RE: Sa'Vasku Ship Lifecycle

I did a little bit on that for my campaine --- Pre FB2---

.  Care and feeding of Bioships Bioships cost 3 times their mass to
grow.
It takes a year to hatch a young ship of mass 8 to 12. If uninjured and
properly feed a ship will grow 4 mass units per year.  Bioship feeding
costs
1 point per 10 units of

ships mass per year (to maintain).  Bioship drives -- a

bioship has the FTL drive technology in use the year it is

born. A Bioship can not upgrade the drive.   A bioship

follows the tactical rules presented in More Thrust with the following
exceptions:

Regeneration:  During battle a bioship may regenerate 1

hull box per original power factor at a cost of 3 power

units for each hull box regenerated.  Once the limit of

hull boxes has been reached no more hull boxes may be

regenerated.  The wounded ship must return to a base for

rest and feeding.  The ship heals at 3 point of hull or ½

total damage (whichever is greater) per month. Feeding cost

is one economic point per 5 points of hull damage.  A ship

that has been injured does not grow in that year.

Foraging:  Bioships may function while out of supply by

processing raw matter the ship must spend at least one

month in a system with some available matter (deep space is

to sparse).  Foraging ships only grow 2 mass units a year

lacking the rich diet of the in supply siblings. Injured

ships forced to forage heal only 1 hull box a year and do

not grow till all damage is healed.  Half of all hull

healed by combat regeneration will die if it must be feed by foraging
and
the ship may not do combat regeneration again till all damage is healed.

Budding:  Ships of sizes larger then 60 mass may elect to

grow a bud. In budding the ships normal growth is channeled

into a small bud that becomes a separate ship when 8 points

of mass are grown.

Special weapons:  There are other weapons available to

bioships that are not available to ships at this level.

Bioships and cargo:  All Bioships may carry cargo = to

1/4th there mass.
---------------

The technology of bioships has a lot to do with genetic engineering so
changing systems means creating a new genotype.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[mailto:owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU]On Behalf Of Laserlight
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 8:29 AM
To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: Sa'Vasku Ship Lifecycle

>Sa'Vasku ships come in 4 basic varieties:
>a) Sterile Mules
>b) "Males"
>c) "Females"
>d) (Hypthesised, never seen) "Breeders"
>

"When I grow up, I want to be a superdreadnaught.  I'll find
some cute, sexy battlecruiser, we'll settle down somewhere and
have lots of frigates."

The concept of "mating dreadnoughts" is a bit boggling.
Perhaps, given the owners' origin, they arrange things
analogously to fish, ie the female lays corvette-sized eggs,
then male provides fighter-sized bits of its replicative coding.