Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => HARP SF => Topic started by: area51games on July 28, 2013, 10:43:35 PM
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personally I found most militray vessels are faster, tougher, and able to at lease deal a little more damage then say the Civilian Light frighter?
or was those typos or a mistake on the scoutship
also these vehicles are suppose to be futuristic or at lease sci fi
can they have some more features please.
thier is nothing i have found yet on speed of communication, or how the Fed handles vehicles faster then comm, or the effect of the free market on the trade and merchant class if ships are so expensive how do common people afford them?
if only adventure can afford ships what dose it cost to import and expoert by weight? what is the market and share of a ship ?
what is the average pay to a crew memeber compaired ot a bridge crew memeber , what are the ship postitions
Pilot, Engineer , Com & sCANNERS, Astronav- Steward ? Fuel specialist? computer specialist?
to all ships come with AI ?
WHAT IS THE MILITARY RANKS? PER 5 dv?
Sargent
Ensign
sub-Lieutenant
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Commander
Commander
Captain
----?
what is thier pay while on active duty
is the star soldier different?
HOW DO YOU GET A SHIP BUILT?
where are the ship yards
what about planets and new races , do i imprt from Spacemaster?
then why do I not just play space master?
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ok
sorry for the dyslexic last message.
so here are the question
why is the scout ship lesser than a light fright but cost more?
what are the military ranks title for the star soldier, Astro-Navy, Merchants, scouts
how do you buy a ship is the develop point the only way?
how much dose it cost to ship a 1000 k of anything to another planet ?
like an Aircar , is their a set price per kilo per light year?
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I don't know the official number for how expensive it is to move 1 ton of material 1 ly, but I did some estimates for myself.
I assumed 6 au to a portal and 6 au from L5 to the destination. I assumed a living wage of 10 cr/hr for skilled workers (this seems to mesh with the cost of living expenses). I assumed a 12 hr work day for ship crew. I assumed most stuff is being moved by light freighters. I assumed an average hyperspace distance from portal to destination of 128 ly (this is about the average of the 39 destinations from earth). I assumed 30 ly from the destination to another portal back.
Given these assumptions I calculated the wages to be about 40000 credits per round trip. This made the wages somewhat insignificant compared to other costs. I also calculated the energy requirements for each leg to be about 16.5M EN. The cost of energy in the book is 10mSol/EN, resulting in a fuel cost of about 165,000 sol per 7770 tons. Remembering it takes 3 hyperspaces to move the two loads I multiplied the energy costs by 1.5. I Added up these costs then doubling them to account for wear and tear to the ship and owner profits and resulted in a price of 75 credits per ton per 128 ly.
Given the hideous amounts of fuzz and assumptions in this calculation I have no problem rounding it up to 1 credit/ton/ly.
I sure hope someone double checks my math and logic here, because there sure is enough room for a lot of stupid mistakes.
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This is important information. When I ran a space master campaign the costs of ship upkeep were ridiculous and didn't seem to make sense. It needs to be cost effective for someone to transport cargo and have money to pay for fuel, salaries, routine maintenance. Don't even consider what being a pirate really costs since you would need to also factor in repair do to ship damage.
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The cost of travel/transportation is key for many tramp freighter games. I could see this being important information for a Tintamar setting book.
As for the original question about the difference between a scout ship and a light freighter. The scout ship has three times the guns, twice the armor, twice the acceleration and speed, and an EW suite built into it's price. I'm not really sure why the freighter is more maneuverable and faster to respond than the scout ship however. I also believe the scout ship comes with additional science labs and scanners that the freighter just wouldn't bother with.
I would assume these reasons drive the cost of the scout ship far above the cost of the freighter.
I believe the rank progression for the Astronavy is included in the core book:
"Cadets who graduate become Sublieutenants,
and in due course, are promoted through the ranks of Lieutenant,
Lieutenant-Commander (responsible for a section such as
engineering, comms/sensors, gunnery, etc.), and eventually to the
command positions of Commander (executive officer on larger
ships) and Captain. Squadrons and fleets are commanded by flag
officers (Rear Admirals, Vice Admirals, or Admirals). Commodore
is an appointment in the AstroNavy enabling junior captains to
command small task forces without risk of seniority conflicts with
other, more experienced captains."
If I remember correctly the star soldiers is on the next page.
Scouts and the like probably follow a very similar rank progression
-Pyrotech
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I believe the rank progression for the Astronavy is included in the core book:
"Cadets who graduate become Sublieutenants,
and in due course, are promoted through the ranks of Lieutenant,
Lieutenant-Commander (responsible for a section such as
engineering, comms/sensors, gunnery, etc.), and eventually to the
command positions of Commander (executive officer on larger
ships) and Captain. Squadrons and fleets are commanded by flag
officers (Rear Admirals, Vice Admirals, or Admirals). Commodore
is an appointment in the AstroNavy enabling junior captains to
command small task forces without risk of seniority conflicts with
other, more experienced captains."
If I remember correctly the star soldiers is on the next page.
Scouts and the like probably follow a very similar rank progression
-Pyrotech
See Page 23
there are no enlisted men. Cadets who graduate become Sublieutenants,
and in due course, are promoted through the ranks of Lieutenant,
Lieutenant-Commander (responsible for a section such as
engineering, comms/sensors, gunnery, etc.), and eventually to the
command positions of Commander (executive officer on larger
ships) and Captain. Squadrons and fleets are commanded by flag
officers (Rear Admirals, Vice Admirals, or Admirals). Commodore
is an appointment in the AstroNavy enabling junior captains to
command small task forces without risk of seniority conflicts with
other, more experienced captains. All junior officers are expected
to have one primary section specialty and one secondary specialty.
As for the rest of the issues raised, I have flagged the thread to Nicholas to comment on.
For my HARP SF campaigns we never worry about those details. Instead we use the powers that be at Translight Survey to simply send my adventurers to new worlds....
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thank you for the response.
I need to read closer, in the core book and other, sorry.
I have a player who suggested that comparative to our current world freighters -light, that the cost of owning a freighter- light is prohibitive to cargo/ merchant enterprising.
I have sermonized from my experience with other Sci-fi game that the mortgage of a ship is multi-generational.
I have played such games that list a kind of standard cargo list with a random effects for each port and planet.
Also what about each planets laws and technological.
like in the fire fly series the planets on the outer edge where more primitive in tech, even though the rich had availability to hi tech .
I have said this before else where, but in the future maybe a book specialization in each profession could be offered.
a merchant profession book could have these and many more for a merchant campaign, or if you do not think enough material for each profession, maybe a dual profession book.
My Campaign: we do not need any more heroes
sessions 1-we do not need no combat droids
session 2 -we do not need no conscription
session 3 we do not need no saboteurs
session 4 we do not need no limited editions
currently I am running a campaign where the players are all different profession aboard a merchant ship that
has been conscripted as an state of emergency to run a blockade network. the Astro-navy - using a trade certification clause , made up> called article 66 : that in a time of war or emergency all Federation merchant vessel certified for intersteller commerce and transport and bear or carreing-Astro navy contracts are on reserve status to be called upon
in exchange all fees and discounts for Astro navy fueling stations are enacted.
now the Astro navy has called these reserve merchant ships to stand a 40 ly net work , that if a silkie scout vessel runs the network one ship well notifies another and so on to warn the Fleet.
i digress for a moment
because I can not find any where so far the technological means of information transference or communication means the Astro navy has other then ships with Drives that that travel faster then standard communication relays or faster then light, so a boat or express boat means is the only thing i can think of, unless you want to consider tachyon or quantum string theory, but then you have to consider transporters and telepathic issues , can an adept communicate faster then light if they are hooked up to a so called tachyon booster?
another thought That came up in play
can a ship sacrifice cargo space to have bigger missiles and torpedo s and launch tubes , witch in a real world setting happen in world war two- little boats carried two torpedo s that could sink a larger vessel.
so to summarize the questions
commerce
communication
then the postulation of Professional themed books.
ship modifications
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Well using my calculations above and assuming 1/2 of the owner/ship expense went to the owner and the other half went to maintaining the ship that would mean about a 56 year return on investment.
From my experience in the real world investors are looking for a better ROI than that. Typically I would expect a ship to have an effective operating life of about 30 years before major refits are needed. So if I add another credit per ton-ly to the cost, bring it to 2 creds/ton/ly then the ROI is about 22 years. At this point it is profitable just for the freight costs.
But I would note that this is only for pure freight costs. At 1 cred/ton/ly it doesn't make sense for pure shipping companies to exist (although with no FTL communications they could supplement this income with data shipments as well). Actual merchant ships could expect to buy locally cheap items, ship them to a destination with higher prices and sell them. This is the classic free trader model. It has a lot more risks but the profits of the sale could increase the ROI.
-Pyrotech
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I might double that number to 4 or 5 to account for tariffs, entry fees, ship upkeep, insurance, non standard fees (bribes), etc.
MDC
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I was thinking about tariffs and port costs as well. But those can vary a lot. I suppose you could use a roll on a table to determine that, but I'm not a fan of pure random factors. I would prefer the GM decide how high these should be. Typically these kinds of fees depend on exactly what the freight is, and are not just based on mass and distance shipped.
I think I would give a rough guideline to my players of 5 credits/ton-ly shipping cost (to account for berthing fees and other port fees and usage costs of the portals) plus any tariffs on the goods. The tariffs on the goods only apply when unloading them at a port and would be a percentage of the value of the cargo.
At least until I see a better figure 87)
-Pyrotech
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You know... if someone wanted to do an semi-in-depth analysis of this and put together details on such pricing and costs and wanted to write up an article on the subject for the http://www.guildcompanion.com/ (http://www.guildcompanion.com/), I suspect it would be a well-read and useful article... hint hint
Regardless of that though I think the key to such info is to try to be sure that the prices/costs are not too high either. One thing to keep in mind is that different GM's may want to include such higher tariffs, gate-use tolls, docking fees, and bribes; while others may assume that such things are relatively cheap and low and not bother with them. So to some degree those costs and prices may need to be varied somewhat based on the GM and their interpretation of the setting.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there will likely not only be some variation on tariffs and such based on what the shipment is, but also on what is charged for such shipments (things that have higher tariffs will tend to have a higher shipping charge, things that require more handling (in transit or in loading/unloading) may have higher charges involved as well. As an example of this (someone had made a firefly reference earlier, or maybe that was in a different thread on a similar subject), when Serenity was used to ship the cattle, that added a bit of additional work (not only in handling, but also the cleanup after they were unloaded, as I'm sure Jain wasn't happy about having to hose down and squeegee the cargo hold deck afterwards).
Likewise not all freight is of similar density and thus doing an across the board mass measurement may not always be the best way to handle it (for example, some of my employers many products an entire semi-load weighs only a couple of tons, whereas some others you can't fill up a semi with the product as it would exceed the weight limits on the roads (many of these are often times shipped by rail when possible). Likewise some of our products need special handling due to the extremely hazardous nature, which drastically increases our shipping costs.
So there should probably be some built-in variability to such numbers for some types of freight for various reasons. But it would be good to have such values defined, even if only loosely.
But this is an interesting discussion so far on this subject.
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Hmm that would be an interesting article to write, unfortunately I come from flyover country and large scale shipping experience is a bit hard to come by in my group of friends. If I can find some good research material on tariffs and actual shipping costs I might be able to come up with an interesting article - but I suspect someone with better experience on the topic could do better than I.
While thinking about this topic I did brainstorm up an interesting idea. Since tariffs are so variable and affected mostly by the origin, destination, and contents - would a chart cross-referencing the cultures be able to simplify this? For example corporate worlds are likely to have high tariffs on materials not from their company - especially items from competitors. So if a table showed Corporate on one axis, corporate on another axis, and a numeric factor as the lookup with a special note (indicating a lower factor for in company shipments) how reasonable would this be. It is of course a gross simplification, but one that would be fairly easy to use. A second table could be used with a factor for type of goods vs. culture of the destination. Just total the two lookups then multiply it by the declared value of the goods to determine the tariff. I may even include another table to show trade agreements (i.e. a roll of 98 means a free trade agreement with no tariff at all, but a 04 means embargo).
So my question is would this be helpful for someone? Is it too simplified? Is it too complicated? Is the predominate culture of the planets a reasonable reference to use for this? I haven't had a good opportunity to really think hard about it.
-Pyrotech
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I think it can work , if some one can write it up, it would be a great part of that merchant profession book i was talking about or maybe profession series of articles in the guild Q ?
here is a ideal I had of items that can be randomized and still be customed , maybe used as spring board of what in on the local planet market.
Merchandise
Agriculture Equipment
Antiques and historical artifacts
Animal stock live
ANIMAL Exotic/zoo
Armor personal
Armor Vehicle
Armor Ship
Biological material /waste
Component part s industrial
Component part s Electronics
Construction equipment
Construction materials
Cybernetic
Domestic
Droids/Robots
Electronics
Experimental /prototype
Foodstuff
Industrial Waste
Junk Metals
Medical equipment
Menial ore
Paper/Print
Pharmaceuticals
Power generators
Space vessel parts
Telecommunications
Transports
Weapons
Base trade value
d10x 1000x Quality x Quantity
Base quality
1d10 range from 1 terrible { -15/-1) to superior 10 (+10)
1 -15 , 2 -10, 3 -5, 4 -/+ 0, 5 +2 ,6+4,7+6,8+8, 9+9,10+10
Base Quantity
d10 x d10 kiloliters/cubic meters/tons
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I've been researching the freight rate and tariff rates topic a bit and found something that may be useful for players looking for real world comparisons.
A 40' shipping container costs about $3750 to ship about 2000 nautical miles by sea without tariffs, but with insurance (for $100,000 of contents). It takes about 4 days for the container ship to cover this distance. A 40' container maxes out at about 30 tons of capacity. Using my cost of living estimates I put the conversion of credits to real world cash at about 1 sol = $2US = 1 British Pound. Running the math on this I come to a number of about 18 credits/metric ton/day traveled.
A number that high gives a lot of room for additional insurance, higher wages, and much faster return on investment for the ship's owner.
It also turns out that the US government has a pretty easy to follow webpage for Harmonized Tariff. An awful lot of items get a fixed cost per unit mass/volume instead of % of value, but I have been able to make some broad averages.
Using this I may see if there is enough information for me to make a stab at writing an actual article on this.
I've also been thinking more on the source and destination chart idea I had. The more I think about it the less sense it makes to me. I'm leaning more towards an average tariff rate by type of item and culture, modified by trade agreement factor. This should be simpler and hopefully more realistic.
Sorry to ramble on, but hopefully this information is useful to someone.
-Pyrotech
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Sounds like a very interesting approach to tackling such costs. I would love to see such an article and I'm sure that there are plenty of others who would as well. I was hoping to do something along those lines if nothing "official" came out in the published books covering such things.
That was the one thing I liked the most about the original Traveller system (didn't care much for the system mechanics, but their economic and transport info was great) was the breakdown and explanation of such things of such things so that a crew could do transport runs just hauling cargo from place to place (and then the Gm could throw in some intrigue or other side adventures into the mix to make things interesting).
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yes the Merchant prince is a good Campaign model for adventure, just trying to make a living kind of game with the drama of a crew living together kind of like a Television show I saw once it was fire bug or something.
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The TV show you are talking about was probably "Firefly" which was developed and produced by Josh Weiden (sp??). And yes it was a very good show that dealt with daily life of such a crew (among other things).
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pyrotech,
Yes I think it is a great idea for an article and for general ease of use I might bump the number's up to 20 cred or some other easy multiplier for younger gamer's.
I would also hope you could list the real world web pages you got your info from as it might also be of use to a lot of others out there.
MDC
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hey Wolfhound , i WAS BEING SARCASTIC, I Know it was Fire Fly that why I have a quote from the series on my post-LOL! all is well .
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Well I'm still reality checking things before I ever even start putting words to the page. An article like this could easily get unmanageable without a clear scope and sufficient starting information.
I'd be more than willing to share my sources so far (if I can find them all again). This would allow someone else to double check me if they were interested enough.
I used the following site to determine the cost of Los Angeles to Honalulu. Interstate sea travel avoids most tariff concerns, but still gets you the container ship rates. I could also get guidelines for how much additional insurance added to the cost from this site.
http://worldfreightrates.com/freight
I just googled the distance between honolulu and LA for that number.
The following site gave me the weight capacity of a 40' container:
http://www.apl.com/equipment/html/equipment_specs_standard.html
Wikipedia gave me the container ship speed. I rounded down to 20 knots to account for accel/decel, unfavorable weather, and other delays. Plus that makes the math a little simpler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship
I believe I've previous talked about my guesstimate on gold piece and credit conversion rate to real world currency. But it boils down to comparing the cheap daily rate of a hotel/inn as a guideline for the regular persons daily living costs (housing, food, and everyday consumables). Add in to that clothing and entertainment costs (which vary a lot). But if I remember this properly the book says 25 credits a night for a cheap hotel. That means 10,000 credits per year as a number for just getting by. I equate that to a real life income of about $20,000 a year. This means a $2 to 1 credit ratio. Checking this back against the hotel costs, a cheap hotel is about $50 US a night, which is 2x the credit costs.
And here is the harmonized tariff site that I roughly averaged together.
http://hts.usitc.gov/
I had to make a few assumptions such as: item a 25%, item b 25%, item c 250%, item d 25% - item c is probably a protected item and is artificially higher than the others. In many of these radically higher percentages they are often 10x higher than similar items in the category. So I'm calling the 10x factor the level at which highly protected goods are taxed vs regular items in the category.
On another note, I think this post levels me up! Time for my gold star I think!
-Pyrotech
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Yes welcome to the gold star club.
MDC
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hey Wolfhound , i WAS BEING SARCASTIC, I Know it was Fire Fly that why I have a quote from the series on my post-LOL! all is well .
Yeah, I wasn't paying attention, until after I posted my response and then noticed your quote (but too late to pull my foot out of the mouth), which made me feel like kind of an idiot.
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good job, I like your work, this could be a universal article for both RM/SP/HARP
BECAUSE this is need information weather you are a pirate in space or on the water or a merchant in space or on the ground or in the water as it where. but I think you are doing a fine job of conversion verse real world.
You have taken a complex issue and heading to play ability. some body should give this man a gold star.
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no! all is well, we all play the that role from time to time depending on our Coffee intake, so go have a cup on me, humm only if it free or bill me-LOL
I owe ONE CUP OF Coffee for WolfHound, GET THAT NASTY foot taste out any way.:!
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I've been populating a rough table for duty rates based on the predominate culture of the destination and figured I would check what people thought of a basic set of assumptions I am currently running with.
I am assuming the US economy closely matches a "Cosmopolitan" cultures economy. It does produce some "raw" goods (food mostly), but exports a lot of worked items, and is a major consumer of goods. So if I used the US average tariffs as a starting point for the Cosmopolitan culture, how realistic would that seem?
I'm thinking most corporation cultures would be close to cosmopolitan but would be even more protective of worked goods, and encourage the import or raw goods.
Frontiers will mostly be exporting raw goods and importing worked goods and have a balance to match.
Aristocratic may be a balance between corporate and cosmopolitan, but may have higher duties on arms.
Belters export worked goods and minerals, but import food and organic goods.
Militaristic cultures will probably have low duties on arms, armor, and vehicles. Their duties on luxury items will probably be higher though.
Exotic cultures may be a hard one. I might have to think on that one. I could just run with my "typical" levels of 25% for raw goods and 50% for worked goods. This one might be challenging.
Religious cultures...... hmmmm. Another harder one. They could go a few ways. I am leaning on high tariffs on weapons and luxury items, but low on most others.
Any comments or concerns?
-Pyrotech
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Yes welcome to the gold star club.
Gold Star Club - does that mean we get Blackjack & Bloopers?! :o
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i like where you are going , use what we have in the system , before inventing something new, go with the Cultures its keeps it simple and easy. with out having to having to come up with a lot of different other statistics like law and government type and such.
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by the way I still think space ships are way too high in the cost are , I like the cost in spacemaster better. more encouragement for commerce. Like our prices today. I just looked up a used light freighter and its only a Million $
not 280 m!
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Pyrotec,
I too love what you are doing and using the USA can be a good start. If you can see any areas where we the USA load extra tariff's onto products and services do to politics and try and cut those out that would be great. But IMHO it can/would also be very hard to see just where they are and why they are there.
I can see the Militaristic culture go either way as on one hand they need to keep the troops happy but on the other discipline is key and "their" "good times" if they happen more frequently actually cut down on discipline.
The same goes for religious cultures as it can greatly depend on the religion.
What I might do is have some sort of scale (maybe a sliding scale) that you can adjust for the type of religious, scientific or militaristic culture's you have.
Naptha23,
Are Blackjacks and Bloopers like Cracker Jacks here in the USA?
[size=78%] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack)[/size]
MDC
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Militaristic would definitely be a high tariff environment.
Also keep in mind that tariff's can also go to the furthest degree and become an importation ban.
This then forces smuggling of these goods and even higher price tags for transport.
As for Weapons - most societies will restrict importation of weapons without proper licenses, and in those cases the government is aware of the buyer and seller. If the weapons include cutting edge technology you can also expect that the country will limit export of those weapons to ensure the high tech weapons remain in their hands - and in order to support that the government assists with funding those high tech projects (not just weapons, but pretty much any high tech projects that they can restrict exportation of).
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Naptha23,
Are Blackjacks and Bloopers like Cracker Jacks here in the USA?
[size=78%] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack)[/size]
MDC
Unfortunatley no. :-[
This was meant to be a small reference to the robot Bender (Futurama; "Blackjack and hookers!"). To keep my post relatively clean, I wrote "Bloopers" to avoid the derogative term "hookers." :-X
But since this little pun failed exceptionally, I guess there I have my little blooper.
Back to topic.
Concerning the discussion about wages and starship costs I would like to point out the audiobook series The Trader Tales (http://podiobooks.com/series/a-traders-tale-from-the-golden-age-of-the-solar-clipper/) by Nathan Lowell. These audiobooks are licensed under the Creative Commons and you can download them for free on podiobooks.com. The Trader Tales tell the story of Ishmael Wang, who is forced to join a interstellar trader ship as a lowly Quartershare and his carreer; the series lacks battles, wars and most of the time violent encounters and is rather a space opera than an adventure.
If you do not have a problem with that, then the series are quite amusing and interesting; anyway, during the series you can learn quite a bit about naval and starship operations, wages, earnings and starship values. Oh yes, and coffee! ;D
I may very well be mistaken, since I have no knowledge about modern ships, but I assume that spaceships should be a lot more expensive than naval ships, since they are much more sophisticated. If looking at prices, I would rather compare spaceships to submarines, since normal ships are operated twodimensional and have no problems with 3d-orientation in zero gravity and astrogation. ???
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*edit*
Just wanted to add that even Stark Trek is much more violent than the Trader Tales.
(I apologize for the second post, I wanted to edit the first and clicked the wrong button. ::))
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No problem I did not get into Futurama as I got burned out on the Simpsions when it first came out.
MDC
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http://www.nbcnews.com/science/japan-cargo-launch-sends-talking-robot-space-station-6C10840002 (http://www.nbcnews.com/science/japan-cargo-launch-sends-talking-robot-space-station-6C10840002)
Here is a quote from the above article about today's cargo craft,
"This is the fourth mission for JAXA's HTV program (the name is short for H-2 Transfer Vehicle) since 2009. The cylindrical disposable spacecraft are built to haul up to 6 tons of cargo to the International Space Station and then be discarded at the mission's end.
HTV craft are called Kounotori (Japanese for "White Stork") and are about 33 feet long by 14.4 feet wide (10 by 4.4 meters). They carry supplies and equipment inside a pressurized section, which astronauts can access after the vehicle links up with the station. They also have an unpressurized section that can be accessed via the station's robotic arm to retrieve spare parts and other larger gear that can be stored on the orbiting lab's exterior."
MDC
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The cylindrical disposable spacecraft are built to haul up to 6 tons of cargo to the International Space Station and then be discarded at the mission's end.
So it is cheaper to discard a whole spaceship after its mission than to recycle it? Wow. In my opinion, that is a whole new level of decadence and single-serving-anything (reference to Fight Club (both the film and the novel): single-serving toothbrush, single-serving soap, single-serving friendships, etc.). :o
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Yes I guess we "The Human Race" are just not there yet for recycling of spaceship parts. In the future if and when mining in space takes off then I think it will all be about recycling.
MDC
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pyrotech, sounds like an excellent start and that your assumptions sound pretty sound. I agree that the religion and exotic cultures would be the most problematic as they will greatly depend on the values and principles behind them (since they will likely have differences between each one). Might be worth leaving that up to each specific GM and recommend that they use the others as a basis from which to build or customize them (or have future authors use the details that you develop as a rough starting point for detailing such religion and/or exotic cultures relative to such tariffs and such.
Also, forgot to mention, but disposable parts and vessels are not that uncommon for space flight as this point in time, but I could see in the future this changing. In fact the U.S.'s space shuttle program was the first real attempt at re-useable space vehicles (at least as far as I am aware, although I could be wrong there).
Also, I agree with naphta23 on the issues of ship costs. Submarines would be a closer proximity (but still probably too cheap on a relative basis) than surface ships when it comes to costs relative to space based vehicles (as submarines still don't have to worry too much about radiation (at least not in the same way that space based vehicles do) and while they are usually very technologically advanced they probably are still not as much so as a spacecraft would need to be (although freighter based spacecraft would tend to be on the lower end of the technology reference point, but would probably still be at least comparable to modern-day subs).
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We definitely need an orbital trash compactor. I mean, once you're spent the fuel to send anything into space, there certainly isn't any reason to send it back down again, is there? Ideally, recycling orbital junk should be how space stations get bigger.
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Speaking of orbital recycling, I always liked the anime "Planets". Hard enough science to believe what is happening, enough comedy to keep it fun, but its really about a nice relationship.
An on to another question for those still interested:
Do you think a Scientific Culture is going to manufacture it own high tech goods, or is it going to import them? I guess the question is if the primary product of a Scientific culture is information and research, or if they are going to make high tech items too.
I'm currently leaning that the society is going to need jobs to support all the thinkers, plus jobs to give the thinkers families something to do. That means lots of service industry, plus lots of high tech automated manufacturing. So right now I'm thinking that Scientific cultures would have high tariffs on high tech goods. But I can also see the opposite argument - so I'm going back and forth on it now.
So what is your take on this idea?
Thanks
-Pyrotech
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I would tend to think that they would have some high-tech and automated manufacturing on-planet, but that could vary from one such planet/society to another.
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I need to double check my book (which is at home and I'm on the road.... and my new laptop doesn't have the pdf... aagh!)
My gut reaction is a Scientific culture would want to encourage the best technology possible coming into it - no tariffs at all. High tariffs would exist on standard products that automated production would have already been set up for.
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...and they'd constantly be trying to reverse engineer anything they couldn't already produce.
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...and they'd constantly be trying to reverse engineer anything they couldn't already produce.
Why does that sound so strangely familiar...? ???
;)
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personally I found most militray vessels are faster, tougher, and able to at lease deal a little more damage then say the Civilian Light frighter?
or was those typos or a mistake on the scoutship
The scoutship has more Armor, more Weapons (and higher size) and Passive Defense as standard. The scoutship is capable of reaching 7% of lightspeed and 600g acceleration; the freighter is 3.5% lightspeed and 300g.
also these vehicles are suppose to be futuristic or at lease sci fi
can they have some more features please.
Feel free to embellish the spacecraft. These were constructed as baseline examples.
thier is nothing i have found yet on speed of communication, or how the Fed handles vehicles faster then comm, or the effect of the free market on the trade and merchant class if ships are so expensive how do common people afford them?
None of the known races have FTL communications (see page 101 of the main book).
Companies and banks can afford ships, see other people's posts for how it happens in the modern world
if only adventure can afford ships what dose it cost to import and expoert by weight? what is the market and share of a ship ?
what is the average pay to a crew memeber compaired ot a bridge crew memeber ,
Not worked out by me for Tintamar.
what are the ship postitions
Pilot, Engineer , Com & sCANNERS, Astronav- Steward ? Fuel specialist? computer specialist?
You need a pilot, an engineer, a comms/ew person and gunners for space combat. Everything else can be done by wrapping these functions in various ship roles and ranks.
to all ships come with AI ?
Nope.
WHAT IS THE MILITARY RANKS? PER 5 dv?
Sargent
Ensign
sub-Lieutenant
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Commander
Commander
Captain
----?
what is thier pay while on active duty
is the star soldier different?
structure of AstroNavy and Starsoldiers and FedPol given in main book pp 23-24.
HOW DO YOU GET A SHIP BUILT?
If you have the money, you can get it built.
where are the ship yards
Most developed star systems have their own facilities. There are various places that excel in particular things - such as the Belter League for Starfighters.
what about planets and new races , do i imprt from Spacemaster?
then why do I not just play space master?
There will be a species creation system in the SysOp's Guide and a star system creation system as well. New worlds and species will undoubtedly appear in future sourcebooks as well.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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hi all again look I have extreme scifi and I think i missed something where is the ship construction chapter?
can i converse space master book easy or has someone already done that?
has any one thought of updating cyberspace to harp sci fi ?
or how about a clean conversion to space master imperial or privateer setting to harp sci fi? the problem i have iwth privateer is it not finished as rules and spacemaster is kind of out dated compaired to the new rolemaster play test. i really like the talents.
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I believe the ship building rules are intended to be included in the HARP Sci-Fi Gamemaster guide book (I can't remember it's semi-official title off the top of my head). Unfortunately I seem to also remember this book is several positions down Nicholas' queue, and he has been somewhat buried in real life issues of late.
I'm sure Thom or Nicholas could answer this better.
I've built several ships using the examples in Sci-Fi Xtreme as models. You have to make some guesses, but it isn't too bad. Capital ships however are outside of the example set - so they are much harder to deal with. But really if PCs are taking on capital ships you should probably just be using story rather than stats (aim for the small exhaust port, use the damage scaling rules, and roll real high - and for the love of all things good, use the frackin' multi-million credit targeting system).
I've tried converting other systems ships before - and that is often harder than just making a new one.
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I can't speak for Nicholas, but what Pyrotech says seems accurate enough....
Of course, if he wanted to draft the shipbuilding rules on his own and submit it to GCP I'm sure Nicholas would be open to considering it as a possible product offering - especially if combined with some of the other material that I've seen from Pyrotech.
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well wealth being wealth
My group need a ship as an adventure hook, I created retro com a company that builds sci fi ships according to old sci fi ships in old two vee movies and stories. they are custome made according to modern <2445 YEAR> Tech. some billionaire owners order the Millennial Falcon design to use as a flag ship and finished paying for it but it took so long to build that the company went belly up, the group got it as a song and a dance as it where only 160 m !
but its really reconizable and a few other flaws.
its just a adventure hook ideal and I am passing it on, I gave it a freighter light stats and t wicked it a little.
i got the old ICE Time raider book on ebay and Incorporated it into my game, then I got to look at spacve master second edition bought the book printed them up and got privateer too . I like the system of Privateer but like the imperial setting in second edition. the thing is this why not redo the books of rolemaster and space master with double stats for HARP /RMSS?
and I bought cyberpunk and Looking to convert it to HARP with some redo in some of the tech, but I like the computer stuff in cyberpunk space master better then the computer rules in HARP!