DrTemp

Re: What do you do onboard a starship? There are others. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/pf/050321-9_pf.html

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? No, he's just a "normal magic-using guy" with the feature of being there for a long time already because of his intense and (until the beginning of the VA) successful search for magical ways to stay alive. No superpowers, nothing very special about him, except maybe for his determination.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? I am afraid there is not. There are, AFAICS, only the "four classical Elements" of fire, water, earth and air.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? Exactly. Such as: He is a powerful sorcerer. (Well, actually the idea is more specific, the NPC possibly being a magic user from the beginning of the Turakian Age who managed to stay alive all the time, and who would possibly even manage to do this through the Valdorian Age, the Atlantean Age and all later eras of the Hero universe. Since Turakian magic becomes defunct in the VA, he will have to find a new way to stay alive then.) Well, sorcery might be that, but it is there available for humans nevertheless. So the question is not "Should it be done?" but: "Can it be done?"

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? Interesting idea. So one could have different Elementals providing different versions of rejuvenation or eternal youth, with different side effects?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? SCUBA sorcery? Well, there _is_ a goddess of life. That'd make sense to me.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable? Yes, I know, but that's only "Long Life", not eternal youth. So it's simply not what I'm looking for. Well, I actually asked because I _thought_ about an NPC (or several of them)... and I doubt that everybody would be doing it, really. I mean, first of all, the sorcerer must know that such a supernatural being exists, and then how to summon it. Moreover, if sacrificing other humans was the only way to do it, many would let it be just out of moral reasons, even in the Valdorian Age.

If a Valdorian Age sorcerer wanted to make himself biologically younger, how could (s)he achieve this? Is there a supernatural being that can offer something like this, and what kind of it should it be- Elemental, Demon, Divine Servant, Ghost? Are there possibly even several paths of sorcery which could achieve such a goal?

Re: Fourth Age Hero

Re: Alien Wars

Re: Alien Wars None of the above, unfortunately- finding SF players is a hard thing to do. But. I one ran a Star Trek (Movie era) campaign with some "military SF" parts, as the players' ship was stationed in a sector with a serious pirate problem, and that sub-plot culminated in a rather large space battle involving several dozen larger ships. Some general "military SF" advice I condensed from that time: -Let the PC's be of the same level in the hierarchy. Give them a superior who leads cooperatively, giving the PC's lots of room for self-initiative. (For a while, I used a real "pet captain" in that campaign, one who was seriously incapable of doing his job and relied on the PC's a s section leading officers most of the time. When that became too silly, I replaced him with a Picard-type leader.) -In tactical situations when, realistically, the superior should be giving orders, let the players consult and decide what their superior will order them to do (and allow for the necessary time-outs to do that). That way, the players have full control of their character's fate, and you avoid bad feelings.

Re: Robotic Warfare...Today Those aren't robots, but radio-guided drones. Unfortunately, radio signals can be blocked, and the personnel required to guide that drone via radio is just as numerous as if there would be all uman troops running around. Maybe that's useful for guerilla warfare, but certainly not for a war against a real army.

Re: New Campaign could use some feedback Well, if one has a heavily-protected ship in the combat zone anyway, why not give it with some teeth?

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment Well, the chemical rockets are obviously a mistake. With cumulative flight, a fusion rocket (or something like it) could do the job easily.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment I believe one would have to change that to Cumulative Flight anyway, as suggested in Star Hero for a little bit more realistic spaceflight rules.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment Well, the Xenovores would, of course, have to travel that distance, too, since they've jumped in. Still, with the "Xenovores have reactionless drives, and Earhters don't from the start"-approach, the Earthers would be constanly on the defensive, waiting in direct orbit of any planet that has to be protected. It would be a decisive advantage of the Xenovores. I believe the large distances for jumping are perfectly okay. All these won't help anything. They are not for fast accelleration, but for cheap travel (propellant-wise). Except for those "vacuum boosters"... How would such a vacuum booster do the trick, technically? I mean, NCM is merely a game concept, nothing that has got to do anything with rocket physics.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment While I am a fan of the Hero System setting books, I am not so much a Hero system fan. Thus I would probably make lots of mistakes when setting up such a battle, making the results worthless. But I'd love to help setting it up, with the modifications to the ships that I have suggested.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment I believe "fusion rockets for the Earhters, reacionless thrusters for the Xenovores" should do the job. That would also make the Liberty a _real_ leap forward.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment Well, too much for a chemical rocket to do it more than three or four times anyway. That's based on the assumption that the reactor will be of some Tokamak-related style and that we won't find a lighter way of building up strong magnetic fields. While this is valid for the Starflight handbook's intention, I don't think it will be such a constant as the Tsiolkovski equations.

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment If all participating units have enough delta-v, this could get really interesting. Especially if there's a Centauri guarding the Jupiter... :-) Well, the Centauri is size 20 and has two of them. A ship with half its mass should be able to hold one and would be better off. Edit: Looked it up. The Antarctic class cruiser has size 13 and also has two Mark I lasers... that's only -8 DCV. It also has a better Flight rating. Using the stats as given, that is not good for the Xenovores- a squadron of them could get really nasty against a Xenovore dreadnought... BTW, I now do believe it makes sense to give the Xenovores not only antigravity, but also reactionless thrusters from the start and let the Liberty class dreadnought be the first human starship with reactionless thrusters, earlier starships having only fusion rockets. Of course, that means early 2300s starships of the United Earth Navy will be hopelessly outclassed by the Xenovores. As it should be.

Re: Best HERO Products for Military SF Campaigns Alien Wars is your choice then. While those bug-eyed monsters in the setting, the Xenovores (that's right, "foreign-eaters". You are the foreigner.), have more similarity with John Ringo's Posleen (but the Xenovores seem actually better thought-through to me) than with the insectoids from starship troopers, they are an interesting opponent for players in a military SF campaign. If I understand you correctly, you are planning a groundwar-based campaign, so the minor problems with the setting's spacecraft recently discussed here shouldn't bother you at all. Actually, being a space geek, I am not quite sure whether the United Earth ground forces do have "power armor"- but they could be easily added should they not be included. (A ground war version of Shipyard, anyone?)

Re: Further thoughts about the UES Centauri and the AW space combat environment Do I understand this right? Both sides should try to keep the distance? BTW, the enormous effect of target size on the DCV implies that it is probably would be best to build ships as small as possible that carry one Mark I Laser (or Xenovore equivalent thereof) each, then take out enemy dreadnoughts/battleships from 30 000 km distance. Interestingly, in the setting description, large ships seem to be the better weapon system. At the moment I just don't see why.