Star Wars to Starfire Conversions

[Morpheus]

Has anyone done any Star Wars to Starfire conversions? I know that there are plenty of Star Wars games out there, but I really like the Starfire mechanics and the ship design methodology. Also, my son is really into Star Wars and I thought it would be fun to build some Star Wars ships and fight out some battles.

My biggest question is how has anyone handled the sheer number of weapons that are typical on Star Wars starships. If you take a Star Destroyer with 60 turbolasers, that and engines alone are easily enough to fill out a SD or even a MT. We will probably start with smaller ships like Corellian Corvettes or Frigates, but I was wondering if anyone else had done a conversion and any scaling factors or other methods useful for the conversion.

[Cralis]

Has anyone done any Star Wars to Starfire conversions? I know that there are plenty of Star Wars games out there, but I really like the Starfire mechanics and the ship design methodology. Also, my son is really into Star Wars and I thought it would be fun to build some Star Wars ships and fight out some battles.

Back in the '90s I know there was someone working on a Star Wars campaign and another person working on a Babylon 5 campaign. I have no idea whatever happened to them...

My biggest question is how has anyone handled the sheer number of weapons that are typical on Star Wars starships.

Keep in mind that Star Wars ships are massive by comparison even to Starfire standards. An Imperial Star Destroyer would probably be the size of an MT or something. In some ways Star Wars is highly advanced tech (construction) and in most everything else it is barely more than a few SLs (almost everything else). Because of the fighters, I'd probably start a Star Wars-based game at around EL 8.

If you take a Star Destroyer with 60 turbolasers, that and engines alone are easily enough to fill out a SD or even a MT.

Keep in mind, however, that a single "energy weapon" is actually more than one "barrel" ... so 60 "turbo lasers" could easily be only 10 or 20 L in Starfire. The only weapons that are considered "single barrel" are those that track munitions fired (like G, R, and Pt).

We will probably start with smaller ships like Corellian Corvettes or Frigates, but I was wondering if anyone else had done a conversion and any scaling factors or other methods useful for the conversion.

Not anymore... but a real conversion where you change the techs, adjust values, etc. (aka a "full conversion") would probably have lotd of followers. Especially if you ever did a campaign conversion

[Morpheus]

Thanks for the feedback, and the encouragement. I've got plenty of Star Wars source material to work from, so I'll try my hand at doing some simple conversions first.

[Cralis]

Sounds good. I had the thought of a "Jedi" graded leader You could have abilities not possible like the ability to sense the enemy in a system or communicate to other Jedi over interstellar distances. So many possibilities!

[Whitecold]

How do you plan on mapping weapon types?
Starfire capital ships usually revolve around heavy LRW batteries, but missile weapons are kinda absent in Star Wars as capital ship weaponry. Most large ships mount turbolasers (forcebeams) and ion cannons (lasers?)
Also, star wars ships utterly fail at point defense, but that is another story...

[Cralis]

How do you plan on mapping weapon types?
Starfire capital ships usually revolve around heavy LRW batteries, but missile weapons are kinda absent in Star Wars as capital ship weaponry.

I don't know how much of the books or games you've played, but there are a lot of concussion missiles and proton torpedoes on most units. In a huge chunk of the books the Millenium Falcon mounted a concussion missile launcher. Concussion missiles seemed to be ineffective against large units and less effective against shielded units, while proton torpedoes are probably most like Starfire's regular missile.

The big thing is that units move SLOW in Star Wars. Including missiles. At mach speeds. So lasers and other light-speed weaponry severely outrange them. If I'm remembering correctly, most Star Wars battles would occur within the space of a couple tH at most. Even the long-range rebellion fighter strike against the Death Star occurred within the orbits of the moons around a gas giant, so 10 tH at best?

If it was me I'd really reduce the size of tH. Huperdrive (oh yeah! you need that) will get you from location to location, even inside a star system.

Most large ships mount turbolasers (forcebeams) and ion cannons (lasers?)
Also, star wars ships utterly fail at point defense, but that is another story...

I'd actually use L for turbolasers and E for ion canons. If you reduce tH size and increase beams by the same multiplier, then leave missiles to actual tH range you'll probably get a close proximity.

So if 1tH becomes 4 tH, La range would be 28 and if you left R as 16 or 18 or whatever it is, that would work.

[Morpheus]

Here is an update on how things have been going with my Star Wars to Starfire conversion and what I’m planning.

First, since there are so many Star Wars references out there, for consistency, I've decided to base all my ship designs on the stats provided in West End Games' Star Wars Starship Stats sourcebook.

Second, in selecting the size classes and hull spaces for ships, I've decided to select the Imperial Class Star Destroyer as my point of reference as a 200-hull space MT. All other ships (both smaller and larger) will have their number hull spaces based on this reference point. This is going to eventually result in some things like a Nebulon-B class Frigate actually ending up being a CL in Starfire where hull spaces are concerned.

Third, as far as weapons are concerned, I've selected Star Wars Lasers/Turbolasers/etc. to be represented by Force Beams due to their damage pattern and the fact that lasers in Star Wars do not skip shields. I've also selected Ion Cannons to be represented by Energy Beams, and adding the additional trait that they do not destroy systems per-se, but just disable (ionize) them, and that disabled systems can be repaired to full functionality using the emergency repairs rules. Finally under weapons, as I've looked into concussion missiles and proton torpedoes, there seem to be many types and varying yields on their warheads, I'm considering treating concussion missiles more like R, and treating proton torpedoes like G.

Now on to things I still am working on and considering how to handle. As I've started to build some preliminary ships, since Star Wars ships tend to have so many fighter squadrons and (BFx) and (BLx) are only 1 HTK each compared with an equivalent Classic Starfire squadron bay of (Vx6) being 6 HTK, I'm considering making (BFx) and (BLx) also being 6 HTK since they occupy 6+ HS.

As far as fighters and small craft are concerned, I'm still working on how I want to handle them since there are so many varieties of fighters in Star Wars. As of right now I'm will not be using BASV at all and handling fighters either at the individual fighter level or at the squadron level. I'm also considering using Damon Bradley's published concept from Ian Clarke in his Skymarshal #7 (p. 10) below where there are different types of fighters, general multi-role fighters, interceptors and bombers, each with different characteristics for speed, internal and external weapons loads. This next portion is more tentative but initially I'm considering the following:

My tentative plan is that ship weapons will be able to fire at small craft and damage squadron DP with range and damage on normal weapons tables. Small craft (or squadrons depending on how I structure small craft combat) will engage small craft and ships at ~2x (TBR [to be refined]) range (minimum range of 3) and ~0.5x (TBR) damage on the ship weapons tables for SRW and LRW.

Link to Damon Bradley’s site and Skymarshal: http://idahobeef.yolasite.com/starfire2.php

Still to do:

• Finalize conversion of Fighters/Small Craft - tentatively planning on A-Wing, B-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor TIE Bomber, Assault Gunboat & Imperial Shutttle
• Initial Ship Conversions - Planned: Corellian Corvette, Nebulon-B Frigate, Dreadnaught, MC80 Mon Calamari Star Cruiser & Imperial-I Class Star Destroyer
• Finalize scale (hex sizes)

[southwestforests]

Sort of a grand scale endeavor happening; probably going to take more than a few afternoons to work it all out. Hadn't previously thought about the complexity of fighter types/classes in Star Wars, yeah, that is going to be a thing.

[southwestforests]

Link to Damon Bradley’s site and Skymarshal: http://idahobeef.yolasite.com/starfire2.php

Going there just now got this and I'm not geeky enough to determine whether it could be a false positive or not. Anyone know how to reliably do that before clicking exclusions?
]

[Morpheus]

Going there just now got this and I'm not geeky enough to determine whether it could be a false positive or not. Anyone know how to reliably do that before clicking exclusions?

I do know Cralis linked to Damon Bradley's site a while back (I think it's on the links page on the forum). I'm normally pretty careful regarding security, but then I also use Mac/Linux almost exclusively.

I just did a Google search for: web check domain for malware

It gave me a bunch of hits but I pasted my link above into the website below and it came up clean.

https://app.webinspector.com/public/reports/80101429

If it's easier I can post an image from the document I that referenced with the different fighter types sometime this weekend. Note that it is geared towards Classic/3rd Edition Starfire as opposed to Solar so I'm going to have to tailor it to Solar.