etotheipi | 04 Nov 2013 4:24 a.m. PST |
I just published a set of sci-fi battle scenarios from a series of sci-fi campaigns I have run for a number of years. The campaign lacks FTL travel, but I was concerned that people might react poorly to the idea, and not give the battle a chance. So I changed the background around a bit to get the desired effect (limit on logistics for the battles). Anyway, would you be interested in a whole sci-fi milieu where you can't go faster than the speed of light? 1) No. FTL is essential. 2) Don't care. Travel only affects the "fluff". 3) Don't care. 4) Maybe for an RPG. 5) Sure, why not? 6) Sounds intriguing
I'm in! |
Mako11 | 04 Nov 2013 4:28 a.m. PST |
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kreoseus2 | 04 Nov 2013 4:33 a.m. PST |
6, the idea of STL appeals to me, I like my Scifi at the lower end of the tech tree, slug throwers rather than ray guns etc. Phil |
20thmaine | 04 Nov 2013 4:39 a.m. PST |
4 5 and 6 Don't see anything wrong with a sublight speed travel SF universe – especially as I happen to live in one. |
pzivh43 | 04 Nov 2013 4:39 a.m. PST |
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skippy0001 | 04 Nov 2013 4:57 a.m. PST |
5&6 I remember Triplanetary. Also trying this on my own dealing with Bussard Ramscoop vessel, relatavistic timekeeping calculations back when calculators cost 100+dollars. Sure-today you could set up all types of ships from generation ships to various STL drives and preset map/time charts in years for the homeworld vs. ship time vs. target world time. Then follow with Insystem exploration and system combat. It would have two strat timtables and a tac table to do procedures and missions. yup, I'm that old. |
redbanner4145 | 04 Nov 2013 5:05 a.m. PST |
3 I guess, don't play sci-fi |
Cuchulainn | 04 Nov 2013 5:07 a.m. PST |
Absolutely no problem with that. Two warring planets in the same solar system for example, wouldn't really need FTL to fight it out between themselves. So that makes me a "5" I guess. |
Dynaman8789 | 04 Nov 2013 5:08 a.m. PST |
5,6. I would love to play out space battles from "Transhuman Space" in miniature. No FTL in that game. |
David Manley | 04 Nov 2013 5:43 a.m. PST |
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Mako11 | 04 Nov 2013 5:46 a.m. PST |
The other nice thing about STL is that presumably tankers, and other support craft (cargo vessels, etc.) become more important too, since the engines on the ships are lower tech, so need to have more fuel to travel great distances. That makes for some interesting campaign gaming options as well. |
Joes Shop | 04 Nov 2013 5:49 a.m. PST |
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Agent Smith | 04 Nov 2013 6:20 a.m. PST |
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Inari7 | 04 Nov 2013 6:30 a.m. PST |
I love Sublight speed. My favorite game is High Frontier. link link |
mad monkey 1 | 04 Nov 2013 6:34 a.m. PST |
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PapaSync | 04 Nov 2013 7:30 a.m. PST |
What kind of battles are we talking about here? Ship to ship or ground company/skirmish type battles? 8) |
Legion 4 | 04 Nov 2013 7:53 a.m. PST |
Yeah
if its ground combat
FTL really does not matter
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advocate | 04 Nov 2013 7:54 a.m. PST |
5 I presume you are talking about a single solar system though, not starships flying at significant fractions of lightspeed, with all the relativity effects they imply. The latter would be intriguing indeed, but tricky to handle. |
gameorpaint | 04 Nov 2013 8:06 a.m. PST |
6. That said, the "FTL" aspect in many systems is irrelevant other than creating an ability to drop in and bug out. The question is if the sublight battles use a simulation of real physics (battletech's space rules come to mind) or it's something more akin to planetary dog fighting/ocean naval, just set in space (e.g. star wars, BFG). I always preferred simulating actual physics over the dogfight type rules. |
Klebert L Hall | 04 Nov 2013 8:18 a.m. PST |
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etotheipi | 04 Nov 2013 8:23 a.m. PST |
What kind of battles are we talking about here? In this instance, the battles were ground combat. creating an ability to drop in and bug out. This is exactly what I found interesting. Having a major starport, for interstellar travel that was 3-4 LY away from its closest neighbor. This means you can still have significant interaction with other star systems, but in a very different way that we routinely think. It makes A-Centauri to Sol more remote than 15th Century exploration of the New World. Keeping interplanetary times in the range of several months to a year creates the "New World" dynamic, but even more fun. The distance Earth to Mars changes significantly over a year. Again, in this case, we had a major stellar empire trying to become a major interstellar one, in a major inhabited area. But the imperial forces are limited to pre-game force selections (what is in the sortie) for the whole battle (all the assualts, etc.). all the relativity effects they imply My fave of these works in the .90c-.95c range. It is intriguing, and a bit tricky. But if you restrict yourself to known routes amoung local stars, you can have that worked out ahead of times in tables. Computers help a lot. And I've always done a little handwaving to simplify some things. It's isn't necessarily more "accurate" to carry out general relativity time dilation calcs to three digits when you don't have a real referent for how you are going to pull that off (i.e., you have to make a bunch of assumptions, anyway). |
willthepiper | 04 Nov 2013 8:59 a.m. PST |
I can think of at least two major SF settings with no FTL: Space:1889 and the Firefly/Serenity 'Verse. Given the success of both of those, I'd say go for it and develop your own FTL-free campaign! |
CorSecEng | 04 Nov 2013 9:53 a.m. PST |
I think a scenario where corporations take big sections of the local earth space could get interesting. Several mining consortiums in the asteroid belt and 2 or 3 on the moon and mars. Maybe a research agency in orbit above venus trying the figure out how to exploit that planet as well. Maybe even a dark side of Mercury mining operation as well. All these entities are basically in unclaimed territory with no laws other then don't get caught in something that is really bad PR. Toss in a few pirates and corporate raiders and you have a hot bed of interesting stuff going on that isn't that far from home. |
dragon6 | 04 Nov 2013 5:05 p.m. PST |
Robert A Frezza A Small Colonial War Fire in a Faraway Place Cain's Land A trilogy. Not quiet STL I think but cold sleep for most troops and years between stars. |
billclo | 04 Nov 2013 7:10 p.m. PST |
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nvdoyle | 05 Nov 2013 7:22 a.m. PST |
6!(I think it's a great idea, and would love to set up some spaceship battles in that context. When this semester is done. Eventually. Someday. I hope.) Etotheipi, you need to read, if you have not, Alastair Reynolds' 'Revelation Space' books. No FTL, but lots of interesting (and scary) tech. |
flooglestreet | 06 Nov 2013 7:35 p.m. PST |
6 I love the game and the novel Triplanetary. |
138SquadronRAF | 09 Nov 2013 9:27 p.m. PST |
2/5/6 Steampunk Full Thrust ;-) |
capncarp | 11 Nov 2013 7:21 a.m. PST |
5&6 Space: 1889, STL but with room to make the solar system available; cutting edge solar-boiler technology of the timeline was about to reach Jupiter, and nascent atomic power plants could have taken etherflyers out and beyond. IMO, the limitations on the travel make headaches and inspire creativity within the players. Nothing worse than being able to swan about the universe in an afternoon, leads to mischief and poor planetary hygiene, tut-tut! Also, on THIS timeline: link |
Aldroud | 12 Nov 2013 9:04 a.m. PST |
There was an old board game I played that had STL starships slugging it out. Part of the game was tech improvements, so your more recent ships were better, but your first combatants were lower tech. Closer you get to the enemy Throneworld, the more high tech he got compared to your leading edge fleet. Never did finish a game, but was entertaining. |
etotheipi | 12 Nov 2013 6:54 p.m. PST |
Thanks, all. I appreciate the feedback, including the one dissenting voice. I have a couple of new books on my list and the impetus to re-read a few old faves. For whatever reason, A Season in Hel seems to be selling well. However, I think I will go ahead and dust off / write up some of the scenarios that had a more integral dependency on the STL part of that universe. We ran a real interesting campaign on a 5-year freighter run where an unexpected disease led to a caste system, slavery, revolt, and eventually gang wars ending in a fascist dictatorship (with an underground movement). All in an environment where collateral damage (to the ship and crew with skills you needed) was an extremely risky proposition. I can probably pull together enough of that to make it worth a couple of bucks
I like the way capncarp put it. The headaches and creativity were all about a massive game of "what if" about the human condition and society. Then again, I think all good sci fi is like that. |
billthecat | 18 Nov 2013 4:02 p.m. PST |
A great deal of 'sci-fi' has no 'FTL' or even interstellar travel. Anything 'cyberpunk' or 'post-apoc' and many other stories. However, any setting where space-travel figures prominently without FTL becomes rather tedious
Any sort of 'space opera' is going to alter/ignore some of the laws of physics anyway
Which is to say, it really depends on the specifics of the setting and whether or not this is condusive to adventure gaming (vs. for instance brilliant speculative fiction, that may be fantastic in its own right, but makes for pretty boring game
) |
tkdguy | 20 Nov 2013 4:31 p.m. PST |
My choices: 4, 5, & 6. My campaign is strictly STL and is limited to the solar system. Of course, it is a near-future setting emphasizing hard SF rather than space opera. |
etotheipi | 21 Nov 2013 4:02 a.m. PST |
The big hard science problem with interstellar travel is fundamentally the same as our current challenge with interplanetary travel – our inability to create a self-sustaining ecosystem for human habitation. Once we can do that, the universal speed limit is no longer an impediment. Of course, it's not just "a" simple problem
there's energy input, recycling, harvesting and replacing due to losses, repair/maintenance (knowledge and skills!), etc. I don't think long waits would be such a problem. The overwhelming majority of human migration in our history has been to get the Hell away from someone else. Goal achieved! There have been some notable purely scientific explorations undertaken by humanity (a la Stark Trek), however, they are mostly notable because they are rare. And that does lead to why I really like the STL interstellar (intergalactic?) campaign. What do people do when they want to get away and there is no where to run? or when it is to hard to go (at least immediately)? This is a very interesting part of the human condition. It is also rife with opportunity for armed conflict. |
Shorr Khan | 21 Nov 2013 7:49 p.m. PST |
There was a GDW boardgame "Double Star" that postulated a binary star system colonized by Islamic and Chinese colony ships, with the rival colonies fighting using STL ships. It was primarily a squadron/fleet game as I recall, with formations having a significant effect on combat. The formations actually seem to come from the "Lensman" series by EE "Doc" Smith. This game might give you some ideas for a strategic/operational game. |
SouthernPhantom | 04 Feb 2014 6:56 p.m. PST |
5. (shameless self-promotion to follow) I tend to work on the lower end of FTL settings anyways- there are fewer than 100 million humans living on extrasolar colonies (spoiler: they're more or less the only humans left; Earth is largely uninhabitable)- only one or two alien species, and the pinnacle of human spaceflight is a gas-core NERVA using present-day tech with some advanced magnetohydrodynamics. There are no energy shields, no meaningful AI (Moore's Law eventually 'ran out', and quantum computing is too expensive to be practical), no FTL communications, no meaningful Internet (so you can connect to the three million other people on your planet. Big whoop. Dial-up is the norm, no broadband for your tiny customer base), and general social reversion to the early 1960s. Oh, and there are F-105 Thunderchiefs with nuclear engines, external ammonia tanks, and SRBs, IN SPACE!! This is for humans, at least (who are divided into dozens of warring confederacies of a handful of marginally-inhabited systems). The aliens used to have shields, some FTL commo, et cetera, before their industrial base collapsed. Humanity might have had similar capabilities, but the UN released the H7N1 sterilization virus in the mid-21st. 85% of humanity became infertile, basically wrecking societal interaction as we know it within a generation or two. |
tkdguy | 09 Feb 2014 3:49 a.m. PST |
Is there a link to the scenarios you published? |
etotheipi | 09 Feb 2014 7:10 a.m. PST |
The one I was talking about is A Season in Hel, which is based on the battle for Hel, Poland in WWII. FTR, I did change it to a FTL (slow) environment rather than keeping it STL because of the concerns (possibly unfounded) I voiced. |
tkdguy | 09 Feb 2014 1:55 p.m. PST |
Thanks. STL could have worked fine, but no big deal either way. |
etotheipi | 11 Feb 2014 8:03 p.m. PST |
Yeah. For the tactical campaign in the supplement the difference between a few months transit time and a few years transit time really doesn't make a difference. All forces are completely isolated for the duration of the engagement. From the strategic perspective and broader RPG campaign that this one came out of, it makes a big difference. One of the best things that came out of it were "skippers"
interstellar cargo runners who skip a decade or so in cryosleep for a 3-5LY (6-10LY round trip) job. It was an interesting thing to deal with and a good mechanic to thrust the party into challenging situations. |
Lfseeney | 20 Feb 2014 12:29 a.m. PST |
I like limited travel. Make it hard to do, but not common. |
Uesugi Kenshin | 22 Feb 2014 5:16 p.m. PST |
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Dasher | 25 Feb 2014 10:33 p.m. PST |
5 and 6. My first sci-fi campaign was set in a fully terraformed Solar system, with modifed humans for the worlds where mere terrafornming and artificial suns still wasn't enough (Pluvians were fun!) I used then-widely-available maps and eventually the SPI Battlefleet Mars map. Had a great time. |
tkdguy | 27 Feb 2014 11:45 a.m. PST |
That sounds like a fun game! My campaign isn't as advanced. The other planets haven't been terraformed yet, but colonists on Mars are trying. |
etotheipi | 28 Feb 2014 10:31 a.m. PST |
You might give STL a shot. If you can justify .5C, you can get to Alpha Centauri in just under 9 years and then you have a few closer options. And it's still only about 4 years delay for lightspeed communications. This sets up some nice "returning from 20 years ago's mission" scenarios and some "fire and not quite forget" games in the AC neighborhood, and the classic "we've been living on a ship since I was born" ones (for the 10-12LY destinations). |