Design for the Game Background
This is Steven Petrick Posting.
One of the things about having a game that has been continuously published is that you have a lot of existing history of that game that you have to deal with. When a game is created that has a "future history", you wind up defining a lot of events in that history, and as things get added, you have to work those things into the history without breaking the history or the game system.
An example of a fairly recent event in Star Fleet Battles was the proposal for a new Heavy Fighter shuttle to be employed by the Federation. The author's idea was that his heavy fighter was a competitor for the role of assault shuttle in Y167, but lost out to the A-6 assault shuttle. Okay so far, but then he went (as we used to say in the Army) "Off the Reservation".
His new fighter would be just large enough that it was not really a single space fighter (and so could not be used on carriers), but just small enough that it was not "really a heavy fighter", and so could operate in normal squadrons of 12 fighters rather than be restricted to six fighters as heavy fighters and bombers are.
Then he added the internal bay that first appeared on the larger (almost four times as large) B-52 bomber, but of course was smaller having only two spaces rather than four. To this he added the Modular Photon Torpedoes that first appeared on the Federation B-1 bomber eleven years after his fighter, which would have created havoc explaining why the Federation FB-111 and F-111 could not use modular photons if this thing could. He then added the "Special" drone rails that did not appear on any other fighter or bomber for eight years after his design (first used by the Kzintis eight years after his design, and adopted originally by the Feds ten years after his design), and to these special rails he added the ability to operate type-IV (large) drones.
The result was a fighter squadron that carried twice the number of photon torpedoes found on any other Federation Fighter Squadron (A-10s only carry one photon apiece, and A-20s and B-52s could carry two, but are limited to six fighters or bombers in a squadron. Not to mention the drones.
About the only thing he did not give his fighters were gatling phasers.
As set, the design created far too many discrepancies to be accepted. It was too far advanced for its time, creating too many headaches with the existing history of fighter and bomber development to be given any consideration.
One of the things about having a game that has been continuously published is that you have a lot of existing history of that game that you have to deal with. When a game is created that has a "future history", you wind up defining a lot of events in that history, and as things get added, you have to work those things into the history without breaking the history or the game system.
An example of a fairly recent event in Star Fleet Battles was the proposal for a new Heavy Fighter shuttle to be employed by the Federation. The author's idea was that his heavy fighter was a competitor for the role of assault shuttle in Y167, but lost out to the A-6 assault shuttle. Okay so far, but then he went (as we used to say in the Army) "Off the Reservation".
His new fighter would be just large enough that it was not really a single space fighter (and so could not be used on carriers), but just small enough that it was not "really a heavy fighter", and so could operate in normal squadrons of 12 fighters rather than be restricted to six fighters as heavy fighters and bombers are.
Then he added the internal bay that first appeared on the larger (almost four times as large) B-52 bomber, but of course was smaller having only two spaces rather than four. To this he added the Modular Photon Torpedoes that first appeared on the Federation B-1 bomber eleven years after his fighter, which would have created havoc explaining why the Federation FB-111 and F-111 could not use modular photons if this thing could. He then added the "Special" drone rails that did not appear on any other fighter or bomber for eight years after his design (first used by the Kzintis eight years after his design, and adopted originally by the Feds ten years after his design), and to these special rails he added the ability to operate type-IV (large) drones.
The result was a fighter squadron that carried twice the number of photon torpedoes found on any other Federation Fighter Squadron (A-10s only carry one photon apiece, and A-20s and B-52s could carry two, but are limited to six fighters or bombers in a squadron. Not to mention the drones.
About the only thing he did not give his fighters were gatling phasers.
As set, the design created far too many discrepancies to be accepted. It was too far advanced for its time, creating too many headaches with the existing history of fighter and bomber development to be given any consideration.
posted by Federation Commander at 4:29 PM
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