Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas

[Steven Marsh]

Hey, all!

As an update: I've just pushed an update to this issue. It has some updates to the "Halfway to Anywhere" article, plus some tweaks to the spreadsheet.

If you have a Warehouse 23 account and subscribed to or bought that issue, you should've already gotten a notification by email. But just in case... feel free to swing by your Warehouse 23 library and redownload it!

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Steven Marsh

Hey, all!

As an update: I've just pushed an update to this issue. It has some updates to the "Halfway to Anywhere" article, plus some tweaks to the spreadsheet.

If you have a Warehouse 23 account and subscribed to or bought that issue, you should've already gotten a notification by email. But just in case... feel free to swing by your Warehouse 23 library and redownload it!

Great, and thanks!

I finally bought this a few days ago. Halfway to anywhere was what drew me in, but I haven't even read it yet, having been drawn in by Ostara. Great setting, and another big win for David Pulver. Normally I'm a crunch kind of guy, but now I'm itching to read the other settings in the issue.

Though I'm already plagued by a few head-scratchers about how the hives would work long-term.

[DaltonS]

I have a small issue with the “Achieving Orbit” equation in the “Formulae by the Numbers” sidebar. It should be made clear that P is atmospheric drag expressed in mps/Atm of atmospheric pressure. Also, shouldn’t streamlining have some effect on this factor? (That is, by dividing the drag by 5 for streamlined ships?)

Dalton “who wouldn’t mind some rules for aerobraking” Spence

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yay for Halfway to Anywhere making it in here!

Great title! I heard of it when reading an article by Isaac Asimov about a discussion he had had with Robert Heinlein, discussing Heinlein's then-upcoming story “the Man Who Sold the Moon” (a story about the challenges to be faced in reaching the moon), and a difficulty an earlier story he had written was causing him: in that earlier story, he had established the ability to achieve Earth orbit with little trouble; Asimov said something like “Oh, I see; once you're in Earth Orbit, you're halfway to the moon”, and Heinlein responded “no; once you're in Earth Orbit, you're halfway to anywhere!”

[Humabout]

~puts his shovel away~

Just thought I'd try to breathe a touch of life back into this again.

I have recently launched my first rocket (IRL) and thought I'd share the results, so people might learn from my own experience.

Despite a rather tumultuous design and fabrication experience, we did lift off on time and achieve roughly average apogee despite it being generally about 10% lower than the ideal predicted height. We are chalking this up to a mix of random variables (it was windy and we had to launch at an angle into the wind so we had a chance of recovering our rocket, plus random added weight in the form of unexpected tape, glue, paint, fillets, etc.; plus just the randomness inherent to models vs. reality.) So, if you are using Halfway to Anywhere, I'd suggest that it is a best case scenario, and GMs who want things to go wrong (or players who want to design for the unexpected) should consider a 10% difference in performance from the calculations - and not in your favor.

All of that said, the GM should never be afraid to fudge in the favor of plot. After all, Armageddon wouldn't have been a very enjoyable movie if Bruce Willis et al died on launch....

A full review of the design, launch, and results experience will be posted on my blog this week. See my signature for details.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Humabout

~puts his shovel away~

Just thought I'd try to breathe a touch of life back into this again.

I have recently launched my first rocket (IRL) and thought I'd share the results, so people might learn from my own experience.

Despite a rather tumultuous design and fabrication experience, we did lift off on time and achieve roughly average apogee despite it being generally about 10% lower than the ideal predicted height. We are chalking this up to a mix of random variables (it was windy and we had to launch at an angle into the wind so we had a chance of recovering our rocket, plus random added weight in the form of unexpected tape, glue, paint, fillets, etc.; plus just the randomness inherent to models vs. reality.) So, if you are using Halfway to Anywhere, I'd suggest that it is a best case scenario, and GMs who want things to go wrong (or players who want to design for the unexpected) should consider a 10% difference in performance from the calculations - and not in your favor.

All of that said, the GM should never be afraid to fudge in the favor of plot. After all, Armageddon wouldn't have been a very enjoyable movie if Bruce Willis et al died on launch....

A full review of the design, launch, and results experience will be posted on my blog this week. See my signature for details.

I've wanted to use your Halfway to Anywhere rules for awhile, and I will, once I start my work on Echoes in the Dark, and I've actually been struggling with exactly that: What do you do on a miss? Of course, you might get lost, and getting lost in the Solar System might be bad (as in lethally campaign-ending). A 10% loss on Delta-V might be okay, but it varies between no big deal and lethally campaign ending. If you're going to have Navigation rolls, failures should have interesting consequences, rather than spell a big game over, or a minor inconvenience.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I've wanted to use your Halfway to Anywhere rules for awhile, and I will, once I start my work on Echoes in the Dark, and I've actually been struggling with exactly that: What do you do on a miss? Of course, you might get lost, and getting lost in the Solar System might be bad (as in lethally campaign-ending). A 10% loss on Delta-V might be okay, but it varies between no big deal and lethally campaign ending. If you're going to have Navigation rolls, failures should have interesting consequences, rather than spell a big game over, or a minor inconvenience.

This I totally understand. Halfway to Anywhere was originally developed so I knew how much dV to assign to spaceships I designed. It grew from there, but frankly, screwing up a Navigation roll in a hard sci-fi game should be dire. I know that isn't fun, which is why I generally wouldn't count that against a PC or expect a PC to make that roll. Of course, that doesn't fit everyone's games.

I think if I were requiring Navigation rolls for plotting orbital transfers, I'd make a failure result in using up 10% more fuel or using up all remaining fuel, whichever is less dire. Frex, if you botch a Nav roll to get to Mars, at the least, you'll get to Mars, but you might not have fuel to get back to Earth, which provides an adventure hook. If you aim for the moon, with dV to spare, you might lose profits because you burn extra fuel on a failure. Regardless, on a crit fail, you should probably be in deep trouble, as determined by the GM (start making Mechanic or Engineering rolls to pull an Apolo 13 out of your butt).

But again, this is really up to the GM. Halfway is meant as a guideline for GMs so they have bounds one what to expect of PCs' spaceships.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Humabout

This I totally understand. Halfway to Anywhere was originally developed so I knew how much dV to assign to spaceships I designed. It grew from there, but frankly, screwing up a Navigation roll in a hard sci-fi game should be dire. I know that isn't fun, which is why I generally wouldn't count that against a PC or expect a PC to make that roll. Of course, that doesn't fit everyone's games.

I think if I were requiring Navigation rolls for plotting orbital transfers, I'd make a failure result in using up 10% more fuel or using up all remaining fuel, whichever is less dire. Frex, if you botch a Nav roll to get to Mars, at the least, you'll get to Mars, but you might not have fuel to get back to Earth, which provides an adventure hook. If you aim for the moon, with dV to spare, you might lose profits because you burn extra fuel on a failure. Regardless, on a crit fail, you should probably be in deep trouble, as determined by the GM (start making Mechanic or Engineering rolls to pull an Apolo 13 out of your butt).

But again, this is really up to the GM. Halfway is meant as a guideline for GMs so they have bounds one what to expect of PCs' spaceships.

That's some pretty good advice there. I'll bookmark that post for when I get back to working on that campaign.