Cuchulainn | 21 May 2016 3:40 p.m. PST |
I don't know if these are well known or if anyone is interested, but I just found blueprints for the Romulan Bird of Prey. As this is one of my favourite – possibly THE favourite – vessels in ST, I thought I'd post them here. I've no idea if these plans are based on official Star Trek information, or if the artist put them together from his own imagination, but anyway, here they are: link |
Coelacanth | 21 May 2016 3:46 p.m. PST |
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Rabbit 3 | 22 May 2016 2:57 a.m. PST |
I`ve a copy of these lying around somewhere that I`ve had for years. They are pretty old now, being published when the only Star Trek around was TOS and an animated series. The same people also did a set for the Klingon D7 and the Enterprise itself, the data from them was later used the provide the game stats in the Starfleet Battles game. So its these plans that are the origin for the myth that the original Romulan `Bird of Prey` was a sublight ship. |
Cuchulainn | 22 May 2016 6:21 a.m. PST |
"So its these plans that are the origin for the myth that the original Romulan `Bird of Prey` was a sublight ship." I don't know, they seem to be pretty clear she was capable of a maximum speed of Warp 8. In an act of absolute blasphemy, I'm going to say that I always thought the sublight claim was a simple error by the script writers. Guess I'm in trouble now for even thinking such evil… |
ScottWashburn | 22 May 2016 6:59 a.m. PST |
Well, the original Romulan ship in the "Balance of Terror" episode was described as being powered by 'simple impulse' with the Enterprise being able to outrun them with ease. Not sure what that means, but without warp technology the Romulans wouldn't have been a huge threat. Still, again from "Balance of Terror", the Neutral Zone was described as a boundary between the planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the galaxy. So if the Romulans were confined to a single star system they could have managed without a FTL drive. |
StarCruiser | 22 May 2016 7:36 a.m. PST |
Since the TOS E could get somewhere on "auxiliary drive" (ref. Where no Man has gone before), which I would suspect was related to the impulse engines – it's hard to be sure the Romulans were limited to sublight speeds… |
Daricles | 22 May 2016 4:59 p.m. PST |
The real problem is that the source material is from a tv show that aired when science fiction was in its infancy for that medium. A lot of the writers during that time period felt that the established rules for writing should be thrown out the window for the genre. Hence, all of the non-sensical schlock that was produced then. When writing science fiction you just needed a weird alien monster, a spaceship, a death ray or some other equally cool gizmo and some bizarre sets. The plot didn't have to make sense or even exist because it was supposed to be "alien" in nature, which usually just meant weird. Star Trek was one of the first shows to treat the genre seriously. Even so, the original concept was to create "wagon train" (an old west tv show) in a space setting. The writers didn't initially concern themselves much with establishing consistent canonical lore and settled for thematic similarity between episodes. It didn!t help that the show operated on a shoestring budget and was under constant threat of cancellation. In short, it's kind of pointless to worry too much about canon in a show riddled with inconsistencies. |
StarCruiser | 22 May 2016 5:52 p.m. PST |
Actually – the budget was quite large during the first season. Part of the reason it was in danger of being cancelled was the cost relative to the ratings… But anyway, yes, they were mainly concerned with getting the show done on a weekly basis and while there was a "writer's guide" it wasn't always used and even Gene violated the rules a few times. |
Cuchulainn | 23 May 2016 7:42 a.m. PST |
Just wondering if anyone has drawn up Full Thrust SSDs for these things? |
chromedog | 26 May 2016 3:46 a.m. PST |
I've still got a copy of these laying around. Somewhere in the same box is the Klingon D-7 floorplan layout from FASA (15mm grid) and a set of the bird-of-prey scout from ST3 plans. |
TheBeast | 26 May 2016 6:40 a.m. PST |
Just wondering if anyone has drawn up Full Thrust SSDs for these things? Number of ST SSD's across the net, both TOS and later incarnations; Star Ranger (Starship Combat News site) and Colgar6 out of the antipodes come to mind. There was a huge compilation site, but google-fu fails me. Even if it hasn't been updated in years, plenty there. Doug |
Ghostrunner | 26 May 2016 9:53 a.m. PST |
From a series I did for Full Thrust a while back:
The cards were meant to be printed and put into standard gaming sleeves. |
Cuchulainn | 27 May 2016 5:42 a.m. PST |
@ Ghostrunner: What a fantastic looking SSD! I'm only starting out in FT and am currently planning my first game, so forgive me if I sound stupid if I ask for a little explanation for some of the items on your display. I recognise the cloak, fire control, the two beam weapons and the plasma TT in the bow. Also the FTL and normal drive icons. The white squares in the bottom right corner are hull boxes, and I'm steering towards the same for the six around the diagram of the ship? I'm good on game turn and manoeuvre squares, but after that things get a bit more hazy. Those five pairs of squares beside the weapon systems and cloak have me stumped. When I first saw them beside the TT I thought they were reloads, but the beam weapons have them too, and unless it's part of a FT edition I don't have, I don't think they have reloads? And then the cloak has them too..? I'm probably missing something in the rules, but for the life of me I can't suss out what those squares are for. Any chance you might explain them and correct me in any other symbols I've got wrong? Thanks very much. :O) |
Ghostrunner | 27 May 2016 1:38 p.m. PST |
Sorry – should have explained, and you didn't miss anything in the FT rules. Six boxes around the ship are house-ruled shields. Ships get shields for free. Each of the six sides get 1 box per four hull boxes (rounded down). They take damage before the hull, and as long as the FTL is undamaged they regenerate 1 point each shield per turn (2 if they started the game at 5 squares or more per shield). This was mainly to give FTL some use except disengaging. The boxes on the right side were something I was experimenting with to break up the sequence of play. There would be 4 phases per turn, where you would move roughly 1/4 of your total speed. At the end of each phase you could fire weapons. If you fired a weapon in the second half of a turn, you couldn't fire it in the first half of the next one. The boxes were for record keeping. Glad you like them. Just for reference, here's a Federation Cruiser:
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Cuchulainn | 28 May 2016 7:59 p.m. PST |
Those Constitution Class cruisers sure pile in a lot of firepower! Your SSDs are really good and your house rules sound like they could be worth trying in the not-too-distant-future. However I think for the first game or two I'll stick to the official rules, and once I feel comfortable with them, try some adjustments. Thanks very much for posting these Ghostrunner, I really do appreciate your comments and diagrams, and all other replies posted in this thread. |
Rockatansky | 01 Oct 2016 8:44 a.m. PST |
ghostrunner do you have your rules written out completely? or do you just have ship cards for the different ships and classes for standard full thrust rules? i recently got into this rule set with a couple people using star trek models and we were using sort of a combo of "full trek" rules along with another star trek full thrust rule set, which overall i like, but there were no really good stats for the romulan ship in my opinion, and looking through here it seems like using full thrust modified for star trek is more common than i thought! |
MacrossMartin | 01 Oct 2016 9:21 p.m. PST |
Missed this thread before… Ghostrunner, just wanted to add appreciation for those nice SSD's. I particularly like the little characterful in-universe info / quotes. I might have to pinch that idea for my Trek rules ship data cards… :) |