[Spaceships] Hull size of Falcon...

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by GoblynByte

Tl;dr: Discussions of whether GURPS Spaceships uses mass or linear measurements are ultimately pointless .

I quote Spaceships p.9 "Length is only an approximation. Feel free to vary it."

Loaded mass is given as hard numbers and it is necessary for these to be taken firmly for the Delta-V calculations to work. No stats actually depend on length. Spaceships actually tends to ignore SM as calculated in Characters.

The rile of mass is the Spaceships is really not a matter of opinion.

However, I intend to let this drop. I only spoke up to try and clear up misinformation. Everyone should be clear by now about the way the Spaceships rules actually work. Don't take my word for it. Read the rules.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

However, I intend to let this drop. I only spoke up to try and clear up misinformation. Everyone should be clear by now about the way the Spaceships rules actually work. Don't take my word for it. Read the rules.

Fred has been contributing to GURPS as a playtester for a very long time, and this is why. He reads the rules. He knows the rules, and understands the rules. If Fred makes a post it's a good idea to read it and listen.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Honestly, this is one of those deals where I want a bit wider granularity in Spaceships. SM +7 is 300 tons, SM +8 is 1000 tons; I'd expect the Falcon to be in the 500 or 750 ton range, "half-sizes" which are not fully supported by the system as yet.

Actually Eric Smith's Spaceships worksheet does an excellent job handling half sizes if you really did want to go for SM +7.5.

As an aside, the Falcon probably has a +1 or so handling bonus as well given that it is viable in combat with fighters.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Kale

Actually Eric Smith's Spaceships worksheet does an excellent job handling half sizes if you really did want to go for SM +7.5.

I've never gotten that to work properly in OpenOffice, sadly.

Originally Posted by Kale

As an aside, the Falcon probably has a +1 or so handling bonus as well given that it is viable in combat with fighters.

Oh, I agree, it should have a Hnd and Move score enabling it to handle with fighters, but those should be the result of all the after-market tinkering Lando, Han, and prior owners of the ship have put into it, not the "stock" YT-1300 stats....

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Oh, I agree, it should have a Hnd and Move score enabling it to handle with fighters, but those should be the result of all the after-market tinkering Lando, Han, and prior owners of the ship have put into it, not the "stock" YT-1300 stats....

Indeed! I would model a stock YT-1300 as handling like a freighter, but also leave it very open to improvements by the owner. It probably has something like a +2 to Engineering skill for modifications at a minimum.

[davester65]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I use SM +8 for two reasons: 1) that's the size at which you have a four-seat bridge (in the Falcon's case, it's Pilot (Han's seat), Co-Pilot (Chewie's seat), Astrogator (the seat behind Han's), and Comms (the seat behind Chewie's), backed up by the four-man crew Lando had on the Falcon's bridge in RotJ - those weren't just Passenger Seating); and 2) I use SM +5 for X-Wings and Y-Wings, SM +4 for the A-Wings, Delta-7s, and Eta-2s, and SM +6 for the shuttles and B-Wings. The Falcon looks more than a bit larger than the shuttles.

That said, I can see arguments for SM +7, but you have to reconcile the Falcon's four bridge stations with the fact that SM +7 gives you only three stations on the bridge.

Don't forget that if the ship has an engine room that adds another control station, so an SM+7 ship with an engine room would have 4 control stations. We could see from The Empire Strikes Back that the Falcon could be repaired from the inside so a Spaceships design would probably devote space for an engine room.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by davester65

Don't forget that if the ship has an engine room that adds another control station, so an SM+7 ship with an engine room would have 4 control stations. We could see from The Empire Strikes Back that the Falcon could be repaired from the inside so a Spaceships design would probably devote space for an engine room.

Yeah, but that control station wouldn't be on the bridge; more likely it'd be a station in the engine room itself.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Yeah, but that control station wouldn't be on the bridge; more likely it'd be a station in the engine room itself.

That's not really a requirement of the Spaceships system.

In regards to the SM+7/SM+8 debate, the Falcon doesn't seem to dedicate much of its hull to cargo; I could see it having only 2 Cargo modules (for 100 tons of cargo at SM+8) rather than the six or seven that'd be required at SM+7. The Falcon, instead, dedicates a lot of space to quarters, guns, and engines.

Still, I'd actually try statting up the Falcon and see what gets closer to what we see on the screen.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Yeah, but that control station wouldn't be on the bridge; more likely it'd be a station in the engine room itself.

Drawing deckplans for Spaceships designs is up to the GM but I would not be overly literal about the contents of one Spaceships "module" being all together in the ship. Modules are more units of accounting than physical units of construction.

For example, the armament plan of the Falcon is probably something like one Secondary Battery with two lasers (Improved UV or something like that) plus one missile launcher. Yet the lasers are on opposite sides of the hull and the concussion missiles are up front between the "forks".

Or that might be the stock YT-1300 anyway but the point is that there can be parts of any given module in separated parts of the ship. so the workstation of the Engine Room could be on the bridge even if the tool boxes, spare parts and the access panels are..... sort of in one of the corridors I think. I certainly don't recall a single chair and computer monitor anywhere on the official deckplans.

[weby]

When running my KOTOR campaign I went with SM +7 for the Ebon Hawk. (The "This is not Milennium Falcon- Honestly!", lookalike from Knights of the Old Republic games).

Basically when trying to fit in the modules the sizes fitted a lot better into a SM +7. A SM +8 would have have made the thing way too spacy.

You can see the result in:
https://hups.kivinen.iki.fi/k2009:ebon_hawk