Star Trek Adventures Ship Creation

 Taking a break from generating crew and auxiliary crew for the upcoming Star Trek Adventures game, took some time to focus on perhaps the most important NPC; the ship!

The core rule book has a system for creating a wide range of vessels in a simple and effective manner. Much like the life path system for characters, there's a number of simple steps to take your ship from either San Francisco or Utopia Planitia to the borders of explore space, and beyond!

Starships in Star Trek Adventures

Acting much like characters in their own right, vessels have a spread of stats split into systems and departments. Systems are the plasma conduits and monitors. The physical nuts and bolts of the ship. Departments then, being representative of the crew who voyage in her.

There are essentially four key stages in the creation of a new vessel. You'll need to know what year your game is set, the class of ship you want, and its mission profile. To round this off you'll then need to consider refits and any finishing touches. 

I've already discussed the idea behind the name of the USS Franz Boas and that my game will be set in 2365. As I also know that the ship will be a Miranda class and have a rough idea of what it's mission profile will be I'm off to a good start. Modiphius provides form fillable character sheets as a free download which also includes one for ship details. Its a nice sheet but has default art. A big thanks then to Corey Belote and the folks at the Continuing Mission blog for doing a pretty impressive collection of sheets covering all manner of classes. I'll put up a copy of the finished version at the bottom here.

What's in a Frame?

With service date logged, I scroll through the data files and look up the Miranda class entry. I confirm the initial service entry date, 2274, and jot down the base systems and the bonuses to the departments. Whilst the core systems of a ship will always be the same, the department profile is determined by the current mission parameters. This makes broad sense in so far as a Galaxy class hull is a Galaxy class hull regardless of whether its on deep space exploration or border defense. Sure, you'll want to do some modifications but that's covered later.

I also note down the ship's scale and the basic attacks that it comes with. Scale is used to derive certain characteristics later and gives a sense of size for those who might not be intimately familiar with the ranges which have graced the screens over the years. There's also a note of the fact that the Miranda class gains the talent Extensive Shuttlebays. Without getting too bogged down in the rules, this essentially means that this ship will be able to support twice as many shuttles as a normal ship of its size, and it will also be able to house larger scale vehicles than normal. An interesting thing to consider in later missions.

Mission Profiles

Once you've settled on a ship, you also need to have a think about what kind of mission profile the ship is kitted out for. In the main, one would expect that mission profile will be relatively straightforward. You'll have the kind of game you want to play in mind, and then you simply pick the most appropriate. For example, if you are playing in the Original Series era you'll probably default to something like the Multirole Explorer. A jack of all trades crew ready to deal with anything that might come their way. Alternatively, one might want something a bit darker. Maybe you're playing at the height of the Dominion War and want something more like Tactical Operations. Of course, you could spice things up and have a game similar to the events of Voyager. Maybe the ship has a designated role but circumstance has thrown them out of their 'comfort zone' and you now have a crew at odds with their original mission?

As we'll be playing in the spirit of the Next Gen era with all the diplomacy and scientific techno-babble that entails, I decided upon Scientific and Survey Operations. The Franz Boas will be well suited to "seeking out new life and new civilisations". The players are not particularly combat minded so a science vessel with plenty of specialists seemed just the ticket. I didn't feel that 'diplomacy' was the right focus for the spread of characters so hopefully it'll work well.

The mission profile gives a nice spread of stats in the department section and access to the talent Advanced Research Facilities which will give them the edge in extended study. The Security department has to take a bit of a back seat here but with one of the players taking on the role of a more than competent Caitian Security Chief, I'm sure they'll be able to handle it when things inevitably go sideways...

Refits

As the Miranda class entered service a good whiles before the start of our game, the Franz Boas has undergone a number of refits during it's long service history. The creation system says that for every 10 years between the frame entering service and the start date of the game, add a refit bonus to the ship. As we're talking 80 years in this case, that's 8 bonus points to distribute around the ship's systems. I sprinkle these where they seem most appropriate, and then head to the finishing touches. There's some simple mathematics involved to obtain derived values but nothing more taxing than adding a few low numbers together. The ship also gains another two talents and I plump for Advanced Sensor Suites and Rugged Design. Top of the range sensors seems a legitimate choice for a dedicated science vessel and the rugged design fits with this being an old workhorse of the fleet; still proudly serving after over eight decades.

I really like the idea of the refits for both a simple mechanical design as well as opening up potential for roleplaying flavour. Discussing this with a couple of friends its easy to see how you can bring a lot more life to a ship when you consider it's history. If the vessel has gone under so many refits its fair to say that it might not have always been a science vessel. Maybe it served as a troop carrier in the early days of the Cardassian conflict? Maybe it even helped in diplomatic duties in the wake of the Khitomer Accords. With such a long history there are no doubt little quirks and traditions that have been passed down throughout the crew. Maybe the current crew doesn't even know the significance of why there that empty bottle of Andorian wine sits above the replicators in the mess. Whats the significance of the bronze dice hanging in engineering?

After all these years, it kept the roll bar!

A lot of the detail and excitement about this system and the upcoming game will no doubt be influenced or biased by the group's, and definitely my, enthusiasm for all things Trek. We grew up on the possibilities the Next Gen offered on the back of the exploration and fisticuffs that ToS pioneered. I've still a fair bit of history to write for this, and her current NPC crew but nothing in the system has hindered my enthusiasm; only served to help.