Ships

Spacecraft should be assembled from a collection of reasonably interchangeable parts. Some components are rather more important than others to the actual functioning of a spaceship: things like a power plant and an engineering deck, and spare parts. Other things are more selective: medical bay, science labs, weapons hardpoints, and the like.

Some components may effect the ship's overall speed, or defense capabilities, or maneuverability. Each component would need a standard list of attributes which, when combined with all other components, determine the overall ship's performance and abilities.

Each captain should be able to select at least one (maybe more) optional component to add to their ship before deployment. This allows the captain to feel the ship is truly their's.

During the course of the game, additional components may become available. This may occur, for example, through salvaged derelicts or trade with other sentient beings.

-- Ships and their components wear out over time, necessitating repairs. Various unexpected problems also occur, some minor and some catastrophic.

List of potential ship problems:

• plumbing backup
• oxygen scrubbers offline
• food spoilage
• crew members fight amongst themselves
• navigation computers calculate wrong routes
• trash compactors malfunction
• airlocks leak oxygen
• one or more ship modules come unmoored
• infection sweeps through crew
• science stations mis-identify cosmic radiation as intelligent communication messages
• escape pods / landing shuttles break in landing bay

-- The core of the IFS fleet is the X1, a modular framework that supports relatively easy reconfiguration for use in a variety of mission assignments. The core structure features a self-contained command module, redundant power plants and engines, and a "spine" from which several arms extend. To these arms may be mounted service modules like science stations, additional computing arrays, storage bays, and more. IFS contracts with a number of private sector design and manufacturing partners, so the list (and capabilities) of service modules is regularly updated.

The default X1 configuration for deep space exploration includes one science station, one computer array, one storage module, and one hydroponics garden. There are three unused arms remaining, allowing for the captain to make some personalization to her ship before launch.

Captains should be advised that each additional module increases the overall mass of the ship, and therefore has a negative effect on propulsion and gravitational interactions.

The X1 features a parallel processing computer core which allows for dynamic capacity changes. In short, captains can allocate more or less computing power on demand. The X1 command module uses a fixed amount of computing capacity for routine system tasks. An increase in computing capacity requires a necessary increase in power consumption.

-- Each ship is supplied with sufficient fuel, food, and supplies to make the necessary trip to the assigned target and back. There is sufficient extras to allow for unexpected situations, as well as to permit a slightly extended mission at the target system, at the captain's discretion.

Additionally, each ship is equipped with several sub-space beacons. These beacons are used to aid in future navigational efforts, as well as to reduce communication lag times.

-- A list of modules available to new captains when they configure their ship

• computation array: doubles computational power of primary computer
• fuel tank: doubles fuel for normal and FTL transit
• hydroponics: increases food stores; reduces strain on oxygen scrubbers; improves medbay performance
• medical bay: reduces crew sick time; improves morale
• science lab (generic): reconfigurable to perform most research functions; improves medbay performance
• sensor array: increases range at which scans may be performed, and improves results
• storage (generic): increases food and general supplies, as well as spare parts

-- Each ship module (including the command module), includes the following sub-systems, any of which may experience problems during the course of the game:

• life support (includes oxygen filtration, heating / cooling)
• electrical (lighting, power consumption, etc)
• computer
• mechanical (doors, connection to X1 spine, etc)