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Deconstructing the Ship Construction Rules

#1
This is the first in a planned series of posts in which I hope to take apart the existing ship construction system, see how it works and for that matter, why it works. 
 
This is in no way an endorsement or condemnation of the ship construction system.  When I look at what we currently have, I see hints of patterns.  That leads me to wanting to understand if these really are patterns I see and the reasons for those patterns. 
 
Of course, I welcome any and all feedback.  In fact, I crave it.  So let me know what you think.
 
Before I dive into specific systems, a little background might be helpful.  Before Silent Death, there was Star Strike.  Star Strike was the space combat piece of the Space Master game (2nd edition, I think).  Star Strike was a VERY numbers heavy game.  It dealt with a lot of detail, even the quality of the computer programs being used by the ship’s computer (not to mention the size and power of the computer itself).
 
According to the Designer’s Notes on page 31 of the Silent Death – Metal Express rulebook (SD 1st edition), there was a desire to create a simplified star fighter game system that would be supported by a line of miniatures.  The designer, Kevin Barrett, goes through several paragraphs explaining some of the thoughts behind the dice system and such, but one in particular intrigues me and impacts this work.

Quote:“All of the ‘numbers’ for the ships were extrapolated from their statistics in Star Strike.  Since each vessel was taken, or modified, from its Star Strike incarnation, this whole process was rather smooth though some alterations were made for the sake of making a more interesting game.  Star Strike already had a detailed, coherent construction system, and several vessel designs had appeared in a number of support products.”

What that extract from 1990 implies is that for the core ships at least, there was a thoughtful process that was used to create all of the ship displays for Silent Death.  I seem to recall another comment in one of the early products (wish I could remember exactly where it was though) where it is mentioned that there were a number of tables and charts that were created for constructing ships and converting things from Star Strike.  This is all very important because it means that when you look at the original listing of ships there should be more purposeful choices made than random ones or ones done for creative license.
 
I am not trying to recreate the conversion rules from Star Strike however.  Establishing the link to Star Strike gives me something else to reference when I need to solve a mystery.  When I suspect that something was done purposefully, it gives me yet another place to look to see if I’m right or not.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
 
As I dive deeper into this over the coming days and weeks, you’ll hopefully begin to see what I’ve seen.  The ship design system that was used to create the original ships was much more complex (and I am theorizing it was more elegant) than the simplified rules we see printed in the Next Millennium book today.
 
With my next post I’ll cover the ship’s drive system.  This was my first success in breaking down the rules and the math that was used to create the ships.
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#2
Very interesting- I'm enticed.

My introduction into the universe was with the Metal Express Deluxe Edition Boxed Set, and later The Next Millenium Box, but I didn't get the opportunity to purchase all of the books at the time. The player in our group of Friday night space jocks had just about all of the materials including the Space Master materials. This was the first time I had heard about the games early Space Master roots, although I never saw more than a worn book and a Shyrak Shuttle sheet back then before he quietly filed it back away in the rules box just before the game was about to kick off.

An analysis of the early and current design system should make for an interesting series of articles that I look forward to reading and participating in -if for no other purpose than to learn a little about the design philosophies and intentions behind them and to chronicle each iteration of the system.

Hopefully, some of the posters that were active in this section earlier this year will return too. Those of you with the predilection for the numbers under the hood create some of my favorite thought-provoking submissions. Welcome to the fold!
"Make the spaceships rounder but more square!"

I can't change this sig. until I paint a longboat & post pics.
Mission Accomplished: 1/3/23

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#3
I'm back.

Sorry for the long span of silence, but I had some real world issues to deal with along with a breakthrough with my calculations.  I figured out a little quirk of the system that has allowed me to pretty consistently generate the expensive drive values as well as keep the cheaper drive values correct.

I still think there is some small piece I'm missing yet.  The hint of this comes when I'm looking at some of the freighter costs.  They are logically 1/4 the normal cost, but that quarter comes at a unique point in the equation that I can't seem to completely duplicate yet.  So while my equation works pretty well at the moment, there is some room for improvement.

As always, I'm open to opinions, thoughts, and ideas for how to improve these formulas!!

Updates will be trickling in.

THANKS
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#4
Greetings!!!

I know its been a long time since I've posted on this topic.  Every year I work hard on the formulas for a couple of months (several hours a day), until I get frustrated and give in for a while.  

FINALLY I have started to make some progress with the Escort formulas!!!

I'm still working on some things and am having the biggest problems with the "advanced" items at the far right of the charts, but its progress!!  How much progress?  Well, for the defensive values, I've got 52 out of the 59 cost calculations working and 53 out of 59 of the slot calculations working!!!

Its hard for me to say just how many hours its taken for me to get this far, but suffice to say, its been A LOT!!!!

I'll update my posts for the defensive calculations next week sometime with whatever I have figured out by that point.  Then I'll work on the drives and see if I can't have a breakthrough with them too!!

I'm excited and really want to get past this point so I can start working on some of the other ship systems (damage reduction, torpedoes, crew and slot allocations, etc.)

Later
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