Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

It's happened before without comment, so I didn't think it was terribly noteworthy. The most recent examples were Pyramid #3/71: Spaceships II and Pyramid #3/70: Fourth Edition Festival.

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

Whoa. I didn't notice that before either. Huh. Okay. Carry on then. :-)

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

Yeah, me either. Maybe my half-reference in the OP-description drew attention to it this time?

When a columnist has a "full" article in a given issue, we usually don't also run the column. But then again, sometimes we do -- David's done an EM and a (small) column in the same issue before. The only firm rule is that (unless he needs a month off for whatever reason) David has at least one reserved spot in each issue.

So, uh, now that this odd tangent has been thoroughly beaten to death, anyone want to talk about any of the articles? :)

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

For Halfway to Anywhere, what would the rolls for plotting all of this out be? Would players simply do the math themselves and work out the best orbit? Or if a character does that, is that navigation(Space)? And to execute the maneuver, I assume that's Pilot, but what are its rules?

I can't find any reference to navigation or pilot rules in Spaceships outside of combat. Am I missing something? Would I just use the rules in Campaigns as a basis and move on? Or is it largely unnecessary (executing a Hohmann transfer is no more complicated than putting an airplane on autopilot and going to take a nap in the Captain's chair. You only need pilot when, say, landing, taking off, or other disaster-prone points)

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

Mailanka, personally I'd figure that the point is to make is possible to calculate the minimum possible Delta V, which is a meta-meta action, a PLAYER should never have to do something like that. A common problem is characters have skill at tactics when players don't.

Sorry for being a bit muddled

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

No, it seems clear.

To me, I would expect it would be something like "We had a fuel leak after that last pirate attack. Do we still have the fuel to reach the Jovian citadel?"
"I'll do a quick calculation" says the astronavigator, and then he rolls and the GM does some fussy things with excel sheets and says
"No."
"Okay, but can I reach Ceres?" and he rolls and fails and the GM shrugs and the astronavigator takes a gamble and says "I think we can reach Ceres." and the GM works out a slightly bad path that uses more delta-v than necessary and the pilot makes a roll to execute it properly and a failure might result in some additional lost delta-v or something like that.

But I don't see any rules. Maybe my interpretation is just crazy because of reasons I hadn't considered. Or maybe there are no rules because nobody has built anything in that direction yet, and my system sounds great and, hey, when you're finished with that, if it's complex enough, it might make a great Pyramid article! Or maybe there ARE already rules, and there on pX of Spaceships and pY of Space, duh. I don't know, so I asked.

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

That sort of thing didn't really fall within the scope of the article. This article's intent was to provide tools for you to get actual answers to "How much fuel do I need?" and that's really not a GURPS rules question, hence their absence. If the remaining fuel was close to the dV requirements to reach a destination, I could see the GM requiring a Navigation roll to see if the navigator could come up with that solution - there are plenty of transfer options not covered in that article. At it's core, the usefulness of Halfway to Anywhere lies in providing minimums and maximums as guidelines for the GM to fudge his way through questions like what you asked, and for providing a range of requirements for use when designing spaceships. Planets move, and any particular alignment (especially when considering Hohmann transfers) may exist at any time, so GMs should feel free to bump dV costs up for anything but a brachistochrone transfer (that is the shortest, fastest, most dV-costly transfer possible).

Personally, I'd use Navigation (Space) to plot any courses and Pilot to execute them, like you said. I'd also allow Astronomy, Mathematics (Applied), or Physics to serve as complementary skills, and require a navigation computer (Complexity 6+) with appropriate software and orbital information for the solar system as basic tools for Navigation (Space). Time Use should be in full effect and can offset substandard computers and software. Getting that data in the first place would require Astronomy, access to a sufficiently powerful telescope or array thereof, and a days to weeks to plot the orbits of the planets observed. And still expect surprises - NASA is quite excited right now about New Horizons recently imaging the last of the five known moons of Pluto. They are curious to see if they find more in the coming two months.

As far as rules from books go, there's the Navigation Errors box in GURPS Space on p. 42 for some hints, and I'd say "time spent" is highly variable depending on the technology available. Today, it takes a couple of days for NASA to pump out optimal flight plans with a supercomputer, which is a significant and relatively recent improvement over the week or so it use to take them. At TL 10, I'd imagine that's trivial for most onboard computers. The description of Navigation (Space) really smacks of this being baseline use, too: "Navigating through ordinary interplanetary and interstellar space, usually at less than the speed of light". I don't recall seeing Spaceships cover navigation rules, though. If you really wanted to get get fancy and draw out the process in game, you could probably adapt Technical Grappling's mechanic, but you can do that with a lot of tasks...

As for article food, you know there's a Spaceships III issue on the Pyramid wishlist. Maybe something about common non-combat ship operation tasks might be fitting, if you want to write it. And if the style guide is daunting, there's a group that helps with that sort of thing...

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

That answers what I wanted to know. I wasn't asking for it to contain that, but if it did, and now I know that it does not, and that there aren't any particular details for that elsewhere, which means it's up to me to build (and I am certainly up to that task).

Thanks!

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

Anytime! I'd love to see the results in print!

Re: Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas
 

Hey folks

I posted some extras for Skiptime, but stupidly put them in the wrong forum. Duh.

Anyway, if you wanted the Director's Cut, here it is. Mostly things that had to be edited for length, but if your characters were wondering how the OceanWe get jiggy with it... well, now you'll know.