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I have to imagine there's just going to be one party in all of SFS that shows up without anyone trained in Computers or Engineering, and that just can't triangulate the signal at the beginning of the scenario. And then they end up giving up and going home instead of playing the scenario...
Have them be fatigued from wandering around the jungle from having parked waaaaaaaaaaaay over there instead of next to the ship
and/or they can't get the secondary success condition of rescuing the prisoners because they're camel bits by the time the party gets there
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I don't think it should ever actually happen, but if you have a really strict GM reading the opening text, I don't think there's a way around that triangulation check that's written into the adventure! The "long walk" is a good way to handle it though, you're absolutely right.
Random observation about the screaming cave, area B--there's only one set of doors explicitly written into the text (B4 to B5), but I think the scenario assumes there are doors between each of the rooms. The encounters really don't look like they're written to get pulled together.
B5 in particular seems to assume you're taking your time, learning about a mysterious researcher, but all that setup just doesn't work if she's right there 20 feet away from you in the brightly lit lab.
I ended up adding doors (not locked, just audio/visual barriers) between B1 and B2 and between B5 and B6. It's not ideal, but that map needed some heavy editing anyway...
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I did the same thing. In general, I feel like I needed to do a lot of telegraphing to players that basically every room in the Screaming Caves had possible solutions other than combat. As written, if you don't drop some hints, it's pretty likely most parties fight through everything. I made sure the players knew that the vesk in the second room of the caves are completely engrossed in their space video games and that stealthily bypassing them was an option, or that they look like vesk rent-a-cops rather than veteran mercs and so bullying or fast-talking your way past them was an option, etc.
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For the vesk guards "This is the place you get assigned to after you get re assigned to Antarctica and still mess up"
When the party buzzed the com, I described a lot of pew pew laser noises and vesk cursing in the background
"Egg licking spawn camper... fight fair!"
"Don't want to get spawncamped don't die"
Venture-Agent, Australia—QLD—Gold Coast
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1 hr nauseated effect from searching through B3 is a little strong it effectivley puts any PC who fails out of the rest of the scenario, you wouldnt stop for an hour in the middle of a complex you are infiltrating with NPCs clearly in the room/area next to you.
I had a group of 4 PCs one of whom searched and failed the save and was out ofthe rest of the scenario.They also didnt have any computers in the entire party so had no way to hack the computers and missed all that info and didnt waste any time there.
1 hr seems a little long considering the shortness of the dungeon and the effect of nauseated
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Venture-Agent, Australia—QLD—Gold Coast
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So if we assume they always have enviromental seals activated whats the point of having hazards like this. Unless they say they have activated them i assume there off noone wants to walk around breathing recycled farts 100% of the time
To constantly have enviromental seals up when your on a planet with a breathable atmosphere and no visible threat is metagaming, i mean do any of you walk around in hazmat suits all the time.
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To constantly have enviromental seals up when your on a planet with a breathable atmosphere and no visible threat is metagaming
No. It's not. Starfinders get exposed to gasses, molds fungus smoke grenades stink clouds, mind controlling plant pollen, airborn diseases, ratiation, and radioactive mind controlling plant pollen so often that keeping those seals up is like wearing a hard hat or reflective vest on a road crew.
That the adventures haven't really caught up to the standard operating procedures for field teams is a known issue that's come up before.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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So if we assume they always have enviromental seals activated whats the point of having hazards like this. Unless they say they have activated them i assume there off noone wants to walk around breathing recycled farts 100% of the time
To constantly have enviromental seals up when your on a planet with a breathable atmosphere and no visible threat is metagaming, i mean do any of you walk around in hazmat suits all the time.
I wear a seat-belt in the car, or nowadays a mask in the train. Do I enjoy wearing the mask? Not really, but I do it because I know it helps. (And even if I didn't believe that, because I could get fined; just like for not wearing seat-belts.) Am I metagaming real life?
Also, you say "recycled farts" - but chances are, the atmosphere on any given alien planet probably smells weird to you anyway, and probably doesn't have your preferred nitrogen/oxygen/other ratios. Or the same air pressure. It's kind of like being dropped on a high mountain all of a sudden. Not pleasant at all. Considering how many families you could feed for the cost of your armor, it's entirely likely that it's even better smelling than most congested, polluted cities on your own planet.
So yeah, what's the point of these hazards in a scenario? That's doubtful. I mean, it stands to reason that a lot of plants and beasts evolved airborne defenses/attacks, but like like weapons with the Archaic property, they're just not that effective against modern armor. So why do we see gas-based threats in scenarios but not so many monsters with archaic weapons? I think the answer is roughly the same as the question why some adventures (like part I of this series) first tell you that an area is a vacuum, and then proceed to tell you what the next room smells like.
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first tell you that an area is a vacuum, and then proceed to tell you what the next room smells like.
That's doable. A vacuum blocks sound, not smell. I mean yes, if it was a total vacuum there wouldn't be anything TO smell but a total vacuum would be pretty rare. Space has a smell and apparently the center of the milky way is full of the stuff that gives raspberry their flavor. Break out the smelloscope...
It should certainly be possible to have a gortex like covering that lets a little bit of the local air in but your environmental seals monitor it and keep out enough parts per million to do more than make you make a funny face and go "phew..."
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That the adventures haven't really caught up to the standard operating procedures for field teams is a known issue that's come up before.
Probably the most accurate statement in this thread.
It would make NO sense for Starfinders to be wandering around places without the seals intact - it is basic PPE.
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first tell you that an area is a vacuum, and then proceed to tell you what the next room smells like.That's doable. A vacuum blocks sound, not smell. I mean yes, if it was a total vacuum there wouldn't be anything TO smell but a total vacuum would be pretty rare. Space has a smell and apparently the center of the milky way is full of the stuff that gives raspberry their flavor. Break out the smelloscope...
It should certainly be possible to have a gortex like covering that lets a little bit of the local air in but your environmental seals monitor it and keep out enough parts per million to do more than make you make a funny face and go "phew..."
The vacuum of space has, on average, approximately one atom of mass present in each cubic centimeter of volume. That'll vary some based on local conditions, but even easily detectable smells (say, methyl mercaptan, detectable by 50% of a human panel at .0021 ppm) still become detectable at 63,000,000,000 molecules per cubic centimeter. That's a lot! At that point, you'd basically have a thin atmosphere of whatever you're talking about, not a vacuum.
For example, Mars has an atmosphere of about 1/1000th the density of Earth's, and it's definitely not a vacuum. Even so, you'd have to compress it to something approaching earth-like pressures to be able to smell anything, let alone the strong rotten egg smell we expect would be caused by the methane compounds that make up 2% or so of the atmosphere.
So, yes, a vacuum does block smell--describing something as a vacuum implies that there's not enough there to smell.
Eau de Space is a clever branding exercise, but what you're really smelling (we think) is the smell of materials in the ISS airlock that have been exposed to vacuum and then subsequently exposed to a breathable atmosphere. If there was enough there to smell, the pumps would likely have kept pumping the atmosphere out of the chamber--which might be a component of what's happening.
Starfinder can, in a sense, do whatever it wants--we already have biplanes in space, so being able to smell in a vacuum wouldn't be the first basic rule of physics it broke. But smelling in a vacuum also isn't an intrinsically correct take.
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That's a lot! At that point, you'd basically have a thin atmosphere of whatever you're talking about, not a vacuum.
Do your math the other way and you'll see why this argument doesn't make any sense.
If I can smell rotten cabbage from across the room at 63,000,000,000 molecules per cubic centimeter, then having a rotten cabbage in a room guarantees an atmosphere of at least 63,000,000,000 molecules per cubic centimeter. To you that's an atmosphere. To anyone flying, flapping their wings, or most importantly trying to breathe that's functionally a vacuum.
So no, you can't smell anything in a theoretical vacuum because there's nothing there to smell. But something being there (including a space ship, an asteroid, a moon, or even your party) means its NOT a theoretical vacuum anymore. Its a practical vacuum. Theoretical Vacuums don't stop you from smelling, smells make a theoretical vacuum impossible.
