So I thought it would be high time to provide an update on the ship states for vessels from this era. Here's how the house-rules and play testing is panning out so far. I haven't done the Andorians as yet as I am waiting on some suitable models to come from Shapeways. I have also split the NX-class into two versions representing the NX-01 before the Xindi Crisis, and the NX-class after the Xindi Crisis in the lead up to the First Romulan War.
Here's how they are looking now.
*See the note below concerning Pulsed Phase Cannons
Pulsed Phase Cannons comments: Watching some of the YouTube clips for the Axenar movie and listening to some of the discussions with the writer producer about the different weapon systems used by the Federation during the 4 years war with the Klingons. The writer producer noted that each of the member planets of the Federation made their own Star Fleet ships and crewed them with their own people. As such, weapon systems would reflect what each of the member planets had in circulation at that time. So Star Fleet vessels would have either Phasers (e.g Andorians) or Pulsed Phase Cannons (e.g Earth) as their primary weapon suits and Photon Torpedoes as their heavy weapon. This was due to the fact that the Federation was still in a transition phase of moving to a truly unified Star Fleet. When asked about why they still used Pulsed Phase Cannons, the writer producer noted that these weapons could intercept Klingon Photon Torpedoes. This gave me the idea of adding to the Pulsed Phase Cannon statistics the ability to use Defensive Fire against Photonic & Photon Torpedoes. I haven't play tested this out yet but will give it a shot the next time I get to play an ACTA game. I want them to be able to intercept torpedoes, but not be too effective in this capability. I would assume that the move away from Pulsed Phase Cannons was eventually done by Star Fleet as their shields were markedly improved and Phasers became more powerful, from Phaser 3's to Phaser 2's to Phaser 1's.
