Tech Slosh and Empire based weapon systems
- Thread starter Da Boss
- Start date
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Its not getting hold of the tech. The Orions buy them from corrupt Romulan traders and houses that do business with the Cartels. The Klingons has several at one point on ships that were turned over to them. The Federation and Gorn have no end of wrecked Romulan ships all over the place.
Its not hard to get hold of bits of one or even a whole one. Reverse engineering it when you have reality bending starfllet engineers and replicators isn't that hard.
The hard bit is making it compatable with your power sources, tuning the warp field of your ships so that the cloak can mask them which means buiding an entirely new generation of Star ship drives for the cloaked ships. Building the hulls to take the cloak fields, reverse engineering the sensors that work through the cloaking field and then building them since Federation or Gorn sensors either don't work through the field or give the ships position away.
Exotic particles unique to Romulus or Remus that make up the space/time warping effect that cloaks the ships, if you are reduced to scraping fragments from a destroyed cloak on a wreck its going to be far harder to get a working cloak even if you have reverse engineered the tech and can build them.
Lots of possible reasons why the people without cloaks don't normaly have them. Every race is likely to have one or two, as was mentioned the Orions will sell them if the price is high enough. But put them on warships going into battle, where they can be destroyed. Heck No. You put them on fast stealthy ships for super secret missions, dropping off agents, spying on your allies or enemies, rescuing the Admirals daughter who is floating in a rescue pod 4 LY inside enemy space after her ship went down.
Putting a cloak into combat is the last thing you should do with them unless you have lots of them and access to spares. Lets face it, one Fed ship on the mat with a cloak, as soon as it de-cloaks everyone is going to kill it anyway. Plus Disruptors, photons. They don't have the same impact as a face full of Plasmas. Decloaking and hitting your target with 4 Disruptors just lacks that whole threat sort of thing :lol:
Its not hard to get hold of bits of one or even a whole one. Reverse engineering it when you have reality bending starfllet engineers and replicators isn't that hard.
The hard bit is making it compatable with your power sources, tuning the warp field of your ships so that the cloak can mask them which means buiding an entirely new generation of Star ship drives for the cloaked ships. Building the hulls to take the cloak fields, reverse engineering the sensors that work through the cloaking field and then building them since Federation or Gorn sensors either don't work through the field or give the ships position away.
Exotic particles unique to Romulus or Remus that make up the space/time warping effect that cloaks the ships, if you are reduced to scraping fragments from a destroyed cloak on a wreck its going to be far harder to get a working cloak even if you have reverse engineered the tech and can build them.
Lots of possible reasons why the people without cloaks don't normaly have them. Every race is likely to have one or two, as was mentioned the Orions will sell them if the price is high enough. But put them on warships going into battle, where they can be destroyed. Heck No. You put them on fast stealthy ships for super secret missions, dropping off agents, spying on your allies or enemies, rescuing the Admirals daughter who is floating in a rescue pod 4 LY inside enemy space after her ship went down.
Putting a cloak into combat is the last thing you should do with them unless you have lots of them and access to spares. Lets face it, one Fed ship on the mat with a cloak, as soon as it de-cloaks everyone is going to kill it anyway. Plus Disruptors, photons. They don't have the same impact as a face full of Plasmas. Decloaking and hitting your target with 4 Disruptors just lacks that whole threat sort of thing :lol:
It's something you don't see here, but in FC and SFB one key aspect of cloak use is the tactical operating costs. Even for the Romulans, the main drawback of using Kestrels is that, since the hulls were not designed from the get-go to operate using cloaks, they have to spend more points of power per size class than either Eagles or Hawks. (The Eagles are the most energy-efficient cloakers, while the Hawks are typically somewhere in the middle.)
Plus, on a strategic level (as seen in Federation and Empire), cloaked movement is a lot slower than cloaked movement would be. While a FireHawk can move six hexes via operational movement per turn (and a FastHawk seven) in F&E, it can only move two per turn if cloaked (if I remember correctly).
Capturing samples of cloaking devices are handy for those looking to develop counter-measures against the technology; but for the most part, actually going so far as to introduce it into full fleet service is not considered to be worth the effort.
Oh, and speaking of licensing, the agreement that allows the Kzintis to be in the SFU seems to include the explicit requirement that the (cat-eared no-tailed sentient-female related-to-Lyrans-and-others) version we have here is not the same as the (bat-ear yes-tailed who-are-the-Lyrans?) Kzin which the Niven estate holds the IP for. (That's why even though a lot of people post Kzin/ti here, official ADB documents will always refer to Kzinti/s instead.)
I suppose you could see the difference as being somewhat akin to how the SFU Klingons are always TOS-like, as opposed to how they are in the later Franchise.
I'm not sure if the use of Gorns as plural is also due to the terms of the licence, or is just an internal ADB thing; but I vaguely recall a mention somewhere of it being due to the Confederation having three near-identical sub-species on the three home planets.
Plus, on a strategic level (as seen in Federation and Empire), cloaked movement is a lot slower than cloaked movement would be. While a FireHawk can move six hexes via operational movement per turn (and a FastHawk seven) in F&E, it can only move two per turn if cloaked (if I remember correctly).
Capturing samples of cloaking devices are handy for those looking to develop counter-measures against the technology; but for the most part, actually going so far as to introduce it into full fleet service is not considered to be worth the effort.
Oh, and speaking of licensing, the agreement that allows the Kzintis to be in the SFU seems to include the explicit requirement that the (cat-eared no-tailed sentient-female related-to-Lyrans-and-others) version we have here is not the same as the (bat-ear yes-tailed who-are-the-Lyrans?) Kzin which the Niven estate holds the IP for. (That's why even though a lot of people post Kzin/ti here, official ADB documents will always refer to Kzinti/s instead.)
I suppose you could see the difference as being somewhat akin to how the SFU Klingons are always TOS-like, as opposed to how they are in the later Franchise.
I'm not sure if the use of Gorns as plural is also due to the terms of the licence, or is just an internal ADB thing; but I vaguely recall a mention somewhere of it being due to the Confederation having three near-identical sub-species on the three home planets.
hmm right - I could buy that Cloaking Tech is ultra hard to reproduce - but the the Orions can do it and given they want to make lots of money - selling this knowhow is likely more profitable and less risky than being pirates?
Ship design - well it works for Klingon and Orion hull shapes - so again bit of a hard sell
Movement - well the use of military force is not always about speed of movement - having the ability to penetrate enemy lines, conduct missions behind them or even have hidden forces is a very compelling argument to have a cloaking device - and if your enemy has a military tchnology - you want it or if possible an even better version.
If can def buy the limited use of the tech that is hard to reproduce and I can buy the in game balance argument............. Trek has a inter Empire treaty regarding the use of the cloaking device which makes sense - even if it is breached now and again.
Ship design - well it works for Klingon and Orion hull shapes - so again bit of a hard sell
Movement - well the use of military force is not always about speed of movement - having the ability to penetrate enemy lines, conduct missions behind them or even have hidden forces is a very compelling argument to have a cloaking device - and if your enemy has a military tchnology - you want it or if possible an even better version.
If can def buy the limited use of the tech that is hard to reproduce and I can buy the in game balance argument............. Trek has a inter Empire treaty regarding the use of the cloaking device which makes sense - even if it is breached now and again.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
Yet the Orions can do it.
Yet the Orions can do it. Now I don't expect fleets from the middle years to have it, but I do expect that during the course of the General War, new ships get built with them.
Yet the Orions do it.
Yet... see above. :lol:
Ok, I buy that every race won't equip their entire fleets with cloaks. But when we are seeing unique half-Klingon half-Tholian mash-up ships, why don't we see unique cloaked ships from other races?
I don't expect to see every Klingon ship to have a cloak. But I expect them to have a number of ships to make surprise attacks and deep-penetration missions. I expect the Federation to have few scout ships that can recon the enemy and report back undetected.
TBH, I think the reason why only Romulan and Orions have it is a game reason.
If any other empire was able to successfully deploy cloaking tech it would be the Orions. To call them a empire is actually a disservice. They are really a lose gaggle of criminals out to make a Buck. They already built their ships to maximize there electronic warfare abilities thus they already have a built in stealth score.
If you have a mission that is that clandestine you either a) hire a pirate or d) had a captured pirate ship you used for deniablity. The simple fact was for strategic raids all empires except romulans decided to use fast warships. For whatever reason true cloaking ships were found to difficult to use.
As far as the TK5 goes once again you skipped its history. The Tholians did not build the EXile because they thought it would be fun. They did it because it is a heavier unit than the frigates they had been building. It was built out of despatation.
If you have a mission that is that clandestine you either a) hire a pirate or d) had a captured pirate ship you used for deniablity. The simple fact was for strategic raids all empires except romulans decided to use fast warships. For whatever reason true cloaking ships were found to difficult to use.
As far as the TK5 goes once again you skipped its history. The Tholians did not build the EXile because they thought it would be fun. They did it because it is a heavier unit than the frigates they had been building. It was built out of despatation.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Rambler said:
Why can they do and no one else?
As I understand it, in the SFU they can have full and proper cloaking devices.
What reason?
It is possible to fuse together two ships from different races with different technologies and yet it is not possible to equip a ship with a working cloaking device?
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
To answer many of the points above. Why the Orion’s. Well they are already smuggling goods across the border and out of Romulan space, where does all that illegal Romulan ale come from.
The have contacts with the Romulan houses who will do business with criminals if it suits their aims but who would NEVER do business with the Gorn or Federation.
Getting parts for that cloaking device (exotic elements or just fiddly bits) will have to come from the Orion smugglers anyway who will ship them across several borders to get to the customer.
The Orion’s have access to the source and can therefore be more confident of re-supply where as the races have to rely on the trustworthiness of the Orion Pirate scum.
When you have 20 cloaks you are more comfortable risking them than when you have two cloaks. Also the risk to the Orion is far less since they are ambushing convoys or lone civilian ships not launching military raids against defended targets (if they weren’t defended why bother with cloaks).
The non cloak races lack the time/money/resources/will to maintain more than a few ships which have been designed from the hull in (and out) for cloaks. The K series ships are known to have caused problems with being cloaked since they were not designed from the Drawing board for cloaks, The (non license) Defiant had to reduce engine power initially since its engines bled through the cloak and left a particle wake.
If the Klingon’s have a few cloaks they can sacrifice them in deep raids until they are destroyed or they can use them to gather Intel, drop off spies and agents and otherwise identify choice targets for ten times as many non cloak raiders.
Use them in war. Not unless things are truly desperate. :lol:
The have contacts with the Romulan houses who will do business with criminals if it suits their aims but who would NEVER do business with the Gorn or Federation.
Getting parts for that cloaking device (exotic elements or just fiddly bits) will have to come from the Orion smugglers anyway who will ship them across several borders to get to the customer.
The Orion’s have access to the source and can therefore be more confident of re-supply where as the races have to rely on the trustworthiness of the Orion Pirate scum.
When you have 20 cloaks you are more comfortable risking them than when you have two cloaks. Also the risk to the Orion is far less since they are ambushing convoys or lone civilian ships not launching military raids against defended targets (if they weren’t defended why bother with cloaks).
The non cloak races lack the time/money/resources/will to maintain more than a few ships which have been designed from the hull in (and out) for cloaks. The K series ships are known to have caused problems with being cloaked since they were not designed from the Drawing board for cloaks, The (non license) Defiant had to reduce engine power initially since its engines bled through the cloak and left a particle wake.
If the Klingon’s have a few cloaks they can sacrifice them in deep raids until they are destroyed or they can use them to gather Intel, drop off spies and agents and otherwise identify choice targets for ten times as many non cloak raiders.
Use them in war. Not unless things are truly desperate. :lol:
To answer many of the points above. Why the Orion’s. Well they are already smuggling goods across the border and out of Romulan space, where does all that illegal Romulan ale come from.
The have contacts with the Romulan houses who will do business with criminals if it suits their aims but who would NEVER do business with the Gorn or Federation. Getting parts for that cloaking device (exotic elements or just fiddly bits) will have to come from the Orion smugglers anyway who will ship them across several borders to get to the customer. The Orion’s have access to the source and can therefore be more confident of re-supply where as the races have to rely on the trustworthiness of the Orion Pirate scum.
Who would make vast sums of money in the short term selling tech and parts to the other empires - hell they might even get hold of some Romulan techs/engineers and sell them on?
Or are the Orion actually long term planners/manipulators rather than make a quid quick pirates? Which would be interesting.
When you have 20 cloaks you are more comfortable risking them than when you have two cloaks. Also the risk to the Orion is far less since they are ambushing convoys or lone civilian ships not launching military raids against defended targets (if they weren’t defended why bother with cloaks). The non cloak races lack the time/money/resources/will to maintain more than a few ships which have been designed from the hull in (and out) for cloaks. The K series ships are known to have caused problems with being cloaked since they were not designed from the Drawing board for cloaks, The (non license) Defiant had to reduce engine power initially since its engines bled through the cloak and left a particle wake.
If you have reverse engineered it - why would you not have 20 cloaks. New tech always gives you teething problems - then it gets sorted out (well hoepfully).
So the Orion ships are designed for cloaking? As I understand it they have a "Stealth" profile for their vessels? You may not build fleets of cloaked ships but your next bit makes an all too persuasive argument for all empires having a few - except for game balance of course.
If the Klingon’s have a few cloaks they can sacrifice them in deep raids until they are destroyed or they can use them to gather Intel, drop off spies and agents and otherwise identify choice targets for ten times as many non cloak raiders. Use them in war. Not unless things are truly desperate.
You just made an excelllent argument for every Empire to have a small collection of cloakable ships - not all ships but specialist ships........the technology is just to useful for them not to.
Lastly if the cloak was that much of a pain to use - even the Romulans would not bother - if its been honed to become a standard peice of equipment on hundreds of varied warships then I think it may not be that difficult to build/maintain..
The have contacts with the Romulan houses who will do business with criminals if it suits their aims but who would NEVER do business with the Gorn or Federation. Getting parts for that cloaking device (exotic elements or just fiddly bits) will have to come from the Orion smugglers anyway who will ship them across several borders to get to the customer. The Orion’s have access to the source and can therefore be more confident of re-supply where as the races have to rely on the trustworthiness of the Orion Pirate scum.
Who would make vast sums of money in the short term selling tech and parts to the other empires - hell they might even get hold of some Romulan techs/engineers and sell them on?
Or are the Orion actually long term planners/manipulators rather than make a quid quick pirates? Which would be interesting.
When you have 20 cloaks you are more comfortable risking them than when you have two cloaks. Also the risk to the Orion is far less since they are ambushing convoys or lone civilian ships not launching military raids against defended targets (if they weren’t defended why bother with cloaks). The non cloak races lack the time/money/resources/will to maintain more than a few ships which have been designed from the hull in (and out) for cloaks. The K series ships are known to have caused problems with being cloaked since they were not designed from the Drawing board for cloaks, The (non license) Defiant had to reduce engine power initially since its engines bled through the cloak and left a particle wake.
If you have reverse engineered it - why would you not have 20 cloaks. New tech always gives you teething problems - then it gets sorted out (well hoepfully).
So the Orion ships are designed for cloaking? As I understand it they have a "Stealth" profile for their vessels? You may not build fleets of cloaked ships but your next bit makes an all too persuasive argument for all empires having a few - except for game balance of course.
If the Klingon’s have a few cloaks they can sacrifice them in deep raids until they are destroyed or they can use them to gather Intel, drop off spies and agents and otherwise identify choice targets for ten times as many non cloak raiders. Use them in war. Not unless things are truly desperate.
You just made an excelllent argument for every Empire to have a small collection of cloakable ships - not all ships but specialist ships........the technology is just to useful for them not to.
Lastly if the cloak was that much of a pain to use - even the Romulans would not bother - if its been honed to become a standard peice of equipment on hundreds of varied warships then I think it may not be that difficult to build/maintain..
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
So the romulans will sell them to Orions, but not their Klingon allies. The Klingons who provided them with warships?
I assume then that Orions never attack Romulan convoys?
I can understand it is difficult to retrofit cloaks. But the timeline of the SF universe is a long one. The General war lasts more than a decade (IIRC). Surely the design and building of new ships suitable for cloaks is not out of the question. Also, isn't the Federation the wealthiest empire?
That is exactly my point.
So amongst all the thousands of ships in SFB, are there any Klingon/Federation/Gorn/Kzinti ships with a cloak?
But war is the time when they will absolutely get used. War is the time when the miltary says to R&D, we absolutely must have ships that can cloak. War is the time that the Tank gets invented, that a tank that can travel on water gets invented, that the atomic bomb gets invented, and a million other advancements are made.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
To be honest I think EVERY race is going to have a few stealthy ships, not necessarily cloaks but very sneaky Intel gathering ships.
Orion Brokers on Orion are going to make vast amounts of money acting as middle men supplying cross border items in war and cloaks are going to be one of those items. But there are several other factors here.
The Orion cartels are “Officialy” nothing to do with the planet Orion, they are renegades and criminals. The Orion government has no influence on them, they don’t get support from their own government, there are no Orion defence fleet offices with the pirate ships getting combat experience and the Orion home world absolutely does not benefit from piracy in any way! But having lots of, not at all hostile because we are a loyal member of the Federation, Star Fleet ships with cloaks keeping an eye on Orion business is seriously not going to be good for that business. :wink:
Still it’s a war and that makes it a sellers market. So what if the Orions can get 20 Cloaks from the Roumlans. Do they tell the Feds that or do they say “well we can maybe get you two but its going to be hard and it will take a lot of effort on our part, costly effort that is”. Then when the Feds demand more they can say “well we could maybe find a third but it would mean bribing our source and extra risk and putting on a smuggler just for you, doable but it will cost you an extra 5 million”. The Orion’s could simply contact their source on Romulas who gets them another one from the warehouse but no one ever tells the Feds it’s that easy :lol:
Supply and demand, when demand is high keep supply low to maximise profit. :lol:
In terms of reverse engineering. Understanding how something works and then being able to mass produce it are very different things even with the Federation. Aside from the miraculous replicators to build those cloaks you need to build the tools to build the tools to build the production lines for the parts to go in the assembly facility you then need to build.
Then you need to redesign your ships to suit the cloak tech. That takes a new production line for warp and impulse drives which takes new tools to build the tools etc etc. Once the factories are built and you have the tools then yse you can start building cloaked ships. but you also need to expand the logistics to include all the new stores and parts needed for the new ships, cloaks, drives etc so you are faced with either limiting them to all cloak fleets or bringing them in to replace everything else.
As a final note. In war (or even in peace when you are expecting a war) I think the difficulties involved in building entire fleets of cloak ships for non Romulan’s keeps the costs too high to be acceptable. That said the Romulan’s could easily sell cloaks (and technicians) to the Klingon’s in return for a few more hulls or the Feds could afford to maintain a squadron of cloaked ships if they wanted to, hang the cost think of the potential of a few BCHs able to cloak and go raid those Klingon bases and worlds what with the Klingon economy being shaky anyway.
There has been mention of the treaty that prevents any race other than the Romulan’s having cloaks. This is maintained (and enforced) by the Organians then even though there is a war on and they are presently not around the fear is that any blatant violation of the treaty would be punished when they return.
So even though the races have a few cloaks and stealthy ships around they are going to stay stealthy till the home worlds themselves are threatened. They will be far more useful gathering Intel while being deniable, having half a dozen Gorn cruisers drop out of cloak to Plasma an enemy base is a bit hard to deny
Game balance plus the light bulbs object plus cost limiting numbers to the point where entire fleets are prohibitive but yes, secretly everyone is going to have a few somewhere. Just like the Lyran and Kzinti have some Plasma torpedo launchers they got from their allies to test out and just like the Plasma races have a few Drones from their allies to go with those Drone fighters. They don’t use them because they don’t fit with the race/fleet way of war.
If the cloaks add 10% to the cost of a ship thats like saying you can field 900 points in a 1000 point game to allow your Feds to cloak.
Though if Gorns stay stuck with Lumbering its very tempting to switch to the far more useful Drones since replacing the Gs and Ss with 2 Drones each and the Fs with one each gives most of the Gorn cruisers 6 Drones, Lumbering is not such a problem then Mwahahahahahacoughcough :twisted:
Orion Brokers on Orion are going to make vast amounts of money acting as middle men supplying cross border items in war and cloaks are going to be one of those items. But there are several other factors here.
The Orion cartels are “Officialy” nothing to do with the planet Orion, they are renegades and criminals. The Orion government has no influence on them, they don’t get support from their own government, there are no Orion defence fleet offices with the pirate ships getting combat experience and the Orion home world absolutely does not benefit from piracy in any way! But having lots of, not at all hostile because we are a loyal member of the Federation, Star Fleet ships with cloaks keeping an eye on Orion business is seriously not going to be good for that business. :wink:
Still it’s a war and that makes it a sellers market. So what if the Orions can get 20 Cloaks from the Roumlans. Do they tell the Feds that or do they say “well we can maybe get you two but its going to be hard and it will take a lot of effort on our part, costly effort that is”. Then when the Feds demand more they can say “well we could maybe find a third but it would mean bribing our source and extra risk and putting on a smuggler just for you, doable but it will cost you an extra 5 million”. The Orion’s could simply contact their source on Romulas who gets them another one from the warehouse but no one ever tells the Feds it’s that easy :lol:
Supply and demand, when demand is high keep supply low to maximise profit. :lol:
In terms of reverse engineering. Understanding how something works and then being able to mass produce it are very different things even with the Federation. Aside from the miraculous replicators to build those cloaks you need to build the tools to build the tools to build the production lines for the parts to go in the assembly facility you then need to build.
Then you need to redesign your ships to suit the cloak tech. That takes a new production line for warp and impulse drives which takes new tools to build the tools etc etc. Once the factories are built and you have the tools then yse you can start building cloaked ships. but you also need to expand the logistics to include all the new stores and parts needed for the new ships, cloaks, drives etc so you are faced with either limiting them to all cloak fleets or bringing them in to replace everything else.
As a final note. In war (or even in peace when you are expecting a war) I think the difficulties involved in building entire fleets of cloak ships for non Romulan’s keeps the costs too high to be acceptable. That said the Romulan’s could easily sell cloaks (and technicians) to the Klingon’s in return for a few more hulls or the Feds could afford to maintain a squadron of cloaked ships if they wanted to, hang the cost think of the potential of a few BCHs able to cloak and go raid those Klingon bases and worlds what with the Klingon economy being shaky anyway.
There has been mention of the treaty that prevents any race other than the Romulan’s having cloaks. This is maintained (and enforced) by the Organians then even though there is a war on and they are presently not around the fear is that any blatant violation of the treaty would be punished when they return.
So even though the races have a few cloaks and stealthy ships around they are going to stay stealthy till the home worlds themselves are threatened. They will be far more useful gathering Intel while being deniable, having half a dozen Gorn cruisers drop out of cloak to Plasma an enemy base is a bit hard to deny
Game balance plus the light bulbs object plus cost limiting numbers to the point where entire fleets are prohibitive but yes, secretly everyone is going to have a few somewhere. Just like the Lyran and Kzinti have some Plasma torpedo launchers they got from their allies to test out and just like the Plasma races have a few Drones from their allies to go with those Drone fighters. They don’t use them because they don’t fit with the race/fleet way of war.
If the cloaks add 10% to the cost of a ship thats like saying you can field 900 points in a 1000 point game to allow your Feds to cloak.
Though if Gorns stay stuck with Lumbering its very tempting to switch to the far more useful Drones since replacing the Gs and Ss with 2 Drones each and the Fs with one each gives most of the Gorn cruisers 6 Drones, Lumbering is not such a problem then Mwahahahahahacoughcough :twisted:
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
In peace time that might be a problem. But it is a war. A war lasting a decade and spanning hundreds of star systems. The scale of production would be immense.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Greg Smith said:
So you spend a couple of years building up the ability to make cloaks and redesign syour ships to use them. And away you go with your 200 point CAs and your 265 point BCHs :lol:
Which leads you to the logistics, the ultra rare elements or the treaty with the Organions.
Or maybe its just game balance and cannot be explained :wink:
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
I think that is the most likely answer.
If I recall correctly, in the SFU other empires didn't "do" cloaks because it didn't fit how they fought. If you sabre dance, then having a cloak is either having a piece of wasted space or a power drain while trying to do an effective sabre dance or one lone ship goes off and does its own thing. And since the cloaks don't fit into how the Navy officers are taught throughout school, it would require a dedicated captain and crew to make cloaks work. And if a part breaks ... well, that is going to be difficult. It just isn't efficient, especially since in SFU history, they are not impossible to overcome.
The Orions don't make them, they steal them. The only manufacturers of the cloak are the Romulans. Naturally, governments don't want civilians wandering around with cloaked ships any more than governments today want civilians to have anti-aircraft weapons.
So no, there aren't a bunch of cloaked ships running around unless you are in Romulan space or in future Romulan space (just ask the Romulans!).
Please note that the above is not an official answer, but one going off my memory. If you would like, I can take a well-framed question back to the Steves and get an official answer.
Jean
The Orions don't make them, they steal them. The only manufacturers of the cloak are the Romulans. Naturally, governments don't want civilians wandering around with cloaked ships any more than governments today want civilians to have anti-aircraft weapons.
So no, there aren't a bunch of cloaked ships running around unless you are in Romulan space or in future Romulan space (just ask the Romulans!).
Please note that the above is not an official answer, but one going off my memory. If you would like, I can take a well-framed question back to the Steves and get an official answer.
Jean
If I recall correctly, in the SFU other empires didn't "do" cloaks because it didn't fit how they fought. If you sabre dance, then having a cloak is either having a piece of wasted space or a power drain while trying to do an effective sabre dance or one lone ship goes off and does its own thing. And since the cloaks don't fit into how the Navy officers are taught throughout school, it would require a dedicated captain and crew to make cloaks work. And if a part breaks ... well, that is going to be difficult. It just isn't efficient, especially since in SFU history, they are not impossible to overcome.
As noted there are very strong reasons for having specialist ships for intelligence gathering and other aspects of espoionage, unexpected strikes etc. Dedicated Captains on Impossible Missions - is that not what sci-fi adventure is all about (and emulating historical achievements) ? A cloak is a tool to allow you to do things that you otherwise can't do - it may or may not be useful in combat but thats not the whole story. It gives you an edge.
The Orions don't make them, they steal them. The only manufacturers of the cloak are the Romulans. Naturally, governments don't want civilians wandering around with cloaked ships any more than governments today want civilians to have anti-aircraft weapons.
Steal or are sold them? Even so they are obviously able to fully install and maintain them - unless SFB has rules about them breaking down at inopportune moments?
There some nations that I understand civilians can have AA guns - in fact I thought some guys in Texas had some?
So no, there aren't a bunch of cloaked ships running around unless you are in Romulan space or in future Romulan space (just ask the Romulans!).
For reasons above and in previous posts - that does not seem to make sense - IMO its too effective a tool for an Empire to ignore it even if its only to gather intelligence with a few special ships......
As noted there are very strong reasons for having specialist ships for intelligence gathering and other aspects of espoionage, unexpected strikes etc. Dedicated Captains on Impossible Missions - is that not what sci-fi adventure is all about (and emulating historical achievements) ? A cloak is a tool to allow you to do things that you otherwise can't do - it may or may not be useful in combat but thats not the whole story. It gives you an edge.
The Orions don't make them, they steal them. The only manufacturers of the cloak are the Romulans. Naturally, governments don't want civilians wandering around with cloaked ships any more than governments today want civilians to have anti-aircraft weapons.
Steal or are sold them? Even so they are obviously able to fully install and maintain them - unless SFB has rules about them breaking down at inopportune moments?
There some nations that I understand civilians can have AA guns - in fact I thought some guys in Texas had some?
So no, there aren't a bunch of cloaked ships running around unless you are in Romulan space or in future Romulan space (just ask the Romulans!).
For reasons above and in previous posts - that does not seem to make sense - IMO its too effective a tool for an Empire to ignore it even if its only to gather intelligence with a few special ships......
Da Boss said:
Charles: I can agree with many of these comments, to a point.
In fact, I could even see using a cloaked ship for intelligence gathering as part of a Prime Directive (the SFU RPG) scenario. I don't think they would be common enough to show up in a fleet battle.
A one-off scenario perhaps. But it would need specific rules regarding set-up and victory conditions.
Indeed - and thats without intelligence agenices using captured Romulan ships to conduct espionage - as everyone "knows" that only they have the cloaking technology. Plus of course when you absolutely have to get that diplomat secretly across the border
although they do already have models and stats in the design stage for several other one off ships :wink:
although they do already have models and stats in the design stage for several other one off ships :wink: