About Full Thrust

Full Thrust is one of the best miniature space combat wargame systems on the market. It is designed by Jon Tuffley and published by his game company Ground Zero Games. It has won several SFSFW awards and is played by an enthusiastic international community. It is available by direct mail order or from the better game shops.

This page showcases the articles and review published by the SFSFW in Ragnarok, for this popular tactical starship combat system.

Full Thrust Publications

	Full Thrust First Edition, is a very simple quick play system for large space fleet actions, using model starships or counters. An absolute minimum of equipment is required for play and this booklet contains a page of copiable ship counters to make up your own fleets at minimal cost. (out of print)
	Full Thrust Second Edition, the tactical starship combat rules! Simple fast-play rules that can be used with any size of starfleet. Basic rules of play can be learned in just a few minutes. No referring to charts or tables required during play. This edition gives you all the fun of the original plus much more: many new optional rules complete ship construction and costing rules campaign rules and battle scenarios full photo-illustrated background detail and expanded ship statistics
	More Thrust, a compendium of additional rules, scenarios and other material for Full Thrust - the tactical starship combat rules! You asked for it you've got it! This supplement contains an extensive selection of extra bits for our highly acclaimed starship combat system. new fleet details, including the alien Kra'Vak expanded ship statistics and new classes additional weapons and other systems scenario outlines and extended timeline interface for Dirstside II and other rules All this plus other options, expansions, player feedback and designers notes - an indispensable volume for all Full Thrust Gamers
	Fleet Book Volume 1, Warships of the major powers : 2183. A resource of ship designs for use with Full Thrust - the tactical starship combat rules! Over sixty pregenerated starship designs ready for use! This volume covers major warship classes of the four main powers of the Third Solar war period - the New Anglian Confederation royal navy, the Eurasian Solar union Star Navy, the Neu Swabian League Kriegsraumflotte and the Federal Stats Europa Astromarine, plus a selection of generic fighters, merchants and support ships. Descriptions, illustrations and full game stats for all the ships featured in the NAC, ESU, NSL and FSE ranges of Full Thrust Starship Miniatures. An essential sourcebook and reference aid for all FT players, whether using the official background timeline or not. Also includes new and updated rules, new weapons, a completely revised (and even more versatile) Ship Design System and an accurate but simple Vector Movement System that is fully compatible with Full Thrust.
	The Babylon Project Earth Force Sourcebook, a supplement for the roleplaying game based on Babylon 5. Ship combat system designed by Jon Tuffley based upon his Full Thrust ship combat system, with additional design by Zeke Sparkes.

Full Thrust Internet

Full Thrust webring http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=ftnet;list contains links to all the Full Thrust sites worth visiting.

Reviews

Full Thrust - the rules reviewed in Ragnarok ?? by ??.

More Thrust - the first supplement reviewed in Ragnarok ?? by ??.

Full Thrust Fleet Book (Volume One) - the first fleet book supplement reviewed in Ragnarok 29 by Steve Blease.

Articles

In Dockyard Hands - rules for repairing, refitting and maintaining your Full Thrust Fleet. Article by David Manley, reproduced from Ragnarok 29.

United Nations Space Command - an introduction to the UNSC in the Full Thrust universe. Article by Garry Milton, reproduced from Ragnarok 28.

Last One Out is Toast - escape and rescue systems for Full Thrust ships. Article by David Manley, reproduced from Ragnarok 24.

Extra Firepower - more ships for your Semitic Federation of Space Faring Worlds fleet. Article by Tony Francis, reproduced from Ragnarok 23.

Bombs Away! - a 'Green" non-lethal scenario pitting the FSE against the environmentalists of EcoStar. Article by David Manley, reproduced from Ragnarok 22.

Tripping the Light Fantastic - new star drives for Full Thrust and other SF games. Article by David Manley, reproduced from Ragnarok 21.

Rise of the Fourth Temple - introducing the Semitic Federation of Space Faring Worlds and the exclusive SFSFW miniatures line into Full Thrust. Article by Steve Blease and Tony Francis, reproduced from Ragnarok 20.

Haulin' Gas - the role of fleet auxiliary vessels in Full Thrust. Article by David Manley, reproduced from Ragnarok 18.

Double Trouble - An exercise in confusion for Full Thrust, this is a small game for three players and a referee by David Manley

Reviews

Full Thrust

To be added

More Thrust

Full Thrust Fleet Book: Volume 1

by Steve Blease

Okay, so like ten thousand copies of Full Thrust have been sold to gamers in the last six years (that's about four and a half a day), and it's picked up the Best SF Rules Award in the SFSFW Awards for the last five years and we all know it's a classic, so you've probably already bought this at 10.02am at Salute and got a reserve order in on the next volume already, so there's not really much point me reviewing it, is there then? Assuming otherwise...

Background

New Rules

Production and Gripes

Articles

In Dockyard Hands

"The Frontier Force can hold the outer systems for a month at the most. After that we will be facing Kra'Vak assaults on the Core systems themselves. We need the Empreza back in service ASAP. If you fail to pull her out of dock this week YOU will be responsible for the consequences."

The dock master sighed, looking at a twenty year career on the line.Admiral Wendy Tompkins was not a woman to mince her words.

He took a deep breath and replied, "Replacing the defensive systems will take six weeks at least, although I could give you a reduced capability in two. FTL will be on line, but one of the NSD nacelles has been unshipped for replacement. Minimum installation time for that piece is one month.If you want her sooner she will be down to half power"

"Two weeks. That'll have to do", Tompkins scowled, "but I don'tlike it, the Empreza is the only carrier available this side of the Divide".

Life's a bitch, isn't it?

So there you are, with your nice new NAC fleet, all painted up and ready to go in your club's latest campaign. Two carriers, sixteen cruisers, twenty destroyers and a load of auxiliary craft. The referee outlines the situation- a sneak attack by your neighbours has caught you on the hop, but no matter,with the fleet at your disposal there should be no problem meeting the threat. But wait! The referee passes you some bad news. One of your carriers is in refit, along with three of the cruisers and four destroyers. Four of the cruisers and four destroyers are undergoing post refit training. Another four cruisers and three destroyers are undergoing maintenance, and to cap it all one of the cruisers and two destroyers have reported serious weapon or propulsion system defects, taking them out of service for repairs. Your fleet is reduced to an active force of one carrier, four cruisers and seven destroyers. Time to call the shipyard......

Most wargamers involved in campaign games exist in a utopian universe where 100% availability of their forces is the norm. Of course action damage and casualties will reduce the number of toys you have to play with, but if you have twenty ships in your fleet, twenty is how many you have on day one of the war.

Real life is not like that (although the military would dearly wish it to be so), especially in the naval world from which so many parallels with Full Thrust can be drawn. Ships will undergo long refit periods, possibly involving weapon and systems upgrades, taking the ships out of service for a year or more. In between refits there are a number of shorter maintenance periods typically lasting from four to twenty weeks where more routine but nonetheless essential maintenance is undertaken. At the end of refits and maintenance periods the ship will need to undergo trials to prove the new or repaired systems, and crew efficiency will have been eroded by the period away from operations, requiring extensive training to bring them back up to standard. Don't forget also that the crew may like to go on leave, and this will reduce availability of the ship as well. The upshot of this is that a fleet commander is only likely to have around 50% of their vessels available for immediate operations at a specified time. If a crisis develops there is usually a mad rush to pull ships out of refit and maintenance periods, upcoming maintenance is cancelled and training programmes are accelerated (does this sound familiar to anyone who was around Portsmouth or Plymouth in 1982?).

Obviously there is a definite advantage in knowing when the war is goingto begin. Refits, maintenance periods and training can be arranged so that maximum availability at a certain date can be achieved. This was typical of the way the German High Seas Fleet operated in World War One, arranging for maximum availability of their major warships when a sortie against the British was planned. In contrast the Royal Navy had to be ready for operations 365 days a year so that numbers of available battleships were usually down for the reasons already described - as a result the Germans could offset their numerical deficiencies to some degree.

The use of a system which applied these real life constraints on ship availability to campaigns set in the Full Thrust universe (or any other universe for that matter) would give the players more problems to solve and would in itself act to generate scenarios and scenario backgrounds.

Ship Life and the State of the Fleet

For the sake of argument, let us say that a warship in the FT universe is designed for a twenty year life. If you think this is too short, then feel free to tinker with the figures. That goes with anything and everything in this article. Anyway, the lifetime profile of such a ship, following builders trials, acceptance and initial crew training could look something like this:

Year	Activity	Number of 'Lost' Weeks	Number of 'Operational' Weeks
1-4	Active service. One Maintenance Period (MP) per year, each lasting an average of 6 weeks, followed by training lasting 4 weeks. Leave periods lasting 4 weeks in total.	56	152
5	Major Maintenance Period (MMP) period, lasting 20 weeks, followed by 8 weeks trials, 8 weeks training and 4 weeks leave	40	12
6-9	Active service - as 1-4	56	152
10	Enters Refit Period (RP).	52	0
11	Refit Period completed after 15 months, then 9 months of trials, training etc.	52	0
12-15	Active service - as 1-4	56	152
16	Major Maintenance Period (MMP) - as 5	40	12
17-20	Active Service - as 1-4, but workload increases since machinery and older systems are becoming worn out and take more effort to keep on line, therefore average length of MP increases to 10 weeks (18 weeks)	72	136
21	Sold/scrapped.
	Totals	424	616

Thus, for a life of 1040 weeks (the year of completion is excluded) the ship is out of action for 424 weeks, or 42% of the time. This is a bearable pain for large classes of ships, but imagine the problem if you are considering a class of one or two ships.

At the start of a campaign the referee or players should determine the state of the fleet. The best way of doing this is to produce a timeline for each ship, showing each of the periods above. The state of the fleet is easily determined by looking down the list of ships and counting whichones are in refit, those on leave etc. If the numbers involved are too great or a quicker system is required, the time spent in each Readiness State(refit, leave etc. ) are roughly as follows:

For large classes of ships allocate the ships in the class into each readiness state (e.g. 5% in refit, 10% in training etc.). For small classes or individual ships the state of the ship should be decided by rolling against the above values (e.g. on a roll of 34 your only carrier is in a training period).

The table above assumes a normal operating regime. If maintenance schedules are massaged to assure maximum operational availability (e.g. you know when the war will start and you are "stacking the deck") cancel leave and halve the other non-operational percentages. For crucial individual ships, such as assault ships or flagships, certain availability can be achieved - after all, it would be annoying to plan an invasion and then find that your only assault ship is in refit!

All Change!!

Once the balloon goes up everyone in the operations and support organisations will be desperately looking to bring non-operational ships back into service. I would suggest the following times are required for each readiness state, depending on whether timelines or the simpler percentage system are in use:

OK. So the crisis is upon you and you know roughly how long it will take before your ships can be brought back into service if you issue a call-up now. But should you do it? Obviously there will be a penalty if ships are brought back into service at the rush. The potential effects are as follows:

Called Back from a Repair Period: Roll for FTL, each Weapon, FireCon, and Screen. On a roll of 5 or 6 some aspect of the system could not be made available in time and the system is therefore counted as destroyed. This is the equivalent of a second threshold point. Roll again for the Normal Space Drive - on a roll of 5 or 6 the NSD rating is halved (and the drive is lost if further damage is caused by threshold point loss).

Called Back from a Major Maintenance Period: Roll for FTL, each Weapon, FireCon, Screen and the Normal Space Drive.On a roll of 6 some aspect of the system could not be made available in time and the system is therefore counted as destroyed. This is the equivalentof a first threshold point. Roll again for the Normal Space Drive - on a roll of 5 or 6 the NSD rating is halved (but the drive rating is halved again if further damage is caused by threshold point loss).

Called Back from a Maintenance Period or Trials: Roll for each Weapon of a particular type, a single FireCon, and for a single Screen. On a roll of 6 some aspect of the system could not be made available in time and the system is therefore counted as destroyed. Roll also for the Normal Space Drive. A roll of 6 means the NSD rating is reduced by 1.

Called Back from Training: Roll a d6 for the ship's combat efficiency - on a roll of 6 all ranges of the ship's weapons are reduced by 33%. For example, 'A' class batteries would normally roll three dice at 0-12, but now roll 3 dice at 0-8,two dice at 8-16 etc. The Screen rating of the ship is reduced by1 unless it has been reduced for any other reason. Also roll for mechanical efficiency - on a roll of 6 the NSD rating is reduced by 1. These effectscan be removed if the ship is pulled out of combat duty and undergoes a 4 week training period.

Called Back From Leave: The crew are seriously pissed off, otherwise no effect apart from the delay.

Note that these effects are cumulative - a ship pulled out of a Maintenance Period rolls for the effect of missing the maintenance period andthe effects of missing the post -MP training, whilst a ship pulled from an MMP or refit rolls for the effects of missing the MMP or refit, plus the effects of missing trials and training.

Cancelled Maintenance

Once the campaign begins, players will also be faced with decisions as to whether they should cancel planned Maintenance Periods, refits etc. If they do choose to cancel, players will find their ships begin to deteriorateas systems become worn out.

i) Each time a Maintenance Period is missed roll for system failure as if the ship has been called back from an MP, and once each month until the MP is carried out.

ii) If the planned date for an MMP is passed, roll twice roll for system failure as if the ship has been called back from an MP when the MMP is missed, and once each month until the MMP is carried out.

iii) If the planned date for a Refit Period is passed, roll once for system failure as if the ship has been called back from an MMP when the RP is missed, and once each week failure as if the ship has been called back from an MP until the MMP is carried out.

Again, the effects here are cumulative - if a ship misses an MP and then goes on to miss an MMP it rolls twice per month for system failure.

One thing that should be noted is that 'damage' accumulating from system failure due to missed maintenance, and also from being pulled out of MMPs, refits etc. can be repaired using the normal campaign repair rules. However, doing so will tie up valuable repair resources which may be needed elsewhereto clear up action damage.

Examples

Both examples use the Corvette on page 14 of Full Thrust as their basis ship.

Example 1: The 'Lesak' is in an RP when she is recalled to duty. The owning playeris using the percentage system and so she is available in eight weeks. When she re-enters service the system rolls are made. Rolls are made for the FTL, NSD, PDAF, FireCon and both 'C' batteries. Rolls are 5, 2, 4, 6, 1 and 3. The rolls for FTL and FireCon are failed, so these are inoperative. Because the Trials programme is not completed, further rolls are required. In this case a 6 is needed for failure and only the NSD fails. The Thrust Rating is reduced by 1 from 8 to 7. Finally the Training Period is also missed, and both rolls are failed. The maximum range of the 'C' class batteries is reduced to 8 and the Thrust Rating is reduced by 1 again to 6. Disappointed by the resulting condition of the ship, the owning player sends the 'Lesak' to a Fleet Repair Facility to have the FTL fixed.

Example 2: The 'Sorcha' is due to begin an MMP, but is the only vessel available for convoy escort duty, so the MMP is cancelled. System failure rolls are made on the start date. Rolls are made for the FTL, NSD, PDAF, FireCon and both 'C' batteries. Rolls are 2, 6, 3, 2, 5 and 1. The roll for NSD is failed and the Thrust Rating is reduced to 7. One month later the system rolls are repeated. This time the scores are 4, 3, 6, 3, 1 and 4. The PDAF has now failed. The owning player decides to pull the Sorcha out of operations after the next convoy to fix the PDAF and NSD.

To Scrap or Not To Scrap....

One aspect which I have not yet touched on is the economics of ship operation. I do not intend to go into any great detail since such considerations are not really relevant to the majority of campaigns, but they may become so if a campaign lasts for many years of game time. As a guide, assume the annual running costs of a starship are 10% of the build cost up to the Refit Period, 15% between the RP and the next MMP, 20% between the MMP and the planned disposal date, and 25% per year rising by 5% per annum if the disposal date is passed and the ship is run on. Again looking at the Corvette as an example, we see that in the first 9 years of her life she costs 4.3 points to operate. From year 10 to year 15 she costs 6.45 points, from year 16 to year 20 she costs 8.6 points, and from year 21 onwards 10.75 points. Using such a system you will pretty soon find that your navies can't afford to keep old warships going.

Conclusion

You may feel that the above is a nause which is only going to slow down your particular campaign. If so then fair enough, but if you decide to adopt the system of something similar your campaigns will gain in 'realism' (if such a thing is possible in an F/SF game) and your players will find another massive headache, particularly if they are careless enough to allow the enemy to attack their repair facilities. I have not covered aspects suchas repair yards or naval bases - see page 35 of the Full Thrust rules for these. However, the need to provide defensive cover for facilities such as these will be important under these rules (and now that you know whether ships are being refitted you are also faced with new scenario possibilities,such as raids on dockyards to destroy and/or capture enemy vessels whilst they are at their most vulnerable.

Summary of Ship Life Plan

United Nations Space Command

Introduction

• To prevent combat in the Core Systems.
• To act as an independent peace-keeping force in the Inner Colonies.
• To be responsible for Customs Inspection in the Core Systems.
• To undertake exploration and research missions.
• To be responsible for rescue/medical duties throughout Terran Space.

UNSC Starship Designs

CONSTABLE CLASS CUSTOMS CUTTER
Mass: 6, Damage Points: 3, 3 C Batteries (3-arc fire), Thrust: 8, Non-FTL, Points: 39

KNOCK CLASS CUSTOMS FRIGATE
Mass: 12, Damage Points: 6, 2 B Batteries (2-arc fire), 1 C Battery (3-arc fire), 1 PDAF, Non-FTL, Thrust: 8, Points: 81

GUARDIAN CLASS CRUISER
Mass: 26, Damage Points: 13, 1 Pulse Torpedo Tube, 2 B Batteries (2-arc fire), 1 PDAF, Level 1 Screens, Thrust: 6, Points: 214

DEFENDER CLASS CRUISER
Mass: 32, Damage Points: 16, 1 Pulse Torpedo Tube, 1 A Battery (3-arc fire), 2 B Batteries (2-arc fire), 1 PDAF, Level 1 Screens, Thrust: 4, Points 230

PEACEKEEPER CLASS CRUISER
Mass: 44, Damage Points: 22, 1 Pulse Torpedo Tube, 1 A Battery (3-Arc Fire), 2 B Batteries (2-arc fire), 1 C Battery (3-arc fire), 2 PDAF, Level 2 Screens, Thrust: 4, Points: 411

GENEVA CLASS CARRIER
Mass: 70, 4 Fighter Bays, 2 C Batteries (3-arc fire), 3 PDAF, Level 2 Screens, Thrust: 2, Points: 499
Typical Fighter Complement consist of two flights of Star Cougar Fighters and two flights of Star Tiger Heavy Fighters.

THUNDERBIRD CLASS RESCUE SHIP
Mass: 6, Damage Points: 3, Level 1 Screens, Thrust: 8, Points: 61

SAMARITAN CLASS HOSPITAL SHIP
Mass: 60, Damage Points: 15, Level 3 Screens, Thrust: 4, Points: 465

CLARKE CLASS SURVEY CRUISER
Mass: 48, Damage Points: 12, 3 C Batteries (3 arc fire), 2 PDAF, Thrust: 4, Points: 333
Note: The high points cost of the Thunderbird and Samaritan Class represent their value and not their combat effectiveness.

Last One Out is Toast

"Launch in three...two...one...now!' Lieutenant Caroline Payne felta kick like a mule's as the escape pod thrusters engaged. From the viewportshe looked back at the once proud cruiser on which she had served as a TacticalOfficer. Now the ship had been reduced to a mass of twisted wreckage. Thewreck disappeared in a blinding flash of light as the drives finally exploded.No more pods would be launched now. As the blast wave buffeted the pod shehad nothing but good thoughts for the naval architect who had placed anescape pod access next to her action station (it was odd, she thought, thatstarship designers were still called naval architects, even after all thistime in space).

Caroline noticed a red blinking light on the control console. Shefelt a cold chill as she realised that the light showed that the pod's stealthsystems had failed. Even now an armed shuttle from the pursuing enemy battlecruiserwas matching vectors with her pod. She wondered how they would treat theirprisoners...

Introduction

Us wargamers are, on the face of it, a fairly callous bunch. Ships whichare sunk are lost with all hands, tanks explode killing all within. Thereare no survivors. Fair enough, you might say; the tank or ship concernedis no longer a fighting unit and can be ignored as far as the rest of thegame is concerned and in many cases I would agree with that statement. However,to ignore them completely is to ignore a whole spectrum of possible scenarioideas. I included rules for survivors in my 'Schnellboot' and 'Action Stations'WW2 coastal forces rules and their inclusion seemed to be quite popular.Players were faced with situations where, for example, their flotilla commander'sboat was shot out from under him. In a 'normal' game that would be the endof it, but with the survivor rules in play an extra dimension was added,as players tried valiantly to save their stricken crews from under the nosesof the enemy. Having seen the system work for WW2 coastal forces games Idecided to bring it up to date (should that be ahead of date?) and applyit to Full Thrust. As with my previous articles on auxiliaries and FTL travelnone of what follows is cast in stone; the rules as presented work in mycampaign universe but may not apply to yours, so please take as little oras much from the rules as you please.

Catastrophe!

At some point during a game is almost certain that the crew of at leastone starship will seek to evacuate their ship. This is usually heraldedby sparking consoles, red flashing lights, dramatic jets of carbon dioxideand big holes in the bulkheads. The time they have available to make theirescape depends on the 'Failure Type' (FT) of the ship. FT is expressed asone of three basic rates, which I shall call Long Term, Short Term and CatastrophicFailure.

Long Term Failure occurs when the crew have sufficient time to carryout an orderly evacuation. Examples are failure of life support systemsor contamination of the ship's interior by some toxic agent. Contemporaryexamples are the abandoning of the Achille Lauro due to fire, or the evacuationof 'Red October' due to a faked radiation leak in Tom Clancy's novel. Inthis case all those, or at least a very high proportion of those aboardare assumed to have escaped.

Short Term Failure occurs when the crew have a very limited time to escape.Examples are the loss of the final damage point resulting in rapid lossof structural integrity and life support. The closest contemporary exampleis that of a ship sinking. In this case the chance of escape is variable.

Catastrophic Failure occurs when the ship is consumed by an unexpected,instantaneous disaster. Examples are Warp Core breaches (for all you Trekkiesout there), magazine explosions and collisions with asteroids. In this casethe chance of escape is negligible

Escape Systems

Starships will have several different escape systems installed, rangingfrom simple survival packs for use with space suits through escape podsto large emergency shuttles. The type of systems installed will depend onthe size of the ship, the number of personnel, and the training of thosepersonnel (ships with large numbers of passengers will be equipped withsystems requiring little or no input from the survivors).

1. Space Suits

These will normally be stored close to the ship's air locks. For Escapeand Rescue purposes emergency kits will be stored with the suits. Thesekits include such features as radio beacons, provision extended life support,thruster packs and atmospheric re-entry kits. The latter is a system featuringan expanding ablative re-entry shield and a parachute - the user is protectedfrom the perils of re-entry by the shield until the lower reaches of theatmosphere are reached, whereupon the shield is jettisoned and the userparachutes to safety. With this in mind planetary survival kits are alsoincluded. Use of any space suit escape system requires extensive trainingand untrained civilian passengers are unlikely to survive if forced to usespace suits unaided. The suit itself offers little protection, so escapefrom an exploding starship using a suit is likely to be short-lived.

Space suits are assumed to form part of the normal construction costsand hull masses of starship design, and therefore do not cost anything toinclude in a design.

2. Escape Pods

These are simple space lifeboats holding from 1 to 50 personnel, dependingon the size of the parent ship. Operation is simple, allowing use by inexperiencedpersonnel such as civilian passengers. Once all are aboard a simple controlsequence is keyed in to the pod's command system and the pod launches. Thismay be as simple as a big red handle with 'Launch' printed in reassuringlylarge letters on it. Escape pods are fitted with extensive shielding toprotect them from the blast of a nearby catastrophic failure. Escape podswill have limited thrust capabilities designed to move the pod to a safedistance from the parent ship. On-board autosystems will decide the optimumcourse of action: if a habitable planet is nearby the pod will attempt alanding, otherwise it will move to a location safe from any local threat(such as excessive radiation, asteroids etc.). Automatic distress beaconsare activated to aid location of the pod by rescue services. Most militarypods also include a threat analysis system which determines the optimumcourse of action depending on the tactical situation. For example, if theenemy are likely to fire on escape capsules or if capture of the occupantsis to be avoided the capsule will 'go silent' and only activate its beaconswhen enemy forces have left or when friendly ships are nearby. This featuremay be countermanded by those on board in situations where the risk of beingdetected by the enemy outweighs the risks of remaining unrescued in thepod.

Like space suits, escape pods are assumed to form part of the normalconstruction costs and hull masses of starship design, and therefore donot cost anything to include in a design.

3. Escape Shuttles

These are fully equipped space craft in their own right, fitted withnormal space drives and capable of normal operations as any other smallspace ship would be. The main difference is that they are carried in rapidlaunching facilities (i.e. launch tubes) which are heavily protected toreduce the chance of damage prior to launch. Another important differenceis that they are NEVER used except in an emergency. Personnel capacitiesrange from 20 to 100, again depending on the ship type. As with the escapepod they may be operated in a fully automatic mode by untrained personnel,and in this mode they will carry out the same decision-making process asthe escape pod. Escape Shuttles can also be used as survival base ships,providing power and supplies to escape pods, marshalling drifting pods andpicking up other survivors in space suits.

Escape shuttle launch arrangements are well integrated into the parentship's structure and thus can be treated as having zero mass. However, theshuttles themselves are expensive items, and provision of a shuttle escapesystem costs 10 points for cruiser sized vessels, and 15 points for largerships.

The Equipment In Action

Before we can use these systems in our games we need to determine howmany people are aboard our ships. As a rule of thumb I suggest a crew of10 per Mass point for warships, 20 per Mass for passenger ships, and 4 perMass for merchants.

For ships suffering Long Term Failure all the crew will escape. It isassumed that there has been enough time for the correct lifeboat drill tobe carried out and that all the injured have been saved. Fatalities caused by the reason for abandonment are up to the referee.

For those suffering hull damage the crew losses for each damage pointlost equal half the figures given above (a warship loses 5 personnel perhit, a passenger ship 10, and a merchant 2). The same losses are taken foreach system lost through threshold damage. The final result at the timeof the ship's evacuation is the total number of people who managed to getoff when the ship finally blew up, became uninhabitable etc. Note that itis possible, particularly on the smaller ships, for there to be no survivorseven in this case.

For ships suffering catastrophic damage roll a d6, subtracting 4 forScout class vessels, 3 for cruisers and 2 for Capital class ships. The scoreis the number of survivors. Messy!

Next we decide what escape method the survivors have used. The tablebelow shows what ships can carry what escape methods, and also indicatesthe chance of those systems being damaged or destroyed at the time of use

The chance of damage indicates the scores leading to partial or completeloss of that escape system in the case of a Short Term Failure (no systemsare assumed to be damaged in a Long Term Failure, whilst in a CatastrophicFailure the survivors (if any) are assumed to have got out in an escapepod or a shuttle if available- a suit would offer no protection from thecatastrophe). Note that the survival endurance of the system is also given.This is the number of days the system can support life in space or in ahostile environment without outside assistance.

All survivors are assumed to be in the most effective escape system available.For example, if a ship is equipped with escape shuttles, all the survivorsare assumed to be in shuttles. In practice they probably got off using variousmethods, but following the evacuation the shuttles would move around thecasualty site and pick up those in suits and pods, or take the escape podsunder tow. If a system is partially damaged, half the survivors are leftin the next lowest form of escape. For a ship with shuttles, partial losswould mean half the survivors escaping in pods. For pod-only ships halfthe survivors are in suits. Full loss means all the survivors are in thenext lowest form of escape.

Survivors are best represented by a counter, marked with S for suits,P for Pods and ES for Escape Shuttles (models could also be used). The countershould also allow recording of the number of survivors represented by thatcounter. Survivor counters move in the same direction and at the same speedas the ship they escaped from. Those in suits have no form of manoeuvreunless the ship they escaped from was in orbit around a habitable planetwith a suitable atmosphere, when they will attempt re-entry. Escape podshave a thrust rating of 2 which can be used to avoid obstacles such as asteroids,or to thrust towards habitable planets. No other manoeuvre is allowed. Shuttleshave a thrust rating of 4 which may be used as desired (unless all the survivorsaboard are unskilled, in which case treat as an escape pod).

To rescue survivors in space a rescue ship must match vectors with thesurvivor's counter (i.e. they are travelling on the same course and at thesame speed, and are within 2" of the counter). All survivors representedby the counter may be picked up in a single turn. Note that a ship's maximumcarrying capacity is likely to be 5 times its normal crew, so don't allowa scout ship to pick up all the survivors from a battleship! Note also thatsurvivors will not be able to choose who picks them up, and if the enemyget to your Admiral's escape pod before you do - tough. In the case of escapeshuttles, enemies ending a turn within 2" are assumed to have shotout the shuttle's drives, allowing capture when vectors are matched.

Unpleasant as it may be, some players will want to blast their enemiessurvivors into space dust. To do this an enemy ship must manoeuvre as ifto pick up the survivors, but instead of being picked up the counter isremoved from play. Pods and shuttles that have 'gone quiet' have a 50% chanceof avoiding fire (roll a d6, they escape on a roll of 1-3 and are not detectedfor the rest of the game).

Example

The cruiser Harvey has a Mass of 32, and therefore has a crew of 320.After a long battle the last Damage Point is lost and the crew abandon ship.The Harvey is equipped with Escape Shuttles. The owning player rolls a 5for the Shuttles and a 5 for the Escape Pods - half the Escape Shuttle andEscape Pod capacity is lost! During the battle four systems were lost tothreshold damage. The Harvey has therefore lost 160 crew to hull damage,plus 20 crew to system damage. The number of survivors is (320-160-20) =140. Of these, 70 are in Shuttles. The other 70 are divided between Podsand space suits, 35 in each. A habitable planet is nearby and the pods andshuttles automatically head for them. The survivors in suits continue atthe same speed and on the same heading as the ship (there is not enoughcapacity to take them aboard the shuttles or the pods) until they rescuedby nearby ships. Note that, although an escape shuttle is present it isunable to pick up the suited survivors due to the partial loss of capability.

Final Thoughts

Fighter Ejection Systems

Fighters are likely to be constructed with crew pods so that in the caseof the fighter's destruction the pilot can jettison the pod and escape.Obviously with a small target like a fighter there is a high chance thatthe shot which takes out the fighter will vaporise the pod before ejection takes place, so the chance of survival is low. Each time a fighter grouptakes a casualty, roll a d6 per fighter destroyed. On each score of 5 or6 one of the pilots has survived. Treat pilot escape pods as if they werenormal escape pods as in the rules above.

Emergency Separation

As a Trekkie I thought I would have to add this section, which involves the separation of part of the ship (usually that containing the Command facilities and accommodation) from the part of the ship most likely to go bang, i.e. engineering and explosive weaponry. However, examination of the available evidence shows that even in an emergency, a successful separation takes about 5 minutes, making its use in a catastrophic failure impossible and near useless even in a short term failure. As a result, separation is nearly exclusively used in long term failure cases, such as terminal propulsion system failures, radiation leaks etc. If players wish to have this facilityI would suggest a 10% increase in hull cost based on the need to include separation arrangements and internal arrangements that may not be 100% effective.

In a Long Term failure the separated module becomes a spaceship in its own right, having a number of damage Points equal to the final row on the parent vessel's Ship Record Sheet. It will have no FTL capability and willhave a thrust rating of 2. It will have no screen capability, and armamentfor self defence will be the equivalent of a single 'C' Class battery (orthe equivalent weakest weapon system available for races using alternativeweapons technology) - it is likely that larger weapons will be mounted onthe separated section, but the reduced power available due to separation from the rest of the ship reduces the strength of the weapon to a minimum.Separation takes one turn to complete, during which the ship may not usethrust, screens, nor may it fire weapons. Separation may not take placeif any damage points have been crossed of the final line of the ship's recordsheet (the separation systems are damaged). The effect of these rules isthat, although separation in combat is possible, the act of doing so placesthe ship at considerable risk, and must be carried out whilst the ship stillhas a fair degree of combat worthiness remaining. As far as the rest ofthe ship is concerned it is treated as a derelict - I was never happy aboutcertain ships in certain TV and film series splitting and fighting as twoseparate ships, but if you want to do that sort of thing in your campaignuniverse, go ahead. Note that all survivors from the damaged ship can escape in the separated section.

Conclusion

I hope the lengthy description does not give the impression of a complicated system. The example shows that this is not the case. The Escape and rescue rules are best suited to campaign games, where crew experience is gained as the campaign progresses and especially where continuing characters area feature (where IS the Princess's escape pod?). They can add a bit of spice to one-off games and can serve as reasons for games in themselves, such as extended rescue missions - think about the effort that American forces put into rescuing downed fighter pilots in Vietnam, and think what human forces would do if facing an enemy such as the Kra'Vak!

Extra Firepower

More SFSFW Starships

by Tony Francis

Ben-Gurion class SuperDreadnought

These gargantuan warships are the largest ships-of-the-line (as opposed to carriers or support vessels) in the SemFed fleet. The design is based upon one proposed by Neu Bayerisches MaschinenWerk for an NSL requirement but which was rejected in favour of the Von Tegetthoff class SDN.

Lahav Military ThruSpace Systems Group bought the design from its NBMW and modified it heavily to reflect SemFed naval philosophy and practice. Since standard SemFed doctrine means that ships are rarely, if ever deployed without fighter cover from a carrier, the NSL requirement for two fighter groups and associated hanger and launch facilities was discarded. The space that was made available was used to house three additional 'A' class particle beam batteries. The Ben-Gurion also carries an ECM suite to screen its giant bulk from enemy sensors, plus an Elta enhanced sensor array.

The Ben-Gurion class, with their massive long-range firepower and sophisticated sensor suites, are used to form the backbone of Strategic Action Groups (SAGs). Very few known ships are capable of matching them in a drawn-out engagement, even outnumbered and surrounded they would be difficult to destroy since each one can bring at least four of its main batteries to bear in any arc apart from the rear one. If they have a weakness it would

be vulnerability to fighter attack if caught without adequate cover. With no integral fighter squadrons and only moderate anti-fighter defences, a mass attack by fighter craft would pose a real problem. However, no Ben-Gurion has yet been deployed without at least an Escort carrier for company, so it seems that the SemFed naval hierarchy recognise this threat to their most prized assets.

Ben-Gurion class Mass 80, Damage Points 40, Thrust 2, FTL, L-3 Screens, 4 PDAF, 8 'A' Batteries (2 FPS, I FP, I FS, 2 P, 2 5), ECM, Enhanced sensors 596 pts.

(NB if you don't use More Thrust, delete the ECM and sensors and add an additional 'A' battery (Forward fire only) @ 576pts).

The Tal Class System Defence Cruiser

The Tal design was matched to the Goliath tender, capable of carrying four (Goliath I and II) or even six (Goliath III class) BattleRiders at one time. Only a fexv are still used in their

intended role and most Tals are now employed as System Defence Cruisers, patrolling the SemFeds core systems.

The ships designers took advantage of the space saved by not fitting FTh drives to equip the Tal with a heavy, long-range weapon system. Originally all were fitted with a Pulse Torpedo tube and four 'A class particle beam batteries, along with heavy anti-fighter firepower. Recently however, approximately one in four of the Tals built have been converted to carry the new Zion Military Industries Wave Gun in place of the torpedo mounting. Externally the two types are indistinguishable. Internally the additional power generators and control equipment required for the Wave Gun have meant that one 'A' battery and some of the anti-fighter mountings have had to be sacrificed.

Tal's have seen active service as BattleRiders, notably in the disastrous Battle of Salzburg, when a number of ships were ambushed during deployment from their tenders. Other engagements were rather more successful, especially against the Islamic Federation and unpublicised actions against FSE forces during the Third Solar War when SemFed forces were under the pay of the NAC.

With the current trend in SemFed naval thinking turning towards smaller, destroyer sized BattleRiders (driven mainly by budgetry restrictions), production of the Goliaths has ceased. It seems increasingly likely that the Tals will see out their final days patrolling the SemFed homeworlds and involving themselves in fighting off the increasing number of Kra'Vak incursions.

Tal Class (as built) Mass 36, Damage Points 18, Thrust 4, No Fm, 4 'A' Batteries (2 FPS, 1 FP, 1 FS), Pulse Torpedo, 4 PDAF, L-2 Screens, 267 points.

Modified Tal Class Mass 36, Damage Points18, Thrust 4, No FTh, 3 'A' Batteries (1 FPS, I FP, 1 FS), Wave Gun, 2 PDAF, L-2 Screens, 263 points.

The Yoffe Class Torpedo Destroyer

The Yoffe class fills an important gap in the SemFed's naval armoury. Whereas the Hofi class frigate is used as a general purpose patrol and escort vessel but is not expected to be capable of standing in the line during a major fleet action, the Yoffe is seen as a small ship-of-the-line in its own right. This is due almost entirely to its Pulse Torpedo mounting which gives it substantial long-range firepower. However, the space that this system occupies means that there is little room left over for anything other than minimal additional armament.

Yoffes have often been used as part of SemFed mercenary groups, hired out to navies whose small ships do not carry similar heavy weapons. One NAC-sponsored squadron of Yoffe class ships, accompanied by NSL Ehrenhold and Waldburg class escorts, was responsible for almost completely destroying an FSE battlegroup, including a Jeanne D'Arc class carrier, when they were caught at their moorings around the Outworld of Nueva Barcelona in 2166. The small Swabian / SemFed ships managed to evade detection until it was too late for the FSE forces to react, and this action was instrumental in allowing the followup NSL ground forces to land unhindered.

Yoffe class Mass 16, Damage Points 8, Thrust 6, FTL, Pulse Torpedo, 1 'C' battery (FPS), 2 PDAF, 98 points.

Bombs Away!

This scenario for Full Thrust is something out of the ordinary. Basicallyit is a a non-lethal scenario designed to employ some of the lesser usedrules and to get players away from the ususl ‘shoot ’em up’scenario - playtesting proved just how ingenious some people can be whenpresented with an unusual situation.

The year is 2185. The Kra'Vak threat is now very real and the traditiona Human power blocs are developing their own weapons to deal with the ‘newpsychos on the block’. Whilst others develop new anti ship technology,the Federal Stats Europa have hastened development of their new ‘superweapon’, the planet busting Thermostellar Bomb, capable of reducingan earth-sized planet to an asteroid belt in fairly short order. Althoughthe FSE points out that the weapon is for use only against aggressive alienspecies in extreme circumstances there is widespread condemnation of theproject from governments and civil pressure groups. However, given the threatposed by the Kra’Vak and the realisation that humanity may indeed needthe weapon one day no direct action is being taken against the project......

The scenario is set in the Senypolia system, well away from the Kra’vakoffensive, and clear of the major colonies. Senypolia is the test site forthe thermostellar bomb and the final test is to be carried out shortly.The planet Senypolia 4, known locally as Roumaru, is to be the target. Asthe system is regarded as being safe only a small force of FSE police cruisersis present. Unfortunately the environmental group EcoStar is about to gatecrashthe party, and if that wasn’t enough, it looks like someone invitedthe Press as well!

Setup

The scenario is based on a 4’ by 6’ table. Roumaru is setup in the middle of the table. A space station is in orbit at 12" fromthe planet, with its exact location determined randomly.

FSE Forces

a) 3 ‘Cassard’ class police cruisers and two fighter groups,set up as desired by the FSE player.

b) One Heavy Freighter, carrying the thermostellar bomb to the test site.This enters from a random direction, on a random turn between turns 1 and6. 

EcoStar Forces

a) 2 ‘Rainbow’ class fast couriers. One carries a group ofthree ‘StarRider’ disarmed heavy fighters.

b) 1 ‘Larry King’ Class courier, operated by Interstellar NewsNetwork (INN).

The EcoStar ships and the Larry King enter under FTL drive on turn 1.The EcoStar player must plot their entry points before the FSE player placestheir forces on the table.

FTL Entry and Exit

FTL entry and exit is limited by Roumaru’s gravity well. Ships maynot be plotted to enter the table closer than 24" to Roumaru, nor mayFTL drives be engaged to leave the table within 24" of the planet.Ships which are entering still roll for deviation and may end up enteringcloser than the 24" limit.

Winning and Losing

The EcoStar player wins if they get at least one ship or the StarRidergroup on to the planet’s surface. From there the crew can hide outand delay the test for some time. See ‘More Thrust’ for ruleson orbital distances and atmospheric landings. The EcoStar player forcesa draw if the space station or the Heavy Freighter are occupied by protestersat the end of the 12th turn. The FSE player wins if these objectives arenot met.

So, to win the FSE player could blast all the EcoStar ships before theyreach the planet, right? Wrong. If they fire on an EcoStar ship whilst theEcoStar vessel is in line of sight of the Larry King the INN will get greatfootage and the FSE loses automatically. Note that the firing of beam batteriesdoes not lose the game for the FSE, only INN seeing shots landing on theEcoStars. In order to stop the protesters the FSE are allowed to use theirship’s Needle Beams to disable the protesters, or may board them. Rulesfor boarding are in ‘More Thrust’, with each ship having one boardingparty. Boarding actions consist of one die roll only, and to win a playermust score 2 points more than the opposition. FSE troops on the police cruisersgain +1 to the die roll. Victory against the EcoStars, the police cruisersand the Heavy Freighter means the ship comes under the control of the winningplayer. Success against the space station means the protesters are well‘dug in’ - the FSE must mount a boarding action against the stationto winkle them out, and the protesters gain a +2 modifier whilst holed upon the station.

Nothing is as simple as it seems.....

During playtesting, a few alternative scenarios were developed.

1) Crazy Pierre - The FSE can ignore the restrictions on the non-useof weapons and is free to fire at will. If they so choose, the FSE playerwins if neither the EcoStar ships nor the Larry King can escape using FTL(an ‘orreeble acciden’ in hyperspace - nothing to do wiz uz!)

2) EcoBandits - The EcoStar mission is a cover for a band of interstellararms dealers who are plotting to obtain the thermostellar bomb for themselves.All weapons on the EcoStar ships are active. The fighters are heavy fightersand each carries two beam weapons. The EcoStar bandits win if they capturethe Heavy Freighter and escape under FTL. The FSE forces a draw if the HeavyFreighter is destroyed.

In either scenario, it is essential for the players to keep their realmissions a secret until they are ready to reveal their true purpose. 

Ship Data

Cassard Class.	Mass 8; Damage 4; Thrust 6; Shield 0; FireCon 1. Armed with 1 NeedleBeam (forward arc), 1 PDAF, 1 ‘C’ Class battery (forward, port,and starboard arcs)
Rainbow Class.	Uses the same type of hull as the Cassard, but EcoStar ships are unarmed.If using the EcoBandit scenario the ship carries the same weapons as theCassard, but may replace the PDAF or the C Battery with a submunition pack.
Larry King.	Mass 8; Damage 4; Thrust 4; Shield 0; FireCon 1. Carries a long rangeimaging system.

Tripping the Light Fantastic

Lozinski frowned. Only two minutes to the Jump Point, but already the laser fire from the pursuing Outie marauder was peppering the aft shields of her Free Trader. Now came the choice - decelerate to be sure of hitting the Jump Point and risk almost certain destruction at the hands of the marauder,or risk missing the Jump Point by continuing at Full Thrust? Lozinski'sfinger hovered over the drive controls...

Introduction

I was never all that happy with instant star drives. At the crucial moment the enemy always pushed the button and disappeared into hyperspace. Full Thrust is better in this respect as ships attempting to use FTL have certain disadvantages. However, I wanted something with more of a challenge,and something which would improve campaigning.

Many SF backgrounds have the idea of star gates and jump points. Notable examples are Babylon 5, Buck Rogers (is it true that you go blind afterwatching the complete series?) and, for the more traditionalist players Larry Niven's Mote series. In the end I decided to go for a combinationof these, as well as drawing I some other ideas from various SF backgrounds.As is usual with these sorts of things, feel free to use as much or as little as you like, and change things to suit your own backgrounds.

The Basics

Starships travel between stars by moving to Jump Points and engaging their FTL drive. Each star system will have one natural jump point per destination and they may, or may not, be clustered in a particular region of the system.How these Jump Points are created is up to you - they may be caused by lines of equipotential interstellar nuclear flux or whatever piece of techno babblesound good at the time. However, star systems will normally only have natural Jump Points connecting them to up to 6 nearby systems.

The Jump Point itself is represented on the table by a point marker. Ships passing within 6" of the marker may attempt to engage their FTL drive and Jump into the next system. This is successful on a roll of 1-4 on a d6. The uncertainty is due to natural fluctuations in the Jump Point's location. Note that ships travelling at low speed will have several chances at making the Jump and can easily decelerate and come back to the point if they miss it - fast movers may miss the point and will have to spend some time heading back. Any ship with a normal FTL drive may ass througha Jump Point. Transit is instantaneous.

Star Gates

Once the physics of the Jump principle were discovered it became possible to create artificial Jump Points, of which three types exist.

The first is the Jump Point Stabiliser (JPS). This is a field generator placed on a platform at the Jump point. All ships passing within 3"of the platform and engaging FTL drives will automatically make the jump.Those between 3" and 6" are outside the influence of the platform and will have to roll as normal. JPS platforms are often used along frequently used routes. Due to their expense and high operating costs they would never be found in backwater systems.

The second is the Long Distance Star Gate, or LDS. This creates a JumpPoint to more distant stars, up to 50 parsecs. Two platform field generators(placed 6" apart on the table) create the Jump Point . Any vessel passingbetween the platforms and engaging FTL drives makes the Jump automatically.If one of the platforms in not functioning the Jump Point may not be used.JPS Platforms are even more expensive to build and maintain than JPS platformsand are only used on high speed routes. Note that passing through an LDSJump Point in both directions requires LDS Platforms at both ends of theroute. If the platforms at one end only are working, or if there are onlyone pair of platforms then Long Distance travel is possible in one directiononly.

The final type is a variant of the ship's FTL drive itself, called theJump Point Drive , or JPD, whereby the ship creates its own Jump Point.Any star system within 10 parsecs may be chosen as the destination, withJump Point entry effects as for the normal Full Trust rules. As with theJPS and LDS, JPD drives are very expensive and take up a large proportionof the ship. As a result their use is limited to research cruisers, couriers(both civil and military) and one particular warship class. This is theCommerce Raider, lightly armed due to the space restrictions caused by thedrive, but powerful enough to engage merchant vessels and convoy escorts,and nimble enough through its JPD to evade pursuing forces. Commerce Raidersare expensive ships, so are restricted to the more wealthy strarfaring governments,but their ability to strike at the enemy's transports in rear areas allowsthem to tie down valuable heavy warships 'on campaign'.

A variant of the JPD is the Jump Point Projector, or JPP. This is usedto create small Jump Points through which small craft can be launched. Typicaluses are the transmitting of data using Jump Torpedoes which are fired throughJump Points with pre-loaded data cartridges. These are then recovered attheir destination. Jump Torpedoes are often used by military forces andresearch groups to transmit reports back to their superiors. Jump Torpedoesare also able to use regular Jump Points, JPS and LDS.

A Spanner In The Works

Jump Points, both natural and artificial, can be distorted and rendereduseless through the same technology that supports the JPS and LDS. The Interdictorclass of warship has been developed which carries the field generators requiredto close down a Jump Point and prevent the use of a JPD Drive. An Interdictorwill prevent all FTL movement away from the table within 24" of theInterdictor itself. Jumping from other star systems will not be possibleto Jump Points, JPSs or LDSs whilst the Interdictor's generators are functioning.Ships using JPDs from an other system may not arrive within 24" ofthe Interdictor - in addition, interference from the generator may damagethe JPD Drive if the ship arrives within 48" - roll 1-4 on a d6 forthe JPD to be damaged. Interdictors do not have everything their own way,however. The field generated by the ship is such that its use on large structuresis not possible - a hull the size of a battlecruiser would suffer shearingforces so great that it would tear itself apart if used. As a result, Interdictorsmay not be larger than cruisers, i.e. Mass 36. An alternative is to builda VERY strong hull, but the cost of this doubles the hull cost and reducesavailable hull space to one quarter of the ships MASS.

Putting It All Together

I hope you will enjoy using this variant. For one-off games a numberof scenarios present themselves, from chases to Jump Points to assaultson enemy JPS and LDS platforms and Commerce raider attacks on convoys (isone of those escorts an Interdictor?).

For campaign games there are more possibilities. Players may wish totry an SF version of the 'Hunt The Raider' campaigns loved by naval wargamers,with a Commerce Raider preying on shipping in a sector. Longer reachingcampaigns can have a little spice added to them by the use of JPS and LDSplatforms. For example, a player making an incursion into an enemy's spacemay drop off JPS platforms along his invasion route to ease the flow ofsupplies to the front. More likely is the use of an LDS system direct toa system near the front to make the transit of supplies and reinforcementseven faster - the LDS would then become a prime site for hit and run raids.

Facts and Figures

Design 1. 

Commerce Raider - based on the Super Heavy Cruiser design, FullThrust, page 31

Hull: Special, Mass 36

Damage points = 18

Mass Available for weapons/systems = 9 (One quarter of 36 rather thanhalf due to JPD)

Design 2.

Interdictor - based on the Super Heavy Cruiser design, Full Thrust,page 31

Hull: Special, Mass 36

Damage points = 18

Mass Available for weapons/systems = 18

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The Rise of the Fourth Temple

(The first Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, the second by the Romans in 70 AD and the third by Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists in 2027 AD. The Semitic Federation is regarded by Zionists as the Fourth Temple).

Given the fact that the Society now has an exclusive range of starship models for its members, it seemed appropriate to provide them with a background to allow gamers to integrate them into their Full Thrust games. When he volunteered to produce the range Tony came up with the idea of the Semitic Federation and Steve was happy to help develop this as it tied in with much of the expanded background he had developed on the original outline designed by Jon Tuffley and himself. Whilst what follows is not technically official, given the fact that Jon has pointed out in his rules that the background is optional and that both Steve and Jon have made considerable efforts to keep humanity as balkanised as possible to allow for gamers to introduce smaller nations without totally buggering the background up, you will find that the Semitic Federation of Space Faring Worlds fits in with the official background quite easily.

Timeline

• 2027 Destruction of the State of Israel by Islamic terrorist action.
• 2067 The Gilderstein Foundation sends the first manned FTL mission out of the Solar System.
• 2096 Foundation of New Israel on a garden world in the Epsilon Indi system.
• 2102 Jewish settlers colonise the harsh desert world discovered in the Wolf 47 system and name it Judea.
• 2112 Garden worlds discovered in the Eta Cassiopei and Tau Ceti systems by Jewish explorers. These are colonised and named Masada and Joppa respectively.
• 2127 One hundred years after the destruction of Israel on Terra the planets of New Israel, Judea, Masada and Joppa join together under the leadership of Rabbi Avarham Yoffe and form the Semitic Federation of Space Faring Worlds. Yoffe proclaims a never ending war against the evil forces of Islam to avenge the destruction of the first land that God have given the Jews. The Rabbi's speech is marked by the launch of Operation Jericho by the fledgling SemFed military against Islamic Federation targets on Terra, Mariana and Bismarck. Pressure put on the Islamic Federation by the Anglian Confederation prevents anything more than nominal retaliation.
• 2131 SemFed mercenaries clash with Islamic Federation mercenary units on the coreworld of Easter, despite both having been hired by the League of Latin American Republics. Both parties contracts are revoked. SemFed provides troops and naval units to aid the LLAR against Indonesian Commonwealth forces in the Mercenary War.
• 2147 SemFed forces are defeated fighting alongside Romanov space units as the ESU seize the Mikhailovka system during the Second Solar War.
• 2163 As the Islamic Federation is torn apart in a two year civil war between the ruling Saud Royal family and religious fundamentalists, the Semitic Federation takes the opportunity to seize a number of Islamic colonies.
• 2166 NeŸ Swabia hires SemFed mercenaries as the Third Solar War heats up. They are used alongside Romanov naval units attempting to stop the transport of Indonesian and LLAR forces through Hegemony space.
• 2171 SemFed forces in the pay of the NSL successfully overrun the FSE colony on the coreworld of Mariana.
• 2183 Indonesian Commonwealth naval forces defeat the SemFed naval elements defending NAC settlements on Salzburg.
• 2186 SemFed forces ally themselves with ESU and NAC naval forces against the alien Kra'Vak.

Naval Forces

Naval Strategy

Equipment

Dayan Class Fleet Carrier

The Dayan class carriers are essentially enormous flight decks dominated by the towering command and control centre which oversees deck operations. Space below decks is provided for a full wing of thirty six fighters or twelve strikeboats, or any combination of these. Two large hanger-to-deck lifts are provided under the protective umbrella of the control tower which are capable of handling both fighters and strikeboats. Defensive armament is kept to a minimum, the ship relying on its fighter wing for protection. One or more carriers form the core of most SemFed battlegroups, either fleet carriers or larger attack carriers. Stats: Mass 100, Damage Points 50, Thrust 2, FTL, 4 x PDAF, 2 x B Batteries (one bearing port, one starboard), Level 2 screens, 6 x fighter groups. 692 points if equipped with normal multi-purpose fighters (change points values accordingly if equipped with strikeboats or different fighter types).

Bar Lev Class Battleship

This class of vessel is equipped with FTL drives and is often used as a patrol vessel stationed on forward areas. Designed to accompany the Dayan class carriers, they are also slow and ponderous compared to other classes of battleship. The design is now regarded as obsolete and in need of replacement. Stats: As per standard battleship except Thrust 2. ??? points.

Meir Class Heavy Cruiser

Standard heavy cruiser design used for escorting battlefleets and also as a colonial patrol ship. Heavy enough to stand in line of battle, but also used as the flagship of convoy escort groups or small fleets. Stats: As per standard heavy cruiser.

Sharon Class Light Cruiser/Panther Class Cruiser

A lighter cruiser, the Sharon class is used as a screening/flank protection vessel for large battlegroups and also as a leader to destroyer/frigate/corvette flotillas. The Semitic Federation's police organisation, the Federal Law Enforcement Agency , also use a variant of the Sharon called the Panther with uprated drives for high speed pursuit of smugglers and pirates. The Panther class is equipped with a needle beam for disabling suspect ships' drives to prevent them escaping. Stats: Sharon class - standard light cruiser design, Mass 22. 190 points. Panther class - as per light cruiser except replace 1 x B Battery with needle beam and uprate thrust to 8. 209 Points.

Hofi Class Frigate

A fairly standardised design in a non-standard navy, the Hofi class frigate is found in most SemFed battlegroups as a fleet escort/picket ship. It is also used as a patrol vessel and convoy escort. Stats: As per standard frigate. Mass 10. 65 points.

Saar Class Strikeboat

The Saar class strikeboats are used from military installations and large carriers, replacing fighters at a ratio of three fighters to one strikeboat. Thus a standard design fleet carrier could carry thirty six fighters, twelve strikeboats or any combination thereof. Only the largest carriers have handling facilities capable of carrying strikeboats - escort or light carriers may not carry them. Full Thrust additions: treat the strikeboat as a normal ship, needing movement orders and a threshold chart. Use the same rules as fighters for launching and recovering. Strikeboats should be mounted in flights of two, similar to fighters, which is convenient because one stand of strikeboats (two ships) replaces one stand of fighters (six) on a carrier. The two strikeboats are then given the same movement orders (bet you saw that coming, eh?). Stats: Mass 3, Damage Points 2, Thrust 8, no FTL, 1 x Submunition Pack, 1 x PDAF. 24 Points.

Lavi Class Interceptor

The Lavi (Young Lion) is named after an abortive 20th century atmospheric fighter. Retaining it's namesake's high manoeuvrability and dogfight capabilities, albeit at the expense of anti-ship firepower. Built by SSI (Semitic Starship Industries, the successor to the IAI aerospace corporation), the Lavi has been standardised upon as the SemFed's carrier borne interceptor. Stats: interceptor fighter (More Thrust p.12). 20 points for six fighters.

Negev Class Heavy Freighter

A modular heavy freighter built to military standards. Used to transport men and equipment in support of the planetary invasion forces, although it isn't equipped to launch surface assault ships. Instead the Negev forms part of the second wave, carrying follow up forces including heavy armour into established beach heads. In addition to the standard short freighter, additional fuel, personnel or cargo modules can be fitted to extend carrying capacity. Stats: Standard or Short freighter: standard heavy freighter design. Mass 60. 306 Points. Extended version: standard bulk tanker design. Mass 100. 502 points (although not necessarily a fuel tanker, the stats will remain the same for cargo/personnel versions).

Assembling the SEMFED Models

Dayan Class Fleet Carrier

Bar Lev Class Battleship

Meir Class Heavy Cruiser

Sharon Class Light Cruiser

Hofi Class Frigate

Negev Class Heavy Freighter

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Haulin' Gas

Chief Officer Fergus Kehoe watched his control console with satisfaction. His ship, the tanker Confederation Naval Auxiliary (CNA) Fort Brockhursthad been alongside the carrier for several minutes now; the transfer lineshad been rigged and fuel was flowing from the tanker to the warship. Anotherfew minutes and the job would be complete. The Captain would be happy with a routine transfer completed well to time.

The ship's Main Broadcast crackled into life. 'Unknown contact onintercept course! Probable Hostile. Prepare for Emergency Breakaway!". Kehoe's hands leapt to the transfer pump controls. In seconds the Captain would order evasive manoeuvres - already he could feel the throb of the main engines powering up - Kehoe had to shut down the pump before breakaway or risk losing fuel or worse, risk damaging the pumps. Suddenly the routine transfer wasn't so routine....

As a (still active) naval wargamer I was always happy with Full Thrust's naval feel. However, something was missing. Some of my most exiting naval wargames revolved around the auxiliaries which travelled with the fleets,and in campaign games the opposition's tankers were always a prime target.With this in mind I set about incorporating these forgotten ships into FullThrust.

Fuel and Drives

I have assumed that ships in Full Thrust use hydrogen fuel to power theirreactors. This is a fairly common commodity in the Galaxy - it can be skimmedfrom gas giants or produced from water drawn from a world's oceans or icecaps. This assumes the ability to enter a planetary atmosphere, and whilstsome ships are atmosphere-capable (see More Thrust), most are not. Moreof this later.

Under the Full Thrust design system 50% of a warship's mass is takenup with drives, fuel, accommodation etc. I have assumed that 20% of themass is fuel, 5% is stores and the remaining 25% is hull structure not associatedwith systems, drives etc. this compares well with modern 'wet' ships, butfeel free to modify these values if you wish. Ship drive systems are assumedto take up a similar proportion of the ship regardless of power output;drives vary in efficiency (again not too far removed from current ship practice).A standard drive can 'jump' the ship 10 Light Years (LY) with costs as inthe Full Thrust design rules. Drives can jump a ship up to 20 LY - the costof the drive is the basic cost of the drive times maximum range, dividedby 10 (e.g. a 10 LY drive costs 1.0 times the basic cost, a 14 LY drivecosts 1.4 etc.). I have chosen 10 LY as the standard range rather than 6LY as suggested in the Full Thrust campaign rules as it simplifies the maths,but feel free to change this to a 6 LY standard if you wish.

As stated above a standard ship hull is 20% fuel. This is enough forone maximum range jump, plus enough to power the ship's electrical systems,Normal Space Drive, screens etc. for one year (thus removing them from consideration).Designers may allocate additional mass to fuel tankage to create ships withextended range or to act as tankers. To assist in book keeping, one Masspoint equals 10 Fuel Points (FP). From this, the ship uses (0.2 x Mass)FPs per Light Year of travel.

Refuelling

To carry out a refuelling operation the tanker and the recipient mustbe travelling at the same speed on the same course and be within 1".Once this is achieved it takes one turn to pass fuel lines and set the pumpsto work. Fuel transfer depends on the number of pumps available. Each pumpcan transfer 20 FPs of fuel per turn (for design purposes pumps use 1 Massand cost 10 points). Once refuelling is complete one turn is needed to shutdown the pumps and disconnect the transfer pipes. Auxiliaries can refuelup to 4 ships simultaneously, but each ship must have at least one pumpallocated to it.

In an emergency the tanker or recipient can initiate an Emergency Breakaway.In this case the full shutdown procedures are not used and each ship canmanoeuvre independently. There is a risk of fuel loss or damage; roll ad6 for each pump in use. On a score of 1-4 there is no damage, but on a5 or 6 roll again. On a 1 or 2 the auxiliary loses 1d6 FPs, on a 3 or 4the recipient loses 1d6 FPs, on a 5 both ships lose 1d6 FPs, and on a 6both lose 1d6 FPs and the fuel pump is damaged.

Ships engaged in refuelling operations are more vulnerable to attack- screens must not be in use, and all hull box damage is doubled to simulatethe effects of fuel filling trunks being in use, cargo shipping routes beingopened up etc.. This makes the Emergency Breakaway a particularly usefulmanoeuvre!

Fuel Skimming

Streamlined ships can skim fuel from gas giants or from oceans. Mostfleets carry fuel shuttles which can skim fuel for their parent ships. Toskim fuel the ship or shuttle must enter the planet's atmosphere (gas giant),land on the ice cap or enter the ocean (see More Thrust). Tank filling takesone turn from a gas giant's atmosphere, two turns from an ocean or fiveturns from an ice cap. Before it can be used the slush fuel must be refined,a process which takes 5 turns to complete - 20% of the slush becomes usablefuel per turn. All warships are assumed to have fuel refineries as partof their standard fuel system. Civilian ships may have them fitted at acost of 10 points (there is no Mass cost). Fuel shuttles are not generallyfitted with refineries.

'Solid' Stores

By this I mean food, ammunition etc. To simplify the system I have assumedthat any solid transfers take place at the same time as fuel transfers.In any case, food waste is likely to be largely recycled by the 22nd Centuryand ammunition ceases to be a consideration when most weapons are energy-based.Lumping solids in with the fuel does not detract form the system and wouldonly bog things down, but if you want to develop such a system, feel free.Bear mind, however, that auxiliaries in the Full Thrust era are likely tobe 'one-stop' replenishment vessels, carrying stores and fuel together,similar to today's AORs of the Royal Navy.

Scenarios

The possibilities for scenarios based on auxiliaries is endless. Examplesinclude the hunt for a commerce raider's supply tanker along the lines ofthe German tanker 'Altmark' in WW2 or attempts to get fuel to a valuableship in a fuel-less system (5th Frontier War players will sympathise witha friend of mine who, when playing the game ordered a large and valuablefleet to jump into a system with no gas giant , no planetary oceans or icecaps and no fuel facilities whatsoever - scratch one fleet!). Warships canget in on the act as well - commerce raiders are likely to carry fuel shuttlesif they are not streamlined, and a scenario could be based on the effortsof such a raider to refuel from a hostile world whilst being pursued. Finally,campaigns become much more exiting when your opponent has valuable supplyships to attack, but never forget that you have those of your own to protect.

Finally

Remember that none of this is cast in stone. If you want your ships tohave enough fuel to make two, four or however many maximum range jumps ona full tank of fuel, so be it. If you want your standard starship traveldistance to be 6 Light Years or 10 parsecs, that's OK. However you decideto arrange things, bringing auxiliaries into Full Thrust adds an exiting new dimension.

Ship Design Examples 

1. The Heavy Cruiser on page 14 of Full Thrust has a mass of 32. Of this,20% is fuel. This is 6.4 Mass, or 64 FPs. It has a standard 10 LY drive,so it could make one 10 LY jump, two 5 LY jumps etc. Fuel usage is 6.4 FP/LY

2. A fuel tanker is based on the Bulk tanker on page 15 of Full Thrust.It has a mass of 100, so 20 Mass is devoted to fuel, giving it 200 FPs.40 Mass points are available for cargo (50 - 10 for the defensive weaponsystems). Four pumps are fitted, leaving 36 Mass for extra fuel tankage,adding 360 FPs. It can transfer up to 80 FPs per turn.

3. A Fuel shuttle is built based on the Mass 5 dropship in More Thrust.Allowing for the shuttle's own fuel, structure and drives, it can carry2.5 Mass of slush fuel, or 25 Fps.

4. The courier on page 14 of Full Thrust uses 0.2 Mass for fuel, or 2FP. The basic version has a 10 LY drive costing 2 points. A long range versionis built with a 16 LY drive; the drive costs 1.6 times the normal drivecosts, or 3.2, which may be rounded to 3. Finally, an extended range versionis built. This sacrifices the 'C' battery for extra fuel. 1 Mass is devotedto extra fuel, giving 10 extra FP. This allows the ship to perform up to6 maximum range jumps before refuelling.

Double Trouble!

An exercise in confusion for Full Thrust

by David Manley

‘Captain Barrow, we have two vessels closing fast on the convoy from astern.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Savage, hail the leading ship and have her identify herself.’

‘Unknown vessel., this is the NAC Frigate Avenger. Identify yourself and state your business’

‘Avenger, this is the fast protected merchantman "Beowulf", carrying food supplies and medical stores to Camrex V. We are being pursued by an unknown privateer. We request permission to join your convoy for protection.’

‘This is Avenger. Roger "Beowulf", permission granted. Take up station astern of the ‘reefer. We will cover you.’

"Avenger, this is the mercenary cruiser "Lightning". Don’t listen to them. They are the privateers! We are trying to intercept."

‘Captain. Both vessels are registered on Intel’s list of friendly vessels in this sector. What are your orders?’

For the naval types of the NAC Fleet, convoy duty is reckoned to be one of the most boring jobs around. Just sometimes things liven up. Or get too lively. The Super Destroyer "Avenger" and her consort, the corvette "Bridport", are escorting a small convoy of 2 Heavy Freighters, one unarmed Bulk tanker and an unarmed Refrigerated Cargo Ship (reefer - use stats for the Heavy Freighter) to the frontier world of Camrex V when they are approached by two unidentified ships closing from astern. Both claim to be friendly. Both claim the other is a privateer out to raid the convoy. Both are listed on the local Intelligence register as friendly. What would you do?

This is a small game for three players and a referee. One player takes the Avenger and the Bridport, and the convoy. The other players take control of one of the unidentified ships. Sensors indicate that the ships are Fast Merchants (treat as Armed merchantmen with a Thrust of 4). Both the Avenger and Bridport have degraded sensors as a result of much too much time away from their base port on convoy duty, and sensor sweeps will not reveal the true state of the approaching vessels until they close to within 12". Before the game starts the players of the unidentified ships decide whether they are really friendly, or whether they are privateers. The following options arise as a result.

1. Neither are privateers. Both are mistaken about the identity of the other and both want to gain the sanctuary of the convoy. The NAC player loses if they fire on either vessel.
2. One is friendly, one is a privateer. The NAC player loses if they shoot at the wrong one, or if any of the other transports is destroyed.
3. Both are privateers. The NAC player loses if two transports, one transport and the Bridport, or the Avenger is destroyed. In this case the privateers are confused as to the identity of the other, and the winner is decided by the ship causing the most damage to the convoy (unless only one privateer survives, of course).

Notes

• The ship descriptions are given on pages 14-15 of Full Thrust and page 23 of More Thrust. If you do not have the latter, treat the Avenger as a Light Cruiser with no shield generator and only one FireCon, and the Privateers as Destroyers with a single ‘A’ battery and a needle beam instead of the ‘B’ batteries, and a Thrust of 8. These are not exact comparisons but are close enough.
• For added fun and excitement, have the privateers carrying a Group of fighters in concealed bays, and/or the have the NAC carrying fighters on board one of the transports.

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Full Thrust, More Thrust, Fleet Book Volume I - Copyright Ground Zero Games and Jon M Tuffley 2000

The Babylon Project - produced under license by WireFrame Productions Inc. and co-published by Titan Books/Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment Inc
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