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

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

In preparation for my Star Control campaign, I'm looking over spaceships in hopes of making conversions. No, I'm not going after the silly literalism like crew=HP and other stuff. Instead, I'm aiming for the spirit of the ship designs. So, here are things I figured so far:

TL
It seems most convenient to set the general setting TL to 10^ after the Second Doctrinal War. Some races have unique access to rare technologies, such as a short-range Jump Drive.
Computers seem to be retarded, except for the civilizations who are computers. I guess that warrants the Electro-Mechanical switch; Chmmr and Daktaklakpak are just built with points, and considered non-reproducible except through 'black-box', i.e. 'natural' reproduction.
Personal-scale TL is probably better left a bit lower - 9 seems okay.

Engines:
Standard Reactionless and Hot Reactionless are the two standard methods of propulsion. Both engine types have a maximum speed relative to the star system (which usually means its sun) in which the ship flies. If a ship somehow attains a greater speed, and activates the reactionless engines, it will decelerate with their usual sAccel value. Maximum speed is proportional to the number of engines (yes, original SC had separate acceleration and max speed values, but I don't see the point). I'm considering setting the equation such that for each 1G of sAccel the ship's maximum speed equals the 'average' engagement speed for whatever combat scale will be deemed 'generic' for the setting (which is probably 0.5G/Close, i.e. 1-minute; might be forced to use Standard 3-minute though). Thus either 1 or 3mps per engine. That would take years to reach the Oort cloud, so maybe I should set the max speed higher when away from gravity wells and 'non-synchronized' engines (thus allowing 'synchronized' fleets to travel faster in places where they have nothing to run into).

Power Plants
The idea of using capacitors that are spent and then recharge on a combat timescale seems a bit dubious, and certainly very far from RAW. So I'm considering giving most ships Fusion Plants in such a way that they can't power All of their systems simultaneously. For instance, the Yehat Terminator can't power both their unique heavy shield and all of its guns (and drives). The somewhat unintended result is that some engineers will have the choice between not only weapons and special systems, but also engines.

Weapons
Not all weapons match their SC descriptions. In general, 'powerful' small attacks, like those of the Yehat Terminators, I would represent using EM guns. Short-ranged powerful weapons are usually Plasma-based. Earthling missiles are just that, missiles; however, as real nukes would often be game-enders in this setting, I'm considering the idea of using normal missile stats instead, claiming that those are micronukes in this setting, and real 'big' nukes are unavailable.
LASERs seem kinda meh though. Not sure if they're appropriate.

FTL
The default assumption is Hyperdrive + Fueltank(s). The hyperdrive eats fuel proportional to the distance traveled, not acceleration/speed. Top hyperspace speed does, however, depend on the the number/power of engines.
With the hyperspace collapse, only precursor ships get to use Hyperspace throughout the galaxy (I initially wanted to say it's the new W-Space, but now I'm unsure); however, there are *shallow spaces* where Hyperdrives still function even after the *crumble*.
And then there's Quasi-space for those who can *slip* into it.

Fuel
While fuel is essential for FTL travel, I'm considering the idea of making it so that Reactionless drives do not require fuel, or require amounts totally negligible.

Ship sizes
I'm very, very unsure how to approach that. Canonically, ships have rather small crews by space operah standards - 6 to 42 is typical. However, I think that is a bit too little, and consider the possibility of expanding the top limit.
However, there's another idea: the SC2 Flagship has place for 50 crewmen per Crew Quarters; assuming rough equivalence between an SC2 Crew Quarters and a G:SS Habitat full of Cabins with Total Life Support, that puts the Flagship at SM+10. However, that puts the top size of the Dreadnought, Marauder and Avatar at SM+9 (if that). Autonomous Fighters should logically be SM+4 (they're rather small); a single +9 Hangar is large enough to fit 10 inside (10t per fighter, 100t per hangar); some experiments on my part confirm that UQ Dreadnoughts launch up to 12 fighters at a time; call it 2 hangers full of fighters in G:SS.
Making Arilou Skiffs smaller than SM+6 is hard, so I guess they define the lower size limit for non-fighter craft.
IOW, sizes for hyperspace-capable craft range from +6 to +9, giving us 4 size categories, plus fighters (5th - non-capable).

Considerations for specific ships:
Some ships are relatively easy to build; others require bending the rules or even more. Since I'm intending to primarily use only 8 of the races/civilizations, here's the list of the ones I worked on:

Earthling Cruiser
Spinal Missile Launcher, Central Hull Laser Medium (or smaller) Turret. Unused slots filled with ECM to denote generally being defensive.

Syreen Patrol Craft
(Yes, I'm not using the P-word in my campaign.)
More Habitats and Cargo Holds than typical for combat craft. Fixed Particle Beam on the front hull. Mind Disruptor with special effect: the more powerful effect is a compulsion to abandon ship instead of the usual incapacitation.

Arilou Skiff
Central LASER Major Turret. Short-range teleporter denoted as Jump Drive, with the special feature of increasing total sAccel of the ship for combat purposes, and maybe giving some bonus for escape.

Chmmr Avatar
The LASER will probably have to be replaced by something different to buff damage. Tractor Beam should probably be replaced by the GURPS version of Tractor batteries in the central hull. ZapSats are probably best represented as SM+4 automatons with Tractor Drives (linked to the Avatar's position by a permanent Tractor Link).

Ur-Quan Dreadnought
I suppose I should arm it with a Spinal weapon of some sort, but not sure what would fit best. Plasma is too short-ranged, and anything else doesn't look like it fits. Fighters are just that. I'm probably arming them with Spinal Particle beams, even though missiles would probably make more sense from a DPS perspective.
The ship should probably include luxury cabins instead of normal ones, and lots of Open Space (this being a post-second-war era, where Ur-Quan are no longer dispersed to 'one Ur-Quan per ship').

Kohr-Ah Marauder
Absolutely no idea on either the blades nor the FRIED system. OK, just one couple of ideas: maybe make blades into just a special form of missiles or propelled mines, and represent FRIED with ECM+PD, but that makes the Marauder into a 'Dark Earthling Cruiser'.

Androsynth Guardian
The Androsynth are essential to the story arc of my campaign, but I have even more problems converting their ship. This is one weird-science design, I tell you. For those not in the know, their primary weapon is a launcher of 'bubbles' [sic] which essentially do Corrosion damage upon contact, and are erratically semi-homing on enemy ships. Their special system of the ship is the ability to temporarily transform into a comet-like form, increasing speed, maneouvrability, and dealing very nasty collision damage (while becoming essentially immune to collisions with anything of its size).

Yehat Terminator
Pretty easy, actually. Heavy Shield with the feature that it is available at TL10^, but must be either on or off (no 1-PP mode). I suppose it's possible to add another limitation - that it overloads in several seconds unless it gets more than 2PP per turn, but that seems somewhat overcomplicated.

Looking forward to comments and advice.
Thanks in advance!