FASA Ship Stats for TNG, etc?

Hello,

I'm a fan of the starship tactical combat in the FASA game. I have the Next Generation First Year Sourcebook, which includes stats for a few TNG ships (Enterprise-D, Ferengi Marauder, Romulan Warbird), but there is much left to be desired (Borg cube, Klingon Vor'cha, Romulan scout, etc).

Does anyone have or know of a good list of starship stats for post-first-year-of-TNG ships? I'd even like to see some DS9, Voyager, Enterprise-E stats.

I also have the Ship Construction Manual. However as you probably know, that book constists of only TOS-era technology. I once endeavored to make stats for various ships, like the Vor'cha and the Borg cube, but I'd be interested to see what - if anything - other people have done.

Many thanks for any help!

You can't beat the following site for TNG FASA ships: Sub-Odeon

There are also a couple good Yahoo Groups for this sort of thing, namely:

TheFASAStarTrekUniverseE, FASA_TrekNet, and Morena_Shipyards.

And humbly, my own website Peracles-RPG.com has some of what you are looking for as well.

Pericles,

Thank you! Both of those sites are great... exactly what I was looking for.

I see that you made your 24th century ship stats much more high-powered than those on subodean's site. 72 shield points for a Vor'cha... wow! Have you play-tested your ship stats much? How do you find they play, for example: Vor'cha vs. Enterprise-D, or say (23rd cent) Excelsior vs. (24th cent) B'rel? I'm guessing FASA's 23rd century ships are no match whatsoever for your 24th century ships. I know you stated that you did that on purpose, and just out of curiosity, what is your reason for doing so?

By the way, I like your clever rules for making a Tholian web. :)

Thanks again for the info!

simkn

Sub-Odeon is the best FASA site I know. You are right that it would not be much of a contest between ships of the different eras. Its always seemed to me from watching TNG and DS9 that there was a quantum leap in defensive capabilities and thus I made sure the ships can take a pounding, which fits with the on screen evidence when compared to the TOS. The stronger shields combined with the Structural Integrity Field allow TNG ships to really hang in there. Plus I never liked how the FASA rules never allowed for a ship to take even a single volley without a shield breech, this does not fit the on screen evidence.

On the other side of the coin, I had to develop ways to increase fire power to both compensate for the heavier defenses and the on screen torpedo volleys, thus those additional rules.

As for the Tholian web, well the ship is my own creation, but I did not come up with the web rules. I just checked to see if I could find the location I downloaded them from and I can not find that link. In any case I was glad to be able to help.

One thing I didn't like about what FASA did with the Galaxy class ship in their TNG sourcebook was the following:

Suppose you wanted to fully power every shield and every weapon. This would cost a total (using the FASA design) of :

22 * 6 / 4 = 33 for sheilds
+
4 * 1 = 4 for missiles
+
1 * 30 + 1 * 10 = 40 for beam weapons
=
77 total points

With 160 TPU, this leaves 83 PU for movement, which is 11 movement points per turn!

So basically, you can fully power every system on the ship and still fly about like mad. That takes a lot of the fun out of the game, because there is no longer any strategy in powering your starship. The strategy is simply "power up everything to full!" Where's the strategy in that?

[ By the way, do you think they really meant to have just one of each beam weapon type? I suppose maybe they did, since you only need a single firing arc with the collimating strip since it can fire in virtually any direction, but wouldn't it make sense if you could fire multiple beam weapons in a turn? ]

I can't yet tell if the "full power every turn" strategy works for your (Peracles') Galaxy design. Are there 6 "sides" to power for the structural integrity field, like there are for the shields? If so, then it takes a remarkable amount of power to power the structural integrity field, which in turn means the structural integrity field can make the Galaxy-class nigh-invincible. If there's only one structural integrity field to power, then we have:

66 * 6 / 8 = 50 for shields
+
98 / 2 = 49 for structural integrity field
+
12 * 10 + 6 * 5 = 150 for beam weapons
+
8 * 1 = 8 for missiles
=
257

which is a paltry amount of the 528(!) total power available. I would say the "power everything to full all the time" strategy works here too, and furthermore the Galaxy class ship suddenly feels light as a feather with 271/14 = 19 movement points per turn. ;-) Was this your intent, and did you experience this effect during gameplay?

As for the Galaxy specs on subodean's site... he reduced the total shield power from 22 (from the FASA version) to 16, except in his Mark II stats (where he bumps it up to 25 or 30). I'm not sure why he did this. He also added many more beam and missile weapons, which I think is appropriate (but as you'll see below, maybe he added too many?). So, let's fully power his version (assuming stardrive and saucer are attached, and using his more powerful Mark II stats):

30 * 6 / 5 = 36 for shields
+
8 * 16 + 8 * 20 = 288 for beam weapons
+
3 * 3 + 7 * 5 = 44 for missiles
=
368

This is greater than the TPU by a significant margin, since TPU is only 173. This is due in large part, though, to the immense number of beam weapons he added to the design. To power every shield to full power only costs 36 PU out of 173! That's a no-brainer for a starship captain.

Peracles, I like your suggestion that starships on the TV/movie screen seem to take much more of a pounding before shields are powered down. Perhaps higher shield powers are in order, even on the original series starships?

What am I getting at here? I'm not sure exactly, except that I'm trying to develop a balanced design of next gen starships (like the Galaxy-class) that fits well with the TV/movie canon but that also presents challenges to the player as to how to best allocate power during a tactical battle in the FASA rules.

As an addendum, I certainly understand that if your opponent (a nextgen Romulan Warbird, say) has the same luxury of virtually limitless power as you do, then there is still strategy involved in the game. The strategy shifts from being one of managing your starship's power to one of being the better tactician. However, I'd like to save a little of both elements in my game. Not only must you outwit your opponent on the battlefield, but you must make better use of your starship's systems. After all, even in TNG they are at times required to take power from other systems to power shields during a particularly tough battle, are they not?

Feedback, suggestions?

I've always envisioned the Structural Integrity Field as a single entity. It covers fire from any angle like a secondary layer of shielding, but once it's gone, it's gone until it resets and can be repowered.

As for the extra power over and above the total power use, I admit with the larger TNG ships, they have a massive reserve of power, but even with the boosted shields and the SIF, it is still too damn easy to breech the shields with the FASA rules. You see onscreen evidence of how the ships avoid this by the "Reinforce the forward shields" sort of thing. I see that excess power going to either General or Specific shield reinforcement ala the SFB rules. This will quickly bleed off the power excess and slow that nimble as a biplane Galaxy class and make both strategy and tatics come back into play.

I think the boosting of shields for TOS and TMP era ships isn't outside the realm of the believeable, but that would be up to a GM's personal taste. It seemed to me that the older ships had a resiliency to survive battles, but they paid a heavy price to do so. Thus I use the alternate Stardate magazine rules that double the suprestructure before rolling for destruction rule. IE Superstructure of 22 doubles to 44 before there is a chance the ship explodes. This allows the ship to survive, but it suffers in the process.

The excruciating decisions during the power phase are gone from any of the latter Federation ships, most can power all shields to full, move at a decent speed (4-6) and power enough wepaons to deliver a shield crushing blow every turn. Not quite as freely as the TNG ships can do, but they still can. The most nerve wracking battle I was even in was a Loknar Mk V versus a D7M. The engineer nearly tore his hair out trying to balance movement, weapons, and shields during that battle. I treasure that fight, but those types of hard strategic and tatical choices disappear anytime after the early TOS era.

The FASA rules were never intended to cope with the power boost of the TNG ships and any attempt to maintain the FASA rules simplicity and feel is going to at best be an inelegant splicing when you try to game with the TNG ships. I like to think my rules, or adaptations do remain true to the FASA feel even if a few rough edges do exist.

Pericles, thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree with what you've said.

But one thing I didn't understand is how shield reinforcement can drain your power reserves. What are the SFB rules you speak of?

You know, now that I think of it... if we're really trying to reenact starship combat like we see on the screen, wouldn't we throw out the shield repower phase altogether? I mean when during a Trek show/movie have we seen a starship's shields fail, the ship take a hit, and then the shields repower just like that, without them doing anything special to channel extra power to the shields? I suppose a more "realistic" treatment would be to let shields power down gradually over a combat without recharging, and once they're down, they're down, unless you do something special to repower them. Is this anything like the SFB rules?

With a max shield power of 66, is it possible to punch through a Galaxy starship's shields in a single firing phase and do some damage before the shields repower back to 66?

I guess there's some inherent differences in the FASA style of starship combat and what we see on the screen. That's ok with me, because I think what we sacrifice in "canon realism" can sometimes add to the fun and strategy of the game.

Under the Star Fleet Battles rules there are two forms of shield reinforcement General and Specific. I have copied those rules for FASA. General reinforcement costs 2 points for each point of "free" shielding and protects from any direction including a side that has it's shield generator damaged. Specific reinforcement protects only the shield it is assigned to protect and costs 1 point of power per point of extra shielding, but it can not be assigned to a side with a damaged shield generator. If you have the right shields reinforced, your ship can REALLY take a beating, reinforce the wrong one, and your ship pays for it. Since you mentioned strategy, these rules bring that back into the game for ships that have so much power they can power everything at max.

The SFB shields themselves are completely different from FASA rules. Each shield has two settings minimum and maximum. Minimum costs one whole point of power and sets all shields at a fixed strength of 5 per side. Maximum shields costs a staggering two points of power and raise all shields to their rated max, which varies from ship to ship and hexside to hexside. A Constitution has a forward shield (FASA shield #2) of around 35, FASA shields 1 and 3 are around 25, while shields 4,5, and 6 are around 20. Each point of shield protects against one point of damage. Individual weapons in SFB do much less damage than in FASA with a standard photon doing 8 points and a phaser 3-8 points based heavily on range, thus combats are much closer 3-5 hexes being the normal.

Since the shields are all up full during combat, hacking down the shields takes a lot of tactics to get full hits on weak shields or repeated hits on the same shield. However, once a shield is down, it is a flaming pain to repair it to any worthwhile strength during combat giving the ship a gaping wound to protect at all costs, which in turn limits your movements as you protect those weak shields giving your opponent an even bigger advantage. This makes the game dynamics completely different in SFB as shields do not automatically repower as long as the shield generator is undamaged like they do in FASA.

I think the SFB rules are closer to canon with the shields getting weaker and weaker ("Shields down to 15%") until they fail and finally allowing the ship to take damage. The trade off is the added complexity.
The FASA rules are much simpler with the shields reducing some damage, but letting some damage through every time until enough critical systems are gone that shields can't be raised at all.

SFB started off a simple folio game that was a decent representation of the game and fairly simple to play, but then the gearheads got a hold of it and now the rules are as thick as a dictionary and so complex that the game can't even be played any more.

I took to the FASA rules immediately as they kept to the feel of the show without bogging down. The only grossly different part were the shield rules and the reason I decided to tweak them to make them closer to the on screen shields. I'm sure it will take quite a bit more playtest to see if I have succeeded or not. The initial reaction from my group is they haven't ripped them to shreds and are at least having fun, so while the jury may still be out, the critical test is a go, they are having fun and that is what RPGs are all about. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pericles

Sub-Odeon is the best FASA site I know.

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Brad does put forth a geat deal of effort!

Quote:

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Plus I never liked how the FASA rules never allowed for a ship to take even a single volley without a shield breech, this does not fit the on screen evidence.

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Did STVI:TUC drive you as nuts as it drove me when it came out? The Enterprise was taking internal damage, yet the shields were still up for the bulk of the battle!!

Despite its many problems, ST:VI can always say "At least we're NOT ST:V!" :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pericles

Despite its many problems, ST:VI can always say "At least we're NOT ST:V!" :eek:

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Sadly, so can "House of Wax"!

I did a reverse of J austin's FASA to ICON Rules, and here is the result:
Type XII Phaser: Maximum Beam Power of 14
Type XI Phaser: Maximum Beam Power of 13
Type X Phaser: Maximum Beam POwer of 12
Shield Protection of 70: 1/6 ratio, Max Power of 30
Shield Protection of 65: 1/5 ratio, Max Power of 27
Shield Protection of 60: 1/5 ratio, Max Power of 25
Shield Protection of 55: 1/4 ratio, Max Power of 23
Shield Protection of 54: 1/4 ratio, Max Power of 22
Shield Protection of 50: 1/4 ratio, Max Power of 21
Shield Protection of 48: 1/4 ratio, Max Power of 20

What do you think of this odd concept?

While I own the rules for ICON and CODA, I personally do not use either system, not because any problems with either, just a lack of time to add another system to my already over taxed grey matter, plus I have used the FASA system for 18 years now and am just comfortable with what I know.

I never thought about the math involved, but for some reason I would have thought the ICON system would have provided more protection than the numbers you provide. If I'm not mistaken by my hazy skimming of the rules, the ICON weapons do less total damage than the FASA equivalents so the shields would hold up longer and give a more accurate portrayal of the pounding shields could take in the various series.

damm the Sub Odeon site is down now :(

He's not down, just relocated: http://home.comcast.net/~ststcsolda/index.html