Pyramid #3/79: Space Atlas

[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.