AlHazred

I was looking over the Wikipedia pages regarding air combat maeuvers (such as the famous barrel roll), and was intrigued enough to consider building a set of maneuvers (and porting them to my Traveller Hero game). However, I am not an aerobatics nerd, and would not probably be qualified to assign numbers to these. Has anybody else worked up aircraft maneuvers (dogfighting or otherwise)?

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/mit-whizzes-invent-magical-transforming-furniture/#x In my Traveller Hero game, this is more-or-less how I had envisioned the kind of furniture most people have on their starship. Able to take on specialized shapes for a variety of situations (within reason) you can make the most out of limited resources; the only thing you need is electricity, which is easy to generate in Traveller.

I will admit to printing it out on a large format printer. It took four months of off-time at work to do, and is on 2' x 3' pages. At that scale, you can use miniatures on it (albeit, they're still a little small for 28mm scale), but I have yet to field a table large enough for the whole thing. I am considering extracting just the rectangular sections, stitching them together, and printing it as a continuous sheet, but I have no idea how that will work in practice, since the 2' x 3' pages are unwieldy enough. I may still extract the rectangles and print just them, so the scale is somewhat more user-friendly.

Yeah, the floor plan I linked to is freaking huge.

Not specifically Terricide, but this may interest you.

Hey, man, I'm only repeating the article.

Yeah, they can't even get it to be certified as an ultralight. It's going to be a "light aircraft" and require a Pilot's License if you're getting one shipped to you here in the States. In New Zealand it's considerably looser. Anyway, "jetpack" is not what it is, it's what they've named it. It wasn't me!

Working on the Aeromobil V2.5 reminded me of the Martin Jetpack, a personal flight system which is expected to be start delivering in mid-2014. The Martin system isn't really a "jetpack" per se, using two ducted fans for lift, The interesting part, to me, is that the target audience for the first units isn't jetpack fanboys or sci-fi nerds such as myself, but first responders. So now, in my imagination, after I have crashed my Martin Jetpack due to my own lack of flying skills, I'm imagining a jetpack-suited first aid woman flying down to get me. To me, that's even cooler than I had originally imagined for being more plausible! The .hdp file is available here. Equipment - Martin Jetpack.pdf

The Aeromobil V2.5 prototype roadable aircraft has achieved its first flight. Due to some unsubstantiated hyperbolic claims regarding the feasibility of "flying cars," this field of vehicles labors under something of a cloud. However, there have been many positive developments in the area over the last few years, and it seems likely that roadable aircraft will be marketable within ten years. So, in a fit of fanboyish enthusiasm, I thought I'd crank out a Hero version. You can find the .hdc file here. Vehicle - Aeromobil V2.5.pdf

I'm just a sucker for robots. The hdc file is available here. Robot - Radio Police Automaton (1924).pdf

You know, they say the Them! ants were eight feet long, but they look bigger in some of the production stills I've seen. Also, my writeup won't work that well, since they need to have a formic acid poison connected to their bite attack.

If you want to simulate cinematic weapon maintenance, then mention the characters maintaining their weapons during camp in your narration from time to time. At a key moment, at least once in each arc of the campaign, use a weapon failure during the denouement in order to increase tension in the scene (not as an "instant-fail" mechanic, but more of a "you'll have to work even harder now, if that's even possible" event). If you want to simulate "realistic" (or at least plausible) weapon maintenance, then tell the players their characters will need to maintain weapons every couple of days, and they'll need to tell you they're doing it. Keep a spreadsheet of all the weapons in the group, and mark when a day passes in-game but they haven't stated they're maintaining a weapon. Don't just tell them what weapons they have on their persons -- let them tell you what specifically they're working on. They'll mention the regularly-used weapons, but what about the knife in the boot or the holdout gun in the backpack? What about the surprise weapon Jose boarded up in the door of the car? Each personal weapon should take 1 Hour to maintain at a minimum; people with the appropriate Weaponsmith might get to do it in 20 Minutes if you're feeling generous. Don't forget they have to maintain armor, too. Mark each day a weapon isn't maintaained. After a weapon hasn't been maintained for 1 Week per point of its BODY, make a note that it is now -1 OCV until it gets a full 6 Hour maintainence (1 Hour for a skilled Weaponsmith) and reduce its BODY by 1. After the first 1 BODY drop due to lack of maintenance, it can't lose more BODY that way until a great deal of time has passed (but see below). Once its OCV penalty is as high as its PD, it's pretty much ruined. If weapons take damage during combat (and melee weapons should frequently take damage) then they require more than the regular maintenance to bring them back to full. Once a weapon is down any BODY, it shouldn't be fixable to full BODY anymore; that's the facts of life in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

I've uploaded a Giant Ant I worked up for an Atomic Robo scenario that never got completed. Once it's approved, you'll find it here. It's in 6th Edition, but it should translate pretty well to 5th Edition. EDIT - I've attached the file. Monster - Giant Ants.hdc

What's your favorite superhero origin? Mine is from Dragon magazine issue #75 (July 1983), from the What's New? with Phil & Dixie comic strip:

"Gussied up" That's a phrase you don't hear so much anymore! Too square for the hip youth of today!

I actually have both the HârnMaster 3.0 and HârnMaster Gold rules sets. And HârnMaster Magic and HârnMaster Religion. Even HârnMaster Barbarians. I've been picking-and-choosing what I want to use from each rules set, since I also don't care for the rules system but think the setting has loads of potential. I've actually completed preliminary work on a Weapons/Armor document. I should probably post it, though I'm getting ahead of myself in the design process. Please note that it's not done. Hârn Hero Weapons & Armour.pdf

Those weapons got sucked up into the Bladestorms. Good luck gettin' 'em.

Eh, it's a way for the GM to define what he wants available. If you make "Keen Vision: +2 to Sight PER Rolls" and "Keen Hearing: +2 to Hearing PER Rolls" available as Talents, and make "Nightvision: see in the dark" available as a racially-specified Talent. Some players need a menu of choices, others prefer their own LEGO. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

*sigh* And it just occurred to me to mention that the expectation here is that the Pathos and Angst Pools aren't always at maximum; in fact, they will very rarely be at maximum. A good way to reflect the Wraith: the Oblivion rules without slavishly adhering to them would be to say that, when the Shadow's Angst Pool is equal to or greater than the Wraith's EGO, the Shadow can try a Possession attempt, which requires an EGO vs. EGO contest.

I'm going to have to weigh in here -- if you're not running Nightvision the way I'm running Nightvision, you're doing it wrong. My way is always the right way. Just kidding. My kneejerk reaction is to believe what Tasha says, and reading her posts that guideline works here.To approach it from another direction, the Perception Modifiers table on page 12 of Volume 2 gives "Darkness and Shadow" penalties up to "Dark Night, -4" and goes no higher. So, to buy that off, you'd need four levels of Enhanced Perception, which is exactly what Nightvision gets you.