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Old 03-11-2021, 09:53 AM   #131
ericthered
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Metatronic Generators In Low Tech Settings

I recently realized that I'm using metatronic generators in my current Low-tech campaign. It was something of a shock, because I haven't really gotten into them before. Here I explore what the system looks like, and things that made metatronic generators work for me so far from their native origin of TL8 psionics.
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Old 03-16-2021, 02:05 PM   #132
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Robots as Spaceships: Winches



Here I give the stats for an unconventional spaceship system that may be useful if you are building vehicles that scale things without sticking to them. I've had these stats ever since the game that first made me start the robots as spaceships series.
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Old 03-31-2021, 08:46 AM   #133
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Mounted Combat: Taking a Step


What does it mean to "take a step" while on a horse? what sorts of subtle commands can be sent without needing a character's full attention? Here is a simple system for maneuvering mounts in combat without taking a full move maneuver.
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Old 04-07-2021, 08:54 AM   #134
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The Generic Beast Template


I recently started a game in which over half of the PC's took an animal companion of one kind or another. Completely without prompting. This meant that I had to come up with not only stats for the animals, but also point values for the animal allies.



I've always had a shaky grasp of just how much animal allies in gurps were or were not worth. The Animal Companions in DF are in a category of their own, and not a great base for other animals. I've always wanted to run a shapeshifter, but have been unsure of what animals a given morph pool will allow.



So I made the Generic Beast Template. This template has as its goal being able to estimate just how much a given animal template costs, both as a wild animal and as an alternate form. It does this with a base template and a handful of lenses. I've taken it for a few test drives, and so far, it looks pretty reliable.



So if you want to know how much an animal costs to build, and to know it quickly... this is the template for you.
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Old 04-07-2021, 11:27 AM   #135
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Thank you. I did notice one small problem with it: You say "If you're wondering how much an animal ST should be, look up its weight online and consult this table," but do not provide a table. Did you mean to mention the Build table on Basic Set p18 (which isn't great for beasts with ST of less than 6, unless there's another table in Campaigns, that I didn't notice)?
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Old 04-07-2021, 12:03 PM   #136
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Thank you. I did notice one small problem with it: You say "If you're wondering how much an animal ST should be, look up its weight online and consult this table," but do not provide a table. Did you mean to mention the Build table on Basic Set p18 (which isn't great for beasts with ST of less than 6, unless there's another table in Campaigns, that I didn't notice)?

Well, that's awkward... I left out the table. Its especially awkward because I find those tables especially useful: I just was using other folk's animal stats when working out the kinks here. And the most popular article on the blog features such a table for much larger creatures. I've updated the article to have the table. Its just an application of the standard ST = 2 x CubeRoot(weight) rule implicit in Campaigns 558 and explicit in Template Toolkits 2 page 14.

Thank you for pointing that out to me!
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Old 04-15-2021, 01:28 PM   #137
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Robots as Spaceships: Walkers and Power Armor


Gurps is flexible, but often its gear lists are fairly bare bones, especially for niche gear like power armor. I've wanted a system for making whatever size and layout of power armor I wanted, with small tweaks in sizes or with more or less armor in different locations. I also wanted it to work seamlessly with other vehicle types.



We now have such a system. We can now build walkers and power armor with spaceships and get values that are roughly similar to the values in the gear books. I'm really happy to have this, and its been one of my big goals for Robots as Spaceships.
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Old 04-15-2021, 07:06 PM   #138
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Good one! What I’ve always done is assume an SM +0 “vessel” is just a 20-system pilot. An SM +1 battlesuit therefore requires 6 systems for the pilot, plus one for the control “room”, and then is built like a Spaceships mecha might be. For an SM +2 walker, the pilot (and any passenger) takes 2 systems, plus a control room, etc. At SM +3 the pilot is one system, but still requires a control room. Then at SM +4 and up the pilot is included in the control room and you use the existing mecha rules.
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Old 04-16-2021, 08:12 AM   #139
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Good one!
Thanks! it took me a while to get this to a point where it was ready to present!


Quote:
What I’ve always done is assume an SM +0 “vessel” is just a 20-system pilot. An SM +1 battlesuit therefore requires 6 systems for the pilot, plus one for the control “room”, and then is built like a Spaceships mecha might be. For an SM +2 walker, the pilot (and any passenger) takes 2 systems, plus a control room, etc. At SM +3 the pilot is one system, but still requires a control room. Then at SM +4 and up the pilot is included in the control room and you use the existing mecha rules.

That's a pretty good way to go about it, particularly if you're sticking to the standard spaceship hull sizes and uses only whole systems. Its equivalent to having 180 lbs of pilot cargo space for a 600 lb vessel, 200 lbs of pilot cargo space for a 2,000 vessel, or a 300 lbs of pilot cargo space for a 6,000 lb vessel.



The article above's biggest addition to that is letting you go in-between the official hull sizes, plus some alternate rules to make the numbers (mostly DR) closer to what you get in ultratech and some of the pyramid articles. The alternate rules are in other articles linked at the end of the post.
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Old 04-30-2021, 10:59 AM   #140
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Estimating Animal Template Costs


A few weeks ago I published a generic beast template. This week I run some quick numbers on using it to estimate animal templates quickly. This should be especially useful for the morph advantage, which I'm hoping to see use in a game soon.
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