Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Not unnecessary, just not within the scope of this book. What the SPACE-haters are failing to recognize is that right now is an anomalous situation. Down the road, when VEHICLES and VDS and ULTRA-TECH and all the other "missing" books have come out, it will not seem weird at all that SPACE doesn't have these rules in it.

FANTASY is anomalous, because we had not planned for MAGIC to come out immediately on its heels, so we included some spells. Then the schedule shifted. So it goes. And FANTASY includes some basic vehicle information because we knew for a fact that it would precede VEHICLES by a period of years. SPACE and VEHICLES are supposed to be much closer together. (And, as Kromm has explained, the original plan had ULTRA-TECH preceding SPACE.)

When we were working on Fourth Edition, the available information we had was that very few people bought GURPS to use with only one single genre. Therefore it made more sense to have one set of vehicles rules that could be used in fantasy, SF, and spy games (among all the other genres) and put that set in its own book. If you are solely an SF gamer, does this approach screw you as compared with the Third Edition one? Yeah, kinda. But everything we saw indicated that SF-and-SF-only gamers are the exception. And this is another area in which fantasy differs: in our genre survey, fantasy's popularity smoked all other genres. Obviously there are some fantasy gamers who don't do anything else, ever.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Obviously, that's the question. There's no real right answer to it, either, since it's an opinion question not a right or wrong question. I understand why the decisions were made; I just disagree (vehemently) with the reasons behind them, and as a result I don't like the finished product (EDIT: Not that the writing, editing, or artwork are anything less than good or anything, it's just the when you put the pieces together it just doesn't do anything for me).

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I disagree. I found those rules to a complate waste of space.

Thank goodness! ;)

And did a darned poor job of it at that. I am glad they chose to forgoe that information so that ti could be handled correctly and with the proper care and space in another volume. Just my humble opinion. of course.

You are right. That is not my view on it at all. GURPS Space 3e was a Genre book that tried to be Space + Vehicles (Space) + Ultratech (watered down). Making the book more focused makes it much more useful to me.

And I was one of those guys that was complaining about the fact that I paid for the SECRET disad 15+ times...

Nope. It is not science class. It is a document on how to apply current scientific knowledge and theory to generate realistic and coherant star systems -- and allowing you to have enough (accurate!) techno-babble to have some interesting dialogs between characters.

I like it. You obviously don't. So do not purchase GURPS Space and instead wait for Vehicles and Ultra Tech. If you have a copy of GURPS Space and do not want it, I will be more than happy to buy it off of you for full cover price (assuming it is still in good condition). I was looking for a good gift to give some friends of mine anyway.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Assuming they have identical capabilities, there is no reason the point cost should be different (though it probably will be anyway, because of how size works in GURPS). The value of a ship to a player is determined by what the ship can do for the player.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Cool. This is the answer on GURPS Fantasy I was looking for. It seemed to not fit this philosophy as well as GURPS Space did.

So this begs the question: In future releases of GURPS Fantasy, with the spells and the vehicles stuff be removed, so that it better fits the current publication scheme Steve Jackson Games is striving for?

I will start a new thread on this.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Please try to understand that I understand. I get the distinctions which have been created between genre books, rules, catalogs, and world books. I understand what they mean and how they fit together into a big picture of a clean, pure, efficient, grand unified gaming system. I understand that. I do. Really.

I just think that the implementation of that ideal in Space makes it less useful than it could otherwise be.

I wouldn't expect Space to provide the same level of tech coverage as the tech catalog. And, frankly, I don't necessarily need a complete tech catalog, nor do I necessarily need a (fill in the blank) design system which allows me to create gear in fetishisic detail. I do want to see a small range of examples of items which would be common across many popular genres (say, stats for one or two generic zap guns, a few items of life support gear, handheld sensors, a flying car) with suggestions on how to modify them based on various campaign assumptions and desired special effects.

A handful of worked examples gives me some points of reference between which I can start shading in my own stuff with at least minimal confidence that I'm not going to do something which will break the rules or my campaigns assumptions, and without having to shell out the money for two additional books before I can even think about deciding on the specific game effects of items which are absolutely required for any given campaign I want to run (which is not to say that I won't be buying them, but since they won't work for me in isolation, I'll be waiting until they're all available). Fantasy had that, and is a better book for it, and a few pages of that in Space would shut a lot of critics up. I agree that this might entail repeating some material between books, but I'd be very happy to sacrifice a few pages of purity for a book more immediately useful to me.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Not really. The main thing I did was turn empty cargo space into grav engine space.

Actually, it's not a 'broken tweak'. It's called Engineering. It's why wheels are faster than sleds (on roads), crossbows are more powerful than bows, and a catamaran is more stable than a single-body ship. It's called design optimisation. In fact, it even applies to living things, e.g. pole vaulters try to adjust their speed and ST to optimal levels (not too much, not too little) in addition to repeating the main movement, as this gives better results. Engineering is mostly used to make things better IRL; it made things better with VE3e. Trying to think like an engineer with 'vehicles as characters' doesn't usually help at all, and occasionally brings you worse results.
E.g. a Warp drive is actually cheaper than a near-lightspeed relativistic (check out Enhanced Move 27 vs. Warp); building 'skinny' ships saves you points, while it should actually force you to have less space for engines/weapons at a cost of a smaller SM etc.

The main trouble with 4e, CP-based ships is that you can't apply physics to optimize them, unlike in 3e. In 3e, design is made with arbitrary units - something that the first few pages of Basic 4e swear never to do.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

The idea is that 4e attribute costs are FLAT, i.e. once you reach the point at which the attribute is cheaper than your chosen skill list, it stays so no matter what.

Me, I definitely look forward to having MORE, SEPARATE attributes:
ST
DX
QN (Quickness; Basic Move = QN/2 etc.)
HT
FL (Flexibility - a cheap attribute, but needed as some skills would depend on it, and IRL there are five primary physical attributes)
Will
Per
HOWEVER, I would never do that as this is heresy. ;)

And I think that linear costs are both unrealistic and oversimplistic. That was the primary point about 4e not encouraging thinking.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Actually, Aliens is the only thing I think is worth buying in a Space 4e book for generic Sci-Fi. Otherwise 3e's Space was (probably) more useful. I always wanted to see GURPS Evolution, with details on how species would evolve to have all the Exotic Advantages that we so much love. Guess now I know a replacement for that. (I could be wrong - I don't own Space.)

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

They why don't you pay points for guns, flashlights and books? Ships are PROPERTY, and someone could as well buy at a sub-optimal price for the given quality. It's like roleplaying trading, except you need to roleplay the choice of item quality too, which is a Good Thing©.