Star Hero
Science Fiction Roleplaying in the worlds of the future!
3,362 topics in this forum
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- 5 replies
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Buck Rogers represents a most unusual milestone in not only science fiction, but American fiction in general. Debuting in Phil Nowlan's 1928 story "Armeggedon A.D. 2491," he is not only one of the first heroes to headline a far-future setting (helping to establish the sci-fi subgenre of space opera), but he's actually also one of the earliest examples of a secret agent as the public thinks of them in modern fiction. So much is his character associated with high-technology and gadgetry that his very name conjures images of such things. Since his debut, there have been a number of incarnations of the character, but likely the version portrayed by Gil Gerard from 1979-81 is …
Last reply by Michael Hopcroft, -
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Did someone hijack the xenovores picture thread or am I just delusional?
Last reply by lemming, -
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Okay, everybody ( well, most people ) like psionics, the cool powers for sci-fi characters. The biggest problem being, their absence in real life ( or utter marginality ). Hence, in a sci-fi setting, they have to somehow appear if you want humans to have them. Idea: Instead of that being a plot hole, use it as a plot thread. Specifically, in the setting, psionics didn't seem to exist, until some point at which the parapsychologists testing suddenly turned up unambiguously positive results. Latter research at least partly quantifies psionics, learning to detect it, correlates it to areas of the brain, and so on. The question remains, though: Why did humans …
Last reply by freakboy6117, -
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How would you build an ion cannon, ala the Star Wars ion cannons that disrupt the electronics of a ship? In other words, how would you 'stun' a ship/vehicle? I don't have SH or TUV handy so I can't look up references right now. Aroooo
Last reply by Aroooo, -
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One of my mildly stressful classes is "Physical Chemistry". I was studying for the exam yesterday, and I hit this passage. Now, I didn't understand a whole lot of that? If these patches of true vacuum travel at the speed of light, couldn't they already exist, and just not have reached us yet? What is a true vacuum? what is an energy barrier? why would I die in a true vacuum? (I don't think it's the same as dying because there isn't any air or air pressure)
Last reply by Basil, -
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I've been reading these books recently, and of course, have been thinking about game conversions. So far, I've only read The Tank Lords and part of Caught in the Crossfire, and although infantry skimmers have been mentioned, there's not a lot of detail on them. So I went searching online for information and found this page: http://www.salute.co.uk/slammers3/ It's a pretty good resource, and the guy who posted the info seems to have done some in-depth research himself. Just thought I'd post a link so anyone else interested would have this available.
Last reply by Susano, -
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Please be gentle with me, it's my first time posting here ... I've done a quick search of the boards and can't find a HERO writeup for the aliens from Aliens*; could some kind soul point me in the right direction? * the fact that the search terms turn up half the threads on this Forum doesn't help ...
Last reply by WhollyRandom, -
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http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/
Last reply by tkdguy, -
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Ever since Traveller, SF roleplayers like to do one thing: "Build Starships". (Of course, it's not only starships, but any kind of vehicle, but for ease of discussion, I'll simply call them all "ships"). Thing is, you cannot do that with Star Hero. Oh, yes, you can write down the desired attributes of a ship you have in mind, and then assign a point cost according to the Hero system rules. But that is not what "building ships for your game" is about. Especially in SF gaming, the engineering limitations of the technology available is a rather important aspect of the background. You want to know whether it is possible to build a Terran Empire dreadnought wi…
Last reply by RPJesus, -
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It's here! It's here! Hero System 5th Edition, Revised is on our shelves and ready to be sent out to our fans! Just go to the Online Store and buy it! Damaged copies are also available.
Last reply by Spartan, -
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This is something similar to Traveller ratings? Where can I find listing of apprx tech levels and ratings?
Last reply by MitchellS, -
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Well, I could not resist to think more about the Centauri's propellant problem. First, I thought "Okay, it is flight, not cumulative flight, so they'll probably just spend lots of time in free fall." Space battles thus wouldn't be too exciting, but at least it could work, I thought. However, they want to be in orbit around an Earth-sized planet and want to make Hyperjumps from there. The Hyperdrive requires "a distance of about a hundred thousand kilometers" from an Earth-sized world, which means essentially leaving orbit. But to do that, one needs escape velocity- 11.2 kilometers per second. The Centauri with chemical rockets, however, could not hope to carry …
Last reply by Zeropoint, -
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I was reading through Star Hero and came across the Drake Equation. An excellent tool I must say, but when running the numbers it says the number of technological civilazations have an "average seperation" of X light years. How is this average seperation determined? It doesn't really go into that... If it makes it easier for anyone (I love math, but anything to save time) I've established my universes stats as follows: The galaxy is if similar size and composition as the Milky Way. I'm only taking into account stars in the Galactic Habitably Zone (approx 15,000 ly to 35,000 ly from the galactic center). N* = 100 billion (stars in the GHZ) fp = .5 (stars o…
Last reply by Bucky, -
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Has anybody here used in a game some form of megastructure outside of the usual Dyson spheres and ringworlds??
Last reply by Nyrath, -
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Well, I've got Star Hero already, and HERO 5ER is on order, and anxiously awaited . I'm just trying to decide on my next purchase, if any. Since I don't have a local game store where I can sneak a peek inside the covers and assess other HERO products for myself , I solicit opinions from those of you who have looked between the covers as to the value of other products. I'm interested in running a Military SF campaign based around a Starship Troopers/Forever War style. Powered armor vs Bug-Eyed Monsters! On this basis, what value, if any, would Alien Wars, The Ultimate Vehicle, HERO System Vehicle Sourcebook and Spacer's Toolkit have to me, or would I be just as we…
Last reply by Hierax, -
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Well, while there is this certain problem with the setting I mentioned earlier , there are lots of cool things about the setting. One thing I just wanted to point out: Laser rifles. Now there is a real reason why a modern army should have those. The Laser rifle is a large military's wet dream: While it is not as efficient as a conventional slugthrower, its ammo ist just a few hundered thousand times easier to obtain. That was an idea I had never encountered before, at least not for infantry weapons and it is the most plausible reason for using personal energy weapons I have seen. Just reread that part and felt the urge to say that. Thank you for your attention,…
Last reply by Rapier, -
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DrTemp brought up something I thought I'd comment on. I would have mentioned this on the original thread, but they are all throwing formulas at each other and I didn't want to get hit Anyway, here goes. While I don't think StarHero itself needs a "plug and play" starship contruction system. I feel the lack of one in AlienWars and Terran Empire is decidedly weak. Yes they have several charts containing "drives" and such, but no coherant discussion of "space" or "volume" needed. I also think that the lack of any deckplans of common ships is one of the things driving the proverbial nail in the coffin. A starship battle game doesn't need deck plans but RPG's need…
Last reply by Spence, -
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...what? IOW, what FTL existed before "hyperdrive", in the 'official' Terran Empire/Alien Wars timeline? Alien Wars, page 125, boxed text, gives the introduction of the Class Alpha Hypredrive as happening in 2203. Yet on page 7 it says The Colony Act was passed by the Senate on 2104. Obviously, something preceded Hyperdrive. OK, I'll bet 2104 is a typo for 2204. Still, with Alpha Centauri 4.4 ly away, and Class Alpha going 1.2 ly per year, it would take 3.7 years for a spaceship to get to Alpha Centauri. Obviously, there is no way hyperdrive was the first FTL. So, what is the ***OFFICIAL*** answer to "what FTL came before Class Alpha Hyperdrive?" Or is th…
Last reply by MitchellS, -
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Hi guys - I was doing an exhaustive net search looking for the floorplans of any police stations, and stumbled upon this: http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html Which is, well.. huge! I'm gonna cut and paste it's explanation to save my poor fingers, but .... >>Cut<< Orion's Arm is the next evolutionary development of SF. It is a complete genre in-the-making, an interactive hard science space opera, a joint effort in science fiction worldbuilding, a forum for cutting edge science fiction ideas, a way of exploring a possible future that is at once alien and yet familiar, and terrifyingly possible. Here you have the opportunity to explore a vast uni…
Last reply by BobGreenwade, -
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I just saw on Headline News that the USAF is looking into teleportation. It's not yet in the website, but here are a few links about teleportation: http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/ http://www.howstuffworks.com/teleportation.htm http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0%2C1282%2C47191%2C00.html
Last reply by Curufea, -
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I thought I'd post the starship I came up with for my Champions campaign since so many of you were kind enough to make suggestions and send .hdc files. Since the players finally have the details, it's no longer Top Secret. The team named the ship Mjölnir after Thor's hammer in Norse mythology. The attached .jpg version is half scale or 1" = 4 meters so it fits on a single sheet of 8½ X 11 paper as long as the margins are set narrow. If anyone is really interested, also I have a Hero scale (1" = 2 meters) full color version which is 12" long when printed out. I had it printed on cardstock and laminated at Kinko's for about $5. The file is 3.53 Mb so it's way too big…
Last reply by Aroooo, -
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http://tools.search.yahoo.com/language/translation/translatedPage.php?lp=de_en&text=http%3a%2f%2fwww.wappswelt.de%2ftnp%2fnineplanets%2fhypo.html#moon2 This is a list of hypothetical planets and moons within our solar system, which have been disproven. The website was originally in German, and Yahoo's translation is imperfect. However, this may give you some ideas.
Last reply by tkdguy, -
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I'm trying to decide if Hero Designer is worth buying for a Star Hero campaign. I am planning on using the Terran Empire setting, so I'll primarily be using the aliens, equipment, etc from that book. Since this is my first time running a Hero campaign, I really don't know how much item/alien/NPC creation I'll be doing. I can see where Hero Designer would be very helpful for a Champions campaign, but I'm not sure for Star Hero. It seems like most of my generic NPC creation would be starting with one of the alien packages, filling out the characteristics/skills, and adding equipment. For major NPCs, the big work would be the non-rules stuff. In short, I don't see …
Last reply by GreyGuardian, -
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Okay, I recently picked up Star Hero. I've talked it over with my players and everyone is interested in playing. I'm even interested in running a Star Hero game. I suppose that works out.... However, I've never run Star Hero before. The closest I've come to running the genre is Cyberpunk 2020 (R. Talsorian), Rifts (Palladium) and Robotech (also Palladium). What my group is most interested in is a Space Opera game kinda like Star Wars. Not necessarily the Lucas Universe, but something involving lots of aliens and planets and whatever troubles might be plaguing everyone the player character are destined to solve (or try to). So I'm lost. The last thing I want to …
Last reply by RPJesus, -
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Here is a good problem for everyone. In Star Trek Q decides to test which version of the Enterprise is the best version. As a result he grabs the TOS Enterprise and the TNG Enterprise and puts them into a nether realm telling both of them that they must fight each other. They can use whatever means is available to them on the ship according to the official write-up, cannot get aid from any other ship or source. The winner will be granted one wish that they desire. So whom will be the victor? Please state why your choice will end up victorious.
Last reply by DrTemp,
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