Archive through March 12, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E PRODUCTS:
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Archive through March 12, 2003
Actually, that's excactly what it is, David.
It has been established that 'sublight' ships are capable of generating a warp field for strategic movement, but are unable to make it stable enough for combat. That took true warp engines.
Oh Alwight then. A bit of a fudge, but it helps the game..
David: That's "non-tactical warp" and it's been around SFB for several years now.
David S, since one F&E hex is 1630 lightyears across true sublight ships would never leave a hex.
there are three levels of warp travel
tactical warp: This is the SFB warp speeds (speed <=32) 'sublight' ships are limited to a speed of 1. Warp boxes are required on the SSD to travel at these speeds (with speed 1 being allowed for ships without them for game balance purposes)
warp, non-tactical warp, high-warp: This is the speed used to get to/from an area, in SFB you only see this speed by it's side effects, disengagement by acceleration is switching to this mode, reinforcements arriveing are dropping down out of this mode. ships do not attempt to fight at these speeds becouse the warp field is so fragile that a single point of damage distorts the warp field so badly that the ship will be ripped apart. No warp boxes are required on the SSD to use this mode, it is can be powered by impulse engines. This is the mode used for normal F&E operational movement, the speed of the ship is determined by the technology of the engine, not by the amount of power available. 'sublight' and 'W' class drives can go speed 3, 'Y' class drives can go speed 4, 'GW' class drives can go speed 6 and 'X1' and 'GW-Fast' drives can go speed 7 (F&E speeds) ships short on supplies travel at slower speeds to reduce wear-and-tear on their engines as they don't have replacement parts (which is why out-of-supply ships have their movement cut in half)
Dash-Warp Strategic-Warp: This speed is even faster then the warp setting. Ships can move over a hundred F&E hexes in one turn useing this speed. but the problems are that the ship is basicly blind at these speeds and it uses fuel and spare parts like they are free. A GW ship moveing at dash speed needs to stop and resupply every 6 hexes so roughly what happens is that the ship travels for a day, spends half a day refueling and fixing things, then makes another one day dash to the next resupply point. Becouse ths ship is basicly blind while doing this it doesn't dare use this mode when in a potential combat situation. it can be used by a reserve fleet becouse the ships it is reinforcing can tell them when to slow down to warp speed when the arriving ships can then see and slow down to combat speeds before getting blown out of space.
Freighter engines are less powerful, correct? Which is why convoys only move 2 hexes in F&E, and FRDs only move 1 hex.
Would Y or W freighters move 1 hex or 2?
Jeff, thanks, I had forgotten to include the freighter engines.
one thing on the freighter engines is that even though they are slower then W/Y/GW engines they are a later development that trades speed for operating cost and size (freighter engines are TINY compared to te load they are hauling)
FRD's are semi-mobile bases, do they even have engines in SFB?
based on this I would lean towards freighters being much rarer in the W/Y timeframe and instead of being a standardized design cranked out by the millions (well possibly thousands) they are standard ships with cargo capacity instead of weapons. then sometime during the Y era the high-efficiancy engines are developed and the cargo buisness splits between the bulk low-cost low-speed ships and the high speed priority ships
note that most of this post is opinion not published warp engineering
thoughts?
David, FRDs are capable of F&E movement on their own, albiet only one hex during Operational Movement. They can be moved up to 12 hexes during Strategic Movement if under tow by a tug/LTT or any two warships with F&E defense factors of 7+ each. The FRD only has impulse.
Alex, I realize they have a movement of 1 in F&E, but I didn't remember what they have on the SSD (and since I'm at work I can't look it up easily)
strategic movement is towed and we haven't defined anythign other then the F&E rules for that so we don't ned to worry about it at the moment 
however the self movement of the FRD with the NTW drive (impulse power) does need to be accounted for.
since FRD's are the largest mobile thing around (larger then the B-10, but not enough larger to repair one) we could use that to limit their movment. they have NTW engines (normally speed 3), but becouse of their size they are limited to speed 1
another option would be to say that a FRD as shown in F&E is more then just the dock, it's the dock and support facilities and moving these support facilities requires attaching freighter engines, moving them, then setting them up again. freighter engines don't have dash capacity so when the support parts are towed then the FRD can move on it's own
Ah ok. I was just being thorough
I would be more inclined to go with the first option. The towing by two ships option exists because the FRD, in SFB, has docking craddles where two ships can dock and tow the FRD.
what sizeclass are FRD's listed as in the MSC
FRD are size class 2.
An alternative reason for their slow speed is that their structure is not well braced for NTW movement (something about all that hollow space to hold a ship). Ships (and especially tugs--built with more versatile warp drives to account for the variability of handling pods) can generate better controlled warp bubbles around them, reducing the structural stresses they undergo when moving, allowing for higher speeds. Again, just an alternative tecnobabble.
Early years freighters exist (published in a CL). They are very similar to "standard" freighters. Wasn't there an explicit speed listed for early years freighters?
I wish to offer some ideas for F&E Early years
First I will offer an equation that seems to work for combat value.
Take the SFB BPV. Divide by 7. The result is approximately the combined AF and DF of the ship. (Does not work for tugs, scouts and other support ships.) This keeps the ships proportional relative to their combat power in SFB. Judgment has to be used slightly to at least give different size ships different F&E values. At least try to keep the resulting combat values value between 1/6th –1/8th of the BPV.
The general consensious is that in the early years the AF is noticeably lower then the DF for most ships, tending toward AF = ½ DF.
The lowest value this needs to work for is the Romulan SSN at 15 BPV Y66, or earliest variant of the SHK (BPV 18 Y66) that existed in an earlier form in the first Fed-Rom war and existed in Y25. For these ships to be proportional to later F&E ships, they look like 1/1-0/1.
Note that there are many ships implied but not defined. Examples
The First Gorn/Romulan war occurred, but none of the ships we have SSD’s for, existed then.
Same for the first Lyran/Klingon, first Fed/Rom, First Lyran/Kzin, early part of the Gorn/Para ect.
Basically every race had one generation of ships earlier then shown in Y1 that these ships developed into. We can easily assume that these ships were similar to the W period ships just one notch weaker in general. I call these ships the PW (Pre-Warp) generation
To avoid huge fleets, I recommend that the build costs of ships still be dependent on the DF of the ships, so that a 5/8-3/4 would cost 8 to build. I recommend continuing the concept that class 4 ships get a serious price discount. Like the 2.5 cost on 4/4-2/2 ships in AO. Given the small size and hence low costs of ships in EY buying ships at 0.5 intervals is probably necessary. Possibly buying ships in pairs?
One area that will need new rules will be how empires expand. There are basically no scouts in the early years (ex-Vulcans). However the note after YR1.3 identifies that exploration freighters exist at some early undefined year. I am not sure that Aux-Explore need to be different the LAS/SAS. But whichever, they need to exist from about Y5. So some other variants of the F-S can also exist then. Probably FLS to allow Klingons to capture early occupied planets.
Given these implied dates, I suggest that convoys exist for all races from Y1. I suggest that FLS/SAS exist from Y5. Since there are suppose to be better F-S in Y80 with more engines and again in Y120, and the Y168 Convoys move at speed 2, I suggest these earliest Aux ships move at speed 1, just to make room to the later speed upgrade.
The existing rules for colonizing on map provinces would be 603.15, having a survey ship spend a turn in a province probably does not work, because it would allow expansion to fast. The normal off-map rule of collecting 10 survey points to add a province. Probably would work better. I suggest that a SAS produce D2(1-2) survey points, a LAS produce D3 (1-3) survey points, and any scouts produce 1 survey point. For most races, they are limited to one LAS and 2 SAS so can make 5 survey points per turn. This still allows a race to add a province in 2 turns plus 2 turns at speed 1 to get to another province, or a province every 4 turns (2 years). That means that a race can expand about 2 provinces outwards in all directions from their capital in about 30 years, which just allows the borders to make contact about Y35 when the first rash of border wars occur.
A related issue is how are the other worlds developed. One idea is that each world has to be surveyed separately. However given the number of worlds in the capital hexes this would slow down province exploration. Just giving the capital hex worlds to each race from the start, or after only exploring the capital province probably gives the races to much income initially. I do not have a perfect solution to this.
Related is that major worlds do not spring up overnight. I suggest that it takes 10 years to develop a minor world, and 10 more years to develop it into a major world. Once it is developed, it operates just like normal for F&E for capture, devastation ext. This is extra paperwork, but is more realistic and prevents to rapid expansion. (Allow exceptions for the other Fed home worlds, and Klingon conquered early expansion?)
The Feds should be able to expand quicker because they have a few Vulcan scouts. In addition which worlds represent Alpha Centori, Andorra, Rigal, and Vulcan should be defined. Vulcan possibly should be 3210. Only a minor world, but closer to Romulans, since they come from same stock, and to push the Feds in that direction for early contact. 2709. and 3005 can also be used. Possibly we can say that AC is one of the worlds in the same hex as Earth. Otherwise 2509 as the third home world?
Next is how to handle the formation of the Federation. If you give the players complete control, they will only build Vulcan ships early. National Guard ships are still being produced in parallel with Fed ships past Y71, probably till Y85 ish. So you have several issues, when/how does the Fed gain the production of other worlds. How are the National guard ships produced in a balances fashion. How does the Fed get control of the NG, What is guarding the other home worlds early. How to handle Orian.
Here is my suggestion.
Y4-Y70: The Fed exists, but the other home worlds and fleets are only partially integrated. The Earth/Fed player does not get production from the other home worlds, only gets production from the Fed capital and other survey results. As the period progresses, Earth/Fed should shift from one of 5 home worlds, to the dominant power as the survey results are added in. Fed ships can be supplied from any home world.
Whenever the Earth/Fed builds a warship (CL/DD). One of the other home worlds (at random) also produces a warship of the same size (CA/DD) at no cost. (This represents where their production is going.) 60% of the time this extra ship is released to operate with the Feds. 40% of the time it is assigned as a home guard to that home world, where it stays unless released by war in some fashion
(This keeps the ‘Just build Vulcans’ in check. Keeps the initial Fed income comparable to the other races. Gives the Fed supply access to the home worlds to help the feds expansion without going overboard on expansion (the provinces still need to be explored).
Y71-Y85??. The feds now get the income from the other home worlds. Now when the Feds build a warship, there is only a 30% chance that a comparable NG ship is also build (race at random). Now 40% released to Feds, 60% kept for Home world defense. (Since the Feds now get the other home world defense, NG ships are still produced, but in fewer numbers)
Y85+? The Fed is fully formed with integrated production, no more NG ships are produced.
Orians: not sure how to handle them. Option (1), they are just another Fed home world. Option (2) The start as a separate power that usually allies with the feds, and later join.
Klingons also need a slight leg up to expand historically. First Y4 they can get 2xD3, 4xF3. Representing the ships made operational from the Old Kings mothball. Second, so long as the Klingons also make a commando ship (FLS?) they can explore/develop their first 4 provinces at only 5 survey points each. (This represents the use of the Old Kings star maps found in Y8, the fact that there were other Old King’s colonies nearby, the advanced ships and Klingon aptitude for assault/conquest.)
(Note that these D3/F3 are supposed to have a different layout then the Klingon build ships, but since the function the same, no new pieces are needed. By using D3/F3 of the W generation of ships, the Klingon still needed to develop a PW generation to fight the Lyrans and Kzin Y45 ish, before the real different D3/F3 ‘s were invented.
How do you make a YDK or a YBS. The existing F&E rules require both a MB and a tug. Neither exists yet. Also the concept is that they cannot be built in wartime. Recommendation
A convoy can be converted into a YBS. Requires 2 years. (1 year with a tug in later years)
A YBS can be converted into a YDK requires 3 years. (2 years with a tug in later years)
The values will be needed to determine the costs to upgrade. One set of numbers (I just picked some, not locked in) are
YBS (4/8-2/4) needs Convoy + 8 production points to convert.
YDK (10/20-5/10) needs YBS+ 18 production points to convert.
So the Tholians would need to arrive also with a convoy and 8 production points, so they can make there first base since they are using local base tech. Also the Tholians may need a surprise or klingon idiots rule, to prevent the Klingons from waiting for them with a big fleet and sandbagging them in Free campaign.
Supply range for the period should be 2. Paravians, Orians, and Andorians might get a +1 to supply range to represent extra internal cargo. I don’t see having 1-5 cargo boxes making enough difference to justify hauling Ep’s around. But the cargo should give some advantage.
Paravians: Recommend that they get a one time bonus 20 production points at contact with Gorn representing their Xeno attitude. Recommend they require 15 survey points to develop a province representing their raid rather then settle economy. Not sure if they should get some kind of raid rules yet.
‘Shipyards’ are what you use so that you don’t have to overbuild.
Where do shipyards come from, how many, when. They should represent a major expenditure.
I think they are worth about the cost of 10 ships. Since they last forever and costs of ships escalate a lot during the EY, their price should be based on the later period ship costs. My starting recommendation is
FF shipyard=25 EC, DD shipyard=40, CL shipyard=60, CA shipyard=80.
(By the rules you cannot overbuild a ship that costs more then 8 points). A possible rule might be that you cannot overbuild Class 2 ships. To prevent a flood of them in the early years, that later get converted into full DNs later. )
Note that DN’s are starting to appear around Y95 ish, Roms get DN Y66+. If DN’s (class 2) cannot be made by overproduction, then a CA shipyard is probably needed to build a DN on alternating turns by then.
Sub space fighters probably at ½ normal combat value, not sure if ½ cost
Prior to Y65 (YBS/YDK) the Capital probably has an implied repair ability of 4, unless your assuming all repairs are done by repair ships.
I think that offers many ideas consistent with F&E and workable for EY. I see two remaining issues.
Number of ships. Since there is no upkeep cost, fleets just keep growing, even at peacetime economies. I presume the goal is not to get into the bean counting of counting every hull on the map. But something is needed to prevent unending construction and encourage retiring of old hulls.
War and Peace. Assuming your goal is to play long (free campaign) periods as well as limited periods of single border wars, some war and peace concept is needed. It looks like almost every first contact resulted in a border war. Maybe a rule like first contact has a 80% chance of a required war? Then how do you go to peace? (652.3Economic Exhaustion rules ) are a starting place, with earlier smaller empires, the durations might be shorter, but some of the early wars were very long (Gorn Para 55 years, 1st Klingo-Kzin 32 years) and some very short. There probably needs to be some other reason to go to peace as well as 652.3.
Is a Free campaign reasonable with 2 players? Shifting control of races?, some random factor in alliances or declarations or war? Does there need to be a random event in Free Campaign to Civil War/disturbance in some empires (Lyran, Carnavore, Klingon come to mind) to interfere with single-minded expansion?
I make a SIT with all the pieces using the above into (Excel) (not counting Tholians) I ended up with 151 different pieces. That is difference pieces for PW,W,Y. Creating pieces for ships for the earlist wars ect.
A few other admin pieces might also be needed to show shifting boarders, developed planets ect.
By the weekend I should have it working in ADC where I can adjust the map and number of counters/classes does not matter. On turn Y8 now
Marc Elwinger
Marc, the factors and costs of ships are not directly related to the SFB BPV as there are additional factors to take into account, luckly the SIT will have all the stats so we don't need to set rules for them.
the EY campaign is not starting from the discovery of warp travel so a lot of stuff will already be in place and many planets explored and settled. Vulcan and the other fed planets you describe are all in the capitol hex. I think that the EY campaign is starting ~Y80 or so you seem to be describing the time period of SFB module Q (sublight) which is quite a bit earlier then we are discussing.
remember that the tholians arrive with a small fleet, and are at full GW-era tech. it's only after they fight for a while that they drop to the local tech level (and for some things they never do, a PC can probably take a W era CA without much trouble and two will comfortably take a EY CA, never mind what a NCL will do befor they are lost)
Wow! You've really thought through some of the issues.
A note though, I thought that Vulcan was already defined as being in the capital hex - anyone else know for sure?
Alpha Centori, Andorra, Rigal, and Vulcan are all in the capitol hex.
marc don't get me wrong, there are good ideas in there and a lot of thought, but somewhere along the line you have missed some of the existing background and it calls a lot of your decisions into question.
also if you start things later (Y60-80) instead of Y4 then a lot of the exploration, etc rules aren't as needed.
remember that a lot of the planets have indiginious life on them and aren't colonies started from scratch (and also SVC has rules for developing conolies on the way so we don't need to design them here either)
your questions on free campaings with a small nubmer of players are very valid. given the different alliances it would be very hard to have fewer then one player per race and plan to play through an extended period.
however also remember the GW is ~36 turns (18 years) even if you start the EY period at Y80 you still have 89 years before the GW starts (187 turns) so it's very unlikly that you will play all of them.
Concerning the Tholian arrival. Y1 says they arrive with several PC's(4x(4/4)) and 2 NDD(2x(5/5)). They need to capture a planet, so maybe a G ship. Then they need to use local tech to make a YBS. The concept is that you can't build a YBS while at war. So they need to bring enough EP to build the YBS. In addition they cannot repair any damage until they get the YBS working. So they need 1-3 years building the YBS, guarded by 6 good small ships (possibly one damaged). So when the Klingons arrive with about 12 ships of the Y vintage, including Class 3 ships. If the Klingons know they are coming and even slightly set up to ambush them, they should not be able to become established.
So my point is that in a Free Campaign, either the Tholians need to arrive and complete the YBS before the Klingons can react or the Klingons need a rule that prevents then from attacking the arriving Tholians.
Marc Elwinger
Marc, the sphere could be considered the SB and they would have it available for repair/construction from the beginning. Also the sphere would produce EP from the beginning as well
there is some evidance that there were ships larger then a NDD, but that they were destroyed early on so I think a SB (the sphere) a few PC and a few larger ships would be able to hold off whatever the klingons can throw at them immediatly.
I really seem to recall the Tholians arriving with 2xNCL, a few NDD, and several NFF. However, they didn't have the facilities to support or replace them - so they eventually were lost.
Perhaps the Tholians could not even repair the Neo-Tholian ships when they first arrived. That would be much more likely to explain their disappearance. Imagine a case where the Klingons came in with enough forces to seriously threaten the dyson sphere. The only way to hold out is for the Tholians to end up with a bunch of crippled ships. Their only "real" ships get crippled and they are unable to repair them...
Tony, rmember that with the web rules the attacker can't direct and they have to destroy the entire fleet before they can start killing the bases/PDUs if that's what the defender wants to do. I could easily see the tholian giving up his mobile fleet to avoid loosing his base, after all if the klingons won't have the resources to try again for a year or two a new fleet can be built, but if the base goes down you're dead.
i do seem to recall that the attack did get to the sphere and damaged it in the process. it could have been that close
The Klingons in this case would be best served to let the damage fall.
There are no fighters to take as losses, no maulers to help in the assault, and the Tholians have no real depth and can't produce many replacements or afford repairs. So, the Tholians would be self crippling their ships in order to preserve the homeworld (or so it seems to me).
It's a bit of a difficult question. A few too many ships, and the Klingons can overwhelm the homeworld, a few too few, and they don't stand a chance in web (and won't make it out alive)...
historicly the klingons didn't make it out alive so if we're going to err err on the side of to much power in the tholian fleet :-)
also tony your last sentance doesn't relly make sense.
also in a free (for freeer) campaign make the tholian arrival somewhat random, of the klingons mass a lot of ships there to try and clobber the tholians when they arrive they will be vunerable on other fronts (although IIRC there was some massing of a fleet in preperation to attack the romulans)
Erm
I don't think the Tholians would be too badly threatened when they first arrive.
Their Dyson Sphere will have fully integrated web defences, and at least some of GW "PDU's" will probably date from its time in the Tholian Galaxy.
Most of the "neo-tholian" ships that came with the sphere would have been lost securing the small amount of space the tholians claim, especially when building the bases. For the Klingons to even think about attacking the Dyson Sphere with EY technology would be utter suicide.
You must remember that this planet was not just a Tholian provincial capital. To pull off the feat of teleporting a Dyson Sphere across galaxies would probably make it one of the chief R&D centres of the Tholian Galaxy. It would have very significant defences, right off the bat. It just would not have a shipyard, which would have been on the Tholian homworld systems.
Oh, and if they took the Dyson sphere across galaxies, you can be pretty certain they would have found a way to park the SB inside for the ride (or attach it somehow using web).
So they should have a PC shipyard (1/turn) to start, AND a GW-equivalent SB. Ho hum say the klingons.
I think the thing to remember about ALL Tholian bases, during this period would be, that they ALL have Phaser-4's. Period. And 50pt shields on the SB's. Since the Tholians had that in the Old Galaxy.
Now take any Y-Fleet in SFB, against a SB with 12 Ph-4's and watch the Fleet vaporize in the Web.
No Overloads to add punch for the Fleet. Slow drones to get stuck. What are you going to do?
Die.
In large numbers.
Painfully as you get stuck in the web.
Watching the Tholian Killer squad of PC's and DD's administer Darwin's Law...Survival of the Fittest.
web rules may need to be modified slightly to represent the fact taht full strength webs are even more deadly to early ships
in the GW a 3 ring wedding cake makes the base immune for 10 turns (5 as the outer ring drops from strength 35 to 30 so a speed 31 ship can get through, and another 5 for the next layer) so the attacking ships can't damage anything if the defenders don't want them to.
in the EY period when ships are limited to speed 24 (due to engine power) the web would have to drop to strength 23 which will take 12 turns per layer. so the tholians can have the SB shoot for 24 turns without exposing a single ship. how many EY ships can 12 P-4's kill in 24 turns? now think of 24 turns of phasers from any defendign fleet, and then remember that if the tholians can kill all the ships in a given area of the web and get a ship where it can recharge the we safely they can prevent the web from ever collapsing.
any neo-tholian ships that arrived would not have been killed defending a established base, but could be crippled with directed damage and then killed in pursuit in open space as the tholian fleets would have had to drive away the klingon fleets in order to build the base.
sounds like a senerio to use to give your local tholian player a birthday present