[Spaceships] Star Wars Perks/Quirks

[AmesJainchill]

here's the perks and quirks I have so far.

My objective is to make these flavorful, something to differentiate ships, not a selling point.

-Instead of escape pods, the ship has an (one) SM+4 shuttle.
-The ship is Reliable (+1 HT).
-The ship is Unreliable (-1 HT).
-Better Shields (+10% shield dDR)
-Weaker Shields (-10% shield dDR)
-Fast Refits (-20% time for refitting systems)
-Slow Refits (+20% time for for refitting systems)
-Proprietary Parts (-1 HT with non-OEM parts)
-Corrupted Power Feeds/Cooling System (-20% RoF to a weapon system).
-Enhanced Capacitors (With default weapons, can fire 1/2 normal RoF without power-that is, you can fire that ONCE, not every round)
-Better Reactors (-2 to Enhance Power task) (vs. -4 by default)
-Better Afterburners (-2 to Enhance Thrust task) (ditto)
-Jerky Turret Syndrome (-2 to turret attacks)
-Ion-vulnerable (-4 to surge HT checks)

I'd like to know if anything seems too strong or not enough of a disadvantage.

I'm also thinking of packages of perks/quirks for various manufacturers of ships (Kuat, CEC, Sorosuub, etc.).

For example:
Corellian Engineering Corporation are Reliable and have Fast Refits, but have Corrupted Power Feeds and Jerky Turret Syndrome (since they assume you'll replace them with something better).

Thoughts, comments, questions? Exhortations to get Spaceships 6?

[Diomedes]

Originally Posted by AmesJainchill

here's the perks and quirks I have so far.

My objective is to make these flavorful, something to differentiate ships, not a selling point.

Personally, I'd make them Design Features, and price them. How were you planning on deciding what features a ship gets?

-Instead of escape pods, the ship has an (one) SM+4 shuttle.

Ships have neither escape pods nor shuttles unless they're built in (in hangars) in the design phase.

-The ship is Reliable (+1 HT).
-Corrupted Power Feeds/Cooling System (-20% RoF to a weapon system).
-Enhanced Capacitors (With default weapons, can fire 1/2 normal RoF without power-that is, you can fire that ONCE, not every round)

That could be tricky; at what I think of as Star Wars ranges most weapons wouldn't have enough RoF for the 20% to make a difference.

[Molokh]

If they're linked to manufacturers, what prevents Solo types from just assembling the best combo?

IMO these should be component price modifiers mostly.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by AmesJainchill

-Fast Refits (-20% time for refitting systems)
-Slow Refits (+20% time for for refitting systems)
-Proprietary Parts (-1 HT with non-OEM parts)
-Better Reactors (-2 to Enhance Power task) (vs. -4 by default)
-Better Afterburners (-2 to Enhance Thrust task) (ditto)

I'm not familiar with ship building since 3e, but these are the only ones that strike me as perk/quirk worthy. The rest are too good or too bad or simply a design feature by excellence. And the last 2 I quoted I'd take with a grain of salt... I'd rename them as "Abusable Reactors" or "Abusable Thrusters" for fun, and perhaps add -1 to something (-1 to HT while enhancing"). Otherwise you'd see these ships pulling stunts like this all the time, instead of often.

I think refit times are fitting, because it's the sort of con or pro you'd expect to find in machines. For instance, my old Compaq computer had the motherboard incorporated into the case, very hard to replace... it's not a performance or spec issue, and most people wouldn't care, but should I want to change the motherboard it would be a major pain. It also had a somewhat defective graphics card... that wasn't a problem frequently, but it wasn't a quirk, it was a design flaw and as such, a disadvantage.

Quirks aren't flaws, bad design, etc... they're minor weirdnesses that might annoy you or limit you in particular situations. Same goes for perks, they cannot be clearly better than everything else and they have to be useful to particular types of people or situations, preferably rare types of situations. -1 to HT all the time is a significant flaw, not a quirk, if you were building the ship as a character that's an entire attribute you're lowering. +10% dDR is an advantage by the same logic.

[AmesJainchill]

Originally Posted by Diomedes

Personally, I'd make them Design Features, and price them.

...Which is exactly not the point of this. These are supposed to distinguish ships by model and manufacturer, not be "another thing you can buy for any ship."
The hardware this represents isn't supposed to be infinitely transferable between ships. You would have to work really hard to transfer a benefit like this, and you just might not be able to do it.

On the other hand, since you're suggesting I indivdiually price ten or fifteen different design features, do you have any advice?

Originally Posted by Diomedes

How were you planning on deciding what features a ship gets?

Some of them would be from a lack of maintenance, some would be inherent parts of the ship from the manufacturer. I would use Wookiepedia ship descriptions as a guide, but a lot of this would be new material.

Originally Posted by Diomedes

Ships have neither escape pods nor shuttles unless they're built in (in hangars) in the design phase.

Doh! Escape pods are standard safety equipment in Star Wars, ships get this for free.

Originally Posted by Diomedes

That could be tricky; at what I think of as Star Wars ranges most weapons wouldn't have enough RoF for the 20% to make a difference.

Why is it, whenever I say I'm doing Star Wars, people assume I'm slavishly copying the movies? Maybe I need a new sig...

Originally Posted by Molokh

If they're linked to manufacturers, what prevents Solo types from just assembling the best combo?

What, you're going to go to all the trouble of removing your normal shields and put in 10% better shields? You're gonna take the time and money to do that?
I suppose you could do that.
It's a lot more effective to use normal ways to customize your ship--like buying (or stealing) heavy force screens. I'm not against chopping and stripping a ship at all, but there's more effective ways that this.

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

I'm not familiar with ship building since 3e, but these are the only ones that strike me as perk/quirk worthy. The rest are too good or too bad or simply a design feature by excellence. And the last 2 I quoted I'd take with a grain of salt... I'd rename them as "Abusable Reactors" or "Abusable Thrusters" for fun, and perhaps add -1 to something (-1 to HT while enhancing"). Otherwise you'd see these ships pulling stunts like this all the time, instead of often.

Have you read the Emergency Power and Emergency Thrust tasks? Have you even read the Spaceships rules?
If you fail the roll, you disable the reactor/engines...which means your engineer needs to attempt a difficult roll (-9 at 1-minute scale) to jury-rig them into being repaired. And that's ONE system per minute he can work on!
This is a serious problem if you fail this roll, this is a big gamble you're taking.

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

-1 to HT all the time is a significant flaw, not a quirk, if you were building the ship as a character that's an entire attribute you're lowering.

Not a significant flaw, as far as I can tell.

In Spaceships you make HT rolls to avoid destruction...which means you've already taken loads of damage already. Ship HT starts at 13 and you can get -1 for not having an engine room at SM+9 or less and +1 for a robofac/fabricator system, and the ship can have lowered HT overall if it's cheap/very cheap...
It's like bleeding to death twice as fast while unconscious. By that time, you've already lost the fight.

Does anyone have any better suggestions? Advice for how to accomplish the same goal more elegantly?

[PPoS]

Very nice ! I'm going to adapt this into my current SW campaign. Should make the ships a bit more unique.

Although I use a random table for generating these kinds of flaws any time the PC's buy a used ship, it would be nice to see a list of manufacturer-specific perks/quirks.

[Molokh]

Originally Posted by AmesJainchill

What, you're going to go to all the trouble of removing your normal shields and put in 10% better shields? You're gonna take the time and money to do that?
I suppose you could do that.
It's a lot more effective to use normal ways to customize your ship--like buying (or stealing) heavy force screens. I'm not against chopping and stripping a ship at all, but there's more effective ways that this.

I can do better than that. I can make contracts for each brand to make their best stuff, then hire another corp to assemble it. And sell those ships at 105% the cost for 110% of efficiency. Even if my operating costs are 105% of the normal costs, I'l still get more profit due to more sales.

[AmesJainchill]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I can do better than that. I can make contracts for each brand to make their best stuff, then hire another corp to assemble it. And sell those ships at 105% the cost for 110% of efficiency. Even if my operating costs are 105% of the normal costs, I'l still get more profit due to more sales.

So you're trying to say I need to explain that the extra 10% comes from super-special factory-only tuning?

Got it.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by AmesJainchill

Have you read the Emergency Power and Emergency Thrust tasks? Have you even read the Spaceships rules?

I thought I made it clear that I didn't, with my remarks about 3e.

[Molokh]

Originally Posted by AmesJainchill

So you're trying to say I need to explain that the extra 10% comes from super-special factory-only tuning?

Got it.

You just need to make sure you price it properly.