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Jean
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By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:44 pm: Edit

Now we just need the Carnivon Map to go with the Paravian Map, unless I missed it's being posted somewhere.

By Charles Shevlin (Chass22) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Would this be a good pace to sugjest the Borak.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:05 pm: Edit

Thank you, Jean.


While we wait for more info to surface regarding SFB Module C6, we have at least one interesting piece of data to pore over; Mapsheet P, showing the changes made to the Alpha Octant map by the events of the new "Paravian timeline" (as opposed to the old "Paravian Reality" shown in Stellar Shadows Journal #2.)

There will also be a new mapsheet showing the Carnivons' new neighbourhood (would it be called Mapsheet C, perhaps? Or is C already designated to some other F&E map panel?).


But even now, the Paravian map panel, along with the hints given in the Paravian development topic for C6, amounts to a serious set of changes to the development of the surrounding empires (and neutral planets, such as Circle Trigon in 5109); most especially for the Inter-Stellar Concordium.

From what has been mentioned in the topic by SPP, the Paravian timeline sees a much earlier "first contact" between the ISC and another star-faring power than had occurred historically, and with a far more hostile set of borders emerging as a result (due to the persistent threat from the Paravians, and a heightened set of tensions set to emerge along the new ISC-Romulan border), the concept of "warp-equals-peace" would be abandoned much sooner. And in SFB terms, they would hopefully activate the "early contact" rules published for the Concordium in Module Y2.

Therefore, if the ISC in this reality consider themselves as "in the mix" of rival factions, as opposed to "above all that" thanks to their historically-enforced armed neutrality, this would almost certainly lead to some interesting questions from an F&E perspective.

In terms of starship construction, the ISC would presumably have an extended "Middle Years" period this time around, with hulls like the CAT and DNE entering service much earlier, and the concept of the Echelon taking more time to mature (due to the ten-year gap laid out in Y2's rules governing the lead-in time for the PPD).

But by the time the General War (or its counterpart in this reality) rolls in, one major question would then arise; would the ISC start building their "war" classes (HCW, CW, DW, plus any "mission variants" which they may one day get for those base hull types) much sooner than they did historically? In the standard timeline, the Concordium had the technical capability to start fielding "war" hulls well before the onset of the Pacification, but didn't see the need to do so until forced to by the Andromedan invasion. With the radically different circumstances faced by this timeline's Concordium, would the plans get dusted off much more quickly?

And in logistical terms, would this Concordium be able to afford all of the R&D efforts that, in the historical timeline, went into the bonuses that they were able to enjoy by the time of the Pacification, as detailed in ISC War? Would they still get access to pacification stations, tactical reserves, or any other options they were able to take the time to refine historically?

In the case of tactical reserves, it seems that the spread of TRF capability may have a significant knock-on effect for the Andromedan War, so that may have to stay; though perhaps this ISC develop it much later than the historical one does.

But the rapid base rules may be another matter. If the Concordium is forced onto a war footing much sooner, would they have enough credits and development teams left over to work on developing such a system? And from a philosophical standpoint, would there be any sort of political will driving such an effort?


For what it's worth, I would like the idea of there having to be some give and take when it comes to working out the effect of the C6 Paravians on the Concordium (and I say this as an ISC fan); if getting access to the "war" classes (and/or some mission variants based on those) means having to trade in some of the logistical toys the historical ISC, that seems like a fair compromise.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 03:12 pm: Edit

Gary, I did it yesterday and waiting for you to notice. Jean thought that was unfair and told you where I put the topic.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 03:19 pm: Edit

My bad, sorry.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 04:18 pm: Edit

No bad, Gary, I was just waiting to see if you'd ever go looking for it. I do that with a lot of new topics.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 07:26 pm: Edit

Yeah, I was checking the "last day" topics to see if it would pop up, and it didn't appear there until Jean added her post.

I probably should have kept an eye on the future product page too.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - 03:18 pm: Edit

For future reference, SVC just posted this map over in the C6 development thread. As noted there, the difference between both maps is as follows:

---

Quote:

Remember that the two maps reflect two different carnivon histories. In the top one they unify the 14 hordes into a nation, avoid extermination, and stay neutral in the general war. In the bottom one, two entire hordes of the Carnivons committed suicide by diving into the wyn cluster, and found out that they weren't dead. Since they had 30+ ships and a whole logistics train and 50 times as many females, they built a massive society and economy and fleet inside the cluster, broke out in Y178, and seized territory from the war-weary and busy fighting somebody else neighbors.

---

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Might have an interesting twist to a 4 power war...for the top map that is.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - 08:02 am: Edit

That could be fun for a Five, Six or even Seven Powers War scenario.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - 03:12 pm: Edit

A couple of notes from the other thread:

*In the top map, the Carnivon capital is in their off-map region.

*The on-map planets shown in the Carnivon territory on the first map are worlds which the Lyrans and Kzintis historically depopulated during the conquest/scouring of Carnivon space in the Early Years. (Hence the reason why those planets are not present on the bottom map.)

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Friday, September 27, 2013 - 09:20 pm: Edit

Random musings...

Will the Carnivons (Heel Nipper equipped ships) gain any bonus in pursuit combat, considering that they can turn enemy crippled ships into their heavy units to make them easier to destroy?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, September 28, 2013 - 04:34 pm: Edit

What kind of ranges are being assumed in pursuit actions?

So far as is being reported, the C6 Heel Nipper is limited to range eight, and has a poor to-hit value beyond the ranges it had originally been given in the Y-modules.

Even if the target is being forced to drop to tactical warp speeds in the course of the pursuit, would a pursuing ship manage to get close enough to the target for such a weapon to make a difference in F&E terms?



On another note, it would be interesting to see which alternate history gains more traction for those with an interest in the Carnivons, and what it might mean in terms of assigning priorities to new map creation.

Unless there are any off-map territories which the Cluster Carnivons are able to claim, their territory seems to act more as a Vudar-esque overlay upon the pre-existing "western" map. But in terms of portraying the "new" planets, provinces, and Neutral Zones shown on the top map, as well as in defining where the Carnivon capital/off-map connects to the region shown therein, it might be that it could be more of a priority, in terms of actually offering an equivalent to Mapsheet P for Carnivon players to use.

On the other hand, if that version of events is less popular than the cluster variant, things might go the other way in terms of initial priorities on that side of the Alpha Octant.

If the choice came down to which map/timeline to start with, who would rather see the top map done first, and who would choose the bottom one instead?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, September 28, 2013 - 04:52 pm: Edit

So... did the Gorns think the Romulans used birds on their ships out of spite?


Thinking about it, consider the first encounters with the Romulans and how the Gorns were still sore over the Paravians. The surprise from that great Bird of Prey on the War Bird must have been powerful, only later to find they were NOT Paravians at all, and due to no communications the Gorns certainly didn't take it well.(Seeing it as an insult?) Then when they finally DID communicate it didn't make things any better, I'm sure.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Saturday, September 28, 2013 - 10:12 pm: Edit

Gary;

As i said, it was random musings, and since we don't have a copy (yet) of C6 to go through, I was sort of thinking that HN armed fighters or frigates might be sent out to chase down the cripples and 'nip' them to bring them back toward the fleet.

In that case, perhaps a BIR bonus for the Carnivons?

Again, all this is random speculation until we get our hands on copies....

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, September 30, 2013 - 01:30 pm: Edit

As another point of reference, a free preview of Module C6 just went live on DriveThruRPG.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, February 01, 2014 - 03:22 pm: Edit

I see that, as noted in the CL48 discussion thread, a Paravian preview for F&E is due for this issue of Captain's Log.

Can it be said if it will cover the "Mapsheet P" timeline from C6, or the "off-map raiders" version also offered in that same volume (and listed in the C6 preview PDF)?

And would this preview include adjusted YIS dates for any Gorn, Romulan, or Inter-Stellar Concordium units which would have entered service prior to their historical introductory dates as a result of a lingering Paravian presence in the Alpha Octant?

Particularly in the case of the ISC, a number of their "modern" ships and technologies would have been activated early had the "home" Paravians established an empire, or had the Wingatha-Paravians stayed there rather than fled elsewhere. Plus there may have been certain ship classes, like the CW, which they would have had cause to build much earlier than they did historically.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 10, 2014 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Will there be a new thread created in this section to review the Paravian scenario from Captain's Log #48, or would it be as well to discuss it in this one?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Thursday, April 10, 2014 - 10:26 pm: Edit

This topic is fine.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 10, 2014 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Chuck, do you need to split this into separate Paravian and Carnivon topics?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, April 10, 2014 - 11:31 pm: Edit

Chuck Strong:

Understood.

(718.AO). The off-map portion of the Paravian Y168F order of battle has no survey cruisers present. According to (R18.18) in Module C6, the Paravians built at least six ships of the class prior to the General War, but that at least four were lost to "unknown causes". (It is also suggested that one or more of these losses occurred "on-map", when the Paravians attempted to use ships of this class to scout new passages into Gorn or ISC space.) Should a number of SRs be added to the Y168F OOB to account for this, and if so how many (if any) SRs would be deployed on the map intead of in the Farnest? - Gary Carney 10 April 2014

(6WA.21). The rule entry states that mapsheet P is on Page 111. However, in the Large Print Edition, this should be changed to Page 151. - Gary Carney 10 April 2014

(6WA.44). According to (6WA.41), the Gorns have a pair of SRs on survey duty in their off-map region. However, the Inter-Stellar Concordium of this timeline has no SRs listed in their own OOB. While one might not expect to see the 4-8 SRs the historical ISC had the luxury of fielding in ISC War, should they have at least one or two survey cruisers already out in the Distant Zone, or would (or should) the ISC player be obliged to build their own during the course of the campaign? - Gary Carney 10 April 2014

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - 10:36 am: Edit

Q718.A0 Do the Paravians have 3 Survey ships to start if playing (6WA.0) Winds Aloft?

There is no mention of Survey ships, except for the usual restriction of building one survey ship per year. This would limit them to maximum of 6 under (542.26).

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - 10:42 am: Edit

(6WA.44) ISC Survey Fleet: Should read 4xSR. This would match the Survey Fleet in (624.0) Gathering Winds scenario. Thomas Mathews 13 Aug 2014.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, June 23, 2016 - 07:17 pm: Edit

There is a discussion of the playtest Carnivon scenario from Captain's Log #51 elsewhere, so I don't wish to drag it up here also.

But in taking a first look over the material in CL51, I wonder if the "Carnivon empire" timeline might be a good venue for a series of smaller, earlier border conflicts - with the Carnivons on one side, and the Kzintis and/or Lyrans on the other.

According to the "Carnivon Empire" data in Module C6, that timeline saw a series of feline invasions in Y106, Y125, Y144, and Y157. (Reportedly the Feline-Carnivon War in Y157 was triggered by a failed Carnivon invasion of Kzinti space.) Of those, the Y106 war would be potential fodder for an Early Years module, while the one in Y125 would likely need such Y-era data in order to work. But the Y144 and Y157 wars might be doable, if a way to keep the Kzintis and Lyrans from fighting as "allies" rather than "unwilling co-belligerents" could be found.


In contrast, while the "Cluster Carnivon" timeline offers more scope for a viable large campaign (not least by making it a relatively straightforward fight against the Coalition, with the Kzintis effectively shoved out of the picture beforehand), it may be less suitable for smaller engagements. Going into the WYN Cluster to try and take on the Carnivons there is a fool's errand if done piecemeal, while the Carnivons of the Cluster would not wish to throw away the element of surprise before they get into real action in that timeline's Y178.

-----

Actually, there is one thing I wanted to ask - not about the CL51 scenario itself, but rather about the Carnivon data in (719.A4) and on the map shown on page 142 of the large print edition.

The original "Carnivon Empire" map segment in Module C6 shows a major planet in hex 0101; the assumption at the time was that the Carnivon capital hex was somewhere out in the "off-map" region.

But with hex 0101 now marked in CL51 as the Carnivon capital, is this now the "correct" location - or rather, the site of where Greycoat Lothbog would have established his capital historically, had he succeeded in becoming the mythical "Gookwahr"?

(Since the Carnivons never unified in the Alpha Octant historically, I wonder if 0101 had once housed one of the primary Carnivon fleet yards - or if they had a more decentralized system, in keeping with their chronic political discord.)