Author Topic: Towing Really Big Objects  (Read 2909 times)

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Offline Edsel (OP)

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Towing Really Big Objects
« on: February 17, 2013, 12:11:05 PM »
According to the tractor rules if you want to tow a non-resisting object, like a friendly or non-complete asteroid fort, you simply look at the number of engines you have and compare it to chart 28.07 to see how many engines are needed to tow that equivalent hull size.  But the largest possible Asteroid fort will be 1500 Hull space before you hollow it out and 1250 Hull spaces once you are done.  Do you simply count this as a Juggernaut (the largest hull on the table)?  Alternatively do you extrapolate the table upward?

The three largest hulls on the table each take an additional 3 Ic to get a point of movement.  A 300 Hull Super Monitor needs 9 Ic for speed 1.  A 400 Hull Leviathan needs 12 Ic for speed 1.  A 500 Hull Juggernaut needs 15 Ic for speed 1.  Using this as a logical progression it would seem that each +100 Hull spaces of size would add +3 to the number of Ic needed.  So a 1500 Hull space rock would require 45 Ic in order to tow it at a speed of 1.  That is all the speed you’d need to put this asteroid where ever you wanted it in the system.

Is this situation addressed somewhere in the rules that I am not seeing?
 

Offline Paul M

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Re: Towing Really Big Objects
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2013, 03:43:54 PM »
If using the UTM the really big rock needs a tug with 15 Ic to move at speed 1 and it is limited to speed 1.  All chains greater than 500 HS are treated as if they are 500 HS.

If using 3rdR then you would need (1500 HS+HS of Tugs)/(15*Enginepower of the tug)=1  Assuming you used DD's with 8 Ic engines (1500+30*x)/(15*8*2*x) =1  so 1500 + 30*x = 240*x  or 1500 = 210*x therefore x= 8 DD sized tugs would be required to move the asteroid at speed 1.  It can't move faster than speed 1 as that is the maximum Ic speed of a 500 HS warship.

If you used I engines on the tugs you could move tactically somewhat faster speed 2, but with risk of burn out and you would need to do the calculation yourself.

Clearly the UTM simplifies things a bit much for this case but 1000 HS asteroid forts are anything but common.
 

Offline Edsel (OP)

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Re: Towing Really Big Objects
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2013, 06:42:09 PM »
In three pervious campaigns about the largest asteroid fort I have seen was about 500 HS and in the current campaign the record is 125 HS.  So I doubt that something that huge will ever be anything but rare.  Still it just seemed to be quite a leap to go from 500 HS to 1500 HS without needing more power.  I have no problem with it since the same rules apply to all the players and NPRs. Thanks for the quick reply.
 

Offline Paul M

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Re: Towing Really Big Objects
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2013, 02:51:26 AM »
The UTM in this case probably went too far in the simplification since the math from 3rdR isn't anything that should cause people to break out in hives, it is just very poorly writen out in the 3rdR rules.  Also 3rdR made it unnecessarily complex with its "treat as 1 hullsize smaller" a statement; that should be dropped.  Just add up the HS of tug and whatever, compare to the chart to find equivelent warship hull, look at the number of Ic engines on your tugs and determine speed normally.  That is a much more straight forward way to make it work.  For over 500 HS limit speed to 1, and scale engines with HS so 1500 HS would take 45 Ic engines (3x15).

There is an aweful lot of rules in starfire that are for some reason or another significantly more complex then they need to be, I'm not sure why.  But tractors and pressors are really the poster children for "get a proffessional rules writer from Avalon Hill to fix this" in my opinion.

There is a difference between 8 DD sized tugs (or more likely 2 BC sized ones) and what amounts to 2 DD sized tugs or a single cruiser sized one so I think the UTM simplification went too far.  But I also doubt it comes into play often enough to make it a real issue.

You're welcome it was an interesting question it is not something I think about often (trying to move Theban style AB's).