 November 18, 2007 - 7:17pm | In SFKH1 Dramune Run the Gullwind has a rocket battery in the cargo hold. If the RB is moved from the cargo hold and mounted you must sacrafice 1 ADF or 1 MR (see below) 33. Rocket Battery: Part of a armament shipment for Malco, this heavy weapon was loaded before Garlus fled the Dramune System. The crate includes 6 salvos of ammo. lnstallation is possible, but it must be perormed while the Gullwind is in the docking bay of a station. One to four technicians can do the job, working a total of 40 man hours. As usual, a 10-hour shift calls for 10 hours' rest for each character involved in the project. If the RB is installed, the Gullwind must sacrifice 1 ADF or 1 MR point (players' option) from her movement capacity. Why is the world would it cost the ship 1 ADF or 1 MR?? The weight is the same, it's just moved positions. w00ty minds must know. ;-) |
 November 18, 2007 - 7:31pm | Because them's the MHS (minimum hull size) rules, AFAIK. As for the logic behind them, SF:KH has some consistency issues. The whole MR rating thing. How little of their volume ships can actually use. Minimum ADF of 1. ADF reduced if carrying a lot? Don't recall.... |
 November 20, 2007 - 12:18pm | Exactly... the whole ADF/MR had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the mass of the ship. A hull size 20 vessel totally empty (say a mega-freighter) vs. a fully outfitted battleship have the same manuver stats. Granted, the rules are oriented towards simple, easy play. But it does make for a lot of problems when you really break it down and look at it. Further issues -- ADF of 1 is supposed to equate to 1G for those onboard. However, if you do the math for 10 minute turns with a speed of 1 (not acceleration, just coasting), you are actually only moving a fraction of a 10,000km hex (*I calculated roughly as 3,600km). It certainly is not 10,000km (unless I'm missing something significant). Not that it really is a big deal -- the size of the hexes don't really effect game play, but it is another example of the consistancy issue. |
November 20, 2007 - 1:03pm | Look at Knight Hawks:Vector as an attempt to add more logic.... ;-) ;-) |
November 20, 2007 - 1:07pm | Note, I always thought MHS might refer to some sort of power / computing type requirement, over and above the Volume and MASS. |
 November 20, 2007 - 4:48pm | You could also explain it as since the Gullwind is not a military ship the original plans for it did not include a rocket battery, adding one now changes the general displacement of the ship. However I'd think you could tamper with the engines to get that ADF or MR back, but that's just more man hours of work on top of the 40 hours to install the RB. Then there is SF:KH rules never made it possible to design ships with a lot of different variety. A HS5 frigate is pretty much like all the others same as all HS6 destroyers. Although if you wanted to toy with the game a frigate is generally in all wet navy descriptions a ship that can out run anything it can't out gun. Destroyers are pretty much what their name sake means they don't have to be fast just well armed, maybe even over armed. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
November 21, 2007 - 7:29am | I have not looked over KH Vector, so I'll have to give that a look. I believe someone mentioned on one of these forums the idea that the Inertia screen technology could have a place in eliminating the need to follow vectored movement mechanics for space combat/travel. That seems to make sense, but I have not given it too much thought yet. I'm toying with how adhering to vectored mechanics would change the feel of the KH aspect of my games. |
 November 21, 2007 - 12:53pm | The canon rules do make mention something to the effect of "techniques of miniaturization allow for a wide variety of military possibilities". That said, it makes sense that a battleship would sport similar performance to an empty liner/freighter of equivilent size. I really need to devise some sort of formula for civilian ships, but at the time it seemed fair as two laser batteries (25 cubic meters each) take up the same space as a rocket battery and a spare salvo (40+10 cubic meters). You can see how I incorporated this into the original deckplans at http://gullwind.20m.com , the additional battery & controls occupy the crew cabins. |
November 21, 2007 - 2:16pm | Then there's various other options one can explore...such as having the crew befriend a military contractor that can add the weapon at no penalty. I can have any military or civi ship modified to reduce the hit on ADF/MR? (of course to a certain point...you understand) SS - how does adding a RB effect ADF/MR, what are the ppl thinking that created the canon rules? |
November 21, 2007 - 9:10pm | I can have any military or civi ship modified to reduce the hit on ADF/MR? (of course to a certain point...you understand) SS - how does adding a RB effect ADF/MR, what are the ppl thinking that created the canon rules? No idea what they were thinking, aside from the ideal that making an unarmed ship battle-worthy is going to cost something beyond money. Kinda like the modern day Hummers: totally different from their military counterparts, which by the way top out at around 55mph but on any terrain...the civvie Hummer wouldn't last as long at sustained 55mph in rugged conditions. Anyways, p.19 of the KH Campaign Book details the modifiers to arming civilian craft. In a nutshell you add up the MHS (minimum hull size) of all weapons to be added (re: a laser battery is a MHS:3 weapon, a rocket battery is MHS:5...). Then you take half the HS of the ship to be armed and divide the MHS sum by that number. Subtract one from that total and it yields the performance modifier (how much ADF and/or MR must be sacraficed). |
November 21, 2007 - 10:05pm | FWIW, some of the different options for design (not that I've ever research this, so-sir-ie...) From Dragon Magazine (http://www.starfrontiers.com/rules/Dragon/listing.htm -- search for 'KH:' or the below articles): Yachts & Privateers An interstellar Armory The Frontiers of Design Knight Hawks: Vector : http://arsponline.org/game.html or http://www.starfrontiers.org/downloadables.asp, search for Vector Knight Hawks Intermediate: http://www.starfrontiers.org/downloadables.asp (search for Knight Hawks Intermediate) The Fronter News Network (FN) http://majestic-worlds.com/fnn/publications/FNN-AC-1/expert-tactical-operations-manual.html & http://majestic-worlds.com/fnn/publications/FNN-AC-1/armor-design.html Kamikaze's House Rules: http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/StarFrontiers/KnightHawks.html House Rules project on this site (Shadow Shack's rules) And then various articles in the Frontierman... |
November 25, 2007 - 6:58pm | You have to remember, I believe the Dramune Run was published before any of the design optional rules in those magazines. Now that you have those options you can change the ship more completely than before. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
