[Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

GURPS Spaceships 5—Exploration and Colony Spacecraft is out at your local e23. And there is much wooting!

Some folk are beginning to discuss the Easter eggs contained among the example ships, and itsy little production problems such as cross-references to "p.00" (now fixed: download a fresh PDF!)). But they are doing so in the "SJ Games Discussion" and "e23" forums, whereas discussion of game content more properly belongs here.

So here you go, wootsters! What is absolutely brilliant about GURPS Spaceships 5? is there anything that needs a light sand and another coat of varnish?

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

I think the intersteller signal detection rules need work. I'm not sure the assumption that radio waves can be easily detected at intersteller distances with really bad sensors is true. The rules basically say a TL8 sensor array appropriately sized for an SM+0 ship (so actually massing 10 pounds) would be able to trivially easily detect radio waves coming from Alpha Centauri. Actually, they say the same sensor could detect radio waves coming from anything up to two parsecs away, again, with no modifier.

That just doesn't make much sense, especially since SETI itself says that we couldn't detect our own radio waves out past 0.3 light years distance. SETI's estimates for the Arecibo radio telescope suggest it can only detect very narrow-band signals with transmitter strength on the order of giga to terrawatts at any useful intersteller distance.

Mass media signals simply would not be detected at all at intersteller distances unless they were using ridiculously overpowered transmitters transmitting on very odd bandwidths. You'd only be able to resolve UHF TV pictures up to 2.5 AU away with an Arecebo-like reciever, and the carrier wave only up to 0.3 light years.

SETI says that only that high intensity narrowband emitions will be detectable beyond 1LY, and on Earth that's primarily narrowband radar. However, I have doubts even narrowband radar would be detectable at interstellar distances simply because even then you need gigawatts of power just to transmit to 5LY away.

Source: http://setifaq.org/faq.html#1.2.3

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

Just a clarification -- ships go down to SM +4 at the smallest. We don't have official stats for what kind of array a "SM +0" ship would have. Sure, you can extrapolate, but as you get smaller and smaller, there's no guarantee that you'll be accurate.

Eastereggs
 

Fictional ships

The Odyssey-class ship looks like the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Palomar-class is the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: the Next Generation.
The Charon-class looks like the Botany Bay from the original Star Trek.
The Alcatraz-class might be from Blake's 7.

Proposals and concepts

The Nova-class, Phobos-class, and Lowell-class are obviously from one of the NASA Mars mission studies from the early 60s.
The Enceladus-class is an adaptation of the Advanced Interplanetary Ship design by Freeman Dyson and the Project Orion team.

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

We actually do have arrays for SM+0 ships. Well, not ships, really. Missiles. They're in Spaceships 5, page 27. They follow the same progression as Enhanced Comm/Sensor Arrays.

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

Ok - so why do I NEED to buy installment #5 of the series?

Mind you, I'm not saying I don't want to buy it and you can't make me buy it <g>, but pretend that I am a dubious buyer who is almost ready to walk about out of the store without buying it. Why is it a must have?

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

Does it have a ginormous mega-sized generational ship?
That alone might make me buy it.

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

Two of them, in fact.

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

I don't know that you do need it. It might not be a must-buy for you. That's the advantage of GURPS Spaceships as a series. I think mecha are silly and that space fighters don't make much sense on close examination, so I didn't buy Spaceships 4. Other fans disagree, or think that "silly" and "sense" are beside the point. The result is that they got their mecha rules without my having to pay for them.

Here's what it has in it:

• over thirty ship specs, and a few space stations;
• rules for sensor drones you can launch from hangar bays or through missile launchers, including rules for using theim as improvised weapons;
• operational descriptions for colony ventures and exploration surveys;
• rules for finding the plane of, and planets in, a star system either from a distance while approaching through realspace or after emergence from hyperspace etc.;
• rules for planetological surveying from orbit and with probes;
• rules for biological surveying on the ground, covering land and oceans, and extending into ecological surveying, and covering non-Garden worlds;
• operational descriptions for linguistic assessment, sociological assessment, covert first contact and overt first contact;
• rules for GURPS characters engaged in linguistic and sociological assessment and covert and overt first contact;
• rules for radiation damage to ships and crew;
• rules for protecting ships and crew from radiation damage;
• rules for damage to ships from meteroids and space junk, noting the differences between orbital space, interplanetary space, and interstellar space, and with exciting notes on cascade catastrophes;
• rules on how to get un-lost in galactic space, depending on your skills and your ship's sensors; and finally
• notes for the GM about ways to use space monsters in Space Opera campaigns.

Upshot. If you are running an exploration campaign, whether it be Star Trek or The Voyage of the Space Beagle, you need this PDF. If your players are limping home in a damaged ship from the Zeta Octant, you need this PDF. If not, maybe you don't. But I've got it, and you didn't have to pay for it, which suits us both fine, neh?

Re: [Spaceships 5] Eggshells and Eastereggs
 

The magic words. Hee. I'm reading it now.
I do so love these inexpensive PDFs.