| This is an adaptation of other material to GURPS |
These are notes on adapting the ships from Frontier Elite II to GURPS Spaceships.
TL[]
Due the the inclusion of energy shield technology, super fusion torch drives, and the time period the game is set in (32nd century), TL is 11^.
Systems[]
Anti-Missile ECM (TL10) [Hull!][]
| “ | Anti-missile (ECM) System Specification: Radiant-Magnetic "wipe-out" using ion-saturation theory developed by Bell and Braben on riedquat 359. Electronic Counter Measures Systems use minute charged particles of InterSpac heavy Element dust, releasing their radiant energy and setting up expanding nuclear flux chains. | ” |
–Elite Manual, Ian Bell | ||
An AM-ECM system is distinct from a defensive ECM system; it is used purely to counter missiles. It does not just impart a to-hit penalty, but detonates the missile's warhead.
An AM-ECM is a high energy system that, when activated, emits a field that detonates the warhead of all missiles within its radius, , including any launched by allies. Smart missiles and navy missiles are immune to this effect.
Activating an AM-ECM is a Sensor Task, requiring a successful Electronics Operation (EW) roll. A Wait (AM-ECM) maneuver can be taken to interrupt during the movement of a missile once it moves within range of the AM-ECM.
Navy ECM. A navy ECM will also detonate smart missiles (but not navy missiles).
| SM | +3 | +4 | +5 | +6 | +7 | +8 | +9 | +10 | +11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECM Radius (10 mile hexes) | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 30 | 50 | 70 |
| ECM Radius (100 mile hexes) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
| Cost (Standard) | 20K | 60K | 200K | 600K | 2M | 6M | 20M | 60M | 200M |
| Cost (Navy) | 100K | 300K | 1M | 3M | 10M | 30M | 100M | 300M | 1B |
Drives[]
Spaceships use a TL11^ Super Fusion Torch drive (GURPS Spaceships p. 23), but with four times the delta-v (1,800 mps per tank) and one-quarter the thrust (12G per system). It can be referred to as the ship's "interplanetary drive" to distinguish it from the ship's hyperdrive.
These drives are so incredibly fuel efficient, it is possible that the hydrogen is stored in a monoatomic state or supplemented with antimatter.
If the spaceship has a military hyperdrive fitted, its interplanetary drive must also consume military fuel instead of hydrogen because of the way drives are designed to share the same fuel tanks; conveniently this provides the same thrust and delta-v.
Stardrives[]
The ships of Elite II use bulky hyperdrives. See Stardrive, Frontier Elite II Variant (Spaceships).
Fuel Costs[]
In the Elite setting, hydrogen fuel is cheaper than standard due to the ease of gathering it with fuel scoops.
- Hydrogen: $600 per ton
- Military fuel: $2,500 per ton
Fuel Scoop (TL10) [Front][]
A fuel scoop uses an electromagnetic net, similar to a ramscoop, to gather atmospheric gases to process into hydrogen fuel.
Strictly speaking, a fuel scoop has a fixed system mass of 6 tons (SM +6), but the table below shows the cost of other possible variants.
An SM +6 fuel scoop can capture and process 1 ton of hydrogen every 12 minutes (at TL10) or 1 minute (at TL11), from a gas giant at an altitude of thin atmospheric pressure (~18,000 miles altitude), at a modest speed of 2 mps. There is no benefit at higher velocities due to a limit on the scoop's refining rate.
Every size of fuel scoop can fill one fuel tank of the same SM in 1 hour (TL10) or 6 minutes (TL11). Adjust for smaller systems as appropriate - for example it takes 15 minutes for a TL11 SM+6 fuel scoop to fill an SM+7 fuel tank.
A ship can have up to three fuel scoop systems: divide the refueling time by the number of systems.
Cargo Scoop. A fuel scoop can be adapted with a cargo scoop, which can draws in metallic objects such as cargo canisters, escape pods and dummy mines, transferring them safely to a cargo hold. The maximum mass of object that can be scooped is shown in the table below.
A cargo scoop takes up system mass: half the refueling rate of the fuel scoop.
| SM | +5 | +6 | +7 | +8 | +9 | +10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel Scoop Cost ($) | 60K | 200K | 600K | 2M | 6M | 20M |
| Cargo Scoop Cost ($) | 100K | 300K | 1M | 3M | 10M | 30M |
| Cargo Scoop Limit | 0.3 tons | 1 tons | 3 tons | 10 tons | 30 tons | 100 tons |
Scooping from Stars[]
A fuel scoop can also be used near a star. Without a force screen, a coronal orbit will gather 1 ton of hydrogen every 100 days. If the ship has a force screen, a high chromosphere (thin atmosphere) orbit will gather 1 ton every 3 hours; mid chromosphere (standard atompshere) will gather 1 ton every 10 minutes; low chromosphere (dense atmosphere) will gather 1 ton every 1 minute.
Silastroplastron Seats[]
In Elite II, ships move at sublight speeds within a star system, with journeys taking days or weeks. As a convenience for the player, 'Silastroplastron' pilot seats are equipped with 'stardreamer' technology that alter the pilot's perception of time for long journeys; and presumably to protect against the sustained extreme accelerations Elite ships are capable of.
As this time-dilating mechanic is unneeded in a tabletop RPG, I have chosen to use habitat cabins for the crew of most ships.
Aerospace fighters are the exception, since they have a traditional pilot cockpit. In this case the ship does have a Stardreamer to allow the pilot to make long journeys without a cabin. A habitat hibernation pod is used to represent this: a 10-day journey will be perceived as a 1-day journey. The Stardreamer conveniently brings a pilot back to real-time if the ship comes within some set distance of another object (chosen by the pilot; 10 miles or 100 miles for example).
A hibernation pod cost $30K and takes up multiple habitat systems on a small ship, as follows.
| SM | +2.5 | +3 | +3.5 | +4 | +4.5 | +5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systems | 13 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Weapons[]
Beam Weapons[]
The canonical beam weapons are noted below. Of course, the variety of lasers and particle beams in GURPS Spaceships is open for inclusion. In general:
- Pulse lasers are improved UV lasers.
- Beam lasers are semi-rapid very fire improved UV lasers.
- Particle accelerators are improved particle beams.
SM and Cost are included for convenience when designing partial batteries or smaller system batteries.
| Weapon | SM | Rating | dDamage | sAcc | RoF (1-minute turn) | Rcl | Range (100-mile hexes) | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 MW Pulse Laser | +4.5 | 3 MJ | 3d burn(2) | 0 | 12 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $120K |
| 5 MW Pulse Laser | +5.5 | 10 MJ | 4d burn(2) | 0 | 12 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $300K |
| 1 MW Beam Laser | +6 | 1 MJ | 2d burn(2) | 0 | 200 | 1 | 7/20 (S) | $600K |
| 4 MW Beam Laser | +7 | 3 MJ | 3d burn(2) | 0 | 200 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $1.5M |
| 20 MW Beam Laser | +8 | 10 MJ | 4d burn(2) | 0 | 200 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $6M |
| 100 MW Beam Laser | +9 | 30 MJ | 6d burn(2) | 0 | 200 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $15M |
| 30 MW Mining Laser1 | +6.5 | 30 MJ | 6d burn(2) | -9 | 6 | 1 | 15/50 (S/L) | $1.5M |
1) The 30 MW Mining Laser does not include the +9 targeting system common to other space weapons (GURPS Spaceships p. 66), which is reflected in the table. Instead, the system includes a pulse control unit for rendering ablated rock into gatherable chunks. Half normal cost.
Missiles[]
A standard missile system, including pylon and targetter, has a mass of 1 ton. We treat this as a 24 cm caliber missile, using the Bigger Missiles homebrew rule to allow SM +4 and SM +5 ships to carry them (with ammunition 1 and 3 respectively).
There are three types of 24 cm missile:
- KL760 Homing Missile
- LV111 Smart Missile
- NN550 Navy Missile
Furthermore, there are two types of 1-ton mine.
- XB13 Proximity Mine
- XB74 Dummy Mine
Other Spaceship Equipment[]
Elite II has the following pieces of equipment, for which do not need to be equipped individually in GURPS.
- Automatic Pilot. All control rooms have a computer that can run navigation software at no extra mass.
- Autorefueller Device. Unneeded as GURPS does not distinguish between fuel tanks and the drive's internal tank.
- Atmospheric Shielding. Assume that all ships have atmospheric shielding at negligible cost and mass.
- Cargo Bay Life Support. Subsumed into the steerage cargo capacity of habitats.
- Hyperspace Cloud Analyzer. This is now represented with software working with the ship's comm/sensor.
- Laser Cooling Unit. Assume that all the beam weapons listed above have laser cooling units (the 'improved' modifier). A beam weapon without a cooling unit is a standard TL10 UV laser.
- Military Camera. Of negligible mass anyway, this would be an adaptation of the ships comm/sensor.
- Radar Mapper. This item discloses additional information about a target ship (type, registration, bounty) and is required for being awarded a bounty by the Elite Federation. However, this can be represented with software for the ship's computer working in conjunction with the comm/sensor.
- Scanner. All ships have a scanner, subsumed into the ship's comm/sensor.
As these items take up equipment mass in Elite II, this frees up additional space in the GURPS adaptation. This is more-or-less balanced by the fact that power plants need to be included for high energy systems.
Combat[]
In Elite II, spaceship combat occurs at distances of less than 8 km (5 miles), and lasers can't really hit anything beyond that; this is for the purpose of making dogfighting more fun for the player in a video game context. This can be relaxed in our GURPS adaptation. Most ships have an acceleration of 10G or higher, so per the Scale Table 1-minute turns are used at standard scale (using the default abstract combat system). Elite II does use Newtonian physics, so the tactical combat in GURPS Spaceships 4 can be appropriately used, with 100-mile hexes.
Alternatively, to more closely match the video game, weapon ranges can be divided by 10. Use close scale and 20-second turns with abstract combat; and 10-mile hexes with tactical combat.
Spaceship index[]
- Adder - 55 ton multi-role
- Anaconda - 800 ton freighter
- Boa - 1,500 ton freighter
- Cobra Mk I - 75 ton multi-role
- Cobra Mk III - 100 ton multi-role
- Constrictor - 120 ton multi-role
- Escape Pod
- Eagle Long Range Fighter Mk III - 30 ton aerofighter
- Falcon - 16 ton aerospace fighter
- Interplanetary Shuttle - 8 ton utility ship
- Lifter - 10 ton utility ship
- Lynx Bulk Carrier - 7,200 ton freight liner
- MB4 Mining Machine - 30 ton industrial
- Tonne Canister, Frontier Elite II
- Viper - 65 ton medium fighter