D5E Escort cruiser

bcantwell · Post by **bcantwell** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:09 pm

Is the D5E escort cruiser intended to have the aegis fire control? I have the ship card from Comminique 73 (but not the one from Reinforcements attack) and there is not a specific listing for Aegis as with most escorts. I would guess this is an oversight on the card, but I could be wrong. It does cost less than the approximately equivalent F6E...

Thanks

Brian

Sgt_G · Post by **Sgt_G** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:02 pm

Going from memory, which could be "going" on its own, but isn't the D5A the Aegis upgrade to the D5E ??? If I'm right, then the answer is "no" because this ship pre-dates the invention of Aegis.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:28 pm

In Federation Commander, the escorts were "flattened". Ergo, there aren't separate D5E and AD5 ships. Rather, there is just a D5E that represents both. Likewise, there isn't "Limited Aegis" and "Full Aegis". Instead, there is just "Aegis". (In SFB the D5E has limited aegis, and the AD5 has full aegis. The D5A is not an escort, but the SFG variant.)

So, yes, the D5E is supposed to have aegis and does so in Booster #92. Basically, any ship that is a formal escort will have aegis. (By "formal escort" I mean that it is designated a fleet or carrier escort. Ships like the E4 are called an "Escort", but are not formal escorts.) The reason the version in Communique #73 does not have aegis is because I think that ship card was published prior to the creation of the Aegis rule (3F).

Sgt_G · Post by **Sgt_G** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 12:24 am

Okay, I had it backwards. I didn't look it up and was thinking the AD5 was the stasis ship. Why didn't they use "Z" for stasis ships? It would have made sense because it turns the enemy into a zombie!

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 2:01 am

Sgt_G wrote:Okay, I had it backwards. I didn't look it up and was thinking the AD5 was the stasis ship. Why didn't they use "Z" for stasis ships? It would have made sense because it turns the enemy into a zombie!

I have no idea why the "A" subscript was chosen to be the designation for stasis ships. However, it has been used for a very long time, being introduced with the D7A. (And probably the C9A, too.) That was all before aegis escorts showed up, so the full aegis refit of the D5E had to take the backup designation.