Star Trek Spaceships?

[GodlessRose]

Does anyone know of a site with write-ups of Star Trek starships for GURPS Spaceships? My group is most interested in TOS, but I'd like to see examples from the other Trek shows too.

I'm planning to GM Star Trek in 4e. The character templates don't seem like too big a problem, but I am unsure how to adapt the starships. I am reading GURPS Spaceships now, but I've never been interested in the tech of ST, so it's hard for me to put it in perspective.

I've only found 2 write-ups so far - the Enterprise NX-01 and a B'rel-class Klingon vessel:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=38352
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=54

[Dantar]

Are you going to do a lot of ship to ship fighting?

When we do star trek games we usually focus more on the story than the fighting. If you need basic ship stats try Memory Alpha. It's a great site for pretty much everything Star Trek.

Ships in Star Trek are pretty ridiculous for the most part, like most of the technology on the shows actually.

[GodlessRose]

Originally Posted by Dantar

Are you going to do a lot of ship to ship fighting?

When we do star trek games we usually focus more on the story than the fighting. If you need basic ship stats try Memory Alpha. It's a great site for pretty much everything Star Trek.

Ships in Star Trek are pretty ridiculous for the most part, like most of the technology on the shows actually.

No, I don't plan on much combat, starship or personal. I may start the campaign before I get the ships done, and just make sure there's no ship-to-ship combat early on. But there will be some sooner or later.

[Dantar]

I guess I'd reccomend not letting it slow down the development of a campaign.

Fighting in Star Trek episodes usually doesn't take up too much time, and is usually pretty epic, so I like to have most of that be cinematic.

As for Star Trek games in general, I wrote up some new skills to make my life as a GM and life for the players easier:

Propulsion Engineering: (This is Component Modification / Repair)
-Impulse Drive
-Warp Drive

Systems Engineering: (This is Component Modification / Repair)
-Communications
-Computer Systems
-Sensors
-Shields
-Transporter / Replication
-Weapon Systems

Shipboard Systems: (This is Interface Operation)
-Communications
-Environmental Control
-Flight Control
-Medical
-Sensors
-Tactical
-Transporter
-Engineering

Combat Skills:
Beam Weapons (Pistol)
Beam Weapons (Rifle)
Starfleet Martial Arts
Law (Federation)
Law (Starfleet Regulations)
Vacc Suit (Starfleet)
Weird Science

It's pretty much self explanatory, and renames a few skills. Worked better for us.

[GoodGame]

There are many unofficial tech specs as well as generic RPG netbooks on Star Trek out there that might be of help.

Try googling Star Trek RPG net book and Star Trek spaceships.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Whats wrong with GURPS Prime Directive?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Whats wrong with GURPS Prime Directive?

Hush you! That's a different thread. :)

A more serious answer is that Prime Directive is more faithful to Starfleet Battles than TOS and I recommend PD only to people who want to game in the Starfleet Battles universe.

[GodlessRose]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Whats wrong with GURPS Prime Directive?

Unless I am mistaken, the PD books don't contain stats for GURPS Spaceships, which is the ruleset I want to use. (I've never actually read PD, though, so correct me if I'm wrong.) I like the look of the Spaceships rules - just enough detail to be convincing, but simple enough not to be distracting.

Besides, I want to play the canonical ST universe, not the SFB alternate universe.

[dataweaver]

Of course, a counter-point might be that Star Fleet Battles is more faithful to TOS than the Star Trek franchise is; but that's a whole other discussion.

[JCD]

http://www.startreksite.com/warpspeed/warp4.html

I am uncertain about how to do the URL's but there is the site for warp speeds. Most of TOS ran at a max of around Warp 8 or so. As a general rule, most ships went Warp 4, which is about 3 days per ly.

As far as everything else, use the "10 shot" rule for the PC's, the "5-8 shot rule" for the bad guys.

Of much more importance is to define the non ship technology as the characters will interact with it much more often. Any of the Star Trek Technical Manuals will offer you advise on that front.

Of particular interest is the replicators and the transporters. A replicator creates...whatever. We all know what a transporter does.

As you are old school, assume that the replicators are slightly quicker equivilants of the MiniFacs. Essentially anything normal can be made, but it will take a few hours to gin up, and it is based upon ship stores. So it is unlikely that they are carrying more then a few pounds of gold etc. Fake diamonds may be a problem, however... Additionally, the output is only as good as the input. If all the folks on the planet have a wild sheen to their clothes, the replicator won't if not properly programed.

Transporters: This is a tough one because it is a "get out of trouble" free card. The first question is "do I HAVE to deny them this?" because exactly how many storms are you going to put in your universe?

A few handy limitations to keep in mind:

-One, the darned things probably use a gram of antimatter per person. Not critical during an emergency, but whomever is in charge should understand that as a matter of economics.

-Two, they use "buffers", which are big harddrives (to mangle an analogy). To "reboot" it takes two minutes (longer in TOS). As most military ships have more then one transporter, that means that they can beam up several times in a row...if they all work. Civilian ships MAY have one...and they usually use the buffers on BOTH sides for the most accurate transfer.

You cannot transport through shields, yours or the bad guys.

-Electrical storms wreak havoc on the data streams. Not good if you want to be in one piece.

-Ships going vastly different speeds can't transport to one another.

-Transporters can't beam very accurately to places it can't sense. Large and unusual rock formations inhibit this.

-Transporters are limited to about 40,000 km. You need to be pretty close astronomically.

-Figure out now how you want to address the "good" guys transporting a bomb onto an enemy ship. If they CAN do it, they'll try one day.

Phasers and communicators. Use radios and ray guns. They work until they don't.

Tricorders: They should always tell you something, even if the results are contradictory. Shake the magic eight ball.

Most shuttles are slow. Some go warp speeds. This is useful for sending small numbers interstellar ranges as a plot device. Explain it away as fuel savings; i.e. it takes a few grams of anti matter to send a shuttle while it would take a normal starship a couple of kilograms.

As a general rule, I used tech 10 with anti matter and transporters to give an adequate analog. Some stuff is tech 11.