Basil

Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ak.html#uniform

Thanks for demonstrating what I've long thought: Except for the "red & blue chicklets on a white plaque over the left pocket" bit, the uniforms of The Empire in Star Wars are the most reasonable and believable uniforms in popular Sci-Fi. Beats the "color-coded long-sleeve t-shirts" of Star Trek (original), the silver-lamé of 50's Sci-Fi movies, etc., etc.

Re: Answers & Questions

Q - That's the biggest lump I've ever seen on anyone's head! How'd that happen?

 

A - My advice would be to grind it up and bury it.

Q: Your DemiMooreBot is starting to do "strippers' bumps" again.

A: Those are shoulderpips. Not poops.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

Ash and Hermione's Infinite Spell-List

 

is it funnier as Evil Dead's Ash or Pokemon's Ash ? I dunno.

Misfile's Ash.

Re: A Game Of Questions

Rules?????

There are rules? ??

Re: Foxbat for President

Too bad it depends on two books I don't have and can't afford.

Re: A Game Of Questions

Is Yahoo reliable for anything?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

Giant robots.

 

NT: More situations where having potent psychic powers is of absolutely no help.

Fighting giant robots.

NT: Situations where having super-strength is of absolutely no help.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model

Spook in Speanerisms: Your tang is always tongueled up, and the wrords come out wong. Even the senplest simtence goes wayhire. If you mow what I knean.

The Mallard has found his Cryptography skill insufficient to decypher the above. But the Bacandforthtrian knows it's all in one's point of view.

Re: Answers & Questions

A: Nobody's reactions are that fast.

Q: If he tries to shoot you, just dodge.

A: They revoked the Law of Gravity!

Re: Mottos for use in games

One for the evil masterminds: Mox erō invictus!

Re: What would happen - and at what cost?

Given a cheap method of getting into space, there are materials worth mining. Given mining, manufacturing will move into space for two reasons: building and repairing mining machinery, and building and repairing refinery machinery --- no matter how cheap to/from orbit travel is, there are enormous savings to be had by reducing the mass to be moved. Hence refineries, hence manufacturing.

Once that manufacturing base is in place, there's a strong impetus to increase the amount of mining, which leads to increased populations, which will want more than the bare necessities, which leads to manufacturing more than mining and refinery gear, which leads to....

And so on, and so forth.

Re: Population Growth for a colony

In theory, the rate of population increase counting only births depends on the average number of female children per female (called F), and the average time between the birth of a female and the birth of her female child/children (called G--generational time).

The rate = ln(F)/G

If the death rate is independent of the size of the population, then multiply the above rate by (1-death rate).

This is more accurate with a fairly large population: with a population in the low thousands it's only approximate.

Re: A Game Of Questions

What did Lewis Carroll look like, anyway?

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model

The Curse of Felgercarb: You can make someone unable to pronounce technical terms; every time the target tries to say a word that is a technical or scientific term, all that comes out is nonsense. (Probably some kind of Cosmetic or Minor Transform)

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if...

... the team medic had to use the splints... and they were only rescuing a cat from a tree.

...and he used the splints to knock the cat out of the tree.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Subtle signs that you have unexpectedly found yourself dead.

The smell.

NT: Smells (other than that of a dead body) you really don't want to smell.

Re: Answers & Questions

A: Everinkbody vants to keel da skvirrel.

Q: Vhy is everinkbody walkink from-round viss shot-type-guns?

A: It's not the worst accent I've ever heard, but it comes close.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if...

...the team medic keeps running out of Bandaids and Bactine, but hasn't had to use the splints once.

OTOH, that might be a sign they're overpowered...

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Subtle signs that the man who is writing the latest edition of your favorite non-HERO RPG is out of his mind.

"...your favorite non-HERO RPG..." --- I'm sorry, but your statement makes no sense.

NT: Subtle signs that you, yourself, are out of your mind.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if...

Lawnmower Boy, this is "Your PCs might be Underpowered if..."

It is not "Quote of the Week from my gaming group..."

Please move your post to the appropriate thread. Thank you.

Re: Answers & Questions

A: In the meanwhile' date=' it's time to make him look like an utter fool.[/quote']

 

Q: Eventually, we're going to have to kill Merry Andrew.

 

 

 

A: That's the fourth moose this week!

Re: A Game Of Questions

Don't you understand the difference between multiplying and dividing??!?

Re: Answers & Questions

A: It's like being hit in the head repeatedly with a dozen ball-peen hammers while a thousand demons scream into your ears and your rear end is being used as a pincushion.

Q: Describe the average television show.

A: Only without the smurfs, this time.

Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign

A few notes on some of your proposed colonies.

Mercury

Colony: Vulcan

Established: 2052

Location: Geosynchronous orbit above Caloris Basin

Given that Mercury's day is ~2/3 its year, a synchronous orbit would be so far away that Sol would have an overwhelmingly more powerful gravitational attraction. In short, your colony would land up orbiting Sol, not Mercury.

Venus

Colony: Neith

Established: 2044

Location: Geosynchronous orbit above Aphrodite Terra

As above, only more so, as Venus rotates retrograde.

Earth

Colony: Peacekeeper

Location: L1

 

Colony: New Discovery

Location: L2

 

Colony: Antichthon (lit. "Counter-Earth")

Location: L3

 

Colony: Shenzhou

Location: L4

 

Colony: Glasnost

Location: L4

 

Colony: Gagarin

Location: L4

 

Colony: Zedong

Location: L4

 

Colony: Goddard

Location: L5

 

Colony: Lagrange

Location: L5

 

Colony: Tyr

Location: L5

 

Colony: Asimov

Location: L5

Two points:

1) Are you talking about Earth-Luna Lagrange points, or Sol-Earth Lagrange points?

2) Only L4 and L5 points are usefully stable: L1, L2, and L3 are stable only in the theoretical situation where (A) the second body's orbit is utterly circular and ( there are only three bodies in the universe. With Luna's orbit not being a perfect circle and with other bodies (particularly Sol) pulling on anything in the first 3 Lagrange points, such stations would need to expend a boatload of propellant staying "on station".

Colony: Sagan

Established: 2033

Location: Chryse Planitia

Country: International

Type: Domed City (originally subterranean)

Population: 2,500,000

Notes: Site of the Martian beanstalk, best Szechuan cuisine on Mars

I suggest you double check; as far as I can find out, Chryse Planitia is not on Mars's equator.

Asteroids

Colony: Belters, Inc.

Location: Ceres

Notes: Rotating crew, serve 12-18 months before shipping home

 

Colony: Kamakura Mining Co.

Location: Ceres

Notes: Rotating crew, serve 12-18 months before shipping home

Unless your setting has ships with enough power and enough propellant capacity to not use Hohmann orbits, they'll be there a whole lot longer.

Jupiter

Colony: Shoemaker-Levy

Location: Geosynchronous orbit around Jupiter's southern hemisphere

Not possible; synchronous orbits have to have an average "latitude" of the equator. You can have one that goes as far south as the Red Spot, but it will go as far north, as well.

Colony: New Kyoto

Location: Geosynchronous orbit above Jupiter's southern hemisphere

See last.

Colony: Fermi-Dirac

Location: Toutatis

That "chaotic" rotation will make landing and take-off ludicrously difficult, if possible at all. And its mass is high enough that "regularizing" the rotation is impractical.

Saturn

Colony: Einstein

Location: Geosynchronous orbit over Saturn

I don't have enough information to be sure, but my gut feeling is a synchronous orbit will be inside the rings.

BTW, "geosynchronous" is only used WRT Earth. "Synchronous" can be applied to any body, without having to figure out the proper Greek-/Latin-derived term.

Colony: New Horizon

Location: Geosynchrous orbit above Saturn

 

Colony: Nihonmachi

Location: Geosynchrous orbit above Saturn's North Pole

 

Colony: Dyson

Location: Geosynchrous orbit above Saturn opposite New Horizon

See last.

Re: Crossroads: Urban Fantasy HERO Indianapolis

Most Urban Fantasy doesn't deal with the return of magic. The popular UF fictions all deal with magic (or whatever other fantasty element) having always been there' date=' but not being know to the public at large.[/quote']

 

Or that magic has always existed and been known, and been part of the social "scenery" since way, way back.

 

Magic suddenly "popping into existence" is very much in the Shadowrun mold.