Idea for shuttlecraft in the bay. This seems a very "Scotty"-type of idea, so it may require legendary engineers to implement? (Or maybe not - depends on opinion of how overpowered it is).

We know a few things about Shuttlcraft:
- They can fire a phaser-3 every turn (for 1/2 pt of power)
- They can move speed 6 every turn (at move cost...pulls something out the air, say 1/12...for 1/2 pt of power)

Clearly, the reactors on the little guys are pretty efficient! At least one point of power per Shuttlecraft in the bay!

Rule: A Legendary Engineer (see above comment), with the assistance of enough deck crews to perform 2 deck crew actions on the shuttle, can convert an administrative shuttle into a power source for the ship by running power cords across the shuttle deck to the shuttle's engines. Due to inefficiencies in this system, only 1/2 of the power generated by the shuttle or fighter can be used by the ship. (The aforementioned admin shuttle, roughly calculated as generating 1 pt of power a turn, could only generate 1/2 pts of power for the ship once 'wired in')*.

(For consideration - perhaps the 1/2 efficiency is what regular crew can get, and a 'legendary engineer' can get the full power out of it?)

Once so modified, the shuttle begins producing power for the ship at the calculated rate in subsequent turns, as 'auxiliary warp reactor' (AWR) power until the shuttle box is destroyed. Removing this modification takes 4 deck crew actions on consecutive turns when power is not generated, which must be performed before the shuttle can be used for other missions.

The shuttle (and its power-generation capabilities) is destroyed if/when the shuttle box it is in is destroyed. Due to the nature of the modifications (lots of power connections running to it), the shuttle is more vulnerable, and hits to the shuttle bay MUST be taken on power-generating shuttles before other boxes in the bay take damage.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 09:40 pm: Edit

How about something about catostrophic damage.

Like the shuttle chain reacts...

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 09:59 pm: Edit

This is so maniacly evil.

I love it.

DEFINITELY should require a Leg Engineer, tho.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 11:49 pm: Edit

It also has the advantage of giving shuttlecraft something to do when the ship is in a nebula (for example).

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 02:57 am: Edit

Dunno if the science works.

Firstly, it's obvious that shuttles are generating more power than they should be. That an Admin shuttle is generating enough power to fire a phaser-3 is crazy enough, when you think about how small it is. But what about Hydran stingers, which have Gatlings?... and have to power movement, as well... at higher speeds than an admin shuttle. There's obviously some handwavium going on here.

Secondly, The shuttle's movement (and presumably, phaser-3) run off the warp engines. And as we know, warp engines produce radiation in considerable amounts when being run. The inside of the shuttle must be shielded; but presumably the outside is not. So you'd wind up flooding your shuttle bay with deadly radiation... Or maybe the warp engines on a shuttle are able to be so small because they're optimised for creating a warp field, NOT generating power.

IIRC theres some rule or other for putting a generator inside a shuttle and using it to run a casual fighter base. Maybe you could talk SVC into allowing this to be done inside a ship, but I doubt it.

Another objection is that adding extra power to a ship is going to be unbalancing, especially on those ships that have huge shuttle bays (Fed GSC, for example). And what about fighters? Could they do this too? I mean, a Hydran Stinger can fire a phaser-G every turn, which costs 1 point of power. Do Hydran Hellbore-armed ships really need a few more points of power? ...When in a nebula, where minimum shields make HBs even deadlier and the Stingers useless?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 03:25 am: Edit

I considered the balance question, but...really...is it that far off?

I mean, yes, a Stinger-2 in the bay would generate a fairly hefty full point of power. BUT...if you were in a cruiser facing a Hydran ship, would you really prefer he have 8 Stinger-2s out there stopping every drone or plasma you shoot at him with endless waves of Phaser-3 fire and threatening to gut you with fusion beams if you get to close to him...

...or just having 8 more points of power, and you can sleep secure in the knowledge that even if he decided he suddenly DID want them back as fighters, it would take him at least 2 turns to do it during which they did nothing beneficial at all?

I think, given the significant value of shuttles as they are (wild weasels, scatterpacks, suicide shuttles, boarding parties, monster research)...giving up ALL of that for a turn to flip the switch "on" and 2 turns to flip the switch "off" (assuming 2 deck crew availables), and only getting 1/2 pt of power (or even a full point!) in exchange seems...well, like a desperation move, really. Not something particularly unbalancing.

For example, even if going for the full-point-of-power-per-shuttle idea, a Constitution-class cruiser with all shuttles wired into the power system only just barely gets a 10% power boost off of them...and it's basically locked down all 4 shuttlecraft for the game. No weasels, no scatter packs, no suicide shuttles, no boarding missions.

That's...a pretty big drawback, no?

(Mike Grafton suggested above the idea that they could chain reaction. Thinking on this, I'd say that would have to be a requirement to prevent carrier skippers from thinking this is a good use of their embarked fighter wing.)

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 03:48 am: Edit

Apollo 13 Odyssey drew power from the lunar module Aquarius to power up prior to re-entry since the service module power cells had been destroyed by the explosion.
regards
Stacy

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Xander Fulton:

I doubt that even a Legendary Engineer could gin this up during a scenario. It would interfere with the limits on the numbers of shuttles prepared for special missions at the start of a scenario. It also forces choices for empires that might use scatter packs, but for the Romulans, Gorns, Tholians, Orions (not using drones), Hydrans, Lyrans (excluding carriers and their escorts), Inter-Stellar Concordium, Lyran Democratic Republic (excluding carriers and their escorts), Seltorians (excluding carriers and their escorts), Jindarians, and Vudar it would become standard use, particularly for the Hydrans and Lyrans, or Tholians and Seltorians, or Hydrans and LDR, or LDR and Lyrans, or Vudar and Hydrans in direct combat with each other where wild weasels are seldom needed.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Let me add this.

The above is just my opinion, not a "drop this it is a dead end". I am NOT trying to close the discussion, only adding my own observations, e.g., "I doubt . . .", not "A Legendary Engineer cannot do this".

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 12:57 pm: Edit

What if, the process disassembled the shuttle? then it couldn't be used during the scenario for any other purpose than generating power for its ship.

I'd suggest it could only be used as part of damage control, and only for internal power consumption uses (life support, shields, tractors, recharging phaser capaciters etc) but couldnt be used for movement, manuvers of any kind etc.

If this is given consideration, I would also throw into the pot the idea that the ship must have lost atleast 50% of its original energy capacity, (say a fed vanilla CA with 30 warp, 4 impulse and no APR... this procedure only possible after 17+ points of damage incurred by the warp and impulse engines.

from a GURPS and Fiction writing point of view, I like this idea... but I am not certain its such a good idea for the game.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 01:00 pm: Edit

I guess, as a matter of opinion, I would happily have a Hydran turn 8 of his fighters into AWRs than send them out to harass my seeking weapons or my hull.

Regarding shuttles - I didn't really get the impression the Hydrans had lots of them. The Gorn obviously do, but...I'd think that trading wild weasels and boarding parties for extra AWR is still limiting. Especially given the follow-up caveat of risking chain reactions with them (granted, less of an issue with the Gorn and their 2-shuttle bays, but still something the captain must consider).

And I think that's the balance against "becomes common use" - I agree, that would be bad. This really ought to only be used in special cases or as a 'last resort' type of plan. But even with pure-DF vs pure-DF races, making this choice means:

- You lose these for boarding party shuttles
- You lose these for suicide shuttles
- You risk chain reactions in your ship if a shuttle hit happens
- You only gain a very small amount of power (1/2 pt per shuttle or 1 pt per shuttle...undecided. Maybe 1/2 pt would be less unbalancing?)

Something Sean mentioned above triggered an idea, too:

---

Quote:

And as we know, warp engines produce radiation in considerable amounts when being run. The inside of the shuttle must be shielded; but presumably the outside is not. So you'd wind up flooding your shuttle bay with deadly radiation...

---

By Matthew Scull (Mscull) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 01:12 pm: Edit

Make it 2 adjacent shuttles, one shuttle will never do it. Make fighters ineligible for this as they have high speed power supplies
That need to be taken down to provide a single point of, call it APS(Auxilary Power Supply).Then give it a Turn Limit before it burns out since it cannot sustain Shipboard Power rates indefinitely.

If you want to restrict it more, then have it only able to recharge batteries. Personally I don't see anything cobbled together in a shuttle bay direct powering anything.

From my point of view shuttle and fighter weapons and engines are equivalents that work from a short term power surge capability.

To Give a modern equivalent we are talking about the little truck at the airport that jump starts the engines of the airplane, sure it provides enough power to start the thing but for long term power it needs to be hooked into a more permanent source.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 02:13 pm: Edit

But keep in mind, we are only talking about a single scenario, not doing this 24/7. Max, what, 30 minutes ship-board time? And during that same time span, the shuttles would otherwise be zipping around in space at speed 6, firing their phaser-3 dozens of times, while running their own onboard systems (providing fire control and life support).

The idea of 2 adjacent shuttles could be interesting, though. Means that many frigates don't get this as an option, solves the "problem" of needing to track fractional power (if each would have provided 1/2 pt, it's easier to just say "2 shuttles required, and you get 1 pt), and 'locks down' shuttlecraft in increments of 2.

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 03:06 pm: Edit

There should be a maximum limit on the number of shuttles configured as power sources, say no more than the number of batteries on the ship, due to limits of the capacity of the ship's power bus.

This would prevent carriers from getting huge power boosts in unusual circumstances.

By Matthew Scull (Mscull) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 05:44 pm: Edit

In the large scale of this no Captain is going to configure all his shuttles for power simply because they have other uses. To limit it furth let us say that a ship cannot configure "2" or "1" depending on how you think it is going to work eventually without having a Shuttle that can be used for Shuttle things. i.e. Transportation, WW, Etc.

This is not something that could be Cobbled together on the Fly but a deliberate attempt at getting a "single" extra point of power at the cost of 1 or 2 useful items.

If you had a 1+1 or a 2+1 Rule you limit the ships that can do it even More.

Limit it to a scenario, Legendary Officer, Or base/FRD only item and you make sure it isn;t used frivolously. You are not talking about 2 deck crews running a few jumper cables into a wall. This is more akin of trying to power your house by running an extension cord from your car in the garage through a power inverted and plugging it into you Breaker box to run your house.

Now how are you going to get to the store?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 06:30 pm: Edit

Might be more useful to simply state that a legendary engineer could only jigger a single shuttle to deliver power. that way there is no question of converting all of the fighters of a carrier to generate power...

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Xander said, "Radiation Saturation of Bay. On turns when the shuttles are generating power (not when they are being connected/disconnected, and not when they are 'plugged in' but the ship elects not to generate power on that turn), the shuttle bay is flooded with warp radiation. No other shuttles in the bay may be prepared for special missions, and shuttle preparations for special missions in progress are interrupted."

I'd also add that this is per bay. A seperate bay where xfers cannot be made, those other bays can function normally.
I'd also say, that the radiation "kills" a crew unit (or deck crew if any) per turn.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Alternate suggestion:

Shuttles may not start the game connected to a ship's power grid. This must be done in-game.

Crippled shuttles may not be used for power.

Shuttles in overcrowded bays may not be connected or disconnected to a ship's power grid.

Shuttles being used for energy must have all DF weapon charges, drones, plasma D/Ks RALADs and and pods removed. (you can keep the chaff pack[s])

Conecting/disconnecting a shuttle to a ship's power grid takes a deck crew 32 impulses to perform and can only be started at the beginning of a turn.

Deck Crews may not perform any actions on shuttles providing power to a ship. Connecting/disconnecting a shuttle is the only thing that can be done to that shuttle regardless of its size. Shuttles may not be prepared for special missions while providing power or being connected/disconnected.

Fighters provide one point of power per shuttle space they take up.

Shuttles provide half this amount.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 11:12 pm: Edit

John - although I did not spell it out, everything you outlined is exactly what I had in mind. Note the actions required I had outlined - 2 deck crews actions to connect (obviously, full 32-impulse turns), 4 to disconnect.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 11:31 pm: Edit

Here's an alternate suggestion that achieves the same purpose but would be simpler to implement. There are things you can buy that replace shuttlecraft, for an appropriate BPV cost. Drogues, cloaked decoys, and web anchor buoys all come to mind. So how about an "auxilliary generator" that replaces a shuttlecraft? You buy this unit as part of your force points and it provides one point of power per turn. I suggest the following limits - only one per bay, and all ships must retain at least one "real" shuttlecraft. So a ship with only one shuttle could not buy an aux generator, and a ship with two shuttles could buy a drogue or an aux generator, but not both.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, October 30, 2009 - 11:39 pm: Edit

Oh, nononono - definitely don't want to go that way. There is just something so deliciously "Scotty" about this idea, I really think it's worth the effort to make it work, IMHO.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 10:57 am: Edit

No. This is an old idea. It's been proposed and rejected before. The engineering won't support it, and they game is NOT going in this direction.