Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Pavonis Sector Sessions - A New Place - Day 1

We may not be in the Pavonis sector anymore. Or Kanas, for that matter. 

Emily, Hem, Merci, Avery, and Garrison were hurled toward the hole in the Antelope's hull—but never made it. Avery swore he saw a golden, glittering beam hit them, like a C-Beam. Then, all five of our heroes found themselves hurtling through a very dark space.

Thankfully, they landed somewhere carpeted. There was a bit of carpet burn, along with an odd violet flame. Emily, Merci, and Avery all landed on their feet. Garrison hit a chair, and Hem.... Hem ended up next to a pile of debris, partially under a skimmer. Under the suit lights, they began to sort out their surroundings.


They stood to the right of a double row of tables. Two skimmers rested in the room, surrounded by shredded carpet, smashed tables, and broken chairs. It was clear they had taken the same trip from the Antelope as the crew had. Mixed into the debris were bits of inner wall and insulation from the ship.

One of the skimmers was damaged. Parts of it were completely missing, as if it were a drawing from a cutaway diagram or schematic. Hem was partially trapped beneath the damaged skimmer. The others worked quickly to free him.

"Captain!" shouted Bill. "Hem is alive!" Both of Bill’s eyes flashed green, then yellow, as he picked up Merci’s telemetry readings.

"Where?" asked Duke.

"I don’t know," Bill replied.

As medics, Bill and Merci had advanced training and sensory tools that allowed them to share medical diagnostic information. Direction-finding, unfortunately, wasn’t among those capabilities.

"Em, Hem broke an ankle," Merci said to Emily. "He’ll be fine if we can find some medical supplies."

Emily, Garrison, and Avery began pushing through the debris. They found six cargo cases from the bay, a fully functioning GM-bot and Ubot, and a second Ubot suffering from the same kind of damage the skimmer had sustained.

They dug through the cases and uncovered eight heavy sidearms, a case of ten regular sidearms, four LSU units, and four repair units. In the skimmers, they found two fuel units. Emily took one heavy weapon and gave one each to Avery and Garrison. The rest she dragged over to Hem. Everyone was issued two regular sidearms. Including Merci, who looked askance at them. The final two sidearms were hung on the back of the GM-bot, which was busy examining the damaged Ubot.

Rules Part I: Each of the map boxes is 5 feet, making the center room massive. 

The Star Smuggler rules don't exactly explain how big a CU is, other than about human size and weight. I have decided that it is a combination of size and weight. If 10 handguns can fit in a box 2 CU in size, then 4 heavy sidearms can fit in the same. 4 Repair units, LSU, or fuel units can fit into a similar-sized box, but are unusable in this form. The box must be broken down to get at the contents. 

Next, what exactly is a RU, LSU, or FU? A repair unit holds material and various small tools. It is not as good as what an engineer would have, but they get some jobs done. A fuel unit is a massive battery bank, which comes with several cables, connectors, and a light. An LSU has enough high-capacity, high-pressure air bottles, water, and food for 5 to 6 people for one day. Each one also has a small medical kit.  

The team searched the room.

In the northwest corner, they found a kitchen area that had clearly been ransacked. All that remained were tables and sink units. The sinks had integrated stovetops and refrigerators. Hem begged the team to check if the power was still on. Merci quietly confirmed that they had both power and running water. Unable to fully test it, she instead made Hem drink from one of the LSU canteens.

Garrison and Avery examined the massive wooden crates, while Emily stepped out into the hallway.

She managed to peek into three rooms before noticing a staircase labeled “Stairs – 1065.”

The three rooms appeared to be dormitories or hotel units. Each had a bathroom, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a small sitting area. They were as spartan and gray-green as the larger room she’d come from. The quarters were so compact that they made her cabin on the Antelope seem massive. By all appearances, up to four people had lived in a 20-by-10-foot space. There were no personal effects. No pictures, books, or computers. Even the walls looked temporary, except the 5-by-10 bathroom walls. The bathrooms had sliding doors or partitions that could be drawn between the sink and the cooking area. It felt a little too close to eating in a bathroom for her comfort, but she didn’t know these people well enough to judge.

“Well, good-ish news, gang,” Emily announced. “I found human writing.”

With a crinkle, Garrison held up a small bag. “Me too,” he said.

“Coco Sugar Gloppos,” he read aloud.

“Are you eating that?” Emily asked, shocked.

“Crunch-crunch. I think it’s cereal,” still chewing. "I'm just glad we won't die of starvation on an alien world." 

Merci glared at him, while Hem picked up a bag and tucked it into his pouch.

“Jesus. Nobody said anything about aliens,” Emily sighed. “Alright, let’s pack up and get out of here. We have to find who is in charge of this place.”

Theoretically, they could have driven the working skimmer through the double doors, but Emily decided stealth was the better option. Besides, there were stairs in one corner of the floor.

It struck her as strange that there were no windows. If this really was the 1065th floor... why weren’t there any?

They found a second undamaged Ubot behind a skimmer. As they loaded the Ubots with gear, Hem tinkered with the damaged one. Its central processing unit and sensors were gone, but he managed to salvage a controller and wiring from the damaged skimmer. He could sit on it, backwards, and drive it like an R/C car. It worked well enough, but Emily was concerned with the squeaking it made. 

They managed to silence the noise with some hammering and grease. Satisfied, they were ready. 

Or not. 

The north door thudded open, and two men burst through. The door struck a crate and rebounded into the face of a third man with a heavy weapon. It went off with a deafening boom, blood spattering from Garrison's leg.

Everyone opens fire on the man with the gun. 

Rules Part II: Star Smuggler uses a 5-minute combat round and zone combat. Since I have a grid, that won't work. I am assuming each round is 15 seconds, 4 per minute. You can take a 5-foot step and shoot, take a 10-foot jog to enter melee with an attack, or walk 15 feet per round. Alternatively, you run one square per point of current endurance. 

People can fire guns at people in melee range at +1. Firing into a melee runs the risk of hitting your friends on a miss. If you don't move, you can fire two sidearms at the same time at the same target. No splitting fire and absolutely no double firing heavy hand weapons. 

The rules have a funny discrepancy about heavy-handed weapons. They have no effect on combat or damage, but then the damage rule immediately mentions explosive rounds. In the event booklet, armor-piercing ammo is also mentioned. It's just a suspicion, but I believe the rules are meant to have automatic weapons, explosive weapons, and armor-piercing weapons, but this did not entirely pan out due to space or editing. I am treating all heavy weapons as explosive. A heavy sidearm is 5 times bigger than a sidearm. I am picturing a shotgun. 

The Set Up: Here are the team's stats. 

Emily: M:5, H:6, E:11 HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Avery: M:5, H:4, E5   HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Garrison: M:5, H:4, E:5 HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Hem: M:4, H:3, E:6 (injured for 1 point.) 2 SA TL-5.
Merci: M:0, H:1, E:6 2 SA TL-5, but she won't use them. She is carrying them for others. 

Round one: Emily hit the man with the gun for 1 point of damage. Avery dropped a critical on him for 7 points of damage. Hem hit for 2 points of damage. Shocked at the volume of fire the man has taken and survived, Garrison gets a critical that puts him down. The other two men flee the room. 

Checking the man, he was down but breathing. He also had gray-green skin, red eyes, pointed teeth, and ears. 

"Mutants!" he declared. Before anyone could act, the door burst open and 4 more mutants burst through, lugging a tripod-mounted gun. 

Emily and Garrison were between the mutants and the rest of the team. They open fire while the rest of the team takes cover. Emily scored a single hit, and Garrison landed a critical downing one of the mutants. The remaining three struggle to get the gun set up while the defenders back up. 

All luck remains the same, and one more mutant goes down while the fourth was hit for one point of damage. The mutants get the gun seat up to fire. Emily and Garrison can't get out of the firelines of their team. The tripod mount gun was obviously an old set of skimmer guns. It was slower than the high-powered TL-4 heavy sidearms. The last two mutants go down. 

The team finally got its act together. Emily and Garrison slammed the doors while Merci pushed a crate over to block the door. Avery awkwardly turned the skimmer gun around. 

This is turning into a dense wall of text, so this is where this session ends. I wanted to have better maps, but didn't like the results from Worldographer. It is too colorful for this flight of fancy. In the next session, we will probably see automatic weapons and crazier combat. 

There is a website I wanted to mention. Shawn is playing Five Parsecs From Home 1st Edition. While the rules are different, solo game play is similar theme. Shawn also has way better terrain and images. Give it a look here

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Pavonis Sector Sessions - A Bend Out of Time

In last week's session, our heroes were preparing for a double jump to Imperia. I said that I would do "a bend" and decide what happens this time instead of committing to a specific set of actions during that session. The Antelope II should have made it to the Imperia system. 

But I decided they didn't, as per the following: 

"In fact, Gamemasters of science fiction role-playing systems may wish to use this as an adventure or campaign guideline (with appropriate rules adjustments to suit their own RPG system). However, this game can be played many time, with many different results."

So here we go, awkwardly around the horn. 

Duke and Emily are in pilotage, while Fred mans the light turret. Bill is in the medical bay. Zev is in one shuttle, while Avery and Garrison are in the heavily armed shuttle. Hem monitors systems in the garage, and Merci is in the suit room. The rest of the crew are in engineering, manning their stations and turrets.

Duke commits to the jump, deploying the first hypercharge. A singularity spins up ahead of the ship. Soon, it distorts into a ring. The Antelope surges forward. As the ship crosses the center of the ring, alarms blare. There's an explosion and a savage vibration.

Emily runs to check on the crew. 

The misjump fractures the ship. Hem, Merci, and Emily make it to the hatch of the starboard boat bay. A crack forms in the wall as the outer boat bay hatch blows. 5 of the crew are sucked into the nothing of hyperspace as the Antelope flounders. 

Duke and the remaining crew fight for their lives as Emily finds herself in a dark gray space, lit by violet fires. 

As if this isn't different enough, the session will be very strange, indeed. 


Tuesday, April 15, 2025

A Case for AI - Tracking Notes

I've been messing with AI for about 2 ½ years. The first thing I produced using AI was a t-shirt that read:

"I have limited knowledge of the world and events after January 17th, 1972. I may occasionally produce incorrect or biased information."

My wife was annoyed by this, and it has since disappeared. But AI is still a problem waiting for a solution*. Oh, the asterisks spell out the problem. ChatGPT’s original disclaimers had clunky grammar, which I corrected myself before putting it on a $10.00 t-shirt. Why would a language model have clunky grammar? Don't know, that is not good. 

Let me share one of my daily pains with AI. I work in tech support. At least once a day, I receive a ticket clearly written by AI. The first issue I have is that the user has self-diagnosed the problem and maybe wrongly. That’s neither here nor there, but if they understood the issue and the AI’s response, it shouldn’t still be a problem. If only they had tried what the AI told them. But they didn’t, because they couldn’t understand the words, instructions, or concepts.

Don’t do this.

It’s incredibly obvious when AI writes something for you. AI isn’t particularly good at mimicking your style and tone, so it doesn’t sound like you at all. Also, AI is extraordinarily good at punctuation. It will happily use the Oxford comma, or worse, the semicolon. Most people don’t use semicolons; they can’t. I do use the Oxford comma because I am weird. 

<Rant mode off.>

This weekend, I found a good use for AI. 

While working on my Pavonis Sector posts, I noticed that AI was really good at tracking characters. It told me where they were and sometimes what they were doing. It wasn’t just good, it was great. If I mixed up character names or professions, it would let me know. For example, if I wanted a medic on an away team and another back on the ship, it would warn me that Bill and Merci were in the same group or that I mixed up a name and profession. If I needed two engineers to stay on the ship, AI would remove them from the away roster. It understood that only certain crew members could engage in specific RRR activities.

When I write the Pavonis Sector sessions, I keep digital notes. The first time I blogged about Star Smuggler, I played for about 15 minutes and posted immediately, Mistakes still crept in. This time, I can run through a week’s worth of digital notes, and the AI will track characters, locations, money, inventory, etc.

This means I can be more concise and clear when writing. AI is not writing for me; the AI is just keeping track of the major items. 

I will be back with more Pavonis Sector sessions later this week.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week Two

We left Duke and the Gang trapped in the Ruins on Regari. This state of affairs came about because I decided that the event e84 could happen to any vehicle. The Antelope II entered the ruins, set down and a building collapsed. Amusingly, on the 10th day, the same thing happened. 

How I handled this was everyone got out of the ship and cleared the debris while the Engineers, Ratchet and Hem patched up the ship. Twice. 

For solo play that sucks. It eats resources and time. However, I'm imagining Star Smuggler as a multiplayer game where things like this are moments for character exposition. This scenario would work. 

Now let's dig into week 2 in the ruins. We have run through e84, the second main event here is a room in the ruins. In event e88, 2/3rds of the outcomes are bad. I decided not to bite with my party. 

How I picture traveling the ruins is that the ship moves then I select who will participate in the next roll. Those left behind on the ship are doing RRR tasks. If the event is a surprise, it occurs right outside the ship and involves everyone. If the event is something else, only the selected characters experience it. 

A damaged Utility Suit is no fun.
Day 1: They found a GM bot intact and decided not to participate in e88. 
Day 2: Another building collapsed on the ship ending events for the day. Repairs were made. 
Day 3: They found a boat with 4 points of damage and the ship moved to recover it. They also find an undamaged skimmer. 
Day 4: The crew on the ship began repairs on the damaged boat. Since there are two engineers, they repair one point each. The explorers found a sidearm and an intact skimmer. 
Day 5: The found boat is completely repaired and move it to the empty boat bay. Explorers found a second boat with one point of damage and a bunch of damaged Utility Suits. Hint: the damaged Usuits eat time and resources so they leave them behind. 
Day 6: They find a Utility Suit and then knock down another building onto the Antelope II. Damn. 
On the 7th Day, they find an intact skimmer and cannibalize an RU from a damaged skimmer. The second boat is repaired and moved to the cargo bay. 

On day 8, the stress gets to be too much. They decide to count this as a win and return to the spaceport. The crew has 2 hoppers, a GM bot, a Sidearm TL-1, 3 skimmers, and a Usuit. They expended 7 RU and found one. 
An old but nice skimmer.
Days 8 and 9 are used to purchase some bots and RU. They make a payment of 300 secs. against the grant on the ship and the crew is paid. They have about 1500 secs. to their name. On the last day of the week, the break for orbit and do a double jump to Imperia. This leaves them with 3 hypercharges and just enough money to replace them. 

They enter the Imperia system with little fanfare, e93 results in no contact. At this point, I will do what I call "a bend". They spend the last 4 hours landing. The flexi-bendy bit is, I won't declare where they land. I will do this next week. Their choices are limited to Rough Terrain, Spaceport, or Station if they mean to take the ship. They will probably hit the Spaceport and look around before picking a new location. 

See you later!

Monday, April 7, 2025

Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week One

In my last post, I included some new rules and omitted a few thoughts. In running through a week of play, I have a few items to add. 

My first omission is how to get an advanced hopper, beyond the one that comes with the ship. They are available everywhere regular hoppers are so long as the planet has a tech level 30 or better. Their cost is three times the cost of a regular hopper. There is a twist, you can sell an advanced hopper anywhere regardless of the tech level. 

Second, I did not create improved versions of skimmers or robots. I will correct that now. 

All skimmers are now dual-powered electric vehicles and therefore can be gassed up with a fuel unit OR charged at any location with banking facilities. I am picturing more Car Wars than Teslas. The cost to recharge is the same as a fuel unit. Remember, if you drive into an area that doesn't have banking facilities, you will need a fuel unit for the next day or you are walking.

Robots are trickier. I hate the per-week cost as it adds to tracking so it is now gone. Robots are also electrically powered, run for a week, and can be recharged at night from a starship, hopper, or skimmer for no cost. The robots handle this themselves. If you let them run out of power, they will break down. It costs a repair unit and a fuel unit plus the time of an Engineer to get them going again. Don't let that happen. This seems to be a better tradeoff than a weekly price. 

I have also decided that medics can drive skimmers because they would drive ambulances. Duh. They still can't use guns of any kind. 

Additionally, Ubots can ride on the exterior of any skimmer. That is kind of handy. PS bots are small and can ride on the exterior pack of a utility suit, taking up no space. You still need to carry a life support unit. 

One official rule I would like to point out is r216d. 10 sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate in cargo. Since we have this rule, I would add that 5 heavy sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate. Makes sense. One modification to this rule is that holstered weapons take no space on a person, but you can only carry 2 regular sidearms like this. A heavy sidearm is twice as big, so you can holster only one. There is zero utility in this unless you play a game where you can lose a sidearm. 
 
Let's run down the first week in a snapshot. Duke started with 5,000 secs. He took 5 days to assemble his crew of 2 medics (Merci and Bill), 2 engineers (Hem and Ratchet), 4 gunners (Zap, Fred, Garrison, and Kal), and 3 pilots (Emily, Zev, and Avery). Emily has the same stats as Duke per the last time I played. She is the second in command. Their weekly pay totals 195, which is a steal. 

During this 5-day shopping excursion, Duke got creative with buying and selling RU and robots. The GM bots at the spaceport have a 1-in-6 chance of selling for 1.5x. Since the buying price is 120 and the potential sale price could be 1.5x of 100, you could score 30 secs by savvy selling.  

The dice note 20 LSU, 20 FU, 50 RU, white blocks
are crates of sidearms and black are HSA.
That does come in handy, but there is an easier way to make money. RU, LSU, and FU have a buy-and-sell price of 1. If you buy at 1 but sell at 1.5, that is a 50% return each time. You can do this right out of the gate at Regari. Since they are just 1 CU each you can do this quickly and easily. You just need to accept fractional accounting, which I do. 

One warning, I have noticed that you can't sell LSU easily if at all. I will keep an eye out for this event if it exists. 

Back to gameplay. Duke also bought 2 ship guns (TL-3), 2 hopper guns (TL-5), and 12 utility suits. Next, the crew flew to the colony to buy weapons. Surprisingly, this didn't take long and they bought 100 sidearms (TL-4) and 24 heavy sidearms (TL-5). At this point, all of the utility suits were given to the crew, along with 10 sidearms and 6 heavy sidearms. 

In cargo, we have: 20 fuel units, 20 LSU, 50 RU, a hopper with 2 sets of guns, 90 sidearms (TL-4), 18 heavy sidearms (TL-5), one TL-1 sidearm, 10 Ubots, and 1 GM bot. Duke has 2645 secs. 

With a couple of days left, Duke decided to head to the Ruins. This did not go well because of a decision I made. 

You can travel to the Ruins in your ship and the ruins have e084, Building Collapse. Everything is spelled out as if you have only two options, walking or driving a skimmer. Why can't you have a building collapse on the ship or a hopper? I decided this could happen because I watched Robotech many times as a kid. 

You can see it too, can't you? 

Because of this choice, Duke and the gang had very little to show for the remainder of the week. But it was interesting.