GM's - Who has allowed engineering in their games?

[tetsuoh]

Okay so before we go all wonky with stuff here I'm looking for imput from any gm who has used an engineering skill in their game - what one it was and how you house ruled it's use.

I've been looking for house rules for engineering across the net and have found next to nothing - as if no one even allows it.

[Raven Redstar]

I've never had a PC want to use the engineering skill, nor have I had any that wanted to design their own whatever. There is such a wide array of weapons and armor that nearly every character's desire can be found or modified from existing tech.

I have had an NPC who had advanced engineering, he was a genius bounty hunter who was part of an imperial design team creating a super soldier suit. Sort of like a streamlined space trooper suit, which was much more maneuverable, and in some ways more deadly against infantry. But never really needed any particular rules for engineering, his use was purely fluff.
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RR
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[Guardian_A]

I've never hesitated to allow it in my games, but I've only ever had a couple of people who have actually wanted to use it.

We've used the skill as described (No house rules.) The skill has the potential to be VERY useful, and it is pretty easy to regulate by simply limiting the availability of the resources needed for more exotic items that the player(s) may want to create.

For example, while the character in your description may know HOW to make that suit of armor, the metals used in its construction may be nearly impossible to come by, and/or the proccess of refining those materials may be limited to specialized government instilations which the characters dont have access to.

That said, I've found that the skill is best saved for NPCs unless there is a specific reason for a character to have it in a campaign.

[atgxtg]

I've allowed it.

In general I run it like 1st Aid. That is, it can add to repair rolls in addition to being used to design/build improved tech.

I generally use the rules for improving equipment to get general guidelines for engineering tech. The idea being that instead of jury-rigging an existing device for better performance, the engineering is designing something new that gives a permanent boost in a more reliable fashion. For example replacing an engine with a more powerful design as opposed to tweaking the existing engine.

[jmanski]

I can see that- understanding the inner workings so to speak to build a better improvement.
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[tetsuoh]

atgxtg - what sort of time intervals do you use - the same as those presented in hideouts and strongholds?

[vanir]

I pretty much forced PCs in our tabletop campaign to use (A) Starfighter Engineering to modify starfighters from listed stats, because I don't allow jury rigging on starfighters, only on transports. It is because starfighters are already classed as high performance craft in their design frame class.
Want to add a hyperdrive to a Z-95? Re-engineer it, prototype the mods and test them, survey production facilities and finally you can produce the new type for your squadron, PCs can do this in limited series production (say a run of 20 examples rebuilt from used airframes, this example is similar to the MkIX Spitfire being basically a MkV with a new engine, but there were many small mods and refinements that needed to enter the line during production and early versions weren't very airworthy, late versions from 1943-44 are much better). Expensive and time consuming but totally achievable.

I use aircraft (fighter) engineering guidelines adapted to the RPG, drawing mostly from WW2 fighter engineering and Soviet fighter engineering, because they're pretty simple to work with. American fighter engineering gets much more complicated because of free trade market and contract competitions. It's easier to use a system that involves state funded/directed projects, like german aircraft design and russian.

As for inventing completely new aircraft, with increased capability from contemporaries, the rule of thumb that applied in 1935, 45, 55 and all the way to about 1995 is it takes 3-5 years to design/develop a new fighter airframe and 7 years to design/develop a new engine.
However in wartime aircraft prototypes are rushed into service as the "A-model" of a type (a wartime pilot saying is "never fly a prototype or the A-model of anything). In peacetime the first Fw-190A that would've entered service as a final concept would've been the 1944 A-8, design began in 1938, the initial service trials of the A-1/2/3 in late 41 but it wasn't even ready for service trials until the A-5/6 in 1943 yet entered service in the A-3/4 in 1942...in limited numbers only until 44. And by then only the A-9 was a good performer against other fighters, the A-8 made a good fighter-bomber. But the war forced Germany's hand.

Same with the Spitfire MkIX, it would never have entered service in peacetime. The design concept was actually the MkVIII which was properly engineered to take the heavier dual-stage Merlin and contained improvements learned from the MkI-V but wouldn't be ready for production until 1943. The RAF needed newer faster fighters in service for the war in 1942, so the engine was shoved into a MkV, which wasn't really able to handle it very well (some broke, others just liked to crash), and the MkV with the MkVIII engine was called the MkIX and faster Spitfires entered service a year before they should've.
The war took precedence.

But otherwise engineering high performance craft takes a lot of development and testing and prototyping and making mistakes because your starting point is already something that previous engineers had tried to make the fastest, best thing in the sky. Improving on that benchmark isn't just a matter of thinking up a new idea. It's work, really really hard work and asking almost the impossible. Often making improvements in fractions, or by reducing performance in another area.

[vanir]

I'll give a case example from one SWRPG campaign some years ago.

I was GM, one PC was an ex-TIE Fighter Pilot template named Jimmy Tie (we never did find out his last name). Superb pilot, great with every piloting skill from sensors to shields to search and gunnery/piloting, spent all his CP on a long campaign (about two years actual playing time) just on starfighter skills.
He had a Y-Wing he wanted to customise and modify for much increased performance. Faster, heavier firepower, more manoeuvrability, the works. I made him take (A) Starfighter Engineering for the reasons in my last post and used those guidelines as my only rule of thumb.

So over the course of adventures he collected an engineering team of subordinates, Sluissi, Rebel mechanics, droid workers, everyone he could find. He collected starfighter parts, engine modules, weapons, engineering equipment, all sorts of tech. I made him seek out and buy high powered microthrust portable computers, the works. When we visited electronic manufacturing worlds he bought up high tech avionics gear, sensor modules, fire control computers, everything. This spanned months of playing time while he raised his engineering skill, training with teaching academies and interning with Rebel starfighter shipyards. In game time it spanned roughly the period of 1BBY to about 4ABY.

By this stage the starfighter technological standard was the TIE Interceptor and A-Wing. The venerable Y-Wing was still around but long in the tooth.
Well he spent another six months of game time (about a month of playing time) actually making rolls to modify various parts of the Y-Wing with his collection of parts, engineering team and equipment, based at the Isis starfighter shipyard.
Other PCs were so impressed by this Player's determination that they helped fund the project with all their treasure and credits.

So his Y-Wing wound up with four massive engines arranged in a cross. In the centre facing backwards was a quad laser gunport and a gunner. In the cockpit was Jimmy Tie and a very heavy pair of laser cannon (6D+2 damage from memory), plus upgraded ion cannon turret on the roof (about 5D from memory with a 4D fire control). Shields were about 2D I think, armouring/particle shields improved hull to about 5D, his sensor suite was upgraded, speed rating about 10 space units, manoeuvrability only about 2D+2 because the whole package had such high power requirements and he didn't install S-foils to keep the Y-Wing look sort of.

But I made him consistently require heroic engineering rolls (he used a lot of CP), and I also included a CP point cost for every point of improvement. So increasing the space rating from 7 to 10 not only required a heroic engineering feat, but cost a minimum of 24 CP and forced him to draw a picture of his new Y-Wing custom with four instead of two engines, bigger than the stock ones too. It also reduced fuel range (down to 3 days I think). This thing was a monster.

Anyway that was the first time we blundered through starship engineering. Everything since then has been refining the themes and trying to apply more real world analogues to the process.
No I don't make it easy, but it really is that difficult and complicated.

Anyway that Y-Wing was so tough with him in it the damn thing was almost a gamebreaker. I had to introduce E-Wing era technology early because he was just slaughtering whole squadrons of TIE fighters single handedly

[Naaman]

Not sure if its what the OP is looking for, but atgxtg has an awesome write up on starshop weapons design -ver in the tools forum.

[garhkal]

While not engineering itself (the one from hideouts and strong holds), i have seen lots of use of armor engineering, weapon engineering and even 3 cases of repulsor vehicle engineering.
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[Zarm R'keeg]

I have. It was the beginning of the end of any semblance of control I had on my players, who managed to get a wealthy patron... species... and start designing, and building, their own starships. Properly handled, I think it'd be fine... but I let things spiral out of control pretty quick without realizing it. (I suspect Fallon Kell remembers it differently... )

Of course, if I'd factored in time and testing and many of the things Vanir suggested...
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[Fallon Kell]

[Zarm R'keeg]

I do not remotely remember that. my memory is basically challenged by remembering what I had for breakfast. Something that happened more than 5 years ago... might as well have happened to someone else at this point.

And your name was...?
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Hard core OT, all the way!

[Fallon Kell]

[Zarm R'keeg]

THAT, I do remember.
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Star Wars: Marvels, the audio drama: www.nolinecinemas.com

Hard core OT, all the way!