The Riverland Errata

[Terry Mixon]

As I promised (threatened?) to do going forward, I am examining the ships in the newly published books to see what rules flaws I can find in how they are written up. I'll post the ship as designed first. As always, feel free to use whatever suggestions you like (or none at all).

This ship is closer than some I've seen, so good job. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it works as written. First, it's 2.32 tons over budget. Second, it can't house even the custom crew that the ship indicates it needs. Third, a minor nit, with a core computer, the jump software is free, and you are paying for it. Congrats on getting the price right with the exception of the jump software.

Here is the ship as designed by my breakdown.



It's pretty close, so next I'll make minimal changes to correct the housing and tonnage errors. I won't change anything else that I don't have to.

Changes:

First, to fit the crew, I boosted the middle staterooms from 20 to 25. Second, I reduced the common area from 40 to 28. Third, I reduced the weeks operating from 12 to 10. Finally, I dropped the cargo from 15 to 11.68.

That gets everything to balance without changing any of the assumptions that went into the design and the numbers now jibe. If you change nothing else, this version would be something you could easily adjust the one in the book to.



Now, how would I change this ship to meet the mission and make it better? First up, there is a flaw in the original design that is a mission killer. It has no fuel scoops and no refining capacity. What is your covert insertion ship going to do to get back out of the system or how will they refuel to remain on station longer? The short answer is that they can't. That will need to change.

Here we go.

1. Added fuel scoops.
2. Added 20 tons of refining capacity.
3. Bumped power plant output to 2120 to meet the new demands.
4. Added decreased jump fuel x2 to the jump drive.
5. Increased weeks of operation to 16.
6. Shuffled the crew housing to 2 high singles, 2 middle singles, and 12 middle doubles.
7. Brought the common area back to 40.
8. Added 4 tons of sand storage magazines for the sandcasters.
9. Put 13.44 tons of cargo toward the supplies they need to survive for the sixteen weeks.
10. Made the regular cargo area 15.91 tons to wrap it up.



I'll now try to make a full military crew work because custom crews shouldn't be a thing in official books. The rules are there, and you should use them.

The changes from the modified version to make this work:

1. Changed crew housing to 2 high single, 8 middle single, and 27 middle double. That houses the full military crew.
2. Common area to 38 tons.
3. Added Increased power advantage to the power plant.
4. Dropped the power plant output to 1866.
5. Reduced the bridge to a small bridge.
6. Set the weeks of operation to 12.
7. Reduced the fuel refining capacity to 10 tons.
8. Set supplies and parts to 12 tons as this is a military crew and they need it for morale.
9. Set the cargo (minus supplies) to 3.28 tons.

That fits everything and meets the mission while adhering to the rules as written.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I should have added the stealth option to the jump drive, now that I think about it. That would mean having to account for 5% more fuel but gets the covert insertion ship in without being detected. I’ll do that now.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I managed to make them work with rules as written, which pleases me.

To get the version I feel is right for the mission with the custom crew, I had to drop the common space to 17 (still good, though), remove both reduced fuel advantages, and add the stealth jump advantage. That got everything to fit.



For the full military crew as required by the book, I had to drop the sand storage to two tons and drop the weeks of operation to 8. They still have supplies for 100 days, so a covert refuel will keep them going.

 

[chibiko]

Not to to do with ships, but the text for the Consular Navy Model Laser Pistol on p.137 says its powerpack is good for 50 shots, but the table lists 100.