 December 24, 2011 - 1:43pm | here is one of the starships from my comic book setting i am trying to stat for sfkh. it is one of the smallest warships called a zephyr class scout / escort . crew compliment around 60 and could double that for a short time in an emergency. one lifeboat and two launches. two large cannons, one battery, two point defense batteries and one torpedo bay. with this description and diagram could anyone help determine what HS this ship would be in sfkh terms.  |
 December 24, 2011 - 2:08pm | Going by the Knight Hawks rule for max number of weapons a ship may carry on page 18, left column, bottom two paragraphs, I would say the cannons are two laser cannons, and the battery could be a proton, electron, or laser battery. With two point defenses, which in Knight Hawks ICM system being MHS 5, of which the rules say you can carry only one missle system, anyway, I would go with hullsize 10 to maybe 12. Hullsize 12 because it sounds like someone is trying to maximize the fire power of the weapons. In my mind, I would put atomic engines on this one for the optimal use of the two cannons but I do not like to pack cannons onto my ships due to the fact of engine hits. I would rather go with a HS 12 with 1 DC, 1 PB, 1 EB, 1 LB, 1 TL, and 1 ICM. With the hullsize of 10 you can even put 3 LB, going with HS 12 you can go with 2 EB and 4 LB max with these weapons and still sport the DC as an awesome forward firepower and not need two cannons because 3d10 with +20 on the extra damage table many a ship will be getting more than they bargin for in battle with it. Just a suggestion, not anything set into concrete but if you are looking into house rules then I cannot help you with it because I try to stick to the original rules as much as possible. Hopefully this helps out. |
December 24, 2011 - 2:40pm | thanks! the ship is of a considerably higher tech level than the sf setting . The cannons would either be kinetic or laser. i am more concerned about actual size than sfkh weapons allowances since i will be converting stats from this tech level into sfkh terms. |
December 24, 2011 - 2:43pm | the most notable differences being the use of artificial gravity in this ships technology |
 December 25, 2011 - 11:37am | The ship looks awesome... I see... A tight modular design around the drive axis, conveniently placed rotating bits, and a belly-lander? does not appear to need an outboard/inboard AG-MG. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 25, 2011 - 2:35pm | It's not designed for planetary landing so its not a belly lander. Designed for interstellar flight the ship really wasn't designed to enter the atmosphere. In an emergency it might be attempted but it certainly was designed to operate that way. Large wheel is the ships artifical gravity generator. the module below it is the an engineering support module. |
December 25, 2011 - 5:20pm | On the other side of the equation is the Atlas Class battleship which is one of Earth's largest capital ships. The only thing larger in the Titan Rising Universe is the Titan's themselves which are massive battleship/carriers about a kilometer in length. Below is a Altlas Class anyone want to take a crack at its HULL size IN SFKH  |
 December 25, 2011 - 8:33pm | Assuming your "standard crewman" is 2m tall (and to scale), your Zephyr is 44m tall, 34m wide and 152m long. That corresponds (volume wise) roughly to something a little more than half way between HS 8 and 9. The Atlas actually isn't much bigger, total volume wise (again assuming the "standard crewman" is acurately to scale). It's longer at 195m, but skinnier at only 28m wide (except for the engines which span 69 meters). It is also slightly smaller in height at 43m. It's total volume is roughly just short of HS 9. I arrived at those numbers by printing out the images, measuring the "standard crewman" (which was 2mm tall in both cases) and then measuring out the ships. 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 |
December 25, 2011 - 9:21pm | Thanks for the help on that! I think the image software kind of rescaled the atlas a little it should be a little taller than the Zephyr because of the spine of the hull that sticks out a little higher porbably another 5 - 10 meters. the width, excluding engine pods should also be about the same. The length however is almost double. So if the Zephyr is HS 8 or 9, than the Atlas would probably weigh in around HS 18-20 give or take a little. |
December 26, 2011 - 12:13am | Here is a better side by side comparison of the smallest warship the zephyr class and the largest warship the Atlas class. While the prometheus class (not shown here) is much wider it isn't quite as long as the Atlas class. I rendered a side by side view of both ships so the representation is more accurate. The Atlas is almost twice as long as the Zephyr but not quite a full 50% longer. The Atlas has a standard crew of 300 but could go as high as 500. Variants of the Atlas include a lighter version of the ship classified as a command cruiser named the Monarch class which has does not have as many modules. A third variation on the ship is the Ranger Class Carrier which substitutes the most of the lateral batteries for hanger bays. |
December 26, 2011 - 9:45am | Okay. Assuming that they are the same width (since they seem to be similar modules and the scaling is about right) we get for the Atlas a length of 223m, a width of 34 m and a height of 50 m. Again that is ignoring the extra width of the outboard engines whose width would be 80m. That gives a total volume about 60% larger than the Zephyr instead of just a few percent larger. That corresponds almost exactly to the volume of a HS 10 KH ship. You have to remember that the KH hull sizes grow exponentially with HS. A HS 10 ship is more than double in volume of a HS 8 ship and 50% larger than a HS 9. 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 |
December 28, 2011 - 5:47pm | I don't count 'flaming attmo' the only requirement of a lander... nice details! Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 28, 2011 - 7:35pm | Tell me if I'm wrong. So if the Zephyr is about a hull size 8, starships of similar design that are a little bit larger would still fall into the category of size 8, 9 and eventually 10 respectively (the size of the Atlas). So a ship that is around HS 8 1/2 would still be called an HS 8. While these human built starships are smaller than their frontier counter parts they are equally or better armed and of a much higher tech level. I am assuming that the titan mark 1 would be alot closer to HS 20 to HS 22 with the ship being "around" a kilometer in length (going by the modelers description) |
December 28, 2011 - 8:14pm | Sounds about right to me. 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 |
