War tug?

[ericphillips]

I haven't orderd it yet, but I am interested. Is the Fed "War Tug" in booster 91 similar to a SFB Battle Tug, or are their differences.

Thanks

[OGOPTIMUS]

Federation Commander does not have battle tugs. Borders of Madness might...but I'm not sure about that.

The only tugs that are in FC proper are the generic ones with two cargo pods. The tug variant in Booster #91 is the "General War" version that has the extra phaser-3s and drone rack that were not in the original drawings from the Franz Joseph Technical Manual. It's the tug with the '+' refit.

[ericphillips]

Thanks

[mjwest]

Yes, the Tug in Booster 91 is the equivalent of the SFB Tug+. As the giant robot points out, it is not the "War Tug", but the "General War era Tug".

[Sgt_G]

While other empires have "Combat Tugs" with heavy weapons on the tug itself, the Federation does not (even in SFB). I forget the techno-babble reason why this is, but the real reason is game balance. If the Fed Tug had a full set of Photons, when you add the Battle Pod, it becomes an OH MY GAWD ship!!! Ships like that break the game, so SVC nixxed it.

{edit: changed "Battle Tug" to "Combat Tug", and fixed other typo}

[Mike]

So is the Battle Tug from the old Commander's Edition now "out" of SFB?

[OGOPTIMUS]

Basic set has a Battle tug. Most of the weapons come from the pod, and not the tug itself.

[mjwest]

No, no. The Federation still has a "Battle Tug".

What Garth probably meant to say is that only some empires have "Combat Tugs" that are equipped with offensive weaponry. In fact, they usually had both a "Combat Tug" with cruiser equivalent weaponry, and "Fleet Tugs" that had much fewer weapons. The rest only have tugs with minimal weaponry. The Federation is one of the empires with minimal weaponry.

All empires with tugs* also have battle pods. Equipping the tug with a battle pod turns them into Battle Tugs. Again, all empires with a tug have such pods.** So, the Federation still has its Battle Tug in SFB.

In Federation Commander, tugs are far less versatile, and are just used for cargo carrying purposes. So much so that even empires that could use Combat Tugs only get their lesser armed Fleet Tugs. It is theoretically possible that Battle Tugs might be seen in BoM at some point, but right now there are no plans to introduce Battle Tugs into Federation Commander in any form.

[*] Except the Romulans. The Romulans don't have any "true" tugs, except for a conversion of the Klingon tug, and those are incredibly rare. Because of their rarity, they only carry cargo; they never perform special missions other than setting up bases.

[**] This is for the General War time period and the Middle Years time period. During the Early Years, no one had any Combat Tugs.

[djdood]

While other empires have "Battle Tugs" with heavy weapons on the tub itself, the Federation does not (even in SFB). I forget the techno-babble reason why this is, but the real reason is game balance. If the Fed Tub had a full set of Photons, when you add the Battle Pod, it becomes an OH MY GAWD ship!!! Ships like that break the game, so SVC nixxed it.

Not to mention that the Tug didn't have photon heavy weapons in the Tech Manual source material. Adding them later as a refit would indeed have been an incongruous idea that (thankfully) never happened.