Pavonis Sector Sessions - A New Place - Day 1

We may not be in the Pavonis sector anymore. Or Kanas, for that matter. 

Emily, Hem, Merci, Avery, and Garrison were hurled toward the hole in the Antelope's hull—but never made it. Avery swore he saw a golden, glittering beam hit them, like a C-Beam. Then, all five of our heroes found themselves hurtling through a very dark space.

Thankfully, they landed somewhere carpeted. There was a bit of carpet burn, along with an odd violet flame. Emily, Merci, and Avery all landed on their feet. Garrison hit a chair, and Hem.... Hem ended up next to a pile of debris, partially under a skimmer. Under the suit lights, they began to sort out their surroundings.

They stood to the right of a double row of tables. Two skimmers rested in the room, surrounded by shredded carpet, smashed tables, and broken chairs. It was clear they had taken the same trip from the Antelope as the crew had. Mixed into the debris were bits of inner wall and insulation from the ship.

One of the skimmers was damaged. Parts of it were completely missing, as if it were a drawing from a cutaway diagram or schematic. Hem was partially trapped beneath the damaged skimmer. The others worked quickly to free him.

"Captain!" shouted Bill. "Hem is alive!" Both of Bill’s eyes flashed green, then yellow, as he picked up Merci’s telemetry readings.

"Where?" asked Duke.

"I don’t know," Bill replied.

As medics, Bill and Merci had advanced training and sensory tools that allowed them to share medical diagnostic information. Direction-finding, unfortunately, wasn’t among those capabilities.

"Em, Hem broke an ankle," Merci said to Emily. "He’ll be fine if we can find some medical supplies."

Emily, Garrison, and Avery began pushing through the debris. They found six cargo cases from the bay, a fully functioning GM-bot and Ubot, and a second Ubot suffering from the same kind of damage the skimmer had sustained.

They dug through the cases and uncovered eight heavy sidearms, a case of ten regular sidearms, four LSU units, and four repair units. In the skimmers, they found two fuel units. Emily took one heavy weapon and gave one each to Avery and Garrison. The rest she dragged over to Hem. Everyone was issued two regular sidearms. Including Merci, who looked askance at them. The final two sidearms were hung on the back of the GM-bot, which was busy examining the damaged Ubot.

Rules Part I: Each of the map boxes is 5 feet, making the center room massive. 

The Star Smuggler rules don't exactly explain how big a CU is, other than about human size and weight. I have decided that it is a combination of size and weight. If 10 handguns can fit in a box 2 CU in size, then 4 heavy sidearms can fit in the same. 4 Repair units, LSU, or fuel units can fit into a similar-sized box, but are unusable in this form. The box must be broken down to get at the contents. 

Next, what exactly is a RU, LSU, or FU? A repair unit holds material and various small tools. It is not as good as what an engineer would have, but they get some jobs done. A fuel unit is a massive battery bank, which comes with several cables, connectors, and a light. An LSU has enough high-capacity, high-pressure air bottles, water, and food for 5 to 6 people for one day. Each one also has a small medical kit.  

The team searched the room.

In the northwest corner, they found a kitchen area that had clearly been ransacked. All that remained were tables and sink units. The sinks had integrated stovetops and refrigerators. Hem begged the team to check if the power was still on. Merci quietly confirmed that they had both power and running water. Unable to fully test it, she instead made Hem drink from one of the LSU canteens.

Garrison and Avery examined the massive wooden crates, while Emily stepped out into the hallway.

She managed to peek into three rooms before noticing a staircase labeled “Stairs – 1065.”

The three rooms appeared to be dormitories or hotel units. Each had a bathroom, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a small sitting area. They were as spartan and gray-green as the larger room she’d come from. The quarters were so compact that they made her cabin on the Antelope seem massive. By all appearances, up to four people had lived in a 20-by-10-foot space. There were no personal effects. No pictures, books, or computers. Even the walls looked temporary, except the 5-by-10 bathroom walls. The bathrooms had sliding doors or partitions that could be drawn between the sink and the cooking area. It felt a little too close to eating in a bathroom for her comfort, but she didn’t know these people well enough to judge.

“Well, good-ish news, gang,” Emily announced. “I found human writing.”

With a crinkle, Garrison held up a small bag. “Me too,” he said.

“Coco Sugar Gloppos,” he read aloud.

“Are you eating that?” Emily asked, shocked.

“Crunch-crunch. I think it’s cereal,” still chewing. "I'm just glad we won't die of starvation on an alien world." 

Merci glared at him, while Hem picked up a bag and tucked it into his pouch.

“Jesus. Nobody said anything about aliens,” Emily sighed. “Alright, let’s pack up and get out of here. We have to find who is in charge of this place.”

Theoretically, they could have driven the working skimmer through the double doors, but Emily decided stealth was the better option. Besides, there were stairs in one corner of the floor.

It struck her as strange that there were no windows. If this really was the 1065th floor... why weren’t there any?

They found a second undamaged Ubot behind a skimmer. As they loaded the Ubots with gear, Hem tinkered with the damaged one. Its central processing unit and sensors were gone, but he managed to salvage a controller and wiring from the damaged skimmer. He could sit on it, backwards, and drive it like an R/C car. It worked well enough, but Emily was concerned with the squeaking it made. 

They managed to silence the noise with some hammering and grease. Satisfied, they were ready. 

Or not. 

The north door thudded open, and two men burst through. The door struck a crate and rebounded into the face of a third man with a heavy weapon. It went off with a deafening boom, blood spattering from Garrison's leg.

Everyone opens fire on the man with the gun. 

Rules Part II: Star Smuggler uses a 5-minute combat round and zone combat. Since I have a grid, that won't work. I am assuming each round is 15 seconds, 4 per minute. You can take a 5-foot step and shoot, take a 10-foot jog to enter melee with an attack, or walk 15 feet per round. Alternatively, you run one square per point of current endurance. 

People can fire guns at people in melee range at +1. Firing into a melee runs the risk of hitting your friends on a miss. If you don't move, you can fire two sidearms at the same time at the same target. No splitting fire and absolutely no double firing heavy hand weapons. 

The rules have a funny discrepancy about heavy-handed weapons. They have no effect on combat or damage, but then the damage rule immediately mentions explosive rounds. In the event booklet, armor-piercing ammo is also mentioned. It's just a suspicion, but I believe the rules are meant to have automatic weapons, explosive weapons, and armor-piercing weapons, but this did not entirely pan out due to space or editing. I am treating all heavy weapons as explosive. A heavy sidearm is 5 times bigger than a sidearm. I am picturing a shotgun. 

The Set Up: Here are the team's stats. 

Emily: M:5, H:6, E:11 HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Avery: M:5, H:4, E5   HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Garrison: M:5, H:4, E:5 HSA-TL4, 2 SA TL-5.
Hem: M:4, H:3, E:6 (injured for 1 point.) 2 SA TL-5.
Merci: M:0, H:1, E:6 2 SA TL-5, but she won't use them. She is carrying them for others. 

Round one: Emily hit the man with the gun for 1 point of damage. Avery dropped a critical on him for 7 points of damage. Hem hit for 2 points of damage. Shocked at the volume of fire the man has taken and survived, Garrison gets a critical that puts him down. The other two men flee the room. 

Checking the man, he was down but breathing. He also had gray-green skin, red eyes, pointed teeth, and ears. 

"Mutants!" he declared. Before anyone could act, the door burst open and 4 more mutants burst through, lugging a tripod-mounted gun. 

Emily and Garrison were between the mutants and the rest of the team. They open fire while the rest of the team takes cover. Emily scored a single hit, and Garrison landed a critical downing one of the mutants. The remaining three struggle to get the gun set up while the defenders back up. 

All luck remains the same, and one more mutant goes down while the fourth was hit for one point of damage. The mutants get the gun seat up to fire. Emily and Garrison can't get out of the firelines of their team. The tripod mount gun was obviously an old set of skimmer guns. It was slower than the high-powered TL-4 heavy sidearms. The last two mutants go down. 

The team finally got its act together. Emily and Garrison slammed the doors while Merci pushed a crate over to block the door. Avery awkwardly turned the skimmer gun around. 

This is turning into a dense wall of text, so this is where this session ends. I wanted to have better maps, but didn't like the results from Worldographer. It is too colorful for this flight of fancy. In the next session, we will probably see automatic weapons and crazier combat. 

There is a website I wanted to mention. Shawn is playing Five Parsecs From Home 1st Edition. While the rules are different, solo game play is similar theme. Shawn also has way better terrain and images. Give it a look here. 

Pavonis Sector Sessions - A Bend Out of Time

In last week's session, our heroes were preparing for a double jump to Imperia. I said that I would do "a bend" and decide what happens this time instead of committing to a specific set of actions during that session. The Antelope II should have made it to the Imperia system. 

But I decided they didn't, as per the following: 

"In fact, Gamemasters of science fiction role-playing systems may wish to use this as an adventure or campaign guideline (with appropriate rules adjustments to suit their own RPG system). However, this game can be played many time, with many different results."

So here we go, awkwardly around the horn. 

Duke and Emily are in pilotage, while Fred mans the light turret. Bill is in the medical bay. Zev is in one shuttle, while Avery and Garrison are in the heavily armed shuttle. Hem monitors systems in the garage, and Merci is in the suit room. The rest of the crew are in engineering, manning their stations and turrets.

Duke commits to the jump, deploying the first hypercharge. A singularity spins up ahead of the ship. Soon, it distorts into a ring. The Antelope surges forward. As the ship crosses the center of the ring, alarms blare. There's an explosion and a savage vibration.

Emily runs to check on the crew. 

The misjump fractures the ship. Hem, Merci, and Emily make it to the hatch of the starboard boat bay. A crack forms in the wall as the outer boat bay hatch blows. 5 of the crew are sucked into the nothing of hyperspace as the Antelope flounders. 

Duke and the remaining crew fight for their lives as Emily finds herself in a dark gray space, lit by violet fires. 

As if this isn't different enough, the session will be very strange, indeed. 

Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week Two

We left Duke and the Gang trapped in the Ruins on Regari. This state of affairs came about because I decided that the event e84 could happen to any vehicle. The Antelope II entered the ruins, set down and a building collapsed. Amusingly, on the 10th day, the same thing happened. 

How I handled this was everyone got out of the ship and cleared the debris while the Engineers, Ratchet and Hem patched up the ship. Twice. 

For solo play that sucks. It eats resources and time. However, I'm imagining Star Smuggler as a multiplayer game where things like this are moments for character exposition. This scenario would work. 

Now let's dig into week 2 in the ruins. We have run through e84, the second main event here is a room in the ruins. In event e88, 2/3rds of the outcomes are bad. I decided not to bite with my party. 

How I picture traveling the ruins is that the ship moves then I select who will participate in the next roll. Those left behind on the ship are doing RRR tasks. If the event is a surprise, it occurs right outside the ship and involves everyone. If the event is something else, only the selected characters experience it. 

A damaged Utility Suit is no fun.

Day 1: They found a GM bot intact and decided not to participate in e88. 

Day 2: Another building collapsed on the ship ending events for the day. Repairs were made. 

Day 3: They found a boat with 4 points of damage and the ship moved to recover it. They also find an undamaged skimmer. 

Day 4: The crew on the ship began repairs on the damaged boat. Since there are two engineers, they repair one point each. The explorers found a sidearm and an intact skimmer. 

Day 5: The found boat is completely repaired and move it to the empty boat bay. Explorers found a second boat with one point of damage and a bunch of damaged Utility Suits. Hint: the damaged Usuits eat time and resources so they leave them behind. 

Day 6: They find a Utility Suit and then knock down another building onto the Antelope II. Damn. 

On the 7th Day, they find an intact skimmer and cannibalize an RU from a damaged skimmer. The second boat is repaired and moved to the cargo bay. 

On day 8, the stress gets to be too much. They decide to count this as a win and return to the spaceport. The crew has 2 hoppers, a GM bot, a Sidearm TL-1, 3 skimmers, and a Usuit. They expended 7 RU and found one. 

An old but nice skimmer.

Days 8 and 9 are used to purchase some bots and RU. They make a payment of 300 secs. against the grant on the ship and the crew is paid. They have about 1500 secs. to their name. On the last day of the week, the break for orbit and do a double jump to Imperia. This leaves them with 3 hypercharges and just enough money to replace them. 

They enter the Imperia system with little fanfare, e93 results in no contact. At this point, I will do what I call "a bend". They spend the last 4 hours landing. The flexi-bendy bit is, I won't declare where they land. I will do this next week. Their choices are limited to Rough Terrain, Spaceport, or Station if they mean to take the ship. They will probably hit the Spaceport and look around before picking a new location. 

See you later!

Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week One

In my last post, I included some new rules and omitted a few thoughts. In running through a week of play, I have a few items to add. 

My first omission is how to get an advanced hopper, beyond the one that comes with the ship. They are available everywhere regular hoppers are so long as the planet has a tech level 30 or better. Their cost is three times the cost of a regular hopper. There is a twist, you can sell an advanced hopper anywhere regardless of the tech level. 

Second, I did not create improved versions of skimmers or robots. I will correct that now. 

All skimmers are now dual-powered electric vehicles and therefore can be gassed up with a fuel unit OR charged at any location with banking facilities. I am picturing more Car Wars than Teslas. The cost to recharge is the same as a fuel unit. Remember, if you drive into an area that doesn't have banking facilities, you will need a fuel unit for the next day or you are walking.

Robots are trickier. I hate the per-week cost as it adds to tracking so it is now gone. Robots are also electrically powered, run for a week, and can be recharged at night from a starship, hopper, or skimmer for no cost. The robots handle this themselves. If you let them run out of power, they will break down. It costs a repair unit and a fuel unit plus the time of an Engineer to get them going again. Don't let that happen. This seems to be a better tradeoff than a weekly price. 

I have also decided that medics can drive skimmers because they would drive ambulances. Duh. They still can't use guns of any kind. 

Additionally, Ubots can ride on the exterior of any skimmer. That is kind of handy. PS bots are small and can ride on the exterior pack of a utility suit, taking up no space. You still need to carry a life support unit. 

One official rule I would like to point out is r216d. 10 sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate in cargo. Since we have this rule, I would add that 5 heavy sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate. Makes sense. One modification to this rule is that holstered weapons take no space on a person, but you can only carry 2 regular sidearms like this. A heavy sidearm is twice as big, so you can holster only one. There is zero utility in this unless you play a game where you can lose a sidearm. 

 

Let's run down the first week in a snapshot. Duke started with 5,000 secs. He took 5 days to assemble his crew of 2 medics (Merci and Bill), 2 engineers (Hem and Ratchet), 4 gunners (Zap, Fred, Garrison, and Kal), and 3 pilots (Emily, Zev, and Avery). Emily has the same stats as Duke per the last time I played. She is the second in command. Their weekly pay totals 195, which is a steal. 

During this 5-day shopping excursion, Duke got creative with buying and selling RU and robots. The GM bots at the spaceport have a 1-in-6 chance of selling for 1.5x. Since the buying price is 120 and the potential sale price could be 1.5x of 100, you could score 30 secs by savvy selling.  

The dice note 20 LSU, 20 FU, 50 RU, white blocks
are crates of sidearms and black are HSA.

That does come in handy, but there is an easier way to make money. RU, LSU, and FU have a buy-and-sell price of 1. If you buy at 1 but sell at 1.5, that is a 50% return each time. You can do this right out of the gate at Regari. Since they are just 1 CU each you can do this quickly and easily. You just need to accept fractional accounting, which I do. 

One warning, I have noticed that you can't sell LSU easily if at all. I will keep an eye out for this event if it exists. 

Back to gameplay. Duke also bought 2 ship guns (TL-3), 2 hopper guns (TL-5), and 12 utility suits. Next, the crew flew to the colony to buy weapons. Surprisingly, this didn't take long and they bought 100 sidearms (TL-4) and 24 heavy sidearms (TL-5). At this point, all of the utility suits were given to the crew, along with 10 sidearms and 6 heavy sidearms. 

In cargo, we have: 20 fuel units, 20 LSU, 50 RU, a hopper with 2 sets of guns, 90 sidearms (TL-4), 18 heavy sidearms (TL-5), one TL-1 sidearm, 10 Ubots, and 1 GM bot. Duke has 2645 secs. 

With a couple of days left, Duke decided to head to the Ruins. This did not go well because of a decision I made. 

You can travel to the Ruins in your ship and the ruins have e084, Building Collapse. Everything is spelled out as if you have only two options, walking or driving a skimmer. Why can't you have a building collapse on the ship or a hopper? I decided this could happen because I watched Robotech many times as a kid. 

You can see it too, can't you? 

Because of this choice, Duke and the gang had very little to show for the remainder of the week. But it was interesting. 

Welcome Back to the Pavonis Sector!

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

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

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

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

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

e001+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hit locations need an update, too.  

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

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

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

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

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

Advanced Hopper (e214c) 

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

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

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

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

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

Antelope II Damage (r217d)

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

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

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

Starship Searches (r229e)

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

Search Results:

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

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

Additionally, e002 will be changed.

e002: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Bit of the Pavonis Sector in My Basement

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

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

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

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

You can see I have already gotten into trouble. 

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

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

Devilfish - What Makes It "Better"?

A few posts ago, I mentioned a plan to have a permanent Star Smuggler board set up so I can play whenever I like. I drew up deck plans for a gargantuan ship. The Devilfish is roughly 3 times bigger than the Antelope that appears in the original game. 

Bigger is better, but what else makes it better? It has 3 turrets, therefore 3 guns. It has two shuttles, a garage for a skimmer, and a medical station. 

But what went away? It lost its stasis box in pilotage and its concealed locations. It has no more Hypercharges than the original. 

Strangely, to hit charts and criticals are introduced in the rules. I would have a standard chart for the Devilfish: 

1. Garage, 2. quarters, 3. engineering, 4. gun turrets, 5. main cargo, and 6. the boat hold. Since some of these locations are very large, I would split the turrets into 1 of 3, the holds into port and starboard, and the engineering area into large and small. The Medical area and pilotage can't be damaged directly owing to the 1d6 nature of the roll. It seems easy to expand this to 2d6 in the future because it's odd that you can't hit pilotage in the nose of the ship. 

This ship clearly has the edge over the Antelope in the game. Now I have to consider what else has gotten better? 

Many or all hostile ships will have shields and ECM by default, which the Devilfish does not have. They will also have and make use of hoppers more often than the rules currently allow. I will have to design antagonistic ships, possibly even small fleets of them to make things fair. 

I can't wait to retool the battleship from e81. In the image I drew for that post, I think a pocket battleship would have one or more hoppers to act as spotters. It has two orbiter bays and two 45-cu cargo bays to carry even more. Imagine if it was a battleship-carrier hybrid. Even hampered as it is with the limitations of the rules, a swarm of 4 hoppers would give anyone pause. 

Another improvement is needed for ships boats and more frequent drones. The improved hopper would have a fission engine to produce life support and eliminate the need for fuel units. Ships or hoppers toting a drone or two in battle would be cool and terrifying to face down. 

Fooling Around with Deck Plans

I've been straightening out the workspace to have my laser and 3D printer ready to go at all times while maintaining a painting and modeling area. If I can manage it, I'd also like to have a small table for all of the ongoing game stuff. 

If big enough, I'd have a permanent setup of Star Smuggler ready to go. 

I keep playing this game, and I've broken the rules in so many ways. On my next playthrough, I plan on using this set of deck plans for my ship. 

This is my Devilfish ship simplified for Star Smuggler. It's 4 times bigger than the original game's ship. The original game created the opportunity to purchase a second, third, or fourth ship, but never a larger ship. 

Having run multiple ships at the same time, I know the rules break due to "out-dicing" the enemy. Simply put, the preprogrammed enemies can't split their fire effectively so multiple ships break the game. 

To counteract this, I would create a tiny fleet of enemy ships so you aren't merely facing the Scout, the Battleship, Hoppers in space, and the handful of reskinned Antelopes. 

Speaking of Star Smuggler (again), there is another game called Star Smuggler on Drivethru RPG. I was thinking of checking it out. 

90% Finished - Star Smuggler

I post about Star Smuggler all the time. I had the boxed set when I was a kid and finally lost it in the fire. 

During the rebuilding and replacement year, I noticed that some products like Google Home and phones come in really heavy-duty boxes. I thought they would be perfect for some of my print-on-demand games. 

I started off by printing the rule and event booklets for the game on 20# paper. Then I did the tiles and mounted them on cardboard. Finally, I picked a box I thought was the right size. I use a Google Home box as that would probably never need to be packed up. 

Everything fit nicely. 

Of course, I wanted this to look like the original box, so I downloaded pictures of the box and went to town. The images needed to be scaled to the box as it was much bigger than the original. 

I printed on to photo paper, cut them down, and applied them with Tacky Glue from the Dollar Store. That worked pretty nicely. The one thing that didn't work was the edges. I will trim them down with a razor and use some tape to finish them off. 

Of course, a project isn't complete on one pass. I plan on reprinting the tiles on photo paper and maybe mounting them on thicker cardboard. I'd like to have the books with a heavy stock cover, maybe like a D&D module where the cover serves as a map or reference guide. That is super easy because I already have the booklets done and really don't need to reprint them. 

The counters are the very last item I need. I remember using random counters when I actually had the original set. I love the Star Frontiers counters and maps and I will probably repurpose them from the set I ordered off of DriveThruRPG. I love both the original counters from Alpha Dawn and the ones that come with the Knight Hawks set. 

The back of the box could serve as a map, but really I just loved the artwork enough to make it a part of the box. I recall the original box had a yellow back. I was pretty sure I couldn't reproduce plus the Google Home box is a flip-open box with the lid attached. 

The final image shows the poor job I did with the edges. Trimming will help, but I think I will use a bit of cloth tape to make sure the photo paper stays attached.  

What Makes a Great Game? Return to Star Smuggler

My last post addressed my desire to create a new game system. In order to make great games, you need to know how to play games. This helps create new mechanics that are hopefully fun. So for the past week, I have been quietly playing a lot of games. 

I've also been collecting data from the gang at MeWe.com via a poll. There will probably be more polls over there. It used to be that Blogger had a poll system, but that has been depreciated to unhelpfulness. 

This week, I busted out Battletech, Star Smuggler, and the classic risk game. I have a feeling that my system will use only 1d6, but the question is how many of them. 

During this process, I happened to notice a good tactic for "winning" at Star Smuggler which is very simple. On day one, you start in the Regari system at the Spaceport with 1d6+150 credits (secs. not credits, actually. I hate that abbreviation). One of the highest-priced items with a good rate of return is e37 GM bots. They cost 120 and can be sold for 100, not including multipliers. Yes, you can sell the ship boat for more, but only once. 

Spend the day collecting your GM bots. We are talking 5, max. You just don't have the funds to do more. Next, jet off to Nipna. Nipna has a wealth of 60 which allows for a 10 multiplier. You can offload those bots for 4000 or 5000 creds. 

WARNING: You have a 1 in 6 chance of damaging your ship on the way to Nipna and once that happens, you have another 1 in 6 chance of being forced to turn in the Status Unit in pilotage which is very negative to gameplay, if not impossible to recover. I won't tell you the event number, but it is interesting as it is one of the cases where Duke can patch up the ship like an engineer. 

That takes the bite out of it, assuming he survives the event. The real kick in the pants is the event becomes more difficult if you have a lot of crew, as they could just outright die from it OR subject Duke to death by not piloting his own ship. 

This is not the end, as you just burned 4 of 6 hypercharges getting to Nipna. That is a cost of 2000 to replace cutting into your bottom line. Before we do that, spend some time hopping back and forth from the space station to the colony. You are looking for two interesting events:

e153 Buy High Technology items and 
e198 Disgruntaled Colonists. 

Also, be on the lookout for cheap items that can be resold at a profit. Due to e198, there is a good chance that selling your ship's boat is a good idea because you're going to need the space. 

How I imagine an empty hold looks like on the
Antelope. 

The High Tech Items has a collection of fun items, but the Portable Life Support unit is my favorite. It allows you to provide 50 cu of goods with life support for a month. After that, it takes a week to recharge it with the ship's engines. What is interesting to me is, it doesn't say where you can use this. So, what if you strap it to the side of the ship? You now have a good-sized second hold for goods for 3 weeks a month. 

All of this space plays positively with the Wealth code of 60. You have a 1 in six chance of picking up items at the base price and an equal chance of selling them at 10 times their value. This is helpful no matter what you buy. The lowly repair unit is 1 to buy but you sell it for 10 on this one planet. Heck, even with half of that rate of return, it's well worth doing. Nipna is played as dark and dangerous, but more dark than really dangerous. 

This is where e198 comes in. Once you sell off the boat and add the PLS system, you can carry all of the disgruntled colonists no matter what you roll. The closest destination that meets the criteria is New Karma. You could probably do it without the PLS with a lucky roll. The result of this event scores you 30 creds per colonist, so even 30 of them is almost enough to buy 2 hypercharges at New Karma. 

New Karma is kind of the End Game planet for Star Smuggler and getting there in week 1 or week 2 totally changes the dynamic of the game. It is strongly suggested that once you build your bank account, you should try to take on crewmembers at a low-wealth planet, so you haven't completely abandoned the rest of the Pavonus Sector. 

Nice 1/22/2023 Update - Email Response from Maverick

UPDATE 1/22/2023. These files are now available at BoardGameGeek and already have 22 downloads for a 40+ year old game. 

Last night, I received an email from The Maverick, the webmaster of dwarfstar.brainiac.com. He granted me permission to post my Star Smuggler tiles, suggesting Boardgamegeek as the best host. 

To be honest, I don't like hosting files myself, so I gave it a shot. There seems to be a turnaround process, so they aren't there yet. So, here is the link to a zip file. (Edit- I hate hosting my own files as I can't tell how many are downloaded from Google Drive.)

The original tiles had a strange quirk. They were labeled A-J with Asteroids. To create planets, you needed to match up two tiles. Invariably, one of those tiles needed to be upside down. In studying them, there was no permutation where you could have left and right tiles labeled A-J without having several flipped. You'd need a left-hand set and a right-hand set. 

Annoying. 

I flipped each tile so that you don't have to have one upside down. This required relabeling all of the text so you didn't have one tile printed in the reverse. 

The process was super annoying, but I got it done. 

Just a reminder, I only have permission to post a link to these files. That is the extent of my ownership. Please download for personal use only and do not redistribute. I've been waiting a long time for this, please don't make me take it down. 

#CharacterCreationChallenge - Star Smuggler - Emily Pilot/Gunner

This is an odd choice of rules for #CharacterCreationChallenge, but Star Smuggler is one of my favorite games. It is a solo game where the player takes the role of Duke Springer a roguish merchant ship pilot. The ruleset is super light as it needs to be for solo play, but I've found it has enough meat to handle full parties and several players. It has some of the spirit of Traveller, but not enough to be a replacement for Traveller. 

You can pick up a set of rules for play at Dwarfstar Brainiac. The set will allow you to print and play this game, which is very nice of the authors. Due to the collapse of the company, Dennis Sustare never got paid for this one but still allows Dwarfstar to host the files. 

All characters have 3 stats: Marksmanship, Hand to Hand, and Endurance. The main character Duke, your avatar has one additional statistic, Cunning generated by a 1d6. 

Duke's stats are: 

Marksmanship: 5
Hand to Hand: 6
Endurance: 10
Cunning: 1d6 (2 in this iteration). 

He has a starship, the Antelope with Tech Level 1 guns, a hopper, and he has 1d6x100+150 Secs, the money in this system. He can use starship guns, and smaller hand weapons plus pilot the Antelope and the Hopper. Oddities he lacks are the ability to use heavy weapons (depending on the players reading of the rules) cannot drive a land vehicle and can't fix his own stuff. 

I invented Emily as a Duke analog, with a different loadout. She can use all of the same weapons and equipment as Duke, but can also drive land vehicles. She does not come with a starship, hopper, or anything else Duke receives at the start. As a consequence, she can roll for her equipment's Tech Levels and receives 2d6x100 Secs. to start. Her stats are generated as follows with results in parentheses: 

Marksmanship: 1d6+2 (8)
Hand to Hand: 1d6-1 (4)
Endurance: 1d6+2 (7)
Cunning: 3

Only her Cunning is locked in at 3, everything else is randomly generated. Where Duke is excellent in melee, she is better at Marksmanship. And by a lot. No other character receives a +2 to any stat, so she is dangerous with guns. 

As you can see from the drawing, she's had more than a few iterations. 

Prepping A New Project

I have a handful of ideas in mind for new projects, hopefully, to offer on DriveThruRPG. This one requires a lot of stippling and some digital magic which means I need to start practicing now. The interesting thing about prepping is the samples I produce as the practice often don't look anything like the imagined project. 

For this item for example: 

Obviously, it is a spaceship in the theme of Star Smuggler. My project requires a fairly large map of a landscape so it is a conceptual mismatch. The other item I am working on could end up as framed art. Again, it doesn't remotely look like a map.  

But there is a method to the madness. I don't want to work on landscapes or maps while practicing so I don't burn out in the middle of a large project where I need to produce a large landscape map. 

As far as digital magic goes, I started this portion last year, before this new map idea came to mind. That was a simple test of my digital abilities, removing and then adding text to a series of extant images. 

These are the tiles for Star Smuggler. The original set came with a series of tiles that required flipping one tile upside down to create a planet. I flipped the images, removed all of the text, healed the background of that text, and added new text to replace the old text. They came out pretty nice, but once I was done, I noticed that my healing of the background image looked different than the original, so I had to repeat the process to get a complete set of matching tiles. 

A lot of people have created their own world tiles for Star Smuggler, but I have never seen anyone use the original art.  You can check out some nice ones on Board Game Geek in the link. These are very slick and modern looking as opposed to the 70s or 80s look of my copies. 

(I'm sorry, but due to the distro notices on this game, I can't share my files. Mr. Sustare didn't get paid for this game but has graciously allowed the above websites to produce digital versions of the game. It seems fair enough to me. If you know Mr. Sustare... maybe you can get us in touch so I can ask permission or give him the files to post. It's not really mine so they need a good warden.) 

So, what is this project? I have a B/X/AD&D campaign world that has 40ish years of history and I would like to see it in print. The first part of the project is the map of The Peninsula of Plenty. It is a vast area that does not lend itself to hex mapping. 

In this world, there are many strange things. For example, there are magical rail lines, newspapers, and consumer-grade magic items. I have reporters, treasure hunters, and historians of great renown populating the world. Magarven is the Peninsula's most outrageous self-promoter believing himself to be all three. Take a look at his Last Polyandrion, a map of a magical edifice of unknown meaning and purpose. 

I imagine that Magarven would very much like everyone to know what a smart and well-traveled Drow he is, so I would like to publish a series of books by him. This series will have an in-universe perspective and would contain 9 or more volumes. The collection is rules agnostic as it will be a traveller's handbook to the Peninsula. 

The reader would rapidly come to the conclusion that Magarven the Mad is not all there. As The World's Most Popular Drow, one who embraces both his heritage and fame, he will do or say anything to perpetuate being a hero when he is not. He is clearly not at fault when his human fans disappear, he has no idea where they went, and tales of sacrifices to Lolth are completely out of bounds. She was never a demon queen. How unfair to speak such untruths.   

The last part of this project would be to create a series of player's or DM's handbooks to account for noticeable differences between my campaign universe and the default B/X/AD&D setting. This would be a series that would stat out major parts of the world described by Magarven's Handbooks. 

I have rambled too much. But let me throw in one last plug. The notebook imaged above is available on RedBubble if you are into such things. There is a really good sale right now, so you can score one for less than 9 bucks. 

Recovery in or of Star Smuggler

In my last post, I hypothesized that the player could recover from the loss of their Antelope spaceship by pulling together a small team of pilots, medics, and engineers to scavenge in the Ruins found on so many planets. 

While this is basically true, it takes a very long time. I used Random.org's dice generator to rapidly roll hundreds of dice. The primary limiting factor is loading a hopper (25 CU) or using an orbital shuttle (50 cu) to move goods around. The problem with this method is it takes a lot of time and money to do so. You can cache items to speed the process but the scenario becomes a little ridiculous and tedious. 

If you are down with embracing the ridiculous you can reduce the tedium by purchasing items like repair units, fuel units, or GM bots right in the Spaceport. Once you have spent every penny on these items all you have to do is sit on them until you receive a good sales result. Picture Duke sitting on a pile of craters right in a hanger waiting for someone to happen by in need of item x, which he has cornered the market on. On Regari, a roll of 6 sales results in a 1.5 base price modifier. You are converting 1 secs. spent into 1.5 secs. per cycle. In a month or two, you should have enough to purchase a new Antelope. 

If only you get over the fact that Duke is sitting on a pile of thousands of repair units or fuel units...

The reason this isn't an obvious solution is you cache a tremendous amount of items inside the Spaceport for a very short period of time. Like thousands of CU worth of goods. The rules don't place a limit on the number of items you can have only a limit on items you can move.  

It is a very unsatisfying solution because it kills the game engine's balance. In fact, using this method breaks the economic restrictions that the game places on you. So long as you do not engage in any other activities such as RRR, there is zero risk due to a lack of opportunities to make contacts or otherwise experience negative effects. 

Now I have further expansion possibilities because there must be a mechanic to offset the easy solution of not engaging in play to win. In solo play, this is not as dangerous as the solo player is playing for exploration not cheating their way through the money problem. It's just easier to fudge the rolls or be a bad timekeeper. 

If you want to adapt Star Smuggler to an actual multiplayer game, then you need a solution to this possibility. 

I think that creating a table of random events that can occur when you do not move or engage in activities would work to resolve this unique issue. The Star Smuggler system has many different built-in: scenarios that range from flavoring to pushing events that can speed world-building while not obviously punishing a lack of activity. A party of characters will need some downtime to stay centered on tasks, but a random table of events can spark new plans and ideas. Think of it as exposure without railroading like a solo game has to do. 

Another cool idea for multiplayer options is to use randomly generated systems to express change. As time goes on a Spaceport could morph into a colony, city, or slum. This wouldn't happen overnight, but a referee could present the changes over the natural weeks and months which are hardcoded into the game system. The referee could even change the star charts as exploration opens new routes or even open up completely new systems. 

This solo game system is remarkably robust for such a simple thing. A necessary limit in the system is how scattered the rules are within the events. For example, there exist psionics, grenades, and combat droids however, if haven't read every event you wouldn't even know. Also, combat is super tight. There are relatively few ways you can make changes without upsetting the game balance. 

However, in using this as an actual RPG ruleset, the referee knows exactly what to expect. Change can come in other ways, such as the expansion of planetary systems, new events created by the players' choices, and the referee's goals for the game. 

Most of my amazement and fascination with this game is how tightly integrated and edited it is. I spent a few days going through every event and rule, mapping out where each went to find loops or mistakes. There are a few loops, but as near as I can tell no actual mistakes which is a testament to how well thought out it is. 

There are a few relics and oddities in the rules and events. For example, events are sequential from e001 to e199 but then hop to e400 before ending at e441. That leads me to believe that the game might have meant to have 200 more events. The rules do the same thing, flowing from r201 to r242 before hopping to r300+. Maybe there are 60 or so missing rules entries. Were that true, someone painstakingly edited them away without the benefit of a computer. 

There is another option. Two people could have been working on the set at the same time and divided the entries between them which explains the gap. One person finished before the other but in order to maintain the document refused to reference unnecessary numbers or renumber what they had. Not surprising if you are using pen and paper or worse, a typewriter.  

Personally, I believe this second option to be the more possible one. There is a subtle hint in e005. It is the only event that straight-up duplicates events: 

"If you disable the controller and capture it, the event takes 1 hour and roll 1d6: 1-e117, 2-e017, 3-e059, 4-e117, 5-e017, 6-no effect." 

This does not occur any place else in the rules. Omitting tension-building choices which hop through an intervening event before directing the reader/player back to make a different choice at the initial branch. This is a common trope in "choose your own adventure" books. It is different than duplication.  

I believe in this case one of the e117 and e017 events was supposed to lead elsewhere but do not because those events were either edited away or simply not written. 

A similar thing happens in the rules section for combat. The events and rules call out "sidearms" and "heavy sidearms" while a few areas mention "explosive weapons" and "armor piercing" weapons. I personally believe that this is the result of two authors being on the same page, but not the same word. Or perhaps they intended for there to be a couple of classes of weapons that were discovered to be unbalanced, like a machine gun or blaster rifle. Or maybe "too much like game, movie or TV show x." 

It is pretty clear that the author used their personal experience at the game table to create a solo game. I find it kind of satisfying to reverse the process and use the ruleset for a multiplayer game. 

What do you think? 

Changing the Scenario - Star Smuggler

One of the nice things about Star Smuggler is the designer thought to make the game extendable. If you have played the generic game too many times, you can add in r208 Random Star System Connections and r209 Random Star System Design. This totally changes the dynamics of the game by presenting opportunities you ordinarily wouldn't have in the vanilla version. 

In using these two systems, I rolled up a new version of the whole star chart.  

Regari, the starting system, now has two planets and asteroids with a space station. This is a total game changer because the second planet has twice the destinations. I also pulled out my cutting mat to use the grid to help mark out distances. 

This is so handy and I wish I had thought of it before. 

It also gave me a rule-busting start scenario. In Star Smuggler, there are multiple series of events that lead to Duke losing his ship. The rules don't indicate a loss, but the question is, can you survive long enough to get another ship? 

I suspect the answer is "yes" because, with the loss of the ship, you lose the weekly clock of payments and the associated money drain. If this happens late in the game, you have a nest egg to work from. You only need a few things to make stuff happen:

A Hopper, 
An Engineer, 

A Medic, 

Repair Units, Life Support Units, and Fuel Units. 

The total cost of these items, assuming you have none to start is between 940 and 1240 secs. Once you have these base items, your goal is to get to the Ruins. There you can pick up Bots, Skimmers, RU, and maybe another Hopper. The primary goal is to get that Hopper for free. 

Once you have a second Hopper, you need to hire another Pilot and a pair of Gunners at a base cost of 50 a week. Utilize the cache rules to preserve your finds in the Ruins. Don't forget about the Orbital Shuttle event that allows you to move 50 cu of goods in a single hour. It's a great way to clean out that cache. 

At this point, your crew cost is 65 a week. If you go whole hog, that is 65 per owned Hopper. That's a pilot, medic, engineer, and gunner per ship. You'll be making bank in no time, especially if you utilize the game-breaking scenario of multiple Hoppers with guns. You can actually become a pirate, using the Hoppers to strafe ground targets. Sure, you're wanted but the major drawback to being wanted is losing your ship at random... and you don't have one of those. It's entirely possible that your fleet of Hoppers could gun down even full size spaceships. 

In order to cut down on the rogue pirate theme, you could make orbital shuttles available. They are basically double-sized Hoppers. I have designed a small layout of one: 

The cargo area is a bit smaller than what the rules say, but I tacked on 10 cu for passengers, 6 cu for the crew in pilotage and tons of fuel. I would price this thing out at 3 times the cost of a Hopper, available when a Hopper is. This ends up being 2700 or 3600 secs., base price. An orbital shuttle is big enough to generate it's own life support like a full sized ship, but the trade off is there is no good place for guns or turrets. This gimmick is there to prevent that guns blazing trope. 

My final modification is to jump right to the shipless gameplay. For whatever reason, Duke doesn't start with a ship. Maybe the financial market tanked, or the ship he was offered looked nothing like the Serenity, or it was purple, or whatever you want. In this scenario, Duke never had a ship or the associated costs. So let's give him a Sidearm, the U-suit and 4d6x100+150 secs. Let us also change secs. into dollars, so I don't have to keep typing that annoying abbreviation. 

Duke starts out at the Spaceport with a maximum of $3650. He does not have a ship, Hopper or anything but the U-suit and Sidearm. Now, he needs to make 32 times what he has to buy an Antelope outright. This should be completely different. 

I haven't done a commercial in a while, so I figured I try something different. Over at Redbubble, I have a collection of Sci-Fi themed goodies. I have notebooks, pins, stickers, clocks, mugs and more. 

Check out my shop front there.