New Ship Guide Discussion

[Tefka]

If I want to load a ship with only heavy weapons so its better at anti-capital ship but gets mauled by fighters, well these new rules won't let me.

You couldn't ask a RPJ to replace the ship's light weapons with heavy weapons and increase the tonnage of the ship?

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

You couldn't ask a RPJ to replace the ship's light weapons with heavy weapons and increase the tonnage of the ship?

By these rules? No. And if you can just ask an RPJ to do that, what do these rules accomplish?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Point of clarification. The new rules contain significant flexibility. Say I make a capital ship with all ion cannons instead of turbolasers, or say I choose between proton rockets and cluster missiles for my warhead launchers, or say I trust my escorts and load up with solely bombers. Sub out your dropships for those big squadron-killing missiles you got from GI. There's also immense flexibility in the non-combative attachments and the materials. Modularity. HIMS. Cloaking devices. Gravitic modulators. Better sensors, navigation, specialized armor, redundant shields, unique configurations of pressor beams, Ranger transceivers, turadium-plated bridges, meditation chambers, condensed-matter composite around the engines, glasteel vs transparisteel - the best and most intimidating ships on the board aren't the best and most unique because they have 20 more turbolasers, they're because of the non-combative attachments and the research people do.

This doesn't limit creativity. It shows people that they haven't been being creative enough, frankly. Forgive my bluntness, but gun counts do not make a ship unique, and highly specialized vessels ARE still possible, as has been said at least twice now, including by Tef.

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

EDIT: Didn't see Jorus' answer

 

[Tefka]

I'm sure applying that in the description would work just fine and marking it as "Heavy Weapons" would fly for story purposes. If not, throwing it down in the modularity section might be appropriate.

 

[Tefka]

This doesn't limit creativity. It shows people that they haven't been being creative enough, frankly. Forgive my bluntness, but gun counts do not make a ship unique, and highly specialized vessels ARE still possible

Embrace it, my people. Embrace my Tefbama Care.

 

[Coryth Elaris]

@[member="Tefka"]

Please, @[member="Coryth Elaris"], would you mind pointing out exactly what is too "cookie cuttered" for you, and what parts of the ship cannot be customized that bother you? Be as specific as you can, as this will help us understand your plight with the new guide.

Also, if you would like to explain how this hinders the story, I would appreciate it.

Okay, you have this "guide" this layout .... it makes basically all ships the same. The only thing that changes is the shell, what it looks like on the outside. So that is the only thing that becomes different. Sure you have a few options, but its the SAME options everyone else has. There is nothing special about these ships done this way.


I recall the OP ship, the one that was a mobile command center base thing or something of that nature, I can't recall the name but god was that ship a beauty. Unique in every way, way overpowered at first but was toned done. I watched that thread and the development thread closely because it had story, it had passion. It had everything that is awesome here. I can't find the ship but I remember it clearly something Cira maybe Ayden posted a long long while ago. But it was one of those two. I think Ashin handled the thread if I recall.



This system restricts awesome things like that. You get cookie cutter ships. One by one, all the same with minor differences in what weapons are chosen. You have limited options, limitied functions, limited choices. Hell you don't even need a damn story behind these thngs, even the small paragraph, or few sentences or what not ... take away story. You aren't required to write much at all even just a couple sentences or less sound like they would work under this system. IE, taking away the story. Taking away the arms race that makes it exciting here. I LOVE the arms races, they make for interesting stories, mini cold wars and so on. Always wondering and worrying what the other has ... Now we all know what everyone has.


Now when all ships are basically the same thing with a different shell. This is the problem I see. We are taking away from the Unique story. Taking away from the reasons these ships are build and the storyline that comes with it. This is what I see and its a glaring problem in my eyes. That mobile command center would not have been possible if not for the creativity and freedom we are given to write them.


Basically this system makes conventionality good, and innovation bad or at least impossible.


Edit: And it took me so long to write this ... that I missed like 6 posts. So don't bite me for not seeing things

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

Point of clarification. The new rules contain significant flexibility. Say I make a capital ship with all ion cannons instead of turbolasers, or say I choose between proton rockets and cluster missiles for my warhead launchers, or say I trust my escorts and load up with solely bombers. Sub out your dropships for those big squadron-killing missiles you got from GI. There's also immense flexibility in the non-combative attachments and the materials. Modularity. HIMS. Cloaking devices. Gravitic modulators. Better sensors, navigation, specialized armor, redundant shields, unique configurations of pressor beams, Ranger transceivers, turadium-plated bridges, meditation chambers, condensed-matter composite around the engines, glasteel vs transparisteel - the best and most intimidating ships on the board aren't the best and most unique because they have 20 more turbolasers, they're because of the non-combative attachments and the research people do.

This doesn't limit creativity. It shows people that they haven't been being creative enough, frankly. Forgive my bluntness, but gun counts do not make a ship unique, and highly specialized vessels ARE still possible, as has been said at least twice now, including by Tef.

Its already been said explicitly by other staff that the rules are not "guidelines" which would imply that they are designed to be implemented exactly as written. There is no mention of flexibility anywhere in them. And the non combat should be the very things affecting the weapons and fighters and other things that are now "standard" so again I must ask. If this is to reduce workload, but every single ship will now require an RPJ to modify the weapons and fighters based off the non-combat equipment or if the creator wants a different weapons loadout: what do these rules actually accomplish and why are they needed? It just creates a barrier to those that don't understand the rules are apparently not actually rules, but not guidlines either.

 

[Onrai]

• How many fleet battles have been on this board?
• How many times have gun ranges come up in fleet battles?
• Or number of guns?
• How many times have you had to fleet on this board?

There's a whole lot of arguing over documents that are rarely used. Truth about the factory is that most will only use what they create, and everyone wants to leave their stamp in there. This allows people to create, make their mark, and make fleet battles so easy to do and judging submissions easy. I shouldn't have to spend all day judging a submission, nor should any staffer. It's not a staff size issue, or a workload thing. It's simply the fact that the factory is a little secondary feature on the board that some people treat like the main event. This is SWRP, not SWFactory.

• As far as I know of, four, not including the rare skirmish: Roche, Dead Space, the finale of Dark Harvest, and the fleet event Tegaea was running that flopped because the site died.
• All of them. Gun ranges were specified, mass drivers and other weapons of that type were given a range bonus.
• Not directly, though one could consider my need of having multiple Adamantines to bust the bridge of a Tulak Hord in Dead Space as a reference to gun numbers being different.
• I'm proud to say I've participated in three-quarters of the fleet battles.

Utilizing the tables as a guideline is perfectly fine. It makes judging ships so easy an eight year old can do it.

1. Does the ship fit in a category that we've set up?
2. Does it abide by the guidelines in the category?
3. If not, what needs to be changed to make it acceptable?
4. Approved/Denied, depending on the submitter's response.

With the Arms race, if I stand corrected the "timeline" of what's going on is that the galaxy is emerging from a dark age, thus creation of technology would be slow and the way its being pumped out every other day its insane and again no one has addressed some of the stress on staff. How many times have we closed factory so that we could catch up?

This is a role-playing board and some people are constantly in the factory - please we want you to play the game along with our staff to play as well. Like I said before this helps both ends of the board - staff and members.

If this was a reference to my updating the Imperial military, three things. Firstly, the ship types I've been working on were intended to replace the old designs we've still been relying on. "Replace" means removal from the armory list, the equivalent of IC decommissioning(which was to be RPed out in order to coincide with OOC actions). Second, my work with the Empire was very deeply involved in roleplay. I had originally intended for the entire upgrade process to be RPed out... then everyone except for Corey who was going to help out with the ISI bailed and I had to do the work myself. All things involving these new ship types are going to be roleplayed out in time, allowing for their merger into the Imperial navy through smooth and direct integration. And lastly, every update made to Imperial tech will be used in threads. I guarantee that.

Well of course factions will still try to better one another, but it shouldn't be as quick as it's been happening on the board. I've been here for seven months, and seen three generations of ship lines unveiled by the major factions, largely in an effort to keep up with each other. Furthermore, it wasn't a reaction to one fleet outgunning another but rather one guy noticing "Hey, that guy has better ships than me" OOC and going to fix it. IF there would be an arms race it should be reactive to IC events, not OOC events, which is what the previous system was promoting.

Hence the guidelines being caps as well as approvable limits.

As someone who studies the factory like a hawk, and you should know this as well as much as you study it, everyone was trying to one-up each other with ships. With everyone wanting to be the best, no one is going to put out an 850 gun ship when they can put out a 900 gun ship instead.

Well, I guess that ends the arms race, thus solving the primary issue. I have no reason to go all-out and press myself against the absolute maximum the guidelines give you.

Go look at how many ships of the same class we have in the Republic, Sith Empire, and Omega Protectorate, know that some ships were lost to the purge, and then tell me ships weren't being oversubmitted.

And yet factions are still utilizing first-gen tech as mentioned previously. If there's an issue with tech spam, just tell the Faction Leaders to tighten up on their members and lower the amount of newly released submissions. No need to force in the mandate with this system - faction members submit faction tech, so why not get the faction leaders out and help them reign in their members' oversubmission?

Honestly, nothing is. However, for the most part, people aren't going to resubmit the same design when there's nothing to gain, and even if they do for RPJ's it a much easier to approve to deny by looking at the tables instead of leafing through tons of previous ships and seeing what precedents you have.

It's still doable, which was my point to Jacen.

For the most part, weapons, droids, vehicles, armor etc aren't faction oriented, and thus there isn't a huge desire to get ahead of the curve so to speak. Most entries in such categories are simply unique entries for the "I want my gun to work this way" type of things, which are much easier to judge for the most part because most people can see the effects of something on the human body a lot quicker than they can a fictional ship.

Fair enough, which is one of the reasons I have no issues with the alteration of the other tech subs. Truthfully, I'd be a fan of helping fill in the gaps(with utility vehicles and the like), but it's not like those sort of things are really needed on the battlefield when you have guys with fusion cutters using airdropped supplies.

Then everyone does forced dev threads(Which are usually crappy) to meet the caps and nothing changes. If we're gonna put caps we might as well make people start at them, because we know they're gonna end at them after how much one-upmanship was done in the past.

I was referencing the "caps" on armament and(for capital ships) hangar size, not the need for a dev thread of any ship larger than 1000m. Regardless, the guidelines are the brick wall. Whether people want to creep up to it or run at it full force doesn't change the fact that it's the distinct boundary the factory's needed.

Also guys, another point I think y'all should think about.

I've been at SWRP for a while, not longer than everyone but longer than a lot of people. In that time I've seen the major factions turn out three generations of ships, where a generation means new SD's, frigates, corvettes, cruisers, heavy cruisers, interdictors, carriers, fighters, interceptors, bombers, etc. that usually takes 10 entries or more. On the other hand, I've seen two major fleeting threads, both event threads that were staff-run, not something the users themselves put together. From a staff perspective, how annoying do you think it is that, assuming Republic, OP, and Sith Empire are the only guys to make ships(Which they aren't), you'd have to approve 90 ships, at minumum for use in two threads?

The old entries will be scrapped, and the new ones will be the norm. As for fleet threads - let's not forget how involved starships usually are in invasions and skirmishes. Metalorn showed that with the Republic and Sith fleets both releasing proper reinforcements from their ships, as well as utilizing proper airstrike capabilities with the fighters they had available. And there's always someone wanting to skirmish with fleets.

Okay, you have this "guide" this layout .... it makes basically all ships the same. The only thing that changes is the shell, what it looks like on the outside. So that is the only thing that becomes different. Sure you have a few options, but its the SAME options everyone else has. There is nothing special about these ships done this way.

Also, this. This is one of my primary issues with the new ruleset.

 

[Tefka]

it makes basically all ships the same. The only thing that changes is the shell, what it looks like on the outside.

So you're telling me that every ship filled out like this:

Intent

Describe the plan for this technology. Technology created on a whim or for purposes to undermine the integrity of Star Wars will not be approved.

Images

Please provide a line of credit (Ex. Image By So & So) and link to the original artist if you are using an image to illustrate your submission. If you cannot find the original artist, then please provide a link to where you discovered the image. If necessary, use an image search service such as TinEye to find the image's original location.

Development Threads

Development threads can be any thread, be it a dominion, a private thread or a public thread, but it needs to be substantial and contribute in some way to the development/discovery of the ship. Development threads are required for any ship that is 1,000 meters or more in length and any stealth tech.
As with all development threads, focus on story and have fun. RPJs reserve the right to request a longer development thread if effort is not being shown.
All development threads must be completed prior to submission.

Manufacturers

Who’s gonna build your ship? Well, maybe your character is a pro-tier engineer and you can build it yourself. Good for you, but for those of you that aren’t engineers,this is a list for all canon ship manufacturers
However, if you're part of a faction, be sure to speak to other members of your group as you may find that there is a dedicated company for your faction that designs tech. Alternatively, look here for any ship building companies, though be sure to ask the owner before you slap their name on as the manufacturer.
Model

Working example: The Millennium Falcon's model is a YT-1300 light freighter. The Star Destroyers we see in the Original Trilogy are a model called Imperial-class Star Destroyers. This is the ship's technical name, not the name the captain gives it.

Affiliation

This is the faction, or specific character, that makes use of the ship. For example, a TIE starfighter might belong to the Sith Empire, whereas a custom bounty-hunting freighter might belong to Emberli Garrett.

Modularity

Does the item have the capacity to be augmented, modified, customized or adapted from its original form? Be sure to detail the modular capabilities in the description below.

Production

No stealth technology will be mass produced. Individuals and Minor Factions cannot mass produce. In order to mass produce ships over 1,000 meters, development threads of at least 40 quality posts with three or more individual writers will be required, prior to submission.
Factions are urged to minimize the number of mass-produced submissions they make over 1,000 meters.

Material
What is it made out of? Certain materials are more resistant, or vulnerable, to certain weapons. See: Metals or Compounds for a list of materials.

Description
At least a paragraph is desired, but not absolutely mandatory. Describe some of the history behind the submission. Give us some idea of how it might perform its function, what it excels against and what some limitations of it are. Also include any modularity details in here.

Role
What is the ship designed for? Blockade Runner? Transport? Ship of the Line? Command Station?

Dimensions

No ship over 2 kilometres will be approved for any faction, with exception of special Staff-approved event technology.
An individual character may not create a ship greater than 400 meters in length.
Minor factions are permitted unique, player-captained ships up to a length of 1,000 meters.
New Major Factions are allowed mass-produced ships up to 1,000 meters in length.
A faction development thread of at least 60 quality posts with three or more individual writers will allow the Major Faction to build up to the present cap of 2,000 meters.

Standard Ship Measurements
Corvettes 100-200m
Frigates 200-400m
Cruisers 400-600m
Heavy Cruisers 600-1000m
Light Star Destroyer 1100-1200m
Star Destroyers 1200m-1700m
Command Ship 1700-2000m

Power Core Generator/Reactor:

What fuels the ship? All capital ship reactors, whether antimatter, hypermatter, or solar ionization, produce roughly the same amount of power. Antimatter and hypermatter are slightly more powerful, but also more volatile and dangerous. Small craft generally use a solar ionization reactor, a cryogenic reactor, or standard fuel cells. All small craft generators produce roughly the same amount of power, except for standard fuel cells, which are cheap and stable but produce lower power yields.

Hyperdrive

The lower the number, the faster the hyperdrive. Standard civilian hyperdrives are Class 2.0 or Class 3.0, while military technology typically employs Class 1.0. The Millennium Falcon, as a unique ship, is a Class 0.5 - this is an extreme rarity.

Minimum Crew

The minimal amount of individuals needed to operate the ship or station.

Optimal Crew

The ideal amount of individuals needed to operate the ship or station.

Armaments

Total gun count is set as per the below table. You will need to specify whether your ship is designed to be Balanced or Heavy Guns or Carrier, then you must list which weapons you are using. This Heavy Gun selection is the maximum count and non-negotiable.


Spoiler






Hangar

Not required for ships lacking a hangar. As with Armaments, you must choose either Balanced, Heavy Guns or Carrier. This selection must correlate with your Armament choice. Maximum amount of fighters any ship class can have is classed under Carriers.

Spoiler





Non-Combative Attachments

What else is outfitted onto the ship? Does it have shields? Hyperdrive? Tractor beams? A navicomputer? Special equipment?

Passenger Capacity

How many non-crew individuals can the ship or station support? Be sure to include ground troops in this number.

Sublight Speed and Manoeuvrability

How fast and nimble can the ship move in realspace? This is measured from Class 1 to 10; Class 1 speed or manoeuvrability would be an A-wing or TIE Interceptor, while Class 10 speed or manoeuvrability would be like the Death Star. Class 3 would be a Y-wing or TIE Bomber. Class 5 would be like a Corellian Blockade Runner. Class 8 would be most large capital ships.

Spoiler

Would look the same on the inside?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] -- Go take another look at the tables, and ask yourself why '30 warhead launchers' doesn't specify warhead type. I wrote the original form of those tables, and you're not listening to how people are telling you they'll be implemented. And no, non-combative attachments have nothing to do with weapons loadout. You're fighting straw men and getting yourself mad for no reason.

 

[Darron Wraith]

There is ample room for customization, it's why many things are vague. The counts aren't flexible, but weapon types are.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

By what you've just said Jorus this:

and:

Would have the same number of weapons.

 

[Coryth Elaris]

Tef you asked me a question and I answered.

I'm not here to argue with you, state my opinion and get out. I feel how I feel about it. I'm not the only one who feels this is cookie cutter.

So that said, I'm stepping out of this conversation.

 

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] There are different classifications for different ship sizes akio. Those two different ships could define different roles, and they wouldn't be armed the same.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] There are different classifications for different ship sizes akio. Those two different ships could define different roles, and they wouldn't be armed the same.

False.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Interdictor_Star_Destroyer

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"]

Is it safe to assume that a dev thread can still be used to create specialized weapons of war. For example, would it be possible under a dev thread in this new system to create a Naast under a limited production?

If it's reasonable, yes. You'll have to work that with the associated RPJ.

This would include, for example, SD-sized Interdictors.

highly specialized vessels ARE still possible, as has been said at least twice now, including by Tef.

Like Coryth, I'm bowing out.

 

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] I'm not sure you've read the guide fully, and you're just angry. I get you're upset. Like the others above, I'm bowing out because your argument holds little water because you do have the ability to customize. The charts do allow for that, you simply aren't looking.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

I will say one last thing again then I'm done too.

If every ship still requires working with a RPJ to customize them beyond these rules, why do we need these rules?

 

[Tefka]

Because nobody cares about how many guns a ship has in a role-play, @[member="Akio Kahoshi"], but we still feel the need to cater to techies.