Year of starship introduction

gurps_gm · Post by **gurps_gm** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:17 pm

Is there a timeline when a new class of starship entered the inventory of the various empires? I see some ship classes are on the main timeline, but not all.

Sgt_G · Post by **Sgt_G** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 1:52 am

Not in FedCmdr. You need SFB module G3 Master Annex Files.

gurps_gm · Post by **gurps_gm** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:46 am

Thanks Sgt_G!

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:47 am

FedCom does different "eras", so Middle Years are a discrete set of ships. You can use them with mainline ships, but they don't play well except against each other (which is why they have their own playpen).

gurps_gm · Post by **gurps_gm** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:59 am

I wanted to know when they were introduced. A ballpark date is OK

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:35 am

Yeah, Garth had you covered then.

My copy of G3A is dog-eared from use. Even though it's not for FedCom, it's still a very useful book.

cnuzzi · Post by **cnuzzi** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:05 pm

According to the book "Introduction to the Star Fleet Universe," the Middle Years are Y120-Y150. I think this might be a little off, however, since the TV show allegedly takes place in the 150s, and those are Middle Years ships.

That book, btw, is available as a free download on w23, and is worth getting even though it is primarily for the Prime Directive roleplaying game. It has a lot of good information about SFU history, plus a list of alien races, a map of the galaxy, etc.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:09 pm

Here is a simple solution.

Go to the BBS, look under F&E for the SHIP INFORMATION TABLES.

These list most ships in all the games (i.e., the ones in F&E) and give the year they are first available for construction, usually which half of that year.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:37 pm

For the purposes of Federation Commander, the Middle Years covers from about Y120 (maybe as late as Y125) through about Y160. The main delimiter is that all of the included ships are the original "unrefitted" ships, or their contemporaries. That means that the dividing lines are a little fuzzy, as we "bent" the lines to fit in appropriate ships (e.g. Romulans) and exclude inappropriate ships (e.g. hellbores).

Also, when looking at introduction dates, remember that they are generally only going to list when that base ship first appeared. Many of the older ships (e.g. Fed CA and Klingon D7) have gone through several refits and the versions seen in the Federation Commander main game probably came on line years, if not decades, later.