[CODA] "Expanded Starship Operations" sourcebook

[Scott M. Macek]

One of the station class names from FASA that I particularly liked, even moreso once Deep Space Nine started using the same metaphor, was the Alamo class.

[KillerWhale]

Thanks dudes for the station names! I'll use the "location with number" type, I like the idea of having a different convention than for starships. Alamo? I like it I'll use it somewhere if I can.

(Here, Mr. Darth Sarcastic, a nice picture of the Vulcan Love Slave. Now, isn't it nice to be a good pupil? )

Tobian: Ah... I won't keep my writeup in ESO. I said to myself I wouldn't start rewriting "game-canon" material... As my goal is to promote the game and give material to the fans, not rewrite it But I'll offer it as a "freebie"

[KillerWhale]

Some civilian or semi-Starfleet vessels to keep you waiting...

http://rpg.lionelkw.com/eso_prof3.pdf

[Tobian]

Very nice writeups. it's always good to see explanations of why what is where on what ship wrapped up in a description.

I'm curious to know where you got the Ju'day name for the raider class, as used by Chakotay? I've not seen it used anywhere before?

Actually, in the writeup it mentions the stresses placed on the spaceframe when towing much larger ships (Up to Size 7 if I did my calculations right) Are there any target number modifiers for the 'lock on tractor beam' manouver for the size of the vessel? Or is there no such manouver Sorry to bug you again, I don't mean it it's all good stuff!

[Tobian]

While I remember to ask BTW - is there a list of vesels you will be covering in your writeups? Are you just going to be covering Starfleet ships or will you be doing stuff such as DS9 and even maybe exotic ships like the Krenim temporal incursion ship (which would need custom shields etc)?

[KillerWhale]

Thanks for your appreciation

The Ju'day class name is canon, it comes from the Voy ep where Maquis crew had repressed memories (I don't recall the name of the ep... )

Locking a beam is a matter of shield Protection rather than Size, as the ops system automatically locks the beam on the target. The target, however, can evade. See the Tractor Hold and Tractor Lock maneuvers, p.53

I don't have a list of the ships I'll be doing, as I have some I absolutely want to do and some others that I remember when I stumble upon them and think: "Oh, yeah, this one could be fun to do too "

However, here are the ones written so far in the last chapter:

STARFLEET
Ascendant-class light explorer
Centaur-class frigate
Constellation-class cruiser
Merced-class light escort
Norway-class destroyer
Olympic-class medical ship
Peregrine-class fighter
UFP
Atlas-class warp tug
Ju'day class courier

I'll probably try my hand at the Sydney, the New Orleans and the Soyuz and some other civilian ships. I'll also do some other alien ships, but not as much as Starfleet ones.

As for stations, I intend to cover drydocks, spacedocks, starbases and com stations for Starfleet. DS9-type and defense perimeters for Cardassians. Tactical platforms for Klingons.

I'll be doing the air tram and the Argo for vehicles, but there won't be a lot of'em in ESO.

That's a very rough estimate.

As writing ships is a repetitive task, I'll probably try to do something else as a break, like the starship profile sheets

[Tobian]

RE: your last comment

WOOHOO

Well sounds like a good list and yes the orbital weapons platforms and mars defence perimiter stations will be very handy too!

[Cmdr Powers]

Just a question- would you say that, except for more profiles, that the eos is pretty much done? Still working on the preface and cover material?

Its looking great so far, I just wanted to know how much further we had to go.

[KillerWhale]

Yup, the main content is pretty much finished - you have it all in the chapters put online (minus the errata of course). The cover art will be very simple (I don't want to mimick Decipher's as the graphical identity is a trademark) and the preface will be quite short (mainly, it explains what the book is done for and thanks everyone who helped).

What remains to be done is only the profiles and the sheets.

[Tobian]

Will you be covering any other aliens starships, such as the Scimitar and Norexan classes, and maybe a take on Tholian starships? Or are you trying to second guess Decipher and publish thing they aren't likelly to publish in future material?

I know allot of the members of this forum have done excelent writeups of some of the ships, but I do like a nice hard copy as i don't cary my computer to the gaming table (6 miles away!)

As a suggestion, if you had a blank web PDF people could download it - add a starship, save it (if they have Acrobat PRO) and upload it to the board for people to use. Even if they don't have the pro version, I think you can output the data and send it to someone who does, or maybe you, if you can be bothered to do all the screening yourself That way all my handouts will be a nice consistent style!

Or is that what you're already thinking of?

[KillerWhale]

Yup, I'll be doing the Scimitar Some others I might try, like the Tholians, but I'd prefer do classes, since they're more widespread than "individual" or very rare ships.

ESO will be released as a PDF so anybody will be free to edit the profiles (although they'll have to be careful of commercial font licenses). I can't however call for submissions on ships... I've already got too much on my hands (like the btvs-rpg.net submissions that are wayyyy overdue) and not enough time

[Tobian]

Thought so, but then that's what online communities are for !

i see your point about commercial fonts, but then if you convert all 'graphic' fonts to vectors and stick to helvetica/arial/verdana for the main body font you can't really go wrong!

I'm definatelly looking forward to it all now!

[KillerWhale]

Huh, converting it all to vectors would be a hell of a work

I don't mind if people want to decompile my PDFs and put their own stats in the blanks, I'd be honored (I'd like to be credited of course )

I'm working on the starship sheet now. I hope I'll be able to post something this evening.

[KillerWhale]

Okay, as promised here is the starship sheet for ESO.

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

The okudagrams might seem weird on screen but it should print fine nonetheless. Tell me however if you have problems.

I hope you like it Yes, it's quite crowded in here, but all you need is on the sheet

[Tobian]

If you have Adobe Illustrator (9 and 10 do this, possibly earlier) You can just go to 'Type>Create outlines' on any selected text and it will convert it to vectors in seconds. Obviously the is only a help if you have illustrator

You could just lay your page out in Pagemaker - export to EPS, open in Illustrator- vectorise it - then re embed that as an 'image' in the background layer (or anywhere really).

I just meant for graphical types of fonts rather than 'typing' - obviously that would be silly and very uneficient in the PDF (and big in file size!)