|
01-05-2022, 03:35 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2010
|
What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
I've looked at a lot of RPG spaceship design systems, and have never been quite satisfied with any of them—particularly when it comes to the handling of space combat. I'm coming at this from a position of not minding complexity much, but being deeply annoyed by things that make no in-universe sense. Here are the systems I'm familiar with:
|
01-05-2022, 03:38 PM | #2 |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Oh god I meant to post this in "Roleplaying in General" can a mod please move it rather than just deleting it?
|
01-05-2022, 05:27 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Dec 2005
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
I quite like Spacemaster Privateers but the book is full of errors and stuff. Still it's a decent variation on build a box and put stuff in it. It's one of those, not quite as complex and detailed can be a good thing situations.
Traveller the New Era's Fire Fusion and Steel is really good. BRTC's Vehicles is excellent, of course. I've designed a couple systems of my own but I'm not here to spam the board.
__________________
http://www.neutralgroundgames.com |
01-05-2022, 06:03 PM | #4 |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Reading reviews of Fire, Fusion, & Steel, I'm reminded of another reason I'm dissatisfied with Traveller—assumptions about computers that are stuck in the 1980s. But BTRC's books (I assume BRTC is a typo) look interesting, would you recommend starting with CORPS VDS or EABA Stuff!?
|
01-05-2022, 08:36 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
It was a board game but I quite liked Starfire.
__________________
My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
01-05-2022, 09:01 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Jovian Chronicles has a nice inversion of the "put stuff in a box" model. You choose the capabilities first, then calculate the size of the box it takes to fit it all. There's no explicit power budget, for example, because "competent engineers would make sure the power is sufficient." Their delta-V calculations look odd, but are actually realistic.
There's also something to be said for the simplicity of Warp War, if the tech assumptions match your setting. I've often thought there's a great game to be had by combining Warp War ships, shipbuilding, and combat with the setting and map from The Company War, which models CJ Cherryh's Alliance/Union universe. I cribbed a lot of the boats in the Serenity roleplaying game from real-world aircraft, suitably jazzed up for the setting. The rules were sort of empirically derived from those benchmarks. |
01-09-2022, 10:14 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Quote:
__________________
Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. |
|
02-21-2022, 06:40 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Quote:
CORPS VDS (for CORPS 2e). It's easier to work than GV, and just a bit less realistic, but avoids flavoring the futuretech with specific labels, unlike G:V. Back in the 00's, I designed an SSTO suing VDS... it had the correct lack of payload that a pre-fusion rocket should have... and was sized similarly to the Starship+Booster stack. EABA Stuff - same basic concepts as CORPS VDS, and same author, but a number of years later. Streamlined the process a bit, too. And for EABA, not CORPS... If one can accept Fusion and an FTL as acceptable handwavium, the Albedo Ship Sourcebook is probably the most realistic RPG supplement for the N-space side of space ships I've seen. And, appropriately, starship battles are won or lost on the programming beforehand, since no biological can react fast enough. Fusion Torch for a couple days in/out, with near instant jumps, conflicts between ships will be single pass, and put as much stuff in their way as one can for the insane KE dump on impact... explosives become redundant at that point. |
|
02-21-2022, 08:48 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Gurps Spaceships cals this a "fast pass" and it is indeed a major (or _the_major) form of ship engagements in hard science universes. Spaceships jsut handles other stuff too.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
02-22-2022, 11:49 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: May 2010
|
Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
Quote:
I've already checked out CORPS VDS, but was turned off by the worked example of how to build a fission thermal rocket—the Isp is roughly correct but it's calculated based on two AFAICT totally meaningless numbers; I also suspect it would require the rocket to get a resupply of fissionables more often than would actually be necessary in real life.
__________________
Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. Last edited by Michael Thayne; 02-23-2022 at 07:45 AM. |
|
|
|