> Jon Tuffley wrote:
Not sure if you intended "movement systems" to include FTL, but anyway...
Possibly radical proposal: scrap the need for FTL on ships.
In my experience, by far the most common Full Thrust scenario is for every
ship to have FTL. Scenarios where one side doesn't have FTL are rare, and
usually the only effect is that the FTL fleet usually has its points size
boosted by 10% to compensate.
I can imagine the presence or absence of FTL making a difference in campaigns,
but for the typical tabletop battle it's just everyone losing
10% of their mass.
No so radical proposal: even out the mass/points cost of all the
different forms of FTL.
Hangar mass should be reduced to 1.1 times the mass of the ship being carried.
FTL tugs and gates should be able to transport 10 other mass for every 1
extra mass spent on their FTL drive.
With this, FTL capability costs 10% regardless of how you do it instead of
favouring ships with built-in drives. It would better represent the wide
range of different FTL mechanisms found in science fiction.
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 02:03:06PM +1100, Hugh Fisher wrote:
While I deplore the stand-up "keep fighting until one side is
eliminated" battle, I have to admit that it's what a lot of people like to
play. In that case FTL effectively just makes the ship construction system
slightly more complex without game effect.
While I like the battleship/battlerider question, it's rarely come up
in actual play.
R
> On 29 Oct 2015, at 09:54, Roger Bell_West <roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 02:03:06PM +1100, Hugh Fisher wrote:
Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be interested in
everyone else's opinions on it too.
It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of
situations - I don't know how many players have ever used the "arrival
out of FTL" rules in a gameâ¦.anyone here? The only other real effect that
you get in game terms by having FTL drives as a separate ship
system is that loss of them will strand the damaged ship in-system by
making escape to FTL impossible, but again that is quite a minor factor
and more of use in campaign terms than a one-off game.
As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought through
at all, how about doing away with the FTL drive as a "paid for" system and
making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge), Life
Support and Power Core icons?
Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other ideas on
the matterâ¦â¦.
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 10:39:19AM +0000, Jon Tuffley wrote:
I have used the arrival rules for an ambush scenario, but it didn't make a lot
of difference to the game.
_In a campaign game_ I like being able to escape by FTL. But even
then, disengaging by distance is still possible and can be handwaved as "you
got far enough away to do the jump calculations and spin up the drives".
> As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought through
I wonder whether you might phrase it something like:
Main rules: "You have these four core systems, and (MASS*.9) mass units to fit
in hull structure, drives, weapons, etc."
Supplementary/advanced rules: "You can omit the FTL system to get
(MASS*.1) free space, or fit an FTL tug system to (etc.), and the
campaign implications of this are (etc.)." - i.e. make it something
explicitly for campaign games.
R
Well, it would make moot all the work I've done on 'tenders', both tuning
rules and scenarios, but as none has seen table time, I'd mumble quietly.
Along with a heck of a lot of things, *ahem* like sideslip schemes, I
suppose it could be supplemental/experimental/optional. Except, what
ISN'T. ;->=
Doug
[quoted original message omitted]
I think the issue with the FTL system is that it is more intertwined into
campaign play than one-off play. One-off play does not encourage any use
of FTL unless dictated by the scenario. By far the vast majority of the
players I've met/seen/played fight their ships Klingon style: "to the
last hull box, and beyond! Raaaaaaahh!!!!!", in whatever starship rules set
they
are using (FT, SFB, SMITE, X-Wing, Starmada, Attack Vector, etc).
Further muddying the waters, to my knowledge, most of these games don't even
encourage the option of fleeing the battlefield, reinforcing the Klingon
Mentality of starship combat. And finally when there is an FTL system on a
ship, most people see it as a 'free' critical hit, especially if they are not
planning on leaving the battle any time soon ("Whew! Only lost FTL, nothing
important."). Which makes the FTL drive, something that is supposed to propel
ships between the *stars*, a pretty damned fragile system.
:-D
I think the real question may be how do we change player perceptions about
starship combat and break them from the Klingon paradigm?
Of late again I have been (on a scenario by scenario basis) starting to
enforce a rule that if a ship has been reduced to it's last hull row, it must
attempt to break off from the engagement, and not engage the enemy unless shot
at first in a given turn. I also worked up a scenario where a fleet of
freighters is attempting to flee from a mining station and have to get to the
jump limit before the marauding enemy force closes to strip them from the sky.
This gave the freighter player some incentive to not lose the FTL drives on
(at least) those ships. This rule was not meant to replace the 'strike the
colors' optional rule. Though one player actually voluntarily used that in a
game I played earlier this week when he found his ship 1 hull box from the
last row, half his internal systems down
(bad,
bad threshold check rolls!), surrounded by four enemy ships, and the rest of
his task force on the far end of the width of the table, unable to help (or
get around to helping for at least two more turns). As we were calling the
came over at that point, he announced that his ship was surrendering. A move I
don't often see in players (again, because of that Klingon fighting style
mentality).
As for folding the FTL system into the Core Systems, meh, I guess? Personally
I never use the Core Systems as written. I have always felt they were too
catastrophic to the ships when hit. Moving the FTL to the Core Systems does
nothing to change it's game effect, or lack thereof, if hit. As for the Core
Systems themselves, I had long ago adopted others (when I played them) that a
friend of mine had come up with (and I had once
proposed for the FB/FT3 runs) that affect the ship, but are not so
imminently catastrophic to it (such as communications down, which meant the
ship so affected had to plot out one turn in advance). (I always felt
command bridge hits were silly, because seriously, what self-respecting
starship is *not* going to have an auxiliary or secondary bridge?!? :-D
).
Mk
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 6:39 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> On 29 Oct 2015, at 09:54, Roger Bell_West <roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 08:05:21AM -0400, Indy wrote:
The best I've come up with is "make mini-campaigns rather than
one-shot scenarios the standard mode of play".
I can bore about this at length (and did, on my blog, at
http://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2014/02/On_Campaign_Systems.html, so
I won't repeat it here), but broadly what I want a campaign system to do these
days is "produce battles that are interesting to fight on the table" (i.e. if
it's clearly going to be a walkover don't ask the players to set it up in the
first place) without being a huge administrative burden on the players.
R
I would say, absolutely!
Just about every board game I look at lately is 'can I use for an
easy-to-participate campaign that's compelling?"
(And has a combat resolution system that could mimic FT results for those
'walkover' situations, but that's another topic.)
However, as far as I'm aware, it's still the case that most games are not in a
situation that allows campaign playing, not even a 'mini' for a
long night. So, scenarios, evocatively written, girded by well-crafted
objectives and penalties, would likely have to suffice.
I'm still trying to understand the concept of 'narrative campaigns', though
they sound more like a bunch of linked scenarios. Honest, I can be disabused
of my veiled vision.
Doug
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 01:24:27PM +0000, Douglas Evans wrote:
Well, books of scenarios (with set forces, and specific victory
conditions) would certainly be welcome - but I don't know how well
they'd sell and if they'd be worth Jon's time to put together. What a lot of
games seem to turn into is "I'll take X points of my faction, and you take X
points of your faction, and we'll see who wins".
Perhaps the core book could have some more "generic" scenarios along
the lines of the ones in Chain of Command - so you _can_ play straight
attack/defence, but you can also have a probing attack that's trying
to get forces off the end of the table behind the defenders rather than wipe
them out, etc. Bless those into the core rules and you can start to get people
thinking of something other than a slugfest.
R
> On 29/10/2015 10:39, Jon Tuffley wrote:
I was involved in a squadron-level 4-player game at Bifrost one year, in
which 2 fleets were on the table at the start of the game, and the other
two (1 "ally" for each side) arrived by FTL on a randomly-determined
turn fairly shortly thereafter. That set-up definitely affected the game
-- my poor son had his ESU squadron arrive right in front of the Phalon
fleet, and while his ships were recovering from jump shock, they were all
blown away by a volley of plasma bolts!
I have to say, I like that kind of thing being a possibility (though I
was less happy at the time <B-/), so I would much prefer the ability to
FTL in and out during play to be kept. It also allows for different
scenario objectives to be used as well as the ever-popular fight to the
death -- ambushes, as mentioned by Roger; smash'n'grab raids; escape
blockades/pirates; etc. All have long histories and many precedents in
SF of all sorts -- everything from /Star Wars/ and/Babylon 5/ to
Pournelle's Co-Dominium future history to /Traveller/ (even /Star Trek/
if you tweak the mechanics), and I'd like to continue to be able to
re-create that sort of situation. This is very much a case of keeping FT
sufficiently adaptable to simulate many settings as part of the basic game
rather than requiring house rules.
> The only other real effect that you get in game terms by having FTL
Well, that depends on the scenario. If the objective for one side is to
escape, then losing FTL is obviously a vital factor. Which means that the
rules need to include the possibility of losing FTL and regaining it
after it's lost (or shut down, or whatever).
> As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought
system and making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge),
Life Support and Power Core icons? I like that idea, especially if coupled
with something like Roger's
suggestion for a way to distinguish between FTL-capable ships and
"system boats" -- so I suppose what I'm saying is that maybe the cost of
FTL should be reduced. There doesn't have to be a big difference between
FTL-capable ships and non-capable ones, and it probably shouldn't be
that big because, as you say, the main case where whatever difference there is
will become important is in campaigns. OTOH, in a campaign, if
a player is going to build non-FTL ships for system defence, then there
ought to be a benefit unless the setting indicates otherwise -- as, say,
in original /Star Trek/, where the warp drive and the matter-antimatter
reactor(s) were the same thing. In addition, it would be good if tugs and
battleriders were possibilities, but not to the extent that they become the
choice of munchkins.
So overall, I would sum things up as follows:
1. Keep FTL as a system that can operate during a game and that can be
affected (damaged, repaired) during a game.
2. Provide a benefit for non-FTL designs, but not such a large one that
they automatically dominate battles with starships.
Phil
----
"We gotta get out into Space / If it's the last thing we ever do!" --
/Return to the Forbidden Planet/
There are certain settings where FTL capable ships are rare and there are
agreed upon ROEs that prohibit folks from shooting at them (I'm looking at
you Early-Days Battletech -- later on they added "real" warships). To
this
end I'm a fan of keeping FTL a separate ship component - outside of core
systems. The cost in mass can be dependent on setting -- early FTL will
probably be huge globs of machinery while late/advanced FTL drives may
fit in a small room. Who knows.
Speaking of core systems - has anyone thought about removing the concept
all together and just slapping those icons directly on the SSD in essence
treating them like anything else on the SSD? It would make SSDs more busy but
allow for a golden BB effect. It would also allow the ship builder to
say "I want a bridge and a combat bridge/CIC..." It's pretty hard to
fight to the death when, on your second threshold, you lose maneuver drives,
your only bridge, life support, etc... Morale rules can be layered on this
system to make the "Do we fight the ship or do we fight to survive?" decisions
a bit more realistic.
I won't talk about fuel and burn rates because I'd still like FT to be a fun
game.:)
D.
On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Phillip Atcliffe <atcliffe@ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> So overall, I would sum things up as follows:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 04:00:27PM -0400, Damond Walker wrote:
If you were going to do that then I think it might be an idea to genericise
the "critical armour" that they get now. Now, most other systems won't be
allowed to have it (a beam batt or an FCS needs to see out, so you can't put
it in the middle of the ship; the answer to battle damage is to have a spare
one). But I can see e.g. a merchie having an exposed bridge which gets damaged
like normal ship systems (because that lets them squeeze in one more container
per voyage), or
a late-war UNSC ship having a deep-buried bridge that's really hard to
knock out, at huge mass penalty.
But this is definitely an optional rules module!
R
That just gave me the Idea of Armor stopping Threshold checks (any system). If
you roll for a system and get it, you can expend armor to "save it" (or
designate X armored systems based on Armor value)
Michael Brown
mwsaber6@msn.com
> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2015 20:12:26 +0000
In message <20151029201226.GA25242@firedrake.org>
> Roger Bell_West <roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 04:00:27PM -0400, Damond Walker wrote:
> If you were going to do that then I think it might be an idea to
> But this is definitely an optional rules module!
> R
Actually, if you extend the definition of 'critical' armour to include things
like backup systems, you could justify allowing it for any system (if the
costs are worked out correctly), although, as you point out, it would probably
be easier to just buy duplicates of some systems. OTOH the 'variable number of
hull rows' rules from the playtest fleets ad a way of providing some 'critical
armour' to everything on a ship.
Continuing the very useful discussion on FTL, I'm going to get my long pointy
stick out once more and prod the ListMind Collective again to keep things
goingâ¦..
How many SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT styles/concepts of FTL travel can we
come up with between us from SF movies, TV and literature?
To start things off, I'd say we have the Star Trek model (which is ironically
looking like it just MIGHT be the most plausible, in the form of the
Alcubierre Drive) in which the ship forms a warp bubble of spacetime around
itself and can then go very, very fast through normal space because it is
"stationary" in relation to the spacetime inside its bubbleâ¦. in terms of
game effect, the ship just turns on its warp drive and "fwoosh", it's off the
table. Only ships with warp engines can travel FTL.
Then you have the Star Wars approach, the classic "hyperspace" drive which
again requires a ship to be equipped with hyperspace engines,
which can seemingly be engaged at almost any time - fire up the
hyperdrive and you're off into FTL, but there is still a significant flight
time (hours, days or weeks) in hyperspace to reach your destination.
The BSG model is probably closest to the "semi-official" GZG verse
version of "jump", the ship winks out from normal space and immediately (as
far as the crew are concerned) arrives somewhere else. Once again, ships need
to have jump engines to do this, or be carried in something bigger which has
jump capability.
Babylon 5 has the measurable-flight-time-in-hyperspace model with fixed
Jump gates that can open a jump point that allows any ship or small craft to
enter and exit hyperspace, but add the twist that large ships (particularly
warships and explorers) can create their own Jump Points if they carry the
necessary engines.
Then you have all the others like Collapsar Jumps (take a looooooong
run-up in normal space towards a Collapsar, hit it just right and pop
out somewhere elseâ¦) and several other flavours of jump point
concepts, both naturally-occurring and artificially produced.
Interestingly, the only series I am aware of that actually has more than one
type of FTL travel (as I recall, at least three different methods?)
is Brian Stableford's old "Hooded Swan" books - quite fun as I recall
them, though nowadays they would quite likely be categorised as "Young Adult"
SFâ¦.
OK, feel free to add to this list with any personal favourites, wherever they
come fromâ¦â¦
> On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 05:49:57PM +0000, Jon Tuffley wrote:
David Brin's Uplift series, especially Startide Rising, has quite a few.
And of course "Web and Starship"...
It's probably worth considering a framework like the Landis taxonomy
(http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php - "The
Canonical List of StarDrives" is about half-way down).
R
> On Sunday 01 Nov 2015 17:49:57 Jon Tuffley wrote:
Only for certain definitions of 'plausible'.
> Interestingly, the only series I am aware of that actually has more
Uplift has been mentioned already - but that has Hyperspace, Probability
Drives and Quantum Tunnelling (according to a quick read of my GURPS Uplift
book).
> OK, feel free to add to this list with any personal favourites,
Bergenholm "Inertialess" drive from Lensman by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Einstein was
wrong, so there's no speed of light limit. Activate a Bergenholm and you
immediately accelerate to the maximum velocity permitted by your drive thrust
and 'atmospheric' density of local space (since you become massless).
Smith's Skylark series has the same with no inertialess drive, so just keep on
accelerating to millions of times light speed. He never says whether your
headlights fry the people in front of you, or fry the crew.
Traveller has a jump drive, but with significant time period spent in jump.
From a campaign perspective, this is very different from the BSG model of
instant jumps (especially since different ranges of jump capability can have a
big strategic impact).
Traversable Wormholes, as first described by Kip Thorne in 1988, and used
effectively in many of Stephen Baxter's 'Xeelee' novels. As for the Alcubierre
drive, it requires exotic matter to keep them open. You inflate both ends of a
wormhole (they occur naturally at the quantum level), then can move mass
between them. The
two ends link two points in space-time.
The idea is you accelerate one up to near light speed towards your
destination. It is time dilated, and so you get time travel between the two
ends. If subjective travel time is ~1 year, and the destination is 100 ly
away, then every time you go to the destination you travel 99 years into the
future, and when you come back, you travel 99 years into the past.
You can colonise a galaxy (or many galaxies) that way, with a star empire
spanning millions of light years in space, and millions of years in time.
Causality may or may not be conserved.
They can remove the need for starships - just drop the two ends
down on planets, and you can walk between star systems.
(you can also use it as a weapon - 'throw' one end at a big asteroid
at high velocity, the asteroid will pop out the other end at the same velocity
it entered the first end. Or drop one end into a star whilst the other is near
a planet...).
The "Stargate" from the film/TV series of the same name is another
type of wormhole that does away with the need for starships (it's still FTL
travel though). Sidesteps the time travel issues though.
from GURPS The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Adapted by Robin Johnson
(available freely on the web)
FTL Drives Some of the most popular drives of the Galaxy, in decelerating
order of speed:
Bistromathic Drive Invented very recently by the noted engineer
Slartibartfast, this is the newest and fastest method of interstellar travel,
and much more expensive than other drives. The drive uses parascience to apply
Bistromathics, the curious mathematics that take place only in restaurants, to
the body of a flying saucer, causing quick, interstellar zipping without any
need for dangerous messing about with improbability factors. The Bistromathic
Drive itself is a glass cage decorated as a restaurant, in which robot waiters
serve artificial Italian food to robot diners, who scream heated,
carefully-scripted arguments with one another, tell friend-of-a-friend
stories on database, and generally partake of a wholly artificial social
evening -- Bistromathic vibrations propel the ship at speeds that make
Hotblack Desiato look like a slow mover on tax-collection day.
The starcourse for a journey by Bistromathic Drive is usually determined
beforehand. Each ten minutes for which the drive is activated before FTL
travel takes place, to a maximum of one hour, gives the astrogator +1 to
his skill. Anybody present may enter the bistro set and attempt to help by
rolling Carousing -- a success gives +1 to Astrogation, but a failure
gives
a -1 penalty. The astrogator then rolls Astrogation (Bistromathic
Drive),
further modified by -1 for each full 100 parsecs of starcourse. If the
roll succeeds, the ship travels at 5,000 parsecs per minute to within.1 AU of
its destination before the drive stops. If it failed, the ship stays where it
is and the procedure must be started all over again. A critical failure
renders the drive totally defunct for 1d x 30 minutes.
A Bistromathic Drive costs $20,000, masses 4 tons and bulks 6 cubic yards,
including the whole restaurant set with robots. One drive engine is required
per 1,000 tons of ship mass. The drive engine draws.01 MW per ton of ship that
it serves.
Infinite Improbability Drive
This drive uses an artificial improbability generator -- powered
essentially by a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain, an atomic vector
plotter
and a strong Brownian Motion generator such as a nice, hot cup of tea --
to create a field of Infinite Improbability around a flying saucer, causing
near-impossible, utterly ridiculous things to happen, such as the whole
ship zooming across space to its destination in a matter of hours. The drive's
effective speed is 30,000 parsecs per day (1250 per hour). The
"heart" of the drive -- the infinite improbability generator itself --
is very small, and can be taken from the drive and carried for security when
the ship is parked (weight 1 lb.). The whole drive, including normality
shields and improbablometric equipment, masses 1 ton, bulks 2 cubic yards and
draws.1 MW per cubic yard of ship volume while in use, and costs $10,000.
Because of the heavy power requirement for large Improbability vessels, many
ships have capacitors to store energy from a smallish plant and relay it to
the drive, at a higher power output, for the fairly short journey time.
The hull of the ship must be normalified by Improbability Proofing or there
will be seriously strange effects on passengers and cargo. Nobody is quite
sure how the Improbability Drive works as it was never actually designed
--
the first one simply popped into being when a Demogranian astrophysicist
calculated the odds against it ever existing -- so Mechanic rolls to
repair
a damaged drive are made at -4 or more. A protective Normality suit must
be worn when tinkering with the drive.
The time for any journey by Improbability Drive is the time required to charge
up the field generators to Infinite Improbability and charge them down to
normality again, during which time the starship is charging across space in a
straight line, pretty much regardless of what is in the way. Halfway along the
journey, the ship reaches Infinite Improbability and
occupies every point in the Universe -- each character on board must
make his Improbability Tolerance roll (base throw 3d vs. HT) to avoid some
minor effect: his hairstyle changes, his towel is swapped for someone else's,
or something equally apparently trivial. On a critical failure, the effect is
strikingly weird and unpleasant -- gain a severe delusion, vanish from
everybody else's memory. Only on a critical success will there be a noticably
beneficial effect.
Before each journey, the required Improbability Factors -- the odds
against
the journey happening successfully -- must be calculated. This takes
30-IQ
minutes for a crew member or 5 minutes for a computer, and requires an
Astrogation (Improbability Drive) roll, modified by -1 for each 100
parsecs to travel. A failed roll throws a ship badly off course, sending it to
an
entirely random and somewhat improbable location -- a critical failure
shifts it in probability, sending it to a slightly alternate dimension.
Probability Hopping Some Infinite Improbability Drives can make
interdimensional probability
hops on purpose -- this is no big deal in today's
technologically-demented
Galaxy. Unfortunately, it's difficult to predict which dimension you're going
to end up in. A probability course must be determined, which takes the same
time as plotting a starcourse, rolling for Astrogation
(Improbability Drive)-4. If the roll fails, the ship stays where it is
and the time and energy is wasted; a success puts the ship in another
dimension, at a point roughly corresponding to where the ship left the old
universe. Only if the Astrogation roll was made by 4 or more will the ship end
up in a dimension something like where the astrogator wants to be. A critical
failure causes damage to the drive.
No continuous power is drawn for a probability hop, but it uses a large
amount of energy -- 1 MW-h per cubic yard's volume of ship to hop. The
probability hop feature doubles the mass, size and cost of the Improbability
Drive.
Quark Drive
This drive fires a stream of sub-atomic particle-waveforms as a
faster-than-light jet to the rear, propelling the ship forward at
literally impossible speeds. A quark engine bulks 1 cy, masses 1 ton, costs
$10,000 and can propel 1,000 tons of starship mass at 30 parsecs per day, or
2,000
tons at 15 pc/day or whatever. Quark engines can be stacked to a highest
attainable speed of 15,000 pc/day (if the ship's laden mass is less than
1,000 tons, treat it as 1,000 tons when deducing how fast a quark drive can
carry it). Draws 1 MW power per ton of ship. A ship with quark engines
requires no manoeuvre drive, but unfortunately it steers like a cow. All
Piloting rolls for delicate manoeuvring are made at -2.
An Astrogation (Quark Drive) roll is required for each day's travel by
quark drive, modified by -1 for each 10 parsecs travelled. On a failure,
the ship ends up 2d parsecs off course; on a critical failure, roll
Piloting-5 immediately or the ship has crashed!
Black Hole Drive
This is possibly the most esoteric-sounding faster-than-light drive that
isn't actually esoteric. The Black Hole Drive is a large tank of Incredibly
Strong Glass containing a captive Black Hole whose incredible gravity is
artificially vectored to suck a ship through space at FTL speeds. Black Hole
Drives are hugely expensive and very bulky, though they have effectively no
mass because of how the Black Hole is suspended. Their
biggest advantage, though, is that they require no power at all -- thus,
they can be used to keep costs down and profits up on extremely large ships.
The Black Hole Drive is the brainchild of Leovinus, the Greatest Genius the
Galaxy Has Ever Known, and the first one ever was built into his infamous
Starship Titanic, which utterly vanished ten seconds after it took off.
A slight drawback to the Black Hole Drive, however, is that it puts a starship
in danger of Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure or SMEF, the technical term
given to what happened to the Starship Titanic. A roll to see if SMEF occurs
must be made whenever the drive is damaged in combat
(roll +2 for Medium damage, +4 for Heavy damage or +6 if the drive was
destroyed), or upon any critical failure of Mechanic or Engineer skill with
this drive (if skill is below 11, roll +1 for each point below 11; roll
-1
if skill is 20 or more). Roll 3d and add modifiers; on a result of 17 or more,
SMEF happens. The ship sways a little, wobbles a bit, veers wildly
and vanishes utterly into the ever-whirling eddies of the space, time
and probability; in the temporal anomaly that follows it will be mashed up
--
make one Heavy damage roll for every 1,000 cy of drive, using the table on
page 95 of GURPS Space -- and fooped out to a completely random point in
the WSOGMM. GMs are urged to use their imaginations.
A Black Hole Drive that bulks 1,000 cy (a cubic glass cage of side 10 yards)
can propel 1,000 tons of ship at 100 parsecs per day, or 100 tons at
1,000 pc/day or whatever. 10,000 pc/day is the limit. Bigger drives
multiply the effect. Dedicated monitoring circuits sound an alarm if things
go wrong -- negligible power requirement, though they won't work if
power fails. The drive itself will work if power fails, though Engineer and
Mechanic rolls on it will be at -3 without the monitoring circuits. An
Astrogation (Black Hole Drive) is required for each day of travel; a failure
sends the ship 1d parsecs off course for each point by which the roll was
missed.
Each 1000 cy of Black Hole Drive cost $1,000,000. No STL manoeuvre engines are
required for a ship with Black Hole drive.
Flare Riding A smaller application of the same technology used in Black Hole
Drives is
for riding stellar flares with a heat-sink. A heat-sink has a mass of
over two hundred thousand billion tons, contained within a black hole
suspended
in a Nil-O-Grav field that, thankfully, negates the most of it. It is
not in itself a drive, but it allows a ship to be manoeuvred to within a few
miles of a star without melting or anything. When the heat-sink is
switched on, the ship can catch and ride the stellar flares that burst out
from the star's surface.
An Astrogation (Flare Riding) roll will get the ship to a particular
destination within 12 parsecs; a failure flings it 2d parsecs in a random
direction. The ship's speed is one parsec per hour -- and at any
distance from the star, the ship can be stopped dead simply by switching off
the
grav field around the heat-sink and rocketing the ship's mass, rendering
it effectively immovable. A flare rider arriving at a star will typically have
to wait 3dx10 minutes for a suitable flare.
It's easiest to ride the flares of a yellow sun -- the flare rider's
Astrogation roll is made at a penalty of -1 for each spectral type
warmer or cooler than "G" of the star he is riding. Flare riding is mainly
done as an expensive and exhilarating hobby, but it can be done for FTL
transport
-- zig-zagging from star to star across longer journeys. But flare
riding
is dangerous -- on any critical failure of Astrogation skill, the
heat-sink
becomes a short-lived black hole. It undergoes emergency termination of
existence immediately and the craft takes Heavy damage. A heat-sink
bulks one cubic yard, and has an effective mass of only 20 tons when the grav
field is on. This requires a power input of 200 MW -- if power is cut
off, or the grav field fails, the ship's mass will suddenly increase by
2.00x10^14 tons and its speed and manoeuvrability will drop accordingly.
Likely the heat-sink will have to be abandoned so that the ship can get
to
the nearest spaceport at any speed. A heat-sink costs $9,000. A
spacecraft must be built with winged streamlining to be capable of flare
riding.
Hyperdrive Using a hyperdrive engine to position a flying saucer at N dozens
of points in the Universe simultaneously, flipping it huge distances through
the fabric of space and time while it stays in exactly the same place is the
oldest-known and least imaginative way of outrunning your own light.
Techno-froods and parascientists consider the hyperdrive rather pathetic
as it makes no attempt to actually accomplish the impossible, but rather
circumvents the light barrier from the comfort of a dimension with less
responsible speed limits. Hyperdrives are rather cumbersome and slower than
the modern parascientific drives, but affordable. Governments and corporations
use them in large ships like spaceliners, freighters, miners
and constructors; many privately-owned ships use hyperdrives simply
because they're cheap.
After a flying saucer "foops" into hyperspace, it is temporarily missing from
the universe; no time passes on board, but days or weeks go by outside, before
the ship "wops" back into reality. The external time delay between the wop and
the foop is longer for heavy ships than it is for light
ships -- one parsec's travel in hyperspace causes a delay of one hour
per thousand tons of a ship's total mass. Hyperdrive engines can be stacked to
give a greater range or shorter delay, but each additional engine gives
-1
to Astrogation skill as they must all be carefully synchronised. The external
delay can also be decreased by travelling along a hyperspatial express route.
The starcourse must be configured into the hyperdrive before the ship foops
-- this takes one minute for each hour that will be spent outside of
real
space, and requires an Astrogation (Hyperdrive) roll, modified by -1 for
each day of skipped time (long-distance hyperdrive ships usually "skim"
across the Universe in a successive series of easy, short hops). A failure of
this roll scatters the ship [numer of hyperdrive engines] dice of parsecs in a
random direction, and skipped time is refigured depending on the actual
distance hopped. Ships can neither foop nor wop within.1 AU of
a stellar mass or .01 AU of a planetary mass in real space -- when it
wops out of hyperspace, the ship will appear at any so allowable point about
.01 AU away from its target (or as close as possible, if this is even
further).
As no shipboard time is ever actually spent in hyperspace, the drive has no
continuous power requirement, though a hyperhop requires energy of.01
MW-h
of energy per ton, per parsec (capacitors must be bought separately). A
hyperdrive engine bulks 3 cy, masses 2 tons and costs $8,000.
The few seconds that pass on board the hyperdrive ship while it kicks itself
into hyperspace and recomposes itself in reality are unpleasantly like being
drunk. And what's so unpleasant about being drunk? Ask a glass
of water. Anyone not seated in a SlumpJet hyperspace crash-couch must
roll HT or take 1d Fatigue and, if the roll is missed by 5 or more, 1d injury;
any regular hyperspace hopper knows to curl himself into a foetal ball,
giving +4 to resist. Hyperspace starfarers age slower than their
groundside
fellow-beings, become isolated from mainstream culture and have
interesting times keeping track of their birthdays. Payrolls on hyperdrive
freighters have to be seen to be believed! The Hyperspatial Express Route
Hyperspatial express routes, or hyperspace bypasses, are
specially-charged
multi-dimensional tunnels leading along established transport routes.
These
allow hyperdrive saucers to hop ten times as "quickly" as normal -- that
is, time delay between either end of the hyperhop is reduced by a factor of
ten. An Astrogation (Hyperdrive) roll, modified as for usual hyperspace
astrogation, is required to use the bypass successfully, but greater distances
are easier to travel since the difficulty of the roll depends on journey time
delay. A failed roll sends the ship off course, scattering no further than it
would be possible to travel through unbuilt hyperspace in
the calculated time delay -- so astrogational errors become much less
inconvenient if you use the express route.
Hyperway service stations with shopping and shipyard services are constructed
every 100 parsecs or so along the express route. Note that not nearly all
inhabited stars are linked to the bypass at all: at present, the bypass
connects only the rich, technologically forward star clusters of the Central
Galaxy, with links to the outlying development zones of the western spiral arm
and to the Government research centres at the Frogstar, far to Galactic east.
Hyperspace bypasses are built and maintained by the Galactic Hyperspace
Panning Council, which tolls $1 per parsec's bypass travel. The Council is run
by Vogons and is likely to build bypasses wherever it likes, demolishing any
unfortunate worlds that happen to be in the way.
Charm Drive The charm drive is not particularly powerful, but is compact,
pretty and cheap. It works with a crystal, farmed in the Bambleweeny system,
that is attracted towards the light of stars. A charm drive that bulks.1 cy,
masses.1 ton and costs $3,500 will propel a ship at 12 parsecs per day; one
charm engine is required per 1,000 tons of a ship's mass (charm engines cannot
be stacked to give cumulative speeds). Draws.1 MW per ton of ship mass. A ship
with a charm drive requires no manoeuvre engines: within a star system, the
drive gives acceleration of 1 G.
A roll of Astrogation (Charm Drive) is required for each day of interstellar
travel by charm drive. On a failure, the ship heads towards a different star
from the one intended, travelling for 1d hours in the wrong
direction. For an interplanetary (in-system) journey, 2dx10 minutes are
wasted on an astrogation failure.
Bad News Drive Originally built by the Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor,
this drive is a model example of the application of parascience to accomplish
the
acknowledgedly-impossible. Bad news obeys quite its own laws of motion
and
travels faster than light -- and with some work, its energy can be
transferred to the body of a starship. Bad news is gathered by sub-ether
radio receivers and concentrated in a condenser at the rear of the flying
saucer, then relayed to a transmitter at the nose which broadcasts it forward,
by as many media and in as many languages as possible; parascience and the
curious kinematics of bad news give a negative reaction (get
it?)
which pulls the ship in the same direction. A Bad News Drive comes in two
units, the condenser and the transmitter, of 1 ton and 1 cy each. Each unit
consumes.1 MW per ton of ship mass when the drive is in use. The drive costs
$6,000 in all.
A ship travelling by Bad News drive moves 2d parsecs per day. An Astrogation
(Bad News Drive) roll is required for each day's travel: a failed roll shifts
the starship exactly backwards, 1d parsecs on a normal failure or 3d on a
critical failure. The main drawback to this drive is that the ship will be
unwelcome wherever it lands: all reactions made to
crew members will be rolled at -1 or worse for at least the rest of the
day. A ship with this type of drive cannot use any stealth equipment, and is
easy for other ships to detect.
Ships with Bad News Drives don't absolutely require manoeuvre engines, but the
dodgy dynamics of Bad News make it difficult to control exactly.
Piloting rolls are at -3 or worse when trying to manoeuvre a ship
accurately with Bad News Drive alone. This doesn't include normal
take-off
and landing, but it does include docking at an orbital space station (tractor
beams may help here).
A Bad News drive astrogator is at +1 to his skill for each -5 points he
has
put into the Odious Personal Habits disadvantage, and -1 for each level
of Charisma.
> On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 11:49 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Continuing the very useful discussion on FTL, I'm going to get my long
in
> terms of game effect, the ship just turns on its warp drive and
Very broadly, I think there are three FTL approaches (Of course Atomic Rockets
has already done this for us:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php):
1. Albert Who? Ignore light-speed barriers entirely, and just go really
really fast. E.E.Smith falls firmly into this category with his
âinertialessâ spacecraft. Not common nowadays.
2. Fly Through. You enter âhyperspaceâ or âwarpâ. Once in
hyperspace the flight takes a measurable time, which the crew-members
subjectively experience unless they drug/freeze themselves. Subtypes
include:
a. Vulnerable. While in hyperspace, the ship can be detected and attacked.
Call this the Star Trek or B5 model. There may be âbad thingsâ lurking in
hyperspace in addition to enemy spaceships.
b. Invulnerable. While in hyperspace the ship is undetectable and
wonât be attacked until it re-emerges at the other end. Call this the
Star Wars model. As I recall the RPG Traveller works like this too.
3. Jump Through. You disappear where you were, and reappear at your
destination. The crew experience no subjective passage of time.
a. Do It Anywhere. You can jump from any point in space to any other point.
Care must be taken to avoid jumping into the middle of a star etc. Asimovâs
hyperdrive seemed to work like that, as did BSGâs, and B5âs big ships at
least. This invariably requires some sort of
âjump-driveâ in the engine-room.
b. Jump point. You can only jump at certain points, and you will always arrive
at a certain point at your destination. These jump points can be natural
phenomena or artificial âstar gatesâ. Passage through the jump point may
require a special âjump driveâ (like the Alderson Drive in "The Mote in
God's Eyeâ) or not (the collapsar jump in âThe Forever Warâ, B5âs
small ships).
Some universes seem to include both âfly throughâ and âjump
throughâ with jump-points simply providing handy strategic shortcuts.
The Honor Harrington novels are an example.
Both fly-through and jump-through are often subject to limitations on
how deep in a planetâs or starâs gravity-well you can enter or
emerge from FTL to provide dramatic chases, require âreal-spaceâ
propulsion as well as hyperdrive, and to make sure that the war-story
does not end on page one with the bad-guys materialising their
planet-smashing bombs in the Star Emperorâs private toilet.
I enjoyed the âHooded Swanâ novels very much. They were among the
few SF novels that imagine space-flight on a model derived from civil
aviation rather than maritime traditions.
> On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 04:49:57 +1100, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Continuing the very useful discussion on FTL, I'm going to get my long
> pointy stick out once more and prod the ListMind Collective again to
> come up with between us from SF movies, TV and literature?
There's the "hyper limit" modifier such as Honor Harrington and Cherryh
Union/Alliance, where trying to enter hyperspace too close to a star or
decent sized celestial object either doesn't work or has disastrous
consequences.
In the Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn (I think) and the Polity setting by
Neal Asher there are FTL disruptor things which cause ships to drop into
normal space.
I think of FTL as a plot device to get all the ships in one spot so they
can shoot at each other. From that viewpoint, the important aspects of FTL for
a tabletop game are how and where you can arrive or depart, and with what
level of precision. (From an earlier question, yes I've played several games
where one side sets up and the other jumps in.)
Do people fight battles in hyperspace? It happens in Honor Harrington and
Babylon 5.
In Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" series there are two forms of interstellar
jumping:
Jump points - I can't remember off the top of my head if the ships have
a jump drive or not, but hyperspace can only be entred at certain points
in a system and these points will each lead to only one destination. Transit
can take days to weeks with only some relation to physical distance.
Hypernet - ships with an appropriate hypernet key can enter the hypernet
system through gates and jump to any other system on the hypernet. Transit is
very rapid.
Oh, and then there's this one from "Bill the Galactic Hero" to consider:
Bloater Drive[edit
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill,_the_Galactic_Hero&acti
on=edit§ion=4>]
The standard ways of circumventing relativity in 1950s and 1960s science
fiction werehyperspace
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspace_%28science_fiction%29>,subspac
e <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspace_%28science_fiction%29>and
spacewarp. Harrison's contribution was the "Bloater Drive". This enlarges the
gaps between the atoms of the ship until it spans the distance to the
destination, whereupon the atoms are moved back together
again, reconstituting the ship at its previous size but in the new
location. An occasional side-effect is that the occupants see a planet
drifting, in miniature, through the hull.
> On 01/11/2015 23:01, Hugh Fisher wrote:
> come up with between us from SF movies, TV and literature?
> for a
> where
I'm a little behind - but I wanted to comment on the use of "arrival out
of FTL" rules: I've done a number of my convention games with something along
those lines. I can't remember if what I use is similar to the original
rules, or if I've houseruled it completely - but I usually make each
ship plot an arrival jump point before the game, and then on the first three
turns the players make a roll per ship to see if they arrive on that turn
(usually it's a 1 to arrive on the first turn, 1-2 for the second turn,
and
so forth - by the 6th turn everyone is on the table). When they arrive,
they roll a D12 for direction and a D6-1 for distance and displace their
arrival from the plotted jump point.
It's worked pretty well to mix things up - you make plans for your
fleet, but you're at the mercy of the dice as to where and when each ship will
actually arrive. For new players its also kind of nice because the first
couple of rounds they're getting the hang of things with just a couple of
ships and as more ships arrive things get more complex. It just sucks when
your SDN doesn't arrive until late into the fight.
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:39 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the issue with the FTL system is that it is more intertwined
Further
> muddying the waters, to my knowledge, most of these games don't even
:-D
> I think the real question may be how do we change player perceptions
Of late again I have been (on a scenario by scenario basis) starting to
> enforce a rule that if a ship has been reduced to it's last hull row,
I have issues with the Klingon model of starship battles as well - but
I've had a hard time coming up with good general victory rules that
simultaneously encourage damaged ships to disengage/surrender, but at
the same time make it so that the opposing side is encouraged to allow enemy
ships to disengage/surrender. If it's point advantageous to exit a ship,
then its advantageous to the opponent to prevent that from happening.
In a more realistic situation that isn't in the Klingon fight to the final
hull box mode both sides have an expectation to be treated fairly if captured
and to treat their enemies fairly. Maybe something along the lines of the
mission motivation rules from Stargrunt II would be good to use in Full
Thrust. Actually one thing that I would love to see in a new edition of Full
Thrust might be guidelines and suggestions (not necessarily hard rules) for
creating scenarios beyond just setting up two fleets with equal points and
slugging away at one another.
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Roger Bell_West <roger@firedrake.org>
wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 05:49:57PM +0000, Jon Tuffley wrote:
Charles Stross's Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise also featured more than one
type of FTL. I know there were BSG style jump drives, and also wormholes.
BTW, I love the idea of having different options for the FTL drive as part of
the rules. I think the main difference would be in the proportion of mass of
each ship required, with maybe a small difference in total point value, unless
a particular type would have a significant impact on the tactical level on the
table. For example, fixed point jump
drives/wormholes/stargates would be pretty limiting because the ships
could
only move in/out at specific locations, while BSG styles jump drives, or
whooshy Star Trek warp would have a lot more flexibility.
The Tie Fighter computer games also introduced (I believe it was introduced
there at least) the idea of the special systems that could affect other
ships ability to enter hyperspace and/or pull ships out of hyperspace.
Where I played, we did. It was a blast and made formation flying a pain
On Monday, November 2, 2015 2:02 AM, Randy Wolfmeyer
> <rwwolfme@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm a little behind - but I wanted to comment on the use of "arrival
out of FTL" rules: I've done a number of my convention games with something
along those lines. I can't remember if what I use is similar
to the original rules, or if I've houseruled it completely - but I
usually make each ship plot an arrival jump point before the game, and then on
the first three turns the players make a roll per ship to see if they arrive
on that turn (usually it's a 1 to arrive on the first turn,
1-2 for the second turn, and so forth - by the 6th turn everyone is on
the table). When they arrive, they roll a D12 for direction and a D6-1
for distance and displace their arrival from the plotted jump point.
It's worked pretty well to mix things up - you make plans for your
fleet, but you're at the mercy of the dice as to where and when each ship will
actually arrive. For new players its also kind of nice because the first
couple of rounds they're getting the hang of things with just a couple of
ships and as more ships arrive things get more complex. It just sucks when
your SDN doesn't arrive until late into the fight.
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:39 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be interested in
everyone else's opinions on it too.
It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of
situations - I don't know how many players have ever used the "arrival
out of FTL" rules in a gameâ¦.anyone here? The only other real effect that
you get in game terms by having FTL drives as a separate ship
system is that loss of them will strand the damaged ship in-system by
making escape to FTL impossible, but again that is quite a minor factor
and more of use in campaign terms than a one-off game.
As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought through
at all, how about doing away with the FTL drive as a "paid for" system and
making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge), Life
Support and Power Core icons?
Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other ideas on
the matterâ¦â¦.
Jon (GZG)
Interesting discussion so far, please keep the comments coming! :-)
Some did mention C. J. Cherryh's Merchanter books, which has a "travel
through" Hyperspace model with a jump limit far out on the system fringes, but
when incoming ships drop out of hyper they are still doing a significant
fraction of c in realspace and there is mention of them "pulsing" their jump
drives (presumably "in reverse") while inbound in order to bleed off
velocityâ¦. none of this is really explained, which
in some ways is one of the things I like about the series - the general
lack of technobabble/PSB, things just "are" and the characters use them
in their everyday lives without the need to pseudo-explain everything.
Cherry's universe is a bit of a special case of course, since there are
very few planetary colonies - in most systems the human presence is only
on the huge space stations, thus all inbound and outbound traffic is
basically headed to and from one point in the system - of course this
would make the stations terribly vulnerable to hypervelocity bombardment from
the edge of a system, and indeed there are passing mentions to a few stations
being "blown" in the wars, but overall there is a consensus that this is just
"not done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled worlds into big glass
marblesâ¦.
One of my current personal favourites (largely because it feels quite
"game-able") from recent publications is the Jump Universe series by
Mike Moscoe (starting with "The Price of Peace") - Moscoe wrote the Kris
Longknife series under the pseudonym of Mike Shephard, the books I'm referring
to form a set of prequels to the Longknife books, set a generation earlier
(and, IMHO, are actually better). Moscoe's "Jump Universe" has FTL via a
series of Jump Points providing instantaneous transit to another jump point,
systems having varying
numbers of points of varying degrees of "stability" - the most stable
ones are the only type used by commercial shipping, while the less stable
points (in that they tend to wander around a bit, and are thus harder to
locate and more difficult to traverse safely) are used only by the military,
explorers and in emergency situations. Each point may be connected to just one
other in another system, or it may actually lead to several options according
to exactly how the ship enters the point (exact angle and velocity, plus other
entirely PSB factors like the spin on the shipâ¦). It doesn't appear that
ships need any special drives to
transit a jump point - anything can be sent through provided it enters
the point on the right vector. This setup makes for quite an interesting
situation, obviously the most
stable and commonly-used jump points in a system will be defended in a
war situation, but there is always the possibility that the attackers might
pop through a less stable (or even previously undetected) point elsewhere in
the systemâ¦.
Jon (GZG)
> On 2 Nov 2015, at 09:34, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Where I played, we did. It was a blast and made formation flying a
system and making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge),
Life Support and Power Core icons?
> Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other
Haven't been keeping up this weekend; had several 'those kind of ' days.
Did want to suggest a good STARTING point is David Manley's article for
Ragnarok 21. Remember, this was written in the days of four fire arcs.
<a href="http://www.sfsfw.org/a/21/light.php">Tripping the Light
Fantastic </a>
In the end, I tend to think MOST FTL is either a jump drive or jump
gates, /w 'Chrome'.
Doug
PS I'd REALLY like to discuss 'there is a consensus that this is just "not
done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled worlds into big glass
marbles....' someday, but there's new rules to be hashed!
From: Gzg [mailto:gzg-bounces@firedrake.org] On Behalf Of Jon Tuffley
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2015 6:38 AM
To: Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com>; gzg@firedrake.org
Subject: Re: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL
Interesting discussion so far, please keep the comments coming! :-)
Some did mention C. J. Cherryh's Merchanter books, which has a "travel
through" Hyperspace model with a jump limit far out on the system fringes, but
when incoming ships drop out of hyper they are still doing a significant
fraction of c in realspace and there is mention of them "pulsing" their jump
drives (presumably "in reverse") while inbound in order to bleed off
velocity.... none of this is really explained, which
in some ways is one of the things I like about the series - the general
lack of technobabble/PSB, things just "are" and the characters use them
in their everyday lives without the need to pseudo-explain everything.
Cherry's universe is a bit of a special case of course, since there are
very few planetary colonies - in most systems the human presence is only
on the huge space stations, thus all inbound and outbound traffic is
basically headed to and from one point in the system - of course this
would make the stations terribly vulnerable to hypervelocity bombardment from
the edge of a system, and indeed there are passing mentions to a few stations
being "blown" in the wars, but overall there is a consensus that this is just
"not done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled worlds into big glass
marbles....
One of my current personal favourites (largely because it feels quite
"game-able") from recent publications is the Jump Universe series by
Mike Moscoe (starting with "The Price of Peace") - Moscoe wrote the Kris
Longknife series under the pseudonym of Mike Shephard, the books I'm referring
to form a set of prequels to the Longknife books, set a generation earlier
(and, IMHO, are actually better). Moscoe's "Jump Universe" has FTL via a
series of Jump Points providing instantaneous transit to another jump point,
systems having varying
numbers of points of varying degrees of "stability" - the most stable
ones are the only type used by commercial shipping, while the less stable
points (in that they tend to wander around a bit, and are thus harder to
locate and more difficult to traverse safely) are used only by the military,
explorers and in emergency situations. Each point may be connected to just one
other in another system, or it may actually lead to several options according
to exactly how the ship enters the point (exact angle and velocity, plus other
entirely PSB factors like the spin on the ship...). It doesn't appear that
ships need any special drives to
transit a jump point - anything can be sent through provided it enters
the point on the right vector. This setup makes for quite an interesting
situation, obviously the most
stable and commonly-used jump points in a system will be defended in a
war situation, but there is always the possibility that the attackers might
pop through a less stable (or even previously undetected) point elsewhere in
the system....
Jon (GZG)
On 2 Nov 2015, at 09:34, Charles Lee
> <xarcht@yahoo.com<mailto:xarcht@yahoo.com>> wrote:
Where I played, we did. It was a blast and made formation flying a pain
On Monday, November 2, 2015 2:02 AM, Randy Wolfmeyer
> <rwwolfme@gmail.com<mailto:rwwolfme@gmail.com>> wrote:
I'm a little behind - but I wanted to comment on the use of "arrival out
of FTL" rules: I've done a number of my convention games with something along
those lines. I can't remember if what I use is similar to the
original rules, or if I've houseruled it completely - but I usually make
each ship plot an arrival jump point before the game, and then on the first
three turns the players make a roll per ship to see if they arrive
on that turn (usually it's a 1 to arrive on the first turn, 1-2 for the
second turn, and so forth - by the 6th turn everyone is on the table).
When they arrive, they roll a D12 for direction and a D6-1 for distance
and displace their arrival from the plotted jump point.
It's worked pretty well to mix things up - you make plans for your
fleet, but you're at the mercy of the dice as to where and when each ship will
actually arrive. For new players its also kind of nice because the first
couple of rounds they're getting the hang of things with just a couple of
ships and as more ships arrive things get more complex. It just sucks when
your SDN doesn't arrive until late into the fight.
On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:39 AM, Jon Tuffley
> <jon@gzg.com<mailto:jon@gzg.com>> wrote:
Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be interested in
everyone else's opinions on it too.
It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of
situations - I don't know how many players have ever used the "arrival
out of FTL" rules in a game....anyone here? The only other real effect that
you get in game terms by having FTL drives as a separate ship
system is that loss of them will strand the damaged ship in-system by
making escape to FTL impossible, but again that is quite a minor factor
and more of use in campaign terms than a one-off game.
As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought through
at all, how about doing away with the FTL drive as a "paid for" system and
making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge), Life
Support and Power Core icons?
Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other ideas on
the matter.......
Jon (GZG)
> On 2 Nov 2015, at 15:37, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> Havenât been keeping up this weekend; had several âthose kind of
Thanks Doug, useful to re-read that, I hadn't looked at it since it was
first published in the Rag!
> In the end, I tend to think MOST FTL is either a jump drive or jump
In terms of game effects, you're probably right there! A long time ago (and I
have no idea who originally came up with it) I
recall a very simple way of doing a version of "Warp Drive" in FT - once
the drive is engaged, the ship may not turn or manoeuvre at all, but it
DOUBLES its velocity each turn until it exits the table (so unless it starts
off going very slowly indeed, it will usually be off the table in a couple of
moves). The ship cannot fire while it is accelerating into warp, but for "fun"
game effect it may still be fired AT and take damageâ¦.
> Doug
Well, my comment was specifically about Cherryh's Merchanter universeâ¦. the
big stations are simply too valuable to destroy (at least in wars between the
human factions)â¦â¦ most of the
wars/disputes are more about who "owns" the stations and can trade with
them, rather than trying to wipe out the enemy population. Of course, throw
genocidal aliens (or indeed extremist human factions) into the mix
and all bets are off - in fact Cherryh's model of human settlement would
be horribly vulnerable to any REAL enemy threat, and is thus quite difficult
to gameâ¦.
Jon (GZG)
> From: Gzg [mailto:gzg-bounces@firedrake.org] On Behalf Of Jon Tuffley
Cherry's universe is a bit of a special case of course, since there are
very few planetary colonies - in most systems the human presence is only
on the huge space stations, thus all inbound and outbound traffic is
basically headed to and from one point in the system - of course this
would make the stations terribly vulnerable to hypervelocity bombardment from
the edge of a system, and indeed there are passing mentions to a few stations
being "blown" in the wars, but overall there is a consensus that this is just
"not done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled worlds into big glass
marblesâ¦.
> One of my current personal favourites (largely because it feels quite
system and making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge),
Life Support and Power Core icons?
> Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other
> On Monday 02 Nov 2015 15:59:49 Jon Tuffley wrote:
I did this for my Star Wars rules for Hyperspace (though the speed
quadrupled/quartered rather than doubled/halved). Not sure if this
is what you're thinking of:
http://www.glendale.org.uk/ft/starwars/index
> On Monday 02 Nov 2015 01:23:00 Randy Wolfmeyer wrote:
The Interdictor class ISD appeared in the Star Wars RPG in the 1980s:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Interdictor-class_Star_Destroyer
> On 2 Nov 2015, at 18:35, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> On Monday 02 Nov 2015 15:59:49 Jon Tuffley wrote:
It's possible, Sam, though I'm sure I recall the original idea being applied
to engaging Star Trek style warp drives⦠still, all good stuff, thanks for
the link!
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 7:59 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> On 2 Nov 2015, at 15:37, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
Have recently dug deep through Cherryh's Chanur/Merchanter Universe, it
is
mostly a Jump Point/line system. I have more than once though the
Concepts and mapping conventions would make for a Interesting set of games.
That's right!! My copy of the Imperial Sourcebook was "borrowed" by a friend a
long time ago. I think I became aware of its usefulness in setting
up scenarios when playing Tie-Fighter.
Randy Wolfmeyer
On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 12:37 PM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> On Monday 02 Nov 2015 01:23:00 Randy Wolfmeyer wrote:
I use something similar in my gaming universe. Originally I used stable
point-to-point wormholes (usually placed in orbit at the trojan points
of gas giants for stable orbits), but I found, as many others have before me,
that it leads to severe choke points. The big battles are going to be fought
at the wormholes, and it basically turns into space based siege warfare
because if you can control the wormholes, you control all access. And if only
one ship can transit the wormhole at a time, it becomes very very difficult to
break that hold. I think this is what happened in the Mote in God's Eye
universe.
So in later iterations, I've added more of the Jump Drive aspect to it. My PSB
is that quantum entanglement relies on wormholes, so you just have to
"convince" some particles here that they're entangled with particles over
there - widen the wormhole connecting them and go through it. At the
tech
level of my gaming universe, the jump drives only work in-system - they
haven't been used for interstellar trips yet, the uncertainty in arrival point
increases with distance traveled. They still use the stable wormholes for
travel between star systems, but you can thread your entangled
wormholes through the stable wormhole - so that the stable wormholes are
still important strategic points, but you can use them over a wider area of
space, so they don't become the strategic choke points that they had been.
I still have older ships that can only transit through stable wormholes and
travel through space between wormholes the old fashioned way, but all of the
newer ships have the entanglement jump drives. It also means I can also
justify cooler looking ships because they don't have to have a huge pile of
reaction mass to travel the distance between wormholes. So it's pretty much a
make stuff up so that I can have the space battles and cool ships that I want
to have.
Randy Wolfmeyer
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 6:37 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Interesting discussion so far, please keep the comments coming! :-)
> And if only one ship can transit the wormhole at a time,
Starfireâs system entrances were similar, as is the finally to Wing
Commander movie, just for a couple of points of reference.
Of course, Starfire then invented this complex arms race with
self-transiting missiles.
> On 3 Nov 2015, at 15:45, Randy Wolfmeyer <rwwolfme@gmail.com> wrote:
> â¦â¦... So it's pretty much a make stuff up so that I can have the
Which, let's face it, is EXACTLY what this is all about! :-)
> On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 05:16:17PM +0000, Jon Tuffley wrote:
"No longer will you have to end a game after three turns because it is
closing time - with FULL THRUST you can hammer the Enemy (maybe even
twice!) and still get that pint in before last orders!
Which has since become a part of my own rules design philosophy.
R
Another universe where this is very much so is that depicted in the
âAntares Trilogyâ (http://www.scifi-az.com/antares2.htm) by Michael
McCollum (which is worth reading BTW). In that universe, multiple ships could
jump at the same time, but quantum âscatteringâ during the jump meant that
their arrival positions could not be controlled
precisely, making formation-keeping in jump essentially impossible.
An interesting question is âdo your jump-points move relative to the
planets etc. in their solar-systems, and if so by how much?â even in
the outer solar-system, orbital velocities are high (Neptuneâs average
is 5.43km/s) so if the jump-point is somehow âfixedâ relative to
that orbit, minefields, space-ships, orbital fortresses etc. would have
to accelerate constantly to maintain station. This might impact on the
practicality of a âclose defenceâ of jump points.
In the âMoteâ novels, Alderson jumps took place between points of
"equipotential thermonuclear fluxâ, and it seemed to be suggested that
these points were somehow in fixed locations in their solar-systems,
which in turn would imply that they were in motion relative to anything
in orbit, and vice-versa.
> On 4 Nov 2015, at 02:45, Randy Wolfmeyer <rwwolfme@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 Nov 2015, at 00:37, Robert N Bryett <rbryett@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another universe where this is very much so is that depicted in the
Expanding a little on Moscoe's "Jump Universe" books, there is a neat little
bit of PSB to explain why the jump points appear to "wander about"â¦â¦ the
"linked" points between two or more systems are in effect THE SAME POINT, and
are orbiting around BOTH (or all!) the stars they connectâ¦.. thus to the
observer in one system, the motion of a given jump point doesn't appear to
follow any rules because it is moving in response to the stars at both ends!
The most "stable" points are those which have the least movement, and have
been heavily studied and analysed to predict whatever relative movement they
do have; the
unstable/unsurveyed ones seem to leap about quite randomly due to the
much wider difference in relative motion between the orbits at both endsâ¦..
all this is highly implausible, of course, but it does serve as rather a nice
narrative (and possibly gameable?) trickâ¦..
Jon (GZG)
> On 4 Nov 2015, at 02:45, Randy Wolfmeyer <rwwolfme@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 11:37:26AM +1100, Robert N Bryett wrote:
There's a trick you can do with that: statites, which use a solar sail to
modify their orbits on a continuous basis. This was proposed for
example for a sky-stationary satellite over the poles. Nobody's built
one yet, but the maths appears to be valid.
(Which is not to deny your point, but rather to suggest what such minefields,
fortresses, etc., might look like.)
R
Sorry, I seem to have not received Robert's note.
Just to play the constant clueless contrarian, this sort of breaks down in my
head as the two end point systems are probably moving at tens of thousands of
mph to each other.
'...ain't like dusting crops, boy...'
Doug
[quoted original message omitted]
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Robert N Bryett <rbryett@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another universe where this is very much so is that depicted in the
I read the first two books. Not bad, but expensive as hell ($15 for a
paperback??). :-/ Didn't continue reading as I had minis to buy. :-D
Mk
> An interesting question is âdo your jump-points move relative to the
> On 5 Nov 2015, at 00:33, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
Tears on your diamond necklace, mate. Thanks to Australiaâs cosy
publisherâs cartel, paperbacks are normally A$30-40. I bought the
Antares novels as e-books for around A$7 each. Having a Kindle makes me
much readier to take a chance on books, though I donât know how many
one would have to read to compensate for the cost of the e-reader (I got
mine as a gift, and e-readers have many advantages other than the lower
cost of e-books).
RB
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 5:33 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> Didn't continue reading as I had minis to buy. :-D
As we all know that is a Valid excuse....
On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 8:06 PM, Robert N Bryett <rbryett@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5 Nov 2015, at 00:33, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
Hmmm! I'm not familiar with that colloquialism.
> Thanks to Australiaâs cosy publisherâs cartel, paperbacks are
Having
> a Kindle makes me much readier to take a chance on books, though I
I know there's a relative difference in cost between products in Australia and
in the US, but still, US $15 for a paperback is fairly outrageous
(imo), when paperbacks used to go for $5-8. (I honestly have not gone
out pricing books too much over the past years as minis and Other Hobby
Interest Gear has taken the focus of my available funding, and I have been
dabbling in audiobooks, but still a 2x-3x markup for a paperback?)
Mk
> RB
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 6:35 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know there's a relative difference in cost between products in
âÂÂI did a quick check, and the issue here is that McCollum's books aren't
mass market paperback. Antares Dawn was originally published as a mass market
paperback by Del Rey back in 1986. âÂÂAccording to McCollum's web site, the
current edition (which is by a company that's either doing small press runs,
or POD) is trade paperback. A small run trade paperback priced in the $15
range is reasonable. (Mind you, according to the dimensions on Amazon, it's a
*small* trade paperback.)