 March 14, 2009 - 12:09am | I've been mussing over varriations on the Assault Scout and considering working up some deck plans but the above question hit me. Is the Assault Scout an adequet platform for covert ops? or would a bigger ship be prefered? Pros for a bigger ship would be larger capacity for small vehicles and extra frills ie a lab and full medical set up. a large arsenal, a tactical command post and you could disguise a larger ship as a frieghter and thus give it a cover. One whole crago hold could be devoted to flight ops with 1-2 shuttles and 2 10 man launches. Pros for the Assault scout: well its just cool and it is the largest hull that can land on a planet. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 14, 2009 - 3:49am | "largest hull that can land on a planet" The other part of the equation is exactly how the assault scout lands...tail down or belly down. This has been debated here in the past (and at other SF forums as well). Of course the assault scout does have a small hold, even on the canon deck plans. Knock out that retianing wall and I don't see why an explorer couldn't be stuffed in there (4x10 meters). Utilize a smaller vehicle, that space behind the retaining wall could be converted to a small barracks and the LS can be ramped up to accomodate the extra beings. |
 March 14, 2009 - 1:02pm | The Assault Scout is fine for covert ops. If necessary, you could stack the troops almost like cordwood. I would not be surprised if you could pack in 20-30 additional troops into an Assault Scout. It would be very uncomfortable, and the Assault Scout would have to make sure to avoid combat, but it could be done. Of course, cargo has to be considered as well... So maybe 20-30 troops on a mission where there are already supplies for them (reinforcement of a remote base, for example.) Comfortably, with kit, I would say about 10 troops. Remember, this is over and above the 6-8 man Assault Scout Boarding Party, so they might be able to help out too. |
 March 14, 2009 - 7:22pm | I like that idea. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
 March 14, 2009 - 8:24pm | I've already figured out a trick to make a corvette capable of landing. Granted I'm stretching the rules and the idea comes from the anime series Outlaw Star. A corvette being a HS4 ship and it only needs 1 drive, so I figure why can't it have both an atomic and chemical drive? It would only need to use the chemical drive for landings as I'm pretty sure the atomic drive can handle take offs. The idea from Outlaw Star is some one wanted a ship just like the one from the series. It's a small ship yet it has grapplers like arms, a kind of fantasy is the ship could use weapons mounted on these arms. So I made it a modified HS4 ship to allow some kind of grapples on it, and built it with an atomic and chemical drive plus any other weapons a ship like this might have. Useing the background of the series the ship was built with pirate and military technology, which explains why it's so advance. I probably broke a few rules creating this things, but damn if others don't want to fly that ship!  Whoops, that last image was a little too big. Maybe the toy with it's grapplers out would be better. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
March 14, 2009 - 10:16pm | I'm just wondering, not having an personal experience myself in covert ops, what would be considered minimum neccessary space and equipment for covert ops. The assault scouts performance would be ideal but is it big enough? I suppose, militaries being what they are, that there would be both "black" assault scouts as well as large platforms. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 15, 2009 - 4:15pm | A corvette being a HS4 ship and it only needs 1 drive See, this is another obvious hole in the canon rules. An HS:3 ship is "generally" 50x10m or 2,512 cubic meters. An HS:4 ship is "generally" 75x12m or 8,478 cubic meters. So going by the rules, something that is nearly three times the size (and mass) only needs half of the same sized engines to generate equivellant performance? What they're saying is if I put a 50HP motorcycle engine into a car, it'll go just as fast as the bike... And it gets more screwy from there: an HS:5 ship is "generally" 100x15m or 17,633 cubic meters, and calls for three LARGER drives to...wait for it...go slower than the single mini-drive HS:4 craft that is less than half the size/mass. In other words, if I put an 600HP supercharged V8 into a truck it'll go slower than the car with the motorcycle engine. Yep, mighty big hole there. Big enough to pass a moon through. |
March 15, 2009 - 4:24am | Yeah it is a hole. But I've always seen the number of drives a ship needs as a suggestion. There are rules for having less drives which effects the ship, but there's nothing about adding more than the suggested number of them. So what do you think would be the effect of a HS 6 ship with twice the number of drives on it? Can you do it? What about an assault scout with 4 drives? In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
March 15, 2009 - 4:42am | I always allowed doubling the drives to add 1 ADF point, as a one time feature, during the design phase. It's why some of my fighter craft are so lethal...bump ADF to 6 by doubling the drives and then add another weapon system, which drops it back down to 5: voila, now your standard fighter has 3 assault rockets AND a pod laser system! |
 March 15, 2009 - 11:49am | I've gone the other route; 2 smaller sized engines for one of the next-larger size, for +1 ADF. Though doubling the engines will work as well. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 15, 2009 - 4:19pm | That definitely has merit as well, and something I've done in the past on occassion. Of course it's overkill...akin to dropping a Mack truck motor into a Civic, but certainly feasible. One of my assault scout variants sports a pair of B drives and a resulting ADF:7, enough acceleration to warrant STA checks for each turn of use at said rate with failure resulting in blacking out. Makes for an interesting scenario: the crew blacks out and the ship continues accelerating at ludicrous speed until it enters the void... |
March 15, 2009 - 8:26pm | That definitely has merit as well, and something I've done in the past on occassion. Of course it's overkill...akin to dropping a Mack truck motor into a Civic, but certainly feasible. One of my assault scout variants sports a pair of B drives and a resulting ADF:7, enough acceleration to warrant STA checks for each turn of use at said rate with failure resulting in blacking out. Makes for an interesting scenario: the crew blacks out and the ship continues accelerating at ludicrous speed until it enters the void... Would you consider it to continue accelerating in the void? In which case the black out effect would continue till it ran out of fuel which could well nigh put it quite the ways away from its start point. I think I'd enforce some serious STA and other health effects upon the crew forcing them to alot days of rest to remove them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 15, 2009 - 8:26pm | That definitely has merit as well, and something I've done in the past on occassion. Of course it's overkill...akin to dropping a Mack truck motor into a Civic, but certainly feasible. One of my assault scout variants sports a pair of B drives and a resulting ADF:7, enough acceleration to warrant STA checks for each turn of use at said rate with failure resulting in blacking out. Makes for an interesting scenario: the crew blacks out and the ship continues accelerating at ludicrous speed until it enters the void... Would you consider it to continue accelerating in the void? In which case the black out effect would continue till it ran out of fuel which could well nigh put it quite the ways away from its start point. I think I'd enforce some serious STA and other health effects upon the crew forcing them to alot days of rest to remove them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 16, 2009 - 6:09am | Since a normal jump entails accelerating to sub-jump velocity (12,000,000kph or about 200 hexes per turn), making hte final adjustments, and nudging the accelerator to poke into the void. The ship decelrates after a predetermined amount of time (which I have in my house rules as set by the computer...since everything is distorted in the void a carbon based life form would not be able to properly guage this time) the ship decelerates to drop back out of the void. So assuming no jump preparations were made (and as such no preset computer function), technically such a craft would continue accelerating... |
March 16, 2009 - 2:53pm | Usually the speed is its own drawback.... Getting back to the topic at hand, I don't see why an HS3 craft can't be a covert ops platform...say an ion-driven scoutcraft(for a radar window), with a holo screen generator, a decoy/jammer pod and EMCON, plus at least one LB to defend itself with. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 16, 2009 - 9:53pm | Usually the speed is its own drawback.... Getting back to the topic at hand, I don't see why an HS3 craft can't be a covert ops platform...say an ion-driven scoutcraft(for a radar window), with a holo screen generator, a decoy/jammer pod and EMCON, plus at least one LB to defend itself with. I actually had the assault scout in mind when I typed my question but this sounds like a purpose designed and built craft not a variant of the AS. Its easy to see a non military spy organization wanting their own craft design or a military org wanting to save money of a tried and true hull design modified for a specific mission. I had kicked around ideas for an exploration mission using an ion drive freighter of the original KH freighter designs. The long stalk connecting the head of the freighter to the engine pod having several connection points for freight modules and an airlock allowing access to the freight module through the connection point. The exploration mission would have a lab module and a flight ops module with a shuttle for the exploration mission as well as a frieght module with fuel and a freight module with supplies and food modules would have back up life support and back up parabatteries. This would work for a covert ops ship using a freighter cover but with a command post module, arsenal module, flight ops module with insertion craft/ landing shuttle, it would need impecable credentials and have to avoid inspections by militia crews. It would have the ability to change its IFF transponder and have files on 100's of transponder codes for various ships. It would also require a high ranking officer in overall charge with a ships captain responsible for the ship. In fact a large covert ops ship would work for the big ship campaign described in the Polygon article about that. You could have the players as crew and they fly around doing various missions where the tie together on the missions is that they are what is assigned to the ship. The over all campaign does not even need to be a progressively advancing storyline like SF-0 thru SF-2 just a bunch of more or less one shot assignments. If your plagued with players who are spotty in their attendance then they just didn't get assigned to this weeks mission because the player was a no show- just say that character x is on bridge duty and unavailable. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 17, 2009 - 1:17pm | Usually the speed is its own drawback.... Getting back to the topic at hand, I don't see why an HS3 craft can't be a covert ops platform...say an ion-driven scoutcraft(for a radar window), with a holo screen generator, a decoy/jammer pod and EMCON, plus at least one LB to defend itself with. I think the rules don't allow ion drives to land on planets, however seeing as we're open to having two different drives on a ship this opens it up and makes it a very possible idea. An assault scout with 4 drives, 2 ion and 2 atomic. Add on the jammers and other systems and it's the perfect covert ops ship. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
March 17, 2009 - 2:59pm | If your plagued with players who are spotty in their attendance then they just didn't get assigned to this weeks mission because the player was a no show- just say that character x is on bridge duty and unavailable. Bridge duty, my left...foot. Character x was too busy doing back to back punishment watches cleaning the ship's toilets to participate in this week's mission....  "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 17, 2009 - 3:02pm | Seriously, tho, the covert ops freighter is a perfect idea, especially one which is more sophisticated on the inside than its outside would let on. Multiple transponder codes would be a definite requirement, as would a sizeable fund for bribing militia inspectors, or at least hidden compartments and a silver-tongued devil of a ship's captain for those occasions bribes would be impractical. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 17, 2009 - 10:43pm | An assault scout with 4 drives, 2 ion and 2 atomic. There have been discussions in the past concerning the legality of atomic drives operating in an atmosphere. Of course the debate stems from whether the thrust is radioactive or not, followed by cracking open the cowlings for maintenance purposes...either way for a populated world one can expect the energy sensors on the ground to pick up the atomic drives and some type of resistance or mandates to their landing. As such I had created a such a craft sporting four ion drives and two chemical drives for my Port Loren Raiders revamp game. While it doesn't have assault scout like performance, it's decent enough at ADF:3 and can make planetfall. |
March 18, 2009 - 5:24am | There have been discussions in the past concerning the legality of atomic drives operating in an atmosphere. Of course the debate stems from whether the thrust is radioactive or not, followed by cracking open the cowlings for maintenance purposes...either way for a populated world one can expect the energy sensors on the ground to pick up the atomic drives and some type of resistance or mandates to their landing. I hadn't thought much about it but the thoughts I had had were along the lines of a plasma drive. Unfortunately, as I think about it now if the atomic drive is a sort of plasma drive with the atomic energy being used to heat the plasma then that ignores the need for fuel bunkerage that will be converted to plasma. I suspect that unlike the chemical and ion drives the atomic drive will in time prove to be little better than magic. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 18, 2009 - 2:20pm | Time then to develop a new breed of ion drive, something with more thrust power. I mean if Star Wars can have ion drives work in a gravity well then why not SF? Oh yeah, Star Wars also has that repulsor lift thing for it. Well still a new hyper-velocity ion drive for military use at first sounds like it's in order. Then Shadow, you're idea there has merit. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
March 18, 2009 - 3:02pm | Shadow's SC /Ion engine should be in the Ultimate Equipment Guide project. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 18, 2009 - 8:47pm | Re: repulsor lift drives --- something that I never found an actual explanation for. It seems they're always on as well...the Naboo starfighters and Luke's landspeeder were always in hover mode no matter what. Somewhere in the time gap between the prequel trilogy and the original movies they incorporated landing skids for the ships. ___________________________________ In my house rules an Ion Drive permits 1/2 normal ADF of subsequent atomic driven craft (rounding up), assuming the full compliment of drives. After all, the rulebook itself dubs the Ion Drive as "powerful", yet rates it the same ADF as a chemical drive. Which can also be read that any chemical thruster driven craft, given enough fuel, can effectively become a starship...so it shouldn't be restricted to only system ship duty (thus further proving my arguement about HS:3 starships versus HS:5 system ships landing). My SuperCharged Ion Drives (SC/I drives) merely add one to the ADF. In other words, an HS:6 craft with a full compliment of Atomics would be ADF:3, the same ship sporting a full compliment of Ion Drives would have ADF:2 (1½ rounded up to 2), and full compliment of SC/I would be 3. Granted the SC/I formula doesn't always work out to be the same as atomics...try it on an HS:1-4 craft and the atomics end up more powerful (as do the HS:16-20 craft). I might have to tweak this a bit so that they are consistent across the board. |
 March 19, 2009 - 11:01am | Shadow's SC /Ion engine should be in the Ultimate Equipment Guide project. Would the SFman readers like to see the UEG formatted and put in the webzine? (We would need skilled GM's to sift thru the UEG and make sure equipment is balanced for the game.) w00ty minds want to know. |
 March 19, 2009 - 11:57am | Shadow's SC /Ion engine should be in the Ultimate Equipment Guide project. Would the SFman readers like to see the UEG formatted and put in the webzine? (We would need skilled GM's to sift thru the UEG and make sure equipment is balanced for the game.) Sounds like a plan. More toys is good. w00ty minds want to know. I'm afraid to ask.  |
March 19, 2009 - 4:45pm | Re: repulsor lift drives --- something that I never found an actual explanation for. It seems they're always on as well...the Naboo starfighters and Luke's landspeeder were always in hover mode no matter what. Somewhere in the time gap between the prequel trilogy and the original movies they incorporated landing skids for the ships. Landspeeders apparentally had no landing gear, and I guessed the geniuses at ILM thought the hovering N-1 Starfighters just plain looked cool...what's weird is the Naboo starfighters hovered, while the Royal Starship(and the Naboo Diplomatic Barge and Padmé's yacht)all had landing gear. Go figure. Larry, yeah, go ahead and format the Guide for inclusion in the webzine(all of issue #13, maybe?). "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 19, 2009 - 8:07pm | ...yet the Y-Wing, which appears in the CG Clone Wars TV show, ends up with landing skids. I dunno, I just prefer continuity that melds LOL |
March 20, 2009 - 3:28pm | Don't we all, Shadow? Don't we all.... But, after years of SW and Star Trek, I'm used to it anymore.... "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 20, 2009 - 3:31pm | Re: repulsor lift drives --- something that I never found an actual explanation for. It seems they're always on as well...the Naboo starfighters and Luke's landspeeder were always in hover mode no matter what. Somewhere in the time gap between the prequel trilogy and the original movies they incorporated landing skids for the ships. ___________________________________ In my house rules an Ion Drive permits 1/2 normal ADF of subsequent atomic driven craft (rounding up), assuming the full compliment of drives. After all, the rulebook itself dubs the Ion Drive as "powerful", yet rates it the same ADF as a chemical drive. Which can also be read that any chemical thruster driven craft, given enough fuel, can effectively become a starship...so it shouldn't be restricted to only system ship duty (thus further proving my arguement about HS:3 starships versus HS:5 system ships landing). My SuperCharged Ion Drives (SC/I drives) merely add one to the ADF. In other words, an HS:6 craft with a full compliment of Atomics would be ADF:3, the same ship sporting a full compliment of Ion Drives would have ADF:2 (1½ rounded up to 2), and full compliment of SC/I would be 3. Granted the SC/I formula doesn't always work out to be the same as atomics...try it on an HS:1-4 craft and the atomics end up more powerful (as do the HS:16-20 craft). I might have to tweak this a bit so that they are consistent across the board. Maybe make the A&C drives +2 ADF and the B drive +1. It'll look inconsistent, but what's a little inconsistency amongst Star Frontiers players.... "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 20, 2009 - 4:06pm | I think I'll leave it alone. The only real inconsistency is with the A drive (HS:1-4) craft, and since the largest calls for 2 drives it's not a problem to balance that by doubling the drives (which adds ADF:+1, one time only, in my game). |
