First Look at Ship Design

[SpaceBadger]

My primary motivator in buying T5 now rather than later was my desire to understand the many ship designs posted by Robject, and to be learn to use this system to create my own ship designs.

My intent in this thread is to post comments and questions as I try my second read-through of the ship design chapter (first read-through the other night degenerated to skimming as I became frustrated with trying to actually grok what it said). I'll try to avoid tangents or critique of the T5 book as a whole, to focus on trying to learn to design ships.

Budgeting (p.313) - Individual items less than Cr10K are ignored in figuring cost. Example given is rifles in the ship's locker. Seems ripe for abuse. I'd say instead that such items, unless necessary to the functioning of the ship, are simply not included in the ship's price because they are not included with the ship. If a ship purchaser wants to add such items, they buy them and stock them after ship purchase.

p.314 - Multiple references to charts and checklists and fillforms that are not apparent anywhere nearby. Page references would be nice, but I hope that I will find them as I keep reading.

p.316-318 - Armor is no cost, yet numerous options are presented. Hard to see why anyone wouldn't automatically select all of the best available armor layers and coatings, if no cost. Maybe extra costs will be revealed later in the process?

p.319 - Again with the NAFAL! How is this different than traditional STL, other than adding two letters to create a less-familiar acronym?

p.320 - G Gravitic Drive - effectively limited to 10 diameters from significant mass. This won't even get you from Earth to Moon, although reasonable for LEO or even GEO. What is it good for, shuttles only?

p.322 - Drive Efficiency and Fuel Requirements tables refer to other tables nowhere nearby, and have column heads with no explanation. I hope these also will become clear whenever I find a section with all the tables in it.

p.324 - Counselling Support Console? While it saves having another specialist aboard, this function (like the old Anti-Hijack program) implies extremely advanced Artificial Intelligence - I hope it is available only at high TL.

p.325 - Control Panels and Consoles - I like these, especially after having had the difference explained by Rob. I hope that some Console functions can be combined; seems silly if the Pilot's Control Console won't also provide functions of a General Workstation.

p.327 - no real explanation of the Naval Crew Structure at top of page. Are the two equal divisions to represent a day shift and night shift, or ???

p.329+ Ah, at last the checklist, fillforms, and tables previously referenced. I hope that now I can ask more substantive questions.

Yikes, I can see I need to print this section out on paper; way too much flipping back and forth among pages to just run from the PDF.

p.333 B Hull Costs - I'm already lost as to how the Airframe column works to "add Airframe to Streamlined". I guess you design as a Streamlined Hull, then adjust for the airframe, but what do all of the +1, +2 etc mean? Can someone give me a basic example of making a 200 ton airframe hull with this, please?

YAWN. Too sleepy to continue tonight. Looking forward to learning about Sensors next, and effects of Stealth coating previously mentioned.

On thing on the different armor layers, I found the table with different costs for anti-blast, anti-rad, etc. Is there a consensus as to what layers are necessary for a typical ACS warship, such as a Cruiser or Corvette? Are the special layers generally worth the cost?

 

[SpaceBadger]

Not as sleepy as I thought, so I have been reading more about power plants and drives, and have decided I like the breakdown between Jump, Maneuver, and Gravitic drives a lot, as the combination will enable me to juggle things around a bit to create the drive systems that I want for Firefly-type game, while still being able to (mostly) use mostly standard T5 ship designs and have the tonnages etc work out.

This may seem somewhat backward from the usual TL development. The combination of J+M drives is because I want it to work somewhat like stutterwarp in 2300AD - the same drive that lets you zip around the starsystem within 1000 diameters of centers of mass will also suddenly let you go FTL outside that gravitic influence - and is fairly useless when too close to center of mass (less than 10D).

Since I haven't got all of the TLs worked out, I'll just use X, X+1, etc.

TL X: System exploration using realistic ion or fusion drives, depending on need for speed (however even the fastest isn't much compared to what M drives will be able to do later). The greatest part of any ship is its fuel supply. No FTL at all. System ships don't land on planets; interface system is entirely separate, by shuttle, SSTOs, spaceplanes, etc.

TL X+1: Discovery of Mumble-Drive, allows FTL travel, but only outside ??? diameters from any significant mass. Still use TL X stuff to get around in system and interface to planet surface.

TL X+2: Refinements of Mumble-Drive allow use as M drive for fast STL in-system travel; no longer need the fusion drives in-system as these are much much faster; straight-line turnover trajectories replace Hohmann orbits and the like. Still need TL X infrastructure for interface to planets, as M drive efficiency drops way off within 10 diameters of large mass.

TL X+3: Further refinements of Mumble-Drive allow the M-drive function to be separated from the FTL function, so that system-ships can be built w M-drive only, saving the tonnage and expense of the FTL drive.

TL X+4: G-drive discovered, allows gravitic maneuvers within 10D limit (and only within 10D limit!). Shuttles w G-drive replace old TL X shuttles for massive fuel savings and much cheaper cost/ton lifted to orbit.

There may be further refinements, but this gives me the basic framework I want:

Starships: Have Mumble-Drive composed of components J+M, for outsystem FTL and in-system very fast travel. Usually do not carry G-drives and do not land on planet surfaces; interface is by G-drive shuttle, either carried by starship or available at local highport.

Frontier Starships: Some starships find it worth the tonnage and cost to also mount G-drives (and aerodynamic hulls) so they can land directly on frontier worlds without local facilities. (This is a trade-off compared to the interface shuttles generally carried by larger starships, which do not land themselves.)

System ships: Ships that don't need to travel out-system carry only the M-drive sized Mumble-drive; are not capable of FTL. Whether they have G-drive and aerodynamic hull depends upon mission/function.

Shuttles: Interface ships, in a variety of sizes (not just 90 tons ), equipped with G-drives only.

Haven't decided yet where I want Lifters to fit in.

Now how to fit in a reason for large exterior drive pods as on Firefly-class ships... Maybe the early G-drives weren't powerful enough to lift a ship off of a planet surface without some extra help from fuel-burning auxiliaries? Some of those old ships are still around, cheap because they are outdated?

 

[whulorigan]

p.319 - Again with the NAFAL! How is this different than traditional STL, other than adding two letters to create a less-familiar acronym?

I think the reasoning behind this is that all of the drives are identified by a single-letter designator (e.g. "J" = Jump Drive, "G" = Gravitic Drive, "A" = Antimatter Plant, etc). Since "S" is already utilized for "Skip Drive", it is unavailable for designating an "STL-Drive", so a different acronym was invented: NAFAL (i.e. "N-Drive"). That is my guess anyway.

p.320 - G Gravitic Drive - effectively limited to 10 diameters from significant mass. This won't even get you from Earth to Moon, although reasonable for LEO or even GEO. What is it good for, shuttles only?

For longer journeys you would have to use the "accelerate & coast" method. And the G-Drive is lower TL than an M-Drive. But notice that the standard M-Drive requires a separate power plant that can overclock (with the consequent high-fuel consumption rate). A G-Drive is internally self-powered by Cold-Fusion Plus power cells (that are refueled yearly during standard maintenance).

 

[robject]

p.316-318 - Armor is no cost, yet numerous options are presented. Hard to see why anyone wouldn't automatically select all of the best available armor layers and coatings, if no cost. Maybe extra costs will be revealed later in the process?

The design problem with armor is in knowing what sort of damage your ship is most likely to take. It's a tradeoff... and though armor is "free", I find that the tonnage required gets dear, very fast.

p.322 - Drive Efficiency and Fuel Requirements tables refer to other tables nowhere nearby, and have column heads with no explanation. I hope these also will become clear whenever I find a section with all the tables in it.

Stick with Standard for typical cases, and you won't have to consult efficiency (because it's the 'standard').

But you want to know? Okay. Efficiency changes (1) fuel required, and (2) drive rating. Efficiency itself is listed on Table X (yes, X) of page 338.

I know I've got a post here somewhere that goes thru an example.

p.324 - Counselling Support Console? While it saves having another specialist aboard, this function (like the old Anti-Hijack program) implies extremely advanced Artificial Intelligence - I hope it is available only at high TL.

I believe it is more effective as a control used by a Counselor.

Note that control consoles can support starship automation, although I think I would not really trust the ship to fly itself well until around TL18.

p.325 - Control Panels and Consoles - I like these, especially after having had the difference explained by Rob. I hope that some Console functions can be combined; seems silly if the Pilot's Control Console won't also provide functions of a General Workstation.

Yes. That might also be a function of the ship's main computer (network infrastructure).

p.333 B Hull Costs - I'm already lost as to how the Airframe column works to "add Airframe to Streamlined". I guess you design as a Streamlined Hull, then adjust for the airframe, but what do all of the +1, +2 etc mean? Can someone give me a basic example of making a 200 ton airframe hull with this, please?

It is as you say.

A Streamlined 200t hull is MCr 14. Airframing adds another MCr 2, for a total of MCr 16.

On thing on the different armor layers, I found the table with different costs for anti-blast, anti-rad, etc. Is there a consensus as to what layers are necessary for a typical ACS warship, such as a Cruiser or Corvette? Are the special layers generally worth the cost?

It depends on what sort of attacks they face. Page 388-389 tells us what weapons do what damage, and page 393 tells us about missile damage, but there are other sources of damage (asteroid impacts, the interior of a gas giant, or the photosphere of a star).

It appears to me that a single ship cannot be self-sufficient in war.

 

[robject]

Gravitic drives fill a niche for craft which are only needed near a planet, and are convenient in that they don't require an engineer, and only require yearly refueling (as part of maintenance).

G-drives aren't particularly useful for interplanetary travel. They might be good for in-system slow barges which don't have time constraints.

 

[David Johansen]

A couple points off the top of my head.

All manuver drives are STL drives. A NAFAL drive is a specific type that uses gravitics to obtain long term constant acceleration.

Gravitic drives can get significantly more delta vee in those ten diameters than anything we can build today. It's slowing down when you reach the smaller object that's the problem.

You really do need something to act as a maximum speed though.

Spacemaster Privateers made the mistake of handing out vacuum power and unlimited reactionless drives. Do you realize the kind of damage player characters can do with unlimited power and acceleration?

 

[whulorigan]

You really do need something to act as a maximum speed though.

Spacemaster Privateers made the mistake of handing out vacuum power and unlimited reactionless drives. Do you realize the kind of damage player characters can do with unlimited power and acceleration?

I suspect that is one reason why M-Drives in T4 & T5 are limited to 1000dia effective usefulness range. (Though even that gives a large delta-V and corresponding kinetic energy).

 

[robject]

Gravitic drives can get significantly more delta vee in those ten diameters than anything we can build today. It's slowing down when you reach the smaller object that's the problem.

You really do need something to act as a maximum speed though.

Yes. Always accelerate based on the smallest body. Unless you have some sort of gravitic "catcher's mitt" on the terminal.

Near-C or fast-enough-not-to-make-a-difference rocks can still be built. Yes, there ought to be a maximum speed.

 

[andycowley]

in the thread above Robject said;

It depends on what sort of attacks they face. Page 388-389 tells us what weapons do what damage, and page 393 tells us about missile damage,

..unfortunately I find this not to be generally true and a challenge in the several space combats I have referee'd so far in my T5 campaign ... for example (a quick skim of pages 338 & 339)

PA 'physical & radiation'
Slugthrower & rail gun 'missle-x' = 'pen-x' on the missile table
Fusion & Plasma gun 'heat & kinetic energy'
Meson gun 'internal damage'
Lasers (general) 'heat'

So unfortunately many 'damage types' are not expressed in terms consistent with Starhip anti layer types which are;

Anti-blast 10x vs Blast/Bullet/Frag
Anti-kinetic 10x vs. Pen
Anti-EMP 10x vs. EMP
Anti-Rad 10x vs. Rad
Anti-heat 100x vs. Heat (note; this seems to be automatic for every layer)
Anti-pressure 10x vs. Pressure (note; this seems to be automatic for every layer)

So how do we pair them off?

Anti-kenetic = missiles ... but what about Fusion & plasma guns?
Anti-heat = lasers ... but this makes most ALL ships immune to laser weapons
etc. etc.

Its almost as if whomever wrote the 'how weapons work' chapter was different to whomever wrote the starship armor rules ... and this just turned into an errata post but any insight into folks who have run space combats with T5 would be appreciated .....

A note from my experience ... small ships with Anti-kinetic armor layer are IMMUNE to missiles (unless overwhelmed with battery fire). so that armor layer becomes a must for any small ship in my opinion

 

[Draconian]

p.324 - Counselling Support Console? While it saves having another specialist aboard, this function (like the old Anti-Hijack program) implies extremely advanced Artificial Intelligence - I hope it is available only at high TL.

With that name I can't help but imagine a hologram of Deanna Troi saying, "Please state the nature of the psychological emergency." Design advantage: an ample bosom to cry on...

p.329+ Ah, at last the checklist, fillforms, and tables previously referenced. I hope that now I can ask more substantive questions.

Never saw this in a game before. Fillforms are apparently forms you fill out to prepare to fill the REAL forms. I'd like to see if some are actually unnecessary in the game. If all the blanks are the same between the fillform and the final sheet and there is no pre-addition to do or algebra to combine stuff from different sections, you don't need a fillform.


I have the impression it's all grokkable, but not easily so.