Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 049 – Feb 18th

Scout Ship

Talitar is an interesting system. It’s stats are virtually the same as Regari, but it has 2 planets. They share the same wealth and tech codes, but the gravity is wildly different for each world. Talitar I has a gravity of 13 which means no Hopper use. It simply can’t make orbit and burns fuel at an incredible rate. Talitar II has a gravity of 4. Can you guess which planet I will approach?

Talitar II has the following areas: a space station, rural, city, a prison, ruins, mining, a space port, a military base, and craters.

It will take 4 hours to set down on the surface. I am heading for the space port to purchase hypercharges and to sell off some items to free space. If I get that done, I will hit up the military base for upgraded weapons.

On entry to the space port, I encounter customs. They spend 3 hours searching the ship for radioactive materials. They find none and off we go.

In our three final rolls, we are approached by a pilot/navigator (pass), buy our hypercharges for 1000 and I sell off all of the Utility Suits. I also pay this week's ship payment.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
9 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

28 empty CU in the ship’s hold, plus 10 in the Hopper.

I have 22,071 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

If you like science fiction games, try out some of Christian Hollnbuchner's floor plans and deck plans at DriveThruRPG.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 048 – Feb 17th

Today is spent in RRR. The Antelope is repaired, finally but the day is over.

We have the following resources:

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
9 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

What does that leave for me, space wise?

All of the space suits and PS bots have to be in the hold, as there isn’t enough room in the crew quarters. I can pick up one more crewman before this becomes a problem. The heavy hand weapons also take up hold space. That is 60 minus 10+13+7, so I have 30 left. There are 10 RU in the hold plus the extra ship’s guns, which reduces my cargo space to 14. There is not much I can do with that space, so I need to get rid of stuff. On my next stop, I will try to get sell the extra guns and the heavy hand weapons. That will free up 10 spaces.

I also have 10 free spaces in the Hopper, or ship’s boat. I could shuffle stuff into there.

15 empty CU in the ship’s hold, plus the Hopper. I pay the crew today, which costs 80 secs.

I have 23,251 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Instead of giving you a new ad, check out the items to the right of this post. Find a good book, blog or podcast. My personal favorites this week are Safco Cast and Revolutions.

Dervish and Sword and Flame

The USN Thresher
Prototype

I am try to get the hang of Inkscape. It's going pretty well. I have made improvements to the Sword and the Flame (Thresher) class ship deck plans.

I have even created a variant of it called the Dervish. You can read the write up on the Thresher ship here.

The Dervish is still a work in progress and is far less bleeding edge than the first ship. You can tell that they were built on the same hull, but their operations are completely different. Owning to the fact that the Dervish does not have a unique and experimental engine, the hull is completely smooth.

The USN Dervish Class

The Dervish is a platform designed for modification. It was first designed for engine research followed by a search and rescue ship. Other varients are a scout ship, a science/explorer ship or a gun boat. The ship's interior is a wasp shaped affair with fore and aft open spaces for research. The belt of the ship provides 8 bunk rooms for the crew. As a military ship, this is luxurious.

8 domes are suitable for sensors, science experiments or in the case of the gun boat, weapons. There will be a lower deck, but is sparse on amenities. These are more like semi-optional palettes on an F-15, they contain consumables, with little space for moving around. Unlike the Thresher, the Dervish has no turret.

The search and rescue variant has airlocks on the aft domes and auxiliary thrusters on the fore domes. The test model mounts engines in the fore and aft compartments, which vent out the domes. For testing, instrumentation is mounted on the exterior.

I haven't designed the engines for the Dervish yet, but they will be powerful for a ship of it's size. They will extend the lenth of the ship by about 1/3.

Updates to Compass Rose Inn and Kobold's Folly

I have updated the files for The Compass Rose Inn and The Kobold's Folly products. These items are still pay what you want, however, in each case I have increased the suggested price to $3.99 each.

In the case of the Compass Rose Inn, the map has been reworked to be 1 inch = five feet. This now brings the page count to 63 pages. Additionally, this file has map tiles that enable you to print out additional green space for more terrain. To fill some of this space, there is now a barn map with two levels, a stable or work shed with two levels, a well and bake house map.

In Kobold's Folly, I detail what is different between the Tribe of Minwan and other kobolds and provide images of King Minwan and his sister using the two magic items found at in the folly.

If you have already downloaded these files, my thanks. You should receive an email shortly with the new files. If you can't wait, simply check your Library tab at DriveThruRPG.

Click the images below for full resolution example images from the Compass Rose Inn.

As an additional preview of the Compass Rose Inn, I have loaded full resolution images of the entire basement area.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 047 – Feb 16th

Today is spent in RRR. I promised ads on RRR days, but instead of throwing a content free post at you, I would like to consider the rules presented so far.

As far as modifying Star Smuggler for solo play, I would discourage it. The system is carefully balanced where the player must be generous with the AI, which is just series of events and rules. Were I to change something, I would allow more characters to drive skimmers, the medic to accelerate healing and both the engineer and medic would have to have some sort of die roll to perform their functions. Aside from speeding up play and forcing more long term thinking, I don’t think this would have too much effect.

Personally I like have a large entourage, so I would like to increase the crew quarters size on the ship. It’s more fun than carrying goods. In exchange for this, I would give more items a CU value, such as a box of 10 handguns taking up one CU. Currently, they take no space. That seems balanced.

I would be interested in cranking the rules up into a full game system for general play by a party of people. The solo game does a great job of handling whole parties of characters, with the exception of Duke.

The first step I would take is to list out the professions. Gunner, Pilot/Navigator, Bodyguard, Medic Skimmer Driver, and Engineer. Then I would list out the “skills” as presented. Repair, Maintenance, Hand-to-Hand, Ranged Combat, Medicine, Radio Operator, and so on. Your profession allows you one skill and you get a choice of second skill to start. Additionally, every character would have the Cunning Stat.

This means that Duke isn’t a first level character, he has 5 skills: Gunner, Pilot, Hand-to-Hand, Ranged and Radio Operator. I would assign a point value to every event or rule that depends on a character making a die roll or performing a skill with a roll. That would be worth 1 exp point directly to that one character. If the character is subject to death, that is worth 2.

Every ten points, you level up. Each level allows you to get a skill or increase a stat by one.

Additionally, I would allow each skill to have ranks, which is equivalent to one tech level. Therefore, your character can get by with a lower tech level item via their skillfulness. So as not to unbalance combat, all bonuses are limited to 6. If you have a bonus of 3 from tech levels and 3 from a skills, you’d get a total of six. It’s no help to have a tech level of 6 combined with a skill level of 6, it’s still going to be limited to 6, max.

I will have to think more on this type of game play, because the system is so multi-faceted.

The ad for today is a simple choice: Classic Traveller from DriveThruRPG.