Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Question
Did I get it all right? Want to post something like this but with non-question marked stats?
Can multiple options be taken, like Crystal based Heavy Standard Rifle?

@Dorin Thorha
Inspired me to do the above, hope it helps. You can also get weapon bond perk for +1 skill with a single weapon individually suited to you, as well as increase firearm quality for 2* or 5* cost with the benifit of +1Acc/Malf and +2Acc, +1Malf respectively. See pg B280. Hope that made sense.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Thank you! I forgot I needed to sort that stuff out. I'm not sure what you mean by tbbr and TBBR (tight burning beam ranged I guess, but I'm not sure why one is capitalized). For the most part, it looks good. There's a few things on top of this, mostly options:

you can over fire your laser, which is the only time we use malfunction rules: you start at 18 and each shot over lowers the malf by 2. the round after that goes to 1. the effect is over heating, so ROF 2/3 can fire every turn. It can also fire twice or more in a turn. Rapid fire changes this penalty to -2 per 3 shots. Warning: the malfunction isn't a jam. you cook your weapon, and you cook it badly. This doesn't apply to the crystals.

Cystal lasers use ammunition, not power cells. The ammunition is rechargable though. With an adequate power source it takes 15 seconds to charge a single crystal, though they are usually found on belts or in clips and not removed. When the crystals fire they change shape, so you can tell whats been fired. They can be set off with an electric charge outside of a weapon, though that usually means you're trying to do it. Pistols carry 20 shots and take clips that weight 1/5 of the gun weight. The riffles use belts, clips, or drums with 20 shots being 1/10 of gun weight.

a standard laser has two settings: the normal and either rapid or heavy. this doesn't apply to the crystals. The guns also have the option to hook up to a standard power source (such as a battle suit) and take their power from that.

you can stack fast and heavy on top of each themselves, with just fast and just heavy as the other option for the weapon. the crystals can be applied to single heavy and single fast. No fast heavy weapons please, they're opposites. fast doubles the amount of ammunition, heavy halves it. There is no weight change. As a special note, a heavy crystal weapon has ROF 2.

Thank you for reminding me, and thank you for the suggestions. Mostly the Weight and strength are higher, and everything else is similar.

As a note, they do make pistol versions of the riffle sized weapons for battle-suit troopers (halve the range though). And I added a second emplacement type weapon for those in heavy Battle suits, as the first one doesn't reliably penetrate the heaviest suits. It relies on a suit or ship power source though.

For the captains "tricked out pistol" remember that we're throwing around some nice armor here. What is the pistol for? piercing armor? discipline? impressing subordinates? impressing peers?

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Your welcome. Tight Beam Burning is right. One isn't capitalized because I forgot to.

Updated my PCs

As a note Dewey seems more like a chief mechanic over chief engineer. Like a crew boss that can get the job done in an hour and a half where most would get it done in three. Although with his administration and experience he can organize and prioritize maintenance actions, overhauls, and upgrades. Which is more like a production superintendent. Pro Sups have to make all kinds of decisions, none of them particularly glamorous. I'm just not sure if that counts as enough of a Decision Maker. Thoughts?

And Qwen, well she's just plan scary when fully tricked out. And I should probably get her some nonlethal grenades. Although I find myself near the character limit for that post.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

This may seem weird, but can one have a Heavy heavy pistol or Heavy heavy rifle?

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Ok, here's the stat blocks for my two PCs. Both of them are essentially talent monkeys, especially the linguist: alien-related skills obviously aren't available from the start, but her high talent allows her to become an expert on alien psychology, society, etc with a very short period of study. I'm thinking that her role on the ship might actually be that of Psychologist, seeing to the well-being of the crew, but of course her personal ambition is to make First Contact. The captain has insane Spacer, Leadership, and Intelligence Analysis skills, as fitting for a renowned strike fleet leader, as well as excellent Strategy and Shiphandling skills. He won't compete with the dedicated combat specialists, but he has enough skills to lead from the front if needed.

The Captain



The Linguist


Basically, I have two extremely socially focused characters, but he's good at managing soldiers and crew, while she's good at managing passengers and aliens, and they each bring a valuable secondary skillset to the table: tactical planning for him, and interracial communication for her.

EDIT: Backstory

Nathanael and Abigail Crewey are siblings. They grew up in what is left of the rural United States, which is to say not much of any economic significance. Gale, the younger by five years, was always more ambitious than her brother. She went to extreme effort to get herself into the university climb social ladders, and do whatever it took to get herself to somewhere where "things were happening". Nate, on the other hand, loved what was left of his family's hometown, and devoted his efforts to preserving it against the inevitable march of society. When he was 24, the worsening tide of the war prompted him to volunteer as a spacer. His ship was captured almost immediately after it entered the conflict, and he was a prisoner of war for several months. During that time, he succeeded in gathering a huge amount of valuable information, and finally staged a break with some of his fellow prisoners, hijacking one of Wood's cruisers and leading enemy forces on a wild chase across the solar system. This daring escape captured the attention of the nation, and in the years following he rapidly rose through the ranks on a wave of amazing victories, showing an incredible talent for anticipating the moves of his enemy and motivating his own troops to follow him.

During all this time, Abigail continued to drudge away at her studies. Fascinated by the possibilities the Wood drive could provide, she devoured all available information on the subject of alien life. She rose to some prominence in academic circles for he work on sociolinguistics, but was continually overshadowed by her intrepid older brother. When the Honor of the Earth expedition was announced, she pulled every string she possibly could to get a berth on the ship. With luck, mankind is soon to make its first steps into a larger world, and it will not do to have them taken by anything less than the best.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

A couple of notes about player background: Anyone born off of earth was on the loosing side of the recent war. This includes the Moon and the Lagrange stations. They switched sides part way through, but they started off as part of Wood's empire. Also, the small debris of the solar system has been completely rearranged, so there is for instance, quite a few large objects orbiting mars. Just be aware of that.


@poonbahbah

Dewey looks great, backstoryWise be aware of the above. Qwen is missing freefall, and most combat will be in under .1 G's. I don't follow Qwen's armament, particualry the part where a chain gun does 15d+15, and I am going to have to say no to the gyroharness. sorry. other than that it looks good.

Also, is Qwen with a British Unit assigned to the outpost or doing security for the Honor? Rank is 3, as a lieutenant, unless you want higher.

as a side note: being a chief mechanic is probably better. The chief engineer is who you go to when you say: Tell me how we can do what the alien ship did. The chief mechanic is who you go to ask how far into the gravity well you can get, or when you need to know when the thing will be fixed. The chief engineer exists: he keeps on wanting to tinker with your stuff.

@Dorin

The captain looks good, provided you can tell me the source for "intuitive admiral". I wasn't expecting the "spacer" aspect, but it works. The Linguist is looking up as well. I could really use some names for the characters though, as well as where exactly they are from (the US is a big place).

@samd6
Von Galbiso needs a first name, nationality, and a status with either the outpost or the ship. Your pilot is also looking about ready to post, but if you want to wait until we sort it all out, that's fine.

yes, you can have very heavy weapons. The Crystal and Chemical propellant versions don't exist, but the Lasers have a fire rate of .5: one round is spent building the laser, and you can't over-fire it. There is no additional accuracy bonus, and the other setting on the weapon is always regular heavy fire.

as a note, so far we have:
The Hydroponics Boss
The Head Mechanic
An Infantry lieutenant.
The Captain
A linguist

Characters I have been promised:
A pilot. (ok, I technically have that character)

There are two players who may jump in later, and two who said they'd get me sheets but I haven't heard back yet.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

So some sort of social stigma for Dewey? 0 point or -5 point social stigma (2nd class citizen, spacer?) He probably did help in the war effort, he's certainly old enough, as a civilian contractor at a shipyard/drydock type of thing. Also I don't think you've mentioned/stated his rank yet. Right now I'm guesstamating 4 ship as chief mechanic reporting to the Captain. The engineer should be able to answer the gravity question too, at least per spec of the ship.

The engineer's welcome to tinker on extra extra spares, stuff too much trouble to fix, or way down on the priority list. Any thing more then that well need a very convincing arguement and/or the Captains orders.

Qwen does have free fall. It is under other because it doesn't strike me as combat/stealth but considering the setting maybe I should move it? Two or three rank is what I was expecting and fine. Edit: just noticed a question... Qwendolyn is security for the honor. Though this does bring up the question, does the IAH have it's own military forces? If it does that's what's she's a part of and not the UKs.

APDS gives AD2, +1damage/die, and half again as much range. I could switch it to the cheaper APHC that only gives the AD2 if you like. Most of her gear comes from ultra tech the sensor is in chapter three about pg 60 and the HUD and stuff come from about page 150.

Well, at least that shaves of 75 lbs off weight.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Intuitive Admiral was originally published in Interstellar Wars, but I got it from here. Names and a few more details on the backstories will follow, I just usually have a hard time settling on a name until I've let the personality simmer a bit.

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

Adrian Von Galbiso is a citizen of the US, and has Administrative rank on the ship

The pilot

Re: [OCC] Strange Neighbors
 

@samd6
looks good, although this seems to be the third character with "less sleep". Is the plan for every one to meet off duty in the time they don't sleep? just kidding. I find it a humorous the advantage is that common though.

@Dorin. okay. Talent accepted.

@Poonbahbah

I'm looking everything over... mostly I'm trying to even stuff out with the table given (yes, you've seen the laser version, but it applies to lots of stuff, including conventional weapons and alien weapons will be using it). I think its pretty even with UT at the low end, I just forgot the whole p+/- thing at the high levels. Without that the chain gun is really close to a rapid emplacement II, baring ST. Would you feel cheated if the damage type went down to p-? This is mostly to keep everything on the same page.

No social stigma is necessary. The stations that switched sides really helped win the war, and currently have quite of a hold in the IAH. There is something of a culture difference though.

The IAH has its own military, though the bulk of its forces belong to individual nations. In an joint operation, the IAH serves as the coordinator for all the other forces. It is also the default force for things like pirate removal. Its funding has weakened with the end of the war, and part of your mission is to provide the IAH with legitimacy in another role.

ahh... I see freefall. Yeah, in this setting its just as important to combat as stealth.