Getting a Starship

Art by Vincent Di Fate

The Knight Hawks Campaign Book devotes eight pages to an 'Economic Activity in the Frontier' section.  It “details some of the ways characters can use ships to earn money, the dangers in their path and how they can get started.”

First, characters must obtain a ship.  Nearly half of the section is devoted to describing how a starship may be acquired.  In some games (e.g., Traveller) characters can gain a ship (or receive partial ownership of a ship) via character generation.  In some games (e.g., Hero System) characters can spend points to get a ship.  In other games (e.g., Fantasy Flight's Star Wars) the party just gets a ship.  The assumption in Knight Hawks is that player characters buy a ship with funds loaned from a bank.  All banks operate in the same way:

...all charge 4% interest compounded every 40 days.  This is about 23% per year.  This high interest rate is justified by the volatile economy in the Frontier and offset by the possibility of making a quick fortune.

Banks will grant loans equal to the value of collateral placed with the bank.  Absent collateral, characters will have to submit to an interview with a loan officer.  The referee and player role-play this interview.  “Loan interviews are good situations role playing,” we are told.  Not surprisingly, interacting with financial institutions is not listed as a role-playing enticement on the back of the box.  In the interview, the player presents a plan:  “how the loan will be invested, and how it will be repaid.”  Success of the loan application is determined by “a simple die roll.”  If the referee rolls one-half of the applicant's Personality score or less on 1d100, the bank extends the loan.  The roll may be modified up to ten-percent (favorably or unfavorably) “based on whether the character's plan has a good chance to succeed, the current economic conditions in the Frontier and the character's attitude and treatment of the loan officer during the interview.”

Don't bother trying to use Hypnosis (a Psycho-Social subskill) on the loan officer.  “Bank  loan officers are routinely monitored by computer,” the rules state, “so any attempt to hypnotize the loan officer will be noticed and the loan officer will be notified.”

A character's reputation determines the maximum amount of money a bank will loan.  Reputation is measured in “good deeds.”  Examples of such deeds include “capturing pirates, killing Sathar, [and] saving a child's life.”  These deeds must be publicized:  “a character who who performed heroic deeds in a remote corner of Frontier cannot expect the loan officer to know about them.”  With two good deeds, a character can obtain a loan of ten thousand Credits; with five good deeds, 100,000 Cr.  If, in addition to the five good deed minimum, a character “has performed a truly spectacular task, such as saving a city or colony at great risk to himself, [he] can apply for a loan of 500,000 Cr.”  A low-end starship can easily cost 500,000 Cr, so gaining a reputation sufficient for borrowing enough money to buy a ship is not easily accomplished.

For loan amounts in excess of ten thousand Credits (without collateral), banks require that the borrower undergo a surgical process to embed a tiny transmitter in the character's skeletal system.  This device is called a tracer implant.  Does the bank pay for the the tracer and the surgery?  Anyway, “The tracer emits a signal that identifies the character and the bank which loaned him the money.”  The signal “can be picked up by tracer scanners from a range of several meters.”  The scanners...

...are common in any populated area of the Frontier.  All banks and spaceports, and most stores, restaurants and other businesses have tracer scanners at their entrances.  They are standard equipment for police officers.

If a “character skips payments and does not respond to warnings,” scanners will active an alarm when they detect the character's tracer.  “Because banks offer large rewards for the capture of loan defaulters,” we learn, “police and independent loan agents will close in on the character immediately.”  We also learn that the implant is not easily removed:  “No reputable hospital or medical clinic will remove an implant unless the operation is authorized by the bank.”  This would seem to be a money-making opportunity for amoral characters with Medical Skill.

The section provides almost a page worth of alternative means of obtaining a ship should the players be “unable or reluctant to get a bank loan for a starship...”  The book explains, “These are ideas only, not rules.”

Government Subsidies:
“Basically,” according to page 42, “the government loans money to the characters (at a low rate of interest) so that they can purchase a starship that fits the government's specifications.”  Reasons a government may subsidize such a purchase might include “long passenger or freight lines to remote worlds, transport of dangerous materials or desperately needed high-overhead cargos, privateering, or a government courier service.”

Crime Organizations:
If characters have contacts with a large criminal organization, they might secure a loan at “very high interest (60 to 100 percent per year is not unusual).”  If the characters put themselves up as collateral and they default, “the criminals will track them down and either sell them selves or kill them and sell their body parts on the black market, using their brains to build cybernetic robots.”  In addition to the high interest, the organization might require co-operation in such things as “smuggling illegal cargos, helping fugitives escape the police, or using the characters' business as a legitimate front for criminal activity.”

Corporate Lease:
In this alternative, the ship is owned by a large corporation and the characters lease it.  “The characters usually have the option to buy the ship,” we are told, “applying their lease payments to the purchase.”

Joint Venture:
Essentially, characters “sell stock in their business.”  Characters “must deliver dividends to its shareholders” at regular intervals (“200 or 400 days are common”).

Used Ships:
Used ships can be purchased “for 40 to 80 percent of their new value.”  Of course, they “are prone to breakdowns and malfunctions” or even be partially inoperable.  Referees are encouraged “to let the life support or some other system break down right after the characters take possession of the ship, just to let them know what they can expect in the future.”

Payment:

A corporation or research group may be willing to sign over a ship's title to characters who use the ship on an extremely dangerous and important mission.

Patron's Ships:
Characters can work as the crew of a ship belonging to someone else.  “Characters may even work for free,” we learn, “letting the ship owner keep their wages as a down payment against eventual purchase of the ship.”

Salvage:
Ships “found abandoned and adrift in open space is the property of whoever salvages it.”  Of course, you must already have a ship so as to reach a ship to be salvaged.

Hijacking:

Any characters trying this should meet a lot of resistance, both from the ship's crew during the hijacking and from port authorities and the Star Law Rangers after the hijacking.

Deus ex Machina:

As a last resort, the referee can intervene in the players' behalf with some miraculous event ('Your rich great-aunt just died and left her mining ship to you.  After all, it is a family heirloom.').

Don't Let A Dralasite Lick It...

Art by Vincent Di Fate

The admonition above is good advice generally.  Specifically, it relates to the stamp on a self-addressed envelope one should send to TSR regarding “comments and questions about the Knight Hawks Game.”  Said admonition appears on the inside front cover of the “16-page board game rules book” included in the Knight Hawks boxed set.  As the back of the box states, Knight Hawks is “Playable as an expansion to the STAR FRONTIERS™ ALPHA DAWN role playing game or as a separate boardgame.”  The board game rules are actually the starship combat rules for Star Frontiers.  These rules can be presented as a board game since they are largely distinct from the role-playing rules of Star Frontiers.  (The 64-page Knight Hawks Campaign Book includes approximately two pages of Special Combat Rules that supplement the 'board game' rules.)

The title page of the board games rules book reads, appropriately enough, “Basic and Advanced Boardgame Rules.”  However, the unillustrated cover reads UPF Tactical Operations Manual.  “UPF” means United Planetary Federation (which is completely different from the United Federation of Planets).  The military arm of the UPF is called Spacefleet (which is absolutely not Starfleet – Why would you even think that?).  The board game rules include four scenarios, two for the basic game and two for the advanced.  All of these scenarios represent incidents in the Second Sathar War.  (Given that Sathar are evil, worm-like aliens, it is to be expected that their ships have names like Carrion, Faminewind, Doomfist, and Venomous.)  Of course, “Players can make up an endless variety of scenarios on their own.”  Additionally, “Other conflicts (involving pirates, rebels, dictators or other interstellar ruffians) certainly are possible, and players are encouraged to experiment with new forces and situations.”

Included in the boxed set are 285 counters.  These are used to play out starship combat on a 22½” × 35” map sheet with a tessellation of hexes.  However, the inside back cover states, “Players interested in expanding their Knight Hawks games can use miniature metal spaceships instead of the cardboard counters included with the game.”  As one might expect, there's a plug for “TSR's STAR FRONTIERS Spaceship Miniatures, available where Knight Hawks is sold.”  With miniatures, players can forgo using a map.  If so,

Planets and moons can be cut out of cardboard and colored however the players like.  These planets can be cut to reflect their real size, unlike the counters in the game.  For example, the Earth would be 1.3 inches in diameter.  The moon would be .3 inches in diameter, 38 inches away from the Earth.

Of course, the Earth and moon are not part of the Star Frontiers setting and no comparable information for the planetary systems actually in the setting.  Regardless if a map is used, “space” is treated as if it is a flat plane, succumbing to the Khan Fallacy.  To be fair, according to the box cover, Knight Hawks is intended for “beginning to intermediate players, ages 10 and up” and a three-dimensional starship combat system would likely be too complex for the target demographic.

The basic game offers seven types of spaceships and also describes space stations.  Weapons systems are limited to lasers, rockets, and torpedoes (or “torpedos” as the rules sometimes spell it).  The described defensive systems are reflective hull (“mirror-like paint that...will often cause a laser beam to bounce off the ship...”), masking screen (“created when a ship releases a cloud of water vapor into space...”), and interceptor missiles (“small missiles that can be fired at incoming torpedoes, assault rockets and rocket battery barrages”).  Weapon type is indexed against defense type on a Combat Table to find the percentage chance of causing damage.  When a target vessel has more than one defensive system, “an attack's chance to hit is calculated against the most effective defense.”  If an attack is successful, damage dice are rolled and the result is subtracted from the target's hull points.  We are informed, “When all of the ship's hull points are gone, the ship is destroyed and the player removes it from the map.”

The advanced game introduces minelayers, light cruisers, and civilian craft.  Offensive capabilities include mines, proton beam batteries, electron beam batteries, disruptor beam cannon, and seeker missiles.  Screens are available as defensive systems in the advanced game.  A proton screen “is a field of charged particles which surrounds a ship,” an electron screen “is the opposite of a proton screen,” and a stasis screen is evidently some sort of field with an “electrical pulse.”  Each screen type happens to attract certain attack types.  A proton screen attracts electron beams, an electron screen attracts proton beams, and “a stasis screen allows missiles and rockets to home in with increased accuracy.”  When a ship with a given screen is attacked by that screen's 'nemesis' attack, the screen is used as the defense instead of the most effective defense the target may otherwise have.

Damage effects are more detailed in the advanced game.  In addition to the hull hits a weapon inflicts, the Damage Table is also consulted.  Some example results from the table include 'weapon hit' (a particular weapon system is destroyed), 'hull hit' (“double normal damage”), and 'navigation hit' (“loose maneuvering control”).  In the advanced game, crews can attempt repairs during combat.  (A combat turn lasts ten minutes and repairs may be attempted after every third turn.)  Each ship has a Damage Control Rating which can range from 30 to 200.  When attempting repairs, the Damage Control Rating is divided among damaged systems.  The amount allocated to a given system is the percentage chance that the system will be repaired.  Hull repairs can restore 1d10 hull points.

There is a section of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book titled The Second Sathar War.  This section offers “rules for a strategic level boardgame about the second Sathar attack on the Frontier.”  These rules employ the Frontier Deployment Map, an “abstract representation of the Frontier” (depicted below).

The rectangles are “transit boxes.”  For the most part, the number of transit boxes between star systems equals light years of distance as shown on Frontier map from the Expanded Rules.  However, Athor is eight light years from Araks even though there are only seven transit boxes between them on the Deployment Map.  Also, K'Tsa-Karis is five light years distant from K'aken-Kar, but only four transit boxes are shown on the Deployment Map.  Normally, ships can travel one transit box per day; however, by “risk-jumping,” they can travel up to three per day.  When a ship risk-jumps, there is a percentage chance it “will be lost for the duration of the war.”

When opposing forces are in the same system at the end of a day, there may be a battle.  Depending on the number of ships involved in a battle, different rules are suggested.  If there are more than fourteen ships, the basic rules are recommended.  When there are five to fourteen ships, the advanced rules with “no skill modifiers” are recommended.  With fewer than five ships, it is suggested that the advanced rules with “average NPC skills” be used.  Among the spaceship skills introduced in Knight Hawks, there are 'gunnery' skills that can improve chances for attack success.  Essentially, each level in a skill increases the chance for success by five percent.  However, when skills are applied to starship combat, the base chance for success is usually reduced between five and fifteen percent.  For example, against an electron screen, the base chance of success for an assault rocket is 60%; when gunnery skills are in play, the chance is 50%.

The strategic game includes rules for supply lines and enhanced repair.  There are optional rules for replacements (“available at the end of every 20 days”) and shatter drones (“A shatter drone is essentially a ship that has been turned into a huge bomb”).