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Old 05-23-2013, 03:20 PM   #1
Tzeentch
 
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Default Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

-- I haven't had the time to do overviews of Pyramid issues like I had intended (but it's a good kind of busy) but I'll make an exception in this case.

Pyramid #3/55 covers a pretty wide swath of the genre, and includes new gear, extensions on Tactical Shooting, wormhole logistics, the Vree warrior-monks, plus the usual random thought goodies.

The cover was a perfect selection - recycled from the GURPS Starships book showing a classic 80's sci-fi space battle scene.

Tactical Shooting: Tomorrow (Hans-Christian Vortisch)
The lead article, and it's obvious why. This extends the heavily TL8-biased Tactical Shooting into TL9, and also makes some updates to Ultra-Tech to help bring it in line with the tech books that were published after it. However, most of this article is rules-agnostic. Let's look at the major headings (B-HEADS if you know your way around the SJG template).
A Better Kind of Gun: Ultra-tech smallarms at TL9 still generally fire a projectile using some form of low explosive. This extensively cross-references Ultra-Tech, Tactical Shooting, and High-Tech for those wanting to know how those puzzle pieces fit together. It also buffs liquid-propellant guns by increasing their bullet speed and allows them to fire in a low-power mode.

The BOX on Guns in Space should answer a lot of questions, even if it is rather vague as to why the rules work like they do (maybe this can be expanded into a future work on space operations or something).

You may have noticed I'm skipping a lot of stuff - there's just too much here to mention it all. But if you had a question about how Tactical Shooting would be extended to TL9 or how Ultra-Tech stuff worked with combat stances and optional rules it's probably answered. A good example is the section on IFF interrogators which provides a bonus to Situational Awareness, as does the TacNet program.

Finishing off the article are two new shooting styles (Battlesuit Shooter, Space Marine).

Chrome Commandos: TL9 Elite Tactical Gear (W.A. Frick)
This is a gear catalog that extends TL9 tactical gear. I'm usually sort of ambivalent about new gear because Ultra-Tech is already pretty generic and adaptable - so there's a degree of redundancy that can irk. This does sort of duplicate existing UT gear in the sense that it has a lot of combo-items but the value-added part here is really the various BOX text sections scattered around. It also has a slightly different perspective compared to my loadout article which can be useful.

Particularly, I liked the Secure-Link and TacNet Server texts and will be looking at that closely in the future.

Eidetic Memory: The Vree (David Pulver)
TL9 religious fanatics engaging in interstellar holy war. They are not very impressive from a template standpoint but David has given them a lot of background detail. I suppose the only problem here is that it may seem a bit too close to the more heated discussions about Crusades and restoring Caliphates and so on.

If it was just a template and background I would just skip over this, but he does have a good section on the pointy end of their spears (which is good as they are intended to be relentless adversaries for the (different god fearing) heroes. THis includes a Rank table, brief organization of their military, a Spaceships design for their destroyer warships and combat walkers.

All in all I'm a bit ambivalent since I don't generally do much with aliens. But it's a great pocket adversary with motivation, templates, and gear that can be popped into a large number of campaigns.

Mobile Wormhole Logistics (Adrian Tymes)
LOGISTICS. Wait ... wormholes on a mobile starship? Ok, this is interesting. Although it relies on a rather specific combination of assumptions about your setting, it could be plopped into a TL9 campaign as something the enemy uses or as a technological artifact and so on. The basic idea is that you have a large mothership in orbit and rather than ferry supplies around it can attach a wormhole to smaller assault ships and funnel supplies that way.

I'm torn on this article. It's too embedded in specific tech assumptions to be generally useful, but it is an excellent example of working through a basic idea. I sort of find the idea to be problematic (losing the dropships is a big problem as the mothership can't ferry supplies except through them) but its the sort of problematic stuff you see in every sci-fi show when you try to work it all out.

Note that the mothership and dropships are full Spaceships designs.


Future Soldier (Kenneth Peters)

A TL9 rifleman loadout with a bare minimum of new items beyond what is already in High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, and Tactical Shooting (and Han's article, which I saw in draft form). That was basically my design goal. I actually had a chunk of this written even before I saw the issue theme, as part of a larger loadouts proposal I've been working on. The TL9 stuff was a bit ancillary so it was an easy decision to cut it out.

Some of this is based on pie-in-the-sky stuff that RAND and the research arms of the armed forces love to talk about but can never get to actually work. So, in that respect, this is highly optimistic as it discounts the ability for procurement to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. I wrote this based on what I think is fairly reasonable for 20-30 years out, and only the battle agent AI is probably on the optimistic side. A lot of the other stuff already exists in some form or isn't that improbable.

The core of the article is a full Loadout for a TL9 infantryman using High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, and Tactical Shooting. I avoided created anything totally new for this article, where possible but I did follow the lead of Hans and add new functionality to old gear to make it consistent with newer books (e.g. the Near Miss Indicator).

NOTE: There is an Ultra-Tech errata sort of buried in here. That is, lower body exoskeletons cancel their own weight. This was approved by the chain of command so keep it in mind.

Random Thought Table (Steven Marsh)
Good ideas here about making humans (and the characters) relevant in a sci-fi military world with lascannons and alien bugs around every corner.

Odds and Ends
"Battle dresses." 'Nuff said

Last edited by Tzeentch; 05-23-2013 at 03:27 PM.
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Old 05-23-2013, 03:40 PM   #2
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

I loved this issue. This surprises nobody that knows me well, as "military SF" is simply a favorite genre of mine (and I don't care if it's the SF version of cheesy romance novels sometimes, it's still fun!).

A discussions I'd like to have:

TS: Tomorrow really buffs TL9+ soldiers compared to their TL8 counterparts. In some ways, Hans basically undoes Tactical Shooting by allowing the HUD to bypass many of the rules introduced in the book that make gun combat distinct and very interesting. This is not a criticism. A HUD link [i]should/i] be very useful and have plenty of in-game effects, preferably without providing massively huge and unfair bonuses to hit (which I think he succeeds at). However, let's break it down:

A HUD-linked rifle at TL9 can easily bring a +6 bonus to a shooter's skill via the HUD+Targeting software (+3 Guns) and the Laser rangefinder bonus (+3 on Aimed shots). This doesn't include the accuracy of the weapon OR any potential scopes attached to it. An assault carbine (Acc 4) with 32x scope (+5) could easily be used with effective skill of Skill+17 with fairly little trouble. Granted, that takes 5 seconds of Aiming. All TL9 scopes are variable, so you could also get Skill+11 for just 1 second of Aim. You can also now Dodge while Aiming, making it much less risky.

Does this seem overly likely to result in hits? In some ways, in some ways no. A TL9 rifleman with all this kit ought to be rather scarily accurate and effective. But none of these bonuses are hard to get for your average mafia shooter, which could make things very rough on PCs engaging in combat at TL9+.

What defensive technologies exist to help counteract this? Well, the first is obviously armor. Armor at TL9+ is quite boosted over TL8. Heavy clamshell is DR 45, which is a still rather substantial 22 vs your standard 7mm APHC round doing 6d(2), basically is proof against standard longarms without APEP ammo. But only to the torso...

There other options as well--threat detectors, situational awareness, camouflage, laser detectors, etc all act to decrease the lethality of TL9 combat. If you DO get shot, TL9 medicine is also much more capable of saving you.

What does everyone think about the balance of offense vs. defense at TL9 given this issue of Pyramid?
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Old 05-23-2013, 08:37 PM   #3
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

Quote:
Originally Posted by apoc527 View Post
A HUD-linked rifle at TL9 can easily bring a +6 bonus to a shooter's skill via the HUD+Targeting software (+3 Guns) and the Laser rangefinder bonus (+3 on Aimed shots). This doesn't include the accuracy of the weapon OR any potential scopes attached to it. An assault carbine (Acc 4) with 32x scope (+5) could easily be used with effective skill of Skill+17 with fairly little trouble. Granted, that takes 5 seconds of Aiming. All TL9 scopes are variable, so you could also get Skill+11 for just 1 second of Aim. You can also now Dodge while Aiming, making it much less risky.
Note that you're still limited to a maximum effective Acc of the gun's base Acc*2; in other words, that Assault Carbine with Acc 4 can't benefit from anything more than an x2 scope if you're also including the laser rangefinder bonus.
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Old 06-04-2013, 01:00 PM   #4
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
Note that you're still limited to a maximum effective Acc of the gun's base Acc*2; in other words, that Assault Carbine with Acc 4 can't benefit from anything more than an x2 scope if you're also including the laser rangefinder bonus.
Here's a question that should go here as well: is this limitation also applied to the Guns bonuses from HUD, lasers, and targeting software? If so, that significantly limits the ridiculous accuracy of higher TL weapons, which is probably a good thing in the long run.
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Old 06-04-2013, 02:10 PM   #5
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

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Originally Posted by apoc527 View Post
Here's a question that should go here as well: is this limitation also applied to the Guns bonuses from HUD, lasers, and targeting software? If so, that significantly limits the ridiculous accuracy of higher TL weapons, which is probably a good thing in the long run.
-- I believe so, see Accuracy and Aimed Fire (p. B372) which ends with "The sum of Acc and all extra aimed-fire bonuses can never exceed twice the base Acc of the attack." (emphasis mine).
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Old 06-04-2013, 02:23 PM   #6
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

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Originally Posted by Tzeentch View Post
-- I believe so, see Accuracy and Aimed Fire (p. B372) which ends with "The sum of Acc and all extra aimed-fire bonuses can never exceed twice the base Acc of the attack." (emphasis mine).
Of course, the irony here is that the HUD and targeting software bonuses need not be Aimed fire...

I have a PM into Kromm and HANS to help resolve this.
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Old 06-04-2013, 07:41 PM   #7
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

I wonder if the Minute of Angle rule (max effective skill = 22+2*Acc no matter what) overwrites the "not more than twice base Acc" thing nicely.
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Old 06-05-2013, 06:25 PM   #8
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I wonder if the Minute of Angle rule (max effective skill = 22+2*Acc no matter what) overwrites the "not more than twice base Acc" thing nicely.
This may be the preferred solution for it's simplicity and arguable realism. Of course, this will allow a lot of shooters to rack up massive bonuses with Acc 2 pistols, which have a MOA Max Skill of 26!
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Old 06-08-2013, 04:01 PM   #9
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

The longer review has been submitted to RPG.NET. Nothing really new, just more information for people not familiar with Pyramid and GURPS and written for a broader audience.
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Old 06-09-2013, 07:44 AM   #10
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi Overview

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Originally Posted by Tzeentch View Post
The longer review has been submitted to RPG.NET. Nothing really new, just more information for people not familiar with Pyramid and GURPS and written for a broader audience.
Thanks again for your efforts!
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