 October 1, 2017 - 7:42am | Here's what we have by the book: 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 of the KH Campaign Book 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 rule 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. 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 specified 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 we can presume it to be at least a size:4 station since there is a sathar heavy cruiser & assault carrier docked within (and techinically, being a construction center it would have to be size 6). The rest of the descriptions detail the interior as the adventure dictates the players have to infiltrate the station from within. That is the entire scope of canon rules for space stations. What follows is a proposal to expand on that so a GM actually has something useful for creating and utilizing Space Stations in their game above and beyond the minimalist hand-waved rules that have been established. |
 October 22, 2017 - 9:47pm | Or we could just call them mooring lines. -iggy |
 October 23, 2017 - 5:50am | I like docking grapples but anything mooring and tethers works thinking about that: do we imagine that the magnetic field in mag boots is strong enough to reel in the mass of the ship? I'm suspecting that since a lot of other tech in SF is not of Star Trek quality that the attachment is very real world-iss: a cable with a carabiner like attachment device that attaches to hard points on a ship. someone or something must run a mooring tether to a hard point and attach it. In some rare situations that might be a character in a vacuum suit. but for the most part a bevy of robots under a management probram and rocket motor locomotion (as per the rules) fly the mooring tethers over to the ship and attach them. The program will have the locations of the tether points or the ship will have transmitted that data and it was imput into the program. The problem would be when a ship has suffered lots of damage in a battle- we can assume that a significant number of tether points were damaged or destroyed and then we can require the pilot to make a skill check to dock the ship. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 23, 2017 - 7:48pm | How about "Docking Navigational Towers" instead of Grappling Towers? |
October 23, 2017 - 9:25pm | Docking Navigational Towers sounds good but navigation is not what they are doing. The navigator on the ship is done with his job by the time the ship is approaching the docking bay. These towers are for mooring the ship and connecting the Jetway to the ship so passengers and crew can cross into the station without getting into a spacesuit. I would use the term Jetway but it is a brand name like Xerox and it refers to aircraft not spacecraft. Maybe we just keep it simple and call them Docking Towers. -iggy |
October 23, 2017 - 9:26pm | How about "Docking Maneuver Towers" then? After all that's what they're doing: maneuvering the ship into the bay. |
October 24, 2017 - 8:01am | How about docking towers? Or Docking Terminals? I like terminal as it reminds of real world air port operations A docking tower/terminal will have all the equipment necessary to dock a ship: docking buffers, tethers, inertia field generators as well as a docking lounge to handle passenger and Non vacuum safe cargo boarding. It has a separte robotic cargo handling facility that handles cargo in vacuum which is equipped with part of robotic cargo handling arms. Your basic docking tower robot will "fly" out and attach tethers, assist in cargo handling, and can assist with hull repairs all under the supervision of a robotic brain or robot management program directed by an organic being. The average per docking tower is 4-6. Spacers will notice if the station only has 2 bots per tower as attaching the tethers can take so much longer than normal. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 24, 2017 - 7:30pm | Docking Towers it is then, short and simple. |
