"Required" systems

Just how required are the systems listed as such in the design rules? I'm currently working on a size 1 fighter, and it currently lacks things like gravity or a backup IDF. (And the backup life support is the crew's e-suits) The design rationale for this is that these things are not designed to take a beating. (Well, the shields & ablative armor can take quite a beating, but once those are gone...) Packing redundant systems is a waste of resources and room on something like this. On a related note, is it just me, or is there a lot of needless cruft tacked on to the canon fighter designs? I mean, really, fighters don't need passenger seats as a general rule.

Jon

There's a list of what systems are "required" on a ship, and thus which are not, on page 15 of Spacedock.

If you think some things on some ship designs are superfluous, by all means, exercise the redlining method suggested in the sidebar on page 2 to make 'em look like what you want 'em to look like. http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/wink.gif

Steve Long

I suppose it can also depend on your focus of the campaign.

A Starfleet Vessel is likely to contain multiple redundant systems, and be comfortable, while a Klingon ship is likely to be designed around a minimalist approach.

In DS9, there is a good instance of this in 'Destiny' when O'Brien and Gilora Rejal are arguing about the systems O'Brien has replaced with the second back-ups as required under Starfleet operating procedures.



------------------
Dan.

"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."

http://www.theventure.freeserve.co.uk

I'd say gravity wasn't neccesary on a fighter.

But a backup IDF? Definitely required. Other things can happen than just battle damage. If the IDF malfunctions, the pilot is strawberry jam.



------------------
Greg

"Calm may work for Locutus of Borg here, but I'm freaked and intend to stay that way."
Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Prophecy Girl.

Also another point about such amenities as Gravity, Sanitary, Food Replicators is...are you building fighters that will deploy from a Carrier or Starbase?

If so then, by all means strip the ships down to the basics! If not, you lose crew moral and are not up to par on missions.

There is a really good PBS special that you can see from time to time on Nova about carrier operations during the Persian Gulf War. It gives some really good background on this.

If Starfleet follows a current American military framwork (which it seems it has, other than too many things go on peoples records) you would be able to fashion your fighters after an F16 or F14 for 2 players to fit in.

Since they do not seem to trust computers running thing in STNG and Voyager you might want to think about a weapons officer.

Another thing is to have maybe most of the weapons Fire-linked and locked into a Foward arc. This way you would not need a weapons officer and you would get more punch from your weapons. You could Fire-link Wingman weapons as well, something like what Picard did in 'STNG First Contact'against the Borg Cube. There are current examples of this, take the Apachee helocopters. A spotter "paints" a target with a laser from a safe distance, then the Apachees fire weapons all at the same target. They can take out major targets that would be protected by Anti-aircraft missiles that cannot fire on helocopters.

One of the things that has been learned at the turn of the 20th century is to have some kind of rear firing weapon for retreat and protection purposes. A Torpedo tube with a spread of Torpedoes would work well.

Just some ideas for a minimum of craft with a maximum of punch!

It seems to me that gravity generators are absoultely and completely necessary on a fighter. This is because they are an integral part of the acceleration-dampening field, according to the TNG Technical Manual. Since Star-Trek style starships experience hundgreds of Gs even during sublight maneuvering (the number of Gs used in superluminal maneuvering is completely uncalculable by us, since by our outdated early-21st century physics, it should take beyond infinite acceleration), that's not something you can skimp on.

Other things, sure. But remember that skipping things has consequences! If they leave out the fire-supression subsystem, there should be a reasonable chance battle damage could cause a fire, which would cause further SUs of damage. Of course, one could depressurize sections of the ship by opening it to space, but if you had a built-in way of conveniently and quickly venting sections to space, that IS a fire-supression system (just using a different technology) and should cost SUs.

I agree with Diamond. For any ship attempting to turn at a high fraction of lightspeed, artifical gravity is definately a requirement, otherwise the crew is going to go splat.