Spence

So I submitted my games for Dragonflight. 

Three games

1) A Small Matter of Glory. Star Trek Adventures Klingon (2d20)

2) Shadows over the Darkwood. (Fantasy Hero 5thR)

3) Containment (Fall of Delta Green/GUMSHOE)

Looking forward to it again this year.  I had a blast at last years con. 

On 6/26/2022 at 9:04 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

 The plot sounds like a Decent Idea and I've seen similar on museum ships, as a large plexiglass sheet with the lines and circles painted it.  The only problem I have is how does one account for ship movement  around planets or other debris/objects that one could hide behind? (See: The Expanse).

Think of the "Plot" as the PC ships "radar" screen.  The center is your ship and the targets are things you have detected. 

I usually use the outer most ring for undefined nebulous contacts.  Something may be there or not, perhaps just beyond detection range. "Captain, I have and intermittent contact at 230.  It keeps dropping off the scope."

The next ring in will be firm contacts, but not clearly defined.  "Captain, I have a firm target at 230.  It looks to be somewhere in the 400,000 to 500,000 ton range.  A Klingon D7 would fall in that range, but it could just be a big rock." 

Note: Exactly how much displacement for a D-7 is still argued.  I have seen sources claim 470,000 metric tons and others say 125,000.  So???

The next rings inward would be based on ranges of the game.  For Star Trek Adventures the "ranges" are Contact, Close, Medium, Long, Extreme. 

I generally do not use Hero vehicle/ship rules.  I tend to use a simpler system that serves to allow exciting action but focuses on individual PC actions over the vehicle.

Rather than moving the PC's ship around.  I move what they can see around their ship. 

About Starfire.

It was and is the only game I have ever played that allowed a game with literally 100+ ships to be played and resolved in 4 to 5 hours. 

A ships control sheet is a string of letters arraigned left to right.  Damage is applied by marking of letters left to right.  Some code are S=Shield, A=Armor, (I)= Ion Engine, H= Cargo Hold, L=Laser and so on.  Some higher tech weapons ignore certain defenses.

Here is the entire control sheet for a frigate.  

DISCOVERY-class FG         (AC)       HS 20      TL 1
[2] SSAA(I)HL(I)(I)RMgQsX(I)(I) [7/3]

The long and the short is you could put 20 or more ships per regular sheet of paper and mark off damage form a salvo in minutes.  Ships tended to go away fast in fleet actions, even small ships actions didn't take long.  20 points of damage will cripple even a light cruiser and severely limit their maneuvering or weapons.

It was a hoot, and when combined with the campaign system was a great game that didn't get buried in rules.  Classic Starfire.  Not the new version that seems to believe incomprehensible complication is a virtue.

7 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Fourth, Recost Endurance and recovery which are insanely too cheap at the moment, especially Endurance.  I have a very strong suspicion that the push behind making END essentially free was by people who don't like it and don't use it in their games and damn it Captain Neutron couldn't keep his force field up while he flew in that one game and that will never happen to me again.

I never had a problem with END.  I never stopped using 1/5 cost for everything.  It is the way I started playing and running out of umpff at the most inopportune time is basically a trope for supers and heroes of all kinds.  You can't heroically push through the exhaustion if you never get tired. 

And how dare you insult Captain Neutron, the was GM was railroading me....

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Short answer:  I play 2e because it meets my needs.  I don't play newer editions because I don't have the additional needs those new rules are meant to address.  The changes to rules- for the needs of me and my players- are nowhere near worth thumbing around through all those books to double-check something.

1 hour ago, assault said:

My point: 2e does what it does perfectly well. There's not a lot of benefit in the later "improvements". (1e works too, but you have to choose not to take advantage of the gaping loopholes.)

I'd have no problem playing 2e.  I play 5thR because I have six copies of the core book and 5 to 6 copies of each of the "extra" books like Character Creation Handbook, Combat Handbook, etc. Plus the "collection copy" bagged and stored of each book. 

For 2e I have one copy and it is my stored one. 

I simply lack the ability to prep games and make characters without a paper copy in my hand.  I guess the look, feel and even the smell of a real book triggers my creativity.  

1 hour ago, Sketchpad said:

 

But the hammer can be taken away from Thor. For a while, it was a pretty reoccurring event. I'd taken a page from Mutants & Masterminds and created a modifier on Focus called "Restricted" that is either +1/4 for a wide restriction, or +1/2 for a narrow restriction. 

You did notice what I actually said? 

They wanted a hammer "like" Thor's and they wanted it to return to hand after being thrown and not be able to be taken away.

So I don't know why you would bring up that Thor's hammer could be taken.  We are not talking about Thor's hammer.  We are talking about a similar hammer that cannot be taken. 

Not trying to be antagonistic. 

Just confused...

25 minutes ago, Sundog said:

I'm still of two minds on 6th - it's a purer system with everything equalized as far as stats go, but I don't find it as fun to play.

I'm no longer of two minds, but I think I get your meaning.  I can't point at any one thing in 6th as the "reason", but I just don't have the same fun.  Building, running or playing 6th.  5th and earlier?  Game on

For me 4th was the sweet spot mostly because of presentation.  As many have pointed out there is little real change between all the versions on game play.  Right now 5thR is my go to version, not because it is "superior", but because it is available. 

For me 4th presented a Super-heroic game with a soul.  5th and on are dry and read like a textbook.

I also believe the textbook feel has moved people from using Hero as a creative toy box to something that actually resembles a D&D style straight jacket.  All the time I read threads were people have thought of something they want to make, and instead of simulating the intended effect, they find "powers" that "sound  like something near" and then try to hammer the round peg into the square hole.

I was reading a thread recently which I could never find again where someone was trying to make a hammer like Thor's. They wanted it to return to hand after being thrown and not be able to be taken away.  So they were painfully grinding away at things using focus and trying to find the "power" that made things return instead of building the intent.

Hammer -

multipower

Xd6 HA (PD physical bludgeoning)( I hit you with my hammer)

Xd6 HKA (ED Hammer wreathed* in lighting)( I hit you with my hammer that is wreathed* in lightning)

Xd6 EB (PD physical bludgeoning)( I throw my hammer and hit you)

Xd6 RKA (ED Hammer wreathed* in lighting)( I throw my hammer and hit you)

Done.

Question: But where is the hammer and how does it come back.

Answer: being a hammer is a special effect.  You can just make it appear in your hand or look like it flies back like a boomerang. Up to you, it is a SPECIAL EFFECT.

Plus, unlike a focus, no one can take it from you. 

That is issue with Hero that I see.  A person that picks up a Hero book today just doesn't have the mind set to think outside the box, they will still see the "creation rules" as being rules similar to other games. There is only one Telekinesis and it is the one named Telekinesis.  They will not think of "Strength at range" which can also simulate Telekinesis or many other possibilities.

But this is not a "edition" based issue, it is the way players look at games.  When many of the games like Hero came out everyone was used to RPG's having gaps in the rules, including outright unusable ones.  So we were all used to tinkering and house-ruling things as a normal course of play. 

Current gamers are used to either well established games where 30+ years have allowed them to fix all the issues (or pretty close) or newer games that go super simplified or have leveraged off of 50 years of gaming to write a tight rule-set. 

For me, even though the game has not changed very much at all in its run of play.  Since I started with 1st edition, the "big" changes that occurred between 5th and 6th made 6th edition creation counter-intuitive.  

Intellectually I know that there really isn't much that changed.  In my gamer "gut" and "gamemaster feel intuition" 6th is just "wrong".  As much as I have tried, I just can't enjoy it. 

While I like tactical starship games, and have and played many of the ones people have mentioned above.  Starfire (2nd or 3rd editions) is perhaps my favorite.

But for RPG's IMO they just don't work.

I have moved to a model where ships are just like a fantasy games castle or tavern.  They are a location for the PC to act in.

Instead of an actual map or grid with the "ships" moving around.  I use a "plot" where the players ship is always the center and everything else are "targets" that move around the "plot".  The plot is laid out in rings for range and marked off in segments for direction. I am in the process of making a new plot for the Star Trek 2d20 I will be running at the local con in August.  Like most paper and pencil games the plot/map is mostly 2d, but I have found the layout spices up the games and the players seem to get into it fairly well. 

2 hours ago, Ndreare said:

I have never been a one system person.

I think that would apply to a lot of us.  As for Hero, while it is my favorite system, except for a stretch in the 80-90's I have actually played other games far more.  

Since about 2005ish games like CoC and the Gumshoe games have been my meat and potatoes.  Recently the 2d20 games have pulled me in, they are pretty good.

Unrelated comment.   Sedro Woolley!  That isn't actually too far from Marysville.  I've been thinking of trying to start something at Docking Bay in Mount Vernon since I work on Whidbey and drive through MV everyday. 

Are you planning on going to Dragonflight in August?

20 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

For my birthday today, my wife bought me the complete series of The Middle Man.  Watched the first three episodes with the wife and kids.  They loved it, as did I.

An awesome show.  I stumbled on it late then was completely floored when I couldn't find a season 2.  

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

We cannot possibly be thinking of the same SFB.

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I sont suppose there is any chance you were just really,bad at learning SFB?

 

 

Seriously,though- were you playing the original "little baggies" or the over-stuffed and under-explained books that came afterwards?

 

 

SFB is actually a really easy game even up to the later versions. 

The problem is that people didn't seem to comprehend that the options were just that and you were not supposed to use them all.  Especially at the same time.

It would be like trying to use every single option possible in every single supplement compatible with D&D 5th at the same time in the same campaign.   Why you'd find yourself playing Pathfinder....

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

I saw that.  Quite interesting approach to distribute things so much, but it also makes a lot of sense.  

I originally thought Seattle wouldn't get it because of the geography.  They have to minimize travel times so I was expecting three clusters in the US, California, Northeast and Southeast.  But when I saw that Vancouver and Toronto were two of the three Canadian candidates, I knew they would get the Canadian games.   And that made Seattle obvious. 

Seattle is officially one of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup

Now I'll be able to attend a World Cup match before I kick the bucket

7 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Comparison of Tien Gong station on top, and the I.S.S. at the bottom.  The Tien Gong resembles a lot of those 80's Traveller illustrations. The ISS is letting it all hang out.

 

 Even so, it took them a while to find the leak on the ISS, and the Tien Gogn hasn't yet lost it's New car smell, or the peelies off the screens.

 

Scott

Well neither are what I am thinking of. 

The ISS looks like a nightmare to me and the DCPOs and DCC would have lost their minds if they entered a compartment in that state of....of.. .I have no words. 

Not being covered does not mean rats nest.  Neatly secured cable runs and conduits. 

Wow.  I just have no words.

As for TG.  I suspect that the pic may not be representative of the entire station if they are simply cosmetic.  But it could be they also serve another purpose with benefits that outweigh the drawbacks.  I can think of a couple advantages. If that is the passageway from the primary airlock/dock for resupply, it could make moving stores easier.  They could be additional shielding in the passageway to provide a safe location against radiation hazards. 

Or, they have seen the pics of the ISS and are playing the one up manship propaganda game 😉

On 6/11/2022 at 10:36 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I want to apologize if I came across as snarky or insulting. IT was not My intent.

Forgot to reply. 

No worries, I  didn't take it as such.  Hopefully I am not coming across as an a$$ either.  I tend to be a little blunt in real life and can seem worse in posts, mostly because my ability to type out my thoughts doesn't necessarily keep up with what I actually meant to say.

Finished the available episode of Stranger Things.

Still excellent and has captured my interest.

On 6/11/2022 at 10:36 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I want to apologize if I came across as snarky or insulting. IT was not My intent.

Honestly, my experience with watercraft, other than my Grandfather's Sailboat (all over the Chesapeake Bay), were all the WW2 Era Museum ships around the SF Bay Area (Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, Balao class Submarines, Battleships, Carriers, and Anti-Aircraft Boats). I have no experience with the modern Navy other than photos, and movies, so I am not aware of the physical requirements of electronic control systems.  Though we are at the upper end of TL-8 in the U.S., I do imagine at some point that something like solid state computers (block of diamond or synthetic crystal  grown for a specific material requirement), and Fiberoptic cable may be the norm at higher TL levels.  Quantum computers, which are just coming on line now in Universities may be the Pro-sumer civilian machine by the end of the decade. 

I would assume that there would be easily removeable covers over the pipe ways and passages, so as to not snag Vacc Suits. Probably labelled and numbered, but otherwise fairly smooth, except for the Dzuss Fasteners on the corners. Exposed pipe and pipe hangars would rip and tear a vacc suit if the gravity plates went out.

 

On the old age of sail ships, most casualties (dead + wounded) were not from the cannon shot, but rather the splinters caused by the shot passing through the hull and bulkheads.

Modern warships (and many commercial ships) surface mount piping, conduits, ducting, wiring and various boxes for several reasons.  Ease of access, ease of inspection, ease of repair and, in the case of a warship, to reduce the amount of shrapnel from a penetrating round/missile. For damage control teams one of the most dangerous fires is one in a berthing space.  Berthing is one of the areas where you will find wall coverings and cubbyholes.  They will usually be filled with personal possessions, that include thermal, explosive and poison gas bombs.  Also known as personal electronics with batteries.  Plus all those blankets, comforters and sheets cunningly stuffed into tiny spaces are great to add to the fire and gas contents of the usually fully enclosed with limited ventilation compartment. People have died from asphyxiation ten feet from outside air because a hatch is heat-warped and the compartment is filled with toxic fumes from heat and fire.   The Navy learned a long time ago that leaving fittings and exposed and avoiding paneling and covers in the working parts of the ship radically sped up not just repairs, but being able to actually spot repairs.  On a ship every pipe has it's purpose and content painted on it with a direction of flow arrow.  In fact everything is identified by color code and direction if applicable.  

As for critical devices such as lighting and communication, they are all designed so that you have with zero electrical power to the ship.  Battle-lanterns are everywhere and the sound powered phones work off the the power of your voice as is implied by the name.  Control panels are designed so a crewman can operate it by feel in the event of no lighting and critical ones can operate without external power.  Because Murphy guarantees you will lose power.  

In space this becomes even more critical. If a micro-meteor puts a tiny hole in an outer bulkhead, I don't want to have to remove square yards of paneling to find the leak.  I also don't want to have half the personnel assign to the compartment shredded by fragments of of the covers that only served the purpose of "looking nice".  And when the lights and power goes out, I really hope I am not stuck with a touch screen as my only control panel.  And unless I can carry 5 or 10 spares of everything, I really hope that my critical systems have backups that are either electric components or integrated circuits build from electronic components such as transistors and for applications that require clean signals or power handling those much maligned tubes.  Give me a micro/min tool set and a micro-repair bench and I can repair them.  If necessary we can "rob" what we need from other gear.    And components are actually pretty small and you can store thousands of them in one cubic yard of space.  In real life high altitude flight is one of the reasons that reloading firmware and software packages is pretty routine.  You don't hear as much about commercial airlines because they don't really have anything and the majority of critical systems have been hardened.  The loss is because of the reduced protection from particles at altitude.  Microchips a especially vulnerable to particles and other EMI.  An actual spacecraft is exposed to far more.  And I am pretty sure anything that actually goes into interplanetary or interstellar will really see damage.    You cannot fix a chip.  Spare chips have to be carefully packaged and most of the particles that do the damage are not stopped by the ships structure or your body.  A chips is just a device that has millions or PN junctions (transistor, diode, etc)  and connecting runs at the microscopic level.  I have seen microscopic pictures of a failing chip from equipment that was in orbit.  The surface of the chip was covered in craters that looked like WW1 nomansland.  A full-sized or miniature semiconductor (transistor, diode, etc), component (resistor, capacitor, etc) or tube is so massive in comparison to the same purposed portion of a chip it wouldn't even notice the damage.  You will be losing a steady percentage of micro-components each and everyday you are outside the protective field of a planet.  This will happen invisibly and undetected until the new chip is installed and does not work.  A storage of components that are miniature or full-sized will survived for years unless they are mishandled.  

I have the good fortune to be able to work on not just a new platform with new birds that are less than a year old, but also the old legacy aircraft that have been flying for 40+ years.  If we get a blade or other circuit card and it has been over 5 years form manufacture it usually means problems of one kind or another, bios or firmware updates and sometime outright failure.  It just doesn't work for some reason.  But they recently released old war-stores for one the aircraft being sun-downed.  We cot old style circuit cards and IC that are literally 50 years old and still in the manufacturers original packaging, and they all work like the day they were manufactured.

Modern tech is fantastic and I don't know what I would do without my laptop.  

But to depend on microcomputers to be my only option if I were to go on a multiyear voyage with no way to abort? 

Nope.  They would need to ensure the existence of manual auxiliary methods of performing all the critical tasks. 

Otherwise the crew might as well just suicide before they go so the families can at least have something to bury.

That is so cool....

It is a bummer that I have literally no possible use and simply can't justify $160+ on it.  

48 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

From a Traveller standpoint, TL5 computers were vacuum tubes.  We're at approximately TL8 now.  I'll admit to not knowing what computers modern US Navy vessels have on board, but... does it help if I point out that the actual computers used in the Apollo space program did not in fact use vacuum tubes?  Granted, their interface was switches and lights, but still.  And the Boeing 787 is entirely fly-by-wire, with modern electronic linkages between the cockpit and all of the flight systems.  (The  internal saying among Boeing engineers is "If it's Boeing, I'm not going," but I digress.)  

You are correct, but they were not microchips either.  They were IC (integrated circuits) which is a fancy way to say they replaced all the "tubes" with "flat transistors" and other equivalent components.  The computers and supporting logic units I spent most of my career working on were the same.  Because we were working on aircraft we didn't need the level of weight and size reduction that the Apollo required, but we used the same tech.  The TCG on my first patrol aircraft was the same as the one used on the Apollo with the sole exception being the display which was vacuum tubes with each number as a shaped filament, each tube has 1-9+0.  The ones they got had LEDs which were expensive.  We also did still use tubes in a lot of applications due to better power handling and signal clarity compared to semiconductor devices like those of the time. 

But you could actually repair an IC by replacing components. You could even recover (rob) components from one circuit card and use it on another.  I've personally made such repairs with a solder iron and a magnifying glass on a wooden workbench in a shed.  Modern devices are much much tinier. 

One device we had that was 12" by 12" by 24" held around 180 miniature IC cards and weighed in at over 40 pounds.  The same device now is 2" by 5" by 8" and is virtually an empty case with one tiny card.  And everyone considered it old fashioned and larger than it needs to be.

The big difference is reliability.  The old machines could suddenly lose power or get hit with a power surge and they would simply stop.  Close the circuit breaker and flick the power switch to ON and then hit the Start/Stop switch and it would literally pick up exactly where it left off and lose nothing.  Except for a need to update system time you would not be able to tell anything had happened.  Do that with modern computers and everything restarts and you have to go in and bring everything back and reload system data. 

Right now everyone is happy because they can simply "get a new one" and they have easy back up of data.  But when you are isolated and do not have ready access to parts and there is no "cloud" and if your computer loses power your only recourse is to reboot and reload from the last back up, things change.

Components used in IC's were still large enough that a human could see them and replace the transistor, diode, capacitor or what have you.  An actual microchip still uses the same concepts, but instead of the PN junctions that make up the functional part of the component being singular and in individual "cases", the "chip" has hundreds of thousands to millions of them etched into the chip at an microscopic level.    Which is why proper handling and precautions for ESD are so important.  Just touching a unprotected chip can allow the difference in electrical potential to generate current that can blow holes in the chip at the microscopic level.  Not all of a chip is used in every device, so you you can be lucky and the damage will not affect you, but at other times it will effectively destroy it. 

All microchips did was make everything smaller and shifted logic circuit from volts (our old systems ran on +5v/-5v/0v) to micro-voltages, it didn't actually change the how of logic processing.  Yes, my smart phone has ridiculously greater amount of processing power than the Apollo and more than likely more than 60's era mission control.  But if I drop my smart phone and it breaks I cannot fix it.  Modern military technology is an interesting compromise between ruggedness and field repairability against processing power. 

2 hours ago, Jhamin said:

I played a lot of the '80s Marvel Superheroes game (the FASERIP one)

With the number of people that seem to love this game I can only conclude we were playing it wrong. 

All I can remember about it was the color coded chart and that whoever had the higher number in a stat won. Period.

No point on trying anything because if the opponent had a higher stat you simply lost.

I am getting the vibe that this may not be true

19 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I really don't get you guy's  fetishization for vacuum tube, rack mount, CPUs. I just don't. It's weird, like genre enforcement of DOD computer practices from the 1960s, or The Rand Corporation.  ---snip---

Wow, really odd statement...diatribe(?)...

Doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion.  The use of mechanical controls (switches, toggles) and hardware controls and mechanical compute engines is actually still used in the modern world.  Essentially, if you have a vehicle/critical device that you really really need to ensure it can be repaired without any outside assistance it will not be a modern microchip controlled device.   Just like the pipes and cables on a working ship are not concealed in the "walls" like a luxury cruise liner.  When things go wrong you need things that can actually be fixed.   Last time I was shipboard did we have did we have all the fancy laptops and other electronics?  Yes.  But we also still had sound powered phones and controls and panels allowing functional control that did not rely on the modern micro-computer. 

In the future when we actually begin traveling to other planets, you will see a reduction in reliance on "laptops" and other "micro-computers" and a reversion to technology that may require the user to hold greater personal skills and knowledge, but will also be able to actually be repaired in place without the need for 100% replacement.  Unlike a surface ship on Earth where you can be reasonably sure you can get a replacement delivered anywhere on the globe within two or three days for a major life threatening emergency and two weeks for anything else.  Once we are in space the inability to actually repair a device will mean you simply die.  Of course this will all change when we can actually go in an repair the microchip, but I don't think we are anywhere near that yet.

I think this is more of a understanding gap between people living in a safe secure environment and people that have experienced isolated and hostile environments. 

You either have multiple redundant spares for everything or you ensure you can actually fix everything. 

I like RPGs with a small dose of reality, but don't believe that "reality" is all grim dark and conspiracy with shiny touchscreens everywhere.

But YMMV

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Malls were generally built on obsolete industry or pre-trucking food packing and processing, so you could replace the malls with a Can factory, a stock yard, or a manufacturing concern that made things that were once common but are no longer, or were4 once common, but moved out of the city in the early 70's due to toxicity, or in the 80's when they were moved over seas.

Did not know that. 

Thanks

1 hour ago, Doctor Zen said:

Thanks. Did not realize that CC would be good for modern day city maps.

Oh, absolutely. 

So a quick run down.

Campaign Cartographer 3+ is the current version and has all the capabilities needed to do any kind of map you want. 

While you can do everything with just CC3+, the add-ons add tools that automate and streamline many functions. 

City Designer 3 is an add on that adds menus, tools, templates and symbol catalogs specifically to aid in designing cities of all types from fantasy to modern to futuristic.

Dungeon Designer 3 is an add on that adds menus, tools, templates and symbol catalogs specifically to aid in designing and creating a very wide variety of, you guessed it, dungeons, catacombs and sewers.

Cosmographer 3 adds star-maps, solar system maps, planetary maps and deckplans.  It even has catalogs and templates to generate Traveller maps and deckplans.

Perspectives 3 is like the other add-ons, but in this case does the 3D perspective cutaway maps.

There are three symbols sets which include 2500 symbols in sets 1 and 2, and 2000 in set three plus textures and stuff. 

Symbol Set 1, Fantasy Overland

Symbol Set 2: Fantasy Floorplans

Symbol Set 3: Modern Symbols

And they have the Source Maps sets.

Sources Maps: Castles - 25 castles and 141 plans plus all the symbol catalogs used to make them and they are fully editable by CC+.  And the Perspectives 3D symbols sets are included.  Some fictional but many real world such as Penafiel, Castello dei Conti Guidi, Pfalzgrafenstein, Harlech, and La Belle Colline.

Source Maps: Temples, Tombs and Catacombs - 25 sites and 149 plans plus all the stuff.  Examples are Angkor Wat, Borgund Stave Church, Christchurch Cathedral, Gizeh - Pyramid of Khufu, Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, Ise Shrine, and Machu Picchu.

Source Maps: Cities - is a little different with 8 Cities, 26 Buildings, 78 Plans.  Examples are a city map of Rothenburg with plans for the Town Hall, Inns and Town Houses. A city map of Southampton with plans for a Wine Merchant, Armed Merchantman (Small Carrack) and a Warehouse. 

Then you have access to the Cartographer's Annuals.  Each month they put out an item (Style Pack, Map collection, etc.) that includes symbols, style packs and such as well as tutorials.  For example Cartographer's Annual Vol 1 included the following twelve items:

1 Style Pack "Mercator Historical Maps"

2 Style Pack "John Speed City Maps"

3 Map Collection "Fantasy Tavern"

4 Style Pack "Sarah Wroot Overland Maps"

5 Map Collection "Panicale"

6 Template Collection "Parchment & Paper"

7 Map Collection "Caves and Caverns"

8 Style Pack "Starship Deckplans"

9 Style Pack "Modern City Maps"

10 Map Collection "Cathedral"

11 Symbol Pack "Connecting Symbols"

12 Mapping Guide "How to Create a Style Pack"

Number 9 Style Pack "Modern City Maps" consists of:

• 4-page pdf Mapping Guide
• 2 example maps (fcw, pdf and png format)
• 2 template wizards
• 4 templates
• 2 new styles
• 44 new drawing tools
• 35 new symbols (2 catalogs)
• 2 new effect settings

We are currently into Volume 16 and item 186. 

Here is a link to see yourself.  https://www.profantasy.com/annual/2022/2022-cartographers-annual.asp

Yes I know I went overboard, but I cannot stress how impressive CC3+ is. 

It may have a learning curve, but like Hero System is to RPG's, CC3+ is to mapping programs.  Once you get the hang of it there are no limits. 

1 hour ago, Doctor Zen said:

What do you use to draw your maps? Do you freehand or is there a program that you use?

I use Pro-fantasy's Campaign Cartographer suite of mapping programs for most of my maps.  

For the alterations to the the Hudson City map I just used Paint.  The HC map's resolution is fantastic and it was easy to grab an image of a section of the map and paste it elsewhere.   A bit tedious, but well worth it to me.  

35 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Yep.  And the way the optional rules came out-- you literally,biught a packet of tiles, and it came with optional,rules!  You bought a larger packet to add a new race and their ships, and _it_ came with optional rules!

 

It lead to a house rule that optional rules could only be implemented if everyone playing already owned and was both familiar and comfortable with them (probably because after the first guy wins with the Klingon Butthook Maneuver, _everyone_ starts looking for really obscure optional Butthook Maneuvers of their own... 

To this day I am amazed at how many people from all over the world that played SFB are familiar with the "Klingon Hook".  I haven't played in years (early 2000's maybe) and I do not recall ever seeing an article or formal write up of the maneuver but I have seen countless players from all over the world that knew what it was and called it some form of "hook".  A perfect (to me) example of form following function.  The design and layout of the Klingon warship (D classes through C classes) just make it a natural result.  Along with Klingon warships always being in threes.  

Long ago when I was younger and we played regularly, I was a master (if I do say so myself ) of maneuver with my favorite formation of three C-9's with six D-7's in two groups of three. A ship on the receiving end of a three ship coordinated hook was usually shredded and out of the fight.  Getting caught by three C-9's was a ship ender. 

I miss those days

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Much snippage by me........

 

 

So many things I want to say, and only the accursed medium of miniature touchscreen with which to say them....     :😢

 

I have only the past couple of nights begun to read Mongoose Traveller, and my findings thus far are akin to Scott's.  However, I more firmly disagreed with Mongoose's 'negligible mass" computers. 

 

No, I absolutely do _not_ use HERO rules for space combat.  I just don't hate myself that much.   We used to use rhe original traveller rules, but as time went on, the players gravitated toward the simplified rules as presented in both Traveller Basic and The Traveller Book; these systems use range bands akin to personal combat and feature simplified movement.  Not mt favorite, but it is not the HERO rules, so,,,..

 

 

I have always wanted to use the Starfleet Battles game for ship combat, but I am the only one at the table  familiar with it (I was once well-known for the Klingon Butthook maneuver).

 

 

There is so much more, but I have had all of this accursed touchscreen I can handle.

Great if lengthy post

A couple points to reply

1) I too absolutely hate trying to post via the tiny touchscreen on my phone.

2) Computer size.  I have no problems with being able to believe a computer being room sized.  The first real computers I worked with used punchcards and reel to reel mag tapes.  So the concept is not just believable, but I can remember the advanced airborne mission computer that had 64k of processing with three independent memory units that could store a whopping 1 megabite of data each with the entire computer (minus tape drives and keyboard/ display logic units) weighing in at 600 pounds.  So an early game making computers big is not an issue.

I have been toying around with using a modified version of John Morressey's setting for his A Law for the Stars book.  Star travel in this universe uses jump drive, I can't remember if it is like Traveller jump drives or Starfire style warp points but it doesn't matter.  The issue is that the jump irreparably fries semiconductor junctions, meaning micro chips become lumps.  This has two major results.  Starship computers are large, bulky, simple and made using vacuum tube, individual electronic components (resisters, capacitors, etc.) and mechanical calculators.  Navigators crunch numbers with sliderules and spacefarers have to be able to actually understand celestial navigation and be able to fix things.  It also means a colony world will never see modern electronics unless they visit Earth or a colony that has been around long enough to develop the infrastructure needed to build the tools to build the tools to build the tools to build....well you get the idea.  Suddenly exploring new star systems takes on a whole different vibe.

3) Vehicle/Ship rules.  I NEVER ever use HERO vehicle rules.  For Traveller I use the rules out of the original game book 2 (Starships) plus parts of the original High Guard.

4) Loved to play SFB's. You just had to remember that "optional rules" were just that, optional.

5) I hate tiny little touchscreens too.