Computer glitch, some hexes are wierd on some copies of sheets 3 and 6. Doesn't affect play.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Like errors on coins those will be the copies that draw thousands at the Antiques Road Show Year 2110!

By John Hall (Fedf111fan) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 04:01 am: Edit

The only really minor problem i saw with the counters are that they were not outlined to that you know where to cut and fold. They still look great and the deck plans are awesome!

By richard Springstead (Ramspite) on Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - 10:39 pm: Edit

Love the deckplans. Minis are good, could use SJG standard yellow outlines. Love the RCS, first set I've purchased where they actually remembered them. Where are the MT stats at?

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 12:22 am: Edit

Glad you like them! I did the plans based on the existing design of the Klingon PF that had been in the SFB game for years (just worked out the internal arrangement). Someone else did the GURPS space 3rd stats, and I presume someone else was to do the Mega Traveller stats. I don't know if they were ever posted, but the product does say they would be on the website.

I am of little help however, I have never seen Megatraveller and wouldn't know what the stats would begin to look like. Anyone else have an idea?

If you want to jury rig something on your own you should aim for:

PFs are speedy and maneuverable in combat conditions, but are prone to excessive engine damage due to the booster packs (allows them to use weapons and high speed simultaneously). With the boosters even a relatively minor engine hit has a chance to take out the entire engine, making the PF largely useless. They can jettison the packs (losing speed while arming weapons) to avoid the engine vulnerability.

They have limited range on the large scale, requiring a larger ship (called a tender) to haul them around to where they are needed. The tender (or planet) is home to the PFs crew when not on a mission, most missions are 48 hours or less. The tender refuels and repairs the PFs it carries, and has the long range sensors to find targets.

Weaponwise (not knowing what weapons traveller has) it needs two missile launchers with four missiles each. These carry the same missiles as regular larger ships do, it is possible to swap two missiles in a launcher for one larger more damaging type (thus could have two large missiles per launcher instead of four normal). Two phasers (which could be some sort of mid-power laser or other beam type weapon). One disruptor (a heavier beam weapon, maybe particle beam? which might do more damage but with a shorter range). All these weapons have the same firing rate. You can fire both missile launchers (one missile each regardless of missile size), both phasers (or lasers), and the disruptor (or particle beam?), and they will all be ready to fire again after the same amount of time. The anti-drone system (anti-missile defense) has six rounds, and can fire them in sequence much faster than the other weapons (if the main missile launcher fires once a minute, the anti-missiles can fire every couple of seconds), but they can only be fired at incoming missiles or other phyiscal objects tracking the PF, they do too little damage to harm another ship. They are sort of a kinetic kill weapon, the either hit the incoming missile taking it out or they miss doing no damage. They have a short (point defense) range, but are most effective at the greatest extent of that range having more time to home in on the oncoming threat, and actually being nearly useless at true point blank range.

Probably delete the warp engines (or turn them into hyperdrive??) and turn the impusle engines into fusion rockets or whatever traveller uses, but keep the flavor of the boosters/engine damage described above, it's what PFs are about, they have to decide when to dump their extra power to avoid being too easily killed. New boosters can only be fitted by the PF's tender ship.

A larger ship can crush one of these PFs without too much trouble, but two of them have the firepower of a larger ship, and they travel in flotillas of six.

This is all for the military version of course, the civilian version deletes most weapons to make space for equipment that increases the range and makes them more of a conventional ship.

Hope that helps...

Nick

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 02:38 am: Edit

Ramspite: I would suggest using the G1 deck plans for your favorite SDB of about 500-700 tons. The weapons can be replaced with 4 laser turrets (phasers & disruptor); 2 missile turrets (drones) and a turret filled with sandcasters (ADD). The crew requirements would fit with the Traveller designs that required larger crews; I have seen almost identical MegaTraveller designs with crew sizes that differed by a factor of three. This won't be an exact match across universes but may well fit better in your specific campaign. Adjust size and weapons as needed.

(Really, the disruptor should be turned into a small bay or spinal mount for closer feel of flavor but PFs are such small craft that MT design sequences tended to handle awkwardly. If you are willing to tweak the designs, PFs should have more weapons mounted than the tonnage permits. Possibly giving them the 7 weapon mounts I list but cutting the displacement to 500 would fit better.)

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 03:46 am: Edit

No one at ADB did an official MegaTraveller stat package for the G-1. It's a crosslicensing issue -- we're licensed to use GURPS, but not TRAVELLER.

I don't know if anyone did an unofficial one.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 10:20 am: Edit

The crew guys that SJG does aren't outlined either.

I don't have a clue how to do T or MT stats so if somebody would, go ahead.

The gunboat has a crew of 27 for combat missions. You can actually fly it with one man (if nothing breaks and he doens't have to take a nap). A functional crew for a month long mission would be at least six (assuming the civilianized version with few weapons). Most of what the combat crew does is fix things when they break, and in this small a boat with this many guns, lots of struff breaks all the time.

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Thursday, July 14, 2005 - 12:23 am: Edit

Just picked up a copy of the G1 Deck Plans at my FLGS, and they're awesome. Definitely can't wait for more deck plans later (I've got the Fed FF plans from GPD:MPA, also awesome). More!

Thanks,

William Beasley
wbeasley@siu.edu

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 14, 2005 - 01:59 am: Edit

The Romulan Skyhawk plans are in GURPS Romulans and CL31.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Friday, July 15, 2005 - 04:30 am: Edit

I can't find my GPD stuff (packed for a move), but the MT stats should be moderately doable.

The weapons available are the same as GT, as is most of the tech. Some small niggling details.

The problem being that MT has no equivalent to Warp Drive; the MT FTL is a fuel hog, and takes tremendous tonnage. It also is a hyperspatial mode; ships exit N-Space, enter J-space, and return to N-Space by trajectory decay of some form.

However, MT hit points are derived solely from Volume, and MT armor solely from armor equivalence to hard Steel (ca G TL7)
Weapons equivalence is far trickier.

Turret weapons are 13.5KL cans, holding 1-3 units. Each unit is either a Laser, Missile, or sandcaster.
Larger turrets are 27KL cans, holding either 1-2 plasma or 1-2 fusion beams.
Particle Accelerators turrets are 40.5KL, holding a single PA.
Next size up is 67.5KL, and can mount a single large version of any of the above except sandcasters; these are called barbettes. Can also mount Meson guns.
Next step up is 675KL, a "50Ton Bay". Again, all the above except sandcasters
Next step up in size is the "100Ton Bay", 1350KL.
after that are spinal mounts.

All MT weapons are sublight. In MT, a PF has the advantage of unhitability.... as nothing can track a C+ vessel.

Likewise, MT's shielding tech bears no resemblance functionally to SFB.

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Friday, July 15, 2005 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Some questions about possible deck plan conversions (not necessarily something I'd like to see printed, just curious):
1) According to GK, some G1s/U1s retained the engine flushing equipment for their engines (which take 12 hours to flush). About how many square feet should one figure such equipment would take up? The same size as an escape pod? Bigger? Smaller?

2) Are the internal bulkheads/walls of the G1/U1 fairly moveable? Are the pressure doors fairly moveable? I'd like to change the internal floorplan somewhat for a story I'm considering writing, if possible.

3) On the G1L deckplan, I assume it wouldn't be to huge a deal to pull out one of the Batteries or APRs for more space, specifically the 'original' ones, right?

4) Does the U1 have a full transporter? I think it does (it seems to have a transporter control), but I'd hate to write a story or plan an adventure, and have it only have been a passive transporter pad.

5) I'd like my U1 to have more 'heads'. How much trouble would it be to add in a couple more here and there? (Considering adding more 'staterooms', with private head/shower).

About it for now.

William Beasley
wbeasley@siu.edu

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 15, 2005 - 07:14 pm: Edit

1. Not sure, but call it the size of the impulse room.

2. Most are very hard to move since they're an integral part of the structure. Those that form the central ring (both sides of the central ring hallway) are very hard to move.

3. You could but you won't want to since those are good systems to have. But anyway, if you're building from scratch you can just not install them. If removing existing, the batteries are easy to move (mandle them out one at a time) but removing a reactor means opening up the hull and your cost could exceed the cost of a used ship.

4. Some do, some don't. I checked the serial numbrs and yours does.

5. You can make it happen, but it's not cheap.

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 12:38 am: Edit

Thanks, SVC.

So, here's what I'm looking at, after thinking about it some more.

Changes to the U1 Utility Boat:
1) Crew Quarters on the Port side upper deck changed to another stateroom, identical to the Starboard side (with a head).
2) Remove the seats in the lower deck of the command pod, reconfigure as a small stateroom (no head)
3) Convert the Comms station on the upper command deck to PH3 controls.
4) Small "Hatch/Airlock" (instead of large cargo elevator)
4a) 'storage' adjacent to Hatch/Airlock converted to small staterooms (no head)
5) Computer Room- pressure door moved from aft to starboard side of the room.
6) "Office" on upper deck (adjacent to the Computer/electronics room) converted to Engine Flushing Equipment room.

Sound plausible? I might do some cut and pasting in adobe to make myself a version of this. Decided to leave the APR and BATTs alone; they're too useful, and too much trouble to remove. Decided to only add one head. This gives two large staterooms, three small staterooms, and the 3 triple bunks in the boom corridor.

Another couple of questions:
A) How much room does one set of special sensor equipment take up? About the same as the drone racks that they replace?
B) Vaguely, is special sensor equipment average priced, expensive, very expensive, or too much to worry about on a civilian boat?

Thanks again,

William Beasley

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 02:11 am: Edit

Ok, finished up a photoshop and an acrobat version of my personalized U1, as described above. Don't know how to go about posting it, or if it's allowed to do so. If anyone's interested, let me know, I guess? It is a 120mb pdf file, though. Also, it's in the same scale as what's on the back of the design notes sheet from the G1 deckplans packet.

Edit: This is intended to be more of a small Yacht type, with the extra staterooms and less storage. I considered removing the 9 bunks in the boom, but decided against doing so, as they could be needed for visitors or somesuch.

BTW, nice thought to include a large ziploc bag to hold the plans in. Extremely useful, considering the kids, and my tendancy to spill things randomly.

William Beasley

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 03:58 am: Edit

I'm very sure you can't share it. Sorry.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 09:22 am: Edit

You would want your engine flushing equipment on the lower not upper deck. Perhaps in the two engineer/damcon compartments?

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 12:45 pm: Edit

Thanks, SVC. Easy change to make, some text movement. Maybe I'll turn that 'office' into the Aux Engr/Tech room. Or maybe I'll just turn it into another small stateroom (no head), and leave the Aux Tech and Engr stations down in the two rooms, and simply label them as engine flushing.

My next step is to populate it with the crew, using G4e Lite. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks again, SVC.

William Beasley

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 01:27 pm: Edit

A key consideration, WJB, is what your people are going to be doing. If it's any kind of trading or prospecting, you'd want the storage space. You've got a lot of comfy staterooms but what are all of these people actually doing? And does doing it require their own ship? For example, if the crew were experts at running wargame conventions and went from GenCon Alpha Centauri to Klinshai Kon and then to RomuCon they could use regular passenger service and it would be cheaper.

By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Semi-independent adventurers? I haven't decided that much. They won't be trading or prospecting. Possibly some light smuggling? I'm trying to think in terms of what an adventuring group would do (non-military, but possibly ex-military). Explore new planets on contract, maybe? (The reason I asked about the size of Special Sensors.) Possibly, visiting undiscovered planets coreward, regardless of the Prime Directive.

Another issue that this last statement brings up, is what does the Federation do for this type of Utility Boat during the economic boom after the wars? Do they liscense one for construction from the Gorns or Kzinti? Buy hordes of U1's? Build one of their own? (They certainly have the tech capability to do so, despite the philosophical reservations against using them in combat.) Is there a post-war Utility version of the Fed (conjectural) Thunderbolt (the Thunderbird, heh)? In which case, I might make an attempt at making a version based on the parts (imp engines, accelleration couches, pressure doors, etc.) in Nick's Deck Plans (or, possibly, using some pieces from the Fed FF deck plans).

The reason I'm considering going through the extra work is because I like to have something to reference. That, and I'm a visual person. Those, and I'm a dork.

Thanks again for the imput, SVC

William Beasley

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 03:19 pm: Edit

I think you need storage space. Food and mission supplies. If your group isn't that big (say, under 14) you could replace one escape pod with a refrigated storage or laboratory unit.

Exploring new planets might be fun. Not sure you need "special sensors" but you could mount improved survey sensors (something not really in the game) which might take up the lower part of the boom.

The Feds used big shuttles, bought Pfs, used skiffs, or whatever. But no thunderbirds.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 18, 2005 - 01:44 am: Edit

William Beasley: You asked about what you could use for a Fed group instead of a PF. In Captains Log #29 is the Federation Express deck plans. It's a small, fast, three deck ship with very long range. It's made for landing too.

I would think it might be possible to buy one that was reconditioned.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 18, 2005 - 01:50 am: Edit

Ya know, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that the GIA has several FDX's for use in it's operations. It's a right fine little vessel for delivering Prime Teams places anywhere they need to go right away.