Re: Glen's ship designs URL

Glen Bailey wrote:

>>Quite a few interesting ones here. 
> 
>Wow!  I'm flattered.

"Interesting" as in "different from many other designs in my archive",
that
is ;-) At least the "wet-navy" battleships...
   
>>General note: Many SSDs show armour boxes in two "layers".
>>According to the NPVs of the ships this is an artistic convention to
>>save space; these ships all have in fact human-style single-layer
>>armour. It does *NOT* represent Phalon-style multiple-layer shells. 
> 
>I do not have FB2.    Yes, the double armor is purely a space saver.
>You mean now I have to change all my designs?

The designs themselves are still perfectly legal, but the way the SSDs
in
question are laid out is misleading to players who have FB2 since
multiple armour rows now have a somewhat different effect in the game
than a single row has (the multi-layer armour is less vulnerable to
armour penetration from P-torps, K guns or re-rolls, and is also more
expensive). 

When I need to "wrap" rows of armour (or hull boxes - eg. the
Dreadplanet Roberts featured in recent discussion has 90 boxes per hull
row, which is a wee bit too much to fit comfortably on one line) I use
brackets to indicate which boxes belong to the same row, but since none
of your ships have more than one armour layer simply adding a text note
about it on the web page should suffice to prevent any
misunderstandings. 

>>bluefrtr: Most of these are taken directly from FB1 (Free Trader,
>>Small Freighter, Bulk Carrier). While the SSDs are nice-looking, 
>>please check what Jon T. says about putting the published designs
>>on the web.
> 
>Umm, you mean any ship I design that has the same systems as a
>published design but layed out differently with a different silhouette
>outline is copyrighted?

The issue is somewhat vague. Since you don't have FB2 yet you can't
check what Jon says on the subject, but the gist of it is that if
someone wants the "official" designs they should buy the official book
:-/ The SSD layout (and even more so the silhouette outline) are rather
irrelevant to the game play; what matters is the design itself (ie. the
size, cost, number of hull boxes, number of systems etc.). 

It may be OK (may be; I don't know what Jon thinks) to have the same
design but a different name so a player without FB1 doesn't know that
it is in fact an "official" design. Examples of this are the NRE
Cimbalongus-class DDs (aka FSE San Miguels) or St. Symeon-class CHs
(NAC Vandenburg/T). Publishing the official design with the
*official* name clearly goes directly against Jon's request in FB2,
though.

>>bluetorp: I must say that the ICE "Revenge" model looks a bit small
>>for a TMF 214 ship, but YMMV :-/ 
> 
>When in "reality" all ships are really the size of a pinhead on top of
>the stand?

It's mostly a matter of relative model sizes... quite a few of my
models
- well over a third, in fact - are twice the volume or more of the
Revenges... *much* more, in some cases :-/ It's a bit like using the
large
MicroMachines' X-wing fighters and keyring Death Stars in the same
battle; the X-wings would seem to dwarf the Death Star, and definitely
won't fit in the equator "ditch" on the DS ;-)

'Course, the Starfire fighter models (the ones you use for TMF 14
strikeboats) aren't exactly in scale with the Starfire warship models
either - I use my Starfire superdreadnought as a light cruiser <g>

>Newer designs along the same lines using the same mini are smaller
>(mass 124 - 144). One only has so many miniatures, and this is one of
>my favorite.

Agreed. It's one of my favourites as well, though in my case "so many"
is more like "far too many" so it does have a few rivals :-)

>"Escort" (Gazelle class)
>Mass 60, average hull (18), FTL + 20 towing capacity (10), MD4
>(12 mass, which comes out to 15% when towing 20 mass, 80 total,
>and thus becomes MD3), Armor 4, Screen-1 (4 mass instead of 3
>to cover the 20 towed mass), 2 FC, 2 PDS, 4 class-1 beams,
>2 class-2 beams (FP+F+FS).

OK. I got confused by the sublight engines and screens being calculated
for TMF 80 (treating the cargo pods as part of the ship) while the FTL
drive and hull are calculated for TMF 60 (treating the pods as separate
units); also, the cost of the cargo pods isn't included in the TMF of
the ship (even though the cargo space itself is free, the basic
structure of the pods costs 20 points).

I'd design this ship as TMF 80, thrust-3 with normal FTL drives (the
pods
are attached to the hull rather than being enveloped by the FTL "tug
field", so a normal FTL drive would work nicely), and simply note that
it can move at thrust-4 if the cargo pods are detatched. This approach
leaves 2 Mass unused, eg. for an ADFC. A strength-18 hull is OK for a
TMF 80 ship in FB2 :-/

BTW, the Federation tug (18 Mass of engines) seems to have thrust-3
when carrying 2 pods, rather than thrust-2 and the Klingon tug (22 Mass
of engines) should be thrust-4 when carrying 1 pod, no?

(...none of these adhere to the FT/FB tug/tender rules of course, but
those rules are rather vague anyway...)

>The miniature has two "fuel tanks" that are detachable by the
>game rules it comes from,

Traveller/Brilliant Lances <g>

>>fwar: WBB and WBN both uses 1 Mass and 4 points too many,
>>suggesting that they have 1 FCS too many.
>
>How'd that happen?  :)   

Easy to do, particularly if you take an old design and modify it
<shrug>

>>hweb: The TMF 60 ship has 1 hull box too many (should have 18, not
>>19). OK, under the FB2 rules it is OK to have 19 hull boxes on a TMF
>>60 ship, but it uses 1 Mass and 2 points more than specified so it's
>>either hull or armour <g>
>
>Alright, what dock workers stuck on the fake hull space to hide the
>contraband in?  The ship must operate in the "Caribbean" sector. :)

<G>

>>General Klingon question: What does the special Klingon FTL symbol
>>(with 2 wavy lines instead of 1) stand for?
>
>I figured the wavy FTL line is the "warp" signature, so I made each
>SFB/ST race have a different signature.

OK. Now that you mention it the Hydran wavy line does look different
from the others; I had only noticed the modified life support symbol
<g>

>>kdntorp: The first TMF 184 ship should have 14/14/13/13 hull boxes,
>>not 14/14/14/12.
>
>Yeah, I caught that one later.  Still one of my favorite designs.
>
>Maybe that's where the "hweb" hull space came from? :)

Can't be, since the DN has the correct number of hull boxes - only
distributed in a somewhat irregular fashion <g>

>>ksdndn: The DN has 2 unused Mass (PDS or weapon).

>wgcv: The Tsunami should only have 11 hull boxes, not 12 (corrected
>on my BMPs).

...obviously I've downloaded the pictures as BMPs, since I too do most
of my SSDs in MSPain(t) <g>

>wingdef: The TMF 240 variant should have 4 FCSs (otherwise it has 1
>Mass and 4 points left unused); the SSD only shows 3.

...but this may be where the Federal War BBs got their extra FCSs from
<G>

>I really need to update my pages.  I've used various designs based on
>the Winged Defender miniature with some success, especially the all
>pulse torpedo variants.  (I really like pulse torpedoes, especially
>since I can't roll beam dice worth a hoot.)

Some players (no names... ;-) can't roll P-torp dice worth a hoot, so
it all evens out in the end <G>

Found another couple of oddities: The TMF 170 Narn "DD" has 38 hull
boxes (22% of TMF) and the Shadow Battlecrab has 68 hull boxes (24%),
rather than the strict 20% or 30% hull integrity levels required by the
FB1 design rules. In FB2 these strict levels have been removed so both
designs are now perfectly legal; it may however be a good idea to point
this out to your opponent if he hasn't yet read FB2.

>Sorry about the double post, hit some keys when working on
>the first response and it disappeared.  I didn't realize it had been
>sent so posted another, and complete, reply.

I figured it out eventually <g>
 
>Re: Joe's 200 mass SDN
>One of my new designs that I just posted is the Lyran DN
>at 200 mass, cost 677.  It only has level-1 screens, a little
>more armor, but is similarly armed (3 torps, some beam-3s).

If it is designed using the FB1 rules it has 1 hull box too few (59
rather than 60), and so does the cruiser. They're OK under the FB2
rules though.
 
[discussion on SFB-FB conversion principles snipped]

>I also wrote
> up some rules to reflect some SFB rules: HET, all thrust
> can be used for turning (cinematic of course)

This is effectively the same as the Kra'Vak drives in MT and FB2,
though I assume that the HET isn't available all the time.

>armor is really ablative shielding so is fixable

Auto-repairing armour/ablative shields are awfully difficult to
balance, but if they're fixable by damage control parties or similar
they should be OK-ish.

>Gorns and Romulans are not restricted when using Wave Guns for
>screens and other weapons fire (hmm, didn't add anything about >beams
reducing the damage of a Wave Gun).

Sounds somewhat similar to the Phalon Plasma Bolts in FB2 :-/

>Any beam can fire as class-1s (a class-3 can fire as 3 class-1s) at
any >missiles or fighters within 12mu but only in the arc of the
weapon, no >ADFC required (assummed to be part of the FCs).

Worth roughly 1 point extra per Mass of weapon.

>Not to be used with regular FT designs unless they also receive the
>same benefits.

...or the ST adaptions have their costs adjusted to compensate <g>

>These haven't been tested, yet.  FB2 might also amend some of these
>once I get it.

You may find some of the ideas very familiar, yes <g>

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry