Create Air in Space

[Huyderman]

Hi

So immediately following getting my hands on "Spaceships 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech" I immediately started plotting a GURPS Spelljammer game.

Now the default assumption in spelljammer is that ships have an air envelope keeping air in, but it is not renewed unless docking at a planet or planetoid with an atmosphere. We're using Powers as Magic, and now one of the players want to circumvent this by giving an ally the ability Create Air. A little against the spirit, but fair enough, I've done the math on how much energy a Create Air spell needs to replenish a ship, and can derive from there how many levels of the Create advantage he'll need.

But unlike the spell, the advantage is balanced by requiring the character to burn cp's to stabilize created matter based on it's value. Now on a normal ground based campaign, the value of air is negligible. When you are months from port in space, it is not. So what is a fair value for air? The cost of replenishing air at port is nill, but for a ship running low far from a port the value is immense.

[Maz]

Since the cost is relative it really depends on how expensive you as a GM want it to be.

If air was never really going to be a problem in the campaign. If the focus was not on getting "lost in space". Then the value is very low.

However if you were planning on running a campaign were keeping track of fuel, food and air and so on was going to be a part of the game then it's much more valuable. In fact if this was going to be an important part of the game I think your better of simply saying "No".

Even in games with magic it's ok to say no to certain stuff if it will break the challenge of the campaign. For instance, an investigation campaign will be ruined if a character has mind read and good detect spells. Or a wilderness survival campaign will be ruined by teleport or create food and water.

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An alternative is to allow it but say that this companion requires some exotic substance to live and produce air. If it does not get it, it do not die but go into a deep slumber, and do not produce air. Remember that the GM is in his full right to determine any detail of an ally. If the player wants full control over a power he needs to buy it himself and not try to take rule-shortcuts to save points. With this option you can always make the substance hard to get by or run out if you want a situation where air runs out.
However if you chose this option allow the companion to be cheap, as really it will be no more than a nice perk.

[davidtmoore]

I would tend to low value. If you base values on the subjective value to the PCs based on unlikely situations, then anything could have near-infinite value; the general GURPS tendency seems to be basing it on practical trade value.

What do you think you could sell air for, in an open market? Even a space-based market where it could be intermittently scarce? I wouldn't say more than a few dollars per ton.

[cccwebs]

You're best bet would be to use Doesn't Breathe (Area Effect, Affects Others, Force Field). Use enough Area Effect to cover the entire ship and this allows the ally to create a "bubble" of breathable air.

[Huyderman]

Since I'm going for a Age of Sea kind of feeling. While most of the time, supplies won't be an issue, sometimes an accident happens or the ship goes of course, and limited supplies becomes a large plot point.

As to value not being dependant on situation, I disagree. It's no different than water being much more valuable in the middle of the desert. If you are low on water and stuck in the desert, the trade value you'd pay for it if you met a caravan would be much higher than elsewhere.

But anyway, I don't think It'll be much of a problem when going through the numbers. If air created has a cost greater than 0, this means the player must pay points to stabilize it when using the Create advantage. By ruling that the player can't combine created matter from multiple uses of the Create advantage when calculating the cost to stabilize, he'll have to spend 1 point per use. So he'll have to spend prohibitive many points on the advantage, or burn through a lot of points.

The option to simply prohibit it also is tempting, but I'd prefer the option being there although primarily for small scale use. E.g. someone stranded in space.

[Ulzgoroth]

Water is more valuable if you're stuck in a desert, but if the campaign's base value for water is dirt cheap you're not going to pay hundreds of times more if you use your Create (water) Advantage in the desert rather than elsewhere.

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To avoid this being a constant CP drain, two possibilities suggest themselves.

One is to take Transmutation (stale air to fresh air), and establish that fresh air is negligibly more valuable than stale, so the transmutation is stable at no CP cost.

Another would be to reduce the fatigue cost to nothing, then temporarily create (or transmute) the air once every 10 seconds. This would be rather inconvenient if the character with the ability needs to sleep or has any sort of life, unless they have Compartmentalized Mind.

These may not be what you want, if you're trying to make this ability unattractive except in special cases...but putting a CP-costing Advantage on an ally, as your OP describes the situation, seems like high-grade cheese in any case.

[nanoboy]

It occurs to me that you could also lower the cost if the character doesn't create air but instead creates oxygen or, assuming that no one in the setting would know what oxygen was, "the vital component" of air. He wouldn't have to create as much of it to supply the ship.

[Huyderman]

Yeah, making creating air neglible is not quite what I was seeking.

Making supplies (including air) negligible to resupply, would remove tensions of the dangers of possible shortage, as well as the potential for adventure such as the characters being forced to land on unexplored planetoids to resupply.

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As for allies having abilities having abilities costing cp. Yeah, pretty cheesy. I'd rule the cp cost would come out of the players points.

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As for the oxygen approach, I think "Create Essential Air" would be more fitting in an Fantasy game.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Huyderman

But unlike the spell, the advantage is balanced by requiring the character to burn cp's to stabilize created matter based on it's value. Now on a normal ground based campaign, the value of air is negligible. When you are months from port in space, it is not. So what is a fair value for air?

Are you going to have people selling air in your campaign? Remember most of the reason for the character point cost is to keep the PCs from getting rich off of selling unlimited quantities of what they create.

[Huyderman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Are you going to have people selling air in your campaign? Remember most of the reason for the character point cost is to keep the PCs from getting rich off of selling unlimited quantities of what they create.

I can easily see this kind of problem propping up. In a campaign where ships could be a month or months away from the nearest source of air, people able to to conjure unlimited amounts could make a tidy profit.