It's all magic, I tell ya.

And Photon Torpedoes? Fireballs! The definition of a Fireball in D&D is "a pea-shaped dot of flame that streaks out to the target, and then unloads a whole lotta hurt" (or something to that effect). Sounds to me what a photon looks like in the later films, and a burnt out SSD looks like a fireball hit it.

But enough of this nonsense! Let's talk about something important! How would one go about converting SFB ships to D&D stats? I'm thinking a phaser 1 would be a longbow with those D8 arrows, phaser 2 would be shortbow (D6), and phaser 3 would be darts (d3). From there I'm stumped, unless I resort to magic for the heavy weapons. What you all think?

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 04:57 pm: Edit

Piotr: I'm fully in support of using GURPS Magic system, the only reason I used D20 is because that's the only PNP magic system I'm familiar with. I'll put it on my wish list.

Kevin: Try this for the photons:

Splash weapons! Seems to fit the bill rather well.

As for Fusion Beams, you could use a modified Dragon's Breath weapon.

Mauler's are obvious: Agannazar's schorcher(sp).

Disruptors are Melf's Acid/Fire Arrows

Drones are Summon Monster

TR Beams are Holy Strike(not sure about that title)

PPD's could be Chain Lightning.

Everybody: I'm not trying to make magic a Munchkin/Cheese weapon, all I'm trying to do is add a weapon with a different feel to the game.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 07:59 pm: Edit

Will we have speed 48 flaming pinatas (or whatever they're called)?

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 01:45 pm: Edit

So, with the magic weapons you wouldn't allocate energy to the weapons, but you'd have to have a certain number of crew units busily doing the rituals? Would you have checkoff boxes for material components used up in the spell? Would you need some sort of special rule to keep track of the virgins available for sacrafice?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 02:03 pm: Edit

No!!!

Don't hit the cargo hold with Wolvesbane and Garlic!!

It'll kill our Vampire Boarding Parties

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 03:02 pm: Edit

Magic in SFB?

Like the Souldra (SOUL DRAiners) who have to suck "life energy" out of crew units to regenerate their shields...by docking a shuttle to the hull of an enemy ship through a down shield.

And who look like remarkably stylized Shadow ships from B5...adding two pages of special rules to remember to use them.

And they're opposed by the Loryill. The Good Space Fairies who fly around on their Magic Phaser Armed Butterflies, throwing Fireballs. And have the Singers as their allies, using sonic weapons in space.

Bleargh.

There are plenty of ways to add new feel to SFB; few of them involve weapons. The question becomes "Does it add enough play value to make up for the added rules overhead?"

The first and foremost is to make sure the race has interesting politics and relations with their likely opponents.

I've designed 5 or 6 new races for SFB, with new and different technologies, and was the executive developer of Omega.

Some guidelines:

1) If you can't summarize what the gizmo does in 3 paragraphs, it needs re-thinking.

2) Because of shield reinforcement and maneuver rates, trying to make a weapon that cycles faster than a disruptor generally isn't a good idea.

3) When balancing a weapon, remember the rules of 2 and 7.

The rule of 2: Most heavy weapons should generate about 2 points of damage per point of energy put into them. The primary exceptions to this are very short ranged (ESG, fusion beam) or have other restrictions (PPDs, TRHs). At no point should your weapon give better than about 3.5:1, and even then, if it does that it should be severely limited in short range.

The rule of 7: Over the course of 7 turns, your weapon should put out average damage within 10% of a photon torpedo or disruptor. This is your throughput rate.

This is all covered in more detail in CL19 in an article I wrote there.

Varying from these parameters too far results in weapons nobody will use (Particle Cannon on the Selt) or that nobody will LET you use (WRGs on the Jindos).

If you're making a phaser-analog, the power to damage ration shifts from 2:1 to about 3:1 inside of range 6. If you're going to give a phaser analog some sort of advantage, it should have a compensatory disadvantage. (Lasers in the LMC damage plasma at 3:1, and for the most part, have damages that peak at lower numbers -- comparable to a phaser 2 rather than a phaser 1. They also have a longer effective range and a shorter maximum range. It took a lot of testing and poking at numbers to make them fit.

4) Seeking weapons are a good thing. They influence maneuver, which is the heart of the game.

5) Doing funky things with maneuver is a hazardous proposition.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 05:41 pm: Edit

John: No, I would not have the crew casting spells, I read somewhere that it takes four crew units to operate a starship, and I'm not comfortable with adding to that minimum. The computer would take care of all things required, much like the computer takes care of the energy allocation and charging of a phaser, all it is waiting on is the captain to give the word to fire. What I'm envisioning is the computer tapping into the "subspace" energy, manipulating it, and then "casting" it. It must cycle, it has to charge up, and you have to decide what you are going to cast out of the spells you have available...rather like deciding weather or not your are going to charge photons, and if so, what kind(Proximity, standard, overload, etc.) Also, this thing DOES take energy to run, I'm not about to make an end-run around the EAF, that is simply ridiculous.

And no, Virgin's aren't sacrificed.

R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg): I have no gulit in saying I have no clue what you are talking about.

Scott Tenhoff (Scottt): Setting aside how you would get Garlic and Wolfsbane to hit the cargo area(shove some in a torpedo?) I'm not suggesting we bring Vampires and the like in yet, I haven't given the idea a lot of thought, and I have no clue as to how we could implement it in a real way that wouldn't sound corney or make them unusable...

"Captain, Klingon shield is down!"

"Thank you ensign, Corpral Van Helsing! Beam over the Vampire Squad!"

"Yes SIR! Energizing now...oh no...the Klingon's have Bat'Leth's! The holy symbol of Khaless! The Vampire's are turning to dust!"

That is just pointless, you know?

Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside): Pleasure to meet you, I've copied the suggestion's you gave me, and I'm starting on the design itself.

I do not own Omega yet, so my idea was not based on what you describe, and I have to admit, it sounds rather corney. This is NOT what I wanted to add to SFB, it was more along the lines of the suggestion's made on the Rule Proposal's board, new balanced weapon's to bring to the game, many loosely based on existing weapons/systems.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 06:13 pm: Edit

Adam, that's okay I didn't either.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 09:29 pm: Edit

LOL

It was a nice idea though! Write it up, I might use it as a gag one of these days...

Adam

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 01:50 am: Edit

In Proposals/New Rules is a thread called The Rockford Maneuver. SVC wrote "Petrick, put this in SSJ2".

Obviously it didn't make it. Perhaps it could here.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 03:37 am: Edit

I saw that, it looked great.

I'd love to see it in this.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 11:23 am: Edit

hey yeah. What's up with that?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, June 12, 2004 - 06:15 pm: Edit

Since there hasn't been any action in this topic for a while...I offer this as a idea for discussion.

SGD-77 (Space launched Guide Drone, model #77). (Inspired by the US Military Ordinance built by North American Aviation, 1956 variously titled the GAM-77 or the AGM-77 Hound Dog Missle).

In all respects, the SGD-77 performs like a standard drone, including drone frame, space capacity, and subject to restricted or limited availability percentages.

The departure of the "Hound Dog" drone is that instead of a standard drone style engine...the Hound Dog used the same components that made up the B52 warp drive system...and while the Hound dog had a integral (internal) fuel supply, it used the same fuel as the B52 bomber. It also had "piping" installed to refuel the drone in flight from the internal fuel capacity of the B52 that carried the Hound dog drone.

Thus, each "Hound Dog" Drone could (at the discretion of the pilot) "light off" the Hound Dog drones to (temporarily) increase the tactical (combat) speed of the B52 Bomber.

The restrictions on the use of such Hound Dog Drones include:

1) Such a system could not be used to increase the strategic range or speed of the bomber.
2) Drones inside the Bomb Bay could not be used.
3) Drones mounted on drone rails (standard ones) when lighted off, increase the bombers speed by 2 per each drone so used.
4) The Endurance of Hound Dogs shall not exceed 3 turns under any circumstances. if a hound dog drone consumes all 96 impulses of its endurance, the drone could be "refueled" by the bomber...no more than 1 drone per turn could be refueled. the drone can not be "lit off" during the refueling.
5) Hound dog Drones may be launched under the normal drone launch restrictions of the B52 with whatever endurance remains to the drone...so it is entirely possible that a bomber at range 20 hexes from a target (call it a asteroid) use the Hound dog drones(assume 6 of the Drones are hound Dogs, so 6*2=12 added to the original speed of the B52(speed 8) to increase the speed the B52 is able to move at from speed 8 to speed 20...use 32 impulses to travel the 20 hexes to the target hex...and launch the drones (atleast the first drone launched would still have 64 impluses of fuel left on board each subsequent dronae launched, if it was on a later impulse would have a correspondingly smaller endurance left at the point it was launched.)

The point is that the "Hound Dog" Drones act as a early model Dash Pod (or warp pack) system that allows Fighters and PF's Higher speeds. It does so at the expense of some (most? all?) of the drones range.

Since the Drones act as standard drones in combat (with the exception of less endurance) it should have no impact on combat with regards to the Drones themselves...but it endows the B52 with a limited "sprint" capacity that improves the B52 tactical effectiveness. And it does so without the tactical disadvantages of the dash pods.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 01:25 am: Edit

Interesting idea Jeff, I'll have to look it over when I'm not dead tired lol.

Also, I haven't forgotten the whole Magic in SFB thing, I've just been very busy lately and haven't had enough time to type them up or playtest them. I should be able too soon though.

Take care,

Adam

By Henry Meyer (Henry2) on Sunday, July 11, 2004 - 12:28 pm: Edit

Here is an old, tired idea I remembered while reading the Ancient Empires thread - Mirror Universe: Alpha Sector.

By Clark Chism (Cchism) on Sunday, July 11, 2004 - 04:03 pm: Edit

How big is the SGD-77 Warhead, Jeff?
Also, I have no idea where you got AGM-77.
The AF Museum states it is an AGM-28.
No offense ment!

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 02:35 pm: Edit

Clark, same as a standard type I drone. That is what I meant by "In all respects, the SGD-77 performs like a standard drone, including drone frame, space capacity, and subject to restricted or limited availability percentages."

It was listed as a weapons system for use on B-52 Bombers, in a book titled "Bombers of the West"...don't have it out tight now, so I cant tell you publisher author page number etc...IIRC it was printed back in 1977...and I think it was a british publication...don't know if NATO used the same reference titles as the US air force or not...

By Clark Chism (Cchism) on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 03:21 pm: Edit

Oh I see... Even though I live in America I read a bunch of British books.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Here is an idea for an alternate history type situation ala the Paravians in CL28. This time the history splits at about Y165 when an aggressive leader takes power in the Holdfast.

In Y166, in both mainline the alternate, a planet crusher attacked and destroyed a minor Federation mining colony at the southern edge of Federation space. A Federation squadron was dispatched and chased it down into the Fed/Tholian neutral zone, catching it just before it entered Tholian space. In the mainline, the Feds destroyed it, but the Tholians protested saying (rightly) that they could have easily have handled the creature. In the alternate, a cruiser led Tholian patrol struck as the Federation was engaging the monster, weakening it enough that the Planet Crusher was able to severely maul (over half the ships lost) the Federation squadron before escaping into (and begin destroyed in) Tholian space.

The Federation sent forth a barrage of protests to the Tholians diplomatically, but did not expect any reparations as some within the Federation believed the Tholians might have had a slight modicum of justification. This feeling ended when a dreadnought lead Tholian task group struck the Federation side of the neutral zone. Before the Federation could scramble a strong enough response (they were still reeling form the loss of the earlier squadron, a CA and DD lost, a CL, DD and SC in dry dock), the Tholians had destroyed the southernmost two BATS (2816 and 3016 on the F&E map) and had destroyed all orbital support facilities over the colonies and outposts in the border region. Then, they sent forth a message to the Federation that the territory they had struck was now considered ‘Neutral territory’ and any Federation presence in this area was to be considered hostile.

The Tholians, having observed the Federation for decades, expected the Federation to fold under and do no more than launch a series of nastily worded diplomatic missives. What they did not take into effect was that they struck mere weeks before the upcoming elections on several member planets for representatives to the Federation council. The result was that a hawkish faction was able to get a bare majority and set more aggressive policies.

Early Y167, the main combat elements of the Federation Home Fleet moved in and reinforced the 7th fleet (which was nearly back to full strength) and set forth to re-establish the border. The Tholians responded with a series of raids on Federation planets in the ‘neutral’ zone, devastating them (to the point of exterminating one entire successful world). With that provocation, what was to be an extended ‘border incident’ turned into a full declaration of war against the Tholian Holdfast.

The Klingon Empire was of mixed feelings. On one hand, the Federation could become stronger and cut off direct contact with the Romulans. On the other hand, the biggest stumbling block they had in destroying their most hated enemy was suddenly on their side in this. After a flurry of diplomatic messages to the Lyran throne intending to delay the coming war with the Kzintis, the Klingons moved forward declaring they were retaking their lost territory. The Federation was at first reluctant to accept the Klingon ‘help,’ but after the first two attacks on Tholian bases, a Federation/Klingon treaty was struck, offering some of their ‘lost territory’ in return for support and recognizing the Federation border (which was to now include F&E hex 2917). For the first time since the Second Federation-Kzinti War, Klingon and Federation ships worked toward a common goal.

The Romulans faced another dilemma. The last thing they wanted was one less thorn in the Federation’s side. Within weeks of the Federation offensive, cloaked Romulan ships were quietly striking at the Federation edges trying to weaken them covertly. This culminated when a War Eagle squadron successfully weakened a Federation attack force in the middle of an attack on a Tholian system. While the Tholians officially denounced any intrusion in their space, the Romulans noticed that the Tholians rarely did anything even if they were easily detected by Tholian forces. This grew to the point that there was some indication that punitive strikes against Romulan assets might be sent forth by the Federation, but the Klingons stepped in. Offering the Romulans another shipment of hulls (including a C9 and 6 D5s), they managed to buy Romulan neutrality.

The war lasted three bloody years, culminating on the Fed/Klingon assault on the Tholian homeworld. While some inside the Federation had by now questioned the continuance of the war, the memories of the massacred civilians kept the war drive alive. The Klingons were happy to fan the flames of Federation anger, especially when it might disguise the fact that Federation forces normally got the worse of any major battle.

On 8 September Y170, the last remnants of the Tholian Holdfast surrendered to combined forces. The final result was that the Klingons took on the Tholian world as a future subject race, but Tholian (and Federation) forces had struck to destroy virtually any chance of the Klingons acquiring web technology.

Tholian territory returned to being a Klingon territory (with F&E hex 2918 becoming neutral zone). The Lyrans had attacked the Kzintis in Y169, but the Klingons were unable to send help until Y171, and only then because the Hydrans had struck the Lyran border. The Second Four Powers War did not spread due to the fact that the Klingons did not have the resources to hit the Kzintis and Hydrans hard. In the end, the war ended in Y177 with some gains by Coalition forces.

Things looked peaceful until the Y179 assault by the Romulans on the Gorns set in motion what would become The General War.

This alternate universe could be supported by three to five scenarios. At least one would need to be a Federation assault on a Tholian base, and another would be Fed and Klingon ships fighting side by side against the Tholians. The Romulans could be used in a scenario as a Tholian ace in the hole as they are deployed hidden and must obey certain rules to avoid a full incident with the Federation.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Donovan:

I'm curious if you've actually tried to attack the holdfast in F&E. It's extreamly bloody for the attacker, particuarly around Tholia with all the PDUs that start there. Attacking Tholia in SFB is basicly impossable without a ton of reinforcment rules.

16 PDUs = something like 96 ph4 bases and around 192 fighters I belive. Plus the web. Plus the orbiting/polar starbase.

Personally I find it doubtful that the Federation ever would have the motivation to commit enough ships to hurt the tholians. I do know that the Entire 7th fleet is NOT sufficent for the task. Crippled ships cannot be withdrawn easily to be replaced by new ones which means that unlike most F&E battles the attack will have large numbers of destroyed ships instead of mearly crippled.

I ran a F&E mini game using the Klingons and they basicly were getting annialated unless they commited entire theaters (West Fleet, Southern Reservre, ect) and production to the effort.

On the flip side the Tholians don't have a very strong attack force either. If the Romulans are feeding them EPs though they can do much better.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 03:10 pm: Edit

Ok, time to tell you where I am right now...

Short answer is not good. I never until now that spells--at least D&D spells--are *specifically* engineered to create an unbalanced and Cheesey situation. One only has to look at "Haste" to see my point. The Fantastic 1.5 Turn R needs only be mentioned to draw shudders and stares of disgust towards me. Or General War-era 1 Turn Photon Overloads, or even an EAF at the middle of the turn.

And before you ban me let me say that I didn't even bother writing it out. The research was stopped because of aging effects. That also kills Slow, which could only be discovered through haste research. Also, because the research was stopped, you can't bring up "Improved" haste .

Then there's Agannazar's Scortcher. Shotgun Mauler! Can anyone say AUTO-REJECT?!

Fireball: This is essentially a super-heavy mine, without lowering a shield and longer range.

Invisibility to Animals: I can only see this working vs Monsters. Not to mention this: Can you image one space dragon that would fall for this?

Maybe against the Doomsday Machine--nope, that's a machine, not an animal. Oh well. Besides, monster scenarios are not exactly standard fare for most people here.

Entangle/web also falls flat quick, since there is nothing for them to anchor the starship to. Except maybe in an Asteroid belt?

Blade Barrier is very simple--R1 ESG field. Good for drones I suppose. Teleport with/without error could be a personal DisDev.

Ack.

What I have worked out for the casting device itself is this: There is a system on the SSD(in other words, a damagable box) is what actually does the spellcasting. It's powered by the ship--NO I'm not dodging the EAF--and it taps into the energy that is magic, manipulates it, casts it, and spews it out onto the hexmap.

This also opens up several sub-sections. Could theere be a "mage" of sorts supervising the computer, maybe aiding in some computations that haven't--or Cannot--be programmed in? In that case you could have a Legendary/Poor mage. Also, if it is a "Wizard" class computer, you would need to select the spells available for casting befor the scenario, much like a Drone rack layout. For a Sorcerer class, the spell selection goes down, but the ability to pick and choose what spells you want when becomes very valuable.

Which brings me to another point. How long sholuld casting time be? Fireball is "One action."

Flip, Flip, Flip,...
An action is half a round. A round is 6 Seconds. Since a "turn" in SFB is 60 seconds, and you can cast 1 spell a round, that's 10 spells a turn.

See Ya!

Can someone suggest resonable casting times? Is three turns too long for Fireball? is One turn too short for Magic Missile? Let me know,

Merlin

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 05:11 pm: Edit

WTF?

*head explodes*

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Spells?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 08:42 pm: Edit

Just guessing, but IMO Merlin is proposing an alternative combat system for Star Fleet Battles ships.

I ***think*** he is substituting D&D magic spells for the existing weapons systems and non combat systems for the Energy allocation form.

If so, then he still has to use the Damage allocation Chart to resolve damage.

Must . keep . head . from . exploding.

Arrrrrgggg!!!!

***BOOM***!

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 09:40 pm: Edit

Well then!

Actually, it was just a suggestion for alternate systems on a new race. Much the same way the Andromedans use PA panels and TR beams instead of shields and photons. I was not suggesting that we change all the races.

I'm not that stuipd.

By the way, if you hated the idea that much, 1) You could have said so a month ago when I first suggested it, and 2) Maybe with a little more tact? This was NOT meant to be taken seriously, the reason I didn't even bother posting it in the "New Proposals" thread was because it was just ment as a curiosity, something to say "Oh, that's neat" and move on.

Nevermind.

Merlin