 May 28, 2012 - 9:39am | So I've finally finished a first draft of an alternate system for building ships that is completely based on the mass and volume of the ship components. I've tried to make it both compatable with the old system in that it uses the same components but have also tried to make it more internally consistant and realistic as well. Major changes are to life support, engines, hull, and cargo areas. The rules are in the download section as well as a spreadsheet to accompany the rule system to take away all the tedious math. You just plug in the numbers for the systems you want and all the details are calculated. Refer to: Starship Construction Rules There are still a few things I need to work out completely such as fuel usage and number of ships that can be externally docked but for the most part the basic ideas are there. Read over it and feel free to make comments and suggestions. This system starts with the components and ends up computing things like hull size and such. It can also be done the other way, starting with a standard sized hull and then fitting everything in but I need to still write up the procedure for that. Another thing that needs to be done to compeltely make this system self consistent is to rework the freight hauling section of the KH rules to be consistent with the new definition of the cargo unit since the bigger ships will have more than just their HS in cargo units. (e.g. my HS 20 super freighter has 3600 cargo units of space.) 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 |
 August 7, 2016 - 12:22pm | I want to add in things like the jump initiation system If you have a separate jump drive, with substantial mass/volume requirements, would that provide an incentive for system militias to procure non-jump capable ships, to be able to occupy that space with additional armor/armaments? I suppose the answer to this question would depend to some extent on the nature of jump technology. If it's capable of in-system hops, then there's no such incentive. I'm curious to hear what restrictions people place on jump drive in their individual games. |
August 7, 2016 - 12:34pm | I want to overhaul things like hull points, the damage amounts on the various weapons, prices, masses, etc. I want to make the capital ships truely something to be feared. I mean it's not really realistic that a HS 3 assault scout has 15 HP while a battleship, HS 20 and 1875 times larger, only has 120 or 8x as many Hull Points and only carries about 7-8x as many weapons. These large ships should be bristling weapons and be hard to damage. When a light cruiser or bigger ship drops into your system, you should be thinking "Oh, crap!" not, "Hmmm", and "Run away!" not "I might be able to take this on."  This is acutally my ultimate goal of this project and it's not really intended necessarily for Star Frontiers but my own system.Have you considered adding space/mass requirements for fuel itself? This seems to have gotten a major handwave in the KH campaign book. They at least gave size and mass for the atomic engine fuel pellets, but for chemical and ion fuel the only limitation seems to have been price; the amount of fuel necessary for one trip just somehow fits into the engine itself. I can't read that section of the rules without contrasting it to Traveller, where you need 0.1 ton of fuel times the ship tonnage times the jump distance for a single jump (and woe betide you if you allocate for a single jump and then end up with a system that doesn't afford opportunities for refueling), on top of several tons per week of operating/maneuvering fuel. Since the Traveller rules allow skimming of unrefined fuel from gas giant atmospheres as well as getting water from planets that have it, it sounds like they're using the equivalent of ion engines in SF terms. But that line about 10,000 units of fuel fitting into the ion engine itself, end of story, has bugged me for a long time and I'd appreciate a ship design system that took the space and mass requirements of fuel more thoroughly into account. |
August 7, 2016 - 12:42pm | Absolutely. If the ships are designed for in system use only, you can save a small bit of cash by leaving off the jump system. Plus they can get away with a simpler astrogation suite. As for limitations, I like the idea of a "no jump" zone if the gavity gradient is too strong around an object. For a G2 star like the sun, you cross that threshold out around the 4 AU mark, For smaller stars it's closer and for larger stars it's further away. It also exists around planets but to a smaller extent due to their smaller mass (and for those planets inside the stellar zone it's a moot point. You can't jump into or through this zone, you simply drop out into realspace at it's edge. I also like the idea that you travel in whatever vector you had in realspace before engaging your jump drive. No turning allowed, you can only do that in realspace and you have to deal with real velocity vectors (no MR). So to make a jump you need to line up very accurately with where you want to end up. In theory you could jump around in system in the outer system beyond the star's gravity well but you couldn't jump into the inner system where the habitable planets will be. 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 |
August 7, 2016 - 12:47pm | Fuel mass/volume would definitely be something that could be included. In the first revision, I did modify the costs (i.e. bigger engines require more fuel for the same thrust) but still did the handwavium of volume and mass and said that that was included in the thrust ratings of the engines. In other words, the mass/volume of the fuel and the engines themselves are not stated but the thrust you get from those engines incorporates that extra mass already. Basically the thrust you get is what's left over after moving the mass of the engines and the fuel. The truth is that this is a really complicated calculation to do correctly as the thrust increases as the feul mass decreases, potentially significantly depending on the system. But a simple system like Traveller uses could be incorporated. 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 |
 August 7, 2016 - 12:56pm | This is an interesting project. Is it something you'll unveil in the next issue of Frontier Explorer? The all-starship (or mostly starship) issue? Joe Cabadas |
August 7, 2016 - 6:30pm | It won't appear in an FE issue, it's even bigger than your robot article. It would basically take up the entire issue with little or no room for something else. My plan is to have it as a Frontier Explorer Presents special issue at some point. The preliminary version is in the Downloads section of this project. Not much has changed since I wrote that one several years ago. I've done some minor tweaking but am looking to launch into a major cleanup here in the next few months. (My last paper for my Masters degree is due on Wednesday and then I'm done except for an end of program exam in September that consists of writing 3 essays in a single week. So I'm getting my free time back.) 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 |
 August 8, 2016 - 8:23pm | As for limitations, I like the idea of a "no jump" zone if the gavity gradient is too strong around an object. For a G2 star like the sun, you cross that threshold out around the 4 AU mark, For smaller stars it's closer and for larger stars it's further away. Co-incidentally, that would be at about the day 3-4 mark (assuming you started at the star and did the standard 1g accelleration, which is also about the amout of time you need to get up to the .01c needed under the KH rules to hit Void speed. |
August 9, 2016 - 8:27am | I know, that's how I originally came up with the distance number. I'll probably tweak it in the end but it's a good starting point. 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 |
August 9, 2016 - 10:06am | :^Might I suggest that mass it the determinate. If we take a G-type star and it's mass as the value of 1 and the "no go zone" as 4AU, then the size of other stars' NG zones can be determined as a function of their mass realtive to a G-type star. I worked out the following based on that formula:
There isn't any need to calculate no-go-s for planets. Even the largest planets (Jovian) have a no go of roughly .06 AU, so by the time you get up to Void speed from even the largest planet, you're well clear of it's zone. The stellar zome is the one you need to clear. This makes travel to and through Class O and heavier stars problematic. The radius of our solar system is ~90 AU as measured by gravitational effect. You travel the first 4 days under constant accelleration to reach .01c but then you'll have to coast the rest of the say to get out of the system. I can't find a decent travel calculator that lets you measure distance in terms of AU at percentages of c. |
August 9, 2016 - 3:33pm | Sound like you're thinking along the same lines as I've been working on. It will definitely scale by stellar mass. It was the 4AU for a solar mass star that I want to play around with a bit. Probably make it smaller so that you're the minimum time corresponds to a shorter jump distance than 8-9 ly. As for the planetary no-zones, that mainly for jumping around in the outer system. Assuming crossing the gravity threshold drops you out of the void, you can use them as targets. You'll drop out of your micro jump close to the planet. And 0.06 AU is still a non-negligable distance (roughly 8-9 million kilometers). That's definitely a navigational hazard you have to account for in planning your jump. 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 |
August 9, 2016 - 4:38pm | Sound like you're thinking along the same lines as I've been working on. It will definitely scale by stellar mass. It was the 4AU for a solar mass star that I want to play around with a bit. Probably make it smaller so that you're the minimum time corresponds to a shorter jump distance than 8-9 ly. As for the planetary no-zones, that mainly for jumping around in the outer system. Assuming crossing the gravity threshold drops you out of the void, you can use them as targets. You'll drop out of your micro jump close to the planet. And 0.06 AU is still a non-negligable distance (roughly 8-9 million kilometers). That's definitely a navigational hazard you have to account for in planning your jump. OK. After some thought and looking at your postings and that of ChrisDonovan's, I'm warming to the idea of going with the Knight Hawks idea of traveling through the Void... though that could still leave a few weird science adventures like being trapped in Void space. Joe Cabadas |
August 9, 2016 - 7:55pm | Sound like you're thinking along the same lines as I've been working on. It will definitely scale by stellar mass. It was the 4AU for a solar mass star that I want to play around with a bit. Probably make it smaller so that you're the minimum time corresponds to a shorter jump distance than 8-9 ly. As for the planetary no-zones, that mainly for jumping around in the outer system. Assuming crossing the gravity threshold drops you out of the void, you can use them as targets. You'll drop out of your micro jump close to the planet. And 0.06 AU is still a non-negligable distance (roughly 8-9 million kilometers). That's definitely a navigational hazard you have to account for in planning your jump. That's an awful lot of variables to track for any one system: stellar no-go, no-go for each planet, overlaps, orbital precession vs incoming trajectory, etc. The closest you can drop out in any event is 4AU because you still need to decel. I wasn't aware that KH Void jumps were that accurate in any event. |
August 11, 2016 - 10:41am | Ok, figured out how to calculate this. A starship holding at just below Void speed (.01c) travels 259.2 million (1.733 AU) per day. A quick perusal of Zeb's lists shows pretty much all of the systems of the Frontier are F, G, or K stars, but for completeness sake I'll do the whole table :
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 August 10, 2016 - 10:40pm | TerlObar, what again are your jump drives like? -iggy |
August 11, 2016 - 7:41am | It's not a jump drive per se but rather a jump field generator. Basically you turn it on and it generates a field around the ship that allows it to slip into the Void. It's size and cost would be based on the size of the ship. In my book, it was actually an interaction between the field generator (which was originally designed as a ship sized inertia screen) and a separate field generator in the book's equivalent of atomic engines that allowed you to make the jump. I've thought about making atomic engines a requirement for interstellar ships but I want ion drives to be jump capable as well (just slower) so I probably won't go that route. 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 |
August 11, 2016 - 11:04am | Another thing I hope your rules would address are Ag ships. The original KH rules say they exist, but don't seem to permit it if a hull size is supposed to be X meters long and X meters wide. How do you account for the long arms and the domes? Shouldn't the hull size be based on volume and weight rather than it's got to be so many meters long and wide? It seems to prohibit, say, flying saucer types or round ships like the Traveller dreadnaught.  Otherwise, SF ships are all... um... phallic designs. Joe Cabadas |
August 11, 2016 - 2:55pm | In the new rules, hull size is strictly a measure of volume. You can pick any shape you want. So yes, that is addressed. 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 |
