Ideas for 2320

[Colin]

Tugs give effectively the same performance as stutterwarp 2 for human-crewed ships, and are easier to control. For that matter, tugs could be (were?) used to launch surprise attacks on kafer space as well.
Like I said, the stutterwarp 2 was just me musing aloud. Tugs are easier to deal with.
But maybe there's a prototype out there, waiting for a TA to be written.
The future beckons.

Colin

 

[TKalbfus]

Sounds like a stutterwarp 2 is just a stutterwarp with better shielding to protect the crew and thus extend its range. Now the rules in my boxed set state that a stutterwarp needs gravity less than 1/10,000th of a G to travel faster than the speed of light. I was wondering if an inverse square formula could be substituted for that rule. More precisely a stutterwarp with a higher efficiency could go FTL deeper in a gravity well than could a stutterwarp with a lower efficiency because in general higher efficiency stutterwarps can travel faster than lower stutterwarps when given the same gravitational conditions. A Stutterwarp efficiency of 1 can go FTL when the gravity is 1/10,000 of a G, however an efficiency 2 stutter warp can go FTL when the gravity field is at 1/5,000 of a G. There should be an velocity curve that states how fast a starship can go depending on the local gravity and the stutterwarp efficiency.
V = StutterWarp efficiency * c * 10,000/G upto maximum velocity of stutterWarp Efficiency times light years per day.

 

[TKalbfus]

Oops it should have been:
V = StutterWarp efficiency * c * (1/10,000)/G up to StutterWarp efficiency * 365 * c

c = the speed of light
G is in Earth gravities.

 

[BMonnery]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Sounds like a stutterwarp 2 is just a stutterwarp with better shielding to protect the crew and thus extend its range. Now the rules in my boxed set state that a stutterwarp needs gravity less than 1/10,000th of a G to travel faster than the speed of light. I was wondering if an inverse square formula could be substituted for that rule. More precisely a stutterwarp with a higher efficiency could go FTL deeper in a gravity well than could a stutterwarp with a lower efficiency because in general higher efficiency stutterwarps can travel faster than lower stutterwarps when given the same gravitational conditions. A Stutterwarp efficiency of 1 can go FTL when the gravity is 1/10,000 of a G, however an efficiency 2 stutter warp can go FTL when the gravity field is at 1/5,000 of a G. There should be an velocity curve that states how fast a starship can go depending on the local gravity and the stutterwarp efficiency.
V = StutterWarp efficiency * c * 10,000/G upto maximum velocity of stutterWarp Efficiency times light years per day.

However, the drive disintegrates, flooding the ship with radiation, so simply having Ebers makes no difference, it is a new technology that can store the charge better.

Bryn

 

[Erik Boielle]

You know what I think 2300 needs?

More exploitation of aliens.

See, I've been reading The Rise And Fall of the British Empire, and it seems to me that there were three ways of acquiring overseas possessions.

The first was to make them yourself, exporting colonists who would set up farms and shit. See the American colonies.

The second, seen in India and Africa was to basically take over government from people who were already there (also known as invading people then running their country for your profit and their own good).

Then you have the whole unofficial empire thing whereby countries were technically independent but doing anything to interfere with British interests (mostly access to trade opportunities like, er, selling opium to the Chinese) would bring swift military intervention.

2300 seems, it would seem to me, have number 1 down pat, but 2 and the sorta 3 are less well represented. And to do them properly you would need large interstellar empires of beings to explore and fight with.

Now this is pretty not cool by modern standards, but no one said you had to be on the side of the people carving out the empires.

 

[GJD]

Originally posted by BMonnery:
GJD,

There's a really good (I assume, Brigadier Professor Richard Holmes is doing it) series on the American Revolutionary/ Independence War on at 21.00 hours tonight BBC2. Might be relevent to colonial independence movements in 2k3.

BTW Where in Essex are you?

Bryn

Caught the last 5 mins of it. I'll catch it on UK History or Discovery when the do the repeats.

I'm in Grays, home of the QE2 bridge and the temple to conspicuous consumption that is Lakeside. Where are you?

 

[GJD]

Stutterwarp 2 has 2 possible options, as far as I can see.

Option 1: Increased Range. The distance that can be travelled before the breakdown of the Tantalum coils and the associated radiation releas is increased. This might be beacuase of new tech, or maybe a more reliable way of delaying the discharging of drives. Options here are higher levels of ambient radiation during travel and restricted availability. The problem is that this buggers with the whole idea of stellar cartography being important and 7.7ly choke points become irrelevent.

Option 2: Incresed Drive efficency. Drives can't go any further, but they can go faster. At the moment the fastes drives I've seen seem to be able to travel about 5 - 6ly/Day, Kennedys, missiles and one of the nippy fighters. A breakthrough could lead to a "experimental military drive", faster than the current top of the line "new military drive" to go to NAM-speak. This wouldn't break the 7.7 limit, as long as delaying discharge was not a factor ("This engine is incredibly complex and delicate, that procedure could destroy billions of Livres of equipment"). It could also come about because of Ylii-tech, after all the Kafers benefitted from this directly, increasing the efficency of their drives after they encountered the Ylii.

 

[robmyers]

Originally posted by Colin:

Or a weapon. A big, AI-crewed (yes, I know AIs go whacko) drone with a cargo of something nasty. Or maybe a Ylii autonomous drone brain. Add Sung reaction drives for hard, close planetary manuevering...
What sort of ramifications would something like that have? (The AI aspect is something I don't overly favor, but they exist in the game)

Another aspect of the game is downloaded personalities (cf Deathwatch Program). Pop the PCs brains on disk into a drone and send it off to fight the Kafers. Not sure it feels very 2300, though.
One thing GDW always seemed very keen on was the primacy of Humanity, and whole, unmodified Humans at that. ECS was a conspicuous exception to this rule.

- Rob.

 

[BMonnery]

Originally posted by GJD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BMonnery:
GJD,

There's a really good (I assume, Brigadier Professor Richard Holmes is doing it) series on the American Revolutionary/ Independence War on at 21.00 hours tonight BBC2. Might be relevent to colonial independence movements in 2k3.

BTW Where in Essex are you?

Bryn

Caught the last 5 mins of it. I'll catch it on UK History or Discovery when the do the repeats.

I'm in Grays, home of the QE2 bridge and the temple to conspicuous consumption that is Lakeside. Where are you? </font>[/QUOTE]Harwich.

Bryn

 

[TKalbfus]

Another aspect of the game is downloaded personalities (cf Deathwatch Program). Pop the PCs brains on disk into a drone and send it off to fight the Kafers. Not sure it feels very 2300, though.
One thing GDW always seemed very keen on was the primacy of Humanity, and whole, unmodified Humans at that. ECS was a conspicuous exception to this rule.

- Rob.

Are the PCs brains copy protected? This whole idea opens a can of worms. You could build a whole army with the mind of one soldier copied endlessly if you wanted. Each soldier would become a different character as their subsequent experiences differentiated each one, so the play would have to choose to play one and only one soldier. All the other soldiers would have most of the same memories and motivations though so it would be fairly easy to come to an agreement on what to do. The only sticking point really would be in deciding who's in charge, since each copy would believe himself to be the original and would therefore believe that he should be leading the army. After all each copy has memories of uploading his memory into the computer so each thinks he is the original. Each soldier would want to send other copies of himself into harms way, while he himself stayed behind to coordinate the whole action. Every soldier in the whole army would have this believe. As a guide for the GM, all the mind copied NPCs of the PC want to do exactly what the PC wants to do, and they all want to lead! Some army huh?

 

[Colin]

2320 is going to minimize the role of cyberpunk elements. The game is about people, after all. I don't want to get into a discussion about what those elements are, really. There is a place for prosthetics and cybernetics, but not as an essential part of the story, only as props. You know, Sgt. Smith lost his hand in a Kafer ambush, and didn't want to take the time to get a cloned replacement, so ended up with a prosthetic. Just a metal hand. Not a metal hand with more accessories than a Swiss Army knife. Just a hand, part of the background, not a focus for the game.
Braintaping is a simliar sort of thing, Rather than being a plot device, it becomes a focus. It takes away from the main focus of the game, which is Mankind's struggle to reach, and hold, the stars.

 

[BMonnery]

On the subject of failed colonies, a documentary on Darian, Scotlands failed colonial venture is on BBC2, 2100hrs.

Bryn

 

[TWILIGHT]

regarding the colonial debate i recommend reading about the 'entrepot system'. the following book
http://books.cambridge.org/0521819261.htm
is an excellent example and details north sea commerce between towns and colonies and the effect of trade and loose government. Its a great parallel to interstellar commerce and colonial administration, jumping long distances over inhospitable terrain (space/sea) to a foreign market that will eventually overtake you. also regarding the stutterwarp2 debate, with increased communication between earth and colony worlds it would be a lot harder for a rebellion to succeed. The mother country would have a lot more notice of events on the frontier (steam power/suez canal/telegraph) have all helped quell rebellion on earth) JMHO.

 

[Murph]

Been gone a while because of health probs, but am just now getting back. Wow, what a great topic.

On the 7.7ly limit, it was one of the major things that always turned me off on 2300. Now a 9.4 limit, opens up much more exploration possibilities.

On the Pentapods vs Kafer, from what little I know, the Pentapods might just breed/build warships, and go in a very cooly exterminate the Kafer. Or they could ally with them. Or....

I don't see the Kafer war as being over any time soon.

 

[TWILIGHT]

it's non-canon i know but i ran a game on aurore where the pentapods were testing their armour-bullet prototypes firing chemical rounds (head of the 'alien/human' thing from alien:ressurection, tracks made of bone and cartlidge but looking like a HK from terminator and firing shells which look like the gungan plasma-balls from episode one). I KNOW a little strange but my players LOVED it...they were held down by Kafer fire and were so happy to see an ally lend a hand (are they officially allies?). I had them later on when the breathing, thinking pentapod tracked war machine was mortally injured. I described a sad sorrowful look on its face as it lay broken and dying looking at a human tank and expecting some kind of 'brotherly' assistance yet not getting any. One of my pc's (claire) was close to tears...great stuff! oh, well...i may get flak for veering off canon (as it seems some people do) but damn it...it was fun. JMHO. oh and speaking of pentapods, when they first met humanity did they think of creating more anthropomorphic bullets to deal with them? Imagine the scene...humans coming face to face with the pentapod designed greys!...hee hee...just screwing with ya on the last point. Dont take me too seriously!

 

[robmyers]

Originally posted by TWILIGHT:
I had them later on when the breathing, thinking pentapod tracked war machine was mortally injured. I described a sad sorrowful look on its face as it lay broken and dying looking at a human tank and expecting some kind of 'brotherly' assistance yet not getting any.

Classic stuff. Do you have a write up of these? I'd like to see more about your campaign.

i may get flak for veering off canon (as it seems some people do)

Veering is always good, it's the strafing runs some people object to.

- Rob.

 

[TWILIGHT]

sorry rob...only scraps of paper here and there...ya know how it is on the fly..also very busy writing something else! Besides I run 2300AD using the BRP system as my regular group are all cthulhu/RuneQuest players. Doesnt stop you using elements though. Imagine the players taking a crafty sneaky look around a human starship...opening a door to a huge hold in darkness and smelling/hearing large animals...only to turn the lights on and see tens of huge organic tanks....brrr! Let your mind go...

 

[Pompe]

I think it would be cool and interesting if 2320 took a bit more time with the colonizing powers not detailed much in 2300AD.

America, France, Britain etc already have printed old material and/or an enthusiastic subset of fan proponents who focus on those nations to a certain degree.

I'd like to see more on Argentina, Brazil, Manchuria (in particular), Azania etc. I think it would be less problem with canon compatibility or existing web sites, more of really new material and a healthy bit of a different/alternate perspective.

 

[TWILIGHT]

i thoroughly agree with the notion of having more info on Manchuria. There's hardly any.

 

[Colin]

There will be some more information on the other powers, in particular Manchuria. But there isn't much room for a detailed expansion on anyone. 2320 has to be standalone, in the sense that you don't need any of the 2300AD materials to play it. So space is going to be a little tight.

Maybe later...