Berserkers in FT?

I have picked up one of my copies of Berserker by F. Saberhagen and have begun
to wonder about an interesting campaign which focuses on Berserkers.

I have yet to start to play FT, but the Idea of running berserkers seems likea
a pretty interesting idea. (I've been playing DSII having given up on GW... I'
plan on starting FT once I get the brown water and interface portion of my
forces for DS set...)

So, has any one tried this yet? What about the issues of super huge ships? I
understand that super huge tonnage ships are sorta out of the scope of the
game... What are the problems of this? Also what of the robotic quality of the
berserkers? They tend to follow random processes as far as strategy goes. They
are also very daft to subtle tricks.

If you've never read any of the berserker book I'll try to explain...

Berserkers are huge (some as large as New Jersey (the state in the US). Most
are incredibly old and have many scars of past engagements. They were created
by a race on the other side of the galaxy that was loosing a war with another
race. They are all based on an organic core brain, with random programing
incorporated to help with making them unpredictable. Hence the name
Berserkers.

One story follow that a comedian is captured by a berserker. The comedian
manages to convince the damaged berserker that lack of humor is life
(berserkers_must_ destroy all life) and that must be irradicated. The
berserker reconfigures its weapons to stamp out life, and procededs to attact
a planet with large creame pies and fireworks etc...The humans manage to
destroy it with much dismay...

Most stories have the berserkers just barely held back with draws in the
engagements. Humans that cooperate are called "goodlife", those that fight the
berserkers are "badlife". Ohh, one more thing, the larger berserkers have the
ability to land on a planet and mine ore to repair themselves and build more
berserkers.

> On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Ryan Montieth Gill wrote:

> So, has any one tried this yet? What about the issues of super huge

There is no set ship scale in Full Thrust. If you want your Mass 4
scoutship to simulate a 100-ton ship from Traveller, fine - but then you

have sort of limited the size of the Mass 100+ capital ships too. If, on

the other hand, the Mass 4 ship is a 500 meter long Renegade Legion destroyer,
then the capitals will probably be fair simulations of RL
Leviathans - up to, or possibly exceeding, 3 km in length, and billions
of tons in mass.

The problem comes when you want a size range spanning from 100-ton
skiffs to Leviathans, and don't realize that the skiffs will in effect be
fighters compared to the biggies...

Later,

> So, has any one tried this yet? What about the issues of super huge

IMHO Berserkers in FT terms would look something like the following:
Supership 200+
Thrust 6 Screen lvl 4 (ie 1 backup) AA batts, but without the breakdown rules
Few, if any, fighters (though IIRC later stories had smaller mech-style
berserkers)
Plenty of PDAFs (10+)

In a message dated 97-07-07 02:23:19 EDT, you write:

<< I have yet to start to play FT, but the Idea of running berserkers seems
likea a pretty interesting idea. >>

I haven't played with superships for them yet, but I use my Kra'Vak for
Berserkers. Everyone in the group has read the stories and so tends to fear
even lone Berserkers. And the Kra'Vak capabilities seem to fit nicely, so
that it takes about a three-to-one to beat them.  I can even justify the
Kra'Vak acceleration capabilities when coupled with a cybernetic ship.

Some of the stories seem to imply ships that are only slightly larger than
human ships (recall the one with the?monkey? playing checkers); the humans
were only one- or two-man scouts.  So that's why I use Kra'Vak.
However, I did pick up a globular Borg ship from ToysRUs on sale at $10, and
it will make a stunning battlestation or Berserker.

-- John