Archive through December 05, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
Police Operations:
Archive through December 05, 2021
Police Ops - I could see the Policed areas around the represented systems and then a sparse patrol area...maybe a few extra along the trade routes.
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I had a similar idea but from the opposite perspective. Pirate Operations.
Essentially developing a game using the Nexus Magazine (Map) Cartels Overlay. The Pirates strive and fight to expand their zone of control for financial gain and influential control (rather than actual territory).
The concept would be the cartel area generates a level of EPs supplemented by a Raid and Trade system to generate the Econ. Several crime team missions could add to this, or become part of the actual turn.
Secret bases (limited) and construction or repair yards (also limited)
There would be a Supplies and Parts concept similar to Rom KR Parts for the Orions.
In my vision this could be a game played stand alone or played over the top of a standard F&E game. If played over the top there could be additional income from normal F&E Combats (a % of the overall Salvage) and in a similar limited manner as Wyn ship trade there could be occasions to hire mercenary ships (not many but a few) for help in a Key Combat.
Garth, all you say is true, but, I suspect, incomplete.
First, the POL class cutters do not exist in isolation.
There are (as Ryan pointed out in reference to the WYN system), Security Skiffs, as well as armed Auxiliary ships in police service in the Federation.
It would be complicated, but as the APT and Free Trader style hull auxiliaries are built in civilian shipyards, they do not have the bottle neck in production. Not to mention armed freighters and the elusive Q ships (built on small and large freighter hulls).
A possible deployment plan for police patrols in the Federation could be as simple as Security Skiff>armed freighter>APT auxiliary >Free Trader auxiliary >POL.
YR2.3 mentions that there were a dozen shipyards capable of building police cutters so it's possible that the Federation could have built a huge number in a relatively short period of time before cutting back production once they only needed to replace losses. The rapid spread of the Orion pirates likely made the establishment of a modern police fleet a national priority.
I know Petrick has often pointed out that the chance of a pirate encounter is low (The conversation was more than 15 years ago, and has been deleted as part of clearing the BBS) but what ever the number actually is, it must be high enough to justify the construction of a (comparatively) huge fleet of police ships.
Garth mentioned 1 police ship per hex by the time of the General war. That by it self would mean 234 F&E hexes, or 234 police ships. (Probably some combination of security skiffs, auxiliary hulls, converted freighter hulls and, yes POL cutters.)
No idea how many FLGs, but there are 34 provinces.
SVC once mentioned(since deleted as well) that there are some extra ships for “float” to allow replacements of combat or operations losses, as well as substitutes for ships undergoing overhaul , modification, refits.
Yet another complicating factor is the planetary police ships for wealthy planets able to procure ships and units (Security Skiffs etc.) for their own protection.
It might be in terms of actual number of hulls in service, the Federation Police ***could*** operate double the number of ships in active service for the Federation Star Fleet. (On the other hand, the ships used by the federation police are tiny compared to Star Fleet. In terms of tonnage displacement, the total police tonnage might be a quarter of the total displacement of the Star Fleet hulls.)
Jeff: "That would mean 234 F&E hexes, or 234 police ships."
I count 257 on-map Fed hexes (36 x 6-hex, 7 x 5-hex, 2 x 3-hex provinces); add in the 7-hex Orion space, there's 264 in-map hexes. I estimate 21 to 28 off-map hexes.
Quote: "....there are 34 provinces." No, there are 45 (46 w/ Orion) on-map provinces and 3 off-map. I assume your "34" was simply a typo.
If you allow for one per hex plus one spare per province, you need 302 on-map cutters / 326 total (add 8 more for Orion space). And that doesn't allow for any at the 33 planets or the 47 bases (13 x SB + 34 x BATS).
As to how many cutters might be in service for any given year, I have my theories and calculations, but SVC said he doesn't want "hard numbers", even guesses, posted on-line.
Without getting too specific, I figure the Feds can't build enough cutters for 100% deployment before Y152-Y155, and factoring in combat losses, it's closer to Y165-Y168. Hence my suggestion that prior to the General War, the police will not have the desired coverage.
The real problem isn't building hull but rather finding experienced crew to fly them. Let's say they build 12 cutters per year -- that's 1200 more personnel needed to fly them. Yes, they can probably recruit 1200+ new cops per year, but you don't want a crew full of raw recruits (no matter what Hollywood does on the screen).
EDIT: P.S> Yes, I do acknowledge that the police force will also use Skiffs and such, but I'm ignoring them for this discussion as the premise is the police "will have one cutter in every hex".
Garth L. Getgen
The expansion of the police may have coincided with demobilization after the end of the 2nd Federation-Kzinti War. Probably wasn't difficult to find recruits at that time.
Garth, by treaty, the Orion’s build and deploy/operate police ships in the Orion 7 hex space.
I expect that the Orion’s Major world have a separate force of its own Ships (not to mention the carrier variant ‘s of the Orion Destroyer class ship that they use for police duty.)
For this discussion, I question whether it should count towards POL calculations.
As far as crew training/recruitment issues are concerned, personnel transfers are canonical, ie it’s in TOS background.
If there are”more than 50 POL ships” (a number once official, but retconned years ago, means that (50*100=5,000) trained crew personnel.
Adding 12 ships at that point of history(whenever it was) means 62 ships (50+12=62) and 6,200 crew. (62*100=6,200)
The following year, if 12 more ships were added, (62+12=74) (and assuming no losses, just for illustration purposes) would mean expanding the total personnel assigned to POL class ships from the then current total of 6,200 to 7,400.
The proportion of untrained persons aboard the fleet of POL class ships actually declines per ship as the total number of ships increases. This is because the annual increase remains constant at 12 hulls per year.
It might be more manageable to have 1 police ship per province?
--Mike
How many billions/trillions of people are there in the Federation?
Admittedly, training and experience are needed, but they have ship's crew and they have local planetary police and they have planetary militaries and they have a training program.
Are we really worried about the ability of dozens of industrialized PLANETS to find between them 1,200 qualified people a year?
The USA alone put 12.2 million soldiers in uniform at one time in WWII (16.4 million served over the course of the war). The CURRENT US Coast Guard has over 40,000 uniformed military, and it's probably our equivalent of SFB police ships, and again, that's one smallish region of one planet putting 40,000 into its coastal defense force.
Mike Erickson:
I know you mean well. 
But that ship sailed decades ago. SVC said one ship per province.
Garth and I, and perhaps half a dozen others, over the years, have discussed this (and several related subjects) and resolved some issues. the ship names registry had the POL class originally at a dozen names followed by the phrase “and about fifty others.”
That later changed to “more than a hundred others”
Then the FLG got published which by implication is your 1 per province figure.
Then the Security Skiffs were added to the game, as well as auxiliaries.
Broadly, I agree with Garth.
It’s the “fiddley little details” that we clash over (I still think Garth s original POL class galley and mess hall floor plan was composed while he was under the influence of mind altering substances of dubious origins...but after a dozen or so (or more....) revisions I agreed to forgive him.
I think the goal would be one POL per hex but is never reached. I think they'd have one per hex on the border along with a FLAG in the province. It gets thinner in the outer provinces and then increases as you get closer to the Capital. I can see the Fed Capital probably has a 1/2 dozen POL assigned to the Province as well as the individual planets. Not all would be Fed Police, some would be space based planetary police.
Each hex is 500 or so parsecs across. The one POL fer province is just an abstraction (I think) of whatever is realy going on. At those scales the number of ships to cover an empire's territory is probably many orders of magnitude greater than what is represented in F&E.
Plus, the whole F&E game turn concept is another layer of abstraction.
A ship able to move at warp 6, will have time to complete a dozen (or more, perhaps many more) trips between destinations inside a single F&E hex.
This could (***In Theory***) could be a whole series of separate missions a ship could complete in the same six month period of time. Every thing from a short convoy mission, to a FEMA rescue emergency (only to be relieved by a FEM destroyer that was activated at the nearest Star base), to a anti Piracy operation following up on a tip from the GIA of a supposed Orion hidden base to a prisoner transfer of a Orion “big wig” who is turning state’s evidence and needs a safe transport to a planet with a high enough population to allow a reasonable chance for a witness protection program installation.
And maybe dozens of other possible missions.
Jeff: "But that ship sailed decades ago. SVC said one ship per province."
No, he said one per hex. That does work out well for First Response ships because it would put at least one such ship within 24 hours at Warp Nine to get to any given point in the Federation.
Also, I don't remember you ever making any comments about the mess hall.....
Garth L. Getgen
That’s what I get for posting when tired.
No, you are right, he did say one per hex.
And I am not surprised that you don’t remember the comments about the mess hall, that was many years ago.
Right next to the cargo capacity to store months worth of MRE rations thing, on board a POL as a way to avoid having to design a mess deck in the first place!
Plus, I never did find out what you were smoking that made you so complacent and tolerant of critical comments!
I shouldn’t complain. I was probably the reason that drove you to what ever it was you were smoking!
So, out of curiosity, if the Federation has roughly 300 police ships (1ish per hex), why wouldn't some or all of them have been pressed into military service during the General War? 300 vessels would constitute a fleet larger than the combined Lyran and Klingon fleets on day one of the GW?
--Mike
I thought some were.
I remember a proposal published in captains log to allow up to 20 aPOL cutters to be “Federalized”
They were. Check the F&E rules & OOB:
Police Ships: (531.1)
POL: May call up two per turn; no more than 25 total call ups.
FLG: May call up one per turn for a cost of 2 EPs; no more than 6 total call ups.
POV/PV: May call up one of either type per turn at a cost of 3EPs; no more than 2 total POV and no more than 4 total PV call ups.
They can't federalize the whole police force because even during war time, they have a job to do.
Garth L. Getgen
Thanks, that makes sense. I guess my remaining question would be, where are the rest of the police ships? Let's say the Hydrans and the Kzinti have been largely flattened (as usual) and the Federation has lost about 40% of it's territory (not too unusual). That captured territory presumably is no longer being policed? So where are the 60 (H)+ 60 (Z) + 120 (40% of F) = 240 police ships from the captured hexes? Those ships would be mighty useful to the Alliance to help pin out some Coaltion forces.
--Mike
Mike,
My guess (just a guess) would be that at least some of those police ships were destroyed when their particular patrol area was captured. They may never have been formally "called up" but when the system they were currently patrolling was hit by invaders, they still would have attempted to help the defense as best they could.
And we are come full circle.
If you check the rules for battle stations and Star bases, they have (1-3) and (4-6) POL class ships.
These are from the near by f&e hexes, presumably.
There are 13 fed Star bases at start of the General War, and Garth posted above how many BTS there are. Do the math.
Do the math? I did do the math!! That's why we're all in this rabbit hole!
Garth L. Getgen
Base assaults are where police ships go to die. That probably explains what happened to most of the police ships in the captured areas and those that survived were probably used to augment the defenses of the surviving bases.
Garth! I wasn’t talking to you! We have been discussing this until we are both blue in the face! It’s the young whipper snappers who never listen!
>> If you check the rules for battle stations and Star bases, they have (1-3) and (4-6) POL class ships.
Are you referring to SFB rules or F&E rules?
--Mike