That's great stuff. Was it clear from where you sat that we no longer had
jump grids in the hull skin? I would have had the engineer doing a lot
more with configuring the contours of the jump envelope to "bite into"
j-space, allowing for anything carried externally, blah, blah, blah.
Faster jump prep, more accurate jump precip, less variance to jump time,
nice. Maybe even masking or spoofing jump entry so it would be less
evident where you were jumping to.
Of course the danger of your system is now that engineers have all those
pretty little cards, every other skill is going to want them. So we could
publish all of the skill/technique cards for all the skills. And we could
sell them in packs where they would be randomly distributed, and there
would be rare cards that you could get if you bought enough packs, like,
"pull flying monkey out of your butt, make any one random major system
failure go away."
Ah, hindsight.
> No worries, Dave. That's great to hear and very flattery, thank you Dave.
> The larger idea of organizing the technobabble came from Shadis, so not
> sure I could sell it. I sure adapted the hell out of it for my TNE and SW
> campaigns, though. :D
>
> Found the description I put on COTI back in 2002:
>
> I started with some guidelines I got from an old Shadis article.
> Basically,
> Technologies, (sub)Systems and Effects are put on index cards. For every
> "pip" [+1] in a technical skill, a player gets one card. AS GM, I gave
> players a choice out of a number of sleections, first based on
> fundamentals
> "required" and then as the player's skill went up, he would gain the
> opportunity for "electives."
>
> I based the cards on the DGP Starship Operations Manual extrapolated for
> TNE tech (HEPlaR and Jump Drives both gained additional subsystems, for
> example).
>
> Jump Drive was a Technology card gained from Starship Engineering. It
> explained the basic theories, as put in the various Library data, etc. The
> Jump Drive System card showed the various Individual components (hull
> grid,
> fuel tankage, fuel lines, HPG, links to the Main Computer [a separate
> Technology/Systems card(s) that would have to be learned on their own],
> etc
> etc).
>
> Engineers had speciality Effects they could learn. Solo Jump was the most
> basic (a single uncoordinated jump). Coordinated and Synchronized Jumps
> were other skills, as were rebuild/repair procedures. I incorporated the
> "alarm lights" as notifications to an individual system (which I had
> compiled random tables for). I would say for example to the engineer.
>
> (As the Ship is preparing to go to jump. "You get an alarm light
> indicating an issue with the (random roll): power spike from the Hull
> Grid.
> He consults that card, which says how the grid gets the fuel from the line
> and with energy provided by the HPG, creates the jump field in the
> ejectected h2 "bubble" around the ship [ the paradigm for jump IMTU) and
> see's there's a possibility for misjump, which he can relay to the
> captain,
> who can decide if it's worth the risk or if repairs (up to and including
> EVA) are necessary. Done either by GM fiat, or more rolls.
>
> If it happened while in Jump, it would be a whole lot more interesting.
> This, along with more random rolls, made repairs a whole lot more
> interesting, too. Naturally, the most skilled enginners ended up with all
> kinds of cards and tricks to do. Faster jump prep. Tweaked drives. Greater
> accuracy, less variance to the jump time, etc etc.
>
jump grids in the hull skin? I would have had the engineer doing a lot
more with configuring the contours of the jump envelope to "bite into"
j-space, allowing for anything carried externally, blah, blah, blah.
Faster jump prep, more accurate jump precip, less variance to jump time,
nice. Maybe even masking or spoofing jump entry so it would be less
evident where you were jumping to.
Of course the danger of your system is now that engineers have all those
pretty little cards, every other skill is going to want them. So we could
publish all of the skill/technique cards for all the skills. And we could
sell them in packs where they would be randomly distributed, and there
would be rare cards that you could get if you bought enough packs, like,
"pull flying monkey out of your butt, make any one random major system
failure go away."
Ah, hindsight.
> No worries, Dave. That's great to hear and very flattery, thank you Dave.
> The larger idea of organizing the technobabble came from Shadis, so not
> sure I could sell it. I sure adapted the hell out of it for my TNE and SW
> campaigns, though. :D
>
> Found the description I put on COTI back in 2002:
>
> I started with some guidelines I got from an old Shadis article.
> Basically,
> Technologies, (sub)Systems and Effects are put on index cards. For every
> "pip" [+1] in a technical skill, a player gets one card. AS GM, I gave
> players a choice out of a number of sleections, first based on
> fundamentals
> "required" and then as the player's skill went up, he would gain the
> opportunity for "electives."
>
> I based the cards on the DGP Starship Operations Manual extrapolated for
> TNE tech (HEPlaR and Jump Drives both gained additional subsystems, for
> example).
>
> Jump Drive was a Technology card gained from Starship Engineering. It
> explained the basic theories, as put in the various Library data, etc. The
> Jump Drive System card showed the various Individual components (hull
> grid,
> fuel tankage, fuel lines, HPG, links to the Main Computer [a separate
> Technology/Systems card(s) that would have to be learned on their own],
> etc
> etc).
>
> Engineers had speciality Effects they could learn. Solo Jump was the most
> basic (a single uncoordinated jump). Coordinated and Synchronized Jumps
> were other skills, as were rebuild/repair procedures. I incorporated the
> "alarm lights" as notifications to an individual system (which I had
> compiled random tables for). I would say for example to the engineer.
>
> (As the Ship is preparing to go to jump. "You get an alarm light
> indicating an issue with the (random roll): power spike from the Hull
> Grid.
> He consults that card, which says how the grid gets the fuel from the line
> and with energy provided by the HPG, creates the jump field in the
> ejectected h2 "bubble" around the ship [ the paradigm for jump IMTU) and
> see's there's a possibility for misjump, which he can relay to the
> captain,
> who can decide if it's worth the risk or if repairs (up to and including
> EVA) are necessary. Done either by GM fiat, or more rolls.
>
> If it happened while in Jump, it would be a whole lot more interesting.
> This, along with more random rolls, made repairs a whole lot more
> interesting, too. Naturally, the most skilled enginners ended up with all
> kinds of cards and tricks to do. Faster jump prep. Tweaked drives. Greater
> accuracy, less variance to the jump time, etc etc.
>