Sci Fi Planetscape: NESS 02

Planet created using Grand Designer

Above is the second planet in the solar system of my M-Space game, but this can be useful for any game out there that needs an airless, volcanic hell hole. The planet's geologic activity is beginning to slow down and many of its volcanoes are now simply dormant. The mountain peaks etch around the surface, with darker basalt mares stretching between them. Several micrometeor impacts dot the surface, with a couple of larger impacts from the past here and there. 

Landmark Tags

"Continent Sized Basalt Mares"

"Long Volcanic Chains"

"Massive Impact Crater at Equator"

Possible Adventures Here

In orbit lies a sort of elephant graveyard with ship-sized corpses of alien space whale. Their bones have a lot of helium 3 stored away that could make a killing.

One of the mountains has an ancient volcanic base inside. Alien origin, what wonders could be held here?

Water is found deep in the equatorial crater. Could there be basic life here? Or maybe pirates are hiding out here, waiting for an unsuspecting miner.

The planet is designated NESS 02 in my game as a way to keep it a blank slate for my players to name it. All of the planets have this designation for that reason, with NESS meaning New Earth Sky Survey. While it may sound boring, that's mostly the point. To encourage my scouts to make some cool names for their new system.

Below are some more maps. One more gameable, and the rest more for looks and decoration. I'm still looking for a method to make the texture map a dymaxion hex map like you see in Traveller/Cepheus Engine. I think that might simply not be possible without some severe editing skills in GIMP.

A mercator option that's more useful for a game

A normal and holographic orthographicl map of NESS 02

To Vesper Skies VII: Propulsion

Distance is a bit thing in space. Everything is so far away from each other. So when making a sci fi game, you have to ask yourself how fast all of the spaceships can travel outside of combat. To answer that, you first have to figure out what kind of scale you want for your game.

From skymaps.com

Distances

First things first, we have to discuss different measurements used for space movement. There are three measurements used. Astronomical Units (AU), Light Year (ly), and Parsec (pc). We've heard these before but some probably don't know the definition of the terms.

AU is the smallest measurement used in space and is very useful for solar system travelling. 1AU is the distance from the Sun to the Earth, about 93 million miles (or 150 million km). A ly is the distance light can travel in one year. This turns out to be about 186,000 miles per sec (300,000 km/s) or roughly 5,880,000,000,000 miles (9,460,000,000,000 km or 63,240 AU) in a year. That's a lot of distance and is great for going between stars in the same sector. Of course, sometimes even that's too small of a scale. So we get into parsecs, which are 3.26 ly in distance. So each unit of measurement here will have its usage when figuring out the scale of your game.

Propulsion Technology

In science fiction, you can categorize movement into subluminal and superluminal movement (slower and faster than light, respectively). Subluminal can cover anything from basic rockets to solar sails and any kind of drive that simply can't reach light speeds. There are all kinds of examples of superluminal drives, but they can be generalized into three categories.

• Faster Than Light Drive: Simply put, FTL drive gets you from point A to point B at faster than the speed of light. You see this kind of warp drive in Star Trek, where Warp # is essentially used like the Mach number system, but for FTL speeds.
• Hyperspace Drive: Seen in Star Wars, hyperspace is a higher dimension that can get you to where you need faster. By imputing coordinates and doing the calculations, hyperdrives can cut down the distance between two points and open up more of the galaxy.
• Wormholes: This technically isn't superluminal, as you aren't really moving. Instead, you open a hole in space-time that folds two points together. This bridges the points and allows for instantaneous travel. Wormholes can be stuck to just gates, or more advanced ships can simply do it.

If you want to limit these methods of propulsion so your players aren't zipping to the other side of the galaxy, there are several tried and true methods. Wormholes can be limited to gates and treated like a turnpike system. A common trope for hyperspace and FTL are that gravity wells interfere with the drive and make it difficult to leave. "Tachyon inhibitors" or any other techno-babble thing could prevent warping out. I'm generally okay with players zipping around a little bit, so I'm fairly cool with FTL in star systems until they approach a planet.

Solar System Focus

The scale of your sci fi game will decide on how fast your ships can go. If it's going to be centered on a single solar system, then chances are most ships will be going at subluminal speeds. Movement will be based on AUs or even miles/km for early technology. If you want your game to focus on solar system exploration or a race just getting into space, miles and km or fractional AUs will be useful. Original Gundam is a good example of this, where only the moon is really colonized. If you want the inner system explored but have a focus on exploration of the outer planets and Oort Cloud, then AUs will be more useful. Remember that Pluto is on average 39 AUs from the Sun. 

Your propulsion tech will also be much more early. Chances are that you'll probably want to keep it at subluminal drives. This makes exploration to the outer system and back a much bigger deal. Depending on how much of the system is colonized will depend on how fast your ships can go. Something like Gundam or Total Recall, for example, only focuses on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and orbiting stations. On the other end of the spectrum, Eclipse Phase and Cowboy Bebop has a large focus on the outer ring as well as the inner system.

You can actually have wormholes if you want if they are stuck to gates. These wormholes act as kind of a Panama Canal in space. It'll take you to between two areas only, so that makes them prized and limited, but still opening up an entire solar system to your players.

Star Focus

If the focus is going to be on travelling between the stars, then you probably want to go into the superluminal propulsion. Everything is measured in lys and if you want to get to the stars in your lifetime, you'll probably want ships that can go lightspeed. Like before, this is dependent on the story you are looking to tell. If you want to emphasize the journey and exploration, then maybe lean on the slower end of things. This is especially true if the focus is on a singular, alien planet like the movie Avatar, or the video games Alpha Centauri, Pandora: First Contact, and Beyond Earth (see the previous section about focus on a singular system).

If you'd rather the focus be on the destination of exploration and seeing more in a star cluster, then lean more towards the faster side of travel. Wormhole gates would fit pretty well with this, as would hyperspace for covering the large distances involved. FTL would have to be fairly high if you want to get to the nearest star in a game session within the lifespan of the PCs.

Galaxy and Beyond Focus

If you want your players in a galaxy spanning adventure, zooming around the Milky Way or beyond, then you pretty much want the fastest propulsion available. Unlimited wormholes to get from one galactic arm to the other if the focus is more on the destination. Super FTL  or Hyperspace drives if you want the focus on the journey (I'm talking severaly ly/pcs per hour). Parsecs are going to be your main unit of measurement going between star clusters and galactic clusters. This would be interesting if your players end up in another galaxy or even an completely different galactic cluster.

Remember, space is big, but it's only as big as you want it to be. Whether the focus is on a single colony or a massive galactic empire, choose the propulsion that will fit your story.

To Vesper Skies VI: Starships at Level 1

Spaceships are cool and pretty much a mainstay in most sci fi genres that don't focus exclusively on planet-side adventures. There's just something awesome about zooming through space, smuggling stuff, fighting bad guys, and sleeping with green skinned alien octopi that just reeks of awesome. So it does kind of suck when you can't really get a space ship at level one without pooling everyone's cash together, which can be quite a burden. I wonder, is having a spaceship at level one so unbalancing?

Frigate from Homeworld 2

Thinking on it, spaceships can be a lot of things to the players. Obviously, it's a way to get from point A to point B. It's your base of operations that can fly around, which is cool. Occasionally, it's a set piece of an adventure, like if a monster sneaks on your ship, or pirates board you. And then there's the weapons and such for space combat. Which, at level one, a ship with enough weapons to protect them from some pirates seems reasonable. But really, there isn't anything that would greatly disrupt a campaign or give players a huge advantage over their enemies at level one. Certainly, there is something cool about earning your first spaceship after level one, but I also like the idea of just starting on one.

We can take some cues from modern cars on how to make it work. For cars, you generally won't pay off a new car in full. You pay it off in installments. This could actually be the source of adventure, especially if the players bought from a less-than-reputable ship dealer. Make enough money smuggling to pay off your ship and not have Jabba the Hut make you sleep with the space fishes seems like a great start to a campaign.

And then there are used ships. Rickety ships that are older models of contemporary ships are a perfect starter vehicle for players. For this, drop the price by 33% of a ship, but every so often, the GM rolls on the Minor Damage Effect in White Star Companion to see what goes wrong. Or, drop the price by 66% for a real clunker and roll on the Moderate Damage Effect every so often. The tables are reprinted below.

Minor Damage Effect

1. -1 to Armor Class
2. -1  to Movement
3. -1 to targeting
4. -1d6 to one on-board weapon's damage
5. Shields don't regenerate for 1 round
6. FTL Drive stalls for 1 round

Moderate Damage Effect

1. -2 to AC
2. -2 to Movement
3. -2 to Targeting
4. One on-board weapon is disabled
5. Shields do not regenerate for 1d6+1 rounds
6. FTL drive stalls for 2d6 rounds

I think combining both of these can open up some really options for players that want a starship at level one. And with the "character flaws" the ship will have, it makes things more interesting in the game and can lead to some more cool adventures.