[Spaceships] Converting Star Control spaceships (more spirit than letter)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kissamies

You know, there used to be a page about GURPS Star Control some guy made. Too bad it doesn't seem to exist any more. It had a lot of stuff I didn't agree with, but it would have been very good for mining ideas. I remember some of it. I think it was mostly race templates.

I searched for quite a while, and I think it's down. Some broken links and other wreckage, but no survivors.

Originally Posted by Kissamies

Also, you probably know of this wiki already, but here's the link in case you don't: Ultronomicon

Yeah, nice source, though I need to replay SC2 to get some of the more detailed info (e.g. Kohr-Ah reply to The Words).

Originally Posted by Kissamies

IIRC, that guy had the most advanced guys, such as the Ur-Quan, Chmmr and Yehat at 11, most of the others at 10 and more primitive ones, especially those who had been uplifted, like Shofixti by Yehat and some of the Hierarchy races, at 9.
I think you are on the right track. Just play it loose with TL and don't be afraid to snag a higher TL gizmo if it fits the setting. The Yehat obviously have force field tech, for example, at least at starship scale. Precursor tech is obviously 12^ and beyond.

GURPS TLs are very harsh. 1 or two TLs of difference will make a mess of the weaker ship immediately. Besides, it's easier to scale armor and engines that way.

Originally Posted by Kissamies

Remember, that on SC2 it costs some fuel to fly around in star systems. Lander uses fuel too. I can understand wanting to avoid the headache, though. The SC3's Warp Bubble Transport always sounded to me much like the regular scifi warp drive, as described in GURPS Space p.40. It just can take the fleet along the ride. I don't think it needs a separate 'space'.

There's like a 0.3 fuel cost per landing, but flying in-system is free. As for the Warp Bubble, this is where I'm planning the diverge my campaign from the canonical SC timeline. Remember the Androsynth vanishing *somewhere*. They learned to *go and return*, and this time, they are the ones behind the big precursor vessel and the expedition. Makes for much more fun politics (some more notes in the Nomad Fleet thread).

Originally Posted by Kissamies

I'd say keep the small ships like the Skiff and Shofixti Scout small and make the big ships a little bigger.

Any bigger and Skiffs will die in one shot from PD fire. Luckily, the Shofixti haven't joined the expedition, so I don't need to worry about those gummybear-piloted nukes.

Originally Posted by Kissamies

There's also the inertialess propulsion. High Handling stat perhaps. It is certainly very maneuverable. Besides the Pkunk Fury, the best ship to make Mycon eat its own plasmoids. Don't know about the HyperSpace Shunt. Maybe using it could randomly rearrange the Skiff's Range with every other spacecraft.

I used the Pseudo-Velocity feature for them. So they don't worry (much) about Collision damage.

Originally Posted by Kissamies

I agree. Better range, though.

Prolly. Tractors are very, very weak in GURPS anyway, compared to EVE or SC2.

Originally Posted by Kissamies

Could be treated like an explosion, I guess. Or something that automatically hits at Point-blank range. Could be still dodgeable. With penalty, I suppose

Yeah, but what system?

Originally Posted by Kissamies

Maybe treat as weird short ranged missiles that can dodge.

The bubbles you mean? They just don't make much sense in the first place. I guess I can get away from the issue by saying that all Guardian blueprints are lost, and that the Flagship is the Androsynth ship in this expedition.