Federation Commander

[Nerroth]

As advised in the recent fighter thread, this discussion is aimed at looking at the topic of gunboats, as they may one day work in Federation Commander. (There is an equivalent topic over on the BBS here.)

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I was about to post this to reply to an earlier question in the other thread, but figured it best to post it here instead:


As it happened, the alternate timeline Feds encountered by the wayward USS Darwin adopted gunboats in alt-2598 (alt-Y198), according to the "dark future" timeline in SFB Module C3A - a sign of desperation at how badly the Andromedan War was going in that Darwin-less reality, perhaps.


The Andros in SFB have a unit called the mobile weapons platform (or MWP), which is their closest historical analogue to a gunboat (or rather, to an interceptor - a kind of unit which acted as a test-bed for the kind of technology which would come to full fruition in the PF).

An Andro player can elect to transport a selection of MWPs in their Motherships' internal hangar bays. In addition, there is a pair of dedicated "monitor" Mothership variants in SFB Module R11 (the Concretor and Immobilator); each of which comes with a set of external docking stations on which to carry additional MWPs.

The problem is that MWPs cannot be carried externally by a Mothership capable of moving along the Rapid Transit Network (which Andro monitors cannot do, since they have no displacement devices), as any MWPs exposed to open space would be sheared off once the Mothership reached the kind of extreme high warp speeds which can be reached while moving along the RTN.

So basically, the Andros would need to deploy a DisDev-armed Mothership to a key location (such as a battle station); convert it somehow into a monitor variant on-site; and either bring fresh supplies of MWPs to support the monitor, or have the local base, if there is one, produce more. (There is a construction battle station variant, which is also in Module R11; while an Immobilator was assigned to defend the third Desecrator during Operation Unity.)


In FC terms, even if the prospect of getting a Concretor or Immobilator Ship Card proved an uphill battle, there might still be some use for a Ship Card of MWPs which "standard" Andro forces could choose to bring to battle via their Mothership's internal hangar bays.


(For what it's worth, Module C3A offered a set of conjectural Adder PFs for the Andros, which were effectively bulked-up MWPs - but those were among the many fiendish creations of the Star Fleet Academy simulators presented in that volume, and never existed historically.)
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[mjwest]

Gary,

Before we worry about alternative history gunboats, niche Andromedan designs, Omega, and LMC, the base gunboats would have to be designed and published. With fourteen empires to cover with only 40 ship cards (16 in the main Attack module, plus 8 per booster), I think just covering the basics will be enough.

So, before getting ahead of the whole process and trying to map out the development of multiple modules and spreading gunboats across all sections of the SFU, most of which don't even exist in Federation Commander yet, let's just worry about the fourteen galactic empires first.

For the main Attack module, that all works out nicely. Each empire gets one ship card, for 14 out of the 16 cards. Give the Romulans a second card (for their other line of Starhawk gunboats). Use the last for the Banshee monster (a monster specifically for gunboats). If Boosters are done, then other things can be divided out, but I doubt there would be room for niche Andromedan ships or other things like that. Some Booster ship cards would duplicate the ship cards included in the Attack module, and others would be able to provide gunboat variants (both non-combat "targets" and some combat variants).

Obviously, that is just my guess for the potential 40 ship cards, but the main point is that they will all be taken up covering the Galactic gunboats. I doubt there would be room (or reason) to include anything so esoteric. I also just like the concept that there are no true ships; simply gunboats throughout the whole thing.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Kohanavich]

I agree. I think gunboats/PF's would work better in FC than the fighters will. With some carefull design tweaking they would not unbalance the system. From a weapons systems development perspective "gunboats" would be developed before fighters would be ie system/ hardware miniturization(sp ?)

[mjwest]

[Kohanavich]

It's more logical to have gunboats before fighters . I realize SFB didn't do it that way. Same thing happened in Starfire until they rewrote the rules. My opinion conflicts with the timeline yes. Technology wise the ability to miniaturize components and power systems pretty much guarantees you would get gunboat sized units before fighter sized units. I realize that's not how it went down in the SFU.

[Nerroth]

Fighters emerged out of armed shuttles, which were already capable of (very limited) tactical warp movement once the earliest tactical warp drives came along. ("Sublight" - i.e. non-tactical warp - ships like the pre-Smarba Romulans were obliged to persist with "sublight" shuttles.)

Rather than working "down" from a full starship's warp engines, warp-powered fighter evolution worked "up" from modified admin shuttlecraft - firstly by the Hydrans (among Alpha Octant empires), and latterly by other empires in this region of space.

I'd wonder if the earliest warp-shuttle engines owed more to the kind of "disposable" drives installed into "warp-seeking" weapons like drones and plasma torpedoes, rather than the kind used to power full-sized starships.


The "hot warp" engines which were used in the Alpha Octant to power Interceptors and PFs were miniaturized versions of warship engines, but also came with a series of limitations due to the components removed in order to make them fit.

For example, a gunboat cannot "flush" the ionic buildup in its own warp engines - that needs to be done by a tender, or at a base equipped to support gunboat operations. (There are rules in SFB covering PF engine degradation, though they are not automatically in play scenario-wise.)


Of course, there are places where all of this went quite differently - but since I've already worn other people's patience thin by talking about them in the thread which spawned this one, I might refer to other places on this forum where I could go into more detail on what happened there...
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[Paul B]

Are there any example gunboats available online in any of the communiques or anything like that? (FC or SFB) Curious what they look like.

[DNordeen]

I think the Klingon Gunboat is in the Commanders Circle
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Speed is life; Patience is victory

[djdood]

I think there was a playtest card, ages ago, but it was never in Communique so it is no longer there (only Communiques remain).

Regarding what the G-1 looks like:


Functionally, it's an over-juiced, over-gunned small frigate or police cutter with no internal padding, but not really (because gunboats are their own weird little beasties). They are tiny things that fight in packs of 6 and are deadly.

SFB and F&E put lots of restrictions on them, such as extremely short range for a "ship" [because they're not], but FedCom will most-likely ignore all that. They just show up and fight like any other ship.
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[mjwest]

[Paul B]

Ah. Well, either way. It seems to me that either fighters or gunboats would fit fine.
If gunboats are just small ships, then adding them doesn't seem like a problem.
If fighters are already in the game (stingers) then adding more doesn't seem like a problem either.

I saw on the BBS some proposals about Gunboat modes instead of energy allocation but to me those rules just seem a bit confusing because they end up requiring a lot of explanation and exceptions for how damage affects their ability to operate.

I think that if one were to want simplified movement modes, one would also need to simplify their damage process as well so that the damage taken not only degrades their abilities but also stipulates what modes the PF may engage in. Otherwise the modes themselves will both need to define what is possible to do and also define what is required to operate and outside of those definitive requirements will be inconsistencies which some players will not appreciate.

Or in other words, the modes will basically have "threshold checks" and anything approaching but not exceeding that threshold will cause consternation for some players.

Likewise an artificial limitation like phasers and norm disruptors, not overloads will cause problems if that player has say lost a few phasers but no disruptors and if the power required by the phasers could instead be used to OL the disruptor.

Though it is possible that the way damage allocation works in FC would prevent that sort of scenario except in the most unlikely of cases, don't know.

There's also the problem of that movement modes suggested don't account for such cases as HET and EM.


I did run into one thread on another forum where they mentioned Gorn or Romulan PFs have 5 Plasma-Fs. Seems a bit OP to me.

[mjwest]

Honestly, I am not sure if standard damage allocation works on gunboats. It might be just "mark off this many boxes; you pick." In that case, the player can't complain too much, as they choose which boxes to disable.

If energy allocation is used, then figure something like a gunboat has 6 warp, 2 impulse, 1 reactor, 1 battery. They have a 1/8 movement rate. Go to town. With a 1/8 movement rate, HET and EM become not too power intensive. So, if the EA-less method is used, there really isn't much problem letting a gunboat HET, EM, and decelerate at will. (In SFB, gunboats have a 1/5 movement rate, but they can double their warp power with "booster packs". I am hoping that booster packs don't make the translation as they are a big part of the OP nature of gunboats in SFB, and because I don't want to see all of the rules needed to make them work.)

The Romulan Centurion has 5xPl-F and the Gorn Pterodactyl has 4xPl-F. In SFB, there is an additional rule that says a gunboat may only fire 2xPl-F in a single turn. I imagine that rule will be preserved in Federation Commander.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Kohanavich]

They had their own damage table in SFB . We have been using certian fleet scale SSD's as kind of gunboats in squadron scale FC for awhile now....fleet scale DD, FF.

[semperatis]

We already have the little AC,which does the same job for almost half the price.
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Federal Republic of Aurora fleet builder.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes.

[Kohanavich]

Yes, while we have mixed fleet and squadron scales in our games the BPV values should only be used as a guide. We are not convinced that they are 100% comparable .