Star Trek: Death of the Federation

[Hadrianvs]

I always thought torpedoes (photon, plasma, quantum, etc) were shorter ranged weapons with a lot of brute power and little finesse. That's why I'm going with the Kzinti, they specialize in drone ships. Drones are missiles (distinct from torpedoes) that are partly guided by the ship that fired them. They are very accurate, long ranged, and can be launched in swarms. The disadvantage of drones is that they can be shot down, held at bay by repulsor beams, or have their guidance link disrupted by strong enough ECM. Unless they're fired a point blank range, but that's a bit of a desperation move. Also, the swarm tactics tend to hurt ammo reserves.

I guess another option is to fly a Kzin carrier. Like their larger warships, Kzin fighters use drones as their main armament. That would make me Ringmaster of The Itano Circus: Star Trek Edition!

Edit - This is the Itano Circus. The Macross Missile Massacre is its most famous component.

[Cynical Cat]

I always thought torpedoes (photon, plasma, quantum, etc) were shorter ranged weapons with a lot of brute power and little finesse. That's why I'm going with the Kzinti, they specialize in drone ships. Drones are missiles (distinct from torpedoes) that are partly guided by the ship that fired them. They are very accurate, long ranged, and can be launched in swarms. The disadvantage of drones is that they can be shot down, held at bay by repulsor beams, or have their guidance link disrupted by strong enough ECM. Unless they're fired a point blank range, but that's a bit of a desperation move. Also, the swarm tactics also tend to hurt ammo reserves.

Here's your problem: drones are an invention of the Starfleet Battles universe, not canon Trek. I'm not saying you can't have anything like them (obviously that's Havoc's call), but basing your understanding of how canon Trek weapon systems work off non canon derivative works that invent whole new categories of weapons is dicey at best.

Also humanoid female captain and a Kzin crew strikes me as somewhat unworkable. Thats two huge strikes against her with a crew that is even more cavemen in space than regular TNG Klingons.

[frigidmagi]

Aren't their females sub-sapient?

[rhoenix]

Also, do I need to point out the potential problem inherent in using remote-controlled drone ships against the Borg?

[Hadrianvs]

Aren't their females sub-sapient?

In the Nieven 'verse most of their females are sub-sapient. In Star Trek they have sapient females but are still the most misogynistic society in the entire Alpha Quadrant. My crew is going to be dysfunctional as all hell.

Also, do I need to point out the potential problem inherent in using remote-controlled drone ships against the Borg?

What problem?

[Marcao]

I am throwing in my two cents on this. Not touching upon stylistic, visual or story reasons since those are frankly none of my concern I think that drones as described above would be detrimental for a couple of reasons.

1. It has been heavily suggested that resupply is going to be an issue for standard torpedos. How much of an issue is it going to be for this specialized Kzin only weapon system?

2. What sort of yield would each drone possess? If you are launching 100 drones as a standard salvo per tube or whatever, does that mean that each drone has 1/100th the damage potential of a photon torp?

3. I have never seen strong ECM used in Star Trek combat or repulsor/tractor beams used to try and bat aside the much larger and apparently less maneuverable standard torpedos. I have heard of point defense arrays mentioned, but I can't recall actually seeing them in use. So I am unfamiliar with the defenses that you are listing.

Regards,
Marcao

[Hotfoot]

Macross?

Oh this isn't going to end well.

[Hadrianvs]

Well, if drones don't work I'm fine with having a Kzinti carrier, as I said above. Fighters with missiles should be pretty straightforward, yes?

In the end it's up to Havoc, I'll accept his word as law.

[Stofsk]

Hadrianvs, SFB drones function sorta similarly to the way photon torpedoes function in the movies and TNG period (even TOS implied photorps track their target IIRC in the episode 'Changeling'). So you could simply call it a torpedo heavy ship.

As for point defence vs torpedoes, the Enterprise in TOS used phasers to swat approaching missiles in a season 3 episode ('For the World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky') and in Wrath of Khan, Kirk asked if they had a phaser shot to take out an approaching torpedo Khan shot at them (just after he suckered them and just before Kirk did the prefix code cheat).

That doesn't explain why it's not used more often in TNG era, so yeah... consistency.

[Cynical Cat]

That doesn't explain why it's not used more often in TNG era, so yeah... consistency.

That's fairly simple. It's pretty hard. Torps usually hit their targets within seconds of launch, are small and speedy. They're also packing a warhead that will detonate and do considerable proximity damage when destroyed, making taking it out at the end of its run almost as bad as a direct hit. That means point defence is a dubious use of resources most of the time against standard Trek torps.

Larger and slower missiles with a longer engagement time is another issue and if your shields are down and your fighting desperate to get systems back on line because Khan sneak attacked you, well a hail Mary to try and shoot down a torp isn't the worst possible choice of things to do.

[General Havoc]

Okay, let's get to it again:

Concerning combat in all its marvelous flavors: I will be laying down my general rules for combat in this thread this evening. It will be a very general overview. This game does not run off of dice and number crunching. A torpedo does what I say it does, more or less. It will be more of a statement of intent. If you enter this range and use this general class of weaponry, these are the results you can expect to see, relatively speaking.

There are occasions in the Star Trek universe wherein people engage at hundreds of thousands of kilometers of range. There are other occasions wherein people engage at meters of range. Sometimes people fight at Warp, sometimes they fight sublight. I will set up rules to cover as much of this as I can. These rules are based on my reading of the Star Trek canon. They will not necessarily be those of everyone else's reading, but if there's glaring holes in them, I'm happy to see about adjusting. I am mostly going by common sense, rule of cool, and what I've seen on screen. I'm open to suggestions if people want to change things up.

Concerning the USS Heritage: I'm sorry DS but I think this is a bit too much firepower for a Destroyer-class ship. You've got more firepower than a battlecruiser packed into a smaller chassis, and while I like the idea of your weakness, I'm not convinced it's sufficient for this sort of thing. I'd suggest cutting the firepower back somewhat, and it should work.

Concerning the Kzinti: Do I want to be worried that someone brought up Macross?

[Hadrianvs]

Concerning the Kzinti: Do I want to be worried that someone brought up Macross?

I can promise that no ship of mine will attempt to transform into a giant robot.

[LadyTevar]

Concerning the Kzinti: Do I want to be worried that someone brought up Macross?

I can promise that no ship of mine will attempt to transform into a giant robot.

Missile Spam, on the other hand....

[SirNitram]

Concerning the Kzinti: Do I want to be worried that someone brought up Macross?

I can promise that no ship of mine will attempt to transform into a giant robot.

....I guess I should wad up my design, now.

[General Havoc]

Combat in Space (Or, "So you want to fight the Borg?")

As a reminder, the rules below are based on my reading of how the Star Trek universe works, and how it will work in this game. I am open to reasonable suggestions as to modifications or expansions to these rules. They are designed to provide as cinematic and overall balanced a game experience as possible.


One man with a gun can control 100 without one.
- Vladimir Lenin

Weapon types

By and large, your weapons all break down into one of three sorts: Beams, Cannons, and Torpedoes. There are obviously a thousand different versions of each, but these will do as generalizations.

Beams are generated by weapons arrays and project solid beams of energy into their targets. They are characterized by superb accuracy and decent range, and form the backbone of most Federation and some non-Federation ships. Depending on the type of energy, beams can do different things, but by and large they focus on obliterating their targets with massive, leisurely bursts of weaponized fire.

Cannons, like beams, are energy weapons, but packed into pulses of concentrated energy which are then flung at the target at high speeds (but not Light Speed). While cannons vary as much as beams do, they tend to be less accurate than beams, and also of shorter range. The devastation they can deliver in a short period however is unmatched, given a sustained rate of fire, and are most commonly seen on faster, more maneuverable ships of Destroyer class (such as the Defiant).

Torpedoes are the most varied weapon, have the longest range, and are potentially the deadliest. They pack warheads that start with Antimatter and get worse from there. Being self-guided projectiles, torpedoes can reach out and touch someone from an enormous distance, limited only by the effective range of targeting sensors, and sometimes not even by that. All this being said, torpedoes have limitations. Unlike other weapons, they are of limited quantity, and replacements, especially for the exotic types are a dubious proposition at best. Finally, torpedoes lose some of their effectiveness at super-close ranges, for a variety of reasons, and fast as they move, their speed is still less than that of other weapons, enabling point defense systems of a thousand sorts to potentially swat them aside.

BUT WAIT! I have weapons that are neither Beam, Energy Cannon, or Torpedo!

First off, I hate you.

Second off, yes, there are many exotic weapons that do not fit into the categories above. Being special weapons, they will be handled specially, and their effectiveness and power will depend on the weapon itself. We will address them later.



Home, Home on the Weapons Range

In-canon combat in Star Trek is basically insane. TOS and TNG engagements were fought at distances of several hundred thousand kilometers. Later fights were done at supra-close ranges of as little as a hundred meters or less. The reasons for this vary (and mostly deal with budgets), but it means that in order to make combat work in this game, we will need to make some concessions to sanity.

Most (not all) fights occur at sub-light velocities, with ships under Thruster and Impulse power. This holds as true for lumbering heavy cruisers as it does for nimble escort destroyers. Within the schematic we will be playing at, the effectiveness of weapons is based heavily on the range at which they are being employed. As such, the approximate effect of your (and of course, the Borg's) weapons fire will be as follows:



Extreme range (10,000 km - 2,000 km)

"Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
- Admiral Farragut

At extreme range, only self-propelled weapons (IE: Torpedoes) get to play. Energy weapons simply lack the reach to project meaningful fire into this zone. Torpedoes however have the virtue of self-contained warheads, which do the same amount of damage at a range of several continents as they do at a range of several inches. While momentum permits torpedoes to continue on effectively forever, the upper limit of this range represents the maximum distance beyond which targeting data can be effectively fed to the weapon. There is nothing stopping you from simply lofting torpedoes in from half a light year away, but to have a decent chance at hitting something, you need to be within a certain range.

Given the length of this range, and the time it takes to traverse, some ships like to try and go to high impulse or even warp so as to cross over the area in the blink of an eye. This however is a very hazardous enterprise. Even with the best calculations, warp speed is a fairly inexact means of travel, and a split second miscalculation can result in you flying past, short of, or even into your enemy, with effects that drastically outweigh even that of a sustained torpedo barrage.

Be advised, that just because a torpedo can physically reach this far, does not mean you are guaranteed to strike something with it. Torpedoes are fast, but still require a finite amount of time to traverse this distance, and nimble ships can often evade volleys of torpedoes given enough warning. Obviously, this applies more to some ships than others. Occasional lucky shots and torpedo skirmishes notwithstanding, few engagements are actually concluded at this range.



Long range (2,000 km - 500 km)

"You may fire when ready, Gridley"
- Commodore Dewey

Long range engagements are gunnery duels of torpedo volleys punctuated by the occasional long-range beam shot. While beam arrays can physically reach this far, their effectiveness is curtailed by the energy bleed from several thousand kilometers of open space. Torpedo boats reign supreme at this range, deluging their targets with barrages of high-powered warheads and reducing them to inert matter before they can get so much as a shot off in reply. Cruisers tend to slog through, replying in kind with their own torpedo armament, while closing to more commodious distances, while escort ships simply apply the throttle and hope.

At this range, torpedoes have less distance to cover, and are consequentially much harder to avoid, though PD systems can still provide some cover. Beams will work at distances up to this range, but with much reduced effect, that scales as the ships close with one another, while cannons are simply unable to project their fire meaningfully or accurately into the Long range distances. If you wish to play at range, bring a weapon with the distance to make it happen, or rev up the engines, and close to something more effective.



Medium range (500 km - 100 km)

"Hard pounding, gentlemen. We shall see who can pound the longest."
- The Duke of Wellington.

This is where Cruisers fight. At this range, all weapons become effective, and the battle becomes an exchange of firepower. Beams the size of large buildings criss-cross the intervening space, while torpedoes burst into radiant flame and cannons spit volleys of death into the maelstrom.

At this range, beam weapons come into their own, providing pinpoint accuracy across state-sized distances, bleeding shields and carving up hulls. The heavy beam arrays of most cruisers are designed to fight at these distances, and are more than capable of reducing their foes to wrecks by themselves. Smaller craft such as attack fighters, with correspondingly smaller beams, may have to close further still.

Torpedoes are still perfectly serviceable at this range, and most ships employ them with abandon, seeding their phaser or disruptor assaults with periodic waves of heavy plasma, antimatter, or subspace warheads. Torpedo boats often play hide-and-go-seek games at this distance, using the cover of asteroids, dust clouds, or even friendly warships to dispense their lethal cargo and withdraw before the main guns of their opposition can score too deeply. Cruisers and Destroyers all pack torpedoes as well, using them as support barrages for their primary attacks.

Cannons are not at their best at this distance, but they are still perfectly serviceable. At this range, even an arc-second of inaccuracy is enough to miss a battlecruiser entirely. Nevertheless, for packed formations or dealing with exceptionally large ships, many captains simply point their cannons in the enemy's general direction and cook off. The resulting hail of fire is frequently more than enough to dissuade an enemy from trying to get any closer.



Close range (100 km - 10 km)

"Engage the Enemy More Closely"
- Admiral Nelson.

To a ship armed with weapons capable of laying waste to continents, this is bayonet range, and here the cannons finally come into their own. With the accuracy problems solved to within acceptable tolerances, cannons at this range are incarnated death, wreaking unspeakable havoc on enemy vessels with bombardments of energy matrices unfettered by the need to project to further ranges. Destroyers armed with cannons dance in and out of this range, gleefully flaying anything that happens into their firing arcs, relying on their maneuverability to escape retaliation in kind. The concentrated punishment that heavy cannons can employ at this distance exceeds that of almost any other weapons system.

This is not to say that other weapons are useless however. With the distances reduced, even light beam weapons can be deployed in full effectiveness, boiling away entire sections of enemy hull, or burning through shields like enormous blow torches. Cruisers do not hesitate to fight at this distance should it become necessary, slogging it out with one another in intricate dances of heavy capital ships, while their lighter brethren dance about them like sword-wielding angels.

While torpedoes are always useful, at this range, their utility becomes more suspect. The projectiles get less time to aquire their targets, and the speed with which lighter ships such as Destroyers can dance around their enemy at this distance makes facing a problem. The percentage of hits begins to decline as the ranges close, and the weaponry of other ships begins to take effect. Would-be Destroyers should always remember though that a quantum torpedo will ruin your day at this range just as effectively as it will at longer ranges, should you make a mistake.



Point Blank range (10 km and closer)

"Abandon every hope, ye who enter here."
- Dante Alghieri

To fight at these distances is madness, and yet some Captains are unquestionably mad. At supra-close ranges, tactics and elegance are thrown out the window in favor of raw firepower and sheer punishment. There is no dodging fire at this distance, no set of evasive maneuvers that will save you. Weapons are deployed and strike home in nanoseconds at best, and targeting arcs vary so wildly as to make lengthy plans obsolete. This is the spaceborne equivelant of War to the Knife.

Cannons retain their utility at point blank ranges, scouring enemy vessels with indiscriminate fire. With missing an impossibility, the victor is determined by volume of fire or dirty tricks. It is rare for any ship, even a close-range destroyer, to come into this range, but enterprising captains have done so, and indeed some have even survived, by taking advantage of range shadows and firing arcs, flying close in and "under the guns" of their heavier brethren. And for those who do dare to close to point blank range, the terrible punishment they can unleash can single-handedly turn the tide of a battle. Without the need to extend the range of their short-range cannons, gunners can simply channel power through their weapons, ripping enemy ships apart like the lathes of a berserk machine-god. Beam weapons too retain tremendous thunder at this range, boring into the enemy with almost zero energy-loss, deploying fire capable of simply coring a light ship if the beam is of sufficient power.

While it is possible to employ torpedoes at ranges such as this, it is not for the faint of heart. Not only do the firing arcs become problematic should the enemy be nimble, but even if they are not, the danger of deploying gigaton-warheads at spitting distance should be obvious to anyone. At extremely close ranges, ships run a real risk of destroying themselves along with their enemies, either from the explosive power of the torpedo itself, or the shrapnel and blowback from the target. Different warheads have different minimum safe ranges of course, and some ships are small or nimble enough to evade the consequences of their own firepower. In all cases however, closing to Point Blank range with the enemy is a prospect one should consider engaging in only after much deliberation... or even more desperation.


BUT WHAT ABOUT....

WE WILL GET THERE! This is a general introduction. I will cover specifics of fighting at Warp, or in other circumstances, elsewhere.

[Dark Silver]

Considering I'm on the boat about to leave to go back into the gulf, I'll find you on aim tomorrow and finangle changes with you.

[Charon]

Alright. I am considering throwing my hat in the ring. I have two ideas.

My first idea is as such. The Renegade Borg. Hugh's group of misfits have spent the years trying to learn how to be individuals, trying to build their culture, and preparing themselves as best they can against the Borg that they know they will one day have to fight.

Any big Dreadnought size ship they could bring into play was destroyed during the course of the war (as I'm imagining it. Hugh rammed this ship into the biggest and most important Borg cube he could find during the Battle for Earth after everything had been lost). So this is a smaller ship of survivors. There are a couple of things. The Federation knows of our existence prior to the Borg attacks, and if Hugh was at the Battle of Earth there are at least cursory ties to the fight against the Borg. Which means any interaction with a small very oddly shaped borg-tech vessel where the Borg are referring to themselves as I and with names isn't going to be quite as confusing to everybody as it might have been before. Other than that, I still have a LOT of details to work out if I plan on playing them.

The second idea is a man who was a human captain of a ship and a member of the Maquis. When the Maquis got wiped out he joined the Orion Syndicate. Then he eventually got arrested. Just as he was on his way to his prison, the Borg attacks began. He used the opportunity to break himself out, grab a group of like-minded criminals and steal the prison ship. Since then he has been working on getting a real crew, and jury-rigging the most badass pieces of tech that he can unto his hull while he does his best to keep the fight going.

Putting both of these ideas up to see which one has more support and how much resistance there is to me playing as the Free Borg.

EDIT: Adjusted the idea behind the second option. Not a war criminal, still a criminal though.

[LadyTevar]

Havoc already said NO FREE BORG. I agree with Havoc


Now the ... uhh... "Black Pearl" idea has possibilities.

[Hadrianvs]

The second idea is a man who was a human captain of a ship and a member of the Maquis. When the Maquis got wiped out he joined the Orion Syndicate. Then he eventually got arrested. Just as he was on his way to his prison, the Borg attacks began. He used the opportunity to break himself out, grab a group of like-minded criminals and steal the prison ship. Since then he has been working on getting a real crew, and jury-rigging the most badass pieces of tech that he can unto his hull while he does his best to keep the fight going.

End of Dominion War: 2375
Start of Borg Invasion: 2391

There is a 15 year gap there that needs more than a war crimes trial to be filled up.

[Charon]

The second idea is a man who was a human captain of a ship and a member of the Maquis. When the Maquis got wiped out he joined the Orion Syndicate. Then he eventually got arrested. Just as he was on his way to his prison, the Borg attacks began. He used the opportunity to break himself out, grab a group of like-minded criminals and steal the prison ship. Since then he has been working on getting a real crew, and jury-rigging the most badass pieces of tech that he can unto his hull while he does his best to keep the fight going.

End of Dominion War: 2375
Start of Borg Invasion: 2391

There is a 15 year gap there that needs more than a war crimes trial to be filled up.

Yeah, Hotfoot informed me. Adjusted it to something different just as you were making your post.

[Agent Fisher]

Katara Version 3.0 is posted.

[General Havoc]

Fighting the Borg II, Electric Boogaloo:

Questions from the peanut gallery:


All this sublight shit is all well and good, but what about when I want to go to Warp?

It is possible to fight at Warp, or at high impulse (relativistic speeds). It is not, however, a terrifically easy thing to do. Warp fields are energy fields projected around the ship by the Warp core which reduce or eliminate the mass of the ship, allowing it to achieve superluminal velocities. High impulse speeds, though technically below the speed of light, also use warp fields.

Why is this important? Because Warp fields are temperamental little bastards. They require a ton of power, and collapse whenever you do something so incommodious as taking antimatter warheads to the starboard nacelle. In most cases, taking direct fire of any significant magnitude while you are in warp will catapult you unceremoniously back into normal sublight speeds. Fortunately, you have inertial dampeners to prevent your crew from being mulched in such a case. Unfortunately, whoever shot you is unlikely to fly on past without stopping to say hello...

Nevertheless, it is possible to fight from Warp. Torpedoes employ their own warp field, at least for a little while, and can thus travel faster than c and do terrible things to their enemies from warp. Energy weapons, being comprised of energy particles work... strangely... at Warp. The effect is that you can use them, but the ranges are greatly reduced. Don't ask me why this is. My mind doesn't work in the eleven dimensions required.

Your shields do work at Warp, but a sudden power spike to them (such as the one caused by having gigajoules of energy blasted into them at FTL speeds) will generally curtail your warp activities. The effects of this are relative, so you cannot derail a Borg Cube with a hand-phaser.



What about Transwarp?

Take the above, and turn it up to eleven. Transwarp is sufficiently weird that even the technobabble doesn't make sense. You cannot fight from Transwarp at all. Period. You cannot take fire within Transwarp at all. Period. Being shot while in Transwarp does not catapult you back into normal running, it transforms your ship into a fine plasma and distributes it across half the galaxy. Do not ever get into anything resembling a fight in Transwarp. Do not even use harsh language in Transwarp.



So about my special non-beam, non-cannon, non-torpedo weapons...

There is an infinity of possible special weapons in existence. For the majority of them, we will simply be taking what everything else can do and approximating the result. Some basic common sense is required.



Like what?

Mass Drivers that accelerate their shells to fractions of C cannot (or rather, should not) be employed in atmospheres. They cannot be employed at ranges exceeding those of torpedo targeting with any chance of success. Big, slow-charging cannons will not work all that well against zippy fighters or destroyers. Specifics will have to come up weapon-by-weapon.



So then what about these Borg?

Ah yes, the Borg.

As with every damn thing in Star Trek canon, the Borg are many things, depending on who you ask. I am using an amalgam of the most classic Borg mixed with a dose of common sense. The Borg are far and away the nastiest opponents that any of you have ever faced. That does not make them invulnerable.

As everyone knows, the Borg use adaptive shielding to protect themselves, both drones and ships, from the violence of their would-be assimilation targets. There's a lot of ink spilled over the adaptive shields, none of which I particularly care about. Here's how it works in this game:

When the Borg recieve fire from a type of energy weapon (Disruptor, phaser, etc...) , they will adapt to it. Adaptation means resistance, not invulnerability. A Borg drone adapted to phasers will be able to repel the fire of hand phasers. Should you however then shoot that drone with a blast from a Type XII phaser (the main gun on a Sovereign-class Battlecruiser), adaptation or not, you will vaporize the drone, and burn a hole seven miles deep into the ground where he was standing.

This is an extreme example perhaps, but it illustrates my point. Adaptive shields are a bonus, not the end of the world. A Borg sphere that has adapted to Federation phasers can still be quite effectively clubbed to death by a pair of Galaxy-class Heavy Cruisers, as they will simply blow out its capacity to redirect the energy they pump into it. Similarly, an Exterminator Frigate that adapts to repel Romulan disruptors should still steer clear of the main guns on a D'Deridex-class Warbird, guns which, adaptation or not, will quite happily pound it into an inert mass of smoldering wreckage.

That's not to say that adaptation isn't something you guys have to worry about. When applied to a ship as naturally tough as a Borg Cube, it's quite a worry indeed. But you all have enough of a variety in ships and weaponry to get around adaptive shielding, at least so long as there's only one Borg cube.



And if there's more than one?

Oh look! A puppy!

[LadyTevar]

And if there's more than one?

try to outrun them in Warp.

[SirNitram]

Havoc already said NO FREE BORG. I agree with Havoc

Now the ... uhh... "Black Pearl" idea has possibilities.

He didn't mention this last night...

*Eyes Havoc*

[Dark Silver]

Submitted for approval by the Midnight Society.....

USS Heritage 2.0

Captain's Name: Alvin Thibodeaux
Captain's Species: Human


Ship Name: U.S.S. Heritage (aka U.S.S. Ro Sham Bo) NCC-141180
Ship Class: Hephaestus Class Cruiser (modified)





Crew composition: 150 Standard, current compliment, 100 (65 human, 2 Vulcans, 5 Andorians, 4 Romulans, 4 Klingons; remainder mixed other races and holographic constructs)

Dimensions:
Length: 420m
Beam: 182m
Height: 123m
Mass: 492,000 metric tons

Armament:
Type XII Phaser Array x6
Rapid Fire Phaser Pulse Cannons x2
Type 16 Disruptor Cannons x3
Pulse Fire Quantum Torpedo Launcher x2

Defense:
Regenerative Shield Generators
Duranium/Tritanium Double hull with 10cm of Ablative Armor
High Level Structual Integrity Field

Warp Speed
Normal Cruise: Warp 8 (Actual: Warp 8)
Maximum Cruise: Warp 9.95 (Actual: Warp 9.7)
Maximum Sustained: Warp 9.99 (Actual: Warp 9.93)



Special Systems and other Acquisitions:
**Regenerative Shield
(Players Note: Trek Canon is silly on this. What is described as Regenerative Shields sounds more like Adative Shields to me. Essentially it's suppossed to be the same type of shielding the Borg use. but of Federation design....I need to discuss with Havoc on this before I flesh out the shield system. Also, this is the stock shield system for the Prometheus and it's Variant Designs.)


**Rapid Fire Phaser Pulse Cannons x2
The same type as mounted on the Defiant-Class and it's variant designs, these weapons are mounted in the forward firing arc, and have a limited (35° off center) firing arc. These weapons were found at the remains of the Delphin Shipyards, where Defiant-class ships were under construction. These weapons are mounted in the forward firing arc of the ship, along the Saucer Section's "nose".

**Type 16 Disruptor Cannons x3
Salvaged from a Valdore who was on it's last life support generator and whose crew had all but given up on being rescued (some few who remain on the ship as crew, the others either died in engagements since then, or transferred to the first Romulan Ship the Heritage encountered), these disruptor cannons are mounted on the Heritage as part of it's "Expanded Heavy Weapons Selection". Each cannon has a 30° vertical firing arc, with a Deviation of 30° from center horizontally, two of these cannons are mounted on the Saucer section of the ship (one ventral, one dorsal), with the third being mounted on the aft-ventral section of the Engineering hull, to help cover the rear of the ship



Ship's Weakness:
**Power Generation
Like the Prometheus class that originated it, the Hephaestus-class ship was built to be to Phaser Technology, what the Akira is to Torpedo and fighters - fast, tough, and packing more than enough firepower to make a opponent to think of coming within it's engagement envelope. Mounting almost as much Phaser firepower as a Sovereign-class ship, the Hephaestus-class had a power plant sized to fit the expanded energy needs of the ship's primary weaponry systems. Unfortunately for the Heritage herself, she was never meant to carry so many heavy weapons (nearly equivalent to a Battlecruiser's compliment of heavy weapons on a ship the size of a Cruiser), much less power them in combat. Attempting to strike with all the weapons available to it in the forward firing arc has to draw power from somewhere, and while the ship reroutes every erg of power it can to it's weapon systems (usually by depowering "unnecessary" decks and sections), it's still not enough power. A attempt to fire off the massive amount of heavy weapons the ship has drains the ships power reserves excessively, drawing power from the most available source - unfortunately this usually means the Shields, Engines or Life Support systems .


**Overtaxed Power Transfer System
As with the Power Generation of the Heritage, the Power Transfer Conduits of the ship were never meant to transfer the massive amounts of power the ship requires for it's "enhanced" weapons systems. As such, the conduits must be constantly checked and repaired on the threat of them blowing out from overuse - especially after battle where power surges from the Shield System could cause major system damage.


**Severely Under-crewed
Normally, the Hephaestus-class is meant to operate with a standard crew of one hundred and fifty, along with it's holographic crew and system automation. As it stands, the ship is down to one hundred living crew members, and it's compliment of holographic crew is limited to "at need" deployment due to power concerns and wear being placed on the main computer core. This can hamper the ships effectiveness in a "surprise" engagement.


**Back-up Computer Cores
Because it works understaffed, and there is a increased reliance on the ships automation, the Heritage's tertiary computer core failed sometime ago, and the secondary computer core has been working double time to keep up with the demands that the Main Computer Core cannot keep up with. Should the main or secondary computer cores fail, the Heritage capabilities would be severely hampered, if not cause her to have to withdraw from battle completely.


**Fire Control Malfunctions
The Hephaestus-Class were the cream of the crop at the time of their deployment, utilizing the best in Federation technology. The Heritage, though, doesn't use just Federation technology anymore. Due to the number of Romulan weapons on the ship, and the already taxed nature of the ships computer systems, fire control of the Disruptors and beams are not always guaranteed. The ship's computer sometimes "misplaces" the fire control sequences in main memory, and they have to be drawn up from protected storage - which takes time the ship may not always have. This may also have something to do with the quick and "dirty" way the Disruptors were integrated with the ship itself, and would require a proper shipyard and several weeks of downtime for the problem to hope to be repaired.


**Reduced Torpedo Capacity
The Hephaestus Class was originally designed to carry a loud out of 290 quantum or photon torpedoes (or some combination there of). Due to the extensive field modifications and bolt-on heavy weapons, the Heritage does not have the ability or room for that many torpedoes anymore, barely a third of the full compliment can be aboard ship at any one time.


**The Alpha-striker
Due to the additional weapons all being prominent in the forward firing arc of the Heritage, the ship's greatest firepower can only be brought to bear in the forward sections, leaving the Flanks and Aft sections of the ship relatively under defended by comparison.


**Reduced Impulse Speeds
Due to the power draw in when on full combat alert, every spare joule (and some not so spare) are drawn into the ships weapons and shields. While power is rerouted from places like Stellar Cartography, or the holodecks, or any other non-combat system, it's still not enough to power the heavy weapons. As such, power is drawn directly from the Impulse Reactors themselves, slowing the ship's top speed and lowering it's agility to something more akin to a battlecruiser or larger, than the normally (relatively) nimble cruiser it is.


**Holographic Crew
Because the ship is under-crewed so severely, there are not enough living crew to do everything required of the ship. That is where the holographic crew comes into play. Using the extensive network of holo-projectors built into every level and every area of the ship, holographic crew similar to the EMH can take up some of the "slack", so to speak. Unfortunately, the use of holographic crew members tend to wear on the already taxed Computer Systems. As such, the holographic crew is not used unless needed, and never used during combat situations - leaving the ship vulnerable to boarders.


**Damaged Ablative Armor
Due to extensive years of fighting, either on it's own or apart of fleet/squadron actions against the Borg and other beings of less scruples and the noted lack of any true Spacedock or repair yard facilities, the Heritage's Ablative Armor layers has been depleted severely. Unable to replicate new appliques to replace the damaged sections, some portions of the ship are bare hulled to space, while the lucky portions only have 2cm of Ablative Armor left. The thickness of the armor varies, but is never greater than 2cm in thickness.


**Damaged Saucer Section
Where as the Heritage maintains the "Arrowhead" shaped saucer of it's sister-classes, a section of the Saucer some 40 meters long by 5 meters thick has been sheared off along the port edge due to a Borg Disruptor blast. The section is left to open space, only decompression bulkheads sealing off the rest of the ship from being exposed to vacuum. This is a glaring weakness in the overall structural integrity of the ship, and should the shields fail, it would more than likely be a prime target for a opponent or boarding parties.



Service history to-date:
Commission in 2387 at the Andorian Fleet Yards, the USS Heritage was the third ship of her class to be completed. Captain Alvin Thibodeaux was assigned to command her on her shakedown cruise and Deep Space Trials. The ship performed admirably on her shakedown cruise to Earth, where she would depart for her first run of Deep Space Trials in the Helix Nebula, colloquially known as the "Eye of God". After doing a full resupply at McKinley Station and systems diagnostics, as well as boarding the rest of her crew and senior staff, the Heritage embarked on it's Deep space trials.

The Trials went as well as expected, spending several months within the nebula, before returning to nearby Starbase 603 for systems diagnostics and field adjustments. By the end of the Deep Space Trials, the Heritage had performed as well as could be expected from a ship of it's advanceness and new construction, and the ship returned to Earth McKinley Station for post trial shakedown and maintenance and general shore leave for it's crew.

It was near this time, that the Borg invaded. Recalling all it's personnel, the Heritage was assigned to the 8th Fleet under Admiral Nelson, and took a place within the 8th Fleet's Glamdring Squadron. The 8th Fleet was assigned to the Typhon Expanse, where it meat the Borg Fleet dubbed 'Taimat'. The first few encounters with elements of the massive Borg armada went well in the Federation Fleet's favor, rapidly increasing morale for the ships and crews. Little did they know, that the elements of Taimat encountered had only been screening and scouting elements, and when the true bulk of 'Taimat' appeared, and decimated the 8th Fleet. The 8th Fleet then proceeded in a series of running battles against Taimat's forces, until the 8th Fleet was in ruins.

The Heritage herself, managed to make it back to Earth after the 8th's last disastrous battle, and underwent repairs in Space Dock. Repairs were completed just in time for the Battle of Earth. The Heritage fought in the Battle of Earth, eventually breaking off combat once it was clear Earth was lost, and the gathered ships began to break away from the Borg ships.

The Heritage spent the next several years picking and choosing it's fights, gathering with other ships to fight the Borg when possible, and escaping when it was obvious the fight was lost, or the ship was outmatched. The ship and crew managed to survive by salvaging what could be from the wreckage of fleets and planets, and bartering for supplies when possible. Luck began to shine on the ship, when they discovered a severely damaged Romulan Valdore class Warbird the "Kre'shn". With the Warbird all but dead in space, no warp or impulse drive and failing life support, the Heritage took on the surviving Romulans, who agreed to allow the Federation ship to salvage what they could from the Warbird's remains. Unfortunately, the cloaking device had been destroyed in the conflict which had left the Warbird in ruins, but several of the Disruptor cannons remains operational, and long days were spent gutting the Warbird of it's weapons and torpedo. Once the ship had been salvaged, it's remains were scuttled, and work had begun on the installation of the three Disruptor cannons which could be repaired and brought to function.

The ship and crew spent the better part of the following years struggling to remain alive, and lending help as best they could to those they came across. Discipline on the ship became lax, with Captain Thibodeaux become more of the Father figure of the crew rather than just the "Captain". Normally those expecting to see a tight discipline and rank amongst the crew of a Federation Starship, tend to get culture shock when they experience the atmosphere on board the Heritage, where protocol has been nearly thrown out the window. Due to this, the crew attempts to mind their "P's and Q's" when around officers and crew from other ships, until they become "trusted".

Due to the long, and mostly lonely time spent on the ship, many of the crew have formed attachments of various sorts with one another, some as a extended family (of sorts) and some to engaging in various relationships. At first, these relationships were secretive as possible on a ship of less than 100 crew members, but when it was discovered the First Officer and the Captain were regularly sharing their quarters, and seen out and about on the ship, the "open secret" just became open. There is a marked lack of formality on the ship when the crew is amongst themselves, with the obliteration of the Federation and most of the known Alpha Quadrant powers, the crew and Captain no longer feel the need to hold so tightly to Star Fleet protocol as they did in the past. Due to the decidedly, modified nature of the Heritage and the amount of power packed into the relatively small ship, the crew have adopted a new name they use jokingly amongst themselves, and rarely ever share with outsiders.

As Lt Commander Cumpston has put it (he was the one who came up with the new name), "We call her the U.S.S. Ro Sham Bo because when she comes up on you, it's like you just took a swift kick in the nuts. And that's the way uh huh uh huh, we like it"



Notable Crew:

Alvin Thibodeaux (Human, Male)
Captain
Born on the planet New Acadia in the Arcadian System, Alvin attended Starfleet Academy and graduated in the top Third of his Class. His first posting as Helmsmen on the U.S.S. New Orleans, the pathfinder ship to the New Orleans-Class Fleet Escort/Frigate (a sister class to the Nebula and Galaxy class starships). He served with distinction as helmsman, working his way up the rankings until the Dominion War, where he found himself as the First Officer of the U.S.S. Adelphi, an Ambassador class cruiser. A direct hit to the Adelphi's bridge during the Battle of Chin'toka took the ship down, killing several of the Bridge rew. Many managed to evacuate the ship before it's ultimate destruction. After the Dominion War, Thibodeaux applied for and was granted a transfer to the Fleet Yards at Acadia - his home system. He assisted in the preliminary design work for the Prometheus class Starship, and later the Hephaestus class variant. When the USS Heritage was built, He petitioned for the C/O position of the ship, and was granted it. He is in a relationship with his First Officer, Commander Nancie Decoursey, and the bridge crew constantly wonder when the two of them will finally wed.

Captain Thibodeaux is 6'2" tall, with close cropped black hair, a long flat nose, thin lips, and a jovial demeanor.


Commander Nancie Decoursey (Human, Female)
First Officer
Born on Earth, in the state of Pennsylvania, Commander Nancie Decoursey is the First Officer of the Heritage. She is a capable and level headed woman, who is skilled at management of the crew and the limited resources available to them. She is approximately 5'6", with long brown, almond shaped green eyes, and lovely, is a bit stern at times, features.


Lt Commander Holly Kaiser (Human, Female)
Chief Medical Officer
Born on the New Berlin colony, Lt Commander Kaiser attended medical school on Bretania IV before transferring to Star Fleet Medical and working her way through the Academy and Medical school on Earth. She serves as Chief Medical Officer, assisted by the ship's EMH when something goes beyond her keen, and enjoys a relationship with the Chief Tactical Officer, Lt Commander Ryan Cumpston. Lt Commander Kaiser is approximately 5'3" tall, with blond hair, brown eyes, and a almost perpetually cheerful disposition.


Lt Commander Ryan Cumpston (Human, Male)
Chief ofSecurity/Tactical Officer
Also born on the New Berlin Colony, Lt Commander Cumpston joined Star Fleet academy to see the stars. While in the Academy, he found he liked to see things go boom. And as such, he found himself on the fast track to Tactical. He served on several ships, starting off as a security officer on the U.S.S. Reliant, eventually managing to obtain the position of Tactical Officer on the Heritage. Cumpston is 6' tall, with sandy blond hair, a wide cheerful face, a overt fondness for the late 20th and early 21st century culture and entertainment.


Lt Commander Joos'an Son of Krang (Klingon, Male)
Chief Engineer
Born on the Klingon Colony world of Qos'tunk, Joos'an had a chance to go to the Klingon Imperial Academy to study Engineering, but instead, chose to apply for, and attend Star Fleet Academy when he turned of age. He graduated in the top 5% of his class, and went to work for the Cochrane Institute under a Star Fleet charter, working on the Warp Engine design for the Hephaestus-class ships. He applied to Captain Thibodeaux for a berth on the ship as soon as it was ready, for while he enjoyed his work at the Cochrane institute, he wanted to be amongst the stars. Thibodeaux couldn't pass up the chance to have one of the Engineers who helped design the ship on his team, and granted the berth, and assigned Joos'an a place on the Engineering team under, the then Chief Engineer Lt Commander Thomas Wright. With the death of Lt Commander Wright in a assault upon a Borg Scout ship, Joos'an was granted the role of Chief Engineer, for his skill with the ships systems (the idea and detail work of getting the Romulan and Dominion beam weapons to work with the ship came about as part of his ingenuity).



**Edits:
1) Changed Classification from Heavy Escort to Cruiser
2) Added Picture of Hephaestus Class.