Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 014

We move the ship back to the ruins for another run at found treasures. And we have an immediate problem. We fly through a radioactive area and everyone takes one hit damage. Nice.

Even better, I recall wanting to spend a day looking for Life Support Units and Fuel Units back at the Spaceport... Did anyone check to see if Kevin was onboard when we left? Too late now... 

In the remainder of the day, we get lucky and find one intact skimmer and one intact U-Suit.

Let’s recap the crew. There is Duke, Emily, Doc, Ratchet, and two Gunners I’ll call Lefty and Deadeye. I will also pay them today, so I don’t have to do it on Ten-day.

Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 20. Death pay is 200. She has 65 secs. and a side arm.

Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 15. Death pay is 120. He has 60 secs.

Doc, weekly pay 10. No bonus which feels weird and death payment to family is 80. He has 30 secs.

Lefty, weekly pay 15. 10 secs. bonus and 100 death payment. She has 40 secs.

Deadeye, weekly pay 15. 10 secs. bonus and 100 death payment. He has 40 secs.

Total crew salary is 70 secs. a week.

Our assets are:

1 Antelope starship, which I owe 119,300 secs. in principle.

15 Fuel Units,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,

20 Repair units.

1 U-bot,

1 Skimmer,

1 U-suit,

and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 650 secs. in my pocket.

In the cache in the Ruins of Regari are:

3 Skimmers,

4 Repair Units,

100 secs.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 013

Lucky day 13!

I make my roll to sell the boat for a base price of 500 secs. But what makes this so lucky? Each planet has a wealth code and based on that number, it can apply a multiplier to the base price of an item. In this case, I rolled a 6 for the base price which indicates a 1.5 multiplier. That base price shifted to 750 secs.

Ok, metagame time. How bored are you? Each item has a base price so rolling on the wealth code table is a good idea. The price won’t go down, but could go up which is excellent. But how should that be applied? As I read this scenario, I can sell a hopper for 750 credits. But can I sell both? The rules aren’t clear. In some cases, the rules specifically mention a number. For example, in the Colonies, there is a listing for “One side arm”, yet sometimes I can buy many side arms.

Do I make a roll for each? In general, I don’t. If I have 50 side arms, and go to sell, I roll once and simply accept the given price. I can choose not to sell and have to go through the whole process of rolling to get that sell side arms result again, which also allows me to roll on the multiplier table again. It could be more or less. I think that is fair and it is pertinent to this particular event.

I sell both boats for a total of 1500 secs.! I make a payment on the ship of 1000 secs., which is another level of accounting. 300 went to the interest payment for this week and 700 reduced the principle on the ship.

Reducing the principle owed on the ship does not reduce the interest. This is a front ended loan which was a real thing in the 70s and 80s. 

I want to purchase consumables since I have nearly 100 cu of empty space to fill. I need Repair, Life Support and maybe Repair Units plus 6 Utility Suits. I don't get any of those numbers here. Luck is fickle.  

Our assets are:

1 Antelope starship, which I owe 119,300 secs. in principle.

15 Fuel Units,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,

20 Repair units.

1 U-bot,

and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 1720 secs. in my pocket.

In the cache in the Ruins of Regari are:

3 Skimmers,

4 Repair Units,

100 secs.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 012

We are ready to fly. Let’s talk about movement. Each “unit” has a movement rate and each area has a movement distance between two places. I want to get to the Spaceport, which has a dotted line with a 10 connecting it to the Ruins. There are dotted lines to Industrial area marked 4 and the Colony marked 3.

If we walked, it would take one hour times the number labeled on the dotted line. It would take 10 hours to walk to the Spaceport, 3 to the colony or 4 to the Industrial area. Thankfully, ships, boats and skimmers are faster. A skimmer will move from one area to another in 1 hour. A boat or a ship takes 1/10 of an hour.

There is an economy to movement. A boat burns 1 FU per hour of operation. A skimmer burns one FU a day. A ship doesn’t use any fuel, why really isn’t clear in the rules. Additionally skimmers, are not sealed, so you could be burning Life Support Units, too. The boat is sealed but also burns LU in space. 

Yesterday, I made another accounting mistake. It turns out that loading a boat into the ship requires no energy or effort, so I marked off a Fuel Unit for nothing. I'm not going to fix it now. 

We spend an hour moving to the Spaceport and I have no problem entering the area as we are detected but nothing comes of it. I want to hire more crew and sell off the found boat.

When buying and selling things, you have to roll the appropriate event. In the Spaceport, each roll or transaction takes an hour. In this case, I want a 5 to sell these boats. I didn’t get that today.

I do hire two ships gunners. Each one has a salary of 15 and a sign on bonus of 10. This move makes me nervous, because I need to pay 300 on the ship by the end of the week.

Our assets are:

1 Antelope starship,

2 Hopper with 14 units of fuel between them

1 Stasis pod 2 CU,

20 Repair units.

1 U-bot.

and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 220 secs. in my pocket.

In the cache in the Ruins of Regari are:

3 Skimmers,

4 Repair Units,

100 secs.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 011

Today, I am doing something different. The ‘verse is a difficult place and one false move could cost me everything. For that reason, I am going to create a cache in the ruins. This is a collection of inventory not stored on the ship. If something happens, I can come back to this place and claim this junk.

To recover a cache, I roll two dice. The first one indicates the number of hours it takes to find it, and the second determines if I can find it again. In the ruins, there is a 1 in 6 chance I won’t be able to recover the items. The more time that passes, the harder it is to find something.

I won’t be leaving stuff in the cache for long.

Annoyingly, robots are not easily cached. If they are not in a stasis field, they will breakdown. So our one robot is moved to storage in Engineering. I move one Fuel Unit into the found boat to move it. I divide up 20 of the Repair Units between the two boats.

I cache the 3 skimmers, 4 RU’s plus 100 secs.

Our assets are:

1 Antelope starship,

2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel between them

1 Stasis pod 2 CU,

20 Repair units.

1 U-bot.

and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I now have 270 secs.

In the cache in the Ruins of Regari are:

3 Skimmers,

4 Repair Units,

100 secs.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 010

On this day, the crew and I continued to search the ruins. We have a single encounter, discovering a room with 30 secs. worth of coins in it.

Our assets are:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
24 Repair units.
3 Skimmer,
1 U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I now have 410 secs.

This closes out the week. Normally, on Ten-day I would be paying 300 secs. for the ship but I did that on day one. I now have 10 more days I can stretch, but I'm probably not going to do that.

On this day, I fork out the crew pay, which is rather minimal. 40 secs. leaving me with 370. I'm not comfortable yet but this week has been pretty safe.

I don't have an ad today, but I want to share a link to Wikipedia's article on Metric Time. It sounds brain bustingly hard but is probably what Star Smuggler is doing. 

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 009

Dear Diary,

We went back into the ruins again. We found a pair of skimmers. One was intact, while the other was cannibalized for a single repair unit.

Skimmers probably don't have wheels.

Here are today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
24 Repair units.
3 Skimmer,
1 U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I'd like to circle back and talk about the various "units" in the game. There are repair units, life-support units and fuel units. Life-support or LU, provides air, food and water to all people in a vehicle for a day in a bad air or vacuum environment. On this planet, the air is good and we don't need them.

Fuel units power the hoppers and the skimmers. For a hopper, they provide one movement point, say from the ruins to the spaceport or from the spaceport to orbit. There is a multiplier for gravity.

Skimmers also use fuel units, but one per day. Only a few characters can drive the skimmers. The engineer has that skill, as do skimmer drivers. Skimmer drivers are a quirk, the will not leave the system they were from, so you always need an engineer. Were I to change a rule, it would be this one. I would allow bodyguards and medics to drive, but not starship pilots or navigators.

Obviously, the hopper is faster but the skimmers are more efficient.

Strictly (Duke) Spinger - Day 008 (RRR) Human Error

Ah, human error is a great thing. I rolled poorly and we had a contact, e88. This is an abandon room where Duke found 30 secs. The error in this was nothing needed to be repaired, so I wasted a day on a contact I didn't mean or need to attempt. I happened to get lucky and scored some secs. 

Dear Diary,

We engage in RRR, again. Some parts are literally watching paint dry.

Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
23 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
2 Skimmer,
1 U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I have 380 secs.

Now to the promised content.

Yesterday, I mentioned Dwarfstar, which is a part of Reaper Minis now. I also happened to be listening to back catalog of The History of English. Episode 118 is about the history of trade names. While this podcast isn't on science fiction, it explains many of ideas and terms we still use today. I thought it was apt.

Strictly (Duke) Spinger - Day 007 (RRR)

This is another RRR day, third in a row. Time for an ad, but not a real ad. Reaper miniatures, in conjuncture with Dwarfstar have made many of their old games available. What is great about this is, if you follow the link above and scroll down, you can find tips and methods to use the digital files to reproduce the whole game with great looking counters.

Back to Duke.

Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
23 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
2 Skimmer,
1 U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 006 (RRR)

Dilemma time. Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I'm playing it and posting the results here one day at a time. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

I have reached the point where the characters are doing Rest, Repair and Recuperation and not a whole hell of lot happens.

Mechanically, when you engaging in RRR, you roll a die to see if you have a forced contact at the start of the day. Roll a 6, there is a chance of an encounter. There are 7 varieties of encounters for each area and some areas by virtue of what they are preclude some of those 7. The ruins are one of those.

Going forward on RRR days, I'll share stats then I will tell you about things related to science fiction, outside of the Star Smuggler game which will probably contain an ad for something for you to purchase. 

Dear Diary,

Day six is less exciting than day five. We engage in RRR, again. Some parts are literally watching paint dry.

Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
24 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
2 Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 005 (RRR)

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

Dear Diary,

Day five is less exciting than day four. We engage in RRR, I watched the engineer repair the ship's boat. He did it, he doesn't even need a die roll. Ugh.

Engineers are interesting, sometimes they can fight, they can always do repairs under direction and oddly can drive a skimmer. Every item repaired burns one Repair Unit (RU) per point of damage, no matter how big or small it is. 

At the end of the 10 hour day, I'm thinking of money. Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Hopper, no fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
25 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
1 Skimmer,
1 Damaged Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket, but the gear will sell will help, a lot.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 004

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

Dear Diary,

Day four was boring. We found a Utility bot and a damaged skimmer. The end.

Bots are boring in this game. They have a Tech level but can't fight, they can also breakdown when being used and have a weekly secs cost to operate. They are a money suck most of the time. Since they can't fight, the Tech level is only increasing the chance of a breakdown. They have very specific uses, so don't get excited about them. 

For the record, all U-bots do is carry stuff. They can carry 3 CUs of items for you, which comes in handy because a human can only carry 2. 

At the end of the 10 hour day, I'm thinking of money. Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Hopper, no fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
26 Repair units,
1 Skimmer,
1 Damaged Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket, but the gear will sell will help, a lot.

Now throwing it back to Phil... I haven't tried to sell you anything in a while. This website is supported through ads on DriveThruRPG. You can also purchase my books posted on the upper right of every page. However, today I would like to suggest a title on DriveThru RPG called Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart. Like Star Smuggler before it, it is very much a child of the 80s. It also has two booklets, maps, pre-generated characters and is reasonably priced at $10.00.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 003

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

This is getting old, fast. We are still in the ruins looking for "good junk". Today was much better than yesterday. We scored big. First, Emily found a working sidearm and the we found a damaged ship's boat or Hopper. The ship's boat from the ruins is the best item you can find. You roll 1d6 to determine how beat up it is. This one has one point of damage, which can be fixed in a day by an engineer. 

Found equipment gets a roll for Tech level, just like anything else. The problem is, the Tech level of Regari is low so nothing found can have a Tech level higher than 1. 

At the end of the 10 hour day, we're sore, but have some loot. Here is today's scorecard:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Hopper, 1 point of damage.
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
26 Repair units,
1 Skimmer
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship.  I have 350 secs. in my pocket.

Emily now has a gun, for reals.

The rules state that a Hopper class ship's boat takes up 40 CU in a bay. The drawing of the ship makes it look like it will fit in the ship's hold, meaning the Antelope can carry two. I don't know if that is an accurate reading of the rules, but that's how I roll. If that was not true, I would assume Emily could fly it behind the ship to another area using fuel units from the other boat. I am uncertain if the rules assume you don't bring the Antelope or they expect you to. 

Now taking back my captains chair, this is Phil. If you look on the right hand column, there to two features I hope stand out. First is the blogroll and the second is podcasts. If you are a creator and want to get your podcast or blog mentioned here, I am happy to oblige. Mention it in the comments or catch me on Facebook or Mewe and I would be glad to add you to the ever increasing list of titles I read or listen to.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 002

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

Dear Diary,

I don't really have a U-suit,
but I do have a sidearm.

It's day two of my criminal career and I am just as bad as being a criminal as I was as a trader. In the last hour daylight yesterday, we took off from the spaceport to the ruins. The ship can move without expending fuel, but is way easier to detect entering an area.  

So what are we doing?

The ruins have all kinds of junk scattered around. Emily and I are scouting around looking for stuff to salvage. I get just two chances a day to find something of use, it takes 5 hours to investigate a section of the ruins.

In the top half of the day, we found an intact but fuel-less skimmer and the bottom half of the day a single repair unit. A skimmer can hold six cubic units (CU) of stuff and takes up 10 CU worth of space in the

At the end of the 10 hour day, we're sore, but have some loot. Here are financials, crew status and assets at the end of day one:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
26 Repair units,
1 Skimmer
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 20. Death pay to the family is 200. Let's not die, ok?
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 15. Death pay is 120.
Doc, weekly pay 10. No bonus which feels weird and death payment to family is 80.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I have 350 secs. in my pocket.

Spacesuits are called Utility Suits
or U-Suits in this game. 

If anything on the ship was more than Tech level one, we'd be doing maintenance to keep it in operation. Tech level adds a bonus to most things, but the higher the tech, the more likely it will breakdown. Rolling under the Tech level indicates a breakdown, which means T-1 level items never breakdown, but have no bonuses. 

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 001

"Duke" Springer is a child of the future...
 of the children of the 80s. Nice shirt, "Duke" 

Happy New Year!

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

Anyway, what I am doing for my 2020 series? Last year was 52 Weeks of Magic. 2020 brings Strictly (Duke) Springer. This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke". I'm not sure what his first name is, but it has to be better than the one in the quotation marks.

Here are the general rules for this series. "Strictly", means I won't flub rolls one way or another. Second, all commentary on the game itself will be in bold. Third, if Duke dies before all 52 weeks are up, I will simply carry on with a henchman designated as Duke's Heir. If there are no henchmen, I will start over.

Here we go.

Dear Diary,

It's day one of my criminal career. I'm not really good at this. I have an Antelope class starship, starship's guns, a 2 cubic unit status pod, a side arm, a ship's boat called a hopper, 15 fuel units and passion for trouble. I also have 750 secs, which is good because I owe 120,000 secs. for the ship. The interest only payment is 300 secs. A week. It was a better deal than college.

Obviously, I'm at the Spaceport, so I'm going to spend a few hours looking for hirelings... er, employees. My first four hours are wasted, but after that, I manage to hire a few people.

First, I hired on an Pilot/Navigator. I'm a pilot/navigator like her, but unlike her, I can fire the ship's guns. The two of us together can defend the ship. Her weekly pay is 25 secs., but she'll cut me a deal at 15 secs. because the cockpit is equipped with a status unit. She also needed a sign-on bonus of 20 secs., which wasn't too unreasonable. She... she... she...

"Are you looking at a book of baby names?" she asked.
"No, that would be totally demeaning... Emily?" I said.
"My name isn't Em... Ugh. Whatever, 'Duke'. "

With that all settled, I also hired an Engineer I named Ratchet and medic I'll be calling "Doc".

Doc looked sheepish. "I'm really not a doctor, I just have some battlefield experience..."
"Do you want the sign on bonus or what?" I asked. According to the rules, Medics don't get signing bonuses. Oops. 
"You're the boss," he said.

Ok. Having invested some good time with my new associates, I managed to waste most the rest of the day. I did purchase 25 repair units, which are instrumental to my plans. In the 9th hour, I made a 300 secs. interest payment on the ship early, so I don't have much to worry about for a while. The rules don't specify a specific payday except by the last day of week, so I accept early payment within the same week as acceptable. 

We take off and set course for the Ruins of Regari, just an hour away.

At the end of the 10 hour day, we're beat. Here are financials, crew status and assets at the end of day one:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU in size,
25 Repair units,
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 20. Death pay to the family is 200. Let's not die, ok?
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 15. Death pay is 120.
Doc, weekly pay 10. No bonus which feels weird and death payment to family is 80.

Designated Heir: None, but I know it'll be Emily.

Death payments are meant to be a money drain, but there are light consequences for not paying it. 

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship, but paid 300 in interest early, which gives me almost 2 ten day weeks until the next payment. I have 350 secs in my pocket, which is only enough to cover basic expenses for another 29 days. At that point, the crew will walk unless I can use some cunning plus the ship will be up for repo. Cunning is a stat that only Duke has, it allows him to roll a die to trick people into doing things. I have a rating of 4 out of six, so I could theoretically keep the crew without pay so long as my luck holds out.