I've just been swamped with Shapeways. I'm heading for the easy part, so it shouldn't take too long once I can focus again.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, August 09, 2018 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Good to hear that things are looking up.

Aside: Jean has had some health issues as well. Hopefully, the current plan for SVC's health will give him many more years of doing what he wishes to.

By rwhall (Pdfan) on Tuesday, August 14, 2018 - 06:24 pm: Edit

Any chance we will see more material on Klingon client races. I always wanted to see more of the Slidarians, as they reminded me of the Jiralhanae from the Haloverse. First thing to do is read the board posting rules: Board Posting Rules --FEAR

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 15, 2018 - 05:10 pm: Edit

We have published a lot of material on the subject races. More will be along in the normal course of events, but I don't think we will ever do a specific manual about them.

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Is there documentation somewhere on how big a base station, battle station, sector base, and star base are? Also is there a general figure for what a base augmentation dimensions are?

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 02:48 pm: Edit

The star base dimensions you can get from the source Franz Joseph Technical Manual book (the SFU star base matches it in outer shell form). In short; 3300 meters maximum outside diameter, absolutely huge at more than 2 miles. The Franz Joseph version is mostly hollow though.

The base station and battlestation are in the final phase of being nailed down for size for Shapeways, with the augmentation modules being a big factor in that.

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 04:11 pm: Edit

Will,
Thanks for chasing down the number. I remembered the Franz Joseph stuff a few minutes ago. Just goes to show- don't ask a question when you are out of coffee. I will see if I can find anything in the BBS board re Shapeway.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 04:35 pm: Edit

There won't be anything public about the Shapeways base station or battlestation "true sizes" yet. That data is still being worked out in-private.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 05:11 pm: Edit

I presume, from earlier public discussions, that ADB's Base / BATS will be MUCH LARGER than the on-screen K-7 Space Station. Of course, they had to decommission that one due to a Tribble infestation.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 08:22 pm: Edit

Garth- From what I can tell, that one was built using loaned prison....err....volunteer.....labor from a many legged, horizontal, Klingon subject race. Their lack of education let them to think that the blueprints were at 1/2 scale of the real thing they were to build.

And don't even get me started about that mongoose cones of Fralli thing....

After all, if the SB is 2 mile wide space station.... then the others will be pretty big even if the SB dwarfs them.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, February 09, 2019 - 03:56 am: Edit

By the way, IIRC, the canon in SFB is that the Vegarians EVENTUALLY got back into service for the Klingons.

But I can't remember ever seeing one in the fiction.

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Saturday, April 13, 2019 - 07:34 pm: Edit

So, in honor of the late comedian Ian Cognito, who died mid-act yesterday, I am thinking about a character that is a stand up comic on the side. I am trying to figure out if I should (GURPS terms) go with trademark for always having a joke ending "then the bar tender says: That's not a Medusa; its a Fralli with a sack over it's head! Ya, that stinks; but it is just sulfur." But, I am afraid with certain audiences it would be a pretty significant "odious habit" (-2 reaction).

By James Cain (Jcain) on Monday, June 24, 2019 - 10:04 am: Edit

How large is an independent Orion pirate raider's franchise area, in terms of F&E map hex(es)? A fraction of a hex? Multiple hexes? An entire F&E province?

By James Cain (Jcain) on Monday, June 24, 2019 - 11:08 am: Edit

The first outside contact with the Usurper was in Y136 but in Y138 (and perhaps ongoing yearly thereafter), a million migrants entered the WYN Star Cluster. If we were to say 1,000,000 migrants were averaged across 365 days in Y138, then approximately 2,740 migrants would have to immigrate every day on average. This would require “Wild Bill” to quickly add a number of passenger ships to his fledgling cartel.

A large civilian cruise liner carries 400 passengers and a large troop transport normally carries 600 troops. A large civilian cruise liner could likely carry 600 to 800 if they were not worried about comfort and doubled the bunking. The small versions of those ships carry half as many and a small tramp steamer carries 300 passengers but is not fast enough for them to safely transit the WYN radiation zone. Even normal armed freighters can carry passengers, but still only a limited number in Y138 since life support skids and accommodations skids did not come into common use till Y140. When the strategic warp speeds of these ships are also considered, a half dozen ships might be able to take a million migrants through the radiation zone itself, but there would not likely be that many right outside of the radiation zone and even if there were, the disappearance of so many from such a small area would surely be noticed and investigated.

While they may not be anything more than a target on the SFB level, and may not merit having an SSD published, a historical background explanation of immigration into the WYN Star Cluster would be much easier to explain if there were more auxiliaries able to carry more passengers. While I am not proposing anything for official SSD publication, may it be assumed that small tramp steamers with auxiliary / armed freighter engines capable of carrying passengers through the WYN radiation zone existed across the galaxy in sufficient numbers by Y138 to help gather up a million willing immigrants from a wide enough area to not draw inordinate attention to a small area around the WYN Star Cluster? Alternatively, instead of viewing this as small tramp steamers having upgraded engines, could another trivial variation on this be to view large and small armed freighters as being able to replace cargo pods with tramp steamer pods?

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, June 24, 2019 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Passenger counts for the published SFU civilian ships are far lower than real-world equivalent vessels, so it may not require quite as many ships if you can pack more people into each load.

A load of 400 passengers is a small ship, more of a ferry than a liner. A real 200-meter cruise ship has closer to 1300 passengers and 420 crew. In a refugee situation, this number soars - the 208-meter Wilhelm Gustloff had 9,000 passengers aboard when it was sunk. (The Queen Mary once carried 15,740 troops and 943 crew as a troopship.)

There's also Sixth Element Budget Cruises, where you just narcotize the passengers and stack them like cordwood.

By James Cain (Jcain) on Monday, June 24, 2019 - 04:44 pm: Edit

The description for the Life Support Skid in module R11, among other things, strongly suggest that the movement of large populations any significant distances around the galaxy takes a lot of ships. I doubt the Usurper brought much more than a few thousand Kzinti with him in Y116, yet, within two or three decades after the arrival of the Amarillus, the population of the WYN Star Cluster had exceeded 40 million. This makes me think that a million immigrants in Y138 was not a single exceptional case. I suspect that immigration of around a million a year continued at least till all of the neighboring empires learned of the inhabitants of cluster. It would not surprise me if Kzinti immigration was significant during the Coalition occupation during the General War. It also would not surprise me if there was significant immigration from all three neighboring empires during the Andromedan War.

Irregardless of what happened after Y138, in order for "Wild Bill" and the Usurper to be able to gather a million immigrants and bring them through the WYN radiation zone in one year, I think it would take more than just clandestine freighters, raiders, armed freighters, and a few civilian cruise liners. I think it would take either some sort of auxiliary tramp steamers or armed freighters carrying tramp steamer pods.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - 11:12 am: Edit

"Irregardless"

*twitches*

Must control need to go on rant about that abomination of a word. Must not explode.....

By James Cain (Jcain) on Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - 11:45 am: Edit

“i ain’t never been no engrish major und i ain’t never gunna be no engrish major”?

Sees approaching Slirdarian corporal major and clears calendar for extended assignment to the booth...

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 09:18 am: Edit

Does that word mean the absence of the absence of regard?

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 02:45 pm: Edit

Or something is only garded once?

Or perhaps it's the short form of eerie-guardless, that sinking feeling you get when you realize none of your sentries are answering their radios?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 07:10 pm: Edit

There's a topic over on the Trek-BBS site that poses some interesting questions: what degree of "freedom" does a civilian organization have to explore uncharted space? Star Fleet must comply with regulations including The Prime Directive, but does that cover the Smith & Jones Shipping & Freight company as well? What happens if a University of Nebraska research ship stumbles upon a yet-unknown sentient species? Which laws apply to Beijing Precious Metals as they strip-mine moons over Class-M planets?

Is any of that covered in the PRIME DIRECTIVE role-play game??


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Yes, legal companies swear to abide by the prime directive.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 03:41 pm: Edit

The Original Series of Star Trek makes several mentions of the Prime Directive applying to all Federation Citizens. An example is Merrick in "Bread and Circuses" who, while also a failed Star Fleet officer is berated by Kirk for violating the Prime Directive as a civilian, not because he was (almost) part of Star Fleet. There were a couple of other references.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 03:46 pm: Edit

p. 302 in GPD. Citizens swear to support the Prime Directive.

"Federation members, citizens, and officials are to take steps to prevent any such contact by other spaceflight-capable species, and to remove or balance such contamination if it occurs."

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 04:55 pm: Edit

The Prime Directive Federation book outlines the legal process that private corporations must follow before exploiting planets and resources in the galaxy. It isn't just a matter of finding a nice planet or asteroid to mine or colonize.