 June 11, 2009 - 9:34am | It seems to me that some of the clunky rules in the ship design areas of KHs stem from a desire of the authors to prevent players form developing Uber ships that twist game balance into a pretzel. For instance a decoy only takes up 4m3 but min hull size is 5 and a ship can only carry its hull size/5 in total. So while on average an Assault Scout has 2512m3 of space it cant even carry 1 of these 2m long rockets. Despite the fact that an assault scouts armament only takes up 75m3 out of 2500. Naturally someone would want to just pack 100 decoys onto a ship and just launch any number each turn and dare an opponent to score a hit. So all of the MIN hull size stuff is ok as it protects the game from craziness like a 100 decoys. I was pondering the possibility of trying to stream line the ship design rules to alleviate some of the clunkiness though i suspect as my ideas developed I've only complicated matters but here goes the half bake: NOTE: all rules concerning min hull sizes must be observed. First off I noticed that some of the equipment for a ship had a specified space in cubic meters required for that equipment. and I thought why not compute the cubic volume of each hull and you add equipment till you run out of space then your done. naturally we'd have to work up numbers for the required space for crew quaters where quarters for a single berth (officer or captain) would be X, quarters for a double berth would not be 2x in space but 1.5x so that it give a savings for doing double berths and a 4 berth compartment would be 2.5x a player could still have single berth for everyone but most would have a mix depending on the rank of the crew. I'm estimating the height of each deck at 2.5m as yazerians are the tallest at an average of 2.1m The rules say 1st class passenger accommodations are 6m2. and journey class 4m2 or 4mx6m you'd have to specify that for so much in crews quarters you have to have a minimum of y in space for the galley and recreation. 1st class accommodations would be totalled and multiplied by a % to determine the amount of space dedicated toward recreation, dining rooms and shops. likewise the same for journey class but if the amount for journey class is less than for 1st class then nothing is added to the ship but if its more than for first class than the difference is added in shops and amenities. Sick bays would be z times the number of beds and that space would include everything to do with the sick bay- the surgeon's office, pharmacy, etc. The numbers for the wt. of the life support equipment which are in Kg would simply be changed to meters3 A certain amount of space would have to be devoted toward control & engineering calculated by V times the hull size. fighters would have a lot of exceptions in this system Curiously when I started running numbers I discovered that with volume computed as a cylinder a hull has a lot of space and since a HS 3 hull could be modified up or down 25% in length and diameter it could have from 1073.9 to 4945.5m3 Of course a designer could go beyond the minimum amount of space for something if he wanted to really lavishing a starliner with lots of amenities. The end result of all my number crunching was for the classic assault scout figuring: lifesupport for 7-12 with a back up for 7-12, videocom radio with 2 screens, subspace radio, radar, intercom panel and 8 mikes, half size external camera system, assault rocket launcher, 4 assault rockets, a laser battery- all of which have numbers for space 'cept the lifesupport but its kg was simply changed to m3 all totalled upto 119m3 out of the standard 2512m3 of a regular hs 3 hull. which makes my idea seem to just add more complication? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 11, 2009 - 10:45am | With the numbers being all over the place with the smallest sized HS1 ship having 14.1m3 and the largest HS4 ship having 17,132.6m3 I seemed to me that going by raw volume would get totally out of hand and be unmanagable. So then I thought what if we assign unit of space values for each hull size: take for instance the std 10 long by 2m diameter HS1 hull, it has 31.4m3 so lets say its 3 units. Now lets convert the weapons to units: 10m3 equals 1 unit. So for the classic KH fighter the assault rocket launcher is 1 unit and each assault rocket is 1 unit but if we let the first rocket be free (its in the launcher) than a std. fighter eats up 3 units. and since fighters are so small and dont really follow the standard ship design the pilot's compartment is free. This seems good till you start computing volume for other hulls and find a std. HS4 hull would have 847 units of space yet if you gave it the weaponry of an assault scout you'd have 840.5 units of space left to deal with. Maybe the way to go is 3 times the hull size is the unit of space (a fighter has 3 and a battleship has 60) and most equipment would have a space value unit and you just list stuff till you've used up your space units (obeying min. hull sizes rules and all the other stuff) This would mean an assault scout would have 9 units and its weapons would use 6.5 units leaving 2.5 for crew quarters and controll areas. This means 27% of this warship is the crew and control space. I havn't parsed out other ships yet to see what the % of space left would be. To that I'd add: 1. no 1st class accomodations on HS3 or smaller (they're just not big enough in diameter for a cabin to rate 1st class) 2. a masking screen's load of water should be scaled by ship size; its hard to imagine the same amount of water that produces an effective masking screen for a frigate works as effective for a battleship or even an type 6 station. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 11, 2009 - 5:38pm | Here's a table I made long ago, depicting total cubic meters by given specifications (note that the cubic meters and tonnage only stems from the base figures and does not consider the +/-25% ruling for each hull size). Hull Specification Table
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 June 11, 2009 - 10:19pm | Personally, I"m not a huge fan of MHS, although understand the goal to keep it simple. Instead of tracking Power, Mass, Volume, computational requirements, etc, for all items, from weapons to deck and structural requirements, hand wave... The Frontiers of Design article from Dragon way back when took the approach to define the available space useful for toys (weapons, etc), and assume the rest of the space is taken by the ship.... In a way that many think takes up too much space for the 'fluff'. I guess they wanted big ships, but didn't want Frigates running around with 30 Laser Batteries... And then various other design rules (and design spreadsheet) floating around in places such as http://starfrontiers.us/downloads/1269 http://starfrontiers.us/node/3630 (by me) is relatively Canon for ship design -- I don't think it updates the power level extensively, while trying to provide rules for items that aren't covered by canon rules -- I dare you to try an figure out a ADF/MR formula that works for canon ships, militar, civilian, and Paramilitary as defined in Dragon magazine.. ;-) Oh, and I treat fighters as a typo in tables such as what Shadow lists: should be 15/2 (Length/Diameter), IMO.... ;-) |
June 12, 2009 - 6:15am | As you can see, going by volume alone a standard KH fighter can not accomodate 40 cubic meters worth of assault rocket launcher and three rockets...not to mention other items like the drives (no published definitions on required space here), communication and detection equipment (8 cubic meters for a radar & subspace radio), a computer (mass can be calculated...), and other basic goodies needed to operate it.
actually the ruels specify that a hull at construction can be modified up 25% for both length and diameter and the new volume does all for weapons and I figured we dont have to wory about the engines with the whole engines must be mounted on struts business. @Jaguar: yeah the more I try to wrap my brain around this stuff it is making hurt. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 12, 2009 - 7:07pm | Welcome to Rocket Science. This is hard. It is possible to make a rational system but it is not simple and the "hull size" idea really doesn't work. The volumes go up exponentially with hull size in the KH rules as Shadow's table shows. There are lots of threads here and on the starfrontiers.us site forums on the topic. It really isn't easy to expand on without completely rewriting. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 June 12, 2009 - 7:12pm | @Shadow: Only one traveller edition used 13.5m3 per Ton-Displacement, that being Megatraveller. CT, TNE, T4, MGT, T20 and T5 all use 14m3 per Td. (GT and GTIW use 500ft3.) Here's the corrected tonage.
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 June 12, 2009 - 8:09pm | Even though I never did become a fan of Alernity, I did like the Warships suplement for the ship construction. Kept track of space and power. You could design ships that you had to allocate where all your power is going to, even decide if you need to cut power to life support for a little extra... I wanted to incorperate that into SF, but I aint too good at number crucnchin and conversions... Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
June 13, 2009 - 3:27am | @Shadow: Only one traveller edition used 13.5m3 per Ton-Displacement, that being Megatraveller. I confess to not knowing much about Traveller mechanics...I only have three books LOL I used the bit I found in Supplement 7 - Traders & Gunboats that mentioned four 1.5 meter cubes stacked together yields one ton of displacement ( 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 4 = 13.5 or about 14 cubic meters), not realizing they used the "about" I went with the "actual". Although I do have to admire the Book 2 - Starships method of calculating space for each system, albeit it only covers craft from 100 to 1000 tons (HS:1 to about HS:5 @ -25% for SF). Still, most of those ships in Book 2 would be the equivilent of ion driven starships in SF since anything above 2G acceleration is rare. Granted that's a civilian ship guide so it stands to reason that something like an Assault Scout or Frigate wouldn't be covered in those guidelines Just like SF, those warships follow the beat of a different drum... (which leaves Supplement 9 - Fighting Ships as my third and final Traveller book LOL) |
 June 13, 2009 - 8:01am | Modern naval warships have a strong analog relationship to KH starships. The major difference being the life support needs, as modern ships don't need to carry their own oxygen or water.
Given this analog, let's compare a real life naval battleship (Iowa class) to the KH battleship.
My point is, a Iowa class battleship is roughly a HS 10 ship and, relatively speaking, packs as big a punch (if not bigger) as its much larger starship cousin. But allowing ships armed like this into the game would make starship battles with capital ships a dreary exercise in dice rolling, which it can be already. The authors chose simplicity over reality. I personally like the power vs. equipment option someone mentioned earlier, and the 'units' method someone else mentions. (Sorry I don't list who, I'm to lazy at this point to look it up). I've modified my own ship design system based on the volume of cargo containers. When based on modern containers, the basic dimensions are simplified to 15m x 3m x 3m. I converted everything except weapons into this dimension in order to work out how much space I have remaining in my ship. I make a standard deck height of 3m with a half meter devoted to life support systems (i.e. air ducts, plumbing, lighting, and power). It works out well for me and stays within the canon rules for the most part. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
June 13, 2009 - 10:22pm | Comparing to traveller: Typical Traveller fighters are built with Bk5, not Bk2; T20 is based on Bk5, and so (vaguely) is MT. TNE and T4 have a system of ship design based upon MT, but more complex, convoluted, and with fuel rates based off of Bk5. Anyway, a Traveller "adventure class ship" ranges from 100Td up to about 1000Td. Starship is defined as "100+Td, Mounting a Jump Drive"; under most editions (except TNE) jump drives can not be mounted in smaller than 100Td craft. Scout Ship, Express Boat: 100Td Tramp merchants: 200-400td Liners 400-3000 Td Patrol Corvettes 400Td-1000Td. Small escorts run 500-5000 Td Destoryers run 20-100,000Td, tho anything over 50,000 is rare. Cruisers run 80,000 to about 500,000 Td, clustering in the 100,000-250,000 Td range Battleships run 350,000-1,000,000 Td mostly in the 400,000-500,000 Td range. So really, Traveller ships run 3-4 HS bigger than comparable SFKH designs. |
June 18, 2009 - 6:12pm | If you do the math, larger ships pack less punch per capita under canon rules: Fighter (HS:1, 31m3) 3 rockets + launcher = 40m3 --- 40/30 = 1.33:1 ratio Assault Scout (HS:3, 2,512m3) 4 rockets + launcher + LB = 65m3 --- 65/2512 = 0.025:1 ratio Frigate (HS:5, 17,663m3) LC + LB + RB + 4 salvos + torpedo launcher and two torpedoes + MS & 2 charges + ICM launcher and four missiles = 350m3 --- 350/17663 = 0.02:1 ratio Light Cruiser (HS:12-14, we'll go with 12 just for the sake of a maximum ratio for the class...588,750m3) DC + LB + EB + PB + RB + 6salvos + torpedo launcher and four torpedos + ES +SS + ICM launcher and 8 missiles = 650m3 --- 650/588750 = 0.0011:1 ratio Battleship (HS:20, 4,710,000m3) DC + LB(x3) + PB + EB(x2) + RB + 10 salvos + seeker missile rack and four missiles + torpedo launcher and 8 torpedos + ES + PS + SS + ICM launcher and ten missiles = 1500m3 --- 1500/4710000 = 0.00032:1 ratio Oddly enough, if you follow canon rules and exchange a LB or PB or EB for a RB + four salvos that ratio gets slightly larger (but not enough to notice LOL). On the other hand, if you ignore the declining weapons to space ratio and stick strictly to "allotted" cubic meters...you can exchange the battleship's seeker missile system and rocket battery w/10 salvos (340m3 total) for 13 laser batteries or 11 PB/EB and have a few cubic meters left over, yet have a much more formidable craft that can fire 11-13 shots on both the offensive and defensive phases versus one shot from the rocket battery (10 times total before running out of ammo) and activating your seekers during an offensive phase. Clunky indeed... So really, Traveller ships run 3-4 HS bigger than comparable SFKH designs. Well, not really...for the most part it's in league with KH ships. Looking at the table you supplied for corrected tonnage and comparing to that list: Scout Ship, Express Boat: 100Td = HS:2-3, closer to 2 than 3 Tramp merchants: 200-400td = HS:3-4 , KH freighters start at HS:5 Liners 400-3000 Td = HS:3-6, KH liners start at HS:6 Patrol Corvettes 400Td-1000Td = HS:3-5, a pirate corvette is HS:4 and a frigate is HS:5 so that's in league Small escorts run 500-5000 Td = HS:4-7 frigates and destroyers fall in that range, close enough again Destroyers run 20-100,000Td = HS:10-15, although the destroyer listed in Supplement 9 "Fighting Ships" is 3000 tons aka HS:6 just as it is in KH...barring that this is the only non-dreadnaught class that is bigger than KH Cruisers run 80,000 to about 500,000 Td, clustering in the 100,000-250,000 Td range = HS:14-over 20, about where the KH light cruiser starts Battleships run 350,000-1,000,000 Td mostly in the 400,000-500,000 Td range = HS20 and up, which is where the battleship starts, and the battleship is the only KH vessel with the title of dreadnaught. Anyone wishing to expand that list (I have one such list in my house rulles and the wiki section here that goes up to HS:50) would certainly be in league as well. And again, citing Supplement 9 they have a dreadnaught lsited at 200,000tons, which is a HS:18 heavy cruiser in KH. Again, I'm not a Traveller afficianado and only citing what I have seen published (in my three books I own LOL) and what was cited here. While Traveller allows mega-ships of grand design, that list is pretty much on par with KH with the major difference being in Traveller you can get a lot more ship in the smaller classes (100-400tons) than the KH equivilents (HS:2-4), although I can't comment on performance betweent he two the smaller Traveller ships are far more versatile rather than design-purpose like KH in that range sporting fair passenger accomodations and decent cargo holds that can both turn some profit. Can't say the same for a HS:2-4 ship in KH, which in the civilian sector is more like basic interstellar transport. |
June 20, 2009 - 10:22pm | Traveller's tramps are small merchantmen that can barely break even if under mortage, but reel in the credits once paid off. Liners in traveller refers to cargo liners as well as passenger liners; in fact, passenger liners cap at about 1000Td. Traveller merchants are usually slow, and lose about 40% of their volume to required systems; the liners tend to lose about 20% for the same performance under Bk2, and Bk 5 can drop those by 5%. Each passenger takes 4Td of space for a stateroom... Later iterations pushed the tonnages to the high end. And that 200KTd "dreadnought" is outside the canonical classification tonnage, but is also lower tech. that 20Ktd destroyer is listed in Esrons, not Desrons, elsewhere, so functionally, it's not a destroyer. the typical "cargo liner" is the 3000Td Imperiallines Trader. The cargo breakeven point is the 1000Td hull; the bridge is down to its 2% hull rate, rather than the 20Td minimum, the crewing switches to "big ship" which reduces needed engineers (but adds overhead; about 1000Td is breakeven for a J1 M1 P1 ship). I've run the numbers using Bk2, Bk5, T20, and MGT several times over the last 10 years... above 3000Td, you can't fill them up. Below 1000Td you're below the price-per-ton breakeven. I was misremembering the KH sizes. I'd say, generally, the Traveller designs outside S9 tend to be closer to the high ends of the ranges, except for BB's/DN's, which center about 350-450KTd. The nickname for tramp merchantmen and other sub-kiloton craft is "Adventure Class Starships"... because they are the kinds of ship classes PC's can be expected to own/operate as a player group. And the other thing is that a number of designs are outside the accepted ranges for other reasons... like the Kinunir Class "Battlecruiser" (later reclassed as an escort in s9) at 1250 Td... The design system for SFKH has always been suboptimal. The advanced design system in Dragon was a significant improvement. |
June 21, 2009 - 3:32am | The canon KH designs work for the boardgame, but for the campaign it leaves a bit to be desired. It's fine as long as you resign yourself to the ship classes that are defined, but an adventuring party wants something more versatile than a single purpose minded craft, and many later additions via Dragon etc failed in that regard too. Meanwhile I do admire the Traveller ship construction rules, or at least what little I've gleaned of them via my copy of Book 2. To me, a volume resolution system would work well in a KH setting. Too bad the canon rules didn't divluge more info on how much space some components take up, like drives, LS units, astrogation equipment, and computers. Not to mention exactly how much space is occupied by one "unit" of cargo. |
June 22, 2009 - 3:10am | The basic guideline for making deckplans in Traveller is that 50% of a drive's tonnage is the drive itself, and the other 50% access space and operational controls spaces, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Likewise, only half a stateroom's 4 tons is the stateroom; the rest is commons. Up to half the bridge tonnage can be coopted for commons; the resti is bridge and avionics. a DTon is 1.5x3x3.1m, of which 1.5x3x3m is usefule space for cargo, etc., and a ±10% slop factor is allowed. Actually, if you like the Bk2 approach, grab the Mongoose Traveller SRD... most of the shipbuilding options are in that; it's an updated Bk2. To use traveller ship design rules for the Star Frontiers setting, you'll needdo a bit of work, or assume instead that the traveller gravitic drive is equivalent to the SFKH atomic drive. if we figure 1000ADF=1%Td for Ion Drives (roughly 166 hours per 1%), we get a rough match to SFKH rates; drive speed in g's should probably be rating x0.25 G's. Chemical drives should run in full G's; 1 Ghour (2.5% hull) is 6ADF. Chem drives should be about MCr0.7 per drive letter, Ion 1.5 per drive letter, and Atomic the same as listed "Gravitic" MDrives. Final ship prices should be divided by about 100 to get SFKH credits... Converting weapons: you're on your own. To get to 1% C, at 1G is 3d12h55m23.5s (305723.5 s), using 510 ADF points; slowdown is the same. Just so you know. |
June 22, 2009 - 4:53am |  "There are a lot of long numbers in there; I'm naught but humble biker trash." I might have to brush up on some of that aforementioned collegiate math  |
June 22, 2009 - 8:34am | I shall table up the Bk2 variation, then... and make one change, also: Alter Ion Drive stats so as to use rating is G's, and rate fuel in G-hours.
Fuel: per 1/100 hull tonnage IonDrive 150 hours Chemical Drive: 24 minutes (0.4 hours) Atomic: none, really... use PP fuel. PP Link: Chemical: MD may exceed PP rating. Ion Drive: MD may not exceed PP rating Atomic Drive: MD may not exceed PP rating | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
June 23, 2009 - 2:38am | This would probably make a decent submission over at Frontier Space, if it hasn't been addressed yet. I'll have to wrap my brain around it some more. For now, I mandate that a ship's drives consume 25% of its total volume, whther they're internally or externally mounted. The RCS thruster banks (included int he drive price) chews up another 10%. I suppose a cubic meter per person supported by LS wouldn't be out of line for equipment size. Astrogation equipment could be a fixed figure per system (shuttle, insystem, starship, and Deluxe packages). It's tough to guage how much space is in a cargo unit though...I've tried numerous approaches and haven't found a common thread yet. That'll be the kicker. |
June 23, 2009 - 5:12am | It seems to me that you're coming at this problem backwards. Since hull sizes increase volume exponetially and the KH 'hull unit' is a constant, they don't really go together. So first you must redefine the 'hull unit' as a 'cargo unit' and then determine what will constitute a 'cargo unit'. I personally use the rough size of a modern 53' cargo container - call it 15m x 3m x 3m. Of course, then you must also redefine the cargo value charts and maybe convert the volume of other equipment into the new cargo unit measure. Also, determining a constant value for life support is fine, provided it takes two things into account. First, that the space set aside for water, food, and fresh oxygen must count per person per day. The more people that you need to support, or the longer you need to support them, the more space you need for food bins and storage/recyclers for water and air. Second, you must account for the volume of the ship that you are keeping pressurized. The larger this area is, the more machinery you will need to handle the air, including pumps and storage tanks used to depressurize the ship for combat. Once the constants are worked out, calculating this isn't very difficult. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
