Federation Commander

The names of Fed Dreadnoughts sound uninspiring in my opinion. I know that the names are taken from the Franz Josef book. Has there been any thought to officially rename these ships?

You can name them anything you want in your own sessions, but the names in the SFU have all been established for over 30 years and are unlikely to change.

Officially published names never change.

Steve Cole wrote:Officially published names never change.

Of course. I wish I could have talked to Franz Josef back in '73.

You're not the only one.

Even though he's one of the people who inspired me into my career, I'd love to have challenged him on the 'shuttlebay on the front of the dreadnought' decision.

As an engineer, I thought that forward facing shuttle bay thing was wrong the first second I saw it.

I am not an engineer and I was like 10 years old when I first read the tech manual, but I have to acknowledge that the forward facing shuttle bay is just silly.

And yet, the police cutter has a forward-facing shuttle bay .............

Don't the Kzinti cruisers all have large forward shuttle bay doors?

I believe the Kzinti have forward doors and underside hatches on a lot of them.

A forward-facing shuttlebay is totally "do-able" in a world where tractor beams exist. However, it doesn't pass the KISS rule of design (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

A rear-facing shuttlebay allows shuttles to make their approaches under their own power and completely unassisted, if need be, which is very useful in rescue and recovery situations with the receiving ship's tractors out of commission (or worse). The receiving ship can be completely passive.

A forward-facing bay pretty much requires some effort on the receiving ship's part, which could be a problem in some situations.

That, and how the heck do you use droges with front doors?

It could be done (and apparently is done on the DN and Kzinti), but would involve complicated stuff with tractor beams and maybe even extensible booms.

With enough handwavium, anything is possible!

Steve Cole said: "Officially published names never change."

However, he didn't mention that you are free to suggest new names to be added to the list. You'll need a bit of justification beyond "it just sounds kewl" and even then he might not use it. And the DN list appears to be pretty much maxed out.

I am curious, tho, as to what names you wanted the list changed to.......

I have tried to come up with something.
I think naming a prominent vessel "Federation" makes it a more tempting target.