/STG/ Star Trek General

10 years after that series ended and I'm *still* pissed off that the NX Enterprise looked the way it did rather than like that NX Refit (granted, with the refit the deflector should be removed from the leading edge of the saucer).

Fuck Berman and Braga so very hard.

Canon right up until CBS decides it isn't.

Until we have a post-Voyager series we won't know for sure.

And that could be 20 years from now and the people who made that decision might no longer be at CBS, and so the new team of producers, execs, writers, etc. might decide that it's no longer canon.

Hell. TAS isn't considered canon, and it was an aired TV show with the original cast!

I'm angrier that the Enterprise E is smaller than the D. That is the epitome of bullshit.

Compared to the shit the studio wanted to do, Bermaga did very little wrong.

The studio wanted to have a band playing on board on a weekly basis. Just imagine that.

Whoever did that deck layout *IS* aware that hulls have thickness and require some level of structural bracing, right?

Probably not. How many fans actually know shit about anything?

I include myself in that assessment.

Why? The Sovereign class is a refined ship. It's less designed for deep space exploration and more of a diplomatic vessel(capable of beating the shut out of any uppity aliens).

As an added bonus, August Winter and Akira Sulu kept swapping jobs until they added the E-F

If you have to ask, then you will never understand.

Hey guys, can we make a rule for these threads, that being...

"While we respect that canon exists and with all due respect, it can go fuck itself because we are attempting to create awesome shit for our players and ourselves."

Just, you know to head off canon/not canon arguments.

This. The Galaxy-class was designed to let crews stay 'out there' for a long, long time by having their families on board too. It's bloated with a shit-ton of things not needed in a regular starship.

Now along comes the Sovereign, which is what happens when a Defiant fucks a Galaxy and then beats the bloat out of the kid.

The Galaxy is a cruise ship with labs and guns strapped to it.

The Sovereign is a thorough-bred battle cruiser in all but name, ready to kick ass and take names and give no fucks while doing so.

Not that user, but bigger is better?

I just wish the D had been able to hang around long enough to become the Gal-X.

I've always assumed that was the default stance, but I could add it to the next thread's pasta.

Canon is the death of creativity, particularly for roleplaying games.

the kids on the ship thing was always a goddamn bad idea, especially as more wars and the borg happened

>Canon is the death of creativity, particularly for roleplaying games.
Agreed, but more importantly, I have been in love with the D7 since the first time I saw it, to me it has always been the epitome of starship design.

If you're not going to adhere completely to canon, then there's no point in using a setting where that canon exists. Go make up your own thing and be original.

If you're going to use an existing setting, then you're required to respect it's existing canon as well.

Whilst I agree that we should treat the canon as a fluid thing. There is something to be said to respecting the core of the canon. We are trying to create Star Trek scenarios, after all. It makes sense that the core spirit of Star Trek and its various nations should be preserved.

Why would bigger be better? Technology improves over time and becomes more compact. By the token that "bigger is better" we would still have huge battleships in modern navies. Whereas we instead have cruiser sized vessels to carry out the same missions.

The D7 is one of my top three favorite starships of any franchise.

I can see where you're coming from, but hear me out. Star Trek is a detailed universe that has on occasion had forks that don't agree with each other.

>Gene had a falling out with the guy who made the Starfleet Technical Manual, so the Federation Class Dreadnought is non-canon
>SFB is only allowed to use TOS/TAS tech and races or extrapolate from stuff based on that. They cannot use anything from TNG onwards, so that's how the Starfleet Universe came to be
>Various novels call Q'o'nos "Kling", I have a FASA Klingon supplement that has Human/Klingon hybrids, Imperial (ridges) Klingons, and Romulan/Klingon hybrids as Klingon races and whose homeworld is called "Kling"
>Some people don't like a particular series and wish to see it erased from their personal game's canon

All of these things are fine. I'm okay with it. You can do a lot with Star Trek and still keep the themes and ideas, but even if you want a space adventure and don't care about that stuff you can be space pirates or free traders who don't give a monster dog's butt about Federation principles.

I was more or less being facetious.

>Series has an absolute ton of non-canon material, including novels, videogames, traditional games, a cartoon, more fan material than is actually readable in one lifetime. Along with a standing precedent of alternate universes and more than one crossover with another unrelated series, like pic related.

I do not believe you have the right to tell someone this.

I'll refer you to what I said here: With an extra helping of "Tell that to the guys in the Star Wars General":

I-I don't think you know what 'canon' means, user.

I'm looking for a PDF I saw around here once a long time ago, which basically sliced a Galaxy-class into individual decks.

Anyone happen to have it?

Have a planet killer.

I would also be interested in this.

>TAS isn't considered canon
Yes it is. Gene didn't want it to be canon, and the "canon" guy through the 90's didn't either. However, it was never officially non-canon either, and it became canon (officially) when they released the DVD boxed set (because trekfags won't buy it if it isn't canon).

Been looking since you last mentioned it, I don't have it in my files and haven't seen it in the usual sources, sorry man.

I believe I do.

No. We MUST argue about canon.
That being said, if you want to do your own thing, that's cool. SFU is fine, STO is fine, whatever. Just be sure everyone knows what's changed.

The point still stands. It's canon (or non-canon) until some guy in a suit decides it is or isn't.

Ultimately, I pick and choose what I like because some things created by fans or non-canon forks are better than what we got in canon sources (ENT, in particular).

Thoughts on the anti-borg designs of the DS9 era? The Akira, Sabre, Steamrunner, Norway and Defiant classes. I'm sure there are other designs that have been retroactively included (perhaps the Prometheus and Nova) but lets take these 5 for the moment.

I absolutely love the Steamrunner design. For purely aesthetic reasons i think it's the best of the 5. As for combat efficacy, the Akira and the Defiant stroke me as the most damage oriented. I imagine the the Sabre was designed more as a squadron ship and the Steamrunner as a heavy support frigate.

the only ship that doesn't "fit" for me is the Norway. It has a bizarre nacelle/engineering section that only partially intigrates into the saucer section, making it seem like a compromise between old starfleet notions of exploration ships and the realities of building a warship.

The specifically anti-Borg trio are the Defiant, Prometheus and Sovereign, last I checked.

>(because trekfags won't buy it if it isn't canon)
One would think that this is what
is all about.
Unrelated to that, my group is not interested in Trek, so I wanna file off the serial numbers using Starships & Spacemen. Wondering if any of you had some interesting alien ideas or a link of some sort that would give me inspiration.

>interesting alien ideas
Do you mean like "rubber ears and faces" interesting, or "freaky alien" interesting? Or does it even matter?

I like them. But it's clear that they're not starships meant for long term missions far from explored space. They're definitely warships mean to operate with supply lines and the benefit of a war economy to keep them in shape.

In a way, the Norway reminds me of the Loknar.

There could be two definitions in this case: ALL extent material that was EVER sanctioned; or, ONLY material CURRENTLY sanctioned.
This anonpresumably goes with the first option. This anonseems to go with the second option.
How do we rectify this?
(Shit! Also a third option with Trek: multiple canons, a la SFB and STO, as this anonpoints out.)

Really? The sovereign seems much mor general purpose oriented than the ones i listed.

>Get assigned to an Oberth class
>Have to get checked out for cancer every other week because the nacelles on either side of the saucer are continuously spewing radiation at us
>Work in the engineering section, no easy way to get down there
>Ship doesn't have room for fancy technology like holodecks, high grade replicators or suicide booths
>Get laughed at by every other ship officer when in port because I serve on an oberth
>No way out

True, it is more general-purpose. But Starfleet is first and foremost a scientific and diplomatic institution, so to speak. But make no mistake, the Sovereign class is a straight up battle cruiser with a few labs strapped onto it more than anything.

iirc, S&S has a whole helluva lotta good inspiration material already - have you checked their splats?

>OTOH
>Short range, so more time at Starbase
>Regular medical care
>Get to know everyone you work with
>No holodecks, so more time for ancient Earth games like miniature skirmishes (thank you replicators!) and these cute "roleplaying" games where you use your imagination rather than interact with the holodeck

>Be an Oberth Captain

Why live.

There are splats?!

Freaky, rubber ears and foreheads are easy.

Steamrunners look cool until you realize the only thing connecting their saucer section to their stardrive section are the nacelles.

ayyy
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/aliens.php

That's probably just a deflector/mission pod, rather than a full-blown stardive section. I'm betting the warp core is in the saucer section.

The Oberth is where they stick Captains that pass the tests but do fuckall else. No extra curricular activities, clubs, hobbies, friends, etc.

You do realize that not all parts of the nacelles emit radiation. And that you have radiation shielding. Hence why the Saber class and the Steamrunner can exist, both with nacelles jammed directly onto crewquarters.

Also that one time they decided to ignore the treaty of Algeron.

Guys.
I think that whole things looks exactly like you could push the nacelles in forward to create a less flimsy design for combat or atmospheric reentry and have the radiating nacelles away from the crew during long warp journeys.

Or if it isn't, such a ship should be made.

So they put sociopathic nerds in the tiny science ship? Sounds about right.

Personally I wanna captain a Marklin, and be like my favorite space pimp.

I like them all, but Steamrunner above all? Above the Saber and Akira? The Defiant?

I dunno man. I just don't know.

Norway though yeah that thing is a shit. A shit.

But come on, the Saber class looks super comfy, the Akira is it's sexy torpedoboat/carrier bigger brother. the Defiant is a tiny murderboat built out of armour and terrified starfleet engineers who for once in their fucking lives finally remembered that space is big and full of nasty things.

I like the Steamrunner, I have nothing against it and I'd really like to see WizKids give it a model for STAW (a GOOD one WK, not like the crappy job you did with the Saber) but I wouldn't put it above any of those three in the looks department.

Have an Akira.

defiant class is where its at. if you captain that your mission is fucking shit up

Which system focuses most on diplomacy? I want to do a TNG era campaign aboard a Starfleet Frigate. And in TNG, combat was a tool to progress the story.

I don't have too much experience with Star Trek RPGs (I've played one game of the LUG's system), but I'll tell you that FASA's Trek is not what you're looking for. It's more TOS/TMP era focused, which tends to have more combat focus than TNG.

That being said, I'm sure you can make a rule set work so long as you're not focused on the how many phaser arrays a ship has, or how many degrees per second it can turn at high impulse.

Thats really less for the system to do and more for the players and gm dude.

>I like the Steamrunner, I have nothing against it
>but I wouldn't put it above any of those three in the looks department.
I'm in the same boat (starship?) as you. The steamrunner is alright, but I just don't see what it is about it's design that makes people like it so much. It look unwieldy as fuck, with the deflector so far back and the nacelles jammed in to the saucer.

I totally get that taste is a personal thing, and I wouldn't say those people are wrong, but it just mystifies me sometimes. Then again I'm the idiot that likes the Defiant above all, just because it looks so purpose built.

>tfw going to buy the steam pack for sto just for the steamrunner
>tfw its gone

honestly the most fun when running trek is naming ships

Oberth class is a 2270s design, so their radiation shielding wasn't at Steamrunner levels.

Absolutely. I always have 2 or 3 ships nearby that I have a fully fleshed out backstory for when I'm GMing

Encounter at Farpoint was 2364.

The Federation had been at peace with most nearby space faring powers that posed a credible threat to them for more than 60 years. Sure there were minor flare ups with the Romulans and what should have been a very minor border skirmish with the Cardassians, but these were the exception.
Ships were being designed for the lengthy exploration missions Starfleet was increasingly dealing with then.

And then this happened.

>Q: You judge yourselves against the pitiful adversaries you've encountered so far. The Romulans, the Klingons, they're nothing compared to what's waiting.
>Picard, you are about to move into areas of the galaxy containing wonders more incredible than you can possibly imagine... and Terrors to freeze your soul.

The Galaxy is a case of planning for the future based on what the previous half century had been like.
The Sovereign is a case of trying to plan for the worst case scenario based on the crazy shit Starfleet encountered in the previous 5 years.

It kills me that we won't get a good, solid, miniatures vame anytime soon. Attack wing feels wonky, using dogfighting rules for capital ships.

I think a grid based game would do well with Star Trek. Something using hexes to give firing arcs for various weapons. I think that would be pretty baller.

>random lounge with duck

There's all kinds of silly stuff. There's a shark, R2-D2, and the Weyland-Yutani logo in there too.

>the Defiant is a tiny murderboat built out of armour and terrified starfleet engineers who for once in their fucking lives finally remembered that space is big and full of nasty things.

I prefer internet reviewer Sfdebri's name for it - the USS Ben Siskos mother Fucking pimp hand.

Same.

I've been wondering about adapting A Call to Arms Star Fleet because that's actually a proven, solid system and the adaptation of it to the SFU style was done really well, dispensing with a massive amount of bullshit but keeping the all important 'feel'. And it's got tweaks hanging around for hex-grid play.

Might be a good starting point. Though I don't know if it'd be right for something like the Dominion war, perhaps something even larger scale would be required for that to properly field squadrons for the big battles.

I was thinking hex bases, hex map, the whole thing.

I have no reference, but I have been toying with rules. Not sure how well they'd work with Trek, but probably a ton bettwr than Attack Wing does.

I wonder how the Oberth captain plans to deal with that Bird of Prey.

Die probably.

The old "If I don't see it, it can't hurt me" trick

I actually really liked the NX design, especially the small deflector dish. I just hated the way they jumped technology to "Looks just like Trek" so early in the show.

Well if you played Armada, the Steamrunner is the closest the Federation ever gets to an Artillery ship. 5-10 Quantum warheads loaded into a torpedo that's large enough to out range pretty much any other torpedo system in the game. IIRC, one of the cutscenes actually showed its torpedo tear off a chunk of a Borg cube.

Just now realizing they based the ENT uniforms off of Captain Garth in TOS.

It makes his head look like the eraser-end of a pencil.

>The core of the canon
That's still rather broad. How much of a break would using Diane Duane's Romulan books? Yet it's widespread fanon esp for the RPG.

Quite a few people either use the Museum due to not liking ENT, or mash up the Museum and ENT (someone did ENT-style reworks of museum ships on DA).

Just thinking of some of the bigger bits of fanon besides SFB off the top of my head.

the only thing that matters is that everyone in the game knows which beta branches are canon to the game and which arn't

>tfw drama and fencing club
Excelsior is my fate

She's a fine ship.

...

I always wondered why they didn't upgrade her to house phaser arrays over phaser banks.

AAAAAAHHH
Cover your goddamn elbow.

On topic: by some strange twist of fate, you're now a captain in either Starfleet or KDF. What's your ideal bridge crew? Explain your choices and elaborate on non-show characters.

as in crew of characters or simply specific species per slot?

Ten Andorian cuties.

if the ship has a cloaking device, all romulans
if it doesn't, potato people all the way

Characters. If you can't find a character for the slot, species is fine.

>potato people
Sontarans?

First Officer: Sisko
Science: Data
Engineering: Geordi
Security: Odo
Doctor: The Doctor
Random Guy: Morn
Ship: Excelsior class "USS Victory"

Vulcan science officer, because I want to know for a fact that what my science expert is telling me isn't some cut-rate non-Vulcan science. Scottish chief engineer, because some things are just *right*. Andorian tactical officer, because the constant suggestions of overwhelming violence will offset the Vulcan nicely. Female reboot Caitian at the helm, because fuck those catgirls know how to maneuver. If I can't have that, then a human. Ideally a Sulu.

And some token diversity species for a comm officer, because that's the role where you put those.

...

This is always going to be the best possible answer.

Possible exception for the addition of the token Aenar whose job is dealing with weird psychic stuff. Got to have a ship psychic.