Greetings, Having just has a revelation in the middle of the night...
I must change my stated position on the ability of the 'S' to jump an overmass
ship.
Unlike the standard ships that have a jump drive designed for a specific mass,
and cannot exceed the stated design mass in a jump; The 'S' have the ability
to jump at any mass they have the ability to power. Yes, the 'S' may jump with
full wombs, even if this puts the ship over the design mass. Simply recompute
the needed power, and jump.
Bye for now,
> Unlike the standard ships that have a jump
This would tend to clear up the following potential scenario:
A light and heavy Sa'Vasku carrier enter a battle. The heavy carrier is
destroyed, and the light carrier is forced to retreive more fighters than it
orginally "spawned" for the retreat.
> John Leary wrote:
> I must change my stated position on the ability of the 'S' to
If it is only the power requirement that's important for SV FTL jumps, why do
large SV ships have physically bigger FTL drives than small ones?
Regards,
The SV FTL must have a mass = 10% of the construct mass. I guess that you
could build in to the design of the construct an oversize FTL (10% of (mass
+ 6 per womb)) and require power equal to the construct mass + 6 per
drone womb be used to engage the FTL (with wombs full or empty). Then it could
jump to FTL with full wombs even if it was undamaged and had not used any
biomass.
Example: A Thy'Sa'Teth could be constructed with an oversize FTL (mass 11
instead of mass 9) [it would have to loose 2 mass from biomass or in systems].
It would take 11 points of power to engage the FTL regardless if the wombs
were empty or full. I would suggest that such a ship should also have oversize
MD to keep from degrading Movement. To keep from having 99 charts, I would
suggest that for every womb that is occupied (it it would exceed normal mass
for the construct) would incur an extra 10% (round up) in power for MD (that
is normal power cost of 1 would cost 2, normal 6 would cost 7, normal 11 would
cost 13).
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
-----
> -----Original Message-----
> If it is only the power requirement that's important
The 'S' are marginal as is with the power required to make a jump. (To make a
graceful exit from battle, the 'S' must start the jump process prior to the
damage entering the third
row of damage boxes. So that the damage taken
during the warm up process will not reach the end of the third row. If the
third row is lost the ship (in most cases) cannot jump. I say 'in most cases'
because I have not checked ALL of the 'S' ships, just the ones I am using
currently.
But to rationalize your question, the 'S' have power problems as the basis for
the game. (Exactly like the early Star Fleet Battles game.) If the 'S' require
too much power to jump, they could never be a viable force in battle and would
always run away or be forced to fight to the death when the first row of
damage boxes was completed.
Yes, I acknowledge the possibility for the 'overmass' ship to abuse the
concept by converting the fighters into more power generators and solving the
power problem.
Bye for now,
> John Leary wrote:
> If it is only the power requirement that's important for SV FTL
The standard SV procedure around here is to break off in sublight space before
attempting to jump, so when the ship begins its FTL preparations
there usually aren't any enemy ships nearby to shoot at it - or at
least not enough with enough weapons to wipe an entire hull row. If the
SV has repaired the upper-row PGs they won't have any worries at all
about power loss, since a repaired PG can only be re-downed by
destroying the entire ship.
> But to rationalize your question, the 'S' have power problems as
You "rationalize" my question, but you don't seem to actually *answer* it. If
an SV ship can carry any Mass into FTL, regardless of the physical size of its
drive, by pouring more power into it, why don't
they all just have a Mass-1 drive and replace the rest of the FTL drive
with bigger PGs?
Regards,
> You "rationalize" my question, but you don't seem to actually *answer*
Because the Sa'Vasku ships are physically bigger, therefore their vollume
is larger, there- for they need to open a physically bigger jump point.
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
...
> You "rationalize" my question, but you don't seem to
OK, I got carried away with the rationalization of the game mechanics.
Lets try;
PSB mode on:
Each 'S' ship is a certain size (L x W x H) and density (normally a constant).
To be able to make a 'jump' the ship must punch a hole into 'hyperspace'
compariable with the size of the ship at the
normally constant density. A drome womb is a
'hole' in a ship that has one, and the overall ship density is still equal to
the 'normally
constant' 'S' value. If additional mass is
added to the drone womb the mass of the ship rises above the 'normally
constant' 'S' value and the ship must provide additional power to punch thru
to hyperspace.
PSB mode off.
Is that sufficient?
Comments?
:-)
Bye for now,
> -----Original Message-----
Comments?
:-)
Bye for now, John L
.---- End Original Message -----------
Not quite.
Each SV ship has a certain mass, size, and density. The FTL and engine nodes
mass and power requirements
are based on the mass they must move/jump. So to jump
or move extra mass, the FTL and engine nodes would need to be of larger mass
themselves and take a correspondingly larger amount of power.
If you add drones to a womb of an undamaged SV that has not used biomass (for
pod launchers, drones, etc.), you increase both mass and density of the
construct. Size may change depending on if the drone womb is more like an
empty shell or an expanding sack.
Again, I would suggest that this could only be done if the SV construct was
built with oversize engines and FTL nodes (similar to Human Tug class FTL
engines).
In a campaign setting, I could see the extra biomass collected before leaving
an engagement. But I think that it would be unbalancing to have SV bring extra
drones INTO a conflict.
If you want to bring extra fighters to a conflict, use a "disposable" drone
maker:
Thr'Oaw'Ae Brian Bell Tech: Sa'Vasku (FB2) Govt: SV Mass: 23 Cost: 74 Clas:
Infant Broodship (CVM) Strm: None FTL: Std.
MD: *A
Armr: 0 Hull: 7
Damg: 2/2/2/1
Crew: n/a
Sens: Std. Systems 4 x Power Generators (2,2,2,2) [8] 1 x Cortex Node
1 x Spicule
1 x Stinger Node (FP,F,FS) 1 x Drone Womb Notes:
T|P
1| 1/1
2| 1/2
3| 1/3
4| 2/4
5| 2/5
6| 3/6
7| 3/6
8| 4/7
9| 4/8
10| 5/-
11| 5/-
12| 6/-
13| 6/-
14| 6/-
15| 7/-
16| 7/-
17| 8/-
18| 8/-
I used 7 biomass, because the ship must survive long enough to launch the
drones. If you only had 6 biomass, it would generate the drones and die before
it could launch them.