Something Star Hero needs, but hasn't-PT2

[Lord Liaden]

If you intend to design you own deckplans for spaceships (and I agree that this would be a worthwhile contribution to SH resources), The Ultimate Vehicle includes suggestions for the size of different types of propulsion systems, and the volume of fuel that each would require, in Chapter 5 under "Space Vehicle Basics" (pp. 85-92). That chapter also directs you to other system size specifics that are scattered throughout the book. (I don't have Star HERO handy, so I can't say how much of this info is included in that book.)

TUV also has optional formulas for calculating the mass and volume of vehicle equipment, including propulsion, weapons, defenses, power systems, sensors, communications etc. (p. 118). However, they're not very detailed and would require a fair bit of number crunching.

I'm reluctant to violate Hero Games's copyright by transcribing that info here, though.

[Aroooo]

I never advocated buying other companies products to get deck plans. There are tons available on the net for free. Sure, they may not be TE or AW specific, but for the aspect of storytelling, of giving the PC's something to use to visualize their home in space, they work just fine.

Given the time it takes to make deck plans, I don't expect DOJ to include them in Star Hero products. I just don't see it as financially viable, given the labor vs. volume of sales involved. Yes, we'd like them. Yes, they would probably get a few more sales. But as Bucky said, the sci-fi gaming genre is a minority market.

As a person who does not play a lot of supers games, I'd much rather see DOJ/Steve/anyone else's efforts go into making really good 'Champions' and general 'Hero' products to sell to a larger fan base. I'll buy them, and I'll get use out of them too. And if it keeps DOJ around that much longer (being one of the 'old timer's crowd'), the happier I'll be.

Appologies if I ranted.

Aroooo

[Nyrath]

Some sort of ratio for active points and size will need to be worked out to give rough estimates on size of parts. There would be general rules - planet landing capable ships shouldn't be too fragile (but needn't be aerodynamic). Each race should have a style of ship (Xenovores for example favour vertical wing biological shapes).

If you just want something really quick and dirty, figure that every ton of fully loaded and fueled spacecraft has a volume of 5 to 10 cubic meters, and ten percent of the fully loaded mass spacecraft mass is structural mass.

Alternatively, figure that every cubic meter of hull volume masses 10 to 20 kilograms. That corresponds to average pressure compartments being cubes 10 meters on a side, with pressure bulkheads averaging 17 to 33 kg/m^2.

[Curufea]

I thought of a few more generalisations-

Overall shapes of the various decks can be gotten from the illustrations of the ships in the books.
OIF = ventrally located
OAF = dorsally located
Bulky = +1 to size ratio
Weapon system = 10:1 ratio (ie 10 active points = 1m^2)
Non Weapon system = 5:1 ratio
ATRI = any level higher than the minimum required for the system miniaturises it slightly.
Any spare spaces are access corridors, maintenance shafts, cabling , electrics and plumbing.

Also - in space there is no reason for anything to be small, or aerodynamic.

Anyhow - I've not had time to work out the numbers, so these are just suggestions.

I realise this is off-topic for a thread about asking the writers for more canon material. But other than the original post, unless we go off-topic there will be no replies that are worth reading.

[Spence]

Given the time it takes to make deck plans, I don't expect DOJ to include them in Star Hero products. I just don't see it as financially viable, given the labor vs. volume of sales involved. Yes, we'd like them. Yes, they would probably get a few more sales. But as Bucky said, the sci-fi gaming genre is a minority market.

Actually I really can't understand this one. Many Hero posters keep saying that all kinds of things about cost for a deck plan being too high. If I pull out my copy of V(CotS) and go to page 87 I see two of a total of four maps in the book. They are the maps of the two sample Viper Nests. The only difference between them and a deck plan of a small ship, is the deckplan would cover less area. In CB there are several maps. The Gods won't decend from Mt Olympus and add $100 dollars per copy just because someone calls a map a deckplan. I'm not asking for a full blown book with hundreds of deckplans. I just think that exchanging one or two decrative art pics for one or two small deck plans would be nice. It isn't something that is going to kill me or prevent me from contiuing to buy more products. But I think it would really enhanse the future products. I know a couple of people who have bought CB. They don't play Hero and have the same opinion of it that I do of Werewolf/Vampire. Which isn't good. But they saw the maps of the mall and the construction site and had to have it. Do I think that is enough justification to make a all out multi-deckplan and ship construction book? Not at all. In fact I agree that it probably wouldn't be a good gamble with limited resources. But one or two deckplans to represent cannon for "specific" established campaign products would be far more positive than one or two art pics.

Appologies if I ranted.

Aroooo

No appologies needed mainly because I don't think I've ever read you ranting. We all get on the soapbox once in a while and that is the nearest to ranting I have ever read you.

Me on the other hand. I seam to have the knack of pissing people off by just saying hello. Hmm.....

[Curufea]

HELLO?!!!?

You DARED to say Hello?

How could you!


Anyhow, back on topic. My thoughts on this are - deadline was approaching, much rushing about to get products finished, deckplans were forgotten/not even contemplated/forced to be dropped.
There may be too much of a review process between plan designer and world creator for it to fit their publishing schedule. (ie, "they are 3 metres wide, make the corridors bigger" "No, they don't have hands, take out the ladders and put in ramps" "Too green! Too green!" etc..)

[Spence]

HELLO?!!!?

You DARED to say Hello?

How could you!


Anyhow, back on topic. My thoughts on this are - deadline was approaching, much rushing about to get products finished, deckplans were forgotten/not even contemplated/forced to be dropped.
There may be too much of a review process between plan designer and world creator for it to fit their publishing schedule. (ie, "they are 3 metres wide, make the corridors bigger" "No, they don't have hands, take out the ladders and put in ramps" "Too green! Too green!" etc..)

Your right. It very well could have been that way. Right now I like to mention it with a slant towards the future. When I am doing a project and everyone has let me know they would like something if possible, I keep an eye out, and if things come together right I will put it in. On the other hand if someone comes up with an idea and everyone agree's it's cool but "too expensive/hard/whatever", then even if I discover I could do it cheaply and still have quality, I don't because everyone says it's "not good". My stance is that the products are good ones as they are, but some of them could be better with one or two deck plans and if possible please add them. When I read the posts and replies concerning deckplans the feeling you get is a lot of posters are saying they think any mention of deckplans is EVIL and you must be stopped, even if they can be added they should not because someone might think a product without them is somehow not as good. I never could understand why there is so much "anti-" whenever someone mentions something they would like to see.

[Bucky]

My stance remains, you ain't got deckplans, and this is not a way to get them quickly. Star Hero is a minority product and probably, as much as I hate to admit it, the bottom of the deck right now. They have other, more profitable products to deal with and maintain. It will be at least a year, if then, before "offical" books with deckplans could be out on the market IF they were inclined to take the financial risks to even start.

There are plenty of outside sources for starship deckplans, to cover almost every subgenrie one might be interested in. And you can, whether you are a cartographer or not, draw up your own.

You can either channel that energy to achieve your desire, or not. Demanding or complaining is not going to achieve that goal. Its that simple.

[Heroman]

It is an understandable stance for the detail level of maps and physical characteristics of ships to not be spelled out. As unliked as it is, it comes down to being a company decision, time vs chargable price I would rekon. It has been a while, but I do not think Star Wars or other systems provided detailed design and floorplans for all their ships; many of us are spoiled by the abundance of Traveller material which has bee around a wee bit longer than SH.

Don't get me wrong; I think that TE should have a planned book on Starships which provides this level of detail (much like Gurps: Starships or the myrid of Traveller ship design supplements) but perhaps if there is no plan for HG to publish such a book, it would be in the interest of those interested to do it ourselves. For us ship geeks, there are many other books which can help understand what exactly needs to be quantified and made into formulas for TE starships. Some fancy playing with apps like CC2 Cosmo then could be planned, and we could generate our own complete TE: Starships book.
I personally have geared my game around a Traveller type environment because a) I started way before SH and TE and b) the abundance and detail of ships in Traveller. Most all the invested work, if done right, could be used for other people's campaigns which are not TE oriented, I believe.

I think such a thing could help bolster the support of TE in general, and as long as there are no realistic plans for HG to make such a book, really no conflict of interests.

-Heroman

[Spence]

My stance remains, you ain't got deckplans, and this is not a way to get them quickly. Star Hero is a minority product and probably, as much as I hate to admit it, the bottom of the deck right now. They have other, more profitable products to deal with and maintain. It will be at least a year, if then, before "offical" books with deckplans could be out on the market IF they were inclined to take the financial risks to even start.

There are plenty of outside sources for starship deckplans, to cover almost every subgenrie one might be interested in. And you can, whether you are a cartographer or not, draw up your own.

You can either channel that energy to achieve your desire, or not. Demanding or complaining is not going to achieve that goal. Its that simple.

And no one is disagreeing with you on using other sources and making your own.

Demanding? Complaining? [flipps through dictionary] You must be using another language. "Suggesting" and "asking to be considered" is what I have been doing. Did you read my posts?

[Spence]

It is an understandable stance for the detail level of maps and physical characteristics of ships to not be spelled out. As unliked as it is, it comes down to being a company decision, time vs chargable price I would rekon. It has been a while, but I do not think Star Wars or other systems provided detailed design and floorplans for all their ships; many of us are spoiled by the abundance of Traveller material which has bee around a wee bit longer than SH.

Don't get me wrong; I think that TE should have a planned book on Starships which provides this level of detail (much like Gurps: Starships or the myrid of Traveller ship design supplements) but perhaps if there is no plan for HG to publish such a book, it would be in the interest of those interested to do it ourselves. For us ship geeks, there are many other books which can help understand what exactly needs to be quantified and made into formulas for TE starships. Some fancy playing with apps like CC2 Cosmo then could be planned, and we could generate our own complete TE: Starships book.
I personally have geared my game around a Traveller type environment because a) I started way before SH and TE and b) the abundance and detail of ships in Traveller. Most all the invested work, if done right, could be used for other people's campaigns which are not TE oriented, I believe.

I think such a thing could help bolster the support of TE in general, and as long as there are no realistic plans for HG to make such a book, really no conflict of interests.

-Heroman

Back to my earlier post. "One or two deckplans". What indepth detail? Where was the need for "all their ships"? If they can put a 4"x7" map of a mall, it is technically possible to put a 4"x7" map of a ship for approx the same cost. There is really no difference, they are both scaled maps. asking that one of the future campiagn specific supplements have ONE or TWO example deckplans isn't going to increase any costs above what any other map requires. So while the next SH supp is still in the early planning stages (really really early) there isn't anything wrong with asking. But the request keeps being buried among the noise about "huge deckplan onely supplements" or "no one else did a deckplan only supp". The problem is no one asked for that. And we're back to "one or two examples". One. Or two. 1. 2.

[Thrakazog]

I converted my Traveller campaign to Star Hero last year. For deckplans, I used the Traveller deckplans and just overlaid a translucent hex pattern, scaled appropriately, over them. It was a fast and easy way to get around the problem. Another virtue of this method is that there are a lot of starship deckplans to be found on the internet, and the overlay is a simple procedure. If you use CC2 for your deckplans, which a lot of people do, it gets even easier.

[Spence]

I converted my Traveller campaign to Star Hero last year. For deckplans, I used the Traveller deckplans and just overlaid a translucent hex pattern, scaled appropriately, over them. It was a fast and easy way to get around the problem. Another virtue of this method is that there are a lot of starship deckplans to be found on the internet, and the overlay is a simple procedure. If you use CC2 for your deckplans, which a lot of people do, it gets even easier.

I use a lot of traveller DP's myself. They are putting out new packs (or reprints) from the T site. When LUGtrek was a going concern I used the old Tech manual deckplans, plus there are several new Deckplan sets of Star Trek ships you can get. I have a DS9 Book that has fantastic DP's and layouts of the Defiant, DS9 and the Runabouts. If you sue CC2 than consider their Cosmographer add-on. It is designed to do deckplans, life gets really easy with it. I just got my copy of Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds today, actually the box was on my doorstep when I got home about 30 minutes ago. I hadn't splurged on my gaming for a while so I took advantage of two bundles and some single items. I have a stack now TA, MMM, FHB, FHG, FHG2, Until, and DC. I've only flipped through the pages, but they all look great. The maps in FHB are extremely well done. Now that I have seen it and Champs Battlegrounds, that may be the route to persue. Maybe in 2006 they might tack on Galactic Battlegrounds (or something to that effect) that could be a couple of adventures with a small station and small ship. Kinda a small all in one starter package for TE or AW.


Oh, did I say just how fast I got my order? I placed it online on Nov 28 at around 9pm. It's in my hand today. Ben and everyone who works the order and shipping side of Hero are outstanding and second to none. Thanks!