DrTemp

Re: What do you do onboard a starship?

Um... article dated April 1?

There are others.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/pf/050321-9_pf.html

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

Hmmm. In which case the power is probably going to be pretty unique. He might even be a "mutant."

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?

Time elemental?

 

(If there is such a thing in VA.)

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?

If the character is an NPC, you'd define how he got this ability anyway. And there should be a reason for it.

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.)

If some type of sorcery is involved, it's most likely going to be nothing good (the theme explicitly stated in The Valdorian Age is that sorcery is "a power mankind was never intended to use"). [...]

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?

Well I would think your soul for one and some sort of sacrifice' date=' maybe once a month or year.[/quote']

 

I meant "side effect" as in "you become younger (or stay young), but also grow small horns on your back" or the like.

 

What exactly one can trade for a demon's service is written down in VA quite clearly, I believe. From that, I don't see something like what you describe as a prerequisite for a deal?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

I don't know about ALL elemental powers being unable to provide eternal youth.... I keep thinking of the Ice Queen (or whatever she was called) from the Chronicles of Narnia (so very NOT S&S).

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?

Yeah' date=' I'd say demonology is your best bet. Trade souls for life.[/quote']

 

Well, as far as I have unerstood, one could trade anything the demon desires, or even force the demon to do it by sheer power of will.

 

Would there be side effects if eternal youth was provided by a demon?

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

From what I understand of the Sword&Sorcery genre' date=' I would presume the best magic for long life would be necromancy. The taking of life from younger people to fuel their own.[/quote']

 

How could the spirits of the dead as described in VA be able to do that? Sounds rather Turakian to me.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

[...] I would, however, say that perhaps Diving Magic is the best route to go for this,

SCUBA sorcery?

but which god's servants would provide the power, I couldn't say off the top of my head.

Well, there _is_ a goddess of life. That'd make sense to me.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

They have this. It's called "Long Life" Talent. 2 points of Life Support to extend your life by a factor of 4/reduce aging to one-fourth.

 

It's explained as one of those miscellaneous/non-spell effects that sorcerors might buy because of their proximity to mystic forces.

Yes, I know, but that's only "Long Life", not eternal youth. So it's simply not what I'm looking for.

Actual immortality might be one of those things the GM requires you to research as a plot device, and probably require you to become a villain. After all, if sacrificing virgins was enough, everybody would be doing it, assuming you can find enough virgins in the Valdorian Age.

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

Sorry all' date=' after a discussion last night. I'm reviving my plans for this game. Since this was before Valdorian Age came out, what do you all think about Sorecery being used in the Fourth Age?[/quote']

 

That could work, in a way, but of course, you'd have to devise supernatural beings of some kind for the opposing sides.

 

From the background, however, this does not seem to be how Tolkien's magic works. Most of the time, Tolkien's magic seems to be either actual technology or simple low-power-spells.

Re: Alien Wars

I am not participating in a militaristic sci-fi game' date=' but I'd like to...[/quote']

 

Don't confuse "military" with "militaristic", will you. :-)

Re: Alien Wars

Is there anyone out there running an Alien Wars campaign? [...]

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

You have to realize that a command carrier really is, or has to be nothing more than, a glorified and highly capable comm shack. You need staterooms and a "war room" to do tactical and strategic planning at. But most of the ability to command is the ability to communicate with your sub-commands.

 

You don't even need guns or fighter craft. But where would be the fun in that?

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

If realism is what you are looking for then yes. If genre emulation is what you are trying to achieve then it really doesn't work; and it still does not solve the problem of ships not being able to achieve escape velocity.

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

The problem with a reactionless drive is that the fastest version [available 300 years in the AW future] is only 3.33 times faster than a chemical rocket [108 KPH versus 360 KPH].

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

As I'm seeing it' date=' the problem is one of distance. Hyperdrives cannot function within 100,000 km of a earth-sized planet or 1 AU from the sun. All hyperdrives must stop at that distance [that's why most spaceports are 2 AU from the sun']. That means all ships need to "putt-putt" toward orbit at a couple of hundred mph with their chemical or fusion rockets. That's a long 100,000 km trip. If the Xenovores are currently in orbit preparing their invasion there's no way to stop them. Just to get within 30,000 km for weapon's range would take a week or to.

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.

It's at this point that you need vacuum boosters, hydrogen scoops, solar sails, or some other form of propulsion which can make a 100,000 km journey take minutes rather than days or weeks.

All these won't help anything. They are not for fast accelleration, but for cheap travel (propellant-wise). Except for those "vacuum boosters"...

[...] I'd give all rockets the "vacuum booster" ability of enough NCM multipliers to make a two-time 100,000 km journey in only a few minutes.

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

Me too. Some of you guys with AW set this up so we can watch.

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'd like to see a battle between 1 Centuari and 2 Antarctics against a dreadnought. Of course the limited flight issues need to be dealt with first.

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

So, at ~40,960 km, you are orbiting at ~3.13 km/s, and need to accellerate to ~4.42 km/s, which is a delta-V of ~1.29 km/s. Not much after all, is it.

Well, too much for a chemical rocket to do it more than three or four times anyway.

BTW, The Starflight Handbook says fusion rocket engines are expected to have a thrust/weight ratio of ~10^-4 to 10^-5.

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

Assuming both sides have mark I lasers the smallest ship should always attempt to keep distance between itself and the larger ship. The larger ship is going to want to attempt to close to negate the OCV penalties.

 

I think that most combat is probably fighter to fighter though and then you have a strange dynamic. The carrier ship needs to get close enough to unleash the fighters. The Xaeran hold 50 fighters. The Jupiter only carries 32. It's in the interest of the Xaeran to get close enough to unleash those fighters against the Jupiter, which has limited defenses.

If all participating units have enough delta-v, this could get really interesting. Especially if there's a Centauri guarding the Jupiter... :-)

I assume that mark I lasers take up too much space for a smaller craft. That is early technology and probably would require too much area to fit into a ship smaller than size 11 or so.

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

: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' date=' what value, if any, would [i']Alien Wars[/i], The Ultimate Vehicle, HERO System Vehicle Sourcebook and Spacer's Toolkit have to me [...]

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

I think the tactic would be to have the best hyperdrive pilots that will allow the arriving ship to jump to the furthest possible point to take advantage of range issues. From there the maneuvers would just involve keeping the most distance between the two ships.

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.