On page 191 under 'Components' it says you don't have to power all of your components. So couldn't a ship just not power the Gellar field and Warp Drive, potentially getting say something like 13 less power usage for a light cruiser? Most of the builds I'm seeing are assuming that he power draw for the warp drive is continual, which seems unnecessary.

Depends how long it takes to power up. I can't imagine a warp drive being as quick to turn on as an auspex, for example. Which is kind of nasty is you have to leave quickly. Same with the Geller field.

Page 216 - Emergency Repairs - Difficult (-10) Tech Use test to direct and aid repair crews. 1d5 turns minus one turn per degree of success, to a minimum of one turn.

So anywhere from one-half hour (1 turn) to severals hours (9 turns) if you have really bad rolling (or Tech-Use) to repower a component.

Not a big deal if you're 30 hours off your jump point, right?

I'd say you couldn't power down the warp core, because a fair bit of that power is going to be going into containment fields, etc, which you can't power down.

MILLANDSON said:

There's Silent Running on the boxed area of page 213.

Check out disengage on page 214 - last paragraph. It talks about shutting down the engines, scanners, and weapons to 'pretend it isn't there'.

So this can't be too hard.

Re: containment fields - do you mean the power drive (ala fusion containment)? I don't think the Warp Engine technology was ever even slightly described.

Keep in mind that in Starship Construction you cannot exceed power usage:

pg 193

"The sum total of all the Component's requirements may not exceed the Space provided by the hull, or power generated by the drive."

I believe the intent behind the rulebook discussing unpowered components is because of damage, not exceeding the ships power generation capacity.

Well, yeah - but you still have to ask yourself "If components can become unpowered and put back on-line that easily, what's keeping me from deliberately unpowering them to have more power available for the rest?"

dvang said:

I have to disagree it's that clear - otherwise why would 'Components' on page 191 talk about building things outside the ship's hull if you're out of space? That's specifically providing an example of installing a component that exceeds the space. Why not power? So, you may have to shut down the void shields to get the power to use the upgraded retro-thrusters.

i dont think shutting down a component and unpower it is the same thing, i see that more like put them on a off or sleep mode in term of activity and not to stop the power to them.

about p191 space use from compoment is seem more about component whit space requirement = to 0 are outside the hull like sensor tower outside the ship hull and thruster fixe directly on the hull. vs a component fixe outside because your out of space inside. the only exeption i can see to that is a cargo compoment you can consider as a cargo pod you can jettisson in case of emergency

Shutting down is precisely unpowered, this is the plain English meaning and it wouldn't really make any sense to interpret it differently. I can't see why an enterprising PC couldn't order components powered down for a specific purpose but it seems unlikely anyone is ever going to build a vessel from scratch where you need to power down components, particularly major ones, in order to power up others - we're talking about a very suspicious bunch of people who are unlikely to like shutting things down on a regular basis and no Adeptus Mechanicus is likely to sanction building a vessel that relies on this. In my opinion, anyway.

In the fluff you see many ships with seeming cities built on top of them, and if you read enough you find out these 'cities' are the normal crew quarters as external components.

However i believe the intention is to not let players start there ship with un-powered/external components, but to let them, through modification add such thing during gameplay.

dvang said:

The reason behind the rule (that you can't make a ship deliberately underpowered and just turn Components off in battle) is because it adds another layer of bookkeeping.

I agree it wouldn't be micro-managing your Energy like in Star Fleet Battles, but I understand why they did this. If you can't underpower a ship, then it's one game mechanic you don't have to keep track of, don't need rules for and don't have to think about during play.

This being said, if the GM doesn't mind, then there's no logical reason why you couldn't power down the Librarium during combat to save Power, as long as the GM is aware that it will slow the game down a bit and thinks it's worth the bother.

The one set of components I really see this as making sense is a ghost field and void shields.