Bluebook v2.0

Think, Thank and Thunk.

As usual, my after mission visit to "Mr. Johnson" about his curios and bobs.  In that time, I'd like to get the lowdown on how to operate those flamethrowers.  I'll take him a bottle Scooney's best, as a thank you for the cool rafflur.  If he still has it, I plan to buy an EM rifle.

Unfortunately, the man has disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him. Some say the quill bats got him. Others say he escaped on one of the ships. There's even a rumor that he was in the ship that exploded on the tarmac. However, the most likely rumor is that he didn't like the sudden increase in UPF presence and has moved elsewhere.

Irritated, Kyle kicks some rubble and heads back to examine that beam emitter he recovered from the Sathar assassin system. If possible, he wants to see if it can be replicated into a new weapon design. Maybe Mr. Johnson will hear about it and come looking for him.

The beam emitter is a pretty simple-tech weapon. The problem is that it is big. You think if each of you carried a large dish, and laid them out in a circle around your target, you could then use it about like a heavy laser. Advantage: it goes through walls and there is no currently available defense. With time and expertise (and lots of experimentation), you might be able to produce a hand-held gun, but you can already estimate that it's going to be weak. The advantage is that they'll never expect it. The disadvantage is that they don't have much reason to be concerned.

Hmm... 5 emitters mounted in a heavy weapon frame Laser targeting sets the range and adjusts the beam focus accordingly. All 5 beams intersect and microwave the target. Low damage or not, if nothing stops it, a death by a thousand cuts is still death. A man-portable small arm may be off in the future, but in a heavy frame, this shouldn't be too hard.

What if we use a M-a-s-e-r ( said with a doctor Evil accents)

In essence, that's what these are.  "Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation".

not necessarily , microwave weapons generally such as the area denial weapon or pain ray do not use Maser but magnetrons or Cavity oscillator. Maser are generally large, about the size of small oven and require refrigeration units but the latest are actually solid state or cyrstal devices. Maser were actually invented before lasers and general do not require a large emitter array which is characteristics of diffuse emitters, and are generally too fragile for use as weapons.   

It may be a lead-in from Scott. My rafflur is from Zeb's, so are masers. Who knows, I could invent them! I'll be a rich, happy hermit.

Actually, that whole event was based on a really vague but possibly real-life story that I'd heard. Up north somewhere, where it is cold, radio station operators (or security guards) were saving on heating costs by putting chairs close to the transmitters. It was nice and warm, so one of the late-night operators fell asleep, and never woke up. Probably something I should Google - but I don't really want to know the details. It's the idea that counts.

Well back in Naval Electronic school, i spend many un-fun time after failing uniform inspection, cleaning off the roof of radar array where birds got to close while it was in operation. As my chief said, there a reason for the red circle draw on the floor around the radar mast...

My brother-in-law was in the Navy. He took me down to Norfolk one day while the Nimitz was in port. I wasn't allowed on at the time, but, we could get close enough to see this weird cloud in front of the radar dish. It was a swarm of bugs. They'd fly in and pop...dead.  Well, the seagulls saw all the bugs and went in to investigate...pop. That was a freaky day indeed.

hand held microwave weapon and it results

Well this certainly took a morbid turn. I guess the idea is - if it can be weaponized, it will be.  From a game perspective - what is the range on these things? Would it make more sense to create these arrays on an attack ship made for boarding, let's say? Would the hull stop the microwaves? In other words, can we disable the crew and take the ship in perfect condition with no risk to our crew? Just thinking out loud here, but that seemed like something the group was toying with before. I like being planet side and building a mass information/spy network, however if we do the ship thing, this could prove profitable.

They could, they are what we would be a soft kill weapon. The beam it self would not penetrate the hull but would gradually heat the ship. In space warfare heat is major factor, heat a ship faster than you can cool it, and you take out first then electronic, then engine then the reactor and eventually the crew. Depending on the safety the damage may be slight to major. 

Starship hulls in StarFrontiers are built to absorb energy. That's why beam weapons are allowed on spaceships and space stations, but slug throwers are not. Aimed shots can still destroy small parts of the ship itself, but definitely a radio-frequency beam is not going to penetrate. The range (and accuracy) depends on the exact setup, however the range will always be INSIDE the circle of dishes. For example, for the Sathar's setup, it had a range (and damage) about like a heavy laser, but only within the circle of eight dishes. Perhaps this could be improved with research, but at least for now, that's the big limitation. If you want to change it into a handheld weapon, you think that's possible.  A rifle sized weapon will have a range equivalent to a laser rifle, one shot per round, draining one SEU.  Damage is one-fifth the number rolled (if it is a hit). Advantages: it can shoot through walls, there is no defense, and there is no way to see where the attack is coming from (without using a TechKit to track the beam backwards). 

Absorbing energy is the problem, any material can absorb energy and store it, but there is a limit. Once the limit is reach it begins releasing the energy. look at the space shuttle it is cover in heat absorbing tiles design to absorb heat on reentry but as it loiters in space it must begin to release any absorbed energy or the crew and the delicate instruments cook. the solution is opening the shuttle doors, which have heat radiator mounted on the inside to release that absorbed energy. A maser like a laser could still harm a ship, reflective hull would offer no protection unless it design to reflect microwaves ( Silver plating would be great till it heat up and evaporate). So at first it would seem like nothing is happening, then as the material of the hull reaches it max ability to store heat, it would begin releasing it to the inside of the ship. The crew would slowly cook any internal cooling system  would be able to work as the ship is being bathed in heat and cannot release it to space. First the ship computer will shut down, the reactor will scram due to loss of cooling and then the crew will die. A Masking screen would be protection as water will absorb microwaves so it will increase the time it take to kill the crew. Wall having any high amount of metal would offer protection, stone and cement would not. a flat sheet of aluminum or silver could reflect the waves back to the projector and in theory short them out.

Rodworth would like to get with Kyle to have Nilor's Robot converted into a gun carrier (Bat Boy version 1.0). He basically need to insure that all 4 arms are working, the chest compartment to be accessible on command to carry extra ammo and the robot programmed to hand the weapons it is carrying on command to who ever on the Neon tiger request it and program it also to follow us. Generally i also like to see if the compartment is big enough to carry a spare Skein suit or two (and albeldo suit), if not i like to see if we add a storage box for these items. also how many clips, grenades and power clips could we store in the present compartment?  Is the robot presently using wheel / tracks or does it have legs ? maybe we can get a little more inform on it to see what we are working with

Ok. I'll drag the bot into the workshop and give it a tune up.

The robot is a level 2 standard body, with wheels, and two arms. It has security lock and attack/defense programs. It has a built-in chronocom. compass, and toxy-rad gauge. If you want to modify it, that's up to you - just use standard AlphaDawn rules. Since there are no rules regarding robot carrying capacity, I'm going to guess 1/2 STA, so 50kg of equipment. Think of the hidden compartment as about 1/2 meter cube.

question, instead of reinventing the wheel, the robot is program already to follow, Can i find/ buy or have our tech masters create this and have the robot push it around.

So, name the robot Short-Round and have him push your rickshaw of guns?

It reminded me more of a baby carriage -- but one like in Lone Wolf and Cub. So a foot and a half cube? Plenty of space for some ammo clips and SEU Clips. Not neccesarily any weapons but not bad. That thing has a built in Toxy-Rad Gauge? Keep that handy!

I'm moving this thread up so we can talk about next steps after session 23. So we got a party at Darkworld in two days.  Rodworth kept mentioning a plan; Eusyl is all ears. She's also kicking around something using Holoscreens if we can get close to Alice at the party.

Well there is several things, Beadle was lying to us. His hit was Alice's ward the question was for who? The Ambassador did not know about the girl, if he did he would have known that.. So who is mister Beadle covering for.?The story that he was out for us to eliminate some of the competition for the office of the presidency would had he merc focusing on Yaz and Joseph, in the case at least 2 merc had a chance to attack Yaz but instead they went after the girl.. The Malthar has good intelligent , he know who we are, if his agents go after the girl that will allow us to chance to cripple his eyes on the planet and allow us to make our move against the Malthar when it is time. The Holoscreens is good as Rodworth will need some one to stand in for him when the time comes. We need a little extra muscle so i hoping we can recruit the surviving Blue Boys to provide the muscle we need to spring Alice. Then there is the attack by the Winds, they obviously not doing it for their own benefits, but working for some one. Maybe Beadle, or the Malthar. With the extra fire power we could go after the winds and find out who.

In terms of creating additional characters, how do you do it?

Scott I like to reach out to throwdor and see if like come to the ball and be my stand in (it would require him as coming as someone plus one)... Also who inviting a plus one ?   We may need to invite a few people along to increase the number of bodies to keep track of.. Everyone suggest a possible date and we see who we may bring along..

I will say this... Yaz WILL not go to a Malthar party, no way, no how, not going to happen. If everyone else wants to die, enjoy. Aint happening. You konw the part is just for his entertainment, and do you really want to be his jesters? As for the Wind - why??? As for Blue Boys - why???  It is time to re-group, slow down and get smart. Chasing every lead, going non-stop and not waiting to piss of the next guy is just not a good life path or good for business. Slow it down.

You can stay on the ship and keep the engines warm...Winds had it coming and it was a good combat practice, you wanted us to drop the hammer on the winds.. Blue boys would have been good meat shields, too bad they didnot bite.  We are smart, going fast ( less than a month we are fairly well off have two ships, thriving business and arm to the T's) 

LOL What makes you think that Yaz will even go up there when everyone is under the same roof and there is nothing stopping the Malthar from just wiping us out - I'm not big on TPK. Yes, Yaz mentioned we needed to take out the Wind long ago, however he wanted someone else to do the dirty work. Going in hot into a trap is not smart. Thinking you can out a major player without any prep or back up, is not smart. We need to be smart. Again, re-group, process and work the angles. 

@Alex:  I'll set up some blank character sheets for each of you @Edwin: For some reason, Rodworth wasn't issued a +1 like everyone else... although Artemis was invited

Wasn't she my plus one, really nice of Maltar taking the decision out of my hand :)

Ok, time to talk people off the ledge again... ;-). Firstly, I'm not looking to dismiss Carlos' concerns about our investigations; we definitely took some chances concerning the Winds. But they were clearly implicated in an attempt on our lives (or at least Lisa Sturgeon's who is at this point a client). It was only later that it was revealed that they'd only supplied part of elements for the assassins and had done it sight unseen. Rodworth's appeal to the Blue Boys was, indeed, a "outside the box" move. And going to Darkworld Station can seem like a gutsy, possibly suicidal move. So let me explain why I'm not that worried. and it's going to get a bit Meta: Also, Scott, I'm gonna talk about you like you're not here. Sorry. My last 'golden age' of RPGing before this last eight years with the group that I'm in with Ed was back in College in the late Eighties to Early Nineties. I didn't run games back then so I had a lot of different GMs and DMs at the university's Games Club. They all had their own styles, not necessarily good or bad but very variable. One of the guys who took on the GM mantle was my friend Jeff. We ran a Star Trek: TNG game in the GURPS system. Now, the system is already designed to be realistic or more lethal naturally. And he was a math major and a big Tom Clancy fan. We learned quickly that we had to anticipate every possible problem, worry over every decision we made or he would find a way to 'get' us. It wasn't malicious but it was uncompromising. If we brought a computer from a captured ship, we'd better have made sure that it was on an isolated system and wasn't even brought near our computer system or we were guaranteed to have a virus infect our system. It was a hard game and, frankly, stopped being fun after a while. And we didn't even have a lot of casualties.  I tell you all that to tell you this; we've been gaming with Scott for more than six months now so we can glean some insights into his GMing style. One, I'm beyond impressed at his ability to have us be able to jump on one of half a dozen possible plot threads at a moment's notice. Running Champions, if I prep for 3 scenarios, I'd want a medal. And he's demonstrated that he's willing to reward aggressive if well-planned play. I'm prepared to be demonstrated to be incorrect but every time in this campaign when we did something that Yaz might have been concerned about, we've come out ahead on XP, money and prestige; or at least are no worse off. When things haven't worked out, it's been either that we've chased the wrong lead, and it's pretty clear that there is a right lead and not just a bunch of dead ends, had some bad dice rolls or both. Remember, this is a game and it's played inside someone's head; the GM. I choose to trust that this GM is one who wants us to do daring and bold things. And even if we do more dangerous things, I feel that we have done a good job of preparing and not going in blind. In the case of the Winds, we had a clear and smart action plan that was able to even accommodate even some surprises happening in the middle of it. We knew how many people we were up against, the lay of the land and were able to win handily but planning and using our various equipment and skills to full effect.   If this were more like the real world, Eusyl would be happy to run the shuttle trade business, earning their average of 1000 credits a day, spend the next few years studying up on her space ship engineering and applying for a berth on an atomic drive ship after a while. But then I feel we'd be playing this: Just sayin'.

Rodworth just being Rodworth, brave to point of foolish, and always thinking outside the box. How could he not gone to Maltar's Ball even if it is a trap!  Yaz does serve as a speed bump and it has served Rodworth well has it forces him to slow down and look at the big picture, just as Joseph serves to mellow Rod aggressive nature. The only really bad influence is Batla Sax when those two guys get together all hell break loose...:)

Kyle is along for the ride...no, not on Sparky. Since his childhood, he's wanted back into space. He can't bring himself to be a pirate, but he's happy to be up on the station. He doesn't have a death wish, but since seeing his father die and living in abject poverty for all of his childhood, he's not opposed to having to do what he must to further his goal of finally getting off planet.  If he didn't value his friends, he'd have signed on with the UPF the day the offer was made. He's very torn, but he won't leave until everyone is ready. Going to the Malthar station, having artificial gravity under his feet and looking down upon the planet at a macro view exhilarates Kyle. Sparky could be in her birthday suit and he'd not notice. She's just there because she could be useful, should the SHTF. Like the song Brandy said, "My love, my lady is the sea."  Just substitute the word space. Kyle wants us to get as much money as we can, so that we can buy a ship and explore. Given that, and to refer to Alex's post. Scott did an AMAZING job building Styrigi and the game adjustments. Outside the game, I feel that we should stay here as long as we can, to maximize the use of that work.  Kyle will wait as long as necessary.

Oh man, I recognize that picture!  Isn't that from the original Dungeon Master's Guide? Thanks for the vote of confidence.  I always try to run a realistic world, but in my experience, most realistic people are too self-absorbed to be plotting how to kill you.  I also love romantic comedies and high melodrama, so I have to struggle to keep that side under control.  Regardless, I am a stickler for letting the dice fall as they may.  If the dice show you are dead, then so be it.  Luckily, StarFrontiers is somewhat forgiving b/c of the high tech medical care available.  We've already had a few "deaths" and there have been a few close calls which could have led to a TPK (total party kill), but you've squeezed through. Second to the Sathar, the Malthar is the most powerful "bad guy" written into the original setting.  At least for now, he's much more likely to be feeling you out. He's probably trying to decide whether or not he can use you somehow.  For him, killing you outright is wasteful and possibly dangerous. There are two real dangers here.  First, you might offend him, although you've heard he has a self-deprecating sense of humor.  Second, he might decide your lives are disadvantageous to his plans, in which case he will do his best to dispose of you quietly (in the future) with no strings leading back to him. On that note: the Malthar has some of the best trained people in the frontier, individually rivals of the megacorp's or UPF troops. If you were to get on his bad side, you can expect some well-equipped level six assassins to come knocking.  Likewise, if it wasn't for the UPF presence, he has enough combat ready ships to own this system.  And he has even more spread out across the frontier.

I would agree with what has been said and yes, Yaz and Carlos, tend to be a little too cautious. It is important to note the GM and their style as it makes a difference and I figure you can guess at the type of GMs I have had before. 5 deaths (and that is creating new characters) in 1 day will scar a person. :) As I mentioned in game, we need to be ready to react and respond as a team to questions about our loyalties and willingness to work with the Malthar. The best we can hope for is to remain neutral, using the UPF and our involvement with them as a prerequisite for staying clean while they are present in the system - something we are sure the Malthar can understand. As for political machinations planet-side - we are/were in with Lisa Styrigi as she seemed to be the best option in that political struggle. We have invested heavily in fostering that relationship and would like to see it pay dividends. Again something the Malthar should understand. As it stands, the Neon Tygers are a small, non-obtrusive transportation company trying to make life better for a dejected populace in a ghetto of a god forsaken rock of a planet, what influence can we really have or help can we be to someone like that Malthar. We, of course, are willing to look at opportunities as they present themselves and hope to be able to decide for ourselves what opportunities are most beneficial to the Neon Tygers. (The bolded part is very important, we need to be independent and hope to establish a working relationship and not a master/servant relationship early on.) At least that is what Yaz would have recommended on the trip up to the Malthar station. Seeing as there was no way around going. I'm off the ledge, however even if Yaz is still on the edge - he can at least glide when he jumps. :)

Lisa Styrigi is a major issue, if Alice is dead, we will need to  ID who's is attempting to assassin Lisa and take care of them. We will need to then get her to run, taking a platform that will give all inhabitant of planet equal right, and maybe set up a new constitution.. 

Equal rights is a great campaign promise, but it's a pipe dream. There are always those who are "more equal" than others.  Restoring order and bringing the planet back to its pre-terrorist days and lowering taxes to encourage businesses to employ more folks is more realistic. I'm sure that among the homeless on Styrigia, there are people who want to work and make a life for themselves. Lets give them a shot to do that. If you don't make it to the brass ring, everyone else shouldn't have to support you. Also, get rid of the Red and Blue. Establish a true police force and a separate military. The Red/Blues were just thugs in a uniform. If you want equal rights, give everyone equal rights under the law. If you mix the police and military together, nothing good ever comes from it. A Democratic Republic with elected officials from each dome. A codified set of laws and equal opportunity for all. If we push for a Constitution, I think we have a pretty good example to go by.

Love it, anything else we need to add to her platform?

A pedestal...she's short.

I'm picking up piloting. Just increased to Level 2. I can fly HS3 ships and any type of system ship. Now, that raises a question. Level 1 say any system ship. What if someone took an old, scuttled Battleship and started using it as a monstrous space bus/cargo hauler, in system only?

Yes, you could do that... although the distinguishing factor is the engine type.  Atomic and ion engines are reserved for starships. The bigger question is how to find such a ship.  Not many people would build a HS20 system ship.  Ion engines are just too cheap in the long run, so if your ship is that big, you're probably thinking long-haul.

Yea, I figure as much. It was just one of those "What if" scenarios. Old, grungy hull...no engines...etc. Some schmuck sticks a couple bottle rockets on the sides and flies it between planets kinda thing.

So I want to go back to the Malthar issue that no one has commented on... We need to have a decision as a group on what to do about the Malthar should we be pressed to pick a side - Malthar or Styrigi. Lisa Styrigi may be up shits creek - so I'm not worried about what her platform should be, I'm more worried about what we do in a "pick your own demise" adventure? At some point we may have to cut bait and bail from the styrigi ship. I just want to make sure we get something for all the work we put into that ship - to continue the metaphor. 

Correction: I have mixed Alice and Lisa in the conversation. We may have to pick the Malthar over Alice. Now, Lisa running for president was just a joke, right??

I threw together a quick stat set for Sparky (Blue'kei). I'd like to make her my sidekick. She's good in a fight and sly. See if you like what I put together, Scott. If you think it should be different, go ahead and change it.

Scott i Rodworth would like to stop the UPF before they leave and warn them about talking to the Malthar as the White Rabbit has compromise the Malthar's Computer systems and multiple Pirate ships computers. There is very likely agents of the Rabbit working on the Malthar station.

Sparky looks fine, as well as the other side-kicks.  Cool pic for Sparky.  Is Edwin's picture from Logan's Run?

Space 1999