Executive Summary
A "lite" version of ACS would be nice: the kind that lets people design typical small starships quickly. Civilian starships absolutely, but also light military and quasi-military designs.
Long-Winded Version
ACS has things in common with FF&S, MegaTraveller's vehicle design system, and even Book 2.
At best, Book 2 is a strict subset of off-the-shelf components. ACS has some of this, and borrows from Book 2's drive potential table (and grows it).
MegaTraveller has rich arrays of options for tricking out your ship. ACS definitely has this, and borrows from MT's detailed construction rules for control stations (and the bridge).
Essentially, Fire, Fusion, and Steel has you build your components based on performance characteristics. ACS forces you to do this with Sensors, Weapons, Armor, and Defenses, and can also draw you into the finer arts of power plants and drive designs.
In short, ACS fills the place of Fire, Fusion, and Steel, even though it's not as math-intensive, and doesn't deal with mass, surface area, cubic meters, or megajoules. The units may be abstract, but the crunch is there.
When is a Lite truly Lite?
I'll define this system based on expected outputs:
This system should be able to build the Gazelle Close Escort and the Mercenary Cruiser. I consider those to be the outlying cases of the canonical small starships (CT codes A A2 C EC J K L M P R S T X Y), but makes other designs possible as well (Tukera Long Liner, Leviathan, etc).
A "lite" version of ACS would be nice: the kind that lets people design typical small starships quickly. Civilian starships absolutely, but also light military and quasi-military designs.
Long-Winded Version
ACS has things in common with FF&S, MegaTraveller's vehicle design system, and even Book 2.
At best, Book 2 is a strict subset of off-the-shelf components. ACS has some of this, and borrows from Book 2's drive potential table (and grows it).
MegaTraveller has rich arrays of options for tricking out your ship. ACS definitely has this, and borrows from MT's detailed construction rules for control stations (and the bridge).
Essentially, Fire, Fusion, and Steel has you build your components based on performance characteristics. ACS forces you to do this with Sensors, Weapons, Armor, and Defenses, and can also draw you into the finer arts of power plants and drive designs.
In short, ACS fills the place of Fire, Fusion, and Steel, even though it's not as math-intensive, and doesn't deal with mass, surface area, cubic meters, or megajoules. The units may be abstract, but the crunch is there.
When is a Lite truly Lite?
I'll define this system based on expected outputs:
This system should be able to build the Gazelle Close Escort and the Mercenary Cruiser. I consider those to be the outlying cases of the canonical small starships (CT codes A A2 C EC J K L M P R S T X Y), but makes other designs possible as well (Tukera Long Liner, Leviathan, etc).
