India enthusiaisupport their space program.  

Meanwhile Marcus House explains the Aldrin Transfer Vehicle. 
 

not entirely optimistic about Blue Origin’s Glenn Rocket.  

Edit: As of this morning a BE-4 Engine blew up on the test stand:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/rocket-report-rocket-labs-next-step-in-reuse-blue-origin-engine-explodes/

14 hours ago, GDShore said:

I reread this thread today, Mr. Ruggels. What famous screwup?

Killing a beloved NPC to demonstrate an antagonists willingness to escalate and encounter, that caused the players to object, and a 20 year old FH campaign collapsed.  

AAAAAAAGH! NOOOOO!

…:and?  …AND?!

 I caught Nimona Last night on Netflix. A well scripted, and well animated film, using NPR shaders to give it an aolmost flat cut out look, even though the characters were 3D> There was also a feeling of Klaus , due to some facial expressions. Very entertaining.

On 6/25/2023 at 9:43 PM, Ternaugh said:

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1: This animated series tells the story of a bunch of young prisoners who find a lost Federation ship and manage to escape. With dreams of becoming part of Starfleet, they must deal with a threat to the entire fleet. It was really good, and I binged it over the course of a couple of days--unfortunately, it's becoming another victim of the streaming wars. Even though its second season is in post-production, the show's just been canceled, and Paramount+ will be pulling all episodes from their service very soon. Watch it while you can.

It may be, that they will sell it to Netflix, as Paramount Studios is in bad shape financially, and are licensing streaming product, particularly star trek to other streaming services.

Once again, Thank you 

Sierra Space describes long-term plans for Dream Chaser and inflatable modules

https://spacenews.com/sierra-space-describes-long-term-plans-for-dream-chaser-and-inflatable-modules/

14 hours ago, Cygnia said:

https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/feature/cultural-consultants-have-never-been-more-important-in-tabletop-rpg-industry

 I just hate current year more and more.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2023/06/22/breaking-devastating-news-for-families-of-the-titanic-submarine-crew-n1705529

U.S. Coast Guard summary.  

With their CEO Dead, I expect the company to disolve.  There really is no point to a law suit because f this. Dead is dead.

https://news.sky.com/story/titanic-submarine-missing-live-updates-submersible-cannot-be-opened-from-inside-time-running-out-on-oxygen-supply-waiver-mentions-death-three-times-12905748

I would think there would be Confederate officer's sword. Proclamations and certificates signed by Abraham Lincoln, Regimental battle flags, A deck gun pulled off a WW1 U-Boat, The rudder panel from a unidentified air craft. A set of Hanafuna (sic) cards liberated from the San Francisco cell of Japanese spies around the time of Pearl harbor, make up/ disguise kit from a female German Saboteur, experimental helmet for a supersonic flyer.  Sorry, no giant pennies.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was recently dropped on Youtube, and I spent Yesterday binge watching the whole first season (10 Episodes).  It's more li9ke Old Star Trek, than the excrable discovery, but the tone is a little off, a littl bt snarky around the edges, and the cast has a suspicious amount of women in it, but the stories in the broad strokes seemed very Star Trek, even if the details didn't. One of the Episodes, they redid a classic Star Trek Episode, and showed how a difference in approach lead to catastrophic consequences. Now it wan't as good as the Third Season of Picard, and there were echoes of Discovery in the first two episodes. The Smell of Michael Burnham had not yet oleft the room. Speaking of rooms, the sets were enormous!  this version of the Enterprise was gigantic on the inside, and the use of a Ski Resort firepit in the captain's cabin was a ludicrous touch of interior design.On tyhe whole, it's better than Discovery, but not as good at 3rd Season Picard.

Apparently Boeing used flammable adhesive tape to bundle wires, so now they have to take the skin off and replace all that tape, which will push the launch date waaaaay back.

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-crew-flight-test-flight-review-may-2023

Boeing is having more difficulties with their Starliner.

18 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

Maybe. But that's why the cost should be prohibitive is what I'm saying.

 

Like, looking back at Christopher R Taylor's example of the cool moment that was ruined by rolling all ones, if his character had 3xp that he hadn't spent, and he saw those ones and the GM said, "Hey, if you burn those 3xp, I'll let you have your moment," I'm thinking some players would take that offer. 

 

18 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

Like Duke, I live for those “all ones”, situations. Those are the stories I prefer rather than the player fiction that a lot of modern games pursue. 
 

18 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

I'm seeing it less as giving the player the driver's seat and more as a very rare moment where the player can pull a victory out of her butt.

For us, victory was achieved by teamwork, and coordination, rather than an expectation of a single team member clocking the bad guy with a perfectly timed soliloquy and punch. I will admit, that on the subject of superheroes, I am Lukewarm, but will play with good GMs and I had an embarrassment of riches, with my high school group, The Heroes of Hero Games, and the ‘zine writers. But other than Champions, I didn’t seek it out. Therefore I have no experience with other superhero systems like FASERIP. Most other systems seemed illogical when compared to Champions. 

18 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

 

It would work well in my campaigns because I do have PC death on the table. I do let the characters fail sometimes. But there have been times in the past where I misread the importance of moment to a specific player, and that player has been crestfallen, and this mechanism would be an ace-in-the-hole to make sure everyone feels heroic at the most key moments.

 

For me personally, I don't use xp so much as a player anymore. So I would have 100% burned 3xp to make (i.e. "fix") that roll that Christopher Taylor mentioned earlier on this thread.

 

I think the FASERIP developers had a good idea, and that I want to adapt it in my Champions game. So, even if you wouldn't do it yourself as a GM, I'm asking y'all to put on your thinking caps and consider it an intellectual exercise.  How much would you have the player burn in Christopher R Taylor's example, would you allow it after the fact, and what value/power would 1xp have?

If the moment is supposed to be that important, then why does it require a die roll in the first place? The GM could just hand it to the player, if it is that important. A lot of incidents occur in a character’s blue book without rolls. Another way to handle it would be to hand the players a card that just has “successful roll, can only be used once. Choose wisely. “. This also decouples it from the experience points. 
 

Now I took a more sports oriented attitude about victories in Champions games. It was a team effort, won through effective teamwork, tactical coordination, knowledge and research (detective work by the team), and training (we would game danger room scenarios to try new formations and tactics). Sometimes team members had dice lice and could not roll below a 15 all night, but that’s when the other team members could cover for them. But if it’s important for that one player to get their “one, shining moment of awesome”, then allow them the card. Otherwise it’s nearly alien to me, unless it was a team effort. 

7 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

 But for me, I'm seeing situations where I'd like to see xp used to make a guaranteed heroic action work rather than depending on the GM to fudge the dice rolls for dramatic effect.

It is that “guarantee”, that I take as the root of my objections.  Shifts it from a game, to a work of player fiction.