 December 31, 2010 - 12:12pm | Since I have a nutty need to get details in my game, for Knight Hawks I have several of the abbreviated titles used in the game plus some of my own. Would love to hear some of the ones other people use. Also a discussion of how and why such titles are used and who gets to use them would work too. UPFS---United Planetary Federation Ship SAV---Sathar Attack Vessel CMS---Clarion Marine Ship ZMV---Zuraqqor Military Vessel MLS---Mhemne Liberty Ship DRIRM---Democratic Republic of Inner Reach Militia MS---Malthar Ship PGSS---Pan Galactic Star Ship Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 31, 2010 - 12:17pm | To that, we can add: SoF or SF—Ship of the Flight CFMS—Cappellan Free Merchant Ship SCS—Streel Corporation Ship CDCS—Cassidine Development Corporation Ship " 'Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death." |
 December 31, 2010 - 8:27pm | So what system sells Flags of Convenience for merchant vessels? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 31, 2010 - 9:05pm | I don't use titles but this sounds like a great submission. Here's a suggestion; UPFs United Planetary Federation ship MPs Malthar Pirate ship * Ms Malthar ship FTAs Frontier Trade Administration ship UPSs UPF Postal Service ship (or FPSs Frontier Postal Service) PSAs Planetary Survey Administration ship *I differentiate the Malthar's ships from the pirate ships - you might have picked that up in my Villainous NPC article. |
January 1, 2011 - 3:29am | Anything built under the authority of the UPF will actually carry UPFS on it whatever the civil service org the the vessel is an asset of- Most private organization will not be able to "flag" a vessel but corporations that own a planet will. I cant see the Royal marines being all "Uh-Ra" over Clarion Militia Ship but to keep continuity with the published material I veiw the "militia" designation as stemming from clauses in the signed UPF treaty that deals with military concerns and allows militia ships to be activated for Frontier wide defense in time of war. Militia's are defined as system defense forces in UPF law and legally they are all called militias and carry Militia Ship on their hull. so on a system by system or planet by planet basis I expect governments to issue Flags. Despite the CMS designation I would expect merchant ships that get a flag from the Crown of Clarion would likely carry something like HMS, His Majesty's Ship Dramune system is a problem; The Malthar is not a government per se though he has control of a space station and he really represents a criminal organization. IIRC from the module the control of the planet is in the hands of a rival to the Malthar. I could see both offering flags for a price and little questions asked but I'd expect the Malthar to do something like Dramune System Ship just to be a pisser to Inner Reach, The planet based government of Outer Reach will have another designation too as well as the govenment of Inner Reach -I like Rattravellers DRIRMS (everyone refers to them as "the drims") but regular merchant men could have DRIRS. I think I would make it that the UPF charter only allows "worlds" to offer flags to vessels and defines world as planets that meat certain qualifications (population size, signatory of the UPF charter, etc) which would make the malthar's flags illegal being issued by the governement of a space station but the Malthar doesn't care and those ships with his DSS dont care cause they're pirates and use it to scare victims, be funny or occassionally try to assert that its a legit ship (a system without militia would not be able to do much when a pirate shows up asserting a Malthar issued set of papers and flag, despite knowing they're patently illegal, they'll have to pretend that they are even while firing off a sub space message to Space Fleet (After all Pirate need to pull into port from time to time) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 1, 2011 - 4:51am | Designations from my campaign: SLS = Star Law Ship TSEV = Truane's Star Exploration Vessel (i.e. the original Volturnus adventure, Serena Dawn etc) |
 January 1, 2011 - 1:27pm | OK, Here is how it works in the real world. A flagged ship does not need to have a prefix. Some have a Prefix because they are under contract. Most Civilian Ship prefixes either state it's propulsion type or its Purpose The Imperial Japanese Navy never used Prefixes, its only English speaking people who would Put one on them in thier own writings Ususally I J N or HIMS(His Imperial Majesty's Ship) . The Imperial German High Seas Fleet never used Prefixes But Durring the the Third Reich the German Navy or "Kriegsmarine" Did not use them either. As we all Know USS Stands for United States Ship, and is reserved for the US Navy only. USNS is United States Naval Ship and is used for Ships with civilians as part of it's crew such as the USNS Comfort, A hospitol Ship. HMS His/Her Majesty's Ship used by many different countries Such as The United Kingdom and also Norway. RMS Stands for Royal Mail Steamer, and RMMS Royal Mail Motor Ship designating that ship as contracted to carry Mail for the British Empire. Notice that a Steamship was RMS and and a Diesel powered Vessel was RMMS. SS stands Simply for Steam Ship. When A steamer was not under mail contract it's Prefix would revert to SS. Some Ships Use company Name Prefixes, Such as the Exxon Valdez. Problem with that would be if the Gullwind were owned by PGC it would be the Pan-Galactic Gullwind.... What a mouthful. But there is a System in Place For Civilian Prefixes Here it is, It is not Arbitrary or mandatory for it to be used. Here is a List of Common Civilian Prefixes We could easily adapt Something Like IDV for Ion Drive Vessel or ADS or ADV for Atomic Drive Ship or Vessel. SS for System Ship NOw here is a list of some of the Military Prefixes from around the world:
The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 January 1, 2011 - 1:22pm | I like the use of the words vessel and craft in place of ship. It mixes things up and gives a more individualized feel to the frontier. Not all races would have developed the same designation system for their ships. Another that could be used is transport. I have used FMS to mean free merchant ship in my games. I have leaned towards Jedion's system of worlds (governments) being the only organizations who may legally grant flags. -iggy |
 January 1, 2011 - 2:38pm | To give ships a singular unique name, as in the example of the Japanese navy, i.e. "The Yamato" gives a very personal feel to each of the vessels. Now I tend to use standard prefixes such as S.S. (Star-Ship) Or UPFS, SAV, RMS, etc. out of habit. However, I am all for making each ship as unique with as much personal (player) vested ownership as possible. This mindset of course has to be adjusted accordingly for larger space fleet battles. I have to admit though that I have grown tired to sci-fi universes with the seemingly endless supply of capital ships and starships zipping about known space such as found in the later Star Trek televisions series. I may not always feel this way about it, however for the time being I am definitely loving the scaled back smaller fleets like those proposed in SFKH (or possibly slighty larger). The primary reason being is that a starship isnt a motor boat, it represents a huge financial and resource investment of the government or private enterprise that operates it. Now, a wealthy government may field a lot of smaller warships but when it comes to the big dogs such as cruisers, carriers, battleships, etc. the numbers should be relatively small. When I consider the new BSG Battlestar fleet of around 120 battlestars prior to the Cylon attack it seems like a lot of capital ships but it is also important remember this actually broke down to around 10battlestars per colonized system (12 colonies) which isnt so bad. Also consider the fact that they didnt have a lot of diversity in ship design (All most all of their warships were capital ships). Sorry I digress. Anyway, When you see the massive ship confabs such as in Star Wars and the later Star Trek series it begins to beg the question of just how much money/resources can these planets produce? The loss of a starship, whether military, commercial, or private, should feel like a huge deal like the loss of a jetliner or the Titanic, it should be felt as a huge economic, strategic, and personal loss to the entity operating the ship. The idea of, oh we lost two assault scouts on the rim this month form Pirate activity should not be a trival matter. The government may even errect memorials for lost crews or give some kind of celebration for returning heroes. |
 January 1, 2011 - 8:16pm | I like to provide coding by: fleet; role; ship class and model number/letter (if any; a letter would be in lowercase) - followed by the ship's name. So the CVFRBL1 Lady Yandar means a Mark I Belmont Class Freighter (mark I Belmonts would be a basic configuration) named after the civilian owner's former Yazarian girlfriend. Basically: Civilian-Vassal-FReighter-BeLmont-mark-1 "Lady Yandar". Unfortunately, the game dose no provide different classes of ships (beyond the Privateer and Yacht type ships) - instead, they lump them by role (Assault Scouts, Frigates, and such). This is unfortunate, as even in the basic KH rulebook, you'll find different configurations for the same types of ships, and maybe some slight variations in the modules. |
January 1, 2011 - 9:47pm | Proposal: As to Granting Flags.... For civilian ships It should be the Flag of the government that the underwriting insurance company works under. In Other words If you buy Insurance through An Agent from Kizt-Kar, then the flag of the ship will be from there. If Later you Switch Insurance agents to an Underwriter from Clarion in the White Light System your Flag would change to that System and Planet. This refers to the Insurance on the Vessel not it's Cargo. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
January 2, 2011 - 7:28am | I like the real world practice of Flags of Conveneince which will allow a ship owner to essentially register a ship and fly the flag of a nation (planet) that he is not a citizen of in order to reduce operation cost or avoid regulations of the owners country. For example I would veiw Clarion, which already has strict laws concerning gun control and an largish militia as being fairly proactive about regulating shipping, and other nations with a large militia force may also regulate shipping Doubtless Outer Reach does not regulate anything as long as you have money. it sets up a situation where tramp freighters will take advantage of a FoC, In fact telling the player who are playing a militia or space fleet boarding party that a ship is flagged to Outer Reach should be a clue about something. Real World Benefits of a FoC 1. owners can be legally anomomous and difficult to prosecute in court 2. Ships with FoC have been found to be engaging in crime and terrorism 3. Frequently offer substandard working conditions 4. negatively impact the environment 5. Claimed that they benefit from being able to choose crew from international labour pool As of 2009 ships with FoC from 13 countries are targeted for special enforcement by the countries they visit. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 2, 2011 - 8:38am | Lots more information then I was expecting. Thanks everyone. Thinking I see an article or two here. Couple of quick points. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 2, 2011 - 8:51am | One of the most disappointing things of Star Trak the Next Generation was when they had just defeated the Borg at Wolf 359 and as the blonde temp executive officer was leaving the ship she mentioned that despite losing 40 ships Starfleet would be back up to strength in 18 months. That means building and crewing 2.2 Starfleet vessels every month. Considering how much they go on and on about how elite Starfleet is that just seemed preposteris. Using the totals collected about how many ships UPF has and militias during the first Sathar War we come up with 47 Spacefleet ships (15 Assault Scouts or 31%) and 38 Militia ships (29 Assualt Scouts or 76%) for a total of 85 ships (44 Assault Scouts or 52%) This means Spacefleet is no Starfleet and the lose of even a couple of ships is rather devastating. Considering construction times listed in Knight Hawks both services must have extensive mothballed fleets and inactive reserve officers and enlisted or they could never keep up with loses considering all the loses from even regular service not to mention war. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 2, 2011 - 11:48am | I like the real world practice of Flags of Conveneince which will allow a ship owner to essentially register a ship and fly the flag of a nation (planet) that he is not a citizen of in order to reduce operation cost or avoid regulations of the owners country. For example I would veiw Clarion, which already has strict laws concerning gun control and an largish militia as being fairly proactive about regulating shipping, and other nations with a large militia force may also regulate shipping Doubtless Outer Reach does not regulate anything as long as you have money. it sets up a situation where tramp freighters will take advantage of a FoC, In fact telling the player who are playing a militia or space fleet boarding party that a ship is flagged to Outer Reach should be a clue about something. Real World Benefits of a FoC 1. owners can be legally anomomous and difficult to prosecute in court 2. Ships with FoC have been found to be engaging in crime and terrorism 3. Frequently offer substandard working conditions 4. negatively impact the environment 5. Claimed that they benefit from being able to choose crew from international labour pool As of 2009 ships with FoC from 13 countries are targeted for special enforcement by the countries they visit. Flags of convenience also work if your ship is regularly up to no good, especially if it's a flag no one would ever suspect you'd fly. For example, the titular American mercenary spy ship from Clive Cussler's Oregon Files novels flies an Iranian flag most times. In an SF vein, the Clarionites could send a recon ship(like the Pelican from jedi's game)out to infiltrate/spy on the Malthar and have it flagged as an Outer Reach militia or even a Streel corporate vessel. Who would suspect? Or, who would've thought that Clarionite-flagged tramp freighter would turn out to be one of the Malthar's own pirate vessels? " 'Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death." |
January 3, 2011 - 9:14am | One of the most disappointing things of Star Trak the Next Generation was when they had just defeated the Borg at Wolf 359 and as the blonde temp executive officer was leaving the ship she mentioned that despite losing 40 ships Starfleet would be back up to strength in 18 months. That means building and crewing 2.2 Starfleet vessels every month. Considering how much they go on and on about how elite Starfleet is that just seemed preposteris. Using the totals collected about how many ships UPF has and militias during the first Sathar War we come up with 47 Spacefleet ships (15 Assault Scouts or 31%) and 38 Militia ships (29 Assualt Scouts or 76%) for a total of 85 ships (44 Assault Scouts or 52%) This means Spacefleet is no Starfleet and the lose of even a couple of ships is rather devastating. Considering construction times listed in Knight Hawks both services must have extensive mothballed fleets and inactive reserve officers and enlisted or they could never keep up with loses considering all the loses from even regular service not to mention war. did you take into account the little statement in KHs that Space Fleet has numerous other patrol groups and smaller strike forces throughout the Frontier (the patrol groups were described as usually consisting of a frigate and two assault scouts). The book does not actually say how many of them exist just that they are out there. Speaking of which an assault scout is a crappy patrol craft (for space fleet not for militias) as you have to overhaul the engines after every single jump- the frigate makes more sense. I think that a patrol group should be 2 maybe 3 frigates which would make 3 jumps befor an overhaul. Then they could actually patrol and not be stopping all the time for an overhaul. That is unless we want a house rule that a military craft can take down one engine and operate on 1ADF while the engineers overhaul one engine at a time. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 3, 2011 - 10:43am | Speaking of which an assault scout is a crappy patrol craft (for space fleet not for militias) as you have to overhaul the engines after every single jump- the frigate makes more sense. I think that a patrol group should be 2 maybe 3 frigates which would make 3 jumps befor an overhaul. Then they could actually patrol and not be stopping all the time for an overhaul. That is unless we want a house rule that a military craft can take down one engine and operate on 1ADF while the engineers overhaul one engine at a time. We are running dangerously off topic of course, but I think patrols would spend most of their time in system. With an energy sensor range of 50 hexes and radar range of 30 hexes, you would actually have to spend months running around to scan a substantial area. The time spent overhauling wouldn't be a big deal then. I might even consider dropping the frigate and just using the scouts....they could get the sweep done faster and if they run into hot water they can get away easier. |
January 3, 2011 - 4:44pm | Maybe we should consider drafting a two jump minimum rule on all jump capable engines. I think that a jump out and jump back prior to overhaul is pretty much a given. If you were to make a long jump out and there is no facilties to do an overhaul then you are pretty much skeeeruuuwwwd when it comes to the long ride home. SFKH FTL Drives are bit perplexing, I would go with a two jump minimum. |
January 3, 2011 - 6:23pm | Maybe we should consider drafting a two jump minimum rule on all jump capable engines. I think that a jump out and jump back prior to overhaul is pretty much a given. If you were to make a long jump out and there is no facilties to do an overhaul then you are pretty much skeeeruuuwwwd when it comes to the long ride home. SFKH FTL Drives are bit perplexing, I would go with a two jump minimum. I'm ok with the 1 jump for overhaul on the size A engine though this only applies to atomic engines- its the price of speed. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 4, 2011 - 7:05pm | Speaking of which an assault scout is a crappy patrol craft (for space fleet not for militias) as you have to overhaul the engines after every single jump- the frigate makes more sense. As (possibly) indicated by the writers of canon material who penned the frigate as being the mainstay of the UPF --- with the destroyer being the mainstay of the sathar, which IIRC is in the campaign material section of the KH Campaign Book. But they dropped the ball by assigning assault scouts to Strike Force NOVA (the "roving patrol fleet") in the Sathar War game... |
January 4, 2011 - 7:24pm | Speaking of which an assault scout is a crappy patrol craft (for space fleet not for militias) as you have to overhaul the engines after every single jump- the frigate makes more sense. As (possibly) indicated by the writers of canon material who penned the frigate as being the mainstay of the UPF --- with the destroyer being the mainstay of the sathar, which IIRC is in the campaign material section of the KH Campaign Book. But they dropped the ball by assigning assault scouts to Strike Force NOVA (the "roving patrol fleet") in the Sathar War game... exactly, which is why I think that the UPF will eventually reduce (not eliminate) the number of assualt scouts in its order of battle and increase the number of FFs. doubtless planets that could never afford a militia will be able to pick up some well used assault scouts on the cheap. plus some will get overhaulled for other purposes- diplomatic couriors, medical ships etc I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 4, 2011 - 7:30pm | What I have done for the engine problems in my game is to have different engine qualities that can be purchased and upgrade kits for the engines that let the player go beyond stock engines and make them in to high performers such as the Super Shroom Star drive rebuild kits or Super Fission atomic turbo drive kit. The first one is my players favorite; however, the overhauls cost more than just a few thousand credits for them but for an A type drive to get more than one jump and maybe a third is worth the extra credits plus if you buy now we will install our Slag Stop drive program that will improve performance and reduce the chances of slagging your drives. These drives in my game are not cheap but have been very popular over the stock drives. Even with combustion engines there are after market parts that can improve engine performance and then there is always the hot rodders which I do have some basic rules for that class of engine but no-one was interested into using them. Then there is always classes that the engineer in the group can take that will train how to get more out of the engines. There is no need for a rule make-over just add some goodies that the players can find, buy, or steal, oh, um, requisition. Keep the rules and make it fun for the players to trick out their ship. This brings back some really fun game sessions memories. |
 January 4, 2011 - 9:10pm | But they dropped the ball by assigning assault scouts to Strike Force NOVA (the "roving patrol fleet") in the Sathar War game... I disagree. A roving patrol can easily jump into a system and loiter while the scouts overhaul. And when they have to jump multiple systems in a hurry, they can skip the overhaul (KH remastered page 38). Or they can jump on just one engine, overhauling the other during the deceleration/acceleration phase. Remember that ships with atomics don't need their full compliment of engines. This implies the ability for a two atomic engine ship like the scout to jump with one. If all else fails and the need for the fleet is great, a good admiral will leave them behind before he lets them slow down the fleet. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
January 5, 2011 - 6:32am | A once again you have forgotten the basic driving force behind all military endeavors. Logistics Assault Scouts needing to be overhauled constantly do not serve Spacefleet well. Plus if most of the crew is overhauling the engines constantly they are not helping with the mission. This increases the crews workload and decreases the overall mission effectiveness. Not to the majority of an Assault Scouts weapons require resupply. Is the Assault Scout carrying all the extra missiles? Is there a supply ship floating along with them which then needs to be defended? Assault Scouts are very tied to their homebases/systems and not a great choice for Spacefleet but a really good choice for Militias who don't have to have them leave their system to often. I think the clue to the Assault Scout is the line that they were developed by the Pan-Galactic Corp. As with other government contracts it is usually the government and industry pushing a product on the military whether they want it or not. Sometimes to the great detriment of the military. Examples: Sgt York air defense system, Osprey tilt wing aircraft, Original M-16 and the ammo needed for it. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 5, 2011 - 3:46pm | Keep in mind, everything I mentioned applies to Strike Force NOVA --- the roving fleet. Task Forces Prenglar and Cassidine are typically insystem most of the time, so their assault scouts serve as "militia duty" for the most part and it becomes moot. I disagree. A roving patrol can easily jump into a system and loiter while the scouts overhaul. If the next jump is a short jump (4-5 LY) the astrogation team is usually finished before the engineering team. Moreso when risk-jumping... And when they have to jump multiple systems in a hurry, they can skip the overhaul (KH remastered page 38). Truth be told, I never looked at the remastered stuff yet. If it's different from canon, then it's moot as I mentioned canon. If it's the same, the chance of slagging comes into play (with said chance increasing with each consecutive un-overhauled jump, at 60/80/100% per drive). Once you slag your drive, it's done. Slag 'em all, and you're as good as hulked. Or they can jump on just one engine, overhauling the other during the deceleration/acceleration phase. Remember that ships with atomics don't need their full compliment of engines. This implies the ability for a two atomic engine ship like the scout to jump with one. Restricting ADF...to which I would house rule as half normal in this case. Rounded up or down it becomes practically worthless compared to the rest of the fleet's performance, and the fleet ends up "waiting on the scouts" either way. Canon mentions if a ship is not outfitted with the specified number of drives, ADF or MR is reduced by 1 per reduced drive. Personally, I can't see an assault scout at minus-one drive performing the same as a stock civilian HS:3 ship with two fully functional drives...hence my house rule.  But in all fairness, since I mentioned canon we must stick to canon. As such the canon "minus-one drive" assault scout will be at either ADF:4 or MR:3 (with the latter disabling the assault rockets since you need a minimum MR of 4), assuming you choose to equate starship construction rules with "number of drives reduced by choice after construction". And that brings up the debate of ion versus atomic --- for a HS:20 freighter you can opt for eight ion drives or one to seven atomics and still end up with an ADF of 1 either way, going by canon construction rules. And that really falls apart in such scenarios...with one to seven atomics each capable of jumping 20 times between overhauls and running one at a time, you can go forever without working on them all the while having the same performance as a fully outfitted ion driven craft (re: it costs less for two atomics and you get the same ADF as eight ions, run one at a time and make forty jumps). If all else fails and the need for the fleet is great, a good admiral will leave them behind before he lets them slow down the fleet. No arguements there. After all, they still have a carrier with fighters when it's all said and done. Not to the majority of an Assault Scouts weapons require resupply. Is the Assault Scout carrying all the extra missiles? Is there a supply ship floating along with them which then needs to be defended? Assault Scouts are very tied to their homebases/systems and not a great choice for Spacefleet but a really good choice for Militias who don't have to have them leave their system to often. I would rule that the carrier maintains a generous supply of assault rockets which the scouts can draw from. Barring that, the scouts still can't dock with the carrier and as such reloading would still take some time as the carrier's workpods shuttle the rockets around (assuming the carrier doesn't need said pods for fixing itself first). |
January 5, 2011 - 7:13pm | @ shadow- sure a HS 20 ship could make 40 jumps the way you say but as per the canon rules a freighter will wait 2d10 days in a system (if he has an office) but 3d10 days for a cargo if he not set up an office. which mean there is time to overhaul the 'tomics. The stink of it will be the cost of atomic fuel over ion fuel. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 6, 2011 - 5:20pm | sure a HS 20 ship could make 40 jumps the way you say but as per the canon rules a freighter will wait 2d10 days in a system (if he has an office) but 3d10 days for a cargo if he not set up an office. which mean there is time to overhaul the 'tomics. The stink of it will be the cost of atomic fuel over ion fuel. Assuming the hold is empty...if said freighter already has a cargo it can just "keep on spacing" and jump to all 36 of the Frontier's systems (at least going by Zeb's Guide, not counting the Rim) without an overhaul. Yes, the fuel is going to cost more either way. But the point I'm making is the mediocrity of the canon ruling about reduced drives versus performance: you need a full compliment of ion drives to have ADF:1, yet one to seven out of eight atomic drives on the HS:20 ship still yields the same thing (you do lose the second MR point --- or that a minus-one drive assault scout still has the same performance as a full two atomic drive civilian scout ship. In other words, a semi with a gasoline engine pulls the same load up a hill as one with a Cummins diesel with only one spark plug connected, or disconnect two spark plug wires from a hopped up Ford Ranger and it'll run the same as a stock Ranger with all four plug wires attached...I'm just not buying into it. I could even cite a modern day jet fighter scenario: the F-20 Tiger Shark is an armed T-38 Talon trainer jet. Shut one of the two F-20 engines off and it will never keep up with the fully functional T-38 moving at full throttle...that's your one drive assault scout versus two drive civie scout comparo. |
 January 6, 2011 - 6:26pm | Waaaaay back in the day, my group thought the number of jumps per engine type thing was a bit excessive. What we came up with was a concept just like cars, scheduled maintenance. Depending on the ship size, engine size and number, and amount of power needed for defense/offense, crazy manuevers, etc. the ship would then need work. Over standard use, an assault scout would require bi-monthly maintenance, due to it only having 2 engines to supply power to all systems. A HS20 vessel just patrolling the spacelanes could go a whole year between maintenance windows. Damage also affected maintenance windows, obviously. Unfortunately, it's been, oh, around 28 years since I've actually sat down to play the game, so I'm a bit rusty on the details, but, this gives you the general idea of what we did. Thanks! You can't argue with the invincibly ignorant. - William F. Buckley |
 January 6, 2011 - 6:53pm | To keep things simple in my version of the Knighthawks rules every ship pays a yearly maintenance fee which comes out to about 1% of the cost of the ship, which covers every overhaul, every licencing fee, life support refill, space port docking fee, fuel etc, and if this fee is not paid, there is a 5% chance/trip that something happens to the ship. The bad things could include ship breakdowns, visits by investors, Star Law agents wanting to collect licencing fees etc. As for the atomic engines vs. ion engine question, since space ships do not lose speed over distance in space is the question of one ADF or faster speed outside of combat really important except to determine how long it takes for a ship to jump into the void? I mean if you can overhaul one engine while in flight and you are not in any immediate danger then go for it. I think I'm just getting old, but lately I've found myself worrying less and less about the little things and thinking more and more about the thrill of the adventure. Anyway I am enjoying your debate, and I'm seeing things in Knighthawks that I always just took for granted and never put much thought into explained in ways that has made me start to wonder why hadn't I noticed that before. So please continue with the discussion. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
January 6, 2011 - 9:17pm | I have often contemplated an annual maintennace cost based on ship value...although I have to say 1% is pretty generous if it covers docking fees and fuel on top of the rest of that list. As for the atomic engines vs. ion engine question, since space ships do not lose speed over distance in space is the question of one ADF or faster speed outside of combat really important except to determine how long it takes for a ship to jump into the void? I mean if you can overhaul one engine while in flight and you are not in any immediate danger then go for it. Right, and even accelerating along at 1G it's moot...after all someone here did the math and it comes out to expending one ADF point per half hour (insteaed of one per ten minute combat turn) for one gee. Still, I find it rather far fetched that a reduced-atomic drive ship can perform so well when called upon. After all, you could probably pull most of your car's spark plug wires and still get to work with it running as such. You'd be impeding traffic with slow take-offs at every stop, and if you hopped on the freeway you'd literally become a rolling road block, but it could be done. A Schwinn might get you there faster, but like I said --- it's feasible. But to claim that a hopped up version of the same engine (atomic) can do it better when impeded as such versus the unmolested stock engine (ion) is preposterous. Even a NASCAR motor running on two cylinders produces less power than the equivilent stock/civilian version of the same engine running on all eight cylinders. "You just slagged one of your assault scout's atomic drives." "That's okay, we're out of range of the pursuing pirate frigate's guns and their fully functional trio of atomic B drives will never catch us at our reduced ADF (which is now the same as said pursuing frigate)." That's what I'm getting at. The crippled assault scout can still accelerate just as fast as the undamaged pirate frigate. Both can accelerate up to sub jump speeds and the frigate will never get into combat range. Both can coast indefinitely at sub-jump velocity (after all, if the frigate tries to accelerate further --- it enters the void, with or without jump coordinates) until said scout's remaining drive gets overhauled. Pretty far fetched, don'tcha think? Or, here's another scenario: "Your dreadnaught just slagged an atomic drive." "Feh, we only lost one ADF or MR point. We can still accelerate and decelerate as well as maneuver." "Your dreadnaught just slagged two atomic drives." "Feh, we only lost one ADF point and one MR point. We can still accelerate and decelerate as well as maneuver." "Your dreadnaught just slagged three atomic drives." "Feh, we only lost one ADF point and one MR point. We can still accelerate and decelerate as well as maneuver." "Your dreadnaught just slagged half of your atomic drives." "Feh, we only lost one ADF point and one MR point. We can still accelerate and decelerate as well as maneuver." That pattern goes on up to the seventh slagging of the eight available drives...the minimum ADF or MR regardless of how many atomic drives you have left is still at least one each, even with one out of eight drives. Furthermore, that rule only applies to ship construction, not damage...there is no ruling to accrued damage save for combat hits on the damage table, which technically isn't applicable to losing a drive to lack of maintenance. That, and the construction rule allows the owner to choose which end of the performance gets effected as such...but it's the only canon rule that a ref can fall back on. Speaking of which, invoke that dreadnaught example above to construction costs. It begs the question: why build a dreadnaught with eight atomic drives when one drive works just as well as six? Think about it, that dreadnaught with one atomic drive only needs a level one Alarm program, level one Damage Control program, etc instead of the usual LVL:6 software, and when it's all said and done it will perform as well as the full-specification ion driven dreadnaught (the latter of which "benefits" from an MR of 2 instead of 1). Dreadnaughts aren't supposed to be affordable, but you can build a one atomic C driven dreadnaught on the cheap going by canon and lose virtually nothing: 750K Cr for the drivetrain versus 8 Ion C drives at 1.6M Cr or eight atomic C drives at 6M Cr --- then factor in 3K for the software (LVL:1 Alarm & Damage Control programs) versus 96K for the same pair of LVL:6 programs for eight drives. That cuts your dreadnaught construction costs down to HS:6 freighter grades! (if only reaching LVL:6 pilot in order to fly it was that easy) The ratio just needs to be re-examined here, that's all I'm saying. -1 ADF or MR point per lost atomic drive isn't a clear cut definition, not even for "game balance" as the rest of the canon rules are set up for. It should reflect the specified total and how many are left as a percentage compared to performance adjustments as an equal percentage...lose half of your engines and you should lose half of your performance. Sure, it's not quite that linear if you do the math, but it's definitely more realistic and certainly more balanced. |
