Refitting a Ship with Quantum Slipstream Drive

[Dan Stack]

Hey, if you are in my Bridgetown game, stay out!

My game will likely be heading for the Galactic Core to face the Iconian Horrors that lie there.

My game will also be gaining a larger starship soon.

While I'd planned on using the portal route to get there, I've been debating allowing the characters to use an experimental Starfleet vessel equipped with Slipstream drive, as seen in "Hope and Fear". No idea if I'll actually go this route, but it seems an interesting exercise in any case.

Looking at Spacedock, there is a requirement for an extra 80 SU of space to fit the drive.

Reading the desrciption in Spacedock, the slipstream magic is spat out through the main deflector.

So I'm sitting at the ASDB trying to make a ship with this drive. I could try to rebuild the Dauntless from "Hope and Fear" but that seems like too many leaps. If I'm trying to design it, I think I'd like to add it to an already existing class. I also think I leave traditional warp nacelles on her, "just in case".

I've two minds on this. The first is to put it on a big honking ship like a Sovereign or Galaxy. This way you have a ton of resources available in case something goes wrong and you are marooned in the Andromeda Galaxy or somewhere else unpleasant.

But, that also is a lot of work. Since the slipstream goes through the deflector dish, what about modifying a ship with two deflectors and tweaking the auxiliary deflector. Less to modify and less danger of trashing a vital system. The two ships that come to mind are the Intrepid and Nova classes. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want to be on a Nova 100,000 light years from home.

So looking at the Intrepid, I see a good Structural Integrity Field, which I'll want since the Quantum Slipstream Drive can really hurt a ship. I may bump it from Class 6 to Class 7, costing an extra 6 SU.

The Quantum Drive costs me 80 SU, for a total of 86 extra SU.

And cosmetically, though it doesn't impact the game, I picture the saucer deflector being tweaked to be serve as the Quantum Slipstream Drive.

Thoughts? Would you pick a different ship if you were Starfleet? Would you make your own class just for this purpose.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

I think modifying an existing ship class is a good way to go. Especially if Starfleet is just at the stage of experimenting with the technology.

And Intrepid sounds like a good choice to me. Not so big as to be a major loss if it goes kablooy. Not so small and underpowered it can't survive if isolated. And of course, there is precendence for an Intrepid class starship being fitted with such a drive.

Failing that, how about a Nebula? Well equipped, city in space type thing. Able to look after itself and take a fair pounding. Current technology without being quite 'cutting edge'.

[Dan Stack]

Though I don't know if I'd use it for my game (Nebula's seem to lack character ), technically the Nebula would make an excellent choice - the mission pod would be perfect for that.

From a campaign perspective, the Galaxy works rather well in the sense that you will likely be the only Starfleet ship you'll ever see. It gives you an opportunity to run a Starbase style game (especially as part of my Bridgetown saga, where the Federation has been forced to cooperate with Romulans and Klingons). The starship functions as a sort of mobile Starbase.

In my own game, I've established there are some horrible things at the Galactic Core. And soon the Legitimate Cardassian Government in Exile will be making a trip there. I haven't decided if the chase will be quick (take an Iconian portal) or long (Cardassians blow the Bridgetown portal up). In the Bridgetown game, the Iconian portals are working well, but I'm planning on cutting back on their use, as I'm noticing some repititon in my game style.

[Knightsfyre001]

I don't know if this was ever officially established in the VOY episode, but I've always been of the personal impression that, what with the slipstream being so unstable, the bigger the ship, the greater the chance of being dumped out,
potentially with no way of knowing where one is, or with no way to get home.

So, personally, I'd only install a QSD on a ship like the Intrepid -- something in the Size 5-6 range, at most.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Galaxy would be a good choice, especially considering the whole 'mobile starbase' thing.

Knightsfyre makes an interesting point though. But of course, I'm sure you could have the technology refined in such a way you could fit to to a whatever works for your campaign.

And from the sounds of it, I'd say Galaxy is a great choice. Nice and prestigious assignment to reward your characters for a job well done. And you can have full deckplans as well, always a plus for a GM

[Dan Stack]

I've been thinking about the size of the ship as well.

"Hope and Fear" made a big deal of the small size of the Dauntless but it is difficult to tell if that is a limitation of the technology or just because it was a trap.

It does seem easier to picture one of the newer arrowhead style ships using the Slipstream drive.

I'm contemplating the affects of such a drive in a campaign. It does change quite a bit, making the galaxy a more accessible place. In a sense, it makes interstellar travel more like that of the Star Wars universe - which need not be a bad thing. It does seem an inevitable outgrowth of the advances Voyager brings back from the Delta Quadrant.

The other advantage to a Galaxy is the good starship Icarus got the snot beaten out of her a few months back (game-time) and I've left it up in the air if she can be repaired. If so, this would be the perfect opportunity to add such a drive.

The four most realistic candidates would seem to be Sovereign (sleek profile, lots of resources in case something goes wrong), Galaxy (well-known technology, also high in resources), Nebula (similar to Galaxy but has the mission pod and is more "expendable") and Intrepid (less resources than the larger ships but proven to be able to use such a drive and is very advanced).

The limitations I am considering are -

• Warm-Up Time - You just can't flick a switch and go - you need to power up the drive, during which time you cannot do much else - think of charging a capacitor for the initial jump into slipstream. (And it sounds like the old TOS warp engines when charging up! )
• Tough to navigate - Forget about winding up in the right system - you're shooting for the same sector for a trip of any distance
• High wear and tear - a ship using this will take a beating - a skilled crew can limit this, but it is unavoidable. A lot of downtime for repair. (Every three months or three thousand light years )
• Experimental - it'll be decades before this comes into widespread use. Think of the ship with this being like Enterprise NX-01.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

I'd say Sovereign is maybe a bit too 'flashy'??

If you want a big ship, go with the Galaxy If you want a small maneuverable one with less resource, go for Intrepid. You could even call it Farscape (Just kidding )

[Don Mappin]

Dan, shortly I'm putting up my TBG chapters in formatted PDF, which include the Dauntless and using the QSD in an existing Star Trek campaign. The rules are for Icon, but you could port them over easily enough.

I'll also be including some of my personal rules, including how the QSD is fueled, and the downtime between uses. Meaning, once the QSD is used it has to be "recharged" (an Engineering test, of course) and the time until its usable again is never a known certainty. (Ranges from hours to days.)

I hope to slap this stuff up in the immediate future. FYI.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Hey, that's a nice surprise to keep us happy until the CODA PG comes out

[Captain Leana Craig]

Dan
How about an Andromeda class Explorer. Its a lot more compact than a Galaxy, whilst still been a modern well equipped explorer.

Also according to its writeup, this class are often used as testbeds.

[Sea Tyger]

I'd have to go with the Nebula on this one...sure it's not flashy (but you also can use most of the Galaxy deck plans for it ), but the mission pod is perfect for the slipstream deflector and other components that can be fit in there and the ship has quite a few resources.

[qerlin]

Didn't know about this until this thread -- I like the idea of the quantum slipstream drive. I think I'm gonna use it. The initial test ship for our campaign was a Sovereign which is now missing without a trace. The next ship will be the character's Akira -class, USS Athena.

Not having watched Voyager after the awful first season, I don't know all the ins and outs, but it strikes me that if this is the creation of a stable wormhole-type artifact, based off of the warp bubble the ship creates, it would probably not be flexible, i.e. you plot your course and go and unless you shut the thing down early, you can't change course. (I'm basing the idea for our campaign on quantum entanglement.)

I would thing the range of the slipstream effect would be based on the amount of speed the warp drive was at -- at Warp 1, you go so far; at Warp 9 you go a buttload further.

Probably nowhere near 'canon', but seems to make sense to me. Also provides a few plot limitations so the crew just can't be anywhere in 5 minutes.

[Knightsfyre001]

qerlin:

Although I agree that many of the VOY episodes were of low-quality, you should definitely watch this one if you're thinking about using a QSD. At the very least, it'll give you a handle on some of the technobabble, visual effects, etc.

Remember also that there are some established Spacedock rules for QSDs... though they're vague enough to allow for narrator variations, of course.

[Cmmdr JT Wayland]

Originally posted by Captain Leana Craig
Dan
How about an Andromeda class Explorer. Its a lot more compact than a Galaxy, whilst still been a modern well equipped explorer.

Also according to its writeup, this class are often used as testbeds.

I concur with Leana, the Andromeda class would be the best class to choose, at least until I eventually design and post my Hawkins class Advanced Tactical Explorer, hopefully sometime this week.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

So Dan, did you decide what class you are going to use?