Hi all
Just saw Dean's NAC work... sweet. A couple of nights back, I just got a look
at most of the new UNSC line in the hands of one of our locals, and I have to
say, other than agreeing most of them need pinned longitudinally all the way
through to keep a good straight spine (no sag), I have to say they are nice
figs.
Does anywone have some nice designs like Dean's work for NAC and NSL,
etc. - including some SSDs and descriptions? The particular one I'm
interested in was the CVL, but I am interested in the others too. Is there any
way these could be done modular? That is to say do the design in such a way
that, for example, the extended section (that appears on
the SDN-X) becomes a "drop in module" - with hull, and contents and
systems - such that you could just slap it into an SDN and (or is it the
BB? I forget) with really no work as far as recalculating other than just
adding in the new component's totals? It seems with the modular nature of the
new UNSC fleet, it'd be handy to have the various component modules defined
that way, thus one could build a ship by going
"Nose A, Wing Type B, Cargo Section M, and Thruster Section L - add up
their costs/mass and come up with a final number". Of course, it occurs
to me the FT construction system may make this... problematic in a few
respects. Anyone have a good suggestion?
Tom
> "Nose A, Wing Type B, Cargo Section M, and Thruster Section L - add up
It's still possible to do, it just takes ALOT of advanced planning.
Start with a set of acceptable final MASSes for the fleet. Each MASS should be
such that 10% is a whole number. For example:
MASS 20 (FF) MASS 30 (DD) MASS 50 (CL) MASS 80 (CH) MASS 100 (BC)...and so on.
These are not suggestions, just numbers thrown out for the sake of example.
Take the 5 MASSes above, and that gives us 5 Drive Modules. Let's just set
Thrust 4 as our arbitrary fleet standard, and that makes or combined
FTL/Drive module equal 30% of any finished MASS. The above examples
would give:
Drive Module A - MASS 6, POINT COST 12
Drive Module B - MASS 9, POINT COST 18
Drive Module C - MASS 15, POINT COST 30
Drive Module D - MASS 24, POINT COST 48
Drive Module E - MASS 30, POINT COST 60
Now let's say that we want to put a Drive Module E on a MASS 80 (CH) ship for
a little faster vessel (NOTE: we're still within the confines of our modular
system). The "E" has 20 MASS allocated to Thrust, which is 25% of a MASS 80
Hull, making Thrust 5 instead of 4.
You can then branch into weapons, defence, cargo, hangar, etc. modules to your
hearts' content. Keep in mind, however, that it all has to fit into the
acceptable MASS framework that was worked out in the first step.
Modular construction IS possible in FT, but takes a great deal of effort to do
well.
G'day Tom,
If its any help I found the easiest way of making modular ships (when
designing my IAS) was to specify a final hull size I wanted, put on the
engines (you'd also have to put screens on here if you wanted them) and say
that part was fixed and then make up heaps of different modules (all 21
mass in my case) which had different weapon/cargo/bay configs etc in
them
and then just slotted them into the base hull to get the final product -
ie. may design page looked like
Mass:.......
Hull integrity..... (OK this would get more complicated if you tried to give
different sections different hull integrities)
FTL.......
Thrust....
Weaponary on fixed design part..... (usually a class 1 and a PDS)
Remaining unused space available for modules = Mass - sum of paid bits
(as mine were representing cargo ships having their cargo modules replaced by
weapons modules they were on the large side and thus had enough room for
3xmass21 modules).
Cheers
Beth
> Beth Fulton wrote:
and say
> that part was fixed and then make up heaps of different modules (all
Well, you could simply deal with that by saying that for 'reasons of
structural integrity' or some such ALL modules have to have the same
integrity.
> FTL.......
Alternately, you could simply have a collection of modules, and fit them
together. You can even do this without having set 'final masses' just by
rounding DOWN when you have to round (eg. thrust). (PSB: The modular design
gives greater flexibility at the expense of some efficiency).
For example, each module is 10 mass. Each module has a hull integrity, and
must use the appropriate amount of mass for hull. For the sake of simplicity,
I'm allowing 'armor modules' to just add an armor rating. Weapons can be split
over multiple modules (maybe using Andrew Martin's (if I'm right) method for
splitting DSII systems over multiple vehicles), as can other systems. A thrust
module doesn't provide thrust until the end, when it's calculated as:
(Mass of thrusters * 20)/(Mass of Ship)
Multiply thrust by 20 to signify 5% of mass as 1 thrust. Round down to nearest
thrust.
G'day Brian,
> Hull integrity..... (OK this would get more complicated if you tried
Which is pretty much what I did;)
> Alternately, you could simply have a collection of modules, and fit
The biggest problem I have with that is Screens (I'd try and suggest something
on that, but after analysing screens of numbers all day my brain went into
meltdown about 15 minutes ago, so I'm pretty much useless right
now).
Cheers
Beth
> Beth Fulton wrote:
It is, I guess, the obvious solution (at least to anyone who watches much sf
on TV).
> >Alternately, you could simply have a collection of modules, and fit
Well, my standard response to that is the 'flexibility v. efficiency'
argument. Custom-made modules (at least in large quantities) defeat the
whole purpose of HAVING modules in the first place, so I normally say that:
"If the mass of screen generators is equal to or greater than 5% (minimum 3
mass) (is that right? I forget) of the ship, the ship has screen 1. Double for
screen 2. Round down.
That would make a 10-mass Screen Defence Module (Avg. Hull):
3- Hull
3- Screen
3- Armor
1- PDS
As another example, a Point Defence Module (Avg. Hull) might have:
3- Hull Or, as I would do: 3- Hull
2- ADFC 2- ADFC
5- PDS 4- PDS
1- Armor
And and armor module might simply be:
3- Hull
7- Armor
(people who use weak hulls have an extra mass point which is probably going to
armor anyway, people with strong hulls drop one mass. I tend to use average
hulls, with at least 1 armor per module (again the
'structural integrity PSB- the crews are probably happier with the
thought that the connections between the modules are well-armored).
I normally group the modules together as individual systems damage locations,
with hull damage handled abstractly. If all the systems in a given module are
knocked out due to threshold checks, that module is considered to have 'lost
integrity' and broken off (note that that CAN cut the ship in half, but (I've
found) usually doesn't). Needle beams can target specific modules (yes, quite
a few needle ships DO show up against my modular fleets (whose main advantage
is the house rule that, when playing modules, you buy modules individually,
and then assemble them into ships AFTER seeing your opponent's fleet (the
flexibility
thing))).
> Cheers
I did the same thing with the UNSC Survey Cruiser I designed (except it had
5 mass-1 scientific units).
For the ITTT transports and Q-ships, I also included an interface craft
bay before adding modules. My modules had mass multiples of 3 (3, 6, 9, 12,
15, 18...). All modules are considered powered, so a weapons module could be
substituted for a cargo bay.
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
-----
> -----Original Message-----
and
> say
> The biggest problem I have with that is Screens (I'd try and suggest
If you are going with a fixed MASS endpoint (like the 20/30/50/80/100
example I used) then screens are simply a MASS specific defensive module, with
the exception of a Screen1 module for the MASS 100 making a Screen2 module for
the MASS 50.