Re: Spelljammer Construction System (Part II)

>    Don't get me wrong, I am not a realism freak.  But how do you justify
>a cost of 2500 gold to mount a weapon on a deck?  Although a fee for
>using a crane or a wagon to get it on, plus a fee for bolting it to the
>deck
>seem reasonable, 2500 gold is just way too much.  For 2000 you could
>have a wizard teleport the thing onto your deck!

<wry grin> Ditto with the repair costs. 3000 gold pieces to repair one hit
point of damage! And by vanilla rules, a tenth level wizard can repair a
good 4 hull points a day with Mending. Actually, though, my reasoning is
partly that you will have to restructure the ship layout somewhat to
provide clear firing; mostly, though, it's inflation. [shrug] Just look at
all the other prices.

>    As for the Tradesman, the reason he does not add lotsa weapons
>is because these weapons require men and shot to use.  Extra men
>require space and support crew, which means the ship can carry less
>goods.  Plus paying and supporting all the extra crew takes money!
>Not to mention the air problems that come with having lotsa men on
>board.

Crew costs are fairly low, especially if you hire greenies to man the
weapons. Even heavy weapons have low crew requirements, if you're willing
to take a hit to ROF. And shot cost is negligible, too. Besides, with
things like neogi and Ephemereals running around the place, the extra
defense would be worth it.

Actually, you could have eight or nine heavy catapults loaded at a time,
and when you get into combat just have a couple men running from catapult
to catapult, firing but not reloading.

>    I wasn't trying, nor did I achieve that, at least not relative to the
>WCC.
>I allow for the same number of weapons that the WCC does, I just
>penalize for extra weapons in a different way.
>    Besides, I don't think the SJ boxed set rules for additional weapons
>are any more penalizing, especially to warships.  1 ton less cargo
>for each additional weapon beyond those listed, regardless of size?
>Sounds like no big deal to a Hammership looking for a fight.
[snip example]

Exactly. That's one thing I really like about your system, in that it
establishes a precedent for better ships costing more money in a big way
(as opposed to a couple thousand gp for minor modifications), which enables
me to explain the low-weapon observation consistently. It's possible to
build a super-destroyer-killer ship, but it will cost lots of money; I like
this possibility, which is why I was so excited when you announced that you
were posting this revision B. :)

Prior to this, I'd simply been penalizing additional weapons with
restricted arcs of fire. That works okay, but I like this better.

>> 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.
>
>    I assume "only" was meant to be "old."

Whoops! Absolutely. <grin>

>    And in my system mounting 12 extra ballistas would draw a variety
>of penalties, since the Octopus would have Partial covering and thus
>far less space for weapons on decks.

Hmmm! [surprised look] I checked the stats, and you're absolutely right.
The Octopus is already at capacity. Point taken.

>    The old SJBS system would, IMHO, penalize the ship even less!

<grin> Too true.

>    If you are still interested, I could e-mail you 1.0 when it is done.

Yes, definitely. And thanks for doing all this work on the system--the
internal space tables, for instance, are much more detailed than I would
_ever_ have been able to create on my own. Nice job!

Regards,
Hemlock