Workshops

Engineering section, is nebelious. The workshop can be part of it, but its a ship compotent can be anywhere on the ship.
A lot of ships tend to place their power plant, jdrive and mdrive in the same area, but they dont need to. They could all be in different parts of the ship, unattached.
And we see that in the larger military ships.
I wouldnt call a workshop that is adjacent to hangar as part of the engineering section, and I wouldnt a workshop on a gunnery section part of the engineering section either.
 
agentwigggles said:
ship compotents, unless stated eleswhise are the TL of the ship
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Right, but none of the Fabricators are TL-12. Your choices are 10 and 13. People keep getting on My case when I use components at TLs other than they are listed as in the book, saying that lower TL ships cannot have higher TL components. Example, a TL-12 ship with a TL-13 Fabricator.
 
MasterGwydion said:
Right, but none of the Fabricators are TL-12. Your choices are 10 and 13. People keep getting on My case when I use components at TLs other than they are listed as in the book, saying that lower TL ships cannot have higher TL components. Example, a TL-12 ship with a TL-13 Fabricator.
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Maybe that means no fabricator at all unless their ship is a higher tech level or they pay to get a custom one.
 
Terry Mixon said:
Maybe that means no fabricator at all unless their ship is a higher tech level or they pay to get a custom one.
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That would seem kind of lame and again, it entirely removes your ability to "hotrod" your ship. If a TL-10 Fabricator exists, a TL-11 Fabricator should also exist. In My world, they do, but in the rules, I am not so sure. It is one of the reasons I threw out the rules for Refits. You cannot supe up your ship because you cannot put a bigger motor in it. Customization of ships is something that I have found that almost all of My players want to do over time.
 
MasterGwydion said:
That would seem kind of lame and again, it entirely removes your ability to "hotrod" your ship. If a TL-10 Fabricator exists, a TL-11 Fabricator should also exist. In My world, they do, but in the rules, I am not so sure. It is one of the reasons I threw out the rules for Refits. You cannot supe up your ship because you cannot put a bigger motor in it. Customization of ships is something that I have found that almost all of My players want to do over time.
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Not all parts are the same TL. A TL-12 ship has aspects that are of a lower tech level, just not higher. Otherwise, a TL-12 ship couldn't have civilian sensors, as they are TL-9. Even military grade sensors are TL-10. A TL-12 ship should be able to have a tech level 10 fabricator, but not higher following the same logic.
 
Terry Mixon said:
Not all parts are the same TL. A TL-12 ship has aspects that are of a lower tech level, just not higher. Otherwise, a TL-12 ship couldn't have civilian sensors, as they are TL-9. Even military grade sensors are TL-10. A TL-12 ship should be able to have a tech level 10 fabricator, but not higher following the same logic.
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Sensors use the TL of the ship, not the TL of the sensors. As far as I am aware, anyhow.

Also, a TL-10 Fabricator on a TL-12 ship would be next to useless, since it could only produce items to a maximum TL of 8. That is pre-interstellar.
 
MasterGwydion said:
Sensors use the TL of the ship, not the TL of the sensors. As far as I am aware, anyhow.

Also, a TL-10 Fabricator on a TL-12 ship would be next to useless, since it could only produce items to a maximum TL of 8. That is pre-interstellar.
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Since a retooling of sensors (or other things) that are functional at lower tech levels would literally add nothing and cost money, my opinion is that the higher tech levels ships would use them as is. Others can do as they think best, but this seems to be the easiest way of dealing with that kind of thing.

As far as the fabricator, I didn't say it would be all that useful, just that they could have it. ;)
 
MasterGwydion said:
Right, but none of the Fabricators are TL-12. Your choices are 10 and 13. People keep getting on My case when I use components at TLs other than they are listed as in the book, saying that lower TL ships cannot have higher TL components. Example, a TL-12 ship with a TL-13 Fabricator.
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A TL 12 fabricator has the same capabilities as a TL-10 one, but is 20% cheaper, 20% smaller, or 10% of each. (IMU.)
A workbench is the same TL as the ship and requires parts of that TL (IMU). It will assist in making/repairing parts of the same TL as your ship, but NOTHING else.
 
Terry Mixon said:
Since a retooling of sensors (or other things) that are functional at lower tech levels would literally add nothing and cost money, my opinion is that the higher tech levels ships would use them as is. Others can do as they think best, but this seems to be the easiest way of dealing with that kind of thing.

As far as the fabricator, I didn't say it would be all that useful, just that they could have it. ;)
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I have house-ruled this in My games. I use TL of the Sensors as the minimum TL for them. I use the TL of the ship vs the TL of the sensors to determine the difficulty. I have also house-ruled that you can have higher TL equipment in a lower TL ship. Again, this allows players to "hotrod" their ships. Just like you can hot rod a '39 Ford with a modern engine, power brakes, and power steering. Not sure why you'd want power brakes or power steering on a '39 Ford, but you can do it. TL of the hull doesn't change after construction, but everything onboard can be upgraded TL-wise. Like a TL-12 ship with TL-15 civilian sensors, or a TL-12 ship with an M-9 Drive as a refit.

You can basically tell the TL of a ship's hull at a glance on your sensors. Since the TL of the ship determines how hard it is to spot them, that means lower TL ships have larger signatures. So, by this alone, you should be able to tell a ship hull's TL. Since I don't want My players to automatically know that their M-7 drive can 100% of the time outrun a TL-12 ship, I allow "hot-rodding" and have changed the rules in My games to allow for it. That way, their sensors detect a TL-12 ship and that is all they know until they are close enough to get a detailed read on the ship's EM output and realize that the engine in that TL-12 ship is putting out way more power than it should. In My game, that is Medium Range, so less than 10,000km.
 
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MasterGwydion said:
Right, but none of the Fabricators are TL-12. Your choices are 10 and 13. People keep getting on My case when I use components at TLs other than they are listed as in the book, saying that lower TL ships cannot have higher TL components. Example, a TL-12 ship with a TL-13 Fabricator.
Click to expand...
The tl breaks for equipment is when their is a moderate difference.
It's a TL12 version of a TL10 fabber.
Mechanically it's just a tl10 fabber
ICly it's a bit nicer and better than an actual tl10 fabber.
 
Not to get technical, but "fabricate" doesn't mean "fabricator." I can fabricate a new wrench using a piece of iron and a hammer. I don't need a fabricator for that. A fabricator on the other hand would be something much more precise, like a CAD-laser CNC machine or some type of 3D printer. In my mind, a workshop is for beating old parts back into shape or smashing and mashing a piece of raw material into an approximation of the old part, whereas a fabricator would be for making brand new parts. It's possible to hammer out a new piston and crankshaft by hand, but it's probably not the best method.
 
MasterGwydion said:
That would seem kind of lame and again, it entirely removes your ability to "hotrod" your ship. If a TL-10 Fabricator exists, a TL-11 Fabricator should also exist. In My world, they do, but in the rules, I am not so sure. It is one of the reasons I threw out the rules for Refits. You cannot supe up your ship because you cannot put a bigger motor in it. Customization of ships is something that I have found that almost all of My players want to do over time.
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I had a question about Fabrication Chambers, but ended up having to make up some houserules to cover the situations was asking about. The thread, with the relevant house rules, is https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/questions-about-fabrication-chambers.124097/. Sorry, it got kind of off-topic there. I hope that some of it is useful to you.

Also; it sort of emerged that Fabrication Chambers are always (up until one gets access to 'Advanced' chambers at TL -17) a distant second best to a Manufacturing Plant. Manufacturing Plants turn out goods of up to their own TL; and I believe Workshops should do the same -- so there might be a lathe, a drill press, a couple saws, and a good old CNC mill in the TL12 Workshop alongside the fabber. Probably the fabber just makes feedstock for the actual tools, or some of the spare parts for the tools, in the Workshop.
 
agentwigggles said:
The tl breaks for equipment is when their is a moderate difference.
It's a TL12 version of a TL10 fabber.
Mechanically it's just a tl10 fabber
ICly it's a bit nicer and better than an actual tl10 fabber.
Click to expand...
That is how I run it, but I have not actually seen that in the rules. Where can I find that?
 
MasterGwydion said:
Also, this doesn't tell us the size of the Fabricator.
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A 32-slot fabricator (48 cubic liters) could make something the size of a Droyne. That might be too much. Not sure. The next size down is 16 slots (24 cubic liters) and could make something the size of a dog. Then one could go smaller. I suppose the real question to ask is what size best fits the need.
 
Terry Mixon said:
A 32-slot fabricator (48 cubic liters) could make something the size of a Droyne. That might be too much. Not sure. The next size down is 16 slots (24 cubic liters) and could make something the size of a dog. Then one could go smaller. I suppose the real question to ask is what size best fits the need.
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Size isn't limited that way. The Fabricator cost is per Slot produced, a TL-13 Enhanced Fabricator that can build a 1.5cl (1 Slot) object is 50,000Cr. Its total size is 3cl (2 SLots)
 
MasterGwydion said:
Size isn't limited that way. The Fabricator cost is per Slot produced, a TL-13 Enhanced Fabricator that can build a 1.5cl (1 Slot) object is 50,000Cr. Its total size is 3cl (2 SLots)
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Pretty sure its capacity. The fabrication chambers are mostly enclosed, so there is a cap on what can be produced internally

CSC page 7.

Most are a sealed or mostly enclosed environment, able to create objects up to a rated size usually equal to half the unit’s volume. External fabricators also exist; these are useful for creating larger or irregularly shaped objects such as habitats and vehicles.

The sizes I mentioned come from the Robot Handbook, page 121.

Robotics laboratories are often equipped with a 128-Slot fabrication chamber, capable of building a Size 6 robot body, including a power source and material input bins. A smaller 64-Slot fabrication chamber capable of building a Size 5 robot body is also available, as is a 32-Slot Size 4 robot builder, at one half and one quarter the cost, respectively.

Size 6 is an Aslan. Size 5 is a human. Size 4 is a Droyne. The size 3 I mentioned just follows the downward progression.
 
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