Federation Commander

The selts were not around at the time. The Tholians had escaped and the selts had not tracked them down. Therefore, there were no PCs to copy or steal.

IIRC, the selts showed up followed by the Neo-Tholians (or was it the other way around?) after the General War. Maybe even after the ISC Pacification. Not sure about the timing. And the Selt ships are so completely anti-Tholian, that capturing one and getting intact PCs would be very difficult for the Tholians.

Regardless, the Tholian shipyard couldn't make particle cannons, but could make disruptors, ergo Tholians had disruptors. I'm pretty sure the patrol corvettes that arrived in this galaxy were the phaser/web variants and none of them had particle cannons installed.

That still doesn't explain why they would pay the $$$ ( ) to convert.

pinecone wrote:That still doesn't explain why they would pay the $$$ ( ) to convert.

OK - I must be having an Alzheimer moment here - I've read all the posts leading up to this one (and have commented on a few) - but this comment certainly has me confused.
Pay the $$$ to convert what? I thought the discussion was why the Tholians didn't have Particle Cannons, and $$$ have nothing to do with that.

but the ships that arrived did have particle cannons, and they tholians converted them to distruptors anyway. It took them $$$ ( ) to convert.

The patrol corvettes that arrived in this galaxy were the phaser/web generator variants and none of them had particle cannons installed.

What you have to realize is that the Tholians were refugees from a minor colony. They only brought along their patrol corvettes which are basically police ships, and the shipyard that built them. None of their ships had PCs installed, they were all phaser/web generator armed ships for policing the colony and maintaining it's web.

Even the web technology was very limited. They did not have most of the web technology until the Neo-Tholians arrived because it wasn't built into the police ships for their colonies (patrol corvette) and their shipyard wasn't designed to build it.

The disruptor is fairly easy to build (almost every race has it), so when they were looking for a heavy weapon, the disruptor fit the bill. It was the easiest (and probably cheapest) weapon that their shipyard could build. Additionally, there were plenty of examples available to reverse engineer from all the captured Klingon ships (the Tholians were Squators in Klingon space and the Klingon's were constantly trying to kick them out)

Just finished looking up the Patrol Corvette. There were two types that arrived in this galaxy.

Phaser-3 armed had 4 Ph-1 and 2 Ph-3.
Web armed had 4 Ph-1 and 2 Web generators.

No Particle cannons, web casters, web fists, etc.

Disruptor-armed variant came along later (presumably based on reverse-engineering Klingon disruptors)
Photon-armed variant was result of a treaty with Feds that provided a handful of photon torpedo launchers to the Tholians.

Dnordeen beat me to the punch again. I went to the original rulebooks to confirm that no PC armed ships had arrived in this galaxy and got side-tracked with a phone call about when we're leaving for Origins.

He has is correct though. No Particle Cannons were included in the rag-tag fleet seeking a new home, that shining star known as... wait - wrong Sci Fi reference

The Tholians obtained disruptors for their ships by reverse engineering those found on destroyed and damaged Klingon ships.

But the paritcle cannons were already on the ships, they didn't have to build them. But they did, and it cost them $$$ ( )

pinecone wrote:But the paritcle cannons were already on the ships, they didn't have to build them. But they did, and it cost them $$$ ( )

No they weren't.
In the original Star Fleet Battles history (upon which the entire game system was based), when the Tholian refugees arrived in the Milky Way galaxy... they had no (that's none, nil, zilch, zero, "goose-egg", nada) particle cannon armed ships with them.

Due to the "no refits - everything is in it's final form" nature of the ships in Federation Commander, Federation Commander departs from the established history of the Star Fleet Universe in several places... and this is one of them.

So I guess the answer to your question [Why did the Tholians convert from Particle Cannons to Disruptors when it cost them $$$] is the same answer my mother used to give me... They just did!

I meant the Neo tholian ships, which did have PC's. And the tholians didn't have to pay $$$ ( ) to convert to distruptors, because the neo tholians already had particle cannons.

Talk about misunderstanding...

This next Week thursday july3-4th the War college in sacramento will be gathering for two nights of horrific battle.

first the Federation Vs the Kzinti

second the Kzinti vs the Hydrans.

these will be interesting and pivotal battles!

updates will be posted with all the details, including any and all vp assignments.

PM

The kzinti sure aren't following there historical roles.

Pinecone, here is the rule from SFB on Particle Cannons:

(E17.142) Particle cannons cannot be used by Tholians (even Neo-tholians) in our galaxy because the technology was lost to the Tholians. Tholians in their home galaxy use particle cannons instead of disruptors (and can never have disruptors); Tholians in this galaxy treat particle cannons as extra-galactic technology.

According to SFB rule E17.14, particle cannons are extra-galactic technology and cannot be reproduced or copied by any race.

So to sum it up, the Tholians lost the PC technology, the rules didn't allow them or the Neo-Tholians to have them, the Neo-Tholians were a fleet without the capability of reproducing their weapons, and as the PCs on the Neo-Tholian fleet wore out or were destroyed in combat, the Tholians would have no choice but to replace them with disruptors.

Now it all makes sense Of course they would pay $$$ ( ) to repair their damaged ships.

The kzinti sure aren't following there historical roles.

The Kzinti along with all the races in my Empire campaign do not have any historical roles, the game starts without any prior precedent or alliance. it runs like a 4x pc game and random is it's middle name each and every time it is played.