Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Spaceships] Translating CT ship stats to GURPS 4e

Anaraxes · 02-02-2022, 01:07 PM

Which is more important to you: using the Spaceships rules, or having the ships match the CT stats (tons of cargo, number of passengers, fuel as range and percentage of hull, etc)?

If it's preserving CT abilities, then just design a ship that has the right stats -- write down the specs you've already got from CT in Spaceships format. If there's a system or two left over, fine. Just leave it empty. Not quite enough cargo space? Just make it bigger to match. (The CT rules themselves allowed a 10% margin of error in deck plans on top of using a convention for the size of squares that itself was off by about 4%. Absolute precision of conversion isn't really required, as the source data isn't all that rigorously precise to start with. Meanwhile, the Spaceship rules are all about scaling its 1-3-10 progression, not hardcore reality -- especially since the exotic armor materials and weapons don't actually exist.) Beware of just matching the names of weapons. In this option you've got to think about how they play out in the SS combat rules. Is a "laser turret" really a "laser turret"? Is a "major weapon battery" firing missiles a "50-ton bay", or does that erase targets too quickly or slowly?

If the goal is converting to use the Spaceships rules, you can design ships to fit the concept ("small freighter carrying both passengers and freight", "patrol missile corvette", "monstrously huge battleship with a BFG spinal mount") using Spaceships without detailed reference to the CT stats. But of course those ships might vary a bit, and so they won't all have exactly the same relationship and provide the same feel as the CT versions.

Third option is to use the CT rules for ships, and GURPS for the characters. You don't usually have PCs shooting at ships or vice versa, so you don't really need GURPS stats for ship weapons. (Ship weapons hit human? They die. Human shoots a weapon intended for use on humans at a CT ship? It bounces off; the "unarmored" hull starts at DR 60.) The question in this option becomes mapping GURPS skills the PCs have to CT skills, so you know how to "make a Piloting / Navigation / Engineering / whatever" roll called for by CT rules. But most of those are easy to do just with the names of the skills.

Here's PK (Jason Levine)'s notes on using Spaceships for Traveller.

02-02-2022, 01:07 PM	#3
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: [Spaceships] Translating CT ship stats to GURPS 4e Which is more important to you: using the Spaceships rules, or having the ships match the CT stats (tons of cargo, number of passengers, fuel as range and percentage of hull, etc)? If it's preserving CT abilities, then just design a ship that has the right stats -- write down the specs you've already got from CT in Spaceships format. If there's a system or two left over, fine. Just leave it empty. Not quite enough cargo space? Just make it bigger to match. (The CT rules themselves allowed a 10% margin of error in deck plans on top of using a convention for the size of squares that itself was off by about 4%. Absolute precision of conversion isn't really required, as the source data isn't all that rigorously precise to start with. Meanwhile, the Spaceship rules are all about scaling its 1-3-10 progression, not hardcore reality -- especially since the exotic armor materials and weapons don't actually exist.) Beware of just matching the names of weapons. In this option you've got to think about how they play out in the SS combat rules. Is a "laser turret" really a "laser turret"? Is a "major weapon battery" firing missiles a "50-ton bay", or does that erase targets too quickly or slowly? If the goal is converting to use the Spaceships rules, you can design ships to fit the concept ("small freighter carrying both passengers and freight", "patrol missile corvette", "monstrously huge battleship with a BFG spinal mount") using Spaceships without detailed reference to the CT stats. But of course those ships might vary a bit, and so they won't all have exactly the same relationship and provide the same feel as the CT versions. Third option is to use the CT rules for ships, and GURPS for the characters. You don't usually have PCs shooting at ships or vice versa, so you don't really need GURPS stats for ship weapons. (Ship weapons hit human? They die. Human shoots a weapon intended for use on humans at a CT ship? It bounces off; the "unarmored" hull starts at DR 60.) The question in this option becomes mapping GURPS skills the PCs have to CT skills, so you know how to "make a Piloting / Navigation / Engineering / whatever" roll called for by CT rules. But most of those are easy to do just with the names of the skills. Here's PK (Jason Levine)'s notes on using Spaceships for Traveller. Last edited by Anaraxes; 02-02-2022 at 01:11 PM.