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Old 08-08-2015, 09:49 AM   #11
malloyd
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

Free Fall is one of an entire class of movement skills (along with Flight, Hiking, Running and Swimming) that have never quite fit in. I really think the problem with them is that they are listed as skills because they are things you can learn, but the traits they modify are otherwise defined and modified by attributes or advantages. They got stuck being skills because advantages were conceptualized as innate and unlearnable.

You can sort of make Free Fall work if you reimagine it as Acrobatics (Zero G) or something, but it's never going to feel quite right as a DX limiter or base for your zero G move rate.
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Old 08-08-2015, 02:29 PM   #12
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Free Fall is one of an entire class of movement skills (along with Flight, Hiking, Running and Swimming) that have never quite fit in. I really think the problem with them is that they are listed as skills because they are things you can learn, but the traits they modify are otherwise defined and modified by attributes or advantages. They got stuck being skills because advantages were conceptualized as innate and unlearnable.

You can sort of make Free Fall work if you reimagine it as Acrobatics (Zero G) or something, but it's never going to feel quite right as a DX limiter or base for your zero G move rate.
Now that you mention it, making all those leveled learnable advantages might make sense.

On the pricing and such.. hmm.. hitting problems.

We do have Amphibious as racial trait that is basically fully comfortable on ground and water at 10 points and the Aquatic no legs is -0 points and you do not suffer penalties and have full move, but Semi-Aquatic is also -0 points and there you do suffer the skill penalties but have full move.

All of the no legs are based on the idea that the lack of legs equal to effect to not having legs to target.

So basically the +10 to -0 points is the skill penalties and the 1/5 move, though we meet the problem that the increased/decreased water move is +/-5 points and for an average character the increase in the water move alone would be much higher from the Amphibious trait than the 10 points...

Hmm...
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Old 04-26-2017, 09:06 AM   #13
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

A question that seems to not have come up so far:

Normally, Guns shot in freefall are capped at Free Fall, while Beam Weapons are not. Normally, skills that don't involve grand motor agility and balancing ignore the cap (e.g. handling a joystick).

Ultra-Tech has Magnetic Plates that allow people to stick their feet to ferrous 'floors' in freefall. Does anyone else except me think that as long as the magboots are firmly attached (i.e. not while moving), it should be possible to ignore the Free Fall cap for small arms attacks, even for Guns?

Because magboots seem to solve the 'recoil pushes you away' problem, and at typical engagement ranges the lack of bullet drop doesn't make a significant difference (and kinda simplifies shooting anyway). Obviously I never fired weapons in a real freefall, but I think that not having gravity push you down while aiming is at worst a Familiarity penalty, not a level cap.
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Old 04-26-2017, 04:49 PM   #14
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Does anyone else except me think that as long as the magboots are firmly attached (i.e. not while moving), it should be possible to ignore the Free Fall cap for small arms attacks, even for Guns?

Because magboots seem to solve the 'recoil pushes you away' problem, and at typical engagement ranges the lack of bullet drop doesn't make a significant difference (and kinda simplifies shooting anyway). Obviously I never fired weapons in a real freefall, but I think that not having gravity push you down while aiming is at worst a Familiarity penalty, not a level cap.
It seems to me that the problem with recoil in freefall isn't so much that it moves you as it starts you rotating. Avoiding this by firing with the gun near your centre of gravity means you can't use conventional sights, although a smartgun would work.

Yes, it makes sense to me that being firmly anchored would enable you to use full Guns skill without the Free Fall cap. Magboots are probably an effective way of doing that.
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Old 04-27-2017, 04:16 AM   #15
RogerBW
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Ultra-Tech has Magnetic Plates that allow people to stick their feet to ferrous 'floors' in freefall. Does anyone else except me think that as long as the magboots are firmly attached (i.e. not while moving), it should be possible to ignore the Free Fall cap for small arms attacks, even for Guns?
I'm not completely convinced.

If you are standing in gravity and fire a gun, you already have some level of muscle tension in your back and legs that stops you being pushed over backwards. (OK, recoil force is not huge, but the jerk (rate of change of acceleration) is quite high.)

If you do the same thing with mag boots, you may not already have that tension, because you were just floating free with your feet anchored in place - bracing is something you can learn to do. On that basis I think I'd probably keep the Free Fall cap. But I don't think you'd be wrong to drop it.
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Old 04-27-2017, 04:45 AM   #16
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Free Fall

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Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
I'm not completely convinced.

If you are standing in gravity and fire a gun, you already have some level of muscle tension in your back and legs that stops you being pushed over backwards. (OK, recoil force is not huge, but the jerk (rate of change of acceleration) is quite high.)

If you do the same thing with mag boots, you may not already have that tension, because you were just floating free with your feet anchored in place - bracing is something you can learn to do. On that basis I think I'd probably keep the Free Fall cap. But I don't think you'd be wrong to drop it.
That sounds like a reason to prefer the strongly forward-leaning stance of precission autofire styles over a more mildly forward-leaning style of single shot styles. Definitely worth a familiarity penalty, but not so sure about Free Fall, since the former was developed for 1G shooting anyway.
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