[CODA] "Expanded Starship Operations" sourcebook

Okay folks, after some discussions about Starships (a great book!), I thought I'd write a little sourcebook of my own gathering a lot of home-made rules and new starship-related material.

I'm still working heavily on it, so contents may change without notice, but I'll post updates to this project in this thread. Comments greaaaatly appreciated! :D

What will be inside:

Starship construction
- New systems, new traits
- Starbases and (maybe) vehicle construction rules

Starship operations
- Powering up and down the whole ship
- Entering, navigating and leaving stellar phenomena (star systems, atmospheres, asteroid fields...)
- Atmospheric operations
- EVA operations

Starship combat
- A whole wagonload of new maneuvers
- Offensive and defensive patterns (Alpha, Beta...)
- Expanded core breaches rules
- Hull breaches rules
- Crew casualties
- Massive-scale combat rules
- Classical mission profiles and rules templates

Starship profiles
- Federation (Olympic, Merced, Peregrine...)
- Orion

I put a sample of my work in progress here:
http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_sample1.pdf

It's about the starbases construction rules. It shows some of the station classifications, the power system and damage tracks, the propulsion systems, and the docking and engineering facilities.

Although none of it is final yet, I hope you like it. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! :)

I just gave your sample a cursory read-through, and it looks decent so far. Keep up the good work, KW.

Thanks! I'm glad you think it okay :)

I almost finished the starbase construction rules (only the traits remain). Note this has not been completely tested yet, but it should be usable:
http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_sample2.pdf

KW...saying you've done a good job would be insulting. For a sample piece it looks fantastic. Now if only I hadn't packed my game books up I'd test your starbase material. Are you going to include (or try doing later) a construction form?

Hey Darth, thanks very much for you nice comments!

Yes, I fully intend to do forms, and I will include station profiles as well (drydock, jupiter station, spacedock, DS9...). I will make them later though, as I want to be sure of the rules - that means the drafts of the starbase operations chapter and the corresponding profiles will have to be done.

Quote:

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Originally posted by KillerWhale

Yes, I fully intend to do forms, and I will include station profiles as well (drydock, jupiter station, spacedock, DS9...). I will make them later though, as I want to be sure of the rules - that means the drafts of the starbase operations chapter and the corresponding profiles will have to be done.

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:D Cool. Basing it on Spacedock I'd say that your "Base Specific" equipment should work out ok. If I may, why'd you choose the length chart for the diameter measurement? I'd think that the width/bredth numbers would work better...that's just me though.

Thanks for the feedback - I appreciate it, that will help me do better :)

As for the dimensions... I guess I was unclear: I'm taking the height of the station as... the table "length", and diameters are indeed either "beam" of "width".

Okay, now that's even more unclear ;)

What I meant, finally, was to switch the length and height columns. Would it make sense to you?

Quote:

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Originally posted by KillerWhale
Thanks for the feedback - I appreciate it, that will help me do better :)

As for the dimensions... I guess I was unclear: I'm taking the height of the station as... the table "length", and diameters are indeed either "beam" of "width".

Okay, now that's even more unclear ;)

What I meant, finally, was to switch the length and height columns. Would it make sense to you?

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So take diameter of said base and use the height column, then take the height of said base and use the length column. It looks ok to me...but then again I'm a bit of a loon. I like being one of the few people (in the US? NYC? The Planet?) who thinks that our government needs to stop cursing out the French and give us (NYC) the money they promissed us for that great big crater downtown...The ex-World Trade Center. Sorry for the rant...rather unappropriate here.

As a rule of thumb, for most stations, yes, that was what I intended :) I mean, most stations are cylindrical (diameter inferior to the length).

But for other ones it would be a little different. Take for example DS9, with a diameter of 1500 m. Because of its "flat" shape, the habitats are mostly situated on a horizontal plane - so in this case, 1500 m should be taken as the... length. Hence my little paragraph saying "take the biggest dimension and make it the length".

Finally, I should say the "length" column of the Size table should be used to describe the biggest dimension between diameter and height of the staion. I think this phrasing would cover most cases. :)

And thanks for the comments - it's nice to hear that on this side of the pond :)

Just a little update...

Things are going very well with the book. I expect it will be over 100 pages when finished!!

For the moment, what is finished is:
- Starbase construction rules
- Starbase operations and combat
- Atmospheric operations
- Atmospheric combat
- New maneuvers (more than 20!)
- New traits (more than 10!)
- Attack and Defense maneuver patterns
- Secondary systems damage
- Crew casualties
- Hull and core breaches

What's remaining:
- Base and ship recognition profiles
- Shuttlecraft operations
- Massive scale combat

I hope I will finish the manuscript by sunday. Then it will be layout and... playtesting.

Hey, KillerWhale, not to nag or anything, but hows about another sample? So far, I love it.

I can't wait to see all of the new maneuvers and traits.

Well, later days!

Hey Lonoto! Glad you're interested.

I put a sample presenting some of the maneuvers. As always, nothing of this is set in stone for the moment, but that will give you a pretty good idea of how things will turn out.
http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_sample3.pdf

I hope you like it! Comments are welcome.

I like it. The starbase rules work well; I've tried them out a couple of times. The new maneuvers look good, hope to playtest them soon.

KW-

Saw the other sample...drool. So you hope to have the whole book up by Sunday? Cool. I look forward to it. I keep seeing references to a sample base...where is this sample...I'd like to see it.

Keep up the good work.