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I've had a couple of skims through Planetfall now, and read a few sections in detail, and I have some questions.
1. Food - do the PC's actually need to provide food for themselves when staying in their charter's Settlement? Are there really no food production facilities or stocks at all?
2. Items - Step 6 of the Charter Creation rules, on page 43, mentions the maximum item level the charter can provide is 4. What exactly does this mean?? Is this the maximum level of item producable by the charter? Maximum item level purchasable at the charter? Maximum item level importable from the Patron? Something else? Also, there doesn't appear to be any mechanism for ever changing this maximum? What about contacting or using other charters?
3. The Burnished Dawn - is this ship specific to the PC charter, or is it carrying other charter members?
This also means that you will be relatively disconnected
from the general galactic economy, since you can’t very well
leave your charter for weeks to go shopping on Absalom
Station. You should be prepared to craft many of the items
you will need.
Buy items up to level 4, craft anything else. Since downtime is plentiful and UPBs are easily purchased it's not really an issue.
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Lot of charter projects are "you are able to get this service here now" so by default there is nobody who can install augments or weapon fusions at the colony besides PCs I suppose.
But yeah, I would say food depends on what gm wants: Do they want their patron to provide "daily costs for non adventuring stuff" or simulate "well you need to buy groceries and paying electricity bill" and such ;D (I would say presumably former should be done because its not like game assumes you have monthly money for doing your work)
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Lot of charter projects are "you are able to get this service here now" so by default there is nobody who can install augments or weapon fusions at the colony besides PCs I suppose.
Yup...but what about manufacturing, or merchanting? That stuff isn't touched on at all by the projects. Which seems weird to me, as they'd be more fundamental than getting someone to install upgrades.
Lot of charter projects are "you are able to get this service here now" so by default there is nobody who can install augments or weapon fusions at the colony besides PCs I suppose.Yup...but what about manufacturing, or merchanting? That stuff isn't touched on at all by the projects. Which seems weird to me, as they'd be more fundamental than getting someone to install upgrades.
Manufacturing is solved by a workbench, UPBs and skilled labor. Starfinder is a setting where you can 3D print battletanks in a garage with enough UPBs and some know how. Just make sure your party has maxed out engineering and mysticism between all their skills.
Though, what do you mean by merchanting? Trading with other charters and the like?
What are you basing this on? Is there some evidence somewhere to back up this interpretation?
Buy items up to level 4, craft anything else. Since downtime is plentiful and UPBs are easily purchased it's not really an issue.
What am I interpreting? Downtime is plentiful because a downtime system takes up huge amounts of this campaign and crafting only takes a max of four hours. Time to craft can't possibly be an issue.
UPBs are a trade good with no level and should be available at your settlement. Just convert any credits you have to UPBs and craft what you need.
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What am I interpreting?
You asserted "buy items up to level 4, manufacture anything else" - how did you make this interpretation, based on the AP saying "the maximum item level the charter can provide is 4"? What was your reasoning to interpret 'provide' as 'can build', rather than 'sells' or 'imports'? I'masking you to show your working, rather than just making a statement.
Manufacturing is solved by a workbench, UPBs and skilled labor.
Sure, but I would have thought if you had a whole settlement at your disposal, and you can add things like an armory...perhaps adding better automated manufacturing might be an option? More efficient 3d printers? Better cad designers? That kind of thing? But there's nothing to improve any of that. Just a blanket statement of level 4 items being 'provided', and no way to change it.
Though, what do you mean by merchanting? Trading with other charters and the like
Trading in general, both with other charters, and the rest of the galaxy. I mean, when I was first thinking about running this AP, I had immediately told the players they would be isolated, and might want to consider building shopping lists, so they can order things ahead of time and have them available, rather than having to order gear as they level up and then wait months. I'm rather surprised the charter rules just don't support any of this.
What am I interpreting?You asserted "buy items up to level 4, manufacture anything else" - how did you make this interpretation, based on the AP saying "the maximum item level the charter can provide is 4"? What was your reasoning to interpret 'provide' as 'can build', rather than 'sells' or 'imports'? I'masking you to show your working, rather than just making a statement.
I'm asking you to improve your reading comprehension.
Manufacturing is solved by a workbench, UPBs and skilled labor.Sure, but I would have thought if you had a whole settlement at your disposal, and you can add things like an armory...perhaps adding better automated manufacturing might be an option? More efficient 3d printers? Better cad designers? That kind of thing? But there's nothing to improve any of that. Just a blanket statement of level 4 items being 'provided', and no way to change it.
Though, what do you mean by merchanting? Trading with other charters and the likeTrading in general, both with other charters, and the rest of the galaxy. I mean, when I was first thinking about running this AP, I had immediately told the players they would be isolated, and might want to consider building shopping lists, so they can order things ahead of time and have them available, rather than having to order gear as they level up and then wait months. I'm rather surprised the charter rules just don't support any of this.
Re: Manufacturing: It's implied in the crafting rules that improved manufacturing processes that actually make a profit (as opposed to the cottage industry anyone with a workbench can do) is the domain of mass production factories. The kinds of things that aren't seen until well into the industrial expansion of a colony. There might be rules for such further into the AP, but I'm not super confidant of that. If you have players interested in that sort of thing, then you should probably look at a bit of homebrew. See the roboticist theme that can craft level + 1 items. Some sort of expensive charter upgrade along those lines would not be a bad inclusion for such a... bureaucratically minded PC. Armories and such are likely the kind of thing that improve charter stats, not things directly available to the PCs.
Re: Trading: I don't see why the PCs couldn't put in orders for level + 2 items from their home systems in the situation, only the problem of any such items arriving 6d6+ days later making that option basically useless to them outside of specialty orders.
Trading with other charters probably runs into a different problem. Those charters can really only provide level 4 items themselves (at least for the first few years of development). The nicer items are likely hand crafted by their own versions of the PCs... and if they're selling that means they've gotten a leg up on the competition and the PCs should be worried, right?
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For food, I think it is assumed that there is food production and food is available. If you don't have enough resource units to pay upkeep, you risk unrest and can lose one of your hexes. From what I can tell, resource units represent anything your charter needs to survive and grow, including both raw materials for building and upkeep, as well as food and water.
For items, I also thought the maximum item level was a little odd. It doesn't explain it at all. I assume that it's the maximum item level available for purchase in your settlement. It doesn't give a way to increase it, but in this first book (which takes you to level 3) you shouldn't need to increase it. That would be in line with the core rule book, which says most settlements don't carry items more than one level above the character level. I'm interested to see if the second book addresses it further.
Yep I am assuming level 4 gear max for this first Module then it will give us new stats for module 2, and or depending on how your group builds up your charter towns.
GM was fine with "you have the basics" but if one gets lost out on the hex map..... be prepared
Tom
I found the max item level a bit odd also.
Ok, during downtime a character can work to gain credits/UPBs, and later using those UPBs to get better stuff. Since they have to explore and administrate the charter, they don't have that much time on their hands as a limiting factor.
Still, imagine you are an adventurer in the charter rather than the administrator. You have factories, armories, multiple settlements, a space elevator, but still you are limited to level 4 equipment?
My interpretation would be that you can buy level 4 items in your charter when you begin it, because it is fairly tradable items, brought with the new colonists and other traders.
Economy allows measures the ability to create, buy and sell for the charter, and Technology and Magic covers about everything you can buy... I would guess that when you have an higher ECO, MAG and TEC, you can buy higher items in your charter. Perhaps you would need ACC and CUL too, so your max item would be the lower of your charter trait scores? You could mitigate a lower score with an appropriate trade deal with another charter...
It is not written anywhere, but it would be my best house rule after reading the two books.
To me it Looks like it is the combination of the 5 Charter Stats, as these should alway add to 4 in the beginning of the charter, no matter what your initial choices are.
On another Note. Are you able to build Settlement Projects eg Library etc, a second time in a different settlement, or is it assumed that once it is built in 1 settlement it automatically gets built in any other settlements . My assumption is they are only built once, due to the stat bonuses, as it would be too simple to add cheap projects to each new settlement to bump up the Charter stats relatively quickly. How is everyone else handling this?