Brainstorming spaceship design

[Sven Norén]

Here are some ideas cribbed from another thread:

Originally Posted by soltakss

I'd treat Starship combat the same as normal combat.

Starships have locations, AP and HP. They have weapons that do damage. They have forcefields that absorb damage.

Sure, there are extra things to think about. You might be able to do Precise Attacks and target particular subsystems (Drives/Weapons/Life Support) you might even have to have rules for what happens if the hull in penetrated, with air leaks and so on. You'd certainly have rules on the number of charges a weapon has, recharge rates, batteries, how much power a ship has and how much can be fed into shields/weapons.

But, when it comes down to it, you have someone with 60% Pilot Starship, someone with 55% Starship Blaster, a Blaster doing 1D10 damage and a Starship with 6 point Hull and 10 HP in every location. The opponent can't dodge a Blaster but can dodge a Quantum Torpedo using his Pilot Starship. Some Starships might have modifiers, one might be Manouverable and give +20% to Pilot Starship for dodges, another might be Tough and have extra APs, another might have resealable skin or whatever.

Anything a lot more complicated than that is going way too far, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by badcat

You can give them stats like STR and so forth, too, like in the armies in 'Warlords of Alexandria', or ship 'personalities' like in 'Serenity'. Loads of ideas to get started, anyway.

Originally Posted by Enpeze

I think you are right. But one thing you forgot IMO: sensors. To "see" another ship or not is a matter of life and death in some space opera settings. This could be modelled like spot hidden skill or on the resistance table. (eg. sensor power 23 vs. ECM 20 or so)

Originally Posted by soltakss

It's easily covered by having a Sensors skill and resolving against a Stealth skill using whatever method is best.
...
Ship design is more complicated. I'd treat ships as PCs, whether they are alive/intelligent or not. So, give ships SIZ, CON, INT (?), DEX, POW (?). I'm not sure if they need STR or CHA, but they might be useful, STR might indicate how much cargo a ship can carry.
...
AP/HP might be called Hull Quality/Spaceworthiness, but you'd need something like this. Weapons, propulsion systems, power sources, battery stores, cargo holds, shuttlecraft and so on need to be included as well, so you'd need some way of limiting the number of things you can include in a ship, possibly based on SIZ.

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

soltakss is right, for the most part vechile combat can be handled like PC combat. Just cut & paste the "flavor enhancers" you need to fit the setting.

BRP actually does that through Superworld. Many superworld powers are built in a manner similar to Chanpions. While a laser blast, Ki Strike, Disintergrator beam, and magentic rail gun are all differernt, the most important game effect are the range, skill% and damage. Much like a RQ hatchet and shortsword are fairly similar in a functional aspect in BRP.

I think the reason why we don't have any rules for statships is just that Chaosium has never released a successful Sci-Fi RPG. Ringworld and FutureWorld were barely blips on the RPG radar. It isn't that Spaceships are tougher to work out than Magic or Superpowers.

I think the best way to handle it, and along the lines of how BRP is being organized, would be to work out a basic Hull/HP, MOVE, weapons, skill based system along sotakss idea (and workable along with the old sailing ship rules), and the work up some SPOT RULES for types fo SF settings. Stuff like different methods of FTL propulsion and all that could be in the SPOT RULES.

Come to think of it, the superpower rules could probably handle spaceships. Just limit the powers availably by the setting. For instance, Star Trek gets teleportation, energy weapons, and forcie fields.

BRP does need some decent SCi-Fi stuff it is is going to attempt to cover the genre, and definitely needs some sort of spaceship rules to do so (hey, they put a spaceship on the cover, right?).

Originally Posted by Sven Norén

STR is engines. High STR and low SIZ makes for an agile ship that has a good chance to dodge incoming missiles or feint enemy artillerists, the reverse - less so.

Originally Posted by Rurik

INT could be the 'intelligence' of the shipboard computers (how advanced they are), while POW could be the robustness of those systems. HP would represent physical damage, and POW Pts./MP could be used for Electronics damage (computers, sensors, etc).

Electronic Warfare or Sensor tech (or even shield systems) could be the 'Magic System' of starship combat.

[Trifletraxor]

http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/br...ip-design.html

Started an article in the wiki. We can discuss it here, and improve it there. I think the ideas are very good!

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

*SIGH*

Now I started working on a spaceship combat system....

Baed on the stuff above, and the info I can gleam from the Preview pages, how does this look for a start.

Ship Stats
STR= FORCE or THRUST of ship's engines. Used to determine how fast the ship goes.
CON= DURABILITY of the ship and the redundancy of ship systems.
SIZ= THe overall volume and MASS of the ship
INT= Computer systems, autopilot and A.I. rating. Think in terms of speed and qaulity.
POW= THe auxilary reseve POWER of the ship. Ship can spend POW points to boost an ability for the sort term (boost shields, increased Speed, etc).
DEX= Agility and Nimblesness of the craft. No so much how fast it moves (that is determined by STR and SIZ), but how fast it turns and maneuvers.
APP= The aesthetics, and luxury of the ship. Useful for price and morale purposes (as in the crew are happier if they have a pleasant ship with a buch of conforts rather than living in a grey box).
EDU= Databanks. How much information the ships computers can store. Think in terms of serves and hard drives.

HULL POINTS=Amount of damage a ship can withstand. Equal to (CON+SIZ)/2
ARMOR POINTS=Aps the ships hull can withstand before taking damage. Say start with a default of CON/5, but can buy up.

DEX SR= Used for maneuvering
INT SR= replaces SIZ SR for weapon uses. Basically how fast the computer can track targets, etc.

MOVE- How fast the ship moves in combat. Based on relationship between STR and SIZ. High STR good, high SIZ bad.
FTL MOVE- How fast the ship moves at superluminal velocities.

SHIP SKILLS
Ships will have skill category modifiers (or whatewver the new BRP term is) like Characters. These add to cetrtain skills of the ooperators, so not all ships will handle alike.

Communication- adds to use of Ships radios, holocoms, etc. Also used for ships enterainment facilities.
Physical- Used for Maeuvers, adds to Piloting rolls.
Combat- Adds to shiboard weapon shystems rolls, and other types or targeting, such as with tractors.
Mental-Adds to use of Computer skills and many Scienece or other skills that could be aided by the use of a computer (big plus)
Perception-Added to the use of Sensors.
Manipulation-Used for things like waldos, placing mines, etc.



How does that look so far?

[Atgxtg]

Started going through MAgic World to try and get POW and ship systems stuff.

For instance Deflector Shields can be the same as a Protection spell, and Countermeasures could be the same as Countermagic.

Considering the nature of ship combat. It looks like most Resistance rolls to "cast a spell" (engage in electronic warfare) on a target should probably be made using INT rather than POW, with POW simply being the battery used to power the effects. An option would use INT vs. INT, but allowing POW to be spent to boost an effect. Like using raw POW to burn through enemy countermeasures/magic.

A ship can only use an amount of abilties equal to half its INT rating, representing the CPU resources needed to work the effects.

Some effects could be limited, for instance a ship with a 12 INT might have Teleport 1 representing something like personal tranporters.

Scale- Can probably use some sort of scale factor for translating effects to PC scale.So a SIZ 3 ship might be SIZE 45 or 60 in character scale (I need to see the BRP SIZ chart before I can figure what ratio) with corresponding mass, hit points, etc. That would allow a SIZ 13 character to fit in a SIZE 3 ship, and said SIZ3 ship to have a kit ore Hull/Hit Points..

[Trifletraxor]

Power Points can be used to power the shield (aka protection/damage resistance) and energy weapons (aka disruption & other damage "spells"). Battery capacity in other words.

Using POW would burn out some of the power grids, but give a greater boost short-term.

SIZ should limit both the cargo and the crew. Weapon systems, engines and battery systems can all have SIZ requirements. So f.ex. a SIZ 1 ship can carry and offer life support for one man, but no weapons or cargo, etc.

SGL.

[jarulf]

A minimum amount of POW could be required to use a certain systems.

e.g., A Sirling-Whatson Shield generator Mk III would require POW 15. A Mk IV might require POW 20.

[soltakss]

I'd limit the number of external devices to SIZ, the old hard-point (?) in Traveller.

POW gives the recharge capacity of generators etc, but I'd allow batteries to store PPs (Power Points). Guns, Shields, Warp/Jump Engines, teleport devices, life support etc would all use PPs. This means that your tactics are determined in part by the amount of power you had available. So, perhaps, each gun would use a number of PPs, depending on its damage, basic ship functions might use a set number of points per hour, shields could run at 1/hour or Shield rating / 10 per hour, or something similar. You could even say that some types of shield use extra PPs to absorb big hits. Movement would take PPs depending on the SIZ of the ship, INterstellar travel would be similar, but depending on the mode of travel might be single jumps, costs per hour or whatever.

Ships would have skill bonuses, as specified, but also semi-intelligent ships would have skills of their own. So, a ship might have Blaster 50% and be able to engage in combat itself, but a Weapons Officer might have Blaster 75% and take control in combat situations.

You'd probably need some guidelines on SIZ to show what SIZ certain types of ships would have. Off the top of my head, and completely arbitrarily:

Escape POD: SIZ 1
1-man Fighter: SIZ 10
2-man Fighter: SIZ 15
Shuttlecraft/Runabout: SIZ 25
Small Merchantship: SIZ 40
Small Cruiser: SIZ 50
Medium Cruiser: SIZ 70
Large Cruiser: SIZ 100
Battlestar: SIZ 200
Death Star: SIZ 300

That way, you could design your ship and refer to the standard templates for comparison.

STR - Use this for propulsion, by all means, but this would probably be normal propulsion, not Warp Speed/Hyperspeed/Jump/Interstellar-Drive.

I know this is BRP not RQ, but there are good rules for ship design in the Mongoose books, Pirates has a couple of good ideas.

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Scale- Can probably use some sort of scale factor for translating effects to PC scale.So a SIZ 3 ship might be SIZE 45 or 60 in character scale (I need to see the BRP SIZ chart before I can figure what ratio) with corresponding mass, hit points, etc. That would allow a SIZ 13 character to fit in a SIZE 3 ship, and said SIZ3 ship to have a kit ore Hull/Hit Points..

I wouldn't go down that far into detail. As long as people aren't being silly, I don't think you need to relate character SIZ to ship SIZ. By all means have a recommended capacity and a maximum capacity, after all if you fit too many people in a ship, the life support systems become overloaded.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I wouldn't go down that far into detail. As long as people aren't being silly, I don't think you need to relate character SIZ to ship SIZ. By all means have a recommended capacity and a maximum capacity, after all if you fit too many people in a ship, the life support systems become overloaded.

Some sort of relationship is nice for the smaller ships. So that way characters armed with energy weapons can have combat against fighters. The rules, such as they are, could also be used to handle ground vehicles. A scaling method would also allow for Supers to be able to interact with such craft.


I have been working on a method of giving ships SPACES, based on SIZ that can be spent for components, crew quarters, cargo spaces, shuttle bays, etc). Just need to see the BRP SIZ table so I can work out the relationship.
I've got a relationship for RQ3, but not sure if they are going to use the same formula.


I was thinking of keeping the values in ship scale a bit smaller. Like a Medium Cruiser would be say SIZ 10-13. That way we can keep things in about the same range as PCs. . Most of the BRP stats work in relation to each other (at least the way I'm imagining it), so keeping SIZ low allows us to keep all the other stats centered around 10. Smaller values would also allow us to use ship scale weapons that do 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, etc for damage instead of needing handfuls of dice. Plus, all the swiped Magic spells like Shields/Protection are easier towork if they are in that scale.

Basically I'm thinking that the hull's APs and Shield (Protection Spell) would keep ships from being destroyed easily.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I'd limit the number of external devices to SIZ, the old hard-point (?) in Traveller.

I started on a method of giciving ship's SPACES based on SIZ. Currently it is based on the old RQ3 progression of +8 SIZ = double the size/mass, but will adapt to BRP's SIZ formula when I see it.

Originally Posted by soltakss

POW gives the recharge capacity of generators etc, but I'd allow batteries to store PPs (Power Points). Guns, Shields, Warp/Jump Engines, teleport devices, life support etc would all use PPs. This means that your tactics are determined in part by the amount of power you had available. So, perhaps, each gun would use a number of PPs, depending on its damage, basic ship functions might use a set number of points per hour, shields could run at 1/hour or Shield rating / 10 per hour, or something similar. You could even say that some types of shield use extra PPs to absorb big hits. Movement would take PPs depending on the SIZ of the ship, INterstellar travel would be similar, but depending on the mode of travel might be single jumps, costs per hour or whatever.

Nice Idea, but I was thinking of a simplier apporach to reduce bookeeping. Otherwise PP will endu p being used like RQ3 Fatigue Points, and most people don't like those.

What I was thinking of was going with the idea that ship can generate enough power to operate all it's systems, and PP are just the auxiliary batteries that get used in emergencies (such as combat).

POW would represent the generators ability to restore PPS while running the rest of the ship. Perhaps we could work up a minPOW requirement based on the number of systems, and allow for combat damage to affect ship stats. So a ship that runs below the min POW would suffer in performance.

I just don't want to track Energy Allocation to the same degree as, say, Star Fleet Battles. I'd rather not have to track PP for life support, and just put stuff like that on hit location or critical tables (both of which could be optional)

Originally Posted by soltakss

Ships would have skill bonuses, as specified, but also semi-intelligent ships would have skills of their own. So, a ship might have Blaster 50% and be able to engage in combat itself, but a Weapons Officer might have Blaster 75% and take control in combat situations.

I like this. Here are three possible ways we could do it (or possibly some sort of combination of all three):

1)We could base the rating on the number of spaces allocated to the AI Gunner, say 5% per SPACE used.

2)We could use the Ship's INT (A.I.) based IDEA % as the total amount of percentiles that can be broken up and used as skill points. So a ship that multi tasks (autopilot and gunner) wouldn't be as effective at either.

3) Spend PP to put "Beamsharp" or some such on that weapon. And yeah, we'd need a better name that beamsharp, probably call it "weapon targeting system" or some such.

You'd probably need some guidelines on SIZ to show what SIZ certain types of ships would have. Off the top of my head, and completely arbitrarily:

Escape POD: SIZ 1
1-man Fighter: SIZ 10
2-man Fighter: SIZ 15
Shuttlecraft/Runabout: SIZ 25
Small Merchantship: SIZ 40
Small Cruiser: SIZ 50
Medium Cruiser: SIZ 70
Large Cruiser: SIZ 100
Battlestar: SIZ 200
Death Star: SIZ 300

That way, you could design your ship and refer to the standard templates for comparison.

Agreed. I started working on something like this, but built on a differernt scale to keep the math and bookeeping down.

STR - Use this for propulsion, by all means, but this would probably be normal propulsion, not Warp Speed/Hyperspeed/Jump/Interstellar-Drive.

Agreed. FTL travel would be set up as an add on, with some sort of FTL Drive with it's own STR score. Exact details would vary based on type of FTL travel permitted in the campaign. THat way we could use BRP for Star Trek, Star Wars, B5 and what not without being stuck with a partiuclar method of FTL.

I know this is BRP not RQ, but there are good rules for ship design in the Mongoose books, Pirates has a couple of good ideas.

Are they very differernt than the ship rules in RQ3/Stormbinger? By all means if there is anything interesting in there mention it. You might be the only one on the BRP forum who owns Pirates!

I've been thinking of looking at Decipher's Spaceships book for Star Trek, and BTRC's Stuff! book. Both have very simple design rules.