If I read it correctly and understood it, a Runabout (which still counts as a shuttle, and without my modifications or your suggestion above) with or without the attack pod could pose a threat to scale 3 craft at the very least, possibly even scale 4. If they hit, and roll the 4 CD for damage, then spend momentum either on re-rolling part of the damage, adding directly to the damage, or removing resistance… One attack could easily cause a breach. With a really good (or lucky) roll they may not even have to use momentum in order to acquire that result.
I am not purposely trying to be contrary or argumentative, I am merely point something out that I believe is a possibility. Just because they are small craft does not mean they are not a possible threat. Two or three Type 6 armed shuttlecraft could pose a problem to a Klingon Bird of Prey. Being small craft, the difficulty to him them is increased according to the rules. Might not be enough to outright destroy the BoP, but they could possibly disable a system or two if played strategically, like within an asteroid belt that would provide cover for the smaller craft but not the larger one.
If I am completely wrong and off base, by all means correct me. Granted, if played out the BoP would probably disable the shuttles before it could be disabled, but there is still a chance that the shuttles could be victorious. (Most likely not undamaged, but still victorious.)
From what I’ve read things like this are where the game in general shines. Let your crews get creative like the crews of the Enterprise and overwhelming odds stop being overwhelming.
I agree. I’ve been roleplaying for 23 years, most of that time being a player. I can come up with some pretty creative solutions to problems I am presented with in games. Granted, I have not played a Star Trek game before, but it is generally the same in every game. You’ll eventually encounter a situation where the players think of something the GM hadn’t even considered, and either completely foils or hinders what the GM had planned.
I pretty much make sure “or whatever the crew decides” is in my list of pre-planned options. Invariably some crewmember is going to ask if augmenting shuttles is a thing. I had a crew build their own “Alpha Flyer” back in the CODA system days. Everyone’s game is going to be different and all of us have our preferences and reasons for doing so but if your having fun your still doing it right.
Definitely. I am still collecting information and resources at the moment, and hope to be able to purchase the pdfs of the supplements and crew packets out there before my group starts to play. Right now we are running Ravenloft in 4th edition D&D. Once we deal with Strahd or have a team death while fighting him, is probably when we will switch to playing STA with me as GM. As far as I know, I am the only one in the group that currently has any of the books and all I have is the Core Rulebook.
Which supplement would you recommend getting first for a soon to be/new GM planning on running a campaign where the players start as crew aboard a Federation Starbase where initially only shuttles are available before a ship gets assigned to the station for use? Beta Quadrant, Command Division, or Ops Division?
Is that recommendation solely for the reason that it has Shuttle stats in Command? If so, I already know the stats for the shuttles and ships listed in it.
Sweet. Command it is, then. I thought that might have been in Operations, but thank you for the correction. I will be attempting to get that as soon as I can. Trying to adapt a Starbase suggestion from one of LUG’s books into STA for the players. Starting year is 2369, and they will eventually have a ship scheduled for decommissioning assigned to the Starbase’s use before one of them gets promoted and assigned to their first command.
Revisiting this topic to get opinions on something else that I thought of before my campaign starts. Forgive me for not posting this earlier, but it is something that I just thought to bring up that has been swirling around in my brain for some time.
(Per core rulebook, page 233)
SHIELDS: Small Craft have Shields equal to half their normal values; add together Structure and Security, then halve the total, rounding down.
POWER: Small Craft have much smaller power plants than full-size starships, and only generate Power equal to half their Engines score (rounding up).
Yes, small craft are smaller, so their power plants aren’t as large as a regular starship. But again, they are smaller, and don’t require as much power as a regular starship to function. So why are these values halved?
In numerous encounters during the TNG/Voy, or even DS9 series, we see Shuttles and Runabouts take more than one hit and still have shields, and they are able to take more than just a single shot or two with their phasers. In my opinion, these values do not need to be halved. They already have a lower resistance than higher scale vessels, and most small craft scores for structure and Security are lower than the average scale 3 or 4 ship.
Granted, the best shuttles have a shield score on par with some vessels without being halved, they don’t have the same resistance level as those craft. Personally, I am going to drop the halved power rating from the small craft in my game, but I am still trying to decide on the shields. I might consider instead of halving it to lower it by 1/4th. (Runabout would have shields of 6 instead of 4.)
The lower Resistance value from scale already does this.
If that were the case, why aren’t the weapon damage values also halved? The only values halved are Power and Shields, which doesn’t really make much sense to me. Yes, the ships are smaller, but so is the power plant and the required power being drawn from it for mundane operation. Small craft are designed with this in mind. Yes, there may be fewer shield emitters on small craft, but they don’t need to have as many to cover the smaller ship.
One possible solution to this issue might be (for Shields) to add Stucture + Security, multiply by scale, then divide by half for all craft. Could do the same for Power.
Power= (Engines * Scale) divided by half.
Using those two methods, the small craft in the core rulebook would have the following:
Shuttlecraft: Power - 2 Shields - 3
Danube: Power - 7 Shields - 8
Oberth w/Multirole Explorer: Power - 10 Shields - 13
Constellation w/Multirole Explorer: Power - 18 Shields - 22
These values make larger scale vessels more durable, both with power generation and with shields.
Not quite. The Defiant class is Scale 3, and a Runabout is Scale 2. It would be unrealistic if 1 Scale/Resistance point would be the only difference between those two.
These values make larger scale vessels more durable, both with power generation and with shields.
I don’t think larger scale vessels need to be even more durable. For small craft, I find the rules work as-is. And I can’t recommend making any major rule adjustments before actually playtesting it.
One reason why I proposed the option of multiplying engine and shields scores by scale before dividing by 2 to see what others thought of that.
I did playtest it. I did a ‘Wargame scenario’ using 3 Hideki class Corvettes (Cardassian scale 2 craft from Alpha Quadrant) against an Oberth class.
With the rules as is, I made it into the second turn before the Hideki could not do anything at all due to no longer having any power and continuously failing the regenerate power task. (Rules as is, Difficulty 2 due to small craft not having an engineering section and starting with power of 3.)
I was testing it to see how it would do as a training scenario for my players. Aside from giving them plenty of targets for them to shoot at with no danger, the Hideki would be no challenge whatsoever, and not a good way for them to learn space combat. The second time I playtested the scenario did a little better, but was still only like annoying gnats buzzing around someone’s head. The Hideki’s did not hit often, and while they were hard to hit as well, it was a stalemate after the 4th round when the Hideki’s ran out of power.
I’m a little reluctant because I find that larger ships are already too powerful compared to smaller ones. E.g. the Defiant class seems very underpowered vs. a Galaxy class.
I see your issue with the Hidekis but I think I would rather add supplemental rules instead of changing them.
In your case, the main issue is that individual Hidekis are too weak. That’s right but also somewhat expected. Fighters are only dangerous to starships when they act as squadrons. Maybe we need something akin to Conan or Infinity squad rules. Basically, you can group weaker enemies into a squadron and they act as a single entity. For tasks, they roll additional d20s. This would make the regenerate power Task easier to accomplish and a group of fighters would generally become more of a threat while at the same time be much easier to manage by the GM.
I used the rules in the book for the Hideki, the second time I used the crew proficiency as if it was a Pinnace even though I was using the three as a squadron. Even adding a third die (and burning through most of the threat for the encounter within 2 turns) I still failed the rolls more often than not on power generation. Only having 9 attribute and 2 discipline for all actions was very weak.
When I run it with my group (since I plan on having it as a holodeck training session) I may tweak the Hideki and use the next level crew proficiency of 10/3. That might make them more of a challenge for the group, and may provide a good learning experience.
Two or three Type 6 armed shuttlecraft could pose a problem to a Klingon Bird of Prey. Being small craft, the difficulty to him them is increased according to the rules. Might not be enough to outright destroy the BoP, but they could possibly disable a system or two if played strategically, like within an asteroid belt that would provide cover for the smaller craft but not the larger one.
Granted, if played out the BoP would probably disable the shuttles before it could be disabled, but there is still a chance that the shuttles could be victorious. (Most likely not undamaged, but still victorious.)