USN Cetus and Chesterton Transport

USN Cetus

I have this horrible cough which is preventing me from working in ink. I have managed to cobble together final designs for USN Cestus and the Chesterton Transport ship in Inkscape.

Yesterday, I posted a lot about the Chesterton Transport Ship, so today I will lead with the USN Cetus.

The Cetus has four decks, like the transport, but their arrangements are wildly different.

Deck 1 is dedicated to sensors and a pair of anti-missile turrets.

Deck 2 is the shuttle operation and missile deck. It serves as the main point of ingress and egress for the crew. Often, the missiles are replaced with shuttles. Theoretically, the ship has a secondary capacity for missiles on the lower deck. Because this is a government operation, the ship often has no missiles in either location. Shuttles and drones are cheaper.

There are 4 common ships carried here. The Cetus can carry 3 manned Centaur or 4 unmanned Zombie fighters. Typically, doesn't carry anything so advanced. It is normally equipped with a pair of ABLE recon drones and a Fastback shuttle. The ABLE drone is a wonderful sensor package, but the Fastback shuttle is perversely named vehicle. It's roomy, but profoundly slow. It has two massive doors on either side like a conversion van. It carries 12 passengers or very small cargo loads.

As mentioned before, next deck holds the crew quarters slung between the fuel pods and engine mounts. The Equipment Locker holds many cargo/weapons tractors and fire fighting equipment. Two more Phalanxes are mounted on the leading edge of the ship, which makes this Frigate a wonderful carrier escort. The heavy weapons spaces are designed to carry continent busting nukes, but this configuration is rarely loaded out. The "heavy weapons" are often a pallet of 2 lasers and a single railgun, port and starboard. Sometimes, the Cetus class carries just one of these pallets with the other space being given over to either special sensors or rarely, extra space for the crew. Typically, the officers will sleep in this space, if given a chance.

The lowest deck has the main airlock, which is identical to the Chesterton's hatch. It has very little purpose on the Frigate variant. The Consumable Hold is jam packed with food. The Cargo Bay carries an unusual mix of rescue pallets and maintenance materials. There is a running gag that one Cetus can build a second Cetus from the stuff jammed in the holds.

The Chesterton Transport

Ok, back to the Chesterton. This ship features a science package on Deck 1. This deck is called the Nerd Nest as the science packages are not determined by the ship's owner. The sensors and experiments are specified in the Decadal Survey, which is the result of suggestions by the greater science community. The crew has a manual for maintenance, but only the nerdiest crewmen and women understand the equipment placed here.

Shuttle Operations is two lies for one. Most Chesterton owners cannot afford shuttles for their ships and unlike the Cetus, this space is poorly arranged for commercial shuttles. Usually each Chesterton has a hanger queen, which is only used to test to the inadequate facilities. More often than not, this area is used for recreation. The shuttle refueling lines are bled dry to prevent accidents when used for crew activities.

The third deck is well appointed with crew space to the fore and a large central Engineering space. Having Engineering in the center of the ship supports improved crew and ship safety. In an odd quirk, the bridge is arranged just like the CIC on a Cetus. This was in case of a wartime refit. This only occurred twice in the history of the program and the CIC was the only part of the ship requiring large modifications. The bridge of the Chesterton is far more roomy than the CIC of the Cetus as it has far fewer fittings for crew consoles. The "small holds" are actually larger than crew quarters and have adjustable atmospheric controls.

Deck four carries the lion's share of cargo. Strangely, it has small tractors, trams and locomotives to transport cargo from one ship to other via the main hatch. Unlike the Cetus, the main hatch is used as the main entry point for the crew.

The Minus Faction: Breakout review

Title:  The Minus Faction: breakout
Team: Rick Wayne  (Author),
Robert Sammelin (Illustrator),
Karen Conlin (Editor)
Year: August 5, 2014
Pages: 124
Rating: ★★★★

I've always loved serials. Especially the old 50's stuff. The Minus Faction: breakout is not old school, it's is in the now while hearkening back to classic serials. It's concise, fast paced, and a great story. It embraces current events and calls back to ancient mysteries.

I can't wait to read the next one in the series.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 050 – Feb 19th

We spend an hour flying to the military base. We are detected and get a result of e003. We are attacked by 3 Tech level 2 tanks and 6 with infantry men with TL-2 heavy side arms. The tank guns count as boat guns. They have heavy armor, which reduces each hit by two dice. Skimmers take 2 hits to destroy. This encounter takes an hour.

Now, since we are in a ship and move far faster than any tank, we could escape at the end of the first round but they would get to shoot at me. We are going for it because if I am going to take damage, I want to some back.

To recap, skimmers take 2 hits to destroy, a hopper takes 5 and a starship takes 10. These tanks count as skimmers and are disabled on the first hit and destroyed on the second. Starship guns do 10 hits or 1d6 hits and a critical. In this case, they do one die less due to the atmosphere and because of the armor, they do 2 dice less, for a total of 2 dice. Boat guns do one point of damage on a hit to a tank, which is reduced to by 2, they are ineffective. Against a ship these guns do one hit, which may be a critical.

Those heavy hand weapons have no effect on a starship, so we can ignore them for the moment.

The Antelope fires first because of it’s speed. We roll a 2 and 5. One tank is disabled.

The tanks return fire. They have 2 due to Tech level, a plus 3 due to skill and a -2 due to movement. They must roll under a 3 to hit. They get a 4 and 5, both are misses.

Next round. The tanks stop so they can shoot better. I now get to roll 3 dice because they are stationary.  I get a pair of sixes and a 1. The second tank is disabled. The last tank returns fire and hits with a 5, which does one point of damage to the Antelope.

I disable the last tank with a roll of 1, 4 and 5.

Everyone else is fleeing. I can gun these guys down from the ship with no risk. There are 15 of them and if they roll 4 or more, they escape after I get a shot at them. The event does not say that I will be wanted if I kill them or let them flee, so there are zero consequences. I pretend to shoot at them in the next round while 11 of them make their escape roll. In the next round 2 more escape, and in the third, the last guys make their rolls and get out of dodge. This is an exercise in dice rolls, I didn't shoot and let them have their rolls out of curiosity as to how fast they could get away. Three rounds. Not bad, but if this had been timed to a number of rounds, I would have been in trouble.

The tanks take up 45 CU inside the ship, so taking them is out of the question. I use a loophole in the rules and take their guns. The loop hole is, installing guns takes a day of RRR, removing them isn’t mentioned in the rules, so it takes no time.

On to the military base with 8 hours left. The military base has only 6 contact types, each taking 4 hours so we roll 1d6 twice. We get a 4 and 4, which is only buy boat guns. I don’t need those, so we are done for the day. 

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle. It has one point of damage.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
9 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

10 empty CU in the ship’s hold, plus 10 in the Hopper.

I have 22,071 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

The USN Chesterton, Growler and Variants

I'm not feeling so hot tonight. I have a cough and cold, so I can't do detail work. I figured I will just do the write up on this ship. This is middle and largest deck of 5 levels. 

The USN Chesterton was peace-time design for a frigate. The ship featured a large central engineering bay with the bridge just fore of it. Along the front rim of the disc, a variety of weapons were mounted. In the aft area were the crew quarters along with the main elevators. The engines were mounted at an angle, which gave the ship incredible maneuverability at the cost of top speed. 

Since this was a peace-time design, the frigate never made it off the drawing board. Instead, it was re-purposed into heavy tug and transport vessel. 

This configuration necessitated switching the crew quarters away from between the engines to the forward section of the ship where the weapons would have been in the name of safety. It was felt that damage to the engines could too easily breach the hull and kill the crew. USN crews fight suited, so this was not a concern for a frigate. 

When the war started, the Chesterton dry dock facility was already tooled up for transport production and switching to frigate production was easy. Since there were a great many Chesterton tugs and transports already plying the spaceways, this variant was given the name of "Growler" to set it apart. Before the first ship was released from the dock, the class name was changed again to "Cestus".

Because the Chesterton was a proven design, the Cestus/Growler configuration was only minimally tested. The placement of the tightly packed crew quarters in the rear of the ship was never studied. The crews soon found that the engines caused vibrations in the crew spaces. Unofficially, the crews reverted to the "Growler" designation as commentary on the ship's qualities. While not a fatal flaw, the ship was strongly disliked by their crews.

The first and last ship of the Cestus class do not have these problems as they were built to the specifications of the Chesterton for special missions such as mine warfare and electronic intelligence collection.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 049 – Feb 18th

Scout Ship

Talitar is an interesting system. It’s stats are virtually the same as Regari, but it has 2 planets. They share the same wealth and tech codes, but the gravity is wildly different for each world. Talitar I has a gravity of 13 which means no Hopper use. It simply can’t make orbit and burns fuel at an incredible rate. Talitar II has a gravity of 4. Can you guess which planet I will approach?

Talitar II has the following areas: a space station, rural, city, a prison, ruins, mining, a space port, a military base, and craters.

It will take 4 hours to set down on the surface. I am heading for the space port to purchase hypercharges and to sell off some items to free space. If I get that done, I will hit up the military base for upgraded weapons.

On entry to the space port, I encounter customs. They spend 3 hours searching the ship for radioactive materials. They find none and off we go.

In our three final rolls, we are approached by a pilot/navigator (pass), buy our hypercharges for 1000 and I sell off all of the Utility Suits. I also pay this week's ship payment.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
9 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

28 empty CU in the ship’s hold, plus 10 in the Hopper.

I have 22,071 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

If you like science fiction games, try out some of Christian Hollnbuchner's floor plans and deck plans at DriveThruRPG.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 048 – Feb 17th

Today is spent in RRR. The Antelope is repaired, finally but the day is over.

We have the following resources:

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
9 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

What does that leave for me, space wise?

All of the space suits and PS bots have to be in the hold, as there isn’t enough room in the crew quarters. I can pick up one more crewman before this becomes a problem. The heavy hand weapons also take up hold space. That is 60 minus 10+13+7, so I have 30 left. There are 10 RU in the hold plus the extra ship’s guns, which reduces my cargo space to 14. There is not much I can do with that space, so I need to get rid of stuff. On my next stop, I will try to get sell the extra guns and the heavy hand weapons. That will free up 10 spaces.

I also have 10 free spaces in the Hopper, or ship’s boat. I could shuffle stuff into there.

15 empty CU in the ship’s hold, plus the Hopper. I pay the crew today, which costs 80 secs.

I have 23,251 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Instead of giving you a new ad, check out the items to the right of this post. Find a good book, blog or podcast. My personal favorites this week are Safco Cast and Revolutions.

Dervish and Sword and Flame

The USN Thresher
Prototype

I am try to get the hang of Inkscape. It's going pretty well. I have made improvements to the Sword and the Flame (Thresher) class ship deck plans.

I have even created a variant of it called the Dervish. You can read the write up on the Thresher ship here.

The Dervish is still a work in progress and is far less bleeding edge than the first ship. You can tell that they were built on the same hull, but their operations are completely different. Owning to the fact that the Dervish does not have a unique and experimental engine, the hull is completely smooth.

The USN Dervish Class

The Dervish is a platform designed for modification. It was first designed for engine research followed by a search and rescue ship. Other varients are a scout ship, a science/explorer ship or a gun boat. The ship's interior is a wasp shaped affair with fore and aft open spaces for research. The belt of the ship provides 8 bunk rooms for the crew. As a military ship, this is luxurious.

8 domes are suitable for sensors, science experiments or in the case of the gun boat, weapons. There will be a lower deck, but is sparse on amenities. These are more like semi-optional palettes on an F-15, they contain consumables, with little space for moving around. Unlike the Thresher, the Dervish has no turret.

The search and rescue variant has airlocks on the aft domes and auxiliary thrusters on the fore domes. The test model mounts engines in the fore and aft compartments, which vent out the domes. For testing, instrumentation is mounted on the exterior.

I haven't designed the engines for the Dervish yet, but they will be powerful for a ship of it's size. They will extend the lenth of the ship by about 1/3.

Updates to Compass Rose Inn and Kobold's Folly

I have updated the files for The Compass Rose Inn and The Kobold's Folly products. These items are still pay what you want, however, in each case I have increased the suggested price to $3.99 each.

In the case of the Compass Rose Inn, the map has been reworked to be 1 inch = five feet. This now brings the page count to 63 pages. Additionally, this file has map tiles that enable you to print out additional green space for more terrain. To fill some of this space, there is now a barn map with two levels, a stable or work shed with two levels, a well and bake house map.

In Kobold's Folly, I detail what is different between the Tribe of Minwan and other kobolds and provide images of King Minwan and his sister using the two magic items found at in the folly.

If you have already downloaded these files, my thanks. You should receive an email shortly with the new files. If you can't wait, simply check your Library tab at DriveThruRPG.

Click the images below for full resolution example images from the Compass Rose Inn.

As an additional preview of the Compass Rose Inn, I have loaded full resolution images of the entire basement area.