Starship Design

[NDS]

If I understand correctly T20 will have a Starship design system that draws heavily from High Guard. I was wondering what changes were made to the design system to update it.

Thanks

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by NDS:
If I understand correctly T20 will have a Starship design system that draws heavily from High Guard. I was wondering what changes were made to the design system to update it.

Thanks

Air-frame hulls, new computer and sensor rules, some discussion of non-OTU drive options. Some higher tech items. Better explanations than Bk5. Related vehicle design rules. Rule on how to damage starships with handguns.

 

[DaveShayne]

Originally posted by aramis:
Rule on how to damage starships with handguns.

If that rule is anything other than, "Gain access to bridge or engineering and start shooting at control panels." it's horrendously broken. Maybe a LAW could do some damage but your average Colt .45 (or .50" M2HB for that matter) hasn't got a chance.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by DaveShayne:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by aramis:
Rule on how to damage starships with handguns.

If that rule is anything other than, "Gain access to bridge or engineering and start shooting at control panels." it's horrendously broken. Maybe a LAW could do some damage but your average Colt .45 (or .50" M2HB for that matter) hasn't got a chance.</font>[/QUOTE]An FGMP might have a good shot at damaging annunarmored ship. OK, it's not a handgun; probably hand weapons was intended.

 

[DaveShayne]

Originally posted by Tom Schoene:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by DaveShayne:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by aramis:
Rule on how to damage starships with handguns.

If that rule is anything other than, "Gain access to bridge or engineering and start shooting at control panels." it's horrendously broken. Maybe a LAW could do some damage but your average Colt .45 (or .50" M2HB for that matter) hasn't got a chance.</font>[/QUOTE]An FGMP might have a good shot at damaging annunarmored ship. OK, it's not a handgun; probably hand weapons was intended.</font>[/QUOTE]Using Striker an unarmored ship (High Guard armor of 0) equates to an armor rating of 40. A FGMP has a penetration value of 34. Add the maximum roll on one die (6) and subtract 40 to get 0 which is 1 or less. On the vehicle penetration table find the result: no effect.

I however have no particular problems with relaxing this somewhat as there are times when a lucky hit in an especially vulnerable location (say at the seam between the armored viewport and th hull) could result in penetration and some small amount of damage but this should be very rare.

 

[NDS]

Using Striker an unarmored ship (High Guard armor of 0) equates to an armor rating of 40. A FGMP has a penetration value of 34. Add the maximum roll on one die (6) and subtract 40 to get 0 which is 1 or less. On the vehicle penetration table find the result: no effect.

A nice benefit a anti-gravity drives; even unarmored spacecraft are well built when you don't have to expend huge amounts of fuel getting into orbit. My mental picture is that of a present day ocean going vessel hull.

Personally I think it would be fun if the heavier energy weapons could punch a hole in an unarmored hull fairly easily. I seem to recall that Snapshot had some rules surrounding this but I don't have a copy anymore. If anyone still has a copy it would be interesting to know what the answer is.

Anyone know how T20 will address this?

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by NDS:

Anyone know how T20 will address this?

Like the personal armor. Vehicles and starships have a "Damage Scale" which adds on top of any armor (even none). That is, firing a handgun at a starship has the damage adjusted down by the starship armor + Damage scale.

It allows all sizes of weapons to fire at all manner of targets and still have a simple resolution of how much damage is done without going into the the GURPS 6dx135 damage rolls.

I found it works rather well, and if you don't like the amounts of damage being done by the handguns to your starship, changing the damage scale is a simple fix.

 

[DaveShayne]

Originally posted by NDS:
Personally I think it would be fun if the heavier energy weapons could punch a hole in an unarmored hull fairly easily. I seem to recall that Snapshot had some rules surrounding this but I don't have a copy anymore. If anyone still has a copy it would be interesting to know what the answer is.

Snapshot gives a value to hole (100 HPs) and breach (1000 HPs) a bulkhead. It doesn't give a value for exterior walls. The highest damage roll for an FGMP is 96 points the average is 58 points damage is cumulative however so two shots to the same section should open a hole to vacuum. However it is unclear if this rule should be applied to exterior walls as well as interior bulkheads.

In AHL exterior walls are explicitly made immune to holing or breaching by personal weapons. This may however be an artifact of the assumption that the exterior hull has an HG armor value of 5.