GURPS Spaceships 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech

[Kromm]

Your mount to the stars:
A metal box with thrusters
Or stout wood and sails?

— Some hack

We just released GURPS Spaceships 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech on e23. Its 39 pages contain rules for strange spacecraft, from the merely unorthodox (vessels with helicopter blades or ornithopter wings, really huge or tiny systems, etc.), through superscience (e.g., time- and dimension-spanning tech), to weird science (like etherics, perpetual-motion machines, and psi-tech) and even out-and-out magic (essential fuel and zombie spacecraft!). The heart of the book is 22 pages of new systems, design features, and design switches. However, you also get rules for using all this stuff, including notes on cosmologies where it all makes sense and movement rules for some of the more bizarre propulsion options. Rounding it out are the customary examples, categorized as "Magical Ships," "Steampunk and Weird-Science Ships," or "Bioships and Space Monsters." I think that says it all. This is probably the first Spaceships book you could use in a fantasy campaign or classic space opera . . .

[jacobmuller]

And it's PayDay Too!
And what a payday - Spaceships 7 aperitif - I like it, now I can have RAW stats for my geneered starhoppers! (lions and tigers and spacewhales, oh my!)

DF8&9 main course and Frozen Hell dessert:)

Took a while to read - so much material to play with!
Delighted by the new Boost drive rules - now I have RAW for my alternate drive systems - Awesome.

[David Johnston2]

Well that's Spelljammer, Space 1889, and Doctor Who covered. Also all those fighters that behave like space is filled with air, and the hypersails from Lieutenant Leary.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well that's Spelljammer, Space 1889, and Doctor Who covered. Also all those fighters that behave like space is filled with air, and the hypersails from Lieutenant Leary.

And don't forget Species-8279 (or whatever number it was) from the ST:Voyager season 2 cliffhanger.

[tratclif]

And all the modules, switches and features you'll need for Transhuman Space seem to be here too.

Some first-read quibbles: none of the modules have stats for SM+4, though I haven't looked close enough to see if anything isn't really covered by Spaceships 4, p. 37. And on gasbags, SM+10 gasbags are "superscience", though the Hindenburg would be SM+11 or so, and I can find serious proposals for much larger airships.

[Darekun]

How well would this apply if not using the simplified system from Spaceships? I.e. if statting ships as characters, or using 3ed VE?

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

And don't forget Species-8279 (or whatever number it was) from the ST:Voyager season 2 cliffhanger.

8472. (>_>) Fluidic space didn't make much sense, but it was a fun idea :J

[PK]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well that's Spelljammer, Space 1889, and Doctor Who covered. Also all those fighters that behave like space is filled with air, and the hypersails from Lieutenant Leary.

In fact, the book has specific alterations to the combat systems (from books 1, 3, and 4) to cover things like "friction in space" and "boost drives".

Originally Posted by tratclif

And all the modules, switches and features you'll need for Transhuman Space seem to be here too.

Sort of. Book 8 (specifically for THS) overlaps a few of the options from this book, but also adds several realistic options that aren't found here. The bulk of it is conversions of every THS ship, though, so GMs don't have to do the work (as that's a lot of work -- I shudder to think if David ever proposed a similar book for Traveller spacecraft; 'twould be 500 pages long...)

Some first-read quibbles: none of the modules have stats for SM+4, though I haven't looked close enough to see if anything isn't really covered by Spaceships 4, p. 37.

SM+4 stats should be pretty easy to extrapolate for most systems, if not all. Some (like the psionic power plant) are simply not feasible at all on such a small scale while others just follow the given progression (usually of the form 1, 3, 10, 30, etc.)

And on gasbags, SM+10 gasbags are "superscience", though the Hindenburg would be SM+11 or so, and I can find serious proposals for much larger airships.

Not really. Remember that the whole reason Spaceships works with such simplicity is that it intentionally misuses "SM" to refer to mass, not volume. When estimating the Hindenburg's SM for Spaceships purposes, you need to think of it as being the gondola plus the deflated gasbag, all bundled up on top, rolled into a neat ball.

[Refplace]

Sweet!
And I start my new job on Monday!

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Sort of. Book 8 (specifically for THS) overlaps a few of the options from this book, but also adds several realistic options that aren't found here. The bulk of it is conversions of every THS ship, though, so GMs don't have to do the work (as that's a lot of work -- I shudder to think if David ever proposed a similar book for Traveller spacecraft; 'twould be 500 pages long...)

Well it seems to me Traveler with its Jump drives based on mass for fuel would be an easy convert without losing much if any flavor.

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Well it seems to me Traveler with its Jump drives based on mass for fuel would be an easy convert without losing much if any flavor.

JTAS has an article I did on using the SPACESHIPS system with Traveller.