Re: Smaller Nations' ship and fleet designs

>With OU troops now available, my mind inevitably drifts to a related
question:
>what about OU _starships_? And, for that matter, the ships of the other
smaller
>human powers -- the PAU, IC, IF, LLAR, FCT, RH, the Dutch, etc. What do
>_they_ use for ships? Do they have their own, or do they get them from
the big
>4?
>
>We know that the PAU use NSL powered armour

Actually we suggested they use ESU or FSE PA, not NSL. The NSL suits are
probably a bit high-tech for the PAU, I see them using a cheap (in
relative
terms) local-made copy of an ESU or FSE suit, which may well be
unreliable
and possibly nasty to wear from an extended time... 

>
>Okay, over to you lot: what do you think? And Jon, if you have the
time, what's
>the "official" word on this?

Well, you know how I hate to give "official" rulings, so these are just
my
own views and preferences - don't take them as gospel truth...
My take on it is that most of the smaller powers' navies would be much
like
those of second and third-line powers today; they either home-build or
buy
smaller ships to their own specifications, we're talking perhaps up to
and
including Destroyer size (in FT terms, not relating to "real" stuff)
here.
These are either produced in their own shipyards, or ordered from
commercial concerns in the larger powers (who will happily supply anyone
that their government hasn't told them they can't, and maybe even
then...) 
As a realworld example, Vosper build corvettes and similar for loads of
little third-world navies.
For anything bigger, they are likely to buy second-hand (or even third,
for
some very small powers) from the big guys. Of course, who they buy from
kind of depends who is friendly to them at the time, but as we all know
this can (and does) change sometimes, so it is not unlikely that a fleet
might have some older ships bought some time ago from a nation they are
NOW
at war with! Sometimes the ships may be sold stripped-down, as barely
spaceworthy hulls for the buyer to refit to their specs, or sometimes
they
will be sold combat-ready - again, it probably depends on the political
situation at that moment.
I suspect that some smaller powers, eg: the Dutch, the New Israelis
etc.,
might want to stay as independant as possible and would actually devote
a
lot of resources into building their own ships, even quite large ones -
maybe not dreadnoughts, but certainly cruisers and maybe even the odd
battleship.

>
>BTW Jon, given the... ah, inspiration for the CR range, is there any
chance of
>extra figures in that range for Alien Representatives -- say, "Female
AR in
>long
>robes", both before and after transformation (of course, what some
people might
>_really_ like is the aforementioned ambassador in the GC range!)

Pervert. :)

; "Male
>quasi-reptilian AR"; "Male AR with awful hairdo"; and "Mysterious AR in
>protective armour." Well, I just thought I'd ask...

Seriously, we'd LOVE to, but I think it would be sailing FAR too close
to
the legal wind... :) After all, a human is a human, but aliens tend to
be
far too copyrightable!

>
>Phil
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>"We gotta get out into Space,	      | A sentiment echoed by:
> If it's the last thing we ever do!" |     Phil Atcliffe  
>   -- Return to the Forbidden Planet |  (p-atclif@uwe.ac.uk)

Jon (GZG)