 May 29, 2010 - 6:34pm | My younger brother Adam Wrote an article about Military Ship Design. I was wondering If anyone has used it; or are you all useing your own methods and how does ours compare. By the way, I am the one who wrote the original curve for the MHS points back in 89-90 I used Graph Paper and colored pencils. Adam has Streamlined it quite a bit. As I recall the Assault Scout did not Fit, It was/is undergunned for military vessal and Assault Carriers did not fit in either and probably never will Until we stop trying to store all the fighters indoors. Or we realize that A real world supercarrier carries over 90-100 aircraft all bigger that the Hull size 1 fighters. Example: USS Nimits is 332.8 meters in leangth with a beam (width) of 76.8m puts it around HS 13-14. ... BUt of course who the heck wants to track all those fighters on the battle map.... lol Mostly as of late I am trying different stats and hull sizes, One of the mistakes in the Article is the Pirate corvette, after careful review we have agreed that it is a civilian hull converted to a paramilitary/illegal use, It sacrifices 1 ADF for a Laser cannon it is too small carry otherwise, and the extra hull points give it one less MR point or vice versa ADF/MR take your pick. Its a crappy Hybrid only a cheap pirate would want. A Government would have designed a ship Hull Size 4 more like this. Military Corvette HS 4: Trans-Atmospheric with Reinforced Hull 32 MHS points -8 to Trans-Atmospheric ADF4 MR4 -4 MHS to add 8 hull points so that leaving 20 points for weapons/defenses we have 28 Hull Points LB x4 (12 MHS) AR x3 ( 3 racks =3 missiles 3 MHS)* RH (1 MHS) MS (4 MHS) *(( I Interpret that each rack comes with a missile no reloads durring Battle without a station or a large fleet tender of some sort)) One could Also lose the masking screen in favor of more hull points to get the full +60% total 32 HP and another 2 rockets. Remember Assault Rockets have to have Maneuver rate no less than 4, so this ship just fits. 1 more hull size we would have to switch to Rocket batteries. Any Thoughts on the system? We have tried it with every UPF Ship listed in the original KH books and seems to work within a point or 2 on all of them. This of course will not account for any new technology such as those fancy laser pods that do as much damage as a laser battery. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 May 29, 2010 - 7:14pm | I read and really loved the article but at the time I was doing a table top AD style adventure and didn't want to dig into the KHs stuff as I was actually pulling my hair out over the screwing timeline's inconsistencies When I started the WHite Light 2 game I was focused on writing a series of adventures that would try to have the flavor of the original of the Warriors of White Light mod and trying to advance the setting 100 years into the future and totally forgot the article simply because I had not been actively using it. I can say that I like what the system produces I also wondered that with the loss incurred for atmospheric streamlining that some militias would just skip it for the heavier gunned assault scout. Imagine that surprise for the sathar: after decades of facing the old style scout suddenly a heavier gunned scout shows up. Also I wondered about the atmospheric streamlining altogether because I assumed that most ships landed tail first anyhow. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 29, 2010 - 7:53pm | It all depends on how the ship is designed. Is it designed like the space shuttle wich would glide in to a landing or is it like the Eagle landing on the moon. Or does it behave more like a Helicopter, its totally up to the designers of the ship weather it is "Streamlined for Flight" or just has big thrusters to overcome gravity either way something has to give to make it land-able. Maybe it's like the Harrier Jump Jet. Vectored thrust and such. As the Game Master it's up to you, All options are available, But we had to make it cost something. Also consider weather the Local Militia is building its ships on the ground because it can or can not afford a space station large enough. Not all Governments are wealthy. Or even want to spend that kind of Money. It all depends on what The GM wants. Storyline and plot events and so forth may be the determining factors as to why you would build a ship to land on the ground or in a space dock or whether takes off straight up like a rocket or more like an airplane. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 May 29, 2010 - 8:05pm | Typing from my phone so I'll keep it short. I use the article and I wrote an Excel spreadsheet that uses the system. Great job. |
May 29, 2010 - 8:08pm | Ok I buy your explanation. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 30, 2010 - 3:16am | Also consider weather the Local Militia is building its ships on the ground because it can or can not afford a space station large enough. If I may cite SF/KH:1 Dramune Run, there is a section inside that module that states every civilized world has at least one space station that can accomodate the Gullwind (HS:6), so it goes without saying any civilized world has a station capable of supporting a pair of HS:3 scouts. |
May 30, 2010 - 5:08am | Also consider weather the Local Militia is building its ships on the ground because it can or can not afford a space station large enough. If I may cite SF/KH:1 Dramune Run, there is a section inside that module that states every civilized world has at least one space station that can accomodate the Gullwind (HS:6), so it goes without saying any civilized world has a station capable of supporting a pair of HS:3 scouts. I missed that- yet another detail in the mods that differes from Zebs! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 30, 2010 - 8:41am | Heh Heh, I have never purchased the Dramune Run Module, I do remember seeing it on the store shelves at the hobby shop. (thats been closed for years now) ((did I just date myself?)) I suppose it can be downloaded Nowadays but I would hard pressed use every rule in every module. Do you have a hyperlink or URL where I can get them for free? I am also trying to find a map of the frontier besides the one in Alpha Dawn, want it with a white backround as the alhpa dawn one is all black and would be terrible waste of printer Ink. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
May 30, 2010 - 2:39pm | www.starfrontiers.com hit the rules and modules section for downloads. And if you don't have Dramune Run, you're missing out on the best published SF resource out there! |
May 31, 2010 - 2:53am | Oh My Goodness, My older Brother Ran me through that One years ago We were Teenagers at the time, I had Forgotten. The reason I never bought it was cus he already had it. He died 2 years ago. I never looked through his SF Stuff. His Wife has probably E-Bayed it by now. I just Downloaded it though. But Any way. Still experimenting with Ship desings and number crunching. Everything In "Canon" Military HS 5 and below apears undergunned Including The Assault Scout and the Fighter. Personaly I am starting to think that the Asault Scout was put in game more because they liked the pictures of it. Or they wanted a Small Fast Ship that Hero types could fly around in with friends. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 May 31, 2010 - 7:29am | Well under gunned would be qualify-able when it comes to the Assault Scout. If you were trying to blow a larger ship to kingdom come, well then yes it is a little shy on the fire power. However, when you consider that any Captain worth his salt would probably get the heck out of dodge if enough damage were done to his ship then the AS is definitely the bird for you. With concentrated fire of all three rockets and the LB on one target, it could give even a destroyer a nasty black eye, maybe even enough of a blow to make a less seasoned Captain want to leave the engagement. When you couple the HP damage that an AS could deal out with the systems damage charts it doesnt take long for an assault scout attack to take a toll. However, if you are in hairball with multiple opponents, the assaults scouts advantages quickly disappear. If I were going to redesign the AS I might add a fourth AR or a second laser weapon to compensate for the multiple target problem. THe addition of laser pods to fighters in Frontiersman House Rules is a big plus. |
 May 31, 2010 - 10:14am | Assault Scouts have four assault rockets, don't they? "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." |
 May 31, 2010 - 10:28am | I read and enjoyed the article, and appreciate the work you all put into it. Back in the day, we used a similar system to tweak and customize ships of roughly the same class. Whether the AS is underpowered or not depends on the fire rate of its assault rockets. If you assume that you can ripple fire all three in a single turn, I would not consider it under powered. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
May 31, 2010 - 12:48pm | My Apologies, Guys. I was On the phone just now with Adam and we
discussed the Fighter and I was wrong the Fighter is not uunder-gunnedby
MHS points. It Fits Perfectly. We did discuss the size of Assault Rockets versus the the size of the Fighter though. I was saying That the rockets need to be mounted outside the ship on Hard-points a magazine mounted on the outside, Basically the number wont Add up if they are inside the fighter there is no way you can carry 3 and have engines a cockpit and various electronics like radar or sensors or a simple air tank for you pilot. Here is why... follow the math Hull Size 1 is 10 meter long by 2 meter diameter. For simplicty discount any surfaces that make it aerodynamic call it a cylinder. Volume of a cylinder is area of the base times the hight first find the area of the base. A=pi(radius,squred) {dont know how to do formula with a keyboard} please excuse that.} radius is 1/2 diameter so radius equals 1 so ... exponents first soooo multiply 1 times 1 equals 1, huray... so 1 times pi(3.14) area at base of cylinder is 3.14 meters by 10 meters long so 31.4 cubic meters assault rocket is 10 cubic meters each 3x10=30 last I checked sooo 31.4 minus 30 leaves me space 1.4 meter cube to fit my pilot... about the size of my microwave oven. Unless my Pilot is Tom Thumb, I better mount those rockets outside. Of course its not a cylinder, I know. Every ship looks like A Saturn V except the less then HS 5 ones. The rules do Say you can fudge the numbers a bit to make extra stuff fit but you cant fudge it more than 25% without loss of something. Is 25% enough to fit an engine and cockpit with all the needed life support and targeting computers and sensors. [Dont any Fool dare tell me a Pilot is shooting a Rocket at something 40,000 Klicks away with the old MK1 Eyeball], He has to be able to target that thing with and calculate its trajectory versus the rockets plus range to target, Gravity wells, solar radiation, and other environmental factors; A computer is a must have. And so are sensing devices. radar or Infra red(thermal) or somthing. So here I am thinking the rockets are mounted to hard points outside the ship. This may be a discrepancy in the rules, what are your opinions? Edit: I just had second thoughts though The table in night hawks WEAPONS INSTALLATION CHART paper page 44 adobe page 46 shows the cost of the missile as "-" cost of the rack is 1. the difference is only 1 missile on the fighter, but for other ships WOW. Its a good thing 1 laser blast can kill those little fighter ships. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
May 31, 2010 - 12:42pm | Assault Scouts have four assault rockets, don't they? "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." Yes They do. With Room For more stuff 24 MHS avail take away 9 for trans atmosphere flight 15 left, laser batt 3 so 12 left, reflective hull take 1, now 11 left. 4 assault Rockets 4 points by my method 5 by my brothers, so 7 or 6 points left over. Either way it still is under gunned Add 2 more laser and now you have a warship. orrrr.... More Assault Rockets Orrrr... Get some more Hull Points. Those are the only weapons they can use by Hull Size, so here I am wondering "if I can fit all these weapons into a such a small ship will that un-balance the game, My answer is NO. The assault Scout get 1 defense A reflective Hull. Woopty doo a reflective hull. AND There is no reason we can't Fill Destroyer up with cheap little Laser Batteries. Its just that anybody with masking Screen will give him a run for his money. Disruptor Cannon Does 3d10, Woe to the Assault Scout who gets hit by that. Laser cannon 2d10 Torpedos, Bigger ships get bigger deadlier weapons. The Assault rocket is the equalizer. Little Naval History here: In the late 19th century before submarines were built The first Motorized Torpedoes were invented. They had warheads large enough to Break the Keel of a battleship or other dreadnoughts and other ships of the line. How unfair! We spend Millions on a Battleship and some little pissant comes along with 1 small motor boat with a torpedo or Two on it. "YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP!!" The Frigates were too slow, The age of Sail was long over But the engines on the frigates were not fast enough to catch the torpedo boats The frigates had to be able to Stand with the ships of the line So they had to carry big enough guns to do that; witch meant they had to have size to carry them. Size slows you down. So these little torpedo boats apeared to be Sooo unfair. But such is life. Someone in The Royal Navy (British) Had an idea, Fight Fire with Fire. Get A fast Ship Mount 3 and 5 inch rapid fire Guns on it. His Job is to DESTROY Torpedo boats. thus the Torpedo Boat Destroyer was born. Later the name is Shortened to just plain "Destroyer" When the Torpedo Boats went Underwater, "Submarines" the destroyer still had the same mission Kill them before they Kill the capitol ships. Star Frontiers Has the Destroyer Reversed with the Frigate, But who cares? The Point is Somebody needs to kill those little ships... before thay launch all those big mean rockets at the capitol ships. Sorry, I have a tendancy to go off on tangents. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
May 31, 2010 - 2:40pm | Re: Undergunned assault scouts & fighters If you add up the total space chewed up by the weapons systems (as listed in cubic meters on the last page of the KH Campaign Manual) and compare that to the total volume of the hulls, you will find that the bigger ships are undergunned. Seriously, do the math...the 40 cubic meters chewed up by a launcher and three rockets exceeds the 31 cubic meters of total hull space of a HS:1 fighter (or a 1.29:1 weapons to hull space ratio). By comparison, a battleship has something like a 0.01:1 ratio of weaponry to hull space. With concentrated fire of all three rockets Canon rules only permit firing one rocket per turn, during the movement phase. Technically, it's a single launcher and a trio (or quartet on a scout) of rockets in a "magazine". Of course, reading into that and comparing total volume per item (again referencing the last page of the KH manual) you could feasibly ditch one rocket in favor of a second launcher, (and divvy up the remaining rockets between them) to fire two per turn...thus a fighter could be specced as AR(x3) or AR(x1), AR(x1) for firing two at a time (once only though). |
May 31, 2010 - 3:47pm | It would make sense that the time to load, aim (especially at those distances), launch and hit the target at, lets say 5 hexes away, may take 10 minutes to set up. It just seems that if a battle was on a tactical scale things would and could occur faster, say 2 rockets per turn when the distance is under 1000km away. It seems that the KH rules were designed with a real strategic feel to them and the idea of ships closing in to concentrate fire, board, ram, or boradside/T-bone, are really not considered. I would assume alot of this was designed with the idea that combat would be occuring at pretty high speeds. |
May 31, 2010 - 7:13pm | If you can only fire 1 assault rocket per turn, then you might as well save your money and not bother to buy the other 2. Fighters attacking Capitol Ships will be destroyed rather quickly. ie I dont expect them to live through a major fleet engagement as they are. To get the Battleship or assault carrier you have to get through all the cruisers, destroyers, and frigates and scouts as well as enemy fighters. Unless you caught him all lonesome in wich case you will win, with a few casualties. Example from Page 6 A player must announce which weapons he is using and which targets he will use them against before the dice are rolled to resolve any attacks. If a target is destroyed by the first few shots, any other weapons the player had aimed at that target must be fired, even though there is nothing for them to hit. The attacker cannot shift these weapons to a new target once they are aimed. If these wasted shots include torpedo or rocket fire, these weapons are fired and must be crossed off the attacking ship's record sheet. EXAMPLE: A player announces he will fire five weapons - two lasers, two torpedos and a rocket < notice 2 torps and a rocket! battery - at an enemy. The lasers and one torpedo are enough to destroy the target. The second torpedo and the rocket battery are wasted shots, because their target is already destroyed. On the Very next page they Contradict the above example. From Page 7 Rate of Fire Laser cannons, laser batteries and rocket batteries can be fired during both the controlling player's combat phase and during his opponent's combat phase. Torpedos and assault rockets can be fired only during the controlling player's combat phase. A ship with more than one torpedo, assault rocket or rocket battery can fire each only once per turn. For example, a ship with four torpedos and two rocket batteries can fire only one torpedo and one rocket battery per turn. So Following the rule of 1 AR per turn is it better to move the fighters with the fleet for supporting mutal fire. or do you send in the fighters seperately as it was said above: "Canon rules only permit firing one rocket per turn, during the movement phase. Technically, it's a single launcher and a trio (or quartet on a scout) of rockets in a "magazine". Of course, reading into that and comparing total volume per item (again referencing the last page of the KH manual) you could feasibly ditch one rocket in favor of a second launcher, (and divvy up the remaining rockets between them) to fire two per turn...thus a fighter could be specced as AR(x3) or AR(x1), AR(x1) for firing two at a time (once only though)." But here is my answer: put aside the Volume because you dont have enough room inside fighter for 3 rocket launcher, 3 rockets or any mixture thereof. The rules in KH for designing ships is a general guidline I think and does not work well on the scale of fighters. Obviously its broken as far as Volume is concerned. Wich is why we use the MHS system. Next The ship Cost in credits where you buy rack and rocket seperate is not the same as MHS. Here is why, Page 44 the MHS Table shows Assault Rocket Launcher MHS cost "1" the rockets is cost "-" does that mean it cost nothing. you dont spend MHS points on reloads despite what was Written by my younger Brother in SFman11, We have always disagreed on this. I build Fighters with 3 different AR Launchers. And there is MHS room for 1 more. If each 1 is a seperate weapon all the player has to do is anounce he is Firing all three.. Honestly the fighter is not Carrying 3 torpedos, or even 1. They are assault rockets. Ever roll 2 1s on a pair of d10s Wow he does six points of damage. I am also considering allowing the Laser Pod into my Campains It makes the fighters far mor versatile, in Defending against enemy fighter attacks. Consider this, Average damage for an assault rocket will be 14 to 18 points, Not Exactly a deathblow to a Battleship is it. If you are using Advanced Damage table, just under Half the hits will take out Systems without doing any Hull Damage. then take this into account he shoots 3 missiles 1 time or 1 missile 3 times. As far as Damage whats the difference except that the second option gets the pilots killed more often. Thats the way it see it anyway, I allow it in My campains otherwise the "fighters" are not nearly as dangerous, they are just an annoyance, like flys easily swatted. It Also has to do with my Imagining of Space Combat tactics not being that much different from wet navy Tactics. not really 2 dimensional not talking about that. In the modern world Aircraft Carriers Dominate the Battle, Because they Project Firepower such great distances, Far beyond Gun Range. The Assault Carrier should do the same. The assault carrier should never see the enemy fleet. The fighters do that. They Fly in Fast enough that the enemy gets as few shots as possable to shoot them 25 hexes a turn should do fire off your rockets and go back to the carrier. Dont Fly Direct or the enemy fighters will follow you home. Its an Ambush, Quick Jabs with a knife and leave. Like a drive by shooting. Like Midway during WWII. If both sides have nothing but Big Ships then then its Fast paced Slugging Match. More like Jutland in WWI except instead of trying to "cross the T" They Fly Past each other At high speed Take shots have to turn around and do it again. If your enemy keeps going you will have to chase him. Or you could Wait for him near a planet... Obvously the enemy Objective is to Interdict or take over the Planets in System somehow, Otherwise what is the point of fighting. When 2 or more opposing Fleets are in a system, The map of the system, your mission, enemy mission, Time and force available Will Dictate Strategy. Do you Hide behind Jupiter and wait for them to Pass By, Do you Ambush from the Asteroid belt, Do you meet him Head on or from the side in open space. Do you Know how many Ships Jumped in, from what direction, Are you tracking them Across so many Astronomical units, are they tracking you. I Suppose it still works if the fighter can only shoot 1 rocket a turn, they will have to make 3 passes at the enemy, and expose there week little hulls to enemy 3 times instead of 1; That just none of them are expected to come home. Assault Carrier then becomes one use item unless you have more planes stashed somewhere. Opinions? The bombing starts in five minutes. |
June 1, 2010 - 4:27pm | Our first time playing KH with fighters taught us how they are useful only for soaking up the first turn's worth of defensive fire. When playing SWII as UPF, my first move was to collect all of my carriers into the same fleet. Massed together like this was the only way to keep them alive long enough to do some damage. Oddly enough, my brother used the same tactic and we had ourselves a huge dogfight. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
June 1, 2010 - 8:14pm | Hey Darren, and everybody. I redid the whole system from what we did 18 years ago (holy crap right), so I may not have gotten it all the same, and I've actually made changes to the thing since I made the submission. First lemme defend the ammo thing. I think you're saying that if I want to carry two torpedos like a frigate does, then I should spend 10 MHS points, whereas in the system as I figured it you would spend 6. 5 for the launcher and 1 for the reload. Since the rules of the board game were always one shot per weapon per turn I assumed there was one launcher and that while we have to account for some ships having different numbers of torps and rockets we don't really need to buy multiple launchers. However, I think you COULD for example make a frigate with 2 torpedo launchers and launch two per turn if you're willing to spend the MHS points on it. You might even call it a new class of "Torpedo Frigates". I definitely do like your take on fighters and assault rockets. If a referee thinks assault rockets are mounted on outboard wing pylons or something then I don't see any reason that the fighter couldn't launch his rockets in a salvo of 2 or 3. That should certainly make rocket attacks more deadly and increase fighters' survivability. I see the reviews are mixed on the atmospheric flight thing. I honestly wasn't sure about it either. What I somehow failed to notice is that the assault scout also has an extra ADF point for it's hull size, so that may actually be the real reason he's under gunned. I did have a rule where dropping 20% of your MHS points could get you one ADF, but the scout is losing more like 5/8. Part of my inspiration for the atmospheric flight penalty was an article I read about the space shuttle and how it was much heavier and required more shielding because of it's ability to glide, whereas a ship that just drops down and deploys a parachute can get away with a lot less. I suggest anybody who likes that rule should reduce the penalty to a flat 20% and then increase the cost of an extra ADF/MR point to 40% (That's how I'm going to do it from now on personally). If you don't like the atmospheric flying rule then the cost of the extra ADF/MR point should be 60% of base MHS. Either method would make the assault scout fit the model. There are also a couple more things I've thought about adding/changing lately. One problem I see if you use this system is you could stack a ship full of laser batteries and be extremely deadly. The canon rules defense against that is the masking screen which is tactically difficult to use because you can't accelerate or turn and still keep it up, and is also limited in quantity. So I thought of two possible solutions: One is to replace the masking screen with an "Albedo Screen". Give it the exact same specs as the masking screen but let it stay up when you maneuver. The masking screen could still exist as an obsolete defense which very old ships might still have. If the opposing force is likely to have albedo screens that should encourage you to mix up your armament with rockets and other types of beams. The other solution I thought of was to implement some sort of energy budget in ship building so Frontier ships couldn't feasibly deploy all beam weapons (though maybe some high tech NPC aliens could)...to max out your armament you'd have to also carry torps and rocket batteries. I also hadn't read the Dragon Magazine article about ship building until a few weeks ago. You can download that at starfrontiers.org if you want. One thing from their system I want to add to this one is rules for paramilitary ships like pirate vessels, mercenary warships, and the like. Overall I think our system is simpler to use and covers a lot more of the things they do in Knight Hawks like extra hull points, but the level of shipbuilding in between civilian and military is one aspect of their system that I liked. Anyway that's Adam's 2cents. |
June 2, 2010 - 4:41am | Hey Adam and Everybody I like the Albedo Screen Idea,.... but I would like to see it work against all the beam weapons, BUt I would think that it is like the one a Character Wears.... Absorbs a certain amount of hull points and then fails and cant be used again until it is recharged. but how long does a recharge take? But making it Drop all laser chance to hits down to 20%, the masking screen is the only defense that is sooo effective wich is probably why it has its disadvantages of straight level flight. If it can be up all the time like other screens, then Make it only as effective as the other screens on the hit table. Well I am going to the field for the next 20 days. Hurray for being a soldier. Later all The bombing starts in five minutes. |
June 2, 2010 - 7:56am | That's not entirely true....the Proton Screen vs Proton Battery drops the chance to hit to 25%. Same thing with ES vs EB. You're right that it would be a more dramatic impact though, because lasers are the most common weapons out there. I'd be hesitant to do the albedo screen as a damage absorbing defense only because nothing else in Knighthawks does that, but it would definitely be cool. Maybe it could absorb x amount of HP damage and recharge 1 point per turn. If the recharge is on a timescale that could happen during battle then a fast ship like a frigate could disengage from a slower ship and wait for his screen to recharge before making another attack run.....that could be good or bad I guess. If it's done as damage absorption it should negate the reflective hull when it's up, because the laser blast has to pass through the screen (and be absorbed) before the reaching the reflective hull. Thus it would actually make you easier to hit but you don't take damage from some of the hits. Maybe it should absorb half damage instead? I think this needs testing. When you're on leave in July we should definitely do some Knighthawks. I think I actually have a 3' x 4' hex map :) |
June 2, 2010 - 2:36pm | An albedo screen on a ship should only work against lasers, since that's what it does for a person (re: it does nothing against an electrostunner on the stun or damage setting, it does nothing against the RAFLURs, etc). I have a Deflector Screen in my game that absorbs anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4 damage depending on the circumstances (screen setting and direction of attack) and it runs off of "charges", meaning each hit depletes energy dedicated to running the system. It will recharge one "charge" per combat turn of non-combat maneuvers (meaning simple coasting at ADF/MR zero each, no weapon discharging, etc). The premise of that system is that while it may be considered as a "powerful" defense, it still lets some damage pass through...and it can still be disabled as any other defensive system would. P.S. stay safe out there, dmoffett. And thanks for your service! |
October 14, 2010 - 2:21am | Adamm and DMoffett, wasn't one of our options based on the premise that the military weapons were smaller? Or was that much more difficult to do the math on? |
October 14, 2010 - 6:55pm | No, they were based on what the book stated in the following 3 paragraphs: Military Ships. The procedure above applies to civilian ships only. Most players will observe that military ships carry more weapons and defenses than civilian ships, with fewer penal ties. This is possible due to small but significant technological refinements in military designs. Governments and military shipbuilders place heavy guards on their top secret designs. These plans and techniques will not be available to players unless they are obtained illegally (and against incredible odds). If players do obtain military blue prints, they still must find a shipyard willing to work from them. If players manage all this, and try to design a military ship that is not a standard model, the referee must use the warships from the boardgame and his own discretion to decide what is possible. Remember, however, that advanced techniques for miniaturization and high-stress construction can make almost anything possible. We used the same MHS Cost and assigned MHS points for each hull size based on how many MHS points were in the Ships from the game. In other words we broke it down and added up all the offensive and defensive systems. Thus giving us a Baseline for how many MHS points a Military Hull could have. One of the options I would like to try is add a technology bonus based on new or more advanced ships built with the latest Tech. Say add on 3% or 4% more points because the ship is designed to use X or Y new technology wich give it more room somehow. Or Penalize an older out of date ship a few percent for using older out of date technology. This assumes all the ships in the KH rules are "modern" and are thus the baseline used. The exception of course is the Heavy Cruiser wich is supposed to be an outdated Battleship, re-designated Heavy Cruiser. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
October 18, 2010 - 7:05pm | Excellent idea. In our game we use the following for ships, gear, robots, etc. The numbers differ depending on what piece of tech used but here's a baseline; Low-Tech x0.75 Modern-Tech x0 (current frontier technology) High-Tech x1.25 Cutting-Edge x1.50 For instance, a ship's hull could be low-tech, multiply the hull points and MHS by 0.75. Perhaps the UPF was able to install high-tech laser battery, multiply the damage and range by 1.25 (damage 1d10+2, range 11 hexes). I love the system and made a spreadsheet to make quick ships. :-) |
October 18, 2010 - 7:08pm | Err.. are you submitting an article?  |
October 25, 2010 - 1:27pm | Err.. are you submitting an article? Depends. Can we submit an update to our ship design system? I think there's a bit of an unbalancing flaw in our little system as it stands currently. dmoffett and I did a little knighthawks back in July and he said one of his friends made a light cruiser with nothing but laser batteries and no defenses except the reflective hull. I've tried it several times on my own since then in little mock battles and frankly a ship with nothing but LB's will stomp the crap out of any other weapons configuration. Even against a masking screen at max range you always have that 5% chance to hit, and with nothing but LB's you'll get so many attack rolls that you are pretty much guaranteed to score hits and do good damage every turn. Firstly because you can just carry a ton of them, secondly because you can make defensive fire with batteries so you can probably fire ALL of them TWICE per turn. Two major problems: 1) Making all those die rolls is annoyingly time consuming. 2) At the MHS costs given in the book and assuming (as we are) that military ships just have more MHS to spend, there is very little point to carrying any other weapon or defense. The major revisions I'm suggesting would be optional larger battery sizes and what I'm calling an "energy budget". For the first, since a "battery" is not a specific number of guns I was thinking you could streamline many die rolls into one by calling multiple batteries a single large battery. For example, instead of having a ship with LB x 3 you could have LB(3) x 1. The 3 in parenthesis would designate the number of damage dice. I would spend MHS on this as if it were 3 separate laser batteries, but then I would make a single attack roll for the whole group and roll 3D10 damage on a hit. This would simply be for streamlining play when you have ships with many batteries. The energy budget would be an as yet undetermined cap on the number of beam weapons you can have. Once you hit that cap you need to buy some defenses, rockets, and/or torpedos to complete your loadout. I was thinking it would scale with a formula based on number and size of engines, or maybe simply on hull size. The other way to resolve my perceived issues would be to abandon "MHS" values and come up with something completely different. I could conceive a point system where the cost of weapons scales with range and damage which would even them out, and I could make defenses more attractive at the same time. The only hard part is keeping it consistent with the existing Knighthawks designs since I presume those exist and any new military ships of a similar size should have comparable firepower. I'd like input on a few things. Would you rather keep MHS values and just tweak the system? Would you rather see a new system? Both? Neither? Does anyone care besides me? |
 October 25, 2010 - 2:18pm | I think we did something similar with the system when it first got published. There's a thread floating around here somewhere where we just ditched the defenses except for ICM's and RH and stuffed the ships full of weapons. They were all quite powerful. Personally, I'd always just roll all the dice (but I like rolling dice :) ) since you have a better chance of doing at least a little damage every time. One roll for all three and you miss, you missed with them all, but if you roll individually, you might hit with at least one and do some damage. I guess it's a trade off on having a major hit with lots of damage or being more likely to at least get some damage in. I'd go for the energy budget idea. There has to be a limit to the amount of energy you can pull off the engines to power your weapons. Of course, the defenses have to tap into that energy as well to operate (except the RH and MS) but there should be an overall cap on the amount of firepower you can put out without additional power sources. 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 |
October 25, 2010 - 7:25pm | Personally, I'd always just roll all the dice (but I like rolling dice :) ) since you have a better chance of doing at least a little damage every time. One roll for all three and you miss, you missed with them all, but if you roll individually, you might hit with at least one and do some damage. I guess it's a trade off on having a major hit with lots of damage or being more likely to at least get some damage in. Yeah, I think statistics would tell us that when rolling each battery individually you are tremendously more likely to inflict damage and since you presumably have a larger set of batteries striking the target, the total damage inflicted should be closer to the mean. Also, if you use the damage table then having multiple strikes gives you multiple chances to damage ship systems. Overall it is definitely in your favor to resolve each battery shot individually. It's more about expedited play. |
October 26, 2010 - 10:40am | With all that said, I still like the system. :-) I use energy and kinetic screens powered by SEU drums or generators. Just like a character the ship is protected against certain types of attacks. Something I love about SF is the ability to mix/match weapons and defenses. I also use the Simultaneous MovementTable in #14 which gives the ship the ability to change defense during their move turn. I've expanded the KH Damage table as well. You don't want the SEU drum racks to get hit. Believe you me! Question: For those that read the Non-CivilianDuty Vehicles in #15, would you be interested in a system for spaceships? Non-Civilian Duty Ships - pick a civilian ship, apply a template which gives you hardpoints then fill with weapons. I'll also add some new features and packages. |
