Admiral Darokyn's flagship

[Pyromancer]

A draft for Admiral Darokyn's flagship:

http://randpatrouille.de/Downloads/darokyns_flagship.pdf

1,000 tons, J-4, M-6, 8 points of armour, medium fusion bay, not much else.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A Launch is 20 Dt. A Docking Space for it would be 22 Dt. You could make your own 10 Dt craft, of course.

Power generation is very generous, 1000 Power would do?

The Fusion bay is hard-hitting, but only Medium range. That is very short...

For a fighting ship it has very limited sensors, and no sensor operators. I would use better sensors and a Signal Processing unit, and perhaps a basic Countermeasures Suit?

 

[Pyromancer]

Good points!

The launch is indeed a 10 dton custom design, but I'm still not used to the +10% docking space of 2e.

 

[Old School]

Interesting concept, but I don’t see it working. Does it have a place in any Navy (or did he build this after turning pirate?) Very hard to build a functional fighting vessel with Jump 4 at that size when dedicating 100 tons to one weapon. And for what purpose? What was this vessel’s intended role when it was built?

How many people can you fit in a 10 ton launch? I would expect the minimum standard would be that you can evacuate the entire crew on a vessel of this size. And two tons of common space?

It sacrifices so much to get that medium bay. It only needs that weapon against other dedicating fighting vessels, and any ship with Equivalent thrust will cut it apart while keeping it at range. So its either overkill or doesn't get used. The range of encounters where a medium fusion bay is both needed and in range seems very small.

I’d recommend going with a small bay, so you still have the big fusion gun threat, and then adding a couple of particle barbettes. Also gives you room for a 20 ton launch, some crew space and better sensors. Would be a much more practical design.

-100 medium fusion bay
-10 launch
- 2 military sensors
——————————————
+50 small bay
+22 20 ton launch
+10 (2) particle barbettes
+4 Staterooms for gunners
+ 2 countermeasures
+ 3 improved sensors
+ 23 common space

 

[Old School]

Also, with the 2e rules, use close structure construction. Saves you money and adds hull points.

 

[Pyromancer]

What was this vessel’s intended role when it was built?

Multi-purpose escort. It can keep up with the big fleets and is at least somewhat useful in capital ship engagements, while being small enough to not be a total waste of resources when used for escorting civilian merchants.

The real role, of course, is to be a flagship for Darokyn, and I wanted the biggest gun I could fit, and the above is just justification after the fact. According to the adventure, it is a 1000 dton ship he stole from the Imperium, and the ones in the books don't please my taste.

I’d recommend going with a small bay, so you still have the big fusion gun threat, and then adding a couple of particle barbettes. Also gives you room for a 20 ton launch, some crew space and better sensors. Would be a much more practical design.

-100 medium fusion bay
-10 launch
- 2 military sensors
——————————————
+50 small bay
+22 20 ton launch
+10 (2) particle barbettes
+4 Staterooms for gunners
+ 2 countermeasures
+ 3 improved sensors
+ 23 common space

Those are good recommendations!

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Multi-purpose escort. It can keep up with the big fleets and is at least somewhat useful in capital ship engagements, while being small enough to not be a total waste of resources when used for escorting civilian merchants.

The real role, of course, is to be a flagship for Darokyn, and I wanted the biggest gun I could fit, and the above is just justification after the fact. According to the adventure, it is a 1000 dton ship he stole from the Imperium, and the ones in the books don't please my taste.

Ex-Imperial fleet escort, with a big gun...

OK, how about something like this (with Old School's and my recommendations implemented):

Close configuration for more Hull points.

Big gun, Particle barbettes (against fighters), laser turrets (against missiles). All hardpoints filled.

Long Range bay (-> Long) and laser turrets (-> Very Long), Accurate barbettes (ToHit+1). Sorry, can't help myself...

Good sensors, and a few operators.

Big computer and some software.

Double occupancy, with a couple of extra staterooms, and a larger stateroom for the boss. Reasonable common areas.


With Reduced Size or Decreased Fuel drives we could squeeze out a few extra Dt, perhaps for more armour?

 

[Anonymous]

Flagship implies there's a commander on board, even if it's just a squadron leader and not a fleet commander. So it needs more boats. At minimum I would put an extra smallcraft, and a spare stateroom, both for squadron commander meetings.

If you're commanding an entire system, consider 1,000 dtons a credible warship, and need a large staff, maybe use the 600-dton liner with some of the staterooms converted to hangars and offices. But I'm assuming you're more interested in "flagship" as "battle squadron leader" as not as "fleet command ship" which which is why yours is on a warship hull.

 

[Pyromancer]

Flagship implies there's a commander on board, even if it's just a squadron leader and not a fleet commander. So it needs more boats. At minimum I would put an extra smallcraft, and a spare stateroom, both for squadron commander meetings.

If you're commanding an entire system, consider 1,000 dtons a credible warship, and need a large staff, maybe use the 600-dton liner with some of the staterooms converted to hangars and offices. But I'm assuming you're more interested in "flagship" as "battle squadron leader" as not as "fleet command ship" which which is why yours is on a warship hull.

The situation here is that that the ship wasn't built to be a flagship. The pirate fleet it commands consists of around a dozen other ships.

 

[Anonymous]

For a squadron of 12, I'd certainly want an extra boat and stateroom space for an admiral and an aide. Captain's busy handling the ship. The boat's optional if space is really tight. You have cargo space you can use.

 

[Old School]

Moppy, you’re missing the point. It wasn’t designed as a flagship. It is simply a 1000 ton escort that he stole. It is his “flagshp” in that it is his biggest and best ship and the one he travels in personally, but not something that was designed for fleet command.

 

[Anonymous]

It's a reasonable conversion for the cargo space.

Sometimes some things are strange enough to activate my disbelief filters. Of course, there probably is a nuts pirate leader somewhere in the universe - perhaps they use the cargo space for an environment for their pet cat. But one has to wonder how they survived so long.

 

[Old School]

Fair enough, although I disagree on the available cargo space. A ship has to have some cargo hold for maintenace parts, supplies, food, etc. i know Mongoose doesn’t have a rule for this, and some of the inhouse designs are very low on cargo, but I like to set a minimum of 2%.

Of course, Darokyn is probably successful enough to build what he wants at this point, but that wasn’t Pyro’s premise.

 

[AndrewW]

Cargo space is also useful for storing booty.

 

[Pyromancer]

Here's version 2 of the flagship:

http://randpatrouille.de/Downloads/darokyns_flagship_v2.pdf

I changed the medium for a long range small fusion bay, added a few particle barbettes and enhanced signal processing, added a hangar for a standard 20 dton launch and had enough room left to increase armour to 10.

 

[Old School]

Much more functional design, other than the lack of common area. Where do these guys eat? 2 tons is basically a 10’ x 10’ space for the galley, eating/recreation, meetings, etc. I’d replace the 40 ton full hanger with 22 tons of docking space. Docking space would allow a somewhat reasonable amount of common area. Hanger space is a luxury that fighting ships this size can’t afford.

If this current design was in my campaign, I would consider it to have a serious ongoing morale problem, as it would be a terrible ship to serve on due to its cramped conditions. But it would be bad ass in combat against anything remotely close to its size.

Other than that, I think it looks good. Its modestly more expensive than the standard 1000 ton Imperium designs, but not dramatically so (Navy accountants might disagree). AnotherDilbert should be along shortly to tell you all the ways you could use high technology drives to free up space for more weapons and defenses (these have a way of breaking the bank), but I’d say it is a reasonable design that incorporates high tech weapons, perhaps a prototype design that was being tested for the Navy prior to Darokyn running off with it.

 

[paltrysum]

Thanks for sharing the design, Pyromancer. I will definitely use this!

 

[AnotherDilbert]

AnotherDilbert should be along shortly to tell you all the ways you could use high technology drives to free up space for more weapons and defenses (these have a way of breaking the bank), ...

OK, I'm happy to oblige.

Reduced Size drives saves space, but doesn't cost very much more:

With tech advantages:

We save 65 Dt for a cost of MCr 10. We even save an Engineer or two.


Even if ships are fully functional without Common Areas, I would agree with downgrading the Full Hangar to Docking Space and increasing Common Areas. It should increase crew comfort and morale on longer cruises.


BTW the jump drive should be 10% + 5 Dt = 105 Dt.
Enhanced Signal Processing should be 2 Dt.
Emergency Power should be 10% of power plant.

 

[Pyromancer]

Much more functional design, other than the lack of common area. Where do these guys eat? 2 tons is basically a 10’ x 10’ space for the galley, eating/recreation, meetings, etc.

I do it like I did in previous editions: Room for common areas is taken from stateroom and bridge tonnage. On a warship, the common sailor shares a 4 square stateroom, leaving 4 squares per stateroom for corridors and common areas.

 

[Old School]

So you’re putting them in smaller staterooms. The listed stateroom size is inclusive of common area, at least for enlisted sailors. Gotcha.

That makes sense. I would note that this design philosophy gives you a ton for ton advantage over ships designed with the 1 ton addtional common area per stateroom (or per crew member - it varies ship to ship) philosophy.

There’s lot of these area of caution, either from interpretations of the rules or lack of optimization of the standard designs. If you allow your players to use optimized warships against the standard designs, you’re giving them a huge and unrealistic advantage.

If my players go i to combat with a custom ship against anything more powerful than a gazelle, I’ll improve the design of the standard ship to make it a little more realistic.