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Thread: [CODA] "Expanded Starship Operations" sourcebook

  1. #46
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    Thank you, the shakes have subsided now...will go and build some vehicles...calm...

    I wasn't trying to stick you with an electric cattle-prod...sorry it came out like that (at least to me it does now...)
    Darth Sarcastic

    "Shall I goto 'Red Alert' sir? It does mean changing the lightbulb." - Kryten, Red Dwarf

  2. #47
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    No sweat man

    I do need to get some electric discharges from time to time. That helps me working

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  3. #48
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    UPDATE!

    Muhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!

    The vehicle CONSTRUCTION rules are finished! (Well, the first draft at least) Following custom, here's the corresponding sample to help you buy swarms of Argos:
    http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_sample6.pdf
    Additional candy: the rules for pricing starships according to CODA rules (useful for rogues out there... )

    Feedback greatly appreciated as always!

    What remains to be done:
    - Combat rules for vehicles (and mass scale vehicle combat)
    - Sample spacecraft profiles
    - New professional abilities
    - Stations, starbases and vehicle forms
    The beast is now nearing 30,000+ words... Expect a sourcebook of at least 150 pages!

    The work is continuing smoothly. I do not dare anymore to announce a "finish" date, but I'm approaching the end

    (edit: added the forms in the to-do list)
    Last edited by KillerWhale; 07-07-2003 at 02:52 PM.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  4. #49
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    Hey dudes

    Did some of you have the time to take a look at the vehicle rules? What do you think of'em?

    All feedback is much appreciated

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  5. #50
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    I've been looking over the rules for a few days since finding them on the boards. Overall they seem excelent, and I am REALLY looking forward to downloading my very own copy, when it's done! :-D

    Just because it happens to be the campaign setting I am running I have a couple of wee additions to add to your list of stuff if it's not too late:

    Starbases which are built into Asteroids, which don't have manouverability but are not 'ground' bases, because ships could still dock with them due to the extremelly low gravity. I know it was only a joke but we did see one in Voyager: a Mining Colony with all the EMH mark one's in it..

    Manouvers in close proximity to Asteroid fields. Ok this one would have more of a Starwars vibe, but then I am also thinking of the Epsiode with the Pegasus when the Enterprise had to fly into a cavern inside an asteroid. Suggestions would be:

    Landing on an unstable asteroid
    Flying through an asteroid Belt
    Flying through a fissue in an asteroid
    Explosions on Asteroids and a damage table (while that is what deflectors are for, you shields may be down and or a chunk the size of your ship is going to do some damage!)

    I also agree that the docking pylon is confusing because most Starfleet Starbases of any appreciable size seem to be able to dock whole Starships inside them. I'm also wondering if Lieutenant Geordie La Forge's piloting skills were as good as Tom Paris's as he managed to fly a Galaxy class through a Spacedock's doors, much line Paris can get the Delta Flyer out of their shuttle bay! ;-)

    Many thanks for your excelent book.
    Ta Muchly

  6. #51
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    I go away for a while and I return to find some very nice stuff. Great work KW. I will show the Vehicle rules to my other GM. Keep up the good work.
    Evil is Good. Good is Evil.
    Beware of Dark Teddy, Dark Lord of the Fuzz.

  7. #52
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    KW-

    Fantastique....either I've just complimented your work or I've insulted your mother ( I intended the first and apologize if I did the second ). French isn't my native language and even though I'm a native New Yorker (born and raised) I barely speak English...Klingon on the other hand seems to work in ol' NYC.

    Anyways I've also been reading your stuff since you first started posting it and its great stuff. I do have one or two questions about this new sample tho... If I wanted a size 6 vehicle...wouldn't that be a starship? I mean repair facilities and the like are covered in your starbase material (another mind blower), but what vehicle (Argo-esque) would be a size 6? That's my confusion of the day.

    Otherwise, keep up the good work and I'll try not to speak French anymore...sounds like a fair deal to me.
    Darth Sarcastic

    "Shall I goto 'Red Alert' sir? It does mean changing the lightbulb." - Kryten, Red Dwarf

  8. #53
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    Hey dudes!

    Thanks for the very nice - and thought-provoking feedback Don't worry, Darth, you didn't insult my mother

    Let me address each point in turn:

    Starbases which are built into Asteroids, which don't have manouverability but are not 'ground' bases, because ships could still dock with them due to the extremelly low gravity.
    I should cite them; they're a classical in SF. As for rules, I would tend to consider them as "static" - they can be approached by any starship but cannot move on their own.

    Landing on an unstable asteroid
    That would cover the larger subject of "landing on unstable ground". I should develop the Land maneuver in order to introduce some sample TN penalties for unstable grounds. Good point!

    Flying through an asteroid Belt
    I would say this is already covered in the "Asteroid fields" part of Expanded Operations... Or did you have something more precise in mind?

    Flying through a fissue in an asteroid
    Hah, the classical stunt Good point, I should tell a thing or two about this.

    Explosions on Asteroids and a damage table
    Hm, this is not developed as such but the info for calculating collision damage is there... Maybe I should clarify this.

    In the Asteroid fields chapter:

    "HELM PENALTY: Every helm roll or maneuver suffers this penalty while in the field. If a Failure happens on any helm roll, the ship suffers a minor collision with one of the asteroids (randomly determined) at Point Blank range. For a Complete Failure, a major collision takes place; for a Catastrophic Failure, a full collision occurs."

    It's stated also that "An asteroid has as much structure as 5 times its Size, and a protection equal to 5. "

    Collision damage depending on the type can be found in Table 2.8.

    Would that answer the question?

    I also agree that the docking pylon is confusing because most Starfleet Starbases of any appreciable size seem to be able to dock whole Starships inside them.
    Totally. These have been renamed in recent versions as "Docking pylons/berths". For instance, a Spacedock-type stations does have docking berths, but ruleswise, they work the same way as, for example, DS9's pylons.

    I mean repair facilities and the like are covered in your starbase material (another mind blower), but what vehicle (Argo-esque) would be a size 6?
    :blush: Thanks for the compliments

    I intentionally expanded the definition of vehicles, in order to incorporate ground vehicles like the ones found in the DWS. Vehicles are limited to one type of environment - making them essentially ground-based, or atmosphere-limited. I know that some people don't like the idea of GVs in Trek - no problem, these folks can just ignore all bigger vehicles and limit themselves to recon and auxiliary vehicles.

    To answer precisely your question - in times of peace, I mainly see size 6 vehicles as big transports, ferries, cargoes, agricultural auxiliary vehicles and such. Of course, the need for these is greatly limited in societies using transporters, but I'm willing to bet that the Kazon, for example, have size 6 civilian transports.

    In times of war, I can imagine size 6 juggernauts.

    However, I should emphasize that in my humble opinion and view, advanced starfaring civilizations very seldom rely on vehicles. Some precise conditions might require the use of the like of the Argo, but when you have a starship atmospheric capability or access to transporters, you don't so much need the small and highly specialized craft that vehicles are.

    So Size 6 vehicles are possible, for people who want to build ground dreadnought tanks, but if they exist in your campaign, they are still rare and seldom used.

    I hope this answers all

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  9. #54
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    Whoaw, I'm really impressed.
    Guess there is really alot of work and enthusiasm in this great work.
    Can't wait for it....
    As I saw your pagecount is growing steadily. How many pages will the final book have? 100, 150 or even more....

  10. #55
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    KW-

    Didn't think of ferries. I keep forgetting that Star Trek is not always amongst the stars. Besides, I think the SF Marines need an APC (like from ALIENS)...just because.
    Darth Sarcastic

    "Shall I goto 'Red Alert' sir? It does mean changing the lightbulb." - Kryten, Red Dwarf

  11. #56
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    Good answers (mucho evil grins) - I think I must have missed your asteroid fields section while looking at other goodies, my bad!

    I guess Pylons do cover a multitude of sins. And I guess the rest is just semantics. One oddity though that I have though about is the open cage style berths we have seen in the films. The actual 'station' it's self is only a fraction of the size of the whole structure. So technically I would class these as 'pylons' which were larger than the structure. So in effect this means that they accomodate a vehicle which is larger than the structures size. The only reason I would not call them large stations is because you can't fit all the objects in you want as there is just space! perhaps some sort of rule by way of saying that if you want a pylon(s) to support vessels lager than the station you gain a +1 size for every 5 structure points you spend - reducing it to a space easter egg ;-) Something like that?? Ypu'd have to fiddle with the numbers to make it work.. maybe I am flogging a dead horse and i should move on..

    With regards to size 6 vehicles etc - I think that's an excelent idea because Trek is an exotic place with a huge variety of things.

    One example of a size 9-10 ground vehicle was the city sized hospital ship seen in Voyager. All it is able to do is hover there (apparently) There was also a floating city as seen in TOS.. So there's actually scope for much larger 'ground based' or lower atmosphere objects too. You also have structures such as the Suliban helix which existed in a gas giants atmosphere...

    I also like the concept as it means you have tools to make up 'our' level of technology, such as cruise liners, petrol tankers etc (some of those could be nearly size 7!) for time travel missions. At the end of the day the system is pretty quick and dirty so it's easy to mock them all up. Beyond size 6 you basically need to reinforce the structure or as in the STTNG technical manual it will 'sag under it's own weight' but that's fairly easy to compensate for as long as it's fairly static and your SIF is online.. Perhaps with a 'sag' effect structural problem if the object tries to move (taking damage unless it meets a specific target number etc) - which could be also useful for said Galaxy class example - as it's not intended to be atmosphere capable...

    In case it isn't implied with my nit picking (sorry) but the book you're making looks amazing and you've went a long way to making a rather vague system excelent.

    One more suggestion, though it's rather a nasty one is that of minimum dammage and maximum dammage in space combat.

    In the Decipher rules there isn't a way of disalowing damage below a certain point (there was in the LUG Trek version) - for example the oft quoted X ray lazers being unable to penetrate a galaxy Class' sheilds.. Now When you said about making hand weapons do a tenth damage I thought that was pretty realistic, but I hit a brick wall on the way the system works. For example you have an ace Starship tactical officer shooting at a shuttle - a shuttle is small with relativelly low powered shields, so it can make sense (especially if you bring in Isomagnetic disintergrators or tetrion Pule Launchers into the equasion) - the maximum damage it can do is 2 points (16 \10 = 1.6 rounded up) so you plug away and get ten hits on the shuttle (or less if you make raises) and oh dear you are in a spiraling shuttle of death. Ok - then you have the same guy firing at a BOP or Voyager.. so we are saying he can take out a Starships sheilds in 10 hits ? See where I am coming from. Ok fair enough one hit from the starship will reduce him to a few hundred meter crater, but the point is he CAN do it! One rough rule would be that a beam weapon cannot damage a shield if it's Penetration is 15 points lower than it's Protection. Which means most shuttles would be affected and most starships would not (though TOS and Enterprise ships are left out in the cold, but then generally they do not get close enough to atmospheres, with the exception of the BOP)? Something like that? Food for thought...
    Ta Muchly

  12. #57
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    Well, Tobian, thanks for your much excellent feedback and compliments You gave me much food for thought.

    As for the docking pylons/berths, nothing prevents them from being inside a station, neither from combining... In the case of a Spacedock or drydock, for example, they are indeed inside the station.
    However I don't see how a station could accomodate a larger ship than itself; because of relativistic effects, in essence it would be the station docked to the ship...

    I've been wondering about the space hospital too. Finally I would see it more as a special kind of station; it's fixed, but its sheer size makes it more of a station than a vehicle, imho.

    Thanks for the vehicle feedback

    As for the damage done to ships, that's an excellent point. I'm thinking of a way to correlate the shield Protection versus damage...

    Thanks again!

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  13. #58
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    Why do I have the horrible feeling I just delayed the books release, while you cram more goodies in there LOL - Rats! Sorry all

    I take your point about the hospital ship, it is really a station of sorts, but then that's all semantics since a station is just a big ship anway! I am also thinking of another down side to any atmospheric based station.. it's not in orbit.. so if you take out it's power plant - it drops. Now while damage rules for crashing is pretty much not needed as it basically is the same as Starships.. but perhaps such a station should have an emergency backup. Now while yes most starships have such things and it's more or less covered by a systems relieability - the ammount of redundancy in a system. Perhaps another trait?

    I think I knew i was on to a loosing argument about the pylons. A station has to be at least as large as the station. Even the extremelly odd Utopia Planitia facility is JUST bigger than the enterprise when it expands it's arms. I guess that can be factored in to the rules. If a station wants to accomodate a vessel in the same size category as it's self it will just not have very many structure points to play with to put into anything else except it's berths and or pylons!

    One last (sorry) idea I had was the problem of warp tugs. We know they exist, they have been seen. The way the rules (at current) is a ship can tow something 1 size less than it, but obviously tubs are WAY smallet, so perhaps there can be a way to have mutltiple arrays or something to cover it? Also a manouver for breaking out of a Tractor beam would be good.. I am thinking of the Borg here! ;-)
    Ta Muchly

  14. #59
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    Don't worry about delaying the release, I'm working on and off at the book because of regular work

    The idea for building stations in "atmospheres" should be expanded, yes. While I think the power system's reliability, ruleswise, already accounts for redundancies, as with starships, there's something to be said for atmospheric stations. These should need orbital correctors, reside in High Atmosphere, and the Flaw would be that their orbits would decay much faster than normal (since they're close to the surface). An interesting idea!

    As for stations: the one you're looking for is Earth Station McKinley. I would say it's the same size as the Enterprise...

    Warp tugs: didn't think of that. Could you point me to the ep where we see them?

    Tractor beams: Ways to break out are accounted for in the "Tractor Beam Locks" chapter:

    "Reasonable captains, when locked by tractor beams, will allow their ships to be boarded. Some other, however, are desperate to escape and are willing to do anything. A locked tractor beam can be disrupted with a feedback pulse, a plasma surge, an optronic pulse, a particle beam or a polaron beam along the tractor beam. Doing so requires inflicting one damage point to the operations system and a successful System Operations (Operations) test, with a TN of 25. This can be only attempted once. The officer can sacrifice its navigational deflector to lower the TN of this test to 15.
    Escaping a tractor beam can also be achieved through an extraordinary success at any helm maneuver.
    "

    So implictly, you have two ways:
    - succeed amazingly well at a Helm maneuver
    - Use the Target System / Lock On System / "Watch and Learn" maneuvers - and be good at it.

    Would that answer?

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Expanded Spacecraft Operations, a 100+ page sourcebook for CODA Trek

  15. #60
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    KW-

    I wouldn't worry about delaying the initial release. After you've posted the finished product take a break and then do what all the other gaming companies do...print erratta...errata..eratta...erata........I'd better stop now.
    Darth Sarcastic

    "Shall I goto 'Red Alert' sir? It does mean changing the lightbulb." - Kryten, Red Dwarf

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