Also, lol, Q2 sees the repair of
Courageous, and
Kumari, the completion of
Pathfinder, and
Sojourner, and the completion of the last Starfleet Connie-B I'll need to come up with a name for. That's some decent heavy metal rejoining the fray.
...
@Simon_Jester, got a name in mind for the Connie-B? NCC-1752.
We've been pushing Huáscar almost forever on this. (If there was another one, it would have probably been Mikasa.)
This. Very much this. I don't know if I initiated that push or not, but
Huáscar is one of the Anglosphere's most oft-forgotten hero ships.
It also allows us to
keep the "old Earth warships" theme that the
Constitutions really did have in TOS, in all its glory, while recognizing that "Earth" isn't the same as "English-speaking world." Latin America may have mostly sat out the World Wars, but that doesn't mean they have no stories to tell.
And yeah, there isn't any ConnieBee I'd want to rename, but if I had just one more I'd want both
Huáscar AND either
Mikasa or
Kongo (the latter is even a canon name for a TOS-era Connie!)
[Note:
Mikasa and
Kongo are both fine names, and there is strong canon support for
Kongo in particular. That said, if you pick
Kongo you WILL get Kantai Collection jokes, to go with our RWBY, Dune, and
My Little Pony jokes. It is inevitable, and whether it is good or bad I cannot say.]
I favor using them to rush the construction of the second mega tortise
Which gets us a fresh megatortoise faster? Rushing completion of the one that's still being built, or rushing repairs of the one that just got its shell dented?
I'm saying the presumption is that the lighter ships have already been played out during the skirmish/vanguard phases, so it is time to let the fresh ships work as the skirmishers pull back.
However: I still manually assign the phases rather than doing so automatically to avoid perverse outcomes. As a result: not all small ships go into the skirmish line. Not all skirmish line ships do pull back. I balance it.
That's... extremely reassuring.
I think the idea of making it situational and/or dependent on retreat rolls makes a lot of sense. It's perfectly reasonable for
some small ships to get out of the skirmish line, it's just a thing that has the potential to be counterproductive* or disastrous** if there isn't a sensible shark with his fin on the tiller.
_________________
*For instance, a situation like this recent battle- say, two explorers and five frigates show up to fight an outpost and two frigates. The five frigates will almost certainly win any skirmishing handily with relatively minimal damage, and at least three or four of them are in fighting shape. If those extra frigates show up to help the explorers handle the outpost, the outpost battle will probably go very well for the attacker, with the attacker having overwhelming numbers, firepower, and probably a durability advantage. Without the frigates, the attacker has no durability edge (comparing most known explorers to an H12 L12 outpost), and only a limited firepower advantage.
**For instance, something like Apiata or presumably Klingon doctrine, where they build
so many small ships that their entire fleet design doctrine is invalidated unless they're able to press on into the main offensive using 'swarm' tactics to mob heavier enemy ships two-on-one or more.
Would've been worth it if Lwaxana herself had been aboard.
She's a ten year old child, give or take a year. There's still time to hope she grows up not-insufferable.
They probably pronounce the names phonetically, untranslated, just like we do with most alien ships.
Headcanon: All our 'winter storm' themed escort names are actually Andorian names. Because the Andorians have like eleven jillion names for 'snowstorm.'
