Battle map link:
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1YM64-6vjHjsX54dog3n84mGRsIs1pthuQnGww8F DHEs/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks! Looks good! The only thing I'd add is that there is some chance of some sort of cover (rock, dead tree stump, etc.) about every 5 hex apart.
And a deck plan too.
I was thinking something about the size of a firefly. Which is about twice the size of the millenium falcon.
I added an image of a pile of rocks which can be copied and pasted and moved onto the map where ever there is cover. The image is currently in the upper left corner of the map.
Aster: I put a deck plan of a small ship to the right of the battlemap. There are lots of similar plans that can be found with an Internet image search. I thought this was about the right size.
Anything you want to add to the map, just save it as an image file and then click the insert tool bar button and upload the image. It can be resized and moved about.
I find it best to click the view button and the 200% option to get a better view of the map.
I put a link to the battlemap in Rix's header. I recommend the GM do something similar or put the link in the header of the gameplay thread, so it's easy to get to the map as needed.
Aster - according to the RAW, the ship's length is 90 feet, which is 25 feet smaller than the Millenium Falcon. But it has multiple floors for more space.
Boomer and Aster - I just found this in the Aim section of the rules : "Your combined bonus from all targeting systems (scopes, sights, computers, etc.) cannot exceed the weapon's base Accuracy".
The GURMS forums clarify this by saying that this only applies to systems that add a bonus to your *Accuracy*, not your *Skill*.
Please go over your characters, and make sure that the systems you're using boost your Skill. If they boost Accuracy, please modify your Accuracy bonuses accordingly (total Acc cannot be more than twice the weapon's base Acc). Thanks!
The MF has a lot of TL11-12 technology, which generally means it gets smaller. The hyperspace engine is the size of a large coleman cooler. There are no appreciable fuel tanks on the ship, and it's endurance is designed for relatively short duration trips. It just doesn't have the space for a lot of food, water, waste, etc.
Our ship is designed with TL9-10 technology that has trips measured in weeks instead of hours.
That was one of the points I kept trying to bring up, the original GM wanted a little ship with early tech. It just wouldn't fit based on the rules.
MF - 34 meters long, 100 tons cargo, max passengers 6, consumables 2 months.
Firefly - 82 meters long, 22 meters high 82 tons cargo, max passengers 16.
The firefly is a lot closer to the TL we are using for size of components, but it's fuel tanks are still on the small size.
The NASA space shuttles were: 37 meters long, 17 meters high, carried 27 tons in cargo. Just to bring home a size comparison.
What I saw was something like (analogy coming): we need to keep the price down to something like a honda civic. But we're traveling across the country with it and will be sleeping and eating in it. We're NOT getting a class A recreational vehicle because it's too expensive. So we compromised on a minivan.
Since the players weren't paying for it, it really shouldn't have mattered unless doing the "mystery machine" was going to be a significant part of the game. I'd like to have something that is roughly the size of the firefly.
I searched through the records, and the original DM didn't post full stats, and he removed the link from his profile.
I seem to be having trouble finding the stats for the current ship (the new one made by the gov).
For what it's worth, the space ship image I added to the map at the upper right would be a little over 100 feet long @ 5' per square. It seems to be able to hold about 8 passengers (assuming 2 beds per pictured bunk) and about 700 square feet of cargo floor space. If what we're doing doesn't require rigorously worked out GURPS vehicle stats, I'd suggest we use the one pictured for now.
If someone can find something better, share the link and we can have a Google drawing set up for in ship roleplaying.
This link may be of interest:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=62539
It has a downloadable spreadsheet that purports to be able to use the GURPS rules to design a spaceship. So if someone wants to see what the GURPS rules could produce for our tech level and work out cost and size, have at it. I am content to leave this out of the game unless there's going to significant ship to ship combat.
There is a video about the spreadsheet on You Tube uploaded by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYBXDDud9g4
I notice the same author's You Tube home has a number of music lists that appear to be collections of music appropriate for various SF genres.
The map I used on the battlemap comes from this website, which has some notes on the ship's size and a complete printout of the GURPS specifications, for what it's worth:
https://woolshedwargamer.com/tag/gurps-spaceships/
While I'm at it, here is what the author posted for the ship:
I'll have to go play with that later! Thanks!
What we're doing doesn't require rigorously worked out GURPS vehicle stats. The size can be whatever people want.
True, I personally like to try and work within the rules whenever I can. It generally avoids unanticipated consequences. :)
Ideally I'd like each of us to have our own cabin, a few cabins for passengers.
As an interstellar ship a gym/entertainment facility is needed, along with a decent medbay.
I'd rather have great defenses than great weapons. A couple of deterrent guns is fine, but I'd rather outrun/avoid combat in our role as an exploratory/first contact ship.
The ship should still be small enough to land, having a shuttle and ground vehicles would be ideal.
We talked previously about trade cargo, along with consumables.
IIRC we're focusing on TL 10, with supertech for artificial gravity propulsion and power to space opera fuel and time constraints.
A couple of issues with the Marizela class:
You have to drop to 50% propulsion to fire the only weapon.
The only cargo space is in the weapon turret.
No shuttle or ground craft bay.
Some of us would have to hot bunk.
Increasing by one SM would allow us to reduce the number of habitat spaces and add a dedicated cargo space.
Oops, forgot about the 2xAcc rule! Fortunately, I'm nowhere near it. I am just including the +2 for targeting software and +2 for full auto, plus +1 for the additional round of shooting. The Acc of a laser rifle is 12.
(Hmm... should I have a HUD Acc bonus? I had this idea that was already included, but maybe it wasn't. That'd be another +1.)
GM: would it be possible to include the battlemap link with your posts, or in your Description line? That'll save us from having to search through this thread to find the link each time.
Aster -
The ship is currently small enough to land (even if it's Firefly size), so there's no need for a shuttle, and is 1 TL higher than anything in the cluster (that you know of), so it can outpace most cluster ships.
Where the heck did "Marizela class" come from? None of the stuff that followed applies to this ship.
*As is*, you have one hangar bay for the ATV, and 3 cargo hold slots. The med bay is in the room that used to hold April's equipment (she's now just the ship's AI), and there's some exercise equipment in it.
There's 6 cabins, just enough for the PC's and Roaroa. If you want more, you can give up a cargo hold slot. Your technician sleeps on a cot in the engine room.
Boomer - done.
Marizela is the one that Rix linked.
Don't confuse the picture for reality. ;)
Do a search on Google Images with the search entry "starship deck plans" and you'll find dozens of possible floor plans. I would suggest for those who are passionate about finding a deck plan that fits the vision you have of our ship to look over these and recommend something.
Just in case anyone was wondering, I just enjoy discussing the merits of stuff. In this case our ship.
I like most of the layout of the Firefly. I did purchase the published deckplan book a few years ago and I believe I have some PDF's around.
The only change I would make to it is to add a hatch into the cargo bay from the crew cabin corridor. In the TV show you see the crew using ladders from the bridge corridor to access their cabins. There is another corridor that connects all of the cabins but not any other part of the ship.
I do like that the crew cabins and bridge can be secured from the common areas and passenger quarters. Engineering can also be secured.
Most traveller deckplans assume that none of the passengers would have ill intent towards crew, engineering, the bridge, etc by not segregating these areas.
Star Wars tends to be either short term and too small or way too big. They also tend to forget basics like a kitchen or heads.
Star Trek is too high tech.
If we're assuming we have a reactionless thrust system, then shuttles beat wheeled any day. Wheeled groundcraft assumes you'll only be going to places that are paved or relatively flat. Something with a VTOL capability works much better for exploration further than walking distance from the craft.
I've never seen any evidence in Star Wars that anybody in that galaxy actually needs a bathroom....
However, they do need kitchens. Where else would they make their blue milk?
I've never seen any evidence in Star Wars that anybody in that galaxy actually needs a bathroom....
However, they do need kitchens. Where else would they make their blue milk?
Maybe when they have to go to the bathroom, they just use the force. :)
I think there are images of the Serenity deck plan on the Internet. I was about to look some over recently but got interrupted.
Saw the end of the movie (Serenity) a few nights ago.
I always thought that in Star Trek, they had miniature transporters in their bathrooms ("beam it out to deep space, wide dispersion")!
Regarding the "shuttle", using TL10-, non-anti-grav RAW the only options I see for flying transport are the Air Car, which costs more than twice as much as the ATV, and can't hold the entire crew (range 900 miles from the ship), and the Armored Hovercraft, which also costs more than twice as much as the ATV, and can hold the entire crew, but doesn't really fly (range 400 miles).
We discussed what kind of shuttle to get early on in the game, and the general consensus was the ATV (cheap, range 250 miles, full life support, moderate armor).
Or, if you *each* bought a Backpack Dragonfly for $6000, you'd be able to travel 50 miles away from the ship, but no armor or life support.
Keep in mind that when we made a lot of the discussions regarding the ship and the ATV it was when we were a bunch of relatively poor and had to pool resources to have a hunk of junk.
However, we now have a government paid for ship.
I think a lot of the technology issues comes into how much realism vs how much space opera we want.
We already figured out that the realistic TL 9 propulsion was going to seriously impact the SO feel and we changed it.
Let me put together a proposal, and you can look at it and see how it feels for what we're doing.
Aster - if you're interested in spec'ing out a "shuttle" for the group, you'll probably need it in the next scene (with the oracle).
Ask and ye shall receive!
Here's the spreadsheet I've previously shared. Please ignore the last 4 tabs, they're old builds that I was testing with.
The 30 ton shuttle uses TL 10 with standard reactionless thrusters and a fusion powerplant. The thrusters are the only ^equipment, and nicely avoids fueling and delta-v calculations.
This multi-role space-to-ground winged shuttle incorporates a variety of systems to support interstellar exploration. The control cabin has 5 crew stations, pilot, flight engineer, communications/sensors, and two weapon stations.
A comprehensive sensor suite allows the shuttle to effectively scan local space and planetary features. A spacious cargo hold provides 4.5 tons of lift capacity in addition to 4 passengers. The shuttle aslo contains a fully functional automed sickbay. A robotic arm allows for manipulation of extravehicular objects.
The primary defensive armament is a 10 megajoule particle cannon fixed forward. A dorsal turret incorporates two 3 megajoule particle cannon and a 16cm missile launcher for point defense. The flight engineer must coordinate between the engines and weapons as the shuttle does not have sufficient power to fire the main cannon and the turret cannons while running the engines at full power. The turret magazine holds 7 missiles. Ten missiles can be loaded per ton of cargo space dedicated to this.
The price tag for this small marvel of engineering is a measly 3.71 million credits.
The shuttle has a max atmospheric speed of just under mach 4. It's endurance is limited to short term trips.
Ummm...I was thinking more along the lines of an airplane, not a spaceship, since the Turing can land on planets. Your "shuttle" costs as much as the *entire* spaceship, and won't even fit in the hangar bay (10 ton max)!
Can you tone it down some - make it flying & hovering only, you can use the same trick I did for the Turing in allowing the fusion plant to power the jet engines, and *way* reduce the weapon firepower (like maybe small railguns instead of particle cannons)?
Otherwise, I'll dig into the Modern Tech rules to try and come up with something.
Sure, I can tone that down.
But our ship had better cost way more than 3 million bucks. That would be the equivalent of sending us out in a ford pinto.
30 tons is the smallest spaceship size. I had made this to be capable of space to ground. By definition, a "shuttle" is designed for space to surface.
What your asking for is a dingy.
Spaceships are not the kind of equipment that most players just buy. The costs are going to be very high.
If you do not want us to have that capability, then an aircar from UT is fine. But it's scary to think that the $500,000 air car is 1/6th the cost of the entire freaking interplanetary spaceship!
Look at the TL 9 exploration ships on page 9 of Spaceships 5. The hard sci-fi ship is 10000 tons for six crew and costs 293 million. The super sci with a spacedrive is 3000 tons, costs 165 million and has a crew of 6.
You gimmicking this to have a an interstellar spaceship that costs less than $3 million for a crew of six?
There's hand-waving some details and then there's throwing the book out.
At this point just make everything up, ignore any stats from any book, and call it GM fiat.
I don't have time to figure out why the RAW costs are so much bigger than mine, but I suspect that it's due to the "divide costs by 10 per TL lower than your own" that Bringer of Stories first used, which I much later found on a forum should have been "divide by TWO" (and perhaps Spaceships didn't divide by anything, ever?). Between all the TL 7 to TL 9 stuff I used on the ship, it could have easily cost a *lot* more without the divisors.
I assure you, I have been following the rules (with the exception of allowing the fusion reactor to power the jet engines, so you could have no worries about fuel), to the best of my knowledge.
But really, what does the actual cost of the ship matter, since EarthGov paid for it (and see below for my thoughts on the air car)?
Regarding the confusion about the word "shuttle", I was thinking of something that could "shuttle" you around the *surface* of a planet.
Maintaining the "divide by 10" rule, that brings the air car down to $50,000, which is only 1% of the cost of the spaceship. But as written, it can only hold 4 people, so perhaps *1.25 to add 4 extra seats? You can even add a couple of Light Machine Guns (6d damage, ROF 15) mounted on pivots on the hood for just $600.
You're right, since the government paid for it, the cost of the shuttle and the ship should not be a considerable factor.
Let's back up and talk about mission purpose and scale.
Our mission was an interstellar voyage to perform a first contact with an unknown alien species in an unknown environment. Those signals crossed a long distance, we won't know what we find when we get there.
We have an interstellar spaceship. This is a mobile base of operations, our home, garage, suitcase, repair-shop, doctor's office, kitchen, etc. We need to be completely self-sufficient to be able to make the round trip voyage. That means a full scale medical bay. Sufficient space for cargo and spare parts, a fabrication shop to build the spare parts needed.
Think of an RV on a camping trip. You drive to the camp ground and park the RV. You setup your campsite. On foot you'll walk how far from the RV? A few hundred feet? An hour? Now imagine your RV is on a planet and you're it. No rescue that you don't do for yourself.
Are you going to have a wheeled vehicle that extends you're range from an hour to a couple of hours, assuming you have flat ground?
Are you going to pack up the RV when you need to go six hours away? What about a quick scan 500 miles away?
Let's change our analogy from an RV to an ocean crossing ship. Your ship can raise it's keel allowing you to basically beach yourself to load and unload. But you need to check out the next cove over. Do you pull out a kayak? Walk inland (this'll take a day). Or would you rather have a motorboat launch that can zip over there in a few minutes? Keep in mind, this is an unchartered island.
Sure the big ship can pull up the gangway and work itself off the beach and move over, but that's like packing up that RV to check out the camp site on the other side of the lake. It'd be easier to have a jeep to zip over there and see if you did want to move the RV.
The millenium falcon, and much of star wars, wasn't designed around rural environments. The MF was designed to go from space port to space port and load/unload to the dock. Just look at the size of the boarding ramp!
The firefly universe does allow for a much more dispersed environment. They had quads for zipping around short ranges, an air car for mid range, and shuttles for longer planetary ranges and space-ground when landing the whole ship wasn't feasible.
So what makes sense for us?
Like I stated above, we need a self-sufficient ship for our mission to make any type of sense. Columbus didn't set sail with half the food he needed to get across the Atlantic. Nor did he tell his carpenters to leave their tools home because they'd trust in the one spare set of sails they brought.
A space-capable shuttle means that we would be able to: Not use the RV to close inspect the wreck floating in space. Be able to send a shuttle to the space station that did not have docking ports or a bay large enough for the RV. Use the aerodynamic shuttle to check out possible landing sites before bringing in the flying brick.
Once the RV was on the ground. We can walk a short distance from the ship. Use wheeled craft for slightly longer distances on flat terrain around the RV. Use something with VTOL capability for rough terrain or to go mid-long distance.
So let's back up to when the government is planing this mission.
What are the mission parameters? What do they want us to be able to accomplish?
The aforementioned spaceship components are pretty much a given. I doubt any of us would have agreed to be the first Earth ship to travel interstellar without a ship that had the best possible medical bay, sufficient supplies, a shop to repair things that broke, etc.
Do they want us to be able to make astronomical scans of the solar system we arrive at? That requires an upgraded sensor suite.
Do they want us to be able to make detailed survey scans of the planets? That requires an upgraded sensor suite.
Would they want us to be able to hide from hostile aliens? I would hope so! That requires beefed up defensive systems.
Would they want us to be able to defend ourselves? Well, there are often pretty stupid people in government bureaucracies. I can see this being minimized, and considerably less than we as the crew would like. This would depend on if the government was restrictive and/or liberal.
How well do they want us to be able to explore? For instance, they can't assume we'd land on planets that had an atmosphere perfectly suited to us. So the endurance of our spacesuits is a limiting factor. Assume that we can travel 25% of our endurance. That leaves 25% to get back, and 25-40% at the end, with a margin of 10-25%.
What if there is no atmosphere? Or a thin one? The aircar won't work. A shuttle will. Jet engines won't work. The shuttle will.
Olivia has the shortest endurance as she doesn't appear to have anything that is sealed. Dr. Rix is next at 18 hours with her suit.
The air car does not have any life support. The shuttle provides 24 hours of life support.
Based on the quarter increment schedule, And assuming Olivia at least had the ability of Dr. Rix, they could walk about 4 hours out from the ship, spend around 6 hours, and walk back with a 4 hour margin. Without a breathable atmosphere, the air car wouldn't operate (it's engines are air breathing), a shuttle would.
Now, if you're hand waving that every planet we land on is going to have an earth like atmosphere... I'd ask if that included Mars and Venus.
GURPS doesn't price break things for lowering the TL. Consider. It costs about a thousand bucks for a PC today. Twenty years ago it cost about a thousand bucks. And my dad bought our first home PC for a thousand bucks. Now the capabilities can change, but the price really doesn't. Take a look at many of the objects in UT. Generally the price stays the same but range might increase, or some other performance standard.
Just because I buy a TL9 laser pistol and I am TL 10 doesn't mean I get the gun for a reduced price.
Sigh. You know, I just wanted a light, breezy, easy-on-the-details game, but your insistence on logic and literalness has just worn me down. We will spec the ship and the (space) shuttle any way you want (within reason), if that will make you happy.
Aster - how are you coming on the ships' designs?
Aster - assuming the Google doc you referred to is titled "Serene Falcon", I'm looking at the "1000 ton Explorer" tab, and have a couple of thoughts :
I'd consider "total life support" cabins to include a hydroponics garden somewhere, so you don't have to worry about running out of food, ever.
I'd definitely scale the robofac down to a minifac, since the robofac is described as a "full-sized factory", which I figure would completely fill a 150-foot long ship (if not bigger). It also cuts the price by $99,900,000, which is half the cost of the entire ship!
I'd add a Jet Engine, for maneuvering in the atmosphere, to be able to land. It can be "fudged" to be fueled by the fusion reactor.
Paizo went down over the weekend as I was posting my response.
The 1000 ton Explorer is the correct tab for the main ship.
On page 8 it discusses how spaces are considered to be roughly 5% of ship volume. Hence 20 spaces. This is also why bigger ships have cargo/fuel spaces that hold more, and that habitat spaces have more cabins, etc. Somewhere in the background someone made a determination that a cabin (plus corridor, plumbing, portion of common kitchen, etc was X in size. And thus when the ship gets bigger 5% equals more than one X.
So when the cabins take double space for total life support, that doesn't mean the cabin itself got larger, it means that there is additional space taken up for growing food. This is likely a combination of hydroponics, vat grown algae, aquafarming, etc.
It also means that a factory for a size +6 ship is smaller than one for a size +13 ship. Each is roughly 5% of the ship volume.
The minifac is rated at a much lower manufacturing capacity, $500 an hour compared to the full size version at $50k an hour.
It means that if one of our main engines needed replacing we could do it in about 20 hours with a factory, or 80+ days with a minifac.
Think of the minifac as having a single 3d printer shoved in a closet. On the other hand, the factory is a fully stocked machine shop.
In both cases, our stock of materials is going to be the major limiting factor. Having one cargo bay (45 tons) dedicated to raw materials gives us enough to rebuild two ship systems. Assuming that we don't find (based on GM decision) that we're short 15 lbs of Rhodium and need to find a supplier.
Oops, I realized I don't have enough thrust for more than a .4G world!
Hmm, in order to fly in atmosphere, we need to have wings, contragrav, or streamlined, AND an accel greater than local gravity.
We currently have streamlined and .5G accel. Which means we can only land/take off on planets with gravity under .5G. A jet engine provides 1G. To take off from a planet with 1G we would need to use the jet engine and the reactionless drive.
On the other hand, we can add reconfigurable to a couple of systems for contragrav, propulsion, and the stardrive.
The shuttle already has 1.5G's of thrust so should be fine for planet's up to 1.4G's gravity.
As I have reconfigured it now, it has two power plants for redundancy. While in a gravity well, the stardrive can reconfigure to operate as a countergrav engine. This allows the reactionless thruster to provide a .5G operation and allows take off/landing on planets up to 10G's.
There are two reconfigurable systems on the ship, the first can be a contragrav (CG) unit or reactionless thruster (RT). The second can be a reactionless thruster or stardrive (SD).
This provides several modes of operation:
In a gravity well of up to 10G's the ship has .5G acceleration from one RT and the CG.
In deep space the ship has 1G of acceleration from two RTs.
And for interstellar flight the ship has the SD and is limited to .5G from one RT. It takes 20 seconds to reconfigure either system which requires the ship to slow down for gravity well or preparation for stardrive.
The two power plants provide 4 units of power. The two propulsion units each require one power point. The Factory requires a power point, and the weapon system requires a power point. The ship can still operate, though at a reduced capacity with one power plant functioning.
Ok, I was looking at UltraTech, not Spaceships. I found the entry for "Factory", and your numbers are in-line with it, except it can produce $100k/hour.
I figure with a cargo hold of "supplies" you can decide whenever we want to build something if we have the raw materials needed. The more exotic, the less likely.
For instance, we probably don't have weapons grade plutonium in stock, so building any more nuke missiles probably can't happen unless we find some raw ore. On the other hand, building a bunch of archaic ak-47's to outfit a local insurgency wouldn't be a problem.
By including a couple of superscience systems, we're able to avoid a lot of the hard sci-fi that would impede a space opera game.
Our power plant has fuel for years, antigrav means we can walk around the ship in 0-g, contragrav and reactionless thrusters means we can take off/land on planets and not worry about delta-v and fuel.
Instead we can worry about an interstellar bio-weapon.
I agree, a couple of hours for a battlesuit is probably a little too space opera.
Maybe a scale factor? Larger, more expensive systems are more likely to be closer to the book listed time factor?
I wouldn't want to just add a multiplier houserule. Saying it takes twice as long is four hours instead of 2. Saying it takes 10 times as long is still less than one day, but then starts to become untenable for larger components.
Maybe we acknowledge that if a ship system is damaged, instead of full replacement, it can be jury-rigged in segments that run shorter duration's?
Maybe the margin of success needs to be greater than 5 for the book listed speed, a regular success is multipled by a d6?
So succees by 1 would mean that the completion time would be d6 hours per 100k?
I would say, let's up the build time by a *lot* (by, like, a factor of 100), and say that when a ship system is damaged, only a part of it is damaged.
So at an increased factor of 100, instead of $100k/hour it's $1k/hour.
That works. Smaller stuff can still be done in a reasonable time frame.
I've send a PM to Olivia/Boomer's player a week ago, and haven't heard back yet. I could 'bot him for a while, but if he never comes back, what do y'all want to do? I could open up Recruitment again, or if you two want to continue, I'm game, or we could close it down (which I'm *not* in favor of).
I'm okay with having a crew member that just wasn't worthy of mention earlier, but is now showing up for away missions...
I'm not sure how I feel about allowing an alien to join. That kinda changes our dynamic a lot.
I created Rix with the assumption that there would be combat (a standard part of Space Opera) and after combat there would be people needing medical attention. So there need to be at least a few more characters capable of doing battle for her to have a chance of surviving battles and for her to have something to do when not trying to survive battles.
If we're not recruiting then I'd like to create a second character who is a fighter type and run two characters. If Aster wants to do that, I'm fine with that and then we'd have four, or if Aster wants to stick with one character, then add an NPC.
I'm okay with recruiting more players, however.
I don't think continuing to play with just two PCs will be worth the effort.
I'm currently a player in 3 campaigns (not counting this one) and a GM of 2 campaigns, (plus another that is on hold: Phoenix), so my plate is plenty full. Two of the games where I'm a player are Starfinder and the Phoenix game is also futuristic, so I'm getting my fill of SF RP.
If this stops being fun for the GM and/or we can't get more players, I'm okay with ending it.
We've been in exposition mode a long time, so if we are to continue, I'd really like to get things to a point where we're thick into a dungeon crawl or wilderness exploration or problem solving that require teamwork and dice rolling for everyone nearly post. If we can't get into something like that in the next month, I'm going to lose interest.
Aster, how do you feel about running a second character? Or should I try recruiting first?
Sure.
Aster is supposed to be primarily a mechanic type, for various reasons he seconds in gunnery, piloting, and face.
Are you wanting the second characters to be in the same scenes or carrying out vastly different functions?
I'd be happy to do a primary face, pilot, or computer tech. Secondary options would be gunnery for all of them, and then as needed, medic, piloting, or computer tech.
Since this'll be a secondary character I'm willing to have the PC fill any holes.
What were you thinking of Clebsch73?
My first priority would be someone who can fight. I've always enjoyed the GURPS martial arts rules, so I'd probably incorporate some of those skills to use when infighting. But I'm likely to think of other things once I start going through the advantages, disadvantages, and skills. I'm happy going with a human or humanoid type without trying for psi or magic or special powers. Just a space grunt would be fine with me.
A lot depends on what kind of encounters we are having. If we are going to be dealing with primitive civilizations, then fighting would be the main skill to have. If we will have need of picking locks, getting around security, hacking, etc., we could use someone with some decent skills there.
If you want to do a martial artist, I'll do a hacker/lock breaker.
I'll work on a fighter type. I'd like to make the character a Leeunid if possible. Does the GM have a source that would provide some racial advantages/disadvantages native to the cat people? If not, I'll wing it.
If there are some high tech weapons these warriors prefer, let me know.
Those both sound good. Aster, I'd at least give your thief a good ranged weapon and some basic armor...
Rix, Leeunids have a Code of Honor (societal norms), are stealthy, have low-light vision, are Proud, have retractable claws (when out, their "punches" do more damage), and are large (7' tall, 300 lb.). Can you work with that? Your PC's basic arms and armor would be TL 9, but as a crew member I'm sure those can be upgraded.
Can I get a quick recap of the creation limits?
When we started I think we were 150 points. Should the new characters be the same or will they start at a higher level to be on par with those who have gained experience?
Is the standard campaign tech level 10? If so, I assume i a Leeunid character would start with the disadvantage of TL 9?
Starting wealth?
Initial creation was 150 points with 75 Disadvantage. I gave out a lot of points when I took over in order that everyone have enough skills to run the ship, which wouldn't apply to a Leeunid. I'm not going to slog thru a lot of posts to find out how many "game-playing" points were awarded, so let's just say 10 more.
Altho you're starting out at TL 9, I'm sure you'd be outfitted with all the TL 10 equipment you need from the ship, so ignore the disadvantage.
I'm seeing your PC as Roaora's personal bodyguard (which is why he's on the ship), does that work for you? That would mean you'd have to accept orders from her, but as your princess you'd have to do that in any case, unless you want to take a "nobility" advantage.