Fire Fusion and Steel question

[Blue Ghost]

I want to use FFS to build some fighter craft that I'm using in some fiction. Will FFS be a good resource to do this? Will is help me build fighter craft that will fit into the various rulesets?

Thanks much.

 

[far-trader]

FF&S1 (TNE) or FF&S2 (T4 I think)?

For FF&S1:

It's very good for gritty detail and alternative (more realistic in some ways) technology.

It's not as limiting/limited in scope as any other Traveller ship design rules.

It's probably got a bit more Science in the Fiction.

And for all those reasons it's practically incompatible with any other Traveller ship design rules, with a caveat. You can recreate the spirit of the classic Traveller ships and universe with FF&S but in doing so you have to accept some compromises.

On the negatives there are some errata issues and it breaks down when designing extreme examples in my experience.

Overall, High Guard would probably give you the most widely compatible designs with the least work, followed closely by MegaTraveller. And both of those have some decent programs to do the drudgery if you don't mind the occasional hidden house-rule bias.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thanks Far-Trader. I'll just wing it.

 

[far-trader]

You're more than welcome, I figure for fiction writing you have some creative license to exercise so winging it should be fine Just try not to write yourself into a tight corner if you're aiming for a Traveller 'verse

FF&S1 is a good source for Trav Tech inspiration. And if I can track down the link for the files there are a lot of ship designs already done. I'll post back here if I have any luck.

If you provide the story others can fit the rules into it. I know I often do with little trouble

 

[deniable]

Three things:
1. If you want FF&S1 ships to mesh with other versions, consider using the 'alternate' thruster plates instead of HEPLAR for maneuver drive. Unless you want to deal with fuel calcs of course.

2. The archives at http://traveller.mu.org/ have a fair bit of material for TNE / FF&S.

3. Make sure you dig up the errata for whichever version you are using.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thanks guys

The fiction I'm writing is pretty generic stuff, but also specific in terms of certain pieces of technology. Some of it exotic, some of it pretty mundance, but very sensible from a navy standpoint, and in this sense unaddressed.

I've got some high tech whiz-bang alien wizardry, but I also have some pretty run in the mill "Imperial" stuff. I'll see about finishing it off, and then pass it around to get some feedback.

I'd really just rather prefer to write "device-X does thing-Y", and the experts sort out the rules, but I'd like to keep the blood-letting to a minimum, and make it easy for myself and potential players to tinker with

 

[Andrew Boulton]

FF&S2 is closer to "real" Traveller, and this spreadsheet does all the hard work:

http://www.traveller3d.com/downloads/FFS2XL97.xls

 

[robject]

If you want gritty detail, either FFS will do. As for the results being incompatible with Traveller, I think that's pretty much not true; the results are reasonably constrained to what Traveller expects, and anything that isn't, well, you simply adjust it.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Yeah, kind of what I'm looking for is "light artillery" kind of weapons. Sort of like the Traveller equivalent of a Vulcan Canon. The kind of thing that can damage a starship hull, but not really do the big heavy damage of a single starship LASER. Like a scaled down version of that, or a heavy version of the same weapon.

Some intermediate territory is what I'm treading here. I'm going to go ahead and write up the fiction, then pass it around to any and all takers before sending it off to someone for possible publication.

 

[aramis]

CT and MT have the VRF Gauss Gun. Under MT (and striker), it has a small chance of damaging ships.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thanks Aramis, I should've made myself clearer because I figured someone would post that reply. I'm actually looking for energy weapons... maybe a VRF, maybe not. I'm going to try and bang out some pages tonight to clarify my own concept to myself

 

[whartung]

Well, using the FF&S you can certainly make a Rapid Fire Energy weapon, and you can tune it to be as "effective" as you want.

Specifically with TNE, but even AHL and MT, the game is penetration vs armor. If you shoot a round that has a penetration of 10 vs an armor of 20 it's pretty much going to just bounce off. Mind, this doesn't account for, say, hitting the same spot over and over and over.

Also, the TNE mechanic is effectively "Weapon dmg + 2D6 - Target Armor == internal damage". So a Pen: 10 weapon against 20 armor will poke SOME holes, (i.e. when the dice roll an 11 or 12), but not very often.

So, if you want to create an energy gun that can perhaps poke holes or do minor damage, you can build as powerful a gun as you want, and then armor the ships appropriately.

Lasers are notable because they have very high penetration, but don't do a lot of damage.

Finally, making fiction "compatible" with a gaming system is, IMHO, a mistake. It's certainly fair to use something like FF&S to flesh out ships and such, since it's reasonably "realistic", but certainly don't be hamstrung by some rule set in terms of telling your story.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Good points. I'm not that familiar with the TNE mechanic.

Oh well. Back to the old drawing board.

Thanks.