Topic: Question to SFB experts... about Romulan New Series Ships.

[Magnum357]

I was looking into SFB material just recently to give myself an idea of what Romulan designs I want to tackle in the future.  I have been a long time SFB fan, and I have much SFB material, but I wanted to know why the Romulan New Series ships are designed the way they are.  I already understand that the Romulans designed them to be modular so they would not need to spend so much on variants, but I'm confused about the larger New Series ships.  For all intended purposes, the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk classes were the only two that really used the Modular design concepts.  The Firehawk, Novahawk, Royalhawk, and Killerhawk classes didn't really have much for modularity, but are related to the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk in design.  Why did SFB not give these larger ships expanded modularity like the smaller ships?  Was it due to economics?  Were the ships just too big too really make it practical?  The manuals don't seem to give a good explaination of this. 

I ask this, because someday I'm going to make New Series Romulan ships, but I need a basis on how I want to design them.

[EmeraldEdge]

I'd like to know why those ships didn't come with Plasma D, or at least a more meaningful means of defense against drones?  In later eras when drones are stronger and faster and on more ships, you'd think they'd have come up with a better solution than a couple of phaser 3's on the tail.

[Bonk]

I'd like to know why those ships didn't come with Plasma D, or at least a more meaningful means of defense against drones?  In later eras when drones are stronger and faster and on more ships, you'd think they'd have come up with a better solution than a couple of phaser 3's on the tail.

Because they can fly at speed 31 while arming hideous plasma loads and drones are only supposed to be speed 32. Against a skilled Rom in a Killerhawk or similar ship in SFB it was very rare that I could land even a single drone.  (Plus there was the cloak...much more flexible than a weasel..)

In fact, the Killerhawk and Novohawk are why I took up Tholian... The webcaster puts a real crimp in the style of Roms spoiled by flying around at speed 31 while arming all their weapons...

[EmeraldEdge]

I suppose... but wouldn't it be nice to do all that and have a great drone defense?

Seriously though, it does kind of limit your tactics.  It's great for single ship battles, but what about when you're in a multiship battle (especially if you are outnumbered).  What about defending a slow moving target, or base?  I'm probably thinking too much in SFC terms, rather than SFB (which I haven't played in years, unfortunately).

[Nemesis]

I was looking into SFB material just recently to give myself an idea of what Romulan designs I want to tackle in the future.  I have been a long time SFB fan, and I have much SFB material, but I wanted to know why the Romulan New Series ships are designed the way they are.  I already understand that the Romulans designed them to be modular so they would not need to spend so much on variants, but I'm confused about the larger New Series ships.  For all intended purposes, the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk classes were the only two that really used the Modular design concepts.  The Firehawk, Novahawk, Royalhawk, and Killerhawk classes didn't really have much for modularity, but are related to the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk in design.  Why did SFB not give these larger ships expanded modularity like the smaller ships?  Was it due to economics?  Were the ships just too big too really make it practical?  The manuals don't seem to give a good explaination of this. 

I ask this, because someday I'm going to make New Series Romulan ships, but I need a basis on how I want to design them.

It has been a long time since I read this in SFB and Romulan was not my specialty back then but I will take a stab at this.

In enlarging the Sparrowhawk design to the Heavy Hawk series they added a 4th warp engine.  The engine mounts had to be modified to allow for the extra power.  The revised mounts precluded replacing the modules in the same way as the engines would have to be removed and remounted as well. 

[Nemesis]

I'd like to know why those ships didn't come with Plasma D, or at least a more meaningful means of defense against drones?  In later eras when drones are stronger and faster and on more ships, you'd think they'd have come up with a better solution than a couple of phaser 3's on the tail.

In SFBs order of battle the drone ships were on the Klingon/Kzinti border and the plasma ships (such as the F-DDL) were on the Romulan border.  Since the Fed ships with drones in more than token quantities were never assigned to the Romulan border the Romulan ships only needed nominal levels of drone defense.  Plasma Ds were more an anti fighter weapon.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

For all intended purposes, the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk classes were the only two that really used the Modular design concepts.  The Firehawk, Novahawk, Royalhawk, and Killerhawk classes didn't really have much for modularity, but are related to the Skyhawk and Sparrowhawk in design.  Why did SFB not give these larger ships expanded modularity like the smaller ships?  Was it due to economics?  Were the ships just too big too really make it practical?  The manuals don't seem to give a good explaination of this. 

I ask this, because someday I'm going to make New Series Romulan ships, but I need a basis on how I want to design them.

IIRC from SFB materials

The NDD and NCL kept the flexible design concept due to the modules being more minor changes to the hull.

The NCA design concept required so much resources to modify the hull after its original construction that the council decided to free up the shipyard capacity to allow more NCL and NDD constructions.  Remember that the NCA as with all "new" designs lead into the general war.  Hence the killer hawks becomming pocket DNs by default.

From F&E memory this plays a major role in available shipyard capacity, so I assume they carried the same considerations into SFB.

I also seem to remember blurbs in the Nexus mags that some modules to prevent undo stresses on the NCA hull had to be "hard welded" to the hull precluding ease of changeout and longer in ship yard times for refitting to another class.

I guess the mindset was NCA module changes would make the romulan NCA class too much of a strategic upset for F&E play as well as SFB campaign play.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

I'd like to know why those ships didn't come with Plasma D, or at least a more meaningful means of defense against drones?  In later eras when drones are stronger and faster and on more ships, you'd think they'd have come up with a better solution than a couple of phaser 3's on the tail.

These were General War era designed ships.

The romulans had little in the way of drones or for that matter fighters to worry about from the gorn.

But from the storyline the UFP did lose the CVA mcarthur over remus.

In SFB the ability to cloak and weasal is far more effective than SFC so I can only assume for play balance Plas D was treated as a Gorn and afterwards ISC weapon (remember even early ISC ships dont have plas D).

IIRC Plas D wasnt to be an anti fighter technology but rather an anti PF technology.

Phaser 3s and phaser Gs were anti drone and anti fighter technologies.