Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 100 – March 30th.

If Duke took off his beret, he
wouldn't look like this. 

If Han Solo had a beret, he wouldn't
look like this. 

This trip was unrewarding, so we are off to Nipna.

We enter the system in the middle of a space battle. We slink away and make landfall in the ruins. We get an interesting roll on landing. We are attacked by a Mynkurian death squad. Two guys have suicide vests, two have poison darts and the last two have heavy hand weapons. The event describes them as attacking no matter the tactical situation.

I call BS and decide that we need something more cinematic for day 100!

If that last instruction is followed, they will run up to the ship as it lands, and I will slowly gun them down as heavy weapons, bombs or poison can't hurt the ship.

Instead, let’s try this. David, Lefty, and Duke are leaving the ship via the ramp when they get charged by these guys. They have Tech Level 6 equipment, while Duke, David and Lefty have TL-4 Heavy Weapons, Military U-Suits and PS-Bots. There is no air on this world, so this will be brutal and short.

All six guys try to charge to the ship's ramp in their first round. Deadeye, from the gun turret has a shot at them. Audrey’s turret can’t turn that far, so she doesn’t get a shot. Besides, we won't ask her to kill anyone on her first day. Deadeye has tech level 1 guns and a 6 marksmanship. He needs to roll 7 or less.  He rolls a six and one guy takes 10 hits.

Duke needs a 9, Lefty a 10 and David needs an 8. All three hit. Duke hit’s the other guy with a suicide vest and he explodes (The guy had 3 Endurance, so he's toast on a 2-7 and dead by vacuum on 8-12). Lefty hits one of the poison dart guys as does David. One takes 4 points of damage while the other takes 2. That doesn’t kill either of them, but their suits breach and they go down. They’ll die if no one helps them. None of us are all that helpful.

Next round. The guys with heavy weapons stop running and open fire. Each has a markmanship score of 4, with TL-6 weapons, gives them a 10 to hit. They shoot first. Both hit, one on Lefty and one on Duke. Duke takes 7 points of damage while Lefty is knocked out by concussion. Duke’s suit is breached and the PS-bot begins emergency life support. David fires and hits one guy, knocking him out by concussion.

At this point, Emily realizes something is wrong and jerks the ship into the air, allowing Deadeye another shot (they were too close to the ramp before). The last guy is vaporized, but Deadeye and Audrey take a moment to hose the bodies with the ship’s guns. This takes 3 more rounds.

In the aftermath, Emily sets the ship down and investigates. I am going to rule that all of attacker’s equipment is destroyed.

Emily takes a team out to search the ruins while the medics patch up the team. Emily comes home with a small collection of coins worth 30 secs. Instead of adding them to our inventory, she distributes all of them among the crew.

We have 218,186 in cash, have 6 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

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A Great Book from DriveThruRPG Gardens of Ynn

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 99 – March 29th.

We have reduced the outing party to David, Lefty, and Duke. By leaving Emily back we can have a hopper and the ship come to our rescue.

We get the same option to ransack an office and again we pass on it. We interview and hire a Starship gunner. We hire her on for 100 right now and the typical 1% for the crew. I totally made that up on the fly, she would normally get much less. We outfit her from the Cargo Bay, so she has weapons and a U-suit. I'll get her a PS-Bot soon enough.

Our final roll is for Hopper Guns, again. They are not armor piercing, so we pass.

While Duke and the gang are shopping, our engineers are engaging in RRR to install those boat guns.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 98 – March 28th.

This planet is dangerous as they are at war with Nipna. Duke, Lefty, David and Emily are out to get supplies. Michael and Jonathon are at the ready to pilot the ship and one of the hoppers. Deadeye is manning the guns for the ship.

Each roll is four hours, but if we can start an activity we are allowed to finish it. So that is three rolls.

We start with a 2, ransack an office. This is a bad idea which could get us arrested, so we pass on it.

Next we purchase some boat guns. Before the buy, we check to see if these are military grade, armor piercing guns (e54). They are not. They are tech level 6, so we’ll take that. They cost 150 each times 10. Well worth the money at 3000 secs. for two.

We get heavy hand weapons as our final roll (e50). They are Tech Level 4, have explosive rounds and cost a base price of 30. They end up costing 150 each, so we pass on them. We will try again tomorrow.

We have 219,360 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 97 – March 27th.

We have some choices to make. New Karma is a double world system with a Tech Level of 1 and a Wealth of 70. I need higher tech items at cheaper price. The two systems with connections to New Karma are Uruskop and Mynkuria. Mynkuria has two planets and each are Wealth 30 and Tech Level 60. They are also at war with Nipna. Uruskop is a single isolationist planet with an asteroid belt at Wealth of 40 and a Tech of 40. Given my choices, we are off to Mynkuria for the tech code.

We don’t make any contacts on the way in and we land on the second planet, at the military base. This planet has no air and a gravity of 5. The gravity ain’t bad, but combat here will be deadly.

Our contact roll indicates we found a strange device of unknown purpose. You know what? This ship is new and I’m not touching anything.

With that done, we settle in for bed.

We have 222,360 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

Star Smuggler - Elegant Agency

So far, I have played 96 days, game time or 86 days in real life of Star Smuggler and posted an synopsis of these adventures here.

One of the criticisms of Star Smuggler and many other games is a specific type of flaw in the system: a single die roll ending. In playing this one game for many decades, (yes, decades) and other solo games, I have noticed that the great ones have a very strong amount of user agency baked right in. This means that single die roll endings are relatively uncommon despite perceptions otherwise.

Over the years, I have noticed a rhythm and tempo to solo games. They are intended to be completed in an afternoon, however, since I have run through 86 days of play on this one game, this can be extended for an arbitrarily length of time. It doesn't even take practice, all games ending in failure or success can be replayed, on whim.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, I have had enough time on my hands to map this entire game using pen and paper.

 In doing this sort of analysis, I have noted that there are 5 basic structures to the story. There are events based on planetary locations, events based which system you enter,  events which lead to other events in a story format, electable or avoidable combat and standard events which are singular.

Working backwards, the standard events are usually options to purchase a mundane item such as hypercharges or weapons. There is no way to end the game in these events. Combat is often elected and therefore avoidable, so only the player is responsible for endings in combat. There is no way to quantify how many ends are a result of combat.

The next 3 items require some explanation and numeration. There are 230 events described in the whole game and one of those is for setting up game play. I have counted that in all of my calculations even though it is not "really" a step or event, it merely describes assumptions for the rest of the game.

Duke starts on the planet Regari, at the spaceport. The mechanics of the game are slightly altered in this one scenario. Duke doesn't have to move and therefore is only subject to a contact roll which may or may not result in a specific entry from the booklet. If he moves to another system, he is subject to an entry roll and a contact roll when landing, which are random events based on one or more die rolls.

System events and contact rolls are largely thematic to wherever Duke is. Each system has a specific set of themes and these are reflected in the list of possible events. All of them assume Duke is in his spaceship, although events may force him away from the ship. Contact rolls are also thematic, so events in the City are different than events on a Spacestation. Typically, Duke is not in his ship, although if the player decides he is, he generally is. This ruling is ambiguous.

The third and last type of entry is one entry that leads to another entry, as the story line progresses. They also tend to be thematic to wherever they occur.

Type of Event	Number of Entries	Number of Endings	Percentage of endings
All	230	21	9%
Contact	53	1	1.8%
System	27	4	14.8%
Story Entries	135	3	2%
Mundane Purchase	41	0	0%

As you can see the most game endings, outside of combat, occur when they player changes systems and is forced to roll an entry event. Since the player doesn't really have to change systems, owing to the fact that many systems either have Ruins or gambling which generate free money and equipment or have two planets where a trade route can be established, game play can continue in a repetitive fashion for a long time. 

When in comes to endings, there are very few that simply stop the game with or without a die roll. I didn't bother to count, because these are a standard trope of choose your own adventure style products. They complete a particular story in a special way.

Star Smuggler does have a trope all it's own, called "Going to Prison". Escaping prison is ludicrously easy, but it strips your player of all resources. It's an end without a solid ending because unless your bank account is higher than the price of a ship, it's all over. Every single game that ends this way lands on e023. Modification of this one entry would remove these limbo like endings.

Events	Number of Entries	Number Limbo Endings	Percentage
All	230	7	3%
Contact	53	0	0%
System	27	1	3.7%
Story Entries	135	3	2.2%
Mundane Purchase	41	0	0%

When looking at the game structure from the perspective of limbo endings, other details become apparent. The events booklet has 230 entries divided in to two groups, events numbered 1-199 and 31 events numbered over 400. Judging by this fact, I suspect that either two people were working on entries and widely spaced the numbers for speed or a lot of information was cut to reduce the printing cost. There is no telling which.

Armed with both this structural knowledge and a sense of how game mechanics work, a player can keep this game going for a good long time. So why don't they? Well, it is meant to be played in a single afternoon AND some players have expectations which are not aligned with the possible outcomes. For example, the rules booklet does not deal with psionics or extreme technology like time machines, ECM, power armor and forcefields. The player literally doesn't see these events coming unless they played enough to know that they are possible. Once that happens, the player can guide him or herself to or away from these entries.

In producing this series, I have noticed one other style of play that results in a quick ending. When polling my children on what I should do next, given a lack of background, they tend to select options that have a specific goal in mind, no matter how improbable that goal is. And they have a tendency to make that choice consistently over long periods of time to the exact same end. Their expectations are unrealistic given the limited options in the game.

By using foresight, I have been keeping this series on Star Smuggler live for a very long time. Probably longer than most players would.

One other item is briefly mentioned in the rules booklet, which is easily overlooked. The author intended the reader to repurpose Star Smuggler to other rule systems without naming a system. Traveller comes to mind, but with the resurgence of all manner of old school games, it could be anyone of hundreds of systems. Keep that in mind when you download this great game.

I hope you have been enjoying this blog series on Star Smuggler.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 96 – March 26th.

I need to change the dynamic of the game to make continuing a meaningful endeavor. Right now, I have 200,000+ secs. and no deadlines or meaningful limitations. I love NPC characters, as evidenced by D&D supplemental Zero to Hero, so having a veritable army of them also means I fewer challenges.  Heck, I increased their pay to 1% of all sales and still have hundreds of thousands secs.

I need to put the lock back in place. We are going to purchase a ship via my rewritten e036 rules. We will trade the Antelopes for a new ship. When I rewrote e036, I did not anticipate having multiple ships. I made that detail up on a whim. To even things out, Duke will trade his ship in for 60,000 credit on the principal and Emily will sell hers for half of that or 30,000. Used car dealers…

Our choice of ships is the Buffalo Class Heavy Transport. It costs 300,000, which is reduced by 60,000 to 240,000. We pay a reduced interest rate of 600 per week because of the trade. We make that payment now and I do not have another payment until Day 106.

Here is a blank sheet which assumes that the player has two hoppers in the bay.

To soak up more cash, the used Buffalo Heavy Transport doesn’t come with boats, guns, boat guns and has a single hypercharge. We decide to purchase all of them at the dealership, which comes at a premium price. We pay 1,300 for each hopper, 900 for each starship guns, and 1,800 for boats guns (each) plus 3,500 for hypercharges. This planet is Tech Level 10, so all of our stuff is Tech Level 1.

That sets us back 11,500 which is subtracted from Emily’s trade in of 30,000. We made 18,500 today in the trade. Since this wasn’t a “sale” per se, the crew gets nothing off the deal except new digs. We spend the rest of the day transferring cargo from the old ships to the new. The new e036 rules specifically state that we cannot transfer hoppers, guns, or the stasis unit in pilotage. It's a shame, because those guns were sweet. We'll have to upgrade what we have later.

Here is our new "Buffalo as Character Sheet". I have moved all of the cargo to the ship except for the 4 vials of pheromones and crew equipment, which are on each individual's character sheet.

We have 222,360 in cash, have 8 hypercharges and a new ship.  We are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 95 – March 25th.

We manage to roll well and sell the boats (5,400), the extra boat guns (150), the U-bots (300) and purchase hypercharges. Hypercharges set us back 1000. We also buy Ace a PS bot at 600.

We dish out 585 to the crew, pay the 1600 for the hypercharges and the PS-bot. We pocket 3,665 today.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
9 Side Arms TL-1
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with TL-2 Boat guns,

Cargo of note:
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

We have 203,860 in cash and we are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 93 to Day 94 – March 24st.

On Day 92 and 93, we take another two days of RRR for accelerated healing. Everyone is back to full health before we take off at a cost of 225 secs. My primary motive for doing this was resyncing the days to the real date.

I have never been clear on the mechanics of going from planet to planet. I think it takes one move out and one move in for a total of 2 hours. Maybe I’ll change that some day. We land at the spaceport with 8 hours or 8 rolls left.

We don’t manage to sell or buy anything useful today.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
9 Side Arms TL-1
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
3 U-bots,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with TL-2 Boat guns,

Cargo of note:
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

We have 200,195 in cash and we are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 92 – March 23rd.

We land at the colony and go for medical help. We pay 225 for 3 points of healing each and it takes all day. Healing is limited due to the tech level of the planet.

In the meantime, Emily sells the books we found for base price 12,000. We roll a 3 on the multiple table and this turns into 36,000. Nice. Each crewman receives 1% (360 secs.) of this leaving 32400 for Duke and Emily.

I’d like to unload these skimmers. It takes 2 hours to get skimmers from the list. We sell them for 90 each or 360 secs. total. Again, the crew gets a cut of 1%. We’ll round to four secs. each and we take in 320 secs.

Today is done.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
9 Side Arms TL-1
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
3 U-bots,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.


1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with TL-2 Boat guns,

Cargo of note:
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

We have 200,420 in cash and we are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 082 to 91 – March 22nd.

Ok, time to cheat some more and change the parameters of these posts. We are going to spend a whole week here in this one post, as each roll takes 5 hours or half a day.

Doc, Ratchet, Bones, Ace and Lucy are staying on the ships to guard them. They actually have very little combat abilities, it’s more to keep them out of the way. In Duke’s group, we have Lefty and Jon. Emily has David and Deadeye. We are loaded for bear, each character has a Heavy Side Arm, a U-Suit and a PS-bot. The Ruins are pretty dangerous, which is why I left the non-combat characters behind. Ace doesn’t have a PS-bot, so I would have to take a medic along, which I don’t want to do.

Let’s look at the ships as they stand now. I have shuffled a lot of stuff around with only three parameters. First, each ship’s hopper must be able to serve as a lifeboat, so they need 6 empty CU. They are jammed packed with all kinds of things. I put some useful items in the crew quarters, u-suits and life support units. The Antelope has 34 empty cargo bay slots while Alicorn has 50. Theoretically, I could pack 10 or more items into other spaces on the ship, but I don’t want to do that.

I want to find a lot of items here, primarily skimmers and ship’s boats. They will eat up repair units to get them working but it will be worth it. Skimmers are worth a base of 30. Boats are worth a base price of 600 but have the special problem that they can’t get into orbit themselves and there is no place to sell them here. However, I can do the Russian doll trick and pack them into the cargo bay, one per ship and fly them to orbit and then to the next planet in this system. Theoretically, I have 5 pilots, so I could get 3 into orbit in one trip then pick up 2 more per ship for a total of 7. It’s tricky but doable.

Now, I have this cheat in place. Duke’s team will explore and Emily’s team will haul the stuff back to the ships. Technically it isn’t cheating, but I have a veritable army of helpers.

Day 82: we roll 7 and 9. Seven is a damaged skimmer and nine is a damaged robot, U-Bot. The Engineers get to work. The skimmer needs a repair unit as does the robot. We had 35 RU and are down to 33. Everything we find here is tech level one.

Day 83: we roll 10 and 2. We find a side arm and ship’s boat. The boat is needs 3 hits of repair. The skimmer and U-bot from yesterday are repaired. 

Day 84: We find some books in a room (e88) and an intact U-bot. The boat requires one day of repair with 2 engineers working on it. We are down to 30 RU.

Day 85: We find some damaged U-suits which may or may not work if repaired with a repair unit each. We chuck them as they are a waste of time and RU. We also find another room with 30 secs. worth of coins. The boat is repaired.

Day 86: More damaged U-suits, which we throw away. We also find a single RU. We now have 31 RU.

Day 87: We find a pair of damaged skimmers.

Day 88: We find another RU and a side arm. The skimmers from Day 6 are repaired. We now have 30 RU.

Day 89: We find a second boat with 2 hits and another intact U-bot.

Day 90: We get another RU and more damaged suits. The boat is repaired and we are down to 29 RU.

Day 91: We find an intact skimmer before disaster strikes. We get hit by a pulse of radiation and our suits causes a secondary flash which doubles the damage. Duke is down to 2 hits while Lefty and Jonathon are reduced to zero hits. Their PS-bots keep them alive until help arrives.

Here is our haul: 3 U-bots, 2 ships boats, 4 skimmers, a set of books (e88), 30 secs. in coins, and 2 TL-1 side arms. We have 29 RU left. Doc and Bones can keep Lefty and Jon alive, while Duke sits there, slightly charred.

On the display below, I don’t bother to show the u-bots and books. Each cargo bay is holding a 40 CU hopper and two 10 CU skimmers. We are ready for lift-off.

We are heading to the colony for healing and a used skimmer lot.

We have 167,925 in cash and we are still wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 081 – March 21st.

Aw geeze. I screwed up. I bought 660 side arms at 15 each only to realize I can only sell them for a maximum of 20 each. That is hardly worth the effort. We made 13200, but I have to pay the crew 1,188 or 132 each leaving 12,012. That was a great roll, but poor effect.

I'll probably get around to redrawing Deadeye. It looks like he's wearing a steel diaper. Since he or she never takes the mask off, I am not sure if he is a man or a woman. Perhaps we need a gender reveal because I know I've been flip flopping pronouns. As an added bonus, I wiped eraser dust off the drawing and it all ended up in the crotch area. "I don't need glasses to erase junk..."

We spend the last hour of the day moving to the Ruins. Deadeye is now fully healed.

I have 155,883 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 080 – March 20th.

We spend all day trying to buy side arms. We get them for 15 secs. each. They are tech level 1. We purchase 660 of them for 9,900. We have two hours left and move to the slums.

On entry we get trailed by bandits, but since we can outrun them in the ship, nothing happens.

Deadeye has one more day of rest before fully healed.

I have 155,883 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 079 – March 19th.

We move off to the Industrial Area, while Deadeye and Duke are healing. David is on the guns for the Antelope while Michael flies.

We get side arms right away, but the price is 25 secs. each. That is a bit high. We get nothing more of interest today.

At the end of the day, Duke is fully healed and Deadeye has 2 more days.

I have 165,783 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek.

Star Smuggler: e036 Rewrite for New Ships

When I created 3 new ships, I did so without access to e036. I was working from memory. So, let's rewrite the whole scenario using my house rules. The table at the end also addresses e001, which now gives you a choice of what ship to start with.

You can read all of e036 as it stands, but add in the following paragraphs to the end:

"Other options exist if you already own a starship. You may purchase another Antelope ship on credit and can trade in your old Antelope. Assuming you have paid off the loan on the first ship, that is. This option is not available if you owe anything on the old ship. If this ship is paid off, you will receive 60,000 credit against the principal and the interest payment will be reduced.

"You may also purchase a different class of ship under the same terms.

"Ships obtained from e001 have all of the items listed for an Antelope class, meaning you could be missing guns, hoppers and the like.

"When purchasing a new ship, you obtain it under the same conditions as the Antelope in e036. It will not have guns or hoppers or any other equipment. However, you have access to the shipyard's inventory. You may purchase boats (e035), boats guns (e053), ship's guns (e056) and hypercharges (e025). Stasis Units are not available here. Purchases each of these items at the dealership adds a premium. Add 100 secs. to the base price of each item.

"If you wish, you may purchase anyone of these ships outright. Please see the table below for all options.

"When trading in an old ship, you may transfer any gear or cargo from one ship to another, however, you may not remove the ship's guns, boats, boat guns, hypercharges, or permanently installed stasis units in the pilot's area. Items in the cargo hold count as cargo not equipment. If you are missing equipment, the ship is not sale-able and you will have to purchase these items either before going to the dealer (a die roll) or purchase them at the dealer's price.

"You may not roll against Cunning to negotiate the price of these ships, nor may you use ANY another mechanic such as psionics, drugs or pheromones to alter the prices. All attempts to do so will make you wanted in this system."

	Antelope		Alicorn		Blockade Buster		Buffalo
	Price	Interest	Price	Interest	Price	Interest	Price	Interest
Starting Ship	120000	300	160000	400	256000	640	300000	750
Full Purchase	180000	0	240000	0	384000	0	450000	0
Financed	120000	300	160000	400	256000	640	300000	750
Fin. w/Trade	60000	150	100000	250	196000	490	240000	600

Players may wish a refresh on the alernate Hoppers:

Orbiter, e034. 1800 secs. base price. e035 is 2400 secs.
Fast Boat, e034. 1000 secs. base price. e035 is 1500 secs.
Interceptor, e034. 2500 secs. base price. e035 is 5000 secs.

Remember, the Orbiter is larger than most hoppers. Their full description is here.

The Alicorn's full description is here. Click the links for the Buffalo and Blockade Buster.

Look out for more house rules updates.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 078 – March 18th.

On entry to the New Karma system, we are mind probed. Ugh. Duke is struck dumb and the crew struggles to find a target as he takes damage. Deadeye locates a small ship and blasts it out of his sky. He is also struck by an incredible force. Both Duke (2 hits) and Deadeye (4 hits) are wounded, but we will recover.

I forget this game psionics. Cool, but not cool.

New Karma is one of those double planet systems. Nipna, Mynkuria, Talitar, New Karma and Byzatium are all double planets. I have always thought there might be a way to set up a trade route from planet A to Planet B, but haven’t really found a good one.

Let’s look at the areas on New Karma. Planet I has Slums, 2 Spaceports, Colony, Mining, Gambling, and 2 Industrial areas. Planet II has 2 Colonies, Military Base, Industrial, Ruins, Rural, Prison, and Rough. I think I could set up a trade route from the Ruins to a Spaceport.

We have no problems and land at the spaceport on Planet I. Before we start rolling, Deadeye, Duke, Lefty and Bones report to sick bay for healing. Emily takes the rest of the crew out to get supplies in the remaining 4 hours of daylight.

Emily hires a woman named Ace as a backup pilot then refuels the ships with Hypercharges by the end of the day.

Lefty and Bones are fully healed. Duke has one more day and Deadeye has 3 more days of healing.

I have 165,743 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 077 – March 17th.

We move the fleet to the Spaceport to recharge our supply of hypercharges.

An interesting thing happens. I have ANOTHER chance to purchase a starship. Hmm… Tempting but not now.

We move the fleet to the Spaceport to recharge our supply of hypercharges.

An interesting thing happens. I have ANOTHER chance to purchase a starship. Hmm… Tempting but not now. If I felt like it, I’d create a variant of the Antelope. Like this or that, or maybe even this.

Let's do a crew review. Duke and Emily are pilots and ship gunners. Johnathon and Michael are Pilots. Between these four, I can fly the ships and the two hopper ship's boats. Left, Deadeye, and David are gunners, so I need one more gunner to operate all four ships at full capacity.

Bonus crew are my engineers (Ratchet and Lucy) and my medics (Doc, Bones). I wish medics had more ships skills. Perhaps drive a skimmer or something.

If I want that third ship, I need two more pilots and 3 more gunners, plus another medic and engineer to round out the crew.

Right now, I have the capacity for 16 crewmen split between the two ships. I might just do that.

We finally get the hypercharges for 1000 and then break for orbit. We need a new destination. We haven’t been to New Karma or Mynkuria, so New Karma it is. See you tomorrow!

I have 165,783 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Alicorn Light Transport for Star Smuggler and Other Science Fiction Games

I named a second ship the Alicorn while playing, but this would be Emily's dream ship. It can be purchased at the outset or from e036.

This ship has 161 CU of space and is configured for crew comfort. It has dual bays, which are interchangeable, but most of the time the Boat Bay is on the port side. For humanitarian missions, sometimes both bays are for cargo or carries a hopper in each. The two cargo tanks can carry liquids and gases only, which can be mixed in any combination. They are plumbed to refuel the ship's hopper. Aside from this, they can only be loaded and reloaded from the exterior. They are not detachable. It does not have a stasis unit or hidden compartments. The Alicorn can take 8 hits before being destroyed.

The ship has an unusual set of hypercharges. It carries 5, but the fifth hypercharge is special. In an emergency, it can be used 3 times. If the fifth charge is used at all, the engine needs an overhaul before more hypercharges can be installed. The cost of this is 1000 secs. on top of the price for the hypercharges themselves.

If you would like to incorporate this into Star Smuggler, I have pricing and other information here to mix into e001 and e036.

Buffalo Heavy Transport for Star Smuggler and Other Science Fiction Games

On page two of the Star Smuggler rules comes some sage advice. "Gamemasters of science fiction role-playing games may wish to use this as an adventure or campaign guideline (with appropriate rules adjustments to suit their own RPG system)."

It is now time for some adjustments.

This is the Buffalo Heavy Transport. It tops out at 290 CU.

The Buffalo has some rather interesting quirks. The boat bays are mounted topside of the ship meaning that replacement boats must be flight ready. The boat bays also have enough room for the boat plus skimmer, usually deployed on the boat. The centerline bay is meant for ingress and egress and also has sufficient space for single skimmer. A ramp deploys out the bottom of the ship. The port and starboard bays are big enough for a tank or a ship's boat. Crew quarters are shown in their spacious configuration and can be further partitioned for more crew. This ship has no hidden compartments. Pilotage is so spacious, players must purchase one stasis unit per chair (3) to protect everyone in the space. The Buffalo has 8 hypercharges and can take 15 hits before being destroyed.

If you would like to incorporate this into Star Smuggler, I have pricing and other information here to mix into e001 and e036.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 076 – March 16th.

We get to start rolling at the prison. We get 5 rolls today.

We get 3 offers to hire bodyguards, the much needed stasis units and our final roll is “no more rolls”. Mission accomplished!

Ok, so what did I have? In the crew quarters, I had 8 one CU Stasis Units. I am converting these to four 2 CU Stasis Units per ship. I also move some of those 1 CU stasis units to Engineering and the Alicorn’s Turret. All of the remainders, I scrap. So far as I know, there is no way to sell a Stasis Unit.

The cost of this operation, not counting the lost units was 1,200 secs.

I have 166,783 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 075 – March 15th.

Ok, we are moving the fleet to orbit and heading off to Uruskop.

There is a quirk with getting certain supplies in certain places. For most areas, a roll of 2 is Stasis Units. There is only 1/36 chance of doing that at a spaceport or other place known for Stasis Units. Prisons are the best place with a 1 in 6 chance. They use them to store prisoners, which kind of makes sense. Uruskop is the closest planet with a prison.

As we enter the system, we hear a clunk on the hull. This is e414 and is one of my favorite events. A robot craft of some sort affixes itself to the hull. If an engineer goes out there to remove it, there is a 1 in 6 chance of discovering that it is a shuttle craft of some sort. It's cool ride, you can't mount weapons but it's far more stylish than the hopper.

This ship is super dangerous. There is 1 in three chance that it will explode and kill an engineer. A 3 in 5 to kill anyone else. We roll in the middle and do not find the super cool shuttle craft. In fact, we don’t understand any of it and simply pry it off the hull. I figured Duke is acting as benefactor lately, not a boss or pirate so he risked himself with the engineer to no effect.

We land at the prison and are rush by a horde of escaped prisoners. We take off again to avoid them. The rules don’t say we can do this, but they are unarmed and want to steal our clothes. I’m not shooting them over boots. If we hadn’t been landing, I would have played it differently.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
120 Side Arms, TL-6.
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 TL-3 Side Arm, 1 TL-4 Side Arm
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with TL-2 Boat guns,

Cargo of note:
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
130 Side Arms, TL-6.
and the ship is fueled with 5 hypercharges.

I have 167,983 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.