Ship Design and Power Plants

[GhostWolf69]

This might have been discussed before but I can't remember the outcome.

When you design a ship; Why would you EVER want a Power Plant more powerful that required? Is there any benefit at all for having more Power than needed?

I can't see Power Plant "actions" at all the Space Ship combat section...

Reading the Engineer - Power Plants specialization though it says something to the effect that you can "squeeze" out more power that would otherwise be allowed from your power plant. Again... why would I want that? Where is it used?

I guess the REF could just rule something here but I want to know if it is used in the Core Rules as is?

/wolf

 

[EDG]

It isn't. It's a weird oversight - there's no reason whatsoever in the core rules for you to have a bigger drive than you need to.

I did try to correct it in another thread, which you may find interesting:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36579

 

[GhostWolf69]

Good.

I'm adding Ship Design to my Excel dBand wanted to know if the Power Plant should be hard coded or a Free Choice.

If this is the case I'll just hard code it to Minimum Required and remove it from the "User input needed".

Boring... but simple.

/wolf

 

[captainjack23]

Good.

I'm adding Ship Design to my Excel dBand wanted to know if the Power Plant should be hard coded or a Free Choice.

If this is the case I'll just hard code it to Minimum Required and remove it from the "User input needed".

Boring... but simple.

/wolf

Until we get high guard, that should work fine . I have no idea if HG will introduce anything that will change this, though. I'm not sure if what we have is just because of the old combat damage system, a hook for HG ship design, or what. But then, I'm also not sure why this is a big issue for some people, anyway - not everything scales according to a linear function, after all.

If it's mainly weapon power issues you are looking for, though, try this:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=532504

 

[tneva82]

This might have been discussed before but I can't remember the outcome.

When you design a ship; Why would you EVER want a Power Plant more powerful that required? Is there any benefit at all for having more Power than needed?

Since people wanted to shoot all their guns at will without worrying about energy no reason whatsoever.

 

[EDG]

Since people wanted to shoot all their guns at will without worrying about energy no reason whatsoever.

They can do that with the most basic power supply they can get in the rules right now, because there's no power allocation at all. IIRC it was there in the playtest but appears to have been completely stripped out (and nothing's replaced it).

 

[captainjack23]

Since people wanted to shoot all their guns at will without worrying about energy no reason whatsoever.

They can do that with the most basic power supply they can get in the rules right now, because there's no power allocation at all. IIRC it was there in the playtest but appears to have been completely stripped out (and nothing's replaced it).

You may remember this better than me - was there actually a weapons allocation system ? or just an output for the plant with rules for increasing it for extra thrust (one increased the effective letter of the plant, IIRC).

 

[captainjack23]

This might have been discussed before but I can't remember the outcome.

When you design a ship; Why would you EVER want a Power Plant more powerful that required? Is there any benefit at all for having more Power than needed?

Since people wanted to shoot all their guns at will without worrying about energy no reason whatsoever.

Actually, on thinking about it, - it's only an issue because people want to not be able to fire guns without worrying about power.

 

[EDG]

Personally I don't get why Mongoose didn't just rip out and update the EP system from CT High Guard - that seemed to work pretty well.

(and I don't recall the details of the power rules in the MGT playtest, I was too busy figuring out the UWP stuff)

 

[Myrm]

Well, the core book has the core of the design system. Its simple and relatively limited in options. If you start to list those things in other Traveller expressions that aren't in the current core ship design I feel the list might be quite long.

That means that with High Guard on the horizon, we might see such a system - at the very least that book would be a good opportunity to add a more detailed power system.

 

[GhostWolf69]

I'm just gonna have to update the file as new suplements come out, that's all. This is common practice for all files such as this and I don't have a problem with it. If I was to wait for ALL rules to be available, we would never see this project released.

/wolf

 

[tneva82]

Since people wanted to shoot all their guns at will without worrying about energy no reason whatsoever.

They can do that with the most basic power supply they can get in the rules right now, because there's no power allocation at all. IIRC it was there in the playtest but appears to have been completely stripped out (and nothing's replaced it).

Which is what I refered to. People wanted to shoot all their particle beams and whatnot without worrying about energy so made such a fuss during playtest that it got removed. Now we have to cope with game where bay weapons are added into small ships and reqular turrets have triple particle guns firing at full rate of fire. Wopedoo.

 

[GhostWolf69]

And the obvious solution (if you ask me) would be to include Power Consumption into Ship Design and still not care about it once the ship is built.

That way you'd have to take it into consideration when you design and build the ship, but once it's there it's easy to use and no one needs to think about it.

I don't know.... I'd be in favour of a more detailed system where the Engineer handling the Power Core would actually be of use...

"Divert all power to forward shields! Full speed ahead! Steady as she goes! Brace for impact! And so on and so forth... "

"She can't take much more Captain! She's going to blow!"

I don't know... tyo me personally, something is just "missing" without it.

/wolf

 

[Myrm]

I assume that if they are to happen 'special actions' like that may be in High Guard.

Until then there are several good ideas in Babylon5 RPG that you could DM up for the crew to attempt.

 

[Allensh]

The system in CT (book 2) didn't really have power allocation either...but then they also did not include things like bays and PA weapons either. Those probably should have been left until High Guard.

Allen

 

[GhostWolf69]

The system in CT (book 2) didn't really have power allocation either...but then they also did not include things like bays and PA weapons either. Those probably should have been left until High Guard.

Allen

Agreed.

/wolf

 

[Baron Sidur Haski]

I need some kind of EP plug in. I am designing a military ship with a lot of auxiliary craft. Some with complex (Ok, Field Artillery Pieces) that need to be recharged, etc.

Is there some method of adpating the current Core Rulebook system to use EP? Should Power Plant fuel Tonnage equal EP Output?

 

[captainjack23]

I need some kind of EP plug in. I am designing a military ship with a lot of auxiliary craft. Some with complex (Ok, Field Artillery Pieces) that need to be recharged, etc.

Is there some method of adpating the current Core Rulebook system to use EP? Should Power Plant fuel Tonnage equal EP Output?

There are a couple of systems proposed in the interim: one bases it off off assigning the engine letter a basic thrus (search for EP) ; mine is here:

If it's mainly weapon power issues you are looking for, though, try this:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=532504

EDG has some interesting ideas on specialized drive types and power, too.