Arming Clarion Station & cannon details

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 14, 2017 - 8:57am
Alright I'm wrestling with what stats to apply to Clarion station for a scenario.

The only hard station stats we have are for Space Fortresses, Fortified space stations and armed space stations. KHs campaign game 2nd Sathar War lists the stats and identifies where such types stations are. 
But Clarion Station is not identified as one of these.

In WoWL were told that there are a number of stations orbiting Clarion: UPF Fortress Redoubt (listed likewise in KHs), Clarion Station which is a "large commerce station", a class 3 starship construction center, and a half dozen other research and observation stations (I assume these to be smallish platforms in 0g suitable for dungeon crawl sorts of adventure).

Kim Eastland muddies the water in the Zebs Astro catalog listing the artificial satellites of Clarion as a SF and a DS: Space Fortress and docking station.  Without stirring the Zebs guide sucks waters let's just assume Kim never read WoWL and let's assume that WoWL is more authoritative than Zebs and that Clarion Station is a large commerce station. 

As the primary base of the Royal Marines does it make sense for it to be unarmed? 

What stats would you apply?
An armed space station, for comparison, is:
HP 80, DCR 75, Weapons: LB, RB x6,
Defenses: RH, MS x2, ICM x6
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!
Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 14, 2017 - 9:38am
I'm really starting to think Kim Eastland didn't read WoWL. Zebs says non military stations (implication is fotress, fortified and armed space stations are military all others are civilian) have a Star Law Marshall and several deputies and they are the law. 

If Clarion station is a commerce station or even a docking station then the Zebs statement conflict with WoWL module where the Royal Marines seem to keep the peace.

It's not really that big a conflict: other sources say Star Law is only concerned with interstellar criminals and Sathar agents so local crime that does not fall into those categories will require local law enforcement.

I'm going to assume that since Clarion station is the primary Royal Marines base the Royal Marines have assumed responsibility for it. Maybe it's officially the property of the Crown of Clarion. 

Any other civilian station that is not a similar militia base is policed by station security for local stuff and probably has some Star Law Marshalls 

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 14, 2017 - 4:08pm
The stations listed in KH were UPF. Clarion station is local planet owned and controlled. Would say like the planetary militias are not up to the standard of the UPF than the same should be for the stations. Go with something a little less than an armed station.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 14, 2017 - 4:16pm
And if its primary mission is commerce then the military side of things is secondary and with a Space Fortress in orbit its not like the Crown has to shell out the credits for the planet's defense.

HP: 70, DCR 70
Weapons: LB, RB x3
Defenses: RH, MS x1, ICM x3

?

This dums down the stats slightly and more or less halves weapons and defenses.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 15, 2017 - 4:14am
Looks good
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 15, 2017 - 7:01am
50 hull points per space fortress station size
20 hull points per docking fortress station size

That's about what I broke it down as per the canon stats. I have some house rule stats somewheere, I'll address this after work when I have time to find them...
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
September 18, 2017 - 8:59am
One thought though.  A HS 1 station is equivalent to a HS 10 ship and a HS 2 station is equivalent to a HS 20 ship and so shoulld have the HP to match.  And just assume the progression continues.  So the HP would just be based on the size of the station.
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jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 18, 2017 - 10:17am
TerlObar wrote:
One thought though.  A HS 1 station is equivalent to a HS 10 ship and a HS 2 station is equivalent to a HS 20 ship and so shoulld have the HP to match.  And just assume the progression continues.  So the HP would just be based on the size of the station.


except in the case of the fortress I'd expect it to be military grade thus more HP and possibly smaller.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 18, 2017 - 1:25pm
We are talking about two different types of structures here. Think of it this way, although both ships and stations are in space one is a vehicle and the other is a house. Since they serve different purposes and have different components and installed equipment we do not have to compare hull points directly.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 18, 2017 - 4:00pm
rattraveller wrote:
We are talking about two different types of structures here. Think of it this way, although both ships and stations are in space one is a vehicle and the other is a house. Since they serve different purposes and have different components and installed equipment we do not have to compare hull points directly.


to a certain extent I agree
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 19, 2017 - 6:59am
The problem I see with station hull points is the spokes. While the ring and hub are nice solid structures, the considerably fragile by comparison spokes are the weakness of the structure. Break one or two of these and it causes structural havoc to the rest of the station...much like breaking a spoke or two on a bicycle wheel would do.

Make it a solid mass and then the station can follow ship hull pont rules.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 21, 2017 - 7:25am
Zetus lupetus! Where would we get ideas for a spokeless space station from?
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 21, 2017 - 7:59am
Rabbit Trail: I really did like the look of DS9 with the docking pilons but then we're talking artificial gravity

I dont think fragility of the spokes matters much in this game with they way a lot of things are abstracted. Unless of course it was specifically important to the current adventure ie terrorist are planting bombs in the spokes to effectively rip the station apart?

There was a sathar incursion and the sathar destroyers that penetrated all the way to the inhabitable planet targeted the spokes intentionally doing severe structural damage to Clarion station. Space Fleet are the Royals Marines have destroyed those destroyers and are currently dealing with the rest of the incursion. but Clarion station has become a "Towering Inferno" or "Posiden Adventrue (the Gene Hackman one) in space. PCs were off duty and on the station when the attack happened and relief crew had already taken out the Osprey. PCs must spring into action putting out fires, saving civilians and preventing the station from coming apart or the fission reactor from going critical. And no one saw the large launch that departed one destroyer as it blew up so oh year there will be sathar.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 21, 2017 - 6:40pm
jedion357 wrote:
"Posiden Adventrue (the Gene Hackman one) in space.

Don't you mean the Leslie Nielsen one?

Or the Ernest Borgnine one?

Or the Red Buttons one?


Seriously though, I didn't think the Alec Baldwin/Rutger Hauer/Steve Guttenberg one was as bad as the critics panned it to be. While the original had the Naked Gun piloting the craft, the remake had Robocop at the helm. ;)

I need to see the third one/second remake with Kurt Russel & Richard Dreyfuss though, it's hailed by critics as the "Poseidon in the middle" as far as the three films go.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

iggy's picture
iggy
September 21, 2017 - 9:40pm
I've reconstructed the Knight Hawks fold out map space station in sketchup and the spokes are not much more than elevator ways to the docking hub.  The result is essentially two stations, the hub and the ring, connected by elevator ways.   Then as a matter of efficiency of forces it would be better to drive the station rotation from the ring and not the hub.  So, the spokes could be blown away and the ring still kept in control.  A good safety measure would be for the hub to thrust away in such a situation.  The retro rockets that help manage station rotation could do this.
-iggy

Sargonarhes's picture
Sargonarhes
September 30, 2017 - 8:14am
I've always thought of revamping the station designs myself, the giant wheel in space with docks for HS 20 ships just don't do it for commerce if large amounts of goods are being moved. I've been moving more into thinking of reinforced or even fortified stations looking more like a cylinder like from UC Gundam or even Babylon 5. It has more practical advantages than a wheeled style does. If one wants to continue with the wheeled style there are improvements that can be done like adding more spokes making them thicker and heavier looking. But why should we limit ourselves to the old 2001 station designs, let's think about it and try and be more creative about this.
In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same.

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 30, 2017 - 8:25am
Darkworld Station is anything but a wheel...although those giant bay windows and Battlestar Galactica-ish launch bays on each side suggest decks perpendicular to the hub beneath it AKA cinematic layout instead of rotational gravity.


I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Sargonarhes's picture
Sargonarhes
September 30, 2017 - 10:12am
Shadow Shack wrote:
Darkworld Station is anything but a wheel...although those giant bay windows and Battlestar Galactica-ish launch bays on each side suggest decks perpendicular to the hub beneath it AKA cinematic layout instead of rotational gravity.



What if that cylinderical section on that station rotates while upper section remains stationary for docking ships? That would make the cylindrical section the habitat section, long periods without gravity has detremental effects after all. It would be foolish to not having any kind of rotational gravity in long term station personnel.
In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same.

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 30, 2017 - 2:46pm
Sargonarhes wrote:

What if that cylinderical section on that station rotates while upper section remains stationary for docking ships?

Possibly, however it would have to rotate rather fast to generate anything resembling "gravity" seeing as it is the most narrow portion of the station. Even so, gravity would only be strongest at the outer edge and you wouldn't be able to dock through the bottom (assuming it truly is a "hub") since it would be rotating at a very high speed. Leaving the top stationary would also limit access between the two sections to the dead-center of the hub area with the "axle" serving as the airlock. Its a tricky design to explain in hard sci-fi terms, probably the result of space opera artwork with no intent for hard sci-fi explanation.

IIRC according to the module that portion of the station was the Ixiol manufacturing section.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

iggy's picture
iggy
September 30, 2017 - 5:02pm
Judging by the size of the of the ship right up next to the DC-6, this station is actually pretty big and so it wouldnt have to rotate too fast.  I'ts the big big bay windows that are out of proportion.  I'll have to go read the module again to ge some idea what is going on and if it can be science hardened.
-iggy

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 30, 2017 - 8:06pm
By the book (all three paragraphs detailing space station design) the smallest plain-Jane space station (SS:1) is a 200m ring (twice the diameter of a HS:20 ship) and can dock anything up to HS:6 in its hub while the largest is a 1200meter ring that can accomodate "any" size ship in its hub. The only hard rules here are the station diameters being 200m X the station size and a chart detailing what size craft can be accomodated by each station size. That's it.

Page 56 offers stats for fortresses, fortified stations, and armed stations with 300HP, 140HP, and 80HP respectively along with Damage Control Ratings of 200, 100, & 75 respectively. Beyond the trio of weapon & defense packages this is everything that has been officially specced out for space stations by the book. 

Based on the modules we also have Planoran Station (built into an asteroid, mind you...not a traditional wheel) sporting a mere 60HP but more weaponry than the armed station, yet it shares the same DCR score of 75 with the armed station. Clarion Station is not specced out in the module despite the possibility that the Sathar fleet in the final scenario might be able to make their way to both stations (we already have specs for a fortress so Redoubt is covered). 

SF/KH:1 specs Darkworld Station sporting the same 60HP as Planoran but with less weaponry than the armed station. Page 24 of the module details Darkworld as being a size 3 station rotating with enough velocity to create 0.5g and the cylinder (production facility for Ixiol) is a weightless environment, suggesting it does not rotate...so this is completely opposite from what we have ascertained before. It also states the docking bay has accomodations for eight ships (up to HS:14 in size according to the rule book for a size 3 station). DCR is specced at 80, five points higher than a Armed Station. The only other noteworthy mention is that 3000 occupants are on Darkworld Station.

SF/KH:4 also does not spec L4 station, but being a remote SCC we can presume it to be at least a size:4 station since there is a sathar heavy cruiser & assault carrier docked within. The rest of the descriptions detail the interior as the adventure dictates the players have to infiltrate the station from within.
_______________________

So far we can break down what little we have to go by to determine that (assuming all specs are for size 6 stations) a Fortress has 50HP and 33 1/3 DCR points per station size, a Fortified Station has 23 1/3HP and 16 2/3DCR points per station size, and an Armed Station has 13 1/3HP and 12½DCR points per station size. Weapons & defenses are a crap shoot at best going by what little we have to go by...but one could always run some math on the Fortress/Fortified/Armed Station total weapon & defense cubic meter allocations to get a rough idea and hand-wave Planoran & Darkworld Stations' specs all around. 

Still, we have absolutely NOTHING to go by when speccing a standard space station. Obviously they must have fewer HP and DCR scores than their upgunned counterparts and it would be silly to base it on the same 5 points per size that starships utilize, more so considering that ships are supposed to fit within. Personally, based on that premise alone I think a Fortress is severely underspecced at 300HP considering it can swallow a 120HP battleship in its hub (along with the rest of the fleet that follows that flagship). Based on what little we do have to go by, something in the way of 8-10 hull points per size and a tad more than that for DCR wouldn't be out of line...but we still have so much missing in the hard rules to effectively design any kind of station. Our other option of course is to treat the standard/unarmed stations as armed stations with no weapons/defenses and claim the armed stations use similar rules as star ships --- i.e. where they can accomodate only so much before performance suffers --- personally I feel this is the best (in a bad situation) solution for unarmed stations.

The bottom line here is if you want to design a space station you simply utilize the handwavium method because there aren't even any basic guidelines to go from in the published material.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

jedion357's picture
jedion357
October 1, 2017 - 5:20am
Couple of things:

1. Shadow has made a detailed analysis that is difficult to argue with; well maybe someone might but I'll not.

2. since we know that the creators of the game compiled extensive reading list for the consumers of the game I think we can assume that movies figured into their inspiration and no doubt they were inspired by 2001 a space odessy with its magestic views of a rotating space station in Earth orbit. This is only one piece of inspiration, and certainly one that I enjoy. It should by no means be the last word on space station "styles". Although I would be loath to incorporate artificial gravity into SF space stations.

3. I would certainly welcome an article based on Shadow's analysis of what the game gave us that argues for "correcting" things and expanding knowledge on stations. It seems to me that the writers of KHs may have simply chosen arbitary numbers for the stations thinking 300 HP was a lot when it sould actually be more. We have well beloved fan articles that go quite beyond the cannon in areas of character creation: "A Skilled Frontier" and "Spacer Skills Revisited" I dont see any reason for something similar with space station stats/construction.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
October 1, 2017 - 7:08am
If an article is done, how big a station can you go? While a fortress is big what about space docks that build hull 20 ships and space fortresses? What about hollowed out asteriod colonies for miners to live in? What about 10,000 being off planet ag stations?

Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
October 1, 2017 - 7:44am
I've got this...



I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
October 1, 2017 - 10:23am

...and my first draft is ready in the Documents section of that project.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 4, 2017 - 3:53am
Getting caught up on posts, and I do think the Space Stations need revision too. We need a range of little small things to massive ones... the game has evolved. ????
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

JCab747's picture
JCab747
October 5, 2017 - 7:41am
jedion357 wrote:
Couple of things:

the creators of the game ... I think we can assume that movies figured into their inspiration and no doubt they were inspired by 2001 a space odessy with its magestic views of a rotating space station in Earth orbit. ... It seems to me that the writers of KHs may have simply chosen arbitary numbers for the stations thinking 300 HP was a lot when it sould actually be more. ...


I think you are right about that.

Though, the larger a space station is, doesn't necessarily mean it can take more punishment. There may be more vulnerabilities that would result in a catastrophic failure if the station is damaged at key points.

But Shadow's space station redo project is definitely a good addition to the game mechanics.
Joe Cabadas

JCab747's picture
JCab747
October 5, 2017 - 7:44am
Sargonarhes wrote:
Shadow Shack wrote:
Darkworld Station is anything but a wheel...although those giant bay windows and Battlestar Galactica-ish launch bays on each side suggest decks perpendicular to the hub beneath it AKA cinematic layout instead of rotational gravity.



What if that cylinderical section on that station rotates while upper section remains stationary for docking ships? That would make the cylindrical section the habitat section, long periods without gravity has detremental effects after all. It would be foolish to not having any kind of rotational gravity in long term station personnel.


It's a visually stimulating image, much like some horror and sci fi movie posters, that doesn't necessarily relate to what's inside.

Maybe the big bay window is where a casino is supposed to be.

Joe Cabadas

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
October 5, 2017 - 9:33pm
Another possibility would be that those aren't windows but solar collectors. At least that way the upper half could rotate and provide gravity while at the same time what's behind the panels is actually a "floor" that the artificial gravity keeps occupants planted to.

What perplexes me is the big airfoil on the back of it...
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website