[D20 Future] Starship Rules

[Black Pharaoh]

Are the D20 starship rules as bad as I percieve them to be, or am I missing something fundamental.

the speeds for the FTL drives seem absurdly slow, and I can't seem to use this system to duplicate any ships from popular media (Star destroyers, Federation Starships, the Andromeda Ascendant, Moya, Warhammer 40k starships....etc)

Can someone point me to, or provide some examples or such to help me figure out how this is supposed to work.

 

[nocanes]

Are the D20 starship rules as bad as I percieve them to be, or am I missing something fundamental.

the speeds for the FTL drives seem absurdly slow

The speeds are useless for interstellar travel. I use a homebrewed system I'll attach. But the only other solution is to place star systems rediculously close to each other, but is that right? The correct answer is "no". They did make a somewhat 'realistic' system in that they did not overpower the engines either. This way, interstellar invasion would be incremental and prevent fleets dropping on top of planets from out of seemingly nowhere. I hope my homebrewed system is a happy medium.

<pre>JumpDrive Technology

JumpDrive innovations are a direct product of the war. The gravity induction reactor was originally created as a weapon. It was found, however, that such projectiles had a tendency to jump through their targets without damaging them. The reactor was soon converted to an engine and the JumpDrive heralded the current level of technological progress.

JumpDrives are best utilized from system to system through a series of jumps with recharge periods between them. Different drive types (A through F) have different jump distances, minimum craft size, jump times, and recharge times.

Jump Engine........................A...........B...........C............D............E...........F
......................................(light)....(med.)..(hvy-civ).(hvy-mil).(spr-civ)..(spr-mil)
Jump Length (ly).................2.00......4.00.......6.00.......8.00.......10.00......12.00
Jump Time (hr)..................12.00......16.00.....20.00......24.00.....28.00......32.00
Jump Speed (lypd)..............4.00.......6.00.......7.20.......8.00.......8.57.......9.00
Recharge Time (hr)..............8.00......16.00.....24.00.....26.00......28.00......28.00
Avg. Nav. Speed (lypd)........2.40......3.00.......3.27.......3.84.......4.29........4.80
med=medium; hvy=heavy; civ=civilian; mil=military; spr=superheavy

Between jumps, sublight drives may be utilized as necessary and new courses may be plotted. In JumpSpace, maneuvering and sensor detection is impossible, but jumps may be terminated at anytime. Jumps use a great deal of the reactor power to induce the jump, requiring that anytime a jump is terminated, the full recharge time is required before another attempt may be made.

Jump Engine........................A...........B...........C............D............E...........F
......................................(light)....(med.)..(hvy-civ).(hvy-mil).(spr-civ)..(spr-mil)
Engine Start (rounds)...........2...........2...........3...........3...........4...........4
Max Fuel (jumps).................4...........5...........5...........5...........6...........6

JumpDrives will jump not only the ship in which the engine is placed, but a substantial surrounding volume as well. This allows for ‘extra’ cargo to be brought along outside the ship.</pre>

 

[RodneyThompson]

With regards for FTL drives, yes, they seem slow at first, but for really fast sci-fi speeds you couple them with a Jump Drive/Jump Gate to essentially multiply their speed by a factor of 1,000.

As for rebuilding ships from other genres, well, you just have to ignore the weapons systems/defensive systems limitations on each size ship. The rules in place are for the "generic" starship set for d20 Future and some tweaking might be necessary for it to work with other settings. Is there a specific ship you're trying to create that you are having trouble with?

 

[Black Pharaoh]

Is there a specific ship you're trying to create that you are having trouble with?

OK, lets go with the Andromeda Ascendant. A glorious heritage class heavy cruiser.
She is bigger than the biggest generic ship in the d20 future book, and she can travl across intergalactic distances relatively easily.

some of her relative statistics can be found here.
http://www.andromedaascendant.com/statistics.html

 

[RodneyThompson]

OK, looks like a Superheavy ship. You'll have to ignore the weapons systems/defense systems limitations for a ship of that size (since the compliment of weapons in d20 Future is kept low to reduce massive amounts of bookkeeping while using the generic ships). I'd give it 4 batteries of 6 missile tubes and 2 batteries of 8 missile tubes (total 40 tubes, one battery for each type of missile), 4 batteries of 3 PDL turrets, 4 batteries of 3 AP cannons, a nova burst missile launcher, and then normal defense systems. The thing is, you'll need to stat out those weapons yourself based on those relative power levels (since, obviously, there's no way we could stat out EVERY possible starship weapon in a single chapter of the book!). For HD, I'd be looking in the 1,500-2,000 HD range. That give you some ideas?

 

[Black Pharaoh]

If I have to ignore the rules, what good are they?

what about her slipstream drive? it isn't instantaneous, but it is many times faster than the next fastest drive in D20 Future.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I couldn't find any data on the slipstream drive there -- do you have a relative speed for the drive, as compared to lightspeed?

As for ignoring rules, well, I've yet to come across a system for creating anything that works with every genre or setting. It's not the Andromeda Roleplaying Game, it's d20 Future. I was just offering suggestions for how to play in that setting using the d20 Future rules. If you don't want to use them, that's fine.

 

[Black Pharaoh]

Some info on slipstream.
http://www.allsystems.org/engineering/enginslipstr.shtml

it appears to be similar to a jumpdrive, and travel times might just have to be left to GMs fiat. It is very fast, but not instantaneous.

 

[Black Pharaoh]

As for ignoring rules, well, I've yet to come across a system for creating anything that works with every genre or setting.

HERO does a pretty good job.

My players are much more likely to play in a D20 game than to try to figure out the complexities of HERO though. My goal is not the Andromeda RPG, but something that kinda draws on the premise of Andromeda. A small group of PCs on a powerful but undercrewed ship (so they don't have full access to all the power of the ship)

One of the players wants to actually play the ships AI as a character, but I can't see any really easy way to do that in any system. D20 Futures android/bioroid rules are really good for the "Avatar" of the ship.

 

[GMSkarka]

One of the players wants to actually play the ships AI as a character, but I can't see any really easy way to do that in any system. D20 Futures android/bioroid rules are really good for the "Avatar" of the ship.

You should check out our D20 Future PDF NETSPACE: The Definitive D20 Guide to Virtual Reality -- it has rules for playing AIs as player-characters.