GURPS Spaceships

[lachimba]

I was thinking about buying GURPS spaceships

I have Transhuman space so I have spaceship and combat rules there. I was wondering if the rules in Spaceships are more or less complicated.

My preference is to have rules that are as much aligned to 4th edition at possible, are good for hard science and have as little maths possible.


What should I expect?

[David Johnston2]

Spaceships is simplified by comparison with any other ship design system I've seen but covers hard science fiction spaceships very well. So yeah, it sounds like exactly what you are asking for.

[PK]

If the system in (3rd Edition) GURSP Vehicles was calculus, and the system in THS was algebra, GURPS Spaceships is "4/9 * 3/2 = 2/3".

It breaks everything down into 20 systems, each of which takes up 5% of your ship's mass. So spaceship design comes down to picking your systems and where they go, writing down the stats, and playing!

By making everything based on mass, it drastically simplifies things. A good example: If you install a single Chemical Rocket system in your ship, it will move your ship at 3G. This is true regardless of the size of your ship, the other systems, or any other factors! One rocket = 3G. Why? Because that's the amount of thrust that you get when 5% of a ship's mass is devoted to chemical rockets. Since it's proportional, your ship's size doesn't factor in, and since you already know the relative weight of the other systems (i.e., 95% of the ship's mass), the math is already done for you. And it's 100% hard science . . . unless you decide you want superscience, cuz it can handle that, too.

So if you know you want a ship with certain stats, you can arrange that as you build, instead of having to go through the whole process, then calculate the stats, then realize it isn't quite what you want, and go back to tweak things, starting all over again. It's a true one-pass system, and you can build a fully fleshed-out ship in less than 20 minutes once you're familiar with the system.

Oh, and the best news? It's got a ton of supplements so you can get a bunch of premade ships and specialized rules . . . and GURPS Spaceships 8 happens to be Transhuman Spacecraft! Full conversions of darn near every ships every written down for THS (including all the Spacecraft of the Solar Systems ones), along with detailed guidelines on how to keep the "THS feel" while using GURPS Spaceships. Unfortunately, this book isn't out yet -- probably won't be for a few months at least -- but it's underway and from what I've seen, it's looking damn good.

[Mazza]

I can definitely recommend the GURPS Spaceships line for hard SF ships with minimal maths involved in the design and operation. It's a really excellent set of supplements. I actually have to put them aside and deliberately avoid looking at them when I am trying to organise games, because they fill my head with so many more ideas for spaceships and campaigns built around them that I get distracted from the game I'm actually running!

[PK]

Originally Posted by Mazza

I can definitely recommend the GURPS Spaceships line for hard SF ships with minimal maths involved in the design and operation. It's a really excellent set of supplements. I actually have to put them aside and deliberately avoid looking at them when I am trying to organise games, because they fill my head with so many more ideas for spaceships and campaigns built around them that I get distracted from the game I'm actually running!

Yeah, it's awesome that you can waste a few hours with it and build a dozen spaceships, where it used to take the same time to make one! I get caught up, myself, all the time.

(And I worry that I sound like a shill on threads like this, but I'm honestly a massive fan of GURPS Spaceships, and was well before I joined the company! It literally, single-handedly reignited my interest in playing space games, particularly Traveller. It is the best spaceship building system I've ever used by a large margin.)

[Mark Skarr]

GURPS Spaceships is the bomb.

Go buy it. It's simple. You will not be disappointed.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

GURPS Spaceships is the bomb.

Go buy it. It's simple. You will not be disappointed.

I think I am, on the whole. But not for design-related reasons. It's pretty good there, though I wouldn't have minded something more complicated.

[rintropy]

From the fragmented bits & pieces included as appendices in other books as well as having experience with that mathematical CF Vehicles (loved, but MAN that was an all-day process), I'ma say Spaceships FTW.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by lachimba

thinking about buying GURPS spaceships

I have Transhuman space so I have spaceship and combat rules there. I was wondering if the rules in Spaceships are more or less complicated.

My preference is to have rules that are as much aligned to 4th edition at possible, are good for hard science and have as little maths possible.

What should I expect?

Spaceships is 4th edition, hard science is the norm but ^superscience is in there with options to cover lots of SF tropes.
Simplicity? The design maths is basic arithmetic; it's as simple as chess (it's not how you do it that's complex but how you can apply the moves).

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

If the system in (3rd Edition) GURSP Vehicles was calculus, and the system in THS was algebra, GURPS Spaceships is "4/9 * 3/2 = 2/3".

It breaks everything down into 20 systems, each of which takes up 5% of your ship's mass. So spaceship design comes down to picking your systems and where they go, writing down the stats, and playing!

By making everything based on mass, it drastically simplifies things. A good example: If you install a single Chemical Rocket system in your ship, it will move your ship at 3G. This is true regardless of the size of your ship, the other systems, or any other factors! One rocket = 3G. Why? Because that's the amount of thrust that you get when 5% of a ship's mass is devoted to chemical rockets. Since it's proportional, your ship's size doesn't factor in, and since you already know the relative weight of the other systems (i.e., 95% of the ship's mass), the math is already done for you. And it's 100% hard science . . . unless you decide you want superscience, cuz it can handle that, too.

So if you know you want a ship with certain stats, you can arrange that as you build, instead of having to go through the whole process, then calculate the stats, then realize it isn't quite what you want, and go back to tweak things, starting all over again. It's a true one-pass system, and you can build a fully fleshed-out ship in less than 20 minutes once you're familiar with the system.

Oh, and the best news? It's got a ton of supplements so you can get a bunch of premade ships and specialized rules . . . and GURPS Spaceships 8 happens to be Transhuman Spacecraft! Full conversions of darn near every ships every written down for THS (including all the Spacecraft of the Solar Systems ones), along with detailed guidelines on how to keep the "THS feel" while using GURPS Spaceships. Unfortunately, this book isn't out yet -- probably won't be for a few months at least -- but it's underway and from what I've seen, it's looking damn good.

Interestingly, the idea of perfect scaling may or may not be correct. For instance, at least two of my players are claiming that engineering doesn't necessarily scale linearly. This was very true regarding VE for GURPS 3e, though IIRC VE only addressed cases where bigger == more efficient.