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Fallon Kell
Commodore

Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA

Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 11:37 pm Post subject:

atgxtg wrote:

Orion,
Here is why I7d love to figure out a way to use lower mass values for fighters.

The old X-Wing series of computer games listed the thrust of an X-Wing at 300KTU. Just what KTU stands for was never defined.
THe Guide to starships lists the X-Wings Acceleration at 3700G or approximately 37000m/s (heck if Coruscant's gravity is 2% higher than Earth's it could be 37000m/s exactly).

Now, since F=ma, m=F/a.
Now if we assume that KTU stands for Kilotons Thrust Unit, or KiloTon Units then:

300000/37000= 8.1 tons.
or at Earth G'S: 300000/36300=8.26 tons

Very nice indeed.

Of course, in the games, the x-wing didn't accelerate at anything like 37000 meters per second per second, and never ever even got close to 37km per second in velocity, because that would have made the game unplayable.
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 1:17 am Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

atgxtg wrote:

How does this look for ballpark figures?

T-5 X-Wing Component Breakdown
Crerw: 1 pilot [0.1mt]
Comsumables: 7 days [0.07mt]
Cargo Capacity: 110 kt [0.11t]
Power Core: rated 64D[0.32mt]
Ion Drive: 4x4j4 or 4L4 [0.25t each]
Hyperdrive x1 [.0.1t]
Astromech Socket & Droid [0.1t]
Shields: 1D{1t]
4 Laser Cannons [.75t each]
2 protorp launchers [.75t each]
Hull: 4D [1t]

Total: 8.3 mt

Today's been a long day so my input maybe a little on the scarce side, but as far as I see, I don't really have any problems with it. Do something smaller and something bigger but still a fighter, see how it works, and if any problems develop. However, seeing the hyperdrive mass did make me think that rules will be needed, like the multiple sub light engines, to keep freighters from using the light fighter versions to save mass. Perhaps classes, like this drive will only work on a ship with a mass of less than 10mt, just as an off the top of my head example. Now, if you want to allow players to chain together hyperdrives to meet the required mass is a different matter. Another way would be to state they're purpose built for the craft they are in, so using them in a different craft might make them behave in 'unusual' ways, but defining the limits on hyperdrive interchangeability can wait for now.

I agree the KTU thing is very nice indeed, and happens to fit nicely with what I thought it should mass, though I put up 8.5, I actually thought it should be a little under that, though I never defined it exactly, but figured 8.5 was a nice 'round' number, as dealing with halves isn't bad but some people don't care to go beyond that.

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 9:59 am Post subject:

Fallon Kell wrote:

No it didn't acclerate that quickl, and yes if it had it would certainlyhad complicated things. But that doesn't really matter. From a play perspective it's dones't matter if it is 3700G, 37G, 3.7G, or 37 million Gs-as we don't use that directly in the RPG.

What I an doing is usuing the various offical G ratings to calculate the SPACE scors of the ships. If doesn't really matter what the values are, as long as they are all on the same scale. An X-Wing, at 3700G is about SPACE 9 (becuase everybody other that WEG give diata on the faster T65-C instead of the B), a TIE/ln @4100G is SPACE 10 and so on. It works out to about 410G per point of SPACE. I'd like to drop that down to 400G, but it throws off the A-Wings.

Oh, BTW, I think I messed up eaiser and should have used 1KTU= 1Kilonewton rather than 1 kilogram.

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 11:00 am Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

Today's been a long day so my input maybe a little on the scarce side, but as far as I see, I don't really have any problems with it.

Eek! I forgot the sensors, comm, and life support systems. Not that they will add much.

Quote:

Do something smaller and something bigger but still a fighter, see how it works, and if any problems develop.

I plan to. I got a spreadsheet that sums of all the items, and plan to do a column for each of the major designs from the films (they are the most important, common, and the ones that have the best data) and see how they all measure up. Since I used the official thrust and acceleration, along with F-ma, I already have the masses of the ships relative to each other. The Millennium Falcon might pose a problem though, depending on if there is an official KTU rating for it's engines.

Quote:

However, seeing the hyperdrive mass did make me think that rules will be needed, like the multiple sub light engines, to keep freighters from using the light fighter versions to save mass. Perhaps classes, like this drive will only work on a ship with a mass of less than 10mt, just as an off the top of my head example. Now, if you want to allow players to chain together hyperdrives to meet the required mass is a different matter. Another way would be to state they're purpose built for the craft they are in, so using them in a different craft might make them behave in 'unusual' ways, but defining the limits on hyperdrive interchangeability can wait for now

I already tackeled that problem awhile back. What I came up with was keeping the drive mutiple fixed-that is a x1 drive is always a x1, but mass will affect how quickly the drive wears out. By GG, a hyperidive needs to be overhauled after 20 jumps or it starts to become unreliable. I am going to rate drives for a given mass and then determine how many jumps it can make between overhauls by using the actual mass over the rated mass.

For example, let's say a X-Wing has amass of 8 tons or so, and that it has a small hyperdrive rated for 8 tons. If somebody were to install that drive into a 160 ton freighter (20 times the mass of the X-Wing) then the drive would need to be overhauled after every jump. I believe that will make tiny drives less that desirable for freighters. I suppose somebody could chain together 20 starfighter hyperdrives, it they wanted to, but that would probably require some good TEC rolls, and be interesting to game.

I have to do something similar with shields. Basically a give size shield will cover a given area, and bigger ships will need bigger shield generators to provide the coverage, or else loose protection.

Quote:

I agree the KTU thing is very nice indeed, and happens to fit nicely with what I thought it should mass, though I put up 8.5, I actually thought it should be a little under that, though I never defined it exactly, but figured 8.5 was a nice 'round' number, as dealing with halves isn't bad but some people don't care to go beyond that.

Yeah, it does. Especially if I use 1KTU= 1000 Kilonewtons. It's nice for me, since I can now use what data already exists, instead of making things up.. The neat thing is that most ships calculated stats match up with the existing RPG stats, and the ones that are off are usually within a point. Even the ones that are off tend to have "in universe" reasons. For instance, the X-Wing comes out at SPACE 9 by the numbers, but that is for the T-65C (or T65-AC4). The RPG, for some odd reason, gives stats for the T65-B, and it is noted on Wookieepeida that the B7s 4L4 engines didn't provide as much thrust as the 4j4. It also notes that the 4L$ were supposed to be some sort of stealth drive, and apparently took some time to work out, which explains why the T-65B was slower that the T65-A despite having a "more advanced" drive.

A lot of things that have bugged people and didn't seem to make much sense, actually worked themselves out nicely once I started to plug the numbers into a spreadsheet. For instance the Delta-7's and Eta-2's high performance values compared to the latter A-Wing. Turns out the A-Wing is a lot bigger than the Clone Wars ships, and about as heavy as an X-Wing. The Delta-7 and Eta-2 are fast not because they have better engines that the A-Wing, but because they have a much lower mass. Just like the TIE fighters they supposedly lead to. And that also helps to explain why somebody can't really upgrade one of those older designers into an uberfighter as adding anything would add mass and slow the ship down.

Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 3:30 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

atgxtg wrote:

Eek! I forgot the sensors, comm, and life support systems. Not that they will add much.

Just goes to show how tired I was last night, I specifically asked myself, "Is anything missing from that list", more than once and nothing came to mind. Maybe shave a little mass off the shield generator to make room if keeping the mass at the calculated value is of concern to you, having it weigh as much as the hull might be too much, given the restriction you noted that you put on them further down, it shouldn't hurt things depending on how you are defining the area they cover.

atgxtg wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much about the falcon itself as it's known to be heavily modified. It's a hot rod and you can increase the performance 2 ways put a 'bigger' engine in or modify the one that's in it, the falcon has likely had both done to it. So if the falcon comes up as being too fast, perhaps some kind of engine modification rules would be in order then.

atgxtg wrote:

Great, that's less that needs to be worked out. Smile

I think maybe there should be a max mass differential as well, so you can't use an x-wing hyperdrive on a cap ship and maybe not even on some freighters.

If you do decide to allow them to be chained, I would suggest a controlling apparatus would be required to keep them 'synced' up with each other, which would of course have some weight and space requirements and the size of the 'array' should effect reliability. I'll use the US/Soviet race to the moon as an example. The US's Saturn V main stage had 5 engines, the Soviet version had 30 and even though each was based off of a very reliable rocket they'd been using to launch their satellites, they had severe reliability problems with it. Sub-light engines would probably have a similar need as well when you start putting too many of them together, the 4 on the X-wing could be controlled by the pilot like a cargo planes engines, but at some point you would exceed the ability to easily do so. Plus multiple engines/hyperdrives would require more maintenance, as each drive would need it's own maintenance.

With the shield's how are you defining the area, by length of the craft, it's mass or both?

I'll ask again, in case it was missed in my previous post, was Engineering: Space transports as well as the other related skills ever fully developed by WEG, or is Hideout's and Stronghold's the only place it's mentioned?

Bren
Vice Admiral

Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 3:35 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

I'll ask again, in case it was missed in my previous post, was Engineering: Space transports as well as the other related skills ever fully developed by WEG, or is Hideout's and Stronghold's the only place it's mentioned?

I don't believe that it was.

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 4:37 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

[Great, that's less that needs to be worked out. Smile

I think maybe there should be a max mass differential as well, so you can't use an x-wing hyperdrive on a cap ship and maybe not even on some freighters. [/quote]

There is. If the mass is greater than 20 times what it ws designed for the drive will end up needing an overhaul in less than one trip. So 20x is the practical limit. A desparate character might push it a little if the right circumstances (say 21x when the alternative is playing dodgem' with an ISD), but they are playing with fire.

Quote:

If you do decide to allow them to be chained, I would suggest a controlling apparatus would be required to keep them 'synced' up with each other, which would of course have some weight and space requirements and the size of the 'array' should effect reliability. I'll use the US/Soviet race to the moon as an example. The US's Saturn V main stage had 5 engines, the Soviet version had 30 and even though each was based off of a very reliable rocket they'd been using to launch their satellites, they had severe reliability problems with it. Sub-light engines would probably have a similar need as well when you start putting too many of them together, the 4 on the X-wing could be controlled by the pilot like a cargo planes engines, but at some point you would exceed the ability to easily do so. Plus multiple engines/hyperdrives would require more maintenance, as each drive would need it's own maintenance.

Yeah. I agree. Bren has mentioned that too. The more complicated it gets the more temperatal it gets, and the better tha chance of a mishap.

Quote:

With the shield's how are you defining the area, by length of the craft, it's mass or both?

Probably by tonnage volume. A sprere that encicles the ship. Just becuase I think it would be easier, since we won7t need to hunt for dimesions, or work up a total surface area. I suppose I could use a ton^(2/3) to approximate area if enough people complained [now that's fair warning Wink

], or give the shield generators a radiusof ewffect and do it that way.

But tonnage seems easiest.

Quote:

No, they weren't fully devloped, and yes I missed it. Droid Engieenring got a good cover though. I think I can incoproate those skills into this.

You know how people were thinking of grades of engines (utility, standard ,high performance)? Well, I give engines a sort of efficiency rating that does the same thing. It reflects the thrust to mass ratio of the engine-that is how much thrust a given engine puts out for it's size. zThose engineering skills would come into play if somebody wanted to make a more effecient engine (or other device).

Like if somebody wanted to design a better engine than the Novadex engines on the A-Wing.

Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 7:09 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

atgxtg wrote:

There is. If the mass is greater than 20 times what it ws designed for the drive will end up needing an overhaul in less than one trip. So 20x is the practical limit. A desparate character might push it a little if the right circumstances (say 21x when the alternative is playing dodgem' with an ISD), but they are playing with fire.

I was thinking more in terms of a point that the drive just can't get that much mass into hyperspace no matter what you do, so it either just doesn't function or has a catastrophic failure, such as ripping the ship in two, momentarily taking the rear section into hyperspace, but do to the mass of the other half, dropping it back into realspace almost immediately, so it ends up in the same space as the front half, a real do not try this at home moment. Wink

atgxtg wrote:

], or give the shield generators a radiusof ewffect and do it that way.

But tonnage seems easiest.

From the visual of the Naboo fighter inside the Droid Control Ship in TPM, it would seem that starfigher shields manifest themselves a few inches out from the hull, so a sphere wouldn't work, unless you say that's the limit to which it can form a shield. Using mass only you would need nearly 12 of the X-wing shield gens to cover a 100mt ship, whereas if you went with radius, with the previous stipulation, you could probably use less. Whichever way you go, you should probably compare the mass of a gen designed to fit the ship to the mass of how ever many smaller ones it would take to cover it to see how the masses compare. I can easily see the multiple out massing the purpose built, but by what amount?

atgxtg wrote:

No, they weren't fully devloped, and yes I missed it. Droid Engieenring got a good cover though. I think I can incoproate those skills into this.

That's in Cynabar's isn't it?

atgxtg wrote:

You know how people were thinking of grades of engines (utility, standard ,high performance)? Well, I give engines a sort of efficiency rating that does the same thing. It reflects the thrust to mass ratio of the engine-that is how much thrust a given engine puts out for it's size. zThose engineering skills would come into play if somebody wanted to make a more effecient engine (or other device).

Like if somebody wanted to design a better engine than the Novadex engines on the A-Wing.

As you probably missed it in the original post, I'll reiterate what made me think of it. There is a difference in designed to preform a function and retrofitted to preform a function, the latter usually masses more. So the Engineering Skills could be used for an efficiency of retrofit as well, with more effiecient one massing closer to a purpose built item. This would create a range of mass variance for retrofits to existing ships. If you can get the GG6 rules to fall within that range then you will have reconciled those ships to the new system. The skills could also be used to do performance increasing modifications to existing equipment if you found that desirable or needed, like what I was talking about if the falcon didn't match up.

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 10:17 am Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

Soory, my fault. I didn't explain what I was thinking. In GG6 when a drive is used beyond it's time for maintenace, there is a chance of breakdown (GG6 suggests a roll of 2 on 2D). I was thiking that with each multiple of of the maintenace interval, the GM adds another D to the mix and reads the lowest dice. So the more you push the drive (or the more tonnage it has to move) the greater the chance of something going wrong. And the more "1s" somebody rolls the worse the breakdown when it happens. So putting an X-Wing hyperdrive on an ISD is a guarentted disaster, since the chances of not rolling a lot of ones is pretty much nil. The drive might explode, or just make the jump and leave the ISD behind, or take a chunk of the ISD with it, or move the entire ISD but cut out fter 5 seconds, or any other horrible thing the GM can think up.

So a practical limit is about 10 times the mass a drive is designed for. That way you can make 2 jumps (round trip) and not be struck somewhere.

[quote=From the visual of the Naboo fighter inside the Droid Control Ship in TPM, it would seem that starfigher shields manifest themselves a few inches out from the hull, so a sphere wouldn't work, unless you say that's the limit to which it can form a shield. [/quote]

Yes, it does look like the shields conform to the hull, but I think it would be a lot more work to figure out the contours of every ship and fit the shields that way. And for what? I think it is a lot simpler just to go with tonnage, or a sphere/radius and not worry too much about it. Unless there is a good reason not to. I sorta view this like engines. Maybe a shield can be "stretched" to cover a bigger ship, but the dice code would be reduced.

Quote:

Using mass only you would need nearly 12 of the X-wing shield gens to cover a 100mt ship, whereas if you went with radius, with the previous stipulation, you could probably use less. Whichever way you go, you should probably compare the mass of a gen designed to fit the ship to the mass of how ever many smaller ones it would take to cover it to see how the masses compare. I can easily see the multiple out massing the purpose built, but by what amount?

The films show ships having multiple shields anyway, so it might be that all ships use multiple shield generators. So the masses given in GG6 could be for the entire system. THat way I could simplfy this down to a percentage of the ship's mass.
Something like 2% for 1D, 3% for 2D, and 5% for 3D or thereabouts. Things like adapting the "wrong" shield generators could be handled with increased difficulties and more interesting failures.

Quote:

That's in Cynabar's isn't it?

Yup.

[qupte]
As you probably missed it in the original post, I'll reiterate what made me think of it. There is a difference in designed to preform a function and retrofitted to preform a function, the latter usually masses more. [/quote]

The design/engineering stuff is mostly for building ships from "scratch". As far as nodding and retrofitting goes, it would depend on if you are trying to improve an existing system (use the modification rules), replacing a system (use the stats for the new system), or building a custom component (use the engineering rules).

Just keep in mind that past a certain point there is a sort of domino effect. If you add a more powerful engine you might need to upgrade the power core and add more structure/hull. By the time you are done, you might even loose speed.

Quote:

So the Engineering Skills could be used for an efficiency of retrofit as well, with more effiecient one massing closer to a purpose built item. This would create a range of mass variance for retrofits to existing ships. If you can get the GG6 rules to fall within that range then you will have reconciled those ships to the new system.

There are a few problems with the GG6 engines. THey work fine up to a point and then there is a hiccup. Most the engines seem to have the same efficiency. Looking at the Speed to Mass ratio of the engines.

Space 4, 10 tons = 0,4
Space 6, 12 tons= 0.5
Space 8, 16 tons = 0.5
Space 10, 18 tons =0.55
Space 12, 24 tons =0.5

So it looks like the Space 6,8, and 12 drives are pretty much the same, just scaled up (or more engines in the drive), and that the Space 10 engine is a somewhat better design (instead of massing 20t).

THe sky-rocking costs are, IMO not a matter of the difficulty in manufacturing the engines, but more a matter of limited production, paying for specialized knowledge, special components to link it all together, and a high markup up to get the job done, and to get around all the regulations. .

Now by comparsion a T-65B X-Wing:

Space 8, 1 ton (total) = 8

So the X-Wing drive is 15-20 times more efficient that the drive on a freighter and will cost a lot more on a per ton basis.

Quote:

The skills could also be used to do performance increasing modifications to existing equipment if you found that desirable or needed, like what I was talking about if the falcon didn't match up.

Yes, you could, although that is already covered in the rule book. I suppose I could add engineering to the mix the way Cynebars does for Droids.

Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

atgxtg wrote:

Ok, I understand a bit better now and a practical limit of 10 times sounds much better to me than that of 20.

atgxtg wrote:

Yes, it does look like the shields conform to the hull, but I think it would be a lot more work to figure out the contours of every ship and fit the shields that way. And for what? I think it is a lot simpler just to go with tonnage, or a sphere/radius and not worry too much about it. Unless there is a good reason not to. I sorta view this like engines. Maybe a shield can be "stretched" to cover a bigger ship, but the dice code would be reduced.

That's why I suggested you use the radius/sphere as representing the max limit at which the shield can be formed, if you go that route.

atgxtg wrote:

That sound's like a promising way to do it.

atgxtg wrote:

The design/engineering stuff is mostly for building ships from "scratch". As far as nodding and retrofitting goes, it would depend on if you are trying to improve an existing system (use the modification rules), replacing a system (use the stats for the new system), or building a custom component (use the engineering rules).

That's just it, retro fitting a system onto a ship is very much designing a custom component. Example: If you cut a hole in the hull, you've just changed how that section of the hull handles stresses, so you must design a reinforcing system to get the stresses back into specs. If you don't have the needed Engineering skills then you have 3 possible outcomes.

The first and least likely is that by sheer luck you get it exactly right, so not counting the mass of whatever system your adding the mass of the ship either stay's the same or more likely is just slightly heavier than it was originally but will handle stresses the same way it used too.

The second and more likely than the first is that you under reinforce things, which might actually lessen the mass of the hull 'system' by a small amount, but could also add significant mass through improper use of the materials, and so now you have stress problems with the hull in that area.

The third and I would say by far most likely, as people that are unsure tend to overcompensate, is that you over build the reinforcement by adding too much material, so it adds more mass to the ship, again before you add the mass for the new system. This can also cause stress problems, as you've over built a piece of the hull 'system' and could end up causing stress problems elsewhere.

I hope I've explained clearly enough that engineering is very much part of retrofitting something into an existing system. It's even part of modifying an existing system for performance increases, because unless your going to the local spaceship parts store and buying an off the shelf performance part you have to design or adapt something that will increase the efficiency of the engine, for that you need to understand how it works and where it can be improved, which comes from understanding the design of the engine.

atgxtg wrote:

Just keep in mind that past a certain point there is a sort of domino effect. If you add a more powerful engine you might need to upgrade the power core and add more structure/hull. By the time you are done, you might even loose speed.

Not if you have the Engineering skills to understand how all those parts work together as you'll known what adding all those things will cause as a whole, because you understand how they all work together. What's more because of that you would likely be able to get closer to the absolute max performance because you would be able to design the systems to be installed more efficiently saving wasted mass that would reduce performance.

atgxtg wrote:

Except your forgetting my argument that the masses of things in GG6 are abstractions. So the masses your listing are not the masses of the drives, they are the masses of the drive plus the reinforcing materials and probably space taken up as well. Let's say that were putting an upgraded drive on a craft that masses 4 times what the X-wing does, and that the drive were using uses the same engines as the X-wing it just has 16 of them, that means the engines themselves mass at 4mt, but there part of a drive unit, just to keep it simple we'll say that the other parts that make up the drive mass in at 1mt, giving the drive a total mass of 5mt, half of the listed mass for a drive of that thrust in GG6.

Now the ship is already going to have some reinforcing in it from the previous drive, so a good engineer might be able to get away with only using an additional 1mt of reinforcing material to get the job done correctly, whereas a layman might end up using the full 5 mt or more, just trying to make sure that the new drive didn't tear a hole in the hull, because they're just guessing about what's needed, they don't know how to tie in to the existing hull structure and get the most out of it, so they over build it. This is what I was talking about with a range of variance, not of the drive itself, but of the mass/space of the materials used to properly secure the drive.

atgxtg wrote:

THe sky-rocking costs are, IMO not a matter of the difficulty in manufacturing the engines, but more a matter of limited production, paying for specialized knowledge, special components to link it all together, and a high markup up to get the job done, and to get around all the regulations.

Except if IIRC installation costs are handled separately from the cost of the drive in GG6 as the rules allow for the PC's to actually do the work. But if you use my method, they could be buying a lot of material to mount the drive.

atgxtg wrote:

Yes, you could, although that is already covered in the rule book. I suppose I could add engineering to the mix the way Cynebars does for Droids.

I unfortunately don't have Cynebar's and have never had the opportunity to read it, so I'm unfamiliar with those rules, but I definitely think a character with the appropriate engineering skills would have a real advantage when doing modifications.

Bren
Vice Admiral

Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 1:53 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

...definitely think a character with the appropriate engineering skills would have a real advantage when doing modifications.

I think that this is somewhat in conflict with the tone of Han and Chewie (or other smugglers) modifying their own ship even though they aren't trained engineers. I think the model for light freighter ship modifications is suped up 1950s hot rods in Southern California in the 50s and 60s. You don't need to be a trained engineer or even Carroll Shelby to supe up a light freighter. You just need to scavenge some parts, have some tools, spend the time, and make the appropriate repair rolls.

I tend to use the design or engineering skills as advanced skills for characters who create new ships or engine systems rather than for hot rodding existing ships. That being said, if a character had starship design or engineering or ion engine or hyperdrive design or engineering skills, then they would be at an advantage in making their repair rolls to modify a ship - but really that's a function of how advanced skills tend to work - e.g. a character with first aid 5D and medicine 4D adds the medicine skill to the first aid roll.

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 2:08 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

Ok, I understand a bit better now and a practical limit of 10 times sounds much better to me than that of 20.

Anything over 10x would be a one way trip. Anything over 20x is not a safe trip. I suspect that navicomputers probably have safeguards that would prevent them from working past a certain point, and PCs would have to bypass those to get the drive to work.

Quote:

That's why I suggested you use the radius/sphere as representing the max limit at which the shield can be formed, if you go that route.

Yeah, although I think I prefer the tonnage route, since we won't need to use a picture and draw a circle-nor worry so much about where the shields generators are installed.

[quote=That's just it, retro fitting a system onto a ship is very much designing a custom component.[/quote]

Not always. At least not for the end user. Often manufactures upgrade existing components or produce new components that can replace older ones. And real world vehicles are somewhat over-engineered to some extent-so they can take a bit more stress than what they are going to be subjected to. That way they don't go to pieces if somebody installs better tires or manages to squeeze a few extra kW from the engine.

Quote:

Example: If you cut a hole in the hull, you've just changed how that section of the hull handles stresses, so you must design a reinforcing system to get the stresses back into specs. If you don't have the needed Engineering skills then you have 3 possible outcomes.

The Repair skills in the RPG do include some basic design and engineering skills. They would have to. An automatic mechanic who might not be able to design a better engine could still know how to get better performance out of an existing engine, or how powerful an engine he can fit into a given car and get away with.

In game terms, a character could use Starfighter or Space Transports repair to do the modification, but at a higher difficulty.

Quote:

I hope I've explained clearly enough that engineering is very much part of retrofitting something into an existing system. It's even part of modifying an existing system for performance increases,

I know, but in the RPG that is covered in part by the Repair skills, as well as the Engineering skills.

Quote:

Not if you have the Engineering skills to understand how all those parts work together

Yes. Even if you have the Engineering skills. Just ask NASA. They got plenty of engineering skill, and they still have to deal with it. You still got to deal with the laws ofphysics and the downside of upgrading the vehicle. It is just that with the Engineering skilsl you got a better idea of what your limitations are, and if it is worth the bother to try.

For instance, in the real world getting a car to go twice as fast requires about eight times the power. That usually means installing a bigger, heavier engine to get the power, better shocks, structural reinforcement, better ventilation to dissipate the excess heat, upgrading the power train to deal with the greater stresses, improving the brakes, and probably dealing with some streamlining problems that go with all that. By the time you are finished, engineering skills or not, you are just not going to end up with a car that is twice as fast.

Quote:

Not at all. I7m considering the masses listed to be what it takes to install the drives into a freighter. Yes,it might include some sort of secre mount, but it does not include any reifncorement required by the freighter to move at a give speed. That will be covered sperately and will be rolled into the Hull Rating.

This helps to explain why starfighters are so expensive compared to freighters. Higher performance components that give more bang for the ton.

[quote]
Let's say that were putting an upgraded drive on a craft that masses 4 times what the X-wing does, and that the drive were using uses the same engines as the X-wing it just has 16 of them, that means the engines themselves mass at 4mt, but there part of a drive unit, just to keep it simple we'll say that the other parts that make up the drive mass in at 1mt, giving the drive a total mass of 5mt, half of the listed mass for a drive of that thrust in GG6. [quote]

Okay, with you so far.

Quote:

Now the ship is already going to have some reinforcing in it from the previous drive, so a good engineer might be able to get away with only using an additional 1mt of reinforcing material to get the job done correctly, whereas a layman might end up using the full 5 mt or more, just trying to make sure that the new drive didn't tear a hole in the hull, because they're just guessing about what's needed, they don't know how to tie in to the existing hull structure and get the most out of it, so they over build it. This is what I was talking about with a range of variance, not of the drive itself, but of the mass/space of the materials used to properly secure the drive.

That would only happen if the layman were completely unfamiliar with what he was doing. Anybody who is qualified to do repairs on something should at least be able to look up a basic physics formula or consult a droid to get an approximate value. He is not going to put in 5 times the reinforcement needed. More likely he will not put enough reinforcement.

.

[quote]
Except if IIRC installation costs are handled separately from the cost of the drive in GG6 as the rules allow for the PC's to actually do the work. [quote]

The PCs do the installion but they dont build the drive. They are paying to have soembody put together that sort of drive for them-or to find one. Since those high performace drives are rare and restricted they make you pay through the nose for them.
A good real world example is something like the old .44 auto-mag pistol. THe thing doesn't fire normal .44 bullets, but custom ammo that originally was made from .308 rifle rounds. Nw the shooter would "install" (i.e.load) the ammo himself, but the .44 AMP rounds ended up costing more than .308 rounds just becuase somebody had to modify the rounds.

So when sombody buts one of those high performace drives they are paying moe because those drives aren't produced in high quanities, and have a higher markup.

Quote:

In a nutshell, the way Cynebar7s works is that you need Droid Engineering to design a droid, but you doin't need it to program or build one. You ususaly can use either the normal skill or engineering, but the difficulty is ususally a level or two lower if you use engineering.

Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 3:12 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Bren wrote:

Your missunderstanding me, I'm not saying you need to have engineering skills, I'm saying if you have them you are likely to do a better job. In the case of Han and Chewie, they could have gotten the same performance upgrades, but likely had fewer problems.

Bren wrote:

I tend to use the design or engineering skills as advanced skills for characters who create new ships or engine systems rather than for hot rodding existing ships. That being said, if a character had starship design or engineering or ion engine or hyperdrive design or engineering skills, then they would be at an advantage in making their repair rolls to modify a ship - but really that's a function of how advanced skills tend to work - e.g. a character with first aid 5D and medicine 4D adds the medicine skill to the first aid roll.

I understand that's how it works, but what I'm saying is that there should be some sort of variation of success, because getting something to work and getting something to work well is two very different things. Being able to wrench on things, doesn't mean you understand how to make improvements, I've know people that have gotten nominal gains or even lost power from things they've tried to do to their cars, because they don't understand how the parts work together. Good mechanics that do this stuff generally, have been taught by someone else or have learned through a lot of trial and error. Being able to repair things doesn't mean you understand how the parts work together, it generally means that you can figure out what part needs to be replaced and replace it, not that you can improve the design.

Orion
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 4:20 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

atgxtg wrote:

Not always. At least not for the end user. Often manufactures upgrade existing components or produce new components that can replace older ones. And real world vehicles are somewhat over-engineered to some extent-so they can take a bit more stress than what they are going to be subjected to. That way they don't go to pieces if somebody installs better tires or manages to squeeze a few extra kW from the engine.

That's not retrofitting something that not there to begin with that's modifying something that is there, so if your trying to improve the performance of the existing engine I agree with you that you can get those kinds of things. And let's not forget that cars often come with multiple engine choices, something that ships in SW don't seem to do.

atgxtg wrote:

Don't bet on the latter, twisting the 'frame' from too much power is a more common problem than you think, especially in uni-body cars.

atgxtg wrote:

In game terms, a character could use Starfighter or Space Transports repair to do the modification, but at a higher difficulty.

As I tried above to explain to Bren, I'm not trying to say that you have to have engineering skills, just that they should help you do a better job, which would mean not just a higher success rate but also greater success.

atgxtg wrote:

You put it better than I did, but that's the idea I was trying to get across.

atgxtg wrote:

For instance, in the real world getting a car to go twice as fast requires about eight times the power. That usually means installing a bigger, heavier engine to get the power, better shocks, structural reinforcement, better ventilation to dissipate the excess heat, upgrading the power train to deal with the greater stresses, improving the brakes, and probably dealing with some streamlining problems that go with all that. By the time you are finished, engineering skills or not, you are just not going to end up with a car that is twice as fast.

That honestly depends on how fast the car was to begin with, but yes I agree with what you talking about, and what I'm saying is that with engineering skills you should get closer to your goal with less troubles from it.

atgxtg wrote:

I think your misunderstanding me, as the Hull Rating would encompass the entire Hull system, I'm talking about how it gets mounted to the hull system so that the stresses involved from the thrust of the drive are distributed evenly into the hull system and are within the specs of what the hull can take. If you don't get the stresses spread out so that they are with in the hull's stress specs the engine can cause the hull to crack and I think we would all agree that would be a bad thing.

atgxtg wrote:

This helps to explain why starfighters are so expensive compared to freighters. Higher performance components that give more bang for the ton.

They are expensive for the same reasons that a modern fighter aircraft is expensive, because the materials are expensive, the processes used to build them must be exacting, and the engineering used to design them must be very accurate. A starfighter is a high speed, highly maneuverable, weapons platform. It has to be able to stand up to the punishment it's role is going to put it through, but be light enough to be able to fulfill it's function. Tramp freighter's don't have such demanding needs, so they can be built with less expensive materials and a bit less attention to detail, as their role is to haul cargo, not participate in dog fights.

atgxtg wrote:

It will happen every time one way or the other, it just may not be the extreme and it might help to remember that it can represent lost cargo space as well. I would advise against using a car analogy for this as it doesn't carry with it the same dangers. Cracking the hull of the freighter can leave you without a breathable atmosphere, stranded in space without a means to try to go and get help, you can't get out and walk. So people will naturally try to error on the side of overbuilding it, because they know their life depends on it.

As for the physics formula, most of the mechanics I know either can't or can barely manipulate an equation algebraically, so no they could not understand how to apply a physics formula to figure out load shears and transfers of a bracing system. I've had a considerable amount of math, and I'm not sure I could figure that out, you know what they say, if you don't use it you lose it. Keep in the mind that the numbers that I used were only intended for example purposes only, I just pulled them off the top of my head, since I don't know what a tramp is going to mass in your system.

Edited to add note about cargo space.

atgxtg wrote:

The PCs do the installion but they dont build the drive. They are paying to have soembody put together that sort of drive for them-or to find one. Since those high performace drives are rare and restricted they make you pay through the nose for them.

That's assuming they have a custom drive built, what if they buy an off the shelf drive for a larger ship?

atgxtg wrote:

Which seems like part of what I'm talking about, it just leaves out variation of success.

Bren
Vice Admiral

Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 5:26 pm Post subject: Re: X-Wing Breakdown

Orion wrote:

Your missunderstanding me, I'm not saying you need to have engineering skills

Actually it seems like you are saying that you sometimes do need to have engineering skills to succeed and almost always need enginerring skills to succeed without problems.

Orion wrote:

Being able to repair things doesn't mean you understand how the parts work together, it generally means that you can figure out what part needs to be replaced and replace it, not that you can improve the design.

Orion wrote:

...but what I'm saying is that there should be some sort of variation of success, because getting something to work and getting something to work well is two very different things. Being able to wrench on things, doesn't mean you understand how to make improvements...

While wrenching on things will not work for modifying the Challenger shuttle, it does work in Star Wars for modifying the Millenium Falcon - that's my point. The Falcon isn't quirky because upgrades are intrinsically hard or because neither Han nor Chewie is an engineer. The Falcon is quirky because (a) that's dramatically interesting for plot and (b) the Falcon has been upgraded past the point of normal success. The latter is what the upgrade rules in the RPG address. And for this variation in success can be handled with the exisiting rules by including complications and setting appropriate difficulties for multiple modifications on the same ship or ship system. That will ensure that competent starship mechanics 4D -6D skill will still be able to make some modifications, but if they try to approach the levels of over customization of the Falcon they will end (unless they are extremely and repeatedly lucky) up with quirks.

And that level of extreme customization is exactly where a qualified starship engineer or designer will do a better job - because systematically there (A) engineering skill gives them bonus dice. Alternately if you prefer it could lower the difficulty of the actual "repair."

The repair/upgrade rules in the RAW work more or less like how souping up automobiles worked in the analog world of 1900-1960 and I think that is the tone or intent for freighter modifications in Star Wars. The game assumes that modifying spaceships is as easy as a couple of teenagers souping up their jalopy. And as I am not an engineer, personally that's about the level of detail that works for me. YMMV.

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