Step 13: Adding It Up

When you finish with your first pass on a ship design, you’ll probably find that you’ve spent too many hull points or that your ship doesn’t have enough power to fight efficiently. You may need to throw out some features that seemed like interesting accessories, or possibly reduce the ship’s armament or defenses, to fit everything into the hull. Similarly, if the finances available in the campaign are a serious restriction, the ship may be too expensive to be practical.

You may need to look for cheaper alternatives to expensive systems.

THE FIRE DIAGRAM

You may find it useful to chart which firing arcs your ship’s weapons bear on. This is referred to as a firing diagram. First, you’ll need to code each type of weapon your ship carries.

Use the abbreviations below as a starting point, and add extras as you see fit.

MB—main battery

SB—secondary battery

TB—tertiary battery

ASM—antiship missile launcher SAM—antiair missile launcher

TT—torpedo tube

BB—bomb bay

Mark the general location of each weapon mount by drawing a small circle, square, or triangle in the right part of the diagram and coding it in the manner explained above. TRIANGLE – standard mount CIRCLE – turret or sponson SQUARE – missile or bomb launcher or rack Indicate which arc of fire the weapon bears on by drawing an arrow from the symbol to each arc it faces. If the weapon can fire into the zero-port or zero-starboard arcs, indicate this by marking a ‘z’ at the end of arrow.

Finally, if the weapon is a fixed mount, indicate this by marking a ‘f’ at the end of the arrow.

You can indicate multiple mounts simply by drawing one arrow per barrel extending from the mount symbol.

DAMAGE DIAGRAM

101 The final step of the ship construction process is to build your ship’s hit location chart. This chart indicates what systems on the ship are located near each other and might be endangered by hits to a particular portion of the ship’s hull. It’s intended to be somewhat abstract, since a hit in one part of a ship might cause cascading damage or systems failures in an entirely different part of the ship.

Step A: Define Zones

Every ship is broken up into a number of zones. A zone serves no purpose other than identifying roughly where in or on a ship a particular system is located. Small craft of 20 hull points or less have two zones: fore (F) and aft (A).

Small craft of more than 20 hull points have four zones: fore, forward center, aft center, and aft. These are marked F, FC, AC, and A. Light vessels have six zones: fore, forward center, port side, starboard side, aft center, and aft.

These are marked F, FC, P, S, AC, and A. Medium vessels have eight zones: fore, forward port side, forward center, forward starboard side, aft port side, aft center, aft starboard side, and aft, or F, FP, FC, FS, AP, AC, AS, and A. Heavy vessels have twelve zones: fore, forward center, forward port side, forward starboard side, midships port, center forward, midships starboard, aft port, center aft, aft starboard, aft center, and aft.

These are marked F, FC, FP, FS, P, CF, S, AP, CA, AS, AC, A. Super-heavy vessels have twenty zones. In addition to the twelve zones of a heavy vessel, super-heavy vessels add forward-forward center, forward-forward port and starboard, port center, starboard center, after-after port, after-after center, and after-after starboard.

These are abbreviated as F, FFP, FFC, FFS, FP, FC, FS, P, PC, CF, SC, S, AP, CA, AS, AAP, AC, AAS, AAC, and A.

Step B: Assign Systems

Every system on your ship needs to go somewhere. You have a great deal of liberty in deciding where a system goes, but here are some basic guidelines. Weapons can’t be placed in a zone that they couldn’t reasonably reach their arcs of fire from.

For example, a turret that is designated to fire forward, port, and starboard can’t be placed in any zone marked “aft” (or any zone including ‘aft’ as part of its title).

Hull Point Limits

102 No zone can contain systems whose hull point total exceed

See TABLE 5-18: H IT LOCATIONS AND ZONE LIMITS on the

the “zone” limit based on the hull type. For example, a bat-

tleship’s zone limit is 195 hull points, so the systems installed in a particular zone can’t exceed 195 hull points. Every zone must contain at least one system. Note that it’s risky to leave zones very lightly filled, since zones that are “shot through” in combat will permit fire to reach other parts of the ship.

Multiple Units

Not all systems of the same type need to go into the same zone. In fact, it’s advisable to distribute systems around the hull so that one lucky hit won’t take out all of a ship’s power, or its weaponry, or whatever. A ship with three power plants may choose to place them in three different zones, group them all together in one zone, or put one plant in one zone and two in another.

A ship with twenty crew bunkrooms may put ten in one zone, five more in another, and one each in five zones after that. Weapon systems will frequently be broken up to shoot into different arcs of fire. Systems that are whole-ship installations (defenses, recyclers or life support, and so on) may be distributed around

next page.

Step C: Organizing the Hit

Location Zones

After you assign each system on the ship to a particular zone, the next step is to create the order in which systems in that zone will be affected by enemy fire. In general, the following order should be used: • Weapons, from lightest to heaviest firepower • Defenses • Sensors • Comm systems • Fuel tanks • Hangars or Cargo • Accommodations • Miscellaneous • Support systems • Engines • Power plant • FTL drive • Command and computers • Next zone

the hull or concentrated in one zone. For example, a deflec-

tion inducer requires an installation of 1 hull point per 20 hull points of the ship to be protected. If the ship is 1,000 hull points, the deflection inducer requires 50 hull points. This can be described as one 50-hull point unit, five 10point units, ten 5-point units, or anything else that is reasonable.

The important thing to remember is this: A failure of any component of a whole-ship installation means that the whole installation fails.

Common Sense

Instead of attempting to legislate every possible arrangement of ship systems into particular zones, we recommend simply using your common sense. If you can reasonably imagine a ship with the arrangement you have in mind, it’s probably okay. If you have a hard time imagining how a ship with all of its life support systems concentrated in one zone out of twenty manages to provide a comfortable climate for every-

Most zones will only be fitted with two or three of these systems (although small ships will need to load up their hit location zones with a greater variety of equipment). The hierarchy here assumes that systems at or near the surface of the ship will be affected first by enemy fire, and systems deeper inside the ship will be affected later. Within each of these categories, you should designate an order based on the largest (and most likely to be struck) to the smallest system.

For example, if a crew bunkroom of 3 hull points and a passenger stateroom of 2 hull points occupy the same zone, the bunkroom goes first on the hit list. Weapons are an exception to this rule; lighter weapons usually have more exposed mountings than heavy weapons, so the smallest weapons are affected first.

Step D: Filling Out the Hit

Location Chart

one, you should break up the life support units into separate

installations and scatter them around the ship. Another good example of this is the “strategy of the myriad smalls.” A ship might devote hundreds of hull points to

Refer to the hit location chart in Chapter 2. Record which systems are located in each zone, and the hit location roll for each zone.

its engines to achieve a certain level of acceleration. These

could be described as one massive engine, a handful of reasonably sized engines, or many dozens of tiny engines. For the sake of sanity, you might decide that a battleship

AN EXAMPLE OF SHIP

CONSTRUCTION

can’t really be powered efficiently by a hundred fighter en-

gines. There is a tangible game benefit to using a number of fighter engines, since dozens of “extra” hit locations will be manufactured by this strategy. But it isn’t really in the spirit of the rules.

Let’s say that John has decided that his ALTERNITY game will be based around a large survey cruiser that visits new planets each week. His campaign is set at Progress Level 7, and all technologies except M (matter coding), T

(teleportation), and X (energy transformation) are available for this ship. John names the ship the Endurance, after Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship; most ships of a particular type share the same naming convention, and it seems reasonable to name his survey cruisers after the ships of famous explorers.

Fast freighter

Fast transport

Light Ships

Hauler

Industrial

Medium Ships

Medium freighter

Clipper

Medium transport

Heavy Ships

Tanker

Liner

Heavy transport

Super-heavy Ships

Super-freighter

Colony transport

Step 1: Class and Hull Selection

John decides that the heavy cruiser is a good hull to work from. The heavy cruiser hull has 400 hull points, plus an 103 additional 80 for economy of scale. The heavy cruiser is a medium hull, with medium toughness.

It costs 100 million credits.

Step 2: Armor

104 The Endurance is intended for long-range operation and ex-

Step 6: Support Systems

ploration instead of battle fleet operations—John decides that

medium armor is fine. Medium armor requires 5 percent of the ship’s hull points (20, in this case), so the Endurance now has 460 hull points remaining for other systems. He chooses neutronite armor as the best available at PL 7.

At 500,000 per hull point, the ship’s armor costs 10,000,000. The ship’s armor ratings are d6+1/d6+1/d6 vs. low impact, high impact, and energy attacks.

Step 3: Power Plant

John doesn’t know exactly how much power the Endurance is going to need, but a good guideline for a power plant is 10 to 15 percent of the hull, or a power output equal to about half the ship’s hull. The mass reactor is the best power plant available under his technology restraints, so he buys 72 hull points of mass reactors to generate 252 power points. John chooses to install these as 4 18-point reactors.

Each mass reactor costs 2 million to install and 4.5 million for its size, for a total expense of 26 million.

Step 4: Engines

The induction drive is the best engine available at PL 7. It takes a lot of power, but it offers tremendous acceleration and doesn’t need fuel. Referring to TABLE 5–4, John finds that allocating 15 percent of the hull to an induction drive will give the Endurance an acceleration of 3.

That’s pretty fast for a heavy cruiser, but John sees the Endurance as a ship designed for speed over protection or firepower. Fifteen percent of the ship’s hull is 60 hull points. The engine consumes 60 power points and costs 31 million.

John decides to split this into two 30-hull point engines, which increases the price to 32 million.

Step 5: FTL Drive

The Endurance definitely needs some kind of faster-thanlight drive; it’s a survey cruiser, after all. Since John’s already decided that the energy transformation and teleportation technologies aren’t available, the stardrive is the best remaining option. The stardrive requires 5 percent of the hull, or 20 hull points.

It takes 60 power points to activate the device, but this power only needs to be available to enter drivespace— the Endurance can shut off its induction engines or weapons systems to free up the power points for a starfall. With 60 power points, the Endurance can leap up to 20 light-years in one starfall; if all of the ship’s power is brought to bear, it can make a starfall of 39 light-years. A stardrive of 20 hull points costs 22 million credits.

This step includes four sub-steps: life support, artificial gravity, crew accommodations, and stores. John decides to equip the Endurance with complete life support. He wants the characters in his game to have the choice of wandering all over the ship without the inconvenience of suiting up for vacuum work.

At PL 7, each autosupport system covers 40 hull points; 10 will cover the entire ship. Life support takes 10 hull points, 10 power points, and costs 2 million. Artificial gravity isn’t a problem.

Since the Endurance is a PL 7 ship with access to Type G (gravity) tech, true artificial gravity is included in the life support system at no extra cost in hull points, power, or money. This protects the crew and the hull from deadly accelerations, and provides a comfortable 1G environment. Crew accommodations are a little tricky, since John doesn’t really know how many crewmembers the Endurance requires.

TABLE 5–1 recommends a crew of 300 for a heavy cruiser, so John elects to buy accordingly. Twelve 20-man crew bunkrooms, eight 6-man crew quarters (for senior enlisted hands and junior officers), and nine 2-passenger staterooms (for the department heads and commanding officer) total 306 crew accommodations. These require a total of 70 hull points and cost 2,600,000 credits.

The En durance may have up to 29 airlocks installed as part of its crew berthing and general accessibility. Since the Endurance provides quarters for 306 crewmembers, it carries 30,600 days of stores, which will be consumed in about three months. John wants to increase this drastically; equipping the ship with recycler units is the best way to do that.

Fifteen recycler units reduce the consumption of 306 crewmembers to just around 30. At that rate, it will take 1,000 days—almost three years—to deplete the ship’s stocks of food, water, and oxygen. The recycler units take 15 hull points, 15 points of power, and cost 4.5 million credits.

Step 7: Weapons

The Endurance is primarily an exploration vessel, not a battle-line warship, but it still needs some serious weaponry for self-defense. First, John installs a main battery of 6 matter beams, organized into two triple-mount turrets. Each cannon costs 25 million and takes up 14 hull points after the turret penalty is figured in.

However, in a triple mount, three guns take up the space and have the cost of two guns mounted singly. So, instead of spending 84 hull points and 150 million, the triple mounts reduce the cost to 55 hull points and 100 million. The beams consume 11 points of power each.

John decides that one turret is mounted to fire forward, port, and starboard, while the other is mounted to fire aft, port, and starboard. Next, John decides to install something for an extra punch. He decides that two plasma torpedoes in fixed

mounts are fairly economical for space and power, and provide the Endurance with a heavy-firepower weapon. In a fixed mount, each torpedo only takes 8 hull points and costs 7.5 million credits. It uses 15 power points.

Finally, John arms the Endurance with a secondary battery of 18 mass cannon in triple turrets. A single mass cannon requires 2 hull points, 3 power points, and 300,000 credits. Mounting the weapons in turrets raises this to 3 hull points and 375,000 each.

However, the triple mount means that three weapons count for two in terms of space and money, so only twelve of the eighteen add to the ship’s space requirements and construction costs. The mass cannon battery totals 30 hull points, 54 power, and 4.5 million. John distributes the turrets around the ship so that three each cover the zero-port and zero-starboard arcs, three each cover the port and starboard arcs, four bear forward, and two bear aft. (Each turret bears in three arcs.) The mass cannon should serve well against enemy missiles and small craft.

The armament may be a little light for a heavy cruiser, but you’ll recall that the Endurance carries full life support and recycling, and she’s fast. Combat is a secondary role, but watch out for the plasma torpedo! John realizes that he’s running short on power at this point.

He’ll need more to fight the ship effectively. He returns to Step 3 and increases the power plant from 72 hull points to 84 hull points.

Step 8: Defenses

John needs to give the Endurance some high-tech defenses. The particle screen is probably the best bet at PL 7, but John decides that it takes too much power and space, and settles for the deflection inducer as his ship’s primary defense. Since the Endurance is a cruiser of 400 hull points, it needs 20 inducers.

This takes 20 hull points and 40 points of power, and costs 10 million. He also equips the ship with a jammer. The jammer requires 4 hull points and 4 power points to cover a ship of 400 hull points; the cost for the system is 400,000.

John would like to get some damage control, but he has other systems he needs to address first. All ships are assumed to have some amount of integral damage control, anyway. Step 9: Command, Computers, and Communications John starts by buying a command deck for the Endurance, one of the few systems that’s mandatory for a starship.

This takes 6 hull points, and costs 1.8 million. Next, John he buys the best suite of computers available. He chooses a Good computer core, Good fire control computers for each of the three weapon batteries, three Good sensor computers, a Good tactical control computer, and a Good navigation control computer (Note that John doesn’t know exactly how much the sensor control computers will cost until he actually buys his ship’s sensors; we filled this in early.)

Finally, John equips the Endurance with a communication suite of 4 radio transceivers and 2 mass transceivers. These take up 4 hull points and cost 300,000. If all comm systems are in use at the same time (a rare event), they 105 consume 6 power points.

Step 10: Sensors

Since the whole point of a survey cruiser is to gather information, John lavishes money on the ship’s sensors. He starts with a multiband radar, purchased four times to cover all four arcs, then purchased four more times to increase tracking from 40 contacts to 200 contacts at once. Then he purchases a backup multiband radar to cover all four arcs with tracking up to 120 contacts.

Next, he purchases a mass detector and an EM detector, expands their coverage to four arcs, and buys up their tracking to 120 contacts. He finishes with a hi-res video system for all four arcs, and then a spectroanalyzer (useful for scientific work of all kinds). The sensors total 16 hull points and 19 power points.

Step 11: Hangars and Small Craft

What’s a survey cruiser without a couple of small shuttlecraft? While John would love to embark a number of launches or fighters on board the Endurance, there just isn’t room. He decides to settle for two launches, which require a hangar of 16 hull points. (He’ll design the launches later.) A hangar of 16 hull points costs 500,000.

Step 12: Miscellaneous

Installations

Now for the final details. First, John wants to make sure that the player characters have plenty of opportunities to get off the ship if it ever gets blown to pieces by enemy action. He installs an evacuation system capable of handling 300 crew members, which takes 13 hull points in addition to the basic 4 hull points of the installation, a total of 17 hull points.

He has 14 hull points left to fill. In addition to the evacuation system, John purchases a brig, a fabrication facility, a lab section, a sick bay, and a cargo hold to round out the Endurance. With one hull point left over, he decides to install a security suite that covers 40 hull points of the ship—probably the command deck, the computer room, and a few other important areas.

John figures he’ll decide exactly what is covered later on. None of the miscellaneous systems are exactly lavish, but each adds some basic functionality to the hull: security, a small hospital, science facilities, repair facilities, and a hundred cubic meters of cargo space. You never know what you might need in deep space exploration.

John could go back and fiddle with the design to make more room for special facilities, but he decides that the basic plan is sound. The Endurance is done. The final

12x crew bunkroom 8x crew quarters 6x staterooms 15x recyclers 1 fixed plasma torpedo 6x3 mass cannon turret 4x jammer 2x mass transceivers 4x radio transceivers

Computer core, Good

3x Fire control, Good

Tactical control, Good

Nav control, Good

3x Sensor control, Good Multiband radar #2

Mass detector

EM detector

Hi-res video

Spectroanalyzer

Brig

Lab section

Sick bay

Fabrication facility

Cargo hold

Security suite

DAMAGE D IAGRAM

The Endurance

quarters, lab section, recycler (6 pts), autosupport (4 pts), power plant #1

FP Mass cannon turret #2, mass cannon turret #4, radio transceiver, evac system (4 pods), bunkroom, bunkroom, crew

quarters, stateroom, stateroom, recycler (3 pts)

FC Matter beam turret A, jammer, multiband radar #1, mass detector, spectroanalyzer, evac system (main—4 pods),

crew quarters, recycler (3 pts), power plant #2, stardrive

FS Mass cannon turret #1, mass cannon turret #3, radio transceiver, evac system (4 pods), bunkroom, bunkroom, crew

quarters, stateroom, stateroom, recycler (3 pts)

AP Mass cannon turret #6, radio transceiver, evac system (4 pods), bunkroom, bunkroom, crew quarters, stateroom,

autosupport (3 pts), induction engine #2

AC Matter beam turret X, deflection inducer, multiband radar #2, EM detector, evac system (4 pods), sick bay, power

plant #3, command deck, security suite, computer core and control computers

AS Mass cannon turret #5, radio transceiver, evac system (4 pods), bunkroom, bunkroom, crew quarters, stateroom,

autosupport (3 pts), induction engine #1

fabrication facility, power plant #4

price tag is over 370 million credits. Major warships aren’t cheap!

The Damage Diagram

Everything fits in the hull, there’s enough power to run everything that needs to run at the same time, and John doesn’t have any financial constraints to discourage him from a 372 million cruiser. The last step for the En durance is to allocate systems to hit locations. What’s where, in general terms?

John refers to TABLE 5–18 and discovers that, as a Medium ship, the Endurance must divide its systems into eight zones or locations. Since the ship is a heavy cruiser, it cannot hold more than 96 hull points worth of systems in any single zone. He begins by placing the weapons, since they’re the first priority on the hit chart anyway.

The matter beam turrets are pretty clearly in central locations, with one facing forward and one facing aft, so John selects the FC and AC (forward center and aft center) zones for the big guns. The plasma torpedo is a fixed mount weapon firing forward; John puts in the F (forward) section. Since the mass cannon turrets are arranged with 4 covering the front and sides and 2 covering the stern and sides, John puts two turrets each in the FP and FS (forward port and forward starboard) zones, and one turret each in the AP and AS zones.

Next come defenses. John decides to keep the deflection inducer as one big 20-point installation; breaking it up into a number of small installations is a poor idea, since a hit against any of the deflection inducers will knock down the shields for the whole ship. It’s better to reduce the chance of the deflection inducer being hit at all by limiting its exposure to a single zone, so John drops it in the AC zone.

Sensors and communications systems John scatters around the ship, with a preference toward the FC and AC zones—the hit chart for a Medium ship tends to shelter these locations a little more than the other areas of the ship. He places the hangar in the aft section, since it’s pretty big and it needs to go somewhere.

Since the evacuation system is prioritized as a hangar, John scatters escape pods all over the ship. Unlike the deflection inducer, this makes sense: it doesn’t matter if a small number of evacuation pods are destroyed, it 107 doesn’t really affect the functionality of the entire system, so he might as well disperse them. Accommodations deserve a similar treatment, as do the ship’s support systems.

Finally, John gets to the major engineering systems: engines, power plants, and the FTL drive. There’s no reason he couldn’t place all of them in the front of the ship, the back of the ship, or the port side, but it suits his sense of aesthetics to balance out these systems and protect them in the middle of the ship as best he can. He places the two big induction engines in the AS and AP zones, even though he’d rather hide them in the center of the ship.

But the forward center and aft center sections are getting pretty full, and John decides he wants to use them to protect more important systems. The power plants he places in the four centerline zones: F, FC, AC, and A. Enemy fire may take out one of the power plants pretty easily, but the only way the En durance could lose power altogether is if the entire ship is riddled to the point of uselessness.

John places the stardrive in the FC section, which almost fills that section to its limit (91 hull points installed out of a maximum of 96). Finally, John finishes by placing the command deck, security suite, and the ship’s computers in the AC zone. The AC zone is pretty full, too, at 95 out of 96 hull point maximum.

Overall, the Endurance is very symmetrically arranged, even though this is not a requirement at all. Its weapons are placed in areas that would logically be useful considering the assigned arcs of fire. Nonvital systems are dispersed around the ship, while a handful of critical systems are buried in the relatively safe center areas.

It’s a pretty good arrangement, and one that could be easily rendered into a map or deckplan with a little work and artistic license.

CHAPTER 6: STATIONS AND BASES

108 Spaceships aren’t the only platforms for weapons, sen-

Ground Base

sors, docking facilities, and other such tasks that exist in a

science fiction setting. Space stations and ground bases often have many of the same missions and capabilities, and are even more commonplace than large warships or commercial ships. A space station is basically a ship without engines—and, to extend the analogy, a ground base is a ship without engines or life support (although that depends on the local conditions).

Note: This final chapter of Warships was not completed before the cancellation of the product line. However, we include these sections as originally written, along with TABLE 6-1 below, to serve as a good starting point for you to use to develop your own stations and bases.

FACILITIES

In very general terms, there are three types of stations: ground bases, outposts, and space stations. You might also consider any kind of industrial complex or settlement to be a potential station or base, but that exceeds the scope of this product.

Light

Medium

Heavy Ships

Super-heavy Ships

Super Platform 10000 (+5000) 500 1000

A ground base consists of a good-sized stretch of land on which a number of free-standing buildings and structures have been built. Usually, a ground base is located on a planetary surface with environmental conditions more or less suitable for human life, but a large base with sealed buildings and bunkers linked by subterranean transit tubes could be built on airless worlds. Ground bases may be built for a number of reasons: supply depots, naval repair and refueling, observation, defense, scientific research, heavy industry, trade and commerce, or even just habitation.

Ground bases can exceed the size of even the largest starships. A major defensive complex and naval base might sprawl for hundreds of kilometers, ringed by powerful bunkers and dotted with hardened shelters for grounded ships. Small ground bases are cheap compared to spaceships; they can make use of bulky and inexpensive materials such as reinforced concrete or fused rock.

The largest ground bases may cost three or four times as much as a fortress ship and beggar a galactic civilization. Table 6-1: Stations and Bases

Hull Points: The number of hull points available in this type, representing its capacity for installing systems. The first num-

ber is the basic hull point total, the number in parenthesis is the bonus hull point total.

Tough: The installation’s toughness rating.

Target: The installation’s basic resistance modifier to enemy fire, based on its size.

5% and 10%: This is the number of hull points a system requiring 5 or 10 percent of the hull requires. This information is

simply a shortcut to save you time and effort. Note that you can add them to get 15 percent, double the 10 percent score to

get 20 percent, etc., etc.

S, W, M, C: The installation’s Stun, Wound, Mortal, and Critical damage tracks.

Crew: For information purposes only, a general estimate of how many crewmen a typical installation of this size requires.

Cost: The cost of the hull, in credits, Concord dollars, or the appropriate currency for your campaign.

Outpost

An outpost is a sealed structure built on or in a significant body—a planet, moon, or asteroid. While a ground base is really a collection of buildings sharing a common purpose, an outpost is more like a spaceship built on the ground. It’s designed to protect its inhabitants from the environment around them, and it’s usually placed in a location that no one would want to live in if there wasn’t some overriding reason to be there.

Like a spaceship, an outpost can be pictured as a collection of systems all located in the same general vicinity. Outposts are cheaper than spacecraft of similar size, since bulky but inexpensive materials such as concrete and rock can be used freely in their construction. An outpost doesn’t need engines and doesn’t have to worry about drifting into the nearest gravity well if seriously damaged by enemy fire.

Since outposts (and ground bases, for that matter) don’t have to devote space and equipment to mobility, they are more heavily armed and armored than a similarly sized spacecraft. In fact, it’s downright dangerous to attack a serious defensive installation. But the base can’t ever run away, and the enemy always knows where to find it.

Space Stations

Compared to an outpost or ground base, a space station is more expensive and more vulnerable. So why build a space station when an outpost would do? First, not all planets or positions are suitable for bases or outposts.

A space station has to compensate for a number of hostile factors—vacuum, climate control, and radiation, among others—and these factors can be defeated competently by any civilization capable of building vessels for space travel. But the engineering challenges posed by building in the atmospheres of Jovian worlds or the murderous temperature extremes of Mercurian worlds may not be so easily conquered. A space station orbiting the planet in question can perform many of the same functions as a ground base, and be easier to build and operate too.

Secondly, space stations are mobile. Even if they lack propulsion of their own, it’s possible to tow most space stations to new positions once they’ve outlived their usefulness in their original position. Ground bases are much less portable.

Next, many facilities or industries are more efficient in zero-G than they would on the ground. For example, the size of a drydock or cradle offers serious constraints to the size of a spaceship that can be built in a ground-based shipyard, but an orbital shipyard can make use of zero-G construction techniques to build much bigger ships. Finally, there are tactical advantages to a position in orbit or in open space.

The space station’s sensors don’t have permanent blind spots behind the bulk of a planet, or distortions due to atmospheric interference. Ground forces from a hostile planet can’t attack a space station, and the

indigenous population of a primitive world may never even detect an orbital station if the visitors overhead don’t want

MISSIONS

For purposes of Warships, a base or station exists to perform one of four basic missions: defense, observation, spaceport, or shipyard. While there are many other reasons to build an outpost or a space station, these four reasons have the most bearing on the action and support of major warships.

Defense

This is perhaps the simplest mission to describe. A base or station designed for defensive purposes is armed with heavy anti-ship weapons and sited in some location where enemy vessels are not welcome. Defensive stations may be placed to support the passive defense of a star system or planet, much like the coastal fortresses and shore batteries of a seagoing navy.

Defensive stations can also assume an offensive role by interdicting an enemy planet, system, or transit route. Two battle platforms towed into opposing orbits around an enemy planet would form a fairly effective blockading force, while a battle station protecting a wormhole or stargate of some kind could very easily bar the passage of enemy ships. If the science of the campaign allows for the creation of chokepoints in space, some specific place where spaceships must pass in order to reach other locations, a powerful star-fortress may be able to completely immobilize enemy movements.

The measure of a defense station’s capability is pretty simple: How much weaponry does it support, and how resistant is it to enemy fire? Defense bases or stations may range from a small missile battery or a pair of fusion beams in a hardened bunker to titanic orbital battle-stations capable of standing off a squadron of battleships.

Defensive Systems

Type Zero: none

Type One: Type Two: sparse defense network

Type Three: small network

Type Four: armed space stations Type Five: planetary shields, advanced satellites and weaponry

Shipyard

Shipyards are a special type of ground base or space station. Any ship bigger than a corvette or light freighter requires a major shipyard for its construction. The construction of a large ship is not only a highly technical process, but also a process requiring the ability to manipulate thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of tons of the toughest and most durable materials around.

The industrial machinery re-

quired to fashion hundreds of precisely shaped hull plates or 110 structures weighing hundreds of tons is immense. Mills, re-

armored turret assemblies or induction engines from a plan-

fineries, power plants, and manufacturing facilities capable of

producing each component of the new vessel limit a planet’s ability to rapidly construct large numbers of big ships.

et’s surface to high orbit is obviously a difficult process. However, a serious space-based manufacturing capability allows the shipyard to build and outfit these components without lifting anything other than people from the planet below.

Most large shipyards are located in one of three places:

high orbit around an industrialized planet, a stable trailing or-

bit (or LaGrange point) a few million kilometers away, or in

the vicinity of an asteroid belt. While planet-bound shipyards are still quite common, it’s much easier for very large ships to be built in lowor zero-gravity conditions. The disadvantage of working in space, of course, is the fact that the work force must be housed somewhere near their job, and that power, materials, and supplies must be provided to the site of the work.

Lifting extremely massive sub-components like

APPENDIX: SPACE COMBAT HEX MAPS

STATIONS IN COMBAT

Hits in one zone of a ground base never “bleed through” to another zone, unless the attacking weapon is an area effect device. In other words, when Building 1 has been pulverized, leftover damage does not spill over and wreck Building 2. This is because most ground bases make use of the local terrain and the lack of space constraints to disperse important structures.

Subsequent hits that strike the same “zone” are basically wasted. The last two pages of this book offer hex maps for use in playing out space combat scenarios. Both a color and a black-and-white version are presented here; we recommend using the “negative” (white) version for photocopying.

You can use starship miniatures or even tokens or coins to represent the ships of each sidde.

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Table 5-18: Hit Locations and Zone Limits