Without a landing capability would PD want it?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, April 04, 2017 - 10:18 pm: Edit

star fleet history says that the "fastesst thing in space" is the Federation Express Courier.

other than the relatively rare fast ships or X ships, isnt the APT the next fastest?

Knowing how much trouble RPG gaming groups can get into, wouldnt having the ability to out run most potential pursuers be attractive to PD?

plus, the APT has an admin shuttle. saves on having to pay planet side docking fees for the whole ship.

the only fly in the ointment is the bottle neck loading and off loading cargo using a admin shuttle at 0.35 cargo box per load.

if there were a prime version of the APT it would lose half its cargo capacity, it would still require multiple trips of the admin shuttle to fully unload or load the ship in orbit.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, April 04, 2017 - 10:23 pm: Edit

Fastest thing in space might be Andromedan ships using the RTN.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 04, 2017 - 10:28 pm: Edit

It is faster than a freighter, no faster than a warship.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, April 04, 2017 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Some monsters are fast.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, April 04, 2017 - 11:35 pm: Edit

Small freighter per GURPs PD iirc had a speed of warp 4.5.
Large freighter per same source warp 5.5.
If a warship and a APT had the same speed (call it warp 6) then the RPG's group would be in a race to see who is faster... might be a chance to use piloting skills to increase speed or maneuver around terrain features...

Given that a free trader maxes out with a tactical speed of 25 hexes per SFBs turn ( I forget what that translates to in warp speed? Perhaps warp 5?) it sounds like a APT might have some tactical advantages over a vanilla freighter.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 02:36 am: Edit

Jeff, tactical speed is Warp-cubed, so 25 hexes is Warp 2.9, not Warp 5.

APT's would have either Aux Warp, capable of Warp 8.5, or maybe Standard Warp, capable of Warp 9.25, depending on which SVC says they have.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 07:11 am: Edit

Garth, GURPs PD has a listing of what warp speeds certain ships are capable of outside of the star fleet battles game system.

These are background information issues.

Plus, you are ignoring what SVC wrote above in his April 4, 2017 10:28 pm post.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Where do you think I pulled those numbers from, Jeff?????? And I'm NOT ignoring what SVC said, but rather confirming it. Standard warships top out at Warp 9.25, whereas freighters can only do Warp 4.5 with no dash-warp mode.


Garth L. Getgen

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 03:54 pm: Edit

My head still hurts. What is all the fuss about APTs?

They are the cheap version of the FedEx ship, yah?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 03:54 pm: Edit

Dang auto correct erased part of my message at 11:35 pm.

Should have double checked.

Yes, SFBs speed of 25 hexes per turn is just under warp 3, not warp five. Dropped a whole sentence.

Point I wanted to make, and which Garth is missing, is that of all the civilian ships available, the APT has a comparative speed advantage over almost all civilian ships.

In fact, depending on what SVC says the APT has, it seems to have a speed comparable to most warships, fast ships and x ships excepted.

That point alone would make RPG players want access to APTs.

Now, if there were a Prime version of the APT with more powerful engines... what government backed RPG spy group wouldn't want one?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 04:21 pm: Edit

I've got to go along with Mike Strain on this one. What is all the fuss about APTs.

I want Superheavy Cruisers for (major) empires other than the Romulans!

I want a Tholian war destroyer that can stand up to the Fed DW or Klingon F5W!

I want a (non-X) cruiser-based Fed A-20F carrier that actually generates enough power to be competent in that role!

I want... I want... I want WARSHIPS, dammit!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

Speed is relative.

Faster speeds burn more fuel.

The fastest speed you need is the speed at which you can disengage by acceleration, and an APT can disengaged in three turns (like a Free Trader or Prime Trader) from Speed 0.

An APT, unlike a Prime Trader, must be moving at least Speed 16 to disengage at the end of Turn #1. This is because it has APRs which provide the housekeeping, which means it is capable of Speed 31 (all six warp plus the one impulse), and if it was moving slower than Speed 16 it could not reach Speed 31, and so would take two turns to escape at any starting speed between Speed 8 and Speed 15. (Double Speed 8 is 16, double speed 16 is 32. Double Speed 15 is 30, so another turn it needed to move at Speed 31.)

A Free Trader can escape at the end of any turn (including Turn #1) if its speed on the previous turn was at least 12.

If you want a good ship to escape in, I suggest the Small Q-ship. If it is moving Speed 7 at the start of the turn, it can disengage by acceleration at the end of the turn (double 7 is 14, and the maximum speed of the ship is 13). Although, like the other ships, when starting from Speed Zero it takes it three turns to escape (Turn #1 goes to Speed 5, Turn #2 Speed 10, and Turn #3 Gone), and it will be (as you can see) much, much easier to overtake during the acceleration periods.

But, as far as a spy ship is concerned, I myself would take a stock Free Trader. Nothing to call attention to my ship, except for the "extra" personnel.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 05:18 pm: Edit

An APT cost 75/20, an FT cost 70/22, the Free Trader has a speed of 23 (with house cost paid).
The FT has twice the cargo, weapons, shields, transporters, and can land on planets.
If I had a choice between the two in a RPG game I would be taking the FT.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 05:34 pm: Edit

Mike Strain,

The FDX is cheaper (70/18) than the APT (75/20).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 07:16 pm: Edit

You know, all of you guys are making good points.

The problem is that sometime, a spy's "cover" gets blown. Doesn't matter ifGarth "super Fed spy of the year" made no mistakes in infiltrating the super secret Klingon research facility on /b{CENSORED} In sector ****. If only his daughter hadn't forwarded the twenty fifth reunion of his star fleet academy graduation... and some one thoughtfully forwarded it to Garths current covert email account by accident.

If Garth is able to make it to his stock Free Trader, he ** might ** be able to evade using sublight evasion. At max speed a stock FT will be caught.

Now if captain KSteve KPetrick of the Klingon security patrol were pursuing the blown spy Getgen's APT that is running flat out at warship speeds...and if KPetrick's were also capable of pursuing at that same speed, the difference in departure times would stay constant as the pursuit is the same speed as the pursuer...

If there were other security ships that could intercept the infamous Garths escape vessel, then all might still be well for captain KPetricks career.

If Garth some how had use of a Federation Express Courier, and assuming it was in good operating condition with the proper fuel... then he could manage the escape and put lots of distance between himself and the relentless captain KPetrick.

Sometimes, the only practical option for a blown cover is a variation of the venerable "get out of Dodge" just as fast as one is able to.

The free trader escape only works so long as no one knows that super spy a Garth is aboard.

Edit

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, April 05, 2017 - 09:09 pm: Edit

I see most of these debates to be more about either, Logistics, or Prime Directive, while they are important to the SFU, they are little more than targets in SFB.

A "PD"ed APT strikes me as more of a unit that a Klingon Paladin type unit might use, many tend to have a narrower focus than Prime Teams, and an APT full of forensic accountants will likely cover a lot of Paladin Teams, but not have room for the wider range of activities that your average Prime Teams get used for.

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 07:35 am: Edit

All ships can land in Federation Commander which what I use with my Prime Directive games if I need a space combat scene. So yes APT variants matter to me but, with Heavy Seekers it is less so.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 07:56 am: Edit

---

Quote:

An APT cost 75/20, an FT cost 70/22, the Free Trader has a speed of 23 (with house cost paid).
The FT has twice the cargo, weapons, shields, transporters, and can land on planets.
If I had a choice between the two in a RPG game I would be taking the FT.

---

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 07:58 am: Edit

Jeff Wile:

Read Steve Petrick post, Speed is relative. (Wednesday April 05, 2017, 05:11 pm)

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 08:32 am: Edit

Wayne Douglas Power:

What part of "all of you guys are making good points" did you not understand.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 10:41 am: Edit

Jeff,
your post on 05 April, 07:16pm, looks like you did not.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 03:43 pm: Edit

"I still cannot fathom why the APT is called the ARMED Priority Transport when it has a single pop-gun, that being the Ph-3."

I've always read that to mean that somewhere out there is the ultimate target, the stock Priority Transport without the Ph-3. (The one with the roof hatch for the crewman in a pressure suit and a rifle...)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Steve Zomboni:

A long time ago the earliest card based damage system for Star Fleet Battles was "Battle Damage: Code Red." One of the cards allowed you to take a point of damage on a boarding party. Since that card made boarding parties legitimate targets to resolve damage on, they would also be used to resolve a damage point when an "any hit" card was drawn. Thus many ship captains (at least in the local group I was in) would purchase as many extra boarding parties as they could (maximum of 14, i.e., 10 boarding parties, plus two commando squads and two heavy weapons squads) simply to use as "armor."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 06, 2017 - 04:28 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

Getting out of dodge from "docked" or "in orbit" is three turns (from orbit) or four turns (from docked, because it takes a turn to "undock"), whether the ship is an APT, Free Trader, Prime Trader, or small Q-ship. With the exception of the Q-ship, the acceleration of the ships is all the same (the Q-ship can accelerate by five or by double). So whether you are in a Free Trader, Prime Trader, or APT, on Turn #1 (from orbit) your speed tops out at 10. On Turn #2 (from orbit) your speed tops out at 20. On Turn #3 (from orbit) you will disengage, either moving at Speed 23 all turn (Free Trader) or Speed 30 all turn (Prime Trader), or Speed 31 all turn (APT). (NOTE: This is all SFB data, Federation Commander has no acceleration limits, so any ship can go from zero to its maximum immediately.)

The big differences are that:

The Free Trader has a 12 box shield the attacker has to get through, and the attacker must then score seven points of warp damage to prevent the ship from escaping. A minimum of 19 points of damage (and more, obviously, since you generally have to get a lot of points of internal damage to get to the warp engines with any consistency).

The Prime Trader has the same 12 shield boxes, but the enemy needs to hit nine warp engines (a minimum of 21 points of internal damage, but note again that more damage is generally needed to really hit the warp engines).

The APT has just five shield boxes, and needs only four warp hits to make escape impossible. In short, as little as nine points of damage will do it (and the 19 points minimum needed to prevent a Free Trader from escaping would cripple an APT). So getting out of dodge in an APT is a lot less likely than it is in a Prime Trader or a Free Trader.

Arriving in an APT just means calling attention to yourself. It is in the title of the ship. "PRIORITY." It would not be here if it was not carrying something that was important.

Prime Traders on clandestine missions try to pretend they are Free Traders, but if they are boarded by anyone planning to do much more than a "papers check," it would become pretty obvious that they are not Free Traders.

So if I really wanted to do something clandestine, I would use a stock free trader.

Yes, I only have three weapons rather than four.

Yes, I only have one shuttle.

Yes, I only have 14 points of generated power rather than 18 points (and two batteries).

But all that means is that I am less likely to be spotted as something other than the innocuous ship I am pretending to be.