...Continued from the thread in Spacedock... http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread.php?t=15533
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...Continued from the thread in Spacedock... http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread.php?t=15533
Anyway, as I said we're all fanboys, and SWvsST is a guilty pleasure, just like chocolate.
We all have our own feelings and opinions.
I'm currntly running a crossover with the Star Wars universe. The PCs have been assigned an elderly Constitution class Cruiser, the Excalibur NCC-1705-A, which has an experrimental dimension-hopping device, the Holly-Hop... Ooops, the Silver Ball Generator. They are currently stranded in the Mirror Star Wars universe effecting repairs, having just severely damaged the Imperisl Super Star Destroyer Invictus and escaped using an illegal Klingon Cloaking Device. I've made a few technological assumptions. SW ships are huge - an Imperial Star Destroyer is 1.6km long. A Super Star Destroyer is 19km long. Bothare armed for bear, but there's a catch. Their main weaponry, the Turbolaser, cannot penetrate Starfleet shields except as heavily massed fire, unless the first take down the Trek ship's shields with Ion Cannon fire. Proton Torpedos are the equivalent of Photon microTorpedoes. Blasters, up to those carried on Imperial Walkers are equivalent to Phasers, but only up to Type 4. The Force is simply high-powered psionics, mystic mumbo-jumbo and midichloians notwithstanding. Lightsabres act as melee-ranged Disruptors. Imperial shields are half-strength against Phaser fire. Imperial ships can detect Starfleet ships at Warp, but cannot attack them. Starfleet ships cannot detect Imperial ships in hyperdrive, but can detect a conspicuous "light-bang" when they enter or exit hyperspace. Starfleet ships can attack from Warp. Once Starfleet shields have been taken down by Ion Cannon fire, they are completely vulnerable to Turbolasers until they get the shield back on-line. Ion Cannons, however are slow-firing.
All-in-all, I've tried to make it possible for a Trek ship to survive in a Wars universe and give the players an exciting adventure with a real chance of defeat, but at least as good a chance of victory. Remember, they're the Good Guys, and the Empire are the Black Hats.
(As I have said before, back in TOS it seemed that phasers were FTL, while photon torpedoes were not. This isn't really important to what I'll say below.)
As said above, the (SF Franchise A) versus (SF Franchise B) discussion is one of the great passtimes of geekdom.
My brother was always a Star Trek fan: he was 6 when TOS came out. Star Trek was not, however, his favorite. But whenever his friends were doing the "you arm yourself with stuff from one franchise and I'll arm myself from another" thing, he would always take Star Trek, because he said Star Trek always wins.
As he often put it, "Give me a shuttlecraft and a hand phaser and I'll still win. Faster-than-light sensors, faster-than-light weapons, faster-than-light drives. Nothing else offers all three. I can tell that you are firing and move out of the way, then respond with undodgeable shots."
In Star Trek versus Star Wars, there is the question of whether weapons can penetrate shields: both settings have shields or screens, so they might be effective against each others' weapons. But Star Wars has no evidence of FTL sensors, so their first clue that a photorp was headed their way would be when it detonated, and there is no evidence of Star Wars ships being able to move FTL in realspace, so they are going to be lousy at dodging by Federation standards.
Your mileage may vary and all that, and certainly not trying to rain on anybody's picnic. Resume having fun.
FTL for space battles is okay, but as far as I know, no one can fight in Hyperspace. Unless a tracker is planted on the ship, no one can calculate a course for another ship that enters Hyperspace. I am going to stick to this.
In warp however, my rules are this - as seen all throughout the series (and yes I do like Enterprise, and Voyager - so sue me) - In warp, phasers dissipate unless they are ACB jacketed. Range is generally between 250,000 km and 300,000 km which is actually faster than light, but most likely the outer range is 299,792.5 km, or the speed of light. Not a problem to shoot a beam of energy out to that range - gets there in a second.
Blasters I say are like plasma weapons, have a shorter range. Lasers (Turbo, Quad, and Super) are really not lasers. The term is more like a pulse, or a beam in the case of the Death Star. I range Pulses at a lower range (oddly enough the point defense lasers are more in line with Star Trek but their effectiveness is nearly nil - 40 points per shot.)
I plan to make Mon Calamari a core Federation race in my game.
That’s about it.
Just posted a Mirror-Star Wars timeline... Enjoy! Ya know ya wanna...
As opposed to a gourmet dish available at Starfleet Admiralty's Quantum Cafe? :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Falconer
Sorry.
I always wondered why the Mon Cal flagship in Jedi looked so organic and, well, alien on the outside... then you saw the command deck for the briefing and it was all "oh, it's just generic Coruscanti-bland design."
Maybe the Mon Cal wanted to accommodate their human allies & gutted their command ship's bridge section for the occasion?:rolleyes:
I suspect the truth is that an alien/organic looking set would have cost a lot more, and you really only need it for one scene in the whole trilogy.
At least the bridge had the command chairs swinging around on cranes.
You're also forgetting that most credible/authoritative sources place Star Wars weaponry as operating in the 1,000 km or less range (except when firing at massive stationary targets), where as Starfleet weaponry routinely operates in the 10K kilometers + range.
Given the absence of FTL sensors, a Starfleet vessel can simply sit two or three light-seconds outside the Star Destroyers range, fire off a salvo, warp to a new location and do it all again.
Wash, rinse, repeat. And scratch one Super Star Destroyer.
Fighters can be detected at range, shots fired, and they'll blunder right into the attack. By the time they reach their own target, it will be long gone.
The Death Star- able to blow up a planet in a single blast (largely from hydrostatic shock to the planet core) was a REVOLUTIONARY leap in technology- unlike anything seen before. Federation starships are routinely armed with weaponry that can devastate the entire surface of a planet, and even punch through to the core.
Star Wars weaponry are designed around a short pulse, and lack the ability to mainrain prolonged energy release. A Federation starship could stand off the Death Star (outside it's sensor and weaponry ranges) and fire a prolonged phaser burst that would drill straight into the reactor core and detonate the station. And what could the do about it? Not a damn thing.
Over at the Cortex System RPG boards, one particular yutz wanted to import a cross-over starship from a Mars-based video game into Serenity.
Kilometers long, planet cracker weaponry, energy shielding, and all operated by a single crewman.
He was roundly, thoroughly, -and rightly- stomped on for being a "mine is bigger than yours" fan-boy.
There is nothing in the 'Verse that could compare, let alone hope to compete, with such a monstrosity.
The Star Wars/Star Trek universes are closer matched, but the balance is still tilted heavily in Starfleet's favor.
The other consideration you must take in mind when doing a Wars/Trek crossover are your engineers. Anyone wielding a wrench with malice can be dangerous- but you add in the training and experience Starfleet officers receive, a bit of malice, and a pinch of mischeif and you can kiss most Imperial forces good-bye.
I say this because I've played it- with the malice, with the mischief, and it was a flaming route.
Made the Little Big Horn look like a tea social.
There's no indication in Star Wars of molecular based circuitry or the "advanced" physics and subspace field engineering available to your standard Redshirt-with-a-hyperspanner. With the possible exception of droids, AI's are primitive and computer security protocols practically non-existent. Portable forcefields are essentially non-existent or are extremely limited (the Gungan "shields" and the force-field doors in the Naboo reactor complex being notable exceptions). Blasters and turbolasers are essentially single function emitters, and ALL OF IT is comparatively short-ranged.
A Starfleet officer with a bit of know-how, a minimum of stone-knives-and-bearskins, and some leisure time between watches will be more dangerous than the Sith.
Simply put, Star Trek is a far more competitive environment (from a technological standpoint), and any Starfleeter- especially a Starfleet Engineer- is going to enjoy a considerable "evolutionary" advantage.