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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are lucky we killed this thing in one shot.

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

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
12 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

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

The USN Thresher AKA Between the Sword and the Flame

In my last post, Duke Springer and the crew of the Antelope battled a Talitarian scout ship. Quite possibly, this ship is my favorite ship ever.

Rather than doing a mod of it, I have redesigned the ship from the ground up and designed a deckplan and backstory for this version.

The United Space Navy's Thresher Scoutship utilizes bleeding edge technology which is not available except for a few prototype ships. The ship is tiny. After the size, the next notable feature is it's engines.

Interior, with engines off done in Inkscape.

The engines have four nodes which manipulate space-time in some rather horrifying ways. The engine requires that the ship be sealed from the outside while the interior can have NO closed spaces. To meet this requirement, the hull was grown from a single seed of metal. The walls look organic and flowing. The engine is called "the Flame" by the crew as it throws off a flickering light throughout the interior of the ship. Anecdotally, it is reported that any one who enters the engine area while the ship is in motion is erased from the entire space-time continuum as if they never existed.

In the center of the ship is a single turret and four staterooms. While these spaces have doors, they are not sealed to be airtight. The "turret" is a standard crewspace for the gunner which can move like a regular ball turret, but the gun mount on the exterior of the ship is actually a tiny remote piloted vehicle which flies in formation with the ship at all times, as if it was attached to the vessel.

On the starboard side of the ship is a second weapon, called "the Sword". It is a gravometric weapon which will kill any humans in the target area. It can strike inside an enemy ship without passing through the intervening space or shields and armor. "The Sword" theoretically has unlimited range, but the crew must have details of the target point, which means it is limited to sensor range.

It's a surgical weapon, but is subject to considerable quantum uncertainty when fired. It often fires with no measurable results. "The Sword" has one other side effect. It will kill any crew inside the Thresher in front of the barrel. For this reason it is fired with a delayed trigger so the crew can take refuge in the turret area or staterooms.

A final quirk to this weapon is it will not operate unless it is mostly sealed away from the rest of the ship. It does have a connection to the engines. The area which looks like a hatch is welded closed before take off and cannot be serviced in flight.

The engines also have a similar disconcerting quirk. They must be operated from behind. A crew of three engineers are stationed in the back compartment and cannot leave this area while the ship is in operation. The engines require exactly 688.5 kg of mass to be located in this space and three living people. No one knows why.

This is just enough room for food, water and air for three days, plus 3 people and 3 space suits. Typically these crewmen stay suited for the duration of the flight as it makes weigh distribution static.

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

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

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

#TBT - A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young

Let's take another look at Simon Miles' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young published by Dunromin University Press. Set in the world of World of Barnaynia but is easily adaptable to any type of campaign. The city maps are gorgeous and go on and on. As soon as time permits, I will do a full review of this product.

Simon's artwork is impressive. I have not decided if it is all handiwork or digital or a little of both. It looks great, very old school but clean.

This title is pay what you want. I chipped in a dollar, but I think I will either have to go back and bump that up or purchase more products from Dunromin University Press.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
12 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat,
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

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

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

Causing chaos today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
12 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is my cologne of choice.

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

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

This ends my day, which was pretty good.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe 117,000 secs. in principle.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
12 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
6 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
5 Side Arms
13 U-suits, 7 for the crew, 5 for sale.
5 Doses of pheromones (e009) in secret compartment.
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

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

This is my backup option.