Design Question

[Phantom]

What benefit/disadvantages does embedded nacelles give a ship in the Icon system?

[Dan Gurden]

in ICON? None that i know of... Unless you are converting Spacedock backeard and gaining the converted shield bonus in favour of the warp penalty....

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Dan Gurden
in ICON? None that i know of... Unless you are converting Spacedock backeard and gaining the converted shield bonus in favour of the warp penalty....

Ok, how does that work? I am looking at the Aberax-Class Cardassian Destroyer (from the DWS) right now. It says that it has the embedded nacelles (like most Cardie ships) and yet it has a cruising speed of warp 7.9. Is that after the warp deduction? Although it does have pretty heavy shield ratings.

Also, how would that effect the ICON hit location charts, since the nacelle is now harder to hit. I assume it is any way.

[Paul]

According to SpaceDock p.35:

...the warp nacelles are embedded - fully contained within a starship's hull. This makes the warp field slightly less efficient (reduce Standard, Sustainable and Maximum speeds by .1 each), but makes the shields stronger because the shield radius becomes smaller (increase Threshold by 10 and Protection by 100 for no additional Power cost).

So there's the answer - slightly lower warp speeds for a small increase in shields.

As to chances to hit the nacelles - on p.112, Table 3.2 Propulsion and Power Systems Hit Location Table, I'd change the table thus:
1-2 PIS (closer to the hull)
3 Power Transfer COnduit
4-5 Warp Engine
6 Nacelles (embedded, but not buried).

What sayest thou?

[Phantom]

That is what I a masking. For example, the ICON stats for the D'gerok Gunship in the DWS lists it as having "embedded nacelles." Does that mean the speed and shields have already been adjusted?

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Phantom
That is what I a masking. For example, the ICON stats for the D'gerok Gunship in the DWS lists it as having "embedded nacelles." Does that mean the speed and shields have already been adjusted?

I think you will find that anything written by Steve Long after
SpaceDock was written will indeed account for the adjustments.

To be honest, it would probably be easier to assume that Anything with ebedded nacelles with existing stats has already taken the rule into account, even in ICON stats where the difference is the loss of a couple of points of maximum speed and +10 points to shields. (At least thats all it is on the far simpler ICON system)

[tonyg]

Phantom,

Since it's free and available on this sight, why not DL SPACEDOCK and give it a look. Most of what in it can be adpated to basic LUGTREK with little difficulty. And there are a lot of nice things in there.

Basic LUGTREK didn't go into the same level of deal so thing like embeded nacelles didn't seem to have any game releated benefits.

[Phantom]

I have DLd SD, quite awhile ago actually. I asked because in the game I am running I'm sticking to the LUG Space combat, there isn't too much in my campaign and since it is form based the detail that SD goes into would be a detrament...IMO. Of course I can always take a closer look at SD and "wing it" if need be.

[tonyg]

Ah,

Well in that case you probably don't want to worry to much about the embeeded nacelles. Just be aware that even using the conversion rules, SPACEDOCK ships aren't quite the same as thier LUG counterparts. ICON ships tend to have stats that "cluster" mosre than in SPACEDOCK, and SPACEDOCK ships tend to hanve more spare power.