I was chatting with a fellow Discordian about a space fighter carrier he was making. I remarked offhand that for such a short vessel as he was making, he had an awful lot of embarked craft. He claimed (correctly) that it was rules-legal.

I looked about, and the smallest two space fighters I could find were still the Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica and the Starfury from Babylon 5. I decided to break out Eric B Smith’s Spaceships design sheet and see how small I could make a starfighter.

Turns out, you can get pretty small.

The stats are below, but you can see that in order to get close to the claimed size of the Viper Mk VII, which is about 10m/33 feet, I had to downgrade the size class of the ship from SM+4 to SM+3. That’s because the streamlining option, with wings, roughly doubled the length of the ship. Still, this feels right.

• The fighter is quite small, even smaller than the F16 that it resembles (F16 is 49 feet long).
• It has three forward-facing cannon, each of close to appropriate size. GURPS calculates 3x 30mm cannon; the Viper Mk II is claimed to have two 30mm cannon. Booyah.
• It has three rearward-facing high energy density material rockets; the show gives them “tylium fuel” which probably serves the same purpose
• The limited fuel capacity means you can only fire the thrusters for about 41 seconds. This fits with the show where you only go Turbo in brief bursts
• It has enhanced handling from RCS
• It’s lightly armored. VERY  lightly armored.
• It also carries two missiles. I had to ditch a fuel pod for this, but it was worth it for fidelity
• It costs about $161,000 each, which is very, very cheap. And yet, they made ’em from scratch on board the Pegasus, so there is that

Colonial Viper Mk VII (BSG Reimagined Series)

TLNamedST/dHPHnd/SRHTMoveLWt.LoadSMOccdDRRangeCost

9

0

10

+1/4

12

6G/1.5 mps

3

0.5 [1]

+3

5SV [2]

1

—

$161k

Length: 14 yd. (42 ft.)   Crush Depth: 5.4 Atmospheres (179 ft.)
Space Performance:  sAccel: 6Gs/1.5 mps
Air Performance:  aAccel: 6Gs (132 mph/s)   aSpeed: 6,100 mph (1.69 mps)  Hnd/SR: +5/5

SHIP SYSTEMS

FRONT

[1-3]	Major Battery
	one fixed mount 3cm improved rapid fire conventional gun
	one fixed mount 3cm improved rapid fire conventional gun
	one fixed mount 3cm improved rapid fire conventional gun
[4]	Tactical Comm/Sensor Array
	Array level: 3
[5-6]	Light Alloy Armor
	dDR 1

 

CENTER

[1-2]	Control Room
	Comp: C3 / Comm/Sensor: 1 / 1 Station
[3]	Maneuver Enhancement
	+1 Handling
[4]	Major Battery
	one fixed mount 12cm missile launcher
[5-6]	Light Alloy Armor
	dDR 1
[Core]	Fuel Tank
	0.15 Tons of Fuel

 

REAR

[1-3]	HEDM Rocket
	6 Gs / 1.5 mps / 41.03 sec Fuel [3,4]
[4]	Fuel Tank
	0.15 Tons of Fuel
[5-6]	Light Alloy Armor
	dDR 1
[Core]	Fuel Tank
	0.15 Tons of Fuel

 

Design Switches, Features, & Notes: Ammunition Cost: $78,125; Total Cost: $239,125
CAMPAIGN OPTIONS: Armor/Volume Rules (Pyramid 3/34), EBS’s Unofficial rules
SHIP OPTIONS: Streamlined, Winged
[1] Load includes: 0.5 tons of Crew & Passengers, -0.025 tons of Ammunition, 0.025 tons in Steerage Cargo
[2] Crew Requirement: 1 Control Station (1 Pilot), 4 Gunners
SYSTEM NOTES: [3] Volatile System (see p. SS1:62)
FUEL USED: [4] Metallic Hydrogen
TROOP STRENGTH (TS): 1,210    CLASSES: Air, Space    FEATURES: Night, Sealed

 

WEAPONS TABLE

Range Scale: Basic Combat Ranges    Turn Length: 20-Sec

Qty Location Weapon Mount Options Size Damages Acc [1] Rcl RoF Shots MPS Accel Projectile
SM Range

1

Front [1] – Major

Conventional Gun

Fixed

Rapid Fire

3cm

4d (2) cr

-8 (+4) [2]

3

20 [3]

150

1

-6

C

1

Front [2] – Major

Conventional Gun

Fixed

Rapid Fire

3cm

4d (2) cr

-8 (+4) [2]

3

20 [3]

150

1

-6

C

1

Front [3] – Major

Conventional Gun

Fixed

Rapid Fire

3cm

4d (2) cr

-8 (+4) [2]

3

20 [3]

150

1

-6

C

1

Center [4] – Major

Missile Launcher

Fixed

12cm

6dx3 (2) cr

+3 [2]

1

1

2

10

5G

-2

X

[1] Parenthetical value is the Rapid Fire bonus (p. SS1:60), [2] Includes +2 sAcc for Fixed Mount, [3] Includes x2 RoF for Improved

 

Created using the GURPS Spaceship Design Spreadsheet Version 2.0 RC 20 based on the GURPS Spaceships series of books. http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/