 June 8, 2009 - 9:03am | Ok. First up, a question. In the KH rulebook, it states that only starships of hull size 1-3 and system ships of hull size 1-5 can land on planets, does everyone still use this rule? To my mind, a ship using more powerful atomic engines should find it as easy to lift its own mass into orbit as a ship using chemical drives. I can understand why ion engines shouldn't land on planets, but simply cannot work out why a streamlined starship of hull 4 with atomic drives couldn't when an identical system ship with chemical drives is able to. I'm currently designing (and doing deck plans) for a hull size 4 privateer that flippin well will be able to land on planets! Already done a mini for it (based on Brigade models), and it fits in well with my other SFKH mini's. |
 June 8, 2009 - 10:39am | I think there was a general consensus that decide all HS 5 ships could land. I think Shack has some strong ideas that contributed to that. Atomic drives arent used in atmosphere due to the radiation. I think the KH books has that in there. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
 June 8, 2009 - 1:19pm | I think some of us went with the idea that you can or should be allowed to mount different engines on such ships. I took note of the corvette HS 4 ship and it only needs 1 engine. Well why does it only need 1, why not have 1 atomic drive and a 1 secondary chemical drive for landing? Atomic drives are not allowed to land just as Rum there says, the radiation. But when you think of it, any ship bigger than a HS 3 is going to need a prepared dock to land in. All ships land vertically after all, and a HS 3 ship is short and can have a hatch or ladder out of it. Consider a HS 5 ship even if you did allow an atomic driven one to land, how large must it's base be in order to support a 100 meter length on the ground. If you need a method to get people from a HS 5 ship down with out a prepared dock just create a HS2 mini shuttle. It's barely bigger than a fighter, yet much smaller than an assault scout. Large enough to bring a reasonable number of people down. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
June 8, 2009 - 6:31pm | Actually, the HS4 ship uses 2 size A engines (the 1 entry on the table was, apparently, a misprint), exactly the same set-up as the HS3 Assault Scout, so one would imagine the radiation problem to be the same with both. As to the size of the ship, system ships of size 4 and 5 can land on planets so, presumably, size and mass isn't the consideration. If they had put the limit on size B Atomic Engines, that might have made more sense, as these come in at size 5. As it stands, there seems little rhyme or reason for it. It does say in the rules that Ion Drive ships never land on planets, which seems sensible, but they don't mention anything about the radiation in atmosphere. |
 June 9, 2009 - 2:08am | I think there was a general consensus that decide all HS 5 ships could land. I think Shack has some strong ideas that contributed to that. There was a discussion here last year, can't recall if it was int he general forum or a project forum...but it was a fairly active one to say the least. IIRC there were two simultaneous threads going, one dealing with the artwork of the scout in the KH Campaign Book in a belly-down landed position and a separate one dealing more with what can and can't land. And as Rum Rogue stated, I do feel strongly about HS:5 or smaller capable of landing regardless of atomic or chemical drives, and at the same time buy into the ideal of civilized worlds not permitting atomic driven craft to land, but they can still physically land regardless of morals and ethics. My only debate regarding the atomic drives would be the question of whether the actual thrust/exhaust of the atomic drive is radioactive. The nuclear reaction produces the power needed to move the drive, and naturally that reactor chamber is radioactive, but I question if any of that radioactive byproduct actually makes it out the drive nozzles or not. If not, my ruling would be the starship could land on a civilized world but would be prohibited at performing any maintenance on the drive while in the atmosphere (as such work can expose the radioactive core to the elements). That poitn was also touched on in the aforementioned discussions, and IIRC it was under mixed review. But one point I don't think that we covered then was the inherent risk of a starship crashing if something were to go awry, so that in itself would probably prohibit starship landings on civilized worlds... But in the end, I still feel strongly that any starship up to and including HS:5 is fully capable of performing the act of landing and taking off from planet surfaces. If they had put the limit on size B Atomic Engines, that might have made more sense, as these come in at size 5. See, I don't buy into the engine size either. The HS:5 system ships also have a size B drive...chemical size B but still a size B drive. And something else I touched on for Ion driven craft in the aforementioned discussion...if they were to have an auxilliary chemical drive system installed then they could make planetfall just like a system ship or atomic driven craft. So in effect, a HS:3 scout craft with a pair of size A Ion drives mounted at the wingtips could land and take off from planets if it had a secondary pair of inboard/outboard mounted size A chemical drives in the tail section. Granted the ship's computer would require a drive program for each type, as well as bumping up the Alarm and Damage Control programs from the standard LVL:2 to LVL:4 (and any other drive related programs, such as a Maintenance program), but it's surely feasible. |
 June 9, 2009 - 8:23am | Refer to: KH - Starships Landing Refer to: VSS Centispeed - Sundown on StarMist |
 June 9, 2009 - 11:11am | I'm still reading through relevent material [thank you Woot for the links!] and my pen and paper games are hopelessly mired in AD rules adventures without KHs being on the horizon so I haven't boned up on the KHs rules too much per se, BUT.... I've been scratch building a mini and working up deck plans for it: http://starfrontiers.us/node/3686 plus a download for the WIP deckplans in that project as well. anyhow my point is that reviewing the links woot provided caused me to think that my design is tailor made for gimballing of decks in each forward module for landing horizontally on a planet. I just want to put in a FYI to invite comment on the merits of my design there. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
