GURPS Starships line errata (and some observations)

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

My personal guess is that the market for spaceship combat boardgames isn't what David wishes it would be. Spaceships is at least his third try at doing one that overlaps with rpgs and none have been all that successful as boardgames.

There might be a bigger market that doesn't overlap wit rpgs much but there Spaceships is handicapped by a lack of mini and a default setting.

I'm not so sure. Spaceships sold well enough to generate 7 total volumes, which is hot stuff, but more focus seems to be on the design system than on the pre-gens he has. People are often astonished when I point out that star destroyers, x-wings and tie-fighters are right in there, with the serial numbers scratched off. So is the Enterprise and, I think, a Romulan Warbird and a Klingon Bird of Prey. The reason is that nobody seems to use them, so seeing Weby give them a good fisking warms my heart.

(I think one reason we use so few of them is that the Spaceship rules seem to require so much finessing to get decent gameplay out of them that, inevitably, we build our own. Still, I do sometimes use them for inspiration)

I do agree about the lack of a default setting, though. There are so many particulars that you need to work out before you can really make spaceships work, so I find I can rarely use the spaceships given in the books directly... but they do often serve well for benchmarking things. Pulver's version of the Enterprise informed a lot of my "This totally isn't Star Trek" material.

[Krinberry]

I use 2-8 for inspiration a lot, though I don't think I've ever used one of the suggestions directly out of the book. This isn't because they're bad; it's simply more fun and rewarding to build your own, even when you're building it with the intent of having it be fairly similar to an existing entry.

I definitely feel like all the books in the Spaceships line have been worth it to me, mostly as inspiration and for the various rule extensions. I'd also happily buy a brand new book that consolidated all the various systems, design switches, and design features from the series and Pyramid into one, though I understand that's unlikely to happen. Can't stop the dream though. :)

[Phantasm]

Of the Spaceships line, I use 1, 4, and 7 the most, along with various Pyramids with additional modules. The others I look at for inspiration, but I don't think I've ever used a single example ship.

[Fred Brackin]

[QUOTE=Mailanka;1932440]I'm not so sure. Spaceships sold well enough to generate 7 total volumes, which is hot stuff, /QUOTE]

Spaceships wasn't written (or playtested) on a basis of sales of the previous book justifying another volume. It was always conceived of as a 7 volume series and was written that way. Volume 8 (Transhuman Space) was the only after the fact addition.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Spaceships wasn't written (or playtested) on a basis of sales of the previous book justifying another volume. It was always conceived of as a 7 volume series and was written that way. Volume 8 (Transhuman Space) was the only after the fact addition.

Really? I hadn't heard that. Fair enough. However, I'll point out that Spaceships did sell enough to get a printed copy, unless that was always conceived of from the beginning?

We don't have the sales data anymore, but I had the impression Spaceships did alright. People wanted a copy of it, but I think that had more to do with building spaceships than using pregenerated ones (there's no rush to make a printed version of SS3, for example)

[kabson]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

People are often astonished when I point out that star destroyers, x-wings and tie-fighters are right in there, with the serial numbers scratched off. So is the Enterprise and, I think, a Romulan Warbird and a Klingon Bird of Prey. The reason is that nobody seems to use them, so seeing Weby give them a good fisking warms my heart.

Is there a list of the 'familiar' examples somewhere? It's not that I'm not going to use them, but I'd love to see how GURPS handles them (and I'm not that keen that I'll dig through all the books).

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Smeette

Is there a list of the 'familiar' examples somewhere? It's not that I'm not going to use them, but I'd love to see how GURPS handles them (and I'm not that keen that I'll dig through all the books).

I wouldn't be surprised if someone had put one together, but most of the worked examples are obviously inspired by something. The ^ are usually your fancy Space Opera stuff.

The Empire-Class Dreadnought from SS3 p10 is clearly a star destroyer. The Typhoon Space Fighter from SS4 p11 is clearly a tie-fighter, and the Starhawk on SS4 p12 is definitely an x-wing (it has 4 major fixed mounted laser batteries, and "unusual for fighters, it "has an engine room, (often manned by a robot) for repairs"). The Wyvern Star Fighter on the same page is probably a Y-fighter. The Sword-Class Heavy Cruiser on SS3 14 doesn't ring any bells, but it clearly uses the same sort of technology as the rest, so if it's not a Star Wars knock-off, it'll still make an excellent addition to your growing collection. These are all TL 11^, with x-ray lasers and force screens.

The Dark Horse-Class Free Trader might be a Millenium Falcon: It features a "souped-up" FTL engine, meaning it travels faster than everything else, it has two laser turrets, an engine room, and is described as specializing in smuggling.

For Star Trek, the Intrepid-Class Frontier Cruiser is definitely the Constitution-class Enterprise, on SS3 p 15. The Palomer-Class Exploration Cruiser is probably the Galaxy-class Enterprise. The Eclipse-Class Battle Cruiser on SS3 p14 might be a Romulan Warbird, and the Seraphim-Class Frigate might be a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. All of them feature Subwarp drives and force screens. The Adversary-Class Super Dreadnought is similarly TL 12^with force screens and subwarp drives, so it might fit in that "gamespace", even though I don't recognize what it's meant to be.

The Operator-Class Reality Police Cruiser from SS7 page 35 is definitely the TARDIS, and the Ariel-Class Transforming Space Fighter from SS4 p 28 is clearly a Veritech fighter.

There are a few others I suspect (I think there are grapple-ships from Outlaw Star, and I think the Serenity from Firefly is in there somewhere too, but I'm reluctant to call them out here). The reason I think that Pulver doesn't explicitly come out and say these things, though, goes beyond avoiding being sued. Star Destroyers and Tie Fighters and Exploration Cruisers aren't actually that unique, and quite a few of these entries could be bent to represent quite a few things, and they can work together in ways that might not exactly fit their original inspiration, which I think is good.

If you use these, you won't get Star Wars, but you might get Psi-Wars, which is similar enough that most people will enjoy it, but far enough that you have the freedom to do what you want.

[weby]

Spaceships 5

Star Seed
Has only one Solar Panel Array. So needs the note "Cannot use Mining and Nanofactory modules at the same time"

Note: Swapping one of the Science Arrays(there is really no need for more than one) to a second Solar Panel Array would allow both to be operated at the same time.

[kabson]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I wouldn't be surprised if someone had put one together, but most of the worked examples are obviously inspired by something. The ^ are usually your fancy Space Opera stuff.

The Empire-Class Dreadnought from SS3 p10 is clearly a star destroyer. The Typhoon Space Fighter from SS4 p11 is clearly a tie-fighter, and the Starhawk on SS4 p12 is definitely an x-wing (it has 4 major fixed mounted laser batteries, and "unusual for fighters, it "has an engine room, (often manned by a robot) for repairs"). The Wyvern Star Fighter on the same page is probably a Y-fighter. The Sword-Class Heavy Cruiser on SS3 14 doesn't ring any bells, but it clearly uses the same sort of technology as the rest, so if it's not a Star Wars knock-off, it'll still make an excellent addition to your growing collection. These are all TL 11^, with x-ray lasers and force screens.

The Dark Horse-Class Free Trader might be a Millenium Falcon: It features a "souped-up" FTL engine, meaning it travels faster than everything else, it has two laser turrets, an engine room, and is described as specializing in smuggling.

For Star Trek, the Intrepid-Class Frontier Cruiser is definitely the Constitution-class Enterprise, on SS3 p 15. The Palomer-Class Exploration Cruiser is probably the Galaxy-class Enterprise. The Eclipse-Class Battle Cruiser on SS3 p14 might be a Romulan Warbird, and the Seraphim-Class Frigate might be a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. All of them feature Subwarp drives and force screens. The Adversary-Class Super Dreadnought is similarly TL 12^with force screens and subwarp drives, so it might fit in that "gamespace", even though I don't recognize what it's meant to be.

The Operator-Class Reality Police Cruiser from SS7 page 35 is definitely the TARDIS, and the Ariel-Class Transforming Space Fighter from SS4 p 28 is clearly a Veritech fighter.

There are a few others I suspect (I think there are grapple-ships from Outlaw Star, and I think the Serenity from Firefly is in there somewhere too, but I'm reluctant to call them out here). The reason I think that Pulver doesn't explicitly come out and say these things, though, goes beyond avoiding being sued. Star Destroyers and Tie Fighters and Exploration Cruisers aren't actually that unique, and quite a few of these entries could be bent to represent quite a few things, and they can work together in ways that might not exactly fit their original inspiration, which I think is good.

If you use these, you won't get Star Wars, but you might get Psi-Wars, which is similar enough that most people will enjoy it, but far enough that you have the freedom to do what you want.

Great list, thank you. You have several of the 'inspirations' I would never have guessed.

Now I know where to start, my first thoughts for the Adversary-class were that it might be a Death Star-equivalent, but I'm not convinced. [No, that can't be right, it's way too small. The reference to 'glittering armor' might be a clue.] My space opera pop culture is a bit rusty.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Smeette

Great list, thank you. You have several of the 'inspirations' I would never have guessed.

Now I know where to start, my first thoughts for the Adversary-class were that it might be a Death Star-equivalent, but I'm not convinced. [No, that can't be right, it's way too small. The reference to 'glittering armor' might be a clue.] My space opera pop culture is a bit rusty.

I suspect you'd need to look to Japanese cartoons for that one. That spinal weapon has a whole Wave Motion Cannon vibe to it. It's not intended to be the Death Star. Its weapon only blows up cities or battlefleets.