cbullard

Yeah, the only other example that comes to mind would be more of a "Heroic" genre: Stargate/Stargate SG-1, where Daniel Jackson spent a good portion of his early screentime sneezing his head off. They even made it into a plot point for a later episode, where the antihistamines he'd taken protected him from a disease ("The Broca Divide"). An excellent question. The rulebook occasionally mentions things like inflicting or curing a disease, but I don't see anything on how to judge the effects of a disease on a PC.

Thank you, it's good to be back! And I agree, Megascale movement is definitely the way to go -- and yet they didn't do that in the example I mentioned. On that part, I guess I was just firing Frustration Energy Bolts from my mouth (or fingers, in this case) ;-) about them including things that are supposed to be examples of how to do things where those examples are basically unworkable. Yeah, I'm still doing some juggling to see if we want to use straight FTL, mega-scaled Teleport, or even Dimensional Travel. (He's already told me we don't have stargates or wormholes.) I'm personally inclined to the greater flexibility of FTL, but I need to pin down the GM to see how far away the Shiar Empire is so I can know how many levels of FTL to buy in order to make the trip duration somewhere between "We'll be there in time for supper" and "We'll be there for Christmas... of 2025." ;-)

Well, I suppose it COULD be manned, in the same way that the WWII Japanese Zeros were, but like them it would be a suicide ride. No, it's a "system build rules vehicle" but not a "in-game use vehicle." Not that I see, which puzzled me even more. Although given how fast most real-world missiles accelerate I could certainly see a justification for N-CA/D for all but the largest of them.

Hey, there. Back after a plague-induced hiatus from TTRPGs! Superhero group is going to be doing some interplanetary stuff (think X-Men and the Shiar Empire, etc.) and yours truly has been tasked with designing the vehicle for Our Heroes to travel back and forth, etc. Looking at some of the stuff in "The Ultimate Vehicle," I'm hoping some of you have house rules that you've had a chance to work out and playtest, that you'd be willing to share so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel. For example, for space travel, how do you guys handle movement? Do you use the "constant acceleration"/Cumulative Advantage option they mention on p.87, or have you found something better? I don't think the authors took the time to consider just how freaking BIG space is. Either that, or they never bothered to actually look at what their own numbers mean. Take the "Space Merchantman" on pp. 95-96. For "In-System Maneuvering Thrusters" they've given this ship Flight 20 x4 non-combat. The Merchantman has a Speed of 2, so a standard interpretation of Flight movement would mean it travels 80" on each of its 2 phases, or 160m every 12 seconds. At that speed, it would take them 2.9 years to complete a single orbit around the Earth at the lofty altitude of 200km above the surface. Using the "constant acceleration" option, a trip of that same distance would take about 3 hours if you wanted to stop at the end of the trip, or about 1.5 hours if you just wanted to keep going. The acceleration wouldn't even be too bad: just 1.3Gs. For three years, the passengers might get tired of that. For 3 hours? Not a big deal! I'm also wondering if I'm misunderstanding something (probably!) or if there's an error in the text. Ultimate Vehicle, p. 23 says: "Vehicles may buy the Rapid Noncombat Movement (+1/4) (Hero System 5th Edition, Revised, page 124) Advantage for their Movement Powers. However, they may not buy the Combat Acceleration/Deceleration or Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration Advantages to improve the number of inches they can accelerate/decelerate per hex" But one of the examples, the Nuclear Space Missile on p. 132 includes this in the list of powers: Engine: Flight 40", x1000 Noncombat, Non-Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1) Doesn't that say, "Hey, you can't do this, but we're going to give you an example of doing it anyway"? Or am I missing/misinterpreting something? I hope this finds all of you well, and thank you in advance for any input you may have!

Thank you, and I agree that it seems wrong (thus the reason for this post asking how others handle it). I could even see it being allowed to purchase munitions-as-vehicles, such as missiles for a vehicle's launchers, especially when you have to replenish those after a fight. Otherwise, munitions are too expensive to fire. ("Wow, I got 5 experience points for that scenario! Now I only need 25 more before I can replace ONE of the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles I fired!") AIM-7 Sparrow missile (UV pp. 131-132). Base cost: 150 Purchased as a vehicle: 150 / 5 = 30 Purchased as a vehicle-for-a-vehicle: 30 / 5 = 6 I could see justification for them being automatically replaced in between scenarios, like bullets for a gun, arrows for a quiver, or just about any sort of charges. Maybe you pay full price for them at vehicle creation/upgrade, but not every time you have to reload one.

A long time ago, in theaters far, far away... hordes of sci-fi geeks gathered to watch the "final" *cough, cough* chapter of the galactic war that had been raging for years as Darth Vader and his Emperor tried to eliminate the Rebel Alliance once and for all. "Return of the Jedi" is celebrating its own 40th birthday by returning to Terrestrial cinemas. It will be re-released on April 28 and run through Star Wars Day, May 4. https://www.starwars.com/news/swce-2023-return-of-the-jedi-40th-anniversary May the Fourth be with you!

And they even have a theme song, done by Duran Duran!

[Moving thread here from Star Hero forum, since it pertains to more of a "superheroic" game level.] I'm curious -- how does your table handle the "vehicles for vehicles/bases" rules when designing bases or vehicles? Some thoughts... At one end of the spectrum, "The Ultimate Vehicle" includes an example of an elevator on p. 167 as a vehicle. This seems unnecessary to me: surely an elevator or a turbolift can be considered "everyvehicle/everybase" equipment? As a more central position, that same book describes defining missiles as vehicles, and gives examples of various types of munitions-as-vehicles on pp 130-133. These would in turn be carried by a larger vehicle. At the other end of the spectrum, we get into something that would be permitted under the rules but could become abusive, IMO: having these secondary vehicles be fully-functional vehicles in their own right. So you might end up with something like Battlestar Galactica, which served as a carrier for quite a few Viper fighters. This would mean you could purchase the Galactica at 1/5 cost, since it is a vehicle... then have Galactica "buy herself" one or more Vipers, again at 1/5 cost, which means whoever built Galactica is actually paying only 1/25 cost for the Vipers. Vipers Sale, 96% off, today only! ;-) But a Viper isn't intrinsically tied to Galactica, you say? I agree. A missile isn't intrinsically tied to the vehicle that launches it, either. A lifeboat also isn't intrinsically tied to the vessel that carries it, yet that "...is perhaps the best example..." according to "The Ultimate Vehicle" p. 166. Let's scale up. Enterprise-D with her separate saucer section. Wouldn't this sort of arrangement let you put all of your "expensive" items into the "subordinate" vehicle and get your Galaxy-class cruiser much more cheaply? Or consider any deep space vessel with all those systems that have to be duplicated for close-proximity and mega-range use -- Radar, HRRP, weapons, scanners, and/or whatever else you want to equip your ship with. Why not put the proximity versions on board your "primary" vessel, and the mega-scale/mega-range versions onto a secondary hull? The two can travel together for zipping over to the Talos system, but the secondary hull would handle subspace communications back to Earth, keeping an eye on that unstable star in the next solar system, etc. while the primary hull is orbiting the planet Talos IV and doing detailed sensor studies of the planet, or even making a landing if it is called for. Even if you split your point costs right down the middle between the two hulls, you're still getting your ship at a 40% discount vs buying it as one ship. How do you guys handle this at your tables? Is there anything in RAW that would prevent the sort of "ship discounts" I've mentioned here? Thanks, and have a great day!

> "Star Hero is normally a heroic game so characters usually purchase equipment including ships with cash instead of points. So, how you build a vehicle or base really does not matter that much." That is true, and an aspect I had not considered. Thank you for the reminder. I suppose my question would be more appropriate to one of the superheroic game forums. I was thinking in terms of the "general setting" (i.e. scifi, space travel, etc) and failed to take the "power level" into consideration when I posted the question to this group. Again, thank you for reminding me, and I will move the post to another group. Have a great day!

[EDIT: Someone has rightly pointed out that this discussion would be more appropriate for another forum, so I will be re-posting it there. Please disregard the post. Thank you.] I'm curious -- how does your table handle the "vehicles for vehicles/bases" rules when designing bases or vehicles? Some thoughts... At one end of the spectrum, "The Ultimate Vehicle" includes an example of an elevator on p. 167 as a vehicle. This seems unnecessary to me: surely an elevator or a turbolift can be considered "everyvehicle/everybase" equipment? As a more central position, that same book describes defining missiles as vehicles, and gives examples of various types of munitions-as-vehicles on pp 130-133. These would in turn be carried by a larger vehicle. At the other end of the spectrum, we get into something that would be permitted under the rules but could become abusive, IMO: having these secondary vehicles be fully-functional vehicles in their own right. So you might end up with something like Battlestar Galactica, which served as a carrier for quite a few Viper fighters. This would mean you could purchase the Galactica at 1/5 cost, since it is a vehicle... then have Galactica "buy herself" one or more Vipers, again at 1/5 cost, which means whoever built Galactica is actually paying only 1/25 cost for the Vipers. Vipers Sale, 96% off, today only! ;-) But a Viper isn't intrinsically tied to Galactica, you say? I agree. A missile isn't intrinsically tied to the vehicle that launches it, either. A lifeboat also isn't intrinsically tied to the vessel that carries it, yet that "...is perhaps the best example..." according to "The Ultimate Vehicle" p. 166. Let's scale up. Enterprise-D with her separate saucer section. Wouldn't this sort of arrangement let you put all of your "expensive" items into the "subordinate" vehicle and get your Galaxy-class cruiser much more cheaply? Or consider any deep space vessel with all those systems that have to be duplicated for close-proximity and mega-range use -- Radar, HRRP, weapons, scanners, and/or whatever else you want to equip your ship with. Why not put the proximity versions on board your "primary" vessel, and the mega-scale/mega-range versions onto a secondary hull? The two can travel together for zipping over to the Talos system, but the secondary hull would handle subspace communications back to Earth, keeping an eye on that unstable star in the next solar system, etc. while the primary hull is orbiting the planet Talos IV and doing detailed sensor studies of the planet, or even making a landing if it is called for. Even if you split your point costs right down the middle between the two hulls, you're still getting your ship at a 40% discount vs buying it as one ship. How do you guys handle this at your tables? Is there anything in RAW that would prevent the sort of "ship discounts" I've mentioned here? Thanks, and have a great day!

For those who want to create "realistic" alien worlds, there is an excellent computer program called "World Builder," originally written by Stephen Kimmel and published in Creative Computing back in June 1983. It was updated and translated from BASIC into Perl in 2008 by a gentleman named David Myers.

A few differences I've noticed (many have been mentioned already): * missiles are rocket-propelled through the air while torpedoes are propeller-driven through the water. * missiles are subject to counter-fire. Technically there ARE anti-torpedoes but these are not terribly common. * missile guidance systems are not generally detectable by common senses (radar, heat-seeking, etc). torpedoes are guided by wire or by sonar, and sonar can be heard without special equipment. * missiles are generally carried externally on hardpoints, while torpedoes are usually in internal tubes. This could affect original firing direction and could also mean that the external missiles might be subject to being directly targeted by the enemy. I can think of one way to handle the difference, depending on how your group handles FTL. If you have a separate "dimension" for subspace, maybe have torpedoes travel through that other dimension (harder to detect, locate, destroy) while missiles travel through normal space? Even if you don't make them any faster than the missiles, it adds a definite "flavor" difference between them.

On the subject of Trek, what about the "toys"? Based on what we saw on the various Trek shows, what is reasonable damage for a hand phaser/disruptor or rifle version of same? What about ship's phasors/disruptors/photon torpedos, etc? Some of the range info I can get from sites like Memory Alpha, but they'd be little help for weapons, shields, etc.

Normally I would disagree with you about it being "too much detail" for the system. If that level of detail is what a particular table enjoys, they should be able to go for it! Unfortunately, in this case, it IS too much detail for the system to support. Especially when it comes to things like vehicles and the size/mass needed for vehicular components, the system totally breaks down. :-(

A sensor-suite setup I used for a star-faring vessel, based loosely on Trek. Sensor suite overall done as an Environmental Control, each done as a Detect A Large Class Of Things, Increased arc of perception 360*, Discriminator, Analyze, Targeting, Affected as more than one sense (Sight), OIF Bulky, Extra time (only to activate) EC: Science Scanners Astrometric Scanner - Provides info on any and all bodies in space, such as planets, moons, stars, asteroids, nebulae, black holes/quasars/pulsars, etc. Energy Scanner - all forms of energy and radiation, such as power sources, gravitational effects, "radar"/scanner/sensor beams, "radio"/communication waves, magic, psionics, energy-based powers, thermal, electrical, magnetic, chemical, sonic, nuclear, solar, or other forms of energy Dimensional/Translocative Phenomena Scanner - other-dimensional beings/materials/phenomena, temporal phenomena/disturbances/anachronisms, translocative phenomena such as teleportation, wormholes, extra-dimensional movement, dimensional/temporal instabilities/disturbances, and FTL phenomena such as trips traveling at warp speeds, etc. Planetary Scanner - geological, atmospheric, meteorological, oceanographic, environmental, planetary conditions, population centers, tech levels, etc. Biological Scanner - Detects life signs as well as any other specific races/species for which the scanners have data, specific individuals for which the scanners have data, etc. See Ultimate Vehicle p. 143 Physical Scanner - any physical substance for which the scanners have data, automata, electrical/electronic systems - detect presence if deactivated, detect function if active Vehicular Scanner - presence/status/type of vehicular traits and systems, such as weapons, engines, communications, scanners/sensors, shields/force fields/force walls/etc., armor, missile deflection, other offensive or defensive systems