[CODA] "Expanded Starship Operations" sourcebook

[Karg]

Very, Very Cool! Can't wait till your finished


Great Work

[Tobian]

The layout is definatelly much improved - well done

However I have a few nits - sorry not all nits, some suggestions and additions too ;-)

Firstly - why is the Isolytic subspace weapon under beam weapons? I know it's just semantics, but it looked like a torpedo to me? Also another suggestion for a weapon type would be a coherent neutron beam, such as the Devore Imperium used. (which had excelent penetration of shield - they boasted it could cut through Voyagers shields)

Another couple of technobabbalon particles for your list (Table 1.3) - Verterons, Neutrons and Chronitons; all of which various ships have had weaknesses too - Verterons especially seem to be able to damage a ships systems.

The Phasing cloak seems to have dissapeared, however I might suggest you have a table to determine what happens if it fails.. 1-2 - materialises where it is (inside an asteroid etc) 3-4 - stays out of phaser untill repaired - 5-6 - Fractures subspace - parts of the ship drift in and out of phase (or people!)

Other than that I can't find much more (without going through with a fine tooth comb ) and I am pleased at all the inclusions and changes you've made and it's shaping up to be an excelent addition!

[IceGiant]

WOW!!!

This is simply amazing!! I have a quick question about metaphasic shields. In the episode the doctor mounted them on his shuttle. I was thus wondering why the limitation of size 6 for ships to instsall it?

[Tobian]

Well to be honest I had wondered that, because I also don't recall Beverly Crusher spending 57 hours in engineering installing the generator

Perhaps what you could do is have it as a manouver also - so you can alter (jury rig) your shields to do that, but you have to make reliability rolls every so often.. or you install the generator and you don't ??

Perhaps metaphasic shields should also have low level immunities - for example Dr. Ragar's shuttle wasn't affected at all by solar radiation to a certain level?

Also - One thing that they seem to have missed out on the Delta flyer was that it was installed with Multispatial Unimatrix shield generator, based on the multispatial shield designs they made for that probe, hence, for it's size it was able to take quite alot of damage, any suggestions?

[KillerWhale]

Thank you very much everyone!!

And thank you for taking so much time reviewing it all (needless to say, I intend to credit everyone who helped test things).

@ Tobian:

- Well, the isolytic weapon is classified as a beam weapon in Spacedock so I decided to follow suit... My reasoning is that the subspace tear truly acts as a beam - it doesn't matter what causes it; the tear moving towards the target ship more acts like a beam than a warhead. IMHO at least.

- Thanks for the additions of Table 1.3

- I'm not so sure about the phase cloak - I'd say it's up to the Narrator to decide what happens to a ship whose cloak fails... Depends too much on the situation.

@ Tobian and IceGiant:

- Well, my bad for the size limitation - I intended MAX. size 6 and not MIN. For the alteration and boosting of shields, don't worry, there's plenty of that in chapter 2 (Spatial Operations and Tactics): a lot of tricks using the nav deflector will allow you to push your shields nicely.

- For the Delta Flyer, I don't have my copy of Starships here so I yet have to see how Don did it. I will follow his lead: my intent is to "fit" in the gray or blank areas of the system, not changing a thing to it - I won't rewrite any designs already in the NG or Starships. If the flyer isn't there, well sure, I'll include some mini-photonic missiles and multispatial shields

Thanks again all for your comments and help!

[Tobian]

Hmm Well I defined it like that because that is how it appeared in the film. I have a copy of Spacedock dotting arround here somewhere but I hadn't refered to it when I made that comment. Most non canon sources refer to it as a warhead, but then each to his own

The Starships book does indeed have the Flyer, but then I see no reason why you can't put your own spin on ships which were defined with generic systems - to make them more like thy were described in the show. At the end of the day all ships are built alike, but none of them stay that way!

With regards to the Phasecloak - you could always just describe what COULD happen and leave the rest to the GM. I think i agree that it's more of a story ark event rather than a lookup table.

Anyhoo definatelly looking Forward to it now, lets not keep you too much with semantics

[KillerWhale]

I could finally look into Starship's Delta Flyer specs: it does include the photonic missiles and the shields as prototype, so I don't think I need adding anything, it seems fine by me

My aim with ESO is to build upon the already existing rules and profiles, in order to expand them - not to replace some material. That's very important for me because IMHO, the STRPG line is Decipher - and its team's - property and creation. I consider it "canon" if you like I don't want to change it, just develop the material as a sourcebook totally complementary to the rules; so as to have a whole that is coherent (and incidentally, promoting the other products of the line). That's my reasoning anyway

Thanks for your feeback, very interesting as always!

[qerlin]

Well, we gave the fleet-scale combat rules a real working out Saturday. They held up well, but like most fleet/mass combat rules, they're a little unweildy at times -- mostly in the "which ship got slagged' category. The individual ship charts is fine for small fleet actions -- a ship or two -- but when you're dealing with over, say, six ships or so, the chart would suggest every ship is winning decisively; in other words, with more than a size 20, everyone's cooking along, no matter how the fleet does, strength-wise.

However, I found it about on par with the LOTR battles rules, which also have some troubles once the numbers get REALLY big. These are RPGs, granted, not tac/strat sims, so I just bend the rules whenever they start to get clunky or out of step with what seems to be happening. Suggestion for those doing BIG battles -- say a dozen or more ships/fleet: raise the individual ship fate numbers as appropriate (i.e. we have fleets with 150-200 sizes, x5 on the chart to get a better idea of how ships are faring.)

Just an observation,'course. All rules systems get unweildy outside of the scale they were written for.

[KillerWhale]

Thanks a lot for the feedback qerlin - I'm glad to hear the testing went well Thanks for the comparison with LotR's global scale rules; that's a high compliment for me as I was trying to do as good.

You rise some very interesting points that I'll try to fix - the layout of this part still has to be done. Thanks again!

[KillerWhale]

Here goes the second chapter with the layout! I hope you like it

http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_ch2.pdf

I'm now working on the layout of the third big chapter, Rules of Engagement, with all the new maneuvers and fleet combat rules.

Enjoy!

[Tobian]

Very nice! I'm just picking my way arround it now to see if i can offer any constructive criticism, but I am not getting that much I can put my finger on!

I liked your asteroid size table - especially beause the most common roll on 2d6 is 6-7, so it means only rolling high or low is bad, which is less common.

The atmosphere rules are very good, but I think there needs to be some sort of linear progression chart to show how you proceed into an atmosphere.. E.g.

Point blank range to planet
High atmosphere
Low atmosphere
Landed

and then one illustrating cashing - with all the formulas and systems laid out where it's all easy to find. I just tend to find something simple and laid out in the form of a flow diagram helps to do it without having to read the entire text.. Something akin to the damage tracks for shields.

Or is all that being done in another chapter/table section?

[KillerWhale]

Thanks Tobian for being so quick as usual

I liked your asteroid size table - especially beause the most common roll on 2d6 is 6-7, so it means only rolling high or low is bad, which is less common.

I'm glad you notice that! That was exactly the idea

For the summing of tables and all, I totally agree, and I've always intended to do... something about it.
Either:
- Summing everything up in a separate booklet like the one that came with the Narrator's Screen
- Cram the corresponding tables into the starship/station/vehicle blank profiles if space allows
- Add in the book's appendices some reference sheets, like my ops sheet ( http://www.lionelkw.com/kw_starship_ops_darker.pdf ), summing up all the new material for quick reference.

I'm mainly thinking of doing both 2 and 3.

[Tobian]

I definatelly think a handout of some form, which goes allong side the *character sheet* of the ship is a really good idea. that way you print out one 'book' for youself, and a number of the handouts so players can use them for reference material (and you can use it yourself too!)

A good Starships character sheet is also something I could really use! - it'd be handy if it also had an extra colum so you can total up the points spent on stuff - to make it easier to work out how much you have left, and keep easy tabs for when you want to do an upgrade etc.

[KillerWhale]

qerlin: Following your remarks I perused the fleet combat rules again... I had intended the system to be able to run from small engagements to massive fights (30+ ships on each side). I don't know if it succeeds though - apparently not

The point of Table 3.11 is to check the fate of the players' ship and the wing commander's... And, maybe, one ship the players have a special interest in. It shouldn't be applied to each and every ship in the wing. Otherwise, of course, one wing can blow another one to pieces if the strength is a bit higher... because of the loophole of ships exerting extraordinary victories having the opposite wing losing strength. So "Tragedy" and "Extraordinary victory" no longer mean a loss/gain of Strength. I hope this fixes the problem.

[KillerWhale]

Well guys, here's the third big chapter of the book, Rules of Engagement. Dozens of new maneuvers, fleet combat, vehicle combat, maneuver patterns... I hope you like it Comments welcome as usual!

http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_ch3.pdf