FASA Federation and Warp scale

[ThrorII]

The FASA Star Trek federation was a kind of sphere, about 85 parsecs in radius (170 parsecs in diameter). That is about 277 light years in radius and 554 light years in diameter.

Did FASA every say what THEIR warp scale was? Was it the unofficial-official WF X =X^3 *c formula (warp factor cubed times the speed of light)? Was it another scale?

I'm asking, because under the 'officially unofficial' scale it would take 69 years at warp 2, 20 years at warp 3, 8.5 years at warp 4, 4 years at warp 5, and 2.5 years at warp 6 to cross the Federation. Which isn't feasible.

Especially since according to the FASA map, the Romulan Neutral Zone is about 117 parsecs (381 light years!!!!) from Earth. I don't think Earth was fighting a war with the Romulans, using warp 3-4 ships, and taking a decade to just get there to fight....

[c57d]

Yes, FASA does use the lightspeed cubed warp speed calculation.
And the massive distance (especially at early/low warp speeds) between Terra and the RNZ is one of the biggest mistakes they ever made, imho. When planning for a FASA Starfleet campaign, many years ago, I redrew the Federation map to better reflect the order in which the UFP contacted other major spacefaring species - so, Orions, Romulans, Klingons.
Basically I took the portion of the map within the circle of lower number (so earlier?) star bases and moved it between the junction of Orion space and the RNZ. In fact, I cut the RNZ into the UFP ci7rcle to bring it much closer to Terra. I drastically dropped population numbers in most worlds outside the "core" circle, and actually removed about a hundred worlds. This is because I couldn't believe such massive colonisation in only 18 months or so, limited by lower warp speeds for most of the time.
It was a pain to do, but gave me a more believable map, imho.]
Edit - "18 months" should, of course, be about 150 years. Total blond moment!!

[ThrorII]

Here is what I've prepped for a Far Trek campaign. It is slightly based on the current official map. The Federation Exploration Zone is a 50 light year radius from Earth (100 LY across). The Romulans are a contained 15 LY diameter region "separated from the rest of the galaxy" as Kirk explained in BoT. The Klingon border is the red area in the s/e 'corner' of the sphere. Gorns are in the s/w 'corner', and Tholians in the 'west' end. The Federation proper is a 20 LY radius sphere centered on Earth.

I've tried my best for the systems and star bases to match what was actually said in the original series, or at least not contradict anything. Obviously, I'm discarding most distances mentioned in TOS. I've also kept the Frank Joseph's Tech Manual concept that SF Headquarters is separate from Earth - Just because I like it and it doesn't actually contradict TOS.

In this configuration, the Earth-Romulan war took place about 18-22 LY from Earth, and ships could reach the war zone from earth in 3 weeks at warp 4.  In the Kirk era, a warp 3 ship can go from Earth to the edge of the exploration zone in just under 2 years, and a warp 4 ship can do it in about 9 months. About right when you figure that the colonists on Omnicron Ceti III took nearly a year to get there.

 

[c57d]

Throrll - this is the best TOS Federation map I have ever seen. You have brought in some realism with the 3D aspect, kept the RNZ close to Terra and faithfull to Kirk's lines in BoT and maintained the spirit of travel times and proportional distance.
Brilliant!

[c57d]

Your map also fits in nicely with there being only 12-13 Starship/Constitution class "super" ships in the TOS Starfleet. It feels just big enough for those ships to be the elite multimission, but not spread too thin, core of the fleet, with maybe another 30-40 much smaller patrol/gunships and scout/surveyors.

[ThrorII]

Oct 10, 2021 4:31:05 GMT -5 c57d said:

Your map also fits in nicely with there being only 12-13 Starship/Constitution class "super" ships in the TOS Starfleet. It feels just big enough for those ships to be the elite multimission, but not spread too thin, core of the fleet, with maybe another 30-40 much smaller patrol/gunships and scout/surveyors.

Yes, I posit that each starbase (12 of them) has a Connie assigned to its 'area of operation'. Then there are Miranda light cruisers, Hermes scouts, Saladin destroyers, and Ptolemy tugs in the 'areas of operation' as well.

Using the warp factor cubed speeds it can still take weeks at warp 5 and 6 for a Constitution-class to cross a sector and engage a problem. Heck, it can take up to 48 hours for a subspace message to cross a sector at warp 15 (FASA subspace radio speed). So even though it is a 'small Federation' model, with the warp factor cubed speeds, space is still lonely and wide open.

[starcruiser]

I keep coming back to this site so often for one reason...there are people here who actually THINK about this stuff!

(Unlike those in charge of the actual franchise...)

[c57d]

Totally agree. Lots of creative thinkers here generating a load of exciting settings and homerules for ST (and other scifi) RPG gaming.
Brings me back regularly.