Archive through December 16, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW KINDS OF RPG PRODUCTS:
GURPS Prime Civilians:
Archive through December 16, 2003
But it doesn't translate. If dash speed damages weapon then what is a ship to do if it gets jumped and must decelerate and fight. Will some or all it's weapons be out or unreliable?
As far as I know there never has been anything to show that a warp field extends through a ship. (Indeed the thing you are pointing to is a weapon under developement at the Knight Weapons Test Facility for a new race I'm developing). So what you're proposing is something new. New is fine, I'm currently one that road myself! 
Isn't there an annex that gives the base hull of all classes? Oh ya, Tac Intel. Just use that table to determin the cost of the base hull and charge the Dash cost accordingly. No extra work, just a rule pointing to it.
David: the Modular Cutter and the two skiffs use the Interceptor rules because they are all Size Class 5 ships; for example, they have only two shields, not six, they do not have to pay energy for shields, life support, or fire control. See SFB K3.0 for details.
These ships do not have the same warp engines (and their restrictions) that Interceptors and PFs have. They all have Aux Warp Engines and can do Warp 5.5 AND can do Aux Dash.
They are probably short-ranged and can only travel one F&E hex before having to refuel, but that has not been decided yet.
If warp feild do not extend from the warp feild generator ( yes that's a TNG term ) out into the space around the ship, the ship would find that the naccelles jumped to warp whilst everything else remaind at 1 C...worse could ofcause happen in the the ship could move at faster than the speed of light without a warp feild and thus rip a hole in the fabric of time and space destroying everything in a radius of several million kilometres.
Mass dialation would cause the ship to become nearly infinitely heavy if it didn't have the warp feild around it and it doesn't matter how powerful the engine with the warp feild are nor how increadibly strong the welds between the hull and the engine are, the engines couldn't move the ship past 1C unless the ship had a warp feild around it as well.
If ( as I beleive ) the warp feild simply lower the magnetic and/or electric; permiability of free space in the local area of the ship then alterations ( or fluctuations ) in the warp feild would result in alterations ( and fluctuations ) in the resistance of any electrical circuits.
So you could get the situation where relatively minor electrical charges move through the curcuit at increadibly low levels of resitance and thus destroy reltively fragile curcitry that is being protected by a resistor.
If we then say that the way around this is to have a low resistance capasitor system that connects to these electrical curcuit and thus becomes a storage device for any charges that happen to move along the lines, shunting the charge back in place with the rythmn of the fluctuation of the warp feild it'self.
UNFORTUNATELY such a system would cause actual electrical signals ( which would be smaller in intensity to the built up charge ( or why else have the capasitor to protect the curcuitry ) would also be shunted to the cap', hence you must disconnect the "Charge-blocking" cap' before the weapon can be fire.
Weapons thus can not be used at higher warp.
If special vessel were built "on the cheap" with no charge-blocking caps then such a vessel would be in need of extensive repairs after using dash speed travel but regular ships would not.
Loren, ships running at dash speed are blind and so if they get jumped they are dead.
ships normally slow down from high warp for battle, not dash warp (the only exception being reserve fleets, of which there are only ~4 per empire and they only spend ~8 hours at dash speed) so an active crew should be able to repair any damage before combat.
if for whatever reason the parts that get damaged can't be replicated then it wouldn't take many parts to equal the cost of dash speed (remember how fragile dilithium is when strange things happen?)
MJC, you have the right basic idea, but we don't need to specify _exactly_ how things get damaged (and I'm not sure we really want to, if we specify the details of what gets damaged some player will dream up a scheme to protect the stuff from damage and then claim they can do dash speed on the cheap)
also except for standard freighter engines (which can't do dash speed at all) none of the ships are any more expensive to run then any others, it's all a 10% of the ships cost per month.
The precise effects of Dash warp are probably best left to hyperspace physicists. Needless to say, it creates incredible stress of ship structure and power grids.
In GURPS Vehicles, a vehicle can have an HT score which represents its general robustness in the face of adversity (Hit points are figured seperately). I don't know if this follows in GURPS Space, but it could be that Dash warp requires a ship to make an HT check to avoid damage, with a failed check resulting in either hit point damage or system damage of some sort. Repairing this sort of thing always seems to require 10% of the ships cost per month. Of course, flying in the ship is a risk. Especially if it's the Environmental controls that decide to die on you. Maybe that's why Dash isn't as common.
One of the things that's stymied the figuring of ship costs have been shields. Since SFU shields have such high cDRs, shields are incredibly expensive according to GURPS Space. However, SFU shields are reduced by damage on a 1:1 ratio. If I was a GM and a player wanted to purchase DR with that limitation for their character, I would allow it as a 50%-60% discount on the purchase (See GURPS Compendium I or GURPS Supers for rules on purchasing DR as an advantage and applying enhancements and limitations). By that logic, I propose that SFU shields only cost 50%-60% of equivalent GURPS Space shields. They will probably still be one of the most expensive systems on a ship, but since the shields protecting you this turn might not be there the next, it will probably be a wise investment, though not as intimidating as it previously was.
GPD has the gurps space specs of a large freighter on page 161. I didn't try and calculate all the costs (it's actually impossible as we don't have the costs of some of the systems), but doing some mental calculations on the systems as I looked through the Gurps space 3 construction stuff for the first time it looks to me like it would have the shields be ~95% of the cost of the ship, discounting them by 50% still makes them 90% of the cost of the ship.
and these are the incredibly tiny shields of a freighter, with this sort of cost in shields why would anyone put anything less then the best engines/weapons on the ship, it won't cost much more and it will do it's job MUCH better in as spread out an area as the SFB universe is.
my personal feeling (ffrom fiction, both SFB and other) is that the most expensive part of the ship is the engines, followed by weaponry, and then to shields and other internal systems
Gurps Space pricing just doesn't replect this
Then we need to fix the cost of shields and put this in MPB.
What should it be? 5% of SPACE3 costs? 2%? 1%?
In Trek canon and SFU shields appear to be almost common technology. So I agree shield systems should be down on the list. What percentage, I dunno but 10% or lower I would think.
I seems from the descriptions above (disclaimer: I'm still working on my coffee and I'm sick) that Warp Engines are viewed as propultion. I don't see it that way and I gather this from past SFU and Trek (and trek books).
Warp fields are created by pressing powerful energy fields against one another. The Fields are formed outside and around the ship but the energy field that extends out from the engines is not a formed field and doesn't affect the ship. The warp fields form a bubble in which the ship resides. This bubble separates the ship from normal space and can move unhindered by the laws of physics. (The bubble it's self has no mass and so is not limited by E=MC2.) The ship only goes along for the ride but acrues no momentum from warp movement.
Now, the stress on the ship could be physical stress transfered though the nassels to the hull as the engines press the force fields together more and more. So I do see some damage to the general hull structure and certainly see a great deal of stress on the engines, the nassels, and main engineering. I don't see them burning out the forward phasers.
A couple posts up it is mentioned that the most expensive part of a ship is the Warp Engines. I agree, so stress to these should be enough to incure the added level of mainenence required to make dash expensive (and along with other things like regulation and such, more inconvenient that normal high warp except in unusual cases).
Well ... the costs for the use of Dash Warp are already in print, so changing them is not likely to happen. However you want to rationalize the way warp drive actually works isn't really important, just a bit of background.
As far as the cost of shields, I would think that the cost of shields on a stock Fed CA would not exceed 5% of the overall cost of the ship. Anyone want to figure that out?
We need to have this data in GMPB in April, so get busy on it. Mostly need "how to be a civilian" stuff; the dash speed thing is a little wierd since who buys a starship? Might need to include some smaller ships that players might logical have, such as the various skiffs and civilianized PFs.
Got it.
"Charge-blocking" cap's wear out after a month of dash and to replace an entire set of charge-blocking cap's cost 10% of the ship's cost.
You know, if the warp feild did lower the resistance of an electrical circuit then the charge built up from your rubber soled boots sliding against the carpet could be enough to blow the fusses on the helm the instant you touch it after going do to the galley for a cup of coffee.
Still, I didn't check the math on that and am not an electrical engineer.
We need to get back on track here.
the details of why dash speed costs 10% of the total ship cost per month is technobabble (i.e. easy to get an answer, impossible to get THE answer) let's just drop it.
as we are trying to analyse this dash speed thing the basic questions we are trying to answer boils down to these.
1. How much does it cost to buy a ticket to another system?
2. How much does it cost to ship something to another system?
to answer these questions we have the following constraints.
1. it needs to be cheaper to ship things then to replicate them (as replication costs twice as much as producing an item this means that shipping needs to cost less then the item itself)
2. the cost of shipping needs to cover the cost of purchasing the ship within a reasonable timeframe, including the operating costs of the ship.
3. the operating costs of a ship need to be such that it is cheaper to pay the operating costs to travel at high warp to the destination instead of saving time by useing dash warp and paying the 10%/month extra maintinance costs (there may be other incentives/regulations to encourage the right answer if it's close, but the math needs to work even without the regulations)
and finally it would be REALLY nice if we could make it so that the EPV of a ship could translate directly into $ (taking into account that the EPV of a ship includes it's cargo and crew, etc)
before I start spitting out numbers and charts can we agree on these criteria?
Sounds good to me if you add 1a: ships use replicated items more than they do stored, because you cannot carry a complete inventory of spare parts into deep space (not to mention food and other consumables) but at some point it becomes easier and/or cheaper to go to a starbase (or other maintenance facility) for repairs.
David Lang:
Regarding criterion #3, was it ever absolutely established whether standard freighters can dash at all? My impression is that they cannot, but plenty of people have offered other opinions and if it was ever established beyond a doubt, I'm afraid I missed it.
Assume for the sake of argument that they cannot. Now suppose a standard freighter cost x$ per cargo box, but some other freight hauling ship (a free trader, for example) that is capable of dash costs 3X per cargo box. (Numbers are notional only. I don't have my SSD books handy but I know a free trader or Federation Express costs more per cargo box than a standard freighter does.) When you work out your calculations for shipping costs you will be working from a different baseline for dash versus high warp costs.
I also think you still need an estimate for average turn-time (including loading/unloading, cargo inspection, customs and other paperwork requirements, refueling and routine maintenance, etc) at each stop. If average turn-time is a significant fraction of enroute time, using dash speed doesn't gain you as much in terms of being able to make more trips per year. If average turn-time is only a small fraction of enroute time then dash speed may make economic sense. When clipper ships were the fastest way of shipping cargo by sea, they dominated long-haul traffic. But it made zero economic sense to ship something from Boston to New York via clipper. The trip wasn't long enough to justify the high cost of the clipper ships. I believe a similar dynamic occured when the first steel-hulled freighters (faster but more expensive then iron-hulled freighters) appeared.
In short (ha! too late for that!), I think dash speed is likely to be reserved for two (commercial) cases. 1) Emergencies or shipments of highly perishable items. 2) Long-haul traffic.
Standard freighters cannot ever Dash at all. Confirmed and official.
Gary, yes, ships tend to use replicators more as the cost of the unused spare parts is much higher in space and mass that must be carted around.
Alan, correct Standard freighters cannot dash, but armed ones can (and late war fast freighters can as well)
this isn't that big a problem most of the time as the standard freighters are SO much cheaper then any of the others, just due to the pay of the crewmembers alone.
I understand your comments about turn time, but in the SFB universe I don't think it's very significant factor limiting use of dash speed.
a standard freighter moves 2 F&E hexes every 6 months, there are very few cases where this would allow it to make even 1 round trip in 6 months assuming a zero turn time. as such it's not a factor.
for a ship at dash speed it becomes a factor, but even then it's not _that_ much of a factor.
say two planets 3 hexes apart, use a APT/FT or other 'standard engine' ship. it will take 5.3 days to make the trip at dash speed, at this point the ship needs ~64 hours of maintiance. during this time the crew not working on maintinance can be loading so you have 64 hours of 'free' turn time
with just a few shuttles or transporters operating at non-combat rates it takes very little time to fill a ship with cargo
david, remember that a Frieghter in F&E can move up to 12 hexes in 6 months using strategic movement (specifically the SAF,FTL,FTS).
those are aux freighters, I am taking them into account.
aux freighters go 4x faster when at dash speed (actually it's about 8x the speed, but can only travel at this speed for 1/2 the time so it averages to 4x faster)
meanwhile a normal ship moves ~17x faster at dash speed
A note on Replicators and Shipping: (As I see them)
Shipping will always be apart of the deal for providing goods because a replicator isn't the “Magic Create Anything Machine” some might wish it to be.
Replicators cannot create complex machinery. Food is a mixture of things but a complex machine is another story. It's no big thing to replicate a hamburger bun, all the trimmings and the patty, all 1mm apart then allow them to fall together on the plate. But complex machinery is a very different thing.
For instance, you can't replicate a complete hand phaser. You could replicate all the parts and assemble them your self but you would have to run as many replication programs as there are parts. If you didn't have the program then you would need to write one. If you were using pre-programmed materials or alloys then this could be as simple as creating a CAD design for each part. The computer could interpret the rest.
However, all these parts could not be replicated at once and in charged working order, fully assembled. The tolerances are too tight. You would end up with parts that should be two turning out as one, etc.
Replication could very well be a very standard process in manufacturing but assembly is still required. Some raw materials are harder to replicate than others. Some materials are near impossible to create the proper atomic bonds. Dilithium is one such unreplicatable material.
These problems are ones than CAN and will be solved but not at this tech level.
So, replication doesn't have to be so expensive so as to warrant transporting of goods, in any case, some good won't get transported due to replicator technology, but very many things will still have to be transported.
As to market, replicator programs will likely be highly protected property. In some cases, planet A's product might be superior or cheaper than planets B's product because of superior replicator programming in their manufacturing process. In other cases this might not be enough as another planet has far superior assembly techniques.
Replicators have already been stated as being expensive to use, I know. But this is an era where energy is cheep planet side. Energy on a ship is very precious compared and so the statement still holds true ship board (where that statement had its context).
Replicators can't do any thing and in many cases other processes are better (real cooking is said to always be better). Some things are better replicated particularly those things that are simple and/or not meant to last. (Hitting on another reason for non-replicated goods; Durable products are generally produced by other means.)
Manufacturing where there is cheep energy could utilize partial replication processes. This is where the material its self is not replicated but is fed into the system and reformed into a particular shape. For instance, an armored fender for a GCV could be made by placing the raw materials in flat plates on the replicator pad. They are energized and appear on another pad formed as a Armored GCV fender. This has many advantages over standard manufacturing processes such as being less dangerous than a press (no squashed fingers and no loss of temper at bent corners) and is more precise from piece to piece.
Ok, that gives us the potential for the shipping to be more expensive then the goods. there is still a limit, but it can be slightly higher (this makes it easier to justify the higher cost cargos)
What would the starting wealth be for a SFU campaign? Compendium I suggests $15,000 for a normal game, or $100,000 for a game in which gadgetry is very important (such as cyberpunk). Ultra Tech 2 does have suggestions for modifying these numbers, but I don't have it on hand right now.
I d
How complex an item you can replicate depends on the TL of the replicator. Replicators are first introduced at TL10 and have to "build a phaser" one component at a time. I'd say that by TL13 you could replicate a phaser pistol as a complete item with your initials engraved on the butt.
Standard staring wealth is $15K per GPD page 52. Which reminds me -- we MUST have a Jobs table in MPB. I wanted it in MPA but we ran out of pages.
I'd say the type of campaign you are playing. I can see a huge range depending on what sort of transportation will be needed and how much equipment can be requisitioned instead of purchased
If you can build all the componets of a HAMBUGER 1 mm apart and have them fall together, why not replicate all the parts of the phaser pistol at once?...even 10 capasitors and ten plastic housings and everything else 10 at a time to make the process faster.
I would say that replication is limited to SIZE and energy.
It takes MC2 energy to build matter.
It takes MV2 to move matter.
Hence, so long at the ship is moving at 300,000,000 times the speed of light, your matter is cheaper to move.
In truth you have to disapate that energy every time you stop and reinject that ammount of energy every time you move off again and thus warships unlike freighters will find that the thousands of stops and starts they do and hundred of times the speed of light they move at will cause some objects that are need to replace items RARELY are more energy saving ( anti-matter saving ) if they are repilicated at the moment of need rather than carried in stores.
Replicator and any power producing systems would need to be carried as stores, because if all of you replicators go down, or your enetire power supply goes down and you don't have those parts in stores then your shafted.