Subject:
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Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming.starship
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Date:
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Thu, 29 May 2003 23:54:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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1962 times
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In lugnet.gaming.starship, John P. Henderson wrotemore worthiness.
> In lugnet.gaming.starship, Richard Parsons wrote a bunch o' stuff.
> > This way the true JumpDrive ships can flit about anywhere in a week.
>
> So you are proposing a re-write of the previously stated rules on Full
> JumpShips to reduce their travel time to one week per jump.
I guess I am (sorry :-).
> > I would hope that there'd be precious few of these vessels about.
> So long as we continue to say the Full JumpShip engine costs 1 Fast (HQ)
> slot against propulsion, then any single player could never have more than
> five Full JumpShips in their fleet at any one time.
I wonder even if we end up with a 'Full Jump Engine' setting, a 4th and super
setting, of which we are each only allowed one. I appreciate your thoughts that
this might get complicated, but to me we already have a clear and published
structure, this would simply need a new rule and an extra display line.
Extending on this, maybe a 'Lesser Jump Engine' of the kind I have been
spruiking might cost an additional medium, so that propulsion has two metrics -
normal space (the 3 settings already in place), and JumpSpace, costing either an
additional medium or the super high. These two dimensions both count towards
the overall Fleet capabilites rules as they are, with the addition of the
allowance for a single super-high. Or not. I'm very relaxed about this idea.
Indeed, as far as I know, jhk is the only one with one of these engines, and he
found his in amongst the worthy stroyline of Spraw. I'd be cool with the
engines not something one can build bu only someyhing one can find, with the
permission of the GM to SMs running missions, and with appropriate gameplay.
Perhaps this is one of the things that the GM offers Adventure SMs and
prospective SMs to offer in their missions. It seems to me that the SMs can't
offer galaxy wide advantages without GM ratification. There is no reason why we
cannot reverse think this a bit, and have the GM offer to all Adventure SMs and
prospective Adventure SMs a kit bag of possible galaxy wide benefits a mission
can offer participants (with appropriate, unGM policed, gamelplay).
One wonders idly what else might be in this kit bag. Money has already been
mentioned in the past (although as I said at the time, it seems to me that for
money to work galaxy wide we end up needing waaaaaay to much administration).
> ...I am still concerned about the lack of restriction on Ferries,
> however, since the 5 HQ limit does not prevent a player from designing a
> micro-fig scale JumpShip and claiming that it is a Ferry large enough to
> carry all the other ships in his fleet. This scenario would pretty much
> make the propulsion characteristic irrelevent. (Of course, an SM can
> restrict the number of ships from a single player within their own sector,
> so perhaps a giant fleet could never actually be useful versus a single
> desitination. This is the only fail-safe I can think of against this
> scenario.)
I entirely agree, and agree with your point on the SMs preventing local abuses.
I have kinda stayed clear of the whole ferry thing because I don't plan to use
them, and don't like them.
As I think Lindsay mentioned elsewhere, in the case of jumpships, we might
discover that the drive needs to be well designed and trimmed for the vessel to
successfully use it, and so (and for whatever other reason we might dream up)
ferries can't use gates.
Don't get me wrong, in the interests of a certain Repair and Maintenance
Conglomerate, I'm all in favour of towing. But when it happens, it seems to me
it must happen slowly. And towing is kind of a 1 on 1 thing to do.
So, I'd be happy to keep ferries off the list of jumpships, with the exception
of jhk's magical junkship, if it has already been specified to be able to take
another or multiple vessels through. After all, any vessel can use the jump
gates on their own and safely (if only jumping from standing gate to gate and
within a week).
Then again, I'd be happy to just not have ferries [insert technical reason of
choice here], and simply allow the odd bit of low speed towing.
> > Ships with the lesser 'JumpGate Generator' type engines would have some more
> > strategic options, and could get about the large distances of the map more
> > speedily (max three weeks). It would also mean that a ship using its
> > engines to create an adhoc exit gate would be isolated from JumpSpace for
> > three weeks until the engines recharged.
>
> I do like the basic idea here. But I am concerned with the complexity of
> how to explain it. I would rather keep the rules as simple as possible.
> So a Medium JumpShip (or whatever name we want to give it) has a choice
> between a three-week jump between any two points, or a one-week jump as
> long as one of the two points is an existing Gate?
Bull's eye.
> Could work. I think worrying about recharging times before and after is an
> extra complexity we don't need in the rules. Plus it would add the
> requirement that the GM would then need to spend more time tracking who is
> charged and who is not. I'd rather leave recharge times out of it, and just
> say that the recharge is included in the time required for the given jump.
I think we're going in the same direction. As a default position, I never want
to make more work for the GM. My thought was that ships generally carry their
Jump Engines charged and ready to be used. On activating the drive to create an
adhoc entry portal, the player would detail his intentions for an exit point -
to exit gate X, to an adhoc exit gate in Sector Y,Z, and dictate his planned
travel time. This is much how current navigation commands to cover non-SMd
sectors of the galaxy works now, no? So not much work.
If a captain changed his mind, the captain would need to make sure his plans did
not breach the three week recharge time, or he could try to put one over on the
GM. I wouldn't expect the GM to check recharge times, because trying to put one
over on the GM seems to me like trying to score points on a god, its just dumb.
An offended or narked GM can just have a micro black hole slide through your
ship and evacuate your brain pan at will, or have a mysterious illness sweep
your ship in the galactic empty spaces turning you into a spacefaring Mary
Celeste.
> > The perils of sitting around in scary and hard to navigate JumpSpace are
> > managed by the GM...
>
> Early on, we had discussed what level of involvement the GM might have
> regarding encounters or experiences during Galactic Movement. It was at
> the time agreed that the GM would just track travel between sectors and
> that true adventure activities would remain inside active sectors.
> However, I did at one time suggest that this added duty would be a
> possibility. It would be fairly easy to create a random-event chart that
> could have several chances for no event and then a few special events
> ranging from the good ("solar winds speed your travel") to the not so good
> ("exploding nebula sends you off-course") to downright bad ("collision with
> uncharted comet causes damage").
>
> With the number of ships flying about, it would be too much work for the GM
> (IMO) to actually roll on a chart for every ship. But with JumpShips, and
> there being never more than 5 per player, it would be easier to manage. As
> current GM, I would be willing to put together a chart especially catered to
> JumpSpace travel. The possibility of the unexpected actually would be yet
> another way to prevent over-usage of JumpShips.
While the devotion to independence and objectivity (in the desire to create a
rigorously detailed and applied chart of probabilities) is admirable, I note
that we do not require this of SMs and I am entirely happy for this not to be
required.
It seems to me that the GM can simply chuck in whatever event feels amusing to
him, whenever he feels bored with the work of the GM. Sure it means that we run
the risk of our GM getting mean and nasty, but what western diety isn't from
time to time. And if our GM IS mean and nasty, we're all going to hell anyway,
so we may as well get on with it.
I'd suggest we put down the random probability generator and step away from the
chart please sir, and just let the GM stick his oar in from time to time. Yes,
as Lindsay says, I may end up in the belly of a star - I run this risk in every
sector I enter at the whim of the SM. But that wouldn't be much fun for the
story, and I have great faith in the GMs storytelling. I CAN well imagine one
of my ships lying about somewhere, listing in space (he he), trying to restore
power and get a message off to Fleet Operations, having had some deep space
badness occur, and simply because the GM felt like it, not because a chart and a
die roll said so.
> ...Another thought I just had is that perhaps, just maybe, a player could
> build a super-JumpDrive by taking both a HQ and a MQ slot to have a ship
> that can jump with perfect safety. Or is that getting too complicated?
I'd let this go. And the only way any of us ensures perfect safety is to be
dead.
:-)
Richard
Still baldly going...
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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| In lugnet.gaming.starship, Richard Parsons wrote a bunch o' stuff. Hmm. Interesting thoughts. I am happy with the direction of this discussion thus far... (...) So you are proposing a re-write of the previously stated rules on Full JumpShips to (...) (21 years ago, 29-May-03, to lugnet.gaming.starship)
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