Ordered from Warehouse 23, Steve Jackson Games, cost $13 US plus about 6.50
for UPS. Card stock cover, rather busy art, full color printing. 1 page fluff
text, 1 page for table of contents and credits, 17 pages rules, 2 pages
scenarios, 7 SSDs each for Imperial and Zhodani
vessels. There's also a two-page countersheet--normal paper, should
probably be photocopied onto card stock (or just use minis)--you can
also download it from the powerprojection.net site. Only noticed two
typos thus far (p7, first paragraph "plan-ned"; p14, last instance of
Agidda is underlined).
Systems include weapons (missiles and several varieties of beams), defenses
(nuclear dampers, meson screens, sandcaters, repulsors), fuel (mainly for
Jumps) and others which are taken from FT. There are a
couple of things on the SSDs which are not explained--the Kinunir has
a BG1 (which I imagine is a black globe forcefield, but I didn't see any rules
for it) and all ships have an unexplained grey crew symbol next to the damage
control symbol. Two nits to pick on abbreviatioins: there's no reason to
abbreviate "Streamlined" as "SL" and so forth, as it's easier to read the
whole word; and configuration codes (L1, L2, etc) could have been expanded so
the player could visualize the ship.
Scale is 75000km/mu and 50min/turn.
Movement is similar to FB2 vector. Plenty of diagrams to explain it.
Fire alternates by task force, not by ship; and the rules call for writing
fire orders for each ship in the task force. If you're fighting small battles,
you'll probably want to alternate by ship instead of by task force (in which
case you don't need to write orders); or you could write orders and execute
simultaneous fire.
Effective range to target is increased if gravity or nuclear bursts are in the
way; if you have nukes on your missiles, this means you can create your own
terrain to some extent.
Each weapon rolls a single beam die; damage is adjusted up or down depending
on modifiers. For example, you could start with a laser,
shift up for a high-powered weapon and short range, and shift down for
target armor, agile target and shooting through a sand cloud. I'd
suggest creating a quick reference sheet with the + and - modifiers
listed by weapon, instead of grouping all offensive mods in one table and all
defensive in another.
Some very interesting ideas here. Haven't had time to try a game, hopefully
I'll be able to post an AAR tomorrow.
***
There are a couple of things on the SSDs which are not explained--the
Kinunir has a BG1 (which I imagine is a black globe forcefield, but I didn't
see any rules for it)
***
Assuming you're correct, though I don't recall a black globe in the old
Kinunir, BG's have been mentioned as being introduced/explaned in
PP:Fleet (back cover).
***
and all ships have an unexplained grey crew symbol next to the damage control
symbol.
***
I didn't notice the grey'd items; that might be a problem for some older
photocopiers. Perhaps for the yet-to-be-explained boarding rules?
Marines and 'somebody else'? Sorry, idle speculation...
Thanks for the review, Chris. Even with book in hand, and relatively
straightforward item like this, I can stand all the helpful pointers I can
get. I'll definitely try making up my own quick ref sheet as you suggested.
The_Beast
Black Globes were in fact on the Kinunir in the original adventure published
by GDW.
[quoted original message omitted]
Doug said:
> I didn't notice the grey'd items; that might be a problem for some
Marines
> and 'somebody else'? Sorry, idle speculation...
To the left of the Damage Control Party symbol, each ship has a crew symbol
and two numbers. The first rating is often 0 but goes as high as 7; the second
is either 1 or 2. I'd guess the first is "Marine boarding parties" and the
second is "crew boarding parties"....but if the book says that anywhere, I
missed it.
***
I'd guess the first is "Marine boarding parties" and the second is "crew
boarding parties"....but if the book says that anywhere, I missed it.
***
Obviously, our guesses are about the same, but still merely guesses.
However, if good guesses, again, the rules for boarding actions are to be in
the PP:Fleet, if I'm reading the back cover correctly.
I bought PP:E with the full understanding that it might be a subset conpletely
contained in PP:F, so conventional wisdom would be I might have just as well
waited for Fleet, but I'm not sure I'm so much a fan of boarding rules or
mystic dingus's (as I recall, BG's are ancient artifacts) that I will be
needing the larger product.
Everyone else should probably wait for Dominic's reply to the earlier
question.
The_Beast
<<snipped>>
> Ordered from Warehouse 23, Steve Jackson Games, cost
Specifically, which ships?
<<snipped>>
> Specifically, which ships?
The counter sheet has six different types of ships, some large, some medium,
some small, none identified by name. You can download the countersheet from
www.powerprojection.net.
The ship SSDs are (Imperial) Viper SDB, Broadsword merc cruiser, Fer de Lance
DDE, Chrysanthemum DDE, Kinunir, Midu Agashaam DD, PF Sloan Fleet Escort.
(Zhodani) Vledzhdatl pocket cruiser, Shivva FF, Zhodq SDB, Zhodatl missile
boat, Plokl escort, Zhdiak DDL, Chtierabl transport
On Sunday, May 11, 2003, at 12:42 Europe/London, devans@nebraska.edu
wrote:
> ***
It is a Black Globe rating 1 (ie 10% flicker). It's on the SSD for
compatibility for fleet.
> Assuming you're correct, though I don't recall a black globe in the
The Kinunir does have a BG or space for one (see Traveller Adv 1 for
reference).
> ***
Combat Capability Icon - Attack / defense factors for boarding. Again,
included for compatibility with Fleet.
Cheers,
On Sunday, May 11, 2003, at 17:25 Europe/London, devans@nebraska.edu
wrote:
> I bought PP:E with the full understanding that it might be a subset
BGs are the one area we are still debating (as Andy is laying it out). They
are horribly complex to handle, especially as adopting the FT
combat engine merges the to-hit roll with the damage roll. I've now got
a very cleaned up conversion of HG2 into PP:F (and the HG2 has gaps you can
drive a supertanker through that I've had to plug) but my own opinon is that
they're only worth using for strategic surprise (as a cloaking device). Why?
Because nuclear missiles will rapidly kill a big BG equipped ship by
overloading it rapidly (which you could do in HG2 as well).
Cheers,
> On Sunday, May 11, 2003, at 22:52 Europe/London, Foxx Travis wrote:
Imperial
---------
Viper SDB (200dT one from Fighting Ships) Broadsword Merc cruiser
Fer-de-Lance Destroyer Escort
Chrysanthemum Destroyer Escort Kinunir Colonial Cruiser Midu Agashaam
Destroyer PF Sloan (Lisani) Fleet Escort
Zhodani
> On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 07:49:30AM +0100, Dominic Mooney wrote:
> but my own
> BG equipped ship by overloading it rapidly (which you could do in HG2
Unless you have a ship that's specifically built to handle it, with lots
of capacitors and energy-hungry weapons. (If you ever played
Andromedans in SFB, the tactics are very similar.) I don't believe any
of the ships in _Fighting Ships_ is built this way, though.
Damn! no Type S Scout?!
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 06:00:44AM -0700, Foxx Travis wrote:
"The role of the type S scout in a naval engagement is to provide sensor cover
for the larger ships as it is reduced to a cloud of vapour."
> --- Dominic Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:
Yes, very good. I'll be getting the rules, but I'm a little disappointed at
the exclusion of the Type S
scout. I just started a CT / MT campaign a while back
and my characters have one of these. Was hoping to use fleet to fight out some
RPG related battles...
> BGs are the one area we are still debating (as Andy is laying it out).
Make all other adjustments, roll on that line and note the damage. Then shift
down one for each BG rating. Apply that damage to the ship, and the difference
between that and the original to the ship's capacitors. (You could do the same
for outbound, except it's not absorbed).
Or Roll for damage as usual, then roll d6, if =< BG rating, that attack is
absorbed. I knew the original BGs were in 10% increments, this makes it 17%
increments but is pretty simple.
Foxx Travis:
> Yes, very good. I'll be getting the rules, but I'm a
IIRC a Broadsword merc cruiser was 800 tons--in PP:E it has 2 hull
boxes. What Roger said about the Type S being primarily useful as a brief EMP
burst is quite accurate. "Hide and seek with bazookas."
Of course you could multiply all hull boxes x 10 (or any other number that
suits you) and change the time scale to 1 turn/5min instead of 1 turn/50
min.
I'd suggest that missiles and sandcasters have 3-4 reloads as standard.
Checking off shots is faster than rolling to see if you're out of ammo; I'd
think that your weapons officer is likely to know how much ammo he has left;
and it allows the option of buying bigger magazines if you want more staying
power.
I'd also allow missiles to coast between turn 1's move and their final run on
the target. This can get fun if sensor rules make it difficult to ID
ships over, say, 20mu -- you could be firing at ships which turn out to
be weasels, or drones, or civilians...
> On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 02:16 Europe/London, Laserlight wrote:
> Specifically, which ships?
They're deliberately generic, although some are based on CT illustrations.
Really, the game is designed to be played with miniatures.
Cheers,
> On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 14:07 Europe/London, Foxx Travis wrote:
When I get a minute, I'll add the Type S, Type T and Type P to the website.
All of them only have a single structure box though so are liable to go bang!
Cheers,
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 14:21 Europe/London, laserlight@quixnet.net
wrote:
> BGs are the one area we are still debating (as Andy is laying it
> the
The thing is, most of the damage values have been scaled relative to each
other relative to HG2, and there are a whole set of multipliers for most
weapons (damage isn't related to energy in HG2 except generally)...
Cheers,
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 14:36 Europe/London, laserlight@quixnet.net
wrote:
> IIRC a Broadsword merc cruiser was 800 tons--in PP:E it has 2 hull
I'd go with the x10 hull boxes but the timescale change does mess up the
vector math a bit..
Cheers,
Hi,
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 18:04 Europe/London, laserlight@quixnet.net
wrote:
> I'd suggest that missiles and sandcasters have 3-4 reloads as
3 reloads is standard assumption. D6 was adopted as a result that big ships
have lots and lots and lots of batteries so became book keeping nightmares.
Reload takes 3 turns per unit of weapons (actually could be assumed to be less
for a PP:E ship).
> I'd also allow missiles to coast between turn 1's move and their final
> run
Only issue I can see with this is the fact that missiles don't have vector
counters for simplicity, but this can easily be remedied...
Cheers,
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 09:16 Europe/London, Roger Burton West
wrote:
> Unless you have a ship that's specifically built to handle it, with
Bear in mind that a Tigress can land 430 (USP 9 nuke missile batteries) x 900
EP of energy in a single round! ~429,570 EP! In HG2 terms...
ouch!
This is more than 10x the energy a Tigress can dissipate from its capacitors
per turn...
0.5% x M x J = 0.5% of 500000 x 4 = 2000000 x0.5% = 10000 dT capacitors
EP stored = 36 x 10,000 = 360,000 EP
1 extra dT capacitor = umm MCr - I can't see it offhand. Assume 4MCr if
the same as J Drive cost per dT... will ask CT-starships for cost
confirmation...
Cheers,
> Of course you could multiply all hull boxes x 10 (or any other number
Dom said:
> I'd go with the x10 hull boxes but the timescale change does mess up
I wouldn't think so, unless you mean "distance travelled"--but I
cleverly (okay, lazily) did not specify what distance you get.
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 20:57 Europe/London, laserlight@quixnet.net
wrote:
> Of course you could multiply all hull boxes x 10 (or any other number
1 MU vector change = 1G thrust for 1 turn...
Cheers,
So what does the same amount of missiles do to an unshielded ship?
Roger Books
> On 12-May-03 at 15:59, Dominic Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com) wrote:
> I'd suggest that missiles and sandcasters have 3-4 reloads as
Dom said:
> 3 reloads is standard assumption. D6 was adopted as a result that big
Checking off boxes next to the SSD symbol would IMHO be faster than rolling a
die each time you shoot, regardless whether you've got 1 missile launcher
or N. Particularly if you arrange the missle symbols above/beside each
other such that you can mark off all the "Missile: Round 1" boxes with one
long vertical/horizontal stroke
On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 21:10 Europe/London, laserlight@quixnet.net
wrote:
> Checking off boxes next to the SSD symbol would IMHO be faster than
> one
That wasn't our experience in playtesting though... I do understand where you
are coming from though.
Cheers,
<<snipped>>
> When I get a minute, I'll add the Type S, Type T and
That's what I gathered!! Ha, ha. What was it someone said? A momentary burst
of radiation? Please do though. I'd like to try what someone suggested:
multiplying the damage boxes by ten and making the
time scale 1/10 as long.
Depends on the ship.
An unarmoured, neutral agility vessel hit on the second turn of missile
movement by 430 missiles would take:
= 43 x (69/6) = 495 Structure boxes on average (based on the massed
fire table, this is a slight under estimate as it ignores some minor rolls).
If the ship was armoured like a Tigress, and did not apply sand or lasers in
defense, this would be reduced to;
= 43 x (10/6) = 72 structure boxes.
(If sand or lasers were used in mass, this would be somewhat more reduced but
not enormously).
For reference, a Tigress has 510 structure boxes, and a catastrophic damage
check would be triggered with the loss of 256 boxes from start. So a 50%
flicker would have ~250 structure boxes crossed off (close on a catastrophic
and certainly a 6 threshold, possibly a 4,5,6 threshold if two lines are
gone), plus ~215,000 EP into the BG generator. That's enough to overload and
kill the generator!!!
Of course, the Tigress doesn't have a BG in canon designs...
Cheers,
Dom
> On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 21:04 Europe/London, Roger Books wrote:
> So what does the same amount of missiles do to an unshielded ship?
wrote:
> On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 09:16 Europe/London, Roger Burton West