EvilDrPuma

Re: Spacecraft size Well...while I acknowledge that HERO doesn't build vehicles on a "stuff the parts in a box" principle, perhaps you should consider just what the tech is like before you decide on size ranges. If this is a "harder" SF setting, and especially if you're sticking close to current or projected technologies, then you might have larger power and propulsion systems than a lot of movie and TV spacecraft do.

Re: [Possible game] Jonestown Blues If you like the Chuck Jones homage, why not "Jonesville" or "Jonesburg?" At least you'll have made the wags reach farther than it's probably worth for their Kool-Aid references.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? That's one of those things that was abandoned for the TV series. It would have been too cumbersome for SG-1 to go through the rigmarole of deciphering a whole new set of constellations on every planet before they could dial home. The series also retconned the premise that Abydos is in a far distant galaxy; to explain how it was possible to dial Abydos in the movie despite ten thousand years of stellar drift, the pilot episode placed it three hundred light years away and made it one of the closest planets to Earth in the Milky Way gate network. Over the course of a few seasons, and probably inadvertently, the show did find a sort of justification for the universal glyphs--it appears that the coordinates for all gates in the Milky Way derive from constellations seen from Earth because Earth was the (adopted, it now seems) homeworld of the Ancients. We just ignore the little problem where those constellations would have changed a few million years after the Ancients set up the system. We also ignore the fact that, if all but one symbol are identical on all Stargates, there really isn't a need for a unique point-of-origin glyph on each gate. The Pegasus galaxy gates on Stargate Atlantis do use "local" constellations, however--presumably as seen from the planet where Atlantis was placed. Each galaxy with a Stargate network has its own set of glyphs.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? Maybe. Personally, I wonder if it's just an expansion slot that never got used.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? That makes sense only if (like the Air Force) you were trying to dial a gate using your own computer and power source. A Dial Home Device automatically dials the chevrons in the correct sequence, and it seems pretty clear that the Ancients intended for a DHD to be the standard and universally available power source/operating system for a Stargate. It's just a matter of chance that DHDs have occasionally been misplaced or destroyed over the few million years since the Ancients set up the network.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? There are, in fact, 39 glyphs--38 constellations plus a unique point of origin on each 'gate. The point of origin is always the last glyph in an address, so you don't need to count it for purposes of calculating the number of possible combinations. Because the rest of an address within the same galaxy always consists of six nonrepeating glyphs, the total number of possibilities is (38 x 37 x 36 x 35 x 34 x 33) = 1,987,690,320.

Re: Stars with inhabitable worlds Actually, that was the fictional (as far as I'm aware) Ceti Alpha VI.

Re: "Thing ring, do your thing!" In cuffs? This is Magneto, right? Please, God, tell me the writer had the good sense to make them plastic cuffs...

Re: (Fun) Character: The Named Extra We had something like that in a Champions game once, just a lot sillier: "Captain Cadaver," a John Doe corpse the GM would insert periodically into a scene just to see how far suspension of disbelief could go. Captain Cadaver even had his own character sheet, but I'd have to do some mental gymnastics to reconstruct that.

Re: More private space-flight Kind of like us Iowans with Minnesota...or as I call it, "The Canadian Neutral Zone."

Re: Latest Titanic Discovery!! That was in 2010, except that it was Europa.

Holy giant hydrocarbon lakes, Batman! Now if we can just make up a good enough story about WMDs on Titan, we can be there by Christmas.

Re: More private space-flight Hmph. Wish they'd build the spaceport in a state I'd be seen dead in.

Re: Interplanetary colonies Marketing executives. (cf. Restaurant at the End of the Universe.)

Re: Gravity, Inertia, and Star Hero You may be relieved to know that Star Hero does contain rules options for realistic acceleration, inertia, gravity and the like. The book doesn't assume you will be paying attention to such things, but the mechanics are there if you want them. You may not need to do as much work as you think, if "hard" science fiction is your goal.

Re: Book Recommendation: Anatomy Of A City Now that I look at the Amazon listing, yeah, it is mostly about New York. There'd have to be some consideration of the historical development of infrastructure in a city with an three-hundred-year history, but it may or may not have much to say about earlier foundations like those of most European cities. Still sounds interesting, though, and I suspect the science fiction-minded could use it as an point of extrapolation. (Also a pretty fair price for a hardcover.)

Re: Book Recommendation: Anatomy Of A City Does the book deal with cities in a broad historical sense, or mostly modern cities?

Re: AIs though Vehicles There are examples of ship's computer buys in Star Hero--no AIs at a glance, but that doesn't change the purchase rules. You're right, the computer is purchased separately from the rest of the vehicle, so the ratio is 1 for 5 points, not 1 for 25.

Re: Pimp my Pulp Ride

Re: Pimp my Pulp Ride I like the '40s roadster, except that it would really work better with a hard top. (Yeah, basically, that would make it a coupe. Sue me if you think I'm worth it.)

Re: Character: Lance Dulak, Private Eye

Re: Space Hotel Affordable to whom would be my question. (I always knew that, if an asteroid hit, Donald Trump would survive and I wouldn't.) Enough cynicism. It is cool to see somebody taking the notion of space habitats seriously, even if it is just to line their pockets.

Re: Pirates As such? No. The Sailor package deal in Pulp Hero includes perfectly good skill choices for a 1920s/1930s pirate, though. (I don't see much that couldn't be used or slightly adapted for the modern day, either.)