These BSG rules for SFB were written a while ago, and since that initial time, some interesting things have happened, and my perception of certain things have also changed. One of these changes is that I have listed the Galactica as being of 1,265 metres in length, as specified in the 1979 Battlestar Galactica Annual. Now, I may not agree with this 100%, but I am going with this figure.
However, this leads to some changes needing to be made to some of the SSD's. The reasoning being that I designed them and then changed my mind about the length, so things like Crew units are potentially in error. This page attempts to clarify that.
If a ship is not listed, no changes are needed.
The following table attempts to address this with some simple modifications that can be made to the various SSD's to get the ships more in line with the actual crew values from these sources. If you change one ship, change them all, do not mix and match. The only exceptions to this are the Cylon Baseships where you get some choice depending on what variants you are using. Ships not listed do not require changes.
| Ship | Crew Units | Deck Units | Boarding Parties | BPV change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Heavy Carrier | 20 | 18 | 6 | -3 |
| Warstar | 22 | 60 | 25 | -6 |
| Battlestar Excaliber*1 | 25 | 36 | 10 | -10 |
| Battlestar Excaliber Pod*1 | 2 | 18 | 2 | -2 |
| Battlestars | 15 | 30 | 22 | -3 |
| Battlestar Liburnia | 15 | 16 | 10+ | -5 |
| Gunstar/Missilestars | 12 | 12 | 10 | -4 |
| Fighting Stars | 12 | 18 | 10 | -4 |
| Bombardment ship | 12 | 12 | 40 | -4 |
| Protector Class Cruiser | 10 | 18 | 8 | -3 |
| Destroyer Carrier Leader | 10 | 30 | 6 | -3 |
| Destroyer | 8 | 6 | 6 | -2 |
| Destroyer Carrier | 8 | 12 | 6 | -1 |
| Hermes Class Fleet Tender | 6 | 6 | 6 | -2 |
| Ranger Class Escort | 6 | 2 | 2 | -1 |
| Light Cruiser | 5 | 6 | 2 | -1 |
| LC - Fighter Carrier | 5 | 15 | 2 | -1 |
| LC - Patrol Cruiser | 5 | 9 | 4 | -1 |
| ||||
| Early Cylon Baseship | 10 | 36 | 8 | -2 |
| Early Cylon Baseship*2 | 10 | - | - | -7 |
| Cylon Baseship | 10 | 54 | 10 | -2 |
| Cylon Baseship*2 | 10 | - | - | -8 |
| Cylon Halfship/Attack Star | 8 | 27 | 5 | -1 |
| Cylon Halfship/Attack Star*2 | 8 | - | - | -3 |
| Large Asteroid Ship | 6 | 30 | 10 | -1 |
| Large Asteroid Ship*2 | 6 | - | - | -5 |
| Small Asteroid Ship | 4 | 15 | 8 | -1 |
| Small Asteroid Ship*2 | 4 | - | - | -4 |
*1 The Excaliber figures come directly from the Excaliber web site, so they can be assumed to be correct. However with the reduction in all other values, these original figures do not make sense anymore, so use these instead.
Note that some ships may end up with less deck crews than they have fighters. This is acceptable as the fighters that end up without deck crews will usually be Asps.
*2 Some believe that Centurions can act in all roles on a ship, and that the 3 man crew of a Raider is also involved in this. In this case, a Baseship has a very big crew (around 1,000 Centurions for the modern Baseship) which can all be involved in the roles of the ship. However once the ship starts to lose its Raiders in combat, this large crew soon gets depleted and the ship becomes 'vunerable'.
Using these (much) reduced crew values means that you might also want to change the crew conversion to boarding party totals. Especially if you employ the secondary values for the Cylon Baseships.
These new values become:
Colonial Crews:
Cylon Crews:
There is still a lot of speculation about whether or not the Cylon Tanker actually carries fighters or not. I got the idea from another site (and also the Marvel movie adaptation which does show Raiders leaving from a tanker) - because we are never actually told in the series - but feels it add another dimension to the series and Cylons in general. Feel free to remove the fighters and deck crew if you want.
Those astute of you enough to notice, will realise that on the SSD's, a Battlestar carries some 80 fighters, while a Baseship only carries 144. If you are the sort that thinks that a Battlestar only carries 75 Vipers (as stated on some sources), then no modifications need to be made, and you are fine. If however, you think that the evidence is not conclusive at all and a Battlestar could therefore carry 150 Vipers, you might want to make the following modifications.
Note that you can always make these modifications to Baseships regardless of whether you do it to Colonial vessels or not, as it is stated in "The Hand of God" that a Baseship carries some 300 Raiders...
These modifications should apply to Battlestars, Baseships, Gunstars and other ships based on those. Smaller ships shouldn't have any modifications at all.
This is done instead of increasing the actual amount of boxes on the SSD's because that just unbalances things somewhat, and makes the ships just become fighter boxes and nothing else. If you do not believe me, just try it.
Just be warned, with this amount of fighters flying around, things will start to get interesting!
Of course, in the series there are no such things as Asp recon fighters, and especially no fighters with EW capabilities. So if you are heading towards the more 'canon' feel of the series, then you might want to remove all Asp fighters, all Asp boxes, and (if not using the above crew lists) 1 deck crew per fighter. This will result in a saving of 0.6 BPV from the ship, and a further 5 from the fighters BPV per fighter removed.
Some people (myself included) wonder why Asps have six damage points when they're identical in all respects to normal Vipers which only have 3. Well, the main reason why is survivability. A normal Asp does not actually have a very long life span when it is out and about doing it is job. If you want to recreate this and put Asps back in line with other fighters, then give then 3 damage points. No other stats are changed, and their BPV drops to 4.