"In the old days... " ships used to become sitting hulks when they were destroyed (assuming the then optional self destruction rule was not used). When ships were destroyed they were turned into lifeless floating masses; all systems and crew were dead (save for the last sensor box), and the ship was simply removed from play.

I'd like to propose an optional rule that would reintroduce the "non-exploding" destroyed ship, and instead create somekind of percentile die roll for a ship to explode after its last excess damage box is destroyed.

How this would be done I don't know. After all systems are wiped out on an SSD there's not much left to work with in terms of figureing whether a ship would explode or not based on its damage.

Off the top of my head; 70%-30% for a ship not to explode? That is most ships wouldn't detonate, but a good percentage would still have that chance.

Another thought; how a dead ship would be handled in a campaign is beyond me. 50% salvage value? I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:57 am: Edit

George,
Perhaps the premise you give is an indication that once all internal boxes are gone, what prevents the anti-matter from losing containment? Sure, maybe were using TNG terms here, but realistically, if a nuclear reactor gets seriously damage, isn't there a risk of a melt down?
You could argue that there are two places that can prevent a "melt down" or a breach. Engineering and the control stations. Perhaps one could argue that once all power systems are down and all control stations are destroyed (including the Klingon security stations), a "melt-down" or breach could occur.

And to your second question, I'd say that a wrecked ship could be salvaged at 25% of its value . . . but that is just my opinion.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 03:34 am: Edit

Sure. Whatever reason you want to attach to it I think is fine and valid. The reason I suggested this is I've always thought it a bit melodramatic that every destroyed ship since Expansion Two has gone up in a ball of flame.

I've always felt and believed that a destroyed vessel might explode under certain conditions, but I don't think the game structure really lends itself to the kind of detail that would delineate why one ship exploded and another did not. Which is why I thought it might be neat if maybe there might be some way (a die roll perhaps) to determine whether or not a ship explodes when destroyed as an optional rule.

Giving it more thought I think this would be an interesting route to go to perhaps reintroduce the "old" explosion rules to "explode the superstack" so to speak (with perhaps some special rule for Andros to keep a Dominator from wiping out a map). Note: I'm not for reintroducing the old explosion rules, I'm just saying it might be fun to play with using this rule.

As to the hard SFB physics one could say that a huge jet of plasma vented all the ship's energy, preventing it from exploding during the final volley. Or perhaps the ship's power reserves were all discharged when it met the charge of the phaser blast or somesuch.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:07 am: Edit

George

Well, if you are going to make it a chance that some shisp do not explode, you could always make it more exciting by reintroducing a chance that the ship could explode like they did in the old rules....

(..twitch, twitch... How much did DOMs go up for? 120 or more if PAs full? - 30 at 3 hexes?)

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 08:36 am: Edit

Returning to big explosions whould certainly help get rid of superstacks. Something would need to be done about self-distruction abuse. Maybe use the new rules for self distruction explosions because (insert technobabble here - maybe the SD system designers assumed that there might be escape pods floating around and are attempting to avoid destroying them).

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 10:13 am: Edit

Self destruction rules are already pretty restrictive. A number of times, I wanted to but didn't meet the guidelines.

By Douglass E. Howard (Doug_Howard) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 12:12 pm: Edit

How about something like:

Explosion:
On a roll of 6 or less on a 6 sided die the unit explodes. Add the number of non-flag bridge control stations to the roll at the option of the controlling player*. Should the unit not explode it becomes an inert powerless vessel with a potentially reduced crew. Roll 1 six sided die, subtract the current damage control rating. The resulting number dived by six is is the percentage of crew units killed by the reactor dump. A modified roll equal to or less than zero means no additional crew units are killed.
Mark all remaining (if any) warp power boxes as destroyed with a dot. They do not need repaired, using repair rules, just repowered.

The hulk:
A nondestroyed Unit may be recovered, used as a landing platforms for shuttles and fighters (if capable of recieving such units) etc by either side in the scenario. It may be boarded and fought for. Surviving crew units/bps are in environmental suits, the rest weren't quick enough. Control and security stations do not give bp combat bonuses unless at least one point of power is present/restored.

Repair:
Should the crew survive they may attempt to repair anything except warp power systems using the normal repair rules. Should the repair capacity be destroyed or used up then the original damage control status may be used to repair one impulse system box.

Disengagement:
The hulk may not disengage by itself unless it has at least one impulse engine system box. It may be towed for disengagement by distance.

Further destruction/self-destruction:
The unit, should it become a lifeless hulk, cannot explode from further fire. The Unit may self destruct if Orion or Romulan. All other races may self destruct their hulk Unit if they have at least one t-bomb or mine on board. The non-Orion/non-Romulan unit must roll to prevent self-destruction** when attempting to do so.

Docking and repair:
The hulk may be docked with and lent power for any purpose except that warp boxes marked inert do not go active as the warp system was dumped. Note that all restrictions on docked units apply.

If a unit with repair capacity docks with the hulk it may make normal repairs. Repairing inert warp*** costs activation of the same cost of repair in a scenario. If the hulk is alone and crewed after the scenario the non-destroyed warp is repaired automtically and the followingisused for campaign repairs: 1/4 of all individual systems (minimum 1 each) are repaired. 2/3 of each power system type is repaired, including warp. No further repairs are possible under any circumstance or rule until the Unit is overhauled at a Starbase or FRD. A size class 4 or smaller hulk may be overhauled at a BATS or by spending one campaign turn docked with a repair ship.

*Legendary Officers and crew status do affect both the roll to not explode and for casualties.

**Eitherthe command is not given or the t-bombs/mines are not found or cannot be used etc.

***A very few units/circumstances may have warp capability remaining after reaching explosion point such as failure to seperate a boom with offline engines etc. For the vast majority there will be no warp left on a hulk.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Doug; that's interesting. My thought, and it's just my opinion, is that when a ship is destroyed it can't do anything; all systems are destroyed and all crew is dead. The only difference is that it wouldn't explode: Rather said ship would have a minor chance to explode, but would not be mandated to do so. It would turn into a lifeless hulk, and wouldn't explode no matter how many shots you pumped into it. You may be onto something with the control space modifier.

Off the top of my head; maybe it's a two die roll? Maybe said ship explodes on a 2, 3, 11, 12? I'm not sure, 'just tossing out ideas here.

By Douglass E. Howard (Doug_Howard) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:23 pm: Edit

I've always thought it was that the antimatter containment feild dropped that caused the explosion or that the warp created to move the ship went uncontrolled or (pick favorite technobabble reason) something.

Perhaps the undestroyed non-flag control boxes addition to the dieroll should be mandatory? I left it as optional in that some Captains might elect to let the ship blow rather than face possible capture. In a squadron/fleet fightaship that becomes a hulk might become a battle all in itself as a DN Captain might think to save the ship and the Admiral etc... really I can't think of any reason that any commander would let the ship blowup except situations of eminent capture after getting hulked...

Even a lifeless hulk could potentially be shot to bits... if you can devastate planets and breakup asteroids I think we could shred the remainder of the hull some as well... maybe all the excess damage hits (for a hulk) would represent systems that are permanently blown off the ship... Like put an X in the box for the volley that hulks the ship after finishing rolling it out altogether. Take all the excess hits and roll them again filling/coloring in the boxes hit totally without skipping underlined DAC hits (ie keep hitting the bold underlined system until it's totally gone) should the excess damage be reached again in this manner then the unit is just a bunch of space debris floating through space, the only part of which is recoverable would be some of crew floating around in suits... roll again for crew like the first time using the current damage control rating when the ship is finished off a second time around.

By Douglass E. Howard (Doug_Howard) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:26 pm: Edit

Systems totally blown off, colored in after being X'ed, could not be replaced by any form of self repair and cost double the listed value to repair by repair equipped units.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:20 pm: Edit

Even a lifeless hulk would have some survivers, be thay in escape pods or trapped in various places on a ship. If left unattended the rest would eventually die but some sort of points could be awarded for recovering survivers (recovered by either side).

Scan the hulk for one turn and roll a die for the number of crew units worth of people still alive. These units cannot be formed into usable units but are casualties and only account for victory points (1 per).

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Loren; possibly. From what I recall the original rule said that all crew on a destroyed ship were considered dead. Maybe there's a chance for survivors. Maybe that's another die roll?

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:36 pm: Edit

David Slatter (Davidas); some old high school gamers I knew years back tell of an Andro ship wiping out an untouched Kzinti SSCS many hexes away when it went up. How true that is and what Andro ships they were flying I have no idea, but it makes for a great story. I think said Dominator had more than one full power modual in its bay when it detonated, but I don't for sure (it's not my story).

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 01:25 am: Edit

I had a Lyran DN crippled and a Lyran CA all but destroyed in a battle with a much smaller Andro force when I destroyed the satelite ships (which didn't even get to fire.) It took about 2 hours to resolve one fire impulse as a firestorm measuring approxiamately 35x15 took place (I had about 30 PFs die in explosions too).

The old explosion strengths themselves weren't that bad, it was the PA panels and unfired Plasma adding in that made them ridiculous. My plasma can impact for 50 or if I blow my ship up it will do 50 to everthing within a hex, and 12 to everthing at 4 hexes.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 03:42 am: Edit

Feel a cold coming on. Crap.

I'd like to call this potential optional rule "Passive Ship Destruction."

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 06:38 am: Edit

1) A dead hulk would have no power to it's structural itegirty feild and thus a hot of 1 point of damage would destroy about 1000 SSD boxes worth of stuff.

2) If a ship looses everything that generate power and all weapons and indeed has nothing but a few scanner, sensor, DamCon and excess damage Boxes, it is a dead hulk in space.
Sure, it's crew could bring her back from the dead, but she's basically ripe for the boarding, just like a dead hulk.


A) I would commend simply upping the number of CUs and BPs killed by hits to the Excess Damage boxes.
That is that when those boxes are hit the crew are sucked out into space and die.
1D3 CUs and a 1D6 BPs per box should do nicely.
You could even have a Die roll, modified like catestrophic damage for 1D6 BPs and 3D6 CUs in the area to get to escape pods. With a penalty if more than one Excess Damage box is hit ( if everybody in your area is running for the escape pods, then their's less likelyhood you'll get in one ).

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 02:44 pm: Edit

Ya lost me here. Classic Trek ships don't have SIFs... do they?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 06:27 pm: Edit

George: Well, it is never mentioned in any of the shows but I believe it is mentioned that they do or later it is just a standard system for holding ships together. Inertial Dampeners were later explained this way too. (they keep the crew from splattering against the walls when the ship accelerates at 500G).

SFU ships all have SIFs but they aren't anything more special that tritanium plating. It is a basic componant of Starship design. However, I disagree with MJC that a ship with an unpowered SIF would see one point as a thousand. Other things that clearly don't have SIF don't face that sort of conversion so there is no pecidence for that assumption. To say there is no power anywhere, even though all SSD boxes are destroyed, is also an assumption as there is some presidence that individual systems store and/or maintain their own power to a degree (emergency lights are probably self powered individual systems not connected to the ship systems).

A ships SIF might have emergency power storage as part of Emergency Life Support; which requires no SFB level power but obviously uses some sort of power for air cerculation and heating and gravity and the Inertial Dampening systems. (IDS is probably part of the SIF system)

I think it is assumed that when the ship takes an additional damage point to Excess after the last Anti-Matter containment is lost and the ship explodes.

However...

A ship that has ejected its Warp probably ejected it A-M and might not explode. Perhaps one could say the resulting ship could take another amount of damage equal to its entire Excess Damage track before it is reduced to small bits and pieces and there may be survivors up to that point.

So, in order to preserve some remaining lives a Captain on a ship that has taken Excess damage hits can order the Warp Engines dropped. The ship is considered destroyed normally except it wont explode with the last excess damage point. That player is awarded a small bit of victory points even though the opponant is still awarded the points for destroying the ship. Lifeless Hulks are of no capture value and no further victory points can be gained. The order to drop Warp Engines and A-M cannot be given as a result of Catastrophic Damage (use those rules instead). Note that players use dropping engines rules normally. The above is about what happens after.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 08:09 pm: Edit

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Quote:

However, I disagree with MJC that a ship with an unpowered SIF would see one point as a thousand.

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Quote:

So, in order to preserve some remaining lives a Captain on a ship that has taken Excess damage hits can order the Warp Engines dropped. The ship is considered destroyed normally except it wont explode with the last excess damage point. That player is awarded a small bit of victory points even though the opponant is still awarded the points for destroying the ship. Lifeless Hulks are of no capture value and no further victory points can be gained. The order to drop Warp Engines and A-M cannot be given as a result of Catastrophic Damage (use those rules instead). Note that players use dropping engines rules normally. The above is about what happens after.

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By Seth Iniguez (Sutehk) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 03:17 pm: Edit

I disagree that lifeless hulks have no capture value. I thought that the main reason capture is worth so much more than the value of the ship, is that it presents the opportunity for an enemy to evaluate technical and intelligence data from the vessel. Dropping the warp engines shouldn't really have that much of an effect on this value.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Seth: The Lifeless Hulk as defined by the rule stated. The intention is to not curcomvent the victory points one would normally get from blowing the ship up. So you still get VPs but no additional VPs for boarding a ship that has more damage than excess hits.

Indeed, in a campain there might be some salvage value but no real intel value (simple scans would provide more information than a lifeless hulk).

By Jay Paulson (Etjake) on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 01:30 am: Edit

You might say any damage to a lifeless ship is applied directly to excess damage.

By Douglass E. Howard (Doug_Howard) on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:18 pm: Edit

I was under the impression that the integrity of the ship's SIF would be maintained at zero power as a built in safety net, like dampeners and emergency lights etc.

Given that here is a condensed/revised version of the above:

There is a chance that the Captain, or someone, may succesfully jettison the engine core before it explodes, saving the ship and crew from immediate destruction.

Final Destruction Roll
Explosion Roll:
When the last excess damage roll is taken on a unit roll one sixed sided die. Add to the roll the number of current non-flag bridge control stations to the roll. On a roll of 6 or less on a 6 sided die the unit explodes normally. Should the unit not explode it becomes an inert powerless vessel with a potentially reduced crew.
L.O. and crew status affect the roll for explosion normally.

Survivors:
Take the modified roll for explosion and divide by 6. Apply this as a percentage of crew units killed after assessing casualties normally for the total damage given. Treat any result of zero or less as 1. Round up after dividing.

The Hulk
Further damage:
Remaining, if any, and any further damage is applied as a new set of rolls on the DAC. All systems may be damaged once only a second time in this manner and are considered blown off the ship and permanently gone until the ship undergoes repairs at a facility/by a repair ship. Completely fill in the systems box for each hit, whether X'ed already or not, damaged at this point. Treat bold underline results as if they were not bold underlined. When the very last box is filled in the keel breaks and the unit is gone.

Operation:
A nondestroyed Unit may be recovered, used as a landing platforms for shuttles and fighters (if capable of recieving such units) etc by either side in the scenario. It may be boarded and fought for and repaired normally using self repair. Control and security stations do not give bp combat bonuses unless at least one point of power is present/restored.

Repair
Should the crew survive they may attempt to repair anything except warp power systems using the normal repair rules. Should the repair capacity be destroyed or used up then the original damage control status may be used to repair one impulse system box.

Disengagement
The hulked unit may not disengage by itself unless it has at least one impulse engine system box. It may be disengaged by distance or towed away.

Further destruction/self-destruction
The hulked unit cannot explode from further fire. The Unit may self destruct if Orion or Romulan. All other races may self destruct their hulked unit if they have at least one t-bomb or mine on board. The non-Orion/non-Romulan unit must roll to prevent self-destruction when attempting to do so as the method may have been rendered inoperable.

Docking and repair
The hulked unit may be docked with and lent power for any purpose.

If a unit with repair capacity docks with the hulk it may make normal repairs. If the hulk is alone and crewed after the scenario the following is used for campaign repairs: 1/4 of all individual systems (minimum 1 each) are repaired. 2/3 of each power system type is repaired, including warp. Count blown off boxes for calculation. Blown off systems may not be repaired except that one box of each of the following may be restored if all have been blown off: control station, impulse, one warp. No further repairs are possible under any circumstance or rule until the unit is overhauled at a Starbase or FRD. A size class 4 or smaller hulk may be overhauled at a BATS or by spending one campaign turn docked with a repair ship.
The hulked unit is worth a % of the original economic bpv based on number of system boxes totally blownoff/original number of system boxes for scrap or may be built on to reduce the cost of a "new" unit.

Victory points
A unit that is detroyed but does not explode counts normally for bpv victory conditions except that only the final economic value is applied, as an addition to the destroyed value, if the unit is captured. This represents the extreme damage done to the vessel.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:26 pm: Edit

SIF; rumaging through my memory here, I seem to recall that Ship Integrity Fields were first suggested by a book called the "Star Trek Chronology." The concept was in reference to future starship designs whose hulls would not be held together by welds nor the sturtiness of the metal, but rather a field generated by the ship itself.

If I recall correctly this book is off limits to SFB for a number of reasons, and probably the SIF concept.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 01:08 pm: Edit

Structuaral Integrity FIelds already exsist in SFB. They are a basic componant of ship design.