Archive through June 07, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: New Product Lines Development:
GENERAL PROJECTS:
ANCILLARY PROJECTS:
Leanna's Fighing Starships:
Archive through June 07, 2004
Yup, the best advertising is one you get the customer to pay for and not even realize he/she is being hooked.
I for one love the idea. especially since I like to play "historical" campaigns of SFB and PD. (Looks like I'll be upgradeing to the new grups material this fall.)
Any chance of this or another product to include deck plans for commonly used ships like Fed CA's and Klingon D7/6's?
Opps, just noticed the Deck plans sub-topic in PD GRUPS. Will post anything further on deck plans there. Sorry.
What I would pay for is a top quality set of blue prints of the Fed BC. It's taken me a long time to warm up to that ship (ever since it was first introduced), but seeing it rendered in PD at various angles, and elsewhere, leads me to believe that a top quality set of drawings for specific ships would be a good product. Something akin to Franz Joseph's Constitution drawings, but maybe better or different in some way.
I'd suggest that, for the Federation and Tholian ships that use Photon torpedos, list the number of warheads carried.
Not needed for either SFB or F&E but a nice additional piece of information that, a reference book like LFS is going to look like, would have.
Same thing for Romulan and Gorn ships equipped with Plasma D launchers, list the number of cannisters carried.
Photons in the SFU are not warheads, they are energy only.
Quote:Photons in the SFU are not warheads, they are energy only
I'm nearly 100% sure one of the fiction pieces in a Captain's Log mentioned the number of torpedoes being low.
Torpedoes in SFU ARE *direct fire* weapons, and require a LOT of warp energy to arm...but it IS an actual physical object being shot at the target. Hence, the 'no degredation with range'. Note that all true energy weapons (disruptors, plasma, hellbores, etc) all degrade with range. The only other weapon in the SFU that does NOT ever degrade with range is a drone. Which is an inventory-based weapon (just one that doesn't need to be charged like photons do).
Generally, in the SFU, ships are always assumed to carry 'enough' photons for any scenario. Like how fuel (even for fighters) doesn't need to be tracked - it's always assumed to be 'enough'. I had actually submitted a rule some time back for a possible S0.0 addition - that some scenarios might start - with ships WAY behind enemy lines - with ships having a limited number of photons.
I vaguely recall, from some topic a long time ago (perhaps even on the old AOL boards back in '94 or '95), a direct-fire "ammunition" proposal from SVC. Actual torpedo casings for photons, some sort of one-shot capacitor cartridge thing for disruptors, etc. The idea, if I recall correctly, was to prevent a direct-fire fleet from killing a plasma fleet on an open map by plinking at range 22-30 for a hundred turns or so. For reasons that I entirely fail to recall, nothing ever came of it.
Xander, if you searh through this bored, you will find a post of Me saying that photons are solid objects, and a responce from SVC saying that they are energy only.
The reason I thought of this was an example of data tables comparing British Battle cruisers to british Battle ships...the BC's had similar main armaments to the battle ships but only carried 2/3rds of the shells per gun that battle ships had, in spite of the main gun turrets were virtually interchangable.
For instance, the Listing indicated the the Battles ships of the Queen eliszabeth class ammunition stores included 120 shells per gun barrle...so the turret would have 240 15 inch shells available.
In comparrison, the HMS Repulse , also with 15 inch guns deposed in dual turrets, was listed as having only 80 shells per gun, or 160 rounds per turret.
While not important for SFB or F&E, I just thought it would make a nice additional touch of "realism" for LFS to include information of this nature.
I have always felt that photons should be inventory based. However the inventory should be along the lines of 200+ casings. Thats at least fifty turns of game play.
A ship that has done a lot of fighting AND is out of supply might have a problem.
Plasmas are another thing that should have an inventory. It has been stated that the device that guides them is not intelligent enough to do certain things (both SVC and SPP have mentioned this when explaining why a new plsma movement rule or tactic wont work). This suggests a physical object is at the center of a plasma torpedo. Probably very small. Wouldn't have to be larger than a soft ball but still, there is a limit to the number a ship would/could carry.
This book would be a cool place to present that info since it would contribute to the game of SFB and is not published anywhere else.
What about "they are energy weapons" is not computing here?
As for the Romulan torps...that's what replicators are for.
I didn't say I do not understand it. I've heard the same thing you did CFant. I may have even been around that particular discussion you cite.
It is, however, one of the few things I can't get my mind wrapped around. That and blinding Special Sensors. One would think that such advanced technology could "blink" when heavy weapons are fired.
Replicators...very good. I like and this fits with a Replicator article I just wrote for possible inclusion in MPB.
Only one problem though...replicators are TL10. Plasmas have been around longer I think. Maybe in the old days there was an inventory but after TL10 the system was changed.
To offer an analogy (not sure how accurate it is!) 
, but there are weapons that use ammunition where a "shell casing" is an integral part of the system.
For instance, in a rifle round, typically there is the round itself, (lead or some other alloy), the propellant charge, and the shell casing that contains the propellant. Once fired, the projectile is the round only, the propellant is consumed and the shell casing left behind.
in the US navy, the 5 inch, 38 caliber dual purpose guns also had the same general layout, consisting of projectile, propellant charge, and shell casing...(come to think of it, the 5 inch 38's also had a Proximity feature that would explode the shell when it came close to its intended target...)
What if the photon torpedo casing was just that? an envelope to hold the photon torpedo components together while being loaded and charged in the tube?
That way, What SVC said about the Photon Torpedo
being an energy weapon is upheld while a rationale for inventorying the components exist.
One other consideration, there must be some provision for differentiating between regular photons and proximity photons...is it just a soft ware change? or might it consist of a different type of fuze for the weapon type?
I've had a 3 1/2 hour F-CLC versus R-SPJ duel in SFC (the video game based on SFB) where I know I fired at least 500 proxy-photons at him.
This would have worked out to over 400 turns in SFB. Granted there are numerous differences in the games (Speed 36 Plasma with no Sabot option, no plasma bolts, double internals, auto-shield regeneration, lack of reverse movement, etc . . .) so I'm not sure if the same battle could have happened in SFB.
I was really glad that Photons are an energy weapon in that fight!
Back on topic, I would buy this book the second it became avaialable.
Back on topic, I would buy this book the second it became avaialable.
I agree.
Loren, just to show you how it sometimes goes, I'd always assumed that the plasma torp guidance module was a particle/energy construct and not a physical item. Thus the very limited "intelligence" on it...
Care to toss that one into Physics and Hard Science? How do you see that tracking a FTL target? Honestly curious.
One item that I remember seeing in various references (Janes etc...) were figures for crew (both officers and enlisted) detailing the differences between 'Peace time' and 'War Time' manning levels.
For example, US Pre-WW2 Crews tended to be both under manned and under equipped for war time service...
There are a number of reasons for this, not all of which are germain to the topic, but examples of such reasons are, (during the neutrality patrols) in 1940 personnel would be transferred from ships not participating (say in the pacific or the asiatic fleets) and ordered to the atlantic fleet to fully staff the destroyers, cruisers, carriers and battle ships on duty there.
another reason was modernization...some ships had received refits that added Anti Aircraft guns that were not originally present on board ship...new armaments mean you need additional crew to man them.
A third factor was the growth in new ships at times outpaced recruitment. Not enough trained personnel means that ships either sailed with some positions unfilled or personnel had to be transferred from ships returning to home base.
What I am getting at, is, would LFS's be a place where such a topic might be addressed?
Looking at it from a F&E stand point, there are many repair facilities available, but ship construction is limited...and no real rationale or reason given.
Lack of trained personnel would be a possible constraint...and the inability to recruit/train and deploy sufficient skilled people to man all of the nifty starships a race could produce would be a reason the build rates in F&E are set at the levels they are.
I don't know about a personnel problem. Look at the volume of space, and the implied number of inhabited planets, in any given empire's space, and compare that to the number of ships in service at any time. There's probably no lack of willing folks. Training, on the other hand... that's where the crew quality rules come in. Especially in wartime, lack of crew quality is more likely than lack of crew numbers.
Any Starfleet member is part of an elite, no doubt. Even a poor crew is smarter than the average yea who.
Still, in war, I agree, quality suffers and enrolement drops. (You probably don't see the droves of applicants come mid-war that you see on a regular basis during peace).
One aspect of this has already been discussed down in the F&E section (I mean the ones concerned about ship numbers in the mid to late war periods)...and SVC has mentioned an 'auto kill' rule as a possible solution... but there is yet another way to look at it.
Sometimes ships will be out fitted for special missions...and it might make sense that the crew roster might change in view of the mission.
For example, ordering a CA to go "pirate hunting" might mean the captain would prefer a top flight weapons officer and a full marine contingent with CO points spent on nifty things like commandos or such...where as the same CA sent to contact a Jindarian caravan or some monster encounter might require a different emphasis on personnel and CO point choices.
Now that there are the "gunfighter" types in service, perhaps a different "take" on personnel assignments might be in order?
Proof that good ideas cross between companies:
I did this as my basic SSD book format.
We modeled off of Janes' and Norman Polmar's for ours.
Two samples:
http://www.adastragames.com/downloads/Wasp.pdf
and
http://www.adastragames.com/downloads/Rafik.pdf
(The planets in the background are specific places in the setting.)
The crying shame was that all the artwork was delivered in gorgeous color that we had to set to black and white.
Now that there are the "gunfighter" types in service, perhaps a different "take" on personnel assignments might be in order?
I thought the gunfighters were unbuilt variants.