Main vessel of Romulan fleet

posted on March 14th, 2009, 8:45 pm

Hi everybody!

As far as I know is the D'deridex class warbird the backbone o the romulan fleet. In my opinion that ship is not assigned that role in FleetOps. I rather use that ship as mobile defense guard. My attacking fleets mostly include Norexans to decimise the enemy and Generix support to keep them alive during battle. Mixed up with a few other ships, such a fleet is nearly impossible to destroy, if it reaches a proper size.

Which ships constitute your romulan fleets and what ships form it's backbone?

Do I underestimate the power of the D'deridex, or has its role really shortened that much?

posted on March 14th, 2009, 9:08 pm

You're right about what the D'deridex is, but you're wrong about what to expect from it.

"Mobile defence guard" is a perfect description of it, and in the show, that's what it was good at. The TNG Romulans hardly ever invade enemy space (we only really saw them on 'Neutral Zone garrison' duties), so they only need defence-based ships, to deter enemies and destroy those that encroach too far. In DS9 they were in the battle fleets, but didn't fare so well.

posted on March 14th, 2009, 9:29 pm

Thanks very much! 

Why didn't the Rommies send different ships into the dominion war (something equal to the Norexan). Rommies ain't stupid, but if D'deridex were guards (what they used to be eversince, as you said) why were those ships chosen fo an offensive mission, like that in the omarion nebula. Sending defensive ships into that battlefield was really stupid then, because especially romulans should always be aware of traps. 

In my opinion a defensive unit should be easier to achieve than a offensive one, especially for the Romulans (upgrade facility is needed for the d'deridex, not for the norexan)

posted on March 15th, 2009, 3:49 am

The Norexan was designed/built after the Dominion War, and before that, the Romulans had no NEED for an offensive vessel. It wasn't stupid of them, they just didn't require anything else.

posted on March 15th, 2009, 7:27 am

The D'deridex isn't so much a defensive ship as it is a symbol.  It represents the Romulan Star Empire to most people, including the Romulans, so a single D'deridex can keep an entire system safe.  You see one, the first thought is 'can I kill it before it kills me?' followed quickly by 'oh crap, how many other ships are cloaked nearby if that one is visible?'  Her disruptors are strong, she's fast enough for most purposes, her shields are strong, and the plasma torpedoes she loads are strong enough to make anybody hesitate unless they are spoiling for a serious battle. 

Add in that she's got the scientific equipment to do most of the same kind of jobs that a Galaxy was built for, and she's a symbol of the Star Empire's might.  It's why she's so grossly large.  A ship that size can be seen in orbit from the ground, calming or pacifying the civilan population on a planet as well.  She's a powerful multi-role ship with an emphasis in survivability.

Unfortunately, she's not a pure warship, which is what gave her problems in the Dominion War.  She was facing ships that really were built just for war, even to the point of having no beds or chairs or medical facilities.  Which is what mandated the Norexan, which seems to largely be a flying disruptor platform with shields.

The D'deridex won't go anywhere for a long time, though, for the same reason that the Federation flagship will always have the basic configuration of a Constitution.  Two nacelles up and rear on pylons, with an elevated forward Saucer section.  The feds didn't have the Sovereign look like that because it's the most effective or effecient configuration for the job.  It's because when you see a ship that is built like that, the first thing you think of is 'Starfleet!'  It's a symbol as well.

posted on March 15th, 2009, 9:53 am

Most interesting! Thanks fpr your detailed explanations. 

posted on March 15th, 2009, 3:55 pm

The Norexan was designed/built after the Dominion War, and before that, the Romulans had no NEED for an offensive vessel. It wasn't stupid of them, they just didn't require anything else.

For what I know (not from any canon source) the time they spent isolated from the Alpha Quadrent was spent expanding into the Beta Quadrent. That implies a warship type.

True they used them for patrol, but the Federation also used Galaxy Class to patrol. At the time, the Galaxy was the largest and most powerful ship they had, closer to a warship than any other Starfleet ship until warships like the Defiant & Akira were built. If the Federation uses its best combat ships of the time to patrol, then others can too.

posted on March 15th, 2009, 5:52 pm

Hmm, whilst I've also seen some stuff about the Romulans expanding in the other direction, but other (also non-canon) things say otherwise. For example, since 1979 the SFB game stated that Romulan space was at the edge of the spiral arm of the galaxy, so there's not much to expand into.

Though it would make sense, and explain why they went into isolation on the Federation border... As well as leading to other things like the contact/war with the Return of the Chodak, etc (also non-canon... I'm gonna stop saying this now, as it is ALL conjecture, haha).

On the other hand, if the Romulans had a warship type, it would have been seen in DS9's battles with the Dominion...

[Tyler]

posted on March 15th, 2009, 5:59 pm

Last edited by Tyler on March 15th, 2009, 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Unless the massive Warbird with heavier firepower than any other TNG-Era ship was their main warship. It has good weapons (on the front, at least) and the losses could be attributed to the fact that it is big enough to be a very easy target.

Though it took heavy losses against the Dominion, it could possibly be an unbeatable monster compared to other Beta Quadrent ships. A more combat-devoted ship wouldn't have been needed against weaker races.

We never actually saw much of the Romulan fleet, so they could have more ship classes than we know of.

posted on March 15th, 2009, 10:49 pm

I fear the reason we only saw D'deridex ships every where was a lack of time or money to make a new studio model for the DS9 combat scenes 

in TNG the warbird was a fearsom vessel, better armed and armored then a Galaxy and quite huge, but capped at warp 6 .. i realy wonder how they made it that fast to Bayor Romulus is quite a few lightyears away.

The DS9 Warbird is probably a refited version or a version with a different layout alltogether, their front part is slightly different for example.
In the Fleet Operations universe, the D'deridex is a slow but still modern giant vessel that dominanted the Romulan Fleet for a long time (roughly 60 years) and still is a very important vessel which builds arround the half of the Romulan Fleet. More modern vessels like the Generix (which will get a new model one day) or the Norexan were build after the Dominion War. The Rhienn for example was designed after the Empire had to face the overwhelming performance of the Defiant in the Dominion War battles - they couldn't let the Federation get all those glory without a proper answer, just in case there should ever be Romulan-Federation conflicts.

If they only knew...

posted on March 16th, 2009, 12:09 am

I personally would believe that for a Tal'Shiar controlled fleet, the D'deridex would still be their mainstay.  It has one huge advantage to them.  The fact that it's huge.  That behemoth has room for them to put in all the freakish, frowned upon stuff they want to load in.  While the Imperial Military and Imperial Senate would favor more modern ships as their primary vessels when possible, keeping the D'deridex around for it's symbol status in order to maintain morale while working on an upgraded version that is more competitive with current technology.

Perhaps some expensive refit or some such in order to increase it's speed and manuverability so that their morale-booster ships can keep up with the rest of the fleet until their people slowly come to view another ship as the symbol of Romulan might.

posted on March 16th, 2009, 12:35 am

If they only knew...

Got a Fed/Romulan conflict planned?

posted on March 16th, 2009, 8:05 pm

personally i think the deridex warbird ingame is better than the one in the TV-Show

the one in the TV-show had lotta firepower and a strong hull, but sucked quite bad in battle due the lack of weapon coverage and the not so strong shields. They were made to take down intruders in romulan space and spread fear in the enmy lines, not for real big wars against enemys with lotta small ships. The one ingame does good against small and big vessels, so at least im happy (and tbh i love the design of this ship)

posted on March 18th, 2009, 12:47 am

I dont know if you have ever built a full fleet of warbirsd, but i have, and i have seen them wipe the floor with two large klingion fleet attacking them. they last long, they have good power, and there a ship that when you see one, you quickly re assess your fleet. she is a mighty ship, and now has many arttirabutes which can make you proud of her.

they easaly out last norexans, I had a half and half fleet od warbirds and norexans, i lost 4 norexians before i lost one D'deridex to that filthy AI

posted on March 18th, 2009, 1:39 am

If fleetops had a Z axis and was like Homeworld 2 we'd all be rating these ships way differently and seeing closer to Canon performance imo.