in page 190 you can read ""for example larger plasma drives may make a ship faser and provide more power but they will also take up space which could...""

and in components table is write appropriate hull types, not required hull type

this look like you can put a engin class 3 in a class 2 hull (light cruise engines in fregate hull) if you wish, gaining power and speed but using more space for engines lmiting you of how many others part you can put in the ship

1st question : is this right? or just something unclear from RT book

2st question: in archeotech you can read under each components "this can be use as a"....(appropriate part), can you place archeotech part and another part of the same type, like 2 dif sensors systems?

1) I don't think you can put a larger drive into a smaller ship.

2) The Archaeotech drives replace the normal ones. If it says "act as (blah)", they take up the space for that component. You wouldn't have 2 drives or 2 sensor systems.

1) You cannot put a component onto a hull type different than the one listed. Class 4 Drives are for Cruisers, no matter how many lance batteries you want on your frigate.

2) it does not explicitly state you can;t, say, stack a Deep Void Augur and Auto-Stabilized Logis Targeter, but I have ruled you can't stack Essential Components of the same type in my games.

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

It does actually say in the rules (page 199, just below the main "ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS" title) that:

"A ship must have one (and no more) Component from each of the following categories". So no, you can't stack them. It's one or the other.

Good catch, MILLANDSON.

Except that the Archeotech components don't say "This counts as an [Essential component type]", they say "This can be used as a [Essential component type]". It's strictly optional; if you do use it as your type of Essential Component, you can't get two, but if you don't, you can still get the normal one, and then add the Archeotech one on top of that.

nick012000 said:

I had the same thought on reading it, with a slightly different result: I would probably, if suitably begged by my players, let them have more than one essential component, but only one can provide benefits per strategic turn. I'm not sure this would actually be advantageous; I think a couple Auger Arrays offer rather different benefits. Bridges, too, maybe. Seems like there are better uses of power and space, really.

The downside of this approach is that it opens the door to, "well, we can keep a spare void field generator in case the main ones are damaged," which leads to, "why can't we just activate both of them at once?"

EDIT: Does ship construction actually break all that badly if you can stuff in multiple stacking essential components (I'm mostly eyeing plasma drives and void fields here)? I can see a ship with an extra set of plasma engines and more augmented retro-thrusters than you can shake a stick at amassing some absurd Maneuverability rating. Stacking void shields would rapidly outclass the armaments any sub-cruiser vessel could bring to bear, I think, but I can't run the numbers at the moment. Anything else jump out at anyone?

(Bridges, incidentally, I can't imagine ever stacking bonuses on any roll under any interpretation!)

Pandadan said:

A transport with a pair of Archeotech Jovian Pattern drives is so much better than one with a Lathe Pattern one it just renders the latter redundant. Yes, it is broken.

If you can't have 2 normal drives, why would you be able to have a normal one and an archaeotech one in the same ship. It's fairly obvious they are intended to replace the normal component.