 June 8, 2009 - 9:38pm | First off this ship was designed around a scatch built miniature and in conjunction with ideas I was floating in my head for the History Project. see the PDF in downloads I imagine that the vursk would originally, before contact with other races, favor geometric and polygonal shapes in their architecture. Partly as a legacy of their evolution from a hive society and partly for the natural appeal it has to them in the way they perceive the world through compound eyes. Hence a miniature that is all essentially a set of hexagonal prisms and polygonal shaped beads. The design philosophy for this ship will give way after the founding of the frontier as a fusion of design philosophies from the core 4, evolves into an almost accepted canon style (as seen in KHs) especially through efforts of ship builders who find a one style fits all to save cost. This style, that epitomizes the early vursk ships, will all but disappear accept among the ultra traditional in vursk society and at least one system militia sold its Assault Scouts to the eorna in Zebulon and replaced them with a flight of corvettes based of this famous scout ship design in a fit of vursk racial patriotism. the deck plan PDF is still a Work In Progress and at least one deck hasn't got a purpose yet I decided the vursk call areas of their ship "cells" not sure if that what they call the hexagonal cells in a bee hive but thought it carried the "flavor". I'm open to feed back for tuning up the deck plan (deck 5 is still a big ?) and ideas for naming conventions among the vursk. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 9, 2009 - 10:56am | New thought: I was working my way through the old discussion on perpendicular vs parallel decks and it suddenly occurred to me that this ship would be tailor made for each of its "bead sections" to gimbals and reorient for landing like an aircraft on planet. In other words the top 3 decks would gimbal within the hull and the 4-6 decks would do so as well. I just have to figure out where the hatch/door will go when to connect the two modules once they reorient. Oh yeah, plus add some wings to the mini for atmospheric flight. so since I was still debating what drive to give this ship for its pre-frontier/ first contact days; if it lands that drive cant be an Ion engine, chemical drives work, but the adventure I was working on would really call for atomic drive. So do I go with what would make more sense from the historical perspective or just do what I want for the sake of the adventure? or do the chemical/ion pairing? I can see the need for 2 or more sets of stats for this ship: one for its capabilities back at the time of first contact and for its capabilities during the modern frontier time frame- after all no need to waste a perfectly good deck plan just cause its from another time period. to be honest though I made the mini and started some rough deck plans and I haven't even sat down with KWs to figure the details of the ship but I had a rough idea that this would be a HS4 corvette sized ship seeing as how a HS 3 scout has 6 decks and this one has 8 though the rules all for the actual length/ width of a hull to be adjusted 25% + or - during design and construction so it could be a big HS3 I guess as well. Obviously, I'm leaning toward buying into the HS4&5 ships can land irrespective of drive though not necessarily irrespective of political considerations for landing large atomic drive craft on heavily populated worlds. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 9, 2009 - 1:13pm | Was just checking the corvette class from the SFKH-0 module and it has an LC & LB on a hull size 4 while KH says HS5 for LC- though I'm sure its just a case of a military design finding its way into the hands of pirates (thankyou very much Streel corp!) anyhow I think the First contact ship will have numbers like this: 20HP 60DCR, ADF/MR 1 each, ?laser pod?, 2 ion & 2 chemical engines (I'm treating the book as a misprint when it says a HS4 can run on 1 type A drive while a HS3 needs 2) The chemical engines will be in the wings. Plus I'm toying with a special capability for this ship: the top polygonal module (decks 1-3) is one giant escape pod just for something different. It would carry an explosive charge and very minimal rocket thrusters to move it as an escape pod would. Choices for the modern stats: 1. just use the armament form an assault scout, which would make this just an assault scout writ large - ho hum boring. 2. use the armament from the corvette in SFKH-0, LC & LB, ADF/MR 4ea. but no MS (MS are kind of silly when all your weapons are lasers) 3. since a LC is min HS 5 and obviously with military grade miniaturization it fits a HS4 then why not other min HS5 weapons: RB takes as much space as a LC, Torp are MIN HS5 but are significantly bigger than a LC (though how cool would a torpedo boat be? 1LB and 2x torp?); Grapples are MIn HS5 as well and not really space hogs either plus ICMs are HS5 as well so the sum total of possible weapons are AR, LB, LC, RB, TORP, grapples, and ICM though they'd need to be mixed and matched into some sort of balance. Personally I don't think we need an assault scout writ large and I think it would be best to preserve the highest possible ADF/ MR of 4 for this ship so I would want to see it overloaded with weapons. A modern design with grapples would be cool for boarding actions but a torpedo boat would be lots of fun too. Anyone play the pirates of Planaron scenario from SFKH-0 recently and can speak on the corvettes' performance? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 10, 2009 - 12:41am | I like that proto-mini, it looks like something the vrusk would whip up in the early days of exploration. P.S. I like the idea of "cells" Was just checking the corvette class from the SFKH-0 module and it has an LC & LB on a hull size 4 while KH says HS5 for LC- though I'm sure its just a case of a military design finding its way into the hands of pirates (thankyou very much Streel corp!) In addition to a military design falling into civilian hands, and disregarding the MHS issues, also note the performance modifiers to the craft...ADF and MR of 3 each instead of the standard base 4 each for a HS:4 craft. Which still suggests a heavy hand tipped toward a military contractor for the design, because if you went with the basic ruling for arming civilian ships as laid out on p.19 of the KH Campaign Book, that set up would knock 3 ADF and/or MR points off (designer's choice as to where the penalties apply), as well as a loss of 3 cargo unit allocations. Compare that to the penalty of 2 as the Corvette ended up with (granted the module makes no mention of a Corvette's cargo capacity). As for the rest... I like the escape module, it's certainly feasible and you could spec that as a modified lifeboat. Anyone play the pirates of Planaron scenario from SFKH-0 recently and can speak on the corvettes' performance? As a pirate craft operating against civilian ships, the performance is good. Consider that the typical target will be freight haulers or passenger liners, the smallest of which boast similar performance, the 'Vette runs with a great advantage as it matches performance and is heavily armed. Moreso against larger/slower civilian craft. Stacked against warships, it runs at a serious disadvantage. The assault scout can cause more damage (2d10+4 for the rockets versus the corvette's cannon at 2d10, and both have a laser battery) and outperforms the corvette in every regard. A frigate matches the corvette's maneuverability and can still outaccelerate it, and is much more heavily armed with a pair of torpedoes and a four salvo rocket battery along with the matching LC/LB that the vette has. Equal in performance is a destroyer, which adds an electron battery to the frigate's package. The Corvette can outmaneuver a light cruiser, but the cruiser can still match acceleration and will simply obliterate the 'vette with its much larger weapon package the moment the target is acquired: disruptor cannon @ 3d10, 4 torpedoes (versus a frigate/destroyer's 2), one of each energy battery (laser, electron, and proton), and a six salvo rocket battery. Even a single standard fighter stands a very good chance at defeating a corvette, as the ADF/MR: 5/5 allows it to squeak in from behind and avoid the vette's cannon (MR:3 will not permit the vette's cannon to acquire the fighter on the following movement phase). A good fighter pilot will stick to 40K km out on the corvette's tail and pummel it with assault rockets: +10 to hit for direct line of fire on a forward firing weapon bonus, no range modifiers...versus a -20 range modifier on the corvette's battery. Since the vette will never acquire the fighter with its cannon (see diagram below), each volley will be 60% to hit @ 2d10+4 for the fighter versus 20% to hit @ 1d10 for the vette's battery (plus operator skill bonuses). The only advantage the corvette has in this scenario is defensive fire, the fighter's rocket can only be fired offensively. Still, with one rocket attack each combat turn versus one offensive and one defensive attack from the vette, the odds still lean toward the fighter's favor.  In the above diagram, the red represents the corvette's laser cannon field of fire. The yellow line represents its maximum maneuver rating. The cannon will never acquire the fighter as long as the fighter sticks to the corvette's tail. Simply put, the only advantage a pirate corvette has over any UPF warship would be stacked against a heavy cruiser or battleship, as it can turn tail and outmaneuver/outaccelerate away from those two craft and live to tell the tale... |
June 9, 2009 - 10:10pm | No your right shadow, you have to watch the MHS violations so I'd say only 1 such violation. The trick is to pick one that will be interesting and work well with this size ship. as for grapples maybe it'd work on a HS 5 troop carrier where armament was otherwise low but life support and troop accomodations were otherwise maxed and an attached shuttle. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 10, 2009 - 2:07am | I could see that as a viable option for a troop transport. BTW, I wrapped up the aforementioned chemical drive/fuel capacity & consumption. It needs to be playtested yet, but the prototype is done: http://starfrontiers.us/node/3691 |
