To be upfront I have never been a fan of the whole “ships and characters” concept. While I understand it is a easy way to phone in that side of the game, I have never seen one that didn’t suffer from years of constant tweaking and house ruling to get it to kludge through. That said it is what we have.
My question centers around Ships Systems and older vessels.
The Galaxy Class (in service 2359) is rated as:
Scale 6
COMMS 09 ENGINES 10 STRUCTURE 10
COMPUTERS 10 SENSORS 09 WEAPONS 10
The Intrepid Class (in service 2371) is:
Scale 4
COMMS 10 ENGINES 11 STRUCTURE 08
COMPUTERS 11 SENSORS 10 WEAPONS 09
Miranda Class (in service 2274):
Scale 4
COMMS 08 ENGINES 08 STRUCTURE 08
COMPUTERS 08 SENSORS 09 WEAPONS 09
The Constitution Class (In service 2243 retired 2290) is:
Scale 4
COMMS 07 ENGINES 08 STRUCTURE 08
COMPUTERS 07 SENSORS 08 WEAPONS 08
The Constitution class came into service 116 years before the Galaxy class and 128 years before the Intrepid. Heck the last Constitution class was decommissioned 69 years before the first Galaxy class.
The Miranda Class only follows only 31 years after (85 years before the Galaxy).
My issue is that from the numbers it means that Federation technology has been incredibly stagnated.
Relatively small ships in comparison to a Galaxy Class, the old hulls Miranda and Constitution are within one or two points in Computers and Sensors.
Some of the fan conversions have the Archer Scout (in service around 2266):
Scale 2
COMMS 08 ENGINES 09 STRUCTURE 07
COMPUTERS 07 SENSORS 09 WEAPONS 07
This is even more incredulous. The Constitution refits computer core has a larger volume that the Archer has as a ship. How can they have the same Computer stat?
What I am getting at is that the stats for older ships seem far too good.
The reason I ask is that I am building up a campaign which will be using older ships during the Dominion War period.
I am looking for TOS era ship stats for the Constitution Class, Saladin Class and Archer Class. I do not feel comfortable enough with the system to come up with good stats.
Anyone have an idea of what TOS era stats should be or am I looking at this wrong?
You haven’t even mentioned the upgrades that raise those systems to levels very close to the most modern of ships (at least for ships < 120 years old). A Miranda in 2371 can easily have COMMS 10 ENGINES 09 STRUCTURE 09 COMPUTERS 10 SENSORS 11 WEAPONS 10.
Might be asking the wrong question. Instead of “why are old ships too high?” why not ask “why aren’t newer ships higher?” or… maybe we are thinking about this all wrong. It’s a game that’s trying to make different time periods all work in the same system, so the stats are going to not be too different. Honestly I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, but you can try to work it out if you want to, its your game.
Every single point means a linear progress of 5 percentage points. Meaning: The chance that a COMMS 10 ship scores a success on a given task is 5% higher than that of a COMMS 9 ship.
If you feel TOS ships too strong in a TNG era game, simply leave out the refits as @HappyDaze suggested. You might even reduce some systems by a point or two, but bear in mind that every point in systems equals 5% on the chance your players will succeed at a task. It’s not as insignificant as one might think.
Is it possible that the ships each scale to the vessels in their own era? That they’re not supposed to be compared to one another, just within the time period in question. After all, no matter how well handled, a Constitution-class heavy cruiser is not going to be a match for an Intrepid-class exploration ship.
I brought this up a while ago, the phasers on a Constitution are equal to those on an Intrepid.
As long as you play a ship in it’s intended era, the relative stats don’t matter…
…but if you don’t, Trek is all about time travel, then it gets awkward.
That’s the other problem. Post-TNG era ships get to the point where the stats are so high even in difficult tests there are often near-automatic successes. A Prometheus with SECURITY 5 and WEAPONS 14… the only things that stands in it’s way are that it’s phasers are only as powerful as a Constitution from a century ago.
The stats may be the same, but the size does not have to be. I think that Trek tech has reached a point in which ceratin things cannot get better but only more compact. And even this has its limits
…but in STA when something gets smaller, it gets less powerful.
A starships Resistance is equal to it’s Size. It’s phaser damage is based on Size. It’s Shields are based on STRUCTURE.
In STA there is absolutely no reason for cannon-fodder Mirandas and Excelsiors seen on screen. Their weapons and shields are just as good as “modern” ships, and with upgrades their stats are as well.
You are right, in the rules size matters, but this is the size of the whole vessel not the size of the component. And the component might gotten smaller.
I see “size” as more of a tech modifier than an actual representation of the size of the vessel, at least, it doesn’t always have to represent the size of a ship. Sometimes you might nudge a ship up or down a size to represent its systems.
Just repeating something I said elsewhere: don’t get too hung up on the ship’s Systems and Departments stats - they represent just 1 die out of a minimum of 3 (often 5 or more) rolled in any given Task. Scale and Talents have much more impact in game.
Even the non-canon Hermes-class in included. The so-called Enterprise-class is only a refit of the Constitution-class and is not a spaceframe of its own.
