You guys have wanted this thing, so I'm going to give you a place to discuss it.

By Peter Wiggen (Ender) on Monday, April 01, 2002 - 09:30 pm: Edit

What about re-writing some rules (and including them in CL24) that allow for minimal ship modifications? Many game systems allow for this and I think it would greatly enhance the appeal for the game. I know Bruce Graw wrote some sort of rules-set, but is that official? This has been proposed before so I thought it might fit in this thread.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 01, 2002 - 11:36 pm: Edit

Ship modifications are not "minimal" by any means. That's an entire product, and is so hard to do that we simply don't want to bother trying. If it's not PERFECT it will cause more fist fights than we can afford.

By Peter Wiggen (Ender) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 12:01 pm: Edit

I think the reason a ship mod manual is so hard is because we think it needs to be perfect. I see nothing wrong with making modifications optional and forcing all players to agree to a given modification. That way, who cares if it's not perfect. It may not always be balanced but it would be fun. It's not like all the ships in game or the rules now used are well-balanced. How many tons of addenda have there been since Designer's edition? Let players worry about their own "Frankenstein's monsters". This is just my opinion, but I believe a ship mod manual makes less money because SSD books would become obsolete. For instance, why do we need a "sanctioned" SSD to convert a Fed CA to Klingon tech?

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 12:54 pm: Edit

For quick and dirty Frakensteining, I just treat a ships heavy weapons as Orion Option mounts, leaving the arcs, etc the same, and swapping out whatever's there for new weapons or whatever, and adjusting BPV as needed, according to the option mount values. Hmm. Must remember to try out that F-CA with 4 Disruptor-30s some time.

Er. To stay somewhat on topic... would there be a need for a Gorn/Rom-Rom/Gorn Anarchist. They're such similar ships that besides adding/removing cloak there wouldn't seem to much difference, besides for surprise value in special scenarios?

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 01:35 pm: Edit

I too would love to see an "official" starship construction manual printed by ADB. My group has been using an unofficial set of rules for many years and we have had few problems with units created by them. I agree with Peter in that a construction manual does not have to be perfect to be useful, simply adding a disclaimer that units made with the manual are "unofficial" and that the BPV's may be off, say within +/- 5% of where they should be, would be fine. Make the rules optional and no one could complain, but there would be a central system available for those who wish to use it. I personally feel that an "official" starship construction manual would be a top seller for ADB as everyone I know who plays SFB would love to have one.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:04 pm: Edit

There's a problem with marketing an official starship construction manual, and that problem can be seen by looking at another tactical wargame, Battletech.

Battletech has quite a few books that are, in essense, equivalent to SSD books. They contain a multitude of mechs, vehicles, aircraft, etc. They also tend to sell rather poorly, because Battletech also has a very detailed set of rules for designing your own mech/vehicle/aircraft. A lot of Battletech players -- myself included -- have little interest in the various sourcebooks, because we simply whip up our own designs that cater to our favored play styles.

Star Fleet Battles, on the other hand, does rather well at selling such things as the R-modules. Were ADB to release a starship construction manual, I could easily forsee a rather drastic decrease in the number of R-modules sold. Yes, a number of us diehards would still get them -- SFB is one of the very few things on my "buy at least one of everything" list -- but a lot of folks would shun the R-modules entirely in favor of designing their own ships, ones that are tweaked out just the way they want them...and with the depth of detail in SFB, trying to control just how "twinkie" said tweaking could get would be much more difficult that it is in Battletech (and believe me when I tell you that you can create some darned twinkie mechs in Battletech).

I like the R-modules, and don't want to see them dry up due to lack of demand. I don't like ultra-twinkie min/maxed units. And as such, I'd prefer that a starship construction manual remain on the "do not publish" list.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:20 pm: Edit

I agree that a construct-from-scratch system would be a bad idea (I vaguely remember SFB having rules for that, sort of in a very old edition. I don't have my copy of that rule set anymore at any rate.), but a system for making minor alterations (however that could be defined) would be nice.

Unfortunately I suspect that most of the BPVs in SFB are set by playtest rather than a formula (though ADB may have some base formula that they use and then tweak based on testing), so you can't really say that a certain modification is worth a definite amount of points.

As I mentioned before, maybe something akin to how option mounts are handled?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:21 pm: Edit

MYTH ONE
"It doesn't have to be perfect"
Yes, it has to be perfect, because players WILL browbeat or coax their gaming buddies into using it, and someone will find a loophole, a glitch, a quirk, and produce an unbeatable ship. If you agree to use the ship mod rules, what happens when you arrive for the game to find that Fred found this loophole. Now, you have two choices. Play a scenario you cannot win, or tell Fred he cannot use his ship. Fred is going to say "you agreed to use the rules, this ship is legal under the rules" and someone is going to get hurt (physically or just their feelings, neither is good for business).

MYTH TWO
"Everybody wants it"
Wrong. As we have seen in this topic, there are people (at least half of the population) who do NOT want this product. They not only do not want to buy it, they do not want YOU to be able to buy it. Why? See Myth One above.

MYTH THREE
"Just include a disclaimer"
See Myth One. You spent all week designing a modified ship. You found a loophole. You know you're going to win. You get there are people say "according to the disclaimer, we can vote to reject your ship." At which point, why did you spend your money on this product?

By Ryan Peck (Trex) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:24 pm: Edit

'There's a problem with marketing an official starship construction manual, and that problem can be seen by looking at another tactical wargame, Battletech. '

Jess, you took the words right out of my mouth. Printing the Mech design rules was the biggest mistake FASA made, and caused this game to sink like Leonard DiCappiro on the Titanic. Once somebody starts to tinker with the ship designs, they will min\max all the ships. There will no ships flying that aren't tweaked out to the max. Somebody will figure out that Weapon X is the most effieceint weapon in the game, and find ways to mount them all over the place. I saw it happen in Battletech all the time (anyone else remember those 55 tonners with 6/9 move, and 12 ER Medium Lasers.)

Sorry I will not buy this book

By Greg Ernest (Grege) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Doing this product would be a mistake, IMHO.

It would be like doing a ship construction manual for a WWII naval game.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 02:35 pm: Edit

Another great example of what Jessica and Ryan are talking about was Car Wars, which basically collapsed under its own weight.

If there is a starship construction manual, you have basically created a new game that simply uses the SFB mechanics.

If you reintroduce ship modifications, you destroy game balance.

I just think those are doors that ADB shouldn't open.

By mike mendick (Mikey2) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:08 pm: Edit

I also agree that the old ship mods were frustrating, in particular to newbies (as I was in ~1990) many the game I said "what the heck is THAT?" (boom)

That said, at that time I came up with some limited mod rules which made mods VERY expensive, but still conceivably usable. I'll see if I can dredge them. or maybe not. not sure If I wan't this product if it allows to much cheese.

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Put me in the "Do Not Publish" category.

People who want to design their own starship can do so already.

Play groups that want to permit ship modifications in their play group, with the caveat that everybody must agree the ship is OK, can do so today.

The only reason for such a product to exist would be to lend credibility to a player-designed ship.

---

Quote:

You found a loophole. You know you're going to win.

---

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:16 pm: Edit

In general I would be against a ship construction manual for the existing races of the game, for many of the reasons stated above.

But,

Here's a wacky idea.

The Delta Galaxy.

(delta meaning change)

Create a new area of space (ala Omega or Magellanic), somewhat like the proposed Sargasso sector in its modifiability, with all new systems, weapons, technology, etc... Have a ship construction system that applies to that sector, but makes no mention of existing game sectors, this new area basically doesn't interact with the existing areas (at least officially, people who want to will mix anyway, but at their own risk). Perhaps there is some quirk of ship design philosophy or racial thinking that promotes many different ship designs in this area of space.

For example there could be one powerful trading race (that has little to no concept of the Prime Directive) that goes around selling empty starship hulls of different sizes to the many lesser races, who then outfit them with weapons and equipment for whatever they purchased the hull for. "Oh, you're a prewarp society eh? Then you'll want the stock warp drive units as well with that starship hull purchase, only an extra 5 million gallons of water from your oceans..."

You would need to create several new "stock" weapons (although existing weapons could be used I suppose) and pieces of equipment (stock engines as well?) that these new races would have access to, perhaps some weapons that only certain races have.

Such a construction system could be interesting and new, as there is no need to conform to existing designs, i.e. there is no need for such a system to accurately produce a Fed CA or Klingon D7 or Trobrin Bolt Cruiser. You could have every system bring with it a "defect" or other problem in addition to any nominal cost. A size X hull starts with X shield boxes, every phaser added subtracts 2 shield boxes of your choice. Shield generator module adds 5 shield boxes to every shield but you must increase your breakdown rating. Those are just random thoughts...

Could be interesting, people get to create new races to be published in such a module, (and could even create their very own race with it's own ship designs) and this way everybody who wants to play with official, player designed ships can play in their own sector, with it's own inherant rules and background and reasoning behind things, where their opponents have the same ability to try to come up with that killer design, and it wouldn't affect the existing sectors. There are those who ignore Omega sector quite successfully, for example.

You don't need much in the way of additional expansion modules if the whole thing is self contained enough when first done. Maybe the occasional page or two in Captain's Log.

And then if the whole system collapses under its own weight as some predict, you only took out one expansion module, not the entire game system.

Nick

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:18 pm: Edit

Ooh, remember the Retief story about the planet where there were all of these body parts laying around and they sort of connected together to form more complex and smarter life forms? We could have a galaxy strewn with the wreckage of a previous war and the "new generation of races" doesn't build ships so much as kit bash them out of wreckage.

By John F. Reaves III (Jreaves) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Put me in the "Do not publish" camp.

Battletech was a disaster.

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:31 pm: Edit

That's a cool idea (bits of wreckage->usable ships). I like Nicks idea.

Otherwise - no interest in this kind of product for the Alphans.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:32 pm: Edit

The Lumbagans, they were called, if I recall correctly. The first Retief story I read and got me hooked.

I actually think that'd be a cool idea! Sort of modular ship construction (you can combine parts a, c, and k, but you can't fiddle with them, and they all come with good points and bad points.)

(As for Battletech, they had design rules in from the get-go and the system lasted over 15 years. I'd attribute its downfall to unwise expansion of technologies/storyline/bad business decisions more than anything else.)

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Exactly, since it is not the alpha sector, if you have powerful weapons like the photon or hellbore and PPD, you may combine them on the same ship, but there will be some weird non-alpha side effect like shock damage or limited firing arcs, or some other detrimental effect still to be thought up.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:42 pm: Edit

Oooh, and I thought of something else. You come up with rules for about 10 direct fire weapons. You include six kinds of weapons in the "mix of parts". Then you get to read the rule for the weapons you picked (randomly selected) AFTER you build your ship!

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:53 pm: Edit

Or the Powerful Trading Race sells the lower tech player race hellbores and PPDs, and conveniently forgets to mention they don't combine well (the afore mentioned balancing side effect)...

"Well, we'll just be on our way now, pleasure doing business with you. Oh, by the way, you aren't planning on putting those two weapons on the same ship are you... Why? Oh nothing, never mind."

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:57 pm: Edit

SVC: Nicks idea is the right way to go if you do this at all.I Would not buy this as part of the regular SFB universe. And i definetly fall into the buy everything category. Frankly I already modify existing ships with my own rules. But they are definetly not something i would make "Official" Except as new SSD's that have gone through the wringer, of playtest approval. Most of them are 1 time ships JFF. And most of my modifications are along the 'Brothers of the Anarchist' line anyway. I would'nt mind helping playtest something along the lines of Nicks idea if you decide to research it. To see if it can be done.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:58 pm: Edit

So you have something like:

Option A: Big DF Weapon (3 types)
Option B: Secondary DF Weapons (4 types)
Option C: Special Systems (3 types).
Option D: Big Seeking Weapons (4 Types)
Option E: Little Seeking Weapons (3 types)
Option F: Defensive Systems (5 types)

You build a cruiser with 4 A's, 6 B's, and an F. Then find out exactly what you ended up with?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 03:59 pm: Edit

O.K. I'll write about that crazy campain that some buddys and I played, ending in that 4 day assault on Star Fleet Headquarters, here.

Back in the days of the old ship modification rules we put together a semi-role playing SFB campain that was very fun and we still talk about it to this day.(15+ years later!)

The premise: Two Captains, one Klingon (Al), One Romulan(Dwight), go rogue. I, the game ref, set up scenarios for them to play. If they capture a ship they can steal weapons and modify their own ships(using the ship modification rule of the time) with up to 10% of what they captured. Another 50% of what was left could be sold for BPV to buy comanders options. Al had a KBT with two extra Disruptors, some extra power, all P2 to P1 and running lights that strobed across the engines as the disruptors fired. Dwight had A Romulan Mauler with some X-Batterys and couple plasma Fs and a mouth that opened the impulse before the mauler fired. Oh ya, The mauler could fire out the butt. I presented them with all kinds of scarry re-designs and expeiraments. The campain ran about 8 or 10 scenarios over several months. Of course you could have an unlimited run.

My point is that it was all apart of a campain that every one was aparty to. Surprises were welcome. Sick stuff was the call of the day. And it got it out of our systems. So, a campain is just the place for ship mods. Its creates a ship mod universe and keeps ship mods out of the regular game. I say republish the Ship Modification Rules in a Campain Scenario. Jeez, I coulda just said that!