Starships thingummies
Don: first off, stellar work on this one, though I notice Decipher managed to screw up your authoring credit on yet another book; they're one for three so far...
Second, I must say I'm annoyed by who/what ever is responsible for the layout snafus in the starship listings. Most are just fine, but some writeups look like they randomly sorted the entries. Someone needs to hunt down that problem and shoot it now, before it gets worse.
Thirdly, I've got some Prototype edge questions. I was trying to figure out how it works from comparing the wording with how it is used in the ship writeups, and some of it just does not make sense.
Several ships have Prototype (+1 Missile) to increase their missile offensive value enough to reach the next penetration category, but according to Table 1.25 this is not possible.
How does Prototyping a weapon work? Is +/-1 a shift up/down one category on either Table 1.17 or 1.18, or does it directly change the offensive value (a 24 into a 25/23, for example)? The Constitution refit has Prototype (+1 Missile), but if the latter case is true, this only increases the Offensive Value to 9, not enough to boost it to 4/4/4/4/4 penetration. The Nova class has Prototype (-3 Beam), but if the former case is true its penetration should be lowered to 3/3/2/0/0 (leaving aside entirely the fact that Table 1.25 only allows a -1 beam Offensive Value shift). Either way one of the Starfleet ships has to be wrong.
If I'm reading your explanation of Snake's example right, then Prototyping a system is stepping up/down on the appropriate table. If so, how does one explain the Nebula w/ Tactical Pod's Prototype (+1 Sensor) giving it a sensor bonus of +5? One step up on table 1.7 from Class 4 sensors is Class 4a, which has the same set of bonuses; you'd need Prototype (+2 Sensors) to reach a bonus of +5. Similarly, the Sovereign class has Prototype (+1 Warp reliability), giving its LF-44 engines a D reliability (normally C). But one step up Table 1.11 is the LF-45, also reliability C, and one step up Table 1.4 from reliability C is reliability CC. So how does the Sovereign get a D reliability?
Is Prototype just not well explained in the book, did someone make a lot of errors in utilizing it to create ships, or am I just slow?
On a closing note, I did notice that someone slipped in mention of Commodore Dan Stack, and the Galaxy-class USS Venture as well. Nice to see the forums becoming part of the game.
-Chris Landmark
"Was entstanden ist, das muss vergehen. Was vergangen, auferstehn." -Klopstock & Mahler
"Only liberals really think. Only liberals are intellectual. Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows." How much viciousness lay concealed in that word! Odrade thought. How much secret ego demanding to feel superior. - Heretics of Dune