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I found some time to look at SD for the first time in a long time, and I had forgotten how much fun it can be to play starship designer. What a great system.
But, there are a few details that I take issue with. It occurred to me that I might not be the only one who has tweaked the rules a little to suit my own sense of what is reasonable, right, and true in starship engineering. So, why don't we all post our house rules in this thread?
My biggest gripe with SD is that the warp nacelles and impulse engines drive all ships at the same speed, no matter how big the ship is. I'd have like to see a size modifier applied to the engines so that a dreadnought wouldn't be able to go warp 9 with the same warp nacelles as a shuttlepod. As I would do it, equipping a ship with Class IV nacelles means her speed is warp 4/6/8 and the SU cost is 4 x ship size. Ditto for impulse engines.
As much as I'd like to see that, I can see how much work it would take to redesign the system and all the ships that have already been statted out. If there's ever a SD v2.0, that's a rule I'd push for, but I'm not ready to make a house rule on it.
However... There is one related mod that's much simpler and adds to realism, IMO. I've decided to multiply power requirements for propulsion by the ship's size. So a Galaxy-class going at warp 9 requires .2 power per warp, multiplied by size rating 8, for a total of 320 power. That's still well within the power output of her warp core, but it gives a much better impression of cranking up the core to full power and running fast and hard. It would also make combat at high warp much more focussed on power distribution, but high warp combat is pretty rare anyway. I've looked over most of the ship stats and they've all had enough power to use this rule. Same rule applies to all propulsion systems, including impulse, acceleration packages, and impulse thrusters.
I have experience with real world autopilots, and I think the SU cost for an autopilot in SD is too high. I set the cost at 1 SU per die and 1 SU per skill level (instead of 3 SU per skill level as written). That won't make much difference to most starships, but I tend to cram as much stuff as I can fit into shuttles and small craft, so the extra SUs come in handy.
Also note that the capabilities of an EMH Mk I are far, far beyond any autopilot and it only costs 5 SUs. I've been thinking about creating something like Voyager's Emergency Command Hologram as an autopilot system. Yes, that's an idea that's strongly influenced by Andromeda.
Alright, I like the Engine/Ship Size concept. The Autopilot, meh I actually upped the SU's of the EMH.
As for Andromeda influence, well it's at least from GR notes - we did the same thing in my group, only she was never an intigrated part of the ship (no SU's required)
To be honest covered under Steves notation to the EMGH regarding the players over-using the system to save their own arses...Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarge
Its also a plot issue, as there was that episode of Voyager (Author, Author) which posed the question about Holographic rights as sentients (TBH, I would have thought the issue was covered under the guidelines set out regarding Data, but anyway...) We are left with the Federation advocating the massed slavery of EMH mk 1's that should be a political time-bomb waiting to happen.
In my universe further 'emergency holograms' were suspended until the issue could be solved.
Of course the computers are nearly AI anyway, and with ship-wide holo-emitters (implied by the description for EMH Mk II and III) it would take too much Treknology to make a standard Starship computer sentient and pick a holographic avatar from the holodeck database and start appearing in person (a plotline I always intended to run...)
Personally, my chosen house rule is to ignore the SU's if inconvenient... If the plot wants to have a ship with X-capability then it will be able to get it, even if the backgound of the vessel puts it as a partial rebuild and refit... The SU's are only guidelines so as to not get too carried away....
I've been fiddling a bit with the combat rules (on and off). I'm a guy that likes complexity of systems, and Steve's spacedock remains the best i've seen, and I'm not a big fan of the way the decipher system took it.
One thing about the spacedock system was that it generally made (my opinion) ships into glass cannons, especially in light of things like DS9 war. Other than using torpedoes as 'narrative damage' it became hard to add the flavor of later trek spacebattles without nuking ships in a couple rounds.
What we came up with was fairly simple, modifying the threshold and automatic defense kinda rules, to the point where it was almost required to fire volleys or multifire to do damage, at least in the beginning.
Lets take the popular Defiant as an example. If i've been reading the ship stats correctly, with the defiants 600 base shields with 200 threshold, it could take a handful of photorp hits (assuming different shields) before having zero shields and then likely zero hull, it gets worse vs quantum torps. In fact versus 250 dmg pulse phasers of its own mounting, a defiant could be able to chew up another defiant just with guns in short order.
Anyhoo, a 'simple' fix we've tried was making the threshold a level of DR that still fell as overall protection did, but instead of counting against how much dmg makes it through to the hull, we used it as how much dmg actually hurt the protection of the shield.
So in the above example, the base threshold became the new auto-defense rating. If your attack does less than 200 dmg it can't damage the defiant's shields. Therefor, it becomes necessary to use volleys or the like under the multifire rules, or bigger individual guns. We then used the old auto-defense rating as the new threshold to hull rating. So if the above multifire attack doesn't do more than 50 dmg to the shields, it wont damage the hull.
Threshold scaled accordingly to shield damage, as protection dropped below threshold, it would also drop, which would also drop auto-defense vs hull dmg.
Things like getting smacked around by quantum torps, or plasma torps from the rommies still can ruin your day fairly quickly.
I have changed the consumables to reflect the number of personnel being served rather than ship size. It seems to me that a size 5 cargo ship and a size 5 troop transport ship shouldn't have the consumables need.
Also added a 'bank' for most beam weapons. A bank is generally equal in storage size to the max number of beam shots from beam weapon per round x its power cost. So a phaser array with 20 power phaser shots and a max of 5 shots per round, would have a 'bank' of 100.
Power charging works somewhat as normal, though in this case power allocation is usually set to charge the banks rather than the raw weapon itself. Basically the banks are large charged batteries for the weapons.
Its a little more bookkeeping, but I like to think its in line with what we've seen in tv/movies. It allows ships even without working warp reactors to still fight, at least for awhile, until they simply can't recharge the banks anymore.
You can fire a shot 'directly' from power or you can charge up all your banks and then fire stuff from there, reducing the direct power requirements of your beam weapons (deferring the costs in a way) as you plug power elsewhere. Also these banks can be used to then pull emergency power away from to repower other things, this seems in theme with what we've seen.
Plugging power into banks is noticed by sensors, usually what a bridge officer reports with "Sir, they are charging weapons!". Charged banks in standby mode are also detectable by sensors. "Sir they've charged weapons!".
I figured photorps might also have power-banks, cause we've seen instance where a ship arguably out of power still manages to pop off a last-minute-save-our-ass torp.
Here's a minor change to the Manual Steering Column: it still gives a +1d bonus to Flight Control rolls, but the attribute is changed from Intellect to Coordination.
I'd also eliminate the 1 power per round to use it; it wouldn't require any noticeable increase in power to steer with a joystick instead of a keyboard. Besides, I'm in favor of simplifying the bookkeeping for power distribution.
Here is a list of ideas, arranged in order of where they are found in the Spacedock book:
- Get rid of the exponential growth in Life Support capacity for linear power consumption. The existing rules allow you to provide 43 Power and you get life Support for over 10 Trillion people.
- Agree on the Warp Power requirement. Doubling the Warp speed would require more than twice the power. One idea will be more complex, but how about three sets of power charts. The first one has a decent warp speed increase, and is used for up to standard Speed. A higher amount is used for the sustained, and an even higher amount is used for max. It would be three engine settings, where standard is essentially cruising along, sustained is higher power demands, and max is burning the fuel as fast as you can in order to get somewhere.
- For the Impulse engines, since they are traveling at a high percetnage of light, should we include time dilation effects?
- One stunt for the Warp Drive Systems Table would be so it costs 1 extra SU per 5 pts of power (FRU), rather than 1 SU per 10 pts. This turns the Table into almost a flat curve, rather than the staggered steps it is now. (I made a graph that has a power consumption as the X axis, a derivative that gives me the SU, and the Power/SU as the Y axis. Try it, the Power/SU is a series of staggered arcs.) I'm sure there are lots of people who use 399 rather than 400 power generated, because the 399 reactor takes up 85 SU, while the 400 rated reactor takes up 90 SU. If you made it so 5 additional power takes up 1 SU, then the 390 reactor will take up 88 SU, the 395 reactor takes up 89 SU, and the 400 reactor takes up 90 SU.
- Allow the Auxiliary Reactors to power FTL travel, but note that it takes longer for them to accelerate to their top speeds. The lower Power/SU means warships definitely don't want to use it, while the cheapness of hydrogen means you can have a Fusion Freighter Reserve in case of problems on a border.
- Add a note to the Emergency Power systems that they have a finite lifetime. In addition to having the worst Power/SU ratings, it hints to the players that Emergency Power is not something to use 24/7.
- For Cloaking devices, I'd change it to where each level only allows a maximum amount of power to be used, plus some for the size. This reflects that if you are using lots of power inside the cloak, then you either have to vent the waste heat (which will show up as a large infrared spot), or you cook the crew and then vent the heat (from the ship melting). The exact power amount would have to be compared. Add in Voran's idea about weapons banks that can be charged up, and you have a good combo. The cloaked vessel slowly charges up its weapons as it approaches, then decloaks, fires off a full volley, then recloaks and slowly recharges for the next volley. The target is then cranking power to its sensors and labs, trying to find the attacker.
- For the probes, we have a variety of capabilities, ranges, and engines, yet they all take up the same space? Maybe make some variation in them. At the least, just say that 10 probes take up 1 SU, rather than 5 for .5. Deal in whole SU amounts, not fractions. (I know there is a contradiction here, but both extremes have their points).
- Cargo Transporters - if you are trying to transport cargo, then beaming over enough mass to equal a human is not going to handle it. I'd increase the capacity to 500 kg/SU. This makes it less efficient for moving people than a dedicated personnel transporter, but makes it better for moving cargo.
- Internal Security - Add an option for pressure doors, solid bars, etc. Maybe 2* Size in SU, but zero power. This way you don't lose containment (of whatever) due to a power failure.
- Flatten the Curve for number of laboratories. 1 SU per 5 laboratories, FRU.
- Make the Borg weapons more efficient/powerful per SU. They are high tech, there is a reason everyone wants to learn more.
- Firing arcs. Aren't there only 360 degrees in a circle?
- 10 torps per SU. This just makes it clearer.
- Make chemical rockets weaker and fewer per SU. These are chemical explosions, compared to nuclear and antimatter detonations. They are not going to hurt as much. The nice part is that you don't need as fancy a launcher, so fewer SU there.
- Mines: 20 per SU
- Borg can use any technology, the reverse is not true. They just don't use the technology, because it is inferior.
Just my thoughts.