Poll

Since I now have a proper sourcebook, what should we do?

Keep going with FTL, we're barely into it yet!
0 (0%)
Add some of the mechanics of RT to FTL, and keep going that way!
2 (66.7%)
Drop FTL, and play some RT!
0 (0%)
I don't care and regret signing up for this!
1 (33.3%)
Since you apparently have all our collective sourcebooks, let's run something completely different!
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 2

Author Topic: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)  (Read 10939 times)

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RedVulnus

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #30 on: September 16, 2016, 06:11:22 pm »
I'm good with whatever. Also any idea when we're going to start this?

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #31 on: September 16, 2016, 07:03:35 pm »
Name: Charognard "Charo" O'Riley
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Role: Scavenger, Makeshifter and amateur engineer.
Skills: Scrapping, Makeshift crafting, jury rigging, and basic repairs.
Backstory: Charo was raised on an arctic colony on the planet IC-E55, he had a keen eye for scraps in the snow. Wrecks were common on IC-E55. He knows basic repairing skills through the engineer guides he read at the colony, some of it stuck.
Equipment: An "Arctic Survival Suit", it's a hardsuit made to withstand extreme below zero temperatures of IC-E55. It has pouches and a small backpack attached to the back. It has Kevlar plates which protects the torso and lower abdomen. Weapons are a Plasma Cutter that was made to cut through steel and rock, it work good for lobbing off limbs too. An ice axe from home. Underneath the hardsuit is a pair of brown trousers, a pair of fur boots, a white undershirt, and a tan button-up shirt.
Other stuff: A RIG, it interfaces with his Hardsuit, it shows his vital signs. He has various baubles from home, not a lot of useful stuff, it includes a scrimshaw femur of a wolf, a bunch of engineering guides, and a wolf's paw. A large, industrial rivet gun along with rivets the size of railway spikes to go with it, he can set the rivet gun to heat the rivets if needed.

Stats:

Melee Skill: 35
Ballistic Skill: 50
Strength: 35
Toughness: 40
Agility: 40
Intelligence: 25
Perception: 50
Willpower: 30
Charm : 20
« Last Edit: September 22, 2016, 01:56:33 am by Wilson »
I am no longer legitimately considering leaving this forum

A Blitzkrieg of Butts

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #32 on: September 16, 2016, 11:56:00 pm »
Name: Collin Kagoslav
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Role: The guy that burns things, Brute
Skills: Burning things, Psychopath, General smartass, Devilishly handsome
Backstory: Collin was born on Uveto IV, an icy planet way in the far reaches of the UTA. He was born into a small fishing village. He was about 8 when he was living a normal life until he was kidnapped at the trading post. His kidnappers tortured him brutally and relentlessly. He had managed to survive the encounter but he had changed. for the next 9 his only contact to anyone was to grab his food from the kitchen. The only thing that kept him company was fire. He liked how it felt and looked. later that year he burned down the trading post, forcing him to steal a ship and leave.

Later he had come across an abandoned space station. Looked like one of those rich luxury ones.He docked and in the storage laid a flamethrower and a suit of armor. He hopped in the suit, grabbed the flamethrower, and decided to be a hired gun. Now he finds himself on a said warp ship, his job to protect it.
Equipment: An LPO-50 (look it up) and AV-1A Assault armor (Again, look it up). Normal clothes are long khakis and a red t-shirt.
Other stuff: None
Melee Skill: 25
Ballistic Skill: 25
Strength: 25
Toughness: 25
Agility: 25
Intelligence: 75
Perception: 75
Willpower: 25
Charm : 25
« Last Edit: September 22, 2016, 08:08:01 pm by A Blitzkrieg of Butts »
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ApatheticExcuse

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #33 on: September 17, 2016, 12:28:14 am »
This will start sunday evening.

So, space ship stuff. I'm a hair buzzed right now, so I'll get into the nitty gritty when the time comes. Basically, maneuvering, shooting, boarding, repairs, scanning stuff, etc. etc. etc. will all use a stat, with appropriate skill and conditional modifiers and such applied. I will list up how stats affect things later, since you don't need to worry much about what does what to design a ship, and I'd like to get this up and running.

Designing the ship itself works much like character creation does. There are a couple of key "stats" for a ship:

Speed: How fast a ship can move, not including FTL speed.
Manoeuverability: How quickly a ship can change directions, how well it can evade attacks, etc.
Scanning: How effective the ship is at detecting things.
Shields: Shields are fairly self explanitory. In the FTL universe, they are an extension of the same sorts of technology that powers FTL travel. The basic concept is that they work by altering the mass of an incoming object enough that it cannot harm the ship. Accordingly, some weapons (like a macrocannon) can be stopped by them. Other weapons (such as lasers) cannot, and must be stopped via armour.
Armour: Protects a ship from damage. As with shields, some weapons are good vs. armour. Others, not so much.
Hull Strength: Act as hit points. They represent the ship's interior design, bulkheads, blast doors, etc. etc.
Power: How much power a ship produces. This is essential to keep things such as the bridge, shields, weapons, or other bits of tech operational.
Mass Limit: Defines how much stuff you can stick into a ship. As well as having a power requirement, weapons, tech, etc. all have mass.
Turrets: An abstract representation of the ship's small defensive turrets. These are used for stopping torpedos, small craft, etc.
Weapon Layout: How many weapons a ship can carry and where they need to be located.
Points: How many points the hull itself costs. Upgrades, weapons, and tech, also have a point cost.

It occures to me that I am too drunk to really explain the rest well, after several attempts. Sorry guys. Math and vodka don't mix so good. I will have the rest of this up on Sunday, as well as the first update. Since it's unlikely you guys will get into space combat right off the hop, we can figure out your specifics before or directly after that update.

Gone. Cheers guys.

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #34 on: September 17, 2016, 12:30:39 am »
Also, Wilson is good. Blitz, you've got 5 too many points in there, and min skills are 25. Otherwise, that works fine. You guys are tentatively set besides that though I should really read this through agian tomorrow to be sure.

Id' maybe mention that stuff like working tech and engineering is affected mainly by intelligence too, at least at higher levels.

Sign up is now closed - it's up to you guys as the PCs to let other folks join if they want to, though I think most people are in right now anyway. Char sheets can be tweaked up until the first IC DM post on sunday. Just let me know so I can peek at them again.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2016, 12:32:58 am by ApatheticExcuse »
Gone. Cheers guys.

A Blitzkrieg of Butts

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #35 on: September 17, 2016, 01:33:09 pm »
Fixed it
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ApatheticExcuse

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #36 on: September 18, 2016, 11:57:28 pm »
Ok, after two days of falling on my ass drunk, and one morning of a very long, very needed nap, I'm back up and running. To continue with ships

Speed: How fast a ship can move, not including FTL speed.
Manoeuverability: How quickly a ship can change directions, how well it can evade attacks, etc.
Scanning: How effective the ship is at detecting things.
Shields: Shields are fairly self explanitory. In the FTL universe, they are an extension of the same sorts of technology that powers FTL travel. The basic concept is that they work by altering the mass of an incoming object enough that it cannot harm the ship. Accordingly, some weapons (like a macrocannon) can be stopped by them. Other weapons (such as lasers) cannot, and must be stopped via armour. Mechanically, each "shield" can stop one hit. A ship with a shields rating of 2 will accordingly eat up two hits.
Armour: Protects a ship from damage. As with shields, some weapons are good vs. armour. Others, not so much. Mechanically, armour reduces the incoming damage by whatever it's value is.
Hull Strength: Act as hit points. They represent the ship's interior design, bulkheads, blast doors, etc. etc.
Power: How much power a ship produces. This is essential to keep things such as the bridge, shields, weapons, or other bits of tech operational.
Mass Limit: Defines how much stuff you can stick into a ship. As well as having a power requirement, weapons, tech, etc. all have mass.
Turrets: An abstract representation of the ship's small defensive turrets. These are used for stopping torpedos, small craft, etc.
Weapon Layout: How many weapons a ship can carry and where they need to be located.
Points: How many points the hull itself costs. Upgrades, weapons, and tech, also have a point cost.

Beyond those "fixed" ship stats, there are also a few other things to know, number-wise:

Crew Compliment: Warpships are BIG, even smaller ones. Generally, they have a crew compliment that is more on par with the population of a small city rather than a naval ship. The actual number of people on board doesn't matter much from a ship performance perspective, but the percentage of crew who are capable and able to perform their duties does. A rough breakdown of the negative potential effects as your crew population dies or is otherwise incapacitated:

100% - Obviously, this is idea;. No ill effects
80% - The ship's top speeds degrade, in and out of combat. How much depends on the hull class.
60% - Boarding actions, hit-and-runs making repairs, and similar actions (though not maneuvering or firing weapons) face a -5 penalty.
50% - The ship gets a -10 penalty to maneuverability.
40% - The ship suffers a penalty to firing weapons. The seriousness of this depends a great deal on what sort of armament is being used, but typically this will range from -5 to -15. Additionally, any bonuses applied by special components are lost.
20% - In combat, the ship counts as Crippled.
10% - The ship can no longer perform boarding actions or other actions that logically require having free crew. It is now barely functional, and there are not enough people to effectively fight fires, make repairs, etc. There is a -20 penalty to those sorts of actions.
0% - If you somehow are not yet dead, you should be trying very hard to get off the ship. There's no one left to run the atmospheric controls, and you're going to end up suffocating if you don't freeze to death first. The ship has basically bled out at this point, and is not able to be operated unless more crew are brought on board.

Besides Crew, Moral is a fairly important factor. I have a table for the effects of low moral as well, but it is quite a bit more randomized and not worth reproducing here. In short, having low moral is not a good thing, and you will face mutiny if things are bad enough. If a mutiny does happen, you can deal with it however you see fit, but bear in mind that there may be unforseen consequences to your actions.

Ok, so, that's the basics out of the way. As I said the other day, we'll deal with actual combat when the situation arises - there's a lot of potential rules, and I'd like to get a feel for how things will play out before I set any in stone. It might be that a simplified system ends up being the way to go, or it might be very complicated. I will touch a bit on how damage works, just so that picking out weapons makes a little sense. Weapons have a couple different stats:

Strength: The max number of hits a weapon or battery can land on it's target. The degrees of success system applies to ship combat as well - in this case, succeeding will mean a hit. Each individual degree of success will mean another hit, up to the weapon's strength limit.
Damage: How much damage a weapon deals. Obviously, this applies only in terms of ships - getting hit with even the weakest of ship-to-ship will kill any character outright.
Damage Type: Whether the weapon deals physical, energy, or some other form of damage. Typically, physical weapons such as rail guns and other projectile weapons can have their shots stopped by a shield. Energy weapons generally will not, though they will do lower damage to represent a ship's armour absorbing much of the energy.
Critical: How many degrees of success are needed to score a critical hit. Unlike most depictions of space combat, it's pretty rare to actually completely destroy a ship - instead critical hits will typically wreck components, depressurize sections, start fires, etc. etc.
Firing Arc: Which direction the weapon may be fired in. As a rough example, here's the arcs for a range-four weapon:



Range: The effective range of the weapon. Since things set in motion in space will generally stay in motion until they hit something, you can fire at targets beyond the range rating, though at a penalty. For the sake of gameplay, you can only fire a weapon up to twice it's range rating.
Mount: Some truely massive weapons require a spinal mount. Others are only effective as broadside weapons. Some will fit and function pretty much anywhere.

This more or less covers the important basics you need to know when designing a ship (assuming you guys still want to). I'm going to provide an example ship, as well as some example weapons and components - as with your personal gear, the universe contains many different devices that do the same thing, so you can call stuff whatever you like. Anyone is free to submit a design - you guys will then figure out what you like best, and I'll likely use the others as NPC ships or something you can find later.

I'm going to take a quick break here to go update in Azmodal, then I will post the examples. I don't think there's anything else to really know about right now, so ideally, I will have a first IC post for you guys up very shortly as well, and we can get this thing started.
Gone. Cheers guys.

ApatheticExcuse

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #37 on: September 19, 2016, 01:28:33 am »
Ok, so, some example components and weapons. You can make up pretty much any kind of weapon or ship part you'd like, but consider these guidelines to that.

Macrocannons

Giant ballistic weapons that fire thousand ton shells at good speeds. There are many different versions - the stats here represent a common, basic type.

Strength: 3
Damage: 1d10+3
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 4
Firing arc: Based on mount type
Range: 6
Mount Type: Any
Space: 2
Power: 4
Points: 1

Macrocannon Broadside

Large ships, rather than mounting a dozen cannons, will often mount upwards of 25 in a broadside configuration.

Strength: 6
Damage: 1d10+3
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 4
Firing arc: Based on mount type
Range: 6
Mount Type: Port or Starboard Only, Ship Must Be Light Cruiser Or Larger
Space: 5
Power: 4
Points: 1

Laser Battery

While projectiles are typically the mainstay of most UTA combat ships, energy weapons are increasingly common. While burning holes in a ship with intense heat is generally not as damaging as throwing a high explosive chunk of metal the size of a house into it, laser weapons do have the advantage of ignoring shields and having greater range.

Strength: 4
Damage: 1d10+1
Dam. Type: Energy
Critical: 6
Firing arc: Based on mount type
Range: 9
Mount Type: Any
Space: 4
Power: 6
Points: 1

Plasma Launchers

Short ranged, hard to maintain, and rare, plasma weapons are still very popular for those who can find them and afford them, for the simple reason of their undeniable effectiveness. There is very little armour out there that will withstand the heat of a small sun hitting it.

Strength: 4
Damage: 1d10+4
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 4
Firing arc: Based on mount type
Range: 4
Mount Type: Any
Space: 4
Power: 7
Points: 2

Mass Drivers

Mass drivers, railguns, and other weapons that rely on accelerating projectiles to absurd speeds are a common thing on larger warships. While having fairly high space and power requirements, they act as a precision weapon capable of punching through most armour and striking deep at systems and areas inside the target.

Strength: 1
Damage: 1d10+5
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 3
Firing arc: Based on mount type
Range: 6
Mount Type: Any
Space: 5
Power: 9
Points: 2

Torpedoes
Torpedoes are common in the UTA fleets, giving even small craft a very effective way to engage the heaviest of ships. They do have some drawbacks, however - even when stored properly and deactivated, there is always a risk of a solid hit to the torpedo system causing them to detonate. Amongst civilians, Warranted captains, and the like, they are less common - the weapon system is fairly simple, but the torpedoes themselves are hard to come by, and generally tightly controlled by the UTA.

Torpedo Tubes:
Required to actually launch torpedoes. Each tube requires:

Power: 1
Space: 1
Points: 1

In addition to that, there are limits to how many tubes a hull can mount:

Transports : 4
Corvettes: 2
Frigates: 4
Light Cruisers: 4
Cruisers: 6

Tubes MUST be mounted on the prow of the ship. As the explosion risk is very real, torpedo tubes and storage areas are usually very well protected - this gives the ship +1 armour to the front of the vessel only. The weapon's strength is equal to the number of torpedoes fired at once, with the maximum being however many tubes are installed.

Torpedoes themselves come in all shapes and sizes, but a very unique property common to all of them is that they cannot be intercepted by shields - they are simply too big to stop completely, and don't rely on mass or speed to cause damage. They can, however, be intercepted by turrets - the mechanic is pretty simple. For each torpedo fired, a die is rolled for each turret for each torpedo fired. There is roughly a 15% chance of interception, which will change during the game as this is a completely home-brewed system and I'm not too sure how it will work out in combat.

In addition to that, tubes must be reloaded between firings. A simple baseline test must be passed for this (using the highest of several stats, since IIRC no one took any command or ship related "skills"), and if passed, 1d5 tubes are reloaded for the next turn.

While everything from virus torpedoes to armour-weakening nanite torpedoes exist, the most commonly found version is the standard UTA plasma torpedo. It has the following stats:

Damage: 1d10+6
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 4
Firing arc: Forward
Range: 8


That covers most of the weapons concepts. You'll notice fighters are missing, but you're welcome to try and design a fighter system. I just can't find a way to do it that doesn't either make them absurdly strong or completely useless.

Example ship and parts to follow. Honestly, I'm pretty tired and very hung over, and underestimated how much writing had to happen to get the ship thing together (in case you hadn't noticed, I've put a bit more complexity into than any other aspect of this), so it's unlikely the IC will happen tonight. I'm off all day tomorrow though, so expect something then.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2016, 01:34:52 am by ApatheticExcuse »
Gone. Cheers guys.

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #38 on: September 19, 2016, 06:56:22 am »
Looks amazing, dude. Nice work.
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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #39 on: September 19, 2016, 09:17:03 am »
Oh Lord-In-Coma, I'm 2hype for this. All I need to know now is how many points I get to spend making muh ship and that thing will be typed faster than a jack rabbit on crack.
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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #40 on: September 19, 2016, 02:15:48 pm »
Sorry it's taking a while. I honestly kinda underestimated this, or rather transcribing it from my paper notes. Next time I know to write this all in word first.

Ok, so hulls, components, and an example. I'll list the hulls, and will give component examples in my example ship, but I'm thinking you guys will make up components as you'll all know what sort of things will be beneficial to you.

Hulls

There are thousands of classes of ships, and hundreds of classes of warpships. Most of them can fall loosely into one of the following designations:

Transports

Generally slow, and not designed for a real fight, the transport is a good choice for a Free Captain who is looking to make his fortune the non-violent way. While they do often mount an armament to discourage opportunists, a transport Captain will have to rely on his wits more than his fighting skills. While most warpships are also warships, there has always been a need for warpships capable of hauling supplies or passengers to planets that are not yet part of the Warpway.

Riply-Class Small Transport

A common sight on the fringes of space, the Ripley-class is a small, multipurpose hauler.

Dimensions: 2km long, 0.4 km abeam
Mass: 8 megatonnes
Crew: 13,000

Speed: 4
Manoeuvrability: -5
Detection: +10
Hull Integrity: 40
Armour: 13
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 40
SP: 20
Weapons: 1 Dorsal
Power: 35
Special:

Cargo Hauler: This ship was built to haul goods, and no amount of modification will change this. It comes equipped with a Cargo Hold component - this component gives a bonus to trade related tests, and adds to a related goal's potential profits. This part does not take up additional space, but will require 2 power to run itself.

Corvettes

Corvettes are light ships, also known as raiders, that are generally fast and reasonably armed, but fragile. They are popular amongst Free Captains more concerned with getting around quickly and unnoticed than with the military or commerce minded, and have also found use amongst the less-legally inclined.

Zeus-Class Corvette

Zeus class corvettes are common in UTA fleets, acting as scouts and picket ships. They are built to be able to run from anything they can't fight.

Dimensions: 1.5 km long, 0.25 km abeam
Mass: 5 megatonnes
Crew: 18,000

Speed: 10
Maneuverability: +23
Detection: +12
Hull Integrity: 32
Turrets: 1
Space: 35
Points: 30
Weapons: 1 Dorsal, 1 Prow
Power: 45

Frigates

Frigates are well-balanced ships capable of filling any role. They are often chosen by Warrant holders for their versatility and availability.

Eris-Class Frigate

The Eris class frigate is a jack of all trades, boasting decent armour and turrets, good engines, and a reasonable armament.

Dimensions: 1.5km long, 0.4 abeam
Mass: 6 megatonnes
Crew: 26,000

Speed: 8
Maneuverability: +20
Detection: +15
Hull Integrity: 35
Armour: 18
Turrets: 2
Space: 40
Points: 40
Weapons: Dorsal 2
Power: 45

Light Cruisers

Designed for long range patrols and second line combat duty, light cruisers are popular amongst Warranted Captain as well - at least those who can find and afford them.

Ares-Class Light Cruiser

Dimensions: 4.5 km long, 0.5 km abeam
Mass: 20 megatonnes
Crew: 56,000

Speed: 7
Maneuverability: +15
Detection: +20
Hull Integrity: 60
Armour: 19
Turrets: 1
Space: 60
Points: 55
Weapons: Prow 1, Port 1, Starboard 1
Power: 60

This gives you a rough guideline yet again. There are, obviously, much bigger ships out there too, but if you're wanting to design a hull, stick with LC or smaller for now.

When building a ship, there's a few parts you MUST have:

A sub-light drive - as a note here, power is provided by the ship's sublight drives. I've stuck the baselines in there, but you can upgrade it for a price.
A warp drive
Shields arrays
A bridge
Life support
Crew Quarters
Scanning arrays

I have quite a few different "essential" components statted out, so if you need help picking something there, let me know and I'll list whatever's pertinent. Generally, unless an essential component adds something, it has no point cost. For example, a basic bridge is free. A fancy combat bridge with holographic displays that gives +5 to shooting the weapons and commanding the crew will take more power and space, as well as add +1 point to the cost.

Besides that, you're limited only by power and space. Vanity rooms (such as a personal, but not ship wide armoury, a chapel, etc. etc.) do not cost power, points, or space - they might, however, have some unintended effects. Grander versions that do have an effect (a chapel that gives a moral boost, an armoury big enough to supply an invasion force or stock macrocannon warheads), will cost power, points, and space.

So, for the example ship.

The Calypso

Modified Rapier Class Frigate
Points: 40

Speed: 8
Maneuverability: +20
Detection: +15
Hull Integrity: 35
Armour: 18
Turrets: 2
Space: 40 (40 used)
Points: 40
Weapons: Dorsal 2
Power: 45 (42 used)

Sub-Light Drives: Class 3 Plasma
Provides 45 power (Space: 10)

Warp Drive: Rastov Mass Drive MK2
Provided sufficient mass modification to allow the ship to move at warp speeds (Space: 10, Power: 10)

Shields arrays: Single Rastov Array
Provides a layer of shielding (Power: 5, Space: 1)

Bridge: Advanced Command Bridge
A very old, very high-tech command center. Features holographic displays, real time ship status reports, video monitoring, and many other uncommon elements. It adds +5 to all ship-related tests (maneuvering, shooting, directing repairs), as well as +10 to social tests made on the bridge itself - it's just that impressive. (Power: 2, Space:1, Points :2)

Life support: United Industries MK1
Built to be reliable, but not to do much about the often unpleasant smells of ship-life. -1 to Crew Moral (Power: 3, Space: 1)

Crew Quarters: Pressed quarters
A holdover from the ship's naval career. They are cramped, unpleasant, but take up a bit less room than standard. -2 Moral (Power: 1, Space: 2)

Scanning arrays: Class 6 Basic Scanners
Simple, basic scanners. These are an external part and use no power. (Power: 3)

Weapons:

Planetbreaker MK 17 Mass Driver

Strength: 1
Damage: 1d10+5
Dam. Type: Physical
Critical: 3
Firing arc: Forward
Range: 6
Mount Type: Dorsal
Space: 5
Power: 9
Points: 2

United Industries Class 9 Laser Batteries

Strength: 4
Damage: 1d10+1
Dam. Type: Energy
Critical: 6
Firing arc: forward
Range: 9
Mount Type: Dorsal
Space: 4
Power: 6
Points: 1

Other Components:

Grand Library
Full of books and dataslates on virtually every subject imaginable, the contents of this library have been passed down in your family for generations. This gives a positive modifier to researching, data collection, and similar tests. (Space: 1, Power: 1, Points: 1)

Internal Maze
The interior of this ship is... strange in it's layout. The vast maze that must be passed through to get anywhere is part of life for the crew, but not for any boarders. In addition, the layout is such that most shipwrights would say you've got everything in the wrong spot. This component gives +10 to defending against boarding actions and hit and runs, as well as allowing the ship's owner to select which components are affected by a critical hit, rather than the attacker. (Power: 1 Space: 2, points: 2)

Extended Supply Storage
Ships are limited by how much they can bring with them. This vessel has had more room made for these sorts of supplies. This component doubles the length of time it can remain in space before crew or moral is negatively affected, adds a small bonus to repair attempts, and increases moral by 1. (Power: 1, Space: 3, Points: 2)


The whole shebang here cots 50 points.

So, here's the deal point-wise. I'm going to give you 80 points (which is alot) to do WHATEVER you want in terms of designing a ship, within the guidelines I've presented. Whatever is left over will be your group's wealth. Something to bear in mind here is that *fixing* a ship can be expensive. If you blow everything on putting one together in the first place, and something bad happens to it, you might well be fucked. As you can see from the example above, you're more likely to run out of space or power than points anyway.

Make something you all like and can agree on - if more than one design is submitted, I leave it to you guys to figure it out. You will spend lots of time on the ship, to the point that it's somewhat a PC on it's own, and you may not run into many chances to acquire a second one, at least not one of the same calibre.

The final note here is that while I might tweak some point costs and stuff you've made up, but frankly, if you build an overpowered deathship with everything you could ever hope for, it's more likely you're just going to run into people with exactly the same armaments out there. Unlike with your personal gear, which is generally all top-quality and expensive stuff well out of the reach of the majority of the population, anyone you're likely to meet in space probably has just as much wealth and resources as you do.
Gone. Cheers guys.

RedVulnus

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #41 on: September 19, 2016, 03:18:54 pm »
Honestly I'm good with whatever ship wise so I'll leave it to someone else.

ApatheticExcuse

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #42 on: September 19, 2016, 03:51:00 pm »
Lork expressed some interest, so worst comes to worst, that's mostly for him, haha.

I've updated the OP to include armour values and weapon damages. As I said, I've intentionally left that all a bit vague as I have no idea if any of this is remotely balanced, and it's easier for me to tweak the mechanics if I haven't already explained them all.

I'm going to take a bit of a break as I've been at this for pretty much four hours straight now, finalizing shit and shit, and give you guys a chance to submit any changes to your charsheets now that you know what stuff does a little better (at least one of you lacks any kind of armour, and another has no gun, which is just fine but maybe doesn't jive with the stats). After that, there will  be the first IC post, and you guys can get a little rundown on where you are, what there is to do, and how to do something else if none of that interests you.
Gone. Cheers guys.

A Blitzkrieg of Butts

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #43 on: September 19, 2016, 06:00:48 pm »
No offense I think that the ship system is unreasonable. For example, The Venator-class Star Destroyer was only about a kilo long, 72 weapon mounts, numerous amount of fighters and stuff; with having less than 8000 crew. It might just be me and my Star Wars self or what, idk.
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ApatheticExcuse

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Re: Faster Than Light (Interest, Lore, and Sign Up Thread)
« Reply #44 on: September 19, 2016, 06:41:35 pm »
Well, size wise, it's part of the requirement for a warp system to work. Population-wise, it's simply a transcription from the sourcebook I have. I'd actually adjusted that down from there. I can wiggle it to whereever, but really, most starwars ships would be sized on par with system ships in this universe. Starwars is also a little more high-tech than FTL (and startrek is far ahead of either of them in many ways) - there is not a lot of automation in this universe for the simple reason that life is alot cheaper than tech. You want your massive cannon reloaded, you better have a couple hundred guys who can push, pry, and run the equipment. That's not to say there aren't smaller ships, but the warpships we're dealing with are supposed to be enormous and ridiculous.

There's also some gameplay and thematic reasons for this, but they'll either become apparent once things start up, or I've done my job poorly.

If you're saying more weapons, the there's kind of a multi-fold answer:

For one, weapons are definately abstracted. A macro battery might have a dozen guns, each firing a shell the size of a small house. That's just a single battery, mind you.

Two, the Venator has 70 something odd guns, but from a quick google, it looks like only 10 of them are actually built to hurt other ships (not counting the four torpedo tubes) - the rest are smaller weapons designed to keep fighters away. This is represent by a turret rating in FTL - you can assume that even the smallest ship will have a hundred + turrets. This is the other reason for large crews - if your enemy has a hundred turrets, and you want to board them, you'll want at least a hundred shuttles, ideally with more than just a handful of dudes on each one.

Thirdly, weapons in this galaxy are far more dangerous than Starwars weapons. The macrocannon is a relatively small gun - those mass drivers are generally the length of the whole ship. It always struck me as really odd that the empire even bothered building a deathstar. When you have the technology to build a hyperdrive, it would be simpler, cheaper, and easier to just strap it to a big rock and throw it at a planet at the speed of light.

And finally, I've gone for a little more of a "reality" aspect for this. Obviously, there's alot of fake science in there, but the way stuff works in this universe is simply different from most other sci-fi stuff (Warhammer 40k is likely the closest analog, mostly because that's where some of the core rules come from). I actually chopped a bunch of mechanics out of this - there was a heat mechanic and a beam refraction mechanic at one point, but they're no fun to keep track of. Anyway, think more "Age of Sail in Space" than traditional sci-fi.

Anyway, I have no issue changing stuff around, and appreciate the input. I'm gonna wait and see how everyone else feels before worrying too much about this stuff though, majority will rule.
Gone. Cheers guys.

 

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