BlackJaw said:
Sails are big. Generaly if a system is big, it uses up lots of component slots.
But that doesn't have to be the case. I agree that sails shouldn't take up as many slots as, say, a cargo hold of the same dimensions.
Thus small, medium, and large sails are still the same number of slots in the hull... its just a mast and some ropes that hold up a canvas, foil surface, psychic screen, etc. Regardless of the size of the sail, the rigging components are more or less the same size, and easily interchangible.
I disagree. Just compare the size of a mast on a ship of the line and a mast on a racing yacht. There's no way you could ever put the massive pole (and all its attendant rigging) of the big mast into the little yacht. The size of the rigging increases as the size of the sail increases.
Example: The Gith Astral Whaler "Droklisk" uses Astral Sails to travel throught the that plane. It's captian, having recently brought in an above average haul decides to upgrade his ship. He can't afford to rework his entire hual or swich to some Psionic engine system, but he can afford larger sails that he can simply raise up on his already existing mast and ropes.
I just can't see it. If he wants larger sails he's going to need largers masts and rigging. These are engineering problems. Increase the surface area of a sail and you increase the stress it places on the mast. The mast needs to be stronger and more securely bound.
I think the better option is to say that sails, while large, don't consume large numbers of slots. They apply a large AC penalty, of course, and perhaps there are variant sails -- you can get more speed for a greater penalty.
One component of rigging = 1 sail (be it small, medium, or large) but many vehicles have 3 or more sails, especialy if they are loaded down with guns and armor, or cargo. Your yatch would have 2 or 3 rigging components, while a scooner just 1. A full "ship of the line" might have 10!
Whoa! A ship of the line would have something on the order of 30-40, I imagine, including studding sails and jibs and stay sails. I don't think we should even try to model anything that complicated.
2) The reason I seperated the sails from the rigging is that it makes sense that you could change your type of sails.
Does this really make sense? Do we think that, say, a solar sail craft could just put some canvas on its mounts and merrily travel the waves? That it is actually built to handle the stresses of a gale at sea? Or conversely, that putting solar sail material on a schooner would let it travel the solar system?
I think we're over-simplifying some things and over-complicating others. Let us try something easier.
For each size of vehicle there is a corresponding sail type, that uses up a certain number of slots. Sails can have a descriptor to indicate that they are wind, or solar, or astral or whatever.
Sails can be modified at "runtime", if you will. Normally a sail provides x speed points and applies a penalty of x to the vessel's AC. The operator of the sails can adjust that as they see fit, so that making the speed x+y makes the AC penalty also x+y. You can therefore increase your speed by piling on more canvas, but make yourself more of a target as you do so. Likewise you can reduce your profile but by doing so you limit your speed. Obviously there would be limits to this, and we'd talked previously about the notion of a "Speed Demon" feat that perhaps could apply here -- a feat that allows a captain to make even more extreme alterations than would be normally possible.
I just can't accept the notion that you can stick larger sails on rigging intended for smaller ones.
Note: this is the same concept I used when writing up other vital systems that are large and stick out of the vehicle: Derrigibles (blimps), and Arrays (like a solar panel array).
Yeah, I thought it worked for Arrays and so left it in the first draft I did. But when I got to sails it just seemed... to not work so well. Haven't gotten to Dirigibles yet, we'll see what I think of that...