 March 1, 2015 - 6:24am | Apart from the Assault Scout, are there any other examples of HS3 ships? Also, would it possible for an HS 3 ship to carry a shuttle externally? I ask as I am currently mulling over ideas for an adventure. My RPG group is planning on playing Star Frontiers for the first time since the late 1980s, and I was wondering whether some sort of HS 3 ship design might be out there. At some point they may be able to use such a ship, being a small group, and possibly by using a slightly militarised civilian example. |
 March 4, 2015 - 7:49am | Wasn't the launch bascily "open-topped?" I'd call that a problem with doing reentry :) You might be thinking of the Air/Raft from Traveller which, despite being an open cockpit vehicle, is fully capable of surface to orbit & back runs by those rules. Go figure... Pages 29-30 of the Campaign Manual spells out everything about launches, including two lengthy paragraphs detailing the pressurized interior and canopy operation. My focus in this discussion would be the opening paragraph which states "Launches are primarily used to travel from one ship to a nearby ship or station". Which certainly suggests there are secondary roles it can fill, such as orbit to surface and back. |
 March 5, 2015 - 7:44pm | If you're worried about the radiation of a ship landing, have you ever considered a Dual propulsion system? Could you have a HS 3 ship with both Atomic and chemical drives? The atomic for space and chemical for landing. Yeah it would mean having multiple engine pods on your ship. But the Minerva from Crusher Joe would roughly be the size of a HS 3 or 4 ship. It can even land 2 fighters. Well, maybe it's more HS 5. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
 March 5, 2015 - 9:47pm | http://sfus.starfrontiers.info/node/8399?page=1 I discuss the issue of atomic engines here. The real question which needs to be answered is whether or not the actual propulsion system is atomic or some sort of handwavium device that transfers the power of the atomic reactor into a force for propulsion? If that is the case, then the only thing of concern about atomic engines would be damage or malfuction which would cause radioactived to seep into the enviroment. The next thing is if the propulsion system is some sort of handwavium device, that would mean each engine requires a mini nuclear reactor to provide power for it. I have no problem with each propulsion system has its own reactor. You can imagine the power that is require to push the ship up to the speeds necessary to jump? The confusion here is each jump the reactor burn off a small amount uranium which must be replaced. Hand the authors merely stated that one fuel rod need to be replaced after each jump, then it might have elminated the confussion all together. And yes, some things need to be rewritten to make the system more believable in a scifi game, but it's more about the discription rather than the mechanics. |
March 6, 2015 - 2:15am | In my game an atomic powered ship may land in an atmosphere but they are not permitted to be serviced on the surface. I see the thrust as a by-product of the work done by the reactor, not a source of radiation per se....much like the electricity generated by a nuclear plant is not radiated. Considering how a HS:3 assault scout has no accessways to the engines, it stands to reason that any work done on the drives entails removing covers and cowls etc thus exposing the reactor. Even a ship with accessways will eventually need external access, as not everything can be accessed from that single point. Ships with amaged drives also will not be permitted on the surface. |
March 6, 2015 - 2:27am | Launches can't get to and from planets, AFAIK.
True, the rules don't spell that out...they're inferred to be space-only vehicles by the opening description although there's really nothing stating they can't make planetfall. Still, your proposal is basically suggesting a 15 foot boat as a dingy towed behind a 25 foot boat. For what you're spending on construction and operational costs, for a fraction more you might as well make the smaller ship interstellar capable and call it a fleet maneuver. Unless of course you plan on making your shuttle a HS:1 craft, in which case it really is a rowboat that can be used as a dingy behind the 25 footer. Not so much towing as being carried  As for size differences - going by the artwork by Jay posted earlier in
this thread, the Eleanor Moraes is somewhat larger than an assault
scout, but they're both HS:3.As for launches, the descriptions do imply that they're more of a ship-to-ship runabout and not capable of going through atmospheres. |
March 6, 2015 - 2:32am | So maybe the rules need rewriting? Revising. Everything dealing with science or a projection of the future needs revising every ten years. The book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" has been revised every 10 years since first published to reflect the latest discoveries in neuro science and better teaching techniques discovered by the author during the intervening decade. I was thinking instead that maybe the whole ship construction rules set needs re-doing. Maybe even possibly make things more space opera-ish by not trying to 100% scientifically accurate. Okay, maybe not using grav plates etc as is the case with Traveller, but perhaps something between Star Frontiers, Traveller and maybe also Star Wars. I don't think that this would entail any changes to the way spaceship combat works, but just changes to how ships and designed and built. Maybe this means also ditching atomic and other drives and having some new option that allows for more flexibility... |
 March 6, 2015 - 3:18am | It might be simplest to say that PGC or some other mega corp introduced drive X after SW2 and this lead to atomic drives being fased out. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 6, 2015 - 4:48am | Yes, that sounds better. Maybe there's something called a 'Void Drive', which can exist in various forms (as is the case with atomic drives) but perhaps runs off of some other fuel. Also, such drives mean that there's no need to have long accelerations and deceleration from the Void stage as is the case in KH rules. I say this as currently coming out of the Void for whatever reason means that you're still zipping along at a great rate and can't do much about it until you've finally slowed down near your desitnation. Maybe that's a bit more handwavvy, but doable. Essentially, the Void drive flips the ship from one state to another, allowing travel at speeds above light by tapping into whatever the Void is. |
 March 6, 2015 - 7:52am | Launches - A launch is a smal "space car" that is powered by a rocket engine. It is very short-ranged, and is used primarily to travel from one ship to another nearby ship or station...A launch travels like a rocket pack, but a launch can carry 40 bursts of fuel. Character inside a launch do not need to wear suits, as the cabins are fully pressurized and carry enough oxygen to support a full load of passengers for 10 hours...Launches have no airlocks, so the only means of entering or leaving one is through the bubble canopy...All Spacefleet ships of Assault Scout class or larger carry a smal launch. I do not believe, due to the propulsion system, that a launch can enter or break Atmo. It is a "very short-range" space car. Interesting that Spacefleet's Assault Scouts carry a small launch...hmm.... |
March 6, 2015 - 1:57pm | Launches - A launch is a smal "space car" that is powered by a rocket engine. It is very short-ranged, and is used primarily to travel from one ship to another nearby ship or station...
Key word there. The description does ot mention any oher uses but stating that a "primary use" suggests there are other rols it can fill. Had it said "sole use" I wouldn't be having this discussion. Surface to orbit and vice versa is also "short range". It is very open to interpretation, and I do not see making them atmospheric capable as game-breaking. YMMV. |
March 6, 2015 - 4:21pm | The improved Ion drive, now featuring more thrust power making it useable in an atmosphere. Or the X drive could just be called a Plasma drive, which uses the power of a nuclear reactor to fire what in reality is a large short ranged plasma cannon giving it thrust. All the power of an atomic drive at ion drive costs. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
 March 6, 2015 - 6:29pm | What's the differance between "Nuclear" and "Atomic"? If you know the answer you see why the "differences" between the drives is symantics rather than technical. You have "Chemical," "Ion," and "Atomic" drives that ALL do things vastly different than the "real-world" science versions do so why not simply say they are ALL based on the same basic prinicples. (And admit the writers got the verbage wrong :) ) NOT allowing Ion drives to land on a planet makes sense. Even if the developers of the game got the "exact" specifications wrong they made it pretty plain that the "Ion" drive is a highly effiecient, low thrust drive so it probably can't do any more than lift itself (hover) in a normal gravity field. (Which is why I baseline it at 1g at best) Note you CAN actually still use an Ion drive in this manner as long as the ship can say FLY and you have an atmosphere to do so in you can then accellerate to orbital speed with all the streamlining and such that implies :) Atomic drives on the other hand are supposed to be uber-powerful but have some "drawback" so the game has an excuse to use the chemical drive even though they break the heck out of that line of reasoning with the Assualt Scout ship type and fighter. The restriction makes "sense" except it obvious that everything in the SF universe that doesn't run on a parabattery runs on a plain old fission generator. (It's the only type you can make "melt-down" on demand and what is described in the books) So it doesn't actually MAKE sense. Pretty much any re-write should just come out and admit that Ion drives are for merchants who care about the bottom line over time and everyone else uses Atomic drives. "Chemical" package drives would probably be used in lifeboats or other seldom used drives systems but not in regular vehicles. Randy |
March 6, 2015 - 6:33pm | Launches - A launch is a smal "space car" that is powered by a rocket engine. It is very short-ranged, and is used Key word there. The description does ot mention any oher uses but stating that a "primary use" suggests there are other rols it can fill. Had it said "sole use" I wouldn't be having this discussion. Surface to orbit and vice versa is also "short range". It is very open to interpretation, and I do not see making them atmospheric capable as game-breaking. YMMV. Missed a key word yourself there SS, "bursts" of fuel. Unless you allow someone to go surface-to-orbit in a rocket pack it would seem clear that a launch is space-to-space "short-range" only. The specification that its "like" (and treated as) a rocket pack. Randy |
March 6, 2015 - 7:18pm | What's the differance between "Nuclear" and "Atomic"? If you know the answer you see why the "differences" between the drives is symantics rather than technical.
Randy The difference between "Atomic" and "Nuclear" is mainly in the use of them as bombs. The Atomic bomb were the first ones developed creating nuclear fission. When it comes to nuclear bombs like the hydrogen bomb they use atomic bombs to detonate hydrogen bombs creating nuclear fusion. But to layman this difference has little meaning. In terms of SF one would have to ask why are they still using "Atomic" drives if a "Nuclear" drive would logically be more powerful. But I see your point in the game only presenting 3 different drives, each with their own advantages and disadvatages. However the idea that atomic drives need to be mounted on struts away from the ship to protect from radiation doesn't fly, because the whole ship must be shielded to protect from cosmic radiation as well. For that matter the game Jovian Chronicles the ship have nuclear drives, which are mounted at the rear where the ships' heaviest shielding is. However the ships are using plasma drives for propulsion, and they can be used as weapons in an emergency. Basically it's what I've already suggested, an atomic or nuclear powerd plasma cannon, very short ranged. But how do we know if the SF atomic drives don't already work on this idea? SF is short on many details, it's a generic sci-fi game that lets the GM write much of those details. And I can't see why a launch can't be made to enter an atomsphere.... can't get back out without some kind of booster rocket to launch it back up. But if you're a GM write the game's tech your way. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
March 6, 2015 - 8:55pm | What's the differance between "Nuclear" and "Atomic"? If you know the answer you see why the "differences" between the drives is symantics rather than technical.
The difference between "Atomic" and "Nuclear" is mainly in the use of them as bombs. The Atomic bomb were the first ones developed creating nuclear fission. When it comes to nuclear bombs like the hydrogen bomb they use atomic bombs to detonate hydrogen bombs creating nuclear fusion. Pretty much correct except which do we have; Atomic powerplants or Nuclear powerplants :) "Nuclear" was considered a "safer" wording and until LM gets some actual fusion going instead of fiddling with magnetic fields we've only the ONE type of "atomic" power :) (Bomb wise ALL of them are fission primary systems and technically we have NO straight "fission" bombs at all anymore. Except every one is still primarily a fission bomb as the basic unit :) ) /geekmode But to layman this difference has little meaning. In terms of SF one would have to ask why are they still using "Atomic" drives if a "Nuclear" drive would logically be more powerful. Nuclear isn't neccessarily more powerful than atomic. Besides the writers WERE "laymen" and used what sounded better rather than technically accurate :) Atomic has more of a "space opera" feel to it anyway :) But I see your point in the game only presenting 3 different drives, each with their own advantages and disadvatages. I have my moments :) However the idea that atomic drives need to be mounted on struts away from the ship to protect from radiation doesn't fly, because the whole ship must be shielded to protect from cosmic radiation as well. For that matter the game Jovian Chronicles the ship have nuclear drives, which are mounted at the rear where the ships' heaviest shielding is. However the ships are using plasma drives for propulsion, and they can be used as weapons in an emergency. Basically it's what I've already suggested, an atomic or nuclear powerd plasma cannon, very short ranged. But how do we know if the SF atomic drives don't already work on this idea? SF is short on many details, it's a generic sci-fi game that lets the GM write much of those details. The reason that the Jovian Chronicles have the nuclear drives on the rear of the ship is because its FAR easier to shield radiation from a single direction rather than trying to shield the whole ship. Which is why putting the drives on struts where they can now spew radiation into the ship from SEVERAL angles is a non-starter for "real" designs. Do they use a plasma drive? MY speculation is also that they do use some sort of "atomic" generated plasma drive and the "reactor" is in the tail of the ship while the "drives" are on struts for the VERY good reason that if you eject plasma from a motor on a strut (forward or aft) and do the opposites from another motor on an opposite strut you can turn the ship really easy. (It's also why I design my ships with the crew parts closer to the tail than "standard"... 'cause being in the "bridge" of a standard design is going to get real ugly with that kind of long-momentum arm... :) ) And of course the writes were short on detail and for that "I" thank them because I think the game actually ages MUCH better that way. (Thinking BR "dot-dos" holograms here :) ) And I can't see why a launch can't be made to enter an atomsphere.... can't get back out without some kind of booster rocket to launch it back up.But if you're a GM write the game's tech your way. Could. As you note though its ones-own game and no one needs "permission" really to play it the way you want :) Having said that I always understood the "launch" to be a "space taxi" or "space-tug" type vehicle. Really just an enlarged workpod type vehicle so as to carry more passengers. Randy |
March 7, 2015 - 2:44am | I'm starting to think of a possible drive - as I've outlined above - which draws power from a hydrogen-fueled generator. Potentially, larger ships have hydrogen scoops but smaller ones do not, so need to carry a certain amount of fuel but also need to stop off at places (i.e. space stations) in order to top up their supply. Ships with scoops also have to do this once in a while in order to get a large supply of fuel quickly. The drives have two modes - sub-Void and Void, the former allowing sub-light travel to and from world surfaces (as long as their HS is not above a certain number) and also within systems. Perhaps the drives are rated I, II or III. Multiple drives of a given rating are needed by ships with a high HS (as is the case in KH). There is no need for an acceleration and deceleration stage going in and out of the Void. However, jumps still have to be calculated in the same manner as described in KH in order to avoid mis-jumping. This is still a rough idea, of course |
 March 7, 2015 - 7:20am | To respond to the original question, p. 8 of the Knight Hawks campaign book:
As for launches—which are absolutely NOT for planetary landings!—p. 30 says "All Spacefleet ships of Assault Scout class or larger carry a small launch," so clearly launches fit on hull size 3 ships. |
March 7, 2015 - 9:27am |
Reading the KH rules two things become clear.
1: (Bottom of page 36 from the PDF) Ships using chemical drives burn a load of fuel on every voyage, as a general rule. The cost of one load of fuel is 250 Cr x the hull size of the ship for each engine. This is doubled for shuttles when they are taking off from a planet, because of the extra thrust required to escape the gravity well.
We must assume from this statement, shuttles carry twice as much fuel as a launch. SO the smallest Shuttle would be at 25% larger than a launch. I say this because your increasing the fuel while the rest of the ship remains the same.
2: Nowhere in the description of the engines used in KH (page 36 and 37) is there description of how much space is required to carry Hydrogen fuel. (Page 37) gives a vague description of modifying some storage space to carry extra fuel.
Three thing are made clear about Ion engines. First, the nacelle carrying the Ion engine has its own fuel tank. Second, nowhere in the description does the author give space requirements for additional fuel. And Finally, there is a cost in fuel points which must be kept track of during game play.
My own thoughts:
From personal experience and drawing vehicles for both Traveler and Star Frontiers, when drawing starships with fuel these ships tend to be larger than those who use an atomic reactor.
As I stated earlier in this thread, the real problem is the description of each type of engine and not the premise. It is clear that atomic engines "burn" fuel for propulsion. By turning the atomic engine into a reactor, the only thing that really needs to be changed is cost for reactor and how many engines are need to propel the ship.
Example: Reactor cost for a A size ship would be half the cost stated in KH. The engine would cost the other half so the entire system would be 300,000 credits. Additional engines would cost 150,000 credits. A size A hull can only mount (say) 4 engines.
If you need a description of how the engines work, that can be done with a bit of techno babble.
The rest of the KH rules would apply.
Ion engines must supply power to the ship in some fashion. So once the fuel is gone so is the main power and emergency batteries kick in. I have no problem with the nacelle having a fuel tank and engine mounted in it. Nor do I have problem with mounting a hydrogen scoop for unlimited fuel. My problem is storage for extra fuel and the size of each unit of hydrogen.
Chemical engines have another power system all together. Whether it be Para-batteries or solar panels this description is the weakest one in KH. Since Para-batteries are not real describe in KH or SF. There size and weight for a ship using this propulsion system needs to be defined.
Minor changes in the way these propulsion systems are described would maintain the spirit of the game. It would also not require a full rewrite of the KH system pertaining to what type engines are available. Slight modification to the rules (as per example) are require but nothing so major that it would require an entire game system to incorporate these new changes, just one section of the book.
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March 7, 2015 - 12:07pm | Maybe hydrogen isn't a good candidate as a fuel source, unless there's some exotic way it can be stored without using up lots of space. But there's also the need to figure out exactly how much hydrogen is needed by the drive in it's various power regimes. Perhaps there doesn't need to be a large onboard supply, as maybe the drive only ever requires a relative small amount. Or, alternatively, fuel is consumed in the same way it is for atomic fuel pellets and any given ship only carries enough for a certain amount of jumps. My basic gist really was coming up with something that doesn't require problems of radiation, and long accleration/deceleration times, and is a bit more maleable. It also wouldn't go against the spirit of KH or require a big paradigm and rules shift. I was hoping it would actually make things simpler - have the Void drive as a system (with one or more needed depending on HS, as per KH), and no need for atomic, ion or other engines for the vast majority of spacecraft. That said, I freely admit to being influenced by Star Wars - i.e. ships go in and out of jump relatively easily once certain pre-jump calculations are made, and can switch in and out of jump when the situation requires. |
March 7, 2015 - 12:38pm | Just to be clear, (and "technical") Atomic and Ion engines would use a reactor which "burns" uranium or plutonium (uranium and/or thorium actually as plutonium is a byproduct and not all that good a reactor fuel, here I think the designers were confusing breeder-reactors which were an 'issue' at the time) to produce "power" and then uses a "reaction mass" of somesort to produce thrust. Ion engines require a seperate "engine" from the reactor while "true" atomic drives can run the reaction mass through the reactor for thrust. Chemical engines do NOT require a seperate power source really as they ARE a "power" production source using fuel and oxidizer to produce thrust. Which makes nonsense of the descriptions in KH from the get-go. And since none of the KH ships have any "propellant/reaction-mass" shown on them... Well it's pretty clear that they aren't using what we'd consider any of the "real-world" reaction drives that are described. Hydrogen Scoops: Note the in space hydrogen is pretty rare even outside a "rare" bubble which Earth resides in. Those scoops have to be thousands of kilometers in diameter for a ship scoop up enough to use as propellant. (This by the way was how the concept of the Magsail was arrived at. The original idea was to use magnetic fields to scoop up ANY matter and run it through an Ion engine but the induced drag on the vehicle was far higher than could be compensated for by the thrust so the design went the other way and just increased the drag of the magnetic scoop till it became in effect a sail) "I" in fact wouldn't use or even suggest using "hydrogen" as propellant due to its bulk storage and space costs. Assume for a moment we have some sort of "plasma" drive. While this is a very thin, very hot "gas" if you can intermix it with a bulky propellant so that it transfers the majority of its heat to said propellant in a fairly even manner, that propellant once heated and ejected provides much more "mass" thrust than the plasma would have alone. The key factor is finding a suitable reaction mass to use with the plasma drive. It needs to be dense, but stable and easy to move from storage tanks into the engines. The more you pump in during a "burn" the less efficent the heating and therefore ISP but the higher the thrust. Conversely the better and longer you heat and accellerate lower amounts of the reaction mass the higher the ISP but the lower the thrust. The former would be an "atomic" engine the latter an "ion" engine in this example. As an example of a "chemical" engine along these lines let me use a "real-world" concept: LANTR LOX Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket or a NERVA with an afterburner :) The NERVA uses hydrogen as a reaction mass which is good as far as it goes, getting ISPs in the high 800s to low 900s but thrust-to-weight of barely over 1. In order to increase the thrust the concept was to inject LOX (Liquid Oxygen) into the hot hydrogen stream just aft of the reactor exhaust where they would mix and the hydrogen being already way past ignition temperature would burn with the LOX and produce additional thrust. Similarly a plasma engine would be capble of heating chemical propellant to a high degree and then adding an oxidizer (or outside air :) ) would therefore increase the thrust output. If we want to do some sort of "handwavium" drive that has a reactor powering some type of engine it of course makes things simpler while restricting variation some but... Myself I don't see it helping all that much in the general scheme of things and would rather see a limited re-write to clear up the confusions but not strictly define the systems. How detailed do we want to go? Tracking abstract propellant usage is probably ok as long as it doesn't distract from the game but it opens a door for going in that direction due the various ship sizes (and mass' which isn't even addressed in game) and engine types by manuever. Randy |
March 7, 2015 - 1:29pm | Missed a key word yourself there SS, "bursts" of fuel. Unless you allow someone to go surface-to-orbit in a rocket pack it would seem clear that a launch is space-to-space "short-range" only. The specification that its "like" (and treated as) a rocket pack. I didn't miss that, the comparo to a space suit rocket pack is for acceleration & deceleration not actual use. But to travel down that road the question now becomes "how many 'bursts' of fuel does it take to ecape an atmosphere? Going by canon rules for chemical drives on p.12 "ships with chemical drives burn a load of fuel for every voyage as a general rule". So it's safe to say those 40 bursts constitute a load of fuel. A launch could easily be compared to a HS:1 system ship. A space suit can not. |
March 7, 2015 - 1:14pm | Maybe hydrogen isn't a good candidate as a fuel source, unless there's some exotic way it can be stored without using up lots of space. But there's also the need to figure out exactly how much hydrogen is needed by the drive in it's various power regimes. Perhaps there doesn't need to be a large onboard supply, as maybe the drive only ever requires a relative small amount. Or, alternatively, fuel is consumed in the same way it is for atomic fuel pellets and any given ship only carries enough for a certain amount of jumps. FYI, metallic hydrogen would in theory be pretty "easy" (energy intensive and such but with the given technology quite "doable") to make with SF technology. But I agree it's probably not an ideal propellant to use even in example. Abstractly we could simply say that you "buy" a propellant load which allows you so many "jumps" (and all implied build-up and back-down required by same) with combat manuevers eating a percentage of that margin by duration. Using my favorite minis-game example, Full Thrust has FTL engines as a percentage of the ships mass. Since SF has no actual FTL engine I use that mass as the "propellant" requirement for jump. For convience I use the factor that "one-engine" equals 10 jumps for that ship with the abiltity to raise or lower the amount by adding to or reducing the "Mass" factor. (Of course this gives Assault Scouts "10" jumps possible instead of the listed 1 but I also ruled that due to the compact nature of their drives they actually have a 1-in-10 chance every jump for the drive to need an overhaul with a +1 to the roll for every jumpt performed without an overhaul. Spacefleet regs call for an overhual after every jump to ensure the scout "can" if need be have its full compliment available at all times) In combat each game turn that the engines are used for manuever it represents one-tenth of a mass factor of propellant for the ships jump. Ten turns equals one mass. Nice and simple :) My basic gist really was coming up with something that doesn't require problems of radiation, and long accleration/deceleration times, and is a bit more maleable. It also wouldn't go against the spirit of KH or require a big paradigm and rules shift. I was hoping it would actually make things simpler - have the Void drive as a system (with one or more needed depending on HS, as per KH), and no need for atomic, ion or other engines for the vast majority of spacecraft. Personally I LIKE the accelleration/decelleration requirement as I don't see it as needed to "calculate" the jump but to get to the "speed/energy-state" needed to activate the Void jump system. On the other hand I fully understand how it interfers with a LOT of activity and adventure seeds. ("On The Rocks" could never happen really. At 0.01% the speed of light the cargo ship would be at best a thin smear of molocules across the asteroid for someone to "find" and at worst the "wreckage" would have careening off into infinity in very small, very hot pieces never to be found. I have this problem with my Volturnus adventure since I have to figure out how the pirates can keep the PCs and others {I have a company of planetary militia on the expedition that comes into play later for the Sathar battle} from suspecting things are wrong until they get TO Volturnus orbit) That said, I freely admit to being influenced by Star Wars - i.e. ships go in and out of jump relatively easily once certain pre-jump calculations are made, and can switch in and out of jump when the situation requires.
Understood but trying to be DIFFERENT from SW or Traveller is why I happen to LIKE the system as is :) It makes my job as GM harder and constricts the PCs somewhat but I happen to think it makes a different and more challenging game. (Of course that all MIGHT be why I have such a hard time getting players and games running :) ) Way back when I first got SF I was using the basic idea from Starfire for interstellar travel. (And because I hadn't really read the whole books I missed the part about 1 day-per-light year until a player pointed it out to me) The "travel-routes" were jump-lines and ships went from the planets to the jump point where the drive was activated and they jumped to the next sytem in line and you HAD to follow the jump lines to get anywhere. (You may note a certain problem with this and the basic map :) ) Despite the player pointing out the note on time-versus-travel this actually worked out pretty well for the campaign. It wasn't till a bull-session where we were discussing PC pirates that the flaws showed up since being an interstellar pirate where the authorities have control of the only entry and exit from a system can be problimatical at best. However, the Starfire folks put out a "pirate" article that gave several examples of how this could be done and the matter was soon forgotten as was the idea of PC pirates since we all got assignments several months later anyway. THE big issue today would be that my SF universe has "no-stealth-in-space" as a hard rule so there would be no way for the pirates to hide in system or "sneak-up" on the jump point... Randy |
March 7, 2015 - 1:19pm | If we want to do some sort of "handwavium" drive that has a reactor powering some type of engine it of course makes things simpler while restricting variation some but... Myself I don't see it helping all that much in the general scheme of things and would rather see a limited re-write to clear up the confusions but not strictly define the systems. How detailed do we want to go? Tracking abstract propellant usage is probably ok as long as it doesn't distract from the game but it opens a door for going in that direction due the various ship sizes (and mass' which isn't even addressed in game) and engine types by manuever. I'm curious as to why you think it restricts variation. Also, do we actually need to have variation via atomic and ion drives, or is it a construct so that ship designs might come out varied in terms of some of their stats? As it stands, the established rules don't really come down on the side of absolute realism. The same can be said for other things and concepts in the RPG, of course. It seems to me that some of the things in KH that try and make nods at realism tend to throw up a certain amount of problems or guesswork about what is actually meant. I guess it boils down to whether people play Star Frontiers with a hard-SF approach or instead go for something a little more space opera-ish. I tend towards the latter as the RPG has never struck me as being particularly realistic, which is no bad thing at all but it does tend to fall over as a system if one tries to apply too much realism to it. |
March 7, 2015 - 1:25pm | As for launches—which are absolutely NOT for planetary landings! Does it specifically say that anywhere in the rules? Do the rules even hint at that? Because I have not seen it. 1> Any system ship up to hull size 5 can land on planets. Check, a launch is smaller than HS:5 and can easily be compared to a HS:1 craft. 2> System ships use chemial drives which are the equivilent of rocket boosters. Check, a launch is powered by a rocket engine that operates in a similar manner as space suit equipment. 3> Chemical drives burn a load of fuel for every voyage as a general rule. A launch carries 40 bursts as a "load". 4> And finally, p.4 states "Shuttles are small ships that can land on the surface of a planet and take off again. They can fly into orbit around planets but ther range is too short for interplanetarytravel. They are propelled by chemical drives (rockets)." Sounds a lot like a launch, except it actually spells out atmospheric use rather than listing a "primary" use while leaving other uses open for debate. Someone please direct me to any canon text that spells out how a launch can not behave within those four parameters. Going by what is spelled out, as I have said earlier it's not game-breaking because the rules actually do support it. Show me a rule that does not support it. Show me a rule that disproves it. Show me where this actually is game breaking. Show me anything but a blanket statement with no support. |
March 7, 2015 - 1:33pm | Personally I LIKE the accelleration/decelleration requirement as I don't see it as needed to "calculate" the jump but to get to the "speed/energy-state" needed to activate the Void jump system. On the other hand I fully understand how it interfers with a LOT of activity and adventure seeds. ("On The Rocks" could never happen really. At 0.01% the speed of light the cargo ship would be at best a thin smear of molocules across the asteroid for someone to "find" and at worst the "wreckage" would have careening off into infinity in very small, very hot pieces never to be found. I have this problem with my Volturnus adventure since I have to figure out how the pirates can keep the PCs and others {I have a company of planetary militia on the expedition that comes into play later for the Sathar battle} from suspecting things are wrong until they get TO Volturnus orbit) Yes, it's always seemed to me that once you are making any moves towards going into the Void/are in the Void/have left the Void and approaching your destination, the game pretty much stops until you stop at the end of your journey. It doesn't really matter if you get contacted on sub-space radio to answer a distress call, etc etc because you have no way of doing anything about it as you are zipping past the situation at a great rate of knots. True, it also makes it hard for anyone to attack you but it also tends to get in the way of other things. |
 March 7, 2015 - 4:29pm | I too play that launches can't go down and back from planetary surfaces (at least not large ones). While the rules don't explictly say you can't do this, the rules + physics tend to imply that you can't. Here's why: The rules do say that the launches travel like rocket packs and have 40 bursts of fuel. In the rocket pack description it says that each burst of fuel gives you up to +/- 50 meters per turn of velocity. Based on other numbers those are 6 second combat turns not 10 minute Knight Hawks turns. And going for the maxium is about 0.85g of acceleration by the way. Now, if you used all 40 bursts at once you could increase or decrease your velocity by 2000 m/turn, which is 333.3 m/s (which just happens to be almost exacctly the speed of sound) or 0.333 km/s. The problem is that the escape velocity for an earth sized planet (i.e. 1g surface gravity) is 11.2 km/s. You're a factor of 33.6 too low. Assuming your launch flies like a brick this means that starting at rest above the atmosphere, you'll start to fall and gain speed and will, in the absence of engines (and air friction), hit the ground at 11.2 km/s. Your engines can shave off 0.333 km/s off that so after using all your fuel, you'll hit the ground at 10.866 km/s (which is about 24,450 mph). Obviously you probably won't hit that fast as air friction will slow you down but will also burn up your launch. Although given some heat shielding and aerodynamical lifting bodies (i.e. wings like the space shuttle) you might be able to turn that fall into a landing on a runway. This is exactly what the space shuttle did. Getting off the ground on the other hand is completely impossible. Your engines only produce 0.85g of thrust at full throttle. So you have 1g pulling down and 0.85g pushing up for a net downward acceleration of 0.15g. In other words, you'll just burn out all your fuel and not go anywhere as there is no net upward force to get you moving. Again you could look to taking off like an airplane but you still need to get that 11.2 km/s velocity which you don't have the fuel for. So while you couldn't land or take off from a large planet, doing so from a small asteroid or comet is completely reasonable as they have much lower gravity wells. And I should point out that orbital velocity is actually lower than escape velocity by a factor of square root(2) or ~1.4 so you only really need to get up to or down from 8 km/s but that's still out of reach from a launch's engines. And you still have the thrust problem. Which isn't to say you can't hand wave all that away if you want too for the feel of your game. It's just that I don't and the above is why. 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 |
March 7, 2015 - 5:26pm | I figured math would be the one thing to prove or disprove the use of launches in an atmosphere. That much I can accept. So I can amend my earlier posts to read "with very minimal tweaking, it won't be game breaking".  |
March 7, 2015 - 7:35pm | If we want to do some sort of "handwavium" drive that has a reactor powering some type of engine it of course makes things simpler while restricting variation some but... Myself I don't see it helping all that much in the general scheme of things and would rather see a limited re-write to clear up the confusions but not strictly define the systems. How detailed do we want to go? Tracking abstract propellant usage is probably ok as long as it doesn't distract from the game but it opens a door for going in that direction due the various ship sizes (and mass' which isn't even addressed in game) and engine types by manuever. I'm curious as to why you think it restricts variation. Also, do we actually need to have variation via atomic and ion drives, or is it a construct so that ship designs might come out varied in terms of some of their stats? SW, Traveller, etc: Everyone uses the same "drive". Period. Kind of boring to me which is why I liked the variation avialible in SF even if I only "technically" use Atomic and Ion in game. One book series I read early on (Grainer: Starpilot) got my interest in that there were numerous different "drives" in the game. Each with its own benifits and drawbacks. This is something that I've never seen in an RPG but has a very good "flavor" that would be additive to role playing IMHO. As it stands, the established rules don't really come down on the side of absolute realism. The same can be said for other things and concepts in the RPG, of course. It seems to me that some of the things in KH that try and make nods at realism tend to throw up a certain amount of problems or guesswork about what is actually meant. Quite a lot :) But its at least a "nod" towards realism which in SFRPGs is a breath of fresh air versus the over-reality (with a lot of handwavium because it wasn't supposed to be THAT real) Traveller type game. Problems yes, but most can be "resolved" by re-wording and some handwavium which is pretty much SOP for any RPG in the first place.
I guess it boils down to whether people play Star Frontiers with a hard-SF approach or instead go for something a little more space opera-ish. I tend towards the latter as the RPG has never struck me as being particularly realistic, which is no bad thing at all but it does tend to fall over as a system if one tries to apply too much realism to it. Realism and realistic don't have to be the main goal and frankly "how" each of use runs the game makes it OUR SFU in the end. I'd just prefer to not end up with another SW/Traveller game and believe the "flavor" of the drives contributed to that end. In the end, lacking another edition of the game from "the" designers its going to be an individual call as GM as to what is and is not in OUR game. Right? Randy |
March 7, 2015 - 7:52pm | Personally I LIKE the accelleration/decelleration requirement as I don't see it as needed to "calculate" the jump but to get to the "speed/energy-state" needed to activate the Void jump system. On the other hand I fully understand how it interfers with a LOT of activity and adventure seeds. ("On The Rocks" could never happen really. At 0.01% the speed of light the cargo ship would be at best a thin smear of molocules across the asteroid for someone to "find" and at worst the "wreckage" would have careening off into infinity in very small, very hot pieces never to be found. I have this problem with my Volturnus adventure since I have to figure out how the pirates can keep the PCs and others {I have a company of planetary militia on the expedition that comes into play later for the Sathar battle} from suspecting things are wrong until they get TO Volturnus orbit) Yes, it's always seemed to me that once you are making any moves towards going into the Void/are in the Void/have left the Void and approaching your destination, the game pretty much stops until you stop at the end of your journey. It doesn't really matter if you get contacted on sub-space radio to answer a distress call, etc etc because you have no way of doing anything about it as you are zipping past the situation at a great rate of knots. True, it also makes it hard for anyone to attack you but it also tends to get in the way of other things. While it does tend to "stop" some adventure action I've never found it a real issue with the role playing if it's going on. On the other hand 'stoping' to take care of a situation actually came up in one of my games and the PCs had to do some creative thinking and role-playing (and a lot of rolling and re-rolling) to come up with a way to "rescue" a disable ship with their merchantman during decelleration. (They pretty much trashed their drives but negotiated with the government since they were the ONLY possible ship in range at the time to get them repaired on the government dime :) ) I've found that since I assume that you have to accellerate/decellerate along certain "routes" (aimed at the destination star system) while attacks are much more visible (pirate can't hide he's coming after you because of his drive signature and profile) they can be just as "surprising" especially as the pirate can (and often does) bribe someone to get your departure trajectory and thrust profile. (Which can again make for some interesting RP moments as your crew of PCs tries to accellerate faster to jump, tries to figure out a way to avoid contact using their own resources, or pushes the ship to meet an incoming escort ship) As always YMMV and I'm sure it does but I'm going with "realistic" without overdoing the "realism" as much as possible :) Randy |
March 7, 2015 - 8:37pm |
Chemical engines produce thrust, not power for the ship. This is why I was talking about internal power sources for the ship (IE Para-batteries and solar panels.), unless they are another type of handwavium device the author never explained that powers the ship and propels it through space?
Again the problem with Nerva and other atomic rockets engines is the radiation left behind. After several thousand take offs and landing the area would be toxic to life forms.
The one drive fits all scenario is possible. It would streamline ship construction and other rules associated with Starships. Launches, shuttles and primitive space craft could use chemical engines and Ion engines. Fuel requirements are all that is need to make chemical and Ion engines closer to reality.
I do believe the person/persons involved in creating the game had no idea of the genre they were writing for. They grabbed a mish mash of catch phases from scifi books and then wrote very general descriptions for each items. We have to remember the time this game was written in, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Star Wars were all the rage. They wished to capitalize on the fan base of these shows. The only thing I give them credit for is creating an actual scifi environment with aliens in it. Where Iron Crown and Traveller had incorporated the "Chariot of the Gods" scenario into their games. |
