cbullard

The Enterprise sure as **** is a military vessel. They have a military system of ranks and chain of command. They operate under military discipline. They are tried, when necessary, in a court *martial*, not a civilian court. The ship is heavily armed, and provides military defense for the area of space in which it operates. The Captain is vested with the power, on his own authority, to wage WAR on other powers. That is a military vessel, no matter how much they may pretend otherwise. And none of this a "rewriting" of Starfleet--this is all straight out TOS.

The French resistance during WWII was a partisan force. Starfleet is nothing at all like a small, loosely organized, woefully under-funded guerilla force. They were the Federation’s “space navy”, military from top to bottom, with civilian vessels integrated into non-combat roles where it made sense.
 
The Enterprise, along with its mission, did not represent the primary function of Starfleet. In fact, its mission was highly specialized. Starfleet’s primary function was the defense of the Federation. I don’t know why “defense” is perceived as unmilitary by some folks here, but any organization created and mustered for combat operations is a military regardless of its interest—or lack thereof—in conquest.

Keep telling yourself that. Ignore the existence of General Order 24, by which Kirk threatened to "sterilize the planet" in one episode, or the fact that the Enterprise had the firepower to do it. Never mind the canonical fact--which I mentioned--that Enterprise D was the linchpin of the Federation's defense plans, and all the rest of it. Star Fleet *is* military. A slidshod, half-assed military most of the time. But still the military.

TNG, and the series that followed, quietly retconned/rewrote quite a number of established elements in order to tell stories to a rather different audience (i.e., the casual sci-fi fan) who had no knowledge of or use for TOS canon. It’s one reason why I don’t particularly care for the Star Trek that Berman Built.
 
It also seems that the massive shift in direction and tone, starting with TNG, has made fans forget that Starfleet was originally, first, and foremost a military entity. The Federation is the governing body, and Starfleet is its primary military arm. Just because Picard thought every aggressor could be dealt with rationally and diplomatically doesn’t mean Starfleet had ceased to serve a military function. If it had, then Wolf 359 could never have happened.

Historically civilian shipyard workers have deployed on board in order to complete critical repairs (e.g. USS Yorktown in 1942).  Even today it is not unusual to find civilian contractors on board Navy vessels to fix existing junk or install new junk.  Taken to its logical extreme you could outsource any non-combat function to a civilian--mess hall, medical, unsecured comms, maintenance and housekeeping, laundry, research, and so on.

Hero System Skills 6E, page 50 discusses the Talent "Universal Scholar":
 
"Universal Scholar costs 20 Character Points.
For that cost, the character has an INT Roll with
any Knowledge Skill of the “Average” category (see
the Knowledge Skill Category Table on page 210).
For every step up or down the table, he suffers a -2
penalty to his INT Roll to know a fact associated
with a KS of that category (for example, for a KS
pertaining to an Incredibly Broad category, he’d
make his INT Roll at -8; for a KS of an Unimagin-
ably Precise category, he’d make an INT Roll at
-12)..."
 
The character/AI can improve their roll with Skill Levels and other modifiers (e.g., taking extra time, etc.).

You have already stated my suggestion: Activation roll.  Call it Knowledge: 14-  or whatever, but for anything outside of whatever KS or sciences you may have bought specifically, roll to see if it knows about it.  If it does, make a note of that.   
 
 

Yeah a skill or INT roll for data is a simple, logical way of doing it.   Just give them KS: (appropriate data) and then bonuses for stuff you figure they ought to know.

Let's not forget the value of intimidation. Someone coming at you with 3 feet of sharpened steel is a pretty scary sight (Yes, the guys in the video are using sticks, but that's for practice and demonstration purposes). Extra points for being loud. Edit: This style is Jigen Ryu.
 
 

Re: Planets not orbiting stars
 
Space Pirates! Tortuga Base!
 
Tortuga means "turtle." Turtle in space.
 
Great A'tuin?
 
. . . Lack of sleep noticeable . . .

Why swords (or other bladed weapons) in sci-fi settings?

I'll just go with a comment from one of Terry Pratchett's books:  "His gun will run out of bang before my knife runs out of sharp."

Why swords (or other bladed weapons) in sci-fi settings?

I'll just go with a comment from one of Terry Pratchett's books:  "His gun will run out of bang before my knife runs out of sharp."

I almost do, too.
 
Keeping in mind that this was the first movie-- the setup for all the mythos, etc...  without that little speech (strike me down / stronger blah blah blah), Kenobi's death is pointless in terms of plot relevance, and a considerable amount of interest and tension in that scene is lost. 
 
Maybe it's because I'm more of a reader than a movie-goer, but no matter how fancy your effects are, character interaction is where a story is made, and the success or failure of that story will always depend far more on that than the amount of CGI you pump into the visuals.
 
 

Also, even sci-fi characters look cool doing this.
 
 

Re: What FTL Drives do people use in their campaigns? And what techno bable do you us
 
I will use the Bachman-Turner "Overdrive".

Workaround for that.
 
Give your ship megascale Stretching with an invisible power effect for it. 
 
Then buy the Clinging.  
 
If you want to have more than one target at once for your tractor beam, buy Extra Limbs.
 
< insert Klingon joke here >
 
Cling to the desired target with one limb. Cling to a nearby asteroids, planets, and/or ships with other limbs. 
 
Make the enemy ship have to tow everything along if it wants to get away. Or at least exceed your ship's STR.

My Battletech mercenary group is named "Kzin Cousins" in honor of the Kzinti race and their emblem is a tiger's paw print.
 
I wish that Paramount could have used Kzinti but the legal battles surrounding THAT would have blown anyone's minds since they'd have had to deal with SFB and Niven (and maybe Niven's publishers).

Well to explain I need to fill in some background info.  Now this is with a very broad brush and not intended to cover everything.  We all know original Star Trek ran three seasons in the 60’s and then basically disappeared.  It would run on syndicated TV, but was mostly forgotten.  Gaming was a very very niche hobby, ignored at best, ridiculed at worst.   In 1979 a company came out with a combat game based on Star Trek ship to ship combat.  The details of their license/rights are another story and will not be covered here beyond that at the time they had creative control to expand things.  The game was called Star Fleet Battles and over the years they identified and then expanded pretty much all the factions of the Star Trek universe with particular details for their fleets.  A lot of care was given to the concept of “form follows function” or each races starships structural designs were due to that races technology and science.  Like all aircraft tend to resemble each other if they have similar tech, all jets in the 50’s tend to look alike and so on.  The fleet lists they built up closely followed the logic of real world navies in that they had small ships like patrol vessels and corvettes up through various cruisers to battleships and dreadnoughts.  Science vessels, scouts and cargo ships plus bases and outposts were all covered as applicable to that “race”. 
 
Key point was “as applicable to that race".  In order to answer that, they had to develop a background for each race or faction.  Federation, Klingon Empire, Tholians, Gorn, Kzinti, Hydrians, Romulans, etc were all built out.  And they were all closely based on the original series and the handful of books at the time.  The SFB Universe timeline runs for hundreds of years and multiple wars.  When Paramount revived Star Trek they did not anticipate the existence of SFB.  There was a legal battle, of which I do not know the details, but the company that owns Star Fleet Battles is still there and they cannot use the term Star Trek and except for a handful of Starships in the original show, Paramount wasn’t able to use any of SFB’s ship designs beyond general shapes.  In the original Trek universe (TOS and early books) Klingons were a the descendants of a slave race that were their masters security and slave overseers that revolted and overthrew the “masters”.  They didn’t destroy the empire, but took over and maintenance control over all the other slave races.   That is why all the earlier Klingon ships designs had all those security stations and separate Klingon quarters and control centers from the rest of the ship.  Their technology wasn’t actually theirs, but appropriated from their previous masters and they were expansionist driven because they needed conquest to maintain power and resources.
 
I suspect that because of all the details and “history” established by the SFB Universe, when Paramount kicked off TNG they were not able to use any of it.  So, we saw radical changes to things. Klingons became a honor based warrior culture with cloaking devices as native tech instead of jealously guarded “loans”.  Most of the logical hull progression could not be used so we see ones that are similar in basic shape.  I think this is why FASA’s Star Trek game came up with so many bizarre designs. Don't get me wrong, while I really like the SFB ships concepts and tech, I also really like a lot of Paramount's Trek such as Klingons.
 
All of this digression leads me to the Gorns.
 
In SFB the Gorns are one of the powers.  They are not fast or nimble, but they make up any lack of finesse by being big and very very tough.  No starship wants to get within grips of a hostile Gorn warship.  In SFB, a ship that is tractored cannot launch missiles or small craft, but it can fire weapons with only restriction being they may only fire at the tractoring ship.  SFB is also a game that hinges on power management and you only have so much power to go around.  Since Gorns are slow and ponderous, a common tactic by other races is to make fast passes and wear them down from range.  Enter the “Gorn Anchor”.  As the enemy vessel makes its pass, a Gorn ships will divert all power to facing Shields, the Tractor Beam and Drives.  Lunge out and slap a tractor on the passing ship.  Once locked on, the Gorn then reverses drives and drags the target to a slow crawl while hunkered down behind its usually large reinforced shields.  This of course allows the other Gorn ships to waddle up and pound the former starship into scrap in short order.  Rinse, Repeat.   When a Gorn squadron or flotilla turtles up, it is very expensive proposition to try and engage them. Not to mention if you get too close you suddenly find yourself snared and shortly thereafter a cloud of expanding gas and debris.
 
The SFU has it's own RPG, several wargames and a really interesting history. 

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year
 

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year
 

 
So your supplies include long-storage MREs (or the equivalent) sufficient in quantity to see you through a crop failure, and...plenty of seeds with different pedigrees in case of a blight. A single point of failure is always bad design, but there are work-arounds.

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year
 

 
I know your main question is with weight and bulk, but I have a suggestion for the mechanic itself. Have it cost END and run on a battery. Peg the speed and recovery on tech level. ie enough food (measured in END points) for twenty five people for say six months, but the recovery would take say a year, at "early" tech, while better tech would bring it down to nine, then six months (the break even point); Then at higher tech you actually have a bit of "spare" - until you invent replicators, and the problem goes away.
 
This allows your characters to go on "half rations" at need; and to barter surplus, if that interests them, later.

Ah, okay.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.

As for the limitations, almost every single one that could be applied to TK would also be applicable for Clinging, and you're starting with such a significantly lower AP value.
 
Regardless, the point was never meant to be, "TK for Tractor Beams is bad!"  It was just meant as, "Here's another alternative to consider, that costs WAY less."

The primary issue with Hero and vehicles is they, just like several RPG's out there, chose to use the "vehicles as characters" method. 
Or as I like to call it "cop out method".  
 
The easiest way to avoid the issue is to outline a basic less than minimum vehicle/ship "character sheet" and then say "build them like a character".   Maybe toss in a few charts with vehicle'ish stuff in it.  That is pretty much the approach of the modern RPG.  It kinda works in rules lite games, especially ones that are just this side of coin flipping like Fate.  But in the end you usually fine droves of people in those systems home brewing "ship" rules.  The days of games taking the time to actually design vehicle/ship rules appears to be behind us.  Which is probably the reason we see so many people "borrowing" from games like Traveller.
 
My "new" personal approach is a complete paradigm shift for me. 
 
For smaller personal vehicles (motorcycle, speeder, car, fighter) the vehicle is a direct extension of the player "operating" it than a "character". 
For larger vehicles (ships) the vehicle is more like a location the PC move around in.  Like a Inn, Tavern or Castle.
 
Why try to write them up as characters. 
I have started experimenting with ships as "locations" that the players occupy and can perform functions at different stations.  Ship movement is more of a narrative descriptor than moving around on the map. 
 
An example of what I mean in the Star Wars universe of the OP. 
 
PC's are flying X-Wing's versus a IMP Frigate. 
The X-Wings (being one person small cockpit no room to walk about fighters) are represented just like I would do Ironman's suit as a added unified power on their regular character sheet. 
The Frigate is a ship.  Very large when compared to people and PC's.  It is just a location (with at least a general deckplan so the PC's can board and run around if they wish).  While narrative'wise it will be described and zooming along and maneuvering, the only actual on the table moving it can do is roll or change direction S L O W L Y.  Instead the PC's X-Wings will swoop around the Frigate, because they are FAR faster and maneuverable.  For "stats" I don't really go to far into details and I don't point it out at all.  I just assign values.  Six shields each at X ED.  So many turrets at X EB.  And so on.  For my players I need ot devote far more details to the crew because as soon as the Frigate Drive is disabled they will be boarding. 
 
But the main point is the "ship" is really not much different than a D&D Inn or Dungeon.  It is a location that has defenses that the PC's have to enter and move around in and do stuff.  Try to match up Player movement and action with ship/vehicle action is where most things fall apart.
 
Small vehicles = add-ons to the PC themselves.
Large vehicles (ships) = locations that narratively move
 
Just some thoughts and ideas.

Long-ago AD&D campaign, we had a high-level female monk in the party.  Big Hulking Brute guarding/blocking the way we need to go, refusing to let us by.
 
Monk: "So what you're saying is, none may pass?"
 
Guard: "That's right.  None may pass."
 
Monk:  "That's okay, then.  I'm a nun."  and quickly stepped around him.  His face had the expression of someone who just KNEW he was going to get into trouble, but he couldn't quite figure out why...

Long-ago AD&D campaign, we had a high-level female monk in the party.  Big Hulking Brute guarding/blocking the way we need to go, refusing to let us by.
 
Monk: "So what you're saying is, none may pass?"
 
Guard: "That's right.  None may pass."
 
Monk:  "That's okay, then.  I'm a nun."  and quickly stepped around him.  His face had the expression of someone who just KNEW he was going to get into trouble, but he couldn't quite figure out why...