GrayPennell
SOC-12
I have completed my first attempt at converting the larger ships in Fighting to T5 and down to modern surface navy size. The ships ranged from 2,000 to 15,000 tons, based on the Pick's What is Tonnage in FreeTraveller, article about ship tons, and also the main function of the ship or category. if you are worried about the cheap prices you can multiply the final number by 6-10 times depending on steep you want the cost citing complex construction costs. Honestly though I dont see anyone building a T5 ship over 50,000 unless Marc radically alters the guidelines. I used the T5 Shipyard by rob for the work. After 18 ships these are some observations.
Ship sizes:
I like this size because the ships are more playable and are not impossible to destroy. My favorite is the strike cruiser because it has ship, fighters, armor and jump infantry/commandos so lots of potential PCs.
Armor:
Armor is linked to haul tonnage now making it very costly in terms of VT. So either you lose other components or you lose armor.
Drives:
They still take up 50%+ of the ship, making fast ships very costly in VT and you lose many other capabilities,
Weapons:
I think the biggest difference is the range bands and the different weapon ranges. I started off building everything to the longest ranges but realized that short ranges were still good and were good space savers. The other issue is the bonus for different mounts. I built a lot of max range meson gun in the mains. In the end I realized a shortest range main meson gun with large bay PAs at max range. Theory being the PAs will take out the armor and meson screens at long ranges so as the ship close with one another it rips into its opponents with the meson gun and support weapons.
Fighters:
With such low armor and the small size of the ships, fighter come back into the fight. Sure one fighter wont take a cruiser out let alone BB or CV but a squadron can. Only about 20% will come back, but thats historically accurate. Also the new rules that you need the ship tonnage plus 10% for hangers means that every fighter needs twice its vt. Unless you use hooks instead. Using hangers will reduce you to 20-50 ships. y
Crews:
Crews and consuls were the hardest to calculate. I often felt the crew numbers were too small. It might be interesting to take the consuls calculation and combine them with crew calculations in another tab.
I am going to do a round two of design work convert many of the hangers to hooks, and make better use of the range:VT ratio in the earlier ships. After this round I am going to try space combat and see how the rules work. I ll let you know.
Ship sizes:
I like this size because the ships are more playable and are not impossible to destroy. My favorite is the strike cruiser because it has ship, fighters, armor and jump infantry/commandos so lots of potential PCs.
Armor:
Armor is linked to haul tonnage now making it very costly in terms of VT. So either you lose other components or you lose armor.
Drives:
They still take up 50%+ of the ship, making fast ships very costly in VT and you lose many other capabilities,
Weapons:
I think the biggest difference is the range bands and the different weapon ranges. I started off building everything to the longest ranges but realized that short ranges were still good and were good space savers. The other issue is the bonus for different mounts. I built a lot of max range meson gun in the mains. In the end I realized a shortest range main meson gun with large bay PAs at max range. Theory being the PAs will take out the armor and meson screens at long ranges so as the ship close with one another it rips into its opponents with the meson gun and support weapons.
Fighters:
With such low armor and the small size of the ships, fighter come back into the fight. Sure one fighter wont take a cruiser out let alone BB or CV but a squadron can. Only about 20% will come back, but thats historically accurate. Also the new rules that you need the ship tonnage plus 10% for hangers means that every fighter needs twice its vt. Unless you use hooks instead. Using hangers will reduce you to 20-50 ships. y
Crews:
Crews and consuls were the hardest to calculate. I often felt the crew numbers were too small. It might be interesting to take the consuls calculation and combine them with crew calculations in another tab.
I am going to do a round two of design work convert many of the hangers to hooks, and make better use of the range:VT ratio in the earlier ships. After this round I am going to try space combat and see how the rules work. I ll let you know.
