I too really like the look of the Antares Class.
Yep. I think we have a winner.
GM, can you discuss some upgrade options with us? Gourmet Kitchen? Spinal mount meson cannon? :-)
Seriously, though, some things that might be worth considering:
1) Stealth
2) Improved Sensors
3) Brig
Option 1 :
Remove both 'smuggling compartments' as they are a standard feature, and are really designed for secure cargo, not smuggling. Convert one into a brig, and the other into a 10 ton specialized environment cargo hold (can be converted to living quarters for one alien). This frees up some regular cargo space, and increases the cargo capacity to 422.2, gives you a brig, and 10 tons of specialized environment cargo hold space. Final price : 854.33 Megacredits
Option 2 :
Same as Option 1, increase the jump to Jump 5, increase the fusion reactor size by 1/4 ton, increase fuel tanks, upgrade jump program to level 5, upgrade the fuel processors to 25 tons to generate 500 tons of fuel per day of use, allowing ship to refuel in one day. Decreases cargo capacity to 383.45 tons, increase jump rating to 5, increases cost to 892.93.
Option 3 :
Same as Option 1, set aside 20 tons of space as a biosphere inside the ship. Biosphere involves setting up plants and small animals/insects inside the ship in a contained area. Biosphere provides life support for 40 people for free (cuts the cost of life support each month to nothing, as you grow your own food and recycle oxygen via plants). Cargo drops to 396 tons, cost increases to 859 Megacredits.
If you want stealth, that requires a complete redesign, as the ship's hull is not designed for stealth. Your sensors are already as good as you can get without buying really expensive TL 15, and those only add in mental detection, which is probably not worth it.
Option 4 :
Same as Option 1, add two more turrets (bringing total to 6, as shown in drawing), increase weapons loadout. Increase sand cannister loadout. Decreases cargo capacity to 411.35, increases price to 863 Megacredits.
Note, you can mix and match options if you want, you should have a decent idea of how much each option adds to the price and subtracts from the cargo. So if you want to go with a jump 5, biosphere, increased weapons variant, you can, it'll just lower your cargo into the mid 300's, and increase the price to the low 900's.
You might also want to consider buying some advanced droids to serve as crew. They don't take up cabin space, and don't require food or sleep (although they do require routine maintenance).
Note : The Antares currently has no boats, and no rafts. So if you want a pinnace or ground vehicle, the ground vehicle will have to be in the cargo hold. If you want a Pinnace, you'll have to alter one of the four holds into a boat bay/landing bay. The price for that would depend on how big a boat you wanted, and whether you wanted a landing bay (hanger) or a boat bay (fixed docking).
I like options 2 and 4. GM: please confirm that Antares is atmosphere capable.
Yes, it is capable of landing on a planet.
And how much cargo tonnage would we lose to put in a bay for a 10-ton pinnace?
Nothing, there are no 10 ton pinnaces.
Pinnaces are 40 tons. Cutters are 50 tons.
Fighters and shuttles are 10 tons.
Docking bay is ship size + 10% if I remember correctly. Landing Bay is double the size of the ship to go into it.
The Antares looks good.
The jump 5 option is nice. I'm guessing fission is out. I really liked the no need to refuel option. What happens if you jump into a new system without a gas giant?
I don't see the need for more weaponry. I think 4 triple turrets are enough.
The biosphere is nifty.
What I'd like to see is something that adds a bit more scientific capabilities. Can the current sensors detect metals and elements in asteroids and comets? Probes to survey a system or planet. Mining Probes. A small laboratory to analyze things.
As long as we end up with 200-250+ tons of cargo I think we will be ok, so I'm ok with adding options up until about that limit. The other limit is how much we want to spend. We have 1,306.5 MCr to spend. If I remember correctly we started out in Vagr space with 0.83 MCr. How much to we want to leave after the ship purchase? How much does everyone want to spend on personal purchases. We can pretty much get any equipment we want.
I have to disagree with you. On a ship that big, costs are going to ramp up quickly. If you want to turn a profit regularly, you're going to need a bigger hold. We had 200 tons on the Phoenix and were doing okay, but a much larger ship will have much larger costs.
I also question the need for Jump 5. Sure, bigger is better, but what do we need that for? Are there so many places we can't get with Jump 4? I mean, 95+% of the ships in the Imperium are less than Jump 4.
I really do think we need to decide what we're planning to do. Merchant missions? Exploration? Science? Mercenary work?
For myself, the merchant route is one of necessity and not one that I would actually be trying to actively chase. It might be nice to occasionally pick up a cargo, but for the most part, I would sell us as independent "troubleshooters". This could encompass anything from smuggling to bodyguarding to exploration and perhaps even scrap retrieval. I would like to keep our options open, and in truth we will not be needing too much in the way of cash to start if we are not too crazy with our purchases. Again, just my 2 credits worth.
I agree with Dev that the merchant route is one we won't be actively chasing but one used to subsidize our trips and jumps.
I agree that Jump 5 isn't necessary but might be nice. It's hard to follow someone if you can't jump as far as them.
The Antares looks good.
The jump 5 option is nice. I'm guessing fission is out. I really liked the no need to refuel option. What happens if you jump into a new system without a gas giant?
Not out, but it would be a massive retrofit, and eat into your storage capacity tremendously. If you jump into a system without a gas giant or water bearing planet, you set an emergency beacon and go into cold sleep and hope for rescue.
What I'd like to see is something that adds a bit more scientific capabilities. Can the current sensors detect metals and elements in asteroids and comets? Probes to survey a system or planet. Mining Probes. A small laboratory to analyze things.
Yes, the densitometer can pick up varrying densities of rocks. The system can combine that with rad detectors and other things to get a good guess. If you want something that will confirm whats inside, you'll need much more expensive stuff that penetrates solid rock.
You can convert an existing cabin to a laboratory if you choose. It'll up the cost a bit. Mining probes are heavy, but can be purchased. You'll need someone who knows how to mine remotely or a mining program.
Converting one of the holds over to a docking bay for a 40 ton pinnace reduces cargo by 44 tons, and increases price by 11 Megacredits.
Converting one of the holds over to a landing bay for up to 40 tons of parasite craft reduces cargo by 80 tons, and increases price by 16 Megacredits.
The advantage of a docking bay is it's less space. The downside is that (A) it requires the exact shame model of ship or remodeling if you lose the pinnace, and (B) you can't work on the Pinnace while it's docked, you have to land and remove the pinnace from the bay to work on it. Landing bay is more expensive and takes up more space, but you can land any ship in it up to the tonnage it's rated for, and you can work on the ship during hyperjumps. You can also park any number of ships up to the tonnage rating in a landing bay (a 10 ton shuttle and a 30 ton cargo tug for example in a 40 ton pinnace landing bay).
Mining Drones cost 2 tons per drone, and 2 Megacredits each.
Mineral Detection Suite costs 1/2 Megacredit.
Ship currently comes with 15 Advanced probe drones. Each is 3 tons and 2.4 megacredits each. You can, if you want to keep the same cargo, trade them out at a 2 to 3 ratio for Mining Drones at the cost of 1.2 megacredits per trade out. (That is, reducing the Advanced Probes from 15 to 11 would give you 6 mining drones at a cost of 2.4 megacredits). You must have a minimum of 5 drones, due to the machinery required for the ore transfers. Each drone can process 1d6 tons of ore per day of dedicated mining. Generally it's common ore, unless you've located something else more valuable using sensors and mineral detection suites.
BTW : If you see something wonky with the spreadsheets, let me know. They're homegrown by me, and I've found a few minor annoyances, mostly introduced as part of converting them over from Excel to Google Calc. The salmon color was from using Excel formatting standards, the colors will change some going forward with anything not already in the pipeline.
Took me a week or so to build it (I was on bench time, so had idle hands). Now that it's done, I can stat up a MG2 ship in about 15 minutes.
Everyone seems to have settled on the Antares, now it's just hammering out the build specs.
On a different note, if you're wanting to do a job as a troubleshooter/explorer/adventurer, you're in a terrible place to start. You're in the heart of the Empire, and the nearest boarder is on the Vargr Extents, which is also heavy patrolled. The only place you might get work is in the Neutral Corridor, but it's also full of pirates and other things living off the shipping lanes. You can make money there, but it's a dangerous way to do it and will involve a lot of ship combat.
If you're wanting a somewhat more laid back solution, where you can do exploration and be a big fish in a smaller pond, your best option is to head to the Imperial boarder. That means heading about 4 sectors spinward toward the Spinward Marches. You're currently in the Lishun sector. It'll take a Jump 5 ship 16 jumps to hit the middle of the Corridor Sector, which is the beginning of the frontier. There's a ton of unaligned worlds nearby, and you'd be big fish in a smaller pond, since most of the unaligned shipping is TL 11/12.
To do so, you have several options.
1) Buy your ship here and trade your way there, hoping to make enough to keep it up and also find some adventure along the way.
2) Buy your ship closer to the frontier via holonet, and take a fast transport that direction (a ship with Jump 5 or Jump 6) and age to get there.
3) Buy your ship closer to the frontier via holonet, and take any transport out while in cold sleep. Cheaper and negates the travel time, but you aren't awake for the trip.
As far as travel is concerned, Jeni has ruled out number 3 for some reason. I'm a fan of number 1 in that case. It's basically what we were doing coming back from Vagr space.
As far as modifications go: is mining common ore going to make much money or are we really only going to make money if we find something uncommon? I think I'd like mineral detection either way as we can sell information about what is in a system and it will help locate more exotic structures or ships underground.
I think I like the 40 ton bay that way we can have different ships in there.
Common ore sells for about a 500-1000 credits a ton, so you can make money off of it, as a lone prospector in a 300 year old tug. Given you own your ship and don't have to pay it off, you can make some credits off it, but it won't be much. Probably won't pay the upkeep on a ship that big.
Uncommon ores sell for about 1000 to 10000 credits per ton, and if you luck out, you can make a good profit off those.
Precious metals sell for 10000 to 100000 credits per ton, and you can always make a nice profit off those if you luck out and find a major vein or an asteroid that has a major chunk of it in it.
Finally, radioactive ores sell for 1/2 to 1.5 megacredits per ton, but you'll have to deal with a radioactive cargo hold, and finding them in bulk is very difficult.
An average asteroid is going to be made up of the following :
2D roll | Ore Available
2 _____ | 2D tons of Precious Metals
3-4 ___ | 2D x 20 tons of Common Ore
5-6 ___ | 2D x 50 tons of Common Ore
7-8 ___ | 2D x 10 tons of Uncommon Ore
9-11 __ | 2D x 20 tons of Uncommon Ore
12 ____ | 1D tons of Radioactives
So basically, randomly mining in the asteroid field has an 8% chance of finding 2-12 tons of precious metals or 1-6 tons of radioactives, a 16.6% chance of finding 40-240 tons of common ore, a 16.6% chance of finding 100-600 tons of common ore, a 16.6% chance of finding 20-120 tons of uncommon ore, and oddly a 25% chance of finding 40-240 tons of uncommon ore. I'm assuming they weighted it toward the uncommon ore to keep player's from howling. Personally, I think I'd have done the table like this :
2D roll | Ore Available
2-4 ___ | 2D x 20 tons of Common Ore
5-6 ___ | 2D x 50 tons of Common Ore
7-8 ___ | 2D x 10 tons of Uncommon Ore
9-10 __ | 2D x 20 tons of Uncommon Ore
11 ____ | 2D tons of Precious Metals
12 ____ | 1D tons of Radioactives
Then allow your mineral detectors to (on a successful sensors check) add 1 to the 2D check, skewing it up based on equipment. And then allowing another Profession (Belter) check to further skew it up another +1. That would work better I think, but I didn't right the system. :)
Either way, you won't be able to just mine the most expensive, the drones are going to mine everything in front of them. So for every ton of precial metals or radioactives, you're going to get 1d6 tons of common ore to go with them (and for every ton of uncommon ore you get 2 tons of common ore). Since your ship has no way to smelter the ore, you can't really sift through it so you take what you get.
I’ll bow to the majority but I think we should try to be mindful of cargo capacity. And not just for economic reasons.
If we get the larger bay, then let’s not do much else to cut into cargo. How about we get Jump 5 and the multi-use Bay, but nothing else? That should leave us with about 300 tons of cargo space.
I’m good with the Spinward Marches. Or the Trojan Reach. Anywhere behind the Claw.
Moyas, to confirm, your suggestion is to take Option 2 (which incorporates option 1) and toss in turning part of one of the cargo bays into a landing bay, yes?
Note, you can use a landing bay for storage if you want. That is, if you have a 50 ton bay (100 tons) and put a 40 ton pinnace in it, you can use the other 10 tons for cargo (or a fighter or shuttle).
I'm going to start posting some RP stuff to keep us going that lists out your options in character and such.
Huh. Makes you wonder why you'd ever want a separate bay for the pinnace if you had a cargo hold.
Can you launch the pinnnace from the cargo hold in space?
And yes, that's what I am suggesting. I think it incorporates many of the desires expressed by the players (although not the request for a lab.)
I think you misunderstand, what I was saying was, you can use a landing bay for cargo if you don't fill it up. However, you still lose space.
If the landing bay is for up to 50 tons of ship, that costs 100 tons of ship space. If you have no pinnace, you can put 50 tons of cargo in the bay. if you have a 40 ton pinnace, you can put 10 tons of cargo in the bay. The ancillary equipment for the bay still takes up 50 tons, regardless of how much you have in the bay.
You can carry a pinnace in the cargo bay if it's big enough, but you can't launch it from the cargo bay. The cargo bay isn't set up for launching/landing or storing the pinnace in a usable form.
Got it. Thanks
MOYASMEDSEV'S WISH LIST
In no particular order:
From Core Rule Book
* TL 8 Flak Jacket (cr300)
* TL 12 Vacc Suit (cr20,000)
* TL 12 Endurance Augmentation (END+2)(1 Mcr)
* TL 13 Enhanced Vision (Binoculars, IR/Light Intens.) (cr25,000)
* TL 12 Neural Comm (Audio/Visual, Computer/0) (cr5000)
* TL 13 Wafer Jack (rating/8) (cr15,000)
* Multiple Bugs (TL 13 - cr400, TL 15 - cr500)
* TL 10 Mobile Comm (cr500)
* TL 12 Bioscanner (cr3500)
* TL 15 Bioscanner (cr350,000)
* TL 10 EM Probe (cr1000)
* TL 9 Light Intensifier Goggles (cr1250)
* TL 10 Grav Belt (cr100,000)
* TL 9 Laser Pistol w/ laser sight (cr3200)
* TL 12 Stunner (cr1000)
* TL 9 Aerosol Grenades (cr15)
* TL 7 Stun Grenades (cr30)
Stuff the Team Should Consider:
* Air/Raft (cr250,000)
* G/Bike (cr 46,000)
* Toolkits (Electronic, Engineering, Mechanical, Scientific & Surveying) (cr1000 - cr 4000)(totally worth it for the +2 DM!)
* TL 10 Habitat Module (cr20,000)
* TL 9 Rescue Bubbles (cr600 each)
* TL 8 Environment Suits (cr500 each)
_______________________________________________________
From the 1st Edition Central Supply Catalog
* TL 8 Stun Fist (cr300)
* TL 8 Improved Flak Jacket (cr300)
* TL 10 Diplo Vest (cr250)
* TL 12 PRIS goggles (cr3500)
* Recreational Drugs (Moyas is an addict...)
* Truth Drug (cr500)
* TL 13 Advanced Digital Camera (cr100)
* TL 13 Forensics Sweeper (cr7500)
* TL 13 Personal Drone (cr4000)
Stuff the Team Should Consider:
* TL 9 Improved Purification Tablets (pack of 10 for cr15).
* TL 12 Thrust Packs (cr14,000 each)
* TL 8 Personal Re-entry kits (cr15,000 each)
* TL 12 Trauma Packs (cr3500 each)
* TL 13 Autodoc (TL13: 100,000; TL 14:1 Mcr)
* TL 11 Improved Cargo Robot (cr75,000)
50 Ton Modular Cutter
Deck plans for a Cutter, to give you an idea
Leaving behind the cargo module
Cargo Container Module, used for stacked cargo at destination/origin
Ship Boat
Slow Variant, with typical with paint job
Normal Variant (notice no wings, it's got enough thrust not to need them in atmosphere)
Pinnace
Multiple pictures, showing the wing configurations
Gig
I suggest the cutter as it will be able to be modified for many different platforms.
Agreed. It ain't pretty, but then, this isn't a beauty contest.
What exactly does a steward do on the ship? Do we need one if we are not moving passangers?
The Steward makes sure the passengers needs are met, that they understand the emergency procedures, ensures the crew is fed, and so forth. You don't need one unless you have passengers. However, if you aren't taking passengers, you've got a lot of passenger life support you're still paying for without any costs offsetting.
GM is ready to move on with the game as soon as someone commits on how many bots vs programs vs warm bodies you're hiring for crew.
Out with maybe-pneumonia. Please bot as necessary.
Blech! Get well soon!
Pneumonia sucks! I've had it twice and I've never been the same since the first time when I was 22.
Robbie just turned one and he's got it now. Luckily it was caught very early and it's not really affecting him. We took him to the ER for croup and they did a X-Ray and found an area of it.
Hang in there and get well.
Apologies to my games. As most if not all of you know, I've been out of work since June 1st, and due to having to get a lawyer involved, it was difficult for me to really hit the pavement for a new job until nearly the end of June. So really I've been very active this month, and all the work earlier in the month is heating up finally. I was swamped this week with phone interviews, in person interviews (2.5 hours from home), and prep work for interviews. Next week is looking busy too. This is all a good thing, but it's left me absolutely exhausted (The whole missing the height on the entrance to the garage right before the interview and banging up my wife's truck cap on the parking garage entrance didn't help either). But things are looking good, I've got 2 really really good jobs and 2-3 other potentials, and the two good ones have asked me for 2nd follow up interviews next week (One 2 weeks after the initial, and the other literally 3-4 hours after the first one, yay!). Anyway, sorry for not being as proactive as I should be to keep the threads up, I'll try to push Sunday (my meat game is tomorrow) to get posts and push things forward.
Take your time, mdt. Life comes first!
Good luck.
No worries...take care of your self and real life first...we will be here when you are ready!!
Not a problem. I'm well and familiar with real-life priorities.
I say we call the ship Red Dusk.
Sounds good to me.
I was liking the White Elephant!! lol...but Red Dusk has a very cool sound to it!!
I came up with it by looking at the name Verdant Dawn thinking, 'What's the opposite of that?' Looked up what verdant means. Looked up the opposite of green on the color spectrum, and that's how we get Red Dusk.
Sounds like Red Dusk it is. What's your first destination?
FYI - a combination of pneumonia and moving house means I'll be offline for most the week. And the week after that (if alive) I'll be at GenCon.
Get well soon
Get well soon. Also can anybody recommend what I should buy before we leave the planet? Because I honestly don't know what to do with my money.
Make sure you have a gun, armor, a first aid kit, and any tools you need for specific skills you want to use. If you have the money, a space suit is a very good idea.
Is anyone going to pick a destination, or should the GM just assume you all sit around on the ship playing video games instead?
I am back from Gen Con, but have no Internet at home ( the house I just bought wasn’t wired for it) until Friday the 10th at the earliest and can’t access it at work. I’ll do my best with my iPad until then, but it’s going to be slow.
Might I suggest the first star to the right and then straight on 'till morning?