Space Urchins (New Race)

> Schoon wrote:

> Ships for this race are built from a variety of spines, which have

Interesting design method. Add all the spines you want and then the core is
based on the total spine mass. The orders would be similar to power point
allocation but instead you are allocating a spine to each usage, unfortunately
this could still take a while each turn.

Any rules on spine placement? I see by the examples that multiple spines can
face the same direction, but I think there should be a limit that no
more than 1/3rd of the total spine mass can face the same direction.
This way you don't have ships overloaded on one side so they stay more
balanced and crystalline.

They do lack a heavy weapon (though you do mention specialized spines); how
about another basic spine ability of shooting out a portion of each spine as
a penetrating missile? To-hit roll similar to a Pulse Torp, only fire in
the 60 degree arc of the spine, requires a dedicated fire con, ignores
screens, 2d6 damage with the 1st 2 points applying to armor (if any) and the
rest penetrating to structure points. A spine may shoot only 1 'quill missile'
every other turn(?) and it reduces the spine class by 1 (class 3 spine shoots
a quill, next turn that spine is a class 2). With damage control
(growth energy) the spine could re-grow to its original level but if a
spine is reduced to class 0 by a quill fire or a threshold, that spine is
'dead' for the rest of that game (must return to the crystal lattice base for
regeneration). I assume from your original post that each spine must roll for
every threshold.

> Interesting design method. Add all the spines you want and then the

I shouldn't really take that long as long as you're not overloading one guy
with an entire fleet.

> Any rules on spine placement? I see by the examples that multiple
This
> way you don't have ships overloaded on one side so they stay more

This is a good idea. I hadn't really gotten as far as that, but I think that
you'll find that you actually WANT to have something facing in every
direction.

[snipped special spine stuff]
I'll get to that after I have the basics down...

> shoots a quill, next turn that spine is a class 2). With damage

Damage control is handled by the "crew" as usual. It can represent anything
you like, but it works by the same mechanics.

Yes, each spine rolls.