Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-15-2013, 03:02 AM   #111
Dammann
 
Dammann's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
I have a few sci-fi games that I'd like to work out the vehicles to, and Spaceships is just too chunky for my tastes.
Exactly. The granularity is too coarse for my taste, even if it is a pretty clever system.
Dammann is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:01 AM   #112
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
If you feel that way, I doubt you'd find VDS a "convenient book," which is a good example of its narrow appeal. Like Kromm said, it's for gear heads who don't mind busting out a calculator.
I loved playing with Vehicles 3e. I'm pretty baffled by the Spaceships books. As you say, it's for gear heads who don't mind busting out a calculator - Spaceships, more or less, isn't, and that may be where the disconnect is. Vehicles 3e was for people with a more-or-less engineering sort of mindset; I'm a programmer, and there's definitely an overlap in the way programmers and engineers think.

Spaceships is meant to be for "everyone else", which makes it a little alien for me.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:07 AM   #113
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I loved playing with Vehicles 3e. I'm pretty baffled by the Spaceships books. As you say, it's for gear heads who don't mind busting out a calculator - Spaceships, more or less, isn't, and that may be where the disconnect is. Vehicles 3e was for people with a more-or-less engineering sort of mindset; I'm a programmer, and there's definitely an overlap in the way programmers and engineers think.
Vehicles were primarly baffling for me because I couldn't figure what the volumes of stuff need to be before I had a draft of a vehicle on my screen. With Spaceships, at least I have I hint what to start with based on how I envision the end product.

Don't get me wrong, vehicles were fun. But with SS you can eyeball stuff and be ready to provide a rough statline in a few minutes. With vehicles, each and every craft had to be the lovechild with a special place in the campaign.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Spaceships is meant to be for "everyone else", which makes it a little alien for me.
Spaceships seem to be more alien in action than in construction. I find the combat rules clunky and unbalanced. Also extremely sensitive to minor interpretations (such as the most hateful difference between 1 shot in 20 seconds and 30 shots in 10 minutes with the very same turret).

(Off-topic: the most alien thing in the last 24 hours was learning about overloading both the true and the false operator; that's right, the realisation that an object can be both or neither at the same time is Lovecraftian. Then again, I'm a beginner.)
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:14 AM   #114
Mailanka
 
Mailanka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Vehicles were primarly baffling for me because I couldn't figure what the volumes of stuff need to be before I had a draft of a vehicle on my screen. With Spaceships, at least I have I hint what to start with based on how I envision the end product.
I tend to start with the parameters I know ("A car that goes as fast as hell, low to the road, looks slick, and seats 2.") and then work backwards from there. The volume is largely irrelevant, and will become obvious once I've worked out everything else. I was surprised how well this works.

(But I often find I take GURPS things and work them the wrong way around. While most people use the Aliens generation system in GURPS Space to see what pops out, I flip to the back, create a society that interests me ("Hmmm, what would a hyper-paranoid but very technological species look like"), then use that to derive the basic behavior, and from the behavior determine what sort of critter they are, and then fill in the blanks to suit how I now envision them).

I often say "GURPS Vehicles only needs algebra," which some people apparently take to mean "You can understand variables," but really algebra requires you to understand numbers and how to make them work for you. It involves taking a formula, snapping it into pieces and then putting them back together in a way that suits your purposes better. Many people do not understand how to do this, not really on an intuitive level. For them the "lego" approach of tossing components into a space-ship sized bin might be more appealing.

(Incidentally, I'm amused that every "GURPS releases are slow" thread seems to inevitably turn to GURPS Vehicles? What will we complain about when it comes out? Or am I being excessively optimistic?)
__________________
My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars.
Mailanka is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:38 AM   #115
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
I tend to start with the parameters I know ("A car that goes as fast as hell, low to the road, looks slick, and seats 2.") and then work backwards from there. The volume is largely irrelevant, and will become obvious once I've worked out everything else. I was surprised how well this works.

(But I often find I take GURPS things and work them the wrong way around. While most people use the Aliens generation system in GURPS Space to see what pops out, I flip to the back, create a society that interests me ("Hmmm, what would a hyper-paranoid but very technological species look like"), then use that to derive the basic behavior, and from the behavior determine what sort of critter they are, and then fill in the blanks to suit how I now envision them).

I often say "GURPS Vehicles only needs algebra," which some people apparently take to mean "You can understand variables," but really algebra requires you to understand numbers and how to make them work for you. It involves taking a formula, snapping it into pieces and then putting them back together in a way that suits your purposes better. Many people do not understand how to do this, not really on an intuitive level. For them the "lego" approach of tossing components into a space-ship sized bin might be more appealing.
This reminds me about the gun-around-calibre vs. calibre-for-gun approaches. I find it that most players come to me and ask roughly something like this:

'If I take a hull roughly comparable to a BSG Viper*, what kind of modules can I expect to fit in it?'

With VE2e, I had no idea what to answer. With SS, I can gauge roughly what calibre guns I can fit on it, how much space can be afforded for the pilot, what the DR and MR will be etc. Things are particularly difficult for judging the amount of space/mass needed for limbs of mecha and transforming vehicles. This actually came up in one space opera I played in; in contrast, my ship was a glorified space tug with a vectored inertialess drive (including power generators) occupying 75% of its mass and a spinal gun in the other 20%. It also outmanoeuvred the mech-fighter in space and almost in atmo, through pure brute thrust.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
(Incidentally, I'm amused that every "GURPS releases are slow" thread seems to inevitably turn to GURPS Vehicles? What will we complain about when it comes out? Or am I being excessively optimistic?)
Technical Grappling? *:D*

* == You can substitute the Caldari Drake for the more munchkin-minded. ;)
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:40 AM   #116
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
(Incidentally, I'm amused that every "GURPS releases are slow" thread seems to inevitably turn to GURPS Vehicles? What will we complain about when it comes out? Or am I being excessively optimistic?)
GURPS Girl Genius? :D
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 08:49 AM   #117
Turhan's Bey Company
Aluminated
 
Turhan's Bey Company's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
(Incidentally, I'm amused that every "GURPS releases are slow" thread seems to inevitably turn to GURPS Vehicles? What will we complain about when it comes out? Or am I being excessively optimistic?)
A new edition of Magic. That'll hold us until 5e.
__________________
I've been making pointlessly shiny things, and I've got some gaming-related stuff as well as 3d printing designs.

Buy my Warehouse 23 stuff, dammit!
Turhan's Bey Company is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 09:17 AM   #118
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
A new edition of Magic. That'll hold us until 5e.
Oooh, yes, what was I thinking.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 10:24 AM   #119
Grouchy Chris
 
Grouchy Chris's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: The City of Subdued Excitement
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
(Incidentally, I'm amused that every "GURPS releases are slow" thread seems to inevitably turn to GURPS Vehicles? What will we complain about when it comes out?
In addition to the above mentioned, GURPS Bestiary.
__________________
The GURPS Wiki has 581 articles and counting!
My blog, mainly about GURPS.
Grouchy Chris is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2013, 11:45 AM   #120
mehrkat
 
mehrkat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Austin Texas
Default Re: GURPS Releases seem to be slow?

I not sure whether this puts me in the minority but I would rather see a GURPS vehicle system that is much more like Spaceships.

or a "spaceships" series that took different time periods
Maybe "high tech", "modern", "ultra-tech" (for smaller ships)
with lens books
biotech, magic tech, super science, steam-punk

But spaceships makes a great framework.

Then when they finished may a computer program that combined them all and allowed them to choose or make a shape and fill it with the rules and points being calculated as you go.
-- sorry got lost in a fantasy there for a moment :)
__________________
He stared out in the distance to see the awesome might of the Meerkat war party.
mehrkat is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:12 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.