Re: Alien Ship Design

2G Scott skribis:
> Rob sagt:
> >Yes and no, Scott.  Part of the reason is that they are annoying, and
> >another part is that there isn't much use for them in adventures, since
> >I'm nowhere near running a Hard Times campaign.
>
> Yes, but the question was about high tech modular designs (TL 15 I assume)
> And there, the modular designs might be more usable, but they would be more
> costly because of the heavy redundancies involved.  This makes merchant
> ships more expensive (plus, they couldn't enter atmosphere anyway).  And
> while Ten 10-ton fighters might be joined together to get a 100 ton ship
> with 10 turrets, it would be more vulnerable than it would be as individual
> components.  Weleded together, one hit would wipe out the 10 fighters at
> once, while individually, it would take 10 such hits to take out a squadron.
>
> So, from neither mercantile nor military point of view, does it add up.

I had not considered a TL15 modular design before.  Hmmmm...I would need
to think about it for a while before dismissing it.  For merchant usage,
I think that you are correct--redundancy would be too expensive (by the
rules, I mean, of course), but for figthers, I don't know.  The current
damage rules for spacecraft are just a slightly revised version of High
Guard, as you know, and are not set up to handle some of the more exotic
things that we can think of.

BTW, why couldn't it enter the atmosphere?  As long as it has more that 1G
of lift, it ought to be able to fly, albeit slowly.

Turret limits.  Got to think about turret limits one of these days.  The rules
might work without them, _IF_ we knew how missiles worked.  (If missiles need
continual guidance from the launcher, then the number that can be fired is
limited by the number that can be controlled, otherwise the number that can
be fired is limited only by the cost of the missiles.  In the former case,
ship designs could dispense with the turret limits for game balance puposes,
since there would be some sort of balance between increasing power requirements
for energy weapons and increasing control requirements for missiles, but in the
latter case, a High Guard/TCS style campaign would have to consider the cost
of resuplly in order to remain balanced.)

Pardon my rambling...

Rob Dean