Re: Full Steam

On 6/30/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
<gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:33:27 +1000
> From: "Robertson, Brendan" <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au>

> Do you still buy the drive system for your speed (ie: mass/points) ?
> I couldn't quite get my brain around the explanation.

I tried to send this Friday but the server problem caused the e-mail to
bounce.

Full Steam doesn't have a build system (at least not yet). Or, rather,
your "build" system is Conway's All The World's Ships 1860 - 1905. I
have rules for converting real world statistics into ship statistics,
but I didn't intend to have a point build system. With some help, I'd
like to go back and retrofit a point system to the ships, though
that's kind of dodgy considering there are rules to take into account
crew ability.

Conway's says that the Fuji (Japanese pre-dread) has a top speed of 18
knots. Based on a formula I use for converting real world knots to
inches per turn, this gives the Fuji a speed of 7 MU per turn.

Now, the Fuji, like all big ships, has 5 rows of hull boxes. I can't
remember how many, exactly, but it would look something like this
(with the an "X" representing a box):

XXXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Yes, the two lower hull boxes are equal, and have less than the three
hull boxes above them.

Now, with all hull boxes intact, the Fuji has a speed of 7. When it
loses one set of hull boxes, the speed is 5.5 MU. Lose another row, it
drops to 4 MU. Another row gets it down to 3, and when it has only one
row left, it is dropped to 1.5 MU. The hull box section of the ship
sheet looks like this (this is vaguely ASCII art, so a monospaced font
is best for seeing it):

XXXXXX	 7
XXXXXX	 5.5
XXXXXX	 4
XXXXX	 3
XXXXX	 1.5

You mark hull boxes off the top row. When the first row is lost, you
cross out the 7, indicating that the ship's speed is now 5.5. If a
second hull row is crossed out, you cross out the 5.5 and the ship's
speed is now 4. The ship's top speed will be 1.5 MU per turn when it
has one hull row left.

This is assuming that you didn't roll a Boiler Damage critical hit on
any of your threshold checks, which could drive the speed down to
zero. You simply cross off the next speed rating. When the last speed
rating is crossed off, the ship has dropped to 0 speed. Damage Control
can repair critical damage. There's another critical hit, Steam Line,
that has a similar result.

There's also a Rudder Damage critical that can have the ship turning
in circles. Oh, and I can't remember if I added it or not, but I had a
rule about a threshold check on a gun resulting in a possible magazine
explosion. That can take out a ship very quickly.

Allan

-- 
Allan Goodall		 http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com