This is a rule that many (including me) wanted in F&E for a long time (from the start in my case).

Certain ships would be identified as "slightly slower" than normal. These would include....

National Guard ships

Those Gorn overloaded carriers

and maybe some others. I don't remember if overloaded tugs have their own special movement rule or not. Yeah, 517.44 says that they are speed 3, so they're not part of this.

Not sure about Romulan war eagles and some of the other old romulans. We'll see.

Operational speed 5. (anybody want to argue for 4? I don't think 4 is right, I think 5 is right).
Strategic range 5 hexes between bases.
Slow retreat? (maybe not as they would then protect auxiliaries).

By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 01:29 pm: Edit

I like 5.

Tholian and ISC ships from R10 might also qualify.

Tholian CAN (R7.50)
ISC NCA (R13.67)
ISC NCS (R13.68)

By John Doucette (Jkd) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 02:41 pm: Edit

Slow retreat could be argued either way, really, though there might be a slightly better argument against counting them as slow ships (for retreat purposes) because all the current slow ship/units in the game have a move of 3.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 03:19 pm: Edit

I think Slow Retreat should only be kept for Aux's and overloaded tugs.

Nothing prevents a WE from disengaging by acceleration, like it does a AuxCVL

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 03:32 pm: Edit

I like speed 5 but totally disagree with the ISC NCA and NCS being speed 5 ships. After all, all General War era ISC ships are built to be 'better' then any other races equivalent hulls.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 03:42 pm: Edit

The ISC NCA is specifically designed as a "system defense ship" which is limited in strategic speed, so it goes into this category.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 03:43 pm: Edit

Jimi,

Yeah, but the NCA and NCS weren't exactly part of the master plan. Rather, they were emergency retrofits of CL- and CS-class ships that found themselves in isolated groups in the wake of the Andromedan Invasion. It was a desperation measure to get more firepower out of these ships, with speed being sacrificed in the process.

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 03:54 pm: Edit

... Jimi takes the ole one two punch and is down for the count!!


=)

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 04:40 pm: Edit

A quick-study on F&E Movement.

Move-7 is correct for X-ships and Fast ships. I personally feel that X-ships could stand being Move-8.

Move-6 is correct for most General War ships.

Move-5 is correct for slower General War ships.

Move-4 is correct for EY ships. If there are "Fast" EY ships, those might be Move-5 or Move-6, but I have not heard of such things.

Move-3 is for those old warp-conversions. I am pretty well assuming that there are no "Fast" warp conversions. In fact, that sounds dangerous.

I have also read some reasonable proposals to make pre-Tactical Warp vessels Move-3. Anything slower than Move-3, and it takes months to get from Romulus to the Gorn front. It is doubtful that the Romulan Empire could so exist.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Notes on actual physics. I assume that Warp speeds are X^X. (X to the X power). Do not confuse warp factor with the number of hexes a ship may move. I am not saying that they are rigidly connected. I am simply going over the numbers.

Warp factor 5 is actually 3125 times the speed of light. At Warp 5, a ship will travel .96 F&E hexes in a six month period. In F&E terms, you cannot really represent anything slower than Warp 5.

Warp factor 6 is actually 46656 times the speed of light. At Warp 6, a ship will travel 14.31 F&E hexes in a six month period. Considering operational movement(6 hexes), retrograde movement(6 hexes), and reaction movement(2 hexes), it seems fair to assume that (outside of stategic movement) ships travel an average of Warp 6 in F&E.

Travelling at Warp factor 7 is actually 823543 times the speed of light. At Warp 7, a ship will travel 252.62 hexes in a six month period. This sheds some light on Strategic Movement. However, getting to the Andromeda Galaxy (distance 2.85 million light years) at Warp-7 would still take 3.46 years (provided you have a route with bases).

Technical note: No known ships can travel at high warp speed without stopping at bases to drain the warp-static charge that accumulates in the engines over time. This sheds more light on Strategic Movement, and the difficulty of moving between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.

By Richard Abbott (Catwhoorg) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Setve Rossi.
I recall from the Technical Manual that the speeds are warp factor Cubed * light speed

ie Warp 8 was a mere 512c

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Save Move-8 for X2, IMO.

Also, ships moving their normal movement are patroling and stopping for supplies on occasion. Speed has a lot to do with it but ranges of missions are less than that. Indeed, an warship CAN travel much further if it has but one destination in mind and is traveling clearly defined routes.

So and X2 ship may not have but a slightly high top speed over an X1 ship but it may have a higher cruising speed and able to go longer between stops (needing a little less supply). As such it might gain the extra hex of normal movement.

My point, the one relavent to this discussion, is that normal movement is a matter of many factors and not just the ship racing at top speed (which allows a ship to cross the Alpha Sector or more in one turn via stratigic movement nods). Supply, encounters, R&R, odd patrol routs, fleet organization, logistics, exploration duties, moving carfully so as not to get ambushed etc. and it's level of ability to handle these issues are all things besides raw speed that determin a ships normal movement.

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Loren: I completely agree. (except for the bit about X-ship speed, but that is no-matter).

Your main analysis of what makes up the Operational Movement Limits of an F&E ship is spot on, I think.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 11:09 pm: Edit

Well, I only used X1 and X2 because I wanted the example to be more about things other than pure speed. X1 to GW would illustrate it as well since X1 is flat out faster.

I might have used another example other that the non-developed X2 but I used it already in the first line so...I went with it.

As far as other ships that should be Speed 5 it's hard think of anything beyond what has already been mentioned and doesn't already have a set speed. NG ships make perfect sense. I suppose most EY ships would then, no?

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 11:27 pm: Edit

I once had an old Star Trek book of some kind that IIRC had it as x^2, with x^3 for `transwarp' (which doesn't exist in SFU). But I'm not sure any of that is relevant for F&E...

IMO NG ships should be the same as EY ships, since the engines are not changed as part of their modernization. I was under the impression EY ships were move-4, although that only comes from BBS discussion which seems to be derived from GPD (which I don't have or play).

I'm curious about SVC's preference for 5; is the desire to have NG ships etc. be different from EY ships, or is it to have EY ships be 5 rather than the 4 frequently assumed in places like the Early Wars forum?

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 11:29 pm: Edit

Slow units: The point about disengaging by acceleration is a good one. I support not calling these slow units.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 11:30 pm: Edit

Steven Rossi, speeds and SFB universe Warp speeds were defined for GURPS already, and were based on F&E. They are much faster than warp^3 except for tactical warp.

By Steven Rossi (Steverossi) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 11:58 pm: Edit

Doug-
I would imagine so. If Warp-8 is only 512 times the speed of light, it would take over three years to move one F&E hex.

Note: Warp Factor 3 would be 3^3, (SFB Speed 27) so I do get the point regarding tactical warp.

But, I have considerably digressed from the topic.

TK: I prefer Move-4 for EY ships, and Move-8 for X-ships. The reason is that a one hex difference in movement does not significantly represent improvement of propulsion technology over the length of time represented.

Consider the speed of a Royal Navy Frigate in 1862 (Y62), its speed in 1902 (Y102), its speed in 1942 (Y142), and in 2002 (Y202). Granted that water and warp-bubbles are somewhat different, but also that technology curves tend to resemble one another regardless. (we could look at aircraft speed in a similar light)

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:53 am: Edit

Steverossi: Frigate is an unfortunate example, since there was no such thing as a frigate per se between the Age of Sail and WWII...

But looking at main surface combattants:

1862 steam frigate: ca. 7 kts (?)
1902 battleship: ca. 20 kts
1942 fast battleship: ca. 30 kts
2002 frigate: ca. 30 kts

With wet navy ships, speeds reached a plateau in the early 20th century: a WWI destroyer is no faster than a modern destroyer. Modern battleships caught up with cruisers and destroyers (30-odd kts) by WWI IIRC.

Interestingly, the period of circa Y120-180 is similarly stagnant in SFB. An interesting comparison might be:

Y180 (2002): speed 6-7
Y120 (1942): speed 6
Y80 (1902): speed 4
Y40 (1862): speed 2-3? (was even NTW available then? -- where's module Q?!)

The increase from EY to MY (if EY==4) does mimic the increase from turn-of-the-century speeds to WWI/WWII speeds, followed by a plateau much like wet navy. Futuristic SWATH or similar ships might be the equivalents of X-ships -- and their speeds are IIRC only something like 20% higher than conventional warships'.

Of course, the shift from sail to steam involved a decrease in range (you can't run out of wind!), which simply doesn't map over to starships...

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 07:08 am: Edit

strategic warp speeds are not x^x and are not x^3 (as people say that is MUCH to slow, GW warships would have to go warp 30 or so to match their F&E speeds)

tactical warp speeds are x^3, but strategic warp 1 is the same as SFB speed 64 (warp 4)

F&E speeds (with speed 5 are) are

type	warp	F&E hexes/turn
freighters	4.5	2
aux/NT warp	5.5	3
EY warp	6	4
'slow' GW warp	6.25	5
GW warp	7	6
Fast/X	7.25	7

SVC has told me not to give out the formula for calculating this, but you may be able to figure it out from the chart ;)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 01:47 pm: Edit

5 for NG
4 for EY

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 02:35 pm: Edit

There's no one continuous function that's going to get those values AFAICT. Just looking at an X-Y plot shows that something very different is happening between F&E speed 5 and 6. Allowing for rounding, there might be a function which could get the first four... but the values as given are three (pretty simple) discontinuous linear functions:

w = f + 2.5 for 2 <= f <= 3
w = f/4 + 5 for 4 <= f <= 5
w = f/4 + 5.5 for 6 <= f <= 7

where w is warp factor and f is F&E speed.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 02:53 pm: Edit

3 for W-ships (EY)?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 05:42 pm: Edit

Thanasis, there is a continuous function for these speeds, you just didn't guess it

there is some rounding taking place, but it's pretty minor

here's another hint

warp	SFB speed	F&E hexes	desired SFB speed
1	64	0	0
4.5	5832	2	6400
5.5	10648	3	9600
6	13824	4	12800
6.25	15625	5	16000
7	21952	6	19200
7.25	24389	7	22400

Andy, W and Y ships are the same speed (4), it's the 'sublight' ships that are 3

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Its a game guys. We dont need the math.

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Cfant: Some of us like the math. The day geeks can't be geeky in a forum dedicated to a Star Trek-based wargame is the day I just give up

Dlang: OK, that's quite a bit more rounding than I was allowing for.