Ken=Good News

I like this equation


Keep us in mind when playtesting time comes...

By Darren Kehrer (Kehrer1701) on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:09 pm: Edit

I think the "sticking" point might be on how phasers, shields, warp drive, starship combat and actions about ship are converted with the d6 rules.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 11:39 pm: Edit

Actually I think a bunch of sticking points exist.
I through together my own convesion rules and played a game with EA and four super-impulses per turn and found a few things.
1) The NCA let the D7W's type VIF drones hit it often because two IVF just couldn't get passed the minium die rolls of the shields. Even when fairly damaged.
2) The ability effectively to refressh shields makes ships very very tough.
3) Super-impulses and the regular SFB weapons will need some big changes, like doubling the MC of all vessel and eliminating the R8 overload restriction and eleiminating feedback as ship can't help but find themselves in feedback range when trying to get to effective overload range.
4) Probably best to reduce the total amount of power some way, such as subtracting the EW power from the total power whether you generate ECCM or ECM or neither.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 01:19 am: Edit

MJC: Not sure that those figures are a problem. If the SFB damage is so slight to either bounce off reinforcement or be easily repaired over the next few SFB turns, the D6 equivalent should be no effect against shields dice roll. I expect all the various turns of moving in preparation to fire to be abstracted out; that is the D6 way. Now, if you intended on having a shield threshold equivalent to 150% of shield strength, shields will prove a smidge too strong.

More abstraction yields more D6ness. The idea should be D6 adapted for the SFU not SFB with a thin patina of D6.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 01:28 am: Edit

Yeah, I wanted to keep some of the SFB flavours without being SFB so maybe shrugging off IVF hits isn't a problem.
Really need to either change the range brackets, use more super-impulses or change the MC of ships, though.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 08:14 am: Edit

MJC. IVFs or VIFs? (you mention both and there is a significant difference)

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 03:16 pm: Edit

Shrugging off IV hits is a lot different than shrugging off VI hits.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 05:05 pm: Edit

Darren: I am not the Power for PD6. I'm just converting to help the project along. Took Andy's advice, gave the packages different levels of different things. Mostly pips, but a few dice. Almost all of the packages fit into the 7 starting skill dice, except for Star Fleet Academy. I have some suggestions for making that more practical.

I have spent most of the time since my last post converting weapons. It took me a few false starts, but I think I have it. I haven't figured out the formula, yet, but at least I have a pretty good method for eyeballing.

I'm tempted to steer clear of starship combat myself. Mostly beause it's very tough to find clear comparisons between the systems. Especially since I've never played SFB, and only have the info from GPD3e to rely on. It would likely consist of rebuilding each ship from scratch using D6 components and then spotting the differences and finding ways to adjust.

I found every one of the 3 D6 core books useful. I used the magic system of D6 Fantasy to build the Vulcan Neck Pinch. D6 Adventure provided real-world weapon stats and a psionics system (D6 Space provides what is pretty much The Force with the serial numbers filed off). D6 Space provided the attribute and skill set (It actually differs between the 3) and technology rules.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Oops. I meant dogfight drones in both parts of the scentance. Sorry about that Andy and Keith.

By Darren Kehrer (Kehrer1701) on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:17 pm: Edit

It will be interesting to see how phasers translate into D6.
Also, when the Captain orders shields up, do you really need to roll to push a button?? I am glad this is progressing. I can't wait to start playtesting.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 02:22 am: Edit

Darren: Stun settings use a rule called "Stun damage." It's not like some games that have a separate "stun damage" track. It's just that the attack is less wounding than otherwise and knocks you out. I actually liked GPD when it first came out because the stun settings on phasers actually just stunned people, instead of eroding away at another (or even the same) damage track. The first Trek RPG to do so.

The big challenge with the weapons was figuring out how the two damage scales compared. Although it takes about the same amount of damage in either system to knock someone unconscious, GURPS is much more forgiving than D6 once past that. So while damage at the low end was about the same or higher in D6, it soon reaches a point of diminishing returns. The point where you say, "He's dead now, do I really have to roll all these dice?" That is the challenge with dice pool systems. There comes a point where the amount of dice becomes ridiculous. D6 does a pretty good job of that.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 08:07 am: Edit

Didn't FASA star trek just stun???

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 01:37 pm: Edit

Does anybody CARE what out of print games did?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 08:55 pm: Edit

I guess the answer to that is whether or not it was thing that caused the game to be out of print.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 07:11 am: Edit

Yes, Steve, People care.

"Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it."

Likewise people care about accuracy of assertions; inaccurate assertions lead to a lack of credibility.

Not to mention that some people STILL play FASA-Trek. I know several; they use the SFU setting.

By Darren Kehrer (Kehrer1701) on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 10:06 pm: Edit

Just a thought,
But sometimes out of print games go out of print through no fault of their own (meaning the game was good, other factors went south). The fact that people still reference and play oop print games can be significant.
Just a neutral thought on the anti-matter.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Saturday, April 22, 2006 - 02:14 am: Edit

FASA Trek, LUG Trek and PD1 had phasers erode a damage pool until you are knocked out. GPD was the first one to say, "You got hit with a phaser on stun, make a check to see if you're stunned." Decipher Trek, which came out later, used a similar method.

D6 already has a method that's fairly close, so that's what I used. It's also what I used for the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

By Dave Adams (Roguecop) on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 06:30 am: Edit

The beauty of the FASA system was the richness of the support. A lot of modules, and lots of expansions and supplements. I have always kept all of my FASA supps, and have almost every one of them. They were a fun read, especially for us old-timers because a large majority of them came out pre-ST:TNG. When D6 gets done I will use my FASA supps to assist me in writing modules (etc) until more D6 comes about.

For gameplay I didn't like the FASA AP system so much, nor the percentage-based aspects of the characters. It felt too rigid for something based on a flowing, TV-style environment.

By Dwight Lillibridge (Nostromo) on Monday, April 24, 2006 - 04:35 am: Edit

I personally have all the FASA stuff, liked most of it, the adventures toward the end of production were stale as if they didn't care. go figure though.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Monday, April 24, 2006 - 04:56 am: Edit

PD1 used dual tracks: stun and wound. It was pretty easy to put down humans with a phaser on Heavy Stun... and not so easy a klingon.

Stock D6 has a stun mechanic. pretty close to: instead of Light/Med/Heavy/mortal wounds, 1 round, 2 rounds, 3 rounds, KO. (I'm not looking it up at the moment. But I've run enough D6 SW and used it a lot.)

Why replace a good thing that works?

Besides, if you get a 1 on the wild die on a stun, the GM has a really good option to do a "It does damage instead" rather than simply chopping a die.

By Darren Kehrer (Kehrer1701) on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 - 10:45 pm: Edit

any new info on a playtestable eta??

By Dave Adams (Roguecop) on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 06:34 am: Edit

"Prime Directive d6...coming to you for Christmas 2006." At least that's my 'guesstimate.' Writing and publishing takes time. I'm glad ADB hasn't dropped the ball on it, even though they had a helluva' time getting a writer to commit.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 03:39 pm: Edit

The current D6 System is a bit different. You do take actual damage, but it is reduced. You then go unconscious for a number of rounds (or minutes, I can't recall) equal to the actual points of damage you should have taken.

I'm kind of disappointed that actual damage is involved, but it is the closest the system comes to what we want.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 11:14 pm: Edit

Any reason that stun damage for PD couldn't be an exception with no or minimal damage?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 11:44 pm: Edit

The trouble with stun damage was that stunning and then do a "coup de grace" was considerably more effective than conventional combat, which it should be.

Tinkering with the rules to get the balance right between ST ( & SW ) versions of stun and playable versions of stun is always going to be revised with each edition.