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Now I'm not saying anything concrete, but let us for a moment pretend that I have the go-ahead to compile a manuscript for a second Phase World Sourcebook.

Since you have all been such a help in the past, I thought I would offer you guys (and gals ?) a chance to help me decide what to put in it. So far the line up would look like this, and aim at about 120+ pages:

Fleets of the Three Galaxies: a detailed essay on why you need a space fleet in this setting, what space fighters can and cannot do, and details on all of the major fleets in the Three Galaxies.

Trade Federations and Mercantilus Unions: the corporate armies of the Three Galaxies and the ships that move them versus the little guys.

Space Pirates: a section on why they do what they do, the difference between pirates and privateers, places where they hang out, their tactics and ships.

The Dominators: (optional) detailing why they went nuts and tried to kill everyone 50,000 years ago, why they are driven to dominate other life forms, plus a fleshed out Dominator Star Fortress!

Colony Creation Tables: basically the Rifts city creation tables, but made to fit in with the Phase World setting. Sounds cut and paste, I know, but I use it quite a lot in my games, so it might be useful to other GMs.

Urban Combat in the Three Galaxies: now that you've drafted up all these new cities, you can blow the crap out of them! this would also include the standard features for PW robots.



Now I am agonising because, deep inside, I know there should be definitive rules for creating new starships... I just dont think I can come up with a system that will work.

Just wondering what you all would, hypothetically think of this line-up.

All the above should be included in the source book, although the urban combat rulls, because they change the foundations of the combat system, may get dropped. Do make an effort to include rules for spaceship repair as an extension of the fleets article also reference rifter 34 as source material for spaceship creation. In addition I believe ailens unlimited does include rules for spaceship creation you may wish to reference this book,or whichever book for HU its found in, as source material for the phase world setting. I am very excited to hear the news and I think writing for Si-Fi is just your forte. Looking forward to role play testing all the material for the "Hopefull" sourcebook 2.

Awsome!!!

My Thoughts:

1. Space Pirates should be your #1 priority. I've always felt them sorely lacking in phase world considering the impact they have. a slightly larger varaity of ships (don't go overboard on any equipment now), some more non-leathal trapping meathods (for bounty hunters), and general tips on how to they manage to sneak past patrols and such would be nice.

2. Urban Combat ideas. this is for purely selfish reasons. I prefer my games to take place in Urban settings

more fleshed out Dominators would be nice...right now their ships have the "statless unkillable" problem.

The rest I personally think should be included, in any order.

What I personally would really like to see is...

1. some Important independant worlds. Planets or at most a small group of planets within a relativly small star cluster who choose to remain unaligned with any of the big 3 (TGE, CCW, and UWW), but who have some kind of technological or magical or even psychic or chi edge that gives them enough military might to make a hostile takeover more trouble than it's worth for any of hte big 3. They should also have some important peice of technology or such they are masters at and are highly valuble.

Obviously Phase World itself is the prime exsample of what i'm talking about, but nothing quite on _that_ level. I just think there should be a few races who, for whatever reason, have enough power to keep to themselves and something valuble enough to keep a good number of people flocking there for trade. it adds to the setting and gives more options.

also: more races. and though it might sound odd, more races with strange powers. I don't really care if they're pink skinned humans, humanoid, anthrophormic animals or 100% bizzarely alien. I would just like some new, really unique races. yea yea, Phase World has a ton of them already, but so? just a few would be nice.

It might sound strange, but I would really like more information on how the war between Naruni and Hagtrial Combine is doing.

and though it might sound strange, but I just thought of a request I'd like to hear very much.

Shipyards. I want more information on shipyards. Who builds these fleets, what are they like? Maybe a huge ship building conglomorate? Maybe millions of independants?

How are the usual Ship weapons built? the main book makes them seem like they're all mostly made by the same brand, or at least a commonly availible generic brand.

I don't know who makes ships in Phase World, and I would like to know.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:1. some Important independant worlds. Planets or at most a small group of planets within a relativly small star cluster who choose to remain unaligned with any of the big 3 (TGE, CCW, and UWW), but who have some kind of technological or magical or even psychic or chi edge that gives them enough military might to make a hostile takeover more trouble than it's worth for any of hte big 3.

The Trensik Mercenaries; an entire race which hires itself out to fight, so that they can bring payment back to their impoverished home world. but you'll have to wait for Thundercloud Galaxy for them... same for the alien aliens.

Shipyards. I want more information on shipyards.

Ship construction is being hashed out right now, but its waaaaay broken acording to the books. The pain is in finding a common formula on which to base prices. Frankly, I'm not sure it can be done...

gadrin wrote:

1. Space Pirates should be your #1 priority. I've always felt them sorely lacking in phase world considering the impact they have. a slightly larger varaity of ships (don't go overboard on any equipment now), some more non-leathal trapping meathods (for bounty hunters), and general tips on how to they manage to sneak past patrols and such would be nice.

I think the new Merc Ops and Mercs line of books has a few. I've heard tell that there's an MD taser in it and of course the new Combat Mage and his combat spells.

I assume currently they operate like Runners, which have fairly fast vessels and can slip thru the enormous holes in most planetary systems. They run into trouble when a full fleet/squadron of sophisticated ships plants itself and does some serious searching.

I don't have merc ops yet, so i'll wait to check that out.

to the second, yea, I kinda get the basics, but I'd just really like them fleshed out more

1. some Important independant worlds. Planets or at most a small group of planets within a relativly small star cluster who choose to remain unaligned with any of the big 3 (TGE, CCW, and UWW), but who have some kind of technological or magical or even psychic or chi edge that gives them enough military might to make a hostile takeover more trouble than it's worth for any of hte big 3. They should also have some important peice of technology or such they are masters at and are highly valuble.

pfft, if they'll all invulnerable... I would like to see some "boondocks planets" that are situated by a black hole/wormhole that few know about.
a well-to-do-world that is isolated (not worth invading) yet whose people get around quite a bit might be interesting.

I didn't say invunerable. Phase world is invunerable, and i speicifcally said not on that level. not strong enough to stave off all comers. just strong enough that the TEG isn't gonna bother them when there's easier pickings to be had.

The Core as defined in the Anvil Galaxy book would be an amazing place what with the sheer numbers of sentients in there. Somehow they get out and about...

Agreed. the Thundercloud galaxy needs it's own book along the lines of anvil galaxy.

It might sound strange, but I would really like more information on how the war between Naruni and Hagtrial Combine is doing.

I've got Naruni escalating to "hot" on my own.

frankly, i'm more interesting in finding out more about the combine's defences aginst them.

Shipyards. I want more information on shipyards. Who builds these fleets, what are they like? Maybe a huge ship building conglomorate? Maybe millions of independants?

How are the usual Ship weapons built? the main book makes them seem like they're all mostly made by the same brand, or at least a commonly availible generic brand.

I don't know who makes ships in Phase World, and I would like to know.

aren't some detailed in the Three Galaxies book ? Carl Gleba wrote up a few companies and I know there's additional shipbuilding features in there.

Some yes, I just think that there's room for improvement

Braden, GMPhD wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:1. some Important independant worlds. Planets or at most a small group of planets within a relativly small star cluster who choose to remain unaligned with any of the big 3 (TGE, CCW, and UWW), but who have some kind of technological or magical or even psychic or chi edge that gives them enough military might to make a hostile takeover more trouble than it's worth for any of hte big 3.

The Trensik Mercenaries; an entire race which hires itself out to fight, so that they can bring payment back to their impoverished home world. but you'll have to wait for Thundercloud Galaxy for them... same for the alien aliens.

awww oh well. something to look foreward to

I'm more pleased to hear that there's going to BE a thundercloud galaxy book.

Shipyards. I want more information on shipyards.

Ship construction is being hashed out right now, but its waaaaay broken acording to the books. The pain is in finding a common formula on which to base prices. Frankly, I'm not sure it can be done...

it might be done, but without more information I can't help whatever you've already worked on.

This could end up being a rat hole where you just run around in circles, especially without a well developed system for ship creation. It would be nice to go into the makeup of various fleets and their purposes, but it wouldn't be particularly useful without at least neighborhood stats for the different classes of ships. It may be reasonable for you to do this, but there needs to be raw stats to backup the explanations.

It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive.

EXAMPLE: a "typical runner ship" costs 30 million credits. But the engine that powers it costs 40 million credits. So does the ship come with a free engine when you first buy it? Also, the Runner ship's three laser cannons cost 4 million apiece (12 million for all three). So at 30 million credits to buy the ship, the hull and other systems are only worth 18 million credits... but the manufacturer is already 10 million in the hole from installing the engine!

It gets worse when you try to build big ships. Using the same formula that makes the Warshield cruiser, a smaller ship cost 930 million credits.

Instead, I am going to include an essay called Thoughts on Starship Design. No hard and fast rules... just some things to think about when designing your own ships. Use the existing starships as templates, which is what I did. that way, even though things are broken, at least they are consistent.

hey all

i would like to share my thoughts

i really dig the phaseworld setting for many reasons, but the most important of the reasons is that it is unexplored, just like rifts america used to be. now there is a world book for every state and an alien intelligence or other super badguy for every square feet and i personally am sick of it, i pray phaseworld does not become like this. i also personally loathe books like the coalition wars and similar that more or less dictate what will hapen in years to come. what i am trying to say is i am a big fan of two things.
first we need good and detailed descriptions of the history, customs, beliefs, ambition etc. of all the major races in the phase world setting. as it is right now races like prometheans is every munchkins wet dream because they are insanely overpowered (imo), but other than there being second stagers, we know next to nothing about them. the same thing goes for the draconids, silhouettes, phantoms and i could go on. this would be a priority to me.
second we need to expand the phaseworld setting with possibilities which means that i think it is a good idea to describe the major power blocks of the galaxies (which has already been done), i think we need more info on the small and medium power blocks. the pirates are a good example of this and other groups could be galactic tracers (headhunters), merchant guilds (i mean, it makes sense that runners would organize themselves), dark covens and many many more. so bradens idea of describing the dominators, pirates and trade federations are really good ideas, at least i think so. what i like is when authors plant ideas with a description rather than plot it out down to the last brick - i believe that is the gms or storytellers role.

as for the part about rules on urban combat i cannot see what that would be good for, why would we need special rules for that? as for colony creation rules, hmm okay we already have for spacestations, star systems, dimensions etc

Braden wrote:
"It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive."

i would really like general rules or guidelines on how to create ur own spacecraft, weapons (any), power armor, robot vehicles etc. i also would like universal canon rules on what repairs would cost (no matter what ur repairing).
as for spacecrafts i have the manhunter book where there are some basic rules, whether they apply to phaseworld, i would say no, but its a start. Braden i would like new rules that make sense, i really think ur just making it more difficult for urself when u try to make the old (broken) fit into the new. make a new set of rules and then make a paragraph that corrects the prices in the earlier books (if u really think its that big a deal), thats my advice.
new accessories for spacecraft (other than engines and weapons), an example could be repair systems (automated) in details, more on sensors, cloaking, stealth etc.

that was my contribution
c ya

Actually shipyards is not that big of a problem.

Consider the US. It only has a few manufacturers of large ships, but it has hundreds of small yards across the length and the width of it. The same would be true of Phase world. Each of the major power blocks would have certain companies that they deal with to produce their space naval requirements. (At least the big stuff.) And there would be possibly other large companies involved in the construction of large cargo ships, although those could be produced by the same large ones involved in the military constructions. (They probably are anyway.) And then there would be this huge number of small starship producers out there working out of either a small starship yard or maybe an asteroid based yard.

As far as ship construction itself, you should set up some perimeters for sizes. Etc..... Battleships...... Base MDC main body 200,000 ..... Base weight....... 5,000,000 tons. The number and type of main weapons it could carry. The number and type of secondary weapons it could carry. The number and type of tertiary weapon (Anti-missile, anti-fighter) it can carry. You just need to decide a class system and agree on it. I already have one that I use in my own construction techniques for my own Phase world game. The example I gave is just that, an example. I love using a pic an going from there.


Hopefully this'll help.

OK. I'll leave out the Colony rules and Urban combat for now... and keep the focus on spaceships and the people who make their living in space. But I will put in a selected timeline of events, that tie into the various article pieces.

But if the page count comes up short, they're goin' in!

Braden, GMPhD wrote:

This could end up being a rat hole where you just run around in circles, especially without a well developed system for ship creation. It would be nice to go into the makeup of various fleets and their purposes, but it wouldn't be particularly useful without at least neighborhood stats for the different classes of ships. It may be reasonable for you to do this, but there needs to be raw stats to backup the explanations.

It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive.

EXAMPLE: a "typical runner ship" costs 30 million credits. But the engine that powers it costs 40 million credits. So does the ship come with a free engine when you first buy it? Also, the Runner ship's three laser cannons cost 4 million apiece (12 million for all three). So at 30 million credits to buy the ship, the hull and other systems are only worth 18 million credits... but the manufacturer is already 10 million in the hole from installing the engine!

It gets worse when you try to build big ships. Using the same formula that makes the Warshield cruiser, a smaller ship cost 930 million credits.

Instead, I am going to include an essay called Thoughts on Starship Design. No hard and fast rules... just some things to think about when designing your own ships. Use the existing starships as templates, which is what I did. that way, even though things are broken, at least they are consistent.

do remember though, that it's not too uncommon to sell a number of different componets for one price, then sell a "combo special" like mcdonalds where you can get more for the put-togeather "combo" than for buying each item individually.

the ships are probablly like that. I mean, we know the anti-matter engine on the runner ship goes for 40 million. what we DON'T know is how big the profit margine on that thing is, now do we?

those arn't the actual prices it takes to make something, the profit is already factored in

I say write what inspires you most. Its likely to turn out better than trying to please everyone else.

Carl

You could actually do what Nekira suggested with the smalled starships. The larger ones could be modular, but those modules would be coming from the larger companies unless there were some very exclusive technology involved, then they might come from a smaller company.

creating a system designed to consolidate a variety of designs made willy-nilly isn't impossible, just difficult.

the biggest problem of course is the method. my recommendation would be to hybridize the 'module' system of AUGG with the 'space' system from Manhunter. 'space' becomes merely a limiter so you can't cram the entire book into one ship. but insted of tyng it to dimensions like AUGG, just have a recommended size.

give yourself lots of leeway in the amounts of 'space' per ship.

then make a list of drives, weapons, systems, ect.

then you try to fit the existing designs on. if something doesn't fit, alter the 'space' calculation to give ships more room. you can't put more into a ship than will fit, but nothing stops you from installing less. if you don't use all of it, you can go for roomy design or just make the dimensions smaller.

I've only used AUGG for a systems reference. I use my own knowledge and sources for ships design. I would never totally used AUGG. It has too many holes and mistakes.

Remeber when West End Games owned the SW franchise for gaming? They released some great small guides for different subcultures in the SW universe (Bounty Hunters Guide, Privateers Guide, etc.)

If you want to really put up some useful cannonical materials, I would Add items along those lines. I.E. PRACTICAL GAMEMASTER MATERIALS.

1) Privateers

A) Subculture
B) Ships & Technologies
C) Making the Run
D) Cargoes

2) Space Pirates

A) Subculture
B) Ships & Technologies
C) Pirate Kingdoms
D) Hideouts

3) Galactic Trackers (Use Cowboy Bebop & the Chronicles of Riddick 4 some great influences)

A) Subculture
B) Ships & Technologies
C) Tracking the Quarry
D) The Prey goes to ground - Galactic Tracking in a billion cubic light years of space and infinite dimension

4) The Common Galactic Citizen

A) Living in the Three Galaxies (On five credits a day)
B) The Risks
C) Jobs (Paid or Indentured Servitude - Career Choices all Around)
D) "Do you believe in inter-species dating?" -Ratzo Rizzo to Brooke Shields

Clarifications (like does Center have ten levels or the hundreds described in the later books?)
Lots of pictures - Please do not release another book where ships are described and not illustrated.
Common "Old Workhorse" Ships of the Three galaxies - what is their YT-1300 and so on...

Bray Definatly include a colony guide. It will be worthwhile in a pinch to whip up a random colony. As I'm a player not a GM I delight in taking the game anywhere but where the GM has predicted it will go. I'm sure i'm not alone in this. So a GM will need a set of tools where he can call a smoke, coffee, snack or comercial break and whip up a random colony so I can sac it take what i need and move on. Game ON!

And to make your ship stand out, it takes time an playing. And situations where the players realize their ship need certain improvements.

But there should be some frameworks in place to allow some customization.

Take a page from MiO, go with preset templates based on volume or length and class of ship. Add in how many weapons(and their sizes) sheidl power, general power source, engines both sublight and FTL, then a section on customization what can be traded for what(X small anti fighter weapons can be traded up for Y ship to ship weapons) And a 1000m carrier is gonna be different from a 1000m Battleship, but the carrier will have more in common with a 1000m frieghter

And include the urban combat. You can easily use that for boarding ships and shoot outs in hangarbays, starports, space stations and so forth

That is what I said a while back. A system of bases for disserent classes of starships.

Braden, GMPhD wrote:

This could end up being a rat hole where you just run around in circles, especially without a well developed system for ship creation. It would be nice to go into the makeup of various fleets and their purposes, but it wouldn't be particularly useful without at least neighborhood stats for the different classes of ships. It may be reasonable for you to do this, but there needs to be raw stats to backup the explanations.

It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive.

While I was going to jump on the bandwagon and just ask for solid prices for starship items, seeing your comment just brought a thought to mind. Instead of trying to shoehorn the established ships into a set of rules and numbers, make your new system first. Sure, you may want the system to give results as close as possible to the existing ships, but that's not the goal. The goal is to make a working system. Once you have a working system, just go back and "errata" the old ships to fit the new system. Sure it may be a bit of work, but at least everything will fit and you have a solid base to do additional modifications on. I don't think anyone would have a problem if there were a couple of pages that list the new correct prices, weights, and volumes for the old ships.

devillin wrote:

Braden, GMPhD wrote:

This could end up being a rat hole where you just run around in circles, especially without a well developed system for ship creation. It would be nice to go into the makeup of various fleets and their purposes, but it wouldn't be particularly useful without at least neighborhood stats for the different classes of ships. It may be reasonable for you to do this, but there needs to be raw stats to backup the explanations.

It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive.

While I was going to jump on the bandwagon and just ask for solid prices for starship items, seeing your comment just brought a thought to mind. Instead of trying to shoehorn the established ships into a set of rules and numbers, make your new system first. Sure, you may want the system to give results as close as possible to the existing ships, but that's not the goal. The goal is to make a working system. Once you have a working system, just go back and "errata" the old ships to fit the new system. Sure it may be a bit of work, but at least everything will fit and you have a solid base to do additional modifications on. I don't think anyone would have a problem if there were a couple of pages that list the new correct prices, weights, and volumes for the old ships.

That's a good call Plus you can add a small blurb that previous ships were not built according to these rules. Sort of a disclaimer. Trying to make a set of rules around something that the authors took their best guess on is going to be near impossible. Just do your best and everyone will be happy.

Carl

On a different but related note, teh section on Space Pirates is turning out to be a lot fo fun! I'm still doing research, but it looks like it will include:

History of space piracy

Rise of the pirate cartels

Notable cartels and their leaders (including famous women pirates!)

Pirate havens

Life as a space pirate

Raiding tactics

Types of pirate ships

Braden, GMPhD wrote:On a different but related note, teh section on Space Pirates is turning out to be a lot fo fun! I'm still doing research, but it looks like it will include:

History of space piracy

Rise of the pirate cartels

Notable cartels and their leaders (including famous women pirates!)

Pirate havens

Life as a space pirate

Raiding tactics

Types of pirate ships

One thing I think you should definatly try to add is a section on: What kinds of items are currently most popular in the three galaxies.

Are drugs the primary thing to nab? Weapons? Drugs? Legal or illegal items?

remember, in three galaxies there's going to be some truely bizzare merchandise. telling us about them, and about what kind of otherwordly items are valuble enough to die(or kill) for would ROCK!

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Braden, GMPhD wrote:On a different but related note, teh section on Space Pirates is turning out to be a lot fo fun! I'm still doing research, but it looks like it will include:

History of space piracy

Rise of the pirate cartels

Notable cartels and their leaders (including famous women pirates!)

Pirate havens

Life as a space pirate

Raiding tactics

Types of pirate ships

One thing I think you should definatly try to add is a section on: What kinds of items are currently most popular in the three galaxies.

Are drugs the primary thing to nab? Weapons? Drugs? Legal or illegal items?

remember, in three galaxies there's going to be some truely bizzare merchandise. telling us about them, and about what kind of otherwordly items are valuble enough to die(or kill) for would ROCK!

and remember, as touchy as it is, there is slavery and slavers out there. WE know how the spllogies do it, what about in the 3G??

-D.

I love Space Ships.

I will love to see a Soucebook on them,it can show the ships used by all the Power Blocs.

They need to give info like the number of crew and decks it have.

Slavery is legal in the CCW and Trans-Kreeghor Empire. The rub in the CCW is that space citizens are not allowed to become slaves, but members of individual planets may retain slaves.

Since there is already a random cargo generator, I'd love to see two more generators along that line: A random Deep Space encounter table and a random Phase World Encounter/Event generator.

nothing happens in deep space... except maybe pirate raids...

hi

im really looking forward to seeing these pirates , the ones i use in my campaigns are actually evil people, not han-solo type guts and glore hounds - its all about the money.

have u ever considered doing a similar section on the galactic tracers? the is some info in the anvil dimension book in the section with master fesh and red lotus. just a suggestion

as for ships there are really 3 things that would be super cool and important if i had anything to say.
1. rules for creating spacecrafts, very important
2. spacecraft descriptions without a drawing arent worth much, i prefer quality over quantity. i would rather have 3 ships well described and with illustrations, than 10 sets of stats for various non illustrated ships.
3. spacecrafts are alot more than weapons, hull and armor. descriptions of alternate shields would be cool (ex magnetic shields from manhunter) as well as details on sensors (how they work, range, difference between civilian and military etc.), stealth systems, automated repair systems and as many new and exciting accessories for ships as possible

that would be cool

c ya

Or they could be something along the lines of a privateer. They don't target one side for King and Country, they do it cause of some weird sense of revenge(only targeting one race cause they're claim jumpers) or moral cause that goes unnoticed(targeting only Splurgoths or only NE for thier use of slave labour)

It will feature a "Selected Timeline of Events", the history of space piracy in the Thrid Galactic Era, the Star Hunters returned, and the rise of the mighty pirate cartels.

Plus a motley collection of ships for raiding... including several with the Star Hunter "transwarp"* drive....






*drive will not actually be named this

freedom fighters like the FWC and other similar groups would also be branded as pirates by the nations they're fighting, and perhaps by ones they're not as well, depending on the tactics used.

Braden, GMPhD wrote:nothing happens in deep space... except maybe pirate raids...

Actually, there's lot of stuff that is listed in various places as happening in deep space, the problem is it's not written in one book or chart. When I say "deep space", I'm referring to anything that doesn't take place directly over a planet.

gadrin wrote:

Braden, GMPhD wrote:nothing happens in deep space... except maybe pirate raids...

As for Phase World encounter, do you mean Center Encounters ?

If so, then you'd need a table for each level (or a few levels) because the deeper you go...the nastier it gets.

You could make a separate thread for that and have people post suggestions, because it's going to take hundreds to simulate the variety that Center offers. I see the rest of Phase World as "off limits" for the most part, except to natives.

Yup. Center Encounters. I kind of figured on a table for each level.

An encounter table for each level of Center? That would be pretty cool! Please make sure to include as much as you can from the Megaverse! I'd be very happy to try it out with my group.

I know. But I'd love to see and encounter charts for each level. You have to admit it would be cool!

Id Like to see two tables for Space Pirates. Table on would be a set of personality archtypes to give you pirates flavor the second would be a table of mitivating factors or explanations why the pirates are pirates. This would give you randon encounters some falavor and perhaps even an anventure hook or two depending on the motivating factors. Example pirate one is a ..... "Dice roll 63" Annoying trickster who is a pirate because .... "Dice roll 14" political influences in this region of space (planet one and two) have left the pirate, a once reputable private merchatman, unemployed and is acting out of despiration. This would leave the pirate a basically good although annoying man who is not likly t5o kill players but will steal anything of value and temorarily disable the ship. He will also use unorthodox tactics to lure a ship into stopping and allowing the pirates on board rather than using heavy weapons tactics.

Carl Gleba wrote:

devillin wrote:

Braden, GMPhD wrote:

This could end up being a rat hole where you just run around in circles, especially without a well developed system for ship creation. It would be nice to go into the makeup of various fleets and their purposes, but it wouldn't be particularly useful without at least neighborhood stats for the different classes of ships. It may be reasonable for you to do this, but there needs to be raw stats to backup the explanations.

It is impossible to create a system for starship creation for this setting. The biggest problem is that the established ships as seen in the current books were designed willy-nilly, with no formula or set of rules. Therefore, any new rules that I would create would have to allow players to build a Packmaster Carrier say.... and the numbers just don't jive.

While I was going to jump on the bandwagon and just ask for solid prices for starship items, seeing your comment just brought a thought to mind. Instead of trying to shoehorn the established ships into a set of rules and numbers, make your new system first. Sure, you may want the system to give results as close as possible to the existing ships, but that's not the goal. The goal is to make a working system. Once you have a working system, just go back and "errata" the old ships to fit the new system. Sure it may be a bit of work, but at least everything will fit and you have a solid base to do additional modifications on. I don't think anyone would have a problem if there were a couple of pages that list the new correct prices, weights, and volumes for the old ships.

That's a good call Plus you can add a small blurb that previous ships were not built according to these rules. Sort of a disclaimer. Trying to make a set of rules around something that the authors took their best guess on is going to be near impossible. Just do your best and everyone will be happy.

Carl

In addition to Nekira’s discussion of profit margins and fidgewinkle’s talk about economies of scale and wholesale and retail, I’d also like to point out a couple of ways to allow for the willy-nilly-ness of the established ships.
There can be significant variation in the margin of a product depending on what components there are in it.

As a real world example, I am the lead buyer for an on-campus computer reseller. In addition to other brands, we sell Dell computers. There is no standard price for a Dell. And, the level of discount that I receive depends on what components are configured. An Optiplex GX620 Minitower with an Intel 3.4 GHz processor, with an 80GB hard drive bundled with a 1906 (19” flat panel display) receives a different discount overall than an Optiplex GX620 Small Form Factor computer with a 3.2 GHz processor bundled with a 1706 (17” flat panel), no matter what hard drive it comes with.

The minitower is going to bring the cost down due to economies of scale on the production level, but there’s a lot less margin on the 19” monitor, so that drives the price up. Our cost strikes balance of all the components. Then, it depends on if I buy 10 or 200. That also makes a big difference in the cost.

In other times, vendors also lowball a price on a product to basically buy the business. A few years ago, Adobe put the Academic price on Acrobat 7 Standard (or 8, I forget which) at a supremely low $59.00. Their goal was to have every one in Academia with a legal copy of the full version of Acrobat on their desktop. They figured they make it up on the sale of other products.

Apply the same principle to the existing ships in canon as a rationalization. So the ftl drives would normally have cost 30 million credits, except they had a deal on that line, so that if you had three phase canons installed, you got a 20% discount on the drive and received a rebate or credit on the back end for the navigation system.

I had a vendor present me today with a products line and if I ordered 3 skus of their product, I would get a 10% discount. If I ordered 4 skus, I got a 20% discount. Basically, by buying more, I paid less. Software licensing is like that sometimes too. Sometimes, it costs fewer dollars to buy 25 copies of software for a lab, than it does to buy the 22 that they need, because there is a unit price break at 25 copies.

Another way to rationalize the existing systems: Clearance! To use another computer analogy (hey, it’s what I know!), Once upon a time Apple sold iMacs in a variety of colors. There was Bondi Blue, then they branched out with a few other fruit colors. The third iteration of colors included two colors called “Blue Dalmation” and “Flower Power”
We figured Steve Jobs was reliving the 70s again. After a few months, you could get machines in these colors for substantively less than the other colors, even though the specs on the systems were exactly the same.


Short story long, maybe some of the canonical ships had some intrinsic minor flaw that drove the cost down. Someone made a bad call and thought that a pink Battleship 4000 Starblaster would inspire fear in the Kreeghor. Or the Hidemesecret Blockade Runner had sucky cupholders. I don’t know, it’s a rationalization, it doesn’t have to totally make sense. Then, follow devillin’s advice and make a working system that is consistent. Errata the rest. Or not, I’d just use the new rules and ignore all of the old stuff…Except for the advantage of my NPCs.

Greyaxe wrote:Id Like to see two tables for Space Pirates. Table on would be a set of personality archtypes to give you pirates flavor the second would be a table of mitivating factors or explanations why the pirates are pirates.

Great idea. Done.

Xar wrote:In addition to Nekira’s discussion of profit margins and fidgewinkle’s talk about economies of scale and wholesale and retail, I’d also like to point out a couple of ways to allow for the willy-nilly-ness of the established ships.
There can be significant variation in the margin of a product depending on what components there are in it.

As a real world example, I am the lead buyer for an on-campus computer reseller. In addition to other brands, we sell Dell computers. There is no standard price for a Dell. And, the level of discount that I receive depends on what components are configured. An Optiplex GX620 Minitower with an Intel 3.4 GHz processor, with an 80GB hard drive bundled with a 1906 (19” flat panel display) receives a different discount overall than an Optiplex GX620 Small Form Factor computer with a 3.2 GHz processor bundled with a 1706 (17” flat panel), no matter what hard drive it comes with.

The minitower is going to bring the cost down due to economies of scale on the production level, but there’s a lot less margin on the 19” monitor, so that drives the price up. Our cost strikes balance of all the components. Then, it depends on if I buy 10 or 200. That also makes a big difference in the cost.

In other times, vendors also lowball a price on a product to basically buy the business. A few years ago, Adobe put the Academic price on Acrobat 7 Standard (or 8, I forget which) at a supremely low $59.00. Their goal was to have every one in Academia with a legal copy of the full version of Acrobat on their desktop. They figured they make it up on the sale of other products.

Apply the same principle to the existing ships in canon as a rationalization. So the ftl drives would normally have cost 30 million credits, except they had a deal on that line, so that if you had three phase canons installed, you got a 20% discount on the drive and received a rebate or credit on the back end for the navigation system.

I had a vendor present me today with a products line and if I ordered 3 skus of their product, I would get a 10% discount. If I ordered 4 skus, I got a 20% discount. Basically, by buying more, I paid less. Software licensing is like that sometimes too. Sometimes, it costs fewer dollars to buy 25 copies of software for a lab, than it does to buy the 22 that they need, because there is a unit price break at 25 copies.

Another way to rationalize the existing systems: Clearance! To use another computer analogy (hey, it’s what I know!), Once upon a time Apple sold iMacs in a variety of colors. There was Bondi Blue, then they branched out with a few other fruit colors. The third iteration of colors included two colors called “Blue Dalmation” and “Flower Power”
We figured Steve Jobs was reliving the 70s again. After a few months, you could get machines in these colors for substantively less than the other colors, even though the specs on the systems were exactly the same.


Short story long, maybe some of the canonical ships had some intrinsic minor flaw that drove the cost down. Someone made a bad call and thought that a pink Battleship 4000 Starblaster would inspire fear in the Kreeghor. Or the Hidemesecret Blockade Runner had sucky cupholders. I don’t know, it’s a rationalization, it doesn’t have to totally make sense. Then, follow devillin’s advice and make a working system that is consistent. Errata the rest. Or not, I’d just use the new rules and ignore all of the old stuff…Except for the advantage of my NPCs.

Loving this description of real world economics in the sci-fi setting, take it a step further: car dealerships make very little money on cars. They often get more in incentives from the manufacturers to get cars off of the lot than they make in profit margin on the vehicle itself.

Then there is the kickback structure in place from the finance division who makes money on the loans (pay over thirty years, it costs three times what it's worth, but buy now pay later, and drive off the lot today!)

Housing is going through the same thing now, with 40 year loans to help you buy that 1.5 million dollar (450 sq ft!) Venice Beach Cottage that will hold you and your hamster and has street parking.

Now for the ships. If the dealer yard is planetside, then they need to clear real estate fast, because ships are better protected from environmental corrosives in the cold vacuu of space, and all land costs $$$ in some way (taxes, limited inventory space, etc.) keep them moving off of the lot ASAP. Also, they will be needing to clear room for the latest models. If it is a used lot, they are clearing room for new trade ins, so same diff.

If the yard is orbital, then they have less need to keep them moving for space concerns, butt now security is much more of a factor, because guarding space is a monumental task. Even with inhibitors, or drives crippled to prevent theft, shipjacking can occur quite easily, which keeps the product moving.

I have always used the book prices on ships as suggested retail anyway, because there is no way any of my players start with brand spanking new gear 99% of the time. Maybe one or two of their items are just past broken in, and if it is a major item, figure that it is at 70-85% of capacities (MDC, AMMO, etc.) and that they may still owe $$$ on it.

Makes for much better role playing.

-Daikuma

Unfortunately, in an age of intangable credit, its tough for pirates to loot ship's holds for gold...

And all that raw killeryte coming out of the thundercloud is too delicate to handle.

Braden, GMPhD wrote:Unfortunately, in an age of intangable credit, its tough for pirates to loot ship's holds for gold...

And all that raw killeryte coming out of the thundercloud is too delicate to handle.

Yup. The best you can do is hope that you manage to pillage a very good cargo ship.

Guns?

More space ships (set the poor buggers adrift in life pods)?

Food?

Wimmins?

Hey! Maybe that's why the "Typical Runner ship" is worth less than its engine: the engine is hot!

If you follow the Runner ship creation rules in Rifter #34, then an engine that can go 5 lr/hr is CAF military. So maybe pirates do chop up the ships, then sell the parts to underworld ship builders, who in turn, sell a bunch of "Frankenstien" starships to criminals and smugglers....


We just might have something here...

darkmax wrote:well.... then we'll just have to drag those damn ships back to port first.

That's what phase weapons are for. Dead crew, fully grabbable pink slip...

"Rolls-Royce Phantom two. 4.3 litre, 30 horsepower, six cylinder engine, with Stromberg downdraft carburetor, can go from zero to 100 kilometres an hour in 12.5 seconds.

And I even like the color". -The Sultan, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

"Wolfen Packmaster Carrier. Twenty Million GigaWatt Antimatter Power Plant, With Soro-Suub XV Cruise Missle Tubes, Can go from Full Stop to 5 Light Years Per hour in 7.5 seconds. And the crew was eliminated without scratching a bulkhead!

Oh, and I still like the color: Kreeghor's Terror Pink!" -Random Ship Connoseur, On Center, Regarding his new "Aquisition"

-Daikuma

Pirates are out for the same thing all criminals want. Power. It can be power by way of wealth, or fear, or slavery or what ever. It still comes down to power

darkmax wrote:Wait, without gold to "borrow" from, killeryte to "acquire, or credits to transfer (to us), what the hell are the space pirates trying to gain?

Raw materials in transit?

Consumer electronics?

Colonists?

People with skills they need (operators, scientists, doctors)?

More wimmins?

Probably also pull a page from the Vikings and demand tribute and ransom stuff off