Well, few SFB plans have much that repeats.
About the only thing that comes to mind is crew cabins. I think the frigate had about a hundred of them in about ten types.

By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Jeff, I still have the deckplans for AHL, but I lost the book. Any idea where to get a replacement?

By Jeff Johnson (Jeffro) on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 02:42 pm: Edit

Currently Available Two Places:

http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?FFE005

http://www.farfuture.net/ffe/n9000.html

The Light Blue "Big Floppy Book" rocks. OTOH, you may not be all that interested in Imperium, Mayday, Fifth Frontier War, Dark Nebula, Invasion Earth, Snapshot, and Striker....

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Saturday, January 08, 2005 - 04:31 pm: Edit

While I Don't do GT (I dislike Loren's take on the OTU, and am none too fond of GURPS), Large Scale maps at, say 16mm hexes, for use with 15mm cardboard crewmen would be nifty. I do tend to run Traveller often.

As for the AHL: the deckplans for the AHL in traveller were done on 11x17 slices, at 0.5"=1.5m, 14 sheets for about 50 decks. I've used them in Traveller. Not often, but I have.

I've also used the old FASA ship plans for both D7 and Constitution classes, with the 1/4th inch grid; I often found I needed to photocopy, trim and tape to make certain bits useable due to map edges.

I never use more than 4 11x17 sheets at a time. In fact, I tend to use 15mm paper minis. I'd LOVE a good set of scaleable fonts (PS and/or TT) ala Sparks by cumberland games for PD/Trek minis. (My one gripe about sparks is that they are two letters per mini, when they could be done as one per mini, but he's never really needed the space for a given set.)

At 1:100 scale (15mm=1.5m, or darn close to AHL scale), even the largest rooms will fit on a single 11x17. Even if one goes with 1:66 (15mm=1m), that provides a decent scale, and opens up all the 1/72d stuff.

The plans would be a nicety. Scaleable Trek Paper Minis would be even better.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 08, 2005 - 05:14 pm: Edit

What's my take on what?

Sorry, I've got so much going on this one flie right over me.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 08:23 pm: Edit

SVC: I was just recently digging into the Fed Frigate Deck Plans and was wishing I had a set that was not broken in the middle. Then it hit me.

How about doing a Frigate Deck Plan pack but not to full play scale like the G1 plans. Just a pack of say three frigates, the Fed, the Rom Skyhawk and a Klingon F5 (isn't that being worked on?). Print these on 11x17 just like in the book but not split and not bound. This way they can be laid flat and you could have two opposing frigates in one scenario. Or I could post them on the wall!

These could be pretty easy to print up I would think.


PLEASE?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 08:27 pm: Edit

Another idea might be to just do two FF's per pack, one Alliance and one Coalition.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 09:21 pm: Edit

Loren,

Not you. The managing editor (or whatever the title is) for GURPS Traveller is named Loren Wiseman. It is his take on GURPS Traveller (GT) that William objects to.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 11:02 pm: Edit

Oh, that guy. Now I get it. Thanks!

Not too many Loren's around and I believe I'm the only one on this board so...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:18 am: Edit

Got a lot to do now but certainly we could print 11x17 copies of anything. Even laminate them.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 11:32 am: Edit

Shaweet!

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 10:52 pm: Edit

Sorry 'bout the confusion there Mr. Knight.

I tend to spend a lot of time on the COTI traveller boards, where Loren almost always refers to LKW.

Yes, it's Loren Wiseman who's approach to GT I dislike.

Specifically, he took some approaches in rules and setting details contrary to prior canon. He defined a great many things that were never before defined, and often interpreted in widely differing ways. Further GT offerings have missed minor bits here and there, rewritten some large bits slightly, and defined further a great many things never before delineated.

And, on top of that, I find GURPS tends to be too detailed in the skill-set for my tastes anymore.

Hence why, while I'm buying the GPD stuff, I'm doing so solely for reading value, and for use with LUGTrek rules or PD1 rules.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 02:07 am: Edit

That's cool. Once I understood which Loren you were talking about it was all clear. I had forgotten about the OTHER Loren.

Please do get the new versions of GPD4e, GK and GR. It has new stuff, is supposed to work better and... well, includes some stuff written by me! Oh, and all the stuff written by the other guys is really great reading. GR is supurbely done!

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 04:11 am: Edit

Well, if GK4 is, as SVC implied, not anything new except templates, sorry, that's a wash on that one.

GR and GPD4e, I am likely to get, as there are supposed to be some revisions to setting material if I understood the posts right.

I dislike the narrowness of GURPS skills (I think most of the skill list should be specializations off of about 1/3 to 1/4th as many skills), and while many of my long term gripes about GURPS were addressed by the G4E revision, the skills and damage systems just don't fit my play-style, as player or GM. I could cope with the rest were it not for the myriad of overly narrow skills.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 07:23 am: Edit

Nick/SVC: Something you should really consider publishing is deck plans for a Fed PF or other very small ship. Yes, it's non-historical for SFB, but I would be a lot of GPD fans would love to use it for moving their PRIME TEAM around. Sure, you gave them the FedEX for that, but it's not a saucer-&-cigar ship everyone knows and loves.


Garth L. Getgen

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 09:44 am: Edit

But the skills are so cheap, narrow doesn't mean anything. A world-class doctor doesn't have a skill of 24 in surgery. He's got 16s-18s in First Aid, Diagnosis, Surgery, Medical Science, and a multitude of related skills.
All my GURPS knowledge is 3e, of course. No one in Denver plays it anymore (more's the pity) so I haven't bothered to buy the new books, but I can't imagine that focus has changed.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Bill: I am not sure what you mean by "revisions to setting materials". GR is new so there isn't anything to revise. GPD4e has a new introduction designed to help people who never played SFB enter the universe more easily and has a few pages of extra stuff but other than entirely replacing the gurps rules it's not THAT different. It's certainly worth it as a compending of GURPS rules that apply to SciFi in a much smaller package.

Garth: not a PF but I'm sure something else could be done in the smaller sizes. Remember also that the skiffs in SFB are already traveller deck plans.

Troy: I wish I knew enough about the game system to answer your question but I don't. Perhaps someone else will help.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:19 pm: Edit

I have an idea for a small Fed ship. Let me work on it...

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 07:33 pm: Edit

SVC: No question, I was just responding to William Hostman's comment about GURPS skills. Probably off-topic for this discussion, actually.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 09:15 pm: Edit

Cheap and narrow skills.

Is the system made to create "G.I.Don'tknow" characters?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 12:39 am: Edit

no, it's a system trying to replicate reality. many (most??) skills have defaults on them so you can actually get fairly comprehensive coverage of the skills without actually buying most of them (you won't be as good in those things as if you purchsed that skill, but that represents the difference between specific training in that skill, and being able to figure it out on the fly based on your other related knowledge)

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 09:56 pm: Edit

SVC: Please do NOT call me "Bill"... Bill Hostman is someone else. (My grandfather, NEVER me). Yes, a nitpick.

Let's just put it this way: If I can't fit the whole skill reference list on a single sheet at a readable size, it's too long. GURPS is 4 pages and growing. (I could fit the C1 list onto 2 pages by better columns, but barely readably.)

But, in play, If I can't put the skill list on a single page reference sheet, it's too many. 4 pages was way too many. PD1 had the right length of skill list for my tastes.

The same is true for all games. And yes, I do agree that this is not the right forum... but it brings up another related point:

not everyone runs your setting in your ruleset! Lets look at just the major Sci-Fi names and Sci-Fi-capable Generics I am familiar with:

Any plans you do should be sufficiently system neutral to be workable in both GURPS and other RPG engines; Since I use Traveller, 1.5m grids are nice, square is preferred. TNE used 2m square grids.

FASA-Trek used the same 1.5m square grid scale (probably due to also being Traveller Licensees at the time).

LUG-trek has given no good plans out, and while the system lends itself to mini use, is out of print.
Decipher Trek is on the back burner; again, no plans released.

Starships and Spacemen is in E-print, and doesn't have any supplements, and the deckplans are, shall we say, vague.

EABA and CORPS: BTRC's systems use 1m hexes. GURPS 1yd hexes are close enough.

Hero System: uses 2m hexes.

D20 5' squares for fantasy, 1.5m for SW...

Space Opera uses ngridded plans to a variable scale.

the few SpaceMaster plans I've seen have been ungridded.

D6SO is not rated for gridded combats, but would probably use 1m grids.

the common themes seem to be 1m hexes, 1.5m square grids.

What ever grids you use, put the scale bar on every sheet, as some of use can't remember what's where.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 10:56 pm: Edit

William, GURPS is based on real-world measurements so you should have all the info you need to convert it to the gamesystem of your choice (and yes, this includes putting the scale on the map grids)

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 12:52 am: Edit

William, if there WAS a standard, we'd use it. You amply pointed out that there isn't.

In any event, the GURPS combat system uses hexes, therefore so do we. We'd have to take the GURPS name off the product if we didn't use hexes, and that ain't gonna happen.

For the shipboard deck plans, the only one that was sold as a deckplan package was the Klingon G-1, and that product does have hexes.

The deckplans that have been published in the books (like the Free Trader in GPD/GPD4, and the Fed Frigate in MPA) are just too big to put hexes on, so we don't. But every page has a scale showing how many yards to the inch on the page, so you're in business.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 03:00 am: Edit

Gary: Don't forget the metric part of the scale for the deck plans.

To make deck plans slightly easier to use, I suggest placing some pattern fill in the turbolift passages since those seperate parts of ship and force long runs to get around. This can prove important if the transporter just missed the planned destination. The force beamed aboard might only be a few meters from the target location but be facing a 100 meter dash to circle the hull. (Or a possibly more time consuming attempt to burn through the multiple impediments. Watch out for moving turbolift cars.)

A related transporter issue is places on a deckplan where transport is easier or harder compared to the average. Beaming into the impulse engines might not be beneficial for an attacker.

Other oddball notes:
1) Would it be possible in future deckplans to place the brig more than one corridor turn plus deck change from a way off the ship? For the Fed FF deckplan, the brig is 30 meters from the emergency transporter; another 10 meters and a deck change leads an escapee to the main transporters or the shuttlebay (depending on whether one chooses to go up or down the staircase).

2) Had not noticed it before, but the deck plan shows the impulse engines getting fuel from the warp nacelles. Wouldn't that be inconvenient on a frigate that discarded the warp nacelles to sublight disengage?