So I spent this weekend reading from start to current updates.
At this point I have a series of questions that have likely already been asked that I am hoping someone can answer for me. I apologise for the length
Ships
- Is there a custom craft/shuttle builder?
- Are there plans for capital ships (other then from non-federation factions)?
- While there are defined ship roles for Starfleet. What about other UFP needs? who is responsible for other needs such as logistics (freight/colony), intelligence (cloaked shuttles / cloaked listening probes etc) and Diplomatic shuttles?
- What are freight ships, if not cargo?
- Is there background on why Capital carrier with small craft is not an option? even if it was not focused on combat.
Runabouts & shuttles already exist as part of base and ship complements, and are primarily for recon or ground support, but they are abstracted away for the most part, except in SoE for explicit recon actions. Smallcraft designed for combat aren't viable (yet - we'll see once we get to 2360s or so when Akiras start getting designed).
Logistics, intelligence, etc. exist as auxiliary ships. They are described in the
GBZ status post, and their cargo capacities for small and bulk cargo and "special" rating for the specific activity they're optimized for (e.g. engineering ships have SpcE for building speed) can be deduced from recent
MWCO reports. There's an overview of logistics capacity and networks for Starfleet and most members in a
recent post.
"Capital ship" is a weight class, but the brackets for that weight class change over time (remember, the 1mt Constitution used to be considered an capital ship/explorer). Furthermore, Starfleet currently (and for the foreseeable future) only has one role for such capital-weight ships, and that is the "explorer". Hence, explorer being an extremely common synonym for the capital ship. You'll still see references to other nations capital-weight ships as things other than "explorers" though, like the Riala or Lorgot battlecruisers.
Cloaking tech is forbidden tech. Non-negotiable with the Council.
Vulcan emergency response
- Is there a plan for punitive action against their non-response to the Councils emergency declaration? e.g (5 year moratorium on new colonies, or 50% Starfleet defence assets , etc)
We don't play the Federation Council. We play Starfleet. With a SoE, Starfleet may have the power to force member fleet ships to participate, but that costs war support, and if war support drops enough, bad things happen ™.
edit: There's probably a lot of resentment at the Pacifist party in the Council, but at the same time, there's a lot of popular support for the Pacifists. It's politics, what-do.
Some of the things proposed here either aren't relevant or just political non-starters. The way the Federation expands is primarily via diplomatic pushes, which the expansionists like but the development faction make them politically costly. We can already request to build new ship classes, but ship designing is a long and expensive (in rp) process, and the pp cost to obtain permission to start depends on the need for the ship class (which depends on which party is in power, current events, and the defined tactical roles).
We can already spend pp to do many of the other options you propose, and spending a unique Sousa deal on things that can be bought with pp is considered wasteful (unless it's important enough and would save us a shitload of pp).
Member fleet shipyards already do repair our ships if Starfleet ones are unavailable, and in some cases we can even expend pp to bump existing builds out to repair our own ships. You can't tell member fleets to "not complain" if they don't like something, and the Council is not going to give Starfleet the powers to demand such.
The defense garrison requirements actually aren't something we want to avoid - we WANT to keep multiple ships in sectors, because sector events are significant sources of income. It's just that we have significant growing pains with the expanding Federation and the increasing amount of fires to put out.
Setting member fleet requirements is also going to be a political mess, and in gameplay mechanics, a micromanagement mess. There's been discussion before about subsidizing member fleets to meet some minimum bar - that's definitely going to require Council action, and I don't know if it'll be popular with all the larger members. That said, it has the potential to be a Sousa deal.
BR/SR trading desk is a good idea, and could be used in an indirect way to subsidize the weaker member fleets, while at the same time helping balance our own income. There's evidence that member fleets already trade resources with each other (Tellar and Vulcan apparently traded 25br and 25sr with each other, so that they each could build more Renaissances).
GDP/economic strength intel report options aren't a bad idea, although they can be somewhat inferred from the existing shipyard, shipbuilding, and fleet strength reports.
