Nebulon B as a Modular Support Ship

[Mamatried]

[CRMcNeill]

There's a crucial distinction between "modular" and "modified". The Modular Taskforce Cruiser, for instance, is essentially a drive section and a framework to which various mission-specific modules may be attached. Want to change a Hospital ship into an Inquisition ship? Bring it into a shipyard, disconnect the Hospital modules and strap on the Inquisition modules in their place. That's what I had originally pictured when I proposed this idea.

What you're talking about is what I consider "modified", as in, major portions of the ship's interior have been reconfigured to a purpose not originally intended in the design. The WEG version of the Nebulon B, for instance, purportedly converted the TIE hangar bay in the main fuselage into a hospital facility. By that standard, almost any ship can be modified to a certain extent, but it can't be done quickly, and any changes will almost certainly require weeks or more in a shipyard for the work to be completed.

I consider what I proposed above to be much more the latter; the interior of the ship isn't being modified, but the engineers doing the modifying are taking advantage of available space at the front of the engine pod to make permanent (relatively speaking) mission-specific modifications.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Mamatried]

I see where you are going with this.

I can see the nebulon having a few modular options, though simply attaching them and go I don't is reasonable for such a ship, but with the long narrow mid section I can see attchments placed.

As to the front section here I can see some of the features bieng simply swapped out for others, but in the main aspect I can't see the ship more modular than maybe by adding attachmnets to the mid section if avoiding a complete factory modification is the aim.

With mid section attachments for cargo, starfighterss, tropps and even fule this can be an active support vessel with some self defense capabilities, like an armed tanker

[CRMcNeill]

There's going to be some hard limits on how much cargo it can carry while still remaining a functional warship, and the Nebulon is already slow. The depot ship, for instance, would be able to support small craft, but trying to support even small capital ships would quickly drain its resources. Some examples from WWII would be things like minelaying / minesweeping destroyers, radar picket destroyers or fast transport destroyers (could carry a company of troops with light landing craft). None of these had the bulk to be truly useful as transports, so your tanker idea would only be useful as a depot ship for much smaller craft (space transports and such), but there is still a use for them.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Mamatried]

I am not sure about the nebulon class, but from the sound of it, many ships is actuaally "failry" modular, in that the description of the nebulon says that the wast interor had veen basically swapped from war ship to med frigate, though with modified crew strenth to fit.

I agree that spesifics are hard, but even ISDs seem to be fairly modular, remove hangar bay insert "more weapons, more hull" etc.

but yes I agree the tanker is a bit too much, however a small support ship capable of things like you say mine laying, even serach and rescue.

I am thinking of removing some of the hangars, as I see these as "boxes" that fir in "slots" inside the hull......then remove the "box" now the slot is open for anything else that fits

[CRMcNeill]

Well, again, you're talking about the difference between "modified" and "modular". For modular, think of whole sections of the ship essentially being plug-and-play, where you can simply pull out one module in one piece and insert another in its place, connect the power and it's up and running. For modified, it's time spent literally building and installing the new facilities and equipment inside the ship, with even longer required to switch it out for something else (the added time of removing the old modifications to make way for the new ones).

Obviously, some vessels are going to be better at it than others; the Corellian Corvette is specifically noted as being easily modified to a variety of different missions profiles. But that still takes the form of making internal changes (usually; some of the more extreme examples like the Far Star go way beyond that), and not just swapping out pre-designed modules.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

My main problem with the Nebulon B converted to a hospital ship is that it really doesn't have a lot of room to work with, and hospital ships generally aren't taken into battle, but are part of the fleet train that is brought in afterwards to help repair ships, perform search & rescue, etc. My explanation was that the "Medical" frigate was actually more of a combat search & rescue platform / triage medical facility, used to rescue ejected pilots and ship crew during the battle (since the Alliance would almost never be able to perform such tasks post-battle). The problem is that the evidence is becoming pretty insurmountable that there wasn't a TIE launch bay in the main hull of the ship that could be converted into a medical facility. I'm not hugely sure how to resolve it short of making a pretty obvious change to the Nebulon's profile by adding to the front of the engine section, then modifying the addition as needed to fit the assigned mission.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

Here’s the link to EC Henry’s uparmored Nebulon B.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[RyanDarkstar]

[CRMcNeill]