Look what I just got for my Morrow Project Campaign

A while back (in October) I did a little article about the Landmaster from the Damnation Alley, and the HERO System (5th edition) write-up I did for it. I had selected this vehicle for use by the players in our Morrow Project campaign.

One of the problems with such a choice was not having a proper model to use with my gaming miniatures.

Today the nice little model pictured to the left arrived in the mail.

It's made of wood, and was crafted by a company in the Philippines called eModelAirplanes.

This was a custom order (notice the Morrow Project emblem replacing the stars from the movie) produced just for me. It came unattached from the base so I could more easily use it on the gaming table.

While not as detailed as the finer plastic models (painted on windows instead of clear plastic with interior, non-rotating rocket pods, etc.), it's far better than any 'stand-in' I would use and will do the job nicely. This is especially true given that it's the correct scale.

It wasn't cheap, and it took three months. Communication was difficult at times likely due to language issues.

But all in all, I'm quite happy with the outcome.

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part III

The first Star Trek starship game that I'm aware off (other than simple non-simulation board games) was the text base Star Trek computer game from 1971. And really, it wasn't much of a simulation either as anyone who played it could tell you.

A number of other computer-based games followed. I've played many of them, if only for a limited time as it was easy to get bored with the early computer games (heck, I get bored with much of today's). One I didn't play but only heard about was a early multi-computer (using TSR-80s) network that allowed each individual to play one of the bridge officers in a multi-player 'simulation'. I knew a guy who had the code, but between everyone we knew- there was all of one TSR-80. Computers just weren't all that common back in the day.

Reviewing any of these in details would be a waste. In the first place, they were simple games and not real attempts at simulation. And perhaps more importantly- without the code it's difficult to tell what is going on in a computer game.

So I'll pass and turn towards what I consider to be the first significant Star Trek game that wasn't computer based. That was The Star Fleet Battle Manual published in 1977.

The game wasn't really table-top. It's was instead played on the floor, i.e. you needed clear floor space 3 meters or more on the side to play. That's because you moved your ships in terms of mm, and warp 8 (at 512x light speed) was a tad over a half-metter move.

The author was friends with Franz Joseph (covered in part II of this series) and took much of his lead from The Star Fleet Technical Manual. And thus the game failed some of the requirements I've previously stated out of the gate. For example, Dreadnoughts are part of the game making the Enterprise second tier.

Well, sort of. It's hard to judge in a way. You see firing at other ships used a rather interesting mechanic. You looked at the layout on the floor and then guessed at how many degrees off of true you should fire your weapons. Then you drag out your protractor and string and see if your guess was right. If it was, you hit. Otherwise better luck next time.

This method gave smaller ships a huge advantage as your would need to be spot on with your guess if the target was at any range. As a result many thought the tiny Tholian ship to be the best in game for good reason. The Dreadnought could be powerful, if its player had an uncanny ability to judge firing angles.

The weapon systems were odd too. Photons for example opened up holes in the shields allowing for following torpedos (if any) to ignore the shields. Nothing like that was indicated in the TV show or other sources. It also allowed (and indeed, tactically required) powering and firing multiple weapon mounts.

In short, the game was a mixed bag. It did warp speed correctly, had power allocation, shield arcs, and other goodness. And it had stuff pulled out of the backside of flying monkeys (who in turn were pulled out of another backside).

It was also done without the agreement of Paramount. The game was pulled it took until 1982 for the game to be republished after terms were worked out.

Most people don't remember it, however it started the trend of using the information found in the Star Fleet Technical Manual. And it started the trend of making stuff up.

Reviewing my previous requirements, here's how the Star Fleet Battle Manual scores:

1. Success: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Failure: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Success: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Success: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Failure: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Success: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Success: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Failure: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only. The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

So out of 9 possible points, it scores 6. A rather good score. Indeed, it was the only game of the ones I'm going to talk about in this series that got the ship speeds correct.

From a play point of view, the 'guess your angle of fire' and the requirement for a huge amount of clear playing space are seriously bad, wrecking what could otherwise be an interesting simulation.

In terms of nerfing the Enterprise, the targeting method was a serious hit, as was weapons that could bypass shields, small but horribly difficult to hit foes, and the inclusion of more powerful Federation ships.

Simulation Quality: 6 of 9
Game Quality: 2 of 5
Nerf Score: 4 out 5.

Part: I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

Nominated? Really?

Short break from the Star Trek series, I'll return to it quickly.

Seems I got a couple of nominations to the Open Game Table, an anthology containing 'best of the blog 2009' it seems.

It's a unexpected honor. I consider this blog rather narrow in its focus and outside the mainstream. But thanks to those who nominated Layers of Design and Why RPG Theory has a Bad Rep. I don't expect to make it into the final selection, but the notice is appreciated.

I must spend some time reading the other nominees.

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part II

As a quick review of Part I, here's the short and quick list of what I consider the key elements in simulating the original Star Trek's USS Enterprise.

1. It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

I'll use the above as I examine how the Ship was treated in gaming and fiction after the end of the original series.

In 1975 perhaps the single most important Star Trek related gaming publication was released. It wasn't however a game. Rather it was the Star Fleet Technical Manual (SFTM) written by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt. Written 6 years after the series ended, this one work would determine in many ways the future of Star Trek.

Schnaubelt wasn't a member of the original development team, but a fan who took to drawing and detailing things Star Trek as he saw them. He struck an agreement with Roddenberry (who thought the franchise dead) and was allowed to publish a book containing his work. The sales were impressive, and this was perhaps a deciding factor in bringing Star Trek to the big screen. It was certainly a landmark in Star Trek gaming.

It was also the beginning of the nerfing of the Starship Enterprise.

In it's defense, much of this wasn't its fault. The SFTM didn't going into operation details for the most part. It was a set of drawings, names, and background information. Not a tactical or operational work. Even so, there were two bits of information that would have a massive impact on gaming.

• The inclusion of ship classes other than the Enterprise.

Here Schnaublet decided that Starfleet fielded other types of ships in addition to its Heavy Cruisers like the Enterprise. This made sense from hints dropped during the series and its writer's bible but they never really appeared on screen due to expense.

Thus Starfleet also had destroyers, scouts and tugs. And... it had dreadnaughts.

In the original writer's bible, it was stated that the Enterprise was a dreadnaught or battleship- but that the Federation used the term Heavy Cruiser as it was a better fit for a ship that had exploration duties as its primary role during peace time. Schnaublet missed that memo, and reduced the Enterprise to the second most powerful Star Fleet ship type.

Schnaublet in a way tried to contain the damage, saying that the Dreadnaughts were kept at a home Starbase unless the Federation went to war, at which point they would set out to heap death upon their foes. But normally they were too expensive to operate. Thus, the Enterprise was still the best the Federation had in daily operation.

That such a concept wouldn't work didn't seem to occur to him. Just consider it. Who would crew it? Would you pull experienced crews off a Heavy Cruiser and toss them under war conditions onto a ship they've never operated before? Would you maintain a 'hanger' crew who did nothing but train on simulators and thus send green crews out manning your best ships?

Has any Navy operated effectively like this? No. Did anything like this appear on any TV or movie screen before or after? No.

But it's here, and as we'll see it became an important part of the gaming world of Star Trek.

• The SFTM defined how many and in what locations the Enterprise's weapon mounts were. For the phasers, it claimed there were three pairs. One was on the bottom of the saucer facing foward. The other top on were on the top with one facing port and the other Starboard. The twin torpedo launchers faced forward.

Now the original show used a lot of stock footage (cost was a issue), and never showed anything but the main forward phasers or photons firing. However they did say on screen that there were others. So adding them to the drawing was worthwhile

However, does that type of mounting make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me. If the ship could always turn towards a foe, you'd only need two weapon mounts- a primary and a backup. If it couldn't be counted on to make that turn (far more likely IMO for tactical reasons if no others), it should have weapons pointed everywhere.

You could sort of get away with it. After all, the Enterprise would only fire one of those mounts at a time. And if it rotated along it's axis (i.e. banked or even turned 'upside down') it could bring a weapon to bear in any direction but directly astern. Maybe that was a blind spot you couldn't fire through anyway? This never happened on screen. But one could excuse that.

That works. Well, there's a problem. If you listen to the backgroud chatter on the original show as the Enterprise goes to Red Alert, you'll hear something interesting. A report of "Aft Phasers Ready".

Years later, the blueprints for the movie Enterprise would show 18 phasers (14 in paired banks, 4 independently mount) pointing in all directions. The Enterpise TV episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" would show the aft phasers firing on an original Constitution class cruiser.

So the SFTM is wrong.

Thus the SFTM gives us two problems, but only one is a nerf. The reduction of the Enterprise to second tier breaks item #9 above. The weapon mountings are an incorrect detail that could be easily forgotten. But we'll see how that error bites us going forward.

Edit: Almost forgot something. All the ships in the SFTM have the same warp speeds. Highly unlikely, and this breaks requirement #8 above.

Next we starting examing game designs.

Part: I, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part I

I downloaded and tried out the Star Trek Online MMORPG yesterday. This despite my hate for all things Next-Gen or later (it's set 30 years ahead of the last Next-Gen movie).

As I was playing it, I couldn't help but do some reverse-engineering on their Starship Combat system (which to my mind isn't very star trek like except for sights and sounds- but seems fun so far). And that started me thinking about the whole subject of what such combat in Star Trek was and has become. A subject that touches TV, Movies, computer games, war games and table-top rpgs.

Star Trek got around you see. It was in fact the first game design that I ever did, a ship to ship simulation that was used for a rpg campaign.

And it seems to me this may be an interesting subject for the blog. I'm not really sure what one can learn from it, but there might be something. So here we go, the start of a rambling series of posts that will cover far more on the subject than anyone would want.

When I design a game, I pick what I consider the core mechanic section and those parts of the source material that cover it. The idea is to make them match, i.e. simulation at its purest.

For a Star Trek style game, ship combat and modeling would be a major subsystem. So I began there.

The original show Enterprise was a marked departure from sci-fi ships before and after it. It was also interesting in its influences. Unlike most sc-fi (the Honor Harrington series is a good example) it didn't use just one historical influence, but a number of them.

It's length was picked to be about that of the supercarrier USS Enterprise. The number of the ships built of it's class was 13, and that's close to the number of carriers the US maintains in operation (I think it's currently 11, but it was 12 and even 13 some time back as I recall). I doubt those numbers were picked at random. The ship was to invoke the power and prestige of the modern supercarrier set in the 23rd century.

It wasn't a carrier however. Strategically and operationally it was more like an Age of Sail Frigate, say the USS Consitution. It's crew of 430 nearly matches that ship's crew of 450. Like those ships, it would 'sail' beyond an effective chain of command and due to the limits of subspace radio- could be weeks away from direct communication. Indeed, in some cases it could out-run long range subspace radio for that matter and arrive before the signal.

Thus its Captain was given vast decision making powers- including the decision to go to war.

Along that same line of thought, the ship itself was the power projection, not it's shuttles. Perhaps this was due to budget, or perhaps it was due to keeping the focus on the bridge crew. Whatever the reason the Enterprise herself projected the Federation's power- not a fleet of starfighters she carried.


That sets the background. As to details, in pure sc-fi terms the Enterprise had other marked differences from ships before and after that would need to be mechanically reflected. Let's define those in the following bullet points:

• She was a warp speed warship. That is the original Enterprise fought at faster than light speeds. Indeed, engagement at sublight was said by her engineer to be akin to "wallowing like a garbage scow against a warp-driven starship."

In contrast almost all other sci-fi ships used jump drives, i.e. you 'leaped' from point A to B without really crossing the space inbetween. Combat was restricted to only subspace speeds. This is true of Traveller ships, The Mote in God's Eye, Star Wars, etc. The list is nearly endless.

The Enterprise on the other hand actually crossed that space at a faster than light speed. She could scan things in it, attack in it and defend in it. And she was almost alone in the sci-fi world in this ability.

Recently a new series of books provide another ship capable of this although the A.S.S. (yes tht's correct, and the humans are less than amused at that but it wasn't their choice) Vorpal Blade can't run it's sensors or fire weapons at such speeds. Even so, it gains vast advantage against foes who only have jump drives in its battles.

• The Enterprise Deflector shields were impressive. In some ways they were the classic force field. They were however quite powerful, able to protect the ship (at least for a time) against weapons that carved up planets into bite sized bits.

One important point about them, is that they all but ignored incoming fire below a certain power level. In other words, just any hit didn't reduce them ("shields holding firm Captain"). Rather it required either an attack of enough power or of a special nature to reduce them. In this they worked much as WWII battleship belt armor did. It could ignore 5" shells forever, and only had to worry about much larger weapons.

• The Enterprise had two weapons systems- phasers and photon torpedos in a number of mounts. What's interesting however is that even when one 'diverted all power to the weapons'- only one of these mounts fired at a time. Further its weapons (both the phasers and the torpedos) worked at faster than light speeds.

In power levels they granted the ship the ability to destroy planets although to what degree was never stated. Perhaps it was just boiling off the surface instead of reducing it to rubble, but whatever the case they weren't cap guns.

Normally sc-fi ships are like WWII battleships, dozens of guns going off. The Enterprise was quite the contrast to this- able to put much of the ships power into a single weapons bank for a single vastly powerful attack.

• This last feature meant that the Enterprise fought off it's power plant ("Scotty, I need more power!"). Thus power allocation would seem key to any simulation. It would have to pick between max effort for shields, drive, or weapons- it couldn't do them all but could do a solid mix and divert that to individual subsystems.

• Warp Factors were a cubic times the speed of light (likely multipled by a constant afterwards). Thus Warp 1 was the speed of light, and Warp 8 was 512 times the speed of light. The ship had engagements at both sublight and hyperlight speeds. This would require an interesting approach in game mechanics to represent.

• Given that the Enterprise wanted to fight at Warp Speed (and considered it a serious disadvantage not to), it is clear that the system should reflect this.

• Warp Drive was a function of the drive and the power plant behind it. The Enterprise was the larget Starfleet ship, and it was the fastest. No smaller ships had the power needed to outrun it, and shuttle sized ships were sublight.

• The Shields covered at least 4 arcs, each were independent both in damage and in how they could be reinforced with more power.
  

All in all, it was very impressive even in Sc-Fi terms. Converting it to a gaming system would a challenge. Note that I can provide excellent support for all the above claims (but haven't to save room), although I must admit that consistency failed sometimes on the original show. The first time phasers fired on screen for example they used the special effects of the photon torpedos...

As this blog series continues we will look at early attempts to design Star Trek space combat systems, and how they ended up nerfing the ship along the way both in games and in the following TV/movies.

Part: II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion