Modifying ships in game

[Stei'awtliyrl]

My group just got their greedy little hands on a type A2 Far Trader, and already the Wish List has begun. They want more power, faster Maneuver drives, better sensors, etc...

Essentially, they want to turn the Zuul into their very own Millenium Falcon.

I'm just curious as to how often and how successfully your players have over the campaigns and years modified and upgraded their ships.

 

[flykiller]

I'm just curious as to how often and how successfully your players have over the campaigns and years modified and upgraded their ships.

well imtu computers computers are reduced in size and power needs when built at higher tech levels. for example a factor 8 computer built at tech 15 has the size and energy needs of a factor 7, even though it performs at factor 8. a factor 6 computer built at tech 15 requires the space and energy of a factor 3. etc. so my players have swapped out their original model 3 for a tech 15 model 6, with no ship modifications at all.

also imtu power plants are discrete pieces of equipment that tend to be set up in banks. low tech power plant flasks may be removed and replaced with higher tech power plant flasks that are the same size but produce much more power - or they may be replaced with higher tech power plant flasks that produce a little more power but are much smaller, thus allowing room for bigger maneuver drives. etc. higher-tech fuel purifiers are also great ways to gain engineering space (tech 10, 8 dtons - tech 13, 5 dtons), and they are far cheaper and more easily obtained than other engineering parts.

scout service maintenance and naval yards are good sources of "spare parts" from smaller vessels. if a boneyard chief has some harfed-on scout ship that hasn't been fixed in years he might be willing to "overlook" and write-off the loss of its power plant flasks, turret, etc. "turret missing upon recovery."

 

[The Oz]

I've had PCs soup up their ships, but I've always made it cost more and take longer (and sometime require a little "midnight requisitioning" that led to adventures all their own) than the PC's wanted. I used the ship construction system as a guide and went from there.

 

[mbrinkhues]

I advise to take a look at the MegaTraveller construction system. While is surely is "Bugfix Hill" it has a tech-progression build in that makes the "high tech is smaller" idea of flykiller part of the game system. TL13 ships with TL15 power plants gain quite a bit "free" space. And a proberly motivated yard boss might accidentially "forget" to note the modification and place the old TL13 reactor shell back in place...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

My Players prefer to steal a better ship

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
My Players prefer to steal a better ship

And you let them? And they still steal it! Silly players

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Stei'awtliyrl:
I'm just curious as to how often and how successfully your players have over the campaigns and years modified and upgraded their ships.

It depends somewhat on your rules version. I prefer good old CT (BT, actually), which makes upgrading major ship systems a very difficult (and often technically impossible within the written rules) process.

In most campaigns I've run, the typical path to a bigger, badder ride is to earn lots of money through hard work (i.e., massive crimes, outrageous stunts, and/or fools-rush-in mercenary tickets) and then trade up, in steps as necessary, to a new or used custom vessel that's more to the player-character's tastes.

In practise, I prefer the bare-bones framework of BT because it does not lend itself easily to munchkinizing starship designs. A 6G Trader isn't going to outrun a laser, but it is going to have trouble turning a profit with its hold reduced to maybe 10 dtons total in order make room elsewhere for that whopping huge m-drive and p-plant the owners "had to have".

The key is balance: if your campaign setting features Kokkiraks and Tigresses in every other star system, the players are gonna feel the need for a nine-figure, top-end hoopty to get around in; if you have a small-ship TU where a Trader might encounter at most a Gazelle or a Fiery three or four times a year, players will happily cherish something as modest as a salvaged dual fusion gun turret for their trusty old Type A2...

 

[GypsyComet]

Heck, my players are running around in a ship that changes rapidly. I'm not sure I'd call the changes "upgrades" as such, but there for a while the ship had a different deckplan every session.

Ah, the problems of winning a century-old Type-S in a poker game when you're pretty sure the former owner was cheating to *lose*.

Originally posted by Stei'awtliyrl:
My group just got their greedy little hands on a type A2 Far Trader, and already the Wish List has begun. They want more power, faster Maneuver drives, better sensors, etc...

Essentially, they want to turn the Zuul into their very own Millenium Falcon.

I've found that too much chop-shop time tends to attract people with guns. Often big guns, and occasionally VERY big guns. Nothing quite like having a 4m PA melt-path run the length of the ships dorsal hullplates to make people think twice about installing visible super turrets...

 

[aramis]

I've seldom allowed anything that wasn't in the tech rules.

Big exception: I allowed hooking up a battlefield meson gun in the nose of a Type R...

Yes, it was legally acquired... it was an active duty campaign.

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Big exception: I allowed hooking up a battlefield meson gun in the nose of a Type R...

The BFMA is pretty much ideal for Q-ship applications, in my experience. It doesn't have the range (lack of fire control, perhaps) for full-on space combat, but in a boarding scenario, it suddenly becomes highly relevant that Striker says it does as much damage as a Spinal Mount A gun... displaces less than a stateroom, too...

Yeah, you definitely want the proper licensing oversight there.

 

[Darkhstarr]

My players my first Beyond game modified their 200 tonne medical scout, the 'Carson Oma'. They had it done by the local Merc guild, part in cash. part in trade for military goodies 'stolen' from a crooked arms manufacturer(they had documents showing paid in full). They
modified the 50 tonne launch bay to hold a particle acelerator barbette & a 20 tonne ship's boat; installed a nuclear damper; & upgraded the powerplant & engines. They all did this while the character playing the doctor was on hiatus from the game (we rolled he was taking gun combat training-he got tired of depending on a shotgun & his med skills in combat) & didn't know what was going on. The game when he came back was amusing.

A favorite modification was with 100 tonne Imperial scouts, armed it with a PAW barbute, making it a cheap escort, bounty hunter, police, or pirate vessel. I designed a 100 tonne scout from the ground up carrying a PAW barbute & 2 sandcaster launch tube called the Viper class that is the commonest escort/raider ship in the area where my Beyond campaign.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Stei'awtliyrl:
I'm just curious as to how often and how successfully your players have over the campaigns and years modified and upgraded their ships.

Stei'awtliyrl,

Your players' desire to upgrade and/or modify their ship has given you a ready made 'handle' with which to control them. This desire also makes for a great, long term, campaign goal. Another way to use their desire is to make them earn an upgrade 'up front' by agreeing to undertake a long term job for person/organization paying for the upgrade.

Let them dream as big as they want, then bring them back to reality with architect fees, design fees, equipment prices, yard fees, and ever other fee you can think of. HG2's can be a good shopping list while TCS has rules for repairs and upgrades you can use. Remember, don't let the players either plan or perform the upgrades themselves (Unless one of them has the rare Naval Architect skill).

Don't be afraid to make the process lengthy either. For example: once your players decide on just what sort of upgrade(s) they want, they'll need someone to plan on how to make that upgrade actually work. After all, the plans required to drop in a bigger powerplant just aren't scribbled on a cocktail napkin! They'll need money for the plans before they'll need money for the actually work and equipment. you can use this planning requirement to prohibit upgrades you think will unbalance your game. Rather than you the GM saying 'no', a naval architect says 'no' instead.

Finding someone to do the work can take time too. Simply upgrading turret weapons may take a week or two, but installing and testing a new computer is very time consuming. Just as with the plans for the work, your players are going to need show lots of money before any shipyard will set aside a construction slip.

I've allowed players to have some of the weapon upgrades the other posters mentioned. More often, I've 'inflicted' such upgrades on them instead; i.e. their opponents had them. The PAW-armed scout/courier is a favorite of mine, as is the Twin fusion gunned(1) variety. Be sure and give these NPC craft computer upgrades so that their weapons have good chances to hit.

Manage it well and your players' ship-pimping fever will write your campaign for you.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Twin fusion guns don't get to roll on both the surface and radiation damage tables like PAWs do and they can't be used at long range either. However, their battery factor is usually high enough to get automatic critical hits on most PC-sized ships. That in itself makes them a nasty wake-up call for any group of players.

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
My Players prefer to steal a better ship

My players simply bribe me (always the GM) with pizza, and maybe some spare $$$ change, to let them have a better ship.

My players are more evil than your players.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Oh, I'm always open to bribery

 

[Ishmael]

seems to me that it'd be harder than people think...like putting a napier-sabre engine into a f4u corsair...only harder

or putting a saturn-5 main thruster into the space shuttle for more G's

its not like putting a chevy 350 into a vega

I suppose it gets worse when there's a difference of tech levels..

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Ishmael James:
seems to me that it'd be harder than people think...

I suppose it gets worse when there's a difference of tech levels...

Yep, and yep, I concur. Or different standards, say putting some Imperial tech in a Sollie ship.

Originally posted by Ishmael James:
...its not like putting a chevy 350 into a vega...

That's not so easy as it seems either. Had a friend in high school do just that. First burnout with it he twisted the drive train right around and snapped it off. Too much power in and too much resistance in the big tires. Imagine the same thing in a space ship...

"So we thought, hey let's put that 2g drive in the old free-trader, it'll fit and the upgraded powerplant is enough. It aughta run like snot. First time we fired it up it tore right out of the 1g rated mounts, through the cargo hold, and stopped against the bridge bulkhead. What a mess."

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by far-trader:
"So we thought, hey let's put that 2g drive in the old free-trader, it'll fit and the upgraded powerplant is enough. It aughta run like snot. First time we fired it up it tore right out of the 1g rated mounts, through the cargo hold, and stopped against the bridge bulkhead. What a mess."

That's why I require a re-manufacture of the ship's hull before drives can be upsized. It typically takes months, several MCr, and a fair bit of skill just to rework the bulkheads and mountings (cf. a "minor" modification as per Trillion Credit Squadron). By the time it's done, you've basically built a whole new spaceframe anyway...

 

[Pickles]

There should probably be a dton penalty for this kind of re-builing, too. Adding reinforcement to an existing spaceframe(?) is going to produce a heavier and bulkier structure than if it had been designed for that load in the first place.

Yet another headache for the players.

 

[robject]

Wonderful thread folks! Great ideas all around.

 

[vegascat]

One of my best long running games started out with the players getting thier hands on a completely stripped out Kinunir hulk. They had a hull with welded over ports and some wiring and grav plates already in place. The patron who gave them the "ship" truly had them tight by the nads. They had to aquire salavge grade 1Bis computer, power plant and manuver drives at a 1G rating just to make insystem runs.
The squirm factor really hit when they realized that they needed a functional airlock to dock and unload cargo. They were more interested in fabricating sheetmetal fake turrets that would withstand air passage.
Their problem wasn't heavy enough drive mounts, but heavy enough drives to keep the ship off the ground. Never did have a problem with them aquiring too much cash with that size of a money pit