Archive through January 06, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW KINDS OF RPG PRODUCTS:
GURPS Prime Civilians:
Archive through January 06, 2004
strategic movement is designed to move ships to another front, but the free strat for repairs wasn't intended to be used for massive redeployments (the problem is that currently coalition players deliberatly cripple lots of ships as they finish up the hydrans so that they can redeploy those ships to the fed front easier then if they weren't crippled)
yes there are lots of bases, but not all in one place within retrograde range of the front so ships would spend more time getting to the facilities that can give them the repair+strat
I realize this hasn't been changed yet, but it's possible/likly to change so we do need to keep this possibility in mind and try to make sure that what we are working with works reasonably well either way (i.e. we don't say 'strat must be cheap becouse repairs get it for free' and then find that repairs don't gett it for free anymore we keep it in mind but we don't use it as a major justification for anything)
remember that SVC defined the cost of dash speed in GPD far more precisly then anything in F&E (F&E is dealing only with military movement where there are standard budgeted things outside of the control of the player, the cost is a single figure which doesn't take into account how much travel is done, and where at the time the cost figure was calculated fractional accounting wasn't done so the minimum price for anything was 1EP. also F&E doesn't charge for retrograde/retreat use of dash speed)
David, I do understand what you guys are trying to do, but there should be at least a semblence of likeness between info you suggest for GPD and the other SFB universe games.
That being said, I direct you to Captain's Log 27 which stated the likelyhood of FRD repaired free strat being removed as "unlikely".
Since it stays, then you really need to consider it in your cost calculations, otherwise you get conflicting data.
Ok, I haven't been able to get time to read CL 27 so I didn't realize that it's been catagorized as unlikly.
but we aren't useing F&E to set the cost of dash speed anymore, GPD defines it as 10% of the cost of the ship per month. that is far more specific then anything F&E has and SFB doesn't address the issue at all so we have no guidence there.
I'm missing where you thing we are being inconsistant on the cost of strategic movement?
Well the price is inconsistent but I suppose it does not matter. Price being like....a Fed CA in F&E is 8 EP, but costs 1 EP to strat or free if repaired (saying the repair cost covers the free strat does not work, as if you did not strat you should save some money). Sure, 0.8 is rounded to 1 for the sake of ease. But take a 2.5 EP FF that still is 1 EP or free if repaired. That's 40% the cost of the ship.
So, if you were using F&E to play a GPD campaign, things would not work out. Like I said, not a bid deal, I just don't like inconsistency.
I agree that things aren't consistant, but I see it as more a simplification of the real situation in F&E then anything else
1. the military budget doesn't cover all the stratmove costs anyway (there is the 'free' stratmoves)
2. no matter how much cash you have there is a (fairly low) limit on the number of ships you can stratmove
3. lack of fractional accounting in the early versions made the minimum cost of something 1 EP
4. the amount of time spent at dash speed isn't taken into account (probably the majority of strategic movement is <= 12 hexes which is only about 3 days at dash speed which would be just over 1% of the cost of the ship by GPD rules)
Indeed, F&E has a lot of stuff averaged out or subsumed into flat costs. If you're gonna quibble about strat move costs being the same for all ships, you may as well start brining up things like fighter factors for a ship that dies the turn it is produced costing the same as fighter factors for a ship that survives for thirty turns, seeing action and giving up its fighters to resolve damage twice in each and every turn.
Not a good comparison Alex. For manny reasons.
David, thanks for the reasoning.
Why not? In both cases, you have a flat cost for thing X. The actual value of a given instance of X may vary widely (FF dashing 6 hexes versus a DN dashing 60, the two carriers in my previous example), but F&E averages that out into a simple flat cost for ease of play.
GPD can allow for more detail, so the values there can more reflect the game world costs. I mean, I suppose one could write an F&E rule where each ship has its StratMove/hex EP cost in the SIT, and you'd have to figure out a way to deduct the "free" StratMove from a ship's production or repair cost, and how many F&E players would really want to deal with such?
It's just different levels of detail, that's all. Something critical at the GPD level is unimportant at the F&E level, and vice versa.
I would believe that passenger transports moved at roughly the same rate as cargo transports (Warp 4.5). According to MPA, between Earth and Vulcan at this speed is a 24 hour trip, therefore costing the base price of travel I posted above. Unfortunately, travel into another hex on the galactic map (The F&E map reproduced in GPD) would take a little over 3 months at that speed, costing a prohibitive amount at those prices.
and it's supposed to be cheaper to ship things on the slow freighters then on the faster ships.
a ship with full speed engines will make the trip in 1/3 of the time so it's passanger prices need to be at least 3x the price of the freighter trip
remember that earth and vulcan are incredibly close togeather in F&E terms
to cross the federation in a ship at warp 7 takes about a year and a half, to do the same trip at warp 4.5 will take about 4.5 years
some thoughts that haven't been brought up, (having just caught up on this thread in one sitting...), and apologies for them all being lumped together...:
1) freighters: many of the "slow frieghters" might not have actual crew salaries, etc, just food costs, as they are family home & buisiness combined. (No Classic Trek references, but a couple of TNE, DS9, Voy, and Ent. References).
2) automated freighters might be slaved to such manned "slow boats"
3) Fixed prices per day without reference to speed are not a good model. Simple, and work (realistically) only if (A) prices are fixed that way by some outside agency, (B) costs of operation are not linked to speed or (C) all ships travel the same speed.
Costs should be based upon speed and duration.
Duration components: PP Fuel, food, LS, salary, ship payments, property taxes. The first is negligible in PD/SFB terms.
Speed components: Travel fuel, speed induced vibration, particulate impact wear on the hull. (the latter is MOSTLY covered by shields....)
EG, if Joe can get on a Shuttle and make Alpha C in 4 days, or a FedX and be there in an hour (adding embark, debark, and system nav speeds), then the cost of the FedX needs be higher, but not THAT MUCH HIGHER. So, what's the cost of 1/4 day of a fedX, and 4 days of freighter?
4) The Fed SL pod makes WONDERFUL sense for certain specialized roles, like providing comfortable colony transport... SL and Cargo pods, and you can disembark a colony (200-300 people) Wa-boom! BuCol probably paid for some, others built to matching spec under Marine "War Activation Clauses."
5) There should be civilian tugs... No dash, aux speeds otherwise, for use in repair and civilian ship recovery... Say, for a fed, maybe 1 P3 360, 10 repair, carries a single tug-pod (and can emplace those "Pod Based" oribtal items. Find of a cross between a recovery vessel and a light cargo ship.
6) Regulations wouldn't say "Dash Speeds", but would probably be flat warp limits... "Warp 3+ in system is prohibited to civilian vessels. Warp 6+ is restricted to permitted craft on designated flight plans only." For "Realism" umbers should differ by type of system, and which government.
7) SL pods, running NTW, run at PD, pg Warp 5.5? Is that a Typo? (I always assumed much slower, about 50-75C).
If that's right, then SL pods can make Alpha C at a cruise in under a day. Even at shuttle speeds, only 4 days. A cruise from Earth to Alpha C would be a WONDERFUL "real" trip on a SL pod. Socialize, take it easy... live the high life.
8) another reason, borrowed straight from EVERY trek series, to not use Dash speeds for extended periods: increased vibration which is hard on the carbon-based life forms aboard. (Kidney damage is way more common in truckers than the general population, as well as certain other ailments.) While this opens a MAJOR loophole, it also could help explain the andro WF15... the bos are designed to survive higher vibration than we (biologicals) can.
Re #4 above: I've always held the opinion that tugs (and tug pods) were strictly military.
Civilians use large and small freighters. Freighter pods are interchangable and can be hooked up to the command and drive sections within a day or less. And keep in mind that in any given empire, there are probably dozens of tug pods, but thousands of freighter pods.
We might give some thought to designing freighter pods that might fill some of the missing roles in the game, but I see only one or two such, and given existing designs the conversions are obvious.
Re #7: there has to be some reason SL pods (or their civilian equivalent) do not make tugless runs. One reason could be the life support costs; your impulse engines can power life support, OR move the pod, but not both. I think we need to decide if this is a loophole that needs to be fixed, or a loophole that needs to be exploited.
SVC, got any opinion on tugless NTW Starliner pods?
The SSD shows enough power for impulse PLUS LS and shields. Fed SL pod (Basic Set SSD Book, last page, 1990 printing)
4 impulse, 2 APR, 2 battery
Shield Cost 1/2+1/2
LS cost 1/2
assuming FC is needed for warp, 1 for FC. Leaves 3.5 points of impulse...
It actually has more power than the Battle Pod! And less use for it.
I would assume that, at the speeds of a shhuttle, the AC-Earth run would be a nice cruise... a few days.
SVC said earlier that it does have NTW... so why wouldn't it use it?
Putting freighter speed lower than NTW makes little sense to me, too...
FedX trip to AC should, assuming fast warp (not dash), be 2 hours at tac each end, plus 1h32m at fast warp (4.26 LY), based upon figures posted this discussion area. so, figure 6 hours. add as much down time, that's 12 hours. thats 2 trips a day. that's (assuming the $1.5M annual cost) $2055 per trip costs. cost per cargo box: $685. (3 boxes). (IIRC, these are 1/2 size boxes, too)
Same trip, FS. same 4 hours in-system time. 6h24m at Warp. Same down time ratio of 50%, rounding up, that's 1 trip per day: 0.5M/365=~$1370 per trip. 25 boxes cargo:
$55 per cargo box.
this looks good. It means that AC, assuming taking a non-passenger version, being able to take say, 5 passengers, could cost a small amount.
Now the freighter running the daily run AC-Earth, assuming some 100 passengers. $137 per trip per passenger, and cargo is pure profit.
Now, double those costs, and you get a good pricing schedule. that is a LOT of cargo, at 10x10x5 per box... 500kl. even at $0.1 per kl, that's CHEAP!
the fedX, assuming half sized boxes, is 1250/250, or $5 per kl. a kl is a large chunk...
cargo handling fees will excceed shipping costs on the earth-ac run!
In short, AC is a weekend getaway for 3 day weekends... assuming typical GURPS income rates.
so how far is vulcan from earth?
Um, the Battle Pod has ten APR/AWR.
Gawds... forgot that that shading is APR->AWR not add apr. Oops. Still, the BP has LESS available impulse power, due to only 2 boxes.
This is the first time I've looked at an SSD Book in about 2 years...
How about some sort of superlarge colony transport, like the Wagon Train unit from one of the ST refernce books? Basically, a very large head and tale unit (held together via tractor beams, if I recall correctly), with a hundred or so standard cargo pods, some number of starliners and a set of SAMS pods. Useless for SFB purposes (couldn't even turn on a standard map) but potentially useful delivering a whole colony all at once.
Standard freighter bring everything to a rendezvous point, then load 'um up and head 'um out.
I don't think that freighters are so limited in number as to make such a thing preferable to a simple convoy.
Colonists generally use the cheapest transportation they can so that they have more $$$ to put into their new home. Standard freighters are about as cheap as you can get, so I doubt anything larger than a FOL (which includes four freighter pods) would be feasible.
William,
#1 in some cases, but in others the ships are owned by large shipping companies, the numbers need to support paying the crew and if they don't need to be payed the ship gets paied off sooner or can work trade rotues that aren't viable for the commercial ships.
#2 I would be surprised if there are many unmanned freighters, with pirates around they are just to easy to grab.
#3 I agree.
#4 remember that the SL pods are sublight except for the high warp engines. As such they can move from system to system fairly well, but it takes a LONG time to move into the system from the point that they drop out of warp (i5+ hours out at lightspeed IIRC)
#5 civilian tugs with aux speeds are possible, but are they really enough faster then standard freighters to be worth it? basicly all you would be doing is making a set of aux engines that are detatchable like a normal freighter. civilian tugs should be at least NTW/EY and realisticly I can see all sorts of arguments for making them be normal speed (after GW engines come out are there any EY engines still in service or is the upgrade such that you replace components to get the extra speed instead of having to replace the entire engines)
#6, the difference between the different modes of operation are really very drastic.
the fastest tac warp is 32C
the slowest high warp is 1000C
the fasterst high warp is 24389C
the slowest dash warp is 125000C
so making the speed limits be the mode is really restricting things to fairly narrow speed bands (and the problem is that 'warp 6' has different meanings for the different modes)
#7 yep SL pods can do NTW which is 10648C earth->alpha centari is a pretty short trip.
#8 the andros don't use dash warp, they are able to run 'normal' high warp up to much higher levels then anyone else (216000C) which is actually faster then the aux dash speed, but quite a bit slower then warship dash speeds.
Gary,
re tugless SL pods. the reason you don't see them very much is that they are relativly slow compared to anything except freighters so for longer runs you want them to be faster so you put them on a tug.
remember that tug cargo pods and freighter pods are the same thing so I don't see why there wouldn't be civilian tugs, not many of them but some.
William, your costs are correct if you assume the 1.5M/yr operating cost you specify, but that's the thing we are trying to figure out.
I took the costs from earlier in same discussion; checking to see if it generated good numbers...
The numbers actually came out very reasonable.
Reasonable enough that, for the purposes of "Family run" ships, it makes a significant boost, and makes even marginal runs doable.
Sort of a circular reference issue, but if the costs per kl and passenger are in the reasonable range, the costs per year are probably about right. 100% markup makes allowances for both less than full trips and added down time.
It shows that, for that trip, at least, the costs/incomes are within workable ranges.
As for automated freighters, they are in Classic trek, hauling ores. I would think either they are (a) insystem transports, (b) part of a convoy, (c) not worth enough to bother priating, (d) possibly SL ships, or (e) some combination. I really think most such transports would be slaved to a manned one, say 2 or three slaves to one manned master. It's a way of increasing cargo at reduced risk to people. Especially if the freighter in charge is an armed, and the slaves aren't.
Now, I have heard from several travel agents that "If the cost of a trip is a weeks salry, it's likely to be a once a year kind of thing. If it costs a months salary, it's every few years. If it's a year's salry, it is once a lifetime."
But we need more data on runs to check the nature of the cost estimates...
so again, how far is Vulcan? or the other "Capital Worlds" besides AC?
David: I asked about civilian tugs a couple years ago. SVC passed the question to SPP, and that was the last I heard of it; I will admit that I did not follow up with him.
William: Vulcan circles Epsilon Eridani, which is 10.5 light years from Sol. FYI, for the worlds in the Fed Capital hex, it is safe to assume that whatever the real distance is, it will be the same in SFB and GPD.
Civilian tugs were nixed in a Board of Propasals in a CapLog from a while back.
Couple things:
1) Has it been established that ALL impulse engines on all units are capable of NTW? Perhaps units that are not actualy starships might not have NTW ability but simple sub-light impulse. Although, it does make sense to have NTW on the P-SL as a safety issue. It could end up a life boat.
2) That said, a Starliner Pod would be a sitting duck un-escorted. As soon as anything aproaches it would have to drop out of warp or be destroyed. Then it could only maneuver at speed one. A CR would take it in about 2 turns. This equates to 2 minuts. Add another minute to get to escape speeds and the P-SL and all it's passengers would be gone. Yes, other ships could react but not in three minutes. Maybe in as little as ten minutes after the distress call went out.
Loren, SVC specificy confirmed that the SL pod has NTW capability. we don't know if all units with impulse do, but we do specificly know that the SL pod does.
as you say it would be a sitting duck so you will only see them in the safest areas (probably the areas safe enough to use automated freighters;))
William, I think the chart you pulled the costs from was listing the annual operating costs, in addition to that there would be the loan repayments, etc. take the min purchase price and figure a reasonable loan length (I don't remember whaqt I used for that when making the chart) and then re-run the numbers. they should work out to about the same as I had on the chart to begin with (if they don't I goofed on the math 
)