Previous Thread: A thread for discussing the 'Star Trek' franchise and its various tabletop adaptations.
Possible topics include Modiphius' new rpg 'Star Trek Adventures', WizKids miniatures game 'Star Trek: Attack Wing', and Gale Force Nine's board game 'Star Trek: Ascendancy', as well as the previous rpgs produced by FASA, Last Unicorn Games and Decipher, the Starfleet Battles Universe, and the Star Trek universe in general.
Now that we're in a fresh thread, would anyone care to flesh out an Akira class? I was thinking of using the USS Jupiter (NCC-71267) from Armada 2 since there's not a whole lot of information in its service record. Also, I wanted to see if we could come up with interesting ways to use the huge shuttle bay so it could also fill the roll as a fighter carrier as well as a cruiser.
The only "requirement" is that the Captain has to be a shapechanger, preferably a Chameloid. The rest of the crew, as well as the Captain's backstory, are fair game! Ideally this ship would be set around 2378, in case that colors any ideas.
Christopher Collins
Nothing in that picture makes sense.
Xavier Allen
There needs to be a Flight Captain, though knowing Starfleet it’s more likely a Commander or Lt.Cmdr, the person who is in charge of leading and organizing it’s fighters and small craft. I vote a Crazy Blue Fucker, that would be appropriate.
Jaxon Lewis
Why is there so much wasted space, yet somehow also NOT enough empty space for supplies?
And why is there an island smack in the middle of the flight deck? Do you just hate useful space?
Lucas Garcia
Are they the worst race star wars has ever come up with?
Ethan Butler
...
Hudson Lewis
I grabbed it from cygnus-x1, so I don't really have an answer for your question. Most of their deckplans are true to the ship class in question, but there are instances where it doesn't add up quite right (See: Nova class not having enough bed space)
Angel Martinez
You mean CAG/CAW?
Parker Williams
So since we've had the whole first season now time for the inevitable:
Which is your favourite episode?
I'm going with New Dimensions. For me, everything hit right, the minor characters, the major characters, the sci-fi part and how they dealt with it, the incidental arc development, the use of the setting as established and growth of it. Everything just nailed it for me in that one.
I don't think that they've hit a true classic that you can point at with minimal dispute, but for me, episodes like New Dimensions show that they absolutely have all the required elements in place to pull off something really amazing. I think they've got the balls to even do something as good as the Best of Both Worlds if they really try. Which is not something I could say about any of the Berman era star trek show's first season except maybe when DS9 bust out Duet on us to show what it was really about.
Elijah Edwards
Fair enough.
Also... where's fuel stored? Say what you will about the dildo ships, but at least they have a reasonable amount of storage for hardware and supplies. Like a ship instead of a flying set.
Noah Taylor
I’m not certain that Starfleet would CALL it that considering it’s a fairly warlike designation, the C standing for “combat” after all.
No... it stands for "Commander of the Air Group/Wing"
Gavin Thompson
In that case sure, the CAG. In a normal Starfleet ship you wouldn’t need one because their small craft are mostly auxiliary, but an Akira-class has it’s huge small craft compliment as part of it’s design to aid in space control operations and you’d need a guy organizing that, especially in real combat.
Nicholas Cook
I get the feeling that for a smaller carrier like an Akira that isn't a full dedicated carrier, the flight deck personnel would all end up being sub-divisions of the mother ship's own divisions and not an entity unto themselves. Pilots would be part of tactical and get regular rotations as conn and weapons officers, maintenance would be handled by engineering, even the flight deck crew themselves would be under ops. Like a glorified shuttle bay.
Benjamin Moore
While it’s true that it cuts down in “new departments” in the ship it is extremely impractical from an organizational standpoint because in an emergency it requires Tactical to keep track both of Security, Weapons, AND the individual position and activity of every active combat small craft and what they’re doing. This isn’t just risky, it’s needlessly wasteful and stupid. I’m thinking most Starfleet CAG’s (sort of an unusually specific position, just like how a Starfleet vessel with more science stuff might have individual scientific divisions too, such as Botany or Microbiology) would cap out at Lt.Cmdr in rank since they aren’t bridge crew. Maybe it’d be one of those positions certain ambitious Ops or Command division guys aim for because it’s a good stepping stone to First Officer as it puts you in command of a lot of people and gives you varied responsibilities since most small craft operations will not necessarily involve combat but more policework or patrol or rescue or whatever since Starfleet is not necessarily sending the ship into combat situations.
Anthony Rogers
Is there some canon source that defines Akira's role as a carrier and a torpedo boat?
All I've seen from First Contact, and few of the DS9 episodes, it seems to be just a regular cruiser with all the usual arrangement of phasers and torpedoes.
Connor Evans
>Is there some canon source
Likely not as Startrek enjoys being vague on screen.
David Diaz
Just background information. The Starship spotter outlines her as having 15 torpedo tubes and 65 assorted shuttlecraft (10 work bees, 10 shuttles, 5 shuttlepods and 40 fightercraft)
Levi Williams
>While it’s true that it cuts down in “new departments” in the ship it is extremely impractical from an organizational standpoint because in an emergency it requires Tactical to keep track both of Security, Weapons, AND the individual position and activity of every active combat small craft and what they’re doing. This isn’t just risky, it’s needlessly wasteful and stupid. That's what the chain of command is for. Tactical would have senior officers in charge of each of those areas, with those officers reporting to the chief tactical officer. It's wasteful for a ship as small as an Akira to have a dedicated division just for its small craft.
Jaxon Jones
Closest to hard canon would be from designer Alex Jaeger who imagined the ship as a torpedo boat with 15 torpedo launchers, which he divulged in an article for the Star Trek magazine. Everything else is soft canon from licensed sources such as video games and the Ship Spotter paperback.
Jonathan Hill
It has over sixty small craft, that’s more then enough to justify a CAG. Some smaller aircraft carriers in real life don’t have as many planes.
Ryder Roberts
This is pretty hard, I would have never guessed it going in but this ended up being one of the most solid first season I've seen in awhile. About a Girl made me realize this was basically a real star trek show but with jokes. Personal favorite has to be Krill though.
Josiah Morales
The amount of craft is dependent on soft canon and varies widely between sources. For example the posted schematic only has 19 craft total and only 10 are fighters. A Galaxy class ship likely has more flight deck space, since just in hard canon the Ent-D has at least three shuttlebays and 5 auxiliary hangers.
If this was a Jupiter or Typhoon type carrier then yeah sure but an Akira simply is not big enough to have a large enough contingent.
Isaiah Lee
Seems vaguely relevant to topics in this thread so here's a shot of the flight control tower from the Galaxy class' main shuttlebay.
Kayden Flores
Helps if I include the picture
Andrew Rogers
I like doing OC. Okay what characters do you need? Anything we should know about the crew - like does it have a large contingent of a certain species?
John Gomez
Using the roles outlined in STA, the important ones are: * Captain (Chameloid) - Needs a name & backstory since Chameloids aren't Federation citizens * Executive Officer (#1) - Needs Species, Name * Chief Engineer - Needs Species, Name * Operations Manager - Needs Species, Name * Flight Controller - Needs Species, Name. Not to be confused with the helmsman * Helmsman - Needs Species, Name. * A few interesting crewmen that the crew might run into along the way
As far as species distribution is concerned, I was thinking we should try and make it not a human-dominated ship like most other Starfleet vessels. Since this is 2378, there might even be Cardassian, Freed Borg, and so on. Really the only limit would be the obvious ones like no Jem'Hadar or Founders.
Eli Taylor
Your executive officer is a Bolian. She abso-fucking-lutely has no cares for the hospitality business, or hospitality in general, and is seen as the hardass to the Captain.
Bentley Brooks
So how many of these do you want to be human? I'm better at that than the aliens since I don't know their lore as well.
Kevin Foster
Maybe 2-4?
Juan Thomas
Anyone here play Star Fleet Battles? Especially SFB Online? Didn't see it or Amarillo Design Bureau on the initial post references, and this is my first time dropping into the thread.
Nathaniel Bailey
Okay so three... lets see....
Your Operations Manager is a guy from Portugal on Earth, called Cornelio Gomes. Kind of pretentious in that he considers himself a Renaissance man and well versed in all sorts of scientific minutiae - he's the sort of guy who would expound about Andorian culture to an Andorian. He is actually somewhat of an Andoria-boo (when he's not waxing about the glories of Portugal's Age of Navigation) and it trying to see if a human can be integrated into one of those Andorian mixed marriages.
Your Helmsman is a guy called Isidor Angelov. He is from a family of space traders, hence the skill at the helm. He tends to be a bit more cynical than the Star Fleet norm, as he's lost friends and families to pirates, and he is always the first to point out that stuff could be a trap. He is probably one of the fittest crew members and best prepared for combat - he can actually hit shit with a phaser. He has a bit of a gambling problem - gambling was the best form of entertainment where he grew up and how he could make some cash, and he hoards stuff grifting the other officers.
Your flight controller is a girl from Thailand on Earth, called Mali Metharom. She is super excited to be on board the ship and is something of a prodigy. She enjoys films from all eras and is a bit of a holodeck hog, if that's something this ship has.
Brayden Rodriguez
XO - One of the founding species (although not a Tellarite, see below) The Chameloids aren't a part of the Federation so one of Starfleet's asshole admirals assigned a "trusted" species to keep an eye on them. That will create a nice level of tension.
Cheng - Tellarite. Canon constantly talks about how they're great engineers but we've never seen them in that role or much of anything else.
Ops - Any anal retentive type. Binar? Benzite?
Flight - Andorian. Perfect spot for the warrior species we've seen too little of.
Helmsman - Mostly filled by lower ranks with less experience, so why not throw the players a curve based on that?
Helmsman is a Trill ensign. Everyone only sees the "noob" officer while forgetting the 300+ year old symbiote it their gut. When the noob comes out with good advice/ideas, everyone is surprised at first only to remember "Yeah, the symbiote..."
Christopher Thompson
...
Juan Edwards
I like these so far! Just so it's in one place, here's what we have filled so far:
*XO: Vulcan who's keeping an eye on the Captain. *Chief Engineering: Tellarite to fit the stereotype of space dwarves *Ops: Cornelio Gomes, the Andoria-boo *Flight Controller Alpha Shift: Mali Metharom, Holodeck enthusiast *Flight Controller Beta Shift: Undefined Andorian who sounds like every Air Traffic Controller ever to be IRL *Helmsman: Joined Trill Ensign with 4-6 past lives in the symbiont
Missing some names, but those can be easily generated.
Christian Allen
Ahhh I copied/pasted the XO wrong. They should be a Bolian, not a Vulcan.
Jordan Gonzalez
There should be a couple however it's very hard to keep anything up for the .pdfs and there's not that much demand to do so because let's be honest, despite it's continued existence it's an ancient game that's very unappealing to almost anyone who started wargaming after 1990.
Leo King
My personal favourite is “If Stars Should Appear”. Really good, concise story.
Tyler Richardson
No, that'd be Gungans.
Brody Evans
I like how Orville eps have shitty names but are good and STD episodes are shit but have amazing fucking names.
Luis Richardson
>very unappealing to almost anyone who started wargaming after 1990
Translation: Requires a modicum of effort on the part of the wargamer.
Easton Hall
That seems to be favourite for a lot of people.
Translation: it's a clunky as shit system with many archaic mechanics such as how the turn system works, bogs down relentlessly with rolling for shit like damage locations, and a cruiser duel can be tedium followed by losing in a single volley if the dice are ok for one side and not the other. It's incredibly unfriendly to new players, including having to explain its own universe due to growing in a radically different direction to actual TV star trek (still better than the relaunch novels and STO though even with the Federation ships named after shitty dictators still hanging around).
Modicum of effort ain't half of it, it's a 40 year old design and it shows.
Jordan Peterson
And for random crewmembers to toss in.... -A Vulcan doctor with awful bedside manner
-A human hippie type who eats up any kind of spiritual stuff from any race - they serve as a nurse and constantly piss off the Vulcan doctor with their random suggestions to help patients.
-The Transporter Chief comes from buttfuck nowhere middle of North America on Earth. Is incredibly straight laced most of the time but goes nuts when filled with Saurian Brandy.
-The ship's lounge is run by a Saurian with a massive supply of Saurian brandy.
Thomas Lopez
>it's a 40 year old design and it shows
It was always "baroque" and time consuming even when published by task Force Games. That didn't stop people then from learning, playing, and enjoying it.
Players today have different ideas about what makes a good game and many of those ideas revolve around "little effort" and "don't ask me to think".
Christian Baker
Would the "hardass" Bolian XO be against liquor on the ship? Could be a source of contention.
Thomas Sanchez
>amazing fucking names
But they sound like they were named by a 14 year old edgelord.
Leo Gray
Could be that Boloians have an aversion to drink. We know that they have a rather... extreme diet as it is.
Robert Robinson
Yeah, like "Dagger of the Mind," "Conscience of the King," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and "Operation: Annihilate!"
Gavin Gutierrez
>Would the "hardass" Bolian XO be against liquor on the ship? Could be a source of contention.
I don't know. TOS has real booze aboard and, while TNG introduced the Fed-faggy "synthohol",not only there was plenty of real booze aboard but a fucking bar too. There could also be member species who need booze for metabolic purposes.
Still having a Bolian channeling Carrie Nation and the Women's Temperance Union would make for laughs.
David Perry
>The XO keeps hanging up anti-drinking propaganda posters all over the ship
Hunter Johnson
>>The XO keeps hanging up anti-drinking propaganda posters all over the ship >>Which, naturally, backfires as the crew purposely starts drinking more.
Brilliant!
Jeremiah Phillips
Have you got any more of the shuttlebay itself?
Noah Stewart
Yeah I have a few.
Samuel Evans
...
Cameron Hughes
...
Justin Perez
>Players today have different ideas about what makes a good game and many of those ideas revolve around "little effort" and "don't ask me to think". There *is* a difference between "don't ask me to think" and "dice rolling tedium is fun, I swear!". Look, I love old games with a lot of crunch and obtuseness (case in point: my wargame of choice is BattleTech) but Star Fleet Battles is a bit much even for me. It's got problems, dude, it's ok to accept that.
Jordan Miller
...
Cameron Cook
>Bolian metabolism doesn't process alcohol, so now the acid poop is flammable
Angel Rogers
>beer shits is an actual medical condition on Boliax
Sebastian Hall
and that's it, finishing up with one of the Enterprises thousandfold lounges
Ryan Walker
>It's got problems, dude, it's ok to accept that.
It had the same problems 40 years ago and people still played it. The game didn't change, the people did, and it's okay to accept that too.
Mason Richardson
Neither the game nor the people changed, the options did.
Gabriel Hill
"New Domensions" is a fine choice, but I'm gonna have to go with "If the Stars Should Appear". It felt like classic, TOS-style Trek to me in every way imaginable, and in the balance I like TOS-style Trek over later eras. I miss big booming voices, ridiculous throwback planets, and genuine comedy. The drive-by Liam Neeson cameo was great, too.
I also liked "Firestorm" due to my soft spot for holodeck episodes. In my defense, I haven't seen a lot of Voyager.
On a somewhat related note, I'm quite happy that people seem to like my Episode Guide.
Nathan Phillips
You need to have that one be "the one where she has to eat all the eggs," fuck accessibility.
Nicholas Long
>New Domensions
"New Dimensions, mea culpa.
I feel like "New Domensions" should be a Pepe or Dolan or something.
Gavin Hernandez
>and genuine comedy
Ethan Wright
That. There's just so many better options out there than wasting time on SFB. Hell, some of them even published by the same people.
Elijah Adams
>The XO tried alcohol once when coming on the ship, and after the flaming shits ended, has tried to get it eradicated, and has begun a private passive aggressive war against the Saurian barkeeper
Sebastian White
That's because 40 years ago we didn't have better options or the knowledge that we *could* have better options. Now, we have both those things. Why should I play SFB when there are many other, better, more accessible, games of a variety of crunch and depth levels out there? What does SFB do *better* than other games? The answer, as far as I can tell, seems to be little to nothing. That math is probably why more people don't play it.
Dominic Morris
>That math is probably why more people don't play it.
Math is hard. Let's go shopping!
Josiah Reyes
What are some of the good starship combat games out now?
Adrian Lopez
BFG is flexible, if you can find other players
Samuel Hernandez
New Living Campaign material is out for STA. A brief glance says the 2370s mission is Space Odyssey x Hunt for Red October, while the 2269 mission is like Mass Effect in that a greater force left ancient tech to influence "lesser" species
Cameron Sanders
Table top? Hex & chit? Computer? Tactical? Grand tactical? Operational? Strategic? Hard, middling, or soft sci-fi?
Zachary Bailey
I had tactical in mind when I asked, not that I don't enjoy gaming at the other levels. Computer games would be preferred because even 24th century technology can't produce a containment field strong enough to hold my spaghetti, though I feel kinda dirty asking about them on this board. I don't actually have a preference when it comes to the level of realism involved, but Star Trek and Star Wars games are a +1.
Anthony Jones
Not this shit about Akira being a carrier ship...again. Everyone takes what the desginer first visioned it, to be what the final ship ended up being. Every time we see one in action in the series it's more of torpedo spamming cruiser.
James Ross
>If any of you sons-of-trekkers wanna criticize the minutiae of this comic's faithfulness to the Trek, I would like to remind you that in season 1, episode 12 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, two fictional gangsters walked out of the holodeck and slowly vanished. However, in season 6, episode 12, Picard throws a book out of the holodeck, and it instantly disintegrates! Ha ha, what a ridiculous error!
Asher Lewis
The holodeck underwent no less than two major refits in between those episodes. Check and mate.
Gavin Roberts
Why would you have something on your space ship as dangerous as the holodeck? Remember when the Romulens captured Riker and then made fun of the Federation for having a holodeck for anything outside of official ship business? You know, the same people stupid enough to use a black hole to power their space ships? When they're telling you something is stupid than you know you fucked up.
Blake Gray
If I was a Starfleet captain first things first would be scrapping that bloody menace.
Second would be relegating the transporter to cargo and emergencies only. Unless the fault that makes people younger can be reproduced in which case it's now recommended for anyone over the age of 55. Why did the UFP need that luddite planet in Insurrection? They already had eternal youth in a box.
Andrew Taylor
>If I was a Starfleet captain first things first would be scrapping that bloody menace.
I'd make ship business only. Select, recreational programs would be available for set public use. No Geordie fantasies, no porn, no unsolicited requests that makes the ship create monsters.
>Second would be relegating the transporter to cargo and emergencies only. Unless the fault that makes people younger can be reproduced in which case it's now recommended for anyone over the age of 55. Why did the UFP need that luddite planet in Insurrection? They already had eternal youth in a box.
Oh man, talk about another ass load of fuck. They should have just made the transporter a dimensional shifter or miniature warp jump. Because the current one breaks all sorts of KNOWN laws of physics and had to have a bunch of hand waving bullshit to justify why the people that go into it are the same people that come out (can't create living tissue, transport buffer holding your conciseness and preventing the continuity of thought issue, etc).
Evan Garcia
I'm convinced that no one in Starfleet actually understands how holodecks work or what they're capable of and thus putting limitations on them never occurs to them. They should >Put a big fucking switch next to the outside entrance that cuts all power to the holodeck when pulled. >Have it hardcoded to lockdown or auto-delete all holodeck characters that start using more than a certain % of memory and computational power and flash a fucking warning message and alert the senior officer on duty that Ensign fucknut just tried to make a sapient program again. >Firewall it off from the main computer or just have a separate computer just to run it so no one gains control of the ship from inside. >Someone that actively monitors holodeck activity in case someone gets trapped by their own stupidity or weird photonic aliens start showing up. These are simple safety measures you'd expect for something as dangerous as a holodeck.
>tfw Quarks shitty holosuite that's been repaired with a spatula and has copper ingots in the fuse box only ever had one malfunction and it was a transporter/main computer issue that caused it in the first place.
Kayden Ortiz
You are blessed and kind. This thread is way too much bitching about episodes, and that is easily one of my favorite games across all my games. The guy from the last thread didn’t even talk about the encounter deck, The one that means you can encounter tribbles, or the cascade, the board, cute, or Ferengi “explorers”. It’s what really makes the game feel like an episode of Star Trek. You literally wonder around the galaxy, keep getting hit by fucking anomalies.
The Ferengi “Explorers” alone has a kill count of six ships.
Evan Anderson
... the borg or q. Good job phone.
Anthony Jackson
I think Q himself auto corrected himself into cute.
Charles Johnson
I'd just dumb the holodeck down so it can't become self aware. No harm in allowing you to use it for simple, narratively constrained stuff, or just exercise.
Julian Green
Read a book or go to the gym.
Or gat an audio book and go to the gym at the same time.
Daniel Hughes
Nothing to stop you from doing those things and also enjoying the holodeck. Just don't give the crew the ability to slave the entire combuter core to the shagging thing.
Josiah Brown
...
Gavin Roberts
No. The holodeck is one of the worst inventions in the series, and it would be alot more realistic without that kind of self indulgent navel gazing on a fucking military vessel
Owen Nguyen
A military vessel probably wouldn't have botanists and archaeologists on board either, so I feel like you're just cherry picking the thing you don't like and proclaiming it unrealistic.
Alexander Robinson
If your goal is to make Star Trek more realistic then holodecks are the least of your worries.
Angel Wood
>I don't actually like Star Trek on the themes it enbodies >It should be a gritty military sci-fi show and that it isn't is the worst thing. This is you. Please go away.
Aiden Davis
Can... can you fly that?
Hudson Cooper
It can be both. It's still got all the tubes and the hangers on the model after all. And it's easily big enough to fill both roles.
>comedy
They remembered sci-fi can be fun. I think the comedy aspect got a lot better in the latter half of the season, namely because it grew out of jokes and into a lot more just people being people, dealing with odd things and sometimes just having fun.
Which is great because the crew being relatable people is it's biggest strength. It'd be much easier to trying being that kind of crew in an RPG than what we're usually shown in 'trek. And it wouldn't feel out of place in that kind of ship. With 'trek generally I feel it'd be weird making less competent, not so professional starfleet officers for PCs/NPCs unless specifically tasked to do so. With Orville's take on it, there's no need to make Barclay-esk types to have people that stand out.
Ethan Young
>Which is great because the crew being relatable people is it's biggest strength. The best description I ever heard was "Star Trek focuses on the people who get starships named after them, The Orville focuses on the people who get sandwiches named after them."