Revisiting Star Smuggler - Session 005a

The Zephyr

Week 5 in going to involve some gun running, so the crew purchases a full load of hypercharges for 2000 secs. This reduces their funds to 1175. 

Imperia is an expensive planet, everything is at least double normal prices. However, the main limiting factor is space on the ship. The best way to think about this problem is how to remove as much stuff from the cargo hold. Some items have a specific home. The 27 side arms are in the vault and take up 3 CU. The Regen tank is in medical, taking up 4 CU. The vacuum skimmer is cool, but it really has to stay in the cargo hold taking of 10 of 60 CU. The heavy side arms, robots and u-suits can be distributed in the crew quarters. The hoppers have their own spaces. Naturally, 19 fuel units can be divided among the hoppers. Additionally, the four repair units can be placed in Engineering while the 20 life support units can be placed on the hoppers for storage. 

There is now 50 CU available for items in the hold. The hoppers are too overloaded for use, not all the crew could escape on them due to the overpacking of equipment. Additionally, they should not be deployed because they crew doesn't want them damaged. 

I need 1 fuel unit and a few more repair units. I can sell 2 U-bots, the side arms and some of the life support units. The crew lands at the Industrial site and finds an empty room to search. None of the items in this area are worth screwing up a trade opportunity, so they move on. Looking at the table for the Industrial site, I need to roll a 5 (U-bots), a 7 for repair units, 8 for fuel, 10 for life support and 11 for side arms. There are a maximum of 5 rolls per day as they take 2 hours each. 

I get 5, 6, 10, 7 and 6. That's U-bots, a repairman, life support units, repair units and another repairman. Hmm. U-bots are 50 base price. The roll is a 3, or 5 times normal cost. They sell the bots for 500. It turns out life support units can't be sold here, so that roll is no good. Repair units are 5 each. The crew is going to take a chance on these and purchases 50 of them for 250. 

The next day, day 3, they roll again. They have excellent luck and sell all 50 repair units for 20 secs each or 1000 total. They also decide to sell the four in storage for an additional 80. The engineers are praying they have some good rolls, but no. They get a 3 which ends day 3. 

Day 4 doesn't go well. They purchase one fuel unit at a price of 2. Now they have a solid 20 fuel units or 10 per boat. No other good items appear. 

Day 5, the crew hits the jackpot and can buy side arms at cost of 15 each. Side arms are good cargo because a box of 10 takes up 2 CU. It's now a question of how much cash they have. They have 2503 secs. They buy 123 of them, when combined with the 27 they already have, they have a total of 150 weapons. They take up 30 CU, so they have a bit of breathing room. 

They take the rest of they day to get to the rough areas and I will roll for entry on the next morning. 

Day 6, welcome to the roughs. The Zephyr encounters nothing on the way in to the area, but attempts a contact. They meet up with some rough characters, gun runners who have a ton of arms. The crew is loaded for bear with the ship and hopper guns, so this is not a concern.  

They offer to buy the side arms for 5 each times 10. They take in 7500  less the 1845 they paid for them. The ship's account is up to 8158. 

On day 7, they try again to meet up with the arms dealers. It doesn't work out, instead they meet up with a party of royal guards. Nothing comes of it. 

The next day (EDIT - DAY 8!, I goofed), they get lost and have to boost the ship to a higher altitude to find their way out. A wasted day. 

On day 8 9, they move to orbit and dock at the space station. They may a payment and end the week with 6958. Each crewman receives 74 secs. 

I am going to cut off at the end of Day 8 9. As a player, my inclination is to return to something safe and sure like that cargo run from Regari to Palatek. As a game master, this is where I would kick the players in the butt to make fun stuff happen. 

Revisiting Star Smuggler - Session 004

The Zephyr

Week four didn't start out as planned.  The crew is on Nipna and is looking to get off world. The ships took a heavy beating on the last day of the week and the crew has decided repairs are in order. 

In this run through of the game, each character is an independent crew member and has a stake in the ship. While I have been avoiding splitting the crew, I decide that it is reasonable in this case. 

The engineers, Mel and Sarah pour over the ship and the hopper to get all the repairs done on day 1 of week 4. Emily and Patrick are there with heavy hand weapons and the ability to fly the ship away in case they get a bad roll again. 

Jason, Burnie and Alex take off to look for better guns for the ship. The Zephyr has one empty turret and the other only holds TL-1 guns. This proved to be a problem as they could barely defend the ship. The hoppers with TL-6 guns are far more effective. 

They managed to purchase 2 sets of TL-5 guns for a total 3200 secs. They also sold the old guns for 600, which leaves the ship with only 1464 in the ship's account. They crew feels they are dangerously low on funds as hypercharges cost 500 and a ship payment is 475. They have less than 3 weeks of cash in the bank and nothing has been paid on the principal. 

On day 2, they lift of and head for New Karma. 

New Karma is a rather dangerous planet. It is both rich and low tech, but there is a heavy risk of becoming wanted or being attacked at random. Additionally, this planetary system is the most obscure of all of the systems in the game. I mean that literally. There is a lot of rolling for one event that forces you to another event. You can't really see threats coming by flipping to the next entry. 

Luckily, the ship is undetected on entry to the system and proceeds to land in the Ruins. 

Over the next six days, the crew manages to accumulate some goods. In order, they are: 

A skimmer with no fuel, 

10 damaged u-suits that require an RU for repair and a roll to see if it works, 

A damaged U-bot, 

Another undamaged skimmer with no fuel,

A ship's boat with 4 hits of damage, 

An undamaged U-bot, 

A TL-1 side arm, 

A undamaged GM-bot. 

A damaged GM-bot. 

A repair unit. 

That brings us to day 7. 

The engineers burn up four RU to fix the ship's boat. I deem that two engineers working together, can repair one point of damage each. While they are doing that, the rest of the crew creates a cache for the 2 skimmers. 

One of the quirks of this is system is you have to have enough space in terms of CU to fit things in the ship. The rule sort of hint that you can put a boat inside the cargo bay, so that is what they do. 

Now the ship is using all three bays for boats and the largest bay also holds a skimmer. There are 10 CU left, unless I want to start packing things in the hoppers. I am going to do that. Two have guns, so that means 10 of a combined total of 75 CU of space is taken. I also divide the life support units and repair units among the hoppers. That is another 23 CU of 75 taken. I have 42 left. The crew loads in some heavy hand weapons, side arms (just 7) and all of the extra u-suits. 

If they don't take too long, the cached items can be recovered later. The crew decides to go for broke, and try a double jump to Talitar then a single jump to Imperia. At Talitar, there is a single scoutship waiting for us, but they quickly jump again with no incident. 

In the Imperia system, the Zypher only gets a radio check in and can proceed to the surface. The crew decides to stop at the Space Station to try and sell off some goods. They managed to sell the extra hopper for 2500 and immediately pay an interest payment. They have 3489 secs. 

At this point the crew moves the ship away to do some much needed maintenance in orbit, with no random checks. They now have the following in the cargo holds: 

2 Hoppers TL-1, 19 fuel units, 2 GM-bots at TL-5, 2 U-bots at TL-2, 1 vacuum skimmer TL-5 (e153), 3 TL-1 u-suits, 1 TL-6 u-suits, 27 side arms at TL-1, Regen Tank TL-6 (e153), Defense Screens, 20 life support units, and 4 repair units. 

The crew also collects its pay (314 secs) which drives down the ship's account to 3175. 

Tinkering with Worldographer

This one is called Miledown, a village, an abandoned tower and a fortification. 

I haven't picked a scale, but I think each hex in the image above should be about 0.2 miles or 1056 feet. That's ok, because I am going with a more artistic rendering of the map. I'll probably add more blue and green pops, but I really like this style. 

The fortification is forming in my mind, based on this image from earlier this month. 

In Worldographer, I have started throwing down the outlines. Right now, I have only laid out the items the guys in the image above can see. I should have marked their location, but I didn't think of that. If you look at the far lower left tower, they are about 6 boxes up and 6 to the right of that tower. 

This front area should be about 1/3 of the whole fortification. In HO scale, the whole thing would be 3 feet wide and four or five feet long. I hope to be done with the digital art by Christmastime. 

If you want to see some of my other maps, go check out DriveThruRPG. Each is listed as pay what you want. 

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly

Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

The Hex Pack The Hex Pack

Revisiting Star Smuggler - Play Session 003

What I think a Smuggler
looks like... 

We are in week three. The crew is on Nipna and is looking to make a profit. Emily proposes that they move to the colony where they can trade some goods. To further this goal, Emily orders the hoppers deployed, freeing up their 40 CU slots on the ship. Now the Zephyr can hold a ridiculous amount of products, so long as they don't move. 

Over the week they spend a lot of time purchasing low and selling high. It isn't all that interesting. they take on some u-suits, fuel units, repair units and weapons. Emily decides to stock the ships weapons locker with two cases of side arms TL-6 and arm the crew appropriately. Every crew man has atleast a TL-6 side arm plus the Emily and the Gunners all have heavy side arms. They also take on 6 addition TL-6 heavy side arms for future use. Surprisingly, they make the most money off the fuel and repair units. 

By the evening of day seven, they have made 2540 secs. Emily calls it and moves the ship back to the spaceport where they set down and redeploys the hoppers in order to take on more goods. 

Emily is feeling kind of broke, so she personally invests in some repair units and then hopper guns. She manages to make herself 430 secs. Additionally, the crew arms up the hoppers with new TL-6 guns at a cost of 240 secs., which was slightly offset by selling the guns they had for 30 secs each. The rest of the crew takes a day of RRR and are impressed with her trade skills.   

On day 9, things go wrong. Very wrong. It was decided the ship would depart on Day 10. The crew would pick the destination once they made orbit. Since day 9 was a day of RRR except for Emily, they accidentally rolled a contact. They got the dreaded e133 Death Squad again. 

The Zephyr and one of the hoppers are damaged by two titanic explosions as the miner's connected and exploded. 

And here is where the rules go batty. There are some references to explosive hits on a ship and boat, but these guys merely have to touch the ship to cause damage. But how much? I don't know. Since damage is determined by a to hit roll and they don't have to roll to touch something, what happens?  

I can't imagine that someone could miss touching a starship or a boat. They are walking bombs so I decided that they do 1 point of damage to the Zephyr and 1d6 plus a critical to the hopper, just like a blast from ship's guns. The hopper takes 2 points and rolls for breakdown. It's a TL-1 hopper, it doesn't breakdown. 

The next round is brutal. The hoppers open fire with their guns as the Zephyr leaps into the air. They down the spitters while the other two members of the squad mill about. The hoppers lift off and continue the carnage. 

Three rounds of combat and the squad is dead. The crew seriously considers upgrading the Zephyr's guns. 

Day 10 is spent as RRR with no results. They obviously get a visit from the local police, which doesn't really effect anything. The police are just happy to have the Death Squad dead and the Zephyr leaving the planet. The engineers patch up what they can before heading to bed. One hopper has a good sized hole in it (1 point of damage). 

The ship's account starts day 10 at 7404 secs. The crew is paid off 74 secs. each. Emily phones in the ship's weekly payment of 475, leaving 6263. 

The crew will pick a new destination on day 1 of week 4. 

The ship holds the following resources: 2 Hoppers TL-1, 2 Hopper guns TL-6, 1 Ship's Guns TL-1, 18 fuel units, 1 GM-bot TL-5, 1 vacuum skimmer TL-5 (e153), 3 TL-1 u-suits, 1 TL-6 u-suits, Regen Tank TL-6 (e153), Defense Screens, 20 life support units, and 8 repair units, 27 TL-6 side arms, 6 TL-6 heavy side arms. 

Revisiting Star Smuggler - Play Session 002

Last post, we ended with the crew of the Zephyr winning big at the gambling tables, only to have Emily get jumped for her money and gear. Mel not only wins big at the high roller table, he also purchase a TL-6 side arm that fires like a heavy hand weapon. Feeling bad for Emily, he gives her the weapon. She wants to hear more about the seller because she wants enough firepower to get even with those hoods that jumped her. 

As Mel explained how he met this arms dealer, (e153) Emily hatches a plot. 

Ok, as mentioned in the prior post, each member of the Zephyr crew is an independent character like Duke was in Star Smuggler. While they lack his skills and stats, they have his equipment and money, plus that independence. In this scenario, Duke holds the title on the ship and is the person that the crew pays interest and principal to. 

When Emily calls him about the most recent payment, she flubs her cunning check and lets slip that she is about to go from legit trader to vigilante. Duke squashes the idea and implicitly tells her to get back to trading. The casino vacation is over. 

The crew makes their weekly payment and have 1375 in the ship's account to work with. Additionally, the individual crewmen have several thousand secs to spend on personal equipment. 

Emily rallies the troops and they spend the next 4 days trading in the Spaceport. They buy low and sell high on Ninpa. One of the quirks of this system is items have a base price which is modified by the wealth of the system. Prices are modified from x1 to x20. This increases rather steeply on high cost planets, but even under the worst conditions the player can make 10 times what they spent because the difference of the highest and lowest prices are based on a 1d6. You're equally likely to get x1 or x2 prices as it is to get x10 or x20.  

While the majority of the crew are looking for resources or salable goods, Emily is looking for more gunmen. At the end of the week, the players obtain a GM bot, 20 life support units and sell off 10 of 30 fuel units. Mel made an opportune purchase of 10 additional GM bots and sold them for a whopping 6000 secs. All said and done, the ship's account jumped to 6769. 

Emily, on the other hand started looking for more stake holders, crew for the ship. She successfully recruited 2 pilots named Jason and Alex, 2 gunners named Pete and Burnie plus Sarah, an engineer. Each of them put up 100 secs. to join the crew topping up the ship's account to 7269. 

Here are the new character's stats: 

Jason - Pilot
Marksmanship - 3     Hand-to-Hand - 1     Endurance - 4     Cunning - 3     Stake - 1%
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 550 secs.  

Alex - Pilot 
Marksmanship - 4     Hand-to-Hand - 1     Endurance - 5     Cunning - 1     Stake - 1%
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 150 secs. 

Burnie - Gunner
Marksmanship - 4     Hand-to-Hand - 2    Endurance - 7     Cunning - 5     Stake - 1%
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 550 secs. 

Pete - Gunner
Marksmanship - 3     Hand-to-Hand - 3     Endurance - 4     Cunning - 2     Stake - 1%
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 50 secs. 

Sarah - Engineer
Marksmanship - 2     Hand-to-Hand - 2     Endurance - 5     Cunning - 6     Stake - 1%
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 250 secs. 

After successfully getting the require crew for a good hit on the hoods, Emily tried to make contact with the weapons dealer. They ran into a repo team the first day, but this is a non-event because the ship's weekly payment was already made. 

On the second day, the crew met with disaster. On their second day out, they ran into a Mynkurian Death Squad (e133). On a high tech world like Nipna, this could have been deadly. 

For role play purposes, I placed the crew in a bar looking for contacts. Half the party was in one booth while the rest of the party was in a second booth. When the Death Squad entered, they couldn't pick out leaders, so I rolled 50-50 for which table interested them. They picked Emily's table and fired two shots on them. Two of the squad are miners that go after bots and vehicles and explode on contact. Since the party didn't have these items, they hesitated. The "gold slayers" have poison knives and target officers. Since no one was displaying a weapon or insignia, they also paused. The spitters fired two shots at a random character, who happened to be Emily. She was stuck for 6 hits and returned fire burning one spitter to ash with her new pistol. The remaining characters opened fire, too. With TL-1 sidearms they didn't down anyone but the two miners took 1 and 2 points respectively. 

The remaining spitter targeted Emily again. He missed but Emily blew him away. The rest of the crew took down both miners since they were closer. 

In the third round, Emily was forced to flee and no one could shoot the lead "gold slayer". The second "slayer" was hammered by 7 side arm shots. 

In the forth round Emily stood her ground and fired. The "slayer" beat the odds and stabbed her. While Drew administered first aid, the rest of the crew punched and kicked the last slayer to death. 

For the rest of the week, Emily is laid up with injuries. Drew puts her in the Regen tank and she is restored to 9 Endurance. She decides not to risk the tank a second time. The GM-bot does it's thing on the ship and maintains the tank to keep it safe and available. 

Over the next two days, the rest of the crew is very luck and makes 2 contacts with the "weapons dealer". This is e153 High Technology Items. In the reading of the event, the crew makes a roll to see what item they are offered. To role play this one out, I decided that this dealer is a lot like The Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy and what item the characters get is based on the party's internal arguing with each other. 

The crew is dominated by spacemen and they select first the vacuum skimmer with life support and starship defensive screens for 1,500 secs. This comes out of the ship's account as they are items for the ship. The account now holds 5,469. 

Had Emily been with them, I would have had her make a cunning roll to try to get those powerful side arms. But she wasn't and most of the crew are new and pilots or engineers. They think better equipment is the best. 

At the end of the week, each member of the crew receives 55 secs. which reduces the ship's account to 4864. The ship has the following resources on board: 

2 Hoppers TL-1, 2 Hopper guns TL-1, 1 Ship's Guns TL-1, 20 fuel units, 1 GM-bot TL-5, 1 vacuum skimmer TL-5 (e153), 3 TL-1 u-suits, 1 TL-6 u-suits, Regen Tank TL-6 (e153), Defense Screens, 20 life support units, and 10 repair units. 

The characters have the following equipment: 

Emily - Pilot
Equipment - utility suit (T-6), sidearm (T-6, explosive rounds).
Money: 74 secs.  

Mel - Engineer
Equipment - utility suit (T-6), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 3769 secs. 

Drey - Medic
Equipment - utility suit (T-6), PS-bot (T-1).
Money: 74 secs. 

Patrick - Gunner
Equipment - utility suit (T-6), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 1074 secs. 

Jason - Pilot
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1). 
Money: 615 secs.  

Alex - Pilot 
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 205 secs. 

Burnie - Gunner
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 605 secs. 

Pete - Gunner
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 105 secs. 

Sarah - Engineer
Equipment - utility suit (T-1), sidearm (T-1).
Money: 305 secs.