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. 

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. 

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.

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!

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. 

Welcome Back to the Pavonis Sector!

I have set up a permanent space for my Star Smuggler game. This is a single-player game that I have played many, many times. For this run, I have decided to take the advice on page 1 of the rules and adapt this into a campaign. I am captaining a new ship class, the Antelope II. 

When designing this ship, I asked myself what made something better. Fewer dependencies came to mind. Shuttles are now like mini-ships and need no fuel or life support. The Antelope II has dedicated crew spaces and a garage for skimmers and suits. 

I decided not to muck with ANY of the combat rules, with one exception. Crew Quarters and Medical are protected by armor. Simply put, they are harder to destroy than other areas.  

I also took a swipe at some of the not-so-nice aspects of the game. In this run-through, slaves are important. You can rescue them. 

To that end, I need to change several rules starting with e001. 

e001+

The sector is at war. You are the captain of the Antelope II, a new type of privateer vessel. You have received a letter of marque and reprisal from the world of Regari enabling you to act as a privateer within the sector. In addition, you have received a small grant to obtain weapons and a crew. You are authorized to act in every part of the sector, except New Karma and Regari where one must behave like a normal civilian. 

To pay off your grant of the ship, you must make a payment to the Regari system weekly. You may do this at any banking facility anywhere in the sector. The amount per week doesn't matter, but you must pay 1,000,000 secs. within 10 years. The Antelope II is 5 times the ship that an Antelope was, so this is a deal. 

The grant allows for hiring a crew and equipping them. Roll 1d6*1000. You do not have to pay this back. You can keep anything you don't spend. 

In the Regari system, you are not subject to search or seizure. Ignore these events. 

The Antelope II is built to tech level 1 specs and is outfitted with 2 advanced hopper class ships boats, and a single set of tech level one guns and two empty turrets. Advanced hoppers have a fusion power pack built into the hull (e153, item 11) and produce life support like a regular starship. There is a brand-new skimmer in the ship's garage, also tech level 1. The ship has a medical bay/infirmary with a regrowth tank (e153, item 4). There is a suit room and crew airlock for utility suits.  Additionally, there is a ready room for planning. You have 6 hypercharges. This ship does not have secret hiding spaces. 

The letter of marque is your ship's papers. You personally own a utility suit, and a tech level 1 sidearm, plus have 10 repair units, 10 life support units, and 10 fuel units in one of the cargo bays.  

Be on the lookout for slavers, found in r332. If offered slaves, you are obligated to purchase as many as possible, constrained by funds and crew space, for a base price of 100 secs. each. Once they are in your custody, you must do your utmost to protect them until they reach freedom. This means you must make for New Karma or Regari as fast as possible (double jumps are not required). Note: in any other system, you may be mistaken for a slaver. 

If they are returned safely to the Colony on New Karma or the Port on Regari, the government will pay you a base price of 100 secs. per rescued slave and shave off 200 secs. from the amount you owe on your grant. 

You are currently at the sole planet in the Regari system (r207a) of the Pavonis sector, at the spaceport (r205o). You check over your starship guns and personal sidearm and prepare to find targets for Regari. See r203 for the activities available to you. You need to hire a crew immediately. It is suggested that you have 1 engineer, 1 medic, 1 gunner, and 2 pilots, however, the ultimate decisions are yours. 

You may opt not to make contact rolls until you have hired your whole crew. Also, you may skip over rolls of 3, no more rolls during this time due to government intervention. This is a one-time benefit and can be extended for as many days as you deem necessary. You may not leave the spaceport. Once your crew is assembled, you must make contact rolls for the rest of the game.  

Hit locations need an update, too.  

The Antelope II has a modification for hits and hit locations. This appears in many events (like e413 or e113), you may use this list. The ship can take 15 hits. It also has 2 heavily armored areas, medical and crew quarters. 

2. Medical* or suit room (Odd is medical and even is the suit room.)
3. Pilotage
4. One of the turrets - roll 1-2 first turret (top), 3-4 second turret and 5-6 is the last.  
5. Shuttle - 1-3 port side, 4-6 starboard side 
6. Engineering 
7. Garage
8-9. Port Cargo Bay
10-11 Starboard Cargo Bay
12. Crew Quarters* or Ready Room. (Odd is the quarters and even is the ready room.)

*Indicates a 50-50 chance of armor hit. An armor hit prevents damage to the protected section by turning it into a regular hit. 

Radiation does not pass through the armor and does nothing to the crew in these areas, (e413 mostly). 

To accommodate your new Advanced Hoppers, we need to update e214 with e214c. 

Advanced Hopper (e214c) 

The Advanced Hopper is an improved version of the basic Hopper. It is the same size as other Hoppers but has advanced fusion engines. The fusion engines do not require refueling (at least not for decades) and provide life support to the crew while in operation. 

Fusion engines allow the Advanced Hopper to accelerate the same as Starships while also making it possible to escape high-gravity planets. While Advanced Hoppers do not have wings, they make use of a lifting body design and can glide just like a regular Hopper. 

The crew compartment is divided into a 5 CU pilot area and a 6 CU passenger area. Hopper or boat guns can only be mounted in the 14 CU cargo area. Two sets of guns can be mounted. This is standard for military Hoppers. 

The price for an advanced hopper is three times the base price of a regular hopper and is available wherever hoppers are found. 

Since the Antelope II has armored areas, we need to address that with a new rule: r217d. 

Antelope II Damage (r217d)

The Antelope II takes 15 hits to destroy. Sidearms and heavy hand weapons have no effect on starships unless an event paragraph indicates otherwise. Individual points of damage simply increase the risk factor when hyperjumping. 

Some areas of the hull are protected by heavy armor: medical and crew quarters. When these areas are hit, there is a 50-50 chance of striking the armor instead. An armor hit redirects damage to one of the hull points. The armor includes radiation shielding, so characters in those areas are not killed by radiation damage of any kind. 

Due to the changes to the Antelope II, r229d is used for old-school Antelopes while r229e is used for the Antelope II. 

Starship Searches (r229e)

Some events require a search of the starship (by customs officials, a military patrol, quarantine officers, etc.). When this occurs, roll 2d6 and consult the results below to see which parts of the ship are searched. Anything in those compartments will be found. Items within activated stasis units are normally confiscated by authorities unless the event indicates otherwise:

Search Results:

2-false accusation (e058);
3- Ready Room and Suit Suit Room
4- Engineering, all gun turrets, quarters, and pilotage. 
5- Engineering, all gun turrets, and both cargo bays.
6- Quarters only. 
7- Both cargo bays
8- Both cargo bays and both ship's boats. 
9- Both ship's boats and the skimmer garage. 
10- Both boats, pilotage, and quarters. 
11- Medical/Infirmary and skimmer garage. 
12-searcher is an old acquaintance, you have no difficulties, and nothing is searched.

I know, the original book obscured the areas with strange letter codes. I didn't like that much so I just spelled it out. 

Additionally, e002 will be changed.

e002: 

Foreign agents are in your area. Ignore this event in the Regari or New Karma systems. If your crew is off the ship, proceed directly to e018. If the ship is landed, go straight to e003. 

If you are on your ship in space, roll on the following table: 

2. Paletk ships approach. (e108)
3. Ships from Imperia approach. (e114)
4. Byzantium Secret Police. (e189)
5. Imperian customs agents. (e019)*
6. Talitarian Scouts. (e118)
7. Nothing interesting. (e096)
8. Cubro customs shakedown. (e019)*
9. Urushop customs patrol. (e019)* 
10. Mynkurian attack (e095)
11. Nipna wardrone. (e098)
12. Roll again. 

Each event is themed to a particular system and may occur in any system except Regari or New Karma. 

When dealing with the three e019 results (*starred), the customs agents have 3 standard antelope ships with no weapon turrets. Your grant requires you to comply and pay all fines and duties. If you damage or destroy any customs ships or harm the crew, you will lose your grant and be wanted in every system.

As I play through this, I hope to expand the original events with a battle against the slavers and possibly an introduction of a second plot line about robots.  

I expect to post once a week as the last time I did this once a day was too much. 

(EDIT I have forgotten to add a link so you can download the original game.)

A Bit of the Pavonis Sector in My Basement

I have finally set up a permanent area in the basement for my Star Smuggler game. I fired up the laser and etched a ship diagram to use. The ship is creatively called the Antelope II. 

You can see I paired this with my White Box Set, so I have little dodads to count resources and Meeples for peoples. 

I also have old cardboard-mounted planetary tiles I made a few years back. I GIMP'ed the original files and flipped them so I don't have to mess with upside-down tiles. You can download them on Boardgame Geek. 

Zooming in a bit, you can see this poor man's map in green. Half of the map is for dispersed distances and the second half is for those in contact. The rules are super easy like that. Medics are white, pilots blue, engineers black, and gunners are yellow. The bad guys are red. 

You can see I have already gotten into trouble. 

The orange sheet is for common resource counting. I have fuel units, life support units, repair units, and two different types of robots, GM bots and Utility bots. The third kind of bots are Personal Bots which go on the character's sheets. 

This time through the game, I have a much improved Antelope II which requires changing the rules. A lot of rules. I shall share those tomorrow. 

I feel a disturbance...

I have 6 items on DriveThruRPG and 2 in my Ko-Fi Store. A very interesting thing has happened this week. My newest offering, The Hex Pack is closing the sales numbers for my oldest offering, Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. Both just crossed 400 downloads. 

These are 2020 and 2018 titles. I'd like to refresh Zero to Hero and make it compliant with OSE. I can't really refresh The Hex Pack unless someone has a need or suggestion. 

Hint, hint, the comments below.

Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D Swashbucklers for D&D and AD&D

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Heroes Zero to Hero

Character Sheet for AD&D Character Sheet for AD&D

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly

Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

The Hex Pack The Hex Pack

You can also find 2 of my titles on my store on Ko-Fi.  I posted items that will never change*, my AD&D Character Sheets for Unearthed Arcana and The Hex Pack. 

These items are pay-what-you-want and are IDENTICAL to those offered on DriveThruRPG. There is no need to duplicate your efforts if you have already received them from DTRPG. This is simply a different shopping option.  

As a general statement of why I have two outlets: 

1. People don't like creating accounts. If I give you two options, I double my chances of you simply having one of them.

2. DriveThruRPG is a community-supporting outlet. Every time you buy something here, 35% of your purchase supports DriveThru in all its endeavors. Being a good-sized company, they can run sales, promotions, bundles, and charity options. I can't do any of this as a single content producer. I really love what they offer. 

3. Ko-Fi has different options. I will soon be selling physical goods that are not a good match for DriveThruRPG: Artwork, coasters, maps, etc. that I make myself. You will notice that some of my digital works are on there, only because I can offer the same PWYW terms AND these products are unlikely to ever change*.  

*Yeah, I've made changes to both of these titles in the past. I will give you the reason why I did this in a post later this week.