Ship Building with or without apps

Well met!

Trying my hand at ship building.  Deathwind impossible to recreate using Next Millenkum templates or Pair O Dice Millenium shipbuilder.  So at a loss as to how to continue.  Suggestions?

Well met!

Trying my hand at ship building.  Deathwind impossible to recreate using Next Millenkum templates or Pair O Dice Millenium shipbuilder.  So at a loss as to how to continue.  Suggestions?

Welcome indeed! Welp, that is why there is ongoing work on retooling the ship design system in the Core Rulebook. The original author(s)/contributors/editor(s) chose to first design a game, create a gaggle of Core Ship designs, and then after all of that was said and done attach a ship design system to the game without retooling the Core Ships to fall within the design system's boundaries. 

So we've been hacking away at the problem as we develop Silent Death's 3rd edition. The biggest chore right now is finishing up the Design System revisions, followed by retooling the Core Ships from the Pit Viper to the Betafortress, then playtesting the beasties to see just how much we've changed the performance of the ships themselves. Note that the game itself will not be changed in any fundamental way. We will be adding updated and expanded House background histories and bios, new scenarios, and other fun and games designed to try and hammer together a greater degree of coherence and continuity to the Terran Space narrative.

On this last point, Sheldon and myself have some fairly extensive backgrounds as historians amongst other forms of bad behavior. We have always found the existing House bios and back stories frustratingly inadequate, full of 1980s-90s "comfortable" stereotypes and a glaring lack of understanding of just how geopolitics works, the problems of force projection, the peculiar problems in conducting interstellar warfare presented by FTL technology being readily available, and the entire Night Brood narrative (along with the Brood themselves).

An example of the issues we're addressing is that of multi-arc weapon mounts of fighters, especially gun turrets. The fact that a fighter can be designed to operate a 360-degree six-gun turret loaded with Splatterguns is just a bit OTT in terms of play balance let alone practicality. Under the current system you pay the slot and BPV costs, and your pulse laser is able to rotate 360 degree. And this additional cost is the same regardless of the size of the weapon system your cramming into that turret on your 400 ton TPAC. 

The revised design system will have a sliding scale of turret capacities based upon the size of the ship they would be fitted into. Quite simply, a 300 ton TPAC is not going to be able to accommodate a sextuple Blatgun turret even if the slots are available. You may get away with a quad Pulse Laser mount or something smaller on a 300 ton TPAC, but that is all. Move up the size templates, and you will find that gunboats will be able to easily pack two 360-degree turrets (one each dorsal and ventral), and that those turrets may pack a quad autocannon mount, but then again they are gunboats, not 200 ton SPACs. 

This hits on another gripe, that of the role of gunboats, which is not really spelled out nor are the existing gunboat designs really suited to what should be their ideal role as long range patrol and heavy strike assets akin to the fast medium bombers of WW2 particularly the B-25 Mitchel or the long range maritime patrol aircraft such as the Short Sunderland or the Focke-Wulf FW 200 Condor. I have always been of the mind that such craft could skirt a bit into Warhound territory as far as their armament options go within reasonable limitations. This means mounting a single Repeating Blaster either fixed and fired by the pilot or in a turret with a limited traverse reminiscent of the 40mm Bofors guns mounted on later PT Boat designs. It also means that gunboats can carry a limited number of larger torpedoes capable of doing more damage than a Mk. 50 (but only for engaging warhounds or other gunboats). 

One last "sneak peak" now that we're talking torpedoes. Currently fighters even if they can otherwise handle the slot costs are not allowed to pack Warhound killing torpedoes. The new design system will include again, a sliding scale of nastiness in terms of number and size of torpedoes permitted on a given template. Say hello to the coming Silent Death analogues to the torpedo bombers of WW2 and sci-fi popular cinema and literature alike. 

"Stay on target!"

Well met!

Trying my hand at ship building.  Deathwind impossible to recreate using Next Millenkum templates or Pair O Dice Millenium shipbuilder.  So at a loss as to how to continue.  Suggestions?

Welcome indeed! Welp, that is why there is ongoing work on retooling the ship design system in the Core Rulebook. The original author(s)/contributors/editor(s) chose to first design a game, create a gaggle of Core Ship designs, and then after all of that was said and done attach a ship design system to the game without retooling the Core Ships to fall within the design system's boundaries. 

So we've been hacking away at the problem as we develop Silent Death's 3rd edition. The biggest chore right now is finishing up the Design System revisions, followed by retooling the Core Ships from the Pit Viper to the Betafortress, then playtesting the beasties to see just how much we've changed the performance of the ships themselves. Note that the game itself will not be changed in any fundamental way. We will be adding updated and expanded House background histories and bios, new scenarios, and other fun and games designed to try and hammer together a greater degree of coherence and continuity to the Terran Space narrative.

On this last point, Sheldon and myself have some fairly extensive backgrounds as historians amongst other forms of bad behavior. We have always found the existing House bios and back stories frustratingly inadequate, full of 1980s-90s "comfortable" stereotypes and a glaring lack of understanding of just how geopolitics works, the problems of force projection, the peculiar problems in conducting interstellar warfare presented by FTL technology being readily available, and the entire Night Brood narrative (along with the Brood themselves).

An example of the issues we're addressing is that of multi-arc weapon mounts of fighters, especially gun turrets. The fact that a fighter can be designed to operate a 360-degree six-gun turret loaded with Splatterguns is just a bit OTT in terms of play balance let alone practicality. Under the current system you pay the slot and BPV costs, and your pulse laser is able to rotate 360 degree. And this additional cost is the same regardless of the size of the weapon system your cramming into that turret on your 400 ton TPAC. 

The revised design system will have a sliding scale of turret capacities based upon the size of the ship they would be fitted into. Quite simply, a 300 ton TPAC is not going to be able to accommodate a sextuple Blatgun turret even if the slots are available. You may get away with a quad Pulse Laser mount or something smaller on a 300 ton TPAC, but that is all. Move up the size templates, and you will find that gunboats will be able to easily pack two 360-degree turrets (one each dorsal and ventral), and that those turrets may pack a quad autocannon mount, but then again they are gunboats, not 200 ton SPACs. 

This hits on another gripe, that of the role of gunboats, which is not really spelled out nor are the existing gunboat designs really suited to what should be their ideal role as long range patrol and heavy strike assets akin to the fast medium bombers of WW2 particularly the B-25 Mitchel or the long range maritime patrol aircraft such as the Short Sunderland or the Focke-Wulf FW 200 Condor. I have always been of the mind that such craft could skirt a bit into Warhound territory as far as their armament options go within reasonable limitations. This means mounting a single Repeating Blaster either fixed and fired by the pilot or in a turret with a limited traverse reminiscent of the 40mm Bofors guns mounted on later PT Boat designs. It also means that gunboats can carry a limited number of larger torpedoes capable of doing more damage than a Mk. 50 (but only for engaging warhounds or other gunboats). 

One last "sneak peak" now that we're talking torpedoes. Currently fighters even if they can otherwise handle the slot costs are not allowed to pack Warhound killing torpedoes. The new design system will include again, a sliding scale of nastiness in terms of number and size of torpedoes permitted on a given template. Say hello to the coming Silent Death analogues to the torpedo bombers of WW2 and sci-fi popular cinema and literature alike. 

"Stay on target!"

Well met!

Thanks for replying.  In the meantime, I've acquired most of the existing ships' displays and rules for their use, so we'll be fine for awhile.  

Sounds like you are a ways away from presenting SDIII, so ship building is a distant dream.  Force building with the existing system should keep us occupied indefinitely.