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.
My ship designs are at:
http://hometown.aol.com/gbailey/GBMain.html
I'll have to repage the "escort" if anyone is interested (the silhouette is
based on Traveller's Gazelle class escort).
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).
The new Lyran designs are based on some new criteria for SFB related SSDs:
single screens (double screens for next generation ships), armor equal to mass
of screens
plus armor if ship has armor, 2 phaser-1s = 1 beam-3,
2 phaser-2s = 1 beam--2, etc (and this is approximate),
2 torp-like weapons = 1 pulse torp, 3 fighters = 1 squadron,
drone rack = 2 MT missiles (a G rack gets an additional PDS).
I did some direct designs: 1:1 weapons, 3xhull for hull boxes, and cruisers
came out to mass about 154 (Klingon D7), 190 (Fed CA), to 210 (Hydran
Dragoon). The Klingon C8 came out to mass 332, FED CVA mass 397 with less than
weak hull, FED DNG mass 354. A bit massive compared to FB designs but against
each other it doesn't matter that much. These are not posted at my website. I
also wrote up some rules to reflect some SFB rules: HET, all thrust can be
used for turning (cinematic of course), armor is really ablative shielding so
is fixable, Romulans can decide on a turn by turn basis to cloak or not cloak
but all their military ships must have a cloaking device, 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).
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). Not to be used with regular FT designs unless they also receive the same
benefits. These haven't been tested, yet. FB2 might also amend some of these
once I get it.
Glen
> My ship designs are at:
Interesting: how do you allow for ESGs?
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> Quite a few interesting ones here.
"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".
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,
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
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
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)
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
Traveller/Brilliant Lances <g>
> fwar: WBB and WBN both uses 1 Mass and 4 points too many,
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
<G>
> General Klingon question: What does the special Klingon FTL symbol
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,
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
...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
...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
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
I figured it out eventually <g>
> Re: Joe's 200 mass SDN
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
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
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
Worth roughly 1 point extra per Mass of weapon.
> Not to be used with regular FT designs unless they also receive the
...or the ST adaptions have their costs adjusted to compensate <g>
> These haven't been tested, yet. FB2 might also amend some of these
You may find some of the ideas very familiar, yes <g>
Later,