Planetside
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 Introduction 


Planetside
Last Updated February 28, 2005

Welcome to the initial playtest pages for my Star Trek to Babylon 5 Wars conversions! Here you will find copies of the current ruleset for the Star Trek technology and some of the ideas behind them. I thank you for visiting.

I wish to begin by saying that I have been "out of the loop" as far as Star Trek goes for many, many years. I watched all of The Original Series as a child and enjoyed it. I watched almost all of TNG (except most of the last season) and found it to be generally okay. DS9 was the best of the new Star Trek shows, but they even lost my attention following their repeated innanities. They actually got me back as a viewer during part of the Dominion War when they (gasp) had story arcs, but lost me again upon another exercise of stupidity following the capture of the station (i.e., 'let's have a wedding when we could be attacked at any moment and let's also forget about the war entirely, really'). Voyager, to put it mildly, sucks and has always sucked. It has promise, but the show was not very good.

The above is all my opinion, of course, but the ship conversions I have done are based off of my fond memories of the battles within the Star Trek universe, and though I have relied heavily on other sources for my materials (Star Trek Encyclopedia and TNG Technical Manual especially), the ships remain as my vision of what the ships should look and feel like in a combat setting. In many cases I simply did not have any information on the ships in question other than obscure data on a website here and there. I endeavored to corroborate data as much as possible, but many of the ships undoubtedly won't be anything like what your personal expectations of them are.

Size Comparison The amount of structure for all ships is based off of a ratio comparing their length to that of an Omega Destroyer (using my preferred Omega length of 1km). You might be wondering why some of my Star Trek ships are so small. "This ship should be bigger and meaner!" some might scream. Well, the Galaxy-class (one of the largest ships in the Star Trek universe) is a mere 641 m -- not even 2/3 the length of an Omega! The Star Trek ships, though, are still quite strong due to their shielding systems, the one strength I saw that they had. All in all the Omega Destroyer and Galaxy Command Ship are equal opponents for one another, and other Star Trek conversions are scaled proportionally from this matchup. For example, there is no way you're going to tell me that the Constitution is worthy of capital ship classification after looking at that image, especially if you are one that buys into the Omega being BIGGER than 1000m.

I hope you enjoy these ships, and I look forward to hearing from you. Whether you have a complaint, a comment, or (gasp) a battle report, I would love to hear what you have to say. Some of the rules here might seem a little odd or arcane, and that is part of the reason why I have put up these pages--to get some feedback. The things that seem right and simulate the show the best to ME isn't going to reflect other people's impressions of the show.

Lastly, I would like to recognize those that were invaluable in the creation of these ships. First and foremost is Roman "ShadowScout" Perner. Over the past year we have discussed, hashed out, and debated the systems of the Star Trek universe, the discussion helping to develop both of our personal reflections of the Star Trek universe. I must also thank him for the icons, as they are his design and have become intertwined with the weapons they reflect in my mind. Thanks to Barry Collins for his inspiration, as it was his Nebula mock-up that made me decide to go with the high armor/low structure model for the Federation ships. I would also like to recognize Nate Rux and Rameus; their Star Trek conversions were driving elements into getting me interested in seeing whether or not I could get a workable simulation of Star Trek ships to work in the B5W setting. Dan Foxman deserves a nod as well, since his designs for converting FASA ships over to B5W made me take stock of the work that I had done and gave me another viewpoint to look at the ships from, something that is always important. Paul Brown has put up with my crap for awhile, too, and been a good sounding board over the years, along with having enough good ideas on his own project races to make me think deeper on my own. Todd Boyce should also be noticed for his great website, Battle Spoo, and his Battlestar Galactica (and now Star Wars) conversions that are well done, and set a standard for those trying to adapt other universes to the B5W mold.




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