John, a possible addition to your suggestion about adding mech-links:

*Any mech-links added are considered to be a contiguous 'shuttle bay', as on the Federation SCS or NVH.

*Ships are limited in the total number of 'spaces' of fighters they can operate. SC-2: 36 total spaces, on mech-links or internal bays. (the Hydran mega-carrier is a special case.) SC-3: 24 total spaces. SC-4: 18 total spaces.

*No ship can have both fighter and PF mech-links.
Swapping for Heavy Fighters:
S7.26, HISTORICAL: Carriers may swap a squadron of 12 standard fighters for a squadron of 6 Heavy Fighters. Only full squadrons can be traded. Drone Races (and Hydrans): Any Assault Fighters must be replaced by Superiority Fighters prior to the swap.
Plasma Races: Gorn replace Assault fighters as described above. Romulans 6xSuperiority and 6xAssault fighters. ISC trade 9xSuperiority and 3xAssault fighters.

S7.26, SEMI-HISTORICAL:
As "Historical", but allow races to swap Superiority fighters rather than lose Assault fighters.

S7.26, NON-HISTORICAL:
Allow carriers to operate as many fighters as they have space for, in whatever combination of single- or double-space they choose. This is based on the number of shuttle boxes equipped with ready racks on the SSD. A "squadron" consists of six to eighteen "fighter-spaces" (one Heavy Fighter = two "fighter-spaces"). A carrier may not operate more than three "squadrons". Fighters may be considered "causal" and not assigned to a squadron if the player chooses. A carrier may not operate more Assault fighters than originally described in its R-section. Normal rules for EWF deployment apply. (note that these last two may be overridden by other suggestions in this topic.)

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, May 04, 2006 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Another proposal/sugestion:

- Up to two special senors may be installed on a ship. These sensors must replace heavy weapons; ships which don't have any heavy weapons to replace may replace type 1 or 2 phasers.

By Tony Downs (Whitetyger009) on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 01:18 am: Edit

hey is this still under work? if not was it completed or scrapped? if completed where were the rules printed or how would one go about getting them?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 10:12 am: Edit

The draft rules are at the top of the topic. No work has been done.

The problem is that no such set of rules can be perfect, so what happens is the gang shows up for the gang and one guy has found a loophole allowing him to build an unbeatable ship. An argument ensues. Some refuse to play and leave. Some play but have no fun. Everybody gets mad except the guy who found the loophole. A week later, ADB issues errata closing the loophole, making the only guy who isn't pissed really pissed.

Then the gang gets together again (except for the two guys who quit outright) and, guess what, somebody else found a loophole. Repeat until group (and customer base) is destroyed.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 10:41 am: Edit

If somebody will remind me of this topic about August, I will look into using it in CL36.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 11:02 am: Edit

I thought this was prototyped as 'Russom's Universal Refits' from CL34.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 01:10 pm: Edit

Not really. That's a separate project.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 03:12 pm: Edit

SVC,

Did you and Petrick ever give more thought to how "big" each of the plasma types are? (Pl-R, Pl-S, Pl-G, Pl-F)

The reason I ask is because this topic has come up *again* ...

BTW, one of the implications of this discussion is that Pl-G torpedoes are 1 space. Is that the intention? Or are they the same size as Pl-S torpedoes?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 05:01 pm: Edit

Plasma S is bigger than one, and plasma F smaller. One plasma S and one plasma F equal two disruptor photons. Not sure about G.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 06:15 pm: Edit

If I may so bold, I do ask that Pl-G be bigger than one, too. They can be slightly smaller than Pl-S, but they need to be bigger than one to justify their space requirements for Orions and HDWs. (Personally, I would make them the same size as Pl-S, but that may not be possible.)

And thanks for the response.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 06:29 pm: Edit

That would be something to ask Petrick.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 09:16 am: Edit

With all the discussions I've endured, I thought . . .
Plasma R = 2
Plasma S = 1.25
Plasma G = 1
Plasma F = 0.5
Plasma D = drone rack whatever.

An upgrade from G to S was simply an enlargement of the launcher (I'm sure I can make up technobabble for this).
But a downgrade of S to two Gs would require much more work (ripping out the S, enlarging the hull to accomodate two smaller holes, fill in the gaps) and just doesn't sound right.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 10:27 am: Edit

Glenn: Your data is wrong. S+F = 2, so you either have a bad number for S or for F and possibly both. F is either 0.67 or 0.75 (I am not sure if we ever had an answer to that one).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 11:17 am: Edit

Mike West:

There is no answer that can be given without, it seems, triggering a firestorm of "if A I can do X", requiring a revision of an off the cuff answer resulting in another round of "if A I can do X", and I would rather NOT go there until we are a lot closer to a final set of rules.

For now, the rules on how they work in option boxes (whether Orion or Barbarian) do well enough we do not need to open a door for new non-Orion non-Barbarian ship submissions based on partial data on what a plasma-G is compared to a plasma-S and a plasma-F.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 04:42 pm: Edit

I would then suggest F = .75
That would make it more possible to upgrade a G to an S than it would be to downgrade an S to 2xG.
It would also make it equally difficult to make a G into 2xFs.

However, this is merely an opinion.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 06:22 pm: Edit

Just for clarity, the last state of plasma sizes (from the archives) is:
Pl-R = 2 spaces
Pl-S = 1.25 spaces
Pl-G = 1 space (implied)
Pl-F = .75 spaces

However, these are not "finalized" in any way, and are still somewhat undefined. Please note that I am not advocating the above. I am merely reporting what I saw. Quite frankly, I would prefer at least a couple to be different.

What we do know for sure is that:
- Pl-S is greater than 1 space
- Pl-G is at least 1 space
- Pl-F is smaller than 1 space
- Pl-S + Pl-F is a total of 2 spaces
- 3xPl-F will not fit into 2 spaces
- Pl-S and Pl-G both require two spaces for Orion and HDW option mounts

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 06:47 pm: Edit

One of the complexitiess involved in the problem of size equivalence is trying to make one size fit all for the entire post-EY SFU history. Seems to me that's the problem. I think weapons should envolve over time, either gaining capabilities and staying the same size or reducing in size or some of both.

version 1.0 weapons would be EY weapons which have one set of sizes

Version 2.0 weapons would be MY weapons found on ships like the classic Fed CA or Klingon D6. they would have different sizes.

Version 2.5 would be General-War era ships

Version 3.0 would be X1 tech.

With Version 2.0 and the specific case of disruptors and plasmas, we can say that the range-22 disruptor is 1-space. The Range-30 would be larger than 1, whatever we would consider to be large-enough but still fit in a 1-space orion option mount. A version 2.0(MY) G-torp is 1.5 and a F-torp is .9, we can fudge the size of the size of a 30-hex disr to 1.2 to balance the books.

Then weapons version increments to 2.5. One thing we get new with 2.5 is the S-torp, an upgunned G-torp which increased in capability instead of reducing in size. So it remains at 1.5 spaces, and that means it can replace any version 2.0 G-torp straight-up. The version 2.5 G-torp drops to 1.25 spaces and the version 2.5 F-torp drops to .75. The version 2.5 disr-30 drops from 1.2 to 1 space.

let's examine three ships

D6->KR
D6 has 2 version 2.0 range-22 disruptors on each engine, IIRC. That 2.0 spaces of weapons. During MY, the roms can replace the disruptors a version 2.0 G-torp (1.5 spaces) there's room left over (.5 spaces) but not enough to add another plasma (the 2.0 F-torp is .9).

The version 2.5 upgrade allows us to change the G-torp for an S but the version 2.5 F has not shrunk enough to fit in the .5 spaces to spare.

Theortically, we could update the KR to a version 2.5 G + a version 2.5 F combination, but we can tweak the version 2.5 G-torp to 1.3 to disallow this combination.


D7->K7R or D7C to KRC
Both of these have version 2.0 30-hex disruptors and therefore have 2.4 spaces available on each engine. That's just enough for a G+F during MY.

The version 2.5 upgrade upgrades the Gs to Ss, but that's it. The only space you get back is the trade of 2.0 F-torps for 2.5 which only nets .15 spaces.

Even if the ship upgraded to a 2.5 G-torp (1.25)and a 2.5 F-torp (.75), the total space used (2.0) would not allow a second F-torp to be added (2.4-space weapons mount) so S+F is still the optimum combination.


D5->KD5
The D5 has version 2.5 range-30 disrutptors which give it the exact same size issues as the D6. Ergo 1 S-torp per engine, no F-torps possible.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 07:08 pm: Edit

With Mike West's input and my ammended (post SVC correction's) post, it all seems logical to me.
Both work together.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 07:53 pm: Edit

Seems to me that the only thing that would be consistant between similar weapons of different races would be the output.

The physical space a weapon uses would vary depending on so many factors that you would need pages and pages of text to really get it right. Take for instance rocket engines from NASA and from Russia with similar thrust outputs. Similar thrust would be the ONLY thing they have in common; well, maybe fuel type but not even the same specs. Russian engines solve problems in an entirely different manner and often they use several engines intead of one or a few.

I don't think the physical space a weapon uses between races should have ay consistancy. However, this is not so proctical game wise.

An Romulan Warbird is supposed to be practially built around the Type-R plasma. This doesn't make much sense if a Type-R is only two spaces. An R-Torp should be closer to four spaces. However, I would not say all that space is usable space to put a weapon. An R-Torp might exten so far into a ship and have so much bracing that half it space is not usable by a smaller weapon and cannot really be fill with anything except maybe water storage.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 09:03 pm: Edit

In practical terms, the same weapon built by different races must be the same size, unless you're going to argue that some races are at significantly diferent technology levels with the same weapon. Historically, races have never been more than a handful of years apart from developing/copying/reverse-engineering similar technologies.

The only known exception I can think of is the romulans and warp drive.

A P-1 is a P-1 is a P-1. There may be differences at a level of detail greater than SFB deals with but they all do the same damage and they are all going to take up the same amount of volume for practical purposes. The Lyran P-1 may be oblong and the Federation more square, but that's about it.

To say otherwise, invites an unacceptable degree of complexity into what is already a complex equality process.

That's why I like changing space size by time period.

Maybe the EY (version 1.0) R-torp *is* 4 spaces.

The version 2.5 R-torp, with 100 years of additional research behind it, could drop to 3 or even 2 spaces.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 09:28 pm: Edit

John,
I would say that in the 1970's NASA and the RSA were on the same tech level and their rocket systems were vastly different.

I would even suggest that the R-Torp in the War Eagle is larger than the one in the Regalhawk (or which ever is the Hawk with the R-Torp... can't recall).

I can agree that while the weapon may have different implementation a Ph-1 is a Ph-1. Torpedoes/heavy weapons are another matter, IMO. This is why I'd like to see ship mods for some things be racial and specific (without getting out of hand).

Such as, an F-Torp on a Federation ship should be one space because of adaptation equipement.

D-Torps should be one space too since they are essentially a drone rack.

A War Eagle R-Torp should be four spaces with only two that can be utilized if replaced. Maybe if you take out the R-Torp you lose a point of hull (because all the bracing for the torp amounted to one of the damage points the hull can take). On a side note I've always wished the WE R-Torp took two points to destroy but I won't go on about that.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 09:51 pm: Edit

Loren,

I wouldn't say NASA and the RSA were equal at any time past about 1965. I remind you that the apollo-soyuz mission took place at the *highest* orbit the soyuz could manage and the *lowest* the apollo could manage. And we brought the docking adaptor to boot.

Moreover, the space program example isn't really relevant. Both dealt in what was essentially experimental technology, not production-line technology. Put a 1970s MiG against a F4 Phantom. The differences are much less pronounced. They aren't built the same but for most purposes, we don't care. One's a F-18, the other's a Z-Y. As the USSR's economic issues became an increasing factor, they fell behind the US.

In a situation like the SFU where a repressive government does not equate to a significant technologcal advantage, it's easier for races to keep pace with each other 9with a little help from the esionage services).

Ideally, I agree with you about imported foreign technology, but think it's simply too much to get into at the detail level of SFB. So I simply set numbers that have the effect of giving me the right answer and avoid writing, error checking or coping with several pages of fine print.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Loren and John,
I'd say we are talking complexities that really don't need to exist here.
All we are talking about are differentials between the various launcher sizes of plasma torpedoes.
Please, let us not add dozens of pages to the rule books on modifications or enhancements to existing ships.
So far from what I see, the existing numbers do work.
I'm thinking I'm talking beyond my capabilities however.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 10:57 pm: Edit

"(S7.223) Certain weapons (disruptors, photon torpedoes, plasma torpedoes, hellbores) cannot replace phasers. Others (fusion beams, drone racks, plasma racks) can."

Phasers are smaller than torps.

(CL#13:R3.941) Klingon D7Z: "This ship was used as a test bed for phaser-1 technology. The original phaser-1s were extremely bulky, requiring as much space as the disruptors. The testing of the systems under combat conditions enabled the Klingon engineers to reduce the redundancy they had originally built in. The resulting phasers were much smaller, but hard to maintain. Due to limited production, the phaser-1 was installed only on command ships until a technological breakthrough was made in the General War."

So a phaser is not always a phaser and is subject to miniturization, at least using Klingon tech. Early a phaser-1 was as big as a disruptor, later they got smaller, later they got smaller again, and with X-tech they got smaller still.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 01:32 pm: Edit

"BTW, plasma-S is 1.33 boxes, plasma-F is 0.67 boxes."

Which makes one wonder if a PL-F can replace a Ph-1? If not then a Ph-1 is rather small considering a Ph-3 is defined as 0.5 spaces.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 07, 2002 - 06:24 pm: Edit

"Enough with R-torps. Sometime in the future I'll take a look and figure it out; every message about R-torp size from this point forward will be deleted as clutter."

Since he hasn't this means the R-torp remains undefined.

(XFP2.62) "Attempts to place type-R torpedoes on ships were largely unsuccessful due to the extreme amount of insulation and power required for the torpedo chamger. Only those few ships with large structures devoted almost exclusively to the weapon were able to mount it. Experiments, however, determined that it was possible to provide sufficient insulation to increase the torpedo strength substantially while still falling short of the 50-point type-R warhead. ... [The type-M torpedo] is a 3-space weapon for ship modifications and option mounts. Orions can use type-M torpedoes."

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Tos,

You didn't read far enough on the size of the Pl-S and Pl-F. He later increased the size of the Pl-F so that you could not fit three Pl-F into to spaces.

And, again, as I said just above, the size of *all* plasmas is undefined. (Well, except for Pl-D, which is the same size as a drone rack. Whatever that is.) However, that doesn't change what has been said *last*, which is also what I mentioned above. While the last size given isn't definitive (which, as I just mentioned, I did mention above), it is still all we have to go on right now. Plus, it shows what the designers' most recent state of mind is.