Early Years Ships
General Notes
Here are additional ships that can be used during the Early Years period. Some form of these ships might appear in an eventual Module Y3, some will not. Either way, these are ships that have tickled my fancy, and were permitted to appear here for my amusement and your entertainment. Please have fun with them.
General Federation Klingon Romulan Kzinti Gorn Tholian Orion Hydran Andromedan Lyran WYN ISC LDR Seltorian Jindarian Vudar Paravian Carnivon
Stardrive General
Early Freighter (YF): In the beginning of the Early Years, all of the freighters were unarmed. As time progressed, and the true dangers of space were better understood, more and more freighters began to carry weapons. While no where near enough to fight off a starship, even the humble Ph-3 was enough to scare off hostile shuttles or kill incoming drones while the freighter attempted to flee. By the end of the Early Years, most freighters were armed as shown here. (ssd)Early Armed Freighter (YF-A): By the late period of the Early Years space had become even more dangerous. For some highly valuable cargoes, even the one or two phasers of a normal freighter were not considered sufficient for protection. In such extremely rare cases, more heavily armed freighters were used. In addition to this, many worlds found this design to be useful for self-protection against occasional raiders. (ssd)
Early Exploration Freighter (YF-E): Space was even bigger in the Early Years than in later times. There was much more space to explore, and many different organizations rushed into the void to accomplish that exploration. Many, many different ships were used, however most operated along similar lines and were designed to operate from the most common kind of warp power starship available: the humble freighter. Most of the time the freighter used was the unarmed small freighter, however larger freighters were occasionally used, and many times weapons were able to be procured. The included SSDs assume that the ships were armed to the standards of a non-military armed freighter. If the ship has no weapons, simply delete the phaser boxes. (ssd)
Early Troop Freighter (YF-T): All of the empires has specialize versions of their warships designed to quickly transport many troops to a hotspot or advancing front. However, if massive numbers of troops needed to be transported, there was no substitute for the troop transport version of the humble freighter. Nothing else could touch the sheer mass of troops and equipment these ships could haul. Because of their vulnerability and value, they would usually be heavily protected. (ssd-large) (ssd-small)
Early Free Trader (YFT): As in "modern" times, this is a "true" freighter. Both the "W" and the "Y" versions are shown on this SSD. The only difference is the more powerful warp engines on the "Y" version. Note that, like most other civilian ships, transporter technology was too expensive to justify. The crew of the YFT would either use the shuttle, dock or land. (ssd)
topFederation
Early Exploration Cruiser (YEC): After the unified Star Fleet ships appeared, Star Fleet Command decided that instead of forcing integration on all of Star Fleet's ships, a subset of the YCAs would be set apart as "flag ships" for each of the major member nations. These flag ships would have 90% of their crew from a single nation, and it would be the symbolic flag ship for that nation.
When assigned their ship, the Vulcans petitioned Star Fleet to allow them to modify "their" cruiser with their technology. After much deliberation, fearing similar requests from the other nations, Star Fleet Command agreed. (Much to their relief, no other nation made the request, not even the Andorians.)
This decision turned out to be very fortunate for the Federation, as this ship served as the inspiration, and was effectively the prototype, for the later Galatic Survey Cruiser. (ssd)Early Light Cruiser (YCL): If the Federation had not kept updating the WCL/YCL/CL, they would have had to make a saucer-based CL at some point. This is based on the NCL, but set for the Early Years. Just as the NCL is a beefed up DD, the YCL is basically a beefed up YDD. (ssd)
Early Drone Frigate (YFD): The Federation experimented with this frigate design. It replaced the photons with Andorian drone racks. The reason for the exchange was two-fold. First, the Federation wanted to determine if they could make effective use of drones on their smaller ships since photons were so power hungry the frigates could not effectively use them. Second, the Federation thought that they could be useful in a fleet context to help combat massed Kzinti drones. Not satisfied with the results, only a couple of conversions were made, and the experiment was stopped. (ssd)
Captured Ships
The original idea for the Cygnan ships (published in CL25) was as converted Kzinti ships. Instead of just chucking the designs, they have been modified (to remove the Cygnan's E-racks) and are presented here as Federation Captured Kzinti ships.In both cases, the forward phasers were replaced with photons, and the drones were replaced with phasers.
Captured Early Kzinti Cruiser (YZC): The 360 phasers were upgraded to P-2s, and the weapons on each side were combined into a pair of P-2s. (ssd)
Captured Early Kzinti Frigate (YZF): The side weapons were combined into P-2s. (ssd)Klingon
Early Drone Frigate (F4D): The Klingons never fully committed to drones as an integral part of their offense until well into the "modern" period. Prior to that, they simply used drones to augment their main disruptor/phaser firepower. However, they did experiment with trying to make drones a more important part of their combat force, and experimented with drone-heavy ships. They tried the drone ships both tactically as a counter for Kzinti drone waves, and experimented with them in the drone bombardment role seen used by the Kzinti. They chose to use the flexible frigate as the platform for the technology. (ssd)Warp-Refitted Escort (E1): The Escort was designed from the start to be used by the Interal Security Forces. The Klingons immediately knew the design was way too underpowered to ever handle disruptors, so they built the design to use drones from the start. Since drones were the ship's primary weapons, they were normal drone racks, not jump racks. The E1 was the backbone of the ISF fleet for much of the Early Years. (ssd)
Early Escort (E2): The Escort was the Klingon's "true" frigate-sized ship. The Klingons intended for the ship to be used by the DSF, but it proved to be inadequate for most missions. Squadrons of E2s were gradually transferred to the ISF, and by the end of the Early Years all surviving E2s were serving in the ISF. (ssd)Romulan
Kestral Ships
If the Klingons had conquered the Romulans, they would likely have attempted to subjugate the Romulans similarly to how they did their other subject races. However, with the Romulans, they would have run into a unique issue: the Romulans are way smarter than any other subject race (possibly even more than the Klingons themselves) and far more numerous than any other subject race. Given these attributes, the Klingons would find themselves integrating the Romulans into their system more and more in spite of their intended plans. In the end, the Romulans would likely end up not being equals, but still with far, far more options than any other subject race.With this increased access, the Klingons would likely have allowed the Romulans to continue researching their own technologies in hopes of finding options and combinations that would allow increased military capabilities of the Klingon Empire. As such, the Romulans (with strict Klingon supervision) continued research into plasma and the various cloaking technologies. As this research produced results, the Klingons decided to use the technology in part of their overall fleet.
Note that the masking device was produced in Y89, but it was not used as it could not protect ships that used warp engines. However, in Y119, the veiling device was created and it could veil warp powered ships. [The cloaking device developed in Y140 also worked on warp powered ships, too.] As a result, none of the ships below are shown with a masking (since it wouldn't work) or a veiling device (as it appeared too late).
[NOTE: I have not fully rectified this backstory with the designs below. If the Klingons are still in charge, then they should all retain their security stations. However, that "breaks" the designs some what, so I am just ignoring that for now. Once I figure out a more elegant solution, I will updated the SSDs.]
Warp-Refitted WKR Cruiser (WKR): The Klingons would have used the old D3 as the initial test bed. There were still a few in service, and more in mothballs. They could have simply started with the D4, but they were just not convinced it would work, so they were only willing to risk an old hull. In addition, the D3 was extremely robust, so it made for the perfect test platform. The testing was successful, and they converted two more to this design. No more were converted after that, because the limitations of bolted plasma was too much. The three ships were in continuous service despite that limitation. I assume there is just about no way a Pl-G can work on those feeble engines, so it is stuck with a pair of Pl-F. Note that the plasmas are restricted to being bolt-only until Y88. (ssd)
Warp-Refitted WK3R Frigate (WK3R): When the testing was done, a conversion plan for F3s was worked out. However, because of the limitations of bolted plasma, none were converted. As with the WKR, both disruptors would have been converted to Pl-F. Note that the plasmas would be restricted to being bolt-only until Y88. (ssd)
Early YKR Cruiser (YKR): Once seeking plasma was developed by the Romulan scientists, the Klingons became much more interested in these conversions. The three WKRs were converted to seeking weapons, and those tests were exceptional. Realizing that the D4 hull could manage the larger Pl-G, the Klingons immediately converted three D4s to this design. When those tests proved out, they started to produce more. [This makes the exact same changes as D6 to KR conversion: forward security to hull, aft security to battery, a torpedo on each engine, boom impulse to APR, and drones back to shuttle. The boxes were also rearranged some so that the forward hull and rear battery are in single groups.] (ssd)
Early YK4R Frigate (YK4R): Once the YKR conversion proved out, some F4s were also converted to a plasma design. Enamored of the heavier plasma torpedo, the Klingons used a single Pl-G instead of a pair of Pl-F like they had planned with the WK4R. It wasn't until much later, when the statis boxes were added to Pl-F torpedoes, that the Klingons would entertain chaning the design to use Pl-Fs. (ssd)
Early YKCR Dreadnought (YKCR): With the non-trivial number of plasma variants that the Klingons and Romulans produced, it was decided to convert a single C4 to serve as the flagship of the plasma fleet. With the size requirements for Pl-R torpedo launchers of the time, it was not feasible to mount them on the dreadnought's engines. Instead, each engine mounted a Pl-G torpedo like was done with the YKR. [It makes the same basic changes as C9 to K9R conversion: forward security to flag, aft security to hull, a torpedo on each engine, boom impulse to APR, and drones back to shuttle. The boxes were not rearranged as they were with the YKR.] (ssd)
StarDrive Romulans
I made a submission that would allow the Romulans to move faster than one. There were problems with it, and it is not at all the direction ADB wanted to go, so it was rejected. But rather than just throw it all away, I thought I would go ahead and put it up here.Kzinti
Early Heavy Cruiser (YCA): The Kzinti didn't start using disruptors until very, very late. The Marquis would have found his forces heavily challenged by the combat power of the Federation fleet. This design occurred very late in the Early Years and was effectively a test bed for disruptor technology. They had not yet thought of using "weapons pods" to hold the disruptors, so mounted them in the forward phaser mounts. To make up for the missing phaser power, the central phasers were upgraded to heavier phasers. (ssd)Early Transport Frigate (YFT): The Kzinti, among all empires, had severe logistics issues. As such, they developed a priority transport that could be used to rapidly transport supplies from place to place. While it does retain most of its weaponry, it is never expected for the ship to stand and fight. Instead they depend on the design's high speed to avoid conflict in the first place. (This plan did not always pan out.) This is NOT a "theatre transport", and as such cannot carry a cargo pod. The cargo boxes hold 50 cargo points each. (ssd)
Gorn
Early Dreadnought (YDN): Module Y2 introduced an early dreadnought for the Gorns, but it was based on the earlier battleship. This early dreadnought is based on the early cruiser design. Since I like this design, I have kept it here. It is made under the assumption that putting a rear bubble on any ships had just never occurred to them yet. It is still pretty powerful. (ssd)Tholian
The Early Years Tholian ships are all already in the main game. As such, it is simply a matter of listing what ships are available when.
Y83: NDD, NFF, PC
Y85: Cargo Pack
Y90: CPC
Y98: PC+
Y110: CMC
Y112: DPC
Y115: DD, PolThe Tholians operate skiffs equivalent to GW era skiffs, but operate normal freighters and (when published) auxiliaries.Tholian shuttles are full GW equivalents, move speed 6, and have a Ph-3.
The CPC may carry Caro Packs, Base Pods, and Civilian Cargo Pods. They cannot use Federation cargo pods, as the Federation did not sell them to the Tholians until much later. (Their primary use was to set up bases. They will rarely carry cargo pods except in support of that mission.)
Hydran
The Hydrans have an interesting history of technological development. Their pre-warp fleets are so bad that, unlike any other empire, they were incapable of converting those ships to be their first warp powered ships. Instead, the Hydrans were forced to create entirely new designs to use. And new designs they created! Their first warp ships were much better than anyone else's, and they were built with significant foresight. The Hydrans appreciated how technology was likely to improve, and they designed their ships to anticipate that.
However, when the second generation of ships came around, their effectiveness significantly dropped. And dropped to such a point that they ended up getting completely conquered by the Klingons. One has to believe, however, that had the Klingons not been able to take advantage of the sudden technological shift, the Hydrans would have addressed their relative drop in power. The primary means to accomplish that would have been to improve their weapons.
There are two likely paths for that improvement. Prior to the introduction of Y2, the most obvious improvement would be an earlier introduction of fusion beams. Obviously, there are no overloads, but other than that, they would be normal fusion beams. However, with the introduction of Y2 there is another possible path: the hellgun. While historically the Hydrans were only able to deploy it on their command ships (the YDN and YCC), there is no reason to believe that, had they not been conquered, they could not have rolled the hellgun out more broadly throughout their fleet.
Early Fusions
The Hydrans were continually attempting to improve their weapons. Historically, it took them until the late Y120s to finally develop the fusion beam over the nova beam. However, it is possible, had they not been conquered by the Klingons and Lyrans, that they could have developed fusion beams in two stages: the basic non-overloadable fusion beam, then the "advanced" fusion beam that could be overloaded and suicide overloaded. The Guild that created the fusion beam did not work well with the Guild that built the main early ship designs and would have created their own (totally unneeded) designs to make use of these weapons. This likely would have created competing designs that the Hydran Navy would have used for a period of time before finally standardizing on the more advanced designs.
Early Ranger (YRG): This is the cruiser design built to use the new fusion beams. It is comparable with the Grenadier, but has slightly improved systems and carries more phasers, in addition to the more powerful fusion beams. This design eventually evolves into the Ranger seen in the Middle Years. (ssd)
Early Lancer (YLN): The destroyer built to use the new fusion beams was not as significant of an improvement over the existing YDD, as the Ranger is over the Grenadier. The Lancer has fewer redundant systems than the YDD, but it does have slightly more phasers (though in more spread arcs) and the more powerful fusion beams. (ssd)
Hellgun Fleet
The Hydrans gave a peek at what they had hoped to be able to do with their fleet in the introduction of the YCC and YDN. Both ships replaced their nova cannons with the brand new hellgun weapon. Unfortunately for the Hydrans, getting their kingdom conquered and their economy completely destroyed put a rather damaging crimp in those plans. Had they been able to survive with any sort of decent economic base, they would have done a much more extensive refit of their fleet. While there would still have been plenty of ships with the nova cannon (the guild system would have seen to that), a large portion of their fleet would have been fitted with the hellgun.
Early Hellgun Cruiser (YCH): This would have been the core of the Hydran fleet with its two powerful hellguns in place of the nova cannons. The use of hellguns would have caused a rather dramatic reduction of fleet speed, however, due to the heavy power requirements of the hellgun without any increase in power. (ssd)
Early Hellgun Destroyer (YDH): The destroyer would not have been able to handle two hellguns, and therefore it carries a single hellgun in place of its two nova cannons. Due to this, the hellgun in located at the very front of the ship, and the forward phasers are moved back to where the nova cannons were located. (ssd)
Early Hellgun Frigate (YFH): The frigate made the same compromise as the destroyer, and had to make due with a single hellgun. (ssd)
Lyran
Heavy Survey Pod (PAL-YSH): The Survey Pod was originally intended to be based on the double-weight Troop Transport Pallet. Unfortunately, the established history, which stated that the Troop Transport Pallet was the largest pallet the Lyrans ever made, and that it was the only double-weight pallet pretty much eliminated that idea. However, if the history had allowed room for it, it would have been much more impressive, and more effective. This is a double-weight pallet. If a second pallet is carried in the forward position, it will NOT block the phaser arcs on this pallet. (ssd)
Warp-Refitted Experimental Crusier (WCE): When the ESG was developed, they fielded it on a couple of WCLs and sent them into battle against the Kzinti to determine its effectiveness. They were so encouraged by the results that they immediately put it into the design of the next cycle of ships. The size of the ESG caused some problems in finding room for the devise, and the tractor and battery suites were reduced. However, since they were only reduced to the level seen in the WDD, it was considered acceptable, particularly for prototype ships. (ssd)
WYN
Early Auxiliary Ship (YAx): The WYN did not have much of a production capability, so they were forced to improvise from the very beginning. Considering that some of the only ships they would have been able to make at first were small freighters, they would have been forced to make use of them. This design simply uses two small freighter engines, then stuffs the cargo pod with various systems and weapons. (ssd)ISC
Early Police Cruiser (YCP): The ISC fleet was more of a "coast guard" style organization rather than a true military organization. Therefore, it is likely they would have build some ships that accentuated those responsibilities in addition to the more combat oriented ships that would make up much of their fleet. The police cruiser was built on a YCL hull, and served as a "swiss army knife" style ship able to answer a wide variety of missions. (ssd)Paravian
Heavy Destroyer (YDH): The Gorn assault on the Paravian home world took many months to accomplish. During that time the Paravians were building ships as fast as they could to counter the continuing assault by the reptilian demons. One desperate measure they took was to modify their destroyer design to upgrade its weapons at the expense of its flexibility. They chose this for the destroyer because it was the biggest hull they could quickly produce in large numbers. (ssd)
