Running a capital ship

[Mojomoe]

Heya!

My guys recently found and salvaged an Old Republic-era Sith Dreadnought in the Rebellion era. In a word, RAD!

Now they want to get it up and running, which is another story. I plan on making it difficult for them - there are 6 PCs, and 30 NPCs on board, and they are generally aware that the ship is trashed.

The first order of business is fuel. For lack of any better info, I'm going to say that this sucker burns deuterium, which is found in the atmospheres of gas giants. The question is, how much, and to do what?

I'd like to put constraints on them. Like, the ship's reactant tanks can hold 1,000,000 metric tons of deuterium, and the reactor burns it at a rate of X per section (there are 36 decks, 7 vertical sections, 800m) per day at a standstill - that's nt even saying anything about MOVING the ship.

I want them to make real decisions about running port side guns vs running life support to the crew deck, but for that I need meaningful numbers. I'd also like them to have to make regular fuel supply runs, or convert the reactor to a more modern fuel cell standard.

Ideally the fuel should be rare, difficult to transport, or numerous enough that it should be a reasonable hardship to keep the tanks more than 25% full.

Because otherwise my guys have a dreadnought, and this is gonna get weeeeeeird.

Anyone want to help me with this?

[Pel]

Sure!

If memory serves, those ancient dreadnoughts had crews of hundreds (if not thousands), automation not being terribly advanced at the time. Unless this was some sort of Katana Fleet precursor, it's going to take a LOT of NPCs or droids to run this thing.

Deuterium is a good fuel source. It's abundant and easily found in gas giants and comets, so fit some ram scoops and swoop in to fill up the tanks. This method is free, but it does take some time and effort (not to mention piloting rolls).

If your dreadnought was designed to run on deuterium, then I'd determine what it's operational range was and use that as your baseline. Obviously as a front-line warship it's got some decent legs on it, otherwise the Sith would have to stop for gas (literally) after each engagement. Also, it's ancient and probably damaged so at first you probably can't turn on more than a few systems at once.

There might be a language barrier as well, since the controls and computers are probably all labeled in ancient Sith. This can provide some drama and/or humor: "Well, I was pretty sure that lever activated the hyperdrive, but this holographic Sith lord appeared and started singing show tunes..."
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Aha!

[tetsuoh]

If the ship is designed to run off gases then I would think it already outfitted with scoops or had a squadron of refuelers with scoops.

If the latter then them being trashed is fine but I would at least allow one to be rebuild from all the spare parts so that it can be made to start runs to the nearest gas giant once done.

And putting scoops on the dreadnaught would be their best bet. Then require it to take a number of days sitting in high atmosphere to fill its storage tanks.

You may even want the tanks on the ship to be damaged and as such it has less consumables then normal because a number of its tanks are compromised.

A ship this big as a player reward is fine - but often requires a number of officials to keep track of everything going on. And then they report to the captain.

[Mojomoe]

These are all great points!

Truth be told, I'm for with them having a base, I just want to constrain them using a fully-functional dreadnought as an unstoppable weapon. To this end, I need to develop solid rules for when and how to use power, and what the trade offs are.

From SAGA Edition's advanced starship maintenance rules, I know that a dreadnought of 800m (Gargantuan scale) has power cells that each hold 10,000 kg (10 tons) of fuel, and cost 500,000 credits to refill.

Based on those same rules, we know that a ship has 1 fuel cell for every day of consumables. Since I started the Harrower-class at 4 years of consumables, the ship carries 4x368=1472 fuel cells. At 10 tons per fuel cell, max capacity is 14,720 tons, costing 7,360,000,000 credits to refill.

We also have this very basic rubric for fuel usage:

A single fuel cell will provide power for any of the following:

one jump to lightspeed
one hour of combat, sublight travel (ramming speed), or atmospheric flight
six hours of hyperspace travel or sublight travel (attack speed)
one day of sublight travel (cruising speed)
one week (five days) of sublight travel (docking speed)
one month (35 days) while stationary or in orbit

Those figures represent a fully-functional vessel running all systems. For lack of a better understanding, I'd be fine to simply divide that by section and system to find the per-case usage costs. For example, there are 7 sections, and the following systems:
Gravity
Life support (air/heat)
Sensors
Computers
Lights
Manufacturing
Recycling
Shields

From here my math is starting to get fuzzy. What I'm grasping for is a way to put usage costs in terms of kg/tons of fuel per-system, per-hour. Thoughts?

[Mojomoe]

Just doing a cursory review of this data, it's clear that simply running one sub-system in one sub-section of the ship for one hour will use a FRACTION of a FRACTION of a fuel cell, of which the ship has 1472.

By this, it's apparent that for, say, running weapons to be a realistic hardship, they'll need to stay below, say, 0.1% fuel reserves.

[Pel]

Not necessarily. Weapons (especially the energy variety) use lots of power, and that's assuming that all or most of the dreadnought's weapons are functional. A few other possibilities that come to mind:

• Maybe the weapons work, but the fire control systems can only handle a few turrets or a few shots before overloading.
• Maybe the power distribution system is damaged and/or corroded and can only handle a few major systems at a time without powering down entire sections of the ship (and don't forget flocks of Mynocks chewing on the power cables!).
• After centuries adrift, this ship probably has holes in some of the fuel tanks (and compartments) from meteroid strikes and battle damage.
• The PCs probably don't need ALL of the weapons on this ship. They can always salvage or sell some to raise cash for fuel or other repairs.

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Aha!

[garhkal]

Sounds like you are wanting it to be akin to the Destiny on Star gate Universe. So damn frikken old, that even when it has 'Fully recharged", it still is only at 40% or so of what its max power reserves are, and with all the faulty parts around, even that power can't be properly routed to where it needs to go.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Mojomoe]

That's where I'm thinking, yeah.

It's space opera, but there also need to be logistical realities if rewards are to mean anything. The ship is 3,600 years old, infested with parasites, and anything made of plastic or polymer has long since degraded. The computer tetminal keys are just metal nubs. Half to 60 percent of the ship has vented to space through ruptures, and they are thousands of light years from the nearest system (deep space).

That's not taking into account that the ship was designed to be crewed by thousands, and they have 30 untrained refugees. So it's certainly possible, but I want fuel resources, repair, and power distribution to be the new norm for a while.

[CRMcNeill]

A while back, I was working on a rule converting a star ship's consumables into an endurance rating, measured in dice. The theory was that, rather than an accounting problem tracking fuel cell expenditures, the GM would roll the ship's endurance dice against a difficulty that slowly increases the longer the ship goes between refueling and servicing. The idea was to make running low on fuel or having minor or major breakdowns be more randomly generated, helping make the story more interesting.

I got further with it over on G+, but if you're interested, I can track down the results and post them here. I've got another one for commanding capital ships in combat that might interest you, too.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Jedi Skyler]

Another important thing to consider: during what era is this being found? I'm presuming during the Empire/Rebellion era.

That being the case, this ship is going to HAVE to have been found in a very, VERY out of the way place. After all, it's drifted, derelict, for millennia. That means that no one is going to have found it; otherwise, it would have either been rescued and refitted or, almost more likely, completely taken apart for salvage. The money someone would have gotten for all the salvage on such a big ship is astronomical, and would have funded the purchase of a brand-new ship...a custom job, even. That would have been the more intelligent choice; your party could have gotten a large freighter kitted out to their own specs, and used that as a mobile base. It would have drawn a LOT less attention than a Sith Dreadnaught will. And that's the major consideration here, besides the repair work to get it spaceworthy again and supplied: the Empire is NOT going to take kindly to a fully-functional warship of this magnitude suddenly springing up and having its way in the galaxy. They WILL field a force sufficient to take the thing out. In fact, if they get good enough intel, they'll either launch a mission to destroy it in space dock, or (perhaps even more likely) the Emperor will send a mission to assassinate your party so HE can have the awesome Sith Dreadnaught. Either way, this find should present a great many problems for your party.

I understand the 'cool' factor of having this ship. However, imho the sheer logistics of the undertaking ought to make it simple: leave it, salvage it, or die in the attempt to bring it back online.

[Mojomoe]

You bring up great points. It just so happens that there are solid logistical answers to all of them - which is highly unlikely!

First, yes it's in the Rebellion era. Second, it's in a deep part of the mid rim between a primary spacelane and Hutt Space, where nobody goes. Third, it's the site of an ancient Sith-era battle, an area so full of debris that the ancient Republic set up a nav-scrambling beacon that automatically redirects hyperdrive computers around it without so much as a warning - it's the Isla de Muerta: impossible to find unless you already know where it is.

Fourthly, regarding the Empire, I would completely agree - except Return of the Jedi is about 5 weeks away. The Empire is gonna be MIGHTY busy in a very short time!

So, oddly enough, the players are in a prime position to leverage this rare find. Which is why, as you pointed out, the detriments need to be high and prevalent.

First, it's out of fuel. And since its in the middle of nowhere, there's no way to REfuel. They'd need to bring 14,000 tons of deuterium to IT. Second, the tanks are punctured. Third, half the O2 is gone, and half the ship is open to vacuum. Fourth, all plastic and polymer has degraded, leaving only metal, so 90% of electronics are nonfunctional. Fifth, it was the site of a secret Sith experiment that effectively created a dark side, shape shifting Force demon, which is still there. Sixth, it's infested. With Xenomorphs. Yes, the ones from Aliens.

And just for good measure, it smells.

OH, and NOW their enemies have followed their trail and know where they are.

[CRMcNeill]

Ah, so this is less of a "The Far Orbit Project" with a Sith Dreadnaught than it is a variation on the space derelict of horrors trope?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Pel]

Sounds very Space Hulk! Recruit some Spacetroopers (or actual Space Marines) and declare exterminatus on the Alien menace.
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Aha!

[Mojomoe]

Space Hulk is a great example - I literally just played that for the first time two weeks ago!

Actually, those were just their initial obstacles. IF they can manage to overcome them all, AND they're willing to put up with the repair, upkeep, fueling, and logistics, and ALSO being Imperial Enemy #1, I'm happy to let them have a partially-functional dreadnought that occasionally works... sometimes... crewed by 1/100th of its intended skeleton crew.

This is going to be the most wonderful train wreck ever!

So to that end, yeah - I'm looking for good solid rules to determine power inputs and outputs so it doesn't look like I'm simply a jerk for telling them they're out of gas. Plan C is getting it up and running as a *starship*. Plan B is just using it as a mobile base where the lights occasionally go out and some of the doors stick. Plan A is surviving the initial exploration.

I love RPGs!

Oh, and they were warned it was haunted when they chose it as a base. Buyer beware.

[Pel]

Looks like you already have a framework in place to deal with fuel consumption. I've scoured the WEG material and am unable to locate any solid fuel consumption stats, just mention of consumables and replenishing them periodically.

Use the chart you have and see how it works. If it's too generous you can always add 'technical difficulties' to sap the fuel efficiency. If the system proves too restrictive, loosen up the fuel consumption under the auspices of continued improvements and repairs.

You might also want to look at the dreadnought's hyperspace multiplier. The pinnacle of Sith technology a few thousand years ago was probably only x3 or even x4 so that will make the ship even less fuel efficient.
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Aha!