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 08-12-2017, 12:34 AM   #1
David Johansen
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Default Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

So, I was thinking. A dangerous pastime I know.

And we never quite had a Generic GURPS Space setting in the same sense as we had with Yrth. Sure, we had GURPS Aliens with its implied setting. Sure we had three or four space atlases but we never quite had a full on setting.

Now I'm thinking this should be a really generic space opera with TL 10 being the norm. Maybe TL11, but not TL12.

Things were really agnostic about FTL but I think hyperdrive is the right answer. I think the sample ship construction system from page 89 of GURPS Space first edition would be a good starting point for nailing down the technology. So hyperdrives and reactionless thrusters but no force fields.

Pockets of TL 11 ^ exist like Kronin force shields and force swords.

I'd assume Space Atlas I - III probably form part of the setting but a larger area map and some political ideas might make it more of a setting.

Let's say most interstellar governments only hold around ten worlds but some larger entities control hundreds. There should be places for space pirates and rogues as well as some evil empires led by scenery chewing madmen.

Any thoughts?
David Johansen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 06:22 AM   #2
Flaco76
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Irving, TX
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

I am interested in them.
Flaco76 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 06:56 AM   #3
Ronnke
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Australia
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Yrth 2250. :)

Planet Yrth is a balkenised state and declared neutral, diplomatic, territory by all worlds/colonies within the interstellar community.

Megalan Empire
Caithness Commonwealth
Al-Wazif Republic
Cardiel Confederation
Al-Haz Dominion
Araterre Alliance

Magic may still be a thing.

It's an interesting idea to ponder... :P
__________________
Bro! Do you even GURPS?
Ronnke is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 07:37 AM   #4
robkelk
Untitled
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johansen View Post
...
Things were really agnostic about FTL but I think hyperdrive is the right answer.
...
Does time in hyperdrive pass at the same time as time in the "real" universe? If time passes more slowly in hyperdrive (the way it does in the original Macross series), then you're opening up the same can of worms that you'd be opening with STL near-lightspeed time dilation effects. If it doesn't, then you get causality paradoxes. Which issue do you want to have to deal with?
__________________
Rob Kelk
“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
– Bernard Baruch,
Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950
No longer reading these forums regularly.
robkelk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 07:43 AM   #5
David Johansen
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

I tend to prefer hyperdrive to be instantaneous for the passengers. None of Traveller's, "you spend a week in jump space and nothing happens." As this is a space opera setting we'll just handwave causality. However it might be that the hyperdrive manufacturers have built in a "time sump" that causes the ship to sit in hyperspace until time catches up so to speak. Big corporations might want to protect the stock markets from time travelling spacemen, so to speak.

It does occur to me that Yrth could be a planet in GURPS Space. It might have higher mana level but that doesn't really mean it isn't out there somewhere. Of course, the people there still think it's 2017, their time keeping is a bit off.
David Johansen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 08:35 AM   #6
Emerald Cat
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Quote:
Originally Posted by robkelk View Post
If time passes more slowly in hyperdrive (the way it does in the original Macross series), then you're opening up the same can of worms that you'd be opening with STL near-lightspeed time dilation effects. If it doesn't, then you get causality paradoxes. Which issue do you want to have to deal with?
Would these paradoxes crop up for variants of hyperspace that act as shortcuts due to their alien topography? Rather than having the ship achieve superluminal velocities in hyperspace.
Emerald Cat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-12-2017, 02:39 PM   #7
Anders
 
Anders's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Emerald Cat View Post
Would these paradoxes crop up for variants of hyperspace that act as shortcuts due to their alien topography? Rather than having the ship achieve superluminal velocities in hyperspace.
My understanding, from watching PBS Space Time*, is that they will.

* I am not a physicist
__________________
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius
Anders is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2017, 03:59 AM   #8
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Don't worry about time travel shenanigans; that assumes that FTL Drives are compatible with Einstein, whereas generic Space Opera assumes that FTL supercedes Einstein, or ignores Einstein entirely.

I'd make reactionless drives dependent on Hyperdynamic Grids (from Vehicles Expansion 1): they're not truly reactionless, it's just that what they react with is in hyperspace rather than normal space. This imposes a top speed on them, limiting their usefulness as kinetic kill weapons, and plays up the “wet navy and aircraft” tropes for which so much Space Opera is infamous.

Go with TL10+force fields, possibly allowing for something like the swashbuckling option mentioned in several editions of Space (where high-energy attacks are stopped far more effectively than low-energy attacks). Apply this notion to planetary shields, and you largely remove the incentive to try for Station Drops and possibly even orbital bombardment while still allowing for troop transports and carriers to project power.

(In the setting for which I originally developed these ideas, I had a sort of Unified Theory of Superscience, where everything marked TL^ was in some way dependent on hyperspace. As such, there were no dedicated Hyperdynamic Grids; instead, force fields doubled as Hyperdynamic Grids where it mattered.)
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]

Last edited by dataweaver; 08-13-2017 at 05:07 AM.
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2017, 04:22 AM   #9
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

Also, I'd allow both Hyperdrive and Jump Drive, with the latter being dependent on naturally occurring jump points and allowing for instantaneous travel over very large distances, whereas Hyperdrive gives you near-total freedom in terms of departure and destination points (probably with some sort of gravity-based restriction that requires you to be in space — or maybe even out of orbit — before you can activate it) but requires travel times measured in days or weeks for interstellar trips, and tends to be best for travel to nearby worlds.

This being a generic Space Opera setting, I wouldn't mess with time dilation effects in hyperspace: a one-week trip takes one week for both the crew and the worlds they're traveling between. Likewise, Jump Drives don't have to worry about it either, because jumps are immediate for everyone.

If Jump Gates aren't just dependent on natural astrography but are also expensive to build and maintain, you can institute a “core and frontier” model where core worlds have access to Stargates and are tightly networked into a highly developed, “civilized” culture, whereas worlds without Stargate access tend to be less developed “frontier worlds”.

(In the original setting for which I developed this notion, Jump Gates also acted as system-wide Reality Stabilizers, resulting in core worlds being very high-tech due to easy access to massive industrial based but with very little superscience while the frontier worlds tended to be lower tech but with all sorts of superscience. I don't know if we'd want to go that way here; but it does allow the setting to handle a wider variety of sci-fi styles.)
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]

Last edited by dataweaver; 08-13-2017 at 04:50 AM.
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-17-2017, 08:57 AM   #10
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Yrth In Spaaacccceee!

It seems to me, when I look at this thread, that I'm seeing a specific image of what "outer space adventure" means, and it's one that involves swordplay. So prototypical outer space heroes would be, say, John Carter, Paul Atreides, and Luke Skywalker (or Obi-Wan Kenobi).

And, you know, that's one way to do it. But it's not the only one. The Lensman novels are classics of (what we now call) space opera, and they had almost no swordplay; when they had melee it was often hand to hand, with at least one notable excursus into battlesuits.

I think it might be said that on one hand we have outer space adventure being about knights or musketeers; on the other, about World War II era soldiers and pilots and cops, with perhaps an occasional glance back to old Western gunfighters (the "Wild Bill Williams" sequence). And what I think of as classic outer space adventure is more the latter.

But on the third hand, both of those are taking familiar historical (or romanticized historical) scenarios and projecting them into space. And if there is a human future in space, it's at least as likely to involve social forms and images of heroism that haven't even appeared yet.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   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 11:10 AM.


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