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Hey guys -- I'm the new player. I'll create a couple of forum aliases. I still have to pick up starting equipment for my engineer character.
There are 6 seats on the ship; can I assume there's a storage area somewhere, where Boomer can store his battlesuit? He won't wear it around on the ship, only when he has reason to suspect that there might be hazards ahead.
Just to make sure I have my points correct, where do you expect us to be in total (with points given to us).
I'm curious as well—thinking of using my many unspent XP on something big, like becoming a car the party can drive around in on land or something.
@Boomer: There's a cargo bay where we kept a battle suit earlier.
Also, don't forget: I'm running a very complex machine shop in the cargo bay. In the span of 3 weeks, I can reasonably fabricate any basic equipment people want to add to their inventory—anything under around $100 or TL≤8 should only take about a day to make.
@GM: Any feelings on nanobots? I'm thinking of dumping some more XP into wealth, and building a few nanobot swarms that I can release from my belly, but this might not fit thematically with "space opera".
By my count, 17 XP have been awarded between Bringer and me :
1 - Bringer
4 - Bringer
8 - me (during the story's paradigm shift, to be put into running the ship)
2 - me (a while ago, to cover the new ship's new skills)
2 - me (just now, to cover the new ship's new skills)
Rknop - your PC's can have 4 (total) extra points to be put into running the ship (see recent post in Gameplay for the list).
April - yeah, not so big on nanobots in this setting...sorry. I did say back at the turn of the year that "I'd like to de-emphasize the presence of cybernetics and nanobots" in this setting.
Okay! Well, 17 XP is certainly enough to buy something big (like, say, that spider-car thing people were talking about earlier) if there's interest.
Alright everyone! I'm considering spending 7 XP on Duplication so I can control two bodies at once (currently I get two, but one has to stay on the ship; a third could be fun), and am thinking of making one of those bodies a vehicle. Any thoughts on what sort of vehicle? I could just go with like a hovercraft, or something more tank-like, or a sweet truck or something.
Technically, only the 5 points Bringer gave you can be spent on anything. The other points I gave you were to be specifically applied to skills for running and maintaining the ship.
But, once you get those 7 points, there's already a wheeled ATV in the hangar Bay - could you be retrofitted into it?
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Something that can bring a few people, in any event. Hovercraft are cool, so clearly it should be that :) (I'm thinking something like a GEV from the Ogre universe.)
How big is our ship? How much hardware like this can it carry?
Boomer's got a battlesuit, so he won't need protection. His move in it is 10, so he's faster than walking, but slower than a lot of vehicles would be. (Actually, given Super Jump 3, I think he can move at Move 16 "on the bounce". That puts him at 30mph or 53 km/h, so it's not terrible, but still a lot less than a zippy hovercraft.) If the vehicle is going to be a lot faster than that, then having somewhere on the outside where Boomer could latch on would help.
The ATV we already have can hold 10 people, same as an armored hovercraft. While hovercraft can travel on water, they cost more than twice as much as an ATV, so we (the players) went with an ATV.
Its top speed is 120 mph. I'm sure we can find some way to strap you onto the vehicle (maybe it has a roof rack? :).
The ship has 3 free cargo holds, each capable of holding 15 tons; the Hangar Bay can carry 10 tons (without the ATV). The ship is 90 feet long.
Sorry about missing this recent flurry of posts. My hard drive failed on Sunday and I'm just now getting things squared away with a new drive. Spent a lot of today waiting for customer service to fix a few things. I'll try to post something later tonight, but I've got something work related to finish up first. I'll be away most of Saturday, but I'm looking forward to the resumption of our exciting new mission and meeting the new crew members.
I'm having a computer problem that may keep me from making a substantive post tonight. I'll see if I can post something through my iPad.
sciency stuff = whatever the scientist can do with the skills and equipment available.
Since Aster doesn't have those skills, he asked for someone that is likely to have something that would be able to make sense of the equipment.
Update: computer has been broken for a week, power button is malfunctioning such that the computer shuts down after 30 seconds of use. I'll be offline for a few more days, unless I can continue to sneak in PbP time at work...
Auto shut-down after just a few seconds could also be a sign of the CPU overheating (so it doesn't get damaged).
Are all the fans in the computer working? Are the air vents clear of dust and hair?
Or, the seal between the CPU and its heat sink (big chunk of metal with lots of vanes) may have worked loose. I've been able to fix that kind of problem in my own desktop before, but I wouldn't recommend that you try that yourself on a laptop...
Update: computer has been broken for a week, power button is malfunctioning such that the computer shuts down after 30 seconds of use. I'll be offline for a few more days, unless I can continue to sneak in PbP time at work...
Heh... when I first saw this, I thought it was in-game.
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With your Astronomy training you'd know that "open clusters" (my bad for originally calling it a globular cluster) are common thruout the Milky Way, and several are known to have as few stars as this one. So this system is nothing out of the ordinary. The other stars in the cluster range from white (about twice as hot as Sol) to red (about half as hot as Sol).
I suppose I should warn you that in real life I have a Physics PhD, and my thesis was "Infrared Spectroscopy of Seyfert Galaxies". So, I also know lots of astronomy, and teach lots of astronomy courses....
(If ever listened to the "365 Days of Astronomy" Podcast, I recorded a few of those several years ago. I also used to give astronomy public outreach talks in Second Life.)
If I ever push the astronomy knowledge too far, let me know. I know that things in-game won't match real life. So, if I start wondering things like "how could there be this many civilizations in an open cluster, open clusters tend to dissipate after a billion years, leaving not much time for life to evolve", let me know I'm taking it too far. On the other hand, I'm tempted to conclude that the stars in this cluster are colonized rather than places where life evolved in the first place for just that reason....
I have a masters in physics. I developed an interest in astronomy a little too late or I might have pursued an advanced degree in astronomy. So this should be interesting.
With space opera, one can always plug a scientific hole with a pseudo-scientific plot device. We don't yet know much about how fast evolution works in various environments. It could be earth's evolution was retarded by some feature that is different in the star cluster. Or maybe a sufficiently advanced civilization could spike the environment with something that would accelerate the evolution (see David Brin's Uplift series).
Space colonies, of course, would be equally interesting to discover as a civilization that evolved from scratch, as it were.
Nope the keyboard is screwed up such that the power button auto-fires. Computer is now in the shop.
Meanwhile, I work in astrobiology, and just got back from a conference where half the participants are sponsored by NASA. So uh...
Well! I too have a strong interest in physics and astronomy, having studied them both on my own since I was in middle school. I came *this* close to getting a B.S. in physics, but the college I ended up going to had such a much better electrical engineering department that I went that route instead. But in particular, I've spent the last 6 years trying to understand the deep mathematics of general relativity, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory to the best of my ability.
Just everyone please keep in mind, "space opera" means sometimes sacrificing the hard science for the sake of the story... :)
I took physics 101 and watch lots of star trek.
Does that count?
Hey guys! I've been basically without a computer for two weeks, but I'm back to 100% now. Let me know if there's anything you want APRIL to try to translate/decrypt (I speak all "known" languages for which translation software exists, but not secret ones of course) and have like 27 for my Crypto score, but other than that I can wait until the party does the next thing to jump into the action.
You could jump in now if you wanted, to contribute your thoughts on what to observe in this star system, how to make first contact, etc. I'm assuming that as an AI you can formulate plans and have opinions...?
My teaching schedule is changing again at the end of this week and this time I have an extra class which will mean an extra 10 hours out of my schedule, so posting time will be less frequent. I'll try to keep up as best I can but it might be a bit slow in the middle of the work week.
I'm also going to have some extra prep time needed this week to be ready for it.
Once again, I've used the wrong character when posting for Dr. Rix. Part of the reason is that the character is also from a futuristic game like this one. But the other reason is that once I did that once, the name is now at the top of the "Post As" list above Dr. Rix.
GM: Click on the Campaign Tab and then on the "Edit this Campaign" link. Near the bottom is a list of characters who have posted with check boxes that allow you to make a character "inactive". Make 1dr0meda inactive (both as a PC and an NPC) and I will be less likely to make this mistake again.
Sorry.
Done. No problem.
Thanks.
Seeing as it didn't take them months or years to get out to meet us, they have to have FTL (in which case we wouldn't have detected their travel to us), reactionless engines, or very high efficiency fusion torches with a good matter conversion capability.
Depending on how their FTL works, pirates wouldn't likely be possible.
With reactionless or vhe fusion, they could get up to a significant fraction of c. This would also require decent shields.
So FTL. Gate would eliminate pirates. Hyperspace or warp might allow for pirates. Hyperspace more so than warp. Warp (in our universe just very very fast aka Star Trek) requires really good sensors to avoid colliding with a planet. Thus it would assume that ships would be able to detect and avoid each other relatively easy. Hyperspace, aka Honor Harrington or Babylon 5 would allow for slower relative travel, allow pirates to lie in wait at choke points, etc.
What kind of FTL did we have?
I *may* have cheated in their travel time out to you, so that you wouldn't have to wait *weeks* for them to get to you. Please don't take that as a data point. :)
Y'all have warp drive. But in Star Trek, two ships can battle while in warp (I'm not saying it's logical, it's just out there).
And remember, Space Opera...
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In space opera style rules I've written in the past (I wrote a set for Fudge once upon a time), I had such things as "warp sensors" that allowed you to detect warp signatures at FTL ranges.
(Really, one can just assert that a ship moving at warp speed emits tachyons, and then you should be able to detect them at FTL ranges.)
So do we get eight weeks of downtime? At 8 hours a day, that's 448 hours, or 2 CP for trained, 1 CP self taught.
Sure, no problem.
ALL - BTW, it looks like we've lost April. I sent her a PM weeks ago, with no reply. I'll 'bot her as needed, as the ship's better-than-average AI. But I'll probably drop the drones that she had.
Dr. Rix will add a cp for her violin skill, since she'll have a lot of time to practice and feels it might be a nice way to share some of human culture with them if/when the opportunity arises.
I was going to make a roll to see if Rix might notice anything interesting in the soldiers or the neighborhood and then looked up how GURPS handles such rolls. Discovered there is an observation skill, which I overlooked in setting up my character. Can I adjust a few skill points to give Rix an average observation skill? As a doctor, she would be trained to spot indicators of disease and other problems and would likely apply those same skills in more general situations like this.
If allowed, I'll take a point off of Short sword skill and a point off of Vacc Suit and place them in the Observation skill.
Ummm...well, sorry, but this far into the game I'm not inclined to allow re-shuffling of characters (if I let you do it, then *everyone* will want to :). Her *medical* observation ability is probably rolled into her medical skills, like Diagnosis. But you can always put future CP's into generic Observation...
Why don't you just make a regular Perception roll?
That I can do. I was not sure what roll you would want to use for that and from my reading of the differences between perception and observation, observation would be the skill to use for an active attempt to spot helpful details from the general scene.
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Reading it, Observation is more of a covert observation skill. Casing the joint without anybody realizing you're doing it. The guy two tables over with his head in a newspaper who's watching everybody who's coming and going. That kind of thing.
Just noticing stuff, without worrying about whether or not anybody realizes you notice things, would be Perception, unless it's obviously out there, in which case you'd just see it. Interpreting what you noticed would be another relevant skill -- Tactics if somebody's setting up an ambush, Diagnosis or Expert Skill (Epidemiology) if there are signs of an illness, etc.
GM-- sorry, I hadn't put my stats in the profile yet. I'll get that done today.
Will you allow Derek to speed up the first six seconds of getting into the battlesuit with a succesfull Battlesuit roll? Alternatively, given that he's got Combat Reflexes, could he have been starting to suit up during the time when everybody was noticing ships and the offworld aliens were threatening everybody, and before combat actually began?
Derek does carry a laser pistol and a sonic stunner pistol in addition to the laser rifle that he uses with the battlesuit. If combat's gonna get nasty, though, he'd probably take a few seconds to get into the suit.
Have someone time you putting jeans shirt and shoes on.
Maybe just shoot this first group then armor up?
Derek - the way I read the rules, the only thing you can speed up is the entire powerup sequence, not just getting in the suit.
And Combat Reflexes only applies once you're *in* battle, it says nothing about anticipating a fight.
So, assuming you have a helmet the shortest amount of time you need to get in your armor is 6 seconds, by which time the battle may be over. Or, go without armor until this group of baddies is put down.
Hmm -- as written, Combat Reflexes doesn't really require you to be in battle:
You have extraordinary reactions, and are rarely surprised for more than a moment. ... You never “freeze” in a surprise situation, and get +6 on all IQ rolls to wake up, or to recover from surprise or mental “stun.” Your side gets +1 on initiative rolls to avoid a surprise attack – +2 if you are the leader. ....
What I'm proposing is that Derek would have been able to react pretty quickly. Surely all of this:
Assuming that you all follow, you eventually reach the front doors of the king's palace, where a throng of Leeunids are looking skywards in horror and dismay. Looking up yourselves, you see a space ship zooming around high in the atmosphere, trailing what appears to be a fine purple haze behind it.
Two smaller shuttles land in the nearby grass. Their doors open and two squads of an ape-like race climb out. One of them steps forward and addresses the crowd in a grunting voice :
"Rebellious scum of Simba, hear my words! Queen Anathraxa, supreme ruler of the cluster, has decreed that your race be punished for refusing to pay her tribute. Her Warships have dropped Death Dust into your atmosphere. Within a few short months your world will be dead, and you along with it. Your women and children will be moved to resettlement camps to await their fate. Your menfolk are to come with us."
With that, the ape-men fan out and begin advancing on the crowd. Several of the warriors, their honor impinged, charge forward, claws drawn. A burst of ray gun fire takes them down, including King Raoor, your host.
"Forget the resettlement camp," sneers the officer. "Kill the men and do what you will with the females."
took more than a second. If we were outside by the time the shuttles were landing, given all of the alarm that was present, Derek would probably have started suiting up once he saw them landing. The rest of that would have taken at the very least several seconds.
If you rule he doesn't get to start suiting up until the moment combat begins, then I will accept that, but given the narrative, and the fact that Combat Reflexes means generally not being caught surprised and flat-footed when things start to go south, I believe it makes sense that he would have had time to at the very least get started with suiting up.
Ok, so I'll give you 30 seconds (I timed it with a stopwatch) from the time the ape-man started to speak ("rebellious scum" is probably not a sign of good things to come) to the time the PC's enter the battle.
But that includes getting to the suit, and getting the suit back to the outside - let's say the suit is 10 yards into the King's house.
So, make a Battlesuit roll if you want to arrive back well before the PC's attack, else you'll probably arrive a few rounds into the battle.
P.S. - please get your profile up soon, thanks!
OK, thanks, sounds good.
Profiles are in for Boomer (with his AI ally below) and Olivia. Sadly, the paizo boards doesn't have a "pre" or "code" type formatting; these text files are formatted to look better with a monospace font and spaces not collapsed down to one space.
I often prefer to use google doc sheets and link them to the profile. So much more options with the editing.
Yeah... to actually build my characters, I use software I wrote myself (something like a decade ago). It keeps track of point totals and such, but doesn't have the full database of skills and traits the way the official GURPS software does. It exports text files that look OK in a text browser or with code tags,but alas Paizo doesn't have code tags.