BRP Starships pdf - comments welcome

[clarence]

It looks very promising! Sometimes it's good to forget, I believe - and instead get some thinking done and take down a few notes to get the larger picture right.

I have dug up some old notes on alien species creation, and have slowly started to structure and improve on them - still a lot of work to be done though. It is quite difficult to devise a system for the unknown - either it gets very superficial or way too detailed. I hope to find a good balance eventually. One of the ideas I'm toying with is a kind of "weirdness scale", determined very early in the creation process. Further decisions can then be evaluated with this in mind - a long thin neck for example, could be very different if the weirdness scale is set to "Human-like" (thin and long neck compared to the average human) or to "Really strange…" (a giraffe's neck might be a better starting point to picture this).

[Atgxtg]

I DL'd and am looking over version 1.5. It looks pretty good.

Would you mind if I expanded and tweaked the weapons list a little? I'd like to:

1) Make the scaling a little easier by trying to better match the dice to the scale factor.

2) Make it mesh better with the existing lasers and such in BRP

3) Add a few more options and variations.

[clarence]

Please do! That part is a bit simplistic as it is now, and fleshing it out would be a welcome addition.

[Atgxtg]

Okay, thanks.

BTW, how attached are you to the 5:1 scale factor between spacecraft and vehicles? Would a 10:1 factor be too much?

[clarence]

Well, if you think it will be easier to make the rules work with 1:10, I'm ready to abandon the old scale.

The problems I had with scale was that I very early tied the number of Modules tightly to Hit Points and Size, to make the system as simple as possible. If you start changing damage made by weapons, that close link will not remain. And probably rightly so - a multiplier of some sort would make as much sense, and reduce the problems involved with scale. It will be slightly more complex, but I think that's ok. So, go ahead and try 1:10!

[Atgxtg]

Thanks.

What I'm thinking is that BRP MEcha uses a x10 scale between Mecha and character scale, so if we used that for spaceships we could port over weapons and damage from Mecha.

I don't think the change will necessarily wreck the realtionship you have going. As long as the damage dice are about the same the results should be. Here is a sample of how some of the advanced weapons from the BRP gold book convert over to Mecha scale, and thus starship scale:

Energy Cannon 4D10+4 (1d4 Mecha)

Rail Gun 6D8+6 (1d6 Mecha) Kinetic

Energy Turret 6D10+6 (1d6 Mecha)

Flame Turret 4D6 (1d3-1 Mecha) Fire

Missile Turret 8D6+8 (1d6 Mecha) Explosive

Notice that the damages aren't very differernt from what you have so far.

[clarence]

Yes, that seems to work fine! I was considering buying BRP Mecha when writing the first draft, but decided against it as I have some difficulties with giant combat robots… I will better get it now, I think.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, that seems to work fine! I was considering buying BRP Mecha when writing the first draft, but decided against it as I have some difficulties with giant combat robots… I will better get it now, I think.

The relevant factors here are that:

1) Mecha put damage on an increasing die scale. 1d4/1d6/1d8/1d10, etc.

2) 1 point of mecha scale damage = 10 points of character scale damage. So 1d6 means 10-60 points of damage to a character. Which is almost the same as 10d6.

3) Weapons do differernt kinda of damage (kinetic, energy, thermal, etc) and different armors protect differently against retain types of attack.

Mecha does have some stuff that would work for spaceships but writing such vesicles up is beyond the existing rules. You can do it, but you're more on your own than if you were writing up a robot.

Oh, and since I'm working on a couple of things to try and expand the rules in mecha to handle powered armor and and try to make the weapon damage between Mecha and the BGB a little more compatible that they currently are (which is highly compatible) I can tap my notes to round out the damages a little.

But in effect it means we can do something like:

Ultra Light Laser 1d3

Light Laser 1d4

Laser 1d6

Heavy Laser 1d8

Ultra Heavy Laser 1d10

Mega Laser 2d6

Edited May 2, 2014 by Atgxtg

[clarence]

It seems to work out very well!

A thought though: Lots of different lasers you have there - will you have as many power levels for the other weapon types too? Won't that be too much?

With armor I went the simple route of not naming different types of armor, but only assigning a number to it. Would it benefit from a little more detailing à la BRP Mecha?

[Baron]

Not that my opinion should influence anyone, but for me, simple and streamlined is always better.

[Atgxtg]

It seems to work out very well!

A thought though: Lots of different lasers you have there - will you have as many power levels for the other weapon types too? Won't that be too much?

I don't think so. We can always put the default laser (d6) in bold and people can just use that when they want to. The variable types allows people to better emulate certain sci-fi settings. If you're worried about too many choices you could keep a table with the default weapons and put the rest in a sidebar.

With armor I went the simple route of not naming different types of armor, but only assigning a number to it. Would it benefit from a little more detailing à la BRP Mecha?

Possibly. depends on if you want to have some weapons more effective vs. certain types of armor or not. You could probably even simplify things a bit and still keep detail by just saying that armor protects at half value against damage types it's isn't hardened against.

BTW, I was looking through your rules, and since you now have thrust and maneuverability based on modules, you don't need the speed and handling caps under size. Realistically a big ship can go as fast and turn as well as a smaller ship, if if has the same thrust to mass ratio. In real life the main reason wny they don't is because nobody wants to make a big ship that's mostly engines and fuel, and can run out of fuel in a few minutes or hours.

[Atgxtg]

Not that my opinion should influence anyone, but for me, simple and streamlined is always better.

Why shouldn't it influence anyone?

How about I put the additional weapons in a sidebar separate from the short & simple list?

[Atgxtg]

Okay I had an idea.

What if we could add more weapon options without expanding the list?

Here's how. Somebody can buy an upgrade for a weapon. Each upgrade kicks up the damage dice one step (d6 to d8 to d10), but doubles the cost of the weapon.

So if a laser does 1d6 damage and costs 5000 Cr. then an upgraded laser does 1d8 but cost 10,000 credits, and one upgraded to 1d10 cost 20,000 Cr!

Weapons can be downgraded, just cut the price in half.

How does that look?

[Michael Hopcroft]

Okay I had an idea.

What if we could add more weapon options without expanding the list?

Here's how. Somebody can buy an upgrade for a weapon. Each upgrade kicks up the damage dice one step (d6 to d8 to d10), but doubles the cost of the weapon.

So if a laser does 1d6 damage and costs 5000 Cr. then an upgraded laser does 1d8 but cost 10,000 credits, and one upgraded to 1d10 cost 20,000 Cr!

Weapons can be downgraded, just cut the price in half.

How does that look?

Do certain weapons have special properties, like being especially effective against certain types of defense or even having useful properties outside space combat?

I'm reminded of the TNG pilot when the Enterprise's phaser array was used to deliver energy to an entity that needed to feed on it, so that it would have enough power to free itself from captivity. Apparently the weapon was used at a power setting low enough that it would not hurt the "target" but high enough that the job was done relatively quickly.

Then there are specific weapons having specific weaknesses, such as circumstances where their utility is reduced or eliminated. This would give you a reason to carry projectile-throwing weapons (such as torpedoes) and energy weapons on the same ship.

[Baron]

Okay I had an idea.

What if we could add more weapon options without expanding the list?

Here's how. Somebody can buy an upgrade for a weapon. Each upgrade kicks up the damage dice one step (d6 to d8 to d10), but doubles the cost of the weapon.

So if a laser does 1d6 damage and costs 5000 Cr. then an upgraded laser does 1d8 but cost 10,000 credits, and one upgraded to 1d10 cost 20,000 Cr!

Weapons can be downgraded, just cut the price in half.

How does that look?

I think this is an excellent idea. The GM can add milieu-centric fluff as appropriate, but the mechanic stays simple.

[Atgxtg]

I think this is an excellent idea. The GM can add milieu-centric fluff as appropriate, but the mechanic stays simple.

See, ya got influence!

[Atgxtg]

Do certain weapons have special properties, like being especially effective against certain types of defense or even having useful properties outside space combat?

In clarence's spaceship rules no. But they could have. I was thinking that we could kinda port it over from BRP Mecha with certain weapons doing kinetic damage, others doing energy and so on. Armor that protects against multiple type of attack could be a little more expensive. But it's just an idea. It's not my project, I'm just making a suggestion or three.

[Aramone]

Atgxtg, I was wondering how you would use zone based movement and maps from Brp Mecha with Clarence's spaceship rules.

[Atgxtg]

Atgxtg, I was wondering how you would use zone based movement and maps from Brp Mecha with Clarence's spaceship rules.

I was wondering why I'd want to? The way I see the zone movement in BRP Mecha, and I might be wrong, is that it allows us to integrate fast moving air vehicles with slower moving ground forces. Since there are no ground forces to integrate with in space, why would I need to use zone movement? But..

Assuming that a spaceship entered the atmosphere, I'd treat it like any other air vehicle and assume that it's speed was air movement speed, and treat it like any other flier.

I suppose you could port over the zone movement into space combat to emulate FTL drives. It could be a neat way to have ships outflank each other in space battles.

[Atgxtg]

clarence,

I had an idea for making the design of large ships easier.

I've noticed that a lot of systems require 4 modules per person for full performance.

I was thinking that we could have large scale be 4 times ship scale. SO...

1 large sickbay module would be 1 regular sickbay for 1 person and cost 20000 Cr.

1 large crew module would provde crew space for 1 crewperson and cost 4000 Cr.

and so on.

Now for systems like engines the increased scale and increased thrust would cancel out, so you could just figure out speed and maneuverability as normal.

For systems that don't scale up, like weapons, you can just assume that one large module holds 4 weapons in some sort of battery or turret.

or, if you use my weapon upgrade idea, you can just assume it's one weapon with two upgrades. Thus a laser battery could be:

4 standard lasers (1d6 damage) with a cost of 5000 Cr. each (total 20,000)

of 1 high power laser (1d10 damage) with a cost of 20,000 Cr.

(if you wanted to account for the extra space it takes up for it's size, you might want to factor in bonus, "free" upgrades for larger weapons on a doubling progression, which would bring the turret up to 2d8 or so.).

And 1 large module can always be broken down into 4 spaceship sized modules if you need to. In fact you can just multiply the large modules by four and do the who;e thing up in spaceship scale if you want.

Oh, and how about we call large scale, Capital Ship scale?

Edited May 4, 2014 by Atgxtg

[clarence]

I also like the idea with up- and down-gradable weapons. Simplicity and complexity united. How many different types of weapons are you thinking about adding Atgxtg?

Capital Ship scale it is! And the x4 concept I think will work very smoothly, and solves one of the problems I have had with large ships. I will try to integrate it with the other design rules.

With armor, I'm afraid it will make the rules unnecessary complex, if certain weapons are better against certain types of armor. Naming different types of armor might be good though.

[Atgxtg]

I also like the idea with up- and down-gradable weapons. Simplicity and complexity united. How many different types of weapons are you thinking about adding Atgxtg?

Not to many. You got most of them covered. I might add one or two that you don't have, but that's about it.

Capital Ship scale it is! And the x4 concept I think will work very smoothly, and solves one of the problems I have had with large ships. I will try to integrate it with the other design rules.

That's the plan.

With armor, I'm afraid it will make the rules unnecessary complex, if certain weapons are better against certain types of armor. Naming different types of armor might be good though.

Maybe not. My thought was:

Armor get's proofed or rated against certain types of damage, and protects at full value against that type. Standard armor can be that.

Armor that isn't rated against something only protects at half value against that type of attack, but costs less, say about 400 or 500 Cr. less per module per step for each category it isn't rated for.

[clarence]

Not to many. You got most of them covered. I might add one or two that you don't have, but that's about it.

Looking forward to seeing that!

Maybe not. My thought was:

Armor get's proofed or rated against certain types of damage, and protects at full value against that type. Standard armor can be that.

Armor that isn't rated against something only protects at half value against that type of attack, but costs less, say about 400 or 500 Cr. less per module per step for each category it isn't rated for.

Intriguing! Could you elaborate a little on this? I'm not sure I follow you all the way through here...

[Atgxtg]

Intriguing! Could you elaborate a little on this? I'm not sure I follow you all the way through here...

Sure, it's a short trip.

In the BGN there are about a half dozen type of armor and damage types.

Anyway, in the BGB if you don't have the right sort of armor, you have no protection.

But in BRP Mecha, Rosen introduced the idea that some armor protects at half value against some types of attack. For instance, Kinetic armor protects at full value against kinetic attacks, but only protects at half value against lasers or particle beams. Therefore you don't really need to buy armor for every type of attack anymore. It makes some sense too. For instance, even if tank armor isn't designed to stop a laser beam, several inches of steel plate should provide some protection.

Now, what I was thinking was that the standard armor for spaceships protects against everything. That kinda makes sense since spaceships would be subjected not only to kinetic attacks, laser beams, and exploding missiles, but radiation, and temperature extremes as well.

Armor that is weak against a certain type of attack would protect as half value against that type of attack, but cost a little less. Since the cost for armor is based on the amount and the size of the craft, a 10% reduction could mean a savings of tens or even hundreds of thousands of credits. So it might make sense for some people to do it.

The only trick is I need to make sure that the discounted armor never gets below half the cost of standard armor, so somebody won't be able to "double up" on the cheap stuff and come out ahead.

[clarence]

Ah, so Standard armor is the best, with downgrades possible if you need to cut costs or perhaps simulate low-tech armor. Yes, I think that will work. Maybe the term Standard is a bit misleading though - is there another convenient word for "protection from everything" (English is not my first language as you may have noticed, so I'm sure you can come up with something better than me…)?

You mention kinetic, laser and missile - any more types of damage needed?