Monthly Archives: November 2018

State of the Frontier – Nov 2018

I think I’m going to start doing these updates at the end of every month just to let everyone know how things are going.  I tend to spend a bit of time each day working on projects but that doesn’t always translate into material I can immediately post here on the blog.  This is way to let you know of progress even if it isn’t visible.

This last month mostly got absorbed into the “Other Projects” category.  I did manage to work a little bit on the Ghost Ship Osiris module but not as much as I had planned.  I got some of the write-up of Outpost Osiris done but not very much.  I hope to be finishing that up next week and will at least post the various room descriptions once it’s done.

So let’s recap November.

Starting a New Game

The obvious work was all the starship designs I created and posted here on the blog.  Those are all going to be possible starting ships for a new play-by-post game I’ll be starting up at some point (hopefully soon).  If you would be interested in playing in that game, you can find the forums where we’ll be playing it on the Star Frontiers Network site. The game is called Void Jumpers.  If you want to play, create and account and post in the sign-up thread.

As I was working on those ships and getting the Void Jumpers game set up, I realized that for that game, and my on-line game “A New Can of Worms”, I needed a bit more background.  Both games are set against the backdrop of the Second Sathar War and both start before the actual fighting begins.  I realized that I needed (wanted really) a rough outline of the sathar plan, logistics, and timeline of events for the way I see the battles playing out.  (For those familiar with the Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space supplement, I don’t use that timeline but do use some of the background information in it.)  That led me down a few different paths.

Expanded Frontier Map

The first was to update and digitize my Expanded Frontier map which I’ve already posted.  What isn’t showing on that map is all the jump routes the sathar have through the region and the location of some points of interest in the sathar controlled space on the map.  It’s on my old hand-drawn version and I spent some time making sure all of that information is on layers on my digital version that I can turn on and off to create various version of that map.  At some point in the future I’ll post the version of the map with all the juicy details.  But that may be a while.

Beginning a Detailed Frontier Timeline

The next thing I started on was creating a timeline of major and minor events that would be happening throughout the Frontier as the games progressed.  Things like sathar attacks, Frontier events, and even things that the PCs do that are newsworthy.

As part of this I’ve rolled some of the events of the printed modules into the timeline I’m developing.  I’ll probably tweak that a bit in the future to roll all of the adventures into a campaign but for now I’m keeping them disjointed. 

The outcome of this is that I thought it would be fun to post one event (and sometimes more) each day in an on-going timeline.  I started doing that a couple of weeks ago on Twitter.  If you follow @StarFrontiers on Twitter you’ll receive each day, in addition the the random starting character that I’ve been posting for a long while now, a news snippet from around the Frontier. 

It’s currently near the end of Frontier Year 59.  Some of the things posted will be events related to the backdrop of the campaign, some will be things the PCs do, and others will just be general fluff items if nothing major is happening that day.  We’ll see how long that keeps up.  It’s actually a bit of a challenge to come up with a new item every single day.  My plan is to post regular summaries of those items here if you don’t follow along on Twitter.  I’ll probably post those once a month.

Sathar Starship Construction

Finally, as I started to work on the timeline, I realized that to get the timing of the Sathar attacks on the Frontier, I needed to have a good handle on their starship production and the travel times between the various locations.  I had the travel times (or could figure them out) from the Expanded Frontier map, but I needed a realistic production schedule and starship construction capacity for the Sathar.

I actually knew where their starship construction centers were from my old hand-drawn Expanded Frontier map.  What I needed was capacities and production schedules.  I had an initial idea for that and started working out a production schedule.  Somewhere along the way I messed up my arithmetic and something wasn’t working.  So I tried it again, using a spreadsheet and got it working but the ship mix wasn’t what I liked.  At this point I realized that I was going to be trying several different combinations to tweak the ship distribution and doing it by hand each time would be a bit tedious.  So my “lazy” programmer persona kicked in – if you have to do it more than once, write a program!

Luckily, I already had most of what I needed written as I had written a program (back in 2013) to simulate starship construction in the various starship construction centers (SCCs) in the Frontier.  I used this for an article I wrote in 2014 for the Frontier Explorer (issue 10) where I explored how many ships the SCCs could actually support.  I was able to reuse some of that code to create the sathar SCCs and run the simulation.  Now instead of a few hours, I could work out the results in a few minutes.  I was able to tweak the capacities and production schedules for the beginning of the timeline to match what I wanted.  I’ll use it going forward to keep track of what is going on as more capacity is added or the PCs discover and eliminate production capacity (e.g. the Beyond the Frontier modules).  Right now it just gives me totals but I can then track what ships are where separately.  Or maybe I’ll add some code to do that as well.

In any case, if you’re interested in seeing the code, it is written in Python and I’ve put it up in a public GitHub repository where you can examine or download it if you want. Also included is the code for the simulation that I ran for that Frontier Explorer article.  There’s not really any documentation besides the code itself so if you’re poking around and have questions, feel free to contact me.

As an aside, if you poke around there in GitHub a bit, you’ll also find the code for my Second Sathar War (SSW) game that implements both the Knight Hawks tactical board game and the Second Sathar War strategic game.  It’s not quite complete (e.g. no repair turns, and no seeker missiles yet) but it works and compile on both Windows and Linux.  If you just want to play with the game and don’t care about the code, you can find a download package, with some user documentation on the Star Frontiers Network site.  That’s another project I will probably be coming back to at some point.

Future Plans

So that’s what kept me busy last month. What’s coming up in December?

I’ve already mentioned the timeline summary.  I also plan on spending more time on Ghost Ship Osiris this month.  In fact, I’ll be starting on that again on the 1st.  Once I get the description of all the rooms written (you’ve already seen the maps) I’ll post those up.  My plan is get the section of the adventure that takes place in the Outpost done by the end of the year.  The complete version of that will be going out to my Patreon supporters once it is ready.

You can also expect to see a write-up of an adventure location.  I just finished the maps yesterday and plan on using it in my on-line game tonight unless my players decide to take a left turn.  As soon as they see it, I’ll be posting those maps on-line along with a description of the various rooms in the location.  Look for that mid-month.

That’s what I know about for sure.  There will probably be other things that pop up to grab my interest as well but I’m hoping to stay more focused this month. That’s your peak behind the scenes and a bit of a gaze ahead as to what to expect.  If you have questions or comments, feel free to let me know below.


TSS Eternity (yacht)

The TSS Enternity is a small HS 4 Luxury Yacht originally registered in the Timeon system.  Sporting a pair of class A atomic engines, it is quick and maneuverable,  Built with an armored hull, it is also fairly resilient to damage as well.  I has a laser battery and reflective hull for defense, relying more on its speed than its weaponry to get out of trouble.

The ship is designed to carry a crew of four for operations and six passengers in luxury where ever it may go.  It has a 1 CU hold (often used for storing vehicles) and is aerodynamically streamlined and fully capable of planetary landings.

The full stats for this ship are:

Hull Size: 4
HP: 29
ADF: 3 (fully loaded) 4 (unloaded)
MR: 3 (fully loaded) 4 (unloaded)
DCR: 34
Engines: 2 Class A Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 3 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 4 Journey Class, 6 First Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 4 beings, 200 days, deluxe system – 6 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 4 beings, 200 days, deluxe system – 6 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio with a master and 1 secondary control screen, Subspace Radio , Intercom (2 master control panels, 20 standard panels, 10 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Energy Sensors – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4   FP: 116
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 4, Life Support 2, Backup Life Support 2, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 3, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cameras 1
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat
Other Equipment: deluxe astrogation system , complete backup computer and life support system
Weapons: LB
Defenses: RH
Control Spaces: 4
Cargo Capacity: 1 cargo unit (300 cubic meters)
Volume: 3721 cubic meters (total), 2857 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 2990 tons
Loaded Mass: 3290 tons
Crew Size: 4 (nominal)
ADF per Fuel Load: 3800 (loaded), 4181(unloaded)
Cost: new: 1,885,837 cr. (unfueled)

Originally owned by a wealthy business man on Timeon, the original owner has tired of this old ship and is selling it to help pay for his new one.

The ship is currently missing:

  • small launch
  • small lifeboat
  • all life support supplies
  • backup computer

The price of the ship in its current state is 1,267,586 cr.

A Question About Posting

We’re a few months into this now and I have have a question for my readers.  I’m curious as to the style frequency of posting you’d most like to see. 

Do you like lots of frequent small posts?  Do you like the longer form posts and don’t mind that they come less frequently?  Do you not care about the size but prefer regularity?  Vote in the poll below and let me know what you think.  The poll will stay up until the end of November.

This poll is no longer accepting votes

I'm curious how people feel about the size and frequency of posts. Which of the following would you prefer?
  • Lots of frequent small posts (like the recent run of new ships)0% (0 votes)
  • Less frequent but larger/longer posts28.57% (2 votes)
  • Size doesn't matter, just regular posts once (or maybe more) a week71.43% (5 votes)

I’ll try to take your preferences into account as I write and schedule future content.  Also feel free to expound on your vote in the comments below.

CDC MV-043 Mining Ship

The MV-043 is a small, HS 5 mining ship designed to work independently on both small and large worlds.  Streamlined for planetary landings, the ship carries and orbital processing lab that allows it to process any resources found and bring them back to civilization in its 20 cargo unit hold.

The ship has 10 mining robots and a digger shuttle for mining operations and its support system can support up to 12 beings for 200 days.  It carries two laser batteries for self defense.  It’s ship’s vehicles include a small lifeboat and launch and a workpod.

CDC built a number of these vessels in its early days and continued to manufacture them at a low level as it opened new worlds.  The ships often doubled as exploration scouts – seeking out new worlds and collecting their resources.

The full ship stats are:

Hull Size: 5
HP: 24
ADF: 1 (loaded), 3 (empty)
MR: 1 (loaded), 3 (empty)
DCR: 38
Engines: 2 Class A Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 3 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 12 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio with a master and 2 secondary control screens, Subspace Radio , Intercom (2 master control panels, 20 standard panels, 10 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Energy Sensors – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4   FP: 138
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 4, Life Support 1, Backup Life Support 1, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Laser Battery 1, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 2, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cameras 1, Robot Management 4, Cargo Arm 2, Orbital Processing Control
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat, workpod, digger shuttle
Other Equipment: cargo arm, orbital processing center, 10 mining robots, complete backup computer and life support system
Weapons: LB (x2)
Defenses: RH
Control Spaces: 8
Cargo Capacity: 20 cargo units (3000 cubic meters)
Volume: 7313 cubic meters (total), 2343 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 3848 tons
Loaded Mass: 9848 tons
Crew Size: 8 (nominal)
ADF per Fuel Load: 1269 (loaded), 3248 (unloaded)
Cost: new: 2,478,412  r. (unfueled)

The ship currently available has been in service for 19 years and is currently missing the following items:

  • all vehicles including the digger shuttle
  • the mining robots
  • all life support supplies
  • the backup computer

In its current state, the ship is selling for 1,292,284 cr. 

PGC LL-037 Passenger Liner

The LL-037 is a small (100 passenger) space liner typically operated in more remote systems that don’t have enough traffic to warrant a larger ship.

With a crew of 30, the ship can accommodate the needs of its passengers for the duration of the interstellar journey.  While the liner sports 10 First Class cabins, it is primarily focused on basic Journey class passengers of which it can carry 90.  There are also 100 storage class berths for those that which to take that route.

Sporting two Class B Atomic engines, the ship has a maximum ADF of 2, allowing it to run a little faster than its typical 1g of acceleration if it needs to.  It also sports a single laser battery as a deterrent.

The full ship stats are:

Hull Size: 8
HP: 39
ADF: 2
MR: 2
DCR: 52
Engines: 2 Class B Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 6 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 10 First Class, 120 Journey Class, 100 Storage Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 120 beings, 200 days, deluxe system – 10 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 35 beings, 200 days, deluxe system – 10 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio with a master and two secondary control screens, Subspace Radio , Intercom (3 master control panels, 40 standard panels, 100 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Camera system, 120 portholes
Computer Level: 4   FP: 157
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 5, Life Support 2, Backup Life Support 2, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 2, Maintenance 2, Cameras 1, Robot Management 4
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, 2 large launches, 2 small lifeboats, 5 large lifeboats, 5 escape pods, 1 workpod
Other Equipment: complete backup computer and life support system
Weapons:  LB
Defenses: RH
Control Spaces: 8
Cargo Capacity: 5 cargo units (1500 cubic meters) – this is beyond the required storage for the berths
Volume: 31266 cubic meters (total), 24413 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 17380 tons
Loaded Mass: 18880 tons
Crew Size: 30(nominal)
ADF per Fuel Load: 2118
Cost: new: 8,113,345 cr. (unfueled)

The ship currently on the market is 21 years old and missing the following items:

  • All of the ship vehicles
  • all Life support supplies
  • the backup computer
  • furniture and equipment from the passenger cabins (cost is half regular price to refurbish)

The cost of the ship in it’s current condition is 4,247,313 cr.  With a minimal crew of 6, the DCR is only 46 and in it’s currently stripped state, the ship has a current ADF of nearly 4 (3.89).


PGC FF-02 Military Frigate

The FF-02 was an early model frigate designed and built shortly after the Great Sathar War as the newly formed UPF worked to build up it’s Spacefleet to defend against another sathar incursion that never happened.  A mainstay of the early fleet, a large number of these ships were build in the early days of the UPF.

Many have been lost over the years to skirmishes with pirates over the intervening decades with a few even showing up in pirate fleets, having been captured or salvaged.  Those remaining in service within Spacefleet are getting up in years and are being decommissioned in favor of newer, updated models.  Some have gone to planetary militias, and other to the escort fleets of the larger mega-corps.  A few, fully stripped of military hardware, have gone to private buyers as well.

PGC FF-02 Military Frigate

The frigate is the smallest and fastest (ADF 4) of the capital ships in Spacefleet.  Packing nearly the same punch as the slightly larger destroyers, these ships were quicker to build and their added maneuverability gave them a desirable advantage.

The frigate sports a laser cannon, laser battery, and rocket battery and torpedo launchers.  It has a standard reflective hull, masking screen launcher, and small interceptor missile cluster for defense.

The PGC FF-02 was built with older armored hull technology that provided extra hull strength at the cost of increased mass.  Newer models are being built with newer military spec hulls that provide even more hull strength and less weight, increasing maneuverability.

The full ship specs are:

Hull Size: 5
HP: 39
ADF: 4
MR: 4
DCR: 70
Engines: 2 Class B Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 6 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 35 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 35 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 35 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio with a master and five secondary control screens, Subspace Radio , Intercom (4 master control panels, 100 standard panels, 20 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Energy Sensors – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system, White Noise Broadcaster
Computer Level: 4   FP: 176
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 5, Life Support 1, Backup Life Support 1, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Cannon 1, Laser Battery 1, Rocket Battery 2, Torpedo 3, ICM 3, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 5, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cameras 1, Robot Management 4
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, large launch, 2 large lifeboats, 10 escape pods, 2 workpods
Other Equipment: complete backup computer and life support system
Weapons: LC, LB, RB(x4), T(x2)
Defenses: RH, MS (x2), ICM (x4)
Control Spaces: 16
Cargo Capacity: 2 cargo units (300 cubic meters)
Volume: 9320 cubic meters (total), 7063 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 9196 tons
Loaded Mass: 9796 tons
Crew Size: 25 (nominal)
ADF per Fuel Load: 4083
Cost: new: 5,810,168 cr. (unfueled)

The ship currently available is one of the early editions, produced just a few years after the Great Sathar War and is 53 years old.  It has been stripped of all military grade hardware and a lot of other parts.  Currently it is missing the following components:

  • Laser Cannon
  • Rocket Battery Salvos
  • Torpedo Launcher and salvos
  • Masking screen salvos
  • ICM salvos
  • Energy sensors
  • the backup computer
  • all life support supplies
  • the 14 robots giving the boosted DCR
  • White Noise Broadcaster
  • all of the ship’s vehicles
  • all 10 escape pods

This stripped down hull is available for 1,762,663 credits.

With the missing damage control robots and a minimal crew of 6, the ship is rated at a DCR of 37 instead of 70. Additionally, in it stripped down state, the hull has a current ADF of 5+.  The final ADF will depend on the systems the buyer adds back in.

TransTravel TV-04R Small Freighter

Here’s the next ship that the PCs will have the option to buy:  a small tramp freighter.  It’s not super fast or maneuverable but fairly cheap to operate. 

TV-04R Small Freighter

The TV-04R is a small early-model freighter from TransTravel.  While not sleek or glamorous, it is a completely functional vessel.  In the early days of of TransTravel’s history, they had nearly 100 of these vessels plying the spaceways.  Mostly replaced by larger, more efficient vessels, most TV-04R freighters are at least a decade old and have been sold off to independent traders.

The ship is lightly armed with two laser batteries and can carry up to 50 cargo units (7500 tons) of material.  Designed for a typical crew size of 6, it has an additional 6 berths that can be rented out at Journey class rates to those seeking passage on its route.

The TV-04R is not a speed demon but has two reliable Class B Ion engines to provide steady, worry-free operation.  It is also not aerodynamic by any stretch of the imagination and its ion engines preclude it from landing on any planet with an atmosphere.

The full ship specs are:

Hull Size: 5
HP: 27
ADF: 1 (5 if no cargo)
MR: 1 (5 if no cargo)
DCR: 37
Engines: 2 Class B Ion Engines
Fuel Capacity: 10000 fuel units per engine
Accommodations: 12 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 12 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio (with a master and 3 secondary control screens), Subspace Radio, Intercom (2 master control panels, 30 standard panels, 15 speaker panels), Radar – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4   FP: 102
Computer Programs: Ion Drives 4, Life Support 2, Alarm 2, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 2, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Laser Battery 1, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 3, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cargo Arm 2, Cameras 1
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat
Other Equipment: 2 cargo arms, complete backup computer
Weapons: LB (x2)
Defenses: RH
Control Spaces: 8
Cargo Capacity: 50 cargo units (7500 cubic meters, 15000 tons)
Volume: 10339 cubic meters (total), 2271 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 3766 tons
Loaded Mass: 18766 tons
ADF per Fuel Unit: 1 (5 if no cargo)
Crew Size: 8
Cost: new: 2,127,851 cr. (unfueled)

The ADF of 1 is the value when the ship’s cargo hold is fully loaded.  Completely empty the ship can actually achieve and ADF of 5.  Every 12.5 cargo units (3750 tons) of material transported reduce the ADF by 1 from the maximum of 5.

The ship available to the PCs is 14 years old and currently lacking the following items from the above description:

  • small launch
  • small lifeboat
  • both laser batteries
  • all life support supplies

In addition, the atomic fuel pellets for the ship’s two engines each need to be replaced (32,000 cr. each).  Fuel for the ships ion engines is 17 cr per fuel unit.

Given the age of the ship and the lack of equipment, the ship is available for 1,580,552 cr.

A New Starship Construction System – part 2 – Starship Engines

I was going to post another ship next but realized that I should probably talk a little bit about the way I redesigned the engines in my new starship construction system.  Otherwise, some of the bits of information about the ships won’t make sense.  I’ve published some of this on-line before but I don’t remember exactly where so I’m repeating it here for completeness.  Here is the section on engines from the starship construction system document.

Engines

Now that we know the mass of our ship, it’s finally time to determine its propulsion. Each type and size of engine is rated to have a specific thrust and fuel capacity. Your ship’s hull size determines the maximum number of engines it can support. You don’t have to have to fill all your engine slots if that number of engines is not needed to achieve the performance you desire.  And regardless of hull size and engine type, the maximum acceleration of any ship is 6g.

Hull Size Max Engines
1 1
2-4 2
5-8 4
9-12 6
12+ 8

(Note:  I didn’t even follow my own rules when I created the PGC C-10 Fast Courier as I gave it 4 engines at HS 4.  This is something I’m still thinking about/working on.)

Engine thrust is given as an arbitrary thrust rating that has been scaled to work with the mass of the ship as given in tons. To determine the maximum acceleration of your ship, add up the thrust ratings of all your engines and divide that by the total mass of your ship in tons. The resulting number is the maximum acceleration of your ship in multiples of one standard gravity (10 m/s/s). Round all fractions down to the nearest tenth of a g.

Chemical Engines

These engines use a high efficiency chemical fuel that burns and is expelled out the engine nozzle to provide thrust.  These engines are relatively cheap and easy to produce.  While very powerful, because of the large volume of fuel needed, these engines have limited capability in regards to how long the engines can operate on a single fuel load.  These engines are typically used for ground-to-space shuttles and system ships.

Ion Engines

Ion engines work by ionizing hydrogen and accelerating the resulting protons and electrons to high velocity and expelling them out the back of the engine to provide thrust.  Each engine contains a small nuclear reactor to provide the power needed to ionize the hydrogen and accelerate the particles to the relativistic speeds needed to generate thrust.  This reactor uses the same atomic fuel pellet as an atomic engine but only needs to be replaced once every 10 years.  The initial fuel pellet is included in the cost of the engine.

While not as powerful as chemical or atomic engines, Ion engine fuel is relatively cheap and if a ship is properly equipped, can be harvested from any gas giant for free. 

Because of the nature of the engine, ships with ion engines cannot land on or take off from planets.

Atomic Engines

An Atomic engine is a supercharged version of the chemical engine and uses the same fuel.  The engine works by generating a quantum field that temporarily increases the momentum of particles by a factor of hundreds. These temporarily super-massive particles are ejected out of the back of the engine to generate thrust for the ship.  Because each particle is effectively much more massive, less fuel is needed to achieve the same thrust and instead of a single fuel load lasting for only few minutes of thrust, it can last for days and allow the ship to accelerate to Void jump speeds.

However, generating this field requires a huge amount of energy (which is transferred to the particles) during operation.  To provide this power, each engine contains its own nuclear reactor, similar in design to the reactor in the ion engine.  However, the large power requirement of the atomic engine means that it consumes one atomic fuel pellet after only 10,000 minutes of full thrust operations (about 8.5 days) instead of the 10 year life span for the atomic fuel pellet in an ion engine.

In addition, atomic engines require an overhaul every few jumps, again depending on the size of the engines.  This overhaul is necessary to make sure that the quantum field generators are properly aligned and positioned to only affect the fuel and not the body of the engine itself.  The number of trips that a ship can go between overhauls depends on the size of the engine and is given in the table with the fuel costs below.

Engine Costs

The following table gives the cost and thrust values for each of the different types and sizes of engines.  Determine the number, size, and type of engines your ship will use and then record the engines chosen for your ship.

  Class A   Class B   Class C  
Engine Type Thrust Cost Thrust Cost Thrust Cost
Chemical 6,250 50,000 20,000 175,000 80,000 770,000
Ion 3,000 100,000 10,000 400,000 40,000 2,000,000
Atomic 6,250 250,000 20,000 1,100,000 80,000 6,000,000

Fuel

Next you need to provide fuel for your engines and determine how much acceleration each fuel load will provide for your ship.  Each engine uses different types of fuel and has different storage capabilities and requirements.

Chemical Engines

Each fuel load allows a chemical engine to operate at maximum thrust for 60 minutes.  This is typically enough to allow the ship to make one round trip between the ground and orbit or limited acceleration and maneuvering in space.  Each engine can only hold a single fuel load and must be refueled after each load is expended.  The cost of a fuel load depends on the size of the engine and is given in the following table.

Engine Class Cost of a fuel load
Class A 300 cr
Class B 1000 cr
Class C 4200 cr

Ion engines

Although not as powerful as chemical or atomic engines, these engines are reliable and can hold more fuel.  While they can technically run off any material, the fuel of choice is hydrogen.  Using any other fuel source decreases the thrust provided by the engines by a factor of two.  Each engine can hold 10,000 fuel units and each unit provides 10 minutes of operation at maximum thrust (A fully fueled ion engine can operate continuously for over 80 days without refueling).  A fuel unit costs 5, 17, or 70 cr per unit for Class A, B, or C engines respectively.

Once every 10 years, the atomic fuel pellet in the ion engine’s reactor needs to be replaced, the cost for this fuel pellet is the same as that for a similarly sized atomic engine.

Atomic engines

Like the other engines, Atomic engines store all their fuel internally.  The fuel for these engines consists of two parts.  The first is a load of fuel like the chemical rockets, the second consists an atomic fuel pellet (typically uranium) to power the reactor. The amount of fuel that can be stored depends on the size of the engine and is given in the table below.

Each atomic fuel pellet and load of chemical fuel provides enough fuel for 10,000 minutes (about 8.3 days) of operation at maximum thrust.  The cost of a fuel pellet depends on the size of the engine, given in the table below.  The cost of the chemical fuel is identical to that of the chemical engines of the same size.

Consult the table below to determine the number of fuel loads & pellets held and time between each overhaul for each engine size.

Engine Class Trips between overhauls Maximum Fuel Loads & Pellets loaded Cost per pellet (cr)
Class A 1 3 10,000
Class B 3 6 32,000
Class C 10 12 125,000

Compute total acceleration per fuel load

Acceleration is measured in ADF.  One ADF is defined as 10 minutes of acceleration at 1g. (For you Star Frontiers grognards out there, I’ve redefined the boardgame hex scale to 3600 km so that 1 ADF does equal 1g acceleration for 10 minutes, and 1 g is defined as 10 m/s/s not 9.8.)

If you want to keep it simple, you can simply assume the following:

  • a load of fuel in a chemical rocket provides just enough thrust to make one round trip between the ground and orbit around a planet or can provide a total of 8 ADF in space. 
  • Ion engines use one fuel unit per engine per ADF and a total of 1000 fuel units per engine for a single interstellar jump
  • Atomic engines use one chemical fuel load and one atomic fuel pellet for a single interstellar jump or the same fuel provides enough thrust for a total of 1000 ADF if operating solely in-system.

If you want to be a bit more exact and track the exact fuel usage you can do the following to compute the total number of ADF that a load of fuel will provide for your ship.  This will depend on the type of engine you have.  It requires more bookkeeping but actually results in less fuel being needed in the long run, sometimes significantly if the ship has a high maximum ADF.

  • Chemical Engines – Take the maximum acceleration you calculated for the ship earlier and multiply it by 6.  This is the total number of ADF your ship gets from using one load of fuel in each engine.
  • Ion Engines – The maximum acceleration calculated above is the number of ADF provided by expending a single ion fuel unit in each engine.
  • Atomic Engines – Take the maximum acceleration calculated earlier and multiply by 1000. This is the total ADF provided by using one unit of chemical fuel and one atomic fuel pellet in each of your engines.

Round all fractions down.  Assume that that small difference is used up in minor station keeping and maneuvering

Examples
Chemical Engine

Fully loaded a Digger Shuttle (HS 2) has one Class A chemical engine and a maximum acceleration of 4.7g.  Since it has chemical engines, the total ADF provided by the single load of fuel in its engine is 4.7 x 6 = 28.2 or 28 ADF.   

Ion Engine

A small (HS 7) freighter is equipped with four Class B ion engines.  Fully loaded, its maximum acceleration is 1.1g.  Thus by using up one fuel unit in each of its four engines, it has 1.1 ADF available.  If each engine carries it’s maximum fuel load (10,000 units each), the total ADF available to the ship is 11,000 ADF.  Since each interstellar jump typically takes 1000 ADF to complete, the ship can make 11 trips without refueling if it needed to.

Atomic Engine

The newly designed Swift class assault scout has a total mass of 2470.83 tons and two Class A atomic engines for a total thrust of 12500.  This gives a maximum acceleration of 5.059g which rounds to 5.0.  The total ADF available to the assault scout from one load of fuel in each engine is therefore 5×1000 = 5000 ADF.  After expending this much thrust, the assault scout will have used two loads of chemical fuel and two atomic fuel pellets, one in each engine.

PGC C-10 Fast Courier

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m in the process of setting up a play-by-post game and the players want to be a group of adventurers with a ship that knock about the Frontier doing odd jobs and generally getting into and out of trouble.  As part of that I want to give them a few choices of ships that they could start with.  So for the next few posts, starting with this one, I’ll be presenting the ships I’m designing for the adventure.

While these are specifically designed for Star Frontiers, they could easily be adapted to other systems. Each of these ships is being designed with some new starship construction rules that I’ve been working on.  The rules are designed to be a drop in replacement for the existing Knight Hawks construction rules but more flexible and a bit more grounded in physics.

In these posts, I’ll just be presenting just the stats for the ships and a brief description.  I’ll probably go back and create detailed deck plans for them at some point starting with whichever ship the PCs decide on buying with their starting fund.  I might even do a 3D model.

So with that introduction, lets get to the first ship.

PGC C-10 Fast Courier

The C-10 Fast Courier is a small, hull sized 4 vessel that is aerodynamically streamlined and capable of planetary landings.  Designed to be a fast transport ship, it can carry cargo, passengers, or both and evade most pursuit.  Lightly armed with two laser batteries, it also carries four ICM salvos and a pair of decoys to help it evade pursuers.

The full ship specs are:

Hull Size: 4
HP: 21
ADF: 4
MR: 4
DCR: 35
Engines: 4 Class A Atomic Engines
Fuel Capacity: 3 full loads per engine
Accommodations: 2 First Class, 10 Journey Class
Life Support:
– Primary: standard system – 10 beings, 200 days, deluxe – 2 beings, 200 days
– Backup: standard system – 10 beings, 200 days, deluxe – 2 beings, 200 days
Communication & Detection Equipment: Videocom radio (x2, each with a master and two secondary control screens), Subspace Radio (x2), Intercom (3 master control panels, 30 standard panels, 15 speaker panels), Radar – Type II, Energy Sensors – Type I, Skin Senors, Camera system
Computer Level: 4   FP: 164
Computer Programs: Atomic Drives 4, Life Support 2, Alarm 4, Computer Lockout 4, Damage Control 4, Astrogation 4, Laser Battery 1, Laser Battery 1, ICM 3, Communication 2, Information Storage 2, Installation Security 3, Robot Management 4, Skin Sensors 1, Maintenance 2, Cargo Arm 2, Cameras 1
Ship’s Vehicles: small launch, small lifeboat, 2 escape pods
Other Equipment: cargo arm, complete backup computer
Weapons: LB (x2)
Defenses: RH, ICM (x4), Decoy (x2)
Control Spaces: 10
Cargo Capacity: 10 cargo units (1500 cubic meters)
Volume: 4955 cubic meters (total), 2764 cubic meters (inhabited)
Unloaded Mass: 2728 tons
Loaded Mass: 5728 tons
Crew Size: 8
ADF per Fuel Load: 4364
Cost: new: 2,548,731 cr. (unfueled)

The specified ADF of 4 is for the ship fully loaded.  Unloaded, the ship would actually be capable of and ADF of 9 but is limited to a maximum of 6 due to the limits of the PCs’ physiology.  It can achieve this higher ADF of 6 as long as it is carrying 1400 tons (4.7 cargo units) or less of cargo.

The ship available to the PCs is 26 years old and currently lacking the following items from the above description:

  • small launch
  • small escape pod
  • one laser battery
  • all life support supplies
  • both decoys
  • all ICM missiles

Given the age of the ship and the lack of equipment, the ship is available for 1,597,460 cr.

A New Starship Construction System

I was going to start posting the designs for some new starships for Star Frontiers.  However, since I’m building them with my custom starship construction system, I realized that some of the bits of information won’t make sense for those that are familiar with the standard system.

I’ve been working on this system off and on for years but it’s finally at a point where it is usable.  While it’s possible to generate all the ships from the standard Star Frontier system, this system is a bit more flexible and allows for a wider range of ship designs.  And the ships created can be dropped directly into the existing game alongside existing ships.  At least in terms of boardgame statistics.  The sizes of the ships are somewhat different.

So before I start posting the new ships, I thought I should at least provide an introduction to this new system.  And I’ll do that by simply posting the Introduction section from the new rule system.  I’m working on polishing this up and will be releasing it sometime in the future.

Knight Hawks Starship Construction 2.0

This is an alternate ship construction system for the Star Frontiers RPG.  While all the components are the same as in the standard Knight Hawks rules, this system takes a more realistic approach to the construction of the starships that is based on the volume and mass of the ship’s components.  While the original Knight Hawks system is based on picking a hull size and then limiting what the ship could do based on that, in this system you pick the components of the ship based on what you want it to do and the capabilities and performance you want it to have.  The hull size is then just a function of the ship’s systems. 

From the perspective of both the Knight Hawks board game and general role playing, the resulting ships are nearly identical to those generated with the original Knight Hawks system.  The differences are mainly in size and cost.

The main differences are as follows:

  • Life support systems have more variety, are more detailed, cost more, and are bulkier than in the Knight Hawks rules.  They also scale more realistically as you increase the number of beings supported.
  • Hulls have more variety and are more expensive.  In addition to the standard hull, we introduce three additional hull grades that have varying cost, mass, and hull points.  Instead of the cost of the hull scaling linearly with the hull size of the ship, it now scales with the volume of the ship. 
  • Engines are more appropriately scaled.  Each engine type and size now has a thrust rating.  This, combined with the mass of your ship, gives you the acceleration that the ship can achieve.  The engine classes are scaled appropriately to provide proper amounts of thrust to move the bigger ships.  The costs are also scaled appropriately to the thrust provided by the engines.  Fuel costs also scale with engine size.
  • These ships are more expensive.  This is primarily due to the changes in the cost of hull, engines, and life support.  All three of these systems are more (and in some cases much more) expensive than the same systems in the Knight Hawks rules.  This was done for a variety of reasons but primarily to make the costs scale realistically with the size and capability of the systems as they grow larger.
  • Hull size is computed a little differently.  While it still scales exponentially with the volume of the ship, it has now been modified so that the hull size and volume are mathematically related instead of being arbitrarily scaled.  This has the result of making the smaller hull sizes larger than the corresponding hull size from Knight Hawks while the larger ships from this system are actually smaller than a ship of the corresponding hull size from the original rules.  For example, an average HS 1 ship in the new system is 64 cubic meters in volume which is double the size of a HS 1 ship in the original rules.  And HS 1 in this system goes up to 216 cubic meters which is nearly half the size of a HS 2 ship from the original.  On the other end, an average HS 20 ship in the new system has a volume of 512,000 cubic meters which falls between HS 11 and 12 in the original Knight Hawks system.  [Note:  This is something I’m not completely happy with and am still working on.]  Additionally, there is no upper limit on hull size.  You can build your ship as big as you have the budget for.
  • One final difference is that the definition of a cargo unit has been standardized to a specific volume.  This is more realistic than the Knight Hawks system of one cargo unit per HS since in that system you could increase the HS by 2 and double the volume but only increase the cargo capacity by 2 not doubling it even though the ship was vastly larger.  This change eliminates that discrepancy.  It also means that ships will have tens to hundreds to even thousands of cargo units of hauling capacity.  A future work will redefine the cargo tables to give prices and volumes to work with this new system.

Unless otherwise described, assume that all systems are identical to the systems described in the original Knight Hawks rules.

So what will I notice in the new listings

All of the old bits of information about the ships are still there.  What has been added are a few new descriptors related to mass, volume, and fuel consumption.

Now instead of just listing the hull size, the actual total volume of the ship is provided.  There are two parts to this.  One is the overall volume including the cargo areas if any, and the other is the “inhabited” volume, or the part of the ship where the crew lives and works that doesn’t include the cargo hold.  For vessels that are not primarily freighters these numbers are nearly identical.

In addition to the total volume, the mass of the ship, in tons, is provided.  Again this has two values, one for the ship with the cargo areas empty, and another for the ship with a full hull (which assumes 2 tons per cubic meter of cargo).  The ship’s ADF value is computed based on this full-loaded mass volume.  For most ships there isn’t a different between that and the unloaded value.  This isn’t true for freighters as unloaded, their engines can move the ship at much higher accelerations.

Finally, each listing provides a values labeled “ADF per fuel load”.  This value represents the total number of ADF that can be achieved by fully burning through a load of fuel in all of the ship’s engines and is related to the fully loaded ADF value.  These ships are actually more fuel efficient than in the original rules.  It takes 1000 ADF to make an interstellar jump (and stop at your destination).  Since most ships can run at an ADF of 2 or more, they only need a fraction of their fuel to reach jump speed and thus can make multiple jumps on a single load of fuel as long as they don’t run into trouble along the way and have to do a lot of maneuvering.

Playtesting

These rules are definitely a work in progress.  I’m starting up a play-by-post game that will involve a lot of ships and traveling so I plan on testing these rules out extensively during that game.

That’s the basics.  For my next few posts I’ll be sharing some ships that the PCs will have the option to buy as their starting vessel in that play-by-post campaign that are designed using this new system.