Replacements & Upgrades

[DarthOmega]

So after going through the REUP which has a nice section on upgrading EXISTING equipment on a ship or vehicle, I was wondering if there were any official rules on how to completely replace an item to upgrade it.

For example, if the PCs have a freighter with a single twin turret that does 4d damage, that means that turret can only be increased to 5d+2 damage. But what if it were replaced entirely? Say with a quad turret that deals 6d damage base? Is that even possible? Are there guidelines on how much a ship can hold in terms of equipment (weapons, shields, hyperdrive etc.)? So that maybe they can eventually not only replace the turret but add a secondary set of laser cannons and maybe a concussion missile launcher to the ship? Along with those sort of guidelines are there rules on time involved to switch out individual equipment with new equipment, how much it would cost, and what the difficulties would be for doing such a thing?

I'm asking a lot of these questions because we just came out of a Battletech game where you can literally strip a 'mech down to its frame and rebuild it with new weapons, better (and usually lighter) armor, and larger engines as long as you stay within specific guidelines and within the tonnage of the 'mech itself, so my players are used to the modularity of their 'mechs and are looking to modify their ship and vehicles in a similar way.

They have plans to eventually replace pretty much everything on the ship and make it better. More and better weapons, more shielding, faster hyperdrive. Faster move. More maneuverability. The works. It's a joint goal that all of the characters share so it's something I want to indulge since it's something they are working on together.

TIA for any information in regards to this.
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[Mojomoe]

The simple answer to your question is: it's fuzzy.

There was some support for system-swapping and part replacement, but it was incomplete. For example, GG6: Tranp Freighters stated that you could tear out a system and replace it with another, even going so far as to give modification times and costs for doing so, but where it failed was saying that you'd subtract the weight of the old system and add the weight of the new one - and then it didn't give a complete listing of systems and weights. So the bare bones of a game mechanic is there, it's the data that's incomplete.

Over the years multiple people have worked out a variety of answers to your "modular ship design" question (with a variety of "construction points" or "emplacement points" to accommodate the system strain). For what it's worth, the two newer SWRPG systems recognized this trend in modern games and allowed for system swapping: both SAGA with its Emplacement Point system and FFG with its Hard Point attachments solve this, but require backward-conversion and a little fudging to make work.

The closest you will get at the moment is Fallon Kell's "Conplete Starship Construction System." Beyond that, I would point you to the Star Wars Pettycomp PBEM site (with lots of extrapolated ship systems), as well as GG6, SAGA's Starships of the Galaxy, and FFG's core rulenook for EotE.

[DarthOmega]

Yeah that's what I was figuring. I may take bits and pieces of Fallon Kell's stuff and a modified version of the emplacement system from the SAGA Starships of the Galaxy and see what I can come up with for my players.
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Knowledge is power, and power corrupts...so what does that say about knowledge?

Read my gaming blog at www.alteredrealities.net - click on the tabs near the top for the different pages that usually have character bios and other info.

[Raven Redstar]

There are ways to work the existing system, fire linking extra weapons on the turrets.

So your twin laser turret, sounds to me like 2 fire-linked light lasers. If you dig through the various supplements. I believe they have Starship weapon stats in both the Weapons Compilation and the Starships of the Galaxy conversion, you can get the tonnage cost. Although, with Quad cannons, base 6D damage, sounds like 4 light lasers that have been fire-linked (3D base damage +1D for each cannon added on). To make those quad cannons, they may just have to add on 2 extra light lasers.
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[bobenhotep]

I did a short write up on how turrets worked in my games about 5 years ago. I based it on doing actual work as a turret mechanic on tanks in the real world. The link should take you directly to the thread. It might be useful for what you are trying to do, and has some info on how fire control works.

http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2710&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
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The Chijawa said so, that's why.