Spaceships of Yore

Malcadon's picture
Malcadon
February 26, 2012 - 9:28pm
Spaceships in this time should be smaller then normal, and the inside cramped like a submarine. You are not going to find open space on ships like these - you'll have to squeeze your way around a ship. The most ideal craft of this age is the Orion Class Explorer.

Ships of this age are not as sophisticated as the ones from the Knight Hawks game. Without the benefits of automated systems, extra crew are required to run a ship, as they require constant maintenance and monitoring. Crewmen work in shifts, and in an emergency the maintenance crew deal with damage-control.

Weapons and hull structure is not as strong as standard KH ships, but by abstraction, they should be handled with the normal rules, without scaling them down. The types of weapons used can be found on the basic space combat rules.

Any ideas or suggestions?
Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 27, 2012 - 6:34am
Yeah I agree we can state that weapons and ship hulls are not as strong but don't really need to scale them down. Secondly, perhaps ships should have their thrust rated in g forces instead of ADF. My thinking is this, we've long discussed the fact that one ADF is not one g. And KH ships that can pull 5ADF are possible however this is an insane amount of g force for the crew to withstand and still function. I'm cool with that because I assume that the inertia personal defense screen tech is well enough understood that the same principles of physics that make it possible have been applied to acceleration couches on KHs ships to reduce g forces on the crew. If we rescaled ship combat for g forces (which may require rescaling the hex size). And forced players to roll to remain conscious while pulling really high gs that would differentiate ship combat in this era from KHs enough to make people say, "We're not in KHs anymore."
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
February 27, 2012 - 8:06am
Still working up the stats, thought I'd throw it in here for a visual referance. 

Content of Online Ship Generator project

Orion Class Explorer

Document Controller: w00t
Captain Raggs Orion class ship can be found here

HS: 2 

HP: 40 

Powerplant: 4 Ion B 
ADF: 1 MR: 1 

DCR: 30 

Crew: 6
Armament: 
Defenses: 
Communication/Detection: SubSpace Radio, VideoCom, Radar, Intercom 
Computer

Alarm () 
Analysis () 
Astrogation () 
Communication () 
Computer Lockout ()
Damage Control () 
Drive () 
Industry ()
Installation Security () 
Life Support, cap:8 () 
Maintenance ()
Rocket Battery ()


Cargo Capacity:  
Crew Accomodations: 
Passenger Accomodations:
Ship's Vehicles: 

Used with permission from


AZ_GAMER's picture
AZ_GAMER
February 27, 2012 - 4:37pm

I don't think that you really need to down grade the armor. It would just be thicker, bulkier, and heavier than that used in the modern frontier. It would probably be more expensive too. Weapons would probably be limited to gauss, laser, chemical, and assault rocket or low yield torpedoes. The lower yield for torpedoes is because they may have shorter range and you don't want to cook your own goose. I would reduce the range of these weapons but not the damage. A modern assault rocket would be more efficient than old one but both would dish out damage to metal hull. I would eliminate the disruptor cannons and particle beam batteries as these would be too cost prohibitive to mount on a ship and power production probably wouldnt support these weapons in this era. So my advice is cut the range and maybe "maybe" reduce the damage but i wouldnt reduce it by much.


Malcadon's picture
Malcadon
February 27, 2012 - 9:04pm
What I meant, was that older ships would not hold-up against modern UPF-era ships, but you would not see the difference in the game rules because the power-levels are all equal to each other. If anything, all ships - even armed combat vessels - should be treated as civilian craft (with ship weapons from the basic wargame) when designing them. After all, the First Common Muster was made-up of modified civilian ships.

The development of the Heavy Cruiser would be seen seen as a mighty, high-tech Dreadnaught of its time.

Sorry for the confusion.

Good luck with the stats, w00t. That ship looks awesome!