Star Trek: Federation

This post covers Fed ships/tech.  It also covers Fed design philosophy
(as
I understand it) and gives examples of several ships.

Design:
	Federation ships (within SFB) have several characteristics that
stand out when compared to other racial ship designs.  The first is a
slightly lower maneuverability and speed when compared to other races.
The is that their weapons tend to have very poor firing arcs.  Most
weapons on a Fed ship can fire straight to the front, and little else.
They often have blind spots into which enemy ships can maneuver.  The
third is their over all ability to take a pounding.  Federation ships
tend
to have large amounts of space designated to crew or lab facilities.
While this space is seen as a waist by most races it does tend to mean
that a fed ship can stay in the fight longer.  Building on this Fed
ships
tend to have very good shielding.  A fourth note on Fed ship design is
that they tend to mount only the best weapons.	Phasers will be type I
or
III, rarely will the less effective type II be mounted on a Fed ship.  

	In converting to FT I would suggest that players mount only A
and
C batteries on Fed ships.  Good shielding is also a good place to show
Fed
ship design preference, so putting some amount of shielding on even the
smallest ship is a good idea.  The Fed ability to withstand a pounding
is
best shown by maxing out the number of extra Damage Control parties a
ship
can mount.  Other races should stay away from the DC system.  A lower
thrust than usual can also help to show some of the Fed ship design
ideas.
This however is not a real strong point and is hard to show in FT.

	Fed design shows a good example of a race with lots of money to
spend, that has bought the best systems for its ships, but only designed
them to fight themselves.  Their ships are designed to engage a race
with
a lot of high quality battery fire (A-batts, so good shielding is
needed).
They expect their ships to take internal damage quickly (photons ignore
shields and so DC parties are more important).	Poor firing arcs and
weaker rear shielding is acceptable since Fed ships would have a hard
time
maneuvering into these blind spots.  The 360 Phaser III were added in
response to the Klingons.

	One last note on the ship designs below.  While all of the above
does not apply to every Fed ship it does give the "feel" that Fed ships
have in SFB (IMHO).  I tried to follow this flavor when designing the
ships below.  They are at best an approximation and I am sure that many
people can do better.  I look forward to hearing your ideas and
improvements on this topic.

ramble ramble ramble

New System:

Photon Torpedo	(Heavy Weapon)
	Mass: 3 	Cost: 15

	The Photon Torpedo has the same effect as the Pulse Torpedo with
the following changes.	The Phot Torp may only fire every other turn as
it must be recharged on the "off" turn.  It does not take a dedicated
Fire 
Con to fire a Photon Torpedo.  The Phot Torp follows this to hit
chart:
	0-6	6-12	12-18	18-24	24-30
	 2+	 3+	 4+	 5+	 6+

	All other rules for the Pulse Torpedo are followed (one arc, 1d6
damage, ignores shields, etc.)

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_

A couple of comments on the first post on systems.  Each individual
weapon
system (phaser. photon torpedo, whatever) should be thought of as a set
of
that weapon.  So one Phaser I below might represent a two or three of
the
weapon actually firing or one photon torpedo might actually be two on
any
given ship.  The effects are generalized to just one system.

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Addenda (oops)

Phaser: All Phasers may be downgraded to fire as a PDAF as per the
C-batt
rules in More Thrust.  Any ship may do this with any Phaser system
without
restriction (no dedicated fire con).  In SFB Phasers of all types are
used
for anti drone (missile) fire, it is just that Phaser IIIs are usually
dedicated to it.

Really, Phasers should be allowed to engage fighters and missiles at
there
maximum range and roll a number of dice equal to the amount of dice they
would have rolled in order to damage a ship.  Scoring a "6" on d6 as a
hit.  So a Phaser I could engage a fighter or missile at range 36 or a
Phaser II would roll two dice at range 12.  

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Some ship examples

Fed Fleet

			# of systems	cost	mass

DD

Mass			20		40	-
FTL			20		-	-
Drive (thrust)		 6		30	-
Dir Scrn		 1		25	2
Point Scrn		 1		25	1
Phot Torp		 1		15	3
Phaser I, 3 arc 	 1		13	4
Dam. Control		 1		10	-
				       178	10
The Destroyer actually mounts the same weaponry as the CA.  However it
does not have nearly the energy needed to operate the systems on it. 
The
above is an approximation of what a DD would be able to do on any given
turn.  The Phaser I is given 3 arcs and represents several different
phasers placed all over the ship, 

CA

Mass				40		80
FTL						40
Drive				 4		40
SCRN				 1		25	3
Dir Scrn			 1		25	2
Point Scrn			 1		25	1
Phot Torp			 2		30	6
Phaser I, 2 arc 		 2		20	6
Phaser III, 4 arc		 2		12	2
Damage Control			 2		20
						357	20
Note: because of the Configuration of the CA the Phaser Is fire 180
across
the front (1/2 right & front & 1/2 left).  This is the reason for the
addition of the 360 Phaser IIIs.  The CA is the work horse of the Fed
fleet.

BCH (New Jersey class)

Mass				60	120	
FTL					 60
Drive				 4	120
Scrn				 1	 25	3
Dir Scrn			 1	 25	2
Point Scrn			 1	 25	1
Phot Torp			 3	 45	9
Phaser I, 2 arc 		 4	 40    12
Phaser III, 4 arc		 3	 18	3
Damage Control			 3	 30
					508
Note: the BC has the same Phaser I fire arcs as the CA.  The BCH is a
stand in flag ship.  It was introduced during the General War when the
number of Dreadnoughts began to run low.

Two of the Phaser Is on the BCH are the 180 CA style.  One of the two
remaining covers the Front/Right arc and the other covers the Front/Left
arc.

DN

Mass			80	160
FTL				 80
Drive			 3	240
Scrn			 2	 50	 6
Dir Scrn		 1	 25	 2
Phot Torp		 4	 60	12
Phaser I, 2arc		 6	 60	18
Phaser III, 4arc	 2	 12	 2
Damage Control		 3	 30
				717
The firing arcs on the DN are much the same as the BCH.  Two of the
Phaser I are 180 arc, two are front/right, and two are front/left.

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That is about it for the Feds.	There are a bunch of other ships of
course, but I think I will leave them for another day.	The fighter
rules
especially need some thought before I go about putting out carrier
designs.  If you really want to get into the SFB fleet design you will
need to include a rule for Command Ratings.  In SFB the number of ships
in
a fleet is limited to the number of ships that can be commanded by the
flag ship as expressed by its command rating.  I would suggest that a
simple way to show this is to have a ships command rating be equal to
the
mass of the ship divided by 10.  True command ships could be created by
added an additional Fire Con and increasing the command rating of that
ship by two.  Just a thought.

Oh yes, if I was being honest I would admit that one of the reasons that
only these ships made it into design is that they are the only models I
have.  Besides, I just intended them to be examples.

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Chad Taylor