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Was there ever any sort of vehicle design rules for BFG? The point values seem to imply they were working off of a formula.

I've been looking at the Imperial fleet rules and obviously they were playing with the same handful of elements - batteries, lances, torpedoes, launch, turrets, shields, speed...

But don't really hit all the possible or even likely variations. It seems all the Imperial ships are designed as all arounders with no real extremes in there.

it also seems to lack some of the funky science fiction concepts like the Constellation Targeting Ship, the Castellion Shield Ship and of course...



Who doesn't love the Dictator?

For instance:

Dedicated Carrier - a cruiser with 2 sets of launch bays (so launch 8) but no batteries or lances. It would be a glass cannon (glass catapult? glass nest?) but that's what IRL carriers are.

Dedicated Gunboat - an escort with little to no batteries but 4 or more turrets, dedicated to intercepting planes and torpedoes.

AWAC/USS Blue Ridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blue_Ridge_(LCC-19) ) Command and Control ship - GW games tend to assume the boss will be the biggest nastiest dude (or ship) which might make sense for Orks, but in a professional military the boss is often in the back and dedicated to leading the army rather than in front fighting demons with his sword. BFG already has Admirals granting rerolls but a command ship that boosted leadership, granted rerolls or extended weapon ranges would be a good characterful addition.





Shield Ship - Space Fleet had the Castellion Shield ship which could protect the ships around it but blow up if the shields overload.



In BFG it could be a cruiser that sacrifices its weapons for shield generators and either have more shields or a greater radius to cover other ships as well.

Shieldless Ship - There was also a slab of metal with no shields called the Iron Clad



(Although personally I always thought the Emperor should be the Iron Clad)



So imagine a cruiser with no shields, but extra armor and hits to compensate.

Torpedo broadsides - Seems odd that torpedoes are only launched from the prow. Even with Imperial torpedoes pretty much traveling in straight lines shooting them out of the ships flanks seems an obvious adaption of the technology.

Asymetrical ships - There are good reasons not to do this, for one thing there's no easy way for a BGF model to do a barrel roll, but still it just seems obvious...


Anyway some ranting and free associating. I doubt I'd ever try to house rule any of these but if there was already a formula...

I remember Warp Rift used to have (fan-made) rules for those old school ships.

 Malika2 wrote:
I remember Warp Rift used to have (fan-made) rules for those old school ships.

Thanks I forgot to mention them, I saw them a while back but haven't looked at them since I started getting serious.

But was there ever a design system? It really seems like there should be one.

There have been I think. You should try to look around on the Specialist Games forum, or on the French BFG forum (Google translate can be your friend if you don't speak French).

Check the stickies (especially Rules Official and Non Official) on this page: http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=5vov3dd1too8vgkimlsom29hv6&board=7.0

Look at these for lots of ship options:
___Book of Nemesis
___Battlefleet Gothic: Revised (BFG:R)
___ BFG Ship Compendium

There is a design system/formula called the Smotherman formula, but I've not played with it.

T

Thanks Tim, I'll take a look at the Smotherman formula, might a fun exercise.

http://yenlowang.free.fr/BFG/smotherman_formula_v205.pdf

That looks interesting will try it out
(That formula is very inaccurate)

There was a variant called the Jovian Battlecruiser that was all port/stbd launch bays, with dorsal lances. Part of the Bakka fleet, in one of the BFG magazines.

I'll take a look thanks. Sounds right for my head canon Minerva class supercarrier.



Top left, next to the double hull, which I already converted