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SteveZilla

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  2. More space news!

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Which, apparently,some people believe should not be built. Like all ground-breaking technologies there are a ton of potential snags -- most notably the difficult task of "unfolding" the telescope once it is launched, without a means to go up there and repair is (as Hubble was repaired) if something should go wrong. And of course people are blaming Obama for it. People blame Obama for bad weather. People blame Obama when they lose their car keys. People blame Obama when their kid fails high school chemistry.

     

    I'm blaming Obama for all those people blaming Obama...   Wait...  ;)

  5. The Next Starfighter

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    "Star League: The Alex Rogan story". A lot of the impact on Earth depends upon how covert/overt both sides are in their interactions (recruitment/manufacturing/control/domination) with everyday people. And Xur's defeat at the hands of Alex and Grig had a lot of luck in its initial conditions. Had Alex not gotten cold feet he likely would have perished with the other Starfighters -- end of story in that case. Grig (and though him, his planet) shares in the credit of defeating Xur, but being already in the Federation(?) Xur would have easier access to Earth, being on the outside.

     

  10. Shields Up

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    I think it's important not to over-think this too much: I don't think it's good idea to add complexity for the same of complexity. We also want to beware restrictions/additions that don't add extra realism, but actually detract from it.

     

    For example, a rule suggesting that a buckler gives no protection against ranged attacks, goes directly against contemporary accounts stating flatly that they were. Those of us growing up in the firearms age easily forget that an arrow (or even a sling bullet) in flight travels slowly enough to be seen (and deflected). I've watched people doing it and it's a heck of lot easier to deflect an arrow with a buckler than with a spear or sword. A buckler doesn't give great passive defence against missiles, but it's still much better than nothing - a very small, buckler-like shield, was after all, the primary defence against missiles for many ancient light infantry.

     

    The shield wall idea is interesting, but the primary advantage of a shield wall is that it stopped an opponent getting at your unshielded side. One possible house rule (already mentioned above) is that a shield only protects to the front and left/front side: I already use this in my own games. However, we know in some cases that people overlapped shields (and closed up ranks) to provide greater protection - particularly against missiles - so some sort of bonus seems appropriate. On the other hand, we know also that they didn't habitually fight like that - presumably because it was too crowded - so there should be some sort of off-setting penalty.

     

    cheers, Mark

    Reading about Shield Walls and being crowded in such a formation, I am reminded of the movie '300' -- The first rank only used their (IIRC) short swords, but the second rank were able to attack with a two-handed weapon part the Shield Wall using spears.

  13. How to determine a good star travel speed?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    One unfinished campaign setting that I did had two modes of FTL travel. Starbridges were virtually instantaneous' date=' but required expensive fixed infrastructure. They were used mostly to connect sector capitals and other important systems. Hyperdrives were much slower (days/light year), but required no infrastructure.[/quote'] That's a pretty nice idea. It would make a real difference between the core and the fringe, certainly--the investment in infrastructure in the core would maintain their economic advantage. It would also allow the GM to tweak travel times rather nicely.

     

    Can we say "Browncoats vs. Alliance"? ;)

  14. How to determine a good star travel speed?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    If you want age-of-sail feel' date=' don't allow FTL radio. The fact that sailing ships were about as out of contact with the rest of the world as a pocket universe had an enormous effect. The works of H. Beam Piper (esp. Space Viking) are probably good source material for you as his FTL travel works exactly as you say (and I think age of sail travel was his model, he liked historical models). Ships in hyperspace all move at the same rate and are totally out of contact with anything outside the ship. In a voyage his crewmen likely have a lot of time without much to do, so they tended to pursue some pretty serious hobbies aboard ship. Your speed can be literally anything that gives you the travel times you want, since once you're above lightspeed realism isn't any consideration at all. The only constraint is that if you want to be realistic, you'll have to have an idea of the mean stellar separation in your explored space. It does vary--IIRC the solar neighborhood is sparser than average, some areas can be denser. Knowing how far the average trip needs to go, you make the speed such that the trip takes however long you want.[/quote']

     

    I'd say that it could be possible to have "FTL radio", just as long as it isn't instantaneous radio, in such a game. For instance, if the message takes a month each way from the frontier to the core and back, there can be limited contact, but there is still mostly the isolation.

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