GURPS Prime Directive

[Jean_Sexton]

Just an FYI Crime Lord/Crimelord has been standardized to Crimelord.

They're pirates!

[Jean_Sexton]

I've sent revised files to be posted. The pages listed are now correct in the index, some typographical issues were fixed, and there were some clarifications on other pages.

Jean

[Jean_Sexton]

You should have gotten a notice that your PDF was updated. For those wanting a paper copy, the links are below.

Jean

GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised

Long in coming, GURPS Prime Directive 4e has been revised. It is available as one massive PDF (over 360 pages) or broken down into two volumes: GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised, Volume 1: Creating a Character and GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised, Volume 2: Playing the Game. The set of books is powered by GURPS. (If purchasing the cheaper "combined volume" in print, you get a copy of each volume bound individually.)

Volume 1: Creating a Character has everything you need to create a character (equipment and weapons are in the second volume). Powered by GURPS, this book includes information about the species inhabiting the Alpha Octant of the Milky Way Galaxy, including "normal" height and weight ranges. Information about the species of the Inter-Stellar Concordium has been greatly expanded from the original edition. Academy templates are included for characters who are part of the Federation.

Also expanded are the lists of advantages, disadvantages, and skills found in GURPS. We have chosen the ones we feel are best suited for the Star Fleet Universe and think you can play with just these; however, more are included in GURPS Basic Set Characters. When we reference one of these advantages, disadvantages, or skills it will be clearly marked. (These are mostly references to magic and the supernatural which were omitted as not germane to the Star Fleet Universe.)

Volume 2: Playing the Game includes information that the GM needs to run the game along with information about both personal and ship weapons and equipment.

The opening chapter on how to play the game has been greatly expanded from the original book so that you have most of the rules you need to play at your fingertips. The chapter on how to play the game has also been expanded so that you have most of the rules you need to play at your fingertips. "End Game Rewards" now includes information on how to better skills, add advantages, or buy off disadvantages. It also has information on medals and honors (and perhaps promotions!) to be awarded by a grateful Star Fleet to successful characters.

The section on technology has been expanded to include information on so many inventions that various empires have developed. You can explore from Jindarian anti-transporter fields to Tholian webs. Personal equipment runs the gamut from air masks to zero-G worksuits. Charts for weapons have been expanded to include weapons that more primitive societies might use, as well as weapons you would find in the Star Fleet Universe.

There is plenty of background information on the Star Fleet Universe including how fast you can travel, interesting spots to visit, and how to use your characters in battle if you play Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander. The deck plans for a Free Trader ship are included so that if your characters are independent operators, you can visualize the ship they most likely use. Want to know what happened when? Check out the extensive timeline.

New to this book is the chapter on space combat. The ships of the Star Fleet Universe were designed to interact with each other via the Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander rules. However, we realize some GMs may prefer to use the native GURPS system for starship combat. To do that, you will need GURPS Spaceships (4e) and may also want to have GURPS Space (4e) available as the rules reference those two books. Descriptions and stats for the standard large freighter, Free Trader, security skiff, Federation heavy cruiser, Klingon D7 battlecruiser, Romulan War Eagle, Kzinti command cruiser, Gorn Allosaurus battlecruiser, Tholian patrol corvette, Orion Pirate light cruiser, and the standard administrative shuttlecraft are included.

Finally, the story "Rescue on Roon" has an adventure to play. Included are sample characters that can be used.

Each individual volume includes an index to both Volume 1 and Volume 2, along with an index to charts and tables that are frequently used.

GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised, Volume 1 and Volume 2
Warehouse 23: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/ADB8405
DriveThru RPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/287222/
Print: https://www.starfleetstore.com/gurps...20-p-1275.html

GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised, Volume 1: Creating a Character
Warehouse 23: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/ADB8406
DriveThru RPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/287223/
Print: https://www.starfleetstore.com/gurps...e-1-p-1276.html

GURPS Prime Directive 4e Revised, Volume 2: Playing the Game
Warehouse 23: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/ADB8407
DriveThru RPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/287224/
Print: https://www.starfleetstore.com/gurps...-2-p-1277.html

[dataweaver]

I just picked it up.

There's one part that is irritating me: you make mention several times of the Prime Trader and how useful it is for a GURPS Prime Directive game. But aside from a pair of Deck Plan overlays, I'm finding nothing else about them. What I'd like would be an extra page right after 336 describing the Prime Trader in the same way that p.336 describes the Free Trader.

In particular, I'm looking for the Weapons and Accessories paragraphs for a Prime Trader; I don't really need the SSD, as that's primarily providing information geared for use with Starfleet Battles or Federation Commander, not Prime Directive. Even the Weapons entry isn't as important as the Accessories entry, since most of the value of a Prime Trader apparently lies in its having “nearly the non-combat capabilities of a Star Fleet cruiser” (which, from the Deck 3 overlay, appears to take the form of a variety of scientific labs that a standard Free Trader lacks).

Other variants would be nice, especially considering the “Customized Civilian Ships” section on p.348; but given that the Prime Trader variant was created specifically with Prime Directive in mind, its near-absence is particularly troublesome.

[Jean_Sexton]

Dataweaver, your request does give me an idea -- we may be able to include it as an "extra" in our Hailing Frequencies newsletter. Let me see if that is a possibility. It won't be this month as we've locked in the freebies for the March issue, but maybe in April or May. Would that suit?

Jean

[dataweaver]

It's worth a shot. The Prime Trader has apparently only been published in R8, which (A) is a big ask to have someone purchase just for one ship (especially since my interest in it relates to its use in an RPG, not the board game that the module was written for), and (B) isn't available in digital form. The latter restriction isn't a problem if your primary interest in it is as part of a board game, where the use of miniatures on a map means that having things in physical form is already a given; but in roleplaying, where most everything you deal with is in everyone's imagination, it's not uncommon for everything to be available in digital form (though in the case of character sheets, etc., they're generally in printable digital form).

So providing as much information as possible concerning the Prime Trader in a digital(?) newsletter would be great. What I think might be better, though, would be a small PDF supplement for GURPS Prime Directive available for purchase wherever the RPG is sold which explores the Free Trader from a roleplaying perspective: reprint everything that GPD has on the Free Trader (pp.305–310, 336, and the “Customized Civilian Ships” section on p.348) so that it's all available in one place; but reformat it to start with an overview (which would mostly be text from pp.305–308 excluding stuff on variants, plus the relevant text from p.348), followed by two-page spreads for each version of the Free Trader: for the first one, the first page would just be p.336 with the SSD replaced by the Upper Deck illustration from p.306; and the second page would be the Middle Deck illustration from p.308 and the Lower Deck illustration from p.309. For each variant, the text from p.336 would be replaced by information relevant to that variant (taken from the relevant parts of pp.307–310 where appropriate), and the deck plans would incorporate the appropriate overlays so that they're ready to use as is. In addition to these, I'd also present the Orion Free Traitor and Prime Traitor, with their own two-page spreads.

In the Introduction, I'd highlight the value to Free Trader oriented games of GURPS Spaceships 2 (for the Freight and Passengers chapter) and GURPS Spaceships 5 (for the Expeditions and Operations chapter). If possible, review that material and see if there's anything that needs to be addressed in the context of the Star Fleet Universe; I don't think there is, but I could be wrong.

I figure that the whole thing would work as a 32-page supplement.

[Jean_Sexton]

Dataweaver, that may take an outside writer as my next goal is to get out GURPS Federation (corrected -- should be a free update). That should be March, provided that things line up in the office as all the files for that are on Steve Cole's computer. I'm now working on GURPS Klingons to fix that.

In the meantime, the Prime Trader can be seen here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federa...munique-56.pdf

[dataweaver]

That helps.

[goeticgeek]

Could someone give me some more details about the new stuff in the 4e Revised edition in regard to the rules for starships and starship combat. I've previously made a go at designing Star Trek ships using GURPS Spaceships and I had a hard time striking the right balance between shield strength and weaponry to replicate the action that is shown in TOS and the movies. I'm wondering how 4E Revised solved those problems.

Are they using the strict rules from GURPS Spaceships or have they made modifications to it? For example, do they use the same values for shields as shown on page 16 of GURPS Spaceships or did they create their own Ddr values or rules; are ship phasers Beam: Disintegrators from the GURPS Spaceships rules or did they create their own thing; are photon torpedoes Warp Missile Launchers or something else?

I'm also curious how they represented impulse and warp drives. GURPS Spaceships 3 gave their version of the Enterprise, The Intrepid-Class Frontier Cruiser, Subwarp Reactionless Engines, however, in TOS and the movies, impulse and warp drives are not reactionless. Did 4e Revised go the same route as GURPS Spaceships 3 or did they do something else?

Thanks in advance.