MEGO.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 01:20 am: Edit

That's why I came up with the chart idea. It's short and based on available previously published material. So, if a persuit situation occures the table can be consulted and a compairison can be achieved. The rest of the variables would be up to the GM. It would provide a level of consistancy with a note that there are variable that are left up to the GM to decide on such as Engineer quality, terrain, age of ship and so on. I think it could be done in half a page easy.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 01:40 am: Edit

We're spending a lot of time and tedium on something that never happens in 99.99% of RPG campaigns. And at that, speed is only one factor in pursuit, and you'd need 20 pages to cover everything else, and practically have to map the galaxy to find out what the other factors are. I'm sensing madness ahead.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 01:59 am: Edit

I only meant it as a general guide line. And to start going over the specific would be too much. But in the mind of the GM he/she can just decide what to do next as is needed for the story in mind.

That's why I sort of when for a acceleration factor instead of a specific speed (though I do messure in seconds it needn't be that way). It's only to illustrate what type of ships perform in what ways compaired with others.

However, it may suffice without a chart to simply say that given equal quality a larger ships won't accelerate as fast as a smaller ship but the smaller ship cannot keep up as long and the bigger ship will eventually over take it. I was just trying to create a way for players to figure out the compairison on their own if they needed. But I really don't have anything else to add so I'll drop it.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 02:05 am: Edit

I think that the difference in the skill of the crew would make more of a difference then the ship itself.

in a pursuit situation let player roll dice against skills they (or their crew) have, that's more interesting to the players then looking up a page of rules somewhere to calculate acceleration factors for a specific ship class, and it covers the situation where the ships are in the same catagory.

in the GPD base rules there is a mention of future rules that would allow for the transit time to be affected by crew skill, let's figure that out and apply the same basic solution to the pursuit problem at the same time.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 02:33 am: Edit

remember that this is a role playing game, not a starship simulation game, when we generate rules and prices we need to concentrate on hard numbers to be consistant, but we don't want to have players need to pay nearly as much attention to such things

GPD is already drawing critisism becouse it is to obviously written by wargamers instead of rolepayers. we don't want to make it worse

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 12:17 pm: Edit

David, Agreed. Which is why I would favor printing a SHORT (one page or less) general concept and let the GM figure out how he wants to handle it.

Also, I like the note about crew skill. You forgot to mention the ship's age and maintance history. Indeed, one could say that two supposedly identical ships wouldn't perform the same. Oh, sure, they're close enough that it won't matter in SFB and most situations in GPD. But only one of them can win the drag race.

Loran: Neat chart, but I think I'd rather leave things a bit less specific and let the GM decide.

SVC: Maybe I'm wrong, but personally I don't think pursuits would be all that rare in GPD. {shrug} In the end, you're the guy that's going to put it to print -- or not -- so all the rest of us can do is post our ideas, comments and opinions and hope you can make something good from it all.


Garth L. Getgen

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 02:37 pm: Edit

age of the ship will matter far less then maintinance. an old ship lovingly maintained by a good crew will outperform a brand new ship with a new crew.

I think it's a fair approximation to make to say that the crew that is running the ship is the crew that was maintaining it, so again it's a skill roll for the current crew (I know, this fails when the heros jump in a new starship and take over, maintinance is from the old crew, not the heros that are currently manning it, this is why it's only an approximation)

Garth, remember that most of the time if you are going to be doing a pursuit you will either be.

A. close enough that you use SFB/Gurps space to resolve the combat as you are so close that you don't dare use high warp (remember a single point of damage will kill you and weapons have much longer ranges against ships in high warp so you have to drop out quite a ways out from the target)

or

B. far enough apart that acceleration really doesn't matter, it's more a search then a pursuit (think of pursuing someone who is flying out of LAX when you start in San Francisco. the acceleration of the two aircraft really don't matter)

By Robert Herneson (Rherneson) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Steve makes a good point & David put a fine head on it.
Let me tell you, as a GM I wouldn't bother with most of the Calculus level acrobatics we getting close to. I would judge it by a few factors including 1) the basic general distance, 2) an Astrgation skill roll by the driver, and 3) the 'speed of plot' as Steve likes to say.

You all are letting too much Wargaming and Munchkining get to you, in my opinion. When I GM, I try to stick to Occam's Razor, that being that the simplist answer is usually the best.
The story is the thing. While I appreciate the passion that you all are going to, don't forget what the audience wants.

RH

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, January 11, 2004 - 08:54 pm: Edit

That's all true but on this board it is good to give a once over to many ideas. I would do much good to not record various ideas good, mediocre, and bad and never have the jewels turn up.

Sometimes it takes a bunch of math to say the simple thing correctly. The reader never sees the math but if he checks it, it's right. Anyway, the idea is archived. Time to move on...

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 03:22 am: Edit

I Concur: Story trumps rules.

Seriously, tho, the numbers on the 12-5 chart work for me... they don't significantly disrupt the economics, and unless things are time critical, freighters can do it at extant speeds... affordably, even accounting for long shore leaves at both ends.

THe only hiccup is that freighters are slower than NTW...

Gives me a thought, tho. Long hauls will probably have immediate family hire preferences... in lieu of the 10-20 pasengers capacity, family members will be brought along, and the line house them at both ends of their route.

Otherwise, some of these freighter runs will be "See your family every other year.

Most of my down time estimate of a month to a month and a half is for "off ship" time. Not necesarily at the end, either. I was less concerned with engines and more with morale and the "Submariner isolation" mentality.

Historically, crews tended to not take voyages more than 6- months duration most times. Some exceptions arise, but in general, most ships outside of active wartime navies tend to hit (a/the) home port every 6 months or less. Many ships have 90 day rotations with two crews; 90 on ship, 30 leave, 60 light duty and continuing ed (effectively leave time, but you have to be reachable).

Now, outside of Starfleet, travel times are really slow on the scale of the federation. A 90 day freighter deployment keeps you essentially less than one hex. going to the extremes, 180 day deployments (6 "Months") is 426 Pc round trip. Just shy of a hex. This sounds like the maximal trip length is about a hex, before claustraphobia starts to kick in. (8 months on a slow boat...)

Aux freighters can make a 120 day deployment of a hex and back. Avoiding the dash speeds.

The question is, for civilians, what is the effect of long duration confinement on a warp vessel? How many side stops will ships be making? Are families carried aboard?

We know that some historical terran trade routes ran good some 14-18 months; seldom in a single merchant's load. (Silk road China/India to the middle east, sometimes one, sometimes 2-4 merchants. another merchant or two from the middle east to GrBritain, France, Italy, or Greece. Another merchant or two from port to consumer.

Which begs the question: Are freighter's "Pods" detachable?
If so, how long to switch them out?
Can a freighter be run without pods?

Which models of shipping, too? lots of long runs? or lots of short runs that connect into long travel chains?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 06:13 am: Edit

Loren, correct. it's good to get ideas out, but we may not nessasarily want to spend to much time on some of them. don't mistake my disagreement with this particular idea with intent to discourage ideas in general.

William,
a freighter's pods are definantly detatchable (for normal freighters) it is a standard pod with a strap-on engine/control compartment. you will even see the engine/control sections operating without any pod once in a while.

armed freighters are not modular like this.

in termsw of travel time, think of the age of sail, even a fast clipper ship would take a while to get from Boston to San Francisco, months at sea were not unusual

note that advanced technology (communications, entertainment, replicators, etc) make it much less of a hardship then it used to be.

I would expect to see long runs between major locations, and then short runs between a major location and the surrounding area. the major location has defences that the others don't so it's a good place to store cargo and re-pack it, and then the runs between major locations would typically be made with freighters where each pod carries a single cargo (to make the routing of cargo easier, you just decide how many pods worth need to go where and you don't have to worry about what else is in a given pod if you have to redirect it)

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 11:55 am: Edit

Freighters are probably the workhorses of the Federation economy. They don't have to be amazingly fast, since there so many of them. A single freighter route might have many freighters running it. If the Earth-Orion run (16 months, was it), had 8 freighters, one would stop at each port about every 2 months.

Crewing a 16 month trip could be a problem. For the sake of economy, you want as few people as possible on board, but you also must have enough to maintain the sips systems. Also, on such a long trip, there should be enough people so that you don't come up with all sorts of isolation-based mental issues among the crew.

Of course, a free trader would probably upgrade his engines to at least Aux so that he could beat the freighters and can catch the next opportunity before it gets away.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 07:30 pm: Edit

a small freighter has ~10 people on it while a large freighter has ~20 people

currently there is not an aux-rated version of the FT, although there is some thought that late in the war (say around the advent of X-ships) that a fully modular aux freighter becomes available. if/when that happens I would expect to see an aux version of the Q-ships and the FT

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 08:37 pm: Edit

I have just such a design in the works.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 02:58 am: Edit

Actually, the Free Trader ship listed in the GPD rulebook is listed with a cruise speed of Warp 5.5 which is the NTW speed, if I recall. No TL is listed for the ship, so it may be a later (X-ship era) model. Or were all designs in the book intended to be TL12?

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 12:26 pm: Edit

IIRC the FT is TL11.

The TL of a ship, generally speaking, can be determined by comparing it's SFB YIS date with the TL/date table on GPD page 110. This is NOT a hard and fast rule, just a guideline.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 12:46 pm: Edit

oops, I was mixing up the FT with the tramp steamer.

the FT is a EY grade ship which should be warp 6 IIRC

although a FT built to up-to-date specs would be as fast as a warship

pleanty of room for error here.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 08:57 pm: Edit

The Tramp Steamer is just a freighter with a mixed cargo/passenger pod. It can have either Aux engines or Freighter engines.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 09:23 pm: Edit

Gary, I don't think there are currently any modular aux engines. all the aux ships are permanent conversions.

while it makes sense to use aux engines for cargos more important then bulk, but still not important enough to use full ship engines so far there is no aux version of the tramp steamer or cargo freighter.

By Jonathan Lang (Dataweaver) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 10:41 pm: Edit

Note that there are numerous civilian campaign possibilities beyond the "traveling merchants" paradigm - other possibilities include a colonists campaign, a diplomacy and/or espionage campaign (think Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5, but not neccessarily with any military present), a space exploration campaign (does the SFU have any civilian scouts?), and some pseudo-military settings such as a pirates campaign (which will almost certainly get a book of its own when the Orions are dealt with), a law enforcement campaign (the crew of a police flagship seems to be full of possibilities), or a mercenary campaign.

The complaints that kicked off this whole discussion were centered around the fact that Prime Directive feels like its good only for playing the crew of a military ship. The solution doesn't neccessarily require any new rules (though it may), but more importantly a shift in the focus of the writing. Include more descriptions of some of the nonmilitary developments that have occurred in the SFU, for instance, both in terms of historical events and technologies. When describing player character creation options, keep in mind that you can't assume that they'll have military backgrounds or interests.

Be on the lookout for scenarios that are centered as much around diplomacy and social situations as they are around combat, and allow for the possibility that the main characters might be non-Starfleet (or the equivelent, for the other empires). Indeed, the fewer assumptions that the scenario makes about the player characters, the more generally useful it will be: if you've got a scenario that assumes that the PCs are the crew of the USS Constitution, for instance, it's going to be virtually worthless to most groups. On the other extreme, you might have a scenario where a Federation ship shows up at a Klingon border world on a diplomatic mission, but with no assumptions at all being made as to who the PCs will be: they might be crew aboard the Federation ship, or they might be Klingons living on or visiting that world, or they might be the crew of an ISC merchant ship which has voyaged far from home; or they might be Romulan agents sent to mess with things; or anything else that the GM can come up with in order to get the players involved.

And that's the biggest difference between a roleplaying game and a wargame: when writing something for a wargame, there probably isn't any sort of referee; so the person creating the scenario has to cover every possible contingency. Furthermore, you're writing for two (rarely more) players in competition with each other, and they probably don't have much invested in the crew or ships that they're playing. With a roleplaying game, you can generally assume that there will be a gamemaster to take care of whatever you can't; the players (usually three or more) are most likely on the same side, and they've most likely bringing their own characters to the game.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 11:37 pm: Edit

David L, somewhere (either GPD or the freighter CL article) there is mention that aux engine freighter do become available (I can't recall the time frame but want to say it was some time during the late GW). Also, remember that there is the prime trader version of the free trader with even better engines (as well as the free traitor).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:07 am: Edit

And the Free Trader-X (the most common X-Ship in non-government hands).

In this passage there is a valuable statement to this discussion. Since I think copying the whole ship description is not kosher I'll just point to (R1.205) and this; "...and sometimes profits could be multiplied if delivery of key materials or personnel could be expedited."

Also the rule just below regarding X-Freighters etc.

Now, I know that we aren't delving into X-Tech and that's not really my point. It's just that given the discussions of this thread it does provide for interesting reading. Something to keep in mind. And something to remain aware of so as to not contradict.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 01:03 am: Edit

Although I ultimately agree with you, Jonathon, that this ultimately should be about roleplaying, I do believe that examining the economics of a galaxy wide federation is worthwhile. For example, perhaps in order to deal with very long journeys (16 months to cover 5 hexes, was it?), way stations may be established every 150 parsecs (about a 1 month trip by frieghter) along a route to help mitigate cabin fever, by providing recreation and a new environment. Once we know that, we have many roleplaying opportunities. Maybe one way station intersects many routes, allowing many types of people to travel and stay there briefly, leading to many adventures. Or maybe a ship showed up at one way station, but not the next on the route. What happened? Maybe something happens at a way station that the PCs are called in to investigate.

The more fleshed out a setting, the more opportunities there are for stories to happen.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 09:58 pm: Edit

At the current 10% ship cost per month for dash speed, profits are not likely to improve by dash... unless you're looking at runs from Klinshai to Romulus.