Ship Design

This page is intended to be a primer for players designing their own ships. You can take a look at my own and other ships designs on the New Ships page.

Regarding the SSD graphics files: I use Adobe Photoshop on the Macintosh to make my own SSD's, largely by cut-and-paste from other designs. There is no special program for this. Please feel free to use any of the designs as templates for your own design. The files are usually 800x1050 pixels. The small text is 10-pixel-height Geneva font, while the boldface is 12-pixel-height Geneva font. I do not have a font file for the ADB standard title font used. However, I do have a GIF file which collects a bunch of sample text in that font.

Note that the SSD's for my ships (John Kim) include all the Master Ship Chart data: including Year, Spare Shuttles, Docking Points, and Command Rating. The Explosion Strength is written into the last Excess Damage box.

Basic Design

  1. Pick a Move Cost / Size Class
    The unofficial ``Hull Tot'' statistic for your ship is approximately the number of dead-space boxes on it. At base, it is the total of Forward, Aft, and Center Hull. You can add to this Cargo and Armor boxes, but only up to a maximum of 2x the amount of actual hull. Thus, if you have two hull and three

    Once you have decided on a Move Cost, this puts certain limits on what you can put on the ship. You need a certain amount of ``Hull'' (allowing for Cargo and Armor as noted above). This makes a limit on the number of internals you can have on your ship (i.e. total number of boxes not including shields or the Sensor/Scanner/DmgCntrl tracks). There is an absolute limit on the number of internals, and a limit

    Class Move
    Cost     		Size
    Class     		Min `Hull' Max Internals Max Int/Hull
    Interceptor 1/6 5 ?   () ??   () ?   ()
    Fast Patrol Ship 1/5 5 ?   () ??   () ?   ()
    Police Ship 1/4 4 ?   () ??   () ?   ()
    Frigate 1/3 4 5   (Rom SEA) 45   (Fed FFG) 9   (Lyr MP+)
    Destroyer 1/2 4 7   (Kli F5) ??   () ??   ()
    War Cruiser 2/3 3 or 4 9   () 51   () ??   ()
    Light Cruiser 3/4 3 ?   () ??   () ??   ()
    Heavy Cruiser 1 3 11   (Kli D7) 130   (Tho DN) ??   (Kli D7W)
    Dreadnaught 1.5 2 24   (Fed DN) 163   (Kzi DN) 6   (Kzi DN)
    Battleship 2 2 46   (Kzi BB) 250   (Kli B11) 5   (Kzi BB)

  2. Decide on a mission for the ship
    Ships is not built just to look cool -- they have a role in the fleet. You should ask yourself what missions this ship is intended for. Does it operate in a fleet or by itself? Does it go on long-range missions, or is it usually defending territory? If you want your ship to have unusual new features, ask you why those are installed. What purpose do they serve?

  3. Analyze comparable ``official'' ships
    Find the official ship of that race which most closely resembles your ship. Also look up similar ships from other races. Now break down each of these SSD's for key numbers: how many weapons of each kind, how much hull, how many total internals?
    For this purpose, you may find it useful to consult the Ship Class Comparison tables that I have been compiling.

  4. How does your ship compare?
    If your ship has more firepower and internals than all comparable ships, then you should probably shift it to a higher Move Cost. It is simply a larger ship.

    If your design has greater firepower while keeping the same internals and hull, then it is overgunned. Examples of overgunned ships include most LDR ships, WYN ships, and non-mauler ships vulnerable to weapons shock. Overgunned ships will have shock effects unless they are used only for defense of a small area where they can be constantly overhauled.

Assigning BPV

The main question is in how to assign BPV. Now, in many ways BPV is a false concept: equal BPV forces are not always a match for each other. For example, a certain drone-heavy fleet might be great against the Andromedans but lousy against an equal BPV force of Klingons. Further, the value of ships depends on what rules you are using. Plotted movement, leaky shields, and other options change the balance of ships.

When designing my own unofficial ships, I have generally based them upon comparable existing ships. As such, I use as a first guess the ship modification rules from the Commander's (Third) Edition. These rules are by no means perfect, but they are reasonable based on what is there.

There are some known adjustments:

Adding Features:
BPV Cost Feature Notes
+15% Cloaking Device minimum cost 10
+3 DERFACS Module  
+3 Drone Control = 1xSENSOR from 0.5x  
+5 Drone Control = 2xSENSOR from 1x  
+5 UIM  

Adding Systems:
BPV Cost System     BPV Cost System
2 APR   1 Damage Control
3 AWR   0.5 Hull
1.5 Armor   3 Impulse
1 Battery   1 Shuttle (added to bay)
1 Cargo   1 Transporter
3 Control Space (any)   4 Warp

Adding Weapons:
BPV Cost Weapon Arc Notes
1.5 ADD-6    
3 ADD-12    
3 Disruptor (Rng-15 or less) 120  
4 Disruptor (Rng-22) 120  
5 Disruptor (Rng-30) 120  
6 Disruptor (Rng-40) 120  
4 Drone-A    
5 Drone-B    
5 Drone-C    
10 Drone-D    
6 Drone-E    
3 Drone-F    
6 Drone-G    
8 ESG    
2 Fusion Beam 120  
3 Fusion Beam 180  
8 Hellbore 120  
2 Mine Rack    
2 Phaser-1 120*
Expanded Phaser Arc Costs:
180: 1.25X,   240: 1.5X
300: 1.75X,   360:  2X 
1.5 Phaser-2 120*  
1 Phaser-3 120*  
3 Phaser-G 120*  
4 Phaser-4 240 Bases Only
5 Photon Torpedo 120  
4 Plasma-F 120 +2 for swivel mount
10 Plasma-G 120 +3 for swivel mount
15 Plasma-S 120 +3 for swivel mount
20 Plasma-R 120  
20 PPD 120  
15 SFG 120  
6 Snare R/L +3 to refit from Web
10 Special Sensors   5pts is Economic-BPV-only
15 Web Caster 120  
3 Web Generator    

Back to the SFB Home Page         Back to the Ship Designs Page
John H. Kim <jhkim@fnal.gov>
Last modified: Tue Jan 30 16:18:36 2001
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