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BRP Starships pdf - comments welcome


clarence

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Well, it actually started with everything as modules: Engine modules, FTL modules, Shields modules and so on. But after a while I felt that a few basic stats would be clarifying to separate from other functions, a bit like characteristics versus skills. Strength I guess could be a "skill" (a bit like they do it in Tri-Stat), but to me it seems reasonable to define some things as more fundamental. I might be wrong though and maybe just complicate things... Strangely enough, it ended up as a more streamlined system when I didn't work with everything as modules - not sure why though.

Probably because the math gets slightly more complicated when you deal with modules since it adds another layer to the calculations. It's not much of a difference, but it looks a bit more complicated, and appearances matter with this sort of thing. Still, I for one would like to see a version with engine modules and such.

The system you did up is pretty good. I don't think it would work well for every SciFi setting, but it does work for some of them.

I could see things like some generic hulls (10 module hull, 15 module hull, etc.) being outfitted for specific duties.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Thank you for your comments!

I think I see your point Atgxtg, and I agree that one system is a cleaner setup. The problems I ran into with everything as modules (if I remember correctly - the rules has been slowly forming for quite some time), was that a small fast fighter would, to keep it simple, need 20 engine modules (equaling Speed 20 to keep it consistent with the other rules). And a large trader ship would also get Speed 20 if it got 20 engine modules. None of these alternatives are particularly good I think. And I guess that is what you mean with getting more complex calculations: Engine size and ship size should in this case be correlated in some way.

What I did was to remove the conflict between engine size and speed. Instead you pay for speed without knowing how big the engine is, but the engine gets more expensive the bigger and/or faster the ship is. And I figured that the engine would take up approximately the same percentage of ship volume for all ships, and in a way can be ignored because of that. Except for the game-critical value for speed. Hence it ended up as a stat, without a corresponding physical extension. Hyperspace and Handling went through the same reasoning.

You ask for some generic hulls. Would pre-rolled ships fill the same role?

And yes, the rules will fit some settings better and some not at all. Probably not so good with hard sf… I tried to hit the sweet spot between too abstract and and too technical, and that is probably the type of gaming style it fits.

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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Thank you for your comments!

I think I see your point Atgxtg, and I agree that one system is a cleaner setup. The problems I ran into with everything as modules (if I remember correctly - the rules has been slowly forming for quite some time), was that a small fast fighter would, to keep it simple, need 20 engine modules (equaling Speed 20 to keep it consistent with the other rules). And a large trader ship would also get Speed 20 if it got 20 engine modules. None of these alternatives are particularly good I think. And I guess that is what you mean with getting more complex calculations: Engine size and ship size should in this case be correlated in some way.

Yup. it's one of my pet peeves with most RPG ship design rules. If the cost for speed is the same for all ships, then big ships will end up faster becuase they have more free space to allocate towards engines. Realistically the reverse is more true, as bigger ships tend to require systems that smaller shisp don't and thus end up with less space available for engines.

What I did was to remove the conflict between engine size and speed. Instead you pay for speed without knowing how big the engine is, but the engine gets more expensive the bigger and/or faster the ship is. And I figured that the engine would take up approximately the same percentage of ship volume for all ships, and in a way can be ignored because of that. Except for the game-critical value for speed. Hence it ended up as a stat, without a corresponding physical extension. Hyperspace and Handling went through the same reasoning.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Atgxtg, here are some scribblings I made while testing your idea.

Engine Module & Thrust rating example:

Thrust Rating: Cutting edge 100/Module, Standard 70/Module, Economy 40/Module

Fighter (5 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 20 (100/5)

Cheap Fighter (5 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 40. Speed 8 (40/5)

Trader (30 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 3 (100/30)

Trader (30 Modules): 5 Engine Modules. Thrust Rating 5x100. Speed 17 (500/30)

Explorer (60 Modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 2 (100/60)

Explorer (60 Modules): 5 Engine Modules. Thrust Rating 5x100. Speed 8 (500/60)

Interesting to see how a cheap/old/low tech ship can have a larger volume taken up by the engine.

I like it so far! How do you feel about this nerdvana? Would this work in your campaign?

Edited by clarence

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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How do you feel about this nerdvana? Would this work in your campaign?

Right now my focus is on other areas so I'll try to give feedback on this sometime in the future (hopefully not too distant but work rules my days and sleep minimizes time to put into my hobby naturally *wink*)

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Atgxtg, here are some scribblings I made while testing your idea.

Engine Module & Thrust rating example:

I like that direction your moving with engine module and thrust rating. Just my two cents. I'm curious

Thrust Rating: Cutting edge 100/Module, Standard 70/Module, Economy 40/Module

Fighter (5 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 20 (100/5)

Cheap Fighter (5 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 40. Speed 8 (40/5)

Trader (30 modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 3 (100/30)

Trader (30 Modules): 5 Engine Modules. Thrust Rating 5x100. Speed 17 (500/30)

Explorer (60 Modules): 1 Engine Module. Thrust Rating 100. Speed 2 (100/60)

Explorer (60 Modules): 5 Engine Modules. Thrust Rating 5x100. Speed 8 (500/60)

Interesting to see how a cheap/old/low tech ship can have a larger volume taken up by the engine.

I like it so far! How do you feel about this nerdvana? Would this work in your campaign?

I like the direction your going with engine modules and thrust rating.

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@Aramone: Good to hear! I will give it some more time then to see where it's leading.

@nerdvana: You didn't miss it - I just got held up on the finishing line by the engine module stuff. I can probably post it on ge.tt this weekend. Only some small changes in this update. I will post something here when it's available.

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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Latest download on http://ge.tt/1tpFKDS1/v/0?c

Changes in 1.2:

New Module: Extra Sensors

New Module: Robot Arm

Bookmarked pdf

–30% Pilot skill for non-streamlined ships in atmospheres

List of useful occupations from BGB

Hit Points for NPC pilots on NPC Starship sheet

Plus some more details

I hope you'll enjoy those small additions! Next update will probably bring larger chunks of new material.

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm starting a sci-fi game and cobbling together rules from various sources and I'm definitely going to actually be using your document and ship system in game. I'm also going to use the shields system as the basis for personal energy shields for person-to-person combat.

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Some further thoughts:

Hit locations. I've been a fan since the RQ days of BRP. So I'm probably going to integrate them into ship combat as well. I know it's an extra roll and that it can make lucky shots (like a cockpit or bridge hit) even deadlier, but I'm currently not into play where PCs are protected from things like that.

I have good memories of building starships in the early 90s RPG Manhunter which organized ships into grids for (relatively) easy location rolls (roll x, roll y, consult grid). So I might do something like that here. I'll probably integrate damaging specific systems into this as well.

I'm also probably going to call artillery either weapons systems or gunnery as artillery makes me think of indirect fire weapons that arc a shell high into the air to come down on their target from above. That's a nitpick though.

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That's great to hear! Let me know how it develops.

The grid system for hit locations sounds interesting. Would you mind describing it a bit more? And combining it with more detailed rules for damaging specific systems seems like a good idea.

And about the word artillery: I used gunnery first, but I wanted to use the same skill name as in the main rulebook. I prefer gunnery though…

A write-up on a personal energy shield is essential to sci-fi! Could I maybe add it to the rules when you have finished it? I haven't added any equipment at all to the rules, because I find it exceptionally boring with those lists.

I have almost finished work on some simple rules for world building - it seems to add up to 10+ pages. Focus is not so much on astronomical details, but more on the societies' internal conflicts. Hopefully some fodder to make the creative parts of sci-fi world creation a little easier. I still remember the combined fascination and disappointment after reading Travellers' world creation rules for the first time in the mid-eighties. Lots of information, but not much help in creating a world that could actually be used in play.

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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The grid system for hit locations sounds interesting. Would you mind describing it a bit more? And combining it with more detailed rules for damaging specific systems seems like a good idea.

First of all, it's a definite departure from space opera type ships for the land of horrible death traps waiting to be split open to the vacuum.

I'm still working on it from a vague memory, but basically each system becomes a location where its size equals the number of modules it has. It's a location roll system weighted by the proportions of each system in modules.

The basic premise is that if an attack gets through both shields and armour, it will damage some part of the ship. Whether it hits a weapon system, takes out the cockpit or punches a hole into the cargo bay.

The grid thing itself might actually be a stupid idea, but basically you put the modules onto a grid where the size of each side is the closest it can be to an available die size and the total number of squares is as close as possible to the total number of modules. So if you have 43 modules in a ship, 8x6 is the way to go and you'd have 5 dead modules to put in as you like to make all the ship systems contiguous. For the systems that aren't bought as modules but might take up space anyway, you'd add on some squares beforehand. Or have a single extra square that represents these miscellaneous systems.

You basically find the space the damage originates (in this example by rolling a d8 and a d6) and then marking off damaged squares. A damaged square is disabled and a special success has a chance for a catastrophic effect. So if 4 damage gets through and hits the last space on the cargo area and three more in the science lab, it means the shot exposed the cargo area to the vacuum and wrecked the science lab.

As you can see, ships can become incredibly vulnerable and a lucky roll can scour the command bridge or cockpit off of a ship in one hit.

There are some things that just don't work well with it yet. Like buying more HP to make the ship tougher. Where do those go? Do they just take up grid spaces as "reinforced bulkheads" and any damage that hits them is ignored? I haven't thought all of this through yet.

And about the word artillery: I used gunnery first, but I wanted to use the same skill name as in the main rulebook. I prefer gunnery though…

That makes sense. In the end, it's just a matter of what people put on the character sheet. I didn't recall what the actual rulebook term for the skill was. I just thought artillery was about indirect fire weapons and didn't realize it was also the skill for ship weapons.

A write-up on a personal energy shield is essential to sci-fi! Could I maybe add it to the rules when you have finished it? I haven't added any equipment at all to the rules, because I find it exceptionally boring with those lists.

Sure, I'll post what I come up with as I do. I was planning on making a campaign document so I have no problem with sharing stuff.

The basic idea was that the personal shield would have a shield value and a recovery value just like yours do for star ships, but they'd be a suit you wear. I just haven't hammered out the particulars yet. How strong are they? How well do they integrate with other armour technology? What about EMR interference for other technology? Is their use so easy to detect you are screaming your location when you turn them on? Do they react differently when hit by an energy weapon rather than a physical weapon?

I have almost finished work on some simple rules for world building - it seems to add up to 10+ pages. Focus is not so much on astronomical details, but more on the societies' internal conflicts. Hopefully some fodder to make the creative parts of sci-fi world creation a little easier. I still remember the combined fascination and disappointment after reading Travellers' world creation rules for the first time in the mid-eighties. Lots of information, but not much help in creating a world that could actually be used in play.

I'm definitely interested in seeing it once you're done.

I intend on stealing from as many sources as possible. I got the free PDF of Stars Without Number (a traveller type game that's basically D&D in space) and I find the system in there to be pretty good. I'll ignore the rules stuff and just use the random tables with BRP and adjust as needed.

Edited by NathanIW
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The hit location system sounds intriguing! In all the rules for starships I have seen, hit locations are difficult to manage, because of the wildly different layouts. Your ideas seem to get around that problem - maybe for the cost of being more time consuming to set up for a ship. But please keep us posted on your continued work! It's always interesting to see different approaches to these things. Have you seen the system in Gurps Spaceships? It seems like a good solution too, though requires a bit more rigidity when designing ships.

I have skimmed through the world building rules for Stars Without Number and, as you say, they seem quite good. I especially liked the Tagging rules, dealing directly with the problem of filling planets with interesting conflicts, people and locations.

My own world building rules are nearing final proof-reading. I hope to get some insightful comments on it here on the forum.

And looking forward to your take on the personal shields!

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Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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The hit location system sounds intriguing! In all the rules for starships I have seen, hit locations are difficult to manage, because of the wildly different layouts. Your ideas seem to get around that problem - maybe for the cost of being more time consuming to set up for a ship. But please keep us posted on your continued work!

I will.

The extra hit points for a tough ship is currently what I'm thinking about. My ideas:

1)Just include them as extra modules in the grid that don't do anything if they are taken out. if you have lots of them, you have a higher chance of them getting hit and no systems getting damaged just from the mathematical odds.

2)They are separate boxes that must be taken out before damage goes to the grid. This makes them incredibly good and makes the difference between a military craft and a civilian craft with armour bolted on rather dramatic.

3)They are boxes in the grid and when they would be checked off they also reverse the direction the damage is recorded. Since damage always goes from left to right and then wraps around just like reading this text, if you place one right before a key system, then it's protected from anything other than a direct hit as any damage that flows into the reinforced bulkhead (extra HP) will destroy that bulkhead but then go to the next box in the opposite direction. And if you really want a system protected, put two or more reinforced bulkheads before that system.

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4 rHMMMMMM
So if the ship gets hit for 4 damage that passed through the armour and a d4 and a d8 is rolled and a 2, 7 is rolled, the crew quarters (Q) will be taken out but the bulkhead will prevent any damage to the Cockpit © as the reinforced bulkhead ® will cause the last point of damage to go to 2, 6 instead of 3,2.
  12345678


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2 rSSSS[color=red]4[B]1[/B]2[/color]

3 [color=red]3[/color]CCCHHHH

4 rHMMMMMM
4) As above, but each reinforced hull spot would have a corresponding extra box like in option 2) and when damage hits an ® it leaves the grid and goes to the extra boxes before continuing along.
  12345678


1 rEEErLLL

2 rSSSSQQQ

3 rCCCHHHH

4 rHMMMMMM


rrrrr

Same damage, same spot looks like this:
  12345678


1 rEEErLLL

2 rSSSSQ[COLOR="#FF0000"][B]1[/B]2[/COLOR]

3 [COLOR="#FF0000"]3[/COLOR]CCCHHHH

4 rHMMMMMM


[COLOR="#FF0000"]4[/COLOR]rrrr

I hope the examples make sense.

Whatever approach I go for, as you can see, it's a major departure from really tough ships where you don't have much chance of system damage until half HP are gone.

I'm also thinking of a much simplified system to handle unimportant ships. While I'm fine with these location rolls and marking off boxes, not everyone will be.

The original system that inspired my thinking was found in the Manhunter RPG published in 1993. While I had lots of fun with that game, it's not something I'd recommend tracking down. In that system grids were always the same size and if you had a larger ship you simply bought more grids. It had some problems with the odds of different locations getting weighted wrongly by incomplete grids, but the basic idea was fast and cut through some of the location problems.

It's always interesting to see different approaches to these things. Have you seen the system in Gurps Spaceships? It seems like a good solution too, though requires a bit more rigidity when designing ships.

I pulled my gurps box out of storage as I'm going to want to reread the horror supplement as my sci-fi game is going to be about scary things in space, so I'll see if a copy of spaceships is in there and give it a look.

And looking forward to your take on the personal shields!

;-D I'll make it a priority.

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It's actually a quite neat system. A bit intimidating at first (it took me a while to get through the examples and their differences), but once I got it it's not that difficult. How important do you think it is where the different modules are placed? Do you just place them anywhere or does it require careful consideration to get best results? In a way it's a graphical representation of a deck plan, but avoiding the design aspects. Looking forward to seeing how it develops!

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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So I think option 4 is best now that I've given it some thought. It makes for a starker contrast between military ships and civilian ships.

The way I'd lay a ship out is to ask what systems are next to one another (if you care). If you don't care, then just fill up the grid and call it good. It's still a major abstraction, but it's got some element of deckplan layout.

The placement of reinforced hull squares (extra hit points from your system) end up containing and segmenting important systems. So if the engine room has an ® square after it, you can't have damage cascade into the weapon systems with the first shot unless you end up first boring through the structural bulkheads.

I have these transparent page protectors and each ship will go inside them and then be written on with wet erase or dry erase markers.

The thing to figure out next is what does it mean for the whole system for one of it's module squares to have been damaged by an attack? If you have 5 engine module hit points and after shields and armour gets bypassed it takes 2 damage, what does that mean? Do you have a chance for engine failure? Roll on some sort of engine damage chart? Lose 40% of your speed? If all 5 boxes get filled in, then we know that every part of the system has taken damage and we can probably assume complete non-function.

So I need to figure this out for other parts of the ship. If you have 4 squares of cockpit or bridge and 2 get damage, what does that mean for the pcs or npcs that are in the cockpit or bridge area? Is it exposed to vaccuum? Are they killed in an explosion? Is there a chance of damage? Are consoles exploding like in star trek:

So basically I need to go through the document and figure out what happens when a system take some damage, most of it takes damage and all of it takes damage and how to relate it to the description of the ship and where the characters are aboard the ship.

My personal preference is for a grittier approach where you better be wearing a containment/environmental suit if you're in combat because you never know where exposure to the vacuum can occur once you start blasting at each other with lasers, plasma cannons and missiles.

Another approach would be to assume that the crew are relatively safe and the damage grid only represents the loss of function of a given part of a system, not damage to that area. So if you lose all the cockpit/bridge boxes it doesn't necessarily mean the bridge has become scoured off and exposed to the vacuum, just that the lights are going all dark and consoles and exploding and you're functionally disconnected from the ship.

Edited by NathanIW
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The classic space warfare game Starfire from the 1980s, which was released at about the same time as the original Star Fleet Battles by the same publisher, used a system where ship damage was sequential in nature. Your ships had a line of letters indicating the ship's systems, and systems went down as you crossed them off in sequence as the ship took damage. The ship was destroyed when everything was crossed out (or perhaps the entire surviving crew would be so occupied with keeping life support going and keeping the interior free of hard vacuum that the ship was out of the fight). It was great for battles between medium-to-large fleets of roughly equivalent ships. The weakness is that you couldn't target individual systems -- what you hit was what you hit. You couldn't "target the bridge".

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New version of BRP Starships uploaded to http://ge.tt/7ID2lsY1/v/0?c!

Changes in 1.5:

- New chapter on world building. I have been trying to find a way to make a world come alive with these simple rules, with some selected parameters to make the creative work easier for the GM.

- New modules for Engine and Maneuvering Thruster, and consequently a new way to calculate Speed and Handling. (Thanks to Atgxtg for inspiration!). Old rules included as a simpler option.

- New rules for upgrading engines, working better with the above changes.

- Slightly changed Starship Sheet to make room for more Modules.

- Layout re-flowed and re-bookmarked.

As always I appreciate all comments!

Edited by clarence

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M–SPACE   d100 Roleplaying in the Far Future

Odd Soot  Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just uploaded BRP Starships 1.5 to the Downloads section here on BRP Central, to make it slightly easier to grab. It's in the Science Fiction folder.

@NathanIW: How is your hit location system developing? Any progress?

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I ended up being out of town for work stuff for the last week and I forgot to load my gaming related stuff onto any mobile device, so I did some thinking and took some notes, but didn't have my files with me. Here's the outline that I'm expanding into point form and then into paragraphs:

Hit locations

- Why?

- Alternatives for those same goals

Modifications to ship building

- Which modules change

- Laying out the grid

- - Reinforced Hull boxes

Modifications to combat

- The location check

- Aiming at key systems

- Applying damage

- - Reinforced Hull boxes

- Critical hits

Dials you need to set before play

- What destroyed boxes really mean

- - How vulnerable are the crew or passengers?

- Shield options

- - Directional shields

- - Shield piercing weapons

Edited by NathanIW
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