Campaign starter

[Robbert Raets]

Greetings, fellow officers.
It is my pleasure to soon begin my first STTTNGRPG campaign: DupleX
It involves the U.S.S. Gemini, NX 7-1701 (constructor's joke - it's actually the Enterprise-D's saucer attached to some other scrapped galaxy's)
The Gemini is supposed to be a 'runner up' for the Prometheus, with warp engines built into the saucer section.

Anybody care to phaser my idea down?

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Does Satan have hair of his own, or will there be Helltoupee?

[SIR SIG]

How so?

The pun could create quite a design lineage for starters.

What do you mean by runner up to Prometheus? That its a newer design with cool tech or...?

Or that it actually has little nacelles coming from the saucer on seperation?

Other then that, sounds an interesting premise.

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'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk

[Robbert Raets]

By 'runner up' I mean that it's a testbed for the multi-vector attack mode. (With extra torpedo tubes in the saucer, and yes, warp nacelles under it, kinda like the Nebula design.)

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Does Satan have hair of his own, or will there be Helltoupee?

[Robbert Raets]

Thanks for the response, by the way.
I have very little self-esteem.

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"Never give up, never surrender!"
- Commander Peter Quincy Taggart,
NSEA Protector
(Galaxy Quest)

[Tarbas]

mmhh to be honest..
I never were a fan of the Prometheus idea. The hole design and the ship seemed to me like a "toy for boys".
But I must say that such a ship would be a good platform for a RPG because you have three ships instead of one. You cann easily split your crew and every player can take part in the active battle (flying the ship e.g.)
So if your players like the prometheus or the idea of the ship:
Just do it!

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www.StarTrek-AlphaSquad.de -
"United they stand"

[Robbert Raets]

*bump for ghosty the lawyer*

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[calguard66]

First off... go with what works for you.

However, the whole MVAM concept doesn't work at all for me.

You have to duplicate (triplicate?) all essential systems in each component. You require almost triple the essential crew. You lose space and mass to connection equipment and hull reinforcement.

Better to build 3 ships that just always fly around together.

[Lancer]

As I see it there could be two main reasons to use a MVAM ship in the game:

1. To have a cool, innovative ship to toy around with.
2. To assault a target from different angles and/or give you the capacity to perform several missions at once.

[list=1][*]If you want to have some cool new technology in the game why don't you just use a Prometheus-class ship or maybe a Sovereign? While using the E-D saucer would be a nice touch for the game and get you some 'ahh' and 'ohh cool' effects early in the game it looks a bit like putting old wine in new bottles. (Apart from the heavy damage Styro pointed out.)[*]Using a modified Galay-class as a MVAM craft has certain disadvantages, the major one IMO being that you would use the saucer section in heavy battles. The whole idea about the saucer separation was to get the crew and civilian passengers to safety while the battle sections fights it out with the enemy. If you place the saucer (even with heavier weapons and warp drive) in combat side-by-side with the engineering-section you place a whole lot of crewbeings in danger, instead of getting them out of it.
If you want to use the multiple-craft capacity of such a ship for exploration and peacefull missions then I guess you would be better of with more auxiliary craft (Talons, Runabouts) on a conventional starship. That gives you a lot of options without taking too many additional crew or duplicating key systems.[/list=1]

But as calguard pointed out: It's your game, so go with what works for you.

And why don't you tell us a little more about this game you're gonna start, like adventure ideas, etc.?

[Captain Zymmer]

While not a fan of the Prometheus, I know what it can be like to search for that perfect ship.

That said your idea seems fine to me, with no reason to shoot it down just yet

[ghosty]

Oh...he published it in April 2001...hmmm...not active on this board at the relevant time which means I did not read the post. Therefore, the simple conclusion is that my idea occured to me wholly independent of Rob's so he has no grounds to stop me from using MY IDEA.

[Captain Zymmer]

OKay Ghosty, but I may be forced to testify on his behalf.

Or pull some jury duty.

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Michael Barratt]

Some random thoughts:

• In the "New Frontier" novels, the new Excalibur-A is a Galaxy, modified, with what they call a "warp sled." Basically, a little warp nacelle, I think: not uber-powerful, maybe only capable of low-warp, but enough to get the saucer out of danger in the event of separation in a war zone - it never made sense to me to leave the civilians in an impulse ship. Huh? How is that "keeping them safe"?
• Just cuz a Galaxy was designed to carry civvies, it doesn't have to. If retrofitted with warp engines, and the like in the saucer, maybe the ship itself has diminished crew capacity (it *should*, in my opinion, if you're adding a warp engine to the saucer), and as such no longer has the huge complement of civvies: it's a crew-only ship, with *some* families (like some of the smaller ships - Ben's wife on the Saratoga...)
• The Saucer "upgraded" seems like a good "prior step" to the Prometheus: it's a ship already designed to function in two parts, it's just that you're adding warp capability to the top part. Not quite as daunting as scrapping everything and starting over...

The Doc

[Captain Zymmer]

I lke the "wwarp sled" idea and may make my narrato put it on the new Exeter

Which book is this from?