Showing posts with label Star Smuggler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Smuggler. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Star Smuggler... again... and again

Ok, in my last post I created a new ship for Star Smuggler, creatively called "The Antelope II". It's twice as big as the original. 

Crewing the ship will be a problem as will generating weekly funds to pay for it. In order to dance around these issues, I decided to create a new mechanic for Duke Springer. Duke has a statistic no other character has, Cunning. When playing, you roll 1d6 to generate this value. When replaying the game, it is suggest that you reduce this number if the game was too easy and increase it if the game was too hard. 

Since the game already allows a changing value for this Cunning mechanic, I want to use it to rapidly add crewmen. Duke can "purchase" one crewman for a point of Cunning. He cannot spend all of his Cunning on this, he must have at least one Cunning point. 

The available options are all of the retainer types from e062 to e069. The player simply chooses the one(s) he wants, include the Driver who normally won't travel outside of his or her system. In this case, he or she would. Where there is a choice of two, such as gunners or bodyguards, Duke picks the better of them.

Stats are generated just like retainers, but crewmen are different than retainers. Each crewman has a stake in the ship as opposed to drawing a salary. When items more than 100 secs are sold, they take a 1% cut. They keep this money for themselves to buy goods or save, as they see fit. The crewmen can operate independently and can be separated from the ship and/or Duke to perform their jobs. 

Additionally, they purchase their stake in the ship from Duke. When these characters are initially created, they have 1d6+150 secs. which they pay half to Duke for a stake in the ship.
If Duke is killed, one of them takes over his role. 

EDIT 1 - I tried that part and it was too difficult. I have changed it. Each crew generates their starting money and it is pooled. This pool is divided by the following formula: (pool/number of characters+2). Each person has a "stake" in the ship now, but the ship has two stakes. If the characters had 1000 secs. and there were 3 characters, each stake would be the 1000/5=200. Each character has 200 secs. while the ship has 400. The 400 secs. for the ship's stake is what is used to purchase goods for the ship. If a character purchases personal equipment, not for the ship, it comes out of their personal money. 

When items are sold, the funds are also divided up in this fashion, too. The sale of 100 secs. worth of goods would net each player 20 secs. and the ship would take twice that amount, 40 secs. This makes it much harder to generate funds for the weekly payments, but that is the cost of doing business. Save early, save often. 

To pay the 300 secs for the loan, players would have to make at least 1500 secs. a week. If the funds aren't there, all characters will kick in money from their personal savings. It's that or be hunted as a loan jumper. 

If new characters are added, recalculate the cost of each stake by adding the new character to the original formula. This means you need to write the formula down the first time you use it. The new character will then pay that amount to the ship's account to become a crew member. If a crewman dies, nothing much happens. When the sale of good occur, use the new number of crew in the formula. Yes, getting your crew killed will make more money for the survivors. It happens. 

As an added twist, these crewmen also have a Cunning skill. It is 1d6-2, with a minimum of 1. Like Duke, they can use this stat to bring on new crewmen at a later date. This creates the scenario where Duke probably isn't the most cunning person on the ship. As a consequence, if Duke enters a scenario where a cunning roll is needed, the roll is made by the character with highest Cunning present. If Duke desires to do something dangerous, he must accompany that person and pays the price of a failed roll himself.

EDIT 2 - This part didn't make sense. Duke can't decide for another crewman, he can't force them to be savvy. 

Something like Mal and Zoe's relationship where Mal has an idea and Zoe does the tricky work of getting the details right. It also covers a situation like when Simon hired the crew for a heist or when Mal brought Simon (and River) on as crew after they had started their adventures. 

EDIT 3 - The comparison doesn't make much sense now. 

I haven't even begun to categorize the rules and event changes this would require. But it seems rather workable. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. 

Star Smuggler... Again

I unexpectedly have the day off and want to revisit the Star Smuggler Universe. The temptation to reskin the characters as the crew of the Firefly is incredible, but that would take a lot of work. I am stealing some ideas, but not Firefly whole clothe. I have decided to interject some ideas from Traveller into this run through, too.

My understanding of Traveller is super weak, so I am taking some of the larger concepts and ignoring many mechanics. The main idea that I am stealing is weapon mounts are dependent on hull size. I have created a large ship, which I will dub the Antelope II and it's twice as big as a 100 ton ship.

The original Antelope was 100 ton ship with space to carry about 134 CU of goods. Sort of. I seem to get a different number depending on how I count. The Antelope II is 200 ton vessel and has 212 CU of space. That is a multiplier of 1.58 for those keeping score at home. 

Since this is Inktober, I wanted to keep the high contrast drawn vibe from the original game. I used GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) to create a new deckplan, staying as close to the original art as I could. It isn't exactly "ink" but it sort of looks like it. 


As you can see from this schematic, I have stolen a bunch of ideas from Firefly. The ship has space for two hoppers, a medical area and weapons hold. The crew area is much larger than the Antelope, holding 6 rooms or enough room for 32 CU of people. Unlike Firefly and the Antelope I, it has two gun mounts and no secret areas. The 60 CU cargo hold is of center as it was in the original design, but this ship has a second 40-CU hold fore of the main hold and bay. It can hold a second hopper, but that is not a standard option so play begins with just one. 

This ship would require a few of modifications of the rules, which I have not formally written up yet. It looks like I would have to rewrite 3 events and 3 rules: e001, e036, e157.4, r237, r229d and r217. The events cover your first day with the ship, e036 covers buying a new ship and e157.4 references the medical regrowth tank. The rules modified are r217 for starship damage, r229d for search locations and r237 for critical hit locations. In respect to hits and search locations, the only completely new things are the medical space and weapons hold. 

The medical space is simply an area large enough for several characters and the medic could hang out in there. It would count as quarters for searches and would be immune to criticals as it's a vault in the center of the ship. The weapons hold would be searched on cargo hold results and would share the immunity to criticals for the same reason as medical does. The medical space is somewhat like a turret as it has enough room for the 4 CU regrowth tank plus a medic and one patient. The regrowth tank is not a standard option, so the player would have to find one. As far as the extra crew quarters and hold, I would have each of them hit on a 50-50 chance. I think I thought of everything, but I will have to do a play through to be sure. 

Since we are talking about a ship 1.58 times bigger, I figure multiplying everything by that will give me good cost stats. The cost is 190,000 secs with an interest payment of 475 a week. All of these values are simply the original ship's stats multiplied and rounded up. At that price point, the player would get two sets of tech 1 guns and one hopper and 16 hits. 

The overly large size will create crewing problems. I'll look at that in my next post. 

Sunday, July 26, 2020

Star Smuggler Silly Sequence - r332, r335 and r339 - Slaves

I've been monkeying with Star Smuggler, again. Right off the bat, I had Duke march into the Slums in the first hour of play. I immediately got the result r332 - Opportunity to Buy Items, Young Slaves. They have a base price of 100 to purchase and can be sold for the same, but only on planets that have a high wealth modifier. You will make money on this transaction, if only you can get them there without being board by the police or customs. 

This one is interesting because they have no stats, therefore can't do anything. So, why would you want these slaves if they can't do work? Under a first time play condition, the player doesn't know that they only have two chances to sell slaves and many, many more chances to get caught and those almost always result in an automatic loss. It's sort of a sucker punch from the author. 

I imagine Duke is Han Solo with the serial numbers filed off. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for him to be keeping slaves. What are they doing as he jets around the universe? If he buys people, wouldn't prospective hires wonder if doing a bad job will land them in a cage? It just doesn't work in my mind. 

To alter this scenario, a simple change is needed. Give the slaves stats. There are only 6 professions in the book: Pilot/Navigator, Starship Gunner, Bodyguard, Skimmer Driver, Engineer and Medic. Assigning a number to each gives the slave a set of skills and statistics. 

But what good is that? If Duke purchases a slave then sets that person free, they may sign on as crew. I would suggest a Cunning roll for this. It isn't that Duke is tricking the person, Duke is pitching a glamorous life on a starship. Duke is a business man and expects these crewmen and women will work one week for free. At the end of following week, if he doesn't pay them, they will walk off. He doesn't get a second chance with a Cunning roll because they know he is free-wheeling with promises based on the first one. One thing they would NOT get is a death payment. 

Now the flipside. If Duke DOES NOT free them, every time he gets into trouble the slaves will try to make a break for it, either joining the enemy, seizing the ship or taking the hopper to escape. Every time someone isn't guarding the slaves when trouble starts, Duke has to make a Cunning roll to avoid this. Every darn time! 
 
I kind of like this idea. One other advantage of this change is Duke is not permitted to take a Skimmer Driver off their homeworld. They just won't go. In this case, a freed Skimmer Driver will travel with the crew of the Antelope. 

In this run, Duke has 750 secs to start and a Cunning of 3. He decides to spend about half of his cash on 3 slaves, then sets them free. He makes his Cunning roll twice, but misses the third. It turns out that the two people willing to stay on a crew are a pilot/navigator and a medic. 

I am not sure how to handle their papers. Perhaps they kept them or the slaver gave them to Duke when the purchase was made. Neither one seems right, but that's what I am doing. 

The only other mod to this is ignoring the line about slaves in r335 and r339. Obviously, Duke could be a slaver and sell them, but it seems weird. 

Friday, April 24, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 125 – The Seventh and Final Hour


According to “About the Game”, this system can be used an adventure or campaign guideline. Since I have effectively “won” this game a couple of times over, let’s try this.

The story so far... Duke and the gang were jumped by the police. They shot their way out, but then the military showed up with 3 tanks and 6 troopers. All three tanks are disabled, but still firing on the ship. They have the equivalent of tech level one spaceship guns. The battle has been going on for an hour. The officer leading the tanks had a field disruptor, which forces any piece of equipment to make a breakdown roll. The ship has been hit several times, but has succeeded in it's save. This ship is Tech 6. Tech levels for ships only come into play for breakdown or risky jumping.

Dirtside, combat rounds are 5 minutes. In space, they are an hour. This the second hour of combat. We're going to do a little space combat soon.

2 hr, 00 minutes: Duke has ordered the ship to land and the hoppers to launch in the last round. This hasn't happened yet and he doesn't know why. Duke has taken over shooting from Audrey. He blasts another tank, as does Deadeye. The last tank misses.

David and Ace are in one hopper while Mike and Lefty are in the other. Each hopper can hold 14 CU of things. There are 13 crewmen. If they suit up, but abandon their heavy weapons, each one can carry 7 crewmen. Emily splits the crew up: Ace's hopper holds David, Audrey, Ratchet, and Bones. The second hopper hold's Mike, Lefty, Doc, Jon and Lucy. There is space for 2 more people on each Hopper. The crew in the hoppers are ready to pull in Fuel and Life Support units.

2 hr, 05 minutes: Emily is now at the controls of the ship, Duke and Deadeye have the guns as they break for orbit. Duke is confused by all of this, but rolls with it.


3 hrs, 00 minutes. Emily spots two patrol ships (e108) in orbit, ready to intercept the Buffalo. She switches on the ships ECM, sets the autopilot for max speed and orders Deadeye to a hopper. Deadeye hops into Ace's shuttle and they load one more Fuel Unit and Life Support Unit. Ace opens the Hopper bay doors.

The patrol ships are TL-4, have TL-4 guns and 10 hits. They have neither ECM or Screens. Duke and Emily unload on them, as does Ace's shuttle. They focus their fire on one of the two ships. Splitting fire in the game doesn't work. Duke and Emily roll six dice each, since they have TL-6 guns. The hopper rolls 5 dice, while it has TL-6 guns, against ships they do one die less. A roll of 1 or 2 is a hit, a roll of multiple hits indicates a critical has occurred, too.

Duke hits the lead ship for two points of damage. Emily piles on the criticals, doing 3 points of damage plus 2 criticals. Life support goes down in that ship. David scores another 2 hits plus a critical. The ship's cargo hold is bleeding air.

The ships return fire. They get 4 dice each. They lose one die because of the ECM, but gain one because there is no one at the controls of the Buffalo. I said we were on autopilot, but effectively, all three ships are flying in a straight line with no change in distance. The patrol ships are maneuvering for advantage while our hero's can't.

The Buffalo takes 3 hits, but no criticals. It's down to 8 more hits.

4 hrs, 00 minutes. Emily orders Duke to met her at the last hopper. You know he won't do that.

David scores three more hits on the lead patrol ship. She begins to break up. Duke rains now a barrage on the second ship. He scores 3 hits plus a critical that would have been scored on their ECM system. They don't have one, so the critical doesn't count. Emily is running back to the hopper, so she doesn't shoot.

The Buffalo takes another pair of hits. She is down to 6.

5 hrs. 00 minutes: The crew of the second hopper want to get out of here, but Emily is holding out for Duke. He blazes away at patrol ship, doing one more point of damage. David does the same.

It's not an even trade, as the Buffalo takes three hits. The Buffalo has 3 hits left while the patrol ship has 5.

6 hrs. 00 minutes. The last hour... Emily orders the hopper to leave as Duke hammers the other ship with 2 hits. It returns fire and explosions rack the Buffalo. As the ship burns, the hoppers destroy the last ship.

THE SEVENTH AND FINAL HOUR. Duke was all about the safety of his crew. He had a stasis unit installed in each turret, but as a consequence, there was no room for a U-suit.

Several civilian ships rush to search for survivors. Ace's hopper lands on the Serena Dawn out of Truane's Star while Emily's group makes for a courier ship bound for Mithril...

This adventure with the Star Smuggler Rule set is at an end. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I tried to use this set of rules as a jumping off point to see what I could start with a more advanced set of RPG rules. This set has its limits set the stage for future adventures. Half the gang will be moving on to the planet Volturnus in the Zebulon system while the larger group will join the crew of the courier to conduct the survey of Mithril. Fortunately, Lucy's ability to drive a skimmer, and possibly an ATV, will be an advantage.

Perhaps someday, they will meet up with Duke again. Or perhaps, one of them will become a Star Smuggler like him.


Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 125 – April 15th. Hour 1.


According to “About the Game”, this system can be used an adventure or campaign guideline. Since I have effectively “won” this game a couple of times over, let’s try this.

1 hr, 00 minutes: Duke and the gang leave the ship to make a contact at the spaceport bar. On the way, they are intercepted by the police. Apparently, they don’t like smugglers. These police are listed in e017. There are 3 police skimmers with TL-1 guns, each with a driver and gunner (E:6, M:5, H:3). There are two troopers in the back of each vehicle, (E:7, M:4, H:6) armed with TL-1 side arms and heavy weapons. They surround our party and order them to surrender. It’s 12 vs. 13. Game on!

Combat rounds on the ground are 5 minutes. In space, they are an hour.

Duke, Lefty, Deadeye, Emily, David and Audrey have TL-4 heavy weapons and open fire. But Lucy, Michael, Jon and Ratchet have TL-6 side arms and go first. Side arms will only damage skimmers on a critical. They hit 3 times, but fail to do any damage. But it keeps the troopers in the skimmers.

Next go the heavy weapons which should go better. And they do. All three skimmers are disabled and one officer is down. The police jump from their burning vehicles.

1 hr, 05 minutes: Duke and the gang run back to their ship in the distance. The drivers and gunners stay with the burning vehicles while 3 troops chase Duke’s gang and 3 other shoot. They all miss.

1 hr. 10 minutes: Duke and the gang reach the ship’s ramp. Duke, Lefty and Emily guard the ramp while the rest pile into the ship. They exchange fire with the Troopers. One trooper is killed outright, another is KO’ed and the third has a single hit point. Return fire is ineffective again.

1 hr. 15 minutes: Duke hit’s the last of the pursuing trio, killing him. In the meantime, the police have put out the fires and have called for backup. Jon fires up the ship while Deadeye takes one turret and Audrey takes the other.

1 hr. 20 minutes: The police have regrouped. The skimmer gunners have remounted the smoking vehicles and open fire on Duke, Lefty and Emily. Skimmer guns aren’t as dangerous as I thought, Duke shrugs off a single wound and the gang retreats into the ship.

1 hr. 25 minutes: Deadeye and Audrey return fire from the turrets. Two vehicles explode killing the gunners. In the meantime, the police units have recovered their dead, wound and more importantly, their weapons. The police force is down to just 7 guys, but 6 have heavy hand weapons and 1 has a side arm.

1 hr. 30 minutes: Audrey and Deadeye finish off the remaining vehicle as the police take cover. David and Ace head for one hopper while Mike and Lefty head for the other. Jon rotates the ship.

1 hr. 35 minutes: The military is on the scene now. 6 soldiers armed with heavy weapons and 4 frag grenades each. They have the same stats as the troopers, as e018 neglects to give stats. On top of this, the officer has a field scrambler. He fires on the ship and misses. The rest of the men start assembling an artillery piece.

1 hr. 40: I’m making a judgment call here. Starship guns inside an atmosphere use the ship’s computer skill which is 6 instead of the gunner’s skill. I call B.S. because I have TL-6 guns, which is an automatic hit. I’ll roll 1d6 per tech level, minus one 1d6 for being in the atmosphere. That is 5d6, and a hit occurs on a 1 or 2. If I roll more than 2 hits, the each extra hit is a critical. I hit that artillery piece and destroy it. The officer fires back with his discombobulator. He hits and the ship falters, but doesn’t breakdown.

1 hr. 45 minutes: The gunners try to hit that officer, Deadeye misses, but Audrey wipes him out.

1 hr. 50 minutes: 3 TL-2 tanks arrive on the scene and open fire on the ship. One vehicle takes a single hit while the other takes a single hit and an ineffective critical. In the meantime, someone retrieves the officer’s field scrambler. One tank lands a hit on the ship for a single point of damage.

1 hr. 55 minutes: Return fire cripples the last tank, but they keep shooting. They don’t hit. The ship is hit by the field scrambler and power flickers again. Duke orders the ship to land and the hoppers to launch.

The police force is down to 6 troopers and the military has 3 damaged tanks and 6 soldiers.

We have 71,573 in cash, have 8 hypercharges. Duke and the ship has taken one hit. And we are in big trouble... 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 124 – April 14th.

We land at the space port with no trouble and set about shopping for hypercharges. We are rudderless again since we paid off the ship.

Let’s take stock today by displaying the character sheets again. I’m only missing a few bits. The ship has screens and the hoppers have TL-6 weapons. The pantry is pretty bare. We could probably have a dozen skimmers, a pair of tanks or two hoppers in the ship's holds. But we don't.



On the character sheets, I removed all money and salary. I wasn't tracking that for a good long time.  Audrey should have a military suit from the hold.






We have 71,573 in cash, have 8 hypercharges.  We now own our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Digging Deeper into Star Smuggler - Surprises in the Events Booklet - Military Equipment (e018)

In my first post in this series, I detailed the Battleship found in e081. This post will cover the cool military gizmos found in e018. This encounter plays the reader against a military force determined to capture Duke and the gang.

These soldiers have standard equipment such as side arms, heavy weapons and plus some items really meant to take down a criminal lord. The force numbers between 6 and 9 men. 

The first item is a frag grenade. These weapons have a variable tech level, but also are reduced by 3 tech levels to reflect the fact that they are thrown weapons or fire indirectly. The rules don't specify how much damage they would do, but I think we can safety assume they do damage like a heavy weapon with explosive effects. They should be able to do damaged to everything smaller than a ship and probably can't be used against a hopper or ship's boat in flight.

Next up is a dalurium-screen helmet. It protects the officer in charge from psionic attack. I haven't mention psionics before, but it is one of the options for the reader. This helmet makes the officer immune to attack by mind powers.

The third item is a shimmer-screen. It imposes a -2 to hit the target. If the characters take them, they are subject to a breakdown roll and once this occurs, they cannot be repaired.

The four item is really fun, a field scrambler. On a hit from this weapon, it forces a breakdown roll on 4-6. Otherwise it does no damage. It cannot affect ships with ECM.

This equipment is super fun for they player to deal with and expands the setting with new tech not obvious from a read through of the rules. These items aren't overpowered, but do present more challenges and surprises to the player.

Monday, April 13, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 123 – April 13th.

We decide to go right back to where we began, Regari.


I'm not sure what I'll do there, but it'll be nice to be home. We pass through the Palatek system and meet no troubles. The same for Regari. We'll head to the spaceport to refuel.

We have 72,573 in cash, have 6 hypercharges.  We now own our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 122 – April 12th.

We enter the Palace area. We get a chance to steal some statues, but we are here to sell a bed for a base price of 1,100. We have a 10 times multiplier. The crew is hysterical because Duke uses another one of these pheromones to double the price. We take in another 19,850 while the crew gets 220 each.

We move the ship over to the spaceport and try to replace our hypercharges. We end up doing it by the end of the day. Not bad for a day’s work.

Where do we go next?



We have 72,573 in cash, have 8 hypercharges.  We now own our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 121 – April 11th.



We blast off for Imperia. One of the special rules I made for the Buffalo was that it couldn’t double jump. So we have to jump from New Karma to Nipna, Talitar and finally Imperia. Surprisingly, nothing happens on any of these jumps.

We spend the last two hours moving two units in. Tomorrow, we will set down at the palace.

We have 54,723 in cash, have 4 hypercharges.  We now own our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 120 – April 10th.

At the colony on New Karma, we find these books have a base price of 12,000 secs. The crew is elated. The multiplier is three, but hold on to your hats. Duke uses one of those pheromone vials and doubles the price. That’s 72,000 secs. Each crewman gets 720 while Duke pockets 64,080. 

Our first 2 rolls are to purchase side arms. We want to sell them so that is annoying. Our last two rolls are to sell skimmers for a base price of 30 multiplied to 90. So we take in another 450 secs. Instead of pocketing these funds, Duke shares it among the crew. It makes the math easy and the crew happy.

We have 249,586 which is more than what we owe on the ship. We pay it off.

We have 54,723 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We now own our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 119 – April 9th.

I now have the calendar sync to at least the last digit, which is easier on the mind.

Based on all of the stuff we found, our best bet is to head to New Karma, then Imperia. Skimmers are hot commodity at Colonies and the books we have are worth a lot there, too.

On landing at the colony, we get hit up for custom fees for vehicles. 5 secs. per vehicle, including the ship and boats. How annoying. It burns up the rest of our day and costs us 40 secs.



We have 185,506 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Digging Deeper into Star Smuggler - Surprises in the Events Booklet - Battleship (e081)

Star Smuggler was a set of rules with two small booklets. The rule set was a 24 page booklet which included everything you needed to play. It was seamlessly integrated with a 20 page event booklet. In doing some careful analysis, I have yet to find a mistake not covered by the short errata sheet.

One of the fascinating things about the rule set is how well it plays off the event booklet. One of the complaints about this game is the number of "game breaking" events that can end your game via a single die roll. Well, those are flaws, those are features of a choose your own adventure style book.

Within the events booklet are hidden 30+ new items for the player to enjoy or be challenged by. They range from axes to battleships and when such items are stat'ed out, they never break the system laid out in the rules booklet.

I'll be taking a look some of these items, as this system can easily be fleshed out into a full rpg, complete with a campaign setting.

The first surprise I would like to look at is a ship described in one of the events - The Battleship. This is a TL-2 ship with 12 turrets and 120 hits. It's a beast. I took the time to stat it up in the normal parlance of the game. To say it's OP is an understatement, but Duke can be victorious over this beast with careful game play.

Using the basic ship, the Antelope, I extrapolated what a battleship might look like. I'm not happy with the re-skin of the Buffalo Transport, so I will be revisiting this ship's layout soon.

The first conclusion that I came to was the fact that this might be a Pocket Battleship. The limitation comes from the description of the ship itself. It's TL-2 ship, which is pretty weak.

Even so, it is a massive ship. The Pocket Battleship is 410 CU in size and it's the largest ship in this image. The Antelope is the smallest ship.


Let me know what you think. I'll be continuing this series on a weekly basis.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 113 to 118 – April 8th.

The Buffalo with cleaned up spaces
so we can take on more cargo
I want to resync the calendar to the days in game, so we are spending 6 days in the Ruins. Here is my game plan. Duke and Emily will form teams for alternating days. Any day that Engineers aren’t repairing found junk, they will be doing maintenance.

When an engineer does this, it causes a +2 on breakdown rolls for the first day and a +1 on the next two days. Breakdown occurs when a 2d6 roll is equal to or less than the tech level of the item in question. This is why TL-1 items are valuable. They never breakdown. Since the start, I’ve been tracking breakdown, but not really mentioning it. The reason is two-fold, for every item I had that could breakdown, I had a spare, which makes this a boring exercise. The breakdown roll on those healing tanks are kind of important, so I will be looking at that.

Since Lucy and Ratchet have been assigned skills first, they has reported an accounting error in yesterday’s activities. No one got their cut when we sold the guns. Duke and Emily confer with the crew and decide that the best plan of action is to apologize profusely and hand out some bonuses. 100 secs. each. This costs us 1,100 total. The crew seems happy and Duke breaths a sigh of relief. Emily cusses about Duke’s lackadaisical record keeping.

None of this in the game mechanics, I just happened to notice that glitch and thought this would be fun and easy way to fix it.

We are starting with 20 repair units and 14 fuel units. I’m not tracking Life Support as Nipna has good air. My scouts won’t be wearing U-suits, either but will have their PS bot on hand in case they are knocked to zero wound points.

Duke is out with David and Lefty. Emily will lead Deadeye and Audrey on opposite days.

Day: 113 – We find two skimmers. One is intact and the other needs repair. Lucy and
Day: 114 – Emily finds 30 secs. in coins then blunders into a building collapse. We roll very low and Emily takes 1 hit, Audrey takes one and Deadeye takes 3. Lucy begins repairs on the skimmer while Ratchet and Doc ready the tank for Deadeye. We are down to 19 repair units.
Day: 115 – Emily and Audrey heal up. Deadeye is fully healed in the tanlk and it doesnt' break down. The skimmer is now repaired. Duke’s team finds a single repair unit and a very large bed (e088). We have 20 RU.
Day: 116 – Emily finds a damaged GM-Bot and another damaged skimmer.
Day: 117 – Ratchet and Lucy have repaired the GM-bot and skimmer. The GM-bot starts doing maintenance. We are down to 18 repair units. Duke’s team finds a single U-suit and a set of books (e088).
Day: 118 – Last day. We find a pair of intact skimmers.

Based on what we have found, we need to go to New Karma and Imperia. We have a bed, 5 skimmers, a GM-Bot which we are keeping and a set of books.

The Buffalo packed full of found items. 

We have 185,546 in cash, have 8 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 111 and 112 – April 7th.

We blast off for the space station, because that is the only place you can sell starship guns apparently. We spend an hour moving to orbit, another to get to other planet’s space station.

We make a contact on the way in and purchase 3 vials of pheromones for 720 secs. Good deal.

Our first roll is nearly as fruitful. We get repair, life support and fuel units. For some reason, you can’t sell life support units here. We can sell fuel and repair units for 10 and 5 each. It turns out that we can’t really sell any fuel units and still have a reserve, so we purchase one for 20 secs. We take in 75 for this transaction.

We spend the whole rest of the day rolling to no effect. 95 secs isn’t very much so it’s distributed among the crew.

The next day (112) we get our roll for starship guns. We managed sell for 200 each. We also make another 600 secs interest payment. I have to be honest, I am only making sure we pay every ten days or better. I am pretty sure we are two weeks in advance but I’m not tracking that.

We have 186,646 in cash, have 8 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Monday, April 6, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 110 – April 6th.

Duke, Emily, Deadeye, Audrey and David are out attempting to make contact with a buyer or seller of those high tech items we found yesterday. We get a few meaningless rolls, such as a repossession team before we get that offer. The repo team ignores you so long as you are current on your bills and not wanted.

We can purchase a regrowth tank, which will heal someone 1d6 a day. If it breaks down at the end of the day, it will cause 1d6 points of damage. I like it. They have a base price of 2000 times 2. So, I purchase 2 for 8,000.

We also purchase our hypercharges at 1,500.

We have 186,290 in cash, have 5 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 109 – April 5th.

Every planet has a theme.  Mynkuria’s theme is to win the war with Nipna via unusual tech. Nipna’s theme is to win the war via high tech.  Mynkuria isn’t working out for us, so we travel back to Nipna.

On our way back into the system, we encounter gun buoys. Emily manages to get the ship away before they can fire on us.

We head for the spaceport on the first planet and are detected on entry. We are approached with the opportunity to purchase some high tech items. We’re offered starship defensive screens for 2,500. We take ‘em.

This uses up all of our time for the day, but it was a super effective use of time.

We have 195,790 in cash, have 5 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 106, 107 and 108 – April 4th.

On Day 106, we take a day of RRR to heal up the entire crew. We also pay 300 in interest.

On Day 107, we get cracking on those Stasis Units we picked up from e103. In the first stasis unit, we find a wounded pilot. The medics lead him off to the crew quarters.

The next unit is more problematical. We open it and 4 guys jump out. Based on the last encounter, I’m going to decide that Duke tries to talk to them. Everyone except the medics and the newly found pilot are here.

The bodyguards open fire. They have the following stats:
Marksmanship: 4
Melee: 1
Endurance: 6
TL-5 side arms.

Duke makes his cunning roll and they do not surprise us. Lucy, Ratchet, Jon and Mike all have TL-6 side arms so they shoot first. All of them hit, but only Lucy scores a critical. 3 of these guys take a single point, while the last takes 5.

They return fire. They shoot at Duke, Mike, David and Lucy. Each needs a 9. Duke, Mike and Lucy are hit. Duke takes 3 points as a critical, while the other two take one point of damage.

To finish the round, Duke, Lefty, Deadeye, Emily, and Audrey shoot back with heavy weapons. Ace shoots with a TL-1 side arm. All four guys go down in a hail of gun fire.

We call for medical help and all of the wounded, including our newly found pilot, are transported to the city for treatment. This is expensive, but it avoids encounter checks. We pay 600 for the service.

On Day 108, Emily brings the ship to the city to pick up Duke and the gang. Nothing really interesting happens. On entry to the city we have a chance to sell TL-5 or six side arms, but the crew doesn’t want to sell. This is a rest day for Duke, Mike and Lucy.

Emily makes her rolls for the ship as we would like to sell these TL-1 level weapons. No deal on those, but we do get buy life support (1 secs. base), repair units (2 to buy, 1 to sell) and fuel (1 secs. to buy and sell). Twice, each actually.

This creates a dilemma for the solo player. If a player first makes all of their rolls for the day like I did, effectively, they can see the future. So, in order to blind myself, Emily decides to purchase 10 each at the first transaction, then possibly sell some on the second transaction if the price is right.

The first round results in Life Support for 3 each (30 for 10), Repair units for 2 each (20 for 10) and fuel at one each for a total of 10. This is due to the price multipler. We paid a more for the LSU, and base price for the other two. In the second round, the multiplier is 1, so we would lose money if we sold, so we don’t. A player can always refuse to buy or sell based on price, the problem comes in when you know that you have multiple chances.

We have 195,790 in cash, have 6 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 105 – April 3rd.

This has been a bad deal all around. We are hauling back to Mynkuria and our entry contact is r328. This gives us an advantage to sneak into the area of our choosing, until we are detected. We pick the military base on Mynkuria. This gives a bonus on detection rolls.

We grab our 13,500 credits, 1,485 goes to the 11 crew members.

Duke decides to make a large payment on the principal of the ship, dipping into our savings. We map our 4 rolls and thankfully get Stasis Units. This time we can buy units in any size we want for a base price of 50 per CU. Since the wealth code is 30, we get them for 50 per CU.

I need two stasis units to open the 2 stasis units we found. For that, we need 2 five CU units. That’s 500 secs. Next, I want to put a Stasis unit in the pilotage and improve the ones in the crew quarters. Another 5 CU unit. The crew quarters are going to be broken in to 4 parts, so that is 4 seven CU Stasis Units. That is another 1400. While I’m at it, I might as well cover engineering for another 350 secs. All told, that is 3,250 secs.

We can discard all of the old stasis units, as they can’t be sold. What waste. This approach hardens the ship against attack. In the crew quarters area, up to 7 people can be protected in each of 4 areas. Each 7 unit device takes up 8 spaces.

This hardens the ship against attack.

We have 196,750 in cash, have 6 hypercharges.  We now owe 194,863 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 103 – April 2nd.

Duke isn’t pleased with all of the guys packed in the hold of the ship. Emily had the engineers install the TL-6 guns. If we get in a fight, we are going to be in trouble. All we can muster is a pair of Hoppers as the turrets are down.

If we get caught, explaining 45 freedom fighters will be hard. They’ll execute us. It’s really not worth the 13,500 secs. we will get for dropping them off and returning to Mynkuria. Sigh.

Our outboard trip is peaceful and arrival in system is boring. We find a second 3 CU stasis unit floating in space. We haul it on board. There is just enough room to store it in the crew quarters.

They weren’t really specific about where we drop them off so we head to the craters. There is a -2 on entry detection there. We don’t get detected, but we zip right through a radiation zone which causes a hit of damage to everyone on board.

We keep going and land to let these guys off.

The Engineers get those guns installed at the end of the day.

I have updated our deck plans as I notice a few mistakes on the last upload. Boat Guns take up five CU, the two groups of 5 CU of space next to the ship's boats are not inside the boats but in the bay they sit in. I didn't bother to draw in the fighters we were transporting as they got off.


We have 218,686 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We now owe 225,564 on our ship. We are wanted on Palatek.