Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

[ki_ryn]

I'm too ignorant to even be called a newbie, but I have a question. Does the latest version of HERO still use hex maps? I had heard that it was moving to a more free form movement system, and that would be great news for me.

 

I create starship maps as a hobby/business and for years haven't been able to meet the needs of HERO players because I build the grids into the floors and doing a separate hex floor just isn't feasible (it's built in early in the process and so would mean most of the production pipeline being repeated). If the hexes are gone, then my armada might now be usable for the game! It depends on whether the 1 inch squares in the art make them unsuitable or not.

 

The grid is pretty subtle in most of the deck plans. See the example below - the actual map is at 1 inch = 5ft (there are other examples on my site). My guess is that the grid is superfluous for Star HERO now. My hope is that it is not actually a detriment?

 

Is something like this (and larger ships consisting of several pages and decks) suitable for the newest incarnation of Star HERO?

 

~Ryan Wolfe http://0-hr.com

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45090[/ATTACH]

[Tasha]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Yes they can be useable. The conversion from 5' squares to 2m Squares does mess a bit with the dimensions of the ship. The issue with hexes is one of ease of play (ie you never have to worry about doing something weird when people want to move diagonally). So using hexes is still an inconvience, but not insurmountable.

 

Actually the biggest issue I have with your deckplans is how to convert them to Hero Stats. You use some OGL d20 rule set that I have no idea of where to find. I kind of wish they were based on a flavor of Traveller. It would make them a bit easier to translate to Hero. Heck even a plain english idea of if the ship is supposed to have Fast, medium or Slow FTL and STL drives would help.

 

Oh, and I own 10 of your Deck plans

Tasha

 

PS your Fantasy Floor Plans could also probably be used for Fantasy Hero. Though I would love to see what other have to say about using products made for d20 (ie Square Grid).

[ki_ryn]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

 

Actually the biggest issue I have with your deckplans is how to convert them to Hero Stats. You use some OGL d20 rule set that I have no idea of where to find...

 

Yea, I used "d20 Future" stats because they were freely available under the Open Game License(OGL). I can't say I was ever a fan of the system, but it was what was available at the time. On the bright side, I am launching a new product line that will be game system independent. No game stats, but plain English descriptions of ship components (still in a single page table layout). For what it's worth, I'm glad to put game-specific, fan-created, ship stats on my website if anyone cares to write them up - I just don't have the time or expertise to do it correctly for every system.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Hi Ryan,

I've used many of your maps. I simply ignore the grid, or rather use it as a general guideline to the size of things. I personally am looking forward to the ones you mentioned in the newsletter you recently sent out.

 

-James

[ki_ryn]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

I'm looking forward to getting them done

 

Two of the three initial ships of the new line are small enough to end up as 24x36 inch posters (like my current Kickstarter). Below is a sneak peek of the third (larger) ship - I don't have beauty shots of the other two ready yet. I'm inthe process of making up my own "generic" descriptions for ship components - I'll check out the StarHERO system and see if I there is anything I can do to make translation easier without making more difficult for other systems.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45135[/ATTACH]

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

rough conversion= 2 Hero Hexes equal 1 Traveller Square

[mattingly]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Ki_Ryn's kickstarter page is here. Well worth supporting.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

if you want help translating/converting to other game stats, I am fluent most versions of Traveller, Star Hero, GURPS Space, I can fiddle with Space Opera and Space Master

[esampson]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

rough conversion= 2 Hero Hexes equal 1 Traveller Square

Maybe it's changed because it's been so long since I've looked at Traveller but I thought that the scale for Traveller deck plans were two squares of floor space to a ton of liquid helium displacement. Since each floor square was assumed to be 2 meters high that meant that each square was 1.5 meters on a side. (The actual math would be 1.4m on a side but it was moved up to 1.5 for convenience)

[Ternaugh]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

rough conversion= 2 Hero Hexes equal 1 Traveller Square

 

Maybe it's changed because it's been so long since I've looked at Traveller but I thought that the scale for Traveller deck plans were two squares of floor space to a ton of liquid helium displacement. Since each floor square was assumed to be 2 meters high that meant that each square was 1.5 meters on a side. (The actual math would be 1.4m on a side but it was moved up to 1.5 for convenience)

 

Traveller Snapshot rules used a 1.5m square, with the assumption that the space between decks was 3m (note that this is not necessarily the height of the ceiling, as there may be raised walkways, conduit, and so forth). Two squares thus calculated to 13.5m^3. GURPS Traveller used 5' squares (which is pretty close to 1.5m), and calculated a "Traveller ton" as roughly 500 cu. ft.

 

Pre-6th edition Hero hexes were assumed to be 2m tall, which would put the volume at almost the same as a 1.5m square with height of 3m (approximately 6.93m^3 for a hex 2m from edge to edge* vs 6.75m^3 for the 1.5m hex). 2 Hero hexes would therefore be almost equivalent to two Snapshot squares in volume, but not area (Hero hexes are about 1.5 times bigger). That's probably still close enough for most deckplans or maps to consider them the same, as they are an abstract representation anyway.

 

JoeG

*If I did the calculations right.

[AlHazred]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

I've been using your Exeter in my Traveller Hero campaign, as it's the design my players felt best suited them. I haven't really had too much trouble with the grid, since they're too interested in not breaking their ship to get involved in fights aboard (though that may change as my campaign is just getting to the start of the 5FW.

 

I'm bummed I missed your Kickstarter! I love your deckplans and hope to use your larger space station in Space Horror convention games in the future. I'll just have to jump on your next one!

[Tasha]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

I've been using your Exeter in my Traveller Hero campaign, as it's the design my players felt best suited them. I haven't really had too much trouble with the grid, since they're too interested in not breaking their ship to get involved in fights aboard (though that may change as my campaign is just getting to the start of the 5FW.

 

I'm bummed I missed your Kickstarter! I love your deckplans and hope to use your larger space station in Space Horror convention games in the future. I'll just have to jump on your next one!

 

Yeah the poster map was really nifty. It's the first kickstarter that came on time and FAST.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Has anyone done the work to build Hero System write-ups of Ryan's ships? I'd love to see them!

[Nolgroth]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Has anyone done the work to build Hero System write-ups of Ryan's ships? I'd love to see them!

I have not done a direct translation, but I did use the Mercury as the player ship for my campaign. Adapted it to Terran Empire ship format. If I still have the file (lost a lot in a hard disk crash), I can post it if you like. Probably will be in 5th Edition stats.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

you need these: TREK MINIS

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

First off, I just discovered this thread. So my apologies for the lateness of my post.

 

Second, I've bought all of the Future Armada deck plans, and used many of them quite successfully in a past (5th edition) Champions campaign. Attached is a PDF of the writeups I created for a decent handful of the ships, as well as CHE and nuclear missiles and decoy drones. (I handled missiles and drones as "Summoned" things, each with a separate character writeup.)

 

Please note that in my campaign, the alien invaders using these ships were a caste system, with the ruling caste being mentalists, so they made key systems (mainly engines) on their more powerful ships require a mentalist's presence onboard (to hinder potential rebellion by the lower caste). This Disadvantage can be easily dropped, as it was just in there for campaign world flavor more than anything else. (And it gave the PC mentalist a purpose on the ship, as the ship effectively recognized him as Captain.)

 

Also, on missiles and drones, I required a Susceptibility (3d6) if successfully Deflected by Point Defense Systems, to cover the missile getting destroyed by PD lasers.

 

For larger ship's shields, I had front, right, left, and rear (for smaller ships, just front and rear shields), considering top and bottom shields as the old "if a Force Wall is a complete circle, the top and bottom are covered." So I portioned out top and bottom shield damage to those areas, either randomly or based on the direction the shot was coming from.

 

On the Remora, I tried something semi-original (it's an idea I borrowed from Champsguy, who used to post on these boards). The Armor Plating was done as +15 DCV, Ablative, with the special effect that attacks aren't literally missing so much as getting deflected away. This meant the ship effectively could take a pounding from most weapons, but a highly accurate shot could hit areas not protected by the plating.

 

Also, I required a ship carrying smaller ships (including escape pods) to pay 5 points per doubling of ships carried, to represent landing bays, etc.

 

Not sure how closely they fit to the stats from Ryan's writeups, but they should generally be pretty close.

 

Anyway, here they are. Hope they're useful to somebody.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45672[/ATTACH]

[ki_ryn]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

I'm still a HERO newbie but I think the write ups look great! Thank you for sharing.

 

I asked the original question about gridded maps when I was considering the feasibility of making real posters out of some of the ships. I did a Kickstarter campaign for a poster of the Clydesdale class gunboat (from the Jo Lynn issue of Future Armada) and it went really well. I'm currently running my second campaign (a poster of the Grendel-class free trader from the Midnight Rose issue) and am looking forward to doing more. Knowing that the ships are getting used out there in real campaigns really inspires me to keep at it.

 

 

Ryan Wolfe

0-hr.com

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

I'm still a HERO newbie but I think the write ups look great! Thank you for sharing.

 

I asked the original question about gridded maps when I was considering the feasibility of making real posters out of some of the ships. I did a Kickstarter campaign for a poster of the Clydesdale class gunboat (from the Jo Lynn issue of Future Armada) and it went really well. I'm currently running my second campaign (a poster of the Grendel-class free trader from the Midnight Rose issue) and am looking forward to doing more. Knowing that the ships are getting used out there in real campaigns really inspires me to keep at it.

 

Yep, I participated in the Clydesdale Kickstarter (great turn-around time, by the way!) and am in the Grendel one as well. If I could nominate one for a future poster, I'd suggest the Gryphon (which worked great for my players' ship). Other ones that would work well as PC crafts are the Exeter tramp freighter and the Venture free trader. I haven't had a chance to use the Clydesdale poster in-game, but I know it would be faster to use than piecing together the map sections.

 

Fair warning: my writeups are geared for a Champions (superheroes) game, so I tried to balance ships' defenses and weapon damage with that of the heroes in my game. So I probably have both the ships' defenses and the weapons' damage a bit lower than they should be for a Star Hero game, but in my game the writeups I did worked perfectly. I even ran a few ship-to-ship combats to test how they would run, and I think they came out pretty well.

 

Most of your ships put in an appearance at some point (even if distantly). The ones that got the most use for me, most notably including map use, were:

 

Gryphon (player characters' stolen ship)

Vanguard Station (as an alien listening post boarded by the heroes twice)

Argos III Space Port (served perfectly as the UNTIL space station)

Orion Strike Carrier (alien command ship boarded by the heroes in a key battle)

Morningstar Corvette (two different ships boarded in two separate incidents)

Remora Boarding Craft (three of these were used to great effect to breach the walls of the Stronghold super-prison in an attempted prison break, and the heroes got aboard two of them)

Mercury prototype (as a separate alien race's vehicle stolen by the PCs enemies, that the PCs liberated to gain allies)

 

So yeah, I got my money's worth. Many thanks!

[ki_ryn]

Re: Are starship deckplans with a 1 inch grid usable?

 

Gryphon is very likely going to be the next poster. If it isn't, then it will will on the one after.

Eventually, I hope to have every ship that will fit on a poster, be on a poster - and that easily includes Exeter and Venture/Volatus. Of course the posters are the easy part. Turning them all into miniatures is a bit more involved...