SFU Questions

[Da Boss]

If anyone with the appropriate knowledge has some time - there a re a few things I wondered about the SFU?

The Cloaking Device - So I understand that in SFU, only the Romulans and the Orions (?) have cloaking technology - is there a reason that the other races have never developed the same tech - especially with all the wars and I assume captured / salvaged vessels? Much technology seems to be used across the universe - phasers, drones etc. Is there a treaty like in the main ST universe preventing their use.

The superpowered races - do any of the Organians and similar super races appear in the SFU?

Thanks

 

[scoutdad]

If anyone with the appropriate knowledge has some time - there a re a few things I wondered about the SFU?

The Cloaking Device - So I understand that in SFU, only the Romulans and the Orions (?) have cloaking technology - is there a reason that the other races have never developed the same tech - especially with all the wars and I assume captured / salvaged vessels? Much technology seems to be used across the universe - phasers, drones etc. Is there a treaty like in the main ST universe preventing their use.

Multiple reasons.
1) Technology Slush. Most empires have one of two unique weapons or systems that set them apart from the other empires. For example. Cloaks - only Romulans and Orion Pirate have them.
Gatling Phasers - They belong to the Hydrans, but they traded some to the LDR and the Federation.
ESG's - Lyran only.
Stealth coating - Orion Pirates only
and so on.

Also, since many of the empires in the SFU consist of most than one species (Klingons and their slave races - Three three different species of Gorn - the five core member species of the ISC - etc.); the proper term has shifted from race to empire.

The superpowered races - do any of the Organians and similar super races appear in the SFU?

Thanks

Not as empires you can develop fleets from... but they are present, in the background at least.
There is aa race calledthe Masters who like to "play" with the lesser developed species. Several scenarios are based around them grabbing whole starships from various points of the galaxy or various ages (in SFB where the year of the scenario determines refits available) and pits them against each other in contests.

There is an Organian Ceasefire card in the game Star Fleet Battle Force.
The planet Organia exists on the maps of the SFU.

Tony

 

[Iron Domokun]

Romulan warships and around 10% of Orions have cloaks. The Romulan Snipe police ship does not have a cloak, for example.

In order to cloak efficiently, a ship needs to be designed from the ground up to take advantage of how the cloak works. Things like the shape of the warp field and energy emissions need to be taken into account. The Klingo-Romulan Kestrel series ships take a lot of energy to cloak, so they tend to only cloak when disengaging because the cloak doesn't leave enough power to fight. Eagle and Hawk series ships are much better cloakers, but are smallish for their class. Orions are already designed to be stealthy and so cloak pretty efficiently. Other empires' ships just would not cloak very well, and the cloak doesn't fit with their tactical and strategic doctrines, so they did not attempt to develop cloaks. Also in game terms each empire gets a gimmick, and the cloak is the Romulan gimmick. If everyone had cloaks, the Romulans would not be unique.

ETA: In the background, the Organians had no starships (having evolved beyond such concerns). However, they can use their powers within a certain distance of their planet (~500 ly?) to prevent conflict. As a result, Organia became a place where negotiations could freely happen because nobody could coerce anyone else. The Federation and Klingons created a treaty to regularize their mutual border (the "neutral zone") and the Organians agreed to help administrate it.

 

[Jean]

Well, technically the Klingons have "Subject Races" and not slaves. The Subject Races are sort of second-class citizens in the Klingon Empire.

The Organians can control things about 500 parsecs from their planet.

Nothing that I can find suggests any treaties regarding technology, but it seems that the empires decided that "good enough" and "works for our ships" was better than trying to chase down a different technology and integrate it into the ships. I think there's sort of the idea, too, that phasers are phasers are phasers isn't quite right. The weapons work similarly and have the same effect, but much like rail lines don't always have the same gauge (and so the engines cannot just run anywhere), this Hydran widget doesn't fit into the Federation doohicky opening.

Jean

 

[Nerroth]

I recall seeing somewhere that part of the reason why phasers were so similar in the Alpha Octant was due to certain component minerals being widespread there, but having a different degree of availability in other, more distant areas of the galaxy (and beyond). Although, it seems that the specific trace elements needed for the advanced fire control that turns a phaser-2 into a phaser-1 are rarer (and more expeinsive) to mine in the "western" part of Alpha than in the "eastern" area.

I think something similar affected the use of drones versus plasma; the west side has more fissionables which can be used as drone warheads, while the east has more of the materials needed to field plasma-based heavy weapons instead.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Andromedan phaser-2s in particular are not phasers, but "something that works kind of like a phaser". The Galactic Powers never did figure out exactly how most Andromedan technology worked, so the data in the SFU "source tapes" is merely the Galactic intelligence analysts' best guess as to how it worked.

 

[Da Boss]

Thanks for all the replies

Jean - especially useful the idea that the the "phasers" remeble each other more in their effect than anything else -that makes alot of sense.

I can def see the in game balance idea behind restricting the cloaking device.

Much less convinced that such a powerful technology would not attempt to be duplicated by other powers - given all the potential uses (Scouting, Recon, Deception by making it appear to be Romulans, Raiding rear areas, Priority transports etc immeditaely spring to mind).

Again I am suprised that there are no attempts at various Empires trying to get a cloakable ship - especially between wars to try and get that elusive advanatge over their enemies? Maybe not full classes of ships but experimental / unique ships acting as technology trials. Again I can see a treaty (as in ST Next Gen) between the powers restricting its use helping it to limit it to a few attempts and or black ops operations using captured or modified vessels.

Is there any effective method of seeing through the cloak - if yes I can see the reduction in its value?

Are the Orions also still the "buy and sell anything including their women" which would make the likelhood of other races gaining the technology much more likely.

But ok I get that its a "no no" for the present SFU but the fluff reasons are I am afriad not that convincing - especially since it already used on Klingon ships in Romulan sevrice unless they are completely rebuilt to use the cloak?

rre the Organians - so pretty much as is in ST OS with a few other ascended beings around to play games......cool

 

[Nerroth]

This is something that may or may not translate across into the new game, but in SFB and FC there is a different cloak cost for different types of hulls, that factors into the operating budget for the Romulan (and Orion) player in question.

Cloaks were originally designed to operate with the old Eagle-series ships, so they have a fairly cheap running cost for activating (and more importantly, maintaining) their cloaks. What the Romulans found after the Treaty of Smarba was signed, however, was that the Kestrels (KRs) turned out to have far less efficient cloaking costs; making it more expensive to activate the cloak, and to stay under cloak in battle. (This was a major factor in explaining why the Romulans went to the trouble of building the hawk-series fleet, rather than simply adopt Klingon designs; the Hawks could be built from the keel up to work well with the cloak, while the KRs would not be able to get around that problem.)

So even for the Romulans, cloaks aren't an unqualified success.

Plus, on a strategic level as seen in Federation and Empire, a ship can only go about 1/3 as far in a six-month period while cloaked; so there are limitations on that scale, too.

 

[locarno24]

Jean - especially useful the idea that the the "phasers" remeble each other more in their effect than anything else -that makes alot of sense.

Certainly different races vary in visual effect...

Much less convinced that such a powerful technology would not attempt to be duplicated by other powers - given all the potential uses (Scouting, Recon, Deception by making it appear to be Romulans, Raiding rear areas, Priority transports etc immeditaely spring to mind).

Depends. Bringing new tech into general service is not easy.

I have no doubt that every major empire around has probably seen or obtained one or two devices, but integrating them into a ship is not easy and being able to build and maintain your own is really, really not easy. Radar "stealth" is not scientifically all that difficult - hell, radar signature modelling is now something done as standard for all buildings on an airport site - but it's taken since 1988 (when the F-117 was announced to the world) for other countries to start developing stealth aircraft like the J-20 or PAK-FA.

 

[AdrianH]

I can think of one very good reason why different empires don't copy each other's technology, and it has nothing to do with the real world. Ships are already similar enough with the same hull value and same speed. If they also all have the same technologies then you end up with a dozen near identical fleets differing only in how the ships look. This would be boring.

In the case of cloaks, the Federation got their hands on a Romulan cloak in TOS (and a Klingon cloak in the films). That allowed them to develop new technology to break those cloaks, and meanwhile the Romulans developed new cloaks. The upshot would be that the Federation would have older style cloaks which the Romulans could break, while the Romulans would have new cloaks which the Federation couldn't break. Allow for a bit of espionage from other empires, and everyone can break the old cloak while nobody can break the new one. The bottom line in game terms is that only the Romulans still have a worthwhile cloak.

As for using deception to try to make your ships look like someone else's - the Romulans did precisely that in "Star Trek: Enterprise", which means SFU can't do it without risking their licence. :lol:

 

[Da Boss]

Much less convinced that such a powerful technology would not attempt to be duplicated by other powers - given all the potential uses (Scouting, Recon, Deception by making it appear to be Romulans, Raiding rear areas, Priority transports etc immeditaely spring to mind).

Depends. Bringing new tech into general service is not easy.

I have no doubt that every major empire around has probably seen or obtained one or two devices, but integrating them into a ship is not easy and being able to build and maintain your own is really, really not easy. Radar "stealth" is not scientifically all that difficult - hell, radar signature modelling is now something done as standard for all buildings on an airport site - but it's taken since 1988 (when the F-117 was announced to the world) for other countries to start developing stealth aircraft like the J-20 or PAK-FA.

It would also depend on the technological and economic differences between Empires - are they as large as in present Earth which partially accounts for the US often having an advanatge in military tech - they have (or perhaps had) the money, technical base and will to make them.

If the SFU carries on the Federation as US and Romulans / Klingons as Russia this may work but then you would expect that its easier for the feds to reverse engineer. Also as wars go on things tend to get tried out to gain the smallest advantage but if that not SFU thats fine just seems a bit odd.

OH and I totally see the in game reasons but was interested if any defined fluff reasons.

 

[Jean]

Re: Orions and business and Orion Slave Girls

Yes, the Orions in general are still quite involved in business. However, Orion Pirates are not all Orions, but rather an assortment of beings from different empires and species who have chosen that lifestyle.

Most Orions lead a normal, everyday life. There are teachers, police, sales people, IT personnel, and other professions, just as there are here on Earth.

Orion Slave Girls are anything but slaves. They are highly paid professionals (for the most part) and there are males in that profession. The entertainment life on Orion can be quite exciting for visitors from other humanoid cultures as the Orions have little body shyness. The downside for such visitors is if they mistakenly assume that an entertainer is for hire when he or she is not -- depending on the situation that can get a person slapped or none too gently tossed out on the street. (More of this will be in Traveller: Prime Directive.)

 

[Greg Smith]

A quick question about ship classes.

Did the new heavy cruiser NCA, (Chicago etc) replace the older CA (Constellation etc) or the newer CA (Constitution)?

 

[Iain McGhee]

Only to replace losses IIRC. The older designs weren't taken out of service if that's what you're asking, but they were upgraded (the ships you'll see in FC and ACTA:SF). The "New" designs are cheaper, quicker to construct no-frills vessels.

 

[Shadow Queen]

I thought Kligons had them too.

and it it fleet books or fleet book?

 

[Myrm]

Klingons have some new cruisers - there are 'New n' ships and 'War n' ships and sometimes its hard to see a difference and both are types generated for ease of construction and to cut down on non-combat systems and then and sometimes there is a clear difference and new simply refers to a novel design phase rather than a War-timme fast build design.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I thought Kligons had them too.
and it it fleet books or fleet book?

Yeah, like Myrm says all the various empires have war/new designs. Some built new ships (like the Federation NCL/NCA etc and the Romulan Hawks), others made modifications to existing types (IIRC the Gorn and Lyrans).

All of the first batch of 60-ish ships have their stats in the main rulebook (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, Kzinti, Orions, Tholians, targets/civilians).

From what I've read over on the ADB boards the idea is that there will be future books along the lines of their Federation Commander supplements (possibly compilations) to cover the rest of the races and more specialised ships like battleships and carriers.

 

[Iron Domokun]

The Federation New Light Cruiser is a war cruiser, it's just not called a war cruiser because of the Federation's political correctness. For similar reasons, the Gorn CW is called a heavy destroyer. The Kzinti war cruiser is the "Medium Cruiser". They are all CWs. The New Heavy Cruisers were built to supplement the heavy cruisers in combat roles. The original CAs kept getting converted into other specialty classes (command cruisers, fighter carriers, many others) and there was a lack of other CAs just for combat. Originally it was intended that NCAs would not have any variants, but many players of both SFB and F&E kept demanding them, so they got what they wanted.

 

[Rambler]

Following up what Iron Domokun. As he pointed out just prior to the start of the General war all the Empires took a serious look at their respective fleet construction plans. What the came up with was 2 new classes of ships/ Looking at the Slipways that they built Frigates in and decided that they could build a new heavier screening vessel called a War Destroyer.

The Fed built War Destroyers but realized they could build a new housing module and attach it to their existing Frigates and called them Battle Frigates. The War Destroyer won the contract but Frigates were modified as the war went on. The Klingon F5W will appear in a later expansion. The Kzinti built War Destroyers The Gorns never actually built a War Destroyer but utilizing the design of their existing Ship added a Rear Bubble augmenting their Destroyers. Tholians and Orions will be covered in a future expansion.

When it came to the Light Cruiser class once again every one started looking for away to build the cheapest most effective ship they could. All the powers new once the war started most ships Service Lives would be measured in Months instead of Decades. Federation took plans for its New Destroyer Class ship and made the New Light Cruiser. The Klingons never really having a true Light Cruiser filling that role with a combination of D6 Battle Cruisers and F5 Frigates which were really Destroyers in their own right. The D5 won the contract which finally produced a true Light Cruiser. Gorns due to the structure of there Government tried to get a new class of Light Cruisers Built but their Assembly refused to provide the funds so in a move of political expediency they submitted the plans for a new class of Heavy Destroyers. Fact that those ships were actually full fledged Light cruiser was "overlooked". The Kziniti built theirs and called them Medium Cruisers since they really did not intend to stop building Light Cruiser but as the say about plans and contact with the enemy.

As the war went on everyone learned a very hard lesson of warfare. you are going to lose a lot of ships. A few years into the war Pure Vanilla Combat Variants of the heavy Cruiser started becoming harder and harder to find. In addition to losses there was a disturbing tendency to convert every heavy cruiser in sight into something else (Strike Carriers, Command Cruisers, and Drone Bombardment ships are a few of the more common culprits.) So everyone started looking for more ways to get Heavy Units built and they were already stretching their manufacturing capacity to its limits. The Answer was to go back and look at what they had to add to there respective War Cruisers to produce a New Generic Cruiser. However once the genie was out of the bottle everyone realized that they could refit or build more of these New Units as Variants.

Edit added: I forgot to close this with the statement that the "new" Cruisers were intended to supplament the regular Heavy Cruiser production not replace it.