First off... Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
It was worth the wait - I really like the new product. Going back . . . okay, too many year to really contemplate at the moment, I GM'd v1.0 SM campaigns and had a great time of it. Played a few campaigns too that friends ran. But the biggest issue we had with both SM and RM was the combat resolution. It always took too long and tended to get in the way.
I never played HARP SF because the new group I now play with were D&D focused. It was a quicker system in terms of resolving combat but I missed the days of Spacemaster, racing around the galaxy, meeting new people, robbing them blind and being shot at for it.
So to say HARP SF has been eagerly awaited is an understatement. As far as the first instalment goes the source material is great. Universe detail (yay), tech toys (yay), lots of guns (double yay) and best of all, a simple combat resolution (yayyayayayayay!). My group are playtesting it this week so I'll give some feedback once it's done.
One question though: Do different races have different initiative bonuses or is this already taken into account by improved stats in IN and QU?
I'll be interested to see what the combat system is like. I know for SM:Privateers it was a bit of "Pray you get initiative or you're all dead" so looking forward to trying out this one. I'm also REALLY looking forward to HARP SF Extreme and the SysOp supplements. Is there any vague dates for these products yet?
Oh, one last thing (edit). Is anyone looking at building anything to manage GM related tasks (action, combat resolution) on the iPad? I've played with some apps for D&D gameplay and have found them useful, even if it was just an app version of d20 SRD.
