Sa'Vasku Point Value

How do you determine the point value of Sa'Vasku bioships using the Fleet Book
rules? Thanks.

There are some work on this in the archives

> How do you determine the point value of Sa'Vasku bioships using the

2 schemes if IIRC.

Here is a repost of an original by Imre A Szabo (IAS)

<repost>

Here are a few ideas for the Sa'Vasku...

Ships: Use MT rules, but with the following exceptions. Cost, 4 points per
mass. Drone capability, 25% of a bioship's power factors can be replaced with
drone storage. This is the physical space need to store 6
drones, cargo, etc.  Bio-ships without this ability can not generate
drones. The PF's replaced by drone storage don't count for capacitors, but do
count for FTL jumps, movement, etc.

In campaign games, bioships regenerate damage at a rate of one box per current
power factors per strategic turn. Bioships never need supply. Bio ships are
"grown." Bioship grow at a rate of 10 mass per strategic turn. Note that fully
grown bioships can grow larger, but they must spend one strategic turn doing
nothing but cocooning themselves. The cocoon costs zero points. Then the
bioship can grow 10 mass per strategic turn. They can emerge from the cocoon
at any time, but don't grow that turn. Bioships with drone storage can carry
cargo. In Stellar Conquest, I suggest 1 population unit or 20 industrial
points per drone storage point.

Drone Pods: The only changes from MT are, they cost 4 points of power each,
special drones can be constructed during a battle, they cost as many extra
power points as those option cost regular points. All drones at start are
standard. Drones Pods are notorious for kamikaze attacks; they can ram enemy
ships at any time and do 1d6 damage each, being
destroyed in the process.  Heavy drone pods do 1d6+1 damage each.

BioSpaceStations: They are built just like bioships, but have only positional
thrusters. They can rotate, but not move. The cost of increasing or decreasing
rotation by 60 degrees equals the cost of 1 point of thrust for a bioship with
the same mass. BioSpaceStations can have upto 50% of thier power factors in
drone storage. They also have 1 point of armor for every 10 mass.
BioSpaceStations can have more then module, one core module and several
smaller modules. The total mass of all smaller modules can not be greater then
the mass of the core module. Each module is treated as an individual unit, but
they can share power. They can double the ammount of power some module have by
transfering it from others. Note that this can double the regeneration rate
for biospacestations.

IAS

</repost>

Hi Tim,

I didn't think people took any of my ideas serriously... I've made a few minor
changes to my Sa'Vasku rules...

Drone Storage has capacitors to store power, but do not generate power.

Growth rates for BioShips is 10 mass or 10% of current mass, whichever is
greater. It costs 4 points per mass, and takes one turn in which the ship can
do nothing.

BioArmor for BioSpaceStations can be regernerated during play. It costs 3
points of power per BioArmor circle regenerated and the BioSpaceStation can
not have more BioArmor than its current Power Factor. This is done in the
Orders Phase.

> Hi Tim,

In a world of blind men a one eyed man is king ;-/

Thanks for the update.

> Imre A. Szabo (BTW, is Szabo a common Hungarian name?) wrote:

> I didn't think people took any of my ideas serriously...

Haven't had time to look at them, I'm afraid. Playtesting - sorry, test
shooting - at work has kept me too busy for that.

> I've made a few minor changes to my Sa'Vasku rules...

[snip]

> Growth rates for BioShips is 10 mass or 10% of current mass,

Um... does this mean that a ship can grow by tens of tons in ten minutes?
That's *lots* of energy, that is... at least if the old E=mc^2
applies to the SV :-/

> BioArmor for BioSpaceStations can be regernerated during play. It

Hm. Depending on how large BSSs can become, this may or may not be a
problem. Brian Burger proposed counter-varying HP and energy (fragile
hulls had *lots* of energy) and regenerative abilities, which meant
that a stronger-hulled ship was pretty much unable to kill a
weaker-hulled one unless it did so in a single salvo... otherwise the
weaker-hulled ship out-regenerated the stronger-hulled one. As I said I
haven't looked at your rules, but it's something to watch out for.

Regards,

> Um... does this mean that a ship can grow by tens of tons in ten

This is a strategic turn, not a tactical turn.

> Hm. Depending on how large BSSs can become, this may or may not be a

My idea makes the BioStarbases tougher, but it is very limited. Your concern
is mitegated by two things. 1. The maximum BioArmor is limited to the same way
energy capacitors work. This means after the first row of hull boxes have been
destroyed, that BioStarbase loses 1 BioArmor... The second limitation is the
energy cost to regenerate armor. At 3 points of power per BioArmor, it is not
cheep. If the BioStarbase rebuilding all of its BioArmor every turn, then it
won't have much power for beams, drone pods, etc...

> Imre A. Szabo wrote:

> > Um... does this mean that a ship can grow by tens of tons in ten

<whew>

[On regenerating]

> My idea makes the BioStarbases tougher, but it is very limited. Your

> first row of hull boxes have been destroyed, that BioStarbase loses 1

This may help, yes.

> The

3 points of power per BioArmour *is* cheap. It depends of course on which
range band you're fighting in, but an SV ship needs on average 1.25 EP per
range band to inflict 1 point of damage against an
unscreened target - so 3 points per regained armour box is *less* than
it takes to knock that box out from band 3, and not much more than it takes to
knock it out from band 2.

IIRC Brian used on average 4 EP per box regained in his later SV drafts, and
that was *still* too little for balancing
differently-hulled SV against one another in any meaningful way.
However, his weak-hulled high-energy ships were able to keep the range
open (so they could spend less energy on regenerating damage than their
opponents had to spend on inflicting the same damage); the BSS is (hopefully)
incapable of movement allowing its enemies to close to
point-blank range and hit it hard before it can regenerate.

Regards,

> 3 points of power per BioArmour *is* cheap. It depends of course on

I don't have a problem with this because BioArmor is only on Sa'Vasku
Starbases. This means the attacker gets to choose the range... Also remember
that they can only regenerate BioArmor, not BioHull during the tactical turn.
Any damage you do to the hull is "permament" for that
battle...   If you are using regeneration for ships, you probably better
charge at least 4 EP a box. Also remember that Sa'Vasku beams use a shorter
range band than human races.