Star Trek FASA adventure

[therritn]

I'm planning an adventure for the old school FASA system set during the time of the original series (2264-69). Basically, a Capella class survey ship is on it's first voyage. It finds ship wreckage on the planet it was sent to survey. Later is investigating a freighter hijacking. Well, the way the adventure is set up is that renegades stole an NX class starship and needs the stuff stolen from the freighter (diliithium crystals and anti-deuterium, which is bound for the San Francisco yards, and inert spatial torpedo and photonic torpedo warheads bound for a disposal site).

Here are my questions:

1) Does anyone know what the energy dissipation is for enhanced polarized hull plating on NX-class ships?

2) Would be theoretically possible to upgrade a 22nd century ship with 23rd century (warp and impulse systems, shields, and weapons (phasers or high yield lasers, etc) or wouldn't the NX-class ship be able to handle it?

 

[MarianLH]

1) No, nobody knows. They're as strong as this week's script requires. If you want hard numbers, you'll have to make them up yourself.

2) Weapons, probably. If the new emplacement can't fit in the existing mount, some enlargement might be necessary, but that's doable with sufficient dockyard support. Engines are trickier. In addition to size, the amount of force they exert on the supporting structure also has to be taken into account. A powerful enough upgrade might require reinforcing or replacing whole chunks of the ship's framework. Cheaper to just get a new one.

There'll be some leeway, but as a general rule engineers don't build any better than they have to, because that compromises the design somewhere else (like its mass). C.f., Akin's 13th Law of Spacecraft Design: "Design is based on requirements. There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate."

Welcome to the boards!


Marian