TIE/LN à la Traveller

[dmccoy1693]

I noticed they didn't have solar panels for power. That's what the wings are, solar panels.

Right, but solar panels aren't powerful enough to be used in combat, so I omitted them.

"Extendible solar panels provide backup power for a ship's power plant…extending their range and endurance."

Extended range/endurance isn't something a starfighter needs.

Standard, extendable solar panels aren't powerful enough, but maybe Empire-specific, stationary ones are. Proprietary technology and all. Remember, the ship construction system was not created with the Star Wars-verse in mind, but the OTU. So you just say the empire has stationary solar panels that are powerful enough. Unless you plan for the players to "buy" a tie fighter, you can ignore the cost of the thing.

 

[wbnc]

I noticed they didn't have solar panels for power. That's what the wings are, solar panels.

Right, but solar panels aren't powerful enough to be used in combat, so I omitted them.

"Extendible solar panels provide backup power for a ship's power plant…extending their range and endurance."

Extended range/endurance isn't something a starfighter needs.

Standard, extendable solar panels aren't powerful enough, but maybe Empire-specific, stationary ones are. Proprietary technology and all. Remember, the ship construction system was not created with the Star Wars-verse in mind, but the OTU. So you just say the empire has stationary solar panels that are powerful enough. Unless you plan for the players to "buy" a tie fighter, you can ignore the cost of the thing.

the TIE fighter as a child of the age before your tech explanations would be dissected by a few million rabid geeks before the movie hit the theaters Te design sequence went technical limitaitons first, visual considrations second, add on a few whizzzy words for flavor..and presto you have new starfighter. considereing how demanding modern audiences are in terms of consistency, realism(at least within the framework of the setting), and plot holes...it amazinng the TIE fighter has remained a scifi Icon.

 

[Condottiere]

Power is power, and you can get around too easily on Traveller ship design caveats for solar panelling, which are overpowered anyway.

 

[locarno24]

And that would be the TIE/SF, not the TIE/LN.

The SF has shields, a hyperdrive, a gunner and turret. The LN is the 'classic' TIE seen in the original trilogy as well as the Star Wars: Rebels TV show.

And even then, not all the "Force Awakens" TIEs are hyper-capable. The reason Finn's going "that one" is he's looking specifically for the Special Forces TIE rather than a standard TIE/fo.

If you look at the TIE fighter they steal compared to the others, you'll notice it's got bulky "cogwheels" around the base of the solar panels. Apparently these are big storage batteries to allow it to power a hyperdrive and a secondary gun turret despite its reactor not normally being up to it - it's still dependent on its 'home base' ship for recharge, so it's not as independent as Rebel/Resistance ships, but it's able to do long range recon, hit and run, and other special forces-ey things.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Also, if anyone is interested, the home for my Star Wars conversion can be found here. Any and all updates will be made there.

Link is also in my sig.

When you get around to doing starships with hyperdrives, what are the standard speeds you would be using?

Judging by this map and scaling it to a similar size as the Milky Way Galaxy, each square is about 2000 parsecs.

 

[Reynard]

At the speed of plot device.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

At the speed of plot device.

How much do the cost, and what's the displacement hull tonnage?

I think having an inconsistent hyperdrive is very troubling.
"What do you mean its going to take a week to go back, it only took a few hours to get here?"

 

[EldritchFire]

Also, if anyone is interested, the home for my Star Wars conversion can be found here. Any and all updates will be made there.

Link is also in my sig.

When you get around to doing starships with hyperdrives, what are the standard speeds you would be using?
…
Judging by this map and scaling it to a similar size as the Milky Way Galaxy, each square is about 2000 parsecs.

That is something I haven't figured out yet. GURPS Space has some good advice on how to determine speed of FTL drives that I'll probably use.

But if anyone has any good suggestions or ideas in the meantime, I'm all ears!

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hyperdrive 1: 2000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 2: 4000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 3: 6000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 4: 8000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 5: 10000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 6: 12000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Generally hyperdrive trips take hours rather than days or weeks. What is your preference?

 

[EldritchFire]

Hyperdrive 1: 2000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 2: 4000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 3: 6000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 4: 8000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 5: 10000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 6: 12000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Generally hyperdrive trips take hours rather than days or weeks. What is your preference?

If each grid square is 2k parsecs, then a basic hyperdrive should go 2k pc in 12 hours. Divide that time by the H-drive number and that's your travel time.

Meaning that an H-1 (the most basic) will get you to a neighbouring grid square in half-a-day, only 6 hours for the 'standard' H-2. Get your hands on a 'military' H-4 and it'll take 3 hours.

Coruscant to Corellia would be a 12hr journey for a H-2 equipped starship, while a military vessel would do the same trip in 6 hours. Of course, with a more advanced H-5 that same trip is only 3 hours.

I like those benchmarks.

 

[steve98052]

At the speed of plot device.

This is the most accurate answer for all questions about Star Wars technology.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

At the speed of plot device.

This is the most accurate answer for all questions about Star Wars technology.

That's the equivalent of saying, "Bang bang, your dead!"
What works for the movies, where its written in the script, doesn't work for RPGs!

 

[GamingGlen]

At the speed of plot device.

This is the most accurate answer for all questions about Star Wars technology.

That's the equivalent of saying, "Bang bang, your dead!"
What works for the movies, where its written in the script, doesn't work for RPGs!

Actually, it can. Some RPGs are more story driven, and even in Traveller the PCs don't have to own a starship. They go to the starport, book passage, mark off the price of passage and about 1.5 - 2 weeks of time, and they are at their destination to save the princess...er, begin their next great adventure.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Speaking of Starships, they are a lot cheaper in the Star Wars setting than in the Traveller OTU. Luke sold his landspeeder to get a down payment for a trip to Alderan on the Millenium Falcon, he complained about the price, Cr17000 saying he could almost by his own starship for that amount of money. So you typical starship in Star Wars like the Millennium Falcon, costs tens of thousands of credits instead of tens of millions like it does in standard Traveller. So if you want to know the price of a starship in Star Wars, take the Traveller equivalent and divide by one thousand. I'd say though with all the improvements Han Solo made with his Millenium Falcon, it is worth more like Cr100,000 being the equivalent of the souped up sports car in space, though it doesn't look it. I think in general the Star Wars credit goes further than the Imperium Credit, Prices are like those in the 1940s. You could buy a ground car for a couple hundred credits, and land speeder would go for a few thousand. A Land speeder is basically a grav vehicle that can rise no more than a few feet above the ground substitutiong for wheels. Cloud Cars are more like standard Traveller grav vehicles. With cheap starships, the Empire can also afford much bigger starships such as Imperial Star Destroyers and the like. Droids are also much more common in Star Wars than in your standard Traveller campaign. Tech levels tend to be bifurcated, either tech levels are preindustrial or they are space age. Tech levels across the galaxy are more uniform except for places that have been out of contact with Galactic civilization such as the Forest moon of Endor for instance.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hyperdrive 1: 2000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 2: 4000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 3: 6000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 4: 8000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 5: 10000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 6: 12000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Generally hyperdrive trips take hours rather than days or weeks. What is your preference?

If each grid square is 2k parsecs, then a basic hyperdrive should go 2k pc in 12 hours. Divide that time by the H-drive number and that's your travel time.

Meaning that an H-1 (the most basic) will get you to a neighbouring grid square in half-a-day, only 6 hours for the 'standard' H-2. Get your hands on a 'military' H-4 and it'll take 3 hours.

Coruscant to Corellia would be a 12hr journey for a H-2 equipped starship, while a military vessel would do the same trip in 6 hours. Of course, with a more advanced H-5 that same trip is only 3 hours.

I like those benchmarks.

I would say this, travel along the trade routes is faster than travel off of them. The speed one travels through hyperspace depends on how well one can calculate the jump through hyperspace. The paths along the trade routes are well charted, so the speed should be the H-drive number times 2000 parsecs per 12 hours, but when traveling off the trade routes where space is not well charted, travel is slower. This would also explain why almost half the Galaxy is the unknown regions. Doing scouting of the Unknown regions is a lot slower, one must proceed cautiously because there are a lot of unknown objects in space that need to be taken into account, so one needs to make frequent astrogation checks and proceed more slowly off of trade routes and through the unknown regions.

 

[EldritchFire]

Hyperdrive 1: 2000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 2: 4000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 3: 6000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 4: 8000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 5: 10000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Hyperdrive 6: 12000 parsecs in an hour/6 hours/12 hours
Generally hyperdrive trips take hours rather than days or weeks. What is your preference?

If each grid square is 2k parsecs, then a basic hyperdrive should go 2k pc in 12 hours. Divide that time by the H-drive number and that's your travel time.

Meaning that an H-1 (the most basic) will get you to a neighbouring grid square in half-a-day, only 6 hours for the 'standard' H-2. Get your hands on a 'military' H-4 and it'll take 3 hours.

Coruscant to Corellia would be a 12hr journey for a H-2 equipped starship, while a military vessel would do the same trip in 6 hours. Of course, with a more advanced H-5 that same trip is only 3 hours.

I like those benchmarks.

I would say this, travel along the trade routes is faster than travel off of them. The speed one travels through hyperspace depends on how well one can calculate the jump through hyperspace. The paths along the trade routes are well charted, so the speed should be the H-drive number times 2000 parsecs per 12 hours, but when traveling off the trade routes where space is not well charted, travel is slower. This would also explain why almost half the Galaxy is the unknown regions. Doing scouting of the Unknown regions is a lot slower, one must proceed cautiously because there are a lot of unknown objects in space that need to be taken into account, so one needs to make frequent astrogation checks and proceed more slowly off of trade routes and through the unknown regions.

Over on the main page of my conversion notes (in sig) I noted the following:

"If you want to modify the travel time a bit, roll 1D3 for each square traversed. Each 1 rolled reduces the travel time by 1 hour, and each 3 rolled adds 1 hour to the travel time. And if the journey doesn't follow an existing hyperspace route, feel free to add 1D hours to the journey for each grid square traversed."

Going 'off the main trials' take a long time!

 

[EldritchFire]

After some feedback (both here and elsewhere) I have revised the TIE fighter. I have also broken it down into two sections: game stats and build. The game stats have been heavily cribbed from the old WEG D6 Star Wars game, but I find them well-suited to at-the-table play.

Stats

• 
  Type: TIE starfighter
  Tech level: 13
  Hull type: Sphere (partially streamlined)
  Size: 10 tons
  Skill: Pilot (small craft)
  Crew: 1 pilot
  Passengers: None
  Cargo: 2.5 tons
  Cost: MCr9.015
  Evasion: -1
  Thrust: 8
  Hull Points: 4
  Weapon
  • 
    Fire-linked laser cannons
    • 
      ​Fire Arc: Front
      Skill: Gunner (turret)
      Fire Control: +2
      Range: Close
      Damage: 2D

Build

• 
  TL13 (MCr9.01; 4 hull points)
  Hull: 10dT sphere; MCr0.4
  Armour: Titanium: 4; 1dT; MCr0.04
  M-Drive: Budget Thrust: 8 (increased size); 1dT; MCr1.2
  Power: Fusion (TL12): 15 power; 1dT; MCr1
  • 
    Basic systems: 2
    M-drive: 8
    Sensors: 2
    Weapon: 3
  Fuel: 4 weeks; 1dT; MCr–
  Bridge: Cockpit; 1.5dT; MCr0.01
  Computer: Comp/10; –dT; MCr0.16
  • 
    Evade/1 (MCr1)
    Library
    Manoeuvre/0
  Sensors: Military grade; 2dT; MCr4.1
  Weapons: Firmpoint-mounted pulse laser; –dT; MCr1.1
  Cargo: 2.5dT

 

[Jeraa]

You have a listed crew of 1 and 0 passengers, with a 2.5 ton cockpit. A single person cockpit is only 1.5 tons.

As a side note, you have included the price of the software in with the price for the fighter. While not necessarily wrong, that would increase the monthly mortgage cost and the monthly maintenance. You should probably only include the cost of the ship itself and all physical components, and make a note of extra costs like software, missiles, sandcaster barrels, etc. Likewise when you go to design a carrier or other ship, don't include the price of the carried ships and vehicles either.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Fire Control: +2

?

M-Drive: Budget Thrust: 8 (increased size); 1dT; MCr1.2
Power:
M-drive: 6

?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

After some feedback (both here and elsewhere) I have revised the TIE fighter. I have also broken it down into two sections: game stats and build. The game stats have been heavily cribbed from the old WEG D6 Star Wars game, but I find them well-suited to at-the-table play.

Stats

• 
  Type: TIE starfighter
  Tech level: 13
  Hull type: Sphere (partially streamlined)
  Size: 10 tons
  Skill: Pilot (small craft)
  Crew: 1 pilot
  Passengers: None
  Cargo: 1.5 tons
  Cost: MCr9.015
  Evasion: -1
  Thrust: 8
  Hull Points: 4
  Weapon
  • 
    Fire-linked laser cannons
    • 
      ​Fire Arc: Front
      Skill: Gunner (turret)
      Fire Control: +2
      Range: Close
      Damage: 2D

Build

• 
  TL13 (MCr9.015; 4 hull points)
  Hull: 10dT sphere; MCr0.4
  Armour: Titanium: 4; 1dT; MCr0.04
  M-Drive: Budget Thrust: 8 (increased size); 1dT; MCr1.2
  Power: Fusion (TL12): 15 power; 1dT; MCr1
  • 
    Basic systems: 2
    M-drive: 6
    Sensors: 2
    Weapon: 3
  Fuel: 4 weeks; 1dT; MCr–
  Bridge: Cockpit; 2.5dT; MCr0.015
  Computer: Comp/10; –dT; MCr0.16
  • 
    Evade/1 (MCr1)
    Library
    Manoeuvre/0
  Sensors: Military grade; 2dT; MCr4.1
  Weapons: Firmpoint-mounted pulse laser; –dT; MCr1.1
  Cargo: 1.5dT

Probly in Star wars money that would be 9,015 Imperial credits to build this fighter, or maybe 90,000 credits, but small spaceships don't cost millions of credits in the Star Wars Galaxy. in Comparison, Luke Skywalker sold his landspeeder for almost 2000 credits.