From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 18:28:59 -0500
Subject: [DS][SG] Planetary Landings
WARNING: Contains minor Red Planet SPOILER. Be warned, if you haven't seen the movie. I don't give a lot away if you've seen the trailers, but I do talk a bit about it. Mostly about some of the tech used but I make one plot comment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hiya Just watched the Red Planet DVD. Neat movie. Nice to see a movie where the only enemies are ones that humanity created in one way or another. And the cut scenes were a good addition (pity you couldn't work them in directly!) as they expanded on a number of areas of characterization and motivation. What I was wondering... the lander they used used the retros/parachutes/big inflated balls landing technique. I was thinking this might have application in DS2 and SG2 for landing squads/elements or even individual PA capsules for FMAS. How would you handle this kind of deployment? I might suggest you use the basic SG scatter mechanism (counters dropped from over the board) but if they land in hilly terrain or equivalent, they might well roll down off the hill (as happened to the lander in RP). It strikes me that this landing method might well be safer for the troopies and offer a better survival chance than the book allows for units that arrive in rough terrain. Of course, you might have to spend an activation extracting yourself from the capsule (balloons deflating, popping hatches, etc). Thoughts? Looked like a fun ride. And getting to go to Mars would be kind of cool, doubly so if it was with Carrie Ann Moss.;) I also liked the Dogbot. The fact it had its own RPV was pretty neat. I guess in SG2, you'd give it the ability to move fast, go hidden, use an RPV, and to have some rather obnoxious HTH capability. Of course, how you'd simulate the "playing with you" aspect.... that's another issue. I guess a ref or a Davis (read: suppressed Role Player) could handle running the Dogbot. One last thing: I loved the Russian Lander GUI. The Cosmonaut Pig was