Timo's Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet

[Timo]

More like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Heinemann

and mostly in reference to all those poorly assembled Constitution tabletop models seen in TNG...

Timo Saloniemi

[Mytran]

Thanks Timo! These viewed (and downloaded) without a hitch. Now, to read and inwardly digest...

[USS Pike]

Hi Timo,

When I try to open the documents, I get a message saying "Sorry, we are having a temporary problem generating a view of the document. Please try again later." Are you updating your guide? Any idea when I will be able to access it again?

Cheers

Matt

[SicOne]

Timo wrote:

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More like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Heinemann

and mostly in reference to all those poorly assembled Constitution tabletop models seen in TNG...

Timo Saloniemi

Ahhhhh. Gotcha.

[Timo]

Hmm. Dunno why the docs would be acting up. They appeared fine today... Packing them to mailable size doesn't seem to be working too well, so I ask you to have patience with GoogleDocs and try and gain access to them through that service.

Since I'm a pathological canonist at heart, I'm having second thoughts about quite a few TNG ship classes on basis of registry information gleaned from the background Okudagrams that the blu-rays have made visible to us. Not doing anything much about it yet, but some classes may become "earlier" or "later" eventually.

Does anybody have any nifty sources to Star Trek fightercraft in the various RPGs? Now that Into Darkness promises to make the existence of aerodynamic fighters canonical, I'm itching to do a bit more work on them. (Or is that overflight by four diamond shapes perhaps a historical display akin to having Spitfires on the sky today? Where were these craft when Nero started drilling in the San Francisco Bay?)

Timo Saloniemi

[Unicron]

The only source I can directly think of that used fighters was Jackill's work. And I only have one of his books with a single fighter design in it. Fighters didn't really figure into the FASA RPG, as shuttles were the only small craft and some of them weren't even considered warp capable. There were smaller ships that served as sector patrol vessels and so forth.

[Darkwing]

Unwrapped wrote:

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The only source I can directly think of that used fighters was Jackill's work. And I only have one of his books with a single fighter design in it. Fighters didn't really figure into the FASA RPG, as shuttles were the only small craft and some of them weren't even considered warp capable. There were smaller ships that served as sector patrol vessels and so forth.

FASA's Scorpio class corvette was essentially a fighter with a 4-man crew. That's as close as they came that I recall. I personally think that there should be fightercraft equivalent to modern jet fighters, and the Scorpio is kinda like the Assault Scout from Star Frontiers Knighthawks, but examples are kinda thin. DS9 / TNG Peregrines seem to be the closest thing.

[Timo]

...So, is there a connection between the silly Star Fleet Battles fighter designations (F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle etc) and the occasional artwork? I don't have access to any of the SFB manuals involving fightercraft (or "fast patrol boats" or whatever), but apparently fighter-based combat was a popular part of SFB at some point.

Timo Saloniemi

[Darkwing]

As I recall, yes, certain pictures were supposed to be specific fighters. I never liked the way they used the exact same designations as today. Bad enough Mastercom had the Knox class and others named straight from the modern navy. Yes, certain names will be carried over, but whole class lists, in order? FJ did it better, I thought - use the famous names from all over, in a new order. But even that is better than Jackill apparently using the phone book to name ships.

[Unicron]

^ Interestingly enough, I was just reading FASA's Four Years War supplement the other day and thinking of how to reconcile their description of the Tikopai cruiser subclass fighting in the war with Mastercom's description saying the Tikopais were delayed and didn't actually enter production until the late 2200s with movie tech. My personal solution is to go with FASA's claims that the class did see service in the war, in an early TOS configuration (having lasers and accelerator cannons instead of phasers and photons initially) and the surviving ships of the 68 from FJ's list were the ones uprated to the class specs seen in Ships of the Star Fleet.

[Darkwing]

I don't recall FASA mentioning the Tikopai at all. I'll have to dig out 4YW and look at that. Or do you assume the Tikopai is a Connie Mk IV or something like that?

[Timo]

The 4YW sourcebook refers to the ship classes and subclasses by their names; Tikopai is namedropped on p.18 along with Achernar as having been introduced as a "new class of starships" during the conflict.

Since that part is an excerpt from a postwar lecture by one Commodore van Anling, I attribute it to the failing memory of the old geezer. Which is a bit cheeky of me, as van Anling says he served aboard a Tikopai himself - namely the Vega, one of the higher-numbered ships and one not even Ships of the Star Fleet wants to move from "approved" to "built" status. Presumably, van Anling did serve aboard a USS Vega, and merely got the class identity wrong because he misread the works of Franz Joseph when checking his facts for the speech.

A supposedly more objective timeline on p.35 confirms the introduction of the Tikopai class on SD 1/9509, though. That's something like late 2247 by my reckoning, and too early in every respect for the overall Constitution story I'm following. Even the original class was barely operational at the time of this conflict by modern accounts (canon and novel alike).

For me, the Tikopai is a post-ST:TMP newbuild, and Constitution IV and all, only ever built in the numbers specified by Todd Guenther.

Timo Saloniemi

[Unicron]

^ Yep. Tikopai and Achernar were both referenced by FASA because they were previously mentioned by FJ, and the FYW supplement even has a fictional contributor named after him. Whether or not that means FASA intended them to be Constitution subclasses as FJ intended or to be alternate designs that perhaps looked different (FASA claimed they had "unusual" designs, but didn't give any context for that) isn't clear. FASA says the Constitutions themselves were withdrawn from the front lines after the first year of the war, because they were considered the most advanced Federation vessels at the time and Starfleet didn't want to risk them being captured by Klingon forces.

As far as the timeline goes, FASA's chronology (itself based on the earlier - and now highly inaccurate - Spaceflight Chronology) is off from the canonical one by a good five or six decades I believe - the Enterprise's five year mission under Kirk took place from 2207 to 2212, far earlier than the later dates introduced officially. Since the first source to give any canonical time reference was TWOK, and then only that it was set in the 23rd century, this isn't too surprising. The FYW would have been earlier than Kirk's command, since Garth won his reputation for actions at Axanar and the conflict led to the cold war atmosphere of the TOS era.

[aridas sofia]

Darkwing wrote:

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Bad enough Mastercom had the Knox class and others named straight from the modern navy. Yes, certain names will be carried over, but whole class lists, in order? FJ did it better, I thought - use the famous names from all over, in a new order.

I know of no class list from Mastercom that is lifted directly from the USN or any other navy. The class ships, yes. But the class lists were slways composed from scratch, referencing diverse countries' navies, much as FJ had done.

[Timo]

Indeed, no real Knox class name save the class name is used for the Starfleet vessels. This despite one of the USN Knoxes actually being USS Kirk (FF-1087).

It seems Jackill may have picked the name for his Pharris class frigate variant from a USN Knox of that name, though (FF-1094).

Timo Saloniemi