Starting from the ground up...

Hi, I'll delurk for a bit to ask for some help.  I've been working on
rewriting the class and size systems in Full Thrust/More Thrust to
allow more emphasis on smaller ships... fighters are going to clock in
at between 6 and 18 mass, all the way up to dreadnoughts and
battleships in the 180-200 region.  I know this would throw game
balance out (as well as create real problems finding enough dice) in
large fleet battles, but I plan on using the rules for much smaller
engagements in a roleplaying game... a sort of hybrid version of
Traveller and a lot of homebrew rules (can you tell I like tweaking
rule systems?).

Anyway, has any work been done in this area before?  I know there was
a B5 game, but it doesn't quite sound like what I'm looking for.  What
I need is some rules to apply to smaller ships to make them more
manueverable (slideslips are a definite must... I am also looking at
the Kra'vak manuevering rules), while creating rules to make the big
ships more than just a bunch of extra damage boxes and weapon systems.

Another problem I am having is with missile systems.  I am torn
between using the existing fighter system for missile swarms (although
with each salvo only taking 1 Mass and consisting of 2 "torpedo
fighters") and using the missile system mostly as-is from MT with
unlimited shots (but only one missile in the air at a time).

Crew sizes are also a little hazy, although I have put some work into
this.  Basically I'm using a sliding scale to represent the ships (1
Mass is not a constant size... it gets bigger as you move to larger
classes.  This is especially evident at the break points between
classes).  Each ship can carry a certain number of crew per mass
dependent on class, and then there are breakdowns for required crew
depending on whether the ship is
military/merchant/passenger/fighter/base/etc.

As you may guess, since this is going to be plugged into an RPG, the
point system is going out the window.  I am designing the ships with
background in mind, not just filling every last "space" in... since
I'll have space in the medium class ships to make them viable while
still leaving room, players can refit and upgrade ships in their
mini-fleet as the game goes on (sort of a Hardwar/Elite/Frontier type
of game).

Well, I should wrap this up before I start causing anyone's eyes to
glaze over.  Thanks for any help... I'm really looking forward to the
first adventure of this, where the players start their careers in a
damaged Mass 2 Command Shuttle boarding a derelict alien craft...

Frongoid
frongoid@t-three.com
BTW, I get the digest of gzg-l, so if you wouldn't mind CCing messages
directly to me, it would help a great deal.