Mod Y lists C4 YIS as Y92; Fed YDN as Y100; Kzinti YDN as Y95; Lyran YDN as Y94; Carnivon YDN as Y96.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 04:21 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 27, 2000 - 06:02 pm: Edit

DREADNOUGHT THOUGHTS
Something came up in our design process we need to update you all on.
Y80 Everybody starts building the YCA (Republic, D4, etc.)
Y90 Most start building the YDN (Revenge, C4)
Y120 we start seeing the first true CAs (Constitution, D6)
Y150 we start seeking the early versions of the true DNs (i.e., C6, Fed DN)
What's missing?
The DN that was in service from Y125/130 through 150. Are you really gonna try to convince me that C4s were commanding fleets of faster D6s? Nuh-uh. So, what we have here is the C4B (a C4 with 30-box engines) appearing in Y130 and wearing out pretty fast, replaced by the proper C6 in Y150.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 04:26 pm: Edit

I think that the YDN's would be upgraded when the new MY cruisers come out. They are expensive to build and hardly ever leave StarBase. Cheaper to upgrade DN's and hey they aren't used that often, but the upgrade makes them fail quicker once they start being used.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Ryan

A C4B with 30-box engines is presumably still slow.. And your point is correct - its plainly ridiculous for the flag to be slower than most of the fleet. A bit slower maybe, but not that kind of differential.
But its probable that large DN engines, being available only late in the EY era, are again only upgradable late in the MY era.
Maybe there was a YDN->CA conversion?

I suppose it could be a nice anomaly just to have the YDNs be dinosaurs until they finally get new designs ca Y150. Currently, I think that's the way I'll go for the 2nd Fed/Zin war. I really can't see a good reason for them to have a warp upgrade to some kind of hybrid.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 05:45 pm: Edit

I agree. The Fed did a redesign after the end of the 2nd Fed-Kz War and came up with the GW DN in Y148, built a couple of Federation Class DN's over the next couple of years and ordered/cancelled a bunch more (explains the gap in NCC numbering). Since they were at peace and had treaties with all neighbors retired all but the Fleet Flagship USS Federation. When GW started reactivated the ones in mothballs and worked on upgrade program.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 06:02 pm: Edit

The Flagship speed only really matters if its going to fight in the battle - being able to coordinate a front doesn't have the same speed requirements. With that in mind, there just weren't a whole lot of situations from 125-150 that required 12 ship fleets that 11 ship fleets (led by a CC) couldn't handle.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 12:26 am: Edit

Hi - I'm butting in here without any knowledge of the early year ships. But it seems to me that there is a similarity of the years 125-150, and that with the advent of X-ships. There are no X-ship dreadnoughts, as all the X-cruisers have command rating 10.

It would seem to me that if the cruisers of 125-150 had an improvement of command rating to equal the dreadnough designs of that era, and the upper limit of command ratings were unable to be further improved, then the dreadnought would become obsolete - just like it did with the advent of the X-technology cruisers. Why build expensive dreadnoughts if a command cruiser can do the same job.

And of course, should technology be once again improved to allow for CR11 on the biggest, best ships, then you will finally see X-dreadnoughts be developed. That might take 30 or more years.

Unfortunately, if the CR ratings have been written into the early years modules, and they include CR10 for the biggest ships, then it will be hard to backwrite my musings into it. Not impossible, just hard.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 02:13 am: Edit

Kevin: The command ratings for EY ships presented in Mod Y match their later MY and GW counterparts. YDNs are given CRs of 10.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 04:25 am: Edit

What???

YDN's have 10 command? Good grief. That completly throws the 2nd Fed-Zin war out of whack - a Y series ship has TWO better command rating than any MY ship. The YDN shouldn't have more than 8 - the command rating of CA's in Y125-Y150. And it would be plain wierd that the Feds (for example) don't design a CR 9 MY CC until Y142, when they already have the technology to build CR10 ships. At the very least, a MY CC varient should be available as soon as a MY CA came out.

I am tempted to say that F&E should trump SFB here. As there are no F&E EY scenarios involving YDNs yet, F&E has not determined EY command rating, as I could make strong arguments for the YDN having a command rating of 8, 9 at the absolute maximum.

I also note that YCAs only have a CR of 7, and it takes a YCC to get CR 8. While you could say that YDNs would logically have CR9, there's no reason why that should be the case, and if they do have CR9, why on earth didn't MY CC's come out earlier?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 07:52 am: Edit

David according to Module Y.
Fed
YDN CR10
YCA CR8

Unless the After action Report changed this theres no reference to reduced CR for Yseries ships.

MY CCs probably didn't come out earlier than they did. because Star Fleet Command didn't see a need for them. They could have been built earlier but weren't because SFC didn't see any need to spend the cash.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 08:24 am: Edit

SFC may not have needed MY CCs earlier, but alot of other races were having wars in the 120-135 era, and they didn't build CCs either!

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 08:28 am: Edit

They had the tech to build CR10 on SC2. Maybe they didnt have the tech improvements to build CR9 on a SC3.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, November 20, 2003 - 08:38 am: Edit

The EY Romulans would be even worse meat than they are without having VULs with a CR of 10.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 12:43 am: Edit

The Klingons have the D6C (SFB YIS Y136--no note, so F&E Y135--CR9) from CL20 (in CL26 MSC). The Lyrans have both their CA and CC with CR9 in Y120. The Hydrans have the LC in Y134 (F&E Y133). Also, races could introduce CAc type ships that only add the flag bridge to the standard CA, giving it the command rating without the extra weapons/power/goodies...

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 04:28 pm: Edit

Above in this topic somebody asked "What will be the attraction of Early Wars?"... given that there were no major campaigns, and only protracted border bashing.

/cheerleader on

Many F&E grognards should see quite a bit of value in Early Wars. The timeline affords a rich potential for scenario design, but only with Early Wars can most of this be easily accomplished. Early Wars will also provide a backdrop for smaller scenarios that may be attractive to those who cannot tie up a table for long periods of time.

Those of us who fell in love with the timelines published in Captains Log will surely see Early Wars as the logical extension of the F&E gameset. The same is true of ISC Wars, perhaps even to a greater extent.

Whenever Early Wars is finally released, it will be a welcome addition to the F&E family of grand strategic simulations.

/cheerleader off

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Friday, May 28, 2004 - 08:04 pm: Edit

Cheerleader still off. (grin)

You know, I really dislike Early DN's, even despite their obvious existence. I like the idea of dropping the CR of Early DN's to equal that of a CC. This allows the General War to represent a further advancement in command/control. (in addition to Admirals and Command Points).

It seems to make sense that the maximum CR available increased from 6 to 10 over a period of 100 years. Is this possible?

Yes the compot of a battleforce will be correspondingly less, but recall that it is likewise easier to direct damage on the smaller factors of EY ships. Also, the tendency would be to have smaller fleets that are more spread out, but that goes with the territory of slower ships. The front still needs complete coverage.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Friday, May 28, 2004 - 10:28 pm: Edit

Why did we ever add in early DN's in the first place?? But as they exist lets just leave them as Command Rating 10 and be done with it, you don't see people saying that you should reduce the command rating of a GW DN just because X-Ships can go faster and are more advanced. A GW DN could command a whole fleet of X-Ships. The Reduction in command rating from a YDN to a CC/CA is a result of a different mission role for the ship. Until 6 hex supply lines your ships may as well go speed 4 anyways, especially if you just keep them around at starbases. In tactical combat you would have a similar disparity to the one that exists in GW/X era.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, May 28, 2004 - 11:06 pm: Edit

Things like BGs, Admirals, Command points and the like should be left oufo Early Years. Most of that is improved logistics and C3I

You'll have a good old fashioned 12 ship fleet..YDN+10+Scout.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 08:28 am: Edit

1. There is a difference between Early Dreadnoughts (EDNs - in R7) and Early Years Dreadnoughts (YDNs - in Y1), though both have CR10. Given that a YDK (Early Dock - SB equivilant) is equivilant to 2 Cruisers, having high (read: normal) CR is necessary to take these out.

2. Only the Feds have Scouts in EY (pre-120) so the 11 ship fleet is the normal maximum (and the scouts are weak enough that they aren't that much of a help in battles that large).

3. With the reduced strategic speeds and logistics, I would like to see an Early Wars that didn't result in monster fleets but instead resulted in more spread out fleets and more small (3-6 ship) battles.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 04:27 pm: Edit

Sorry for not be clear on the DN I was talking about the YDN in my post.

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 04:07 am: Edit

John and Andy
Yes, I supposed you have convinced me. What I was clinging to was the idea that command/control improved over a 100 year period, and was modelled with an improving CR. Instead it looks like command/control improvements come in the form of Admirals and Command Points. Is there a defined point at which Admirals or Command Points are introduced?

By John Pepper (Akula) on Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 12:48 pm: Edit

Well here is the thing on admirals, I think there is a lot of people who want admirals to be introduced during/after the four powers war. I personally think that since the idea of an admiral has been around in our history for 500+ years that admirals should be introduced in early years.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 02:43 pm: Edit

It could be that in the Early years, admirals do something different, like allow 5 hexes of movement or somesuch.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 06:22 am: Edit

What kind of bases were extant before Y119? YDKs only? For instance, what would there be in an F&E hex that has a SB in the GW? What about BATS hexes?

This is pertinent for anyone who wishes to write up the Zin war with the Klingons and Lyrans just after Y119, as the new base network would not be established.

Factors of these EY bases?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 06:47 am: Edit

David. I would imagine that both YDKs and YBSs would be on the F&E map, with the latter taking the role of GW BATS. Keep in mind, though, that the borders in the EY period are far more fluid than in the MY period, so frontline defenses may not exist, in the GW sense.

Can't help on F&E factors. YBS approx equal to a YCA, but has Scout Channels. YDK approx twice as powerful.