Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 058 – Feb 27th

Let’s start today right. I pay the crew. In the next hour, I get side arms TL-1 at 4 secs. each. I buy 8,500 of them and break for orbit. We double jump back to Imperia and have two ours of daylight left.

Our entry encounter is interesting. We respond to a distress call and get jumped by pirates. They storm the ship, 1 through the airlock and 3 enter the cargo bay. They have suits, so depressurizing won’t help much. They carry TL-1 side arms and a magic axe that can incapacitate anyone it hits. Fun.

My crew also has suits, military U-suits with PS bots. We’re going to play this out the hard way.

The first time I read this, I wondered how many pirates there were. The rules say that unless I kill all intruders in a single turn, 4 more enter the next turn in the same fashion. Ok. That is interesting.

Emily and Duke take the airlock. Lucy and Ratchet with side arms head to the cargo bay along with Deadeye, Lefty, David. The non-engineers have Heavy Side Arms with explosive rounds, TL-4.

Duke kills his target in one shot. Emily heads to the Cargo bay. In the bay, the fire fight is frantic. Ratchet hits a target for one point of damage. Lucy misses. The other all hit, leaving only one guy standing with 4 hits left. He fires and misses.

Next round. Duke incapacitates another target. In the bay, the fire fight continues. Emily, Deadeye, and Lefty down 3 bad guys, David misses. Lucy and Ratchet fire on the last guy doing one more point of damage each. He fires back and hits Lucy for one point of damage.

Third round. Duke retreats to the cockpit area where the doctors are and vents the atmosphere. In the bay, the team guns everyone down again, 3 are incapacitated and the last guy is dead.

Round four. Duke returns to the airlock and is fired on. He’s hit for one point of damage. Emily returns to the airlock area. David, Deadeye and Lefty all hit with explosive rounds. It doesn’t matter what they roll, they all have ruptured suits and drop.

Round Five. Let’s start in the Cargo bay. Round four is repeated, with all three pirates going down. Duke and Emily get the same result. The battle is over.

Time to gather up the goods. We strip the enemy ship of 1000 secs. worth of stuff before it’s engines malfunction. I take another 640 secs. from the dead pirates, plus their 20 side arms.

Duke and Lucy are hurt, suffering one point of damage each. Could be worse. I am also out of hypercharges, so we can't jump.

We descend toward the planet, in our final hour of the day. We are heading to the slums to unload these side arms.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 Boat guns, TL-2.
8,520 Side Arms, TL-1.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat,
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits.
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with no hypercharges.

I have 6,271 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 057 – Feb 26th

We break orbit in the first hour of the day. We have 9 left. Where do I go from here? We are going to make a double jump for Cubro.

On entry, we stumble across a 4 CU status chamber from e103. We pick it up, but have no way to open it now. There is not much on Cubro, so we head for the slums with 4 hours of day light. We run right into a riot in progress. Duke has to make a save vs. cunning or every person and every vehicle will take a point of damage. We succeed in escaping unharmed.

Each roll takes 2 hours and we have 3 hours to spend. The rules say that if you can start before time runs out, you complete that last action, so I can make two rolls. Except I roll a 4, which results in no more rolls.

Sigh.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 Boat guns, TL-2.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
4 CU Status Unit (e103).
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 38,731 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 056 – Feb 25th

Where do I go from here? I have technically won the game as I no longer owe on my ship. If Duke is supposed to break the law, perhaps I could bend the rules for fun.

Sounds like a plan. Let’s break some of the solo rules for Star Smuggler. I’d like a bigger ship, but let’s not go that far. We could do some other things and check for consequences as we go.

Let’s start with where I am. I’m on Imperia, at the spaceport. I didn’t mention this move yesterday, but that is what I had to do to sell the boat guns. It takes 3 rolls to purchase hypercharges. I top up and keep rolling. I have hired a second engineer and another starship gunner. I’ll call them Lucy and David.

That took seven rolls, so I have three hours of daylight. We make for orbit and get three units out.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 Boat guns, TL-2.
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.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 38,731 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 055 – Feb 24th

I need to unload these weapons. I have 10 tries. In my first roll, I get a 9 for Side Arms. Yeah!

It’s the exact same deal as yesterday, 20 secs. each. If I use the  pheromones again, I could double the price to 40 each. 40 is actually a possibility on the price multiplier table for Imperia. Do I use the pheromones for something I could do by a free die roll?

Naw, let’s not be too greedy. I’ll sell all 7,500 side arms at 20 each for a total of 150,000.

Later, I sell of two of the extra boat guns for 300.

That is bitter sweet, because I just won the game. 150,000 less 117,000 leaves me 33,000 secs. after paying for my ship.

My inventory is:

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
1 Boat guns, TL-2.
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.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 39,571 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

So is this it? Is it the end? We shall see.

Let me share the link back to Dwarfstar's website, so you can relive their great products, too.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 054 – Feb 23rd

We are off to Imperia again. Time to sell some weapons in the slums. After a brief radio contact, we are permitted to land. We have 6 hours of daylight.

We get an event where we can purchase some illegal items, but we don’t have room for them in the ship. Dang it.

In the fifth hour, we can unload these side arms for a base price of 2. We get a 5 on the multiplier table, which is 10 times the normal price, so 20 each. You know what I am going to do next, don’t you?  Those pheromones can double the price so I use one. I roll a 6 and the effects are reversed, the price is halved. Damn. That sucks, but I don’t have to sell.

In my last hour, I get a roll of 4, which is no more rolls. Ugh.

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.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
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.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
7500 Side Arms TL-2.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 6,271 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 053 – Feb 22nd

We need to repair the ship, so we spend the day in RRR. We could jump with a damaged ship, but there there is a risk mechanic involved. “We may experience slight turbulence and explode”. Not on my watch. The mechanics are so simple, a modifier of one per hit of damage is so crystal clear, you don't want to try this.

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.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
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.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
7500 Side Arms TL-2.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 6,271 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 052 – Feb 21st

Welcome to the city! It takes one hour to get here and we can make one roll per hour. We have nine rolls.

It takes 6 hours, plus to the hour of travel time to purchase side arms. They are TL-2 and cost two each.

This is one of the things I don’t like. Side arms don’t take any space, so I can load up with them at no particular problems. They are also no more or less valuable based on tech level. I buy 7500 of them.

We use the remaining time to get into space to make another starship payment and head off into orbit.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle. It has one point of damage.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
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,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
7500 Side Arms TL-2.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 6,271 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 051 – Feb 20th

We are still trying to buy stuff in the Military base.

We roll a 5, a 1 and 3, which is perfect. We purchase 10 TL-1 military U-suits plus 10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects for a total 500 secs.The U-suits can seal under explosive damage, which would normally kill someone. They can also heal 2 hits per turn, which is also a great way to have a suit failure result in death.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle. It has one point of damage.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
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,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

We are packed to the gills with equipment. We need to move to the city tomorrow.

I have 21,571 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 050 – Feb 19th

We spend an hour flying to the military base. We are detected and get a result of e003. We are attacked by 3 Tech level 2 tanks and 6 with infantry men with TL-2 heavy side arms. The tank guns count as boat guns. They have heavy armor, which reduces each hit by two dice. Skimmers take 2 hits to destroy. This encounter takes an hour.

Now, since we are in a ship and move far faster than any tank, we could escape at the end of the first round but they would get to shoot at me. We are going for it because if I am going to take damage, I want to some back.

To recap, skimmers take 2 hits to destroy, a hopper takes 5 and a starship takes 10. These tanks count as skimmers and are disabled on the first hit and destroyed on the second. Starship guns do 10 hits or 1d6 hits and a critical. In this case, they do one die less due to the atmosphere and because of the armor, they do 2 dice less, for a total of 2 dice. Boat guns do one point of damage on a hit to a tank, which is reduced to by 2, they are ineffective. Against a ship these guns do one hit, which may be a critical.

Those heavy hand weapons have no effect on a starship, so we can ignore them for the moment.

The Antelope fires first because of it’s speed. We roll a 2 and 5. One tank is disabled.

The tanks return fire. They have 2 due to Tech level, a plus 3 due to skill and a -2 due to movement. They must roll under a 3 to hit. They get a 4 and 5, both are misses.

Next round. The tanks stop so they can shoot better. I now get to roll 3 dice because they are stationary.  I get a pair of sixes and a 1. The second tank is disabled. The last tank returns fire and hits with a 5, which does one point of damage to the Antelope.

I disable the last tank with a roll of 1, 4 and 5.

Everyone else is fleeing. I can gun these guys down from the ship with no risk. There are 15 of them and if they roll 4 or more, they escape after I get a shot at them. The event does not say that I will be wanted if I kill them or let them flee, so there are zero consequences. I pretend to shoot at them in the next round while 11 of them make their escape roll. In the next round 2 more escape, and in the third, the last guys make their rolls and get out of dodge. This is an exercise in dice rolls, I didn't shoot and let them have their rolls out of curiosity as to how fast they could get away. Three rounds. Not bad, but if this had been timed to a number of rounds, I would have been in trouble.

The tanks take up 45 CU inside the ship, so taking them is out of the question. I use a loophole in the rules and take their guns. The loop hole is, installing guns takes a day of RRR, removing them isn’t mentioned in the rules, so it takes no time.

On to the military base with 8 hours left. The military base has only 6 contact types, each taking 4 hours so we roll 1d6 twice. We get a 4 and 4, which is only buy boat guns. I don’t need those, so we are done for the day. 

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle. It has one point of damage.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
3 Boat guns, TL-2.
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.

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

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

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.

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.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 046 – Feb 15th

Talitar is a system with a viscous, military government. We encounter a scout on system entry.

It’s a small ship. If we want, we can take the first shot, flee or wait. 

Scout Ship from Events Page 10.
Click here to download from Dwarfstar Games.

We’re gonna kill it. Lefty takes the shot. We roll 1d6 per tech level of the guns, a result of one or two on each die indicates a hit for a point of damage. We have TL-5 guns, so Lefty rolls 5d6. We roll, 1, 5, 3, 1 and 4, which results in 2 points of damage. Normally, a ship can absorb 10 hits, but this is a tiny scout and goes down in those two hits.

Lefty is in the turret, Doc, Ratchet, Deadeye and Bones are in the Crew Quarters, and Duke and Emily are in the cockpit.

Why did I name the places the crew are located? The event says the scout gets off two shots at us, no matter what. One of the quickest, cheapest ways to die is being in a compartment that is vented to space. 

The first is a shot from TL-6 ship guns. They roll 6, 1, 2, 5, 3, and 2. If you roll a 1 and a 2 in the same series and you have no shields, it’s a pair of critical hits. Our communication gear fries and the boat hold is open to space. If any one had been in the hold, they'd be dead. We’ve taken 3 points damage.

The second gun fires. It’s a magneto-plasma gun, a unique weapon. This weapon strikes an area and kills the crew without damaging the ship. It automatically hits, and a die is rolled for location. It hits the cargo hold. Again, if anyone had been in there, it would have killed them. It does no damage to the ship itself.

We are lucky we killed this thing in one shot.

We are going to hangout in orbit and do some repair. I'm unwilling to set down before we have all of the damage fixed. I'd like to take that gun, but the rules say the ship was destroyed completely. 

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.
12 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.

I have 23,331 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 045 – Feb 14th

Since we are in orbit, we are going to take a day of RRR to heal Duke. In orbit, there are no forced contact rolls. I need to do this twice.

Strangely, medics can’t heal you faster, so Duke will need today's RRR to recuperate from our last combat. Sorry about the seemingly double post. 

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 044 – Feb 13th

Since we are in orbit, we are going to take a day of RRR to heal Duke. In orbit, there are no forced contact rolls.

Strangely, medics can’t heal you faster, so Duke will need two days of RRR to recuperate from our last combat. Sorry about that.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 043 – Feb 12th

We are continuing Encounter e012. We have to roll 1d6 to see what happens. We get a 4 which is a base price of 1,000 in ransom. Rolling on the modifier table nets us a 20 multiplier.

I’m not greedy or anything, but I have to be a pirate. I want to use one of the doses of pheromones to double the price… but the rules say I can only uses these for purchases or sales.

Ok, fine. We’ll take the 20,000 secs. and get out of dodge. We drop off the Prince, collect our cash and break for orbit, which ends our day. We’d be fools to stay here. Strangely, we are NOT wanted for this little kidnapping scenario.

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.
12 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.

I have 23,331 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 042 – Feb 11th

Causing chaos today.

Alright, let’s do something more risky. We are going to the Palace to see what kind of trouble we can cause with royalty.

We are going to move a different way. We can fly the ship up to low orbit in one hour and spend a hour descending into the Palace area. This avoids contact and detection rolls for all of the intervening areas.

The Palace area has no services or goods for sale, every contact is a special event. On entry, have a chance to sell 3 specific exotic items, if we have them. We don’t have any, so we move on to regular contact roll.

We encounter a Royal Party. A member of the royal family is here protected by 4 bodyguards. We can kidnap him and try to ransom him off. This is wonderfully risky! Failure could mean “wanted” or get all of us killed.

Duke, Lefty, Doc and Ratchet approach the Royal Party and call in Emily and Deadeye to strafe them. Then we open fire with heavy side arms, TL-1.

The enemy has side arms, one TL-4, a TL-3, and two TL-1’s. Higher tech level weapons go first.

The guys with the nice hand weapons go first. They have a marksmanship of 3 each. We add the tech level to their marksmanship score, so they must roll a 7 or less and a 6 or less. They roll a 9 and 7 against Duke which are two misses.

Everyone else goes next. Duke fires a heavy side arm at the guy with the best weapon. Tech level 1 plus a marksmanship score of 5 is 6, and he hits with a 5. The weapon does 7 points damage killing the target. Duke is hit by a side arm for 2 points of damage. Lefty fires and instantly kills his target. The other guard shoots at Duke and misses. Doc can’t shoot and Ratchet only shoots in self-defense.

The round isn’t over, Emily strafes the area. Deadeye has TL-5 guns and adds a 6 to this due to the ship’s targeting computer. He rolls and 11 which is a hit. Starship guns do 10 points of damage automatically. Another guard is dead.

Next round. Since the ship is right here, moves the fastest and has the best TL, it fires first. The last guard is down. And we quickly hustle the Prince or whatever on to the ship at gun point.

Now for the record keeping. High tech devices can breakdown. I have to roll for the ship’s guns and the two side arms used by the guards. I roll 2d6 and if it is lower than the tech level, they malfunction. None of them do. If the Engineer does maintenance on them, they will get a bonus of 1 next time.

Next, each enemy was carrying pocket change. We gather up 100 secs. from the dead.

As a final move, we go to orbit. This ends our day. Tomorrow, we’ll have a princely ransom!

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.
12 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.

I have 3,331 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Some notes on this post. First, I broke a couple of rules. Since the Starship is faster than everything else, it should have gone first. Also, it has TL-5 guns, which would also make it first. However, I would vaporized a guy in one shot which would have eliminated some of the die rolling I wanted to display. I pretended that one of the players called in the Antelope, which took some time.

Second, the rules state that all characters are matched against one by one, with any imbalance being adjudicated by the player. I had each and every guy shoot at Duke, because I felt that it was obvious as to who was in charge. I also wanted a chance to show the healing system, tomorrow.

Had Duke been killed the game would normally end. However, in post one, I said I was cheating to have a blog series and Emily would simply pick up where Duke met his end. 

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 041 – Feb 10th

I am going to try a different tactic. I am flush with cash and have a full crew, so I feel we can take some risks. We are going to go to the Scientific Area and instead of rolling on the random tables, we will try to make a contact for a special encounter. It’s going to take three tenths hours to fly there and we are going to pass through 3 different areas on our way, the Spaceport, a City and then finally the Scientific area.

Each time you pass into an area, you roll for detection and if detected, there is a good chance of a contact event. In a spaceship, your detection is virtually assured.

Since contact is expected, Emily is flying, Deadeye is manning the guns, Duke is in the hopper and Lefty is manning the hopper’s guns. Doc and Bones are in the crew quarters, while Ratchet is in Engineering. Anyone who needs a side arm has one. The hopper is still on the ship, ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

I roll a three. We are detected. On entry to the Spaceport, we encounter two holdup men. If there are more than two people in the party, then ignore this result.

Next step, roll for detection into the City. We are not detected at all and have no encounter.

When we arrive in the science area, we are detected and have an encounter. This one is benign, we roll on the standard table and have a chance to get commercial transport. I don’t need that, so this will be ignored.

We rolled on table r205n for this result, which is the normal table for trying to obtain goods and services. Since this is strict play through, this roll costs us an hour. It’s sort of a penalty, but not really. At some point I am going to fudge the time scale, either in the fact that it took 30 minutes to fly here, which is less than an hour or this one hour statement. I would still normally get 9 rolls here either way, if I was looking for these goods and services.

But I am here for a contact, which is a completely different table. This 90 minutes of travel and goods may cost me something today. The Entry and Contact table is a roll of 1d6, which is modified for various things. On entry, I subtracted one because I was just breezing through. Now I am looking for people to talk to, so that -1 goes away.

There are 7 rows on this table, one of which takes me to a sub-table which is specific to this planet. Let’s roll.

I got a 5 which is a planet specific roll. I roll again, 4, which takes me to e159. This is an encounter
with a rich man and 11 bodyguards. He has a lot a cash and I can steal it if I can kill all of them in 5 rounds. I already know I could do it, but it will make me wanted in this system… pass.

This roll took an hour, so with 2.5 hours spent and 7.5 left, let’s keep going. Roll two results in a standard roll on the area table for robots. Pass, again.

This is my cologne of choice.

This next one is great. We meet a pheromone dealer, who sells 1d6 doses of an agent that costs a base price of 80 secs. He is selling 5 of them for 160 secs. each. The great part is, he is already using the pheromones on me! I must save vs. cunning to avoid being effected by this. If I can make my save, I can purchase them for half price or not at all.

My cunning is five and a roll exactly a five. I can choose to buy these or not at a cost of 80 each. Since they allow to half or double price on 1 transaction per dose if I roll under a 6, I will buy them all for 400 secs. I add them to my inventory with a reference to the event e009.

This ends my day, which was pretty good.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
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.
12 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,
5 Side Arms
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.

I have 3,231 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

This is my backup option.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 040 – Feb 9th

FINALLY! I sell all but five side arms for 2,000 secs. I also get lucky and sell the skimmers for another 1,200.

I have 16 CU of space in the Bay. Time to move on.

Before I move on, I'm going to make a principal only payment, since I already paid the interest this week. 1,000 secs.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 116,000 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.
12 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,
5 Side Arms
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 3,631 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 039 - Feb 8th

Guess why I am still here? Because this is the only place I can sell side arms and heavy side arms. Geeze.

I pay the crew and purchase two skimmers. I’m down 290 secs.

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.
2 Skimmers.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
12 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,
205 Side Arms for sale,
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 1,431 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.