FASA Ships Question
- Thread starter BolianAuthor
- Start date
They were destined to look bad, alas.
That is, FASA ships were apparently all based on the as such sensible idea that they'd be kitbashed from common, modular components, just like Franz Joseph's destroyers, tugs and dreadnoughts. But FASA artists were too timid: they only used the preexisting selection of components, which in practice meant just the saucer and the warp engine.
Even that wouldn't have been too bad: we've seen very nice kitbashes done that way, including most of the ships of the newest movie. But FASA artists worked on a two-dimensional medium. Thus, they drew either a top or a side view of the ship first, probably thinking that other views would never be particularly relevant in the RPG medium that was not particularly graphical to begin with. And they of course did this by taking the saucer and the engine and then drawing a new hull shape to connect the two.
This obviously meant that the FASA ships became implausibly tall and long, or then wide and long, in order to fit that "newness" between the known components and not let it be completely obscured by them. The components were left in a hapless minority, now representing a tiny fraction of the silhouette when in the works of Matt Jeffries and Franz Joseph they had represented three-fourths or so. And then came the further step of inventing top and front, or side and front, views that would (at least roughly) match the side or top view; again, "newness" was showcased from these angles, giving us expansive, at the same time spindly and blocky ships like Chandley or Baker or Bader.
If the artists had originally been working in a 3D medium, possibly bashing actual kits or Micromachines-scale toys, the ships would probably look much more balanced...
Timo Saloniemi
That is, FASA ships were apparently all based on the as such sensible idea that they'd be kitbashed from common, modular components, just like Franz Joseph's destroyers, tugs and dreadnoughts. But FASA artists were too timid: they only used the preexisting selection of components, which in practice meant just the saucer and the warp engine.
Even that wouldn't have been too bad: we've seen very nice kitbashes done that way, including most of the ships of the newest movie. But FASA artists worked on a two-dimensional medium. Thus, they drew either a top or a side view of the ship first, probably thinking that other views would never be particularly relevant in the RPG medium that was not particularly graphical to begin with. And they of course did this by taking the saucer and the engine and then drawing a new hull shape to connect the two.
This obviously meant that the FASA ships became implausibly tall and long, or then wide and long, in order to fit that "newness" between the known components and not let it be completely obscured by them. The components were left in a hapless minority, now representing a tiny fraction of the silhouette when in the works of Matt Jeffries and Franz Joseph they had represented three-fourths or so. And then came the further step of inventing top and front, or side and front, views that would (at least roughly) match the side or top view; again, "newness" was showcased from these angles, giving us expansive, at the same time spindly and blocky ships like Chandley or Baker or Bader.
If the artists had originally been working in a 3D medium, possibly bashing actual kits or Micromachines-scale toys, the ships would probably look much more balanced...
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, the version I'm getting has the cutaway Remora on the cover.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
First edition had paper covers, same as the interior. Second edition had a card stock cover with B&W illustrations
Heavy paper stock, though, to hold the insane amount of black ink on the color illustrations. Was really much of a book, though, and the statistics within only referenced a single-print run of the combat game, which was rewritten entirely before STSTCS came out.
I used to wonder what the authors were smoking when they cooked up the stats for the vessels; they were so bizarre I sometimes thought they threw darts at a chart on the wall to pick their numbers. My favorite example was the Fenlon-class monitor. If you work out its mass and volume, you'll find it has a density of roughly 53 kilograms per cubic meter, or about one-third the density of a solid sphere of balsa wood the same size. And this is supposed to protect systems against pirates and marauders?
It's funny... I was talking with Atolm about the FASA designs I like, and aside from many (if not all) of them being fleshed-out enough as viable designs, one other point we agreed on, is that another thing that hurts the credibility of various FASA designs is that they are miscast role-wise... in terms of their mission profiles.
I've always been quite fond of this fanon design as well... the Ireland-Class:
Does anyone remember the FASA TNG Officer's Manual?
It had the Enterprise D massively overpowered. Like "USS Teh Awesome" powerful.
The First Year Sourcebook powered it down quite a bit.
It had the Enterprise D massively overpowered. Like "USS Teh Awesome" powerful.
The First Year Sourcebook powered it down quite a bit.
I USED to have it, but somehow, I lost it... I'd love to find it again, lol.
Came across this a year or so ago. Might be useful to you.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1649aeab22def6e861d4646c62b381cbdc1ce901bfcef20fce018c8114394287
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1649aeab22def6e861d4646c62b381cbdc1ce901bfcef20fce018c8114394287
Wow... thanks!