federal Republic of Aurora that uses the CL as the base design for a number of ship classes, not to mention stellar shadows variants such as the double CL from Captains log #28 (the DCL).

So for the Federation alone, the minimum number of SSD's that Joe wants to change is 13 "base CL Class ships... and then add in the new refit SSD pages for the Klingons, Romulans, Kzinti, Gorn, Orion, Tholian, Hydran and every body else that had ships similar to... at a guess upwards of 22 races (if you include the minor neutrals such as the WYN, LDR, VUDAR, Jindarians, etc.

So lets say Joe is right... 7 SSDs per race and 20 races means 140 SSDs... And even if that is doable... is it really a product that would sell?

If it were published, I'd buy it to have a complete set of the SSDs... but I have my doubts about how popular it would be in the market place.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 11:20 pm: Edit

"Even if you adopt Joe Stevensons "Base CL classes" definition (which I assume means things like the plus refit, Aegis for example) it still leaves 9 SSD's that would require an additional refit. "

the "not variants" means NO VARIANTS.

No variants. CL and CL+ end up as the same SLEP ship. No carriers. No marine ships (or if they do, they end up as the SAME SLEP SHIP); ALL CLs converted end up as the same SLEP ship.

Your entire post is completely wrong about what I am proposing.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 12:15 am: Edit

Joe:

Calm down...slipping up by not applying the "no variant" phrase isn't realy reason enough for using all caps.

I don't think that one can say it can only apply to CLs without some kind of justification.
If it's a life extention programme to be applied to otherwise mothballed vessels because the GW didn't call them out of service until latter then surely it would apply to all ships that could/would/might-if-the-general-war-hadn't-killed-`em-all fall into a mothball state?

What of the Klingon E3? What of the Fed DD...What of the Kzinti DD? What of the Fed FFs that were put into mothballs rather than becomming FFGs simply because they were getting old?
A SLEP could apply to just about any warship hull unless there is a reason.

I think what is really needed is to look at where the SFB SSDs would go for at least a couple of races before deeming the thing to have happened.


You know to a degree, I don't like things that are better just because. If you had a different idea, say an F&E rule that allowed a race to flood CLs into the defence of the empire through sending every student from the academy directly to an old mothballed CL in an emergency programme to flood the empire with ships to defend the boarders and those ships had the penalty of being CLs of 6-5 or 5 or maybe even 5-3 to reflect that these ships haven't got the correct refits for the period and to reflect that their half trained and inexperianced crews are effectively a poor crew at best...then I'ld think that was a brilliant rule to add to F&E.
There's a trade off (often with deminishing returns)...quantity goes up but quality goes way down.

Basically the mothball theory isn't enough by itself. Otherwise every unmarried, unemployed guy over 35 with no kids; would have a PhD.
Keep working at it and you might find something that works logically. It's great that you're being creative.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 07:02 am: Edit

FFs

Too small to turn into DWs, unless some conversion already exists (in which case, no new rule or SSD is required).

Fed DD is probably the only other ship that would have a chance

By Larry E. Ramey (Hydrajak) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 11:38 am: Edit

Don't you think the DD->DD+ IS a sort of SLEP?

It just doesn't show up in F&E. It falls under the "we ignore refits" rule. I think a case can be made that the DD+ is a HUGE upgrade from the DD.

I dunno... I don't see anyway to put the D5 improvements on a D6 since the real improvement of the D5 was making the darn D6 smaller so it could go faster. (and the DIS arcs)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 11:42 am: Edit

I'm not sure if the refits would cause the FF to beome a DW (I guess this is the Fed FF being refited into the FFB) but if the offensive or defensive value moved a measurible amount (by +1 or more or perhaps the offensive going up +1 and the defensive going down -1) then people would like to direct their funds there.
It's sort of a pity that F&E doesn't have a rule that allows you not to apply the refits, get relatively weaker ships but have more money to spend on building ships.
Some things just have to be assumed to create a game that people can actually play and keep their sanity.

Joe would you like to email me. I have an F&E question but I don't want to tie up this topic.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 12:45 pm: Edit

mjc,

In F&E, you'd almost never want the weaker ship (exception: Hydrans); As the war drags on and the density of the combat lines increase, weaker ships can lead to defeat.

It's why we observe that one PFs and X-ships are built, FFs & DDs stop being produced, and GW era ships (that don't support PFs or have special functions, like scouts) go the way of the dinosaur. They just are overmatched by the later technology.

Because battle lines are limited by the number of ships, weaker units don't cut it. Think of the Persians at Thermopylae.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 12:54 pm: Edit

Some FF Service Life Extension examples in the SFU;

Fed FF to FFB - A fairly decent improvement in SFB. Not a great improvement in F&E. Turns a 5/3 ship into a 6/3 ship making repairs expensive.

Klingon F5 to F5L or F5W - A decent improvement in SFB. Considered a pour improvement in F&E. Turns a 5/3 heavy FF into a 6/3 FFL/DW making repairs expensive.

Rom SN to SNB - A minimally acceptable improvement in SFB. One of the worst Service Life improvements available in F&E as it turns a 4/2 ship into a 5/2 ship.

Kzinti FF to FFK - A good improvement to an all ready decent FF in SFB. A great improvement to an otherwise average ship in F&E. Not quite a DW, but cheaper to repair.

Gorn DD to BD - A reasonable improvement to an undersized DD in SFB. A less than desirable improvement in F&E due to repair costs as it turns a 5/3 FF into a 6/3 DW.

Tholian PD to DD - An excellent improvement both in SFB and F&E. Maintains repair cost while maximizing ComPot.

Hydran HN to DWF - An excellent improvement both in SFB and F&E, but largely because the HN had the greatest need of being refitted and updated.

Hydran CU to DWH - A better than average improvement both in SFB and F&E.

Lyran FF to DW - An excellent improvement in SFB and a decent improvement in F&E. Maintains repair cost while maximizing ComPot.

There are similar examples in larger ships but this made a nice comparison of how the various races handle Service Life Extension.

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 01:50 pm: Edit

"making repairs expensive"

Repairs?


But one thing your post points out is that FFs are already covered.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 02:52 pm: Edit

CA class ships are all ready covered in SFB as well. They are covered in F&E by replacing CA builds with CC builds starting around Y177;

Fed: CA - CAR - CB
Klingon: D7 - D7K - D7W
Rom: WB - WE - KE
Kzinti: CS - BC - CCH - BCH/CVS
Gorn: CL - BC - CCH - BCH
Tholian: CA/CC - CAW/CCW
Hydran: RN/DG - ??? (CCH)
Lyran: CA - CCH/DN - DNP/DNH - DNHP

DNs are covered as well;

Fed: DN - DN+ - DNG - DNH
Klingon: C6 - C8 - ??? (DNH)
Rom: VUL - King Vulture
Rom: CON - ROC/CVA - SCS
KZINTI: DN - CVA - SCS - SSCS
Gorn: DN - DNH
Tholian: D - DN - DNP - DPW - DHPW
Tholian: NDN - NSCS
Hydran: Tem - Pal - Reg/ID
Lyran: CA - CCH/DN - DNP/DNH - DNHP

It is Destroyers and Light Cruisers that don't see as much in the name of service life improvements. There are some though;

Fed: CL - ECL
Fed: DD - SC
Klingon: D6 - D6B - D6K - every variant under the sun
Klingon: F5C - F5L - F5W
Rom: BH - BHF
Rom: SK - SaberHawk (DWH)
Kzinti: CL - CLD/CVE
Kzinti: DD - DDV - PFT
Gorn: CL - BC - CCH - BCH
Tholian: NCL - ???
Hydran: LN/KN - LNH
Lyran: CL - BC/JPG - BCP/BCH - BCHP
Lyran: DD - CW - NCA - NCC

Then again, I think those are fairly well covered too. It looks like only the Fed didn't have a mail line ship design for their older DD and CL. They purposefully replaced theirs with the NCL design.