Interest in a Shipbuilders Handbook?

[phavoc]

The vehicles book(s) have already gotten the greenlight for a revamp / combination reissue. So what about an updated book on shipbuilding?

Right now, you need the Core book for small ships, High Guard for larger ones, and then all the various supplements for other ships systems and gear.

So why not combine all the materials into a single book? It would also be the perfect opportunity to integrate the errata AND fill in many of the missing blanks/oversights that exist in the books now.

If this was done with an eye towards accuracy AND actually expanded what exists today, I'd buy it. But if all that is done is just a cut-and-paste job of the existing rules then I'd pass on it. I can photocopy stuff myself and put in a binder. However, I'd like to see a book, ala GURPS Starships come out of Mongoose.

Anyone else interested in such a thing?

 

[barnest2]

If they'd let me I'd write it

I think it could be really useful, especially if it had everything from the core book and high guard plus extra things. Plus I would ask DFW very nicely if I could work with him to re-write the original structure section.

Errata inclusion... yeah, it sounds good

 

[DFW]

Sounds like a great idea IF, it is done carefully and proofed exhaustively. I'd buy it.

barnest2, I'd love to work on something like that.

 

[barnest2]

I know where we could get some art done for it as well...
Do you think mongoose would go for it?

 

[DFW]

Do you think mongoose would go for it?

I wish they would but, based on their refusal to allow free help in proofing/testing upcoming releases, I doubt it.

 

[rust]

Do you think mongoose would go for it?

There are other publishers, too ...

 

[barnest2]

Do you think mongoose would go for it?

There are other publishers, too ...

Well it's possible to self publish it, but I don't know how much this falls into the SRD license, and how much it counts as reprinting the RAW.
That's what I want confirmation on.

If it's completely okay, I would like to go ahead and write it. If not, I'd rather not work on it and be shot down.

 

[Colin]

Send Matt a note, with a detailed proposal. He'll read it.

 

[Jeraa]

Only way I would buy it is if they dropped the core rulebook design sequence and the small craft design sequence, and expanded the High Guard capital ship design to cover all ships (or at least something similar to that - I prefer everything to have Energy Points instead of the power plant ratings from 1 to 6.)

Just a unified set of rules to design a ship. As it is, you can't design a ship with one rules set and duplicate it with another. Granted, the only time this happens is with a 100 ton ship, which can be designed as either a small craft or a starship. Even if the specs are equal, tonnage and cost is not. You can't get the same results

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, I'd like for them to clean up the mis-matches as well. It would be nice to actually see the original drive table created by Mark cleaned up so it, well, makes sense!

I also vote for power points to power ship systems. But only if it makes logical sense in the design structure.

And it would be nice to see some other fixes, like where are the heavier lasers for warships? Where's the point-defense lasers, or anti-missile missiles or anti-fighter missiles?

I guess this could go one of two ways - a simple compilation of all the existing tech and such into a book, with errata and minor corrections. Or, a re-design of the ship-building system that is revamped and is not built exclsively upon the original rules.

 

[Fovean]

I'd buy it for sure - if the system was revamped to scale from small craft through capital ships with a single system. Energy points would be cool. BUT if were to end up like MegaTraveller (where you'd spend an hour designing a ship and THEN discover you need more power, or control points or whatever and you have to go back and re-design) then I'd have to pass.

I really liked the original High Guard's percentage-based design system... simple formulas, scalable, Energy Points... only thing missing was EP for life support and sensors/comms.

 

[tolcreator]

Am I alone in loving the detail of TNE? My dog eared and battered copy of Fire, Fusion, and Steel is near the top of my list of things to grab, if the house is burning down. I don't ever expect to see anything like that, but a one stop shop would be useful, especially if it covered alternative tech.

 

[phavoc]

Am I alone in loving the detail of TNE? My dog eared and battered copy of Fire, Fusion, and Steel is near the top of my list of things to grab, if the house is burning down. I don't ever expect to see anything like that, but a one stop shop would be useful, especially if it covered alternative tech.

I want something somewhere in-between. Detail is nice, but I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out stuff. Energy points are a great way to make ships much more interesting in my opinion. Say you have a small tramp freighter, but somewhere you found a cruiser-class energy weapon you mounted in the cargo hold. In order to make it work you need to upgrade your power plant, or add a 2nd one, but who expects a tramp freighter to have something like that?? Could be fun to hunt, or play the pirate/privateer.

It would also be nice to see some rules that allowed you have say multiple power plants. Say you had a 5,000 ton destroyer ship and you needed 500 DT in power plants to power it. Why not have two 250DT plants, or whatever you wanted? While I don't think the current rules prohibit it specifically, it would be nice to see them codify options.

 

[AndrewW]

Rather then copy/pasting mine thoughts on this I'll just link to the thread I started under What Should Mongoose Publish Next:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=39483

 

[alex_greene]

Outline it, work on it, and if you get shot down by Matt carry on regardless, finish the job, write it up with all the legal caveats that Mongoose can't support it, and release it as a PDF.

And if you get the thumbs up, write it up, finish it and send it off to Matt for the second round: editing.

 

[rust]

Am I alone in loving the detail of TNE?

No, which is why I will have to pass on a consolidated Traveller starship
design system, I very much prefer more detail, like for example in TNE
or - my preferred system for all kinds of science fiction vehicles - GURPS.

 

[GypsyComet]

I want something somewhere in-between. Detail is nice, but I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out stuff.

The goal of the design systems for T4 was pretty much my ideal. Unfortunately rushed production schedules and incompetent management rendered the results largely unusable.

The goal, in three stages:
-A simple, one constraining parameter (volume) design system, ala CT Book 2 or MGT's CRB system. Features off-the-shelf black-box components that can be plugged together in about ten minutes, using paper and pencil. While featured as standard components, all of the parts are also compatible with and functional within Stage Two.
-A more rigorous SHIP design sequence, with room for detailed (but individually optional) power, mass, control, and surface area constraining parameters in addition to volume. All of the Stage One components are revisited here with the added details, so Stage One ships require NO conversion, but many other options are also present. Component design is not present except at basic levels, however, as the real crunchy stuff is saved for Stage Three...
-A component design system analogous to the back 2/3rds of TNE's FF&S. Don't like off-the-shelf laster turrets? Design your own. Need to simulate the Vilani need for Jump Dimming? See the Drive Options section. Be prepared to crunch the numbers, as all the parameters that are optional in Stage Two must be accounted for here.

All three stages are completely compatible, so if you really felt the need you could drop a Stage Three custom weapon into a Stage One ship (though you might need to bring that ship up to Stage Two first, then resimplify).

 

[Beastttt]

all starship goodness in one place
I would also add starship combat to a book like this

I would buy that Hell yeah!!!!!!!!!

 

[locarno24]

I want something somewhere in-between. Detail is nice, but I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out stuff. Energy points are a great way to make ships much more interesting in my opinion. Say you have a small tramp freighter, but somewhere you found a cruiser-class energy weapon you mounted in the cargo hold. In order to make it work you need to upgrade your power plant, or add a 2nd one, but who expects a tramp freighter to have something like that?? Could be fun to hunt, or play the pirate/privateer.

It would also be nice to see some rules that allowed you have say multiple power plants. Say you had a 5,000 ton destroyer ship and you needed 500 DT in power plants to power it. Why not have two 250DT plants, or whatever you wanted? While I don't think the current rules prohibit it specifically, it would be nice to see them codify options.

I like the High Guard approach to power plants - a volume percentage defining rating and rating defining what armament you can carry, what proportion can be high energy weapons, etc, etc.

The other thing is that it allows a player to build any size in between the 'standard' displacements - it doesn't seem unreasonable, for example, that someone might construct a 150 dTon 'stretched S' but with the current system I end up with a significantly oversized engineering section for what I actually need.







Some guidance on deck-plan creation would be good to throw in there as well, and some actual guidance on shipyard standard concepts of operation. We've got estimated times for building ships from High Guard, but how long does it take to get to what stage of fitting out? What about void trials?

What does it take - in time, money and skills - if I want to modify a ship rather than build one from scratch? Say, for example, I have "acquired" the aformentioned cruiser turret and wish to mount it on an existing ship...

Hell, for that matter, throw in a Naval Architect career and some equipment (I'd imagine machining and welding bonded superdense is going to require something a little more...enthusiastic...than an oxy-acetylene torch, wouldn't you?) and call the book Shipyards.

 

[middenface]

Some guidance on deck-plan creation would be good to throw in there.

Sounds good, the original High Guard had a great section about what to put the specs and plans...it basically said add it as 4ton lots to cover, med bays, rec rooms, training areas, etc...

I'd like to see the return of Repulsers and Plasma Guns on ships. Along with some exotic tech, White Globes, Jump Projectors, Spinal Mass Drivers...

You can never have not enough options...