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!

I don't know if this is sarcastic or serious.

Considering Alpha Quadrant:
1) Fusion
2) Hellbore
3) Disruptor
4) Photon
5) Plasma
6) PPD
+others (WC, PC, ESG, Drones)

By Robert Crapnell (Robc) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 05:11 pm: Edit

No construction manual, please.

Every group that has existed for any length of time will have a manual of their own by now that is probably not perfectly suited to them. Good luck designing a manual perfectly suited to all SFBers!

It could only work if it was used for a whole new parallel SFB UNIVERSE and would require a parallel, "shadow" ADB set up in some bunker someplace to test it for a decade if there was to be any chance of it being anywhere near perfect.

The fact is, Myth#1 is dead on... if it is not perfect its entertainment factor will be limited to how long it would take to nit-pick the rules and find a fatal flaw... or maybe as long as it takes for some munchkin to turn up with the ultimate ship for fighting range 50 duels.

The most essential element of designing ships in SFB ( official or round the dining room table ) is the "gee, that looks about right" factor. That can't be emulated by a rulebook.

I remember a time when I plundered the S11 rules and dreamed of a real construction manuals. But then I came out of puberty and came to my senses. No construction manual, please.

Rob

By Jonathan Perry (Jonathan_Perry) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 05:12 pm: Edit

MYTH ONE
"It doesn't have to be perfect"

You can't do a perfect product. You can only come close.

Don't do it.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 05:53 pm: Edit

I have yet to figure out why someone would not want a construction manual. We have used one for years and have had no real problems with it, the ship just has to be approved by the other players before it can be used (kind of like an optional rule). I completely disagree with Myth 1: I can not imagine a situation where a person would "brow beat" me to allow an optional rule that I felt was unfair. Although there is a very low desire on this board to purchase a starship construction manual, I have met MANY more people who said that they would want one. And as far as Myth 3 is concerned if it is an optional rule it does not have to be allowed, period. The entire group of simulator races, SSJ etc. are optional, yet people purchase them. One of the great strengths of SFB is its history, and the non-historical aspect of created ships should not impact on this.
I disagree with the battletech analogy. Battletech was a fun game, and still is. One of the games great strengths was it's construction system. The great downfall of the game was not the fact that you could make your own mech, it was technologies/storyline/bad business decisions like Steve F. menitoned above, and the advent of really good battletech computer games that in many ways were more fun than the board game.
There are "unofficial" ships all over the place on the net, and an "official" starship construction system would at least provide a basis for all players who would like to make their own ships.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 06:05 pm: Edit

The "Kit-Bash Galaxy" sounds like something fun for an April-ish issue of Captain's Log; sort of an expanded Humor section.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 06:32 pm: Edit

As much as I like designing SSDs, I'm against a ship construction manual. SFB ship design is an art, not purely a mechanical exercise, and a balanced ship in a game as complex as SFB is something than cannot be produced reliably by a rulebook. There is no way to make it perfect, and anything less than perfect is going to cause more trouble than what it is worth. Count me out on this one.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 06:32 pm: Edit

I think a set of guidelines for ship modification would be cool. Something for players to revolve around when comming up with new ideas. Ship construction and BPV is "Top Secret."Isn't it? There is no way I would want to see ADB take a financial risk on revieling what keeps it going. Remember the "Dark Ages" when the DEAL was still pending. Whew! I wouldn't want to go through that again.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Jeremy: I completely disagree with you on the "art" of starship design. Making a unit for SFB is relatively easy, making a perfect BPV is very difficult. Getting the BPV's on existing and playtested technology within +/- 5% or 10% of where they should be is no trouble at all. To further refine it the unit needs to be playtested. Having a system for all players to get the ships within the above limit would not be too difficult, and Loren I would not worry about the "dark ages" returning as the real work resides in playtesting the unit again and again and again.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Loren,

There is no secret formula. BPV is determined by how it playtests and compares against other ships. That's it. There is no formula.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 07:14 pm: Edit

My point about the "art" of SSD design is that the BPV is as much a part of the SSD as the number of warp boxes or arcs of the weapons. I consider them one and the same. An SSD with an inacurrate BPV will cause disputes, BPVs cannot be produced purely by a mathimatical process, and playtesting is required to balance a ship, as everyone seems to agree. I don't see how a manual will achieve that. Its just my impression, but what folks want out of a construction manual is a way to produce/modify ships by changing systems and peroforming a mathematical process to get a new balanced BPV, and I don't believe a set of rules with the scope desired could be written that could achieve it reliably.

This is all just my opinion of course. I've played in groups that use modified ships and enjoy it, but no two of them follow the same process. I've also played with groups that wont touch a non-ADB approved ship with a ten-foot pole. And I've found the two types of groups don't tend to see eye to eye on the subject.

Something like this might be fine for an SSJ type product, but I would really hate to see it become part of the core-SFB. I feel this way even though I design SSDs all the time. Again, just my opinion.

By Peter Wiggen (Ender) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 07:24 pm: Edit

The old rules would be just fine. If there isn't already a ship that gets you 90% to the ship you want, you likely haven't looked hard enough. We just need rules covering the addition of a box or two. Do any of you really believe that all the ships in the game have been playtested adequately? This is not a dig, but I just can't believe even with the help of playtest groups it's possible.

The only way to do it is to have a computer science guru develop an algorithm that compares ships and assigns BPV based on a percent match to some set of nominal, well playtested ship designs. Hmm...anyone want the challenge?

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 07:46 pm: Edit

On the "Construction manual" front, I could see making one. Were I to do so, I'd sit down and make sure you can produce any existing ship but the BVP formula would give then a cost about 20% higher than what they do have. The assumption is that anyone who make an "Optimized" ship (or set of ships) will build them specifically to min/max as much firepower/what ever as they can into the hull. I'm taking a ball park guess that such an optimized ship could compete with a standard SSD of the same BVP and (potentially) have an even fight. If you don't min/max, then you and the other players can sit around and playtest out a reasonable BVP for the ship. I am assuming (yes, I know I shouldn't but I need some basic blocks to work with) that a group that will sit down and make a non-optimized ship is also mature enough to deal with BVPs fairly. Likewise the same groups that will min/max everything will create ships that are almost, but not quite, as good as the base hulls.

If it looks like +20% is too low for this, we can always up it to +25% (or +30%).

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 07:57 pm: Edit

I still think the Kit Bash Galaxy could work. Without to much trouble.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 08:42 pm: Edit

There's how many thousands of ships already published? And how many on the PHD shipyards and similar sites?

I vote NO! on the ship construction manual.

I fail to see the need for one. If you want some weird thing for a one-off fun battle, whip it up and run it by your group. If its a camapaign, the campaign rule should address ship mods (which should basically just be conversions of captured ships). In the former case, the only reason for design rules that give a BPV is to try and convince people to accept it, becuase "the system says it's only 140 BPV!". In the latter, it matters when figuring build costs...but once again, why isn't one of the umpteen zillion ships good enough? Also, as noted, this product has to absolutely perfect, which Id on't think is possible in SFB (especially when you factor Omegan and LMC technologies in). And if it possible to break the design system, any campaign using it breaks.

By scott doty (Kurst) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 09:28 pm: Edit

Alex has made my point: "There's how many thousands of ships already published? And how many on the PHD shipyards and similar sites?"
If an official ship construction manual existed then ALL of the sites could have BPV's that would at least have a common basis, thus increasing playability for those people who want a starship construction manual, and for those who do not they simply do not need to use it.

Loren stated: "Something like this might be fine for an SSJ type product, but I would really hate to see it become part of the core-SFB."
If the product is optional then it would not matter if you did not want to use it, you would not have to, just like SSJ material, any "unofficial" material, the Peladine, PHD shipyard material, simulator ships, etc. If ADB published a starship construction manual at least it would provide a common basis, more accurate BPV's, and be more fair for all of those people who make ships already, and if you look on the net there are LOTS of them!

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Scott>
It would, if they could make the system airtight. If not, then it will have no more credibility than "Here's my GooberCruiser, I think it should be 142 BPV. What do you all think?"

And do we want to give up two or three years of SVC/SPP design time (no CapLogs, R8, Y2, ISC War, EcoWar, Omega 5 or 6...) just to do this one optional product?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 09:35 pm: Edit

I didn't say that Jeremy did. But I agree with him, though I like my campain idea. I rocked! So then, a SSJ campain. Historys history and you can't fooool with mother history.( All right that was dumb.)

By Jonathan McDermott (Caraig) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 10:48 pm: Edit

I know I have a love of nonstandard designs, both studying them and designing them, but I've got to say 'nay' to the construction manual. Now, I like the idea of a 'kitbash universe' manual, something done in the same light as the Campaign manual. You can build *something* like a Fed CA with it, but don't expect it to be considered anything but carrying the stigmata of being 'kitbashed' and about as finely-tuned as a home-made crystal radio set. If you want the pro rig, pro-tuned and tested and solid and offical, go for the R-modules, which is blanced, official. We've already seen with Omega that the SFB "engine" can be adapted to use with other settings.

Again, that being said, I wouldn't want a construction manual for Alpha. I know one thing when I buy an R-module and peruse the ships within: the ships are well-tuned and are consistent. A construction manual blows any concept of a well-tuned, sensible Alpha ship out of the water.

Another couple of things that should be pointed out:
First, if you release a construction manual, all you're really doing is just releasing the BPV formula. No matter how expensive you make a component, it will get used. SOMEONE will make a three-PPD DN with photons in the RPL/LPL mounts, or something equally egregious.
Second, if you release the manual for Alpha, it needs to give someone the ability to build and point out any Alpha ship. I should be able to open it up and come up with a Fed CA right out of the book. That's not likely to happen, so what would need to be done is that every... Alpha ship... would need... to be... redone.

You may commence twitching. But don't send the messenger to the agonizer booth, remember, I'm not for the idea. =) For a kitbash universe, that'd be fine, I think, though there might be munchkin players out there who would love to throw their six-photon FF at any takers. (Said takers would probably start evaporating ere long, actually.)

Actually, I like the thought of a 'mauler dogfighter' with a Janus mount mauler weapon. =)

By scott doty (Kurst) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 01:12 am: Edit

Scott>
It would, if they could make the system airtight. If not, then it will have no more credibility than "Here's my GooberCruiser, I think it should be 142 BPV. What do you all think?"

And do we want to give up two or three years of SVC/SPP design time (no CapLogs, R8, Y2, ISC War, EcoWar, Omega 5 or 6...) just to do this one optional product?

There is no way it would take anywhere near that time to make. A starship construction manual would take no more effort than any other supplement, and probably less than one that has new weapons, systems, etc.

No matter how expensive you make a component, it will get used. SOMEONE will make a three-PPD DN with photons in the RPL/LPL mounts, or something equally egregious.

If the combat value of the unit reflects what it can do what does it matter if it has three PPD's and some photons? The whole point is for a fair fight and if you make a ship that is fair, it should not matter what it is armed with.

should be able to open it up and come up with a Fed CA right out of the book. That's not likely to happen, so what would need to be done is that every... Alpha ship... would need... to be... redone.

It is not too tough to make a system that can come within +/- 5% or 10% of the BPV's found in the game. In some cases (such as your Fed CA) it is really easy, in others, such as Jindarian asteroid ships it may be almost impossible, but the point of a starship construction manual is to have a BASE system to work from, not a perfect system. The BPVs in the game now would not change, and if the system did not equal the BPV of X ship, the listed BPV would be the "official" one as it was playtested and then changed accordingly. I am not advocating a starship construction manual that would make "official" units that players would have to accept no matter what, just a system to give people who want it the ability to make their own SFB units and to have some continuity between groups on how it is done.

Rules for a starship combat system can be made to avoid the most obvious problems (your six photon FF for example) by simply following a shock type rule or having the offending unit be so expensive that it would be fighting CC's. This is not hard to do. The difficult part is not eliminating the "beasts" but figuring out subtle BPV increses/decreases in certain weapon combinations, drone/plasma "proofing" etc. This is where the +/- X% comes into play. If make a ship for 142 BPV, and your opponent looks it over and says fine, then you both know you could be fighting a unit with slightly lower or higher BPV, but at least you know the ballpark figure of the unit, which for SFB shipbuilding would be nice to have, especially if everyone used the same system. The R modules and such would have official, playtested, units, while built ships would not have that luxury and would always be "optional". ANYTHING that increases the options of players and is fun is an asset to the game.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 01:41 am: Edit

Quick note: In my last post,"I rocked" should be "It rocked". Ooops. Re: The campain was really fun.(Last post, April 2 archive)

Mike West: I'm reaching back. Everybody, please excuse me, I've been out of the loop a wile raising my little boy. There was an article by SVC reguarding ship construction. He pointed out that his process for the initial BPV of a ship design would not be revealed. Of corse now we have plenty of examples for us to compair to so we can get close too. And I understand that BPV has to be refined by play testing. SVC wrote this too. But he does have a process and it is a seceret(unless I missed it, and then there would already be a construction manuel).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 01:49 am: Edit

This may seem a little cranky. I realy trying not to be, but....I wish I could play enough SFB to get so board of the ADB ships that I needed a ship constuction manual.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 01:52 am: Edit

A ship modification/construction breaks down in several places.

1) The player constructing the ship has worked out all the tactical implications. The other players will not have the same amount of time to work it through. While this same effect happens every time a new SSD book is issued, it is much more pronounced with ship construction.

2) Adjustments based on synergistic effects. This was where the Commander's Edition S3.3 broke down. A weak system that protects a high-powered system is worth more BPV than the innate system value. A ship with systems discounted because full usage of the system can't happen. Removing a pair of photons from a Fed DD is not worth as much removing the same photons from a Fed CA.

I would prefer the resultant system to always produce suggested BPVs that are in excess of what the BPVs should be. This would compensate for any problems with either surprise or irregularities with the system. (I find the S7.0 draft works fairly well if you double or even triple the BPV cost for added systems.)

I want a ship modification/construction to permit races with few ship choices and limited modifications to catch up with the surprise value of the more popular races. At a given BPV, the Gorns often only have 1 or 2 viable squadron options. The Klingons have about 100 distinct ship classes which can also be adjusted by the value of the drones included. This makes it much easier to derive counters to the Gorns than to the totality of Klingon potential forces.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 02:44 am: Edit

The old ship mod rules from S7.0 and the days of Nexus resulted in our gaming group kicking out a member who would find the extreme corners of the rules and argue to the Nth level that he COULD fly his ship in our weekly game. No thank you to this module – I don't want the anguish that it WILL bring.

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 02:47 am: Edit

Chuck,
Sounds like the kind of person you would not have wanted to play with in the first place. At least it sounds like the kind of person I don't like in any group I'm with. B-)

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - 04:49 am: Edit

It would be nice to be able to make SOME changes to your ship. Race specifik, of course, in order to avoid cookie cutterism.
It could be things like replaceing a ph-1 with two ph-3s, once, on your ship.
Or having a ph-1 replaced by a Pl-D, once. (Rom only probably.) Expanded shuttlebays etc.
By keeping it restricted and designed by ADB it would, hopefully, be kept under control (unlike old S7.0).
Note: These things need to be worthwile to have, IF you think it suits your style, otherwise they will be no more use than concealment panels for weapons.