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Systems & Settings => HARP SF => Topic started by: NicholasHMCaldwell on April 27, 2007, 06:11:24 AM
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Anyone have any reports of how HARP SF has worked in actual play?
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Alas, we've only been able to get together once.
Character generation went smoothly for us, although for our simple scenario we skipped over talents due to time constraints.
Civilian combat is extremely deadly, even at first level. We had a simple "cops and robbers" scenario with the characters shooting at each other while hiding behind stopped cars, and even with the partial cover offered by the cars, almost everyone was down in a couple of rounds :).
We have plans to play with a ground car chase scene (the prequel to the firefight above), but I don't know when we'll be able to get together again; there's a big wedding coming up!
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Hi,
My campaign will start somewhere in May, as we GMs are taking turns.
So unfortunately no playtest yet.
BR
Juergen
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We have a group playing - we are all novices with HARP though so we are keeping things simple. I have already touched on some of the items that we ran into with the game. Our approach has been more of read only the sections that we need to get the game started than a word by word or page by page approach. Summary thus far:
Hits! - Yep it was pointed out in the forums where it was mentioned we can find them but we still missed them. Mentioning how they are derived in the character creation summary, a glossary or as a link in an index would be nice.
Opponents - There were none. This one was a shocker when starting an scenario.
Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.
Cultures and Adolescent skills - I liked that section it helped flesh out some of the background for the characters and fit with the characters we do have in the group.
Have not done anything with Vehicles. I kind of hesitant to try anything at this point as it would have to be ship to ship engagement and I would hate to blow up the group at this point in the game. :)
Anything specific you would like a report on?
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Opponents - There were none. This one was a shocker when starting an scenario.
A Master NPC table may well appear but everything else character related needs to be stable first.
Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.
Agile Defense, Instinctive Defense, can boost DB. Cover is very important, make sure range penalties are applied, use Combat Actions such as Dodging Fire, Minimize Exposure, and Combat Crawl.
HARP Fantasy characters without armor have it somewhat easier - if they can get to melee range, they can transfer OB to DB through parrying and that can make all the difference.
Anything specific you would like a report on?
I've no specific requests - this is more a request for news on how things are working out in play, odd things you've found, odd things you can't find in the rules (but you need them), and so forth.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.
I like this part, it plays like a fire fight, where everyone dives for cover.
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Just to be clear; I wasn't *complaining* that combat was deadly. I like deadly combat; it forces characters to apply alternate solutions... :-)
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Just to be clear; I wasn't *complaining* that combat was deadly. I like deadly combat; it forces characters to apply alternate solutions... :-)
I was merely pointing out to mystic that it should be possible to up DB significantly without resorting to combat armor.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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After the first short session i recognized the following:
Cyberware
The Cyberware could be better balanced (the prices and efforts):
The Aditional Options (S.183) are very expensive (eg Cyberarm -Agile Arm +15 normal cost 15000 credits; with aditional option: DB: +3 Cost: x15 you have a total cost of 225000 credits). For this amount of Money you can by more usefull Cyberware.
Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...
Ship Combat
Nice that there is a task for all Characters. I really like this! :)
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After the first short session i recognized the following:
Cyberware
The Cyberware could be better balanced (the prices and efforts):
The Aditional Options (S.183) are very expensive (eg Cyberarm -Agile Arm +15 normal cost 15000 credits; with aditional option: DB: +3 Cost: x15 you have a total cost of 225000 credits). For this amount of Money you can by more usefull Cyberware.
I should have used a clearer example in the text.
A +15 Agile Arm with DB +3 is costed as follows:
Base unit: Cyberarm 5000 credits x15 for +3 DB = 75,000
Agile Arm: 1000 per +1 = 15000
Total price: 90,000 credits
Cyberarm with just Agile Arm = 5000 + 15000 = 20,000 credits
The cost multipliers for DB and RRs versus EMP attacks are those used elsewhere in the book for other equipment, e.g. a +15 pistol costs x15. Now they may be too high, but if they go too low, we'll have game balance issues, particularly since it is harder to control money flow in sf games.
Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...
There is some wriggle room for increasing the lower end of the spectrum. At the top end, it is undesirable for small spacecraft to end up with hundreds or thousands of hits as space battles will go on until someone gets lucky on the critical table, however. I'll look into it.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...
There is some wriggle room for increasing the lower end of the spectrum. At the top end, it is undesirable for small spacecraft to end up with hundreds or thousands of hits as space battles will go on until someone gets lucky on the critical table, however. I'll look into it.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
I looked into it. I've upped the structural hits across the board, and I've made the size modifiers more severe, etc. The relevant pages of manuscript are now available from the Downloads link for registered HARP SF beta testers. I'd appreciate playtesting on this.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
Had my first HARP SF session yesterday, my players play a Dilletante (who is a blend of Soldier and Scientist), a Fusion:Spy, a Pilot (who wants to become Tech later on) and an Entertainer (a professional Gambler to be more precise).
The scenario was that they woke up in a hospital and found out that 7 years have passed since their last memory (and they have never seen each other before). They are on a backwater planet and their spaceship was accidentally shot down 2 days ago. For some reason several groups demand delivery of their cargo....
My comments so far (session was not rule intensive, more roleplaying):
- Depending on your profession, the DPs you have to spend are tight or not. Especially Engineers, Scientists and Pilots have it difficult, while a Soldier, Spy or Entertainer faces a more relaxed situation.
- The Fusion:Spy can practically not afford more than one PSI Field (the one he starts with). Extrapolation tells me that an Adept should not go beyond 2, at least when he has hopes of reaching higher tiers.
- I substituted on many occasions the skill to use something with the relevant Lore skill. E.g. the character with Medical Practice could identify the machines in their room, the character with Engineering: Magnetogravitic could try to find out whether their Space ship could crash the way it was described by the witnesses -> I think this is a good concept, perhaps mention it also in the manuscript (if not already there), as it menas you do not have to have tons of Lore ranks and can focus on your profession.
- During character creation we really missed further clarifications on the Piloting Skills and Machine Operation (i.e. which subcategories are there, as with Engineering).
- One of my players did a Excel based character sheet. Its quite nice, but you still have to check it - and the buttons are in German. I can send it to anyone who is interested (and I will send all characters to Nicholas, perhaps he can reuse them for his NPC table...).
- The basic rule mechanics from HARP again proved to be rock solid (RRs, ...).
Will keep you updated as the campaign progresses.
BR
Juergen
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I'll cut and paste the relevant skills (vehicle, machine op, signaling, etc) into a doc and put it on the Downloads section while we wait on Tim completing another pass. Allen has a new version of the spreadsheet that incorporates almost all the latest changes that could go up too.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Thanks a lot. And could you also post the updated Starfighter Pilot TP? The pilot has taken it and I didn't know how many ranks in Combat Pilot he received from that.
BR
Juergen
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Thanks a lot. And could you also post the updated Starfighter Pilot TP? The pilot has taken it and I didn't know how many ranks in Combat Pilot he received from that.
BR
Juergen
Not worth putting up another pdf for this list:
Starfighter Pilot:
Combat Style & Maneuver: Combat Piloting 2
Gunnery 2
Navigation 3
Signaling 2
Space Pilot 3
Vocation: Crewmember 2
Weapon Skill 2
Zero-G Maneuvering 3
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
Had another session today (but a short one) and the only issue we stumbled upon was:
Why is communicating via radio under Machine Operation and not under Signaling?
My players were confused...
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
Had another session today (but a short one) and the only issue we stumbled upon was:
Why is communicating via radio under Machine Operation and not under Signaling?
My players were confused...
BR
Juergen
Offhand i'd say because signaling involved communicating via codes, such as morse or semaphore, whre as simple radio (vocal) communication is just knowing what buttons to push to send or recieve (more or less)
Lord damian
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Use either Machine Operation or Signaling. Basic radio operation is just pushing buttons so Machine Operation is good enough. Using codes really requires Signaling (but the basics operation of the kit is also within the Signaling skill.)
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
I thought both skills have been spilt into several skills (like Engineering). With Machine Operations there is one skill dedicated explicitely to communicating via radio, while with Signaling there is none...
So does that mean using a radio is so basic that I can use any Signaling skill or am I misunderstanding something?
BR
Juergen
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I thought both skills have been spilt into several skills (like Engineering). With Machine Operations there is one skill dedicated explicitely to communicating via radio, while with Signaling there is none...
More precisely, there is a Machine Operation skill that covers all types of communicators, not just radios.
So does that mean using a radio is so basic that I can use any Signaling skill or am I misunderstanding something?
There's room for overlap with the Signaling: Sensors and Countermeasures skill basically. If a character has that one, then I'm not going to demand that they must have Machine Operation: Communicators as well to use a radio. I might well throw penalties at characters who try to do clever non-signaling related matters with a radio if they only have Signaling skill though. Or let them do it once and then gently suggest that they have now learned enough that they really ought to buy a skill rank in the relevant Machine Operation skill.
I'm coming from the viewpoint that subdividing skills into ever-finer slivers (e.g. the perception and herb skill disasters of RMSS) is something that we should aim to avoid, where possible.
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Reporting from my new HARP SF campaign, I deliberately handed out some significant cash to the characters (now level 3.5) as a financial reward for their sterling service in playtest adventures and to see where it would be spent. Lots of cyberware was bought - obviously the cool thing among my players - and this has prompted a revision of cyberware prices (to bring them into line with equipment multipliers).
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
Yesterday we had session 3, which was great fun (a pilot fumbling the driving maneuver on a grav tank for which he has no skill, and a character manning the cannon for which he has no skill either but pressing the "fire" button every round while at the same time turning the turret in random directions....).
My feedback:
a) Vehicle Weapons in Atmosphere: to me the particle cannon is de facto a blaster cannon in all but name. A Mk 1 particle beam cannon has a RI of 2km. A heavy support blaster has a RI of 40m. My players and I were quite astonished when comparing this.
So if looking at today weapons, I would guess that a heavy support weapon goes in my opinion up to 2cm, a Mk 1 cannon starts at 2cm and goes up to 4cm (assuming that a main battle tank has about Mk 3 and a battleship Mk 5). So a factor of 50:1 in range between the largest heavy support weapon and the smallest cannon seems too much to me. I do not know about the other weapons (Lasers,...), but I can imagine that there is a similar situation. In addition I saw that range is independent of Mk. #.
Suggestion: Close this gap between and heavy support and cannons and make at least in atmosphere the RI dependent on Mk #, as also for normal weapons RI increases with Critical Size or size of the weapon.
b) Vehicle Sensors: the tank had sensors. Looking at the ranges given in the manuscripit, which are in AUs, I wondered whether they are applicable for vehicles.
Suggestion: either include a table for sensor ranges of vehicles which are lower than for spacecraft or rule that vehicles are too small for sensors and use scanners.
c) The Engineer started making heavy modifications to the gear (e.g. he put energy from the cannon to the grav drive, which resulted in a "hopper" (he rolled a 66 ;D) -> he used tin from the roof of a stable to build wings to get some sailing abilities on top; he wanted to make a welding torch out of his blaster but his result was so low that he got a cigar lighter instead;....).
I would have appreciated some more detailed guidelines on the difficulty of the associated maneuvers, especially what happens when one of the many required engineering skills only partly fails and so on.
And for those who are interested: the result of the fumbled driving maneuver was that the grav tank found itself inside an office building on the first floor, with a desktop computer hindering the drivers vision (and everyone got an A impact criticial) - and since the building was made of wood, the character on the cannon set it on fire, which resulted in danger of everyone getting roasted as the driver was still staring at the desktop computer...).
BR
Juergen
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And what I forgot:
If I have a burst capable weapon that makes huge criticals -> in burst modus, do they get another +20 size modifier, as the critical size can not be increased?
If yes, I would state so.
BR
Juergen
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Personally, i would halve all ranges in atmosphere/gravity wells. Line-of-sight weapons like lasers and energy beams suffer diffusion from atmosphere, Projectile weapons suffer from the effects of gravity and friction, and usually an atmosphere adds interfearance for sensors, as do ground features such as mountains, cities, etc. I might even quarter them.
Also remember that even though a weapon may be able to fire out 100k, if it's Line-Of-sight, it's not gonna drop over the horizon, it's going to continue more or less straight out into space. IMHO, anything over about 5k should be balistic and Indirect on anything but the largest of planets (size of planet determining distance to horizon, etc.) or ground-to-air/space weapons.
Lord Damian
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a) Vehicle Weapons in Atmosphere: to me the particle cannon is de facto a blaster cannon in all but name. A Mk 1 particle beam cannon has a RI of 2km. A heavy support blaster has a RI of 40m. My players and I were quite astonished when comparing this.
So if looking at today weapons, I would guess that a heavy support weapon goes in my opinion up to 2cm, a Mk 1 cannon starts at 2cm and goes up to 4cm (assuming that a main battle tank has about Mk 3 and a battleship Mk 5). So a factor of 50:1 in range between the largest heavy support weapon and the smallest cannon seems too much to me. I do not know about the other weapons (Lasers,...), but I can imagine that there is a similar situation. In addition I saw that range is independent of Mk. #.
Suggestion: Close this gap between and heavy support and cannons and make at least in atmosphere the RI dependent on Mk #, as also for normal weapons RI increases with Critical Size or size of the weapon.
When you say "I would guess that a heavy support weapon goes in my opinion up to 2cm" (where I suspect you meant 2km)
do you mean that the Range Increment 7 (-200 penalty) ends at 2 km?
If you do mean something like this, then RI 7 for a Support Blaster is 320m which is one-sixth of 2km. Which is not 50 to 1.
And I could possibly see the atmospheric ranges for the lower vehicle weapons being reduced.
b) Vehicle Sensors: the tank had sensors. Looking at the ranges given in the manuscripit, which are in AUs, I wondered whether they are applicable for vehicles.
Suggestion: either include a table for sensor ranges of vehicles which are lower than for spacecraft or rule that vehicles are too small for sensors and use scanners.
Those ranges are most definitely for spacecraft. I can imagine some vehicles that could have sensors with shorter ranges, and likewise even smaller vehicles that would have to make do with scanners or nothing.
c) The Engineer started making heavy modifications to the gear (e.g. he put energy from the cannon to the grav drive, which resulted in a "hopper" (he rolled a 66 ;D) -> he used tin from the roof of a stable to build wings to get some sailing abilities on top; he wanted to make a welding torch out of his blaster but his result was so low that he got a cigar lighter instead;....).
I would have appreciated some more detailed guidelines on the difficulty of the associated maneuvers, especially what happens when one of the many required engineering skills only partly fails and so on.
That goes beyond the scope of the core rulebook and into SysOp's Guide territory.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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And what I forgot:
If I have a burst capable weapon that makes huge criticals -> in burst modus, do they get another +20 size modifier, as the critical size can not be increased?
If yes, I would state so.
BR
Juergen
No. It does not increase the size any further and in particular it does not give a size bonus for the extrahuge crits that don't exist. You just get the burst bonus.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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When you say "I would guess that a heavy support weapon goes in my opinion up to 2cm" (where I suspect you meant 2km)
do you mean that the Range Increment 7 (-200 penalty) ends at 2 km?
If you do mean something like this, then RI 7 for a Support Blaster is 320m which is one-sixth of 2km. Which is not 50 to 1.
And I could possibly see the atmospheric ranges for the lower vehicle weapons being reduced.
Hi,
Sorry for not being more precise. I was talking calibers...
I am basically trying to translate the rules into the real world and then back into rules. My line of argumentation is the following:
1) In HARP SF, a heavy support weapon like e.g. a heavy MG is the heaviest weapon that can be carried by a team. A Mk 1 cannon is the smallest weapon that can not be carried and counts as a weapon system, i.e. more damage and range than the heavy support weapon (and an OB bonus due to the targeting system).
2) Trying to translate this into real world modern weapons: the heaviest caliber to be carried by a team is 2 cm, but more likle 1.27 cm (0.50 caliber). The smallest weapon systems/cannons are typically on an APC and range from 2-4cm caliber (most often 3cm as far as I see it, ant they are burst fire capable).
3) So from that I assume that Huge critical is up to 2cm, Mk 1 is 2-4 cm.
4) There is a significant difference in range and damage between those two, as a cannon has normally also higher speed in addition to heavier ammunition. The resulting damage difference is difficult to tell, as both are normally more than enough to kill a person, but effective range difference is perhaps a factor 3-5 (not based on hard data but gut feeling).
5) Going back to HARP SF, the RI relation between a Mk 5 Blaster and a Mk 1 Particle Beam Cannon is 40:2000 or 1:50. This is more than 10 times than I would expect looking at point 4.
6) Looking at the real world, range increases with caliber. In HARP SF the RIs of the cannon do not change depending on Mk. #.
7) I assume that these comparisons are on a general level also true for any other kind of direct fire weapons, i.e. Blasters, Lasers,....
8) I therefore suggest to make the transition from personnel to vehicle weapons smoother in terms of RI and to make RIs of vehicle weapons dependent on Mk. #, at least within an atmosphere.
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
We had yesterday again a session (our 5th, but there was nothing to report on the 4th) and the following topics arose:
- BMR: the characters wanted to "Dash" back into their spaceship during combat. In the rules this requires a "Sheer Folly" maneuver. The question is: on what skill? And what kind of resolution - most likely "Percentage", or? I was confused and allowed any kind of skill that might help them.
- BMR: to me BMR seems to be in HARP SF much more important than in HARP - simply because getting out of blast radii, hiding behind cover and so on becomes much more important. BMR is tied mainly to height -> the character can simply choose the BMR he wants (neglecting the Qu bonus for the moment) -> I wonder whether this is the right way...
- Sensors & Scanners: the lack of distances on a planet was again a big issue. The characters landed their ship on an installation of the local underworld (I designed it as a Vietcong like jungle fortress I have seen in movies, i.e. underground, many tunnels, ...). I had a hard time determining how deep the sensors penetrated, from how far away things could be located, .. There was also the question whether you can scan for many things at once (i.e. structural design and lifeforms within). I ruled "Yes", using the modifiers cumulative. Was this ok?
- Blaster Grenade: How long does it take to make a grenade out of a blaster? One character modified it within a few rounds and I let it pass for story reasons, but I wondered...
- Escape Blast: we used this Combat Maneuver for the first time and it lead to much fun (one fumbled, diving straight into the next tree - ouch!). So I would say it works very well!
Otherwise it is going better and better and we had a lot of fun. As a new player has joined, I will also with him make the exercise of raising and changing his character - my idea is that his body was so damaged in the past that it was replaced by a robotic body. So I will have the chance to test those rules. Question: for this to happen, the character need both the virtuality and the downloadable form talents, or?
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
We had yesterday again a session (our 5th, but there was nothing to report on the 4th) and the following topics arose:
- BMR: the characters wanted to "Dash" back into their spaceship during combat. In the rules this requires a "Sheer Folly" maneuver. The question is: on what skill? And what kind of resolution - most likely "Percentage", or? I was confused and allowed any kind of skill that might help them.
Percentage. There isn't any designated skill and that was intentional in HARP Fantasy. For SF, you could legitimately look for any Sports skill or anything else that was vaguely Athletic.
- BMR: to me BMR seems to be in HARP SF much more important than in HARP - simply because getting out of blast radii, hiding behind cover and so on becomes much more important. BMR is tied mainly to height -> the character can simply choose the BMR he wants (neglecting the Qu bonus for the moment) -> I wonder whether this is the right way...
That I'd have to bounce upwards to Tim. I see your point.
- Sensors & Scanners: the lack of distances on a planet was again a big issue. The characters landed their ship on an installation of the local underworld (I designed it as a Vietcong like jungle fortress I have seen in movies, i.e. underground, many tunnels, ...). I had a hard time determining how deep the sensors penetrated, from how far away things could be located, .. There was also the question whether you can scan for many things at once (i.e. structural design and lifeforms within). I ruled "Yes", using the modifiers cumulative. Was this ok?
I'll put up the 4e version (which has the new planetary sensor values etc.) this weekend. Have TGC matters to deal with so won't make any progress on the vehicle construction arena. Good call on the multiple factors sensing mods.
- Blaster Grenade: How long does it take to make a grenade out of a blaster? One character modified it within a few rounds and I let it pass for story reasons, but I wondered...
It's probably rounds rather than minutes.
- Escape Blast: we used this Combat Maneuver for the first time and it lead to much fun (one fumbled, diving straight into the next tree - ouch!). So I would say it works very well!
Otherwise it is going better and better and we had a lot of fun. As a new player has joined, I will also with him make the exercise of raising and changing his character - my idea is that his body was so damaged in the past that it was replaced by a robotic body. So I will have the chance to test those rules. Question: for this to happen, the character need both the virtuality and the downloadable form talents, or?
BR
Juergen
He needs to buy both - one to go electronic, one to use a robot body.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
After having designed the robot:
- Instead of the translators, a character could also learn the language or? This would have the drawback of higher cost but the benefit of knowing the language independently of the robotic body. Am I correct?
- Do I understand correctly that the DP cost for e.g. Agile Body is independent of the actual AG bonus given?
- What happens to the human Skill Flexibility when the character becomes a Robot?
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
After having designed the robot:
- Instead of the translators, a character could also learn the language or? This would have the drawback of higher cost but the benefit of knowing the language independently of the robotic body. Am I correct?
Correct, and the character would avoid the -25 penalty for no real ranks.
- Do I understand correctly that the DP cost for e.g. Agile Body is independent of the actual AG bonus given?
Correct. The DP cost is the same. The cost goes up in proportion.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi
- What happens to the human Skill Flexibility when the character becomes a Robot?
BR
Juergen
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Hi
- What happens to the human Skill Flexibility when the character becomes a Robot?
BR
Juergen
The character keeps it. If it was used for something that no longer makes sense for a Robot, i.e. a psi skill, then that's tough.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
2 more:
- The robot should from the outside and in its behaviour be indistinguishable from a human being (even the character does not realize at the beginning that he is a robot, as he has forgotten the last 7 years...). What I am missing in the rules is: an option that the robot can eat, drink (and p... and s...) and perhaps even sweat (or is this part of biological surface) incl. DP cost. Perhaps with an option that the robot can even recharge his batteries this way?
- How long do the batteries last before the robot has to recharge, i.e. how many eus does it need per hour or day of normal operation?
And:
- Batteries can be swapped with a Routine Machine Operation maneuver - which? Most lilely "Tools", or?
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
2 more:
- The robot should from the outside and in its behaviour be indistinguishable from a human being (even the character does not realize at the beginning that he is a robot, as he has forgotten the last 7 years...). What I am missing in the rules is: an option that the robot can eat, drink (and p... and s...) and perhaps even sweat (or is this part of biological surface) incl. DP cost. Perhaps with an option that the robot can even recharge his batteries this way?
Call it half a million credits, cost it at 5 DPs (but I'd suggest the character get it for free).
- How long do the batteries last before the robot has to recharge, i.e. how many eus does it need per hour or day of normal operation?
The batteries are Utility Power Cells (two) plus a mini as a backup, so that will give you the number of days before replacement is required.
- Batteries can be swapped with a Routine Machine Operation maneuver - which? Most lilely "Tools", or?
Tools.
best wishes,
Nicholas
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- How long do the batteries last before the robot has to recharge, i.e. how many eus does it need per hour or day of normal operation?
The batteries are Utility Power Cells (two) plus a mini as a backup, so that will give you the number of days before replacement is required.
Hi,
Yes, but I how do I translate this into hours or days? This only tells me that a robot has 400eus for main power and 20eus as backup.
BR
Juergen
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- How long do the batteries last before the robot has to recharge, i.e. how many eus does it need per hour or day of normal operation?
The batteries are Utility Power Cells (two) plus a mini as a backup, so that will give you the number of days before replacement is required.
Hi,
Yes, but I how do I translate this into hours or days? This only tells me that a robot has 400eus for main power and 20eus as backup.
BR
Juergen
That's 420 days.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
Had another session last week, but unfortunately we didn't use the Psionics rules. Hopefully this week.
The problems I faced was still with scanners. The characters were approaching an enemy base that was in reality a dug in spaceship (looked like a missile, the propulsion part was the one nearest to the surface). The pilot soon started using his sensors, stating that he was looking for (life forms, energy, ...).
First problem: he rolled high, but if I assumed that he really tried to look at all things at once, the negative modifier was unbelievable high -> I ruled it like a CRR, but had a hard time to decide what he found and what not.
Second it was difficult to decide on the right modifiers. Especially things like: penalty from being submerged in earth? Penalties from ship armor? Can they detect lifeforms at a depth of 40m below surface? What happens if there is something obvious which the character should detect but the player failed to mention? Also I had the impression that not all things that could be found are included in the sensor table (of course), so I had to do some extrapolations.
And beside all this I wondered what kind of sensor technology they use.... (it must have been a micture of ultrasonic, radar, long wave radar, infrared sensing and so on).
Looking back at the previous sessions, where sensors have also been a big issue, for me the question arises whether the topic of sensors shouldn't be handled differently to address these problems. I think it is important to get this topic right, as at least my players tend to rely heavily on sensors.
One idea I have is to use a CRR like system. I.e. the character must decide which one of the 4 categories (biological, construct, planetary, stellar) he wants to scan. Actually I would include a 5th: power. Then there is for each a CRR like table, only inverted (i.e. the higher you beat the target number, the more information you get). The target number is simply derived from a combination of distance and shielding.
For each of the categories there would be a different kind of sensors. And for some categories, e.g. "Construct", I would rule that only active sensing gives results, the same applies when the shielding becomes too high.
What do you think about this?
Example:
Target Number is 100 + 1 per cm of shielding * material modifier (p. 161) - Range Modifier (p. 170/171)
Power:
Target Number: find power plants
TN +10: identify power plants
TN +20: find microfusion reactors
TN +40: find vehicle power cells
TN +60: find power cells
TN +80. find minicells
And perhaps there should be a bonus if the sensors concentrate in one direction?
BR
Juergen
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I'll have to have a think on this. It might be that the Knowledge Table paradigm rather than a CRR is the route to go here.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Last weekend using the e rules for psionics we did game[HARP Fantasy] but i did not get a chance to use my powers much as the big battle that happened during a corination I left my weapons behind to show respect. So I spendt a good portion of time just staying away from the big bad deamon that appeared. In 2 weeks I should have better info. And the e rules for Psi drasticly changed how I built my character.
MDC
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Hi,
Issues in the last session:
- A character wanted to forge some military papers (real paper). We did not find the right skill. Is a skill missing?
- Also for scanners I would like to see a distance table with range dependant bonuses and penalties, as the characters are making intensive use of hand-held scanners.
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
Issues in the last session:
- A character wanted to forge some military papers (real paper). We did not find the right skill. Is a skill missing?
Crafts: Calligraphy. Or something like that. To forge a physical object, use the same skills that would be used to make the object but impose a hefty penalty for making it a "perfect" copy. That's why I'm not instantly saying we've got to have a Counterfeiting skill.
- Also for scanners I would like to see a distance table with range dependant bonuses and penalties, as the characters are making intensive use of hand-held scanners.
That's probably sensible. I've been busy with real-world deadlines for the past couple of weeks so have only been able to get some thinking in on vehicles. I'll revisit scanners in due course.
best wishes,
Nicholas
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Hi,
I know its late (and will not change anything in the manuscript), but after many months we had yesterday again a HARP SF session.
It was the first time we had some space action.
Remarks:
- 2 space ships wanted to dock -> a rule would have been nice
- In the sensor tables there is nothing stated on the difficulty of predicting another spaceship's course
- There is a support maneuver missing: Taunting Enemy
(Concerning the last one: one character didn't know what to do, so he said he wants to demoralize the enemy ships with Public Speaking. He several times fumbled so badly that they received hefty bonuses and the other players frantically tried to shut off the communication system. It was hilarious.)
BR
Juergen
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Hi,
I know its late (and will not change anything in the manuscript), but after many months we had yesterday again a HARP SF session.
It was the first time we had some space action.
Remarks:
- 2 space ships wanted to dock -> a rule would have been nice
It is a vehicle maneuver using the docking penalties in the big list of vehicle maneuver modifiers, and use +0 as the default if none of the conditions apply.
- In the sensor tables there is nothing stated on the difficulty of predicting another spaceship's course
Use 141 as that's the same for analysing drives.
- There is a support maneuver missing: Taunting Enemy
(Concerning the last one: one character didn't know what to do, so he said he wants to demoralize the enemy ships with Public Speaking. He several times fumbled so badly that they received hefty bonuses and the other players frantically tried to shut off the communication system. It was hilarious.)
We don't really have anything like that in any set of HARP or even RM rules. Possibly best left to GM's discretion.
Best wishes,
Nicholas