PoD Harrier 200t TL15 Commerce Raider
- Thread starter mavikfelna
- Start date
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
A very long thread, if I remember correctly.
As I recall, it's in a few sources - look at the various rules for the Gravatic Detection Suite. (The Great Rift and Sector Construction Guide, if I'm remembering correctly.)
Edit: Looks like I'm not the only one who remembered it.
You missed a couple of things. First the Harrier is a damaged ship that originally had a barbette and a triple turret. Two your design fail because you kill either your cargo or your jump. I jump into a system with a jump 2 but if a grab any cargo I only have a jump 1 to get out of the system. 3 the ships crew is completely messed up it has 4 high staterooms and 4 2/3 staterooms. You just have to look at the deck plan. 4 the Harrier was design the way it was to fulfill the needs of the Sindalian empire which had no competition and the emperor was more afraid of his own fleet than a outside empire. The core 40 makes no sense a ship this size has no use for that. As for the forced linkage that’s actual a suggested up grade.
Now considering that the harrier in PoD is a half fixed ship that went in to the last battle over Drinax jury rigged this is what the class probably was originally. The High staterooms are for the officers which from the lore would have been nobles with the enlisted being in barracks since the nobles were above the lower classes.
Now considering that the harrier in PoD is a half fixed ship that went in to the last battle over Drinax jury rigged this is what the class probably was originally. The High staterooms are for the officers which from the lore would have been nobles with the enlisted being in barracks since the nobles were above the lower classes.
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I think the lore we have for the Sindalian empire suggests that their fleet primarily consisted of three ship designs.
The Harrier: Barbette, Triple/dual turret (load out would depend on specific mission profile) and larger cargo area with breaching and grappling systems. Most probably ran with an Ion Barbette and Dual Particle beam turret. 200dt
The Hunter ( my name): were as the Harrier was design for raiding/policing profile the Hunter was for assault! To this end it had two Barbette’s and a Vehicle/small Craft bay. 200dt Most probably ran with two Particle Barbette’s with high yield and accuracy or two Fusion Barbette’s with long range and High Yield.
Other than weapons and available cargo space the ships look identical with stealth, Jump 2 and Maneuver 6
The Rorix: this is a command vehicle that controlled and supplied Squadrons of Harrier/Hunters (3-5 total) they are 600dt and mine are designed very different (I gave them two small missile bays and 4 triple plus laser turrets instead of the 4 missile barbette and 2 dual plus laser turrets). A lot better protected with bulkheads. It’s supposed to have the cargo to support the squadron but the given design fails (mine has a lot more cargo ares). Being given command of a Rorix showed the Emperor had some trust in you.
The Harrier: Barbette, Triple/dual turret (load out would depend on specific mission profile) and larger cargo area with breaching and grappling systems. Most probably ran with an Ion Barbette and Dual Particle beam turret. 200dt
The Hunter ( my name): were as the Harrier was design for raiding/policing profile the Hunter was for assault! To this end it had two Barbette’s and a Vehicle/small Craft bay. 200dt Most probably ran with two Particle Barbette’s with high yield and accuracy or two Fusion Barbette’s with long range and High Yield.
Other than weapons and available cargo space the ships look identical with stealth, Jump 2 and Maneuver 6
The Rorix: this is a command vehicle that controlled and supplied Squadrons of Harrier/Hunters (3-5 total) they are 600dt and mine are designed very different (I gave them two small missile bays and 4 triple plus laser turrets instead of the 4 missile barbette and 2 dual plus laser turrets). A lot better protected with bulkheads. It’s supposed to have the cargo to support the squadron but the given design fails (mine has a lot more cargo ares). Being given command of a Rorix showed the Emperor had some trust in you.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
How does my design fail? I can jump in from jump 2, load up and only jump 1 back out, yes, but I'm taking 10x the booty. There are very few places you'll need jump 2, and if you do, bring a 38 ton collapsible fuel tank and put it in the jump net. It's still 2 jump 1s, but if you're in that much of a hurry, you should probably have a 2nd ship along that's carrying the cargo and not fighting.
The retro core/40 computer is much cheaper than a standard comp/20 and has twice the bandwidth for heftier programs or also running virtual crew.
The design by the book has standard staterooms, single for officers and double for crew, but the book design also uses commercial crew values.
I have actually read up on the Harrier a little now, rather than just going off the design sheet and blurb and I will change things up a little to reflect that, but I think it needs a boarding tube and should probably have a forced linkage, or it needs a boarding launch, if it is doing actual piracy. If it is solely focused on trade disruption and not supposed to try and capture supplies and ships, then it doesn't need it.
If you read up on the Harrier you will notice that the V'Hurg (that’s the Harrier the players get) “ Her internal systems are extremely advanced, although battle damage and two centuries of neglect means there are some glitches and damaged components.” She probably had those systems at one time but no longer has them. The V’Hurg is a flying reck which is one of the points. As for retro core computers please inform me 1) where the rules for them are 2) how you drop a computer casting 45Mcr to less than 5mcr? 3) even if you can get the core computer cost below the 5mcr of a regular 20 computer it’s very much power gaming / rule lawyering “ Most capital ships, and certain specialised vessels, have multiple distributed computer networks spread throughout their decks but always include a central computer core that controls the ship’s jump drive.” I would say the Harrier Class ship doesn’t qualify as either a Capital Ship or a Specialised (ie scientific) Ship. IMO power gamers and rules lawyers are the death to RP
Boarding tubes and grappling are suggested additions that the crew should seek when finally having the credits to refit/repair the V’Hurg
Apparently you haven’t looked at the Trojan Reach you need that jump 2 in many cases to just leave the system. And no you’re not increasing the Booty by 10. Your only cargo listed on your design is that 20 dt fuel and the Harrier has almost a third more to begin with 29dt of cargo. Your jump net is useless because you only have a jump drive for 200dt of ship unless you only jump 1. The drop tanks have to be dropped to get that jump 1 because it you have 200 ship + 200 drop tanks + 200 cargo net = 600dt minimum jump drive tonnage for 600 dt is 20dt. Plus your on a shoe string budget in the campaign you can’t afford to replace a drop tank all the time. I think you need to actually read the campaign before you suggest major changes to the V’Hurg
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I believe the retro computer pricing is from the retrotech rules in the Central Supply Catalog. Geir has indicated that they would apply to ship computers as well. If one were to use that rule, of course.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
Which is the problem with Piracy. You must raid near your base of operations OR commit very few acts of piracy/year. This is helped if you have a 2nd LARGE ship to carry cargo. But even that unless you have ways to do wilderness refuelling is an issue as anywhere near where the raid occurs will eventually notice the ship is always known to be nearby when the raids occur. The result is needing wilderness refuelling and a fleet including tankers capable of performing as deep space fuelling stations. Even with that you need a 2nd fleet to bring you shipping info and that info will be out of date unless your pirate ship and cargo ships are hiding in either the origin system or the ship destination.
Any pocket empire is going to have the tech to consolidate shipping records and look for patterns to the raiding. That heavily armed Harrier will be very suspicious. A large cargo ship leaving port A empty and arriving at Port B full and taking too long will also be suspicious. People would easily figure out who was doing the raiding. The larger the empire being raided the more difficult it becomes.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
I've seen that too BUT notice the types of computers they reference, they never mention SHIP SCALE computers. One of the things they change is mass and you don't see that in ship scale. I'd say it doesn't apply to High Guard systems but only to "consumer" scale items.
So since it lists a maximum of 3 reductions the core would cost 5.625mcr while a computer 20 only costs 5mcr so the computer 20 is still cheaper. And if costs was the actual issue he would go with a computer 15 bis at 3 mcr. Though you could retro either the computer 20 or computer 15 bis to make them cheaper I guess.
It’s rules lawyering “lets twist the intent of the rules by seeking every loophole we can find, role play doesn’t matter “ while I might accept the whole retro computer ideal I don’t think it fits for core computers and the only purpose it really has is to lower costs something governments are not known for when they build things.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
As I said, Geir said it could apply if the referee said so. That sounds official to me.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
ANYTHING can apply if the referee says so. He doesn't say it applies in the OTU does he? Can you cite ONE MgT 2.0 ship scale computer it was applied to for the OTU? Should apply to sensors to by your interpretation as they are electronic as well so I'd accept if it is an OTU ship.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
True, but the core computer get the jump software for free. That might be a factor as well.
I don't think it unreasonable to give an automatic Sensor check to detect a ship that jumps into a system at all normal ranges probably up to 300,000 Kilometers. Auto detection is still at the closer ranges for Jump Flash, mitigated by using the Stealth Jump specific rules. If the ship is more distant than yeah, the regular ship stealth would then apply.
That’s why the Harrier makes since as mostly written (though refining the weapon load does make sense) you are not trying to grab all the cargo just the best choices. You don’t want to destroy the merchant because that would bring the imperium down on you. You want to jump in refuel ambush the merchant grab a few choice pieces of cargo jump out. Once you get enough credits you build a few hidden plunder dumps and a ship to carry the cargo to market. Luckily there are places you can dump the cargo and no one will care where it came from. It’s a balancing act and a ship that’s too obviously designed only to be a pirate is going to cause too much attention. The Harrier is nice since it could be a pirate or a pirate hunter.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Don’t yell at me. I’m not a proponent for it being more than an optional rule, though I am in favor of the rule itself. I’m not even the one that designed the ship using it. Go get some coffee and find someone else to argue with.
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Yea but again the Harrier is neither a Specialized ship or a Capital ship so giving it a Core computers make no sense, especially since it’s described as “ Most capital ships, and certain specialized vessels, have multiple distributed computer networks spread throughout their decks but always include a central computer core “ again it’s a rules lawyer play which means (let ignore RP it has no purpose).
In the end the original poster has admitted that they have not read the campaign which shows in their attempt to redesign the harrier. The ship they designed doesn’t work for the campaign in any way.
