Starship Construction:Which sourcebboks?

[Nemo235]

I'm thinking of starting a Phase World game. I'm trying to determine the books I may want to use.
Which books have the most complete rules for starship building or buying?
I'm assuming the main Phase world has something in there and the new Fleets of the Galaxy has even more detail.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The only PB book that has Starship Construction Text is the Aliens Unlimited: Galaxy Guide.

There are some Starship creation text in Fleets of the 3G. These are story based text, not actual figuring out how much space is there, how much space a system takes up and how much those systems cost like in the AU:GG text.

[Carl Gleba]

There is also Manhunter and Rifter 34. The Rifter is geared towards Galactic Tracers and is really good.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The Gal Tracers' ship text is also not a "Construction" text...it is a lets create this thing text w/o really getting into space in ship & cost limitations. It uses the "create secret organization" format from N&S, that has been used else where for creating cities, circuses, hero org., dimensional and astral realms. Good to get ideas from.

The manhunter book......ahh hummmm I would not dignify anything in it to represent anything but a resource to get ideas from. There are too many things wrong in it, and too many things left out of it to even to be graced with the designation of sourcebook.

[MaxxSterling]

The guys above covered it all pretty much, so it really depends on how you want to run your game.

If you want to use huge ships that you can't do anything with, then get Fleets of the 3 Galaxies.

If you want small ships then that Rifter will do, but it will be story based only, there are no prices.

The Galaxy Guide is awesome, but doesn't line up all that well with the Phase World stuff.

The best thing you could do, is get Phase World 1 & 2, Dimensional Outbreak, Anvil Galaxy and Thundercloud Galaxy to use for the Phase World source stuff and just run with those 3. You'll be limited, but those books cover the stuff you'll want.

If you are really familiar with Rifts and a glutton for punishment, like me, then use all of the books mentioned plus "Mutants in Orbit" and mix and match and convert, but prepare to be disappointed overall, because Rifts Space is broken unless you are playing on a very small scale.

[DhAkael]

Sadly I have to agree with Maxx; and I know the author of 'Fleets o' 3G' has stated ad-nauseum ad-infinitum that he tried to write up ship construction rules-set but couldn't make anything match up to CJ. Carella's creations.
-ssssssssssssiiiiigh-
The answer to that excuse is ; of course not. CJ pulled the ships outa of his [censored] without regard of consistancy. That is NOT an excuse not to just publish a rules-set for FUTURE books.
...Whatever.

Sadly until someone steps up and just codifies a construction system, it's up to players/GMs to kit-bash.

Not aproblem for me (hell, I live for that [censored]; keeps the ole brain occupied), but other GM's like to have things laid out in nice, clean, un-arguable, slide-rule-friendly canon text.

[Nemo235]

Okay. Thanks guys.
I have Manhunter. I agree it has some cool ideas but is not exactly "in line" with the majority of other drifts books. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, it is another dimension.
Anyway, now you have raised more questions.

1. In the Rifter mentioned, what is Galaxy Tracers?

2. Regarding the Fleets book, "large ships you can't do anything with."?
Like, no combat rules? I mean, are they pretty much treated as moving buildings in space or something?

[flatline]

Okay. Thanks guys.
I have Manhunter. I agree it has some cool ideas but is not exactly "in line" with the majority of other drifts books. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, it is another dimension.
Anyway, now you have raised more questions.

1. In the Rifter mentioned, what is Galaxy Tracers?

2. Regarding the Fleets book, "large ships you can't do anything with."?
Like, no combat rules? I mean, are they pretty much treated as moving buildings in space or something?

Capital ship combat is, quite frankly, very boring. They can't meaningfully dodge at the ranges listed for their weapons, and attacks per melee cease to have meaning when a ship has dozens of independently operated weapons.

If you're attacking a capital ship with smaller ships, then it becomes a little more interesting.

--flatline

[PSI-Lence]

the only one i have would be in mutants in orbit and as mentioned that just lists the cost of stuff, not exactly the same thing (if i think i get your meaning you're looking for something along the lines of how to make a mercenary company in the merc book? rolling for budget then picking items from a list?)

you could maybe add the robot creation from SB1 and fiddle with the numbers there too but no matter what i think you'll need a lot of house rulling on this one

[The Beast]

The only book worth your time and money for starship construction is AU:GG. Unfortunately you'll have to come up with a decent SDC-to-MDC ratio for the armor since the author didn't realize the greatness he created and as a result he didn't include a MDC conversion.

[Nightmask]

The only book worth your time and money for starship construction is AU:GG. Unfortunately you'll have to come up with a decent SDC-to-MDC ratio for the armor since the author didn't realize the greatness he created and as a result he didn't include a MDC conversion.

He did, but it makes the AU:GG ships WAY more powerful and durable in general than anything in Phase World.

[KLM]

I'm thinking of starting a Phase World game. I'm trying to determine the books I may want to use.
Which books have the most complete rules for starship building or buying?
I'm assuming the main Phase world has something in there and the new Fleets of the Galaxy has even more detail.

While it is not official - and shameless self-advertising - the system below covers all technological ships in canon:
http://web.t-online.hu/saga/SDRtech.pdf

[drewkitty ~..~]

I was looking at the text in the 3G book again....and it is not even guildlines...it is just a bunch of suggestions and listing of ships already in print.

[Tor]

I think Phase World itself had guidelines for designing runner/merchant ships and weapons you can buy for ships. Not every detail, but a good starting point.

[drewkitty ~..~]

A good starting point... yep, to recognize that there is NADA there and head to the AU:GG book.

[eliakon]

A good starting point... yep, to recognize that there is NADA there and head to the AU:GG book.

which doesn't work well in Phase World at all though

Well it does, I guess. Once you change the ship sizes, and the SDC numbers, and make a valuation for AR, and remove all the items that don't exist in Phase World, and make up stats for all the stuff that DOES, and change the weapons stats to match and.....
hrm, looks like AU:GG is just 'starting point' to write your own rules too.

Don't get me wrong, the book is nice for HU. But its almost totally useless for making a PW ship unless you don't mind the stats being TOTALLY unlike any other ship in the dimension.