Federation Commander

What exactly defines what an NCA is? Is the Gorn CM and NCA? And in which product can I find the NCAs? I know the Neo-Tholian NCA is in C2 but where are the others?

OK, answered my own question on where to find them. Still wondering what determines what an NCA is.

An 'NCA' is a ship that is roughly equivalent to a CA, but is built on a newer hull style. Usually, this is some improvement on a CW hull.

Note that the Tholian NCA is not an 'NCA'. (How's that for ya?) The Tholian NCA is the 'real' Tholian CA. (You have to understand the Tholian history to make sense of all of that.) The Tholian 'NCA' is the CHW (I think).

I actually noticed the Tholian NCA thing right after I posted the last time,

Of course this raises my other question: are CWs (HDDs, CM, and so on) simply replacement "light cruisers" meant to be close to a CA but not quite? Or are they meant to replace the CAs? Given the fact most variants were CL based and the CW based I would think the former.

And do the "New" series Romulan ships count as "War" designs?

The 'War' classes (CW, DW, NCA's) are ships built with conflict in mind. Their predecessors, CAs, CLs, DDs and such were built for long term use and multi-role missions. As things looked as if war was coming, everyone sought to build ships that were cheaper, yet were fully combat capable. For example, a War Cruiser masses about the same as a Light Cruiser, but is cheaper to build, but has firepower closer to a Heavy Cruiser. The downside (not really seen outside background info) is that the 'War' classes were not built for extended use. And, to be honest, once shooting started, most never had to worry about their hulls wearing out. This is reflected in a few things, like noting that converting them to Advanced Technology (X-ships) was harder, usually requiring them to build those hulls from the keel up without the shortcuts taken with their sister ships.

The Romulans are a special case. Backgroundwise, they are built as non-War designs in principle. But that said, for all intents and purposes the SparrowHawk is a CW and the SkyHawk is a DW. On the other hand, the Heavy Hawks were built the old fashioned way and are not 'war' designs.

Thanks. I have been trying to balance the different classes as best I could, and the "new" romulan ships were giving me headaches.

The empires of the SFU are not identical. Not everybody has a ship of a certain point value. The Fed BC and the Klingon BC are 40% apart in size. Romulan sparrowhawks are "sort of war cruisers in some ways and sort of not war cruisers in other ways" and the firehawks are "sort of NCAs in some ways and sort of not NCAs in other ways."

So should I just set a BV point and get as close as I can?

Pretty much.

Someone in a SFU-themed thread on another forum pointed out that BPV-wise, the Romulan GryphonHawk from Module R12 is in a nice spot, being just big enough to play well with other Alpha NCAs.

I'd say the same for the ISC heavy war cruiser from the same module; smaller than the Star Cruiser, but still liable to cause trouble.

Great, the list of modules I need to buy keeps growing.

Take a deep breath and realize that you have to do like the rest of us... buy them all... lol

"hic!"

I am trying to decide which joins Module J on the next order. So far the candidates are:

Module F2
Module R5
Module R6
Module R10
Module C4

C4 was one of my first purchases. Of course, I was the Frax Queen in the campaign at the time.