Need help building a starship

[Toushirou]

greetings,

first post here, and it's a request, i should be ashamed, but it can't be helped. i am relatively new to the system. bought the core rulebook some weeks ago. i want to start a new campaign inspired by star gate, tsubasa chronicles and, yes, some fantasy books i read. after reading some other rpg's i found that none of them would suit my needs and by searching an online shop in germany i stumbled across hero, ordered it and got overwhelmed by the possibilities, but i have to convince my players yet to share my excitement.

 

the campaign will start in another part of the galaxy. there is a solar system similar to ours and a human race. these humans originate from earth, but that's a metaplot. the only megascale travel will be through jump gates into hyperspace, no ftl else. the jump gates were built by an alien race, but that's another metaplot , an evil one.

 

the players are a group of mercenaries with their own star ship, but it should not be overpowered. most of the time they will solve riddles regarding their origin on several planets anyway and will discover that they are capable of developing superhuman abilities. because i don't own so many sourcebooks yet, have my problems with the star ships in star hero and the tech level shouldn't be so high, i need advice with this star ship.

 

these are the limits:

- no ftl travel, but the star ship engines should be capable of reaching a planet like neptun in a reasonable amount of time, maybe with something like cryo chambers

- room enough for cargo or passengers and a crew of 25

- biotech, ai with neuronal networks, genetic engineering, simple manipulation of gravity, artificial gravity for example, g tolerance

- armor, force fields, but not personal, too bulky yet

- fusion reactors, no antimatter

- maybe reactionless drives

and whatever a star ship needs. I hope someone can help me here, later on i think, i can do this on my own, but i have to understand a lot of things of the hero system first.

thx a lot

[freakboy6117]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

really you could just hand wave it.

 

unless there's going to be a lot of ship to ship combat or the ship has a lot of equipment (labs sick bay oplanetray sensors etc)

that will make the players lives easier.

 

if its just a means to get from point A to point B just ignore the stats and as long as your fairly consistent it can do what ever you want.

[Starwolf]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

First... Welcome to Hero

 

If you are going to run a Star Hero campaign, I have several Hero supplements I heartily recommend.

 

1) Star Hero: This book gives great insight into using the Hero System for sci-fi campaigns, and delves into starship construction, character generation, alien races, etc. All of the topics you mentioned are discussed in varying levels of detail.

 

2) Hero Sidekick: This book is like Hero lite and is designed to introduce new players and GMs to the system. It covers all of the basic, essential elements of the game, leaving all of the advanced rules and options for the big core book and other supplements.

 

3) The Hero System Combat Handbook: This book consolidates all of the combat rules from all of the supplements into one central, easy to use at the table, combat reference.

 

4) The Ultimate Vehicle: This book covers vehicle construction/use in great detail. It covers all types of vehicles, everything from chariots to starships, with examples.

 

5) Hero Designer: This software helps you to construct characters. It handles all of the math calculations while enforcing rule adherence. It also allows a fair amount of customization so that you can incorporate most house rules.

 

6) There is a great little utility to help with die rolling here, http://www.bcholmes.org/rpgs/HDDieDieDie.jar

 

You can of course use regular 6 sided dice as well. Or there are even Hero Dice in the online store that have special PIPs to help make counting stun and body easier.

 

I hope this helps

[Nolgroth]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Welcome to the HERO Boards Toushirou. Nice to see a new face.

 

Freakboy is right, you could hand-wave it. Since you are new and looking for examples of how to write things up, I'm going to help out as much as I can. So....

hese are the limits:

- no ftl travel, but the star ship engines should be capable of reaching a planet like neptun in a reasonable amount of time, maybe with something like cryo chambers

- room enough for cargo or passengers and a crew of 25

- biotech, ai with neuronal networks, genetic engineering, simple manipulation of gravity, artificial gravity for example, g tolerance

- armor, force fields, but not personal, too bulky yet

- fusion reactors, no antimatter- maybe reactionless drives

1. No FTL. Easy. Don't have to do anything at all.
   
2. How much is a "reasonable" time? You also said something about possibly using reactionless drives. Let's go with some sort of advanced VASMIR Rocket. There is one defined in Star HERO, but it is rather slow (accelerating at about 1 G or 60" per turn). Let's do one that is more powerful. Flight 90" (at the Ship's Speed, this totals out to 180" per Turn or 3 G of acceleration). It would have fuel for 1 month so that is defined as 1 Continuing Fuel Charge 1 Month. Let one of the math wizards figure out the travel time from Earth to Neptune.
   
3. How much cargo? How many passengers? Since you mention g tolerance, I'm going to assume that the crew have bunk space, the command staff and visitors have state rooms. Figure each crew man is going to need 1 or 2 hexes each, plus mess hall, rec area and sick bay. The state rooms would probably be about 2x2 hexes. The cargo bay is up to you.
   
4. Artificial Gravity is purchased with Telekinesis, Only to pull down. Figure each 10 STR is 1 G.
   
5. An interial compensation field is defined as a Force Field Only to protect versus acceleration damage. In Star HERO, it is assumed every ship has such a thing installed and doesn't cost it out. I suggest you go with that option.
   
6. Armor and Force Fields should be pretty self explanatory. You may have to do some tweaking based on how much damage ship weapons do to find a balance.
   
7. Several of the supplements describe Fusion reactors. They are typically built as huge END Reserves with an equally large Recovery such as Fusion Reactor END Reserve: 250 Recovery 250, OIF Bulky Only to power electrical systems.

You will quickly realize that there are many ways to do something in HERO and there is no 'right" way that fits everybody. I suggest that you work out something and post it here for review and critique. We are, as a community, really helpful folks. You should have no problem getting solid advise on any particular thing you build.

[GreyGuardian]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

greetings,

first post here, and it's a request, i should be ashamed, but it can't be helped. i am relatively new to the system. bought the core rulebook some weeks ago. i want to start a new campaign inspired by star gate, tsubasa chronicles and, yes, some fantasy books i read. after reading some other rpg's i found that none of them would suit my needs and by searching an online shop in germany i stumbled across hero, ordered it and got overwhelmed by the possibilities, but i have to convince my players yet to share my excitement.

 

the campaign will start in another part of the galaxy. there is a solar system similar to ours and a human race. these humans originate from earth, but that's a metaplot. the only megascale travel will be through jump gates into hyperspace, no ftl else. the jump gates were built by an alien race, but that's another metaplot , an evil one.

 

the players are a group of mercenaries with their own star ship, but it should not be overpowered. most of the time they will solve riddles regarding their origin on several planets anyway and will discover that they are capable of developing superhuman abilities. because i don't own so many sourcebooks yet, have my problems with the star ships in star hero and the tech level shouldn't be so high, i need advice with this star ship.

 

these are the limits:

- no ftl travel, but the star ship engines should be capable of reaching a planet like neptun in a reasonable amount of time, maybe with something like cryo chambers

- room enough for cargo or passengers and a crew of 25

- biotech, ai with neuronal networks, genetic engineering, simple manipulation of gravity, artificial gravity for example, g tolerance

- armor, force fields, but not personal, too bulky yet

- fusion reactors, no antimatter

- maybe reactionless drives

and whatever a star ship needs. I hope someone can help me here, later on i think, i can do this on my own, but i have to understand a lot of things of the hero system first.

thx a lot

 

 

I recommend getting Star Hero. It will have lots of how to sorts of information as well as basic planetology type information. Terran empires might also be worth reading as a further source of how to build ships and gadgets as well as having the "basics" done for you like laser pistols, personal force fields, and AI's.

 

If you are going to assume gravity manipulation you might as well assume anti-matter as a source of energy - I remember seeing an article about a company creating a way to store anti-matter a year or two ago - I'd imagine that gravity manipulation would make that even easier... of course it could also make fusion reactions much more efficient and contained as well. If you want to keep it simple and not worry about fuel and mass and possibly lots of book keeping a reactionless drive with gravity stabilizers (to protect the interior of the ship) is the way to go.

 

If you are going to avoid ship to ship combat and hazards to navigation type game events I agree with the previous poster that you can really handwave the starship technology, although you might want a layout and a write up of the security systems and sensors for use when the ship is parked on a planet.

[Starwolf]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Nolgroth hit the nail on the head as far as travel times. let your players travel at the speed of "plot". Just explain that your ships are STL and travel times take weeks/months/years. Then let the players RP the departures, battles, RP scenes, and arrivals, hand wave the rest. The ship arrives somewhere when you need it too.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Nolgroth hit the nail on the head as far as travel times. let your players travel at the speed of "plot". Just explain that your ships are STL and travel times take weeks/months/years. Then let the players RP the departures' date=' battles, RP scenes, and arrivals, hand wave the rest. The ship arrives somewhere when you need it too.[/quote']

 

The only downside is it tends to arrive right behind the bad guy . . .

[Nolgroth]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

The only downside is it tends to arrive right behind the bad guy . . .

What are you trying to say?

[Toushirou]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

First of all thx for all the answers.

 

i thought i had to make precise options for every detail of that star ship, because one of the players made a pilot as character and i wanted him to get the chance to play his char to the fullest. but the longer i think about it, the more i am convinced that not every detail will be necessary. i am no math genius too and i think my players won't calculate distances in space and travel times either, hehe, the good thing, they are lazy . so stl travel will be just hand waving as you suggested.

 

i own star hero now and will modify one of the star ships there according to nolgroth's and greyguardian's advices. i think the ship will have up to three decks with enough room then. thx for the other resources but i am not onassis or rockefeller , but the die roller is great, thx a lot.

 

and the community is awesome here. as you can see, i am on this board since march and visited frequently since then. got a lot of clues and hints, it's really great.

 

and there is another downside ^^, arriving in front of the bad guy is even more fun

 

thank you

[Nolgroth]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Speed of Plot = GM placing the players in precisely the wrong spot at the most inconvenient times. Hone your skill, young padawan, so that you may maximize the dismay of your players while maximizing your own dark amusement.

[Starwolf]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

First of all thx for all the answers.

 

i thought i had to make precise options for every detail of that star ship, because one of the players made a pilot as character and i wanted him to get the chance to play his char to the fullest.

 

Speaking as the best pilot in the known galaxy , when Nolgroth runs at the speed of plot, the action usually starts with the statement "I need a combat pilot roll" or something similar. Of course occasionally, the action starts when I/Wade performs some feat of derring-do, like scooping an endangered space suited/spacewalking companion from open space, into the cargo bay, in the middle of battle, and not squishing her .

 

[ghost-angel]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Speaking as the best pilot in the known galaxy , when Nolgroth runs at the speed of plot, the action usually starts with the statement "I need a combat pilot roll" or something similar. Of course occasionally, the action starts when I/Wade performs some feat of derring-do, like scooping an endangered space suited/spacewalking companion from open space, into the cargo bay, in the middle of battle, and not squishing her .

 

 

The best fighter-pilot in the galaxy (known and otherwise) thanks you for that.

 

(though I want it known I had that space fighter right where I wanted it.....)

[GreyGuardian]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

First of all thx for all the answers.

 

i thought i had to make precise options for every detail of that star ship, because one of the players made a pilot as character and i wanted him to get the chance to play his char to the fullest. but the longer i think about it, the more i am convinced that not every detail will be necessary. i am no math genius too and i think my players won't calculate distances in space and travel times either, hehe, the good thing, they are lazy . so stl travel will be just hand waving as you suggested.

 

i own star hero now and will modify one of the star ships there according to nolgroth's and greyguardian's advices. i think the ship will have up to three decks with enough room then. thx for the other resources but i am not onassis or rockefeller , but the die roller is great, thx a lot.

 

and the community is awesome here. as you can see, i am on this board since march and visited frequently since then. got a lot of clues and hints, it's really great.

 

and there is another downside ^^, arriving in front of the bad guy is even more fun

 

thank you

 

When trying to run vehicle combat and come up with real numbers and all that I got really bogged down and the game went way way too slow. hand wave the space flight and throw in occassional reasons for the pilot to make a skill roll (oh by the way if you miss this roll those orphans die, etc.) and or give him some flight time in atmosphere where hero system movement rules work more cleanly - BUT never ask for a die roll when a failure would not lead to an interesting / entertaining result. Check out Robin Law's see page XX articles http://www.dyingearth.com/pagexxintro.htm The December 2004 installment discusses this tactic.

[Starwolf]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Also don't forget your other players during vehicle combat. We usually have a pilot, a gunner, and an engineer, plus sometimes our group doctor, and even sometimes have another group membeer man the sensors. Our GM (Nolgroth) usually works in situations so that whatever crew is available has something to do, other wise it is easy for a ship encounter to devolve into a pilot vs the bad guys while the rest of the group kind of sits by and observes.

 

In our group we are working on cross training so that while we each have our areas of expertise, anyone of us will eventually be able to fill in, in a pinch.

 

So for us a typical encounter may have the pilot (usually me) making combat pilot rolls to avoid incoming fire and line up the ship for our offensive fire, our Merc character usually mans the sensors and sometimes the guns (rolling for weapons locks and sensor information and/or hit/damage rolls), and our other pilot usually acts as engineer or gunner (making rolls to keep things running as my ACM manuevers put a lot of stress on the ship and engines).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Welcome to the community, Toushirou! There's absolutely no reason to be ashamed to ask questions about HERO here. We understand very well how overwhelming the system's myriad options can be to newcomers. Besides, we like showing off how much we know.

 

You've gotten excellent advice so far; I just want to add that since money seems to be of concern to you, you may benefit from the many free resources on http://www.starherofandom.com/ . In particular, the Traveller and Babylon 5 sections have fine starship writeups that should help you with your own designs.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Also don't forget your other players during vehicle combat. We usually have a pilot, a gunner, and an engineer, plus sometimes our group doctor, and even sometimes have another group membeer man the sensors. Our GM (Nolgroth) usually works in situations so that whatever crew is available has something to do, other wise it is easy for a ship encounter to devolve into a pilot vs the bad guys while the rest of the group kind of sits by and observes.

 

In our group we are working on cross training so that while we each have our areas of expertise, anyone of us will eventually be able to fill in, in a pinch.

 

So for us a typical encounter may have the pilot (usually me) making combat pilot rolls to avoid incoming fire and line up the ship for our offensive fire, our Merc character usually mans the sensors and sometimes the guns (rolling for weapons locks and sensor information and/or hit/damage rolls), and our other pilot usually acts as engineer or gunner (making rolls to keep things running as my ACM manuevers put a lot of stress on the ship and engines).

 

Another bonus to this approach is the added drama to the situation.

 

If the Pilot misses or barely makes their Combat Piloting roll to get into a favorable position for the gunner then the gunner has that much of a harder time getting a good shot off.

 

And remember: Ships weapons can only be fired in the Fully Automatic mode, to do anything less risks a chance of not vaporizing the enemy.

[Scott Baker]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

Also don't forget your other players during vehicle combat. We usually have a pilot, a gunner, and an engineer, plus sometimes our group doctor, and even sometimes have another group membeer man the sensors. Our GM (Nolgroth) usually works in situations so that whatever crew is available has something to do, other wise it is easy for a ship encounter to devolve into a pilot vs the bad guys while the rest of the group kind of sits by and observes.

 

In our group we are working on cross training so that while we each have our areas of expertise, anyone of us will eventually be able to fill in, in a pinch.

 

So for us a typical encounter may have the pilot (usually me) making combat pilot rolls to avoid incoming fire and line up the ship for our offensive fire, our Merc character usually mans the sensors and sometimes the guns (rolling for weapons locks and sensor information and/or hit/damage rolls), and our other pilot usually acts as engineer or gunner (making rolls to keep things running as my ACM manuevers put a lot of stress on the ship and engines).

 

This is how I ran space combat in my own SF game. I thought it worked well.

 

Scott Baker

[Toushirou]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

awesome, you are great, the babylon 5 part of the starherofandom site is just what i needed. the dying earth hints are good, too.

 

we made the chars several weeks ago and followed your advice subconsciously beforehand. one takes the part of the pilot, another one is a mechanic, one is a soldier, but has some skill in sensors and piloting, the last one can take care of the ship guns and is a scout for surface operations. i will have a npc as a combat medic. i still haven't solved the problem with their special powers when the characters "awaken", but i think they will have a pool of about 100 char points laying dormant at the moment, but that's off topic and another matter.

 

 

i know from older shadowrun experience that players got bored, when the decker made his job, so i will have them all involved in ship combat. an old joke of a comic series says, the one who cannot swim will take care of the holes in the hull , poor mechanic, he will have a lot to do...

 

never trust a smiling gamemaster, and i am smiling already...

[Nolgroth]

Re: Need help building a starship

 

never trust a smiling gamemaster' date=' and i am smiling already...[/quote']I like you already.