Xavier Onassiss

Warning: weirdness ahead. I'm working on a campaign in which quantum entanglement is used for instantaneous communications over extremely long (interstellar) distances. (I know this assumes some major technological breakthroughs. I'm okay with that.) In most cases a pair of entangled communicators are created together and one of them is transported to another star system via FTL spacecraft. No problem -- the two star systems can now communicate in 'real time.' It's easy enough to simulate this in Hero using Mind Link with some limitations. Yes, this has some serious causal implications, but they're nothing compared to what's next.... What's keeping me up at night is the question of what happens if one of two entangled communicators is transported to another star system on a slower than light spacecraft, at relativistic speeds. Say its destination is a star 10 light years away. And due to time dilation, when it arrives, the 'away' communicator is effectively 5 years 'younger' than the one that stayed at home. What does this mean? When they communicate, are they really separated by 5 years? And does this mean that the 'younger' communicator is effectively receiving messages from 5 years in the future? Or am I just missing something obvious here? Any clarifications on this from our more physics-savvy board members would be much appreciated, 'cuz I'm seriously confused. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Another Way to Destroy a Planet: the Strange Matter Bomb This is plenty interesting, but it's looking less than practical as a planet-destroyer. I think I'll stick with relativistic weapons in my campaign. "Earth go boom, real good." Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Me: "I ran out of diet coke this morning, and had to top off my glass with caffeine-free." Room-mate: "Isn't that like mixing matter and anti-matter?" Me: "No...more like mixing matter and doesn't-matter." Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Another Way to Destroy a Planet: the Strange Matter Bomb

Re: New players, gm, UMA Charge and 34d6 damage Lots of good advice above. I'd point out that in my experience, yes, it's not that hard to crank up an attack to 34d6 in a 350pt game. What to do? Talk to the player about it before you disallow the power completely. One of my previous characters had an 'overpowered' move-thru, and the GM was concerned about it. He asked me if I'd mind limiting its use to once per session. No, I didn't mind -- that particular attack became my character's "last resort" power, which made it that much more impressive when I decided to use it. I got to keep my character as written, he quit worrying about it, and that particular power only appeared when it made dramatic sense. You might want to try working out something like that with "Mister move-thru." Another thing I can't believe nobody has mentioned yet -- any character, hero or villain, who relies on move-thru attacks too often is a sitting duck for the inevitable martial throw. And it's going to hurt. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Free Sci Fi settings? Here's one of my all-time favorites. Recommended if you're looking for a 'high-concept' setting. Big Ideas, Grand Vision Warning: may cause embiggenment of the brain! Xavier Onassiss

Re: Announcing Kazei 5, Second Edition

Re: Announcing Kazei 5, Second Edition Coming soon to Kazei 5... The Amnesia Files (a character concept) "I keep my memory backed up in a safe-deposit box. I know how archaic that sounds, but I gotta have it stored someplace secure, so it doesn't get hacked, cracked, or who-knows-what. You know of anything more secure than a financial district bank safe, ten meters underground, behind 60 centimeters of carbon steel, hardened against earthquakes, radiation, biological agents, robberies (in theory) and God forbid, market crashes? If you do, let me know. Why do I bother? Too much bioware, that's why. The wonks who designed my body didn't want me to be obsolete in a year, or a decade, so they made me compatible with new bioware. I've been upgraded more times than I can remember. Or could remember, if my memory still worked right. But the brain, now that's complicated. Somewhere along the way, something went wrong, and I didn't notice it right away. I started keeping digital records soon as I realized there was a problem, but by then it was too late. There's still a lot missing -- and I have no idea how much. In my line of work, you don't get far without a trauma damper. Mine is 'cranked up to eleven' so to speak -- I hardly feel anything when it kicks in, which is to say the least, surreal. Whattaya mean 'what line of work?' You never heard of me? Gee, I thought I was the one with memory loss, here. I'm a skip-tracer, bounty-hunter, retriever, whatever you want to call me. The name's Amnesia Watkins, and don't you forget it. Yeah, that's a joke. Remember to laugh next time. Anyways, like I said, too much bioware. And messing around with the brain is real tricky. The trauma damper works great -- it's a real life-saver. But it doesn't get along with my other brainware, and that's trouble. I think the problem started when I got my memory upgraded, but ironically, I can't recall anything about that now. I've got records of the operation, medical bills, etc. But the clinic at that address on the invoice is now nothing but a burned out building, and I can't locate the Doc who performed the installation, on account of him being slightly deceased. I really hope all that wasn't my doing, but it's all black -- I don't remember a damned thing. Why is that, exactly? Go ask a neural engineer -- I'm just a replicant with a gun. I think maybe my 'perfect recall' upgrade works a little too well, if you ask me. When I remember something painful, I can actually feel the pain all over again, then the trauma damper kicks in; blocking out everything associated with the pain, including little details like what I was doing at the time, or where it happened, whatever. Or maybe on jobs when I use the damper too much, it prevents the memory upgrade from laying down any long-term memories to begin with. I honestly have no idea. But it turns out, this isn't an entirely bad thing. After I've finished a job, especially a really nasty job, I tend to forget all about it, including little details like who hired me, or who the mark was. And that's actually a selling point for a lot of employers in my line of work -- they don't want me talking about them afterwards anyway, so if I've got a 'convenient' case of amnesia, so much the better. The downside is when the mark's next of kin comes calling, a week or maybe a year after I've forgotten all about them. Random idiots looking to get payback for things I can't even remember are such a damned nuisance. To make things worse, I usually end up forgetting about them, too, after I've dealt with their issues. What was your name, again?" ...I sincerely hope I get a chance to play this character in a K5 campaign. Soon. X.O.

Re: The Lovestruck A.I. I'm not sure I like all the carbon-based chauvanism in this thread. Silicon-based AI's need love too! X.O.

Re: Gradual Effect limitation: how do I convert it to 6th ed? I'm okay with this. However, I wasn't sure if such an interpretation of Extra Time would work. I'd forgotten anything in Star Hero was built this way -- I'll have another look there. Thanx heaps, X.O.

Re: Gradual Effect limitation: how do I convert it to 6th ed? Thanks for the replies so far. Let's get into some more specifics. I'm updating the 5e rules for the stardrive in my Star Hero campaign. It uses traversable wormholes, which are created by the ship's drive and limited in length. Traversing the 'hole takes a few weeks. This is mega-scale teleportation: one meter equals a light-year. The maximum allowed wormhole length (in light years) equals the tech level. (In this campaign, ten.) The effective speed is about 100C; call it one week per two light years. So a ten light year trip would take about five weeks. (It's rather slow by most SF standards!) During transit, the ship is completely isolated in the wormhole -- it doesn't interact with the 'normal' universe, or with any other wormholes. In 5th ed, I applied the gradual effect limitation (1 week) to simulate this. For 6th ed, I'm not sure what's best. Linking it to XDM seems kind of overcomplicated, especially considering the 'wormhole' is really just a special effect to explain the teleportation. X.O.

Re: Gradual Effect limitation: how do I convert it to 6th ed? Is there any similar modifier for non-damaging powers? How would I write up a teleport power with a delay between the time the character disappears from his point of origin and reappears at his destination? I used to do this with gradual effect (extra time doesn't seem quite right) but now I don't know. Thanks again, X.O.

I haven't had too much difficulty with 5e/6e conversions so far, but I'm hung up on this. I don't see anything like the Gradual Effect limitation in 6th edition. Did it get combined with, or replaced by, something else? What am I missing here? Help with this would be much appreciated. Thanx heaps, X.O.

Re: Top 75 Spaceships in movies and TV This list is so bad I have no choice but to begin work on my own top one hundred spacecraft in science fiction. Actually, spaceships are so *&^%$#@! cool I may drop the SF requirement and include some real world examples. This project is gonna take a while.... X.O.

Re: YASMT (Yet Another Star Map Thread): There has to be an easier way... Disposable income is in short supply these days (I'm looking for work) but this definitely goes on the wish list! Thanks for the linkage. (Sorry about the 'double post' earlier -- my first comment disappeared in moderation-land.) X.O.

Re: Announcing Kazei 5, Second Edition I'll be first in line when it hits the FLGS. X.O.

Re: YASMT (Yet Another Star Map Thread): There has to be an easier way... For locating stars and finding distances between them, the program on this page should do everything you need: http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/chvc.htm It also has multiple names for most of the listed stars, and quite a few other features. I use it for my campaign, and I'll never switch to anything else. X.O.

Re: YASMT (Yet Another Star Map Thread): There has to be an easier way... The most useful stellar mapping utility I've found is here: http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/chvc.htm First, download and run chview.exe Then download and unzip 50ly-h.zip or one of the other such files on that page, and use chview to open it. You can use chview to display the stars in 3d, rotate them, center the view on any star system in the file, expand or shrink the view as needed, show routes and distances between systems, and hide or display a 3d map grid. Have fun. XO

Re: Shadow Angelus I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your Shadows Angelus campaign, guys. I played Brogan (both of them: Malachi in SA1 and Mitch in SA2) and it was a blast. There was a note in the source material about the physical size of Angelus: In the essay from the SAII worldbook here the size given for Angelus is 20,000 square miles. (Maybe this should be kilometers?) Assuming it's roughly circular, that gives a diameter of approximately 160 miles. (or km.) I'd take that with a grain of salt -- it may include the 'territorial waters' surrounding Angelus, and all of the smaller artificial islands which accompany it. OTOH, the city's support system is described as fusion-powered anti-gravity, so it might be one really big floating island. Enjoy.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "Shooters here...shooters here." X.O.

Re: Susano vs Marvel characters I've personally seen Susano in action. It is a truly awesome spectacle of true awesome-ness. He'd complement them on their excellent costumes, point them towards his website to check out the character sheets he wrote up for them, then invite all of them to appear at HeroCon. In short, none of them have a prayer. Thanx heaps, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Laser Gunship Revealed

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From a DnD game a couple of weeks ago: the PC's have arrived in Pelloria, the capital city. They haven't been made to feel entirely welcome. Lady Lyssa, Duchess of Norrel: So, how long are we planning on staying? Madrigand (the slightly nervous warlock): Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll be leaving just before the lynch mob gets here....

Re: Trick Arrow Villain? Then there's the 'shoot to maim' effect. It's a normal arrow, but give the archer a Major transform power: healthy person into person with physical limitation (variable effects, depending on body parts targeted) Not really a trick arrow--more like a trick shot, of the worst kind. I used this for an archer villain who could shoot out eyes, hamstrings, hands, kneecaps, or whatever else he decided to aim at. Nasty fellow. XO

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Hooray! I made someone giggle. XO