[CODA] "Expanded Starship Operations" sourcebook

[Cmdr Powers]

You rock!

[KillerWhale]

Thanks guys

[KillerWhale]

All right! Here goes another three starship profiles: the Centaur, the Constellation and the Merced.
http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_prof2.pdf
I hope you like'em

[Tobian]

Very nice set of data, though it always looks funny to describe *the fastest ever* with a warp 5 engine hehe - of course this is because it uses the MCU scale, which handilly is easy to spot with the newer 'Starships' based engine identidiers.

It's quite annoying that they didn't explain what all those anacronyms are. I've heard they are from the Starship Spotters guide, a product i don't own and haven't seen in the shops to get, but a brief explanation would have been nice in 'Starships'

I quite liked the way yo gave it 'armour plating' and gave it extra hull points in it's profile.

[Lancer]

I think the stats are well done and the layout looks great, but I am curious why you didn't include "uprated" stats for these ships in the profiles. With ships that have such a long service life I would assume Starfleet updated many of their systems sooner or later and having stats for the TNG/DS9 era would be a nice addition.

[KillerWhale]

Thanks for the feedback

Tobian: That's true warp 5 ships are not the fastest ever I'm just writing the descriptions according to the era where the ship is built As for the "armour plating", I suppose you're refering to the Merced class?

Lancer: I'm following the custom of Starships here... That is, I feel that only ships that have remained in service for a very, very long time (such as the warp tugs or the Excelsior) are upgraded as a class. Newer classes always take precedence, IMO - that is, it's cheaper to design a new class integrating brand new technology from the start than to call back all deployed ships and refit them, using old spaceframes. On some occasions, the contrary occurs - as proves the Excelsior. But don't worry, some classes in ESO will show refit data when they remained in service for a very long time (I'm thinking of the warp tugs, that I named the Atlas-class). I hope all this makes sense

[Tobian]

I see your point about the upgrades to Starships, however it's not quite disoplayed like that in the films and the show - The Enterprise D had several significant upgrades to it's warp drive over it's short life - I'm thinking of the dialogue between Geordie La Forge and Leah Brahms - where it was implied that the Dilithium realignment procedure would be made ship wide. And of course the Constitution class seemed to be refitted alot!

With regards to the Excelsior it only seems to have been in exceptions that it was upgraded - the transwarp drive was only fitted to the Escelsior as a prototype, as they hadn't even tried it !

Good suggested name for the Tug BTW

[KillerWhale]

Thanks for the tug name

I agree that individual ships are refitted regularly over their life - after all, at each stop at a starbase, one can suppose minute upgrades are done continuously. However, the ship write-ups are general for the class. By refits in there (and I think Don means the same thing), I was considering fleet-wide refits. Starfleet says "Okay, now this is no longer an Excelsior class, these specs are. Please all ships report to your spacedocks to be up to the standard".

So I'd say each ships evolves continuously, but sometimes Starfleet levels the playing field with global refits. That's what's written in ESO - and, IMHO, what's written in Starships as well.

Would that seem reasonable? Maybe I should say a word about it in the said chapter.

[Darth Sarcastic]

A word or five on refits and upgrades.

As KW points out, over a ship's lifetime it will recieve upgrades to keep it up to spec, especially if its been away for a while (boy is Voyager in for an overhaul). Usually a refit occurs when a new technology can be applied to an older spaceframe. When you have to re-design the ship to handle the new technology, that's when you get a new class. That's what happened with the TOS Enterprise...they slapped new engines on it and realized they'd have to re-design the ship and that's how the Enterprise-class (aka "The Movie Enterprise", Constitution II-class, Enterprise-A") came about.

I think there should be a note on refits and creating new classes from old designs as a clarification point. What'll happen when they arm NX-01 with actual phaser banks...they might have to build/designate a new class...or not.

[KillerWhale]

I have put some rough guidelines covering this point, although as it is one of the less documented of the Trekverse, I prefered to remain vague (p.41). I hope it's not too vague. I'd say that ultimately, Starfleet (ie, the Narrator ) decides when and how a class should be refitted, or decommissioned.

Spacecraft Upgrades

Over time starships and stations are improved, their systems replaced, upgraded. Spacecraft can even be completely remolded during refits, changing their architecture and, sometimes, role.

Upgrades
Ships can be upgraded with the allocation of advancement picks (see Starships p.33). However, apart from buying additional space or maneuver modifiers (which comes as the vessel hones itself), this process also takes time.
Adding a new system, edge or removing a flaw takes a whole week during which the ship has to be immobilized.
If the work can be done at a station, it takes one day less; and the number of days is further shortened by the modifier of any present engineering facilities. For example, a Class 3 facility (+3) would put the downtime at 3 days (7 days minus 3 + 1).

Refits
Refits are lengthy processes during which the whole spacecraft architecture is thought over again from scratch, like for the Constitution or Excelsior classes, which underwent considerable upgrades during their production cycle.
To refit a ship, remove all systems and flaws and use the basic space allocation for its Size – only the maneuver modifiers and edges remain, at no cost. The main interest of a refit is that the ship (or base) can see its Size increase by one unit. Then the basic space for the new Size is used; structure can be bought with space, as if the ship was entirely new. Then, add all systems, spending the right amount of space. If the Size increase allows for an additional maneuver modifier, add it if the classification allows.
A refit takes 6 months at least, and do not require any expense of advancement picks from the players. This is something decided by the Narrator, when the ship class needs to be wholly upgraded. Advancement picks spent to install new systems and space are not refunded.

[Tobian]

I do agree with everything you've said, but I still also agree with what lancer said earlier. There are several ships in the books which have both early and refitted model stats. Yes of course you can tweak them, but it's still handy to have a guideline.

Of course it all boils down to how much time that's all going to take you!

[KillerWhale]

Erm! A lot of time I must admit, ship writeups are damn long to write

Some models (not yet available as samplers, I'll have to remedy that) have refit versions in the book, like the Daedalus or the Atlas class. The Ascendant is already a refit of a prototype.

Older classes, like the Centaur or the Constellation, shouldn't have stayed on duty for so long; they remained active because of the Dominion War. So IMHO they weren't refitted, just recommissioned. But that's just me

Expect to see the classical starbases to have numerous refits however as their hull life is longer than for starships.

Alright, now I have a 100$-question for you guys: we always hear of classes for starships, but not for stations. Moreover, stations rarely have names or registry numbers, they only bear numbers.

Do you think stations have classes like starships do? Registries? Regular names? Whaddya think?

[KillerWhale]

Huh.

Looks like I got carried away The Daedalus class does indeed exist in the SOM. So, following my rules, I remove my own writeup from ESO.

However, as the work is done... Well, here it is as a bonus, separately from the book. A different try at this ship. I hope you like it.
http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_daedalus.pdf

[Tobian]

Wll it's quite a nice writeup - and perhaps you could just leave it in under another name. I.e. Daedelus II class, as they are likelly to have had lots of them and used a very simila planform for quite a while. Especially in the early days when they didn't have quite the capacity to vary the designs as much as they do in the 24th century latter half. Look how self similar all the craft from Captain Kirks era are - even if that kitbash Tholian ship with Nacelles is a funny anomaly

The only oddity here of course is the phase canons, but then Enteprise made that whole area very snagly!

[Darth Sarcastic]

Originally posted by KillerWhale

Alright, now I have a 100$-question for you guys: we always hear of classes for starships, but not for stations. Moreover, stations rarely have names or registry numbers, they only bear numbers.

Do you think stations have classes like starships do? Registries? Regular names? Whaddya think?

OO...OOO...me Mr. KillerWhale sir...pick me...ooo..ooo...

According to FASA they had class names and individual names like starships. According to other sources, sometimes there was a class name followed by a # (Regula-1, Regula-2, etc...) Or there was a station type (R-1) that was in orbit and got its name from the location (Regula-1, Mars-3, Ceti Alpha-5). I myself prefer the latter one, it makes a little more sense.