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Old 04-26-2018, 08:34 PM   #11
ericbsmith
 
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Another way to get varying levels of system performance is to use the rules for Smaller SM Systems from Spaceships 7 and just install some partial systems. Many systems do have a better performing version; Force Screens have Light & Heavy; FTL Drives have Super FTL Drives; Reactionless Drives have Standard, Hot, Super, and Subwarp. Other systems have non-linear upgrade options; rather than having a "better performing" system you simply switch to a better performing system of a similar type. You might go from a Fission Reactor to a Fusion Reactor to an Antimatter Reactor. Or from a Chemical Rocket to a HEDM Rocket. Or from a Fission Nuclear Thermal Rocket to a Fusion Rocket.
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Old 04-26-2018, 08:55 PM   #12
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Thanks you all for the replies, I'm a little short on time today but tomorrow I'll have more time to read and consider all these suggestions more carefully to give a proper feedback.
Skimming through it, I particularly like ericbsmith's idea, using standard reactionless drive while cruising to avoid being detected by hostiles and switching to hot when the fight starts seems to be a great advantage.
I wanted the 4th book for the fighters and mechas but apparently I should get 7 next. I wish SJGames sold their lines in bundles with discount.
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Old 04-27-2018, 12:02 AM   #13
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

You might also consider one of several Reaction Engines for when running "hot" - a few of the superscience ones outperform the Standard & Hot Reactionless Drive on thrust, and thus make a great secondary drive for combat or short bursts (such as landing and takeoff).

Spaceships 7 is definitely the best expansion of ship systems, although probably half of them are "weird" tech that you're not likely to use unless you're doing a "weird" tech game - orgone and mana engines, Skystone for airships, that kind of stuff. The other half is still outlier tech, but more generally useful to Sci-Fi; it also repeats the rule for Smaller SM Systems from Spaceships 4, which is one of the most useful rules expansions given the diversity it adds to creating spaceships.

Two other resources to consider are Pyramid #3/34 and Pyramid #3/40. #3/34 includes a rules expansion for realistic ground vehicles - Wheels & Tracks, Screw Propellers, Gasoline Turbines, etc. Pyramid #3/40 includes an expansion for Mecha & Robots which greatly enhances the rules from Spaceships 4. If you plan on making Mecha a central part of your game then it's well worth picking up. Pyramid #3/64 also includes a few other expansions for Age of Sail/Steam Tech.
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Old 04-27-2018, 07:35 AM   #14
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but in addition to the suggestions already proposed, you could adapt I want to expand on weby's suggestion that you use the existing GURPS equipment quality rules to Spaceships and allow people to buy Fine, Very Fine, or Cheap Spaceship components.

As a general rule, a Fine component has +4 CF and 20% better performance than a standard component. A Very Fine component has +19 CF and 40% better performance than a standard component. A Cheap component has -0.2 CF and has 75% of the performance of a standard component. If a ship has multiple components of the same quality, sum up their performance modifier before rounding down.

So a SM+7 streamlined ship at TL9 with 3 front armor locations could do:
* TL8 metallic laminate for $900K and dDR 15
* TL9 cheap advanced metallic laminate for $1440K and dDR 16
* TL9 advanced metallic laminate for $1800K and dDR 21
* TL9 fine advanced metallic laminate for $9000K and dDR 25
* TL9 very fine advanced metallic laminate for $36000K and dDR 29

Cargo holds, control rooms, defensive ECM, engine rooms, external clamps, open spaces, ramscoops, soft land systems, and stasis webs do not have statistics that can be meaningfully modified by quality and can't be bought with quality in mind.

Some components should have special rules:
* Control rooms can have Fast, Genius, High-Capacity, or Slow computers, as per Ultra-tech p 23. As the computers are only part of the control room, the relevant CFs are +4, +124, +0.1, and -0.2, respectively.
* Sensor Arrays can be Fine (Sensitive) or Fine (Long-Ranged). Sensitive arrays add +1, or +2 for Very Fine, to skill rolls to use the Sensor, while Long-Ranged arrays increase their Active Sensor Range by +1 or +2 for Very Fine.
* Fine ramscoops begin operation at 1600 mps, and Very Fine ramscoops being operation at 1450 mps.
* Reaction engines can be either Fine (Accel) for a 20% improvement in acceleration or Fine (Efficient) for a 20% improvement in delta-V. Same for Very Fine and Cheap, but 40% improvement and -25% decrease, respectively. An engine can be Fine or Very Fine in one category or and Cheap in the other.
* Soft landing systems add their quality bonus to Piloting checks during at Atmospheric Landings (Spaceships p 40).
* Stealth Hull systems subtract their quality bonus from opposing checks to detect the sip.
* Weapon systems can be:
** Fine (Accuracy) at +4 CF and +1 sAcc, or Cheap (Accuracy) for -0.2 CF and -1 sAcc.
** Fine (Power) or Very Fine (Power) at +4 or +19 CF for +1 damage per 2 dice or +1 damage per die, respectively, or Cheap (Power) at -0.2 CF and -1 damage per 2 dice. Fine and Very Fine powered weapons also require 1.2 and 1.4 PPs, respectively.
** Medium, secondary, and tertiary batteries can by Very Fine (Compact) for +19 CF which lets them mount an additional +40% guns per battery.
** Secondary and tertiary batteries can be Fine (Compact) for +4 CF, which lets them mount an additional +20% guns per battery.

Any system that can be partially uninstalled for cargo space (habitats, weapon batteries, etc) should adjust the Uninstalled value by the opposite of the quality bonus: installing a single weapon system in a Very Fine (Compact) Tertiary Battery should not allow a ship to carry more cargo in that space than a cargo space could carry.

Putting this all together on the Star Flower (Spaceships 1 pp 6-7) as a customized variant with maximum performance:
Front Hull
1 Very fine diamondoid armor (dDR 24) $200M
2-5 Cargo holds (200 tons capacity) $0
6 Very Fine (Sensitive) tactical array $200M
[core] Control room with fast computer (C10): $10M

Central Hull
1 Very fine diamondoid armor (dDR 24) $200M
2, 3 Very Fine Habitats (17 cabins total capacity) $40M
4, 5 Cargo holds (200 tons capacity) $0
6! Very Fine (Power), Very Fine (Compact), Fine (Accurate) Medium battery (2 100 MJ Improved UV Lasers, 1 100 MJ anti-particle cannon and 1 10 MJ VRF improved UV laser) $264M

Rear Hull
1 Very fine diamondoid armor (dDR 24) $200M
2, 3! Very Fine hot reactionless drive (4.8 G accel) $120M
4, 5! Very Fine stardrive (FTL-2.4) $400M
6 Engine room $300K
[core] Very Fine fusion reactor $200M

Final price $1634.3M, nearly 37x as much as a stock Star Flower.

Compared to the stock Star Flower, it has 2.4x the acceleration in vacuum, 1.5x the velocity in air, and 3x as much armor. Where the stock Star Flower has a dinky 10 MJ laser with sAcc 0, Range S/L, RoF 1, and 4d dDmg, this version sports twin 100 MJ Improved UV lasers with sAcc 1, Range L, RoF 2 and 10d+10 dDmg, a 100 MJ anti-particle cannon with sAcc -2, Range S, RoF 1, and 10d+10 dDmg, and a 10 MJ Improved UV laser with sAcc 1, Range S/L, RoF 200, and 4d+4 dDmg.

Of course, that's taking the proposed system to extremes. But having a Dark Horse free trader (Spaceships 3, p 7) with Fine Super Reactionless engines would give the PCs a vehicle that's just a little better than the competition without completely breaking the bank.
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Last edited by mlangsdorf; 04-27-2018 at 11:07 PM.
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Old 04-27-2018, 07:52 AM   #15
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but in addition to the suggestions already proposed, you could adapt the existing GURPS equipment quality rules to Spaceships and allow people to buy Fine, Very Fine, or Cheap Spaceship components.
Actually I did propose that above.. :)

Quote:
Cargo holds, control rooms, defensive ECM, engine rooms, external clamps, open spaces, ramscoops, soft land systems, and stasis webs do not have statistics that can be meaningfully modified by quality and can't be bought with quality in mind.
Actually of those ECM has a thing that could be modified by quality: the resistance to Electronic Counter-Countermeasures (ECCM) Task (spaceships 3 p 25), but that does require the task to be in use of course.

Also a soft landing system could conceivably give a bonus to landings with it. Ramscoops(if you allow them to work), could have difference in how low velocity they can start working based on quality.
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Old 04-27-2018, 09:24 AM   #16
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Sorry, weby, you did propose the same idea and I missed it.

Edited the post to include your suggestions.
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Old 04-27-2018, 06:13 PM   #17
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
In any case, if you're seriously getting into ship design, I fully recommend the design spreadsheet, http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=62539, which supports heaps of optional rules, both published and those come up with by the spreadsheet designer, ericbsmith.
Great spreadsheet, it's pretty extensive so it may take me a while to get used to it but it definitely seems useful. Among the optional rules, I particularly like semi-abrasive DR. One particular issue I had with this is the lack of option for making ground vehicles with solid armor, the default dDR values are understandable if you consider it's for aerospace application but it's almost like a paper on a tank (HT MBT has dDR 115 on SM+4). This coupled with the fractional DR should make it possible to make TL5+1 diesel-punkish tanks with iron armor and some weird locomotion.

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Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
TL8 spacecraft are built on such thin margins that worse equipment than standard is a collossal risk, and better equipment is exceedingly hard to find (at least in space-hardened grades). In essence, an upgrade significant enough to warrant a change in statistics calls for paying full price for an upgrade to TL9. And that's before you consider that most spacecraft are bespoke.

At higher TLs, spaceflight is developed enough that there is some variation in available tech. At TL10, only cutting-edge ships are made exclusively with TL10 components. Many ships use TL9 variants. They might be extremely recent designs, but they have essentially the same performance as they did in the previous tech level.
I must admit I'm not very fun of buying High TL for the sole purpose of getting better parts for a ship. I don't mind paying more for something but High TL kinda implies your character is in general used to higher TL world, technical skills and all. Of couse I could ignore this but that sounds more like a kludge than a solution. A Perk or cheap advantage (2 points) in the line of High TL (Specific gear only) sounds nice, though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jacobmuller View Post
I borrowed a bit from 3rd edition Ultra Tech, etc and put Build Quality guidelines in my Spaceships House Rules.
If it saves you time...
Build Quality
Overall build
<snip>
Thanks for this, I'm not sure which one of yours or mark's (below) numbers are fairer but both helps me immensely.

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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
Some systems have improvements, some do not.

Take armor, for instance. Suppose you're in TL9 and you're deciding on armor for your ship. What do you choose? Easy, you say, advanced metallic laminate is the only armor available at TL9. Not so! That is just the latest form of armor available; the earlier forms are probably still going to be in use in older or less advanced ships. Consider the Star Flower-class tramp freighter on page 6 of GURPS Spaceships. It's TL11^, but it's got metallic laminate armor, which is TL8. You don't need the most advanced armor for a freighter; you go with something cheaper.

There are a bunch of systems that work this way. No, you can't improve your control room (it's just a room), but you CAN improve the communications and sensor array built into it.

The engine systems often have a list of options at the end of the text that let you improve them. For instance, a nuclear thermal rocket has an option to use water instead of hydrogen as fuel, to produce three times the thrust at a cost of one-third the delta-V.

So not every system has improvements available, but a lot of them do.
Instead of improving the already cutting-edge but "downgrading" the rest of the world is certainly interesting point of view and helpful in realistic settings. Unfortunately it doesn't help with some settings. For example, if you take Sentou Yousei Yukikaze, the world is about early TL9 yet the computer installed in the MC's plane is clealy way above the ones expected for that TL: At TL9 and SM+4 airplane, you get C5 computer while Yukikaze is at very least C7 (equivalent to TL12) but more likely C10 or so (can pilot better than aces, unbelieveable EW capability and intelligence analysis).

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericbsmith View Post
You might also consider one of several Reaction Engines for when running "hot" - a few of the superscience ones outperform the Standard & Hot Reactionless Drive on thrust, and thus make a great secondary drive for combat or short bursts (such as landing and takeoff).
I still need to get my head around delta-v and acceleration bonus before I move from reactionless drives but thanks for the suggestions. I really wish Pyramid magazines could be bought in bundles...
Does Pyramid #34 contains strong armors for SM+4 ground vehicles? Like better steel armor that allows it to match the DR of MBTs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but in addition to the suggestions already proposed, you could adapt I want to expand on weby's suggestion that you use the existing GURPS equipment quality rules to Spaceships and allow people to buy Fine, Very Fine, or Cheap Spaceship components.
<snip>
I really love this! It doesn't cover some edge cases like the Yukikaze I mentioned above but this is comprehensive enough for most cases. Thanks!

If I may asks another question about Spaceships, what's the damage type of its guns? Also, isn't it slightly weak? Railgun 40mm deals 6dx25 (3) pi damage while 4cm EM gun deals 6dx10 damage. Maybe damage type changes this?
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Old 04-27-2018, 06:34 PM   #18
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

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Originally Posted by Sorenant View Post
I still need to get my head around delta-v and acceleration bonus before I move from reactionless drives but thanks for the suggestions. I really wish Pyramid magazines could be bought in bundles...
Does Pyramid #34 contains strong armors for SM+4 ground vehicles? Like better steel armor that allows it to match the DR of MBTs?
Yes, it has an "Armor and Volume" Rule which increases dDR based on how much armor you install. The more armor the more compact the ship can be (and thus less volume it takes up) and the higher the dDR. This can also reduce the ships effective SM for being targeted. It probably still doesn't offer enough of a boost to fit realistic Tank DR though, but it is a step in the right direction.

Note that an M1 Abrams weighs in excess of 60 tons, which puts it between SM+5 and SM+6 in the Spaceships rules (right around SM+5.5 if you use my optional rules in the Design Spreadsheet). Even the Sherman Tanks were in excess of 30 Tons, which pegs them at solidly SM+5 by the Spaceships rules. While they might be physically more like SM+4 by their length, Spaceships uses an abstract of mass to determine a vehicles SM.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorenant View Post
If I may asks another question about Spaceships, what's the damage type of its guns? Also, isn't it slightly weak? Railgun 40mm deals 6dx25 (3) pi damage while 4cm EM gun deals 6dx10 damage. Maybe damage type changes this?
All gun damage types and damages are listed on the tables on p. 67 and 68 of Spaceships.Damage for all Conventional Guns and Conventional Missile Warheads is the Base Damage and can be multiplied for relative velocity (see p. 61). This is explained in the Combat System.
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Old 04-27-2018, 07:03 PM   #19
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but in addition to the suggestions already proposed, you could adapt I want to expand on weby's suggestion that you use the existing GURPS equipment quality rules to Spaceships and allow people to buy Fine, Very Fine, or Cheap Spaceship components.
Your proposed system is probably on the cinematic side, but is really good. Probably going to steal it, thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorenant View Post
If I may asks another question about Spaceships, what's the damage type of its guns? Also, isn't it slightly weak? Railgun 40mm deals 6dx25 (3) pi damage while 4cm EM gun deals 6dx10 damage. Maybe damage type changes this?
The "bullets" fired by Spaceships guns are actually more akin to missiles than the projectiles fired by the UT firearms, they just get basically all of their velocity from being fired rather than from a rocket (they still maneuver to strike a target, hence them not suffering range penalties). That said, the 40mm railgun and 4cm EM gun actually line up pretty well - EM guns have a base velocity of 2 mps, meaning that's actually 6dx20 damage, which is right on par, at least within Spaceships resolution.

As for damage type, I don't think Spaceships ever actually states what damage type conventional projectiles deal, but I'm pretty certain it's meant to be crushing.
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Old 04-27-2018, 10:45 PM   #20
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Default Re: [Spaceships] Paying more for better system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but in addition to the suggestions already proposed, you could adapt I want to expand on weby's suggestion that you use the existing GURPS equipment quality rules to Spaceships and allow people to buy Fine, Very Fine, or Cheap Spaceship components.
I'm really liking these suggestions. I think I'm going to have to try to incorporate some version of these rules into my spreadsheet and the optional rules sheet that comes with it.
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