Pulse trait upgrade Vs. enhanced system (beam wepaons)

[Snake_Plissken]

I don't know if that was mentionned elsewhere but it just occured to me that you'd be better off by buying the enhanced system (beam weapons) edge than the pulse trait upgrade- both cost the same (5 pts of space)- but the pulse trait gives a +1 at the shortest range yet a -1 penalty at the two other ranges, while the enhanced system (weapons) edge gives a +1 bonus at any chosen range without penalizing the other range brackets.

For instance, if you have phasers at 4/4/4/0/0 and you add the pulse trait you end up with phasers at 5/3/3/0/0. If you use the enhanced system (beam) instead you end up with a penetration value of 5/4/4/0/0.

[ImperialOne]

I noticed this in my examination of things. In addition, Pulse eliminates the versatility of phasers (i.e. set to cut or stun in a wide-beam area... I know it doesn't explicitly say this in the Starships book, but it was so stated in Spacedock AND Don proferred the same opinion on this board).
In order to make the Pulse upgrade more palatable, I told my players that pulse weapons also have a chance of penetrating through shields to cause damage directly (roll of 10, 11, or 12 on 2d6 with each hit). A chance to negate the threshold value (its about 1 in 10) seemed fair to me.

Charles

[Snake_Plissken]

, I told my players that pulse weapons also have a chance of penetrating through shields to cause damage directly (roll of 10, 11, or 12 on 2d6 with each hit). A chance to negate the threshold value (its about 1 in 10) seemed fair to me.

That's a pretty good take on the issue, I really like it.

[IKI]

I had the same problem you guys had, so I changed the Trait a litlle bit.
Pulse Weapon Trait:
-The pulse trait gives a +2 at the shortest range yet a -1 penalty at the two other ranges.
- The Feedback Pulse of the Borg does not work on a weapon with the pulse weapon trait(The ship was designed to fight the Borg).

[Phantom]

I don't have the Starships book, so could someone please tell me what the difference is between having a ship with the pulse upgrade and actually strapping on the Type 1 Pulse Phasers from the NG? The upgrade option sounds like a "dunsel" piece of kit, if you ask me.

[Snake_Plissken]

I don't have the Starships book, so could someone please tell me what the difference is between having a ship with the pulse upgrade and actually strapping on the Type 1 Pulse Phasers from the NG? The upgrade option sounds like a "dunsel" piece of kit, if you ask me.

what happens is that in Starship you don't have pulse phasers in the phaser table- instead you have to purchase the 'pulse upgrade' trait at a cost of 5 space points. That trait gives you +1 penetration at pt-blank range but a -1 penetration at close and medium range. So for instance if you have phaser penetration at 4/4/4/0/0 and you purchase the pulse trait, your phaser penetration then becomes 5/3/3/0/0.

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Snake_Plissken
what happens is that in Starship you don't have pulse phasers in the phaser table- instead you have to purchase the 'pulse upgrade' trait at a cost of 5 space points. That trait gives you +1 penetration at pt-blank range but a -1 penetration at close and medium range. So for instance if you have phaser penetration at 4/4/4/0/0 and you purchase the pulse trait, your phaser penetration then becomes 5/3/3/0/0.

Ok, that is the silliest idea I have seen. Why is it Dec likes to blow away rules they have already set down? First the age chart and now this. They're going to need a book in itself for all the rules changes they have (are) instituted. Brother!

[Snake_Plissken]

Ok, that is the silliest idea I have seen

well as you can see just by looking at the other posts in this thread the soundness of the Starship pulse concept is put into question. On the other hand its very easy to come up with better alternatives, as you've seen. And that's one of the greatest arguments for the CODA starship system- it is very easily adaptable.

Now what I love with Starship is how EVERY time I pick it up I discover a new typo/mistake/contradiction. Wow and I paid 55$ (CAN of course) for that. Anyways, I just discovered that there are no Romulan disruptors for ships below size 4, and none for those below size 5 in the TNG era. Yet the Theta-class (whose author can't make the difference between the Romulan scoutship and the Romulan shuttle from DS9) is a size-3 ship, with disruptors that are only supposed to fit size-5 ships.

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Snake_Plissken
well as you can see just by looking at the other posts in this thread the soundness of the Starship pulse concept is put into question. On the other hand its very easy to come up with better alternatives, as you've seen. And that's one of the greatest arguments for the CODA starship system- it is very easily adaptable.

Now what I love with Starship is how EVERY time I pick it up I discover a new typo/mistake/contradiction. Wow and I paid 55$ (CAN of course) for that. Anyways, I just discovered that there are no Romulan disruptors for ships below size 4, and none for those below size 5 in the TNG era. Yet the Theta-class (whose author can't make the difference between the Romulan scoutship and the Romulan shuttle from DS9) is a size-3 ship, with disruptors that are only supposed to fit size-5 ships.

1) That's all well and good, but if you're like me you like to use the "official" rules for a game. I know rules change... OVER YEARS not months! Man, and I thought GW was bad for rules changes.

2) Yeah, I've noticed that. I think Dec's proof readers should actually "read" the work and not let Spell Checker and Grammatik do their work.

[JonA]

One I noticed was the new Size table.

Check out the length ranges between size 9 and 10. They overlap.

Easy to correct I know but Decipher proof reading does leave a lot to be desired.

[Snake_Plissken]

Decipher doesn't care- they think that proof-reading is a waste of time and they know that a sizeable chunk of their market will still dish out the money to buy their overpriced (there I said it) books, regardless of how sucky (yet again, Mr Plissken remains very polite) the proof-reading is.

If it weren't for someone getting me killer prices on the stuff I'd turn my back on the line.

[David Riggen]

C'mon Guys, lets not down on Decipher too much. I mean really, don't forget that if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have new Star Trek RPG products coming out Star Trek RPG would be dead. I mean no disrespect to ICON, because the ICON system is a great system. It's just we wouldn't have any new RPG products for Trek. Hey everybody makes mistakes, not one of us is perfect, if somebody is just let me know and I will revise my last statement. you know you people sure complain alot sometimes without anything to back it up with. I think Decipher is doing a fine job if you ask me. Sure their products aren't perfect, and they might be a little pricy, but please give them a break they do the best they can because I'm sure they have tight deadlines to fullfill so they may not get to all of the errors.

And JonA, you are completely wrong about the error that you think you saw on the size charts in the Starships book. I looked at the book myself and in the Narrator's book ,and the length ranges look fine to me, I don't know where you got that idea from. I'm sorry I don't mean to be angry here but I don't think you guys should be picking on the guys at Decipher. Gosh I'm so angry right now i don't know what to say anymore except maybe that it probably takes alot of time and energy and a whole lot of creativity to come up with with a great gaming system that is CODA and products for the system. I also think CODA is one of the more realistic games I've ever played also. Well that's all I'm going to say right now

[Phantom]

Yes. But, editing errors in a book that I have paid $40-50 for certainly brings up feelings of Buyer's Remorse in me. They expect us to pay top dollar and don't take the time to make sure all the charts are in order, sentences make sense and that everything is spelled correctly. Thankfully for Dec it isn't just them.

[Snake_Plissken]

As Phantom said, the quality control issue at DEC is inexcusable. Plus they're adding insult to injury by asking for a premium price. I don't have a problem with paying even 60$ (CAN) for a book if the quality's there. Again, the first part of Starship is excellent but it falls apart in the ship description part of the book. I feel like I've really been had now because EVERY time I open the thing I discover a new typo/mistake/contradiction of some sort. I really regret now praising it too fast. Phantom wasn't sold on it and many times I tried to turn him around but now I feel like telling him: get it only if you can find it dirt-cheap or used at 15$ or something. The best part was when Phantom was looking for a specific Romulan system in Starship and I told him there wasn't any but that if you bent the rules a little you could make such a system- only to be told by some DEC guy that you couldn't do it because "it wasn't in the rules". There I was doing a sales pitch and that dude torpedoed it. Good going.

I discovered that a lot of the stats have become points of contention as well (although me personally I was rather pleased with the stats overall, as they were a vast improvement over the doppy SOM). Just the reaction at Sea Tyger's modifications to the Klingon ships told me a lot. How hard would it have been to send a couple of NDAs and have a few people have a look at it before publication? 90% of the mistakes could have been ironed out after 2-3 readings of the thing and a few tries at building a ship.

And also I don't dig that "we should support the game otherwise we won't have a ST RPG anymore" argument. That's exactly what DEC wants to hear- "hey don't bother playtesting the thing the suckers'll be it anyways cuz it says ""Star Trek"" on the cover".

[David Riggen]

Look, I'm not saying the game doesn't have its problems; and it does have some growing pains to get through. But with time and reason it will get fixed. After all if you're the narrator aren't you allowed the freedom to change stats to suit your needs, so if you think a starship is under powered for whatever reason than change it.. it's your game. And i have no idea what was said to Sea Tyger so I can't comment about that.

I also understand how expensive the books are, and I know you guys up in Canada have to pay more for the books than I do so I understand where you are comming from. And I understand your gripes, I DO.

What I was angry about was I thought you guys were personally attacking the people at Decipher. I'm sorry if I misread it, but that's what I thought. You can call Decipher any explitives you want, its an inadimate enitity it's just a company, but when you start saying that they meaning the editors and writers purposly leave mistakes in the book and hurt the fans is complete hog wash. Why would they do that? If that's what they wanted to do from the first place we would have a crappy product to beguin with. All i am saying is go after the company if you like, but don't go after the people; because I'm sure those people work dam hard and people are a valuable resource.