Pyramid #3/30 - Spaceships

[Kuroshima]

It's out!

I'm not much of a fan of Spaceships, so I won't comment, yet. Still, I'm sure I can find something interesting in it.

[Tyneras]

Oh goodie, I'm entering the spaceships and interstellar trade section of my campaign building, you guys have great timing.

Mr. PDF, I'd like you to meet Mr. E-Reader. We can all get to know each other better on the train this afternoon.

[Langy]

Excellence. I've really wanted Mass Combat rules for spaceships, and this provides them handily. Now just need to write up a few nice fleets of 'em - a good start might be the ships from SS3 and 4.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

you guys have great timing.

50 years ago last week, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space. The first week of May is the 50th anniversary of Mercury 3/Freedom 7, when Alan Shepard became the first American in space. What better time to release a Spaceships-themed issue than between those two milestones?

[Tzeentch]

Being able to revisit Technomancer was a real treat. :)

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I'm not much of a fan of Spaceships

I need to point out that I was surprised at how little this issue depends upon GURPS Spaceships! Yes, there are some ship stats in there, but this issue is far from an expansion on that series -- the range of articles is impressive, making for a very versatile issue.

Practical Astromancy: This is an expansion for GURPS Technomancer, focusing on the space programs' use of Teleport and other Gate spells to transport people and things into orbit, onto the surface of other planets, etc. Tons of cool info for anyone who's a fan of that setting.

One With the Ship: Rules for using neural interfaces to control vehicles (ships or otherwise). Includes new cyberwear, new psionic abilities, a full template for a neural wheelman, and more. Useful for any game with a focus on vehicles.

Mass Combat in Space: David's column, merging the Spaceships and Mass Combat rules. Finally, the rules from Mass Combat move off planet! This one is obviously tied to both books.

Sky Galleys: The Roma Universalis setting from Pyramid #20 mentioned the Romans conquering other planets by flying sky galleys through the aether . . . and here they are! This one is fairly Spaceships focused, though there's also plenty of general info expanding the original article -- great for running a game in this setting, or just using it for Infinite Worlds.

Hunter-Gatherer: An adventure involving a mysterious ship. This does require that the PCs have some way to intercept the ship's orbit (i.e., a spaceship), but 95% of the adventure takes place within the bizarre environmental habitats of the ship -- it's primarily an exploration adventure, just one designed to be dropped into a high-tech game.

To be honest, when I first saw this issue on the wishlist, I was worried that it would end up as just one article after another filled with lists of sample ships -- and while such a thing could be useful, it could also be boring. Fortunately, that's not the case at all; this issue really takes a simple concept and runs with it!

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Mass Combat in Space: David's column, merging the Spaceships and Mass Combat rules. Finally, the rules from Mass Combat move off planet! This one is obviously tied to both books.

What? Noooo! Now I have to buy it! =P

[Tzeentch]

The Battle frigate (Spaceships 3, p. 17) has a TS of 68,580. Things look grim for any force that can't contest space superiority :)

[Tyneras]

I'm pretty sure space assets can only contribute 10% of their TS to ground battles, so it's not quite that bad. They likely don't stack up well in a cost per TS comparison for ground combat. I wonder if they can add all their C3I? I don't see why not.

[vierasmarius]

Just got this pdf, thoroughly enjoying it. I did have an observation though, in regards to the Mass Combat rules. Because of how price scales in Spaceships (proportional to Mass) compared to how DR and HP scale (proportional to linear dimension), larger ships have a much higher cost per TS than small craft and fighters (assuming equivalent systems devoted to armor and weapons). I had a thought on how to address this, by replacing the DR+HP portion with a formula based on Mass. Something like: Mass ÷ 10 x (1 + dDR ÷ dST)

This would have the effect of making a SM X ship the equivalent of 3 SM X-1 ships, 10 SM X-2 ships, etc. Compare to the rules as they stand, where 1 SM X = 2 SM X-2. It would make it much easier to represent the "Super Battleship", a single ship capable of fighting an entire enemy fleet, while also keeping in check the power of carriers with massive fighter complements.

I hope this isn't taken as a criticism of the article. On the contrary, I love the mechanic he's presented, and am currently in the process of applying it to all of the published spaceships. So take this more as a musing than a complaint, as a slightly different way to represent spaceships in MC.

EDIT: Another way to think of it that comes to mind. You have a SM+5 fighter with a Spinal weapon mount, and a SM+6 fighter with the same weapon in a Major mount, and the smaller ship has double the TS of the larger one (3 x 20 vs 1 x 30). If this is based on Mass instead, they'd be roughly equal TS (3 x 30 vs 1 x 100).