Dialing Back ACS

[robject]

I've been toying with an idea for my collection of standard weapons and vehicles. [...]

I haven't sat down with the book, but you'd have a 200, 400, 600, and 800 dTon hull designed with a version for each of the three drive packages, providing a range of 12 hulls that can be customized with whichever turrets you want.

It's a worthy effort. Try it several ways. And remember that a "Book 2" model is great if you can constrain the TL.

 

[robject]

Here's the essence of my "Dial Back" thread, modified by some understanding that a complicated OTU has to manage complexity, not remove it.

What I want is a broad ranking of starship features, from the essential and critical bits down to the least useful bits. And I want to rank every element in ACS in this way. Then, I want to organize ACS so that the critical bits are pushed to the fore and the least important bits pushed to the background.

So for example, say there are three buckets: Essential, Useful, and Marginal. For now, I will split up categories, even though that may not be possible in "real life".

ESSENTIAL (6 pages): things without which you would not have basic starships such as the Beowulf. 6 pages is probably over-estimating.

• TL (implicit)
• Some Mission Codes (half a page)
• Unstreamlined and Streamlined Hulls (24 hulls, most of one page)
• Basic Armor Value (one line)
• Typical Drives [J, M, P] by chart and formula (two pages)
• Fuel Systems (less than half a page)
• Computers (less than half a page)
• The 20t Spacious Bridge (one line)
• Staterooms and Low Berths (less than half a page)
• Generic "Mission Space" (one line)
• Cargo space (one line)
• Shopping list of small craft and vehicles (half a page)

USEFUL (5 pages): things for which rules are needed for ship-focused adventuring.

• Comprehensive Mission Codes (1 page)
• Alternate Hull Configurations (1 page with illos)
• Armor and Coatings (1 page)
• Weapons (1 page)
• Emergency Low Berths (one line)
• Frozen Watch, Barracks, and so on. (a few lines)
• Grapples, Hangars, and so on. (a few lines)

MARGINAL (6 pages): things for which rules are needed less than 10% of the time. 6 pages is probably over-estimating.

• Hull Fittings (landing gear, wings, water landings, etc) (one page with illos)
• Pod Hulls (less than half a page)
• Jump Field (half a page)
• Minimum Jump Diameter (half a page)
• Non-typical Drives (one page)
• Sensors (one page)
• Defenses (one page)
• Detailed workstation rules and bridge calculations (half a page)
• Life Support (one line)

 

[robject]

Now, take a prioritized list like the above, and apply it to the current organization of ACS. Can it work? I don't know. It's probably easy to get it wrong, but here's my first impression.

Elements which are "advanced" are in "shaded" box text. Maybe there's a better way to do that. The idea is that the material emphasizes the flow of "essential" ship design, and that advanced elements are segregated in a clear way.

I realize that shading, if done wrong, can cause printing problems. I'm up for anything that works.


Mission Codes page. Secondary codes are shaded.

Hull page. U and S hulls are primary; CBPAL hulls are adjacent and in line with the U and S hulls, but are grouped and segregated by shading. Pod Hulls are in a shaded box.

Hull Details, Jump Grid, Armor pages. All of these pages are completely shaded or otherwise clearly recognizable as "advanced".

Drives. Similar to the Hull page, M J P drives are primary, with the other drives adjacent/in line, but grouped and segregated by shading.

Sensors and Defenses. These pages are both identified as "Advanced".

Controls and Life Support. The Computer table is the only un-shaded part of this page, along with a small hunk of text explaining the "Default Bridge" (20t, MCr1). The rest is "Advanced"

 

[aramis]

Rather than shading, a nice border on a box works really well.

 

[robject]

Rather than shading, a nice border on a box works really well.

Border box, aye!