Re: Spelljammer Construction System (Part II)

>> Weapons: weapons are cheap enough that I would probably make additional
>> weapon mounts cost, in addition to the weapon itself. Otherwise,
>logically,
>> one would simply cover the ship with light catapults (the most efficient
>> weapon crew-wise, with excellent range and a good fire rate, plus good
>> damage). 
>
>    Although I can see adding a small cost to mounting
>a weapon on a non-deck surface, I don't think the cost 
>would be overly high.
>    Logically, one _could_ cover a ship with light catapults!
>It is certainly feasible, and I don't think the system should
>make it impossible.  What it should do is make it unattractive,
>Which I think it allready does.
>    First, adding weapons to a non-deck surface drops
>the ship to Poor design, which is a -1 to MR.  Depending
>on the ship, this could also be a -1 to AR.
>    Second, such weapons are at a -2 to hit.
>    Third, for some ships, this may prevent the ship from 
>landing.
>    And finally, the big drawback is the number of crew that it
>would take to man these weapons.  Such large crews
>would make any sort of extended trip nearly impossible.

What I meant is that, at current numbers, it makes sense to use no weapons
_except_ light catapults. (They have the best ratios for crew-to-damage,
space-to-damage, and best rate-of-fire, and the best range of the
ship-damaging weapons.) Adding a fee for the mounts makes (at least) medium
catapults a little more attractive, because you need less mounts to do the
same amount of damage.

>> Also, I would increase the tonnage of the light catapult to 2 to
>> preserve parity with the medium catapult (light catapult then gives more
>> damage-per-crewmember while medium gives more damage-per-ton) though I
>> would leave the light ballista at 1. 
>
>    The weapon tonnages are taken from the WCC box.  That,
>and I just don't see them being the same size.

Okay, I don't have WCC. It's another parity issue between medium and light
catapults (IMHO already the best weapons). If light is 1 ton and medium is
2, you can either take 2 light catapults (range 5 hexes, THAC0 14, ROF 1/2,
crew 2, damage 4d10 hit points or 2d2 hull points, 10% for critical) or 1
medium catapult (range 4 hexes, THAC0 15, ROF 1/2, crew 3, damage 3d10 hit
points or 2d2 hull points, 10% for critical). Clearly everyone should pick
the light catapult set--there is no area in which it is not at least as
attractive (except cost; it costs about 20% more, more if you add weapon
mount costs). The situation with other weapons is even more skewed.
However, if you make light catapults just as spacious (they're stronger,
not necessarily bigger) as the medium, you now have a choice between a
slightly cheaper, more accurate, more crew-efficient and better-ranging
weapon and a heavier, more damaging model.

That's what the math says, anyway. I'd leave the light ballista at 1 ton,
though, because it is incapable of damaging ships (well, 16% of the time it
will do 10 points of damage). Again, if light catapults and light ballista
are the same tonnage, which one would you choose: a ship-to-ship 2d10 or
1d2 weapon, or a 2d6 only weapon with a slightly better range (though 2
points better THAC0)? I'm ignoring the fact that ballista can fire at
targets within their hex, because for ACs of 1 or worse, long bows are
better anyway.

>> Anyway, I'd probably recommend 2500 gp
>> or so per weapon mount; most listed ships only have 2 or 3 weapons on
>them,
>> instead of the 5 to 10 this system allows them. We need something to
>> explain the difference.
>
>    Do you mean 2500 gp to mount a weapon off-deck?
>Seems very extreme.

I meant for every weapon mount on the ship, whether it's included in the
frame tonnage or not.

Yes, it is rather high, higher in fact than the cost of the weapon.
Compared with helm costs, though, it's rather low. Also keep in mind that a
Merchant (from the CSFH) can pull in 1500 gp or so a week with a Tradesman,
assuming that there's more than one port within a sphere. But with costs
like that, merchant ships and such are going to mostly eschew weapons
(having maybe 1 or 2), leaving the "armored porcupine" look for the warships. 

Of course, if you were _trying_ to increase the numbers of weapons carried
by everyone, great. I was simply proposing a mechanism to explain the low
weapon usage in the original boxed set ships (I think the hammership had 4)
relative to what they are allowed.

>    The old system always let a ship mount one-half
>of the ship's tonnage in weapons on the deck.  In the
>WCC system a Hammership could have 15 medium
>catapults on its deck!  So there is no real difference
>here.

In the only system, though, they took up cargo space. (Again, I don't have
the WCC.) So I guess this "fix" is not specific to your system. There was a
post a week or so ago about a group of players who wanted to mount about 12
extra ballistas on an Octopus. I wouldn't mind this, except that it's not
logical that no one else would be doing it if there's practically no cost.
Even mind flayer nautiloids usually only carry 5 heavy weapons.

>> Crew requirements in your system are lower than in standard. (You might
>> have done this on purpose.) Even an Elven Man-O-War, a very lightly
>crewed
>> ship, uses 1 crewman per 6 tons, while in your system even a topped out
>> ship only needs 1 per 7.5 tons. Not to mention the original hammership,
>> which uses 40% of its tonnage in crew.
>
>    That all depends on what one terms "standard."
>My numbers for the number of men required to run
>the rigging comes from the WCC box.  
>    As for the old ships, well, let me quote myself... :)
>
>"6)  There are some ships that you will not be able to recreate
>with my system.  This is just how it is.  For me this is
>not really a problem.  I have sat down and reworked the
>stats for the ships in my games, and most are very close
>to what they were before."

Okay, like I said, you might have done this on purpose. I just wasn't sure
if you were aware of it or not. You also mentioned other crewmembers
besides riggers, of course, which would push the crew back up, too.

Truth to tell, helm use being what it is, I never really liked the high
crew requirements anyway.

>    Although I am sure this is not what you wanted to hear, 
>it is all I have to offer at the moment.

Not at all. I'm just posting _my_ feedback as it occurs to me.
>    Damselfly (10 tons)    Minimum Crew is 2
>    Dragonfly (10 tons)    Minimum Crew is 3
>
>    Dolphin (70 tons)    Minimum Crew is 12
>    Hammership (60 tons)    Minimum Crew is 24(!)
>
>    Swanship (32 tons)    Minimum Crew 12
>    Squidship (45 tons)    Minimum Crew is 12
>
>    As you can see, a bit of a discrepency in logic.

I suppose some of their logic might have been in that some ships are just
better-designed and easier to pilot. I agree, though; it probably was
pretty much "eyeballed."

I am considering allowing some designs (by _master_ shipwrights and such) a
little extra something to account for creative genius. Nothing really huge,
perhaps a couple less riggers or an extra weapon space. This would be rare,
but would tend to make certain of these effective designs more popular,
resulting in the "standardized" types of ships one sees today.
Alternatively, I might scale up custom-built ships costs.

>    IMHO, if a person wants some semblance of consistency
>in their SJ games with regards to ships, they should find
>a ship design system they like, mine, the WCC, their own, 
>whatever, and redesing all the ships they use in their 
>campaigns with it.  

Quite right. Once we do have a Version 1.0 ;) I will take some time out and
do this.

>    BTW, the original boxed set also states the spelljammers
>will take much less crew than a seagoing veasel, due to the
>helmsman taking over a certain amount of control duties.

I agree. Like I said, I was never really happy with the high crew
requirements.

>    Agreed, definitely.  I did this by adding exploding 
>cannonballs.


> 
>> One more thing. Which source do you (meaning anyone reading) use for
>> weapons THAC0, the ones in the SJ boxed set listed with the individual
>> weapons, or the one in a big table about 20 pages onward? (They don't
>match.)
>
>    Actually, I use my own... :)

I guess this could fix the bombard problem, too. I'm thinking about just
boosting bombard THAC0 by about 10 and scaling up the damage dice by one
(1d8 instead of 1d6 for a typical bombard).

Anyways, nice work!

Regards,
Hemlock