Starline 2500 Orion Heavy Cruiser

[Jean]

I've started posting some pictures of a "Sandrine Gone Wild" mini on ADB's page on Facebook. Feel free to leave comments there or on ADB's BBS.

Link to the album on our page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150996102758280.445112.231728653279&type=3

Link to the BBS: http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/27411/30774.html?1342554979

Thanks for your input.

Jean

 

[Nerroth]

I mentioned this over on the BBS; but, for my part, I kind of like the idea of treating the "vanilla" one as the original type built in the Orion Enclave, and the "wild" one as a variant constructed in the WYN Cluster which would be optimised (so much as any ship can be, that is) for multiple crossings of the WYN Radiation Zone. That way, the "wild" version could then act as a more direct inspiration for the later emergence of the WYN "fish ships", like the Orca War Cruiser*.

*Yes, the Orca is a mammal, not a fish; but the other ships of that generation have Federation code-names based on various Terran marine creatures (Barracuda, Mako, Great White Shark, etc).

 

[Darzoni]

I could live with both. I wouldn't think that outlaws/privateers would have ships that are too standard in appearance, as then it would be too easy to figure out that ships of X shape are trouble and should be shot on sight.

 

[mdauben]

As an old-school SFB player, the original design has a certain automatic appeal, as to my mind that is what the Orion CA is supposed to look like. On the other hand, the new design is quite cool in its own right. I guess I would not really complain about either one!

 

[Ben2]

I posted this comment on the facebook and thought I'd expand it here, and if someone here frequents the BBS, feel free to repost it.

'I like the design a lot, and while it is longer than the other CA design is the internal volume the same?
It also makes me wonder if the Orions could have a fast raider cruiser by putting three battle raider engines on a modified CA hull.
For those cartels late to adopt X technology for instance.
Would ADB be interested in adding an Orion fast raider? Not a specifically designed fast ship, but an NCA style design (3 BR engines on a CA sized hull) ship that isn't quite a battlecruiser but can certainly outrun one.'

It's getting a lot of hate from some people, and I'd move a few things round on it, but I think it also makes a nice intervening step between the Orion ships and the Wyn 'Fish' ships that draw from them strongly.

Also look at it this way, it means you can sell us the Orion heavy cruiser, and the Orion Fast Cruiser (though you might call it a strike cruiser or rapid enforcer or whatever).

You might even go with it being a CA with amended aft hull to have 3 BR engines, but unable to mount additional weapons. You then get a very overpowered heavy cruiser that cartels can use to chase down and destroy pirates from other cartels encroaching on their space, or for operations when you want to make sure police ships etc have absolutely no chance of escape. Or intercepting the Federation Express when it's got something particularly interesting on board.

Given it could double two engines, go speed 31 and fully overload four photons, I think SFB players would think it was obscene (unless they were Orions) but it would be like the Medium Raider in module R2, where the old CR engines (which are the same as the one on the CA, it just gets three) get replaced with the new BR engines. There could certainly be economic or maintenance reasons why every cartel didn't do it with all their CAs. However you wouldn't want to be a DW or LR trespassing on someone else's turf and getting chased by one of them.

It's a thought.

 

[Rambler]

Ben2 the short answer is no. Slapping more engines on a tactical warp ship does not make it a fast warship. To get a Fast Warship you have to replumb the engines and basically remove for lack of a better word the governers. Plus the new warp bubnle is hard on the ship so you wind up having to dump half of your heavy weapons to keep from turning your crew into so many floating subatomic particles.

Fast Warp are expensive and hard to maintaine, something your average, even above average, pirate might find hard to justify.

That said who knows maybe when the Fast War Cruisers come out the Pirates may get one.

 

[Nerroth]

By and large, there are only two fairly secure home bases for any of the Cartels to maintain long-term facilities; within the Orion Enclave, for the Capital Cartel (so long as it remains "out of sight" so far as the public face of the government of Orion is concerned), or at the shipyard the Usurper allowed the Cluster Cartel to build inside the hollow shell of the WYN Radiation Zone. Other yards belonging to the various Cartels would be more ad-hoc affairs; with pressures from local naval and police forces to keep away from a concentration of assets in a single area.

(And even in the case of the WYN Cluster, the Orions found that their permanent facilities could end up being all too valuable a prize for the Usurper himself, especially once they figured out how to start building fish ships.)


Actually, one thing which came up in the BBS thread that I found very interesting was the choice of real-life inspiration for the new designs. Matt Sprange pointed out that, for the "wild" CA, he was looking to the F-117, with its sharp angles and such; while SVC countered that, with its more rounded surfaces, the F-22 might be a better source of inspiration for the 2500-series WYN fish ships. (Though I was just thinking that, given the Klingon influence in the fish ships' development, perhaps one could look also to the Sukhoi PAK FA when the time comes?)

Plus, once we get around to the WYNs as a faction, they would already have a number of fast units that could be worked on (since, as "regular" warships, the fish ships follow more of a standard operational setup relative to the Orion hulls, or even the "WYN-Orion" units which the Cluster Cartel exported to the WYN Navy).


And as an aside, you can technically treat the current Orion ships as "WYN-Orions" if you really wanted to; though for those of you unfamiliar with the WYNs already, bear in mind that these "export models" don't have the engine doubling trick that Orion Pirate hulls do. (The Orions take that feature out when selling them to the WYNs; but the latter don't particularly need it anyway.) They do still keep the Stealth Trait, though. (There's an errata thread advising how to handle WYN-Orion ships in Federation Commander over here.)