The Spacecraft Data Log is the record sheet provided in Blue Max Studio's The Black Desert Campaign Setting for Pay
ers and Game Masters to track their spacecraft stats and the expendible supplies those spacecraft are stocked with.
The Spacecraft Data Log is base loosely on the starship stat block used in West End Games' popular Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game which was chosen for its ease of use. It departs from the space opera model, however, by including "hard" science fiction elements. The most prominant differences are the lack of Maneuverability dice and the replacement of the Space entry with entries for Acelleration and Delta-V. A full description of the Data log is below:
NAME: This is simply the name that the spacecraft is registered under.
CRAFT: This is the make and model of the spacecraft.
TYPE: The category of the spacecraft. This usually includes its general size (light, medium, or heavy) and it's function (orbiter, short-range, or inter-planetary). A spacecraft's type will influence the kind of main drive system it has, its range, power-plant, and many other characteristics.
LENGTH: The spacecraft's length along its longest axis. This is usually the vessel’s thrust axis, but for some inter-planetary ships it is the perpendicular axis. This measurement is given in meters.
SKILL: This is the primary skill needed to fly the craft. It is always some specialization of the Spacecraft Operation Skill. The specializations are according to the spacecraft's type. Additionally, there may also be a Skill Focus that deals with a specific craft.
CREW: The number of organic crew needed to operate the spacecraft. Ships with AI installed (or the ability to have AI installed) can be operated by a single individual. The largest number given is for the optimum or standard number of crew.
PASSENGERS: The number of organics that the ship is designed to carry in addition to its crew. The spacecraft can also carry one additional passenger for every number of crew below the standard number.
CARGO CAPACITY: This is the amount in metric tons of non-essential weight the spacecraft is designed to carry. One map square equals approximately one metric ton of cargo capacity.
CONSUMABLES: This entry deals only with the supplies needed to sustain the organic crew and passengers. It represents atmospheric gasses, food, water, air scrubbers, bio-hazard containment, and any other resources needed to support healthy life. The value is given in crew-days; the number of days a single organic individual can be sustained. The more organics carried aboard a spacecraft, the less amount of time they can be supported.
The Consumables value can be increased by carrying additional supplies as cargo, but these extras must be replaced manually while en route. Obviously, extra Consumables decrease the about of cargo the spacecraft can transport.
FUSION POWER?: This indicates whether or not a spacecraft has a fusion reactor installed to generate electricity. Light spacecraft are too small to safely carry fusion reactors and usually the only Medium spacecraft so equipped are military.
SAFETY THRESHOLD: The Safety Threshold of a given spacecraft is the amount of battery power it has available in excess of its Delta-V. The Safety Threshold must be at least equal to the spacecraft's Consumables divided by its standard Crew number. Spacecraft with fusion power do not consume their battery power (and hence their Safety Threshold) except when landed, the Propulsion system is disabled, or other special circumstances.
ACCELERATION: The Black Desert takes into account the frictionless environment of space. The Acceleration entry measures the number of hexes on a combat-scale space map a spacecraft can move in a single round. The spacecraft's movement across the space map per round is equal to is acceleration multiplied by the number of rounds it accelerates. In order to come to a stop, a vessel must flip (taking a round to do so) and decelerate along the opposite vector for the same number of rounds it accelerated. To change course, a spacecraft must turn (free action in the forward arc, one round in the rear arc) and accelerate along its new vector. Unless the spacecraft comes to a stop first, it still moves along its original vector as well as its new vector.
This can be confusing; see the Scenarios at the end of this chapter. The important thing to remember is that it takes the same number of rounds to stop that it took to get started.
DELTA-V: This is the most important value in the Ship's Log -even more so than consumables. More ships are lost in the Black Desert due to miscalculating Delta-V than in combat. This is because while fusion plants make power virtually unlimited, its takes propellant to make a rocket move.
Delta-V is the measure, given in rounds, of how long a spacecraft can fire its main engines in vacuum before the propellant tanks are exhausted. Each time a spacecraft accelerates, it expends one round of Delta-V. The shielding effect of Plasma Sails also expends Delta-V; for every point of damage the shielded spacecraft would have taken, it loses a round of Delta-V. Once a spacecraft has used up its Delta-V, it can no longer accelerate; it continues along its last vector, at the same speed, forever.
HULL STRENGTH: This is the number of dice that the spacecraft has to roll against damage. Hull Strength also determines the Damage Range of the spacecraft.
Spacecraft hulls are very robust; vacuum is a highly dangerous place. All orbiters are armored against the extreme heat of re-entry and micro-meteoroids, which can hit with the impact energy of the same amount of TNT. Inter-planetary spacecraft are more fragile, but are equipped with shields and are far, far larger.
DAMAGE RANGE: This is the number of points of damage a spacecraft can sustain before dropping one level on the Condition Table. The Damage Range of a spacecraft is the number of dice in its Hull Strength (rounded down) multiplied by 4.
AVIONICS: Avionics include the spacecraft's guidance system, navigation, communications, sensor equipment, and the computers associated with them. These systems are grouped together because the information they display and the commands they receive come from centralized “smart” stations; any console can control any function in the avionics package. The bonus therefore applies to Spacecraft Operation, Sensors and Communications skills.
WEAPONS: This is a subcategory that details any offensive systems that a spacecraft has installed. Typically, there is one entry per weapon type. The entries in the weapons category are as follows:
Fire Arc: The direction that the weapon points in reference to the spacecraft (forward, rear, port, starboard, dorsal, ventral and turret. A turret cannot fire in an arc opposite its installation (ex: a dorsal turret cannot fire in the ventral arc).
Fire Control: This is the bonus dice that a character receives to their Spacecraft Weapons roll when using the weapon. Each weapon system uses a separate avionics package for fire control, so loss of one weapon system will not disable the fire control of another weapon system. Weapons of the same type (lasers, missiles, etc) are usually fire-linked to the same avionics, so the loss of one weapon will usually knock out the fire control for all weapons of that type.
Capacity: Put simply, this is the number of shots a weapon has. The value represents how many missiles in a launch rack, mines or bombs in a bay, or how many shots worth of dedicated battery power there is for the lasers. Spacecraft with fusion power-plants can recharge their laser batteries at the rate of one point of laser capacity per round. The power-plant only charges one laser system at a time, but can change the laser system being recharged every round. There is a space with each weapon system entry where players and GMs can record the remaining Capacity of their weapon systems.
Damage: The number of dice rolled for damage for each successful attack by an individual weapon system.
In addition to the above, The Black Desert Ship's Log Includes four tracking boxes at the bottom of the stat block:
DELTA-V: Changes in a ships Delta-V value can are recorded in this box.
DAMAGE: This box shows the Damage Range of the vessel. Each time the Damage Range is exceeded, the spacecraft moves down once on the Condition Table.
DISABLED SYSTEMS: When one of a spacecraft's major systems are disabled, it is recorded in this box. Once a system is repaired, it is removed from the Disabled Systems box. There are separate circles available for each type of weapon system a spacecraft may have installed.
CONDITION TABLE: This is where the spacecraft's condition is recorded. In order to move up on the Table, the spacecraft must be repaired for a value equal to its Damage Range. Once the spacecraft's condition improves, the disabled system that underwent repair is considered functional again and can be taken off the Disabled Systems list. If the spacecraft's Damage Range is exceeded again, the GM must roll 1D6 again to randomly determine the disabled system; the newly repaired system is not automatically disabled.